The Torah of Unknowing
A few months ago, in better times, I went to New York
And I saw American Utopia / the show where David Byrne presents music with about fifteen musicians in a broadway theater
It was like an art piece the way everyone wore those same David Byrne suits, barefoot
Moving in synchronized steps around the stage
The show opened with a song describing our brains that has stayed with me
Because it was about the brain but it could also be about “us”
Each of us
Or us collectively, as a society
He sang:
Here is region
Of abundant detail
Here is a region that is seldom used
Here is region that continues living
Even when the other sections are removed
I have thought of this many times and wonder especially now
What is it in us,
In each of us and in us collectively
What is it in us
that continues living, no matter what
even when the other sections are removed
I don’t need to tell you this is an unusual time, a time of uncertainty, a time of unknowing
The fact that we are not together as I say these words this shabbat, that no one is gathering, is evidence enough
We have not had a moment like this
We don’t know when it will end
Or what will really happen
And while it is true that no moments are guaranteed
And while we always know in the back of our minds the stability we live by is only a useful pretense
While we know that most of the things we plan to happen may or may not happen
To have our fictions exposed in this way
To have to face a level of uncertainty down to where we can and cannot go each day and who we can and cannot see
Not just one of us or some of us but all of us
To cancel so many things
To watch the plans unravel, so many plans, trips, productions, games, conferences, classes
Reveals in vivid detail just how vastly unpredictable the world can be
So we’re not only grieving the loss of these gatherings
To have to see how easily they are undone is unnerving
Because we now feel the degree to which we have created fictions about our invincibility
or even just our stability
Now we have to know a great deal about our insecurity,
Now we have to know a great deal about our continued dependance on one another
What is the piece of us that continues living
Even when we cannot do the vast majority of things we are accustomed to doing?
What is the piece of us that continues living
Maybe even is possibly strengthened
When we admit we are fallible but not alone?
Call them sparks, divine images, whatever you want.
I submit what remains is our souls. Neshamot
On line or off line
And although we can’t quantify a soul or scale it, (it is already infinite)
And although it is ubiquitous, (everyone has one)
By admitting our (now obvious) vulnerability and by reaching out to one another
Even now, especially now, we can help our souls to grow.
2.
In Torah this week
We, the Israelites, are also facing a moment of tremendous vulnerability
Let me set this up
It is our most famous failure, the story of
Instead of receiving the first Torah
We opt to build a golden calf.
To be honest, I usually feel that our building the golden calf is pretty pathetic
I mean if we look at the surface of the text
We were slaves
God created miracle after miracle for us, wild miracles to help us leave slavery
We did very little except actually leave Egypt
The sea is literally parted for us and we mostly complain
I mean we sing at some point but we complain before and after
God and Moses leads us to Sinai, we just follow
All we have to do is wait while Moses goes to get the Torah
And the minute Moses is a little late (okay, some say very late)
The minute Moses is late we melt down all our jewelry, make an idol of a golden cow and dance, enchanted, around it saying that this cow brought us out of Egypt
No wonder Moses and God are upset.
But as I have taught, the rabbis say that when Moses was late
Satan intervenes and tells us that Moses is gone, is never coming back and is dead
Giving validity to sensationalist lies
And so, in this read, the golden calf is less us being antsy
And more a result of us literally in despair,
Responding to a story we believe but is not real
So the building of that idol is something we do out of complete and utter desperation, fear
It is self protective reversion
But I would like to go back to the story in Torah itself
To a small piece of a verse (32:1)
Because
I don’t even think we have to imagine Israel thinking Moses is dead
To understand how they did what they did
See, before we build any idol,
We approach Aaron and say to him, Moses is late, so
“Make us a God because Moses, the man who brought us out of Egypt,
Lo yadanu mah haya lo / we don’t know what happened to him.”
And even when Aaron is explaining to Moses how it all went down later on, Aaron quotes us saying this word for word.
“Lo yadanu mah haya lo / (they said) we don’t know what happened to him.”
I think from our new vantage point
Of living in a time of real uncertainty
Of not knowing how long we will be here and what that might mean
The response of the Israelites of reaching for a good old idol
no longer seems so weak to me
I understand, I can begin to understand all that can come from
Just the power of that fear of not knowing.
“Lo yadanu mah haya lo / we don’t know what happened to him.”
I can understand how much they must have wanted to know or to pretend to know
In fact, Siftei Chakhamim (to 32:1) points out that in that verse,
We also describe Moses as the one who took us out from Egypt
the one who taught us where to go, who taught us the way to go
I think this moment in the Torah, is describing what it means to have a deep and great unknowing
A — “being in the desert alone for a good deal of time” unknowing
A — “The only one who knew the way is gone” unknowing
“We can’t get back if we tried unknowing
Lo yadanu mah haya lo / we don’t know what happened to him”
That kind of unknowing
Maybe, from where we are this shabbat
We can find compassion, we can begin to imagine the kind of times when our unknowing seemed so endless
That we were willing to do anything to put a stop to it
Now we see
It is not so inconceivable that we would invent an idol or an enemy, we feel what drives that impulse
We can already see the appeal of demagogues who are now as we speak getting into position in our own country, trying to rally people to a simple cause or against one another
We can see that from this place of unknowing, from this seed of unknowing,
if we are not careful, we can breed forced solutions, harmful in their simplicity
Reductions and reversions
Their comforts short lived, their cost high
The neglect of souls a given
3.
I think what is most tragic about the building of the golden idol
Is that we get so close to not building it
That is to say, since we had the strength to say out loud, together
“We don’t know”
“Moses was the one who led us here and now we don’t know where he is or what to do”
That verbalization of our distress, the words out loud
That articulation of what frightened us most
That is one of the hardest parts
See, the rabbis teach that our saying what we want to change out loud is the beginning of changing ourselves, it is the beginning of t’shuvah
We could have said, “We don’t know and we are scared — and we need help”
Or, “We don’t know, but maybe we can help each other wait together”
We were so close
See it is not the unknowing that was the problem
Nor is the fear the problem
It was the quick fix, the mob reversion to an old and inflexible solution
The pretending we could still be the kind of people we no longer were
The old habits kicking in, flexing, spreading out
Our souls relegated to the corners
4.
But in our parasha, we are not the only ones who don’t know
Who encounter this seed of unknowing
Moses doesn’t know sure (famously, Moses asks for all kinds of proofs from God
but I’ll have to talk about that another time)
But God also doesn’t know.
Think about it:
God, who orchestrates the leaving of Egypt down to the details of how many plagues and how Pharaoh will react, down to the choreography of the splitting of the sea
God who leads us out a certain road lest we lose courage
God who has a master plan
God who is busy writing the Torah with Moses on the top of Sinai down to the crowns on the letters
This same God has no idea
Seems to be completely, utterly surprised, floored when we go rogue
In fact, God is so surprised and upset that, even after everything, all the plagues and the sea splitting, God wants to throw out the whole project of Israel and destroy us all.
To call it a moment of deep unknowing is almost an understatement,
You could say a trust has been shattered.
If we’re the ones who go and build a golden calf from our place of unknowing
God now also has a choice
God, too, does not know if we are capable of being in a covenant and receiving Torah,
if we can even do it
If anything, God only has evidence to the contrary
So, when everything has been stripped away, when all the plans have unraveled
When there is nothing left except vulnerability and pain on all sides
What does God do?
See, in that moment when everything is tenuous and unknown
It says in Torah God stands with Moses (Sforno says God is very close!)
And God prays
Really, God prays
And you might know this particular prayer because the rabbis made it central on Yom Kippur
In fact they say this moment is the first Yom Kippur:
Adonai, adonai el rachum v’chanun /
God is compassionate and gracious
Slow to anger
Abounding in kindness and faithfulness
That is to say, God puts God’s own yearnings out into the world for God and for us
God prays and in so doing, God teaches Moses and us about prayer and even forgiveness.
Of course God is vulnerable in this, to pray is to be vulnerable
Of course God reaches out in this, there is no way, even for God, to pray without reaching out
In this moment, in this prayer God offers us an alternative to finding strength through idols
God does not respond to not-knowing with knowing
There’s no guaranteed security in this prayer, not even God’s prayer
Instead there is admitted vulnerability, and with it, the possibility of possibility
An acknowledgement of what can be offered only from soul to soul.
An understanding that the unknown may be a starting point for everything that doesn’t yet have a name.
5.
I don’t need to tell you: This is our time of unknowing
Some fear is a given
It is allowed
And the choices for our responses are before us,
conveniently laid out in this week’s Torah
Idols and distractions come in lots of sizes, you can always go that route
But you might also try God’s way
And reach out in the language of the soul, which, in spite of everything, still remains.
