Parashat Eikev 5770
“I Do Thee Wed”
In this week’s Torah portion, Moses revisits what happened when he was on the mountain with God, the two of them carving the initial laws that would guide the Israelite nation in their new status as a freed people. What ensues can only be described in terms of a marriage that had been in danger of divorce. The people below had become unfaithful to God, and to Moses, when they failed to return to them at the appointed time. So, they took upon themselves a new “lover,” so to speak, in the shape of a Golden Calf. Fidelity is what God expects of the Jewish people in their covenant with the Divine Source of Creation and Redemption. God expresses His/Her love and devotion to Israel in so many different ways – the cooking, the cleaning, the washing … protecting them from their enemies, and occasionally giving them the cold shoulder when they have strayed from their relationship.
In his new book, “Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life,” Rabbi Rami Shapiro discusses the significance of marriage in Jewish life. He begins his discussion on the matter by looking at the other cultures that affected the Israelite nation. Each of them had their heroes, men or gods that they could look up to, with powers that surpassed that of mortal man. For those who lived an ordinary life watching the herd or tilling the soil, they were able to live vicariously through these stories of extraordinary people who lived lives of glory and triumph, vanquishing enemies with their sword and their arrows. The reason why these stories were so effective, according to Rabbi Shapiro, is because “war was everything that everyday life wasn’t – exciting, dramatic. Success in war asserted your authority and proved your manhood.” In addition, “they had women whom men would risk everything for. We just had wives.” (page 58)
At a time when the ancient world exalted their warriors, the prophets of the Jewish nation insisted that it was an obligation to marry and to promote peace between people, for this is the ultimate way in which the world would survive. The sages of the Talmud are recorded as saying, “If a man is not married by 25, God says that he has destroyed my world.” OK, 25 might by young by our standards. However, the idea that the word of God is perpetuated when we bring children into the world as its inheritors, one must begin at an early age to fulfill that commitment or obligation. Not all religions agree. Christian leaders, on the other hand, practiced celibacy because they considered themselves wedded to God. In another place in the Talmud, the sages declared, “If you have found a wife, you have found good.” However, the same statement is never applied to God nor the Torah. One wonders, what makes “women” so special in that regard?
Rabbi Shapiro points out several studies to support his theory that men cannot live, at least well, without women. He claims that the “evidence that men need women is everywhere… The way men live when there are no women to hold them to higher standards of graciousness and consideration can often be appalling.” (page 61) He notes for us that it should come to one’s surprise that Hitler did not have a single woman in his leadership. Without the softening influence of women, the men could conduct their brutal assault on humanity with unmitigated ease and comfort.
In a democracy such as ours, we welcome the input of women in roles of leadership because we now recognize the need for nurturing that is sometimes missing in masculine environments. Perhaps this is why we have references in Judaic literature to a female presence of God known as the Shechina that hovers over Israel. The Kabbalists of Tzfat sexualized our relationship with God when they practiced going out to the fields on Friday afternoon to literally greet the Shabbat bride into their hearts and into their homes. Going back to the Bible, when God lifted the mountain at Sinai over the Israelite nation when God spoke to them about the covenant, one midrash disclaims the notion that Israel was forced into the relationship by proclaiming that the mountain became their “chuppah,” their “wedding canopy,” as a sign that Israel accepted willingly her new role in her relationship with God.
In another example, the mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria, wrote that the Mashiach would not come until husbands began to obey their wives. What a bold statement to make in any generation. Imagine if he were to make that same claim in today’s world! What he actually meant by these words was a reference to the time when the men insisted that they build a golden calf when Moses failed to show up on time from his first visit with God on the mountain.
It was the women who admonished their husbands for forgetting the God who had just redeemed them from their slavery in Egypt. For their role in supporting God, we are told that Rosh Chodesh was given to the women as a holiday for them to celebrate because they refused to give up their jewelry to their husbands to forge the Golden Calf. What Rabbi Luria meant by his statement is that the men of that generation, and subsequent nations, would need to learn how to give up their competitive behavior that was a part of their slave mentalities, and replace that behavior with actions that would lead to supporting one another as a means of nurturing our characteristics for peace and harmony.
As we enter these final weeks of the year in the Jewish calendar, what better time is there to examine our relationships, not just our marriages to our spouses, but also our relationships to our family, friends, community, and employers, as well as to God, and search for the meaning and purpose that can be found in competing less and nurturing more and see what happens in relation to our sense of gratitude and satisfaction.
