God tells Moshe to instruct the Jewish people, in this
week’s Torah portion: “As the practices of the Land of Egypt in
which you lived, you shall not do; and as the practices of the Land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you, you shall not do; and you shall not
follow their statutes.” (Leviticus 18:3).
Rabbi Raphael Pelcovitz, in an essay in his book Table Talk,
notes that the word for “their statutes” – ChuKoSayChem – is a curious word
choice. The root word, Chok, is used in the Torah to designate commandments
that God gives us that do not have any stated rationale and may in fact appear
beyond reason; we are to observe them solely because God commanded us to do so. Why
is this word used to refer to the undesirable customs of other nations, which we
shouldn’t follow?
Rabbi Pelcovitz suggests that this word choice points to an
unfortunate trait of the Jewish people. Rather than seeking out and
learning from the most admirable traits of a given culture in which we reside,
Jewish people will instead often mimic the native customs or practices that have no
evident rationale or redeeming purpose. Such ‘unthinking’ customs may be the
current fashions, the local slang, mindless forms of entertainment, or perhaps
the stylish cynicism of the day.
What the Torah is telling us, with this word choice, is to
place value in our distinctiveness and only adopt ‘foreign’ customs that
enhance our attachment to our faith.
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