Nitzavim Vayelech 5773 - English

By Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik
Kol Sheairh Israel – Panama

Let me start with a touch of humor, a joke I found in a Jewish humor page:

Four rabbis met to discuss legal issues and, when the time came to reach a decision, three of them always agreed against the fourth.  One day, the misunderstood rabbi, tired of losing 3 to 1 in the discussions, invokes God before his colleagues:

- Oh Lord!  I know I’m right.  Show us a sign, so that they will see that my interpretation is correct.

Just as he finished speaking a stormy cloud appears in the sky, which until that moment had been sunny, and a bolt of lightning falls at the feet of the four rabbis.

- A sign from God!  I knew it, I was right!

The oldest rabbi, unperturbed, replies:

- It doesn’t matter, it’s three to one; we are still the majority…

The nicest part of this joke, at least in my opinion, is that it is based on a story from the Talmud, the well-known story of “Achnai’s Oven” (Baba Metzia 59b). This story refers to the discussion between the sages (the majority) and Rabbi Eliezer (the solitary opinion), concerning the purity of the oven.

Convinced of his position, Rabbi Eliezer invokes the testimony of a tree (which flows out of the ground and moves), of the waters (the stream begins to flow backwards), and of the walls of the Beit Hamidrash (which start to sway).  Exasperated before the negative of the sages to accept those proofs, the solitary teacher plays his last card: he asks for divine intervention.

According to the Talmud:  “A voice from Heaven came and said: ‘What do you have against Rabbi Eliezer?’  The law is how he decrees it everywhere.’  Rabbi Yehoshua stood up and answered, quoting the verse in Parashat Nitzavim that constitutes the inflection point of the story, “It is not in Heaven” (Deut. 30:12).

And later on in the text, it is Rabbi Irmia who explains the meaning of the passage: the Torah had been already delivered to us in Mount Sinai; we are not ruled by the divine voice, for it is written in the Torah “It is for the majority to decide!” (Exodus 23:2).

I have a special feeling for this story, since it was the first Talmudic text I studied.  At the complementary high school Solomon Schechter, of the Latin American Rabbinic Seminary, the Oral Torah subject put us in contact with rabbinic literature.

However, to be fair, I must confess that my first experience with this Talmudic passage was not entirely positive.  Due to my immaturity and the rebelliousness typical of that age, I remember that both my classmates and I looked down on this story, questioning the surreal features without appreciating the depth of its message.  Our dim criticism to the form prevented us from seeing the transcendence of the lesson.

It was only years later, when I was faced once again with the text, when I discovered the valuable lesson it bequeaths us: the Torah is not in the heavens, it is here, with us, among us; it is part of our lives and it is our responsibility to take ownership of it.

Returning to the joke and from a theological point of view, the Talmudic passage is much more revolutionary.  In the former, the divine voice is a legitimate opinion, equal to that of a rabbi (“we are three against one”); in the latter, God is not entitled to intervene, even to explain His own words in the Torah.

“It is not in heaven.”  The Torah is here, with us, and it must be a part of us.  For this, study and commitment are required; it is necessary to learn to listen to the interpretations of our teachers, of those who came before us, so as to find the guidance that will lead us to build our own answers.  We must be capable of recreating the experience of revelation in Mount Sinai, so that we may receive the Torah and make it our own.

The Talmud closes the story with a fine bit of humor, in harmony with the fantastic spirit of the entire story:

Rabbi Nathan asked Eliahu the prophet: “How did the Lord, blessed be He, react at the time (when Rabbi Yehoshua answered ‘It is not in heaven’)?”  He replied, “God smiled and said, ‘They vanquished over me, my sons, they vanquished over me…’”

Shabbat Shalom,

Gustavo