Mishpatim: Diversity and Unity

Exodus 24:9-11

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel ascended; and they saw the God of Israel – under whose feet was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity. Yet God did not raise a hand against the leaders of the Israelites; they beheld God, and they ate and drank.

What does it mean to see God? We are told numerous times throughout the Torah that we cannot see God, lest we die. But here the elders see God and do not die. Twice we are told that they saw God: "They saw the God of Israel" and “They beheld God, and they ate and drank” (a line that reminds me of the joke “We survived, let’s eat!”).

But what does it mean to "see" God? Another translation of "and they saw" (וַיִּרְא֕וּ) is "and they feared" or "they were in awe." Maybe "seeing" is not visual, but an emotional reaction to God's presence. The verse goes on to describe not God, but the space under God, and even that is only described as a "likeness" not in definite terms.

In his book Man is Not Alone, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel attempts to discuss the nature of God. He says, “While the ineffable is a term of negation indicating a limitation of expression, its content is intensely affirmative, denoting an allusiveness to something meaningful, for which we possess no means of expression.” Basically, God cannot be understood or expressed fully in language, only through allusion and metaphor. Our ability to share our understanding of God with others will inevitably hit a language wall and require metaphor. This is why our text sometimes anthropomorphizes God - we do not really believe God has a body with hands and feet and outstretched arms, but that is the language we have to work with, so we work in metaphor. In Exodus 24:9-11 above, the elders lived out what Heschel is describing. They saw something meaningful that they did not have the words to describe.

In her book, 70 faces Torah Poems, Rabbi Rachel Berenblat reimagines the elders seeing God:

LIKE A FEAST / Mishpatim

Understand, when I say

        we saw a sapphire floor

                beneath the Holy One’s feet

I don’t actually mean

        we ate at a banquet table

                and clinked glasses with God.

What we stood on was like

        a floor but not a floor

                like the sky but not the sky

the likeness of a feast

        as we are made in

                the image and the likeness.

And during our ascent

        no two people witnessed

                the same vision: one saw

a bearded man on a throne

        one a woman robed in splendor

                one a shimmer of sound.

And then Moshe was called

        to ascend to a place

                none of us could even see.

He went into the fire

        and we came back, certain only

                that nothing will be the same.

This poem begs the question, how do we understand God? Rabbi Berenblat sets the scene beautifully, inviting us to reread the words of the Torah as a metaphor. If the elders each "saw" God (metaphorically) in their own ways, it invites us to use metaphor to help us understand and build a relationship with God today. Viewed in this way, the experience of God is open to or based on our own personal image of God, while still able to be part of a larger community of belief. Marrying this with Heschel's point, we can never truly know what someone else's experience of God is, since we lack the language to fully express our understanding of God. But that doesn't make our experience of God any less meaningful or our shared community any less important.

Earlier in the parsha, Moses received many laws and came down to repeat them to the people.

Exodus 24:3

Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of Adonai and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying, “All the things that Adonai has commanded we will do!”

What does it mean to answer with one voice? The laws in this week's parsha are laws that are open to interpretation and with which we still struggle today, including laws about slavery, miscarriage, an eye for an eye, and boiling a calf in its mother's milk. Do we really believe that all the people answered unanimously? That none dissented or had a question about one of these laws? This seems to stand in direct contrast with both Rabbi Berenblat's vision of diverse understandings of God, and the popular axiom, "two Jews, three opinions." Is the unanimous agreement of all the people yet another miracle? Can a group of people answer “with one voice” while having a different understanding of their shared experience?

Perhaps this scene is what Heschel had in mind when he wrote, "Divine is a message that discloses unity where we see diversity, that discloses peace when we are involved in discord. God is He who holds our fitful lives together." The Torah, in sharing these glimpses of diversity and unanimity in the people's relationship(s) with God demonstrates why Judaism is so powerful. Individuals can each "see" God in different ways; a personal understanding of and relationship with God is a given. Even so, the people can remain in community, agreeing "in one voice" on a shared set of laws to live by. Our diverse experiences do not preclude a unity of belief. Arguably, our diverse experiences and understandings of God strengthen our community. As Heschel puts it, unity and diversity are not opposites, but equal parts of the divine. Both can and do exist in Jewish belief and that is what holds us together.

Hardening Our Own Hearts

Last week, I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, Chutzpod! with Rabbi Shira Stutman and Joshua Malina (from the West Wing). The latest episode, titled "Hardening Our Own Hearts -- And Pharaoh's, Too" was a look at Parashat Bo and the final three plagues of the Exodus. It is a great episode and I highly recommend it. But when I clicked on the title to listen to it, I was expecting something different.

Over the years - in Torah study classes or drashes and again in this latest podcast episode - I've heard and discussed at length what it means for God to harden Pharaoh's heart. We've talked about free will, different translations of the word for "hardened" (toughened, strengthened, made heavy), why God might have hardened Pharaoh's heart - important and difficult conversations that are always worth having. This is more or less the ground covered in Chutzpod!

However, what struck me about the title of the episode, and what I was expecting to hear, was an exploration of the plagues as a way of hardening our own hearts, both the Hebrew slaves and ours today. Because while slavery prepared us for many hardships, it could not prepare us to handle difficult situations in which we have the power. Who are we when we are in control?

The plagues increase in devastation over the course of the Exodus narrative. When the Nile turns to blood, we consider it justice for the babies who were drowned in its waters. When frogs hop in the people's beds and on their heads, here, there, and everywhere, we sing a fun song about it. Even in parashat Bo, as the plagues worsen, we see the locusts eat the last of the food in the land and I think it's fair to say that's a reminder to the Egyptians that they would have starved long ago without Joseph. But then comes the terror of absolute darkness and the crushing, wailing despair of the death of the firstborn. There is no silly Seder song for the last plague. Miriam doesn't lead the Hebrews in joyous song and dance, like she does after the Egyptian army is drowned. No, as the final plague approaches, the Israelites sit in their houses and pray that the lamb's blood on their doors will protect them from death. We contemplate the price of freedom.

In our freedom, we will experience thirst and hunger, infestation, disease, and war, and unlike in slavery, we will have the power to act for ourselves. How do we make free choices? How do we grapple with those situations and the consequences of the choices we make? How do we harden our hearts when we have to make a difficult decision that will hurt someone else? What does it mean to be in control of our own lives and what are the limits of our power? How do we understand and deal with the things that are still outside of our control? As we prepare to leave Egypt and become a free people, it strikes me that maybe the plagues are not only meant to punish the Egyptians, or as a show of God's might, and maybe God doesn't only harden Pharaoh's heart. Maybe we need to be hardened too.