Ruth: The Megila of Hesed

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

Sota and Nazir –

 Enslavement to the Codes

Whereas the laws of the nations of the world are guided by parameters of

rights and obligations (the citizen’s rights and obligations toward society, state, government) the Torah is guided by parameters of positive commandments and negative commandments (mitsvot between man and God) and by parameters of hesed and respect for the Divine image in man (interpersonal mitsvot).

This point explains the Rambam’s distinction, in Sefer HaMitsvot, between perpetual mitsvot and temporary mitsvot and, mainly, the parameter of “foundation” mitsvot.  His distinction refers to the element of hesed inherent in the mitsvot.  The issue of rights and obligations is confusing and entangling, because rights and obligations constitute two sides of one coin. In speaking of two separate individuals, my obligation to the other becomes his right in relation to me, and vice versa. The axis of rights and obligations is the axis around which the moral system revolves.

According to the non-Jewish perception, morality begins only with

a social reality, in a situation of two people relating to one another.  The solitary individual is supposedly not subject to any moral framework.

         The Torah obligates even a solitary individual standing before his Possessor, to relate morally. The individual is obligated by a moral obligation even in relation to himself, because he does not belong to himself but to his Creator.  Someone who commits suicide, or places himself in danger out of his own free will is judged  a murderer.

“Do not cut bald scars into your head, and in your flesh do not cut any mark,” the Torah warns.

Therefore a moral system cannot be built upon a separation between rights and obligations, but rather only upon an attitude of respect and hesed toward all.  Including oneself.  Including even one’s enemy.  You must unload your enemy’s donkey before you load up your friend’s donkey, the Torah commands.

The Megila of Ruth deals with gemilut hasadim – doing deeds of generous kindness – because the element of hesed is the central element of the Torah, which is called the Torah of hesed.  “A world of hesed shall be built.”

Matan Torah, the Giving of the Torah, entails an expression of the Creator’s hesed toward his people Israel.  “The Holy Blessed One wished to merit Yisrael – therefore he increased Torah and mitsvot for them.”

“Your people are my people, your God is my God, etc.”  With these words, Ruth obligates herself to observe all the commandments of the Torah. (See Hazal who specify each of the practical halachot alluded to in every word of Ruth’s declaration.)

Nevertheless, for someone seeking to convert, to join the assembly of

Israel, the mere acceptance of mitsvot is not adequate.  “And she saw that she was exerting herself to follow after her.”  What else did Naomi see about Ruth, besides her absolute willingness and devotion to the idea of accepting the mitsvot?

Enslavement to the Codes: A Problem Which Only Matan Torah Resolves.

Whereas other religions were born on the vertical axis of “revelation”, in

which a dreamer dreams that God has revealed Himself to him, and whereas the element of revelation exists in Judaism as well – although not to an individual and not in a dream but rather “and God descended upon Mount Sinai” in the presence of millions of fully conscious witnesses – nevertheless Judaism is not built mainly upon revelation, but rather, mainly, on Matan Torah.

Revelation has but one purpose: the bond between man and God.  Yet round this

axis, the world cannot turn, for it pushes aside the relationship between man and the universe in favor of an axis connecting man and his Creator.

The Torah was given to man to serve as guidance.  It obligates to a way of life that is based on the here and now.  This way of life joins together with the human-Creator axis, to serve as its tangible expression: By living this way of life, revelation is made tangible along the axis of space and time.

Sanctifying physical matter, sanctifying real life, and raising it to revolve about the axis of revelation, this is the purpose of Matan Torah.  The flat plane, the field of practical endeavor, is made to relate to the dimension of height, to the third dimension – that “third scripture that resolves the conflict between the two,” that resolves the conflict inherent in the two-dimensional plane.

Whereas conflict is inherent in the purely physical plane, meaning one that is two-dimensional and devoid of the third dimension of height, meaning spirituality, nevertheless that third dimension is in need of the two-dimensional reality no less than the two-dimensional reality is in need of it, for it would remain barren and lacking, did it not have a basis in tangible reality.  

This is not empty word play.  The Torah relates in the most detailed and precise manner to every dimension of man’s reality, addressing his physical, social, and spiritual needs, as a three-dimensional unit consolidated into a single unit.

This principle finds expression in the Torah’s attitude toward every element of human existence, including each of its specific aspects, and including even the closed cycle of unconscious codes, for it is here that the harshest enslavements flourish – those that are the most difficult to break free of.

The Torah is the single cultural/spiritual approach that has discovered a

solution to that fundamental, elemental problem: Human enslavement.  This solution is the only one of its kind, and it precisely targets man’s goal in his universe.

This goal is one that man has chosen out of his own free choice, and it is one that has the power to displace those goals that would choose man, that would enslave him to their own interests – for man must enslave himself “solely to God alone”, and he must free himself from any other enslavement.

What are these codes?  

What is the nature of the enslavement that they generate?

The individual self is surrounded by concentric circles of defense mechanisms, which belong to a larger group of technical mechanisms that comprises the system of self-preservation: Ego.

Both self and ego have sources of energy that activate the individual, and each of these has its own goals.  However, only the self has goals that express human quality and human uniqueness.  The ego only expresses the system of self-preservation: kina, ta’ava, kavod, “envy, lust, and honor.”

These three of ego’s activating mechanisms are incessantly vying and quarreling with one another, producing “rotten fruit and children of harlotry”: Guilt feelings, vengefulness, hatred, and various other demons.

The self is thus surrounded by the cycles of the survival instinct, and each of these cycles reflects its own particular conflict.  The cycle that is nearest to the self is comprised of the conflict that begets psychological complexes and compulsory codes.

These codes are firmly embedded in the depths of the cultural subconscious.  The individual does not recognize their role as an activator of his behavior.  He perceives them as being a first premise, a self-evident fact: It never occurs to him to question their truth.

The matter is far graver than he realizes: These activating elements cannot withstand the test of logic, nor the test of morality, nor the test of the inner self – including its spiritual qualities and values.

Man is hopelessly enslaved to these codes – they are the

equivalent of idolatry.  Every society has its own codes: It is the Polish mother’s

blind worship of the fruit of her womb, and especially male children, and especially the son of her old age.  It is the miserliness and the enslavement to money that characterizes certain societies.  It is the exaggerated orderliness, the compulsive meticulousness, the overemphasis upon technical efficiency that characterizes certain groups.  It is the obsession with honor, and especially the honor of the family, that characterizes patriarchal cultures, and so on and so forth.

These codes constitute the stone most stumbled on, the wall most impermeable to that decisive human value, most crucial of all: The value of free choice.

When an individual comes up against one of his controlling codes, he loses his head, and his heart, and all that is most dear to him. The mida of anger is the most faithful servant of the codes, and Hazal have already warned us that an angry man resembles an idolator.

There is no doubt that a man is more enslaved to his codes than to any physical

lust in the universe.  Since the Torah relates to the human reality, it therefore assists man to free himself from the enslavements that derive from his animal side.

Halacha entails the counterweight, the antidote to the various enslavements, and therefore the Torah attaches all behavior to halacha. Halacha belongs to the value-based / moral / spiritual dimension, and free choice plays a decisive role in this.

Therefore the halachot of Sota and nazir, which relate to the central weaknesses, sexual obsession and alcoholic addiction, both of which derive from physical lust, reach down to affect the bottommost depths of the codes.

Megilat Ruth relates to the issue of hesed, the Torah’s eternal answer to all codes and all social enslavements.

Rather than enslave oneself to society, and to man in general, along comes hesed, arising out of free choice, and frees the self, including all the values of the self.  The self springs to freedom.  Leaping up, it lands in the central arena of behavior.

When Ruth declares her faithfulness to all aspects of halacha of any kind, Naomi is still not convinced, until Ruth “exerts herself”, making the effort of the heart, for the language of the heart is the language of the self par excellence: The language of the heart breaks through the cycles blocking the self.

“And she saw that she was exerting herself with great effort.”  When Naomi saw that Ruth was versed in the language of the heart, that she was attuned to the self, and to its need for personal effort, she realized that Ruth understood the language of hesed, and that she could accept her.

The nazir only refrains from succumbing to the code that enslaves the language of the body.  Indeed the Torah relates rather ambivalently to the phenomenon of nazir -hood, givimg absolute preference to the language of the heart, of hesed.

Even halacha can run the risk of becoming enslaved to the codes: This failure is reflected in phenomena of one-sided fanaticism, and a fundamentalism that pushes halacha toward the murkiest depths of the codes – the most basic codes of food needs or sexual needs – where it is expressed in a variety of obsessions: One is obsessed with sexual avoidance, another is obsessed with food avoidance (exaggerated kashrut anxiety, compulsive preoccupation with possible insects hidden in food, etc.).

To be continued…