Mishpatim

[cellio]

One of the things I find a little challenging when interacting with Christians -- quite aside from matters of doctrine -- is the expectation of free-form prayer. When I went to an inter-faith gathering and the leader asked me if I would lead us in a prayer before the meeting, I was stumped and declined. I once read about a Jewish student doing a clinical internship (hospital visits, etc), and a Baptist patient asked her to kneel down on the floor and pray with her -- a befuddling experience for the student. I understand fixed prayer and I understand prayer around a framework, but I don't really understand this. What am I supposed to say? It's too uncertain, too free for me; I feel the burden of creativity.

We've been reading in the book of Sh'mot about how the Israelites were freed from Egyptian slavery -- but it's not complete freedom, it's freedom to serve God. How were they supposed to do that? It was explained at Sinai; the revelation provides the structure.

When we think of Sinai we think of the Aseret HaDibrot, the "10 utterances". They're a pretty vague lot when you think about it. Don't murder? What consitutes murder -- does self-defense count, does abortion? Honor your parents -- what does "honor" mean, and what if your parents are, heaven forbid, rashaim, evil people? Guard Shabbat -- what does that mean? As somebody just learning the ropes years ago I initially found the idea of Shabbat to be kind of confusing.

But we don't just pay attention to the words God spoke to the whole people. The revelation continued for forty more days, and a lot of that is what this week's portion covers. In Parshat Yitro we got the grand ideas; in Parshat Mishpatim we get a lot of the details. Even more of the details come from the oral law that was given alongside the written torah.

I was relieved, not alarmed, when I learned more about Shabbat. I didn't know how to "guard Shabbat", but I could learn the details that the rabbis understand. Light candles and say the appropriate blessing? Check. Make kiddush to sanctify the day? Check. Attend worship services? I could learn. Some concept of rest? Further education needed, but I'm game. Havdalah, the ritual to formally end the day? Sure. The unconstrained creativity of "guard Shabbat" was paralyzing; the details and structure opened a whole new world and a path to God.

Unconstrained creativity was bad for Israel too; it led to the golden calf. Worship God, one of the Dibrot said? Sure, let's make one! Um, no. We had to get both the broad directives and the many details, and it was after all that that Israel said na'aseh v'nishma, we will do and we will listen. Note the order, by the way.

I'm not saying that creative interpretation is always bad. Look at all the ways we tell the Pesach story at the seder to engage people of all ages. Look at the variety of music we use in worship. Look at our Shabbat morning minyan. Look at the range of understandings on any page of talmud. Creativity isn't bad; unconstrained creativity is. (For us; I understand that our Christian friends have a different covenant.) We need to understand the foundation on which we're building, the Dibrot that we're working out the details for. Na'aseh v'nishma means do first and then listen and understand; only after that can we responsibly vary what we're doing.

This is my problem with many of the left-page readings in Mishkan T'filah (the new Reform prayerbook) and with the vast majority of "creative" services. [1] The connections between these alternate texts and the themes we're supposed to be addressing in our prayers to God seem...tenuous at best. Maybe they are clearer to those who have mastered our liturgy, but I am not nearly learned enough to depart that far. I need the foundation, the details we were given, not the freedom to make up my own thing. My goal is nishma -- not a golden calf.

We risk making a golden calf if we jump straight to doing our own thing without understanding the foundation. I've been talking here about prayer, but it applies to any mitzvah -- the idea of eco-kashrut is nice but it doesn't substitute for proper slaughter, pursuing social justice is meritorious but does not free us from obligations to give financial tzedakah too, making Shabbat a delight by spending it with friends is a great goal but we can improve on going to a restaurant to do it. For whatever mitzvot we're talking about, the lesson of Parshat Mishpatim is: do first, try to understand, and only then start adapting. This is a path that, I believe, leads us to God.

[1] "Creative" services typically happen when some group -- youth group, sisterhood, brotherhood, social-action committee, etc -- is put in charge of a service (like a Shabbat evening service) and is allowed to add poetry, replace fixed prayers with interpretive readings that fit their theme, and so on.

Comments

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

This is very, very good. Thank you. I've tagged for memory. May I link to it?

I hadn't thought before about the constraints on observing mitzvot. I don't take them in the ways you seem to, but that's all right, and they are important.

I remember, way back in graduate school, talking with a rather evangelical Christian friend (small 'e', and not trying to εὐαγγελίζειν me), and the subject of spontaneous prayer came up. I told her that for me, when in a stressful situation, it helps enormously to have a familiar framework to lean on for support. That still holds for me, and still upholds me.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Very interesting - thank you for this.

Interestingly, E and I were having a similar conversation not long ago about the traditional text of the ketubah, which is kind of ridiculously archaic. I am not using it this time around, but at the same time I find the idea of writing new language to be impossibly daunting, and I dislike most of the modern alternatives for being hopelessly namby-pamby. Marriage on some level isn't just about love and understanding, it's about the sheer terror of worrying about life and death and survival, and for all that the traditional ketubah is antiquated, it expresses that reality in blunt terms. Similarly, I'm a traditionalist in prayer precisely because some of what's in the prayers makes us uncomfortable as moderns. I believe in saying what you believe, but I also believe in engaging deeply with things you find difficult at first blush. That's something that modern liturgists have a problem with.

That said, I think this is an arcane issue that is lost on most people. I wouldn't go so far as to describe it as a golden calf. It's kind of unclear whether all of the people making the calf were rebelling against God or not, but I think modern liturgists at least have their hearts in the right place. The Torah had to censure creativity because paganism was at the door; that's not the case today. People have a hard time connecting with any fixed liturgy and traditional Judaism is *very* much on the "like it or lump it" side of religious expression, but even in the Mishnah there are warnings about making your prayers fixed, etc. What you did in finding meaning in the rules is pretty excellent... but most people can't hack it, much as we wish otherwise.

[fauxklore]

For me, there are two things I like about the fixed prayers. One is the connectedness I feel to my ancestors, knowing that for generations and generations they were praying the same way. The second (which is related) is that I can go to a synagogue anywhere in the world and jump into the service (as long as they aren't being too creative and with, of course, some small differences in what nusach they use).