- Did Our Forefathers Observe the Torah?
-
- Moshe Ben-Chaim
-
- Reader: I have always been troubled by the assertion that our
forefathers observed the 613 before Sinai. It sounded like revisionism
to me. And it seems that the commentators (Rashi, I think) go to great
lengths to explain away what seems obvious from the text, that Avraham
served milk and meat to the visiting angels. They say he didn't.
-
- How should I interpret the claim about the forefathers and the 613?
-
- Mesora: Egypt didn't exist
during Abraham's time, so how could he be celebrating Passover, before
the very event commemorated happened? A rabbi once taught that when
the Rabbis say that Abraham and the forefathers kept the entire Torah,
it means they upheld actions and ideals which were in line with the
very perfections derived from the Torah. It teaches us metaphorically
that the forefathers were not missing any of the perfections which God
placed in the Torah.
|