Q&A: The Oral Torah — What Did We Receive from Moses?
The Oral Torah — What Did We Receive from Moses?
Question
Hello Rabbi.
I would very much appreciate your answer.
- According to Maimonides, what did we receive from Moses? Is there a precise definition of this? {If there is, I’d be glad to know it}
- According to Maimonides, are all the dogmatic laws about which it is said “a law given to Moses at Sinai” — actually said by Moses?
- According to Maimonides, does every interpretation derived from a law through the hermeneutical principles by which the Torah is expounded necessarily indicate that the interpretation has the status of a novel legal innovation, and not of a tradition received from Moses? {Because from the Commentary on the Mishnah it seems that there are laws learned from those principles and also they are a tradition from Moses}
- According to Maimonides, do the Sages create entirely new Torah-level laws through those hermeneutical principles? {Is there a source for this?}
- According to your own view, what did we receive from Moses? And what is your definition of a law given to Moses at Sinai?
Thank you very much!!
Answer
- Maimonides himself, in his introduction to the Mishnah, describes in detail what we received. There is no complete list there, only principles; see there.
- It seems so.
- Maimonides addresses this distinction (between a creative derashah and a supporting derashah) both in the second root and in a responsum and in the introduction to the Mishnah. In his responsum to Rabbi Pinchas the Judge (the one dealing with betrothal by money as of rabbinic origin), he writes that the supporting derashot are “something like three or four.”
- Yes. See the previous section. Except that according to his view, such new laws (which emerge from a creative derashah) have the status of rabbinic law.
I tend here toward Maimonides’ approach (not necessarily in every detail). It should be noted that, in my impression, most of the medieval authorities agree with him in his description, except that they did not get into it. As for the status of a creative derashah (that the laws created through it are of rabbinic status), that is almost his alone. But that does not affect the description of what came from Moses and what did not. Gersonides (in the introduction to his commentary on the Torah) and others who claim that all derashot are merely supporting, of course disagree with him, but that is an obviously unfounded opinion.
Discussion on Answer
3. You understood completely correctly. I just don’t understand where you got that impression from. There aren’t many laws about which there is no dispute, and therefore Maimonides writes that these are few in number (3 or 4 could also mean 20). Moreover, not everything over which no dispute arose is from Sinai. Whatever is from Sinai had no dispute arise over it (and even that is of course implausible, but that is his view).
4. The term “words of the Scribes” in Maimonides has generated a lot of controversy. Some interpreted it as Torah law that is not written explicitly in the Torah. In my book Wind of Justice I tried to show that this has no basis whatsoever. He means rabbinic law, except that there are several kinds of rabbinic laws (some cases of doubt regarding them are treated stringently, etc.).
I have no idea what Moses dealt with. I assume that anything about which we have no information that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai can be changed. The Torah was not given to ministering angels.
Thank you very much, this helped a lot!!
You wrote:
“Moreover, not everything over which no dispute arose is from Sinai. Whatever is from Sinai had no dispute arise over it (and even that is of course implausible, but that is his view).”
Meaning, as I understand your words, in Maimonides’ view not everything over which no dispute arose is necessarily from Sinai, but whatever is from Sinai necessarily had no dispute arise over it — so according to this there are laws that were created through hermeneutical derivation in the generations after Moses — and were then transmitted as tradition — and there is no dispute about them, and the tradition he is speaking about is not necessarily from Moses. Did I understand correctly? Is that what you meant when you said it was implausible? And what exactly is implausible? And according to this explanation in Maimonides, how is there any way to know what is supporting and what is creative — regarding the study of another court using the 13 hermeneutical principles?
According to your own view — you wrote:
“I assume that anything about which we have no information that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai can be changed. The Torah was not given to ministering angels.”
Meaning that everything learned through the hermeneutical principles has the status that it can be changed by force of dialectical reasoning. So even regarding “the fruit of a beautiful tree” = citron, and “an eye for an eye” = monetary compensation, these are laws that can be changed by the force of dialectical reasoning of the Great Court {hypothetically}?
And another question — when you say “I have no idea what Moses dealt with,” does that mean that it could be that he also did not deal even with a law given to Moses at Sinai? But the definition of the term “a law given to Moses at Sinai” is that this is a law that cannot be changed?
You understood correctly. What seems implausible to me is that no dispute arose over what was given at Sinai. A long chain of transmission always has distortions. The way to know what is supporting and what is creative is according to the Talmudic passages. For example, the derashah in Rosh Hashanah that learns that “the fruit of a beautiful tree” is a citron is apparently supporting. The reason is that in the passage many derashot and many sources are brought (some of them seem rather questionable), and all of them specifically arrive at citron. It is reasonable that this is supporting. And so on.
Indeed, all of these can be changed.
What I mean is that I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But yes, what came to us as a law given to Moses at Sinai is binding and cannot be changed.
Many thanks, this helped me a lot.
Hello Rabbi,
Here is a quotation from Maimonides:
“And in those chapters I explained that not everything that is learned by analogy, or a fortiori inference, or verbal analogy, or by one of the thirteen hermeneutical principles by which the Torah is expounded, is Torah law — unless the Sages state explicitly that it is from the Torah. And I brought proofs for this, and there I explained that it is of rabbinic origin. And even regarding something that is a law given to Moses at Sinai, we call it ‘words of the Scribes’; and there is nothing ‘from the Torah’ except something explicit in the Torah, such as shaatnez, mixed species, the Sabbath, and forbidden sexual relations, or something about which the Sages said that it is from the Torah — and those are only like three or four things.”
Where do you see that “something like three or four” refers to the number of supporting derashot?
I understood that it refers to the number of derashot whose status and severity are like Torah law, but perhaps they are not distinguished from the others in that they are supporting while the others are creative.
Could you sharpen this for me?
The derashot that have the status of Torah law are supporting derashot. This is explicit in the second root and in his introduction to the Mishnah.
Really, thank you very much for the response!!
1.+2. I understood — thank you very much!
3. As I understood it, Maimonides writes regarding intercourse with one’s daughter that it is a prohibition learned from a verbal analogy, but he also writes that we received it from Moses — and that the verbal analogy is part of the picture, whose dominant component is the tradition from Moses.
As I understood it, the laws and interpretations that we received as a tradition from Moses divide into two categories.
1. They also have a component of derivation through the hermeneutical principles.
2. They have no such component, and they are called a law given to Moses at Sinai.
That is, a law that is a combination of hermeneutical principles and tradition — and from how it looks, this is more than 3 or 4. Because Maimonides writes that every law over which no dispute arose among the Sages, and which is learned through the hermeneutical principles, is also a tradition. The only way to understand that a certain law is not a tradition is if there is a dispute about it.
Did I understand correctly?
4. Until now I understood that the category of “words of the Scribes” means rabbinic law.
Right now the Rabbi is saying that this is Torah-level law; is there an example or source for this?
I’m interested in your view regarding a law given to Moses at Sinai —
did Moses deal with all the dogmatic laws (the straps of phylacteries being black, etc.)?
And I’m also interested: if, hypothetically, I am the Great Court, and I can disagree with the previous court in applying the hermeneutical principles, how can I know according to your view what is a tradition learned through those principles and what is an actual halakhic innovation?