At this juncture in the peregrination from Ur, the favored children of Avraham are about to emerge as a nation, a Family forged in the crucible of trial and error. Over the ensuing millennia, our Family has evolved to be extraordinarily inclusive. With Avraham’s tent as our guiding metaphor, we now welcome all: theists, deists, pantheists, agnostics, atheists, and even gnostics and other apikorsim (apostates) we would rather not talk about. For the theists among us, the Jewish Jews, God has never retracted from history, and that is what makes life so labyrinthine, so maddeningly uncertain.
Last week in Parashat Va’etchanan and this week in Parashat Eikev, the Family is compelled to focus on the very essence of Jewish theology, the Shema. In Va’etchanan we find the declaration of God’s Oneness and the exhortation to remember and celebrate this Oneness (Devarim 6:4-9). Of course, we are not blind, we understand the duality. There is Elohim, the Immanent Creator to whom we give thanks for the bounty of the Universe, to whom we "make motzi," to whom we relate through contemplation of our natural world. And then there is Hashem, the Transcendent Eternal Thou whom we touch upon through I-Thou experiences of the world around us. In these all too rare tenseless moments of pure present, Buber reminds us, "…the presence of the Thou floats like the spirit over the face of the waters." Still, duality notwithstanding, Devarim 6:4 makes it clear that God is Unique and Indivisible.
In Parashat Eikev, we encounter the Emergent God, not an intrinsic face of God, but a sideways reflection of Hashem/Elohim, the One to fear (Devarim 10:12-13), the One dispensing reward and punishment (Devarim 11:13-21; the second passage of the Shema ). This human construct anthropomorphizes God and is terra firma for the psychosocial and cultural context within which Jews and others may live a good I-It ( i.e. objectified) life. This Emergent Reflection provides a naïve, easily knowable, platform from which to thank Elohim for all that is extant and to fleetingly glimpse Hashem.
" Now, O Israel, what does God ask of you? Only to fear God, to go in all His ways and to love Him, and to serve God with all your heart and all your soul, to observe the commandments…for your benefit" (Devarim 10: 12-13). How does one understand "fear God"? Most accept its plain meaning, an almost breathless dread of punishment, others have a mingled feeling of dread and reverence, and to still fewer it is Awe, the selfsame Hashem/Elohim. A visceral fear of punishment can only relate to the anthropomorphic Emergent Reflection; it is not unlike the trepidation often felt before parents, headmasters, and judges. Such fear is simple, straightforward, and often persists in the face of the absurd (e.g. Avraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac). Comprehending Awe is a lifelong struggle. It cannot be bought with red strings, black topcoats in the dog days of summer, or even a lifetime of parroting prayers. It requires the utmost clarity as to how one entered faith, and how faith entered oneself. Few of us are willing to make so intense a journey, and so most of us just settle for fear of punishment.
Journey or resignation, both may inform an understanding of the Shema’s second passage ( Devarim 11: 13-21 ): "It will be that if you hearken to My commandments…I shall provide rain for your Land…grass in your field…and you will eat and be satisfied. Beware for yourselves, lest your heart be seduced and you turn astray and serve gods of others…there will be no rain, and the ground will not yield its produce, and you will be swiftly banished from the goodly Land…."
To be sure, there is no ambiguity about this passage. It is about reward and punishment, and how we are to understand our evolved social contract. Fear and trembling, though, traps one in the Emergent Reflection, the dread of a Parent’s angry decree. In such a state, behaving well is amoral at best. Alternatively, comprehending Awe allows one to clearly understand this passage as a categorical imperative, and behaving well is spiritual, uncoerced, and purely moral. And so, for Jewish Jews there is a deeply sacred path to moral selves and moral community. For others in the Family, there is always Kant or the bloodless Nash equilibrium.