Parashat Ki Tavo
"But if you
do not obey the Lord your G-d…all these curses shall come upon you and take
effect" (Deuteronomy 28:15)
In this portion
we shall see and clarify that the curses and blessings written in the Torah do
not honestly mean to prophesize the future, but only to warn the people of
Israel in general, to promise them that all manner of evil awaits them if they
are not scrupulous in fulfilling the commandments. In the essay on prophecy we
have already quoted the words of the Tosfot in Yevamot 50a, "Anyway, you
find a prophet foretells naught but things which would happen were there no
sin." Also see what we wrote on the portion of Vayechi about the words of
Jacob to his sons (about what would happen to them at the end of days) which
never occurred or are not clear at all.
It is explicitly
written: "The Lord will make pestilence cling to you until He has put an
end to you in the land you are entering to possess" (Deuteronomy 28:21).
So pestilence will kill off the entire nation? It seems, despite what it is
written, that it is not so, for immediately there follows a description of
other illnesses: "The Lord will strike you with consumption, fever, and
inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew"
(28:22). G-d was not satisfied with this list of illnesses and but continues to
list a few more diseases: "The Lord will strike you with the Egyptian
inflammation, with hemorrhoids, boil-scars, and itch from which you shall never
recover" (28:27). And if all these diseases and afflictions were not
enough, later on in the chapter there are more of the general illnesses:
"The Lord will inflict extraordinary plagues upon you and your offspring,
strange and lasting plagues, malignant and chronic diseases" (28:59).
And so that there
is no mistake about the future, that if some completely unknown disease (like
AIDS) descends upon us which is not found in the list of diseases, the
Scripture takes pains to conclude: "Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you
all the other diseases and plagues that are not mentioned in this Scripture
until you are wiped out" (28:61). This is a sign that the Scripture did
not mean to be a real prophecy of what would happen, but just a list of medical
curses in the most general sense, and what strikes some future truth, good.
Even more
apparent is the fact that the Scriptures did not know precisely what disaster
would befall the people. Would the nation be hit with a disease as noted above
or would it be defeated by the enemy? In another place it says "The Lord
will drive you and the king you have set over you to a nation unknown to
you" (28:36) and after the Scripture promises us we will be sent as a
whole nation ("you and the king you have set over you") to a land we
do not know, it adds a contradictory note: "The Lord will scatter you
among all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other" (28:64).
This is all-purpose prophecy: if we go as a group, there is a verse. If we are
scattered, there is a verse. Then the Scripture mentions another country, and
this time even gives its name: "The Lord will send you back to Egypt in
galleys, by a route which I told you you should not see again." Egypt for
the exile? Why not mention the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Romans, to
whose lands a large part of the nation was indeed exiled? And when the
Scripture says: "The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from
the end of the earth" (28:49) we do not understand what end of the earth
is meant, for neither Babylon nor Rome, the destroying nations, are at the ends
of the earth.
From all this
you see that all sorts of diseases and all kinds of exiles exist in the
Scriptures and how can one ascribe to these words the precision of prophecy?
These curses, you must conclude, are naught but a general statement which lists
illnesses, troubles, exiles, and decrees without the Scripture knowing which
would indeed come true.
Come see: The
Scripture says that G-d will return us to Egypt: "There you shall offer
yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, buy none will
buy." If the Scripture means the destruction of the First Temple, then
they were exiled to Babylon and the remainder fled to Egypt to save themselves
from the Babylonians, so in this first exile the Egyptians actually saved the
Jews. And if the Scripture meant the destruction of the Second Temple, as
Nachmanides wrote on Leviticus 26:15, "And it is said, 'The Lord will send
you back to Egypt in galleys,' and in this our exile Titus filled boats with
them," then if you look in the Encyclopedia Hebraica, entry
"Egypt," pg. 235 you will see that there was a Jewish community in
lower Egypt even before the destruction of the Second Temple, and that it was
large and flourishing. The Gemara in Menachot 109b explains that Onias the son
of Simeon the Righteous built an altar in Alexandria, Egypt, and this some 200
years before the destruction of the Second Temple, as written there, "He
(Onias) went to Alexandria in Egypt and built there an altar and sacrificed
there in Heaven's name, as is written in Isaiah 19:19, 'In that day there shall
be an altar to the Lord inside the land of Egypt and a pillar to the Lord at
its border." We find that at the time of the Second Temple Egypt was a
good place and a shelter for the Jews and as the prophet Isaiah continues in
verse 21: "For the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the
Egyptians shall acknowledge the Lord in that day." (We will note,
incidentally, that the words of Chazal which attribute Isaiah's words to the
Second Temple period are puzzling, for Isaiah clearly spoke about the kingdom
of Assyria, and this kingdom only existed only during the First Temple period:
"In that day, there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The
Assyrians shall join with the Egyptians" [Isaiah 19:23].) This is a
perfect example of how our rabbis mix earlier and later as long as it settles
contradictions in the Scriptures; it is clear to any who looks honestly that
this is really not what the Scripture meant.
More than that,
come see how they build and pull apart prophecies and how there is a ready
excuse for any prophecy which does not come true. Chazal say in Tractate Makot
24a: ""Rabbi Yossi the son of Chanina said: four edicts made Moses
over Israel, four prophets came and abolished them. Moses said, 'So Israel will
dwell in security, the spring of Jacob alone' (That is, when will Israel dwell
in security? When they are as righteous as the spring of Jacob—Rashi) – Amos
came and abolished it, as is written, 'How will Jacob arise?' (Who can be as
righteous as Jacob?--Rashi [that is, Amos does not require us to be as
righteous as Jacob]), and it is written, 'The Lord has repented for this…'
Moses said, 'And among these nations you will find no calm' (Deuteronomy 28:65)
– Jeremiah came and said, 'Go calm Israel' (that they will find calm in their
exile)… Moses said, 'And you will be lost among the nations' (Leviticus 26:38)
– Isaiah came and said: 'And it will come to pass in that day that the great
trumpet shall be blown…' (which teaches that they will not be lost among
idolaters)."
We learn that
Moses, whose prophecies came from the Divine, was supplanted by other prophets
who abolished them. We have already said that this is the way of the Torah,
generations come and go, G-d decrees and the prophets abolish. The Torah
prophesizes that the people of Israel will be lost and Isaiah abolishing that
and says "And it will come to pass in that day that the great trumpet
shall be blown," and Rav, who obviously did not interpret Isaiah's
prophecy as his predecessor did, said in the Gemara there: "I am afraid of
the verse, 'And you will be lost among the nations'."
This Gemara
contradicts Nachmanides's words on Leviticus 26:15 which say that the curses in
Leviticus refer to the destruction of the First Temple, while Rav was in an
exile after the Second Temple's destruction, and he fears a future in which
Israel will be lost amongst the nations. In general, Nachmanides's words are
puzzling, for he wrote: "But the covenant which is in Deuteronomy hints at
our exile…and it did not mention transgressions of making idols or that they
would worship idols at all." We do not understand his words, for the
Scripture refers to the curses in our portion and writes there explicitly,
"Cursed be anyone who makes a sculptured or molten image"
(Deuteronomy 27:15) and more than that, it is written: "where you shall
serve other gods, of wood and stone" (28:36). It is also written,
"and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which neither you
nor your ancestors have experienced" (28:64), but we do not know of any
instance in the second exile in which the people of Israel worshiped things of
stone and wood. Another proof is that Nachmanides, in his commentary which
ascribes the verses in Leviticus to the First Temple's destruction alone,
contradicts Chazal's opinion in Tractate Megillah 11a, "'I will not reject
them or spurn them to destroy them' (Leviticus 26:44). In the Beraita it is
written: 'I will not reject them'--in the days of the Chaldeans, when I gave
them Daniel, Chananyah, Mishael, and Azariyah, 'or spurn them'--in the days of
the Greeks, when I gave them Simeon the Righteous…'to destroy them'--in the
days of Haman, when I gave them Mordechai and Esther, 'to violate My
covenant'--in the time of the Persians, when I gave them the House of Rabbi and
the sages of the generations." Chazal interpreted the verse in Leviticus
explicitly as also referring to the Second Temple period! We have brought these
things to show you that the words of the Torah are interpreted as the commentator
sees fit, this one says this and that one says that, and the Torah and its
words are as putty in the hand of the sculptor.
Not only the
Torah and the Prophets, when they spoke of the future, did not really mean that
things would occur, but even Chazal themselves prophesized prophecies which
never did occur. Even though it is said about them in Baba Batra 12a, "Rav
Avdimi of Haifa said: From the day the Temple was destroyed, prophecy has been
taken from the prophets and given to the sages" when they prophesized
about the future they were dealing with guesses only. We find in the Gemara,
Yoma 10a, "R' Joshua the son of Levi quoted Rabbi: Rome is destined to
fall to Persia, as said (Jeremiah 49:20): 'Hear, then, the plan which the Lord
has devised…' Rabbah the son of Bar Hana said…Rome is destined to fall at the
hands of Persia based on reasoning from a minor premise to a major one. The
First Temple was build by Semites and destroyed by Chaldeans and the Chaldeans
fell to the Persians, so the Second Temple, built by Persians and destroyed by
Romans--is it not the rule that they should fall to the Persians?" Not
only will any who read this sort of reasoning laugh, their words did not come
to pass, and Persia never did conquer Rome.
And in
conclusion we will quote the words of Maimonides in The Laws of Kings, chapter
12, halacha two, which reinforce our words: The sages said that there is
nothing between our world and the Messianic times but the enslavement of the
nations…there are those among the sages who say that the coming of the Messiah
will be preceded by the arrival of Elijah, and all these sorts of things no one
will know until they actually happen, for they are opaque things by the
prophets, the sages even do not have a tradition about these things except
through interpreting the verses, and therefore they are divided about these
things."
And since there
is no tradition about these things, they are like legends and fables which pass
along viewpoints, knowledge, moral lessons, reasons for living, and experience,
but real truth and factual validity or foresight they do not possess.
Words of True
Knowledge
