Shmoozing with Rabbi Moshe Zeldman

Parshat Bechukotai-- Closeness to God? No Thanks!

• Moshe Zeldman

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0:00 | 2:42
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You don't really want to be close to God, do you? I don't. So Moshe gets the whole Jewish people together, and God lays it all out, very black and white. If you listen to me, it's gonna be great. Blessing, health, prosperity, peace, can you imagine? All the good stuff. And if you don't listen, not so good. I will wreak misery upon you, your enemies will dominate you, I will lay your cities to ruins, diseases, plagues, death. In short, decisions have consequences. You might think they don't. You might think you can ignore your health, your finances, your obligations, your potential, and you can for a while, but reality always catches up. As Ain Rand said very poignantly, you can avoid reality, but you can't avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. In Hebrew, this fear of consequences is called yira. It's conceptually related to the word roe, to see, yeah shamaim. Wouldn't it be great to live with total clarity? Wouldn't we love to turn off that part of our brains that allows us to keep not seeing the future? I'll start the diet tomorrow. It's only a few cigarettes a day. I'll get my act together, just not quite yet. We do stupid things, not because we're masochists, but because we just convince ourselves that reality won't catch up with us. So we strive for clarity. We read books, watch self-motivational TED Talks, we look for people to inspire us. We dove in for it, Haer E Nenu Bit Torah Techa, open our eyes to your Torah, Dabek the Bain Bemitsvosecha, attach our hearts to your commandments. There's only one problem. We don't really want it. You think you want God deeply involved in your life? How would you feel if even your best friend followed you around all day recording your every move, your every thought, who watches you Daven Mincha, and then looks at you and says, two out of ten, we can't handle that kind of scrutiny. There are no atheists in a foxhole. True. So where are the atheists? When life feels safe, comfortable, manageable, that's where the atheist quietly moves in. He's right here. And we want him here. We all love to maintain an atheist inside us who keeps Hashem a little bit on the sidelines. So we have some breathing room. And it makes sense. Fear of God, fear of consequences is only good if it motivates us, not if it paralyzes us. So pick one area of life, your health, your marriage, that bad habit, your finances, and ask yourself what am I pretending not to know? Don't fix it. Don't commit to anything. Just name it. Say it out loud. Write it down. That's it. Bring your atheist out of the shadows. Say hi to him and see who he really is.