Revelation And Mercy
Rabbi Dr Walter Rothschild
What does it mean to encounter God? How and where and when can one encounter God? How can one encounter a Being, a Concept? For some a Reality that cannot be described, for others a Myth that does not deserve consideration? What sort of encounter is even possible, between a finite being and an infinite one? Where are the common factors, the surfaces that can interface, the connections that link one to the other, the human to the divine?
All Religions are attempts to approach these questions. For some, it is easier if there are many Gods, each one limited – you can encounter them by visiting a specific mountain or tree or sea or river or city or temple to discuss a specific issue. This god for a victory, this goddess for a good harvest, this god for better weather or a safe journey, this goddess for fertility and children – it is like going to a specialist rather than a general doctor. You can bring them a gift, maybe something to eat, you can speak aloud to them – or ask one of their professional servants, a priest who acts like a butler, who will bring your message to the god on a little tray, or who will cook your present and serve it to this God, and who – you hope – will return and say, ”The god says ‘Thank you’ and he will look carefully into the issue you have brought to him.” This may sound trivialising, but it is how many religions have worked and still work. Judaism too, during the time of the Temple, which is why the Prophets were always so sarcastic about the Priests. It was all so concrete, not abstract. The people would go to a specific place; they would bring their gift, the priest would process it and send the message upwards, and then hopefully interpret the answer that came back. A mixture of spectacle, oracle and miracle. Gods are brought down to a human level, they have hungers, emotions, moods, they can even (though here Judaism was an exception) be portrayed with statues and pictures to make them more approachable.
For the Prophets, it was more important to raise people up to a divine level…… not as gods, no, not in their status but in their behaviour, to encourage them to behave in a way that showed their devotion to God.
Some people find speaking to God a bit intimidating, but they believe that God was so kind as to send a representative, a Son down to earth, who would look and sound just like any normal human being, who could even be tortured to death and murdered like a normal human being, although – they believe – this was not the End, it only LOOKED like normal mortality, and so you can approach the Son and say ”Could you please pass this message on to your Father?” – or even, for the ways of theology are sometimes strange, you can talk to the Mother of the Son (who is NOT the Wife of the Father) and ask, ”Could you have a word with your Son for me, please, so that he will talk to his Father on my behalf?”
I do not wish to be hostile or insulting to believers in other religions, but I do wish to point out that an emanation of God who looks just like a normal human being – well, one who wears a light brown beard and long hair and a white djellabiah or bathrobe – one who can be portrayed in two-dimensional icons and three-dimensional statues, in human form, even as a baby suckling at a breast, is more approachable, more conceivable, more available than one who is invisible, with no name and who exists in no and all dimensions simultaneously.
None of this is available to us – and by ‘Us’ I mean those of us who were born as or who have chosen to become Jews, ‘Yehudim’, the name coming from a small state that was wiped out long ago but where a Temple to this invisible God had been built; or ‘Israel’, the name meaning those who have fought and argued with God, the name applied to a patriarch who, deep in the darkness of a symbolic night, deep in the waters of a symbolic river, wrestled with an invisible adversary, trying to turn his fear and the curse of betrayal and exile into a blessing of acceptance and security and peace. Centuries later both these names were applied to fragments of what had been the first and only Jewish monarchy, both of which were (separately) defeated and wiped out. Five-sixths of the inhabitants disappeared into history and one-sixth – just two tribes – continued through history and in some respects are still here. Despite everything. Despite those who believed in no gods, despite those who believed in different gods, despite those who believe in the same God but also his Son or his later Prophet……..
No, we do not have this comfort, we cannot make models of God and wear them on chains round our necks. (I have never forgotten a newspaper item that appeared when I was a teacher of religion in a school in England; Someone had wished to buy a crucifix to wear, and the sales assistant at the jeweller’s shop had asked politely, ”Would you like a plain one, or one with a little man on it?” Of course the point of the news item was the ignorance of the younger generation, their distance from religion and spirituality, but at the same time her question bore a deeper truth: Did the purchaser want an abstract symbol as a reminder of death and life, or ”a little man” attached to it?) God cannot be chained. God cannot be moulded, or cast in metal, or shaped, or given any form. God is God. That’s all.
If it is any consolation, Moses faces this problem from the outset. Abraham may have bargained with God, Jacob may have struggled physically with God, but Moses has to make do with less tangible experiences. A voice speaks to him from the flames of a bush that burns but does not burn up. Flames move and crackle – a voice can be heard, but nothing can be seen. ”Who ARE you?” he asks. The voice says (Exodus 3:14) ”I am who I am”. ”Echyeh asher echyeh.” And that is all he will know, and that is all he needs to know.
This Voice speaks to him several more times, it sends him to Egypt, it tells him what to tell the Pharaoh, it tells him what to do when the situation looks desperate and the Egyptian Army is chasing their runaway rabble towards the sea, it tells him what to do so as to drown the pursuers, and then onwards for the next forty years. There are times when Moses can go to the Ohel Mo’ed, the Tent of Encountering, and initiate a conversation with God, ask God a question, put a practical problem before God for a response – ”What to do if a man is caught collecting sticks on the Sabbath?”; ”What to do with the inheritance of a man who dies and leaves only daughters?” – but normally it is God who speaks and Moses who listens.
In Exodus chapter 33 Moses tries again. He has obeyed the command to ascend the mountain; He has received the revelation; He has brought it back to the people and found that they had not waited for it, they had not had faith in him or the One who had summoned him to the summit; He has reacted; He has returned. Now – from verse 12 – he wants to know – desperately – WHO is this God? And God’s response in verses 17 to 23 is: ”You may not see Me. I am who I am, I show mercy to whomever I shall show mercy; but no human can see my face, and live! You can only see – at the very most – my Back, and even then only if we hide you, protect you behind a rock. You cannot see Me, you may not get close to Me. You may hear me describing – in all modesty – in the third person, my characteristics, but you will have to work out for yourself what these mean.”
And so in the next chapter (chapter 34, verses 6 and 7), after Moses has prepared two new tablets upon which the revelation can be written, and returned to the appointed spot, we get the so-called ‘Thirteen Attributes of God’, which are listed as though they mean something obvious and which are subtly twisted in the Machzor to make them fit into today’s liturgy – to put it bluntly, the liturgists have simply cut off the last fourteen words in the Hebrew! This is an amazing form of ‘theological revisionism’ and censorship. The original refers to the effects of our sins upon the next generations – just as it has said in Exodus chapter 20 – whereas the liturgists have focussed the text very deliberately upon the Present, not the Future – upon Us, and not upon the coming generations. For today it is WE whom we are meant to worry about, and NOW, not the distant future we shall in all likelihood never see. I stress this because whilst it is not unusual for liturgists to take some biblical phrases out of their context and twist their meaning, this is a most remarkable and quite daring example. It is almost as if they are saying ”We know, God, how You have described Yourself, but we only want to concentrate on the nicer, softer elements of Your character.”
So what are we left with? God ”passes before him” and ”calls out”:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Adonai Adonai.
El Rachum veChanun.
Erech Apayim
veRav Chesed v’Emet.
Notzer Chesed la’Alafim,
Nosseh Avon vaFescha.
VeChata’ah; Venakeh…. (”lo yenakeh, poked Avon Avot al Banim….” etc.’)[/perfectpullquote]
What on Earth – or in Heaven – are we to make of this list? Is it consistent or is it contradictory? Is it complete and, if not, what is missing? Where are references to Anger or Revenge or an Obsessive Behaviour Syndrome when it comes to maintaining minor regulations? Where is the one who Teaches and Reveals? Where is the Covenant? It is always important to look in biblical texts for what is NOT there and to try to understand Why. God is not described here as Powerful, Mighty, Merciless, a Supreme Victor, the one who destroys other Gods, the One who brings Life and Death, the One to be feared…. rather the opposite; albeit there are limits to mercy, it has to be appealed for and deserved….
Adonai Adonai. The repetition. Is it for emphasis? One cannot accept that one of these identical terms is redundant, so there must be a reason for it. The rabbis state that one of the words used for God, Elohim, is used more in the context of Justice, whereas the Tetragrammaton, the four letter ‘Name’ of God, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, is used more in a context of Mercy. It is alas the case that most of the time we yearn that God should inflict Justice on everyone else, for their failings, but show Mercy to ourselves…..
El Rachum. A God who is merciful. This sounds nice but – why is Mercy necessary? Does being merciful mean making compromises, accepting that things will have to be accepted even though they are technically inacceptable, that God is prepared to close one eye, to draw a line, to forgive…. or any other metaphor that might or might not fit? Not to punish when punishment is due? But why should punishment be due, unless laws had been broken – and whose laws were they and why had they been given? May one always rely upon Mercy, becoming almost complacent, or should one accept it gratefully as an exceptional privilege? As we know, amongst humans Mercy is usually a privilege, it cannot be guaranteed.
v’Chanun. A God who knows how to show favour, how to be gentle.
Erech Apayim. This can be understood in different ways. God ”extends His Face’? God looks, God observes…. God shows the divine presence. God does not look away. But also: God takes time before getting angry.
Rav Chesed ve’Emet. God is great in Chesed – which is often translated as ‘Lovingkindness’…. The term Chesed comes twice in this list – why the repetition? But as well as Chesed there is Emet – Truth – and Truth is often harsh and brutal because the Truth is the Truth, the real Truth, and not what we would want the Truth to be.
Notzer Chesed laAlafim. The one who plants this ‘Chesed’ in thousands, who makes it sprout and flourish, who enables it to grow. But who are the thousands? We, here, are a part of them. Some translate: ”For a thousand generations” as a contrast to the three and four generations mentioned later. If this were so – which number are we?
Nosseh Avon, vaFesha, veChata’at…… All three Hebrew terms for ‘Sin’ are incorporated – Avon, Pesha and Chata’ah. There are failures, omissions, mistakes, foolish errors – and the deliberate breaking of a commandment. There are different degrees of wrong-doing; sometimes one sins from ignorance, sometimes from an evil will. The list in the ”Al Chet” sequence of prayers that we recite gives some examples, demonstrates how dangerous it is sometimes to think only in terms of black and white, good and evil, for there are so many shades in between – things we have done wrong but… but… but…. we hope nevertheless that this will be ”lifted up” from us and not forced further down upon us. God will ‘lift up’ and bear with the failure and the slipping, God will cleanse the actual Sin. God will understand what we really meant. And then:
Yenakeh. God will cleanse us of all these errors.
As I have stated, the original text in Exodus says the exact opposite! ”Yenakeh LO yenakeh!” No, God will punish future generations for our misdeeds! ”Poked Avot al Banim!” And here we see such a difference between Biblical and Rabbinic Judaism. Between Torah and Liturgy. Between a God who is distant and one who is close, one who demands submission and gifts, and one who seeks dialogue. The Torah says that God will NOT cleanse the guilty – but we, here, today say to God, ”But you WILL, won’t you?” And then we focus on all these wonderful, kind attributes.
This line reveals so much, including the dangers of a merciless fundamentalism as practiced by so many so-called ‘religious’ people today. The people who believe they know exactly what God wants and are prepared to act – unasked – as God’s agents, watchmen, soldiers, executioners. We, too, if we want to enjoy the benefits of a loving flexibility, a preparedness to make compromises, a preparedness to forgive and me merciful – must show these same qualities ourselves. That is not to say that we ignore the concept of Sin – just, that we see it in ourselves as well as in others, and practice the same qualities we see – or want to see – in God.
Moses could only see God’s back. Just as we, too, see only a part of someone, a part of their exterior. Today we do not judge others, today we are judged. And hopefully, by now, by this stage of the process, by Yom Kippur itself, we will have managed at least a part of that inner transformation we all need.
Gmar vChatimah Tovah.
Rabbi Dr Walter Rothschild.
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