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When I first arrived in New Orleans in July 1991, I was with friends in the French Quarter and walked by a seafood vendor. Among his wares were all sorts of products, from Gulf shrimp to crawfish to catfish. Many of these varieties I had never seen up close before. My hosts asked me what I thought, and helpfully pointed to all the varieties in front of me. The only sad part? None of them were kosher. But still, I enjoyed the visuals, and on the bright side, at least redfish is a kosher fish.
Sometimes the best way to understand something is visually. When you see something up close, you remember it. In medicine, the best way to solve a complex case is to find someone who has seen an identical case and remembers the diagnosis. In football, teams study film of the opponent so that they recognize the play call. But does that work with religion, based so often upon what isn’t seen?
According to our Sages, the answer is yes. Writing about this Shabbat’s maftir (concluding reading), which commands the Jewish people that “this month (Nisan, in which Passover falls) shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” (Exodus 12:2), the midrash observes (Tanchuma, Shemini 8:1) that G-d actually showed Moses visually what the moon would look like at that time of the year:
- Three things Moses found difficult and the Holy One, blessed be He, showed them to him with a finger and these are them: The making of the menorah, the moon, and creeping things…In reference to creeping things [not unlike my unkosher fish], where is it shown? Where it is stated (in Lev. 11:29), “Now this shall be unclean for you from among the swarming things which swarm on the earth.” The Holy One, blessed be He, caught each and every species, showed them to Moses, and said to him, “This you may eat, and this you may not eat.” In reference to the moon, where is it shown [that Moses had difficulty]? (Exod. 12:1-2) “Then the Lord spoke unto Moses…, ‘This month shall mark for you.’” He said to him, “In the month of Nisan, you will see the moon like this, and [you shall] sanctify [it].” This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, showed him with a finger.
Now throughout history, Judaism has struggled with the idea of anthropomorphism, that is, describing G-d in human terms. In Yigdal, we assert that G-d “has no form or body”. That’s the voice of the rationalist Maimonides (1135-1204) speaking.
But as far as the Sages were concerned, they relied on another adage: “Seeing is believing.”
- Rabbi Scott Hoffman
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