Here are the Basics of Judaism
You saw what I did to Egypt, and that I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me. And now, if you will surely listen to Me, and you will guard My covenant, you will be a special treasure to Me from among all the peoples, for the whole world is Mine. And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Yisrael. (Shemos 19:4-6)
Hashem gave us a Torah, and before He gave it to us, He gave us an introduction to this Torah. The contents of the introduction are crucial. We can’t even receive the Torah with them.
The basics of Judaism and the life goal of every Jew were written right here in this passage before the Torah was actually given. Here we find the purpose and the conditions of the covenant between Hashem and us. And after the people heard it, they answered unanimously: כל אשר דיבר ה’ נעשה – “Everything that Hashem said, we will do.”
Here we accepted upon ourselves partnership with Hashem. These pesukim are crucial. We should go over them again and again all our lives.
Each One of You
The first thing Moshe Rabbeinu was commanded to tell the Jewish people was, “You saw (אתם ראיתם) what I did to Egypt.”
Sometimes the Torah says “you” in the singular (אתה) and sometimes it says “you” in the plural (אתם). Here the Torah uses the plural. What does this signify?
The Vilna Gaon writes that whenever the Torah speaks to us in the plural, it is referring to each and every individual member of the Jewish people. And when it addresses us in the singular, it is speaking to the community as a whole, as one unit.
Here in this first word is the first introduction Hashem gave us before actually giving us the Torah. אתם ראיתם, in the plural. Hashem relates to each and every individual. He speaks to me, personally. Hashem did not address us as a community, but rather individually. He spoke to me personally. What does this tell us?
So to speak, Hakadosh Baruch Hu feels toward each and every Jew as if he or her was His only child.
This may be compared to a father who has ten children. One child is ill, and the father totally devotes himself to the sick child with all his energy. If we would ask him, “Why are you exerting yourself so much for him? You have nine other children!” he would answer, “It’s not just another child. This is my Reuven. I have only one Reuven!”
Now let’s imagine the father goes for a visit to the yeshivah one morning, and doesn’t find his Reuven... “Did you see my Reuven?”
“Oh, your Reuven? He’s probably over at the newsstand sipping on a coke.”
“But why is he over there at eleven o’clock in the morning, in the middle of seder?!”
“I guess he’s catching up on the news. But it’s not really so terrible, after all. There are another hundred bachurim who are sitting and learning here in the beis midrash.”
This father didn’t come down to the yeshivah to see a hundred bachurim sitting and learning, however beautiful a sight that may be. He’s here to see how his Reuven is doing. That’s the only thing that interests him right now.
This is the allegory, now let’s apply it. Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes to the yeshivah at 9:35 AM and immediately asks, “Where is my Reuven?”
What will we tell Him? Hashem, you have a hundred bachurim sitting and learning here in the beis midrash. Look what a big tzibbur You have!
Will this satisfy Hakadosh Baruch Hu? Right now, He is interested only in how His dear Reuven is doing. He is not here to see a hundred bachurim studying assiduously. He came to see His “only child” in yeshivah.
This is the first word: אתם, “You,” in the plural. Hashem says: I am speaking to you, to each individual Jew. I took you and brought you on eagles’ wings. You are My סגולה, My special treasure. I don’t forget you for a moment, and I want you to be special. This is My condition; this is what I want.
We can’t allow ourselves to forget this for even a moment because this is the condition of being a Jew, of entering the covenant of Torah with Hashem.
You Saw It Yourself
Now we come to another of Judaism’s basics. אתם ראיתם אשר עשיתי למצרים – “You saw what I did to Egypt.” The Midrash makes the point we want to bring out:
I am not telling you something based on oral tradition, I am not sending you a written text and I am not bringing witnesses before you. Rather, ראיתם אשר עשיתי למצרים אתם – “You saw what I did to Egypt.”
Our belief in Hashem and His Torah is not built on faith. It is based on what we saw clearly with our own eyes and therefore know to be true beyond the shadow of a doubt.
If you want to check something out and evaluate it, you need to know on what basis it stands. All the religions of the world are based on someone who came along and said he is the prophet of G-d. So it all boils down to how much faith you place in him, how much credence you accord his words. He says he is a prophet...
Judaism is different. It does not stand on the words of a self-proclaimed prophet. It’s all about what you saw yourself. “You saw what I did to Egypt.” Our belief is based on a real historical event witnessed by millions of people.
It says about Matan Torah a similar thing: אתם ראיתם כי מן השמים דיברתי עמכם – “You saw that I spoke to you from heaven.” And here, too, the Midrash brings out the point:
There is a difference between when a person sees something and when others tell him about it. When others tell him about it, sometimes he doesn’t want to accept it. But here it says אתם ראיתם – “You saw.”
We saw how Hashem came down on Mount Sinai and we heard Him speak to us. The heavens opened up before our eyes and we perceived that there is no power other than Him.
Jewish belief is based on what “You saw.”
Correctly speaking, Jewish belief should not even be called “belief” because it is not something we “believe” but rather something that we know as a fact.
However, it does include certain matters that are above our comprehension, for instance, Hashem’s infinity and almightiness. We are unable to properly grasp and conceptualize these matters, so it may be referred to as a “belief.” But that the world has a Creator Who runs it and Who gave us the Torah – these are all facts that we know to be true. It’s not a matter of “belief.”
This is a totally fundamental thing that every Jew needs to know.
A yeshivah boy once asked me how we know G-d exists. He said he posed this question to a certain person who answered him, “Indeed, we don’t have absolute knowledge of it. It is something we believe.”
I told the yeshivah boy that this answer is apikorsus, it goes against the fundamentals of Judaism. Jewish belief is a matter of absolute knowledge, just like 2 + 2 = 4. It is something we actually saw. Millions of people saw Maamad Har Sinai with their own eyes. And every father dedicatedly passed on the memory of this event which he himself witnessed to his children after him, commanding them not to change even one iota of it, and that it would be better to die a thousand deaths rather than alter the tiniest detail in the Torah. Furthermore, only eighty to a hundred generations have passed since then. Our Jewish beliefs are as solidly founded as could be.
The mitzvah of Emunah is to believe even those matters that are above and beyond human comprehension. For instance, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu got 600,000 adult Jewish males to stand between the two poles of the Aron Hakodesh, which were only a few feet apart. This is incomprehensible so it requires Emunah. Since we know for a fact that Hashem exists, we believe He did this, even though we can’t exactly figure out how. But that Hashem created the world, and that every word in the Torah is absolutely true, and that Moshe Rabbeinu is a true prophet – we saw all this with our eyes and heard His voice speak clearly to us.
