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THE WORK OF ANDREW RAMER

A Faith of the Earth

This is what our ancient rabbis taught us, in Pirke Avot:

            Moses received the Torah from Sinai

Why Moses? Because he was raised in the house of the daughter of pharaoh, and not with his own people. To remind us that we can do the work of liberation without knowing anything about our people, and without knowing anything about our tradition, either.

            Moses received the Torah from Sinai

The rabbis of old did not say, “Moses received the Torah from God,” nor did they say, “Moses received the Torah from God at Sinai.” They said that Moses received the Torah from a mountain.

Why from a mountain, and not from God? Because ours is an earth-based faith, its most sacred wisdom given to its prime teacher, not by God, but from a mountain, through a mountain.

Is this what the ancient rabbis were thinking? I doubt it. But like all good ancestors they left us their words as an inheritance, which we are free to do with as we must, as we will.

             Moses received the Torah from Sinai

Mount Shasta, Mount Fuji, Mount Olympus, Mount Everest. Like all the sacred mountains in the world, our Moses received the Torah from a mountain, and inscribed the sacred words he received on two rocks, just as the Hopi and other peoples have inscribed their sacred truths on stones from the earth, to preserve them.

Moses received the Torah from Sinai

It says in Deuteronomy, chapter 30, concerning the Torah: “It’s not in the skies, that one would say, ‘Who will go up for us to the skies and get it for us and enable us to hear it so we’ll do it?’ And it’s not across the sea, that one would say, ‘Who will cross for us, across the sea, and get it for us and enable us to hear it so we’ll do it?’”  No, our people received the Torah from the mountain around which they were camped, to remind us that the truth is near at hand, as near as the nearest rock, the nearest mountain.

            Moses received the Torah from Sinai

Many years ago I studied with a man who was born and raised on a reservation in Canada. Once a black-clad missionary came there to preach. He held a black-bound Bible in his hands, raised it high above his head and said that it contained the true and eternal word of God. My teacher’s grandfather, the head of their community, said to the missionary, “Leave your book on the ground in front of my tipi. Come back in a year. If it’s still there, I will convert to your faith. But in the meantime, I will continue to learn about the Creator as I have in the past, from the earth and the sky, from the plants and the trees and the animals.”

            Moses received the Torah from Sinai

I have spent time in temples, churches, mosques, shrines, and synagogues. I have prayed there and found comfort there. But I have never had a spiritual experience in any of those places. However, in nature, under the trees as they reach their strong arms toward the sky, by the ocean listening to the waves crash, walking by a stream as it ambles over rocks, at night looking up at the flaring stars, and whipped by wind on the top of the Rockies – I have felt connected to the world, the universe, to my place in it, to myself, and to that which I have come to know as God, the Creatrix of all that is.

            Moses received the Torah from Sinai

From a mountain and not from the skies. From a mountain and not from across the sea. And he inscribed the sacred words he received from that mountain on two stones, to teach us that our way is one with the earth, of the earth, from the earth, for the earth, so that we will remember this truth for all times, always.