Rabbi Michi, I too have pestered your honored Torah several times with similar questions: who was the halakhic decisor in the days of King Saul? Did our ancestors eat cheeseburgers?—and I did not merit an answer. In my opinion the reason is very simple: indeed, in the days of King Saul there was no halakhic decisor. More than that, the Oral Torah was barely expressed in the life of the nation at all (maybe a few tiny hints here and there). That is to say, the Oral Torah was extremely limited, and our ancestors certainly ate cheeseburgers!
Where do we find that a prophet transmitted any Oral Torah?
What tradition was there earlier?
“Developing a fixed Torah”?… that is really going very far…

Doesn’t the Rabbi hold that a prophet cannot issue a halakhic ruling, except for a temporary ruling? I didn’t fully understand what is meant by precedents.
By the way, it’s not clear to me whether the Rabbi accepts that the thirteen principles themselves were also not given at Sinai, and that at Sinai only the authority to expound was given.
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Binyamin,
it seems to me that the difference is that it looks like you’re asking in order to pick a fight, or just for the sake of asking, and even from the style of the question it already comes across that way. I may be mistaken, but at least that’s how it looks to me.

Isaiah, that’s my style. It really only seems that way to you. I am asking in complete seriousness in order to get an answer.
Rabbi Michi refuses to answer me because in his view the answer is already embedded in my question, so that I’m not really asking but merely presenting a claim that he has to refute. As I said, truth be told, I would be glad if people addressed what I say even if it looks like mere “provocation.” On the contrary: if I’m wrong, I’d be happy for someone to set me straight.

Binyamin, I have written several times that I have no time for riddles. If you want to ask something, please do so properly and spell it out.

Isaiah, I meant Jewish law as we know it now (the Shulchan Arukh, etc.). In my opinion the principles were given at Sinai, but this is a dynamic law given to Moses at Sinai. I explained this in detail in The Spirit of the Law and in the article on the second root.

Rabbi Michi, I am asking explicitly: in whose hands was the Oral Torah entrusted in the days of King Saul?

You want names? I don’t have them. The Sages speak about Shimei son of Gera, for example. In Ethics of the Fathers the transmission of the Torah is described through elders and prophets. That is apparently not the Written Torah. See also Maimonides’ introduction to his commentary on the Mishnah.

Thank you, but how did they ask the prophet if the prophet cannot issue halakhic rulings?
And also, what is the Rabbi’s opinion regarding rabbinic laws and not only the fixing of Torah-level laws? For example, throughout the Hebrew Bible we find isolated enactments (fasts, Purim, etc.). But it seems that the Sages significantly increased both the fences and the enactments. But if this is so desirable, as the Men of the Great Assembly taught us in Ethics of the Fathers, why didn’t they do so earlier? Why didn’t the prophets do so? Doesn’t it seem from here that the Torah was not given with this in mind?

It seems that in that period a prophet could issue halakhic rulings. “It is not in heaven” is an ethos that developed in the age of wisdom, when prophecy had ceased. And even if a prophet cannot innovate anything, he can rule on something without innovating it (that is, instruct what was said at Sinai and not create something new).
See all the answers regarding “let it stand unresolved”—that Elijah will resolve the difficulties even though he is a prophet. Some of them are brought in Rabbi Margoliyot’s introduction to the responsa Min HaShamayim.

I don’t know that they didn’t do so earlier. For example, there was the Scroll of Fasts, which was annulled and reinstated. And even if not, enactments are made when there is a need, not just for the sake of making enactments. Apparently there was less need. This can be tied to what I wrote above. If Jewish law is the result of a prophet’s instruction and not of a fixed written legal system, there is less need for enactments that preserve the fixed rules.

Good morning, Rabbi. I agree that this is not speaking about the Written Torah, but it certainly is not speaking about the Oral Torah as we know it today either. In truth, I looked for sources testifying to the appearance of the Oral Torah as we received it from the Sages, and I managed to dredge up from the depths a limited number of ancient practices that appear in the Mishnah and whose sources are not necessarily Pharisaic. By the way, was Shimei son of Gera the head of the Sanhedrin? Rashi on II Samuel 16:10 claims that he was. Did Rashi not know that the Sanhedrin was established around the time of Ezra?
Does the Rabbi have proofs regarding a prophet functioning as a halakhic decisor? Is there any evidence for such a thing…?
Was a law given to Moses at Sinai passed on as an esoteric tradition from prophet to prophet?

I really do not understand this discussion. The Sages tell us that there is a tradition of the Oral Torah. You think they are deceiving us just because you didn’t find documentation for it. In my view the documentation really does not matter, especially since there was nowhere to document it (the Hebrew Bible does not deal with halakhic give-and-take and halakhic discussions).

There is no such tradition of an Oral Torah from Mount Sinai. Obviously this is a nice gimmick and nothing more. And the Sages certainly know that.

“Moses received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it… and the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly.”
Up to this point, that is the story of the Written Torah.
And from here the Oral Torah begins: “They said three things.”

They said. That is not what is written in the Written Torah. That is not what God said. It is what they said—by word of mouth.

And the matter is clear.

Already in the Prophets one can see that there was Jewish law there that apparently relied on the Torah, as in the haftarah for the New Moon, where Saul assumes that David did not come because he is not pure, and the Shunammite woman, whose husband says to her that it is neither Sabbath nor New Moon. Also among the Samaritans, the only sacrifice that may be offered without the Temple is the Passover sacrifice (and not “My pleasing aroma”). In the Second Temple period the recognition took shape—something that had already begun among the later prophets—that this was not enough, and that there needed to be a full and systematic grounding of Jewish law in the Torah according to the rules of interpretation.

I didn’t understand. First the Rabbi explained why they did not use the Oral Torah: because there were prophets—and “it is not in heaven” is an ethos that developed in a later period when prophecy had ceased. But afterwards he argues that the Sages say there is a tradition of the Oral Torah, and therefore it is clear that there was such a thing even though we don’t find documentation for it in the Hebrew Bible, because the Hebrew Bible does not deal with halakhic give-and-take?

And in general, if there is a prophet, why is a priest needed? It does not say, “Your prophets shall teach Your laws to Jacob and Your Torah to Israel.”

I did not say they did not use the Oral Torah, only that it was not in its present form. The principles were there, and the institutionalization, conceptualization, and codification came later.

A priest is needed to teach Jewish law and serve in the Temple. When there is a problem in Jewish law, perhaps they turned to a prophet. Or perhaps the priest only served in the Temple.

It seems to me we’ve exhausted this.