We saw last week how Avraham Abulafia, in his commentary on Shemot, explains the integral connection between names (i.e., shemot) and naming and prophecy, and how this is exemplified in the prophecy of Moshe. Towards the end of this discussion, he parses in detail the verses of the Torah detailing Moshe’s call to prophecy at the burning bush. (I again refer the reader to Mafteach Hashemot because we will not be able to delve into all that material here.)
Abulafia describes the initial encounter with prophetic awareness and how it impacts the recipient. The “use” that can be made of prophecy is highly contingent upon the preparation and training of the one who receives it. As we see in the beginning of this week’s parsha, Va’era, Hashem can “appear” before the prophet as a visual apparition, in need of decoding and explanation.
The seeing of visions is a very common experience, in part because our world is very visual and we humans are conditioned to process information about our surroundings first and foremost with our eyes. The prophecy can just as easily consist of other somatic components, most commonly sounds and smells. In any event, an encounter with prophecy will represent a significant deviation from the everyday experience of the one who receives it, and usually the initial encounters will be overwhelming and confusing. The way in which a person has been trained and conditioned to assess and interpret data from the world will impact how he or she is able to cope with the revelation and the discombobulation that is likely to accompany it.
One of the key characteristics we see of Moshe that make him uniquely qualified for prophecy is his attention to detail in the face of the unusual. Upon encountering the burning bush, Moshe is inquisitive and unflappable. The Torah tells us that Hashem sees fit to begin “speaking” to Moshe once he sees the strange sight and pays attention, standing still (Shemot 3:3-4). Abulafia explains that people are not simply born or called to prophecy, but must prepare their minds and their sensibilities to deal with the strange and to filter out what is essential from all the drama they are called to witness.
Above all, it is necessary to be a Torah scholar, as the proper understanding of Torah entails detailed analysis and also the identification and extraction of the Divine revelation in a given text or set of principles. While in the case of Moshe, there are various interpretations of the extent to which he was trained in Torah per se (of course, the Written Torah had not been given yet – because it would be given through him!), he exemplified the qualities of a Torah scholar. He also benefited from extensive training in Mitzrayim as well as under Yitro (and elsewhere, according to the Midrash). In particular, Torah study teaches how to categorize things and to understand their qualities as a consequence of their type – another aspect of “naming.” Abulafia associates this with an understanding of the elements and the capacity to integrate this foundation in physical science with a spiritual awareness that can extrapolate to the letters of the Tetragrammaton and the corners of the Divine Chariot.
Finally, just as the prophet must be trained and conditioned to sense and to experience Divine Mercy without becoming overwhelmed, he or she must also be able to recognize Divine Judgment when it is present. For this reason, we find a necessary qualification for prophecy is “awe” in the presence of the Divine. Awe is, as noted above, a natural byproduct of prophetic revelation, but it is also cultivated in the devout individual.
As with many arts of human endeavor and accomplishment, the development of a faculty and its rehearsal are often instrumental to its effective use in crisis. True prophetic revelation is always crisis-inducing because it strains our sense of the possible and the credible to its limits and exposes us to a great deal of information, only some of which we have the tools to properly interpret. Most prophets have to be prepared to intuit much that they can’t possibly understand, and to try to extract the details that are most relevant to their generation or to the future generations of Jews to whom they must deliver the message entrusted to them. This work will not be possible without a good degree of creativity to make connections between information that it is difficult to make patterns out of, and without enough humility and capacity for awe to stand in the face of that which is vastly greater than us.
The emphasis on creativity – or imagination, as we mentioned last week – would probably not have sat well with Abulafia’s master, Rambam. However, Abulafia goes to pains to explain how the creativity must be constrained and ordered based upon the aforementioned foundation in science and in Torah, so that the prophet isn’t just imagining wildly in response to the extreme sensory and emotional stimulation. Somebody who is unprepared will likely just fabricate phantasms and illusions that have no basis in Divine Revelation or relevance for anybody else. In this way, Abulafia acknowledges Rambam’s distrust for “imagination” while still presenting it as a necessary component of prophecy.
Ultimately, one of the most important qualifications is discretion as a subset of humility. It isn’t possible to reveal everything, even if it is perfectly understood, so the prophet must become a master of understatement and of self-control. Regarding Moshe, we know that he was the humblest man who ever lived and that this was perhaps his greatest qualification for prophecy.