Torah Portion

Torah Portion: B’khookotai

B’khookotai

Recently, I suggested to a weekday prayer group that we supplement the standard afternoon prayers with extemporaneous words of our own, addressed to God, concerning current events and issues in our world.  There is no shortage of such issues and concerns.  Among them: terrorist revenge for bin Laden’s death, civilian uprisings in the Arab world, threats to the security of Israel.  Yes, the prayer book addresses such issues in a general way —such as the standard prayer for peace, or the request that God champion our cause.
But, our routine recitation of standard formula-prayer does not indicate — neither to ourselves nor to God — that we are concerned with anything outside the usual and routine — when, in fact, RIGHT NOW, there are specific, urgent matters, to which we want to direct divine attention — if we really believe that God listens to our prayers and cares about our concerns. Supplementing the “boiler plate” formula recitations, with prayers that we struggle to compose, in our own words and from our own hearts, can make the prayers more heartfelt and “alive,” both to ourselves and to the recipient of our prayers.
And so, I asked the members of the group to identify a current problem or concern, about which they would want to ask for the help of God. A wise, elderly woman objected: “Most human problems need to be fixed by humans, not by God.  By asking God to solve our problems, we may be absolving ourselves of the responsibility to do so.”
We cannot depend on God to do our work for us.  We need to take responsibility and act whenever we see any wrong that we can make right.  We cannot glibly leave it to God.  God expects us to do our part before He does His.  Think of the well-known miracle of Chanukah: God would not have made the oil burn, for a miraculous eight days, if humans had not first lit the light.  Were it not for human action, there would be no divine miracle.  For good to defeat evil in our world there must be collaboration between us and God — as well as amongst ourselves.
God won’t do our part for us.  On the other hand, we must not be so proud as to think that we can right all wrongs all by ourselves.  We need the help of others, and we need the help of God.  We cannot accomplish anything in isolation — from each other, from the Divine, or from our history and heritage.
Jeremiah (Chap.17) teaches this moral lesson in our reading for this week:
“[When] you have, on your own volition, let go of your heritage which I have given you…you have kindled a fire [i.e. angered God].” (v. 4)
“Cursed is the man [sic] who trusts in mankind…and turns his heart away from God.” (v. 5)
“Blessed is the man [sic] who trusts in God [and for whom] God becomes his trust.” (v. 7)
The first verse quoted above (verse 4) refers to our heritage as a people — the spiritual heritage of our religious teachings, the material heritage of the Land, and the societal heritage of our “peoplehood,” all given to us by God.  Abandoning or “letting go” of these gifts is taken as an insult against God who gave them to us.  The material and societal aspects of that heritage teach us the imperative to be actively involved in the world—to do our part.
The second and third verses quoted teach the other side of the dialectic: We are “cursed”  or doomed to failure if we depend only on human effort without recognizing our dependence upon divine help.  We are “blessed” when we seek that help.
This brings us back to prayer.  By articulating the issues to God, we arrive at greater clarity for ourselves.  Thought and speech, directed to God, can lead to better action on our part.  This is accomplished only when we pray with thoughtful and timely specificity, not when we limit our prayers to beautiful but timeless generalizations.  For connection with the “peoplehood” of our heritage,   Jewish prayer needs to include the beautifully composed prayers, standardized by our sages.  But for prayer to move us, as well as God, it is essential that we make the effort to “talk to God” about what’s really on our minds and in our hearts, each time we pray.

Rabbi Lavit is director of Pastoral Care at Hebrew Health Care in West Hartford, and president of the Greater Hartford Rabbinical Association.

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