Two years ago I was running late to a funeral. I was driving 68 miles an hour on Roswell Road. That’s when I saw the flashing lights. A cop pulled me over to give me a ticket.
I was understandably anxious. And so when the cop walked up to my window, I said: “Officer I’m a rabbi and I’m late for a funeral. I have no excuse for speeding. Just write me the ticket.”
The officer, who was probably all of 25 years old, looked at me up and down. I was wearing the uniform: a suit and tie with a kippah. I would say that being a rabbi late to a funeral was probably a new one for him, although with Rabbi Lewis’ driving record, I can’t be entirely sure. He could tell I was sitting on shpilkes. He smiled and said “Rabbi it’s OK. I’m going to quickly run your license, and if it comes back clean, you’ll be on your way.”
There is no question that I deserved that speeding ticket. I was traveling probably 15-20 miles an hour over the speed limit. So why didn’t I get it?
Yes, I looked at the part. But the reason I’d like to think I didn’t get the ticket is that the officer clearly understood that when it comes to the application of law, that context matters. And I’d like to think that when that officer saw my emotional state at being late to a funeral and understood that was not emotion that I could have faked even if I had tried.
In the movie Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon, playing Elle Woods, gets up at her Harvard law school graduation (I’m not going to do the voice) and says: “The Greek philosopher Aristotle famously said that ‘the law is reason free from passion.’ Well, no offense to Aristotle, but in my three years at Harvard I have come to find that passion is a key ingredient to the study and practice of law — and of life.”
Friends, Elle Woods is right. Jewish law, Judaism, is all about passion. Not only because when it comes to religion, it’s good to be passionate, but because we see in the Torah just how our emotions play a role in our understanding of how we are supposed to apply, live, and interpret the law.
Dr. Sarah Wolfe of the Jewish Theological Seminary is currently writing a paper on the intersection of law and emotion in the Torah. Her classic example she writes has to do with the Jewish holidays. As Jews, the Torah tells us not only that we are supposed to observe our holy days, but also vehayita ach sameach. That we are commanded to be happy. Can you imagine? America tells us we have the right to pursue happiness, but not that we must be happy to follow law. It’s literally a case where the Torah legislates emotion.
Here’s another example. There’s a ritual known as ripping or tearing of a garment to begin a period of mourning following the loss of a loved one. It’s called kriyah. What do our rabbis teach? They say in Moed Katan of the Babylonian Talmud say: “that if the tearing that does not take place in a moment of heated emotion you have not followed the law.” In other words, if you rip that ribbon or tear that article of clothing and you don’t feel your heart tearing at the same time, sadness, you too have not followed the law.
In this week’s Torah portion Mishpatim we read:
וְגֵ֖ר לֹ֣א תִלְחָ֑ץ וְאַתֶּ֗ם יְדַעְתֶּם֙ אֶת־נֶ֣פֶשׁ הַגֵּ֔ר כִּֽי־גֵרִ֥ים הֱיִיתֶ֖ם בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.
Friends, if Aristotle was right and Elle Woods was wrong, and the law was truly dispassionate, it would’ve been enough to tell us not to oppress the stranger. But what makes the Torah different, not Greco-Roman or an American law, is that the Torah goes on to make an emotional appeal.
Thirty six times the Torah tells us: Don’t oppress the stranger because you are supposed to have a sense of empathy about what it means to a stranger. Literally the word the Torah uses is: nefesh, your soul. Use your soul. Feel the suffering of the stranger and find compassion.
On my first day of rabbinical school, the very first thing I was taught was an old Jewish folktale about a poor woman who came to the rabbi with a chicken before Shabbat. Her family was living in rags. She had rejoiced about the possibility of eating this chicken all week. But when she was preparing the chicken, she found a defect inside that could have made it not kosher. She took her to the rabbi. He was distracted. And although it could’ve gone either way, the rabbi, out of abundance of caution, ruled the chicken to be unkosher. What happened? The woman and her family starved that night. The message to us as future rabbis was clear: our role was for ourselves and to teach others never to apply law devoid of emotion and context. Yes, the law should be applied equally, but never dispassionately.
Something strange is happening in our country and dare I say our world at this present moment. I want to be clear that it did not happen yesterday or even a month or even a year ago. But what I want to share with you this Shabbat is that what has happened culminated in this story, along with many others like it that I am hearing all across the country this week:
This week, over tears, a friend called to tell me the story of her daughter, a young woman in her twenties. Graduated college in the middle of a pandemic. That was hard enough. Impossible to find work.
Finally, after months of background checks, she got a job with a federal agency. She had her orientation. She was supposed to start this monday. Then, on the way home, while taking the train, she was sent a cold email saying her job offer had been rescinded. No explanation.
As a rabbi, I’m not interested in talking about politics. That’s not my job. But what our parasha reminds me this week is that it is my job to remind everyone here that as Jews and human beings that we must treat people in context and with sensitivity. People are not the same thing as AI or a computer. They deserve to be treated with kindness and respect.
As Jews, we are part of a religion where emotions and passion are an important way that we understand religious practice. We’re told: Be happy on holidays. Sad in your losses. Have compassion and empathy for the downtrodden. Friends, I didn’t make this up. These are quotes right out of our tradition.
That kid for whom that job was everything. That woman for whom that chicken on friday night would’ve fed her family. Are there things about our society that need be fixed? Of course. But please…can we do it in a way in which we don’t ignore the humanity of that other person because we’re too busy looking at the chicken?
It can’t just be that we only find empathy when a rabbi gets a speeding ticket. Elle Woods had it right: Passion and emotion are key ingredients to understanding the practice of law and life. Because life is ultimately about people, and people have feelings. As we say here in the south, everyone deserves a bout of grace.
Today, in our high-tech, mile a minute world we need to forget about AI…as human beings need to work on remembering what it means to be a human being.
We can and we must do better.
