Redeeming Our Torah
The last century has been a most tumultuous one for the Jewish people. The changes in family structure and geographic distribution, as well as the internalization of modernity, have radically transformed the Jews from what they had been before.
Even the Orthodox community, which has attempted to preserve the world of the past, has been greatly affected by this. In that community’s writings, change is more evident from what is not being said than from what is being said. The profound and original thinking characteristic of a strong, self-confident culture has largely given way to restatement and reformulation of past writings, something that is associated with a culture under siege. As will be discussed later, this is especially the case when it comes to original thought aimed at interpreting Judaism’s most basic source – the Bible.
In this context, the following introduction of a well-respected educator and prominent rabbi’s book is most revealing:
I have avoided citations from Torah literature. I do not feel myself qualified to interpret the words of our sages nor do I feel that I have the right to attempt to use [Talmudic literature] as a means of proving my contentions.
Doing so would have cheapened the words of the Torah and also might have led to adapting [Talmudic literature] to fit one’s personal theory rather than adapting one’s theory to fit [Talmudic literature].
No doubt, this rabbi’s intentions are praiseworthy. He does not want to cheapen the Torah, nor to risk misinterpreting it. His fears are not unfounded: In recent years, there have certainly been many writers who have suggested superficial or even silly teachings based on their own reading of the Torah. Such interpretations certainly have diminished the words of the Torah and its classical commentaries.
Even though his fears are well founded, the alternative implicitly suggested may be even worse. If a leading Jewish educator can write a major essay without referring back to our classical sources, what does this say about the impact of the Torah in our times? If we do not even attempt to check our ideas against the Torah and its accompanying literature, where does that leave the supposed centrality of Torah in our lives, the lives of today’s Jews? Are we to study our classical texts only as an intellectual exercise? Out of fear of misreading our holy texts then, we are relegating them to irrelevance. Regardless of whether or not this was the intention of the rabbi quoted above, we see fewer and fewer attempts to seek the Torah’s guidance regarding new ideas and behavior that are emerging in all sectors of the Jewish community.
This is the way one treats antiquities: by protecting them in museums, the artifacts lose any relevance to the present. In contrast, this is not the way Jews have treated their Torah throughout history. From time immemorial, Jews have taken the risk of misinterpreting the Torah. They have done so in order to find guidance, inspiration, and truth for themselves and their communities. This, perhaps more than anything else, has allowed our ancient Torah to be a living document for the Jewish people.
It is no accident, then, that so many Torah commentators have recorded ideas based on the Torah and its accompanying literature that spoke to these commentators’ cultural realities. From Ramban’s discussion of persecutions, to Abarbanel’s treatment of statesmanship, to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s insights on freedom and the dignity of man, readers in their respective periods were surely grateful to find their own concerns addressed by authentic readings of the Torah.
Indeed, many who have discarded the Torah in modern times have done so out of a sense that it addresses exclusively the worldview of the ancients and not that of people today. The Torah’s perceived irrelevance has caused people to lose interest in it and in Judaism altogether. Consequently, seeking the Torah’s relevance for our times is of major practical consequence.
This book starts with the need to return to the profound originality, characteristic of Jewish tradition, in interpreting our classical texts. In this we would do well to take our guidance from the greats of yesteryear who, as in most things, show us the true ways of our rich tradition.
In order to return to the creativity of the past, we will first need to discuss its underlying assumptions.
Multiplicity of Meaning
It is certainly true that a text will generally be most relevant to the geographical and historical culture in which it was written. The nature of what we refer to as a classic work, however, is that it contains many elements, the relevance of which transcends its own culture. Still, the greater the disparity between the respective cultures of the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other, the more unlikely that even a classic work can truly be relevant to the reader. This issue is an important consideration in elucidating the Torah’s relevance hundreds and thousands of years after its writing. Here, the disparity is not between author and reader but between the original intended audience and subsequent readers. After all, it would be like sticking our heads in the sand to pretend that we have the same exact material culture, beliefs and attitudes as Jews did in all previous time periods. As a result, some scholars would tell us that seeking relevance in the Torah is quite artificial, since the intention of the text was to convey information to a specific historical culture, one far removed from our own. While such scholars would not deny the relevance of certain universal ideas that exist in the Torah, they would contend that the Torah’s relevance is really quite limited.
Throughout history, however, Jews have understood the Torah to be a document that was meant for every generation.1See Nechama Leibowitz, “A Torah for All Seasons and Persons,” in Studies in Devarim (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1963) pp. 50–55. This, presumably without the help of contemporary academic trends in literary analysis and critique which deemphasize the intended meaning of texts. While such trends may indeed have some parallels in classical Jewish sources, it is highly unlikely that Jewish Biblical exegetes rooted their search for relevance in such thought.2See R. Aharon Lichtenstein, “Torat Hesed and Torat Emet,” in Leaves of Faith (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2003) especially pp. 80–82, for an interesting treatment of similarities and differences between various contemporary trends in literary criticism and the freedom of interpretation common in post-rabbinic literature. Rather, the classical search for relevance seems to be rooted in what commentators perceived to be the unique properties that emanate from the Torah’s Divine authorship. That is to say, whereas a human author’s meaning is necessarily limited by his culture, God’s intentions and meaning can span whatever possibilities the words can legitimately carry.3It is interesting to note that the famous literary scholar and critic, E.D. Hirsch, half-jokingly concedes that the limits on meaning engendered by an author’s culturally determined intentions only apply to a human author and not to a Divine one. See E.D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967) p. 126, note 37. God’s ability to communicate two contradictory things at once is actually illustrated in a different context by a famous midrash. In the Mechilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 20:8:1, we read that when delivering the Decalogue (specifically, the fourth commandment), God said two different words, shamor and zachor, at the same time. What is illustrated here about God’s ability to communicate two words simultaneously – which the Midrash points out is impossible for a human speaker – can provide a paradigm for God’s propensity to communicate simultaneous meanings of the words actually written in the Torah.
In his classic work, Duties of the Heart (Chovot haLevavot), R. Bachya ibn Pakuda addresses this very point. Regarding the Torah’s use of physical human imagery to describe God, R. Bachya writes:
Had Scripture [not used anthropomorphisms], the majority of mankind… would have been left without a religion. But the word which may be understood in a material sense will not hurt the intelligent person, since he recognizes its real meaning. And it will help the simple, as its use will result in fixing in his heart and mind the conception that he has a Creator Whom he is bound to serve.4R. Bachya ibn Pakuda, Duties of the Heart, Trans. Moses Hyamson (Jerusalem: Feldheim Publishers, 1962), Sha’ar haYichud (Vol. 1) Chap. 10.
In other words, God expressly used human imagery to describe Himself, wanting simple people to read such imagery on a literal level and more sophisticated people to read it on a figurative level.
An even clearer, though more localized example of this idea is found in the words of Don Yitzchak Abarbanel, who explains how God set up Avraham to misunderstand that which He was saying:
In order that Avraham not know [God’s] true intention [not to have Yitzchak sacrificed], He spoke to him words that can be understood in two different ways (devarim sovlim shnei perushim). Avraham would understand one of them and God would mean the other.5Abarbanel, Bereshit 22:11–12.
Here we see the use of a phrase which, according to Abarbanel, was expressly used in order that it would be understood in contradictory ways.
The two examples cited above clearly show how major classical commentators understood that God intentionally seeks to convey more than one message through the words of the Torah, whenever needed. This gives the Torah the critical capacity mentioned earlier – to communicate several meanings simultaneously.
In a similar vein, our sages teach us that there are different but equally valid modes for understanding the words of the Torah. In this case, we are not speaking of multiple simultaneous meanings but rather of multiple approaches to the derivation of meaning. Still, it is helpful in understanding how Jewish tradition allowed for a pluralistic approach to the text. For example, the rabbis spent a great deal of time trying to understand the text via various technical patterns (derash) which went beyond the literal meaning and sometimes even contradicted it, as in the famous verse (Shemot 21:2) that speaks about repaying an “eye for an eye.” The Rabbis interpret this verse to mean that the perpetrator of the crime must pay the monetary value of the victim’s eye (Baba Kama 84a). In doing so, they did not dismiss the plain meaning (peshat) – they simply claimed that it was less relevant in certain cases. While one mode of understanding may be more relevant for any given statement, both modes remain true. Any scholar who would have refused to entertain any derash because it was contrary to common sense would have been thrown out of the Talmudic academy. Similarly, anyone who would have rejected peshat automatically because of its “childish” simplicity would have likewise lost his academic standing.
It is thus likely that multiplicity of intended meaning was assumed by almost all the classical commentators, who found insights in the Torah that could not have been understood at the time of its writing. This is indeed the sense of the phrase made famous by Ramban: Ma’aseh Avot Siman leBanim, i.e., the actions of the forefathers would relate to events that would happen much later. What was understood as simple narrative by the fathers would actually contain useful advice to their descendants later on.6See Nechama Leibowitz, Studies in Bereshit (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1963) pp. 369–70 (Vayishlach 4), and Rut Ben Meir in Pirkei Nechama (Jerusalem: Jewish Agency, 2001) pp. 137–38.
The traditional assumption of multiple meanings in the Torah allowed Jewish commentators throughout the generations to find meaning inaccessible to previous generations. This approach maintains that the meaning was always there, but one has to have the right colored glasses to notice a particular message. To quote a thoughtful acquaint-ance, “A blind man can never recognize the appeal of a sunset”; in other words, all mortals are blind to what is beyond their ability to perceive. As such, all men are limited in what they recognize as real and true. Patterns, words, and relationships are all interpreted from where we stand in time and place (i.e., our cultural context). Each generation’s cultural context brought about understandings that could not have been noticed by those who had come before.7An important corollary is that later generations are able to revive old, relatively ignored observations whose relevance was lost on many intervening generations, until the cultural context once more fits the ancient observation. That is to say, history does repeat itself. Certain ideas or attitudes lose their popularity, only to resurface later in history. Indeed, the Renaissance was a period in general history where many notions of classical Greece and Rome were rediscovered. Likewise, the multifaceted views found in Talmudic literature have very commonly been reviewed and revived by later commentators in such a fashion. Indeed, it would make sense that the intended timelessness of the Torah would factor its readers’ cultural, historical and personal subjectivity into the text. Thus, it is a tribute to the Torah’s Divine nature that its richness of meaning has allowed for so many insights and understandings to be discovered by one generation after another.
There are many examples of changing cultural attitudes and assumptions that require different understandings in different time periods. For our purposes we will suffice with two well-known examples:
The earth’s age. The Torah somehow has to communicate the age of the earth to the ancients, whose numerical and scientific orientation was totally different from modern man’s. At the same time, however, Torah’s timelessness requires it to leave clues as to the vast amounts of time that actually elapsed during the earth’s creation to be discovered in the text by modern man.8See Nathan Aviezer, In the Beginning (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1990) pp. 1–5, and Nosson Slifkin, The Science of Torah (Jerusalem: Targum, 2001) pp. 100–134.
Physiological references to God. It is well-known that R. Avraham ben David (Ravad) took Rambam to task for making the incorporeality of God an essential condition of Jewish faith (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 3:7). Ravad claims that many great Jews did not share this belief with Rambam. If Ravad is correct, this could be another example of the Torah’s need to camouflage truth from generations not yet prepared to understand it. That is to say, ancient Jews may have needed to understand God in anthropomorphic terms.
In both of these examples, the Torah needs to express contradictory details of the story to suit its different historical readerships. While one meaning may be truer to reality than the other, both are intended, and therefore valid, meanings.
In summary, it appears that a major implicit assumption underlying the traditional search for original insights is that the words and narratives of the Torah were often intended to mean different things to different cultures. The Torah’s need to be relevant to all generations requires that it express different things to different people with the same words.
The Pursuit of Relevance in Modern Times
This book attempts to be unusual, aiming to interpret the Bible in new ways. While informed of and influenced by normative Jewish and rabbinic tradition, I have consciously chosen to seek novel understandings of the text. Yet even if this is uncommon in our days, it is certainly not a departure from Jewish tradition.
When Modernity first encountered traditional Judaism, and especially in the nineteenth century, there were many Jewish thinkers who sought Torah-driven answers to the myriad issues posed by the new ways in which man looked at his world. In this regard, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch was possibly the most successful at reaping textually rooted insights for the modern Jew. Hirsch was likely motivated by the need to win over the loyalty of ambivalent German Jews to the Divine authority of the Torah. Many other great Western European rabbis were also involved in similar efforts to show the Torah’s timelessness to their constituents. Among the most famous are Rabbis Shmuel David Luzzatto of Italy, Tzvi David Hoffmann of Germany and Joseph H. Hertz of England. But it was not only in Western Europe that recent Jewish scholars strove to find contemporary relevance for the Biblical text. This also occurred in the Eastern European strongholds of Talmudic scholarship. Such greats as Rabbis Baruch haLevi Epstein9Torah Temimah. and Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin,10Ha’amek Davar. both Lithuanians, also elucidated the Biblical text, very much with an eye to the modern world around them.
It is worth noting that compared to the nineteenth century, the twentieth century did not produce many great commentaries of relevance. While some may disagree with such a bold statement, all one need do is look at the commentaries that sit on the shelves of most yeshivot and traditional homes. One will likely find many works from the nineteenth century but very little from the twentieth century. Instead, the few great voices who devoted serious work to parshanut (traditional commentary) in the last hundred years focused on technical scholarship, either of the academic type (i.e., Umberto Cassuto) or of the Talmudic type (i.e., Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, author of Meshech Chochma11Although published in the last century, it was actually written in the nineteenth century in his youth.). It is not within the scope of this Introduction to elaborate on the many reasons for these developments in parshanut. More important to us is to identify this trend as deviant in Jewish history and to seek ways to return to the traditional Jewish path of seeking relevance.
An obstacle on the road back to relevance is the flightiness of Biblical sermonics both within and outside of Orthodoxy. As people have always intuitively sought relevance, the vacuum in serious relevant commentaries has forced the hands of pulpit rabbis, novelists and celebrities to fill the gap. Indeed, such writers sometimes have found important insights.12In my own teaching experience, I have often been amazed by the profound insights of students who often do not have extensive backgrounds in the field. Still, without proper background and training, the most intelligent writer cannot be expected to come out with a consistently serious work.13See, for example, Alan Dershowitz’s The Genesis of Justice (New York: Warner Books, 2000) for an example of a brilliant writer whose analysis of the Biblical text leaves much to be desired. The resultant childish and amateur nature of much that proclaims itself to be relevant has given “relevance” a bad name.
In the twentieth century, then, we found ourselves with scholarship on one side and relevance on the other, a bifurcation foreign to traditional Jewish commentary which, precisely to the contrary, has usually sought to present something scholarly yet accessible to the average Jew. With an appreciation of the average Jew’s need to find relevance in the text, serious Jewish scholars have historically used their talents and expertise to find a contemporary reading of the text. It is my intention in this volume to show that this can be done in our own time as well. In Redeeming Relevance, I discuss six different themes, in the order of their appearance in the Biblical text. In choosing these themes, I have sought out patterns that carry important implications for the serious contemporary Jew.
The classical Jewish commentaries serve as our model. While we may not be able to claim the intelligence or scholarship of these luminaries, we can try to emulate the seriousness of their approach to the text. This means that, first and foremost, we must try to understand the text according to its various modes, and only then look for relevance as it emerges naturally from our study. When we allow the Torah to speak, we will find that, as in all generations, it does, in fact, speak to us. We must, however, allow the Torah to speak in its fashion, through its allusions, patterns, nuances, associations, and intentional ambiguities. This is not to deny the legitimate subjectivity of the commentator as previously mentioned. Rather, it is to say that a commentator cannot purposely impose his own preconceptions onto the text.14This idea is discussed at greater length in the Afterword.
The chapters in this book represent my modest attempt to start the ball rolling. As mentioned in the Acknowledgments, I have mixed feelings about presenting my thoughts to a larger audience. Nonetheless, hundreds of my students, readers and colleagues have felt that the ideas included in these pages are relevant and rigorous. If they are correct, I view it as my obligation to show more people the types of insights that can and should be gleaned from God’s sacred and beautiful Torah.
Still, I am only too aware that my attempts at rigor and relevance are limited by time, ability and erudition. By offering these essays to the public, I am not pretending that they are flawless. Moreover, the danger inherent in the pursuit of relevance is to read things into the text that are not really there, in spite of one’s most sincere efforts not to do so. As such, rather than presenting the essays as authoritative, I humbly ask the reader to view them as an invitation to dialogue. Perhaps, as with all Jewish learning, creating such a dialogue will allow us to truly develop the best relevant insights, which is, in fact, the ultimate purpose of this book.
More than the content, however, I hope that readers will appreciate the approach manifest in these essays. My approach is based on the conviction that we must work carefully and creatively to find the Torah’s intended meaning for our time. An appreciation of the approach and that which is behind it will not only encourage this writer, but will go a long away toward redeeming relevance.