The Book of Exodus (the second of our Five Books) will contain some awesome events leading up to and following the revelation of the Law (Ten Commandments) to the Israelites.
Looking closely at how this moment of awe is framed and presented, we start at the beginning of Exodus as the Israelites, once functioning in Egypt from a position of relative strength and security, are now, after 400 years as resident aliens, viewed by a new leader as a threat to the stability of the monarchy and, by extension, the Egyptian population.
Faced with a choice between continued marginalization and increased harassment or self-imposed expulsion, the Israelites chose to leave Egypt to the perils of a promised though procedurally uncertain future. For this to happen, the Torah gives us a leader, a person who will become the figurehead of the will of the Almighty. Enter Moses.
The brilliance of the Torah is that it gets just to the edge of putting Moses up there with the Almighty, but not quite. Philosophers have spent years since the Torah, creating ladders and successions to the “knowledge” of the Almighty, but that’s a different topic altogether.
What may keep Moses and our understanding of Moses in the human realm is awe induced humility. Many commentaries try to explain Moses’ humility and his soft-spoken nature, but rather than looking at Moses intrinsically, I would like to look at his nature extrinsically.
The Burning Bush episode (Exodus 3:2) could be an awesome experience for Moses as it transformed his attitude and aptitude toward becoming the exilic leader of the Israelites. After that event, Moses displays 10 “miracles,” each of them awe inducing and intended to humble Pharoah. The crossing of the Reed Sea (Exodus 15) ups the awe ante with a tidal event that was experienced by Israelites and Egyptians. The awe experiences reach an apex when Moses receives his “cosmic eye” upon receipt of the Ten Commandments.
Awe, in the religious sense, can be seen as a moment when an individual “experiences contact with a higher power. This contact triggers an overpowering and novel sensory experience that causes confusion and amazement. When the confusion lifts, the person is transformed and embraces new values, commands and missions” (professors Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt), hence the “cosmic eye” – the ability to see the world differently from the way one sees going forward and how they are seen by others.
With each event in Exodus, Moses is transforming into the leader he will be throughout the rest of the Torah. The one accompanying aspect, when we experience awe, is that we feel humble in the face of what we see as awesome, whether it’s earthbound (The Grand Canyon or a Sequoia tree), or a feat of human performance (sports, arts, even childbirth), or natural phenomena (weather or climate). These events are transformative and make us see that we are a small part of a much greater universe.
Moses in the Torah helps us to understand what awe means to us and what to expect if we encounter an awesome event. Some of us may never see such an event or, if we do, may not recognize it when or even after it happens.
Maybe this new year will hold an awesome event that may help us find our collective cosmic eye and allow that shared experience to bring us closer to a more cohesive and humble humanity.
Cantor and Rabbi Ron Eichaker serves United Hebrew Congregation and is a police chaplain. He is a member of the St. Louis Rabbinical and Cantorial Association, which coordinates the d’var Torah for the Jewish Light.
