Q&A: Articles on the Torah's Prophecies
Articles on the Torah's Prophecies
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael Abraham.
Where does the Rabbi address the prophecies about the Jewish people? I’d be happy to know which prophecies the Rabbi sees as concrete and impressive enough that one can say they were fulfilled. (I only saw discussion of the Return to Zion and the issue of the uniqueness of the Jewish people, “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”)
Answer
You can search the site; there are several threads about this. In particular, I remember posts by Copenhagen that go into detail. I just noticed that you yourself already opened such threads. Look there again.
Discussion on Answer
It’s true that a prophecy about a special and rare event would strengthen the question of how it happened. But does a single prophecy have any significance when it isn’t connected to a sequence of prophecies?
I’ll try to produce a video soon regarding Moses’ prophecy at the end of the book of Deuteronomy about the future of the people of Israel and its realization in history. And there are several other impressive biblical prophecies that, in my opinion, can be shown to have been written before the events, and which it is not reasonable to think could have been naturally predicted.
It may be that Itai has a point. Once a prophecy is not anchored in a meaningful historical-theological context, then it may be more rational to accept almost any other strained explanation for the phenomenon than to say that this is a violation of everything we know about human nature (although it may be that prophecy does not constitute a violation of human nature, as Maimonides held). What would happen if tomorrow someone like Balaam came and showed us evidence that a donkey spoke to him?
The phenomena surrounding the Jewish people are rare and unique, and the prophecies strengthen that even more. But the Rabbi didn’t write which prophecies he accepts. (The Rabbi wrote that he accepts some of them.)
The question is whether it really matters how impressive the prophecies are. Maybe even if we’re talking about only two very impressive prophecies, that still might not be enough.
After all, the fulfillment of prophecies is important to us, because the overall picture, however unique and puzzling it may be, means nothing without prophecy.