The last verse of this week’s portion describes an encounter between the human and the Divine. Biblical descriptions of such encounters are very rare, and as might be expected, shrouded in mystery.
One authoritative translation reads: “When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with [God], he would hear the Voice addressing him from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two cherubim; thus [God] spoke to him.”
It is not clear who is speaking to whom. Rashi in the 11th century, quoting an ancient midrash, holds that the last words of the verse are designed to show that God’s words were intended only for Moses, and not for Aaron who was in close proximity.
Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher, writing two centuries later, raises the possibility that Moses may be responding to God.
The ambiguity surrounding this sublime encounter was amplified by the Masoretes, those scholars who established the vocalised text in the centuries before Rashi. Why are they so significant?
In the jargon of linguists, English (like Greek and many other languages) has an alphabet, in which both consonants and vowels are given symbols. Hebrew has an abjad, namely a list of symbols denoting consonants only. This means that when you read a word in Hebrew, you are forced to work out how the word is to be vocalised, often among a range of possible pronunciations.
One of the reasons that Jewish culture is so steeped in argument and interpretation is that you have to speak the text (be it the newspaper, a contract or the Bible) in order to interpret it, and I may have a different yet plausible way of speaking it.
Moses would hear the Voice addressing him, so our translation tells us. But the Masoretes rendered the word not medaber but middaber. The word is vocalised as if it is in the reflexive form: God is speaking to God’s self, and Moses overhears that Divine inner dialogue.
This changes our understanding of the scene in a profound way. Moses the prophet, Moses our teacher, is presented here as a Divinely-mandated eavesdropper.
Such a reading raises enormous theological questions, but our tradition has never shied away form complexity. Nuance is part of our birthright. It challenges assumptions and opens up possibilities. It suggests that before we can understand, we need to strive to overhear.
To get more from judaism, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.