The question: “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is a question familiar to every child, but few are aware that this question first appears in the writings of the Greek philosopher, Plutarch, and should be considered a serious question. The paradox of the question lies in the recurring loop between chicken and egg as cause and effect. An egg can only be created when laid by a hen, so there is no egg that was not preceded by a chicken. At the same time, every chicken hatched from an egg, so we have no choice but to say that the egg preceded the chicken.
A parallel paradox is found mentioned in passing in Tractate Avot. Together with other things that were created at twilight on the sixth day of creation we find: “And some say the tongs, made with tongs” (Avot 5:6). The argument here is that the high temperatures that are needed to produce tongs would make it impossible to do so unless we already had a set of tongs to hold it (Kehati). The Mishnah solves this problem by suggesting that the first set of tongs had to have been Divinely created and could not have been fashioned by man. This solution is the traditionally accepted religious perspective of Creationism that is applied to the chicken-and-egg question, as well. God created the first hen, which laid the first egg.
But the paradox of the chicken and the egg indirectly touches on another question, the question of what is paramount and what is secondary. What is merely a tool and what is the central component for which the tool is intended? Does the chicken use eggs to produce more chickens or do the eggs use chickens to produce more eggs in the best way possible?
In the background of our parasha we find a similar question. What preceded what – the Jewish nation or the commandments? Some verses in the parasha imply that the commandments came before the Jewish nation, whose existence is dependent on them. For example:
And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, the LORD your God will maintain faithfully for you the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers (Devarim 7:12).
If you do forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve them or bow down to them, I warn you this day that you shall certainly perish (Devarim 8:19).
But there are other verses that indicate otherwise:
Yet it was to your fathers that the LORD was drawn in His love for them, so that He chose you, their lineal descendants, from among all peoples—as is now the case (Devarim 10:15).
Only then:
Love, therefore, the LORD your God, and always keep His charge, His laws, His rules, and His commandments.
There is double significance to this inquiry.
First, it presents the question of whether there would be value to biblical commandments in a world where there are (Heaven forbid) no Jews. Does the Torah have independent existence, or does its existence depend on those who are obligated to keep it? Or, from the opposite perspective, can we conceive of a Jew who does not keep the commandments of the Torah?
Second, this inquiry raises questions about the very existence of the world. Were the commandments created for the Jewish people, or were the Jewish people created so that there would be someone to fulfill the commandments? Are the Jews a tool for preserving the world of Divine ideas or does the world of the Divine ideas serve as the foundation of the existence of the Jewish nation, as Rav Saadia Gaon writes: "Our nation is not a nation but in its doctrines." What is paramount and what is secondary?
Presenting the question in this manner is liable to shake up any Jewish person. Just as Galileo shook humanity with his revolutionary discovery that the earth is not the center of the galaxy but is simply another planet in the solar system, the thought that a Jew may be only a tool and not the crown of all creation may be difficult to digest.
Just as these questions are left open in our parasha, the rabbinic sages also did not come to any conclusions regarding them. On the one hand, we find a teaching that the Patriarchs intuited and fulfilled the entire Torah on their own (Vayikra Rabbah, Vayikra 10). This implies that the sages believed that the commandments existed before there were Jews, and that the concept of commandments is what brought about the creation of the Jewish nation. This approach, which suggests that the Torah and its commandments predate creation, is found in rabbinic sources that say: “He gazed into the Torah and created the world,” meaning that God used the Torah as a type of blueprint when He created the world (Bereishit Rabbah 1:2). According to this statement, our world is an expression of the moral and ethical values of the Torah, the chicken that hatched from the egg.
On the other hand, we find statements that the commandments will be nullified in the World to Come, and that “the commandments were given solely to improve humankind” (Bereishit Rabbah, Lekh Lekha 42:1). This appears to take the opposite position, that the nation of Israel was created before the commandments, and that the purpose of those commandments was to strengthen their existence.
It appears that the reluctance of the sages to take a definitive stance on this question is not an accident.
At the same time, it may be valuable to return to the idea of “tongs, made with tongs.” The Mishna in Tractate Avot does not state that the first set of tongs was created by God rather than by man. What it actually suggests is that in the course of creation, God created this paradox. He created the question of “tongs, made with tongs,” He created the reality of the chicken and the egg. God has the ability to create paradoxes. The confusion raised in our parasha is intentional. At the same time that the Jew is the center of the world, he is also a platform for a larger idea. The Jew carries the banner, but the banner is ultimately more important than him.
When the Jewish people sin and do not fulfill the commandments, the danger of punishment and exile becomes real, even as they are guaranteed to ultimately be redeemed – “Know therefore this day and keep in mind that the LORD alone is God in heaven above and on earth below” (Devarim 4:39).