Mishpatim: Talmud study and mitzvot in Rambam's worldview

The chapters of Judaism Reclaimed which relate to parashat Mishpatim focus on the famous “na’aseh venishma” acceptance of the Torah by the Jewish people. We open with an observation from Rabbi Y. D. Soloveitchik in his Bet Halevi that the aggadic praise and angelic crowns merited by the nation was on account of them having said “We will study” AFTER “We will do”. This order is understood to signify that Torah study provides an inherent benefit which goes beyond simply learning how to perform the mitzvot.

We note that such an interpretation is highly consistent with Rambam’s broader approach to Judaism, which values intellectual comprehension of divine matters (at its peak, abstract theological ‘truths’) as the highest goal of Judaism, with the mitzvot representing essential stepping stones which condition and enable people to achieve such an understanding.

Harder to determine is the precise role and value which Rambam assigned to traditional Talmudic study. On the one hand, he clearly views it as a lower priority than gaining a comprehension of the esoteric passages of Ma’aseh Bereishit and Merkavah, which he understood to contain profound truths concerning both the physical world and its relationship to the metaphysical/spiritual realm. This is evident both from letters of guidance he wrote to his students as well as from his controversial palace parable, near the end of Moreh Nevuchim, in which philosophers are able to gain closer proximity to the King (representing God) than theologically-unschooled Talmudists. This lower standing awarded to Talmudists is sometimes combined with Rambam’s introduction to Mishneh Torah – which states that it was written to allow students to bypass Talmud – to point to the conclusion that Rambam saw little value in traditional Talmud study.

This conclusion however sits uncomfortably with other teachings of Rambam, such as his description of required Torah study in Hilchot Talmud Torah which focuses on the complexities of how halacha is derived logically and hermeneutically from its sources and how the Talmudic analyses of Abaye and Rava “settle the mind”. Furthermore, in his introduction to Mishneh Torah itself, Rambam also lauds the great wisdom and Talmud study of earlier sages, before writing that Gemara “requires wide knowledge, a wise mind and much time, and only after that can one know…Torah laws”.

Judaism Reclaimed examines Rambam’s approach to intellectual development and knowledge across several of his works, drawing upon thematic and linguistic patterns as well as notable Rabbinic and academic thinkers to propose a solution which reconciles these sources. Finally, this conclusion is employed to address a common criticism of Rambam’s explanations of the mitzvot in the third section of Moreh Nevuchim: The claim that Rambam’s reasons are overly-dismissive of halachic detail while their utility is often uninspiring and barely applicable in the modern era.

First posted to Facebook 20 February 2020, here.

Mountainous mystery: was the Torah actually received on Shavuot?

On what day was the Torah given? On what date do we celebrate the festival of Shavuot? Seemingly simple questions, yet ones for which the Torah’s text provides no clear answer.

In a fascinating passage, Rabbi S. R. Hirsch notes that Shavuot is unique among all biblical festivals in that no calendar date is prescribed for it – rather, it is observed seven weeks from the omer offering. Combining a selection of Talmudic traditions and calculations, he demonstrates that the Torah was most likely understood to have been given on the 51st day after the Exodus. Thus the 50th day from the omer is in fact the day BEFORE the Lawgiving (which the Torah identifies as having taken place on the sixth or seventh day of the third month).

On this basis, the day that is elevated to a festival is NOT the day of the Sinai revelation, but rather the final day of counting leading up to that great day. This indicates that the ‘festival of Matan Torah’ does not relate to the actual giving of the Torah; it celebrates our making ourselves worthy of receiving it. Jewish tradition depicts the nation as having undergone a significant transformation during this seven-week period (7 itself is a number understood to symbolise a purifying process). This transformative process, which culminated in them camping, united, at the base of Mount Sinai, it what we celebrate as a festival. It is the conclusion of this same seven-week period which both determines the date of the celebration, and accounts for the name “Shavuot” by which the festival is commonly known.

As we also examine in Judaism Reclaimed, the Lawgiving itself was in no way concentrated on that day at Sinai – the Torah was transmitted in the course of 40 years. Some of its most important features may only have been taught to the people on the Plains of Moav decades later. Both R’ Hirsch and Rambam emphasise that the primary significance of the Sinaitic spectacle was “in order that the people hear when I speak to you, and they will also believe in you forever”. Rambam understood that the people somehow participated in Moshe's prophecy to an extent that authenticated and legitimised all of his Lawgiving over the subsequent decades. In this way, perhaps, the entire Torah can be said to have ‘originated from Sinai’.

On a separate note, another favourite Jewish-school-Shavuot teaching which Judaism Reclaimed addresses vividly depicts God holding Mount Sinai above the nation and threatening it with destruction if it fails to accept the Torah. Maharal asks why this menacing threat was necessary in light of the Jews’ faithful utterance of “na’aseh venishma” (“we shall do and we shall listen”). His suggested answer is that the timing of this threat was intended to impart a clear message that the Torah’s laws are absolute and binding. It was thus required to reinforce the Jews’ faithful acceptance so that they should not imagine that their voluntary acceptance of the Torah could at any time be subject to reversal.

But can we relate this midrashic teaching in any way to the Torah’s actual description of events at Sinai?

While the nation’s declaration of “na’aseh venishma” is widely quoted, it is normally done so without the immediately preceding words: “And he took the Book of the Covenant and read it within the hearing of the people, and they said, "All that the Lord spoke we will do and we will hear."” A midrash Mechilta, along with other commentaries (see also Devarim 28:69), identify this “Book of the Covenant” as being none other than the fearsome litany of rebukes and curses enumerated in parashat Bechukotai – described by the Torah as one of the final passages transmitted at Sinai.

Might the vivid midrashic depiction of the mountain being held threateningly above the nation’s heads be an allusion to the significance of the tochachah passage of rebuke at Sinai? If so, it could then be construed as an embodiment of the message that our relationship with God and the Torah is premised not on our fickle and fluctuating feeling and fortunes but on an accepted sacred duty – and privilege – which we, as Jews, bear and carry with us throughout our lives.

First posted to Facebook 27 May 2020, here.

Prelude to the lawgiving: is Judaism a regular religion?

As we look ahead and prepare ourselves for the upcoming festival it is striking how much attention is focused on the Ten Commandments – the nature and content of the great revelation at Sinai. There is very little mention, by contrast, of the careful preparation which took place among the nation in the days leading up to the lawgiving: a process of purifications and distancing of the people from the mountain.

The people were first instructed, three full days in advance, to prepare and purify themselves for the forthcoming divine revelation. Then, at the time of the law-giving, they were warned not to approach the mountain. These rules are described and repeated in detail: God instructs Moshe, who instructs the people. Moshe then confirms with God that the people have been separated from the sacred site. Not satisfied, God then issues a further warning that no person – or even animal – may approach the mountain. Presumably this emphasis and repeated warning is intended to relay a highly important message.

Judaism Reclaimed develops an idea of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, who sees in these instructions a principle of profound importance. These laws, he understands, symbolise how Judaism is conceptually distinct from “religion” as it is commonly perceived. The fields of anthropology and sociology view religion, like arts and culture, as a mere projection of the social values of society. This approach treats religion as little more than a means by which we can understand the behaviour and beliefs of the social unit formed by its adherents. Emile Durkheim expressed this when he claimed that religion is a mere “projection of the social values of society".

R' Hirsch argues that, in this sense, Judaism stands apart and cannot be truly defined as a religion, since the Torah’s rigorous and demanding laws do not reflect the religious and moral status of the nation which first received them. God’s instructions to the Jewish people to purify themselves for several days in advance of receiving the Torah represent a principle of fundamental importance: that its recipients were not inherently worthy of hearing God's word.

Additionally, the prohibition against drawing near the mountain during the Ten Commandments reinforces the distinction between the source of the communication and the people to whom it was addressed, thereby emphatically rejecting the notion that the Torah emanated from the people themselves. Each of these rules was intended to emphasise the reality that the Torah was communicated to the Jews from an external superior source, and did not emanate from within them.

This message is powerfully reinforced by the episode of the golden calf which took place shortly after this revelation. With the Ten Commandments still ringing in their ears, the nation collectively disobeyed God’s word, creating and worshipping an idol. God’s immediate response was shocking and uncompromising: the people were considered to be thoroughly unworthy of the recently-received Torah. God even suggests to Moshe that He annihilate the entire nation, replacing it with a new chosen people to be drawn from Moshe's own descendants.

All of this points to the idea that the Torah did not emerge from within the nation as a reflection of their own values – its teachings profoundly challenged them and imposed laws which the nation as a whole would struggle to observe throughout Jewish history.

First posted to Facebook 1 June 2022, here.

When is Shavuot and when was the Torah received?

On what day was the Torah given? On what date do we celebrate the festival of Shavuot? Seemingly simple questions, yet ones for which the Torah’s text provides no clear answer.

In a fascinating passage, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch notes that Shavuot is unique among all biblical festivals in that no calendar date is prescribed for it – rather, it is observed seven weeks from the omer offering which was brought on the second day of Pesach. Combining a selection of Talmudic traditions and calculations, Rav Hirsch demonstrates that the Torah was most likely to have been given on the 51st day after the Exodus. As noted by the Magen Avraham (Orach Chaim 494) the 50th day from the omer is in fact the day BEFORE the Lawgiving – which the Torah identifies as having taken place on the sixth or seventh day of the third month.

On this basis, the day that is elevated to a festival is NOT the day of the Sinai revelation, but rather the final day of counting leading up to that great day. This indicates that the ‘festival of Matan Torah’ does not relate to the actual giving of the Torah; it celebrates our making ourselves worthy of receiving it.

This insight into the nature of the festival of Shavuot provides us with a greater understanding of the commandment of Sefirat HaOmer, through which we count the days each year in between Pesach and Shavuot. Jewish tradition depicts the nation as having undergone a significant transformation during this seven-week period – from the 49th level of impurity to a level on which they could nationally perceive God’s communication to Moshe at Sinai. This process of purification is indicated by the number seven, which is the number of days which the Torah always requires in order to regain purity. (The Torah emphasises that the count consists of 7x7 – seven weeks not just 49 days). As well as achieving this national purity, we are also taught that the Israelites reached a level of perfection in their interpersonal relationships. Rashi comments that they encamped at the mountain “like one person with one heart” – a highly-impressive display of national unity.

This transformative process, which culminated in them camping, pure and united, at the base of Mount Sinai, it what we celebrate as a festival. It is the conclusion of this same seven-week period which both determines the date of the celebration, and accounts for the name “Shavuot” by which the festival is commonly known.

The period of Sefirat HaOmer, meanwhile, instils within our consciousness that such a national achievement is not reached without considerable work. Traditionally, the 49 days of the Omer are associated with the 48 ways in which the Torah is acquired (Avot 6:6) – prompting us to re-enact our ancestors’ religious awakening during these weeks in the desert. And the Omer period is also a reminder for us of the importance of maintaining mutual respect for one another as we seek to learn from the fate of Rabbi Akiva’s students who died during this period.

These ideas should be at the forefront of our consciousness as we count the final night of the Omer and prepare to recall the historic national covenant and revelation at Sinai.

First posted to Facebook 24 May 2023, here.

Sinai: what happened -- and what was the point?

Yesterday’s Torah reading featured Moshe revisiting the Sinai revelation as he continues recounting major desert events on the Plains of Moav. While Sinai is widely associated with Lawgiving, Rabbi S. R. Hirsch points out that many laws and instructions had already been received by the nation before this event, and that laws continued to be revealed afterwards throughout the desert years. What, then, was the particular significance of this national revelation?

Two important functions are mentioned explicitly here by Moshe himself.

The first relates to Israel’s eternal unique status as a chosen nation. Even though Israel was destined to sin and suffer severe exile as a consequence, Moshe maintains that they can be assured that God will never abandon them; the eternal covenant will never be broken: “He will not forget the covenant of your fathers, which He swore to them.” After all “Did ever a people hear God's voice speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard, and live?”. As Rabbi Yehuda Halevi emphasises, this mass revelation represents a theological foundation for Christianity and Islam too. While these subsequent religions argue that Israel’s sins led it to be abandoned by God, Moshe – a prophet whose legitimacy they all accept – makes it unambiguously clear that the Jewish nation will never be replaced.

A second fundamental function of the Sinai revelation is also hammered home by Moshe in his introduction to the Ten Commandments: “And you shall guard yourselves very carefully, for you did not see any image on the day that God spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire”. The human imagination has long dreamed up creative speculations as to the image of God and how He can be physically represented. As Moshe describes at length, humans are prone to “lift their eyes up to heaven” and attribute divinity to the celestial bodies, or consider that impressive “beasts of the earth” must be endowed with supernatural powers. The point emphasised by Moshe is that even in the nation’s most direct and intimate encounter with the Divine, no image was seen. God can most accurately be depicted in the negative – what could NOT be seen. The Sinai revelation thereby condemns any subsequent attempt to attribute a form of divinity to any physical image, object or even great sage as a product of human imagination – not the God who revealed Himself to the nation at Sinai.

A third vital function of the Sinai revelation is not mentioned here in Moshe’s recounting, but is stated by God before the initial account of the Ten Commandments in Shemot (19:9): "I am coming to you in the thickness of the cloud, in order that the people hear when I speak to you, and they will also believe in you forever". As analysed in Judaism Reclaimed, the primary purpose of the Sinai revelation was not the Ten Commandments themselves, but rather that – as explained by Rambam – the nation participated in a direct prophetic encounter between God and Moshe. Having witnessed such an extraordinary phenomenon they became aware of their own inability to maintain such a level of proximity with the divine and implored God to communicate with them instead through Moshe. This represented the ultimate authentication and vindication of Moshe’s prophecy through which the Torah was received.

Various questions have been raised over the ambiguity of the Torah’s accounts of the Sinai revelation. Which words, if any, were heard directly by the nation and what was conveyed instead by Moshe? If the collective national memory did not preserve such details, does this not undermine the force and significance of such a revelation?

Bearing in mind the functions of the Sinai revelation that we have identified explicitly within the Torah’s text, we can argue that the content of the Commandments – while obviously important – is not what makes this event so highly-emphasised and unique. Rather it is the implications that this revelation had for the relationship between God and His chosen people. First, we gained actual knowledge that His divinity cannot be represented by anything within the physical world and secondly that our relationship with Him is eternal and non-revocable.

Once the nation had been granted third-party participatory status and thereby witnessed Moshe receiving prophecy, his authenticity as an instrument of God’s word was now beyond doubt. The question of which parts of the Ten Commandments were heard directly from God and which via Moshe’s agency becomes far less significant.

First posted to Facebook 30 July 2023, here.