Mitzvah d'var

Let me start off by saying that I don’t believe in God. But surprisingly enough, I’ve found that it doesn't matter. Before I talk about that, I’m going to give you a quick summary of my Torah Portion. 

My Torah portion is called Parshat Beha’ alotcha and it is from the book of numbers, chapters 8-12, and there is a lot going on in it. 

First, God commands Moses to gather all the Levites around the tent of meeting and purify them all. Moses is told to let the sons of Israel celebrate Pesach on the fourteenth day of the month, and anyone who doesn’t make a Pesach offering to God “shall be uprooted from among his people.” God tells Moses to make two silver trumpets for calling the community together, and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall blow them. When they are blown once, everyone shall gather around the tent of meeting. When at war, the trumpet is blown to let G-d know that peace has been made. It is blown at the beginning of each month. 

When the Dwelling Place was made, a large cloud would cover it during the day, and it would have a fire-like glow at night. When the cloud moved from the tent, only then would the Israelites journey on through the desert. When the people complain about having to eat Manna all the time, and remember what it was like to eat fish, fruit, vegetables, and meat when they were in Egypt, God gets angry at them for being greedy. Instead, God sends them quail and forces them to eat it solidly for a month until they are sick of it. They learned their lesson about complaining. Moses complains to God in this Torah portion that it is too much of a burden on him to carry all his people, so God tells him to gather 70 elderly and wise men to help him. 

Finally, my Torah portion describes a situation where Miriam and Aaron speak badly about Moses marrying a “dark skinned woman,” and they complain “Has God indeed spoken only with Moses? Has God not also spoken to us?” God tells Miriam and Aaron that his servant Moses is trusted in all his house, mouth to mouth he speaks with Moses, in a vision not in riddles, and Moses beholds the image of God. God punishes Miriam by giving her leprosy and banishes her to outside the camp for 7 days, but makes sure that they don’t leave her there. '

I believe that the Israelites followed God out of respect, but also out of fear. In my Torah portion I noticed that whenever somebody doesn’t do what they are told to by God, they get punished. In the story, I think that God wants them to be a little bit fearful. Although God wants the Israelites to be motivated to do the right thing by themselves because they want to be good people, God also understands humans, and knows that fear is sometimes a motivation. For instance, when God punishes Miriam for talking about Moses behind his back to Aaron, God sends her away for a week, and gives her leprosy. 

According to Rabbi Moshe Hayyim ‎Luzzatto, an 18th century rabbi, and I quote: “Fear of punishment, as the words imply, consists in a person's being afraid of violating God's commands, because of the punishment to body or soul which is me(e)ted out for transgressions. This type of fear is certainly easy to attain, for every man loves himself and fears for his soul; and there is nothing more effectual in withdrawing one from an action than the fear that it might harm him in some way. But this type of fear befits only the ignorant ... who lack sufficient strength of mind; it is not the fear of sages and of people of understanding.” End of quote.

We have probably experienced this sense of fear before in our everyday lives. For instance most people don't commit crimes because they respect the laws and want to be good people. However there are also people who don’t commit crimes because they are afraid they will get punished. This is the difference between being externally motivated out of fear, or internally motivated by wanting to be your best self. 

I think God would like for everyone to be motivated by wanting to be their best selves, but also knows that there are some people who aren’t motivated by that. Although it isn’t as good, fear is still a motivation not to do wrong. You can also be motivated by both, for instance, I was motivated to write my D’var both out of fear, and because I wanted to. 

The Rabbis agree with me - the Mishneh Torah states: “A person should not say, “I will do the Torah’s commandments and engage in its wisdom so that I will receive all of the blessings written in it,” or “…so that I will earn the Life of the World to Come;” nor “I will avoid sins that the Torah warned against in order to avoid the curses that are written in the Torah,” or “…so I will not be cut off from the Life of the World to Come” – it is not appropriate to serve God in this way.” End of quote. This states that one should not do the things written in the Torah to receive something from it, or to avoid punishment. 

But what if you don’t believe in God? Even if you don’t believe in God, you can still possess Godliness. Being Godly means many things for many different people, but the gist of it is that you do what's considered to be wise, kind, and all of the things that we can do to make our world and community a better place. 

God is different things for different people. God could be the feeling of community, or it could be what is described in the Torah, no matter what God is to you, or if you believe in a God, we can still possess Godliness. In Rabbi Mordecia Kaplan’s book Greater Judaism in the Making, he writes “Judaism has to provide a world outlook and a conception of God that can encourage living in a spirit of moral responsibility, honesty, loyalty, love, or creativity. Judaism has to “make [the Jewish] collective experience yield meaning for the enrichment of the life of the individual Jew and for the spiritual greatness of the Jewish people.” End of quote.  

In the Torah God commands people to make a lot of sacrifices. I’ve thought a lot about why this is, and I believe that when God asks us to make sacrifices it is to help us let go, and think about the important things. In the story, it is also to prove our loyalty to God, but I think that the biggest part of it is to show that you care about Judaism, and all the things associated with it. 

When thinking about my Torah portion, I often wondered if God actually existed and was commanding people through Moses, or if it was something else. There could be many different things that happened. One scenario is that maybe Moses was lying about God talking to him because he knew people wanted to feel like a part of something bigger and have something to look up to and feel hopeful towards. Maybe Moses just wanted to be in power, and told everyone that God was telling him these commands, so everyone would do it because they look up to, and fear God. Maybe the stories were exaggerated, and the only punishments that would take place were natural consequences. Maybe the whole story was made up.

The Mishneh Torah states “The one who serves [God] out of love is involved in Torah study and in the commandments and goes in the paths of wisdom, not for the sake of something in the world and on account of fear from [resulting] evil, and not in order to acquire a good but rather, he does the truth on account of its being the truth - and in the end, the good will come because of it.” End of quote. 

Any way you think about it, the important part of this is it doesn’t matter if God is real, or if the stories were made up. In every version of the story Judaism brings people together, and motivates people to be their best selves. 

Shabbat Shalom!