TEBOWING, WHISPERED PIETY, AND THE TRUE MIRACLES OF HANUKKAH

Tebowing is sweeping the nation. To tebow means to get down on one knee and begin praying, even if everyone around you is doing something completely different. The act is named after Tim Tebow, the quarterback for the Denver Broncos who has led his team to some of the most exciting come-from-behind victories of the year. Tebow is a deeply religious man, and we know this because he is fond of displaying his piety on the field during games. In college, he would wear Biblical verses on his face by writing them into his eye black. During games, he drops to one knee, places his fist to his forehead and prays. During a recent game, the Chargers lined up for a 53 yard game winning field goal. When Tebow was interview about it after the game he said, “I can’t say I saw too much of it. I was praying.” “Praying for a miss?” he was asked. “I might have said that,” Tebow laughed. “Or maybe a block. Maybe all of it.”

            The truth is, I find something quite beautiful in the religious impulse to stop what you are doing in order to pray. Creating space for a moment of reflection in the midst of chaos can be quite poignant and centering. But two things make me uncomfortable about tebowing. The first is the advertisement of one’s own piety. Why can’t Tebow recite a prayer without attracting attention by dropping to a knee right in the middle of a game? If his posture must pray along with him, he could bow his head ever so slightly while praying. But the more troubling element of this phenomenon is the reductionist, and to me, repugnant theological notion that God actually cares about field goals. Imagine the overwhelming arrogance it takes to petition God for a missed field goal while so many people are being ravaged by treatable illnesses, starving to death, and slaughtering one another! Praying for a touchdown does violence to the concept of the divine and reduces God to a magical goblin meant to serve our most ridiculous whims.

            In the book of Genesis, Joseph finds himself in need of God, not for a trifling field goal, but in order to find the strength to live. His brothers kidnap him, throw him into a pit, and eventually sell him into slavery. He is brought down to Egypt and placed in the household of Potiphar, a powerful noble of the Pharaoh’s inner circle. Joseph is essentially saved from one pit only to land in a new one, as he is wrongfully imprisoned for a crime that he did not commit. A haunting verse in the Psalms evokes the humiliation of Joseph’s imprisonment and the way it crushed his spirit. “They bruised his feet with shackles,בַּרְזֶל בָּאָה נַפְשׁוֹ  an iron collar was put on his neck, or read literally, iron crushed his soul.” (Psalm 105:18) Joseph’s future was bleak. The Torah, however, hints at a little spark of hope through a phrase that repeats itself four times in this narrative: וַיְהִי יְדֹוָד אֶת יוֹסֵף  “Adonai was with Joseph.” The Torah states this when Joseph is brought down to Egypt, and then repeats it again when he is in prison. Adonai was with Joseph.

            A simple reading of the text suggests that for a reason unstated, God dwelt with Joseph in his despair. It sounds a lot like Grace. What did Joseph do to deserve this? Why did God simply choose to be with him? For many of us, this may ring in our ears with some resentment. “After all,” we wonder, “why isn’t God present when we need Him, when we feel imprisoned by forces far stronger than we can bear?” But, the midrash (Genesis Rabbah 66:5) softens our question; it offers an interpretation of God’s presence with Joseph that shifts our attention away from Grace. 

Rav Huna said in the name of Rabbi Acha, אחא אמר מלחש ונכנס מלחש ויוצא “Joseph whispered whenever he entered and whenever he went out.”

What was he whispering? One suggestion is words of Torah; another is God’s name. Imagine this servant moving around Potiphar’s home, in and out of rooms, whispering God’s name as he serves his true Master while he waits on his earthly one. Rav Huna is teaching something profound here. God doesn’t simply appear to Joseph; Joseph works to cultivate and nurture a consciousness of God’s presence. This requires active work. Rabbi Brad Artson points out that “by continually repeating God’s name to himself and regularly invoking God’s love and involvement, Joseph trained himself to perceive the miraculous in the ordinary, to experience wonder in the mundane (The Bedside Torah, p. 63).” Religion is not synonymous  with magical thinking; God doesn’t simply appear in order to be present with us. Just like every other meaningful aspect of our lives, we have to work hard for that privilege. Very hard. 

            Joseph knows that life is shrouded in the miraculous. Not even the deepest pit, not even the most isolating prison cell can change this fact. Our circumstances often obscure the marvels of life, but they don’t obliterate them. As the 11^th Century Hebrew poet Shlomo Ibn Gvirol wrote, “Of what avail is an open eye/ if the heart is blind?” Joseph’s heart is open to experiencing the wonder of God. Even locked away, isolated from the world, a man can become conscious that the very breath he breathes is miraculous. We are surrounded by miracles, and we even see them, but unless our hearts remain open to them, they will go unnoticed.

For many Jews, the straw man of Hanukkah is the miracle of the oil. We relegate Hanukkah to a child-centered, juvenile holiday because our notions of God and miracles are themselves juvenile. We tell ourselves: “God never made one day worth of oil last 8 days, and even if He did, He doesn’t perform these miracles anymore anyway!” So we wrap another gift or fry another latke. 

What would happen if we simply rejected the definition of a miracle as a supernatural event that defies logical explanation? What would happen if we stopped praying for miracles like field goals and touchdowns, for ‘A’s on tests, and deathbed magic? What would happened if we understood a miracle to be an experience that shakes us, something at which we marvel, that crushes our sense of the routine, that fills us with a sense of wonder? If we do this, our faith will mature and we won’t be able to dismiss Hanukkah as a sweet little children’s story but rather, we will have to confront the terror and overwhelming beauty of being alive.  Even with all of our worries and despair and warts, we are alive (!), and this realization forces us to recognize (as we say three times a day) the miracles that daily attend usעל ניסיך שבכל יום עמנו .What do these miracles look like?  

Loyalty from a friend that spans many decades.

An act of unexpected hesed (loving-kindness) from a stranger.

Experiencing the human power to create life unleashed before your eyes.

The glory and majesty of the natural world.

The capacity for your body to heal from significant wounds.

The surprise that you feel when love bursts through your veins as you look at a person you have looked at thousands of times prior before.

These sound cliché, but only because we know them to be true and we take them for granted.  These are the miracles we should pray for, not extra points and field goals.  “Of what avail is an open eye/if the heart is blind.” Hanukkah is a time to open our hearts again so our eyes may see. It is a time to cultivate a consciousness of the miracles of our lives.  Even those of us who find ourselves in pits of anguish, like Joseph, we can train ourselves to see the miraculous in the ordinary. Doing so begins with a whisper.

Why a whisper? Why does Rav Huna suggest that Joseph whispers God’s name instead of saying it out loud? Because devoutness is private. He does not need to broadcast his piety through speaking a word at all; it is expressed through his deeds. In prison he notices that the cupbearer and baker, his fellow inmates, appear distraught. He asks them, “Why do you appear downcast today?” He is interested. He notices. He sees their pain and he wants to help them. Though he whispers his prayers to God, his concern and empathy for his fellow man is broadcast loud and clear. Piety is private because it is a deeply personal yearning that we shudder to share with others. We know that others will judge us, so we whisper softly to God. In this whisper is an invitation for presence. Tebowing on a football field reeks of arrogance, self indulgence, and reduces God to a goblin of sorts, but it is not that far removed from our own tendency to dismiss God for not splitting seas or punishing bad guys. This year on Hanukkah, give yourself the most meaningful gift imaginable: begin cultivating an awareness of the daily miracles that envelop your life. Acknowledge them. Instead of imagining that God should simply be present in your life, invite Him in. All it takes is an open heart and a whisper.