Today’s daf TB Sanhedrin 111 compares in a negative light Moses to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when trouble befell them. Moses is chastised for questioning God’s ways.
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It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi
Yosei, says: One time I entered Alexandria of Egypt. I found one old man and he
said to me: Come and I will show you what my ancestors, the Egyptians, did
to your ancestors, the Jewish people. Some of them they drowned in the
sea, some of them they killed with the sword, and some of them
they crushed in the buildings. And it is over this matter, Moses’
protest of the afflictions suffered by the Jewish people, that Moses, our
teacher, was punished, as it is stated: “For since I came to Pharaoh to speak
in Your name, he has done evil to this people, neither have You delivered
Your people at all” (Exodus 5:23).
“The Holy
One, Blessed be He, said to Moses: Woe over those who are gone and are
no longer found; as several times I revealed Myself to Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob as God Almighty [El Shaddai] and they did not question My
attributes, and did not say to Me: What is Your name? I said to Abraham:
“Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for
unto you I will give it” (Genesis 13:17). Ultimately, he sought a place
to bury Sarah and did not find one until he purchased it for four
hundred silver shekels, and he did not question My attributes and did not
protest that I failed to fulfill My promise to give him the land.
"I said to Isaac: “Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you” (Genesis 26:3). His servants sought water to drink and they did not find it until they started a quarrel, as it is stated: “And the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen saying: The water is ours” (Genesis 26:20), and he did not question My attributes.
“I said to Jacob: “The land upon
which you lie, to you I will give it” (Genesis 28:13). He sought a place
to pitch his tent and he did not find one until he purchased it for
one hundred coins, and he did not question My attributes, and did not say to
Me: What is Your name? And you, Moses, ask Me: What is Your name,
initially, after witnessing My greatness more than they ever did. And
now you say to Me: “Neither have You delivered Your people” (Exodus 5:23).
The verse then states: “Now shall you see what I will do to Pharaoh”
(Exodus 6:1). One can infer: The war with Pharaoh and his downfall you
shall see, but you will not see the war with the thirty-one kings in
Eretz Yisrael, as you will not be privileged to conquer Eretz Yisrael for the
Jewish people.”
(Sefaria.org translation)
Despite or in spite of this sugiya Judaism has always encourage questions. In fact the whole Seder night could be described as a night of questions. Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, Rabbi Herman Abramovitz distinguished service Prof. of Jewish history and Chancellor emeritus of JTS writes:
The custom
at many a Seder table is to have the youngest child recite the famous four
questions which open the evening’s dialogue. Often the child, still several
years away from knowing how to read, recites from memory, having learned them
by heart in pre-school. The performance is more than a moment of pride for
parents and grandparents. It is a taste of the spirit of Judaism which the
child will only come to appreciate years later. Judaism is a religion that not
only permits but encourages us to ask questions. Because things are sacred does
not mean that we have forfeited the right to think for ourselves.
Isidor Rabi, Austrian born Nobel laureate in
physics who taught at Columbia, used to attribute his success to his mother.
“When I came home from school she would never ask me, ‘What did you learn
today?’ Only, ‘Issy, did you ask a good question?'” I have always regarded that
story as quintessentially Jewish. Whatever her level of education and
observance, Rabi’s immigrant mother sensed that Judaism placed a premium on
asking good questions. The centrality of revelation never put a damper on the
human right to question the divine.
At the very outset of the Jewish journey, we
find Abraham challenging God’s intention to destroy the decadent cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah. Would not fifty innocent inhabitants be enough to save the
entire population? “Far be it from You to do such a thing to bring death upon
the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike (Genesis,
18:25).” And Abraham does not let up until he has
persuaded God to redeem the two cities for even ten innocent people. What a
contrast to the silence and passivity of Noah when informed by God that, “I
have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with
lawlessness because of them (Genesis,
6:13).”
God’s appearance does not compel instant
subservience. Moses at the burning bush demands of God a personal name. A
nameless God is inaccessible if not non-existent. Prophets would repeatedly
contest God’s will to draft them into divine service. The very name “Israel”
bestowed on Jacob by his mysterious nighttime assailant seems to anticipate and
validate the paradigm: “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you
have striven with God and men and prevailed (Genesis,
32:29).” To be a member of Israel is to be endowed
with an independent state of mind, that is never more gloriously exhibited than
in the book of Job where an unshakable conviction of human innocence challenges
a constricted view of divine justice.
Nor do I find it accidental that the first two
paragraphs of Mishnah, the compendium of Jewish law that follows the canon of
Hebrew Scripture by several hundred years, are both put in the form of a
question, each with three distinct answers: namely, “When may we begin to
recite the Shema in the evening?” and “When may we begin to recite the Shema in
the morning?” Though generally the style of the Mishnah is declarative, it
opens in an interrogative mode because asking questions is the hallmark of the
rabbinic method of extracting meaning from biblical texts. To query and debate
becomes the engine that drives the formation of the talmudic corpus and deepens
the human apprehension of the divine. At work here is an intuitive awareness
that asking a good question is already half the answer and that growth is a
function of constantly re-examining accepted truths.
The reason for my discourse on the deep probing
structure of Judaism is this week’s parashah, which is the origin of the
Passover Haggadah’s passage on the four children: the wise, the wicked, the
simple and the one yet unable even to ask. The passage follows shortly after
the four questions and amplifies the importance of drawing our children into
the reenactment of our national epic. It also touches on the difficult topic of
what constitutes a good (or better, a permissible) question. Not all questions
are worthy of serious consideration. The portrait of four different questioners
is an ingenious rabbinic construct assembled from only the slightest of
biblical building blocks. The question of each child is drawn from another
biblical verse. Thus the wise child asks: “What mean the decrees, laws and
rules that the Lord our God has enjoined upon you (Deuteronomy,
6:20)?” The wicked: “What do you mean by this rite (Exodus,
12:26)?” And the simple only: “What does this mean (Exodus,
13:14)?”
What each of these verses shares is a reference
to children asking their parents about the meaning of Passover. Only one other
verse in the Torah associates a child with Passover, but in this instance there
is no question, only the parental obligation to tell: “And you shall explain to
your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went
free from Egypt (Exodus,
13:8).'” The absence of a question is what prompts the
midrash to connect this verse with the child too young to formulate an inquiry
of any sort. In sum, the Torah portrays Moses as acutely concerned with the
eventual commemoration of the exodus from Egypt even as he sets forth what the
Israelites must do to avert the calamity of the tenth plague. Leave it to the
eagle eye of the midrash to detect that in four separate verses pertaining to
the future observance of Passover, Moses explicitly refers to the presence of
children, and that insight in turn gives rise to the exquisite educational
homily familiar to us from the Haggadah: “The Torah speaks of four types of
children.”
The repetition is not to be dismissed as mere
rhetoric. In each verse the midrash perceives a different class of learner.
Three are distinguished by how much they know and parents are to respond in
language appropriate to their age and knowledge. The fourth, however, the
wicked child, is set apart by his or her attitude. The tone of the question
already conveys alienation: “What do you mean by this rite?” Its stress on the
second person “you” implies that the child has already left the fold and its
use of the term “avodah,” which can mean
labor as well as worship, suggests that the observance of Passover has become
only a burden. The Haggadah urges that a question freighted with such hostility
be handled harshly. No one so estranged can hope to re-experience the miracle
of the original exodus. Indeed, anyone filled with such doubt and disrespect at
the time of the exodus would have been left behind.
In light of this midrash, the Seder both
celebrates and circumscribes the right to question. Our children are invited to
participate to the hilt by showering us with whatever questions might be on
their minds. Judaism does not take refuge in dogmatism. And yet not all
inquiries are welcome. An invalid question is defined by its tone and intent
rather than its substance. No search for truth can advance very far without
empathy. Thus any question that derives from someone who is both in and of the
community and is garbed in respect deserves to be addressed. (https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/the-right-to-question/)
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