Torah Talk Torah study for women

Preparing for Matan Torah

Leviticus Chapter 19

We are all familiar with the phrase vayedaber H el Moshe leimor: daber el benei Yisarel. Moses passes on to us instructions from H and that is how we learn how, what and when to carry out the divine instructions by which the Jewish people live.

In the Shavuot reading of the Torah, things are not as straightforward. Moses goes up and down the mountain, bringing down words from G-d, setting them before the people, taking up their reply and setting that before G-d, again bringing down G-d's words and again 'holding out' (S.R.Hirsch) the words of the people to G-d before the Ten Commandments are spoken by the Lord.

The obvious question is why is this procedure necessary at this point?

First, what are the people and G-d saying to one another?

In Ex Ch19, the children of Israel encamp at the foot of Mt Sinai and (v.3) Moses goes up and G-d tells him 'You are to say...'You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you unto Myself (v.4-6). Much as in the first of the Ten Commandments, the Almighty opens by reminding the Israelites how He brought us out of Egypt. Then (v7),Moses 'sets before the elders' what G-d has said . The Israelites reply vaya anu kol ha am yachdav vayomeru: kol asher diber H na ase – and Moses reports the words of the people to G-d. Once na ase has been said, G-d tells Moses that He will speak to Moses in a cloud 'that the people may hear when I speak with you'.(There is a slight problem here. Do the people only 'overhear' what G-d says to Moses or does G-d speak to them 'face to face' as Moses reminds them in Deut.5,v.4).

The people have given their commitment and now G-d tells Moses to tell them to sanctify themselves for 3 days and under no circumstances to come up or even touch the mountain – now a holy space until the end of the event. Moses gets called up again and told to go down (v.20,21) to make sure they do not touch the mount. Again, Moses reassures the Lord on this point.v.23. Now, G-d is ready to give the Ten Commandments.

One might have expected that preparing for the event of Revelation would require the people to spend time, mentally and physically. But this is surely more. It almost looks as if G-d needs to be 'persuaded', to be reassured that the Covenant He is about to offer will have a partner.

We need to remember that the Almighty had offered a deal to the Israelites once before. In Egypt, they had complained to Moses that now they had to find straw for their bricks because Moses had spoken to Pharaoh. G-d hears their cry and says in Va Ayra, ( Ex.6, v5 ff -9)'Say unto the children of Israel: I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians....and I will take you unto Me for a people and I will be to you a G-d....and I will bring you in unto the Land...and Moses spoke so to the children of Israel, but they hearkened not...' At that point the Israelites did not listen. At that point the offer had been unconditional – nothing bout keeping My laws. But they were not ready.

Now they are ready. The dialogue between G-d and the Israelites here (Lev.ch 19) is not just a conversation. It is a negotiation. The words of one party have to be considered by the other party. It is to the credit of the Israelites that they can say na'ase before they have heard all of the contract. They sign fully once they have heard it, towards the end of Mishpatim, which includes civil laws, festivals, shemita. Again, Moses is told to 'come up' and then. (Ex.24,3) "Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord". Va yaan kol ha am vayomeru kol ha devarim asher diber H na ase. Then Moses builds an altar, erects 12 pillars, reads them the contract, 'sefer ha brit'. Vayomeru kol asher diber H na'ase ve nishma. ('we will do and we will internalise') That is their ratification, whereupon Moses completes the ritual with the sprinkling of the blood onto the people. The Covenant made at Mount Sinai is entirely for the benefit of the children of Israel, but they needed to commit themselves to execute the clauses of the contract. That is why it was essential for Moses to go up and down the mountain repeatedly between the two parties.

Yigdal and the Thirteen Principles of Faith

The verses of the song 'Yigdal' are familiar to many people. The poem figures in the opening pages of most prayer books and it is sung in many Synagogues at the end of the Friday evening and Holiday evening services. As many people know, the thirteen lines of this poem/song correspond to the thirteen principles of faith formulated by Rambam (Maimonides) in the 12th century and were intended to define Judaism. What people may not be aware of when they sing Yigdal is that they are taking part in a controversy that has lasted from the time of Maimonides to the present day – and it is by no means settled yet!

Let us look at the key phrases of Yigdal and of Maimonides' Thirteen principles of Faith (Many Prayer Books have a version of the latter, each line beginning with the words 'I believe with perfect faith that...' at the end of Shacharit, the Morning Service):

At first sight, the content of the text does not look controversial – all agree that G-d is one, is incorporeal, that He revealed Himself and gave us the Torah. Although some of the later verses are not accepted as unquestioningly, it is not primarily the content that worried people. The controversy centres mainly around the limitation that this particular selection – and perhaps any selection, imposes and around the fact that Maimonides was defining Judaism in terms of a given number of 'beliefs'. He states unambiguously that anyone who denies even one of these principles is a heretic and must be shunned.

'A Jew who commits every possible sin will be a sinner and be punished, but will still have a share in the world to come. But if a man gives up any one of these fundamental principles, he has removed himself from the Jewish community. He is an atheist, a heretic, an unbeliever...We are commanded to hate him and to destroy him'.

(From Rambam's Commentary: Helek. Sanhedrin Ch.10, Mishna 1 kol Yisrael yeish lahem helek le olam haba...).

We are accustomed to-day to understand Judaism as a system of mitzvot, divine ordinances, a way of conducting our lives and the life of society rather than a set of 'principles of faith' that we must believe. There can, of course, be no Judaism –or any other form of monotheism – without a belief in

G-d. Is that belief a commandment? The first of the Ten Commandments/Statement (dibrot) is 'I am the Lord your G-d'. Even if that is taken as a statement and not a commandment as such, it demands acceptance. As does the opening statement of the Torah, 'In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth'. That, however, would seem to be the only belief as such in the Torah.

Are the other twelve verses as essential in defining Judaism? M.Kellner, in his book 'Must a Jew believe Anything?' makes a distinction between belief 'in' and belief 'that'. A belief 'in' G-d is not questioned. What about belief 'that'? The Shema proclaims 'that' G-d is one; Moses reminds the people 'that' G-d is incorporeal 'You saw no image at Horeb', the revelation on Mount Sinai, he tells the Israelites (Deut.4, v12 ). Further G-d reveals to Moses His thirteen attributes, (Ex 34, v.6,7) beginning: 'The Lord, mighty, merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth'...Judaism accepts/believes these statements in the Torah. However, so does Christianity. Nonetheless, they are basic to a definition of Judaism. So, verses 1-5 are essential. So, too, is verse 6, which tells us that G-d revealed Himself to the Prophets. That belief, along with verses 10 and 11, we also share with Christianity.

Verses 7,8,9 show G-d's impact on the world and on us. The authority of the Torah and of Moses entails an acceptance of all the commandments and their authoritative interpretation, the Oral Law. Only Judaism has taken upon itself to observe all the mitzvot.

That leaves verses 12 and 13, the belief in the coming of the Messiah and in the resurrection of the dead. Both proved controversial. Joseph Albo, who lived in 14/15th century Spain, criticised Maimonides and set out to correct his thirteen principles. He thought that belief in a Messiah should be eliminated because other religions understood this concept differently, which would lead to confusion and misleading statements about Judaism.

The last verse, a belief in the resurrection of the dead, was perhaps the most controversial. Neither the belief in a Messiah nor in a resurrection figure as such in the Five Books of Moses, although both are essential tenets in the writings of the prophets ( cf Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones, ch. 37, read in the Synagogue on the Intermediate Sabbath of Passover); Maimonides also reads them into texts taken from the Torah. In Yigdal, these last two of the thirteen principles are left as general statements, open to individual interpretation. For Maimonides, these principles articulate a very specific view. He sees a Messianic period 'when sovereignty will return to Israel...In regard to existing things, nothing will be different from what it is now, except that the sovereignty will be Israel's' (Commentary on Sanhedrin, ch 10); 'the prophets desired and the righteous yearned for the days of the Messiah because the righteous will assemble there and because of the good deeds and the wisdom and because of the righteousness of the king and his nearness to the Creator' (ibid). Beyond this is the world –to-come, where those souls who have not forfeited their share by wickedness and wrong beliefs will be privileged to exist, 'where our souls will have an understanding of the Creator' (ibid). Clearly the view of Maimonides here is not shared by all who would define Judaism.

Might one wish to add to these thirteen beliefs? What abut the Promised Land and what about the Jewish People? Can there be Judaism without either of these? Should we add a fourteenth and a fifteenth verse to Yigdal? The land, which is prominent in the promises of G-d's covenant with the Jewish people, can perhaps be seen as only the location for the practice of Judaism. And as to the Jewish People, they are defined by the beliefs expounded by Maimonides and reformulated in Yigdal. The controversy remains: Do those beliefs define Judaism?