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Beit Midrash
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On one occasion the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, made a curious request. "We are embarking on a year of Reading the Bible. Do you think you might do something similar within the Jewish community?" "Of course," I replied. "We do it every year. There’s only one word we might find problematic." "Which word is that?" he asked. "The word ‘reading,’" I said. "We never simply read the Bible. We study it, interpret it, interpret other interpretations, argue, question, debate. The verb ‘reading’ does not quite do justice to the way we interact with the Torah. It is usually more active than that."
I might have added that even the phrase keriat ha-Torah, which is usually taken to mean, reading the Torah, probably does not mean that at all. Keriat ha-Torah, properly understood, is a performative act. It is a weekly recreation of the revelation at Mount Sinai. It is a covenant ratification ceremony like the one Moshe performed at Sinai: "Then he took the book of the covenant and read it aloud to the people, and they said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will faithfully do!" (Ex. 24: 7), and like the covenant renewal ceremony celebrated by Ezra after the return from Babylon, as described in Nehemiah 8-9. Keriah in this sense does not mean reading in the modern sense of sitting in an armchair with a book. It means declaring, proclaiming, establishing and making known the law. It is like what happens in the British Parliament when the bill gets its final ‘reading,’ that is, its ratification.
So the Torah isn’t something we merely read. It involves total engagement. And what has made that engagement possible is the rabbinic concept of Midrash. Midrash as I understand it (there are, of course, other ways) was the rabbinic response to the end of prophecy. So long as there were prophets – until the time of Haggai, Zecharia and Malachi – they brought the word of God to their generation. They heard it; they declared it; the Divine word lived within the currents and tides of history.
But there came a time when there were no more prophets. How then could Jews bridge the gap between the word then, and the historical situation now? It was an immense crisis, and different groups of Jews responded in different ways. The Sadducees, as far as we can tell, confined themselves to the literal text. For them Torah did not renew itself generation after generation. It had been given once and that was enough.
Other groups, including those we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls, developed a kind of biblical exegesis known as Pesher. There is a surface meaning of the text but there is also a hidden meaning, that often has to do with events or people in the present, or the end of days, that were assumed to be coming soon.
The rabbis, however, developed the technique of midrash which by close reading could give us insight into specifics of Jewish law (midrash halakhah) or details of biblical narrative that are missing from the text (midrash Aggadah). So powerful was this form of engagement that the single greatest institution of rabbinic Judaism is named after it: the Bet Midrash, the ‘house’ or ‘home’ of midrash.
Essentially, midrash is the bridge across the abyss of time between the world of the original text, thirty to forty centuries ago, and our world in the present of time and place. Midrash asks not "What did the text mean then?" but rather, "What does the text mean to me-here-now?" Behind midrash are three fundamental principles of faith.
First, the Torah is God’s word, and just as God transcends time so does His word. It would be absurd, for instance, to suppose some human being more than three thousand years ago could have foreseen smart phones, social media and being online, on-call, 24/7. Yet Shabbat speaks precisely to that phenomenon and to our need for a digital detox once a week. God speaks to us today in the unsuspected inflections of words he spoke thirty-three centuries ago.
Second, the covenant between God and our ancestors at Mount Sinai still holds today. It has survived the Babylonian exile, the Roman destruction, centuries of dispersion, and the Holocaust. The Torah is the text of that covenant, and it binds us still.
Third, the principles underlying the Torah have changed very little in the intervening centuries. To be sure, we no longer have a Temple or sacrifices. We no longer practice capital punishment. But the values that underlie the Torah are strikingly relevant to contemporary society and to our individual lives in the 21 st -century secular time.
So, we don’t merely read the Torah. We bring to it our time, our lives, our most attentive listening, and our deepest existential commitments. My own beliefs have been formed in that ongoing conversation with the biblical text that is part of the Jewish mind and the Jewish week. Which is why, to emphasise this personal engagement, I’ve decided to call this year’s studies, ‘I believe,’ as a way of saying, this is how I have come to see the world, having listened as attentively as I can to the Torah and its message for me-here-now.
The Torah is not a systematic treatise about beliefs but it is a unique way of seeing the world and responding to it. And in an age of moral darkness, its message still shines. So, at any rate, I believe. May it be a year of learning and growing for us all.
-To engage further with Rabbi Sacks’s teachings, or to sign up to his mailing list, please go to www.rabbisacks.org
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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Chukat "HOW ENTEBBE STOLE THE BICENTENNIAL
The Difference Between Historic & Eternal"
As we approach America's 250th birthday, it's worth remembering her 200th Bicentennial birthday, on Jul. 4th 1976, when Israel "stole the show" by shocking the world & miraculously saving 101 hostages in a foreign continent. As Pres. As Pres. Trump decides which countries get priority in his new Middle-East, it's worth reminding him of the difference between historic events and eternally historic ones. This obviously connects with this week's parsha, as well!
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 6 - The Parable of the King of India
The advantages of testimony over circumstantial evidence or philosophical speculation.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 5- "Proofs of G-d"
This may be the most important class of the entire book, where we finally get to the Jewish proof of the existence of G-d and truth of the Torah. We should follow His own direction where He tells us how to get to Him: through the Nation of Israel: Jewish history, Jewish prophets (and today, prophecies fulfilled), and national reward & punishment towards Am Yisrael.
Ein Aya One Humanity, One Creator, One Jerusalem
Rav Kook innovatively and beautifully explains this aggadeta where our sages say that after Jerusalem was destroyed her cinnamon fragrance is only found locked in a particular kingdom's treasury.
Shlach Lecha "Why So Many Don't Make Aliya?" - Parshat Shlach
This short article deals with the weird phenomena that every single time Am Yisrael is meant to enter the Land of Israel, throughout the Tanach, 2nd Temple and until today, they "chicken out" and look for excuses. What's the problem with this mitzvah that proves so challenging. The article, based on sources, suggests that the difficulties of Eretz Yisrael is precisely her secret and beauty!
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 4
The class deals with Islam and how the Muslim tries convincing the King of the Khazars, and why he was also rejected.
Beha'alotcha JEWISH STATE= GUIDE TO G-DLINESS & SELFLESSNESS
A Jewish State not only is a good idea, but educates us towards selflessness, altruism and G-dliness in our daily lives.
Ein Aya In Zion Even the Smoke of the Bark is Sweet
Just as Jewish nationalism is different from others, so too our capitol of Jerusalem is totally different than other national capitols. Rav Kook beautifully explains the passage in the Talmud that the trees of Yerushalayim were cinnamon trees.
