Consider what happened after the redaction of the Mishnah. The sages of the time generally accepted that the Oral Torah as such was now 'canonized' in some way and could no longer be disputed. Of course, the Mishnah and attendant literature (Tosefta, Midreshei Halacha, etc.) preserved differences of opinion about various matters but those disagreements were also preserved as part of the Oral Torah.
In any event, rabbis and students continued their learning, presumably in a way similar to the time before the Mishnah was written down, using what we call Talmudic logic. This method of Talmudic thought/logic was preserved in so many words in the Gemara, both in the Talmud Bavli and the Talmud Y'rushalmi. Mainly the Gemara is preserving discussions.
One might have thought that the point of the Gemara, then, was to preserve the methodologies which were employed by the sages of the time to understand the Mishnah; thus, the Gemara would have stood for all time as another way of preserving the Oral Torah--by preserving those kinds of discussions. The Gemara did not seek to necessarily decide halacha in every instance but it did seek to probe and understand the Mishnah as well as it could.
However, by the time the Talmuds were redacted (if that is the proper term-a more complicated issue) it was understood that the discussions of the Gemara were not just exemplary of how discussions of the Oral Torah should go; rather those discussions were viewed as authoritative understandings of the Mishnah. By preserving the Talmud with the Gemara, the Oral Tradition came to another layer of cooling off. From the time of the Talmud, new conversations about much of the Mishnah was stifled in favor of the recorded conversation of the Talmud.
I am not saying there is anything inherently wrong with the discussions of the Talmud--not at all! They are brilliant on many levels and endlessly fascinating. But I am pointing out that once they were written and given the stamp of approval by the later redactors of the Talmud, they had the effect of stifling new and creative discussion, at least to some degree.
Showing posts with label oral tradition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oral tradition. Show all posts
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
What Happened to the Oral Torah and What Does This Have to do With Parshat Shmot?
Okay, I am not sure how to answer the second question in the title except to say that according to the midrash, the Children of Israel held on to certain oral traditions during their time in Egypt. This adherence to those traditions became key to their redemption. So maybe that is why I chose to digress on this issue here.
Someone once asked me: If this oral tradition really existed all the way back to the time of the Torah, why don't we see the Torah speak about it?
The simple answer is, well, it was an oral tradition--it doesn't necessarily come up in a written text.
However, I also pointed out that even in the Torah itself there are allusions to an oral tradition. We see, for example, that in Avraham's argument with God over the destruction of S'dom and Amora (Genesis 18:23-33) that Avraham challenges God's decision by implying that if God killed innocent people along with guilty ones, He would not be doing משפט mishpat (justice). This would not be such a strong argument unless Avraham knew what God considered to be justice and therefore implies that Avraham had a tradition in this regard. Merely referring to what might have been notions of natural law might not have been so convincing to the Ruler of the Universe. And, indeed, according to rabbinic tradition, one of the mitzvot given to Adam and then to Noah was for mankind to set up judicial systems.
There are several other examples, especially later in Tanach but we'll leave that question for now.
My real question is: What happened to the Oral Torah?
We know that the primary encapsulation of the Oral Torah came to be written down first in the Mishnah around the beginning of the second century CE. Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi and his court were concerned, given the political climate and social realities of the time, that because the Jews were being pushed around and scattered that the oral tradition would be lost. In order to save it, they decided to write it down.
One of the salient features of the Mishnah is that it was written in a very terse language, almost a kind of code. The nature of the Mishnah is that one cannot simply read it in order to understand it. Much of the Mishnah is written in partial sentences and generally without clear references relating each point back to the written Torah. In order to understand it properly, it must be discussed.
So built in to the Mishnah is the notion that an oral aspect remains. It is a marvelous and unique sort of document in that regard.
It is clear to me that Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi was trying very hard to preserve as much of the oral nature of this tradition as possible.
However, the downside of this decision is that, well, the oral tradition came to be written in some form. We noted yesterday that a written text becomes fixed in a way that an oral text does not. The writing of the Mishnah, therefore, began a process of slowly freezing discussion that continues to this day.
There are several important points along the way from the Mishnah to present. I will mention some of them in my next posting.
Someone once asked me: If this oral tradition really existed all the way back to the time of the Torah, why don't we see the Torah speak about it?
The simple answer is, well, it was an oral tradition--it doesn't necessarily come up in a written text.
However, I also pointed out that even in the Torah itself there are allusions to an oral tradition. We see, for example, that in Avraham's argument with God over the destruction of S'dom and Amora (Genesis 18:23-33) that Avraham challenges God's decision by implying that if God killed innocent people along with guilty ones, He would not be doing משפט mishpat (justice). This would not be such a strong argument unless Avraham knew what God considered to be justice and therefore implies that Avraham had a tradition in this regard. Merely referring to what might have been notions of natural law might not have been so convincing to the Ruler of the Universe. And, indeed, according to rabbinic tradition, one of the mitzvot given to Adam and then to Noah was for mankind to set up judicial systems.
There are several other examples, especially later in Tanach but we'll leave that question for now.
My real question is: What happened to the Oral Torah?
We know that the primary encapsulation of the Oral Torah came to be written down first in the Mishnah around the beginning of the second century CE. Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi and his court were concerned, given the political climate and social realities of the time, that because the Jews were being pushed around and scattered that the oral tradition would be lost. In order to save it, they decided to write it down.
One of the salient features of the Mishnah is that it was written in a very terse language, almost a kind of code. The nature of the Mishnah is that one cannot simply read it in order to understand it. Much of the Mishnah is written in partial sentences and generally without clear references relating each point back to the written Torah. In order to understand it properly, it must be discussed.
So built in to the Mishnah is the notion that an oral aspect remains. It is a marvelous and unique sort of document in that regard.
It is clear to me that Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi was trying very hard to preserve as much of the oral nature of this tradition as possible.
However, the downside of this decision is that, well, the oral tradition came to be written in some form. We noted yesterday that a written text becomes fixed in a way that an oral text does not. The writing of the Mishnah, therefore, began a process of slowly freezing discussion that continues to this day.
There are several important points along the way from the Mishnah to present. I will mention some of them in my next posting.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Some Thoughts About Oral Tradition
Jewish tradition has it that there are two aspects to the Torah: The Written Torah and the Oral Torah. I have a little video about some of that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtQCxKfFrxQ
I want to point out that the notion of the Written Torah can be defined simply as the words of the Torah in ink on parchment as seen in a Torah scroll. The words do not speak for themselves. There is no embedded MP3 player nor are there even vowels or the markings that indicate how to chant the verses. No indication is made to distinguish where one verse ends and the other begins.
By contrast, the original Oral Torah was everything one could know about the Written Torah (plus some other things, as well--more about that another time). The Oral Torah told you how to read the words, how to separate the verses, what the words mean and deeper and deeper levels of meaning.
According to this tradition, Moshe received both the Written and Oral Torah from God and passed these down to the Children of Israel. Each word of the Oral Torah was supposed to be memorized and passed on exactly as received.
One could ask, then, if the Oral Torah was a fixed tradition, why not write it down also? It doesn't seem reasonable that it was given orally just as an exercise in our abilities to commit long texts to memory.
I think that to understand this, we need to consider the nature of written text and oral communication. A written text such as the Torah is fixed. I am careful here not to use the word static--it just is what it is. The reason it is not static per se is because there is an oral tradition that goes with it.
An oral tradition, even if the words are passed down precisely, is by its nature affected by each person that learns it and passes it down. Each person will give the memorized bits their own intonation, their own body language, their own personality.
As the Jewish people moved to different places and cultures, the Oral Tradition inevitably was affected by those changes. Witness the Mishnah, the embodiment of the Oral Tradition, although written in Hebrew, that Hebrew is not the same as Torah Hebrew. The Gemara records discussions primarily in Aramaic.
So we understand that even those rabbis who were most concerned with preserving the Oral Tradition with great precision understood that the Oral Tradition was always dynamic.
Ultimately, whatever one says about the meaning of the Written Torah does not thereby change the Written Torah. It is what it is and it never changes. However, without saying what it means, without reading the words, it has no practical meaning.
Some people say that the Written Torah is the culmination of an earlier Oral Tradition. Regardless of such theories, the reality is that what we have is a written document, unchanging as such. Jewish tradition was interested in preserving that basic text but at the same time promoting a never ending dialogue about its meaning. In the end, though, what we say about the Written Torah may tell us more about ourselves than the text we attempt to understand.
For many centuries, much care was taken to preserve as precisely as possible the text of the Written Torah. But what exactly happened to the Oral Tradition? More thoughts on that next time.
I want to point out that the notion of the Written Torah can be defined simply as the words of the Torah in ink on parchment as seen in a Torah scroll. The words do not speak for themselves. There is no embedded MP3 player nor are there even vowels or the markings that indicate how to chant the verses. No indication is made to distinguish where one verse ends and the other begins.
By contrast, the original Oral Torah was everything one could know about the Written Torah (plus some other things, as well--more about that another time). The Oral Torah told you how to read the words, how to separate the verses, what the words mean and deeper and deeper levels of meaning.
According to this tradition, Moshe received both the Written and Oral Torah from God and passed these down to the Children of Israel. Each word of the Oral Torah was supposed to be memorized and passed on exactly as received.
One could ask, then, if the Oral Torah was a fixed tradition, why not write it down also? It doesn't seem reasonable that it was given orally just as an exercise in our abilities to commit long texts to memory.
I think that to understand this, we need to consider the nature of written text and oral communication. A written text such as the Torah is fixed. I am careful here not to use the word static--it just is what it is. The reason it is not static per se is because there is an oral tradition that goes with it.
An oral tradition, even if the words are passed down precisely, is by its nature affected by each person that learns it and passes it down. Each person will give the memorized bits their own intonation, their own body language, their own personality.
As the Jewish people moved to different places and cultures, the Oral Tradition inevitably was affected by those changes. Witness the Mishnah, the embodiment of the Oral Tradition, although written in Hebrew, that Hebrew is not the same as Torah Hebrew. The Gemara records discussions primarily in Aramaic.
So we understand that even those rabbis who were most concerned with preserving the Oral Tradition with great precision understood that the Oral Tradition was always dynamic.
Ultimately, whatever one says about the meaning of the Written Torah does not thereby change the Written Torah. It is what it is and it never changes. However, without saying what it means, without reading the words, it has no practical meaning.
Some people say that the Written Torah is the culmination of an earlier Oral Tradition. Regardless of such theories, the reality is that what we have is a written document, unchanging as such. Jewish tradition was interested in preserving that basic text but at the same time promoting a never ending dialogue about its meaning. In the end, though, what we say about the Written Torah may tell us more about ourselves than the text we attempt to understand.
For many centuries, much care was taken to preserve as precisely as possible the text of the Written Torah. But what exactly happened to the Oral Tradition? More thoughts on that next time.
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