Timeless Torah vs the shifting sands and guesswork

Rabbi Pesach Fishman

He is correct in stating that the basis for this calculation is the Torah’s statement that there were 600 000 men between the ages of 20 and 60 who were present. Add to that approximately an equal number of women and those below the age of 20 or above the age of 60 and it’s reasonable to say that the total exceeded two million.

Frack says that the barren Sinai could not have sustained those numbers and contends that “Biblical scholars” estimate that there were far fewer Jews, perhaps 10 000, who left Egypt.

How does one prove that history actually happened, especially if it is in the distant past before the advent of photography, filming and Facebook? It is through the books that have been written on those events, records, excavations and the art of that era.

The Torah relates the narrative of the enslavement in Egypt and the unprecedented exodus that followed. The Torah that tells of the events in Egypt, is that same Torah that relates the miraculous existence of the Jews on their subsequent journey through the desert: the manna that fell daily from Heaven to feed them, the Well of Miriam that provided water and the Clouds of Glory that protected them and smoothed the path forward.

In the natural order of things the desert cannot sustain a very large number of people, but it is precisely the miraculous existence of the Jews in the desert that could see them through their f40-year trek. One cannot embrace one half of the story – that the Jews miraculously left Egypt en masse, while without any basis rejecting the other half of the story – the miraculous nature of that journey.

I am not sure who the “Biblical scholars” that Frack refers to are and what the basis for their hypothesis is. But that is what it is – a hypothesis based on fragmentary evidence that is subject to change and even radical reinterpretation, as more information comes to light. Such is the nature of their field that is one of conjecture. 

The Torah on the other hand is an actual description of the events that has been handed down unchanged and unchallenged for millennia. Objective facts that are properly understood invariably dovetail with the Torah.

I prefer to embrace the certainty of the G-d-given Torah rather the shifting sands and guesswork of Egyptology.

Northcliff Shul, Johannesburg