SERMON

SEDRA MISHPATIM: EXODUS 21:1-30:16

(SHABBAT SHEKALIM)

HAFTARAH: II KINGS 12:1-17

"OBLIGATION"

 

Last week I attended services in Santa Clara at the Regional Biennial for the Union for Reform Judaism. The sedra was Yitro, and while the portion is named after Moses' father-in-law, it is equally famous for being the passage containing the 10 commandments. This week's sedra, named Mishpatim, is in one way simply a continuation of the story of the giving of the law at Sinai, and in another way a turning on its head of that same story. Combined together and seen simply as the Biblical history that it purports to be, the story contained in these two portions has the potential to be  the most inspirational stuff in the Torah. But viewed from another, more modern or contemporary perspective, it has the potential to be the most depressing and overwhleming part of the narrative of the Jewish people. I hope you will bear with me as I explain what I mean.  

In last week's sedra, God gives the law, the commandments, the mitzvot, to Moses at Mt. Sinai . It is a moment of the highest drama, and it is arguably one of the most important moments, if not the most important moment, in all of Jewish history. It is described with a one-word term because it has a place of such importance in Judaism. It is simple called the Revelation.  

In revealing the Torah to Moses atop the mountain with clear instructions for him to transmit it to the Hebrews at the foot of the mountain, God is expressing B in the most concrete way imaginable B divine love as well as the hope that the people to whom this Torah is given will live up to the challenge and the promise that receiving it implies. After all, God didn't give it to any other people. That, in and of itself, is of almost immeasurable importance. But it is only the beginning of the story.  

If we went no further than this, we would have a very important set of events. God has a unique relationship with Moses, and entrusts to him what is tantamount to a social contract for the future, hopefully viable, existence of the Jewish people. To say that God's action implies a profound trust in Moses would be an equally profound understatement. And what is unsaid may be even more important than what is said: After all the time they have spent together, God simply (and correctly) assumes that Moses will continue to be a full partner in their relationship, that Moses will continue to take and fulfill all the responsibilities that he has accepted up to now, and will carry out all the tasks that God has assigned to him.

That was last week. This week, in the sedra called Mishpatim, we see things from the other side. This week the people at the bottom of the mountain, the people who are already famous for the incident with the Golden Calf, utter some words that may well be the most important words they will ever say, especially as a single, unified body, and these words either come back to haunt them B or should come back to haunt them B for the rest of time. The words they say are "na'aseh v'nishmah," which means Awe will do [fulfill] and we will hear."  

I admit that the order of the words in this sentence is a little strange: normally we would hear the commands first and then do them second. But the rabbis interpreted this word order to mean that the Hebrews were so willing and eager to do God's wishes that they basically said "whatever you tell us to do, we'll do, and we'll get the details later." Such a statement suggests one of two things: either 1) they were so terrified of what God might do to them if they didn't do what God wanted that they said they would do God's bidding and worry about the details later, or 2) they were completely ready to fulfill God's commandments and wanted God to understand that they were prepared to do God's bidding unquestioningly and unconditionally.  

Either way, what is recorded here is the other end of what happened last week. Either way, after God has laid out the rules and expectations, this week we read that the Hebrews signed on the bottom line. They signed the contract. They became official partners in the relationship. They agreed to do what God said they should do in their part of the bargain.  

Our rabbis tell us that there were 600,000 people at Sinai who experienced this all at the same time and that all of them signed on to this agreement at the same time. Some of those same rabbis explain further and emphasize that it was not only those who were standing at Sinai at that moment who were committed to the relationship and the obligations of the commandments, but also those who were not standing at Sinai at that moment. In other words, even those not yet born or not yet Jewish B and who thus had no say in the matter B were just as obligated to fulfill the commandments as were the ones who were actually present.  

While we may have serious questions about being obligated to something without our knowledge or consent B especially with our twenty-first century sense of rights and privileges as well as obligations and responsibilities B still, Judaism has maintained across the centuries and even across denominational lines that what happened at Sinai still pertains to us, even if not in exactly the same way as it did back then. What I want to explore tonight is what all that means to us as Jews and as members of this congregation.  

First of all, we should ask what it is or was to which our ancestor obligated themselves. The simplest answer, and one on which all of the rabbis, sages, and commentators would agree, is that we agreed to follow the mitzvot, the 613 commandments detailed throughout the Five Books of Moses. Never mind that many of those commandments pertained only to the sacrificial cult of the ancient Tabernacle in the wilderness or the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, and that once these two places ceased to exist, it was impossible to fulfill the commandments that pertained to them. If nothing else, the reduction in the number of do-able mitzvot should have made it easier to focus on and fulfill the rest!

Among our Orthodox or traditionalist co-religionists the belief is still that one is obligated to fulfill every mitzvah that it is physically possible to fulfill. Traditional rabbis are trained to help Jews understand how to fulfill these mitzvot, and if, how, when, and for how long one might become exempt from fulfilling them.  

Reform Judaism, as far back as the middle of the 19^th century, claimed that unless one understood and accepted a mitzvah as personally meaningful, then that person was not obligated to fulfill it. As you might expect, the Orthodox had a field day with this idea, since they claimed that, as of that moment, given what our movement had declared, the last Reform Jew had just fulfilled his last mitzvah. While the Orthodox doomsayers were gloating over their triumph over the soon-to-be defunct Reform movement, the Reformers were in fact starting to travel on Shabbat, to keep their shops open and do business on Shabbat, and to eat foods which up until then had been strictly forbidden. It seemed that the Orthodox might have been right: given an actual choice, ceasing to be observant could be very attractive.  

But back then, from around 1850 until some time in the middle of the last century, the setting in which all of that was happening was quite different from what I think is our context today. Back then, and until quite recently, society seemed to be based on and was rooted in what I would call "a sense of obligation." Parents had obligations to children for support and nurture, children "owed" their parents respect, husbands were obligated to support their wives and children, business owners were obligated to "take care of" their employees (and when they didn't, labor unions formed to protect the workers). Society's members seemed to have a sense of obligation to one another, and would often go to considerable lengths to fulfill those obligations.  

Today things seem quite different, and sometimes even opposite to the way things were understood not so long ago. Today, instead of a sense of obligation, we have a sense of entitlement. We hear far more about rights and privileges than we do about duties and obligations. While we may claim in the developed world that health care is a human right, it seems that at the same time we behave as though the obligation to provide that health care is some else's responsibility. We claim that having a roof over one's head is a human right, but when people in our own community can no longer afford to live in the home they have rented for more than fifty years, then the responsibility for solving that problem seems to become someone else's.  

Closer to home, I hear all the time that the synagogue should provide this or do that, almost as though whatever it is that we should be providing is a human right for which all people are eligible. I get the sense that people see us like a drive-up banking window or fast-food take-out window, a retail outlet where, simply because they want a service or a product, they think they are entitled to it. They imply that we are obligated to them, but they have no obligation to us. Welcome to the 21st century!

The reality is, I believe, quite different. Even our members, who pay good money to support this expensive institution, are generally expecting more from it than they are willing to commit to it. Like the arts organizations are accustomed to saying, "membership dues and ticket sales cover only about half of our operating budget." Who do they expect to make up the difference? And if our own members don't get the idea, the concept, or the principle that we are not a retail business, how much less so should we expect those who are not affiliated with us to get it!  

Of course it is true that no one has to belong to a synagogue any longer. But in truth, no one really ever did have to belong. There was strong societal pressure to belong in days gone by, but plenty of people opted out anyway. It's just that nowadays no one is willing to be pressured to belong to anything, to join anything, to support anything unless they think it was their idea in the first place or they think there is something in it for them, some personal benefit. And even then their membership, their affiliation, their support has to be on their terms or no terms.  

It is little wonder that so many worthwhile organizations, including houses of worship, find themselves losing members and support because they cannot invoke the concept of obligation the way they used to. And without that sense of obligation, there is no way to ensure that people will help the institution or organization meet its obligations, even to their own members and supporters. Gone are the days when people in this culture did things because they "ought to." These are the days when people do things because they "want to." In crass terms, they are obligated only to themselves. It's all about "me."  

Well that's fine in some circumstances and settings, like the retail world where, if you don't like a particular restaurant or store, you simply shop elsewhere. But synagogues are not  retail institutions. We are volunteer, community-based organizations whose very existence is predicated on the concept of obligation. We are obligated, from the very beginning of our history, to be there for one another, and not just because God said so, but because this kind of mutual support system is what has enabled Jews to survive over the centuries. Without that sense of mutuality, that sense of mutual obligation, that sense of we're-there-for-you attitude, it becomes a matter of each person for himself or herself and, as they say, "the devil take the hindmost."  

Remember, if you will, the encounter that God has with Cain after Cain has slain his brother, Abel. God rhetorically asks, "Where is your brother?" knowing full well what Cain has done. And Cain adds makes matters worse by lying to God when he says he doesn't know, and then asks his own rhetorical question of God, "Am I my brother's keeper?" In other words, he says, "Am I responsible for my brother?" God is so incensed by this callousness, this bold-faced lie, that he condemns Cain to wander the earth forever after as an outcast, as a wandering Jew, as punishment for even suggesting that he might not be his brother's keeper, that he might not have an obligation to him.