"I appeared," God says.
"I was seen," God says.
"I made myself seen," God says.
The synopsis that opens Parshat VaAyra brings the period of intimate dialogue between God and the patriarchs to a definitive close, while at the same moment setting the stage for the relationship between God and Israel in the saga that occupies the book of Sh'mot.
"VaAyra"
The root is "resh, alef, hay" like the word "Ra-ah"/see. The stem or binyan/construction is Niphal, the causative. In the First person singular, God appeared.
What began as an ongoing, incomplete, personal relationship between God and the patriarchs, is transformed by the "vav hahepooch" into a completed, full, finished relationship relegated to history and the opening, in an intimate moment of revelation, to the nature of the future dialogue between God and Moses.
"VaAyra."
"I appeared," God says.
"I was seen," God says.
"I made myself seen," God says,
"to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
"But these fathers did not know Me by the same name that you will know Me by." They did not see Me the same way you will see Me. I did not appear to them in the same way you will know Me.
Perhaps you cannot see Me the same way.
Perhaps I will not let you see Me the same way.
I am changing the way I appear to you.
Your fathers saw Me/knew Me as El Shaddai. You will know Me as YHVH/Adoni.-"ahiye asher ahiyeh/I will be what I will be".
You Moses are of a different generation.
You Moses are a different person.
You live in a different time and place.
We will experience each other differently.
We will weave the tapestry of this new relationship with a new name.
We will build it together detail by detail.
It will appear differently from what has come before.
God may be the all powerful deity El Shaddai, or the all powerful deity YHVH/Adoni, but it is in the details of a reciprocal, personal relationship that the history of Israel is revealed.
These details, they are delicious. Human. Physical. Horrid. Listen to the description of the plagues and imagine: The handful of soot, the torment of boils, the total eclipse of darkness, the stench of dead livestock, the wail of grief.
These are not visual descriptions. They are the kind of tactile, all five senses engaged, detail that can make your skin crawl in a hit movie thriller.
What follows in Parshat VaAyra in specific -and on through the exodus saga in general-is rich descriptive prose helping us, the readers, to personally understand what happened, so that we can remember and retell about a saga where the most of the characters involved do not see or grasp the whole picture or the truth at all.
They do not see God as He appears.
God-as told to us in our recorded history, the Torah-uses example after graphic example to convey His fairly consistent message.
Why does God need more than one plague?
Why does Israel need more than one miracle?
Why do we need the whole saga retold in D'varim?
Why do we need 40 years of repetition wandering in the desert to "get it"?
Why do we loose two Temples and kingdoms and wait still?
The same story of relationship building-even within this Parsha-is retold over and over. Not once but ten times does God plague the Egyptians until Pharaoh "gets it"...and still Pharaoh comes racing after Israel into the Red Sea.
It takes time and repetition to recognize the details that enable change.
The story of the exodus from Egypt is our script. It is a story told from many perspectives, each time with a new twist. Within this same repeating text we are even commanded retell it to our children ...as we do each year in the Haggadah. On Pesach, we chant a ritual with sound bites collected from across the generations, each telling approximately the same story-this story. Those haggadot are resplendent in their flavors, insights and special agendas; however many are written, there is no end.
We experience the same during the Yamim Noraim/the High Holy Days as we chant sometimes endless variations of the same theme, expressions of dozens of poets in piyutim (liturgical poems) from different eras, hoping that one twist of the language will enlighten us or stir us in a new way.
We act it out on Hanukah when we light the candles 8 nights-perhaps neither increasing or decreasing the light as Alan Hobscheid or Richard Tupper would have it (in their joint D'var Torah last month)-but eight different patterns to light the way.
What is this connection between detail and seeing, between action and repetition, between appearance and understanding?
As an artist, I love detail. This may sound strange coming from one whose artwork is generally abstract, panoramic and loose. But I have learned...from teachers of art as well as teachers of Torah... that the details are what makes a story engaging. They give perspective and universal interest. In every one of my abstract landscapes--ceramic platter or painting or beaded necklace, I know the exact spot I want to sit and explore, where I to personally want enter the space I have imagined, where I am connected to the story being told, where I can learn from the perspective offered.
My Viennese-born Jewish teacher of art directors, Henry Wolf-a man who transformed the visual vocabulary of America with his ad and magazine imagery--understood the prize of the image and word perfectly turned to be unforgettable. He changed peoples' actions-be it their buying choices, their clothing style or their vision. You may not have become familiar with so familiar with surrealism had not Henry Wolf taken images from Magritte paintings, transforming bowler hats and openings in clouds into a new media, giving voice to the American frustration with the reign of propriety and façade over content and feeling in the middle of the last century. His eye for detail and his ability to use it to engage the viewer not only sold the products he was advertising, but also helped foment the societal changes of 60's and 70's by opening eyes and providing vocabulary which helped give Americans permission to act and think differently.
Details express the vision which makes a story personal, communicating my voice and my ideas...as opposed to someone else's vision of the same subject. I answered a definitive, "Yes!" to Carol Grannick when she asked me last year if visual artists speak of voice in the same way writers do. The variety of detail in our Parsha, the many voices which tell the story, each time a bit differently, underscore for me the importance and role of artists as catalysts in society.
Not every individual is moved emotionally or engaged intellectually by the same voices or details. We need lots and lots and lots of examples before we find the perfect motivator!
Seeing through another's eyes is both the appreciation of the multitude of God's creations from the outside as well as occasionally the satisfying closeness that comes from identifying with another human being and being able to view the world through his or her eyes. Both of these visions can change the world...one detail at a time.
The big picture is the important part...it is the story worth telling...the context...the message...the universal quality. Here in VaAyra, it is the furthering of God's covenant with Israel by freeing His people. Without global perspective one can certainly get lost in the minutia and lose sight of the meaning, but only by stepping in close and looking at the individual deed can one change the big picture, change history, change relationships and discover one's own purpose.
We see this in the business world with emphasis on systems and productivity. We see it in schools where one skill is learned and tested before moving onto the next subject. We see it in the kitchen where one spice can change a soup from Italian to Moroccan.
As many of you know, for the past year and a half Ben Sommer has been teaching a class for the minyan on the Book of Samuel. We are examining the larger picture of the David stories...one word at a time.
I would like to take a moment aside to publicly thank Ben and Jennifer for this gift-for the luxury of engaging together with a holy text without the worry of finishing in a time frame, as well as for the detailed planning and preparation needed to have the children in bed and the table cleared off in time for class each week, a feat which is no less critical than the preparation of text.
Our careful focus and turning over of each verse has given me such a rich relationship with these characters.
Like our Parsha, the beginning section of Shmuel Alef/First Samuel is also a story about being able to see God when He appears, about new relationships begun. The book starts with the familiar story of Eli the priest, a man who often overlooks the details---like mistaking Hannah for a drunkard when she is praying. Eli got the details wrong often; he was not the best observer. But ultimately, through enough examples, he did understand the larger drama of his role according to God's plan. Eli was accepting of his own humanity, unselfishly teaching Shmuel in turn to hear God's voice when God first appeared to Shmuel. Without the total context, this may not have been a story worthy of canonization, but without the details we would not identify with its depth of feeling and remember it.
Why do this? Why is this engagement with text a Jewish priority?
To devote the time and concentration to any subject to know it well is a great "meshivat nafesh"... a restoration of the spirit. This studying of Samuel and its grammar has flowed over personally to enrich my understanding of the davening as well as to return me to a renewed contemplation of the role of underlying detail as a mother and an artist.
To be engaged with details can at its best feel like Jacob wrestling with the angel, building a closeness to the Divine.
To me, relishing the details is a form of communication with God. To stop and turn them over is to comprehend the wondrous and innumerable ways in which God has created the world. Not only to see, but to understand and foster creating my own relationship with God. Perhaps each of us has a relationship with God that, like Moses, demands a new name, a personal name for the God who appears to each of us as we recognize Him.
A popular twist of a common proverb is the oft-quoted phrase, "The devil is in the details." I think here however of the original proverb, attributed variously in internet sources to Gustave Flaubert or Michelangelo or Mies van der Robe, each of whom understood that the road to great art and expression is based in the personal knowledge that "God is in the details."
In our Parsha, God challenges Moshe, warning that while I am the same God who appeared to your fathers as El Shaddai, from now on my relationship is with you and Israel, not your fathers. We have had our watershed experience at the bush. Ours will be a different kind relationship, so it demands a different name to acknowledge that.
Watch what is coming Moses...look carefully at what appears...I will make myself know to you. VaAyra. I will provide the cues by how I reveal Myself. Study. Focus. Take good notes. You will learn who you are and who I am as we go forward together in time, engaging in holy work over and over, until we, God and Israel, get the details of this covenant right.
Shabbat Shalom.
Joan Katz January 2004/Tevet 5764
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