Ramban (1194-1270) The Advantages of Intellectual Diversity

And now I will tell you a general rule about the explanation of many commandments. Behold, from the time of there being idolatry in the world - from the days of Enosh - the opinions about faith started to blur. Some of them deny the fundamental principle and say that the world is prior [to God's creation] and 'they rejected God and say, "It is not Him.'" And some reject His knowledge of particulars - 'And they say, "How can He know, and is there knowledge to the most High?"' And some of them concede His knowledge but reject His oversight, and 'they make man to be like the fish of the sea,' that God not supervise them and there not be punishments and reward with them at all - they say, '"The Lord has abandoned the Earth."' And when God favors a certain community or individual and does a wonder for them by changing the custom of the world and its nature, the nullification of these opinions becomes clear to everyone. As the amazing wonder teaches that there is a God in the world who innovated it, and knows and supervises and is able [to do whatever He wants]. And when this wonder is first proclaimed by the mouth of a prophet, the truth of prophecy also becomes clear from it - that God speaks with man and reveals His secret to His servants, the prophets. And with this, all of the Torah is established. And therefore the verse states about the wonders (Exodus 8:18), "so that you will know that I am the Lord in the midst of the Earth," to teach about [His] supervision, that He did not leave it to happenstance, as per their opinion. And it stated (Exodus 9:29), "so that you will know that to the Lord is the Earth," to teach about [His] innovation [of the Earth] - since they are His, as He created them from nothing. And it stated (Exodus 9:14), "in order that you will know that there is none like Me in the whole Earth," to teach about His ability, that He is the Decider about everything - there is no one that stops Him. As the Egyptians rejected or were in doubt about all of this. If so, the great signs and wonders were trustworthy witnesses about faith in the Creator and about the entire Torah. And since the Holy One, blessed be He, will not do a sign and wonder in each generation in front of the eyes of each evildoer or heretic, He commanded us that we should always make a memorial and a sign to that which our eyes saw. And we should copy this thing for our children, and their children for their children, and their children for the last generation. And [the Torah] was very strict about this, such that it made one liable for cutting off, for eating of chamets (Exodus 12:15), and for leaving the Pesach sacrifice (Numbers 9:13). And it required that we write all that was shown to us of signs and wonders upon our arms and upon our eyes, and also to write them at the entrances to houses in mezuzot. And [it required] that we mention it with our mouths, in the morning and in the evening, as the sages said (Berakhot 21a), "[The blessing that mentions the leaving of Egypt and begins,] 'true and solid' is [an obligation from] the Torah," from that which is written (Deuteronomy 16:3), "in order that you remember the day of your leaving the land of Egypt all the days of your life." And [it required] that we make a Sukkah booth every year. And so [too], many commandments in memory of the leaving of Egypt, are similar to these. And all of it is to be a testimony for us for all of the generations about the wonders, that they not be forgotten; and that there not be an opening for the heretic to speak and reject faith in God. As one who buys a mezuzah for one zuz and affixes it to his entrance and has intent for its matter, has already conceded to [God's] innovation [of the Earth] and to the knowledge of the Creator and His supervision, and also to prophecy. And [such a person] believes in all of the outlines of the Torah, besides conceding that the kindness of the Creator to those who do His will is very great - as He took us out of Egypt, from that slavery to freedom and great honor in the merit of their forefathers that desired to fear His name. And therefore they said (Avot 2:1), "Be careful with a light commandment as with a weighty one," since they are all very desirable and beloved - as through them a person concedes to his God all the time. And the intention of all the commandments is that we believe in our God and concede to Him that He is our Creator. And that is the intention of provenance, as we have no other explanation for the first provenance - and the highest God only desires the lower beings, so that man should know and concede to his God that He created him. And the intention of raising of the voice in prayer and the intention of synagogues and the merit of communal prayer is that there be a place for people to gather and concede to God that He created them and makes them exist, and to publicize this and to say in front of Him, "We are Your creatures." And this is the intention of what they said, may their memory be blessed (Yerushalmi Taanit 2:5), "'And they called to God with strength' (Jonah 3:8) - from here you learn that prayer requires [an audible] voice; the brazen is victorious over the timid (See Arukh's entry on chatzaf). And from the great public miracles, a person can [also] concede to hidden miracles, which constitute the foundation of the entire Torah. As a person does not have a share in the Torah of Moshe, our teacher, until we believe that all of the things and events we [encounter] are all miracles [and] there is no nature or custom of the world with them, whether with regard to the many or to the individual. But rather, if one does the commandments, his reward will bring him success and if the transgresses them, his punishment will cut him off - everything is the decree of the Most High, as I have already mentioned (Ramban on Genesis 17:1, and Exodus 6:2). And hidden miracles regarding the many become publicized when they come from the objectives of the Torah in [the form] of the blessings and the curses, as the verse stated (Deuteronomy 29:23-24), "All the nations will say, 'Why did the Lord do thus to this land?'[...] They will say, 'Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, God of their fathers," such that it will be publicized to all of the nations that it is from the Lord, as their punishment. And regarding the fulfillment [of the commandments], it states (Deuteronomy 28:10), "And all of the peoples of the land will see that the name of the Lord is called upon you and they will fear from you.'" And I will explain this more with God's help (Ramban on Leviticus 26:11).

Pharaoh and his wise counselors did not consider striking them down by the sword, for this would be a profound betrayal – to unjustifiably exterminate a nation which came to the land by the command of a preceding monarch. Furthermore, the common people would not allow the king to commit such violence, for he consulted them, even though the Israelites were a great and mighty nation who might wage a great war against them. Rather, he said that they should do it in a wise way, that the Israelites would not feel that they did it with enmity, and therefore he put work levies upon them…

Afterwards, in secret, he commanded the midwives to kill the males upon the birthstones, and even the mothers would not perceive it. Finally, he commanded his nation, “You shall cast every male born into the Nile” — you yourselves. The issue is that that he did not wish to command the executioners to kill them by Pharaoh’s sword or to throw them into the Nile; rather, he said to the nation that when each of them might find a Jewish boy, he should cast him into the Nile. Should the boy’s father cry to the king or the municipal authorities, they would say that he must bring witnesses, and they would then avenge him. However, when the king loosed the reins, the Egyptians would search the houses and enter there at night in disguise and remove the boys from there. This is why it says, “And she could no longer hide him”

(1) And Avram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem: I will tell you a general principle - understand it in all of the coming sections about Avraham, Yitschak and Yaacov, and it is a great matter. Our rabbis mentioned it in a brief way, and said (Midrash Tanchuma 9), "Everything that occurred to our forefathers is a sign for the children." And therefore the verses will write at length in recounting the journeys and the digging of the wells and the other events. And one who thinks about them can think as if they were superfluous things with no purpose. But all of the events come to teach about the future, for when an event occurs to a prophet, [meaning] of the three forefathers, he will contemplate from it the matter that is decreed to come to his seed. And know [about] every 'decree of the wakeful ones,' that when it goes from a potential decree to a symbolic action, the decree will be realized no matter what. And therefore the prophets will do actions in prophecies, like the statement of Yirmiyahu that he commanded to Baruch (Jeremiah 51:63-64), "And it shall be that when you finish to read the words of this book, you shall throw it into the Euphrates. And you shall say, 'So will Babylonia sink, etc.'"; and so [too with] the matter of Elisha in the placing of his forearm on the bow (II Kings 13:17), "And Elisha said, 'Shoot,' and he shot, and he said, 'It is the arrow of salvation of the Lord and the arrow of salvation from Aram,'" and it is stated there (II Kings 13:19), "And the man of God got angry with him and said, 'To strike five or six times, then you would have struck Aram to its end, and now three times will you strike Aram.'" And therefore, the Holy One, blessed be He, kept Avraham in the land (of Israel) and did to him simulations of all of the future that would be done to his seed. And understand this. And I am [now] beginning to explain the matters in detail in the verses, with the help of God: And Avram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem: It is the city of Schechem, that is the name of that place. And Schechem, the son of Chamor, was named after the name of the town. And Rashi wrote, "He entered into it unto the place of Schechem to pray for the sons of Yaakov, when they would come from the field anguished. And this is correct. And I [would] add that Avraham held this place first, and before He gave him the land - it was [thus] hinted to him from this that his children would conquer this place first before they would merit [the land], and before the iniquity of the dweller of the land was complete to exile him from there. And therefore, it stated, "and the Canaanite was then in the land." And when the Holy One, blessed be He, gave him the land in a statement, then he traveled from there and planted his tent between Beit El and the Ei, since it is the place that Yehoshua conquered first....

(1) ...This parsha was written to show how Hashem saved his servant from a stronger foe, and sent his angels to rescue him. In addition it teaches us that he [Jacob] didn't rely on his righteousness, and made every effort to save himself. Another concept alluded to, is that all that occurred to our forefather with Esau, will repeat itself with us and Esau's descendants. It is therefore appropriate for us to emulate the efforts of Yakov who initiated 3 strategies for his encounter with Esau; Prayer, presents, and war. Our sages see this hinted to in this parsha as I will mention later. (5) ...In my opinion, this detail alludes to the fact that WE WERE THE CAUSE OF OUR OWN DOWNFALL by the hands of the Rome. In the Second Temple period, the Hasmonean kings made a treaty with Rome and some of their representatives even went to Rome and in the end, this was the first step of our falling into their hands.