I HAVE PUBLISHED THIS ARTICLE TO SHOW JUST HOW IGNORANT SO MANY THEISTS ARE – AND NONE OF THIS IS TRUE – THERE IS REALLY NO NICE WAY TO TELL A NOTHER PERSON THEY HAVE BEEN DECIEVED!
The Oral Law is the necessary and Divinely-created counterpart to the Written Law, also known as the Five Books of Moses.
(But actually, in both cases the word “Torah,” meaning “teaching,” is better than “Law,” because it is more comprehensive.)
Let us consider a few selected passages from the Written Torah and think about whether they do or do not indicate the existence of an Oral Torah, okay?
The first place obvious place to look is the Ten Commandments, wouldn’t you say? Let’s think about it.
The Ten Commandments appear twice, with slightly different wording, in Exodus 19 and again in Deuteronomy 5. In Exodus 19:8 we are commanded “Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it.” In Deuteronomy 5:12 we find “Guard the Sabbath day to sanctify it.” What do “remembering” and “guarding” mean? What exactly is God commanding here? The Written Torah is silent–the knowledge is assumed.
How important is this knowledge? Well, in Exodus 31:14 we read “You shall guard the Sabbath, for it is holy for you. One who desecrates it shall surely die–anyone that does melacha on it, that soul shall be cut off from its people.” Okay, so there’s something called melacha that we’re not supposed to do on the Sabbath, on pain of death–but what is melacha? No definition is provided.
In Number 15:32-36, the Torah tells us about a man who was found gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and was put to death by Divine command. So I guess that gathering sticks is Sabbath desecration, okay–but how was he expected to know that, in the absence of an Oral Torah?
And is there anything else to Sabbath observance? Is it really the case that the entirety of Sabbath observance comes down to “don’t gather sticks on the Sabbath?” It’s possible, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem likely..
A few more questions. When does the Sabbath begin and end? Can we choose a whatever day we want for Sabbath, or is it fixed in time?
No fair looking in the later prophets–they themselves could only know from the Written Torah, assuming no Oral Torah exists. Whatever they said had to have its source in the Torah of Moses–but no such source exists without an Oral Torah.
in Deuteronomy 12:21 we find the following verse:
“When you will be distant from that place that Hashem your God will choose to place His Name there, you will slaughter some of your cattle or your small livestock that Hashem has given you as I have commanded you, and you shall eat in your gates to satisfaction.”
So, apparently there is some method of commanded slaughter. Where is that spelled out? How are we to slaughter animals?
It is not discussed anywhere in the Written Torah, nowhere at all. The information is only found in the Oral Torah.
Earlier, in Numbers 21:1-6, we find the following passage.
“And in the seventh month on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation for. You may not do any melacha of work, it is a day of trumpet-blasts for you. You shall bring an elevation-offering for a pleasant odor for Hashem. One bull, one ram, and seven perfect year-old lambs. Their tribute shall be flour mixed with oil; three esronim for a bull, two esronim for a ram, and one esaron for each lamb of the seven lambs. Also a goat as a sin offering to atone for you. Aside from the elevation-offering of the new moon and its tribute, and the constant elevation-offering and its tribute. And their libations in accordance with their law, a pleasant odor, a fire-offering for Hashem.”
So some holiday is here established–what is its nature? Why is this day special? We are forbidden to do melacha–but again, what is melacha? Trumpet-blasts? How should they be performed? Are there any laws that govern the trumpets to be used, or how the blasts should sound, or who should perform them or listen to them? What does it mean to say that a lamb is “perfect?” Of what does this perfection consist? What is an esaron? It sounds like it is some kind of measure, but how much is it? What kind of oil should be mixed into the flour-tribute, and how much? It’s all very mysterious.
The whole Written Torah is like that. Read it through slowly and carefully, and as you come to each of the hundreds of commandments mentioned in it, ask yourself–how is this to be done? Are the details spelled out? You’ll find that in every case, much knowledge is assumed.
Indeed, in some cases we can’t even know what word is meant without an Oral Torah, since in Hebrew (like in English) there are occasions when two very different words are spelled the same way. While we can sometimes determine which word is meant from context, that is not always possible. Again, knowledge is assumed–which word is meant?
But where is that knowledge to come from? It can only be that it was transmitted separately through Moses together with the Written Torah.
Now, you might argue that (in accordance with Christian belief) we are not under the Law, so all of this missing information is not terribly important.
But clearly the Law was in effect at least until the advent of Christianity, right? Obviously, I hold that it’s in effect forever, but even JC or Paul would agree that it was in effect until about 2,000 years ago, correct?
So the question that someone that accepts that God gave the Written Torah but not that He gave the Oral Torah has to answer is–what were people supposed to do during all those centuries that the Law was in effect? Where were they supposed to get the information about how to obey it?
It seems to me that there are only three possible responses. Either God overlooked the need for more information (which doesn’t seem very wise), or we lost a big part of Scripture (which nobody at all has ever claimed, so far as I know)–or there is/was an Oral Torah.
At this point you object that this is all well and good so far as Divine commands are concerned, but what about Rabbinical injunctions? Doesn’t the Talmud have plenty of laws created by the Rabbis?
Yes, it does. The Oral Torah does indeed contain Rabbinic decrees (some of which are mentioned in Scripture itself).
Most of them are protective ordinances. That is, in many cases Torah law would be unclear to unlearned people; therefore, in order to prevent confusion, the Rabbis instructed us to refrain from something that would be permitted under Torah law.
In other cases, Rabbinic laws were enacted in memory of Torah laws that, for various historical reasons, we are not presently able to observe. Washing the hands before eating bread is in this category. The Talmud states that it was enacted shortly after the Destruction of the Second Temple (approximately 70 c.e.) in order to ensure that people would at least remember that there is a concept of ritual purity and impurity.
In a handful of cases, Rabbinic laws were enacted for other reasons. For example, the Book of Esther (which is, of course, in Scripture) explains the reason for the enactment by Rabbinic decree of an entire new holiday, Purim, complete with several commandments of its own.
The earliest of this last category was enacted by Moses himself. It is the decree that there be regular public readings of the Torah. The Christian books refer to it, so far as I can tell approvingly, in Acts 15:21.
At this point, I imagine you might like to know where the Rabbis get the asserted authority to create new laws. Fair question–let’s discuss it.
In Leviticus 18:11 we find the interesting phrase “You shall guard My guarding.” What does this mean?
Having established that God must have given an Oral Torah to explain to us the meaning of the Written Torah, we of course turn to the Talmud, the main repository of the Oral Torah in our day. (The argument here is simple–nobody else has ever even tried to propose another candidate for the Oral Torah. All competitors to the Talmud, such as the Sadducees, the Church, and the Karaites, denied the concept of the Oral Torah completely. Since we’ve already established by argument that the Oral Torah must have existed, if only one body of knowledge exists that claims to be it, we should accept that claim for simple lack of alternative.)
In Yevamos 21a, in a discussion of where we find that the Rabbis had the authority to forbid certain sexual relationships that would have been permitted by Torah law (that is to say, marriage between two relatives where the Torah did not define the relationship as incestuous), we find the following:
“Rav Kahana said, we find the authority in the verse ‘You shall guard My guarding.’ That is, you should make safeguards to protect that which I have already safeguarded.”
It is true that the verse quoted, if read in full, refers specifically to sexual sins. This might lead you to think that the authority of “erecting safeguards” only applies to sins of this sort.
However, it is a principle throughout the Talmud that Torah laws are to be read as archetypes. That is, Torah laws apply not only to the case in which they are explicitly stated, but also to all cases that are logically similar.
What about the verse in Deuteronomy 4:2, which says “You shall not add to that which I command you, neither shall you detract from it; but you shall observe all the commandments of Hashem your God that I command you?” Doesn’t this forbid any new laws whatever?
Well, not really. There is a debate among the early commentators, the Rishonim, how this verse is to be understood. Both Ramban (Nachmanides) and Rashba understand it to forbid the addition of new commandments. According to Ramban, the exception is when a verse in the Torah is found that alludes to the proposed commandment. According to Rashba, the prohibition refers to an individual erecting a new commandment of this sort, but not to the Rabbis acting as a body; that is, not to the Sanhedrin. Rambam (that is, Maimonides) also agrees that the prohibition forbids the enactment of new commandments, but argues that the prohibition refers to a case where we falsely claim the new commandment to be a matter of Torah law rather than a Rabbinic enactment.
Other Rishonim (the Raavad, Rashi, and Tosafos) understand the prohibition as forbidding the alteration of existing commandment by saying that (or acting as if) they command more or less than they actually command.
For example, in Number 6:22-27, we find that the kohanim (the descendants of Aaron the brother of Moses) are commanded to bless the people with a particular formula, consisting of three verses there. According to these Rishonim, the phrase “you shall not add” would be transgressed if they would add a fourth blessing, and the phrase “you shall not detract” would be transgressed if they were only to recite two of the three verses specified.
All opinions agree that the Rabbis are permitted–indeed, mandated–to create such laws as we discussed above.