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Please Leave Your Message For an Angel: Commentary on Parashat Vaychi 5785
By Rabbi Jonah Rank, Rosh Yeshivah of Hebrew Seminary
“Let me transfer you.” These words remind me of the virtue of patience. The Division of General Internal Medicine rewires my call to the specialists on the 4th floor. Customer service plays an oldie-but-goodie while they connect me to the right person from a department I never heard of. The occasional federal bureaucrat puts me on hold while I hope that the call does not disconnect before the overworked colleague picks up some 50 minutes later.
On a certain level, rather than listening to Muzak for what feels like short glimpses of eternity, I would prefer an advanced telephone that can dial all of the possible numbers of whomever I am trying to reach: every clerk at CVS, every banker, every insurance salesperson. A few wrong people would pick up the phone (“wrong department”), but the right person would pick up too and hear what I have to say, and I wouldn’t have to have waited more than just a few seconds. Though that technology would feel convenient for me in the moment—dialing simultaneously dozens of doctors, hundreds of customer service agents, and thousands of governmental employees would be a phenomenal waste of time for nearly anybody with a phone. (In that sort of world, I too would get my due; it would not be long before somebody would dial “All Rabbis.”)
On multiple levels, Jewish prayer works barely anything like this. With great gratitude to our ancestors who recognized the importance of monolatry (the worshipping of just one god), we never have to worry about praying to the wrong god. We have one God—the God who is One. This God is the correct address for all of our prayers. When we are grateful, we pray to God. When we are disappointed, we pray to God. Even when we have nothing to say but we opt to show up at Shabbat services, we may gather in synagogues and pray to God.
Is one God sufficient for our needs though? After all, as a people, we have collectively been praying for thousands of years, and we still have demands we are making of God.
When I teach about theodicy—the question of how we can believe in a good God when there is still suffering in the world—I often draw one small box and three balls. The box represents God, and each ball represents a different divine trait: (1) God being all-loving (omnibenevolence); (2) God being all-present (omnipresence); and (3) God being all-powerful (omnipotence). I tell my students that, as great as this box (God) is, this box only has enough room to fit two of these balls (Divine traits). If there were room for all three, I argue, there would be no suffering in the world.
I often ask students which two balls (traits) they believe are in the box (God). If God is (2) everywhere and (3) capable of absolutely anything, do people suffer because God has a mean streak? If God is (1) all-loving and (3) all-powerful, is there injustice because God is busy and cannot be present for us in our most dire hour? I tend to believe that God is (1) full of love and (2) anywhere we need God to be. I believe that God, like a parent letting children learn from their mistakes, has blessed us with free will. Earth is our playground, and, though God is powerful, God refrains from demonstrating God’s full power in most instances; otherwise, we would never learn on our own to become wiser, kinder, better skilled, or holier. If God did everything for us, I believe, we would have little reason to be made in God’s image.
Our ancestor Jacob, who faced his own hardships in life, did not fully expect God to make his life much better. In Parashat Vaychi, Jacob, fearing an imminent death, offered a blessing to his son Joseph and to Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Instead of calling out to God alone, Jacob expected good fortune to come from two entities. Jacob’s prayer begins with invoking God: “הָֽאֱלֹהִ֡ים אֲשֶׁר֩ הִתְהַלְּכ֨וּ אֲבֹתַ֤י לְפָנָיו֙ אַבְרָהָ֣ם וְיִצְחָ֔ק הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ הָרֹעֶ֣ה אֹתִ֔י מֵעוֹדִ֖י עַד־הַיּ֥וֹם הַזֶּֽה׃” (“God, before whom my ancestors Abraham and Isaac walked—God, who has shepherded me from my beginning until this day”) (Genesis 48:15). But Jacob’s prayer then names another important semi-Divine actor in Jacob’s life: “הַמַּלְאָךְ֩ הַגֹּאֵ֨ל אֹתִ֜י מִכׇּל־רָ֗ע” (“the Angel who redeems me from all evil”) (Genesis 48:16). For Jacob, though God had been present—accompanying Jacob throughout his life like a shepherd leading sheep from one plain to another—God was not the one who performed the miracles that truly wowed Jacob.
The early midrashic collection Shemot Rabbah imagines Jacob explaining to his family who this unknown angel was and what made the angel so wondrous: “הוא גאלני מיד עשו, הוא הצילני מיד לבן, הוא זנני ופרנסני בשני רעבון” (“He redeemed me from the hands of Esau! He saved from the hands of Laban! He nourished me and supported me in years of famine!”) (Shemot Rabbah 32, Parashat Mishpatim 9 [Vilna Edition]). The ancient Rabbi Shemu’el bar Nachman also believed that there were incredible acts to be performed by angels but, unlike Jacob, recognized that certain miracles belonged to God’s portfolio:
וגדולה מן הגאולה, שהגאולה ע”י מלאך והפרנסה ע”י הקב”ה, גאולה על ידי מלאך מניין שנאמר (בראשית מח) המלאך הגואל אותי מכל רע, פרנסה על ידי הקב”ה שנאמר (תהלים קמה) פותח את ידך ומשביע לכל חי רצון
[Wealth] is greater than redemption, for redemption [is delivered merely] by an angel, but wealth [is delivered] by the Holy Blessed One. From where [do we know this]? For it says [that Jacob addressed, in Genesis 48:16], “the angel who redeems me from all evil.” [We know that] wealth is [delivered] by the Holy Blessed One, for it says [so in Psalm 145:16, where the Psalmist addressed] “the One who opens Your hand and gives satiety to the ones who live with [free] will.” (Bereshit Rabbah, Parashat Bereshit 20:9:9 [Vilna edition].)
I find Rabbi Shemu’el bar Nachman’s thesis—that saving people is the work of angels but making money is an act of God—subversive, surprising, and brilliant. Isn’t God supposed to be in the business of saving the Jewish people? Jacob evidently didn’t think so, and Jewish historians would ask us where God was when we most needed God. Moreover, when did God start handling our currency and distributing wealth? Economists could say never, but Jewish theologians should point out that God created the people who invented money and all people who have ever managed money.
The Hebrew word מַלְאָךְ (mal’akh) literally means “messenger.” Though mal’akh can refer to an “angel,” we actually never know whether the ‘angels’ in the Hebrew Bible are celestial beings or just human emissaries on a subtly Divine mission, everyday people doing superhuman acts, transcending human nature. Jacob may have believed in God, but he also placed his faith in those mysterious unnamed figures—angels or humans—who helped him along the way. Through sacred acts of lovingkindness, we imitate God, and we embody angels. We, as angels, have the ability to save each other.
Because the God of the Jewish people empowers Jews to make divine choices—and because we never know who among us may be on an angelic mission—our prayers are never really put on hold. When we pray to God, we know that the Department of Godliness is interconnected with the Department of Angelic Affairs, which is right next to the Humanity Department. Jacob, simultaneously invoking God and angels who act like humans, was onto something. When we pray, we should not underestimate God. When we act, we should not underestimate ourselves. We all can be holy. We never need to put our Divine image on hold.
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