Lekh Lekha #2


Bereishit 12-17

Avraham, Redemption, and Imagining Eternity

Eitan Rubenstein, 5766


I'd like this week to talk about two kinds of religious existence, one grounded in experiencing the actual and the other in imagining the possible. Amidst the hustle and bustle of Lekh Lekha, Lot and Avraham part ways in a moment that should be read metaphorically as the historical differentiation of these two kinds of religion. Avraham offers Lot first choice of dwelling-place; Lot looks about and sees "the whole plain of Jordan, how it was fertile (this was before YHWH destroyed Sodom and Amorah) all the way to Zoar; it was like the Garden of YHWH, like Egypt" - "כָּל כִּכַּר הַיַּרְדֵּן כִּי כֻלָּהּ מַשְׁקֶה לִפְנֵי שַׁחֵת יְהֹוָה אֶת סְדֹם וְאֶת עֲמֹרָה כְּגַן יְהֹוָה כְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בֹּאֲכָה צֹעַר" (Genesis 13:10). Lot moves East to Sodom, leaving Avraham to settle in the land that will come to be centered on Jerusalem, which is in turn associated with Eden. By analyzing two deeply opposed methods of analogy to Eden, I hope to elaborate what I see as a central theme of human freedom.

Eden, literally "delight" and introduced with the sentence, "YHWH God planted a garden in Eden" - "וַיִּטַּע יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהִים גַּן בְּעֵדֶן מִקֶּדֶם" (Gen. 2:8), comes to represent idyllic existence; this is why in Rabbinic literature Eden and "the world to come" become equated. I see in the image of Eden-as-ideal two themes, comfort and freedom, both of which are revoked in the exile of Eve and Adam. The comforts of Eden are numerous: no need to work, a climate so temperate that clothes are superfluous, and a peacefulness marked by the vegan diet of both humans and animals. Alongside this luxury stands a parallel freedom in Eden: freedom from death, which allows each person to pursue her self-actualization without being cut off by death, which is always premature. Only in Eden can my dreams and hopes always eventually become reality. Present perfection and the reality of imagination create the ideal which is Eden.

The exile from Eden is partially repealed by Lot's poetic imagination as he in one breath describes two places as "like the Garden of God" - the Jordan plain and Egypt. It seems, however, that Lot's invocation of the Eden myth does not fully grasp this symbol's meaning: he associates it with fertility only, not eternity, seizing on comfort and forsaking eternity. In other words, Lot sees and chooses Sodom and Jordan purely because of what they are, not what they could be.

This sense of "Eden as comfort" returns in Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre (Ezekiel chapter 28). As a prelude to announcing the kingdom's destruction, the prophet recalls Tyre's past (vv. 12-14):

 ...You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and flawless in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your adornment...you were on God's mountain of holiness......אַתָּה חוֹתֵם תָּכְנִית מָלֵא חָכְמָה וּכְלִיל יֹפִי: בְּעֵדֶן גַּן אֱלֹהִים הָיִיתָ כָּל אֶבֶן יְקָרָה מְסֻכָתֶךָ...בְּהַר קֹדֶשׁ אֱלֹהִים הָיִיתָ...

We have now seen three places - Jordan (Sodom/Amora), Egypt, and Tyre - explicitly compared to Gan Eden. A striking feature of this intra-Biblical midrash is that the reader's experience of the connection between these places and Gan Eden precisely mirrors the content of the comparison: just as Egypt's immediately-apparent richness, rather than its potential-in-imagination, inspires a comparison to the Garden of God, so too are we readers presented with an obvious, undeniable, but ultimately superficial connection between Egypt/Tyre/Jordan and Eden.

At the same time, there exists within the Bible a radically different analogy to Gan Eden - Jerusalem. This analogy, however, is based not on perceived beauty but instead on an imagined one. (I am deeply indebted to Professor Jon Levenson's excellent book Sinai and Zion for making me aware of many of the sources that follow.)

Again, Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre is the starting place for comparison to Eden. Verse 13, "You were in Eden... you resided in God's holy mountain," explicitly equates "Eden" and "God's holy mountain," indicating that somehow they are seen as similar. The analogy continues in this passage: Tyre's "flawless in beauty" ("וּכְלִיל יֹפִי") is almost identical to the description of Jerusalem as "perfect in beauty" ("כְּלִילַת יֹפִי") in Eicha 2:15. Thus in the prophecy to Tyre we have a direct analogy between Eden and the Temple Mount (verse 13) and an indirect analogy through the language of "כְּלִיל יֹפִי" implying Tyre=Jerusalem, suggesting the association Eden=Tyre=Jerusalem, and thus Eden=Jerusalem.

There is other, more direct evidence for the Biblical authors thinking of Zion in terms of Eden: one of the rivers flowing from Eden, Gihon, has the same name as the river just outside Jerusalem in which Solomon is inaugurated (Genesis 2:12, I Kings 1:33, 38, 45). Further, evidence suggests that the Genesis 2 narrative was written during the beginnings of the Davidic dynasty - it stretches the imagine to claim that the first readers of Genesis 2 and I Kings didn't feel a strong identity between these two Gihons, and thus between mythological Eden and real Jerusalem. A final addition to this aquatic connection is Psalm 36:9-10, which highlights the religious significance of water in Temple theology:

[We] feast on the bounty of Your house, and drink from the river of your delights.

For with You is the source of life; by Your light we see light.

יִרְוְיֻן מִדֶּשֶׁן בֵּיתֶךָ וְנַחַל עֲדָנֶיךָ תַשְׁקֵם:

כִּי עִמְּךָ מְקוֹר חַיִּים בְּאוֹרְךָ נִרְאֶה אוֹר:

The Psalmist here connects "Your house," the Temple, the root ע-ד-נ, which is also Eden, and "the source of life," also presumably a moniker for Eden.

These references throughout the Bible point to a sense among the Biblical authors that Zion, and specifically the Temple, corresponds somehow to Eden. I would like to turn now to the content of this comparison: what did these men experience inside and around the Temple that made them recall the image of primordial Eden?

The themes of delight, of return to a world without fear, and a sensation of timelessness all punctuate our literary remnants of the Temple. One example, Psalm 27:3-4:

Should an army besiege me, my heart would not fear; אִם תַּחֲנֶה עָלַי מַחֲנֶה לֹא יִירָא לִבִּי
should war beset me, I would trust in this: אִם תָּקוּם עָלַי מִלְחָמָה בְּזֹאת אֲנִי בוֹטֵחַ:
I ask but one thing of the YHWH, and only that do I seek, אַחַת שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵאֵת יְהֹוָה אוֹתָהּ אֲבַקֵּשׁ
to live in the YHWH's house all my life, שִׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית יְהֹוָה כָּל יְמֵי חַיַּי
to gaze upon the beauty of YHWH, to frequent His Temple.לַחֲזוֹת בְּנֹעַם יְהֹוָה וּלְבַקֵּר בְּהֵיכָלוֹ:

Beyond this, at the end of the same psalm, David imagines a world fundamentally different than the one in which he lives, "I believe that I will see YHWH's goodness in this world," - "לוּלֵא הֶאֱמַנְתִּי לִרְאוֹת בְּטוּב יְהֹוָה בְּאֶרֶץ חַיִּים" (v. 13) - highlighting the theme of the power of imagination and hope characteristic of Eden.

However, neither the Psalmist nor Ezekiel felt that direct, literal expression exhausted their experience of the Temple; instead, they chose to create an intricate, indirect set of references to Eden. What aspect of their experience could not simply be articulated via description but instead demanded illusive, barely-perceptible hints of a connection to a past, timeless sanctuary?

Here, I believe, the subtlety of the analogies between Zion and Eden are essential, because they express a subtlety of experience: the experience of God on the Temple Mount in the days of the Temple was one that could be easily overlooked, one that did not unyieldingly demand the attention of those present.

The clearest imagery I can present is the contrast between the abundant riches of Jordan, Egypt, and Tyre in contrast with the focal point of the Temple Mount: inside the Holy of Holies, above the Ark of the Covenant, between the wings of the facing statues lay - an empty space. Rather than riches, the apex of God's presence was precisely a gap in the world, one that could be felt or imagined, but never seen: experiencing God in the Temple was ultimately experiencing something beyond mere reality.

The "Eden" of Tyre/Egypt/Jordan is an expression of overpowering, undeniable, but ultimately mundane experience; Jerusalem's "Eden" is a search for the language to express an interaction which occurs not on the level of physical existence but instead on the plane of human existence.

There is a real, viable mode of existence in the choice of Lot, in deciding to base our hopes and dreams on the beauty of the world as it now exists. However, Avraham Avinu chooses differently; he is present not only to the reality we passively experience but also to the world we actively create in our imagination and in our hopes. Avraham, after standing before God in the place our tradition sees as Jerusalem, does not name the Temple Mount, 'God is/was seen,' but instead "God will/can be seen" - "יְהֹוָה יֵרָאֶה" (Gen. 22:14). Relating to the world as what it could or must be is the tradition of eternity - rather than the present - that we have interpreted from Avraham through the Temple.

In the footsteps of Avraham the greatest danger to our people is not destruction in the obvious, naked sense of a shrinking number of Jewish human beings - that would be Lot's destruction, a loss in the tangible present. The greatest threat is losing our ability to imagine, to dream. Because if we lose that, there is no outside, no future, no difference - we become trapped in the present and exiled from everything that could be.

Conversely, our redemption is not in producing more Jews, nor is it found in the simple path of history. Rather, it begins only with creating in our hopes and dreams - both individual and communal - everything that can become, of imagining the world truly different and freer than it is. If there is a "closer" and "further" in the dynamics of redemption, it is in making the world more like Eden by opening up our imaginations. It is reaching out beyond this mere world, imagining the beyond, and stepping into it - and not into mere political control - that is the authentic return to our ancestors' closeness to God in Jerusalem.

Only after history, in the end of days, will the world be everything we could dream, will actual and potential kiss as they once did, before history, in Eden. This is what our Rabbis of blessed memory saw when they prophesied about the world-to-come (Ta‘anit 31a):

 One day the Blessed Holy One will create a space for the righteous and sit in its center in Gan Eden. Each one will point with a finger [and say], "Here is our God, this is the One for whom we hoped and who saved us. This is YHWH for whom we hoped; we can now rejoice in the redemption" (Isaiah 25:9). עתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא לעשות מחול לצדיקים, והוא יושב ביניהם בגן עדן, וכל אחד ואחד מראה באצבעו, שנאמר, וְאָמַר בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא הִנֵּה אֱלֹהֵינוּ זֶה קִוִּינוּ לוֹ וְיוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ זֶה יְהֹוָה קִוִּינוּ לוֹ נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בִּישׁוּעָתוֹ (ישעיהו כה:ט).

In so imagining that dancing circle of the righteous, our beloved sages actually lived there, for a moment. May we live there forever.

Shabbat shalom.