Origins of the Torah

Origins of the Torah Scrolls from the Torah that Predated Moses Our teacher Moses wrote this book of Genesis together with the entire Torah as dictated by the holy One, blessed is He. It would have been appropriate for him to write at the beginning of the book of Genesis, “The Lord spoke to Moses all these words, saying.” The reason it was written anonymously [i.e., with no such introductory phrase] is that our teacher Moses did not write the Torah in the first person . whereas our teacher Moses wrote the history of all previous generations and his own genealogy, history, and experiences in the third person. Moses therefore is not mentioned in the Torah until his birth, and even then he is mentioned as if someone else were speaking of him. Thus Moses was like a scribe transcribing an ancient book. —Nachmanides, Introduction to Genesis Nachmanides’s words typify the mainstream rabbinical opinion regarding the composition of the Torah in general, and of Genesis in particular. Yet throughout the generations there were some who argued that the Torah had been given “in scrolls,” each at the time most appropriate for its content to be revealed. The stories of Genesis, according to this opinion, were also given at their appropriate time, namely, that of the Patriarchs.1 Moses then was not merely “like a scribe transcribing an ancient book,” but literally used a preexisting text when writing the Torah.2 1 Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of Rabbi Banna’ah: The Torah was given in scrolls, as it says, “Then I said, ‘Behold I have come, I am written about in the scroll of the book’” (Ps. 40:8). Rabbi Shimon b. Lakish says: The Torah was given as a sealed whole, as it says, “Take this book of teaching” (Deut. 31:26). Babylonian Talmud, tractate Gittin 60a. 8 Wisdom and Knowledge Will be Given to You 2 “Then I said, ‘See I will bring a scroll recounting what befell me’” (Ps. 40:8)— [King David says:] Since the time the Torah was given, I have appeared in it. [In the verse regarding Lot’s daughters who are saved from the destruc- tion of Sodom it says,] “And your two daughters who are to be found” (Gen. 19:15). [They are saved] in the merit of David, who will descend from Ruth the Moabite and Naamah the Ammonite, mother of Rehoboam. Here is written, “who are to be found” (ha-nimtza’ot), and there is written, “I have found (matza’ti) David my servant” (Ps. 89:21). It therefore is called a “scroll”: because first the scroll of Creation was written, then the scroll of Noah, then the scroll of Abraham, and thus David says, “I am written about” in the scroll of Abraham.3 Rashi, commentary to Babylonian Talmud, tractate Gittin 60a.4 3 Understand that if we posit that the Patriarchs were considered to belong to the sons of Noah, it may be said that the giving of the Torah began with Abraham, but Abraham was given [the commandment of] circumcision alone; to Jacob was added [the prohibition against eating the] sciatic nerve; in Egypt, the paschal sacrifice; at Marah, other commandments, and at Sinai the rest of the laws. It may be said that this understanding hinges on the debate between Rabbi Yoḥanan and Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Gittin (60a) concerning whether the Torah was given whole or in scrolls. According to the view of Rabbi Yoḥanan, it may be said that the giving of the Torah began with Abraham. Rabbi Joseph b. Judah Engel, Sefer Beit ha-Otzar (Petrokov, 1902), 1:3.5 4 “That same day Pharaoh charged the taskmasters and foremen of the people, saying . ‘Let heavier work be laid upon the men; let them keep at (it and not pay attention to deceitful promises)’” (Exod. 5:6,9)—This serves to teach us that they [i.e., the enslaved Israelites] possessed scrolls, in which they delighted each Sabbath, assuring them that God would redeem them because they rested on the Sabbath. Thus Pharaoh said to them, “Let heavier work be laid,” and let them have neither delight nor rest on the Sabbath day. Shemot Rabbah 5:18.6 Origins of the Torah 9 5 “Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, why did You bring harm upon this people?’ (Exod. 5:22)—What is the meaning of the expression “O Lord, why did You bring harm”? Usually, if a person says to his friend, “Why did you do this?” he immediately becomes angry at him. Would Moses say to God, “Why have You brought harm [upon this people]”? Rather, this is what he said: I took the book of Genesis and read it and saw the deeds of the generation of the Deluge and how they were punished, and it was just; and the actions of the generation of the Dispersion, and the Sodomites, and how they were punished, and it was just. Yet this people—what has it done to deserve to be enslaved more than all previous generations? Shemot Rabbah 5:22. 6 “I took the book of Genesis” (Shemot Rabbah 5:22)—The implication is that the book of Genesis was already completely written . for he is of the view that the Torah was given in scrolls, and at the time of the giving of Torah, the entire book of Genesis [and the book of Exodus] until the matter of the giving of the Torah was already written. Rabbi Ze’ev Wolf Einhorn,7 commentary to Shemot Rabbah 5:22 (Vilna: Romm, 1844), 33.8 7 The Lord said to Moses, “Write this memorial in the book of the ancient elders, and put these words for Joshua to hear: that I will surely blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens.” Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Exodus 18:14. 8 These are the prophets and sages who prophesied and received the Torah and transmitted it to one another. These are the prophets who prophesied to the world before the giving of the Torah: Adam, Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and Eber, until Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob came. In the times of our teacher Moses, there were written texts in which the Patriarchs, beginning with Adam, had recorded the chronicles from the beginning of time. Adam transmitted it to Seth, Seth to Methuselah, Methuselah to Noah, Noah to Shem, Shem to Eber, Eber to Isaac, Isaac to Jacob, Jacob to Joseph and his brothers. They 10 Wisdom and Knowledge Will be Given to You told it to their children, and their children to their children, and those children to the next generation, because although our forebears were in Egypt, they always maintained a house of study, as we find in the aggadah, and this is the meaning of “Go and assemble the elders of Israel” (Exod. 3:16). When our teacher Moses was at the point of writing the commandments, he thought it appropriate to write how Israel had received the Torah. Because he was already explaining what transpired in his time, he wrote the story that had brought them down to Egypt and the history of the Patriarchs from the beginning, looking in the books and writing based on them from the days of Creation. He did what he did with divine inspiration, “revealing to His people His powerful works” (Ps. 111:6). Yet although he wrote what he wrote, he did not write everything in entirety, but left most of the Torah as an oral tradition. Rabbi Yerah. mi’el b. Solomon,9 “Seder Olam Nusaḥ Sheni,” in Sefer ha-Zikhro- not: Hu Divrei ha-Yamim li-Yeraḥmi’el (Memorial book: The Chronicles of Yeraḥmi’el), ed. Eli Yassif (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2001), 368–369. 9 The midrash, in my view, makes an important statement in saying that they had scrolls in their possession, for it permits us to agree with the opinion that, prior to Moses, there were books or scrolls that told the stories of the earliest ances- tors and the stories of the Torah were collected from them, just as passages are quoted from the Book of the Wars of the Lord and from the words of the bards. Rabbi Elia Benamozegh, Sefer Torat Hashem . ve-Nosaf alav Em la-Mikra . va . Em la-Masoret10 (Livorno: Defus Benamozegh, 1863), 5:151b–152a (Notes and Omissions to Exod. 4:10).11 10 The scrolls recounting events that preceded the giving of the Torah were written for Israel before, as noted in Shemot Rabbah (5:18, 5:22). We thus see that the book of Genesis appears to have been written earlier, each story in its generation, and for this reason the midrash refers to it as “scrolls”: because each one wrote a scroll in his generation. And thus it went, in order, the story of Joseph, the story of Jacob’s descent to Egypt, the story of Moses until the giving of the Torah. At the time of the giving of the Torah, God selected which scrolls to tell Moses to write in the written Torah, which to retain as oral law, and perhaps which to conceal due to their falsehoods, while those that were true endured as part of the Written and Oral Law. Origins of the Torah 11 Since the scrolls were written in their time, there is no reason to wonder about the formulation of “who are coming” (ha-ba’im), in the present tense, as opposed to “who came” (asher ba’u), in the past tense, because it truly was written then, at that time, in the present tense.

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