On the Shabbat that falls within the Festival of Passover it is customary to read a portion of biblical text from the book of Exodus; Chapter 33 verse 12 through Chapter 34 verse 26. Its general connection to the holiday is clear: it contains specific mention of and commandments related to Passover.
But it also contains an interesting textual anomaly.
The initial letter nun in 34:7 and the final letter resh in verse 14 are enlarged. You might say those are two anomalies. But the point I want to address is raised by combining them.
נֹצֵ֥ר חֶ֨סֶד֙ לָֽאֲלָפִ֔ים
לֹ֥א תִֽשְׁתַּֽחֲוֶ֖ה לְאֵ֣ל אַחֵ֑ר
Together the two enlarged letters spell ner, or light.
נר
There are other instances in the Torah where letters are written either larger or smaller than usual. The ayin and the dalet in the first line of the Shema, for example, are written large. The enlargement is often taken to indicate that they are to be read together as the Hebrew word ed, meaning witness.
There, the two large letters are separated by only a few words and the combination is both visually apparent and reasonable in context.
The nun and resh in our reading are separated by a larger section of text, though, and so their connection – at least the connection I’ll suggest — is not as directly apparent.
It is true that some early versions of the text do not show these letters in an enlarged form and that not all current scrolls are written with those letters enlarged; but most are.
Some scholars suggest that the enlargement was done by the Masoretes: the school of scholars in Tiberias responsible for the punctuation and cantillation of the text as well as the division of the text into “books” and “portions”.
Does that matter?
Well, of course it matters, but this is midrash after all. It’s our job to look again and again at the text, seeking deeper understanding, new insight and fresh inspiration. So, as I look at this text this year I am drawn to ask:
If these two letters form a single word, ner, what is the relationship between the ner and the text that is demarked by or contained within the ner (or the letters that comprise it)?
What fills the “light”?
Verse 7, where we find the enlarged Nun, is the continuation and completion of the powerful passage known as the 13 Attributes of Mercy. Its first words are: “extending kindness to the thousandth generation”.
Some translators understand the Hebrew to mean “for thousands of generations” or “for two thousand generations”. In any case, in biblical language that means forever or eternal.
Then we find Moses saying to God:
“…let the Lord go in our midst…
Pardon our iniquity…
Take us for your own…”
And God replies:
“I hereby make a covenant.
Before all your people I will work such wonders…
I will drive out before you (six nations are listed)…
Beware of making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land…
The passage ends in the middle of verse 14 with the admonition: “you shall not worship any other god.”
So in the brief passage between the enlarged letters that spell ner,
-
God’s eternal kindness is acknowledged,
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Moses asks God to take the Israelites as His own,
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God proclaims His covenant with the people, and
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God requires exclusivity.
If we interpret this passage, taken as a whole, as representing a light, what kind of light is it?
The specific time reference within it suggests that it is eternal. That is the given characteristic of God’s kindness in verse 7, which flavors the entire passage. But the central proclamation of God’s covenant is not the first covenant statement we’ve found in the Torah.
We’ve already seen that covenants made by God are made forever.
If this passage is a light, surely it is a…
נר תמיד
…an eternal light.
Perhaps it is, in fact, THE eternal light.
The Hebrew phrase ner tamid (not to be confused with esh tamid), is found only twice in the Five Books of Moses: once at Exodus 27:20 and again at Leviticus 24:2. In both cases the subject is the kindling of a light at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and in both cases the sense of the word tamid is taken to mean “regularly” as opposed to some term denoting a continuous or a perpetual activity.
If this passage is seen as defining a light and the light is an eternal one, what does it eternally illuminate?
Surely the answer is that it illuminates God’s kindness, God’s forgiveness and God’s covenantal relationship with Israel.
And as Moses came down from the mountain, in a passage only a few verses after ours, the tablets he carried had inscribed on them the div’rei ha’brit, the terms, or words, of the covenant. As he came down, the light emanating from his face was so intense that the people “shrank from coming near.”
The mishkan and its ornaments would come and go. The tablets would crumble to dust over time. The people would die and the sands would shift and the seasons and centuries would pass.
But the light of the covenant continues.
And that light is reflected through the prism of God’s covenantal partner: the light that shone from Moses’ face would thereafter shine through the people Israel, charged by God to be a light unto the nations.
The covenant is everlasting. The light that shines from it is eternal: it is the ner tamid.
©Charles R. Lightner