Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Shalom
Ephraim Ben Noach:
--- Quote from: Kahane-Was-Right BT on August 20, 2012, 11:53:48 PM ---That's a real mind-bender. You are saying "Judaism" existed before Jews did? And pre-Jew Judaism was mystical. Come on, now.
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How did Noah know the flood was coming?
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: Dan Ben Noah on August 20, 2012, 10:28:57 PM ---The Tanya is taking the Proverbs out of context because they are talking about "souls" which is not mentioned in the Proverbs verse. In the beginning of the part from the first chapter of Tanya, it talks about every individual Jew whether they are good or wicked has a certain type of soul. So this goes down to the individual and not just nations as a whole.
--- End quote ---
I believe that Tanya and the pre-existing beliefs and attitudes that led to its eventual creation by the tremendous scholar who authored it, were most likely influenced and motivated by the type of gentile the lubavitch sect directly experienced on a day-to-day and year-to-year basis. And so naturally this group extrapolated this type of gentile to the entire gentile world because they didn't experience anything else. Believe me, those days were not pretty and the sick european gentiles were absolute garbage who tormented the Jews constantly. That's an undeniable fact. And I believe that has a lot to do with the directional flow of the chabad philosophy.
I'm not a tanya guy and I'm not praising or condemning it here, but I think that those who do condemn it or condemn some of the contents, are perhaps missing the bigger picture of how those beliefs came about and developed over time and what the chabad people were dealing with. The tanya was not created in a vacuum, and historical circumstances certainly come to influence ways of thought and new types of thinking that originate in history.
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: Ephraim on August 21, 2012, 12:00:32 AM ---How did Noah know the flood was coming?
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God spoke to him. The definition of "Judaism" is not: 'Any time God speaks to man"
PROPHECY is "when God speaks to man." Judaism is something else which can include prophecy within it. It simply does not make sense to say Noah was practicing Judaism. Especially considering the fact that he was a gentile! (but even if we imagined that on some parallel universe he was a Jew, it still wouldn't make sense).
muman613:
--- Quote from: Kahane-Was-Right BT on August 20, 2012, 11:53:48 PM ---That's a real mind-bender. You are saying "Judaism" existed before Jews did? And pre-Jew Judaism was mystical. Come on, now.
--- End quote ---
You have heard that the Torah was.used as a blueprint for creation... You also have heard that Abraham kept the entire Torah even before it was given at Sinai. Thus the spiritual aspect of Torah does not only exist from Maattan Torah.
muman613:
For those not familiar with these concepts let me provide some examples:
http://ohr.edu/1290
Dear Rabbi,
Please give me a clue about how the Patriarchs found out the details of the Torah before it was given at Sinai.
Dear Mordechai,
In G-d’s promise to give the Land of Israel to Isaac and his offspring, G-d explained the reason is "Because Abraham obeyed My voice, and observed My safeguards, My commandments, My decrees, and My Torahs" (Gen. 26:5). Rashi explains that "My Torahs" (plural) refers to the fact that Abraham kept both the Written and Oral Torah; "My decrees" refers to laws that are not based on human logic; "My commandments" refers to laws dictated by human morals; and "My safeguards" indicates that Abraham upheld even Rabbinical enactments aimed at guarding Torah law.
Rabbi Chaim of Velozhin in Nefesh HaChaim explains that just as Mankind can reach scientific conclusions through intellectual investigation, so too can Mankind reach spiritual conclusions through spiritual contemplation. If a person is sensitive enough, it is possible to reach even the hidden, esoteric depths of the Torah. This is what Abraham did. Through probing the wonders and marvels of the world, Abraham built up an awareness of G-d that eventually led to a complete and absolute understanding of His will.
Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (referred to by the acronym "Natziv") adds a beautiful dimension to this idea. He writes that Sarah also arrived at this level of keeping the entire Torah, even before meeting Abraham. However, Sarah did so in a somewhat different way. While Abraham came to an absolute awareness of G-d through contemplation of nature, Sarah attained this awareness through introspection into her own soul. Sarah's sensitivity was so attuned that she used her own spiritual essence to come to an understanding of the mitzvot.
So, Abraham kept the Torah through the external wonders of nature and Sarah kept the Torah through the internal wonders of her soul. In a sense Abraham was keeping the Torah "from the outside in" and Sarah was keeping the Torah "from the inside out"! In this way they forged complementary paths that would serve as gateways for their offspring, as well as for Jews of all future generations, to find G-d and keep His Torah.
http://www.ravkooktorah.org/TOLDOT58.htm
Toldot: Abraham Kept Mitzvot
Why are practical mitzvot so central to Judaism? Why is it not enough just to believe in the Torah's central tenets and teachings?
When famine struck, Isaac considered leaving the Land of Israel. But G-d commanded Isaac to remain in Israel. He allayed his fears, promising him:
"I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky, and grant them all these lands.... Because Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My decrees, and My laws." (Gen. 26:4-5)
Abraham kept G-d's commandments?
Indeed, the Sages interpreted this verse literally. They wrote that the Patriarchs fulfilled the precepts of the Torah, even before their revelation at Sinai centuries later.
Fifth-century scholar Rav Ashi made an even more audacious claim. He asserted that Abraham even observed the mitzvah of eiruv tavshilin — a rabbinically-ordained ritual that enables one to prepare for the Sabbath when a holiday falls out on a Friday (Yoma 28b).
Observing Eiruv Tavshilin
A scholar once commented to Rav Kook that this Talmudic statement clearly cannot be taken at face value. How could Abraham know what the rabbinical courts would decree a thousand years in the future? The Sages must have intended to convey a subtler message: Abraham's philosophical mastery of the Torah was so complete, his grasp of the Torah's theoretical underpinnings so comprehensive, that it encompassed even the underlying rationales for future decrees.
Rav Kook, however, was not taken with this explanation. In his response, Rav Kook emphasized that the Torah's theoretical foundations cannot be safeguarded without practical mitzvot. It is impossible to truly internalize the Torah's philosophical teachings without concrete actions.
This is the fundamental weakness of religions that rely on faith alone. Without an emphasis on deeds, such religions retreat to the realm of the philosophical and the abstract. They abandon the material world, leaving it unredeemed. The Torah's focus on detailed mitzvot, on the other hand, reflects its intense involvement with the physical world.
Yaakov, our father, studied Torah for 14 years at the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever:
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http://www.torah.org/learning/legacy/5770/vayeitzei.html
Our Sages tells us he spent those fourteen years studying Torah in the yeshivah of Shem and Eber. Furthermore, they point out that the verses in this week's portion actually contain an allusion to this detour.
When Jacob spent the night in Bethel, he dreamed he saw a ladder rising into the heavens, and he saw angels descending and ascending. This spectacular prophetic vision, which revealed the pattern of Jewish history for thousands of years, was Jacob's initiation into his role as our third and final patriarch. The Torah prefaces this dream by telling us that Jacob "slept in that place."
Why is this necessary? If he was dreaming, then surely he must have been sleeping. Our Sages see in this an oblique reference to the missing fourteen years. When Jacob "slept in that place," it was the first time in a very long while that he actually lay down to sleep. As long as he had been in the yeshivah of Shem and Eber, however, he had studied without interruption, dozing off in his chair only when fatigue overcame him. For fourteen full years, he had studied so intensely that he had not known the taste of sleep, and only now, when he resumed his travels, did he presume to go to sleep.
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