Q&A: Torah from Heaven
Torah from Heaven
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’m reading the trilogy and understanding that the Rabbi makes a clear distinction between a verse/obligation from the Torah, which we are bound by even without fully understanding it, and the laws/authority of the Sages, which one needs to understand and accept insofar as it is correct.
My question is: what does the Rabbi think about the writing of the Torah? Was all of it given to Moses from Heaven as it is? Or was it written retroactively many years later (as scholarship suggests)?
If it was written years later, how can we distinguish between a verse spoken by the Almighty and later writing/interpretation by the editor/author?
Thank you very much.
Answer
Where did you learn that from? As far as I recall, I didn’t make such a distinction anywhere. I distinguished between essential and formal authority, but that is not a distinction between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. In the book I also expressed my view regarding the authenticity of the Torah, but that does not directly relate to the question of authority.
Does it really matter whether Moses wrote the entire Torah through prophecy, or whether he wrote only part of it and Hezekiah and Ezra added to it through prophecy?
So yes, the Torah is portrayed as having been entirely given to Moses through prophecy, but practically speaking, in my opinion it doesn’t really matter if certain parts were also given through prophecy to someone else. They have the same status of holiness.