1

As quoted in this answer:

On the fiftieth day after they began counting the Omer--that is, fifty-one days after the Exodus, all of the Children of Israel, men, women and children, over two million people, stood at Mount Sinai and received the Torah amidst great miracles and heavenly fire. They saw no form or picture of G-d, but they saw many miracles that proved that G-d is the Creator of heaven and earth. They heard G-d's voice speak and command Moses to instruct the Children of Israel on how to prepare to receive the Torah. Then they heard G-d speaking directly to them, the Children of Israel, and commanding them to keep the Torah. The Children of Israel accepted the Torah and all its Commandments, and they said: "We agree to obey, even before we hear the actual Commandments."

We are told not to believe in miracles; how do we know that the voice of God at Sinai wasn't some magician's ploy to convert the masses and how do we know that the miracles that took place at Sinai were done by God and not some magician?

Community
  • 1
Ani Yodea
  • 13,125
  • 2
  • 28
  • 82
  • 1
    So it was a magician who said 'Kill all magicians'? – Double AA Jun 05 '15 at 14:50
  • @DoubleAA, that would give him credence... – Ani Yodea Jun 05 '15 at 14:51
  • And get him killedinasecond... – Double AA Jun 05 '15 at 14:53
  • Only if he's caught. :) – Ani Yodea Jun 05 '15 at 14:54
  • 1
    When a person has a Yeitzer Hara to not believe something, the Yeitzer Hara comes up with many far-fetched possibilities to say "maybe not that", but has no such motivation to reject what it successfully made the null-hypothesis - this is the most powerful trick as hidden assumptions are the most persuasive. In other words I believe X until you so totally prove to me that X is impossible, rather than evaluating which of X or Y is the more plausible understanding of the situation. This exists in many areas, not just matters of fundamentals of faith ... – Yishai Jun 05 '15 at 14:55
  • @Yishai, perhaps you can turn that into an answer? – Ani Yodea Jun 05 '15 at 14:57
  • @Yishai It's not (just) the Yetzer Hara. People get attached to all sorts of ideas and have trouble thinking rationally. Like believing a loved one betrayed you. Or just rethinking childhood beliefs. – Double AA Jun 05 '15 at 15:04
  • 1
    "some magician"?!?This is all theoretical musing, of course--but the idea comes to mind of who/what/why...alias a MOTIVATION for writing such a composition. There were no Nobel Prizes for Literature, so..in my mind "some magician" needs to be replaced with "some group of priests". What better motivation than to be able to answer "why am I giving you and your extended family precious metal and the best cuts of meat?" by holding up a Holy Book and pointing and saying "because HaShem SAYS SO - RIGHT HERE!!" – Gary Jun 05 '15 at 16:34
  • 1
    @AniYodea: I find it funny to question whether it was the voice of God or the voice of a magician, why not question the historical record of anyone hearing any voice? – intuit Jun 05 '15 at 16:44
  • 1
    @intuit because he is asking a much more powerful question - even if you accept that such a historical account could not be faked, and you couldn't make up that a whole nation had a revelation, maybe the revelation itself was a trick and they were fooled. – Y     e     z Jun 05 '15 at 17:41
  • @gary and that they don't get a part of the land, and that the "best cut of meat" goes to a certain few people one week of the year, and that they can't remarry their wives, and other great goodies. – HaLeiVi Jun 05 '15 at 17:49
  • @HaLeVi - VaYikra 6 seems to be about more than one week of the year...overall, compared to the rest of the population, they did pretty well, especially in Second Temple times... – Gary Jun 05 '15 at 17:56
  • many miracles occurred according to chazal. jews died and were resurected, planet shook, saw thunder and heard lightning, angels crowned each jew, seven heavens opened, many more – ray Jun 07 '15 at 18:45
  • I am most certainly not agreeing with the premise of magical involvement at Sinai. Just for arguement sake however, weren't the Egyptian's known as the absolute world's best magician's? Didn't the Egyptian's reproduce each of the ten plagues except for the last? They then matched "miracles" with "magic". Maybe Israel took knowledge of magic with them when they left Egypt. – JJLL Jun 07 '15 at 20:27

2 Answers2

3

Two approaches:

The Unmistakable Nature of Divine Experience

The Jewish people themselves heard Hashem speak at Har Sinai, on some level of prophecy. The Ramchal writes in Derech Hashem 3:3:3 that an experience of revelation, on whatever level, is unmistakable:

אמנם בכלן תהיה ההשפעה בדרך שירגיש בה המשפע בברור

In all of [the levels of revelation] the spiritual influence comes in a way in which it is clear to the recipient.

So if they heard it themselves, they would know unmistakably that it was a true Revelation - authentic revelation cannot be faked.

The Nature of Direct and Indirect Proof

The Malbim's commentary to Shemos 19:9 cites the Sefer HaIkarim's explanation of this distinction with an analogy. If two people say they can make triak (an ancient mythical panacea), and the first shows you as he makes it that he has all of the ingredients and lets you watch as he puts them together. Or, he makes it and then tests it and you see that it is effective. The other person does all kinds of wonderous things like walks through fire and the like, and tells you that as he can do wonderous things, he clearly has some power and you should believe him. In other words, the second person is asking you to transfer your belief from his wonders to his claims. The same is true of any prophet viz-a-viz Moshe. Moshe did not do wonders and, based thereon, ask us to rely on him. He showed us that Hashem speaks to him. There is no request for us to transfer our belief from him to his claims. This direct belief is what distinguishes Moshe from any other prophet, and it is these kinds of indirect beliefs which are subject to doubt.

In this type of demonstration, the doubt would not be on Moshe's word, but rather on the reliability of our own experiences. This is the superiority of demonstration which is present in Moshe's credentials as messenger from Hashem.

Community
  • 1
Y     e     z
  • 58,536
  • 3
  • 109
  • 249
  • Regarding your first approach, do you mean that they felt that it was authentic? – Ani Yodea Jun 05 '15 at 19:25
  • @AniYodea Yessir. Well, no. More than just felt. They unmistakably recognized it through the experience. – Y     e     z Jun 05 '15 at 19:27
  • Is there anything comparable to such an experience in our days they might help one understand the experience? – Ani Yodea Jun 05 '15 at 19:29
  • Probably not - otherwise it would be another revelation... – Ani Yodea Jun 05 '15 at 19:30
  • @AniYodea Any experience of prophecy would include this, as well as any experience of ruach hakodesh. – Y     e     z Jun 05 '15 at 19:36
  • This is how we happen to believe they knew. But how do we know it couldn't have been otherwise? That it was a trick, there was no feeling of obvious revelation, and they still happened to accept it and move forward? re http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/59951/how-do-we-know-that-the-revelation-at-sinai-was-not-a-magicians-trick?noredirect=1#comment160946_59951 – Double AA Jun 05 '15 at 20:10
  • @DoubleAA Re "there was no feeling of obvious revelation" I don't think that question starts. Let's accept that our mesorah is accurate and wasn't made up, and we are only questioning if the original source of that mesorah was a facade. So our mesorah provides the information to respond to that point. No one (in this thread) is suggesting that they made things up following the revelation. – Y     e     z Jun 07 '15 at 02:36
  • Something strong enough to require resuscitation is pretty good proof of reality. The experience of Nevua is more reliable than your senses, which can actually be fooled. – HaLeiVi Jun 07 '15 at 05:58
2

In order to pose such a possibility we would need an example of magic being done in such magnitude. The voice of Hashem was heard by all. It's source couldn't be traced to any one side, according to the Medrash. The mountain was smoking and yet Moshe Rabbeinu stood there, and Hashem spoke before he even got there.

This was after the plagues and splitting of the sea. Following this was the precise Hashgacha Pratis in the wilderness, where Korach, Dassan and Aviram died for going against the Torah. They had these large scale, foretold miracles that their lives depended on.

Less than a thousand years later was the Galus Bavel, where we ceased to be a unified people. And yet, we held to the Torah. I couldn't make up a large scale story about the main history of the crusades, the Spanish wars and unification and the Magna Carta because they are relatively recent history, within a thousand years.

There were no parallel Judaisms having their own story of origin, although there were two kingdoms in Israel from pretty early on, and after not having a king at all.

If you want to know what a man-made religion would look like you have examples to compare. Murky foundations, lots of self-praise, threatening those who didn't make the leap. The Torah does not have that.

HaLeiVi
  • 4,993
  • 16
  • 27
  • 1
    drashas haran says this was the purpose of the 10 plagues. – ray Jun 06 '15 at 20:33
  • When you say "by all" are you referring to all that were present or the entire planet? I heard something similar before but please provide a source. – Ani Yodea Jun 07 '15 at 18:27