My Book -- The Light of the Torah

I just published my new book, The Light of the Torah, which is available on Amazon and other sites in paperback, hardcover, and ebook editions. The book consists of 77 essays on the sidrot of the Torah. Many of the essays were previously on my blog, but I expanded and edited them, and I added many new essays and a lot of other new material.

The Light of the Torah combines my original insights with in-depth analysis of a wide variety of sources to resolve compelling questions arising from the text of the Torah. The book seeks to convey to the reader a deeper understanding of the Torah and a stronger connection with God.

I will be taking this blog offline.

Thoughts on Ekev: Worship of the Heart

In ancient times, worship of God often took the form of bringing a sacrifice. However, after the destruction of the second Temple in the year 70 CE, Jews could no longer bring sacrificial offerings, and therefore the rabbis decreed that prayers would substitute for the sacrifices. They set the times of the morning and afternoon prayers (Shacharit and Mincha) to correspond to the daily sacrifices of the morning (Tamid shel Shachar) and afternoon (Tamid shel Beyn Ha’arbayim) that used to be brought in the Temple.

But prayer must not be considered only as a substitute for sacrifices. Prayer existed in the Jewish tradition long before the Torah was given. The Talmud, basing itself on various Biblical verses, states that Abraham instituted the morning prayer, that Isaac instituted the afternoon prayer, and that Jacob instituted the evening prayer. Thus verbal prayer — as distinct from sacrificial offerings — has an independent, ancient origin in Jewish tradition and did not begin only as a replacement for burnt offerings to God.

Nevertheless, even though the patriarchs initiated the three daily prayers, their practice is not necessarily the basis for the requirement of prayer. We may theorize that in ancient times, when the Temple existed, prayer independent of sacrifice was practiced only sporadically, when the spirit moved a person to pray. In that case, the current requirement of prayer is a rabbinic law that was enacted to substitute for the Temple sacrifice.

The question of whether the requirement of prayer is based on Biblical or rabbinic law was hotly debated among the poskim (authorities on Jewish law), with many — perhaps most — authorities favoring a rabbinic origin. Others, most notably Moses Maimonides (Rambam, 1135-1204 CE) believe that prayer is a mitzvah de’orayta — a Biblical precept. But Maimonides does not attribute the legal basis merely to the patriarchs’ practice. Rather, Maimonides cites a verse in Ekev as the Biblical source for the mitzvah of prayer: “... and to worship Him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 11:13). And, says Maimonides, what is worship of the heart? It is prayer.

In the view of Maimonides, then, the requirement to pray is a Biblical law, but the Torah doesn’t specify any times of prayer. The times of prayer are of rabbinic origin; and the rabbis set those times to correspond with the times of the Temple sacrifices.

References:

For Maimonides's view of the Biblical source for the requirement to pray, see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Tefillah 1:1, and Maimonides, Sefer HaMitzvot, Mitzvah 5.

© Copyright 2009 by Ben Roshgolin. All rights reserved.

Thoughts on Va'etchanan: The Shma

The Torah portion of Va’etchanan contains some of the central ideas of Judaism. Perhaps the most central idea, and the one that most distinguished the religion of Israel from the religions of all other nations of Biblical times, is a single verse near the end of the portion of Va’etchanan: Shma Yisrael, Adonay Eloheinu, Adonay echad – “Listen, Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). And it is this statement of faith, known as “The Shma,” that Jews are commanded to recite twice every day.

God’s true essence is unknowable to us, and we can know Him only through His actions. Therefore we call Him by many names, each signifying a different aspect of His actions in the world (see Exodus Rabba 3:6). Note, then, that in the above verse, two different names of the deity are used. The first of these names, translated into English as “The Lord,” corresponds to the divine name YHVH, a name whose root is the verb of being. The second appellation, rendered into English as “God,” is the Hebrew Elohim, a word signifying power and authority.

The name Elohim, then, refers to a God of law, of justice, and of power, the ruler of the universe, whose will is manifest through the laws of nature. And, parenthetically, it is this name that the Torah uses throughout the account of the creation in the first chapter of Genesis. The other name used in the Shma, YHVH, signifies the Eternal, the source of all existence. As such, He is beyond the universe, beyond the bounds of time and space, beyond nature. Therefore He may set aside the law and exercise the faculty of mercy.

Thus, the two divine names YHVH and Elohim represent conflicting attributes. To the pagan mind, a single deity could not embody both of these conflicting attributes, these two opposite personalities. How could the same God be the source of both strict justice and mercy, of both light and darkness, of both good and evil? But, the Torah informs us, God is not a person, and neither any human attribute nor personality can we ascribe to God. As stated, we know Him only through His actions, but His true essence is beyond our ability to describe or characterize. The Shma tells us that He is One, the source of all: of justice and of mercy, of darkness and of light, of evil and of good.

But, one might object, doesn’t Judaism have a concept of Satan, a separate spiritual entity who is the representation of evil? Indeed, Satan is mentioned in the Bible more than once. However, Satan is an angel, a messenger of God; and, as is apparent from Job 1:6-12, Satan is completely under God’s control. He is not the creator of evil in the world, but merely its executor.

Evil, then, must ultimately originate from God no less so than does the good. Indeed, Isaiah puts it bluntly: Yotzer or uvoreh choshekh, ‘oseh shalom uvoreh ra’; ani YHVH ‘oseh khol eleh – “I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil; I am the Lord Who makes all these” (Isaiah 45:7). Significantly, the rabbis chose this verse from Isaiah as the basis for the first of the two blessings that precede the Shma in the morning service, although for the purposes of the morning service they emended Isaiah’s words regarding God’s creation of evil to read, “. . . Who makes peace and creates all,” since they considered this phrasing as lishna me’alya – a more desirable way to sing God’s praise. (See Berakhot 11b.) But whether said explicitly or not, the point remains the same: both light and darkness, both good and evil, originate from God. And, in uniting polar opposites, God makes peace in His heavens as it were, creating all. (See Job 25:2, and Rashi’s commentary on that verse.)

© Copyright 2009 by Ben Roshgolin. All rights reserved.

Thoughts on Balak: Can a Prophet Change God's Mind?

In the sidra of Balak, the Moabite king Balak sends emissaries to the prophet Bil'am requesting him to curse the Israelites, for which service Balak is prepared to pay the prophet a handsome fee. Bil'am wants to comply, but first he asks God for permission. God tells Bil'am that he may go with Balak's emissaries, but God will not allow him to curse the Israelites. Bil'am goes anyway, apparently hoping eventually to persuade God to allow him to curse.

Is Bil'am's premise reasonable? In fact, from Bil'am's point of view it is perfectly valid to think that a prophet can change God's mind. Perhaps God's initial statement was just a test to see whether the prophet will be able to adduce the proper argument to rebut God's initial position. After all, didn't Abraham argue with God regarding Sodom? And didn't Moses, after the sin of the golden calf, successfully argue with God and get Him to rescind His initial edict against the nation of Israel? Perhaps, then, Bil'am is also prepared to argue with God; but first he tries a more positive approach: he has King Balak bring multiple sacrifices to the Lord, while he himself goes off to meditate and pray for prophetic inspiration. God, however, does not comply with Bil'am's wishes: He places a blessing in Bil'am's mouth instead of a curse. Bil'am tries again, but a second blessing comes from his mouth.

In that second prophecy of blessing we find the words Lo ish El viykhazev, uven adam veyitnecham — "God is not a man, who lies, nor a human, who will change his mind." It is only when Bil'am speaks these words that he finally realizes the futility of his attempt. But Bil'am is still intent on cursing. Therefore, in his next pursuit of prophetic inspiration, Bil'am no longer turns to God but toward the desert — vayashet el hamidbar panav. Onkelos interprets this as referring to Bil’am focusing on the sin of the golden calf that the Israelites had committed in the desert many years earlier, and Rashi agrees with Onkelos. But that interpretation is a stretch. Instead, Rabeinu Bachyay explains that Bil’am, now realizing that God will not let him curse Israel, therefore turns toward the desert seeking prophetic inspiration not from God but from the spirit of defilement.

Indeed, while Rabeinu Bachyay probably was unaware of the desert’s significance in the pagan religions of the region, he was quite correct to equate the desert with the Dark Side. The desert in Egyptian religion was the land of Set, god of disorder, deserts, storms, and war; and notably also, the god of evil. And in other near eastern traditions, the desert probably also was considered the source of evil powers. Thus Bil'am now seeks to receive prophecy from the demonic realm instead of from God. But the spirit of God overtakes him, and he blesses Israel yet again.

© Copyright 2009 by Ben Roshgolin. All rights reserved.