The Unbroken Chain

“But beware and watch yourself very well, lest you forget the things that your eyes saw, and lest these things depart from your heart, all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children and to your children’s children—the day you stood before the Lord your G-d at Horeb.”  (Deuteronomy 4:9–10) 

Sometimes things are right in front of you for so long you forget they are there.  

In Talmud Tractate Berachos, the Sages ask, “What did God give us at Sinai?” The answer: “God gave us the Ten Commandments, the Five Books of the Torah, the Mishnayot, and the Gemara.” 

At Sinai, 3,335 years ago, God gave us every action a Jew must perform to serve God.  

What’s amazing about the first book in the Talmud is that it goes on to talk about the Ashrei prayer, which is part of both morning and afternoon services. The Sages wrote this down 1,800 years ago. To this very day, you know a minyan has just started the afternoon services when someone belts out . . .  

Ashrei Yoshvei Beitecha, od YiHalelucha Sela . . .  

We are doing the same thing today that our forefathers did 18 centuries ago.  

It starts with the blessings, the first words we utter when we open our eyes. It ends with Adon Olam, and the last blessing we say before going to sleep. We start and finish every day in the exact same manner that the great Sages proscribed over 18 centuries ago.  

Our continued adherence to what our forefathers and the Sages told us centuries ago is what makes the Jewish People eternal. 

The Eternal Chain 

These laws were merely written down centuries ago. They were put to print after a chain of Sages transmitted them by word of mouth for 1,500 years. Where and when did this chain begin? In the Ethics of the Fathers, the Mishnah tells us: 

Moses received the Torah from Sinai and gave it over to Joshua. Joshua gave it over to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets gave it over to the Men of the Great Assembly…  

Every blessing that we recite before doing a mitzvah reminds us that God instructed Moshe on Mount Sinai to perform the commandment.

Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and has commanded us to …

Every Jew since Sinai, for hundreds of generations, recites his blessings as if he is still at Sinai.  

Every mitzvah is a reaffirmation that Hashem gave us the Torah and the 613 commandments on Mount Sinai. He commands us to perform them for all eternity.  

Every time we study Torah, we affirm that God gave us the Torah at Sinai, and He continues to give us the Torah today.  

Adding Links to the Eternal Chain 

It’s incredible how people are mesmerized by an Amish family doing something their ancestors did 200 years ago, or by how some Chinese farmer makes rice the way his alter zeide did during the Liao dynasty in 1023.  

Why aren’t they as impressed by a Jewish family observing the Shabbat, something we do by following the same halachot (laws) that our forefathers did at Mount Sinai over 3,300 years ago? 

Because it’s commonplace.  

Every action a Jew performs is an added link to the chain dating back to the first day of our national existence. No other nation can make this claim.  

Few nations lay claim to existing three thousand years ago, but only one people does the same deeds in the same way by learning the same laws that they received on their first day of existence.  

Hashem created the Torah before anything existed, and He used the Torah to bring about creation. Only one nation continues to live according to that same Torah because our Creator commanded it. 

All our mitzvot are a living testament to the eternal bond Hashem created with us then … now . . . and forever.  

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, Center Stage Marketing, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.