308 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
308 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
From: ljmorly@polaris.utu.fi (Laura Johanna Manninen)
|
|
Newsgroups: alt.messianic
|
|
Subject: Torah SheB'al Peh
|
|
Message-ID: <LJMORLY.93Jan8213859@polaris.utu.fi>
|
|
Date: 8 Jan 93 20:38:59 GMT
|
|
Organization: University of Turku
|
|
Lines: 299
|
|
|
|
Hi Harvey ! I'm reposting some stuff of yours (unless there are 2 Harvey
|
|
Smiths) from the time you still hadn't an access to AM. Sue me...
|
|
|
|
******************************************************************************
|
|
|
|
UNDERSTANDING THE ORAL LAW
|
|
By
|
|
Harvey A. Smith
|
|
|
|
Is what is called the Torah Sheba'al Peh (Oral Law) really G-d's Holy Word
|
|
|
|
|
|
The real issues facing us today is: Are we in Messianic Judaism following
|
|
the Torah min Hashaymyim,( the Torah from Heaven), which we call Biblical
|
|
Judaism, for want of a better word, or are the Rabbinic Jews of the
|
|
Orthodoxy which call their faith, Torah Judaism really the keepers of the
|
|
Torah Min Hashomaim.
|
|
|
|
Have the Orthodox Rabbis, kept the covenant with the Almighty? Is the
|
|
Torah She-bik-htab,( The Written Law) taught and its precepts kept, or is the
|
|
Torah Sheb'al Peh, the oral law, the covenant that the Rabbis teach and try
|
|
to keep.. Mixed in with all this is the Gramatria of Cabalah which allows
|
|
one to re arrange the letters of a word in Torah to mean something
|
|
different than the literal meaning.
|
|
|
|
To quote the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Dr. I Jakobovits and Mr Chaim
|
|
Schimmel, a lawyer and co-founder and chairman of the Hovevey Torah
|
|
educational movement, plus being the Chairman of Yeshiva Etz Chaim, and
|
|
convenor of the A.O.J.S. speakers panel to British Universities...
|
|
|
|
"The Jewish people are frequently called "The People of the Book, yet if
|
|
one were to search out a people who follow literally the Bible's behest,
|
|
one might be led to the Samaritans, who still practise their religion on
|
|
the outskirts of Shechem (Nablus) or the Karaites who are now settled to
|
|
the south of modern Tel-Aviv,(Israel), but NEVER TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE.
|
|
THEY DO NOT NOW FOLLOW THE LITERAL WORD OF THE BIBLE, NOR HAVE THEY EVER
|
|
DONE SO.(personally i take issue with that because under David, and Solomon
|
|
and under Ezrah and Nehemiah, the Word of Torah was supreme).
|
|
They have been fashioned and ruled by the verbal interpretation of the
|
|
Written word, more particularly by the "Torah" which embraces both the
|
|
written and the Oral law"
|
|
|
|
Make no mistakes about it, no matter what they call themselves, they do not
|
|
follow the literal covenant that Moshe gave them at Mt Sinai.
|
|
|
|
Could it be that this is the sin that has kept our people in exile for over
|
|
1900 years??
|
|
Certainly we cannot fault the Rabbis for writing commentaries of the Torah,
|
|
a practice that every religion and denomination has followed to explain the
|
|
Word of G-d... and for sure we cannot fault the Rabbis for trying to
|
|
explain the code of Law that is contained within our covenant with the
|
|
Almighty. But to claim that the Torah Sheb'al Peh, the Oral Law is from
|
|
G-d and was given by Moses at Sinai and is as Holy as the Written Torah can
|
|
very well be the sin of the Fathers which is passed from one Generation to
|
|
the other. Hence is the Torah Sheb'al Peh, a Torah at all??
|
|
|
|
Certainly the Experts of Jews for Judaism who claim Torah Judaism as their
|
|
Faith, know that they do not practice the Torah as is written, so do not be
|
|
deceived by Titles...We in Messianic Judaism are not Samaritans or
|
|
Karaites... We are the inheritors of the Torah from Heaven, to keep it pure
|
|
and to share the Revelation of Messiah with our people, which is the true
|
|
Torah. We also have a halacha, It is in the New Covenant the 16 letters
|
|
which were written to show us how to fulfill and live in the Joy of the New
|
|
Covenant. In this article i will endeavor explore the Oral Tradition of
|
|
the Orthodoxy of Rabbinic Judaism and will show where it veered off the path
|
|
of Biblical Judaism, the Judaism of Mosheh Rabbanu (Moses).
|
|
|
|
|
|
TORAH1, THE ORAL TRADITION,(SHEBE'AL PEH)
|
|
|
|
IS THE SHEBE'AL PEH (THE ORAL LAW OF THE RABBIS) A TORAH?
|
|
IS THE SHEBE'AL PEH INSPIRED BY THE ALMIGHTY?
|
|
WAS THE SHEBE'AL PEH GIVEN TO MOSES AT SINAI BY G-D?
|
|
DOES THE SHEBE'AL PEH OF THE RABBIS' EQUAL IN INSPIRATION
|
|
TO THE "TORAH SHE-BIKHTAB" (THE WRITTEN TORAH)?
|
|
|
|
These are the pertinent questions that we must answer. According to Rabbi
|
|
Neusner, a foremost Talmudist, the Oral Tradition really begins with Rabbi
|
|
Akiba in the end of the First century, and reaches its height in the second
|
|
century under Judah HaNasi with the codifying of the Mishnah, the central
|
|
core of the Oral Tradition.
|
|
|
|
The two main arguments that are used in Rabbinic Judaism to prove that the
|
|
Oral Tradition has its origins at Sinai are as follows:
|
|
|
|
I) "That it is difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of the written
|
|
law, without an oral tradition" (Talmud Shabbat 31A). Rabbi Hillel,
|
|
a Babylonian Rabbi who existed during the time of the Messiah, even went
|
|
further, to say that without an oral tradition, it is impossible to even
|
|
identify the letters of the alef-Bet" (alphabet).
|
|
|
|
II)"That there are principles of Oral Law which date back from the same time
|
|
as the written law."
|
|
|
|
III) The Rabbis had made note that they must now share the Torah with the
|
|
Nations of the world (due to the rise of Christianity), so that the differences
|
|
between the true people of G-d would become clouded. Since the Rabbis'
|
|
considered that the gentiles had stolen Torah from them, the only way for G-d
|
|
to discern between the true people of G-d was through the Sheba'al Peh"
|
|
.(Tanh.,Ki Tissa, 58b)
|
|
When the Gentiles would say to G-d, we are the true children
|
|
of the L-rd because we keep the Torah, the L-rd would respond to them:
|
|
"do you know my secret?" They would respond: What secret. and the L-rd
|
|
responds, my children know my secret". (R Judah, Pes.R. 14b) That secret
|
|
is the Oral Tradition, the Torah Sheba'al Peh!"
|
|
|
|
IV) The oral tradition are the codes and rules for observing the Mitzvot
|
|
that the Rabbis attribute to Moses. They're statement "That the teaching
|
|
which came to us from the Mishnah of the Sages is of identical date and origin
|
|
with that which is derived by interpretation of the Scriptural word, all
|
|
is given by One G-d and communicated by one and the same Prophet", must
|
|
be rejected. It is noted that some statements of Mishnah date back to the
|
|
time of Joshua or even Moses. However they were discussions of how to handle
|
|
certain leperous signs in the camp. Another dealt with the daughters of
|
|
Zelophehad when they first settled in the land of Israel. These tractates
|
|
were by the Rabbis considered amongst the first Mishnayot. And as we shall
|
|
see later that even the framers of the Mishnah did not intend that they
|
|
should become Scripture but when the overwhelming majority of Rabbis
|
|
began to subscribe to the notion that the Mishnah was so powerful that it
|
|
was even more precious than the Torah. (Num.R., Naso, xiv, 10.), the
|
|
framers of the Oral tradition succumbed to the majority and Oral Tradition
|
|
became the modis operandi of Rabbinic Judaism.
|
|
|
|
Of course all this hinges on the Rabbinic theory that Moses did not
|
|
receive the entire Torah at Sinai (Exodus R. 41). Rabbi Akiba asks
|
|
rhetorically "and did then Moses learn the entire Torah" and he replies
|
|
"No, G-d taught him only the principles of Torah". Also Sefer Ha-Ikarim
|
|
III,23 states "It is not possible to claim that G-d gave the Torah
|
|
in such a way that it should provide for all times and all events.
|
|
Moses was given only the Principles.
|
|
|
|
Of course Torah Davarim (Deut.) 31:24 states that Moses wrote them all
|
|
down. The Book of Davarim gives testimony that the covenant between the
|
|
Almighty and children is what G-d dictated to Moses at Sinai and Moses
|
|
spoke to the Children of Israel to keep. The warnings to world wide
|
|
dispersion for breaking the Torah She-bikhtab(Written Law) are a sinister
|
|
spector of prophecy that warn us to go back to the Bible.
|
|
|
|
This article is the result of my personal study and the quotes come out
|
|
of several books: "The Oral Law" by H. Chaim Schimmel, "The Book of
|
|
Redemption" by Ramban (Nachmanides), "Rabbinic Anthology" by Moses
|
|
Montifiore.
|
|
|
|
DID THE RABBIS TRY TO BUILD SAFEGUARDS AROUND THEIR
|
|
WRITINGS IN ORDER TO PRESERVE THE WRITTEN WORD OF G-D?
|
|
|
|
The Rabbis' intended to safeguard their writings and legislative
|
|
capabilities by:
|
|
1. "Rabbinic legislation was not to be misrepresented as though it were
|
|
inspired by prophecy.
|
|
|
|
2. Nor was it to be misrepresented as though it were Torah legislation
|
|
|
|
3. Torah law and decisions of earlier Bet Dins were not to be abrogated
|
|
|
|
4. The will of the People
|
|
|
|
5. The Will of G-d
|
|
|
|
6. The Will of the Bet Din
|
|
|
|
Because of these severe restrictions, the Rabbis sought other means or
|
|
loopholes to create new laws. First they developed what is called "Legal
|
|
Fiction, where a statement which is known to be Untrue, but no debate is
|
|
allowed to make it invalid or denied, so some new law could be enacted."
|
|
|
|
(If their laws were of G-d and not man made, there would not have been this
|
|
need to lie and then go around the old law to bring in a new more workable
|
|
law)
|
|
|
|
Once again to quote Mr Schimmel (The Oral law pg 57) "Yabneh was a time of
|
|
comparative calm in the midst of political upheavels in the land, and the
|
|
SAGES FELT THAT THEY MUIST GRASP THE OPPORTUNITY TO ESTABLISH THE AUTHORITY
|
|
OF HALACHAH."(So evidently before Yabneh 1 century CE, Halachah was not
|
|
the established authority in the Jewish communities and certainly did not
|
|
come from Moshe MeSinai)(This is recorded in the Talmud for all to see).
|
|
|
|
The classic example of "Legal Fiction" is Hillel's famous Pruzbal (Gittin
|
|
36a)
|
|
|
|
Hillel cited a pretence that a person's debt was assigned to the Bet Din
|
|
until after the Sabbatical Year. The reason for this was, during the
|
|
Sabbatical Year according to Torah Law, all debts were to be forgiven.
|
|
|
|
By doing the above they kept the man in debt for after the Sabbatical Year
|
|
the man's debt was reassigned by the Bet Din back to the lender, thus
|
|
successfully circumventing the law which said "His debts shall be forgiven"
|
|
That they say was fulfilled by the lender, who forgave everyone their debts
|
|
during that year.(Note he had already passed ownership of the debts to the
|
|
Bet Din, so he did not have any debtors to fulfill the law.) Remember it
|
|
is the Almighty who looks on the heart.
|
|
|
|
No wonder Yeshua said "Why do you transgress the Words of G-d for your
|
|
ordinances" "You despise the Word of G-d by your Ordinances" Matt 15:3-7
|
|
and again " because this people has come near with their mouth and has
|
|
honored me with their lips, but their heart is far from me and their
|
|
REVERENCE TOWARD ME IS THE COMMANDMENTS OF MEN WHICH HAVE BEEN TAUGHT"
|
|
(The Gospel of Matthew according to primitive Hebrew Text)
|
|
|
|
MISHNAH
|
|
|
|
It would be wrong to continue this discussion without a comment or two on
|
|
the Mishnah. i am quoting again from "The Oral Law"
|
|
|
|
"The Mishnah is the basis of the Oral Law which is known to us, and its
|
|
formulation was entirely the work of the SAGES. THERE IS NO SUGGESTION
|
|
THAT THE TEXT OF THE MISHNAH IS OF DIVINE ORIGIN."
|
|
|
|
"The Mishnah comprises a simple statement of the law or of a difference in
|
|
Rabbinic opinion concerning the Law and DOES NOT SEEK SCRIPTURAL PROOF."
|
|
|
|
What the Rabbis' failed to see was that by circumventing the rules of
|
|
Safeguards, they removed from themselves all traces of accountability.
|
|
Anyone Rabbi could change the laws according to his or her whims, without
|
|
any type of accountability. Certainly if they had stayed within their
|
|
parameters, many of their decisions and legislations would have been widely
|
|
accepted by the people instead of them rebelling against the harsh
|
|
oppression of Rabbinic Rules that have been handed down as from G-d and
|
|
Moses at Sinai, in direct opposition to their own rules of conduct.
|
|
|
|
Because of these great Sins of the Rabbis' our people have been kept
|
|
captive, until now. Thank G-d, that He is bringing our people back to
|
|
Eretz Yisrael, according to Ezekiel 36, and Isa. 11, where it is not for
|
|
Israel's sake but for G-d's Holy Name Sake, which they have profaned amongst
|
|
the heathen when they said "We are the people of the L-rd and have left His
|
|
land."
|
|
|
|
In conclusion, the reason Halachah is so great a Sin, is that the people
|
|
were taught these were G-d's Laws, so now when a person rebells against one
|
|
of these Rabbinic Laws, they believe they are rebelling against G-d.
|
|
Soo the rebellion becomes a hatred for G-dly things.
|
|
|
|
We have a similiar problem in Messianic Faith. There are some Shepherds
|
|
who heap laws and legalism unto their sheep, causing them to rebell and do
|
|
the same thing. Let us not Add to the Words of the Almighty or detract
|
|
from them. Let us fulfill the New Covenant Mitzvot by doing those things
|
|
that are acceptable to HaShem.
|
|
|
|
There is much to be learned in Rabbinic Literature.
|
|
There is much to understand especially in the area of Torah Law.
|
|
Remember the Rabbis' were not only concerned with Law but of how to keep
|
|
our people together during this harsh exile and to govern when allowed our
|
|
little communities amongst the sea of Gentile nations.
|
|
|
|
|
|
IS THE HALACHAH (ORAL TRADITION OF THE RABBIS BASED ON TORAH
|
|
OR GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY?
|
|
|
|
I have said before that i believed that Orthodox Halachah, was based
|
|
primarily on Philosophy and Logic rather than the Torah from Heaven.
|
|
|
|
The Rabbis during the age of the Mishnah, (100-250 CE), made it rather
|
|
plain that they were following the Torah MeEretz, rather than the Torah
|
|
from Heaven. A heavy dispute between two Rabbis on the issue, caused the
|
|
dismissal of one from the Sanhedrin.
|
|
|
|
This principal is known as "S'Bara". The Talmud ascribes the authority for
|
|
many Halachic laws as being "S'Bara". "What need is there for basing the
|
|
decision on a Biblical verse"."It is S'Bara", meaning the decision is
|
|
logical so therefore Torah, whether or not it is based on the Torah.
|
|
(page 3 Not in Heaven by foremost Orthodox Talmudist, Eliezer Berkovits)
|
|
|
|
With the re-establishment of the Nation of Israel, the Halachists found
|
|
themselves in a quandry. While in exile, all they could think was that
|
|
halachah had many problems there because it was laws written for Jews
|
|
who were supposed to be living in the Land of Israel.
|
|
Now back in the land, they have found according to Rabbi Berkovits that the
|
|
Halachah is also alien to Eretz Yisrael (land of Israel).
|
|
|
|
In his book, Not in Heaven, Rabbi Berkovits is calling for a total
|
|
re-evaluation of halachah, calling it the captive of the Galut, (Exile).
|
|
This more than ever points to the fallacies of halachah of being only the
|
|
work of man and not of the Almighty. The problem with Rabbi Berkovits
|
|
answers to the problems of Halachah is that he wants to keep using it to
|
|
get around the Biblical Torah laws, especially that which is connected to
|
|
the land and the debts of individuals. "Shmitta". These are the very
|
|
abuses that caused our exile in the first place.
|
|
|
|
I heartily suggest the reading of the book "Not in Heaven" published by Ktav
|
|
as to an understanding of the "Nature and Function of Halakha"
|
|
|
|
While we suscribe to the fact, that there are many Halachic rules that are
|
|
good, we must also suscribe to the Halacha, the position of commentary, and
|
|
explanation. There is a treasure of History within the Halachaic reports
|
|
as well.
|
|
|
|
As Jews and Messianic Believers we must totally reject the premise that the
|
|
Sheba'al Peh is in fact a Torah, which was given to Moses at Sinai.
|
|
|
|
****************************************************************************
|
|
- Laura
|
|
--
|
|
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government
|
|
will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Councellor,
|
|
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." - Yeshaya 9:5 (9:6)
|
|
|
|
"To the Jews who had believed him, Yeshua said, "If you hold to my
|
|
teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth,
|
|
and the truth will set you free."" - Yochanan 8:32-33
|