Me'ah Sh'arim - 100 Gates to Jewish Learning

When God offered to give the Torah to Israel, God offered the Torah not to Israel alone, but to all the nations. 

First God went to the descendents of Esau and said to them:  “Will you accept the Torah?” 

They responded, “What is written in it?” 

God said to them, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). 

They replied, “Master of the Universe, the essence of their father [Esau] is a murderer, as it is said, ‘…but the hands are the hands of Esau’ (Genesis 27:22), and his father promised him the sword alone:  ‘By the sword you shall live’ (Genesis 27:22).  We are not able to accept the Torah.” 

God went to the descendents of Ammon and Moab  and said to them:  “Will you accept the Torah?” 

They said:  “What is written in it?” 

God replied:  “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:13). 

They said:  “Master of the Universe, the very essence of those people comes only from adultery, as it is said, ‘Thus were the two daughters of Lot pregnant from their father’ (Genesis 19:36).  We are not able to accept the Torah.” 

God went to the descendents of Ishmael and said to them:  “Will you accept the Torah?” 

They said, “What is written in it?” 

God answered, “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:13). 

They said:  “Master of the Universe, the very essence of those people is only from stealing and robbery, as it is said, ‘And he shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him’ (Genesis 16:12).  We are not able to accept the Torah.”  There was no nation that God did not approach and ask if it wanted to accept the Torah. 

Afterwards, God came to Israel. 

They said to him:  “We will do and we will obey” (Exodus 24:7).

                                                           (Midrash Sifrei Deuteronomy 33:2)

According to this midrash, God first offered the Torah to the other nations of the world.  Each responded by asking what it contained.  After learning of a particular teaching which conflicted with an aspect of their essence, each refused to accept the Torah.

Finally, God offers the Torah to Israel.  Whereas each of the other nations asked what the Torah contained, Israel responded:  “We will do and we will obey,” accepting the Torah without knowing exactly what was in it.  The people thus displays trust in God and confidence in their own ability to fulfill the obligations of the Torah.  They affirm their willingness to observe the mitzvot (“We will do”) even before they are aware of the content of the mitzvot (“We will obey/hear”).

This midrash reminds us of the precious nature of God’s gift of Torah and the commitment our ancestors made to follow its teachings.  Their commitment not only bound them, but all future generations of the Jewish people as well.  The Torah continues to be the foundation of Judaism, as we study, wrestle with and apply its teachings to our lives.

The Torah was given in public, openly, in a free place.  For if the Torah had been given in the land of Israel, the people Israel could have said to the nations of the world:  You do not have a portion in it.  Rather, it was given in the wilderness, publically, in the open, in a free place to say:  anyone who wants to receive it may come and receive it.

                                                                                                                                    (Mechilta Exodus 19:2)

The upcoming holiday of Shavuot celebrates the giving and receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.  Together with the exodus from Egypt, this event provides the foundation of Judaism, for according to tradition both the written Torah and the oral Torah were revealed to Moses at Sinai.  In other words, all Jewish teachings for all time can be traced to this singular event.  Even though most of the teachings did not emerge until much later, they are considered to originate at Sinai. 

The midrash above considers the question:  Why did God choose to reveal the Torah to Israel in the wilderness of Sinai rather than, say, the land of Israel?  Anyone who has been to Mount Sinai knows that it is the wilderness, in the middle of nowhere.  The answer is that God gave the Torah to Israel in a free and open place in order to teach that the Torah is open to all who wish to embrace it.  We cannot claim exclusive rights to it and its interpretation.  We do not insist that others embrace the Torah, but we live our lives to reflect its teachings, hopeful that others will come to understand that its teachings can enrich one’s life.  Over the centuries, many individuals, like Ruth, have chosen to embrace the Torah and become part of the Jewish people.  Her words to her mother-in-law, Naomi, continue to provide inspiration:  “Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you.  For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge.  Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.  Thus and more may God do to me if anything but death parts me from you” (Ruth 1:16-17).  May the example of Ruth and others who have embraced the Torah continue to inspire us.

R. Y’hudah said in the name of Rav:  When Moses went to heaven he found God sitting and affixing crowns to the letters [of the Torah].  Moses said:  “Master of the Universe, who detains your hand?” [I.e., why do you take so long to add these crowns to the letters?]  God said to him:  “A man will come to be at the end of many generations, and Akiva ben Yosef is his name.  He will interpret  on each and every tittle,  piles and piles of laws.”  He said to him:  “Master of the Universe:  Show him to me.”  God said to him:  “Turn around.”  He went and sat at the end of the eighth row, but he did not know what they were saying.  He was ill at ease.  When he arrived to one point, his students said to him:  “Teacher, how do you know it is so?”  He replied:  “It is halacha given to Moses at Mount Sinai.”  And he was comforted.                                                                                                                                                                                                       (Menachot 29b)

 

At our recent scholar-in-residence weekend, someone wondered whether Jesus would recognize his teachings if he stepped foot in a modern church.  I pointed out that he might be more at home in a synagogue, although our worship service would certainly be quite different from what he might have experienced in first century Galilee.  This exchange brought to mind the text from Menachot where Moses, curious about the importance of the crowns on the letters of the Torah is transported to the classroom of Rabbi Akiva.  Listening to his lecture, he was confused, not recognizing the “Judaism” that he knew.  But when Rabbi Akiva, in answer to his students’ question about the source of his teaching, attributes it to the law given to Moses at Mount Sinai, Moses is relieved. 

Judaism significantly evolved and changed between the times of Moses and the time of Rabbi Akiva; and it has continued to evolve and change between Rabbi Akiva’s time and ours.  Indeed, some of us who have experienced more than a half century of Jewish life have noticed the change that has taken place in music, liturgy and other aspects of Jewish life.  Yet, despite all of the change, despite our differences with other Jews, we insist that we trace our Judaism back to the Torah and to that moment when God was revealed to Moses at Sinai.  Just as the world as we know it can be traced to a Big Bang, which started the process of the creation of our universe, our Jewish world can be traced to the “big bang” which occurred when the people stood at Sinai and experienced God’s revelation. 

As we move through the period of the Counting of the Omer toward Shavuot, which celebrates the giving and receiving of the Torah at Sinai, we celebrate the incredible power of this experience to continue to influence Jewish life.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am Adonai.”  (Leviticus 19:18)

 

Once a non-Jew came before Shammai and said to him:  “I will become a Jew if you teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot.  He drove him away with the builder’s cubit that was in his hand.  He came before Hillel, who said to him:  “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.  That is the entire Torah; all the rest is commentary.  God and learn it.”  (Shabbat 31a)

 

These passages form the core of ethics, basic guidelines of how we should treat our fellow human beings.  Jesus considered this commandment to be second in importance to the commandment to love God (Mark 12:28ff).  Rabbi Akiba considered it to be the greatest principle of the Torah.  When a non-Jew approached Hillel to teach him the Torah while standing on one foot, Hillel formulated a version of this teaching, urging us to refrain from doing anything to our neighbor that we consider to be abhorrent.  While this teaching might sum up the Torah, it is important that we study the “commentary” which includes the rest of the Torah, as well as other Jewish sources which offer guidance about how we should act as a Jew.

These teachings remind us to treat others as we would like to be treated.  We are taught:  “Do not say:  ‘Just as I have been cursed at. let my fellow be cursed at also.’  Said Rabbi Tanchuma:  ‘If you act like this, know whom you are humiliating:  “God made the human being in the likeness of God” (Genesis 5:1).  (Genesis Rabbah 24:7).  It is the common sense approach to ethical behavior.

While some Jewish sources limited the understanding of the word “neighbor” to fellow Jew, others interpret it to refer to any fellow human being.  Certainly other biblical passages, such as Leviticus 19:34 (“The stranger who lives with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love the stranger as yourself….”), indicate the universal nature of this teaching. 

So long as within the inmost heart

a Jewish spirit sings,

and so long as the eye looks eastward,

gazing at Zion,

our hope is not lost—

the hope of two thousand years:

to be a free people in our land,

the land of Zion and Jerusalem.

 

These words, which we know so well as Israel’s national anthem, were written in the early days of the Zionist movement by the Jewish poet Naphtali Herz Imber, who was from the Ukraine, but emigrated to the land of Israel in the early 1880s.  The poem’s sentiments reflect Imber’s thoughts and feelings with regard to the creation of Petach Tikvah, one of the first Jewish settlements in Palestine.  The poem was adopted as the anthem of the Chovevi Tziyon Zionist movement and then at the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland.  The melody for the words was first used in 1888, attributed to Samuel Cohen, who is said to have based it on the melody of a Romanian folk song.  That melody, in turn, has been traced to a 17th century Italian song, La Mantovana, composed by Giuseppe Cenci.

Although it was considered Israel’s national anthem from the birth of the state in 1948, it was only officially recognized as such in 2004.  The text has been criticized by some individuals because it does not reflect core Jewish religious ideas such as God or Torah.  It has also been criticized by non-Jewish Israelis who fell that its reference to the Jewish soul and the 2000-year hope do not reflect the sentiments of many Israeli citizens.

Nevertheless, the moving melody and stirring words continue to reflect the incredible accomplishment of the Zionist dream to create a Jewish homeland after almost 2000 years of exile.

In remembrance lies the secret to redemption. (Baal Shem Tov)

This Yiddish saying, which is attributed to the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidic Judaism, expresses the Jewish teaching that the redemption of the world depends on our ability to remember the past. If we hope to redeem our world, to bring about true peace and justice, then we must remember what has happened during our history, taking those lessons to heart as we shape the future. Remembrance is a crucial Jewish value. The Torah teaches, “Remember the Sabbath day for its holiness” (Exodus 20:8). Shabbat is both a “remembrance of the deeds of creation” and a “remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt.” The Torah also teaches us to remember what Amalek did to us, how this people preyed on the weakest of our people as they wandered through the wilderness. Though we might prefer to forget the pain and suffering of the past, to do so robs us of an important opportunity to learn from our history in order to assure that our future is different. “It was ancient Israel that first assigned a decisive significance to history and thus forged a new world-view,” according to the scholar Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, whose book Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory is a classic.

In Leon Uris’s novel about the Warsaw Ghetto, Mila 18, the rabbi declares that when a Jew says, “I believe,” what is really meant is “I remember.” Our basic beliefs are deeply shaped by our history and how we remember that history through rituals such as the Passover seder.

The Hebrew root for remembering, zion-kaf-resh, appears more than 150 times in the Bible. Often, when God commands us to remember, God also insists that we do not forget.

Elie Wiesel has written, “To be Jewish is to remember—to claim our right to memory as well as our duty to keep it alive…To forget, is for a Jew, to deny his people and all that it symbolizes—and also to deny himself.”

Next year in Jerusalem.  (Passover Hagaddah)

 

The Passover seder concludes with the hope:  “Next year in Jerusalem.”  This reference to Jerusalem, however, does not refer to the earthly city, but rather to Jerusalem as a symbol of redemption.  According to tradition, the ultimate redemption will mean the gathering of all Jews in Jerusalem.  (This is also the origin of the tradition to be buried with a small packet of earth from Jerusalem, since it is also believed that the bodies will be resurrected and reunited with the souls in Jerusalem).  It is quite fitting that we conclude our ritual in which relive the redemption of our ancestors from Egyptian bondage with an affirmation of hope in the ultimate redemption.

 

This phrase has served as a powerful symbol of hope and redemption throughout our people’s history, most poignantly by Natan Sharansky (then known by his Russian name Anatoly Shcharansky) in his closing words before a Soviet court which would sentence him to prison:

 

“Five years ago, I submitted my application for exit to Israel.  Now I’m further than ever from my dream.  It would seem to be cause for regret.  But it is absolutely otherwise.  I am happy.  I am happy that I lived honestly, in peace with my conscience.  I never compromised my soul, even under the threat of death….

For more than 2,000 years the Jewish people, my people, have been dispersed.  But wherever they are, wherever Jews are found, every year they have repeated, “Next year in Jerusalem.”  Now, when I am further than ever from my people, from Avital [his wife], facing many arduous years of imprisonment, I say, turning to my people, my Avital:  Next year in Jerusalem.”

The fulfillment of these words for Sharansky should inspire us to hope for the ultimately fulfillment of these words for our people.

“In each and every generation we are obligated to see ourselves as if we went forth from Egypt.”

                                                                                    (Passover Hagaddah)

This passage, from the Passover Hagaddah, sums up the essence of the seder:  we need to identify with the experience of our ancestors when they left Egypt.  It is not enough to talk about the Exodus as an event of ancient history, something that happened to others long ago.  We need to put ourselves within the story so that we truly understand what the Israelites went through, what it might have felt like to have been slaves and to make the journey to freedom.

The Passover seder is designed to facilitate this understanding.  We taste the bitterness of the salt water and the marror/bitter herbs.  We reflect on the Exodus through songs, stories and rituals, as when we spill drops of wine from our kiddush cup, reflecting our diminished joy because others had to suffer for us to go free.  We open the door for Elijah in hopes that our messianic yearning will be fulfilled.  Through each of these traditions we identify with the experience of our ancestors.  By understanding what they went through, we commit ourselves to working for justice for all.

Adonai, Adonai, a compassionate and gracious God, Slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness and truth; Who has shown loving kindness to the thousandth generation, Who forgives transgression, wrongdoing, and sin. But who does not wipe clean everything Visiting the transgression of parents upon their children, grandchildren, to the third and fourth generations. (Exodus 34:6-7)

These words occur at a crucial point in the story of our people. The Israelites have committed the sin of the Golden Calf, Moses has saved the people from God’s wrath, but nevertheless smashed the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Now God instructs Moses to carve two stone tablets like the first so that God can again inscribe the words on them. God then offers these words to Moses, which are viewed as the classical statement of the nature of God, deriving thirteen distinct attributes from it. These attributes are: Adonai: God is merciful before a person has sinned; Adonai: God is merciful after a person has sinned; El: God is just; Rachum: God is compassionate; Chanun: God is gracious; Erech Apaim: God is slow to anger; Rav Chesed: God is abundant in kindness; Rav … Emet: God is abundant in truth; Notzeir Chesed La’alafim: God extends kindness to the thousandth generation; Nosei Avon: God forgives transgression due to a person’s evil disposition; Nosei … Pesha: God forgives transgression due to a person’s rebelliousness; Nosei … Chata’ah: God forgives transgression due to a person’s guilt; Nakei Lo Y’nakeh: God does not wipe everything clean. This passage reflects the important teaching that God is both merciful and just, and that the world could not survive without both of these Divine qualities. The Divine name Adonai represents God’s attribute of mercy, while the Divine name Elohim (and words related to it) represents God’s attribute of justice (because the word also refers to human judges).

A midrash about creation expresses the important balance between justice and mercy this way: “…Adonai, God, [made earth and heaven]” (Genesis 2:4). This may be compared to a king who had some empty glasses. The king said, “If I pour hot water into them, they will burst; if cold, they will contract [and break].” What did the king do? He mixed hot and cold water and poured it into them, and so they remained [unbroken]. Similarly, the Holy One who is blessed said, “If I create the world with the quality of mercy alone, its sins will be great; with the quality of judgment alone, how could the world survive. Therefore, I will create it with the quality of judgment and the quality of mercy and may it then exist.” (Genesis Rabbah 12:15)

Only by maintaining this fragile balance, can we and the world thrive.

“Remember what Amalek did to you on the road as you left Egypt:  in that he happened upon you on the road and cut down all the stragglers in your rear when you were tired and weary.  And he did not fear God.  And it shall be when God grants you rest from all your enemies around you in the land that God is giving to you as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heaven.  Do not forget!”  (Deuteronomy 25:17-19)

 

These words are read on the Shabbat before Purim in addition to the regular Torah portion to prepare us for the reading of the Megillah when we will hear the story of Haman, who is said to by a descendant of Agag, King of the Amalekites.  In reading this passage, we must wonder what was so terrible about Amalek’s actions that warrants such an extreme reaction.  It is clear that he attacked the weakest, the sick and the elderly of the people who would have been in the rear.  But the most damning phrase is “he did not fear God,” which means that he did not have a moral conscience and could not even understand that what he was doing was wrong.  Thus, there is no hope for repentance of change.

We encounter Amalek again in First Samuel, when King Saul is ordered to destroy the Amalekites once and for all because of how they attacked the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness.  Saul successfully destroyed the Amalekites, but spared King Agag, as well as the best of the people’s flocks and herds.  Although Saul admits his mistake when confronted by Samuel, he will ultimately be rejected as King of Israel because of it. 

But the story does not end there, of course, because Haman is considered to be a descendant of Amalek.  Indeed, Amalek becomes a symbol in Judaism of those throughout our history who have tried to destroy our people.  By remembering Amalek, we are called upon to be vigilant and aware of those who are evil and would —if they could— rise up to destroy us.  Our survival depends upon recognizing these threats and responding.