Levitical Wrap-Up 2: Two weeks later

So, after being "free from the law" for two weeks, how do I look back on January's Levitical Adventure?

All in all, I did not care for it. I can handle the thought of making a costly sacrifice that does some good in the world. Living Levitically seemed to be jumping through hoops for the sake of jumping through hoops. It grated. It felt deeply isolating -- and there's a difference between solitude and isolation. This was isolation.

In the process, I lost touch with the character of God. I was beginning to picture the Almighty constantly aggravated with failure to jump through some hoop or another. Ummm, no. There most definitely is a character known as The Accuser ("Ha Satan" in Hebrew) -- but that Accuser isn't who I was thinking it was. Ouch. You really don't want to confuse those two. That's not a good move.

That particular theological disaster took a dramatic turn at the end of the month, thank heavens. The Lord is rich in kindness and abounding in mercy. I want to live in the presence of the Lord. I want my character to grow to be more and more like the character of God. Still, I have a very hard time believing that Leviticus is the way to do that.

I was talking with my Consultant on February 1, musing that maybe I had approached this wrong. I had taken a pretty literal approach, hoping to find meaning experientially. Maybe I should have done more analysis on the front end. I just cannot get worked up about mixed fibers -- but maybe the modern-day equivalent would be avoiding clothes made in sweatshops. Boy would that be hard, and talk about countercultural! But it would be difficult in ways that make sense to me.

He says that's the wrong way to think about it. There are plenty of places in Torah talking about how you treat your workers, and it would be reasonable in a market economy to extend that to refusing to buy from those who treat workers poorly. But prohibitions on mixing are different in kind.

Consultant continues:

"But if you wonder how you might have felt that these commandments brought you closer to G-d, one fairly common viewpoint is that many of these commandments are meaningful precisely because they have no inherent meaning: they are arbitrary acts done to show your utter submission and faith. My dog doesn't know why I tell her to heel and sit -- and she may well be smart enough to realize that I don't need her to on most occasions when I tell her to. But it's something we can do together, that challenges her and gives her an opportunity to show her love. That's enough."

Wow. And gulp. Because if I'm at all honest with myself, I have to admit that's not enough for me. Maybe it should be, but at least right now it's just not.

So, what do I do? Well, this road to holiness is a long one. And neither the Prophets nor Jesus had much patience with those who missed the forest for the trees. So maybe, at least for right now, I focus on the righteousness of God. There are worse things in this world to focus on. And maybe, over time, I'll come to see the holiness codes in a new light. But at least for right now I need to set them aside.