{"id":47031,"date":"2019-01-06T23:24:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T21:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=47031"},"modified":"2022-07-31T21:10:38","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T18:10:38","slug":"freedom-and-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/freedom-and-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom And Order"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[354],"acf":{"old_id":"47031","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33923,"related_cahpter":"127","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Humanity is constituted by its freedom: we are what we choose to be","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Numbers takes up the story as we left it toward the end of Exodus. The people had journeyed from Egypt to Mount Sinai. There they received the Torah. There they made the Golden Calf. There they were forgiven after Moses\u2019 passionate plea, and there they made the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, inaugurated on the first of Nissan, almost a year after the exodus. Now, one month later, on the first day of the second month, they are ready to move on to the second part of the journey, from Sinai to the Promised Land.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet there is a curious delay in the narrative. Ten chapters pass until the Israelites actually begin to travel (Num. 10:33). First there is a census. Then there is an account of the arrangement of the tribes around the Ohel Moed, the Tent of Meeting. There is a long account of the Levites, their families and respective roles. Then there are laws about the purity of the camp, restitution, the sotah, the woman suspected of adultery, and the nazirite. A lengthy series of passages describe the final preparations for the journey. Only then do they set out. Why this long series of seeming digressions?<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is easy to think of the Torah as simply telling events as they occurred, interspersed with various commandments. On this view the Torah is history plus law. This is what happened, these are the rules we must obey, and there is a connection between them, sometimes clear (as in the case of laws accompanied by reminder that \u201cyou were slaves in Egypt\u201d), sometimes less so.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the Torah is not mere history as a sequence of events. The Torah is about the truths that emerge through time. That is one of the great differences between ancient Israel and ancient Greece. Ancient Greece sought truth by contemplating nature and reason. The first gave rise to science, the second to philosophy. Ancient Israel found truth in history, in events and what God told us to learn from them. Science is about nature, Judaism is about human nature, and there is a great difference between them. Nature knows nothing about freewill. Scientists often deny that it exists at all. But humanity is constituted by its freedom. We are what we choose to be. No planet chooses to be hospitable to life. No fish chooses to be a hero. No peacock chooses to be vain. Humans do choose. And in that fact is born the drama to which the whole Torah is a commentary: how can freedom coexist with order.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From:\u00a0<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ever-Repeated Story (Covenant &amp; Conversation, Bamidbar 5777)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":68448,"id":68448,"title":"is58-break free","filename":"is58-break-free.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is58-break-free.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/break-every-yoke\/is58-break-free\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is58-break-free","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":68447,"date":"2020-01-12 21:21:56","modified":"2023-09-24 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