Part of my theory on nevuah is that it's not so different from what we mean when we say "visionary." I'm thinking like Steve Jobs or Nikola Tesla. Men who had conceptions of the world of tomorrow that were in line with reality. Obviously these men did their "prophesying" for personal motives to some degree.
Steve Jobs didn't want to move the world toward a better society - he wanted to sell iphones. But he understood the value of computers better than those around him - he understood why people would want them and how to sell them - things his competitors didn't see.
Tesla seemed to revel in the beauty of invention and understanding. But ultimately focused his energies on battling Edison and making money. But his understanding of the world and what inventions we were capable of was far more advanced than those around him.
What if these predictions are what the psukim mean? Dreamers of dreams. If such an ability were focused upon one who had Torah values and saw the innate value of the Torah system - we would have world peace.
What if Shmuel was a navi because he understood the workings of the world better than anyone around him; that he had predicted the outcomes of battles because he knew where to focus his attention; that he understood with clarity certain failings of society and also had insights on methods of improving the world? What if the common practice was to convey these messages to the masses through literature we now call the divrei neviim?
Sometimes the psukim are lyrical, sometimes direct - always focused on the central tenets of Moshe. Would it be so crazy for the Israelites to describe such a person as communicating with G?
What Moshe did would almost have to be different - he created (what has proven to be) and unending system for mankind to maintain. This is either extremely unlikely or obvious. The system lasts because something about it is eternal. There is no other culture which has gone on like the Jews - without a homeland or a government. For millenia we have sustained ourselves in foreign corners of the globe. Everywhere, we survive despite the demise of every other culture we have outlived.
From that time, from that region - we are the only ones still around. What Moshe did was beyond Steve Jobs.
Are we around because Moshe was a genius or because Hashem made a Brit with Avraham?
ReplyDeleteI mean, both. Moshe's "being a genius" which I guess would be a prerequisite for his state as a Navi and then the "King of Neviim" was a necessary prerequisite to the formation of the Am. Almost explicitly, Moshe, his birth, his development, etc. was governed by God's control of the universe and seems to have been influenced by the special agreement God entered into with Avraham which itself was prompted by Avraham's greatness as a human being which would again result in labeling him a genius among other attributes.
ReplyDeleteOf course, keeping in mind that the Torah was written for the slave nation of Israel, in the desert, by Moshe as a man, as directly dictated by Hashem, and which was then to be studied forevermore by us. Utilizing the authorial perspective of the man Moshe, our teacher and servant of Hashem, we must consider the pre-Sinaitic events in the context of a man explaining the world and its Creator to former slaves of Mitzrayim which the Rambam describes as being seeped in foreign practices and beliefs.
We trust completely the truth of the Torah depiction of the Bris with Avraham but it is being explained to us through the lens of a man explaining to newly liberated slaves how the world came to be as it is (and also, more pragmatically for the sake of understanding the nations which we were to conquer/befriend, how it was then). Accepting that they had some familiarity with the narratives of Bereshis (they must have at least had some conception of the creation of the world), Moshe's depiction of the bris essentially informs the nation that they exist because of the kindness and generosity of one man hundreds of years ago who God favored and promised a nation to - that we are that nation, Avraham was that man, and these are the ways of our God.