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Parshat Haye Sara – Eliezer’s Test

30 Tuesday Apr 2024

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The servant of Abraham requests from God to give him a sign: if the woman whom he asks for water, offers to give also the camels to drink, then it is she whom God set aside for Isaac to marry (Gen. 24:12 ff.). The Talmud (תענית ד) says that there are three who asked incorrectly שלשה שאלו שלא כהוגן two of whom were answered correctly. These two are Eliezer the servant of Abraham and Jonathan the son of King Saul. In the Laws of Idol worship Maimonides writes that it is forbidden to rely on a sign by declaring that if a certain event happens, that it is a bad sign or a good sign. But it is permitted to look back at events and say this event was a good sign for what happened after or this event was a bad sign for what happened after. According to this Eliezer was testing God in a way that’s forbidden. Eliezer was trying to discover if his future actions are being blessed by God and are the right actions or are they not blessed by God and are not the right actions. In other words, to discover if this woman should be brought back to Isaac because God has selected her for Isaac or not.

The underlying reason for this prohibition is that you are supposed to use your own rational faculties to decide what to do and not request a sign from God. I would add that there’s an especially big problem when you pray to God, ‘Please give me a sign’. You are forcing Gods hand, so to speak.  God cannot opt out of your test. For example, if you say, ‘If I am meant to do this thing, then let this coin be heads and if I’m not meant to do it let it be tails. When you flip the coin it must be either heads or tails, which you will then interpret as a sign from God.  But perhaps God doesn’t want to play your game and wants you to decide based on your intelligence.  You will have no way to know if the heads you threw is a message from god or just the laws of physics working.  

At every football game they flip a coin to see who starts with the ball. But what makes that permitted is that you’re not involving God in it. You know that this the 50% chance of either alternative and you are not investing this event with any Divine meaning, although of course God may decide to get involved. But you are flipping the coin because there’s no fairer way to decide between the two teams. The problem arises when you presume God’s involvement in your coin flip. For example, if you say, ‘God if we’re meant to go to war with this nation then let the coin be heads and if not then let it be tails.’ Now the coin will definitely be either heads or tails. So whether God decided to give you a message or didn’t decide to give you a message you have decided that this is a message. That is the biggest problem with predicting the future in this way. You will think God condones certain behavior, certain actions and if they go wrong, if they don’t go well you’ll say God misled me; you’ll blame God when God had nothing to do with it. He was not maneuvering that coin one way or the other. You cannot make an event that may be a random event into a non-random event simply by asking God to be involved. And that is exactly what Eliezer did. He prayed to God that God would send him a sign through the behaviour of Rivka at the well and whether she offered water for the camels.

Those commentators who wish to defend Eliezer’s actions say that he was not simply making a random sign for the future and deciding his behavior based on that but he was looking for a certain compassionate quality in Rivka. She should be not only generous but self-sacrificing. To draw enough water to give to several camels of a guest is not merely generosity, it is also a lot of work and a high degree of self-sacrifice. These are good qualities for the wife of Isaac. Recall that God describes Abraham’s mission as being to practice “charity and justice” (Gen. 18:19) לַעֲשׂוֹת צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט. To partner with Isaac in this mission Rivka should demonstrate charity. Therefore Eliezer was not asking for a sign but looking for an indication of her good qualities. Even if God was not involved in the events that transpired, this was still an intelligent way to discover the girl’s character.

If we look at the blessing that Rivka’s family gives to her before she leaves: (24:60) “Our sister, be thousands of myriads. May your seed inherit the gates of those who hate him.” (An echo of 22:17) On the surface this sounds like an aggressive militaristic blessing, that her children should conquer their enemies. This seems a very strange blessing to give a young girl who from the story seems to be a very generous and caring person. Why have they given her a blessing to be a conqueror? I think this can be understood when we realize that conquering the enemy is not for the sake of revenge or destroying those who are nearby but is to create a better society for them. If we look at the people around the Middle East in those times we’ll see that they place a very low value on life. There’s a certain cruelty in their hearts much as people in the Middle East today believe in unavoidable destiny and martyrdom. Perhaps possessing the gates will save the enemies from themselves.

The literal meaning of the blessing is that her offspring should inherit the gates of its enemy. We know that in the Bible the gates are the place where the elders sit and judge the people. So the blessing is not simply that Rivka’s offspring should destroy their enemies but that they should sit in their enemy’s gates and judge their enemy and in so doing elevate the culture and ethical norms of the society by bringing “charity and justice” into the gates and towns of those enemies. The Jew’s mission in the world is not to destroy the enemy but to enlighten the enemies. We see this in a straightforward way in the Torah that conquering is a mitzvah, first and foremost to remove idolatry which is to remove unethical and unrighteous cultural norms from those enemies. This is the mission God describes in Gen. 18:19, to do charity and justice.

Eliezer looked for a partner for Isaac who would possess the quality of charity and Rivka’s family blessed her that she should join with the Abrahamic mission of bringing ethics to the Canaanites, that she should be  the gatekeeper for the cultures that surround her family in the land of Israel. We should view our actions in Gaza not as revenge and as conquering for conquering’s sake but as a way to achieve a normal to achieve cultural normalization for our neighbors, that their culture should reflect the good values that Judaism has been teaching to the world for 3,000 years. And towards that end it is of utmost importance that Israel be in charge of the education administration of any lands that are under our administration so that the children who will be the next generation will be taught harmony and loving kindness. 

Parshat VaYeshev – The Three Loves

07 Thursday Dec 2023

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By Rabbi Nachum Danzig

26 Kislev 5784

Parshat Vayeshev speaks of Yaakov settling down to live with his family in peace in Eretz Israel. Rashi notes that the Torah has already told us that Yaakov has settled in Israel. Rashi brings a midrash about this extra emphasis that Yaakov was sitting in the land, dwelling in the land of his fathers:

ביקש יעקב לישב בשלווה. קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף.  צדיקים מבקשים לישב בשלווה !? אומר הקדוש ברוך הוא לא דיין לצדיקים מה שמתוקן להם לעולם הבא, אלא שמבקשים לשב בשלווה בעולם הזה

Yaakov had a hard twenty years and just wants to be allowed to dwell in peace now. But the Midrash criticizes Yaakov for trying to relax because it’s not the job of the zaddik to try to relax. And inasmuch as every Jew strives to be a zaddik this applies to us as well. We cannot relax and this is because we have a mission; we are servants of God; we are His shlichim; we have tasks and duties to perform constantly. Each person according to his ability, needs to serve God and serve the Jewish people and serve the world at large and cannot just relax. We cannot opt out.

Our thoughts of course move to our soldiers who are certainly not sitting in peace and trying to rest. They are serving God by defending the people of Israel. Protecting the people of Israel is doing God’s work. May God protect them!

We are definitely in a trying time right now. We are in a time of judgment – so many people were killed and tortured on October 7th and are still being killed and tortured. I mean of course the soldiers who are sometimes casualties in the war. I also mean the civilians being killed in acts of terror on the home front.  We are certainly experiencing a time of strict judgment. There are still hostages being held and tortured. This is a time of strict judgment.

The Talmud (Menachin 41a) describes how Rav Ketina was avoiding the mitzvah of tzitzit and criticizes him for it, saying:

בזמן דאיכא ריתחא ענשינן

The Talmud says that in times of strict judgement, then even avoiding the observance of an optional Mitzvah ( מצווה קיומית ) like tzizit can bring about the opposite of reward, ח”ו.  It can take away God’s Divine protection, ח”ו. 

The army has actually seen a great uptick in the desire of soldiers to put on tzitzit. I don’t think that most of the soldiers know this Talmudic saying but every Jew in his soul is connected to God and to Torah and intuitively knows that this is the time to wear tzitzit. 

And this reminds me of a kabbalistic idea,

ג’ דרגין אינון מתקשרין דא ברא, קב”ה אורייתא וישראל.(הזוה”ק אחרי ע”ג,) 

God, Torah and Am Israel are all one. Based on this idea, the Hassidic masters explain that the command to love God includes within it the command to love the Torah and to love one’s fellow Jew. These are called the three loves: the love of God, the love of Torah, and the love of another Jew. 

Love of God is not enough. Without the love of Torah and the love of one’s fellow, one’s love of God will not endure. But where the love of one’s fellow exists, it will bring one to the love of God and love of Torah. 

If a Jew loves God without loving his fellow Jew there is something lacking in his love of God. But if a Jew does acts of kindness to other Jews and loves other Jews this will eventually lead him to the love of Torah and the love of God. Thus loving one’s fellow Jew is the fundamental teaching of Torah.

Baruch HaShem we are seeing greater and greater love from one Jew to his neighbor. There is no greater love for one’s fellow Jew than risking one’s life to protect his fellow Jew. I think that the soldiers are teaching us to love one another better.  Just as we were exiled because of unbounded hatred.  So the redemption will come through unbounded love of our fellow Jews.

Baal Worship: Fertility Gods and Leviticus 26

21 Friday Aug 2015

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Parshat Bechukotai starts in Leviticus 26 verse 3.  We read the promises God makes if we keep His Torah and and then the threats of suffering if we do not.  But if we backup to the end of Parshat Behar (25:50 – 55) we read about the fair treatment of slaves, and are reminded that we were once slaves in Egypt.  Ending this section is a command not to worship idols.  (26: 1 – 2) .  Coming as it does after these laws of slavery it seems like just another place where the Torah tells us not to worship idols.  The Massorah which is the traditional division of paragraphs in the Torah clearly connects verses 26:1 -2 to the end of chapter 25.  But the Christians place them at the beginning of a new section, chapter 26.  According to the Christian division, based on the Septuagint, the idol worship prohibition is directly connected to the promises God makes.  I.e. Don’t worship idols, instead do my laws and you will get blessings.  And what are these blessings? First and foremost it is rain.

Let me quote the relevant verses:

“1 Do not make for yourselves gods and a statue and an upright stone do not stand up for yourselves and don’t put a covering stone in your land to prostrate upon because I am the Lord your God.2  My Sabbaths shall you keep and my Temple shall you fear, I am the Lord. 3 If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them,4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.5 Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely.”

Read this way, the connection between verses 1-2 and verses 3-5 is that instead of worshiping idols you should keep God’s Laws and then you will receive blessings.  Baal was the primary Canaanite deity.  He was the god of storm and fertility.  In the hilly land of Canaan there are no rivers. Agriculture is completely dependent on rain (compare Deut. 11 : 10 -11). Baal was worshiped as a fertility god, the storm brings rain which drenches that land and makes it fruitful. The rains should come and come in the right time of year so as to be useful for the grain harvest. When the people are told not to worship Baal they will naturally fear that the rains will then cease to come.  So the Torah reassures them that by keeping God’s Law, they will get the blessing of rain and so much abundance that “the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing”.

Verse 1 contains a strange list of idols.  At first reading we might suppose that the verse is simply listing various different kinds of worship all of which are forbidden.  But after a close reading we will notice the use of the word and not or.  It seems these items were worshiped together all at once.

In the ancient city of Hazor a collection of items for the worship of Baal were discovered. They are currently on display at the Israel Museum.  We find a semi-circle of smooth upright stones, the middle one is a slightly larger stone which has worshiping  hands and a crescent moon carved into it . In the center of the semi-circle is one flat stone which is unhewn.  There is also a statue of a seated Baal, its head having been severed at some later point, probably by Israelite monotheists.  Baal worship seems to have required all these elements.  The carved stones are the gods (elilim, “idols”)  from verse one.  The stone bearing the hands and moon is the upright stone.  The unhewn stone is the covering stone used for prostration and the statue is the seated Baal statue. All of these pieces were brought together to make a kind of ad hoc temple to worship Baal. Thus the Torah is listing the specific elements of Baal worship and telling the people not to worship Baal and instead promising fertility in the land based of adherence to God’s Laws.

The Massorah disconnects the prohibition of idolatry from the promises of agricultural success perhaps because idolatry was no longer such a threat.  In the absence of current idolatrous practice, it was better to simply emphasize the success that will come from Torah observance, without offering it as an alternative to a no longer existing practice.

-ND

Holy Korach!

21 Sunday Jun 2015

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Parshat Korach (Numbers 16 – 18) begins with a puzzling Hebrew expression, ויקח קרח, literally, Korach took, without ever stating what he took. Commentators have suggested that Korach took himself to one side to separate himself from the community, or that he took or gained the favor of the men of the Sanhedrin (Rashi) or that he took for himself a bad purchase by using his money to gain influence and create a dispute (R Shimon ben Lakish, BT Sanhedrin 109b).

The Torah often plays Hebrew word games and sound games (take for example the Copper Serpent in Number 21:6-10). Here, in chapter 16 the letters ק ח recur frequently. First in Korach’s own name, and then in the word take (Kach).  Then in verses 6,17,18 all in reference to taking fire pans. Is the Torah telling us that Korach is a taker? Why are his followers taking fire pans?  Moses without any instructions from God has decided to use fire pans and burning incense in them to determine who is allowed to be priests. How did Moses know to use this as a means of determination? Why not use animal sacrifices, a far more common service of the priests? Eliahu used animal sacrifices in contest with the priest of Baal on Mt. Carmel (I Kings 18:20). So why not here also? And why did Korach and his entourage so readily agree.  Why didn’t they offer their own contest?

When is the incense offering offered normally? It is offered twice a day on the golden altar each time by a different priest (Mishna Tamid 5:2).  The priest burns this offering inside the Temple building in the Holy section without any other people present.  Once a year, on Yom Kippur the High Priest would burn the incense in the Holy of Holies, also alone. Due to its exclusive nature, the incense offering was seen as the paramount of holy devotion for a priest. Furthermore, when we compare the purified incense to a bloody animal it also seems to be more spiritual in nature.

Korach’s claim is that the whole community is holy and should be able to be priests. What better way to break down the hierarchical structure of the priesthood than to take the most holy of all the sacrifices and allow everyone to perform it?  It was the obvious way to demonstrate that all the people can approach God in the most holy way – the complete democratization of religion.  We noted earlier that it is unclear what Korach took, and that we see later in the verses a lot of taking of fire pans. If we use these later verses that contain the letters ק ח to explain the first verse of the parsha we can suggest that what Korach took right from the start was a fire pan for the burning of incense. This is why Moses suggested using fire pans to run the contest.  And this is why Korach agreed so readily, it was his idea in the first place!
Korach wanted all the people to have an equal share in the religious ritual and sacrificial rite. This seems like it should be a legitimate request. Any person in the faith should be able to come close to God and express his love and fear of God. In current times the desire to open up religious ritual and practice to all the community is the predominate sentiment.  But I want to explore the other side of the argument.  Is there any value in keeping certain areas of the religion off limits, or off limits to most member of the faith?

One justification would be that familiarity if it doesn’t breed contempt, at least is breeds familiarity! And familiarity has its down side.  A goal of religion is take people out of their normal existence, to experience something far removed. This requires specialness of place and time and limitation of access. In Judaism the Temple is mostly off limits and that creates a feeling of awe. In Islam, Mecca for example is a place most members of the faith only visit once in their lifetime. In Catholicism there is a special feeling created by the Midnight Mass, a feeling which would diminished if it would take place every night of the year.  In Judaism, part of the holiness of visiting the Kotel is in its very infrequency. Our feeling of inspiration is often linked to difficulty or rareness of a certain experience.  The Hassidic movement captured this idea in the seasonal visit to the Rebbe. Keeping some things in religious practice off limits serves to enhance meaningfulness of religious practice as a whole.

In the Temple there are two parts, the Holy and the Holy of Holies. The many daily animal sacrifices take place in front of and outside of the Temple.  The incense offering takes place in the Holy section of the Temple.  This represents a higher level of exclusiveness.  As we noted, only one kohen per day may do this service and only once in his life.  The Holy of Holies has even a higher level of exclusivity and holiness, it is visited only once a year. These different levels of separateness command higher levels of respect and awe, and create a sense of holiness.

There is a more prosaic reason for limiting who can officiate in the holy service. It prevents competition and resentment. When a certain position is open to everyone but only one person is chosen, those who are not chosen may feel resentment. Why wasn’t I chosen? He is no better than I am. But when the choice is made from birth, such as the selection of the King of England there is less resentment.  I was never in the running to be King of England so I don’t feel indignant that I was not chosen. This is the primary utility in a static hierarchy. It would have not been possible for all 600,000 (or more) Israelites to act as priests.  All Korach could have accomplished would have been to make everyone eligible to be priests.  When only some would be selected there would have been a lot of resentment. Aharon and his sons are a tiny fraction of the whole population.  By selecting them, God created a greater level of preeminence for them and an ensuing greater respect and awe for them.  And He also removed a potential for a lot of future disappointments and resentment.

What avenue do the faithful have today to approach the Divine? Prayer is our replacement for Temple Service, the service of the heart.  In our prayers there is one special time when we go to a holier place than even the High Priest on Yom Kippur goes to.  In the Kedusha prayer, we do not go to the Holy of Holies, but we go to the angelic place beyond that, the third level of holiness.  And we say, “Holy Holy Holy, Lord of Hosts, the whole world is filled with Your glory.”  And in this paradoxical statement we recognize that God is indeed separate (holy) but we also recognize that we can reach closeness to Him in any place in His world, ‘the world is filled with His glory’. Prayer is open to all people at all times.

The First Rashi

23 Thursday Oct 2014

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Rashi [Bereshit 1:1] notes — in the name of ‘Rabbi Yitzchak’ — that it would have been logical for the Torah to begin with the first Commandment “This month for you is the beginning of months” [Shmot 12:2]. Why then does the Torah begin with the story of Creation?

The Torah began with the story of Creation because it wished to convey the message of the verse “The power of His acts He told to His people, in order to give them the estate of nations” [Tehillim 111:6]. If the nations of the world will say to Israel ‘You are bandits for you conquered the lands of the seven nations who inhabited Canaan’, Israel will respond that the whole world belongs to G-d. He created it and He gave it to whoever was proper in his eyes. By His wish He gave it to them and by His wish He took it from them and gave it to us. These are the words of Rashi.

Rashi’s first point is that since the Torah is meant primarily to teach laws, it should have started with the first law in the Torah.  But why doesn’t Rashi propose that it start with the more central laws of the Torah, like for example the ten commandments?  One answer would be that Rashi is simply choosing the place where a law first appears in the Torah, and that law happens to be the law prescribing the sanctification of the new moon, kiddush hahodesh. Or perhaps this law is chosen because it shows the central place of the Jew in the law, for it is the Jew, the Sanhedrin that proclaims the new month and hence the calendar. There cannot be a calendar without the Jews creating it and therefore all the holidays are dependent on man. Man and God are partners in Torah.  But there is a still deeper connection to the law of Kiddush HaHodesh.

In the story of the creation of the moon it is written: There shall be lights in the heavenly sky to divide between day and night. They shall serve as signs [to define] festivals, days and years. (1:14) So we see that particularly, the moon and the sun were destined from inception to be observed and used as holiday markers by the Jews.  Creation itself was built for the halachic use of the Jew. Rashi’s thought is that the Torah should start with the application of halachic to creation. But this would imply that creation’s only value is for the use of man.  But creation has an intrinsic value for God. And so Rashi explains that creation is a manifestation of God’s strength (Psalms 111:6). And that is independent of the Jews particular needs. Furthermore, God gave the Land of Israel to another nation before he gave it to Jews. Jews are not the sole focus of creation.

God’s world is a fact.  It is the choice of the Jews and the Gentiles whether they will participate in God’s plan.  There are no guarantees for us. But the world is constant. To quote George Carlin, “The world doesn’t need saving, we need saving.”

Nitzavim – I Swear!

16 Tuesday Sep 2014

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The Land of Israel is in sight and the nation is about to enter and conquer it.  Moses and the people know this mean that Moses must die very soon. And so Moses is giving his last speech to the nation to encourage them to keep the commandments when he will no longer be around. The speech begins with Moses saying, “Today you are all standing before God your Lord… You are thus being brought into the covenant of God your Lord, and [accepting] the dread oath that he is making with you today.”(D 29:9-11)  The word used to mean “standing” is nitzavim.  This is not the normal way to say standing.  The normal word would be omdim.  And in fact, this word is use later, in verse 14 . So why does Moses use this unusual word here to tell the people they are standing before him?

And there is even a more essential question that needs to be answered, there have been several previous events where a covenant was made between God and the Jewish people (not counting the pacts between God and the forefathers), why the need to do this again?  There was the communal pact of the Pascal Lamb in which blood was use as a sign of the pact. There was the pact at mount Sinai.  And now there is this pact which is referred to as brit arvot moav. What is it’s purpose? It cannot be a pact to keep the commandments, that was already done at mount Sinai. And our being His people was already established with the Pascal Lamb. Commenting on verse 12, Rashi offers an answer to this question:

‘He will be your God’: He spoke with you and swore to your forefathers that He would not exchange their progeny with another nation, therefore He makes you take these oaths so that you do not provoke Him to anger [knowing] that He is not able to abandon you. This is the literal explanation. In the Midrash it is asked, why is this section subsequent to the curses? Because the Israelites heard 98 curses (not counting the 49 in Leviticus)  they turned pale, saying ‘who can withstand these [curses]?’ So Moses began to comfort them:  You are standing today even though many times you have angered Him. He has not destroyed you. You still exist before Him. [So too in the future if you anger him, you will survive.] – Rashi

The Jews’ covenant with God that has now gone through 3 phases and intensifications is an unusual pact.  Even if the Jews break their side, God will never leave them for another nation.  They might take advantage of this situation and ignore their side of the agreement knowing full well they will face no consequences.  Hence the preceding curses and blessing are integrally tied into to this pact. Since God cannot throw them out, and He is stuck with them, He makes the Jewish people swear not to violate his covenant.

But what use is an oath? The Jewish people already agreed to the covenant. What extra purpose does the oath to keep the covenant serve? Why should  a person obey his own oath more than the original agreement to the covenant? And what is the meaning of the Midrash that Rashi also mentions? If Moses is pronouncing all these curses to scare the Jewish people into keeping the covenant, why after achieving the intended emotional  reaction would he comfort them and tell them they will survive?  He wants to frighten them into keeping the laws.  Leave them scared!

The intent of the curses was not to scare the people but was an expression of their own commitment to the laws. Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain in his book Shem MiShmuel explains what is the purpose and meaning of an oath. When a person experiences an extraordinary event he can gain new clarity about his life and his behavior. For example a smoker may visit the cancer ward of a hospital and see the patients dying from lung cancer and suffering terribly.  He then resolves to never smoke again.  He throws away his cigarettes.  He rushes home and throws away all his packs of cigarettes.  He tells his neighbors to never give him a cigarette.  He calls all the shops in town and tells them not to sell him any more cigarettes again. But several hours pass and the shock of the experience begins to wear off and his desire for a cigarette increases until at last he goes to his neighbor and ask for a cigarette.  The neighbor says, I can’t give you a cigarette, you yourself told me not to.  The smoker responds, Yes, that was 5 hours ago and now I am telling you to give me a cigarette! Do my previous words have any more weight than my current words?  Rabbi Bornsztain says Yes, they do!

The smoker had clarity of the truth and knew that some time later this clarity would wear off.  He took every precaution to ensure he would keep his commitment. In the Torah this is done by swearing an oath. In so doing, one creates a certain level of commitment that can outweigh future views and opinions. Rabbi Bornsztain compares this to the oath of marriage. You are dating someone and at a certain point you realize all your thoughts are only about them and you want to be with them always – you are in love.  So you commit yourself to this person through marriage.  Much later an outside viewer might not see any signs of love. But you know that there is a deeper you, from an earlier time that was truly committed. So even now you are love.  If you could penetrate to that previous level, you would see it. Your oath of marriage is the reminder of your true feeling even if they are not visible now.

The law in the Torah of nazir, neder and shavua are legal structures which are founded on this principle. Why is there an oath at all? If I feel strongly now I will probably feel strongly next year too. And if I don’t feel strongly next year, why should I commit myself now? Because you know that now you have a special insight that might not last till next year.  You use the oath to tell your future self that your past level of commitment outweighs any future opinions.  This same concept can be applied to a nation and its future generations.

As long as Moses was alive, the Jewish people had a high level of clarity of God and their responsibilities to Him. They knew that with Moses’ death their clarity would fade. Therefore they took these oaths to create a level of commitment that would stand for them in all future times, even when that clarity fades.  This it the reason for the use of the word nitzavim instead of omdim. Nitzavim is related to the word matzeiva,  monument.  The monument is a constant reminder of some great event or person from the past.  Even if today we don’t remember how great that event or person was, when we see the monument we realize that it must have been very significant if they built this monument.  The standing of the Jewish people here was to create a similar monument by means of taking an oath. In this way, future generations should know that at one time the presence of God was clear and that the nation’s level of commitment to Him was without fault.  Even if today we do not readily see this commitment the oaths remind us that on a very basic level we are committed to God.

The people’s fear of the oaths was a fear that perhaps future generations would be so far removed from the events that the oath would not serve its purpose and the curses would crush the people.  To this Moses comforted them and responded that the current generation is just as much lower than the preceding generation as any future generation will be lower than they are. Just as the current generation is far removed from the actual generation that left Egypt and experienced that high level of awareness of God that was a result of being involved in the great miracles first hand and yet, they are still here and committed to God, so will any future generation be committed to God.

A similar clarity and oath followed the Flood.  After such a great event, Noah committed himself to keep for himself and all future generations the 7 Noahide Laws.  The monument to remind us of that commitment from a state of intense clarity is the rainbow.

 

Nachum Danzig