Parshat Va'Etchanan
by Rabbi Avi Billet
The verse in the latter half of Chapter 4 reads as follows:
(לט) וְיָדַעְתָּ֣ הַיּ֗וֹם וַהֲשֵׁבֹתָ֘ אֶל־לְבָבֶךָ֒ כִּ֤י יְקֹוָק֙ ה֣וּא הָֽאֱלֹהִ֔ים בַּשָּׁמַ֣יִם מִמַּ֔עַל וְעַל־הָאָ֖רֶץ מִתָּ֑חַת אֵ֖ין עֽוֹד:
“And you shall know today, and you shall return to your heart that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below, there is no other.”
This verse is one which appears in our liturgy several times, including in Aleinu, and is therefore quite familiar to us.
In the Rav Peninim Chumash, the author uses this verse as a springboard for a mini-essay entitled “A teaching for how to serve God.” Pointing to the view that this verse is the source for the positive commandment to do our best to know God and appreciate his Oneness, he directs us to contemplate how we get to such an understanding.
There is an obvious acknowledgment that our ability to understand God is limited, if not impossible, and therefore the Torah instructs us to “return to your heart,” much like a person would meditate over a concept, consider different ways of understanding something, and arrive at conclusions that are the closest thing to truth after everything else may seem to be out of the realm of reality. This is different than the way we hear people speak today where they may claim to speak “their truth” or “my truth.” When it comes to God there is ONE truth, though when it comes to God there is also a significance to what one’s personal relationship with God might be.
The parallel is drawn to Eliyahu HaNavi who, in his mystical encounter with God at Mt Horeb, came to the conclusion that God was not in the wind, and not in the noise, not in the fire, but in the still, silent voice. What this even means is hard for us to grasp, but for Eliyahu, in that moment in time and in that special place, it gave him to confidence to realize that God was with him and that his worries over how King Achav would treat him, even with a price on his head, were irrelevant, as Eliyahu understood where God is, and what God is and how His plans for Eliyahu would determine the remainder of Eliyahu’s life, much more than Achav would figure in that outcome.
The concern over how one will engage with God is magnified by the ever-present concern that one’s internal inclination (one’s yetzer) might steer a person in an undesirable direction, away from belief in God. The specific words of this verse covers all arenas – God is in the heavens, controlling the planets and cosmos, and He is above all angelic creatures and on the earth, in a world in which human behavior is idealized as humility and lowliness, below the lowest depths.
There is no other is the quintessential reminder that if someone is looking for a different being to fill that void and the capacity for a God-like figure in one’s existence, one is looking for something that simply doesn’t exist in reality, even if one may conceptualize or choose to think there is something else out there.
We must at the very least understand that our concepts of God are often informed by our experience and our age. I would imagine that for many people, their developed concept of God from when they were children is one thing, while that image evolved with their own adolescence, and further developed with the person’s aging. Some view God as an old man in the sky, some as an angry, wrathful and vengeful Deity, while others view God as the ultimate comfort and source of solace. But it is not God Who changes, but we who change on a constant basis, and therefore how we relate to Him as the Almighty, All-knowing, All-seeing also changes with our own maturity. Some people question God at many turns. Some people put stock in the statement that “for the non-believer there are no answers, while for the believer there are no questions.”
Sometimes our perspective on God is based in our needs, sometimes it’s based in our trust in Him, sometimes it is informed by things we read. It may even sometimes be informed by our anger and frustrations. What Rav Peninim is telling us is that we should never be satisfied with an immature version of God that we may have conceived at an earlier stage of life. We must “return to our hearts” to challenge ourselves to have a better connection with God, such as one informed by the verses of the Shema which appear early in chapter 6 of this Parsha as well.
Our parsha contains what I like to call the “Mission Statement of Judaism” in all of its instruction regarding our relationship with God, and the reminders of historical events that brought Bnei Yisrael to the point they are now at in history, on the cusp of entering the Land, and shortly before the death of Moshe, the man who brought them through the wilderness, through good times and bad, through thick and thin.
Recognizing his special relationship with God is also a great reminder of the realness of God.
For me personally, in the dark and contemplative moments when questions like “Is all this real?” and “how do I know this is the truth?” cross my mind, one answer I often fall back on is that there were incredibly genius rabbis, in our generations, in previous generations, who dedicated their lives and all of their scholarship to delving into the Torah, exploring the furthest reaches of halakha as a guide to living the life they believed was the absolute “Emes” (truth). If they saw and recognized the truth in our way of life, who am I, who doesn’t reach their toes, to suggest they weren’t on to something, that the wholeness and fullness they saw and experienced in the vastness of the Sea of the Talmud, and the totality of Torah development they mastered was anything other than absolute truth?
This verse is telling us we don’t need to look to other people (though some may discern meaning and depth through such exploration!) for the truth, as the ability to discern is within us, if we only recall that אין עוד, there is no other in whom to trust or to believe, as He is the ONLY ONE.
With that fundamental concept as our starting point and stepping stone, our ability to grow in our concept of God and our relationship with Him should only see success as we raise ever higher in our personal spiritual journeys, ever reaching higher in the eternal proverbial climb up the mountain that defines our goals-set existence of reaching the greatest spiritual heights available to us in our human existence.
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