{"id":56281,"date":"2019-05-28T12:47:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T09:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=56281"},"modified":"2022-12-19T13:24:27","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T11:24:27","slug":"the-price-of-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-price-of-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Price Of Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It was Yom Kippur afternoon. The buzz of crickets hummed in the distance. Inside, the ceiling fan whirred round and round, whispering its breezy rhythm. We sat in a relaxed circle, trying to ignore our pangs of hunger and the oppressive heat as the fast entered its last few hours. A lovely sunny afternoon spent indoors praying and fasting. A perfect moment to talk about freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yom Kippur may not be the first Jewish holiday that springs to mind when we think about freedom. Pesach, our spring festival of redemption and renewal, is after all a celebration of freedom, a time for recalling the Exodus as we journey through our Seder. Yet the concept of freedom is also pivotal to our spiritual and liturgical journey on Yom Kippur. The Yom Kippur liturgy invites us to grapple with big questions about life and death, to reassess the choices we\u2019ve made in the past year, to wrestle with what it means to atone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our tradition teaches that slavery is the opposite of freedom. Yet, pure choice does not necessarily mean freedom. In Judges 17, we read about a man named Micah who made idols \u2013 a type of worship forbidden by Israelite tradition. The narrator tells us that: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did as he pleased” (17:6). Here \u2018king\u2019 can be understood both literally and as a metaphor for the Eternal. With no king, the people of Israel could turn away from the Eternal, and do what they pleased, but that also meant turning away from the Eternal\u2019s laws. <\/span><\/p>\n

Micah engages a young man, a Levite, to serve as his priest, concluding that “now I know that the Eternal will do me good, since I have a Levite as my priest” (17:13). It reads almost like an insurance policy with the Eternal \u2013 by making a Levite his priest, Micah hopes it will counteract his actions with idols.<\/span><\/p>\n

Micah\u2019s freedom has consequences. Every person doing as they please might sound like freedom, but it leads to anarchy. The tribes of Israel go to war against the tribe of Benjamin, their own people. Freedom is not so simple, particularly when it impedes the freedom of another. Freedom is a treasure we must not take lightly. Micah makes idols because he has the freedom to do so. But that does not make it right.<\/span><\/p>\n

By engaging in idol worship, Micah turns away from the Eternal\u2019s covenant made with all Israel at Mount Sinai. It is his choice. But like all freedom, it has a price.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":56294,"id":56294,"title":"jud17-alarm clock","filename":"jud17-alarm-clock.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/jud17-alarm-clock.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-price-of-choice\/jud17-alarm-clock\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jud17-alarm-clock","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":56281,"date":"2019-05-28 09:47:42","modified":"2019-05-28 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