A Desert of Harshness and Hope
Here we are again. I’m writing as Tu Bishvat approaches, and you are no doubt reading it hot on the heels of the holiday that acknowledges trees and the first blossoming towards spring. But when I say “here we are again,” you know what I mean - and it has nothing to do with the turn of the seasons.
This time around everything feels heavier, harder, and hazier. To quote the wise and thoughtful Anne Lamott in a recent editorial, “I think we need and are taking a good, long rest. Along with half of America, I have been feeling doomed, exhausted and quiet. A few of us, approximately 75 million people, see the future as a desert of harshness. The new land looks inhospitable.”
A long time ago, in a desert where past, present, and future met on a modest mountain peak called Sinai, a bedraggled and exhausted people received Torah for the first time. They heard the words of God, words that told them exactly how the world should be and what they needed to do to get there. And then, they panicked.
וַיַּרְא הָעָם וַיָּנֻעוּ וַיַּעַמְדוּ מֵרָחֹק
The people saw, they wavered, and they stood off in the distance. (Exodus 20:15)
In the Talmud (Shabbat 88b), we learn two teachings from Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi that capture the intricate dynamics at play in these few short words.
And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: From each and every utterance (i.e. one of the Ten Commandments) that emerged from the mouth of the Holy Blessed One, the souls of the Jewish people left [their bodies], as it is stated: “My soul departed when he spoke” (Song of Songs 5:6). And since their souls left [their bodies] from the first utterance, how did they receive the second utterance? God rained the dew upon them that, in the future, will revive the dead, and God revived them, as it is stated: “You, God, poured down a bountiful rain; when Your inheritance was weary You sustained it” (Psalms 68:10).
And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: With each and every utterance that emerged from the mouth of the Holy One, Blessed be He, the Jewish people retreated in fear twelve miles, and the ministering angels walked them [back toward the mountain], as it is stated: “The hosts of angels will scatter [yidodun]” (Psalms 68:13). Do not read the word as yidodun, meaning scattered; rather, read it asyedadun, they walked them.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi is trying to capture something about the inner life of the people through two different yet equally striking images.
First, when the people hear God speak, they die and then God has to resurrect them with special dew in order to give them the next law, which upon hearing it the people die again, God drips dew on them again, and so on.
And second, that the people don’t just “waver, tremble, falter”, but actually move to “stand off in the distance” every time God speaks. Slightly better than dying every time, but still exhausting. Luckily in this second image, angels arrive to meet the people where they are at, and gently - ever so gently - move them back towards the holy mountain and their sacred task. Rashi adds that the angels “assisted them to come close a little at a time, as they were weak. This is like a [parent] who walks their child at the beginning of their walking.”
Take a moment to just absorb these scenes. Imagine yourself as one character, then another: human, God, angel, Torah, Moses, parent, child, dew…
On any given day, some of us feel like the Israelites. Confronted with the enormity of what we should be doing, or simply overwhelmed by everything going on right now, our vital force feels like it has left for a while. We need to move back from the action.
Some of us might feel the clarity of how things should be, and what we could be doing. Like God or Torah itself, we burn with moral purpose and urgency. If only enough people would listen and act together! Of course, burning with purpose and urgency might burn out friends and scorch would-be allies, so we need to balance passion with nourishment, adding in some dew-drops of relational nurture so we don’t live lonely at the top of the mountain.
Some of us might not have perfect moral clarity or strategic insight, but we do have love and patience like the angels. Our job is to connect to those who are overwhelmed, find the leaders who inspire us, and gently - ever so gently - move us all a bit closer to the action.
And of course all of these roles exist within each one of us.
Anne Lamott adds to her previous grim assessment: “The new land looks inhospitable. But if we stay alert, we’ll notice that the stark desert is dotted with growing things. In the pitiless heat and scarcity, we also see shrubs and conviction. Lacking obvious flash and vigor might make it seem as if there is no resistance. But it is everywhere you look.”
Wishing you a Shabbat of angels, dew, rest, and resistance.
Rabbi Jay LeVine
