Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler
Dean of Students and Mashgicha Ruchanit, Maharat
Advanced Kollel: Executive Ordination Track Class of 2018
12 Tishrei 5777 | October 14, 201
(י) יִמְצָאֵ֙הוּ֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִדְבָּ֔ר וּבְתֹ֖הוּ יְלֵ֣ל יְשִׁמֹ֑ן יְסֹֽבְבֶ֙נְהוּ֙ יְב֣וֹנְנֵ֔הוּ יִצְּרֶ֖נְהוּ כְּאִישׁ֥וֹן עֵינֽוֹ׃ (יא) כְּנֶ֙שֶׁר֙ יָעִ֣יר קִנּ֔וֹ עַל־גּוֹזָלָ֖יו יְרַחֵ֑ף יִפְרֹ֤שׂ כְּנָפָיו֙ יִקָּחֵ֔הוּ יִשָּׂאֵ֖הוּ עַל־אֶבְרָתֽוֹ׃
10 [God] found them [lit. him] in a desert region, in an empty howling waste. He engirded them, watched over them, guarded them as a pupil of his eye. 11 As an eagle awakens its nest, hovering over its fledglings, so did He spread His wings and take them, carrying them on its pinions. |
Rashi, quoting Sifrei 32:11, writes the following:
על גוזליו ירחף. אֵינוֹ מַכְבִּיד עַצְמוֹ עֲלֵיהֶם אֶלָּא מְחוֹפֵף — נוֹגֵעַ וְאֵינוֹ נוֹגֵעַ (תלמוד ירושלמי חגיגה ב') — אַף הַקָּבָּ"הּ, "שַׁדַּי לֹא מְצָאנֻהוּ שַׂגִּיא כֹחַ" (איוב ל"ז) כְּשֶׁבָּא לִתֵּן תּוֹרָה לֹא נִגְלָה עֲלֵיהֶם מֵרוּחַ אַחַת אֶלָּא מֵאַרְבַּע רוּחוֹת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר "ה' מִסִּינַי בָּא וְזָרַח מִשֵּׂעִיר לָמוֹ הוֹפִיעַ מֵהַר פָּארָן" (דברים ל"ג), "אֱלוֹהַּ מִתֵּימָן יָבוֹא" (חבקוק ג') — זוֹ רוּחַ רְבִיעִית (ספרי):
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Hovering over its fledglings: [The eagle] does not impose its [whole] body upon them. Rather, it hovers above them, touching them and yet not quite touching them. So too, is the Holy One, Blessed is He. [As in the verse:] “We did not find the Almighty great in power” (Job 37:23). When He came to give the Torah to Israel, He did not reveal Himself to them from one direction [thus concentrating His power at one point, as it were], but rather, from four directions, as Scripture states, “The Lord came from Sinai, and shone forth from Seir to them, and appeared from Mount Paran” (Deut. 33:2). [This accounts for three directions.] The fourth direction is referred to in [the verse], “God comes from Teman” (Hab. 3:3). (Rashi, Deut. 32:11) |
So too does God, says the midrash. At God's most powerful showing, at Mount Sinai, God demonstrated this dynamic of compassionate hovering. In stark contrast to the rabbinic image of the mountain held over the heads of the Israelites with a threat (see BT Avodah Zara 2b), the midrash imagines God fluttering lightly above them with an invitation. Come to me. Hear me. Not through loud commands from on high, but through soft whispers enveloping you down below. And know that, as an act of love, I will come close to you, but never too close.
This exquisite image of touch-that-is-not-a-touch can be found in one other place, one other "tohu," the "tohu va'vohu" of creation. The Jerusalem Talmud draws this connection:
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A story of Rabbi Yehoshua [who was walking in the street and Ben Zoma came opposite him] he reached him and did not greet him. He said to him [from where and to where] Ben Zoma? He said to him: I was watching the creation, and there is not between the upper waters and the lower waters even a handbreadth. As it is written (Genesis 1:2) "and the spirit of [or wind of] God hovered over the face of the waters." And it says (Deuteronomy 32:11): "As an eagle awakens its nest," etc. Just as the eagle flies over the nest, touching and not touching, so too there is not even a handbreadth between the upper waters and lower waters. Rabbi Yehoshua said to his students: Ben Zoma is already outside. In a few days, Ben Zoma passed away. |
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1 In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth. 2 And the earth was without form and void [tohu va'vohu]; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the wind of God hovered upon the face of the waters. |
At the end of Moshe's life and at the end of the Torah, we are called back into consciousness of this sacred reality that birthed us. Parshat Haazinu tells us that the force that holds up the world is also the force that holds us up, touching and not touching, fluttering just close enough for us to feel the presence of our Source but staying just far enough away to enable us to stand. Placed here at this auspicious moment at the end of Moshe's life, we are no doubt meant to internalize and broaden the message. The world is sustained and we are sustained when we can both come extraordinarily close—to God and to other people—and also step back to make room for the agency of another. It is an exquisitely subtle line, indeed one that threatens the stability of the whole world. As such, it is a life sustaining one. We must learn to care fiercely without crushing those we love. We must learn to hover just close enough not to hurt those beneath our wings. And we must learn to fly, where we can, so that we might carry others.
In the words of R. Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook (1865-1935):
בן אדם, עלה למעלה עלה,
כי כח עז לך.
יש לך כנפי רוח, כנפי נשרים אבירים.
אל תכחש בם פן יכחשו לך.
דרוש אותם - וימצא לך מיד
Human being, Rise up.
Rise up, for you have the strength to do so.
You have wings of the spirit, wings of powerful eagles.
Do not deny them, or they will deny you.
Seek them, and you will find them in a flash.
