Torah Grows Because of 70+ Different Ongoing Facets

Anyone who studies the Hebrew Scriptures from a Rabbinic Bible is struck by the number of different commentaries that surround the few lines of the Biblical text on each page. Most religions that have a sacred scripture have editions that come with a commentary. Occasionally they do have an edition with two or three commentaries. The standard Jewish study Bible usually comes with at least 5-10 different commentaries.

All of this traces back to a verse in the Book of Psalms: “One thing God has spoken; two things have I heard” (Psalms 62:12) and its gloss in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 34a). In other words, multiple interpretations of each verse of Scripture can be correct, and the word of God, even if they contradict one another. The term for this concept of pluralistic interpretation is; Shivim Panim LaTorah (each verse of Torah has 70+ different facets)

The earliest source for the term Shivim Panim LaTorah is in an early medieval text, Midrash Bamidbar Rabba 13:15-16. The term was used by the rationalist Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra (died 1167) in his introduction to his Torah commentary and, a century later by the mystic Rabbi Nachmanides (died 1270) in his Torah commentary on Gen. 8:4. It also appears several times in the Zohar.

That this concept was used both by rationalist and mystical Torah commentators indicates how fundamental it is to understanding the meaning of Divine revelation. Indeed, the concept, though not the exact wording, also appears in a post Talmudic midrash Otiot d’Rabbi Akiba as “Torah nilm’dah b’shiv’im panim”- Torah is learned through 70+ faces/facets.

Of course, we know of no verse that has 70+ different interpretations; yet. After all, if we knew all 70+ glosses to a verse we would understand it as well as it author; which is impossible. Also, what would be left for future generations of Biblical scholars to do. But, most verses have at least three or four different glosses and some important ones have five or ten different insights.

Muslims think this textual flexibility is a corruption (Tahrif) of the text, but Jews think this textual flexibility (midrash) is what enabled our religion to grow for over 3500 years.

Jewish tradition recognizes four general types of interpretation. P’shat; the plain simple meaning. Remez; the allegorical metaphorical meaning. De-rash; the moral educational meaning. And Sod; the mystical hidden meaning. For example: what kind of a tree was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17 and 3:6). Most people think it was an apple tree. They have no idea why, or what that interpretation is supposed to mean.

The Rabbis offer four different interpretations of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; and each of them provides insights into the meaning of the Torah’s account of what makes humans special and what it means to be “like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)

Rabbi Yose said it was a fig tree for as soon as they ate from it their eyes were open and they covered themselves with fig leaves. (Genesis 3:7) This is the simplest explanation and has the most textual support but it doesn’t tell us why figs represent morality.

Rabbi Judah bar Ilai said they ate from a grapevine i.e. wine (alcohol) represents good and evil because humans have the free choice to use wine to sanctify the Sabbath or to become an alcoholic.

Rabbi Meir said it was a wheat tree i.e. wheat was the first crop to be domesticated and thus is a good metaphor representing the beginning of farming and then urbanization and civilization. Settled life is a great test of social morality because nomads can always split apart if they can’t live together, but settled people must develop an ongoing legal system and abide by it.

Rabbi Abba said it was an etrog tree. An etrog, used for Sukkot-harvest festival, is called a goodly tree and it is good to thank God for the harvest (Leviticus 23:39-42). Gratitude is a spiritual personal value transcending ethics, involving attitude, personality and feeling. The etrog, according to the Rabbis is special because its outside (bark and wood) tastes the same as the inside of the fruit. Thus a good religious person should be the same inside and outside.

These four ways of interpreting a sacred text illustrate the four kinds of Midrash. The plain meaning of Rabbi Yose. The moral lesson pedagogic way of Rabbi Judah bar Ilai who wants to teach people that many things like the grapevine are capable of being used for good or evil purposes. They are not intrinsically good or evil. We can choose how we use them, so we make them good or evil. (Sex, money and meat eating are other examples.)

Rabbi Meir. who was reputed to know dozens of fox fables, thinks social morality is the primary sign of humanity. Farming brings about relatively dense settlements, property disputes, government and economic hierarchies. All of this calls for a just legal system. Thus wheat is a good metaphor.

The forth way is the personal insight, mystical psychological way of Rabbi Abba. The etrog is part of the citrus family. Unlike an orange, a lemon or a grapefruit an etrog has no commercial value. Jews give it a high value (each one costs 50-100 times what a lemon costs) for spiritual reasons. So too does morality have a spiritual value much greater than simple humanistic ethics.

Because there are 70+ different faces to every verse in the Torah, there is a special blessing that should be said when one sees a crowd of Jews, that must contain within it, a large number of Jews with different ideas and opinions: “One who sees a crowd of Jews should say: Blessed is the Sage of Enigmas; for their opinions are not similar one to another, and their faces are not similar one to another.” (Talmud Berakhot 58a)

We are all created in the image of the one God; and yet due to God’s greatness, we all look and think differently from one another. Yet Prophet Jeremiah 32:40 states “I will make an everlasting covenant with them (Israel), never to draw away from doing good to them, and I will put the awe of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn (away) from me.”

The Merneptah Stele, erected in Egypt in 1208 BCE, is an Egyptian victory stele erected by Pharaoh Merneptah that tells how he (and his army) defeated the Libyans, and then put down uprisings in Canaanite cities, followed by a claim about the destruction of a people called “Israel”. The Egyptian inscription describes the Israelites as a stateless group of semi-nomadic men and women inhabiting Canaan at a time when Canaan was under Egyptian rule. Pharaoh Merneptah groups them together with several Egyptian-ruled city states in Canaan that were crushed.

The Hebrew’s Exodus from Egypt occurred just a generation or two prior to this 1208 BCE victory stele. The totally false claim that Israel had been destroyed is evidence that the Pharaohs were still angry that the Pharaoh of the Exodus had been defeated by the one, imageless, God of the Hebrews.

The Qur’an refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or a nation: “Abraham was a nation/community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists.” (16:120) If Prophet Abraham is an Ummah; then fighting between the descendants of Prophets Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war and should always be avoided. And prior to the 20th century Arabs and Jews never did make war with each other. “Lo yisa goy el goy kherev velo yilmedu od milkhama” “Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4)

If all Arabs and Jews can live up to the ideal that ‘the descendants of Abraham’s sons should never make war against each other’ is the will of God; we will help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: “On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel  will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them; “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.”…(Isaiah 19:23-5)