Chavarah- Jewish Community Learning

A blog of Jewish study and traditions. Notes from classes: Torah Study with Rabbi Marder, Toledot and Shabbaton as well as other details found of interest.

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Friday, December 28, 2007

Howard's Notes-12/22
Torah Study & Iyun Tefilah

These notes are from Howard who also takes even more detailed notes during our classes... thanks for the addition for the blog...

BOOK Mentioned: World to Come by Dara Horn; it was mentioned by Rabbi Micah during Iyun Tefilah

22 December 2007 - Rabbi Zweiback

RJZ: There is a change in tone between Deut 32:26 and 32:27.
Before, the poem is about the disloyalties of the Israelites. After, the focus is on Israel’s enemies. God wants to be clear on this: defeat of Israel is not through the enemy efforts but part of His divine plan. If Israel loses on the battlefield, it’s not because their God is weak, but God’s decision to punish because of sins, transgressions, violation of the covenant and laws, etc. A whole theology is represented by these verses, i.e., God the omnipresent is always watching and deciding what’s best for the people.
Commentaries:
“Instead of regarding Israel’s disappearance from human history as an indication of the workings of the one sole god in world history, of His will and His sovereignty, the nations would view it as a triumph of heathen delusion over the truth of Judaism. They would consider God’s judgment up9n Israel not a s the judgment of god, but as a triumph of their own human might. Therefore in order to disabuse the nations of such illusions, Israel must endure, suffer, and, with it all, survive.”[1]

“Having concluded the chilling litany of suffering that Jews will suffer because of their sins, God pauses. He said that He would scatter them and bring an end to them – a fate that they would deserve because of their sins. But that would cause the Name to be desecrated, because the enemies of Israel would believe that they overcame God’s opposition and prevailed with their own strength; they would never believe that they succeeded only because God used them as His rod. To prevent this from happening, God will stay their hand.” [2]

Ramban’s explanation is that God would not permit his name to be desecrated by the annihilation of the Israelites, his people. The issue was not salvaging God’s prestige. Instead, if God created the world for humanity to know Him. However, as other nations sinned, only Israel remained to remember the creation. If Israel was destroyed by others, who would retain this memory? Future generations should think that Israel became extinct through natural means, not by God’s hand. [3]

On the other hand, Alter states that in God’s fury over Israel’s disloyalty, He expresses no compassion; however, concern for divine reputation prevents Him from destroying Israel.[4]
à Rashi [from www.chabad.org ] - 27. Were it not that the enemy's wrath was heaped up, lest their adversaries distort; lest they claim, "Our hand was triumphant! The Lord did none of this!"


Were it not that the enemy’s wrath was heaped up Heb. אָגוּר. Were it not that the enemy’s wrath was heaped up (אָגוּר) against them to destroy them, and if the enemy would succeed in overtaking them and destroying them, he would attribute the greatness to himself and to his deity, but he would not attribute the greatness to Me [says God]. This, then, is the meaning of…

lest their adversaries distort Heb. פֶּן יְנַכְּרוּ צָרֵימוֹ, lest they misconstrue the matter by attributing their might to an alien (נָכְרִי) , to whom the greatness does not belong. Lest they claim, Our hand was triumphant…!

RJZ: This theology colors people’s view of the world. Early Zionists were ridiculed by rabbis because they believed Israel would get its homeland when God says so. Also, the Holocaust was God’s answer to Israel’s sins; the Nazi were agents of God. As repugnant as this seems, it does conform to some people’s ideas of the nature of God.
•The discussion then digressed into various topics such as free will vs foretelling, historical explanations of Hanukah, prophecy and false prophets, prayer and study in Judaism compared to other religions, and divine justice in this and the next world.
•We may have free will, but God is watching and judging. There may be no divine justice in today’s world but it will occur in the next world. Some would say that we have free will to choose living by the Covenant or not.
•In Genesis through Deuteronomy, God spoke directly to people (such as Moses). God spoke to the Prophets through dreams and visions. After then, it became too easy for someone to proclaim that he is a “prophet”. As a protection against false prophecy and prophets, the early sages declared the end of the prophetic era. Today, God speaks to us through words of the Torah and its many interpreters.




REFERENCES:

[1]
Hirsch, The Pentateuch, page 807




[2]
Scherman, page 1105 [Stone edition Chumash]]




[3]
Referenced in Scherman, page1106; see also Weissman, The Midrash Says. The Book of Devarim, page 371-372, who states simply “the gentiles would attribute the demise of the Jewish people to the power of their gods and thus G-d’s Great Name would be desecrated. “




[4]
Alter, The Five Books of Moses, page 1043


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