1. Torah Min Hashamayim The Maximalists and Minimalists All letters & inferences / received from Heaven itself Divine Instruction / Revelation CALEV BEN DOR Three rabbinic positions vis-a-vis revelation may be classified as maximalist, intermediary and minmalist. The Maximalist position claims that God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai the entire Oral Torah consisting of all the legitimate arguments of, and the legitimate solutions to, every issue that may arise, including 'the comments than an astute student will someday make in the presence of his teacher'. The Intermediary position claims God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai all the legitimate arguments of every issue that may arise, but not their solutions, which were left for man to offer, and whatever he offers becomes a part of 'the words of the living God‘ Contraditions are thus built into revelation. Revelation was formulated within the framework of contraditions in the form of argumentation pro and con. No legitimate argument or solution can be in conflict with the divine opinion, for all such arguments and solutions consititute a part of God's opinion. The Minimalist claims God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai directions for man to follow, principles for man to implement, but not detailed stipulations. In contrast to the intermediary position in which only ultimate halachic rulings were left for man to determine, the minimalist position presents man with the opportunity and authority for the fleshing out of Halachic arguments and details from directional principles (David Weiss Halivni – On Man’s Role in Revelation). The Maximalist view of revelation avows that the scope of revelation is all encompassing. Revelation embodies the totality of truth, and all claims which run counter to revelation are ipso facto, false. Upon this view, there exists no legitimate autonomous source of truth which can potentially furnish truth claims in conflict with those of revelation. To earn that stamp of legitimacy and truth, a claim must thus find its prooftext in revelation. Scientific claims and cultural norms constitute, at best, tentative truths which must be validated and justified through reference to the body of revealed truth. These tentative truths cannot be invested with the same authority and certainty with which the divinely revealed law is endowed and thus are, in a fundamental sense, inferioir to explicit truths of revelation. The minimalist conception of revelation, which shies away from such an all embracing conception of revelation and believes that God revealed to man only principles to implement and not a fully-comprehensive catalog of details, leaves room for the autonomous sources of truth. Indeed, from this non-maximalistic perspective, revelation must be complemented and supplemented by the results of man's rational endevours. To implement and concretize the principles of revelation, human beings must depend upon their most relieable 'mortal' channels of the affirmation of truth, and for modern man, these are science and reason. Uncertainty is an ineluctable factor of such human effort, but the limited scope of the content of revelation demands that man complete the process that God initiated (David Weiss Halivni) The eighth principle of faith: That the Torah has been revealed from Heaven. This implies our belief that the whole of this Torah found in our hands this day is the Torah that was handed down to Moses and that it is all of divine origin. By this I mean that the whole of the Torah came to him from before God which is called ‘speaking’…And there is no difference between verses like ‘And the sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim, Phut and Canaan’ (Bereshit 10:6)…and verses like ‘I am the Lord your God’ (Shemot 20:2) and ‘Hear O Israel’ (Devarim 6:4). They are all of equally divine origin. (Rambam)

2. Rabbinic Disagreements with the Maximalists וַיַּעֲמֹד מֹשֶׁה, בְּשַׁעַר הַמַּחֲנֶה, וַיֹּאמֶר, מִי לַיהוָה אֵלָי; וַיֵּאָסְפוּ אֵלָיו, כָּל-בְּנֵי לֵוִי. וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם, כֹּה-אָמַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, שִׂימוּ אִישׁ-חַרְבּוֹ, עַל-יְרֵכוֹ; עִבְרוּ וָשׁוּבוּ מִשַּׁעַר לָשַׁעַר, בַּמַּחֲנֶה, וְהִרְגוּ אִישׁ-אֶת-אָחִיו וְאִישׁ אֶת- רֵעֵהוּ, וְאִישׁ אֶת-קְרֹבוֹ. וַיַּעֲשׂוּ בְנֵי-לֵוִי, כִּדְבַר מֹשֶׁה; וַיִּפֹּל מִן-הָעָם בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא, כִּשְׁלֹשֶׁת אַלְפֵי אִישׁ. I call heaven and earth to witness for me that Hashem did not tell Moshe so, that is to stand up in the gate and say ‘whoever is for the Lord come here! But the righteous Moshe reasoned for himself via a Kal VeChomer. He said if I tell Israel, ‘slay brother and kin’ they will say, didn’t you teach us that a Sanhedrin that kills once every seven years is called a bloodthirsty. Therefore he appealed to the prestige of heaven (Tanya De-Bey Eliyahu) Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said: 'Whoever is on the LORD'S side, let him come to me.' And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. And he said to them: 'Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Put you every man his sword upon his thigh, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.' And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. (Shemot 32:26) שלשה דברים עשה משה מדעתו והסכימה דעתו לדעת המקום פירש מן האשה ושיבר הלוחות והוסיף יום אחד On separating from his wife: because- said R. Shimon ben Yochai - Moshe thus reasoned to himself: ' If in connection with Mount Sinai, which was hallowed only for the occasion [of Revelation], we were told: 'Come not near a woman' then how much more must I, to who He speaks at all times, separate myself from my wife?' R. Akiva said: [No!] it was God Himself who told him [to separate himself from his wife], (Midrash Rabbah - Shemot 46:3) On Breaking the Tablets: Rabbi Ishmael said: Moshe drew an inference and said; if the Karban Pesach, a single Mitzvah, was not to be given to idolaters, how much more so the entire Torah! And thus he shattered them. Rabbi Akiva said. Hashem instructed him to shatter then (Tanchuma Ki Tissa 30) Moshe did three things of his own accord, which received the full approval of God. He separated from his wife, broke the tablets and added an extra day (of abstinence before receiving the Torah) (Yevamot 62b) "Let Abbaye come and raise his voice in protest at the notion that 'whoever believes that Moses and not God wrote a verse of the Torah has spurned the word of the Lord.’ Consider how many great men of Israel by whose words we live and from whose waters we drink, would have to be brought to judgement!“ (Abraham Joshua Heschel, Heavenly Torah) Some give another reason why the dots are inserted. Ezra reasoned thus: If Elijah comes and asks ‘why have you written these words [i.e. Why have you included these suspect passages?] I shall answer ‘that is why I dotted the passages’ And if he says to me ‘you have done well in having written them’ I shall erase the dots above them. (Bamidbar Rabbah 3:13)

3. If not Maximalist, what is Torah Min Hashamayim? The first belief of Torah Min Hashamayim is that God speaks and through speaking enters into a relationship with mankind. Words are holy. The meaning of Torah Min Hashamayim…the words through which God binds Himself to a people and the people bind themselves to God. What is Torah? Torah is the world we enter when, through an act of active listening, we hear the voice of God. In other words, to put it more accurately, the real principle should not be called 'Torah from Heaven'. The principle should be called 'Heaven from Torah'. (Jonathan Sacks, Lecture on Revelation March 2001) How can he say then (implying they were in the land then but are not now.) When Moshe wrote the Torah were not the Canaanites in the land?...therefore it appears that Moshe did not write this here but rather Joshua or one of the prophets. If you object that our Rabbis said that whoever said ‘all the Torah is divine except for one verse which Hashem did not say but Moshe said of his own accord to such the verse ‘he has the spurned the word of the Lord’ applies the answer is that this applies only to the commandments and not to the narratives (Ibn Ezra) וייקח אברם את-שריי אשתו ואת-לוט בן-אחיו, ואת- כל-רכושם אשר רכשו, ואת-הנפש, אשר-עשו בחרן; וייצאו, ללכת ארצה כנען, ויבואו, ארצה כנען ויעבור אברם, בארץ, עד מקום שכם, עד אילון מורה; והכנעני, אז בארץ And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, to the terebinth of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land (Bereshit 12: 5-6) Commandments not Narrative Connecting to the Divine through Text אֶת-הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה דִּבֶּר יְהוָה אֶל-כָּל-קְהַלְכֶם בָּהָר, מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ הֶעָנָן וְהָעֲרָפֶל--קוֹל גָּדוֹל, וְלֹא יָסָף; וַיִּכְתְּבֵם, עַל-שְׁנֵי לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים, וַיִּתְּנֵם, אֵלָי. These words the LORD spoke unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice, and it LO YASAF. (was no more / never ceases) And He wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them unto me. (Devarim 5:18) ולא יסף עוד לדעתה אמר שמואל סבא חמוה דרב שמואל בר אמי משמיה דרב שמואל בר אמי כיון שידעה שוב לא פסק ממנה כתיב הכא ולא יסף עוד לדעתה וכתיב התם (דברים ה) קול גדול ולא יסף: וַיַּכֵּר יְהוּדָה, וַיֹּאמֶר צָדְקָה מִמֶּנִּי, כִּי-עַל-כֵּן לֹא-נְתַתִּיהָ, לְשֵׁלָה בְנִי; וְלֹא-יָסַף עוֹד, לְדַעְתָּהּ. And Judah acknowledged them, and said: 'She is more righteous than I; forasmuch as I gave her not to Shelah my son.' And he knew her again LO YASAF (no more). (Bereshit 38:26) Shmuel Bar Ami said: the verse means he knew her without ceasing. This can be deduced from a textual comparison. It says here LO YASAF (in Bereshit), and it says there (Devarim) Lo YASAF [and just as there it means without ceasing, so too here it means without ceasing] (Sotah 10b) Ongoing Revelation

4. Cumulative Revelation / Creative Knowledge God spoke all of these words (Shemot 20.1). Said Rabbi Isaac. Whatever the prophets were destined to prophesy in every generation was received by them from Mount Sinai…For so did Moshe say to Israel. “but both with those who are standing here with us this day…and with those who are not with us here this day (Devarim 29:14) [in other words, rather than saying those not standing with us here this day it says those not with us here this day]. These are the souls that were destined to be created and are without substance so they could not be said to be standing. Even though they were not yet created, each of them received its share of revelation. And it was not just all the prophets who received their prophecy at Sinai, but even the Sages who arise in every generation – all of them received their share from Sinai. אַתֶּם נִצָּבִים הַיּוֹם כֻּלְּכֶם, לִפְנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם: רָאשֵׁיכֶם שִׁבְטֵיכֶם, זִקְנֵיכֶם וְשֹׁטְרֵיכֶם, כֹּל, אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל.טַפְּכֶם נְשֵׁיכֶם--וְגֵרְךָ, אֲשֶׁר בְּקֶרֶב מַחֲנֶיךָ: מֵחֹטֵב עֵצֶיךָ, עַד שֹׁאֵב מֵימֶיךָ/ לְעָבְרְךָ, בִּבְרִית יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ--וּבְאָלָתוֹ: אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, כֹּרֵת עִמְּךָ הַיּוֹם. לְמַעַן הָקִים-אֹתְךָ הַיּוֹם לוֹ לְעָם, וְהוּא יִהְיֶה-לְּךָ לֵאלֹהִים--כַּאֲשֶׁר, דִּבֶּר-לָךְ; וְכַאֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֶיךָ, לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב. וְלֹא אִתְּכֶם, לְבַדְּכֶם- -אָנֹכִי, כֹּרֵת אֶת-הַבְּרִית הַזֹּאת, וְאֶת-הָאָלָה, הַזֹּאת. כִּי אֶת-אֲשֶׁר יֶשְׁנוֹ פֹּה, עִמָּנוּ עֹמֵד הַיּוֹם, לִפְנֵי, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ; וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ פֹּה, עִמָּנוּ הַיּוֹם. The homily of Rabbi Isaac was not said simply for rhetorical loveliness…it is an expression of the desire to understand the secrets of cognitive apprehension, to understand the source of all knowledge, and knowledge of Torah in particular…we see thought expands continually, daily from generation to generation. Sages say things they did not hear from their Masters, they construct narratives, and they innovate Halachot. Is all this richness simply the fruit of human reason? Rabbi Isaac came and set forth this idea – the source of all new ideas is in the revelation of God’s presence in a prophetic event at Mount Sinai. (Heschel p585 Heavenly Torah) You are standing this day all of you before the LORD your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in the midst of your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water; that you should enter into the covenant of the LORD your God-- and into His oath--which the LORD your God makes with you this day that He may establish you this day to Himself for a people, and that He may be to you a God, as He spoke to you, and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath but with him that stands here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day-- (Devarim 29: 9-14) Rabbi Joshua ben Levi would expound: Scripture, Mishnah, Talmud, Aggadah, and even what a diligent student will teach in the future before his master was already spoken to Moses at Sinai (PT Peah 17a)