A guy once told me that, at least in his opinion, Jewish life was getting worse from generation to generation. The farther away we moved from Sinai, he believed, the more we forgot about the mitzvot and thus were farther removed from God. He cited the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist movements as proof of that.
That same week, an Orthodox rabbi told me that he thought things were getting better Jewishly! Chabad was getting bigger, more progressive Jews were going baal teshuva, and that Artscroll was the greatest thing ever for helping the Jewishly illiterate find the proper tools of study.
So what’s the answer? Are we better Jews or worse Jews than those scrappy ex-slaves at Mt. Sinai?
Moses, in this week’s Torah portion, seems to think that things will get worse: . Moses predicts the Hebrews will enter the promised land and turn their backs on everything holy, practicing idolatry and basically just being little bad asses (Deut. 4:23-30). It looks like the “it gets worse” philosophy wins.
Or does it?
Here’s the problem: in last week’s Torah portion, we learned that that previous generation of Hebrews (the ones who actually lived in Egypt) were so bad that God commanded that they not enter the promised land (Deut. 1:34)! If things get worse, and the first Hebrews were not good enough to enter the promised land, then what does that say about future generations?
Also, remember that the Book of Deuteronomy was a lost text. One would think that if the ancient Hebrews were so holy, they wouldn’t have lost one of the five books of Moses, the greatest prophet to ever live and liberator of thousands from slavery.
Maybe we’re bad, and will always be bad? Or maybe things are getting better, but the bar is set incredibly low?
I’m not sure. But either way, as this week’s portion reads, “shma, Yisroel, Adonai elohainu Adonai echad”. Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. This simple phrase takes my breath away. All of a sudden, I don’t care if we’re better or worse, or if things will get better. I just want to sit under HaShem’s sukkah of peace.
