Written Torah and Oral Torah in the Jewish Tradition (5/13/21; 5/22/21)

Last week, in the Sunday School class we briefly discussed the Oral Torah and its relationship to the Written Torah (first five books of the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament).  Today, I was reading James Kugel's Blog entry for May 17, here, titled Word of Mouth. I won’t get into the details of the blog entry, but the ending was this after discussing a hidden message: “At its heart is the idea that the words of the Written Torah tell only half the story.”

That thought inspired me to offer more on Oral Torah for participants in the class and others who are not familiar with Jewish concepts.  Kugel offers this discussion from How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, (pp. 679-681, footnotes and endnotes omitted and some text omitted):

The founders of what was to become, after the first century CE, the dominant form of Judaism (“rabbinic Judaism”) had always attributed great importance to the Torah’s traditions of interpretation. In fact—for various reasons that need not detain us here—those traditions were granted a special status in Judaism: they were referred to collectively as the Torah-that-was-transmitted-orally (or “Oral Torah” for short), and they were sometimes asserted to go back all the way to the time of Moses himself, who had received them at the same time that he received the written text of the Pentateuch. If so, according to the exponents of rabbinic Judaism, then there were really two Torahs, the written Pentateuch and the traditions of its proper interpretation and application, which had been transmitted orally along with it. In the terms that we have seen, this was a kind of canonization of the idea that Abraham was a monotheist who underwent ten tests; that Jacob was a learned student, while his brother Esau was a brutish lout; that the Israelites heard only the first two of the Ten Commandments directly from God; that in forbidding “work” on the sabbath, the Torah had in mind precisely thirty-nine different types of work; that the Torah’s law of guardians distinguishes between a paid and an unpaid guardian; that a water-giving rock followed the Israelites in the desert; that the Shema is to be recited every morning and evening; and so on and so forth. All such traditions were held to be of equal authority with the written text, and this idea has remained a central tenet of Judaism to this day.

The “Oral Torah,” it should be noted, consisted of more than biblical interpretation alone—it also contained rules governing a number of matters not covered in the Pentateuch (for example, prayers and blessings to be recited on various occasions; agricultural laws; some torts and other areas of civil law; matters connected with betrothal, marriage, and divorce; parts of criminal law and judicial procedure; a detailed description of temple rites, purity statutes, and so forth). It thus included a vast body of material, and even though it continued to be called the “Oral Torah,” this material was eventually committed to writing—it became the Mishnah and Tosefta and the two Talmuds and various compilations of midrash in different genres. Thus, today, Judaism has essentially two canons, the biblical one and the great corpus of writings included under the Oral Torah.

 Although these two bodies of writings were, and are, said to be of equal authority, in practice, the Oral Torah always wins. The written Torah may say “an eye for an eye,” but what these words mean is what the Oral Torah says they mean, namely, monetary compensation for any such injury (b. Baba Qamma 83b–84a). The written Torah may say that Jacob went to his father “deceitfully,” but the Oral Torah explains that he really didn’t lie. And so on and so forth for every apparent problem, every inconsistency or contradiction or infelicity in the written text. The solutions produced by the Bible’s ancient interpreters simply became what the text meant. So Judaism has at its heart a great secret. It endlessly lavishes praise on the written Torah, exalting its role as a divinely given guidebook and probing lovingly the tiniest details of its wording and even spelling. Every sabbath the Torah is, quite literally, held up above the heads of worshipers in synagogue, kissed and bowed to and touched in gestures of fealty and absolute submission, some of which may, incidentally, be traced all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia. Yet upon inspection Judaism turns out to be quite the opposite of fundamentalism. The written text alone is not all-powerful; in fact, it rarely stands on its own. Its true significance usually lies not in the plain sense of its words but in what the Oral Torah has made of those words; this is its definitive and final interpretation.

As a result, the whole approach of modern biblical scholarship, which is predicated on disregarding the ancient interpretive traditions of Judaism (and, for that matter, Christianity) and rejecting the four fundamental assumptions that underlie them, must inevitably come into conflict with traditional Jewish belief and practice. The modern program rules out of bounds precisely that which is, for traditional Jews, the Torah’s ultimate significance and its definitive interpretation. To insist on taking the Torah’s words at face value, without regard to what the Oral Torah says about them, is thus for a traditional Jew somewhat comparable to telling a Christian that he or she must take the laws of the Old Testament at face value, without regard for all that Paul has to say about them in the New Testament, as well as about the new covenant of Christianity that has come to take their place. I do not know any Christians who would accept such a proposition.

   * * * *

[After discussing Song of Songs (Song of Solomon in the OT) to illustrate that it was not what the original writer of the text meant (bawdy love poem) but rather what the community interpreted it to mean (love of God for the community) when it was made canonical; he further illustrates with a thought example using the song She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain, a secular traditional song, that some hypothetical religious community reimagines as a story of God’s love for the community and, once interpreted in this way, may never mean the same again at least for that community.  With that background Kugel says:]

What made them the Bible, however, was their definitive reinterpretation, along the lines of the Four Assumptions of the ancient interpreters—a way of reading that was established in Judaism in the form of the Oral Torah. Read the Bible in this way and you are reading it properly, that is, in keeping with the understanding of those who made and canonized the Bible. Read it any other way and you have drastically misconstrued the intentions of the Bible’s framers. You are like someone who thinks Swift’s satirical Modest Proposal was a serious program for ending the famine in Ireland—or perhaps a better example from our discussion of the Song of Songs: you are like someone who understands the words of “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” like a twelve-year-old camper. No one has ever told you about its other meaning; that is to say, no one has explained to you why the adults are singing it with religious fervor. Don’t tell me that original songwriter’s intention is everything: when the grown-ups sing it, every word has the messianic meaning I described. Now if it doesn’t for you (and if you’re not a twelve-year-old camper), then why are you singing it at all? Similarly with the Song of Songs and with all of Scripture: its true meaning is not the original meaning of its constituent parts, but the meaning it had for the people who first saw it as the Bible, God’s great book of instruction. If it doesn’t have that meaning for you anymore—if all it is is etiological tales and priestly polemics and political speeches—then why are you singing it?

On the importance of the Oral Law, the following is from Amy Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco 2006):

According to the rabbinic tradition, at the same time Moses received the written Torah, he received the "oral Torah" or "oral Law" as well; this tradition of interpretation Moses passed on to Joshua, who delivered it to his successors, and on to the rabbis and their heirs today.  Pirke Avot, a tractate of the Mishnah, details the transmission of the tradition.

Because of oral Law, one cannot read a text from the written Torah and claim to know what Judaism teaches.  A number of Christians believe, primarily because of Jesus's statement in the Sermon on the Mount, "You have heard that it said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer" (Matt. 5:38, citing Exod. 21:23-24; Lev. 24:19-20; Deut. 19:21; the next verse in Matthew speaks of turning the other cheek), that Judaism teaches justice without mercy and Jesus invented the mechanism to stop the retributive system.  But Jewish tradition has its own gloss on that earlier legal material.  The rabbis noted that there could never be certainty that the punishment was not worse than the crime, so they determined that, in the case of injury, the one causing the injury does not surrender a body part.  Instead, they worked out a legal system that requires compensatory payment determined on the basis of damages, pain, medical expenses, loss of work due to injury, and anguish or. embarrassment.'  Thereby, the rabbinic tradition also refuses to repay evil with evil, even as it prepares anyone who studies it for law school. 

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When it comes to the legal or paraenetic material in their respective canons, both Christian and Jewish communities claim the right of interpretation, just as today in the United States judges provide interpretations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Does the "right to bear arms" mean that one can carry a concealed gun into a church?  Does the clause prohibiting Congress from establishing religion extend to the states? Is execution in the electric chair "cruel and unusual punishment"?  The current debates over these issues show that interpretation of legal material is often both controversial and complicated.

For Jesus, interpretation of legal materials seems to have developed on an ad hoc basis.  Someone would inquire about the legality of a particular issue, and he would offer a response.  * * * * Jesus arrogated to himself the right to interpret Torah, and he did so in what the Gospels record was a remarkable way.  At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew states: "Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes" (7:28-29). That is, he spoke without citing his teachers and without always offering scriptural precedent or justification.

In the Babylonian Talmud, the synagogue's arrogation to itself of the power to interpret Torah is discussed in a famous passage concerning the relatively mundane question of whether a particular oven is kosher. The protagonist, Rabbi Eliezer, argues that the oven is ritually pure, although his fellow rabbis disagree:

Rabbi Eliezer related all the answers of the world and they were not accepted.  Then he said, "Let this carob tree prove that the Halakhah agrees with me."  Thereupon the carob tree was torn a hundred cubits out of its place (others affirm, four hundred cubits).  They answered, "No proof can be brought from a carob tree:'

Again he said to them: "Let the spring of water prove that the Halakhah prevails."  Thereupon the stream of water flowed backwards.  They answered, "No proof can be brought from a stream of water."

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Again he said to them: "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the walls of the study house prove it," whereupon the walls were about to fall.  But Rabbi Joshua rebuked them, saying: "When the sages of this study house are engaged in a Halakhic dispute, what (right) do You have to interfere?"  They did not fall, in honor of Rabbi Joshua, nor did they resume the upright (position), in honor of Rabbi Eliezer; and they are still standing this way today.

Again he said to them: "Let it be announced by the heavens that the Halakhah prevails according to my statement!"  A voice from heaven [bat qol, literally, "daughter of the voice"; the voice that speaks at Jesus's baptism is a bat qol] cried out: "Why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, seeing that in all matters the Halakhah agrees with him?"  But Rabbi Joshua arose and exclaimed: "The Torah is not in heaven.'' [See Deut. 30:12-14:  "It is not in heaven, that you should say, `Who will go up to heaven for us and get it for us so that we may hear and observe it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, `Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us that we may hear it and observe it?'  No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth, and in your heart for you to observe]

Rabbi Jeremiah [explaining this comment] said, "The Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a voice from heaven [bat qol], because You have written that `one follows the majority" [Exod. 23:2].

Rabbi Nathan met Elijah [the prophet] and asked him, "What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour?"  He replied, "He laughed [with joy], saying, "My sons have defeated [or overruled] Me, My sons have defeated Me." (Baba Metzia 59a)

The passage teaches that because God has given Israel the Torah, it is now Israel's role to interpret it; in so doing, Israel honors both the Scriptures and God.  The passage also indicates the responsibility of the communal voice: neither miracles nor individual charismatic authority can drive community practice.  For the rabbinic tradition, no matter how honored, wise, or holy the individual rabbi, the "sages," speaking for and as the community, make final determinations on legal matters.