[Avodah] The Uniqueness of Jewish Law

[Yitzchok Levine]

The pesukim in Shemos 19: 10-13 detail how the 
Jews were to prepare for the receiving of the 
Torah. In his commentary on these pesukim RSRH 
explains the uniqueness of Jewish Law. He writes in part:

Jewish Law is the only system of laws that did not emanate from
the people whose constitution it was intended to be. Judaism is the only
“religion” that did not spring from the hearts of the people who find
in it the spiritual basis for their lives. It is precisely this “objective”
quality of Jewish Law and of the Jewish “religion” that makes them
both unique, setting them apart clearly and distinctly from all else on
earth that goes by the name of law or religion. This quality makes Jewish
Law the sole factor in human culture that can be considered the catalyst
and ultimate goal of every other manifestation of progress, whereas the
Law itself, as the given absolute ideal, remains above and beyond any
idea of progress.

All other “religions” and codes of law originate in the human minds
of a given era; they merely express the conceptions of God, of human
destiny, and of man’s relation to God and to his fellow man, that are
held by a given society in a particular period of history. Hence, all these
man-made religions and codes, like all other aspects of human civilization
— science, art, morals and manners — are subject to change
with the passing of time. For by their very nature and origin they are
nothing but the expressions of levels reached by civilization at various
stages in human development.

Not so the Jewish “religion” and Jewish Law. They do not stem from
beliefs held by human beings at one period or another. They do not
contain time-bound human concepts of God and of things human and
Divine. They are God-given; through them men are told by God’s Will
what their conceptions should be, for all time, about God and things
Divine and, above all, about man and human affairs.

 From the very outset, God’s Torah stood in opposition to the people
in whose midst it was to make its first appearance on earth. It was to
prove its power first of all upon this people, who opposed it because
they were an am k'shei oref. This resistance which the Torah encountered
among the people in whose midst it obtained its first home on earth is the
most convincing proof of the Torah’s Divine origin. The Torah did not
arise from within the people, but was given to the people, and only
after centuries of struggle did the Torah win the people’s hearts, so that
they became its bearers through the ages. (On the uniqueness of Judaism
and its relation to religion, see Collected Writings, vol. I, pp. 183–186;
Commentary above, 6:7.)

The purpose of all these preparations and restrictions is apparently
to emphasize and mark this contrast as clearly as possible, at the Torah’s
first entrance into the world — a contrast that so fundamentally characterizes
the Torah’s nature and origin. The Torah is about to come to
the people. Its arrival is to be anticipated over a period of three days.
In order to be worthy of even awaiting the Torah, the people must first
sanctify their bodies and their garments; that is, they must become
worthy of receiving the Torah by becoming aware, symbolically, of the
rebirth — the renewal of their lives, within and without — that the
Torah is to bring about. In their present state, they are not yet ready
to receive the Torah. Only their resolve to ultimately become what they

The distinction between the people about to receive the Torah, and
the Source from which they are to receive it, is underscored also in
terms of physical separation. The place from which the people are to
receive the Torah is very clearly set apart from them. It is elevated into
the realm of the extraterrestrial. No man or animal may set foot upon
that place, or even touch it. Any living thing that sets foot upon it must
be put to death. Only when the Lawgiving has been completed will the
place be restored to the terrestrial sphere, and both man and beast will
be free once more to walk upon it. Until that time, the people are to
be restricted by a boundary all around, beyond which they must not
go. All this is done in order to illustrate the fact of the Torah’s superhuman,
extraterrestrial origin.
should be will make them worthy of receiving the Torah. 
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