Heart & Soul - Part 3 (Connection)
May 1, 2022Today's message was given by Pastor Patrick Tanton. A video of the message can be found here.
This was a toughy. I've been racking my brain how to relate personal connections, human to human, to the Torah. And then, what about "small groups?" These are not topics I remember being discussed much in the Torah.
Much of the Torah is, of course, teaching people ethical behavior, one to another. And, of course, the famous "Love your neighbor as yourself" is smack dab in the middle of the Torah, literally, in Leviticus 19:18. But none of that seems truly focused on developing relationships, connections, with others as Patrick is describing, and I am not remembering any reference to something like small groups.
Lynn and I were chatting about this and the notion of the home being the Jewish "growth group" struck us. It's certainly true that the home has always been and remains still the center of religious life and teaching in Judaism. Saturday synagogue is only a support system, as was the Temple back when.
There are many laws that focus on maintaining a healthy family, most notably laws against incest and adultery. It is quite evident in the Torah that maintaining the family is key. There are also laws about how family should be supported, such as a brother's responsibility to his brother's widow.
And we are all familiar with laws about supporting other widows and the orphans. But still, there is no notion of "connecting" as Patrick is envisioning.
I imagine one thing is for sure... Humans have not changed since Genesis. Ancient or modern, I bet we all want to be known for something and by someone. I bet ancient Israelites pretended as much as we do now. And it's not hard to imagine that true friendships were just as important then as now, maybe moreso given basic life preservation was more of an issue then than now.
There are references to friendships in Judaism, but these tend to be beyond the Torah, and even beyond the Old Testament in other Jewish literature. For example, in a rabbinic document (the Mishnah, 2nd Century A.D.) it says to "acquire for yourself a friend," because a friend is one of the key ingredients for an ethical and meaningful life. It suggests that the friends should "reveal to each other all their secrets, both secrets of the Torah and secrets of the ways of the world." Now that starts to sound a bit like small groups. In other places, it is suggested that a true friend is "to break you up" as in put you back on the straight and narrow. The notion is clear that sometimes to be a good friend/helper you must be an opponent.
Here's another Old Testament reference. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, "Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falls, for he has not another to help him up."
"Biblical Friendship: One of the most famous friendships of the Bible, that between David and Jonathan, was sealed by a vow promising eternal amity between their children (I Samuel 20:42). Jonathan saved David from the murderous intentions of his father, King Saul, despite the fact that David was a threat to his own inheritance of the kingship. Similarly, the Moabite Ruth literally left her people behind in choosing to accompany Naomi (her Israelite mother-in-law) to the land of Israel." (Reference)