Can the Torah Be a Moral Authority in Modern Times?

While not written in the Torah, rabbinic Judaism maintains that God taught these laws, or at least the hermeneutical approaches, to Moses at Sinai, and they were subsequently transmitted orally to the elders and rabbis throughout the generations. In rabbinic thinking, God taught Moses one set of laws, which Moses wrote down in the Pentateuch, and also communicated to him the official interpretation and details that accompany these laws, which make up rabbinic halakha. The theological underpinning of this approach is the doctrine of the two Torahs. The midrash expresses this as a gloss on the word תורות in the plural, found in Leviticus 26:46 (Sifra, Bechukotai, 2:8.13):

והתורות מלמד ששתי תורות ניתנו להם לישראל אחד בכתב ואחד בעל פה.

“And the torot,” – This teaches us that two Torahs were given to Israel: the written Torah and the Oral Torah.

The written Torah means the Pentateuch. The oral Torah means the laws that make up the category called דאורייתא or “Torah law” in the Mishnah and Talmud. This claim is enshrined in the doctrines of Torah min Ha-Shamayim, that the Torah’s laws were communicated by God to Moses, and Torah mi Sinai, that the oral laws promulgated by the rabbis were also communicated to Moses, and have been passed down faithfully throughout the ages. (See discussion in Yoseif Bloch, “Trusting in the Process of Torah Mi-Sinai,” TheTorah [2016].) The claim that it all comes from Moses is mythic discourse. Even many medieval commentators accept that the oral law evolved over time as a form of interpretation of the written law. See Moshe Halbertal, Nahmanides: Law and Mysticism, trans. Daniel Tabak (New Haven: Yale University Pressm 2020), 10–66 [=ch. 1]; trans. from על דרך האמת: הרמב"ן ויצירתה של מסורת [By Way of Truth: Nahmanides and the Creation of Tradition] (Jerusalem: SHI, 2006).

In addition, executions must be carried out by a beit din musmach, i.e., a court of judges appointed by the great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, which is no longer in existence. Nevertheless, some Jewish courts carried out executions anyway in medieval times. See Zev I. Farber, “Extra-Legal Punishments in Medieval Jewish Courts,” in Mishpetei Shalom - A Jubilee Volume in Honor of Rabbi Saul (Shalom) Berman, ed. Yamin Levy (New York: YCT Rabbinical School, 2010), 191-231.

Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Sefer Shofetim, Laws of Kings, 5:4.

The conversion to modern sizes follows the commentary of Hanokh Albeck (ad loc.).

For comparison: A standard portion for steak or a burger is about 4 ounces (the Burger King whopper is a quarter pounder), while 6 is a large portion. As for the wine, a standard cup of wine is about 5 fluid ounces. A bottle of wine is .75l.

See discussion in Moshe Halbertal, מהפכות פרשניות בהתהוותן: ערכים כשיקולים פרשניים במדרשי הלכה [Interpretive Revolutions in the Making: Values as Interpretive Considerations in Midreshi Halakhah], 2^nd ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999 [orig. 1997]), 47–52.

For a strong defense of the loophole approach to solving ethical problems in Jewish law, see Nathan Lopez Cardozo, “The Deliberately Flawed Divine Torah,” TheTorah (2016).

See Norman Solomon, “Relating Truthfully to Morally Problematic Torah Texts,” TheTorah (2017). Some of the examples and points in my article are drawn from/inspired by that of Solomon’s. My approach in this article is also heavily influenced by, David Hartman, The God Who Hates Lies: Confronting and Rethinking Jewish Tradition (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2011).

Iggerot Moshe, Orach Chayim 4:79; see R. Eliezer Melamed’s discussion in his Extensions to the Peninei Halacha, Laws of Shabbat 27:3.4 [Hebrew].

For a contemporary write up of this as a defense of Jewish law, see Shlomo Brody, “Ask the Rabbi: May Jews Save All Lives on Shabbat?” The Jerusalem Post (June 28, 2012).

I would add that the very fact that modern apologists often point to the rabbinic legislation to “demonstrate” that there isn’t really a problem is evidence that even these apologists realize that there is one; otherwise why would it be a feather in Judaism’s cap that we cannot carry out these laws?

Let me make a personal note here: I make this point only a week or so after I signed onto a statement with my rabbinic colleagues condemning those who, during this year’s flag march in Jerusalem (2021), chanted מוות לערבים “death to Arabs.” It is important, to my mind, not merely to declare that such statements have no place in our Judaism, but to take a more self-reflective stance and think about what in our tradition encourages or at least supports such an unethical stance. I had a similar reaction six years ago, when seeing a film of a wedding in which the participants were celebrating the death of an Arab child, burned to death in a Jewish terrorist attack. (I wrote about this in, “Celebrating the Killing of a Baby: A Look at the Dark Side of the Force,” [Times of Israel, Dec 24, 2015].) Then too, I thought it important to confront what in Jewish tradition led to thinking such celebration was acceptable, which led to our inviting a panel of Jewish thinkers to reflect on Psalm 137:9, “Violent Fantasies on the Rivers of Babylon: A Symposium on Psalm 137:9” TheTorah (2015).

Part of the problem derives from the stance one takes towards the notion of a Torah emerging from the realm of the divine. Taking the idea literally as a factual claim leaves no way out of this conundrum. How can the explicit revelation of the deity be immoral? If, as I have argued elsewhere, we think of the Torah’s divine origin as a statement about our relationship to the laws, i.e., that we experience Torah observance as connecting us to God, we give ourselves more room to think creatively about the morally problematic aspects of the tradition. (I have named this “relationship religiosity.” See, Zev Farber, “‘Torah Is from Heaven!’—What Do We Really Mean?” TheTorah [2018].) In fact, such a stance may actually bring with it the moral requirement to enable Torah tradition to fit into a given society’s ethical and scientific worldview.

I have called this approach a “wave theory” of revelation. See part 4 of my “Avraham Avinu Is My Father,” TheTorah (2013). I explored one test case in “Marrying Your Daughter to Her Rapist,” (TheTorah 2014), arguing that we must learn from the ideal behind the law—the need to protect rape victims—rather than attempt to defend the particular solution offered in the Torah, i.e., marrying the girl to her rapist.

For another attempt to find modern meaning in the wayward son law, see Ethan Tucker, “בן סורר ומורה: Moral Revolution or Complex Application,” Hadar: Center for Jewish Law and Values (2016).

For some discussions of this law in its context, see Shawna Dolansky, “Regarding Azazel and Homosexuals in the Same Parasha,” TheTorah (2015); David Frankel, “Male Homosexual Intercourse Is Prohibited—In one Part of the Torah,” TheTorah (2017); Isaac Sassoon, “What Does Deuteronomy Say about Homosexuality?” TheTorah (2017); Idan Dershowitz, “How the Prohibition of Male Homosexual Intercourse Altered the Laws of Incest,” TheTorah (2018).

For one discussion of this law and its interplay with contemporary issues, see Gili Kugler, “Joshua’s Conquest: A Cultural and Pedagogical Dilemma in Modern Israel,” TheTorah (2021).