Belief: Readings on the reason for Faith by Ed. Francis S. Collins

Author:Ed. Francis S. Collins [Collins, Francis S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spirituality, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, Science, Religion
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2006-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

In the terrifying twenty-sixth chapter of Vayikra (Leviticus), the word qeri occurs seven times in succession. Most translations render it as “defiance,” or “with harshness, stubbornness.” But Rabbi Ben Ouziel in the Talmud, Maimonides in his epistle to Yemen, and André Neher (among others) have translated this word as chance. Neher, for instance, translates: “If you choose the covenant, I will be with you in the covenant. If you choose chance, I will yet be with you in chance.” How do you interpret this duality, this counterposition between Obedience and Chance, between the choice of Covenant and the choice of Chance?

I agree. In my view, this is the only meaning: qeri means chance. On another level, it also connotes chaos, which is the enemy of everything the Jewish religion holds dear. Chaos is worse than chance, worse than anything, because if there is chaos, then Good is not good and Evil is boundless. It is the original tohu va bohu. Qeri is therefore chance, and with chance anything is possible. Covenant, on the contrary, is a response to chance. We have a choice between Covenant and Chance, and it is incumbent upon us to formulate that choice, to accept it, and to make it. Moreover, it is a choice that must be made daily. Each and every day we have the power, the privilege, of saying to ourselves: today either I partake of Covenant or I am here by chance.

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