admin asked Staff ago Hello.
After having read many religious arguments, I find that there is one which repeats itself, the chain of tradition, handed down from generation to generation. The argument starts by stating that there were 600,000 witnesses to the giving of the Torah and that they passed this story down to their children, and so on.
The argument continues and states that if it were not true, it would be impossible to convince the nation, afterwards, that such an event took place.
I tried to think about the topic from another angle. Immediately after the story of the Giving of the Torah, which according to its description was an impressive event, full of pyrotechnics, even by today’s standards, ( without mentioning its impact on the people of the period) — the people of Israel sinned with the Golden Calf.
It must be supposed that at least some of the Children of Israel who entered the Land of Israel were witnesses to the giving of the Torah (those born in the wilderness) and therefore could continue handing down the story first hand. But again we see that, when Joshua died, almost immediately we are told that the Children of Israel “did evil in the sight of the Lord.”
The issue of doing evil in the sight of the Lord repeats itself throughout the Scriptures.
Therefore we must ask the question: if so impressive an event did not leave an indelible impression on the people of that generation or the ones following directly behind, can we give any weight to the argument?
Is this issue also discussed in the Mishnah/Talmud/other sources? If so, how is it treated?
Thank you,
David
jsadmin Staff answered 20 years ago
Dear David,
Your conclusion is correct. The Divine Revelation does not alter one whit the faith of a person who wishes to cling to his beliefs.
You have learned of human nature from the story of the Golden Calf — facts do not change people’s beliefs or outlook.
Those who left Egypt, with their status of slaves with no land, surrounded by idolaters (the Egyptians) changed nothing of their idolatrous beliefs, even after they saw “Divine voices.”
The Scriptural stories which tell of Israel doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord show a revolution in the outlook of the masses, from slaves who believed in idols to a monotheistic faith which demands many prophets, wars, time, and punishments.
I mean to say that the event of the Revelation lacks any serious significance for the believing man. Proof of this is that even the Torah, written in “black fire on white fire” (thus do the fools believe), lacks relevance to the religious man. Who determines his everyday life of faith? G-d? No — the sages of each generation, whom one must follow, even if they say right is left, even if they contradict explicit words of Torah.
Chazal expressed this unambiguously in the story of the oven of Aknai (Bava Metzia 59b) in which it was ruled “it is not in the Heavens,” that it is the sages who determine Halacha, even against the will of G-d. Following generations, who fully believed in the Divine Revelation, also turned the words of the Living G-d (the Written Torah) into a stone in which no one is interested and replaced its commands with a new teaching: the Oral Torah (an amusing way to mock the public).
Moving from minor to major: if people who believed in the Revelation and the giving of a book of laws by G-d accepted it when rabbis came and claimed that there were teachings given orally, from teacher to student, which changed the Divine teachings, how much easier would it have been were there no Revelation or “divine” book of law, how simple then to plant messages in the name of G-d and have it accepted by the masses.
See also the believers in Christianity, who wholeheartedly believe in a historical event of Divine Revelation; see how they overturned events they believe to have been historical, claiming that they were only allegories for the future.
So you see that man’s faith creates the argument and it is not the argument which creates the faith, for this is the way of people of faith — they act from emotion, which tolerates contradiction, murkiness, and mystery.
For more detail about how the rabbis saw the Revelation, see the portion of Vaera.
Sincerely,
Daat Emet