Already All Along (The Horeb Project 7)
Once You See Unity, What Will You Do With It?
The Horeb Project is a paragraph-by-paragraph reading of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s masterpiece Horeb: A Philosophy of Jewish Laws and Observances (1837).
Today’s study:
Section 1: Toroth: Fundamental Principles Relating to Mental and Spiritual Preparation for Life
Chapter 2: The Unity of God
Epigraphs:
Hear, O Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One. Deuteronomy 6:4
Know this day, and lay it to thy heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; there is none else. Deuteronomy 4:39
Paragraph 7
Today, we conclude the chapter on God’s unity, and Rabbi Hirsch closes it with a rousing injunction.
With mind and body, with thought and feeling, with word, deed and enjoyment, in wealth and poverty, in joy and sorrow, in health and sickness, in freedom and slavery, in life and death, your life-task is everywhere and always the same—for it all proceeds from One God and has been assigned by the One God as your task in life; therefore everything is of equal significance, for in everything and with everything you have been summoned to the service of One God. Strive to reach this one, and be one in heart as your God is One.
As modern readers, we must hear “in life and death” and be reminded of wedding vows. Indeed, the analogy of the covenant between God and Israel and the voluntary commitment entered into by spouses is not only apt but commented upon by our sages.
But another compact is at play here, something unspoken yet more profound.
Several years ago, I was troubled by the thought that my child, 8 years old at the time, did not like me. My child was “on the spectrum,” as they say, and could be strongly oppositional and defiant.
I often felt like the object of my child’s resistance. Perhaps I was the natural choice for it: I was usually working and not around the house as much as my wife and the rest of the family. If my child could hold it together and be more or less pliant at school, the kid needed to vent at home: taking out pent-up frustration on me was the most permissible option.
We hired a therapist to help the child deal with engaging constructively at school and home. One day, I privately shared with the therapist my distress at the thought that the kid didn’t like me and how hurt I felt to have all this love and feel like it was not reciprocal.
The therapist listened and then told me that of course my child loved me, that the child could not help but love me.
The relief I felt at that moment was almost overwhelming and permanent. I never worried about my child’s love again.
Recognizing the life task of Judaism can be similarly comforting, enlivening, and inspiring. In our heritage, the task is to enact the mitzvot and illuminate the covenant between God and Israel, the commitment that is already there.
I am not preaching here or telling anyone to do more mitzvot or anything like that. But I am observing that just like my child’s love was present and real—that is, it was automatically embedded in the nature of our relationship—our mitzvot and our Judaism are there for us.
There is a broad spectrum of approaches to Judaism and the Torah. As I see it, the essence of living Jewishly is inquiring about how we relate to them. Each of us will live and build the commitment differently. And that’s good.
Each of us gets to explore what has been there already all along.