When God is Mute – Interpretation and honesty in reading texts

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This week’s Parshah tells of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt and their miraculous journey to safety across the Red Sea. As they reach dry land, and God causes the Egyptians to drown, they burst into grateful praise, in what becomes known as Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea.

One of the verses subsequently found its way into the daily liturgy[1]:

The meaning of the word Elim (Aleph, Lamed, Mem) is unclear. Rashi interprets it as mighty, quoting a source text from Ezekiel. He reads it as “who is like you Hashem amongst the mighty ones.” The Mechilta suggests that it actually means gods.[2] The Israelites have just left Egypt and haven’t yet grasped true monotheism. They believe many gods exist, but that their Lord, Hashem, is the mightiest. They thus sing, “Who is like you Hashem, amongst the gods”.

When God is hidden

Yet throughout history God’s manifest presence has rarely been as obvious as it was by the sea. In a fascinating book, The Hidden Face of God, Richard Elliot Freedman discusses how, as the Tanach progresses, God becomes less apparent. Indeed, we move from experiencing Kol Hashem BaKoach, God’s voice in Its strength, as described in Psalms, to Kol Demama Daka, a thin small voice, as described in Eliyahu’s experience of the Divine.

In light of this, Jewish tradition had to adapt to God’s increasingly hidden face, and different models developed to meet the challenge.

This adaptation is highlighted in the Tractate Sota 69b, which asks what made the Men of the Great Assembly, the Anshei HaKnesset HaGedola, so great?

The Gemara explains that they returned the divine crown to its former glory (by reinterpreting tradition to not only maintain it, but to keep it meaningful).

What happened? After the destruction of the First Temple, the prophets Daniel and Yirmiyahu didn’t feel they could authentically say the words of prayer that Moshe had instituted. Whereas Moshe had described God as “Great, Mighty, and Awesome” (הָאֵל הַגָּדֹל הַגִּבֹּר, וְהַנּוֹרָא – Devarim 10:17), Daniel and Yirmiyahu experienced little of that greatness or might in their respective realities.

Interestingly, even though it is the Men of the Great Assembly who are the heroes of this story, the prophets’ intuition to change the accepted wording is accepted—“since they knew that God is a God of truth, they were not prepared to lie to Him,” the Gemara concludes.

They obviously felt it would be inauthentic to describe God in a way significantly different to how so many experienced Him at that time. The prophets tap into the long-standing Jewish tradition of not kow-towing to God, of being willing to speak their mind, even if tradition suggests otherwise.

The Men of the Great Assembly represent a different model of dealing with the challenge. They keep the original words of the Great, the Mighty and the Awesome. But they reinterpret their meaning to maintain those words’ relevancy. God’s might, they explain, is that He subdues His inclination and shows patience to evildoers. His awesomeness, meanwhile, allows the Jews to continue living amongst the nations of the world without being destroyed.

When God is silent

Rabbi Yishmael, one of Rabbi Akiva’s peers presents something of both models. He is an heir to the interpretive tradition of the Men of the Great Assembly. He lives in the time following the destruction of the Second Temple. He shares the horror of the prophets of the terrible fate of the Jewish people and God’s seeming absence. And he refuses to lie.

Referring to the Roman general Titus’ disdain for God, the Torah and the Temple, Yishmael takes the very verse that represents a high point of God’s salvation and inverts it.

Here the same three root letters of Aleph, Lamed, Mem have been kept, but with different vowels. The word now reads Eel-mim, silent ones.

Experiencing God is no longer that of a “thin small voice”. God is now אִלֵּם a mute.

Rabbi Yishmael is not the only one to take inspiration from this verse. Following the pogroms in Wurtzburg, Germany during the second crusade in 1146, the poet Yitzchak Ben Shalom wrote the lamentation which begins with the words:

This appears in the prayerbook according to the Custom of Poland as part of the “Yotzer” prayer for the first Shabbat after Pesach, on which a portion of Parshat Beshalach—including the Song of the Sea—is read.

Traversing the wilderness

In his book Exodus and Revolution, political philosopher Michael Walzer explains how the Exodus story relates to politics: “First; that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt” Walzer writes. “Second; that there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land; and third, that the way to the land is through the wilderness. There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.”

Many Israelis believed that even if we hadn’t fully reached the Promised Land, we had traversed the wilderness. After all, we lived in a (relatively) secure, thriving, prosperous (even if chaotic and problematic) sovereign State of Israel.

In recent months, that faith—for many, though not all—has been shattered. We may be required to revisit theories, reimagine and perhaps reinterpret assumptions and foundational texts.

In this journey, may we—the heirs of Rabbi Yishmael and the prophets, the Men of the Great Assembly, and living in a period that includes both unimaginable lows and historic highs—be inspired by those who have taken this path before us.

And may we be able to join together and march forward without fear.

Notes:

[1] לב:יח עֹשֶׂה חֶסֶד, לַאֲלָפִים, וּמְשַׁלֵּם עֲוֹן אָבוֹת, אֶל-חֵיק בְּנֵיהֶם אַחֲרֵיהֶם: הָאֵל הַגָּדוֹל הַגִּבּוֹר ה צְבָאוֹת שְׁמוֹ. )

ט:ד וָאֶתְפַּלְלָה לַיהוָה אֱלֹהַי, וָאֶתְוַדֶּה; וָאֹמְרָה, אָנָּא אֲדֹנָי הָאֵל הַגָּדוֹל וְהַנּוֹרָא, שֹׁמֵר הַבְּרִית וְהַחֶסֶד, לְאֹהֲבָיו וּלְשֹׁמְרֵי מִצְו‍ֹתָיו. )

[2] מכילתא דרבי ישמעאל בשלח מסכתא דשירה פרשה ג