National Scholar Updates

Angel for Shabbat--Vayakhel-Pekudei

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

This week’s Torah portion opens with Moshe calling together the people of Israel. A “kahal,” congregation, is composed of individuals who share a common background, destiny, ideology. Often, a “kahal” is centered in a particular location. But a “kahal” can also be composed of individuals who may be in different locations but who share ideas and ideals.

Washington Irving, one of the leading American authors of the early 19th century, wrote a popular story “Rip Van Winkle,” familiar to all of us. Rip is famous for having slept for twenty years! As he made his way to a quiet spot in the Catskill Mountains, he passed the village inn on which he saw a picture of King George III. When he returned to the village after his twenty year “nap,” he passed the same inn; but now instead of seeing a picture of King George III, he saw a picture of President George Washington.

Rip Van Winkle had slept through a revolution.

How does one manage to sleep through a revolution? This might be the result of apathy, aversion to risk, fear, lack of vision. It is not easy to be alert to the challenges of a revolution. It is simpler to stand aside, or go into hiding, or fall asleep.

What is the process of a revolution? How do people ultimately overcome apathy and fear, so that they actually become ready to take risks for the sake of their higher ideals?

First, people have a feeling of malaise. They sense that something is very wrong; they feel that there is injustice that must be corrected. Then, they begin to formulate these feelings into ideas; they articulate their grievances and their dreams. Finally, they move to action. They form coalitions, build institutions, create infrastructure for change.

There is malaise in contemporary Jewish life, a strong feeling that things need to be changed dramatically. Within the Orthodox world, there has been a sharp turn to the right, with a frightening and dangerous increase in authoritarianism, obscurantism, and intellectual narrowness. Within the Jewish community at large, there has been a sharp turn to the left—alienation from traditional Judaism, increased secularization.

Much of the middle has fallen asleep. It has allowed halakhic authority to slip almost entirely into the hands of hareidi elements. It has not done enough to offer a dynamic, creative, intellectually alive Judaism that could attract many thinking Jews who have opted out of Torah and mitzvoth.

But we have a group of revolutionaries who work steadily to re-energize Judaism, to re-generate its intellectual vibrancy, to foster a Judaism that is compassionate, inclusive, open, awake, engaged; that is alive with energy, spirituality, beauty; that sees Judaism as a world religion with a message for all humanity.

It sometimes feels that we are alone atop a mountain, struggling without anyone noticing or caring.  But we are not alone; we are part of a much larger “kahal,” a community of idealists and activists. Our “kahal” is spread out around the world and includes revolutionaries who work for change, who contribute their time, energy and financial resources. Our “kahal” does not and will not sleep through a spiritual revolution that must be waged.

Rabbi Nahman of Braslav taught that the whole world is a narrow bridge. There are dangers that confront us. There are risks. There are opponents who want to bring us down. But, taught Rabbi Nahman, the essential thing is not to be afraid. Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tsar me’od; veha-ikar lo lefahed kelal.

There is a revolution underway and we must be part of it. There is so much to do and so many obstacles in the way. It is easy to lose heart, to stand aside, to go to sleep. But let us remember what is at stake and let us seize this historic moment.

The essential thing is not to be afraid, not to be afraid at all.

Esther is the antidote to Eve. Unlike Adam and Eve, whose breakdown in trust and communication resulted in humanity’s collective exile—lives, relationships, and societies out of balance, Mordechai and Esther, through their creative partnership, not only saved the Jewish People, but brought joy, light, and stability to the kingdom. Esther, and specifically her intelligent rescue strategy for herself and her people, provided a psychologically wise, embodied process leading to empowerment, growth, and greater wholeness. She is the one, who by personally transforming herself, transforms the whole kingdom. Megillat Esther is essentially about exile and redemption —individually and collectively, and holds the secret of how to return home to ourselves and our land whole.

Encoded in the Book of Esther are the answers to many of our collective, universal questions. How do we build a more just world? What must we do to restore a sense of the sacred to our marriages, homes, and society? How do we rekindle love in our relationship with the divine after heartache and disappointments? How do we become our most empowered selves?

The goal of marital union in Judaism was never simply to procreate but to bring into the world greater kedusha (holiness), prosperity, and security, not just for one's family, but for all of society. The Jews’ victory in the fifth century bce and all Purim celebrations hence were the consequence of Esther’s capacity to transform herself from a passive adopted daughter, then mute wife into a woman who knows how to ask instinctually and strategically for what she needs from Mordechai, her community, and ultimately from her husband, the king.

As we read in the final chapters, Esther’s transformation blessed the whole kingdom. The loyal, righteous Mordechai replaced the tyrannical, war-mongering Haman as the Prime Minister. The brave, assertive actions of Esther resulted in a more honest, transparent union and balance of power between the king and queen. And, through the constantly maturing, evolving union of Esther and Mordechai, there emerged an individuation map on how to survive and redeem ourselves from exile—move from a state of spiritual alienation and powerlessness to honest self-expression and integrity—via uprooting the seeds of distrust between men and women planted by Adam and Eve.

By the end of the megillah, Esther is no longer a queen in name only, a mere figurehead, inconsequential to the king and kingdom. Through her spiritually rich process and clever plan that will be discussed in detail, Esther becomes embodied, creative, enthroned, active, majestic, visible, articulate, prolific, and sovereign. She becomes a warrior, writer, and ruler who is loved by her people.

Equally important, by the end, not only is Esther’s status changed in the eyes of the king, but Mordechai has changed as well. Mordechai is no longer "The Jew sitting at the gate of the King" but welcomed into the palace, named as viceroy. After Esther raised her standing in the eyes of the king, she used her power to raise materially the man who raised her spiritually. And, most importantly, in the end, together, they raise their people in the eyes of the nations, from a physically scattered, vulnerable, cowering, shameful, community of exiles, into a spiritually unified victorious, blessed tribe. Their security and status so significantly increased that other nations desired to convert, learn their laws, and join in their covenant.

What Was the Secret to Esther’s Success?

Hadassah was Esther’s given Hebrew name at birth. The name Hadassah reveals to us Esther’s hidden potential: Hadas means myrtle. In the ancient world, myrtle was a medicinal plant known for its ability to heal pain and fever. Myrtle, the symbol for victory (netzah) in the ancient world, was strewn in the streets after military victory: "The sweet smell of victory" is the scent of hadas. Myrtle became associated with weddings and love as ancient Israelites would dance before the bride and groom waving myrtle. Within young Esther, we see planted her potential to heal the pain of exile, achieve victory, and assert great spiritual strength and power. These powers become activated via remembering the extra letter “heh” added to her name; activating her co-creative relationship to the transcendent.

Esther is first introduced to us as motherless and fatherless, an orphan living in Shushan, Persia. After her parents’ death, Esther was adopted by her much older first cousin, Mordechai Ben Yair (Yair, meaning enlightened). Mordechai is introduced as Esther's “oman,” guardian. "Guardian” (oman) is similar to the word for faith (emunah) and artist (uman). Much like artists were entrusted with creating holy vessels for the Temple, parents are entrusted with caring for and raising children, potential vessels for the divine. To be the guardian of a child is a sacred responsibility, requiring great faith in one’s self, the child, and God. Mordechai’s faith in Esther is returned by Esther’s faith in Mordechai. Their relationship, rooted in faith and devotion to one another, was maintained through their daily connection via messengers for the many years that Esther was in the palace. Throughout the Book of Esther, we witness a man and woman, alternatively guarding over each other, raising one another physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

As a young girl, Esther is presented as passive. She is taken by Mordechai as a daughter, taken to the palace, and selected for special treatment. She is adaptive, a survivor, one who, when necessary, can either blend in with the wall mosaic or enchant the king. In the harem, she was treated like a dress-up doll, a plaything, admired for her malleability, beauty, and form.

Was it Esther’s nature or survival instincts that assisted her in finding grace and favor in the eyes of all who saw her? Was she a master at playing the roles expected of her? In Jungian terms, Esther has the markings of “a fantasy woman,” one who lacks a secure identity. When our Jewish identity is lacking, we quickly assimilate or lose ourselves in the projections of others. Esther could be read as a symbol of the Jewish soul within each of us who, after generations in exile, risks being exterminated or lost to assimilation, unless we gain the ability to claim fully our uniqueness and assert our identity.

How Did These Monumental Transformations Occur?

They started inside of Esther. These types of transformations begin inside of our individual souls when we commit, despite the risks, to realizing and revealing our uniqueness and personal beliefs. Esther spoke in her own defense and then for her people. She spoke bravely from her heart to the one who held ultimate power over her life and death.

Esther's husband, King Achashverosh, drove away his first wife, Vashti, when she stood for her principles. Vashti’s "No" to the King cost the kingdom their queen, and all other wives their freedom of expression. The whole kingdom suffered. Partnership and national prosperity are impossible without the full participation, expression, and sovereignty of women.

The removal of Vashti changes everything not just for the women in the kingdom, but soon after for Esther, Mordechai, and the Jews. Vashti’s “No” to the king’s exploitative request leads to the crowning of Esther. After Esther is crowned, Haman, the spiritual offspring of Amalek, the eternal antagonist to divine order, rises to Prime Minister. Haman demands full obeisance. Haman can be viewed psychologically as the inner drive for power, the evil inclination, or doubt. Mordechai’s refusal to bow to Haman, his enemy, provokes a decree of genocide against all Jews.

Dressed in sackcloth and ashes, Mordechai delivers via messenger to Esther the edict of Haman and commands Esther to immediately go before the King and beseech him, and plead for the lives of her people. Mordechai does not say "plead for your own life.”

Esther pauses. Esther thinks. She doesn't agree with Mordechai’s plan. She does not want to be a martyr, to stupidly sacrifice her own life and achieve nothing as a result. She has lived in the palace for close to seven years; she knows the king’s temper and temperament, and such a plan will most likely cost her life.

How Does Esther Change the Balance of Power?

Esther commands Mordechai to do something on her behalf: to gather their people. Esther’s assertion changes the balance of power. Mordechai must obey her request before she will go before the king. Mordechai subjects his will to Esther, who until now has followed his commands.

Esther knows she will not succeed alone but needs the energetic force, prayers, and commitment of the community. Esther tells Mordechai that she has not been called before the King in thirty days. Esther may fear that she is already spiritually dead to the King, and her appearance, uninvited into his court, will justify him erecting her literal gravestone, and naming a new queen. Mordechai reminds her that there is still hope; she must act on behalf of her people. “Do not delude yourself into thinking that out of all the Jews you alone will be spared in the palace. Because if you keep silent at this time, relief and safety will come for the Jewish People from another place.” Another “vehicle” will be provided: Do not doubt that Love, the Neshama, and the Jewish People are all eternal.

Mordechai as Esther’s spiritual guardian then reminds her that this is her moment to claim her role as protector of her people. If you do not make yourself a mouthpiece, an actor, a speaker, like Moses did, on behalf of the divine will, another person will be chosen. "And who knows if it was for this moment that you became queen, arrived into royalty."

To arrive into royalty means to have achieved our full human power: experience ourselves placed firmly on the ground, capable of moving and acting in our full majesty as self-determining human beings living in alignment with divine law; using our capacity to decide, act, choose good over evil.

Esther must decide whether she is prepared to raise herself to her fullest human potential, or remain passive.

Mordechai deeply loves and believes in Esther. He is a true “oman”: spiritual trainer and physical guardian. Esther knows that Mordechai would never ask her to go before the king if he didn't believe in her. But, more importantly, Mordechai fully grasped the spiritual risk to Esther if she doesn't reveal herself now and go.

Why Will Esther and Her Father’s House Be Destroyed?

Cowardice is deadly to the soul. Not only does cowardice weaken the soul, but so does hiding weaken one's spiritual strength. Remaining in hiding will weaken Esther, and lead her to perish if not physically then spiritually. Esther's cowardly choice to “assimilate” into the palace will lead to her own self-destruction; her father's house will perish. “Assimilation” can be read synonymously with “hiding.”

Mordechai reminds Esther of her full Hebrew name, Hadassah bat Avihayil (my father, the valiant soldier). You are the offspring of a valiant father and have the capacity of becoming an eshet hayil, a valiant woman, a soldier. Esther pauses, thinks, then sends back the following message to Mordechai: Go and gather all the Jews in Shushan and fast for me! Don't eat and don't drink for three days and nights, and I and my maidens will also fast…and then I will go to the king. She reminds him again that he’s asking her to break a law punishable by death. Esther concludes: "If I perish, I perish.”

Esther willingly offers herself as a vessel and representative for the much larger vessel, kenesset yisrael. She chooses to act in relationship with the spiritual support of her community but understands her survival, first and foremost, is essential to their continuance. Mordechai, acting as her spiritual partner, rounds up the Jews in Shushan requesting that they fast on her behalf. He is working with her. His soul is serving the needs of her soul, and thus did “all that was commanded upon him by Esther.”

Esther begins at this moment to take possession of her power: earthly, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and creative power. Like the Kohen haGadol on Yom Kippur, Esther prepares to enter the king’s inner chamber, by joining her people in fasting. However, when she goes to make her request to the king of Persia, a volatile man, she takes a practical approach; beginning with meeting the king, face to face, soul to soul. She does not send her invitation via messenger.

What Is Esther’s Strategy?

Before meeting the king face to face, Esther spends three days meeting herself face to face; reclaiming her spiritual power as a Jew, reconnecting to her emotions, embodying her core values and spiritual aim. After fasting, prayers, and reflection, she dresses in malkhut (garments of royalty) and walks deliberately, confidently, mindfully to the threshold. Her husband sits, surrounded by guards, on his throne. When she arrives at the doorway, she and the King take in each other’s presence, and perhaps for the first time "Esther haMalka" is seen by the king as a queen, his queen.

Esther does not run in hysterically, falling on her knees begging for her life, because she knows that her husband is not a compassionate man. Haman and her husband are both ruthless. There is no pity in the palace. The way to her insecure, gluttonous, alcoholic husband's heart is through his stomach, chalice, and pride. She knows, like Haman, what he hungers for most is honor and respect.

When the King extends his scepter and asks, "What is your petition? What is your request? Up to half of the kingdom, I will grant to you.” Esther asks to have the honor of his company at a feast that she has already prepared especially for him and his closest confidant, Haman. Her greatest pleasure would be to receive his company at a private feast made in his honor. What husband could refuse that? Her innocent request intrigues the king, maybe even moves his heart. My wife could have anything, and all she asks for is time with me at her table. His messenger is sent at once to bring Haman to accompany the king to the feast. Before Esther approaches the king, she already has prepared the feast. Before Esther asks for what she wants, she gives.

When the King asks Esther for a second time, "Queen Esther, What is your request? Up to half of the kingdom, I will give to you," Esther pauses… is this the right time? She listens to her instincts, intuition, and says: “…if it is good for the king… come tomorrow again to a feast, and I will act according to the king's desire and word.” She feels or knows that the time is not right. Tomorrow Esther will submit her request, and do what her conscience demands. Is she taking her time or creating a space within which divine assistance may arise?

Divine assistance does arrive in the middle of the night. The king cannot sleep, and discovers the scales of justice are not balanced in the kingdom. A Jew saved his life by reporting on two traitors and was never rewarded. Now, years after the actual events, Mordechai is paraded through town in the king’s attire on the king’s horse, led by Haman proclaiming: “This is what’s done for the man the king wishes to honor.”

Soon after the events, both the king and Haman arrive at Esther’s second feast in very different states of mind from the day before. The king is tired but relieved to no longer be in anyone’s debt. Haman is irritable, sensing the winds shifting away from his sails. For the third time, the king asks Esther: "What is your request, what is your petition, up to half the kingdom and it shall be granted." Queen Esther, knowing her own life would be of more value to the king than the lives of the Jews, firmly asks for the right to live: “Give me MY LIFE (nafshi) for my request! And, for my petition, my people.”

Esther is well aware that either she or Haman will be executed at the feast; only one of them will be permitted to walk out alive. Her purpose requires that she lives to fulfill her destiny as queen, save her people. She must be victorious over Haman, eradicate him and all of his followers. She does not mince words: “For we were sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, killed, annihilated.…if we had just been sold to be servants and slaves, I would have remained silent. For that, I would not have troubled you.”

Curiously, Esther has neither named Haman, nor blamed the King. She has simply presented the facts. As expected, the king is infuriated! Who would have the nerve to sell his wife? Steal his property?! The king asks: “Who is this person?” Esther stares evil in the eye, points her metaphoric sword at Haman, and declares war against her enemy: “The evil Haman.”  Haman trembles before “the king and queen.” Haman fears them as a united force. However, the king is not sure whom to believe or what to do. His heretofore “trophy-wife” is accusing his most trusted advisor. The king rises and exits to the terrace. Esther exercising her power, naming evil, liberates the king from the influence of Amalek, Haman. The king begins to regain his own individuated power.

The king steps out in a confused rage, and Haman feels the weight of judgment hanging over him. He throws himself at the mercy of the queen. Thus, instead of Esther throwing herself at the king begging for mercy, Haman throws himself on Esther pleading for his life. A complete reversal was created by the force of Esther's strategic thinking. When the king returns from the terrace, Haman has implicated himself by forcing himself on top of his queen. The king trusts his own sense of sight, and has evidence and witnesses to the truth of Esther’s accusations: Haman is guilty. The gallows that Haman had erected in his garden to hang Mordechai are then used the same day to hang Haman. Evil succumbs to its own instrument of death.

Esther reveals to the king that Mordechai is her relative; “the one who in the past spoke well of the king.” That very morning the king had heard that Mordechai had saved his life; thus the king transfers to Mordechai his ring, power, and agrees to save the lives of Esther and Mordechai. However, he says that he cannot reverse an edict stamped with the King's seal. What is written and sealed cannot be revoked.

Not deterred in her mission to save her people—just like Moshe appeared many times before Pharoah, demanding “Let my people go!”—Esther spent the next three months beseeching her husband to save her people. Finally, on the 23^rd of Sivan, Esther prevails. The king relents: “Esther and Mordechai can write what they see fit and seal it with his ring.” Esther, the warrior-queen, sends out an edict granting the Jewish People the right to assemble, fight, and defend themselves. "They may do to their enemies what their enemies wished to do to them."

How Does Esther Lead the Jewish People to Victory?

Esther steps into her full birthright as Hadassah, "the one who brings victory and healing." She prepares her people to overcome their enemies, Amalek: the force in the world seeking to cool their passion for divine service and eradicate their divine message and destiny. Each person must wage their own battle against Amalek, the inner and outer forces that prevent them from living fully, passionately, Jewishly—and must fight the narrowing forces that prevent one from growing into their potential, and returning home whole to one’s self.

With the arrival of the king’s new edict written by Mordechai, throughout the 127 provinces, there was light, gladness, happiness, and honor. In every city, there were celebrations bringing others into the flock of the Jewish People. Mordechai is dressed by the king in malhut [royal clothing]. It’s a known Jungian spiritual principle that the feminine aspect strongly influences the masculine: Once Esther has differentiated herself and claimed her true identity, Mordechai must equally change; appear publicly dressed in malhut.

Good triumphs over evil. Light over darkness. The small over the mighty. The king is so impressed with the powerful victory and leadership of his queen that for a fourth time he asks Esther, “what is your request and petition.” She requests to repeat tomorrow what she did today, and her request is granted.

And the memory of these days shall be remembered and celebrated by every generation… never perish from among their descendants. And then, Queen Esther, daughter of Avihayil, wrote and ratified with Mordechai the Jew letters of Purim, for a second time, and sent to Jews in the 127 provinces, sefarim, words of peace and truth…Esther’s ordinances…were recorded in a book.

Conclusion: How Do Esther and Mordechai Rectify Humanity?

According to a midrash, at the End of Days, we will only celebrate one holiday, Purim: a joyous day of feasting while giving gifts and charity; a universal holiday, open to all who wish to celebrate the miracle wrought through the sacred process and partnership of Esther and Mordechai, as well as the Jewish community and the divine. “In the end, Mordechai the Jew ruled alongside the king, establishing order for the Kingdom…and demanded good for the sake of his people, speaking words of peace to all of his seed.”

We alive today are “his seed.” Mordechai and Esther planted seeds of peace, goodness, truth, light, prosperity, and joy for future generations. The spiritual partnership of Esther and Mordechai, clothed in their full human majesty (malhut), is the spiritual tikkun for the naked, half-covered Adam and Eve who were banished by God from the Garden of Eden. Mordechai and Esther took the responsibility upon themselves to become spiritual parents to their people in exile, and model an evolving, co-creative relationship between each other and the divine.

Angel For Shabbat, Parashat Tetsaveh

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

Commentators have noted the unusual fact that the name of Moses does not appear in Parashat Tetsaveh. This is in sharp contrast with his brother Aaron whose name recurs frequently in this Torah portion. Since this Parasha focuses on the garments to be made for and worn by Aaron as he assumes his role as High Priest, it is reasonable to suggest that the Torah wished to highlight Aaron and draw attention away from Moses.

Some have suggested that Moses himself wished to keep his name out of this section in order to pay full homage to his brother.  In his humility and genuine love for his brother, Moses chose to cede the stage entirely to Aaron. This example of brotherly love harks back to an earlier story in the book of Shemot.

When the Almighty first called on Moses to go to Egypt to lead the Israelites, Moses demurred. He was a humble shepherd who did not feel worthy of the enormous responsibility of leadership. Moreover, Moses may have thought that his older brother Aaron had a better claim to lead the people than he did. Aaron, after all, lived among the Israelites and knew their situation first hand. Moses had been living for many years in Midian.  How would Aaron react when he learned that God chose Moses rather than him? God reassures Moses that Aaron would see Moses “and rejoice in his heart.” Aaron was such a fine human being that he fully rejoiced in Moses’s success. He was not envious, not insulted, not feeling bad for being passed over.

Just as Aaron’s love for Moses was selfless, so Moses’s love for Aaron was also selfless. Each of them willingly and full heartedly rejoiced in the success and honor of the other. They didn’t let their egos get in the way.

Genuine love is a special gift. It requires the ability to identify fully with the beloved. The Hebrew word for love, ahavah, derives from the root meaning “to give.” A loving person is a giving person. Imperfect “love” is when one is really interested in one’s own pleasure and advantage, when one is more interested in taking than in giving.

In order to love selflessly, one must have inner confidence. One with a weak sense of self has trouble loving because his/her ego intrudes. Interest in bolstering one’s own ego detracts from the ability of sharing love fully with another.

It is very difficult to give a full and generous compliment. People want to protect their own egos. When they compliment others, they feel a threat to their own frail sense of self. The compliment and [inner thoughts] go like this: you’ve done well [but I can do better]; you’ve achieved something great [but not as great as what I have achieved]; you are loveable [but not as loveable as I am]; you are beautiful, smart, successful [but you have many shortcomings too.]

People with weak egos constantly seek validation and recognition. They want their pictures and names in the newspapers. They make outrageous statements, or dress outrageously, or do outrageous things so that they will be noticed. They don’t want to share the limelight because they fear that they will be eclipsed by others.

Moses and Aaron set examples of selfless love. They genuinely rejoiced in each other’s success. Their egos and self-interest did not factor into their mutual respect and commitment.

In demonstrating their respect and love for each other, they thereby demonstrated their own greatness of spirit. They set a model worthy of emulation.

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Ki Tissa

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

“When he [Moses] came near to the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing, and Moses’s anger burned, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain” (Shemot 32:19).

What was going on within Moses’s mind? He and the people of Israel had recently experienced the most amazing Revelation of God. Life seemed so good, so promising, so infused with meaning. Moses held the tablets of the law, the physical symbol of an ideal spiritual transformation.

But shortly after this spiritual high, the people were dancing around a golden calf. The gap between the ideal world of the Revelation and the real world of idolatry was more than Moses could tolerate. How could he deliver the tablets of Revelation to a people who worshipped an idol? He had to shatter them; the illusion of spiritual perfection had now been shattered.

Idealists can well empathize with Moses. The real world simply does not conform to our aspirations and expectations. We dream of—and work for—a world of peace, harmony, mutual understanding. We hold our dreams in our hands, like the tablets of the law that Moses held at Mount Sinai. But when we behold the wars, hatred, violence, and criminality of humanity, we lose heart. We are tempted to cast down our unrealistic ideals and just accept reality as it is. Our idealistic illusions are shattered.

We might have expected Moses to have given up on the Israelites after the sin of the golden calf. After shattering the tablets, he might have realized that the pieces could not be put back together again; the visionary gleam was gone, and so were the glory and the dream.

But Moses did not give up! Amazingly, he asked God to forgive the people and he put his own life on the line: “And now may You forgive their sin, and if not, please blot me out from Your book that You have written” (Shemot 32:32). Moses requested—and received—a second set of tablets of the law. He would not allow negative realities to divert him from his ideal dreams for Israel and humanity.

Yes, there is a huge gap between the ideal world and the real world. It is easy to lose hope, to give up, to let the broken pieces of the tablets stay broken. It is difficult to overcome defeat and disillusionment. But, like Moses, we need to rally our strength and seek a restored set of tablets.

In a previous devar Torah, I wrote about viewing the world with our eyes open…and with our eyes closed. With eyes open, we see “reality” as it is. With eyes closed, “we look for the hidden signs of progress and redemption. We attempt to maintain a grand, long-range vision. This is the key to the secret of Jewish optimism. While not denying the negatives around us, we stay faithful to a vision of a world that is not governed by chaos, but by a deeper, hidden, mysterious unity.

The problem of faith today is not how to have faith in God. We can come to terms with God if we are philosophers or mystics. The problem is how can we have faith in humanity? How can we believe in the goodness and truthfulness of human beings? With our eyes open, we must view current events with despair and trepidation. We see leaders who are liars and hypocrites. We see wars and hatred and violence and vicious anti-Semitism. We are tempted to think that chaos reigns.

But with our eyes shut, we know that redemption will come. We know that there are good, heroic people struggling for change. We know that just as we have overcome sorrows in the past, we will overcome oppressions and oppressors of today.”

And we turn to the example of Moses who could not repair the shattered tablets, but who went on to request and receive a second set. He did not give up on his God, his people or his ideals. Sometimes it is important to close our eyes in order to see clearly.

Simone Veil (1927-2017) was born in Nice, France, into a secular middle class Jewish family. Her pleasant childhood was abruptly ended by the rise of the Nazis and the fall of France to German control. In 1944 she was deported to Auschwitz. Her father and brother were deported and murdered. Her mother died of typhus before the concentration camp was liberated in April 1945. She and two sisters survived.

Veil considered herself to be French; she felt betrayed that France allowed its Jewish citizens to be oppressed, deported and murdered. Yes, there were good French people who saved Jews, who spoke up for their Jewish neighbors. But too many did not. Moreover, after Jewish survivors began to return to their homes in France, they were not greeted with the warmth and understanding that Veil expected. Even the government remained aloof. “From top to bottom of the government, the same attitude prevailed: no one felt concerned by what the Jews had suffered. You can imagine how shocking this was for everyone whose lives had been disrupted by the Holocaust” (A Life: A Memoir by Simon Veil, p. 87).

After the liberation, she decided to study law at the University of Paris, where she met her future husband Antoine Veil. They were married in October 1946, and had three sons. She practiced law for several years, and in 1956 she passed the national examination to become a magistrate. She received a senior position at the National Penitentiary Administration, under the Ministry of Justice. From May 1974 to March 1977, she served as Minister of Health, and was responsible for advocating a number of significant laws, including legalizing abortion in France.

In 1979 she was elected as a member of the European Parliament; in the first European parliamentary election she was elected President, a position she held until 1982. She continued with her active political life, including years of service in the cabinet of France’s Prime Minister. During the course of her remarkable career, she won many awards and honors. When she died, her funeral was conducted as a national ceremony. It was attended by President Macron and many dignitaries, along with Holocaust survivors. President Macron announced the decision to rebury Veil and her husband in the Pantheon, a rare honor, and this was done on July 1, 2018.

Veil devoted her career to efforts to improve society. “No doubt what I suffered in the camps developed my extreme sensitivity to anything in human relations that generates humiliation and loss of human dignity” (Ibid. p. 101). She worked for prison reform; she advocated for women’s rights; she was a champion of environmental issues. Her devotion to France was central to her life…even though France had betrayed her and its Jewish citizens during World War II. She was sympathetic to Israel and saw its role as “a home for people who no longer had one, to provide a haven of peace for all those who had been displaced and lost families, houses and professions, and to give them a piece of land where they could finally put down roots” (Ibid., p. 118).

In 2003, she accepted the Presidency of the International Victims’ Claims Fund in the International Criminal Court. She made it clear that she was doing so in defense of the rights of victims, not to pose as a judge of actions from which they had suffered. “After the war, when the survivors of the Holocaust returned to France, they had to provide proof of the expropriations they had suffered. Even so, they were poorly compensated and only after a struggle. Seldom did money deposited in banks or contracts underwritten by insurance companies result in the payment of damages” (Ibid., p. 171).

It was not until 1995 that France officially recognized its complicity in the crimes against its Jewish citizens during the Second World War. President Jacque Chirac, on July 16, 1995, called on France to face its past and to make amends to the extent possible. A commission was established to deal with the immense losses of Jews whose property was expropriated during the war. The commission found that 50,000 Jewish businesses had been “Aryanized” and 90,000 Jewish bank accounts and insurance contracts had never been honored; 38,000 Jewish apartments had been looted of their furniture. Restoration of assets to Jewish families was arranged, to the extent possible. The commission pointed to France’s responsibility to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust, and Simone Veil was asked to serve as the first President of the Foundation for the Memory of the Holocaust.

On January 27, 2005, she spoke at Auschwitz on the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. To an audience including survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, she recounted the horrors of those days; she remembered the more than one and a half million people murdered here, simply because they were born Jewish. “Today, sixty years later, a new pledge must be made for people to unite at least to combat hatred of other people, anti-Semitism and racism, and intolerance….It is the right and duty of us, the last survivors, to put you on your guard and to ask you to turn our companions’ cry ‘never again’ into reality” (Ibid., pp. 248-49).

            She not only worked to foster an understanding of the Holocaust and its victims; she also strove to highlight the heroism of those righteous people who fought against Nazism, who saved Jewish lives, who behaved honestly and admirably during a very difficult period of time. On January 18, 2007, she spoke as President of the Foundation for the Memory of the Holocaust at a ceremony honoring the righteous of France. “All of you, the Righteous of France, to whom we pay tribute today, illustrate the honor of our country which thanks to you, found a sense of fraternity, justice and courage….For those of us still haunted by the memory of our loved ones who vanished in smoke and have no gravestone, for all those who want a better world, more just and more fraternal, cleansed of the poison of anti-Semitism, racism and hatred, these walls will resonate now and forever with the echo of your voices, you, the Righteous of France, who give us reasons to hope” (Ibid., pp. 284-85).

Although she was fully and personally aware of human viciousness and cruelty, Simone Veil wanted very much to believe in the ultimate victory of a righteous, compassionate and humane society. She stressed the role of righteous French non-Jews who acted nobly during the war years. “I am convinced that there will always be men and women, of all origins and in all countries, capable of doing what is right and just. Based on the example of the Righteous, I should like to believe that moral strength and individual conscience can win out” (Ibid.,  p.295).

                                              *     *     *

Although Simone Veil did not identify herself as being religious, her life embodied significant elements of a religious worldview. If faith in God was not part of her mindset, her faith in humanity was remarkable. After all she witnessed in Auschwitz, it might have been expected that she could no longer trust the goodness of human beings. After the cold reception she and other survivors experienced upon returning to France after the war, it would have been natural for her to feel alienation from France and the French people. But she did not lose faith in humanity, in the French people, in France. This faith was—in religious terms—messianic. She believed in a future age when humanity would overcome its hatreds and prejudices, when people of all nations, religions, races would live in peace and mutual respect.

But her faith was not merely a matter of lip-service to high ideals. She devoted her life to working for the betterment of her society. She strove to enact policies that enhanced human rights and human dignity.

In my more than fifty years of rabbinic service, I’ve learned to pay more attention to what people do rather than to what they say. Professions of faith and pious preachments may be fine, but they do not define one’s religiosity. Righteous action is the true test.

Reference

A Life: A Memoir by Simone Veil, Haus Publishing, London, 2007.

Among the titles that rabbinic literature ascribes to Torah scholars is Haver Ha-Ir. This phrase denotes someone of great learning, integrity and commitment to the welfare of the community.[1] Rabbi Benzion Uziel noted: “The rabbi of a community is called by our Sages Haver Ir because he tends to the needs of the public and gathers them for prayer and Torah study.”[2]

The Haver Ha-Ir model of rabbinic leadership deserves careful attention. The rabbi is literally to be a “friend” of the city, a person who is engaged in people’s lives, who strives to make society a better place. He is to feel personal responsibility for the spiritual and material wellbeing of the community. The Haver Ha-Ir is not an aloof scholar nor an otherworldly mystic, but is with the people and for the people.

We may explore the Haver Ha-Ir model by considering the teachings of four rabbinic figures of the modern period: Rabbi Benzion Uziel (1880–1953); Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993); Rabbi Haim David Halevy (1924–1998); and Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch (1928–).

Rabbi Benzion Uziel: Yishuvo shel Olam

Rabbi Uziel was the pre-eminent Sephardic rabbi and posek of his generation. Born and raised in Jerusalem, he distinguished himself as an outstanding Torah scholar and communal leader. He was the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1939 until his death in 1953. A prolific author, he is well known for his volumes of responsa, Mishpetei Uziel.[3]

At a rabbinic conference held in Jerusalem in 1919, Rabbi Uziel urged his colleagues to take an active role in the development of Jewish life in the land of Israel. He called on them to live and work among the people, to share their worries and aspirations, and to be an integral part of their lives: “This is our duty to our God and to our nation: to walk in the midst of the people, in the work of the people, to join ourselves in the task of building in all its forms, very carefully watching for the soul of the nation.” It is incumbent upon rabbis to conduct themselves “with words of pleasantness and with love for each individual Jew.” The religious message is best conveyed by establishing rapport with the public, by working with them and respecting them. “Let us walk on our path together with all the people, to love and appreciate, to learn and to teach the Torah of Israel and its tradition in the presence of all.”[4]

During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, a group of yeshiva students approached Rabbi Uziel and asked him to arrange exemptions for them from military service. They claimed that their study of Torah should take priority to serving as soldiers. Rabbi Uziel rebuked the students sharply. He told them that religious Jews, including yeshiva students, were obligated to share in the defense of the nation. If they were to influence society to live according to Torah, they themselves had to set an example that the public would respect and wish to emulate.[5]

Among the concepts that Rabbi Uziel emphasized in his teachings was the imperative to work for the general wellbeing of society—yishuvo shel olam. Judaism demands that its adherents live moral and upright lives. Religious Jews must feel troubled by any injustice in society and must strive to defend and protect the oppressed. Striving to create a harmonious society is not merely a reflection of social idealism; it is a religious mandate:

We are all workers and employees, each person according to his physical and intellectual abilities and talents; we are workers in the workplace to improve human life, to raise the level of culture and to fulfill the human charter for which we have been created and through which we live: to bring peace and truth, and the love of compassion and truth, throughout our world.”[6]

Each person who works honestly and efficiently is thereby helping to build a better world and is participating in yishuvo shel olam. Individuals who only seek their own interests, even if they are honest in their dealings, are not living up to the proper religious standard. A religious person should be constructive, honest, and concerned for the welfare of others.

The concept of fostering yishuvo shel olam not only relates to individuals; it is also a responsibility of the Jewish people as a whole. Just as we learn and benefit from other nations, so we are to contribute our own talents and energies for the advancement of humankind. Rabbi Uziel wrote:

Each country and each nation that respects itself does not and cannot be satisfied with its narrow boundaries and limited domains. Rather, they desire to bring in all that is good and beautiful, that is helpful and glorious to their national [cultural] treasury. And they wish to impart the maximum flow of their own blessings to the [cultural] treasury of humanity as a whole….Happy is the country and happy is the nation that can give itself an accounting of what it has taken from others; and more importantly, of what it has given of its own to the repository of all humanity. Woe unto that country and nation that encloses itself in its own four cubits and limits itself to its own narrow boundaries, lacking anything of its own to contribute [to humanity] and lacking the tools to receive [cultural] contributions from others.[7]

Rabbi Uziel noted that the Jewish people have contributed vastly to the idealism and morality of the world. Likewise, Jews have learned much from other nations. On balance, though, we have given far more than we have received.

As much as Israel drew from others…far, far more did it give of its own to others: Torah and light, purity of heart and the holiness of life, righteous justice and true ethics; love and appreciation of its Torah, a Torah for the world; the words of its prophets and sages from generation to generation, all of whom were imbued with an elevated love of the God of the universe and all who were created in His image, of all His creations of nature, a wise ethics, words of peace and truth.[8]

Yishuvo shel olam is an obligation to seek the benefit of humanity. This entails not only a responsibility for the physical wellbeing of others, but also a commitment to expand human knowledge, technology, and general culture. Yishuvo shel olam is

a precondition and vital need for our attaining our proper way in life. In the settlement and building of the world, knowledge is increased. From our knowledge of the mysteries of nature, our eyes are opened to new and very wide horizons, from which we will arise and announce the wonders of God, Creator of the universe, and the ways of His wondrous and hidden providence, all of which are love, justice, kindness and compassion.[9]

When Rabbi Uziel became Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel in 1939, he delivered a radio address to the nation. He stressed the need for all residents of the land to work together in harmony:

Our first task is the establishment of true peace and strong unity among all segments of the people, its communities and ethnic groups, its organizations and parties; to call “peace, peace to those who are far and near” among ourselves; and peace with all our neighbors in the land, of all religions and peoples.[10]

Later in his address, he spoke in Arabic to the Arab population:

We reach our hands out to you in peace, pure and trustworthy. We say: the land is stretched out before us, and with joined hands we will work it, we will uncover its treasures, and we will live on it as brothers who dwell together. Know and trust that the word of God will rise forever. Make peace with us and we will make peace with you. Together all of us will benefit from the blessing of God on His land; with quiet and peace, with love and fellowship, with goodwill and pure heart we will find the way of peace.[11]

In his role as a Haver Ha-Ir, Rabbi Uziel was a role model of rabbinic leadership that was imbued with a keen sense of responsibility to individuals, to society, to people of all backgrounds. His grand religious vision sought unity and harmony in a world often characterized by dissension and violence.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: Moral Courage

Rabbi Soloveitchik, the Rav, was the pre-eminent Orthodox rabbinic thinker of twentieth-century America. For many years, he taught Talmud at Yeshiva University and signed the rabbinic ordinations of thousands of disciples. He was the posek of the Rabbinical Council of America, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations and the Religious Zionists of America. He was the founder of the Maimonides Day School in Boston. Through his classes, public lectures and writings, he has had singular impact on the recent generations of Modern Orthodox Jews.

In his own rabbinic career, he drew inspiration from the teachings of his illustrious grandfather, Rabbi Hayyim of Brisk. When R. Hayyim was asked to describe the function of a rabbi, he replied: “To redress the grievances of those who are abandoned and alone, to protect the dignity of the poor, and to save the oppressed from the hands of his oppressor.”[12] In reporting these words of his grandfather, Rabbi Soloveitchik notes:

Neither ritual decisions nor political leadership constitutes the main task of halakhic man. Far from it. The actualization of the ideals of justice and righteousness is the pillar of fire which halakhic man follows, when he, as a rabbi and teacher in Israel, serves his community.[13]

Whereas some religions have an otherworldly focus, Judaism—as represented by halakhic man—is concerned primarily with this world. The goal is to bring comfort to those who suffer, justice to those who are oppressed, and kindness to those who are neglected:

Halakhic man is characterized by a powerful stiff-neckedness [sic] and stubbornness. He fights against life’s evil and struggles relentlessly with the wicked kingdom and with all the hosts of iniquity in the cosmos. His goal is not flight to another world that is wholly good, but rather bringing down that eternal world into the midst of our world.[14]

To wage a battle for righteousness requires tremendous courage. One must be prepared to confront powerful opponents, people who wish to maintain their own control over others. “Halakhic man does not quiver before any man; he does not seek out compliments, nor does he require public approval.”[15]

Rabbi Soloveitchik refers to an incident in the life of his grandfather, R. Hayyim of Brisk. It happened once that two Jews died in Brisk on the same day. In the morning, a poor shoemaker died. Later, a wealthy and prominent member of the community passed away. According to halakha, the one who dies first must be buried first. However, the members of the burial society decided (after they had apparently been given a handsome sum from the rich man’s heirs) to attend to the rich man’s burial first. When R. Hayyim learned of this, he sent a message to the burial society to desist from their disgraceful behavior. The members of the burial society refused to heed R. Hayyim’s directive, and they continued to prepare for the burial of the wealthy man.

R. Hayyim then arose, took his walking stick, trudged over to the house of the deceased, and chased all the attendants outside. R. Hayyim prevailed—the poor man was buried before the rich man. R. Hayyim’s enemies multiplied and increased. Thus have true halakhic men always acted, for their study and their deeds have blended together beautifully, truly beautifully.[16]

Halakha is unequivocally dedicated to fostering righteousness. The hallmark of great halakhic sages has been their lofty ethical standards and their deep respect for the dignity of others.

To recognize a person is not just to identify him physically. It is more than that: It is an act of identifying him existentially, as a person who has a job to do, that only he can do properly. To recognize a person means to affirm that he is irreplaceable. To hurt a person means to tell him that he is expendable, that there is no need for him. The Halakhah equated the act of publicly embarrassing a person with murder.[17]

Halakhic Judaism is the antithesis of mystical quietism that views pain and suffering in a passive, fatalistic manner. Rather, the halakha “wants man to cry out aloud against any kind of pain, to react indignantly to all kinds of injustice or unfairness.”[18]

In one of his teshuvah lectures, the Rav elaborated on the connection a Jew must feel toward Knesset Israel, the community of Israel that transcends time and place.

The Jew who believes in Knesset Israel is the Jew who lives as part of it wherever it is and is willing to give his life for it, feels its pain, rejoices with it, fights in its wars, groans at its defeats and celebrates its victories.[19]

The Haver Ha-Ir must have moral courage so as to set an example to others. For Rabbi Soloveitchik, “heroism is the central category in practical Judaism.”[20]

Rabbi Haim David Halevy: Kevod HaBeriyot

Rabbi Haim David Halevy was a prolific author and teacher, a gifted halakhic scholar, a devotee of kabbalah, and a creative thinker who applied Torah wisdom to the dilemmas of the modern world. From 1972 until his death in 1998, he served as Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv.

For a number of years, Rabbi Halevy conducted a popular Israeli radio program, Asei Lekha Rav, in which he answered a wide range of questions posed to him by listeners. He later wrote up and elaborated on his responses, publishing them in a series of volumes also entitled Asei Lekha Rav. In the first responsum in Volume One of this series, Rabbi Halevy noted that a rabbi was not simply a decisor of rabbinic law who ruled on what was forbidden and what was permitted. “Rather he is also—and perhaps mainly—an advisor to everyone in his community for all questions, small and large.”[21]

A recurring theme in his voluminous writings was the respect due to fellow human beings. Sensitivity to the needs and feelings of others is a basic feature of proper religious life. An example of this sensitivity is evident in a responsum he wrote relating to wedding ceremonies.

Some rabbis had the practice of reciting the wedding blessings and then taking a sip of wine themselves. They then gave the wine to the groom and bride for them to drink from the wine cup. Rabbi Halevy ruled that rabbis should not drink from the cup before giving it to the couple. Some people feel uncomfortable drinking from a glass from which someone else has drunk. Even if many people do not mind drinking from the cup of others, “Aren’t we obligated to worry about even the one in a thousand who is particular, and who will drink the wine and feel hurt?”[22] Rabbi Halevy added that when he recited Kiddush at home, he would pass it to family members who did not mind drinking from a shared cup. But whenever he had a guest at the table, he poured from the Kiddush cup into a separate cup from which he drank. He would then pass the Kiddush cup to the others so that they could pour a bit of wine into their own clean cups.

In another case, Rabbi Halevy dealt with the following situation. On a Shabbat, a large group of family and friends attended a synagogue to celebrate with a bridegroom. Among the guests was a young man, who had become blind through an injury in battle while serving in the Israel Defense Forces. The family requested that this blind young man be given an aliya, but the rabbi of the synagogue cited the Shulhan Arukh, who ruled that a blind person may not be called to the Torah. The blind soldier told the rabbi that he was called to the Torah in his regular synagogue, but the rabbi was not swayed. Feeling angry and humiliated, the soldier and some members of his family left the synagogue.

When Rabbi Halevy heard of this case, he was deeply pained. The young soldier, who had sacrificed so much on behalf of his country, was treated shabbily. If the soldier told the rabbi that he had been receiving aliyot in his regular synagogue, the rabbi should have given credence to this. “How careful one must be when it comes to kevod haBeriyot, who were created in the image of God.” Rabbi Halevy noted that the Sephardic community generally did not accept the ruling of the Shulhan Arukh (Orah Hayyim 139:3) forbidding aliyot to blind people, but rather followed the opinion of other rabbinic authorities permitting this practice.[23]

Rabbi Halevy was asked if non-observant Jews should be allowed to participate in the celebration of finishing the writing of a Torah scroll. Usually, a qualified scribe would write the entire Torah, leaving the last few letters to be filled in by the sponsors or donors of the writing of the scroll. Rabbi Halevy permitted non-observant Jews to participate in this happy occasion. “If we prevent them from doing this, there is a fear of complaints, Heaven forbid, since the general practice [is to let non-observant Jews participate].” How embarrassing it would be for the non-observant people to be turned away from participating in this mitzvah. It would be a public humiliation that could deepen their alienation from religious observance.[24]

Rabbi Halevy criticized a practice of some religiously observant Jews to publicly scream at those who were violating Shabbat or other ritual laws. These pietists are vocal in their protest of laxities in ritual observances, yet “they remain quiet and take things in normal stride when they see social and ethical breakdowns in many areas of our public life, when people swallow each other alive, and the moral thread of our life is broken.”[25] For Rabbi Halevy, religious Jews should demonstrate concern for all society and for the general moral health of society.

Rabbi Halevy’s concern for society included his concern for the wellbeing of non-Jews. He argued that Christians and Muslims were not to be considered as “idolaters,” nor were they to be subjected to talmudic rulings that related to idolaters. “Providing their sustenance, visiting their sick, burying their dead, comforting their mourners are all to be performed because of the human ethical imperative, not specifically [only] for the sake of peace.”[26] Relationships between Jews and non-Jews, whether in Israel or the Diaspora, were to be governed by the moral obligations that bound all human beings.

Rabbi Nahum Rabinovich: Shutafut

Rabbi Nahum Rabinovich has served as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Birkat Moshe in Maale Adumim for many years. A respected posek and thinker, his teachings provide important insight into the role of a Haver Ha-Ir.

Rabbi Rabinovich draws on the halakhic idea that members of a community are in a partnership relationship. They each share equally in rights and obligations. Since societies include members with different views, the notion of shutafut, partnership, is very important. Instead of each individual or group struggling in an adversarial manner against those with different opinions, all members of society should recognize that they are partners in the same venture. In spite of differences, they need to find ways of working together for the betterment of society as a whole.

In order to reach a practical agreement and cooperation among various groups of society, it is necessary to open doors of genuine dialogue among these groups. Dialogue among the various groups in society will enable them to overcome the deep rifts and conflicts that exist and that are growing.[27]

Rabbi Rabinovich pointed out that the religiously observant community had a responsibility to society as a whole, not merely to their own religious enclaves. Since the religious, along with all other citizens, are partners with equal rights and obligations, they need to be concerned with issues beyond their own neighborhoods. For example, since the Torah was given to all Jews, it is incumbent upon the religious education leaders to recognize their responsibility to the entire public. They should work in harmony with the general education system in order to meet the needs of all students, not only the students in the religious school system. They need to work for the inclusion of Torah values, without diminishing the need for students to study science and technology and other subjects that are essential for the social and economic life of the nation.

We must create religious schools not only for children [from religious families] but also for children whose parents want them to excel in computers, mathematics, vocations and other fields. In these schools children will also learn Torah…. Religious education can draw to itself a large portion of children in Israel, if only it would know how to approach the various groupings of society.[28]

As another example of how the religious community should be working in partnership with other segments of society, Rabbi Rabinovich points to economic issues. All society is impacted negatively by rampant inflation. Why then are the religious parties not front and center in dealing with this problem? Shouldn’t rabbis throughout the land be preaching and teaching about the ills of inflation, the sufferings of the poor, and so forth? Why should economic issues be relegated to the domain of the “secular” community, when this is an area that impacts on society as a whole?[29]

Another striking example: seat belts. Many Israelis are killed or injured in automobile accidents each year. Some years ago, a suggestion was made to make wearing seat belts a legal requirement. This would save lives and reduce injuries. Yet, before a seat belt law was enacted in Israel, there were delays so that studies could be made to determine the effectiveness of seat belts. Yet, such studies had already been made in other countries and the evidence was clear that seat belts are an important safety feature. Why was so much time lost before enacting the law in Israel? Why wasn’t this issue high among the priorities of the religious community? “The time has come for us to recognize that confronting such issues is a moral and religious obligation, and we must be the acute prodders in confronting situations which involve safety to life.”[30]

   Rabbi Rabinovich notes that

the light of Torah cannot be revealed or shown as long as Torah manifests itself as the Torah of a particular group, but only when the Torah is the Torah for all society. The challenge at the door of the sages of Torah is to demonstrate how great is the power of Torah for arranging the life of the community at large….We have the genuine opportunity to spread Torah among large segments of the Israeli public, and ultimately to almost all the residents of the State, if only we can succeed to break the sectarian or religious party muzzle. This will not be an easy task, and there are those on all sides who wish to protect their narrow interests and who strive to strengthen those muzzles. Nevertheless, we must undertake this task.[31]

For Rabbi Rabinovich, the principle of shutafut is at the heart of creating a vibrant and healthy society. Each member of society needs to feel a sense of partnership with all other members of society. Breaking into small self-contained “interest groups” undermines the general harmony of society.

The Haver Ha-Ir model of leadership entails a grand religious vision, courage, respect and a sense of partnership with all members of society. The rabbi, as an exemplar of this model of leadership, must strive not merely to study and teach Torah, but to live Torah.

A Tribute to Stephen Neuwirth

          Rabbi Hayyim Angel

          As my father has noted (at https://www.jewishideas.org/article/stephen-neuwirth-memoriam), we deeply mourn the loss of our dear friend, Stephen Neuwirth.

          I wanted to add a few reflections specifically about his critical role in our Institute and in promoting our ideas and ideals.

          Stephen saw immense value in our goal of promoting Jewish unity without conformity. A broad grounding in authentic Jewish tradition embraces a wide variety of valid avenues and opinions, enabling Jews who disagree with one another to still respect and admire one another. He celebrated our efforts to promote this ideology in the broader community, and was pleased when Jews of many different backgrounds attended our classes and programs and shared ideas.

          Stephen also espoused our core value of having a deep connection to humanity and its wisdom as a means of enhancing our connection to God, Torah, and society. Our university network is a particularly important vehicle to engage students all over the country and beyond with meaningful religious content.

          Finally, at our Board meetings Stephen regularly challenged us to “break the plate.” He loved and supported our publications and programs, and concurrently demanded that we explore new horizons. Thanks to his prodding, we have significantly improved our ability to impact the community over the years.

          Thanks to the singular support of Stephen and his beloved wife Nataly, we at the Institute have reached many thousands of people worldwide and have provided a positive model of Torah teaching and community building. We will miss him dearly as a friend, and as a true partner in our vision.

Searching for Holiness: The Song of the Sea in Tanakh and Tefillah

Rachel Friedman^[1]

In the past several generations, a literary approach to Tanakh study has engaged both lay and academic Jewish learners; indeed, it is a significant subject in this volume. The thesis of this article is that a literary reading of biblical material found in the daily liturgy can similarly infuse our prayers with new levels of meaning and connect these specific prayers to the larger themes and messages of the Siddur.

In this article, I will focus on the prayer of Az Yashir, also known as Shirat ha-Yam (The Song of the Sea, or simply, the Song), to demonstrate this methodology.^[2] It is hoped that a literary-theological analysis of the Song in its biblical and liturgical settings will inspire a personal connection between this ancient poem and its modern daily readers.

The Verses of Praise and the Daily Prayer Service

The Song of the Sea is part of the section of the liturgy known as Pesukei de-Zimra, or verses of praise. The Talmud teaches (Berakhot 32b) that “a person should first recount the praise of God, and then pray.” The Rabbis instituted Pesukei de-Zimra to prepare the individual for the recitation of the central elements of the daily prayer service—the Shema and the Amidah—by focusing one’s thoughts on God and contemplation of His glory. Before we can ask God to grant our needs and requests, we enter the proper state of mind by thinking about Him and praising Him.

            The broad theme of these selections is praise of God for creation of the splendid and orderly natural universe. Pesukei de-Zimra begins with the introductory blessing of Barukh she-Amar, which includes 10 praises of God, beginning with the word “Barukh” —blessed is He—and explains its goal:^[3] “U-ve-shirei David avdekha, nehallelekha Hashem Elokenu” —we intend to praise God through the songs of David. Indeed, the core passages that follow are the six final chapters of Sefer Tehillim (Book of Psalms) —Psalm 145, commonly known as “Ashrei,” (Praiseworthy are those...)[4] and Psalms 146–150, the “Hallelukahs” —corresponding to the six days of creation that we praise.^[5] The majority of the remainder of Pesukei de-Zimra is also composed of passages from the Bible traditionally attributed to David, from Tehillim and elsewhere. Pesukei de-Zimra then concludes with the blessing of Yishtabah (May Your name be praised), which enumerates 15 words of praise and 15 expressions of glorification of God.

            The Song of the Sea stands out from most other selections in Pesukei de-Zimra because it is not attributed to David.^[6] It is a song found in the biblical book of Shemot, a song recited by the Israelites after they crossed the Red Sea and their Egyptian pursuers were defeated. Why is this song, which begins with the words “Then Moses and Israel sang,” included in the category of the songs of David? What was the motivation for including this passage, and the verses that precede and follow it, in the Pesukei de-Zimra?

            In order to answer these questions we must consider the significance of the Song of the Sea in its biblical context.

Biblical Significance of the Song

            The chart below describes the structure and themes of the book of Shemot based on a plain-sense reading of the biblical account.

Book of Exodus

Part I

1–14                Oppression and Exodus

15:1–21           Song of the Sea

Part 2

15:22–ch. 17    Journey begins

18–24              Revelation at Mt. Sinai

25–31              Commandment to build Mishkan (Tabernacle)

32–34              Sin of the Golden Calf

35–40              Construction of the Mishkan

            On the simplest level, Shirat ha-Yam marks a turning point, the end of the period of the exodus. The time of oppression and miraculous salvation are over (chapters 1–15:21), and the journey through the wilderness toward the land of Canaan has begun (chapters 15:22–40). Thus, Shirat ha-Yam is the demarcation line between Part 1 and Part 2 of the book of Exodus. In this sense, it is similar to Song of Deborah (Judges 5), which marks the completion of the conquest of Canaan.

            On a deeper, level, however, Shirat ha-Yam is the key to understanding the entire structure of Sefer Shemot. Analysis of the Song helps clarify the very nature of this book.  

            A disagreement regarding the overall theme and purpose of Sefer Shemot dates back to the rabbinic period. Is Shemot a book that tells the story of a nation of slaves who are liberated, enter a covenant with God, and, in a culminating crescendo, build a Sanctuary in which to serve Him? Or is it the story of a nation liberated by God and blessed with divine revelation that then falters in idol worship, so that God must command the construction of a Sanctuary to fulfill their need for physical worship?        

            This divergence in opinion reflects two different views as to the actual chronology of events in the narrative. According to the sequence described in the book, and assumed inter alia by the thirteenth-century Spanish exegete Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban), God commanded Moshe regarding the construction of the Mishkan immediately following the revelation at Sinai. It had always been God’s intention to have a Tabernacle at Sinai and to dwell among the people.^[7] The people then sinned with the Golden Calf, and the Torah therefore reiterates that the command to build the Mishkan was nonetheless fulfilled.

            The Midrash, however, as well as many of the classical commentators such as the sixteenth century Italian exegete R. Obadiah Sforno,^[8] assumes that this is one example of the principle “en mukdam u-me’uhar ba-Torah” —the Torah is not necessarily written in chronological order. In fact, the Sages argued, the command to build the Mishkan followed the sin of the Golden Calf; it was only in response to the sin that the concept of the Mishkan was introduced at all.^[9]

            There is an indication in the text that the book of Exodus records events in their actual sequence—and we can appreciate this through careful study of Shirat ha-Yam. Immediately after the liberation from Egypt, after witnessing their salvation from the Egyptians at the Red Sea, Moses and the people pause to reflect on the new era of history unfolding before them. At this juncture, the Israelites express their heartfelt desire to embrace God in sacred space: “zeh E-li ve-anvehu.” Targum Onkelos explains the word ve-anvehu as deriving from the word naveh, habitation: “This is my God, and I will build a Sanctuary for Him.” The twelfth-century Spanish exegete Abraham Ibn Ezra elaborates: “This is my God, and I wish to make Him a habitation wherein He can dwell with me forever.”^[10]

            At the conclusion of the Song, the nation lodges the same request: “You will bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance, The place You made to dwell in, O Lord, The Sanctuary, my Sovereign, that Your hands established.” When the Israelites are finally planted in the land of Israel,^[11] they will build a permanent structure in His honor. Shirat ha-Yam thus begins and ends with the same theme: The children of Israel desire a physical location at which they can experience God’s presence on earth. Scholars have noted that this theme is prominent in ancient Near Eastern texts as well, where songs often express a desire to build temples to the gods. For example, the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish culminates with the building of a temple for Marduk, and the Ugaritic Baal-Yam texts describe the construction of a palace for Baal following his victory over Yam. Thus, Shirat ha-Yam, which proclaims the sovereignty of the God of Israel, asks that a Temple be built to His name.

            This desire to build a shrine for God is implicit elsewhere in the Song as well. Whereas the first 11 verses of the Song celebrate God’s salvation of Israel at the Red Sea, verse 12 introduces the theme of God’s holiness in addition to that of His power. “Who is like You among the heavenly powers, Lord! Who is like You, mighty in holiness!…” Similarly, in verse 13 God is not only the victorious warrior, but also the redeemer who guides Israel to His destination of holiness: “You have led with might to Your holy abode.” Ibn Ezra asserts that the “holy abode” referred to here is Mount Sinai; the Israelites praise God for leading them to the site of Revelation. This explanation is in fact quite logical given the location of this praise in the Song—after the description of the events at the Sea and before the description of the Canaanite nations’ fear of conquest.^[12] If the nation’s desire of ve-anvehu is their wish to enshrine God on earth, we might argue that the hope expressed in the Song is similarly to build the Mishkan at Mount Sinai.

            Israel desired a Sanctuary, a sacred place, and God responded by commanding the building of the Mishkan—not as a concession to human frailty, but as a response to the Jewish people’s desire for nearness to Him as expressed in Shirat ha-Yam. This indicates that the final 16 chapters of Sefer Shemot, the complex and detailed enterprise of building the Mishkan, were always part of the plan to create an abode for God’s Presence in the wilderness. Perhaps the Mishkan was a response to the desire for a physical mode of worship, but that desire is not negative. On the contrary—it is the lofty desire to continue to glorify God in a sacred space long after we conclude singing the song glorifying His miracles.

The Liturgical Context of the Song of the Sea

            With this background in mind, we can understand the function of Shirat ha-Yam as part of Pesukei de-Zimra, which are predominantly the songs of David. Shirat ha-Yam, the Torah paradigm for the praise of God as Savior, culminates with a request that He invest His glory on earth, that He create a sacred space in which we can worship Him. This is, in fact, the subtext of all of the Pesukei de-Zimra.

            In the Ashkenazi liturgy,^[13] we precede Barukh she-Amar, the beginning of Pesukei de-Zimra, with Mizmor Shir Hanukkat ha-Bayit le-David (Psalm 30); according to a prominent rabbinic tradition this Psalm was intended by David to be sung at the inauguration of the Temple.[14] In fact, although it was David’s son Solomon who would actually build the Temple, one of our primary associations with David is his desire to build it. He pleaded with God for the opportunity to build a house for Him, and when he was turned down, he prepared blueprints and materials for the eventual construction.^[15]

            The Pesukei de-Zimra continue to praise God particularly in connection with His sanctuary on earth. Hodu, the first passage that follows Barukh she-Amar, is a song of thanksgiving composed by David when the ark was brought to Jerusalem, in preparation for the ultimate construction of a Mikdash.^[16] Mizmor le-Todah (Psalm 100) was recited when one brought a thanksgiving offering in the Temple[17] upon salvation from a hazardous situation. Psalm 145 or Tehillah le-David, the most important passage in Pesukei de-Zimra, is introduced with the words, “Ashrei yoshevei vetekha” —“Happy are those who dwell in Your House,”[18] although these words are not part of the biblical psalm. The final “Hallelukah,” the magnificent culminating song of Tehillim, Psalm 150, was recited by pilgrims bringing their first fruits to Jerusalem[19]. It begins, “Praise God in His holy place.”

            Following this psalm, we recite three verses from Tehillim that begin with the word “barukh” —“blessed,”^[20] which would seem to bring closure to the praise begun in Barukh she-Amar, where that word is the central theme. We would expect Pesukei de-Zimra to end here, but instead, we move on to the passages of “va-Yevarekh David”—“David blessed the Lord,” “Attah hu Hashem levadekha,”^[21] —“You alone are the Lord,” and Shirat ha-Yam. What are these sections doing here? I suggest that they continue the theme that we have begun through the excerpts from shirei David; they mark the historical moments when Israel asked God for sacred space on earth.

            At the end of his life, David made Jerusalem the capital and brought the ark there. Denied the chance to build the Temple himself, he assembled the people and charged them with the task. In “va-Yevarekh David,”^[22] he recites a prayer of thanksgiving after concluding his preparations for the Temple that would be built by his son Solomon.

            The next section, “Attah hu Hashem levadekha,”^[23] — “You alone are the Lord” —is an excerpt from a prayer recited by Ezra, Nehemiah, and their community after the Return to Zion. Ezra and Nehemiah summon the people to reaffirm their covenant with God and ask God to help them as they rebuild Jerusalem, with the intent of rebuilding the Temple. Indeed, this gathering culminates with the people’s affirming their commitment to the Temple service (Nehemiah 10:40) —“We will not leave the house of our God.”

            We then continue with “va-Yosha” and Shirat ha-Yam, which describe, as we have said, the very first request for a Sanctuary. The Song glorifies God as Israel’s Savior and asks Him to invest his Presence in a sacred space on earth—a Mishkan or Mikdash.         

            The opening words of Shirat ha-Yam indicate that this composition was recited in immediate response to the miracles that Israel witnessed at the sea—“Az yashir,” “Then they sang.” The rabbis of the Midrash note that these words are actually written in future tense and, taken out of context, would be translated literally as, “Then they will sing.”^[24] According to this Midrash, this is the song that Moses and the Israelites will sing in messianic times. Similarly, Rashi writes, “This is a hint in the Torah to the Resurrection” (Rashi, Exodus 15:1).

            Thus, to the rabbis, the significance of The Song of the Sea is not limited exclusively to the episode of the splitting of the sea. Similarly, to the compilers of Pesukei de-Zimra the recitation of Shirat ha-Yam did not simply recall a song of praise that was sung once upon a time or a request for God’s presence that was lodged ages ago. Shirat ha-Yam anticipated messianic times and the Third Temple; it constitutes our own praise of God and our own request for Mikkedash A-donai konenu yadekha, The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands established.

            Because of these messianic implications, we conclude our recitation of the Shirat ha--Yam with other verses that refer to the ultimate redemption and God’s universal sovereignty: For kingship is the Lord’s and He rules over the nations” (Tehillim 22:29); “Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau, and the kingship shall be the Lord’s” (Obadiah 1:21); “Then the Lord shall be King over the whole earth; on that day, the Lord shall be one and His name will be one” (Zechariah 14:9).

            According to our understanding of the thrust of Shirat ha-Yam, it serves as an appropriate capstone to Pesukei de-Zimra, for it declares the glory of God, crowns Him as our King, and asks Him to create sacred space for us on earth.

Praise and Presence: The Song of the Sea in Bible and Prayer

            This article has sought to demonstrate that an appreciation of the significance of Shirat ha-Yam in its Torah context sheds light on its role in Pesukei de-Zimra as well. Indeed, we may go a step further; the narratives of Sefer Shemot complete the story of creation in Sefer Bereshit. The ultimate goal of all of creation is the creation of a space on earth in which God can dwell and we can worship Him. In the Song of the Sea, the nation of Israel—for the first time in its history—sings a song of praise and thanksgiving to God and asks Him for a naveh, a mishkan, a mikdash.

             Thus, The Song of the Sea is the biblical paradigm for the praise of God and provides a literary model for the organization of Pesukei de-Zimra. Like Shirat ha-Yam, Pesukei de-Zimra begins with an appreciation of God’s greatness and concludes with the contemplation of His holiness. While Barukh she-Amar praises God as the creator and sustainer of the universe and all of humanity, Yishtabah praises not only God’s greatness, but also His “holiness in heaven and earth.”

            It has been suggested that the 10 words of praise in Barukh she-Amar are meant by its composers to evoke the 10 times that God “spoke” (“va-yomer”) in the course of Creation (Avot 5:1).^[25] It has also been suggested that the 15 words of praise in Yishtabah correspond to the 15 steps leading to the entrance of the Temple, the steps on which the Levites stood as they sang their hymns—Shirei ha-Ma’a lot (Psalms 120–134).^[26] Pesukei de-Zimra can thus be understood as beginning with the praise of God of Creation and concluding with the praise of God who answers our request for Him to dwell on earth.

            In sum, Shirat ha-Yam and the passages that precede and follow it invoke our desire for a House of God—the Mishkan of the wilderness, the First and Second Temples, the Temple in messianic times—and are therefore a most fitting conclusion for the Pesukei de-Zimra. As we move from Pesukei de-Zimra to the Shema and Amidah, we move from individual to communal prayer. At this point, it is appropriate to invoke these historical moments—past and future—in which the nation of Israel prays as a community, seeking to create sacred space on earth. The nature of the sacred space may change, as in the transition from Temple to synagogue, but its significance for Jewish life endures as the culmination of our people’s search for holiness.

Notes

“S.D.G.”—Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be Glory), wrote Johann Sebastian Bach on his musical scores. Many of the greatest classical composers were deeply religious and openly expressed their gratitude to the Source of All Inspiration. As Jews, we learn in Bereishit about the inherent rhythm and bold artistry of Creation, crowned by that awesome moment when God breathes life into Adam. We are designed to “sing a new song,” and pivotal moments in Torah are vividly punctuated with music. But how do we connect Bach’s “music of the heart” with Bachya’s “Duties of the Heart?”

My foundational exposure to the role of music in religious expression was the tender voice of Cantor Carl Urstein, at the “Old” Sinai Temple on 4th and New Hampshire in Los Angeles. Recent transformative experiences include hearing the rich, velvety chanting of Cantor Laszlo Fekete at the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest and to the exquisite phrasing and nuances of Cantor Henry Drejer at Ner Tamid Synagogue in San Francisco, who has taught the cantorial arts to my daughter, Cherina. Jascha Heifetz, my beloved violin teacher, suggested that just before going on stage one can “thank God for the gift of music” and pray for “a blessing to the work of our hands.”

Regular practice and performance of works of great composers, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, invite flow into the musical vibrations of the divine. Even off stage in the kitchen, I delight in kneading challah to Rudolf Serkin’s rendition of Brahms Piano Concerto #1. Throughout my musical life, there have been powerful moments of spiritual insight—performing the banned Bloch Baal Shem Suite in Soviet Moscow; recording the Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending with the Israel Philharmonic on Tisha b’Av at the Jerusalem Music Center, on an empty stomach after hearing a human lark, Cantor Gail Hirschenfang the previous Shabbat; and introducing the Ben-Haim Three Songs Without Words to students in Taiwan. Perhaps the deepest imprint that magnified my sensitivity and appreciation of the role and relationship of music in religious expression was my acquaintance with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Rabbi Heschel, as a poet/philosopher, expressed himself through the musicality of language. The power of his writing and speech were enhanced by the lilt of phrase, the lyrical structure of sentence, the grace of alliterative voice, and abundance of musical allusions. As a musician, I find that one of the supreme joys of studying Heschel is being able to connect to his ideas through his musical language. At times the idea is beyond my comprehension, but I can make out a familiar tune. 

            I came to know Rabbi Heschel through music. Several weeks after my father’s death, I was sent to Camp Ramah in Ojai, California, to give my mother a chance to rest. There I met a kind, gentle redheaded boy, who also had chosen the elective of orchestra. Teddy “Tuvia” Kwasman, concertmaster of the group, immediately became my dearest friend. After camp ended, we communicated sporadically, seldom seeing each other except at an occasional concert or simcha. Years passed. Then one summer day he telephoned, inviting me to meet his new friends, Abraham and Sylvia Heschel. Teddy had been in the UCLA library, where Rabbi Heschel discovered him poring through a pile of impressive Jewish books. An instant bond occurred between them. When Teddy met Mrs. Heschel, a concert pianist, he told her about me, and soon we were lucky to be guests at the Heschel apartment.

            They waited for us to arrive to have Havdalah. It was a magical moment, seeing Rabbi Heschel’s eyes reflecting the dancing flames of the braided candle. After grapes and tea, Sylvia and I began to play. Here too, there was an instant bond. Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole was followed by Beethoven’s Spring Sonata and then the Bloch Nigun. Sylvia was an outstanding musician. Both Teddy and I looked forward to the Heschels’ summers in Los Angeles. Teddy and the Heschels attended my wedding, where Rabbi Heschel sang the sheva berakhot and danced a handkerchief dance with me.

            Despite our friendship, I had experienced Heschel but had not read much of his work until I enrolled in a credit course on Heschel at UC Berkeley Hillel in 1975, taught by Burt Jacobson. Discovering the musical references did not surprise me; they seemed perfectly natural and logical, since I had always seen him steeped in a world of music. I believe music gave Heschel an invaluable linguistic tool, because he saw music as an inherent aspect of Jewish expression. Music was a source of mystery and majesty, a wisp of the ephemeral and infinite, of spirit and body, of boundaries and freedom, and of the complementary polar opposites of sounds and silence.

      I could easily imagine Sylvia’s grand piano, which dominated the living room of their Riverside Drive apartment in New York City, and him sitting across the room enchanted by her music, carefully observing the process of her work. The practice of music requires a complex routine, repeatedly exercising the fingers, brain, imagination, and heart. Heschel wrote that “routine breeds attention… For this reason, the Jewish way of life is to reiterate the ritual, to meet the spirit again and again, the spirit in oneself and the spirit that hovers over all beings.”[1] He describes that the spirit is dependent not only on the accomplishment of the goal, like the concert performance, but the process, the practice, which is “…a song without words.”[2] “When done in humility, in simplicity of heart, it is like a child who, eager to hear a song, spreads out the score before its mother. All the child can do is open the book. But the song must be forthcoming. We cannot long continue to love on a diet that consists of anticipation and frustration.”[3]

            Heschel understood the complete concentration and focus, the letting go of ego, which makes a great performing musician like his wife. This same transformation allows prayer to take flight, to connect with God.

The artist may give a concert for the sake of the promised remuneration, but in the moment when he is passionately seeking with his fingertips the vast swarm of swift and secret sounds, the consideration of subsequent reward is far from his mind. His whole being is immersed in the music. The slightest shift of attention, the emergence of any ulterior motive, would break his intense concentration, and his single-minded devotion would collapse, his control of the instrument would fail…. Prayer, too, is primarily kavanah, the yielding of the entire being to one goal, the gathering of the soul into focus.[4]

            Heschel describes music as a gift enabling one to navigate the challenge of prayer.

In no other act does man experience so often the disparity between the desire for expression and the means of expression as in prayer. The inadequacy of the means at our disposal appears so tangible, so tragic, that one feels it is a grace to be able to give oneself up to music, to a tone, to a song, to a chant. The wave of a song carries the soul to heights which utterable meanings can never reach.[5]

            According to Heschel, speech and silence are not enough. “…[T]here is a level that goes beyond both: the level of song.” He quotes the Kotzker rebbe, “There are three ways in which a man expresses his deep sorrow: the man on the lowest level cries; the man on the second level is silent; the man on the highest level knows how to turn his sorrow into a song”[6] Heschel says, “True prayer is a song”[7]

            Heschel incorporates musical language in both describing the protective intimacy of prayer and the inherent discordance in connecting with God. “How good it is to wrap oneself in prayer, spinning a deep softness of gratitude to God around all thoughts, enveloping oneself in the silver veil of song! But how can man draw song out of his heart if his consciousness is a woeful turmoil of fear and ambition?”[8] “God’s grace resounds in our lives like a staccato. Only by retaining the seemingly disconnected notes comes the ability to grasp the theme.”[9]

            In Heschel’s discussion of symbols in relation to the reality of God’s presence, he writes: “Of a violinist who is moving his bow over the strings of his violin, we do not say he is performing a symbolic act. Why? Because the meaning of his act is what he is doing, regardless of what the act may represent.”[10] The will of God, to Heschel, is a known quantity, an obvious fact, “neither a metaphor nor a euphemism, but more powerful and more real than our own experience.”[11]

            Heschel understands music as a means for expressing the inexpressible.

To become aware of the ineffable, is to part company with words. The essence, the tangent to the curve of human experience, lies beyond the limits of language. The world of things we perceive is but a veil. Its flutter is music, its ornament science, but what it conceals is inscrutable. Its silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away.[12]

And yet, Heschel also suggests the limitations of this concept. “The attempt to convey what we see and cannot say is the everlasting theme of mankind’s unfinished symphony, a venture in which adequacy is never achieved. There is an eternal disparity between the ultimate and man’s power of expression.”[13]

            Heschel differentiates between faith and creed, the former being the act of believing, while the latter is that which is believed. “Our creed is, like music, a translation of the unutterable into a form of expression. The original is known to God alone.”[14]

For Heschel, the heavens and earth are pregnant with song. He asks, “How shall we remain deaf to the throb of the cosmic that is subtly echoed in our souls?[15] God is everywhere, hidden in the essence of all of life. “The song that nature sings is not her own.”[16]

Heschel’s use of musical imagery enriches the poetic flow of his writing. At the end of Man Is Not Alone, however, he turns to the musical imagery of the prophet Amos. Heschel asks, “What does God desire? Is it music?”[17] Amos answers his question: “Take away from me all the noise of your songs, and to the melody of your lyres I will not listen” (5:23). The prophet castigates those who “chant to the sound of the viol and invent to themselves instruments of music like David” (6: 5), rather than feel the pain of others.

For Heschel, “man’s responsibility to God cannot be discharged by an excursion into spirituality, by making life an episode of spiritual rhapsody….”[18] The black dots on my musical scores remain meaningless until they are recognized, internalized, practiced repeatedly, recreated, pushed to their outer limits, exposed, and shared. For Heschel, the song is a prelude to the ultimate task of bringing the melody of a living, breathing, healing Torah to the people. If God, in search of man, breathed life into him, the exhalation breath of music is the human proof that man is not alone. 

Postscript

In 1978, Sylvia Heschel accompanied me on a concert tour of Israel, which included major recitals at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem, the Tel Aviv Museum, and Weizmann Institute. She attended every performance I gave in New York.

Theodore Kwasman, scholar, author, and consultant to the British Museum, founded and directed the Jewish Studies program at the University of Heidelberg before becoming Professor at the Martin Buber Institute for Judaism at the University of Cologne.

This essay is written in memory of Rabbi Doctor Byron Sherwin, Heschel protégé, whose March 2014 class on his beloved mentor I attended at Spertus Institute in Chicago.