Hi friends!

It’s been a while. I have not been doing much writing because I have been doing MUCH READING. 80 books by August! But I was asked to write some words for shavues and I liked what happened and so wanted to share it:

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. This is the first sentence of Franz Kafka’s short parable Before the Law. The parable goes on to describe a series of gates and gatekeepers, the gates are open, the man from the country need only walk through the gate. But he does not know what fearsome things await him on the other side and so he does not walk through. Before the law, the title and the first words of this parable is an interesting phrase. Before the law, as in in front of, standing before, facing off with the law. And before the law, as in before the law’s arrival or existence. What does it feel like to stand before the law? Maybe we feel trepidation, maybe we feel a freedom without the law, maybe we feel lost. On Shavues, we are standing before the gate and the gatekeeper, waiting to receive the law in the form of Torah. We do not know what is on the other side, and yet we have to choose whether or not we will walk through the gate. 

For those of us who have issues with authority, choosing to accept the law, and recommitting to it might feel a little complicated. On Pesakh the Jews leave bondage and Egypt, they leave the narrow place and enter the vast expanse of the desert. And during the Omer they wander. What bonded them together in Egypt was a social condition of enslavement and servitude. What bonds them together in the desert? Maybe that was a little hard to figure out. They have seven weeks between leaving the laws of the Pharaohs and receiving this new form of law. What transgressions were not yet transgressions as they traveled together? I am sure that in this freedom and in this wandering there were plenty of discoveries about the self. And I can imagine that some of those who were wandering felt unmoored and lost without the law and that some of them felt liberated. And once the Torah was received, I can imagine that some people felt grateful for the structure and some people felt restricted and probably everyone was a little bit nervous about this new commitment and covenant with the law that they had made. They had to make a choice to become governable, to meet obligations. They had to start thinking about the differences between legality and morality, between the letter of the law and personal ethical frameworks, between commandment and commitment. 

Many years later, a young woman named Ruth spends a lot of time thinking about commitment.  On Shavues we read her story as well. A short recap: Naomi marries Elimelekh, and they travel from Bethlehem to Moab because of a famine. They have two sons who marry two women, Orpah and Ruth. All the men die. Naomi is left with her two daughters-in-law. What does the law dictate that they owe each other? Likely not a whole lot. Orpah returns to her people. And Ruth, does not. She says “where you go I will go, your people are my people, your God is my God.” They travel back to Bethlehem together, they survive by gleaning in the fields, they reunite with a family member, Boaz, who has the power to redeem them and their land. Naomi sends Ruth to lie at old Boaz’s feet, Ruth and Boaz get married. And eventually they become the great-grandparents of King David. The question that people often ask is: Why did Ruth stay with Naomi? What compelled her to do so, especially because her actions exceeded the expectations of the law? People like to think they were in love (in a gay way) and maybe they were. But maybe they were also true friends. 

Aristotle distinguishes between friendship founded on utility: “I am your friend because you are useful to me” and friendship founded on virtue: “I am your friend because you are you and I am me.” Which kind of friends are Ruth and Naomi? Ruth’s choice was clearly not utilitarian, she left the familiar and the comfortable to go to a strange land and be hungry. Her choice far exceeded what the law dictates should have happened. Their friendship surpasses the law. So why read this story when celebrating and re-committing to receiving the Law (the Torah). What is the connection between friendship and the law? 

In The Politics of Friendship, Jacques Derrida writes about the connection between the political, the law, and friendship. He argues that our version of democracy is built on brotherhood, between men with values built on masculinity. And he asks, what would happen if we built a politic around friendship? He is Derrida, so he doesn’t give us a very clear answer but he gives us some things to think about. What would a society look like if it was built on the idea that we are all different from each other on many scales at the same time? How could we structure relationships to be between subjects and other subjects and not subjects and objects? How does our self-hood inherently differ and cohere with the complete and total selfhoods of others? The law cannot answer those questions for us, it is far too general to be able to address the specificity of each of our friendships. The law cannot govern our friendships. Perhaps our friendships might serve to broaden the law, to adjust it, to refute it, to find exceptions to the rules, to find new reasons for the laws, and to hold each other to the laws that we decide matter. 

Kafka’s country man cannot bring himself to go past the gatekeeper. He cannot proceed when he stands before the law, he cannot pass the law or exceed the law. Maybe he would have been able to with a friend by his side. We should ask ourselves, who do we want standing besides us when we stand before the law? 

May we all go through the gates, glean, and exceed the law!

Amen. Selah. Love you. Say it back.

Yael