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Hear o Israel: Witness to the One God
Pinhas Hacohen Peli

 

Some time ago Rabbi Peli delivered an address entitled One God to a Christian audience, the members of the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Israel, at its headquarters in Jerusalem. Because the complete text of this address is such an extremely rich one, the editors regretted being obliged to shorten it considerably, doing so with the author's very kind permission.

This is My God

What I should like to do is to share with you some reflections on the components of the faith of one Jew, not by going from Maimonides through Crescas, from Albo to Herman Cohen to Franz Rosenzweig, but rather speaking as one Jew in Jerusalem. I must confess and state that, ordained as an Orthodox Rabbi, I am one whose formulations do not represent any established view, orthodox or otherwise (if there is such a view). As you know there is no supreme authority in contem¬porary Judaism which sets forth binding formulations of Jewish creed. I propose to share with you a definition of `One God' which can be defined in the words of the Song of Moses that the Children of Israel sang at the crossing of the sea. One of the greatest moments of faith was when, as the Torah tells us: "vaya'ar Israel ...vaya'aminu" (they saw and believed).1 It was a great moment of faith and of truth when they said: "zeh eli v'anvehu eloheh avi' va'aromemehu" (This is my God and I will praise him, the God of my father and I will exult him) .2 Faith is a combination of `my God' the personal, and `the God of my father', the God of my tradition. This tradition, which I believe is what you are trying to share within Christianity, is not to be found in the systematic philosophical volumes, whether medieval or modern, which were mainly of an apologetic nature, but rather, in the ongoing mainstream of Jewish life and thought as embodied in the talmudic, midrashic literature, as well as in the liturgy of the synagogue.

The philosophy of the rabbis of the Talmud and the Midrash, both in Halakhah (law) and Aggadah (lore) still awaits a systematic formulation. Of one thing we may be sure, however, that they were not as naïve as some of us would like to think, nor were they as fanatic, legalminded and closed as others would like to see them. The rabbis struggled with major issues of faith in their own way. They did not write long treatises on theology but their concise, aphoristic formulations represent the full view of God as lived and thought by Jews in the time of Jesus and from that time onwards, non-stop to our own days. This is why this tradition is the source to which we have to turn when we want to find out what the Jewish concept of 'One God' would be.

Translating the Untranslatable

The 'one-ness' of God is declared at least twice a day, sometimes four or five times in the course of each day, by every Jew who prays according to the halakhah set forth by the rabbis in the Mishnah in the early centuries. I refer, of course, to the reading of the Shema whose accepted translation is: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.3 This statement is problematic in itself as may be seen from the various attempts at translating it. Why repeat "the Lord" twice? A better translation, the one that comes from the Greek, makes it into two statements. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. That makes it a bit more logical. Then there is the Anglican version: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. This translation is also found in Jewish sources, but it is not accepted because when one says: The Lord our God is one God it might mean one God out of many. Zunz, one of the fathers of modern Jewish scientific study, has in his translation of the Bible: Hear, O Israel, the eternal our God, is a unique, eternal being. And Eben Ezra, one of the Jewish commentators, has the rendering: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Again, that does not reflect the original Hebrew. If alone were meant, the Hebrew would have been levado and not ehad. Moffatt in his English translation goes away from the original: Listen, Israel, the eternal alone is our God, which might be a good commentary, but I doubt whether it can be considered a direct translation. But then there are numerous translations and we could go on for hours just listing them. In Hasidism they brought in a new twist. When they say Adonai ehad, the Lord is one, it means The Lord is the one and only living being that exists. He is the substance and essence of existence. And again, in the Talmud, we find that, while every Jew is commanded to repeat the Shema every day, a slave is freed from this responsibility and does not have this obligation. Why does the slave not have to repeat the Shema? Because he cannot say: Adonai ehad, he cannot say that he has only one Lord. He is not a free person; he has another master over him. Ehad will mean the only Lord that he has over him. Ehad thus implies ultimate freedom.

Having so many translations really proves only one point — that there is not one translat2n which is completely plausible, not one particular translation which I can accept and say: This is exactly what is meant by this verse. It has to be left open, and when a statement in the Bible has to be left open, that means that it is open to interpretation by the rabbis and sages — it is open to the system which, I believe, is the expression of the soul of Judaism throughout the ages — the mechanism known as Midrash: taking a given text and giving it a new relevance, a new understanding. At the beginning of rabbinic literature in the early tannaitic period we already find a Midrash on the words: Shema, Israel, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One. The rabbis' position here is, obviously, a contradiction: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God" — Adonai elohenu — is our God, a particular God. Adonai ehad: "The Lord is One" means a universal God. Is God particular, or is he universal? Is he elohenu — our God — or is he ehad, meaning one God for all? Facing this con¬tradiction, the rabbis in the tannaitic Midrash known as Sifre, V'etchanan (4,6), on that verse, suggested two explanations. First, although God is the God of allthe universe, his Name rests upon Israel in particular. It is Israel which, through its very existence, keeps the God idea alive. Now, we will reverse the reading of that verse: Shema, Israel — Adonai ehad: God is one universal God but you, Israel, are those who proclaim him, who are witnesses for him. There is a particular responsibility on you, Israel, to declare and to proclaim the unity of God to the world.

The Shema in the Prayerbook

A second explanation offered by the rabbis is that, although in this world God is acknowledged by Israel alone, Shema, Israel, Adonai elohenu NOW — (now he is only our God) — in the messianic age all mankind will worship him. The Lord is our God in this world, the Lord is One in the world to come. And the rabbis in the Midrash add to this explanation a verse from Zechariah which says:
Bayom hahu yihiyeh YHWH ehad ushemo ehad. On that day the Lord shall be One and his Name shall be One. Zech. 14: 9

This means that we have here a statement of present reality combined with hope for the future. God is actually a universal God, but right now, only Israel recognizes him. The same God, in the days to come, will become the God of the entire universe as was prophesied by Zechariah — the Lord shall be one and his Name shall be one.

Yet if we are to get to the Shema as it was incor¬porated in Jewish tradition, we have to turn, not to its original place in the Bible, but rather to its place in the Siddur, the prayer book, to its place in the liturgy.

The Shema, the portion of the Bible proclaiming the one-ness of God, is perhaps, according to the historians of Jewish liturgy, the original core of the Jewish prayer book. It has been in a process of growth from its inception to this very day, its core being the Shema with everything else growing around it. When we look at the prayer book, at the place of the Shema, we find an interesting feature which characterizes Jewish liturgy, that is to say that a prayer must have a certain form, namely that of a Berachah, of a Benediction. The prayer book is actually made up of a collection of Berachot, of Benedictions, all of them beginning with the same formula:
"Baruch atah Adonai elohenu, melech ha-olam" "Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the universe".

All Jewish prayer repeat this formula. When a portion from the Bible is put into the prayer book, it does not become a prayer, it will not become part of the liturgy, unless it is encased in a benediction preceding it and another one following it. Only when man can speak to God as a Presence, as a Thou — only when he can say: "Blessed art thou", "Baruch atah" — only then can he recite a chapter or quote from the Bible, thereby transforming it from a Biblical statement, uttered by God to man, into a statement of prayers uttered by man to God. It changes the whole significance of that very statement. We have as many as fifty psalms, for instance, in the Jewish prayer book and at least two hundred and forty quotations from the Bible, but they are not there as quotations. It is not that you, God, said this, but I, man, am saying this to God. The way of turning a biblical statement into a prayer is by placing before it the benediction: "Baruch atah".

Now regarding the Shema, we know that there is reference to its recital in the Mishnah as an ancient custom. The Mishnah was edited at the end of the second century but its sources surely date from much earlier times. Now since this recital is mentioned as an ancient custom I would assume that the Shema was read that way in the time of Jesus. In the Mishnah Berachot (Benedictions)' we read as follows:
In the morning when one reads the Shema he must recite two benedictions before it and one fol¬lowing it.
In the evening when one reads the Shema there are two benedictions preceding it and two benedic¬tions following it.

This, then, is how the Shema came down in Jewish tradition — not as a biblical statement but as part of the daily liturgy, recited at least twice by every Jew throughout the ages. It is recited also during a circum¬cision (when a Jewish child becomes a Jew) and it is customary that, upon death, it is said over the dying person; these are the last words said over him, or if he can, he says them himself: Shema, Israel, Adonai elohenu, Adonai ehad.

Now let us look into these benedictions and see how they enable us to see the Shema; how they would like us to understand the `one-ness' of God which is declared in the Shema: what kind of God, what kind of `One God' is there who is both universal and particular; this `One God' who is shared by all humanity? How do they see it? Now the content of the first benediction which is read in the morning, is praising God as the creator of the world, and as the One who renews creation every day. Creation is not an act that happened once — according to this prayer — but an ongoing process where God creates and recreates the world every day anew — the idea of `God in the Cosmos', `God as Creator'.

The second benediction (both morning and evening) has different words but the same idea. In the second benediction God is talking to us or appearing to us through revelation — not only through creation but through revelation, a specific revelation, and it portrays God as a Teacher, God who gave us the teachings of the Torah. It is especially interesting that each of these benedictions has the idea that both creation and revelation are acts of love on the part of God. Ahavah rabah ahavthana — with a great love thou hast loved us. "With an everlasting love thou hast loved us, Lord our God. Great and abundant mercy hast thou bestowed upon us, our father, our king." How then is God's love expressed to human beings? By two things: by the fact that he makes the sun rise every morning, the fact that he renews creation for us every day, and by the fact that he teaches us a way of life, how to live. This is how God's love is expressed. And the fact that this is the content of the two benedictions paved the way for numerous commentaries on the problem that is included in the second verse of the Shema. After we declare: Shema, Israel, comes the second verse: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.5 All the commentaries on the prayer book immediately ask the question — both in talmudic and medieval times — How can you command love? Love is not something that can be ordered. `Love your God!' Love is an emotion that has to grow, which cannot be commanded. But the answer is given in the words of the preceding benedictions: they declare that God loves us, he loves us through creation, he loves us through revelation, and love evokes love. And so:
"veahavta et Adonai elohenu"
"you shall love the Lord your God..."

is not a command. It is a result of the acts of love on the part of God.

The Lord is One with Us

At this point I should like to submit another (perhaps homiletic, but undoubtedly true to the entire thrust of Jewish tradition) explanation of the word ehad.

I feel justified in doing so, because there are so many other explanations. The great thing about Midrash is that it is always open, it always leaves room for another addition. What makes it so fascinating is the fact that you can always continue. But one has to be very careful to remain within the same vein as the given sources, otherwise there would be a distortion of the Midrash. You would invent your own Midrash and then fail. I would suggest: The Lord is One, the Lord is One with us — together with us. The fate of God and man in this world is intertwined. There is an ongoing partner¬ship between man and God in all its three-fold aspects in revelation: as Creator, as Teacher, as Redeemer. To this must be added another aspect. The God who emerges from rabbinic literature and from the liturgy as Creator, Teacher and Redeemer (please do not be shocked!) is not omnipotent, not even omniscient — he is God in need of man. Man is thus seen as a need of God. I know that this is a daring statement, but let me explain using the same triad structure of the liturgy, which appears in places other than the Shema as well. This same structure of Creator, Teacher and Redeemer keeps on re-appearing in the liturgy. Take for example the Shabbat service. On Friday night we take a quote from Genesis about the creation: vayechulu.6 On Shabbat morning it changes to one about Revelation: yismach Moshe,' and in the Shabbat afternoon service we talk about Redemption: atah ehad .8 This theme keeps appearing and re-appearing within the Jewish liturgy and throughout rabbinic thought. God the Creator is incomplete and is waiting to be completed; God the Teacher is waiting for man to help him spread his teaching and God the Redeemer is waiting for man to help him redeem the world.

Let us begin with God the Creator, to try to convince you that my point of God in need of man is something that comes directly from the interpretation of the rabbis, of the Jewish concept of the `one-ness' of God. It is a 'one-ness' that is incomplete in this world, contrary to the concept of medieval Jewish philosophy, that God is perfection. God is perfect in his own Being, perhaps, but in his Revelation to us he is open like a Midrash. He himself is an open Midrash. He left open a part which he wants us to complete in his Creation. There is a famous Midrash that says that God created only three sides of this world: the fourth he left open. This world is incomplete — we can all testify to that!

This is My God

One thing we sometimes forget, that the statement about the 'one-ness' of God starts with Shema, Israel. Why Israel? Why was this said only to Israel? Because it is Israel which is an example of the cone-ness' of God. Israel is a suffering people, it is a people which was dedicated to create, to perfect Creation, to impart love through teaching, and it is a people who lives with hope for redemption. The three aspects of God are exemplified in the life of Israel as a people. It is interesting as a sidelight, (though there are no side-lights in rabbinic thinking, everything falls into a complete pattern, and we do a lot of injustice to rabbinic thinking if we try to break it up into aphoristic short sayings. It is a complete system waiting to be systematized, waiting to be analyzed and to be studied. Because of `apologetics' all these years, we have dealt with Christian argument, with Greek philosophy, with Muslim philosophy, but we have hardly dealt with rabbinic tradition. That is still open to us.) When you note that the rabbis say in the Talmud: when you write the verse of the Shema on the Torah scroll, on the parchment, there are two letters that you have to write larger: the ayin of Shema and the daleth of ehad. The last letter of the first word and the last letter of the last word make up, according to the rabbis, one Hebrew word, ed. Ed means a witness. Israel, by its very being, is a witness or, if you wish, a martyr to these three aspects of God as Creator — meaning someone who cares for his creation, who joins with his Creator, someone who does not leave his Creation alone — hamechadesh b'chol yom ma'assei bereshith, who renews everyday the acts of Creation. Israel also fulfils the role of Teacher and keeps alive the dimension of God as Redeemer.

I should like to conclude where I began, namely with the rabbinic interpretation of the verse from the Song of the Sea:
"Zeh eli va'anvehu eloheh avi va'aromemehu" "This is my God and I will praise him, my father's God and I will exult him".9

The va'anvehu is interpreted by the rabbis as ani vehu — I and he. "This is my God". This interpretation appears to be a very nice pun. But it is not merely a pun. It is something that digs deeply into the very concept of `One God', One with us'. In my family there have been rabbis for twenty-eight generations. I can assure you that my father, and certainly my grand¬father, did not deal with philosophical speculations on the essence of God, the 'one-ness' of God and the proofs and arguments for the existence of God, nor with theology itself. But one thing they knew, they felt and they taught us — that God is `One', that God is `One with us' and as human beings we were created to be free and, therefore responsible, to be ready to respond when called upon and asked — Ayekha? — Where are you? 10 — to be ready to respond Here I am" just like Abraham himself. When God calls to Abraham: `Abraham', he does not say: `I heard your voice 12 and

I ran away', but Hineni: Here I am! That is where the Jew comes into the picture. He answers God's call: "Where are you?" by "Here I am." The way to understand and to grasp the 'one ness' of God is through the witness called Israel. Whoever wants to become Israel by accepting suffering and hope and trying to change the situation, not perpetuating it, but by changing suffering into hope (because that is what Israel is all about) — He who is ready to do this, is ready to listen, he is ready to join Shema, Israel, Adonai elohenu, Adonai ehad. And as my teacher, Abraham Heschel, said:
"It is now that man has found out that God in heaven is his best frined on earth."

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* Rabbi Dr. Peli lives in Jerusalem and lectures at Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva. He has been active for some time in Israel in Jewish-Christian dialogue.
1. Cf. Exodus 14:31.
2. Exodus 15:2.
3. Deut. 6:4.
4. Ber. I, 4.
5. Deut. 6:5.
6. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished..." Cf. Gen. 2:1-3.
7. "Moses rejoiced..." Intermediate benediction in the Sabbath Amidah.
8. "Thou art One".
9. Exodus 15:2.
10. Gen. 3:9.
11. Gen. 22:1.
12. Gen. 3:10.