.Behar-Bechutotai

 

"Thou Mayest"
Nancy H. Wiener

As Cal approaches his father’s deathbed in the final scene of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, his father, Adam, whispers the word timshel. Then, as Steinbeck writes, “his eyes closed and he slept.”

Timshel, a Hebrew word found in the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:7), is the key to Steinbeck’s magnum opus. Lee, the Chinese house servant, introduces it halfway through the book, but its full import isn’t clear until the end. Lee explains that the verb form, timshel, has been translated into English in many ways and that each translation reflects a different religious understanding of what it means to be human.

Of the various translations for timshel, Lee says, “There are millions in their sects and churches who feel the order ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou Mayest!’ Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win. . . . A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There’s no godliness there. . . .  This is a ladder to climb to the stars. . . .  I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed—Because ‘Thou mayest.’”

By presenting many rules that the Israelites may choose to follow, B'har and B'chukotai end the Book of Leviticus with this most profound message.

Thou mayest . . . Thou mayest do most anything. And the choices you make serve to make you the person you are. The choices you make have an impact on others and on the world.

The two parashiyot B’har and B’chukotai remind, challenge, and hopefully encourage us to recognize our ability to choose. They focus our attention on our human capacity and obligation to make choices—not just any, but choices that are for a blessing.

Each day in our dealings with people, with the created world, with God, we each are told: Thou mayest act in the world in such a way that increases blessing or increases curse.

As Lee says in East of Eden, this message is not an invitation to nihilism or hedonism—far from it. This is perhaps the most ennobling message we will ever hear. Because it speaks to the heart of what Judaism teaches about what it means to be human.

And since we never know what any single day, including today, will bring, we are always standing at a crossroads. At each moment of each day, we make decisions about how we, ourselves, will react to the circumstances we encounter as they are, not as we wish they would be.

It is often at times of personal or national emergency that we most acutely see ways in which choices for blessing can become manifest. Many of us can recall choices we or family members or people in our community made at times of acute illness or floods or hurricanes to reach out and help others.

Thank goodness, every day does not present an emergency. However, every day gives us opportunities to respond as menschen, as human beings, in large and small ways: by promoting freedom for ourselves and others; by taking care of the planet and all it sustains; by waiting patiently as someone fumbles to find the exact change at the grocery store; by saying thank-you for work completed, for work well done, for assistance offered.

Parashat B’har tells us of the responsibilities that we will have when we enter the Land. The responsibilities are both to the inhabitants, rich and poor among us, and to the land. In its discussion of the sabbatical year and the release of debts, the parashah reminds us that we can work ceaselessly, exhausting ourselves and our resources, or we can see that we always have the option of organizing our lives and our world in such a way that rest and renewal, fairness and equity are a regular part of them.

B’har begins with God telling the people, “When you enter the land that I assign to you . . .” (Leviticus 25:2). The use of the present tense underscores the fact that the giving is ongoing, the giving is now. The ability to respond to life and the world as gifts is always an option. B’chukotai begins with a statement that is conditional: “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season . . .” (Leviticus 26:3–4). Ultimately, the choices we make have repercussions, resulting in blessings and curses.

I was recently told that if a pilot takes off from Los Angeles headed for New York and goes off course by less than one degree for a portion of the flight, he will end up hundreds of miles off target. The small shift has a huge impact.

We usually think of the large changes we wish to choose for ourselves and the world, disregarding the smaller ones. However, it is often the less dramatic and less visible changes that we choose—in our attitudes, perspectives, and interpersonal behaviors—that have long-term and broad repercussions. We can choose to make conscious choices each day, choices of meaning and blessing.

In B’har, “on the mountaintop,” we are offered a vision of a world that might come to be. When we look at the responsibilities that are ours, in B’chukotai, we are reminded of the choices we each can make to further that vision in our personal and collectives lives. All this is only possible if we believe we have a right and an obligation to make meaningful choices. All this is only possible if we give ourselves permission to grow and change, to choose our course—to hear and listen to and internalize the words: “Thou Mayest.”  (Return)

Rabbi Nancy H. Wiener, D.Min., is clinical director of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling and adjunct professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. She is also the rabbi of the Pound Ridge Jewish Community, a Reform chavurah, in Pound Ridge, New York.