The Weekly Torah portion this week is Yitro/ Jethro- Exodus 18 - 20.
I am not a fan of fear... Generally speaking, I'm against it. I'm against provoking fear in others... I tend to think of people who intentionally work to inspire fear in others as people engaged in evil behavior.
When G-d met with Israel at Sinai it was scary...
Ex 19:16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, 19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.
Ex 20:18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die." 20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning." 21 The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.
When I think of people with great power using it to cause fear and trembling in others I think of Wilson in Orwell's 1984 being threatened with the rat mask... The threat resulted in him coming to "truly love" big brother... I think of the scene in the wizard of Oz when Dorothy exposes the professor behind the curtains stirring up smoke and loud noises to frighten others...
I wrestle with the notion of a powerful being inspiring fear unnecessarily.
A meeting with G-d should not be one that generates fear... it should a meeting that results in the experience of healing/cleansing, peace, and the experience of perfect love.
In my sojourn in Catholicism my most profound experience was with the Carmelite thinkers... St. John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, Terese of Liseaux, Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein)... these writers helped me know experientially what it is to be immersed, subsumed, consumed, devoured, taken in by, the immeasurable and indescribable love of G-d...
Meeting with G-d should be characterized by the experience of perfect love and peace... not fear.
My goal this week in wrestling with the Torah portion is to understand G-d's marriage ceremony with the nation of Israel... what does the text mean when it talks about fireworks and fear... and how does this mesh with my experiential knowledge of the ultimate good... the belief that union with G-d is peace and love- not fear.
The challenge is to read text rather than words. Fear is just a word. It can have one of a thousand different meanings according to its context. Orwellian fear is marked by the anomy of a society where the individual has no meaning. The fear of a tyrant is the fear of harsh repercussion. None of that is taking place here. Here we are discussing a state of awe and wonder, a sense of something much greater than me.
ReplyDeleteAnd within that state, what is demanded? Not loss of self, not utter shock, not mindless compliance. Rather, what's demanded is that they should nevertheless be able to exist as individuals within that experience and hear the voice of G-d, that they should all be prophets as Moses.
That, after all, is the great innovation of Moses. Unlike any other prophet who would tell the people immediately, "I'm going to speak with G-d now and I'll come back and tell you what He says," instead Moses says, "I want all of you to have the same experience as I have, to hear directly from the same G-d in the same way, with the same state of awe and amazement--and then you will never be able to rip yourself away from Him."
That's why, when the people turned down the offer to continue after only two tries, Moses was deeply disappointed. He had to accept consolation from G-d Himself. But from his point of view, he would rather have made himself redundant.