When we’re young, as children, we learn the difference
between right and wrong and that in many ways, in life, we have choices to
make. We choose to do the right thing or
we choose to do the wrong thing. The
reason that we avoid doing the wrong thing can be because we know it’s wrong
and therefore we don’t do it. It can
also be because of a fear of punishment and when it’s just because of the fear
of punishment sometimes people end up doing the wrong thing because they feel
they can get away with it. If it's all about the punishment and you know you won’t get caught is there really any problem? I hope that we live our lives according to a different
standard where we avoid doing the wrong thing and do the right thing because
that’s the way it should be.
In this week’s Torah portion of Acharei Mot-Kedoshim we get
a very interesting series of laws known as the Holiness Code. And in the midst of them, we get a number of specific laws. We’re told that
the wages of the person who is hired with you shall not remain with you all the
nights until the morning so that we must pay our hired help immediately and in
a timely fashion. We are also told not
to curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind. But we shall fear our God, I am
Adonai.
These 3 commandments together, appearing one after the other, are things that we could get away with.
The hired help has very little control and very little power and so if
we do not pay them immediately, what are they going to do about it? The deaf person who is cursed does not hear
the curse and the blind person, before whom a stumbling block is placed,
does not see it. So in all 3 cases, we
have the power, and as such, we can get away with doing the wrong thing.
But the Holiness code comes as a reminder and tells us
no. We must do the right thing. And, it offers some warning by saying, and
you shall fear God. As if to remind us
that God sees what we do, God knows what we do and even if we might get away
with it here on earth, God is watching.
And then it reminds us, I am Adonai.
And the importance of this declaration at the end should not be
underestimated.
The Holiness code begins
with God telling us, you shall be holy, for I, Adonai your God am holy, and
here it says I am Adonai, just to remind us that we need to be holy. And one of the ways that we can be holy is by
always doing the right thing, even if we can get away with something, if we
know it’s wrong, we should not do it. Because in doing the right thing we can make
ourselves holy just like God.
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