I have added a question mark to the title of this essay. I think the words taken from the Torah were not asked as a question but as pronouncements from on high. We have just finished our observance of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. During the rituals there is the famous recounting of the fate God determines of “who shall die and who shall live” and other pronouncements of how certain of us shall die, including by “strangling” and by “stoning”. These are difficult passages to endure for many of us who think we are blameless of any crime or sin and do not want to dwell on the punishments specified. These are ancient remedies or at least familiar today in some societies. Did you know that death by garrote (strangling) is still the punishment for capital crimes in Spain? We all, at least in many societies, were horrified that a woman who bore a child out of rape was to be stoned to death if found guilty by a fundamentalist court in Nigeria. Individuals who transgress civil laws usually know the time they serve is suitable to the crimes they committed. There are a whole host of do’s and don’ts that bedevil the rest of us and the punishments listed in not only the Torah but at every church altar and in every mosque follow the same proscriptions against bad behavior – and thought.
What these passages do not say is what rewards go to the individuals who live on. Their reward is not in heaven but is legislated here on earth in such institutions as the Stock Markets, in Banks, at the cash registers of business establishments and lately by the Presidency with the assistance of the U.S. Legislature. The only real pronouncement about reward that I know is what I hear said that a camel could pass through the eye of a needle more easily that a rich man getting into heaven. But that was in biblical times. Today, heaven is being rich.
Who shall be enriched are the rich. Who shall not receive attention shall be the poor, the ill, the elderly and the lowest of classes – the minorities and below them the scrambling masses of refugees and entrepreneurs who strive to be free in America. Our current President and his current administration have established this. Neither the Bible nor the Torah or, I think the Qu’ran speak about the current adulation of business and wealth. Each of the Scriptures speaks about the nobility of taking care of the widow and the orphan. The famous passages in the Torah that tell us to leave the corners of the fields that are plowed for the poor to reap for themselves are well known.
Our current leaders know only what they want to know. I do not think they attend services and hear the promises of punishment for ignoring their duty to all.