“On the first day of the second month, in the second year following the exodus from the land of Egypt, the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, saying:” B’midbar / Numbers 1:1
“The Torah was given in three venues: In fire, in water, and in the wilderness.”
Midrash Rabbah
Through the centuries, commentators have been perplexed by this terse, anonymous statement on the opening verse of our Torah portion. The verse clearly states that God spoke to our ancestors in the wilderness and we know that the Torah was given at Mt. Sinai. As we will read in just a few days on Shavuot, the experience of receiving the Torah was overwhelming and the text describes a fire burning on the mountaintop. The seemingly superfluous teaching in the midrash, along with its enigmatic inclusion of water, have prompted a variety of responses.
Rabbi Shmuel Bornstzain, in his commentary to the Torah, Shem MiShmuel, writes:
The three venues are symbols to all Jews about how one can acquire Torah. Fire represents a passion for God; the devotion and desire that burn within the heart of a Jew who is connected to his or her Heavenly Father. Water represents the cool, calm, methodical thinking and balance, insight and wisdom, that allows a Jew to think about the cost that needs to be paid for Torah. Wilderness represents the rejection of the multitude of distractions that are abundant in the world which preclude the individual from achieving wholeness.
Our teacher, Rabbi Bornstzain understands the midrash as a triad of metaphors for the essential attributes needed by each of us to acquire Torah. In contrast, our teacher, Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin connected these three venues to events in the history of our people.
In three venues the Torah was given: In fire – Abraham our father leapt into the fiery furnace for his faith, (1) this represents the devotion of the individual. In water – Nachshon, followed by all the Israelites leapt into the Sea [of Reeds] and represents the commitment of the people. In the wilderness – Israel followed God through the wilderness for forty years; this is an example of ongoing faithfulness.
For Rabbi Shapiro, the three venues represent the teaching that the Torah was given to Israel, as individuals and collectively, that it be upheld, always and in all conditions. The history of our people from the appearance of the first Jew, Abraham our father, reflects our embrace of Torah and an ongoing faith in a living God.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
1 Before you start turning the pages of your Chumash looking for these events in the lives of Abraham and Nachshon, please note that these narratives are part of our rich midrashic tradition, the Oral Torah, handed down through the centuries. In traditional communities, these are seen as equally true to the written text of the Torah.
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