The Theology of "Do Not Disturb"
When God is Unavailable
“At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?” (Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic)
The Lord said to Moses: Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come at will (b’chol et) into the Shrine behind the curtain, in front of the cover that is upon the ark, lest he die; for I appear in the cloud over the cover. (Leviticus 16:2)
Let them judge the people at all times (b’chol et). Have them bring every major dispute to you, but let them decide every minor dispute themselves. Make it easier for yourself by letting them share the burden with you…and they judged the people at all times (b’chol et): the difficult matters they would bring to Moses, and all the minor matters they would decide themselves. (Exodus 18:22; 26)
Happy are those who act justly, who do right at all times (b’chol et). (Psalm 106:3)
A time (et) for slaying and a time for healing / A time (et) for tearing down and a time (et) for building up. (Ecclesiastes 3:4)
Yet all this means nothing to me every time (b’chol et) I see that Jew Mordecai sitting in the palace gate.” (Esther 5:13)
Aharon’s sons, we learn in this week’s Torah reading Acharei Mot Kedoshim, were killed because they entered the holy of holies b’chol et, variously translatable as “at all times,” at “any time” or, more colloquially, “at their leisure.” Though the transgression of Nadav and Avihu is never spelt out explicitly, one dimension points to an inability to identify the right time to approach God. God can’t simply be summoned on demand. Not all moments in the day, or in a year, or in a lifetime, are equal. To take a most banal example, the time that you wish to fly determines the price of the airline ticket. A meeting with a person of import has different weight at 6am, 9am, 2pm, and 2am. Just as we may turn our phones or hotel room doors to “do not disturb,” the text implies that God, too, has moments when, as it were, God would rather not be bothered. Of course, we need not personify God to make this point. On ethical grounds alone, there is a virtue in waiting patiently, and not expecting that when you snap the other person must jump, certainly not when this other being is superior to you, or even equal to you. Walking in on God, un-announced, so to say, is a boundary violation, as well as a flex.
There is a streak of Nadav and Avihu in us all, insofar as we expect religious life to serve us. If I just do these reps, I’ll get results, right? If I pray, God must answer? If I show up to shul, I’ll get the promotion? But our well-intended desire for control, and for self-betterment conflicts with the need to recognize that God runs the show, not us. Transcendence is not an outcome I can produce with a new technology, a new exertion of will power. It precedes me and outlasts me. It humbles me.
The phrase “b’chol et” appears only three times in the Five Books of Moses. The first time we encounter the phrase is in the context of Yitro’s injunction to Moses to delegate authority to lower courts so that he doesn’t spend his whole time answering every small demand for his hime. Presumably, Moses was reachable “b’chol et”—at any and all moments—until Yitro tells him that this is not a good set-up. It’s not good for Moses, who risks burn-out, and it is not good for the people, who become overly dependent on him. If we accept the analogy, then the priests who knock too frequently on God’s door fail to distinguish between an appropriate request and the type of request that they themselves should now how to handle. We only get so many “I want to speak to the manager” cards before the power of the ask is diluted. For those who spend their life at a holy site, it is particularly important to remember this, lest holiness become banal.
On the other hand, just because God is not always equally available—sometimes we must endure what Martin Buber calls “the eclipse of God”—does not mean that we cannot and should not channel God’s will in the world. On the contrary, the tzimtzum or contraction of God enables us to be God’s agents. Thus, the psalms enjoin that “b’chol et” we should act with justice and righteousness. We must act on God’s behalf, just as the lower courts acted on the mandate of Moses, without roping him in to the details of their adjudication. Earth is the lower court, so to speak, of heaven. If we bring every case to the upper courts, we should expect the response, “Why are you bringing this to me?” This perspective, though, reveals the vulnerability behind the need and desire to control—a sense of disempowerment. If you have to knock on God’s door for everything, you must not feel strong yourself. Striking the balance right is difficult. Secularists claim a God so distant or non-existent that they never pray. Magical thinking religionist claim a God so immediate and responsive that they turn themselves into infants.
Ecclesiastes normalizes the idea of different times for different modes of being. Our category error, following in the footsteps of Nadav and Avihu, lies in assuming emotional or existential consistency as a virtue. But different moments call for different responses. The failure of Nadav and Avihu from the point of view of Kohelet is less a banalization of the holy than a failure to read the room, a certain religious rigidity. This is the way we do it. The problem with those who operate “b’chol et” is that the prayer needed at a wedding is not the same as the one needed at a funeral. The prayer needed in 1939 is not the same as the one needed in 1948. The prayer needed in 2023 is not the same as the one that will be needed in 3023. Flexibility is the antidote to treating all epochs as situationally equivalent. It is the key to finding spiritual meaning in history, in flux. It is a core feature of “adaptive leadership.” How do we handle change? Those who do everything “b’chol et” may have good rules of thumb, good first principles, but they lack the “AQ” (adaptability quotient) needed to change course.
In the story of Esther, Haman drives himself to ruin because of his own toxic hatred. But at the core of his negativity stands a logical fallacy. Every time he looks, he sees Mordechai at the palace gates. He concludes from this that Mordechai is always at the palace gates. He can’t separate his own perception from the reality. He is beholden to sample bias. Sometimes we think that something is “b’chol et” that is not actually representative of the whole. We see something on Twitter on in the news or hear something at a dinner table and extrapolate from the amount of attention it gets by certain people that it is more significant than it is. The problem with “b’chol et” perception is over-generalization. Most moments are probably not as perfect or as catastrophic as we think. But to a b’chol et point of view, this complexity is lost. The dangers, risks, and over-hype are lost to the chronic optimists and the solutions, opportunities, and positive externalities are lost to the doomers.
Better than finding God, or having one’s sacrifice accepted, is finding a way of accepting the rhythm of life as filled with moments of closeness and moments of distance. The tonic to religious anxiety (“I want God and I want God now”), and to anxiety more generally, is the appreciation that thoughts are not reality. “Happy are those who act justly, who do right at all times.” We can’t find the master key that unlocks every cosmic lock, but we can seek to be divinely empowered agents in the world in which and for which we have responsibility.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins
P.S.—Here is my interview with poet and novelist Ben Purkert. And here I am talking about Jewish theology and philosophy with finance podcaster Woody Wiegmann.