More thoughts on study as defense

(continued in spirit from My Morning Walk . . . )

Traditionally, the telling of the Pesach story should be understood "as if" it recounted our own personal deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Similarly, there is a tradition that all Jewish souls, past, present and future, witnessed G-d's Revelation at Mount Sinai. For the generation that left Egypt, of course, there was perfect clarity. It was their own personal deliverance with the culmination of the Revelation at Sinai. That event was so profound that the Torah says (in Exodus 20:15-16):

And the entire nation saw (ראים) the voices and the thunder, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain was consumed with smoke. The people saw (וירא) and were frightened; therefore they stood at a distance.¹

Now, the faculty of sight requires active focus, rather than hearing which passively collects all of the random oscillations in the air around you (both signal and noise). When the Jewish people saw the voices declaring the Ten Commandments, they understood much more deeply and clearly than had they just heard the information. After all, "seeing is believing!"

In our current parasha, Moshe is commanded to draw water from a rock by speaking to it in order to show conclusively "before their [the Jewish people's] eyes" (Num. 20:8) that G-d provides for their needs. However, Moshe struck the rock twice and though the rock yielded the miraculous water for the congregation G-d chastises Moshe and Aharon indicating that they too will not enter the Holy Land. (Num. 20:9-13)

As Rashi comments, based on the Midrash, if Moshe had instead followed G-d's command to the "T", the Jewish people would have seen the voices again. They would have more clearly and more deeply understood that if even this inanimate rock, which cannot speak, cannot hear and does not need any sustenance, fulfills G-d's commands, then how much more so should we, the Jewish people to whom G-d entrusted his Torah? Instead, due to Moshe's strikes of anger and impatience, the Jewish people were left only with the notion that G-d will provide for the needs of the congregation (if they bug Moshe enough for them). It's still a nice and comforting thought, but not nearly as symbolic.

This thwarted re-revelation perhaps would have provided a refresher to that generation of Jewish people, who had only heard about the Revelation at Sinai from their folks. (At that point in the story, almost all of the generation of the spies had already died out. Only Kalev and Yehoshua who eventually make it to the Holy Land along with Moshe and Aharon were left at that time. Miryam, whose merit provided the people with a well throughout their wanderings, had just died at the beginning of Chapter 20, thus necessitating the people's need for water.) Instead, the generation of Moshe v. Rock are sustained by the knowledge that their parents saw G-d's Voice and that G-d continues to provide for their needs.

Today, numerous generations removed from the Revelation and Moshe's rock beating event, the communal memory of the Revelation still forms the basis of the Jewish people, faith and tradition, but its temporal remoteness coupled with the many catastrophes in the intervening years leave us open to attack from those of other faiths who seek to diminish our faith in G-d (either for the benefit of another religion or for the benefit of secularism). While some of the other sources that I gave earlier today may urge you to additionally sprinkle in some actual practice here and there, I think that we at the very least study our history, rituals, customs, religious practices. The best defense is always a good offense.

¹ N.B. - In general, I am a fan of the Mechon Mamre website, which offers numerous versions of the entire Tanakh (Torah, Prophets & Writings). However, I used a different text here, since Mechon Mamre follows the JPS 1917 translation, which I find to be very lacking for this particular passage. I've included the Hebrew verbs in the above translation. If you have a keen eye, you will see that both of the verbs have the same (corrupted) root ראה, meaning "to see".