Parashat Yitro – The first commandment

This Shabbat we read one of the most central narratives in the Torah and in our journey as a people – the revelation at Mount Sinai, the reception of the Torah conveyed through Moses. From hereon in, everything changes. The people enter into a covenantal relationship with God.

At the heart of this narrative are the Ten Commandments (or the Ten Utterances [aseret ha-dibrot]), the core principles understood later by Jewish tradition to be the foundation of all the mitzvot, the fabric of Jewish life.

The very first commandment (“Anochi Adonai Elohecha” – I am the Lord, your God) doesn’t really sound like a commandment, but rather a statement. While the Ten Commandments are not openly framed as commandments; they are presented as ten utterances (dibrot), and you could argue that the first commandment is a proclamation.

We are told that in ancient near eastern context, from which the Hebrew Bible emerged, such a proclamation often served as a declaration of ultimate divine authority – a preface that introduces the content and legal requirements that will follow.

We also learn that later Jewish academics and philosophers understood the declaration “Anochi Adonai Elohecha” to be the first mitzvah stipulated at Sinai, and therefore the proclamation upon which the rest of the mitzvot are based.

Amongst those later Jewish academics and philosophers is the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon), who wrote the ‘Mishneh Torah’ – a code of Jewish law that arranged the vast amount of Talmudic thought into one source of defined decisions. The Mishneh Torah includes a series of instructions concerning ‘appropriate belief’, outlining them as “Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah” (the laws of the foundations of the Torah).

The Rambam proclaims that the performance of mitzvot begins with the acknowledgement of the root of all commandments, which is to believe in God. The statement “Anochi Adonai Elohecha” is not articulated in the same manner as the rest of the dibrot. It implies a self-evident nature of divinity, that is to believe in God or a divine presence.

But how are we to understand such belief? And what does it mean to require it as the foundation for Jewish religious practice? Can a person live a faithful life of mitzvot without faith? And how is true faith to be defined and understood?

For the Rambam, the answer to this question is clear and absolute: the primary commandment, from which all else in the religious-halachic life flows, is to believe that God exists and is the first cause of all being. He states in the Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah; “The foundation of foundations and the pillar of all wisdom is to know that there is a first being or presence that brings forth everything else that exists”. He goes on to explain that this knowledge is a positive commandment, as it specifies; “Anochi Adonai Elohecha”.

In the Rambam’s view, God is the matzui rishon (the first existent), which has no body and no image, and its true reality lies beyond the limits of human perception. In short, God is transcendent.

We could extend that thought and read the powerful text of Exodus 19 & 20 – the narrative that embodies Parashat Yitro, as follows. The declaration “Anochi Adonai Elohecha” is a call to awareness, lifting the spiritual awareness within us to a new perspective of the commandments. Such a declaration stands at the beginning of the list of commandments; all of the subsequent mitzvot, the particulars of ritual and halachah – so they are all be guided by a mindfulness of “Anochi”, an awareness of divine presence.

The mitzvot flow from that awareness and they lead back to its realisation. The intention leads into the practice, and the practice in turn enables a fresh awareness of spiritual meaning. The circle of awareness and practice is comprehensive and never-ending. We read that at Mount Sinai, the Children of Israel, having recently become a people, and having even more recently been redeemed from slavery, pledged their commitment to the commandments by proclaiming to God; “na’aseh v’nishmah” (we will do and we will listen/understand).

When we approach the first commandment (at Mount Sinai) with the same level of acceptance and commitment, we discover a fresh approach to “Anochi Adonai Elohecha”, one which allows us to do and learn, and learn and do.

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Parashat Beshallach – Shabat Shira – Living in tune with the universal vibe

This week we read the climax of the story of the Exodus from Egypt, Parasha Beshallach, also known as Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat of song. It receives this name because of the song that was sung by Moses and Miriam and the children of Israel as our ancestors experienced their miraculous deliverance from slavery and reached freedom on the opposite banks of the sea. At that moment of supreme joy and celebration, the Israelites burst into song, giving voice to their delight. The Haftarah compliments the Torah portion by telling the story of Devorah, who along with Barak and Yael, also experienced a miraculous deliverance. Devorah, like her ancestors before her, burst into song. These parashiot are linked by song and by women, two of whom, Miriam and Devorah, are described as prophets, and who led their people in time of struggle to victory. While this Parasha features songs of gratitude for that salvation, there are so many reasons in life to sing.

As we sing in our synagogues around the world “The Song of the Sea” and “The Song of Devorah,” we are reminded that song is at the heart of human creativity, a crucial aspect of our learning, worship and faith community. Many Jews know the key phrase from the Song of the Sea that appears in every service in the blessing after the Shema: “Mi Kamocha B’elim Adonai” – who is like You among gods that are worshipped? In this verse we acknowledge the uniqueness of that which we call the creator, for God itself is understood in Judaism as infinite selfcreated being out of which all else emanates. That is, according to our spiritual understanding of life, matter evolves out of being, not the other way around. We all recognise the reality of conscious being; whether it emanates from matter or matter from it is the great mystery and also the crux of the debate between “religion” and “science”. One area the two life approaches meet is in their recognition that creation itself is made up of vibrations, both in the mental and material worlds. Song is the beautiful melding of vibrations.

Song is found in nature itself. The Shabbat of Song always falls on or leads into Tu Bishvat, which falls on the full moon of the month of Shvat, this year Sunday night and Monday. Tu Bishvat is one of four new years described in the Talmud – it is the New Year for trees. It is the time in our calendar where we pause to celebrate and consider our environment and our impact upon it. We reflect on the beauty of nature and this precious planet that has been entrusted to our care. There is also a link with the Parasha and with song. Just as all in nature has its vibrations, two great Jewish mystics, the Ba’al Shem Tov and Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, both suggest that every plant, tree, flower and shrub has its own song. Even blades of grass sing their own unique melody. The voices of the plants then join together in a beautiful harmony and the song they sing together, circles the world, resting gently upon us all. At Tu Bishvat, we take the time to listen for the song, to hear the harmony flowing through nature and to connect ourselves to that aspect of the world.

So, this Shabbat Shira, Shabbat of song, may we all hear the song of the universe, celebrating the beauty and wonder around us, and may we all add our own notes to create an even more wonderful and lasting harmony.

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Parashat Bo – The first of our months

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav taught, “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, but the whole thing is to have no fear at all.” Rabbi Nachman’s teaching reminds us that we are bound by time, the infinite that preceded our birth identical to that which will greet us on our death. In this narrow bridge of our world we are impelled to make meaning in our lives, and knowing that our experience in these bodies is so finitely limited, one way we do so is by making meaning in time. Judaism excels in creating meaning in time. We choose counter-intuitively to begin our days with the sun’s setting; we then count seven days to create a unit of time known as the week. We fashion Shabbat that one precious day in seven to stop and re-soul, remembering that each of us has a spark of infinite being and that each of us has the right to freedom. While the seven-day week is a product of the human imagination, marking time by the natural month also has significance.

Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, the 19th century Hasidic Torah scholar and commentator known as the Sfat Emet, has taught, “Why does Israel count by the moon, with each month starting when the moon emerges? Because the moon, unlike the sun, waxes and wanes, nearly disappears and then grows bright again. So the Jewish people go through cycles of prosperity and suffering, knowing that even in darkness there are brighter days ahead.” The 19th century modern orthodox rabbi, Samson Raphael Hirsch, has added, “God shows Moses the sliver of the new moon as a symbol of Israel’s capacity for constant renewal.” (Quoted in Etz Chayim Torah Commentary on Exodus 12:2). Each moon month gives us the opportunity to think, both as individuals and as a people, of the waxing and waning of our life. If we think of ourselves within the context of a single moon, we are reminded of our birth and our death, our growing strength and diminution in between. As Jews, we know that even though we come and go as individuals, we are part of an ancient people who have been here for many moons and will be here for many moons to come. Each moon has its significance within an annual cycle, its deeper meaning connecting us to the past and encouraging us in the present to shape the future.

The month of Nisan is most significant in our people’s consciousness, indicated by this week’s Torah portion, which commands us to begin the counting of our months with the moon of Aviv, known to us now as the month of Nisan. “God spoke to Moses and Aaron in the Land of Egypt: ‘This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.’” (Exodus 12:1–2). It is in this month, as the moon grows in strength that we are commanded to take a lamb, holding on to it until the evening of the 15th; with the full moon, we slaughter it and place its blood on the lintels of our doorposts, the first Pesach. As the first of our months, Nisan teaches us the centrality of the Exodus for our people’s consciousness.

Many Jews, no longer as literate in our tradition, assume that just because our year begins in Tishrei, so too the counting of our months. Rather, Tishrei is our seventh month – and with the commemoration of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah – is special like Shabbat. Similarly, just as the first day of creation symbolises the mystical moment in which time and space begins, Nisan is the in which we as a people begin our journey in time and space. “Yetziat Mitzraim”, leaving the servitude in Egypt to engage in service to God makes us who we are. Over and over, Moses has given Pharoah God’s message: “Let my people go that they may serve me.” Throughout the Torah we are reminded of this event, compelling us to be good to the stranger, to love the other, to work for justice and equity, in general to serve the source of all conscious being.

Judaism’s take on time teaches us to make each day, each week, each moon significant. Parasha Bo reminds us that as Jews, our lives have meaning beyond our individual context, for we share an ancient experience with its memories and lessons. “This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you”; without our memory of oppression deeply ingrained, we will not remember our calling as a people to serve.

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Parashat Vaera – The presence of God

This week marks the first anniversary of the murders at the offices of Charlie Hedbo and at the kosher market in Paris. In does not seem like the world has improved much since then and, as often, religion gets the blame. While much conflict arises along sectarian fault lines, religion should be reclaimed as the human discourse about the spiritual life. As we open our second book of Torah, the book of Shemot, we explore the realm of God as understood in our ancestral story.

In these opening parshiyot, we come across Judaism’s three major ways of understanding how God works in our lives. The first two appear in last week’s parashah, the third in this week’s. First, Judaism defines God as the creator of all existence of which we are part; second, Judaism reasons that as aspects of the infinite, we can communicate on a certain level with it; and thirdly, we have responsibilities toward creation because of our role within it. Traditionally, these three aspects of God are known as Creator, Revealer and Redeemer, and they have been adopted by Christianity and Islam as well. It is incumbent on all our religions together to teach the difference between that which is in “the realm of God” and that which “is in the realm of human.”

Last week, standing at the burning bush, Moshe encounters God for the first time who when asked for a name, says “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh”, which is virtually not translatable but essentially means “I Am that which I Am” or “I Am becoming that which I Am becoming”, or a permutation of those ideas. In other words, Judaism teaches that God is a verb, a form of “to be”, and thus God=Being. I am always puzzled when people say “I do not believe in God.” It is as if one says, “I do not believe in being”, which considering we are being is a hard position to hold. Either all that exists manifested out of nothing, or out of being. In humility, we must at least acknowledge the mystery of it all.

Assuming God is being, and we are part of that being since we exist, then it follows that on one level each of us draws down the smallest aspect of God’s being or consciousness. This is what we mean by God Reveals – as in the communications that happen between God and Moshe, or in a few weeks time, the communication that happens between God and the ancestors of the Jews, the children of Israel who stood at Sinai to receive the commandments. Most of us today question not so much God, or even the possibility that God can communicate with humanity, but the content of the revelation from God to humanity. Outside of Orthodox understandings of religion – no matter what the religion – practitioners choose to follow the received traditions as the valued ancestral attempt to draw down God’s consciousness. The Torah is our story of how we have understood and choose to live that life.

Each religion has its own story. The essence of the story of our ancestors, the path of redemption that we are called to walk, is told at the beginning of this week’s parashah, where God again reveals in a speech to Moses that famous passage that makes its way to our Haggadah and forms the basis of the four cups of wine plus the cup of Elijah. God tell Moshe (and the children of Israel), “I will free you…I will deliver you…I will redeem you…and I will take you … and I will bring you into the land.” In other words, the crucial event of our past is the being freed from the slavery in Egypt in order to come to the land of Israel where we are to serve God as a model nation. We can always discuss the finer parts of the story, the details of what has been revealed, but we should understand that our conversation is not as much about God Itself, as to what it means to serve God. Each individual has his or her way; each people its. These crucial stories at the beginning of Exodus establish that the story of Israel is one that takes us from servitude to humans to service to God, and thus humanity and life.

Whenever anything is done that is in disservice to humanity, and destructive of life, it cannot be in the service of God. More than ever, we need to clarify that point so that we do not blame religion for the horrible things that humans do. Rather, religion should be understood by each of us as a path toward service in life, a way of engaging in conscious being.

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