“You shall fear HaShem your God, you shall serve Him, and you shall cling to Him, and by His Name shall you swear.” Deuteronomy 10:20
I really want to focus on “And you shall cling to him,” which is taken as a separate commandment from the surrounding verse. In Babylonian Talmud, Ketuvoth 111b, R. Eleazar asks the question, “Is it possible to ‘cleave’ to the divine presence concerning which it is written in Scripture, ‘For the Lord thy God is a devouring fire?’” (Soncino) At first, this just sounds like a clever play on words. Obviously, God is not physically a devouring fire, and the Torah does not want us to actually grab handfuls of God and hang on. If we take a second to think about it, though, R. Eleazar has a point.
How can we , weak, sinful, inadequate human beings that we are, take hold of the Living God? R. Eleazar also offers the conclusion, that we should attach ourselves to Torah scholars. According to the Talmud, when we are attached to Torah scholars it is as if we were attached to the Glory of God itself.
Similarly, Peter tells us, “Likewise you that are younger be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’” (I Peter 5:5, RSV) R. Yeshua goes into this topic in some detail in Matthew 23, telling us to be subject to the Scribes and Pharisees who sit in the Seat of Moses (2-3), and then that he himself is our Rabbi (8-10). Also, in Matthew 10:25, the Messiah implies that we should attach ourselves to our rabbi and attempt to become like him.
I know that submitting to authorities is an unpopular idea. Even if we agree in theory, we tend to not like it in practice. Having to swallow our pride and do what the authorities tell us rather than what we think is best is not our first instinct. However, it is important for our survival. There is a reason why we have kings and elect presidents, and why armies have only one general for thousands of soldiers. If each of us makes his own rules and goes his own way, we can’t work together for the common good.
To bring this full circle, it could actually be argued that if we do not attach ourselves to Torah scholars, we are not attaching ourselves to the Holy One, blessed be He. Not to listen to, learn from, and obey the sages and heads of the Torah accademies is the same as ignoring God Himself.
Interesting thoughts... it does beg the question, though, what does one do when the sages are clearly teaching heresy? We are also told of the noble Bereans who compared everything Paul said to Scripture.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right about submitting to leadership. I keep thinking of the time of the judges when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes." Not usually a good thing.
I think we ought to approach the term "heresy" with extreme respect and caution. Christianity especially has a long and sad history of jumping too quickly to the idea of heresy because of something people just don't like, or don't understand. This has become especially apparent recently, with the Roman Catholic negotiations with Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, as well as the conservative branch of the Anglican church. They're saying the difference weren't actually substantial, just rhetorical.
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