As we prepare to celebrate July 4, this week we will reflect on the themes of liberty and freedom across our tradition.
There is a remarkable text hidden in an unexpected section of the Talmud (Makkot 23b-24a) that attempts to essentialize Judaism. Answering an unasked question – what is the central teaching of Judaism – the rabbis of the Talmud imagine a parade of sages, beginning with Moses, taking the commandments of the Torah and reducing them further and further until Habbakuk, they claim, offers a singular teaching. In other words, they seem to be trying to take Jewish law from the many to the few, boiling it down to its most essential. This text begins, as many of us have learned, with 613 commandments:
There were 613 mitzvot stated to Moses in the Torah, consisting of 365 prohibitions corresponding to the number of days in the solar year, and 248 positive mitzvot corresponding to the number of a person’s limbs.
From here, King David goes from 613 commandments to 11; Isaiah goes down to 6. Then, Micah comes along and goes from 6 to 3, invoking the famous quote from Micah 6:8: It has been told to you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord does require of you; only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” From the 3, Isaiah comes back and reduces further to 2, teaching: Observe justice and perform righteousness. (Isaiah 56:1). The rabbis then cite Amos, who might offer a singular command (Amos 5:4): So says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek Me and live. And if that teaching is, as the rabbis suggest, a reference to seeking God in all 613 commandments, they give Habbakuk the last word. He, they say, offers just 1 commandment; in Habbakuk 2:4, he states: But the righteous person shall live by their faith.
I often find myself harkening back to this text. On the one hand, I love it; there is something appealing about distilling the complicated web of commandments into a more simple directive. It feels infinitely more attainable. On the other hand, I worry about the removal of particularism from our texts and teachings; I want to get lost in the very specific things that I am asked to do as a Jew, beyond those that are, I think, asked of all humanity.
This tension in which I live feels mirrored, perhaps especially this year, when I reflect upon what feels like an opposite process in American tradition. We begin with the fundamental expectation that “…all men* are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The American experiment begins with universalism. It is the Constitution, its amendments, and 300+ years of history that have introduced American particularism – the ways in which we do, and do not, understand, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I do not expect 2024 to bring a definitive answer; I mean, the Talmud was codified around 700 CE, and we are still debating and discussing its secrets and meanings. But, I hope that all of us can hold not only to Habbakuk, but to Micah – and seek to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. Happy 4th!
– Rabbi Sari Laufer