Boundaries
A Message for Parashat Mishpatim 2017
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Parashat Yitro
presented Ma’amad Har Sinai as a scene of illuminated clarity:
All of Har Sinai was
smoking, because God had descended upon it in the fire (19:18).
And all the people were seeing the thunder and the flashes and
the sound of the ram’s horn and the mountain in smoke (20:15).
The Har Sinai of Parashat Mishpatim
was markedly different:
And Moshe went up, and the cloud covered the mountain. And
God’s glory abode on Har Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the
sixth day He called out to Moshe from the midst of the cloud…And Moshe entered
within the cloud and went up the mountain. (24:15-18)
In stark contrast to the previous display of
a radiant fire, clouds now obstructed a clear vision of the mountain. Indeed,
it was the pillar of cloud that had once before served as a blinding
veil, shielding Am Yisrael from the Egyptians upon the exodus from Egypt
(14:19). This time it was Am Yisrael who could not see clearly.
From the specific descriptions of Har Sinai
at these two different points of time emerge two sight-specific experiences
that were practically opposite in nature.
Whereas the “fire-consumed” Har Sinai of Parashat
Yitro served the purpose of clarity, the “cloud-covered” mountain of Parashat
Mishpatim established the necessary boundaries between Am Yisrael
and God. The described “elect of Yisrael,” who were barely spared punishment at
that time, fittingly sinned by means of an optical transgression: But
against the elect of Yisrael He did not send forth His hand, and they looked at
God and ate and drank (24:12). Failing to appropriately set limits for
themselves, these individuals overstepped their designated boundaries.[1]
God’s unprecedented revelation to the people brought with it a simultaneous
call for hesitancy and caution.
I believe that God had actually already begun
to hint at the importance of an appropriate distance when he spoke at Har
Sinai. In contrast to His initial encounter with Moshe – when He denied a
revelation of His name (3:14), God then introduced Himself by means of his
personal name: I am YHVH your God, Who freed you from the land of Egypt
(20:2). Michael Wyschogrod underscored the significance of this revelation:
The
God of Israel is not just a Thou. The God of Israel has a proper name.
There is no fact in Jewish theology more significant than this.[2]
Several statements later, however, God issued
a strict warning regarding an over-familiarity with His name: “You shall not
take up (tisa) the name of Hashem your God in vain.” Leon Kass noted the
verb “take up” in this instance, explaining that by treating anyone’s name as
something that can be “taken up” is to take him up, as if by his handle.
He further explained:
Like
making images of the divine, trafficking in the divine name evinces a
presumption of familiarity and knowledge. To handle the name of the Lord risks
treating Him as a finite thing known through and through. Even if uttered in
innocence, the use of the Lord’s name invites the all-too-human error that
attends all acts of naming: the belief that one thereby knows the essence.[3]
God, then, set forth a delicate message to
the people at Har Sinai. He urged them to come forth and learn His name – but do
so with caution.
In The Art Of Loving, Erich Fromm
described a common misconception regarding love. We tend to idealize “symbiotic
love,” and desire a fusion with another wherein we know them as deeply as we
know ourselves. Fromm explained that mature love of both man and God is instead
achieved through the retention of the individual self, in the paradoxical state
of both “belonging” and “not belonging” to the union.[4]
The contrast between the “revealed fire” and “concealed cloud” scenes at Har
Sinai remind us of the sensitive balance inherent in a healthy relationship. Mature
love is only achieved together along the guidelines of appropriate limits and
boundaries.
[1] See Moreh Nevukhim 1:5.
[2] Michael Wyschogrod, The
Body of Faith (Plymouth, UK, 1996), pg. 91.
[3] Leon Kass, “The Ten
Commandments: Why the Decalogue Matters,” Mosaic Magazine, June 1, 2013.
Available at: https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2013/06/the-ten-commandments.
[4] Erich Fromm, The Art
of Loving (New York, 2006). See specifically pg. 67-72.