Love is the Law

I’ve been waiting all semester for this. The Law of the TaNaK – mainly latter Genesis and Leviticus – is absolutely amazing. I only wish I had more time to address this lush subject.

Joe Frank, formerly weekend host of All Things Considered on National Public Radio (NPR), started creating edgy audio art a few years ago. One of his skits involves a minister praying with an old woman recovering from a stroke. Over the telephone he says: “Repeat after me: Oh, Lord, let me be like a mouse, inside a mouse trap. Feed me bread, wine, hamsters, rats, bullfrogs, African tiger pussy cats. Love me, Oh Father, and pull the cotton my earlobes. Oh Lord, take my soul, and put me over a barrel, and pull my pants down, and slap me with the punishing rod. Forgive me for my sins, and take me to heaven. I'm a muskrat. Let the adversity of my heart stretch up to the high wire, and let me ride the bicycle across Lake Charles. Slap me. Make me a divine procrastinator. Take my conglomeration hole and recircumcize my soul so that I will love the and worthily reperpetrate my soul with shotgun blasts.

In Leviticus we read that Moses took some blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron’s right ear and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot, then dashed the rest of the blood against all sides of the altar. From a sacrificial animal he then took the broad tail, the fat around the entrails, the appendage of the liver, the two kidneys, the right thigh, one cake of unleavened bread with oil, and one wafer, and burned them to create a pleasing ordor for God. Moses then took some anointing oil and some blood that was on the altar, and sprinkled them on Aaron and his clothes before locking him in a tent for seven days.

Behind the apparent preposterousness and seeming irrelevance of these and other rituals is a complicated system of rules designed to bind the social contract through the formulation of a divine contract.

It is difficult to believe that all the Laws were passed on to Moses alone, who then remembered them long enough at his advanced age to pass them along to the people. It seems much more likely these laws developed over time, ultimately being redacted many centuries after the time of Moses.

In Darwinian evolutionary theory, we often say something like, “The creature developed spines in order to prevent other animals from eating it.” Such statements imply intent on the part of the organism to alter its structure for a specified goal. The rules of natural selection work differently. When a trait contributes to a living thing’s survival, that trait is more likely to be passed on. The value of these traits change over time according to the environment in which the thing lives. So, if the weather cools, heavy fur will become increasingly necessary for survival. If the temperature trend reverses, the hairiness may become a survival liability.

Importantly, when the need for a particular characteristic disappears, the characteristic itself may or may not go away, hence the vestigial tail and the finger nail. The biblical Laws follow a similar trajectory.

Although attributed to God and Moses, we see within and behind the laws a wide variety of psychological, social, economic and spiritual goals being met. Here is a very short sampling:

Ritual: Sacrificies were performed with specificity – fat goes here, blood goes there, etc. – to impress upon onlookers and participants the eternal permanence the rite. Rituals and rites of passage – marriage, funeral, communion, adulthood, etc. – must be taken seriously for them to have their desired effect. The Jews were not just tossing a dead animal on a fire, they were participating in a formal ritual that would transform them in some important way, witnessed by those to whom they would be held accountable, including God, elders, and the congregation.

Symbols: Symbols frequently are used to reinforce messages. One small example is the use of bronze for holy parts of the Tabernacle and more precious gold for the Holy of Holies.

Community: In terms of social order, transgressors of various laws could be trusted and welcomed back into the community following a “guilt offering.” This is not dissimilar from the social and psychological role of atonement and confession in the Christian tradition.

Justice: Criminal justice was administered in a variety of ways under the Law. The fine for an infraction, for example, might take the form of an unblemished ram “convertible into silver by the sanctuary shekel” as a “guilt offering.” The individual then would “make restitution” and add “one-fifth” to it for the priest. Thus, the priestly caste, which also served as doctors according to Leviticus – were maintained by the sacrifice system, which provided them with funds and food.

Today we say, “Ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law.” In Leviticus they say, “If any of you sin without knowing it, doing any of the things that by the Lord’s commandments ought not to be done, you have incurred guilt, and are subject to punishment.”

Poverty: There is accommodation for the poor, as in, “But if you cannot afford a sheep, you shall bring to the Lord, as your penalty for the sin that you have committed, two turtle-doves or two pigeons, one for a sin-offering and the other for a burnt-offering.” Thus, even the less well off may benefit from the spiritual communion of sacrifice.

Farming: On the agricultural front, the Law provides for fields to lay fallow on the seventh year, just as modern farmers let fields lay fallow to maintain their productivity.

Health: Individual and community health, based as it was on a rudimentary understanding of contagion, is addressed in several parts of the Law, including extensive discussion on skin diseases and menstruating women. Ironically, archeological evidence shows that the Jewish ritual bath, or mikveh, was a source of lethal disease propagation.

Food: Primitive concepts also are expressed in the dietary laws, which advise Jews to not eat animals that do not fit easily into a simple understanding of biological diversity, including sea animals without scales and “all winged insects that walk upon all fours,” except “you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which to leap on the ground.” [Yum.] Here is a perfect example of a law that addressed to a specific audience in space and time, but which does not readily apply to urban Chicagoans. [Not even Whole Foods here in the Gold Coast had crickets for that special dinner I was preparing the other night.]

So, my basic point is, the Laws address a variety of psychological, social, economic and spiritual needs, these laws probably developed over time because they seemed to work, and laws that were no longer needed did not necessarily disappear. On this last point it’s important to note that even in the United States, with all its legislators and lawyers, old and unenforced laws are discovered on a regular basis.

A few weeks ago I encountered an Orthodox Jew who categorically discounted the JEPD/Documentary Hypothesis. He was adamant, for example, that Moses wrote the entire Book of Genesis (and probably Leviticus, although he didn’t mention it). He said not a single word in the Hebrew Bible has changed since it was passed down from God. One of his arguments was that the different names for God did not indicate different authorship, but rather a different aspect of God’s presence in the lives of people. We didn’t have time to fully develop this subject but I imagine he was saying that sometimes God does enter one’s life as a person, walking along with us in the garden, and sometimes God is omnipotent and remote, creating whole worlds in less than a snap of his fingers.

If the name of God changes according to the intended audience, then quite likely the Biblical lessons themselves change according to the audience. This might explain why some stories in the Hebrew Bible are contradictory; they were not aimed at the same people. All great teachers, like Brooke Lester, tailor their lessons to the student. The most obvious example of this principle is the decision to use English rather than Hebrew when teaching American students. It also is why the Bible has been translated into so many languages; to spread the good word as far and wide as possible.

If one accepts the Documentary Hypothesis and the theory of multiple authorship for the Hebrew Bible, the argument that specific passages were written for specific audiences at specific points in time seems all the more plausible. Ezikeal was written shortly before the Babylonian Exile, Jeremiah was written before the Exile but redacted during and after, Haggai and Zechariah were written for a post-Exilic audience. Using various forms of biblical criticism we can see the hand of the Yahwist (J), the Elohist (E), the Priestly Writer (P), and the Deuteronomistic Historian throughout the Hebrew Bible.

So, here is the big question: Should these laws, which were developed over time to serve a variety of needs for a variety of audiences, apply to us today? Which work and which do not work or may even be harmful? I imagine there are populations on this planet that, if they tried to follow the dietary laws, would starve to death because the permissible animals and plants do not grow where they life. The Hebrew Bible’s dietary laws were not written for people living on small South Pacific islands. I imagine health concerns would prohibit burning animals inside crowded city limits. Bible authors did not foresee the kinds of air pollution and disease problems we have today. I imagine stoning people to death would be considered harsh and undue punishment in most First World countries, just as slavery is considered bad form in the modern world.

My take-away from this class is that if the Bible, New Testament or “Old,” is to have any credibility, it must be considered a living document. That is, God must be allowed to speak with a different name, in a different voice, with a different message, in a different form, to different audiences over time and space. The very structure and content of the Hebrew Bible proves that the way God’s message is heard differs from person to person, writer to writer, audience to audience. Limiting God’s mystery to a few printed words seems like a disservice.