We will do and we will hear

I am struck by the fact that we really don't know all that much about what Jesus actually taught in the synagogues. For example in the gospel of Mark we just know that he went and taught in the synagogue but what he actually said, we don't know. We don't have the tape, it isn't on the web, and no one has dug it up in an urn somewhere--at least not yet. The Markan narrative didn't see fit to tell us what he said, but did see fit to tell us what he did: he helped people who had needs. Jesus dealt with demons, healed lepers, and got Simon's mother's fever down, all within just a few verses of being told that he taught in the synagogue.

The needs of people are endless. The alterity of each individual is, of course, infinite. Is my life bound up in what I know, or about in how much I use what I know to benefit those around me in some tangible meaningful way that makes a difference?

As the Israelites responded to Moses at Sinai (Exod 24:7) "We will do and we will hear." (see the Hebrew text, not the English version) The commitment to follow the Torah preceded hearing it. The obligation to serve the Other precedes even knowing what it would entail. This is not a childish faith, but as Levinas says, a religion for adults. Taking up the responsibility to live for the benefit of others is one that commits "before" knowledge--it is a commitment to human beings before it is a commitment to knowledge. As Levinas would argue in his Talumudic readings, there is a great temptation to know before doing--to reverse the process--and to hold others at bay while we evaluate the information in the Torah and then make a decision on what we will do and what we won't do. Yet in the spirit of Torah, we do and then we hear.

Reading the gospel of Mark as Torah. It isn't important to know what Jesus taught before observing what he did. In the spirit of Torah, we know what did, before we hear what he taught. Before we read any kind of extensive sermon (and there is no "sermon on the Mount" in Mark) we see Jesus simply doing. As readers of this gospel, we experience "we will do, and we will hear."