Q&A: The Oral Torah
The Oral Torah
Question
Hello to Rabbi Michael Abraham,
I understood that you hold that the Oral Torah developed relatively late, only during the Second Temple period. Likewise, your words seem to imply that until the Second Temple period, the halakhic tradition was oriented toward the plain meaning of Scripture and not toward interpretations far removed from the plain sense of the verses.
If so, I wanted to ask: from where did the Sages get the authority to innovate and take the biblical verses away from their plain meaning in practical Jewish law? After all, they did not have an ancient tradition that this was the correct and proper way to proceed. And if it is based on reasoning, it is not at all clear that this is indeed the proper way to proceed. So wouldn’t it be appropriate nowadays to return to understanding the plain meaning of the verses?
Answer
I don’t know where you got that understanding from in my words. In my view, the tradition began at Sinai, and there the foundations of interpretive exposition were given. Of course, the use of those foundations took place throughout history, and therefore Jewish law develops over time.
Discussion on Answer
In the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) you hardly find laws at all. It doesn’t deal with that. Interpretive exposition develops all the time, but its source is a law given to Moses at Sinai.
I didn’t know you didn’t think that; I don’t remember where I got it from.
If so, then why don’t we find laws of this sort—interpretive derivations—within the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)?
And what does the Rabbi think about the view of scholars who claim that interpretive exposition is a development of the Second Temple period? And that before that the Sadducees were dominant, and they were like Karaites. As I understand it, some of these examples also draw from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).