Q&A: Our Obligation to the Talmud
Our Obligation to the Talmud
Question
It seems to me that recently the Rabbi answered in one of his responsa (unfortunately I wasn’t able to find it) that we are obligated to the Oral Torah, even though parts of it were not given at Sinai and even contradict what was given at Sinai, because the sages have formal authority. The Rabbi based this on two things: the verse, “Do not deviate from the matter they tell you, right or left,” and the fact that the Jewish people accepted the Talmud upon themselves. (It seems to me that the Rabbi also had to invoke the acceptance of the Jewish people because not everything written in the Talmud was taught to us by a religious court of ordained sages, and therefore it is possible that the law of “do not deviate” does not apply to all of it. If I did not understand correctly, please correct me.)
My question is: at the time when the Jewish people accepted the Talmud, perhaps they believed that all the laws in it, or at least most of them, were from Sinai, in line with the plain sense of the statement that everything a veteran student will one day innovate was given to Moses at Sinai. Seemingly they also thought then (as people continued to think for thousands more years) that a law given to Moses at Sinai means exactly what it says, and they accepted the authority of the sages as an essential authority, not a formal one! If so, was this not an acceptance made in error, and therefore non-binding?
Answer
Where did you get this astonishing assumption from? Why do you think that is what they thought? Did the sages of that time not know that there were interpretations and innovations that had developed over the generations? Were they unfamiliar with disputes? Did they not speak about “even if they tell you that right is left,” and fail to understand the concept of formal authority (which exists even when the ruling is mistaken)?
Discussion on Answer
But that is what I was talking about. The agreement in question is that of the sages, not of the general public.
How does acceptance by sages obligate the general public? I thought the obligation takes effect by the law of a vow; if someone else makes a vow, no matter how much of a sage he is, that doesn’t obligate me.
Apparently this works through representation/leadership by those who understand the matter.
Maimonides too, in his discussion of the renewal of ordination, speaks about the agreement of all the sages of the Land of Israel.
If you feel that this does not obligate you—then don’t do it.
I wasn’t talking about what the sages of that time thought, but about what the masses thought, when they accepted upon themselves to obey everything written in the Talmud and gave it formal authority, even for those laws that were innovated not by the Sanhedrin. Suppose the average Jew of that time was familiar with the concept of formal authority in connection with the Sanhedrin, but how do we know that he understood that he was not obligated to the laws added to the Talmud by virtue of “do not deviate,” and nevertheless decided to accept them?