Deep in the cave of the three brothers (trois-freres) in southwestern France, in a portion of the cave so small you have to contort yourself to fit in, is the earliest known human depiction of God. Part deer, owl, bear, and cat, the mysterious creature hangs over the space, imprinted on the wall there over 16,000 years ago, watching us momentarily as it prepares to spring beyond our grasp.
We cannot know what our ancestors thought of this “master of beasts,” but we can understand their desire to form a picture of divinity. The ancient Israelites were the first to put an end to that practice. We forbade not only idols, but any depiction of YHWH at all. We would have to see God as abstract, unknowable. God would be like the air and the wind, a force we could see only by the effect it has on our world.
This week’s Torah portion, Re’eh (literally, “see”), asks us to “see God” in the effects God has on our lives. Instead of capturing the image of God on the wall of a cave, or somewhere in our mind’s eye, the Torah asks us feel God’s presence in what we see around us in the world: in the majesty of nature, in the warmth of human interaction, or simply in the joy of being alive.
The question is without a picture, how do you explain God? The best answer I have ever seen is from a children’s board book by Larry and Karen Kushner called Where is God? (Skylight Press, 2000) which begins, “God is in the beginning. In the first red ripening tomato. And in cookies fresh from the oven. In the first day of summer. And in the tiny hands of a baby.”
Concluding with the statement that, “God is wherever we look.” How apropos of this week’s Torah portion.