Quotation על עבודה זרה 3:11

This is the meaning of the saying of the Rabbis in the treatise Abodah Zarah, In the future God will take the Torah in His bosom and say, ‘Let all those who occupied themselves with this, come and get their reward.’ At once all the nations of the world will come crowding before Him, pell mell, as is said, ‘All the nations are gathered together, and the peoples are assembled; who among them can declare this …?’ ‘This’ means the Torah. The Rabbis mean to say that in the future God will bring all the idolatrous nations to justice because they did not fulfil the divine law. Then we are told in the sequel that God will say to them, Wherewith have you busied yourselves? And they will reply that they concerned themselves with social welfare, as is recounted at length in the haggadic passage above cited. Finally God says in reply, All that you did was not for social welfare, but for your own selfish ends. Is there any one among you who can declare this?, i. e., is there any one among you who can say that he fulfilled the divine Torah? They will then reply in turn that as the Israelites are to be rewarded for observing the Law which they received by tradition, so they should be rewarded for fulfilling their law, which they also received by tradition. God will then reply, Who among you can declare this, and announce to us former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified The meaning is that the nations who claim that they relied on their tradition, must tell us former things, i. e., they must tell us the principles of their religion, which they accepted and upon which they relied. They must tell us whether they were perceived by the senses with great publicity, as were the principles of the Law of Moses. Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, that those who received that law may hear and say, it is truth; as those who received the Law of Moses can produce their witnesses, because the principles of their religion were published before an assembly of six hundred thousand persons, who received the Torah. And then the text concludes, Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, i. e., all Israel are witnesses of the divine revelation of the Torah, for they heard the voice of the Lord God, speaking to them the Ten Words. The words, And My servant whom I have chosen, refer to Moses, who is called the servant of the Lord. All of you are witnesses that the Torah is divine.