B'chukotai: Being a chosen people in a covenantal relationship

The last Torah portion in the Book of Leviticus, B’chukotai, begins with these words: “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments…” [Lev. 26:3] and continues by defining for us all the rewards G!d will bestow upon us for doing so. It then goes on to say: “But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules… and you break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you…” [Lev. 26:14-16] and proceeds to graphically detail all the punishments that would result from such behavior.

The form of ancient covenants was fairly standard, containing an historical preamble explaining why the covenant was made or what circumstances caused it to be made, the covenant regulations or stipulations, and the promise or blessing sanctions if the covenant was kept and curse sanctions if it was not. The covenants were sealed by blood or cutting in some form, as indicated in the Hebrew by ‘brit karat’ which literally means “to cut a covenant.” This cutting could refer to the cutting of its stipulations in stone, as in the Ten Commandments/Things/Words, or a cutting in the flesh such as in the rite of circumcision, or oftentimes a cutting asunder of an animal sacrifice. Cutting meant that the covenant was inaugurated and valid. Our modern day expression, “to cut a deal,” comes from this ancient understanding of cutting a covenant.

According to many experts on the matter, the ancient covenants (including their renewals) we find in our TaNaKh, at least 6 in number, are suzerain-vassal treaties, which are not parity agreements between equals. In a suzerain-vassal treaty/covenant, it is the suzerain who dictates all the terms and makes certain promises, including sanctions if the covenant is violated, and whether or not to renew the covenant. And in the case of the Biblical covenants, the suzerain is G!d.

All of this could very well be true. However, we also have other clues and hints and outright declarations throughout our TaNaKh that G!d is more than just a G!d who deals in rewards and punishments. According to Franz Rosenzweig, G!d cannot be known through rational inquiry, but is encountered existentially. Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan viewed G!d as the power within nature. And Martin Buber believed that one comes to know G!d through one’s relationships with other people. Was G!d only the suzerain who dictated a one-sided blood-oath-bound contract with us? Or can we put together these other clues and see that, even from the beginning, G!d has been in a relationship with us? How we view this relational aspect of knowing and understanding G!d in our current lives and in our history directly impacts our perspective about being the Chosen People.

The stories in our TaNaKh are replete with interactions and conversations between key people and G!d. It is important to note that one cannot interact and converse with G!d unless one is in a relationship with G!d. Our TaNaKh repeatedly abounds with images of intimacy and love between G!d and Yisrael. Why did G!d choose Yisrael in the first place? Deuteronomy 7:7-8 clearly states that we were chosen “because of love.” Even our liturgies and prayers are saturated by this notion of love and “reciprocal devotion,” as Rabbi David Wolpe calls it.

Given these additional insights, our covenant with G!d being only a quid pro quo relationship is an idea that no longer works. The simple concept that righteous behavior yields success, prosperity and peace, and sinful behavior brings disease, poverty and fear—though it might have influenced the people of antiquity—is no longer useful, for it is simply not true. While there is an element of truth that living out of love and not being driven by ego/fear will expand goodness, our lived experience cannot be reduced to "do these good things and nothing bad will ever happen to you." This is simply too black and white, too either/or. It creates the concept of a vengeful, spiteful G!d-being who will have our back only if we live up to certain expectations and do certain things.

Is the solution therefore that religion needs to be done away with entirely, along with this ancient notion of covenant and G!d? Or is it rather that we are to awaken to the additional information that clearly points to a more highly evolved concept of our covenantal relationship with G!d—not to “evolve” G!d to meet our minds, but to evolve our minds and souls to understand a better concept of this Holy One-ness we call G!d, and our relationship therein.

It is important to note that “evolving” our concept of both G!d and our covenant with G!d is not a new and modern understanding. It is exactly what the sages did several hundred years ago. Already at the time of the Renaissance, sixteenth century mystics like Rabbi Moses Cordovero or Rabbi Isaac Luria of the kabbalistic school of Safed in northern Israel, presented a nondualistic theology. With it, the idea of G!d as exclusively “out there,” external to, or other than, the holy sezarain treating us as vassals, was replaced by a vision of G!d which recognized its transcendent aspect, and added the notion that G!d is not only fully present in the manifest Universe, but that G!d is that Universe through and through.

Two hundred years later, the founding figure of Chassidism, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (the Baal Shem Tov, 1698-1760) and his many successors in the Chassidic movement since, made this nondual theology their central pillar, defining G!d through a theological method of "proving the negative,” which suggests that there is no one that G!d is not, no where that G!d is not, no when that G!d is not, no thing that G!d is not. In my mind, this equates to saying that G!d is Process. G!d is the very ebb and flow, the constantly shifting and changing essence of life. Holy and Sacred Process.

We can go back even further than these examples and see that long before Chassidism or Safed, in our TaNaKh, the prophet Jeremiah predicted "a new covenant" that G!d will establish with Yisrael. Jeremiah explained his words by saying: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." This passage is unique in that it contains the only instance of the Hebrew phrase, “brit hadashah.”

Some see that Jeremiah’s “new covenant” is not a replacement of the existing covenant, but merely a figure of speech expressing the reinvigoration and revitalization of the existing Sinaitic covenant. Others think that this new, internal way of fulfilling G!d’s instructions instinctively will come in a Messiah/Messianic Age which has yet to arrive. And still others see Jeremiah’s words as laying the ground work for Rabbinic Judaism, which maintains the Sinaitic covenant while elevating and evolving our understanding of how to live the Torah to a less literal, much higher spiritual level. Because the Hebrew phrase used by Jeremiah is brit hadashah rather than Torah hadashah or Torati hadashah, Jeremiah is clearly not referring to a covenant that replaces or makes obsolete the Sinaitic covenant, but rather Jeremiah is predicting its renewal, and evolving our spiritual understanding and living of it, that this "new covenant" is a new understanding of its spiritual depth. .

Our evolved understanding does not do away with the notion that G!d is guiding us and intimately involved in our daily lives; rather, it believes that G!d is more deeply engaged in the minutiae of our daily lives than ever. It goes far beyond the notion of a contractual "you do this and I'll do that and if you don't do such and such, I will punish you." It enters into a far more intimate relationship with G!d.

Rabbi David Wolpe reminds us that we can look to the creation of the world wherein the midrash of Numbers Rabbah tells us that G!d created the world out of loneliness and craved closeness with us. All of Torah is encircled by the metaphor of marriage wherein Sinai was a chuppah and the Torah is the ketubah. We were chosen because G!d longed for a relationship, and we, among all peoples of the world at that time, were listening and ready.

We were chosen to be in relationship with G!d in a way no other peoples could even conceive of being in relationship with their gods at that time. Not because we were better than, but because we were willing to embrace a relationship with G!d. This relational meeting ground with G!d implies responsibilities, and hence, the idea of being in covenant with G!d. Just as the marital ketubah is a covenant between lover and beloved, so is our relationship to G!d. Were we not in covenant, we would not be in significant relationship. Were it not for significant relationship, the covenant would be a shallow and harsh legal rendering.

Our ancestors might have defined G!d in a strict quid pro quo contractual relationship, although there is evidence that even in the very beginning, they did not. In any case, we, now, get to take our concept of our covenantal relationship with G!d and break it out of that old box. The ancient sense of the suzerain-vassal treaty moves into a covenant which goes far beyond what each can do for the other out of legal obligation.

Our covenant with G!d is a real relationship, not unlike a marriage. No quid pro quo, suzerain-vassal treaty/contract could ever give us that. Just as the marital ketubah is a covenant between lover and beloved, so is our relationship with G!d. Were we not in covenant, we would not be in significant relationship. Were it not for significant relationship, the covenant would be a shallow and harsh legal rendering. Being in covenant with G!d is being in relationship with G!d.

In summary, I reflect on the words of author Max Dimont in his book, Jews, God, and History: “Have the Jews been divinely chosen to fulfill a mission, or have they chosen themselves to fulfill a divine mission?” While there may be solid evidence for both sides of this question, perhaps it is the wrong question to ask. Perhaps the better question is to ask ourselves what is this mission for which we have been chosen or chosen ourselves to fulfill? According to Dimont, “Throughout the centuries, the trinity of Jehovah [sic], Torah, and Prophets, by accident or design, evolved two sets of laws, one to preserve the Jews as Jews, the other to preserve mankind.”

In the final analysis, whether divinely chosen or having chosen ourselves, our mission has been critical not just to us as a people, but to the world at large. After nearly six thousand years, most of the civilized world is already governed by the ideas of Jews—the ideas of Moses, Jesus, Paul, Spinoza, Marx, Freud, Einstein, and many others. Whether having been chosen, or the ones who freely choose, we have been a positive driving force throughout the history of civilizations on earth. We would do well to continue our covenantal relationship with G!d, perhaps considering ourselves as those who have been chosen to freely choose.