{"id":2127,"date":"2017-02-23T15:16:07","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T21:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vegetatingwithleslie.org\/?p=2127"},"modified":"2017-03-05T10:58:30","modified_gmt":"2017-03-05T16:58:30","slug":"thoughts-on-failed-societies-and-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vegetatingwithleslie.org\/?p=2127","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts On Failed Societies And Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"
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File:OIL WASTE ON BARREN HILLSIDE – NARA – 542512.jpg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A great calm settled itself on me this week after weeks of feeling completely overwhelmed by events, frantically trying to figure out what I can do to stop the flood, what I can do to stop the world from dissolving around me. What brought me this calm feeling is my weekly Torah study\u00a0as I realized\u00a0we have been here before.<\/p>\n

I read the Torah as an extraordinary, powerful and poetic account of human experience in the real world, human experience within creation that\u00a0recognizes a connection to the transcendent dimension beyond it.\u00a0It\u00a0is a statement of our interdependence — on\u00a0each other, with the rest of creation\u00a0and with transcendence. It describes how the relationships between these domains should work, must work for our own survival.<\/p>\n

The Torah teaches, through its “ordinances,” the attitude of humility we should\u00a0maintain in relation to transcendence, the attitude of care\u00a0and compassion toward the rest of creation, and the requirement not only for care and compassion in relation to our fellow human beings but for justice.<\/p>\n

Torah also relates the consequences of failing to maintain correct relationships, putting\u00a0forward the case that all is interdependent. Failure in one realm inevitably brings catastrophe\u00a0in others. Rules or guides for\u00a0social relationships and a correct relationship with nature are as immutable as rules that guide our relationship with transcendence, and the consequence of repeated and widespread choices\u00a0to ignore the guides in any dimension causes\u00a0a roll back of creation, a reversal of the story in the first three chapters of Genesis.<\/p>\n

As I read these powerful words each week, I find that they speak to me of\u00a0my life experience in these times.\u00a0They speak to me about what happens when a society fails\u00a0to maintain correct\u00a0relationships\u00a0(Torah Ecology: Va-era\/Bo<\/a><\/strong>). They speak to me about trying it again within a\u00a0fourth, perhaps more intimate, domain, “neighbors,” about\u00a0how relationships should work between these neighbors, between all\u00a0human beings,\u00a0the rest of creation and transcendence (Torah Ecology: Beshallach<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and Torah Ecology: Mishpatim<\/strong><\/a>). \u00a0And they speak to me about what happens when a society fails to live in right relationships. They speak to me about an economy of consequences (in a section of Vayera, Gn 18:16-33), where the righteous actions of 10 could have saved a corrupt civilization.<\/p>\n

In Mishpatim, Moses brings down from the mountain a series of regulations that governs relationships within the community of Israelites. \u00a0While we don’t read the end of the story in this portion, we know it: the society will fail, as any human institution does that fails to recognize the freedom not only of human beings but of our fellow creatures and all of creation in a relationship with transcendence. The prophetic reading for Mishpatim, the Haftarah,\u00a0associated with this Torah portion tells us of that failure:<\/p>\n

“You turned and profaned my name and caused every man his servant and every man his handmaid, whom you had let go free at their pleasure, to return; and you brought them into subjection, to be to you for servants and for handmaids…you have not hearkened to Me to proclaim every man to his neighbor, behold, I proclaim for you a liberty… <so> I will make you a horror unto all the kingdoms of the earth… bodies shall be for food unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth… I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant” (Jer 34:16-22).<\/p>\n

The judgment Jeremiah pronounces is inevitable, irrevocable: “So the Lord said to me, \u201cDo not pray for the welfare of this people. When they fast, I am not going to listen to their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I am not going to accept them. Rather I am going to make an end of them by the sword, famine and pestilence\u201d (Jer 14:11,12).<\/p>\n

The prophet Jeremiah lived through the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 576 b.c.e. His\u00a0career, lasting more than 40 years, spanned the reigns of five kings: Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoaichin, and Zedekiah. Jeremiah’s\u00a0opposition was unrelenting, and he\u00a0was even imprisoned at one point — yet he persisted in his message.<\/p>\n

Jeremiah’s\u00a0prophecy proclaimed the coming destruction and the reasons for it. \u00a0When the people’s relationship with\u00a0their neighbors is wrong, out of balance, when they deny fundamental freedom and justice\u00a0to their neighbors, their relationships with all other realms are disrupted.\u00a0Failure in one realm inevitably brings catastrophe\u00a0in all.<\/p>\n

The nation\u00a0as a whole, not in part<\/a>, was declared guilty of:<\/p>\n