Angelic intermediaries and appropriate anthropomorthism

The period leading up to and including Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is one during which observant Jews traditionally scrutinise and attempt to improve in all areas of their religious conduct. It is common to find minutiae of laws and stringencies which are disregarded for most of the year suddenly becoming the focus of attention as people make special efforts in order to secure a favourable judgment.

Set against this backdrop, I have long been surprised by the widespread willingness of worshippers to recite prayers in the Selichot which many of our leading rabbinic authorities have declared to be deeply problematic. One who petitions an angel in prayer appears to be in breach of Rambam’s fifth Principle of Faith which demands that one who prays direct all his thoughts to God, and not to angels – even to act as intercessors. Nor can this be regarded as a Maimonidean peculiarity based on any alleged rationalist or philosophical agenda. One of Rambam’s most fierce critics, Ramban, writes similarly that “The third form of idolatry is considering angels capable of serving as intermediaries between God and His worshippers. Realise that even to pray to them for this purpose is forbidden to us.”. Other significant figures who have expressed opposition to these prayers include Maharal (who amended the wording) and Chatam Sofer who did not recite them.

While it is possible to draw support for this practice from various aggadic sources (a methodology which itself can be strongly questioned) my difficulty remains. At a time of year when we are adopting stringencies and striving for perfection – why do so few people appear to be concerned with prayers which many of our most revered sages categorise as idolatrous?

When it comes to the Machnisei Rachamim passage, I can understand the position of those who consider that this falls outside the parameters of prayer to an intermediary. The prayer opens by requesting that those who bring prayers of mercy before God should “usher in our [plea for] mercy before the Master of mercy”. This can be understood to embody a rhetorical flourish to the effect that the process already in place for prayers to reach God should function in the correct way. For the avoidance of any doubt, the passage concludes with a direct request to God “Speedily answer us, O God…”. More troubling, however, is the ”Malachei Rachamim” piyyut, which openly implores angels to entreat God on our behalf and contains no direct prayer to Him.

The broader feeling among those who support the saying of these prayers is partly motivated by an unwillingness to tamper with and remove parts of a liturgy which have been popularly recited for many centuries and which are an established part of the service. In addition, they add that these passages are a small part of a greater service which is clearly addressed to God; they serve to stir the heart and emotions and sometimes have moving melodies attached to them. Should such popular expressions of religious fervour therefore be sacrificed merely to appease those who indulge in an over-zealous philosophical witch-hunt?

This debate echoes another fundamental discussion over the role and proper place of anthropomorphism within Judaism. In Judaism Reclaimed I contrast the approaches of Rambam and Rabbi S. R. Hirsch to this matter. Rambam dedicates most of the first section of his Moreh Nevuchim to a sustained attempt to decode and minimise scriptural references to God engaging in physical activities such as moving and seeing. While such descriptive terms where necessary in order to convey the Torah’s message in a way in which people could understand, Rambam places them in the category of “necessary evil” and requires those who are capable of more profound understanding to distance themselves from rendering them literally. Crucially, this is not an area for compromise or concession: since our connection to God is dependent on our conception of Him, any false notion of a quasi-physical deity could be deeply damaging.

Responding to this immense Maimonidean project, Rav Hirsch writes:

“Scholars have philosophised about these expressions [anthropomorphism], in order to keep us far from ascribing to God material features. This gives rise, however, to the danger that the Personality of God will become increasingly blurred and indistinct to our perception. Had that been the Torah’s intention it could easily have avoided such expressions … Belief in the Personality of God is more important than the speculations of those who reject the attribution of material features to God.”

In a similar vein, Rav Hirsch was firmly in favour of the recitation of these Selichot passages – even attacking those who criticised a “widespread theme of piyyutim” on the basis of mistaken theological concerns.

On a personal level, I think that those searching for seasonal stringencies could do far worse than strengthening the boundaries which separate Judaism from idolatry. Justifications and reasonable sources may be found to excuse those who recite these prayers. But, in an age in which pilgrimages to graves and establishment of shrines are becoming increasingly popular among those seeking spiritual experiences, and with the distinctions between proper and improper prayer often blurred, my personal stringency for this year will be an attempt to state and emphasise publicly the words of Ramban that “The third form of idolatry is considering angels capable of serving as intermediaries between God and His worshippers. Realise that even to pray to them for this purpose is forbidden to us”.

First posted on Facebook 18 September 2022, here.

The angels who may have come to tea

The opening verse of yesterday’s parasha tells of God appearing to Avraham in the Plains of Mamre. The purpose of this appearance is not readily apparent, with the divine encounter seemingly cut short by the arrival of three unexpected guests. Writing in his Moreh Nevuchim, Rambam controversially explains that in truth there is no interruption since there was no arrival: the entire episode of the guests is a prophetic vision visited upon Avraham by God.

The primary reason for Rambam's explanation of the passage as a vision is that the three guests are angels, spiritual and ‘metaphysical’ entities which can neither be seen by humans nor engage in physical activities. Rather than being a simple dream or message, the interactive prophecy experienced here by Avraham is one of the highest levels of prophecy, involving Avraham thinking, speaking and responding to apparent events. Rambam cites Midrash Rabbah (as he interprets it) a source for his interpretation of the episode as a vision.

Judaism Reclaimed notes that one question that Rambam's concise explanation does not discuss, however, is at what point this prophetic vision ends and 'real life' continues. The Torah narrative of the guests' departure is immediately followed by Avraham's negotiation with God over Sodom, which is presumably also part of the prophecy. Then the narrative takes the angels to Sodom, where they appear to Lot. This appearance to Lot must also, according to Rambam's position on angels, be a prophetic encounter, leaving us with two possible approaches.

In the first possibility, the story of the angels in Sodom was still part of Avraham's vision. The Torah inexplicably interrupts its description of Lot's escape from Sodom to tell us "vayashkem Avraham baboker" (literally “and Avraham rose early in the morning”) — that Avraham is awakening. Could this awakening be from the prophetic vision that, in Rambam’s explanation, has encompassed the entire parashah so far? It is notable that the phrase “vayashkem … baboker” is used on three other occasions in this parashah, each of them denoting the end of a divine encounter.

Alternatively, one might explain that the episode of the angels in Sodom is a distinct vision experienced by Lot. This explanation is somewhat troubling in view of Rambam's principle that prophecy only rests upon someone of highly developed character and intellect, while the sages do not convey the general impression that Lot possesses those qualities.

Lot's suitability to receive prophecy does however receive some support from the Netziv, who suggests that Lot was initially a righteous disciple of Avraham, with the two parting company only for the purpose of avoiding the desecration of God’s name generated by their shepherds' arguments. Perhaps we can even suggest that Lot's decision to reside in Sodom and attempt to influence its residents positively was a failed effort to emulate Avraham's life mission of spreading God’s word among those ignorant of Him. Such an approach would be consistent with the more positive view of Lot which emerges from the commentary of the Radak, who suggests that Lot was so confident in his faith that he believed he could reside among the inhabitants of Sodom without being deleteriously affected by its sinful environment.

This second approach, based on the suggestion that Lot saw the angels prophetically, is the understanding of Rambam adopted by Ritva and Abarbanel. These commentators both highlight further midrashic support for Rambam in the discrepancy between the description of the angels' appearance (“nidmu”) as people to Avraham but as angels to Lot. The midrash attributes this discrepancy to the differential in (prophetic) 'power' between the two — a comment which is much easier to understand if each of these appearances was manifested within the context of a prophetic vision.

Judaism Reclaimed proceeds to use this discussion as a basis upon which to explore the different approaches of Rambam and Ramban to the existence and function of angels in the Torah.

For more information about these books see www.TalmudReclaimed.com

First posted to Facebook 5 November 2023, here.

To boldly go where no angel has stepped before

Growing up in England, I was often bemused by the number of quaint and elaborate euphemisms that were employed to gracefully depict a person’s visit to a lavatory. My personal favourite was my grandmother’s way of telling us how she had “gone to the place that the Queen goes without her carriage”.

Imagine my amazement when I discovered that rather than just being a quaint old English phrase, our traditional sources actually contain the following prayer which is to be recited before entering a bathroom:

“Be honored, holy honorable ones, servants of the Most High. Help me. Help me. Guard me. Guard me. Wait for me until I enter and come out, as this is the way of humans.”

It is not only royalty, it would seem, that enters such unedifying places unaccompanied; every human being is similarly devoid of his or her angelic assistants.

When I posted last year on the subject of prayer to angels, at least one member of this group responded by citing how the above prayer is recorded by Rambam himself in his Mishneh Torah repertoire of appropriate blessings. How is this prayer to be understood within the context of Rambam’s broader approach to angels and his strict prohibition against addressing them in prayer?

When responding to this question, I believe that it is crucial to bear in mind Rambam’s conclusion to the Laws of Tefillin and Mezuza, where he demonstrates his approach to the notion of protective angels:

Whenever a person enters or leaves [the house], he will encounter [on the Mezuza] the unity of the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, and remember his love for Him. Thus, he will awake from his sleep and his obsession with the vanities of time, and recognize that there is nothing which lasts for eternity except the knowledge of the Creator of the world. This will motivate him to regain full awareness and follow the paths of the upright.

Whoever wears tefillin on his head and arm, wears tzitzit on his garment, and has a mezuzah on his entrance, can be assured that he will not sin, because he has many who will remind him. These are the angels, who will prevent him from sinning, as it states: "The angel of God camps around those who fear Him and protects them."

This teaching, which is analysed in Judaism Reclaimed, dovetails nicely with what Rambam writes towards the end of Moreh Nevuchim, that a person’s level of providential protection is a direct result of the quantity and quality of their mind’s focus on and therefore connection to God.

When entering a lavatory, however, a person is not permitted to entertain thoughts of God or Torah. The protective angels therefore do not “enter with him” into the bathroom. What this short prayer is intended to affirm, perhaps, is that just as the Queen returns from her short visit back to her courtiers awaiting patiently in the carriage, so too do we intend to return immediately to our pre-lavatorial meditations on divine matters upon our exit from the bathroom. We therefore anticipate and hope to find our protective angels waiting for us exactly where we left them.

For more information on Judaism Reclaimed and Talmud Reclaimed, visit www.TalmudReclaimed.com.

First posted to Facebook 23 November 2023, here.