Wishful Thinking and Prophetic Interpretation

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Wishful Thinking and Prophetic Interpretation

Last summer, my mom asked me to look through a bunch of random Jewish books in our possession to see which ones we should keep and which ones we should sell or give away. One of the books I found (and have no idea how we came to own) was called, Fascinating Torah Prophecies Currently Unfolding (1997). The contents are exactly what you’d expect from a book with that title – especially one with a teaser banner on the cover advertising “fascinating codes and more.” 

I found myself thinking of this book after reading R’ Yosef ibn Kaspi’s introduction to Sefer Yirmiyahu:

This prophet Yirmiyah also did what Yeshaya [did], mentioning at the beginning of his book the name and intent of its author. This prophet also informed us of the intent of his book by stating that his prophecies were from the time of Yoshiyahu until the end of the days of Tzidkiyahu, in whose days and era the Temple was destroyed. Therefore, note that this prophet doesn’t speak at all about the building of the Third Temple, which we undoubtedly yearn for today. This is clear, for he prophesied the destruction of the First Temple and the building of the Second Temple, as Yeshaya did. The general rule is that it is not at all appropriate to ascribe to any prophet a prophecy about the building of the Third Temple unless we first find written in his book a promise about the destruction of the Second Temple. Without a doubt, Yirmiyah did not strive to assure them about the destruction of the Second Temple, even though he undoubtedly alluded [to it] with hints, as Yeshayahu did – just as Moshe alluded to the destruction of the First Temple with hints that would not be grasped by the masses … someone who is an expert in these holy books will understand the truth of our words.

Ibn Kaspi’s “general rule” is not unanimous. Others maintain that prophets do prophesy beyond their stated range. Rashi, for instance, interprets “I shall yet build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel” (Yirmiyahu 31:3) to mean: “You had two buildings made by men. Therefore, they were destroyed. Yet again, I, Myself, will build a third building which will be built forever.” Ibn Kaspi was aware of such views, which is why he stated his objections at the outset of his commentary.

Which side of the machlokess do I think is correct? I have no idea. Why not? Because, as Ibn Kaspi said, only “someone who is an expert in these holy books will understand the truth of our words,” and I am not an expert in prophetic exegesis. Not even close. I have heard it said in the name of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik that “we no longer know how to learn Neviim nowadays.” I was unable to track down a source or a context for this quotation, but I refuse to believe he meant that the ideas and mussar (rebuke) of the neviim is inaccessible to us. Instead, I assume he meant that we, unlike the medieval commentators, are unable to decipher the precise meanings of the prophecies in the Neviim portion of Tanach.

It is very easy for a person to think they’re deciphering cryptic prophecies with their mind when all they’re doing is engaging in wishful thinking with their imagination. Who wouldn’t want to find a message of hope in a pasuk from Sefer Yirmiyahu about yemos ha’Moshiach and the building of Bayis Shelishi? But that’s exactly the point: our interpretation of the neviim should not be guided by hope, but by our knowledge of how nevuah works and how the neviim wrote. Rashi did not interpret the aforementioned pasuk to be about Bayis Shelishi simply because he wanted it to be about yemos ha’Moshiach. His interpretation was guided by his understanding of the subject matter.

Lastly, we must remember the Rambam’s words (Hilchos Melachim u’Milchamos 12:2) about Messianic speculations:

Regarding all of these [details of the time of Moshiach] – no person knows how they will be until they happen, for these things were hidden even from the prophets, and there is no clear tradition from the Sages on these matters. Therefore, there is disagreement about them. Nevertheless, neither the order nor the details of these matters are an essential part of the religion. A person shouldn’t involve himself in the words of the aggados (homiletical teachings), nor should he spend time in the words of the midrashim which were stated about these topics, and he shouldn’t regard them as fundamental, for they do not bring a person to fear [of God] nor to love [of God]. 

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Be sure to check out my YouTube channel and my podcasts: "The Mishlei Podcast", "The Stoic Jew" Podcast, "Rambam Bekius" Podcast, "Machshavah Lab" Podcast, "The Tefilah Podcast"  Email me if you'd like to be added to my WhatsApp group where I share all of my content and public shiur info. 

Parashas Bereishis: (How) Did Hashem Speak to Kayin

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Bereishis: (How) Did Hashem Speak to Kayin

According to the pshat (plain meaning of the text), Hashem addresses Kayin three times: “Hashem said to Kayin, ‘Why are you angry etc.’” (Bereishis 4:6-7), “Hashem said to Kayin, ‘Where is Hevel, your brother?’ etc.” (ibid. 4:9-12), and “Hashem said to him, ‘Therefore, anyone who kills Kayin’ etc.” (ibid. 4:15).

The question is: How? According to the Rambam (Hilchos Yesodei ha’Torah Chapter 7), Hashem only grants nevuah to those who are on the highest level of perfection. Kayin certainly falls short of the requisite level of ethical perfection, as indicated by the rejection of his korban, his reaction of anger and dejection, his decision to murder his brother, and his denial of culpability. Regarding his intellectual perfection: some commentators learn that Kayin’s act of murder and subsequent denial indicate that he harbored false beliefs about Divine Omniscience. Midrashic commentaries ascribe to him additional heretical beliefs. Kayin is not exactly navi material.

Radak wrote a full commentary on Sefer Bereishis which, unfortunately, isn’t very well-known because it’s not printed in the standard Mikraos Gedolos. Even less well-known is his peirush ha’nistar (esoteric commentary) on Bereishis 2:7 through 5:1, which is available on AlHaTorah.org. It is in this esoteric commentary (4:6-7) that Radak suggests a radical answer to our question:

Hashem said to Kayin: the will of God - namely, the human intellect - responded to [Kayin’s] wrath and anger by saying to him, "Why did you get angry and why did you become crestfallen?"

Isn’t it true that if you improve: his intellect taught him the path of teshuvah.

Seemingly, according to Radak’s comments, Hashem didn't speak to Kayin at all! Rather, it was Kayin’s own intellect – which expresses the will of God – that rebuked him for his anger and enlightened him about teshuvah. This is reminiscent of the Rambam’s second explanation (Hilchos Teshuvah 6:5) of what David ha’Melech meant when he said: “Good and upright is Hashem; therefore, He instructs sinners on the path” (Tehilim 25:8):

[This means that] He implanted within them (i.e. sinners) the capacity to learn and to understand, for this tendency is within every human being, namely, that as long as he is drawn on the paths of chochmah (wisdom) and tzedek (righteousness), he will desire them and pursue them. This is what the Sages meant by, “One who comes to be purified will be assisted” – meaning to say, he will find himself assisted in the matter.

Now, before we get carried away with the implications of our findings, we contextualize the Radak’s comments within the mission statement of his esoteric commentary. On Bereishis 2:7 he writes:

The “adam” mentioned in the pasuk ["Hashem-Elokim formed the adam" (Bereishis 2:7)] refers in the nigleh (non-esoteric reading) to Adam ha'Rishon, but in the nistar (esoteric reading) it refers to the name of the species. Both are true, but the nigleh is for the masses and the nistar is for the individuals who are the excellent among the masses.

In other words, Radak doesn’t deny the literal truth of the pshat, according to which Hashem did speak with Kayin. Unfortunately, this means that Radak esoteric commentary ultimately does not answer our original question.

And yet, Radak’s esoteric reading opens an intriguing can of worms. Does the Torah ever use Divine communication as a narrative device rather than as a factual account of prophetic communication? Rambam is certainly comfortable with giving non-literal explanations of Divine speech, as cited above, and as he writes about in the Moreh ha’Nevuchim 2:48 and in 3:22. While such interpretations are not to be posited gratuitously, it is noteworthy that such an approach exists and can be found in the writings of mainstream commentators.

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If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would like to make a direct contribution to the "Rabbi Schneeweiss Torah Content Fund," my Venmo is @Matt-Schneeweiss, and my Zelle and PayPal are mattschneeweiss at gmail.com. Even a small contribution goes a long way to covering the costs of my podcasts, and will provide me with the financial freedom to produce even more Torah content for you. 

If you would like to sponsor an article, shiur, or podcast episode, or if you are interested in enlisting my services as a teacher or tutor, you can reach me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.com. Thank you to my listeners for listening, thank you to my readers for reading, and thank you to my supporters for supporting my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone. 

Be sure to check out my YouTube channel and my podcasts: "The Mishlei Podcast", "The Stoic Jew" Podcast, "Rambam Bekius" Podcast, "Machshavah Lab" Podcast, "The Tefilah Podcast"  For the full guide to all of my Torah content, click here. 

What is Ruach ha'Kodesh? (Rambam)

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Artwork: Visions of Beyond, by Terese Nielsen

What is Ruach ha'Kodesh? (Rambam)

The Question

My students have, on numerous occasions, asked me questions about ruach ha'kodesh (lit. "the holy spirit"), such as: "Is it true that Rashi had ruach ha'kodesh?" or "Didn't the meforshim get their explanations from ruach ha'kodesh?" or "How can the rabbis be wrong if they had ruach ha'kodesh?" 

On the one hand, it seems as though my students view ruach ha'kodesh and nevuah (prophecy) as interchangeable terms. On the other hand, if I asked them point blank: "Are you under the impression that Rashi was a navi?" or "Is the Ramban's commentary on Chumash an example of nevuah?" they would most certainly say "no." And yet, if I asked them to define or explain the difference between ruach ha'kodesh and nevuah, they would be at a loss.

I do not believe my students are alone in this regard. I suspect that many Jews are unfamiliar with the difference between ruach ha'kodesh and nevuah. I certainly was until I looked into the matter. I also don't blame anyone for their lack of clarity on these topics. Not only are the concepts themselves extremely deep and lofty, but it's even difficult to track down the relevant sources! And, to make things even more difficult, sometimes the term "ruach ha'kodesh" is used to describe nevuah! I can understand why people are confused. 

The purpose of this post is not to provide the answer to the question in the title. I'm not even going to attempt to present a comprehensive digest of all - or even most - of the shitos (views), since I've barely scratched the surface of this subject in my own learning. 

Instead, I'm going to present the answer that I give to my own students, which is based on the writings of the Rambam. My goal is to provide them with enough information about nevuah and ruach ha'kodesh to be able to differentiate the two concepts in their minds.

What is Nevuah?

If I am not mistaken, the first time the Rambam defines nevuah is in his presentation of the Thirteen Ikkarim (fundamental principles) in his Introduction to Perek Chelek: [1] 

The Sixth Fundamental Principle is nevuah, namely, to know that within this human species there exist men who possess highly developed traits and great perfection, whose souls develop the capacity to receive the form of the intellect, and their human intellects join with the Active Intellect, and it emanates over them in abundant emanation - these are the neviim, this is nevuah, and this is its concept. And the explanation of this fundamental principle in complete form is exceedingly lengthy, and our goal is not the explanation of the particulars of each of these fundamental principles and an elucidation of the method of knowing them, for this would encompass all of branches of knowledge. Rather, we shall only mention them for informational purposes. And there are many verses which testify to the prophecy of the prophets.

If your reaction to reading this is, "Say what?" then don't worry. Like I said, our goal here is not to fully understand what nevuah is, but to know enough to be convinced that ruach ha'kodesh and nevuah are not the same thing.

The Rambam's treatment of nevuah in the Mishneh Torah [2] spans four chapters, and is too long to even attempt to summarize here. Instead, I've selected a few halachos from those four chapters which flesh out the concept of nevuah: 

7:1 – One of the fundamentals of the religion is to know that God prophetically communicates to mankind …when the spirit [of nevuah] rests upon him, his soul mingles with the level of angels which are called “ishim” and he becomes another person, and he understands with his mind that he is not as he once was, but that he has ascended above the level of other chachamim …

7:2 – … When [neviim] prophesy, their limbs quake, their bodily power weakens, their thoughts become scrambled, and their mind becomes free to contemplate what they see …

7:3 – The matters that are made known to the navi in a prophetic vision are conveyed to him by way of mashal (allegory), and immediately the interpretation of the mashal becomes engraved in his mind in the prophetic vision, and he knows what it is …

7:7 – It is possible that the navi’s nevuah is for him alone, to expand his mind and increase his knowledge, until he knows things that he didn’t know from those great things (i.e. physics and metaphysics), and it is possible that he is sent to a segment of the population – to the residents of a city or a kingdom – to prepare them and to inform them what to do, or to prevent them [from continuing] the evil actions in their hands – and when [the navi] is sent [for this reason], he is given a sign and wonder in order to make known to the people that God sent him in truth.

10:3 – … all the words of a navi are fulfilled, as it is stated: “for no word of Hashem will fall to the earth” (II Melachim 10:10); likewise it is stated: “The [false] prophet with a dream tells [his] dream, but the one with my word speaks My word of truth. How can the chaff compare to the kernel? – the word of Hashem” (Yirmiyahu 23:28) – in other words, the words of sorcerers and dreamers are like chaff mixed in with a little bit of grain, whereas the word of Hashem has no chaff at all.

The Rambam further elucidates nevuah by differentiating the nevuah of a regular navi from the nevuah of Moshe Rabbeinu. I'll cite his presentation of these differences in the Introduction to Perek Chelek, with all of the details and proofs omitted, for the sake of brevity:

The prophecy of Moshe, our master, differs from the prophecy of the other prophets in four ways:  

The first difference is that each and every navi was only spoken to by Hashem by way of an intermediary, but Moshe was without an intermediary ... 

The second difference is that every navi only receives his nevuah vision while asleep ... or during the day after the prophet falls under a trance into a state in which all of his senses have been suspended and his mind is blank just like in sleep ... but the word came to Moshe in the daytime when he was standing ... 

The third difference is that when a navi receives a nevuah, even though it is through a vision and by means of an angel, his powers weaken and his bodily frame becomes disarranged and an overpowering fear falls upon him as if he were going to die ... but this was not the case with Moshe. Rather, the word came to him and no weakness occurred in him at all ...

The fourth difference is that the vision does not come to all the prophets at their own desire but only at the will of Hashem ... However, Moshe, our master, was able to say at any time that he wished ...

To summarize: nevuah is a type of knowledge conveyed from Hashem to the mind of the navi (via angels) in mashal form. As the Rambam said, "the explanation of this fundamental principle in complete form is exceedingly lengthy" and a full explanation "would encompass all of branches of knowledge." Nevertheless, the basic information here is sufficient for our purposes. 

What is Ruach ha'Kodesh?

Now let's turn to the Rambam's definition of ruach ha'kodesh, as stated in the Moreh ha'Nevuchim.[3] I'm only going to cite the first part of this chapter, with my own paragraph breaks and underlines: 

After the preceding explanation of the true reality of nevuah according to the requirements of philosophical speculation combined with the explanation supplied by our Torah, it behooves me to mention to you the degrees of nevuah according to these two sources. 

Now not everybody who is found in one of the degrees, which I call the degrees of nevuah, is a navi. For the first and second degree are steppingstones toward nevuah, and someone who has attained one of them is not to be considered as a navi belonging to the class of neviim discussed in the preceding chapters. And even though he may sometimes be called a navi, this term is applied to him in a general sort of way, because he is very close to the neviim …

1st Degree – Ruach Hashem: The first of the degrees of nevuah consists in the fact that an individual receives or is accompanied by a divine help that moves and activates him to an exceedingly good and valuable act – such as the saving of a community of virtuous people from a community of evildoers, or the saving of a virtuous and great man, or the conferring of benefits on numerous people. The individual in question finds in himself something that moves and incites him to the action, and that is called “ruach Hashem” (“the spirit of Hashem”). And it is said of the individual who was in such a state that “the spirit of Hashem was upon him” or that “the spirit of Hashem clothed him” or that “the spirit of Hashem rested upon him” or that “Hashem was with him,” or other similar expressions are applied to him. That is the level of all the judges of Israel, of whom it is said in general that: “And when Hashem raised them up as judges, then Hashem was with the judge, and delivered them” (Shoftim 2:18) … 

Know that such a force did not abandon Moshe Rabbeinu from the moment he reached the age of maturity. It was because of this that he was moved to slay the Egyptian and to reprove the one who was in the wrong among the two men that struggled. The strength of this force in him shows in the fact that when – after having been filled with fear and having fled – he came to Midian as a stranger full of fear and saw some wrong that was done, he could not refrain from putting an end to it and was incapable of patience with regard to it … 

Such a ruach Hashem by no means caused one of these people to speak of anything; rather its object was to move the one strengthened by it to a certain action: not to any chance action, but to an action that provides assistance a wronged one – whether it be one great man or a community – or to an action that leads to that result. 

And just as not everyone who has seen a true dream is a navi, not everyone who has received [divine] assistance in some chance matter – such as the acquisition of property or the achievement of an end that concerns him alone – can be said to have been accompanied by ruach Hashem, or that “Hashem is with him,” or to have done what he has done “through ruach ha’kodesh.” We only say this about one who has performed a good action of capital import or an action that leads to that result; as, for instance, the success of Joseph in the house of the Egyptian, which was, as is clear, the first cause for great things that occurred afterwards.

2nd Degree – Ruach ha’Kodesh: It consists in the fact that an individual finds that a certain thing has descended upon him and that another force has come upon him and has made him speak, so that he talks in words of wisdom, or praise, or in beneficial statements of rebuke, or concerning political or divine matters – and all this while he is awake and his senses function as usual. Such an individual is said to speak through ruach ha’kodesh (“holy spirit”). 

It is through this kind of ruach ha’kodesh that David composed Tehilim, and Shlomo composed Mishlei and Koheles and Shir ha’Shirim. Daniel and Iyov and Divrei ha’Yamim and all the other Kesuvim (Writings) have likewise been composed through this kind of ruach ha’kodesh. For this reason people call them Kesuvim, meaning thereby that they are written through ruach ha’kodesh.

As you can see from this source, in light of the other sources, the Rambam is very explicit in differentiating ruach ha'kodesh from nevuah. Here is a list of differences:

• nevuah is nevuah, whereas ruach ha'kodesh is "a steppingstone to nevuah" which is merely called nevuah
• in this sense it may be said that ruach ha'kodesh is "on a lower level" than nevuah
• in nevuah there is actual content conveyed from Hashem to man, whereas ruach ha'kodesh is a force which moves a person to speak profound statements of his own
• nevuah can only be received while asleep or in a trance, whereas a person receives ruach ha'kodesh while awake and in full possession of his sensory faculties
• nevuah comes in the form of mashal, whereas ruach ha'kodesh produces words
• in Nach, the books classified in Neviim contain words of nevuah whereas the books classified in Kesuvim contain words of ruach ha'kodesh

These differences are stark. Ruach ha'kodesh is not nevuah.

Support from the Sefer ha'Ikkarim

While I don't know enough to say that the Sefer ha'Ikkarim's [4] view of ruach ha'kodesh is identical to that of the Rambam, it certainly seems to be in the same vein. He begins with a description of the four levels of intellect. Level 5 is ruach ha'kodesh, and Level 6 is the first degree of nevuah. Again, I will not cite the entire chapter, but only enough to provide context for his treatment of ruach ha'kodesh and nevuah. The paragraph breaks, paragraph titles (including level numbers), and underlines are mine:

We must now explain the existence of prophecy and its various grades, so that believers may find it easier to understand the existence of prophecy and the different degrees thereof.

Level 1 - Senses: At the moment of birth the individual is devoid of all understanding. The first things that are formed in him are the five external senses, touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight. The individual does not get these all at once, but one at a time. At the moment of his appearance in the outer world he perceives only with the coarsest of the senses, that of touch. The objects of his perception at this stage are heat and cold, moisture and dryness, softness and hardness, roughness and smoothness and the like. After a further interval of time after birth, he perceives a finer and more ‘important class of objects, namely tastes, like sweet, bitter, sour, astringent, sharp, and so on. Later on he perceives another class of things still finer, namely the odors, the agreeable and the disagreeable, etc. Later still he perceives with the sense of hearing a class of objects that is still finer than those of the sense of smell, and that may be perceived at a greater distance, such as sounds and tones, and their various kinds, etc. Still later he perceives with the sense of sight another class of existents finer than all the rest, which can be perceived at a greater distance than the others, such as colors and forms according to their various kinds, and so on. One of these five senses cannot perceive the objects of the others. Thus, the sense of sight cannot perceive sounds, or tones or odors; nor can the senses of smell and taste perceive colors and sounds.

Level 2 - Memory: After he has advanced a considerable time and has become habituated to the five senses, he rises to a higher degree than that of perceiving the objects of the various senses. He now has the power of recognizing a thing when it is no longer actually perceived. He recognizes what he has once perceived when he sees it again, and though the thing has disappeared he remembers the knowledge which is impressed on his imagination and recognizes the object. This power of apprehension he acquires through the medium of the first faculty.

Level 3 - Intellectual Apprehension: As he grows older still, he attains to a higher degree by means of the first powers, a new gate opens before him, and he acquires the power of intellectual apprehension. He strips the sensible object of its particular qualities and apprehends the general essence. For example, he takes animality and rationality in a human being and judges that these are common to the whole species and are different from those particular qualities which differ in different individuals.

Level 4 - Intellectual Comprehension: As he advances further in years and acquires information, another gate opens before him which he has not entered hitherto. He now makes a distinction between substance and accident, and between the necessary, the possible and the impossible. He combines rational principles not based upon sense perception with each other, and acquires all the sciences, which he could not have acquired by means of the powers mentioned before.

These four stages form the limit of the human intellect, beyond which it cannot go. Some individuals do not reach the highest stage, but stop with the second or the third. These then are the powers which the generality of men have.

Level 5 - Ruach ha'Kodesh: But it is possible that in addition to these powers, still another gate may open to a person and still another degree may be attainable by him of which he has no idea. For just as, if a person who has never seen them were told about lights and colors, he would not be able to imagine them and would not understand the different colors, as a eunuch cannot imagine the pleasure of sexual intercourse, so it is possible that though by the custom of nature man does not attain a greater degree than the four mentioned, nevertheless the mind may conceive of a higher degree. And experience testifies to this. For we see that beyond the four degrees above mentioned, a new gate opens before a given person which his own nature never imagined, and he speaks words of wisdom or words of song and praise to God in pure and fluent style such as he was incapable of hitherto. Everyone who hears him wonders at his knowledge and the manner of his expression, while he himself does not know whence this power came to him, as a child learns to speak without knowing whence the power came. But everybody recognizes his superiority in this respect. This degree is called ruach ha’kodesh.

Level 6 - Developed Imagination: Now just as the human intellect stops at the four degrees above mentioned and does not pass beyond, so there are persons who stop at the degree of ruach ha’kodesh and do not pass beyond it. There are persons whose imagination is strong by nature or who do certain things to strengthen it, like the practices of the diviners or the woman with the familiar spirit. As a result of this they have imaginative visions. There are others who have true dreams, like Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, the chief butler and the chief baker. By reason of these powers some of them think they are prophets. They are the persons of whom the prophet in Scripture says that they “prophesy out of their own heart.” For though they sometimes speak the truth, they are bound sometimes to speak falsehood. Thus Ezekiel says, “Woe unto the vile prophets, that follow their own spirit, … They have seen vanity and lying divination, that say: The Lord saith; and the Lord hath not sent them, yet they hope that the word would be confirmed.” The intimation is that it is impossible, for though their words may be partly true, they can not but be partly false, for such is the nature of the power of imagination, the source of dreams. Our Rabbis say: As there is no wheat without straw, so there is no dream without foolishness.

Level 7 - 1st Degree of Nevuah: When, however, the rational power prevails over the imagination, then the person sees true dreams without foolishness. The explanation is given by the Rabbis: “Raba asked the question, How reconcile the statement, ‘And the dreams speak falsely,’ with the expression, ‘I do speak with him in a dream?’ His answer is, the two passages are not incompatible. The one passage refers to dreams that come through the medium of an angel, the other to those that come through the medium of a demon.” Angel stands for the rational power, demon for the power of imagination. If the rational power prevails over the power of imagination, the person sees true dreams or visions which communicate to him information he never had before. In the measure in which the rational power prevails over the imagination is the person better or less well prepared for nevuah. There are persons whose rational power is stronger than the imagination, but the superiority is not great, and hence the power of imagination maintains its strength. And therefore though the rational power is prepared to receive the nevuah, yet on account of the strength of the imagination and its opposition to the rational power, the person receives the [prophetic] overflow in trembling and pain. His limbs shake, his sinews tend to dissolve, and a great trembling comes over him, that his soul almost leaves him. And after all that pain the nevuah comes to the rational power in a dream or vision of the night, and the person dreams prophetic dreams and learns things he has never known before — ideas about the separate substances, or particular notions, or universal ideas of existence, and the like. This is the first degree of nevuah.

Similar to the Rambam, ruach ha'kodesh is identified as a level of intellection which is prior to nevuah, and the descriptions of each phenomenon mirror what the Rambam wrote.

Concluding Thoughts

So when my students ask me whether Rashi or the other meforshim had ruach ha'kodesh, I summarize the definitions of ruach ha'kodesh and nevuah presented here, making sure that they at least walk away with an awareness that the two phenomena are distinct. Then I answer their question by saying that it is entirely possible that chachamim (wise people) throughout the ages spoke or wrote with ruach ha'kodesh, even after the time that nevuah ceased. 

However, I do not think this has any ramifications on how we learn. Even if, for example, the Raavad [5] claims that his critique of the Rambam's shitah (view) is backed by ruach ha'kodesh, that doesn't mean that the Rambam needs to abandon his opinion, nor does it necessitate that we side with the Raavad.

Similarly, this does not mean that Chazal - and certainly the Geonim, Rishonim, and Achronim - were infallible. One need look no further than Vayikra Chapter 4 (about the sin-offerings brought by a Sanhedrin that errs) or the story of the Achnai Ovens (Bava Metzia 59b) to see that Chazal can err - despite the fact that they were inevitably moved by ruach ha'kodesh.

That pretty much exhausts my knowledge of ruach ha'kodesh. Perhaps one day we will explore views of ruach ha'kodesh which differ from that of the Rambam. 

[1] Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam / Maimonides), Commentary on the Mishnah: Sanhedrin Chapter 10, Introduction

[2] ibid. Mishneh Torah: Sefer ha'Mada, Hilchos Yesodei ha'Torah Chapters 7-10

[3] ibid. Moreh ha'Nevuchim 2:45; the paragraph breaks are mine

[4] Rabbeinu Yosef Albo, Sefer ha'Ikkarim 3:10; ordinarily I would translate this on my own, but I'm pressed for time, so I've decided to use the translation on www.sefaria.org (Jewish Publication Society of America: 1929)

[5] Rabbeinu Avraham ibn Daud, Critiques on Mishneh Torah: Sefer Zmanim, Hilchos Shofar, v'Sukkah, v'Lulav 8:5

How Thomas Paine Forgot Sinai

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Artwork: Portrait of Thomas Paine, by Laurent Dabos

How Thomas Paine Forgot Sinai

In 1794 Thomas Paine published his pro-Deism anti-religion book, The Age of Reason. Quite early on in the book he sets forth his refutation of "Divine revelation." He begins by affirming the centrality of revelation in the three major religions. 

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. 

Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all. 

So far, so good. Next, he defines the term "revelation" and, on the basis of this definition, states that something can only be considered a "revelation" by the direct recipient of the communication.

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. 

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it. 

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication — after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

Also good. This is why we reject the authority of any religion based on one, two, or several individuals who claim to have received a divine revelation. There is no way to verify such a claim, and no reason to trust those who make it.

But then he makes an egregious factual error about Judaism's revelation claim:

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hands of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so. The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention.

Thomas Paine completely missed the one claim which sets Judaism apart from all other religions: the claim of public revelation - that the entire nation of Israel heard God speak to Moshe at Sinai. 

The Torah explicitly makes this claim in a number of places:

Hashem said to Moshe, "Behold! I will come to you in the thickness of the cloud, in order that the people hear when I speak with you, and they will also believe in you forever." (Shemos 19:9)

Only beware for yourself and greatly beware for your soul, lest you forget the things that your eyes have beheld and lest you remove them from your heart all the days of your life, and make them known to your children and your children’s children – the day that you stood before Hashem, your God, at Horeb, when Hashem said to me, “Gather the people to Me and I shall let them hear My words, so that they shall learn to fear Me all the days that they live on the earth, and they shall teach their children” So you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire up to the heart of heaven, darkness, cloud, and thick cloud. Hashem spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you were hearing the sound of words, but you were not seeing a likeness, only a sound. He told you of His covenant that He commanded you to observe, the Ten Declarations, and He inscribed them on two stone Tablets. (Devarim 4:9-13) 

For inquire now regarding the early days that preceded you, from the day when God created man on the earth, and from one end of heaven to the other end of heaven: Has there ever been anything like this great thing or has anything like it been heard? Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire as you have heard, and survived? Or has any god ever miraculously come to take for himself a nation from amidst a nation, with challenges, with signs, and with wonders, and with war, and with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with greatly awesome deeds, such as everything that Hashem, your God, did for you in Egypt before your eyes? You have been shown in order to know that Hashem, He is the God! There is none beside Him! From heaven He caused you to hear His voice in order to teach you, and on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire, because He loved your forefathers, and He chose his offspring after him, and took you out before Himself with His great strength from Egypt; to drive away from before you nations that are greater and mightier than you, to bring you, to give you their land as an inheritance, as this very day. (ibid. 4:32-37) 

These words Hashem spoke to your entire congregation on the mountain, from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick cloud – a great voice, never to be repeated – and He inscribed them on two stone Tablets and gave them to me. It happened that when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness and the mountain was burning in fire, that you – all the heads of your tribes and your elders – approached me. They said, “Behold! Hashem, our God, has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; this day we saw that Hashem will speak to a person and he can live. But now, why should we die when this great fire consumes us? If we continue to hear the voice of Hashem, our God, any longer, we will die! For is there any human that has heard the voice of the Living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? You should approach and hear whatever Hashem, our God, will say, and you should speak to us whatever Hashem, our God, will speak to you – then we shall hear and we shall do.” (ibid. 5:19-23)

So I made an Ark of cedarwood and I carved out two stone Tablets like the first ones; then I ascended the mountain with the two Tablets in my hand. He inscribed on the Tablets according to the first script, the Ten Statements that Hashem spoke to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire, on the day of the congregation, and Hashem gave them to me. I turned and descended from the mountain, and I placed the Tablets in the Ark that I had made, and they remained there as Hashem had commanded me. (Devarim 10:3-5) 

This was my first reading of Paine's The Age of Reason, and I must say that he severely undermined his own credibility by not even bothering to do a fact-check on the source-text of the religion he intends to debunk! He even stated earlier that "the Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face." Apparently, he didn't believe that we take our own claim seriously!

But it gets better! In the next chapter Paine sets up an argument about the evidence needed to believe in miracles. As we'll see, if he applied this line of reasoning to what Judaism actually claims, this would lead him to the conclusion that the Torah was given at Sinai. Paine writes:

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former. I did not see the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believe it. 

When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not; such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it; but we have not even this — for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said so — it is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence ... 

The wretched contrivance with which this latter part is told exceeds every thing that went before it. The first part, that of the miraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity; and therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this advantage, that though they might not be credited, they could not be detected. They could not be expected to prove it, because it was not one of those things that admitted of proof, and it was impossible that the person of whom it was told could prove it himself. 

But the resurrection of a dead person from the grave, and his ascension through the air, is a thing very different as to the evidence it admits of, to the invisible conception of a child in the womb. The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have taken place, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon-day, to all Jerusalem at least. A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal; and as the public visibility of this last related act was the only evidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole of it falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection, and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I, and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas. 

It is in vain to attempt to palliate or disguise this matter. The story, so far as relates to the supernatural part, has every mark of fraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it. Who were the authors of it is as impossible for us now to know, as it is for us to be assured that the books in which the account is related were written by the persons whose names they bear; the best surviving evidence we now have respecting that affair is the Jews. They are regularly descended from the people who lived in the times this resurrection and ascension is said to have happened, and they say, it is not true. It has long appeared to me a strange inconsistency to cite the Jews as a proof of the truth of the story. It is just the same as if a man were to say, I will prove the truth of what I have told you by producing the people who say it is false.

To summarize, Paine's criteria for believing in a miraculous phenomenon are three in number:

(1) the miracle would have to be publicly visible ("admitting to public and oracular demonstration ... like that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon-day") 

(2) it would have to have been witnessed by a large group of people (not "a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine ... introduced as proxies for the whole world" and "to all Jerusalem at least") 

(3) these witnesses would have to be identifiable (not "impossible for us to now know"), so that their testimony could be corroborated by non-witnesses 

Paine even acknowledges that the descendants of the alleged witnesses to a public miracle would be sufficient to establish its historicity, writing that "[the Jews] are regularly descended from the people who lived in the times this resurrection and ascension is said to have happened, and they say it is not true" - implying that if they did say that these miracles happened, then we would believe them.

Guess which miraculous event meets these three criteria? The Giving of the Torah at Sinai! If you haven't yet read the entitled Torah from Sinai, then I recommend you drop everything and read it as soon as possible. For those who have read it, I will quote the passage that speaks most directly to Thomas Paine:

We are now in a position to determine what [sort of miraculous] event could be performed that would retain its validity for future generations. Since future generations cannot observe the event directly, it would have to be an event that rules out in its process of communication the causes of doubt due to the ignorance of the communicators and due to fabrication. A simple event grasped easily by the senses that occurs before a mass of people who later attest to its occurrence would fulfill the requirements. Such an event would have all the credibility of the most accepted historical fact. If we doubt either a simple event attested to by masses of people or a complex event attested to by qualified individuals, we would ipso facto have to doubt almost all the knowledge we have acquired in all the sciences, all the humanities, and in all the different disciplines existing today. Moreover we would have to desist from consulting with physicians, dentists, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, or specialists in any field who work from an accepted body of knowledge. 

The event at Sinai fulfills the above requirements. The events witnessed as described were of a simple perceptual nature so that ordinary people could apprehend them. The event at Sinai was structured with the same built-in ingredients that cause us to accept any historical fact or any kind of secondhand knowledge ...

Someone may ask how we know that these events were as described in the Torah, clearly visible, and that they transpired before the entire nation. Perhaps this itself is a fabrication? The answer to this question is obvious. We accept a simple fact attested to by numerous observers because we consider mass conspiracy absurd. For the very same reason no public event can be fabricated, for we would have to assume a mass conspiracy of silence with regard to the occurrence of that event. If someone were to tell us that an atomic bomb was detonated over New York City fifty years ago, we would not accept it as true because we would assume that we would have certainly heard about it, had it actually occurred. The very factors which compel us to accept as true an account of an event of public proportion safeguards us against fabrication of such an event. 

Were this not so all of history could have been fabricated. Had the event at Sinai not actually occurred anyone fabricating it at any point in time would have met with the stiff refutation of the people, "had a mass event of that proportion ever occurred we surely would have heard of it." Fabrication of an event of public proportion is not within the realm of credibility. 

History corroborates this point. In spite of the strong religious instinct in man, no modern religion in over two thousand years has been able to base itself on public revelation. A modern religion demands some kind of verifiable occurrence in order to be accepted. For this reason the two major Western religions, Christianity and Islam, make recourse to the revelation at Sinai. Were it not for this need and the impossibility of manufacturing such evidence, they certainly would not have based their religions on another religion's revelation. 

[I cannot emphasize this enough: if you haven't read the aforementioned essay - or this version of the same argument, or this one - then I urge you to do so.]

This isn't the first time we've seen a great mind spell out the Torah mi'Sinai argument step by step, only to stop short of the logical conclusion which follows. Several years ago we wrote about how Sigmund Freud did just that in his Introductory Letters on Psychoanalysis (1916). Just this summer we wrote about how Mortimer Adler also glossed over Judaism's unique revelation claim in his Truth in Religion (1992).

I guess this just goes to show that just because someone is great thinker who lives in The Age of Reason and advocates for a Life of Reason doesn’t necessarily mean that he will reach the conclusions dictated by Reason.

Human Expectations and Divine Redemption

Here's a blog post I cranked out just now, on Purim afternoon, in the few hours between minchah and seudah. My apologies for any errors or lack of clarity or incompleteness. Time was of the essence! 

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Artwork: Forest (Zendikar), by Vincent Proce

Human Expectations and Divine Redemption

Yeshayahu 55 as an Introduction to Megilas Esther

When Chazal gave drashos (homiletic expositions) on entire books of Tanach they would customarily begin with a pesichta - an introductory drashah. This pesichta would usually be rooted in a pasuk from another book of Tanach, but would aim to encapsulate a major theme or idea of the book for which the pesichta served as an introduction. For example, a pesichta to Megilas Eichah might be based on a pasuk in Mishlei; a pesichta to Shir ha'Shirim might be based on a pasuk in Tehilim. 

The Gemara in Megilah (15b) presents a collection of pesichtos on Megilas Esther. I would like to briefly explore the drashah of R' Shmuel bar Nachmani. Here is the translation: 

R' Shmuel bar Nachmani began with this pesichta: "In place of the thorn, a cypress will rise; and in place of the nettle, a myrtle will rise; [and it shall be for Hashem for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off]" (Yeshayahu 55:13). 

"In place of the thorn" - [this means:] in place of the evil Haman, who made himself into object of avodah zarah (idolatrous worship), as it is written: "and upon all thorns and upon all branches" (ibid. 7:19).

"a cypress will rise" - this refers to Mordechai, who was called "the finest of the spices," as it is stated: "And you - take for yourself the finest of the spices, pure myrrh" (Shemos 30:23), and the Targum translates ["pure myrrh"] as "mari dachi" (מרי דכי in Aramaic, which resembles the spelling of Mordechai, מרדכי, in Hebrew).

"and in place of the nettle" - [this means:] in place of the evil Vashti, granddaughter of the evil Nevuchadnetzar, who burnt the resting place of the House of God, as it is written: "His resting place was gold" (Shir ha'Shirim 3:10).

"a myrtle (hadas) will rise" - this refers to the righteous Esther, who was called "Hadassah" (myrtle). 

"and it shall be for Hashem for a name" - this refers to the reading of the Megilah. 

"for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off" - this refers to the days of Purim. 

When my chavrusa and I prepared this drashah we found the particulars to be a bit daunting. Why is Vashti mentioned and not Achashveirosh? What's with comparison between Mordechai and the spices of the ketoress (incense)? How are the pesukim cited here relevant to the points that R' Shmuel bar Nachmani made? Why do the points about Mordechai and Esther focus on their names, whereas the points about Haman and Vashti focus on the wicked deeds associated with them?

Instead of trying to answer these questions, we focused on trying to get the main idea, and attempting to understand how R' Shmuel bar Nachmani intended this pesichta to be an introduction to Megilas Esther.

The Main Idea of Yeshayahu 55

In order to understand the insight that R' intended to shed on Megilas Esther, we must analyze the pasuk from Sefer Yeshayahu in its context. Here is the full passage:

Seek Hashem when He can be found; call upon Him when He is near. Let the wicked one abandon his path and the iniquitous man his thoughts; let him return to Hashem and He will show him mercy; to our God, for He is abundantly forgiving. For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways - the word of Hashem. As the heavens are high over the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For just as the rain and snow descend from heaven and will not return there, rather it waters the earth and causes it to produce and sprout, and gives seed to the sower and food to the eater, so shall be My word that emanates from My mouth, it will not return to Me unfulfilled unless it will have accomplished what I desired and brought success where I sent it. For in gladness shall you go out and in peace shall you arrive, the mountains and hills will break out in glad song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap hands. In place of the thorn, a cypress will rise; and in place of the nettle, a myrtle will rise. This will be for Hashem for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off (Yeshayahu 55:6-13).

This passage can be divided into three sections. I will restate the pesukim according to their divisions, prefaced by titles which summarize their themes:

Section #1 - Hashem's Acceptance of Teshuvah: Seek Hashem when He can be found; call upon Him when He is near. Let the wicked one abandon his path and the iniquitous man his thoughts; let him return to Hashem and He will show him mercy; to our God, for He is abundantly forgiving. For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways - the word of Hashem. As the heavens are high over the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

Radak explains that the navi is reassuring the sinner that his teshuvah will be accepted. Hashem is not like a human being. A human being who is wronged might not be willing to forgive the wrongdoer on account of the severity of the offense. Alternatively, he might forgive him outwardly but secretly continue to bear a grudge. Hashem isn't like that. Even if a person is a rasha (evildoer) who has sinned egregiously, he should never give up on doing teshuvah. Hashem always desires and accepts teshuvah, and is abundant in His forgiveness. 

Section #2 - Hashem's Word is Beneficial and Reliable: For just as the rain and snow descend from heaven and will not return there, rather it waters the earth and causes it to produce and sprout, and gives seed to the sower and food to the eater, so shall be My word that emanates from My mouth, it will not return to Me unfulfilled unless it will have accomplished what I desired and brought success where I sent it.

We are familiar with the water cycle: rain and snow fall from heaven, they water the earth, causing vegetation to sprout and food to grow for humans and animals; then the water "returns to the heavens" and the cycle begins anew. We have no trouble accepting the reality of the water cycle, and yet, when it comes to the word of Hashem, we become filled with doubt. We fear that His prophecies will not come true, we doubt that the mitzvos will actually be "for our benefit" (cf. Devarim 10:13), and we are skeptical about His hashgachah (providence). Yeshayahu is pointing out that we are being hypocritical: if we accept the water cycle, which operates in accordance with the word of Hashem, then we should accept all other instances of the word of Hashem as equally reliable. There should be no difference in our reliance on the laws of physics and the laws of metaphysics, since Hashem is the author of both sets of laws.

Section #3 - Hashem's Redemption is Certain: For in gladness shall you go out and in peace shall you arrive, the mountains and hills will break out in glad song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap hands. In place of the thorn, a cypress will rise; and in place of the nettle, a myrtle will rise. This will be for Hashem for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

According to the Radak, this last part of the nevuah (prophecy) is about the future geulah (redemption) from galus (exile). He explains: "For in gladness you shall go out" of exile, "and in peace you shall arrive" in your Land. The rest of the passage is an allegory for the joy and flourishing that we will experience when we are redeemed. 

Now that we've gone over the pshat of this passage, we need to understand the main idea. What is the relationship between these three points that Yeshayahu is making? 

I believe the answer lies in what is perhaps the most important pasuk in this entire passage: "For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways - the word of Hashem." I say that this is the most important pasuk because, according to the Rambam (Moreh ha'Nevuchim 3:23), the idea of this pasuk contains the core message of Sefer Iyov - a book of profound wisdom, ascribed to Moshe Rabbeinu, on the subject of Hashem's management of human affairs. Rambam writes: 

How can we think that His management (hanhagah) and supervision (hashgachah) over [His creations] is at all similar to our management of what we manage and supervision over what we supervise? … Rather the term “supervision” (hashgachah) as applied to Him is not the same concept as our supervision, nor is His “management” (hanhagah) of His creations the same concept as our management of what we manage. The two concepts are not even comprised in one and the same definition – as is thought by those who are confused – and there is nothing in common between the two except in name alone. 

In the same way, our actions do not resemble His actions, and the two are not comprised in one and the same definition. Just as natural acts differ from those of craftsmanship, so do the Divine management (hanhagah), supervision (hashgachah), intention (kavanah) in these natural phenomena differ from our management, supervision, and intention of what we manage, supervise, and intend. 

This is the purpose of the entire Book of Iyov as a whole, namely, the establishing of this foundational concept, and the drawing of attention to the inference to be drawn from natural matters, so that you should not err and seek to affirm in your imagination that His knowledge (yediah) is like our knowledge, or that His intention (kavanah), supervision (hashgachah), and management (hanhagah) are like our intention, supervision, and management. 

We humans are prone to mistakenly thinking that Hashem operates in the same way that we do. We project our fallible, human tendencies onto the transcendent Creator. We imagine that His management, His knowledge, His intentions, and His supervision are the same as our own, and that we can understand these things by relying on the same premises as we do when we think about human behavior. This is a major error.

Yeshayahu pointed out three manifestations of this error: (1) we don't do teshuvah because we think of Hashem in the same way that we think of an unforgiving human being, (2) we don't trust that His words are true and will yield benefit, and (3) when we see the "overgrown thorns and nettles" of our state of exile, we can't imagine that there will ever be lush growth there; we don't believe that the joy and geulah will ever replace the sorrow and oppression of galus. 

By drawing allegories from the natural world - an instantiation of "Hashem's ways" that we are  familiar with, and that we do rely upon - Yeshayahu reassures us that we can also rely on Hashem in these three areas with the same degree of trust: we can trust that our teshuvah will be accepted, that the word of Hashem will be fulfilled and will benefit us, and that He will redeem us from exile and cause us to rejoice and flourish in our Land.

Yeshayahu 55 as the Theme of Megilas Esther

Okay, now that we've gone over the main idea of this passage in Yeshayu, the question is: What does this have to do with Megilas Esther? What is the connection that R' Shmuel bar Nachmani wanted us to see, and to adopt as our framework for reading Megilas Esther?

I believe the answer is that the Jews in Shushan might have easily made the same mistake that Yeshayahu warned about, namely, equating Hashem's ways with our ways. 

Think about what it would be like as a Jew in Shushan. Haman, second-in-command to the king, decreed a total genocide on the entire Jewish population. The situation seemed utterly hopeless. It would have been very easy for the Jews to give up hope - to doubt or deny all of the promises made by countless neviim that Hashem would ultimately deliver His people from their enemies and bring them back to their Land. They might think that even if they did teshuvah and turned to Hashem in tefilah, He would neither forgive them nor listen to them. They might think that He had abandoned His people, despite his numerous promises.

But they didn't make that mistake. Bnei Yisrael, led by Esther and Mordechai, remained true to the word of Hashem. They fasted, they davened, and they did teshuvah. They relied on the chochmah that they had acquired from Torah and did everything in their power to bring about salvation. They trusted that Hashem would save them, and they acted on that trust. 

And what was the result? V'nahafoch hu - a complete reversal of our expectations. The "thorn" of Haman was replaced by the "cypress" of Mordechai, and the "nettle" of Vashti with the "myrtle" of Esther. Instead of the Jewish people being annihilated by their enemies forever, the opposite happened: their enemies' lives were cut short, the Jews were saved, and their salvation was memorialized forever in the institution of Megilah and the days of Purim. 

Mordechai and Esther established Purim and its mitzvos so that Klal Yisrael would always have an example of how to respond to an existential threat. "In each and every generation they stand against us, to destroy us" (Haggadah shel Pesach). If we, like the audience of Yeshayahu 55, view Hashem's management of the world the same way that we view human management, then we will be prone to despair and to reliance on futile plans that are built upon human delusions, and we will fail. But if we take Yeshayahu's message to heart, that "My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways," and we trust in Hashem, rely on His word, and act accordingly - as did the Jews of Shushan - then "Ha'Kadosh Baruch Hu [will] save us from their hand." 

No matter how dire the situation may seem from a human standpoint, Hashem is not bound by human conventions, nor is He confined to our limited understanding of how He will bring about redemption, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways." And we need look no further than Megilas Esther for a real-world example of how all of our expectations were completely reversed: "In place of the thorn, a cypress will rise; and in place of the nettle, a myrtle will rise. This will be for Hashem for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." 

As we celebrate Purim, we should take these ideas to heart so that if (God forbid) we find ourselves in a similar situation in the future, we will be able to have trust in the word of Hashem, Whose ways transcend human understanding.

Parashas Vaeschanan: Testing God

Parashas Vaeschanan: Testing God

One of the many mitzvos which are presented in this week's parashah is the mitzvah of "lo tenasu es Hashem" ("do not test Hashem"). This mitzvah is introduced in its own little paragraph:

You shall not test Hashem, your God, as you tested Him at Massah. You shall surely observe the commandments of Hashem, your God, and His testimonies and His decrees that He commanded you. You shall do what is fair and good in the eyes of Hashem, so that it will be good for you, and you shall come and possess the good Land that Hashem swore to your forefathers, to thrust away all your enemies from before you, as Hashem spoke (Devarim 6:16-19)

These pesukim raise two questions:

1. Practically speaking, what is this mitzvah commanding us not to do? What does it mean to "test Hashem, as you tested Him at Massah"?
2. What does the rest of this paragraph have to do with testing Hashem? The paragraph begins with an injunction against testing Hashem, but continues with (what seems to be) typical Devarim-themed statements, urging Bnei Yisrael to keep the mitzvos and assuring them that He will take them to the Promised Land.

Thankfully, it is easy to figure out where we should begin: the incident at Massah:

The entire assembly of Bnei Yisrael journeyed from the Wilderness of Sin to their journeys, according to the word of Hashem. They encamped in Rephidim and there was no water for the people to drink. The people contended with Moshe and they said, "Give us water that we may drink!" Moshe said to them, "Why do you contend with me? Why do you test Hashem?" The people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moshe, and it said, "Why is this that you have brought us up from Egypt to kill me and my children and my livestock through thirst?" 

Moshe cried out to Hashem, saying, "What shall I do for this people? I bit more and they will stone me!" 

Hashem said to Moshe, "Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and in your hand take your staff with which you struck the River, and go. Behold! - I shall stand before you by the rock in Horeb; you shall strike the rock and water will come forth from it and the people will drink." Moshe did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah u'Merivah, because of the contention of Bnei Yisrael and because of their test of Hashem, saying, "Is Hashem among us or not?"(Shemos 17:

The Ramban fills us in on the motives behind Bnei Yisrael's complaints, and in doing so, he answers our first question by defining the scope of the prohibition:

The meaning of "as you tested Him at Massah" is that you shouldn't say, "If Hashem is among us [such that He will] perform miracles - or bring us success by satiating us with bread and ensuring our well-being - then when we will keep His Torah!" - for that was the intention [of Bnei Yisrael] there [at Massah]. They saw [fit to reason as follows:] if Hashem would miraculously provide water for them, then they would follow Him in the Wilderness, but if not, they would abandon Him. This was considered to be a major sin on their part, for once it had been verified to them through miracles and wonders that Moshe was Hashem's prophet and that he spoke the word of Hashem in truth, it was wrong for them to perform further tests. A person who does this is not testing the navi, but rather, he is testing Hashem, to know whether His ability is limited. 

For this reason, He prohibited future generations from testing the Torah or the neviim, for it is not proper for a person to serve Hashem in a dubious manner, or to demand a miracle or a test, for it is not Hashem's will to do miracles for every person at every time, and it is not proper to serve Hashem on the condition of receiving reward. Instead, if a person should happen to find pain or suffering in his [divine] service or in his following the paths of the Torah, it is proper for him to accept everything with justice and righteousness - not like the fools of our nation said, "It is useless to serve God! What gain is there for us that we have kept His watch, and that we walk submissively before Hashem, Master of Legions?" (Malachi 3:14).

The mitzvah of lo tenasu prohibits us from doing two things: (1) continuing to test a navi after the authenticity of his nevuah has already been verified, and (2) serving Hashem on the condition that He will reward us - as we see fit. Bnei Yisrael at Massah erred in both regards: they demanded that Moshe Rabbeinu perform a miracle for them, even though his nevuah had been well-established by the numerous miracles in Mitzrayim and at Yam Suf; they also made their service of Hashem contingent on Him "serving" them in a specific manner.

The Ramban continues by explaining what the rest of the paragraph has to do with this lo taaseh:

It is for this reason that the pasuk says here that you shall surely observe His mitzvos (commandments) and His eidos (testimonies) - because they [testify to] the miracles that He did for you in the past, for which they serve as testimonials (e.g. pesach, matzah, sukkah). [Likewise,] "you shall keep His chukim (decrees)" even though you don't know their reasons, for in truth, they will benefit you in the end. There is no need to test the Torah and the mitzvos after you have already verified for yourself that they are from Him (blessed is He) ... 

It is for this reason that [Moshe Rabbeinu] promised that the glory will come in the end, with the inheritance of the Land and victory over the enemies, for this is a great good, and was necessary for that generation. Afterwards he said that even for future generations there is no need for testing in the performance of mitzvos, but rather, they should ask their fathers and their elders who will tell them the truth of the Torah and the mitzvos, as he subsequently explains, "When your son asks you tomorrow, saying, 'What are the eidos, and the chukim, and the mishpatim that Hashem, our God, commanded you?' You shall say to your child, 'We were slaves to Paroh in Mitzrayim, and Hashem took us out of Mitzrayim with a strong hand. Hashem placed signs and wonders, great and terrible, against Egypt, against Paroh, and against his entire household before our very eyes, etc.." (Devarim 6:20-25).

Ramban's answer to our second question is as follows. After commanding Bnei Yisrael not to test Hashem by demanding proof that He is with them or by demanding a reward for their service, Moshe Rabbeinu then addresses their concerns. "You want proof that Hashem is with you? Look no further than the events of Yetzias Mitzrayim, which your parents - and some of you - experienced. You want benefits for keeping the mitzvos? How does conquering Eretz Yisrael sound? It's all right there in the words of nevuah - those very same prophetic words which you stubbornly refused to accept even after their authenticity was verified time and again."

Ordinarily, when I write these weekly divrei Torah, I try to bring out some new insight or application. But every once in a while, it is best to just let the Torah speak for itself. The two problematic behaviors exhibited by Bnei Yisrael at Massah continue to afflict us to this day. How many people out there still attempt to "make deals" with Hashem, saying, "I'll do such-and-such for You if You do such-and-such for me?" How many Jews keep all of the eidos which testify to the historicity of the miracles that Hashem performed, but still question the veracity of nevuah and desire for Hashem to miraculously reveal Himself to them, personally?

This is precisely why lo tenasu is one of the 613 mitzvos, for all generations. The problems which it is designed to uproot are perennial. If the generation that witnessed these miracles continued to test Hashem, we must ponder why that is the case. Apparently, our feeling that, "Everyone would accept Hashem, if only He did a miracle for them!" is not as true as we think it is. Perhaps this is another reason why lo tenasu is a mitzvah: to prompt us to analyze the roots of the subversive attitudes which the mitzvah is intended to eliminate.

In other words, this mitzvah, itself, serves as a test: a test to see whether we are willing to examine our own desire to test Hashem, and to actually do something about it.