Who Invented Vows?
When a man shall clearly utter a vow of persons unto the LORD, according to thy valuation… (Lev. 27) and what follows is 23 verses of how different people and houses and fields would all be valued.
This passage seems to make no sense! Why does the Torah suggest that people want to pledge themselves, their loved ones, or their property to G-d?
Could it be not because G-d wants people to make vows tied to pledges, but because Yaakov voluntarily chose to do so?
And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go … then this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth. (Gen:28:20)
Jacob’s vow is the first one found in the Torah, and he pledges that if G-d blesses him, then he will build G-d a house and share his wealth.
Jacob’s example seems to help illuminate the text found later: a person is not necessarily merely giving to G-d, but is instead, as in Jacob’s case, proposing a bargain, or even a transaction: If You, G-d, give me X, then I pledge to contribute Y to the building or the ongoing support of your house.
Does this example endorse a transactional approach to relating with G-d? By making a vow that is conditional upon certain outcomes being achieved, are we behaving inappropriately? Or is it correct to mimic our forefather, Yaakov?
Spiritual Growth, Through Drash
When you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not put off fulfilling it, for the LORD your God will drash it of you, and you will have incurred sin. . .
This word, drash, has quite a journey in the text.
Drash is about dogged and determined questioning and reckoning. How do we know? Because it is used to describe G-d’s response to murder. After the flood, G-d tells Noach:
But for your own life-blood I will require a drash: I will require it of every beast; of man, too, will I require a drash for human life, of every man for that of his fellow man.
When G-d asks the questions, drash seems to mean a divine reckoning, paying the price for our actions – as it was used with Noach, describing the consequences of murder. Similarly, when Joseph has been sold into slavery, his oldest brother berates the other brothers:
Then Reuben spoke up and said to them, “Did I not tell you, ‘Do no wrong to the boy’? But you paid no heed. Now will come the drash for his blood.”
Is it not interesting that this word is the very same used to describe mankind’s search for answers from G-d Himself?! How do we know?
Rivka was pregnant:
But the children struggled in her womb, and she said, “If this is the case, why do I exist?” She went to inquire (drash) of the LORD.
Look at her question! It is not “I want to know what G-d thinks.” Instead, she is asking about herself, in a personal way: “Who am I? Why is this happening to me?” Does this not seem like an existential question?
The word drash is similarly promoted as an ideal:
If you search there for the LORD your God, you will find Him, if only you seek (drash) Him with all your heart and soul. (Deut. 4:29)
Is the Torah telling us to engage in this kind of active and deep questioning, instead of merely subsuming ourselves to G-d’s will?
Isn’t this what the Jewish people engage in in the Midbar? Moses tells his father-in-law, approvingly, of mankind’s desire to learn:
The people come to me to inquire (drash) of God.
Hold on! G-d’s declaration that He will demand a reckoning of every murder is the very same word used to describe Rivka and Jewish queries to G-d? How can there is an equivalence here? Are we really meant to be just as zealous in questioning G-d and our connection to Him, as G-d is when he punishes murderers!?
How can we compare the two? A murder is a life snuffed out, the opportunity to touch the infinite, lost. Is not the text, by using the same word for human questions of G-d, making an equivalence: an unexamined life, like a murder, is a terrible waste!?
Isn’t it extraordinary how personal this is – from Rivka’s deeply personal question about her pregnancy, to each person’s need to invest their own heart and soul? If we seek answers with every bit of ourselves, are the answers different for each and every person, just as Rivka’s pregnancy was uniquely her own?
Does this question really encapsulate a key characteristic of Jewish existence? From Rivka through holocaust survivors or parents of handicapped children, are we not the people who drash? After all, even if what happens to us can be rationalized as “G-d’s will,” how do we know that the challenges are not given to us specifically to get us to drash, to ask the question?!
Look at the progression that drash takes from the beginning to the end of the Torah. Drash starts with murder and fratricide. And it ends with:
When you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not put off fulfilling it, for the LORD your God will drash it of you, and you will have incurred sin. . .
Recall that the first time the word is used, it is post-flood, and G-d is telling Noach about the consequences of murder. And then at the end of the text, G-d is equally interested in mere vows! The text takes us from shedding blood to making a promise and not fulfilling it! We start as animals who kill, and we end as beings who recognize that our mere words have power to create or destroy. Is the use of drash telling us that he spiritual power of a person to change the world through our words connected to our ability to do violence and shed blood?