§ Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: When Moses ascended on High, he found the Holy One, Blessed be He, sitting and tying crowns on the letters of the Torah. Moses said before God: Master of the Universe, who is preventing You from giving the Torah without these additions? God said to him: There is a man who is destined to be born after several generations, and Akiva ben Yosef is his name; he is destined to derive from each and every thorn of these crowns mounds upon mounds of halakhot. It is for his sake that the crowns must be added to the letters of the Torah. Moses said before God: Master of the Universe, show him to me. God said to him: Return behind you. Moses went and sat at the end of the eighth row in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall and did not understand what they were saying. Moses’ strength waned, as he thought his Torah knowledge was deficient. When Rabbi Akiva arrived at the discussion of one matter, his students said to him: My teacher, from where do you derive this? Rabbi Akiva said to them: It is a halakha transmitted to Moses from Sinai. When Moses heard this, his mind was put at ease, as this too was part of the Torah that he was to receive.
In the Torah (Judaism’s key holy text) God conveys a set of laws to Moses (which he then relays to the Israelites). In this story from the Talmud (which is a compilation of commentaries from ancient Rabbis on the Torah), God tells Moses about a Rabbi named Akiva who will one day spin out all kinds of interpretations of these laws. God then sends Moses more than a thousand years into the future, into Akiva’s classroom, and Moses can’t understand anything Akiva is teaching! Moses becomes distraught. But then Akiva declares that the lesson he’s teaching comes from the laws given to Moses at Sinai, and Moses is relieved.
There are various interpretations of this story, but I understand it to be acknowledging that generations of Jews have reinterpreted the laws of the Torah so radically that even Moses wouldn’t recognize them! But it also seems to be reaffirming that the core purpose and message of these laws is very much rooted in that original text.
The same can be said of the American democratic process when it is at its very best: New generations of people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences work to ensure that our laws respond to new realities and live up to the ideals articulated in that foundational text.