The Conversation with God
Three years after its publication, the excitement surrounding the first volume of Redeeming Relevance (on Genesis)1Redeeming Relevance in the Book of Genesis (Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2006). is still with me. Anticipating a dialogue with my readers, I have found the enthusiastic responses of many of them most gratifying. is still with me. Anticipating a dialogue with my readers, I have found the enthusiastic responses of many of them most gratifying.
Of particular interest is one common response to some of the patterns that I described in the Biblical text. Readers said, “Now that you have pointed it out, I don’t know how I could have missed it all this time.” This is a typical reaction to many inventions around us. We often don’t know what to look for until someone else points it out.
Some of my readers did not notice the patterns that I observed, simply because of how classical texts are taught in most Jewish institutions of learning. While thanks to the efforts of Nechama Leibowitz and her spiritual descendants, countless more classrooms are asking the important educational question, “What’s bothering Rashi?”, once we figure that out, we are content to simply end our search with Rashi’s (or Ramban’s or Seforno’s) answer and just move on to the next verse. In other words, once we appreciate and understand the question, we are programmed to think that our task is to find its one and only pre-existing answer. We believe that this answer is accessible to all and is the common pursuit of all who embark on the equation.
As a result of this unfortunate perception, that which could serve as an introduction to independent literary analysis becomes more akin to the solving of math problems. If for no other reason, the fact that our classical commentators noticed different things and (even when they noticed the same questions) often gave different answers, should make us realize that we are not looking for set answers in the “teacher’s edition.” Rather, for our commentators, finding a good question in the Divine text served as an invitation for a very ''personal involvement with it, which could not be replicated by anyone else.
Sensitizing ourselves to the types of questions posed and answers given by the greatest Torah exegetes of the past is quite valuable. That type of traditional study allows us to understand “the rules of the game,” to appreciate how the Torah speaks to us, to discover which patterns are more significant and which patterns are less so. Without this knowledge, our insights will often remain childish and even boorish. Still, when Rashi studied the text, the questions he asked bothered him and the answers that he gave satisfied him. It was a personal involvement with the text, and thus not only an intellectual exercise, but a meaningful religious one as well; so, too, with all of the great commentaries.
It has been said that when we pray we speak to God, but when we study Torah He speaks to us. But if He is truly speaking to us, what does that entail? If the Torah is God’s speech to all Jews, then it is addressed not only to Rashi or Ramban. Many times, God will say the same thing to all of us. But just as what He said to Ramban was often different from what He said to Rashi, we should expect that there will be times when what He will say to us will be different than what He said to either of them.2See Redeeming Relevance in Genesis, pp. 19–25, on the Torah’s use of the same written words to say different things to different audiences. In this way, the personal nature of true Torah study is what makes it into an authentic conversation with God. It is just such a conversation that is at the center of normative Jewish religious experience. In this way, the personal nature of true Torah study is what makes it into an authentic conversation with God. It is just such a conversation that is at the center of normative Jewish religious experience.
More important than the specific insights they gave us, then, our great commentators present us with a model of how to approach the text. Among other things, they show us that we need to ask questions that are important to us and to discover answers that resonate for us. For when we study the Torah only to see what others have said about it, we remove the direct interaction between Man and God that should be the hallmark of what we call Talmud Torah, Torah study.
The Human Language of God
To some, the idea that God talks to us may seem quite astonishing. Indeed, the gap between Man and God is so great that many philosophers have had difficulty coming to terms with the notion of Divine communication with Man in any form. One of the problems is that for God to speak to us He has to speak in our language – we have no other way of understanding concrete and distinct ideas. But how is it that God can limit Himself to the imperfections of human communication? Even if we are to accept the notion that Biblical Hebrew is of Divine origin, its comprehension by Man is automatically imperfect. Moreover, like any living language, even classical Hebrew developed and evolved according to human usage, such that one sees linguistic differences between prophets writing at different times. If so, how can God use the medium of any language, given its imperfection and lack of clarity? But even beyond this, can words ever completely describe the essence of things? We use words because we cannot impart the entire essence of an object or entity to another person, let alone understand that essence ourselves. For God, however, Who does understand the essence of everything, words cannot adequately describe His knowledge of any given entity. But let us leave these problems to the philosophers. Assuming that it is possible for God to speak to us, what type of speech would we expect from Him?
To be sure, human communication encompasses many styles. There is one style we use to give information and another to engender relationship with others. Telling a joke is an example of the latter. But even when it comes to imparting information, though we sometimes just spell things out, we more frequently intersperse information with colorful expressions, body language and the like in order to create a connection between us and the audience. We do this even as we transmit the substantive message that we want to communicate. This is what makes speech interesting. More to the point, it is what makes speech human. Though some of us may claim that we seek only information, rare indeed is the person who would really rather remove the human element and instead listen to a computer tell him what he needs to know.
Thus, since personal communication normally involves connection as well as information, when God decided to communicate with Man, it was certainly enmeshed with the creation of a relationship with human beings.
There are those who see this as an unsustainable example of God’s bringing Himself down to our level. In this vein, the Enlightenment philosophers had much less of a problem with God as the Creator of the scientific universe, Who “communicates” with us wordlessly through the mathematical perfection of His creation. They had a harder time with God as the Writer of human words and sentences Who communicates in the way that we ourselves communicate. To them, the “imperfections” of human speech are fine for us, but understandably not for Him Who is perfect.
Such a rational approach makes sense, but it only works as long as God and Man are to stay distant and removed from each other. Although some philosophers preferred this perspective, it led one more devout colleague, Blaise Pascal, to claim that the object of his worship was “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, not the God of the philosophers and the learned.” As Pascal saw it, the God of these philosophers was too removed from the daily affairs of men and accordingly no substitute for the God Whom he knew personally.
Wellhausen or Joyce
On some level, when Bible criticism came to the world with Julius Wellhausen, it came with the assumption that God’s authorship of the Bible could be proven or disproven by investigating the book’s “scientific” composition. To put it differently, the study of Bible became a science – it could not be studied with other literature in the humanities unless its origins were human. (Ironically, only after it became a convention of academic study to assume that the Bible is of human origin could it be studied as literature once again, thereby allowing it to speak in the admittedly human way it was meant to speak in the first place.)
Influenced by the prejudices of enlightened Western culture, we may feel some confusion about the Biblical text’s seeming imperfection. Not only do some of the stories seem out of chronological order, it is sometimes hard to see any connection between various sections that follow one another. Granted, we are given interesting explanations about the Torah’s sequence – for example, the sages famously say that the prohibitions of Shabbat are repeated after the section about building the Mishkan (Tabernacle) to teach us that Shabbat takes precedence over the building of the Mishkan (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 35:1-4).3Mechilta on Shemot 35:1–4. Still, such explanations do not completely remove our uneasiness since, like the Bible critics, we also assume that the Torah should be more scientifically organized. We wonder why the Torah couldn’t express its teachings in a more straightforward manner. As a result, we become all too cognizant of the Bible critics’ underlying contention that the traditional school of reading the Bible is grounded in an artificial desire to forge order out of disorder. They tell us that such an approach can only be the result of submission to dogma at the expense of an objective search for truth. Still, such explanations do not completely remove our uneasiness since, like the Bible critics, we also assume that the Torah should be more scientifically organized. We wonder why the Torah couldn’t express its teachings in a more straightforward manner. As a result, we become all too cognizant of the Bible critics’ underlying contention that the traditional school of reading the Bible is grounded in an artificial desire to forge order out of disorder. They tell us that such an approach can only be the result of submission to dogma at the expense of an objective search for truth.
Unconsciously in agreement with their assumptions, we may be drawn to the Bible critics. After all, they base themselves on a highly rational and reasoned approach. For example, because information appears disorganized, the critics conclude that the Torah combines the writings of various authors into one work. Compiled together, these sources will necessarily overlap and repeat things, etc. Although the compiler’s rigor is subject to debate in these circles, the basic premise of multiplicity of texts stands largely unchallenged.
Actually, the whole question of how to look at such issues in the Biblical text is not a uniquely modern one. The Talmud (Berachot 10a)4Berachot 10a. See also Maharsha ad loc. encapsulates the concern through a brief discussion between R. Abahu and an anonymous Sadducee. It is well known that the Sadducees were enamored with Greek (i.e., rational) thought, so it is no coincidence that this one expected the Bible to be in strict chronological order. Hence, when the Sadducee cites an example of the Psalms being out of order, R. Abahu responds by saying that this is only a problem for you (i.e., based on your assumptions). We, however, says R. Abahu, view the order of the Torah as not purely chronological but also associational (semuchin min haTorah). Jewish tradition posits that the Torah is organized according to the relationship between the content or theme of one section and that which follows it. encapsulates the concern through a brief discussion between R. Abahu and an anonymous Sadducee. It is well known that the Sadducees were enamored with Greek (i.e., rational) thought, so it is no coincidence that this one expected the Bible to be in strict chronological order. Hence, when the Sadducee cites an example of the Psalms being out of order, R. Abahu responds by saying that this is only a problem for you (i.e., based on your assumptions). We, however, says R. Abahu, view the order of the Torah as not purely chronological but also associational (semuchin min haTorah). Jewish tradition posits that the Torah is organized according to the relationship between the content or theme of one section and that which follows it.5See Yevamot 4a, where the Talmud identifies R. Yehudah as someone who believes that we cannot readily determine the meaning of such associations. Even though there are reasons for the order, they are entirely the product of a Divine stream of consciousness which defies our analysis. Thus, R. Yehudah feels we should generally not be looking for connections between one seemingly unrelated section and another proximate one. The opposing opinion tells us that trying to understand the connections between the different parts of this flow of consciousness is a legitimate and productive area of Torah study. This position maintains that we are actually able to arrive at true insights by attempting to understand the Divine stream of consciousness. So, it is not only legitimate for the Torah to be “out of order,” it is to be expected. More generally, R. Abahu was suggesting that there really can be order in “disorder.” So, it is not only legitimate for the Torah to be “out of order,” it is to be expected. More generally, R. Abahu was suggesting that there really can be order in “disorder.”
From the brief Talmudic passage above, it seems that our sages were at least aware of the nexus of the Greek/academic approach to the Bible. It also appears that they basically rejected it as lacking the appropriate paradigms for truly understanding the Bible.
But how should we understand the often elusive order in the disorder? One possible way is by examining a twentieth century literary device called “stream of consciousness.” This device, made famous by James Joyce, has the reader follow the thoughts of the protagonist, which often takes him far afield along with the character’s thoughts. While more difficult to read, it provides us with an unusually accurate portrayal of human thought. Even as many individual thoughts are quite rational, the connection between one thought and the next is often highly idiosyncratic. The mind flows easily from one subject to another, occasionally in an almost inexplicable fashion. Sometimes one moves on to a thought that is not at all connected to the one that preceded it, but is rather evoked by unconscious stimuli or memories. On some level, this approach to writing is more natural to humanity than a straightforward, chronological rendering of events. After all, we are not just analytical minds – we are complex creatures who reflect upon a tremendous variety of things in all sorts of ways, only some of which even lend themselves to rational investigation.
The lack of consistent chronological order is only one example of the Torah’s human style of expression. Stream of consciousness – or, better, human communication – is full of inconsistency, subjectivity, disproportionate emphasis and the like. No matter what we want to make of it, it would be hard to deny that the Torah is written with just such a human bent. On some level, this is best expressed by the phrase, appearing many times throughout the Talmud, “The Torah speaks in the language of men.”
Modern Man’s understandable love affair with scientific methodology can blind him to the fact that human thinking is not naturally scientific. While the scientific method allows us to think clearly and make great material advances, it will always remain divorced from our natural essence. By contrast, it seems that the sages understood that the Biblical text is, and should be, consonant with our natural mode of thought, and not with the way we force ourselves to think in the laboratory. The result is that the text speaks in “the language of men” in a way that is organic and that makes the most sense to the inner “I” that the Torah ultimately addresses.
Of course, I am not pretending to be giving a death blow to all Bible criticism in my brief comments above. What I am suggesting, however, is that much of Bible criticism’s popularity is based on a subtle paradigm shift that occurred in how to look at the text. If I am correct, it is worth questioning whether this paradigm shift was not, in fact, mistaken.6Though not directly related, Alisdair MacIntyre raised many an eyebrow not so long ago when he suggested that we reconsider the correctness of the Enlightenment’s paradigms shifts in his famous After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). ...
One of the most brilliant depictions of the conflict between the various approaches to the Bible was shown in the animated film Lights. In it, the Greeks were frustrated as they tried to use their scientific instruments to measure Hebrew letters. As opposed to the Greek letters of stone that would sit still and be measured, the Hebrew letters, made of fire and light, were far too active and flexible to endure such treatment.
Indeed, the letters of the Torah cannot “sit still” and so defy scientific analysis. Although our tradition appreciates the role of logic and organization, it does not believe that all of human existence should be understood in such a fashion. At the end of the day, there are limits to what can be measured.
The entire point of the Torah’s manifestly “human” style is to draw us into conversation. But it requires something from us as well. It requires that we hear for ourselves and not through an interpreter. It is certainly useful to study how master “conversationalists” have communicated through the Torah and it is absolutely essential that we learn the language of communication. Otherwise, we merely react to sounds or to random words and not to a coherent text that God uses for His conversation with us. Still, this is not the most formidable challenge for those of us who come from the world of traditional Torah study. Instead, our greatest challenge is not to be intimidated by our own smallness in front of the great conversationalists. Equally important is not to be scared by the tremendous weightiness of the task. Like the mountain climber who will lose his balance if he looks down from where he is, the way to achievement in Torah study is to keep looking at the goal – in this case, speaking with God.
Thus, Torah study is the art of listening to God’s conversation. He speaks to anyone making a true effort to listen to what the text is saying specifically to him. Of course, that doesn’t mean that anyone making an effort will never make a mistake – no more than we never make a mistake when listening to our fellowman, even when we are paying careful attention. What it does mean, however, is that someone who doesn’t exert himself to listen has no chance of being involved in this eternal conversation at all.
This is the living experience of Talmud Torah and presumably the type of activity for which we bless God every morning. When all is said and done, all of our conversations with each other are just practice for the existential act of listening to God’s voice.
In this volume, I invite the reader to my conversations with Eternity.