Terumah (Exodus 27 - 30) GOOD MORNING! Last week a reader wrote to me asking for help understanding the events of October 7th and the horrors of the Holocaust. He asked, why, for millennia, the Almighty seems to have been in a constant fit of rage toward the Jewish people? He went on to quote some verses in the Bible and passages from the Talmud that describe the Almighty’s fury toward His people when they don’t follow the Torah. He wanted to understand how this justifies all the horrors that the Jewish people have experienced. Not exactly a softball of a question. Still, I thought that this question, which seems to be on the minds of many, needs to be addressed. I want to begin by mentioning that we have a general principle that is oft repeated in the Talmud that the “Torah speaks in the language of man.” This means that the Torah is written in such a manner as to be accessible to mankind. Thus, when the Torah speaks of the “hand of God” or “God’s fury,” it is merely meant to be an anthropomorphic illustration – an ascription of human qualities to a deity. The reason for this can be understood as Maimonides states in the first section of his famous philosophical work known as the Guide to the Perplexed. Maimonides explains that the Torah must be relatable to all of mankind, and many, or perhaps even most, people are unable to conceive of some of the more esoteric elements to understand the philosophical complexities relating to the essence of God. This can be likened to a child who vaguely becomes aware of the existence of God, and then inevitably asks, “Where is God?” Because a child would have an exceedingly difficult time understanding the true answer (i.e. that God exists outside of time and space, and He is therefore everywhere – and nowhere – at the same time), the answer generally given is that the Almighty resides in heaven. This is, of course, not technically true. As my granddaughter pointed out to my wife when my wife told her that her own grandmother was in heaven: “No Bubby, she’s not. I looked into the sky, and I didn’t see her.” Because God is both immanent and incorporeal, He cannot “be” anywhere without being everywhere. Of course, God is not a “he” either, but our language is limited to certain constructs with which we can effectively communicate. In a similar vein, God is absolutely immutable – He therefore cannot get angry or sad – as the great medieval philosopher Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (known by his acronym Ramchal) points out in his epic work on Jewish philosophy, The Way of God: The Almighty is a single unchanging entity, there is no possible compartmentalization of emotion like getting angry or sad. Ramchal goes on to explain that the intention of all of creation is for the Almighty to develop a system by which to bestow the ultimate “good” on mankind. That “good” is only realized through a deep bond and connection to the Almighty. Thus, what the Almighty desires for mankind is a relationship with Him. It is the quintessential good because it is this relationship that ultimately allows man to achieve a sense of immortality. Because of the inherent difficulty – one might even say the impossibility – of comprehending the essence of the Almighty, our interactions with the Almighty are communicated within the context of a relationship. Thus, emotions like love, anger, and even jealousy, are used to describe the effects that our actions have on our relationship with the Almighty. God is also described as using an “outstretched arm” to rescue His nation from the clutches of the Egyptians; not because He has an arm, but rather it’s a term used to describe what’s taking place within the context of His love relationship with His people. Perhaps a better way to wrap our minds around this concept is to consider the following question: What is worse, deeply disappointing a parent or making a parent really angry? While one would hope that both situations would be considered unacceptable, I think that, to a considerate child, disappointing a parent is much more unsettling. Anger, according to the Talmud, is akin to idolatry. Why? Because anger, like idolatry, is almost always about “me” – as in a parent thinking, “How could they do this to me?” By contrast, if I disappoint a parent, it’s a reflection of the parent’s deep unhappiness with my life decisions. But it’s generally not about the parent – they are not sad for themselves, rather they are sad for me. In healthy parenting situations, a parent has to communicate that it’s not about their personal hurt, it’s the pain that comes from watching a child harm himself. This is why in parenting it is extremely important to clarify for a child that the negative actions resulting from their misbehavior isn’t punitive, but rather it’s an unavoidable consequence of their misbehavior. | 
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