To remind ourselves to make a better world

Esti Melamed

The shabbat proceeding Yom Kippur ( even though this year it was the shabbat immediately following Rosh Hashana) is one in which a significant step is taken in preparing for the sacred day. On this day we read the haftara from the Book of Hosea that begins "Return Israel to the Lord your God," a verse that gives the shabbat its name. Hosea's message to the people is a summary of a process that has been defined throughout the book, a process in which the prophet attempts - through symbolic acts, and prophecies of punishment and comfort - to awaken in Israel the need to repent for their sins - sins committed between humankind and God and those between themselves. From the harsh description it would appear that these two tracks are interwoven, as is stated in the very beginning of the chapter and whose realism is painful:

Hear the word of the LORD, children of Israel: for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. An outbreak of swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, ends in the shedding of blood.(chapter 4: 1-2)

The sages relate Hosea to the tribe of Reuben and point out the connection between the founding father of the tribe and his descendants. In the Midrahs Pesikta of Rabbi Kahane the following is observed:

Said the Holy one Blessed be He to Reuben: ' You tried to return Joseph to his father - I shall see to it that your descendant will return Israel to their Father in Heaven - Who is this? This is Hosea." ( Mandelbaum edition page 357)

There is a very specific source given here for the prophet's authority and power: he who wishes to come to the people to upbraid them for their behaviour and to draw them close again to their father in Heaven, is continuing in the path of his ancestor Reuben, the eldest son who felt responsible for the welfare of his young brother - the eldest son who felt the pain and anguish of his father and sought to return his beloved son to him - even if it threatened his own status. This honest concern for the other that transcends personal interest, characterises Reuben and through his merit, his descendant is chosen to show his lost children the way back

There is another point here. Reuben's attempt bears no fruit: Joseph is sold to Egypt and Jacob passes through a prolonged period of suffering and pain. With all this the Holy One Blessed be He remembers Reuben for his righteous intentions, the tearing of his clothes and his heart felt crying: "The youth is gone, now where shall I go?" (Gen. 37:30), and reckons it to his credit. This teaches us that it is not always the result that determines the value of the act, but rather the effort that goes into it. A person has to do what he can even when he is uncertain about his success.

These two items define the process of teshuva (repentance) : the personal dimension - there is a great value in intention and honest striving, the penitent should never give up because of the difficulties that block his path and prevent his 'objective' progress. On the inter-personal dimension, teshuva is incomplete without the authentic concern - free of ulterior motives - for the other. Indeed the sages already emphasise this in observing that "Yom Kippur does not forgive sins between a person and his neighbour until that person has appeased him."

To return to Hosea. His prophecies draw two different images of the relations between God and His people. One the one hand those of parent and child , on the other hand of man and wife. The relationship as of parent and child is well known and wide spread, and it seems to me that this is the way we generally perceived our relationship with the Holy One Blessed be He, both as individuals and as a people. A relationship where one side - God - is strong and dominant - the all-powerful and sole responsible source of decisions, and the other side - us - who are dependant on Him hoping, anticipating and wishing for His mercy and pardon. Relations like these are in a way simple and straightforward compared to those between a married couple, which are entirely different. There the responsibility for preserving and nurturing the relationship devolves on both partners. Where one side becomes distant it is up to the other to make the first step to draw near to the partner reminding them of the love and mutual obligations (between them) and to try to repair the damage. This obviously demands greater maturity and discipline, but the subsequent satisfaction is greater and the connection between the parties is more complete.

In the well known piyyut ( hymn) of Yom Kippur there different aspects of this connection appear: though "we are Your children and You are our father (and, even more powerfully, "We are Your servants and You are our Master " "...we are Your flock and You are our Shepherd" - images that minimize the mutual responsibility in the connection and form a picture of our total dependency on the Holy One Blessed be He. Simultaneously, "We are your friend and You are our beloved," juxtaposed to "we are at Your bidding, and You are our decree" phrases that send us to the verses in the Book of Deuteronomy, emphasizing the importance of the roles of both sides in the covenant:

And God has caused you to promise to-day to become His people, a peculiar treasure, as He has spoken to you, and to keep all His commands; so as to make you uppermost above all the nations." (Deut. 26 16-17)

These two possibilities - that of dependency and of mutuality - reflect different periods in the people's history, as well as different dimensions of the connection between each individual and his God. There are times when God reveals Himself to the people and to the individual and influences them with His mercy, times when it is simple and pleasant to lean on Him, as the Book of Psalms expresses it: "like a child who is weaned from his mother." (Psalms 136 :2). But there are times when - and in our generations they have been frequent and painful - in which God hides His presence from us and apparently from the covenant between us. Situations like these are a challenge for us: they invite us to take responsibility for the continuation of the covenant. It devolves upon us to take the step towards the Holy One Blessed Be He and to remind him of "the covenant and the love and the oath" and to demand that He shines His face on us and on the world anew. Judaism, as Emanuel Levinas taught us, is "a religion for mature people." A substantial part of what maturity means is the ability to understand what is demanded of us. Instead of relying on: "there is no one else to lean on except our father in Heaven," we are obliged to measure ourselves by a different rule - far more demanding and difficult.We must take upon ourselves to be active partners in building a world whose foundation is a covenant, participation and love.

In Yehuda Amichai's last book, "Open, Close, Open," I came across a line that expresses this feeling:

Perhaps I need to remind God/ to make a better world.

I came across a similar expression in the writings of the sages - wondrous and feisty as only they could be - for humankind to "remind God to make a better world."

In the Babylonian Talmud there is a discussion - part of which at least is familiar to many of us (in no small part due to the wonderful melody to which it was set) and which still succeeds in exciting me afresh each time I read it. In Tractate Brachot (7:a) it is written:

Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Yossi: "From where do we know that the Holy One Blessed be He prays? From the verse; 'I will bring them to My holy mountain and give them reason to rejoice in the House of My Prayer.' It does not say 'Their prayer' but 'My prayer.' From here we learn that God prays.

What is His prayer? Rabbi Zutra the son of Bar Tuvia says, in the name of Rav: "Let it be that My love overcomes My anger, and that My mercy manifests itself in my disposition, and that I act towards my children with love, and that I judge them favourably, beyond the strict tenets of the law.

"The sages quote a teaching of Rabbi Ishmael the son of Elisha: 'I once went to offer up incense in the innermost sanctuary and I noticed Acatriel (a name for the Divine Presence) the Lord of Hosts sitting on a high and elevated throne, and He said to me: 'Ishmael my son - bless me." 'I said to him "Let it be that Your love overcomes Your anger, and that Your mercy manifests itself in Your disposition, and that You act towards Your children with love, and that You judge them favourably, beyond the strict tenets of the law.

 And He nodded to me in the affirmative.

This quote is wonderful since it shows the sages' willingness to express without fear far -reaching theological concepts. The prayer seems to us an on-going necessity for humankind that flows from our limitations and from what we lack. The sages come and tell us that the Holy One Blessed be He also prays - and not only this but also that his prayer is apparently a reminder to Himself to make a better world, to over come anger, the dimension of strict justice and to show mercy to His children.

What is the source of this prayer? In the continuation of this quote we learn that this very same text is used by Rabbi Ishmael the son Elisha to bless the Holy One Blessed be He when he enters the innermost sanctuary to offer up incense, which is to say in the Holy of Holies, on Yom Kippur. It emerges that The Holy One Blessed be He needs the blessing of flesh and blood. Is there a more wonderful way to manifest the nature of the connection between ourselves and Him? God who fills the universe with His glory, desires a blessing, that only humankind can bestow on Him.

Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest, who stands in the most sanctified place on earth, on the holiest day of the year, and achieves the highest level of intimacy with his creator, does not forget for one moment the public he merits to represent. He understands that the blessing that God desires is the need 'to remind' the Holy One Blessed be He of the love and the obligations to this selfsame public who are both His children and His lover, and it is appropriate to behave towards them with mercy, beyond the strict tenets of the law. This is the fit prayer and the Holy One Blessed be He nods His head, as it were, in agreement. But far more than this - He transforms the blessing into His formalized prayer, as we observed at the beginning of the quote!

It is perhaps appropriate at this juncture to recall Levinas again, for he states in his Talmudic reading "Beyond the Other":

When I find in the sources something that can be shown to be theosophical –concerning the nature of God - 'that which is beyond' - I try to find its meaning in the life of humankind and for the sake of humankind. Since the Rambam (12^th century) we know that everything that is said in Judaism regarding God is explained in terms of human activity. Godliness reveals itself in encounters between people.

How is it possible to understand this story on the human plain, to translate it into the language of humankind? Perhaps it comes to tell us that, at the highest level of holiness, in the service of the High Priest at the most holiest time and place, this most elevated and fitting blessing that relates to the Holy One Blessed be He - and to humankind's yearning to follow His way. This is the complete opposite of Transcendentalism - human behaviour at its best: the manifestation of the characteristic of mercy and the insertion of going beyond the strict law. The relation to the human other - is a template for the relation to God - the "Supreme Other."

On Rosh Hashana, the New Year and the day on which the world was created, we look outward towards the world at large: "And on the states He will say - which (will be fated ) to be put to the sword, and which will have peace, who will experience hunger and who satiety ...and all humankind will pass before Him, like a flock of sheep."

Yom Kippur by contrast is a time of introspection, looking at the individual's holy of holies, each person and his creator. It is a day on which we separate ourselves from the world and wrap ourselves in a tallit (prayer shawl) - actual or metaphorical. But it is important to remember not to close the tallit completely; on this day, too - in particular on this day - it is essential to leave an opening to see and hear the other - to feel his pain, to pray for him, and not to hide ourselves from him. Particularly in the era we are living in it is important to remember that in our prayers we are praying not only for ourselves and the members of our household, but also for everyone else - for the public that needs so much empathy and hope. In a period like ours it is demanded of us of our ability to remind the Holy One blessed be He and to ask of Him to remember His love and to overcome His anger. But we should also remember that in order to ask for this we ourselves have to be worthy morally, to listen to others and their needs, and to know how to transcend our own anger and to touch our own otherness beyond the strict tenets of the law. We are obliged first and foremost to remind ourselves to make a better world.

We should merit coming before Him as children before their father and hope for His forgiveness. Also as a lover - mature, bold and responsible - who appeases her husband and reminds him of their covenant and mutual obligations. Who will give and realize a prophecy of wondrous appeasement such as that of Hosea:

And it shall be on that day, says the Lord, that you shall call me Ishi (my husband) and shall no longer call me Ba'ali ( my master)... And in that day will I make a covenant for them with

the beasts of the field, and with the birds of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them lie down safely. And I will betroth you for ever; I will betroth you in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will betroth you in faithfulness: and you shall know the Lord. (Hosea 2: 16-22)

Esti Melamed is a mother and editor.

 

 

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