Thank you, Rabbi.
People always say, regarding the Oral Torah, that authority is needed in order to know the meaning of the Torah.
A. But why shouldn’t we say that the Torah intended each person to act according to his own understanding? Why must there be a uniform interpretation?
B. Nowadays there are tons of disagreements and the world doesn’t collapse.
C. Nowadays there is no authority anyway, so why is it far-fetched to say that even in biblical times the religious court had no authority?
If the Holy One, blessed be He, did not ensure authority for two thousand years, what strong reasoning makes us think that in earlier times there had to be authority as a matter of logic?
Thanks!!

A few comments.
Even logically there has to be authority, otherwise the Torah has no meaning at all. Everyone can do whatever he wants. Beyond that, the Torah itself contains sources for authority: “do not deviate,” the law of the rebellious elder, and the like. And of course the tradition of the Sages passes this on to us, whether by logic or from a law given to Moses at Sinai.
The reason the world does not collapse nowadays is only because there are already authorities from the past that were accepted as authorities (Sanhedrins and the Talmuds, and to some extent also the medieval authorities). That is what provides a framework that holds up. Without that, the Christians too offer an interpretation of the Written Torah, and in principle every cult in the world could be considered Judaism.
And even nowadays there really is a problem without authority (and I write this despite my anarchistic temperament and worldview).

Thank you so much!
There are people who argue that there is no great need for interpretation, because all the fine distinctions are an invention of the Sages.
In biblical times all the commandments were performed spontaneously and flexibly, without any need to clarify how one acts in cases of doubt, or how much matzah and leavened food one must eat, or at exactly what second the Sabbath begins.
In your opinion, are the basic Jewish laws (not all the details) indeed necessary? If so, how is it that they only arose in later generations? It would come out that the earlier generations just didn’t care.

I completely agree with the factual premise of those “people who argue,” and I do not agree with their conclusion.
It is clear that most of the Jewish laws we have were created over the generations. And when the Sages wrote that everything is from Sinai, that is a normative statement, not a historical one. Especially since the rules and details over which Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael disagreed (whether they were given at Sinai or at the Tent of Meeting) concern only the laws written in the Torah, not the Oral Torah. But sayings like “whatever an experienced student will one day innovate,” and so on, deal with the proper attitude toward these laws (that they are binding as if they were given at Sinai), not the factual claim that they actually were given at Sinai.
They are not binding because they are certainly correct and necessary, but because of formal authority. Such authority belongs to the Sanhedrin throughout the generations and to the Talmuds.
As for measurements, without a doubt they shifted from an approximate character (a thumb-width, a cubit, an olive’s bulk, an egg’s bulk, a date’s bulk) to precise measurements of weight and volume. This is the result of a change in our thinking, which became more logical and scientific and wants fixed and clear measurements. But there is nothing inherently wrong with that, since every generation has its own mode of thought. That’s who we are.

It’s clear that most Jewish laws were created over the generations. My question is whether there is a thick layer of laws that were the kind that had to come into being, and not merely because of the meticulous method of the Sages that caused them to arise.
For example, it is reasonable that the rule that a Torah-level doubt is treated stringently was not given at Sinai, and nevertheless it seems like a law that had to be established at some point, because what are people supposed to do in practice in a case of doubt?

I didn’t understand the question. Obviously one must determine what to do in laws of doubt, just as one must determine what the measure is for a prohibition of eating, and so on. So what is the question?

I’ll explain more.
Religious people prove the need for the Oral Torah by saying that only it can answer questions like: “What is the exact size and height of the sukkah?”, “What quantity of food must one eat to be obligated in Grace after Meals—does even a grain count?”, “What is the exact moment when dough becomes leavened?”
From this they conclude that the Oral Torah is needed to reveal God’s will, because He did not write it in the Torah.
In my opinion all of these are anachronistic nonsense (forgive the dismissiveness); this is just applying the Sages’ meticulous method to the Torah. For the original Torah, none of these questions are troubling. The commandments are performed in a relatively flexible way. It is obvious to any reasonable person that they did not count eighteen minutes for leavening; everything was by approximation.
My question to you is whether you agree that there is another kind of doubt that really is genuine, and does not stem from a new meticulous outlook, and that it does prove the need for the Oral Torah (or at least for some authority that will decide such matters), for example: what do we do in cases of doubt? And the like.

Now I understand. It seems to me that this is an argument from the Kuzari. In a significant number of cases, that argument really is weak. The precision and the details are a product of a more modern way of thinking. There is a certain level of interpretation that is necessary, if only the interpretation of words. And word interpretation too is a kind of Oral Torah. In addition, even if we understand that “totafot” means tefillin, it is still likely that some specification is needed as to what that is. Although such specifications are sometimes created by the Sages even in Torah laws (what commentators call: “Scripture handed them over to the Sages”).
In general, the Oral Torah is a tradition, and its existence depends on our trust in tradition. A priori arguments that prove its existence are fairly weak. Moreover, some of what is called “tradition” did not come from Sinai but was created by the Sages over the generations. Their authority is based on “do not deviate” (at least according to Maimonides), and therefore the obligation to follow this does not depend on authenticity (that is, on whether these things really came from Sinai).

Thank you, Rabbi. So that is exactly my question: do you agree that unlike examples such as the size of the sukkah and the like, there are examples where clearly a decision is necessary, even if the Holy One, blessed be He, did not say what the Jewish law is in that case? I am speaking mainly about cases where the answer is yes or no: is a Torah-level doubt permitted or forbidden? That has nothing to do with meticulousness.
Even if the Holy One, blessed be He, did not say whether being stringent in a Torah-level doubt is permitted or forbidden, there still has to be a decision on the matter, whether trying to align with His דעת or actually to create the law in the matter (creative midrashic derivations), and it cannot be left open.
From here I want to prove that there are two options: 1. God told Moses orally the law regarding a Torah-level doubt. 2. God did not say it, but He gave the Sages authority to decide it.
In any case, the slot cannot remain empty, unlike the parallel question about the size of the sukkah.

Even about this I am not sure. It is entirely possible that laws of doubt were not given, but it is true that if they were not given, then it is reasonable that authority was given to the Sages to determine them. But that was not given explicitly, only by implication, and therefore there is no real argument here. Whoever finds this reasonable will accept it, and whoever does not, will not.

I didn’t understand why the argument is weak.
I want to prove that logically there must be authority (I’m only sharpening the logic by means of examples), not that God explicitly gave authority to the Sages (or even implicitly).

The argument is weak because one can manage without authority if each person is allowed to act according to his own understanding. Therefore, in my opinion, the tradition that says there is authority and there is an Oral Torah is the basis, not a priori arguments that prove there must be authority.

If uniformity is not necessary, then even regarding the interpretation of the Torah’s laws themselves one could say that each person should act according to his own understanding. How is that different enough from a Torah-level doubt that can be left for each individual?
After all, you yourself wrote above: “Obviously one must determine what to do in laws of doubt.”
Now I saw that you yourself agree with me (quote from one of the responsa here):
“The source is threefold: from the Torah, from tradition, and from logic…
Logically it is clear that there needs to be central authority, as in any legal system. It is not reasonable to leave a law code without an authorized interpreter. Beyond that, just as we accepted upon ourselves the Torah given at Sinai, we accepted upon ourselves the authority of the Sages even if it has no source.
Incidentally, every legal system has the same phenomenon, that the highest institution defines for itself what its powers are. Thus the Supreme Court in Israel defines for itself its powers—what it does intervene in and what it does not. This is always the case, and logic suggests that this is how it should be (though of course there can be disagreement about the scope of the authority).”

There is indeed such logic, but as I wrote, by itself it is weak and not sufficient.

All right, I’ll go with your final wording (that the logic is weak), even though it directly and completely contradicts your other wording: “Logically it is clear that there needs to be authority.”