Community Blog

    Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Ki Tavo, in which again Moses reminds the people of the various commandments they will be expected to follow and more details are given to the ritual that will take place immediately after entering the land. A few weeks ago, in Parashat Re’eh, we were told that the people shall stand upon the mountains of Eval and Gerizim and the priests shall stand between them with the ark of the covenant and will shout all the blessings of following the commandments to Mount Gerizim and all the curses for not following the commandments shall be shouted at Mount Eval. In this parasha, the tribes are assigned to which mountain and Moses dictates to the priests what the blessings and curses they should shout will be. The people are also told that after each blessing and each curse, the tribes on each mountain shal respectively shout Amen! 

    Among the listings of blessings and curses, Deuteronomy 28:9 takes a break from the specifics to just say: “HaShem will establish you as God’s holy people, as was sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of your God and walk in God’s ways.” Ha’Amek HaDavar, a 19th century Torah commentary from the eastern European Pale of Settlement, comments on this: “A person who desires to be holy and other-worldly will be inclined to be reluctant to observe the practical precepts of Judaism, since they might interfere with their religious devotion. Nevertheless all God's commands must be kept whether they relate to relations with humanity or are ritual ones relating to Heaven alone. The walking in God's ways refers to being merciful and compassionate in one's dealings just as God is. The text here promises that God will enable those who wish to commune with God in holiness to achieve that level of sanctity even when engaged in keeping their daily precepts. There are many such precepts however which it is impossible to observe in a state of mystic communion with the Divine. One has to come down from the pinnacle of holiness and communion to observe them. But God promised us that God will establish you for a holy people and immediately after the deed you will re-attain holiness and communion.”

    The first thing that struck me about this quote was how much I love Judaism’s emphasis on living real life. As important as prayer and ritual and holy observance are to the traditional way of life, Jewish law has always not only made room for but commanded that people still attend to their physical and material needs, that they have jobs and families, that they care for those families, that they learn and rest and eat and find pleasures in the material world, and all the other things that may feel like a distraction from prayer and holy communion with God. 

    Now, of course, the inverse of Ha’Amek HaDavar’s statement is that while he is reminding the very pious that they must take breaks from their piety and mystical communications with God in order to observe other commandments related to everyday life and interacting with fellow humans, we as Reform Jews sort of take an opposite stance. The commandments that teach us how to interact with fellow humans, that teach us how to care for the Earth, that give us moral values and implore us to seek justice in the broken world, are the commandments that we hold most high. The commandments regarding prayer and ritual practice are more secondary. But I would suggest that much like our 19th century rabbi friend tells his flock to remember to eat and attune to the material world, we too need to take a break from only focusing on the material world and remember to pray or meditate, to have a spiritual life as well as a justice-driven life. Holding both in tandem allows us to be balanced people, in harmony with ourselves and the world, and better suited to accomplish our goals without burning ourselves out or disassociating entirely. 

    This Shabbat, as we inch ever closer to our High Holy Days and will be engrossed in prayer for hours on end, let us take the time to calibrate ourselves. May we find the right balance of material and spiritual attention, and may we find the strength, comfort, and Divine presence necessary to achieve holiness in our own lives. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.