Answer

Hello.
As a matter of fact, I very much doubt whether homosexual relations were regarded as a moral prohibition in the ancient Near East. I think you’re mistaken; on the contrary, in ancient cultures it was quite legitimate. The view that this is an anachronism is a product of the periods of about a hundred years ago, which had already been shaped under the influence of religions. Look, for example, at prostitution in the story of Judah and Tamar. There it appears completely normative.
The language of the Torah and its terminology were certainly given in the terms of its period. After all, you don’t expect it to speak about cars and airplanes when it was given four thousand years ago. The question is not the terminology or the conceptual framework, but the ideas and values.
Regarding those, I don’t think one can generally say that the laws of the Torah fit the ancient Near East. In a number of ways they were ahead of it, and they did not always conform to it. First and foremost, monotheism itself was exceptional in the thought-world of that time. As for the laws, there is the midrash that the Holy One, blessed be He, went around to the nations and offered them the Torah, and they refused because it contradicted their values (adultery, theft, and so on).
The fact that there is partial overlap in the laws (with very significant differences, as many have already noted, especially regarding the laws of Hammurabi) should not be disturbing. And that is for two reasons: 1. If there is overlap, that does not mean it is not true. 2. There could also have been influence in the opposite direction, from the word of God through Adam and Noah and the study hall of Shem and Eber to the other peoples of the ancient Near East. If you can present an argument showing that the Torah prohibited something because of ancient circumstances, and bring indications for that, that could be a basis for a claim of change. But I think merely raising such a hypothesis is not enough.
Your assumption that the laws of the Torah should focus on what bothers another person and permit what does not bother another person (like homosexuality) seems wrong to me. Implicitly, you are assuming an identity between Jewish law and morality, but my claim is that these are two independent categories. Jewish law aspires to religious values, and morality aspires to benefiting other people. Therefore there are sometimes contradictions between the systems, and certainly there need not be correspondence between them. See briefly about this in column 15 on my site.
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Questioner:
Thank you for the feedback. But I again draw your attention to the fact that in the past little girls were sold as maidservants on a mass scale, and in the Torah too this is legitimate (which is itself puzzling). And likewise regarding the wars against Amalek and the seven nations, where the Israelites were commanded to kill women, children, and animals. Again — rather strangely, similar to that period. I wasn’t dealing with the wording and terminology of the Torah, but with culture and morality, and also with many issues (such as dreams, where only in the past people believed they had heavenly significance).
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Rabbi:
I referred you to an article on my site that deals with the relationship between Jewish law and morality. My claim there is that these are two separate categories. The fact that the Torah permits a father to sell his daughter is a halakhic permission. That does not mean it is moral in its eyes. There are several laws that permit things while the Sages reject them morally. Even the beautiful captive woman, which the Torah permits, is interpreted by the Sages as speaking against the evil inclination (and that is also the plain meaning of the Torah itself). Here too is another example of a norm that was accepted in the wars of old (taking captive women), and the Torah rejects it morally even if it permits it halakhically.
And regarding the wars, the very fact that the Torah limits this permission specifically to Amalek and the seven nations, and does not say it as part of the laws of war in general, actually shows that this is not its general moral outlook.
And regarding dreams, even today people believe they have significance, even if not heavenly significance.
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Questioner:
I hope I’m not being a nuisance. But I still wonder whether the Torah should deal with, and all the more so permit, matters like these. Just as the Torah would not permit other abominable acts such as murder and theft. By the way, in Islam too there are specific commands to kill Jews and certain nations as such; it turns out that primitiveness can sometimes belong only to a specific nation. And in general, since when is it permissible to kill innocents even when that is not the general method of warfare? And regarding dreams, of course today they have meaning, but in a logical, rational sense. That can’t be compared to the various prophecies that people used to think were received in sleep. In addition, I wanted to ask whether there is any necessity that the Torah was given at Sinai, in order to force and press all these issues. And is the argument that the prophet Isaiah forced the Israelites to observe the Torah by brute force a valid one or not?
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Rabbi:
When it comes to specific nations, there is probably a reason for that. Think about a Jew in Europe during the Holocaust. Wouldn’t he have wished for the killing of all the Germans, from children to the elderly? If Amalek was a people with no moral future, educating its children to murder, killing, and violence — would it not be right to order that they all be destroyed? Once this is directed at a specific people, the criticism already loses much of its sting.
I don’t know on what basis you determine that dreams have no prophetic significance. Certainly when we are talking about the dream of a prophet. If you do not accept that he is a prophet in the first place, then your problem is not with his dreams but with the very concept of prophecy. In short, your argument assumes what it is trying to prove.
As for the question whether it is necessary that the Torah was given at Sinai — nothing is necessary. Each person has to form a view and decide what he thinks on the matter. My own view is that something was given there, even if not the entire Torah exactly as we have it. I explained this in the fifth notebook on my site.
As for Isaiah, I didn’t understand the question.
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Questioner:
The fact that I would wish for an entire people to perish does not in itself justify killing them (certainly not the animals, which cannot be educated toward evil). And by the way, the seven nations were not killed because of bad education, but because we demanded the land and they resisted us (apparently justifiably, and why would God, who is wholly good, command the conquest of another people — something that was accepted then). In short, my argument, or more precisely what bothers me, is that in many areas the Torah — which was supposedly written by an all-powerful being not limited by time — permitted certain things that were accepted in certain periods, such as the attitude toward women (for example, they were the ones for whom permission was given to be sold at a young age), which seemingly proves that it was written by someone whose mind was not open enough to equality between people. And the very possibility of being sold into slavery proves the same point. As for the prophet Isaiah, I recently heard an argument that the Torah was “invented” in that period by someone who managed to persuade the prophet to teach and transmit the Torah to the people of Israel (who supposedly had not existed until then), and forced them by murdering several hundred of them, as is written there, and likewise where it says in that context that there arose a generation “that did not know Passover.” And the murder itself joins the previous arguments regarding practices that were accepted then, where God “adapted” His instructions and commandments to the spirit of the time.
I must note that the Rabbi’s words help me very much, and show me that there is depth on the believing side as well. I’d be glad to ask about other subjects too (the Talmud, and its mysticism, and also the coming of the Messiah), but first I’d like to know that this is not too much trouble.
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Rabbi:
Hello.
Why does it not justify it? If we are speaking about a wicked people that educates toward wickedness and murder and produces children like that, then it certainly does justify it.
The seven nations as well lost the land because of their behavior, and this is explicit in Scripture. And the obligation to destroy them is not because of the laws of war but because of the abominations practiced among them.
As for women, as I told you, there is not necessarily a value statement here. Daughters were under the authority of their fathers and husbands, and therefore the Torah looks after them by giving the father authority to give them over, as I explained. And indeed today, when that is no longer the case, Jewish law can change. Seen this way, the Torah is not making a value statement about women but a statement directed to an existing situation and set of circumstances. That is something entirely different. Here there is not necessarily blindness to the value of equality, because in those circumstances saying something egalitarian would be a very harmful disregard of reality. The Torah also speaks against the evil inclination (as in the case of the beautiful captive woman).
I didn’t understand the Isaiah matter, but those speculative arguments don’t seem to me really worth discussing. One can raise a million hypotheses in the style of Chariots of the Gods. It’s a waste of time.
 
You may ask, and I’ll answer as best I can within the limits of my ability and time. Better one question at a time, and when it’s exhausted, move on.
All the best,
Michi
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Questioner:
So what about killing animals?
In the Prophets it says there were people who practiced sorcery, and that is really an introduction to my next question, which also touches on the earlier points. Isn’t it strange that there was sorcery specifically in the past, exactly when the world was more primitive and less aware of natural scientific processes, and therefore attributed everything to sorcery and bizarre mysticism? Just as in our own day we can observe a great many people who go to miracle-workers and holy men, who belong to a certain population that is, in some sense, less enlightened. Likewise, the Talmud speaks of demons and spirits, which I personally find very hard to believe in — even in earlier times. And if the Talmud understood and believed in incorrect things, shouldn’t that tell us at least something about their wisdom in other areas too, such as laws and rulings and all sorts of methods of derivation like verbal analogies and logical inferences? The specific answers trouble me a bit, because in the overall picture one can see many cases of anachronistic culture in the Torah. So I don’t feel that I’m exhausting the question.
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Rabbi:
As for sorcery, first of all, my impression is that those who go to miracle-workers do not belong specifically to one particular population, contrary to how it sometimes seems. Second, Maimonides already said that there is nothing to it, and that the prohibition is to believe in it, because one who believes in it is a fool.
The references in the Talmud to demons and spirits can certainly come from beliefs that prevailed at the time, and it is quite possible that this was a common mistake in ancient thinking. Just as scholars today draw on professionals in the various contemporary fields. In my opinion, that does not impair their ability to interpret Jewish law. Beyond that, their halakhic authority does not stem from the fact that they are wise and do not err. The Sages were human beings and certainly made quite a few mistakes, in matters of reality and probably in Jewish law as well. Their authority stems from the fact that we accepted the Talmud upon ourselves as binding law (see Kesef Mishneh, chapter 2 of the laws of Rebels, where he writes this). Even in the Knesset, I obey the law not because it is always correct, but because it is the law. And when there is a Sanhedrin, there will also be authority to make changes, and I hope and believe that they will do so.
In summary, most anachronisms in the Torah are in terminology and in the response to circumstances that prevailed then. There are very few cases in which I see problematic values that are not specifically aimed at that period. One should remember that in Jewish law (even those laws that are of Torah origin), the overwhelming majority are the result of the Sages’ interpretation of the Torah and not something written in the Torah itself (= something the Sadducees also admitted). And the Sages can make mistakes, and there is nothing wrong with that.
 
I assume the killing of the animals was done for educational reasons (as in other cases where animals are killed, for example in the Talmudic passage about a mishap and disgrace in Sanhedrin 56). Killing without causing suffering is not cruelty to animals.
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Questioner:
Speaking of terminology, I heard an argument that the duplications in the language of the Torah — such as the different names of Jethro, or the fact that Pharaoh is called simply “Pharaoh” without his real name (as though we would write “the king”), or the contradiction regarding a slave going free — stem from the fact that the Torah was assembled from a collection of material by several different people, and at times duplications arose, and not all the data were fully available to them. Does that claim have any substance, or can it be refuted? And in addition, don’t the Torah’s words and the enactments of the Sages also point to outside influence — just as in the time of the Torah it was customary, for example, to gouge out the eye of one who gouged out his fellow’s eye, while the Sages in their period “improved” that Torah law and proved that it deals with monetary compensation. And the whole matter of execution is still something I have not received a satisfactory answer about, because today when we watch videos from the world of extreme Islam (including ISIS), we are horrified to see murder on account of sexual transgressions and the like. And in the Torah this was accepted, even if we say it happened only once every few years. Beyond that, one should consider the view that held that such an event was rare in a religious court that executed once in seven years, and given that there were a number of religious courts then, such an occurrence was not rare at all. And also in the Prophets, who at times killed several hundred people for not observing the commandments — something that would be utterly unacceptable in the modern outlook.
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Rabbi:
These are common arguments in the world of biblical criticism and what is called the Documentary Hypothesis. It is a possible speculation, and I do not know how to verify or refute it. I do not know whether in the time of the Torah it was customary to gouge out the eye of one who gouged out his fellow’s eye. Do you have clear information on that? In any case, the Sages interpreted it as monetary compensation instead of an eye. In Jewish law it is almost impossible to execute someone, because the requirements are that the act be done in front of two witnesses, with prior warning, and with the offender’s acceptance of the warning (“Yes, and on that condition I am doing it”). Therefore, in my opinion this is a declarative ruling, and it really did not happen (Aharon Shemesh of Bar-Ilan argues in his book that it never happened at all). Certainly, in Jewish law one does not execute someone who is unaware of the prohibition (he is under compulsion). And even for an intentional murderer there is the rule “and the congregation shall save,” which makes halakhic execution even harder. I think that in order to understand events in ancient times, one has to enter into the values that were accepted then (for prophets do not kill according to Jewish law), and into the circumstances of the sins in question (which were very different from our own times). The assumption then was that one who sins is a deliberate offender (because of the evil inclination), and that is not the case with us. By the way, in the United States to this day there is still a death penalty for various crimes (I think mainly murder) in most states. So irreversible punishment is accepted even today; it just depends on the severity of the crime.
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Questioner:
I think the Code of Hammurabi says “an eye for an eye,” though I may be mistaken.
Honestly, I think I’ve laid out most of my questions, if memory serves me right.
So I’ll ask one final point that bothers me — do all the speculations about who wrote the Torah not contradict the evidence regarding the revelation at Mount Sinai? Because as I understand it, the proof is based on the idea that there is no other historical explanation besides the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and to the extent that there is a different explanation, it pulls the ground out from under the proof. For in order to believe in something so “bombastic,” we need conclusive and certain proof, and that does not seem to be the case when there are these conspiracies and hypotheses.
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Rabbi:
There is no certain proof for anything in the world, not even for scientific theories and laws. What we have is impression and common sense, and with those one has to choose what is more reasonable. For every historical hypothesis, many alternatives can be raised; does that mean no historical fact can ever be established?
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Questioner:
No, but again, to believe in events so grand in scale (such as the splitting of the Red Sea, and speaking with God from within a burning bush), one needs very strong and solid evidence. And when there are alternatives that cannot be disproved, perhaps one can say that the giving of the Torah and the miracles connected with it do not have a firm basis.
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Rabbi:
On that I again refer you to my fifth notebook on the site.
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Oren:
By the way, regarding what he said about calling Pharaoh by a title, in the link below that very argument is actually used to strengthen the dating of the Torah’s composition (that is, that it was written around the time of the Exodus from Egypt — roughly 1300 BCE):

“In the Torah’s story of the Exodus from Egypt, the kings of Egypt are referred to simply as ‘Pharaoh.’ By contrast, later in the Bible they are called by their full names, such as Pharaoh Necho (II Kings 23:29). This reflects a phenomenon that existed in Egypt itself in those periods: from the middle of the second millennium BCE until the tenth century BCE, it was customary to write ‘Pharaoh’ without any addition.”

Quoted from:
http://mida.org.il/2015/04/02/%D7%9E%D7%99-%D7%9E%D7%A4%D7%97%D7%93-%D7%9E%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%A0%D7%9A-%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%99%D7%AA%D7%94-%D7%99%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D

As for the question he asked — “Does that claim have any substance, or can it be refuted?” — it seems to me that he meant to ask whether the claim has a reasonable basis, or whether an adequate counter-response can be given to it (= “refuted” in a non-mathematical sense).