A voice, no image

An old man stands praying. A hundred and twenty years old he is. He has led a people out of slavery, dragged them forty years through the sand, received water from a rock, settled quarrels, survived betrayal. And now he stands at the edge. On the far side of the river lies the land. He can see it lying there.

And he prays. One thing he asks. One.

'I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan.' — Deuteronomy 3:25

And God says no.

Not just no. There stands something that sounds almost harsh: rav lach — 'let it suffice', or simply: 'enough'. And then: speak to Me no more of this. Go up the mountain, look around you, south and north and east and west — but you will not go in.

So begins this week's parashah. The Hebrew first word is wa'etchanan: 'and I besought mercy'. The whole reading is named after a prayer that was not granted.

And I do not want to pass over that too quickly. For we are inclined to smooth something like this out. 'God surely had a better plan.' 'It was not His will.' That may all be true. But first look at what Moses does after that no.

He goes down the mountain. And he begins to teach. For four more chapters. He tells the people everything they need to know for a land that he will not see. He prepares a feast he will not himself attend.

Remember that. At the end we will come back to it.

You heard something. You saw nothing.

Moses begins with a reminder of the mountain. And he asks them to bring back something they may never have looked at that way.

There was fire. There was smoke. There was a voice — so loud that the people thought they would die of it. And then Moses says:

'… ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.' — Deuteronomy 4:12

Only a voice. No face. No figure. Nothing to copy.

And therefore, Moses says, you must take good care of yourselves. Never make an image. Not of a man, not of a woman, not of an animal, not of a bird or a fish. And — this is striking — not of the sun, the moon or the stars either. For those they did see. Those still hang there. But those too are made.

Now you must know how strange that was. In that world every god had an image. Every people, every city, every house. You walked into a temple and there he stood: of wood, of stone, with gold around him. So you knew where your god was. So you knew what he looked like. So you could take him along when you moved.

And Israel had… nothing. No image to show. Only words. If someone asked 'what does your god look like?', the answer was: we do not know. We have heard Him.

Why is that so important? Think practically for a moment about what an image is. An image stands where you put it. You can lift it up. You can put it in a cupboard when it does not suit you. You can lay the cloth over it. An image is silent until you walk up to it.

And a voice? A voice decides for itself when it speaks. You cannot put a voice in a cupboard. At most you can ignore it — but then it is still there. That is the difference. An image you manage; a voice you receive.

And there is one more little sentence that I find beautiful. Just before, Moses says: add nothing to these words and take nothing from them. Do not expand. Do not shorten. That too is no arbitrariness: the moment you may add, it has become your text.

The same ten words — and yet not quite

Then Moses does something beautiful. He says the Ten Words once more. The whole list, exactly as at the mountain.

And he adds something you easily miss:

'The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.' — Deuteronomy 5:3

While — and that is the strange thing — most of them were not at that mountain at all. That generation had died in the wilderness. These are their children. But Moses says: no, this was made with you. Today. It is no family story from long ago; it is your covenant.

And there is one difference from the first time, and you may well know it. At the commandment about the Sabbath, Exodus says: remember the Sabbath day. Here it says: keep the Sabbath day. And the reason differs too. In Exodus: because God made in six days and rested on the seventh. Here:

'And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence…' — Deuteronomy 5:15

Two reasons for the same day. The first looks to creation: God rested, so you rest. The second looks to the deliverance: you were someone who was not allowed to rest — and now you may. A slave has no Saturday. If you get a day on which no one may demand anything of you, then that is a proof that you are free.

I find it beautiful that the Bible simply lets those two stand side by side without choosing. Rest because God rested. And rest because you are no longer a slave.

One more thing from this chapter. When the people heard that voice out of the fire, they became terrified. They went to Moses: you go and listen. You pass it on to us. We cannot bear this.

And you would expect God to find that weak. But He says: 'they have well said all that they have spoken'. And then a sentence that sounds like a sigh: 'O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep My commandments always' (5:28–29). God does not hold their fear against them. He simply longs for them.

Hear

And then comes the best-known piece of the whole reading. Perhaps the best-known piece of the whole Torah. Jewish people say it in the morning and in the evening, for three thousand years already. It is called the Shema, after the first word: 'hear'.

'Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: and thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.' — Deuteronomy 6:4–5

Hear. Not: look. That fits exactly with what we have just seen. There is nothing to see; there is something to hear.

And then follows something that stills me every time. For God says not only what you must love. He says at once how that is going to work in an ordinary human life. Listen:

'And these words … shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.' — Deuteronomy 6:6–9

Count along with everything that happens there.

Your heart — what you believe deep inside. Your children — what you pass on. Your conversations, and notice when: when you sit at home, when you are on the way, when you go to sleep, when you rise. That is not 'a moment a day'. That is the whole day, from waking to falling asleep. Then your body: on your hand, between your eyes — that is where the prayer straps you see in photos come from. And then your house: on the doorpost, at the gate. Hence the little case you see hanging on Jewish doorposts, the mezuzah.

Do you understand what stands here? God knows exactly how people work. No one changes by hearing something good once. We are formed by what we repeat. By what we say every day, what we walk past every day, what we wear on our body. That is why words are nailed to a doorpost: so that you walk past them daily, even on the days you feel like nothing.

And that is no cheap trick. Just look at your own life: the things that formed you most were seldom one-time. It was that one sentence your father said a hundred times. The song that sounded every evening. The place where you sat every week. We are what we repeat.

Everything you did not make

And then comes a passage you must read slowly. Moses sketches how it will be soon, once they are inside:

'… great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not …' — Deuteronomy 6:10–11

Four times in a row: which thou… not, which thou… not, which thou… not, which thou… not. The cities already stand. The houses are already furnished. The wells are already dug — and that is heavy work, days of cutting in rock. The vineyards already stand, and a vineyard takes years before it bears. Someone else has toiled; they pick.

And then comes the warning. And notice well when it falls:

'… when thou shalt have eaten and be full; then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.' — Deuteronomy 6:11–12

Not when you are hungry. Not in the wilderness. Not when things go against you. But when you are full. Then it is dangerous.

And that is exactly the opposite of what we think, isn't it? We think: when things go badly, I will lose God. But the Bible says here: when things go well, you lose Him. For then it seems to go by itself. Then the house seems 'just your house' and the food 'just your food'. Forgetting does not happen with a bang. Forgetting happens slowly, and it begins with fullness.

Just try it on yourself. What have you used today that you did not make yourself? The language you think in, you received. Your body you did not order. The roads, the pipes, the water from the tap, the house you live in, the people who love you — how much of that did you lay down? And how often do you still think of it?

Why you?

Just before the end of the reading comes the question everyone is waiting for. If God chooses this one people — why this people?

And the answer takes from them at once every right to pride:

'The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people … but because the LORD loved you …' — Deuteronomy 7:7–8

You were the fewest. That is the argument. Not: you were so strong. Not: you were so good. You were the least — and He loved you.

I want to be honest here: in this chapter there are also hard things about the peoples in the land, and I will not pretend I understand all of that. But notice what the text itself does with any feeling of superiority: it undercuts it immediately. Whoever uses these words to feel better than another reads them exactly backwards. It says: you were the least.

Comfort, comfort

Now the second reading, from the prophets. And you must know when we read it.

The day before yesterday was Tisha b'Av — the ninth of the month of Av, the heaviest day of the year. The day on which it is remembered that the temple was destroyed. Fasting, sitting on the ground, reading lamentations. Three weeks of mourning; that day was the low point.

And then comes this Sabbath. The first Sabbath after it. And the first word of the prophet-reading is:

'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.' — Isaiah 40:1

Twice. Nachamu, nachamu. This Sabbath is named after that word: Shabbat Nachamu. From the deepest mourning to the first word of comfort — in two days' time.

And look to whom it is said. It does not say: 'comfort yourself'. It is a charge to others: comfort My people, says your God. Comfort here does not come from within. Someone is given the charge to go.

Then a voice sounds — there it is again, a voice:

'The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low …' — Isaiah 40:3–4

That image too you must see as they saw it. When in those days a king went on a journey, the way ahead was made ready. Fill in the pits. Clear away the boulders. Cut a path through the hills. A crew went before the king to make the road passable.

And here God is the one who comes. And the road is made ready before Him. Not: you climb up. But: He comes down, and the mountains move aside.

Then the voice says something sobering:

'All flesh is grass … the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.' — Isaiah 40:6–8

That sounds gloomy, but it is meant as comfort. Think it through: what was everyone afraid of? Of the empire that had destroyed them. Of the armies, the kings, the power. And Isaiah says: that is grass. That withers. And what stands is the word.

And then comes the image this whole reading was heading for. Isaiah asks a question — and answers it with a little cartoon:

'To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold … he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved.' — Isaiah 40:18–20

Read that last part again. An image that shall not be moved. Someone seeks a good craftsman — not to make his god finer, but to see to it that he does not fall over.

There is the mockery, and it is almost painfully funny: you have to hold your god upright. You have to take care that he does not topple. You are responsible for the stability of your own god.

And then, a few sentences before, stands what the other side is:

'He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.' — Isaiah 40:11

Carry. That same word as last week, when Moses said God had carried them 'as a man doth bear his son'. Set those two side by side. A god you have to hold upright — over against a God who carries you. That is the whole choice, in two images.

And the close of the reading is perhaps the most beautiful sentence of all. Isaiah says: look up, at night. Do you see those stars? Countless, you think. And then:

'… he calleth them all by names … not one faileth.' — Isaiah 40:26

By name. Not counted — named. And not one is missing. Do you understand why that is comfort for people whose city lies in ruins? If He knows even the stars by their name and loses not one of them — would He then have forgotten your name?

The word did not come to the palace

And then the third reading, from the Gospel. Luke begins solemnly, with a whole row of names:

In the fifteenth year of the emperor Tiberius — when Pontius Pilate was governor — when Herod was tetrarch — and his brother Philip — and Lysanias — under the high priests Annas and Caiaphas…

Seven powerful men. The emperor of the greatest empire in the world. The governor. The kings. The highest priests of the temple. You sit waiting for Luke to say what one of them did.

And then comes the sentence:

'… the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.' — Luke 3:2

To the wilderness. To a man in camel-hair clothes, who eats locusts and wild honey. Not to the palace, not to the temple, not to the governor. The word comes where it itself wills to come — that is exactly what a voice does and an image does not.

And do you know what John is going to cry? Of all things, the text of this week:

'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight … and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.' — Luke 3:4–6

That is literally Isaiah 40, the piece they read this Sabbath in the synagogue. Luke even draws it one sentence further than you would expect, all the way to 'all flesh shall see it'. The road-building for the king has begun.

And then John says something the people had not reckoned with. They come to him to be baptized, and he does not begin kindly:

'Begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.' — Luke 3:8

Do you hear what he attacks? Not that they descend from Abraham — that is true, that is a real gift. But they use it as cover. As a piece of evidence. As if with a good family tree you are automatically safe.

You know that one. 'My grandfather was a minister.' 'We have always been that sort of family.' 'I have been in the church all my life.' All perhaps true — but it becomes dangerous the moment you use it to no longer have to be questioned. Then the gift has become a shield. Then you hold on to it as that man fastens his image: this must stay standing.

And notice to whom John says this. Not to outsiders. To his own people, from within — just as the prophets always did. The axe does not lie at the root of the neighbour's tree. It lies at one's own tree.

And then something good happens. The people do not grow angry. They ask:

'What shall we do then?' — Luke 3:10

Three groups ask it. And the answers are so small you would almost call them disappointing.

To the ordinary people: whoever has two coats must share with the one who has none. And with food the same.

To the tax collectors — those were people who collected taxes for the occupier, and who as standard scooped a good deal extra on top for themselves; everyone hated them — he says: exact no more than what is appointed you.

To the soldiers: extort no one, accuse no one falsely, and be content with your wages.

Do you see what is not there? It does not say: become a priest. It does not say: go into the wilderness like me. It does not say: resign from the occupier. The tax collector stays a tax collector — but he stops grabbing. The soldier stays a soldier — but he stops threatening.

The fruit simply grows in the place where you already stand. In your own job, with your own wardrobe, toward the people you already meet every day anyway.

All of it side by side

Now lay it side by side, everything from this week.

An old man who asks for one thing and is told no — and then goes teaching for a land he will never see. A mountain where you heard a voice and saw no figure. A ban on copying anything. The same ten words, with a rest that rests on both creation and deliverance. A prayer nailed to doorposts so that you walk past it daily. Cities you did not build and wells you did not dig — and the warning that falls not at hunger but at fullness. A people chosen because it was the least. A double word of comfort, two days after the heaviest day. Grass that withers and a word that stays. A man who seeks a craftsman to fasten his god so it does not fall over. A shepherd who carries lambs in his bosom. Stars called by name, and not one missing. And a voice in the wilderness that says: begin not to say that your father is Abraham — say rather what you are going to do.

I do not know which image stays with you. It need not be all of them at once; one is enough for a week.

But I give you two questions, and they belong together.

The first: what do you have to hold upright? Is there something in your life you walk around all the time with a screwdriver — an image, a story about yourself, a reputation, an achievement, a faith that only works as long as no one bumps it too hard? That is Isaiah's test. If it falls the moment you are not paying attention, then you hold it up, and not the other way round.

And the second: what have you received without noticing? The cities you did not build. Walk through your own life today as if you have just arrived. What was already there, ready?

And then this, about Moses. He got a no. He did not go into the land. And yet he gave his last weeks to people who would enter it.

That is only possible if you believe that it does not all depend on you. Whoever has to hold his own god upright cannot do such a thing. Whoever is carried, can.

Read it over, think about it — and tell me freely where you would place it differently than I.