Adler recommends to read through a book as fast as possible to get an over-all feeling for the book, before analyzing the specific parts of the book. I attempted to do that with the Chumash. Everything was going well until we got to Har Sinai. If I had to describe the Chumash until Har Sinai, I would say it is the telling of the account of creation through the event at Har Sinai from the perspective of education of humanity of their place in creation.
But right around the Dibros, it gets confusing. Moshe comes down from the mountain and tells the nation the Dibros. Then there are many laws (Parshas Mishpatim). Then after the Mishpatim, Moshe is on the mountain for 40 days and nights (which I assume is when he received the Written and Oral Torahs).
So it is all very confusing and there are many questions. Did Moshe already receive the Torah when he told the nation the Dibros? If so, why is it told out of order? Why does Mishpatim break the story up? How did Moshe even have the laws of Mishpatim yet if he didn't even receive the Torah yet? If this is one of the most important parts of the Torah (Har Sinai and the events surrounding it), then why is it so confusing?
I'm not as interested in the specific answers to these questions as I am in getting an approach on how to learn from the odd presentation of the Written Torah. That's why I titled this post structure and method - structure of the Five Books and the method of how to learn them.
I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind when you said in your post "Chumash piece", but this is where my mind took me.
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Dan
ReplyDeleteAs I remember it, Adler expected the reader to have the exact type of problems you are talking about. The fundamental confusion you describe comes from the vast gap between the world as it is in the perspective of the great book, vs our own humble perspective. Things that obviously should be viewed one way in the world as the book sees it, are in fact seen a totally different way by us.
This is where parshanut, of the right kind, comes into the picture. Ralbag saw it as his central mission, to connect the worlds of the reader and the Chumash.This involves a transformation on the part of the reader. The first reader was the Jewish people leaving Mitzraim.
The dibrot form a very important stage in that first transformation. This involves identifying the core steps of transformation, both of Moshe as well as the people.
Yes Rabbi, what you are saying makes perfect sense.
ReplyDeleteQuestions:
1) What is parshanut?
2) What are the core steps of transformation of both Moshe and the people? Although, for us at least, wouldn't the transformation of the people be more meaningful, while the transformation of Moshe would be too remote?
Parshanut is series of steps the great man guides us in from the terms we are currently using to the terms the book is using.
ReplyDeleteThe transformation of the people was in the terms of "matter" and "truth". The people began with a sense of "matter" that was chaotic and not subject to truth in the sense of observation and scientific proof. "Truth" therefore was a word for magic, specifically the acts that were believed to channel magical power in a way that could dictate the desired outcome.
Does parshanut have anything to do with the Torah parshas that we are familiar with (i.e. Breishit, Noach, Lech Licha, etc.), or is it a completely something else? Seemingly it is a something else, because the weekly parshas were imposed onto the Torah. The Written Torah in its pure form was not broken up into the parshas as we know them.
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