ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף ירמיהו 29:10

39. The Rabbi: Our law is linked to the 'ordination given to Moses on Sinai,' or sprung 'from the place which the Lord shall choose' (Isaiah 2:3), 'for from Zion goes forth the Law, and the word of God from Jerusalem.' Its mediators were the Judges, Overseers, Priests, and the members of the Synhedrion. It is incumbent upon us to obey the Judge appointed for the time being, as it is written: 'Or to the judge who will be in those days . . . and thou shalt inquire, and they shall tell thee the sentence of judgment, and thou shalt do according to the word which they tell thee . . . from the place which the Lord shall choose . . . and thou shall take heed to do according to all they teach thee' (Deuteronomy 17:9, sqq). Further: 'The man who doeth presumptuously not to listen to the priest . . . this man shall die, and thou shalt remove the evil from thy midst.' Disobedience to the Priest or Judge is placed on a par with the gravest transgressions, in the words: 'Thou shalt remove the evil from thy midst.' This concludes with the words: 'And all the people shall hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously.' This refers to the time when the order of the Temple service and the Synhedrion, and the sections [of the Levites], who completed the organization, were still intact, and the Divine Influence was undeniably among them either in the form of prophecy or inspiration, as was the case during the time of the second Temple. Among these persons no agreement or convention was possible. In a similar manner arose the duty of reading the Book of Esther on Purim, and the ordination of Ḥanuccah, and we can say: 'He who has commanded us to read the Megillāh' and 'to kindle the light of Ḥanuccah,' or 'to complete' or 'to read' the Hallēl, 'to wash the hands,' 'the ordination of the Erūb,' and the like. Had our traditional customs arisen after the exile, they could not have been called by this name, nor would they require a blessing, but there would be a regulation or rather a custom. The bulk of our laws, however, derives its origin from Moses, as an 'ordination given to Moses from Sinai.' This also explains how a people obtained during forty years sufficient food and clothing, in spite of their large number. Moses was with them, and the Shekhinah did not forsake them, giving them general as well as special laws. Is it not absurd to assume that they refrained from inquiring occasionally into the details, and handing down their explanations and subdivisions? Take the verse: 'And I will make known the laws of God and His statutes' (Exodus 18:16), which is supplemented by the other: 'For this is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations, which shall hear all these laws, and they will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people' (Deuteronomy 4:6). He who wishes to gainsay this verse may look at the Karaites; but he who desires to confirm it, let him behold the branches of knowledge embodied in the Talmud, which form only a small portion of the natural, metaphysical, mathematical, and astronomical studies [in which the Sages indulged]. He will, then, see that they deserve praise above all nations for their learning. Some of our laws originate, in certain circumstances mentioned before, 'from the place which the Lord shall choose.' Prophecy lasted about forty years of the second Temple. Jeremiah, in his prophetic speeches, commended the people of the second Temple for their piety, learning, and fear of God (Jeremiah 29:10m sqq.). If we did not rely on men like these, on whom should we rely? We see that prescriptions given after Moses' death became law. Thus Solomon hallowed: 'The middle of the court' (I Kings 8:64 sqq.), slaughtered sacrifices on a place other than the altar, and celebrated 'the feast seven days and seven days.' David and Samuel appointed the order of the Temple choir, which became a fixed law. Solomon added to the sanctuary built in the desert, and omitted from it. Ezra imposed the tax of one-third of a shekel on the community of the second Temple (Nehemiah 10:33). A stone paving was put in the place of the Ark, hiding it behind a curtain, because they knew that the Ark had been buried there.

And it is no wonder that the words were concealed and closed up, there being two reasons for this: the first, the very nature of the matter, which warrants secrecy and concealment so that the populace not be confounded by its great duration; the second, the progressive diminution of prophecy at that time. It is well known that the criteria of prophecy are clarity or its relative absence. For example, the prophecy of the "prince of the prophets," Moses, was characterized by complete clarity, as it is written (Numbers 12:8): "…manifestly, and not in riddles." It follows from this that towards the close of the period of prophecy the visions be completely unclear. It is for this reason that the visions of Zechariah were of this nature, to the extent that the expositors are completely befuddled by them. And for this reason, too, it is no wonder that the "reckoners of the ends" of the exiles calculated and erred and "grew weary in searching for the door." This was the case with respect to the two exiles in which we were redeemed, though the times of the redemption were explicitly stated in Scripture. Of the redemption from Egypt it is written (Genesis 15:13): "For your children shall be strangers in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years," in spite of which the children of Ephraim calculated and erred and were premature in their attempted termination of the exile (Sanhedrin 92b). The same occurred with the second redemption, though its time was stated with relative clarity, viz. (Jeremiah 29:10): "After the completion of seventy years in Bavel, I shall remember you…" And concerning this our sages say (Megillah 11b-13a) that Belshazzar calculated and erred, Ahasheurus calculated and erred, and even Daniel calculated and erred. Now if this was the case with explicit prophecies designating determinate years, what should be the case with the redemption deliberately alluded to in veiled words — "season and seasons, and time and times, and two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings"!

I therefore maintain that the Law, though not a product of Nature, is nevertheless not entirely foreign to Nature. It being the will of God that our race should exist and be permanently established, He in His wisdom gave it such properties that men can acquire the capacity of ruling others. Some persons are therefore inspired with theories of legislation, such as prophets and lawgivers: others possess the power of enforcing the dictates of the former, and of compelling people to obey them, and to act accordingly. Such are kings, who accept the code of lawgivers, and [rulers] who pretend to be prophets, and accept, either entirely or partly, the teaching of the prophets. They accept one part while rejecting another part, either because this course appears to them more convenient, or out of ambition, because it might lead people to believe that the rulers themselves had been prophetically inspired with these laws, and did not copy them from others. For when we like a certain perfection, find pleasure in it, and wish to possess it, we sometimes desire to make others believe that we possess that virtue, although we are fully aware that we do not possess it. Thus people, e.g., adorn themselves with the poems of others, and publish them as their own productions. It also occurs in the works of wise men on the various branches of Science, that an ambitious, lazy person sees an opinion expressed by another person, appropriates it, and boasts that he himself originated it. The same [ambition] occurs also with regard to the faculty of prophecy. There were men who, like Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah (1 Kings xxii. 2:24) boasted that they received a prophecy, and declared things which have never been prophesied. Others, like Hananiah, son of Azzur (Jer. 28:1-5), claim the capacity of prophecy, and proclaim things which, no doubt, have been said by God, that is to say, that have been the subject of a divine inspiration, but not to them. They nevertheless say that they are prophets, and adorn themselves with the prophecies of others.