An Explanation of Leviticus (1)
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2:3-5 NASB
Do nothing – Is it a command, an opinion or a description? Is Paul telling the Philippians that this is binding halachah or is he giving friendly advice? Is he using the imperative or is he simply describing what true community looks like? And what about us? Is this (whatever he is actually saying) for us as well as the Philippians?
Let’s start by noticing that the imperative “do” has been added to the text. The Greek is meden kat’ epithean (“nothing from selfish ambition”). The imperative verb might be implied but it isn’t actually in the text. So Paul may be simply describing the character of those who have the mind of the Messiah rather than delivering halachah. The result is pretty much the same, however. Clearly this is a characteristic we must demonstrate no matter how it happens to be developed. Paul’s statement is forceful. meden is the English equivalent of “not even one.” There is not a single case where selfish ambition is justified. Paul couldn’t be clearer.
Except, of course, when we try to apply this. Then all kinds of subtle rationalizations and justifications enter the picture. What happens when the yetzer ha’ra confronts meden? meden is death to the yetzer ha’ra and when something is threatened by extinction, it fights back. Under the banner of self-protection, we convert selfishness into necessity. We become victims of our personal emotional theology. We have “needs,” emotional vacuums that suck up the world around us, converting it into a servant of our desires. Luzzatto’s insight here is telling. A need can be satisfied. It allows fulfillment. When I am hungry, I eat and the need for food is satisfied. The hunger goes away. But a desire is insatiable. No matter how much I feed it, it begs for more. It is never ultimately satisfied and as a result, it never goes away. Needs have ends. Desires do not.
List your needs. You will find that everything on the list is temporally conditioned. It is a need now, but in a few hours, days or weeks, that need will be satisfied, and a new one will take its place. Thirsty? Drink! The need is satisfied. Impoverished? Work! Money in the pocket fulfills the need. Lonely? Feeling a need for companionship? Visit your neighbor, call a friend! The need disappears.
But desire? When does desire evaporate? Power? When is the desire for power finished, satisfied? Wealth? How much does a millionaire “need”? Status, prestige, recognition? Pleasure? How much sexual stimulation is enough? Where is the end of happiness? What is the limit of importance? When do the dreams of a world tailor-made for you stop?
Doing nothing from selfishness is not so easy, is it? Perhaps the first step is to recognize the crucial difference between “needs” and “desires.” Of course, the yetzer ha’ra is particularly adept at converting desires into needs, so the process of distinguishing the difference is often quite foggy. That’s why we must rely on the voice from outside. YHVH provides such a voice, a voice uncorrupted by our emotional context. It’s a process, isn’t it? We progress from one confrontation with our subtle manipulations to another. Some we see. Some we can deal with. Some take a long, long time. But God is good—and patient. It is direction, not destination.
Except—meden kat’epithean. Not a single thing.
“Love you neighbor as yourself” does not begin with loving yourself. It begins with apply what you would have done for yourself to your neighbor, not with applying first to yourself and then extracting something for the neighbor.
Paul may be exhorting his readers to read Leviticus in depth but he is certainly describing the attributes of a citizen of God’s kingdom. The real question is for us: Are we exhibiting meden kat’epithean? Are we real citizens?
Topical Index: meden, nothing, selfishness, Philippians 2:3-5
This verse must be the antidote for covetousness. If the Fourth Commandment is the ultimate stumbling block for paganism, as well as surely being the real ‘reason’ why apostate christendom has attempted to throw out the baby with the bath water in its attempt to reject all of them, I think the Tenth Commandment is, on the other hand, the reason why no temporal force can be successfully employed to enforce any of them. How do you make a law, enforceable in a court, against SELFISHNESS? (Not that people haven’t tried….) More importantly, HOW do you get a selfish heart cleansed of its one defining characteristic? For, if there is one thing that the yetzer hara is most hyper about, it has to be about ‘my’ interests! Right here is where the confusion about what love is has to start. What is love? How do I love myself? If love is NOT looking out for #1, then what is it? We are clearly commanded to love ourselves, no matter what order it is in, BUT, what exactly is that? The Tenth Commandment looks like a death knell to, at least, the yetzer hara’s definition of ‘love’!
I think Skip is going in the right direction. Somewhere in between ‘desire’ and ‘need’, which are both negatives, or, lacks, lies our biggest need, which is love, as well as the true use for the yetzer hara, which is to supply the motive force (desire) with which to reach out for that love. We are confused; we have fallen for the lie that, somehow, desire is about ME, when, actually, correctly applied, it is really supposed to be about EVERYTHING ELSE. Because we become corrupted, our desires become corrupted, too. Desire is not wrong; Yeshua and Paul both expressed their desires often, but, if we would go look at what they said they were actually desiring, it becomes quite clear that it was all about everything else, and not themselves. When a mother truly loves her child, she is going to desire the best for that child. When a mother is lost in her own brokenness, she is going to desire that that child’s reality revolve around HER. We all know what that difference looks like (and what it can smell like, too!). Corrupted relationship has to be the most odious thing on the planet.
Both David and Ezekiel, as well as the Gospels and Epistles, all talk about something called a new heart. There must be something so fundamentally wrong with our old ones that they just need to be scrapped, and we need to start over. The yetzer hara does not need to be tamed or taught; it needs to be traded in at a trading post! I need to be fundamentally transformed from focusing in to focusing out; from egocentricity to the mind of Christ, which comprehends all. In 1Cor. 15:28, Paul defines the Kingdom as a condition where God is “all in all”: a kingdom that is expressed THROUGH the subjects, not enforced UPON them. Such is the mystery of godliness; of love. The pathways of desire in us were created to be the promenade of the King. We are commanded to level the high places of our hearts and fill in the low places, too, so that the King may have free rein to express Himself through us. Love does not originate with me, nor am I a destination for it; on the contrary, the only time it shows up is when I have successfully completed a connection between me and another. The little boy with the loaves and fishes understood this; he handed over ALL his lunch (which I am sure was just enough for him), for he knew that an attempt to retain some for himself was still not going to be enough to satisfy his own hunger. No, if you are going to do something, you have to do it right. That little child trusted that if he shared, he would get what he needed shared in return. No wonder Yeshua told us that we needed to become like that little child! I get the love I need, when I turn around and determine to love the one next to me, for love is not a THING I possess, but something that happens between me and another. It takes TWO (or more) to get what we all desire the most! Details!