Master and Commander
“ . . . and let them have dominion over . . .” Genesis 1:26 ESV
Dominion – “There is no dignity without responsibility.”[1] Apparently the modern world doesn’t agree with Soloveitchik. It seems as if the governments of the West think that all that is necessary for men to live is to be provided with the material requirements of life. Give them food. Give them shelter. Give them health care – and maybe free phones – and men will be satisfied. But the Bible has a different view. Give them all these things without responsibility and men will be well-cared-for animals. Give and give and give, and in the process take away what men must have in order to be men – dignity!
God never intended that we should be well-cared-for animals dependent on the government and the government’s view of life. God intended Man to have dominion. The word in Hebrew is rada’. It occurs twenty-two times in Scripture and is generally about human rather than divine rule. We might think that this word carries the idea of unbridled authority, but that would be mistaken. Ruling under God involves stewardship. It is not the exercise of power to do whatever can be done. It is the exercise of power to do whatever should be done and what should be done is what glorifies the one who gave us permission to exercise the power in the first place. Rada’ is power domesticated by goodness – a perfect reflection of the character of the Creator. When rada’ defines my action in the world, I have dignity because I am responsible to God for the exercise of power. When I am cared for as a passive cow feeding from the hand of government, I may produce a vote but I will never discover the dignity of domesticated power.
This world is a very large dose of rada’. Unfortunately, the cows of government programs find it much easier to simply eat the feed provided, not realizing until they come to the slaughter house that they have been robbed of dignity. But God not only never intended men to be well-fed cows, He also will ensure that the feeding troughs are destroyed. We are commanded to exercise rada’. It is not an option of existing. It is what we were created to do. When the government attempts to replace God, it removes dignity from human beings. And the cattle cars are full.
I was asked to speak to a high school class in South Africa. The public school served Black students. I talked about avad – work, service and worship in the same word. Utterly blank faces looked back at me. Uniformed, disciplined, rote responsive expressionless cows. Certainly chronic malnutrition had an impact on brain function. Certainly living in squalor without parents (who died from AIDS) was also a factor (over 30% of the student were orphans). But in my opinion the greatest detriment to a human being in this place was the complete dependence on hand-outs. The government was in the business of creating dutiful little grazers who would simply follow the herd. The world is a terrible and tragic place and there are fewer and fewer human beings in it.
Topical Index: rada’, dominion, dignity, power, Genesis 1:26
Aghast, what can one say? Come Lord Yeshua! Work diligently for Him and look up.
An overwhelmingly sad picture of the world. What I want to do is isolate myself, but then that would not be taking responsibility. That would be hiding. I think that the solution has been mentioned by Skip before. I, we cannot fix the world or get the world to change. The responsibility works with one person at a time. It certainly will not get all done in my lifetime.
And many of us feel the words of E.B. White ringing in our heads…
“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.”
Of course the 2 are not mutually exclusive, but we do sometimes think that way.
A great quote, Judi! Was it in one of his essays?
Wish I could say “yes” but, truthfully, I found it written inside an Honest Tea bottle cap. That’s one of my sources for great quotes! It gives me more time to “enjoy the world.” :-))
I really appreciate the way you have expressed this understanding, Skip. I am involved with lots of people who see this, but many of them express it in political language. I believe that whenever we align our actions with the Creator’s plan, we are helping to restore the world in a responsible way. Because political power is so attractive to those who would misuse it, it will inevitably be misused; but it is still up to all of us to set things right in the way that is available to us.
One of my friends has decided that the reason governments hold so much power in the current age is because they feed the poor. That is the proper role of believers and when we do not do that, it leaves a gap that will be filled by whatever/whoever will meet the need. Even though our friendship began through politics, it is great to know that we have many other subjects of agreement. If you would like to see some of his ideas about how this could be changed, and humans could be ‘set free’ from so much oppression, here is the site where he has begun to ‘flesh out’ these thoughts.
http://www.secretofliberty.org/
I don’t want anyone to be offended by the language of this TW used to describe the students as dutiful “cows.” I supposed I could have used “sheep,” but I wanted the imagery to be hard to take because the situation is hard to take. It is NOT the fault of these students. It is the fault of those who would rather retain their power than provide food, encouragement and basic sanitation. It is the fault of a government where every day we find another corrupt official on trial, where a local minister can spend 1.2 million Rand on cars while orphans in his neighborhood starve. It is the fault of a government that systematically uses “free” as a promise to get votes from a population that is uneducated and strangled economically. It is the fault of a government that officially proclaimed you would not get AIDS if you followed certain tribal medicines. If you want to see an example of POWER at any cost, go visit one of these schools where students are basically trained to be obedient followers. “Cows,” maybe not as polite a term as I could have chosen, but this is a tragedy that should not have happened and this version of government is responsible for “herd” leverage.
Man’s desire to be his own God (Gen. 3:5) is strong. Until a person rejects the serpent’s offer, he will attempt to impose his will on all around him. There is a very good reason that governments get bigger and bigger. It’s the ungodly solution to everyman being his own God. Anarchy does not bring any kind of social cohesion. The solution is the all-embracing political solution to man’s desire to be his own God – Totalitarianism. The ultimate human attempt to “be like God” and be in total control.
And too many followers of the Way accept that politics will solve what apparently God and his Law cannot.
It is not the world that I have to fix. It is myself.
Someone once said, we get the government we resemble. And what do we resemble? Do we resemble the words that YHVH said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.” (1 Sam. 8:7)
The question we must all ask: “Have I rejected the kingship of Yeshua HaMashiach?” To the extent that I refuse to obey his commandments and conform myself to his standards of holiness and righteousness, I am part of the problem, not the solution. And there’s a 613-point check-list to work off.
Some of the major ones in our time are:
– usury – while we continue to put our money in the bank to earn interest we perpetuate the monetary expansion plans of the politicians through the deceitful fractional reserve banking system. John Maynard Keynes, the homosexual economist, said monetary expansion would be the equivalent of turning stones into bread.
– just weights and measures – paper currency permits the distortion of the value of money at the whim of government decree. Torah required money to be money by weight – silver – and to be regulated to a constant measurement.
– tithe – the use of the tithe and gleaning regulations made welfare a local and personal problem. Abandoning this to “the government” is one one way to avoid the personal side of the welfare issue.
– sabbath – the year of release was a major step in minimizing debt-slavery (Prov. 22:7) Today people think nothing of placing their money in a bank so that the bank can lend out for a 30-year mortgage.
What do you get when people practice usury, abandon money by weight, refuse to tithe and reject the sabbatical year of release of debt-slavery? You get the Global Financial Crisis.
Hi Skip. Where you said ” when the governement attempts to replace God , it removes dignity from human beings. And the catttle cars are full” Reminds me of the Holocaust . And when the Jews were put in cattle cars. I just do not want history to repeat itself. I have faced hardships and it was God that got me through not the government. Your writings are waking me up . Keep up the excellent work.
http://www.torah.org/learning/pirkei-avos/chapter3-6.html
Chapter 3, Mishna 6
“Rabbi Nechunia ben (son of) Ha’kaneh said: Whoever accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah study, the yoke of government and the yoke of earning a living will be removed from him. Whoever casts off of himself the yoke of Torah study, the yokes of government and earning a living will be placed upon him”
Skip, does this have anything to do with what you are saying?
Yes, it describes perfectly the situation where those in power remove Torah and replace it with their own legislation.