Al Reguel Ajat

In Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, the main character, Jean Valjean, is sent to prison, initially for five years, for stealing a loaf of bread. The novel is set in France in 1795. Today, in some Islamic fundamentalist regimes, the punishment for stealing more than a quarter of a dinar is to cut off the thief’s hand. In some societies, the punishment is or was disproportionate to the harm committed.

It is written in Exodus 21:23-25: «But if there is any other wrong, then you shall appoint as punishment: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.» The concept is repeated in Leviticus 24:18-20 and Deuteronomy 19:21. This maxim is known as the Law of Talion, from the Latin «talis,» meaning «identical» or «similar,» meaning that the punishment imposed must be identical or equivalent to the damage. This was a revolutionary idea, especially in the world of biblical times, when it was common for punishment to be disproportionate to the harm caused. However, in Jewish literature, there is no known case where this law was applied literally.

The rabbis of the Mishnah (1st century CE) went further. In chapter 8 of the Talmud’s tractate Bava Kama, they discussed the issue at length and ultimately decided that compensation should be monetary, as applying the commandment literally presented legal and ethical difficulties. One of the many arguments they presented was what R. Simon b. Yohai said: «An eye for an eye means monetary compensation, not gouging out the eye of the guilty party. What then do you do in the case where a blind person gouges out another person’s eye, or where a cripple cuts off another person’s hand, or where a lame person breaks another person’s leg? How can the principle of an eye for an eye be fulfilled in this case?» For the blind person who gouged out another person’s eye, it is not a punishment to have his own eye gouged out.

The Mishnah in Bava Kamma 83b continues the theme and says: «He who injures another person is responsible for paying, in addition to the damage caused (being left maimed, for example), for the pain caused, the costs of healing, the time lost in earning a living, and the humiliation.» The amount to be paid is determined by a rabbinical court.

What does all this mean? The rabbis, in the early years of the Common Era, reinterpreted and modified the application of the biblical precept to make it more humane. A position repeated countless times, on many topics, in the pages of the Talmud. Rabbinic Judaism not only considered the legal aspect, but also considered the effects it would have on humankind.

The principle of «an eye for an eye,» found in the Bible, has been completely misunderstood. It is generally thought to be a barbaric prescription focused on personal revenge and is often contrasted with the New Testament principle of turning the other cheek. Gandhi said that an eye for an eye would blind everyone. «An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life» is found in the sections of the Bible that instruct judges how to punish criminals. It is strictly an instruction for justice, not for personal revenge.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Adam Kirsch: «Is an eye for an eye really an eye for an eye?» and other sources.

The first Temple in Jerusalem was built by King Solomon on Mount Moriah in the early years of his reign (970-931 BCE). It was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in 586 BCE. The second Temple began construction in 538 BCE and was completed 23 years later. Several centuries later, around 20 BCE, the second Temple was renovated and expanded by Herod the Great (73-4 BCE), who had been appointed king of Judea.

The rebuilding of the temple under Herod began with a massive expansion of Mount Moriah, which had a plateau on the northern end and declined steeply on the southern slope. Herod’s plan was to turn the entire mountain into a giant esplanade. To extend the natural plateau of the Mount, he enclosed the area between four large retaining walls and filled in the gaps. On top of this plateau, Herod virtually rebuilt the Temple, using only priests and Levites as workers. Herod’s Temple was completely destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Today in Jerusalem, most of the retaining wall is hidden behind residential buildings, with the exception of the southern portion of the western side of the wall, which is visible and is known as the Western Wall, or in Hebrew, the Kotel Hamaarabi. Therefore, strictly speaking, the Kotel was not an integral part of the Temple itself, but rather of the Mount’s plateau.

The Midrash speaks of the western wall of the Temple, but it is not until the 16th century, with the Ottoman conquest of the Land of Israel and the migration of Spanish Jews to Turkish lands, that the Western Wall of the Temple Mount is mentioned in some writings as a place where Jews gathered to pray. With the expansion of the Jewish population in the Land of Israel beginning in the 19th century and the increase in visitors, the Wall’s popularity began to grow among the Jewish people. Images of the Wall began to appear in works of Jewish folk art, to be mentioned in literary works, and the first archaeological work began.

Some Jewish philanthropists, such as Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron Rothchild, attempted to purchase the Wall and the adjacent neighborhood, but were unable to do so for reasons that remain unclear. The Anglo-Palestine Bank attempted to do so in the early 20th century, with similar success. After the Balfour Declaration and the recognition of a Jewish community in the Land of Israel by the British Mandate, the Western Wall began to have national significance as well as religious significance.

From the beginning of the 20th century, the Western Wall was a constant scene of conflict between Arabs and Jews. A League of Nations commission, in 1930, ruled that the Wall belonged to Muslims, but that Jews had every right to pray there, although they could not blow the shofar. From 1947 to 1967, Jews had virtually no access to the Wall, until the Six-Day War, when Old Jerusalem passed into Jewish hands. The famous photo of the first Israeli soldiers at the Kotel established the Western Wall as the most representative place of the Jewish people. The Wall is, without a doubt, the most symbolic place in Judaism.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.

The Talmud tells us that, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), Rabbi Yohanan Ben-Zakai managed to remove the sages and leaders of the Jewish people from the city and bring them to Yavneh. However, his actions could not prevent the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, which ended Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel.

Evelyn Gordon and Hadassah Levy tell us: “The Torah was clearly intended for a sovereign people in its own land: numerous commandments, such as those related to the Temple service or agriculture, can only be carried out in the Land of Israel. Many others, from matters of trade to legal issues, are enforceable only in a sovereign state.”

Gordon and Levy continue: “As time passed, it became clear that the exile would be prolonged. The rabbis therefore began the process of converting Judaism into something capable of surviving outside its homeland. The Temple service was replaced by prayer. The festivals were reinterpreted. A fixed calendar was established. Torah study became the supreme value. And the importance of sovereignty, of being an independent nation, was downplayed: for the sake of Jewish survival, the message was that sovereignty was not essential as long as rabbinic leadership remained.” This process of conversion took shape by writing down the oral law, first in the Mishna and finally, after four centuries, in the Talmud. This ensured uniformity in the principles of halakha and the authority of the rabbis.

But with the establishment of the State of Israel, the sovereignty of the Jewish people over their land was restored, and halakha must now adapt to the new conditions. Just as Ben-Zakai and his successors transformed Judaism from a religion of sovereignty to a religion of exile, Judaism must now reverse the process and reconstitute itself as the religion of a sovereign nation. How should a Jewish country and army function? How should a Jewish state regulate marriage and divorce? What are the rules for acquiring citizenship? Can employees of public services, such as electricity, the army, the police, and hospitals, work on Shabbat? How should agriculture, education, and the legal system function? The answers are not obvious.

Halakha must now create new ways of interpreting the Torah in the State of Israel. Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits tells us: I believe we can say that halakha has the wisdom to be able to adapt, with intelligence and common sense, the written word of the Torah to the new circumstances of the Jewish people. This wisdom and its implementation cannot be rigidly restricted to any code. No written word can foresee in advance the countless situations and changes in circumstances that occur in the history of men and nations. But this change has not occurred. As Berkovits says, all the years of diaspora have made us lose the capacity to resolve situations as a nation. We still have the halakha of the shtetl, of exile, when we should already have the halakha of the State of Israel.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Evelyn Gordon, Hadassah Levy, “Halacha’s Moment of Truth,” and Eliezer Berkovits, “Not in Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halakha.”

Professor James A. Diamond tells us: “One problem that the sages of the Talmudic era encountered was the fact that no biblical figure even remotely walked or talked like a rabbi.” This anomaly was particularly serious when those figures were the founding fathers of Judaism, such as the patriarchs and Moses, or its most prominent heroes, such as Kings David and Solomon. The dilemma of biblical heroes who did not meet the ethical and spiritual standards of rabbinic Judaism placed the sages in a quandary, as was the case with King David.

David was the second king of the people of Israel and reigned from approximately 1010 to 970 BCE. The Bible describes him as a great warrior and a writer of psalms. In his 40 years as ruler, he accomplished important things, uniting the people of Israel, leading them to victory in numerous battles, conquering the land, and paving the way for his son Solomon to build the Temple. But the Bible also mentions how he committed adultery with the woman who would later become his most famous wife, Batsheva, King Solomon’s mother. David saw her naked from his terrace, had relations with her, and impregnated her. But Batsheva was married to Uriah, so David sent him to the front lines, where he died. Nathan prophesied the punishment that would fall upon the House of David for this sin: «The sword will never depart from your house.»

But the rabbis of the Talmudic era presented a different picture. The Midrash tells us: “David was not educated like his brothers, but spent his days in the fields tending sheep. This pastoral life prepared him for the position he was to occupy. He treated the sheep entrusted to his care with love and tenderness, so God said: ‘He understands how to tend sheep, so he will become the shepherd of my flock of Israel’” (Midr. Teh. 78). And in another passage they continue in the same vein: “David’s humility is said to have been so extraordinary that when he taught the Torah to his students in the legendary rabbinical academy of his time, he did so while sitting on the bare floor, rather than in the comfort of pillows and cushions. This was because David refused to assume a hierarchical posture in front of his students.”

Why did the rabbis do this? In writing the Mishnah and later the Gemara, the rabbis sought to frame the practice of Judaism within an ethical and religious framework that they understood very clearly, but which the stories in the Bible sometimes failed to explain. How could they understand that the Messiah would come from the House of David if he was a sinner who had committed adultery with Bathsheba? Diamond says: “The rabbis of this formative period, like modern scholars, faced in the biblical texts, among other peculiarities, a series of contradictions, duplicate narratives, literary and legal gaps, chronological discrepancies, inconsistencies, passages and terms that could not be deciphered.” Richard Kalmin comments that, especially in the Babylonian Talmud, the rabbis saw great sages everywhere and presented biblical figures, even the most sinful, as great rabbis.

The way to fix the problem with King David was to change the narrative. They turned the sinful David of the Bible into the holy David of the Talmud.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: James A. Diamond “King David of the Sages: Rabbinic Rehabilitation or Ironic Parody”

Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, known as “Rabbi,” (135–217 CE) lived in the Land of Israel during the Roman occupation. He was very wealthy and highly respected by the Romans. He was a key leader of the Jewish community at that time. According to the Talmud, he was descended from King David, hence the title “Nasi,” prince. He was the author of the Mishnah, the first work of rabbinic Judaism that recorded the Oral Torah. One of his students was Shimon Bar Kappara, who lived around the same time, between 180 and 220 CE, the period between the Tannaim and the Amoraim.

Relations between Bar Kappara and the House of Rabbi were tense, leading Bar Kappara to establish his academy in Caesarea, south of the Land of Israel. It is said that once, while walking along the coast, he saw a Roman who had been saved from a shipwreck emerging from the sea. Bar Kappara took him home, provided him with clothing and everything he needed, including money. This shipwrecked man was the proconsul of Caesarea, and he soon showed his gratitude to Bar Kappara when he freed some Jews who were arrested for participating in a political disturbance.

Bar Kappara admired the natural sciences, a study proscribed by most Jews of the time, who considered it part of «Greek culture.» He also appreciated the Greeks’ love of beauty. He was probably the only sage in the Land of Israel who welcomed the literary activity of the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria. Bar Kappara wrote commentaries on the Mishnah, which appear in the Talmud and clarify obscure passages in the text. With these, the editors of the Tosefta were able to make better halachic decisions.

The agadah tells of a time when Rabbi organized a wedding banquet for his son, inviting all the sages except Bar Kappara. Bar Kappara went and wrote on the door: “The end of all joy is death, so what’s the point of rejoicing?” Rabbi asked who had written it and was told it was Bar Kappara, whom he hadn’t invited to the banquet. Rabbi decided to hold another banquet and this time invited all the sages, including Bar Kappara. During the banquet, Rabbi noticed that the guests weren’t touching the food. Rabbi asked his servants why his guests weren’t eating, and they replied: “Every time we bring a dish, an old man tells three hundred fables, and the guests, listening to them, let the food get cold and don’t touch it.” Rabbi, annoyed, asked Bar Kappara why he did that. Bar Kappara replies: “So you won’t say I came for your food; I came to be with my colleagues.” The Midrash tells us that Rabbi and Bar Kappara eventually made peace. However, Rabbi did not grant his student the title of rabbi.

Rabbi said: “I have learned a lot from my teachers, even more from my colleagues, but much more from my students.” Bar Kappara was undoubtedly a different student. The question remains: How much did one learn from the other?

By Marcos Gochman.

Bibliography: Sefer Ha Agadah by Bialik and Ravnitzky and the Jewish Encyclopedia.

Jacob Neusner says: “If you talk to any Jew who cares about Judaism, the subject of “assimilation” will surely come up, a term fraught with negative connotations for loyal and devout Jews. They argue that assimilation can only lead to the end of the Jewish people as an autonomous community and to the end of Judaism as a religious or cultural tradition.”

Neusner continues: “Built into this concern is a fear of change. They argue that change is bad. They say that one can define the specific characteristics of Judaism, those that all Jewish communities in the world have in common, and one must strive to preserve these common characteristics, because failure to preserve them means failure to preserve Judaism.”

Neusner says this conception of Judaism is flawed for two reasons. The first is because it sees Judaism as something static, unchanging, with only one dimension and unitary, that can be defined and described in only one way—its only way of being Jewish. But it is not difficult to demonstrate that those characteristics that are considered uniquely Jewish today were not considered so at the time they were adopted from the outside world. Yiddish, a language intrinsically linked to the identity of Ashkenazi Jews, had a non-Jewish origin in medieval German. The current way ultra-Orthodox Jews dress in black was borrowed from the dress of Christian Poles.

The second, says Neusner, is when the fear of assimilation reveals a lack of confidence in the resources available to Judaism and in the Jewish people’s ability to adapt and adopt the best features of universal culture. He says that assimilation, properly channeled, is not a bad thing, as it is a source that has revitalized Judaism. This is precisely the argument of Gerson D. Cohen, former rector of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Cohen quotes from the Talmud (Vaykra Rabah 32:5) what Bar Kappara, a second-century CE sage, said: one of the four factors that led to the Israelites’ redemption from Egypt was that they spoke Hebrew. And it is true that at that time the people of Israel spoke Hebrew. But in the time of the Mishnah, the Jews spoke Aramaic, and many also spoke Greek, like the Jewish community of Alexandria. The name of Hillel’s famous edict, the «prosbul,» comes from the Greek «prosbole.» Later, Arabic replaced Aramaic and Greek. Maimonides wrote his «Guide for the Perplexed» in Arabic. And the Sephardic Jews brought Ladino with them from Spain as their language. The change in language did not end Judaism; on the contrary, it renewed it. This ability to translate, readapt, and reorient oneself to a new situation, while retaining the basic Jewish core, is responsible for the survival and vitality of Judaism, says Cohen.

Cohen concludes: The dilemma of whether assimilation is a good thing or a bad thing comes down to a simple question: if non-Jewish forms of expression are assimilated into Jewish life, then assimilation is positive. Medieval German became Yiddish. But if Judaism and Jews are assimilated into the way of life of other peoples, then Jewishness is lost, and that is no longer a blessing.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Gerson D. Cohen: “The Blessing of Assimilation in Jewish History.” Jacob Neusner: “Understanding Jewish Theology: Classical Issues and Modern Perspectives.”

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was born in Berlin in 1925 and grew up in Baden, near Vienna, where his father, Naftali Carlebach, was the chief rabbi. With the arrival of Nazism in Germany, the Carlebach family began a journey through several countries, finally arriving in New York in 1939. There, he and his twin brother, Eli Chaim, studied at Mesivta Tora Vodaas High School, a Haredi yeshiva. In 1943, they entered Rabbi Aharon Kotler’s Kolel and later the Chaim Berlin Yeshiva in Brooklyn, where Shlomo received his smicha, his rabbinical title, in 1954.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach is considered one of the most influential composers of 20th-century Jewish religious music. Dedicated to Jewish liturgical music for over 40 years, he composed hundreds of melodies and recorded more than 25 albums that remain popular and appealing to this day. His influence is still felt in the Carlebach minyanim.

Carlebach was simultaneously a rabbi, religion teacher, composer, and singer, though he was always known as «the singing rabbi.» Although his roots were in traditional Orthodoxy, he branched out to create his own style, one that combined Hasidic Judaism, personal interaction, and public concerts with his music.

In 1950, Carlebach attended the Hebrew-language ulpan (school) of the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, where he would often play Hasidic melodies on the piano. Someone heard him and invited him to sing at the Hillel Center on Convent Avenue, an offer he reluctantly accepted. The poster for the event read: «The Place of Music in the Hasidic Tradition.» Years later, Carlebach would say that this poster «gave him the title of his life’s work.»

From 1951 to 1954, he joined the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and the Rebbe asked him to visit college campuses to «reconnect Jewish students with Judaism.» In 1965, he composed «Am Ysrael Chai,» a song that became an anthem for the movement on behalf of Soviet Jewry. In 1966, he met Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and other folk singers, who helped him participate in the Berkeley Festival. It was then that he decided to remain in the San Francisco area to help what he called «lost Jewish souls,» runaway youth, for whom he founded a center he called «The House of Love and Prayer.» In 1969, his song «Vehaer Eineninu» won first place at the Hasidic music festival in Israel. Carlebach died in 1994. During his lifetime, he was not well regarded by many of his Orthodox colleagues. He had excelled in Talmudic studies at the yeshiva, so many had hoped he would become its director. They viewed his choice of musical path with suspicion. Furthermore, they questioned his public activities, especially when women sang, which they considered a violation of halacha. Nevertheless, today the music of the «Singing Rabbi» can be heard in synagogues from the most Orthodox to the most Reform.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Shlomo Carlebach Foundation, article by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman and Ari L. Goldman.

It is written in Kiddushin 3:12: To be Jewish, one must be the son of a Jewish mother or have converted to Judaism. By this rule, scholars say that Judaism is «matrilineal.»

However, this was not always the case. Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen of Harvard University states: “Numerous Israelite heroes and kings married foreign wives: for example, Judah married a Canaanite, Joseph an Egyptian, Moses a Midianite and an Ethiopian, David a Philistine, and Solomon married women of all kinds. By marrying an Israelite man, a foreign woman joined her husband’s clan, people, and religion. It never occurred to anyone before the Roman exile to argue that such marriages were null and void, that foreign women should «convert» to Judaism, or that the children of such marriages were not Israelites if the women did not convert.” In biblical times, Judaism was “patrilineal”; it was passed from father to son, and there was no process of “conversion” to Judaism.

 Some scholars attribute the beginning of the shift from patrilineal to matrilineal to Ezra the scribe. The Book of Ezra tells us how, after returning to the Land of Israel from the Babylonian exile, he ordered that all Israelite men divorce their foreign wives because of the potential risk this posed to Jewish identity (6th and 5th centuries BCE). Others explain the shift to matrilineal status by the influence of the Roman Code among the sages of the Academy of Yavne, established after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the 1st century CE. Finally, when the Mishnah was codified by Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi in the 2nd century CE, the concept of matrilineality was established as the norm that defines who is a Jew.

But new changes began to take place in 1970 when the Law of Return was amended in Israel. It recognizes as Jewish those who are descended from a Jewish mother, father, grandmother, or grandfather and do not practice another religion, as well as those who converted to Judaism. Years later, in 1983, the Reform movement broke with the traditional halachic definition and declared that a child is Jewish if at least one of his or her parents, either the father or the mother, is Jewish and raised as such. The Reconstructionist movement also adopts the same position, remaining faithful to its principles of complete religious equality for all.

In contrast, Orthodox Judaism today considers as Jewish only those born to a Jewish mother, and this status, for them, is never lost, even if the person practices another religion. They also accept converts to Orthodox Judaism. On the other hand, the Rabbinical Assembly, the association of Conservative rabbis, has reiterated its commitment to the current halachic norm, although more and more members of this movement believe that patrilineal descent should be accepted.

The definition of who is Jewish has focused for centuries on the paradigm of descent. Our religious authorities, of any denomination, only pay attention to who the parents were. They forget that being Jewish is much more than being someone’s child.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Various sources.

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardoso tells us: “The greatness of the Talmudic sages was that they shared their own conflicts and doubts with their students, as well as their attempts to resolve them. This is demonstrated in the debates over halachic issues, especially between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, and between Rava and Abaye. These disagreements were rooted in each student’s view of life and Judaism. The students shared their teachers’ inner lives, and this led to heated discussions. The teachers created tension in their classes, waged battles with their own ideas, and asked their students to question them with all their might. They were not interested in teaching them the final halachic rulings, but rather asked them to dismantle the conclusions to rediscover the questions. These teachers realized that not all halachic paradoxes can be resolved, because life itself is full of paradoxes.”

Rabbi Irwin Kula tells us: “In most cases, when a decision was reached, the verdict favored Hillel and not Shammai. But this was not because Hillel was objectively correct. The Talmud tells us of both teachings: ‘This and this are the words of the living God.’ Why then did the decisions favor Hillel’s school? The reason is because of the way Hillel arrived at his conclusions: Hillel always studied and analyzed Shammai’s position first, even teaching it before his own. His school understood and valued the other’s truth, and they used this to broaden their perspective and present a more inclusive position, which gave them a deeper understanding of life. They did not seek to defeat Shammai in the debate, but to benefit everyone from it.”

Kula says: “Throughout the centuries, our sages have sought to free us from our certainties so that we can discover deeper insights and expand our moral universe. They understood that since no two human situations are identical, the answer we give them today is, by nature, provisional. Every morning there will be a new moral dilemma. There are never definitive answers to life’s great questions; there are only deeper ones. There is something liberating and rich in this teaching. The search for truth is not about finding the final answer, but about going deeper. The goal is not to reach “the answer,” but to live the process of searching again and again.”

Al Reguel Ajat is just that: a continual search for answers. And every time we find an answer, we stumble upon a better question.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Nathan Lopes Cardozo: “The Manifesto of the David Cardozo Academy” and Irwin Kula: “Yearnings, Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life”

Breishit (Genesis), the first book of the Torah, recounts the lives of the first members of the Jewish people, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo questions how the patriarchs can be considered Jews if the rules defining who is Jewish were given to Moses hundreds of years later on Mount Sinai. Wouldn’t it have been more logical, then, for the patriarchs, especially Abraham, to have received the Torah instead of Moses? Thus, divine commandments would have governed the life of the Jewish people from the beginning.

The answer to this question is very important, Lopes Cardozo tells us: “No law, not even divine commandments, can work if it is not preceded by a narrative of the human moral condition and by the introduction of basic moral and religious values. These values ​​cannot simply be given; they must grow within the person through life experience. Such values ​​are not learned from a book; they must be developed gradually, on an existential level, shaped by the values ​​that God grants to each person from birth.”

Genesis 1:26-27 says: “And God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, like our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over the livestock and over all the earth and every creature that moves on the ground.’ So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them.” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks refers to these verses as perhaps one of the most transformative ideas in human history: the idea that all men were created equal. It might seem like an obvious truth, but in many societies it hasn’t. Even Socrates spoke of three types of men: those with souls of gold, those with silver, and those with bronze. Those with gold were destined to be leaders, those with silver to be warriors, and those with bronze to simply obey. The idea that all men were created equal wasn’t, and isn’t, so obvious. It still takes time to become so.

Cardozo continues: “This is why God did not give the laws of the Torah to the patriarchs. They first had to learn through personal trials and tribulations. The patriarchs and matriarchs needed to see with their own eyes what happens when humanity is not governed by law. They had to become aware of basic moral values. Only after man has been deeply immersed and affected by these ideas and values ​​can the law be introduced as a way of putting them into action.” Maimonides said it in his Guide for the Perplexed: it takes a long time for people to change.

The Book of Breishit undoubtedly established the ethical foundations of Judaism based on narratives: Creation, the expulsion from Paradise, Cain and Abel, the Tower of Babel, the Flood, etc. The people of Israel had to assimilate these ethical foundations before they could receive divine commandments. Therefore, Abraham Avinu could not have received the Torah. The people weren’t ready.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Nathan Lopes Cardozo: “The Desecration of Halacha.” Jonathan Sacks: “Essays on Ethics.”