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Cedars of Lebanon: Not on the Side of the Angels
- Abstract
The following extract from the Midrash T’hillim—the collection of midrashim on the Book of Psalms—deals with the eighth Psalm, the oldest commentary we have on the Creation of Man. The Psalm wonders at the precedence of man in the scheme of the universe, and in his dominion over the things of this world it finds awesome evidence of God’s majesty. The rabbis see in the drama of Creation and in the giving of the Torah the triumph of order over chaos—the beginnings of cosmos. Man’s dominion starts with his rule over himself through obedience to the Divine Will as expressed in the Torah. One recalls here the words of Kant: “Two things there are which. . . fill the mind with an ever new and ever rising admiration and reverence, the starry heavens above, the moral law within.”
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