Parshat Behar - The Value and Pursuit of Unity

Parshat Behar 5771/2011

The Value of Unity

©Rabbi Neil A. Tow

In 1896, the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson upheld “separate but equal”.

In 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren wisely ruled that “separate is…inherently unequal.”

We live in a world that struggles in areas of civil rights, religious identity, political viewpoints to foster unity while also setting boundaries, however gray those boundaries may sometimes be.

Judaism is a faith system that seeks to balance a world of unity with the distinctions/boundaries/separations that shape the world in which we live.  All days are holy, but Shabbat is a more holy and special day than the others.  All holidays are opportunities to be closer to God and our people but Yom Kippur is a more holy day than the others.

The rough and bitter separations that occur between one person and another, between people and the earth, between people and God are not the ones that shape and give definition to ourselves and to the world, institutions, and ideas. 

These types of coarse and painful separations cause conflict, suffering, disillusionment, depression and oppression. 

Twice in this week’s parasha the Torah teaches us not to wrong our fellow Jews, and earlier in Leviticus the Torah teaches us not to wrong a stranger.

Why these commandments in Leviticus?  Why not in Genesis, as part of the fabric of creation?  Why not in Exodus where God offers the fundamental legislation that is meant to organize our world?

These three teachings appear in Leviticus since Leviticus is a book about distinctions separations, pure and impure, holy and not holy, permitted and not permitted.  It is a book that is about distilling, sifting the ritual and behavior of human beings and showing us how to worship and how to live.

These laws appear in Leviticus in order to remind us that the distinctions are only meant to increase holiness, to give positive and constructive definition to God’s creation.  Otherwise, we risk sinking into the sticky mud of conflict.

With the internet, with electronic communications in general, there are many more ways than ever before that human beings can wrong one another.  We can easily wrong one another in business by posting negative reviews of an establishment.  We can wrong a stranger because the internet has the ability to provide a cloak of anonymity.  We can wrong a friend with hateful messages, computer viruses, hurtful online posts.

The closer together that the digital world has brought us, the more potential there is both for positive networking and for abuse of the system itself.

God’s teachings in the Torah recognize that there will be conflict among people.  There is no illusion that we will have disagreements and that we even must give criticism to others when it’s necessary.  But instead of sharing our feelings indirectly via the internet or through other means, we should look in the eyes of those with whom we’re in conflict, affirm their humanity, affirm the value of their existence – even we cannot do that, then we’re like animals knocking heads over territory.  And all we can expect from that is a chronic headache.

I believe one day the pendulum of human thought will swing back and we’ll discover that our digital selves and that the digital world, are insufficient to make us spiritually, physically, and emotionally whole -- we’ll realize the value of community and engagement with the other that comes right from the teachings of parshat Behar.  Don’t wrong one another, don’t wrong a stranger, because in the end we are all one, in the end each of us is at some level a stranger from the other and from ourselves, in the end, the distinctions, separations, even disagreements among us, we pray, could actually be cosmic links that make us stronger, more whole, and more aware of our shared humanity. 

Shabbat Shalom.