The summertime parshas Voeschanon, Eikev, and
Re'ei, give an interesting selection of rational
arguments for the truth of the Torah.
Torah Judaism claims to be true: not just inspiring and
spiritual, ethical and moral, but true. These parshos
review and re-explore the historic events of open
nissim, gilui Shechinoh and Divine instruction that
actually took place in a specific location to a particular
group of people at a specific time in history.
Moshe Rabbenu, with Hashem's instruction, wrote in the
Mishnah Torah various arguments that actually allow us
to investigate the truth of the Torah empirically.
There is an opinion found in Rishonim that the first of the
Aseres Hadibros is a mitzvah deOraisa to translate our
belief in Torah MiSinai into firm unshakable knowledge by
rational argument and investigation. What are these
arguments? Some are found in these parshos which, not
coincidentally, happen to review the Aseres Hadibros
as well!
*
Just as a disclaimer, the Torah does not claim to be capable
of convincing a hard-core skeptic who is committed to the
absolute reliability of modern science to peer into the
unobservable past and reconstruct it with a large degree of
accuracy.
But most reasonable people will acknowledge that a
methodology that relies exclusively on stitching together
some ancient pottery and instruments here, and some tablets
and inscriptions there, to try to piece together a consistent
chronology of events that require massive amounts of
conjecture and creative interpretation, is a quite shallow
challenge to the Torah.
For instance, in a library in Egypt, the Rambam records in
Moreh Nevuchim (Book III chap. 29) that he found
ancient non-Jewish records describing important details of
Avrohom Ovinu's career, documenting him as a well known
historical figure in the ancient world. Modern archaeologists
have only recently uncovered evidence of the robust
civilization that existed in Avrohom Ovinu's time by chancing
upon a set of tablets that sharply revised much
archaeological understanding of the ancient Middle East.
Before that discovery, they believed that Avrohom Ovinu and
his society described in Chumash must have been a
complete myth.
Modern scholars simply do not have access to direct
historical information — which makes all their
conclusions that much more speculative. Contrast that with
our historic chain of transmission by an entire, identifiable
nation with names and dates that leave a virtually unbroken
written record till the modern era.
Rav Dovid Brown z"l in the introduction to his
fascinating The Mysteries of Creation, has a very
vivid parable that well describes this contrast, too
elaborate to cite here.
So much for the disclaimer. Let us proceed with the evidence
that the Torah itself offers for its own integrity.
*
First, the Torah has an injunction against adding or
subtracting mitzvos, in Devorim 4:2. This means that
the Torah is for practical purposes a sealed book that may
not be tampered with by future generations. This verse
effectively eliminates the possibility for any hypothetical
human innovator of Judaism to arrive on the scene at a later
time and announce an updated version of the Torah. Such an
innovator will be charged with adding mitzvos that had not
been heard of until he came along.
The Torah here and later (13:1-6) attests that all the
mitzvos that will ever be commanded by G-d have already been
communicated to the entire generation of Jews living in the
wilderness, via Moshe. Some types of innovators or
eliminators of certain permanent Divine commandments are even
to be summarily executed, either as a novi sheker or
as a zokein mamrei.
Devorim 4:9-24 is a detailed account of the mass
Divine revelation at Har Sinai.
Posuk 10 reads: "The day that you stood before Hashem
your Lord at Chorev when Hashem said to me: `Gather to me the
nation and I will let them hear My words in order for them to
learn to fear Me all the days that they live on the earth,
and in order to teach their children."
In addition to the details of the content of the revelation
that follow with the Aseres Hadibros, the verses here
and throughout the sedrah further emphasize the
imperative for the entire nation to commit these events to
national memory. This is not only for themselves, but also to
insure that the awesome experience of Sinai be passed on
without missing a link, to the next generation and onward.
On these pesukim, the Ramban makes the point that
Hashem's very purpose and goal in such an open mass
revelation was to make it capable of standing the tests of
time, if merely transmitted faithfully. Hashem specifically
designed this revelation of His eternal Torah in such a way
that it could never be reasonably contradicted or denied,
because of its monumental scale that directly impacted an
entire generation.
Only claims of private revelations are subject to such
additions, subtractions, total revisions and rejections as we
see happening in other religions regularly. The possibility
of "late editions" of earlier canonic content bring into
question the reliability of the original information.
This never occurred in the long history of Judaism until the
modern era when the general approach to religion was suddenly
subjected to analysis by Western society. This revolution
resulted in widespread secularism in the West, and
tragically, many Jews were swept away by the strong
intellectual winds that blew then and are still blowing now.
Many assumed that their faith was just as unfounded and
blindly accepted by the ignorant masses as all the rest.
But those that swam against the tide and remained in the fold
were able to rely on the rational anchoring provided
centuries earlier by the Geonim and Rishonim who paved the
way for us.
Falsifiability
Now we come to the challenge (32):
"When you will please inquire to the earliest of days that
preceded you. From the day that Elokim created Odom on
the earth, and from the ends of the heavens till the ends of
the heavens: Was there anything like this great thing or was
such a thing heard? That a nation heard the voice of
Elokim speaking from within the fire as you yourselves
have heard — and lived?"
Moshe is daring us to comb all of history to find a similar
claim of any nation who survived a public revelation to
record it. But there is the caveat here — "and lived"
— perhaps to allow only the real time historical
records of real nations to be considered as possible
counterexamples. Bold storytellers who concoct myths of long-
forgotten nations from bygone fantasy eras will not meet this
challenge.
Next (34): "Or has Elokim illustrated extracting for
Himself a nation within a nation with trials, with signs, and
with wonders, and with war and with a strong hand and with an
outstretched arm and with great awesome [events]; like all
that Hashem Elokim has done for you in Egypt to your
eyes?"
Here the challenge is more subtle.
It claims that the string of open miraculous events that
brought about Yetzias Mitzrayim has an enormous impact
on the histories of two entire, opposing nations. The
falsifiability of this claim at the time was enormous. Egypt
is a few days journey away from where Moshe Rabbenu spoke. It
was a popular destination of international trade routes.
Anyone could expose Moshe as a charlatan chas vesholom
by checking out this international incident for himself and
report it to the Jews.
This is not a question of discovering digital tampering of
photos. It is claimed to be a watershed event that
miraculously changed the direction of the history of two
whole nations.
Lastly we come to Perek 11:2-7.
Here, as Rashi spells out, Moshe makes the specific direct
point that he is not retelling these miraculous events to the
descendants of the people who experienced them. He is telling
the Jewish people that what he is recording, was directly
experienced by the audience themselves! And he instructs the
people to preserve this record and to perform these
commandments without interruption, lest the vengeance of
Hashem force them to reaffirm their heritage.
Moshe here is justifying Divine retribution for non-
observance of the Torah with an argument. The argument here
is that he is not selling them a tale about their ancestors
to which they can later claim ignorance and reject when it
becomes difficult to obey. No. The audience themselves are
the acknowledged witnesses to all these miracles and are
directly beholden to Hashem to fulfill His commands as they
pass on these traditions from a firsthand perspective.
Once again, this argument of Moshe serves us today to prevent
any future innovator from foisting a "discovered" ancient
document upon the Jews later in history to be accepted as
authentic. For how can this document hold us accountable for
failure to fulfill instructions that we did not personally
receive?
*
In conclusion, the gemora states, "Hakol biyedei
Shomayim, chutz miyir'as Shomayim." All is in the hands
of Heaven except for fear of Heaven. Perhaps we can suggest
the following interpretation:
Hashem in His infinite wisdom has prepared the antidote
before the disease and implanted in His Torah all the
ingredients necessary for us to stand up to the challenges of
a self-assured modern divination that mocks the concept of
absolute truth. Hashem has equipped us not only with deep
spiritual wellsprings of faith, but also with the secure
knowledge that we posses the only absolute and eternal will
of the Creator.
This was Hashem's side of the bargain: "Hakol biyedei
Shomayim" — to give us the adequate armor to defend
the Torah from intellectual doubts.
We need only summon the moral strength — the "yir'as
Shomayim" within ourselves — to carry out this
awesome responsibility of living up to the truth.
