Shaarei Shamayim

BEHAR 5771

For a Jew, there are 3 crucial questions of faith. Actually it’s based on a Mishnah (Sanhedrin 10:1) upon which Maimonides expands to his 13 Principles of Faith. One question is, “Is there a Gd?” Another, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” And the crucial question of faith for a Jew is undoubtedly, “How do we know the Torah is true? Did Gd really give the Torah to the Jewish people on Mount Sinai?” Unless we give a strong positive answer to this question, Jewish life and Jewish uniqueness begin to crumble.

Philosophers and scholars have offered all kinds of proofs though the ages. Tomorrow in my class, I will speak from a contemporary view about the hidden codes in the Torah and how they demonstrate that the Torah could only have come from Gd. From a more classic perspective, we have Yehuda Halevi—11^th and 12^th century philosopher and poet—who in his famous work, The Kuzari, explains that the entire Jewish people stood at Sinai and each generation carries that witnessing down to the next.

All other religions are based on the witnessing of revelation from one sole charismatic individual, who tells his followers, “Gd came to me last night and this is what He told me to tell you to do.” Only Judaism makes the claim that the entire people heard Gd speaking to them. My favorite quote about that comes from Akiva Tatz’s book, Anatomy of a Search, where he carries Halevi’s proof one step further:

            One tends to imagine the chain of transmission from Sinai stretching back into the vague past over innumerable generations. A transmission of some 3,200 years requires only 80 generations for transmission periods of 40 years each if you consider a generation 40 years. That means that realistically speaking, one can consider approximately 80 phases in which children or grandchildren received direct personal accounts... 

            To fully grasp the meaning of this transmission one must also consider the possibility of its having been forged. Assume for a moment that no historic gathering at Sinai occurred and that no revelation ever took place. What would that mean? This would mean that the Torah account of these events is a fabrication. At what point in history was this fabrication conceived and forced on the Jewish people? Which generation of Jews unanimously took it upon themselves to convey a lie to their children with no trace of descendant?…2 Jews seldom share one opinion on anything, and here we are suggesting that all Jews at a point in history suddenly decided to perpetrate and perpetuate an enormous lie; and yet we have no trace of even one admission that the whole thing was false.

The unavoidable conclusion no matter how uncomfortable for the skeptic is, that if it were not true, it would be impossible to fabricate and propagate. There is unequivocal evidence that the transmission has been identical in all places and in all times, nothing like a beautiful and ever changing folk tradition, because Torah scrolls in all communities in the world, and excavated from all periods of history are identical. For me that is so compelling!

Rabbi Shraga Simmons presents a similar approach that’s supported by today’s Torah reading. Simmons asks us to consider that the Torah was not written by Gd, but by a committee. In fact, let’s imagine that we’re the rabbis assigned to write the Torah. Of course, we’re not going to tell anyone that we’re writing this or else they won’t accept it. Instead, we’re going to say that Gd gave us this book—and hope people believe us.

Now remember, we’re starting from scratch. There’s nothing yet written—no Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, no 10 Commandments. So what would be a good law to include in our Torah? How about, “Thou shalt not steal?” That’s very practical—let’s include it. “Thou shalt not murder?” Okay, we’ll put that in, too.

Now what if I’d proposed the following law: Every 7^th year the entire Jewish people must cease working the fields. They may not plant, plow or harvest—for an entire year, once every 7 years. Do you think this is a good law to put into our Torah? Sure! We’ve all heard of “crop rotation.” Letting the land lie fallow helps replenish the nutrients, yielding better crops than if you’d use the soil year after year.

One problem. If we’re an agrarian society—as the early Israelites were—then we live off what we plant. So if we don’t plant for an entire year, we’ll have nothing to eat! But there’s a solution: let’s store up 1/6 of the harvest in each of the 1^st 6 years, and then eat from that in the Sabbatical year. Or alternatively, we could divide the country into 7 regions; each year, a different region will let their fields rest and borrow food from all others. Simple enough.

Now imagine that our committee proposes a far more radical idea: No dividing the land, no storing up grain. Rather, we simply promise to deliver a triple crop in the 6^th year. Absurd! Obviously we can’t guarantee that every 6^th year will yield a triple crop. If we’re pretending to deliver Gd’s word in our Torah, then we must not promise something we can’t deliver. We’ll be exposed as frauds!

How long do you think this religion will last if we make this promise? You guessed it…about 6 years! As soon as the triple crop doesn’t come, we’re out of business. Our Torah, our religion will be a sham. So you can bet that our imaginary Torah-writing committee would shoot down the triple-crop idea as an impossible option.

Now let’s see the Sabbatical year as described in the actual Torah (Leviticus 25:3-21):

(25:3-6) For 6 years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and harvest your crops. But the 7^th year is a sabbath for the land. During that year, you may not plant your fields nor prune your vineyards. Do not harvest crops that grow on their own. Do not gather the grapes on your unpruned vines since it is a year of rest for the land...

(25:20-21) And if you ask, what will we eat in the 7^th year? We have not planted nor have we harvested crops. I will direct my blessing to you in the 6^th year and the land will produce ENOUGH CROPS FOR 3 YEARS.

What is the Torah’s proposal? Divide up the land? Store the grain as Joseph did in Egypt? No! The Torah promises that, “The 6^th year will produce enough crops for 3 years.” The Torah could have written, “Keep the Sabbath law in the 7^th year. It’s going to be a terrible year; everybody’s going to be starving. But as a great reward, you’ll get a triple crop in the 8^th year.” That would have been smart, because then, if it didn’t happen, the excuse could always be, “Well, some people were cheating in the 7^th year. So Gd punished us and didn’t give us the triple crop.”

But no, the Torah promises a triple crop in the 6^th year, before we even observe the law of Shmita, the 7^th year. There is no possible excuse should there fail to be a bumper crop.

Let me ask you, why would the author or authors of the Torah—who want people to believe in the divinity of this book—make a ridiculous promise they cannot possibly fulfill and thereby expose themselves as a fraud? Why risk it?

So who wrote the Torah? Who would make such a promise? Let’s read the opening verses of today’s (Lev. 25:1-3) parsha:

Gd spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them: When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall observe a Sabbatical year of rest. For 6 years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and harvest your crops. But the 7^th year is a Sabbath for the land.

Question: Why does the Torah, in relating the mitzvah of Shmita, of the Sabbatical year, specify that Gd is speaking, b’har Sinai, “on Mt. Sinai?” Gd gave Moses all the mitzvot on Mt. Sinai, but we don’t see Sinai mentioned with other mitzvot in the Torah? It’s because the Shmita, the Sabbatical year is the one mitzvah that proves that no human being could ever write this law. Only Gd could be the Author Who gave the Torah on Mount Sinai. Only Gd could promise a triple crop in the 6^th year. And in fact, according to the prophets, this is what actually happened throughout Biblical times.

My friends, in 3½ weeks we will be celebrating Shavuot—the anniversary of the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Jewish tradition tells us that the soul of each and every Jew—past, present and future, every convert—stood that day at Mt. Sinai. When Gd’s Voice tore through the Heavens, the Torah was engraved on stone tablets (on the 10 Commandments)...but was 1^st engraved on the heart of every Jew. The Voice spoke and we heard. May we always heed the Voice of Torah, the Voice of Gd. Amen!

                                                Rabbi Mark Hillel Kunis

                                                5/14/11