Shavuot

The art of homiletics – of writing sermons – begins with reading the Bible. For me, the process generally consists of reading the parasha and haftarah, various commentaries, the midrash, and other related texts, until something bothers me. Then I ask myself what it is that caught my attention - what bothered me, and why. Sometimes, it might be a linguistic anomaly, a particularly poetic turn of phrase, an interesting metaphor or parallel, or an ambiguity. Sometimes, what bothers me may be a perceived injustice, an exalted ideal, or a situation that causes me to empathize.

The next step is to try to communicate that sensation of surprise, anger, doubt, empathy or confusion, of insight or understanding. I have to turn it into a message that can be shared with others. In a real sense, homiletics is often about letting other people share my thoughts and feelings.

For example, as I read the Book of Ruth, the use of the word go’el caught my attention. In the Bible, the word seems to refer to a kinsman or close relative. It may have caught my attention because it is the term used in regard to Jeremiah in the haftarah of B’Har, which I discussed three weeks ago. Perhaps that is what made me sensitive to it when I saw it again in last Shabbat’s Torah reading, parashat Naso. It was probably a comment by the midrash on that verse in Naso that made me stop at the word go’el in the Book of Ruth.

In Naso we read: “If the man has no kinsman to whom restitution can be made, the amount repaid shall go to the Lord.” At first glance, that seems quite straightforward. If you are required to make restitution to a person you have wronged, and payment cannot be made to the person wronged or his heirs, then the state inherits. But our Sages were bothered by that. What does the Bible mean by saying, “has no kinsman”?

As I said, we read the word go’el as “kinsman.” That seems to be what it means in context. But looking back to the case of Jeremiah, we must conclude that “kinsman” is only a connotation. It is a significance of the word that we derive by association. Jeremiah is asked to buy the field of his cousin Hanamel because Jeremiah is the go’el. If the word simply meant kinsman, then it would apply equally to Jeremiah and to Hanamel. But Hanamel is not a go’el. The primary meaning of the word is “redeemer.” Jeremiah acts as Hanamel’s redeemer – go’el -because he is his kinsman. That is the way the term is employed in parashat B’Har – which refers to a kinsman as ahikha, your “brother” - and that is how the term go’el is used in referring to Boaz in the Book of Ruth. Boaz says to Ruth: “But while it is true I am a redeemer (go’el), there is another redeemer (go’el) closer than I. Stay for the night. Then in the morning, if he will act as a redeemer, good! Let him redeem. But if he does not want to act as redeemer for you, I will do so myself.”

And so let’s return to the midrash on that verse in Naso: “If the man has no go’el to whom restitution can be made.” The midrash asks: “Is there anyone in Israel who has no go’el? The idea is morally unacceptable. How can a person be so isolated, and how can a society be so alienated that a person might be entirely alone? The Sages decided to use this to teach a moral lesson about “otherness” and about acceptance. The answer the Sages give is that the only Jew who could possibly lack a go’el would have to be a childless convert to Judaism. For such a person, God Himself is the go’el.

I could not help but come to a sudden stop at Boaz’s words to Ruth. The Sages lead us to believe that the only situation that they could imagine in which a person might have no redeemer is that of a childless convert. The Sages could not have been unaware of the fact that the only example of a childless convert in the Bible is Ruth, and Ruth has not one but two redeemers.

For our Sages, the idea that a person might be entirely alone in society is a moral impossibility. That is their challenge to us.

Another interesting thing I noticed in regard to the use of term go’el in Naso is the context. The usage in Naso would seem very exceptional. In B’Har, the go’el is a person who purchases back a kinsman’s property or redeems him from slavery. Jeremiah acts as go’el in purchasing his cousin’s field. Boaz plays a similar role as go’el, when he offers to purchase the field that belonged to Naomi’s husband. It is the field that is the immediate object of the transaction between Boaz and the other, unnamed, redeemer, not Ruth.

But in Naso, the redeemer does not act on behalf of his kinsman. He doesn’t purchase his field, or free him from slavery or – as in the case of a go’el hadam (redeemer of blood) – take vengeance upon a killer. The go’el in Naso is called upon to accept restitution on behalf of a deceased kinsman. The go’el would appear to be merely an heir. If so, why refer to him as a go’el, a redeemer? Not surprisingly, then, our inclination is to translate the term merely as “kinsman.”

But the role of the go’el in Naso comes within the context of a special kind of wrongdoing. The context is: “When a man or a woman commits any wrong toward a fellow man, thus breaking faith with the Lord…”

What do we mean by a wrong toward a fellow man that constitutes breaking faith with the Lord? What might the Torah be trying to teach by tying together the idea of a wrong against a person that is viewed as a wrong against God, and the idea of there being no redeemer, no one to redress the wrong or restore one’s honour?

I imagine it was my legal training that made me think of a concept of perfect and imperfect laws – lex perfecta and lex imperfecta. Perfect laws are those that prohibit some form of conduct and provide some punishment or form of redress. If you steal, you go to jail. If you park in a no-parking zone, you pay a fine. Imperfect laws state a prohibition but do not prescribe a remedy. Perhaps that is what the Torah is talking about when it refers to wrongs against people that are sins, and for which no payment can be made for lack of a redeemer.

Maybe the Torah is not talking about people who die and have no one to collect their debts, but about wrongs that society does not redress - the wrongs you can’t take to court. Could those be the wrongs for which there is no redeemer?

There are wrongs against people that are not viewed as crimes or civil wrongs by human law. Perhaps the Torah is saying that even when society provides no redeemer – no redress – God still acts as redeemer. There is, nevertheless, a higher justice.

What might those wrongs be? Well, how about cutting in front of someone in a line at the ATM? What do you do if someone cuts in front of you? You may feel wronged or cheated. You may feel insulted. But what can you do? There’s no law against it. You can’t call the police. You are wronged and you have no redeemer. Perhaps the Torah is saying that it is, nevertheless, a sin, and God is your redeemer.

Or how about when a friend tells you how wonderful you are, but you discover that he tells other people that he thinks you’re terrible? Well, maybe what he tells your friends is slander, but the insincere flattery he gives you is what? It makes you feel terrible, deceived, stupid and angry, but what can you do about it?

Or perhaps someone says he supports you one hundred percent, but behind your back tries to get you fired? Or maybe someone talks you into applying for a position he knows you can’t get just to humiliate you? Or maybe someone dismisses you out of hand, and doesn’t let you state your opinion at a meeting. Well, you may feel just as bad as if you’d been publicly embarrassed, but there’s not much you can do about it. The law provides no redeemer.

Perhaps what the Torah is teaching us is that those nasty things that we think we can get away with may not be criminal but they are wrong. They are sins in the eyes of the Torah, and when we commit them we stray from Judaism. They are immoral in the eyes of God, and even if we may think that we can get away with them, we can’t because getting away with them makes us less holy. We become defiled and can no longer rightly claim a place among the tribes of Israel encamped around the Sanctuary.

Of course, as I pointed out at the outset, when I write a sermon, I think about what bothers me in the Torah, and so it isn’t about you, it’s about me. But if something I say about myself makes you feel a little guilty, then maybe it is about you, after all.

Avinoam Sharon


© 2005 Avinoam Sharon