Q&A: Belief in the Tradition of the Written Torah and the Oral Torah
Belief in the Tradition of the Written Torah and the Oral Torah
Question
I studied in a yeshiva, and I was exposed to blatant falsehoods from rabbis from whom I learned a great deal of Torah in a variety of contexts—both in everyday matters and in halakhic contexts—where those same rabbis hide the Jewish law or say that the Jewish law is different from what they actually think.
If so, how can I believe what they say—that Moses received the Torah at Sinai, and that if he did receive it, his words really reached us and things were not omitted from it because they didn’t fit the spirit of a certain period, while other things were added?
Answer
I don’t know which falsehoods you mean. Usually I am not familiar with deliberate lies, but rather with nice packaging and apologetics. In any case, I don’t think you live off the mouths of your yeshiva rabbis.