In this week’s parsha, we go through the story titled Yitro. We have two elements. Moses is tired of the roles and duties that come with being the leader of a people, and has to be told in so many words he has to learn to delegate - hence the appointment of judges to handle disputes.
The second part of the story is the most memorable one, and it involves Moses going up Mt. Sinai, and coming back down with the listing of the ten commandments, and all that. Buthonestly, that is not the part I’m focusing on. But rather, what is the setting of all the raw theophany that takes place in the second half of Exodus? The setting is in the middle of the desert.
In other words, nowhere. In the middle of nowhere. The back of the edge of beyond. Go to the ends of the Earth and get off at the exit immediately after that. That’s the setting for the story. The burning bush, the commandments, the golden bull, the mana, Miriam’s well, etc. They’re all wandering through nowhere, here and everywhere.
There’s a pattern in that sense throughout the peoples of the world. The weird things all take place in the remotest places, in the lonely places. The Gaelic fae will abduct you when you’re in the middle of a forest. The sea monsters prey on mariners on far distant waters. Even the modern popular American cryptids are always in remote places. Mothman lives in the mountains of West Virginia, and Sasquatch is somewhere out there in the Rockies. The strange things that get told over the centuries to shape human history, lore and religion, never seem to happen in the middle of a busy street. That’s where we seem to be closest to what isn’t part of our world, whatever that is, and wherever it is.
And it makes sense. Think of the strange eeriness, the surrealness, as if reality were wrinkly around the edges, that you feel in say, a lonely highway or a rest area stop at 2 AM. Or a cabin in the woods. Yourself alone in a hotel room at any time, for that matter. Or even crowded places but where everyone’s kinda lost and things are slightly dangerous, like a Waffle House during the night shift.
What does that tell us about the divine? About Hashem? Well, maybe divinity is kind of like the sound of our heartbeat and blood flow. It’s there, making that sound, every single minute of your life, never stopping. But you will not notice it because it’s always been there, in the background from all the million other things happening. But if we remove all those million things, like being locked in a quiet soundproof room with the lights off, then you notice it. But, much like the reason a burning bush is used so that you cannot see their true form, this is not exactly good for you, and no one can take it for long without suffering the mental injuries - the reason why solitary confinement is such a cruel torture.
But, we can come close to that, with the divine. You probably won’t feel it in the crowded place, or at home, or maybe even here in shul. But in the liminal space where reality wrinkles, because all the other usual things that keep you busy are gone. The usual people, the cities, home, etc. You’re alone with your thoughts, in the wilderness, in the desert. That is where the divine exists in the liminal, in the remote, in the sketchy, even. In Nowhere. Whether that is the Sinai desert, or a small town Waffle House off an interstate in the middle of the night, after having driven 200 miles and still having another 200 to go. There’s nothing else going on, so you notice the weird things, the sacred things, the miracles, the divine. That is where the story of the ancient Israelites takes place. It cannot happen anywhere else.
So maybe next time you’re driving through one of those roads where it’s dark, there’s no cell phone signal, and would be a very bad time to get a flat tire, quiet down and notice it.