Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg

Author:Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg [Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780805243055
Publisher: Schocken
Published: 2015-02-24T10:00:00+00:00

VIOLENT INNOCENCE

Mourning over gaps and losses marks important moments of experience. We have seen the subtle interpretation of Or Ha-Chaim, in which Moses recognizes that his projected “blasphemy” has destroyed something of divinity in the world; for this he mourns, and finds words to bridge the gap. Like the court officers who necessarily hear the witnesses’ blasphemy, he at least metaphorically “tears his clothes” over the rupture in the wholeness of the world.

With this, we can return to the mourning of the Israelites after the Golden Calf. Stripping themselves of their finery, of their fantasies of omnipotence, the people expose themselves to a new way of having God live in their midst. Rejecting perfect mirrorings of themselves, they acknowledge a void, an absence. They make no heroic attempt to change; rather, they surrender to the truth of their stripped condition. Then, God mysteriously says, “My face shall, after all, go [with you]” (Exod. 33:14). The state of mourning brings them to a delicate balance between self-righteous bustle and inert melancholy.

The mourning of the ma’apilim has very different results. Perhaps this is because, unlike the Golden Calf narrative, this episode describes its protagonists as mourning exceedingly. The problem with this mourning is that it is excessive, willful, full of conscious virtue—and spiritually sterile. “God is not with you,” says Moses. “This ascent will not succeed.” Manically self-sufficient, the ma’apilim have not internalized the meanings of their sin. They confess, “We have sinned” (Num. 14:40), but they link their confession with the words, “God said [that we have sinned]”—as though the good child within them cannot fully own the knowledge of sin.30 Their turn toward the Land holds arrogance at its heart; their upward movement is really a kind of forced entry into a Land that will not yield to such violent innocence.

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