If human authors were writing the Torah with intentions to pass it off as a Divine document, there are certain laws and passages that never would have been included. They would undermine their own credibility. Perhaps the most powerful example is Shmitah (the Sabbatical year for the land). Modern agriculture science has taught us the value of letting the land rest and replenish itself. A sensible law would be to divide the Land of Israel into 7 regions and each year let one region lie fallow while people eat from the crops of the other 6 regions. However, thats not the law of the Torah! The Torah writes: > > For six years you may plant your fields ... but the seventh year is the Sabbath of the land in which you may not plant your fields nor prune your vineyards. (Leviticus 25:36) The WHOLE land is to rest! What happens to an agrarian society that stops farming for one year? Starvation! And how long does a religion last that advocates letting the whole land rest in the 7th year? My guess is about 6 years! Perhaps they could avoid starvation by buying food from surrounding countries? A good idea and a reasonable idea ... but the Torah has other plans. The Almighty says: > > I have commanded My blessing to you in the sixth year and you will have produce for three years. (Leviticus 25:20-22 Either one has to be God to have the audacity to make a law for the whole land to rest and then to promise a bounty crop 3 times as large as usual in the sixth year - or a stark raving mad lunatic! Yet, the Jewish people neither starved nor abandoned the Torah! 3,300 years later a sizable portion of our people still adhere to the laws of Torah and still trust in the promises of the Almighty! How could any human being promise in writing something that requires powers totally beyond his control? And furthermore, why would anyone be willing to risk his own credibility and the legitimacy of his religion, when in both cases, it would be so easy to come up with other, easier ways to eliminate the problems? The Jewish people are known as a stiff-necked people. There is an old adage, 2 Jews, 3 opinions. (I once mentioned this to a man I was teaching and he replied, NO! 4 opinions!). We do not buy a pig in the poke (hopefully, we dont buy pigs at all...). We are a nation of philosophers, intellectually rigorous and stubborn - yet for over 3,000 years we have clung to the Almightys Torah. Does it make you wonder?
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 20:15:33 +0000
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