A famous Jewish story tells how Moses returns to life and sits in the back the room during a class in Talmud run by Rabbi Akiba (at the time of the Roman Occupation of Israel, around the year zero).
Moses does not understand a word of the rabbinic discourse, showing how much interpretation had occurred in the 2500 years since Mount Sinai. Moses didn’t understand the so-called Oral Torah even though, according to tradition, the Oral Torah also was revealed to him at Sinai.
I think of this story every time I see pictures of Tea-Party stalwarts waving copies of the U.S. Delcaration of Independence and the Constitution around. Here is Michele Bachmann from Washington last week:
“All men and all women are created equal. We are endowed by our creator—that’s God, not government—with certain inalienable rights.”
