Greetings Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone could direct me to a verse in the Torah that provides a basis for an oral companion, i.e., for the "oral torah." I have not come across any portion of the Torah that explicitly allows an oral companion to itself.

Please see http://talmud.faithweb.com/articles/whatis.html for an article on this topic.

i dont think u properly answered his question

Is this sentence from the link helpful?

For example, the Torah states (Deut. 12:21) "You shall slaughter your cattle… as I have commanded you," implying an oral commandment concerning ritual slaughter.

oh
im changing my statement
i dont think i fully understood his question
sorry

Thank you for the reply. However, I do not believe your analysis is correct. The laws of kashrut are enumerated in (mainly) Leviticus, chapters 7, 10, and 11. You have omitted the critical part of the verse you reference from Deuteronomy. The critical part of that verse is "....you may slaughter from your cattle and your flocks that HASHEM has given you, as I commanded you...." (Deut. 12:21.) "[A]s I commanded you" seems to refer to the laws of kashrut mentioned in Leviticus. In other words, you still may not eat a camel, for example, from among your flocks. This verse can also be said, with equal force, to refer to the rule that blood shall be covered with dirt "as [God] commanded [us]," again in a previous parsha. There is no logical reason to assume that Deuteronomy 12:21 refers to anything but a previous parsha.

I am aware of no compelling reason to assume that the Torah is incomplete. Therefore, I see no foundation to support a claim that Deut. 12:21 is hinting to anything extrinsic to the Torah. If Deuteronomy 12:21 is the only source you claim lays the basis for an oral companion to the Torah, I do not believe that it is persuasive.

It is not my analysis, but the analysis of the sages, of blessed memory.

Cattle are cows, while flocks are sheep and/or goats. The Hebrew words used limit the discussion to those animals. The Hebrew words used cannot refer to camels or any other treif animals, nor can it refer to other kosher animals such as deer.

Cows, sheep and goats are kosher animals. Therefore, you are wrong to speculate that the verse could mean what type of animal is involved. Rather, the verse means that even though cows, sheep and goats have the potential to be kosher, they must be slaughtered in a particular manner. The verse thus alludes to oral instructions.

You can believe what you want or disbelieve what you want, but unless you develop a proficiency in Hebrew, you should not be attempting to find holes in normative Jewish practice (halacha).

You ignored, and have provided no grounds for rejecting, the alternative possibility that the verse in Deuteronomy refers to the rule that blood shall be covered with dirt, "as [God] commanded [us]" in Leviticus 17:13. Similarly, "as [God] commanded [us]" could refer to Genesis 32:33, or to Exodus 23:19, 34:26.

I hope you can appreciate that I do not need to be proficient in Hebrew to make logical arguments. We have translations and various aids to compensate. Your statement- that I should not make challenges without Hebrew fluency- is an attempt to avoid the merits of my arguments. If you don't have a good response, you do not have to resort to rhetoric. Honesty will serve you more. If your approach to the Gemara is blind faith, then so be it. I have no quarrel with that. I, on the other hand, believe that faith should be logically consistent. If you believe in books that lack foundation in the Torah, then your faith is misplaced.

chalanger, there is no such thing as an adequate translation of any language.

Take the issue of znus, mamzer, immorality and bastard.

one would think the former two direct tranlations of the latter, and indeed the catholic church treats this as so, however, from a hebrew grammar perspective, while the two are closely related, they are worlds apart.

Just because you sleep with some random girl on the street, does not make it znus, and from a jewish dictional and lexographical standpoint it is not. However, it is clearly immorality and the resultant child is a bastard in the english language.

So too with many, many other words. The connotations, implications, and definitions of these words usualy only barely overlap, and many things are clear from the hebrew text that are not clear in the enlgish text, and many things are clear in english that are either not clear or patantly false in the hebrew.

translations of languages are rarely, if ever adequate for conveying the particulars. I've been bitten far to many times with trying to darshan a text in english not to recogznize this.

if you are illiterate in hebrew, then you have absolutely no right whatsoever to start trying to interpret the bible, or any other jewish text for that matter, tranlations while they may be a guide to understanding, are incapable of replacing the hebrew text.

I cannot tell you the number of times I have heard of objections to particular pesukim that were rendered illogical and even downright stupid by so much as a simple perusal of the hebrew text.

until you are fluent in hebrew with all of its associated connotations, then your arguments may very well be worthless.

I'm sorry to tell you that, but its so. Its what really makes me frustrated when professors get up and pontificate about material in any other language (not just he bible) when they are functionaly illiterate in the language in question and incapable of approaching the origional in any reasonable time frame, and without countless charts to poor over.

There is, for instance, an objection made to certain pesukim that they must be composits on account of a certain verb subject dissagreement (plurality) well the joke is on their ignorance, because that particular incongruence, while not matching general rules of grammer, is clear and universal semetic custome, and can be found in ALL semetic texts currently available.

Not to mention we do not have all of the grammatical knowlege needed to understand hebrew properly as the sample set is just too small.

So no, you don't really have a right to make an argument till you study more, I'm sorry. It would be like someone illiterate in english complaining about the text of the decleration of independence, which violates countless grammar rules.

Thank you for your comments, Outspoken. I disagree with them wholeheartedly. Your arguments are not logical. Your touching stories regarding your personal life is a common rhetorical trick to avoid the merits of an otherwise effective argument. If I am translating something incorrectly, you are always welcome to point it out. I along with the audience in this blog would love to learn something new. There are instances in the Torah that not even the Rabbis know how to translate (e.g., which birds are kosher). Will you also reject their biblical comments until they have mastered Old Hebrew? Surely if the rabbis had already mastered biblical Hebrew, no doubt would exist over what birds are kosher.

I am still waiting for someone to point me to a legitimate basis in the Torah for the Gemara. The Gemara either has or lacks foundation in the Torah. In the meantime, here is something for you to contemplate:

The Shulchan Aruch holds that the blood of fish is moo-tar (i.e., you may consume it). (Shulchan Aruch , Yoreh De'a, Ch. 66, Halacha Dam, § A.) The Torah, however, contradicts this assertion: "Any man...who will consume any blood- I shall concentrate My attention upon the soul consuming blood, and I will cut it off from the midst of its people." (Lev. 17:10.) Please note that the phrase "kol dam" is used in this verse. If I am translating something incorrectly, please explain. Otherwise, it seems as if the Shulchan Aruch is contradicting the Torah.

challanger, does "basar" refer to fish or not?

Last I checked it didn't.

"basar" has dam. Even though we may call it "dam dag" it still isn't necesserily blood.

Again, its a difference of deffinitions. hebrew and english are not the same.

and there is a big difference between being fluent in a language, but needing to look up obscure words (and using a hebrew dictionary in the process), and not being able to read a language except with help of a enlish/lanuage dictionary and tables of conjugation for every other word.

Oh, and I would point out that there are enough undefineds in torah that you have to have something to come along and explain what they are.

one point would be the locusts. Clearly the torah mentions that certain species of locust are kosher, and others are not. Problem is what the torah says does not make any sense to anyone who has ever seen a locust, and I find it exceedingly unlikely that anyone who had lived in the middle east had never seen one, as they are native there and appear from time to time. As rashi sometimes says it screams "darshan me!"

Secondly, take the example of tefillin. There are precious few details about what "totafot" are in the torah, nor is it a hebrew word, and nor are we certain where it comes from in other languages, although we have some vague ideas. Oral tradition has that they are teffilin, which is most interesting since the first mention of the passages is much earlier than the second set of mentions, in devarim.

there are so many blatantly ambiguous sections and commands in torah, such as the command about "and you shall attach a fringe to each corner."

What does it mean a fringe exactly? how do you make it? How do you put a thread of blue in it? What is the blue dye "techelet"? Perhaps a brief explanation of the way we determine the process for making tzitzis would be instructive, as it is rather typical of the process by which the "oral torah" gives its reasons. How many strings constitute a fringe? 8. How do we know this? because it says, gedilim (plural), gedil. And a braid consists of not less than two strands, thus you have two, and two which make four. Then there is another explanation for why you have to fold it over in to eight. How does the thread have to be? a cord. Why? because it says "psil" wich means a cord, and a cord is doubled over. Why does it have to be mostly of loose threads? because it says "tzitzis" which means "hairs".

There are thousands of details in ordinary life that are not usualy included in the set text of customes, these constitute the oral torah. How do they prove the oral torah? as per the example above.

It really is quite logical. Just as you look at "blood" and assume that it means anything that science calls blood (which is a pretty stupid comment, science did not exist yet, noone defined anything as science does, just as the example with the scales of a fish, they define them according to a certain test that science does not use or accept, not that it is an invalid way to define an arbitrary word.) so to do they look at blood and asume that it means only a mamal, and not that of a bird, and not that of a fish.

Besides, it mentions listening to the judge that lives in your generation, and secondly, the decisions made in the talmud are not so different from many legal decisions.

and btw, kol does not mean any. (which really hurts your credibility badly) it means "all" which is a pretty weird thing to say in this context, and as I said before screams "darshan me!". The word for any is "aizeh".

Which I think is rather nice proof of why translations are inadequate.

Outspoken, when you engage in an intellectual debate, it is assumed that you have the maturity to be respectful and polite. Using pejoratives like "stupid" against your opponent does not serve you well. While your arguments are misguided, I have been respectful in my debates; I neither called you nor your comments moronic, foolish, dumb, stupid, or idiotic. Please govern yourself accordingly.

As to the merits of your points, firstly, it is undisputed that the term "dom" means blood. Blood has existed now, just as it existed 3000 years ago. It is further undisputed that blood, be it from man or fish, looks very similar. In fact, you would likely need a microscope to distinguish them. It is further undisputed that the Shulchan Aruch permits the consumption of fish's blood. It is further undisputed that the Torah states "Any man...who will consume any blood- I shall concentrate My attention upon the soul consuming the blood, and I will cut it off from the midst of its people." (Lev. 17:10.) You can try to twist the Hebrew however you wish, but it will not alter the foregoing facts. On this point, the Torah is very clear: NO BLOOD. The phrase "kol dom" leaves no room for consumption of any type of blood whatsoever. No amount of manipulation can get around that. Interestingly, even rabbinical commentators tend to agree here. Artscroll writes,

"Although the next verse seems to imply that the subject of the prohibition is only sacrificial blood, the word 'kol,' all, is an amplification that includes even blood from unconsecrated animals (Rashi; Sifra). Even the blood of fowl and kosher species that are unfit for offerings is forbidden (Kereisos 20b)."

Your arguments ignore the elephant in the room.

Second, regarding your comments on tefillin and tzisit, your arguments are circular. You assume, based on what others have told you, that tefilin must be of a certain color, of a certain shape, etc. Based on that assumption, you find it confusing that the Torah does not detail the characteristics of shape and size for tefillin. In reality, the Torah is complete and provides sufficient information to carry out the mitzvah of tefillin, tzisit, etc., without having to resort to extrinsic sources. For the sake of brevity, I will focus on tefilin.

A teffilin is an ornament. (Ex. 13:16; Deut. 6:8) Its purpose is to recall the exodus. (See Ex. 13:14-16.) Therefore, any non-offensive object that brings about memory of the exodus is, by definition, a teffilin. If putting a cup between your eyes, for example, reminds you of the exodus, then it is a teffilin (i.e., an ornament) for you. Of course whatever "ornament" is used should have the writing of the Shma or Kadesh-Lee in it. (Ex. 13:14-16; Deut. 6:7-9.) The belief that teffilin has to be a certain size or color has no basis in the Torah. If it is not Torah law, it is not a law of God.

You, Outspoken, would have us believe that the "traditions" dictated by certain people are true expressions of God's will. That takes us back to my original inquiry: Where in the Torah is there foundation for the Gemara? If no such foundation exists, then it is not logical to go beyond the words of the Torah itself, just as the teffilin case above demonstrates.

Finally, if you claim that we have to obey the Gemara because it the product of a Jewish court, I reject your premise. The authority you implicitly rely on reads, "You shall come to the Kohanim, the Levites, and to the judge who will be in those days; you shall inquire and they will tell you the word of judgment." (Deut. 17:9.) The Gemara is based on the Mishna, which was composed by Yehuda HaNasi and members of the Perushim political party. The persushim were rivaled by the sidukim, the political party of (mostly) Kohanim, and the sidukim disagreed with the perushim's interpretation of the bible. The difference being that the Sidukim were priests of God, while the Perushim, and in particular the group that composed the Mishnah, were laymen appointed by Yehuda HaNasi once the Romans removed the Sidukim from power. Therefore, Deut. 17:9 actually provides a basis for doubting, rather than accepting, the legitimacy of the Mishna and its progeny, the Gemara. What happened to the halachas that the Sidukim sanhedrin passed? Are those not "traditions?" The Kohanim are certainly a better fit for Deut. 17:9 than a group of scribes whose common title is never mentioned in the Torah.

Even if you can somehow make the case that the Sanhadrin of Yehuda HaNasi is legitimate, it is inconsequential since the Torah says, "[d]o not be a follower of the majority for evil; and do not respond to a grievance by yielding to the majority to pervert [the law]." (Exodus 23:2.) The only way around this, absent a Navi, is conclusive foundation in the Torah for the Gemara. Can you show me that foundation?