- Unique Claims of Revelation - to establish something as factual in any court of law requires first hand witnesses, since then you are not relying on me alone. Of all the major religions in recorded history, only Judaism makes claims of a historical mass revelation - that two million people had a revelation from G-d at Mount Sinai. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to falsify such a claim. If you want to make up a lie, don't claim there are witnesses for then it can easily be falsified - and certainly not 2 million first hand eyewitnesses. All other religions claim one person had a revelation and then tries to gather a following to believe him. The Christians claim Jesus came back from the dead. The Muslims claim Mohammad came down from heaven in a chariot of fire. How many people witnessed this? Zero. Likewise for the Zoroastrians, Hindus, Budhists, etc. Why would G-d expect people to blindly follow a religion with no credible foundation? see here or here for more details.
- the Chain from Sinai - (Rabbi Akiva Tatz writes:) Many think we are thousands of generations away from Sinai. However, if we take one generation to be forty years (in the talmud Avodah Zarah 5b: "one does not fully comprehend the knowledge of his Rabbi before the age of forty").., we find only 80 generations in that chain (40x80=3200 years) - and we know who the leaders in each of those generations were. We have their original works and can pinpoint the handing over of the tradition from one great Torah authority to the next.. In addition we have no record of any disagreement. We have no record of anyone claiming the Sinai revelation never occurred or was in any way falsified. In fact, not only our records agree - even those who have attacked us throughout the generations accept it. Their own religions are openly based on it..." (Guide to Life, Tatz sec. Faith pg.141)
Likewise, Rambam (Maimonides) in his introduction to Mishneh Torah counts 40 generations from Moses to Rav Ashi (compiler of the talmud) in the transmission of the oral law and lists the names of each of these 40 sages.
- the Torah was not forgotten - if you ask perhaps the people were told by some individual who fabricated that the Sinai revelation was forgotten and that their ancestors had it? No, for the Torah writes many times such as: "But beware and watch yourself diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes saw, and lest these things depart from your heart, all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children and to your children's children; the day you stood before the L-rd your G-d at Sinai" (Deut.4). "The L-ord our G-d made a covenant with us in Sinai; Not with our fathers did the L-ord make this covenant, but with us, all of us who are here alive this day" (Deut. 5:3); "You have seen all that the L-ord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt" (Deut. 29:2). Furthermore, the Torah itself promises it will not be forgotten: "because it will not be forgotten by their descendants" (Deut. 31:21). How would these people accept a Torah which contradicts itself? (especially, when this torah demands such enormous sacrifices of time and money)
- the Torah does not End nor pause, but continues forward. The Book of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Daniel, Ezra, etc., then Mishna, Midrash, Talmud, etc. History which every Jew of the time was inside and could verify with simple questions. It also contains "boring" sections which are not proper to add into made-up stories. We find chains of genealogy, ancestry, measurements, and other such things in great and precise detail. Furthermore, we even know the gravesite location of many of these individuals and amazingly they are still intact even today.
- the Egyptian Plagues - the giving of the Torah was likewise claimed to be preceded by open miracles for all to see such as the 10 plagues in Egypt. These plagues were a prelude to Sinai so that there would be no doubt whatsoever that the giver of the Torah was G-d Almighty (Drashas HaRan). For example, the plague of smiting the first born Egyptians occurred at one time (midnight). To do this one needs to be in every place at every time. Only G-d can be at every place at every time since He transcends space and time. Furthermore, to know who was first born, one must be at every birth to know and remember the mother of each person. Obviously, we are talking about an omniscient G-d who is without a physical body.
Interestingly, in the early 19th Century an ancient papyrus, dating from the end of the Middle Kingdom, was found in Egypt. It was taken to the Leiden Museum in Holland and interpreted by A.H. Gardiner in 1909. The papyrus was written by an Egyptian named Ipuwer and appears to be an eyewitness account of the effects of the Exodus plagues from the perspective of an average Egyptian. see here for details. see also the amazing Hebrew book Mikra v'Archeology by Daniel Rothstein [4].
- Litmus Test - there are tens of thousands of religions out there. Who has time to investigate all of them? On this the Sefer Ikarim writes (1:20):
"That which is grasped by the senses is more accepted by a person.. Due to this G-d wanted the torah to be given through Moses with great publicity and in the most open way possible, before millions of people. According to our sages this event was perceived by all human beings in the whole world, such that it could not possibly have been more open..
He explains there this is why G-d waited until the Jewish people were a nation of millions before giving the Torah - so there would be no doubt. Go and see how all the fake religions originate with an individual who starts to tell stories.
G-d openly publicized the giving of the torah to the Jewish people to teach that the divine religion must be given openly with great public view and any religion which is not given in such an open and totally public manner is not divine.
Counterfeit-proof - related to the previous, every insane asylum even today has mentally ill people who claim to be "prophets of G-d" or "Moses" or "the Messiah", etc. etc. Any such lunatic can try to start a new religion and promise his followers spoils of plunder, rape, murdering infidels, glory, etc. etc. How could one discern between the true religion and one started by such lunatics? The only way is to give the true religion openly before millions of people in a mass revelation. This cannot be counterfeited. Consider if a lunatic claimed an alien spaceship or angel of G-d revealed itself last night in the sky before all of New York City and performed open miracles in front of millions of people and then proclaimed to everyone that they must now follow the instructions handed over to the lunatic. Would the lunatic be able to convince people, go on the news shows, and tell everyone how they themselves saw the spaceship/angel, and must now follow his instructions? How many people would he be able to convince? No doubt he would be promptly locked up. Thus, G-d gave the true religion openly before millions so that it is counterfeit-proof. Go and see for yourself how the other religions started and spread.
- Weird Phenomena - the giving of the torah also involved strange phenomena that is difficult to imagine and fabricate such as "seeing" sounds: "And all the nation saw the voices and the torches and the voice of the horn" (Exodus 20:14). Rashi: "they saw what was audible, which is impossible to see elsewhere". Another example in Exodus 34:30 "Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses and behold, the skin of his face had become radiant, and they were afraid to come near him".
- Never Happened Again - some claim G-d made the Torah obsolete and presented a new plan for humanity. The big question is, of course, why didn't G-d gather everyone together again and make this clear? Bring everyone back together. Make another mass revelation, and say it straight out so there won't be any confusion. After all, G-d warned the Jews in the Torah many times not to veer right or left from it, nor to add or subtract from it (Deut.4:2).
Although the two imitating religions, Christianity and Islam both admit (and base their faith on) the historicity of the gathering at Sinai where the torah was given in the presence of millions in the most open and spectacular manner never equalled, yet they also claim that when the time came for the Torah Law to be abolished, it was done in a private communication to Paul or to Mohamed[5]. Nahhhh. see here for more.
- Unique Analysis of Text - Some claim that the Rabbis of the Mishna and Talmud conjured up the laws in the mishna and talmud for their own glory, and really they never received these things from the Tradition up to Moses. However, anyone exposed to true talmud study can testify that nowhere else in human history can one find such meticulous scrutiny of a text than in the talmud. The sages of the talmud delved into every ambiguity, every word, every discrepancy, every seeming extra letter, word, similarity, root word relation, proximity, etc. etc. Why was this said? Could a better word have been used, why this extra letter?, etc. etc. etc. (see tractate Zevahim for instance). If the Rabbis conjured all this nonsense up for their honor, why would they go through such immense trouble and scrutiny to arrive at the true meaning of the text? (see also Chasdei Avot 1:1 by Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad).
- Bottomless Depth of the Torah - which is evident to all who study it in depth. The more one studies it, the more he will be humbled by how much more there is to know. You have to study a bit in a traditional yeshiva to appreciate the scope of this but it's huge. The Vilna Gaon who was considered the greatest of all the Luthianian Torah scholars in the past 200 years commented on the verse in Psalms "the Torah of G-d is perfect (lit.whole)" (Ps.17:8) - "the Torah remains wholly intact. We have still not touched even a tiny speck of its corner [despite all our knowledge of it]." Human inventions on the other hand can be fully understood. If the Torah were human-made it could be fully understood by humans.
- One Size Fits All - among the wonders of the Torah is that it is written in such a way that even a 5 year old can understand it at his level. It is at the same time a "children's book" and a work of the deepest Kabala and Divinity. For example, the first verse "in the beginning G-d created heaven and earth..." A child can relate to this, while a Torah scholar understands this to mean the spiritual worlds and the physical world [7]. A reading of the Zohar shows how there are parallel books with totally different narratives than how we read it. This is also so for the other books of the Bible and even the Mishna and Talmud as can be glimpsed Here. The Arizal reportedly would expound the Talmud to his disciples in 6 ways corresponding to the days of the week and one way kabalistically corresponding to the Sabbath (pri etz chaim, hanhaga limud). The Vilna Gaon gives us a spectacular example of this on the book of Jonah which is available online here. The Ramban brings the Oral Tradition that the "6 days" of creation are referring to the 6000 years in the Jewish calendar (Ps. 90:4 "for a thousand years are in Your eyes are like a day ") with each day corresponding to the events of that Millenia and the 7th day (Sabbath) corresponding to the world to come.
- Wisdom of the Torah Sages - besides the vast depth in the Torah, there is also the vast study needed even to understand the words of the Torah sages who expound it. Anyone with serious experience in Talmud study can testify that one can study a single page for weeks and weeks and still feel there is so much more to know. Not to mention the holiness one can tangibly feel when studying it properly. See also, this video by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel where he discusses the wisdom of Kabala and how it is vastly more difficult to grasp than Talmud study.
- Torah Codes - suppose a man were sent to spy on an enemy country. He needs to send back hidden messages in documents which will not arouse the enemy's suspicion. Only his sender knows how to deciper the code by skipping letters in a certain pattern which they both agreed on beforehand. It is the same with the Torah. The hidden secrets such as kabalistic Names and attributes of G-d are coded in such a way that only those special few who received the tradition can decipher them. The master Kabalist, Rabbi Moses Kordevero wrote (Pardes Rimonim Shaar HaTziruf):
"knowledge of the secrets of the Torah is through tzirufim (equally spaced letters forming words and phrases), gematriot (numerical values), temurot (exchanges), roshei tevot and sofei tevot (first and last letter acronyms), tochei tevot (inside letters), roshei pesukim, sofei pesukim (first and last letters of verses), dilug otiot (skipping letter patterns), v'tzeruf otiot (combined letter patterns).
Likewise, Rabeinu Bachye writes in his commentary on the Torah (Bereishis): "we have a tradition that in the first verse of the Torah until the word 'bohu' is hidden through many tzirufim the 42 letter Name of G-d of His attribute of Justice..." (which can be used to perform miracles).
Likewise, we have a tradition that everyone and everything that will ever happen until the end of time is hinted in the Torah. In our computer era, there is a whole field of this called "Torah Codes". See this video for an introduction or torahcodes.net
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Footnotes
- [1] http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/proof-torah-true/
- [2] https://www.torahanytime.com/#/lectures?v=36525
- [3] http://ohr.edu/838
- [4] http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/vl/tohen.asp?id=676
- [5] see "Awake my Glory" and "the Universe Testifies" by Rabbi Avigdor Miller
- [6] https://613tube.com/watch/?v=v7wLbR4rxyQ
- [7] http://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/RMBBreakneckthroughGenesis1/
- [8] http://dafyomireview.com/456
- [9] http://dafyomireview.com/yonah.php
- [10] http://audio.ohr.edu/track/id=521
- [11] https://613tube.com/watch/?v=Kj2fQRXbLsk
- [12] https://dafyomi.co.il/discuss_daf.php?gid=3&sid=20&daf=13&n=3
- [13] https://613tube.com/watch/?v=QvKlP7hEo-Q
- [14] http://www.bgu.ac.il/~shor/Is%20there%20hidden%20info%20in%20Hebrew;%20Shore%202008.pdf
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