Yitro 2009

Some time ago I was talking to someone in a shop here in Baton Rouge. He saw I was reading a book entitled The Lord Is My Shepherd, by Rabbi Harold Kushner, and he said to me, “Oh, I see you’re a Baptist.”

I said “Well, no, Jewish,” and he said to me “Oh, I don’t like the Old Testament Gd. Too jealous, too mean. The New Testament Gd is a Gd of love.”

How many here have heard some version of a statement like that? The Christian Gd is a Gd of love, while the Jewish Gd is a jealous Gd, and a Gd of laws. Of course, Christian theology states that these books are talking about exactly the same Gd, but let us ignore that for a moment. I just don’t think that the Christian Gd is more loving than the Jewish Gd. 

In this week’s parasha, there is a verse that states   כִּי אָנֹכִי יי אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵל קַנָּא which is translated in the King James edition as “For I the Lord your Gd am a jealous Gd.” However, in the Etz Chaim, the word קנא is translated not as jealous, but as impassioned. The word can mean jealous or envious, but also can mean ardor or passion. Gd feels strongly about us.  Why would an eternal, omnipotent, omniscient Being care for foolish little mortals like ourselves? But Gd does. 

That is the message of this verse. And this verse comes in the Ten Commandments, not coincidentally. This is because the Jewish position is that there can be no greater sign of Gd’s love for Israel, and indeed for all humanity, than that He gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai.

The מצוות are there, not because Gd needs them, and not because it is good for our health to listen to the sound of the shofar or to refrain from eating octopus, but because each and every מצווה is an opportunity for us to connect to the Eternal One. How else could we relate to אין סוף, the One who is without limit? The entire Torah is Gd’s love letter to us, because it shows Gd loves us, and tells us how to act if we want to show our love to Gd.

Every מצוה you follow, every time you come to the synagogue, every time you light your Shabbat candles or your Chanukkah candles, every time you order a hamburger instead of a cheeseburger, it is like sending a valentine to Gd. Our prayers Ahavah Rabah and Ahavat Olam are exactly about that. Gd so loved the world that He sent His Torah, and gave us a way to relate to the Beyond the Beyond.

The noun “love” appears forty times in the Tanach. The verb “love” appears 208 times. There is no shortage of love in the Jewish Bible! The Song of Songs is a love poem, an allegory in which Israel seeks Gd, her love and her desire. In fact, that is the primary metaphor for the relationship between Gd and the people. Two other examples of metaphors for the relationship between people and Gd: Isaiah says that Gd cannot forget us any more than a mother could forget her baby. What greater love could there be than that?

The other example is Psalm 42: Like a hart crying for water , my soul cries for you, oh Gd. This is not a legal partnership. This is a love affair.  

My point is by no means that the so-called Jewish Gd is more loving or better than the so-called Christian Gd, or any other religion’s understanding of Gd. There is only one Gd, and we can barely know anything about that Gd. Not Who, not What, not Why, not How. But the people who have sensed the presence of this Great Holiness, this Awesome Existence, say that they feel benevolence in It. They feel goodness. They feel love. That is an amazing statement. After that, I feel no more words are necessary. Amen, selah.