Pemikiran Yahudi Ulangan 29:5: Akeidat Yitzchak & Guide for the Perplexed

We find a Midrash Tanchuma on Parshat Beshalach section twenty, which states that expounding and interpreting Torah has been granted only to those who ate manna and those who live on tithes. It is clear that the meaning is that only people who do not have to worry about providing a livelihood for themselves and their families, can take out sufficient time to immerse themselves deeply in the study of Torah. Since the generation of Jews who came out of Egypt had no need to work for a living, they qualified for the task of Torah study in depth. In fact, that generation was immune from all the four impediments normal people face in their quest for G'd and His Torah.

We suggest therefore that the ten directives referred to in the Midrash, are the parts of the creative process as such, not the successive directions governing the developmental stages of creation. All phenomena in the universe are summed up under different headings. (A) is the essence; (B) i.e. 2-10 are the forces moderating the essence. These can be subdivided into 2) quantity, 3) quality, 4) direction, 5) the time frame they operate in, 6) the relative condition of the phenomenon when compared to its full potential, 7) its relation to other phenomena, 8) its activity, i.e. its effect on other phenomena, 9) its response to other phenomena, 10) its rationale, its attributes. Each of the aspects mentioned above has an indispensable place in the scheme of nature, and as such is part of the process of creation referred to as "ten directives". True, G-d could have given a single directive stipulating "Let the universe come into existence in accordance with My image of it,” (see Rashbam). This would have meant that the universe would be so interrelated that it would have lacked distinct time frames etc., all the parts of nature that enable us to examine and admire the incomparable intelligence with which it has been planned. Nature would have been deprived of all cause and effect relationships. It would have depended exclusively on the miraculous in order to effect any changes, ever. G-d would have had to treat the whole universe as He treated the Jewish people during the forty years they wandered through the desert, when He provided all their needs, contrary to natural law. Had G-d proceeded in such a fashion, there would have been no room for the exercise of free choice, free will, since that is based on the premise that actions on our part have a causal relationship to the events which we aim to bring about by our decisions and actions. The concept of reward and punishment would not then have been applicable, since nature as a machinery for developmental activities would have been non existent. There would then have been only two ways in which things could happen: (a) accidentally; (b) personal intervention by G-d, i.e. miraculously. In either case, no change could have been attributed to man's participation. Consequently, man could not have been held responsible for setting in motion forces which he not only failed to understand, but which simply did not exist.

Of this kind is the enumeration of the stations [of the Israelites in the wilderness] (Num. xxxiii.). At first sight it appears to be entirely useless; but in order to obviate such a notion Scripture says, “And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the Lord” (ibid. ver. 2). It was indeed most necessary that these should be written. For miracles are only convincing to those who witnessed them; whilst coming generations, who know them only from the account given by others, may consider them as untrue. But miracles cannot continue and last for all generations; it is even inconceivable [that they should be permanent]. Now the greatest of the miracles described in the Law is the stay of the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years, with a daily supply of manna. This wilderness, as described in Scripture, consisted of places “wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water” (Deut. 8:115); places very remote from cultivated land, and naturally not adapted for the habitation of man, “It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates, neither is there any water to drink” (Num. 20:5); “A land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt” (Jer. 2:6). [In reference to the stay of the Israelites in the wilderness], Scripture relates, “Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink” (Deut. 19:5). All these miracles were wonderful, public, and witnessed by the people. But God knew that in future people might doubt the correctness of the account of these miracles. in the same manner as they doubt the accuracy of other narratives; they might think that the Israelites stayed in the wilderness in a place not far from inhabited land, where it was possible for man to live [in the ordinary way]; that it was like those deserts in which Arabs live at present; or that they dwelt in such places in which they could plow, sow, and reap, or live on some vegetable that was growing there; or that manna came always down in those places as an ordinary natural product; or that there were wells of water in those places. In order to remove all these doubts and to firmly establish the accuracy of the account of these miracles, Scripture enumerates all the stations, so that coming generations may see them, and learn the greatness of the miracle which enabled human beings to live in those places forty years.