I have written before, in these messages, about the weekly pairing of a Haftarah, a selection from the biblical Prophets, with our readings from the Five Books of Moses. These prophetic accompaniments generally are understood to amplify or expand upon some aspect of our Torah-reading each week - and, in that sense, they are part of the legacy of instruction and interpretation we inherit from our forebears.
This week's pairing is particularly striking - in fact, it is a slap in the face.
Our Torah portion opens with the encouraging words, "You shall be holy, for I, the Eternal One, your God, am holy." (Leviticus 19:1)
Very nice. And then, just when we may be feeling pleased with ourselves, divinely assured of our holiness, the accompanying reading from the prophet Amos comes along and opens:
"Are you not exactly like Ethiopians to me, o children of Israel? says the Eternal One. Yes, I brought Israel out of the land of Egypt - and the Pelishtim from Kaftor, and Aram from Kir." (Amos 9:7)
And if that's not a start - in the sense of a jarring shake - I don't know what is.
Did you think you were the only ones who had a story with Me? That seems to be what God asks, rhetorically, through the prophet. Certainly, you have a special journey that makes you who you are - but so do the peoples you habitually consider as totally different from yourselves. And these stories all originate with Me.
I would not call the passage from Amos racist, as such; but with "Ethiopians" it does single out a nation optically different from the ancient Israelites the prophet addresses - and this tells us that the tendency of considering surface differences as indicative of deep or essential disparities is as ancient as it is wrong.
Says the Zohar, the seminal text of medieval Jewish mysticism: "When the Blessed Holy One unveiled the world and set out to reveal the deep from within the hidden and light from within darkness, all these were intermingled--for out of the darkness issued light, and out of the hidden was revealed the deep, one issuing from the other. Out of good issues evil; out of love, harsh judgment. All is interwoven, the good impulse and the evil impulse, right and left, Israel and other nations, white and black, all suspended in one Oneness."
Where did you think it all came from?
Not that the Zohar passage I have just quoted is especially egalitarian. Even amid its statement of deep unity, the mystical teaching may tend to ratify and even prioritize its various distinctions - and certainly the Jewish mystical tradition has played out some of our most egregious prejudices over the centuries, when it comes to good and evil, men and women, Israel and the nations.
The tendency to reassure ourselves of intrinsic specialness is a strong proclivity - and a hazardous one, says the prophet.
Perhaps our scriptural pairing this week is especially well timed, as our Harvard community disperses for the summer, to be in contact once more with the larger world.
Granted, so many are heading toward very special jobs and internships and elite opportunities. And there is nothing quite like a Harvard Commencement for instilling a sense of blessedness and even superiority - quite comparable in some ways to our ancient religious tradition, and indeed originating most deeply in it,
However, if we take the prophet Amos seriously - and take seriously the notion that every human story is a story with God - then we must recast the way in which we hear the opening verse of our Torah-reading, "You shall be holy, for I the Eternal One am holy," not merely as an assurance, but as an imperative.
You come from Me, says God - and if you are going to be special in any true sense, it will be in the degree of your realizing this, and striving to act accordingly. And, to the extent that you are mindful of your origin in Me, you will know that those around you share the selfsame Source - and that awareness will be part of any true worth and real achievement you cultivate.
So let me say, in this public way, to dear and very special Harvard friends - as you rejoin the wider world of parents and siblings and employers and coworkers and teachers and domestic servants and professionals of all varieties, and everyone you meet in daily life who may not come from Harvard, do not dare to think that you are guaranteed intrinsic and essential specialness just because Harvard is a wondrous place where you have been chosen. If, on the other hand, you bring every ounce of that uplift, and all the awareness of the blessings here that you can muster, to an effort of doing and being good - bearing in mind that all around you have stories that have taught them lessons, too - then there is a chance that those you touch in work and life will conclude that Harvard must be a very special phenomenon, and that you come from someplace marvelous.
And, in that way, we may do our part to hasten a time, as Amos goes on to prophesy, when "the ploughman will overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed, and the mountains will flow with wine and all the hills will melt," and if, as the prophet says too, it is a time when "I will return the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build up the waste cities and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof, and they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them, and I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be uprooted from their land which I have given them, says the Eternal One," it will be so, in no small measure, because we remember that holiness is not an assurance but an eternal imperative, and that those around us have sacred and special stories like our own.