Bible Codes? Discovering What the Torah Really Means TORAT CHOVEVEI Study Guide: Ki Teitze Rabbi Haggai Alexander Resnikoff This study guide was made possible by funds granted by the Covenant Foundation. The statements made and the views expressed, however, are solely the responsibility of the author.

Guide for the Perplexed, 3:32, Ed. Shlomo Pines, University of Chicago Press, 1963, pp. 526-528

...For a sudden transition from one opposite to another is impossible. And therefore man, according to his nature, is not capable of abandoning suddenly all to which he was accustomed. As therefore God sent Moses our Master to make out of us a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Shemot 19:6) - through the knowledge of Him, may He be exalted… - so that we should devote ourselves to His worship...and as at that time the way of life generally accepted and customary in the whole world and the universal service upon which we were brought up consisted in offering various species of living beings in the temples in which images were set up, in worshiping the latter, and in burning incense before them...His wisdom may he be exalted and His gracious ruse, which is manifest in regard to all His creatures, did not require that He give us a Law prescribing the rejection, abandonment, and abolition of all these kinds of worship. For one could not then conceive the acceptance of [such a Law], considering the nature of man, which always likes that to which it is accustomed. At that time this would have been similar to the appearance of a prophet in these times who, calling upon the people to worship God would say: “God has given you a Law forbidding you to pray to Him, to fast, to call upon Him for help in misfortune. Your worship should consist solely in meditation without any works at all.” Therefore He, may He be exalted, suffered the above-mentioned kinds of worship to remain, but transferred them from created or imaginary and unreal things to His own name, may He be exalted, commanding us to practice them with regard to Him, may He be exalted...Through this divine ruse it came about that the memory of idolatry was effaced and that the grandest and true foundation of our belief - namely, the existence and oneness of the deity - was firmly established, while at the same time the souls had no feeling of repugnance and were not repelled because of the abolition of modes of worship to which they were accustomed and than which no other mode of worship was known at that time.

I know that on thinking about this at first your soul will necessarily have a feeling of repugnance toward this notion and will feel aggrieved because of it; and you will ask me in your heart and say to me: How is it possible that none of the commandments, prohibitions, and great actions - which are very precisely set forth and prescribed for fixed seasons - should be intended for its own sake, but for the sake of something else, as if this were a ruse invented for our benefit by God in order to achieve His first intention?.... Hear then the reply to your question that will put an end to this sickness in your heart and reveal to you the true reality of that to which I have drawn your attention. It is to the effect that the text of the Torah tells a quite similar story, namely in its dictum: God led them not by the way of the land of the Philistines, although it was near, and so on. But God led the people about, by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea (Shemot 13:17-18). Just as God perplexed them in anticipation of what their bodies were naturally incapable of bearing - turning them away from the high road toward which they had been going, toward another road so that the first intention should be achieved - so did He in anticipation of what the soul is naturally incapable of receiving, prescribe the laws that we have mentioned so that the first intention should be achieved, namely, the apprehension of Him, may He be exalted, and the rejection of idolatry. For just as it is not in the nature of man that, after having been brought up in slavish service occupied with clay, bricks, and similar things, he should all of a sudden wash off from his hands the dirt deriving from them and proceed immediately to fight against the children of Anak, so is it also not in his nature that, after having been brought up upon very many modes of worship and of customary practices, which the souls find so agreeable that they become as it were a primary notion, he should abandon them all of a sudden. And just as the deity used a gracious ruse in causing them to wander perplexedly in the desert until their souls became courageous - it being well known that life in the desert and lack of comforts for the body necessarily develop courage whereas the opposite circumstances necessarily develop cowardice - and until, moreover, people were born who were not accustomed to humiliation and servitude - all this having been brought about by Moses our Master by means of diving commandments… - so did this group of laws derive from a divine grace, so that they should be left with the kind of practices to which they were accustomed and so that consequently the belief, which constitutes the first intention should be validated for them…

I return to my subject and I say that, as this kind of worship - I mean the sacrifices - pertain to a second intention, whereas invocation, prayer, and similar practices and modes of worship come closer to the first intention and are necessary for its achievement...

Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene I

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/merchant/full.html

SALANIO
Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil cross my
prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.

Enter SHYLOCK

How now, Shylock! what news among the merchants?

SHYLOCK
You know, none so well, none so well as you, of my
daughter's flight.

SALARINO
That's certain: I, for my part, knew the tailor
that made the wings she flew withal.

SALANIO
And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was
fledged; and then it is the complexion of them all
to leave the dam.

SHYLOCK
She is damned for it.

SALANIO
That's certain, if the devil may be her judge.

SHYLOCK
My own flesh and blood to rebel!

SALANIO
Out upon it, old carrion! rebels it at these years?

SHYLOCK
I say, my daughter is my flesh and blood.

SALARINO
There is more difference between thy flesh and hers
than between jet and ivory; more between your bloods
than there is between red wine and rhenish. But
tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any
loss at sea or no?

SHYLOCK
There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a
prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the
Rialto; a beggar, that was used to come so smug upon
the mart; let him look to his bond: he was wont to
call me usurer; let him look to his bond: he was
wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him
look to his bond.

SALARINO
Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take
his flesh: what's that good for?

SHYLOCK
To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.

Enter a Servant

Servant
Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house and
desires to speak with you both.

SALARINO
We have been up and down to seek him.

Enter TUBAL

SALANIO
Here comes another of the tribe: a third cannot be
matched, unless the devil himself turn Jew.

Exeunt SALANIO, SALARINO, and Servant

SHYLOCK
How now, Tubal! what news from Genoa? hast thou
found my daughter?

TUBAL

I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.

SHYLOCK
Why, there, there, there, there! a diamond gone,
cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse
never fell upon our nation till now; I never felt it
till now: two thousand ducats in that; and other
precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter
were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear!
would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in
her coffin! No news of them? Why, so: and I know
not what's spent in the search: why, thou loss upon
loss! the thief gone with so much, and so much to
find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge:
nor no in luck stirring but what lights on my
shoulders; no sighs but of my breathing; no tears
but of my shedding.

TUBAL
Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I
heard in Genoa,--

SHYLOCK
What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck?

TUBAL
Hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis.

SHYLOCK
I thank God, I thank God. Is't true, is't true?

TUBAL
I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.

SHYLOCK
I thank thee, good Tubal: good news, good news!
ha, ha! where? in Genoa?

TUBAL
Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, in one
night fourscore ducats.

SHYLOCK
Thou stickest a dagger in me: I shall never see my
gold again: fourscore ducats at a sitting!
fourscore ducats!

TUBAL
There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my
company to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break.

SHYLOCK
I am very glad of it: I'll plague him; I'll torture
him: I am glad of it.

TUBAL
One of them showed me a ring that he had of your
daughter for a monkey.

SHYLOCK
Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my
turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor:
I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.

TUBAL
But Antonio is certainly undone.

SHYLOCK
Nay, that's true, that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee
me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I
will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for, were
he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I
will. Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue;
go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.

Exeunt