Every Jew is a living testimony to the veracity of the Torah even according to the rules of the skeptics. The fact that you’re still here is a fact that no human author could have possibly known thousands of years ago 

Last week I touched on the importance of direct encounters with the marvels of Creation as the only way to engender the sense of wonder and excitement that nourishes the basic emunah present in the heart of every human being. It is naturally there from childhood but it can be destroyed by habituation the turmoil of life and neglect. It is like a tender sapling that requires constant care in order to grow and thrive for a lifetime and gedolei Yisrael from the Rambam to the Chazon Ish say that contemplation of the Creator’s loving presence through the study of nature is what brings both a sense of closeness to Him and the joy that comes with that closeness.

And as my own teachers demonstrated this kind of learning should be a regular part of every talmid’s education in order to ensure that he doesn’t lose touch with his Maker as he grows to adulthood. And now I wish to address how to establish the groundwork in these modern times for belief in the Divine origin of the Torah and the special mission of the Jewish People in the world.

This happened thirty years ago and I’m sure it’s still happening today — although I am no longer on the Arachim lecture circuit. The million-dollar question would always be raised by someone; in every secular audience I addressed: “How can you prove to me that the Torah is true that there was a Divine revelation at Mount Sinai?”

A legitimate question. And this is precisely the question I would like to address now as we continue exploring the issue of basic emunah among members of our chareidi society.

In part this is a response to the many letters from readers who argued that Torah miSinai is a truth that cannot be proven and that we must simply rely on the mesorah the legacy handed down from our ancestors all the way back to the generation that witnessed the Revelation on Mount Sinai firsthand. As it says in Sefer HaKuzari “Our received tradition is equivalent to seeing with one’s own eyes ” or as the Ramban put it “A person does not hand down a legacy of lies to his children.”

Certainly the words of the Ramban and the Kuzari are truth and they stand to reason. Our mesorah stands above all else. In the twenty-first century however we can add supporting arguments that that might bring this truth closer to the hearts and minds of this confused generation arguments that if comprehended evoke a sense of excitement and personal identification with this truth which is in any case borne out by the experience of each and every one of us. It may seem strange but at the kiruv seminars in which I took part we found that people weren’t particularly stirred by the Kuzari’s answer despite the unerring logic of it because to them it seemed too abstract and distant to make them feel personally connected with the Book of all books and its Divinity.

I recall how one lecturer tackled the claim by someone in the audience that the arguments establishing the truth of the Torah were not convincing. The lecturer threw the ball back to the audience. “All right” he said “we haven’t convinced you. So you tell us then: what sort of proof would you consider as incontrovertible evidence of the Divine origin of the Torah?”

After pausing to mull that over members of the audience replied that if we could show them things written in the Torah that no human being could have known at the time they were written things that came true years later — that would constitute proof for them.

Convince us that the Torah talks about things we know today to be facts that no human author could have possibly known at the time and we’ll accept that as proof that the Torah comes straight from G‑d. This line of reasoning makes sense to people who are far from Torah observance and there is no reason why the same logic shouldn’t appeal to those who were raised in the Torah world.

The following is an exchange I had recently with a young man looking for “proof.” It went something like this:

“You would like some proof that the Torah is Divine. Well you yourself are the evidence.”

“Me?”

“Yes you!”

“What are you talking about? That doesn’t make sense. I’m living in the twenty-first century and the Torah was written thousands of years ago.”

“Nonetheless you are living proof that the Torah is true.”

“How?”

“I’m going to read one pasuk from the Torah to you. And you tell me if anybody could have known this at the time the Torah was written. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“In Sefer Vayikra after a description of the Jewish People’s long exile and dispersal among all the countries of the world it says “But despite all this while they are in the land of their enemies I will not despise them nor will I reject them to annihilate them thereby breaking My covenant with them for I am Hashem their G‑d.”

“And what does that prove?”

“What does it prove? Well you’re a Jew aren’t you?”

“Of course I am.”

“You are alive today and you’re a Jew. Correct? All right. Now tell me: Do you know of any Ammonites Moabites or ancient Egyptians in your neighborhood or anywhere in the world for that matter?”

“No.”

“So how did the author of the Torah know that you and all of our Jewish brethren would be living today in the twenty-first century when none of those other ancient peoples are still around? Could any human being have promised that? So I’m correct in saying that you as a member of the Jewish Nation are living testimony to the survival of our people against all historical odds. So there you have one proof — and I could give you dozens more — that the Torah predicts things that no human being could have known would come to pass thousands of years later. Do you agree?”

The young man with whom I had this particular exchange became defensive in face of my frontal attack. “But historians and sociologists have explanations for Jewish survival” he countered.

“They can explain it however they wish” I said. “But that’s not the issue here. The issue is that it was stated in the Torah long before it became a fact. It’s easy to come up with a diagnosis after the fact; it’s humanly impossible to make a prognosis of such an outcome thousands of years in advance. Only a Divinity Who wields control over nature and history can do that.”

And speaking of historians here is the conclusion one of them reached: “When in my youth I attempted to demonstrate the truth of the historical-materialistic approach by showing how it is illustrated in the fates of nations the thesis was smashed when it came to the Jews whose survival defies all explanations within this model. Indeed according to the materialist-positivist criterion this nation should have passed from this world long ago. Its survival is a mysterious and wondrous phenomenon attesting that the life of this nation is governed by the power of a primeval decree that stands above the process of adaptation.” (Nikolai Berdyaev The Meaning of History)

Space limitations don’t permit me to go on and on citing additional proofs that each of us today is living testimony to the Torah’s veracity according to the line of reasoning set by our secular friends. But surely we can already perceive how we might create a situation in which our children and talmidim if they will contemplate even this one fact — that the Jewish People has survived — will arrive at the conclusion that they are looking at Divine truth. They themselves are living proof.