Faith vs Ethics

[Fenris]

I came across an amazing exposition on forgiveness from someone I follow on Twitter. (His personal story is also very interesting, he used to be a supporter of Jihad against Israel and he is now a supporter of Israel!)

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour
@HusseinAboubak
Mar 27

Faith vs. Ethics

In the introduction of Eichah Rabbah (a Jewish biblical commentary), I came across an interesting midrash that puzzled me for some time. The introduction of Eichah Rabbah is mainly a grand narrative exegesis of heavenly mourning over the destruction of the temple and the exile of Israel to Babylon. At one point, the midrash builds itself for Jer 31:15: " "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children because they were not." It says that in heaven, God was mourning and weeping for what was happening to Israel. The temple was destroyed, and Israel was subjugated, murdered, tortured, and exiled to Babylon in the most humiliating conditions. God could not find comfort, not from his angels, whom he forbade from singing as he did during the flood and the drowning of the Egyptians, and not from Jeremiah, who grew up in an already decadent and corrupt Israel and didn't feel the loss God felt.

God then ordered Jeremiah to go raise the Patriarchs and Moses from the dead. The Patriarchs and Moses knew Israel in greatness, which Jeremiah didn't know, and thus they could share with God the weeping, mourning, and true sense of tragedy. And indeed, they did. When they saw the desolation of Jerusalem, the ruin of the temple, and the agony of the children of Israel, how God's spirit departed Israel, they were devastated. One by one, the Patriarchs go and beseech God to spare Israel and return them to their home. Each has a personal and brilliant plea which I can't quote at length but encourage the interested reader to go read them. Abraham reminds of Israel's voluntary acceptance the Torah. He reminds God of his sacrifice. Isaac reminds God of his obedience and selflessness. Jacob reminds God of his hard work. Moses reminds God of his dedication to divine demands despite their difficulty. Each counts their own merit and asks God to reciprocate and spare Israel. And each time, God declined and said it was the undoable decree of his justice.

And then came Rachel. Not a Patriarch, not Abraham, Kierkegaard's Knight of Faith. Not Moses, Freud's founding father of civilization. Just a poor woman weeping over her children. She then tells God a story. Jacob wanted her. And she wanted Jacob, and they both agreed to get married. They agreed on many details. And then Jacob went to her father, only for her father to deceive Jacob and plan to give him her sister, Leah, instead. She felt angry, and the flames of jealousy burned her chest. She planned to go and ruin their plans and take Jacob for herself. But then, she felt sorry for her sister and her father and did not want to bring them shame and disgrace. Despite that it הוקשה עלי הדבר עד מאוד "it was exceedingly difficult for me," she still forgave them and even helped her sister and gave her the details she agreed on with Jacob. Can you imagine how difficult that was for her? Helping her sister to marry the man she wants? She then says, "I consoled myself... I suffered... I had mercy... I gave kindness... and I did not envy...I forgave..." נחמתי. סבלתי, רחמתי, , גמלתי חסד, לא קנאתי, סלחתי. And then she asked God to forgive Israel. And God listened and decided to forgive Israel and return them home for Rachel's sake.

This story has been giving me goosebumps since I read it, and I'm still marveling over the ability of the Jewish sages to wrap inexhaustible wisdom in such simple and profound stories. Why did the rabbis imagine God to honor simple Rachel when he turned down the holiest and founding figures, not just of Judaism, but the entire Abrahamic world? Abraham, the man through whom humanity knew God. And Moses, through whom humanity received Torah. Why? The rabbis had different ideas that revolved around revoking God's justice vs. his mercy and the question of merit vs. the question of forgiveness. Unlike the others, Rachel didn't claim that Israel deserved forgiveness but that God is the one who should be abundant in mercy and forgiveness so much as to surpass the letter of the law.

I have a take on this. In Genesis, while the disobedience of Adam and Eve symbolized man's choice of sin and rebellion to be the nature of his relationship with God, the story of Cain and Able symbolized man's choice of crime and tyranny to be the nature of his relationship with society. This first fratricide was the foundation of 
all crime of the city of Cain, repeated in the story of Romulus and Remus, and philosophied in Freud's patricide, which Freud considered to be the default composition of human psychology. The story told in the midrash about Rachel is the exact contrast to that of Cain. Both stories are about siblings, the symbols of natural human egalitarianism and equality, and both of them have the same desire for the same object of desire. And in both stories, the father, God in Cain's and Lavan in Rachel's, chooses the other sibling almost arbitrarily. For no apparent reason, one desire is honored, and one desire is suppressed. And both, Cain and Rachel felt outraged, felt angry, and felt they were treated with injustice. Both, in a sense, became critical intellectuals, critical philosophers, who refused injustice and demanded their lots. Yet, Rachel decided to "console, suffer, have mercy, give kindness, not envy, forgive." In this simple ethical act of compassion instead of hatred, an act of conscious ceding HER RIGHT, Rachel unfounded the city of Cain. She became the humanity that does not 
murder out of resentment, envy, and rage but the humanity that just forgives. One story ended with murder, and other ended with the birth of God's people. And for that, God forgave and spared Israel. This is an incredible rabbinical exposition on the importance of everyday ethics, especially in your dealings with your brother and sister, over grand statements of faith and heroic achievement efforts. All that is needed is to forgive your brother/sister....