This sheet on Genesis 24 was written by Eliot Cohen for 929 and can also be found here
“Remember, then, to magnify His work, of which people have sung, which all people have beheld, people have seen from a distance.” (Job 36:24-25)
Why would the children of Israel accept the Torah upon themselves on the basis of Moses’ words? Why were they to stand from afar, witnessing only the bellows of thunder and eruptions of fire, while their leader departed for forty days?
We learn from the example of Abraham. Arising early in the morning, distressed and confused, he perceives the mountain upon which he is meant to murder his beloved son. Yet he also sees “the Place” from afar, he locates a sense of security and consolation from an isolation, an expanse. Abraham builds his altar whilst trusting in the hint of a promise that the Creator once made, a precious pledge kept close to his heart despite doubt and despair.
The Torah is indeed a sacrifice. Its laws regulate our choices, its obligations define our lives, its expectations restrict our behaviour. And we hear no word from God commanding us.
All we have is the “afar”: the distant reassurance, the echo of a shared set of practices, the traces of our tradition in the veins of history.
Yet from this separation, we build the altar on which to base our lives, we participate in the unitary voice of our community, we stand at the foot of the mountain and answer: “All the words that the Lord has uttered, we will do.”
Why would the children of Israel accept the Torah upon themselves on the basis of Moses’ words? Why were they to stand from afar, witnessing only the bellows of thunder and eruptions of fire, while their leader departed for forty days?
We learn from the example of Abraham. Arising early in the morning, distressed and confused, he perceives the mountain upon which he is meant to murder his beloved son. Yet he also sees “the Place” from afar, he locates a sense of security and consolation from an isolation, an expanse. Abraham builds his altar whilst trusting in the hint of a promise that the Creator once made, a precious pledge kept close to his heart despite doubt and despair.
The Torah is indeed a sacrifice. Its laws regulate our choices, its obligations define our lives, its expectations restrict our behaviour. And we hear no word from God commanding us.
All we have is the “afar”: the distant reassurance, the echo of a shared set of practices, the traces of our tradition in the veins of history.
Yet from this separation, we build the altar on which to base our lives, we participate in the unitary voice of our community, we stand at the foot of the mountain and answer: “All the words that the Lord has uttered, we will do.”
(ג) וַיָּבֹ֣א מֹשֶׁ֗ה וַיְסַפֵּ֤ר לָעָם֙ אֵ֚ת כָּל־דִּבְרֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה וְאֵ֖ת כָּל־הַמִּשְׁפָּטִ֑ים וַיַּ֨עַן כָּל־הָעָ֜ם ק֤וֹל אֶחָד֙ וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ כָּל־הַדְּבָרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֥ר יְהוָ֖ה נַעֲשֶֽׂה׃
(3) Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the LORD and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying, “All the things that the LORD has commanded we will do!”
Eliot Cohen is a law student in London.
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