As described in early rabbinic literature, the three ketarim constitute abiding features of organised Jewish society. In part, this is because they are consistently called upon to service needs considered indispensable to the preservation of Israel's unique identity. More essentially, however, their permanence is the consequence of the extra-ordinary manner of their inception. In the rabbinic reconstruction, each of the three domains had been called into individual being at God's express command; none was represented as an evolutionary response to human interests or concerns. Governmental authority within Israel had been expressly delegated complete and from on high, thus assigning for ever more the powers and privileges to be possessed by organs of national adjudication, administration and legislation.

Most obviously was this so in the case of the torah, the most beloved of all God's creations and hence the very first in their order of appearance. The torah had not merely witnessed the events described in the first chapters of Genesis; it had been the architectural plan in accordance with which the cosmos was designed and history unfolded. (The Almighty, in the words of one account, had ‘looked into the torah and created the world’). Thus, it reflected the very essence of all that was sublime, providing man's only key to an understanding of the Divine purpose. Alone among all the nations of the world, Israel had appreciated the value of that gift and at Sinai had covenanted to cherish and obey the torah.