Radical Judaism_ Rethinking God and Tradition - Arthur Green [54]
But there is a second commandment implicit in this same “Where are you?” following immediately upon the first, “Be aware.” Our second task, needing no further language, is to share this realization with others. The One needs and calls upon us to become aware, each in our own way. But it is through the great collectivity of human consciousness that the One drives forward in its goal of being known, manifest, and loved. We share this awareness best not by preaching but by our deeds. This is the part of “Where are you?” that calls for compassion and moral action. We let others know that we and they are part of the same One when we treat them like brothers and sisters, or like parts of the same single universal body.34 We are called upon to proclaim the oneness of Being throughout the world and to welcome all human beings into the chorus of exulting in the One, in whatever language and style best suits them.
How do you help to enable another person to become aware of the One that fills and surrounds us? First, by helping him or her reach a condition of self-love and self-acceptance. We will open our eyes to the beauty and sanctity of life only when we attain the inner peace and wholeness needed to do so. There is much of this work that each person has to do on his or her own. But others can and must help to provide the right conditions. We cannot expect a person to reach that place as long as he or she is hungry. Or as long as he or she is homeless or oppressed or addicted or condemned to a life of meaningless labor. We fellow members of the human community, limbs in the single body of Y-H-W-H, therefore have to act in love, in caring for one another, in support of one another's many struggles, and in empathy with each other's pain. Only then do we earn a right to the messianic dream that sustains us, our hope and faith that we will all open our eyes and see that Presence.
In this way all the mitzvot, both those called “between person and God” (the ritual forms) and those called “between person and person” (the moral/ethical realm) can be seen as our response to that single silent word, the divine Ayeka? —“Where are you?” — that echoes within every human heart. They are sacred forms, bearing the special potential for encounter with the One, a truth not diminished by our acceptance that they are all of human origin. To the question “Are the mitzvot divine or human?” I can only answer, “Yes.”
Ten Words, Twice Spoken
The tradition insists that the world was founded by an act, or a series of acts, of divine speech. “God said: ‘Let there be …’ “ is Torah's opening myth.35 But there is also a silent God, the One before or underlying that first act of speech. The silent God does not disappear as divine speech begins. In this too we exist in God's image. The speaking or articulate person, so much emphasized and encouraged in Judaism (Homo sapiens is defined in Hebrew as medabber, “speaker”), both expresses and masks the silent inner self.36 So does the pregnant divine silence ever underlie divine speech.
The phrase “Let there be,” by an early count, occurs ten times in the opening chapter of Genesis, leading the Mishnah to proclaim that “the world was created by ten utterances.” The Talmud already objected that there are only nine such statements in Genesis 1, resolving the difference by the strange notion that “In the beginning” is also a sort of utterance.37 The Kabbalists quite naturally identified these ten with the ten sefirot, the historical origins of which are in fact quite different, having more to do with number than language.