The Torah's message differs from the prophets': the former focuses on law, the latter on morals. Concomitantly, the prophets taught knowledge of God, while the Torah indicates that this is an impossibility: He is utterly unknowable. If you can know Hashem, then you should emulate Him; if you cannot, then you should obey the fixed, inflexible, and sometimes inscrutable law.

Explore how these contradictory teachings are both true – on different levels of consciousness. Together, these diametrically opposed philosophies comprise one great system that allows for both negative theology and anthropomorphism.

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The Torah's message differs from the prophets': the former focuses on law, the latter on morals. Nowhere is the difference starker than in regard to sacrificial worship; when the prophets insist that God does not desire animal sacrifice and wants only kindness, justice and righteousness, the discrepancy becomes outright contradiction.

But on close analysis we find that there is no true contradiction. Rather, this divergence encapsulates the essential nature of the Torah and the prophetic books, respectively. The Torah is the law with which to worship the unknowable, transcendent God, and the prophetic books are the framework by which He makes Himself known to man.

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Of major focus in the Torah, idolatry is the subject of numerous commandments, warnings and punishments; but what, precisely, is it? And who are those "Other Gods" that the Torah forbids to worship? Are there more gods than the One God?

According to Rambam, idolatry is, essentially, a forbidden practice. While it is theoretically fitting to venerate the heavenly servants of Hashem – the sun, the moon and the stars, actions resembling worship are nonetheless prohibited because they lead to erroneous beliefs.

Ramban explains the matter differently: idolatry is an expression of faithlessness. It is the deification of the other divine beings – the angels. These lesser divinities are actually appropriate, in a sense, for other nations to worship, but for Hashem’s unique people, only He is truly God.

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One, two, three, four days; we bridge the Exodus to the revelation at Sinai by marking time's passage, seven time seven weeks, and all this is rooted in the harvest and its special sacrifices of barley on Pesach and wheat on Shavuos. How?

This mitzvah takes us back to the beginning of time, to Bereishis. Adam sinned and was sentenced to a life of backbreaking labor in the field. Such a life, long as it may be, is likened to just one day that ends with death: fleeting, ephemeral, and devoid of meaning. If he won’t learn to count his days, man will never find his way back to the Tree of Life.

Like Adam all people. The holiday that celebrates freedom from slavery is followed immediately by the harvest season, and with it the grave danger of never-ending work; counting the days protects from this hazard and leads to receiving the Torah, the true Tree of Life.  

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Why does Hashem test people? Isn’t the outcome known to Him in advance?

One of the “greatest problems in the Torah” according to the Rambam, the idea of trials is given various explanations by the great Jewish thinkers. But all the reasons only serve to justify an imperfect relationship between man and the Divine, for omniscient God indeed has no need for trials; they only have a function within a world controlled through divine beings who lack perfect knowledge – the angels.

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Many people think of the Second Temple as a replay of the first: the Jewish nation returned to the holy land to rebuild the great house of worship and revelation. But it was nothing of the sort. In that pivotal era, prophecy ceased, the divine presence did not return to its sanctuary, and the period of the Oral Law began.

All this, Chazal hint, is linked to the ascendancy of the Greek Empire. The development of Greek wisdom marked a broad shift in the focus of human consciousness. Even the way that God makes Himself known changed: prophetic image was replaced with intellect and revelation with deduction, and man became creator of divine law. 

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The story of man eating from the Tree of Knowledge is the fundamental, foundational story of mankind, of humanity’s capacity for perfection or failure. It is the key for us to understand ourselves – but what does it mean? What would man be without knowing good and evil, and how does this knowledge lead to his downfall?

In the Rambam’s understanding, the crux of matter is the quality of man’s intellect. Instead of making decisions based on the value judgment of knowing good from evil, man could and should make decisions based on discerning truth from falsehood: through intellect alone. This faculty is represented by the Tree of Life, for truth and intellect are eternal. Man's eternal perfection depends on perfecting pure intellect; to the extent that he does not, he is merely another mortal animal. 

This profound idea lies at the heart of the Rambam's whole system of philosophy. 

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Evil – what is it? Where does it come from? Is it real? Will it last forever?

The Rambam and the Mekubalim teach diametrically opposed approaches to the ancient problem of evil in a good God's world. According to Rambam, evil has no real existence, being merely the lack of good. God's creation is absolutely good – although we don't always understand its goodness – and much of the evils we face are man-made. In this optimistic philosophy all of us, here and now, partake fully of Hashem's goodness in His perfect world.

In contrast, the Mekubalim teach that evil is real, indeed very important. There is a metaphysical reality to this force that opposes good – but only for the time being; our mission is to overcome and overpower it and thereby perfect a currently imperfect world.

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Why is Shabbos so central to the Torah? What is signified by abstaining from work?

This simple practice contains the most profound declaration of faith and, Chazal teach, purifies its observers from all sin. Rooted in the creation story and man's original, root transgression of knowing evil along with good, Shabbos proclaims the pure goodness and faultlessness of God's universe – work is unnecessary in a perfect world; by recognizing this perfection, man repudiates evil and commits himself to the service of the good.

All this and more is alluded to in the psalm that ushers in the holiness of Shabbos, the "song for the Shabbos day."

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Why is the mitzvah of matzah so important? How could a food be so fundamental to redemption and its remembrance? 

The story of Avraham, Lot and Sodom allude to the secrets of this simple bread. Sodom, like Mitzrayim, was economically secure, supplied with water from a river, while the land of Israel depends on rain, Hashem's heavenly blessing liable to be withheld if not earned by doing His will. The bread of Mitzrayim is the food of pride and insolence: economic security engenders haughtiness, root of all Sodom's evil, while the bread of affliction is the food of Hashem's land, reminding us of the ever-present possibility of hunger if we lose Hashem's favor. 

To eat and be aware that all sustenance is a heavenly gift that can be denied – that is central to our relationship with Hashem and characteristic of His holy land, and also at the heart of Sh'ma and Tefillin.

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