No. XXI.
LEGENDS IN THE PRAYERS FOR PENTECOST.
If Moses or the prophets had any where recorded, that God had, along with the written law also given an oral law, our duty would then be to find out where it is: and to inquire whether that oral law, which now forms the keystone of modern Judaism, is the one which was given by God. But neither Moses nor any other prophet has said one word on the subject. The words הורה שבעל פה “oral law” are no where to be found in the Bible, nor is there any mention of the thing itself. If the Bible had plainly alluded to the existence of the thing, we should not quarrel about the name, which might have been invented for the sake of brevity and convenience. But it is remarkable that when Moses commanded the law to be read publicly in the ears of all the people, he says not a syllable about the oral explanation, which if it existed must at least have been of equal importance; and still more so that the succeeding prophets should have observed such a profound silence about that, which now constitutes the main substance of Israel’s religion, and is the key to the observances and prayers of the synagogue. This silence is in itself suspicious, and compels us to examine the evidence of its transmission. The first step here is to ascertain the character of the witnesses, who say that they received the oral law from their fathers and transmitted it to their posterity. If it appear that, in their general testimony, they were disinterested and truth-loving persons, who have never been convicted of distorting truth for their private advantage, nor of receiving and circulating fables as authentic history, their testimony in this particular matter will be of considerable value. But if it can be proved that either from a deliberate desire to deceive, or from an incapacity to weigh evidence and to distinguish between fact and fiction, they have transmitted a huge mass of foolish fables as authentic history, then their testimony is worth nothing, and the story of an oral law having no other evidence must be classed amongst the other fables which have come down to us on their authority. That the account of the giving and transmission of the oral law rests solely and exclusively on the testimony of the rabbies is clear from the account itself, as it is found in the Jad Hachasaka.
כל המצוות שנתנו לו למשה בסיני בפירושן נתנו שנאמר ואתנה לך את לוחות האבן והתורה והמצוה , תורה זו תורה שבכתב , והמצוה זו פירושה , וצונו לעשות התורה על פי המצוה . ומצוה זו היא הנקראת תורה שבע׳׳פ ׃
“All the commandments which were given to Moses were given with their explanation, for it is said, ‘I will give thee the tables of stone and the law and the commandment.’ (Exod. xxiv. 12.) ‘The law,’ this is the written law, ‘And the commandment,’ this is the explanation thereof. And he has commanded to fulfil ‘the law’ according to ‘the commandment.’ And the commandment is that which is called The oral law.” Truly the rabbies must have been hard set when they chose this passage to prove the existence of an oral law. The keen and clear mind of the sagacious Rambam evidently felt the difficulty; he, therefore, to give some plausibility to the proof, omitted the concluding part of the sentence which he quotes from the Bible. He says, “As it is written ‘I will give thee tables of stone and the law and the commandment,’” and there he stops, but let every Israelite open his Pentateuch and read the remainder, and he will find the whole sentence to be this, “I will give thee tables of stone, and the law and the commandment which I have written, to teach them.” Not one word here about an oral law, but about that which God had written. It is true that the passage of the Talmud from which Rambam derived this doctrine gives the whole passage, but it appears from the process of abbreviation which he has applied, as if he were ashamed of the explanation there given and thought it more prudent to omit it. But as it is one of the main passages which support the doctrine of an oral law, it must be considered.
ואמר ר׳ לוי בר חמא אמר ר׳ שמעון בן לקיש מאי דכתיב ואתנה לך את לוחות האבן והתורה והמצוה אשר כתבתי להורותם , לוחות אלו עשרת הדברות תורה זו מקרא והמצוה זר משנה אשר כתבתי אלו נביאים וכתובים להורותם זו גמרא מלמד שכולם נתנו למשה מסיני ׃
“R. Levi bar Chama says, R. Simon ben Lakish says, what is that that is written ‘I will give thee tables of stone, and the law and the commandment which I have written to teach them?’ ‘The tables’ are the ten commandments. ‘The law’ is the written law. ‘The commandment’ is the Mishna. ‘Which I have written’ means the prophets and sacred writings. ‘To teach them’ means the Gemara. It teaches us that they were all given to Moses from Sinai.” (Berachoth, fol. 5, col. 1.) Can any man of common understanding receive this interpretation, which throws all grammar and context to the winds, and gravely asserts that not only the law and its explanation, but the prophets and the whole Talmud, were given to Moses at Sinai? Will he give up his own reason and the word of the living God to the authority of R. Simon ben Lakish? There cannot possibly be any argument which would prove the falsehood of the narrative concerning the oral law so completely as this interpretation, which is regarded as one of its main foundations. The words of Moses which are here perverted plainly speak of that which God had written. “I will give thee tables of stone, and the law and the commandment which I have written to teach them.” Did God write the oral law, and give it to Moses? What became of it then? If it was written, how did it become oral? These words “Which I have written,” have sadly puzzled the rabbinical commentators, who know not how to reconcile the plain and obvious sense of the words, with that interpretation which had been already put upon them in the Talmud. Rashi seemed to think that the difficulty might be got over by saying—
כל שש מאות ושלש עשרה מצוות בכלל עשרת הדברית הן ׃
“All the six hundred and thirteen commandments are comprehended in the ten commandments.” (Com. in Exod. xxiv. 12.) But this, though true in one sense, will not obviate the difficulty. God promises to give Moses the law and the commandment which he had written. If the oral law had not been written, it was not included. Saadiah Gaon, as quoted by Aben Ezra, proposes another solution:—
אמר הגאון כי אשר כתבתי דבוק עם לוחות האבן לא עם התורה והמצוה כי השם לא כתב רק עשרה הדברים ׃