Though Maimonides and others thought that from the outset the author’s intention (= the Holy One, blessed be He) was that these were allegorical stories.

Obviously. By the way, as far as I remember Maimonides spoke about dreams (like the visit of the angels) and not about allegories. The allegorists expanded his approach (and as is well known, they were put under a ban by Rashba for this).
As for the aggadic sayings of the Sages, Maimonides did express an allegorical approach (in his introduction to the Mishnah).

But since we are dealing with the author’s intention, then only things that reason can understand to be a dream—like the prophecies of a donkey and the seeing of angels—are said to be a dream. But the three patriarchs and the twelve tribes, the ten plagues, the number of the children of Israel when they left Egypt, the duration of the journey in the wilderness, the structure of the Tabernacle and its materials, and many other technical details, are all interpreted throughout the accepted tradition (that is, excluding exceptional views that were forcefully rejected) in a literal and precise way.
Therefore, for example, if it were clearly discovered that acacia wood, which the Torah describes in the Tabernacle, did not exist in that period, then that would be a refutation of the truth of the Torah according to all the accepted sages, and all Jews would be permitted to cook a kid in its mother’s milk. If and when such a strange discovery were to occur, it would indeed be possible to propose a more softened approach toward the facts and the appendages of the Torah, but this would be a dramatic and enormous departure from what has been accepted by the entire people for thousands of years.

Did Laban the Aramean speak Hebrew? Did Shechem and Hamor speak Hebrew? Did Pharaoh speak Hebrew? Did the elders of Moab and Midian and Balak and Balaam all speak Hebrew? According to what is told in the Torah, yes.
And the rest—go and learn.

A. It’s a translation of what they said—what’s the problem?
B. Could you explain your hints a bit more? Where exactly should one go, and what should one learn there?

You’re welcome to write a new Torah according to what suits you, but in our Torah it is written that this is what they said; it doesn’t say that this is a translation of what they said.

And what do you infer from that?

The Last Halakhic Decisor, the people of the city of Shechem definitely spoke Hebrew. After all, Canaanite and Hebrew are one language and one set of words.
Moabite as well (Balak’s language) is in fact a dialect of Canaanite/Hebrew; if you read the Moabite inscription on the Mesha Stele you’ll understand the entire text very easily, for example (with added vocalization): “And Chemosh said to me: Go, seize Nebo from Israel. And I went by night and fought against it from the break of dawn until noon, and I seized it, and I killed all of it, seven thousand men and boys, and women and girls and pregnant women, for I had devoted it to Ashtar-Chemosh.”

“And the interpreter was between them,” “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak with us in Judean,” “And the Moabites call them Emim” (Deuteronomy 2:10–11), “and the Ammonites call them Zamzummim”—it seems clear that the Hebrew Bible automatically translates the general conversation, and only when there is a need to refer specifically to the language actually being spoken does it mention it.

Fine. Let’s assume that in Shechem they spoke Hebrew. And let’s assume that when the elders of Moab turned to the elders of Midian it was in Hebrew and in the same dialect that appears in the Torah. And let’s go on assuming whatever the imagination wants to assume. The question that still remains is:
Is the Torah the words of Shechem son of Hamor or the words of God? Because if the Torah is the words of Shechem son of Hamor, then you can also add the words of Nasrallah and Khomeini to the Torah and say that those too are the words of God.

Do you think Rashba’s approach of putting people under a ban was justified?
Thanks to the Rabbi for the answer.

In principle, I do not accept bans over beliefs at all. Certainly not prohibitions on philosophy, regardless of the conclusions one reaches. But Rashba’s ban was on studying philosophy before age 25, and that is not completely unacceptable. Even so, in my opinion there is no place for such bans. A person can always form a position.

So how do you deal with the claim that Judaism and tradition are supposedly meant to preserve themselves against criticism דווקא through bans, excommunications, and appeals to authority, instead of substantive engagement with a sincere aim of seeking the truth?

Do Jewish history and Jewish law not, seemingly, contradict your position as a Torah-legitimate one?

I didn’t understand the question. I wrote that I don’t agree with bans. How should I deal with those who do impose them? I won’t agree with them.

With God’s help, Independence Day 5781

To Sh.I. — greetings,

Judaism, which constantly encounters different opinions and outlooks, finds itself in an ongoing dilemma between the approach of the wisest of all men, who said, “God is with me and I shall prevail”: I can successfully cope with new ideas, engage them substantively, and sift out the “food from the waste.”

“The other side of the coin” is the concern of Shimon (and Levi) over the attachment of the Jewish people to the men of Shechem, who are prepared to convert for the sake of marriage. Shimon and Levi are worried about the “new brother-in-law”: instead of being positively influenced by Jacob’s path, Shechem may negatively influence—“Should he treat our sister like a harlot?”

And the Bible presents the risk in both paths. Itiel’s openness brought the wisest of all men to the state where “his wives turned his heart astray.” And Shimon’s zealotry brought him to a state where he fought in burning rage even against his brother Joseph, under the false suspicion that he was acting from selfish motives and that his path would lead to the disintegration of the house of Jacob.

The “golden mean” is to find the right balance between openness and the fear of it. As Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook expounded at the opening of the Hebrew University (brought in Essays of Rabbi Kook) on the verse: “Then you shall see and be radiant, and your heart shall tremble and expand… the wealth of nations shall come to you.” On the one hand there must be “and your heart shall expand,” to receive new ideas from world culture; on the other hand there must also be “and tremble,” because of the fear of being dragged along and swept away, out of inferiority and self-nullification, after every passing “trend.”

Rashba proposes a path of cautious openness: first of all to fill oneself with knowledge from the sources of Judaism, from its own internal wells—the biblical texts and the words of the Sages and the commentaries of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim). And only after a person has filled his belly from the sources of Judaism should he also open himself to general thought at a more mature age, when he has maturity and ripeness, knowledge and tools to cope without inferiority with the questions that general thought raises. Questions that one who has thoroughly studied the Jewish sources comes to see that our Sages dealt with and gave a fitting answer to.

There is a well-known joke about the Jew who became a heretic because of cholent. Every Sabbath after the cholent he would go up to bed with Don Isaac Abarbanel’s commentaries, which in each chapter present dozens of questions and at the end offer an explanation that resolves them all. But after the cholent the Jew would fall asleep in the middle of the questions and never once reach the answers.

The sources of Judaism need to be studied with patience and composure. Only through fundamental study are all the questions exposed—but the answers are also found.

With blessings,
Yaron Fish”l Ordner

With God’s help, 4 Iyar 5781

The jurist Prof. Daniel Friedman already pointed out (in his article “And You Shall Remember That You Were a Slave,” on the Da’at website) the uniqueness of the Bible in relation to the historiographic literature of the ancient Near East: the Bible is the only one that does not merely glorify its heroes, but also exposes and criticizes their weaknesses and failures. No ancient historiographer would have noted that his people originated from slaves!

Another indication of the reliability of the biblical narratives is that they were preserved by a people that through almost all of its history was split into rival tribes and kingdoms, and later was dispersed to the ends of the earth, and nevertheless all the scattered communities of the people preserved an identical Torah, which all the diasporas of the people hold. Even the Samaritans, who came to the kingdom of Israel after its exile to Assyria, hold the same text of the Torah, with only minor variations.

Christianity and Islam, which were spread by conquering empires that ruled many lands, had the ability to impose their faith by the power of a central government upon broad populations. Judaism almost never had a strong central government. It is therefore clear that an “invented” Torah could not have been spread and accepted among all the far-flung communities of a opinionated and critical people, unless it corresponded to a uniform shared tradition dating back to the days of the Exodus from Egypt.

With blessings,
Amiyoz Yaron Schnitzler

Are there rules/signs by which one can distinguish between an allegory and a historical event in the Torah? For example, would you consider the story of the revelation at Mount Sinai an allegory? If not, why not?

I don’t have a comprehensive criterion. It’s a matter of impression. The stranger and less plausible the event is as a real event, the more inclined I am to see it as an allegory. As for the revelation at Mount Sinai, if that is an allegory then there was no revelation and no event, and the whole Torah loses its meaning. If all my obligation is based on a covenant signed at that event, and there was no event, what remains?