On Torah and Its Study (Tzohar – 2004)

With God’s help

Response to the article ‘The Torah of the Lord Is Perfect (I)’ (Rabbi Yehuda Rock)

In issue 17 of ‘Tzohar’, two articles were published, by Rabbi Shmuel Ariel and Rabbi Yehuda Rock, dealing with the assumptions underlying the layers approach. Both articles lay out this approach in detail, examine it substantively, and separate the wheat from the chaff. In the background of their discussion, the authors stress the need for substantive and systematic criticism of claims in general, and that is indeed what they do.

First of all, this substantive engagement deserves praise, for it examines matters on their own merits, systematically and thoroughly. Here too (in addition to the articles by Rabbi Shmuel Ariel and Dror Pixler in issue 15, which opened this mode of engagement) are the first signs of a systematic yeshivah critique of academic methodology and its conclusions, something that has long been necessary and called for. We should broaden responses of this sort and commend the writers for their incisive words.

I would now like to address two points that arose in Rabbi Rock’s article, one specific and one part of a broader issue.

1. The formula ‘the text is defective and should read thus’ in the Vilna Gaon’s approach. It is common among researchers to understand the Vilna Gaon’s words, cited in the introduction to ‘Pe’at HaShulchan’ concerning this formula, to mean that ‘the text is defective and should read thus’ is an attempt to dispute what is stated in the original Mishnah, not to interpret it. Rabbi Rock writes (p. 68) that he does not agree with this as a general phenomenon, aside from a few isolated cases. It is not clear whether he means to disagree with the Vilna Gaon, or whether he claims that the Vilna Gaon himself does not hold this. I have since seen that Rabbi Shmuel Ariel wrote similarly in his article in issue 15.

In a written polemic with Dr. Henshke on the meaning of ‘the text is defective and should read thus,’ tevara, ukimtot, and the like, which was published in installments in the Yeshivat Hesder Yeruham newsletter ‘MiMidbar Matanah’ (see Parashat Chukat, Tammuz 5760), I pointed out that this is not the Vilna Gaon’s intention at all; see there. I have since seen that Rabbi Ariel hints at this in note 4 in issue 15.

The Vilna Gaon is speaking of midrashic exposition on the Mishnah, just as Scripture is expounded. Researchers tend to understand even such exposition as not being the original intent of Scripture. With respect to the legal midrashim, however, that certainly cannot be said. If so, the same applies here, and I cannot elaborate further.

2. What is ‘Torah’? Rabbi Rock sets two conceptions of the authority of the Oral Torah against one another: interpretive authenticity – conformity to the source, to God’s word, beginning from Mount Sinai – versus a conception that sees the authority of Torah in God’s providence, revealed in every generation through the sages of the Oral Torah.

For the sake of clarification he begins with the question: what counts as Torah as such? Seeking God is a broad concept, and one can do so through the study of the natural sciences, or in any other way. Yet all this is still not Torah study in the full sense. This is not Torah as such (see my article in ‘Tzohar’ 6).

Rabbi Rock argues that Torah is the normative part of God’s will, but he adds that even this is not a sufficient definition. It is accepted by us that the rules of natural morality are also norms demanded of us by God, yet they too are not Torah as such. He therefore argues that beyond the criterion of normativity there is another criterion: Torah is also God’s speech, which addresses the human being directly and demands that he fulfill those norms. According to Rabbi Rock, then, Torah is whatever is both God’s will and God’s speech.

From this conception Rabbi Rock concludes that the source of the authority of the Oral Torah lies in the sanctity of its contents and in their divine origin. Therefore, the authority of the Oral Torah depends on the authenticity of interpretation – its conformity to God’s will – and not on divine providence. Divine providence guarantees that the conclusions of the Torah sages are norms demanded of us, but there is no aspect here of direct address to us. Rabbi Rock maintains that according to the providential conception, the Oral Torah is like natural morality.

In my article in ‘Akdamot’ 9 I argued at length in favor of the providential approach. I should note that my argument was not based on providence over the individual personalities of the Oral Torah, but on the books that were accepted by the entire Jewish people as canonical. I have no doubt that Maimonides, as a person, could err (just as any sage of our own day can err). But providence is the guarantee that in his book ‘Yad HaChazakah’ there is no mistake (generally speaking. The mistakes that have been found indeed were not accepted, and therefore they are not included in the canonical status of the book). Therefore, when there is a contradiction in these books, we look for a resolution; at most we remain with an unresolved difficulty, but we do not conclude that the author omitted something (even when medieval authorities use the expression ‘and this escaped him…’, it is usually treated as a rhetorical flourish).

There is here a principle akin to ‘we do not assume that one sent on a mission will thereby cause a stumbling block.’ A book on which all Israel relies – providence will not allow a stumbling block to come through it (for surely this is no less than the animals of the righteous, through whom God does not bring about a stumbling block).

But beyond this correction, one must add that the meaning of providence is that the books of Maimonides and the rest of our rabbis are interpretations of God’s will. Providence ensures that what is written in the canonical books does indeed conform to God’s will. Beyond that, God Himself speaks to us through them. This is not like natural morality, which we know is demanded of us, but which indeed lacks the dimension of direct address to us. In the canonical books of the Oral Torah, God’s address to us is also realized.[1] In my article there (note 20) I showed that for this reason these books possess the intrinsic sanctity of sacred books.

I also do not agree with the conclusion of this argument of Rabbi Rock’s. In my article in issue 15 I proved that according to Maimonides the category of ‘Biblical law’ means what appears in the Written Torah. Therefore even a law given to Moses at Sinai is not included in this category, nor are laws generated through exegetical derivation. Hidden here is a conception that these laws are not actually found in the Torah itself, but are expansions of what is written there (which are of course also included in God’s will), and therefore they cannot be regarded as Biblical law. But according to Rabbi Rock, it appears that in Maimonides’ view these laws would not even deserve the title ‘Oral Torah,’ for they did not emerge from God’s direct speech to us in the Torah (perhaps a law given to Moses at Sinai would, since it was said to Moses at Sinai). In my humble opinion, this is something the mind cannot accept.

And what of rabbinic enactments, decrees, or customs? Is there in them direct address from God to us? Do these too not deserve to be called ‘Oral Torah’? How does the criterion of authenticity operate in them?[2]

And what of the Aggadot of the sages? Is there there any direct normative divine address to us? Here Rabbi Rock’s requirement of direct divine speech is not fulfilled, but neither is his first requirement fulfilled – that these be norms demanded of us. Aggadic teachings are not norms constituted by direct address, although it is clear that one can learn from them indirectly practical demands and patterns of conduct. In this sense they resemble natural morality.

Incidentally, even in the Written Torah there are many verses that are not normative and are not commandments. True, this is not the Oral Torah but the Written Torah; nevertheless, the Aggadot of the sages certainly belong to the Oral Torah.

It therefore seems obvious that the definition of Torah as such need answer only one requirement: God’s address to us. As stated, this address can also be conveyed through the sages and books of the Oral Torah, as explained above. It seems to me that the normative requirement is not necessary.[3]

In this context I found remarkable words in the book ‘Nefesh HaChaim’ by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. In Gate 4 he points out that engaging with God’s will is cleaving to God Himself, since He and His will are one (in Maimonides’ formulation), and ‘the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Torah are one’ (in the language of the Zohar).[4] At first glance there is here an identification between the Torah and God’s will – that is, Torah is the normative part of revelation. This would seem to accord with Rabbi Rock’s view.

However, in chapter 6 there it seems that he senses this, and therefore he writes as follows:

Even if he is occupied with Aggadic teachings that have no practical consequence for any law, he nevertheless cleaves to the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He; for the entire Torah, in its general principles, particulars, and fine points, and even what a young student asks his teacher, all of it issued from His mouth, may He be blessed, to Moses at Sinai… And in Exodus Rabbah, section 43, on ‘Write for yourself these words’ (Exod. 34:27): At the time when the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself at Sinai to give the Torah to Israel, He said to Moses in order: Scripture, Mishnah, laws, and Aggadot, as it is said (Exod. 20:1), ‘And God spoke all these words’ – even what a student asks his teacher. End quote.

Rabbi Chaim means to say that Aggadic teachings, although they are not included under the rubric of God’s will (for what is learned from them for practice is implicit, and not a direct normative address to us), are nevertheless included under the name ‘Torah.’ Even mistaken statements, the questions of a young and erring student, are included under the rubric of ‘Torah.’

For this purpose Rabbi Chaim establishes that there are two concepts of Torah: ‘God’s will’ and ‘God’s speech,’ and both are united with God Himself. The Holy One, blessed be He, and His will are one, and the Holy One, blessed be He, and His speech are one. He writes this explicitly later in the chapter and derives it from Nedarim 62a; see there. Likewise, at the beginning of chapter 10 he writes this as a simple matter: God’s speech is one with Him, and therefore anyone engaged with His speech, even if he is not engaged with the normative part of the Torah (= God’s will), cleaves to the Holy One, blessed be He, just like one who is engaged with His will.

And the foundation of the matter lies in what we have received as tradition: that God showed Moses at Sinai all that a young student would one day ask his teacher. This poses a great difficulty, for these are mistaken statements, and they certainly are not included in God’s will (God’s will is the true law). Many have therefore explained that there is a difference between what God transmitted to Moses at Sinai – which Moses transmitted to Joshua, and he to the elders and the prophets, and so on – and what God showed Moses, but did not transmit to him as part of the transmission of the Torah.

It seems to me that Rabbi Chaim’s intention there is to explain that God did this in order to make even the non-normative part into Torah as such. It is Torah as God’s speech, not as God’s will. Accordingly, a student who asks his teacher is not neglecting Torah study, nor is he engaged merely in the preparatory means for a commandment (which enable him to arrive at the true will); rather, he is engaged in Torah as such, in the word of God.

What emerges from this is that the Torah has two parts: the word of God and the will of God. Admittedly, it seems that greater cleaving is attained by engaging with God’s will, for that is of course included both in God’s speech and in God’s will, unlike the Aggadot or mistaken questions, which are included only in God’s speech. This also explains the age-old custom of yeshivot to engage primarily in the word of God – namely, Jewish law. But in any case it is clear from Rabbi Chaim that one cannot define only the normative part as Torah as such, contrary to Rabbi Rock’s view.

And in light of these wonderful words, I cannot refrain from citing what he says next:

Moreover, even at the very time when a person is engaged in Torah below, every word he utters is, as it were, issuing from His blessed mouth at that very same moment. As we find in the first chapter of Gittin regarding the concubine at Gibeah and the verse ‘his concubine was unfaithful to him’ (Judg. 19:2): Rabbi Evyatar said, ‘He found a fly’; Rabbi Yonatan said, ‘He found a hair.’ Rabbi Evyatar encountered Elijah and said to him: ‘What is the Holy One, blessed be He, doing?’ He said to him: ‘He is engaged with the concubine at Gibeah.’ ‘And what is He saying?’ ‘My son Evyatar says thus, and My son Yonatan says thus.’ And this is because Rabbi Evyatar and Rabbi Yonatan were engaged together in the matter of the concubine at Gibeah; at that very time, He too, may He be blessed, was repeating their very words.

It seems to me that Rabbi Chaim is offering here a very novel interpretation of the principle ‘These and those are the words of the living God.’ For, as is well known, it is difficult to understand how two opposites can coexist. It seems to me that Rabbi Chaim offers in this passage a new interpretation: these and those are the words of the living God, though not necessarily the will of the living God. That is, there is only one correct will, but speech can split into several shards, like a hammer that shatters rock. According to Rabbi Chaim, this is the meaning of the passage in Gittin: to show that there can be divine speech even when the subject matter is not itself Torah in the normative sense. God says the words together with the sages who study them, and thereby it becomes Torah speech. One should note that the passage under discussion here is Aggadic, not legal – the clarification of the facts about the concubine at Gibeah.[5]

And Rabbi Chaim’s conclusion there is:[6]

Therefore, the sanctity of the whole Torah is equal, without any distinction or change whatsoever, Heaven forbid, for it is all literally the speech of His blessed mouth…

And with this we have returned to the title of Rabbi Rock’s article: ‘The Torah of the Lord Is Perfect.’ Any addition would be superfluous.

‘Shulchan Arukh’ on the Laws of Education: On a Wayward Student

Rabbi Eitan Finkelstein’s article on the issue of a wayward student deals with removing a student who has gone astray from a Torah educational institution. The dilemma is whether to keep him as a student in the institution, thereby preventing his deterioration, or to remove him so that other students will not be harmed.

At the outset, Rabbi Finkelstein writes that this is an issue that cannot be decided on the basis of clear criteria within Jewish law, and therefore he turns to Scripture. He states this programmatically, and therefore in my humble opinion it requires further clarification.

In my humble opinion, it is hard to accept this claim as stated. There are quite a few direct treatments in Jewish law of an unworthy student. Likewise, this dilemma is related to the law of a pursuer, which is also a distinctly legal issue (and perhaps also to a spiritual pursuer, but this is not the place to elaborate). There are discussions that touch on harming one person so that others may benefit (‘we do not tell a person: sin so that your fellow may gain,’ and the like).

An example of an initial legal treatment (about which there is also room for comment) is found in an article by my teacher Rabbi Yigal (formerly the head of the yeshivah at Midrashiyat ‘Noam’), in the jubilee volume for the school, ‘Bimshokh HaYovel,’ p. 56. Incidentally, in the course of his remarks he cites, as Oral Torah that he heard from the Chazon Ish, that this is a question of ‘Shulchan Arukh’ – that is, that there is a ‘Shulchan Arukh for the laws of education.’

Clearly, it is difficult to establish clear-cut rules and precise criteria, and Rabbi Finkelstein is certainly correct that this has not yet been done. Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that this can be done, and certainly one can advance at least on the level of principles.

Of course, I do not mean by these remarks to say anything against the article itself, where Rabbi Finkelstein examines this issue in an interesting and original way. Indeed, a scriptural inquiry of the kind that appears in his article can certainly add further dimensions to the Shulchan Arukh of education. The principles that emerge from there must take legal form, so that the study of the Bible illuminates the conclusions that emerge from the legal discussions (those mentioned above, and others), and vice versa.

Therefore, despite the importance and value of the biblical discussion presented in the article, it seems to me that the conclusions Rabbi Finkelstein drew from his study of Scripture require legal ratification within Jewish law before they can be adopted in practice.

[1] This principle is connected to a claim that arises in light of Rabbi Goodman’s article in ‘Tzohar’ 11. He cites there Rabbenu Chananel on Chagigah, who writes that it is possible for a victim of intentional murder to be killed without justification (‘to perish without justice’), simply because the murderer has free choice. By contrast, in the case of inadvertent homicide there is the well-known saying of the sages that God brings the killer and the victim to one inn: this one is liable to death and that one to exile. That is, in the case of inadvertent homicide there cannot be one who ‘perishes without justice.’

The difference is that in human action the decisive force is usually free choice. But if a person acts inadvertently, then in effect this is a divine action that uses the person for its purposes. Therefore, a person’s inadvertent action is in effect a divine action. This operates exactly like a lot, which is indeed cast by human beings, but whose randomness allows providence to determine the outcome. On this matter see my book ‘Two Carts and a Hot-Air Balloon,’ pp. 407-411, where I related this to a dispute between medieval and later authorities concerning the rule of a presumption of prior status; but this is not the place to elaborate.

This is also how providence operates with regard to the books of the Oral Torah. The sage who wrote the book can err, for these are his own words. But the accepted book is under providential supervision, and therefore it contains no errors (at least in its canonical part). Thus, the canonical book is, as it were, written by God and not by Maimonides. It is a divine action that uses human beings as instruments.

[2] One could analyze this in light of the dispute between Maimonides and Nahmanides in the first root, concerning ‘You shall not turn aside’ with respect to rabbinic prohibitions, but there is no need for that here, and this is not the place to elaborate.

[3] As for works of Jewish thought by our medieval authorities, there is room for hesitation. See my aforementioned article in issue 6. In truth, the criterion is not entirely clear to me.

I would further note that the requirement of normativity appears in Maimonides’ roots, but only as a criterion for counting the commandments, not as a criterion for the designation ‘Torah.’ See his remarks in the fifth root; much could be said about this, but this is not the place.

[4] This is another point at which his words converge completely with those of the author of the Tanya in the opening chapters, even though he stands in clear ideological opposition to him; but this is not the place to elaborate.

[5] This admittedly contradicts the common understanding that both views are correct, and not merely that both are God’s words. Perhaps Rabbi Chaim means to say this only in the passage in Gittin, where the dispute concerns facts, and therefore necessarily only one of them is correct (and the plain conclusion of the passage there does not make both equally correct; examine it carefully).

[6] Although his wording later in that paragraph suggests that here he means all the words and verses of the Written Torah, from the passage of Maimonides quoted there, and from the course of the discussion in the chapter, it is clear that he also intends the Oral Torah.