Answer

Hello A.
Because of limited time I’ll respond briefly.

I don’t know what it means to be Reform while doing God's will. If this is your interpretation of the Torah, then you are not Reform. A Reform Jew is someone who is not committed to the Torah (the Oral Torah and apparently also the Written Torah) and does not believe in it (including the giving of the Written Torah at Sinai, and sometimes not even in God Himself). Some people define my view too as Reform, but in my opinion that is a mistake in terminology. If you do not agree with the accepted interpretation and offer another interpretation, then you are Orthodox with a different opinion. A Reform Jew is someone who does what he himself thinks and does not base himself on interpretation of the sources of Jewish law. See my article on “enlightened” idol worship. But all this is semantics.

Most of your questions revolve around what was given from Sinai and why one should be obligated by what developed afterward. As I wrote to you before, if something was given from Sinai, then it was given with in mind what would later develop around it (since what was given in itself does not tell us what to do). If what was added was drawn from other cultures, that does not matter. It is still what happened, and it is binding (to this day interpretation is the product of various influences. That is the nature of human beings, and the Torah was not given to ministering angels). Not every interpretation is correct, but what was accepted is what binds. You and I too are part of this interpretive process, and if something doesn’t seem right to you, you are called upon to present other conceptions and take part in the ongoing shaping of the Torah. I repeat and say that authenticity and truth are not conditions for obligation. The fact that I am obligated does not mean that in my opinion this is what was given at Sinai, and it does not even mean that in my opinion this is what is right and true to do. I am obligated even if it is not correct, like a law of the Knesset that is binding even if it is not correct. It is the law. And in general, even the obligation to the Torah itself is by virtue of the public’s agreement to bind itself, so the same applies to what followed. What difference is there?

I would also note that our impression of people is always context-dependent and dependent on subjective assessments. You ask someone what time it is or how to get somewhere, and he answers you. How do you know he didn’t lie? Maybe he’s like Stalin? After all, you don’t know him. You try to assess as best you can. So too here.

If you have no trust at all in the tradition, then you don’t. But I do have such trust, and therefore the text is presumed to be what was given at Sinai unless proven otherwise. Therefore I have no question about the bulls on Sukkot, sha’atnez, and tzitzit.

I definitely agree that morality is an expression of God's will implanted within us. In addition, the Torah itself instructs, “And you shall do what is upright and good,” and does not spell it out. In this it tells us to follow our natural feelings (the conscience). Here it reveals to us that those feelings are binding as God's will (and were implanted in us by Him).

I did not understand the whichever-way-you-take-it argument.

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A.:

Thank you for the thoughtful answer!
Why does the public’s decision in interpreting the Torah obligate me like a law passed in the Knesset? Can the Rabbi present a central argument for why it is not reasonable that I should do what I understand through my own intellectual decision before the Holy One, blessed be He, in my understanding of His word, regardless of public halakhic rulings? By the way, maybe that is the spirit of the end of the verse “matters of dispute in your gates”—that only when one really has to decide between two people in commandments between man and his fellow is there judgment, but as for each person’s service of God?
Thanks again,

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Rabbi:

The Torah was given to the public as a whole, and it is a public-social system (“This day you have become a people.” “Our nation is a nation only through its Torahs.”). Like any public normative system, the public has a status in determining what it says (which is why I brought the example of state law, where too the binding interpretation is that of the judges and not of each citizen separately).

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A.:
I’m trying to feel my way here—
Are you relying mainly on the very idea that the Torah was in fact a necessary condition for our cohesion as a people (you cited “This day you have become a people” and “Our nation is a nation only through its Torahs”) in order to prove that the Torah is a public-social system? (If so, one has to prove the gap between what it was and what it intended to be; a bit similar to the naturalistic fallacy, only in the past.)
Or perhaps because there are punishments imposed by humans already for the Ten Commandments? (And here it requires analysis whether the punishments were explicitly given by God, and even if so—regarding what has no punishment by human hands, why should we make an unnecessary assumption and think it is part of the public-social system? Maybe the Torah contains also a public-social system, but is not wholly such.)

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Rabbi:

Not at all. Our cohesion as a people doesn’t really interest me. The Torah is not a means for our nationalism (as Ahad Ha’am held). But from the Torah itself it is clear that it was given to a people and not to individuals. I cannot prove against your suggestion that there is some commandment or other regarding which the individual has freedom, but it sounds implausible. Just as in law it is not said that there is one law in which the legislator allows the citizen to interpret it and does not give authority to the judge.

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A.:

In what way is it clear from the Torah that it was given to the people and not to individuals?

The reasons for the commandments?

Let’s say we accept the assumption that one can understand God's will through our own rationales, which I tend to agree with, though not every commandment is easy to find a reason for—
Is it because the form of observance of the commandments is that of the people as a collective? Like the section of Mishpatim and the laws of the Tabernacle and the sacrifices, which seemingly require mobilization of the whole people or of its center? Or is it because there are sanctions?

A. Is the commandment “and you shall do what is upright and good” not on the individual? The commandments of loving God and fearing Him? Are there social sanctions for every individual’s sacrifice? (Burnt offering, thanksgiving offering, menstruant, woman after childbirth, sin offering, leper—not to mention freewill offerings and vows.) Or does it not seem that the reason for sacrifice is personal (bringing something of myself / joy / identification with the slaughtered animal) and not collective?
B. Are there not family commandments and not public ones? Honoring parents? Passover? “And you shall teach them diligently”? Tefillin? Maybe also the commandment of sukkah?
C. It seems that even where there are many sanctions on commandments, one can easily attribute that to a corrupt regime wanting to impose the commandments on the people—and after all, the possibility of an evil king like Stalin and the adoption of customs from foreign cultures you already agreed to accept. And in any case, the sanctions are not the center of the Torah… there are other things too, like love of God, which is mentioned many times, and love of one’s fellow (“your fellow”).

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Rabbi:
Of course there are personal commandments. That is not the point. Even if state law determines what the individual’s duty is, it is still a public system, and the legislator and its authorized interpreters (the judges) are the ones who determine the content of those instructions and laws. The Torah was given to us as the law of the people, and that includes the personal obligations as well.
For example, is the prohibition against causing damage personal or public? After all, it is between me and my fellow. So why does the Torah say to go to a religious court that will decide? Seemingly the two of us should have to determine a mechanism that will decide between us. The answer is that this is a legal system run in a centralistic way, and the institutions of government and halakhic leadership are responsible for it. So too if I do not know how to keep the Sabbath (which is an entirely personal obligation), then too I must go to the elders in the religious court and ask. The authority of the religious court is to decide “between blood and blood, between judgment and judgment, and between lesion and lesion, matters of dispute in your gates,” all types of questions.

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A.:

Sorry in advance—I’m really not trying to convince you, I’m honestly trying to understand and learn, and it seems to me you noticed that (for example, I clarify my understanding and its logical connections, and even try to reflect your words as I understand them so I can respond to them in full seriousness). I’m sorry (mainly for my own sake) that I’m not managing to accept this from you.
I’m saying that I’m willing to accept that whoever spoke to you expects you to do with what he told you as you understand it, because those are the rules of language. When God spoke to the people of Israel—He expects that the people of Israel who heard Him should do what they understood. That I accept. You are making an additional claim—that the Torah is a national law whose content the judges determine in every generation. That claim—I don’t understand what it is based on. To my poor understanding, it is a logically unnecessary claim. I even tried to raise considerations to strengthen this claim of yours, and to wonder about those reinforcements. You assume that the Torah is a public-social system. You do not refer to reasons for commandments, or to the fact that the Torah stands at the moment of the people’s cohesion, or to the sanctions—and as I understand it you do not rely on any of those claims. I’m confused… I certainly do not think, God forbid, that the Rabbi says things without reason, but I also cannot find a thread to follow for the basis of the claim.

I’ll try anyway to continue feeling my way toward the claim on which you are basing yourself—you cite the fact that the Torah gave authority to a religious court to judge between two people—

A. The reason for the commandment is understandable, but how can one project from here to commandments whose reason is love of God, repentance and atonement, remembrance, etc., like sacrifices and prayer and blessings, etc.? (The reason for blessings is even mentioned with the phrase “is logic needed for a verse?” and they are commandments in themselves not to benefit from this world without a blessing, and they are commandments between man and God that did not come in place of the collective daily offering, and so too the idea of prayer in its various forms, “so that your generations may know… for man does not live by bread alone, but by every utterance of the mouth of God”…).

B. From a logical standpoint one needs to make a special claim in order to prove that the judicial laws between one person and another in tort law and the like were given by God. After all, every people maintained legal systems, and many peoples attributed their legal systems to national gods. To claim that this is part of the word of God requires special proof, unlike the proven and accepted paradigm we have regarding declarations that legal systems emanate from gods.

C. If you say that you are not speaking about reasons for commandments but about the mechanism itself of appealing to judges—then you cannot project that onto the Torah as a whole. You spoke about a halakhic mechanism that one can relate to as Leibowitz relates to Jewish law—without reasons, and in any case one cannot project from commandment to commandment out of the “spirit of the Torah” or “meta-halakhah” and understand the nature of the word of God as a collective law.

D. If you are relying on the verse “between blood and blood, between judgment and judgment, and between lesion and lesion, matters of dispute in your gates,” then:

1. From the verse it is not clear that this is talking about a ruling for the whole people. It says, “If a matter of judgment is too difficult for you,” and ends with “matters of dispute in your gates.” The framework of the verse rather directs its understanding—it is speaking of a specific court in the city gate that judged some legal matter and did not know how to decide, and therefore one must turn to the chief judicial chamber so that they will discuss the matter of the dispute between the specific people. Once we have understood the framework of the verse (which not only gives the concluding title and the literary “key sentence,” but is also unambiguous), we will understand its details, which can be taken several ways—judgment: tort law; blood: a bleeding wound, bloodshed (and even if we say it means menstrual blood, it could be a dispute about virginity, “and they shall spread the cloth…” and in any case, they specified the exception, so how can one generalize from that to all the commandments?); lesion: a bruise (and again, even if we say it means the lesion of leprosy, that is a question about returning to the camp by the priest, and far from generalizing to all the commandments—and in fact they specified it and not all the commandments, precisely because it is an exception). According to what is understood (the beginning and end of the verse) we interpret what is not understood (the types of laws), and we do not let the unclear make us marvel and be puzzled about the clear. And it seems to me that already Nachmanides, and following him Rabbi Kook, said that this is only a scriptural support.

2. Fine—if this were something present throughout the Torah, or at least if we could cross-reference information from other verses to understand the meaning of the verse—but I don’t know whether there is any trace of it even in the Prophets and Writings. So again, it is in the interest of the regime that such a verse should be written. Maybe of the Sadducees or the early priests who were priests in the Temple, but that is just a hypothesis I’m throwing out right now.

Sabbath שלום!!

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Rabbi:

Hello A.
Again I’ll say there is absolutely no need to apologize. I didn’t think you were trying to convince me, and besides, it is certainly allowed and even desirable to try to convince me too.

I think we are going in circles. The question is what is the agreed-upon basis for you, on which I can rely in my answer. Are you trying to be convinced only on the basis of the language of the Written Torah? Here it will be hard to make progress, because it is open to many interpretations (though from it too it emerges that this is a Torah given to the public, as I wrote). If one may also argue on the basis of the Oral Torah, then what are the questions? In short, this seems to me to be a discussion without much point.

A. The Oral Torah teaches us that the authority religious courts have applies to the entire Torah and not only to certain commandments. It is just that there are commandments for which the Torah gives no punishment, and therefore they are not handed over to adjudication in religious court. But that is not an essential difference. Moreover, religious courts are obligated to compel people to fulfill the commandments, even the personal ones. I also wrote that the religious court is authorized to decide in all the commandments and not only to judge between people, and that is relevant to all the commandments. After all, the verse says that this is also “between blood and blood, between judgment and judgment, and between lesion and lesion,” meaning that even purely halakhic questions are to be brought to the religious court, and they determine their boundaries. Not benefiting from this world without a blessing, the rule you mentioned, is the reasoning of the Sages, and it is binding.

B. They were given together with the Torah. I don’t understand the discussion. If you think the Torah was not given from Heaven, then this whole discussion is empty of content. What proof do you want regarding the judicial laws? That the Torah should say they were given from on high? That the tradition should say so? I don’t understand.