{"id":85516,"date":"2020-12-27T18:42:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-27T16:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=85516"},"modified":"2020-12-27T18:42:04","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T16:42:04","slug":"keeping-the-pillars-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/keeping-the-pillars-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping The Pillars Firm"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/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":[],"acf":{"old_id":"85516","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"642","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Torah and the preservation of Creation\r\n\r\n","content":"

V.4 of our chapter reads: <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Earth and all its inhabitants dissolve; it is I who keep its pillars firm. Selah.\u201d Rashi thought this alludes to the revelation of the Law at Sinai saying: \u201cOn the day the Torah was given, the earth and all its inhabitants were trembling because of the condition that God had imposed on Creation: If the Torah is not accepted, you will revert to chaos and turmoil.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To better understand this, we need to look at another Rashi and at a well-known talmudic legend (<\/span>aggadah<\/span><\/i>).<\/span><\/p>\n

Gen. 1:31, which states \u201cIt was evening, it was morning, <\/span>the<\/span><\/i> sixth day,\u201d deviates from the previous verses in which the days of the week appear without the definite article. Rashi explained: \u201c[Scripture] added the [definite article] <\/span>heih<\/span><\/i> to day six at the conclusion of creation to say that God made it conditional on Israel accepting the Torah.\u201d This, in turn, is based on the Talmud\u2019s reading of Exodus 19:17: \u201cAnd Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the lowermost part of the mount.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Avdimi bar \u1e24ama bar \u1e24asa said: The Jewish people actually stood beneath the mountain, and the verse teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, overturned the mountain above the Jews like a tub, and said to them: If you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there will be your burial. Rav A\u1e25a bar Ya\u2019akov said: From here there is a substantial caveat to the obligation to fulfill the Torah. (Shabbat 88a)<\/span><\/p>\n

Joseph Heinemann, a modern scholar of aggadah, thought that the Babylonian Amora Aha bar Yaakov misunderstood the Palestinian Amora Avdimi\u2019s intent. The former, exhibiting a typical Babylonian preoccupation with legalisms, concluded that the Jewish people can claim that they were coerced into accepting the Torah, and it is therefore not binding. The latter\u2019s intent, however, was more universal: If the Torah was unclaimed, not only the Jewish people would perish but all creation would revert to chaos (<\/span>Aggadot ve-Tol\u2019doteihen<\/span><\/i>, Jerusalem 1974, 174).<\/span><\/p>\n

It would appear that the prophet Jeremiah had the same thing in mind when he declared, in God\u2019s name: \u201cWere My covenant not [kept] day and night, I would not have appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth\u201d (33:25).<\/span><\/p>\n

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