If It’s Not in the Bible, Where Did Jewish Law Come From? Rabbi Mordechai Becher - Living Inspired

When we talk about Torah and other people talk about the Bible, we are talking about two different things. >> Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Aaron Silk and you're watching Parsa inspired. My guest today is Rabbi Mordecai Becher. Rabbi Becher, welcome to the podcast. >> Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. The Jews received the Torah at Har Sinai. The three world major religions accept that. So, my question is is why is it that the Jews have volumes upon volumes of Talmud and all different laws which if you asked me, the plain text doesn't seem to say it. When we talk about Torah and other people talk about the Bible we are talking about two different things. The Bible is basically the literal text of the five books of Moses and the 24 books of the prophets and writings. That literal text, but when we as Jews talk about Torah, we mean much more than that. What you see of the Torah in the Bible is the tip of the Goldberg tip of the iceberg, sorry, of Judaism. And really Judaism is heavily based that on on an idea that the the Bible that the Chumash, the five books of Moses, is not a stand-alone text. It is accompanied by a vast tradition going back to Sinai that elucidates explains, applies and gives us the ability to read and to understand the text. I mean, think of this. You're looking at a text which is 3,000 over 3,000 years old. Even according to the most extreme Bible critics it's at least 2,000 years old. Now, if you read we both speak English, we both read English. But if you pick up a book written like Beowulf um, Chaucer 600 years ago, 700 years ago, 800 years ago, it's it's very difficult to understand. Almost impossible. Uh, and when they refer to, uh, foods objects practices Uh, we don't even Yeah, even if you could read it, it's very hard to know what these things are. You know, Biblical Archaeology Review uh, the magazine comes out a few times a year, four times a year. So, every edition have a little picture at the early on in the magazine of an artifact. And it says, "What is this?" And it gives you like four options. Is this a an Assyrian, uh, idol? Is this a, uh, Babylonian torture device? Is this an Egyptian cosmetic? Whatever, you know what I mean? Crazy stuff. And it's very difficult to know. You know, go to page 58. You go to page 58, right? And tells you what it is. Now, you and I know that when the Torah speaks about artifacts like put a sign upon your arm and a frontlet between your eyes no idea. Uh, from that description, you wouldn't know what it is. Okay. Um, so, uh, when the Torah tells me don't work on Shabbat, I I don't know how to define work. Is work force times displacement? This is work from a physics perspective. I just did work, right? Um, I don't know if I work in a think tank. This is work. Right? So So, and uh, not only that, but just to read the Torah, you know, Hebrew doesn't have vowels. Just it's just consonants and a couple of vowels, aleph and ayin. Um, but to read the Hebrew words requires you to hear someone read it to know what it means. You could have a word chet lamed bet, it could mean fat, chelev. It could mean milk, chalav. It could mean milking, chalav. It and you know um you could have a word yud resh alef hey, that could mean fear, yirah. It could mean he will see, yireh. It could mean yeraeh, he will be seen. It could mean it could be read as yorah, he will show. These are major differences. So to read the text written thousands of years ago, you really do need some type of continuous living tradition. A language in which you can talk about it. Um not only that, but there's no punctuation in the text of the Torah. So punctuation is important for giving emotion for giving pauses for you know to read something as no swimming allowed as opposed to no, swimming allowed, right? Are significant differences. And so when we think of the oral law we see it as the living uh the the the living mechanism by which the biblical text can be read can be understood, can be applied and so on and so forth. Um you know Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch gives a beautiful uh analogy to explain the relationship between the text of the Torah the Bible and the oral law. He says you go to a lecture on some subject, some esoteric scientific subject. You will no doubt have shorthand that you use. You won't write fully sodium chloride, you'll write NaCl. You won't write equilibrium, you'll use a little arrow of some sort. Um so uh this this shorthand is something used by experts in that area to take notes during the lecture. So, in addition, you've heard the lecture. But he says, "If you take those notes that you wrote in shorthand after hearing this lecture, and you give it to someone who didn't hear the lecture and doesn't know the shorthand, they'll look at the notes and they'll say, 'You've been drinking the chemicals cuz this doesn't make any sense, my friend.'" So, so he says the I'll just read you what he says. "The written Torah is to the oral Torah short notes as a on a full and extensive lecture on a scientific subject. For the student who has heard the whole lecture, meaning the Jews in antiquity, short notes are sufficient to bring back afresh to his mind at any time the whole lecture. For him, a word, a mark, a hint is often quite sufficient to recall to his mind a whole series of thoughts. For those who have not heard the lecture from the master, the notes will be completely useless. So, the Jewish people we've heard the lecture. And we've lived that lecture. So, for us, we open up this text and we look at the short notes. We know what it means. The Torah tells us, "On the 10th day of the seventh month, afflict your soul." We know, "Ah, the seventh month coming up soon is Tishrei. On the 10th of that month is Yom Kippur. Afflict your soul means fasting amongst other things. Right? We know that. That's type of obvious to us, and it's always been obvious to us. When someone tells me put a sign upon your arm and frontlets between your eyes, we know it's tefillin. And Jews in Qumran. Back at the the Qumran sect who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have to fillon from Qumran. They're square leather boxes with parchments inside. They're not black anymore. They've been around for 2,200 years. But, they knew what it meant. When the Torah says, "Write on the doorpost of your home these words." So, yeah, you can go back thousands of years. You can find mezuzot. Go to Jewish communities around the world, right? People are not putting graffiti on their doors. What they've got is a scroll with Shema in it on their door. It's called a mezuzah. So, that it's a living it's a living Torah. And that's what the oral law is. It's the So, the written law are the short notes, condensed notes. And by the way, um the Mekhilta, it's an old rabbinic uh commentary on the Torah. The Mekhilta tells us that it's interesting. It talks about, you know, God could have punished the Jewish people after the sin of the spies in many different ways. He chose to have us wander in the desert for 40 years. And there's different views as to what the idea and the meaning of that is. The Mekhilta says, "You know why God did that? Because he wanted the Jews to absorb the oral law into their very bones. So, they'd have an entire generation have the best teachers on the planet, Moses and Aaron and Joshua and Miriam and the elders and so on. They'd have no worries about income. They've got the manna dropping out of the heaven. Their clothes are all dry clean. They have climate control, etc. It is the ultimate educational seminar. Right? Shmoog teerum open 24/7. Great lectures the whole time. And that's what they're doing. So, that by the time they came into Israel, which the book of Joshua describes that entry, they were generation that already absorbed a lot of these ideas. And and for them, it was understood, and they were able to transmit that throughout the generations. So, I would say that is why the Jewish people have a Torah. To to read the Torah, we need an oral tradition. To get the emphasis, emotion, and pauses, and so on, and the punctuation, we need an oral tradition. You need to hear that And by the way, when we hear the Torah being read in synagogue, it's not read. It's sung. The singing is part of the oral tradition as well. Cuz when you sing something, that's when you give it the emotion and the punctuation. Um we have legal definitions, right? We we understand, right? Work. What does work mean? What do not we not do on Sabbath? We understand the idea of Yom Kippur, right? And and so on and so forth. And you know, it is hinted at in the actual text of the Torah, this idea. Those who are doing Daf Yomi will be familiar with this. Uh in Hullin, of course, it's a while back, a couple of months, I think. Um but the Talmud quotes a verse in Deuteronomy, Devarim, 12, where the verse says, "V'zavachta, you shall slaughter mib'kar'cha umit'zon'cha, from your from your flocks and cattle that the Lord your God has given you, ka'asher tzivviticha, as I have commanded you." So, the Talmud already points out, nowhere does the Torah command us how to slaughter. The Torah is saying, "V'zavachta, you shall slaughter of your cattle and your flocks as the Lord your God has commanded you." Where did he command us this? If you look through the five books of Moses, there is no instructions how to slaughter an animal. None. And and the it says this is an allusion to hint to the idea that there's an oral Torah. Now, but there's another so aside from the necessity of an oral Torah, it's also a matter of necessity, there's actual advantages to it. There's advantages to it. What I mean by the advantages? Well, you see, when there are certain things first of all, in any system of education, you can't really write down. I'll give you an example. And I've I've done this survey in all over the world. Uh probably about 20 countries uh for thousands of people. I have asked in the audience, anyone who's knows how to swim, please raise your hand. Everyone puts up Most people put up their hand. Please put down your hands. Anyone who learned how to swim from a book, please put up your hand. No one puts up their hand. Why? Because people who learn how to swim from a book are tragically no longer with us. Um in other words, there are certain physical skills like how to live, how to be a decent human being. You got to learn these from a human being. You know, people go to medical school um and they're studying college for many years. But an integral an important part of the study of medicine is the person teaching it. The interaction with a senior medical staff who has been doing medicine for years to do rounds in the hospital, to do residency, to learn from people who've been diagnosing and treating uh patients for years. That's an important part of it. In the study of law, you spend internship at a law firm. The same is true in many areas, Right? It's not enough just to have 4 years college education. I mean, I could buy the texts. I could go to Amazon and buy the texts that are used in medical school and read them. Memorize them. That That That would not make me a good physician. I think I need the oral tradition, so to speak. Tying my shoelace, I did not learn from a set of instructions. I would still be wearing Velcro if that was the case. Right? I I Someone showed me how to do it. So, that's number one. Number two, it's also a security mechanism. You know, we've been thrown out of many countries. Our books have been burnt. So, as long as we have with us this compact text, the five books of Moses, and we have the rules by which we can derive things, plus the understanding that that the oral tradition, meaning the living language that God gave us, then it's very portable, very compact, very transportable cuz a lot of it is in here and in here. And also, it's not as open to distortion. You see, what happened to our five books of Moses and the Tanakh, it got plagiarized. Entire religions were were made out of mistranslation of texts, taking certain verses out of context, etc. etc. That didn't happen to the oral law for the simple reason that it wasn't as accessible to others as it as the written law. Something which is written down is too accessible. Not secure. You want to have something secure, keep it in your mind. Don't email it. Don't text it. As I did the I just did our mandatory um uh security We have these security courses at Yeshiva University. Uh you have to take one every month on on different parts of how to of information and against phishing and etc. etc. So, we just had one on on um keeping information safe. You know what I mean? So, so uh you know, don't text don't WhatsApp it. Use the internal communication tools we have etc. etc. So, the same is true of the oral law. The fact that it was oral meant that it was less accessible to the outside world, which means it was less likely to be plagiarized and distorted. Now, eventually it got written down. Um because uh it had to cuz it was in danger of loss and so on. But, for many years um it was oral. Um so, that's an important uh part of it. And I think one of the most important components is that it necessitates study. If everything's written in a book, in order to preserve it, all you need is a climate-controlled library and a feather duster. To preserve an oral tradition, you know, you need to do? Study, teach, review. Go to an older person. Speak to your grandparents. Speak to your parents. Discuss it. It has created an amazing and beautiful study ethic amongst the Jewish people. Extraordinary. Jews, as we know, have excelled and still excel in academia in many areas of study. And a lot of that comes from this amazing ethic called Talmud Torah, Torah study. It has been drilled into the Jewish people for thousands of years. Study, study, learn, teach, review, study, learn, teach. Now, that was directed at Torah, and it has been now um in the past couple of hundred years, it's also been broadened to other areas, but this idea that the Torah encourages us to study is something so beautiful. And who studies in Judaism? Not just not just the priest, the Imam, the guru, right? The rabbis. Everyone should be studying. It's a universal obligation. That's why literacy levels were so high amongst the Jews even in medieval times where most people were illiterate. This is why you know, Jews would would prize to work for for for kings and dukes and and and the state masters Jews were literate, Jews were educated. A lot of that comes from I would say most of that comes from this study ethic. And the study ethic comes from the fact that the Torah was oral for so long. And even when it says written down, it still requires study. And still requires teachers and it still requires in you know, interaction between one person and another. That's why there's there's arguments in it because different humans we're invested in it and everyone has their own perspective. And that's why we have in the Torah, we have resolution mechanisms for when there are arguments. Follow the majority, rabbinic laws we are lenient, biblical laws we are stringent in cases of doubt and so on and so forth. But but but that's not a glitch in the system. Arguments and individual opinions. That's actually a feature. Cuz what it means is we're invested, we're involved. It's it we're it's we're intimately involved in the Torah and it's part of it's it's it's part of me, I'm part of it. You can't distinguish the great sage Hillel from his Torah. You can't you can't separate Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi from his teachings, the Tanya. You can't separate Maimonides from his Mishneh Torah, from his Guide for the Perplexed. They they that's who they were in very very actually in traditional Yeshiva world, we often call or refer to sages not by their names. In fact, a lot of your shoes you don't even know the names of some of the sages who wrote their books. They just know them by the name of the book. We refer to the choice. One of the famous commentaries on the code of Jewish law financial part. Uh you ask people who what was the name what was the name of the author? I don't know. Right? He's called the choice. That's who he was his book. Right? So uh you know it's it's very I think that's very beautiful because it means the Jewish people have been so involved in it that we became identified with it. You know, I heard from my teacher of Moshe Shapiro a very beautiful idea. You look at the depiction of the tablets of the law throughout history. The look highs. In shoes around the world. They're always rounded at the top. Almost always. I mean vast majority of shoes rounded. Chabad not to do that, but the vast majority of synagogues round the tops. And and you know, art historians believe that goes back to the Renaissance probably correct. Where artists decided that to depict them as as as you know as rectangular or square or cubes would not distinguish enough between the two tablets. So they made it rounded, but Reb Moshe Shapiro asked so he says, but we know that's not accurate. From the the ark itself the shape of the ark itself the Talmud in Bava Basra, the Medrash Rabba in many places they describe the tablets of the law as cubes or square rectangular prisms or cubes. Why they why did rabbis allow the artists to distort historical reality and to make them round? Why are rabbis okay with that? I don't know. Since when are rabbis so easy going? Very rare. Um I mean except for me obviously, but you know uh but why? So Ramash Shapiro said, you know, it's based on a verse in Proverbs. The verse in Proverbs says, Cut vein aluach libecha, write the words of Torah on the tablets of your heart. He said, the words of Torah are not only written on stone, they're written on the heart. He says, the round shape round shape is like an anatomical shape. Anatomical shapes are not square. They're round. It's supposed to depict the heart of the human being, the leave. Because when you look up at the tablets, you're supposed to realize the Torah is not only written on stone or on text, it's also written in the hearts and minds of the Jewish people. It's a beautiful idea. It's It's It goes back a little further than Ramash Shapiro, but that's how he explained this idea. I would give one more slightly not It's not radical, but it sounds radical, but one more idea, the advantage of an oral tradition is flexibility. Um this is uh from the Midrash Shmuel of Ozida. Um I'm I'm giving you the introduction cuz it sounds radical, but Shmuel of Ozida wrote a commentary on Pirkei Avot called Midrash Shmuel. Shmuel of Ozida lived in Safed in the 16th century. He was a colleague and friend of Ram Chaim Vital, a student of the Arizal, Ram Isaac Luria. And we have a tradition um that the Arizal would stand up when Shmuel of Ozida would walk into the room. So just to give you a just a perspective. Shmuel of Ozida writes in his in the first Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, he writes that, you know, why it was not written down? He says once something is written down it becomes inflexible and concrete. He says uh when it becomes inflexible and concrete, that's not a good thing cuz there are generations where something that was once permitted needs to be prohibited. Something which was once prohibited needs to be permitted. We have to be either stricter or more lenient in something. He says changing social realities. He says we have a mechanism for that. It's called the Sanhedrin. We don't have that anymore. But we had for thousands of years a Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court. And using the rules of the oral tradition, they were able to apply the Torah in any time, any place, any situation, all socioeconomic and geopolitical realities. And the Torah they were able to apply it in a very in a in a very real, living way. And uh and he says uh he says having the Torah as completely inflexible he says is an avlah, it's an iniquity. Not prob- it's a problem that now for us nowadays, we do have a problem which is that we don't have a Sanhedrin. So we are somewhat stuck. Of course, we believe that's divine providence. So that's what God wills, that's how it goes. But for a long time we had a Sanhedrin that was able to they were the pillars as Maimonides called them, the pillars of the Torah, of the oral Torah. And the Torah was conducted through the way they they did it. So not and in the words of Rav Nachum Shila, alav hashalom, who was the one of the great Rosh Yeshivas of Or Sameach. He once he quoted this idea and he once put it this way, just very beautifully in his he had a he had a facility with language which I not heard anyone else uh come close. And Rav Shila put it this way, says, we change enough to stay the same. He says the flexibility is to change enough to stay the same. You know what I mean? If you can flex when you're when you're pushed by something or someone, you can stand upright. If you don't flex, you'll fall. Okay. So, uh Tai Chi principle, right? So, so but changing enough to stay the same, that's how he put it. And that's one of the other advantages of an oral uh tradition. So, so that's a that's a second point. >> So, Yigael Yadin when he excavated Masada, he not only found a mikveh there, he also found tefillin as you said. And some of these tefillin actually were for those of you who know, there are two versions of tefillin that uh relate to different orders of the chapters inside of it. Uh and they found both versions. They found Rashi and Rabbenu Tam. Now, in Deuteronomy, it says twice, we cannot add or subtract. I think it's in Deuteronomy 4:2 and in 13:1 in the Jewish Bible, I think in the Christian Bible will be 13:2. So, it says do not add or uh subtract. So, how is it that let's say Rabbi Akiva knew things that Moshe Rabbenu didn't know? I mean, isn't this entering a dangerous thing cuz like you know, we have different types of Jews uh today. Some of them are conservative, some are reform, and some say that like you know, times have changed and we as a group have decided, let's just do away with what if we need to drive to shul on Shabbat, maybe that should be okay. I'm asking this is a tough question, but I think I think uh this should be addressed. Thank you. >> Okay. Well, we don't want to conflate two issues here. Now, first of all, Yigael Yadin, I think it was not at Masada, but it was in Qumran. >> Okay. Fair enough. >> And and and I'm not sure if both were found, but but you have two issues. Number one is the issue of the oral tradition. There's a set and and how you could have arguments and disagreements within that. The other is the issue of rabbinic law and how they could actually legislate and create additions, so to speak, to the Torah. And the third is the question is how far that flexibility can go. So, let's address one at a time. First of all, within the oral tradition, it is possible to have differences of opinion and interpretation, like Rashi and his grandson, his youngest grandson, Rabbenu Yaakov, known as Rabbenu Tam, who said, is the We know they both agreed on the shape of tefillin. They both agreed on the on the material. They both agreed on the obligation. They both agreed the on what parchments are inside the tefillin. They both agreed that in the head tefillin, that's four separate. On the arm tefillin, that's one. They both agree It's the agreements are much more than the disagreements. But there's an a disagreement in what's the order of the parshas. Is it as they appear in the Torah in the order of they appear in the Torah, or is it appear if you're looking at them two to one side of of of the observer and two to the other side of the observer? And and how do we place them in there? That's not explicit in the oral tradition, which means there's room for different views about it. And the way we decide that is generally by consensus. Um uh and we had a consensus and still have in accordance with the opinion of Rashi, which is what most people do. Um and uh you know, the the uh uh one of the commentaries, I believe it's the Prisha, I don't remember. It maybe it's in the tour. In the laws of tefillin, points out that they found in the tomb of the prophet Yehezkel, with the dome collapsed and they're doing repair work on it, they found a pair of tefillin in the in the in the structure buried there. So, one of the commentary says of and and the period's filling was in accordance with Rashi says, you see evidence for Rashi in that. The other said, "What are you talking about?" he says. "The reason they buried it was it was not valid. So, it doesn't matter." So, but be be that as it may, there are areas within the oral law, and this is true in every area of human knowledge. When you are studying that there are major disputes in science, in medicine, in physics, in law because because the human being every human see something they see things differently. Usually, the differences between the way you and I see that table are not significant. The table in your mind, the table in my mind, and the table as it is in itself, as a German philosopher would put it, makes not that much of a difference. So, you just put it on the table over there, right? Unless you are a German philosopher, you will not say, "Do you mean the table in my mind, the table as it is in your mind, or the table as it is in itself?" You would say it's just a stupid table, mate. Put it on the table. But, when it comes to to legal definitions, when it comes to things like that, they're going to be individual differences, and that's why the Torah gives us a way to adjudicate. Let me address the third question because it's relevant to that. When the Torah says that there is, you know, there could be disputes and we we can resolve them, the Torah actually gives us the method of resolution. Deuteronomy 17, it says, "When you have a matter which is beyond you, you palem in ha, something which you don't understand, between one blood and another blood, between litigation, arguments amongst people, wounds, blemishes, what do you do? You go to the priests, the Levites, and the judges in that place that the Lord your God has chosen. You'll go up and go to the place the Lord your God has chosen, which is a reference to Jerusalem, and you shall ask them what to do, and they shall adjudicate. So, we have a methodology, the Sanhedrin. Go to the Sanhedrin. We don't have a Sanhedrin, so there's a limitation on the amount of flexibility we have. Now, um the problem here is, and this is something which is, I think, important. We talk about reform, conservative, etc. When you have an argument within an area of knowledge, physics, medicine, and so on. There are parameters to the argument. Meaning, I cannot invoke, if if legitimate debates in the halls of academia in physics, no one would be invoking Harry Potter as a source. Uh, we will not be describing gravity as gremlins dragging things down to their caves. Right? Um, there are going to be parameters, just like in in physical, athletic competition. Two fighters go into a kumite, right? Martial arts competition. Right? And uh, the, you know, THE THE REFEREE GOES, "HAJIME!" BEGIN. RIGHT? And one guy pulls out a Glock 9 mm, blows the other guy away. Uh, I don't think he's going to get any points for, I mean, he's, you know, he's technically he's won the argument, but but he has not done it within the rules. Right? Within the Torah, there are rules. Right? For example, if my Yom Kippur, my interpretation of Yom Kippur ends up being a day for uh, for barbecues, picnics, and discos, then that's has gone outside the parameters of the Torah, cuz the Torah says afflict your soul on the 10th day of the 7th month. Um so, there's got to be some type of parameter. So, if we have a debate about any And And that's why when there are debates within Jewish law, there's more agreement than debate. When electricity started being used on a regular basis by people 100 years ago, 200 150 years ago. So, there were debates about the nature of electricity on Shabbat. But those debates were I look at them like a pyramid, where the base of the pyramid is, I believe in the Torah. Second base, I believe in the oral Torah. We The sources we are using is the Mishna in the seventh chapter of Shabbat. Right? And we're going to try to define which one of the 39 melachot laws does electricity fall under, if at all. So, at the top of the pyramid, there's an argument between the Chazon Ish, Rav Zalman Auerbach on the nature of electricity, but there's The agreement is vast. Vast. If I debate someone who has no parameters, I can't have a meaningful debate. I I had a discussion with the Reform rabbi, and I was I was asking her I I mentioned this idea, and I said to her, "What are What are the What are the red lines? What are the red lines? For me, the red lines are the text of the Torah, the uh the opinions mentioned in the oral tradition. We don't go beyond that. There are two opinions in the Mishna. I don't go to a third, fourth. I have certain red lines, and within that, there can be vigorous debate. But I've got certain red lines. What are your red lines? Obviously, I said, "What about a verse in the Torah? If you believe that for sociological reasons, we have to now permit something which the Torah explicitly prohibits. Are you okay with that? She said, yes. I said, okay. Um So, what for you is the is are the red lines? She says, I don't really know. They don't What are the red lines? The ethics of the prophets is very nebulous. So, if there's no red lines, you can't have a meaningful debate. Cuz I will bring a verse after verse in the Torah, statements in the Talmud and so on, and they'll say, that's very nice, but we feel differently. So, that's a that's a bit of a problem. That's not a bit of a problem. That's a major issue. Obviously, we don't have time to fully explore this, but that is going to be a a a major issue in these types So, so for us, we need the methodology of the oral tradition, and we need the sources of the Torah as our that that that will limit the debate into these areas. Uh and so that And now, in terms of the second question, which is adding to the Torah, so uh there are a number of approaches. Let me just give you my monitories, which I think is is very, very clear and uh approach. Um if I We have in our house a rule, no food is to be taken up. We tell our grandchildren and our guests, you can't take food upstairs. Why? Raccoons and squirrels smell it and it attracts them. So, no food upstairs. Have I added to the Torah? I know. My grandson says, uh why can't I take food upstairs? And I say, because the Torah says, no food upstairs. Now, I have added to the Torah. That's a problem. If I tell my grandson, I said, because Safta, Grandma, doesn't want food upstairs because it attracts rodents, right? That is not adding to the Torah. So, as long if the rabbis say, "We know according to Torah law, it is only prohibited to have to cook milk meat from an animal that has mother's milk. That doesn't include chicken and turkey. But we're going to prohibit it because linguistically it's also called meat and people will make a mistake and whatever reasons they had." If I ask my rabbi, "Can I have turkey and Swiss on rye?" And the rabbi says, "No, it's prohibited." And ask him why. If he says because the Torah says so, he's transgressed adding to the Torah. Maimonides says, "But if he says because the Sanhedrin decreed that is prohibited, even though in the Torah is permitted, he hasn't transgressed because he's made a clear distinction between rabbinic law and biblical law. And we know halakhically in legal in a legal way they're also distinguished. We are lenient when it comes to a doubt in a rabbinic law. We are stringent in a biblical law and so on and so forth. So, as long as we make a clear distinction, I haven't added. So, so that's that's I think an important view. There are other there there's an entire literature discussing this. Maharal discusses it and and others. But that's basically the the idea. And also I think one more point I have to make which is made by another rebbe of mine, Reb Fisher, alav hashalom, who says there's a very powerful idea in Jewish law which dates back to Sinai, which is the and it's in the Torah itself, which is the idea of Kabbalat Hakahal, the acceptance by the community. The Jewish people we always talk about Kabbalat HaTorah. We accepted the Torah. We said na'aseh venishma, we'll do it and we'll listen. All right? And that formed the basis of our our our Judaism. He says that didn't He says that idea that the Jewish people accept something upon themselves and that becomes sacred and obligatory. He said didn't stop with Sinai. It included the acceptance of the Mishna. It included the acceptance of the Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud. And uh and and and if the Jewish people as a whole for thousands of years have accepted something, that has a certain sanctity to it. And and and and even it's not adding to the Torah to say the Jews accepted upon themselves that when a Jewish man learns Torah, says a blessing, right? Et cetera, wears a head covering. And of course it became even extended to wearing a head covering all the time. That's not adding to the Torah. That was something which the Jews accepted upon themselves as a sacred practice, which we're allowed to do. And which does obligate us. Uh and and if I can have one We have time for one more point? I saw in a article by an Israeli journalist, secular journalist, years ago. Um he said he he made the following argument. He says, you know, there's a game called chess, which we think was invented in Persia thousands of years ago. Shah Mat. Right? Um and um it's a recognizable historical entity. Chess has been played for a long, long time. I would like to join the uh chess federation. I'm a good chess player, but I would like to uh I have different rules. I've invented some new rules. In my home, chess is a contact sport. Involves a little combat. Uh case of my children, that was true. Right, so so uh uh you know, the chess international chess federation will say, you know what? It's all very nice. You can start your own federation. You can start your own game. You can call it, you know, Becher chess. Right, etc. That's all very nice, but chess is a recognized historical entity. It's been around for a thousands of years with rules and with an accepted way it which is played. Right. Goodbye. We're not interested. Right, the same is true. This Israeli journalist says same is true of Judaism. You want to start something new and say, oh, we have different rules. Shabbat for us is Sunday or Friday or Shabbat is a day for golf, etc. etc. Yom Kippur, you know, fasting is optional and you know, lobster is fine the rest of the year. That's you know, etc. Right? You can do what you want. And you can call it something else. But he says there's a historically recognized entity called Judaism that that you could recognize you go to Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Poland, Afghanistan, Russia, Germany and Jews traditional Jews from all these countries would recognize kosher, would recognize Shabbat, would recognize Yom Kippur. You know, they might be confused by the tunes and the pronunciation and the cuisine. But there's a recognizable historical entity here. So you can want to create your own thing. You want to call it Becherology, the new religion. Shababa, go ahead. Right. But not Judaism. That's what this Israeli journal and I thought that was a very good insight. Right? And he was writing it regarding um actually reform the reform movement when it was you know, first making inroads in Israel. He was secular. He says he says, "But the Shabbat I don't keep. I know what it is." The synagogue I don't I go to, I know exactly what it should be. Right? It's a famous idea in his right? And and I think that's that's a little bit also because of the oral tradition, it's a living living Torah. That is pulsed in the lifetime of the Jewish people uh throughout history and uh that's a little bit of introduction. Um obviously there's a lot more to be said. As Hillel said, the rest is commentary, go and learn. Uh >> So, Rabbi Mordechai Becker, I think we really just peeled the the cover off of this topic. I think we're definitely going to have to do another another show on this because um this this topic is really deep. Um listeners, there's something we were just mentioned called Daf Yomi. There's 2,711 pages of the Talmud and it takes 7 years and 5 months to complete today and every day of the year over 100,000 people get together and study this. Probably way more than that. And this is a global Jewish thing. So, if you want to learn more about how this law goes, it the start would be to go through the 7 and 1/2 year cycle. That would be something easy that a person could do and by the time you're done, I'm confident that a lot of these questions will be done. So, um maybe you could lead us out with a bracha. >> Um just uh uh yeah, I a blessing that everyone should the Torah should be inscribed on the hearts and the minds of the entire Jewish people. And uh we should we should uh all all all see it, feel it, hear it, and be inspired by it. Um I don't know if I would say it was Daf Yomi is easy. Yeah, but but nevertheless, it's uh it's definitely a good start. If Could I give [clears throat] a plug? >> Yes, yes, yes. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. >> Yeah. So, um I have a lot of classes about this and other subjects on Torah anytime. Um, and also on YU Torah. They're all free. You can download, watch, etc. Um, also uh, my good friend Rabbi Yehoshua Carsh and I um, discuss a lot of these in, you know, in much greater length in our podcast Two Rabbis and a Podcast. Not very imaginative name, but accurate. Um, so check those out and I want to thank uh, Rabbi Sackol for inviting me and uh, wonderful to be here. >> If you guys haven't seen uh, Rabbi Becher's podcast Two Rabbis and a Podcast, there's so much so much information over there. Please check it out. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> [music]