Sermon: Parashat VaEtchanan/Nachamu
Written by Rabbi Nicola Feuchtwang — 17 August 2022
The first ‘proper’ Bat Mitzvah at Alyth (by which I mean one 13-year-old girl, doing exactly the same as a boy would have done) took place in May 1970. Prior to that, our only option was a “job lot” at Shavuot. (There were 4 of us in my year, I think there were 12 the year after me)…. So the Torah portion was always Exodus 19 and 20, the events leading up to the revelation at Sinai; the 10 Commandments (by heart, in English in those days) were shared out between us: The Haftarah was the 6th chapter of Isaiah, describing his vision and call to prophecy. There is a verse in that chapter which certain girls took delight in misreading deliberately. God seems so determined to bring doom that the prophet is told not to warn the people:
‘ Lest…. Seeing with their eyes and hearing with their ears, and understanding with their heart, they return and be healed….’[1]
The trouble is that once a group of teenagers have giggled enough times over ‘Hearing with their Eyes and Seeing with their Ears….’ – one reaches a point where you can’t even remember which version is correct!
And yet that confusion is not completely silly, although no-one thought to discuss it with us at the time, because one of the verses in the Exodus account does actually say
‘ve-chol ha-am ro-im et hakolot v’et halapidim v’et kol hashofar….’[2]
( ‘the people SAW(?) the sounds…..’). The verb ‘resh-aleph-he’ means ‘to see’ but also ‘to perceive’ or ‘to witness’, as the modern translations put it.
Our Torah reading this morning is taken from Parashat VaEtchanan, which includes the other version of that same story of Revelation – as recounted by a very elderly Moses 40 years later to the children & grandchildren of those who had actually been there. I would like us to look at one particular verse from our reading:
‘Take great care not to forget the things which you saw with your own eyes….
…God spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but you did not perceive any shape… there was nothing but a voice….’[3]
Later in the chapter, Moses repeats again and again – God has no visual form; do not make idols; Israel’s destiny is unique and God-given – and it is to live in unwavering affirmation of the Unity and Uniqueness of this all-powerful, ever-present but unseen Deity. Chapter 6 of Deuteronomy includes the declaration which we all know – Shema Yisrael, as well as a re-statement of the 10 Commandments.
Back in Exodus, the people seem initially very committed to this notion,[4] and yet very quickly they back off, expressing fear of direct revelation, and soon after Moses goes up the mountain, they are prevailing on Aaron to create the Golden Calf, a visible image as a focus for their worship. Here in Deuteronomy, Moses recalls the divine anger, and effectively blames the people for the fact that he, Moses, will not be able to enter the Promised Lan.
And much of the rest of TaNaKh tells the Jewish story in terms of this theme – an ongoing struggle between an idealised religion, and recurrent sliding into ‘idolatry’ – with every disaster interpreted as in some way a consequence of disloyalty to God and to the just society which should result from commitment to God.
These are very complex and challenging ideas, and I think we struggle particularly with the ‘cause and effect’ type of argument. But here is another idea, which I found almost mind-blowing when I first came across it:[5]
Maimonides, writing in the 12th century, considered that Adam and then Abraham got it right – a sort of spontaneous intellectual communion with the Divine arising from what Maimonides might have called rational philosophy. It all went wrong in Egypt, when we were exposed to their ways and became accustomed to idolatrous ways of thinking and worshipping.
According to Maimonides, God (unlike Moses) actually understood that the people were just were not ready for the pure monotheism that Moses was trying to bring them; that a sudden transition from paganism to monotheism would be impossible; that in order to be fully engaged with religion, most people need more than abstract ‘philosophy’.
Hence – the rationale behind festivals and ritual laws about food and clothing. Concrete actions for particular people and times and places, and helping to create community. Hence the entire edifice of tabernacle and then Temple, of priests and of sacrifices. Visible, tangible, audible, olfactory manifestations, as it were, of connection with the Divine.
And according to Maimonides – these were only ever intended to be temporary measures, a sop to human weakness, to our need for the concrete. Because we are on a journey back towards a more elevated form of religion… Even Prayer – as it has evolved over the last 2000 years – using words to try and grapple with the nature of God, is progress, but it is only one further step towards something higher.
For Maimonides, every person should develop their rational faculties, with the aim of ‘perfecting their intellect’ so that they can reach the state he called ‘prophecy’, of direct communion with God as understood by Abraham.
I struggle to understand much of what Maimonides wrote on other topics, and I struggle with some of his more elitist attitudes. Nevertheless I have found this particular notion strangely helpful, especially these last few weeks trying to make sense of Tisha B’Av last weekend and the centrality in traditional Judaism of mourning for the Temple and so on. On this Shabbat Nachamu, I find comfort not so much in Isaiah’s idea that we have been punished enough, but rather in Maimonides’ idea that individually and as a people, we are always on a journey, and that even God might make adjustments to take circumstances into consideration, not expecting more of us than we are ready for.
Shabbat Shalom.
[1] Isaiah 6:10
[2] Exodus 20:15
[3] Deut 4:9 and 12
[4] Exodus 19:8 ‘all that God has spoken we will do’
[5] Summary based on Seeskin, K. (2020). The Tabernacle: A Concession to Human Religious Needs? TheTorah.com. https://thetorah.com/article/the-tabernacle-a-concession-to-human-religious-needs