Am ha-Aretz / עם הארץ

Recent comments by Greg Gersh [ Critique ]

Recent comments by Greg.

Greg: [Eddie said that the Rabbis claim that "The {Written} Torah in itself is incomprehensible and meaningless."] This is a childish statement; it conveys not only the ignorance of the author, but the level of irrationality used in constructing the argument. No traditional Jew holds that the Torah is incomprehensible and meaningless. To conflate a belief in the Oral Law to this is unfounded and immature.

Response: Rabbi Gil Student says that many things cannot be understood from the Written Torah itself. To start with, it is impossible even to read the Written Torah, since it does not contain vowels. "A simple reading of the text requires an oral tradition." Also, for example, it is impossible to know which of the fats are forbidden for consumption, even though the Written Torah plainly says what these forbidden fats are. Or, he says that without the Oral Torah, one might conclude that bringing sacrifices is a type of work forbidden on Shabbat. "Surely, slaughtering and offering a sacrifice is work." Even though the text explicitly commands us to bring sacrifices on Shabbat. If a thing is plainly stated in the text, but he says that it might reasonably be misunderstood, or understood to mean the opposite, it must mean that he thinks that the text is incomprehensible.

Rabbi David Wolpe says that from the text itself, such fundamental concept as which types of killing are permitted and which are forbidden cannot be understood. If even such basic concepts cannot be understood from the text, it must mean that the text is incomprehensible.

Greg: Also, there is a huge difference between incomprehensible and insufficient. If you substitute the latter for the former, you are probably getting closer to what Orthodox Judaism holds.

I will not argue too much over the precise terminology, since it's not mine anyway. But consider this: If the Written Torah tells you which fats are forbidden, and you still insist that it is impossible to know which fats are forbidden without the Oral Torah, are you saying that the Written Torah is insufficient or incomprehensible? Or, if you are saying that it is not even possible to read the Written Torah without the Oral, since the Written on its own does not have vowels, are you saying that the Written Torah is insufficient or incomprehensible? It does not matter which terms you use.

Greg: [Though you deny the Divine origin of the Oral Torah, you must still have a type of an Oral Torah of your own since you still must interpret the text.] You are required to interpret each law using your own mental faculties.

Response: Yes, but the Oral Torah is not interpretation. Everything needs interpretation. Everything you see around you needs interpretation. Every book you read needs interpretation. Why isn't there an Oral Torah for every single book ever written? Interpretation and Oral Torah are two very different things. Interpretation is understanding things in their context (which is not "literalism"). Oral Torah is a set of additional laws, that cannot be interpreted or derived from the Written text.

Yes, we use our God-given intellect to interpret everything around us in its proper context. Torah passages are interpreted in context as well. This includes the context in which the passage appears (which passages preceed and follow it); the context in which various terms in the passage appear in other places in the Tanakh (this might shed light on their meaning); the context of history, and of how the ancients lived; the context of related languages; and so on.

Oral Torah is not interpretation. Even when Oral Torah cites a passage from the Written Torah, it is still not interpretation. Oral Torah is a separate Law that cannot be derived from the Written Torah. Let's conduct a thought experiment. Imagine a person who is intelligent and well educated, who has read of all the Written Torah, who knows history, linguistics, and so on, but who does not know anything about the Oral Torah. From reading the Written Torah, can such a person see the existence of some law from the Oral Torah? For example, can he see that we are forbidden to eat mixtures of meat and dairy? Absolutely not.

Yet, the Oral Torah mentions the Written Torah when it talks about separating meat and dairy. Isn't the Oral Torah then interpreting the Written in this way? No. What's more, strictly speaking, the Oral Torah does not even claim that it is interpreting the Written Torah. According to the Oral Torah itself, when it mentions the passage in the Written Torah, it does so as a "mnemonic", to aid in remembering the Oral Torah. That "do not boil a kid in its mother's milk" is repeated three times is a "mnemonic" for the Oral Torah law that one is forbidden to eat meat and dairy together. The Oral Torah law does not derive from the Written, and is not an interpretation of the Written; the Written is simply used to help one remember the Oral. (Or so the story goes anyway.)

Greg: You assume that when someone writes the Written Law down, they have written all there is and do not require additional information.

I have not written an article on this yet, but I will. If I remember correctly, Moses told Joshua to write down all the Law that Moses received from God; and later, Joshua did write down all the Law that Moses received from God. So says the Tanakh. All of the Law can be written down and was written down. And I hope to write on this soon.

Greg: The King is commanded to write down the textual version of the Oral Law.

According to the Oral Law itself, it is impossible to have a textual version of it. Talmud, which is vast, and all later Rabbinic writings, which are also vast, is not the full Oral Torah. How is it then that the King was to write all of it down, and moreover, to keep it with him at all times? How long does it take to just write down the Talmud, which is not even the whole Oral Torah? And how heavy are all of the volumes? How would he carry them with him? Remember, this is before the age of computers, and even before the printing press.

Moreover, pre-Talmud, wasn't it forbidden to write down the Oral Torah?

Greg: I'd like to see a textual analysis from a Karaite on when the Torah was actually written down, based on the text.

Your wish is my command. :) But it will take some time.

Greg: Does Karaism really object to the concept of an Oral Law as plainly presented in the Torah, or is it really mainly a polemic against Rabbinic Judaism? The two are very different.

I do not affiliate with Karaism. But I do reject the Divine origin of Oral Torah. If the two are the same, then so be it.

I am sure someone can (and did) use this rejection as just a polemic against his rivals. Anything, any disagreement, can be used as a polemic.

Posted by Ami at September 10, 2004 12:55 AM | TrackBack