Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Daniel Ross Goodman

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СКАЧАТЬ to be associated with the voice of God—can be a young child’s voice. After all, it was a child’s voice that Augustine heard which catalyzed Augustine’s conversion process. When Augustine heard a child’s voice repeating the phrase “Tolle, lege: pick up and read!,” he interpreted this voice as a sign from God, opened up the New Testament, and the rest of this mystery is theological history: the most consequential theologian in Western Christianity was born, inspired by a child’s voice which he chose to interpret as sent by God.^[6]

      Yet, even if we are to concede that the divine may deign to speak to individuals with the voice of a child, an even more radical—if still thoroughly traditional—tonal shift is waiting to be made. The Talmud speaks of God as speaking to the wise through a heavenly voice termed a bat-kol: literally, a “daughter of a voice.” The implication is clear: God can make His—nay, Her—voice sound like a woman’s voice. If Scott can direct a movie in which a Gladiator-like Moses hears God speak to him with the voice of an 11-year-old boy, how far off are we from Kathryn Bigelow’s Book of Judges movie in which a Xena: Warrior Princess-like Deborah hears God speak to her with the voice of an 81-year-old woman? And with a neurotic General Sisera played by Larry David? (Well, this last part may be unnecessary, but “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fans would enjoy the hilariously awkward Larry-Lucy Lawless reunion.) As long as the 81-year-old woman is voiced by a regal-sounding Brit—Judi Dench, let’s say?—I’m sure Americans would have no qualms with taking orders from a Heavenly voice that heavenly. (Heck, I wouldn’t disobey Judi Dench if she told me to chug a 16-ounce jar of wasabi.)

      Would we really be able to stand in fear and awe before a feminine God? If presidential politics are any indication—the early word on the 2016 election is that a certain formidable woman is a shoe-in to become our 45th president—the answer is a resounding yes. I, for one, welcome our new female overlords—er, Lords, that should read, at least as far as one of them is concerned—and I would not be afraid if God spoke to me using the voice of a woman. But if He (sorry, old habits die hard) She spoke to me using Meryl Streep’s Clarissa Dalloway voice? As a bibliophile, I’d be terrified; but as a cinephile, I’d be delighted: God is just about the only remaining great (female?) historical figure that Ms. Streep has yet to play. Almost a century after Virginia Woolf demanded that women be given a room of their own, perhaps it is well-nigh time that women be given a voice of their own as well. Hollywood, are you listening? Because very, very soon, that authoritative voice in our ears will sound an awful lot more like our mother’s than our father’s voice. And for this revolutionary night-and-day voyage out of staid scales and modes toward exciting new-wave vocalizations, we have only our uninhibited imaginations—and God Herself—to thank.

      Notes

      1.

      See the work of Maimonides in various places: The Guide to the Perplexed, generally, and Mishneh Torah [Code of Jewish Law], “Laws of the Fundamentals of Torah,” 1:12; cf. ibid., 1:9.

      2.

      Virginia Woolf, “On Not Knowing Greek,” in The Common Reader (ed. Andrew McNeillie; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), 32.

      3.

      Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 34a.

      4.

      B.T., Bava Metzia 59b.

      5.

      B.T., Chagigah 13b.

      6.

      See Augustine, Confessions (trans. Henry Chadwick; New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), VIII: xii, p. 29.

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