I am very excited for the opportunity to share words of Torah with you. Each week, in this spot, I look to share an idea I've found that speaks to me and that I think will resonate with you as well. This week, I share with you an excerpt from an article by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Z"L entitled "The Infinite Game" which discusses the connection between the theory of one of my favorite books and a phrase in this week's Parsha.
[…R]eflections are prompted by two verses in today’s parsha: Be sure to keep the commandments, decrees, and laws that the Lord your God has enjoined upon you. Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord… (Deut. 6:17-18) The problem here is that the first verse seems to cover all 613 of the Torah’s mitzvot. They are commandments, decrees or laws. Why then does the Torah add, “Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord”? Surely doing what is right and good is no more and no less than keeping God’s commands, decrees and laws. Are these not two ways of saying the same thing?
However, as the Talmud explains: “And you shall do that which is right and good in the eyes of the Lord” means that one should not perform an action that is not right and good, even if he is legally entitled to do so. [...] Rashi [...] says that doing the right and good in the eyes of the Lord means “compromise, acting beyond the strict demands of the law.” Ramban agrees with this but goes on to make a fascinating and fundamental point: [...] Rashi is saying: keep the law and go beyond it. Ramban is saying that there are some things that cannot be specified by law: “because it is impossible to mention in the Torah all the details of people’s behaviour.” The Torah gives us specific examples: don’t gossip, don’t take revenge and so on. But the rest depends on the situation, the circumstances, and the person or people you are dealing with.
[...] Ramban’s point [...] (made also by the Maggid Mishneh) is that there are significant areas of the moral life that cannot be reduced to rules. That is because rules deal in generalities, and human lives are particular. We are all different. So is every situation in which we find ourselves. Good people know when to speak, when to be silent, when to praise, when to challenge. They hear the unspoken word, sense the concealed pain, focus on the other person rather than on themselves, and are guided by a deeply internalised moral sense that leads them instinctively away from anything less than the right and the good. [...]
I believe that we make a fundamental error when we think that all we need to know and keep are the rules governing interactions bein adam le-chavero, between us and our fellows. The rules are essential but also incomplete. We need to develop a conscience that does not permit us to wrong, harm or hurt someone even if the rules permit us to do so. The moral life is an infinite game which cannot be reduced to rules. We need to learn and internalise a sense of “the right and the good.”
Hoping and praying for a Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Davies
Rabbi@SOICherryHill.org
