Following Torah’s definitions

The biggest news story of the week was about a clerk in Kentucky with a fundamentalist understanding of the Bible.

Among many reactions on social media, there was a clip from the “West Wing,” in which Martin Sheen’s character asks someone of a similar mind to the Kentucky clerk whether views regarding stoning sinners and putting them to death should be followed today since “they’re in the Bible.”

Watching this narrative play out, I am grateful not only that the Torah was given to the Jewish people – and not to people who understand it on its surface level – but that we also have an oral tradition that helps us comprehend the parts of the Torah that are difficult to understand. We know that the death penalty, for example, was hardly ever carried out because of our abhorrence of violence, as well as all the technicalities that would have prevented the carrying out of a death sentence.

We know that the Torah’s rules were given to the Jewish people and, with the exception of the Noahide laws, they are not binding on people of other faiths.

People of faiths that do not observe Rosh Hashana this Sunday night (Bamidbar 29:1), don’t have to follow the rules of kosher eating or Sabbath, or any other laws that were established in G-d’s Torah for the children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. This point is established very clearly in the fourth verse of our parsha, when Moshe reminds the people that they are being brought into the covenant, “He is establishing you as His nation, so that He will be a G-d to you, just as He promised you, and as He swore to your ancestors, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.”

Why is this wonderful promise of a covenant with G-d prefaced by the terrible rebuke of chapter 28? Why is there so much warning and punishment facing this nation, especially if G-d loved the forefathers and wants their descendants to be His special nation?

In the Or HaChaim’s view, the answer is quite simple. If you know the repercussions of your deeds, and how devastating they can be, you’ll have no interest in rebelling against His G-dliness and will always maintain a connection with Him.