Rabbi's Derasha

We’ve reached the point in Devarim where the Mitzvot come hot and heavy.  One verse after the other.  Sometimes more than one to a verse.  The Mishna in Makkot says that it is a Zchut, a merit, for the Jewish people that there are so many Mitzvot.  People might think that it makes it too likely that people will violate a Mitzva if there are so many of them.  That’s hardly a Zchut.  

There are other people who would say that commandments as a concept seems kind of authoritarian.  They are more comfortable speaking about what they call “Jewish values.”  That usually includes -- sometimes, it only includes -- what is called the greatest Jewish value of all, Tikun Olam.  But that is another Derasha.   

But a Zchut it is.  I want to share two reasons why there are so many Mitzvot.  The first is demonstrated by a verse in this week’s Parasha, about one who kills not by accident but on purpose.  The verse (19:11) says that a person who hates another will lie in wait and then rise and ambush and then strike.  Rashi says that is the process, what we would call a slippery slope in terms of hate.  That alone is a negative commandment, not to hate.  And then the person plotted, and then assaults, which is another commandment, and then batters, which is still another commandment.  

So the plethora of Mitzvot comes because the Torah wants to do all that it can to guard against the slippery slope.  One who falls into hatred would never think at that stage that it has anything to do with murder.  Even people who preach about “Jewish values” don’t believe in murder.  But by giving a pass on hatred, the process begins.  The Torah places a Mitzva at every stage in an attempt to arrest the process. 

That is one reason there are so many Mitzvot.  Another reason is to create a matrix of self-restraint. The Mitzvot create a valuable -- and realistic -- sense that not everything is possible.  If one is raised in this matrix of Mitzvot, then it will be easier to understand that there are limits.

I know someone whose mother is not just open-minded, but famously open-minded.  She was a founder of Ms magazine, a universalist of the first order.  Until her daughter began to date a non-Jew after college.  Then, all of the sudden, the mother became a particularist, as narrow-minded as any old country Jewish mother.  The daughter was shocked.  Her mother had never spoken like this; on the contrary.  But apparently there were some things that were indeed off limits.  

That story ended well.  The daughter did indeed marry a very nice Jewish boy.  But we all know that for every good ending to such a story there are 10 or 20 that go the other way. One can’t introduce this sense of limits so late in the game.  A sense of fairness has been violated, and that itself dooms the chances of introducing limits so late in the game.  

The Torah’s design is that a sense of limits should be pervasive enough to be familiar from an early age.  I’m not of course claiming in any way that the sense of limits is guaranteed to work.  In a society with borders as porous as this one, even those who are aware of the limits can still falter.  But the reaction will not be hypocritical and at least the effort was made to let the thick web of Mitzvot do its job.

These long lists of Mitzvot are read out during Elul to remind us of the Mitzvot themselves.   But it’s also to remind us of the matrix they form, and the restraint that they are designed to reinforce.  That’s what we need as we go into the Yomim Nora’im.