Winter 1984 - 1985 - Quarterly Review

HOMILETICAL RESOURCES
heresy when the issue was each person's personalization of the One
who had taken him or her from Egypt.
This theological openness is crucial to true knowledge of God and to
true religiosity. It declares the "I shall be what I shall be" (Exod. 3:14)
of God to be true, and prevents it from becoming a caricature drawn
by some authoritarian person with enough hubris to say, "God is what
I say God is." When R. Mendel of Kotzk was asked what the true path
to God was, he could only respond, "What kind of God would God be
if there was only one true path to Him?!" In saying that he spoke the
Jewish heart and mind. Indeed, he gave an entire address on Jewish
dogmatic theology and declared that if one exists, its canons are small
indeed. The God who took Israel out of Egypt may have asked for
communal adherence to covenantal laws, but She or He addressed
each man and woman according to his or her own needs and abilities.
The 613 commandments may all be Israel's responsibility, but the God
to whom their observance is the sign of loyalty is the God to whom
those who crossed the sea sang, "This is my God and I will extol him"
(Exod. 15:2). In that spirit, Judaism could allow debate even about the
proper way to observe the rules of the covenant declaring, "Both this
opinion and that are the words of the living God" (BT TEsrubin 13b).
"Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy."
Of all the institutions of Jewish life, the sabbath (Heb., shabbat)
stands out as one of the most central. It, along with circumcision, was
under constant attack throughout antiquity. It was as if the Hellenistic
world knew that the successful eradication of these observances
would signal the death of Jewish life and culture. Why was life and
limb sacrificed to maintain sabbath observance? Wherein lies the
centrality of shabbat for the Jew? What about it is significant at the
universal level?
The word sabbath itself means cessation. In traditional Jewish practice
this meaning is lived out by a total cessation from any activity which will
bring about significant and enduring change in an object or environment.
For example, one may not plant something on shabbat
because that brings about changes in the seed or plant in a significant
and ultimately enduring way. The net result of such restriction is
detachment from the utilization and manipulation of one's external
world. One day a week that world is left to itself, in the state of being it
was when shabbat began at sunset on Friday. Only the saving of a life
will suspend this cessation of activity which constitutes the sabbath rest.
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