This week's parsha, Ki Savo, is covered in Deuteronomy 26:1-29:9. Its central theme is found in Deuteronomy 28:9. "Hashem will establish you as His Holy people as He swore to you, if you observe the commandments of Hashem, your G-d, and walk in His ways."
Indeed, Hashem has established the Jews as a distinct people, against all odds. Noahides, as an extension of the Torah community are also expected to "walk in G-d's ways." But what does that mean?
The rabbi explained that while we cannot know the mind of Hashem, we can know that He operates out of perfect justice and mercy, completely objective and devoid of emotion. Sounds kind of cold to me, but when we look further, we can see how this works to our advantage.
An example would be that if someone wrongs us, if they sincerely apologize, we are usually able to forgive them. A second time, yes, we may be willing to give them a second chance. A third time is pushing it, and by the fourth time, probably not.
Hashem on the other hand, completely forgives our wrongdoing on a whole other level, when we make teshuvah, (meaning when we return to the person we are intended to be.)
This explains why Hashem forgave the Jewish people over and over and over, no matter how many times they rebelled, no matter how many times they disappointed Hashem.
When we do something wrong, even if is for the millionth time,- if we are genuinely sorry, and committed to turning away from our wrongdoing, Hashem forgives us as if it was the first time. No keeping score. No holding grudges. Isn't this the kind of forgiveness that we want for ourselves, but have trouble granting to others?
Hashem does this because He does not operate out of passion, but out of pure justice and mercy.
So how can we explain the many instances described as Hashem's "anger", and "jealousy" and "wrath"?
The Torah uses language that we can relate to in our limited ability to understand the idea of an omnipotent, omnipresent G-d. That's why it compares the relationship between Hashem and the Jewish people to a marriage, the most complex of all human relationships. It may not be a reasonable analogy, but it is a close as we can come to understanding Hashem's love for us, despite our complaining and disappointing Him.
So back to anger, jealousy and wrath,- oh yeah, and love. When Hashem sent the flood during the time of Noah, when Korach and his followers were swallowed up in the earth for rebelling against Moses's rabbinic authority, when Egypt was assaulted by plague after plague, it wasn't from the emotion of anger. Hashem was putting a stop to behavior that was spiralling out of control. You could call it, "taking care of business", or "behavior modification". But Hashem was not expressing anger in the same sense that we know anger.
These labels of emotion are used to describe the appropriate behavior that we should emulate when we see wrongs that need to be set right. When someone robs a bank, we need not get angry. But we do need to protect society from the robber by taking him off the street.
As we are created in the image of Hashem, of course we cannot be speaking of a physical image. We are speaking of His attributes of kindness, mercy, generosity, forgiveness, strength. These are the attributes that we should manifest in our daily lives. In this way, we can walk in the ways of Hashem.
And as always, Rabbi Kurinsky welcomes your questions at nochum@bellsouth.net.
Kol tuv.
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