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September 2010

The Divine Present

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Commentary on Torah Portion Sh’mot (Exodus 1:1-6:1) written by Rabbi Marc Wolf, Jewish Theological Seminary.

The past ten years have brought us blogging, Googling, YouTubing, tweeting on Twitter, and updating our Facebook statuses. Each progressive step (if we really want to call it progress) has brought new meaning to here and now. What these technologies have demonstrated is that we have a virtual obsession with being current—with letting people know exactly what we are thinking, doing, or experiencing.

At first, the obsession was casual. We blogged about our lives and posted videos on YouTube, highlighting the trivial and the sublime. We reacted to news stories, ranted about airline service, waxed philosophical about politics, and inspired an audience of millions-and in some cases there actually were millions in the audience. Who didn’t enjoy watching the hit counter exponentially escalating on the video of “Jill and Kevin’s Wedding Entrance” (currently at over 38 million views and definitely not an example of the sublime) or feel provoked to act by “The Girl Effect” as it landed in inboxes and on blog posts? We have been amused, moved, enraged, and entertained as we demonstrated with our comments in online forums.

But our fixation didn’t end there.

As we moved through the decade, we discovered that blogging was too demanding for people with day jobs, so Facebook blossomed and our “friends” found out who we were, what we liked, and how many friends we had in common. We filled the space between blogging and Facebook by tweeting constant notifications of every twist and turn in our daily lives.

What has ultimately emerged as the years and technology progressed over this digital decade is our complete and utter infatuation with the present. We are driven to update, to tweet, to post, to capture this moment. Now. The present.

Interestingly enough, as much as Jewish institutions have benefited from the technological advances of this past decade (you may be hearing this as a JTS podcast), Judaism itself sees the present not as something we can capture at any given moment, but rather as elusive, or better yet, impossible to articulate.

This week, Moses encounters God for the first time after fleeing the oppression and injustice he witnesses at the hand of the Egyptians. Tending the flock of his father-in-law, Moses guides his sheep deep into the wilderness where he experiences a revelation of God in the Burning Bush. He comes to learn that this God of his ancestors has recognized that it is time to redeem the people and bring them to their destined land. When Moses questions whether he is fitting for the task presented to him, God reassures him, insisting that the Divine Presence will be with him (Exod. 3:1–12).

While Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob experienced God in a similar formulaic manner, Moses’s experience differs significantly in the verses that follow.

Moses said to God, “When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.” He continued, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me to you'” (Exod. 3:13–15a).

Moses comes to know God by a completely different name that is unique to his experience. But what is it about this particular appellation? The Torah and rabbinic literature are replete with names for God, but Moses alone comes to know God as Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.

Rabbi Alan Lew, (z”l), understands this moment as teaching us more about Moses than God. It is Moses’s consciousness that defines his relationship with God. His presence of mind at the burning bush inspires his understanding of and relationship to God:

Eventually, Moses will ask God God’s name, and God will reply, Eyeh chasher eyeh, “I Am That I Am,” or “I Will Be What I Will Be” (the tense is not clear), and then later, simply Yud Hey Vov Hey, the verb “to be” in the present tense. The name of God is the only way to express present-tense being in the Hebrew language; you cannot say, “I am tall,” you can only say, “I tall.” Only God can be the absolute present tense; humans can only approach this state. Even when we are present, mindful, flush with our experience, there is still a synapse of milliseconds between the experience itself and the time it takes our nervous system to process it. (One God Clapping, 260)

Moses is truly in this moment. That is why he comes to know God as “The Present.” He is, as Buber would suggest, in an “I and Thou” relationship with God. Present in the present, so to speak. As Rabbi Lew puts it (his passing last year left us wanting more instructing on living this teaching), “we are never really in our experience, just watching a movie of what happened several milliseconds ago, but the closer we get to being present, the closer we get to God.”

Our challenge for the coming decade is to redefine the present not as a time period, but a state of mind, and devote more of our time to updating our mindset rather than our Facebook status.

The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (z”l) Hassenfeld.

Q & A: Outreach

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Q Our church can’t seem to get an effective outreach effort going. What’s working these days?

A Recently I read about one church’s attempt at outreach that included hiring a petting zoo and giving elephant rides to get people in the door so the church could hit them up with a gospel presentation. With all due respect to that particular effort, I have a hard time believing that God needs a circus in order to connect with people in our communities.

A more effective and natural means of connecting with your community is to get involved with events and things already going on. As one critic of the church recently quipped, “How come you Christians don’t show up at anything that you can’t control?” That’s hard to hear, but worth considering.

Check out the community events calendar in your local newspaper and get involved! You’ll find things like book clubs, poetry readings, musical performances, ecological preservation gatherings, neighborhood association meetings, and more! Certainly these are the kinds of things Christians also enjoy and love, and they provide a natural platform of common interest on which to build relationships without any pretense or ulterior motive. There is certainly nothing wrong with having outreach events, but perhaps it’s our turn to show up.

—Bryan Berghoef

This FAQ appeared in the Banner in October 2010.


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Q I often wonder if I’m a genuine Christian because I’m not actively sharing my faith. My attempts at outreach or evangelism seem phony and inappropriate.  What should I do?

A If you’re trying to talk to someone about your faith because you feel pressured to or because of some misconception about what a genuine Christian is, your attempts will be phony and inappropriate.

In our cultural context today, relationships are the most fertile ground for the gospel. The days of showing up and knocking on people’s doors with a “plan for their life” are over. Think of the last time a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon knocked on your door. What was your reaction?  Exactly.

Now think of the last time someone shared with you a favorite recipe or a story about how his child just learned to ride a bike or about a great movie she just watched—no doubt it was natural and unrehearsed. Sharing a story about God can and should be just like that.

A true Christian witness doesn’t need to think about saying the right thing or inserting the right verse because his or her life is focused on following Jesus and living out the kingdom of God. This kind of authentic faith speaks for itself.

Develop friendships with people outside of your Christian circle—people you meet at the bookstore, a favorite restaurant, or at the office. Invite a casual acquaintance over for dinner. Offer to help him with a house project. Get to know her over coffee. Seek such a person out as a friend rather than as a target, and your words and life will be seen and heard differently.

In this context faith issues can become a natural part of your conversations, rather than a forced and sudden presentation. Relax and entrust the whole thing to God. As you do, you’ll find that God has a way of arriving in unsurprising ways and places.

—Bryan Berghoef

This FAQ appeared in The Banner in April 2010.

A Deeper Life

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an interesting meditation I ran across recently:

Nothing seems to remain after life but a cast, an impression left by a once living being.

An enduring life, a life that could last through and beyond death, would have to be a deeper life than the ordinary.  It would have to be some life that men have without knowing it, some current that runs far beneath the surface.  To find it would be like seeing something fiery in the depths of life; it would be like hearing a rhythm in life that is not ordinarily heard.  The question is whether a man, if he found such a life, could bear to live it, whether he could live at that depth, whether he could live according to that rhythm.

The deeper life would be like an undertow, like a current that flows beneath the surface, a current that sets seaward or along the beach while the waves on the surface are breaking upon the shore.  The phases of life and the phases of civilization are like the waves, each phase swelling and dying away, each one rolling onto shore and breaking.  A life lived on the surface is like the surf itself, like the swell of the sea that breaks upon the shore, like the foam, the splash, the sound of breaking waves.  There is no swelling and breaking in the undertow, no foam, no splash, no sound.  Yet it is a powerful current and may move in a direction opposite to that of the waves, may move toward the open sea while they move toward the shore.

A man who gave himself to the deeper current of life might run a risk like that of a man who let himself be caught in the undertow.  It might be better for him to  float on the surface and let himself be carried to shore.  To live in accord with the deeper rhythm might be to ignore the surface rhythm of life.  It might mean missing the normal joys and cares of childhood, youth, manhood, and age.  It might mean plunging down into the depths of life to follow a light as elusive as sea fire.

by John S. Dunne, in “Time and Myth”

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