Category: Birth and Rebirth Through Genesis: A Timeless Theologic

Rachel’s Inward Struggle

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Valentine Blog Hop - Sharon Lathan, Novelist              

Introduction: Rachel could not stand that God blessed Leah and not her with children. It never occurred to Rachel that God took pity on Leah because she had to endure her husband’s rejection, not to mention her sister’s continuous wrath and contempt.  Because of her vanity, Rachel could not stand sharing center stage with Leah, a woman she regarded inferior to herself.  With the arrival of four children,  Leah grew in stature and in respect. Rachel might have taken her childlessness as a heavenly cue to start developing her inner spiritual life, but she was stubborn and manipulative like Jacob. Rachel began to raise the ante in a high-stakes game of upmanship that would only result in fracturing the family more than it already was. Though there were many errors in judgment in the sister’s competition with one another, the paradox is that God brought good out of their pettiness and jealousy. Despite the players’ motivations, the blessing God promised Abraham that his offspring would increase and multiply became realized.

30:1. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. —  In a society that defined a woman’s worth by her ability to bear children, the ancients considered the barren woman a social disgrace to the husband, for people often considered the barren wife as a concubine instead of the mistress of her husband’s house. Rachel’s infertility probably caused her to withdraw from her friends, family, and even husband—thus separating herself from a network of significant people who could provide valuable healing and emotional support.

 . . . and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!” – Did Rachel express a death wish? Could Rachel have been threatening suicide? When a person suffering from severe depression gives his significant other a verbal clue, the message must be taken seriously. Most suicidal persons do talk about suicide before acting. Her threat was in reality, a desperate plea for help. Rachel accused Jacob of being blasé toward her pain and distress. She felt that if her husband really loved her, he would make more of an effort to intercede on her behalf, and at the very least, try to buoy her spirit. Instead of support, all she received was criticism and shame.

There is something paradoxical about Rachel’s words here: she feels she will die if she has no children, but ultimately, she will die because she will eventually give birth to Benjamin.

n Alternatively: The Tanakh describes several women as, “barren.” The list includes Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah.  It is significant that Rebekah, Rachel’s mother-in-law, remained barren for twenty years. Yet, she did not let her barrenness diminish her self-esteem or spiritual relation with God. Circumstantially, Rachel, and Hannah shared much in common. Like Rachel, Hannah had too had to co-exist with a competitive co-wife who was very proud to show her children off, but only at the emotional expense of Hannah. Unlike Rachel, Hannah learned to channel her pain directly to God through prayer and faith. Hannah was as submissive as Rachel was defiant. Earlier, the biblical narrator described Rachel’s outer beauty; she lacked an interior dimension. As a result, Rachel looked turned to only external remedies for her sad situation.  She feels alienated not only from her sister Leah but also from God. She did not realize that God’s blessing might prove elusive until she eventually learned to step outside the walls of self-pity that imprisoned her.

30:2. Jacob became very angry with Rachel . . . — Jacob was upset at Rachel for being so despondent. As much as Jacob loved Rachel, he couldn’t just watch her act so smugly toward her sister who reverently acknowledged God’s gifts. Rachel acted like one who was completely oblivious to the workings of Providence. She viewed her life as if everything were a product of chance.

Jacob’s Unsympathetic Response to Rachel

“Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” — Unlike Abraham (Gen. 16:5), Jacob felt little sympathy for his anxious wife. The medieval Jewish commentaries raise an essential question: Did Jacob pray for his wife, Rachel? Unlike his father, Isaac, Jacob never offered a sacrifice on behalf of his beloved (See notes to Gen. 25:21). The biblical narrator remained silent on this issue, revealing something.  This led Rashi to argue that Jacob did not pray for her. He did not have to, for he already had children:

You say that I should do as my father did. But the fact is, the conditions are different. My father had no children at all, I, however, have children; God has withheld children from you and not from me.[1]

The Midrashic literature discusses Jacob’s cavalier response, the Midrash wondered:  How could Jacob speak to a woman tortured by childlessness? The insensitivity Jacob showed would someday come to haunt him through his children.[2] Ramban finds the Midrashic explanation too difficult to accept. For him, it was inconceivable that Jacob would not pray for his wife since it is the way of the righteous to pray for even unfamiliar women.

Ibn Ezra and Keter Torah adopt a similar approach. It seems more likely that Jacob did pray on behalf of his wife, but it was to no avail, for the proper time did not yet arrive. Perhaps Rachel felt that Jacob did not pray hard enough! Perhaps Jacob felt that he did not have to overextend himself on her behalf since he had children.  Philo argues that Rachel was guilty because she attributed god-like power to her husband instead of God.[3] Rachel failed to recognize God alone as the ultimate Source of life and not man.[4]

Some say Jacob wanted Rachel to take some responsibility for her own condition. Perhaps if she prayed to God as her sister did, God would answer her too.  Jacob got angry at Rachel not putting her faith and trust in God. This was clearly a situation where only her faith in God could help her. All human attempts to manipulate God’s blessing through mechanical means would not help Rachel. Once Rachel began to turn inwardly to God as her Source, her childless situation eventually changed for the better.

[1] Gen Rabba 71.

[2] The Midrashic literature criticizes Jacob’s lack of empathy, “Is this how you comfort a grief-stricken heart? As you live, someday when your children will stand before the son of Rachel, and he will use the same words thou hast but now used, saying, ‘Am I in the place of the Lord ?’“ Jerusalem Targum Gen. 30. 1-2, Tanhuma (Buber) I, 156, and BR 71. 6.

[3] Allegorical Interpretations, 3:182.

[4] There is a statement in the Talmud that also bears this truth out: R. Johanan said: Three keys the Holy Blessed One has retained in His own hands and not entrusted to the hand of any messenger, namely, the key of rain, the key of childbirth, and the key of the revival of the dead. (Ta’anit 2b)

Augustine and Saadia Gaon’s View on Metaphor

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel
Augustine and Saadia Gaon’s View on Metaphor

From: Psalm 23: An Odyssey of Faith (Spring 2023)
RABBI DR. MICHAEL LEO SAMUEL
1/26/2023

Earlier philosophers and theologians of history were well aware of metaphor’s importance. One of the deepest and most important theological attitudes about the power of metaphor derives from Augustine of Hippo (354-430 C.E.). He considered that one of the major reasons people have difficulty understanding the figurative expressions of the Tanakh is that they do not understand the subtle meaning of metaphors. Personal knowledge of the individual metaphor provides a far deeper appreciation of the reality it is intimating. Metaphors present a pictorial view of reality—but the picture is by no means static; it moves and breathes with vitality.

Metaphor tells a story that is subtle and saturated with hidden meaning. More importantly, its imagery captures the imagination. Augustine observes that place names, numbers, and names of biblical personalities are difficult to understand or comprehend because a reader lacks familiarity with the original biblical languages.

Ignorance of things, too, renders figurative expressions obscure, as when we do not know the nature of the animals, or minerals, or plants, which are frequently referred to in Scripture by way of comparison…. We find it easy to understand why the olive branch symbolizes perpetual peace because the dove brought with it when it returned to the ark. We also know that a fluid of another kind does not easily spoil the smooth touch of olive oil, and that the tree itself is an evergreen. Many, again, by reason of their ignorance of hyssop, not knowing the virtue it has in cleansing the lungs, nor the power it is said to have of piercing rocks with its roots, although it is a small and insignificant plant, cannot make out why it said, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (Psa. 51:7).  Likewise, the ignorance of numbers prevents us from understanding things that are set down in Scripture in a figurative and mystical way.[1]

For Augustine, if a biblical metaphor seems foreign, or obscure, it is because we have not yet grasped the content of its imagery and its contextual meaning as it applies to the biblical text. In addition, without the knowledge of the original Hebrew (a language that Augustine himself did not know well), the reader will never go beyond a facile understanding of the Holy Text. Augustine further notes that the fact Scriptures’ metaphors and euphemisms seem ambiguous to us is not happenstance—they are purposely ambiguous so that we may uncover its deeper meanings. If Scriptures seem difficult to comprehend, it is because its language points to something subtle beyond its surface meaning. Although human beings wrote the Scriptures, people of faith believe that God inspires these writers so that their words would illuminate the mind with spiritual clarity. He notes, “It is a wretched slavery that takes figurative expressions of Scripture in a literal sense. But the ambiguities of metaphorical words… demand no ordinary care and diligence. [2]

Rabbis of the Midrash are in perfect agreement with Augustine on this point. The very purpose of Midrashic interpretation aims to “search out”  and uncover the meanings suggested by the different nuances suggested in the Hebrew language. Saadia Gaon, the ninth-century Jewish philosopher, and biblical translator and author of the Arabic Bible known as the Tafsir, explained that all religious discourse is imprecise and bound by human speech and experience limitations. Human language (whether it is secular or religious), is inherently anthropomorphic and reminded his readers:

Without metaphors, language would be severely limited. Our words would not be able to convey even a fraction of what we think. Thus, if we wanted to speak of God in exact language, we would have necessarily to refrain altogether from describing Him as “hearing,” “seeing,” “being merciful,” or “desirous.” In the end, the only activity we could assign to Him, is existence![3]

Though Saadia criticizes metaphorical language, he realizes that the popular imagination cannot subsist without it. This is no less true with regard to the nature of religious language. Saadia argued that people need a functional language of faith that would make the Presence of God more meaningful to worshippers. He recognized how the metaphor can awaken the poetic and emotional faculties of the human heart. Without a feeling language, any spiritual discourse about the Sacred is impotent—even meaningless, for the heart is not aroused by prose language alone. Saadia further adds (like Augustine before him) that ambiguity of human language is paradoxically a wellspring for revelation and insight. The biblical authors purposely invite the reader to explore, decipher and interpret the words of the sacred text. The veiled meanings of the biblical words lend themselves to a multiplicity of interpretations. If one were to eliminate metaphoric language, human communication would soon become dull, as Saadia further observes:

These and similar words reveal the tendency of language to broaden the meaning of words. Each of the above expressions covers a certain range of meanings, and their allegorical meaning is established by their use in contexts where there is no reference to God. We know that language is an essential feature to extend the meaning of words and use metaphors and images.[4]

Saadia’s theory of language sounds remarkably modern. The use of metaphor goes far beyond the boundary of biblical or theological literature.  A poetic imagination never ceases utilizing metaphors describing the Heavens as “speaking,” or that a storm that is “raging” or “a wall listening.” The presence of another type of metaphor better known to theologians as “anthropomorphism” is ubiquitous in every human field of endeavor from science, art, ethics, music, cinema, literature, poetry, and especially in the realm of advertising. Automobile advertisers sometimes portray their cars as “sexy,” or advertise an engine as “muscular.” Movies frequently depict animals engaging in human activities or pastimes.

[1] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine,  II Chapter 16:24.

[2] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine,  II Chapter 5:9.

[3] Alexander Altmann, Saadia Gaon, Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, reprinted in Three Jewish Philosophers (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 87-90.

[4] Alexander Altmann, Saadia Gaon, Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, reprinted in Three Jewish Philosophers, op. cit.

Making Sense of Anthropomorphism — A Bear Face on Mars?

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

An orbiter view of a Mars surface formation in black and white. There's a round circular line, two eye-like divots and a raised portion that looks like a snout. The whole thing resembles a bear's face.Face On Mars Photograph by Science Source | Fine Art America

Bear Face on Mars?

Does Nature have a sense of humor?

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped a view of Mars that will likely trigger your pareidolia instincts. Pareidolia is the human tendency to see familiar objects in random shapes. In this case, you’re totally looking at a bear. The Observatory at the University of Arizona took this picture, just the other day.

The “face,” captured by MRO in December, is bigger than your average bear. A version of the image with a scale shows it stretches roughly 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) across.

Anthropologists, psychologists, and theologians refer to this as ” pareidolia” Defined: Pareidolia the perception of apparently significant patterns or recognizable images, especially faces, in random or accidental arrangements of shapes and lines. Some people see Jesus’s face smiling at them from the sky, others might see Mohammed or Buddha.  Seeing the famous man in the moon or the canals on Mars are classic examples from astronomy. The ability to experience pareidolia is more developed in some people and less in others.

For a sweeping critique of how anthropomorphism affected science and philosophy from ancient to modern times, the anthropologist Stewart Elliot Guthrie’s book, Faces in the Clouds stands out as an exceptional work. He theorizes that anthropomorphisms represent a perceptual strategy of how humanity perceives itself in an uncertain world. If, for instance, we see a dark shape in the forest, it is better to assume it is a bear and not a boulder. Guthrie’s innovative idea is patterned after the famous wager of Pascal.[1] If what we are observing truly resembles human behavior, then our use of anthropomorphic language is correct. If we are wrong, what did we lose by employing anthropomorphism? In a world where scientific analysis fails or is severely limited, human beings consciously and unconsciously gravitate toward imagining the universe in the likeness of themselves.

Historically, several cultures worldwide developed myths regarding the mysterious “man on the moon” images before the space probe was launched.  On July 25, 1976, the Viking 1 probe took some unusual photographs of the Cydonian region of Mars, which presented land formations resembling human faces, and hence came to be known as the “Face of Mars.” Scientists soon dismissed this interpretation and said that the image was a “trick of light and shadow.” The human mind always projects images of its own likeness unto the universe.  For Guthrie, the same principle applies no less concerning religion. For him, religion is the embodiment of anthropomorphism.

Guthrie makes a thought-provoking point. Whenever people try to explain abstract processes they do not understand, the tendency is to use metaphorical language, for it helps people connect with subtle and not easily defined ideas. [2]  According to Guthrie, the various branches of science, cognitive sciences, ancient and modern philosophy, and the literary and visual arts abound with anthropomorphism, even though secular scientists and philosophers often criticize it.

Guthrie’s observation is on target. Human speech uses the metaphor for even inanimate objects or when describing a force of nature as if it the object or effect being described possesses human-like qualities or actions. Thus, we metaphorically speak of a storm as “vicious” or “threatening,” or “the wind howls throughout the night.” Even in scientific terms, physicians and biologists frequently refer to white blood cells as “fighting off” and “invading” microorganisms, or the “selfish gene,” or “the blind watchmaker” (to borrow a phrase from Richard Dawkins’s popular book). Analogical language is vital for understanding the religious expression and is no less essential for discerning scientific truths about reality.

Scientists illustrate the most abstract mathematical truths through the medium of analogies. Models of science contribute to a more in-depth knowledge of already existing theories. Verbal representations provide a mental picture of an obtuse concept that facilitates a quicker and clearer understanding that is superior to the presentation of mere abstract equations.  For example, it is impossible to explain the nature of time when describing the nature of time; the scientist and poet alike illustrate time through metaphor. Thus, we speak of time as “flowing like a river” or as “an arrow shooting toward infinity.”

When speaking about non-spatial reality or scientific abstractions such as Quantum physics, the scientist must utilize metaphor to convey the idea that he or she wishes to express. Linguists have long recognized that it is virtually impossible to talk about time without the use of metaphor. Without metaphor, the human mind would have an extraordinarily difficult time conceptualizing abstract images that are too difficult to describe in literal terms. More importantly, metaphoric language reveals underlying conceptual mappings and psychological structure of how ordinary people imagine knowledge’s ambiguous, abstract domains through their embodied experiences of the world. Myrmecologists study the lives of ants and use anthropomorphism in naming ants as queen, worker, soldier, parasite, and slave. They define ant communities in terms of classes and castes, thus making ant behavior seem incredibly human.

Ancient poets and storytellers of the Bible recognized a similar truth when attempting to describe the greatest abstraction the human mind has ever entertained—God. Thus, both Jewish and Christian theological traditions stress that the role of metaphor is not purely a decorative embellishment of human language but is an essential method by which people conceptualize the world around them and their own activities. When studying the metaphors of a classical work such as the Bible, grasping the spirit of the text requires that one approach the book and its unique metaphors in a culturally sensitive, ethical, and heart-centered way. Metaphor plays a significant role in developing our social, cultural, theological, and psychological reality. Perhaps more decisively, metaphor can reshape the imagination and the thought process. It allows us, the readers, to transcend the realm of the ordinary.

Therefore, uses of metaphorical and anthropomorphic language are not concessions to the popular imagination, as some philosophers might have us believe. Nor are they deployed purely for their psychological impact upon the reader or listening audience. The prophetic imagination never uses the noetic language of logic or prose, but instead employs the rhetoric of poetry and hyperbole. We could even say that prophetic speech would be very ineffective without it. Sensuous and symbolic, prophecy always appeals to the receiver’s imagination[3] and life experiences.[4] The prophet’s oratory skills gripped his listeners’ attention. When God’s Word inspired him, he felt instantly energized with a heightened awareness and ability to articulate dramatic speech. The Protestant theologian Walter Brueggemann adds an insight about the relationship between prophecy and poetry that dovetails with Saadia’s earlier remarks:

By prose, I refer to a world that is organized in settled formulae so that even pastoral prayers and love letters sound like memos. By poetry, I do not mean rhyme, rhythm, or meter, but language that moves like Bob Gibson’s fastball that jumps at the right moment; that breaks old worlds with surprise, abrasion, and pace.[5]

Sometimes, the prophet’s personal life becomes the very image and the metaphor of God’s message to the people. For example, God commanded the prophet Hosea to marry a whore (Hosea 1:2-9). Similarly, the story of Jonah illustrates how the life of a stubborn prophet reflects the persistent nature of the people he represents. The Book of Jonah is replete with imagery and metaphors depicting the paradoxical nature of God’s own “stubborn” love and forgiveness. In a pedagogical sense, the prophet became a living embodiment of God’s Word, passionately revealing God’s “human-like” personality and character to the world.

The early Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) believed metaphors and allegories were not merely calculated forms of language or a product of human convention. The metaphor was first a product of the mind—and not language. Metaphor allows people to make associations that create cognition. Vico was one of the first pre-modern thinkers to speak about a poetic logic that creates perceptual models that make even inanimate things come alive. A metaphor is “fable-making,” he said, viewing each metaphor as a fable (or analogy) in brief.

Concerning metaphor, in particular, Vico also thought that metaphor can animate nature, “giving sense and passion to insensate things… that in all languages, the greater part of the expressions relating to inanimate things are formed by metaphor from the human body and its parts and from human senses and passions.” Thus, in metaphor and imagery, we coexist with the world surrounding us, which we view as a soulful extension of ourselves. The use of metaphor makes it possible for us to cultivate and expand the power of the human imagination that is essential for spiritual life.

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger (whose Nazi past we shall overlook for the present) made brilliant observations about human language’s nature and its relationship to metaphor and poetry.

It is language that tells us about the nature of a thing, provided that we respect language’s own nature. In the meantime, to be sure, there rages round the earth an unbridled yet clever talking, writing, and broadcasting of spoken words. Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man. Perhaps it is before all else man subverts this relation of dominance that drives his nature into alienation. That we retain a concern for care in speaking is all to the good, but it is of no help to us as long as a language still serves us even then only as a means of expression. Among all the appeals that we human beings, on our part, can help to be voiced, language is the highest and everywhere the first.[6] (Emphasis added.)

The poet perceives reality very differently from the thinker. The rationalist may be an excellent wordsmith and be capable of expressing a clear and lucid thought. However, the poet is governed by a different principle; his heart speaks volumes that can be scarcely expressed by words alone. Yet, when we read the poet’s words, the poet affects us far differently than

[1] According to Pascal, “If God exists, the religious believer can look forward to ‘an infinity of happy life’; if there is no God, then nothing has been sacrificed by becoming a believer (“What have you got to lose?” asks Pascal). In simple terms, Pascal stressed that it is better to live a life of faith that gives ultimate meaning than to choose living a life that has no ultimate meaning.

[2] Stuart Elliot Guthrie, Faces in the Clouds—A New Theory of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press; Oxford, 1993), ch. 6.

[3] Even Maimonides admits the process of revelation always contains anthropomorphic imagery, without which God’s message to the prophet could never be known (Maimonides, MT Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 1:9).

[4] An interesting parallel may also be drawn from Hinduism. Lord Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 12, Verse 5, that it is much more difficult to focus on God as the unmanifested than God with form, i.e., using anthropomorphic icons (murtis), due to human beings’ need to perceive via the senses.

[5] Walter Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 3.

[6] Martin Heidegger and Albert Hofstadter (trans.), Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: Harper and Row Perennial Classics, 1971, rep. 2001), 144.

Noah Review: A New Interpretive Spin Worth Watching

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

 

This past week, I watched the new movie Noah with considerable interest. The newest book of my Genesis commentary deals largely with the story of Noah and the moral questions raised by the Noah narrative. Naturally, whether a person writes a script or a commentary on a biblical story, Aronofsky’s film is an excellent midrashic exposition of an old familiar biblical story. The meaning of “midrash” is interpretation. Whenever we interpret a biblical narrative or law, our interpretations say more about us—the readers—than it does about the text itself. This point certainly applies to the new Noah movie that features the actor Russell Crow as Noah.

The movie seemed to borrow ideas from the Book of Enoch, which speaks about the fallen angels who came down to earth. However, contrary to Aronofsky’s portrayal that the fallen angels wanted to help humankind, God had warned the angels to keep their distance because they would lose their spiritual innocence and become more corrupt than the mortals these angels criticized. In effect, these supernatural beings caused the rapid deterioration of early man.

Like Monday morning quarterbacking, it is easy to criticize a team for failing to make the correct play of a contested football game. Hindsight is typically 20/20. According to the Book of Enoch, the Watchers found the earth girls, well—seductive. They fathered children who were the Greek equivalent of the demigods, whom Zeus and the deities of Olympus decided to wipe out through a flood! Although the Watchers wanted to improve the earth, they only made it worse. [1]

This is one example of how Aronofsky veered from the ancient Judaic literature that was written about the Flood almost 2000 years ago. Much of Aronfsky’s narrative depicted the sons of Noah as not having wives when the flood occurs. However, the biblical narrator flatly says that Noah’s sons were married before the Flood had occurred. By denying this detail, Aronfsky completely rewrites the story of Noah in a manner that is radically different and disingenuous. The movie Noah in some ways reminded me a little of Braveheart, Prophecy,  Transformers, Psycho, and the “Binding of Isaac.”

One more detail, Aronofsky and Russell Crowe like showing the audience that Noah really knows how to fight! Aronofsky also portrays Noah as wearing black leather pants and jackets; not only is such an image of Noah inconsistent with the idea that he was a vegetarian, leather pants were  not invented until the 8th century B.C.E., by the Persians. Aronofsky probably did not want to show a bunch of men fighting in togas or flowing robes.  We can certainly forgive him for that minor inaccuracy.

Darren Aronofsky’s Noah is a postmodern reformatting of the biblical narrative we all grew to know as children. Yet, despite some of these criticisms, there is much to admire about the film.

The dramatic portrayal of Cain and Abel and its cascading images throughout recorded history was visually effective. The biblical writer of Noah probably would have shared Aronofsky’s disdain for urbanization and man’s lust for power. Some critics think Aronofsky attributes the flood to man giving up his vegetarian diet. Yet, even the rabbis suggest that the Seven Noahide Laws included a precept not to act cruelly toward animals—which was most likely a reaction to the antediluvian behavior of that generation.

The psychological transformation of Aronofsky’s Noah is remarkable. According to the biblical story, God became fed up with humankind and its penchant for violence. This thought is not expressly evident in the movie for God never really “speaks” to Noah, but communicates to him through dream imagery and visions.[2]

Aronofsky portrays Noah as a man who hated humanity because of their wickedness. This would explain why he refuses to aid Ham’s girlfriend because of his contempt for humanity. Yet, he is prepared to sacrifice his daughter-in-law, and her two baby girls who miraculously are born forty days after the flood subsides! (Now that’s a real miracle!) After the flood, Noah comes to a strange realization that God does not want the world to have human beings because of their violent ways. Yes, Aronofsky’s Noah sounds more like the Christian theologian Augustine who believed that man is incurably evil and is incapable of redeeming himself. Interestingly enough, Aronofsky  demonstrates why Noah did not ask God to save humankind. The reason is simple: he despises what human beings have become! This interpretation is certainly consistent with the rabbinical view that criticizes Noah for his lack of human concern for his fellow beings.

When Noah came out of the ark, he opened his eyes and saw the whole world completely destroyed. He began crying for the world and said: “Master of the Universe! You are called Compassionate, but You have shown compassion for Your Creation?” The Holy Blessed One be He replied, “Foolish shepherd! . . . I lingered with you and spoke to you at length so that you would ask for mercy for the world! But, as soon as you heard that you would be safe in the ark, the evil of the world did not touch your heart. You built the ark and saved yourself. Now that the world has been destroyed, you dare open your mouth to utter questions and pleas?! [3]

This part of the film seemed as though Aronofsky had recreated the Binding of Isaac and it is only the humanity of his wife who shows him the error of his ways. Despite himself, Noah eventually comes to see that God desires that we as humans redeem and save the world around us.

Does this have ecological relevance for today? Of course it does. Christian evangelicals ought to embrace this aspect of the Noah story. Regardless whatever one may feel about Aronofsky’s Noah, the writer succeeded in portraying Noah as an ecological hero, for indeed, he is—he single-handedly saves the world and himself as well.

If God could choose an imperfect person like Noah to make a difference in bettering and improving the world,  then there may be hope for the rest of us who are reading his story. Noah is an entertaining film; despite my reservations on some of the details of the film, I will give it 4 stars!

======

Notes:

[1] In Book 1 of  Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C.E. – 17. C.E.) weaves an elaborate chain of tales pertaining to the creaturely and cosmic transformations. Like the thematic layout of Genesis, Ovid first begins his work narrating about the creation of the world, Ovid then transitions to how the council of gods decided to bring a great flood to destroy all life. There is a clear etiological purpose of both the biblical and the Metamorphoses narratives in defining how the present world has become what it is. In addition, both books contain numerous moral parables about the human condition. Ovid’s retelling of the Flood story differs in one very important respect from the Mesopotamian narratives. Like the Noah narrative, Ovid attributes the flood not to the gods’ caprice or insomnia, but to human corruption and evil.

[2] Parenthetically I must add that Maimonides probably would have  enjoyed this part of the film for he always maintained that God speaks to human beings through dream or visionary imagery.

[3] Zohar Hadash Noah, 29a

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RabbiMichael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista.  He may be contacted via michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com
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Some Reflections on Isaac’s Near-Death Experience

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

 

Popular culture often adds its own midrashic spin to famous biblical stories. The episode known as the Akedah, “The Binding of Isaac” illustrates the harrowing chapter when Abraham almost saw his future go literally, “up in smoke.” Bob Dylan and Woody Allen both add a remarkable subtext to the story where Abraham nearly ritually slaughtered his son as a sacrifice to God.

Dylan sees a dark side to God’s behavior. In his song, Highway Sixty One Revisited, Dylan writes:

  • “Oh God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son.’ Abe says, ‘Man, you must be puttin’ me on.’ God say, ‘No.’ Abe say, ‘What?’ God say, ‘You can do what you want Abe, but the next time you see me comin’ you better run.’”

Some people experience God as a demonic being that is out to “get us,” if we fail to worship God properly. In the Midrashic imagination, God’s behavior in this instance is reminiscent of Job’s experience. Job, as you probably know, experienced God as an adversary. In fact, the name, “Iyob” means “enemy,” and the identity of this “enemy” remains an enigma throughout this particular biblical book.

Woody Allen offers a neo-Kantian approach to the Akedah story. Like Kant, Allen contends that Abraham actually fails the test.

  • God: “I jokingly suggest you to sacrifice Isaac and you immediately run out to do it.” And Abraham fell to his knees, “See, I never know when you’re kidding.” And the Lord thundered, “No sense of humor. I can’t believe it.” “But does this not prove I love you, that I was willing to donate mine only son on your whim?” And the Lord said, “No, Abraham, that doesn’t prove anything at all. All it proves that lunatics and fanatics will follow any order no matter how asinine, as long as it comes from a resonant and well-modulated voice.”

Woody Allen’s interpretation is one that even some Hassidic Rebbes have embraced. Emil Fackenheim, one of the greatest  Jewish theologians of the Holocaust, recalls the following story told to him by a Hasid:

  • A Hasid once called me: “I want to see you.” I asked, “Why?” He said, “I have something to teach you. So he showed up, about 25 years old, in his black garb and payot [side curls]. What I remember was his question: “Did it ever occur to you that the God who asks Abraham to do the Akeda [binding of Isaac] as a sacrifice, sends an angel to stop it?” And he said, ‘God was fed up with Abraham: when he asked him to sacrifice his son ‑‑ that was the test ‑‑‑ He wanted Abraham to say NO!” [The Hasid might have been surprised to know that Immanuel Kant made the same observation over 2 centuries ago!]

Yes, the story of the Akedah creates cognitive dissonance in us.

How do we differentiate between the voice of God and the voice that mimics and parodies God, but is in reality, the voice of cruelty and evil?

If one examines Midrash Rabbah on the Akedah, the Sages intimated that Satan is the one who instigated this ordeal for Abraham. In symbolical and psychological terms, Abraham’s test consists of differentiating between the true voice of God and the voice that parodies God (Satan).

I believe that the Midrash offers a profound insight.

The Akedah teaches us that there are two types of religiosity. One is authentic and life affirming, the other type of religiosity is a cheap imitation because it doesn’t inspire people to live in accordance with Judaism’s highest principles.

Discerning God’s voice isn’t too hard, for any God who would demand that we sacrifice our children, is hardly worthy of our love or our devotion. God did not want Abraham to kill Isaac ‑‑ He wanted Abraham to just say NO! The prophet Jeremiah makes this point abundantly clear in his condemnation of Molech worship, which had taken root in ancient Israel:

  • Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and gone on building the shrines of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind. Therefore the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when this place shall no more be called Tophet, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter (Jer. 19:4-6).

The Talmud adds an important interpretation of the above Scriptural text:

And it is further written, “which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind.” —   This refers to the sacrifice of the son of Mesha, the king of Moab, as it is said, “Then he took his firstborn son who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall” (2 Kings 3:27) –  This portion of the verse refers to the daughter of Jephthah. (Judg. 11:13) “nor did it enter my mind”  —  This refers to the sacrifice of Isaac, the son of Abraham.[1]

Unfortunately, we have witnessed the horrors of 9/11 and countless acts of terrorism in the world where parents send their children to maim and destroy in the Name of God. Too often, religious people use God to justify every conceivable evil.

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook once said that a great amount of the world’s suffering is because people have a confused conception of God. As religious people, we must make sure that our thoughts of God are clean and free from the dross of deceptive fantasies that are based on human inadequacies.  Faith in God must enhance human happiness and promote a  reverence for life. Continue reading “Some Reflections on Isaac’s Near-Death Experience” →

How We Won the Cosmic Lottery

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

SWAP View of Sun space wallpaper

When I read about the sun’s magnetic field reversing its polarity within the next several months, part of me felt a little nervous. How will the sun’s changes affect the earth? Does this mean that our earthly days are numbered? Actually, astronomers and meteorologists have indicated that we have little to worry.

The sun’s shift in polarity will not lead to more solar storms or other events that might spell doom and gloom for the residents of earth. Such an event occurs every eleven years—and given what we have seen in the past, we are still here—alive and well.

The change in polarity may actually have some positive benefits for all us. For one thing, the shift in the sun’s magnetic field will make our planet’s radiation belt more effective as a barrier against dangerous cosmic rays emanating from distant galaxies.

Not bad, no?

In practical terms, the earth’s storms should be less intense since the lightning storms will diminish comparatively.

At any rate, the changes in our sun’s magnetic field illustrate just how finely attuned the universe is calibrated to enhance life on this planet.

In spiritual terms, we may say that God carefully preordained the movement of the heavenly bodies in the cosmos. Had the Earth been closer to the sun or larger than it presently became, the sun’s rays would have incinerated the earth. Had the earth been just slightly farther away from the sun than its present orbit, life on our planet would have frozen. Had the earth’s circular orbit (with a 3% variance) been like the elliptical orbit of the planet Mars, which varies by 42 million kilometers in its distance from the sun, the earth would incinerate annually once it came closest to the sun. Nothing is fortuitous about the Earth’s orbit. Bar-Ilan University physicist Nathan Aviezer observes how fortunate this planet was in the cosmological scheme of the universe:

  • Our planet Earth is very hospitable to life, abundant with air and water essential to life. Our neighbors Mars and Venus, however, have no water or air. Yet shortly after they were formed about 4.6 billion years ago, all three planets (Earth, Mars, and Venus) had comparable amounts of surface water. In fact, the deep channels that are observed today on the surface of Mars were carved out long ago by the copious, fast-flowing Martian primordial surface waters. Venus was once covered by deep oceans which contained the equivalent of a layer of water 3 kilometers deep over the entire surface of the planet. Why, then, are the two planets so completely different today?
  • The difference in the subsequent development of Mars and Venus was due to their proximity to the Sun. Mars is somewhat more distant from the Sun than the Earth. This caused the temperature of Mars to drop in the course of time. Eventually, Mars became so cold that all its surface water froze, and as a result, the planet Mars has become completely devoid of all liquid water, thus preventing the existence of life as we know it on that planet. Venus, on the other hand, is somewhat closer to the Sun than the Earth, which caused it to gradually become hotter. As a result, Venus became so intensely hot, all its oceans and seas completely evaporated and then decomposed into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas, both of which later dissipated. Why did the Earth escape these catastrophes?
  • The answer is that the Earth escaped these catastrophes by sheer accident! The Earth just happened to be sufficiently distant from the Sun that the runaway greenhouse effect did not occur and therefore all our surface water neither evaporated nor decomposed. Moreover, the Earth just happened to be sufficiently near the Sun that it remained warm enough to prevent all the oceans from freezing permanently into ice caps. Therefore, the Earth alone, of all the planets of the solar system, is capable of supporting life. This balance in the carbonate‑silicate geochemical cycle is so delicate that if the Earth were only a few percent closer to or further from the Sun, the possibility for life could not exist. This enigmatic situation has become known among scientists as the “Goldilocks problem of climatology.”[1]

The recent discovery of extrasolar planets orbiting other nearby stars, has given us a new appreciation as to the perfect conditions that exist on this planet, which produce life. One interesting planet, classified as Upsilon Andromeda b, orbits a star that is approximately 40 light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. It is a Jupiter-sized planet that circles closely around its scorching star every 4.6 days—is a world composed of fire and ice. Some planets float eerily through space with heat sources that someday may produce a new solar system, while others orbit pulsar stars, which emit such powerful bursts of energy—life as we know it would prove impossible. Paul Davies refers to our world as hitting the “cosmic jack-pot,” and argues that the “cosmos” appears to have played a “conscious” role in the formation of life, and continues to play a pivotal role in the evolution of the cosmos.

 

[1] Nathan Aviezer, In The Beginning: Biblical Creation and Science (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1990), 37.

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Isaac’s Spiritual Initiation as a Biblical Patriarch (new)

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

 

Popular culture often adds its own midrashic spin to famous biblical stories. The episode known as the Akedah, “The Binding of Isaac” illustrates the harrowing chapter when Abraham almost saw his future go literally, “up in smoke.” Bob Dylan and Woody Allen both add a remarkable subtext to the story where Abraham nearly ritually slaughtered his son as a sacrifice to God.

Dylan sees a dark side to God’s behavior. In his song, Highway Sixty One Revisited, Dylan writes:

  • “Oh God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son.’ Abe says, ‘Man, you must be puttin’ me on.’ God say, ‘No.’ Abe say, ‘What?’ God say, ‘You can do what you want Abe, but the next time you see me comin’ you better run.’”

Some people experience God as a demonic being that is out to “get us,” if we fail to worship God properly. In the Midrashic imagination, God’s behavior in this instance is reminiscent of Job’s experience. Job, as you probably know, experienced God as an adversary. In fact, the name, “Iyob” means “enemy,” and the identity of this “enemy” remains an enigma throughout this particular biblical book.

Woody Allen offers a neo-Kantian approach to the Akedah story. Like Kant, Allen contends that Abraham actually fails the test.                                       

  • God: “I jokingly suggest you to sacrifice Isaac and you immediately run out to do it.” And Abraham fell to his knees, “See, I never know when you’re kidding.” And the Lord thundered, “No sense of humor. I can’t believe it.” “But does this not prove I love you, that I was willing to donate mine only son on your whim?” And the Lord said, “No, Abraham, that doesn’t prove anything at all. All it proves that lunatics and fanatics will follow any order no matter how asinine, as long as it comes from a resonant and well-modulated voice.”

Woody Allen’s interpretation is one that even some Hassidic Rebbes have embraced. Emil Fackenheim, one of the greatest  Jewish theologians of the Holocaust, recalls the following story told to him by a Hasid:

  • A Hasid once called me: “I want to see you.” I asked, “Why?” He said, “I have something to teach you. So he showed up, about 25 years old, in his black garb and payot [side curls]. What I remember was his question: “Did it ever occur to you that the God who asks Abraham to do the Akeda [binding of Isaac] as a sacrifice, sends an angel to stop it?” And he said, ‘God was fed up with Abraham: when he asked him to sacrifice his son ‑‑ that was the test ‑‑‑ He wanted Abraham to say NO!” [The Hasid might have been surprised to know that Immanuel Kant made the same observation over 2 centuries ago!]

Yes, the story of the Akedah creates cognitive dissonance in us.

How do we differentiate between the voice of God and the voice that mimics and parodies God, but is in reality, the voice of cruelty and evil?

If one examines Midrash Rabbah on the Akedah, the Sages intimated that Satan is the one who instigated this ordeal for Abraham. In symbolical and psychological terms, Abraham’s test consists of differentiating between the true voice of God and the voice that parodies God (Satan).

I believe that the Midrash offers a profound insight.

The Akedah teaches us that there are two types of religiosity. One is authentic and life affirming, the other type of religiosity is a cheap imitation because it doesn’t inspire people to live in accordance with Judaism’s highest principles.

Discerning God’s voice isn’t too hard, for any God who would demand that we sacrifice our children, is hardly worthy of our love or our devotion. God did not want Abraham to kill Isaac ‑‑ He wanted Abraham to just say NO! The prophet Jeremiah makes this point abundantly clear in his condemnation of Molech worship, which had taken root in ancient Israel:

  • Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and gone on building the shrines of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind. Therefore the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when this place shall no more be called Tophet, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter (Jer. 19:4-6).

The Talmud adds an important interpretation of the above Scriptural text:

And it is further written, “which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind.” —   This refers to the sacrifice of the son of Mesha, the king of Moab, as it is said, “Then he took his firstborn son who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall” (2 Kings 3:27) –  This portion of the verse refers to the daughter of Jephthah. (Judg. 11:13) “nor did it enter my mind”  —  This refers to the sacrifice of Isaac, the son of Abraham.[1]

Unfortunately, we have witnessed the horrors of 9/11 and countless acts of terrorism in the world where parents send their children to maim and destroy in the Name of God. Too often, religious people use God to justify every conceivable evil.

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook once said that a great amount of the world’s suffering is because people have a confused conception of God. As religious people, we must make sure that our thoughts of God are clean and free from the dross of deceptive fantasies that are based on human inadequacies.  Faith in God must enhance human happiness and promote a  reverence for life. Continue reading “Isaac’s Spiritual Initiation as a Biblical Patriarch (new)” →

BP, the Bible, and the Butterfly Effect

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Over the years I have noticed that when it comes to the recitation of the Shema prayer, most Jews readily chant the first paragraph of the Shema with enthusiasm. The first paragraph reads:

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.  Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates (Deut. 6:4-9).

The recitation of the second and third paragraph of the Shema  generally fails to inspire the same kind of enthusiasm. Here is the passage in question:

“If, then, you truly heed my commandments which I enjoin on you today, loving and serving the LORD, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, I will give the seasonal rain to your land, the early rain and the late rain, that you may have your grain, wine and oil to gather in; and I will bring forth grass in your fields for your animals. Thus you may eat your fill. But be careful lest your heart be so lured away that you serve other gods and worship them. For then the wrath of the LORD will flare up against you and he will close up the heavens, so that no rain will fall, and the soil will not yield its crops, and you will soon perish from the good land he is giving you. “Therefore, take these words of mine into your heart and soul. Bind them at your wrist as a sign, and let them be a pendant on your forehead. Teach them to your children, speaking of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. And write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates, so that, as long as the heavens are above the earth, you and your children may live on in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers he would give them” (Deut. 11:13-21).

Simply put, actions matter. Actions have consequences. Moderns might feel uncomfortable with the carrot-and-stick approach of Deuteronomy, but its message is still compelling.

Our scientific age is certainly far more sophisticated than anything the ancients might have imagined, yet the meaning of the second paragraph of the Shema conveys an idea that is surprisingly modern and contemporary.

An ecological appreciation of the world reveals that all lifeforms are interconnected. The old paradigm of Newtonian and Cartesian physics conceived of the world through the metaphor of the clock. The universe was once seen as  a set of simple systems resembling a well-tuned ticking pendulum. These systems, if disturbed, may malfunction if their behavior is veers from normalcy. Their movements seemed predictable and manageable in its very nature.

Now we have discovered that there are in a manner of speaking, clocks within clocks–exponentiated. The inner workings of our world are so  exquisitely sensitive to circumstance that even the smallest disturbance produces large and ever-growing changes in their behavior that are difficult to fully calculate.

The meteorologist Ed Lorenz observed while studying  the earth’s weather systems that the smallest variation in the input to his equations produced exponentiatingly large deviations in the behavior of his solutions.  He referred to this cascade of changes as the “butterfly effect.”  Thus, a butterfly stirring the air with its wings in the African jungle today will generate consequences for the storm systems affecting Boston within three weeks. Since our knowledge about African butterflies is limited, detailed long-term weather forecasting will prove to be difficult to anticipate–but the effects are nevertheless in a perpetual state of causality. (By the way, this same kind movement can also be applied with respect to economics, as seen this past year’s gyrations of the stock market.)

Actions matter–and what applies to the realm of natural events especially applies to the moral events we as individuals make. With the recent BP oil spill disaster, we can see an ecological impact that effects not just the Gulf region, but ultimately the lifeforms of the entire planet! Continue reading “BP, the Bible, and the Butterfly Effect” →

The Eternal Question: “Where art thou?” (Gen. 3:9)

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

In one of the most famous Hassidic stories of the 19th century, Martin Buber relates an anecdote about Rabbi Sheneir Zalman of Liadi, who was imprisoned on grounds of treason by the Russian government. In the exchange between the saintly rabbi and his interrogator, both of these men have a most remarkable encounter.

The old rabbi was once put in jail because the Mitnagdim (defenders of the status quo) had denounced his principles and way of living to the government. He was arrested and sent to St. Petersburg to stand trial for treason. The old rabbi stood accused of sending monies abroad to Israel, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, an enemy of Russia. As the very pious man stood in jail, he was very engrossed in meditation. He had hardly noticed the visitor, who happened to be a high-ranking official in the Russian government. He asked the Rebbe, “I have a question on the Bible, and would be most grateful to you if you could give me an adequate answer.”

The Rebbe said to him: “Ask whatever you would like, and with God’s help, I hope to be able to answer your problem.” “How are we to understand that God, the All-Knowing, said to Adam: ‘Where art thou?’ (after he ate the fruit and hid with Eve).” The Rebbe asked, “Do you believe that the Scriptures are eternal and forever relevant in any time and in any place?” The official said that he did.

The Rebbe replied: “The Torah tells us: ‘And God called to the Man [Adam]’ (Gen. 3:9). This teaches us that God speaks to every individual and asks him, ‘Where are you—i.e., where do you stand in relationship to this world?’ God has allotted each of us a certain number of days and years, each of which is to be utilized for the doing of good in relation to both God and humankind. Therefore, ask yourself: How many days have you lived already and how much good have you accomplished during that time? You, for instance, have lived already 46 years, how did you use your time?” The official was deeply amazed and thrilled by the fact that the Rebbe had guessed his right age and put his hand on the prisoner’s shoulder, while nervously exclaiming: “Bravo!”[1]

Martin Buber developed existential insights intimated by this question, “Where art thou?”  In mythic terms, God’s conversation occurs whenever human beings create the space to encounter and hear the Word of God unfold within the human heart. This broad theological message applies to all human beings of all ages.

In ancient times, the prophets and later the Essenes resided in the wilderness where they could be more receptive to God’s Presence. The Early Church Fathers built monasteries in the wilderness to help them develop their sense of the Sacred. In the 18th-19th centuries, R. Israel Eliezer, a.k.a., the Baal Shem Tov and his grandson, R.  Nachman of Bratzlav, along with others recommended that worshippers find God in the uninhabited areas apart from civilization. In the stillness of the forest or in the fields one can discover the Presence of God that reaches out and inspires the soul.

In terms of Israel’s development of faith, the wilderness experience taught the ancient Israelites that “human beings live not on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deut. 9:4). The miracle of the manna taught the Israelites that God is capable of nourishing and guiding a people despite external circumstances and conditions. For the hungry and starving Israelites, the manna represented God’s mastery over the primordial forces of chaos—God’s ability to provide—even in the most hostile and uninhabitable environment. Manna could not be hoarded by the wealthy and used to exploit the impoverished members of society. There were no class distinctions; nobody had to qualify for sustenance. Each person was provided with exactly what s/he needed, not more or less (even Marx might have been impressed). Most importantly, the manna taught ancient Israel that sustenance came to the Israelites in marvelous and unexpected ways.  From hunger to fullness, from scarcity to abundance, Israel learned that her destiny is not dependent upon natural forces. Manna is God’s reminder that all food is God’s gift to the world—from the most extravagant banquet to the smallest portion of bread. Continue reading “The Eternal Question: “Where art thou?” (Gen. 3:9)” →

Prof. Warren Zev Harvey endorses the new Genesis commentary

Posted on by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel
“A fascinating, learned, and wide-ranging commentary that creatively blends the  insights of ancients, medievals, moderns, and post-moderns.”
Prof. Warren Zev Harvey, [Chair, Department of Jewish Thought], The Hebrew University of Jerusalem