When I meet with our wonderful students who are preparing for their Bar, Bat, or B Mitzvah, I always enjoy the conversation where I explain that there are a multitude of ways to read the Torah. Of course, we read the Torah as a religious document, but we also derive from Torah liturgy, poetry, philosophy, mythology, etiology, and (among many others) something called intertextuality. Intertextuality is the study of text that demonstrates the ways in which text is in conversation with itself.
The reality is that the Torah, N’viim (Books of the Prophets), and Kethuvim (Books of the Writings) were compiled over the course of centuries. The reality is that Torah is not a text concerned with chronology or history, but rather with its central messages.
This week, I noticed a striking similarity between Numbers 32 and Jeremiah 29. Both texts encourage the Israelites to settle down, build homes, raise families, and establish themselves outside the land of Israel, which flies in the face of all of this wandering! In my opinion, this is a wonderful example of the way in which an exiled Jeremiah has (retrospectively) influenced the final redactors of Torah, in that it would appear that Jeremiah’s encouraging words to the exiled are all but copied in Numbers. In other words, this section of Torah is likely written after the Babylonian Exile begins, after Jeremiah admonishes the exiled communities.
We might find ourselves frustrated by my implication that history is of little concern for the Torah, but this is, in reality, a liberating idea. Our ancestors were so concerned that Judaism would be lost to the sands of time in exile, that they created a system that would allow our connection to Israel and our love of Judaism to continue no matter where we might end up. In this way, Judaism is not dependent upon faith, truth, or historicity, but rather upon the memories and the mythologies that have strengthened our communities in the face of uncertainty for generations upon generations. As we look forward mi dor l’dor—toward future generations—what memories and myths will we pass along that will strengthen our connection to Israel? To our local and global communities? What are we doing to forge a love of Judaism for tomorrow?