The human soul is complex. It can hold within it both hatred and love, desire and disgust, compassion and scorn; sometimes for the very same object. We change with the tides, vacillate between emotions and navigate our way through the narrows and out into the wide open expanses, and back again. Why then, is it surprising, when God does the same thing?
Consider for a moment that the Torah (and in fact, all of Jewish Sacred Text) is written by the hands of humans. Even the most observant voices within our tradition agree that the text is al pi Adonai, b’yad Moshe, from the mouth of God, but by the hand of Moses. Reform Jews interpret the saying to mean that our texts are Divinely inspired, but have human fingerprints, designs, motives and needs all over them. So, too, do our God concepts.
This week we revisit Va Et’chanan, the second parsha in the book of Deuteronomy – a retelling of our ancestral becoming from Moses’ perspective. This time around, I find myself struggling with Moses’ description of God, first as impassioned, (Deuteronomy 3: 24) and then as compassionate (v. 31). How can God be both? With us? At the same time? Perhaps the short answer is that we, too, can be both, with the same person or situation, or even ourselves, at one and the same time.
– Rabbi Callie Schulman
