Rabbi, what about the verse that says that Moses our Teacher explained this Torah? And we don’t relate to that, but rather to the Tannaim, so what was the point of his explaining it? Where is that explanation בכלל? In which tractate is his explanation found? Why is there no record of his explanation the way there is a record of the explanation of all the other commentators?!

On the other hand, how was the Oral Torah given at Sinai as an explanation of the Written Torah if the Written Torah itself was not given in full at Mount Sinai when the two Torahs were received together?
And how does it make sense that Moses our Teacher consulted with God after the giving of the Torah, when the law had already been decided that “it is not in heaven”? I don’t understand!

Thirdly, if it is a fact that their lateness does not affect their status—then how can it be ruled that “Jewish law uproots Scripture”? Which is stronger? Who here is the heretic regarding the status of the verses of the Torah?

I’m not sure I understood the questions. I’ll try to respond based on what I think I understood.
1. “Moses explained” does not necessarily mean explanation, but rather presenting the things themselves. But even if the intention is explanation, that is the Oral Torah. The fact that things are transmitted in the names of Tannaim or Amoraim does not mean it is all their invention. Especially since there are things that are laws given to Moses at Sinai, and those are certainly attributed to Moses.
2. The Oral Torah was also not given at Sinai, except for a few isolated things: word explanations, laws given to Moses at Sinai, and hermeneutical principles. And even if everything was given at Sinai, perhaps only the explanation of part of the Written Torah was given there.
3. Regarding Moses, the rule “it is not in heaven” does not apply. After all, he received the law of the daughters of Zelophehad or of the wood-gatherer from on high, just like the whole Torah.
4. I didn’t understand the question.

1. If all of Moses’ explanatory words are laws given to Moses at Sinai, then why distinguish them this way between Oral Torah, Written Torah, and laws given to Moses at Sinai? Isn’t that redundant? Are you hinting that the Tannaim inserted made-up things into the Oral Torah? Really?

2. There is no such thing. To say such a thing is heresy of the strongest kind imaginable. Rabbi, it explicitly says that Moses undertook to explain this Torah very clearly: “And you shall write on the stones all the words of this Torah very clearly,” and this reinforces “Moses undertook to explain this Torah, saying.”
And if only part of the explanation was given at Sinai, then how do we explain: “And you shall write on the stones all the words of this Torah very clearly,” with strong emphasis on the words “all the words of this Torah!!!!” It was all actually written and explained, not just part of it.

3. Wait, let’s check: is a sage preferable to a prophet or not? Yes, so that should include Moses too, and also because he too had already received the Torah and was commanded in it like everyone else.

4. You wrote that their lateness does not affect their status. Meaning, in the Written Torah too there are later sections, and despite that there is a rule that Jewish law can uproot Scripture—meaning Jewish law is disrespecting Scripture because it is stronger. So that doesn’t fit with the rule you said, that the fact of their lateness does not affect their status. So if that is so, why do other things yes uproot the status of the Written Torah?

1. Not correct. Maimonides explains that laws given to Moses at Sinai are only those laws received at Sinai that have no anchor in the text (through midrash or interpretation).
The Tannaim and the sages before them and after them did not insert “made-up things,” but interpretations, decrees, and enactments.

2. I’m glad, and impressed by the decisiveness. But decisiveness is not an argument. I explained the meaning of “very clearly.” Beyond that, there is no necessity even according to your approach that “very clearly” includes all interpretations and expositions. On the contrary, it is clear that you are mistaken. “All the words of the Torah” means the Written Torah, with the interpretations that existed then, and of course without what was innovated afterward.
And incidentally, even if this is heresy, it doesn’t really interest me. I am discussing the question of what is true, not what counts as heresy and what does not.

3. “A sage is preferable to a prophet” has nothing to do with this. This is not a question of superiority. Moses brought down the Torah itself, and if the rule “it is not in heaven” applied to him, then the whole Torah would be nullified. So clearly he is an exception. Note that even the rule “it is not in heaven” was received by us from heaven.

4. This is simply a misunderstanding. “Jewish law uproots/follows Scripture” is not because it is more or less important, but because the Oral Torah can take the verse away from its plain meaning and teach that its meaning is different. The oral halakhic tradition does not say that the verse is mistaken, but that its plain-sense interpretation is mistaken (or at least not used for Jewish law).

1. I understand that laws given to Moses at Sinai are laws without an anchor—but why do I need such laws in the first place? What is the problem with fixing those laws into the Written Torah or the Oral Torah like every other law? For example, what is the point of the Torah writing that the fringes should be sky-blue, but not writing that tefillin are black as a law given to Moses at Sinai? What is hidden here? What is the reason for this?
Question: do laws given to Moses at Sinai have the status that it was forbidden to write them down, just as it was forbidden to write the Oral Torah in Moses’ time?
If you are speaking about the sages and the Tannaim before them—then you are saying that they inserted interpretations, decrees, and enactments—but I always thought they had to pass on the Oral Torah as it is. And how can I, a simple person, distinguish between their interpretations and Moses our Teacher’s “explanation,” he being the first to pass the Oral Torah on.

If we say that Moses’ explanation is the Written Torah, then what are the words of God? Is the Written Torah not literally the word of God? Wasn’t that what we agreed?

The Rabbi claims that the Oral Torah develops—so how can we distinguish it and pass on the Oral Torah in its exact language and source exactly as it was received one by one at Sinai, or does the Rabbi hold that the Oral Torah is whatever was innovated over time, and then one must say that these innovations are new inventions that Moses our Teacher knew nothing about at all—and again, that is neither logical nor true.
Is the Rabbi hinting that the original Oral Torah, in its exact language at Sinai, word for word—spoken orally when it was given at Sinai—was not written in that exact language? And that the text we have in our hands is only the words of the Tannaim, which are their interpretations, decrees, and enactments?

4. When you say that the Oral Torah can take a verse out of its place and explain it differently—the same verse in question—then it is not clear to me why the interpretation of the verse can change according to the power of the Oral Torah and uproot it—if there is already Moses’ explanation on the whole Torah. For example, if you and I write an agreement, afterward you can’t say that we did not mean what we wrote in the plain sense. What comes out of this? It comes out that halakhah is not the Oral Torah, because where do we find that the Oral Torah is not the interpretation of the verses of the Torah? Note—when I say plain interpretation I mean the interpretation from which we descend to God’s intention in that verse. Therefore it makes no sense to say that Jewish law uproots Scripture, but rather to say that in certain cases Jewish law does not follow the plain sense—which could be legitimate. But that’s not how it is—because in truth Jewish law uproots Scripture—it uproots God’s intention, and the proof of this is “it is not in heaven,” and also: “according to all that they instruct you.”

3. I think you did not understand this claim—what I mean is this: if Moses did not uproot any verse of the Torah and was exempted from this, then all the more so those who came after him, because he knew everything firsthand. Sorry, are you hinting that rules such as “Jewish law uproots Scripture” were not received from heaven?

2. Here you claim that the Written Torah includes interpretations that existed then—fine. So then what is the point of the Oral Torah, which Moses passed on orally? And again you say that the Oral Torah develops… And if it develops all the time, how was it possible in the first place to pass it on orally? And if it develops, as you say, then that means it undergoes changes, so what is the point in the first place of “preserving its source in its exact language” as the Oral Torah was given at Sinai?

Incidentally, Maimonides said that one must not remove the plain meaning of the text from its sense.

You keep repeating yourself and writing vaguely and unclearly. I’ll answer one more time and that’s it. From here on, if you want to continue, please one question at a time. Present the question and explain carefully what you mean. I assume that will help you too (because, as we learned from Rabbi Chaim, lack of explanation is lack of understanding).

1. This is already a completely different question. One can suggest several reasons for it. In my book Ruach Mishpat I proposed a picture that explains the place of each halakhic type, including laws given to Moses at Sinai. You can also see a shorter presentation in my article on the second root.
Incidentally, regarding sky-blue and black there is a halakhic difference: the sky-blue thread is a separate commandment (though for counting purposes see Maimonides and Nachmanides on the eleventh root). In tefillin, the color is a detail within the commandment of tefillin. Put differently: the word “sky-blue” in the Torah, in the commandment of fringes, does not deal with the color of the threads (that the fringe threads are to be dyed sky-blue), but with adding dyed threads to the white threads. That is an addition of another commandment, or another component within the commandment.
Indeed, laws given to Moses at Sinai are part of the Oral Torah, and there was a prohibition on writing them. A large part of it consisted of explanations of words and ideas in the Torah that was given to us in writing. Like a dictionary accompanying a text and helping decode and understand it. There is of course another part that included additions, and about that I spoke in my above-mentioned article.

As for what you thought—you were mistaken. The role of the sages is threefold: to transmit the tradition, to interpret it, and to add enactments and decrees to it. See the dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides in the first root. One who is skilled in interpreting the Talmud and the Oral Torah can usually distinguish between Torah-level law and rabbinic law. True, there are cases where this is difficult and disputes arose. That is how our world is; it is hard to fix and sharpen everything completely.

The Oral Torah is transmitted and expanded. It does not need to be transmitted “in its exact language.” There is no sanctity in the wording of the Oral Torah. What needs to be transmitted is the content. These are not inventions but interpretations and legislation. I already answered this.
What came down from Sinai was a tiny kernel of the Oral Torah, and the vast majority is development and expansion that did not come down from Sinai. But the Torah was given on that understanding, and from our perspective this is binding just like what came down from there is binding (the part created in authorized institutions—the Sanhedrin and the Talmud). This is the meaning of the rabbinic statements: “its details and its generalities were from Sinai”; “everything that an experienced student will one day innovate was given to Moses at Sinai.” These statements are normative and not historical. They deal with the validity of the matters, not with their origin.

4. Moses’ explanation of the Torah probably does not change. But as I explained, it is a very small kernel within the Oral Torah (and that is aside from the meaning of “explanation” that the Torah is talking about. We have already discussed this).
“Jewish law follows/uproots Scripture” is, in my interpretation, a matter of exegesis. And it has not the slightest connection to “it is not in heaven.” If you insist on interpreting things wrongly in order to raise difficulties, don’t be surprised that you can’t find answers.

3. Apparently I still have not understood what you mean.

2. I did not understand anything.

Sorry for stepping into the argument, but doesn’t “very clearly” refer to the book of Deuteronomy (Mishneh Torah), which was included in the Torah itself together with the other four books that were given by divine utterance, and not to laws given to Moses at Sinai and Moses’ additional explanation of the other books?

As I wrote, maybe yes and maybe no.

Y.D.

Thank you for your interesting comment.

Rabbi Michi—thank you for your words. In any case, I still need to make an effort to understand; there is no doubt at all that in my understanding I am lacking understanding.

From your reply to Y.D.’s comment, “maybe yes, maybe no,” I wanted to understand what “very clearly” means in the case where it is maybe not that!

Because I didn’t understand when you said that it probably does not change, and if it is indeed the book of Deuteronomy then the answer is decisive that it does not change. Not “maybe yes and maybe no.”

Honorable Rabbi, is it possible that I need to sit with you in person in order to understand and confirm the matter, or is it possible for me to understand it through writing..

These large gaps make it very hard for me (I no longer remember the earlier stages of the discussion). It may be the book of Deuteronomy, and it may be several foundations of the Oral Torah, and it may be the Written Torah itself. The books themselves do not change (unless some error occurred), but according to all these possibilities, the Oral Torah certainly can change over the generations (beyond the foundations that were given, which can be interpreted but not changed). What is unclear here?