Our Torah reading this week enjoins us to maintain Torah practices, no matter what others believe or have done. This begins within ourselves, as the Torah directs us away from “every man doing whatever is right in his eyes” [12:8]. But we are told not to follow the practices of other nations, no matter how appropriate they might seem: “lest you ask after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise'” [12:30].
The Torah explains that these other nations did abominable things: “even their sons and daughters they burned in fire to their gods” [12:31]. But that is merely an explanation, it does not affect whether we should imitate other practices. It simply tells us that people were convinced to do horrible things, and that even what others deem reasonable or laudable may not actually be acceptable at all.
And then the Torah goes even further, telling us that the first test of a prophet is not whether the prophecy comes true, but his or her underlying message: “If there shall arise a prophet among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or wonder, and that sign or wonder happens, which he spoke to you about, saying ‘let us go after other gods that you have not known, and serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or the dreamer of that dream, for Hashem your G-d is testing you” [13:2-4].
Think about that! The Torah is not talking about a so-called “prophet” who makes up stories. It’s not speaking about the made-for-TV preacher conjuring up “miracles” live on camera. It tells us that even if a person makes miracles happen, or clearly proves to us that he or she can see the future, we still must ignore what he or she says!
This also means that although there are signs all around us of G-d’s Hand at work, truly miraculous occurences that “strengthen our belief,” that does not actually refer to our belief in G-d. Those things should strengthen our belief that G-d still makes things happen for us, every day, but they do not, or should not, impact whether we accept that G-d exists and is our King of Kings, “who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of servitude” [13:11]. We know that to be true because our ancestors experienced it, not because we observe miracles, or someone makes them happen, and says these are proof. The Torah tells us that they are no proof at all.
In our day, people do not give much credence to miracles, but this hardly means we are not asked to believe things which contradict what we already know to be true. I’m not speaking about cultures that teach that to be a suicide bomber is a ticket to Heaven, no better than those who believed in putting their children into fires. Even in our society, we are told that “science” demands we ignore the testimony of all the 30 to 40 trillion cells in each human body. We are also told that seriously ill children are “starving” despite their parents clearly being, if anything, overfed, in order to condemn the innocent and exonerate the guilty. The Torah teaches us that people believing nonsense is not new, and does not change the truth at all.
May we always root our thoughts in the things we know to be true, even when others try to tell us that Hashem now makes the sun rise in the west!
