Va-Etchanan: The Ten Commandments or Now I Get It!

In the kiddush prayer on Friday nights we in part pray thanking God for giving us the Sabbath, b'ahavah uv'ratzon "with love and 'reason'/'goodwill'/etc." I often think of it as "with love and reason" as it reminds of the line from H.M.S. Pinafore when Josephine sings, "oh god of love and god of reason say" about her choice between either a safe choice of a mate or one made with the heart. In the kiddush, it reminds me of the two schools of thought for how we might understand Judaism itself - the "mystical" school, that of "love" and the "rational" school, that of "reason." While anyone is entitled to borrow from each point of view that which one will (and I often complain that I am a rationalist who would like to be a mystic) they do emphasize and address different, sometimes opposing things when it comes to what to think about God, why we should do good things, what our role is in the world, etc. Thankfully, comments this week by the Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks have allowed me to better square the two schools of "love and reason" or "rational and mystic". And in bringing them together we actually learn something really great for how to put our Judaism into action. Lord Sacks talks about the opening line of the Ten Commandments, which we will read this week, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egyptian bondage" and the debate between the likes of Moses Maimonides, perhaps the preeminent rationalist and Judah Halevi or Nachmanides, both of whom could easily fall into the mystical category. The two camps disagree as to what we are being taught in the first commandment. Maimonides sees it as the necessary first belief for everyone to have; there is a God who created everything. Nothing else makes sense without knowing that first for him. Halevi and Nachmanides however see the commandment almost more like a preamble or precondition - God's special relationship with the Jews sets up the rationale for everything else. Sacks suggests, drawing on an idea he expresses in many other places in his works, that Maimonides points to that part of God that is meant to be known by all people and can be discovered in religion and in science, nature, poetry, anywhere. The mystics, Sacks points out further, emphasize the unique relationship that God has with the Jews expressed as it is uniquely in the Torah and the rest of Judaism. No longer are the two interpretations and the two schools at odds - they are merely emphasizing two different parts of our relationship to what Judaism is about. Allow me to say just a little more than about this, about how we can all be both mystics and rationalists. That part of our religious lives that inspires us as art or poetry might - the prayers in synagogue, the holidays, keeping kosher, etc., these things appeal to our mystical side. They might not be easily explained "rationally" but that doesn't make them any less true or valuable. And some people are going to be very moved by such things and others may not feel them as keenly, and that is fine. But sadly lacking would be our Judaism if that was all it offered to us. We must have the "rational" side as well. That side that encourages us towards helping our neighbor and even helping the stranger. That side that encourages us to see that justice prevails and that kindness and compassion play a role in how we humans interact with each other. You don't necessarily need a Torah to tell you that those things are important but you can't have the Torah (or Judaism) without those things being important either! That's a lot that we get from just the first commandment of the Ten Commandments, but I guess that's why it's first after all. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Benson