Q&A: Interpreting the Torah in Accordance with Cultural Reality
Interpreting the Torah in Accordance with Cultural Reality
Question
Hello Rabbi,
The Rabbi deals a great deal with the issue of adapting the Torah to the existing culture, and I thought that perhaps there is a mechanism within the Torah that allows for an adjustment between the Torah and the culture.
The Torah is studied in many facets, and at times we find two contradictory forms, such as the plain meaning and the homiletical interpretation, and many have struggled to reconcile the contradictions (“an eye for an eye,” and the like). I thought that the Torah’s multiple layers were meant to allow Torah sages to study the Torah in a way suited to the culture.
For example, “an eye for an eye” may in a certain culture be considered a legitimate punishment, but the Sages, in whose culture there was no place for such punishment, established the Jewish law through interpretive methods by which the eye could be converted into monetary compensation.
Likewise, we find—I do not remember the matter exactly—that Rabbi Akiva established a Jewish law contrary to earlier generations on the basis of “her ways are ways of pleasantness,” and there too it may be that Rabbi Akiva determined that the Torah should be interpreted differently because that is how it fit his culture.
Does the Rabbi know of any reference in the sources to such a possibility?
More power to you.
Answer
Hello Rafi.
There is no need at all for the homiletical interpretation to fit the plain meaning, as the Vilna Gaon already wrote. But the homiletical interpretation also has rules, and it is not reasonable to say that one can do whatever one wants there just in order to reach a desired result. Otherwise the Torah loses its meaning, because then we are simply doing whatever we decided on. Therefore, an interpretive argument of this kind must stand on its own terms; it is not enough that it yields the Jewish law we would like.
It is true that when interpreting the Torah, there is dependence on the reasoning of the interpreter, but that reasoning is only a tool to guide him toward one of the possible interpretations, not to create from nothing some other interpretation on demand.
As for Rabbi Akiva’s exposition, I assume you mean Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 64 regarding “and she shall remain in her menstrual impurity.” This is an example usually brought to show that there is creative exposition (and not only exposition that merely leans on the text), and that the reasoning and values of the interpreter influence the interpretive result. See, for example, Moshe Halbertal’s book Interpretive Revolutions in the Making.
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Questioner:
I did not mean that one can interpret whatever one wants, but rather that from the outset the Torah was given in several forms that apply in different situations, and therefore when there is a cultural change, the Torah will be interpreted in a certain way that accords with the culture and the renewed reality. Of course, where interpretation is not possible we would not change the Torah, but as long as there are several interpretations, we would adopt one of them because of its fit with reality and culture.
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Rabbi:
I do not think one needs to assume that the Torah was given from the outset with several faces. The Torah is one, and the interpretation is a result of the circumstances. Clearly, the same thing can be seen or applied in several ways depending on the person and the circumstances. The assumption that from the outset they had all circumstances in mind is unnecessary here. But that is a marginal point; in principle, I agree.