I hate clickbait like this – “The Five Things You Need to Do/Know/Say” kinds of clickbait. I particularly hate them because they often still work on me, despite myself.
Perhaps we click because we cannot resist things that look like quick and easy classifications, a way to quickly sort out all the stimuli around us. So we accept The Five Stages of Grief or The Twelve Steps of AlAnon or the Five Love Languages or even the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators not because they are necessarily true, but because they are, by and large, useful.
I am no fan of such things, even if they work, because I am too cynical about the underlying assumptions that lie behind these simplifications. They are essentially nothing more than convenient constructs that lack foundation, and ultimately are arbitrary. (If only I could translate that cynicism into not clicking in the first place!)
So you can imagine my suspicion when I came across a characterization in the Torah that reads suspiciously like a Four Step Process For Jews. Really? Clickbait in the Torah?
Here’s the verse. It is Yitro, Moses’ father-in-law, describing Moses teaching the people:
And enjoin upon them the symbolic laws and the torahs, and make known to them the way they are to go and the doings they are to do.
Here they are, laid out in reverse order:
1: Do things
2: Walk in the path
3: Learn the overall ritual recipes/guides
4: Understand the underlying symbolic laws
This is precisely how we teach! We show little children what to do. As they grow, we show that fits into a larger picture of behavior. Then we teach them more complicated ways of behaving – the torahs that mean “guide” or “recipe” in the text – the processes that help us stay on the aforementioned path. And lastly, if they are able, we teach them the underlying symbolic laws and the meaning for those laws, so they can understand the Big Picture from a distance.
So if these are the Four Steps for Judaism, why are they presented in reverse order?
Possibly (and I welcome other inputs) it is because the text is telling us what matters the most. We are not meant to be automatons – the more conscious thought we put into our actions, the better people (and the better servants of the Almighty) we can be. The symbolic understanding of why we are here, what G-d wants from us, how we are supposed to see the world and our role within it… these are not optional elements of Judaism: they are essential. It is not enough to merely do – we always seek to see those actions within a larger path that includes the underlying meaning and lesson that should accompany all that we do.
In condensed form: the most important thing is not what you do, but why you do it.
Was the clickbait worth it?