Sinaite Notes – “Textbook of the Soul” – 5

A Sinaite’s Notes/Sinai6000.net

[First posted in 2012. This is part of a series when we first started this website and titled it “A Sinaite’s Notes” — sharing our initial ‘rediscoveries’ as we journeyed along the road to many more wondrous things to learn in studying the Torah of YHWH. At the start of our journey, we still had the Christian mindset and still carried with us what we call “baggage” from our former doctrinal orientation. Eventually we started shedding the ‘load’ and at some point, dumped it altogether so we could move forward rather than keep getting bogged down by what we were taught and had taught others, and what we were then unlearning and relearning all at the same time.

Check out the other articles in this series:

Reformatting, images, colors added.—Admin1]

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These are excerpts from “An Overview,” The Stone Edition of TANACH, published by Mesorah Publications Ltd. This Hebrew Bible [TNK] may be ordered from www.artscroll.com.

TANACH – the word evokes images of the Revelation at Sinai, with thunder and lightning, shofar blast and pillar of cloud, an awestruck nation receiving the Ten Commandments and Moses ascending to heaven as its intermediary. . . . It evokes the history of a nation that accepted upon itself the privileged burden of carrying out the mission that began when God created heaven and earth. It evokes the goal of bringing about the human manifestation of “let there be light.”

Tanach is the Hebrew acronym for the three sections of Scripture:

Torah
Neviim [i.e., Prophets] and
Kesuvim [i.e., Writings]

The Tanach has many faces.

It is the compendium of God’s commandments, the “constitution” of His People.
It is a book of “history” although it is certainly not a “history book” in the ordinary sense of the word.
It is filled with promises of the rewards that await those who do good and the punishments that will come in the wake of evil.
It looks at life wisely and offers advice and guidance.
It comforts the aggrieved and inspires the crestfallen.
It illuminates events and helps place them in perspective.

Let us try to understand these faces of the Tanach — not only as a book of law and surely not as a book of lore, but as the book of life.

I. The Creator’s Code

It was only logical for the Creator of the universe to provide man with a code of conduct; otherwise man would be like a helpless creature thrashing about in an impenetrable maze. The best proof of this, unfortunately, is found in history books and daily newspapers. The earth is filled with creeds — religious, political, economic, philosophical and intellectual; and so many oceans of blood have been spilled and mountains of treasure expended in the name of those beliefs. After all these centuries, man is still trapped in the maze, lashing out against those who stand in his often directionless path. Surely God’s plan of Creation would have helped man answer the essential questions of existence.

Where would he turn?
For what should he strive?
How should he behave?
What will help him achieve his goal?
What will hinder him?
What does God expect, desire, demand, of him?

Although the commandments contained in the Five Books of Moses are the Jew’s code of conduct, God wants more than strict adherence to the letter of His laws. The Torah is meant to shape people as well as deeds, because it is only human beings who are God’s standard bearers and whose personal example can inspire others to serve Him.

So important is this concept that Genesis devotes much space to the conduct of the Patriarchal family –and even of its servants. God wants us to learn not merely from written texts; the most eloquent texts are of flesh and blood. No abstract sermon about compassion can surpass the story of how Abraham turned principle into practice when he appealed for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. The inhabitants of those prosperous city-states were so incredibly evil that they have entered the language of paragons of perversion. And Abraham knew it. Yet he pleaded strenuously that God save them [Genesis 18:17-33]. . . .

. . . . The experiences of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs show how God accepts the prayers of those who fear Him, how He protects them against their enemies, and how He tests them to bring out their innate greatness. The early life of Moses shows how an abandoned infant, a tongue-tied, reluctant exile, became the greatest of all prophets and the conduit of God’s law. The Exodus from Egypt demonstrates that the forces of nature and the power of the state are merely tools or matchsticks in the hands of God. The wanderings of the Jews in the Wilderness proves that fears are groundless where there is Divine protection, but that foolish rebellion against God destroys people’s paradise on earth. The point is that the narratives of the Torah must be read as lessons for eternity.

. . . . The Books of Tanach are replete with both certainty and subtlety. The Five Books of Moses emphasize that virtue brings blessing and sin brings curse. On the other hand, other Books show that God is often patient and that His ways are often hidden. The Book of Esther records nine years of history with not a single mention of God’s Name . . . God’s Presence was invisible . . . . And the story ends in a flash of understanding that God’s hand may be gloved, but it is never completely withdrawn.

This is a major principle in the understanding of history. God may seem to slumber, but He never abandons His master plan for Creation.

[Re: Israel as the chosen Light-bearer] Like an embryo forming unseen in its mother’s womb, Israel’s destiny was being prepared in Egypt. There, Joseph was preparing the crucible in which Israel would be formed into a nation. Jacob’s family would soon go down to Egypt, eventually to explode in a blaze of miracles and the Revelation at Sinai. It was an eternal lesson to future generations that God’s plan moves forward, even when its progress is inscrutable.

[Next: The Essence of Prophecy]

Source: Exodus/Shemoth 24 – "the sight of the Glory of YHVH (was) like a consuming fire" -- We gentiles living in this 21st century are able to experience that climactic moment [God appearing on Sinai] by reading and studying this portion of the TORAH. Indeed, we see YHWH not quite as dramatically as the mixed multitude did, but perhaps even better through these accounts recorded in Exodus. There is a saying that hindsight is 20/20 vision, i.e., we begin to see and understand the question marks in our past only later in our lives, as we mature and hopefully become wiser and more introspective about the meaning or seeming meaninglessness of happenings in history, whether personal, national, or universal. Søren Kierkegaard adds a twist to this: “Only 20:20 vision is hindsight. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” As we endeavor to understand each portion in the TORAH of YHWH, much of it will seem irrelevant to our current situation but if we see beyond the time-bound cultural and religious situations and begin to understand what truly has not change—human nature and the Great Revelator who designed the perfect blueprint for living in peace, happily and contentedly with family, community, country and the nations, the unquestionable conclusion is: TORAH is relevant to ALL humankind, not just to Israel, to this very day.

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