UTJ Viewpoints

We raise the Torah in the air and proclaim, with the demonstrative pronoun, that this is the Torah that Moses placed before the Jewish people. Using computers, Biblical scholarship, and later, post-Biblical Halakhic opinion, modern Orthodox scholars armed with academic tools attempt to arrive at the Mosaic original or close facsimile thereof as a religious idea and ideal. Although tractate Soferim 6:4 is cited, we recall that this book is a late collection of early material and is not strictly speaking Oral Torah Judaism. The actual source is pTaanit 8.1.2, which reports that three different Torah scrolls, with different readings and discrepancies, were found in the Temple archive. The original Torah is not in our possession and the rabbis concede this reality as a matter of fact.

The rabbis created an eclectic text, following the two out of three rule; this is an arbitrary rule that does not always work. Sometimes the difficult reading is the best reading; people usually do not make mistakes, mis + take, intentionally.

The minority text could well have been the original version.

In the Middle Ages, text tradition scholars created a system for preserving the sacred text. The most “official” text is the Aram Zova version, which Maimonides approved. But the secret really is thatwe do not know for sure.

It was concluded that a Second Temple text, let alone the alleged Moses original, defies reconstruction.

The LXX [Septuigent] has a different version than ours. Even Rashi had a different Ashkenazi version than we have today. The LXX seems to be the version of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that knowingly added letters to the Torah to act as vowels. The little vowels are invented so that the best original we can find not be corrupted with extra letters.

Rabbi Shelomo Rappaport of Bar Ilan University conceded that the Torah version in our possession today, he said, is not necessarily what Moses received at Sinai, but it is what God wants us to use, as it represents the best available version. How he knows this conjecture is a matter of religious politics and not Orthodox theology. The rabbis of the Mishnah did not have a developed method of text criticism or version determination, which was available to Maimonides; the ancient rabbis did the best they could with the tools in their textual toolbox.

From this quest we learn the following:

1. Torah religion is about accomplishing the possible, not succumbing to frustrations in thie face of the impossible. We do our best. Being imperfect does not mean that we do not try. mAvot 2:16. The Torah authorizes the human mind to determine divine realities. mRosh ha-Shana 2:9.

2. It is important to have a fixed text so we reference the same book. Judaism requires a fixed text so that is the referencebookand not the referencingpersonthat carries authority.

3. Since we do not have the original Torah, we use reasoned conversation to ask, what does our contract with God, as best we can understand, ask of us.

4. Real Judaism requires real, and personal human input if God’s word is to have impact.

5. We are aware that the original Torah cannot be found. The Greek LXX has a different version as well. Life has quandaries and we learn to live with questions.

6. Since we do not know for sure what the original Torah was, we do not agonize over writing our own Torah as required Jewish law. It is by confronting the infinite with our finite abilities is a goal and not a gauntlet; in order gain, one has to strain.