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LAMENTATION:
Uvaldi
By Rabbi Azriel C. Fellner

Is It the silent scream that wakes us,
The voiceless cry that shakes us?
Is it the that moment when breath ceases
And the lungs within our conscience
Begs for air?

But there is none.

It is a darkness that no light dispels,
A chaos from which no order can be made
A terrifying invisible landscape with no horizon
Nothing upon which to tread.

And all is dead.

The children, oh the children whose screams
Cries and breaths ceased in that terrifying darkness. Air no longer there
where lungs once breathed.

Now is endless darkness, horizonless.

And we, who remain,
imagine the faceless children
The fractured features, featureless,
Bereft, bereaved, broken and beaten.

Is it the children? Is it us?

Both.

All of us vanquished.

Them in the cold image we envision
The bitter burial of the too, too young.
And us frozen in moral paralysis
The unethical desert devoid
From which nothing can grow.

For nothing seems to wake us,
Nothing seems to shake us
As we slowly slide into delirium
Accepting of one abomination after another.

05/27/2022

Essays on the Weekly Torah Reading
Rabbi Azriel C. Fellner

B’HAR-B’HUKKOTAI

HUKKIM/STATUTES:
Material and Spiritual Regulations

Our double portion this Shabbat brings to a close the third book of the Torah Vayikra/Leviticus.

At the conclusion of this book, the opening verse of the second reading recalls the covenantal relationship God has struck with the People of Israel. "If you follow my laws and faithfully observe My commandments," God tells the people through Moses, "I will grant rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit." (Leviticus 26:L 3-4) The good fortune of the Children of Israel, however, is contingent upon carrying out the commandments given to them at Sinai.

Should Israel neglect and/or rebel against God’s word, then not only will nature’s beneficence be withdrawn from the land upon which they live, but appalling calamities, both physical and spiritual, will assail them till they are driven out of the land and find themselves dispersed among the nations of the world. This section describing the physical and moral collapse of Israel is called the "Tokheha" and chanted in a subdued tone when read in the synagogue. (Leviticus 26: 14-45)

As is almost always the case, translations from the Hebrew often obscure or distort meaning. "If you follow my laws," the opening verse reads in the JPS translation. Robert Alter renders the verse to read "If you go by my statutes," which is more apt. The Hebrew word "Hok/statute" is more than a law or a commandment, but more like a binding edict. The word "Hukottai" which gives the second Torah reading its name, suggests that a fundamental, foundational platform has been established from which Israel can carry out its mission. If Israel remains faithful to that set of statutes all will be well; if not, then disaster will ensue.

In a fascinating series of Midrashim, the sages clarify and deepen the relationship between a "Hok/statute" and its relationship with Israel and its future.

But there is one Midrash which connects the idea of a statute, a Hok, with the very structure of the universe itself. The Hukkim/statutes exist as its own series of regulations which God used as a code whereby he created the heavens and the earth. As the Midrash points out these are statutes "shebahem hakkakti et hashamyim v’ha-aretz," codes through [these statutes] I, (God), have carved out the heavens and the earth. (Midrash Vayiqra Rabbah 35: 4)

These statutes preceded Creation and continue to govern nature itself. These laws of nature guide the sun and the moon, the stars, the ocean’s surf and even the boundless depths of the world entire.

In associating the inviolable laws of nature together with the statutes given to Israel to fulfill as part of the covenant with God both carry consequences when compromised. If the laws of nature suddenly ceased, pandemonium would result and life would be in jeopardy, the Midrash suggests. Likewise, the laws carved out for Israel to uphold, like the laws of nature, must not be violated. The very survival of Israel depends upon adherence to the hukkim/statutes.

Moreover the Midrash suggests something deeper. Namely, the codes created by God through which the world came into being and without which the universe would collapse are also the same order of code used by God to conceive and protect Israel’s very existence. Hence, when these codes are broken, the very nature of Israel’s survival is in peril. But when the hukkim/statutes are upheld, the rains shall arrive at their proper time, the earth shall yield its produce and the trees their fruit in abundance. The laws of nature and the life of Israel are combined. Israel’s spiritual mission and nature’s metaphysical existence are united.

This Midrash has raised an interesting contemporary challenge.

The laws of this country are also hukkim/statutes as carved out in the Constitution. The laws are based on a covenant whose structure survives only when the truth is spoken and upheld. If a lie is repeated again and again such that a deception, followed by violence threatens the framework of democracy itself, the very foundation of that democracy is in danger of collapse. Laws that uphold the dignity of all human beings, and which allow for their voices and votes to be sustained are like hukkim/statutes, codes which are both engraved like nature’s laws upon the universe and whose compromise would lead to weakening and eventually destroying the very foundation and mission of a nation.

What we all face when we turn our backs on those statutes which helped found both ancient Israel and modern democracies is what the tokekhah warns us. As Thomas Friedman in an essay he wrote for the New York Times, repeating a lie, and suppressing the vote "is the equivalent of lighting a fuse to a bomb planted beneath the foundations of our democracy."

That is also the ominous warning of the tokkekah, the execrations which cautioned Israel. The tokhekah is hard to listen to. We should chant it in a sober key. But it’s worth paying attention to it.