You Cannot Bribe G-d

Shabbat Shalom, beloved.

Have you ever been accused of legalism?

I have been accused since I was a teenager of being legalistic because I keep G-d’s commandments. People find out that you keep the Shabbat, that you don’t buy and sell on the Shabbat, that you don’t work on the Shabbat. “Isn’t that legalistic?” You don’t eat pork. “Isn’t that legalistic?”

And on the other side, there are people in the Torah movement who actually do get caught up in legalism. Not because they mean to. They often don’t realize it.

So what does legalism even mean?

The suffix “-ism” refers to specific practices or beliefs related to the word it is attached to. “Legal” means pertaining to the law. So legalism means specific practices or beliefs pertaining to the law. If we understand that the Torah is the law, we can see how someone might view practicing Torah as legalism.

Legalism is not a term found anywhere in the Tanakh or the Bible. It was defined by later theologians as earning salvation through works, or doing things in order to be justified. It is the idea that you can influence, change, or earn an outcome more favorable to yourself through your own merit, without actually returning to G-d.

Lady Justice

Outside of courthouses across the Western world stands a statue of a woman holding a set of scales, a blindfold over her eyes, and a sword in her hand.

The scales weigh evidence. But in the popular imagination, they also represent our good and bad being weighed against each other. On one side you have the positive. On the other side you have the negative. If you weigh down the good side enough, you are justified, you are innocent. If you weigh down the bad side enough, you are guilty.

In her hand is a sword. This is why we often connect punishment with justice: a sword to represent authority, power, and corrective punishment.

And then the blindfold. It is intended to represent impartiality, but it is worth thinking about in connection with the Torah portion, where the effect of taking a bribe causes blindness.

This is not to say that G-d does not weigh matters. We see often that He weighs the intentions of the heart. But that is different from the idea that “if I do enough good things I can get away with doing a few bad.”

Any attempt to weigh down the scale in your favor, whether through believing the right things, doing the right rituals, or saying the right words, as a substitute for teshuvah, is legalism. And the biblical picture of judgment is much closer to teshuvah than it is to punishment.

Teshuvah, which we sometimes call repentance but is better stated as return, is restoring our relationship to where it should have been. And that is what righteous judgment makes possible: restoring things to where they should have been.

Here is an example. My neighbor and I are in a dispute over the corner of our properties. He thinks the property line should go one way. I think it should go the other. I have my reasons. He has his. This is a serious matter. People have died over property line disputes.

In the biblical picture, we go before the judge. I present my case. My neighbor presents his. The judge listens, investigates, and makes a righteous ruling. It does not matter whether the ruling goes in my favor or my neighbor’s favor. We are both under authority. Whatever the judge determines, that is the property line. The dispute has been settled, and the relationship can begin to be restored.

Here is the part that is easy to miss. It was never about the land to begin with. The land comes from G-d. It is His land. It is the relationship between my neighbor and me that was damaged.

Judges and officers shall you make for yourself in all your gates, which the L-rd your G-d gives you, throughout your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert judgment. You shall not show partiality, neither take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. Justice, justice you shall pursue, that you may live and inherit the land which the L-rd your G-d gives you.

Deuteronomy 16:18–20

That Hebrew word translated “justice” is tzedek. It means more than courtroom justice. It can also be translated “righteousness.” In Hebrew, justice and righteousness cannot be pulled apart.

Torah Is Not Nomos

The idea of legalism is built around the Lady Justice model: scales that can be weighed one way or the other.

Our English Bibles do us a disservice in translation. Where the Hebrew says Torah, English often gives us “law.” But English was shaped for centuries within Western civilization, so that word does not come to us empty. English learned to hear “law” through the Greek nomos and through centuries of Western theology. It sounds like courtroom language, legal language. It makes us think of codes, courts, guilt, and punishment. By translating Torah simply as law, we risk reducing a much broader idea to a primarily legal category. We then end up understanding its function as condemnation: the law defines what is sin, determines who is guilty, and brings punishment.

When we handle Torah, we are handling something larger. The root of the word Torah is yarah, which means to aim, to focus on a point. The Hebrew word for sin is chet, to miss the mark. What mark is being missed? The mark the Torah is aiming us at.

Torah functions to direct us toward HaShem.

Bribing G-d

Ultimately the idea of legalism is saying: I can bribe G-d. I can do something that changes the outcome in my favor. If I do works or rituals, if I say this prayer, if I believe the right thing, I can bribe G-d and cause Him to change His verdict.

Sometimes the sacrificial system even gets taught from this perspective. That somehow bringing a sacrifice causes G-d to change His judgment without the person ever changing their behavior.

The prophets rebuke Israel for attempting this very thing: using sacrifices to bribe G-d while continuing to behave immorally.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? says the L-rd. I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They are a trouble unto me. I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. When you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

Isaiah 1:11–15

Does the L-rd delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the L-rd? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

1 Samuel 15:22

Micah 6 drives this point home. Watch the escalation:

With what shall I come before the L-rd, and bow myself before the high G-d? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with year-old calves? Will the L-rd be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the L-rd require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your G-d?

Micah 6:6–8

Burnt offerings? Calves? Thousands of rams? Tens of thousands of rivers of oil? My firstborn? All of my children?

And G-d is saying: that does not work.

Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your G-d.

A bribe tries to bypass the teshuvah that is required to come into right relationship with G-d. And how do you get to the place where you can walk humbly with your G-d? You return. Teshuvah.

Isaiah 1 answers in the same way:

Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Judge the fatherless. Plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, says the L-rd. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.

Isaiah 1:16–19

Come now. Return. Do teshuvah.

There Is No Scale to Weigh Down

We can all agree legalism does not work. There is no way anywhere in the Torah or the Prophets that outlines a path to bribe G-d.

Deuteronomy 10:17 says it clearly:

For the L-rd your G-d is G-d of gods and L-rd of lords, a great G-d, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and takes no bribe. He executes righteousness for the fatherless and widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.

Deuteronomy 10:17–18

This idea of bribing G-d is not new. Legalism is not a new idea. Lady Justice is not modern. Two thousand years ago the Romans called her Justitia. Before that she was a Greek goddess. Before that an Egyptian one. Those pagan societies believed you could bribe their gods. That was a function of their worship and their sacrifices: give the gods something so the gods would give you rain, fertility, victory, or a good harvest. That is the transaction. Give the god what it demands so the god will give you what you need. You do not pass your child through the fire because the god is worthy. You do it because you want something from the god. You want rain. You want victory. You want a good harvest.

We need to be careful. We do not want to take a pagan idea of justice and force it upon the Creator of the universe, the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Torah does not give us sacrifices so that we can bribe G-d. It gives us korbanot so that we can draw near to Him. Korban, from karav: to draw near. Not sacrifice and loss. Relationship.

So if legalism does not work, if there is no scale to weigh down, if there is no way to bribe G-d with sacrifices, is there any hope for the guilty?

How does G-d actually judge?

Ezekiel 18: How G-d Judges

Ezekiel 18 is one of many places where we get a picture of how G-d judges, and it is one of the clearest. The context is that the people are saying the sons are dying because of the sins of the fathers, and G-d says the people are misunderstanding how He judges.

The person who sins, he will die. The son will not bear the guilt of the father, and the father will not bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself. And the wicked one, if he should turn away from all his sins that he has done, and should keep all My statutes, and do justice and righteousness, he will surely live. He will not die. All the transgressions that he has done will not be remembered against him. Because of the righteousness that he has done, he will live. Do I take any delight in the death of the wicked? An utterance of the L-rd G-d. Is it not in his turning from his ways, that he lives?

Ezekiel 18:20–23

The wicked person does teshuvah. There is no scale that he has to work to try to balance out.

And the opposite is true for the righteous person. If he leaves his righteous ways behind and becomes wicked, there is no storehouse of righteousness. He cannot get away with a few sins:

And in the turning away of a righteous man from his righteousness, and he does iniquity according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, will he live? All the righteousness that he has done will not be remembered because of the unfaithfulness with which he was unfaithful and the sin that he has sinned. In them he will die.

Ezekiel 18:24

Now let us be honest with the text. This does not mean that if a righteous person sins once, it is an instant death sentence. In certain cases the act itself could carry a death sentence, as with adultery when there are witnesses. But the point is that if a person stays on the path of wickedness, ultimately he ends in death. And the righteous person who falls has the same pathway back as the wicked person who repents: teshuvah.

For a righteous man falls seven times and rises up again, but the wicked shall fall into evil.

Proverbs 24:16

G-d is not out to get us. He expects us, when we fall, to get back up and return to Him.

Therefore each man according to his ways I will judge you, O house of Israel, declares the L-rd G-d. Turn and turn away from all your transgressions, and iniquity will not be a stumbling block to you. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have transgressed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I do not delight in the death of the one dying, declares the L-rd G-d. Turn back and live!

Ezekiel 18:30–32

Do teshuvah and live.

In Ezekiel 36, G-d says He will give us a new heart and put a new spirit within us. But here in chapter 18, the command comes to us first: make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. If we want that promise fulfilled, it starts with us taking the steps. Why should you die, O house of Israel?

“None Are Righteous”

When we talk about righteousness, there is a quote that often comes to mind: “None are righteous, no not one.”

The person who will say that keeping Shabbat or eating clean is legalism will also use this quote. It is catchy and easy to remember. What is harder for most of us is to look up the original sources. This phrase draws from Psalm 14, Psalm 53, and Ecclesiastes 7. The Psalms speak of the fool who says in his heart there is no G-d, and describe a generation where no one does good. But the verse that gives us the clearest picture is Ecclesiastes 7:20:

For there is no righteous man on earth who only does good and does not sin.

Ecclesiastes 7:20

This says something similar to Proverbs 24. Righteous people exist. They fall down and they get back up. They do teshuvah. The verse does not say there is no such thing as a righteous person. It says that even a righteous person sins.

We can find many Torah principles throughout the Ketuvim, the Writings, but we cannot pluck verses out of context and use them as an excuse to live a life of unrighteousness.

If we want to define righteousness, we should use the Torah to do it:

And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the L-rd our G-d, as He has commanded us.

Deuteronomy 6:25

The word translated “righteousness” here is tzedakah. It comes from the same Hebrew root as tzedek, justice. In Hebrew, righteousness and justice belong together. It means doing what is right.

To break the chains of wickedness. Untie the cords of the yoke. Set the oppressed free. Tear off every yoke. Share your bread with the hungry. Bring the poor and homeless into your home. Clothe the naked. Do not turn away from your brother. This is Isaiah 58. And it continues:

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will sprout quickly, and your righteousness will go before you. The glory of Adonai will gather behind you.

Isaiah 58:8

Tzedek, Tzedek

Righteousness, righteousness you shall pursue, so that you will live and take possession of the land which Adonai your Elohim is giving to you.

Deuteronomy 16:20

Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof.

Justice. Righteousness. The same word. Pursue it and live.

And then Deuteronomy 30, verse 11:

For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not hidden from you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it?” But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

Deuteronomy 30:11–14

No more excuses. If it is not yet in your heart, do what the prophet Ezekiel commands: make for yourself a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel?

The Season of Return

Parshat Shoftim always falls during the opening days of the month of Elul. This is not an accident. Elul is the season of teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah: return, prayer, and righteous giving. When we read about justice and righteousness and the command not to pervert judgment or take a bribe, we read it at the very moment the calendar calls us to examine ourselves.

Elul is understood to be an acronym. Several verses are connected with it.

Elul is known as the time when the King is in the field. Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek G-d while He may be found. Call on Him when He is near.”

In Jewish communities around the world, the shofar sounds every weekday during the month of Elul. It functions as a wake-up call, an alarm, a call to rouse the soul to return.

During Elul the shofar reminds us that the King is present, and it builds anticipation toward Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Trumpets, when we proclaim G-d as King and renew our acceptance of His kingship for another year. We are 38 days from Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when judgment is sealed.

Avinu Malkeinu

We said that legalism is an attempt to bribe G-d, to tip the scale, to change the verdict without changing the behavior. We said the Torah does not function as law that convicts but as instruction that aims us toward HaShem. We said G-d does not judge by weighing good against bad on a scale. He calls us to return.

Elul is the month to do that returning.

As we go through the weeks of Elul, examining ourselves, doing teshuvah, reestablishing G-d’s authority over our lives, accepting His kingship upon ourselves for another year, something changes. It is not that we bribe G-d into changing His verdict. It is that the person standing before Him has changed. The relationship changes. We draw near. We return.

And when we reach Yom Kippur, when judgment is sealed, we are not standing before a distant king in a courtroom, hoping our good deeds outweigh our bad, trying to bribe the Judge. We stand before Avinu Malkeinu: our Father, our King.

There is a difference between standing before a distant king and standing before a King who is also your Father.

A king who is also your father does not forget the relationship. He does not weigh your failures on a scale and hand down a sentence from behind a blindfold. He sees you. He knows you. And if you have spent the month of Elul drawing near to Him, walking in the field with Him, if you have done the work of teshuvah, of returning, then when you stand before Him when judgment is sealed, He greets you the way a father greets a child who has come home.

This is what judgment looks like in the Torah. Not Lady Justice with her blindfold and her scales. Not pagan gods who can be bribed with offerings. Not a courtroom where the right belief or the right ritual tips the balance. A Father who says: return to Me, and I will return to you.