Tag Archives: belief in God

Parashat Noach – The Tower of Babel from another perspective

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ירד ה’ לראות

Targum Onkelos – the translation of Onkelos, is a understood to be an authentic translation of the torah text into Babylonian Aramaic, probably composed around 80-120 CE.

In the Talmud (Megilla 3a:7) the rabbis thought it to be from the time of Ezra and Nehemiah and the return to Israel from Babylonian exile – around 450 BCE, showcased in the famous event on Rosh Hashanah when Nehemiah and Ezra read the whole Torah to the returned exiles at the water gate, translating and explaining as they went (Neh 8).

We read:

וְתַרְגּוּם שֶׁל תּוֹרָה, אוּנְקְלוֹס הַגֵּר אֲמָרוֹ? וְהָא אָמַר רַב אִיקָא בַּר אָבִין אָמַר רַב חֲנַנְאֵל אָמַר רַב: מַאי דִּכְתִיב: ״וַיִּקְרְאוּ בְּסֵפֶר תּוֹרַת הָאֱלֹהִים מְפוֹרָשׁ וְשׂוֹם שֶׂכֶל וַיָּבִינוּ בַּמִּקְרָא״. ״וַיִּקְרְאוּ בְּסֵפֶר תּוֹרַת הָאֱלֹהִים״ — זֶה מִקְרָא; ״מְפוֹרָשׁ״ — זֶה תַּרְגּוּם;

The Gemara asks: Was the translation of the Torah really composed by Onkelos the convert? Didn’t Rav Ika bar Avin say that Rav Ḥananel said that Rav said: What is the meaning of that which is written with respect to the days of Ezra: “And they read in the book, the Torah of God, distinctly; and they gave the sense, and they caused them to understand the reading” (Nehemiah 8:8)? The verse should be understood as follows: “And they read in the book, the Torah of God,” this is the scriptural text; “distinctly,” this is the translation, indicating that they immediately translated the text into Aramaic, as was customary during public Torah readings.

Quite who Onkelos was is impossible to know. There are those who consider him to be the same person as Aquila of Sinope, a convert and a student of Rabbi Akiva, who translated the Hebrew bible into Greek (possibly before his conversion) , and into Aramaic after converting.

We may never know who he was, but one characteristic stands out – the Targum Onkelos revises and mitigates language that might suggest that God has any kind of corporeality, or any anthropomorphic aspects. 

The other thing that the translation of Onkelos avoids is the sense of a spatial relationship between the heavens as the abode of the divine, and the earth.

So in the story of the Tower of Babel, when the biblical text (Gen 11:4-7) reads:

וַיֹּאמְרוּ הָבָה  נִבְנֶה־לָּנוּ עִיר וּמִגְדָּל וְרֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם וְנַעֲשֶׂה־לָּנוּ שֵׁם פֶּן־נָפוּץ עַל־פְּנֵי כׇל־הָאָרֶץ׃

וַיֵּרֶד יְהֹוָה לִרְאֹת אֶת־הָעִיר וְאֶת־הַמִּגְדָּל אֲשֶׁר בָּנוּ בְּנֵי הָאָדָם׃  

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה הֵן עַם אֶחָד וְשָׂפָה אַחַת לְכֻלָּם וְזֶה הַחִלָּם לַעֲשׂוֹת וְעַתָּה לֹא־יִבָּצֵר מֵהֶם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר יָזְמוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת׃

הָבָה נֵרְדָה וְנָבְלָה שָׁם שְׂפָתָם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יִשְׁמְעוּ אִישׁ שְׂפַת רֵעֵהוּ׃

And they said, “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world.”  GOD came down to look at the city and tower that the mortals had built, and GOD said, “If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach. Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another’s speech.”

Onkelos translates it as:

וַאֲמָרוּ הָבוּ נִבְנֵי לָנָא קַרְתָּא וּמַגְדְּלָא וְרֵישֵׁיהּ מָטֵי עַד צֵית שְׁמַיָּא וְנַעְבֵּיד לָנָא שׁוּם דִּילְמָא נִתְבַּדַּר עַל אַפֵּי כָל אַרְעָא:

וְאִתְגְּלִי יְיָ לְאִתְפְּרָעָא עַל עוֹבָדֵי קַרְתָּא וּמַגְדְּלָא דִּי בְנוֹ בְּנֵי אֱנָשָׁא:

וַאֲמַר יְיָ הָא עַמָּא חַד וְלִישָׁן חַד לְכָלְּהוֹן וְדֵין דְּשָׁרִיוּ לְמֶעְבָּד וּכְעַן לָא יִתִּמְנַע מִנְהוֹן כֹּל דִּחַשִּׁיבוּ לְמֶעְבָּד:

הָבוּ נִתְגְּלִי וּנְבַלְבֵּל תַּמָּן לִישָׁנְהוֹן דִּלָא יִשְׁמְעוּן אֱנַשׁ לִישַׁן חַבְרֵיהּ:

Then they said, Come, we will build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach the height of the heavens. Thus we will make ourselves a name, so that we will not be scattered all over the face of the earth. Adonai became revealed in order to punish them because of the building of the city and the tower that the sons of man built. Adonai said, Behold, they are one people, all having one language, and this is their first undertaking. Now will nothing be unattainable for them, [to do] whatever they have a mind to do?  Come, let us be revealed and jumble their language, that they will not understand one another’s language.

Why does Onkelos reject the idea of God descending to earth to see what is happening there?

The phrase “va’yered Adonai”  ירד ה’  appears in Tanach in a very few places – here in the story of the Tower of Babel, and once in potentia in Genesis 18:20 when “GOD said, “The outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave! I will go down to see whether they have acted altogether according to the outcry that has reached Me; if not, I will take note.”

It appears twice in the book of Exodus, once at Sinai when God “descends on Mt Sinai and calls Moses up the mountain” (Ex 19:20) and again when Moses, having shattered the original tablets of stone on which were engraved the ten commandments, is told to come and repeat the process – this time God appears in a cloud next to Moses and declares the attributes of God (Ex 34:5).

The next time God “descends” is in the Book of Numbers, in the strange tale of the prophesying elders. The people are exhausted and frightened and complain against God, angering God and causing a fire to break out against them. They cried out, Moses prayed to God and the fire ends. But the people are hungry and demand meat to eat, remembering the fish, cucumber, melons, leeks, onions and garlic that were so plentiful in Egypt, whereas now all they have is manna to eat. The people complain and weep, distressing Moses and angering God, and Moses says to God “why do I have to carry the burden of these people alone? I would rather die than continue trying to lead them”  God’s response is to tell Moses to collect seventy elders of the people, bring them to the Tent of Meeting, and God will spread the burden of leadership from Moses alone to the seventy elders.  God then tells Moses to say to the people “Purify yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat, for you have kept whining before GOD and saying, ‘If only we had meat to eat! Indeed, we were better off in Egypt!’ GOD will give you meat and you shall eat.” When Moses queries the logistics of feeding so many people the meat God appears to be promising, God asks “is there a limit to My power?” So Moses gathers the elders, and sure enough: “Then, after coming down in a cloud and speaking to him, GOD drew upon the spirit that was on him and put it upon the seventy elders. And when the spirit rested upon them, they spoke in ecstasy, but did not continue.” The end of the story is graphic and gory – an enormous number of quail appear, the people eat and eat and overeat, and God causes a plague among them and many of them die…..

And the final time that God “descends” in the Tanach – in Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron are complaining about Moses and his marriage to the Cushite woman, and that they too have the gift of prophecy and leadership, not only Moses. God calls all three siblings to the Tent of Meeting and descends in a pillar of cloud, calls Miriam and Aaron forward and in no uncertain terms explains the very particular relationship with Moses that they do not share, and follows up by causing Miriam to be struck by a skin disease of pure white scaliness which causes her to be exiled from the camp until she is healed.

It would appear that when God descends it is either to demand more moral behaviour, or to punish those who are complaining about God or even challenging God’s decisions.  But there is also an element in these narratives of God revealing something particular about God-self – the covenant at Sinai, the organiser and provider of the exodus and sojourn in the desert with its concomitant expectations, and most clearly the unique nature of the divine relationship with Moses.

While much of bible has a sort of perpendicular dimension – God is most naturally to be found in the highest heavens, to be met or worshipped at the tops of mountains, a figure who might occasionally descend from there to earth, or send heavenly angels to do this on behalf of the divine, Onkelos rejects the imagery of God descending from one realm to another in favour of God revealing God’s self and purpose with acts of judgement.

The survivors of the great flood, traumatised and determined never to feel so vulnerable again, make a decision to reach into God’s domain by building a tower so high it reaches into the heavens. It is as if they are not only aiming to challenge God, but to venture into the divine domain, even to take on the role and responsibility of God. They are determined now to וְנַעֲשֶׂה־לָּנוּ שֵׁם פֶּן־נָפוּץ עַל־פְּנֵי כׇל־הָאָרֶץ  to make for themselves a name, to prevent them from being scattered across the earth.  The phrase echoes the story of Adam and Eve: the creation of names, the expulsion and scattering from a place where they feel secure and unified, to fend for themselves in a frightening environment.

It is as if the people imagine the way to protect themselves is to infiltrate the heavens and so they build a vertical bridge in order to claim that space.  Onkelos, living and writing a generation or so after the cataclysm of the destruction of the temple (or if some are to be believed living and writing after the Babylonian exile), reads the text with a different lens. What the people desire – a tower so high it reaches into the heavens – will not cause God to “descend” into our world, will not form a bridge or a ladder between domains. Instead, Onkelos sees the reaction of God not to come closer, not to inspect their work or discover something about their activity – Onkelos sees God choosing instead to reveal the very presence of God, to both punish and destabilise them.

In the garden of Eden, after the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God says (Genesis 3:20ff)

וַיֹּאמֶר  יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהִים הֵן הָאָדָם הָיָה כְּאַחַד מִמֶּנּוּ לָדַעַת טוֹב וָרָע וְעַתָּה  פֶּן־יִשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וְלָקַח גַּם מֵעֵץ הַחַיִּים וְאָכַל וָחַי לְעֹלָם׃ וַיְשַׁלְּחֵהוּ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהִים מִגַּן־עֵדֶן לַעֲבֹד אֶת־הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר לֻקַּח מִשָּׁם׃

וַיְגָרֶשׁ אֶת־הָאָדָם וַיַּשְׁכֵּן מִקֶּדֶם לְגַן־עֵדֶן אֶת־הַכְּרֻבִים וְאֵת לַהַט הַחֶרֶב הַמִּתְהַפֶּכֶת לִשְׁמֹר אֶת־דֶּרֶךְ עֵץ הַחַיִּים׃ {ס}        

And the ETERNAL God said, “Now that humankind has become like any of us, knowing good and bad, what if one should stretch out a hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!” So the ETERNAL God banished them from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which they were taken: humankind was driven out; and east of the garden of Eden were stationed the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

The first humans are sent out from Eden not because they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but because having done so, they might next eat from the tree of eternal life – becoming immortal, a quality that belongs only to the divine.

Now the surviving humans are sent out from the plains of Shinar where they are building their city and tower to challenge the heavens, and their languages multiplied so that they cannot understand each other easily.

In the first story God has created a garden in which both human beings and God can co-exist, in the second people create a tower in which both human beings and God can be together – and both stories end in pain and distress.

I think that Onkelos rejects the whole idea of the creation of “shared space”, or of God in the highest space yet “descending to our world” as being somehow too dangerous to exist. Instead, he chooses an ineffable unknowable God, a God we cannot request or require, a God not in a far-off and separate domain, but one who is present even in our distress, a God who does not need to come and see what we are doing because God is already present, able to observe us at close quarters. In Onkelos’ translation, God chooses to make visible what the people have not understood – God is present and continues to be so, and that our role in this world is to be human beings who trust in God’s presence even when it is hard to see, rather than challenging God or trying on the role of divinity for ourselves.

There is a poem written on the wall of a cellar in Cologne during the second world war, the author is unknown, but I think Onkelos would have approved:

I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there’s no one there.
And I believe in God,
even when He is silent.
I believe through any trial,
there is always a way
But sometimes in this suffering
and hopeless despair
My heart cries for shelter,
to know someone’s there
But a voice rises within me, saying hold on
my child, I’ll give you strength,
I’ll give you hope. Just stay a little while.
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love
even when there’s no one there
But I believe in God
even when he is silent
I believe through any trial
there is always a way.
May there someday be sunshine
May there someday be happiness
May there someday be love
May there someday be peace….”

15th Elul: Which God do you not believe in?

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Elul 15 23rd August

A discussion among my colleagues – “What does one say when someone says to you “Rabbi, I don’t believe in God””

One answer – “I always ask them which God they don’t believe in”.

My teacher Rabbi Dr Jonathan Magonet used to bemoan the fact that so many Jews give up serious Jewish education at bar/bat mitzvah. They had, he used to say, a thirteen year old god. And as they grew and matured, their idea of God was frozen in time, adolescent and unbelievable.

Jews are the people of Israel – literally the ones who struggle with God. We are not required (despite the Maimonidean doctrine) to believe in God. Indeed earliest rabbinic Judaism was not so much interested in what people believed about divinity, but talked instead about shared narratives. Slightly later we have the extraordinary rabbinic midrash on the verse in Jeremiah (16:11) “They have forsaken Me and not kept my Torah”   – “If only they had forsaken Me but kept my Torah!” (Pesikta d’Rav Kahana 5-7th Century)

Rabbinic Judaism is far more interested in how people behave, in the keeping of mitzvot, in action rather than in belief.

Since the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai on the way from slavery in Egypt to freedom in their ancestral land, Jews are a people who are commanded – who are under a chiyyuv, and obligation – and whose live are traditionally framed by the observance of mitzvot.

Of course the idea of commandments does somewhere require there to be a commander, but while we may have an historic metzaveh in our texts, the doing of mitzvot is in and of itself integral to our religious life. So for example Rabbi David Polish wrote that “When a Jew performs one of the many life acts known as mitzvot to remind themselves of the moments of encounter, what was only episodic becomes epochal, what was only a moment in Jewish history becomes eternal in Jewish life”[i]  His examples of the lighting of shabbat candles or of sitting at a Pesach seder are some of the examples he gives of our connecting with Jews across the world and across time.  The meaning and purpose of mitzvah for him is in part a way of sharing history and experiences across Jewish people hood, something that strengthens us in the world, and that momentarily allows us to transcend the mundane into the spiritual. 

There are many rabbinic names and descriptors for God. There are ways of understanding God not as a noun but as a verb – we are not tied to a thirteen year old god, some kind of supernatural being to whom we have to speak in stilted and formalised language. My very favourite name for God is “haMakom” – literally “the place”. Not a geographical location but a space where things can happen.

Israel – Jews – are named for struggling with God. Struggling with the ideas, the ethical demands, the behaviours that are required of us to be in covenant with God. The struggle is ongoing. If you find it hard to believe in the God of your childhood, then it is up to you to search the texts and find God with whom you can have a dialogue.

[i] ” Gates of Mitzvah: A Guide to the Jewish Life Cycle, ed. Simeon J. Maslin [New York: CCAR Press, 1979]

Vayetzei: The Importance of Awe

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Jacob awoke from his sleep and said “Surely God is in this place and I, I did not know”. He has a sense of wonder, and he expresses it:  “How full of awe is this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven”

The phrase “Ma nora ha’makom ha’zeh, ein zeh ki im beit Elohim” (How full of awe is this place, this is none other than the house of God”) is part of the stonework on the exterior of the synagogue I   grew  up in, and as one walked in and looked up, that is the sentiment one felt – even though it is situated in what is now inner city Bradford, on a less than salubrious road.

The religious message I received as a child was bound up in this synagogue, in the community of people and in the building they worshipped in. It was a two-fold message- Firstly that we can encounter God wherever we are, for God is always ‘in this place’ as are we, and often we do not notice how close God can be to us.

Secondly it was made clear that awe is a necessary instinct;  God is beyond our comprehension or reason, and we must respect that reality. We have to live with not being able to control God or demand from God or expect to understand God.

When we pray, what are we really doing?

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) was a scholar, theologian and social activist. He wrote “the predicament of prayer is twofold: not only do we not know how to pray, we do not know what to pray for.  We have lost the ability to be shocked.”

Heschel also suggested that we have overemphasized intellectual ideas when we think about religion, and that we also overemphasise religious belief; For Heschel religion is more like a way of being in the world, a way of facing life and dealing with it.

In Judaism, ‘Believing’ is not the most important thing for a religious Jew, but Awe, or the ability to be shocked is the fundamental requirement.  The bible talks of the religious person as one who is yirat Adonai, or yirat shamayim – in awe of God or in awe of heaven. Without a sense of awe, without the ability to be shocked or moved by what we see around us, we can never really move on to encounter God, or develop a sense of faith.

I have lost count of the number of times that I have been told in my rabbinate that someone doesn’t really believe in God;  the number of apologies that somehow come my way. I never quite know as a rabbi how to help people to believe in God if that is what they think they want, but what I am sure of is that the beginning of such a journey is Awe.

When Jacob first encounters God he notices how the place is filled with Awe, and he had not understood it. It takes time, and possibly even a certain vulnerability for us to open ourselves to noticing God.

Many of our services begin with the phrase “v’ani tefilati lecha Adonai eit ratzon” usually translated as “and as for me, let my prayer come before you God at a favourable time”, but it is more complex than that, meaning something more like and I am my prayer to you God at a favourable time”. We are in fact our own prayers – if only we would let ourselves be so. Rabbi Lionel Blue once wrote “Meeting God can be simple, but nothing can happen if we do not will it. If we seek God then God can be found. God will allow us to find God if we seek with all our will” (RSGB Machzor p 312)

 

One of the lessons from this sidra is how easy it is not to notice how close God can be to us if we do not choose to open ourselves to the possibility.  And we sometimes need help to do this. Beautiful places, whether natural or built by human beings, can help us catch the numinous. Too narrow a focus on what we are doing, our goals and aspirations, our desire not to look back – all can stop us being aware and in the moment.

The ability to be shocked, to notice and to understand the implications of what has become normalised – this is the skill we need to nurture. The ability to be moved by what we see and hear, rather than to blot it out or cover it with our own inner monologue. Jacob left his comfort zone when he left his home, and only then did he meet God. We may not need to leave our homes, but we too need to go out as he did – vayetzei – and begin to pay attention to all we have ignored.bradford interior

 

 

 

 

 

Ki Tetzei: whether you believe in the Metzaveh or not, you are not free to walk away from proper behaviour to others

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The sidra of Ki Tetzei contains, according to Maimonides, 72 of the fabled 613 commandments in the Torah – on first reading the effect is of an enormous list of apparently haphazard rules ranging from family relationships to the treatment of a judicially executed corpse. From care for animals to cultic prostitution; from financial probity to cloth made from a mixture of wool and linen.

Throughout history Jewish scholars have tried to explain the unified theory of mitzvot; rather like with the laws of physics there is the sense that somehow there is an elegant rationale that, once found, will enlighten us about the world and its meaning. The best try (in my view) is that of Rabbi Pinchas b Hama who wrote (Devarim Rabbah 6:3) that “Wherever you go and whatever you do, pious deeds will accompany you. When you build a new house, make a parapet for the roof. When you make a door write the commandments on the doorposts; when you put on new garments consider from what they are made; when you reap your harvest and forget a sheaf, leave it for the widow, orphaned and the stranger, the vulnerable in your society”

In other words, every aspect of our daily life can be made holy through following these mitzvot – the mundane can be raised to the exceptional, the quality of our lives infinitely changed in these tiny regular incremental actions.

Many years ago studying with Rabbi Hugo Gryn zl I learned about the Shema, the prayer recited morning and evening of each day, for many people the defining prayer of Judaism. It speaks in the first line of the unity of God, and of the relationship of God and Jews. But before it does it demands something else of us – Shema – listen! Pay attention! Hear what is really important!

The first command in the prayer is to love God completely – with heart, spirit and physical strength. Then we are told that God’s commandments should be with us always, spoken of repeatedly to our children, talked about when we sit in our home, when we are walking outside, when we lie down, when we get up. They are to be written upon our doorposts so that going in and out of our homes we see and are reminded of the requirements of God. And in the Shema too we are told “ukshartam l’ot al yadecha, v’hayu l’totafot beyn eynecha” you shall hold fast to them as a sign upon your hands and they will be (reminders) before your eyes. The line has been understood to be the source of the practise of placing tefillin – small leather boxes containing some prayers – on the head and hand during the weekday morning prayer as an aid to remembering, but Rabbi Gryn had a different view – he understood it to say “in everything your hand touches and everything your eye sees you must respond to the requirements of God.”

If we really fulfil the commandment of ‘Shema’, then no part of our life is exempt from the dictates of holiness. We cannot be pious in the synagogue but not at home or at work. We cannot care about the humanity of the people we like but not that of those we dislike or disagree with. We cannot do the technical bare minimum to fulfil our obligations to society and consider our job well done. As another part of this sidra says – lo tuchal le’hitalem– You are not able to/ must not remain indifferent.

In this sidra too is the commandment to wear tzitzit – the knotted threads on the edges of some garments, most usually seen today on the tallit, which are the physical reminders that we have regular and routine obligations as Jews. Our obligation to love God is played out in our world – how we relate to others, how we care for the vulnerable, how we manage risk, how we nurture good values. The traditional unified theory of mitzvot is based on an unquestioned acceptance of the Metzaveh – the One who commands – that is God. In today’s world that understanding does not work so well – there are many who find such faith impossible or even undesirable. And yet the value of the system of mitzvot remains powerful – Judaism has never asked what you believe, but demands that you behave according to its belief. Lack of faith in God is no excuse for lack of proper behaviour towards others.