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September 7, 2001/Elul 19, 5761, Vol. 53, No.48
Hold words of Torah high
Torah Study
RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Ki-tavoh/Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
This week's Torah portion provides a list of the blessings for those who observe the Biblical commands and the curses for those who reject them, but the curse, "Cursed be the individual who does not hold up the words of this Torah," (Deuteronomy 27:26) is difficult to define.
The Jerusalem Talmud provides an ambiguous commentary which may be taken either literally and simplistically, or symbolically and figuratively, with critical ramifications, especially for Jewish leadership today. On the words "Cursed be he who does not hold up the words of this Torah," the Jerusalem Talmud asks, "Is there then a Torah which falls down?"
The Ramban gives an interpretation, which might well harbor a crucial theological principle: "The cantor ... must lift up the Torah before the congregation so that its script can be seen by everyone standing to the right or to the left."
In addition to the literal directive, there is a profound message in this ritual of lifting the Torah. Every public Torah reading is a reenactment of the revelation at Sinai, when the Israelites "stood and trembled from afar" and took upon themselves the acceptance of the divine covenant. When the Torah is lifted up at each public reading, the attendants viewing declare their acceptance of this divine Torah given through Moses, and reexperience the mythical mystical moment of divine communication and national commitment.
The Jerusalem Talmud provides yet another interpretation. It is not the cantor who is being cursed if he does not prevent the Torah from falling, and fails to lift it high enough; "Rabbi Shimon Ben Halafta says, this refers to the rabbis and judges who led the various Jewish communities throughout history."
Remember the initial query of the Jerusalem Talmud: "Is there then a Torah which falls down?"
The answer is that there certainly is. The Torah falls down when Jews fail to live by its laws, and when Jewish leadership falters in its obligation to raise the Torah aloft.
I shall never forget one of my most beloved students who suddenly and seemingly inexplicably turned away from a Torah way of life. For a time he refused to answer any of my heartfelt entreaties for a dialogue - and then he left a poem at my home.
In part it read "Beloved teacher, both of us are often blind; you do not always see how much you taught me and I do not always see how much I learned from you. You think I took the tablets of testimony, and threw them insolently at your feet. That's not at all what happened. The commandments merely became too heavy in my hands, and they fell to the ground..."
The Torah Scroll falls when the Israelites do not uphold its laws and values. It is the responsibility of the rabbis and educators of every generation to see to it that the Torah becomes, in the eyes of the masses, neither so light that it can be easily discarded nor so heavy that it can hardly be borne. They must help every Jew understand the loving embrace and the profound wisdom of Torah.
When Moses saw the Jews serving the golden calf, he cast the Torah to the ground and caused the tablets to break. He realized that as Israel's shepherd, he had caused the Torah to fall if the Jews departed from its ways as soon as his literal presence left them for forty days.
Indeed, as Rav Samson Raphael Hirsh teaches, the verse under discussion must read: "Cursed is the leader who does not enable the Torah to be upheld by every single Jew."
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the spiritual leader of Efrat, Israel.
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