The Art of Distinguishing

“Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.” Matthew 13:30 NASB

Allow both – The point of the parable is that while things are developing you can’t be certain what is a stalk of wheat and what is a tare. They look very much alike. Only when everything is finally ripe will you be absolutely clear about the difference. So be careful not to rip out some wheat in your effort to clear away the tare.

Easier said than done, right? In fact, given the subtle seductive power of the yetzer ha’ra, it is quite possible that you will live among the tares and think you are growing a harvest of wheat. Or worse, you might know that something is a tare and yet you don’t remove it on the grounds that you might disturb the wheat. You compromise and accommodate, and all along the yetzer ha’ra provides you with religious justification. When Yeshua gave this parable about the Kingdom, do you think he meant us to “allow both” to grow together if we know that one is a weed and the other is healthy grain?

The parable leads us to consider once more Moses Luzzatto’s idea of watchfulness. “Generally stated, it is the study of Torah that will instill in a man the habit of watchfulness.”[1] Luzzatto does not mean the study of Torah legislation. He means the study of Torah, its commandments, stories, poem, narrative, history and reflections. All of it. Neglect of Scripture diminishes our ability to determine the difference between wheat and tares. Pretty soon good causes, individual rights and freedom begin to look like righteousness and spiritual commissions. But they are not always so. What matters is the end since the true fruit will show itself only at the conclusion of growth. That means we must be able to think our way to the end if we are going to make the right choices in the growing season. Watchfulness is a gift, an art and a discipline.

Watchfulness, the ability to recognize every opportunity to demonstrate hesed, is a gift. The Master gives it to those who enter into covenant agreement with Him. It is the gift of “seeing.” YHVH must open our eyes before we are aware of our infinite obligation to others. “These things are spiritually discerned,” said Paul, and he was right. It is abundantly clear that men can walk through life without seeing. Unless the Spirit draws men to the Father, they will simply drift with the human tide of tradition and personal addition. But since the Spirit does draw men, watchfulness is possible. It begins with the Creator’s love spread abroad. And when it falls upon us, we awaken.

A gift, however, is of little value unless it is used. Suppose someone gave you a brand new car. You came home one day and there it was in your garage, with a red bow tied across the hood. So you thought to yourself, “Oh, my. This is so wonderful. So beautiful. I’ll just leave it exactly as it is so that every time someone comes to visit, I can take them to my garage and show them what a wonderful gift I received.” The gift becomes a trophy. Yes, your intention might be to honor the giver by praising his generosity, but unless you use what is given, you actually insult the giver. Watchfulness was given so that it might be used, but just like driving a car, use requires both an art and a skill. Anyone can make a car move. Learning the skills required to accelerate and brake are not demanding. But driving is also an art and those who do it best are able to turn a piece of machinery into an extension of the body. So it is with Torah (all of Torah). There are basic skills to learn. Exegesis, language, cultural background. But learning these does not make you a spiritual artist. You must employ your flare, your passion, your enthusiasm, your personality in order to change Torah from text to life. The gift, an instruction manual for living, is useless unless you convert it into your way of life. A Bible on the shelf is an insult to the Author. The gift is intended to be used, thoroughly, constantly, completely, and it takes an artist to draw everything out of a gift. Watchfulness depends on Torah awareness but it doesn’t end with Torah awareness. Watchfulness is the artistic application of Torah to every opportunity in the journey.

Finally, watchfulness is discipline. “He’s gifted,” we say, as if that means the expertise he shows is simply the result of natural ability. Never! The gift must be trained!  LIKE THIS!

According to Luzzatto, watchfulness grows from fear—that is, the fear of God. This is not simply awe and reverence. This is palpable dread of failure before the King. The discipline of watchfulness results from the constant awareness that He is watching, that His reputation is at stake, that there are no excuses. Accepting the gift means obligation to train. “People with fullness of understanding will not allow themselves to be deterred from infinitely increasing their opportunities to do [deeds of goodness].”[2] But this is not paralyzing trepidation because it is not fear of what God will do. It is fear of what might happen to another if we do not do what God wants us to do. It is fear for the life of the other because you and I know what it means to live. The discipline of watchfulness is the constant adjustment and tuning necessary to communicate life to another.

The goal of spirituality is transparency, a return to the original relationship in the Garden. The yetzer ha’ra wishes us to hide, from God, from others and from ourselves, especially so in the cloisters of religious dogma. The yetzer ha’ra would convince us that we are wheat when we act like tares. For this reason we must constantly demand transparency of ourselves and never become our own mirrors. We must take the gift of seeing, turn it into the art of living, train it to reach toward others and let them determine how clearly our lives express the Giver.

Topical Index: watchfulness, tare, wheat, Matthew 13:30

[1] Moses Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim, p. 49.

[2] Ira Stone, commentary in Moses Luzzatto’s Mesillat Yesharim, p. 51.