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Heschel This Week on the Sinai Revelation

This week's selection from Heschel's God in Search of Man is keyed to Parashat Yitro and the Revelation at Mt. Sinai.  I'll post more passages in future weeks on Heschel's view of the Torah, or you can read a several page explanation I prepared for one of my classes here.  To subscribe to the weekly e-Heschel directly, send me a note.

Revelation does not happen when God is alone.  The two classical terms for the moment at Sinai are mattan torah and kabbalat torah, “the giving of the Torah” and “the acceptance of the Torah.”  It was both an event in the life of God and an event in the life of man. . . .  At Sinai God revealed His word, and Israel revealed the power to respond.  Without that power to respond, without the fact that there was a people willing to accept, to hear, the divine command, Sinai would have been impossible.  For Sinai consisted of both a divine proclamation and a human perception.  It was a moment in which God was not alone.

As a report about revelation, the Bible itself is a midrash... Thus the Bible is more than the word of God:  it is the word of God and man; a record of both revelation and response; the drama of convenant between God and man.

Parashat Yitro -- Make Room for Revelation

There are two distinct stories in Parashat Yitro, and we usually think about them entirely separately.  The most important part of the parasha are chapters 19-20 of Exodus, known as Ma'amad Har Sinai, the revelation "standing at Mt. Sinai."  Here, God offers the Israelites as a whole a covenant, and when they agree God speaks directly from the mountaintop to them, proclaiming the Aseret Hadibrot, the Ten Commandments (literally the ten "speakings").

Before that, we read about a discussion between Moshe and his Midianite father-in-law Yitro.  Yitro sees that Moshe spends all day adjudicating conflicts, large and small, among the people.  Yitro suggests that Moshe institute a system of courts, with lower officials hearing minor cases and only the more difficult ones coming before Moshe.  The biblical origin of our tiered system of courts, or perhaps of bureaucracy in general.

What is the Yitro story doing here?  It could go almost anywhere in the story of the march through the desert.  It would make even more sense in a couple of weeks, after the detailed laws beginning in Exodus 21 in Parashat Mishpatim that form the basis for Moshe's work as judge.

There is a connection between these stories, and it centers on Moshe himself.  In Exodus 18:18, Yitro says that if Moshe continues to take on every controversy by himself, "you will wear yourself out and these people as well."  It's only after Moshe gives up some of his work that he is available for God to summon to the mountain and receive the Torah.  It's only after Moshe steps back from the minutia that fills his every hour, that he is in a position to experience God's revelation.  It's only when the people don't have to stand in line all day to talk to Moshe that they are freed up to listen to the Ten Commandments.

In Conservative Judaism, we say that God's revelation was not a one-time event that took place in the third month after the Israelites left Egypt.  The text of Ma'amad Har Sinai almost hovers over the Torah -- it's one of the few chapters that does not begin with the connecting vav, the "and" that links it in sequence with what came right before.  You could say that God's voice was speaking the Revelation all the time, but that it took Yitro's advice to get Moshe in a position to hear it.

As dramatic and momentous as the Ten Commandments are -- as much as we yearn for God's word to be clear and powerful in our lives -- we need to make time and space in our lives to receive them.  To look up from the details, to take a break from consuming responsibilities, so that we are not weary, but ready.

Parashat Beshalach: Shabbat Shirah and Tu Bishevat

Today, the basics and a bit more on two special dimensions of this Shabbat.

The day we read Parashat Beshalach is always known as "Shabbat Shirah", the Shabbat of song.  Often synagogues will give a special focus on music and singing.  The specific song of this week is in the Torah reading -- Exodus 15 contains what Jews call Shirat Hayam, the "Song of the Sea."  It's the song the Israelites sang after they passed through the Sea of Reeds and completed their escape from Egypt.  We quote two lines of this song each day in prayer, morning and evening:  Mi Chamocha ("Who is like You Adonai among the mighty ones?") and Adonai yimloch l'olam va-ed ("May Adonai be king through all reaches of time and space").

Although...one midrash says that they sang while they were in the middle of the sea.  It sheds a different light on the Israelites when they sang.  If they sang at the far shore, they sang out of relief and pent-up emotion, disbelief giving way to appreciation.  If they sang in the middle, they sang out of confidence, knowing that their first step into the sea was a sure step toward freedom.

Some say that Moshe taught the song, singing each phrase for people to repeat.  Other midrashim suggest that Miryam was the true composer, and that the women who had after all stepped forward first to resist Pharaoh were the ones who had the most faith that the redemption would come.  Yet other midrashim teach that Moshe, Miryam, and the whole people were simultaneously inspired, each mind and heart composing the same poetry at the same instant!

As for Tu Bishevat, it began as the "new year for trees" because of a law in the Torah about the fruit of trees.  During the first three years of a new tree, we are commanded not to eat the fruit.  The produce of the fourth year is an offering to God, and in the fifth year and beyond the fruit is ours to enjoy.  Tu Bishevat was designated as the official day when all trees turned the next year old.

In mystical tradition, trees became our connection to the Garden of Eden and to Creation itself, and therefore to the spirit of God.  In the past century, Tu Bishevat has become a time to connect with the earth of Eretz Yisrael.  The Jewish environmental movement has also found resonance in Tu Bishevat.  These threads have combined to shape the "Tu Bishevat Seder" meal that is common today and that we will celebrate at the Temple this Shabbat.  You can start here on myjewishlearning.com to learn more about the holiday, and follow the links there for more depth. 

Heschel This Week on Wonder

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Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.  One attitude is alien to his spirit:  taking things for granted, regarding events as a natural course of things...He knows that there are laws that regulate the course of natural processes; he is aware of the regularity and pattern of things.  However, such knowledge fails to mitigate his sense of perpetual surprise at the fact that there are facts at all.  Looking at the world he would say, "This is the Lord's doing, it is marvelous in our eyes" (Me-et Adonai haytah zot, hi niflat b'aynaynu! -- Psalms 118:23 and Hallel).

Is wonder the same as curiosity?  To the prophet wonder is a form of thinking.  It is not the beginning of knowledge but an act that goes beyond knowledge; it does not come to an end when knowledge is acquired; it is an attitude that never ceases.  There is no answer in the world to man's radical amazement.

--from God in Search of Man

Parashat Bo: A Hardened Heart

This Dvar Torah was created by the Zayin class at the Temple Beth Abraham Religious School for their class service this Shabbat -- I put the ideas into words.  Yishar kochachem!

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Parashat Bo begins with these words:

Adonai said to Moshe:  Come to Pharaoh, because I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order that I can place these signs of mine in their midst.  And so that you will tell in the ears of your children and your children’s children what I did in Egypt and the signs that I put there, and you will know that I am Adonai.

Our class wondered about a few things.  First, what does it mean that God hardened Pharoah’s heart?  Second, wouldn’t God want Pharaoh to let the people go sooner?  Third, isn’t it unfair for God to take away Pharaoh’s ability to make decisions, force him to do something wrong, and then punish him for doing that?  It seems like God is playing Pharaoh like a puppet and not letting him be a human being.

In the traditional Jewish commentaries, there are a few answers given to these questions.  Rambam, Rabbi Moses Maimonides, says that the expression “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart” isn’t meant to be taken literally,  Rather, it is a metaphor that means “Pharoah became infinitely stubborn.”  So stubborn that eventually he lost his ability to change his mind.

When the plagues began, Pharaoh did have a choice to stop the enslavement of the Jews, but he kept deciding to oppress them.  Now after a few plagues, the Torah says that “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”  Rambam believes that connecting this to God is a way of saying just how powerful and extreme Pharaoh’s stubbornness was by that point.  Rambam doesn’t like the idea that God would manipulate Pharaoh and then punish him.  So he says that’s not really what the Torah means.  Rambam puts all the responsibility on Pharaoh himself for the consequences of his actions.

This reminded some of us of the way a bully behaves.  A bully is someone who is afraid to show his weakness.  Even though he could decide not to hurt other people, he gets stuck in a certain image and then even if deep down he doesn’t want to, he continues to bully other people.

So Pharaoh didn’t want people to think he was weak.  He was considered a god in Egypt, so he didn’t want anyone to think that anything else was more powerful than he was.

You could also compare this to way a lie can grow.  Once you start with a lie, you have to keep coming up with other lies so you keep up the first lie and not contradict yourself.  In that way, a lie becomes something you get stuck in and can’t get out of.

Resh Lakish, a rabbi in the Talmud, explains it a bit differently.  The first few times God did warn Pharaoh that if he didn’t let the Israelites go, more plagues would follow.  Once it was clear that Pharaoh wasn’t changing, God said:  Now you deserve the extra trouble from Me, on top of what you got as a result of your own decisions.

We can compare this to parents and children.  Our parents ask us to do things, and if we don’t listen after a certain number of times, then we lose the freedom to decide.  How many chances does a parent have to give to a child?  When the parent realizes that the child hasn’t learned the lesson and isn’t going to learn, then it may be all right to stop giving more chances.

A third explanation, from Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, is that God is making a unique example of Pharoah.  The Torah, in the verses that I read to you, does say that one of the reasons for hardening Pharaoh’s heart is to show the Egyptians and also future generations that God is supreme.  So Rabbi Hirsch says that in this one case, it is understandable for God to take someone’s free will away and punish him maybe in an unjust way.  The greater purpose is that in the future other kings or leaders faced with Pharaoh’s choice will not do what he did.

We didn’t think this is a very convincing interpretation. Pharaoh wasn’t the last tyrant to oppress the Jews -- what about Haman, Antiochus, or Hitler?  If God was making an example of Pharaoh, it doesn’t look like it was a very effective lesson.

We all have the power to make choices, but sometimes we lose that power for good reason -- our hearts get hardened.  So remember if someone is trying to teach you what to do, after four or five times of saying no or doing the opposite you’ll loose your choice or your freedom.  And be careful not to fall into bad habits or patterns that can harden your heart and make it impossible for you to choose the right thing.