Wed, Mar 8, 6:51 AM (1 day ago)

to me

Before the Protestant Revolution, your average Christian was illiterate. What he knew of the Bible was filtered through his priest.

Not so the Jew. He studied the Torah himself – indeed, was obligated to do so. Every Jew therefore had direct access to G-d”s word. In Jewish society, the “masses” were never ignorant and were never at the mercy of an “educated elite” for religious knowledge.

The Midrash tells us that the Ten Commandments miraculously appeared on both the front and back of the tablets, the luchos. (According to one opinion in the Yerushalmi, they appeared on all four sides of the luchos.) When we”re kids, we learn this Midrash and think, “Wow, that”s so neat!” But as adults, we should ask: What was the point of this miracle?

Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch explains:

Had the Ten Commandments only appeared on one side, Moshe would have found himself “in a definitely dictatorial position towards the massed people.” After all, he “alone has the written Law in front of him, and the masses must accept from him what he reads out to them. He is the definitely indispensable intermediary between the people and the Law.”

G-d therefore inscribed the Ten Commandments on both sides of the luchos.

“If [the] Law&hellip.is visible on both sides, if the Law presents itself all the time equally to Moshe and the people, then the Law comes down directly to the nation and to every member of the nation and Moshe disappears entirely from this transmission, becomes simply one of the people the people can read the Law to Moshe as well as he can read it to them. So that even if “this man Moshe” disappears, the people do not require a Moshe the Torah presents itself at all time directly from G-d to every individual.”

Elliot Resnick, PhD, is the host of “The Elliot Resnick Show” and the editor of an upcoming work on etymological explanations in Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch”s commentary on Chumash.
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