בס״ד
HASOFRIM
DIVINE REVELATION
S
By Zachary Gomo Head of Jewish Studies at Bialik College
havuot is the celebration of the anniversary of the receipt of the Torah. It is when the Jewish people remember the original divine revelation at Mount Sinai, on an annual basis. This event is central to the Jewish understanding of the world. Indeed, it is inseparable from any other claim or belief that Judaism has to make.
and mankind. It cannot be altered, added to or in any way reinterpreted, reconceived or reconsidered, for all time. Such a concrete and unwavering approach is at extreme odds with the normative ideological perspective of the contemporary world, at least in the democratic West. Indeed, the postmodernist ideology that dominates modern political thought stands in stark opposition to the ideal of one, universal and unalterable truth.
The eighth principle of the great Medieval Rabbi Moses Maimonides’s thirteen principles of faith reads as follows: "We believe that the entire Torah in our possession today was given [to us] by the Almighty through Moses our Teacher, by means of the medium we metaphorically call "speech." No one knows the real nature of this communication except Moses, to whom it was transmitted. He was like a scribe receiving dictation. He wrote the history, the stories, and the commandments. Therefore he is called [the] inscriber."
Certainly, for the vast majority of human history, non-Jewish societies have believed in universal truths. However, these truths were always in distinction to the Torah (at least in terms of details). The Torah itself pre-empts this, "You shall not follow other gods, any gods of the people around you" (Deuteronomy 6:14). The Torah clarifies that its ways are neither universally adhered to, nor the natural conclusion of human thought. Indeed, if that were the case, then there would not have been the need for a divine revelation.
Principle nine reads: "This Torah that Moses transcribed from the Almighty is unique and there will never be another. One must neither add to it nor subtract from it, be it the Written Law or the Oral Law. As it stated: "Neither add to it nor subtract from it" (Deuteronomy 13:1). We have already elaborated upon this Principle in the introduction to this work."
Postmodernists suggest that there are no absolute truths. No divine revelations. No Mount Sinai in a factual sense. They may value various cultural traditions as interesting or colourful, but certainly would not wish to allow as universalistic a belief as one unalterable Torah to dictate social norms, morality or, worst of, all laws.
As such, it is a fundamental precept of the Jewish worldview that at Mount Sinai G-d transmitted to Moses the Torah (both written and oral) word for word. This is the literal will of G-d and His directive to the Jewish people
To be sure, Judaism itself recognises that there are multiple truths. The revelation of Sinai is absolute, the Torah is absolute, but it contains within it nuance and interpretation. The Talmud (Eruvin, 13b) addresses this: 24
