Execute True Justice; Deal Loyally and Compassionately With One Another

By LEAH DOBERNE-SCHOR

Parashat Va'et'hanan (Deuteronomy 3:23 - 7:11)

The following story is found in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a):

One day, Rabbi Yehoshua b. Levi was out walking when he encountered Elijah the prophet. The rabbi was thrilled to meet Elijah, and he asked the prophet where he might find the Messiah. Elijah replied, "You will find him sitting amongst the suffering lepers at the gate of Rome."

Rabbi Yehoshua b. Levi set out on the long journey to Rome. When he arrived at the city gates, there was the Messiah, just as Elijah had predicted. The Rabbi ran up and asked him, "When will redemption come?" The Messiah replied, "Today—," The rabbi, excited by the good news, hastily thanked him and hurried home in anticipation...

When the rabbi once again met Elijah, the prophet asked him, "So, how did your visit to the Messiah go? What did he say?" Disappointed, the Rabbi replied, "The Messiah told me that he would come today—but he still has not arrived."

Elijah then told him, "Ah, but you did not hear the divine message correctly, for the Messiah told you that he would come 'today—if you but heed His voice.' (Ps. 95:7)"

This story is puzzling, in both its symbolism and its message. Why is the Messiah, who is supposed to herald our redemption, sitting in Rome, a city symbolic of our people's exile? Moreover, why is the Messiah, a king, found sitting among the suffering, impoverished lepers? And, even with Elijah's explanation, why is his message so unclear: if redemption will come speedily (if not immediately) once we hear the Divine voice, what is the voice telling us to do?

Let us begin by grappling with the categories of exile and redemption, categories which also appear in this week's parashah, V'etchanan. In the parashah, the Israelites receive a warning about future exile:

I call heaven and earth this day to witness against you that you shall soon perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess; you shall not long endure in it, but shall be utterly wiped out. The Eternal will scatter you among the peoples, and only a scant few of you shall be left... (Deut. 4:26-7)

In these verses, Moses foretells both a physical and spiritual exile. In the physical exile, the Israelites will be distant from the Land itself. In the spiritual exile, they will be distant from God; losing their connection with the Holy One, they will be forced to turn to "gods of wood and stone" (Deut. 4:28).

We, like our ancient ancestors, continue to grapple with exile and redemption, and not in a purely physical sense—we too experience spiritual exile. Perhaps we are seeking a sense of completeness, of wholeness. Perhaps we yearn to be at one with creation or to be closer with the Holy One. Our experience of spiritual exile manifests in our longing to bridge this distance.

According to our parashah, our ancestors suffered exile because they failed to heed God's commandments. The Talmudic story builds upon this idea: Rabbi Yehoshua continued in exile because he did not heed the Voice of the Holy One. What was the message addressed to him? What is the voice that we are not heeding, that keeps us in exile, causing us to experience such distance from our Creator?

Perhaps the voice we are to heed is expressed by the prophets. For instance, Zechariah (7:9-10) says, "Execute true justice; deal loyally and compassionately with one another. Do not defraud the widow, the orphan, the stranger and the poor; and do not plot evil against one another."

Zechariah reminds us to execute true justice, which is measured by our treatment of the most vulnerable—the widow, the orphan, the stranger and the poor. Justice, says the prophet, is not only for the wealthy; rather, all human beings should live with dignity.

Yet justice is not evenly distributed. In December 2005 I traveled with rabbinical students to El Salvador for an AJWS work-study mission. As I walked through the town Ciudad Romero I realized just how much we, citizens of the United States, take for granted. As our group sat and studied at the headquarters of La Coordinadora, a local economic improvement organization, we played with little blonde-haired girls who ran through the model vegetable patches and sucked on the cucumbers. Only at the end of the trip did I learn that their beautiful blonde hair was a sign of malnutrition. Children tilled the soil wielding sharp hoes and pickaxes in their bare feet because they didn't own shoes. I learned that while school is free, parents often cannot afford the paper and pencils necessary for their children to learn.

These sorts of scenes are repeated throughout the world. Children in impoverished countries die from preventable diseases such as malaria because they lack mosquito bed nets and basic medication. Families face starvation because the sweat of their brows does not guarantee adequate rainfall for their tiny fields. Towns and villages lack access to safe drinking water. HIV/AIDS devastates and impoverishes entire communities in Africa.

When I compare these images with my comfortable life back home - complete with wardrobe, spending money, automobile, college diploma, the occasional vacation - it makes me uncomfortable. Not only am I struck by the vast difference in wealth, health and education, but I am also struck by how easy it is to remain ignorant and indifferent.

Zechariah calls to us: are we dealing loyally and compassionately with our fellow human beings, or are we defrauding them, plotting (whether intentionally or not) evil against them by our selfishness, our ignorance, our inaction?

Indeed, it is no accident that Rabbi Yehoshua b. Levi found the Messiah amongst the suffering, the ill, and the poor gathered outside the city gates as the wealthy inside the walls continued to live their comfortable lives, for these injustices are the sources of our exile. The Rabbi journeyed to Rome; he saw the injustices around him; but he did not stay long enough to heed the Divine Voice, to begin to mend the injustices he encountered. And we continue in our spiritual exile because we fail to hear and see and respond to the suffering of the oppressed, the suffering of the Messiah himself.

We, like our ancient ancestors, have been warned about exile. We too have heard the voice of prophets, the message of the Messiah. Are we prepared to heed the call?

Reprinted with permission from American Jewish World Service.