In The Way

To Care is Human

Perfect obedience is not impossible, at least that’s what we think. Personally, I believe Yeshua came in the flesh to show us that it is, in fact, possible to be human and also be perfectly obedient to the Father’s word. Sure He was the Messiah, but let’s not forget that He too was one of us lowly humans.

We all know that Yeshua was not a robot, not by any means. Yet He was perfectly obedient to God and the commandments. Perfection is a trait we relegate to machines because we don’t believe it possible to be human and perfect. This doubt is a tell-tale sign of imperfection. At that moment we’ve compromised perfection. I guess we are human after all.

More human than human

It’s odd to think how we somehow feel that machines can put out a perfect product yet we humans cannot. Are we not the creators of the machines? Logic would dictate that a machine’s limitations should be lower than ours.

This begs the question: What is perfection? Is perfection the lack of flaws? Is perfection symmetry? Is perfection precisely-timed actions? One would think any of these examples or a combination of any would define perfection, especially in these days of computers and robotics and programs and such. But that makes perfection cold and lifeless – not the most desirable traits for humans.

Ghost in the machine

We are not robots. We care. We love. We have a soul. Sadly, we use our human “shortcomings” as a way to justify our disobedience to the commandments. We tell ourselves, “We’ll never be perfect so why try?” Then there are some who believe we can be perfectly obedient but only by aborting our feelings – those emotions and “flaws” that make us human (thereby making it impossible). I can almost hear the Vulcan advice to “purge one’s self of feeling and emotion.” This is not so. Yeshua showed us we can have perfect obedience to Torah as well as perfect love toward each other.

I agree that legalism is alive and kicking. Legalism is robotic. And no matter what denomination (pardon the term) one subscribes to, there will be those who are legalistic. Just a side note: the Pharisees were not entirely legalistic – they had honor, discipline, and love. Rav Shaul (Paul) was a Pharisee and never stopped being a Pharisee even after the scales fell from his eyes. He knew love and spoke of it often.

Perfect love

A perfectly obedient Torah observer who lacks love is useless, at least in the eyes of God. Why then do we put perfect obedience in front of perfect love? Maybe because it’s easier to gauge obedience than it is to gauge love. It is easy to figure out if one has broken a commandment; either you broke it or you didn’t. Did you murder anyone today? No? Well done! That was easy. But when it comes to love, it takes more thought. Did you love your neighbor today? I hear a resounding, “Define love, please.”

I agree that love can be found from obedience. Faith is obeying when we don’t really know exactly why we should obey. There’s a trust there. When things work out, we realize our Father loves us and we can trust in him. But that’s the scenic route. If we just started out with love, we would obey by default. Perfect love results in perfect obedience effortlessly.

We cannot create the perfect robot. To do so would mean making the robot feel and love and hurt and forgive and all that good stuff. We would find that we would be attempting to create man – that perfect being we all call imperfect. But that piece of handiwork has already been created. And shame on us for thinking such a beautiful and wonderful creation could be anything less than perfect.