“To the best of my understanding, the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself at Sinai and gave us something,” you write.

What understanding?

Could it be that the whole event of Mount Sinai and the giving of the Torah was a meditative event?

My soul, so they say, stood there — but my intellect cannot grasp it.

Michi, aside from simple faith passed from father to son — where is the evidence?

It is also possible that what I’m writing to you right now is only a meditation. The Kinneret too could be just a meditative hallucination, as the song says (“My Kinneret”): “Were you real, or did I dream a dream?”
Empty doubt can be raised in any situation and about any fact. And precisely for that reason, raising the possibility that this was a meditative event is not an objection. If there are arguments on the merits indicating that this was merely meditation, then they can be addressed.

Sh
I don’t know what you are basing your answer on. Maimonides writes that everything about which it is said “a law given to Moses at Sinai” was literally given to Moses at Sinai. And he lists several examples: measurements, interpositions, and partitions; square phylacteries and black straps; the shin on the phylacteries, and more.
The Sages say that the entire Torah was written by Moses, except for the last eight verses, which were written by Joshua. And you can be sure they were thoroughly familiar with all the verses that quite plainly look like later additions.
Can one infer from your words that you are answering from personal feeling, and not from the sources?
4 months ago

Michi
Hello.
Before I get into discussing “my answer,” it seems to me that you didn’t read it. So it would be worthwhile to read it again.
I base my determinations on the facts and on my interpretation of them. Laws given to Moses at Sinai are a negligible part of the Oral Torah as a whole, and indeed according to Maimonides they were given to Moses at Sinai (although even regarding this Tosafot already wrote that sometimes the term “law given to Moses at Sinai” is said only for reinforcement and not as a historical description). Where in my words did you see otherwise? By the way, see Havot Ya’ir, siman 192, who discussed at length Maimonides’ very problematic determination that no disputes arose regarding laws given to Moses at Sinai.

The Sages indeed say that, and I am sure they knew. So what? The scholars say otherwise, and they knew too. I also say otherwise, and I know too. The fact that someone knows about the difficulty does not mean he solved it or that he is right (and that is true of me as well, of course).

You can certainly infer from my words that I answer on the basis of what I understand, exactly as the Sages and all the wise men of the generations spoke on the basis of what they understood. If everyone who spoke did so only from sources, then everyone could only parrot the Written Torah and perhaps also the small amount that was given orally at Sinai.
4 months ago

Sh
Are you talking about those scholars who claim that Deuteronomy was written in the days of Josiah in the 7th century BCE? You’d think biblical scholarship were an exact science. Historical-theological research is not mathematics. Scholars in this field have beliefs and prior assumptions with which they approach the subject they deal with, and that affects their conclusions as well.
The same is true of the Sages, of course; they too came with beliefs and prior assumptions.
Why are the scholars’ beliefs preferable to the rabbinic tradition?
In principle, treating non-Jewish scholars and the Sages on the same scale basically makes our faith in the laws of the Sages unnecessary. I do not see why I should observe the Jewish law of the Sages and their successors if they merely made reasoned determinations that seemed logical to them in their time.
According to your approach, does the ordination of the elders that continued from Moses until the period of the Tannaim or Amoraim not prove that the Sages had an ancient tradition, preferable to the determinations of modern scholars?

Everything we say must be based on sources, and that does not mean one can only parrot the past. Open a responsa book by one of the later authorities. On the one hand it is full of innovation; on the other hand, all the innovations are based on existing sources. What is called comparing one matter to another.
4 months ago

Michi
I am not talking about any particular scholars. I simply said that if someone knows the difficulties, that does not mean he solved them or that he is right. By the way, some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) also wrote that there are later verses in the Bible (beyond the final eight).
To understand the authority of the Sages, you will have to wait for my book on theology. But the fact that you want to believe the Sages and see no reason to believe them if they acted on the basis of their own reasoning does not mean they did not act on the basis of their own reasoning. The other alternative is not to believe them. What you are basically arguing is this: both the Sages and the scholars start from assumptions and from their own personal points of departure. But the Sages I want to believe, and the scholars I don’t. Therefore the Sages have an advantage over them. QED. In English that is called begging the question.
Ordination of the elders is a halakhic practice that proves nothing except that one sage ordained another sage.
Comparing one matter to another is exactly the use of judgment upon the sources. And besides, it is not true that one must always base oneself on sources. Have you heard the Talmudic rule, “Why do I need a verse? It is logical”?
4 months ago

Sh
No, that is not what I said. How did you get that from my words?!
What I am saying is: “Both the Sages and the scholars start from assumptions and from their own personal points of departure, except that the assumptions of the Sages are based on a traditional inheritance from sages who preceded them, and the first mishnah in Avot describes the chain of transmission, whereas with modern scholars all they have are speculations and inferences they invented out of their own minds. Therefore I prefer the words of the Sages to the words of the scholars.”
If you do not see things this way, then I truly do not understand why you observe the laws of the Sages.
Ordination of the elders proves nothing?! It proves that the Sages did not rely only on their own reasoning, but on sages who preceded them. A sage cannot adjudicate certain Torah laws without ordination, and not for merely technical reasons. Otherwise there would have been no need to give one’s life over it.
In fact, ordination of the elders proves the superiority of the Sages’ words over those of modern scholars. Why? Because this proves that their words are not just reasoned ideas they thought up in their own time, but are based on sages who preceded them back to Moses our teacher.
By the way, I would be glad to read your book on theology. I hope the arguments there are a bit more serious than the ones presented here.
4 months ago

Michi
Hello.
I will answer one more time, and if we don’t reach a conclusion then apparently we will remain in disagreement.
Your view of the tradition of the Sages is also your own conclusion. The scholars draw different conclusions from the same facts that stood before you. The Sages too used their own reasoning and drew their own conclusions. Viewing tradition as a “hollow pipe” is a complete misunderstanding. You decide that these people invented things out of their own minds and those people’s reasoning is rock solid, and about that I wrote that it is begging the question.
I feel uncomfortable defending the scholars, whose views I hold in about the same regard as you do. But again I will say that my intention was not to defend them and their conclusions, but to show you your own begging of the question.

If you do not understand what ordination of the elders is, here is a brief explanation: ordination is authorization to issue rulings, not a transfer of information. Therefore it is given in a religious court and supported by civil authority (the Exilarch). What does that have to do with tradition? By analogy, it is like the difference between studying legal material at a university and being appointed a judge (which is done by government institutions).
Why do I observe the words of the Sages? You can read briefly in the fifth booklet, and at greater length in my book when it comes out. There I explain that there is no connection whatsoever between obligation and authenticity (that this is indeed the word of God given at Sinai).
But I’ll already tell you here that the arguments there are no more serious. Don’t count on it.
4 months ago

Sh
Thank you for the responses.
Shabbat shalom.
4 months ago

Yair
A source in the words of the Sages indeed shows clearly that the entire Oral Torah was not given at Sinai:
“… When he completed forty days, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave him the Torah as a gift, as it is said: ‘And He gave to Moses.’ Did Moses learn the whole Torah?! It is written in the Torah (Job 11): ‘Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea,’ and Moses learned it in forty days?! Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, taught Moses the general principles.” (Exodus Rabbah, Tetzaveh).

But the Rabbi wrote that very little was given at Sinai, “if anything at all.”
Is the Rabbi hinting at the possibility that the Karaites are actually right and that the commandments were given without explanation — for example, that it was not said what labor is, and the thirty-nine categories of labor are an invention of the Sages?
4 months ago

Michi
This midrash does not necessarily say what you understand it to say. There is a dispute between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva whether the general principles and details were given at Sinai or whether the details were given at the Tent of Meeting. This midrash only repeats that.

The commandments were given with an explanation of the words. It is not reasonable that Moses our teacher received words without meaning. But it is clear that an overwhelming majority of the details of Jewish law were added over the course of history. As for labor, I am fairly convinced that this was a later development. After all, even in the Talmud itself there are disputes about where it is derived from (the thirty-nine times the word labor/work appears; whatever was in the Tabernacle; whatever is significant), and no one says that this is a law given to Moses at Sinai.
4 months ago

I am astonished — “Korah, who was wise, what did he see that led him to this folly?” What is your interest in saying such things? So you have a few proofs — are you prepared to take a risk with your entire World to Come just in order to say what you think? I am not belittling proofs, and I too think that an argument (or a claim, I’m not exactly sure of the difference, I heard you distinguish between them) of the type “they were certainly wiser than we are” is not relevant here — but still, leave that aside, doesn’t this seem dangerous to you? If the Talmud and Maimonides say that you are a heretic and you say that you are not, does that seem balanced to you — your word against Maimonides’ word? Suppose they were mistaken — I assume they won’t let that pass quietly.
The main point is that this is not like an ordinary factual issue where, in your view, the Sages were mistaken, because in any case the attitude in the words of the Sages makes it clear that it is a grave matter to say such a thing. That is, it is not merely a question of whether something happened or not, and not merely a matter of tradition; rather, the Sages regard this kind of claim with great severity. I would go so far as to say that even if it were true, in their view it would still be forbidden to say it. They call this “despising the word of God.”
I’ll add one small remark: I heard you belittle (in a substantive way, not harshly) Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s proof regarding “the hand recoils” from a duck (you said: let him put in his finger and check), and in that same passage you mentioned (with blunt disdain) the matter of “natures have changed.” One should note that Rabbi Shlomo Zalman’s proof is built on not saying this claim that “natures have changed.”
I would be glad to receive your answer. I am writing to you because I enjoyed your writings on Talmudic study very much, and from them, by the way, you came across to me as committed to the words of the Sages in the sense of complete submission, and that is why I was so surprised to see these statements of yours.

Michael, hello.
First, many thanks for the company into which you have placed me (Korah).
Second, perhaps you interpret texts according to interests, but I interpret according to what seems right to me.

With all due respect to these people and others who said what they said, if my conclusion is different then that is my conclusion. I can fear the judgment of Hell and not say these things. But even if I don’t say them, that is still what I think, so what would that help? The general principle is that there is no authority in matters of faith and in matters of fact בכלל.

Your claim about the duck is really not clear to me. Did anyone claim that all natures in every area changed?

And finally, if I came across to you as committed to the words of the Sages in complete submission — you were mistaken. They have authority in the area of Jewish law, and even that is only because we accepted it upon ourselves, not because they are always right or never mistaken. And in other areas they have no authority, just like no person in the world has any authority.

If the Torah was not entirely given at the revelation at Mount Sinai and human additions were added, then why do we keep the Torah’s commandments if they are commandments not given by God?

Because the Torah itself was not given cut and dried and fully detailed, and therefore the Giver of the Torah certainly took into account that when we come to interpret it, we will do so according to our understanding, and with that in mind He gave it to us. The human additions join the Torah and are binding as part of it. That is God’s will. Something similar applies to rabbinic commandments, which the Torah commands us to obey by force of “do not turn aside.” This does not mean that the Torah intended every single thing the Sages established; rather, it gave them a blank check that whatever they decide will be binding. The same applies to authoritative interpretations of the texts.
But this conception has consequences. A. Mistakes can certainly occur (and it is unlikely that none did), and even so it is binding. Authenticity is not a condition for obligation. B. Only interpretations by an authorized institution (the Sanhedrin or the Talmud) are binding. Everything else is not binding, even though it may carry weight. In the end, a person (at least if he is intellectually capable) is responsible for his own interpretation of the Torah, and that is what he is obligated to observe.

You said, “… and therefore the Giver of the Torah certainly took into account that when we come to interpret it, we will do so according to our understanding, and with that in mind He gave it to us.” If so, can it be inferred from your words that the Reform and Conservative interpretations of the Torah are legitimate in your view? If not, why not?

Every interpretation of the Torah is legitimate. The question is whether it is correct. Reform Jews do not offer an interpretation of the Torah because they are not committed to it.

I was glad to see that the Rabbi thinks the Torah is not entirely from Heaven and still observes the commandments.
I would be glad to understand why, and not on a combative level. I also intend to start reading your books in order to understand your thought better (I skimmed the fifth booklet and the discussion on the witness doctrine), but until then I would appreciate some clarification on issues that trouble me.

Regarding Torah from Heaven, I have already encountered the answer that part of it is from Heaven, but in my opinion that answers nothing, and let me sharpen the point. The principal issue in discussing Torah from Heaven is not source criticism but the investigation of truth and authority. That is, if Torah is from Heaven then it is divine and correct (and perhaps therefore binding), and if not then it is human (and not necessarily correct). Therefore, for this answer to have any meaning, one has to be precise and say exactly what is from Heaven and what is not (and it is entirely clear that most of what we label Torah-level is not written in the part that came down from Heaven), and what the meaning and force of what came down from Heaven is in relation to what was added by human beings.

I saw in the third booklet:
“The Karaite position does not recognize the giving of the Oral Torah, and in that sense it rejects the tradition about the revelation that bound the two Torahs (Written and Oral) together.”

Let us leave the Karaites aside for a moment and speak about the Sadducees, who were the main and ruling stream of the Jewish people until the Pharisees (that is, those who separated — not the ‘original’ Judaism) became the central stream.

The tradition of the two Torahs, Written and Oral, is a Pharisaic tradition, and the definitions of Torah-level status for things not written in the Torah are theirs too; but at the same time the Pharisees are the ones who wrote the story of the oven of Akhnai — meaning they ruled that in the struggle between the divine Torah from Heaven and the heavenly voice, on the one hand, and the human sages, on the other, the decision lies in human hands. In other words, they replaced a Judaism that believed in the word of God with a Judaism that believes in and observes the contemporary interpretation of human sages in that generation.
Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai’s reform in particular changed Judaism from a Torah-centered Judaism (the Temple and sacrifices take up a very large portion of the Five Books of Moses) into a Judaism of human rabbis (prayers).

In other words, the Pharisees had already decided that we are a religion of human decision rather than of God, (as is shown by the order of study in Haredi yeshivot, where they do not believe in the Bible, since they do not study it), meaning that what binds is human. So what is the meaning at all of the claim that (part of) the Torah is from Heaven if in any case that is not what binds us?

And a second question: if we have already concluded that part is not from Heaven, then “one who admits part of the claim must take an oath” — in other words, the part that is from Heaven requires much stronger proofs, and at the moment, to the best of my limited understanding, they are not to be found. More than that: suppose for a moment that the whole matter of the Temple is from Heaven — then it looks like a scribal error, since it occupied only a tiny fraction of Jewish history, so why include it in the part that is from Heaven? And if the whole matter of the Temple is not from Heaven, what remains? The Ten Commandments? So all the rest is human? So why is it binding at all?

If the Torah was given to us from Heaven, then it was given on the understanding that we would interpret it. Therefore the fact that there are later additions does not change the basic obligation. Beyond that, the presumption is that what is in our hands is the Torah that was given to us, and the burden of proof is on whoever claims that something was added later. As long as I have no proof that something was added later, I am obligated by it. In general, obligation is not conditioned on authenticity. The claim is not that everything is correct, but that everything is binding.

In yeshivot they certainly do believe in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), just as I believe in it, and yet they do not study it for several reasons (which I have explained in the past). Therefore your sweeping declarations have nothing whatsoever to do with the truth.

As for your pilpul from the claim of “admitting part of the claim,” you are assuming all sorts of things, some of them unnecessary and some of them incorrect. First, he is obligated to take an oath, but that does not mean that there is no monetary obligation even without the oath. The later authorities debated this (the question of the meaning of “since”). Second, there there is an admission that there was a loan, and the dispute is about the amount. Here there is no admission that there was a loan. In our case there is a presumption that what is in our hands is the Torah, and whoever claims otherwise bears the burden of proof. Third, the admission here is not to something defined, but to the fact that there is some part (apparently small) that was added later. That does not obligate an oath regarding the rest. Fourth, even the claimant against me does not know the truth. At most this is a dispute of possibility against possibility, and more precisely between a claimant with uncertainty and a possessor with certainty. And fifth, the admission is not by force of the claim. From the outset I claim that not everything is from Heaven, so this is not an admission to the claim but the presumption regarding the remaining part. That is certainly no worse than “here it is.”

First, thank you for your quick answer.
Second, the Rabbi is right regarding the Hebrew Bible; that was an inappropriate statement, and I apologize.
Back to the essential issue.

> If the Torah was given to us from Heaven, then it was given on the understanding that we would interpret it.
1) How do we know that this is so? Given that it is hard today to know the source, how would we know the intention that accompanied it?
2) And why should that interpretation bind?
– in general
– in particular, in places where the interpretation differs essentially to the point of contradicting the source?
– since the source of obligation is not authenticity, meaning that we have non-authentic parts that are still binding, the question arises: what is the source of the obligation?

> The burden of proof is on whoever claims that something was added later.
Biblical criticism provides an abundance of claims on this matter, for example the documentary hypothesis. I have not found a good source that refutes those claims one by one.
I saw in the third booklet the discussion about your friend who ran a workshop in which none of the black participants spoke. (I didn’t find the end of the story — did he call one of the black participants to refresh his memory?) But the comparison between an improbable event supported by people’s testimony (a presumption), and logic and/or a plain reading of the text itself (“interpretation… that the Torah was given on the understanding that we would interpret it…”) shifts the burden of proof precisely onto the presumption.
I still have not read your thought on the emptiness of the analytic, but at the very least the analytic is some kind of evidence, as opposed to a presumption thousands of years old from a period when writing and communication were neither high-quality nor available. And if in your view the burden of proof has not been met, then why is there no alternative analytic explanation available for each of the claims of biblical criticism?

1) The tradition says so. Beyond that, the Torah cannot be understood without interpretation, and therefore it is reasonable that permission was given to interpret it. Whoever gave it assumes that it will go through interpretation, and if He does not want that, He would have had to say so.
We know the source and we have a tradition about it and about what accompanied it. You are challenging part of that, so what?
2) The interpretation does not contradict the source, since derash is a parallel interpretation and does not replace the peshat.
I explained that the source of the obligation is the presumption that the Torah is what was given to us at Sinai, and the burden of proof is on the person who wants to remove something from it.

Biblical criticism does not provide us with evidence for many things. Much of it is speculative rather than scientific. There is evidence from the text itself that there are later parts, and I discussed that in my book. So what? Beyond that, there certainly are answers (I did not understand what you mean by an ‘analytic explanation’) to most of its claims; you simply need to ask those who deal with this, and certainly not the scholars themselves, most of whom are agenda-driven (just as believers are biased too, of course).
I did not understand your claim about the analytic. What does it have to do with this?

Unfortunately I am not managing to follow.

I understood that Torah from Heaven is based on tradition. And the tradition binds even if it is not authentic, because it is on the understanding of the Giver. And derash only interprets and does not replace.

But if the Giver intended that we interpret the Torah, then why did He make the interpretation so difficult? Why is the editing so lacking in foresight in a way that we do not find in the Talmud, for example?
– by planting things that according to the plain meaning contradict science
– by planting things that according to the plain meaning contradict each other
for example, by writing two creation stories that contradict each other and science
– by planting non-monotheistic conceptions, for example at the beginning of Genesis chapter 6
– by inserting moral norms that do not stand the test of time (an eye for an eye, slavery, the status of women, the four death penalties of the court, the destruction of Amalek, the impurity of the metzora)
– by devoting an entire book to the Temple — which functioned for a very short period in Jewish history. Not to mention the portions Terumah and Tetzaveh, which repeat the same thing, or genealogical lists, the repetition in the portion of the princes, etc.

Why does the Rabbi claim that there are no contradictions? As I understand it, there is a long list of “contradictions.”
Some that I can pull out without research are, for example:
– an eye for an eye
– that we believe in repentance and not “a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation”
– we use a prosbul and a sale permit for the Sabbatical year
– we lend with interest
– we do not perform levirate marriage
– and of course we do not offer sacrifices

Biblical criticism, like the Sages, is a mix of opinions and methods. Some of it is scientific, like carbon-14 dating, and some of it is indeed speculative. But without making it ad hominem, one can address logical claims (for example, an approach that relies on reading the plain meaning — especially if one holds that derash cannot contradict peshat) or claims about documents of foreign peoples and cultures, and see the similarity.

And one can also speak about the foundations of Judaism — the Garden of Eden, the World to Come (not mentioned in the Torah), where the source and interpretation are not really agreed upon.
The Garden of Eden in the Torah is a physical place with four rivers (two known and two not), one of them surrounding the land of Cush (even before man left the Garden of Eden there was already a place called the land of Cush… similar to “the spirit of God hovering over the water” — the water preceded creation). The Garden of Eden of tradition is in heaven.

The question:
If I understand correctly, on the one hand we have a tradition, and on the other hand there are quite a few logical and scientific questions about it; for most of them there are answers (why are there not answers to all the questions?),
The question is whether the answers the Rabbi has are sufficiently satisfactory to him in an objective way (that is, not by circular arguments or begging the question) in order to observe this way of life?

I have no idea why He made interpretation difficult. You would have to ask Him that. As for the contradictions, it is certainly possible that there was an editing process that combined several earlier sources, as I wrote in my book The First Being Found.
I cannot answer so many questions at once here. On a quick skim I would say that in my opinion most of them do not even get off the ground, and some of them are really blatant misunderstandings. But if you want to discuss any particular question, you are welcome to open a thread about it. One question per separate thread. It is impossible to discuss so many questions in parallel.