The Shock and Awe of Revelation

Among the most famous of Jewish philosophers and theologians is Franz Rosensweig. Born in Germany in 1886 to an assimilated non-observant Jewish family, Franz was exposed to traditional Judaism by his uncle and asked for Hebrew lessons. He never became observant and went to medical school in Berlin. While there, he began to actively pursue conversion to Christianity, and committed to be baptized to his cousin who had converted, but first, he said he needed to delve into Judaism so he would at least know what he was giving up. In this mode, he went to High Holy Day services, and on Yom Kippur in 1913, had a powerful religious experience in synagogue, a revelation of some sort. It became clear to him that he was existentially and unchangeably a Jew and there was no leaving it. He decided that Judaism was rightly concerned about real life, this life and the way we can best live it. He became one of the most famous Jewish philosophers of the past several centuries, and was a star in the school of Wissenschaft der Judenthums, or the academic graduate study of Judaism that is the intellectual basis of what would become Reform Judaism.

Rosensweig’s magnus opus is The Star of Redemption. In it, he uses the Star of David to describe the relationships that define Judaism and reveal the world. One triangle focuses on the relationship between God, People and Universe. The other triangle consists of Creation, Revelation and Redemption. For Rosensweig, a key to Jewish theology was that we are called to love God, but that love does not take us away from the day-to-day world of action, to a mystical way of being, but quite the contrary, to love God is to be called to return to the world and returning to this world out of love of God is how he views the nature of Redemption.  

But today is Shavu’ot, and so I wanted to think more about Rosensweig’s view of Revelation. Rosensweig saw Creation, Revelation and Redemption as being about time. Creation happened in the past, Redemption happens in the future, and Revelation is what is happening at this very moment.

As paraphrased by Rabbi and Doctor of Philosophy Zohar Atkins, Creation is about remembering. Revelation is about being open in the moment, and Redemption is about hope.

Revelation requires that we stop, empty ourselves and then brave opening ourselves up to what is really happening in the moment, to listening to that moment in all its connections and context. With our busy chattering minds, it is not easy to open ourselves to any moment.

So often today, when we talk about mindfulness, about being open to the moment, we describe in positive, affirming terms, and simple terms as if being present in the moment is just about remembering to notice the moment. It sounds easy, beautiful, peaceful, enlightened. It seems like a peaceful meditative way of being in the world.

I think we all know it is much harder to be open in the moment than it sounds. There are other reasons that busy minds that keep us from being open to the moment, and what the truth of the moment reveals to us. Indeed, large parts of us would much rather avoid the truth of the moment; we have developed powerful defenses against it. Those defenses are rooted in fear.

Yesterday, I was talking with Hannah Sachs, my assistant, and she shared with me an idea she was having for a sermon, that sometimes revelation isn’t safe, isn’t comfortable. Indeed, revelation is often terrifying. Think of an epiphany you’ve had, something that was revealed to you, a truth about life or about relationships that came to you all of a sudden.

I know that for me, sometimes an epiphany is beautiful and affirming, and sometimes it is wrenching and painful. Revelation often throws us into upheaval and disorientation. We no longer see ourselves or the world as we did just a moment before. Being open the truth that each moment is offering us is terrifying because we never know when our entire world view will be turned upside down. We might have to see that we have been living a lie.

Revelation often doesn’t feel safe at all. It can be terribly uncomfortable. Everything in us can want to go back to the previous sense of the world we had, but revelation is one genie you can’t put back in a bottle.

Perhaps that is why the mood of the revelation at Sinai is neither joyful nor peaceful, but tense and terrifying. The mount is rumbling, lightning is flashing, a shofar-like sound is blaring and the people want to step away from the mountain. They fear they can’t handle the truth that is coming their way. They want to go back to the way it was in Egypt. They want a golden calf to comfort them and to erase the awesome power of the revelation that sense is coming.

We have all clung to our own golden calf, held it like a life-raft. We have gone back to our old ways for a time in order to avoid what life or God is trying to reveal to us. We have all made ourselves busy at times to keep from hearing revelation.

It is scary to be open to some moments. It is scary to allow ourselves to receive the revelations that our recent politics and discourse have shown us, that recent shootings have shown us, that our inability to act in the fact of violence and climate change reveal to us.

 It is nice to think of being in the present moment as a personal individual practice of mindfulness. Yet, sometimes what is revealed is that we are not simply individuals, but are inextricably part of a people, our fate tied with what we do and think together, and that whether we consented or not, we are in it together for good or for ill.

Our tradition teaches that our people initially rejected the revelation, said ‘no thank you’ to the covenant God was offering.  So God lifted Mount Sinai from its roots deep in the earth and held it over the heads of the Israelites, and threatened to drop it on them if they didn’t accept the revelation.  Some things are true whether we want to accept them or not. Realizing one is in covenant with others is one of those. 

We still stand at Sinai, slowly accepting a revelation that redemption will require us to go way past our comfort zones, past our sense of safety, and we will have to do it with people who are really stubborn, irritating, cowardly, and whiney. And often violent. And self -sabotaging. But yet, we are a people that stand at Sinai. We remember the beauty of Creation and the longing for the hope of Redemption, and standing in the present and in the presence of God, we say, “we will listen and we will do.”

Chag Sameach.