Mattot-Mase: Letting laws of God guide our speech

Mattot-Mase

Numbers 30:2-36:13

Jeremiah 2:4-28; 3:4, 4:1-2

The first section of this week's parashah tells us that all of the words we speak ought to be guided by God. What a frightening concept!

The passage at hand brings us the laws of vows and oaths, categories of speech by which we voluntarily create obligations and limitations for ourselves (e.g., vowing to give up alcoholic beverages). The Torah -- which began with the account of God creating the world through speech -- regards speech as among the most weighty of all human activities. And so we find legislation about choosing one's words with care, about the obligation to honor the verbal commitments one has made and about a spouse's role in checking their partner when words have been spoken in haste.

The classical commentators, always attentive to the Torah's use of words, note that this segment of law begins with the proclamation in Numbers 30:2, "Ze hadavar asher tsiva HaShem ("This is the thing that God has commanded"). Of course, this phrase introduces many sections of law in the Torah, but the commentators, searching every word of Torah for meaning, ask why it appears in this particular context. Listen to the following extraordinary answer:

"Moshe commanded the heads of the tribes to teach the children of Israel to say, prior to everything they did: `This is the thing that God has commanded' -- that is to say, `I hereby perform this act to bring honor to God's blessed name.' [The text goes on to say that all acts, even the choice of what and when to eat and drink, whom to spend time with -- all the little choices of life -- should be performed for the sake of heaven. And it concludes:] "Let all of my life and all of my pleasures -- all of my actions, indeed, all of my life spent on earth, be only for the sake of bringing honor to God" (Korban He'ani, quoted in Itturei Torah, Vol. 5, P. 184).

For ordinary mortals like me and most of the people I know, perhaps this standard is too high. If everything I do, every word I speak, every choice I make in the course of a day, is to be oriented toward bringing God's glory more fully into the world, perhaps I am not up to the task.

Yet imagine if, even some of the time, we invoked this vision as a goal for our lives. What if I stopped -- if not always then sometimes -- when I was about to say a harsh word to someone, about to voice a critical judgment, about to insist on being right? What if I stopped for a moment before speaking and said to myself, "Do you want to bring honor to God's name in this moment?"

On the way to repeating a word of gossip, on the way to snapping at my child, on the way to hassling an already stressed store employee when I didn't get what I wanted, what if I said to myself -- at least, some of the time -- "Are you acting for the sake of heaven?"

What if I invoked this elevated standard of living as a running thread through my life, at least periodically reminding myself of the choice: "Do you want to bring more godliness into the world or do you want to be base?"

How would life be different if we paused a few times a day and reminded ourselves of this choice, if we took the pulse of our day to see if we were on course with this life-goal. How much would be different -- our use of language, our choices about time, our conduct of relationships -- if, before speaking, we stopped and asked: "Is what I am about to say true? Is it a necessary thing to say? Is it helpful? Will it bring more godliness to the world?" In my life, I know, much would change.

This is the thing that God has commanded. Our tradition brings us such a treasure of teachings about how to elevate our lives, about how to live with meaning, about how to be God's partner in our choices -- large and small, every day. May we remember to listen for God's command, and may we know how to respond.