Shabbat Vayeyrah

Do you believe in angels? Of course it depends on what you think angels are. Are they supernatural beings in white shifts and sets of wings (usually with long blond hair) as much religious imagery imagines them? Or are they simply human beings who play a part in the Divine plan? Maimonides, the great philosopher and rationalist thought that angels were not literally altogether magical beings. But rather reflections of our own spiritual minds.

This concept of angels as super or supra humans goes back to early Mesopotamian culture. Winged animals and humans were above, elevated, a higher species, god like.  And the idea was adopted first in Babylonia, and then enthusiastically by the Midrashic rabbis as an antidote to rational Geek philosophy. Maimonides tried to explain away the humanization of Angels as beings, both in his Guide to the Perplexed and his Mishneh Torah. Everything is divine, even a blade of grass, but angels represent the different levels of spiritual souls. This idea came to dominate Jewish thinking thousands of years ago as early mysticism became adopted and expanded by the Kabbalah. And Christianity of course with its anthropomorphism, elevating humans to god like status, took it much further, hence the common idea that we all have a guardian angel.

The Hebrew word for angel, Malach, is identical to the Hebrew word for a messenger. And the messengers who appeared to Avraham in this week’s reading, looked like human beings, in the Torah they were first described in the Torah as ordinary men. That was why Avraham washed their feet, offered them food, and suggested they rest and take a nap. And then not long after describes them as messengers, Malachim. But the Torah always allows for different ways of understanding things and often using language with variations.

There are other cases in the Torah where human beings play a part in the unfolding of the Divine Will, and they are called both “men” and “messengers.” Who was the man who fought with Jacob all night long and Jacob would not let go of. A dream? An angel? Or the man who finds Yosef lost and directs him towards his fate. Rashi says he was an angel, but the Torah describes him as a man. Messengers, malachim, appear throughout the Bible and only afterwards does their appearance strike us as miraculous.

If a doctor predicts that someone will get better or a woman conceive, he or she may be acting on the basis of expertise, but also perhaps on intuition. If someone predicts a political catastrophe this may be guesswork, it may be based on special information. It may be what we call inspiration. But these are still human beings even if what they see happening can be seen as part of the Divine Will.

I believe we are all capable of being angels in one way or another, if we or they even sometimes cause what may seem like negative things to happen. Even the negative can be part of the Divine, since everything is part of a much greater system and plan.

One of the most significant episodes in the Torah this week is where Avraham challenges God over the destruction of Sodom and Amorah. One might wonder at the chuztpa of a human being challenging God over the destruction of the men of Sodom.  But it too can be seen as a metaphor for the struggle we have drawing a line between the good and the bad.

It is the message itself that is the essence, not the way it is communicated, which must be in language that ordinary humans understand.

Shabbat Shalom

Jeremy