A new word for my theological vocabulary

When in seminary, I took a year of Hebrew. I was not very good at it. I did a lot better with Greek. But a year of Hebrew made a long-term impact on my theological understandings. Hebrew and other languages of the Semitic family are structurally different from Greek, Latin, German, Spanish, English and other common languages of western civilizations. Reading Hebrew can be compared to looking at a series of pictures rather than a series of words. This is a simplification, but valid for this discussion.

My favorite Hebrew word is shalom. It is usually translated peace. But peace does not begin to express the meaning of the word. The beauty of the word is that every time I read the word shalom, a different picture appears, always expanding the meaning of the word. To speak of the literal meaning of Hebrew words shows a tragic lack of understanding of the language.

Recently I have taken special delight in reading “Living the Sabbath” by Norman Wirzba, who teaches at Duke Divinity School. He takes the reader into new understandings of shabbot, which we regularly translate as sabbath. We typically think of sabbath as the seventh day of the week, ideally a day of rest. It is so much more. Getting into the presentation of Wirzba, every time I read the word sabbath, a new picture appears on the screen of my mind. New pictures keep coming to mind, but none contradict the other, they only expand the meaning and significance of sabbath.

In Wirzba’s discussion of sabbath, he introduces the reader to a Hebrew word that had long disappeared from my Hebrew vocabulary. Menuha is another word that defies a simple definition. It could be translated as joy or delight or happiness. But none of these words do the job. Menuha demands another series of pictures. The possibilities are endless.

In his attempt to bring understanding of sabbath to his reader, Wirzba does not take us to the fourth of the Ten Commandments as recorded in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Rather, he takes the reader to the creation account found in the first chapter of Genesis. In order to appreciate his comments, the reader must get rid of some ideas about the creation story.

The Genesis chapter one narrative is not about God creating everything from nothing in six days; rather, the narrative tells the story of God making and shaping good out of the chaos that confronted him. After each day’s work, God was pleased with what he had done. With a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye, God called his work good.

This exercise went on for six days. His final job of making and molding produced human beings. God was very pleased with what he had done, but people have made a tragic error in thinking that human beings were the goal of creation.

Wirzba argues that creation was not completed in six days. Creation was not completed until the seventh day. The creative process was completed on the seventh day when God made menuha. From the beginning, menuha was the prize of the creation of the good. Menuha is both the work of sabbath and the driving force that leads to shalom. Menuha is not a divine afterthought. It is at the heart of God’s creative purpose. Joy, happiness and delight are parts of our divine destiny.

In the Genesis 1 creation story, we are told that human beings were made in the image of God. I have long pondered the meaning of the creation of human beings in the image of God. Could it be that God has shared the divine penchant for the doing and creating of good? What are the pictures that come to mind?

The very first picture that comes to mind is that God has invited us to be partners of the divine in the doing of good in the midst of the chaos with which we are faced each and every day. It is not ours to do battle with chaos or to be the great organizers of life. It is ours to continue the good work of God. Doing battle with chaos only makes more chaos. Attempting to organize the world’s chaos leaves us in some sort of fundamentalism, feverishly quoting the Ten Commandments.

Earlier, I suggested that God came to his creative sabbath with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. He had achieved his menuha while exercising creative good, and shalom was nearby.

The creation story is pregnant with divine truth. The path to menuha is not wealth, power, status or entertainment. The path to menuha is the exercise of creative good.

Menuha deserves a place in our core vocabularies and many pictures of menuha need to take their place in the galleries of our hearts.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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