Episode #16 Receptacles for the Torah

 In this episode, Rabbi Reinman shows how the Jewish people were designed from the very beginning to be receptacles for the Torah.

Chapter Sixteen

Receptacles for the Torah

During the second millennium b.c.e., the Imperial Quadrant encompassed the eastern part of the Mediterranean basin. The other lands into which the Quadrant would one day expand were still relatively primitive and barbaric. There were some kingdoms and cities but no budding empires, and there were no significant advances that would affect the development of civilization and the progress of world history. In the Quadrant, however, there was a great deal of energy and activity.

In Mesopotamia, the drive for empire was strong, with many contenders vying for supremacy. Empires rose and fell. The Assyrians built a large empire that was eclipsed by the Babylonians under King Hammurabi, who were challenged in turn by rising powers such as the Elamites, the precursors of the Persians. The race was on for dominance and expansion.

The Babylonians made advances in many fields. They organized a strong central government with an efficient bureaucracy and a system of taxation. They developed cuneiform writing. They made a rudimentary code of laws. They made advances in agriculture, commerce, literature, architecture, astronomy, mathematics and time measurement. Their achievements had a profound impact on future kingdoms and empires.

The Egyptians to the southwest also built a large empire, relative to the times, that encompassed almost the entire, thousand-mile Nile River valley from the delta in the north through present-day Egypt and Sudan. It was a unified kingdom internally stable and protected from external threats by desert to the east and the west. The Egyptians invented hieroglyphic writing. They also made advances in agriculture, architecture, commerce, craftsmanship and especially in medicine. Egyptian civilization was not as dynamic as Babylonian, but its impact was nonetheless significant.

The third great empire in the Quadrant was the Hittite Empire to the north, whose capital was Hattusa near modern-day Ankara in Turkey. It encompassed all of Asia Minor and extended down through Syria and Lebanon into Canaan to the south. The Hittites were a powerful, well-organized, militaristic empire. Their most significant contribution to the advance of civilization was the development of ironworking and better weapons of war.

Which events or developments in the Imperial Quadrant of that period would have the greatest impact on the future of the world? Which events or developments would most determine the course of world history? And in which part of the Quadrant were these events or developments taking place?

If you think about it, the answer is objectively indisputable. The most impactful events during those centuries were the arrival of Abraham in Canaan and the birth of his son Isaac. These events impacted world history more than anything that was happening in the regional empires.

The greatest force ever introduced into the world is the Torah. The Torah is more than just the philosophical belief in one transcendent, unknowable God. It is the direct communication between God and the world He created. It is the divine basis for justice, morality and worship. All the Abrahamic monotheistic religions trace their roots back to the Torah. Furthermore, many of the discoveries and developments in the secular world were inspired by opposition to the Torah and the need to demonstrate that science rather than religion was the best description of nature.

Since the human race had shown its inability to relate to a transcendent God for any length of time without slipping into paganism. the human race as a whole was incapable of establishing a permanent covenant with God and receiving the Torah. There needed to be a cadre that could stand apart from the rest of humankind and be an example for the entire world. There needed to be a nation, however small, built for this very purpose, a nation that would from the very beginning inculcate the values of the covenant into generation after generation until it became part of their very identity.

God chose Abraham to be the progenitor of this nation. He directed him to leave his homeland and go to Canaan, the Holy Land, as explained in Chapter 13. And He made a covenant with Abraham that He would give the land to his descendants, who would receive the Torah and become His chosen people.

At the time of the covenant, Abraham was elderly and still childless. Only afterward did God bless him with a son and successor. If Abraham had already been the head of a clan, the idea of a Jewish nation would have been superimposed on a previous identity, and therefore, it would not have been fully organic. The birth of Isaac was the beginning of the Jewish nation, and therefore, he had to be born into the covenant and circumcised at birth. This tiny event set off a chain of events that have driven world history ever since, more so than any of the spectacular events in the ancient empires.

The process of nation building began. Isaac was succeeded by his son Jacob, who had twelve sons, each of whom became the ancestor of a distinct tribe under the unified umbrella of the Jewish people. Jacob and his family descended to Egypt during a time of famine and were eventually enslaved by the xenophobic Egyptians. They remained there for centuries until God liberated them and brought them to Mount Sinai. They came down to Egypt as a tiny clan of seventy people, and they arrived at Mount Sinai as a nation numbering in the millions.

The captivity of the Jewish people in Egypt was preordained. When God made the covenant with Abraham, He said, “Know full well that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will work for them, and they will oppress them for four hundred years. And I will judge the nation that enslaves them …”[1]

The Gemara wonders why Abraham was punished that his descendants would be enslaved in Egypt for centuries, and the Gemara mentions three imperfections he displayed. One of them is related to this prophecy. God said to him, “I am God who has brought you forth from Ur of the Kasdim to give you this land as an inheritance.” And Abraham said, “O God, Lord, how will I know that I will inherit it?”[2] God gave him a sign, but he should never have asked for a sign. Although Abraham did not doubt God’s word, he should not have needed the reassurance of a sign. It was a lapse of judgment that reflected a lack of complete submission. The two other lapses of judgment mentioned by the Gemara are of a similar nature.[3]

Actually, this lapse was more a character flaw than an actual sin. Why then was he punished and so severely? And why did millions of his descendants have to bear the brunt of the punishment? Sons are not supposed to pay for the sins of the fathers.

Clearly, the captivity in Egypt was not a punishment but rather a necessary and very difficult ordeal. As mentioned before, the Torah could not have been given to an existing people. It had to be given to a people formed for that very purpose. It was also necessary for the people at Mount Sinai to bond with the Torah on the very deepest levels, that it should be wedded to their souls and become their very identity. There had to be complete commitment devoid of any other interests or considerations.

Avraham had demonstrated that, in spite of his great righteousness, he was incapable of absolute submission. The Gemara says that Moshe and Aharon were greater than Avraham. They said, “But we are nothing,” while he said, “I am dust and ashes.” Dust and ashes are not nothing.[4]

Since his descendants were more likely to fall short of Abraham’s level rather than exceed it, they would also be incapable of absolute submission. If they came to Mount Sinai to receive the Torah as a nation of farmers, traders, teachers, rabbis, soldiers, sailors, craftsmen, grocers, bakers and so forth, they would all be wearing so many garments, layers upon layers. The Torah would have to be superimposed on those garments, and those garments would interfere with the unobstructed connection of the Jewish soul with the Torah. The two would not be perfectly fused together.

Therefore, in order to receive the Torah, the Jewish people had to be reduced to raw human beings, stripped of possessions, of status, of honor, of dignity, of liberty. Through no effort of their own, they would be reduced to the state of “we are but nothing,” and in this state, they would come to receive the Torah. It would connect with their very souls without any interference, and it would remain connected forever. Israel and the Torah are forever one.

[1] Bereishis 15:13-14.

[2] Ibid 15:7-8.

[3] Nedarim, 32a.

[4] Chulin 89a.