The last three verses of parshat Behar[1] present two profound and exciting ideas: how to serve God, and that such service is the only path to, and expression of, freedom. At the end of this d’var torah,[2] I’ll share a midrashic translation of those three verses that speaks to that interpretation. But first, some background.
When Moses came down the mountain with the ten commandments on the first set of tablets,[3] he found the people worshipping a Golden Calf. Copying their Egyptian slave-masters, the Israelites thought God could be located in an object. Moses was appalled, and smashed the tablets. Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (1843–1926) suggests that God approved of Moses’ demonstration that these tablets were not holy in themselves.[4] The Golden Calf wasn’t holy either, and Moses ordered its destruction. For something to have kedushah-holiness, it needs to be imbued with appropriate intentions by a human being. The first tablets being made by God, were not holy; the second tablets were holy, because they were made, with reverence, by Moses. Even the Ark[5] had a period when it was temporarily sapped of its holiness, because it was in the keeping of the two ‘wicked’ sons of Eli, with the result that the Philistines beat the Israelites in battle, and the Ark was captured.[6] No object is holy in itself, but derives its holiness from our intentions, and how we connect it to God.
What about places? When Moses encountered the burning bush,[7] God said that where Moses was standing was “holy ground”. But by then, Moses had already paused in contemplation, called the bush a mar’eh gadol, a “great vision”, and said “here I am”, hineini, a word reserved for moments of reverence when a Biblical figure puts themselves in service to a spiritual call; it was Moses who noticed God, and made the ground holy. Jacob dreamt of a ladder with angels ascending and descending. And when he awoke, he said, “This is the none other than the gate of heaven!” It wasn’t that Jacob happened to stumble upon a place that was already holy; Jacob responded to his experience and recognised it as an encounter with the Divine. Yes, Jacob placed a stone at the place, but not because God was specifically there, rather than somewhere else, but “because God had spoken to him there”.[8] God didn’t dwell in the Mishkan,[9] but amongst the people who lovingly made it and looked after it. Centuries later, King Solomon was clear that God was not in the Temple: “Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!”[10] God is not to be found in any particular place more than another; if we’re tempted to think otherwise, the danger is that there will be places where we fail to find or even look for God.
So, God cannot be contained in any place or object, and no object or place is holy in itself. But it is possible to make the whole world holy. And it’s also true that “Nothing is devoid of God.”[11] The Kotzker Rebbe[12] put it another way: “Whoever fails to see God everywhere is incapable of seeing God anywhere.” Indeed, if our attention is not on God at all times, then we are, in a sense, committing idolatry and serving something other than God.
The Kotzker Rebbe famously told his students: “God is wherever you let Him in.” It falls to us to ‘bring God into the world’;[13] this is the task we affirm when we recite the Aleinu and Kaddish. Moreover, we must, in the words of Psalm 16:8, hold God in our awareness at all times.[14] But how realistic is that? Sure, our n’shamot, our souls, find their source and destination in the infinity of God, but we’re also, paradoxically, finite and physical beings. We have to be able to operate in a world that we can see and touch, with all the physical limitations that come with that. In this, we are made in the image of God. On the one hand, God is transcendent and unbounded, as shown in the unpronounceable name YHVH, yud-heh-vav-heh הוהי , which is also an anagram of another God-name Eheyeh, short for Eheyeh asher eheyeh, God-of-the-Present Moment-and-Continuous-Becoming. On the other hand, God as Elohim is immanent, boundaried, and containing.
So it helps our physical selves to use ritual objects such mezzuzot,[15] tzitzit,[16] a Torah scroll; but we know that those objects all point beyond themselves to the Ineffable. The Rabbis taught us to make blessings; blessings open up our finite selves to lovingly and powerfully include YHVH, Eheyeh, the infinite God-of-the-Present-Moment. We’ve learned the precious practice of sanctifying time, in our annual cycle of worship, and the rhythms of daily and weekly prayer; we’ve learned to make Shabbat a “palace in time”.[17] As Heschel said, “For where shall the likeness of God be found? There is no quality that space has in common with the essence of God. There is not enough freedom on the top of the mountain; there is not enough glory in the silence of the sea. Yet the likeness of God can be found in time, which is eternity in disguise.” Every moment is an opportunity to do what Moses did at the burning bush—pause, take time out in a kind of micro-Shabbat, bring the God-of- Becoming-and-Now into our awareness, and discover what impact that has on this moment.
YHVH is the God-name that is associated, above all, with God’s infinite compassion. I believe that bringing YHVH into any moment can slow time down enough that a space opens up for us to sense and trust God, and thereby connect to compassion.
If we are to be truly free, and detach from our narrowness and enslavement to particular people, things, places, practices, we must meet the present moment like YHVH, the God-of-Becoming. This is the path of d’veikut, serving and cleaving to God who is in everything, everywhere, everywhen, and the lifeline to our own presence of mind and compassion. That’s why I think it’s fitting that the final verse of Behar ends with affirming YHVH, the name of the endlessly compassionate God.
So, onto my midrashic expansion of the three verses:
“Through serving Compassionate-Being-and-Becoming, the Israelites, ‘Those-Who-Engage-Fully-With-God’, free themselves from Egypt-Mitzrayim-stifling narrowness. I am Compassionate-Being-and-Becoming, and Loving-Containment.[18]
“Don’t make anything other than God a higher priority; don’t distract yourself by containing God in images or objects; don’t limit God by investing in worshipping in, or honouring, particular places; for I, God, in direct I-Thou relationship with you, am Everything-Everywhere-Everywhen and Loving-Containment.[19]
“Keep making times to rest within Me, connect, and imbue those times with holiness; venerate me in the place where you are [for example, your location (at all levels), your relationships, the interpersonal encounter you are in, your own body, all of which I place in your stewardship and safe keeping]. I am HaMakom, All-Space-And-Time: so you, too, can bring—into all times and spaces—Me, God, Presence and Compassion.”[20]
Footnotes
[1] “[Lev 25:55] For it is to Me that the Israelites are servants: they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt—I, your God 26:1[ .הוהי] You shall not make idols for yourselves, or set up for yourselves carved images or pillars, or place figured stones in your land to worship upon, for I הוהי am your God. [2] You shall keep My sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary, Mine, הוהי ’s.” (Jewish Publication Society translation)
[2] A sermon interpreting a portion of Torah
[3] … on which the ten commandments were inscribed.
[4] Meshech Chochmah, Exodus 32:19
[5] … in which the tablets were kept.
[6] 1 Samuel – Rabbi Malbim (1809-79)
[7] Ex. 3
[8] Gen. 35:15
[9] The holy Tent of Meeting.
[10] 1 Kings 8:27
[11] One of the core principles of Kabbalah, as articulated by Moses Cordovero (1522-70) in Elimah Rabbati 24d-25a
[12] Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787–1859)
[13] Abraham Joshua Heschel taught that “to pray … means to bring God back into the world.” Man’s Quest for God, 1954, p.62
[14] “I am ever mindful of the LORD’s presence; He is at my right hand; I shall never be shaken.” (Ps 16:8)
[15] Small container holding verses from Torah, fixed to doorposts in Jewish homes and buildings.
[16] Fringes on shirts and prayer shawls, as symbolic reminders of mitzvot (commandments and guidelines for an upright and Godly lifestyle).
[17] Abraham Joshua Heschel (1951) The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man
[18] Lev. 25:55
[19] Lev. 26:1
[20] Lev. 26:2