Rabbi David Fohrman: Hey Imu, 

Imu Shalev: Hi Rabbi Fohrman. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Back again to continue this exploration. In a moment, I want to pick up with the cliffhanger from when we last talked.

Imu: God's vulnerability.

Welcome back to A Book Like No Other.

A Book Like No Other is a product of Aleph Beta and made possible through the very generous support of Shari and Nathan Lindenbaum. Thanks, guys!

So, God's vulnerability. That is where we left off last time. Not the most comfortable of topics. How could we possibly talk about God being vulnerable? We're going to get into that in just a second, but before we do, I just want to remind you how we even got to talking about God being vulnerable in the first place.

So just to recap a little bit from our last episode. Last time, we saw all these new parallels, all these different ways that God at Sinai seems to be fixing what went wrong between Yaakov and Yitzchak. It's like God is doing everything to make sure that at Sinai, father and son would now have an honest encounter. But then we came to that moment of encounter and we saw something kind of strange.

When God speaks to the people, He doesn't use words at first; He uses this sound, a shofar blast. And the weird part is that this sound, this kol, it seems to echo another sound, another voice from Genesis. In fact, two voices: Yaakov's but also Eisav's. And it's not just Eisav's voice that gets echoed, but Eisav's cry, this very painful, wordless cry that Eisav lets out when he realizes that Yaakov got the blessing.

That's what really got us thinking. Eisav's cry is so full of vulnerability, especially coming from Eisav, the quintessential strongman. It made us wonder if the Torah wants us to hear echoes of that vulnerability in God's shofar blast, as well. 

Now, there's something really compelling about that possibility, but also cue the discomfort, right? God, vulnerable? Is that even a combination we should be considering? And I don't just mean considering in relation to these texts at Revelation, but considering at all, like, in general.

For the most part, on this podcast, we stick to closely reading the Torah text, but for an issue as sensitive as this one, Rabbi Fohrman wanted to take a step back and consider our mesorah, our tradition. Is there precedent in our tradition to think about God as vulnerable?

I want to share with you Rabbi Fohrman's thoughts on this broader issue, and then we'll get back to the particular challenge of how God might be vulnerable at Revelation itself.

Rabbi Fohrman: God's vulnerability. That whole idea, actually, might kind of rub you the wrong way, right? I mean, if you've been yeshiva-trained, if you have any background in Jewish philosophy, you're kind of thinking, “Just wait a minute here. How can we even talk about God being vulnerable? God is all-powerful, God is completely self-sufficient, God is perfect. Haven’t you read the Rambam’s Shalosh Esrei Ikarei HaEmunah, the 13 Articles of Faith? God is perfect, He's unchanging. This is just basic Jewish theology. 

The truth is, we aren't the first people to be perplexed by these problems because the Torah itself seems to use language of vulnerability. The Torah speaks of God being sad, about God regretting things. And the Ramban, in his commentary on Bereshit (Genesis) chapter 6, he grapples with that issue. He discusses God's regret over creating humanity. That's the language of the text, that God regretted: וַיִּנָּחֶם יְקוָה כִּי־עָשָׂה אֶת־הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ וַיִּתְעַצֵּב אֶל־לִבּוֹ — He was sad to his heart (Genesis 6:6). How do we even understand that? It doesn't sound very unchanging of God. 

So the Ramban says that when the Torah speaks of God's emotions, it's teaching us about a relationship that God actually chooses of His own free will to have with Creation, with humanity. It's not talking about a limitation in God's nature. On the contrary, it's actually talking about something which is magnificent in God. 

The Rambam and the Moreh Nevuchim (Guide To The Perplexed), is adamant that God, in His essence, is unchanging, has a perfect nature. But the Rambam also, like the Ramban, still describes how God chooses to interact with humanity in ways that we can actually relate to. 

You know, in Kabbalah, you have this idea of the Ein Sof, God being the ultimate infinity in the universe, a limitless Being. But that limitless Being, paradoxically, chose to create finite beings and chose to establish a relationship between them. The Arizal talks about tzimtzum (Divine contraction) and God creating the universe, this idea that God contracts Himself. But it's not just that God contracts Himself in creating the universe in some kind of physical way. It's not just something objective and antiseptic like the laws of physics. It's also emotional.

Part of tzimtzum is that God chooses to reach out to us and have a relationship with the universe, have a relationship with us in love. And love, by definition, always implies a kind of vulnerability. What if that love isn't reciprocated? What if they choose not to care about me?

You know, there's a piyut (liturgical poem) that we say on Yom Kippur. It's always touched me, that piyut. It's Ma'aseh Elokeinu, we talk about the things that God creates. And you know, one of the things that God creates is us, and He chooses to have a relationship with us. Listen to the words of this piyut.

אָבִֽיתָה תְהִלָּה — You sought praise, You desired connection. With whom? With vulnerable, finite beings, with humans. מִגְּלֽוּמֵי גוּשׁ — From clods of earth. That's all we really are. מִגָּרֵי גֵּיא — From those who dwell in a valley of death, and You care about us anyway despite the fact that we're extinguished in just a few years. וְהִיא תְהִלָּתֶֽךָ — That is Your glory.

Listen to that piyut. This God Who's so magnificent: וְאָבִֽיתָה תְהִלָּה — And You sought, You desired connection. That Hebrew word is such an interesting word, וְאָבִֽיתָה. It's really about desire, it's about longing. You chose to long for humanity. What a vulnerable word. Over and over and over again, the piyut talks about that. And a perfect Being shouldn't long for anything, but God chooses to long for us.

It's so paradoxical, it's so touching, that the most magnificent Being in the universe chooses to relate to servants, to those who were slaves in Egypt, chooses to reach out to them in love, and in so doing takes a chance that we won't love Him back. And that's what this piyut is all about.

And that is the chance you take in love. Does that make you weak? No. The piyut on Yom Kippur says that makes you strong. It's the ultimate expression of strength. When you make yourself vulnerable to those you love, it's one of the most powerful things you can do in life. 

Imu: Okay, so with this deeper understanding of divine vulnerability in mind, it's time to turn back to Sinai. Because even if God's vulnerability is evoked in other sources, in tefillah (prayer) and Kabbalah and hashkafa (philosophy; lit. “outlook”), it's still surprising to find God's vulnerability at play here, at this grand moment of Revelation.

The dominant image we associate with Sinai isn't vulnerability, but majestic, overwhelming awesomeness. God's booming shofar blast just doesn't feel like a vulnerable moment. And yet our parallels are suggesting something different, that God's voice at this particular moment, the shofar cry, carries the echo of Eisav’s vulnerable cry.

What is so especially, deeply vulnerable about God's revelation at Sinai? Rabbi Fohrman thought that we might find an answer if we just continued reading a little ahead in Exodus. Plus, burning theological conundrums aside, there were even more parallels to the Deception story that Rabbi Fohrman wanted to show me.

Rabbi Fohrman: You know, you and I, over these last sessions, we've traced this remarkable series of parallels in Exodus, in the Revelation story, in Exodus 19. In order, the events of Exodus 19 seem to mimic the events of Genesis 27, and they seem to mimic it all the way through. The beginning of Exodus 19 mimicked the beginning of the Deception story back with Yaakov and Eisav, the middle of it mimicked the middle of the Deception story, the end of it mimicked the end of the Deception story, and we were right up to the end.

But I want to show you something, because as you start reading those Ten Commandments they also seem to remind us of Genesis 27. Think about that first command. Just use the language אָנֹכִי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ. Someone comes, introduces themselves, says, “Here's who I am,” and uses the word אָנֹכִי to do that. What does that remind you of back in Genesis 27?

Imu: Those are the words that Yaakov uses to introduce himself to Father.

Rabbi Fohrman: Falsely.

Imu: Yeah, he says אָנֹכִי עֵשָׂו בְּכֹרֶךָ (Genesis 27:19). 

Rabbi Fohrman: “I am the great doer.” But in a certain kind of way, Imu, isn't God also introducing Himself as a Doer? What does God say He just did? Read the rest of אָנֹכִי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ. 

Imu: אָנֹכִי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִ͏ים — Who took you out of the land of Egypt, of the house of bondage.

Rabbi Fohrman: “I just did something for you through signs and wonders and miracles. I took you out of Egypt. I responded to your cries. I was there for you at your moment of need. I took you out and cared for you. I did, in essence, what it is that you wanted of me. Now, you never asked Me to take you out of Egypt. You just screamed with your cries. But in those screams, I heard a plea, a plea to be taken out of Egypt, and I responded to that.”

Does that remind you of anything, of the lie that Yaakov said when he impersonated Eisav? He also used the words אָנֹכִי, but he also talked about doing something. אָנֹכִי עֵשָׂו בְּכֹרֶךָ עָשִׂיתִי כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתָּ אֵלָי — I've done like that which you asked of me.

Now, Exodus: אָנֹכִי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ — I am Lord your God, אֲשֶׁר — that did something, אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִ͏ים — that took you out of Egypt, the house of slaves.

Yaakov said, “I am Eisav. I did that which you asked of me,” and that wasn't true. I didn't go hunt game. I pretended that I did. Well, God said, “I did do that which you asked of me. I did go hunting. I hunted Egypt. I shot them down so that you could go free. So this is the truth of the matter, and I really did what you asked of Me in your moment of peril, the authentic version of Yaakov's misrepresentation.

Imu: Okay, so we were seeing how God's words in the first commandment echo, but also correct, Jacob's words in deception. But in the back of my mind, I was wondering what this had to do with vulnerability. If anything, these parallels seem to paint God as masterful and decisive. I mean, if they brought out anything Eisav-like about God, it's God's strength as a Doer.

To bring us back to the concept of vulnerability, Rabbi Fohrman honed in on what exactly it is in the first commandment that God says that He did for us.

Rabbi Fohrman: And now, I mean, think about what does God say? אָנֹכִי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ — I am the Lord your God, and what did I do? אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִ͏ים — I just took you out of the house of slaves.

Let's just think about God before he takes the people out of Egypt. How does God represent Himself, so to speak, in Heaven to all his ministering angels? What's the talk of Heaven regarding God? Those ministering angels are, “Oh boy, I wonder if I could be in His court today because He is just so cool. He is Mr. Doer. He is the One who made the universe. I wonder if I could watch Him make a new galaxy today.”

“And He's unflappable, also. You know why? He never breaks His rules. He's got His rules. His rules of nature, His rules of physics, His rules of biology, they apply everywhere. He's the big Rule Giver.” And then all of a sudden, something happens that completely changes God's reputation. Some slaves are in trouble in this little rock, the third rock around this ordinary star. God falls for them and decides to upend his rules, do away with them.

And all of a sudden, none of the laws of physics matter anymore. God is changing things, and the angels are like, “What are You doing?” And God is like, “No, you don’t understand. I care about these guys. I hear their pain. I feel for them. These are my children. I feel for them. I love them. I'm going to break the rules for them. I'm going to go and save them.”

And God introduces himself to the people that way. “I love you guys. You know what I did? I changed everything for you. I've just changed my whole everything.”

Imu: It sounds like what you're saying is, the thing that I'm known for, which is power and law and physics, that thing that I'm known for isn't all of me. I actually want to be known for something else.

Rabbi Fohrman: “I want to be known to you for something else, because I have an intimate relationship with you. And therefore, when you think of Me, don't just think of me as the God of creation.” Everyone always asks this question: Why didn't God reveal himself as the God of creation? “Anochi Hashem asher barati et ha’olam, I am the God Who created the world.” He doesn’t say that!

Imu: Wow. I never heard that question before, actually. That is a great question, and I got the chills, because actually He's not interested in being known as the God who created the universe as much as He is known for our relationship.

Rabbi Fohrman: “I'm the God who loved you so much that I took you out of Egypt and I broke the rules that I put in place in creation. That's the God I am. What matters to you is that I cared for you.”

How vulnerable is that? “I made myself vulnerable to you because now, if I come out and I love you, I hope that I can be loved in return.”

And so, all told, in Exodus what you have is sort of two forms of God's voice. Before God ever says anything in words, He says it in a cry, and that cry is this visceral cry that is so vulnerable. And that's one way in which God echoes Jacob and Esau. 

And then that voice resolves itself into words. And in the moment that it does, God gives words to the vulnerability and God is saying, “Let me tell you why you're hearing such vulnerability in that cry of the shofar. It's because I'm the God Who did everything for you, came out of the sky and changed My reputation, and put Myself out in love for a band of slaves.”

“I'm the God who took you out of Egypt, and therefore please: לֹא־יִהְיֶ͏ה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָ͏ַי — Don't worship idols. לֹא־תַעֲשֶׂה־לְךָ פֶסֶל — Don't make for yourself something that you can feel and fool yourself with something you can touch, וְכׇל־תְּמוּנָה — or fool yourself with something you can see. Don't do that. I'm the God who can't be seen. I'm the God who can't be felt. Open yourself up to who I really am. Don't give in to the confirmation bias of what you can touch and what you can feel.”

Because back when Yaakov introduced himself falsely and lied, Father tried to figure out who he was and Father said “Let me come and touch you. I want to touch you.” God says, “Never make that mistake again. Don't make Me a פֶסֶל, a sculpture that you can touch.”

“And then Yitzchak said: רְאֵה רֵיחַ בְּנִי כְּרֵיחַ שָׂדֶה — Your clothes smelled just like you came from the field (Genesis 27:27). Well, that was not true. Couldn't see anything you were smelling, but he was so enamored with the sense of sight that he pretended he could see something he couldn't see. You too, never pretend you could see something you can't see. Never pretend I'm a picture. Give in to the truth that I can't be seen.”

All of that sensory perception stuff that we were talking about takes on a real resonance. It really matters. “Don't misunderstand me. I know that you would love to worship somebody who could be felt, who could be touched, but do you know how terrible it would be if you took that love that I gave you, and instead of loving Me back for taking you out of Egypt, you would deceive yourself?”

Prioritize the senses? Not have the curiosity or imagination to understand that there could be a transcendent, out-of-this-world Being who loves you? And instead search for something in the world that you could touch and feel and say, “Oh, that's it,” even though you kind of know that it's not true? And you'd make an idol to worship? How bad would that feel? How vulnerable would that feel? 

Imu: To me, the great moment of vulnerability comes from the paradox of our entire relationship with God, which is that God has no need of us. He doesn't need to be in a relationship with us. But once you choose to be in a relationship with these beings, these human beings who are fickle and mistrusting and have limited capacities, well, how is God who is grand and big and omnipotent and just beyond our ability to comprehend, how is He going to be in a relationship with us?

Particularly, the worst thing about being in a relationship is being misunderstood. It's the worst thing in the whole world when I'm in a fight with my wife and she misunderstands me. 

Rabbi Fohrman: And let's get to exactly why. Are you so offended if you're misunderstood in the world? Like, you're such a thin-skinned guy? If you're on the subway and someone misunderstands you and you say, “Excuse me;” you said, “No, I asked if I could sit in that seat. I didn't say that your trombone looks stupid on you. I was just asking if I could sit in that seat,” you don't feel like your day is ruined because someone misunderstood you. So how come your loving wife who misunderstands you, you're so upset about?

Imu: I mean, this is the person in the world who most understands me, the person where I feel the most at home, the most safe to be my truest self, unbridled without performance.

Rabbi Fohrman: And hence vulnerability. Love makes you vulnerable. Any old person, they misunderstand me, it doesn't matter. But you love me and you misunderstand me? You love me and you don't reciprocate that love? That's the most vulnerable thing in the world. 

Imu: What you're showing me right now is shocking because it's a way of reading the Ten Commandments that is a totally different read than anything that I felt before. Because if you're reading this with the commentary of Genesis 27, it's a totally different read if it's a vulnerable relationship-based read, which is, “I love you guys. I'm trying to hear you and listen to you and work with you and be with you. There's something you should know about Me. I'm not like those other things that you humans call gods. I'm not an idol. I'm not an image. I'm beyond this realm.”

This was really moving to me. It's like if you look at the first two commandments from one lens, they introduce us to a powerful, masterful, decisive image of God; a God who can swoop down from on high and just get the job done. But then look through the lens of Genesis and suddenly this other side comes out and you see that the commandments are also an expression of God's love and His — I'll say it again and it won't be the last time this episode — of His vulnerability. It was a really beautiful reading, and we are not done with it yet.

You know how Rabbi Fohrman said earlier that there were more parallels with Genesis and the Ten Commandments, and he showed us just a few of them? Well, there are even more — like, a lot more. We've hardly scratched the surface.

So though we kind of had an answer to our vulnerability question, we kept reading.

Rabbi Fohrman: Let's keep on going. Let's read the rest of verse 3: לֹא־תַעֲשֶׂה־לְךָ פֶסֶל וְכׇל־תְּמוּנָה — Don't make an idol, something you can see, אֲשֶׁר בַּשָּׁמַיִם  מִמַּעַל וַאֲשֶׁר בָּאָרֶץ מִתָּ͏ַחַת — that's in the Heavens above or the land below. לֹא־תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה לָהֶם — Do not bow before them, וְלֹא תׇעׇבְדֵם — Do not serve them.

Imu, there's four things in a row here. There's שָּׁמַיִם מִמַּעַל, “the heavens above.” There's אָרֶץ מִתָּ͏ַחַת, “the land below.” There's “not bowing to them” and there's “not serving to them.” Look in Genesis 27. Do you see those four things in a row, perhaps? “The heavens above,” “the land below,” “bowing,” “serving.” Does that remind you of anything in Genesis 27 maybe?

Imu: I remember a blessing about “other people will bow to you,” or “your brother will bow to you.” Let’s see…

Rabbi Fohrman: Read verse 28.

Imu: This is how Isaac blesses Yaakov: וְיִתֶּן־לְךָ הָאֱלֹקים מִטַּל הַשָּׁמַיִם — God should give you from the dew of the heavens, וּמִשְׁמַנֵּי הָאָרֶץ — and the fat of the earth. So there's heaven and earth. וְרֹב דָּגָן וְתִירֹשׁ — and a lot of grain and wine. יַעַבְדוּךָ עַמִּים וְיִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לְךָ לְאֻמִּים — So the other nations will bow to you.

Rabbi Fohrman: And serve you.

Imu: Bow and serve, yes. Oh wow, both of them are there. Wow, fascinating

Rabbi Fohrman: Bow and serve, that’s right. The heavens above, the land below, bow and serve. It's as if the stolen blessing has become the stuff of idolatry in Exodus.

Imu: Okay, this is pretty convincing. That's pretty cool.

Rabbi Fohrman: It is. It's like, one second, this is actually true!

Imu: No, that's very cool because basically the blessing is about other brothers and other nations bowing to you and recognizing you as like the grand poo-bah essentially, and they're going to serve you.

Rabbi Fohrman: But in a way, I mean, the way I see that is like, it's one thing if it was a blessing that wasn't a zero-sum blessing. It'd be one thing if it was a blessing that “You are blessed so that you can connect Me to the world.” That's a blessing that recognizes God in the world, that says the whole reason why I have this blessing is so that I can connect everyone to God.

But if you leave that part out…because remember, Yaakov never got that part of it from Isaac. Isaac never said, “Through you blessings come to the world.” He mimicked all other aspects of Abraham's blessing, but not that. And if you don't have that, then who's the top of the heap? If you have that, then God is the top, and that everything is for God, and everything is so that God can connect to people. But if you don't have that, then who's on top?

Imu: That's this nation, this one brother.

Rabbi Fohrman: The nation’s on top. In a deep kind of way, without the blessing that you're supposed to deliver blessing to the whole world, Israel itself becomes a kind of idol.

Imu: Shocking.

So earlier, we talked about how idolatry may stem from projecting onto God what you want to believe. But this new cluster of parallels was bringing out another possibility, another source for how we might end up worshipping idols, and it was surprising to me. It seemed like the Torah was implying that if you forget your brother, if you live only for yourself with a zero-sum worldview, you've actually forgotten God, too.

At this point, I had so many thoughts swirling around, both about the implications of these new parallels themselves and how they connected to what we'd seen earlier. So we took a step back to reflect. 

I'm getting, like, multiple vibes from you. Is the punchline that God is showing us authenticity when revealing Himself to us? Is that the punchline? No, it's more than that, right? There's vulnerability. But now you're showing me this piece that feels like zero-sum, like this dimension of…

Rabbi Fohrman: But it's all part of vulnerability. 

Imu: I'm saying it all goes together though. They're not different things. They kind of go together. So Isaac gives his children a zero-sum blessing, which necessarily makes one brother up and the other brother down. God seems to say, “I don't like that for you guys, but I like it for Me.” He sort of says, “Zero-sum actually is a thing for Me, for God. Nobody should be bowing to any other gods, but you guys are My kids and you guys should all play well together.” But that's fascinating that He takes that zero-sum aspect and ties it to Himself. 

Rabbi Fohrman: As we all do in love. In love, we do demand a certain kind of exclusivity. That's what marriage is all about, which is, “I am pledged to you.” But our kids? Our kids have got to get along. And we have to understand that no one kid is the object of worship. There's love of parents for all kids. 

And without that, if you would idolize yourself and you think that you're the top of the heap, and you think that you got this great blessing; that your father gave you the dew of the heavens and the fats of the earth; you got this incredibly fertile land, and you had to worship something, but you didn't know who because you were at the top of the heap; you might just take the dew of the heavens or the fats of the earth and make an idol out of that.

לֹא־תַעֲשֶׂה־לְךָ פֶסֶל  וְכׇל־תְּמוּנָה אֲשֶׁר בַּשָּׁמַיִם  מִמַּעַל וַאֲשֶׁר בָּאָרֶץ מִתָּ͏ַחַת — Don't make some representation that comes out of the heavens above or the land below. Don't idolize the fertility of the land, לֹא־תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה לָהֶם — and end up bowing to them and serving them as the source of your power that you can lord over all the other nations who serve you. That's not a path I want you to take. That feels like you're exploiting Me.

Imu: It also feels like you’re taking one aspect of the power, that which is God, and elevating it above others, right? Isn't that what we said Isaac was doing to his kids? He took one aspect, he took power and said, “This is really important to me,” but not the other parts, right? So maybe that's kind of what's happening with God.

Rabbi Fohrman: “You’re idolizing the gift that I gave you. I gave you a gift of earth. You're pretending that instead of Me, God, being the object of worship who gave you this gift, keep God out of the picture and the gift of the earth is itself the object of worship? Don't do that. That makes Me feel really used. That makes Me feel like My vulnerability, that I came out and loved you, is being exploited. You're ignoring Me.”

Imu: And I would imagine also it would make Him feel misunderstood. “You like one part of Me and not all of Me.”

Rabbi Fohrman: “What I gave you. You like what I gave you, and then you idolize that.”

Imu: I think it could be both, though. I think we're saying two things that are related. Which is that, imagine what you were saying before. If you're a farmer, then the God of fertility is really interesting to you, right? And if you're a sailor, maybe the God of the winds, right, or the God of the sky is really important to you, right? You isolate one aspect of power and you don't do all of it.

So God is saying, “I'm actually the God. Don't worship the ones in the heavens and don't worship the ones in the earth.” And then he continues, I don't know if we read this part yet. He says, “Don't bow and don't serve. כִּי אָנֹכִי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ קל קַנָּא — I'm jealous.” This is, I think, like crazy.

Rabbi Fohrman: “I'm the jealous God.” Who was jealous in the Genesis 27 story? Was anybody jealous?

Imu: Both. I mean, Yaakov was jealous.

Rabbi Fohrman: And what about Eisav?

Imu: He was jealous.

Rabbi Fohrman: They were both jealous. It's a whole story of jealousy. And when Eisav was jealous, what did he do? Read verse 41 in Genesis 27.

Imu: וַיִּשְׂטֹם עֵשָׂו אֶת־יַעֲקֹב עַל־הַבְּרָכָה — He hated his brother Jacob over the blessing, אֲשֶׁר בֵּרְכוֹ אָבִיו — that his father had blessed him. וַיֹּאמֶר עֵשָׂו בְּלִבּוֹ — and Eisav said in his heart, יִקְרְבוּ יְמֵי אֵבֶל אָבִי — The days of my father's mourning will come, i.e. my father will die soon, וְאַהַרְגָה אֶת־יַעֲקֹב אָחִי — and then I will kill my brother. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Now isn't it strange? Who do you think Eisav was really mad at?

Imu: He should be mad at Father.

Rabbi Fohrman: But who is he taking it out on?

Imu: Brother.

Rabbi Fohrman: So he's really mad at a father, but he's taking it out on the father's child, a son. Does that remind you of anything in Exodus, verse 4?

Imu: פֹּקֵד עֲוֺן אָבֹת עַל־בָּנִים.

Rabbi Fohrman: God says, “You know what, spurned love makes folks act in crazy ways.” When you feel jealous, you might just be jealous and angry at a father, but the kids might even suffer for it, right?

Imu: This is the craziest verse, or one of the craziest verses, in the entire Torah, because the way we are now reading it, which is the way we were taught not to read it, is God as spurned lover or crazed lover who has been rejected and will lead God to do this crazy thing.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah, so the mefarshim (commentators) will all find ways in which there are versions of this that are just, right? As Rashi says, it means “when the children take the ways of their fathers and they act in those kinds of ways, then they bear the sins that they were educated wrong, that they have messed up lives because of it,” something like that.

But what God is saying is that there is a world in which there's a just version of being Eisav. Eisav was a guy who was crazed and was going to kill somebody unjustly because of that craziness. God says, “You know, I also have a certain kind of vulnerability. And there's a certain kind of just way in which anger can proceed from one generation to another.”

A nation is not just one generation. A nation is a nation just like your body has cells, and those cells constantly reproduce and they constantly die out.

And Imu, you know, what if you got a speeding ticket because you were going 75 miles an hour in a school zone? You show up in court to defend yourself, and it's nine months later because your lawyer got a stay and all that. And it's finally a year and a half later but you're finally in court, and the judge says, “How do you plead?” And you say, “Innocent.”

“Well, one second, we have you on radar. We actually have your license plate here. Would you like to revise your plea?”

And you say, “Your honor, I am innocent. You see, it was a year and a half ago, and the person standing before you, every single cell in my body, has regenerated since then. I am no longer the man I once was. I am innocent of this crime. Please let me go.”

Is the judge going to let you walk?

Imu: No, he will not.

Rabbi Fohrman: Judge is not going to let you walk. Why? Answer is, it's still Imu, even though every single cell is an Imu. 

God says, “That's פֹּקֵד עֲוֺן אָבֹת עַל־בָּנִים.” It's a national crime, idolatry. It doesn't go away from one generation to another just because all the people are different now. The nation suffers. This is a national crime that's of incredible gravity and, nebach, you know it'll happen that a couple generations will suffer for it.

God's love outstrips that, עֹשֶׂה חֶסֶד לַאֲלָפִים — for thousands of generations. “There's love for those that I love, but there is consequence to betrayal.” So God's taking the feelings of Eisav, as it were, and wrestling it into something else that makes sense within the context of idolatry 

Imu: That's beautiful.

You see what Rabbi Fohrman did there? We'd been considering what our connections could tell us about the nature of idolatry. Why is it so wrong? Why is it such a betrayal of God? But along the way, Rabbi Fohrman had noticed a new parallel. God seems to riff off of Eisav’s jealousy when He warns that those who practice idolatry will be punished to the third or fourth generation. And so, Rabbi Fohrman switched gears to consider what we might learn from that.

But I wasn't quite done with our first topic. I thought that there was still even more significance to the last connections we'd seen, and you may have noticed that I had been arguing with Rabbi Fohrman about it for the last few minutes.

You see, I was really interested in the idea that when Isaac was choosing to bless Eisav, he emphasized one of Eisav's qualities above all the others, that of strength, of being a doer. And in doing so, it blinded him, if you'll pardon the pun, from seeing other important values, especially those values embodied in Jacob. And I was blown away by how this blindness might shed light on avodah zarah (idol worship), of all things. What if, in addition to avodah zarah being about the objectification of a relationship, as Rabbi Fohrman had suggested, what if it was also about only seeing one aspect, one quality of God, and refusing to see a whole?

I thought that the second commandment might be illustrating this point that God is not just one thing, one aspect; that He is mysterious and surprising and contains all sorts of paradoxes. To leave avodah zarah behind, one has to open up to the whole of God.

So keep that in mind as we continue the conversation. Here's me and Rabbi Fohrman.

What was coming to mind to me when I see all these verses together is a bunch of parts of God that, to the human mind may not always go together, that seem to come together. And God is saying, “Don't separate out one aspect. I'm actually all these things. I'm a singularity. So again, if you're the farmer, you may want to worship the agriculture God, but I'm the God of the Heavens, too. You may see me as the God also who is jealous, who is punishing, but I also do חֶסֶד לַאֲלָפִים לְאֹהֲבַי וּלְשֹׁמְרֵי מִצְוֺתָי.”

I think that there's a lot of paradoxes here, and just reading this in concert with Genesis 27 where you have a Yitzchak who separates out and idolizes one value to the exclusion of another makes me think here also God is saying…

Rabbi Fohrman: “Be open to all that I am.”

Imu: Yeah, and that may be at the root of what avodah zarah is. It's taking out one aspect and forgetting the wholeness. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Let's be a little bit more explicit about that. It's taking one aspect of God and then objectifying that aspect of Him. So for example, God is the giver of fertility. So now let me forget about God and say that fertility is God, right? God is the one who bestows power upon me, that all nations bow to me and serve me. Now let me forget about God, and the power that I have becomes the thing that I worship.

And it's weird, by the way, because if you think about the context of love, something very deep is happening here. Something that starts in love ends up being transactional and objectified. It all starts in love. God is like, “I took you out of Egypt. I loved you. Come back to me. Give me something back.” And idolatry — let's just have a little compassion for Israel being idolatrous — it doesn't all come from a bad place.

Israel now wants to reciprocate, but they can lead themselves astray. They can lie to themselves in reciprocation, because you can't touch and you can't feel God. And you can have this bias, and you can say, “You know what, I'd just rather worship something I can touch and feel, something that's in this world. So I'll knowingly lie to myself about who God is.”

And it's just much more comfy for me to…like, I'm kind of really happy with my power in this world and the fertility. I really think I should honor that. And before you know it, you think you're responding in love, but actually all you're doing is taking an aspect of God and turning it into a thing, and then worshipping the thing because the thing feels good for you. The thing kind of works for you, the land kind of works for you, the power kind of works for you.

And so you can come to shul all day and you can say, “Oh yeah, I'm very loving. You know me, I'm a very religious guy,” right? But in a subtle way, you've just given into a transactional relationship with the thing instead of a loving relationship with the Being Who loved you.

Imu: There's something at the tip of my tongue. These parallels are suggesting that there is a form of idol worship in the domain of brothers, right? Like, idol worship in your relationship with God looks like “one brother up, one brother down” in the domain of brothers, right? Would you agree with that? 

Rabbi Fohrman: In a certain kind of way. You know what, I would put it this way: What is the cardinal sin in a child's relationship with Heavenly Father? It's the betrayal of idolatry. Now, what is the cardinal sin in a father's relationship with a child? It's to love one more than the other, to make a zero-sum game out of parental love, which should be for all kids. Every child wants to know that Father loves all of us. No child really wants to be the one who's loved more. 

It's fascinating. It's a total inverse. You see, when it comes to a child loving a father, there's something that has to be exclusive about that. There really is something zero-sum about that, right? You need to love the father who loved you and not lie to yourself and exchange that for anyone else. But when it comes to a father loving a child, it's the opposite.

Every child wants that love to be for everyone. It's not exclusive. I need parental love to be for me, and for Debbie, and for Susie, and for Bobby, and to all of my children in order to feel good about it. I don't feel good about it if I'm singled out.

And therefore the cardinal sin in parental love for children is the inverse of idolatry. Idolatry is to love one when I should be loving the other. The cardinal sin is exactly the reverse when it comes to parents with children. Love us all. וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה — And through you, if you're going to give me any favor, it's only going to be because I can help you love all the kids (Genesis 12:3).

Imu: It's not really a leg up; it's in service of them. It sounds like bowing in both cases. Like, one is you're bowing to an idol and the other is you're bowing to a brother. So the brother becomes the idol.

The vibe that I'm getting…you're emphasizing a lot about transactionality, which is what happens when you take something that comes from God and you objectify it and you raise it up as important. That feels icky because you've now turned the relationship to God into something transactional, which means you've turned it into something selfish. It's about you, not about us.

But I'm also seeing something else, which is, any time a singularity, a group of individual beings, let's say a family, see themselves as anything but a family, right? Like, imagine one of your kids says, “This is really about me. It's about Moshe Fohrman, and the other kids should bow to me.” What's awkward about that is, like, you've broken family. You've broken this singular entity by elevating one above the rest. But it’s a singular entity.

Rabbi Fohrman: Oh, fascinating. So you're arguing that there is something idolatrous about it because, really, love is towards a singularity that cannot be broken. I, as parent, love family, which means I love you all because you're all elements of family. And in the process of breaking it apart, I objectify you. So it's almost like, if I love you, Moshe, but not anyone else, there's something false about that. Like, why aren't you loving anybody else? We're all family. So I must be loving Moshe for something not so essential to him. I love Moshe because he has this quality, but then I don't love him for the deepest thing he is, which is that he's my family. So now I've just objectified him. “Oh, I love you because you're good at X, Y, and Z.” Really? 

So what happens is, that is a kind of idolatrous thing.What idolatry is, on the vertical relationship, where the child loves the father by breaking apart the unity of who he really is and saying, “I love you because you provide for fertility.” Well, if you love me because you provide for fertility, then wouldn't the most logical thing be to worship the fertility itself? If the whole reason you love me is because you provide for fertility, then what you really love is fertility.

So once you break me apart and love me because I do this for you, you've already objectified me and you might as well just love the fertility, hence idolatry.

And that's the same thing with children. Once you don't love me because I'm family, you just love me for this thing? Alright, so you don't really love me, you just love the thing. I just happen to be the one that provides it. Fascinating.

Imu: When thinking about idolatry, I was having a hard time grasping which is more essential. Is the essence of idolatry turning a relationship into transaction? Or is the essence of idolatry not fully perceiving the reality of God, which is a unitary existence? All of it is an expression of God, and if you're going to separate out one aspect of God, you're not seeing the complete, whole God.

Rabbi Fohrman: And a unitary existence that just loves. I have committed myself fully in love to you. And therefore, love me back. That's the covenant with God. And in reverse, that's the same way with the father with children. Which is, you are all my family, and therefore I love you all wholly and completely for that, equally.

Imu: Yeah, so I actually don't think that you can make a distinction between avodah zarah at its core being about objectification or about not perceiving a true unitary singularity. I think they both come together. So that's one thing I wanted to say.

A second thing I want to say is, again, emphasizing that I would read verses three, four, and five as a bunch of contradictory elements coming together. “I'm the God of the heavens and I'm the God of the earth. I am the God who is jealous and punishes, and I'm the God who is boundlessly chessed.” 

Rabbi Fohrman: “And so, don't love Me for any one of those things. Don't love Me because I'm so nice. Don't love Me because I'm so jealous. Love Me for everything that I am, Who has committed Themselves in love to you because אָנֹכִי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ, because I love you. You're my kid and I love you. I took you out of Egypt because בְּנִי בְכֹרִי יִשְׂרָאֵל — I looked at you like you're my kid (Exodus 4:22).”

Imu: I don't know whether this is the right place to say it, but we began this season asking, how could God do the Revelation narrative by paralleling Genesis 27, the story of these two brothers fighting over a blessing? And now I'm in a place where I feel like He couldn't have picked any other chapter. Like, this is the chapter He should have picked. Because if that's what God revealing himself to humanity is, is a story about a family where father misunderstands relationship with sons and sons misunderstand relationship to father and brothers, right; there's this triangle that's breaking apart, and there's this moment where one brother is placed above the other, and what it does is it dissolves family. “Eisav, you're strong. I don't love you for family.” That unitary unit dissolves in that moment, and so God says, “Actually, that's what I'm going to take and put back together.”

Rabbi Fohrman: Interesting. We have to go back to that moment, right, and say, it really is love of the unified family. And similarly, the child needs to love the unified Me who has committed themselves in love to you.

Imu: Yes.

Rabbi Fohrman: Imu, you know, it's interesting. When you go back to the first moments where we hear about the love of the parents for Yaakov and Eisav, there's something really interesting. Let me just take you back to that for a moment. So let's go to Genesis…

Imu: 25, verse 19. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah. So if you think about the first moments we hear about the love of parents for children, look at what we see. 

Imu: Already there's a division in the family.

Rabbi Fohrman: וַיִּגְדְּלוּ הַנְּעָרִים, verse 27 in Genesis — And the kids grew up. וַיְהִי עֵשָׂו אִישׁ יֹדֵעַ צַיִד אִישׁ שָׂדֶה — Eisav became a hunter, a man of the field, whereas Yaakov was an ish tam, a simple man who was sitting in tents. וַיֶּאֱהַב יִצְחָק אֶת־עֵשָׂו — and Isaac loved Eisav, כִּי־צַיִד בְּפִיו — because his game was in his mouth. He hunted for him. וְרִבְקָה אֹהֶבֶת אֶת־יַעֲקֹב — and Rebecca, she loved Jacob. Now what's the difference between father's love for son and mother's love for son?

Imu: There's no key. There's a reason why Isaac loves Eisav because…

Rabbi Fohrman: Because of something that he does.

Imu: Yeah, and Rivka just loves Yaakov. There’s no reason.

Rabbi Fohrman: Rivka just loves Yaakov. Rivka loves Yaakov because “You're my kid,” right? And it's almost like, “I feel bad because you're not really loved by Father, so I'm going to be the one who loves you because somebody's got to love you.”

And so she ends up overemphasizing that and favoring him. But it comes from, like, “You can't be left out. You're family,” right? But Isaac is like, “No, I love you for something that you've done.”

But you're suggesting that that itself is the beginning of the problem. You don't love your kids for the things that they do; you love them because they're family.  

Imu: Really profound. This is shockingly profound. I'm just, like, digesting.

Seeing that I was taking a moment to process, Rabbi Fohrman took the opportunity to zoom out a bit. We just spent a while unpacking the first two commandments, and Rabbi Fohrman wanted to clarify what was happening here; that we were in fact starting to see a pattern emerge between the Deception story and the Ten Commandments as a whole.

Rabbi Fohrman: So, Imu, you know, what we've seen here is something remarkable. I mean, just to take a step back at 50,000 feet, do you kind of get the feeling that these intertextual parallels that we've been seeing between Revelation and Genesis are starting again in the Ten Commandments?

It's like we saw this whole mess of them and if you just diagrammed it out, the beginning of Revelation was akin to the beginning of the Deception story, the middle of Revelation was akin to the middle of the Deception story, the end of Revelation was akin to the end of the Deception story, and then suddenly you start reading אָנֹכִי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ and it's like, whoa, we're back again to the Deception story.

It sounds like God is laying out these laws and saying, “The laws I'm giving you are based upon that story. We're going to look at that story, and anything that went wrong we're going to try and fix. Anything that was right, well, I guess we'll try and salvage. But that original blessing is going to become your laws; which, if you keep them, through that, blessing will come to the whole world. If you can model people how to do this, then that blessing will be what it needed to be.”

It's almost God wresting control of this blessing from Isaac's hands, saying, “I'm going to do it My way. I'm going to be the great Father in the sky. I'm going to give you these laws made out of your blessing. That's going to be the blessing I'm going to leave you with.” Let's watch it continue to unfold.

Commandment number 3: לֹא תִשָּׂא אֶת־שֵׁם־יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ לַשָּׁוְא — Don't take God's Name in vain. Now, Imu, if you go back to Genesis 27, does this remind us of anything? Was there a moment in which someone took the Name of God in vain? Back in that Deception story, if you go back to the beginning, here is Jacob. He says, “I am Eisav your bechor (firstborn),” but Father is not so sure.

He says: מַה־זֶּה מִהַרְתָּ לִמְצֹא בְּנִי — I don't understand. I just sent you out to hunt this game, and like 20 minutes later you're back again?” What does Yaakov say at that moment that he's called on it and he finds himself in the moment needing to improvise?

Imu: He says…is it כִּי הִקְרָה?

Rabbi Fohrman: כִּי הִקְרָה יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ לְפָנָי — Because the Lord your God just happened to appear before me.

Now, that wasn't really true. Mommy gave me the food, but I can't say that, so it's like, oh, well, God just helped me happen. Like, God is up in the Heavens, and what's God thinking?

Imu: “Leave Me out of this.”

Rabbi Fohrman: “Leave Me out of this! Don't use My Name like that. Why are you using My Name in service of a lie?” That ends up becoming a command — אֶת־שֵׁם־יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ.

יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ literally is the same יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ as כִּי הִקְרָה יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ לְפָנָי. Imu, I'll just have you know that the first time the words יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ ever appear is in the Deception story, when Yaakov says כִּי הִקְרָה יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ לְפָנָי. And the Torah will not use the words again until the Revelation at Sinai story in the Ten Commandments.

Imu: That's pretty shocking.

Rabbi Fohrman: So don't take God's Name in vain. Don't use God's Name illegitimately for your own purposes is another way of seeing it. You can see what went wrong in terms of idolatry, or you can see what went wrong in terms of invoking God when God had nothing to do with it but it was convenient for you to evoke God because it serves your own needs.

By the way, the commonality between idolatry, commandment number two, and commandment number three, which is don't take God's Name in vain, is what?

Imu: It's an objectification of God; selfishness.

Rabbi Fohrman: Selfishness, using God for your own needs. That's idolatry, right? Which is that you see something self-serving in God. Well, another way to see something self-serving as God is, what if it helps you to use God's name, to protest your innocence and to lie about God? Don't do that either. That also is a self-serving way to relate to God. So don't do either of those, each of which finds their antecedent in Genesis 27, just depending on the way you look at it.

Imu: Yeah. That fits very nicely, both in the objectification sense and in the sense of a unity broken to benefit one party and hurt another also. I see that as well.

Rabbi Fohrman: Of using God's Name in vain? 

Imu: I think so, yeah. Meaning, in Genesis 27, you see it where Yaakov is using God to pull one over on his father and beat his brother, essentially. But I think it's also in the commandment of not using God's Name. I think the legal expression of this is seen in an argument, right, when two people are fighting over something. Will you swear? Will you use God's name to say, “Actually, I'm willing to swear that this is mine and not his.” So it's about defeating a brother by invoking the God of all of us. So God says, “Don't do that.”

Rabbi Fohrman: Very interesting. “Don't lie as a way of causing strife between brothers who should be united” is a certain kind of idolatry, right? “Don't use My Name to create division between children when I love all children.”

Imu: Right.

Rabbi Fohrman: Like, God's idea is, “What are you using My Name to swear for? What are you invoking Me for your own self interest? You don't think I love Bobby the same way I love you?”

Imu: Yeah. Yeah, it's profound. Like, שֵׁם־יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ, also the Name of God is inherently — we've talked about this elsewhere — a Name of achdut, right? It is a Name of unities. Yud-Kay Vav-Kay is the unity of time, right? Haya, Hoveh, V’Yiheyeh. And יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ is itself a unity, right? Taking these two aspects of God into a unity. You're going to take the Name of unity and use it to divide? To win one brother over another?

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah.

Okay Imu, so what we've seen, I think, is that these remarkable parallels between Revelation and Genesis 27 don't end with Revelation. They repeat themselves in the Ten Commandments. We have another round of them. God's saying, “Okay, we're going to codify this into laws. We're going to make some laws now that we're going to live by, given this experience that we've all had. And this is the beginning of those laws.

And what I want to show you the next time we come back, that it's not just the first three commands. It's commandments 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 also. Every last one of the Ten Commandments is going to be playing off of another part of the Yaakov and Eisav story in the same way that the connections appeared in order. When it comes to the Ten Commandments, too, the first part of it mirrors the first part of the Deception, and then it continues going. Everything we're going to see proceeds in order as a mimicry of the Yaakov and Eisav story. So let’s go back and see where it comes.

Imu: I know, I know. He was wrapping up, but I had one more thing I wanted to suggest; a theory as to why there would be these two sets of parallels at all, and it had to do with one of the very first things we talked about in this episode. Isn't it kind of interesting that the first set of parallels culminates in that wordless shofar blast? And then the second set of parallels picks up with the words of the Ten Commandments.

I'll just say, just quickly, that does make me think that there's two Revelations that were happening, right? A Revelation of senses and then a Revelation in words. And maybe we mostly think about the Ten Commandments, but why should it be that the parallels would repeat? Why are we taking us through the Genesis 27 story twice?

Rabbi Fohrman: Interesting, that’s fascinating. So, you know, it's almost saying the Revelation had two parts. Before God ever told us anything, God just was with us through His voice. So there's the God of Being without even saying anything. “Here I am. Remember this moment.” Just relating to the God who has heard you and who uses voice in just as vulnerable a way as you did. All of those are aspects of God's Being.

And then there's God the Lawgiver, telling you what to do in this world. God says, “Here, too, we're going to come back to the blessing, and the blessing that you got from Father was not quite what it needed to be,” right? And in the Ten Commandments itself, God himself is saying, “This is the blessing I want you to have.” And that becomes the Ten Commandments.

Imu: Very cool. Beautiful. It makes me feel like encountering God and religion in general is not merely a cognitive philosophical exercise. For those of you, the intellectuals who really like a shiur (discourse), you can get the Ten Commandments. And for those of you who need some experiential education, right, you're going to get this Being.

Rabbi Fohrman: Just tune into the vulnerability of the God who says, “I heard your cries and I love you.”

Imu: Beautiful. All right, I'm really excited to see the Ten Commandments version of the parallels to finish that off in Genesis 27 and see what else there is to be seen here.

Rabbi Fohrman: Okay. See you then. 

Credits

This episode of A Book Like No Other was recorded by Rabbi David Fohrman and, me, Imu Shalev.

It was produced by Robbie Charnoff and Tikva Hecht 

Our audio engineer is Hillary Guttman. 

A Book Like No Other’s managing producer is Adina Blaustein and our senior producer is Tikva Hecht. 

A Book Like No Other is a product of Aleph Beta, and made possible through the very generous support of Shari and Nathan Lindenbaum. Thank you, Shari and Nathan. And thank you all for listening. 

Outtakes

Rabbi Fohrman: How could an omnipotent God be vulnerable? Imu, what do you have to say? 

Imu: Well, it reminds me of some intertextual parallels in Exodus, where…I have no idea where you're going with this. I mean, I assume you're trying to get to…

Rabbi Fohrman: Well, forget what I'm getting to. I'm genuinely asking you a question.

Imu: Oh, you want me to authentically be myself?

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah.