Devarim and Subjectivity
Although it is by no means new, it is quite
an interesting exercise to compare the textual differences in Devarim (Deuteronomy or the 5th
Book of Moses) and the other books in the Torah, most especially Shemot (Exodus) and BaMidbar (Numbers). Since Devarim
is a retelling of the narrative of the Israelite people from the escape from
slavery through the forty years of wandering in the wilderness (Deuteronomy
literally means “Second Law” from deuteros
meaning second and numos meaning law)
we get an opportunity to check for textual consistency.
In the academic world for the past two
centuries this is looked upon through the lenses of textual criticism. Julius
Wellhausen in 1878 famously wrote “Geschichte
Israels” or “The History of Israel,” the most well known and eventually
influential book within a school of thought called the “Documentary
Hypothesis.” Although this specific paradigm has been challenged and ultimately
has collapsed in the last fifty years, there are essentially no serious bible
scholars that doubt that the Torah is a compilation of various texts and
textual traditions—the debate rages around when and why different texts were
written, what were their sources, and how much redacting was involved over what
period of time to bring about the final version of Torah sometime around the 5th
century bce.
Of course, even bringing up textual
criticism and the “opportunity to check for textual consistency” is a bit
absurd. The Torah makes no claims to its own objectivity or consistency. Regardless
of the academic arguments around the proper paradigm of understanding the
formative process of Torah or the more “orthodox” view of Torah as a received
text, Torah itself has no problems with contradictions. Moreover, sages
throughout Jewish history have gleefully woven midrashim around the inconsistencies. For example, there are (at least) two
different versions of the Decalogue (the esseret
HaDibrot, the “ten utterances” or my least preferred term, “The 10 Commandments”)
in Exodus and Deuteronomy. In Exodus, we are told to “remember” (zachor) the Sabbath day and make it
holy, whereas in Deuteronomy we are told to “observe” (shamor.) Our midrashic tradition
sees no contradiction and instead focuses on our finite nature. In this explanation, the Eternal being without
limit “uttered” both zachor and shamor simultaneously, yet as we are
limited and linear, we were forced to understand the layered thought as two
distinct words, necessitating a repetition of the ten utterances in
Deuteronomy. (As a lovely side note, the Lecha Dodi explores this mystical idea
in the first stanza “shamor v’zachor
b’dibur echad/observe and remember [uttered] in one utterance.” Even more
amusing is why the order is reversed and “shamor”
precedes zachor. The author of
the Lecha Dodi, Shlomo Alkabetz signed his name in an acrostic—a poetic device
where the first letter of each line either spells another word or represents a
specific letter order such as the entire aleph-bet—and in order to sign
“Shlomo,” he needed to start the first stanza with the letter shin. Ah, poetic license!)
But this brings us back to the exercise of
looking for or even just accidentally finding the differences between stories
told in Deuteronomy and the other books of Moses, or even contradictory
tellings of the same story in the same book (see chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis
for the wildly different creation stories, and then contrast these to the
creation stories captured in Psalm 104 and Job 38-42.) The contradictions are
used by the Richard Dawkins’ of the world to yet again point out the absurdity
of looking to religious texts as authoritative sources, while the books
themselves make clear that they are weaving a narrative of the tribulations of
relationship between one group of humans and their attempt to discover their
place in a specific type of theological narrative. We are unapologetically
subjective in this relationship, and it turns out the Torah itself gives us
permission to exist in this subjectivity.
At the beginning of Deuteronomy, we read:
“These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel . . .”
followed a few verses later with “The Eternal our God spoke to us at Horeb,
saying . . .” Until this point in Torah, we accept a steady diet of assuming we
are getting the direct “word” of the Eternal, as so many verses begin with “The
Eternal spoke to Moses (or others) saying . . .” and thus are led to an illusion of objective narration. (It is worth exploring, however, how
subjective this is meant to be in the overall world of Judaism. Rabbi Ishmael’s
dictum in the Talmud that Torah speaks in laypersons’ terms suggest this
narrative device as a metaphor and Maimonides’ aversion to any anthropomorphic
qualities in the Eternal beg the question as to what “The Eternal spoke” actually means!)
But in Deuteronomy, we add another layer.
When Moses says “The Eternal our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying . . .” what
then follows is Moses subjectively filtering and at times even changing the
“words of the Eternal” that have been presented at other times. If we look at
this from the perspective of a court of law, with all the changes and
contradictions, how reliable of a witness is this Moses, the greatest of all
prophets that “knew the Eternal countenance to countenance?” Carry that even
further, and you realize that the entire book of Deuteronomy is
unapologetically Moses’ subjective and often angry interpretation of events
over the last forty years and contain no direct revelation or so-called “voice
of God.” Put differently, a human has become the clear medium through which
revelation is relayed, belying the more fantastical view of Deity Acting As
Human. And then on top of this all, because this subjective narration is
accepted without much fuss in our tradition as being as equally “Torah” as the
rest of Torah, we can at least entertain the argument that the nature of the
Eternal is meant to be seen as containing a contradiction, non-linearity, and
subjectivity. Follow this forward to the specific “new” laws presented in
Deuteronomy such as the division and responsibility of various powers in
government and society, and it is worth asking how long Judaism has been trying
to teach us to take responsibility for our own existence. It is in this book,
after all, that we read that Torah “is not in heaven” that we need to search
for it, rather it is here as part of our everyday existence.
The acknowledgment of the subjectivity of
Torah can lead to many conclusions. For budding nihilists, we can always take
this in the direction of, “well if this is all subjective narrative written by
humans, then what need do we have of religion?” Or perhaps we can do what I
believe Torah has been arguing for us to do for some time—argue, debate,
disagree, be in dialogue, interpret, engage. It is our Torah, and like Moses, we get to stand on the rock and try to
make sense of it in our generation, without anyone demanding that we interpret
Torah exactly as they do or did. Their reading is as subjective as ours, and
according to Torah, that is pretty kosher.
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