Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Our generation needs authentic heroes, particularly in an age in which popularity is taken for heroism and celebrity refers to someone who is known for being known. There is a need for spiritual heroes through whom we discover who we are and who we may become. Heroes serve as guides and goads, and in their careers, embody the ideals of a culture.

Every religion has its own heroes. Their lives, and the legends they inspire, incorporate the flesh and blood character of faith. If, as Freud claimed, myths are the dreams of the race and dreams are the myths of the individual, both dreams and myths converge in the hero.

The dominant heroic figure in Judaism is Moses – liberator, legislator, archetype of all prophets. In the singularity of Moses's heroism lies the traces of the uniqueness of Judaism. To know Moses is to know the biblical hero nearest to God and closest to the children of Israel. Moses is the constant companion of the people of the Book. He has been with them through their formative years in bondage in Egypt, in their transformation from a horde of slaves into a self-conscious people, in their labyrinthine wanderings in the wilderness, in their murmurings and rebellion, their betrayals dancing around the golden calf, in their reception of the Ten Words, and in their jagged journey toward a promised land and a promised life.

The saga of a people is recapitulated in the career of Moses. The figure of Moses both forms and is informed by the spiritual imagination of his people. He is simultaneously the discovery and the invention of a people. In the words of the Kaballah, "Moses was wedded to the Shechinah (the divine presence of God).”  (Zohar Genesis 21b)

Moses is not a prophet like other prophets. Unlike other prophets who mainly addressed their own generation, Moses addresses all generations and proclaims "everlasting statutes.”  Moses has an afterlife. In one of the poignant rabbinic legends, God is depicted as Himself taking Moses' soul with a kiss and Himself burying him in a place which no one knows to this day (Deuteronomy 34:8). A rabbinic imagination adds that the secret location of his sepulcher lies in the heart of his people and his epitaph is inscribed in his books. Moses, according to the Kabbalah, is reincarnated in every age. The resurrection of his story, embroidered and embellished through generations of legend and commentary, may enliven and elevate our heroless age.

A PORTRAIT OF MOSES

There are no statues of Moses from his own time. How is he to be envisioned?

A story is told about a certain Arabian king who having learned of Moses' extraordinary feats during the Exodus, selected the most renowned artist of the land to paint a portrait of Moses. The artist met with Moses and captured on canvas the character of this remarkable figure. Returning to the king with his portrait, he showed his masterpiece to the king, who in turn gathered the wise men of his country to evaluate the work. Unanimously, the elders agreed that the picture portrayed a degenerate man, haughty, jealous, angry, disfigured by ugly traits. The king was enraged against the artist for falsifying the image of this man of God. But the artist insisted that he had painted accurately what he had seen with his own eyes. Unhappy with the artist's response and of the elders, the king set off to see Moses for himself. Face to face with Moses, the king could no longer deny the accuracy of the painter's portrait of Moses. But how could this ugly verisimilitude be squared with the noble reputation of Moses? Sensing the perplexity of the king, Moses explained "Your artist is not at fault. By nature I possessed all the reprehensive traits that your artist captured on canvas. But I mastered my evil impulses by force of my will and I acquired through struggle a character that became the opposite of the dispositions with which I was born. The changes wrought in me by my own wrestlings have earned me honor upon earth as well as in heaven. If my fine qualities were a product of nature, I would be no better than a log of wood which remains as nature produced at first."

Moses is the heroic model of transformation. Like Moses, his people's ancestry originated among idolaters and slaves. Not who they were, but what they have become parallels the transformation of their hero. Not birth but becoming characterizes the metamorphosis of this people.

Moses is a different kind of religious hero. No heroic superman, no saint, no infallible being, Moses is altogether human, altogether flawed. His life validates the wisdom of Ecclesiastes "There is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin" (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

A man of flesh and bones like our own, Moses is an emulatable hero. He is a hero in the sense that the rabbinic sages will define the heroic man of strength. "Who is a hero: He who has mastered his own impulses" (Ethics of the Fathers).  Moses is not chained to predetermined dispositions. Moses, like Jacob, struggles with God and man, prevails and carries the scars of his battles.

The singularity of Moses as religious hero lies not only in his ability to transform his baser traits, but in his extraordinary closeness to God. Moses exemplifies a different kind of religious hero, one that still shocks the conventional notions of piety and spirituality. Here is no "knight of faith" as Kierkegaard understood him, a man who obeys God unconditionally and follows orders without question. Here is a prophetic knight, loyal to his master but in the name of that loyalty capable of courageously contradicting His imperatives. Moses is the Knight of Conscience.

THE BREAKING OF THE TABLETS

Consider the extraordinary rabbinic reading of Moses' response to both God and Israel while confronting Israel's greatest sin: the golden calf. When Moses descends triumphantly from the mountain, clutching hold of the two tablets of the law, he witnesses the betrayal of the people. Confused and frightened by the absence of Moses who had disappeared for some forty days negotiating the giving of the Ten Commandments, the people seek a visible tangible deity like the ones they had known in Egypt. They demand of Aaron, "Make us a god who will go before us" (Exodus 32:6). God, they believe, will be invented and controlled. Moses is appalled by the ingratitude of the people, and even thinks of turning back to the mountain, to give back God's His own words. He thinks that the angels who had argued with him that such a motley crowd did not deserve receiving the word of God may have been right. All at once the writings on the tablets vanished and the celestial writing was gone. Without the letters of the law, the tablets turned into slabs of stone and Moses can not bear the dead weight. He lets drop the two tablets, thinking that it would be better for this people not to know the Law, than to receive it intact, transgress, and be punished because of their sins. Better for Moses to shatter the Law than to deliver it to the people whole for them to break.

Moses is angry at the people and angry at his brother Aaron, the priest who acceded to the mob's demand that a golden calf be created. A terrible rage ran through the camp, not only Moses but God is angry at the people, and swears an oath against this stiff-necked people: "Now therefore let Me alone that My wrath may wax hot against them and that I may consume them." Instead of this people, God offers to make the seed of Moses into "a great nation.” 

Seeing that God, too, was angry, Moses removes his tent from the people a mile away saying to himself, "The disciple may not have intercourse with people whom the Master had excommunicated." Yet Moses' removal from the camp of Israel displeased God, and He counseled with Moses, "We have an understanding between us. According to our agreement, I was to propitiate you every time you were angry with the people, and you were to propitiate Me when My wrath was kindled against them. What is now to become of these poor people if we both are angry with them? It is not good that both of us should be angry. When you see Me boiling with hot water, you Moses must pour cold water. But when you see Me pour cold water, you must pour hot water. Do not separate yourself from the people. Return to the camp of Israel. God quickly adds, "But should you not return, remember that Joshua is in the camp at the sanctuary and he can well fill your place." (Deuteronomy Rabbah 3:15)

In this exchange, a significant dimension of the singularity of Moses' relationship to God is revealed. God and the religious hero are not rivals. Theirs is a relationship of mutuality. Though the closeness between them is not that of equals, Moses is a confidante and helper of God in their common task to raise and protect their people. God and Moses need each other. Each needs to temper the anger of the other. God needs human allies. But Moses is not indispensable. If not Moses, then there is Joshua waiting in the camp. As the sages say if there were no Moses to transmit the Torah, there would be Ezra, the scribe.

THE INTERVENTION OF MOSES

Between Moses and God is an astounding understanding, a covenant whose binding character will shed light on human-divine interdependence. The covenant between them is predicated on a shared moral universe of discourse. Both speak a common language. They understand each other. Moses reads between the lines. After hearing God's oath, Moses seizes upon God's words. God had declared, "Leave Me alone that I may destroy them"? But, Moses ponders, who is there to hold God back? Clearly, Moses surmises, it means that God desires someone to restrain His anger, to hold Him back. And who but the friend of God, the prophet is qualified to intervene? In that instance of self-recognition, Moses leaps up, takes hold of the Holy One like a man who seizes his fellow-man by his garment. Moses cries out, "Sovereign of the Universe, I will not let You go until You have forgiven and pardoned Your people." Vigorously and persistently Moses pleads with God, urging Him to reconsider His vow to vent His wrath upon the children of Israel who danced around the golden idol. Moses reasons with God, "If a father sets up his son's business in a neighborhood of brothels, what should be expected of his son? Surely his son will go astray. If a slave people is placed in a land of idolatry, what can be expected of such a people when they are left leaderless? Moreover, did You not promise this people that their seed will multiply as the stars in the heavens? Will You go back on Your word, and will You allow Yourself to be made the laughing stock of the nations? Will not the nations of the world looking on say that after the Exodus, Your sovereignty is exhausted, You are a God enfeebled? Master of the universe, will You destroy an entire people, Your people, because of the sins of a treacherous few? Shall the God of justice destroy the good with the evil?”  The memory of Abraham's pleading with God on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah resonates in Moses' plea.

GOD'S RESPONSE

God is finally persuaded by Moses' argument. He recognizes the love behind the argument that motivates Moses' appeal. Moses is willing to forego his leadership. He is unwilling to take the place of the children of Israel and himself become the father of a people. Moses is prepared to sacrifice himself:  "Yet if You will forgive their sin fine, but if not blot me out of the book that You have written." Moved by Moses' altruism, God confides to Moses that He is helpless to change the situation. God appears bound to His oath: "What can I do since I have already uttered My vow and have explicitly declared that I will destroy this people? Can I now go against My own words? Can I retract My own vow?"

At this point Moses responds,  "Lord of the Universe, did You not give us the law of absolution from a vow? Did You not say that power is given to a learned man to absolve anyone from his vows? You God are a just God and You desire that Your decisions be followed. But a just God desires that everyone obeys the law including Himself. A just God must submit Himself to the law for there is one law on heaven as on earth and a just God will not stand above His own judgment."

God answers, "But where can I find someone then to release Me from My vow?" Moses girds his loins and declares, "Come to me God." And with this, Moses wraps himself in his robe, seats himself in the posture of a sage, while God stands before a sitting Moses. The prophet Moses then asks of God, "Do You, Master of the Universe, regret Your vow against Your people?" God answers, "I regret now the evil which I said I would do to My people." And Moses replied, "You are absolved. You are absolved. There is neither vow nor oath any longer." (Exodus Rabbah 43:4)

In this stunning exchange, the rabbis dare to imagine that Moses, the friend of God, has absolved the vow of God in the name of God's Torah. The unparalleled intimacy between Moses and God is boldly illustrated. It is a closeness predicated upon a reciprocal moral covenant. This God will not hide from Moses His resolve to punish the golden calf worshippers any more than He would hide His intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah from Abraham. Before visiting judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, God shared His intention with Abraham: "Shall I hide from Abraham that which I am doing seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him to the end that he may command his children and his household after him that they may keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice to the end that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He has spoken of him." Moses has understood that divine intention. As there was no chastisement of Abraham for arguing with God on behalf of a pagan people, there is no chastisement for Moses' intervention on behalf of an errant people. Moses' confrontation with God is not considered an act of lèse majesté. Far from an act of treason, Moses' intervention evidences the profoundest respect and love of God.

When God stands before the prophet who annuls His vow , there is no humiliation of His power. God delights in Moses' intervention much as a father delights in the moral maturity of his children when they act in the spirit of godliness. God did not lower Himself before Moses, but in elevating Moses He elevated His own word. We are introduced to a unique understanding of Divine sovereignty and of the character of faith.

GOD'S EMPOWERMENT OF THE PROPHETIC HERO

This episode is hardly an isolated one in the rabbinic tradition. It is one of a number of illustrations that challenges the notion of God as an immovable Commander of an immutable will and the friend of God as the acquiescent good soldier. The exchange between Moses and God is not seen as a contest of wills. Were it a matter of power, Moses would have no chance. God empowers Moses. When God is exasperated against His people and promises to destroy them, it is Moses, in an astounding rabbinic passage, who challenges God face-to-face. "You say God that You will smite them with pestilence but I say 'Pardon I pray You'." So the matter is evenly balanced. We will see who will prevail, Thou, O Lord, or I?" (Deuteronomy Rabbah 5:13)

Moses can think in this manner because he is confident that the morality of God will supersede the edict of God. The impasse is broken when God yields to Moses, "By your life you have nullified My will and yours prevails." As it said, "The Lord said 'I have pardoned according to thy word'." It is a refrain showing of significance for divine-human relations must be paid attention to.

Not weakness in God, but His moral power is celebrated in Psalm 106: "Therefore God said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before Him in the breach to turn away His wrath lest He should destroy them."

The heroic stance of Moses presents a radically new understanding of the relationship between the religious hero and God. The religious hero as exemplified in the career of Moses is not one who bows to God's will blindly but who exercises his divinely given conscience. As we will see, the religious hero who defies God in the name of God penetrates God's inner will and finds pleasure in God's eyes. What is unique about Moses as prophet is a form of spiritual audacity that unusually appreciated, a stance of holy dissent that more often is ignored or repressed in conventional theology.

SPIRITUAL DISSENT

On a number of critical occasions the Holy One is openly contradicted by Moses. When, for example, God is said to "visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children" (Exodus 20:5), Moses rose and argued against its claim. "Sovereign of the Universe, many are the wicked who have begotten righteous men. Should the latter bear the iniquities of their fathers? Consider the righteous son Abraham, whose father Terach worshipped images. Consider King Hezekiah, a righteous man though his father, King Ahaz, was wicked. Consider the righteous King Josiah, and his father, King Amon, who was wicked. Is it proper that the righteous be punished for the iniquity of their fathers?" Here the response of God as formulated in the rabbinic texts must be heard carefully. God is not angry at Moses, nor does he dismiss his boldness as a mark of hubris. With joy He announces to Moses, "By your life you have taught Me something. I shall cancel My words and confirm yours. As it says, "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers." (Deuteronomy 24:16) "By your life," says God, "I shall record these words in your name."

We must note that the expression of Moses' conscience does not leave an anarchic trail in its wake. The voice of conscience has its grounding in Divine fairness, justice and compassion. The consequences result of the confrontation is not the absence of law but a discovery of new and deeper imperatives discovered within the Torah itself. "I shall record these words in your name."

At other occasions we hear again God's acknowledgement of Moses as instructor. The Holy One said to Moses, "Make war with Sihon even though he does not seek to interfere with you. You must open hostilities against him" (Deuteronomy 2:26).  Moses did not listen to the command. Instead, Moses sent messages out of the wilderness to Sihon with words of peace saying, "Let me pass through thy land and I will go along by the highway. I will neither turn into the right hand nor to the left. Thou shalt sell me food for money that I may eat and give me water for money that I may drink. Only let me pass through on my feet." The Holy One recognized that Moses did not obey His command. But he said unto Moses, "By your life Moses, you have instructed Me. I shall cancel My own words and confirm yours. As it says,  'When you draw nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.’" (Deuteronomy 20:10) Again, anarchy does not result from Moses' disobedience. Another, higher law replaces an earlier imperative. Moses in his disobedience of conscience glorifies and magnifies the name of God.

WHEN I LOSE, I WIN

The reciprocal relationship between Moses and God appears alien to many readers because they have been raised to view the Sovereign God and His human creation as polarized beings. God commands and man obeys. God's imperatives are orders that are not to be questioned. That master-slave model for the divine-human relationship is here challenged by the two-sided covenant shared by Moses and God. Therefore, the victory of Moses' arguments do not in the least spell the defeat of the Sovereign God. To the contrary, it celebrates a collaborative relationship that views both divine and human signatories of the moral covenant as friends who share a common cause. This reciprocal relationship is expressed in a classic rabbinic text in which God explains the parable: "In the hour when I conquer, I lose. But in the hour when I am conquered, I gain. For I conquered at the generation of the flood, but I lost for that generation was destroyed. So it was with the generation of the tower of Babel and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. When I won, I lost. But when the Golden Calf was made and Moses intervened, he conquered Me and there I gained a people" (Pesikta Rabbah 166b). God is not like an earthly king who gloats over his victories, indifferent to their effects on the character of His warriors.

Here is another understanding of God and another understanding of the religious hero. The self-imposed vulnerability of God to the criterion of the prophet reveals a God who listens and is listened to differently. For God to enter into a mutual covenant with a religious hero such as Moses is to open Himself up to criticism. An authoritarian God who demands blind obedience will consider argumentation demeaning to His sovereignty. The self-sufficient god of Aristotle would never consider entering into a covenant with another being. For Aristotle's god the idea of friendship is an admission of weakness. By contrast, the empowerment of the human being by the Biblical God as exemplified in the approval of Moses' posture assigns a new meaning to God's sovereignty. Paradoxically and importantly, God's supremacy is in His vulnerability. In His appreciation of the role of human conscience, a true divine-human dialogue is ennobled.

It is the biblical and rabbinic Moses more than any other prophet, who introduces this unique conception of God and of the religious personality. In this encounter conscience speaks to conscience and a powerful, moral universe of discourse is created that will reverberate throughout Jewish history. It foreshadows a unique understanding of the role of the community of faith and of divine love.

* This document, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced without the written permission of the author.