Q&A: The Hebrew Bible and the Sages
The Hebrew Bible and the Sages
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
I’ve had a question gnawing at me for a long time. I’m not very well versed in the sources, so I’ll ask it in general terms:
When you study the words of the Sages in the Talmud and in the midrashim, you learn about a huge number of Jewish laws, enactments, and values that we are commanded to observe. In addition, there are countless narratives about Judaism—reward and punishment, Gehinnom and the Garden of Eden, the wicked and the righteous, the end of days, angels, and so on. Now, the Sages of course try to reconcile their narrative with the books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) through endless interpretations and sayings that basically rewrite the biblical period and its characters so that they fit all of the above: King David was righteous, Samson was equal to Moses and Aaron, and so on and so on. I simply don’t have more examples in my head right now, but you keep getting endless interpretations and explanations that paint Judaism and the Hebrew Bible in a certain picture.
But then you go study the Hebrew Bible and you don’t see anything that resembles all this, not even as a hint. There is no trace of conversion, of the prohibition on intermarriage, and in certain periods even of the prohibition on idolatry—not to mention all the Jewish laws and commandments they didn’t keep. You encounter murder and sexual immorality on every other page. In short, it seems that there is almost no trace of the Judaism that the Sages try to present, and it looks like they simply are not in dialogue with one another.
I know I mixed together a lot of issues here, but their common denominator—and this is what is hard for me—is this: what is the meaning of this evolution that Judaism underwent under the hands of the Sages? Is it grounded in the Hebrew Bible? Is it even possible to reconcile the Sages and the Hebrew Bible in a rational way? Didn’t the Sages create something entirely new?
If you’ve written articles that touch on this subject, I’d be happy if you could point me to them. Thanks
Answer
I’ve written many things that touch on this, but the question is too general. Clearly the Torah undergoes evolution, and that is perfectly fine. The Torah itself does not state things clearly, and they cannot really be practiced as they stand. We also have a tradition that an Oral Torah was given, meaning interpretive and midrashic tools that add interpretations alongside the plain meaning. So there is no need, and no point, in looking for them in the plain meaning.
It may be that if you find a rabbinic determination that is plainly a distortion, there would be room to discuss whether it is binding. As long as you do not have certainty about that, the tradition is the preferable starting point (so long as it has not been proven otherwise).
Discussion on Answer
I answered what I had to answer.
Indeed, that’s what I wrote—that I don’t know of any place where the Rabbi answered the question seriously.
What I wrote can also be directed at specific parts:
1. "Clearly the Torah undergoes evolution, and that is perfectly fine."
2. "We also have a tradition that an Oral Torah was given, meaning interpretive and midrashic tools that add interpretations alongside the plain meaning. So there is no need, and no point, in looking for them in the plain meaning."
3. "It may be that if you find a rabbinic determination that is plainly a distortion, there would be room to discuss whether it is binding."
If in the time of the prophets they held a different theology, then it isn’t obvious that this evolution is fine.
Same here.
The Rabbi mentioned here only the part about Jewish laws that run parallel to the written text. But even that one branch is not clear—why add new parallel laws if the Torah did not write them?
Guy:
It is clear that the Sages introduced innovations, but it is not true that their words have no basis in Scripture. For purposes of illustration I’ll use the Jewish laws you mentioned. As for conversion, I assume you agree that the Hebrew Bible contains a distinction between Israel and the nations ("and you shall be to Me a treasured possession from among all the peoples"). The question is: from what stage can a non-Jew living in proximity to a Jewish community be considered a Jew himself? The Sages formalized that through a procedure that has no testimony in the written texts. There is a prohibition, "You shall not intermarry with them"; the question is what the boundaries of that prohibition are (only Canaanites, or non-Jews in general). דווקא the rebuke of the prophets over transgressions proves that they really were transgressions in their time as well, and not an invention of the Sages. In addition, not everything that has no testimony in the written texts is an invention of the Sages. For example, there is no testimony in the written texts to the removal of leaven on Passover (in practice), but in the writings of the Jews of Elephantine we see that they observed the commandment (they locked away all the leaven in a separate place). Not exactly like the tradition of the Sages, although it is worth remembering that even according to the Sages, by Torah law it is enough simply to nullify the leaven. It seems that in aggadic interpretations they allowed themselves more freedom, but you can see that freedom of interpretation in aggadah as opposed to halakhic conservatism in many places even today. If so, it seems to me that in every individual case, the burden of proof is on the one claiming innovation.
To the questioner,
To the best of my knowledge, the Rabbi has never written in an organized way on this topic, or anything close to it.
Other than the fact that in his view only a tiny amount of laws given to Moses at Sinai was actually given there, along with the very idea of interpreting the Torah.
Rabbi,
I don’t recall that you addressed the main thrust of his difficulty: that the theology presented to us in the words of the Sages is not close to the theology found in the words of the Hebrew Bible.
So much so that it even seems that the Sages are much closer to the Torah—however far they may be—than the Prophets and Writings are to the Torah… because it seems that the whole business of interpreting the Torah and observing detailed Jewish law, aside from some public form, barely exists anywhere in the Prophets. Even if they sometimes use borrowed language from the Torah (that is, they knew the Five Books of Moses).
It does seem that at the beginning of the Second Temple period (Ezra and Nehemiah) and in Second Temple literature there is already a completely different process—of observing Jewish law. But why justify a new theology of Torah interpretation דווקא when we no longer have prophets?!
Because from what one sees in the prophets that were written down, it seems that the Holy One, blessed be He, did not particularly insist on that at all.