16 Oct 2009

Daily Dose of (Nebach) Heresy

I

I’m in the middle of writing what is turning into a rather lengthy blog post about the relationship of the Written Torah to the Oral Torah.  It seeks to expand that on the statement by Dayan Grunfeld that "It is not the Oral Law which has to seek the guarantee of its authenticity in the Written Law; on the contrary, it is the Written Law which has to look for its warrant in the Oral Tradition.”  The post examines why, if the Oral Torah and its explanations are primary, it gives warrant to an unchanging text that seemingly conflicts with those explanations.  It further examines what this implies about the dangers of translating the Torah in accordance with the meaning given to it by the Oral Law.

This post picks up a point that follows from the primacy of the Oral Torah and its ability to give warrant to the written Torah, but would be tangential if discussed there.  Whilst that discussion looks at why there is a need for an unchanging text at all, there is the implication that the oral law also plays a determinative role in what that unchanging text is.  Now, there is plenty of evidence that this so, but might make one wonder how this fits with Maimonides’ principle of faith that the Torah is from Sinai?

II

There is a midrash that is repeated in the Jerusalem Talmud about Ezra’s use of the eser nekudot as part of a little wager-my term!  These are the little dots that you find above words in the Torah in ten separate places.   Ezra used these to indicate that he didn’t know whether these words should be included or not.  The midrash relates him reasoning that if Elijah were to tell him that the words shouldn’t be there, he can tell him that he already indicated that with the dots.  On the other hand, if Elijah tells him that the words are correct, he will quickly rub the dots out!

Questions surrounding what the text should be where the meaning is affected were all decided at this early stage in Jewish history.   The return from the Babylonian exile where everybody had forgotten Torah but were now thirsty for it, made this a necessity.  Where the Temple Scrolls contradicted each other, the a decision had to be made as to which should be accepted as normative [the Talmud simply says that it went with the majority].  Where the text of the Pentateuch (ktiv) had got out of sync with the text according to the Oral Law (kri), a decision had to be made as to what to do.  Where the text of the Torah would be insulting to, or give the wrong impression about G-d, were the tikkunei Soferim required or not?

As I said: with the breakdown of oral transmission that the exile entailed, they needed to decide textual issues in accordance with Torat Moshe.  However, up to about about the 10th Century, a group of scholars called the Masoretes (hence ‘Masoretic Text/s’) were working to produce an accurate and canonical version of the Written Law.  How exactly should the songs and sections be laid out?  What are the correct spellings etc? [According to Ibn Ezra, for instance, the ‘defective and plene’ spellings were not given on Sinai.]  What is the correct cantillation should the words be sung to?  These, whilst not directly affecting meaning, transmit the interpretations that the Oral Law is trying to convey.

III 

Was Rambam, when constructing his principles, unaware of these Midrashim and Talmudic statements?  Or did he know about them but disagree; and assert that our Torah text is immaculate nonetheless?  Neither seem plausible as Rambam himself paskens that one version of the text (from the Aleppo Codex) was better than the one Saadiah Gaon used.  The Torah text we use today is (apart from nine words) the one he decided upon!

According to Rav Yaakov Weinberg (Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisrael), this is no contradiction to his principle.  The following was written in “Fundamentals and Faith” and is repeated on the Aish website:

Rambam knew very well that these variations existed when he defined his Principles.  The words of Ani Ma’amin and the words of the Rambam, ‘the entire Torah in our possession today’, must not be taken literally, implying that all the letters of the present Torah are the exact letters given to Moshe Rabbeinu.  Rather, it should be understood in a general sense that the Torah we learn and live by is for all intents and purposes the same Torah that was given to Moshe Rabbeinu.

The facts above do not contradict his principle because he didn’t intend to take it literally.  Rabbonim throughout the ages have been comfortable that our Torah is not letter-for-letter the same as Moshe’s.  The Vilna Gaon was once asked what we would do if we beheld Moshe’s Torah written with Black Fire on White Fire?  His answer was that Moshe’s Torah would be considered passul and would have to be ‘corrected’ to be used in Synagogue! 

On the one hand, the issue is transformed from a historical question into an halachic one.  On the other, it still has be “for all intents and purposes the same Torah that was given to Moshe Rabbeinu.”   In fact, both are linked.  That the Torah text is directly from G-d (through Moshe) means that it has such sanctity that it cannot be tampered with.  So much so, that one cannot even change the ‘deviations’ back to the ‘original’. One has to hand it on exactly as one received it.  [Even though the ketiv had deviated from the keri, the Torah text retained these deviations.]

IV

I’ll leave this on a note of personal dissatisfaction.  Let us formulate my original question in reverse.  Surely Maimonides was aware at the halachic input to the text of the Torah, so why did he formulate his principle of faith in the way he does? Whilst I am perfectly happy to say that not every letter is from Sinai, why is that an accurate description of what Rambam believes?  He talks about the entire Torah in our possessionWhat is the point of this emphasis if he doesn’t take it literally?

Maybe the answer is simply that he was engaged in a polemic against Islam who claim the Torah is a forgery, that Ezra wrote a lot of it and edited out the bits about Ishmael.  As such, he denies the possibility of any decision making so as to forestall this criticism.  Only in this way can people be convinced of the truth (which he, as I, sincerely believe) that the Torah is a direct result of G-d’s wisdom and not human motives.

However, I believe for a variety of reasons that we should take Rambam at his word.  If so, every single tit and jottle of the Torah in our possession is attributable to Moshe.  We have to reconcile therefore  i) his awareness not every letter is what Moshe actually got but ii) every single letter is a direct expression of the G-'d’s will as received at Sinai.  In other words, whilst what R’ Yaakov Weinberg says is correct, it is not enough.  It gives the negative account of what he doesn’t believe without giving the positive account of why even the changes have the status they do.

It must have something to do with the primacy of the Oral Law over the Written Law.  The Oral Law is something that not only decide practical questions but is the main repository of G-d’s will. I have a few suggestions as to how this links but not worked out.  For another time.