Q&A: Interpretation by the Sages
Interpretation by the Sages
Question
The Rabbi said yesterday that almost all Torah-level commandments are the result of interpretation by the Sages, and included in this the counting of the bones in the Mishnah in Oholot. What does the Rabbi think about the principle that measurements, interpositions, and partitions are a law given to Moses at Sinai? And doesn’t that also include the counting of the bones, which is a “measure” for the majority count that conveys impurity in a tent?
Answer
Even a law given to Moses at Sinai undergoes interpretation and development. Very few of them were given in their exact final wording. The measure from Sinai may be “most of the bones,” but how many bones there are and what counts as a majority is something the Sages determined.
Discussion on Answer
In the past I studied history, God save us,
all kinds of processes Homo sapiens went through until he reached exalted wisdom like nowadays…
For example, appointing someone charged with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust to head a nation that is… supposed to be morally a light unto the nations…
No joke🤔 that’s the situation…
Among other things, the invention of parchment… about 2,500 years ago.
Compared to Judaism, that’s around the time of the prophet Jeremiah, give or take,
a little before the destruction of the First Temple.
Oops—the Talmud learns from a verse (and from a law given to Moses at Sinai?) that one must write specifically on parchment. So how could Moses our Teacher have been commanded about parchment if it would only be invented some 950 years later?
Would it make sense to command sending the Torah by email, which would only be invented another 3,500 years later?
I asked a Torah scholar, and he answered me that indeed,
apparently he was commanded to write on something durable (a book); back then that was papyrus or some other material,
and once parchment was invented, that became the durable thing (a book), and that is what the obligation refers to.
In other words, a law given to Moses at Sinai or an interpretation derived from a verse may sometimes later be expounded regarding something specific and projected backward onto the earlier case.
Rabbi Shimshon already says at the end of the first page of Mikvaot that a law given to Moses at Sinai does not necessarily mean to Moses, and not necessarily from Sinai,
rather apparently ancient traditions that the Sages had, and they wanted to give them authority so that people would not challenge them; the expression is “a law given to Moses at Sinai,” but not literally—rather an expression meaning something ancient.
As far as I recall, there are other medieval authorities who wrote this too; check Google.