This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Mishpatim, contains the quirky but beloved* mitzvah of helping your enemy’s fallen donkey. “If you see the donkey of someone you hate fallen under its burden, do not refrain from helping him — help him to raise it. (Exodus 23:15)”
*At least, by me.
In part, this commandment is about animal welfare: just because you may hate this person doesn’t mean you have any right to let his or her animal suffer — what has that poor animal ever done to you? But, the rabbis (including this one) have also always seen this as a lesson about a separation between how we feel and how we act.
Broadly speaking, Judaism focuses more on actions than on feelings. We are commanded to do certain things, and to not do others, but we are rarely if ever commanded to think or feel anything. The few times when we seem to be (e.g. “Love your neighbor as yourself” in Leviticus 19:18), the rabbis of old usually reinterpret those verses to refer to our actions (so, for example, we’re commanded to act in loving ways toward our neighbor, but not necessarily to feel a certain way about him/her).
Why? Well, the simple fact is that we don’t have a whole lot of control over what we think and feel, certainly not in the immediate moment. The whole idea of commanding someone to feel something is nonsensical. It’s not reasonable or fair to command someone to do something over which you have no control. It’s not fair to command me to love olives, because try as I might, I just hate them. You can command me to eat them, because I have control over that. You can command me to claim that I love them, or to pretend that I love them, because I can do that, if I want to. But actually enjoying the experience of eating olives? That I can’t do, no matter how much you might try to make me, or how much I might want to*.
*I don’t want to. I’m tired of trying. I just hate olives**. Deal with it.
** Martini olives excepted
And so it goes with this particular mitzvah. We aren’t told to love this person, or even to like them. We’re just told to help them. We’re told to act decently towards them, whatever we may feel about them. It’s a good lesson theologically, and it’s a good lesson socially.
But, it’s not the whole lesson. Rabbi Ephraim Pelcovitz of the Ziegler Rabbinical School points out a Midrash (in a rabbinic story about the Torah) which imagines this mitzvah being played out in the real world. A man sees another man with his donkey fallen, and despite the bad feelings between them, he goes to help. In the course of helping, they’re forced to interact, and to assist one another here and there. Before they know it, despite their best intentions, they’re actually getting along. They’re no longer enemies; now they’re friends.
The Torah doesn’t command someone to like someone they don’t. But it does command them to act kindly towards them, with the knowledge that in doing so, it’s possible they’ll come to like them along the way. The law doesn’t command us to change how we feel, but the law might intend to change how we feel.
This speaks to a larger pattern in Judaism: the intent, you could even say the ulterior motive, of changing us.
There is a strong strain within Judaism of behavioralism. A belief among many Jews (mostly among the Orthodox, but not exclusively) that what mainly matters, maybe the only thing that matters, is performing the mitzvot. If we do what we are supposed to, then we’re doing the right thing, and what we think or feel about what we’re doing isn’t all that relevant. It’s not a completely ridiculous idea, and it’s not foreign to most of us in some way or another. I think most of us would agree that we are judged as citizens more by whether we obey the law than by whether we like the law. Especially among those who believe that these commandments came directly from God, simply doing them, and thereby doing God’s will, is sufficient.
I understand that, but I can’t really relate to it. It doesn’t “work” for me. For me (and, obviously, not just for me) what’s important is not just whether I perform a certain act, but what it means to me and, maybe more importantly, what it does to me. How it affects me. Some of that effect can be in the moment — does a prayer, or a ritual, or a moment of study create a moment within me? Do I have at least a slightly different way of seeing the world, of being in the world, because I am engaging in that action? It’s a hard thing to define, this change I’m talking about, but I don’t think it’s a hard thing to recognize. We’ve probably all felt something stir inside of us at times; that’s one kind of change which our religious can produce.
There’s also more lasting change. Hopefully, ongoing religious practice changes me as a person. Makes me better. Hopefully, all of this praying, and studying, and interacting that I’m doing makes me kinder towards others. Makes me more patient. Makes me more thoughtful, more observant. More aware of holiness around me. There are probably lots of ways I could define this, and lots of different ways that you could which might apply to you even better. What it means to “become better” is going to be different for each of us. But I think we need to pay attention to the idea that religion, it’s going to be worthwhile, should make some kind of an impact, leave some kind of residue on us. Why else are we doing it?
I really mean that question. If religion isn’t changing us in some way, then why are we doing it? Especially coming from the Liberal Jewish world, where we don’t generally believe in Divine reward and punishment, why are we doing all this religious stuff if not to, in some way, make ourselves better? I love comparing religious practice to physical exercise, and it works well here. If I go to the gym regularly, but I never feel good while I’m there, and I’m not healthier because I go regularly, then why in God’s name would I go? Either it’s enjoyable (creates an immediate difference) or it’s beneficial (creates a lasting difference). Otherwise, it’s pointless, right?
The simple fact is that no one reading this has to be religious. All of the absolute, unalterable mandates of the past have gone away for us. We should be asking what, precisely, we’re getting out of our religious lives. And, if we can’t answer that, we should probably be asking our religious leaders why that is.
Tehom El Tehom 