Beth Hillel Synagogue E-Shul .. Shabbat Behaalotecha sent on May 27, 2010 / 14 Sivan 5770

This week by Rabbi Michael Gold of Tamarac, FL.

      This week begins the travels of the Israelites through the wilderness. Tribe by tribe, the people begin crossing the desert. And immediately they begin to complain. They do not like the food. Moses cries out to God (as rabbis are wont to do sometimes), "I cannot handle these people." So God tells Moses that God's wisdom will descend on seventy elders. They will share the burden of caring for the people. (Rabbis often cannot do it alone.)
             Sure enough, seventy elders begin to prophesize in the name of God. But two young men Eldad and Medad are also filled with the spirit of God, and begin to prophesize in God's name. They are unauthorized prophets. When Joshua, Moses' assistant wants to stop them, Moses answers with one of my favorite lines in the Torah. "Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets." Suddenly we see a Torah ideal; prophecy is not limited to the gifted few. Each of us has the potential to be a prophet.
             It is an amazing insight from the Torah. Prophecy is not a gift given to a few blessed individuals. Rather it is an opportunity given to every human being. That calls for an explanation. What is prophecy? Many believe it is the ability to tell the future. But that is impossible; the future is wide open and not set in stone. According to process theologians, even God does not know the future. Rather, prophecy is the ability to speak in the name of God. It is that deep insight in each of our souls we sometimes have, the aha moment, when we realize - this is what God wants me to do.
             .....That brings me back to the convention. I went to a session led by Rabbi Brad Artson, the head of the Ziegler Rabbinical School in Los Angeles and one of my favorite teachers. He is developing a contemporary theology that is very much in keeping with my own thinking. So I went to his session with high hopes, and was not disappointed. It was a session on process theology and the Sh'ma.
             Artson taught that we have to stop thinking about God who sits outside space and time and knows everything, including our entire future.   Such a God no longer works for contemporary American Jews. Rather, we should picture a God of persuasion, who gives us an image of what we ought to be doing but the freedom to make our own choices. Process theology speaks of a God who acts by persuasion rather than by compulsion. Artson used a strange term - the lure. God is a lure Who tries to lead us in the right direction. We can choose to follow that lure, or we can choose to do something else. We are free, and our choices become part of who we are. (I do not love the term "lure", it reminds me of fishing. Artson admits he is looking for a nice Hebrew term which describes such a view of God.)
             Now the insight - each of us knows in our hearts what God wants us to do. Each of us knows what is expected of us. We can use all kinds of denial and rationalization to do the wrong thing. But if we search deeply into our own souls, each of us knows the right thing. In other words, each of us has the ability to speak in the name of God. Or to explain it based on our portion, each of us has the ability to be a prophet.