The extended presence
here and not here
distance or death
In a world of consummation
who will stand between
and leave a space within?
[For full chapter, click here,
Beginning again, Moses once again recounts the story of the
covenant at Sinai/Horeb. This chapter continues, develops, and departs from the
previous one. The keywords remain the same: an emphasis on sight and sound (re'eh,
eynayim, sh'm'a). "Voice"
"kol", "come
close" (k'r'v); and "guard, keep" (sh'm'r).
Now, however, another root gains prominence: "life
/ alive" (hayim).
If the previous chapter revolved around the dangerous power of direct
perception--and so focused on the Second Commandment's prohibition on
graven images--this chapter focuses on the aftermath of that perception. It
lists the full Ten Pronouncements, but as told over by Moses, highlighting
his part. If the previous chapter dealt with the
danger of translating an overwhelming experience into a limited pictorial form, this
chapter deals with the danger of overwhelming experience itself:
“when you heard the voice
from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain blazed in fire, you came
near me…and said: ‘…We have seen this day that God speaks with a human, and he
may live. Now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we keep hearing
the voice of God our Lord more, we will die.”
The consummation of a relationship with the Divine is literal consummation.
Nothing is left from the conflagration of sound and sight. Give me distance, or
give me death, Israel demands: "You go close and hear all that God our
Lord will say, and tell us…” The text enacts this transformation of Moses transition into a living
translator between the people and God: “Then God heard the voice of your
words when you spoke to me, and God said to me: ‘I have heard the voice of the
words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have spoken rightly..'” The people speak to Moses and God responds, Moses a transparent membrane
between.
This chapter is about the value of distance. Moses' position
as intermediary translates the divine word into human terms that can be
"taught" (l’m’d, another key word of this chapter). The generation of direct perception indeed “die.” This
generation of the “living” is still branded by the fires of Horeb, but at a
remove. They are virtually both there and not there, both face-to -face and separated:
“God our Lord made a covenant with us in Horeb. …not
with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are living.
God talked with you face to face on the
mountain from the midst of the fire. I stood between God and you…”
God’s command to return to the private spaces of “your
tents” creates a protective space for human continuity. Moses, who
remained “standing with Me” alone on the mountain, still remains alone on
the mount of Nebo, never to truly come down. He is not one of the “living” but
remains in the liminal space between the living and the dead, between the land
and the wilderness, between the human and the divine.]
