T
he Talmud tells the
story of Yosef, the son
of Rabbi Yehoshua ben
Levi, who was “dead” for
a short period of time
and then was resuscitat-
ed, what we might call a
near death experience.
When Yosef recov-
ered enough to hear the
voice of his father by his
bedside, we read, “His
father asked, ‘
What did
you see?’
” The young
man responded with fear
in his eyes: “I saw an
upside-down world.”
His father, resting his hand
upon his son’
s shoulder, com-
forted him and said, “My son,
have no fear. You saw a clear
world.” Meaning, you saw
things as they really should be,
the world — our world —
really is upside-down, “bet-
ter you know that, than you
should live in fear.”
Rabbi Yehoshua lived in the
third century in Israel at a time
when Rome dominated and
devastated the Jewish commu-
nity. It was a world of “totality”
instead of a world of “infinity.”
A world that attempted to
reduce everything to “same-
ness,” rather than to respect
one’
s “otherness.” It was a
world where might made right.
It is in this context that we
can understand his words
to his son. “Yes, my son, the
upside-down world in which
we live is harsh, but that is not
the way God wants our world
to be.” The vision you had is
the opposite of the way we live
now, but your vision is the way
God wants us to live.
Emanuel Levinas, a 20th
century French Jewish philos-
opher, looked at the Western
world and realized that there
are two main influences: the
Hebrew Bible and Western
philosophy.
Moreover, he believed
that there is a fundamen-
tal difference in these
world views. Levinas felt
much of Western phi-
losophy was epitomized
by Rene Descartes, who
wrote, “I think, therefore
I am.” For Levinas, this
was a world of “totali-
ty” instead of a world
of “infinity,” a world
that attempts to reduce
everything to “sameness” rath-
er than to respect one’
s “oth-
erness.” Levinas wrote that “I
think” comes down to “I can”
— to an appropriation of what
is, to an exploitation of reality.
It is, he said, “a philosophy of
power.”
For Levinas, the fundamen-
tal premise on which Judaism
is based is the revelation at
Sinai, which we read in Yitro
this week, when God calls
to the Israelites. That call
demands a response.
Revelation teaches us how to
interact with the other. Other
is the other person as well as
God. This face-to-face encoun-
ter at Sinai with the other
becomes the basis for all future
relationships. I stop thinking
only of myself and begin to be
concerned with others. What
comes out of this encounter
is a responsibility toward the
other — that responsibility
being ethical behavior, leading
to a “clear world” that is not
“upside down.”
Rabbi Robert Gamer is the rabbi at
Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak
Park.
Parshat Yitro:
Exodus
18:1-20:23;
Isaiah
6:1-7:6; 9:5-6.
Rabbi Robert
Gamer
40 | FEBRUARY 13 • 2020
Spirit
torah portion
The World As It Is
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