Shabbat Behukkotai 5770, A Part of the Whole
Rabbi Deborah Wechsler
It has been a week with several stark images that have dominated the headlines and stayed with us into Shabbat. First the images of a car smoldering in Times Square, and then others of a dark oily stain spreading out across miles with no end in sight. Boats sitting idle and workers sitting idle. These images have brought to a head the discussions in our country about our place in the natural world, our sense of ownership of that world and our responsibility to it.
It is easy to say that when human beings maintain appropriate perspective and boundaries over what is ours and what is not; such man made disasters don’t happen. But our world is more complex than that.
This final giving of law before the long trek through the wilderness that begins next week with Bamidbar, concludes with the command to tithe from one’s land and from one’s animals. Though tithing is perhaps better known from our Christian brothers and sisters who speak of tithing in the context of the portion of their income to be given to their church, it is integral to our Biblical system of life and finds expression in many aspects of Jewish life. Tithing is fairly serious business in the rabbinic imagination, we see this in the prohibition of eating food which has not been properly tithed.
Tithing is an example of our religious tradition which insists that a fraction of everything that we have be returned to God. In addition to the ten percent of our land and animals which are set aside to be brought to the Temple, we also set aside a corner of our fields to be left for the needy to reap. We set aside fruit trees for the first three years of their lives, not eating from them until after that time has past. We set aside a portion of our challah, a corner of the loaf to be offered as a sacrifice or in our day to be burned in the oven. We set aside our first born sons and redeem them back after 30 days.
These are just a few examples of things which we give a part of to God, God’s holy place, or God’s agent. It is a magnificent idea that the part that is given away reminds us that the whole was never ours to keep – not our land, our bounty, or even our children. A profound reminder that all that we have is a blessing and given through God’s grace and loving kindness.
We spoke earlier this morning about the instruction to put a value on a person to set it aside for Temple service or offering. The person obviously was not offered but their value would be. The Torah goes on to explain what would happen if a person misappropriated something which had been set aside for sacred purpose. The Talmud transforms this concept into the basis for why we recite blessings.
As Jews we say a blessing before we eat. It is a way of making us more conscious of both the human and divine effort that went into producing the food that nourishes us. The Talmud takes this one step further in saying that one who eats food without first reciting a blessing; it is as if he stole the food from God. (Berahot 35a) The blessing is in essence our “payment” to God for the food. Again, what is given reminds us that it was never ours to keep. That is was a gift from God.
With such strong and repeated evidence of this practice in our tradition we have the feeling that there is some discomfort with consuming the whole, or with letting people keep the whole of anything. In some ways it echoes the stereotypes of the Jewish mother who never wants to keep anything for herself, offering the food on her plate, the shirt from her back, everything that she has to someone else. But this negates the fact that there is also a limit set to how much one is supposed to give away. We are not a greedy or gluttonous people, neither are we an abstemious or ascetic people.
Tithing, as it is specified in this week’s Torah portion is set aside from the outset - from the newest, the best, the freshest. That would seem to be self evident, after all, who would set aside for God or God’s agent leftovers or that which would have been discarded anyway? But look around and we see that it is a necessary corrective to our behavior. Even the most generous and gracious of us tend to give to God and to His agent our dregs. We see what is left behind in our cupboards before Pesah and that is what we donate to the hungry. We see what is left in our bank accounts and that is what we donate to tzedakah. Wee see what is left in our schedules at the end of a week and that is what we give to prayer. We see what is left in our toy boxes and clothes closets and that is what we share with the needy. I know it’s true because I do that myself, I am talking about all of us.
The impulse is good, the impulse is beautiful, but it does not fully live up to the Jewish ideal of setting aside part of the whole. Of giving part of what is brand new for us, of what is best and most enjoyed and sharing of that. It is a human impulse to what to keep what we have, to be proud of what we have and what we have amassed. The danger is in coming to believe that we are entitled to such bounty.
One of the elements of our society that so many of us find particularly troubling is the culture of entitlement. The children and adults who say in word and deed, that all that I have, all that I am, is my due and my right. Why is entitlement so insidious? For us, because it is contrary to the very notion of what Judaism teaches us.
A common question among my peers (parents of young children) is how we can steer our children away from this culture and instill in them a sense of gratitude and blessing. Some children just seem to intuit it, giving of themselves and their things but others need to have it nurtured and taught. Saying blessings, and the setting aside of the part from the whole is Judaism’s way of combating this culture of entitlement.
What this week’s reading sets out is a vision. A revolutionary, crazy vision for a world in which part of everything we have is set aside, for a year, three years, for God, for the poor, for those who serve. This divine vision that, even when we do not live up to it in its entirety still compels and inspires us to do better and to be better. At the end of a week when our place in the world and our ownership of it and our responsibility to it is called into question this vision sustains us and carried us into the wilderness that we wander together.
