When I was at the peak of my Torah study days I particularly loved studying from old books. I would breathe in that familiar aroma of decaying paper fibers and hear the creaking of the binding as I opened it and my thoughts would stray to those who had held the book before me. Finding notes in the margins, even if I didn’t understand them, was the absolute jackpot for me. This preoccupation with relics of the past stemmed from my understanding that those who came before me lent meaning to my scholarship.
The Talmud (Menachot 29b) documents a fantastic story:
אמר רב יהודה אמר רב בשעה שעלה משה למרום מצאו להקב"ה שיושב וקושר כתרים לאותיות אמר לפניו רבש"ע מי מעכב על ידך אמר לו אדם אחד יש שעתיד להיות בסוף כמה דורות ועקיבא בן יוסף שמו שעתיד לדרוש על כל קוץ וקוץ תילין תילין של הלכות אמר לפניו רבש"ע הראהו לי אמר לו חזור לאחורך הלך וישב בסוף שמונה שורות ולא היה יודע מה הן אומרים תשש כחו כיון שהגיע לדבר אחד אמרו לו תלמידיו רבי מנין לך אמר להן הלכה למשה מסיני נתיישבה דעתו
Rab Judah said in the name of Rab, When Moses ascended on high he found the Holy One, blessed be He, engaged in affixing coronets to the letters.Said Moses, ‘Lord of the Universe, Who stays Thy hand?’ He answered, ‘There will arise a man, at the end of many generations, Akiba b. Joseph by name, who will expound upon each tittle heaps and heaps of laws’. ‘Lord of the Universe’, said Moses; ‘permit me to see him’. He replied, ‘Turn thee round’. Moses went and sat down behind eight rows [of Rabbi Akiba’s students and listened to the discourses upon the law]. Not being able to follow their arguments he was ill at ease, but when they came to a certain subject and the disciples said to the master ‘Whence do you know it?’ and the latter replied ‘It is a law given unto Moses at Sinai’ he was comforted.
This short story arises in the context of a Talmudic discussion of the laws of what the letters in a Torah scroll should look like. A more cynical version of myself rejoiced in its absurdity. For starters, an anthropomorphic deity being delayed by the additional little details of calligraphy is beyond amusing. But on a more practical level, this story seemed to prove that even the Sages didn’t believe their recurring assertion that Moses was handed the Torah along with all its laws and customs directly from God.
However, there is a more romantic way to read the story.
Moshe receives the Torah in the most organic and natural way, through prophecy and directly from its Source. However, Rabbi Akiva, the father of the Oral Torah, has a less lucid interaction with the law. He does not converse directly with God, and must instead plumb the seemingly insignificant details of the document to uncover the law. Moshe is engaged in dialogue, while Rabbi Akiva is reading the transcript generations later. Of course Moshe could not understand Rabbi Akiva’s lesson, for he was never forced to rely on the seemingly extraneous details of a document. His only comfort is knowing that even Rabbi Akiva sources himself in Moshe, he is not creating something new, but endeavouring to arrive at the very same Source.
Well, in any event that would be the romantic way to read the story. The Scholars of the Talmud, champions of the Oral Law, envisioning God placing each detail into the text only so that they could uncover the law centuries later. Unfortunately this concept of tradition is no longer one that bears weight with me. In this story alone I might point out that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet underwent a tremendous evolution and that Rabbi Akiva’s letters bore little resemblance to the ones Moshe would have seen God write. I might also point out that Rabbi Akiva’s successors are the ones telling this legend, and as such they might have a vested interest in proclaiming that the methods of their teacher (and subsequently their own methods) were Divinely validated from the get go.
As an Orthodox woman and later on as I attempted to study the Talmud academically, (read: non-traditionally) Tradition was an enemy with a face. He chased, haunted, and berated me. People who would use Talmudic stories such as this one to prove that the Oral Law with all its trappings is an authentic reading of Torah would infuriate me. However, now that Tradition and I have not had much to do with each other for a few years, I can understand why there is so much comfort to be found in his arms and I might once again appreciate some romantic notions about him.
For an Orthodox Jew, the sources he studies are the same ones beheld by Rav Chaim Brisker, The Baal Shem Tov, Rav Yosef Cairo, Hillel and Shammai, Ravina and Rav Ashi and countless others. We all studied the same texts and all hoped that they would transport us back to the original meaning as understood by Moshe as he stood face to face with the Divine. The sources bind us not only with our Creator, but also with each other in an awesome community. I am humbled by my own infinitesimal existence as I consider myself against the backdrop of scholars who preceded me, but I am also aware that this past has allowed me to transcend myself and propels me into a deeper understanding of Torah than I would have been able to accomplish myself. There is solace there when faced with the crisis that is existence.
As a secular woman, there is something empowering about being an individual. Going at the world alone, deciding for yourself what is good and what is evil. No one and nothing binds me and holds me back. But I would be lying if I said that I did not miss my little community of Tradition.
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