Parashat Behar-Bechukotai: I Hope You Dance
With this week’s parasha, the Book of Leviticus is coming to a close. The opening verse of the portion serves as an epilogue to the book as a whole: “Im b’chukotai tailaichu v’et mitzvotai tishm’ru va’asitem otam” – “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments…”
God addresses the Israelites who are about to enter the Promised Land, assuring them of great rewards if they follow God’s commands, and threatening them with severe punishments if they disobey. In this portion, as well as in the blessings and curses that are found towards the end of Deuteronomy, the curses greatly outnumber the blessings, most likely to frighten the listeners into obedience through the threat of divine enforcement.
The blessings that will be bestowed if people follow God’s laws include: peace, prosperity, safety from wild beasts, and victory over their enemies. God will uphold the covenant and reside in Israel’s midst, ensuring that the people will flourish and prosper and be free from oppression. In contrast, the curses are much longer and much more detailed. Most contain images of an angry, vengeful God, such as,
“If you disobey Me and remain hostile to Me,
I will act against you in wrathful hostility;
I, for My part, will discipline you sevenfold for your sins.”
Thus, a clear-cut system of reward and punishment is set forth. If we follow God’s laws, all will be good. If we choose to go astray, we will be punished in myriad ways. Pretty clear, right?
Well, as Reform Jews, we have a number of problems with a text like this. In fact, the problem begins not with the blessings and curses, but back at the very first line of the portion: If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments. What does this mean? What does it mean to FOLLOW?
The Hebrew gives us a clue: follow is a loose translation of Tailaichu – which comes from the root letter hay-lamed-chaf, to go, or to walk. This root leads to the main word for Jewish law, Halachah, literally, The Walking Path. This verse is telling us which way to go, which way to walk, in order to satisfy what God wants from us.
Yet, as Reform Jews, we do not feel bound by Halachah, the extensive and complicated tradition of written and oral law. We believe in the value of “informed choice” – the act of studying and debating law and tradition, then coming to our own, individual conclusion about what is meaningful to us as modern Jews. In making an informed choice, we often consider the spirit of the law, and not necessarily the letter of law.
For example, when a prospective convert to Judaism asks me how to begin celebrating Shabbat, I may ask him or her, “What is something special that you don’t get to do the whole rest of the week? THAT is what you should do on Shabbat, be it reading, knitting, visiting a museum, spending time in the park, or something else meaningful to you. It may not fit the halachic restrictions, but it certainly helps make Shabbat a day set apart from the rest of the week.
If, as Reform Jews, we choose not to believe in the reward and punishment system put forth in parshiyot like this one, what, then, is our motivation to do anything Jewish? Without the threat of punishment, how do we choose to be involved or observant? And then, in a deeper sense, how do we explore the parts of Judaism that go beyond the intellectual or rational, and seek out something more spiritual?
In addressing this question, Rabbi Myra Soifer suggests a different way of looking at the first verse of this portion:
I’ve decided that, as a Reform Jew, walking in God’s laws is not for me. I’d rather dance them. Dancing is a whole other way of being in the world than is my usual mode of movement through life. While I live pretty rationally, I dance best when I’m least cerebral. I’m not too bad at memorizing Torah and Talmud, but learning dance steps uses a whole different sort of memory altogether. It’s muscle memory . . . body memory . . . a kind of memory that goes much deeper and far beyond the scope of my intellect. So perhaps I’d be better to follow God’s laws with dance than with walk. I can put my whole body into it and enjoy the dance without thinking every step to death. Which of the mitzvot that my brain rejects might my dancing parts relish?
So, we can think in terms of dancing the mitzvot. Letting go, and therefore engaging our Judaism on a level other than intellectual. Something deeper, something both simpler and more complex. Unfortunately, dancing requires more effort and energy on our part – it won’t tell us HOW to do something, which the structure of Halachah does do. We are left to feel it out on our own, using feeling as our compass.
We don’t know the path itself, but dancing can orient us along the way. Some dances might keep us anchored in one place, others will propel us forward along our life’s path. Some dances will be with a partner, or with a group, and others will be alone. Yet, no matter what, we will be dancing, and I know deep in my soul that this is what God wants of us – to be engaged and focused. To feel joy and fulfillment in being Jewish and living Jewishly.
As Rabbi Herman Schaalman wrote:
“The number of mitzvot I thus choose to perform is not nearly as important as is the fullness of my awareness and intention, for it is likely that in time I may hear the authentic “voice of God” in many more mitzvot than at first I could have imagined.”
And finally, perhaps Lewis Carroll said it best: Will you, won’t you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
