 |
|
 |
This article was temporarily edited to translate and transliterate from Hebrew and Aramaic to English. We hope to add better Hebrew capabilities very soon. Please excuse any errors. They will be corrected. RHZ
I) According to the Gemara, the splitting of the sea was one of the most direct experiences of G-d in our history. In his attempt to bring to life the extent of the people's confidence in what they experienced, Rashi explained the proclamation "Ze Keli v'Anvehu" (This is my G-d, and I will glorify Him) as follows: With His glory did He reveal Himself to them and they pointed at Him with a finger. A handmaiden saw at the Sea what even the prophets could not see.
Some versions of the midrashic text that was Rashi's source go further, portraying even those still in the womb pointing out G-d's obvious presence to everyone around them. It is nice that it was so obvious to them - unfortunately, it's not so obvious to us nowadays. The divine presence is not a concrete presence in our lives. But if it isn't, what significance can this text Rashi quotes have for us?
II) There seem to be 3 basic approaches to understanding G-d's presence in our lives. I'll nickname them for you - objective, subjective, and substitutive.
The "objective" approach assumes that we can philosophically or theologically prove that G-d is there.
The drawback of this approach is that it is always abstract. It is dependent on thought, and not anything one can sense.
The "subjective" approach assumes that you can't objectively prove anything beyond a doubt. But one's impression, one's personal experience of G-d's presence, is in any case all the argument one needs.
The drawback of this approach is that one can always doubt whether that experience is really what one thought it was. For example, imagine that I sense that I am in G-d's presence - I am overawed, fascinated, struck by the transcendent - so much so that time stands still for me, that what feels like it lasted but 2 minutes really began 5 hours ago. YET, HOW CAN I KNOW FOR SURE THAT WHAT I'VE EXPERIENCED IS REALLY WHAT I THINK IT IS? I could, after all, react the same timeless way to hearing Beethoven's 9th for the first time, or to having a brilliant scientific insight. How can I differentiate between what is "transcendent" and what is a "different state of mind"? Some suggest that the sharing of the experience is proof of its reality. For example, being in a room with 20 people meditating, and finding out after meditating that we all recall meeting one another during meditation and thinking the same ideas, proves its reality. Still and all, one cannot be objectively sure they shared the same experience, only subjectively sure. If you can't be sure you share meditative experiences, how could you be sure you share transcendent experiences?
One may prefer the 3rd, the "substitutive" approach. One substitutes a symbol for the divine, something that can be concretely experienced. To have a focal point, some object, may be helpful. But then, there is a real problem with Avoda Zara! That is, after all, the point of the story of the Golden Calf. Symbolic objects have such power to pervert the truth.
So if we can't be confident - if we can't objectively prove, if we can't subjectively experience, if we can't symbolically substitute, what can we do? Where can we point? Why did Rashi bother bring up this text - to mock us?
III) Let me suggest one way to approach this issue based on R. Meir Simcha.
Consider those areas of life we identify as holy…such as Shabbat or the Har HaBayit. According the R. Meir Simcha, these are devices - substitutes - that the Torah recommends to us. To R. Meir Simcha, sacred times or places are just carefully chosen reverberations of their source - of G-d. Only G-d is truly holy. Yet, you may still be concerned. How does this avoid the Avoda Zara problem I raised before? R. Meir Simcha recognizes the problem and attempts to answer it by taking it a step further. He begins with the following phrase in the Zohar:
The Holy One, Blessed Be, and the Torah are one.
If they are one, then Torah should not be susceptible to problems of Avoda Zara.
But perhaps Torah is susceptible to Avoda Zara? Let me elaborate - hasn't Torah itself become our dominant symbol? Don't we dance around it? Don't we treat what its written on, whether parchment or print, with the greatest reverence? G-d and the Torah may be one, but haven't people replaced G-d with the Torah?
R. Meir Simcha explained that that was why the original Luchot (tablets) themselves needed to be broken, to point out that not just an object like the Egel - Golden Calf- could end up being Avoda Zara, but any physical manifestation representing G-d could end up a distraction from G-d. G-d's presence is in the teaching only, not the objectification of it - even when the object is divinely given! Torah is not an object, it is a teaching, a way of experiencing life, and becholy experience needs personal guidance it must be handed down in primarily an oral fashion. To revere G-d is to revere G-d's teachings, not objects. It of course follows that a place that has holiness such as the Temple has the potential to be abused, and its special status is contingent upon our understanding that our living relationship to G-d is at the heart of this status, and nothing else. Lose that awareness, and the Temple is destroyed, needs to be destroyed.
IV) It has become popular, the fad, in academic circles to try to understand religion through its key documents. The approach is credited to a Protestant theologian at Yale, Prof. Lindbeck. The theory goes that it is impossible to trust theological, experiential, or other approaches to religion - the only knowledge you can trust are the conclusions you can draw about a religion from its structure. Thus, if a religion's teachings and institutions value certain modes of behavior, that is what the religion is. All you can study is the text - all else is open to doubt.
At first, this seems to fit well with R. Meir Simcha. After all, if Torah and G-d are one, G-d is nothing but the teachings! Study them, and you will know G-d.
To me, it seems that R. Meir Simcha rejected this approach in a very sharp manner. It is too extreme. For in the end, it makes text, the luchot (the tablets), into the substance of the divine, rather than the message from the divine. That is why the luchot (the tablets) were broken.
And, to be fair, Lindbeck himself would not go as far as some of his followers (academic hasidim) would go. I heard him comment at the AJS conference that his theory is all fine and well, but it concerned him that the personal god (you know who!) was left out of the picture. I think both he, and years before him R. Meir Simcha, were saying essentially the same thing. Although it may be difficult to be certain of the veracity of one's experience of G-d, religion without G-d is empty of the essence of religion. It's just academics.
V) Now I suppose that some of you may question my focus on a Protestant theologian in a Dvar Torah. I did it on purpose - for it has a lot to do with our reading today, with Az Yashir. In the reading we saw that our ancestors had a direct experience of G-d. One might think it was only for them. But consider the rest of the reading. It was to have reverberations. The peoples of the lands they were to conquer would hear, tremble, and panic. Israel was to come to their land and live in the religious center of the world - as it says, the place they will settle will be the Machon L'shivtecha, the place G-d will settle.
In other words, although Israel will not experience the same intensity of contact with G-d as at the Sea, they will live in a homeland dominated by the divine presence. And to what end?
That G-d will reign forever.
The history of Israel has a direction, is intended to make G-d's presence felt in a lasting way. To do so it must live in the world, cannot be something that impacts only Israel, and must be experienced both on the individual level and the political level. When we read this reading today, the stakes are high. It tells us that the way we understand our relationship to G-d impacts the world, not just us. Our song in history is not just a national song, it is a universal song, it is the song of G-d's presence in the world. As it says,, our national purpose is to bring a new song into the world, one in which we tell the world that G-d rules and through the song the world is reborn in its responsiveness to G-d.
Our day is a key time in history for the singing of our national song. Our presence in Israel is key to it. In our day we have barely survived the Egyptians, thousands of years of Egyptians, and have made it to the other side of the Sea. We have resettled Israel. Now the task at hand is to impact the world. But how? Politically? Halachically? And in so doing, how do we create a center of awareness of G-d in the world, without creating a center of Avoda Zara?
However we bring it to life, the message of today's song is clear. We represent the potential of the experience of G-d to the world, on whatever level the world wants it. We as a people are the finger that points to G-d. We live that experience in history. And we dare not lose sight of its endpoint. We talk of it in the Haggada
It is the message of Az Yashir in the sense of "then we will sing"…future tense.
And perhaps that is why the 7th, and particularly the 8th days of Pesach have messianic overtones attached to them - for without fostering an awareness in the world at large, we are incomplete. Without it, G-d is distant, an anachronism. And so, although Messianism as understood by most people scares me with its lack of sense, I cannot dispense with the desire that someday I may jump for joy at the other side of the sea, pointing at what I finally perfectly see.
|
|
