Q&A: The Eternity of the Torah
The Eternity of the Torah
Question
Hello Rabbi,
My brother raised a question that I didn’t know how to answer.
If God knows everything and the Torah is eternal, how does the Torah include commandments that are characteristic only of its own time? How does it not include commandments suited to the reality of our own day, and why did it not provide answers in advance to future questions? For example, why doesn’t it say explicitly what the law is regarding electricity on the Sabbath? (After all, God knew that one day there would be electricity.) And why wasn’t it stated that women are permitted to be female rabbis who issue halakhic rulings? (In fact, the prevalent view is still that it is forbidden, but there are some who support this possibility on the grounds that the prohibition belonged to a different cultural era and is therefore no longer relevant.)
If we say that the Torah itself contains within it the possibility of changing Jewish law and allows freedom of interpretation in keeping with the spirit of the times, that raises difficulties such as: how, then, can we say that the Torah is eternal? Does God know everything?
And in general, another question: why would God want us to keep the commandments at all? Whether we say “there is no king without a people” or whether we say that the commandments are meant to improve the person himself, these answers raise difficulties and do not sit well with me—especially when it comes to fine points of Jewish law, small details, or situations that contradict natural logic and whose meaning cannot be understood.
Thanks in advance.
Answer
You asked several questions here, each of which requires a lengthy discussion. I’ll address them briefly.
The eternity of the Torah means that its fundamental directives are eternal, but not necessarily their applications. The applications change with the circumstances. Someone who preserves the Torah’s instructions exactly as they are in every situation is actually the one who makes it non-eternal. I’ve written here more than once about the example of swimsuits (you can search the site).
Why doesn’t the Torah write the applications explicitly? Because that is the role of the sages. It writes the principles. Beyond that, I don’t think that the Holy One, blessed be He, necessarily knew everything that would happen in the future, since that depends on the decisions and choices of human beings. And beyond that, even if He does know, I can certainly understand that there are reasons not to write it. After all, even if the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to, it is impossible to write down the changing instructions for every possible situation throughout all of history. It just isn’t practical.
As I understand it, the purpose of the commandments is the Holy One, blessed be He—not us, and not the world. I explained in my book The First Existent that it is not reasonable that their purpose is human beings or the world, because if that were so, it would make more sense not to create man and the world in the first place, and then there would be no need for commandments or for fixing anything. Therefore it is more reasonable that the purpose of the commandments lies outside the world—that is, with the Holy One, blessed be He. This is what is called “the secret of worship as a need on high,” which the Ari linked to the verse, “Ascribe strength to God.” You can search here on the site; there are several discussions on these matters.
Discussion on Answer
There are intuitions with regard to these issues as well.
If the purpose of the commandments is outside the world, then how do the sages know the correct parameters, like the parable of the medicines in the Kuzari? Rather, you would have to assume Karaism.