ISAIAH 57:14-58:14
This is the Haftorah we read on the morning of Yom Kippur. It is written by what scholars call “Deutero Isiah” meaning not the historical prophet from the first part of the book of Isaiah, but a later prophet who uses his name. This later Isaiah prophesied around the time of the return from the Babylonian exile. The connection of our text to Yom Kippur is fairly obvious. The text calls for the people to do right by all of their fellow Jews and to follow both the letter and the spirit of the law. If we do that, then YHVH will “set you astride the heights of the earth, and let you enjoy the heritage of your father Jacob.” (58:14)
This is exactly the kind of text that the Reform Judaism of my childhood loved. The prophet engages in the following mock dialogue: “Why, when we fasted did you not see, when we starved our bodies did you pay no heed? Because on your fast day, you see to your business and oppress all your laborers.” (58:3) And “this is the fast I desire, to unlock fetters of wickedness and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free…to share your bread with the hungry and to take the wretched poor into your home.” (58:6-7)
I want to touch on the following two themes
The emphasis on transcendence and the lack of any corresponding orientation towards depth
The extensive nature metaphors
Metaphors of the transcendence of the divine are everywhere in Jewish tradition. “For thus said He who high aloft forever dwells, whose name is Holy, I dwell on high in holiness. (57:15) Then if you do everything the divine asks “I will set you astride the heights of the earth” (58:14). I could be accused of cherry picking verses to show my points (a common enough Jewish practice) if these metaphors weren’t so common. I have three issues with the metaphors of transcendence.
We need metaphors of depth as well as transcendence. I am completely convinced that you cannot obtain the heights unless you are willing to go into the depths, unless you embrace going down deep into yourself, look at your shadow side, embrace your pain. We see this with Hannah, but it is generally an underdeveloped focus in Jewish tradition. It is easier to wish for love and light and transcendence. But it is not as simple as stop cheating people in business—you have to go into your motivations to cheat if you want to transform yourself.
We need a divinity of immanence as well as transcendence. Especially in a time when it is so easy to be disconnected from the earth, the lack of any metaphors of immanence and the great abundance of metaphors of transcendence encourage us in our being disembodied. We need to be rooted, and a divinity that is rooted in the earth would really help.
Lastly, where is the Goddess? It isn’t true that immanence=Goddess and transcendence=God. The Goddess Astarte who was worshipped by our ancestors had the name of the Queen of heaven and was associated with Venus—that’s a transcendent image. The idea of stewardship of the land can be a male idea. But in a system that imagines the divine as solely transcendent, it is easy to lose the sense of the divine as male and female. Our tradition likes to pretend that God is above (sic) gender, but all of the pronouns we use are male, the images we use are male. Our ancestors developed the idea of the Shekhinah which is female, but there’s no question where the power lies.
Do any of these critiques of transcendence speak to you? How important is it to reclaim depth, immanence and the divine female?
There are a lot of nature metaphors used in our text. “But the wicked are like the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters toss up mire and mud.” (57:20). “Raise your voice like a ram’s horn.” (58:1) “Is such the fast I desire, a day for men to starve their bodies. Is it bowing the head like a bulrush?” (58:5) “Then shall your light burst through like the dawn” (58:8) “He will slake your thirst in parched places…You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters do not fail.” (58:11). Now we can understand these as metaphors and easily dismiss them because we understand that the wicked are bad and if we behave in ways that the divine wants us to, we will be blessed.
But the metaphors mean more if you’ve ever experienced both the good news and the bad news of these kinds of phenomenon. I used to steward a farm that adjoined a river. The river was a great privilege until it flooded and left mire and mud (and it was a gentle flood, nothing like the Natural disasters of the 2024 hurricane season.) Do you have any kind of relationship with cattails? It’s telling that our translator used the term bulrush rather than the more common cattail—I wonder if s/he actually had any idea what Isaiah was referencing? What’s your experience with droughts? I’ve lived through droughts where I didn’t have quite enough food to feed my cows and I was worried about my well going dry because other wells were. But I’ve never lived through a drought where I had to sell all my animals and watch as fields that should have been green turned to brown.
The metaphors Isaiah uses are both rooted in the Israelite ecosystem and have some broader applicability. Do any of his metaphors speak powerfully to you? Do any of them ground you? What do you find are the most powerful nature metaphors that are native to the place you live?
QUESTIONS
Do any of these critiques of transcendence speak to you? How important is it to reclaim depth, immanence and the divine female?
Do any of Isaiah’s metaphors speak powerfully to you? Do any of them ground you? What do you find are the most powerful nature metaphors that are native to the place you live?
