This week’s parasha contains not only Moshe’s account of the founding of Israel, the Torah nation, at Ma‘amad Har Sinai when פנים בפנים דבר ד' עמכם בהר מתוך האש (“Face to face Ha-Shem spoke with you on the mountain from amidst the fire”; V, 4) and Israel heard the ‘Asereth ha-Dibbëroth, the Ten Utterances often mischaracterized as the “Ten Commandments” (the word for commandment being mitzva, of which the Torah contains 613), but also numerous other passages familiar to us from our daily prayers, or regular participation in synagogue services or holiday rituals.
For instance, there is ואתם הדבקים בד' אלקיכם חיים כלכם היום (“And you who are clinging to Ha-Shem your G-d are living all of you today”; IV, 4), recited as the séfer Torah is being unrolled for reading on shabbath; the first paragraph of the Shëma‘, the fundamental declaration of Jewish faith recited thrice daily (VI,4-9); and also כי ישאלך בנך מחר לאמר מה העדת והחקות והמשפטים אשר צוה ד' אלקינו אתכם: ואמרת לבנך עבדים היינו לפרעה במצרים ויצאנו ד' ממצרים ביד חזקה (“For your son will ask you tomorrow to say, 'What are the testimony and the laws and the judgments which Ha-Shem our G-d has commanded you?' And you will say to your son, 'We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and Ha-Shem brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand”; ibid., 20-21).
This last is recognisable as the question which the hacham, the “wise son” asks, and the answer which the Haggada shel Pesah prescribes for him. The Haggada famously includes three other sons, the rasha‘ (“evil-doer”), the tam (“simple son”), and she-éyno yodéa‘ li-sh’ol (“one who does not know how to ask”), prescribing in each case a unique response. This, as numerous commentators on the Haggada note, demonstrates that there is no single approach to Torah education; rather, each person’s unique circumstances must be borne in mind in imparting the Torah to him.
With this in mind, let us consider an insight which I have heard in the name of Rabbi Moshe Tukatshinsky זצ"ל, late mashgiah ruhani of the Slobodka yëshiva in Bënei Bëraq.
B.
Much more than the four specific examples offered by the Haggada shel Pesah, Hazal advise us שבעים פנים בתורה, there are “seventy facets in the Torah” (במדבר רבה י"ג סי' ט"ו וע"ע זוה"ק ח"א מ"ז: ונ"ד., ח"ג רט"ז. ועוד ); each passage, each word, is subject to seventy possible interpretations.
Rabbi Tukatshinsky suggests that this number is not coincidental, citing in evidence a verse recorded in a prayer of Moshe: ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה ואם בגברות שמונים שנה וגו' (“The days of our years are seventy years, and if through strength, eighty years....”; Psalms XC, 10), i.e. the normal lifespan of a human being can be expected to last about seventy years, in exceptional cases, eighty some years. Therefore, he suggests, Ha-Shem loaded seventy levels of profundity into the Torah, so that uncovering them, year by year, should be the prime occupation of our lives.
But, continues Rabbi Tukatshinsky, it is hardly fair to expect a newborn infant to engage in even the simplest Torah study; first, it is necessary for him to learn to speak, to read, and begin to acquire some mental maturity. Hence, Rabbi Tukatshinky holds that childhood is entirely a time of preparation, and that the actual obligation to being uncovering the seventy levels does not begin until the age of 13, when a boy becomes bar mitzva and is obligated to observe the Torah.
‘Ad kan Rabbi Tukatshinsky. It should be noted in passing, then, that it is here that the additional years of gëvura, of “strength” or “heroism” come into play, and also that, lë-shittatho, Rabbi Tukatshinsky passed away at the age of 83, presumably on completion of the task he had been set.
C.
The implications of Rabbi Tukatshinsky’s insight will also serve to illuminate another passage in this week’s parasha. A bit later on, we read: ולא תתחתן בם בתך לא תתן לבנו ובתו לא תקח לבנך: כי יסיר את בנך מאחרי ועבדו אלהים אחרים וחרה אף ד' בכם והשמידך מהר: (“And you will not marry into [the other nation]; your daughter shall you not give to his son, and his daughter shall you not take for your son. For he will turn your son away from Me and they will serve other gods, and Ha-Shem’s anger will flare up against you and He will destroy you swiftly”; VII, 3-4).
As Rambam points out, אחד שבעים עממין ואחד כל אומות באיסור זה (“it is the same regarding the seven [Canaanite] nations, and all [other] nations concerning this prohibition”; הל' איסורי ביאה פי"ב ה"א).
This prohibition is one of a relatively small number in the written Torah for which the Torah also provides the rationale. Israel is not a nation like the other nations. As Bil‘am said of Israel, in the first of his aborted attempts to curse them for Balaq, הן עם לבדד ישכן ובגוים לא יתחשב (“Behold a people dwells alone, and is not counted amongst the nations”; Numbers XXIII, 9). Just before Ma‘amad Har Sinai, G-d told Moshe that the purpose for which Israel was to come into being was to become His ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש (“kingdom of kohanim and holy nation”; Exodus XIX, 6). Israel, and therefore each individual member of Israel, was to be completely dedicated to G-d’s service, primarily elucidating His Torah, observing its tenets, and applying its principles to all of the problems of life so as to sanctify even the most mundane activities, making them all aspects of Divine service.
The reason, then, that we are not to intermarry with the nations of the world is not because they are ethnically inferior to us or less refined. Rather, it is because a native of another nation cannot be expected to possess the dedication to Ha-Shem’s service which a native of Israel should have. The inevitable result, as the Torah warns us, is that the foreigner’s family will turn your son (or your grandson, as Hazal have it [קידושין ס"ח:]) away from the dedication to Divine service, to elucidating the seventy facets of Torah, every Jew’s life’s work. (Perhaps the number of original nations, also seventy, constitutes another allusion to this concept, as a friend suggests).
Rashi famously notes the unique unity with which Israel undertook that holy purpose. Exodus XIX, 2 reports their arrival at Sinai: ויסעו מרפידים ויבאו מדבר סיני ויחנו במדבר ויחן שם ישראל נגד ההר (“And they traveled from Rëfidim, and came to the Sinai desert, and they camped in the desert; and Israel camped [va-yihan] there opposite the mountain”). Every verb in the sentence save the last is plural, prompting Rashi to comment that they uniquely camped before the mountain כאיש אחד בלב אחד (“like one man with one heart”).
D.
In the haftara read this shabbath, the navi’ sings of Israel’s redemption from the final exile: נחמו נחמו עמי יאמר אלקיכם: דברו על לב ירושלם וקראו אלי' כי מלאה צבאה כי נרצה עונה כי לקחה מיד ד' כפלים בכל חטותי': (“Be comforted, be comforted My people, your G-d will say. Speak to Jerusalem’s heart and call to her, for her populace has been filled, for her transgression is forgiven, for she has taken from Ha-Shem’s hand a double measure [kiflayim] for all her sins”; Isaiah XL, 1-2). The double measure, kiflayim, refers to the destruction of both the First and Second Temples.
Indeed, our parasha foreshadows what was to come when that perfect unity of purpose broke down, והפיץ ד' אתכם בעמים ונשארתם מתי מספר בגוים אשר ינהג אתכם שמה (“And Ha-Shem would scatter you amongst the peoples [ba-‘ammim] and you would remain few in number amongst the nations [ba-goyim] whither Ha-Shem would lead you [asher yënahég Ha-Shem ethchem shamma]”; IV, 21), in which the Ba‘al ha-Turim discerns the gimatriya of ba-‘ammim (162) equivalent to béyn ha-Bavliyyim (“amongst the Babylonians”); that of ba-goyim (61) to uv’Madai (“and in Media”, i.e. the Medio-Persian state); that of yënahég (68) to bë-Yavan (“in Greece,” i.e. the Hellenistic world); and that of shamma (365) to mé-Romiyyim, “from [the] Romans,” i.e. western civilization, the final stage of the exile from which we shall be extricated).
Hence, all of the stages of our eventual exile were known at Israel’s founding. Why has this last stage gone on so much longer than all the earlier ones?
An answer is found in comparing Rashi’s comment on Exodus XIX, 2, supra, with one he makes on XIV, 10, where we read that at Yam Suf וישאו בני ישראל את עיניהם והנה מצרים נסע אחריהם וגו' (“...the bënei Yisra’él raised their eyes and behold, Egypt was pursuing them....”). The singular participle noséa‘ modifying Mitzrayim, “Egypt,” is as exceptional as the singular verb va-yihan at Ma‘amad Har Sinai, and Rashi similarly writes that the Egyptians were בלב אחד כאיש אחד (“with one heart, like one man”).
But note the difference in word order between the above comment and this one. Rabbi Yitzhaq Hutner זצ"ל in his Pahad Yitzhaq, explains that Israel’s unity is organic, essential and necessary to Israel’s survival in the world, whilst the nations are fundamentally disunited, and come together only temporarily, when their interests coincide. Thus, Israel’s unity of purpose, the desire to serve Ha-Shem (the “single heart”), derives from that organic unity, the “single man,” whilst for the nations, the “single man” is derived from their temporarily shared desire, the “single heart.”
This aspect of the nations is discernible by the coalition of Muslim fanatics and Leftists who oppose us today, having nothing whatever in common save their hatred of Israel, the same emotion which drove the Egyptians. But Israel’s unity is through Torah, as Rabbi Sa‘adya Ga’on famously declared in his Emunoth vë-Dé‘oth: אין אומתנו אומה אלא בתורה, “Our nation is not a nation, save through the Torah.” Every attempt to reduce our nationhood to an ethnic distinction, as is true of the nations of the world, is doomed to failure.
It is incumbent on us to do all we can to restore Israel’s unity on the basis of Israel’s true Torah culture. If we do our part, and there is an אתערותא דלתתא, an “awakening here below,” there will surely be an answering אתערותא דלעילא, an “awakening Above,” as the navi predicts in the passage supra, כי א-ל רחום ד' אלקיך לא ירפל ולא ישחיתך ולא ישכח את ברית אבתיך וגו' (“For a merciful G-d is Ha-Shem your G-d; He will not leave you and will not destroy you, and will not forget your forefathers’ covenant....”; Deuteronomy IV, 31).
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