Scales of a Heart and a Feather

Dr. King's Legacy

You thought Jewish funerals had some interesting rituals? How about this one from Egypt?¹

The ancient Egyptians had this fascinating belief about what happens after death. They imagined a trial, The Weighing of the Heart, where your worthiness to enter Aaru, the Field of Reeds (basically their version of paradise), was determined not by what you said or believed, but by the weight of your heart.

Here’s what makes it striking: they left the heart in the body after death, even as they removed other organs, because they understood the heart as the seat of the soul. And the trial itself was elegant in its simplicity. Your heart was placed on one side of a scale, a single feather on the other. If your heart was as light as that feather, you passed through to eternal pleasure. If it was heavy, weighed down, presumably, by wrongdoing or moral burden, the goddess Ammit (imagine a creature that’s part lion, part hippo, part crocodile) devoured it, and you were condemned to the underworld, Duat.

The feather in Egyptian culture represented a whole slew of values: harmony, justice, and balance among many others. In other words, if a person’s heart was too heavy, it meant that how they practiced in life veered too far into cruelty, apathy, and discord. This ritual provides great insight into why, in this particular narrative section of the Torah, Pharaoh is described as being heavy-hearted over twenty times. Sometimes it’s of his own doing and sometimes it comes with some divine intervention. The repetition of the phrase jumps out at us, as if to say, pay attention to me!

So what are we paying attention to exactly? Most of us are not Pharaohs thankfully but we know the feeling of a heavy and overburdened heart. It’s an ancient and contemporary problem. Here is what the Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato, an 18th century Italian master commentator wrote in his treatise Messilat Yesharim-The Path of the Just:

One of the evil inclination's most effective weapons is to overburden the human heart with cares and labors, leaving a person no time at all to consider the direction of his life. If a person would but contemplate his ways, he would surely begin to reconsider his priorities, and the ensuing remorse would no doubt bring about a complete abandonment of the transgression. This is similar to the counsel of the wicked Pharaoh who said: ' Let the work become heavier for the people so that they will be occupied with it, and will not be misled by false ideas.' His intent was not solely to frustrate any thoughts of resistance on their part, but also to prevent them any opportunity for even reflecting on their situation, by imposing upon them unceasing labor. This is exactly the same approach taken by the evil inclination...²

We tend to think of the evil inclination nudging us to make poor external life decisions, interacting with the wrong people, prioritizing the wrong material gains, or other external roadblocks. But here the Ramchal turns the gaze of the evil inclination inward. When our hearts get heavy, we lose our ability to discern our purpose in life. We diminish our ability to change our path. We lose our sense of what is just. That is what the Egyptians wanted to assess in the afterlife and what kept happening to Pharaoh. Over and over, he’s given a chance to reassess and he doesn’t…or he can’t.

To be heavy hearted is something many of us are trying to figure out how to live with. There’s so much taking place that is weighing us down. This is a good time to confront that part of ourselves. This weekend, we mark Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy. Many of us will take part in acts of service and learning. Check out some great options here!

In preparing our MLK weekend learning for work, I came across this powerful reflection from Dr. King about two months before he was assassinated. In his Drum Major Instinct Sermon, Dr. King was riffing on a story in the New Testament where two disciples were wanting to attain glory to sit next to Jesus. Instead of admonishing them for their desire for greatness, Jesus redirected them to another pathway, finding greatness through preparedness and willingness to serve. In responding to that tactic, King noted the following for all of us as we try to find our purpose:

By giving that definition of greatness, everybody can be great. Everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.

As always, Dr. King’s words are striking. Service can not only be the great equalizer in a fractured society, but it can also raise up our hearts from the burdens that they bear. To live in the world with a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love is accessible to every single person, no matter how weighed down that heart is.

Do not wait until your own version of the feather and the heart test. Don’t let the chaos of the surrounding world put so much pressure on you that your heart bears the brunt of it. Be a person of service. Walk through the world with a posture of grace and love. Be willing to be prepared to give to other people.

That is the hope embedded in this weekend. Pharaoh started his heart hardening journey on his own. As it calcified, he lost his agency to act. We don’t have to fall prey to that. We are still in this fight. Don’t give up.

Dr. King eerily ended that sermon by asking folks to imagine what they’d want said at their funerals. He shared his wishes for his own:

I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody…I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes) And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked.(Yes) I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord) I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes) Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness

Most of us won’t end up on the level of Dr. King and thankfully won’t descend to the level of Pharaoh. We’re somewhere in the middle. As we all battle against our hearts over-hardening, I hope Dr. King’s words and the words of our tradition can lighten our hearts and spur us to greater action and service.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Weekend

1. With thanks to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, for sharing this particular ritual.

2. Mesillat Yesharim, Chapter 2 – The Attribute of Caution)