Vayera
Angels
But it is chiefly from
a closer contact with Babylonia and her system of upper and lower spirits that
the influx of new elements into Jewish Angelology can be traced; and this is
confirmed by the rabbinical tradition, "The names of the angels were
brought by the Jews from Babylonia" (Yer. R. H. i. 2, Gen. R. xlviii.).
Ludwig Blau (Contemporary)
In truth wherever Scripture
mentions an angel being seen or heard speaking it is in a vision or in a dream
for the human senses cannot perceive the angels. But these are not visions of prophecy since
he who attains the vision of an angel or the hearing of his speech is not yet a
prophet…However, wherever Scripture ascribes human appearances to the angels,
as in the case of Abraham, then their presence is sensually perceived.
Ramban (13th Century)
God revealed Himself to Abraham
while he, Abraham, was engaged in practicing hospitality; in offering
refreshments to his fellow men…the general tendency is to place prophecy,
especially our kind of prophecy, into one category with visionary excesses,
augury, ecstasy and clairvoyance etc. As
a result, ecstasy is viewed as a preliminary stage of prophecy and prophecy
merely as a higher phase of ecstasy.
Even some of the writings of Jewish philosophers are not free of the
notion that prophecy requires spatial and spiritual abstraction, and physical
and mental isolation…Our kind of prophecy is not the product of a morbid
imagination, of abnormal agitation, rather, it is part of life – healthy,
creative, alert and cheerful…
Samson Raphael Hirsch (19th
Century)
The angels play a complex and
often adversarial role in the midrashic versions of
the creation narrative…Since Man was to be in the likeness of the angels and
they would be jealous of him, God consulted them…He asked permission of His
court. The role of the angels is to
suggest a “many-ness” of viewpoints, a spectrum of opinions, that God has to
convince, placate, ultimately to “receive permission.” And what is God’s main
argument? ...”you exist in the upper worlds after My
likeness. If there is to be no one in
the lower worlds after My likeness, then there will be
jealousy among the works of the beginning”.
God, as it were, submits His greatness and seeks permission from those
smaller than He.
Aviva Zornberg
(Contemporary)
An ancient Talmudic apologue
relates the protest of the angels when the divine Torah was going to leave
Heaven to be given to man. The Eternal comforts them: the laws of the Torah are
made to the earth, they do not apply to angels, who are neither born nor die,
neither work nor eat, neither own nor sell.
Did the angels submit? Did they
fall silent solely because their pride was flattered? Did they, on the contrary, catch a brief
glimpse of the superiority of earthly beings capable of giving and of
being-for-one-another and thus beginning the Divine comedy above and beyond the
understanding the being to which pure spirits are consigned?
Emanuel Levinas
(20th Century)