{"id":67691,"date":"2019-12-24T22:14:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-24T20:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=67691"},"modified":"2023-07-20T13:27:44","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T10:27:44","slug":"radical-monotheism-and-human-responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/radical-monotheism-and-human-responsibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Radical Monotheism And Human Responsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This chapter is the most explicitly, polemically, argumentatively monotheistic text in the Hebrew Bible. There are other, earlier passages that <\/span>assume<\/span><\/em> that God controls the whole world: \u201cAh, Assyria, the rod of my anger\u201d (Isaiah 10:5), for example, or \u201cTo Me, O Israelites, you are Just like the Ethiopians \u2014declares the LORD. True, I brought Israel up From the land of Egypt, But also the Philistines from Caphtor And the Arameans from Kir\u201d (Amos 9:7). There are also texts that seem to assume that there are other divine beings alongside God \u2013 but perhaps subservient to God \u2013 such as, \u201cWho is like you among the divine beings, O God?\u201d (Exodus 15:11).<\/span><\/p>\n

Our chapter, though, leaves no room for ambiguity and has no time for subtlety.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am the Lord and there is none else; Beside Me, there is no god\u2026 So that they may know, from east to west, That there is none but Me. I am the Lord and there is none else, I form light and create darkness, I make good and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can talk about this text as polemicizing against Zoroastrianism, then gaining popularity in Persia, which argued that different gods created good and evil. We can talk about this text as arguing against the priests of Marduk, who said that the god of Babylon had given Cyrus his victories. But I want to talk about the results of these bold theological claims for humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Far from crowding out any space for humankind to operate, this radical and thoroughgoing monotheism results in a massive responsibility for us, as we read in verse 18: \u201cHe did not create it to be chaos (<\/span>tohu<\/span><\/em>), but formed it for civilization (<\/span>shevet<\/span><\/em>).\u201d <\/span>Tohu<\/span><\/em> was the state of the world before creation. If there is one thing the world is not supposed to be, it is <\/span>tohu<\/span><\/em>. But this is not all God\u2019s responsibility. God did God\u2019s part, back in Genesis 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now it is on humankind to steer the world away from <\/span>tohu<\/span><\/em> and towards civilization. This is not a specific <\/span>mitzvah<\/span><\/em>: it is the entire point of creation. The Rabbis (Mishnah Gittin 4:5; \u2018Eduyyot 1:3) derive from this the bold idea that people must be allowed to procreate. More generally, the goal is to empower people to continue God\u2019s work. God took the first step away from <\/span>tohu<\/span><\/em>. Now it is upon us to continue that job.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Radical Monotheism And Human Responsibility","main_caption":"Far from crowding out any space for humankind to operate, this thoroughgoing monotheism results in a massive responsibility for us...God took the first step away from tohu. Now it is upon us to continue that job.","main_caption_size":"2","sub_caption":"","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116750,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67691\/revisions\/116750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}