[Avodah] Torah precheit?

[hankman]

R. Akiva Miller wrote:

“One can ask similar questions about other turning-points in history.
What if Kayin had not killed Hevel? What if the world has not gone to
Avodah Zara a few generations later? What if Yishmael and/or Esav had
not gone of the derech? What if Moshe Rabenu had acted differently by
the rock?”

Actually I had thoughts along similar lines that you express. The most prominent such turning point was the cheit ha’eigel, where again, had they succeeded, that again would have been the end for man’s tafkid and correction the cheit of Adam, direct route to eretz Yisroel, no forty years in the midbar and presumably Moshe R. would have been the final moshiach and on to the final gemul. The reason these two stick in my mind more than the other forks in history you point to, is that these would have been endpoints to the tafkid in this world and led directly to olom haba with no continuation of the “Torah” story we are familiar with. The moments in history you point to would have been forks in the road but not endpoints. So if say Esau/Yishmoel had made good choices and been more like his brother Yaakov/Yitzchok, the story would have had a different twist to it, but the overall gestalt to the Torah could still have been quite similar. What we have now, with some changes. But we would have no problem imagining all (perhaps most) of the mitzvos as we know them.

These two, cheit of Adam and cheit ha’eigel, were fundamentally different than the other “forks” in the road as what we know to have followed would never happen. So Regalim, and avdus in Mitzrayim, etc, etc are ideas that seem not to have a place in such a reality had Adam succeeded while the other forks would have led to a variation on a theme we are familiar with and can at least readily imagine.


The idea you mention of “70 panim latorah” would have to be expanded greatly if for every fork on the possible choices made in the biblical period (by this I mean the time through the end of the forty years bamidbar that were recorded in chumash). If every possible choice made at every fork (say N) resulted in a diff version of Torah, then that would result in 2 to the N panim laTorah – with N being very large! Perhaps 70 is just a synonym for “many”? When we say that there are 70 umos, I always wondered how that was defined, as it seems to me that there are many more and that the number would change for different periods in history. If 70 here too means “many” that would clear that up. But then the precise number of 70 for the parei hachag might be a problem unless for some reason that may have been fixed symbolically, or perhaps to coincide with the original number at some early  point in history as say per the list of the 70 nations Art Scroll makes in its chumash at the end of this weeks parsha (Noach). Basically it is a listing of certain of the names of descendants of Noach. Have you ever heard of a nation called Ever (or most of the other names they list)? So is the “essence” of 
Torah something beyond our ken. Is all we can see just a single facet of the 70 panim laTorah? (This of course is not the normal meaning to 70 panim laTorah, which usually is applied to differing explanations to our “current” Torah, and not the other “possible” “Toros” as you are suggesting.  Is this so far off the beaten path that this might even be an accidental trip into thought that might be apikursus or a credible notion within the daas? (Torah lo yehai moochlefes).  I have no idea!

R. Akiva Miller wrote:
“Torah manifests itself differently to a
kohen than to a levi, and differently to a woman than to a man.”

There is a fundamental difference between a mitzvoh only applying to some vs the concept not existing. Even if I am a Yisroel I can still be oseik in torah of the mitvos of a cohen – it is still a part of Torah given to all of us even if not all of it pertains to me.

R. Akiva Miller wrote:
“Or perhaps Gan Eden would have had that status.”

I actually had a thought similar to yours as well on this idea. When I thought a little more about it, I had difficulty putting it all together. so what kind of meaning would trummos and massros have. What would orlo mean. Without aniyim, what is the point of leket shichacha upei’a? (or tzedaka in general, or even more broadly of gemila chasadim in  such a world?) The mitzvos hatelyuous ba’aretz only make sense in an agricultural society, not in a world of olam haba where there are no farmers or farms. No need for orei miklat in a world without a yetzer. 

On another thought, would the notion of baal tigra in the world of only one mitzva leave you with no mitvos at all? That would make one a kofer bekol haTorah koola? Also there would be no need for lo tassur yamin usemol for gezeirot derabanan in such a world (though perhaps it might have stopped Chava if such a takana existed to protect the only mitzvoh they had).

R. Akiva Miller wrote:
”"If there is life on other planets, might they possibly have a
Torah? But Mitzrayim doesn't exist there, and Moshe never lived
there!" That question bothered me for a very long time,”

Strangely enough, I had similar thoughts years back.  As a young bachur in yeshivo, my rebbi was teaching us that their was a period during which the progenitor of kelal Yisroel would happen. I asked what would have happened if there had been another deep thinker who came to the same realization and belief that Avraham did. He answered that there would have been two (or more) chosen peoples to eventually be mekabel Torah. It didn’t occur to me at the time to ask, would they each have the “same” Torah or each get a tailored version to their (eventual) am? Or, would there be one Torah that talks of both of the chosen peoples? Years later when discussing what is the purpose to us of the trillions of stars and galaxies so distant that they could never possibly affect us here on Earth? Then it occurred to me, what if those stars had planets with intelligent beings on them and they too went through a similar period wherein they too had some allien being come to the same conclusions as Avraham did and they then became the chosen people of that planet and received a Torah possibly tailored to their experiences and appropriate there etc.? This almost makes sense of the questions the malachim asked Moshe when he went lamorom to accept Torah. They too wanted Torah in a version suitable to them which would deflect all of Moshe’s responses. If memory serves, I think some meforshim try to make sense of the malachim in such a manner.

Just some more rambling thoughts.

Kol tuv
Chaim Manaster
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