Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20
The Day of Revelation
Symmetry is such a beautiful thing. First you say this, then you say that—and it’s as if the very act of speaking is inviting us to express ourselves in matching pairs. “Easy come, easy go,” we say, or “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Symmetry! This is as pleasing in biblical Hebrew as in modern English (as well as in virtually all languages, as far as I can see).
But sometimes in the Bible, asymmetry is the whole point. The fact that we’re so used to symmetrical pairs can sometimes obscure slight differences.
“Rise up, O you gates, and be raised up, O everlasting doors, and let the glorious king come in! …(Psalm 24:7)
“Rise up, O you gates, and rise up, O everlasting doors, and let the glorious king come in!…” (Psalm 24:9)
The difference between these two verses in Psalm 24 seems altogether trivial: the first verb says “be raised up” and the second verse says “rise up,” but in Hebrew these are near-synonyms, with the difference of a single letter. So why have generations and centuries of rabbis and cantors and ordinary Jews been careful to respect this difference when they read this psalm in synagogue, or even when they “think it aloud” at home? And yet, they do.
A similar—but more easily explainable—asymmetry occurs in this week’s Torah reading. It begins with Moses reminding the people that they have all been assembled to reaffirm the great covenant (or berit, “agreement”) that is to bind Israel to God forever by keeping His commandments. This covenant includes everyone, Moses says, from tribal officers and family hierarchies right down to a single, ordinary wood cutter or a water hauler. But this does not end the all-inclusive nature of this covenant and its sanctions. It also applies to “both those who are standing here with us today in front of the Lord our God as well as with those who are not with us today.”
This last sentence is somewhat puzzling. At first, “those who are not with us today” might sound like a polite euphemism for the dead. But surely God’s covenant with Israel is intended for people who are alive can do things—such as keeping the sabbath, observing the laws of kosher food, and so forth. So who are “those who are not with us today”?
It’s here that asymmetry comes in. The text doesn’t say “both those who are standing here with us today in front of the Lord our God as well as with those who are not <standing> with us today.” Actually, the word “standing” is missing from the second half of this sentence. This asymmetry is no accident: it means that even the unborn souls (who cannot be physically standing) will nonetheless be bound by the same covenant once they are born. In this sense, as Midrash Tanhuma points out, this means that all of Israel’s future prophets and sages stood together with Moses on one particular day, the day of the great revelation recounted in this week’s reading.