Why Is There Harsh Rebuke in the Torah? Part IV

In the previous article, we learned that there are historical reasons for the harsh rebuke at the beginning of Israel to remove the impurities of the nations and shape it. However, the Torah is eternal and intended for all generations; therefore, it is important to discuss the significance of rebuke in the Torah even today.

It is human nature to be lazy, not always striving for one's benefit and life improvement, but to avoid danger and pain - one will exert much effort. Therefore, a person may neglect their health and fitness for many years, compromising a healthy and good quality of life, but when the first signs of pain appear, they swiftly seek doctors and change their lifestyle.

Let us ask honestly, how many of us have sought the truth and returned to repentance without any suffering? For the righteous like Abraham, who sought to know Hashem and to serve Him out of gratitude, are rare. Most of us first recognize Hashem through a sense of awe towards reality, knowing the suffering and difficulty within it. If everything was good and pleasant, we wouldn’t think to ask questions and seek answers...

The feeling of awe precedes love because it leaves a stronger and more stable impression. Every parent and educator knows that children cannot be taught boundaries and self-control without punishment; the wisdom lies in knowing how and how much to punish.

Love comes after awe, when the child matures and sees that everything the father did was for his benefit, including warnings and punishments, which were meant to lead him to the right and good path. Then his heart fills with love for his father and educators if they knew to punish him wisely and with measure.

The Torah is Hashem's instruction manual for man; therefore, it is perfectly tailored to human nature to educate him. Since human nature requires work out of fear before love, the Torah is structured this way, as stated in the Book of Duties of the Hearts (Tenth Gate, Love of Hashem):

"Many times the book precedes the mention of fear of Hashem over his love. As it is said (Deuteronomy 10): 'And now, Israel, what does Hashem your God ask of you if not to fear.' And it says: 'You shall fear Hashem your God,' etc. And it is just to precede fear over love in God, because it is the ultimate abstinence and its distant end, and the closest of the steps towards the level of love for God, and that is the first gate of its gates. And a man cannot reach it, except after his fear and dread of Hashem, be He blessed, precedes it."

In this educational approach, divine wisdom reveals itself in addressing human nature.

The gentle and pleasant promise of good is not as strong and stirring to the soul as the fear of evil, because fear is the strongest and most immediate emotion in man - without it, he would not survive in the world. A father who only speaks of the good and pleasant, hiding the extent of danger, will not save his curious son from severe harms. Man's heart is evil from youth, and a boy's way is to explore boundaries, until he reaches the red lines he understands must not be crossed.

The severe rebuke in the Torah, like the punishments of the court (stoning, burning, killing, and strangulation - which were not common in actual practice, as explained in Tractate Makkot, page 7a), creates these red lines.

Even words of affection and love could not keep us away from temptations and severe transgressions, like the language that reveals their severity through the curses and punishments that befall them.

The harsh rebuke creates the foundation of our recognition of the Torah's importance and the gravity of reward and punishment. Without it, the Torah would appear to many as merely a 'recommendation'! The frightening depictions reveal the measure of justice in the world, thus distancing us from the transgression dangerous to our soul.

We are a weak generation that does not like to receive rebuke, but without rebuke, how will we know to distinguish good from evil, and recognize what is serious and dangerous to us?

The Torah creates a ladder of values and priorities, teaching us what we should be most cautious about. Therefore, there are commandments that are considered to be transgressed at the cost of one's life, commandments that entail being cut off or prohibition, and commandments that are deferred or not deferred for others.

For example, we know that Shabbat is deferred for saving a life, a fact that testifies to its severity when it does not concern saving a life.

But more than that, we remember that desecration of Shabbat is punishable by stoning; this knowledge teaches us the seriousness of Shabbat, even though practically - courts ceased activities since the exile and have not executed for over two thousand years. Yet, the fact remains: the Jewish people preserved Shabbat even in remote and spiritually weak communities, under decrees and severe economic distress, how? Because they knew about the severity of Shabbat from what the Torah taught.

If the desecration of Shabbat was not warned by stoning, would all believers in the Torah strive so much to keep it despite difficult tests in livelihood? If eating Chametz on Passover did not incur being cut off from the soul, would everyone strive so much not to see or find Chametz on their table?

The Torah created in the hearts of observant Jews a strong and stable ladder of values, even when courts do not punish for commandments. Here is proof of the Torah's power, in the test of results: the Torah, with its harsh language and detailed punishments, solidified and preserved important values like Passover and Shabbat for millennia without actual punishment, only because it revealed the seriousness of these commandments through the deterrent punishments of being cut off and stoning. The harsh language and the deterrent punishments of the court created the form of the Jewish people throughout generations, our ladder of values till today! Without the harsh language, we would not see today a public that observes the Torah and commandments.

Nevertheless, Rabbi R' Yaakov Moshe Segal HaLevi, shlit"a, directed me to emphasize that today we are called to the prophecy at the end of the Book of Malachi, where the main emphasis is on work out of love: "Said Hashem Tzvaot, on the day that I do my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a father spares the son who serves him" (Malachi 3:17), so Hashem has arranged for there not to be court coercion in our time like in ancient days, as the study of Torah's punishments in our time is meant to emphasize the order of the gravities of sins, as stated. In this manner, Hashem arranged for the fall of totalitarian regimes with their mighty kings—once served as examples to the Jews for the fear one must have of the leader of the world, to prepare our hearts towards the redemption where our service will mainly be out of love.

In conclusion, in recent articles, two historical reasons for the harsh and rebuking language of the Torah were described:

A. The people of Israel, who came out of Egypt, became accustomed to seeing the impurities of the nations, both in Egypt and among the Canaanite nations around them. How then can they be a light to the nations—a pioneering nation in morality in a world full of injustices and corruption from all sides? The way to remove such severe impurities cannot be done in a tone of recommendation and affection, but only in a clear and sharp tone, thus creating the chosen people even in the generation of the wilderness.

B. But the harsh language was not only intended for the wilderness generation but for all generations, because thanks to the rebuke and detailed severe punishments, the Torah has engraved in all of us a stable and clear ladder of values in observing the commandments, even when courts do not punish them. Without the harsh language in the Torah, the public would not maintain the commandments in the face of temptations and livelihood challenges.

However, it should be noted that all these describe only external, historical, psychological, and sociological reasons, similar to the reasons for the commandments described by Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed, but we must not forget for a moment that behind them are hidden spiritual reasons far higher and deeper, which relate to the soul of Israel and the redemption of the world, connections between lower and upper worlds hidden from us, embedded in every word and law in the Torah.

We tried with Hashem's help to understand the rebuke in the Torah in the way of human logic, the way of plain meaning, while hidden behind it are mountains of hints, inquiries, and secrets. Let us remember that this is why the Torah did not reveal the reasons for the commandments, so that we do not err to lower the Torah to human intellect, and then G-d forbid nullify commandments from our reasoning pronounced by the Most High.

Indeed, the commandments do also have a logical reason, but it's not the only reason. It's like a giant, whose feet we can see on the ground, but not his head above the clouds. Indeed, our eyes do not deceive us in seeing his solid feet on the ground, but they can't reveal to us his head at all—in this way, we can understand the commandments of the Torah in circumstances and historical and psychological reasons, and even though they have a true and real foundation on the ground, they are not capable of revealing the higher intellect.

In the next article in this series, we will address, with G-d's help, the question of why Hashem harshly punished the generation of the wilderness.