The Complexity Series: Introduction

The Complexity Essays: #1

A Tale of Two Torahs


The issue of the relationship between Torah shebichtav, the Written Torah, and Torah shebe'al Peh, the Oral Torah, has for millennia been one the most controversial topics. Well over two thousand years ago, the great divide between the Saducees and the so-called Rabbinic Jews was just exactly the Sadducees' refusal to accept the Oral Tradition. Far from a bygone issue, a contemporary outreach teacher reports that this issue is one the main ones that prevent people from accepting the beliefs of Torah Judaism (R. Mordechai Neugroschal, introduction to his commentary on Maharal's Be'er HaGolah).


In simple terms, the difficulty lies in the fact that the Torah seems to be saying one thing while the Oral Tradition, and thus Halacha, has it saying something altogether different. Some people find this disconcerting, and demand proof for the very existence of an oral interpretation.


The response has traditionally been to adduce either extrinsic or intrinsic proof. The extrinsic proof, in a nutshell, is that the same tradition carried by the Jewish People over generations that informs us of the veracity and divine nature of the Written Torah itself, assures us that that Torah was accompanied by an oral complement. The intrinsic proof has consisted of the purported demonstration that the Torah, as is, is virtually unreadable, unintelligible, and, as such, useless as a legal code, because there is not nearly enough information given about how to go about fulfilling the commandments. The Torah forbids "work" on the Sabbath, yet fails to apprise us of what constitutes work. The Torah exhorts us to make the first day of the seventh month a "day of noisemaking" (or "a day of blowing")" but does not tell us what to blow or what kind of noise to make or why. The Torah instructs us to place certain passages "on our hands/arms" and "make them an adornment between our eyes," yet no explanation is forthcoming of how to actually do this.


This consistent ambiguity, it was claimed, served to prove that the Torah was never meant to be understood on its own terms, and that an external tool - namely, the Oral Tradition - was necessary to unravel its meaning.


Yet proof aside, the issue of seeming contradiction between the plain meaning and the Oral interpretation needs to be dealt with. Various answers were offered. Some insisted that the Oral Law indeed reveals the only correct interpretation and endeavored to demonstrate that on a case by case basis. Others attempted, at times quite successfully in this writer's opinion, to show how the plain meaning indeed reveals insights that complement the Rabbinic meaning. Yet it must be said that both leave the questioner somewhat unsettled. After all, surely the Torah could have been constructed in such a way that the written text and oral interpretation complement each other seamlessly, without even giving the appearance of contradiction.


This writer would like to suggest what may be a somewhat novel approach to this age-old question. We will use a metaphor to illustrate the point we wish to make.


Imagine that a physics sophomore approaches his professor and somewhat haltingly informs him that he is considering dropping his physics studies altogether. Why? He is troubled by the relationship between the proton and the neutron. If the proton is positive, why the existence of a negative charge at the nucleus of every atom? Which is it, positive or negative? Quite frankly, he explains, he cannot handle the lack of consistency.


If our good professor is low on good judgment and anxious to keep the student in his tutelage, he might attempt to convince the latter that he has simply misunderstood. Neutrons, he assures his student, are also positively charged, and there is no contradiction whatsoever. Such an attempt is of course doomed to failure. Facts cannot be changed.


What then is the correct answer to the student's crisis? The professor should explain to his hapless protégé that this dichotomy is precisely what makes up the core of all existence; that it is the interplay between positive and negative charges that makes up the building blocks of nature as we know it, and that there is nothing threatening or frightening about this interface.


We return to our issue of the interplay between the Written and Oral Torahs. It is this writer's contention that these two renditions of Torah, both authored and sanctioned by God alone, each reflect one particular point of view, one that is fundamentally at loggerheads with that of its counterpart. If the plain meaning of the Written Torah contradicts the interpretation given to it by the Oral Torah, that is because the Written Torah itself, on its own terms and in isolation, militates against the Oral Torah's interpretation. 


The fullness of Torah, the absolute truth conveyed by the Torah, can be grasped only when the conflicting forces of the Written and Oral Torahs, respectively, are brought into dialogue, and allowed to function in unison.


The seeming contradiction between the Written and Oral Torahs need not frighten us any more than that impossible contradiction played out in every single atom of our universe. Rather than explain away any such contradictions, we ought to embrace the fullness of the picture conveyed specifically by synthesizing the two ostensibly irreconcilable forces.


Some examples will G-d-willing follow.