Reason and Mystery in the Pentateuch. Aaron Streiter
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assertion in 19:13 that anyone who touches the mountain during the Revelation will be killed can be translated in so many ways, it is not possible to know what it means. Kaplan translates it, “You will not have to lay a hand on him, for he will be stoned or cast down.” But as he notes, the Hebrew can also be translated in the following ways:
You will not have to . . .(Targum Yonathan). Or, “Do not touch him with your hand” (Lekach Tov; Rashbam; Ibn Ezra; Baaley Tosafoth). Or, “Let no hand touch [the mountain]” (Mekhilta).
cast down. (Sanhedrin 45a; Rashi; MeAm Lo’ez; cf: Malbim; Hirsch). Or, “he shall be stoned or shot [with an arrow]” (Rashbam; Ibn Ezra; Bachya; Abarbanel; cf. 2 Chronicles 26:15) or, “He will be stoned or killed with lightning bolts” (Targum Yonathan). Others, “Let no man touch [the mountain] with his hand, for he must then be put to death by stoning [after being] thrown down” (Mekhilta; Sanhedrin 45a) See 21:31, Leviticus 4:23.
Because every one of the translations above is faithful to the Hebrew, it is not possible to know which of them conveys the plain meaning of the text; or, indeed, if any of them does.
The assertion, in 19:13, that the prohibition against touching the mountain will end when “the trumpet is sounded with a long blast” seems to mean the Jews may touch the mountain in 19:16, when “an extremely loud blast of a ram’s horn” is heard. But in 19:21 they are reminded “not to cross the boundary” because doing so “will cause many to die.” Though Kaplan translates ha’yovel as “trumpet” and shofar as “ram’s horn,” other traditionalists translate both words as “ram’s horn,” as Kaplan indicates in a footnote. Thus it is not clear whether the Jews could have touched the mountain once the ram’s horn had sounded, or even (to translate 19:13 more accurately than Kaplan does) b’emshoch ha’yovel, while the ram’s horn is sounding. Neither is it clear why 19:13 and 19:19 refer, respectively, to ha’yovel, to the trumpet, and to ha’shofar, to the ram’s horn, because no antecedent exists for either reference, whereas 19:20 refers to a ram’s horn.
The command to the Jews regarding the mountain is accompanied by two other commands, both problematic. Moses is instructed, in 19:12, somehow to “sanctify” the Jews; but how he must do that is not clear. And he must warn them about the mountain; but neglects, it seems, to do so.
His apparent neglect is puzzling, for three reasons. First, God commanded him to issue the warning. Second, it is a matter of life and death. And third, when the Revelation begins, God and Moses seem to speak at cross-purposes. God’s instruction to Moses, in 19:21, already noted, to “warn the people that they must not cross the boundary . . . because this will cause many to die” seems to presume that Moses has not yet issued that warning. Moses, however, insists, in 19:23, that God Himself issued it: “You already warned them to set a boundary around the mountain and to declare it sacred.” But God, it seems, did no such thing; He ordered Moses to issue the warning, and Moses, it seems, did not issue it.
To the concerns regarding sacred history noted thus far, the general response of secular critics is unobjectionable. As the text of Exodus is, in their opinion, a composite work, written over centuries by a number of authors, and edited in a similarly collective fashion, concerns of all sorts inevitably exist; and the task of criticism is in consequence by various means to establish a standard text, and to analyze the concerns that exist in it by analyzing the cultures in which it evolved; in particular, their philosophical, religious, aesthetic, and linguistic presumptions. In this view, the Book of Exodus is no different from, say, The Odyssey, a work fashioned slowly over time by human beings rooted in particular cultures, and therefore, however impressive, inevitably flawed.
To traditionalists such a view is unacceptable, because it conflicts with the theological axiom, noted above, upon which all of traditionalism is founded: that the Book of Exodus, like the rest of the Pentateuch, was dictated by God to Moses during the Revelation at Mount Sinai, some thirty-five hundred years ago, and has been preserved uncorrupted since then by divine decree effected by traditionalists.
In this view, the Pentateuch is different in kind from any book that exists, or can exist. Because it was written by an omniscient and benevolent God as a comprehensive guide to sacred history and to conduct, it must be a perfect work; the only work, indeed, that can be imagined in which intention and execution are perforce identical; that is to say, in which the Author knew precisely what He wanted to say, and said it precisely as He intended to. And because He loves Jews in particular as a father loves his children, His basic intention must have been to edify them.
This view of the book, formulated classically by Maimonides, and epitomized in the contemporary statement below, has been the cornerstone of traditionalism for at least the past sixteen hundred years, from the time the Talmud,3 the work that interprets the Torah, was redacted to the present:
Maimonides, or Rambam, formulated the Thirteen Principles of Faith, which are incumbent upon every Jew. Two of them, the eight and the ninth, refer to the Torah. As they have been set down briefly in the familiar text of Ani Maamin, they are:
8. I believe with complete faith that the entire Torah now in our hands is the same one that was given to Moses, our teacher, peace be upon him.
9. I believe with complete faith that this Torah will not be exchanged, nor will there be another Torah from the Creator, Blessed is His Name.
These principles are essential parts of the faith of the Jew, and they are also fundamental to the way one studies the Torah. For the attitude of one who approaches a book as the immutable word of God is far, far different from that of one who holds a volume that was composed by men and emended by others over the years. As we begin the study of the Torah, we should resolve that this recognition of its origin and immutability will be in our consciousness always.
In several of his writings, Rambam sets forth at much greater length the unanimously held view that every letter and word of the Torah was given to Moses by God; that it has not been and cannot be changed; and that nothing was ever or can ever be added to it. Indeed, the Talmud states emphatically that if one questions the Divine origin of even a single letter or traditionally accepted interpretation of the Torah, it is tantamount to denial of the entire Torah (Sanhedrin 99a).
This harsh judgment is quite proper, for if a critic can take it upon himself to deny the provenance of one verse or letter of the Torah, what is to stop him from discarding any part that displeases him? Modern times illustrate this all too clearly. And logic dictates that man cannot tamper with the word of God, not merely because man’s intelligence is of a different, infinitely inferior order, but because God and His wisdom are perfect, and, by definition, perfection cannot be improved . . . .
Throughout history, Jews have maintained the absolute integrity of their Torah scrolls, zealously avoiding any change, even of a letter that would not change the meaning of a word. They knew that their Torah was not merely a “sacred book,” it was the word of God, and as such it had to remain unchanged.4
The assertion that questioning “even a single letter or traditionally accepted interpretation of the Torah” amounts to “denial of the entire Torah” needs to be explained. Otherwise, the statement above is a theologically unexceptionable credo. Traditionalism accepts, as an act of faith, that the Pentateuch is a perfect work, dictated in its entirety by God to Moses at Mount Sinai, its absolute integrity uncorrupted since that seminal moment in history because of the zeal of traditionalists in effecting God’s intention that it not be corrupted. Therefore the task of traditionalism differs from, and is more difficult than, that of secular commentary. Both disciplines expound the Pentateuch. But traditionalists cannot be concerned with cultural anthropology, because they presume the Pentateuch did not evolve, but erupted, complete, from the Godhead, at Mount Sinai. And because they presume that it erupted perfect, they cannot presume that it is in any way flawed.
But that it seems to be flawed is evident, as even the close reading above of a short excerpt from Exodus shows, and as close readings of various sections of the Pentateuch, chosen at random, show. And therein lies the especial difficulty of traditionalism. The secularist can argue imperfection; the traditionalist cannot. And so traditionalists must presume, often in the face of apparently formidable evidence to the contrary, either that concerns regarding