Drashot

For Judaism, society must be founded on justice (tzedekin Hebrew). Our word for giving money istzedakah.It does not mean charity, although that is how it is often translated. Charity comes from the Latin word caritas, which comes from the word for heart, cor, and means altruistic love. Charity is connected to the heart and giving charity is based on how we feel. Buttzedakahis based on the divine call to make the world more just. Thus we are obligated to give money to help the poor. That is how we create a more just society. In this week’s Torah portion we read, “Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” Our rabbis wondered why the word justice is repeated twice. They answered that this teaches us that justice must be applied fairly to all whether it is to our advantage or our disadvantage; personal interest or gain can play no part. A society that treats all its members with justice will grow and thrive because everyone will feel they have a fair chance to succeed. A society that treats some of its members better than others will ultimately collapse as resentment and mistrust cause the bonds of social solidarity to erode.

Judaism forbids idolatry, as we read this week, “If there appears among you a prophet or a dream-diviner and he gives you a sign or a portent, saying, “Let us follow and worship another god” … do not “heed the words of that prophet or that dream-diviner. For the Lord your God is testing you to see whether you really love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.” What does it mean to worship false gods? We can answer this question by exploring what it means to worship God. The simplest answer is the one given by Hillel to the Roman soldier who asked Hillel to explain the Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel answered, “Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah.” We worship God when we treat our neighbors, and by extension our families and communities, with kindness, respect and empathy. We worship idols when we care more about ourselves than we do others, when we care more about material success than moral integrity, and when we ignore the needs of others. Hillel’s last words to the Roman were, “now go and learn.” Let us learn true service by studying Torah and serving the needs of others.

In Judaism words matter. After all, God created the universe through speech. God spoke and the universe came into existence. So what we say is important. We spent this year studying the Talmud’s rules regulating speech and learned how much the rabbis wanted us to avoid hurting other people through speech.  This week, at the beginning of our Torah portion we read, “If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips.” (Numbers 30:3) To the authors of the Bible and our rabbis spoken words were facts; they changed reality. So they took vows seriously. They encouraged people not to make vows, but if someone made a vow they were obligated to keep it up. Their word was their bond. In our society today we debase speech. We hide our meaning and our intentions behind vague and confusing words. Perhaps we would all be better off if we said what we meant and meant what we said… and paused and weighed our words before we spoke.