Pesach and the Attributes of the Divine

Siyyum Bekhorim 5775/ 11 April 5775

I have been studying for the last year, and writing a new commentary on the classic mystical-ethicist treatise Tomar Devorah – The Palm Tree of Devorah by Rabbi Moses Cordovero.

Cordovero, known as the Ramak, was born around 1522 probably in or near the city of Cordova, but he spent most of his life in Sfat. He was one of the most accomplished Kabbalists of his day. It is important to contextualize 16th century Kabbalah in two respects that were particularly germane to Ramak. First, that all of the great Kabbalists agreed that before one could enter into the study of Kabbalah one had to achieve near perfection of one’s ethical character traits. Second, that ethical perfection was a necessary condition of having Torah – not the Torah of this world, but supernal Torah – attach itself to one’s being. Therefore, there was a tension between the kabbalists and the Talmudists – not an opposition but a tension, sometimes a tension evident in one individual. Such was the case, for instance, of Rabbi Joseph Karo, a younger contemporary of Cordovero and not only a great kabbalist, but also the author of the greatest code of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch.

In fact, there is a story told that one day the greatest of all kabbalists, Rabbi Isaac Luria, was in a state of great anxiety, could not calm his soul by any means. Suddenly he ordered his students to go and bring before him both Cordovero and Karo. His students rushed to do his bidding and soon Rabbi Karo arrived in the company of one group of students. However, the second group returned without Cordovero, but bearing the sad news that he had passed away only an hour earlier. Luria broke down and wept crying: “I only just realized that if we could bring Cordovero and Karo together, the Messiah would come and now it is too late.”

The story is meant, I think, to illustrate the general understanding of the tension between law and ethics in Jewish life. How easy it is for law to become the goal-observance of the law – rather than a tool for achieving holiness defined as ethical perfection. How, on the other hand, ethics without law can become the whim of the individual and how the Torah deftly connected the two whereas medieval Jewry and beyond saw the two often perceived as being separate – with law usually deemed to be more essential.

Cordovero was one of those who saw the Halacha as being insufficient. His idea of ethics demanded much more from people. Halacha was a minimal standard.

In Tomar Devorah he begins with a quote from the prophet Micah. “Who is like you God who pardons iniquity, and removes transgression from the remnant of his heritage? He does not retain his wrath eternally for He is desirous of kindness. He will again be merciful to us. He will suppress our iniquities and You will cast into the depths of the sea all of their sins. Grant truth to Jacob, kindness to Abraham, as You have sworn to our forefathers from days of old.”

You may be familiar with this passage from the High Holy Day liturgy, particularly tashlich. It is called the 13 attributes of God or is seen as an expanded version of those 13 attributes as they first appear in the Book of Exodus (in case you were wondering if there was a connection to Pesach), Adonai, Adonai, Ayl rachum v’chanum , etc., also familiar to us from the High Holy Day liturgy.

Ramak expands the entire list of three divisions of Tomar Devorah explicating in great detail these 13 attributes. For today’s siyyum, I want to look at the last of the 13 middot and Ramak’s comments. This attribute is comprised of the phrase: “From days of old.” To summarize, Ramak teaches that this is the greatest attribute of God and contains all of the other attributes within it. It refers to the fact that when God looks upon the Jewish people and finds them without merit; when we are so worthless even the merit of our fathers cannot sufficiently tip the scales toward the positive, God then remembers us from “of old,” from our youth as a people. He remembered all our good deeds throughout the age and digs deeply, as it were, into all the goodness with which God sustains the world and finds a special dimension of forgiveness that recognizes that no people has never done anything good and on the basis of that good, He forgives.

However, Ramak is not interested in theology. He is interested in ethical behavior using the idea of Imitatio Dei as his guide. Thus in this case, he concludes that even if a person cannot find a single merit by which to forgive another person, Imitatio Dei requires that he look farther. Certainly that person has performed one good deed. Certainly he or she began life as innocent as every other human being. On that basis alone, Ramak teaches that the truly godly human must find it within him or herself to forgive. Not to forsake justice – the wrong must be accounted for, possibly punished, but we can separate the sinner from the sin; love the sinner and not the sin as we ask God to do, again, in the High Holy Day liturgy.

We live in an unredeemed world and Pesach with its paradigm of redemption reminds us of that. It is a world full of sin. But if there is any meaning to redemption at all, it must be for human beings to imitate the ways of God, not to allow that sinfulness to allow us to conclude that there is no hope. On the contrary, we are called to recognize that there is some good in everyone – even if it occurred many years ago and, therefore, they merit our forgiveness and our love. In this way will the redemption promised by this festival be made real.

Tags: Halacha, Passover, Siyyum Bekhorim