Q&A: Problems with the Talmud
Problems with the Talmud
Question
Rabbi, I know you get these kinds of questions a lot, but I’d still be glad for an answer based on your own personal reflections.
1) Rabbi, basically where does the authority of the Sages come from in the Torah? I heard that the verse “if a matter is too difficult” speaks about matters between one person and another, and not about halakhic problems.
2) How was the Mishnah created, and why does the Talmud interpret it and try to delve into their reasoning? And where does the authority of the Sages or of the Mishnah come from? Maybe there were problems along the way, and maybe the apocryphal books are actually correct.
3) Suppose I turn to a Karaite who believes that some kind of halakhic authority is needed as a basis for Jewish law and commandments, and that you can’t understand it from the Written Torah in its plain sense, but he says that the source is not the Talmud but the apocryphal books—what do I say to him?
Answer
I’ve answered this here on the site more than once.
- Not true. It says, “between one kind of legal case and another, between one kind of lesion and another.” Beyond that, if the Sages interpreted it this way, then that is the interpretation that is binding in Jewish law. True, they are grounding their own authority, but that is how it works in every hierarchical system. The top level always determines its own authority.
- From the fact that people accepted it upon themselves.
- Nothing. If someone does not accept the Oral Torah, I don’t know what to say to him.