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May I remain teachable!
That was how I ended my last essay on the oral torah and its biblical and philosophical evidences. The very fact that I kept my ending quite open like that is because I realised that life is very fluid, or, as my wife would say, "life is subject to changes". I started life as a person of no strong religious attachment. I then become a christian and I eventually learn to attach myself to that wholeheartedly. Throughout that time I went through different phases, testing the doctrines of other christians and of my own using the scriptures and putting aside what I found to be untrue or inconsistent. Because of that testing, my convictions about the account of the "old testament" or the Jewish Bible (which has other names, such as "Tanakh" and "Hebrew Scriptures) became much stronger, whilst trust in the so-called "new testament" waned; directing my attention to the "truth" of messiahship of Jesus showed that it wasn't a truth at all, but rather that the Jewish Bible had been distorted and twisted and undermined in order for Jesus to have any claim, especially by Paul and his modern day followers - that is the vast majority of christianity.
Then I leave christianity, but did not automatically think it was time to become a Jew, despite the arguments of the Karaite Jews I had come to know. Neither did I adopt the beliefs of Orthodox Judaism about oral laws and rabbis. I existed as an outsider of Israel whilst adopting their written scriptures. More and more, as I would continue to write my own understanding of scripture in the form of personal commentaries, I started to rely more and more on traditional Jewish understandings of scripture and saw myself more as a "noahide", an non-Jewish entity that seemed to be in agreement with Orthodox Judaism and its oral law, yet still strongly had its links and evidences in scriptures. Yet because of my existing knowledge of scripture and what I had learned about the oral law, I could write a lengthy article about the weakness of arguments in support of it.
But the oral law remained at the back of my mind since there were some convincing arguments about its strength as pointed out by Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi (or, Mizrahi). I didn't believe as some "anti-oral law" people that the oral law was purely a manmade system, yet didn't see enough reason to see it as Orthodox Jews and Noahides in general.
All this just shows me how life is subject to changes. Some may say that I'm just unstable and confused. Maybe. But I've found that most of the rigid and unchanging things in this universe are dead and have no life. I ain't saying that everyone's gonna go on my journey, but you have to have a journey! You have to start some place and end up in another place with different stopping off points in the middle that are neither your starting point or your destination.
Anyway, that leaves me close to now, where I decide that I want to live a serious life for my Creator, living according to his laws in detail. So I order a book called "The Divine Code", which details the 7 Noahide Laws which has a clear law that says that those who knowingly forsake the oral law are classed as wicked. I asked Dr. Moshe Shulman, a person who promotes the book, if that means that according to mainstream Judaism I am wicked. He suggested that I may not understand the oral tradition properly and asked me to just consider it again. So I did, but this time I took a different approach than I did before when I was arguing against the oral law. Here you can follow my musings and just see my thought processes as I rethink things.
The way I sought to test and critique the oral law arguments before was to attempt to define what the oral torah was according to the rabbis and then test their proofs and arguments based mostly on looking at the plain understanding of scripture and seeing if that measured up with what the "talmudic disciples" said.
Now just an aside! If you don't happen to know what the "oral law" of orthodox Judaism is and what I mean by "talmudic", I'll give a very brief, superficial definition, but I recommend you actually check with the orthodox Jews what these terms mean in depth. Now when Moses received the divine law from the Almighty, the rabbis of Orthodox Judaism teach that the law comprised of two things: the written code which is in the five books of Moses, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible; and an oral component which contained details of the laws, interpretations, methods of interpreting the law to derive new laws, amongst other things. The Talmud is one of the main books of orthodox Judaism that contains the oral law.
Now back to the main point.
I used different methods to try to get the plain understanding of the various texts used, such as seeing how certain words were used throughout the whole of the Jewish Bible, or using Hebrew dictionaries, or showing that the interpretations of the rabbis were driven by the oral law, making it seems like a circular argument: using the oral law to prove the oral law. I would use scripture to show that only the written law is clearly mentioned throughout the Jewish Bible and there appeared to be no overt sign or mention of an oral code. But the crux of my method was basically to treat the subject like a bible study, treating the subject as it if were something where you are just supposed to take up the bible and use texts and words to prove or disprove a concept. At the time, it seemed like the best method.
Also, I looked at the validity of the oral torah as something that should be based on biblical proofs. Thus, all I need to do is find those proofs and test them, and that was the way to truth.
This time I wanted to take a different approach. I didn't want to hear or read any attempts to prove or disprove the oral law. I just wanted to really think about two things: what the oral law is; and what the written law is (not necessarily in that order). I would just focus on what these two entities are supposed to be. From there, I may be able to see if anything more is needed for the written law, or whether the oral law has any necessity or use at all.
But there is one important point that should be made: If there is a need for an oral tradition, an necessary oral/extra aspect to the law given at Sinai, then, by default, the Orthodox Jews and their Pharisaic ancestry have the truth. Why? Because they are the only Jewish group that say that there is a necessary integral oral/extra aspect.
Now, thinking on a practical level, what is the Torah supposed to be for Israel? We can give all these high-level, or "spiritual" reasons, but lets just think like human beings who live in the day-to-day hustle and bustle of "mundane" life. Those other reasons have their place in other discussions, but right now I just want to get my head round this.
The Torah was given as a legal code to govern Israel from its birth. It was to regulate behaviours in order to establish and maintain, at the very least, a good society - although it produces much more than that. Just like any nation needs a legal code, Israel had this divine legislation given to them.
Can a national legal system work with everyone being equal and interpreting the written law for themselves to keep it as they want to, living by their personal interpretation of it? For example, I'll use the often-used Sabbath law. It is written that "you shall do no work on the sabbath". But what is the definition of work? To rephrase that in a more direct and focused way, what is the legal definition of work? Is it enough to look in a Hebrew dictionary, as I had done in my previous, oral law "refuting", essay and then interpret for myself how this must apply? What about if someone else uses the same dictionary and gets another idea of how it would apply? Would this sort of approach work with the laws in our legal system today?
When does the sabbath legally start? When does it legally end?
What about something as plain as murder? What is the difference between murder and manslaughter or any sort of killing? What would make a person guilty and not guilty? Could I, as a person who reads and studies the Jewish Bible in a unqualified way, look into a Hebrew dictionary and make a legal judgment that really counts?
With regards to stealing, is it theft if I take a pen from a set bought by the company I work for, and take it home without permission? Am I in the place to judge legally whether it is right or wrong?
So to ask the question again: Can a national legal system work with everyone being equal and interpreting the law for themselves to keep it the way they want to, living by their personal interpretation of it. I think the answer of that one has to be no! There needs to be a standard authorized interpretation! There has to be something to clarify and give the legal details of these laws. Why? Because then no one can be judged for breaking a law! The law institutes an entity called a "judge", and this is a human judge. And this person was supposed to enforce the law and uphold righteousness/justice. How can this be done if everyone is going along using their own individual interpretations of law? The law then could not be equal and therefore it wouldn't really be a law because it could be bent to individual tastes, when "law" is supposed to govern and rule individual tastes to a common standard.
I remember how many times I have physically winced and flinched when I hear some of the horrendous interpretations of scripture some christians do, and the horrible way trinitarians redefine scripture. But if there were not authorized interpretation, even of non-legal texts, then their "interpretations" would be just as valid as a Jew whose whole life has been immersed in Torah. For those who appreciate the angst and frustration of having to deal with contradictory interpretations of bible texts by different groups of individuals who are hardly trained in Bible scholarship, but which are still accepted as authoritative, you know exactly what I mean.
I'm not saying that there are no debates in the history of Orthodox Judaism, but it is a whole lot better than what I've seen in other groups.
So, as can be seen, there needs to be an authoritative standard of interpretation with regards to legal texts and also non-legal biblical texts. What is also clear is that this authoritative standard of interpretation and application of legal and non-legal text is not part of that biblical text. That makes it something that is non-textual. What we have here is a non-textual authoritative explanation of the Torah law.
I think that's an oral law. And since this would have to continue throughout the ages, being passed down from generation to generation, I think we also have an oral tradition.
Now the thinking, the self-examination, I've been doing just previously leads me to the conclusion that there must be not only authoritative legal details and standards, but also standards for non-legal textual issues for when it comes to other parts of the bible. Thinking practically, I can't think of any other way to rule a nation or maintain the integrity of a divinely communicated and ordained book without this.
But the question must then be when would these authoritative details had to have occurred. It would either have to be during the giving of the laws and scriptures, or after. Now here, I'll just focus on the law, and I am still talking about the laws given at Sinai. Could any authoritative details have been given after the law was handed to Moses and he wrote it down?
Lets imagine that the body of law was given at Sinai, but authoritative details and explanations are given centuries after. Does this make sense of what the law actually says? For example, if the sabbath law is everlasting from the time it was given by the Almighty, then the standard to which the original hearers of the law would have been held to would then be the standard that generations after would be held to. But if the authoritative details were given even one or two generations later, then how would that generation and later ones know whether the original generation lived up to the same standard? Remember that it is written that no is allowed to add or subtract from the law. Wouldn't later details be seen as additions by someone? And if the law was given at one time and the explanation at another, then wouldn't that leave the original generation stranded as to how to judge and keep the law?
The most practical and common-sense way to see the giving of the divine law in Sinai is to have the written law and its details given at around the same time and by the same source, namely, the Almighty. Moses would receive the law in its entirety, the laws and its details, explain it to the elders, judges, and people, and then write down the laws. This would ensure that in Moses' generation, as they are the ones who saw the Almighty speaking to Deity which provided eternal evidence of the validity of Moses' mission and message, the laws and its details would have the same force and beyond question in future generations.
So basically we have an oral law coming from Sinai from the Almighty.
Also, since new situations arise as time goes by and things change, then there needs to be way or means to interpret that law so that it is still authoritative, but it can adapt to the changing environments and circumstances. Since we are dealing with divine law, these methods of interpretation and application would have to accurately reflect the will of Deity. They can't just be wholly based on a person's ideas of how to interpret law since there would be significant doubt about whether it reflects the true meaning of the law as a person may be swayed by personal preferences, political leanings, all sorts of influences. If there were already divinely set principles about how to interpret the law, and the qualified judge used those principles to interpret law and derive applications, then there would be more certainty about the validity of that interpretation or derivation, as such influences would be diminished by the set rules and principles.
If the details of the written law and the means to interpret it were given at the same time, then, in order for it to be shown the same respect as the written law, it would have had to come from the same source. Since the written law is divine, then the details and the means of interpreting it would also have had to be divine. That is the only way it would be treasured and kept in the same way.
There would also have to be people who would have to safeguard this interpretation so that it would be maintained as much as possible throughout the ages, for as long as laws are supposed to have lasted, which is forever.
An argument I made in that previous anti oral law article was that since currently there are no priests and prophets, then there can be no way of knowing or judging! So are we then bereft of legal guidance in matters of even the simplest laws? Do we do it all ourselves? Is that even legally practical?
From the very beginning of the giving of the law, judges and officers were instituted to maintain the principles of justice and righteousness. Although the Levites were commissioned with judgment, there were still officials, judges who were put in place by whatever means, who would treasure the aforementioned details and hermeneutical laws. Since the whole law, the basic laws, the details/explanations, and the methods of interpretation and application, were all divinely given, they all had to be kept with precision and accuracy.
That means that there would be a record of either the details or the laws of interpretation that they have, maybe even some judgements. And this could be kept in their possession, under their protection from the earliest times. Who would keep and protect these laws and details? The Levites and the judges, the people to whom judgement was given.
A weakness with all those that reject the oral law, the extra-biblical details and principles, is that they have no record of the way things were interpreted in the past. They don't accept - or at least, they don't trust - the words of the custodians of Orthodox Judaism, the rabbis. They have no way of knowing how the generations from Sinai onwards kept the laws according to their details. It is a frequent effort of reinterpreting the text to deal with issues that come up today, but this is still without any evidence that this is similar to the ways of the ancients, apart from that which can superficially be seen in the plain understanding of the biblical text. Also, since they interpret based on the words of the Jewish Bible and other factors such as the fragmentary knowledge of history we have, although their methodology may show logic, it is uncertain how close to divine will it is.
Now despite the fact that even I myself may complain that some of the derivations and principles of the oral law and the rabbis seem a stretch, even an overstretch, or illogical, they at least make the claim that they didn't simply make up the rules or are doing things based on their own principles. They claim that their laws of hermeneutics that they have are from Moses. It is important that they make this claim and the other groups don't, since this helps distinguish who is just holding onto the written text, and who is holding onto and protecting the details, explanations and principles of the law.
It would seem to be the rabbis who are the custodians of the authorized interpretations!
Now since there is a written portion of the law that needs to be kept, then there are many ways in which this needs to be upheld and maintained. The words and meaning needs to be maintained in the same form that it was received. There needed to be a standard reading, an authorized version of the Torah so that mistakes and discrepancies would be minimized. The vowel system needed to always remain the same since a change in vowels can change the meaning of the word.
Were Torah scrolls always given without vowels? If they were, then there had to be an extra-biblical tradition to keep the proper sounds with the proper words. Judaism and mainstream history maintains this to be the case: that the Torah scrolls were written without vowels. Even if Torah scrolls did have vowels on them, all the scroll essentially is is specified squiggles on a page until someone comes along to make sense of it, and there needs to be a standardized version of the language, and even that is external to the text. The Hebrew letters and signs for vowels do not say anything about how they are supposed to sound. So this information must be separate from the text.
I admitted beforehand myself that this does require oral information. The question is how and when that oral information was fix in place. Again, if there was after the fact, then the question is this: do we have the Torah as it was given to Moses, including its pronunciation? Again, we don't know. We could believe it were so, having the extra doctrine that since Deity was involved it had to stay the way it was originally. But then again, if it were fixed at the giving of the Torah, then again, there is more certainty, since there would be ... now how do they say it ... "an unbroken chain of [this] oral tradition from the time of Moses until now.
Also definitions of words would need to be fixed. The word translated "work" couldn't mean one thing today and another thing tomorrow, like words in the English language, such as "gay" and "cool" and "replenish". If the meaning of the words changed then the nature and standard of the law would change as well.
It has already been discussed briefly that there would have to be a standard with regards to the rules of interpreting even non-legal texts, so that ludicrous or damaging interpretations cannot arise. Since there are still rules of interpretation, further interpretation would be possible, but at least it is limited to a certain divinely apportioned arena, rather than the free-for-all principle that seems to exist outside these confines.
So the scope of this non-textual standard is wide covering so many areas.
As I've said before, based on all my previous reasoning, it seems necessary that there be an additional part to the written law and scriptures, a non-textual element. I just want to summarize the characteristics that I've just gone through. So this non-textual, "oral" element of the law comprises of the following:
Now does any of this sound familiar? Have I heard of anything like this before? What was my description of the oral law in that article I wrote a few years ago?
Thus the oral code is integral to the written code, and it included:
- detailed explanations of each law and how to fulfil it;
- additional laws and statutes;
- hermeneutical rules to interpret the written code and derive new laws, and;
- interpretations and laws that would not be used until much later in time (these were not taught to the people at large).
Hmmm... that sounds kinda familiar. What else did the oral law contain?
According to this view of Torah, this oral torah was to be passed down by word of mouth. Men who grew to be fluent in this oral torah were called sages and rabbis. According to the oral law explanation of Deuteronomy 17:8-13, a group of these men, called the Sanhedrin, because of their vast knowledge of both Torahs, both laws, were given authority to judge the people, interpret the written law, and derive new laws from it, using the hermeneutical rules spoken of above. These new laws became included in the oral torah, having Mosaic authority attributed to them because they used the hermeneutical rules given by the Almighty to Moses. That means that these derived laws and the unwritten ones that are said, in the oral torah, to have come from Moses, have the same authority as the written code.
Again, it generally concurs with what I've said before. And I continue.
The written code is simply the bare skeleton of the law, only the very basics. Without this oral code or "oral law", the written code is "unintelligable", "with many terms ... undefined". Even the vowels and punctuation marks can only be known by the oral law, a tradition handed down from Moses by mouth. Without vowels, the text becomes too ambiguous to understand.
You know, it's kinda strange to be quoting and refuting myself, or using my own words to prove what I didn't use to believe. I guess we all do that in one way or another, even if it's just mentally. But the question is, if I am refuting myself, where did I go so wrong with my previous point of view? Right now, with what I've said before, the oral law is making more and more sense to me. It looks like something such as this must have been needed, necessary for the Law of the Almighty to be workable, and for the Jewish Bible to remain with the integrity it has today.
And remember what I said before: if the oral law is shown to be necessary, then Orthodox Judaism is true by default because they alone actually claim to have such an thing that was given at Sinai.
Again, so where did I go wrong?
Who was I but a few months ago? I "knew" there was just something wrong with the oral law. It seemed like some foreign addition which had no hint of its existence in the Jewish Bible that I loved so dear. Some of the things that the rabbis said seemed irreverent and arrogant, even against the Almighty himself. To have men overcome the Creator in legal disputes??? That was just too much.
But now I look again at my approach to this subject and I see some serious problems with the way I handled it.
Firstly, as I said before, I treated this subject like a bible study. I analysed it academically rather than realistically. Rather than take the law of the Land of Israel as a legal document, it was taken as a biblical challenge. Instead of stepping back and taking a look at how laws are usually implemented in countries, I took the law like a book that someone reads and must understand the definitions within, in important ways, isolated from real life.
Secondly, I was unconscious as to my own presuppositions. Throughout my previous article, I was biased to the view that since the Jewish Bible can be understood without THE oral law, then the oral law isn't needed. But how a person views the Bible isn't governed so much by the Bible. The Jewish Scriptures is a divine book and as such needs to be handled properly by people who are well acquainted with it. Part of the purpose of the laws within the Torah is to legislate and thus can only be handled authoritatively by those qualified to, namely, the judges, nowadays known as the rabbis. Thus the interpretations I was giving in my article of matters such as circumcision, sabbath, and Sukkoth were just personal interpretations that has no bearing on the legal authority and edicts of those who are in the place to judge.
Look, I don't believe it's wrong to have a personal opinion, but it has to be measured against who you are talking to. It's ok to have a personal opinion about the way your parents raise you when you are a child; but that doesn't give a child to disrespect the parents and to undermine their authority, choosing to go their own way. It's ok to have a personal opinion about the law of the land; but in no way can you go against the legal authorities because of that personal opinion without bad consequences. In the same way, I may not like some of the stuff that ancient and modern rabbis and Talmudists have said, but they are the legal (at least with regards to bible interpretation and application) authorities.
Thirdly, the notion that throughout history scripture interpreted scripture doesn't logically work. Using later scriptures to understand the Torah law only works once you have all of scripture. The question would remain how Israel had a standard and authoritative understanding and practical interpretation of Torah through its formation and soon after its completion. How did the Israel live with the Torah during their 40-year trek in the wilderness, or in the times of Joshua and Judges? You didn't have the book of Psalms to help you determine that the word "melacha" (work) in the sabbath command could mean business, if it does mean that. There would be no point in counting how many times it occurs in the 5 books of Moses as well as the rest of the Jewish Bible and in what context to see if its rare or not. You would not get to see that the book of Isaiah may help limit the definition of "afflict your souls" to "fasting". And even if it was the common understanding amongst Israel, did that make it the legal understanding by which laws and kept and enforced? Even if you did miraculously have the resources and the texts, you still couldn't interpret the law for yourself and then hold it in front of a legal authority and say: "I live by my interpretation!"
There and then, in those early days of Israel, you couldn't rely on such "bible study" tactics. You would have to learn from the authorities and the teachers what to do and what not to do. You would have to abide by the rulings and the definitions they held.
And I wondered why I repeatedly got the rebut from the "oral law" adherents against the "sola scriptura" crowd, "you're following your own interpretation"; or "you're making up your own interpretation". I was thinking to myself at that time: "yes I'm following my interpretation, but it's based on the bible". But just as it was shown to me recently, I'm essentially relying on myself when I interpret the legal parts of scripture by myself or using whatever resource I chose at the time. In this age of individualism, which I still couldn't get out of my system but never knew, that may be the standard, but where scripture is concerned, you just can't live like that. It uses the phrase repeatedly "doing what is right in your own eyes", and, even with the scriptures in my mind and hand, I was doing the same thing!
One of the problems I had is that it is commonly said that there are two Torahs: the oral torah and the written torah. This logically brings to mind two separate entities. And to many, it would logically follow from that that if both are divine and were given at Sinai, and the written torah is repeatedly spoken of in the Jewish Bible, then surely the oral torah should get similar airtime, yet no such entity is overtly spoken of.
But I think the problem here is two-fold, both with the terminology used and the way it is understood. Although the words "two Torahs" is used, it can be understood in two ways. Primarily, it should be known that when Jews refer to their main source of divine revelation and guidance, they only use the word "Torah" in the singular, because in one way there is only one Torah that was given in Sinai; there are just two parts of it: an oral part and a written part. So to summarize, that is two parts of one Torah. Here's at least two, now existing, online Jewish sources that say this.
The Torah has two parts: The "Torah Shebichtav" (Written Law), which is composed of the twenty-four books of the Tanach, and the "Torah Sheba'al Peh" (Oral Law). (What is the Oral Torah? by Naftali Silberberg, currently at the web address, http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/812102/jewish/What-is-the-Oral-Torah.htm)
The Torah contains 613 commandments (mitzvot). The Ten Commandments are considered the most important commandments of the Torah. The Torah also contains stories that teach us about God's relationship with the Jewish People.
There are two parts to the Torah:
1. Written Torah
2. Oral Torah
(at about.com:Judaism, the current web address being http://judaism.about.com/cs/judaismbasics/f/torah.htm))
But because the two parts can seem so distinct because of the different nature of each, it can be seen as two Torahs.
With this in mind, it is understandable why scripture would only refer to one and not the other: because it is simply not needed if both are related. By following the oral explanation of a written law, you are keeping the written law. So it would make sense that scripture would say that so-and-so did something according to the law that was written by Moses. And it would also make sense that the Torah would rarely refer to multiple Torahs or use the plural since for the most, they are a unified Torah, one relying on the other.
Another point to mentions is my contention that the people of Israel could hear the Torah being read and understand it. To me, it seemed like oral law proponents were saying that this is impossible since they kept on saying that the written code cannot be understood at all without the oral. There are two points that would show the futility of such an argument.
Firstly, if the oral and written codes are simply two essential components of what we know as "Torah", then if both are passed down from father to son, then upon hearing the written portion of the law, the oral code would give understanding to what was said.
Secondly, regardless of whether the oral code it taught in its entirety or not, even Israelite children would have to learn speak the Hebrew language. Thus they would still get a general idea of what was being said in the law, even if they didn't understand all the legal definitions and explanations. Every native of Israel would learn the language as each one of us in other countries learn the language of our parents as we grow from baby to toddler to young child. Therefore, even people of simple understanding could get understanding from the law as it is read, enough to know who to worship and why they should fear him. They would just need explanations and have to learn the details of the laws.
Although not all of my questions have been answered, the thoughts that I've shared above deal a critical blow to the way I used to view things.
With all this said, I still don't think it's possible to prove the oral law using scripture alone, especially with a person who reveres and knows the written code alone. My own experience shows this. I could, with some ease, find a textual answer to most if not all the scriptural proofs the Talmudist presented. This wasn't due to the inadequacy of the Talmudist argument, because based on the Talmudist presupposition and what I've discovered for myself here, the argument is normally sound. But if someone has a different mindset or a different set of presuppositions like people from a Karaite background, or from a christian Protestant worldview - which is normally "sola scriptura" or "scripture-only" in approach - most of the arguments will just bounce off a reply that makes some sense.
The only reason why my attempt at rethinking this issue got me to conclusions that changes a significant part of my worldview is because someone had the heart to say "maybe you don't understand what the oral law is", without being too judgmental. The mercies of the Lord granted me the heart to take that to heart and find out what the oral law is by taking a step back and looking at what law is.
You know, it's kinda weird. I spend a fair amount of time writing an essay that is probably over 120 pages and a bit more time writing a smaller article on the "sola scriptura" approach. And then I can think about things and write this "response" that is only a fraction of the size, yet it still makes the same amount of sense to me. But this still isn't over for me. Although I've been lead to this conclusion about the oral law, I've spent years resistant to it and even now, I still don't like some of the things the rabbis say. But I have to follow things to their conclusion, no matter where they lead.
I hope and pray to the Creator of heaven and earth that this is a step closer to his truth. It is not an easy road - for good reasons - but I only ask him to help me and guide me closer to him, because in the end that is all that matters
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