Observations placeholder
Midrash Tehillin – The Torah is in the wrong order
Identifier
014825
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The author of this statement is Eleazar ben Pedath, a teacher of the third century, whose interest in esoteric ideas is also apparent in other utterances. The extract is in commenting on Job 28:13 ‘No man knoweth its order’.
I have to add that this seems to me a masterly way to get people to read the Bible, imply it is all magic, but that said, it probably is!
As Gershom says “Obviously this statement carries a strong magical accent and implies a magical view of the Torah. It is well known that in the Hellenistic period and later the Torah was put to magical use both by Jews and non-Jews: divine names gleaned from the Torah were used for the purposes of incantation. Often the methods of combination by which such magical names were derived from the Torah are unintelligible to us“.
A description of the experience
Midrash Tehillin, ed. Buber, p. 33. - As quoted in Gershom Scholem – On the Kabbalah and its symbolism
The various sections of the Torah 'were not given in their correct order. For if they had been given in their correct order, anyone who read them would be able to wake the dead and perform miracles. For this reason the correct order and arrangement of the Torah were hidden and are known only to the Holy One, blessed be He, of whom it is said (Isa. 44: 7): "And who, as I shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me".