Today we are going to talk about a really important topic. Anger.
We just saw that G-d gets angry. Really really angry in our haftarah this morning. His anger blazes forth, the text tells us. G-d is angry in our Torah portion too. The Israelietes have just built the Golden Calf and then danced around it. Moses has come down Mount Sinai, seen them dancing and smashed, not just broke the tablets with the 10 Commandments. G-d is not happy. In fact, G-d is angry. Very angry. He (in this case that pronoun works for me) threatens to not go with the Israelite people. G-d is going to stay at Sinai. Oy.
The reverse is also true. And this is important. It is OK—to argue with G-d. To be angry with G-d. This is a portion where we see Moses as the great negotiator. He argues with G-d. He is angry both with the Israelites and G-d. He is scared. We see him as Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Master, our Teacher. On Simchat Torah, later this week, we will read the very last portion of Deuteronomy, where we are told never again did there arise a prophet, a leader like Moses who knew G-d face to face.
But wait, I thought that no one, not even Moses, could see G-d face to face and live. That’s part of what this portion is about. It clearly says that G-d will hide Moses in the cranny of the rock and make all G-d’s goodness pass before him but no one can see G-d’s face and live.
Here we find Moses demanding that G-d go with him and the Israelite people. Moses wants more. Moses wants to know who is this G-d who is angry and demanding. Who exactly is G-d. What is G-d’s essential nature. G-d promises. G-d will go with Moses and lighten his burden and give him rest. Moses climbs back up and hides in the crevice of the rock.
Moses is not the only one to argue with G-d. Abraham bargains with G-d to save Sodom and Gomorrah as we will see in just a few weeks. That is the difference between Abraham and Noah. Noah was a righteous man in his generation. Noah built an ark and rescued animals at G-d’s command but never asked why G-d was going to destroy the world.
Jacob wrestled with what? Himself? An angel? G-d? In the dark night of his soul, when he was all alone and scared, he wrestled. His name was changed to Israel, Yisrael, which means one who strove with G-d and men. As Arthur Waskow said, “G-dwrestler. “
But these arguments with G-d are not just for Biblical characters.
Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (1740-1810) argued with G-d, using a very similar construction to Moses, demanded, commanded G-d:, It is a prayer of protest, “Din Torah mit Got” (a lawsuit with God) in which he asserts, “And I, Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah Berditchev, say, from my stand I will not waver, and from place I shall not move until there be an end to this exile.”
Here is another Rabbi Levi Yitzhak story about Kol Nidre and not letting G-d off the hook. The tailor had cheated Goldman out of trousers but G-d has allowed a little girl to die of diphtheria. The tailor lost his temper with his children but G-d had known about a famine in another country. “And for every sin I had committed during the past year, God had done one too. So I said to God, ‘Look, we each have the same number of sins. If you let me off, I’ll let You off!’ ”
http://www.berdichev.org/arguiing_with_heaven.htm as told by Rabbi Larry Kushner.
Sometimes we don’t even know what the questions are, as Reb Levi Yitzhak illustrates at a Passover seder. When speaking about the four children, he said, “Lord of the Universer,I Levi Yitzhak. Am the one who does not know how to ask….doesn’t the haggadah say that with the child who does not know how to ask, “you must start with him.”…Lord of the Universe, are You not my Father? Am I not Your son? I do not even know what questions to ask. You take the initiative and disclose the answer to me. Show me, in connection with whatever happens to me, what is required of me? G-d, I do not ask You, about why I suffer. I wish to know only that I suffer for Your sake.”
Elie Wiesel called G-d to account in his haunting play, The Trial of G-d which some of us read in book group recently.
But what about us? Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book is When Bad Things Happen to Good People, not if and not why. How do I answer people when they ask why? Sometimes there is no good explanation. Each person needs to respond to tragedy in their own way, in their own time.
Reverend Larry Zimmerman said at John Oganowski’s funeral after 9/11, that G-d was present when the World Trade Center Towers fell. G-d wept as we wept. G-d gave the firemen courage as they raced up the stairs. G-d held every victim in the palms of His hands. Perhaps too anthropomorphic but comforting nonetheless.
Mayyim Hayyim, the Community Mikveh and Education Center in Boston wrote a book for women living with cancer. It has the best chapter on anger I have ever read. I buy these books in multiple copies, because if I loan one out, it doesn’t come back.
I, too have wrestled. Sukkot has emerged as my favorite holiday but it wasn’t always so. Once upon a time, a lifetime ago, 40 years ago this week, I too had a dark night. It was the second night of Sukkot and despite the bright light of the full moon, it was very scary. Later people wanted to know where was G-d. How could I possibly become a rabbi after that kind of violent attack.
Have you ever tried to bargain with G-d. Maybe you’ve promised that if G-d helps you pass the chemistry test that you will keep Shabbat. Maybe you’ve said that if your mother is cured of cancer than you will go to shul. I’m not sure G-d works that way, but the temptation is real.
Each person needs to wrestle with these questions on their own. I came to the conclusion that G-d was present that night. Psalm 81 provided the key. I outlined this before, back in 2010 before I was a rabbi but the words still ring true to me:
Psalm 81 begins by saying:
Sing with joy to God, our strength
Shout with gladness to the God of Jacob.
It continues that we should strike up a melody, sound the timbrel, play the harp and lyre, sound the shofar—we should make music.
The reason to sing with joy and shout with gladness and make music is because we feel grateful. For what are we feeling grateful? For God, our strength, who rose up against the land of Egypt. All of this is communal, in the plural form.
But the text continues—and here it switches to the personal. The translation in Siddur Sim Shalom is more liberal than literal:
Then I heard a voice I never knew.
“I removed the burden from your shoulder
your hands were freed from the load.
When you called in distress, I rescued you
Unseen, I answered you in thunder
I tested your faith in the wilderness.”
The actual Hebrew is more specific. It refers to the Exodus from Egypt—and removing the Israelites from the burden of slavery.
The load was the basket of bricks that the Israelites carried in the building projects of Pharaoh. The wilderness is named in the actual Hebrew; it is waters of Meribah. Meribah itself means strife and is a reference in Exodus 17:7 and Numbers 20:13, where the Israelites stayed after fleeing Egypt, the narrow place, and were complaining that they wanted to go back—because they were feeling strife at being free, and because they wanted the cucumbers and the leeks!
This is like the text we began with. Moses, bargaining with G-d demands to see G-d. God reassures Moses of God’s presence saying, “I will go in the lead and lighten your burden.” Other translations say “give you rest.”
The oblique translation of Siddur Sim Shalom worked for me. It allowed me to go back to a difficult time in my life and answer that haunting question for me. G-d goes with us, because Moses called G-d to account. In this very portion. This brings me comfort and strength. Still. So go ahead, argue with G-d. Bargain with G-d. Be angry with G-d. Cry. Scream. Pound a pillow. It’s OK. G-d can take it and will cry with you. You are not alone.