On Biblical Interpreters and the Sanctity of the Written Torah

I am not familiar with it or with Bible commentators in general. The field does not speak to me and seems unimportant and useless to me. Bible commentators hardly tell me anything new. What they say may perhaps renew my understanding of the verses, but it will not renew me in the essence of the matter. I was a boy and I am old, and I have not seen a single person change their position on anything because of something they learned from the verses in the Bible.
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Asker (another):
“I was a boy and I am old, and I have never seen a single person change their position on anything because of something they learned from the verses in the Bible.” So what does cause a change of position?
Isaac
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Rabbi:
This is a general philosophical question. What makes a person change his basic assumptions? A change of opinion for some reason, such as the initial stage in which he formulates his initial positions. But in my experience, verses and their interpretation do not do that. People interpret verses according to their positions, at least when they have a position on the subject. I once said that the difference between a darosh and a falpol is that a darosh is a bad inference that leads to correct conclusions. You build a building on midrashim and verses and the conclusion is that one should fear God and be humble. Who will check the argument to see if the conclusion is so correct? (Therefore, one does not answer the darosh). A falpol is a kind of riddle: an inference that seems correct at every stage, but the conclusion is clearly incorrect. The riddle is to find the bug in the inference. Biblical interpretation is usually a kind of imperative, not necessarily in the bad sense (that the conclusion is flawed) but in the sense that the conclusion is clear to everyone in advance. As I wrote, there is sometimes innovation in the interpretation of the verses (I wouldn’t think that’s their meaning), but the value content of the interpretation is always agreed upon in advance. Clearly, there is a somewhat extreme formulation here, since changing positions is done in all sorts of ways, and under the influence of all sorts of things. The verses are no worse than other things. But usually this is a coincidental result and not the necessity of the verses doing this (that a person bends himself to what he finds in the Torah, but rather it made him see things differently and understand that this is the truth).
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Asks:
I get the impression that the field of Toshab’a does cause a change in position, and I’m simply asking what the essential difference is between the Bible and Toshab’a with regard to a change in position? If you say that Toshab’a is a partnership of man and a human creation, then the same is true for biblical interpreters.
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Rabbi:
I think that Toshbap also does not cause a change in people’s values ​​(and that’s a good thing). But there is still a point in studying it because it causes a change in halakhic law. If you don’t study it, you won’t know the halakhic law. But if you don’t study the Bible and its interpretation, you will still know your values. See column 15 where I distinguished between the levels. In truth, on the level of values, it is usually possible to coordinate, and especially if you accept my sharp distinction, then there is no connection at all between the halakhic conclusion and my values. It is true that the interpretation of the halakhic law can be influenced by my values, in the case where there are several legitimate interpretative options. Here I am entitled to choose the one that fits my values. But this is not an influence of the halakhic law on my values, but the opposite (the influence of my values ​​on the halakhic law).
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Asker (another):
So how does the rabbi perceive the significance of the sanctity of the Bible, which is an inseparable part of Judaism, if it is a useless book?
Rafi Diamant
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Rabbi:
The holiness of the Bible is the holiness of the object, that is, the holiness of the book and not the holiness of the content. Therefore, how it is written is important (on the parchment and in ink), and therefore there is also the holiness of the scrolls (see Shabbat 16). In contrast, the holiness of the Toshevap is the holiness of the content. It does not matter how it is written, and the holiness is only of what is written and not of the object on which it is written (it is only a mitzvah, because it is used for studying Torah, and not a holy object. On this distinction, see Megillah 26).
What this means in practical terms is that studying the written Torah is getting the exact words out of your mouth (provided you are careful with their letters). Translation has no sanctity, because these are not the same words but at most the same content (if the translation is completely accurate, then it may have the sanctity of the content of the Toshvaf). Such study is a connection to God, but the intellectual value added to us is negligible in my opinion. That is why I prefer to study the Toshvaf, which has both a connection to God and an added intellectual value. Therefore, in the Tikun Shavuot and Hoshana Rabbah, one can recite the Bible and there is Talmud Torah, but in the recitation of the words of the Gemara. Without understanding this, you have not studied Torah at all.
It is true that Maggid Meishrim told Rabbi Karo to recite Mishnayot, and there is an assumption there that the words of the Mishna have the sanctity of a hephza. I wonder if there is any real basis for this (there are other very puzzling things in the book Maggid Meishrim).
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Asks:
I think Rafi meant to ask about what you said above (that the Bible is supposedly empty of Torah content), how can this be reconciled with the accepted perception that the Bible (and its contents) are of the highest degree of holiness (and even more so than the Torah). I have a suggestion for a possible explanation that the Bible (and especially the Torah) is a kind of encrypted text, and the key to deciphering it is knowledge that has been passed down through tradition from Sinai and has been lost over the years, and what has been preserved is the text after its decipherment = Toshba’p (because after deciphering there is no longer such a need for a key). Then nowadays the Toshba’k no longer has any Torah significance in terms of content, as does the Toshba’p.
Pine
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Rabbi:
I do not think that the Bible is of a higher degree of holiness. This is a common mistake. The book is holier than the books of the Toshab’ap, but that is self-evident. My argument is that the Toshab’ap has primarily the holiness of the content, and this is no less high and perhaps higher than that of the Toshab’ak.
There are indeed suggestions to give a certain dimension of sanctity to the Tosheva, as well. Both in Genesis, which wrote that it is possible to write a Tosheva, as a substitute for the commandment of writing a Torah scroll, and in Rishonim, which wrote about the saving of a lit candle on Shabbat, that it is also possible to save the Tosheva, and Pentateuch books.
Beyond that, your suggestion is certainly possible and interesting. I would very much like to think that it is also correct (but I don’t know).
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Asks:
Is the meaning of the Rabbi’s words that the value in the written Torah is in something that has nothing to do with us (from the words of the Ramban, the entire Torah is the names of God, blessed be He) and the content is only a medium through which it passes? Because understanding that something without content has holiness sounds very foreign, and that if there were a religion whose sacred codex’s content was the complete collection of jokes, would it make sense that it was the religion that fulfilled the vision of the world, or would we belittle and erase it?
Rafi Diamant
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Rabbi:
Indeed, unrelated to our lives. But not necessarily unrelated to the world. It is hard to deny that the holiness is about a very specific version of the verses and not about any translation into the content of the Torah. So how would you explain this if the holiness is in the content? If the entire collection of jokes were something that truly had holiness in it (that it created something) I would accept that.
The question is what is the vision of the world. You assume that it is supposed to be some kind of correction of humanity, and therefore you would erase such a religion. But I am not sure about that. After all, the prohibition of eating pork is also a strange foreign thing, isn’t it? And a red cow? And are there no strange and strange things missing in the world of Torah holiness?
And above all, you must distinguish between estimates and hypotheses and facts. Even if you were right in all your arguments, the facts teach otherwise. See the implications I have brought and you will understand that the sanctity of the Bible is the sanctity of the text and the meaning, not the sanctity of the content. In my opinion, this is a fact, and all that remains now is to try and explain it. This is also what emerges from looking at what people derive from Bible study (=mainly what they knew beforehand).
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Asks:
I think you are both talking about two different types of holiness. The type of holiness that Sharfi refers to is not in the halakhic aspect of holiness, but in the aspect that an ordinary person perceives the concept of holiness, that is, content that came from a divine source. According to this sense, the translation of the Torah also has “holiness” (because the content of the translation came from a divine source). In this view, the main part of the holiness comes from the content, not from the wording. Perhaps this is also the reason why it is permissible to recite the Shema in a foreign language and not only in the Holy Language.
In the halakhic aspect of the concept of holiness (regarding which there is a legal precedent as to whether or not a genizah is required, for example), only the original text in which the Torah was given has holiness, and not its translations (this is the sense to which the rabbi referred).

Regarding the sanctity of the content of the Toshab”kah in the halakhic aspect of the concept of holiness, because the Toshab”kah is written in a very vague manner and is subject to many different interpretations, without the interpretation we received in the tradition of the Toshab”kah, its dry content has no sacred meaning (in the halakhic aspect). For example, the verse “eye for an eye”, in terms of its content (eye for an eye) without the addition of the interpretation of the Toshab”kah, is not holy (halakhically) because it does not express a command of God. But in the non-halakhic aspect of the concept of holiness (the perception of an ordinary person), this too has sanctity.

A side note to this statement by the rabbi: “Your suggestion is certainly possible and interesting. I would very much like to think that it is also correct (but I don’t know).” If I understand the lines, what you meant:
In your opinion, the key to deciphering the Toshchak is not only the Sinaitic tradition, but also a considerable addition of human interpretations. You would prefer a situation in which the interpretation was only the Sinaitic tradition and not a human product (because then there is more certainty about its correctness), but you recognize that this is not the case (unfortunately). Did I understand correctly?
By the way, I agree with this understanding. I meant above that the core of the key is a tradition from Sinai, and there is probably much more to it than the core that originated in humans.
Pine
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Rabbi:
You did understand correctly. I have no problem with human interpretation, I just wish there was some truth here that interpretation strives for and that the Sages knew how to do it and it just disappeared from us. It’s not that interpretation invents its own product (deconstruction), and the Sages didn’t know either, they just did it and we’re just afraid. This is the scenario that I would really like to believe is not true.
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Asks:
Further to what you wrote:
“The practical meaning of this is that studying the written Torah is getting the exact words out of the mouth (provided that one is careful with the letters)”
Does this mean that someone who studies the Bible in contemplation does not fulfill the obligation of the mitzvah of Tathagata?
Additionally, is it permissible to meditate on verses in the throne room?
Pine
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Rabbi:
Why not? If he ponders the exact words, then it depends on the question of whether the contemplation is like speech. And if not, then he studied a commentary on the Bible, that is, Toshefa.
I think I’ve already answered somewhere here about meditating on verses in the Bible. The question is whether this is intentional or arises randomly. I’ll add that instinctively it still seems problematic to me.