ken%pyr@gatech.edu (Ken Hall) (09/29/89)
It is good for Christians to read and understand Jewish thought.
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Date: 26 Sep 89 15:09:07 GMT
Reply-To: alu@cbnewsk.ATT.COM (Alan Lustiger)
Organization: AT&T Engineering Research Center
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SHABBAT SHALOM
Nitzavim-Vayelech
by Shlomo Riskin
Efrat, Israel -- In a world such as ours, so often expressive
of evil and suffering, we often hear the cry, "where is G-d?"
And the religious answer is : "G-d is not dead; he is merely
hidden." But how do we narrow the gulf between a hidden G-d and
a revealed G-d? Why does G-d choose to hide himself? In the
second part of this week's Torah reading, Nitzavim-Vayelech, G-d
prophecies to Moses what will happen if, and when, the Jews
worship other gods, a description which penetrates the heart of
the nation since it's the Torah's final warning prior to the last
blessing that Moses will shortly bestow upon the Israelites in
the Torah's final verses.
"Then my anger will burn against them and I will forsake
them. I will hide my face from them and they shall be devoured,
and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will
say on that day, 'Are not these evils come upon us, because our
G-d is not among us?' And I will surely hide my face on that day
for all the evils which they shall have perpetuated, in that they
have turned to other gods." (Deut. 31:17-18)
Although during the 40 years since the Exodus from Egypt, G-d
had been revealing Himself in ways never done before, He
prophesied, nevertheless, that in the future he will be "hidden"
as a punishment for worshiping other gods.
One of the thorniest theological issues in Judaism (or any
religion) is how to tackle the question of a hidden G-d or, in
more familiar terms, why do evil people go unpunished while the
good continue to suffer? In his work Faith After The Holocaust,
Professor Eliezer Berkowitz explores this idea of G-d's
"hiddeness" as it appears in at least three different contexts in
the Torah. I'd like to review these in order to focus on why
G-d's punishment of evildoers does not follow our own ideas about
speedy justice.
Our text cited above sees a "hidden G-d" as punishment for
abandoning His ways. If we sin, G-d "hides" himself. The more
we sin, the more hidden shall the face of G-d become: hiddeness
as punishment. But there is a second aspect to "hiddeness" that
has nothing to do with punishment; the hidden face of G-d is also
an expression of Divine indifference. This theological
interpretation seems most appropriate to the Holocaust, a period
when we can certainly suggest that G-d was "hidden" or, in more
prosaic terms, He was asleep. In sleep, one is indifferent to
surroundings, one seems to forget that the world exists and,
apparently sleep removes one's self from responsibility. "But it
is for Your sake that we are killed all day long; we are reckoned
as sheep for slaughter. Awake, why do you sleep, O Lord?"
(Psalms 44:23-24) The words of the Psalmist could have been
spoken by the victims on the Holocaust. Similarly, in another
verse, the author cries out, "Until when, O Lord, will You forget
me forever? Until when will you hide Your face from me?" (Psalms
13:2)
A third understanding of hiddeness can be found in Isaiah and
is, in some ways, more disturbing and astonishing that the
specter of an indifferent G-d. "...You are a G-d you hides
Yourself, You are a G-d who saves them,", (Isaiah 45:15), and
earlier, the prophet declares, "And I will wait for G-d who hides
His face...and I will hope for Him. Behold, I and the children
G-d has given me are for signs and for portents in Israel from
the G-d of hosts who dwells in Mt. Zion." (Isaiah 8:17) This is
a radical - even revolutionary - idea. For Isaiah, the
redemption and all that which we hope for, must come from a
hidden G-d.
Our various texts evoke different ways of apprehending G-d's
mystery. The first, though harshest, is easiest to comprehend.
When we do not live by G-d's law, we are punished. Next,
although the idea of G-d far removed from our mundane world
hardly comforts, we accept the theological possibility of G-d off
in other realms, whether "asleep" or "indifferent" because, from
the human perspective, this is what a hidden G-d is all about, at
least in its literal meaning.
By far, the most difficult concept to understand is Isaiah's
hidden G-d who leads us toward hope and salvation, an idea that
challenges us to fathom how we can achieve absolute light from
absolute darkness.
Fundamental to Jewish theology is the idea of an imperfect
world awaiting perfection. When will this perfection occur?
When G-d is perfectly manifested in the world, when He and His
name become one, then our planet will be under the kingship of
G-d. What is the job of the Jewish people? To lead the world
towards achieving perfection. If we don't do it, we shall be
punished. And our punishment? G-d's hidden face because, just
as there is no greater reward than achieving perfection, there is
no greater punishment that the continued hiddeness of G-d.
But, ironically, this very hiddeness conceals a blessing.
G-d is depicted in the Torah as "...mighty, merciful, and
gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in love and truth...
forgiving iniquity and sin and transgression..." (Exodus 34:6-7)
Therefore, what seems to be G-d's indifference to evil is, in
actuality, G-d waiting for repentance to emerge from the
evildoer's own volition.
Understanding that G-d does not have to swoop down every time
a Wells Fargo truck is robbed means that I grasp evil not-yet-
punished does not necessarily restrict G-d's greatness. Our
salvation will only come, however, when the world repents. And
G-d has ultimate faith in human nature, in the fact that the
evildoer will eventually change direction and return to the
source of ethics and morality. G-d's patience with the sinner is
an expression of His confidence in the human ability to perfect
itself.
An amazing text in Tractate Yoma 69b explains that the Men of
the Great Assembly were called this because they returned
greatness to the crown of G-d. When Israel was crushed under the
weight of the Babylonian and Roman powers, Jeremiah and Daniel
expressed their despair by evoking G-d in terms far humbler than
Moses' prayer, "G-d is great and mighty and awesome..." (Deut.
10:17) They each deleted another one of the Divine attributes.
But the Men of the Great Assembly illuminated G-d's way to man,
restoring the description of G-d as great, mighty, and awesome to
its pristine praise.
"This is G-d's greatness, that He was able to overcome His
instincts, that he was able to be longsuffering to the wicked."
Although the nations who destroyed the Holy Temple should have
been immediately destroyed, G-d restrained Himself, demonstrating
the basic attributes of His essence: "...merciful and gracious
and longsuffering..."
One might think that what makes G-d great is the swiftness of
His sword; the Great Assembly taught that the opposite is true.
G-d is great precisely because He is "...merciful and gracious
and longsuffering, and abundant in love and truth..." (Exodus
34:6-7).
In effect, when we ask why good people suffer and evil ones
prosper, we are really asking: Why is G-d a hidden G-d? Let's
look at the alternative. If everything about G-d were revealed
and manifested, this would mean we'd already have achieved a
perfect world, which is far from true. G-d wants us to repent
and he appears hidden because He wants us to find Him.. And He is
confident that we eventually will.
A story is told about the Shoplyer Grandfather, a chassdic
master who once came upon children playing hide and seek and,
when he saw one of the children crying, he stopped and asked,
"Why the tears?" The child answered that he'd been hiding for
the longest time, but no one had come to look for him. The
elderly Jew looked up to heaven and cried out, "Master of the
universe, I know You're hiding because You want us to find You,
but what happens if You continue to remain hidden and Your
children stop looking? Before it's too late, reveal yourself."
If we could address G-d as directly and simply as the Shoplyer
Grandfather, what a huge step we'd be taking toward revealing the
"hidden face" of G-d.
Shabbat Shalom
Copyright Ohr Torah 1989.
This essay is distributed by Kesher --the Jewish Network. For information
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==============
K'tiva v'chatima tova.
--
Alan Lustiger
|_ | | AT&T Engineering Research Center
/ |( Princeton, NJ
attmail!alustiger or att!pruxc!alu
[I hope you have verified that this use doesn't violate the
copyright? --clh]geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) (10/05/89)
In article <Sep.29.03.00.47.1989.15568@athos.rutgers.edu> ken%pyr@gatech.edu (Ken Hall) writes: > >It is good for Christians to read and understand Jewish thought. With which I agree. Then he includes a lenghty article discussing the Torah. This article left me with a question. Every time the article mentions God, it is written like this: >G-d Why? Does this relate to not pronouncing or writing God's name? That would seem to only apply to the tetragrammaton (YHWH), and not to the title `God' (Elohim). I always thought that Jews had no problem with saying `Elohim,' but to attempt to say the tetragrammaton would be blasphemy. So can anyone explain why the article Ken quoted so deliberately avoids writing `God'? Curiously yours in Christ, -- Geoff Allen \ Since we live by the Spirit, {uunet,bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ let us keep in step with the Spirit. ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \ -- Gal. 5:25 (NIV) [Probably one of our Jewish readers can give more detail. But there is a Jewish tradition of "building a fence around the Law", i.e. of voluntarily following rules stricter than those that are directly commanded, simply to make sure that they never get close to a real offense. I'd guess that this is involved. Certainly YHWH was too holy to be pronounced. But you need to be careful to some extent even with lesser words such as the English "God". The commandment against taking the name of the Lord in vain would apply even to the English form. So there's a long-standing Jewish tradition to avoid using any version of the word God at all. You can see this in the NT. It's fairly common for things that are probably intended as references to God to be expressed in passive voice, with the subject omitted. E.g. the beatitudes show this in a couple of says. "they shall obtain mercy" almost certainly means "God will have mercy on them". And "kingdom of heaven" certainly means the "kingdom of God". It was common to use "heaven" instead of "God". Of course the NT doesn't do this consistently, but you at least see some sign of the tradition there. In rabbincal writing, you run into various ways of avoiding direct uses of "God", things like "the Holy One, blessed be He". Before making fun of this tradition, consider its effectiveness. It is very common to hear Christians using the word "God" in casual expressions: "God, it's hot!" You certainly don't hear such things from Jews (at least not those who practice the traditions). --clh]
geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) (10/08/89)
In article <Oct.4.23.59.53.1989.4005@athos.rutgers.edu> I wrote: >So can anyone explain why the article Ken quoted so deliberately avoids >writing `God'? And our moderator replied: >[Probably one of our Jewish readers can give more detail. But there >is a Jewish tradition of "building a fence around the Law", i.e. of >voluntarily following rules stricter than those that are directly >commanded, simply to make sure that they never get close to a real >offense. ... >So there's a long-standing Jewish tradition to avoid using any >version of the word God at all. ... >Before making fun of this tradition, I never intended to make fun of it, and apologize if my question came across that way. >consider its effectiveness. It >is very common to hear Christians using the word "God" in casual >expressions: "God, it's hot!" You certainly don't hear such things >from Jews (at least not those who practice the traditions). --clh] I couldn't agree with you more. As Christians, we can `approach the throne of grace with confidence' (Heb. 4:16). When Jesus died, the veil in the temple was ripped from top to bottom and the way into the Holy of Holies was opened up to us. This is good, and was the reason Jesus came, and died, and rose again. But I think it has the negative effect of producing Christians with little or no concept of the holiness of God. There is a difference between approching God with confidence and approaching Him with impudence. As Christians, we often slip into the latter category. -- Geoff Allen \ Since we live by the Spirit, {uunet,bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ let us keep in step with the Spirit. ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \ -- Gal. 5:25 (NIV)
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (10/08/89)
[In article <Oct.4.23.59.53.1989.4005@athos.rutgers.edu>, geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) asked why a posting including some material by a Jewish author used G-d for God. Geoff understood the sensitivity about YHWH, but didn't think it would apply to Elohim, and the English word. --clh] Originally even the name of God was used, probably too much. The Commandment says not to take the Name of the Lord in vain. But it was still in use during the Second Temple. Traces of it survive in the Psalms; the "yah" in halleluyah (praise the Lord) comes from the Name. Later it became the practice not to make direct reference to God. Many will say "Elokim" instead of "Elohim" to avoid this direct reference. Others do not use the words "God" and "Lord", instead using "G-d" and "L-rd". As you see, I do not subscribe to this. The meaning of the Third Commandment seems to be not to use the Name of God to swear falsely. In the Talmudic period, Jews were cautioned not to swear at all unless required by a court or comparable body. The Talmud states, "Let you yea be yea and your nay be nay," meaning that you should feel bound by your word without swearing. [BTW, I am not quite sure about when to capitalize except when a clear proper noun is used. Hebrew has no capital letters, and German, of which English is a descendent, capitalizes all nouns.] -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)