Defending Rabbinic Authority
״השם-יתברך נתן את התורה והמידות לדרוש בהן התורה כל חכם וחכם לפי השגת דעתו, ובלבד שיעסוק ויעיין בכל כוחו בלי התרשלות.״
“God Almighty gave the Torah and the virtues to be studied by every wise and intelligent person according to the attainment of his understanding, provided that he engages and studies them with all his might without negligence.”
These lines are taken from the book called “Sefer Hanitzahon” - which could translate to either “the book of argument” or “the book of triumph.” It was written by Yom-Tov Lipmann-Muhlhausen who lived in Prague at the beginning of the 15th century.
This book by Muhlhausen is a polemic text, attempting to refute Christian allegations against Jews. The book was written by Muhlhausen after, in August 1399, he and many other Jews were put in prison because a converted Jew named Peter accused them of insulting Christianity in their works. Muhlhausen was ordered to justify himself, but while he refuted Peter's accusations, seventy-seven Jews were executed, and only he escaped death.
In his book, Muhlhausen puts forth a few essential arguments: the first concerns the oneness of God and how scripture in fact refutes the idea of the Holy Trinity, the second refutes Christian interpretations of the Book of Prophets (to explain Jesus as the Messiah) and the third, which is important for us today, Muhlhausen protects the Jewish oral law - the Talmud and Rabbinic authority as the true adherence to Torah rather than a deviation from it.
Muhlhausen used many examples from the Torah and Talmud to prove his point. A lot of those appear in our Torah Portion this week - Mishpatim.
53 out of the 613 commandments of the Torah are written in our portion. Since a lot of these commandments deal with personal laws between people; wages, damages, penalties, death, etc., our sages interpreted them extensively in the momentous project of creating the Jewish law.
A central Medieval anti-Jewish claim was that Jews took the Torah, given to them by God, and instead of holding it sacred, let human beings interpret it and determine its laws, which they rendered heresy.
Muhlhausen writes:
ולא לחינם היה משה רבינו עליו השלום בהר סיני 40 יום וארבעים לילה כי אם ללמוד פירושי התורה ומצוות ודקדוקיהן. גם רזי התורה אי אפשר לפרסם כפי פשוטה שאם יבואו לפרש קורה כפשוטם על כן יבוא ששור מת שווה למכור לגויים יותר משור חי.
“And it was not for nothing that Moses, peace be upon him, was on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights, but to learn the interpretations of the Torah and the commandments and their grammar. Even the secrets of the Torah cannot be published in a simple way. If they were to interpret it literally, it would be concluded that a dead ox is worth more to sell to the Gentiles than a live ox.”
Here Muhlhausen refers to the verse from our portion:
וְכִֽי־יִגֹּ֧ף שֽׁוֹר־אִ֛ישׁ אֶת־שׁ֥וֹר רֵעֵ֖הוּ וָמֵ֑ת וּמָ֨כְר֜וּ אֶת־הַשּׁ֤וֹר הַחַי֙ וְחָצ֣וּ אֶת־כַּסְפּ֔וֹ וְגַ֥ם אֶת־הַמֵּ֖ת יֶֽחֱצֽוּן׃
“When someone’s ox injures a neighbor’s ox, and it dies, they shall sell the live ox and divide its price; they shall also divide the dead animal.”
There's irony here where Muhlhausen shows that understanding the Torah at face value can lead to absurd situations.
The Torah provides short, unfinished and sometimes absurd commandments which, if not interpreted, can lead to ridiculous situations at best, or be extremely dangerous at worst.
Perhaps one of the most well known examples in our portion illustrates this best:
"עַ֚יִן תַּ֣חַת עַ֔יִן שֵׁ֖ן תַּ֣חַת שֵׁ֑ן יָ֚ד תַּ֣חַת יָ֔ד רֶ֖גֶל תַּ֥חַת רָֽגֶל׃
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
This form of punishment or retribution, as we know, can never be just. Not only does this not consider any circumstances in which damage was inflicted, it opens an unending cycle of violence. Our sages offered a simple solution - the verse was meant to mean that the monetary compensation for an affliction should be proportional to the damage which occurred.
״תַּנְיָא, רַבִּי דּוֹסְתַּאי בֶּן יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר: ״עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן״ – מָמוֹן. אַתָּה אוֹמֵר מָמוֹן, אוֹ אֵינוֹ אֶלָּא עַיִן מַמָּשׁ? אָמַרְתָּ, הֲרֵי שֶׁהָיְתָה עֵינוֹ שֶׁל זֶה גְּדוֹלָה וְעֵינוֹ שֶׁל זֶה קְטַנָּה, הֵיאַךְ אֲנִי קוֹרֵא בֵּיהּ ״עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן״?
וְכִי תֵּימָא: כָּל כִּי הַאי – שָׁקֵיל מִינֵּיהּ מָמוֹנָא; הַתּוֹרָה אָמְרָה: ״מִשְׁפַּט אֶחָד יִהְיֶה לָכֶם״ – מִשְׁפָּט הַשָּׁוֶה לְכוּלְּכֶם!
“Rabbi Dostai ben Yehudah says: ‘Eye for an eye’—money [i.e. monetary compensation].”
You say monetary compensation, or perhaps it is not so but rather actual retaliation [by putting out an eye] that is meant?
What then will you say when this one’s eye is large and this one’s eye is small? How can I apply this principle of “Eye for an eye?” If, however, you say that in such a case, monetary compensation will have to be taken, did not the Torah state “You shall have one law” (Leviticus 24:22), implying that the manner of the law should be the same in all cases!...(Bava Kama 83b)
Our sages here used common sense in their interpretation. How can a foot for a foot be fair, in a case where someone only has one foot? Are the eyes of a hunter equal to the eyes of a dancer? They understood another verse from our portion which says: “You shall have one manner of law, law that is equal for all of you,” as using a neutral compensation across the board, and that was - monetary compensation.
You would think that this use of reason in approaching faith would go hand in hand with medieval scholastic thinking, which strove to do exactly that, but alas, this was deemed heretical.
In 1240, the Talmud itself was put on trial in Paris. The proceedings were initiated by Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity, who presented Pope Gregory IX with a list of accusations claiming that the Talmud contained blasphemies against Jesus and teachings hostile to Christianity.
The reasonable interpretation of the law was also under attack: “Iudaei plus credunt Talmud quam legi Moysi.” - “The Jews believe the Talmud more than the Law of Moses,” accused Donin.
At the king’s court, leading rabbis were compelled to defend their tradition in a public dispute that was far from equal in power. The verdict was predetermined: in 1242, thousands of handwritten Talmud manuscripts were confiscated and publicly burned in Paris.
Muhlhausen’s ordeal almost a hundred years later was nothing new; a different country, a different year, a different converted Jew, but the same accusations.
Muhlhausen touched on something much bigger than defending Rabbinic authority. He in fact flipped the Christian argument on its head claiming that Jewish Oral law is not a deviation from the Torah but adherence to Torah itself. If without interpretation you can’t practice Torah, then without interpretation Torah is not Torah at all.
Even more importantly, which we now know, for the Torah to live on it should never cease to be interpreted. He writes in his book:
השם יתברך שנתן לנו התורה, תלה אותה בדעת החכמים לומדי התורה כפי ראות עיניהם, ועל זה נאמר: "כי מציון תֵּצֵא תורה."
God, the Blessed One, who gave us the Torah, placed it in the knowledge of the sages who studied the Torah as they saw it with their own eyes, and about this it is said: “Ki Mitziyon tetze Torah” - "For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah."
