Touched By An Angel

Virtually all topics concerning life are covered in the vast and varied discourses of the Talmud. Life, afterlife, and even pre-life. In Talmud Niddah (30b), the sages discuss the experiences of a baby as it passes from life in the womb to life out of the womb:

“It [the fetus] is also taught all the Torah from beginning to end, for it is said, ‘And He taught me, and said to me: Let your heart hold fast My words, keep My commandments and live,’ (Proverbs 4:4) … As soon as it sees the light, an angel approaches, slaps it on its mouth and causes it to forget all the Torah completely, as it is said, ‘Sin crouches at the door’(Genesis 4:7)…”

While a child is still in the uterus, according to the Midrash, an angel teaches it all of the Torah. When the child passes into the world, the angel touches the child just above the lips, creating the vertical groove between the upper lip and the nose (philtrum), and the child forgets everything he/she had known.

Great, so once we knew everything, but now we don’t. What’s the point?

In this way, when a person is confronted with emet, with truth, emanating from the Torah, he/she will be more likely to recognize it and be drawn to it. An example: the mitzvah not to steal. Your average person will feel that this is just an obvious law. But it is obvious only because it is something that was learned years before in that “mysterious” time just before we entered the world.