Question

Hello, you write that everything is open and up for discussion. I saw that you opened the question of God’s existence for discussion and argued, on the basis of rational analysis, that God exists. Even so, from there to saying that the Written Torah is the word of God is still a big leap. And even after accepting that the Written Torah is the word of God, there is still a big gap before accepting the Sages as a binding authority. (The argument that the authority of the Sages derives from “according to all that they instruct you” is not clear to me; according to the plain meaning of the verses, it is speaking about a very specific case, and the rulings of the Sages do not meet its criteria. The argument that I am bound by the Sages because the Jewish people accepted them as binding authority is also unclear to me.) My question is whether, in your opinion, after a person accepts the existence of God, rational analysis leads him to see the Written Torah as the word of God and to accept the Oral Torah as binding authority. (As far as I am concerned, there is no basis for saying that what is written in the words of the Sages is the word of God and that everything they wrote is correct; the discussion is only about them as binding authority.)

It may be that you have written about this and I simply didn’t notice; if so, I would be glad if you could point me to it.

Thank you very much.