Prophecy and the Prophets in Israel

Eikev 5777 / 8 August 2017

Today’s D’var is a D’var NeVuah, rather than a D’var Torah
It is A Comment on Prophesy and the Prophets in Israel, rather than on the Torah, itself

THE FIRST QUESTION I WOULD LIKE TO CONSIDER IS HOW WERE THE PROPHETS CHOSEN AND HOW DID THEY REACT TO DIVINE CHOICE?

Thoughts

• Book of Yonah on Yom HaKippur might suggest that Prophets were reluctant to take on the job
  • Book of Amos clearly indicates, in general, the opposite was true.
    • According to Amos, there were innumerable Prophets eager to preach their word, but the people forbade their prophesying
      • Of course, we do not know how many of their prophesies truly reflected God’s communications. We will consider this the critical issue later in the D’var
    • Eliyahu (Elijah) tells King Ahab in Sefer Melachim Aleph (I Kings 4:22)  that he alone is left among the innumerable Prophets slain by Jezebel
    • This is scarcely accurate since the God-fearer Obadiah saved 100 Prophets by feeding them in 2 caves containing 50 each

• Eliyahu then goes on to perform his miracle of having God produce fire in the water-soaked trenches
• How then does God choose his Prophets?
  • 4 weeks ago, we learned from the Haftarah of Parashat Pinchas that Jeremiah was chosen in the womb, possibly because God saw what he could turn into
  • However, it was God’s call, and maybe not his first call!
  • This thought leads us to a very provocative possibility:

Possibly None of God’s Choices Were His First Choices!

• In terms of Creation, we have the tradition that God created many worlds before creating ours.
• This question is relevant to a major theme of Abraham Joshua Heschel who held that:
  • God does continue to communicate with humans
  • But humans may not be sufficiently perceptive
  • This raises the possibility that God may have to move down his list of draft picks until communication is established successfully
  • Do we have ANY evidence in the Tanach for this provocative idea?
• There are at least 2 suggestive bits of textual evidence!
  • 1^st, in Parashat Noach, the Torah records that Abraham’s father Terah started out on the same journey later proposed to Abraham, to move from Ur to Haran and then on to Canaan
    • But Terah got stuck on the way in Haran
    • The reason for Terah’s wandering from Ur to Haran on the way to Canaan is not explicitly stated to have been divinely inspired, but the Tanach is full of silences
    • We, of course, do not know why Terah did not go all the way to Eretz Canaan, completing his mission
    • We can only speculate:
      • Possibly the Divine communication was incomplete?, OR
      • Possibly Terah, like Moshe and some of the Prophets, was reluctant to undertake his mission?
    • Whatever the reason, in contrast to Terah, Abraham accepts the challenge, carries it through and settles in the land of Canaan
  • The 2^nd textual evidence supporting the idea that None of God’s Choices were His 1^st Choice is provided by Moshe Rabbeinu
    • It is only after God tests Moshe and sees that he will turn aside to investigate the burning bush that Moshe is chosen to be our greatest prophet
    • Inconsistent figurative language is used to indicate the uniqueness of Moshe’s relationship with God. For example, Moshe is described as speaking with God Panim el-Panim (face-to-face) [Exodus (Sh’mot), 33:11, Deut. (D’varim) 34:10] and God is also described as communicating with Moshe Peh el-Peh (mouth-to-mouth) [Numbers (B’Midbar), 12:8] but God also says that Moses cannot see God’s face and live [Exodus (Sh’mot),  33:20]. Jeffrey Tigay points out in his commentary on the last paragraph of Deuteronomy that speaking face-to-face with God is simply an idiom meaning “in person,” “directly” “without mediation.” “That is, Moses experienced the most direct contact with God of any prophet, and so had the clearest knowledge of Him and His will”.

What Can We Make of These Narratives of the Prophets?

• Surely, the major implication is that God has a benign purpose for the world
  • God is intimately involved in achieving that purpose
  • God requires the collaboration of man
  • However, it takes 2 to communicate – humans need to be perceptive for Divine guidance to be communicated
  • All this is consistent with the normative Jewish view that Tikkun Olam (Repair of the World) requires the participation of man
• If these conclusions are correct, doesn’t God still need to communicate with man?
  • Clearly, the present state of the world falls far short of Divine design
  • Abraham Joshua Heschel argued forcefully and repeatedly in his books Man is Not Alone and God in Search of Man that God does continue to seek communication with us, but that humans may not perceive his efforts
• If so, what could be the form of these communications?
  • Heschel states in his posthumously translated and published essays Prophetic Inspiration After the Prophets that “It was the unanimous belief of the sages of the Talmud that with the death of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, prophetic inspiration ceased from Israel.”
  • This position is entirely understandable (Hillel Halkin, 2008).
    • As pointed out by Hillel Halkin nearly a decade ago (2008), the Rabbis were trying to contain the messianism that encouraged the 2 disastrous revolts against the Romans (67-70 C.E., 132-135 C.E.)
• Nobody denied, however, that some form of communication continued.  Several forms were identified:
  • Bat kol, “a kind of prophesy”
    • Echo, or reverberation, or strengthing of one’s resolve
  • Dreams
    • Sheilat chalom raised by a Bal chalom, who might be an angel sending dreams in the night
  • Visons
    • Especially visionary perceptions of Elijah who appeared to exceptional individuals, solving their uncertainties
  • Prophets
    • Contrary to position of the Talmudists, Nahmanides (the RaMBaN, 1194-1270) saw prophesy as happening in every age (p. 32, Prophesy, Heschel)

However, When Man Listens to God, Does He get It Right?

• Even human communication is imperfect.
  • As an example, when I was at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH/Harvard). the then-Chair of Medicine met with the Head of Hematology-Oncology to discuss tenure for the Hematologist.  Afterwards, each gave a party, the Chair to celebrate that he had clearly informed the Hematologist that he would NOT get tenure.  In contrast, the Hematologist celebrated that he had been awarded tenure!  Not unexpectedly, the  miscommunication led to protracted legal action.
• Jeremiah cautions us many times about Prophets who do NOT get it right
• And misconceptions can lead to catastrophic results:
  • Such as that wreaked by the messianic Shabbetai Tsvi and his prophet Natan of Gaza, also known as Natan Ashkenazi some 350 years ago (1664-6)

Is There Quality Control of Divine Guidance?

• And now, we come to the critical question, “How can we be enriched, and not potentially mislead ourselves?”
• Simplest approach is to forego such divine enrichment, to choose not to accept guidance, and to try putting God back into the box
  • This, indeed, is the most common way of addressing unexpected events
  • As Winston Churchill is alleged to have said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
• A more demanding strategy is to seek guidance from God, to keep our eyes and ears open & to be receptive to divine guidance
  • But, at the same time, to assure ourselves that the guidance we perceive accords with the validated guide we already have in hand, the Torah, and that the guidance is consonant with what we already know God demands of us:
    • In the words of Micah, “To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8)

8 הִגִּ֥יד לְךָ֛ אָדָ֖ם מַה־טֹּ֑וב וּמָֽה־יְהוָ֞ה דֹּורֵ֣שׁ מִמְּךָ֗ כִּ֣י אִם־עֲשֹׂ֤ות מִשְׁפָּט֙ וְאַ֣הֲבַת חֶ֔סֶד וְהַצְנֵ֥עַ לֶ֖כֶת עִם־אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃

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References

• Parashat Noach
• Abraham Joshua Heschel. God In Search of Man
• Halkin H (2008) Tikkun Olam. Commentary
• Parashat Pinchas
• Kip S. Thorne (2008) RETROSPECTIVE: John Archibald Wheeler (1911-2008). Science 20 June 2008 320: 1603 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1159820] (in Perspectives)