Judaism ForumAsk an Orthodox JewHi all! Sevryn45, you posted: Thank you! Funny thing that. Many secular & so-called "Reform" and "Humanist" Jews consider we orthodox Jews to be Jewish Fundamentalists and, therefore, a bit loco. So, I guess that we're birds-of-a-feather. Well... If 100,000 Jews people drew 100,000 conclusions from the Tanakh (what we call what Christians call the "Old Testament), we would have communal anarchy very soon; indeed an organized, cohesive community would be all but impossible under such circumstances. The sheer mass of 100,000 inherently subjective, idiosyncratic it-seems-to-me's would forestall and frustrate any communal cohesion. There has to be some way whereby the community can formulate/agree on basic principles acceptable to all which can help serve as glue to bind the community. A "people of the Book" has to be able to agree, at least to a certain extent, on what the Book means. As orthodox Jews, we believe that the origins of the vast body of Jewish interpretive and exegetical literature are rooted in the Torah itself. Deuteronomy 27:2-8 says: Our Sages comment on the seemingly redundant phrase very plainly. Not believing that it refers to the clarity of the etching in the plaster (that being obvious), our Sages say that it means that the Torah had to be interpreted/commented upon so that it could be easily & plainly understood by all, by each person in accordance with his/her abilities. We see this in action in Nehemiah 8:7-8. Who may interpret, expound, teach & cause to understand? Only one who is steeped in tradition and who has studied & delved into the text in great depth. (See Deuteronomy 17:8-11). This is an awesome responsibility. The Talmud quotes Rabbi Elazar from Modi'in (2nd century CE, what we say instead of "AD") as saying that: Many of our traditional interpretations of this or that verse are based not only on the Written Torah but on an unbroken chain of tradition (http://www.aish.com/holidays/shavuot/last/chain.htm#precise) going all the way back to Moses our Teacher that is at the heart of our belief in an Oral Torah as well. We believe that God gave both a Written and an Oral Torah to Moses. The Talmud is a major codification of the Oral Torah. Through these (now written down) oral traditions, we understand how to understand the text of the Written Torah. (Ferinstance, the Oral Torah tells us that the adage "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, etc.," was never meant to be taken literally but instead means that someone who gouges out another's eye must compensate him monetarily for the loss of his eye. The Oral Torah tells us about the kosher method of slaughtering animals, referred to in passing in Deuteronomy 12:21. Etc. etc. See http://tinyurl.com/2ffy8 and http://tinyurl.com/2uyfp for a good intro on this very key Jewish concept.) Our Sages, i.e. those who are steeped in tradition and who have studied & delved into the text in great depth, are the bearers & keepers of these oral traditions & thus they are uniquely qualified to authoritatively interpret the Tanakh. About Jewish eschatology, see http://www.aish.com/literacy/concepts/Reincarnation_and_Jewish_Tradition.asp, http://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/324/Q1/, & http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=108400. Howzat? Be well! ssv |
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