How Did the Torah Exist Before it Happened?
Tzvi Freeman
Question:
Could
you explain to me how Jacob could study Torah "in the tents" if Torah
was given to Moses centuries later? And could you explain how Jacob could study
the Torah in which he, too, is a character?
No
rabbi so far has provided me a satisfactory explanation.
Answer:
This
is discussed in many places in Talmud and Midrash. Not only Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, but also Noah and even Adam knew the Torah. Concerning Noah, the Torah
itself writes clearly that G-d told him to take onto his ark "of the
animal which is ritually pure (tahor), seven, seven."
Apparently, he was expected to know for himself that pigs are not ritually pure
and cows are.
What
was the Torah before it was given to us? The Torah is G-d's wisdom, as He
considers Himself, as He considers us and as He considers His world. It
contains the wisdom with which He creates the world and manages it. Think of a
concept paper that a producer might write before developing a video game or
some other such product. The Torah contains exactly that (and much more 1). Each of the lofty souls
we mentioned was able to attain insight into this wisdom and thereby know the hiddenmost secrets of the universe.
Moses
was special in several regards. First of all, Moses was able to see all of the
Torah with perfect vision, crystal clear.
Secondly,
Moses was empowered to bring this Torah to all the people, so that each person
could receive the entire Torah, as he had, each on his own level, for all
generations.
Thirdly,
at
So
let's get back to your question: Does this mean that all these enlightened
individuals saw their whole lives mapped out before them? Did Jacob, for
example, see in the Torah the entire story of Joseph being thrown in a pit and
sold as a slave by his brothers? Did Isaac see that Esau would try to kill
Jacob?
Rabbi
Yeshaya Horowitz (1560?−1630, known as
"The Shelah") discusses this in his classic
work, Shnei Luchot HaBrit.2 He gives the following
answer, based on the words of Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman
("Nachmanides," 1194-1270):
As
the Torah exists in the spiritual realms, it has more than one application.
After all, the Torah is not just G-d's knowledge and wisdom―it is His
will and inner desire. How that desire meets this world depends on many things.
If, for example, the Jewish people would not have tolerated worship of a golden
calf in their midst forty days after having heard the Ten Commandments, there
would have been no need for a Tabernacle. Each one of us would have been a
perfect temple for the Shechinah (Divine presence) and G-dliness would have
dwelt on earth in a much simpler way.
If,
for another example, the spies had have come back from their tour of Canaan and
discussed matters with Moses and let him make the report, we would have walked
into the land with Moses himself at the lead and the Era of Moshiach would have
begun right then and there―with Moses starring as the final redeemer.
But
the Jewish people chose a different way to channel the Divine Will. And so it
is with every situation of free choice we are given: We choose then and there
how the Divine Will is to be channeled into our world.
So
what Adam, Noah, Abraham, etc. knew, contemplated and studied was the Divine
Will and Wisdom. They knew it, they taught it and they conducted their lives
accordingly. What they didn't know―and Moses did―was how that
Divine Will and Wisdom would be actualized in the material plane. Because that
hadn't happened yet.
Rabbi
Horowitz does not write this, but it would seem from what he and many others
have written that the ultimate application of the Torah is that which we have
here in our world. In other words, how things ended up in the end is just how
He had them planned. Only that it had to be brought into reality this way
through our free will. 3
For
example: The Midrash of Rabbi Tanchuma 4
contains a poignant description of how Adam, as he is banished from the Garden
of Eden, accuses G-d of having planned the whole thing from the beginning. His
evidence? The Torah contains all the rules of ritual impurity pertaining to a
dead human body. "So it is in Your plan that there be death in the
world," Adam accuses G-d. "Only that you wished to wipe Your hands on
me!"
The
question is, didn't Adam realize this before, when he originally learned this
concept in the Torah? So we must answer that, yes, he knew there would be
death. But it could have come about in many different ways. Now he discovered what was the hidden Divine Plan―that it came about through
his own free choice. At this point, Adam reached deeper into the Torah.
So
the ultimate Torah is the Torah that Moses wrote over the period of forty years
in the wilderness 5: the
actual implementation of Torah in our world. This Torah was distinct from the
Torah known by the forefathers, because this Torah actually happened. And this
is the Torah that is connected to the very essence of G-d's wisdom that is one
with Him.
As
the master Kabbalists often say, "The highest finds its ultimate
expression in the lowest."
FOOTNOTES
1.
See Tanya, volume 5 (Kuntres Acharon),
p. 160, where Rabbi Schneur Zalman
of Liadi explains that this aspect of the Torah as
the original source of every detail of existence is only an external aspect.
Relative to the essential Torah, all created worlds are absolute nothingness.
2.
Toldot Adam, Beit HaBechira 4.
3.
Concerning this and the following concepts, see at length: Likutei
Sichot vol. 5, page 66, including the footnotes and
the references there. Also Kuntress Yud Shvat 5751, especially
section 7 and on.
4.
Parshat VaYeshev.
5.
There are actually two opinions cited in the Talmud (Gittin
60a): One that Moses wrote scroll by scroll as it happened, and then, at the
end of forty years, he sewed all the scrolls together. Another is that he
simply wrote the whole thing all at once at the end of forty years. Until then,
everything was taught orally. See Nachmanides in the preface to his commentary
on the Torah for a full discussion.
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