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Welcome to Kolot, the podcast of The Ark Synagogue, a bold, experiential and caring Progressive Jewish community in Northwood, London.
Through sermons, reflections and conversations from across our community, Kolot explores Jewish life, learning and values in the world we live in today. Rooted in tradition and open to new perspectives, these episodes bring together voices that inspire thought, connection and belonging.
Whether you are Jewish, exploring Judaism, or simply looking for meaningful reflection, you are warmly welcome.
To learn more about The Ark Synagogue, visit arksynagogue.org.
They beheld the God of Israel - under whose feet was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity. — Exodus 24:10
Such a theophany brings delight to those whose primary sense of the world is through their vision. For those who favour the auditory, there has already been much thunder and lightning at Mount Sinai, but we will keep that whispered this morning as we celebrate a Relaxed Shabbat. Then remarkably mundanely, to tickle our other senses, the human leaders eat and drink (Exodus 24:11)! From ultimate, otherworldly elation to a very human celebration in a matter of words.
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Most Jewish writers do not believe that God is visible. Some, most famously Maimonides, interpret ‘beholding God’ to be through the intellect. Others, such as Ibn Ezra, suggest that it denotes a prophetic vision such as those experienced by Isaiah (6:1) and Ezekiel (1) – as noted in the Jewish Study Bible. In what ways do you ‘behold’ God? I wonder if this is something you have not previously experienced, and if not, whether one can train for or tune in for such an encounter. Perhaps our parashah reflects just that: a spiritual warm-up for theophany and revelation.
This scene is part of a covenantal agreement. In Exodus 24, the people hear the terms read out by Moses from the Book of the Covenant. They agree to fulfil them, and the covenant is sealed with a blood rite, before the celebratory meal. Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg, the contemporary Scottish-born, now Israeli Torah scholar and commentator, notes a reading by Maor VaShemesh, a nineteenth-century Chasidic commentator (The Particulars of Rapture, p. 294). He understands that this Book of the Covenant, delivered before the vast majority of the laws of Torah have been instructed, “is the seven Noahide laws, the laws given at Marah – all the laws that are ‘natural law’ which form the basis of civilisation.” The unique character of this covenant with the people of Israel is that they acknowledge that it is God’s will that has enabled creation through to their present, having survived adversity and those who would wish to spurn civil law for personal, human domination.
Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg notes of this reading: “If the people can commit themselves to a new relation even with these ‘rational’ laws, then they are qualified to receive the specific Revelation of Sinai (ibid., p. 295).”
Back to what it is that the people beheld. Zornberg quotes a number of suggestions, and I want to include that of the early twentieth-century German Jewish philosopher, Walter Benjamin:
A sense of “not-knowing” is constantly engendered by the presence of an “aura” surrounding the known. Walter Benjamin defines the “aura” of natural objects: ‘We define the aura ... as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, whilst resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch …’ (ibid., p. 312).
When we now read of the Revelation – in this case of the Elohai Yisrael, the God of Israel – we are tremendously distant in time and space from that momentary glimpse, sensed physically or psychologically. The aura is far away, yet as we read the words of Torah, we receive an invitation. We are bidden as if we were the Israelites at the foot of the mountain, or if we dare, to draw near as one of the elders of Israel. What we perceive is unique to each one of us, and words cannot adequately convey it. It is unique because we are all unique and sense the world in myriad ways.
At our best, we come together as we have on this Relaxed Shabbat, to allow the space for each one of us to experience community, the Torah and God in our own way. Our sense of not-knowing applies as equally to our wonder at how the person next to us works as with the nature of God.
However our senses have been stirred this morning, may we experience a pavement of sapphire or lapis lazuli, that of the sky in Northwood this morning of purity. And may our experience of community, Torah and God have been a balm.
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