Understand the Bible Understand Halacha

Thank you. I think I understood the Rabbi's words and the division that the Rabbi made. But isn't it correct to say that both here and here, in terms of the mental experience, there is doubt? For example, just as in the Bible there can be 3 interpretations of one word (e.g. 1 Kings 22:38), so in Halacha, for example, some say that tithing money is from the Torah, 11:1-11 rabbinic and 11:1-13 hasidic (although the matter of tithing money is an innovation in itself)

It is clear that there can be several interpretations of Halacha. One of the most famous is this. So what? What is wrong with that? Beyond that, I also argue that when there are several interpretations, it does not mean that they are necessarily all correct and that I should necessarily take them all into account. As far as I am concerned, what is binding on me is my interpretation, and I will look at the other interpretations to formulate it as correctly as possible. A Talmudic statement is of course binding, but post-Talmudic interpretations are not binding (the great Rishonim and Aharonim have weight, but not absolute).

And the commandments themselves are not learned from the Bible?
So why did the rabbi devote years of his life to clarifying the logic of the Gemara's sermons from the Bible?
And what about morality and the way of the land, to which category does it belong? Also to worldview?
And can extreme Sodom-style libertarianism, which prohibits giving charity to the poor, also be learned from the Bible?
And what about the coercion of the virtue of Sodom, how can you realize it if you don't clarify what the virtue of Sodom is?
And in general, where would we learn the very need to obey if not from the Bible (and don't tell me Talmud, because the Talmud itself learns this from the Bible)?

It seems to me that the entire division between the Bible and the Talmud is mistaken. In the end, it's the same continuum. And you can find sermons in the Bible (for example, King Amaziah's sermon on the verse "Sons shall not be put to death for their fathers," which is why he did not punish the sons of his father's murderers, and from which the Rabbis learned from it the law against collective punishment in the Sanhedrin). You can find an internal interpretation of the Bible in Ezekiel's example of Sodom: "Behold, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She had plenty of bread, and she and her daughters had peace, but she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy" (16:44), and so it continues to this day.

I agree that you cannot learn a civic worldview such as capitalism and socialism from the Torah (when I say Torah, I mean Talmud Rishonim Acharonim, thought books, commentary on the Bible, and more) as these are different autonomous roles that cannot be reduced to one another. The Torah is the work of God and all the books I mentioned are aimed at this. A civic worldview stems from our responsibility as citizens in a democratic state to determine policy. This responsibility does not stem from the work of God and therefore cannot be determined by it. On the other hand, the work of God is not determined as a result of our civic role and therefore any attempt to learn one from the other will fail.

And yet, it is always possible to learn the work of God from the Bible and therefore the claim that there is nothing to learn from the Bible is a bit strange.

Y”D,
All of these are empty slogans. I asked for an example of a value that can be learned from the Bible and I would not have thought of it without it. All the values that you “learn”from the Bible are an application of things that you would have thought even without it. For example, the law (?) of coercion on the measure of Sodom assumes our a priori understanding of what the measure of Sodom is. You learned nothing about this from the Bible. The hand of the poor and needy did not hold is this an innovation that you would not have known without Ezekiel? Are you joking with me, or are you just reciting?

First of all, thank you,
Besides, the very fact that the Talmud bothers to study every law and law in the Mishnah from verse to verse (and the Mishnahs already do this) shows that without the Torah, the Talmud did not think it had much to say. You yourself wrote in column 72 that without the Torah, the values are empty and only the Torah teaches us the good. In other words, we need the Torah to discover the good. The Talmud is only the internal authority for what we learn from the Torah in practice, but it is not the source of the commandment. The source is the Torah (whose rules and details were learned at Sinai). And the fact that what is learned from the Torah but is not in the Talmud lacks the authority of the Talmud does not mean that it has no value. It has value as part of the revelation at Sinai, but it lacks the concrete authority of action.

As for civic values, I do not expect to find them in the Torah, since the Torah does not deal with our role as citizens. Our conduct as citizens is autonomous in relation to the Torah (does the fact that we are citizens in a democratic state have anything to do with the worship of God?) since a state is essentially secular and should be so. And even if there is a holy side in the state as Rabbi Kook claimed, it does not change the fact that I as a citizen am required to make an autonomous decision regarding the conduct of the state.

In short, values of the worship of God such as fear of God, shame of face, promptness in the commandments, acceptance of justice, humility, confession of sin, holding the hand of the needy, silence, and more can certainly be learned from the Torah and only from the Torah (you will not learn them from the writings of Aristotle and Plato or Confucius and Buddha). Democratic values of a free market versus economic centralization, individual rights versus individual duties, and more you will not learn from the Torah.

We're stuck in the realm of slogans. Don't give me a priori proofs of the role and necessity of the Bible, nor statements about what the Talmud thought. I asked you to give one example of something non-trivial that is learned from some passage in the Bible. All the values you brought here don't require studying the Bible for them. Every child knows them all even without opening a Bible.

First of all, thank you again.
Every child knows them because there is a Bible. These were not the values of the Romans, Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, philosophers or Buddhists. These were our values because of the Bible. The Bible is the one that discovered them in the world.
Aristotle did not believe in them. Alexander the Great did not believe in them. Julius Caesar and Cicero did not believe in them. Buddha did not believe in them. We believed in them and we spread them in the world. And in a world where the Bible is not read or studied, they disappear.

Now the revolution is complete and you ask, why do we need the Bible? We all know these values? In essence, you are returning to the method of Rabbanu Tam, who said that everything in the Talmud is a mess. And yet the sages return and study the Bible and discover new flavors in it. You yourself write about the intuitions added by the Arizal, or other Kabbalah sages. They didn't just find them. They found them because they went back and looked at the Bible over and over again. And so it is in our generation with the sages of the Gush.

I don't think the Bible is the main thing and Maimonides already wrote that the books of prophecy will be abrogated in the future and it is still strange that a person lives in the midst of the revolution created by the Bible and says “But things are self-evident…”. So they are not.

Y”D, according to this solid logic, you should now engage in propaganda around the world for the establishment of the State of Israel. It is true that it has already been established, but eighty years ago it was still relevant. So what if the mission has been completed? And so it is also worth studying the writings of Euclid and Ayl the Triangle. So what if in the meantime geometry has improved tenfold. Before that it was very relevant. And if the mission has been completed, is that a reason to think that it has been completed? Why, if it has been completed, we must assume that it was not completed and live the past with the highest integrity.
Truly solid logic. I have no words. So I will now bow to my lack of meaning.

I don't know.
It is clear that the written Torah has a boundary of testimony and not just of study, and therefore it is in the synagogue and is read in public at appointed times, contrary to the opinion of Ezra Fleischer, who believed that its main reading was for study (and this is how he explained the change they made in the Land of Israel to a three-year division). A synagogue is called a sanctuary not only because it has a place for prayer from us to it, but also because the testimony from it to us is presented in it (similar to the ark containing the tablets of testimony, and it is not by chance that the sages claimed that there is also a Torah scroll next to it). Naturally, the weekly engagement in the weekly parashat produced quite a few commentaries on the written Torah. In the synagogue, on the other hand, they engaged less. Which perhaps proves your point that there is not much to engage with there and it is better to read advanced sources that present the claims in a more orderly manner.
There is no doubt that interpretive revolutions such as the Hadrash during the Gemara period, the emergence of grammar during the Rishonim period, and literary analysis in our day have produced a burst of interpretive activity that uses the new interpretive methods to re-explain the Scriptures. For example, Menachem ben Serug, Donesh ben Lebert, Yehuda Ibn Chayog, Rashi, Ibn Ezra Ramban, and Radek have exhausted the grammatical revolution to its fullest. In our day, Radek Hoffman, Buber and Rosenzweig, Nechama Leibowitz, and the sages of the Gush are exhausting the revolution in literary analysis, but usually afterwards the situation returns to a lethargic state.

Hello,
1) If I understand your last answer here correctly - you agree with the claim that the Bible has brought about a moral revolution and today it seems obvious to us, but do you believe that there is no more reason to study it because of this?
Or do you also disagree with the first claim?
2) Have you written in an article/one of your books in detail about the reason why you see no reason to study the Bible, with a deep analysis and examples as you do on other topics? I searched and did not find any, I would be happy to be guided if there is any, your approach on the subject interests me very much
Thank you 🙂

Columns have been written about this and talkbacks have expanded on it with examples. Search the site. The second book of the trilogy has a section that deals with Torah study, and within that, the Bible.

In the month of Kislev, 1st of December

To the Lord,

The values of the ‘free market’ are also learned from the Torah. First of all, the Torah sanctifies a person's private property. The flood that came upon humanity – came because of anger. And the Torah forbids not only stealing and plundering the property of others, but even coveting and desiring the property of others. And not only is it forbidden for the rich to plunder the poor – the poor are also commanded to be careful with the property of the rich, and even the judge is commanded not to favor the poor: ‘The poor shall not boast in his wealth’.

The first attempt in history to create a ‘centralized society’, in which all of humanity joined together to create a gigantic centralized project – ended with divine intervention that scattered the gigantic creation in all directions. Even the mention of the fact that the first city was built by Cain – does not indicate the Torah's excessive fondness for ’urbanization’.

The fathers of the nation – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – are described as people who made a lot of money and property. Abraham and Jacob in grazing and Isaac in agriculture – made a lot of ‘silver and gold and male and female slaves and camels and donkeys’, ‘capitalists’ Successful people who are not ashamed of being rich, but who are careful that their wealth comes from the path of doing charity and justice, and that it is used to do kindness to those in need.

The path of the fathers can be called: ‘solidarity capitalism’.

With blessings, Sh”t

The one who did create a ‘centralized society’ was Joseph, who created a society in Egypt in which all the land belongs to the king and all the inhabitants are his sharecroppers. But here too, it should be noted that this system enabled and encouraged each farmer to increase his income. He gives twenty percent to the king, but eighty percent belongs to the farmer himself, and the more he invests and develops his field – This would be profitable for both the king and the farmer (unlike the ’kolkhoz’ where all the produce goes to the state).

The agrarian system that Joseph developed in Egypt is a prototype of the land ownership systems in the Land of Israel. On the one hand, the land belongs to the Queen of Kings, which the farmer gives him as a fifth in donations and tithes, but the more he invests in developing his field – his harvest increases and both he and the ‘Levi, the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow’ are found to be profiting.

The farmer can trade not only in his produce, but also sell his land. But here there is a limitation in the ’free market’. There cannot be a situation where the rich completely swallow up the poor and they are completely deprived of their inheritance, and therefore after fifty years the situation returns to its previous state, so that everyone remains in their inheritance. ‘Free market’ yes, but with restrictions so as not to become ’pig capitalism’.

Paragraph 5, line 2
… Belongs to the King of Kings…

On Rosh Chodesh Kislev 5771

It is enough to go through the Ten Commandments to see which of them have become trivial values in the world, to discover that there is still a long way to go.

Although idolatry is abolished in the Western world in principle, there are still hundreds of millions of people who believe that God has a son, and who worship and pray to him, not to mention a billion idolaters in India and East Asia. And in the West there are many atheists who see the first commandment, “I am your God,” as a delusional statement like the “heavenly teapot” or the “flying spaghetti monster.”

“Honor your father and your mother” Is it a universal value?, or is it the impudence and contempt for tradition in the name of the ‘value of autonomy’? ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy’, or the sanctification of the sixth and the first day? Even in the Jewish state, the Sabbath has become for a large part a day of entertainment or a regular work day.

Instead of ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery–, polyamory is openly permitted. Homosexuality, which is considered in the Torah to be ’abomination’ and ’the deed of the land of Egypt’, has become a ‘sacred’ value; anyone who disagrees with it is denounced as a ’homophobe’dark’. And ’Thou shalt not covet’ Widely denounced by a fashion and advertising system that distorts the female body to promote sales.

Instead of ‘Don't go gossip’, they sanctify the ‘public's right to know’, and as a hot act there is a developed media industry, entirely dedicated to exposing the nudity and shame of ‘everyone who moves’. And the prohibition of interest has become a foundation of the Western economy, to the point that even observant Jews are forced to use the ’business permit’ which is not easy. An economy without interest exists only in Japan and Saudi Arabia 🙂

In short: there is still a lot of work…

With the blessings of a good month, Sh”t

Usury? The Torah accidentally included an unsuccessful prohibition, and our sages and rabbis did a good job of smoothing over the rift. Even in Islam, they felt the pinch and found formal mechanisms for cheating.

In the Bible, in Kislev, in the Bible,

To the Bible,

Hi,

The Wikipedia entry ‘Interest-free economy’ tells of an interest-free Islamic bank called JAK that has been operating in Sweden since 1965. Who says: 55 years!

It is also noted there that Islamic banks that operated without interest survived the 2008 economic crisis better than Western banks, which has sparked renewed discussions about the economic necessity of interest.

I am not a great expert in economics, but it seems that interest encourages banks to encourage their customers to take out loans, and thus they take on more economic risks. As is known, the bank door says: ‘Withdraw’ 🙂

With greetings, Sh”tz

The original transaction mentioned by Chazal is a partnership in profit and loss, a kind of investment in shares.