Congregation Beth El

February 14, 2007 Valentine’s Day Edition / Parashat Mishpatim

Valentine’s Day was never a big holiday when I was growing up. I have an early thwarted romance memory in seventh grade of giving Jacqueline Newton a box of chocolates, which I kept in my locker for two days, and which subsequently froze, causing her to injure a tooth when she first bit into it. My brother’s girlfriend enjoys Valentine’s Day, but he confided in me recently that he can’t shake the notion that the holiday is simply a big ploy by Hallmark to get us to empty our wallets.

The Bible has its share of romantic tales: witness the stories of Boaz and Ruth, and Isaac and Rebecca. But one of the most abiding love stories is the one between the Jewish people and God. One of the chief metaphors to describe this relationship has been marriage - and the moment of revelation at Mount Sinai is the consummate moment in this respect. There is a midrash (B. Shab 88a) that says God picked Mount Sinai up and held it over the people, threatening to drop it if they didn’t accept the Torah. This is obviously a difficult metaphor for marriage, and indeed the whole enterprise feels suspect: it’s coercive, one partner seems to have much more power than the other, etc. In other places, like the book of Hosea, Israel is portrayed as the unfaithful wife, and this seems to justify her abusive treatment. As a metaphor for describing Divine-human relations, it understandably does not work for many contemporary Jews.

We ask, what does this metaphor suggest about our relationships, what does it suggest about our spiritual lives? Is marriage a salvageable model to describe our relationship with the Divine? Can we take anything from the Sinai story in particular that we can bring to our earthly loves?

Maybe the mountain being held above the heads of the people doesn’t have to be seen as representing coercion and a lack of choice. It can also be seen as a chuppah, and what happens under a chuppah is much more mysterious. We circle one another; in the traditional language of the vows, we set each other aside. We choose, though we don’t necessarily know what to expect, even if we do our best to imagine and project.

The relationship between people and God in Judaism is covenantal - we are co-partners in creation - and perhaps this is why it is so often compared to human marriage. Despite all of the commandments and intentions named on Sinai, we commit to the path of being a Jew ultimately not knowing what to expect. Covenant - whether it is describing our relationship with God or with our partner is the great mystery. It is conditional in that both partners make the commitment to being shomrim, or guardians, of the other. Exodus 19:5 asks the people to be shomrim of the covenant. In turn, they will be treasured and guarded themselves.

And then history begins. And we flail around, trying to figure out what it means to guard the other. Jewish history, with its emphasis on this-worldly relationship, is a continuous adventure in confusing capital B Beloved with lower-case b beloved. Ultimately, we guard God through learning to guard each other. And though we do both imperfectly, this is our attempt.

The Torah is accepted b’yom hazeh, on this day. It’s acceptance is not a one-time event, but something, like any relationship, that we practice and learn to accept each day.

Enjoy the snow, and don’t keep your chocolates in your locker.