Q&A: The Oral Torah According to Rabbi Sherki
The Oral Torah According to Rabbi Sherki
Question
Hello and blessings,
I saw a few exchanges here on the site regarding midrashic derivations from verses and halakhic rulings.
In the past I heard a few lectures by Rabbi Sherki in which he argued that all the Jewish laws were transmitted in the Oral Torah, and that the scriptural derivations are later dialectics attempting to find a connection to the Written Torah. An example of this from the four species: he asks what exactly was before they derived “the fruit of a beautiful tree” = an etrog, “that dwells on its tree,” etc. As if they left the study hall and said, “Guys, starting today we take an etrog”? Obviously they were already fulfilling that commandment.
I hope I didn’t misstate what he said — that’s how I understood it.
I’d be happy to hear your view on the matter.
Thank you very much.
Answer
The thesis you cited in his name is that all the derivations are merely supportive/upholding and not creative.
It is completely clear that this is not correct. Maimonides writes in several places (Introduction to the Mishnah, the second root) that there are derivations that create and derivations that are merely supportive, and the overwhelming majority are creative (except for something like three or four, as he wrote in a responsum to Rabbi Pinchas of Alexandria on the laws of marriage). Regarding the etrog specifically, Maimonides already wrote that this is a supportive derivation, and that clearly appears from the Talmudic passage in Rosh Hashanah. There several different sources are brought, and all of them lead to the conclusion that it is an etrog. That is an indication that the fact that it is an etrog was transmitted to them in advance, and afterward they looked for a source to anchor it in the Torah. But in most derivations this is not the case, and even regarding a verbal analogy, which a person may not derive on his own unless he received it from his rabbi, Nachmanides and some of his students wrote that this is not so (rather, only a detail came down from Sinai, and the rest was completed by the exegetes. See the Talmudic Encyclopedia, entry “Verbal Analogy”).
Beyond all this, one gains nothing at all from the thesis that all derivations are merely supportive. It still is not clear why we would need this unconvincing dialectic. Unless you show that it is convincing, in which case again there is no need for the answer that they are all merely supportive.
The clearest example usually brought for this is Rabbi Akiva’s derivation in Shabbat 64b from the verse “and she in her menstrual impurity”:
As it was taught in a baraita: “And she in her menstrual impurity” — the early elders said that she should not put on eye makeup, nor rouge herself, nor adorn herself with colored garments, until Rabbi Akiva came and taught: if so, you are making her repulsive to her husband, and the result will be that her husband divorces her. So what does the verse teach by saying, “and she in her menstrual impurity”? She shall remain in her state of menstrual impurity until she comes into the water.
Discussion on Answer
In my opinion,
it can be explained this way: he means that there are two tracks of Torah: the Written Torah and the Oral Torah (with respect to Jewish law).
And the track of the Oral Torah is a method that is disconnected from the plain meaning of the verses. It develops in its own independent way, detached from the plain meaning of Scripture. The same is true of verbal analogy (and there it has a different plain meaning).
And the derivations of the Sages are only in the category of connecting the two Torahs. After all, it cannot be that they were given by one Shepherd and yet are different… so the Sages come to teach us that they are, as it were, hinted at in the Written Torah.
As far as I know, even according to the Rabbi, the words of the Sages are not the plain meaning of Scripture… is that really so?
And is the plain meaning of Scripture in “and she in her menstrual impurity” the view of the early sages or of Rabbi Akiva?
P.S. As far as I remember, among Beta Israel, during menstruation she sits in a special house.
I completely agree with the first part and disagree with your conclusion. Obviously the derivation is not bound to the plain meaning and does not try to replace it. I have discussed this at length in several places. But the conclusion that all derivations are merely supportive does not follow from this, and it is also not correct.
I didn’t understand.
You hold that there are tools of derivation that are not connected to the level of the plain meaning of Scripture, and they have the power to create new laws hewn out of Scripture?
By the way, I once had a question: if the Sanhedrin wants to change a law and they do not know whether it is a law given to Moses at Sinai (the minority) or a law created by one of the rabbinical courts (the majority), can one say that the minority is nullified by the majority?
Indeed. That is what Maimonides holds, and I too, in my humble way, follow in the hem of his cloak. In fact, that is what the Talmud itself holds, unless one looks at it through apologetic eyes.
Definitely. I do not think this is nullification, but rather following the majority.
Thank you very much for the answer. For anyone interested, here are the words from Rabbi Sherki’s site: http://ravsherki.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1545:15451545-1545&Itemid=100513
From what I understood from reading, there is an essential issue here of defining the function of the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, and not an apologetic/profitable thesis. In any case, I did not understand from the piece whether, according to Rabbi Sherki, all derivations are across-the-board merely supportive.
Rabbi Sherki presents it in a more orderly way here:
https://ravsherki.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12:1212-12&catid=413&Itemid=100513
In the background, one should remember that the thesis that all derivations are merely supportive is based on the claim that they are unconvincing, and in particular it was said as an answer to the heretics who denied Jewish law and the derivations.