Every Word Counts

Rabbi Joel Fleekop

Saturday, January 27, 2007

We live in a world where the written word is cheap and disposable. Gone are the days when people would save hand written letters. Today news from family and loved ones comes in the form of email. There is no envelope to excitedly open and no keepsake box to place it in. Sure, an important or particularly moving email may linger in the inbox for a few weeks, maybe even a few months. But when the time comes to clean out the inbox or switch email providers, it is likely to vanish forever into the memory of our hard drives.

At least in the case of emails their may be a cringe of guilt or sadness as we press the delete key. That is certainly not the case with the abundance of material written for public consumption. From the pile of direct mailings that go directly from the mailbox to the recycling bin, to the estimated 90 million blogs on the internet, which according to a google poll, have an average readership of 1 -- we live in a world where words are written with the expectation that they will be ignored or at least treated with little value.

Even traditional print media seem to have given up on the idea that the written word can be a powerful tool. After all if editors believed words really mattered, would they run Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton updates on page 2?

There is more written material accessible to us than at any time in human history. But, as the volume of material has increased, the value society gives the written word has dramatically decreased. Words are no longer special. They are no longer assumed to be fraught with meaning.

Of course this was not always the case. The great rabbis, whose names fill volumes of Midrash, Mishnah, and Talmud, cherished the written word, particularly the words of the Jewish tradition. As part of their exegetical method they established for us the notion that every word that appears in the Torah does so for a reason. Ain Yeter BaTorah. There is nothing extra in the Torah.

It is with this understanding that the rabbis approached the phrase tzedek, tzedek tirdof. Reading these words in Deuteronomy 19:20, often translated as “justice, justice, you shall pursue” the rabbis did not assume that the repetition of the word tzedek was a mistake. Instead they saw in the linguistic repetition a profound message. Amongst the explanations found in the rabbinic commentaries for repeating the word tzedek is the idea that justice must be pursued in more than one way and that the responsibility to pursue justice rests on more than one person.

In this morning’s Torah portion, Parshat Bo, no word is repeated right after itself. But the wording of one sentence in particular strikes many as puzzling. As part of the instructions given for observing the first Passover, in Exodus 12:21 we read “Mish-chu u’kchu lachem tzoan l’mishpchoteichem, Draw out and take for yourselves a lamb according to your family.”

While some modern translations, like the New English Bible try to smooth over the awkwardness of having two verbs, one after the other with renderings like “Go at once and get sheep for your family,” the rabbis of our tradition, ever the careful readers, ponder the meaning behind each individual verb.

The Spanish commentator Ramban explains the presence of two verbs by stating that one was to occur before the other. First the Israelites had to travel to where their livestock were kept and draw them near. Then they could take a specific lamb for their family.

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, better known as Rashi, teaches that the two verbs apply to different people. The verb “Mishku or draw out” applies to those who already own a lamb. “Ukchu or take” applies to those who need to go to the market and take, via purchase, a lamb for sacrifice.

While both Ramban and Rashi’s commentaries focus on the physical steps needed, Rabbi Yose the Galilean offers a more spiritual interpretation. Explaining the two verbs he writes “draw out—your hands from idolatry. And take to—a life of mitzvot.”

Rabbi Yose’s interpretation, and the midrash from Exodus Rabbah on which it is based, call upon the Israelites to leave behind the idolatry they adopted in Egypt because only when they were free of this cultural and religious enslavement could they move forward into a better life.

Though the teaching of Rabbi Yose is ancient, the wisdom it contains remains relevant today. If we are to move forward and take hold of a better life, whether that is a life filled with more mitzvot, a life where we have better relations with our loved ones, or a life in which we reach the goals that we have set for ourselves, we too will have to perform two acts. The process begins with us drawing ourselves away from whatever has kept us on the path we hope to leave behind. And it continues with us taking hold of the path we now choose to follow.

Rabbi Yose the Galilean and other rabbinic commentators lived in a world very different from our own. But week after week, we and Jews around the world find insight and guidance for our lives in their ancient teachings. This is one of the many blessings of Judaism, a blessing that the rabbis created for us by treating their own words and the words of the Hebrew Bible as something of value.

May we continue to learn from the words of the rabbis, and may we treat the words that we write, whether in an email, a letter, or any other forum, as something of value because one day our words, like those of the ancient rabbis, will be a blessing for those who follow us here on earth.

Shabbat Shalom