Anon asked Staff ago In the essay The Torah Spoke in a Human manner you wrote: “There is no end to the nonsense. If the gates of interpretation are open to anyone, we, too, can interpret this verse to mean ‘tithe so that you will not become wealthy,’ for the abundance of the rich brings them only ill (Ecclesiastes 5:12). This shows you that there is no limit to the number of possible interpretations if you are not obligated to follow the Scriptures’ language and when there is no unity in the basic approach to the text.”
The truth is that though we do not take the Scripture out of context and the Torah spoke in a human manner, in any place where we can learn something new which has practical benefit we do so. For there is a comprehensive intelligence, an intelligence you know of but do not understand, and there is an intelligence of which you know not. There is a comprehensive intelligence to the Torah which is not found written therein. When you understand this it is internalized by you and when you try to place it in the Torah you will find it there. All these laws and the entire Torah are the product of a superior wisdom, for “You derived the Torah from a higher wisdom” (Zohar Beshalach 62), from an infinite. From this infinite, unknown wisdom it springs to the rational mind and the exegesis of Torah. The Torah cannot be accepted through the superior wisdom; you cannot find this innovative wisdom in it except through the Oral Torah, for the Written Torah is incomplete. Through the Oral Torah and the book which are innovated is the Torah completed, by interpreting the Torah, taking from here and giving there, by treating the Torah as your own.
Shabbat Shalom,
Avi
jsadmin Staff answered 22 years ago
Dear Avi,
You admit that the Written Torah lacks significance for the religious person and that the Oral Torah is that which determines the path to follow. In other words, you understood that man has a human intelligence and he was given permission to change, uproot, complete, deform, and distort the Scriptures.
The problem with this correct understanding is why the gates of interpretation were locked with the sealing of the Talmud.
Were today’s sages sitting and interpreting, they could permit civil marriage in the following manner: “When a man takes a woman” (Deuteronomy 22:13). The Scriptures leave the decision about marriage to the couple; “when a man takes” — all manners of taking are valid in the eyes of G-d and man.
Sincerely,
Daat Emet
jsadmin Staff answered 22 years ago
Dear Tomer,
The idea or principle of interpreting, distorting, and warping the Scriptures so they match the time and place is good for one who needs the authority of the “Holy Writ.” It’s a good idea for the masses who believe the Holy Writ is the words of the living G-d.
But one who understands that each person must take responsibility for his own life and not throw it into G-d’s lap will set his own laws and morality based on his own understanding, and not on the “Holy Writ.”
Moreover, dealing with and investing Man’s best spiritual and intellectual powers in pulling some sort of approval from the “Holy Writ” for our lifestyle is one of the most perverse and worthless things.
Why, in order to anchor the value of equality, does one have to burrow in the Holy Writ, full of racism and discrimination? What is this like? Like one who searches for a needle in a haystack when at home he has a drawer full of needles.
Sincerely,
Daat Emet