My article in the Shavuot To Go, soon to be published by YU/Center for the Jewish Future [update: now available here], looks at the special association between Avraham and Matan Torah [the presentation of the Torah at Sinai], and what it can teach us about our own relationship with Torah. Before that article sees the light of day, though, I’d like to hear what you would do with the midrash in Shemot Rabbah that was my jumping-off point.
Shemot Rabbah 28 describes Moshe on Har Sinai, and an attempt by ministering angels to deny him the Torah. The starting point of defiant angels appears on Shabbat 88b-89a as well, but there Moshe replies to the angels that the Torah is meant for us, not for them. Here, Gd provides the answer, and it’s rather different:
באותה שעה בקשו מלאכי השרת לפגוע במשה עשה בו הקב"ה קלסטירין של פניו של משה דומה לאברהם, אמר להם הקב"ה אי אתם מתביישין הימנו לא זהו שירדתם אצלו ואכלתם בתוך ביתו, אמר הקב"ה למשה לא נתנה לך תורה אלא בזכות אברהם שנאמר לקחת מתנות באדם, ואין אדם האמור כאן אלא אברהם שנאמר (יהושע יד) האדם הגדול בענקים
At that moment the ministering angels sought to harm Moshe. G-d shaped Moshe’s face to appear like that of Avraham, and G-d said to the angels, “Are you not embarrassed before him? Is this not the one to whom you descended and in whose home you ate?” G-d then turned to Moshe and said, “The Torah was given to you only in the merit of Avraham.”I was confused by this midrash, on several levels:
• We are taught (Bava Metzia 86b) that the malachim did not actually eat in Avraham’s home; rather, they merely pretended to do so. If that is true, then they owed Avraham no debt.
• We are further taught (Bava Metzia ibid) that the malachim who visited Avraham were Michael, Raphael and Gavriel. The malachim who protested were a set of anonymous “מלאכי השרת, ministering angels.” Are we to assume that the general angels should have felt gratitude for Avraham’s service of their three compatriots?
• What connection is there between offering food to the angels, and forcing them to forego their right to the Torah?
You can go to my article to read my answer, but I’d like to know what you make of this.
Let me take a stab at it.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, since angels can't eat they had to pretend to. The key point being made to the angels is that they were offered the food by Avraham Avinu ie the mitzva of hachnasat orchim. And they had to pretend.
And as far as the connection between food and torah, is there not another Midrash where the angels are asked various questions related to physical human life (Do you have parents to honour? etc) to convince them that the Torah belongs to man?
And so in this case, in a similar fashion, the fact that they were offered food, but couldn't eat, is another way of convincing them that they can't fulfill many mitzvot among themselves such as hachnasat orchim, and so the Torah belongs to human beings, not angels. Michael, Gavriel and Rephael were the particular angels who visited Avraham but the point still stands for all the angels.
and the whole angels thing you understand?
ReplyDeleteKT
Joel Rich
Joel:
ReplyDeleteI "understand" angels about as well as I can comprehend an infinite formless Hashem. If I have emunah in the latter, I can accept that He could create the former without truly comprehending either.
MM
ReplyDeleteMy question was to the baal hablog. I often think of the Rambam in his hakdama to the moreh nevuchim where he explains why an author might seem inconsistent - one of the reasons I paraphrase as "sometimes a medrash is just a medrash" meaning that we shouldn't always feel the need to use detailed analysis, sometimes there's just a simple message.
KT
joel Rich
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteThat other midrash is indeed the one I cited from Shabbos 88-89, and I hear the attempt to connect the two, but the language of Shemos Rabbah really doesn't indicate such an argument, to my mind.
Hi Joel,
Which angel issue is the problem: The idea that they could claim the Torah, the idea that they could lose it if we get it, or something else entirely?
The idea that they could claim the Torah (implies to me some kind of free will)
ReplyDeleteKT
Joel Rich
Joel-
ReplyDeleteAnd who is to say they don't have some form of free will?
I was always taught that was what differentiated us (although I also thought trees didn't have free will-but medrash,taken literally in breishit,disagrees)
ReplyDeleteKT
Joel Rich
Hi Joel,
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, malachim are among the nivraim when HaShem creates the world of the material. Granted their higher status and their associated higher desire to fulfill the Divine will, that doesn't necessarily mean they cannot come up short.
Okay, my own answer is now available here; enjoy!
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