TMS Shmee MS

A guest post by JS:

With the recent string of Orthoprax posts on this excellent blog, I thought I would add some fuel to the fire and talk about the doctrine of TMS (Torah Mi'Sinai - The divine authorship of the Torah). TMS has gotten a lot of play on this blog in part because it is perhaps the only of the Rambam's 13 principles of faith that can be falsified through a scientific approach to document analysis, archeology, and anthropology.

Now, to clarify, there are two related types of TMS. The first type is that every single letter of the Torah is of divine origin. The second is that the Torah as a whole is of divine origin, but we have since lost or inadvertently changed letters here and there and maybe even some words (some may argue this is not a belief in TMS, but they are wrong. This view has more support and is even cited in the Gemara. There were 3 Torah scrolls kept and a "majority rules" arrangement existed when there was a controversy in the actual text of the Torah). Conversely, those who argue against TMS make one of two arguments. The first argument is that there is no God and thus none of the Torah is divine. The second argument is that there is a God, but this Torah is so adulterated, it cannot be said to be what God originally intended.

But, as my post's title suggests: who cares?

Let me start off by saying if you're someone who does not believe in God and therefore believes that religion is a crock and a huge waste of time, you might as well stop reading. This post is directed to someone who, regardless of their belief in God, finds value in religion and in the practices it requires.

Argument #1: Even if the Torah is divine, it is literally impossible to understand without the corresponding Oral Torah as compiled by the rabbis. This point is true for halachic aspects of the Torah (what are totafot? when do we start counting the days for shavuot?) as well as the "story" aspects of the Torah (is the Torah chronological? What happened during the "gaps" in the story?). I would argue the Torah is so incomprehensible without the Oral Torah, that it doesn't matter if the Torah is divine. Because, both from pure necessity and because we are forbidden from taking a literal approach to the Torah (like the Saducees did), it doesn't matter if the Torah is divine, it has essentially been supplanted by the Oral Torah.

Argument #2: In terms of ritual practice, most mitzvot that are considered d'oraita (from the Torah, as opposed to d'rabanan, from the rabbis) are nowhere to be found in the actual text of the Torah. This is to be distinguished from my example of teffilin/totafot above where the rabbis explain a biblical mitzvah that is enumerated. Here, I am referring to biblical mitzvot that are simply never mentioned in the Torah. For example, in the Torah itself the only prohibitions listed for Shabbat are lighting a fire and carrying. The remaining 37 categories of prohibited activities are never mentioned once in the Torah. Another prominent example is kashrut where the only listed prohibition is cooking a kid goat in its mother's milk, the Torah laws concerning the prohibitions of cooking any mixture of meat and milk, eating any mixture of meat and milk or deriving benefit from any mixture of meat and milk are not found in the Torah. Thus, even if the Torah is divine, you can't even find most Torah mitzvot in it.

Argument #3: Our practice of Judaism today is radically different from the practice of Judaism as it existed hundreds of years ago. For one thing, the largest part of our ritual practice, sacrifices, is completely gone. Our largest practice now consists of prayer services where we merely quote verses and sections of the Oral Torah which detail the sacrifices that used to be given. Or, for example, the laws of tumah and tahara (ritual purity and impurity) which dominated life for our ancestors but hardly plays any role nowadays. Furthermore, over the hundreds of years we have added on so much rabbinic law, custom, chumrot, etc that a Jew from the temple era (or even one from say 200 or so years ago) would be thoroughly confused and believe we were practicing a different, but related, religion. Many of these additions have literally no source at all and are made up from whole cloth, such as Simchat Torah which only emerged in its modern form a few hundred years ago (yes, this is a long time ago, but that's not the point). Thus, even if the Torah is not divine, much of what we as Jews practice has no direct source in the Torah. It is instead formulated through rabbinic edicts, over time, and often by the rabbis reformulating or recharacterizing existing practices.

Argument #4: Wherever the Torah law seems malodorous to our sensibilities, we severely diminish or abrogate whole sections of the Torah. For example, there is a general edict, despite the numerous times a death penalty is called for in the Torah, that a Sanhedrin that kills a single person is "bloody." Many of these "harsh" sections of the Torah have been debated on this blog such as those relating to a woman being raped, slavery, etc. But these debates are irrelevant since we don't carry out these laws and find every which way possible to show the law isn't really the law despite what the Torah plainly says. Thus, even if the Torah is divine, we find every which way possible to negate its harshness and the fact that parts of it seem immoral on their face.

Argument #5: Where the Torah is inconvenient, we come up with legal fictions to not have to follow its laws. Case in point: usury laws, shmita and yoveil laws, and selling chameitz. Thus, even if the Torah is divine, when it's a pain to follow we find another way.

Some side notes: I think this is why Orthodoxy, and especially its right wing branches, have always emphasized the Oral Torah and the absolute need for Emunat Chachamim (the need to have faith in the rabbis). I believe this is because so much of Judaism is no longer based in the Torah, and is instead based in the rabbis and the rabbinic law. Thus, in most yeshivas at about 6th grade studying tanach is nearly eliminated or deemphasized in order to give proper attention to mishnah, gemarah, and halacha. And because this all depends on rabbinic law, belief in the absolute authority of rabbis, da'at torah, and emunat chachamim is critical, perhaps more critical than belief in divine authorship.

For anyone who read this and is thinking, "Boy, that JS is one heck of a kofeir!" thank you. But seriously, the real point here is that Judaism itself has placed the emphasis of Jewish practice on the Oral Torah and away from the Written Torah thereby making it less important whether the Torah is truly divine. One can be a fully practicing, fully halacha-observant Jew without having ever seen the Torah by simply cracking open a Shulchan Aruch and a Mishnah Brurah and picking up the customs and such from living in an Orthodox community. Whether someone believes the practices they observe matter to God (assuming they believe in God) is another matter entirely.

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