Torah from Sinai?

Now that I am no longer associated with any institution I can give shiurim on topics that interest me.

This is a shiur on Rambam's 8th principle and the concept of Torah from Sinai. Is the Torah that we have in our Shuls/chumashim identical with the one that Moshe Rabbeinu gave the Children of Israel 3300 years ago? (answer = 'no')

Is Torah from Sinai a valid concept even if the Torah is not the same as the one we got from Sinai (answer = 'yes')

Did Rambam really mean that the Torah we have today is the same as the one Moshe gave us? (According to the Ashkenazi 'Ani Maamin' and Abarbanel - 'yes' according to Rambam and everyone else 'no')

And should we try to correct out Sifrei Torah to match the Talmud/Rishonim/Aleppo Codex? (machlokes, but probably 'no')

The shiur is quite long (1:30). But I think it is also very interesting. And if you disagree I would be happy to hear from you. (As Rabbi Yochanan said to his Talmidim after the death of Reish Lakish when Rabbi Elazer was agreeing with everything he said).

Here is the shiur



Or if you prefer to download it here is the link:
Torah from Sinai (right click and 'save as')

and here are the source sheets to go with it
Download Source Sheets

A few apologies:
I forgot the date of the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex.

And I was recording the shiur on my phone, so a couple of times my phone rang, and you get a few seconds of Eurythmics along with the shiur.

Reason that Chicken is considered Meat

Often people are confused about why the Rabbis forbade chicken (birds) with milk - why were they concerned about chicken more than fish, or pareve vege-burgers?

The usual answer given is that 'it looks like meat' which is not really a good answer, because many things look like meat, and many things don't.

Rambam (Hilchos Mamrim end of chapter 2) gives a different answer. He explains the 'slippery slope' argument that Chazal were trying to avoid with their decree. The context is that he is explaining why a decree of Chazal is not considered 'Bal Tosif' - and the reason is because they don't claim that it is from the Torah, even though in practice they are enacting a new rule:

אבל אם אמר בשר העוף מותר מן התורה, ואנו נאסור אותו, ונודיע לעם שהוא גזירה: שלא יבוא מן הדבר חורבה, ויאמרו בשר העוף מותר מפני שלא נתפרש בתורה, כך החיה מותרת שהרי לא נתפרשה; ויבוא אחר לומר אף בשר בהמה מותר, חוץ מן העז; ויבוא אחר לומר אף בשר העז מותר בחלב הפרה או הכבשה, שלא נאמר אלא "אימו" (שמות כג,יט; שמות לד,כו; דברים יד,כא) שהיא מינו; ויבוא אחר לומר אף בחלב העז שאינה אימו מותר, שלא נאמר אלא "אימו". לפיכך נאסור כל בשר בחלב, ואפילו בשר עוף. אין זה מוסיף, אלא עושה סייג לתורה. וכן כל כיוצא בזה.

But if someone says that meat of a chicken is permitted from the Torah, but we (Sages) forbid it, and we tell the people the reason for the decree:
In order that it doesn't lead to ruin, that people may say that just as chicken meat is permitted because it is not explicit in the Torah, so too meat from a wild animal is permitted because it is also not explicit. Then another person will come and say that even meat of domestic animals is permitted apart from goat. Then another person will come and say that even meat of a goat is permitted with milk of a cow or sheep, because the Torah only says "its mother" which means from the same species. Then another person will come and say that even in goat's milk it is permtited as long as it is not the mother of that kid, because the Torah only says "its mother". Therefore we (the Sages) forbade all meat with milk, even chicken meat.
This is not adding to the Torah, but making a fence. And all cases which are similar.

So Rambam is not worried about people who cannot tell the difference between meat and milk, He is worried about the 'lamdanim' who don't understand the system of halacha and will make false analogies, leading them to transgress Torah prohibitions.

He also seems to say that this is the logic behind all Rabbinic decrees.

I suppose a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Ibn Ezra, James Kugel and Multiple Authors

One of the stories that is on all the media at the moment is the new software which has been developed by a team in Israel which traces the different voices and 'authors' of the Bible. It was even picked up by Stuff, which is a New Zealand newspaper.

For me the key thing in the article is the last couple of paragraphs:

What the algorithm won't answer, say the researchers who created it, is the question of whether the Bible is human or divine. Three of the four scholars, including Koppel, are religious Jews who subscribe in some form to the belief that the Torah was dictated to Moses in its entirety by a single author: God.

The question is - how can people who see different voices and authors in the text continue to beleive that the entire text was dictated by a single G-d to a single prophet (Moses)? Do they have to compartmentalise in their brains, or is their a resolution of these two apparent contradictions (I think there is - see below).

Another question which has been bothering me for a while is the parallels between the story of the flood (and particularly Noach's sacrifices after the flood) in the Torah and in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Lawrence Kelemen uses this as evidence for the truth of the Torah. In "Permission to Receive" on pp. 88-89 he writes:

In 1872, Dr. george Smith of the British Museum identified the first nonbiblical, written record of such a deluge. Scanning cuneiform tablets discovered in the Palace of Sennacherib at Kuyunjik, Simith found a reference to "a ship touching ground on a mountain called Nisir," followed by these lines:

When the seventh day arrived,
I sent forth and set free a dove.
The dove went forth, but came back;
Since no resting place for it was visible, she turned around.

At first this seems like very strong historical evidence for the truth of the events that are described in the Torah. However, James Kugel, in his book "How to Read the Bible" (pp. 75-6) points out that the similarities are too great, and it would seem to invalidate the authenticity of the Torah as the primariy source for this story.

The discovery of the Mesopotamian flood texts proved torubling for traditional Christian and Jewish belief. The reason may not be immediately apparent. After all, if such a great flood had indeed taken place in ancient times, there ought ot be nothing disturbing in the fact that some account of it survived outside of the Bible - on the contrary, the existence of other accounts would only seem to confirm the veracity of biblical history. But hte fact that the biblical and Mesopotamian accounts agreed in so many details suggested to scholars that there was actaully a literary connection between them: that is, the different accounts did not seem simply to agree on the events that had occurred, but on how those events should be retold, inlcuding things that could not have been based solely on historical observation. To mention one detail: why should the Bible have bothered to say that G-d "smelled the pleasing odor" of Noah's sacrifice? Certainly such a vivid anthropomorphism was a bit odd in the Bible, and the text could have as easily said that G-d "was pleased" with the sacrifice - or said nothing at all. More to the point, however: how could any on-site observer of the flood and its aftermath know that G-d/the gods had smelled anything? Surely this was not an observable event but an author's asertion; and the fact that the same asertion, indeed, the very same expression, is found in both Gilgamesh and the Bible seemed to sugest that one text was dependent on the other, or that both derived from a still earlier source. The problem was the even the friendliest dating eliminates any possibility that the Mesopotamian accounts derive from the biblical story; the oldest fragments go back to early in the second millennium BCE, perhaps even earlier - long before the time of Moses nad the traditinoal setting for the giving of the Torah and its account of the flood. As a consequence, most modern scholars today see in the biblical flood story a direct dependence on the Mesopotamian literary tradition.

So, in summary:
How is it possible to see apparent evidence of multiple authors in the Bible, and yet still believe that it was given by G-d to Moshe?
And how should we deal with the literary similarity between the Torah and the Epic of Gilgamesh, which imply that the Torah borrowed the story from an earlier source?

I would like to answer both questions based on Ibn Ezra in Parshas Chukas. Actually, both Ramban and Chizkuni give similar explanations, but Ibn Ezra is the clearest. In chapter 21 verses 13-14 the Torah says:

From thence they journeyed, and pitched on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness, that cometh out of the border of the Amorites.--For Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites; wherefore it is said in the book of the Wars of the LORD: Vaheb in Suphah, and the valleys of Arnon.

Ibn Ezra (and Ramban and Chizkuni) ask what this "Book of the Wars of the Lord" is. His answer:

“In the Book of Wars of the Lord"– this was a separate book on its own, in which are written the wars of God for those who fear Him. It makes sense that this is from the time of Avraham, because many books were lost, and we no longer have them, such as The Words of Natan, The Book of Ido, Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Songs of Shlomo and his Proverbs.

Ibn Ezra (and the other Rishonim) claim that the Torah text we have includes within it fragments from earlier texts (which presumably were also dictated by G-d to Moshe - either G-d gave him a copy of the book or said it word for word). This also explains why the language of these verses is not in classic Hebrew, and the commentators struggle to explain some of the words.

Rashi gives a different explanation, but it seems to me that he is not giving 'pshat' - let me know what you think.

So does it not make sense that when G-d was retelling Moshe the stories from Bereishis, including the flood, that He also quoted earlier texts, even though the Torah does not explicitly quote the source of the words (I don't think G-d has to worry about plagiarism). This would answer Kugel's apparent difficulty with the biblical text.

Perhaps this can also explain why there appear to be different strands of authorship in the Bible. Moshe was combining earlier texts into the Torah that we have today - all based on the word of G-d.

I think that some people may have difficulty with such an answer, but when three major Rishonim all explain that Moshe is copying from other texts, is it really a problematic answer?

Your thoughts please.

26th Sivan - Rabbi Yonatan ben Uzziel

According to my calendar:

Some say that today is the yahrzeit of the Tanna, Rabbi Yonatan ben Uzziel, and that he is buried in Amukah. But I do not know the source of this.

Clearly this is a GOOD THING for the various charity organisations, because they can take your money in exchange for praying for you at Amukah on this very auspicious day.
For example Kupat Ha-Ir

Vaad HaRabonim have a similar campaign - though I can't find it on the internet (which is good, since they hold that the internet is forbidden).

And I have heard from many people and sems of the importance of going to Amukah to find a shidduch.

So it is quite interesting to find the real story: On p. 688 of 'Making of a Godol' Rav Noson Kaminetsky explains the source of this belief, and the reason for the 'minhag' to travel to Amukah to find a shidduch:

Another case of superstition came to this author's attention through a review of the book 'Ohr HaGalil' in the HaTzofeh newspaper. The reviewer, R' Meir Wunder, made a study and discovered that belief in the powers of prayer at the site of the grave of the Tanna Yonathan ben 'Uziel in 'Amuqah was nonexistent until a tour company in Jerusalem concocted the "tradition" circa 5713 (1953). R' Meir filled this author in on the background of his investigation: a spinster acquaintance took a private taxi with an unknown driver for the long and lonely drive through the hills and
forests of the Galilee to visit the grave, a site where prayers for finding a mate were said to be especially effective d. The single woman who spurred the reviewer's research put herself in jeopardy to get to 'Amuqah and obviously had a superstitious faith in what she was doing to the extent that she felt protected by a magic net of security during the dangerous (and probably halakhically forbidden) ride with the stranger. The trip to the Galilee brought her no tragedy, but neither joy.

In a footnote there he also shows how the media has avoided correcting this 'mistaken minhag':

R' Wunder had also sent a letter with the gist of his discovery to the editor of the newspaper. But on the advice of a renowned Torah scholar, that newspaper edited it to avoid casting any aspersion on the "tradition". Not that the Torah scholar approved of doing unsafe things to get to 'Amuqah, but he did not want to invalidate altogether the notion of traveling there, saying, "Let it be: if they believe in it, let us not discourage them." It seems to this author that the scholar had compassion for the unfortunates who find solace in their superstitions - see
fn. w - on p. 680. He is believed to be R' Shlomo-Zalman Auerbach.

It is also interesting to see each year that there are more and more yahrzeits commemorated with special bus services, and Rabbis offering to say special prayers on the day. Whoever thought of this tourism idea should really deserve a prize!

Baby Yitzchak Sedley

Here is the video of the brit of baby Yitzchak. Don't worry - there is no blood on the video - though the camera does turn sideways a couple of times.