Can God be depicted visually? Does God have a form? If you read the words of the Hebrew bible literally it appears to answer, “Yes.” What new readers don’t know is that the Torah is written and interpreted on four levels (Pardes) and the first level is Pshat (the literal level). But Pshat is for the very young or simple. As you mature you need to grasp the deeper messages. In her teaching below on the Torah portion Naso, Rabbi Greninger moves from the literal level to the deeper teachings of Parsha Naso. As an adult, you are probably functioning well beyond the Pshat level. You deserve to find the meat of the subject.
People who are beginning to learn about Judaism often tell me, “I’m reading the bible.” Let me assure you, you are not getting out of it what it offers. You need a teacher. I can read a book on how to do brain surgery, but you still don’t want me to do your brain surgery. If you are studying alone, don’t just pick up a book, even if it is the bible. Follow a teacher.
Find Rabbi Greninger‘s original publication here. (This portion is read in May/June, but I just got permission to share it. The topic still holds true.)
Naso II: Numbers 6:1-7:89
(Naso means “lift up” or “take a census”)
In Jewish tradition, we have many different blessings, but our oldest blessing comes from this week’s Torah portion, Naso:
The Eternal One spoke to Moses: Speak to Aaron and his sons: Thus shall you bless the people of Israel. Say to them:
Y’varech’cha Adonai v’yishm’recha
(May God bless you and protect you)
Ya’er Adonai panav eleicha vichuneka
(May God’s light shine on you, and may God be gracious to you)
Yisa Adonai panav eleicha v’yasem l’cha shalom
(May God bestow favor upon you and grant you peace)
(Numbers 6:22-26)
Called Birkat Kohanim (the Priestly Blessing), this blessing may be familiar to many of us. It was recited by the priests in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, and after the destruction of the Temple it was recited in synagogues toward the end of the Amidah. Today the Priestly Blessing is bestowed by parents upon their children at the start of Shabbat dinners, and by clergy on the occasion of lifecycle events such as a bris / baby naming, a bar/bat mitzvah, or a wedding.
It is a beautiful blessing in Hebrew, yet difficult to understand and translate. In the second and third verses, it refers to God’s “face”… in Numbers 6:26, we read “Yisa Adonai panav eleicha,” which literally means “May God lift [God’s] face to you.” For centuries, theologians and rabbis have wrestled with what this verse means. If God is not a corporeal being and does not have a face, then what does it mean to ask for God’s “face” to be lifted to you? As explained by Hayyim Hayka of Amdur, one of the early Hasidic leaders in Lithuania in the 18th century:
“This is difficult. Does the blessed Holy One, God forbid, have any likeness or face? The face here comes from the side of the receivers [of God’s blessing]. They picture the divine light in accord with their own degree of clarity. The verse means “May God lift up your perception of [God’s] face.”
This is the meaning of ‘At the Sea God appeared to them as a youth; but as they stood before Sinai, [God] appeared as a compassionate white-haired elder’ (Pesikta Rabbati 21). When they came out of Egypt, [the people] Israel were in a childlike state of mind, like a ‘youth.’ That was the level on which they could access God’s light. But by the time of Sinai, their minds were expanded; they could see the whiteness and clarity of the light. They were in the category of ‘white-haired elder.’ That is how it can say that God’s face appeared to them as that of a compassionate old man.”
(Cited in Speaking Torah: Spiritual Teachers from around the Maggid’s Table, Vol. 2, p. 12)
In other words, God does not have a face, nor any type of physical presence. God is God precisely because God is beyond human comprehension. However, in order to understand God, to be close to God, we need metaphors, images, personifications. In the midrash cited above, God appeared as a “youth” when the Israelites were in their “youth” as a people, and God appeared as a “white-haired elder” when the Israelites were more mature as a people. It is not that God changed appearances; rather, the mindset of Israel changed and therefore they encountered the Divine presence through different projected images.
When the world feels unstable, when we are in need of comfort or strength, refuge or healing, many of us turn to God. Though we cannot see God or truly understand what God is, our tradition helps us connect to God by giving us metaphors, images that help us sense God’s presence. In the Prophets, God is compared to various human roles (a king, shepherd, warrior, mother, blacksmith), to animals (a lion, eagle, leopard, bear), to meteorological phenomena (light, fire, rain, dew), and to concrete objects (a rock, fortress, shelter, jewels, stream). God, of course, is none of these things. But, as my teacher (and Bible scholar) Rabbi Dr. Andrea Weiss taught, we can use everything in the known world to explain the unknown, to let metaphors and images of God help us draw closer to the Divine.
When we recite the Priestly Blessing and ask for God’s “face” to shine on us, we pray that we may feel the Divine light, and perhaps even “see” God’s presence as manifested in the world around us. On this Shabbat, may we draw close to God by looking for God’s “face” all around us. O God, we pray, open our eyes to see Your reflections in the world – whether in nature, in objects, in our own faces, or in the faces of other people. Ken y’hi ratzon – may this be God’s will.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Nicki Greninger