If all of the Torah was given at Sinai, why is there so much legal debate? For example, opinions differ on when the Sabbath begins. If the Sabbath laws were given at Sinai, how would debate on this matter ever begin? Was Moses taught two approaches? Was the nation in the desert divided on when to start the Sabbath?
Hi,
This is a question that strikes nearly every student of halacha or the Talmud at some point. Here are some ideas that might help:
First of all, the arguments do not come from Moses – his teachings were all perfectly clear. Rather, they are the result of the inability of later generations to fully concentrate and internalize the vast material of the Oral Law. This can be partly blamed on the Roman persecutions of the mid- to late-Second Temple era, but the Talmud itself simply states that students no longer properly “served” their teachers.
Having said that, however, one must observe that the areas of doubt are dwarfed by the huge body of halacha that has never been subject to debate. It should also be pointed out that most halachic observance hasn’t even been included in the Talmud as it was simply too obvious to bother. Therefore, for instance, there’s no mishna or gemara that
tells us that we must wear tefilin or make havdalah after Sabbath. All that the Talmud deals with are fine and sometimes obscure details like that the tefilin straps must be black or that one recites the bracha of havdalah after that of wine and not the other way around.
Finally, if the halacha follows only one opinion, why should minority opinions be included at all in a mishna? The mishna itself asks that very question (Edioth 1; 5):
“And why (does a mishna) mention the words of an individual (i.e. the non-halachic opinion) in the face of a plurality since the halacha always follows the plurality? So that if one (later) court should consider (independently) the ideas of the individual (they will be
aware that that idea has already been suggested and rejected)…”
Rabbi Boruch Clinton
Ottawa, Canada