>> Torah portion
JEWISH
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Shabbat Chol HaMoed Sukkot: Exodus
33:12-34:26; Numbers 29:17-22;
Ezekiel 38:18-39:16.
GENETICS
5
1 in
OCTOBER 1St
2013
7:30 Pm
Jews
is a carrier for
at least one of
19
current
preventable
genetic diseases.
0
f the three pilgrimage holidays
featured in our Torah portion,
Sukkot is listed last, following
the standard biblical order of beginning
with the spring harvest festivals and
ending with the autumnal ingathering.
In fame, however, the Feast
of Booths certainly stands in
second place, after the ever-
popular Passover and before
the oft-overlooked Shavuot.
Celebrating the summit
of Israel's encounter with
God — the giving of the Ten
Commandments — Shavuot
properly belongs atop the
rest. As if to address this
injustice, the Talmud pre-
scribes the reading of the
revelation at Sinai on the
Sabbaths of both Pesach and Sukkot.
The reading assigned by our rabbis
for the Shabbat of Sukkot, however, is
the giving of the second set of tablets,
40 days after the unfortunate fracturing
of the first, following the incident of the
Golden Calf. Though coincidental, the
chronology works well: According to
rabbinic calculation, the second tablets
of the law were given by God on the
10th of Tishrei, immediately prior to
our Feast of Tabernacles.
Beginning with the acclaimed "I am
the Lord — have no other gods" and
ending with the less-observed "Do not
covet anything that is thy neighbor's,"
the Decalogue is considered a corner-
stone of European civilization and its
Judeo-Christian creed.
Next week, when we complete the
annual reading of the Torah, we will
recall Moses' expansive expertise and
learning in law and literature, politics
and poetry. Yet in his five famous books,
nothing stands out like these 10 succinct
sayings.
Among the great minds of Europe
was another legal expert of great lit-
erary, political and poetic acumen.
While not a pious practitioner, German
writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe did
dabble in Bible, and proposed a pecu-
liar theory about our parshah. Goethe
extracted from the verses of our Torah
reading a completely different set of Ten
Commandments, unlike the 10 with
which we are familiar.
According to Goethe, Exodus 34 con-
tains an alternative set of 10 rules and
regulations, ranging from the sacrifice
of firstlings to the laws of festivals. He
taught that this table of 10 teachings was
ceremonial and sacramental, and termed
it the Ritual Decalogue. In contrast, he
called the famous series of 10 statutes
(with its prohibitions against theft, mur-
der and adultery) the Ethical Decalogue.
He believed that the Ritual
Decalogue had been promul-
gated prior to — and was
superseded by — the moral
mores of the Ethical code.
Goethe's dichotomy is
based on the Christian con-
viction that ritual is an earlier
and inferior form of religion.
Judaism, however, consid-
ers the moral and ritual as
two sides of the same coin.
Our faith's concern for the
ethical is evident in the High
Holiday liturgy, which we recited last
week. Of the endless infractions enu-
merated in the Machzor for which we
sought forgiveness, every one falls in
the category of the ethical; not one can
be rendered ritual.
By contrast, the booths and boughs of
the Sukkot festival are replete with ritu-
alistic revelry: the holiday begins with
constructing huts, continues with wav-
ing palm fronds and ends with beating
willows. In Judaism, the ethical does not
succeed and replace the ritual, rather
the opposite: The ethical precedes and
is the prerequisite for the ceremonial.
We are not ready to perform the ritual
practices of the new year until we have
prepared and perfected our moral
personae.
Scholars of the last century disas-
sembled the hypothesis of the Ritual
Decalogue; it has since collapsed. But
the Israelite innovation of ritual obser-
vance built on a foundation of ethics
and covered with a canopy of mitzvot
remains sturdy, three millennia after
our ancestors first encamped in sukkot
on their journey to Mount Sinai. ❑
Rabbi Eric Grossman is head of school at
Frankel Jewish Academy in West Bloomfield.
Conversations
• Do you separate the ethical and
the ritual practices of Judaism in
your own mind and practice?
• Read Exodus 34 on your own and
decide whether you find Goethe's
theory compelling.
OCT. 1s t
Day: Tuesday
Time: 7:30 9:00 pm
Where: Jewish Federation
–
Join us as we take a step
towards a better understanding
of the problem of Jewish
genetic diseases. Randy
Yudenfriend Glaser, Chair, JGDC,
and Shari Ungerleider, Program
coordinator for JCDC, Jean St.
John, MS, Certified Genetics
Counselor, CMC Women's
Institute, will be here for an
informative program that will
help you plan a healthy family.
Whether you are planning
to have your first child, add
to your family or become a
grandparent someday, the
information that you take
home will help you to make
decisions that will protect you
and future generations.
of Metropolitan Detroit
6735 Telegraph Road
Bloomfield Hills, Ml 48301
RSVP: Space is limited.
RSVP by 9/30
to andrisan@jfmd.org
0
I*. Gene. Disease
Consanium
Odetn)lif
JGDC
4
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