Vain Knowledge
Holiness as Antidote to Lip-Service
You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:12)
You shall not swear vainly by the name of your God the Lord; for the Lord will not clear one who swears vainly by God’s name. (Exodus 20:7)
“ Why is this [verse, i.e., Leviticus 19:12] stated at all? Since it is said (Exodus 20:7) “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” I might have inferred that one is not liable except he swore by the "Proper Name” of the Lord. Whence do I know that all names that are descriptive of God's attributes are included in this prohibition? Because Scripture states “you shall not swear by My Name to a lie, “thus implying by any Name I have.” (Rashi)
Rabbi Abba said: I was standing before Rav Huna, and he heard a certain woman utter a mention of the name of God in vain. He excommunicated her and immediately dissolved the excommunication for her in her presence. The Gemara comments: Learn three things from this. Learn from this that one who hears mention of the name of God in vain by another individual must ostracize him; and learn from this that if one ostracized another in his presence, one may dissolve it for him only in his presence; and learn from this that there is nothing, i.e., no minimum time that must pass, between ostracism and nullification of the ostracism. (Nedarim 7b)
The Torah instructs us not to swear in God’s name in several places. In the 10 commandments, we are told not to swear l’shava; in our parasha, Kedoshim, we are told not to swear l’shaker. The two words are synonymous, but the first connotes emptiness, while the second connects falseness. An oath that is empty needn’t be false, just pointless. With slightly different inflections, the two laws strengthen a question: “Why should we not swear in God’s name?”
If we just had theLeviticus law we might conclude that swearing in God’s name is problematic only if used to underwrite an outright lie. But the law in Exodus suggests that the core issue is our regard for the power of God’s name. God’s name is itself a form of divine presence. Thus treating it casually—even swearing by God hat 1+1=2—is a form of disrespect and diminution. Some things are true, but we don’t need to bring God in to the discussion. I shouldn’t swear that my hand is my hand. Save the name of God for when it counts. Or to put the point in the language of Martin Buber, God should be treated as a “Thou,” not an “It.” Casual use of the divine name leads to talking “about” God—as if God were an object—rather than to God. In a broad sense, all theological discussion risks taking God’s name in vain insofar as it treats God as an object of study rather than a real presence before whom we stand.
From a purely theoretical perspective, all swearing by God’s name—even in a court of law—is a form of vanity, as God cannot and should not be invoked in the third person. Any objectification of God is a form of desecration. But this is not livable. We need to be able to invoke God, and there are times when it is fitting to speak in God’s name even as we must recognize that we are relativizing God as we do so. Activists secularize the divine commandment when they hold up signs proclaiming “Not in my name,” but the negative theologian’s form of “Not in my name” is deeper and more consistent: anything we can say about God—including that God sides with our moral judgment—is blasphemy. “Not in my name” applies to anything we say and do.
But Kedoshim is not so blunt. In fact, we are encouraged to be holy in emulation of God. We are encouraged to sanctify the divine name through our words and deeds, thus finding a middle ground between apophatic silence and easy-come-easy-go spirituality. When we act in a holy way, we testify to God’s presence in the world. Kedoshim turns the Exodus law into a positive commandment: Demonstrate God is not vain through your conduct. When you behave in a Godly way—you are appropriately expressing the divine name. The Lord’s name is not a one-touch password, but something we vocalize by our observance of the Law.
Commenting on the difference between the Exodus prohibition on l'shava and the Leviticus prohibition on l’shaker, Rashi suggests that God’s name is not a literal name. Any attribute of God is also a stand-in for God. Thus, we can’t swear on God’s kindness or mercy as a loophole in avoiding swearing on the shem ha’m’forash (the explicit, singular name, the Tetragrammaton). But more to the point, a name is defined by its primary functionality—to call someone. A nickname has the same function as a primary name and thus is interchangeable with it. When we invoke God, in any form, to substantiate our points we are on shaky ground; we are at risk of falsifying reality or limiting reality, and these modes of distortion can occur in various forms.
Holiness is a more holistic requirement than mere knowledge. A person who speaks correct statements is not holy. Even a person who speaks meaningfully is not holy. Holiness needs to be embodied. The prohibitions on swearing falsely and emptily—read broadly—are consistent with an ethos that tells us that words only go so far.
It is often said that God cannot do public miracles because it would deprive us of free-will. God cannot resurrect the dead, because if we witnessed it, we would have no choice but to keep all 613 commandments. This is contestable on several points. First, God can do whatever God wants. God could structure free-will in such a way that it is not affected by the display of miracles. Second, we have proof from the Torah that the people observed miracles with their own eyes and remained defiant. They saw the sea split, and walked through it, and nonetheless engaged in idol worship. They received manna from heaven and nonetheless complained. If all people were to believe unequivocally in God—whether because the proofs for God suddenly convinced them, or because they experienced Eureka moments—they’d nonetheless be wedded to their stubborn ways. Just as I know that junk food is bad for my health and nonetheless eat it—the knowledge doesn’t take away from my free will. Holiness, then, is not about knowing that X is the case, but about becoming a new person. At the highest level, swearing in God’s name that something is true is still not as powerful as becoming a living representative of that truth.
To summarize these points, the Torah gives us a series of levels in our moral and spiritual development
Level 1: Don’t take God’s name casually.
Level 2: Don’t use God’s name when lying.
Level 3: Don’t conflate correct speech with meaningful speech.
Level 4: Don’t conflate meaningful speech with knowledge and understanding.
Level 5: Don’t conflate knowledge and understanding with a holy life.
On the one hand, a holy life is livable even in the absence of knowledge. We are judged on our delta, not on our achievements. On the other hand, it is the task of a holy life to seek knowledge and to bring it into our hearts. Any knowledge that we don’t fully live, and that doesn’t fully motivate us, is a kind of vanity. Not only should we avoid taking the Lord’s name in vain, but we should avoid letting our book knowledge be in vain. The Torah does not say “Be erudite, for I the Lord am erudite,” but “Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins