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The Oral Law

Question

What was the oral law that was given to Moses along with the written Torah ? Did it contain instructions about when a particular law was to be applied or did it contain another set of laws that were so complex that they couldn’t be written in a proper manner ? Is it because that the oral law is lost that we cant use the Torah laws in governing legal system and capital punishment,etc. ?

Answer

Thank you for your question. The oral law was an explanation and elucidation of all of the laws found in the written Torah. For example, the Torah dictates that the slaughter of animals must be done in a prescribed manner, however no further mention of this is found in the Torah. The details of ritual slaughter (shechitah) were included in the oral law. So too, we find a commandment to wear “totafot” but no further description of them. The square black prayer phylacteries (tefillin) were also part of the oral law as with numerous other details of various laws found in the written Torah.

There are various reasons as to why the oral Torah was not written. Maimonides explains that it was in order that the laws could be handed down teacher to student in a manner which would insure accurate transmission of the laws as opposed to a completely written law which would be subject to misinterpretations. In addition, an oral Torah facilitates a need for constant study and review of the Torah. After the destruction of the Second Temple and the subsequent exile, Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi saw that the oral law could not survive as an accurate form of transmission. He therefore gathered all of the oral teachings into what is known as the Mishnah. The Mishnah was later further elucidated in a written form in the Talmud.

The reason we don’t have capital punishment is that those cases require a “Sanhedrin”, a special rabbinic court of 23 judges which we don’t have in the present exile. As for a governing legal system, for the most part, most Orthodox communities have a “beis din”, a rabbincal court of three judges, who rule in almost all matters which do not go against the law of the land.

Sincerely,
R’ Daniel Fleksher

Follow-up questions (2)

Question

What about the argument that the Rabbis made up the Oral Law? Also, who was the Jewish king that rejected the oral law and what happened to him?

Answer

It seems to me that someone who makes a statement claiming the rabbis made it up (which of course has absolutely no basis) is not going to accept any refutation. His is an emotional rather than a logical position. I mentioned some allusions to the Oral Law which exist in the Torah in the post you mention. The bottom line is that we have an unbroken chain of transmission of the Oral Law from Moses to Joshua all the way through till the present. As I can vouch for the veracity of my Rabbi’s teachings as he can for his rabbi’s teaching in turn and so on, it is almost unreasonable to claim that somewhere in the chain someone started making things up. For more on this subject, a basic yet well organized text is “Permission to Receive” by R’ Kelemen.

As to the Jewish king; our history unfortunately has seen many kings disloyal to the Torah, oral and written. Perhaps you refer to King Herod who originally had a great respect for the Sages before turning against them. He eventually repented and followed the words of the Sages once more. He was also responsible for building the Temple structure as we know it (for example the Western Wall).

R’ Daniel Fleksher

Question

Hello. I have a question about the follow up question. How do you know that the oral law was from moshe and sinai too? When the people starting doubting the divinity of the oral law- the Tzedokim (Sadducees), did the people of the generation (the people against the tzedokim) claim that the oral law was from Moshe (Moses) and Sinai? Thank you.

Answer

Our knowledge of the Oral Law is based on a teacher to student transmission that we indeed trace to Moshe. The Tzedokim did not want to accept the authority of the Sages and therefore challenged them on that very thing which gave the Sages authority–being the receivers of the Oral Law.