At the end of this week’s Torah reading comes the passage that
articulates the Mitzvah of Tzitzit, fringes; a thread of blue tied into each
corner of a four-cornered garment.
The obligation is explained this way – we are to look at the
Tzitzit and remember all the Mitzvot. Tzitzit serves as a sort of physical mnemonic.
It’s hard to remember everything we wish to be – so we wrap ourselves up in an
aide-memoir. Tzitzit serve as a sort of CBT – cognitive behavioural therapeutic
practice serving, at the very least, to inure us from, as the Torah states, “going
after your heart and after your eyes which lead you astray – Zonim.”
That Hebrew word, Zonim, has a licentious quality picked
up in a glorious – if adult-rated – moment in Talmud Menachot where a student,
renowned for his particular interest in Tzitzit, is drawn to spend four hundred gold coins on a Zonah - prostitute (not recommended). As he strips off
his clothes, the Talmud reports, his Tzitzit slap him in the face, and he comes
to his senses. Would that all the licentious challenges of the world could be
so confidently defeated.
But there is something very powerful in allowing Halachah –
Jewish observance - to pull us away from
running after the inclinations of our heart and eyes. Observance of Shabbat
should keep us aloof from an utter dependence on our phones. Observance of Kashrut
should sensitise us to the values of thinking about the food we place in our
bodies. Observance of prayer should remind us to be grateful for the gifts of our
lives and instil in us the knowledge that our own concerns and understandings
should not be confused with the greater needs and truths of the Universe. This is the ‘training’, I think, that the Talmud
is offering when it comes to explaining the colour of the original thread that the
Torah commands to be inserted into the Tzitzit. Techelet, a bluish ink derived
from the shells of the Murex Trunculus snail, “resembles the sea, the sea
resembles the sky, and the sky resembles the Throne of Glory.” We look at the
blue thread to be reminded of bigger things and the very biggest of things.
The point is that the individual rituals- not just Jewishly
informed rituals, but I’m thinking primarily of Halachah- spill over from
individual practices to shape our lives and bring our actions into line with the
values we often say we want to live by – but struggle to make tangible in a world
so full of distractions. Observance shapes our imagination and the impact we
have in the world. Sometimes a thread of blue isn’t just a thread of blue.
Shabbat Shalom
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