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Entries in God (13)

Wednesday
Jan152025

The Divine works through dark deeds too

While we don’t love the idea, divine providence seems to be able to work through foul deeds just as well as fair ones. We would prefer for the vessel for providence to be the righteous and saintly – and they surely are – but we also see clearly in the Tanach that G-d chooses to enact the divine plan through much less wholesome individuals.

In the story of Joseph, his brothers choose to strip their brother of his coat and throw him in a pit, then sell him to merchants and deceive their father with a blood-covered coat into thinking his beloved son was dead.

Though some try to give these deeds a higher motivation, on the face of it they are pretty heinous. And yet they are a crucial link in the divine plan to bring the Jacob family down to Egypt, while positioning Joseph as the viceroy. Along the way there is much suffering.

If we were to ask G-d why it had to be this way, why the family could not have come to Egypt under gentler circumstances, and why the divine needed to work through so many unsavory deeds (not only of the brothers, but also of Potiphar’s wife, the butler, and more) perhaps the answer might look like this:

I work through evil too, it leads to a form of rectification and refinement of souls that is not necessarily achievable through kind and pleasant ways.

(Or perhaps kabbalistically speaking: "There are sparks that need elevating even in the darkest places.")

 

It’s not a nice thought. Many years ago I learned that the evil Hitler survived no less than 42 assassination attempts. For me, if that is not divine providence, then I don’t know what is. Due to this, I do not accept theologies that suggest that G-d was not involved in the Holocaust and it was somehow all human doing. G-d worked through Pharaoh, and G-d worked through Hitler. No, it’s not pleasant on the ears or heart, and the last thing I mean to do is desecrate the memory of any who died in the Holocaust. I’m not pretending to know what exactly was the divine plan. I’m just looking at a fact.

 

Proof that G-d works directly through evil people arrives in a book very closely connected to the Joseph story. The book of Esther contains texts that mirror phrases from the Joseph story. Apart from the intertextuality, the two main characters share that they had to leave home, go into a foreign environment, live in a palace and be close to the ruler, and use that ruler to save the Jewish people. They also both found favour in the eyes of all who saw them.

In the Esther story, wicked deeds are turned precisely on their head:

1) In Esther 6:6, Haman wants the honour for himself, but by his own hand it is then Mordechai, whom he hates, who is placed on the horse with the king’s crown atop his head, while Haman has to call out before him, “Thus shall be done to the man whom the king wishes to honour.”

2) In Esther 7:10, Haman is hanged on the very gallows he built for Mordechai

3) In Esther 9:1, “on the day that the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, the opposite occurred, in that the Jews themselves overpowered those who hated them.”

Because the one major difference between the two stories is that the Joseph story is full of G-d’s name, while in the Esther story G-d’s name is hidden, I feel that this exact reversal is the Divine saying, “I am right here, behind the scenes, and yes, I work through wicked people too.”

 

Today’s world is full of evil and lies. For some, this is the work of Satan or the evil inclination, and is the place most devoid of G-d.

I do not deny evil must be fought wherever it is. Hitler needed to be defeated and the final solution stopped. Yet having studied these Tanach stories, I wonder if G-d is not somehow working the divine plan through them too. Why, we can only guess.

 

 

 

Sunday
Sep102023

Is "Choose Life" Really A Choice?

Deut: 30:19: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.”

It’s your birthday, and I’m giving you two presents. One of them is horrible; something no one would want. So I’m telling you to pick the other one! But why then did I put two down in the first place – why not just give the nice one? Isn’t that a kind of unpleasant mind game? And what if you want the horrible one, will I give it to you?

And seriously: what is the point of giving someone a choice and then commanding them to pick only one, thereby removing that choice?

But is it indeed a commandment, or just a strong recommendation? That’s the difficulty in the Torah, that some things that are worded so they sound like commands are not actually so, e.g. “six days you shall work and on the seventh day is for rest” (I did hear one opinion that this is in fact a mitzvah to work!).

I hear in our verse not a command, but a heartfelt request and strong encouragement. We are allowed to choose the path of life or the path of death, that is how the world is structured. The way I hear G-d’s voice is—so to speak—imploring us, saying:
I have put terrible things into the world I have created. Enough of them that you can choose to focus on them all day every day, and become suffused with feelings of anger, disgust, and despair. I will not take away your free will; you get to decide where to put your eyes. But please, for the sake of this grand experiment I have called Life, please make dozens of tiny choices every day and every week to look at the good. ‘For this thing is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it.’” (Deut: 30:14)
Something in human nature pulls us constantly into the negative. I find that the only way to remain in the positive place, the “choosing life” place, is to constantly make endless small good choices.
Rambam (Hilchot Teshuva 3:4) notes we should behold ourselves as evenly balanced between innocence and guilt, and see the entire world similarly…. “if he performs one good deed, behold, he will overbalance himself and the whole world to the side of virtue, and bring about his own and their salvation and escape..." Every time we choose the good, we tip the scales, we move into the realm of good, we face the right direction. And we will receive help to keep going there. As the Sages say, “The way in which a person wishes to go, they are led.”

Once a year, we read these words “Choose Life”. But we should really hear them every day, every hour and every moment.

 

Sunday
Oct302022

Serving God with "You yourself"

An age-old question on the Cain and Abel story is: why does God accept Abel's offering and reject Cain's?

The Hasidic Master, Rabbi Judah Leib Alter of Gur, known as the Sefat Emet, suggests that the answer is to be found in a close reading of two phrases from the story (Gen 4:3-5):

3. And in process of time (literally: at the end of days) it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground as an offering to the Lord.
4. And Abel brought, he too, of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat of it. And the Lord accepted Abel and for his offering;
5. But Cain and for his offering he did not accept.

The Sefat Emet quotes another Hasidic master, Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Przysucha, that the phrase "At the end of days" reveals to us why Cain brought an offering in the first place - it was due to the fear of his own death, which brought him to a thoughts of repentance and a desire to cover his bases. However, Abel brought "he too" (literally "himself too"), meaning while he was still alive, in life.

In other words, elaborates the Sefat Emet, Cain did not offer with his full heart and soul, he was merely afraid of his death, while Abel brought the fullness of his own being to the sacrifice; and that is the key in sacrificing to God, that one intends to use it as a way to become closer to God. To serve God with one's entire existence, not a behavioral gesture stemming from other motivations.

That is, in fact, the point of the all of the commandments. They are empty if not joined with the intention of deveykut, cleaving to God.

This reminded me of the book of Iyov/Job). In the first verses, Job is described as a righteous man and God Himself describes him as "blameless" to Satan. In the book, Job indeed rejects his friends' attempts to attach blame to him.

And yet - at the risk of joining Job's friends - I have to say that the explanation of the Sefat Emet made me think of the book of Job, and puts Job in the role of Cain.

From the outset, we hear that Job would always make sure to sacrifice, in case his sons had sinned while feasting. To me, that sounds like piety out of fear, out of covering his bases - and not out of fullness of connection to God. I feel as if the suffering God made him go through, along with the vision of the whirlwind at the end, were all designed to force him to bring "himself too", to move from being a meticulous saint who immediately checks to see if he has sinned in the minutest place but without actually serving God, to someone who by the end has been cracked wide open, discovered his own darkest places, and in that way can come to admit that he never really knew God before :

I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees you (Job 42:5)

The word for knowledge, daat, appears over eighty times in the book of Job. Jewish daat is not just in the mind - we need to know things intimately, with our entire selves, which is why the biblical Hebrew verb for conducting sexual relationships is leyda, the same verb as for to know.

We need to know G-d not through habitual actions covering ourselves in case we sinned, but with our heart cracked open and our full, flawed being.


> With thanks to my teacher Dr Elie Holtzer for his marvelous classes on Sefat Emet.

Monday
Sep122022

Hallelujah

I was in Edinburgh watching a gospel choir from South Africa singing songs of freedom, with colorful costumes, soaring voices, dancing and much gusto.

The final song they sang, though, was Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. While this is not my favourite of songs, the fact that they were singing a song by a Jew and through it were intending to praise God moved me; and I was even more moved when the entire audience rose to their feet and sang in unison "Hallelujah" with incredible joy and vitality. 

And it suddenly struck me that every time someone says the English word Hallelujah, since fortunately in this case the annoying J that creeps in in English versions of Hebrew words is not pronounced, they are literally saying the Hebrew words הללויה or הללו יה, Hallelu Yah, praise God.

Meaning that, without ignoring negative things this religion has wrought such as the Crusades and anti-semitism, one good thing Christianity has certainly done is brought millions of mouths down the ages to say the words "Praise God" in Hebrew, and that goes on until today.

And each time a mouth does that, surely that is a bolt of good energy in this troubled world?
Perhaps it even creates an angel?

Sing Hallelujah
Sing it!

Wednesday
Jun152022

Angry at Esther - God's Defender

I was discussing Megillat Esther with someone who expressed strong negative feelings that surprised me.

This person, a religious Jew who grew up in a rather different environment, every year becomes upset when he listens to the book of Esther being read, because there is no mention of God's name. He feels indignant, offended by the fact that Esther and Mordechai did not pray or give thanks to God for the miracles vouchsafed to them.

"The Torah makes it clear that it is always about God. We are to praise God and worship God," he protested. "What on earth is this?!?" He even suggested that we were punished with (longer) exile due to this egregious omission on the part of Esther and Mordechai. 

I found his defense of God moving, but of course I had my explanations at the ready. It's impossible that Esther and Mordechai omitted mention of God by accident, or due to any beliefs that the miracle of Purim came about accidentally/through human agency only. And the fact that the rabbis include the megillah and made Purim into a significant festival obviously validates Esther and Mordechai as people of faith.

But my conversational partner remained unconvinced and angry. This was the first time I had ever had such a conversation, and I must confess it came as quite a surprise. What I appreciated about it though was the absolute incomprehension of how you could have a religious text without God in it - no matter what the reason. 

I think since I've grown up with Esther for my entire life, I've always accepted the explanation that the book represents God's working in hidden ways. I find meaning in that message. Yet why should we accept that so easily - why indeed should there be a scroll in which God's name does not appear at all?

Yes, let us question that, let us be indignant for God's honour. Perhaps every year God awaits our zealousness for the divine name, to return it to centre stage. And perhaps every year, God sighs and shrugs upon seeing how facilely we accept the hiding of the divine. All of us, that is, except for my friend, who saves the day. Hmm.