Q&A: Why So Many Disputes in the Oral Torah? Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

these are interesting questions about the nature of the tal the nature of mlo how did things exist in the olden days however you define the olden days so let me explain one thing there are two things you need you need to know first people ask a very simple question if we believe that Hashem gave not just the written Torah but Hashem gave the oral interpretations of the Torah to Moshe and they were handed down generation to generation orally until such time that they were in danger of being forgotten and they were set down in the mishna and the gum then how is it possible for there to ever be Aus we say one mon says kosher one says TR one says K one says pter one says toor one says T what did Hashem say if Hashem said everything to mha then somebody got it wrong and if somebody got it wrong that means there are errors in transmission if there are errors in transmission then number one that undermines the veracity of the whole system and number two it contradicts the CL of the gamor they're both right if Hashem said a then B is not right if Hashem said B then a is not right so how do you reconcile that's a really fundamental question how do you reconcile the divine orig of the with the numerous that appear from the first page of to the last page of Shas there's actually one peric in Shas where the mishas don't have a mlus but that's only in the mishna not in the gorra and that's the per that is in carbonos every day if you look that's the only peric of in that doesn't have any M perhaps that's why we say it every day day besides it has the says you know have Shalom is but everything is so the answer to that is I mean there deeper ways of expressing it but the simplest answer is that people make a big mistake when they assume that what Hashem gave to Moshe was a definitive answer to every possible question when we say the terish ofz is divine we mean Hashem gave Moshe the basic the basic principles from which all can be derived whether it's the yimid of interpretation or the general principles and then it was left to the of every generation even today to use those principles to apply them to new situations so Hashem didn't give mosha about microwave ovens on chabas or surrogate motherhood but hasem gave mosha the clim out of which the can extrapolate now the r writes in the that if you have two great with identical first principles they will differ as to how to apply those principles to a given situation so is what is basically saying as long as the are raw oi to pasin that's a big question I'm glassing over but as long as they are off ized to pasin and as long as they follow the rules and as long as they utilize the Clum of tal Hashem says whatever conclusion they come up with will be blessed withes Ms even if Hashem would come to a different answer that's the story of Lashay objectively they're wrong but operationally and behaviorally it's fine it's a very deep idea that there are two levels of Truth there is an objective Heavenly truth but then there is the rat Hashem that the truth of how to apply should be established by human intelligence based on the colum of terisha so for example I mean I say this a million times so forgive me if you've heard it a million times people often have this view that every word of the gamorra was given to mosha rabena and the whole Shas was handed down until Ravina Rashi wrote it down now think about how impossible that would be I mean Ravina Rashi Abaya R these are people they lived at a certain time are you telling me that there was a script first how it wasn't even a script it would be an oral there was an oral script as to what abay is GNA say like what who gave him his lines obviously when Abaya and raava are debating they're doing of course they're infinitely higher than us but they're doing the same thing you're doing they're using their s to try to figure things out yeah of course they're infinitely greater than us but the process is the same process so the concept that the gumar word for word was handed down is absurd because it happened when it happened but we mean theodos of the Torah shab go all the way back okay now so where does mlus come from so it's interesting that or Ally there was always M there was always M but for a very long time mlo got resolved because when you had a Sanhedrin of 71 they would discuss the application of the halaka to given situations and they would decide things by a majority vote if 36 say a certain way and 35 dis differ under the rule of became the 36 and at that point it's for the 35 to Pas in their own way so mlo didn't start at a certain point mlus is inherent in human beings as great as they are trying to apply Haka to different situations but for hundreds and hundreds of years mlus was resolved definitively by a Sanhedrin now it's interesting that we did have a Sanhedrin for a very long time we had a Sanhedrin for the period of the tanak we had the Sanhedrin for the whole period of the bay sheni the period of the mishna and we even had a Sanhedrin towards the beginning of their so you'll ask me well if that's the case then why was there I mean there was aedin then so you cannot just give the answer that mlus originate ated when there wasn't a Sanhedrin because that's not EMS either M did originate even when there was a Sanhedrin and around the time of H and shamai and what that basically meant the gamar says is that there were times in which the were so divided that they didn't want to decide by a majority vote because they felt they didn't have the clarity to be Mak in other words this is called a modern legal term this is called abstention for for example lail I don't mean to compare it the Supreme Court of the United States May sometimes decide not to take a certain case because they feel that the different courts are divided and you have to let them fight it out a little bit and we're not ready to be m in the time of Hill and shamai or at least the tum of Hill and shamai the Sanhedrin began to stop taking a lot of cases which meant there was what what you might call a decentralization of the process in one city they followed this Pak in another city they followed another Pak and even though the Sanhedrin could have been what was they were M they weren't going to be Mak the technical language is they were not made linion they didn't want to make a vote they could have made a vote but if you don't have a consensus you know you don't want to force it so for the most of the period of the tan and the certainly there was in a sense a decentralization of Hal in which different opinions were allowed to coexist the gamar says for example in the that midra you're not allowed to eat chicken and milk right d it's only meat and milk midra I'm sorry but it mentions Ravi disagreed with that Ding RAB and it says in the city of Ravi they they actually ate chicken and milk decentralization there was no definitive stck so as a now after the Sanhedrin you had that as well because you didn't even have a body that could give you definitive what there and therefore that is actually the basis historically of how different minhagim develop different she just developed because when you didn't have a Sanhedrin beat many interpreted in different ways one of the big Mysteries again this is such a a long and important topic that you know it would need hours and hours and hours to go over this is what makes in fact you have all of these problems what makes the gamorra binding now it's true that the gamorra often does not give you the H anyway but we do consider the gamor bind ing meaning cannot argue on the G cannot argue on the gar Etc why is that because if by the time of Rina and Rashi there was no Sanhedrin then the views that are in the gamarra are simply views of individual am why can't I argue why can't I argue with the Tana why can't I argue with theora like what creates any Authority at all the only Authority that Tyra recognizes as final definitive halakic resolution is the Sanhedrin of 71 yeah if the Sanhedrin of 71 pin something it is forbidden for me to argue with them and indeed if I'm A Z M if I'm an elder who Rebels against I could be Misa for that but anything beyond that I mean why why is it in the gamor is it so P that and Amor cannot argue with itana and why is it so pant even more pent that I can't argue with the gamar what if I think the gorah got it wrong I mean it sounds ridiculous but you know what binds me to the gamorra you know as you know it it seems to be so obvious to us but you know the actual reasons are very murky the rambam says in the mishna Torah that The Binding nature of the T is clel was maab it number one there are two questions with that first of well what do you mean CL was maab not all of Cl was maab the K were not maab so what are you going to say well they don't count you know they don't count okay so you're you're other words CLA Isel accepted it but the only people who are CLA are the people who accepted I mean you get into problems there that's called um the no true Scotchman uh whatever it's okay uh that's one problem but the other problem is who says CU CL was M it that we're going to be bound the rambam's seems to be it's a big Kish that the acceptance by the Jewish people is equivalent to a decision of the sanedrin what's the M maybe the m is mat Tyra itself it's so fascinating if you ask why do I have to keep the Tyra so we intuitively think well God commanded us but you know that's not quite how it was we have to keep the Torah because we accepted the Torah isn't that isn't that an interesting idea we're Bound by the Tyra because we accepted it and even though I wasn't there Bashas but the nation accepted it fascinating idea that CL Isel is bound by what it's mael and the ram applies that Paradigm to the gorra other things beish but then when you have questions about how to interpret the gar you'll be back to makus again you see so when the ramban wrote his work the Riff and the r and the all of them attempted there was so muchus they thought it was time to kind of bring people together now the rambam's work nobody had to accept what Authority does the rambam's work have what authority of the it's not a Sedin once again the authority of the is only because people were maab but they weren't maab in the same sense as the T because ashm have the r and everything else so it it's complicated uh you know but basically the origin of mes is hashem's desire that the application of the Clum of ter be uh emerge from Human intellect and Analysis and when there's no Sanhedrin or the sedr didn't want to be Maka that would by definition lead to decentralized uh decision making uh now is that good or bad so this is interesting obviously rambam raro said it was bad we got to minimize makus we got to try to create Unity that's that was the impetus for those books on the other hand people don't realize there's a whole history of great great gim who were against the whole Shar idea among them maharal who lived around the same time among them the Marshal and they argued we don't need a book to tell us what the is a r and a PO should go back to the gamorra go to the sugas learn the Reon him learn all the different commentaries and then pasin for his congregation his community what the is and if there are going to be different shos in different places T that is the beauty of the Torah that we will have different ways of understanding the will of God so thear was not universally I mean everyone was mocker of ysf Karo as a great gutle that's not that's not the question but the project of what you call codification uh was not uh universally uh accepted uh in fact it was thought to be a read it was thought to be a A diminution in the cover that Tyra is that I should be able to go back to the garas and be able to understand the sugya uh much much better I would also say too that to a large degree codification was a failure in terms of its stated objective let's go back to the rambam right the rambam wrote the mishna and the ra made the claim why did he call it missionary the secondary the rabam says all you need in your library are two books have aish for and have my book for T I give you the rule I give you the answer you don't need gamar you don't need to learn all these different opinions the rivid accuses the rambam of telling people not to learn gamarra okay the rambam said he didn't mean that exactly but the RAM says let's not have MIM anymore well let me ask you this you know the rambam's book is one of the greatest swarm ever written but did the rambam achieve Unity absolutely not so this this may not again it's not cover that I have to be very careful in terms of the rambam's stated objective stated objective the mishor is a failure it is an enormous success in terms of teaching me the Torah explaining the Torah ET ET but in terms of unity and lack of makus he certainly didn't achieve that do you know wrote the a few hundred years after the r to be it was really a kiter of the on the tour and it was written that you could the whole not in 30 days the sh was divided into 30- day daily SE sections for 30 days quick review one opinion get the answer no questions well now is whatever it is 10 volumes filled with filled with qualifications filled with M so what happens is this it's like every time we try to put H in a box it's getting too complicated let's just put it in a box it keeps on exploding and in a way that's a reflection of the the infinity ofes and God are one God is infinite you can't put God in a box you can't put in a box every time you try to simplify it it gets a momentum that breaks out of the box that happened to the ramb that happened to the it still goes on even today so when you ask me is M desirable or not desirable so the short answer is the gamar seems to indicate that the origin of clus came from a lack of clarity so in a sense makus was an undesirable effect of people not being on the madrea that they were and yet in we see there's also the positive benefit of makus in which every Side of hashem's Infinity Finds Its Reflection and Finds Its expression yeah if there was no the would be like a right that's correct what would T even be that's correct that's correct what would T be uh if so so the rambam actually suggests the rambam actually suggests this is an amazing statement that nobody pays attention to that the rabam F listen I'm gonna give you haluka and you're not going to have to go over shakar because I'm GNA give you the rule and you can spend your time learning philosophy and metaphysics and the nature of God now people ignore that that passage I mean it seems to me that the raham is basically saying that ultimately the philosophy of idas hasem I'm really not in the mood for another hate mail thing but but the philosophy of of Yas sashem Trump's uh technically technically learning gar now buner would 1,00% disagree with that but I think this is actually the position of the rambam the rambam says ideal tomra is you know youer you review the T and the T and you understand the reasons and then you spend your time on the philosophy of God metaphysics and and the like that's what the r seems to say