Surrounding Controversies The Oral Torah

At the time of the destruction of the Second Temple , it was decided to transgress the prohibition of recording the Oral Torah written ^{Scriptural basis of the Oral Law}

According Haza "l , the Oral Torah was given at Mount Sinai itself, as evidenced by the Torah itself, in several places, including Exodus 24:12: "Rabbi Levi bar Hama said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Lachish : what he meant by the verse: 'I will give thee tables of stone, the doctrine (Torah) and the commandments (mitzvah) that I have written for their instruction " ?. 'Tables' refer to the Ten Commandments , the Torah to the Torah and the mitzvah to the Mishna, 'I wrote' refers to Nevi'im and Ketuvim ; 'teach them' refers to the Gemara. This teaches us that all these were given to Moses on Sinai. "( Babylonian Talmud , Brachot 5a).

In Kuzari (3:35), Judah Halevi teaches that it is impossible that the written Torah was transmitted solely by means of writing, as many mitzvot were given without explanation and without an oral tradition, their practice is ambiguous, which does not correspond to its status of perfection.

In his introduction to Mishneh Torah , Moses Maimonides cites another rabbinic teaching that deduced from Leviticus 26:46 that there were two laws, one appointment by writing to priests (Deuteronomy 31:9 ) transmitted orally to the other Elders and the people.
The Rambam further defines the three components of the Oral Torah:

• first part has been learned by word of mouth is the Torah Shebe'al Pe, in the narrow sense of the word, transmitted by halakha Rabbanite by Moses who received it at the same time as the written Torah. These lessons include stops whose rabbis said they were leMoshe Misina Halacha (a

, the oral tradition "was naturally included in the transmission of meaning of" rarest of terms requiring further explanation. It would then be developed and enriched, explaining folk customs, and enriched technical exegesis as well as additional prohibited. However, although the Pharisees Sages state that such orders are not derabbanan mid mid deOrata, scripturalists movements, like the Sadducees at the time of the Second Temple or the Karaites in the Middle Ages, accuse them of lacking the requirement of Deuteronomy not to add or subtract to the Act .

Controversies surrounding the Oral Torah

The existence of an oral Torah, and revealed her status made over the ages, the subject of many disagreements. Besides the current Sadducee , accepting the Torah , and only as a source of Halakha , the existence of at least one non-current scripturalist Sadducee is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud ( Shabbat 31a) and highlighted by Martin S. Jaffee , to which we must add the Samaritans and the Jewish populations of remote education centers Palestinian and Babylonian.

These objections have had an important symbolic and political weight. The Sadducees, that is to say the advantage of the Priests, were opposed to the existence of an oral tradition. However, until the Second Temple's destruction, they embodied the priestly power, and thereby religious and political life of the Hebrew people. The refusal of the oral tradition was then the guarantee of their power, embodied in the written Torah and the Temple. The Pharisees, minority initially, and without proper authority, founded their power on knowledge of oral tradition, and the sharpness of their performances . However, after the second destruction of the Temple, the priests lost their place of power, while the Pharisees become Rabbis, sit them on the Oral Torah. This hegemony of Pharisaism lasted until the eighth century when called Anan ben David federation movement based on the Hebrew Bible and it alone, "shaking off the yoke of traditions" Pharisaic and practices, but not his theology. This movement, called Karaism , based on a return to tradition and also the philosophy of kalam , particularly on motazilisme to examine the Scriptures in the light of reason and logic, penetrated deep into Jewish communities of East and West, since according to some sources, up to 40% of the world Jewish population was Karaite. The controversy between Karaites and Rabbinites and supporters of the Oral Torah had been named, was therefore particularly keen to prove or disprove the existence of an oral tradition divinely revealed and obligatory for all generations. They continue to this day, although the number of Karaites in the world has declined significantly .

References section

Source

• This article incorporates text from the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906, article "Oral Law" by Executive commitee Of The editorial board & Zallel Jacob Lauterbach , a publication now in the public domain.

See also

Related articles

• transmission of the Torah
• Mishna
• Tosefta
• Midrash Halachah
• Midrash Haggadah
• Babylonian Talmud
• Jerusalem Talmud
• Responsa

Links and external documents

• Moshe David Har, The Oral Torah before the time of the Mishna site daat.co.il (he)
• Zvi Zinger, The Oral Torah in Jewish thought on the site daat.co.il (he)
• Aminoa'h Noah, the time of the Oral Torah to the site daat.co.il (he)

• Portal of Jewish culture and Judaism

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