Step Away from the Brink

The End is Not Divinely Ordained

There is a scene near the beginning of Monty Python’s Life of Brian that depicts what it might have sounded like to those in the far back row of Jesus delivering the “Sermon on the Mount.”

Amongst the bickering and sidebar comments of those listening to one of the most important religious addresses ever made, we hear someone ask for clarification of what Jesus had just said, “What was that?” and then receive the response, “I think it was ‘blessed are the cheesemakers.’”

“What’s so special about the cheesemakers?” someone asks, incredulously; and the farcical exchange concludes with the authoritative statement, “Well obviously it was not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.”

I have often used this rather brilliant bit from Monty Python to underscore the centrality and value of interpretation when it comes to engaging in the meaning of ancient, sacred scripture. The art of interpretation – exegesis – literally the “leading out” of the text, has allowed readers of the Bible to live with multiple readings, many voices, as well as different perspectives and points of view — all derived from the same text.

One case in point. Let’s take Genesis 1:1, the opening words of the Torah:

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

When God began to create heaven and earth—

Amongst the most revered interpreters of these words, from Rashi in 11th century France to Ibn Ezra and Nachmanides in 12th and 13th century followed by S’forno and Abarbanel in the 15th and 16th century in Spain, on down through the Vilna Gaon in 18th century Lithuania, there are more than 30 ways to read this one line. Working backwards to the era of the Mishnah – first century Jerusalem under Roman rule – and right up to our own contemporary age, there are quite literally hundreds of ways to read this one line.

“Well obviously it was not meant to be taken literally.”

Judaism’s genius as an ancient, monotheistic religion rooted in the idea of the unity and preeminence of God, is made most obviously manifest in its decidedly non-fundamentalist, non-literal way of reading the Bible – from the beginning.

Indeed, the moniker “people of the Book” indicates this, in so far as the Book is the ongoing unfolding, page-turning, over and over again reading and re-reading of the literal claim of what God said to Moses on Mount Sinai more than 3000 years ago and how it has been carried and read, interpreted and reinterpreted, generation after generation. An updated moniker might be “people of the Global Library” with new volumes being written every day and read aloud or in silence constantly, in this noisy library, loud, noisy, argumentative cacophony with debate, disagreement, synergistic and diverging perspectives, all thrown about (switching metaphors here!) like polychromatic paint upon a Jackson Pollack canvas that could be titled, “Darsheni – Interpret Me.”

“Well obviously it was not meant to be taken literally.”

The idea of interpretation, of many layered meanings to the revelation of the divine word, is, paradoxically, an act of faith in God. When the text cries out, “Darsheni – Interpret me!” it’s an invitation to embrace ambiguity; it’s allowing for the discomfort of uncertainty and mystery in the pursuit of truths not apparent at face value; it stakes a claim to the idea that Absolute Truth is unknowable, unrevealable, as it were, as God said to Moses on Mount Sinai when Moses requested to behold God’s presence:

וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הַרְאֵ֥נִי נָ֖א אֶת־כְּבֹדֶֽךָ׃

Moses said, “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!”

וַיֹּ֗אמֶר אֲנִ֨י אַעֲבִ֤יר כׇּל־טוּבִי֙ עַל־פָּנֶ֔יךָ וְקָרָ֧אתִֽי בְשֵׁ֛ם יְהֹוָ֖ה לְפָנֶ֑יךָ וְחַנֹּתִי֙ אֶת־אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָחֹ֔ן וְרִחַמְתִּ֖י אֶת־אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲרַחֵֽם׃

And God answered, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you the name Eternal, and the grace that I grant and the compassion that I show.

וַיֹּ֕אמֶר לֹ֥א תוּכַ֖ל לִרְאֹ֣ת אֶת־פָּנָ֑י כִּ֛י לֹֽא־יִרְאַ֥נִי הָאָדָ֖ם וָחָֽי׃

But,” God said, “you cannot see My face, for no person may see Me and live.” (Exodus 33: 19-21)

Placed by God in a rock’s cleft, with the Divine hand covering Moses, God allows “you will see My back, but My face must not be seen.”

—

God rejects the hubris of this striving for face to face certainty. In other words, God warns us of our fundamentalist claims to the arrogant awareness of absolute truth. And in no greater way is this taught than in the classical Jewish belief in the Messiah, the “anointed one,” the Redeemer of Israel, as articulated in Maimonides Thirteen Principles of Faith. “We are to believe as fact that the Messiah will come and not consider him late. ‘If he delays, wait for him,’ (Habbakuk 2:3) Set no time limit for his coming. One must not make conjectures based on Scripture to conclude when the Messiah will come. The sages said: “May the Spirit depart from those who calculate the end-time” (Sanhedrin 97b).”

—

These twin notions – the centrality of Torah and a time of the Messiah when order and peace will reign – have been central to Judaism for more than 2000 years. And yet, undergirding these articles of faith has been the commandment to exercise humility in the attempt to understand, and in the pursuit of, each concept.

This ethic, this way of living, could not be more critical to our current predicament. Since October 7, 2023 and the unimaginable horror unleashed by the Hamas attacks on Israel and then Israel’s unremitting destruction of Gaza in its fight against Hamas; the ongoing trauma of war, the fight for the hostages return (dead or alive) and the displacement of more than 100,000 Israelis from border communities under Hezbollah attack and the massive suffering endured by Palestinians in Gaza; the persistent violence in the West Bank, particularly the reality of both the need to root out Palestinian terror cells but also the nearly unmitigated land-theft and violence carried out by extremist Israeli settlers; and finally (finally?) the shocking rise of a violent and at times murderous antisemitism worldwide – we have also borne witness to alarming and dangerous predilection to messianic, end-of-days thinking and theorizing among faith leaders and politicians of all faiths and backgrounds. Jewish Messianists, Christian Nationalists and Islamic Jihadists have been drinking from the same cup of sacramental wine, fermented in the barrels of destruction, the over-fermented grapes stomped with the boots of religious extremism.

And, to the danger of us all, that level of religious extremism now suffuses the current war with Iran. Ben Samuels reports in Haaretz that thirty House Democrats are demanding an investigation of the U.S. Defense Departments over allegations that “commanders have reportedly told subordinates that the American and Israeli attacks will hasten the return of Jesus Christ, and have cited passages from the Book of Revelation and instructed officers to tell their troops that current combat operations are all part of God’s divine plan.” There is similar reporting at Military.Com as well.

It’s a reasonable political question and a necessary political debate to deliberate over the soundness of a war with Iran. Its recently assassinated leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, was the centerpiece of a terrorist regime that wreaked havoc and murdered thousands of innocent people. He was, throughout his entire political career, hellbent on destroying Israel – with conventional and nuclear weapons. The world just watched Khamenei’s madmen murder untold thousands of Iranians citizens who craved freedom. That he died in this war is just. Millions of Americans, Iranians, Persian Jews and countless others want this. Just not this way.

It’s bad enough for America to go to war, ever. Steven Beschloss had a marvelous Substack Friday, reflecting on the contrasts between a thoughtful, reluctant and decorated warrior like President Eisenhower and the Jackasses who are currently executing this war against Iran for a constantly shifting array of reasons and with no Congressional oversight, as required by the Constitution, nor consistent and clearly articulated strategy for fighting the war, finishing the war, and reckoning with its aftermath.

If one must go to war, then the tools of democracy for which we, the citizens – the sacred theoretical guarantors according to our founding documents, ought to be used with great thought and care. The shifting lines of reasoning, the conflicting arguments articulated within the cabinet, the obfuscation, the finger-pointing, the blame — all amount to what may turn out to be an indelible stain on the fabric of American history. But President Trump has been breaking norms since long before he was elected. A convicted felon, convicted for sexual assault, a twice impeached President who is also still covering up and redacting his own past relationship with the disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Trump is surrounded by the lunacy of end-of-days thinking, which, thank God for independent media, can still be tracked and traced so that the historic record will remain when these dark days are over.

A deeply flawed, morally degenerate, narcissistically disordered and transactionally greedy Commander in Chief. A cabinet of sycophants, some of whom harbor their own delusions of messianism and megalomania. A MAGA army armed to the teeth and ready to lead the way toward Armageddon. A hatefully loyal opposition like those antisemites Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens stirring the pot of hatred more and more each day.

Make America Great. Overturn the Election Results. Pardon the Insurrectionists and while you’re at it, grant immunity to the President himself.

L’Etat c’est moi. Yeah, right.

Nope. Not so, Donald. Your idolatrous ways, your Golden Calf making, your unrelenting war on the decency of what good Americans strive to be as a diverse and tolerant nation, is prepared to meet you on the battlefield of sanity: the polling booths of every precinct in every county in every state in this deeply flawed but ultimately hopeful country of ours. You don’t know what a fair fight is because all you have done is take take take your entire life. But give us a chance in the midterms and again in subsequent elections after, and maybe we can claw ourselves away from this brink of madness you have brought us to.

For an interesting take on the taking, read Joshua Leifer’s piece in Haaretz, where he argues that “What binds the constituent parts of this emergent order is a post-ideological convergence of economic interests: chiefly weapons and defense technology, AI and crypto, real estate and finance. In this vision, the Gulf serves as a paradigm for governance; a haven for capital, insulated from the perils of democracy, heavily armed to defend against the threats of political Islam and militancy.”

The convergence is almost too much to fathom: the legitimate claim to destroy the center of global terror by dismantling the Iranian regime, using the apocalyptic fantasies of religious extremism from all quarters in order to enrich and line the pockets of the royal few. The mockery made of the once vaunted values of American freedom and democracy is downright Purim-esque.

Those who are certain of the End of Days; those who claim that the Messiah is here now; those who yearn for the Battle of Gog and Magog; they rise and fall with time. This is why our recently celebrated Purim is done in masks.

With Purim, perhaps, we have an opportunity to remember how fragile life truly is and, as is typical of a Jewish sensibility, to even

sometimes see the absurdity, the dark humor, of our predicament.

This is why we wear costumes and masks at Purim. This is why the Jewish tradition understands that Purim is an “upside down” time

when we can’t distinguish between the evil Haman and the righteous Mordecai. It’s a kind of particularly celebratory, macabre humor to

blur these lines. Life doesn’t usually work that way. Our Jewish celebrations are bittersweet.

This is why Judaism teaches that one of the most important Jewish values of all is humility. We are indeed lucky to be alive; privileged

to learn; honored to offer prayers of thanks to God for giving us life.

In these challenging times, let us remember a great teaching from the Jewish sage Malbim who taught “it’s not where you’re going but

how you get there.”

We are meant to reach our destinations as best we can with love, kindness, generosity and ultimately, peace.

Life’s real rewards come to those who wait, who are quietly, humbly patient.

Consider this week’s Torah portion.

Surely it is by design that so soon after the people commit the grave sin of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32 – daring to craft a God from the mere materiality of earthly metals – Moses asks to see God face to face and is denied. The arrogance of the prior sin is met with God’s insistence on mystery, humility, quietude and service. It’s not the immediate gratification we are meant to seek but the patient acquisition of a life of meaning and purpose.

So if prevented from the immediate reward of seeing God’s face, what did Moses hear, hidden by God’s hand in the cleft of rock?

“GOD! GOD! a Deity compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin—yet not remitting all punishment, but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.” (Exodus 34:6-7)

God is compassion. God is grace. God is patient, kind, faithful and forgiving. So too are we and so we must remain. And if the iniquity is “visited upon us,” well why shouldn’t it be? Oughtn’t we take responsibility for the past sins we have inherited. My family never owned slaves but I live in a country where the legacy of racism is alive. By the time I was born, women had the right to vote but sexism and misogyny are still very much alive. I cherish the freedom to run, walk, ride and swim amidst an uncommonly beautiful and awe-inspiring landscape but can also acknowledge its prior state as a sacred homeland to Native populations wiped off the map by planned genocide.

Living with the past is how we lurch forward into the future. Imperfect but striving for our individual and shared betterment. Conscious of grace. Uncertain but hopeful. Yearning for and exercising compassion at every step.

We need to step away from the brink. The end is not divinely ordained.

One last thought – a favorite story from the Avot d’Rabbi Natan. “If you’re planting a tree by the side of the road and someone tells you the Messiah is coming, first finish planting the tree. Then go greet the Messiah.”