Regarding the view of Bible scholar Prof. Benjamin Sommer
Hello Rabbi,
An article about Prof. Benjamin Sommer was recently published, which tells a little about his teachings regarding faith. There he says:
“There is a divine command, certainly there is, and it was given in the great revelation at Mount Sinai – but this command did not include any commandments. It only required us, the Jews, to love God and worship Him. How do we do this? To the giving of the commandment were added three points that God left for us – and for thousands of years we, the human race, have fulfilled these three points, chosen and formulated the way in which we worship Him, and these are the Torah and the commandments that we know.”
“God actually dictated to us – in that great revelation – one word: ‘Love me.’ How do we love Him? For example, by putting on strips, parchment, and skins (tefillin). For example, by abstaining from cooking milk and meat together. These are commandments that we have decided upon as a Jewish collective for thousands of years.”
On the surface, this sounds like nonsense to me, but I wanted to check with you to see if maybe there’s some depth here that I’m missing?
Best regards,
I haven’t read his book, and it’s hard for me to believe that an intelligent person would write such nonsense. But the ways of apologetics have been wondrous and twisted for me. If that’s really what it says, it’s quite astonishing in its stupidity.
I did not come to express a position on Sommer's perception, either positively or negatively. But I did not get to understand what the great folly is in it. It is even possible that the questioner and the answerer (Miki) do not agree at all about the essence of this folly. I would be happy if someone could put my finger on the exact place for me. As the saying goes, "A fool answers according to his folly." Thank you.
Because there is no logic in the notion that people who decided to put strips of leather on their hands were ordered to fulfill the commandment of loving God. It doesn't seem very complicated to me.
I also don't see why, assuming there was a revelation session at Sinai, no content was given and everything was left free. Either there was a session or there wasn't, but if there was, how do you know there was no content?
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