Timeless Torah

The summer of 2006 afforded my family the rare opportunity to drive up the Eastern Seaboard into Montreal. This much anticipated road trip included a stop at Plimoth Plantation, a recreated village populated by actors playing the part of the early Pilgrims who traveled on the Mayflower. Before entering this historical colony, we were warned that the opinions we heard, though disturbing and politically incorrect, were accurately researched. Imagine our surprise when we encountered Wrestling Brewster, son of the colonists’ first Church Elder, actually bowing to us because he felt honored to meet a Rabbi and his family, “Members of the First Covenant.” He further related that his fellow co-religionists who had fled Europe in search of religious freedom had been ‘favorably’ compared to the ancient Israelites.
In truth, his opinion was one held by the minority. On the ‘Mayflower’ we spoke with one of the ‘crew’ who, under his breath, confessed that what was commonly thought about Jews at that time could not be repeated with my children present.
Throughout the ages, the Jews have inspired others to a covenantal relationship guided by Divine morals, even as they were banned from the very societies they instigated. So though they were a minor power compared to the great empires around them, never reaching the size or prestige of Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Babylon, they themselves were convinced that their mission would reverberate far beyond the borders of Israel. In their eyes, their global impact had already been alluded to by Moses in this week’s reading. “Observe [this Law] carefully, for this is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations, who will hear about all these decrees…What other nation is so great…[that has] such righteous decrees and laws as this Law?”
Nachmanides interprets this to mean that even our enemies will praise our way of life. Sforno explains that the Jewish people will be living proof to all that G-d exists. Luzzatto suggests that Jewish laws were at such a variance with the accepted norms of other contemporary nations, that the Divine origin of these laws will be duly noted and accepted.
Whichever interpretation, the implication is clear. The Torah would have global impact. Nowhere is this more striking than in Christianity and Islam, the two faiths that draw much of their inspiration from the Hebrew Bible. Already in the twelfth century, Maimonides wrote that, “The whole world is filled with the [idea] of [the Christian] messiah and the words of the commandments, and these have spread to the farthest islands and among many unenlightened peoples...”
The effect of Christianity and Islam was to spread the Jewish message, albeit in ways with which Jews could not fully agree. Today these religions represent more than half the world’s population. Sinai truly shaped much of civilization and its ideals did become the “Wisdom and understanding…of the nations.”
It was the Torah that first presented the idea that a nation can be bound in a collective enterprise to pursue a ‘holy’ destiny. Furthermore, the health of that nation is directly related to the degree with which it is true to its spiritual vocation. From the outset, the founders of the United States saw themselves as the children of Israel, escaping from Egypt (England) and a cruel Pharaoh (England's kings), across the Red Sea (the Atlantic) to what George Washington called, “The almost promised land.”
Indeed, John Winthrop’s (first governor of the Massachusetts colony) most famous sermon invited his fellow settlers to “enter into a covenant” with G-d and to “follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our G-d.” He warned of G-d’s wrath if they failed and His reward if they followed His ways. It is no great wonder that he concluded by quoting Deuteronomy: There is now set before us life and good, death and evil…let us choose life that we and our seed may live, by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for he is our life and our prosperity.
What is extraordinary about America is that this deeply theological way of speaking about national purpose did not end with the 17th century. It has continued to this day. One of the least well known tributes to the staying power of Deuteronomy is the inaugural addresses of American presidents, starting from George Washington.
In 2001, its vision still drove George W. Bush to declare: We are guided by a power larger than ourselves who creates us equal in His image…Americans are generous, strong and decent, not because we believe in ourselves, but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves…We are not this [nation's] story's author, who fills time and eternity with His purpose. Yet His purpose is achieved in our duty.
No other country uses this intensely religious vocabulary. So while, in America, there may exist a formal separation between religion and state, there is none between religion and society. Though religion possesses no power, it wields enormous influence. It sustains families, binds communities, and prompts volunteers to devote endless hours for the common good.
This public theology reveres the biblical idea of liberty rather than its libertarian counterpart: not merely the freedom to do what one likes, but the freedom to do what one ought. The story of the Hebrew Bible spoke of one people; its message spoke to all people. As one historian noted, “Since the Exodus, freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.”
Centuries ago, our fathers were summoned to be a role model, a living tutorial on how to construct a society built on the equal dignity of all under the sovereignty of G-d. That is what was meant, “This is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations.” It was a supreme challenge then. It remains so now.