A Short Recap

In the previous 2 installments, we have discussed how the Torah can retain its Divinity (only) by not being viewed as a Book of science and history. Indeed, those categories did not exist at the time, and it would be an anachronistic error to assume the Torah was written in that regard. This position would have been championed by virtually any of the major Sephardic / Andalusian commentators of the medieval period as well as by many Midrashic Sages of the first Millenium CE. We spoke about the Torah’s Story being a Divine Paradigm Shift in many cases - a polemic against the meaninglessness of life as portrayed by other near-Eastern religious texts. In this installment, we will focus on how to view the Law and its relation to science.

God’s Word for All Humanity?

If you search up “What is Torah” online and happen upon Jewish sources, you will no doubt be overwhelmed by a claim made (carelessly in my opinion) that the Torah is God’s Word to humanity1. You may wonder why this particular phraseology bothers me so. After all, if God authored a Divine Book, or at least Dictated it, then why would it not be for all of humanity? To offer one answer2 to this, allow me to defer to a common piece of knowledge in the Orthodox Jewish world regarding the Septuagint (the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible):

“It once happened that five elders wrote the Torah for King Ptolemy in Greek, and that day was as ominous for Israel as the day on which the golden calf was made, since the Torah could not be accurately translated.” (Tractate Soferim 1:7)

“If a person will say to you: ‘There is wisdom among the nations,’ believe it. If a person will say:] ‘There is Torah among the nations,’ do not believe it” (Midrash Eicha Rabba 2:13)

Why, if the Torah is God’s word for all of humanity, did the Sages lament its translation such to compare it to the sin of the Golden Calf - one of the most egregious sins of the Jewish people3? Additionally, translation tends to make things more accessible and open to refinement than unilingual preservation. The answer to these questions is actually quite simple - we believe the Torah is not to be read on its own at face value. It must always be accompanied by tradition and commentary. This tradition and commentary is imbued into the life of every Orthodox Jew. All the time - to the extent that some tie their shoelaces using the guidance of certain interpretations of the Torah’s message4. Shoelaces aside, Orthodox Judaism vehemently believes in this sort of interaction with the Torah. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks said regarding the Jewish tradition, “Reading the Bible literally is heresy.” But whose tradition and commentary interprets the Biblical text? Ultimately, only the Jewish Sages can interpret it with authoritative power5. But their interpretation has to always be guided by the ethical considerations of the time in conjunction with newfound insight6. As Rabbi Samuel Lebens writes7:

Back to the Law

I hope that now we have come to understand that the Torah is by no means Divine Instruction manual for all of humanity. We addressed why this is so in regard to its Stories in the previous installment. This does not demean the Torah at all - it is how the Torah was originally given. It was always the Jewish task to live through the Law in a manner which garners admiration from surrounding nations. As Rabbi Lebens writes:

We do this through the Law. Let us examine two instances of Laws found in the Torah and examine what the verse demands as opposed to what is practiced. This dichotomy is important because it portrays the partnership Divinity exhibits with humanity and the Jewish people. The two Laws I would like to focus on are:

1. The Wayward and Rebellious Son (בן סורר ומורה)

2. Cheeseburgers (אל תבשל גדי בחלב אמו)

The Wayward and Rebellious Son

Why It’s Unique

I choose to start with this Law because religion8 is often accused of halting ethical progress in favor of what is perceived as the “Word of God.” While I will not make any Theological or Ontological claims for other religions and do not consider Judaism a religion alone, they are lumped together, so this Law will serve particularly well for how Judaism approaches Laws of a face value unethical nature. Let us examine them (Deuteronomy 21:18-21);

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken to them:

then shall his father and his mother lay hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of his city, and to the gate of his place;

and they shall say to the elders of his city, our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Yisra᾽el shall hear, and fear.

Upon reading this, we may be tempted to rationalize the sheer shock of the face value reading of these verses. There is no need to do this. The face value verses are indeed problematic - and I have no answer for why they are written the way they are. But what is evident to any Orthodox Jew is the attitude and tradition behind this commandment. There are plenty of wayward and rebellious sons throughout the Hebrew Bible - none were subjected to this punishment. Not King David’s son Avshalom, not the sons of Gilad, and not the sons of any of the Kings of Israel/Judah who were wicked9. Why is this the case? I will make the case that these Divine Laws, as all Divine Laws, are meant to be interpreted by an ethical Jewish court in regard to the way in which their implementation would serve as a beacon of Spirituality and method of living life.

The Talmud and the Sages - Between Ethics and Divinity

If we were to examine the approach of the Sages when dealing with the above Law, we might be shocked as to what they had to say. I will defer primarily to Maimonides’ Mishnah Torah as the overwhelming majority of what he writes in terms of the Law in general is extrapolated directly from the Talmud and a plethora of authoritative sources. For now, let us try to think of the implications of the face value of the verses. The process described seems very straightforward and quick; Parents of a less evolved time have had it with this annoying son of theirs and want him gone from society. Keep in mind the verse simply states a son - there is no age limit10. The parents can just grab him - bring him to the elders of the city - and good riddance - stoning time! Now let us examine if this is how the Sages viewed this verse. All of the following points will be derived from Maimonides’ “Laws of the Rebels” Chapter 7 in his Mishnah Torah. Let us list these face value assumptions and compare to the Law.

1. The “age” (period in which this law can apply) of this son seems to be at least until marriage (when the son would be under the parent’s care) - Maimonides maintains that these verses only apply for three months of the life of this son.

   1. “The entire period for which a "wayward and rebellious son" is liable is only three months from the time he manifests signs of physical maturity.”

2. Since in those times, the man had the “final say”, really, he makes the ultimate decision in this regard.

   1. If his father desires to convict him and his mother does not desire, or his mother desires and his father does not desire, he is not judged as a "wayward and rebellious son."

3. The parents can take their son to court for any drunk or gluttonous infraction.

   1. There are many particulars involved in the meal for which he (the son) is liable for eating. All of these are conveyed by the Oral Tradition. He is not liable for stoning until he steals from his father and buys meat and wine at a cheap price. He must then eat it outside his father's domain, together with a group that are all empty and base. He must eat meat that is raw, but not entirely raw, cooked but not entirely cooked... He must drink the wine as it is thinned as the alcoholics drink. He must eat a quantity of meat weighing 50 dinarim (about 8oz at the least) in one sitting and drink half a log (about 24oz at the least) of this wine at one time.

These are just a few of the manifestations of the actual Law that is considered authoritative. It is clear that the Law is not a face value implementation of the text. Orthodox Judaism remains as it is because we believe, as previously mentioned, in an Oral tradition accompanying the written Torah. What guides these traditions? It must be something about ethical progress, because the Law is never made less moral by the Sages, as we can see from the above example. The cherry on this cake is that the Talmud (Sanhedrin 71a) explicitly records an opinion that states:

There has never been a stubborn and rebellious son and there will never be one in the future, as it is impossible to fulfill all the requirements that must be met in order to apply this halakha. And why, then, was the passage relating to a stubborn and rebellious son written in the Torah? So that you may expound upon new understandings of the Torah and receive reward for your learning, this being an aspect of the Torah that has only theoretical value. In accordance with whose opinion is this? It is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda, who requires that the parents have certain identical characteristics, making it virtually impossible to apply the halakha. [final emphasis mine, indicated by bold italics - explanation and emphasis otherwise are original. The bold portion of the text is the translation of the Talmudic language, the non bolded text is the author’s woven explanation of the Talmudic sentiment - which is often blurred].

It is clear that the Talmud questions the very necessity for this Law at all! The recorded voice here goes so far as to say that the Law of this rebellious son was recorded solely for using our human intellect and moral intuition to expound on it and ultimately - never practically apply it. This is an attitude toward a Divine text which is truly unique.

Cheeseburgers

I will not expound on this Law as lengthily as the Law about the wayward son, but I place it here as an additional example of a Law which has much tradition attached to it. If you ask any Orthodox (even right-wing Conservative) Jew why they are not allowed to eat cheeseburgers, they will point to the following verse in Exodus (23:19):

“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

You would be right to potentially make sense of the prohibition of eating a cheeseburger, because meat and cheese are being eaten together, which sort of coalesces with what the verse states. But that is not what the verse says the Law is. The verse only prohibits cooking a young goat in its mother’s milk. Theoretically, we would assume this does not apply to cows or other kosher animals. Additionally, many Jews wait six hours after eating meat (and even poultry) to consume dairy. That practice also follows from the above verse. This is another example of the layers of tradition present in reading the Torah and being an Observant Jew. Of course, we do not take traditions like these to be as Ethically and Theologically problematic for us as the wayward son, but layers of tradition are all encompassing. Interpretation does not discriminate - all of the Torah is open for interpretation (by those familiar and respectful enough of It, of course). Ultimately, there will be a battle for the legitimacy of interpretation, but we pray that the authoritative one will both be driven by and implemented ethically. In fact, as above, this Law’s interpretation has an ethical progression. As Rabbi Dov Linzer writes (in summarizing Nachmanide’s AKA Ramban’s view on the topic):

This is Good News

We can only conclude from the Jewish way of life that the Torah is definitively NOT a Book of Law for all humanity. As Rabbi Meir Bier writes11 “Judaism maintains that any human being who leads a good and moral life achieves a relationship and connection to God.” The Torah is rather, a Divine Book given to the Jewish people, who have a vital role to play in the progress of human ethics12. While some may view this is weakening the modern claim of Jewish “Chosenness,” I believe it strengthens us as a people all the while retaining our unique history and Covenant13.

What is This Meant to do for us?

I expound on the Law in this piece because there is a tendency in the West to look at Philosophical pursuit as the “scientific means” with which we elaborate our ethics. It is almost as though science wants to make a claim to a field it does not encompass. There is a confusion about where to place disciplines such as the arts and the philosophies. The West tends to look at Science as an overarching umbrella of all human knowledge. Much of the intellectual voice in the West seeks to do away with metaphysics, which is the primary field the Torah is concerned with (as mentioned in the first installment). The West seeks to place Philosophy of Ethics in the category of science. This is not a view I agree with, there is much to learn from the breath of the Torah. Rather than simply voice a moral position we believe to be correct; we can anchor our methodology by at least making sense of the ethical intuition present in the Torah and our own. The Torah has much to say about human nature, perennially and at a point in time. We would do well to be less flippant of the Torah’s message - a message the great Talmudic Sage Hillel once summarized as14:

How we interpret the Torah all must stem from this spirit which Hillel saw. It will only be possible to interpret a text properly if we take it seriously. Ethical progress indeed, is not achieved by being flippant of an earlier generation, it is made by heavy considerations of the validity ethical positions which exist, in an effort to determine which is the best path forward. This has always been the guiding force of true ethical progress.