Of Angels and Men
D’var Torah for Parashat Vayishlach
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
November 19, 2021
Since the dawn of awareness, people have experienced, imagined or dreamed of angels. The Midrash—Rabbinic commentaries from the first millennium of the Common Era—offers that the angels were created on the second day of Creation (or on the fifth—naturally there’s a second opinion [Breishit Rabba 3:8]). Likewise, right before the creation of the first human being, Adam, Genesis 1:26 reads, “And God said, ‘Let us make man’” (KJV), a verse that seems to imply that there was some discussion prior to the decision to go ahead with the plan. Rashi, the famed 11th century French rabbi and commentator, explains that this comes to show God’s quality of humility: God foresaw that, because of man’s more complex nature, the angels would be jealous of humans; “therefore God took counsel with them.”
In a world filled with events no one could explain, the hand of angels was seen everywhere. Archeology has unearthed visual and literal proof of a world filled with all sorts of mythological, winged creatures able to defy the laws of physics and gravity. Early on, the Torah (Gen. 6:2) speaks of “Divine beings” (the Hebrew text actually reading, “Sons of God”) as it describes the extent of corruption that preceded Noah’s flood.
And of course there are the cherubim, sometimes depicted as children (and giving rise to the adjective “cherubic,” meaning sweet and innocent). However, originally the term probably referred to much more powerful and dangerous beings. It was cherubim, after all, that God places to guard the locked gates of the Garden of Eden. Surely the text didn’t mean to imply that God would place sweet and innocent children there, or put fiery swords in their chubby little hands, to make sure human beings never again set foot in Eden!
Seraphim, ranked fifth in the Jewish hierarchy of angels, but first in the Christian, are similarly powerful. In his vision of heaven, the prophet Isaiah describes the seraphim as having six wings, with voices so loud that, as they cried out one to another, Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh Adonai Tz’va’ot (“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts,” Is. 6:2-4 KJV), their voices made the very gateposts of heaven tremble, while filling the entire palace with smoke.
Angels appear to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, taking various—and often interchangeable—forms. They could appear as ordinary men, or else winged, or sometimes mysterious, like the one that, in this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, Jacob finds himself wrestling with from dusk until dawn. First described as ish, a man, as the sun rises Jacob understands that this being is actually an angel, bearing a blessing of strength and hope, along with a new name for him: Israel. In the Torah, angels, whether innocent, powerful, or sometimes even terrifying, all have one thing in common: they bear God’s message, entrusted with carrying out God’s purpose on this earth. So it was with the Angel of Death on the night of the Exodus from Egypt; or the warrior angel that God promises would lead the Israelites during their years of wandering in the Sinai Wilderness (an offer that Moses rejects, demanding that God—directly, not through an angel—lead God’s People to the Promised Land).
In the later Biblical books, angels serve as healers, prosecutors or defenders of Israel in the heavenly Court of Justice. At other times they are teachers and interpreters of visions that even prophets have difficulty in understanding.
During apocalyptic times—such as the fall of empires—angels assumed even weightier roles. The Talmud speaks of four archangels—Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael—each standing to one respective side of God’s throne, each representing one attribute, or power, of God.
In his Mishne Torah, Maimonides, the most prolific and authoritative Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, lists ten ranks of angels while explaining that angels have no physical bodies, but rather that they represent the various forces by which God manifests Godself in the world. With this explanation, Maimonides both negates previous understandings and sets up a new concept of angels, one that has become part of both Jewish mysticism and even modern, rational thinking. In this perspective, angels are non-corporeal. They are the spiritual guides that steer us and move us forward toward our goals. Angels are like atoms and subatomic particles, containing the force of creation, sent forth from an unknowable source with one particular mission: to interact with matter, to create or transform what is into what must be.
Angels appear frequently in Jewish folklore, literature and art. On Friday evenings, as we sing “Shalom Aleichem,” we welcome angels of peace into our homes. And at bedtime, as we say the Sh’ma prayer, we invoke the names of the archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael, praying that they protect us from malevolent spirits of the night.
And yet, powerful as these ministers of God are, Jewish belief also holds that there is an even greater power: tzedakah—righteous deeds. That is so because angels are seen as incapable of making choices. An angel must carry out his mission precisely as commanded. Human beings, on the other hand, can freely choose. Acts of love and compassion, which come from the heart, have infinite power. Indeed, as the book of Proverbs proclaims, צדקה תציל ממות —"righteousness delivers from death” (Prov. 10:2, NKJV), meaning that a kind deed can potentially defeat even the Angel of Death!
In modern thinking and belief, angels can take two forms—spiritual and/or physical. In the spiritual sense, an angel is like a prayer—a message of faith, trust and hope. But angels can also appear to us in the form of other people. We can be angels of mercy; we can guide a person and show them a path to a better, more meaningful life. We can teach, defend the defenseless and bring justice to the oppressed. In these ways we, like the mysterious being that Jacob encounters in this week’s portion, turn from simply ish, mere human beings, into angels.
Or, perhaps, even greater.
© 2021 by Boaz D. Heilman
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