God Speaks Only to Himself

If anyone were to argue that traditional Judaism is guilty of too much dogma and not enough imaginative thought, a closer look at the multitude of rabbinical insights into the meaning of “God” and “revelation” would quickly disabuse him of such a notion.

When describing Moshe’s encounter with God in the Tent of Meeting, our parsha reads:

When Moshe entered the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he heard the Voice—’midaber’—speaking to him from above the cover which is on the Ark of the Testimony, from between the two cheruvim, and He spoke to him. (Bamidbar 7:89)

What is most remarkable is that the verse twice repeats that God spoke to Moshe: “he heard the Voice speaking to him… and He spoke to him.” Even more intriguing is the grammatical form of the Hebrew word midaber.

The voice in the tent of meeting

According to the masora—the traditional oral transmission of how the Torah is to be read (a Torah scroll contains no vowels)—the word is pronounced midaber. Were it not for this tradition, we might have read medaber, meaning “He heard the Voice speaking to him [Moshe].” But midaber is in the hitpa’el (reflexive) form of the verb, implying that the act of speaking refers back to the speaker Himself. In that case, the verse should be rendered: “And he [Moshe] heard the Voice speaking to Him [i.e., God Himself].”

Rashi comments:

This is an expression similar to midaber [reflexive]. He spoke between Him and Himself, and Moshe heard.

In other words, God was engaged in a “conversation” with Himself—and Moshe “overheard” it. Moshe’s prophetic experience was therefore an inner acoustic event: he heard God speaking to Himself. It was in this way that God “spoke” to Moshe.

Rashi, Maimonides, and Seforno

This radical insight aligns closely with Maimonides’ understanding of Moshe’s level of prophecy, as explained in his Guide for the Perplexed.[1] Those familiar with the Rambam’s philosophical approach will not find this surprising, but for Rashi—who is not known for philosophical speculation—this interpretation is extraordinary. We must therefore conclude that this observation expresses not merely a philosophical curiosity but a fundamental principle of Jewish belief. Yet most commentators do not linger on this fact, and the early translations (the Targumim of Onkelos and Yonatan) make no distinction between medaber and midaber.

Many centuries later, the great Italian commentator Rabbi Ovadia Seforno (16th century) builds on Rashi’s observation. On our verse he writes:

Midaber elav—Between Him and Himself, for “God does everything for Himself.”[2] By knowing Himself, He knows and does good to others, and His actions manifest themselves to each being according to its capacity. And so it is in every place in the Torah where it says, “And God spoke.”[3]

The Divine aleph

Even more radical is the observation by the great Chassidic Rebbe, R. Menachem Mendel of Rimanov (1745-1815), to the effect that God pronounced only the first aleph of Anochi of the verse “I am the Lord your God”, the first verse of the Ten Commandments.

The letter aleph is representative of the name of God, because the Alef is equivalent to One—singular and unique. As written, it is a combination of two yods and one vav, which is the numeral equivalent of the four-letter name of God, Yud-He-Vav-He.[4]

If the Israelites heard only the first letter of the word Anochi, they really heard nothing at all! This is because the letter Alef, unlike all the other letters of the Hebrew alphabet, has no sound of its own.

Here too we can conclude that what the Israelites heard at Sinai was God’s own inner dialog. In this manner, human beings are partners with God in the giving of the commandments. While God may send images of the commandments to the subconscious of man, human beings transform them into the reality of the commandments.

As such we are no longer passive observers of Divine revelation. Rather we were—and continue to be—active participants in the act of revelation. We simply recognize our own, inner godly voice from within the revelation.

This means that the commandments as they appear in the text of Torah are only the external garments of the Torah, and that the real Torah is found within the hearts of man. This continues to be reflected in the Oral Torah, the ongoing revelation starting with the written text and then refracting it through the lens of rabbinic literature up to this very day.

Humans have the unique gift of being able to pierce through the superficial layers and finite nature of the text to expose the infinite application of it. This has far-reaching implications which often turns the traditional meaning of revelation on its head.

For Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Rimanov and other Chassidic thinkers, revelation ceases to be merely a belief in something that once occurred; instead, it becomes an activity, a state of being. The Torah is continually revealed via the inner workings of the human mind and heart. Upon reaching such a moment of transcendence, a person overflows with Divine emotion. One stands in rapture and awe of the real Torah. This is the essence of true revelation, in which one goes beyond his or her physical limitations to grasp the inner Divinity of the Torah.

As is apparent in many passages, Jewish commentators have long wrestled with the nature of God and revelation. All agree that God exists and that revelation occurred, as told by the Torah. Yet because the text is silent about God’s “nature” and the how of revelation, the sages and later thinkers responded with extraordinary creativity when describing the Divine encounter.

The perils of certainty

Religious faith, however, cannot be understood apart from faithfulness and fidelity. Loyalty to faith is never fixed; it remains open to radically new readings. So it is with the Torah. Most religious propositions—including nearly all statements about God or Torah—cannot be reduced to one definitive meaning. They are, by their very nature, ambiguous. The truly religious person feels that any single interpretation is but a shadow of deeper, inexpressible truths. He senses that there are countless other possibilities hidden beneath the surface.

The man of faith realizes, however faintly, that believers of past generations—and even his contemporaries—attach vastly different meanings to the same religious statements. What binds him to faith is not the adequacy of his own understanding, but his conviction that there is much more to be revealed. This conviction gives rise to a desire for continuity—to remain connected to an unfolding tradition. But once a particular interpretation of faith is declared “final” or “complete,” continuity ceases. Real faith dies the moment it becomes static and self-satisfied. Such would mark the end of Jewish tradition.

For this reason, believers sometimes find that certain non-believers are spiritually closer to them than their fellow believers. The non-believer may be more open to new ideas, provided he approaches them with honesty and depth. The conventional believer, by contrast, often refuses to leave the safety of a closed system where every question has been answered. Such comfort comes at the cost of growth and life.

Spinoza and the Kabbalah

Even when one considers so-called “heretical” thinkers such as Spinoza, one wonders how far their ideas truly diverged from Jewish tradition. While Spinoza identified God with nature—Deus sive Natura—it is not clear that this is entirely removed from the Kabbalistic concept of the Ein Sof, the Infinite, the unending and boundless aspect of God beyond human comprehension. Ein Sof represents the Divine essence as it exists in itself—transcendent, unknowable, and prior to all manifestation.

The essential difference is that Kabbalah maintains the possibility of God’s communication with humanity, while Spinoza does not. God is not nature but the Creator of nature. Yet once we recall Rashi and Seforno’s bold reading of midaber—that God speaks to Himself—and Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Rimanov’s understanding of the Alef, we may begin to suspect that Spinoza and Jewish tradition are not as far apart as they might seem.

Questions to Ponder

• If God is described as speaking only to Himself, and Moshe merely “overhears,” what becomes of revelation as a command addressed to humanity? Does this elevate the human role—or undermine Divine authority?
• If revelation is mediated through the inner life of the prophet—or even the listener—how do we distinguish between authentic revelation and projection? Is such a distinction even possible, or is uncertainty built into faith itself?
• If God’s deepest speech is self-directed and human beings hear only echoes, what does that say about prayer? Are we speaking to God—or listening for something already unfolding within us?
• The idea that Israel heard only the silent Alef of Anochi implies that revelation began with soundless presence rather than articulated command. Does this suggest that meaning precedes language—or that language is already a human addition to the Divine?

• If the commandments are “external garments” and the real Torah resides within the human heart, what protects Judaism from becoming radically subjective? Where does interpretation end and invention begin?
• If revelation is ongoing and refracted through human consciousness, can any interpretation ever claim final authority? And if Torah lives through continual reinterpretation, is continuity preserved through fidelity to text—or through openness to change? At what point does reinterpretation become rupture?

[1] See, for example, Moreh Nevuchim 1:21, 1:37, 2:33, 2:35.

[2] Mishlei 16:4.

[3] Seforno on Bamidbar 7:89.

[4] Some point out that the human face also represents the same numeral equivalent: the two eyes stand for the two yods, and the nose stands for the vav. This indicates that humans are a reflection of the Divine.