V'zot HaBerakhah

Devarim 33-34

Sinai as God's Origin

Aryeh Bernstein, 5767

written specially for the website

This devar torah draws heavily from the book Sinai & Zion, by Jon Levenson, Bible Professor at Harvard University.

Throughout the devar torah, the single letter "H" will indicate God's "personal", four-letter name. The word "God" in translations refers to the impersonal title, "Elohim".

Our parashah consists of a poem, described as Mosheh's final words before dying, bestowing blessings to each of the 12 tribes. The poem begins as follows (Devarim 33:2):

H from Sinai came	יְהֹוָה מִסִּינַי בָּא
and from Seir shone upon them	וְזָרַח מִשֵּׂעִיר לָמוֹ
He appeared from Mt. Paran	הוֹפִיעַ מֵהַר פָּארָן
and approached from Rivevot-Qodesh;	וְאָתָה מֵרִבְבֹת קֹדֶשׁ
from His right hand, lightning bolts for them.	מִימִינוֹ אשדת לָמוֹ:

What does it mean for God to "come from" anywhere, and what's the special significance of coming from Sinai? What does this tell us about God and God's covenant with us?

This verse recalls Psalm 68, which scholars note on linguistic grounds is one of the earliest-composed components of the Tanakh. The psalmist describes God on a military march (vv. 8-9):

God, in Your excursion in front of Your people, in Your march through the desert - Selah! - the earth quaked, the heavens even rained because of God, the One of Sinai, God, the God of Israel.

אֱלֹהִים בְּצֵאתְךָ לִפְנֵי עַמֶּךָ בְּצַעְדְּךָ בִישִׁימוֹן סֶלָה:אֶרֶץ רָעָשָׁה אַף שָׁמַיִם נָטְפוּ מִפְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים זֶה סִינַי מִפְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל:

God is described here as "the One of Sinai" even though the psalm makes no mention of the Ten Commandments, the Torah, or anything else about the Revelation which we associate with Sinai. Sinai is simply God's home, contrasted with the grander homes of other gods (vv. 16-18):

O majestic mountain, Mt. Bashan,	הַר אֱלֹהִים הַר בָּשָׁן
O jagged mountain, Mt. Bashan;	הַר גַּבְנֻנִּים הַר בָּשָׁן:
Why so hostile, O jagged mountains?	לָמָּה תְּרַצְּדוּן הָרִים גַּבְנֻנִּים
This is the mountain desired by God for His inhabitance;	הָהָר חָמַד אֱלֹהִים לְשִׁבְתּוֹ
Indeed, Hashem shall dwell there forever.	אַף יְהֹוָה יִשְׁכֹּן לָנֶצַח:
The Chariots of God are myriads multiplied,	רֶכֶב אֱלֹהִים רִבֹּתַיִם אַלְפֵי שִׁנְאָן
thousands and more;
our Lord is in them as in Sinai in holiness.	אֲדֹנָי בָם סִינַי בַּקֹּדֶשׁ:

It is not that Sinai is God's home because Revelation happened there; God chose Sinai for the Revelation because that is God's home. In the deepest crevices of the Israelite memory, before God was well known, God came from Sinai. What does this mean? First of all, where is Sinai? Famously, we don't know. However, we do see that Mosheh's first encounter with God is described as follows (Shemot 3:1-2):

Mosheh was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Yitro, prince of Midian, and he drove the flock way out into the wilderness, and he came to the mountain of God, at Horev. An angel of H appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush (seneh); he saw that the bush was flaming with wire, yet the bush was not consumed.

וּמֹשֶׁה הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת צֹאן יִתְרוֹ חֹתְנוֹ כֹּהֵן מִדְיָן וַיִּנְהַג אֶת הַצֹּאן אַחַר הַמִּדְבָּר וַיָּבֹא אֶל הַר הָאֱלֹהִים חֹרֵבָה: וַיֵּרָא מַלְאַךְ יְהֹוָה אֵלָיו בְּלַבַּת אֵשׁ מִתּוֹךְ הַסְּנֶה וַיַּרְא וְהִנֵּה הַסְּנֶה בֹּעֵר בָּאֵשׁ וְהַסְּנֶה אֵינֶנּוּ אֻכָּל:

The mountain of God, then, sometimes called Horev, sometimes Sinai - a name likely alluded to by the word "seneh" (bush) - is out of the reach of the Egyptian empire, from which Mosheh fled. But it is also not in the territory of the confederation of Midian (in the region of today's Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba), since Mosheh arrives at this spot only after driving Yitro's flocks off into the wilderness. God's home is political no-man's land, beyond the reach of any state, known in the early days of God's career, as it were, only by those who penetrated deep into the anarchic wilderness.

Not only does God live in no-man's land, but God is also manifestly a No-Name. When Mosheh asks at the burning bush to know God's name, he is famously told just "אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה" (Shemot 3:14). Standard English does not render this broadly suggestive, transitive verb-name well. "I am what I am" and the other familiar translations are too narrow. A closer translation can be grasped with the help of Ebonics: "I be as I be". God appears, acts, and is totally free, that is, subject to none of the limitations of society. We can understand the disdain that Pharaoh, the god-king of a brutal and degrading oligarchy, has for these slaves' desire to wander off into the middle of the desert to worship a no-name, apolitical god (Shemot 5:2).

This arid, anonymous Sinai is, of course also where God begins to mold these vagabond slaves into a civilization of their own, by giving them the Torah and bringing them into a covenant of sanctified morality. We might think that this would inaugurate God's political coming-out, an embrace of government in order to build up a great nation, like other great nations. What are the political implications of the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai, to which Israelite loyalty will reward them with being "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" - "מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים וְגוֹי קָדוֹשׁ" (Shemot 19:6)? In political life, small entities grow and become stronger by joining coalitions with larger, stronger ones, influencing their culture of ideas and values along the way. Not so here. "לֹא יִהְיֶה לְךָ אֱלֹהִים. אֲחֵרִים עַל פָּנָי" - "You shall have no other gods beside Me" (20:2). One of the prophetic texts most closely associated with this tradition makes quite clear what this implies, in a Near East in which god and king are related ideas (Hoshea 7:10-13):

Though Israel's pride has been humbled before them, they have not returned to H, their God...Ephraim has acted like a silly dove with no mind; they have appealed to Egypt! They have gone to Assyria...I will chastise them when I hear their bargaining. Woe to them for straying from Me; destruction to them for their crime against Me! For I redeemed them, yet they have spoken treason against Me!

וְעָנָה גְאוֹן יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּפָנָיו וְלֹא שָׁבוּ אֶל יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיהֶם...וַיְהִי אֶפְרַיִם כְּיוֹנָה פוֹתָה אֵין לֵב מִצְרַיִם קָרָאוּ אַשּׁוּר הָלָכוּ...אַיְסִרֵם כְּשֵׁמַע לַעֲדָתָם: אוֹי לָהֶם כִּי נָדְדוּ מִמֶּנִּי שֹׁד לָהֶם כִּי פָשְׁעוּ בִי וְאָנֹכִי אֶפְדֵּם וְהֵמָּה דִּבְּרוּ עָלַי כְּזָבִים:

In the purest version of the Sinai covenant, political alliances with superpowers for this small, start-up nation are treason against God.

That's one thing for the oppressive monarchies of the Ancient Near East. What about the sacred politics of the Jerusalem monarchy of David's family? Even within Israel, political structures could be seen as violations of the covenant with God, evidenced by Gideon's exchange with the people after his victorious battle against the Midianites (Judges 8:22-23):

The Israelites said to Gideon: "Rule us - you, your son, and your son's son, as well"...but Gideon replied, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son. H will rule over you".

וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל גִּדְעוֹן מְשָׁל בָּנוּ גַּם אַתָּה גַּם בִּנְךָ גַּם בֶּן בְּנֶךָ...וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם גִּדְעוֹן לֹא אֶמְשֹׁל אֲנִי בָּכֶם וְלֹא יִמְשֹׁל בְּנִי בָּכֶם יְהֹוָה יִמְשֹׁל בָּכֶם:

God's rule cannot co-exist with human government. As we know well, a kingship was later established in the house of David. How did God tolerate this? When the Israelites approached the aged prophet Shemuel to request a king, Shemuel was displeased, and turned to God for guidance (I Shemuel 8:6-9):

H replied to Shemuel, "Heed the demand of the people...for it is not you that they have rejected; it is Me they have rejected as their king...Heed their demand, but warn them solemnly, and tell them about the practices of any king who will rule over them."

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֶל שְׁמוּאֵל שְׁמַע בְּקוֹל הָעָם...כִּי לֹא אֹתְךָ מָאָסוּ כִּי אֹתִי מָאֲסוּ מִמְּלֹךְ עֲלֵיהֶם....וְעַתָּה שְׁמַע בְּקוֹלָם אַךְ כִּי הָעֵד תָּעִיד בָּהֶם וְהִגַּדְתָּ לָהֶם מִשְׁפַּט הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר יִמְלֹךְ עֲלֵיהֶם:

Indeed, it is this tone of disappointed compromise that animates the Torah's command for the establishment of a king (Devarim 17:14-20), which emphasizes limitations on the king's power more than the power itself - limitations keenly aware of the dangers of arrogance that too easily accompany human power.

The purist version of the Sinai covenant leaves no room for government other than God's dominion. This is not the Tanakh's only voice. Other, more pro-politics motifs become dominant, especially with regard to David's covenant of eternal kingship. However, this voice, this source of covenantal life, never fully vanishes. It remains as a check.

The hubris of the powerful, who see themselves as above the law, can afflict not only kings, but anyone who achieves a sense of essential self-security. Societies of believers are especially susceptible to this, too, as we see in prophetic castigations of worshippers at the 1st Temple in its last, corrupt generations. An idealized space can inspire its inhabitants to embody the message it symbolizes, or it can be grabbed as a possession and birthright whose symbolic meanings exempt the inhabitants from self-reflection. The Temple, meant to be the spatial Shabbat, the embodiment of all that the world strives to be, a beacon of peace and security, and a goad to greater moral living, had been reduced to "home base" in a game of "tag", a building which sinful and unremorseful Israelites would invoke to convince themselves that they were secure and free of responsibility. So entered the prophet Yirmiyahu, in his famous, blistering "Temple speech" (7:1-15). Against those who mumble "The Temple of H" as an incantation to protect them from adversity, he warns them:

If you mend your ways and your actions, if you execute justice between one man and another, if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, if you do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place, if you do not follow other gods, to your own hurt - only then will I let you dwell in this place....Will you steal and murder and commit adultery and swear falsely, and sacrifice to Baal...and then come and stand before Me in this house which bears My name and say, "We are safe"?!...Do you consider this house, which bears My name, to be a den of thieves...?!

כִּי אִם הֵיטֵיב תֵּיטִיבוּ אֶת דַּרְכֵיכֶם וְאֶת מַעַלְלֵיכֶם אִם עָשׂוֹ תַעֲשׂוּ מִשְׁפָּט בֵּין אִישׁ וּבֵין רֵעֵהוּ: גֵּר יָתוֹם וְאַלְמָנָה לֹא תַעֲשֹׁקוּ וְדָם נָקִי אַל תִּשְׁפְּכוּ בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וְאַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים לֹא תֵלְכוּ לְרַע לָכֶם: וְשִׁכַּנְתִּי אֶתְכֶם בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נָתַתִּי לַאֲבוֹתֵיכֶם לְמִן עוֹלָם וְעַד עוֹלָם....הֲגָנֹב רָצֹחַ וְנָאֹף וְהִשָּׁבֵעַ לַשֶּׁקֶר וְקַטֵּר לַבָּעַל...וּבָאתֶם וַעֲמַדְתֶּם לְפָנַי בַּבַּיִת הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר נִקְרָא שְׁמִי עָלָיו וַאֲמַרְתֶּם "נִצַּלְנוּ"....הַמְעָרַת פָּרִצִים הָיָה הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר נִקְרָא שְׁמִי עָלָיו בְּעֵינֵיכֶם...

Yirmiyahu reminds the spiritually complacent that the majesty of Zion is illusory if not sustained by the moral code central to the Sinai covenant. Majesty not emerging from responsibility is hubris; the anarchic morality of Sinai crouches ready to destroy such majesty whenever it appears.

All governments were corrupt; against them God emerged to create the stateless, radically covenantal morality of Sinai. This vision could not hope to remain in toto as the people grew and inhabited the land. Government is necessary to spread any social program. However, all government is potentially corrupt - Davidic kings, Jerusalem kohanim, and contemporary, Western democrats. Sinai's radical, anarchic fealty to God alone reverberates as the critical voice demanding whatever checks and balances are necessary to critique political power to act differently, to act justly, in a way that reflects God's ways. Wherever we are with God now, God still "comes from Sinai," and those roots run deep.

Shabbat Shalom.