Pensamento Judaico sobre Deuteronômio 13:7

We read in Leviticus 19,18, "Love your fellow man like yourself." This teaches that all love is measured against the yardstick of self love. Time is measured in terms of the revolution of the earth around its own axis. A complete revolution equals a day. All other measurements of time are fractions of a day. Similarly, love for one's fellow man is measured by how nearly it equals the love one feels for oneself. Perfect love, i.e. love which does not require an object or a person to requite it, is the love which existed between Jonathan and David. We have numerous examples proving that their love exceeded the love of self, and that they were prepared to lose their lives rather than to have the quality of their relationship questioned (Samuel I Chapter 18). Their kind of love, as explained in Chapter 21, cannot exist between more than two people at a time. Just as it is more difficult to deny assistance to members of one's family, and just as it is more difficult to hit one's father than to hit a stranger due to the bonds of love that exist between father and son, so injustice at the hands of members of one's family is harder to accept gracefully than injustice suffered at the hands of a complete stranger. The Torah, in dealing with the enticer (Deut. 13,7-13), adds the admonition not to have pity on him nor to help him cover up his sin, since it was in the nature of his crime that it be committed by a close family member. The Torah describes such family member as being "like your own soul." It is difficult to betray such love by informing against the beloved to the authorities. When David executed the murderers of Ish Boshet with what appears to be excessive cruelty, he did so because the hideous nature of their crime was heightened by the fact that the murderers were members of the same tribe as their victim, and they thus violated the natural bonds that should have existed between them (Samuel II Chapter 4). When the prophet Nathan told David a parable to show him that his conduct with Bat Sheva had been improper, David reacted violently, emphasizing that the characters in Nathan's story denied natural bonds of love, thus making their crime much worse. The fact that the rich man had exploited his position to take advantage of the poor man, drew David's greatest ire (Samuel II Chapter 12).

Whenever the matter of animal sacrifices is discussed, there are some difficult questions that cannot be ignored. 1) Is it not unavoidable that sacrifices will be viewed as attempts to bribe G'd to forego the anger caused Him by the sinner who offers the sacrifice? 2) Does it not seem that the donor tries to placate G'd just as he would attempt to placate a mere mortal ruler, thereby insulting G'd, reducing His stature? 3) If, on the other hand, the offering is in the nature of a pennance, payment for trespass from which G'd receives no more benefit than from say the imposition of corporal punishment on the sinner, what good is it? 4) Is the purpose of the sacrifices perhaps merely to provide the priests with a livelihood, or simply the destruction of the animals that are being offered up? It is clearly erroneous to view the offerings as an attempt to restore the perfection or wholeness of G'd by means of a sacrifice that would complement something incomplete in Him. In Psalms 50, 11-13, "I will not accept bullocks from you, since all the animal kingdom is Mine; if I were hungry, would I have to call you? After all, the whole universe belongs to Me." Isaiah 43,24, states this even more succinctly. "You have not bought for Me fragrant reeds with money..nor have you tired yourself out on My behalf. You have not brought Me the lambs of your total offerings, not honoured Me with your meat offerings;..you have not bought Me with your money! I, I forgive you for MY sake!" Clearly, what the prophet stresses is that none of the things Israel did to placate G'd or bribe Him, has had the slightest impact on the well being of G'd Himself. G'd forgives for His own sake. He emphasizes that there is no other consideration, repeats His name when He proclaims that He dispenses forgiveness, in order to stress that there is no personal benefit involved. There is no aspect of G'd that can be enhanced by the gift of man. If there were a price tag on forgiveness, it would have to be set in motion through mutual action. Since however, there is no exchange of values for the forgiveness, it occurs only through "My righteousness." "I will not remember your sins," so as not to shame you. However, "remind Me of them," you tell of them, so that you can become righteous. (Isaiah 43,26) It is evident that the prophet endeavours to squash the foolish notion of "our contribution" in the matter of sacrifices. It is noteworthy that the term avodah, service, is not used in the Torah concerning offerings that are brought on the altar in order to obtain forgiveness. When Moses did use that term when talking to Pharaoh, (Exodus 10,26) "we do not know what we will serve the Lord," he simply used terminology familiar to Pharaoh. It is the manner of pagans to employ the term avodah for their religious observances. (Deut. 13,7) "Let us go and serve other deities." We find a similar warning (Deut 12,30) "lest you inquire into their deities, saying," how do these nations serve their deities?" The Torah in that instance, continues "do not do thus, for the Lord your G'd etc.," meaning that worship of the G'd of Israel is not of that order. Positive proof that worship of our G'd is of a totally different calibre, is the fact that "they burn their own children in fire to their deities," something the G'd of Israel has described as an abomination. True worship of G'd consists of obeying His commandments, neither adding nor subtracting therefrom. (Deut. 13, 1.) When referring to that kind of worship, the Torah does not shrink from employing the term avodah as in Deut. 10, 12, or Exodus 23,25, and other places. In all matters of piety of the heart, performance of good deeds, the benefit that accrues to the practitioner is stressed. (Deut. 10, 13) "for your own good." "Serving" is for our benefit, not G'ds. It is significant that the rasha, wicked person quoted in Parshat Bo, describes the Passover ceremonial as an avodah, service, stressing "what is in it for you?" It is precisely this attitude to sacrificial service that needs to be debunked. Similarly, the second possible rationale suggested for the requirement of sacrifice, namely atonement, cannot be true. It is obvious that the object used for atonement would have to be in some value relationship to the subject against whom the sin had been committed. Since it is imposible to relate to the Creator in this fashion, the idea of sacrifice sufficing as an act of compensation is quite erroneous. This is what the High Priest Eli (Samuel 1,2,23-24) tells his sons when he remonstrates with them. He had heard that they had acted improperly. "When man sins against man, the judge can mediate and determine fair compensation; but when man sins against G'd, who can determine the amount of compensation due to G'd?" How will one know that one had atoned adequately? Similarly, Michah 6,7, calls out: "Does the Lord want thousands of rams, tens of thousands rivers of oil?" The meaning is "could even the greatest amount of sacrificial animals compensate for the iniquity committed?" Obviously then, the idea of compensation is not the rationale for sacrificial rites. Regarding the third possibility mentioned, that the priests should be provided with a livelihood, the many offerings which are completely burned up, demonstrate that this could not have been the thought behind this legislation. Moreover, the idea that priests should be happy to consume the proceeds of man's sins, that their livelihood would improve in direct ratio to the number of sins committed by their brethren, could hardly be pleasing in the eyes of G'd. The fourth possibility mentioned, the wanton destruction of part of the animal kingdom is also difficult to accept as a possible motivation behind this legislation.

From all this it seems clear, that if the red heifer contaminates all that it comes in contact with, surely the heifer itself must be the source of the contamination! The whole matter seems to defy our normal way of reasoning. Therefore, the use of the words "this is the statute of the Torah", at the beginning of this paragraph is to remind us that logic cannot be employed if we want to comprehend the meaning of this commandment. This is why our sages quote the wisest of men, Solomon, as admitting that comprehension of this mitzvah, or rather its mechanics, its halachic rulings, escapes him. People who try to philosophise about Torah, fall into two categories. Group one believes that everything written in the Torah needs to be understood at face value, literally. For instance, if the Torah refers to G'd "smelling the sweet fragrance of a sacrifice," they perceive G'd literally employing His sense of smell. Or, if the Torah reports G'd as descending on Mount Sinai, they understand this to have been a physical descent. The second group is aware that statements in the Torah are subject to interpretation. Some members of this group will interpret on the basis that the Torah employs human idiom in order to facilitate our understanding of certain concepts. This group will not interpret in a manner that conflicts with known Torah principles. A sub group of category number two, arrogates to itself the right to make its interpretations primary and Torah principles only secondary. This is done by most Christian and a few Jewish philosophers. Making one's own intellect supreme in the matter of exegesis is heretical, of course. Solomon refers to all three groups in Proverbs 14, 14-16. (1) The fool will believe anything. (2) The crafty one will understand in line with his principles. (3) The haughty fool will come to grief through exaggerated self confidence. The manner in which the Torah portrays the laws of the red heifer is a clear hint not to try and unravel that which is conceptually beyond the human intellect. The contradictions have been built into this legislation to warn us off trying to comprehend it.