I received a fantastic email the other week: a list of 50 “intellectual jokes.” Apparently, I’m not such an intellectual because I didn’t understand all of the jokes. But I really liked this one: A linguist is someone who loves syntactic ambiguity more than most people.
Syntactic ambiguity is a phrase or sentence that, no matter how carefully one reads it and thinks about its meaning, has an irreparably ambiguous meaning. And –the joke is funny because that definition of a linguist is itself a syntactic ambiguity! Does the linguist love syntactic ambiguity more than most people do? Or – does the linguist love syntactic ambiguity more than he or she loves most other people?
In the aftermath of post-modernism, we now understand that all language is ambiguous. There can be no text or statement that isn’t subject to interpretation and there is no way to avoid the necessity of interpretation by the reader. This post-modern insight is actually quite consistent with a Jewish approach to reading Torah. We embrace the ambiguity of the Torah, and respond with our oral tradition and with ongoing and never-ending interpretation.
Perhaps the most famous example of syntactic ambiguity in the Torah occurs in the opening of Parashat Vayera.
“Vayera Elav Hashem” And God appeared to Avraham at Elonei Mamre while Avraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent at the heat of the day. And he lifted his eyes and – behold – three men were standing before him, and he saw, and then ran to great them from his tent and then he bowed down.”
Then Avraham says something ambiguous. Aleph – Daled – Nun – Yud can be understood “hol” as a polite way to refer to the three men, “Gentlemen” Adonai, please don’t turn away from me. Avraham is inviting these three strangers, who appeared tired and dirty from a trek through the desert, as though they were visiting royalty.
But aleph-daled-nun – yud can also refer to God. In this reading, Avraham is turning to God and saying, “hold on” – I need to welcome these guests – we’ll continue our conversation later “please don’t turn away from me.” This way of understanding the verse emphasizes the value of hospitality. Welcoming guests is more important than being in conversation with God.
From the earliest stages of rabbinic interpretation rabbis have adopted both ways of understanding the word aleph-daled-nun-yud. There is evidence than can be brought to support each reading. However, I think the ambiguity itself is the most profound message.
The Torah, by using a deliberately ambiguous word, is emphasizing a message of profound religious humanism. Religious humanism is a worldview in which the quest for intimacy with God, and obedience and love of God, are inextricably linked to the affirmation of human dignity, to providing for the needs and comfort of other people, and to enhancing love and solidarity between people.
For Avraham, serving guests and encountering God were not two separate spheres of life, they weren’t even two sides of the same coin. To Avraham, they were one identical pursuit. He saw God’s face in the face of the stranger, and he knew that his love of God, creates obligations to other human beings.
Another example of religious humanism occurs a few verses later. When Sarah is told that she will have a child, she laughs, silently, in disbelief. “How can I have a child – my husband is very old.” God then reports her words to Avraham with a subtle but important difference. “Why is Sarah laughing and saying, ‘how can I have a child because I have aged?’” The Talmud notices that God changes Sarah’s words. She had mentioned Avraham’s old age, but God reports to Avraham that it was Sarah’s own age that caused her to doubt the message that she would have a child.
“Shinah” – her words were changed – “mipnei HaShalom” on account of peace. Truth, the Talmud tells us, is God’s seal – God’s calling card. This is because truth, unlike any other attribute or virtue, cannot be modified or altered and still be the truth. And yet – here God compromises the value of truth – God’s own personal seal, in order to encourage and support the peaceful marital relationship of Avraham and Sarah.
This is also an affirmation of religious humanism. God represents absolute truth with a capital “T.” But for us, the truth of our human relationships and peaceful interactions between us, is more important than striving for the ultimate Truth from God’s perspective. Religious humanism teaches us that the fundamental truth that human beings were created in order to exist in harmony with each other, is a higher truth for us than being right or being accurate in any specific instance.
As some of you know, I’m training with a group of others from the shul as part of “Team Cara” to run in the Miami Half-Marathon as a fundraiser for Chai Lifeline. There are many reasons why that project is exciting for me. I’m exercising in a way I have not done in years. I’m proud to be raising money for a tzedakah as admirable as Chai Lifeline – which provides crucial emotional support for sick children. But – most of all, I’m thrilled to see an expression of religious humanism.
There is no shortage of worthy causes to support with our tzedakah money. And there is no shortage of worthy organizations where we can volunteer our time. But when we join together with the people that we pray with, and then go on to perform other mitzvot together and serve our fellow human beings together as a shul community, we are affirming the truth that Avraham recognized – love for God and love for humanity join together in one single commitment. All of the Social-Action Committee projects of the shul, including the Chanukkah gifts for the Ark mentioned in this week’s bulletin, are expressions of Avraham’s religious humanism. There’s added value, and added significance to joining together as a religious community – as a community dedicated to Torah, and mitzvot – and then finding ways to serve human beings who are in need of what we can offer.
Similarly, when we speak within our family, when we speak to others within the shul, we must remember that being right, expressing the truth with a capital “T” is not our job – truth with a capital “T” is God’s seal and God’s calling card. Our job is to interact with one another, when we are in agreement, and when we are in disagreement, with a profound commitment to peace, harmony, and respect. If God can bend the truth to protect Avraham and Sarah’s relationship, we can worry less about being correct, and worry more about a correct way of being.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 