Human Emotions
and the Worship of God
Rabbi Yaakov Bieler
Parshat Yitro, 5764
One of the requests that we make when we utter the blessings over the Tora each morning, is “VeHa’arev Na HaShem Elokeinu Et Divrei Toratcha BePhinu U’VePhi Amcha Beit Yisrael…” (Please make pleasant, Lord, our God, the words of Your Tora in our mouths and the mouths of your people, the family of
In light of the awareness that Jewish religious practice should be ideally experienced as joyful and loving, it is notable that in Parshat Yitro, when the Tora is initially given to the Jewish people, it appears that they are deliberately prevented by God from having a very pleasant experience. The people are made to undergo a series of discomfitures and terrors. First comes an imposed separation of husbands from wives (1) and the demand for a general washing of clothes in order to properly prepare for the holy event (Shemot 19:10-11, 14-15, 22). These preparations are followed by the repeated warnings regarding the mortal dangers associated with coming too close to
The disturbing impressions and sensations arising from the Revelation on Sinai can be starkly contrasted to the manner in which the commandment of Shabbat is introduced in Shemot 16. (2) While the specific catalyst for the granting of the Manna was the desire on the part of the Jews for a steady food supply (16:3), Shabbat was subtly introduced to them at the same time as the Manna was made a feature of everyday life in the desert. Moshe apparently originally fails to tell the people that a double portion of the Manna would be falling on Friday and none on Shabbat (
It is possible to contend that the need for creating an atmosphere of fear and trepidation at Sinai did not primarily emanate from a desire to associate the Tora with such emotions, but rather was in response to a specific request made by the Jewish people. In Shemot 19:8, after listening to Moshe’s review of God’s Proposal for the people to become (19:5) “His Treasure”, (19: 6) “A kingdom of priests, and a holy nation”, they answer (19:8) “…Everything that God says we will do.” In verse 9, it would be logical to assume that Moshe has conveyed the people’s response before God Says anything additional to him; yet at the end of the verse, after God informs Moshe that he was to serve as an intermediary between the Jews and God, we read again, “…And Moshe told the words of the people to God.” Klee Yakar surmises that Moshe recognized that the Jews in 19:8 did not merely intend that they would follow God’s Commands, but rather they would do so only if God addresses them directly. The people wanted all communications from the Divine to come to them first-hand. Since such a communication system would be highly impractical, given not only the forty days that it took for Moshe to be presented with the entire Tora (24:18), but also the numerous clarifications and individual revelations that followed, (5) God Decided to “encourage” the people to reconsider their demand. It is only after Moshe reiterates that the people themselves expect to literally act as God’s Prophets from this point forward, that the series of instructions about husbands and wives separating, washing clothes, not touching the mountain, and the frightening scenario of thunder, lightning, earthquakes, fire, smoke, Shofar blasts and earthquakes are introduced. If this was all a ploy on God’s Part to force the people to change their minds regarding their wish to be the direct recipients of God’s Revelation, it appears to have been successful in light of 20:16, “And they said to Moshe, ‘You speak with us and we will listen, and let God Not Speak with us, lest we die.’” Is it possible that had the people been ready to accept Moshe as God’s Intermediary from the outset, all of these inconveniences, pyrotechnics and fear tactics would have been omitted?
Nevertheless, however tangential the reason for associating the giving of the Tora with a frightening experience may have been, it happened, and for students of the Bible, (6) the association will be for all intents and purposes indelible. In the same manner that we are repeatedly instructed to remember that God Took us out of Egypt (Devarim 7:18; 15:15; 16:3; 24:18), and even to vicariously relive that event with all of its accompanying feelings and experiences (Shemot 13:8), a parallel expectation is formulated regarding the receiving of the Tora at Sinai: (Devarim 4:9-13) “You shall surely be careful and guard your soul exceedingly lest you forget the things that your eyes saw and lest you remove them from your heart all of the days of your life, and you will make them know to your children and your children’s children; The day that you stood before the Lord Your God on Chorev, when God Was Saying to me, ‘Gather to Me the people and I Will Make Heard to them My Words that they should learn TO FEAR ME all of the days that they are alive on the earth and that they should teach their children’; And you came near and you stood at the foot of the mountain and the mountain WAS BURNING WITH FIRE UP TO THE HEART OF HEAVEN, DARKNESS, CLOUDS AND FOG; And God Spoke to you from the midst of THE FIRE, the sound of words you heard, but an image you did not see, aside from the sound; And He Told to you His Covenant that He Is Commanding you to do, the ten commandments, and He Wrote them on two tablets of stone.” It would appear that rather than encouraging us to make pleasant associations with the Tora, we are called upon to continually call to mind a state of fear and panic. What could the rationale for such an approach possibly be?
The two emotional poles that are brought into play in Jewish tradition with respect to relating to God, and therefore, by extension, His Tora and Mitzvot, are represented by the commandments to both love and fear God simultaneously. The commandments appearing in Devarim 6:5, “And you will LOVE the Lord your God…”, 11:10 “And you will LOVE the Lord your God…”, 11:13 “And it will be if you will certainly listen to My Commandments and I Am Commanding you today to LOVE the Lord your God…” (7) are complemented by the numerous calls to maintain a sense of fear and distance from HaShem: (VaYikra
Based upon these verses, we could hypothesize that Judaism envisions the phenomenology of the ideal relationship with God to entail vacillating feelings on the part of the worshipper of closeness and remove, intimacy and estrangement, compassion and criticism. Consequently, although when initiating an individual, or, for that matter, an entire people, into the performance of a commandment that is new to them, as in the case of Shabbat cited above, it is reasonable to try to make the experience as pleasant as possible, the giving of the Tora, which represents the overall interaction between God and the Jewish people, is designed to clearly convey the intrinsic dynamics that such an association will involve, sensibilities that cannot be sugarcoated or deemphasized. A complex emotional relationship is being prescribed for the Jew and his/her God, comprised of dual, opposite feelings, designed to convey the sense that we must maintain a considerable modicum of respect and distance, even as we yearn to come closer and become ever more deeply involved with the Divine. We are expected to love the opportunity to do Mitzvot, even as we perform them precisely and punctiliously, out of fear and respect.
Not only is fear an important component of the feelings that we are expected to experience when believing in and worshipping HaShem; it may be the prerequisite, the first vector in the dialectical God-man relationship. One cannot avoid noting that not only is fear of God discussed earlier in the Tora, in the book of VaYikra, than love of God, first appearing in Devarim, but that in the single verse in which both emotions are mentioned, Devarim 10:12, fear precedes love as well. Tora study, of all commandments, perhaps comes closest to reflecting the Sinai experience, and therefore once we recite the blessing that acknowledges how we are commanded to struggle to understand the Tora (…VeTzivanu La’Asok B’Divrai Tora), the corollary to the thunder and lightning on Sinai, we plead that we also can love and appreciate the experience of seeking to understand God’s Will by means of studying His Words (VeHaArev Na…) Apparently, to reach the stage wherein we experience both of these sensibilities, love and fear of God, involves a progression on the part of each individual—it seems that the Tora posits that one cannot from the outset be both a lover and fearer of God simultaneously, even if this is the ultimate goal for which one ought to strive. One aspect of the human relationship with the Divine, fear of God, will per force come before the other, love, due to cognitive, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the human developmental process. Consequently, just as in the case of the formative religious development of an individual, during one’s younger years, one is instructed to be punctilious in Mitzva observance due to a sense of ominousness and foreboding, as a result of a very concrete conception of a system of positive and negative reinforcements and inducements that parents, teachers, institutions, and communities construct to illicit compliance with religious norms, so too was the manner in which the Jewish people were originally approached at Sinai and during the years of wanderings in the desert, essentially a fear perspective. However something that constitutes a prerequisite and a first step, should never be construed as the end and the ideal. While Judaism expects its adherents to maintain a significant degree of awe and respect when it comes to God and His Commandments, the sturm and drang of Sinai is supposed to be complimented and even surpassed by the joy and exhilaration that comes about when an individual senses that s/he is living life as God Intended, and that s/he is truly fulfilled, that s/he loves and is beloved by HaShem.
Finally, a different depiction of the Sinai experience that appears in Yerushalmi Chagiga 2:1. At the party celebrating the circumcision of Elisha ben Avuya, who after his apostasy, comes to be known as “Acher” (the other one), Rabbis Elazar and Yehoshua are described as discussing the Tora so intensely with one another, that “fire descended from Heaven and surrounded them.” When Avuya decries the danger to his home and his guests, the Rabbis tell him, “We were reviewing the Tora, which led us to discussing the Prophets, which led us to share insights in the Writings. All of this became so ethereal and JOYFUL for us that we actually recreated the experience of Sinai. Fire leapt up at us just as it had the Jews on Sinai, since the essential giving of the Tora took place in an fiery environment, as the text says, “and the mountain was burning with fire up to the heart of Heaven.” While the Jews in general reacted fearfully to the fiery backdrop of the giving of the Tora, could this have been due to their relatively low spiritual level, whereas those who come to appreciate the Tora, not only love God and His Mitzvot, but are even drawn closer to HaShem by the vision of the intensity and Hitlahavut (becoming inflamed, suffused with enthusiasm) of Sinai, rather than being turned off by it?
Shabbat Shalom, and may we all merit to never forget Sinai, and thereby to deeply love God and all that is associated with Him.
(1) Devarim 5:27, 28 are generally interpreted by classical commentators as God allowing everyone but Moshe and Tzippora to resume normal husband-wife relationships. Since Moshe has to be constantly on call as God’s permanent prophet, the state of separation that was only temporarily imposed upon the rest of the Jewish people was permanently imposed upon him. Tosafot, on Shabbat 87a “VeAta Poh Amod Imadi” suggests that Moshe’s separation from Tzippora was a misunderstanding on the part of Moshe of God’s Intent. Other commentators, such as Ibn Kaspi on BaMidbar 12:1, insist that Moshe never permanently separated from Tzippora, because this is not in keeping with the principles of Judaism that rejects demanding celibacy from its religious leaders, in contrast to Christianity.
(2) The Midrash and Gemora suggest that the Jews in
(3) Although the syntax could be understood to posit that HaShem is the subject of the sentence, commentators such as Ibn Ezra posit it is Moshe speaking on HaShem’s Behalf.
(4) Shabbat appears in the Ten Commandments in Shemot 20:8 ff. and Devarim
(5) In the first five chapters of BaMidbar, the phrase “And God Spoke to Moses Saying” appears no less than thirteen times:
(6) Those unfamiliar with the biblical text will neither be aware of the graphic description of the Revelation at Sinai, nor of the commandment to attempt to personalize and relive the receiving of the Tora over and over. A classical interpretation of Devarim 6:6, “that I Have Commanded you today”—is presented by RaShI who writes that one is supposed to approach his Tora study as if he has just received the Tora, each day of his life.
(7) Additional verses delineating the commandment to love God appear in Devarim 11:22; 13:4; 19:9; 30:6, 16, 20.
(8) Additional verses delineating the commandment to fear God appear in Devarim 8:6;