God’s Fate Is In Your Hands

In Shirat Haazinu, or, as it is otherwise known, Shirat Moshe, Moshe describes the future rebellions of the children of Israel against God. Before turning to this subject, however, he presents a summary of God’s relationship with His people, offering a rationale for their continued loyalty. At one point, the poem reminds His people of how He protected them during their sojourn in the desert:

He found him (yimtza’eihu) in the wilderness land, in the waste of the howling desert. He encircled him, watched him like the apple of His eye. (Deuteronomy 32:10)

This verse portrays God as “finding” His people in the desert and thereafter protecting them. This seemingly contradicts verse 6 of the song, where God is described as the father and creator of His people. This led some early commentators and translators to interpret yimtza’eihu according to a different verb form, yamtza’uhu“ – He provided them [with their needs].” (J. Tigay, Devarim, Mikra L’Yisrael, p. 732.)

In either case, however, it is clear that God is acting as His people’s savior.

Note, however, that in this verse neither the subject nor the object is explicitly named. We presume that the subject is God and the object is the children of Israel. The use of pronouns, however, allowed for an extraordinarily creative, one might even say daring and decidedly non-contextual interpretation of the verse in a midrash from the period of the Mishnah:

“He found him in a barren wasteland” (Deuteronomy 32:10) – “He” refers to Avraham.

A parable about a king who went with his army into a wasteland. His soldiers abandoned him in a dangerous place, in a place [filled with] ravaging troops and bandits, and abandoned him.

Now, a single hero volunteered and said to the king: “Don’t let your courage fail you! And don’t be afraid. By your life! I swear that I’ll not leave you until you reenter your palace and sleep in your own bed!” …

“He surrounded him” (Deuteronomy 32:10) – Before Father Avraham came into the world, the Blessed Holy One, as it were, was only the king of the Heavens alone… But once Father Avraham had come into the world, he [Avraham] coronated Him [God] over the Heavens and the Earth. (Adapted from Sifre Devarim 313, Finkelstein ed., pp. 354–355.)

The parable in this midrash completely reverses the identity of the subject and object in the biblical verse. God, the king in the parable, is saved from the dangers of the desert by His loyal legionnaire, Avraham. God is already king in heaven, but before Avraham came into the world and recognized Him as king, He had not been acknowledged as king over the earth.

The midrash therefore effects a radical inversion of the biblical image. In the biblical context, God finds Israel in the wilderness, protects them, and watches over them. In the midrash, however, it is Avraham who finds God in the wilderness, protects Him, and ultimately establishes His kingship over the world.

In this extraordinary reading, Avraham saves God. More precisely, Avraham makes possible the universal recognition of God’s kingship. The creator becomes king not simply because He created the world, but because there is a human being who recognizes Him, remains loyal to Him, and proclaims His sovereignty over both heaven and earth.

The upshot of this midrash is to place each of us in Avraham’s shoes. In these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we are called to recognize that, in some sense, we, too, participate in establishing God’s presence in the world. Through the way we represent God – through how we act, through what we believe, and through the values by which we live, we determine how God is perceived and experienced by those around us.

This is a particularly powerful idea with which to enter the New Year. The question is not only what we want God to do for us in the coming year, but what we will do to make God’s presence more visible in the world. Like Avraham, each of us has the opportunity and the responsibility to help establish God’s kingship, not merely in heaven, but here on earth.