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God’s Law isn’t an ideological straight jacket; nor is the Creator a theological dictator enjoying a long running power trip




God’s perfect will for mankind is for it to embrace a life of justice, mercy, and humility; as correctly stated by the prophet, when he went on to say: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? ”- Micah 6: 8 (King James Bible).
But, how exactly do we achieve the former? Well, we do it by imitating the actions of our Creator. You see, the Holy One never ask us to do anything, save He has done it first. And where do we find Him acting in a just, merciful, and humble fashion? We find it in no less than two separated Torah passages:

(1) In the first one, Moses interprets that a deceased man’s land is to be inherited only by his male children-- The basic assumption being that the Holy Land belonged to God, who assigned it to the Israelite clans for their use (Lev. 25: 23).
It was also assumed that only males could inherit it, because the clan was perpetuated through the male line.
(2) In the second passage, God commands Israel how [and when] is the Passover feast to be executed (“And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, Let the children of Israel also keep the passover at his appointed season. In the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep it in his appointed season: according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it”- Numbers 9: 1-3, KJB).

On each of the above, an aggrieved party goes ahead, and raises a valid issue; claiming that the interpretation given to God’s commandments wasn’t just nor merciful enough to include special cases:

(1) A father who had no male children, but only daughters (“Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son? Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our father”- Numbers 27: 4, KJB)
(2) Those who can’t observe Passover not because they didn’t want to, but rather due to circumstances beyond their own control, like the impurity contracted while burying a deceased relative (“And there were certain men, who were defiled by the dead body of a man, that they could not keep the passover on that day: and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day: And those men said unto him, We are defiled by the dead body of a man: wherefore are we kept back, that we may not offer an offering of the Lord in his appointed season among the children of Israel? ”- Numbers 9: 6-7, KJB).

In both cases, the Holy One does the unthinkable: He acknowledges that the claims raised against the person in charge of interpreting Torah [the ancient equivalent to a great modern Rabbi, like “Rashi of Troyes”, or “Moses Ben Maimon” ] were correct and valid.
There’s more! In order to show justice and mercy, God [who by definition can’t make mistakes] showed Himself to be humble enough to “amend” (or “correct”) His word; as if He had actually made a mistake! Why? so as to accommodate the just, fair, and objective demands of the aggrieved parties. How did He go about it?

(1) He allowed females to inherit from their father’s estate (thereby intimating that it is only our narrow interpretation of God’s word what prevents us from realizing we are all equal before Him, as He makes no distinction between male or female, black or white, Jew or gentile).
As is written: “The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father's brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them”- Numbers 27: 7, KJV.
(2) he gave people a chance to celebrate a second Passover, 30 days after the first one (thereby intimating that the Creator is a God of second chances! ).
As is written: “If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover unto the Lord. The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the passover they shall keep it”- Numbers 9: 10-12, KJB.

Yet the former story leave us wondering... Can the Creator ever be mistaken? Or is He rather trying to teach us a deep moral lesson? -- That God’s isn’t a religious tyrant, nor is he an ideological dictator; that even though Torah was written upon stone tablets, Torah’s interpretation isn’t an ideological straight jacked-- the theological equivalent of an inflexible stone [one that cannot be reshaped]?
Could the Creator be trying to tell us that, if He [whose majesty, wisdom and power is absolute] isn’t arrogantly obsessed with being blindly obeyed, blindly believed, or free from questioning, neither should we [frail, weak, and flawed] human beings ever be obsessed with being theologically [and intellectually] correct, arrogantly expecting to be blindly believed and obeyed?

 

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