Not going to talk about girls and tefillin…

I think this excerpt from Rabbi Dov Linzer’s Dvar Torah for Parshat Mishpatim provides much food for thought (including how we approach the topic I am not writing about):

And so it is for the halakhic process. Without an a priori commitment to submit to God’s will, a person may read his own values into the halakha, may force the halakha to say something that is true to his values but false to the Torah’s values, or the Torah’s laws. But if one starts with a disposition of submission, then, says Sfat Emet, they can truly partner with God, for God gave the Children of Israel the ability for their words to have the power to be part of the reasons of the Torah, just like God’s words… And this is the idea of the Oral Law: that the Children of Israel merit to innovate those things that were carved out before God.

We play a role in interpreting and applying halakha. If we come to impose our will on the halakha, then we do violence to the system and we are working in opposition to God. If, however, we come to let the halakha guide us, to be led by the mitzvot and their reasons, then we can be part of the process, we can be part of discovering what those reasons are. We can engage those reasons in interpreting the halakha without the fear that we will overstep, that we will abuse this privilege.

Our voice will matter, because it is God’s voice that matters most. If we start with na’aseh, we can reach the level of nishma. We can live a religious life brit in its fullest sense: a life of Torah observance and a life of Torah values. A life guided by God’s law, and a life in an ongoing relationship with God.

Pirkei Avot (2:4) teaches: Aseh retzono ki’retzonecha…u’vateil retzonecha mipnei retzono – Make God’s will match your will…Set aside your will for the sake of His will…

Living Jewish lives means living lives of being commanded by God. With that as a guiding principle and within this framework, we go forth to meet the challenges of the day.

Pretty complicated, yes?

(And if you want to read about girls and tefillin, just Google the topic.)