Follow the instructions

Italians are known for their carefree and willful spirit.  When the pandemic hit Italy early and hard, commentators wondered if the Italian people could abide a lockdown. They did. The “plague” abated.

Americans aren’t so different in temperament from Italians. Yet here in the United States, we could not even agree upon a lockdown. It is hard enough to follow instructions, but the situation is much gloomier when there are no instructions. And yet, Jews have known the instructions all along.

As Moses readied the Hebrew people for entry into the Promised Land, he admonished them “give heed to the laws and rules that I am instructing you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. You shall not add anything to what I command you or take away anything from it . . .”  The detailed instructions of the Torah were not so simple.  But the principles to follow were clear – value life, don’t act wickedly, love.

The covenant made at Sinai was made with every one of us living today. Honor God, you are NOT God, don’t idolize, don’t curse God’s name, rest each week, honor your parents, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie and don’t covet.

And when your children and their children ask what happened that caused us to spend 2020 cowering and suffering from a pandemic, you might answer, we forgot how to follow the instructions. We should not have needed a President to tell us how to behave. We already knew how to behave:  value life, don’t act wickedly, love.

We didn’t listen, and we didn’t abide by what is holy. We were willful. We idolized our individualism. We worked so hard, we never really rested. We didn’t honor our ancestors. We let less advantaged people die, we adulterated the planet, we increased wealth disproportionately, we lied to ourselves, and we lusted for more.

Is the Jewish religion relevant to our times? It certainly is if people will follow the instructions.

Rabbi Evan J. Krame