GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO TORAH: PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY
i. THE MYSTERY OF THE TEXT
Irrefutably, indestructibly, never wearied by time by time, the Bible wanders through the ages giving itself with ease to all men as if it belonged to every soul on earth. It speaks every language and in every age….we all draw upon it and it remains pure inexhaustible and complete, in 3000 years it has not aged a day, it is a book that cannot die…..in fact, it is still at the very beginning of its career, the full meaning of its content having hardly touched the threshold of our minds; like an ocean at the bottom of which countless pearls lie, waiting to be discovered.
(אמר ליה הקב"ה למשה עשה טובה ואמור לו לאהרן על המיתה שאני בוש לומר לו. אמר ר' הונא בשם רבי תנחום בר חייא מה עשה משה השכים בשחרית והלך לו אצל אהרן התחיל קורא אהרן אחי ירד אצלו, א"ל מה ראית להשכים ולבא כאן היום, א"ל משה דבר מן התורה הייתי מהרהר בלילה ומתקשה לי הרבה לכך השכמתי ובאתי אצלך, א"ל ומהו הדבר, א"ל איני יודע מה היה הדבר, אלא אני יודע שבספר בראשית הוא, הבא אותו ונקרא בו, נטלו ספר בראשית וקראו בו כל פרשה ופרשה ועל כל אחת ואחת אמר יפה עשה ויפה ברא הקב"ה, וכיון שהגיעו לבריאת אדם אמר משה מה אומר לאדם שהביא מות לעולם, א"ל אהרן משה אחי לא תאמר בדבר הזה אין אנו מקבלין גזרת אלקים וכו' היאך נבראו אדם וחוה והיאך זכו לי"ג חופות שנאמר בעדן גן אלקים היית והיאך אכל מן העץ ונאמר לו כי עפר אתה, א"ל לאחר כל השבח הזה כך וכך הגיעו, אמר ליה ואני ששלטתי במלאכי השרת ואתה שעצרת את המות לא סופנו לכך עוד כמה שנים יש לנו לחיות עוד כ' א"ל קטנות הן היה יורד ויורד עד שהזכיר לו יום המות מיד הרגישו עצמותיו של אהרן גועו א"ל שמא בשבילי הוא הדבר א"ל הן, מיד ראו אותו ישראל שגרעה קומתו שנאמר ויראו כל העדה, א"ל אהרן לבי חלל בקרבי ואימות מות נפלו עלי א"ל מקובל עליך למות א"ל הן
Moses is faced with the task that God Himself finds shameful. How to tell Aaron of his imminent death? He approaches the subject by indirection, through a reading experience in the Book of Genesis. In doing so he models for us a way of reading. He introduces his project by "calling out" (korei) to his brother: the word is identical with the word for reading- "Let us read in the book of Genesis". This gives us a sense that to read-especially to read the mikra , the Bible - is to call out for a response to a text that itself calls out, summons, and addresses the reader...In this case Moses and Aaron will read in order to find the lost devar torah - the word, the idea that troubled Moses during the night....Moses has interrogated the text of the book of Genesis by bringing it into the closest confrontation with the lives of Aaron and himself.....
Moses then reads himself and Aaron into the text text, making death a matter of personal, looming, and tragic import, until Aaron reluctantly realizes, "perhaps the word, the mystery, the terror is for me?"....
Strangely, with all the terror of such an intimate reading comes a sense of destiny, of existing in the mind of God, of being oneself the subject of God's word....
Essentially, to read is to invite the text to yield up its meanings, Moses, more questioning, more restless, is also a better reader than his brother. He is not entranced by the words of the text, but senses what is hidden in the spaces between the
letters, in the silences between the words. What is hidden is, essentially, the reader's most intimate life; the things and words' of the night, fears and longings and questionings. It is these that I have tried to "hear" from within the text of the Torah......The experience of highest tension, between immanence and transcendence, between the limits of human experience and the "signals of transcendence" that are secreted within these limits, is what draws me in the biblical texts and in the Midrashic and later versions of those texts. There is a sense of the turning point, the fulcrum of transformation that affects the characters in their relations to God, to each other, and to
themselves. Ultimately, the interpretive act becomes similar to the creative act. One reads, and one begins to hear a certain hum in one's ears...... The hum in the ears of the reader generates a personal response to the text. There are, of course, decorum’s and limits to be observed; but the intimate encounter between self and text must create something new, something neither "stale" nor "shabby," in Wallace Stevens's words, but with that essential "this-ness," which is the classic Midrashic description of what it is to "receive" the Torah: "On, this very day, they entered the wilderness of Sinai" Torah should be new to you as if they were given on this very day (rashi exodus 19:1)
TORAH AND THE WILDERNESS - VULNERABILITY IN TEXT ANALYSIS
(ז) וַיְדַבֵּר יקוק אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי (במדבר א, א), לָמָּה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, מִכָּאן שָׁנוּ חֲכָמִים בִּשְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים נִתְּנָה הַתּוֹרָה, בָּאֵשׁ, וּבַמַּיִם, וּבַמִּדְבָּר. בָּאֵשׁ מִנַּיִן (שמות יט, יח): וְהַר סִינַי עָשַׁן כֻּלּוֹ וגו'. וּבַמַּיִם מִנַּיִן, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (שופטים ה, ד): גַּם שָׁמַיִם נָטָפוּ גַּם עָבִים נָטְפוּ מָיִם. וּבַמִּדְבָּר מִנַּיִן וַיְדַבֵּר יקוק אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, וְלָמָּה נִתְּנָה בִּשְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים הַלָּלוּ, אֶלָּא מָה אֵלּוּ חִנָּם לְכָל בָּאֵי הָעוֹלָם כָּךְ דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה חִנָּם הֵם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (ישעיה נה, א): הוֹי כָּל צָמֵא לְכוּ לַמַּיִם, דָּבָר אַחֵר, וַיְדַבֵּר יקוק אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, אֶלָּא כָּל מִי שֶׁאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה עַצְמוֹ כַּמִּדְבָּר, הֶפְקֵר, אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לִקְנוֹת אֶת הַחָכְמָה וְהַתּוֹרָה, לְכָךְ נֶאֱמַר: בְּמִדְבַּר סִינָי.
(7) "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness" (Numbers 1:1). Why the Sinai Wilderness? From here the sages taught that the Torah was given through three things: fire, water, and wilderness. How do we know it was given through fire? From Exodus 19:18: "And Mount Sinai was all in smoke as God had come down upon it in fire." How do we know it was given through water? As it says in Judges 5:4, "The heavens dripped and the clouds dripped water [at Sinai]." How do we know it was given through wilderness? [As it says above,] "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness." And why was the Torah given through these three things? Just as [fire, water, and wilderness] are free to all the inhabitants of the world, so too are the words of Torah free to them, as it says in Isaiah 55:1, "Oh, all who are thirsty, come for water... even if you have no money." Another explanation: "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness" — Anyone who does not make themselves ownerless like the wilderness cannot acquire the wisdom and the Torah. Therefore it says, "the Sinai Wilderness."
The man of today has no access to a sure and solid faith, nor can it be made accessible to him. If he examines himself seriously, he knows this and may not delude himself further. But he is not denied the possibility of holding himself open to faith. If he is really serious, he too can open up to this book and let its rays strike him where they will. He can give himself up and submit to the test without preconceived notions and without reservations. He can absorb the Bible with all his strength, and wait to see what will happen to him, whether he will not discover within himself a new and unbiased approach to this or that element in the book. But to this end, he must read the Jewish Bible as though it were something entirely unfamiliar, as though it had not been set before him ready-made, at school and after in the light of “religious” and “scientific” certainties; as though he has not been confronted all his life with sham concepts and sham statements which cited the Bible as their authority.
He must face the book with a new attitude as something new. He must yield to it, withhold nothing in his being, and let whatever will occur between himself and it. He does not know which of its sayings and images will overwhelm him and mold him, from where the spirit will ferment and enter into him, to incorporate itself anew in his body. But he holds himself open. He does not believe anything a priori; he does not disbelieve anything a priori. He reads aloud the words written in the book in front of him; he hears the word he utters and it reaches him. Nothing is prejudged. The current of time flows on, and the contemporary character of this man becomes itself a receiving vessel.
Only when you are "like a wilderness" are you ready to have God's presence rest upon you and merit the light of Torah. "Like a wilderness" means that you have not yet been touched by human hands, that you have never been cultivated or planted, that you must rely on your own strength, as in the teaching, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" (Mishnah Avot 1:14).
Itturei Torah [Hebrew], vol. 5, by Aharon Yaakov Greenberg [Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1996], p. 9
There is a beautiful metaphor in the Tosefta that describes the kind of religious sensibility that the Talmud tried to nurture: “Make yourself a heart of many rooms and bring into it the words of the House of Shammai and the words of the House of Hillel, the words of those who declare unclean an the words of those who declare clean”. (Sotah 7:12). In other words, become a person in whom different opinions can reside together in the very depths of your soul. Become a religious person who can live with ambiguity, who can feel religious conviction and passion without the need for simplicity and absolute certainty.
This, then is the distinctive legacy of the Talmudic interpretive tradition: an understanding of revelation in which God loves you when you discover ambiguity in His word. He loves you for finding forty-nine ways to make this pure and forty-nine ways to make it impure. Revelation is not always “pure and simple” but may be rough and complex….
Just as he helped us see one another with fresh eyes, professor Wiesel helped us see familiar literature anew. For students who grew up reading genesis in church or synagogues, the challenge was to help them forget what they thought they knew….one of our jobs as educators is to help students forget what they know so they can stay alert to the texts nuances(….) Wiesel’s conception of battleground demands that we shed our armour rather than use it fir protection. When we studied the biblical story of David, he pointed to a powerful moment in the text. “David, on his way to fight goliath, was given the kings armour. For a battle this unequal, with life-and-death stakes, armour makes sense. But David removed the armour for it didn’t fit him the image has stayed with me as a symbol of a key concept: that vulnerability is the greatest weapon if you are brave enough to use it.”
You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great....
True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.....
People often silence themselves, or "agree to disagree" without fully exploring the actual nature of the disagreement, for the sake of protecting a relationship and maintaining connection. But when we avoid certain conversations, and never fully learn how the other person feels about all of the issues, we sometimes end up making assumptions that not only perpetuate but deepen misunderstandings, and that can generate resentment.
THE TEXT AS 'IN-BETWEEN'/DIALOGUE - CHEVRUTA
אין התורה מתקיימת אלא במי שמשים עצמו כמדבר הפקר לעניים ולעשירים בדעת ואינו גדול יותר מחבירו אדרבא בטל במציאות נגדו ובזה מתאחדי' ונכללי' זה בזה
(R. Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk)
The Torah only stands firm in one who makes himself like a midbar hefker before those who are poor of mind and rich of mind, and he doesn’t think of himself as better than his friend. On the contrary, he should be completely nullified before his friend, and it is through this that they become united and bound up one with the other.
I agree with the vision and objective of creating a human partnership around a text. I would emphasize that the central issue for us is that of agency. in other words, what texts we study is secondary to the question of how we study them.....Our premise and inspiration is the creation of a community based on the shared reading for texts. This existential return to the Jewish texts is inspired by Franz Rosenzweig, whose return to a full Jewish life was grounded in the study of classical texts....
Following Rosenzweig's basic theory of speech-thinking, a characteristic of postmodern Jewish philosophy is dialogue as the medium for doing philosophy. The vision here is of dialogic relationships created in a community of philosophers who gather together to study traditional Jewish texts. In contracts with Hegelian dialectic reading, which severs the sense of continuity between historical periods, we wish to read previous texts with humility and careful listening. we criticise as oppressive the modernist tendency to generalize a particular tradition. Rather, we aim to create a dialogic relationship that emphasizes polysemic readings, and continuity between historical periods and texts.
The distinction between the two, viewed in Hbrew terms, is clear. "To explain," is literally to bring "into the light", beor. Yet part fi the what characterises the open wounds of Jewish thought is the shadow of Auschwitz that extends over all thinking, despite the Torah Or, or the "light of the Torah"......
The Hebrew word for "understanding" is binah, which is a matter not of clarifying a concept but of establishing a relation between God and human, between human and human, for the Hebrew verb for "understanding" is lavin; its root is bein, which means "between". Whereas explanation pertains to what is "clear and distinct" by their "natural light", in the Shoah we confront an unnatural darkness so that we must reject explanation for the sake of entering into a relation of understanding. As the fifteenth-century sage Don Isaac Abrabanel has pointed out, understanding requires a human , dialogical relation; it requires a between space. The movement toward the other human being required of understanding is what makes understanding an essential feature of Teshuva, the movement of return to Torah as our sages have taught.
The Bible is not written for one era or generation. It has survived because it speaks anew to each receptive spirit, in each successive age. When i first learned the stories of the Bible they were interesting, at times charming. With age they deepen into comfort, inspiration, and provocation. In the years since that time, i have found in the Bible an ever-renewable resource for meaning and guidance....
Biblical sufferers touch us through their shared pain. In our fractured and difficult lives, reading a chronicle of difficulty and failure can be encouraging and even healing. The heroes of the Bible are not perfect; their marriages are not storybook, their relations with children not frictionless. All of us who struggle with real problems of families, of work, can look to the Bible not as one looks at a fairy tale, but with the recognition that everything has changed since the time of Abraham and Sarah except human nature.
... One day Rabbi Yochanan was swimming in the Jordan. Resh Lakish saw him and leapt into the Jordan after him. He [Rabbi Yochanan] said "Your strength for Torah." He [Resh Lakish] said, "Your beauty for women." He [Rabbi Yochanan] said "If you return also, I will give you my sister who is more beautiful then me." He [Resh Lakish] accepted, He [Resh Lakish] tried to go back and collect his weapons but he was not able to go back. He [Rabbi Yochanan] taught him [Resh Lakish] scripture and he taught him Oral Torah and he made him a great man. One day they diverged in the Beit Midrash "The sword and the knife and the military spear and the hand sickle and the harvesting sickle, from when do they acquire tumah (ritual impurity)? From the time when their production is complete.*" And when is their production complete? Rabbi Yochanan said, From when they are tempered in the furnace. Resh Lakish said, From when they are polished with water. He [Rabbi Yochanan] said to him [Resh Lakish] "A thief knows about [the tools of] thievery" He [Resh Lakish] said to him [Rabbi Yochanan], "And how have you benefitted me? There they called me 'master' and here they call me 'master.'" He [Rabbi Yochanan] said to him [Resh Lakish], I have benefitted you by bringing you under the wings of the Shechina." Rabbi Yochanan became very upset, and Resh Lakish became weak. His sister came and cried, and she said to him [Rabbi Yochanan], "Do it [pray for healing] for the sake of my sons!" He said to her, "(Jeremiah 49:11) Leave your orphans, I will sustain them." "Do it for the sake of my widowhood!" He said to her, "(Jeremiah 49:11) and put your widow's trust in me**" Rabbi Shimon Ben Lakish died, and Rabbi Yochanan grieved over him greatly. The Rabbis said, "Who shall we send to ease his mind? Let us send Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat, whose ideas are very sharp." He [Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat] went and sat before him [Rabbi Yochanan]. Every statement that Rabbi Yochanan would say he [Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat] would say to him, "There is a beraita that supports you." He said, "Are you like Bar Lakisha? "Bar Lakisha - when I would say a thing, he would challenge me with 24 objections, and I would answer him with 24 answers, which led to a fuller understanding of the law. And you say, 'there is a beraita that supports you?!' Do I not already know that I have spoken well?!" He went out and tore his clothes and he cried and said, "Where are you Bar Lakisha? Where are you Bar Lakisha?" And he shouted until his mind left him. The Rabbis asked for mercy for him, and he died.
(ו) גְּדוֹלָה תוֹרָה יוֹתֵר מִן הַכְּהֻנָּה וּמִן הַמַּלְכוּת, שֶׁהַמַּלְכוּת נִקְנֵית בִּשְׁלֹשִׁים מַעֲלוֹת, וְהַכְּהֻנָּה בְּעֶשְׂרִים וְאַרְבַּע, וְהַתּוֹרָה נִקְנֵית בְּאַרְבָּעִים וּשְׁמֹנָה דְבָרִים. וְאֵלוּ הֵן, בְּתַלְמוּד, בִּשְׁמִיעַת הָאֹזֶן, בַּעֲרִיכַת שְׂפָתַיִם, בְּבִינַת הַלֵּב, בְּשִׂכְלוּת הַלֵּב, בְּאֵימָה, בְּיִרְאָה, בַּעֲנָוָה, בְּשִׂמְחָה, בְּטָהֳרָה, בְּשִׁמּוּשׁ חֲכָמִים, בְּדִקְדּוּק חֲבֵרִים, וּבְפִלְפּוּל הַתַּלְמִידִים, בְּיִשּׁוּב, בַּמִּקְרָא, בַּמִּשְׁנָה, בְּמִעוּט סְחוֹרָה, בְּמִעוּט דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ, בְּמִעוּט תַּעֲנוּג, בְּמִעוּט שֵׁינָה, בְּמִעוּט שִׂיחָה, בְּמִעוּט שְׂחוֹק, בְּאֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם, בְּלֵב טוֹב, בֶּאֱמוּנַת חֲכָמִים, וּבְקַבָּלַת הַיִּסּוּרִין, הַמַּכִּיר אֶת מְקוֹמוֹ, וְהַשָּׂמֵחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ, וְהָעוֹשֶׂה סְיָג לִדְבָרָיו, וְאֵינוֹ מַחֲזִיק טוֹבָה לְעַצְמוֹ, אָהוּב, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַמָּקוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַצְּדָקוֹת, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַמֵּישָׁרִים, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַתּוֹכָחוֹת, מִתְרַחֵק מִן הַכָּבוֹד, וְלֹא מֵגִיס לִבּוֹ בְתַלְמוּדוֹ, וְאֵינוֹ שָׂמֵחַ בְּהוֹרָאָה, נוֹשֵׂא בְעֹל עִם חֲבֵרוֹ, מַכְרִיעוֹ לְכַף זְכוּת, מַעֲמִידוֹ עַל הָאֱמֶת, וּמַעֲמִידוֹ עַל הַשָּׁלוֹם, מִתְיַשֵּׁב לִבּוֹ בְתַלְמוּדוֹ, שׁוֹאֵל וּמֵשִׁיב, שׁוֹמֵעַ וּמוֹסִיף, הַלּוֹמֵד עַל מְנָת לְלַמֵּד וְהַלּוֹמֵד עַל מְנָת לַעֲשׂוֹת, הַמַּחְכִּים אֶת רַבּוֹ, וְהַמְכַוֵּן אֶת שְׁמוּעָתוֹ, וְהָאוֹמֵר דָּבָר בְּשֵׁם אוֹמְרוֹ, הָא לָמַדְתָּ שֶׁכָּל הָאוֹמֵר דָּבָר בְּשֵׁם אוֹמְרוֹ מֵבִיא גְאֻלָּה לָעוֹלָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (אסתר ב) וַתֹּאמֶר אֶסְתֵּר לַמֶּלֶךְ בְּשֵׁם מָרְדֳּכָי:
(6) Greater is learning Torah than the priesthood and than royalty, for royalty is acquired by thirty stages, and the priesthood by twenty-four, but the Torah by forty-eight things. By study, Attentive listening, Proper speech, By an understanding heart, By an intelligent heart, By awe, By fear, By humility, By joy, By attending to the sages, By critical give and take with friends, By fine argumentation with disciples, By clear thinking, By study of Scripture, By study of mishnah, By a minimum of sleep, By a minimum of chatter, By a minimum of pleasure, By a minimum of frivolity, By a minimum of preoccupation with worldly matters, By long-suffering, By generosity, By faith in the sages, By acceptance of suffering. [Learning of Torah is also acquired by one] Who recognizes his place, Who rejoices in his portion, Who makes a fence about his words, Who takes no credit for himself, Who is loved, Who loves God, Who loves [his fellow] creatures, Who loves righteous ways, Who loves reproof, Who loves uprightness, Who keeps himself far from honors, Who does not let his heart become swelled on account of his learning, Who does not delight in giving legal decisions, Who shares in the bearing of a burden with his colleague, Who judges with the scales weighted in his favor, Who leads him on to truth, Who leads him on to peace, Who composes himself at his study, Who asks and answers, Who listens [to others], and [himself] adds [to his knowledge], Who learns in order to teach, Who learns in order to practice, Who makes his teacher wiser, Who is exact in what he has learned, And who says a thing in the name of him who said it. Thus you have learned: everyone who says a thing in the name of him who said it, brings deliverance into the world, as it is said: “And Esther told the king in Mordecai’s name” (Esther 2:22).
(2:21).
GENESIS: WHAT'S NEW?
Genesis is the only one of the five books that is more or less continuous narrative from beginning to end, the only recurrent but limited exception being the genealogies (the ‘begats’), which as I shall try to indicate in the commentary, have a function as structural and thematic markers…..nowhere else in ancient literature have the quirkiness and unpredictability of individual character and the frictions and tensions of family life-sibling rivalry, the jealousy of cowives, the extravagance of parental favouritism- been registered with such subtlety and insight…..
What nevertheless strongly binds the two large units of the book of Genesis is both outlook and theme. The unfolding history of the family that is to become the people of Israel is seen, as I have suggested, as the crucial focus of a larger, universal history. The very peregrinations of the family back and forth between Mesopotamia and Canaan and down to Egypt intimate that it scope involved not just the land Israel has been promised but the wider reach of known cultures. National existence, moreover, is emphatically imagined as a strenuous effort to renew the act of creation…. Genesis begins with the making of heaven and earth and all life, and ends with the image of a mummy-Josephs- in a coffin. But implicit in the end is a promise of more life to come, of irrepressible procreation, ad that renewal of creation will be manifested, even under the weight of oppression, at the beginning of Exodus.
The last section of the book of Genesis, chapters 37-50, is often read as if it were a small novella, entitled Joseph and His Brothers.....It is, to be sure, an affecting family story, a tale of malice and mastery, of near fratricide and forgiveness, featuring one of the of the Bible's most talented and charismatic figures, Joseph, the favourite son of Jacob. Yet if it is read only in this way, abstracted from the larger context of the emerging nation of Israel, the special significance of the story for the book of Genesis will escape the reader. For it deals with crucial questions of perpetuation and preservation at a critical juncture for the nascent people of the covenant.....Any new political group, no matter how well founded, faces the challenge of perpetuation, which is always endangered by threats of disintegration within and of assimilation without. Internally, ways must be found to overcome division and to promote unity and peace, and the danger of fratricide must yield at least to concord, if not to full brotherhood. Externally, ways must be found to prevent absorption into neighbouring polities and cultures, both willing (by assimilation) and unwilling (by conquest). perpetuation thus requires leadership that can promote internal cohesion and preserve attachment to the way of the fathers, in the face not only of hostile enemies bent on your destruction or subjection but also-especially also- of welcoming neighbours whose blandishments and bounties make you forget who you are. Leadership within, and assimilation-versus-separation without, are the two big themes the text explores in the saga of Joseph and his brothers.