Taking it easy on the path to disaster
This past week, we read the dual Torah portions of Behar and Bechukotai and, with that, closed out the book of Leviticus. The last parsha of this book of the bible was the bat mitzvah portion for both my daughters, and in honour of those big days, I went out and bought myself a new necktie, which I dubbed my “bechuko – tie.”
(The joke doesn’t work with Ashkenazi pronunciation where the parsha is called Bechukosai.” Oh well. Sigh?)
There is much in this parsha, a lot of it emotionally fraught. The section known as the tochechah – “the rebuke” – offers an escalating series of calamities that are sure to befall the people if they persist in separating themselves from sincere service to God and they fail to walk in God’s ways. The details are graphic, but they can be summarized as:
Fear, panic, and insecurity
Environmental and economic collapse
Wild animals and social disruption
War and plague
Famine and starvation
Destruction and exile
What is extraordinary about this ominous list is not the terrible aspects themselves but that the primary behaviour that the Torah says will bring on these terrifying events is designated by the Hebrew wordקרי (keri) (Leviticus 26).
Rashi defines the term keri, saying that it refers to happenstance, accident, or an unplanned occurrence or, to sum it up in one word, casualness. The message is that when we treat our spiritual life with a casual attitude, we are on the path to disaster.
The Mussar teachers teach us that keri is not merely an event. It is a worldview. It is the spiritual danger of living as though life is random and doesn’t call for much deliberate commitment or engagement. All we need to do is drift along with a casual attitude and we put ourselves on the slope to catastrophe.
The Torah’s list of negative outcomes is horrific – subjugation, loss, war, collapse, terror, and even abominable things like being driven by starvation to eat your own children. And to think that all that is being linked to living a very casual life that does not recognize true priorities!
The graphic lesson for us is that living in a casual way is spiritually corrosive and an affront to life. Every encounter, challenge, interruption, and disappointment carries the potential of growth and divine encounter. Living with an attitude of keri undermines that awareness. It encourages passivity instead of responsibility. A person says, “Things just happen. It doesn’t mean anything,” rather than asking, “What is this moment asking of me? Or teaching me? Or offering me?”
The great Mussar teacher of the mid-20th century, Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, emphasizes that spiritual decline rarely begins with open rebellion. More often it begins with indifference. A practice becomes mechanical. Prayer becomes habit without conscious intention. Moral failures are dismissed as insignificant. This emotional numbness is the essence of keri.
In our era, keri has become so pervasive that it actually characterizes the dominant culture. We are invited and induced to live in perpetual distraction. Things of no consequence are elevated to major (though fleeting) significance. What was it she wore on the red carpet? Did his statistics beat what he got last year? The bombardment of constant stimulation leads to what the Alter of Novardok called pizzur ha’nefesh – a scattered soul. He was writing in the late 19th century. He had no idea of the extent to which social media could scatter the inner life of the majority of people, for whom it is now the normal way to live, though deeply unsatisfying.
And, when you review the list of disasters that the Torah says keri will bring about, it is a pretty accurate reflection of our broken world.
Overcoming a disastrous life of distraction and casual living begins by cultivating the opposite quality: awakened intentionality. Nothing should be approached casually. Eating, speaking, working, studying and even playing are all arenas where we can work to refine our inner beings and move ourselves closer to wholeness and, ultimately, holiness. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, founder of the 19th century Mussar movement in eastern Europe, taught that the smallest action can reveal the deepest truths about a person’s character. Treating life casually casts us into a spiritual slumber. But when we live with reflection and discipline, we see clearly that every moment is laden with spiritual opportunities.
Yet Mussar never views the human condition with despair. The recognition of keri is itself the beginning of transformation. To cite Rabbi Yisrael Salanter again, he designated the first steps on the path of Mussar as hergesh, which means “feeling.”
If you notice your own feelings of numbness, distraction, or moral laziness, then you are already on the path to awaken from your own state of keri. On the Mussar path, we don’t seek instant enlightenment, quick-fixes or leaps to the peak of holiness, but only small acts of renewed consciousness: pausing before speaking, giving charity thoughtfully, listening carefully, blessing with attention, restraining anger. These are the sorts of acts that reflect a life led with purpose and intention. These are the steps that respond to the tochecha and that counter a casual lifestyle. There is no other path to wholeness or holiness.
Does the state of keri need some attention in your spiritual curriculum?
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