The Oldest App
Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you. Deuteronomy 4:2 NIV
Add/ Subtract – Let’s suppose that you take Moses’ command very seriously. You decide not to add a single thing to his instructions, and, of course, not to subtract anything from them either. What would your life be like?
Well, it wouldn’t be a “Torah observant” life as orthodoxy understands it today. It’s not just diet. Forget anything made from pork (including cosmetics, etc.). Shabbat becomes a real problem. Electricity? No, sorry. Water from a pumping system? Ah, well . . . How about economics? Credit? No, I don’t think so. Bank loans? Probably not. Automobiles? No mention of them in Scripture. What about clothing? Oh, and don’t forget the fact that you are reading this over an electronic system, powered by who knows what twenty-four hours a day, and you’re paying for it. Nehemiah told the people rebuilding Jerusalem that they couldn’t marry non-believing wives, that they had to abandon their children from those marriages. What does that imply? And no commerce with those pagans either.
You pay taxes? Of course, you do. How does that fit into an observant life? Did God command you to put yourself in a position of constant debt? And what about your job? Do you work for someone who is a “stranger” to the faith?
You get the idea. Unless a faith can adapt, it can’t survive. Islam might think it can return the world to the 10th Century, but that’s impossible now, just as we know we can’t really become an Acts 2:42 “church” in this age. Joseph Soloveitchik recognizes this crucial and critical fact: “The essence of Torah is intellectual creativity.”[1] If you thought Torah was a strictly defined set of rules governing behavior, then your stance implies a re-run of the world of ex-slaves in the 14thCentury B.C.E. Soloveitchik reminds us that Torah is the living words of God, and all living things grow. Without creative application, without continuous investigation and discussion, Torah becomes no more relevant than the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The purpose of Torah is not to provide you with rules. It’s to bring you into contact with God and let Him do the bending and shaping. By the way, that’s not the same as saying that the instructions in Torah don’t really matter. They do, but for the reason that they draw us closer to Him. As Moshe Kempinski often says, “Torah is our way of expressing our love for God.”
Maybe we all need is bit of intellectual creativity when we read Moses—or Yeshua. We could start by understanding what they actually said rather than what the religions tell us they said, and then we could use some intelligence to make creative adaptations. What do you think? Want to try?
Topical Index: Torah, creativity, rules, Soloveitchik, Deuteronomy 4:2
[1] Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man (JPS, 1983), p. 82.
