Yosef's Place: Musing – Are we moving the fence(s)?

Hebraic Musing – Are we moving the fence(s)?

Rabbis have been known to establish Fence Laws - created rules to protect one from violating G-d’s commandment. It’s better to be extra safe than to be sorry by offending Almighty G-d, so Fence Laws can be a good thing. A classic example – rather than trusting a sign at the edge of a cliff, build a fence twenty feet back to eliminate any chance that someone might get hurt. Fence Laws and rules are designed to be extra careful to avoid offending G-d or neighbor.

This reminds me of a Sunday School lesson I taught years ago. I told the 10 – 12 year olds “Today we are going to play a game; a fun game called Bochici Ball. It is so much fun because there are no rules. So the questions came – How do you keep score? Any Way You Want, There Are No Rules. How many balls? AWYW,TANR. How many to a side? AWYW,TANR What’s out of bounds? AWYW,TANR etc. etc. etc.” It did not take them long to decide that a game and/or life is no fun and can’t be played without rules.

A related verse in Deut. 19:14 says “Do not move your neighbor's boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess.” NIV Boundaries are to be honored and this verse could easily be applied to rules established in prior generations by our elders that should be honored if we expect to receive God’s blessings.

Human nature wants to “push the envelope.” As a kid, I used to call it “boundary breaking.” I would deliberately and knowingly sneak past the electric pole that was my boundary according to my Mother.

Non-theistic and/or atheistic groups can cavalierly or rebelliously proclaim their liberation from Judean/Christian morality. They need to hear the old expression “Whenever you move any fence, always pause long enough to ask why was it put there in the first place?” Society, and we as individuals, cannot survive in a boundary-less existence. Your neighbor has his own self-serving boundaries; so who is going to provide and respect the ethics between yours and his boundaries? If there is no objective law, relativism takes hold, and ultimately leads to self-destruction.

I can’t help but still be thinking of the recent Musing – “Whatever happened to Biblical Marriage” and the rules changes (or fences moved) that have been changing – notably since the 1960’s.

Have we entered a post-Christian era while still trying to hang on to the blessings of our Judeo-Christian value system? Philosopher Will Durant once said, ‘The greatest question of our time is not going to be East vs. West, North vs. South, or Communism vs. Capitalism. The greatest question of our time is going to be, ‘can man live without God?’ … pragmatically, ‘yes’ but coherently, ‘no’. And when coherence breaks down, there’s an implosion and a self-destructive mood sets in. And once those values have been expended, and we no longer have the roots from which to draw, then we will find out the ramifications of it.”

Maybe this is why when I kiss the Mezuzahs on our doorframes I say “Thank you Lord for your Commandments”?

Point to ponder

How many fences have been moved recently?

July 7, 2015

Yosef a.k.a. Joe Brusherd, Author::