TWO TORAHS ?
Exodus 24:3: The
entire nation of Israel answer Moses in one voice:
“We will do (observe)
-- N’[A]hSeH נעשה . עשה GHaSeH, is to make, produce,
like “Hacer en Mexico” (Made in
Mexico) or Noah constructing an ark in Genesis 6:14.
This is about physical performance.
Three verses later, in
Exodus 24 4-7, the people add to the words above:
“We will listen (understand) -- N’SHM[A]h .נשמע As in שמע ישראל SH’M[A]h YiSRA’EL (Hear O’ Israel, Listen
up… be engaged with ears (אזני AZNeY (ears) of
the people, the minds and spirits -- more than
just hands-on performance. The SN/SM theme of SouNd, SeNSe and SeeM.
Saying that we will observe AND THEN understand
infers that THERE ARE TWO TORAHS !
And that a first revelation can be observed
but not understood. In a sense there ARE two Torahs. The Written Torah (a
finite Scripture) and the Oral Torah (an infinite, ongoing commentary full of
debate but rooted, ironically, in received tradition).
There are two
ways to react to this two-tier revelation. The first, more benevolent and rare
way, is to say that the assemblage of Israelite newbies, new converts to what
will become Judaism, are displaying extraordinary faith. They are awed by their
miraculous delivery from bondage, and are committing themselves to the Lord’s
mission statement -- even though the scroll they saw and heard is in puzzling
shorthand, even microfiche, requiring detailed instructions from Moses and his
students. HOW does one keep the Sabbath or eat kosher? Just what four species
are to be taken up on Sukkot/Tabernacles? Those first recipients of what Moses penned with
automatic writing in one night (Exodus 24:4) displayed inspiring piety and
humility in accepting a covenant that they knew required tremendous study by
devoted sages who were far beyond their level.
Piety and humility?
Hah! Even among Israelites, the democratic socialist Korah (Numbers 16) will
claim that everyone is holy, and that he is equally qualified to reinterpret
the Oral Torah so that he presides over a politburo. Millennia of Jewish reformers will also play with the
Written Torah and presume the right, minus decades of study, to reshape the
Oral Torah. With even more hubris and less Hebraic knowledge, non-Jewish “scholars”
and theologians will twist the Written and Oral Torah to fit their foreign
traditions. They have no clue that a so-called translation of the Written
Torah, without extensive guidance and explanation by the sages of Oral Torah, is
like representing the Grand Canyon with
a fax of a Xerox of a 1910 Brownie camera photo.
But wouldn’t it be a lot simpler if the
Written Torah included the Oral Torah?
Sure. And how many of these 30-scroll Torah sets would have survived? In
present form it’s in a complex code, but it’s on one Travel Drive. Besides, simplicity and ease, the linear,
orderly progression of secular bible translators,
doesn’t seem to match the Creator’s m.o.
The Hebrew Bible text has elaborate grammar, syntax, etc. But this is constantly being “misapplied” in
order to vex the reader into additional information.