by Rabbi Koval
On my way
down to Columbus for a bris this week, I was listening to a tape (yes, a
tape) in my car which was a lecture on reincarnation by a Rabbi Weiss
of Staten Island, NY. He spent the first few minutes disclaiming
reincarnation, but eventually went on to discuss some kabbalistic
theories in famous reincarnates. For example, he mentioned that the
famous Job was a reincarnation of Terach, the father of Abraham, and his
suffering was atonement for the grief he had given Abraham in his
previous life for Abraham's religious choices, and for his own staunchly
pagan practices.
I
thought this was a pretty startling framework for making sense of
suffering from a much, much larger perspective. The idea gave me
comfort that we can make a bit of sense of tragedy.
I
went to do my bris, got back into my car, and this time turned on 1420
am, where Hugh Hewitt was interviewing a Hillsdale College Biblical
scholar about a book he wrote on Thirty Greatest Biblical Scholars.
Eventually the conversation turned to, of all people, Job. The author
was bothered by the story of Job. He said that Biblical scholars are,
in general, troubled by the story of Job and have a hard time making
sense of it. How could God allow Satan to test a nice, loyal Jew like
Job? How could he suffer so intensely? It didn't really make sense to
him.
Hillsdale, meet Rabbi Weiss.
The
Biblical scholars did not have the Oral Law to draw upon - our rich,
nuanced, ancient tradition that encompasses the Talmud, Kabbalah,
Mishneh, and more. It is this body of literature, and the many, many
books that elucidate it, that fill in the holes of understanding in many
famous stories in the Torah. I shared with my Tuesday morning learning
group my joy that this body of Torah is ours to learn and to grow from -
and that you can't really understand ANY of the Torah stories without
its words.
Jew, meet the Oral Law.
