Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
The More, the Meritorious
This week’s Torah reading is full of divine commandments—by tradition, more commandments than any other week in the annual cycle of readings. They cover a broad variety of topics in ritual, civil, and criminal law, including (for example) the prohibition of displaying overnight the corpse of an executed man, or the requirement to construct a protective wall on the roof of a newly built house, or the prohibition of muzzling an ox while it is threshing. Such statutes have sometimes raised a question: did all these things really require divine legislation? Couldn’t some matters be left to common sense— or simply omitted without explanation?
Everyone has heard the story of Hillel the Elder, who was approached by a potential convert offering to convert to Judaism on the condition that he (Hillel) teach him the whole Torah while the convert stood on one foot—an apparently impossible demand. Hillel answered him by quoting a well-known paraphrase of Leviticus 19:18: “Whatever is hateful to you” he said, “don’t do to your fellow.” Follow this, Hillel was saying, and you will have grasped the essence of Judaism.
Underneath this story is the unspoken claim that the great multitude of commandments in this week’s reading, along with all the Torah’s other commandments, could be—and perhaps under certain circumstances should be—epitomized in a single sentence or two. After all, hadn’t Rabbi Akiva done as much when he described Leviticus 19:18 (“And you shall love your fellow like yourself”) as a “great, general principle” (kelal gadol) of the Torah as a whole?
Indeed, an ancient saying held that the whole Torah could be epitomized in the two verses that start out with the words “and you shall love”: Deuteronomy 6:5 (“And you shall love the Lord your God…”) and Leviticus 19:18 (“And you shall love your fellow…”). But if these really do sum up the whole Torah, then why don’t we take the hint and leave the other, more detailed or technical commandments—such as those in this week’s reading—to the experts?
An answer to this question came from a rather obscure figure, Rabbi Hananya son of Aqashya, who is remembered only for his clever interpretation of a single verse, Isaiah 42:21. Isaiah had said, “the Lord desired to make His people meritorious, so He made the Torah great and mighty.” Restating this in his own words, Rabbi Hananya explained: “The Holy One wanted to grant Israel even more merit; that is why He magnified the Torah and made it even greater.” In other words, the more commandments, the more opportunities to find favor in God’s eyes.