How Was the Torah Written and Why it Matters Today By Rabbi Anthony Manning

good morning everybody good morning everybody um I apologize for the slightly late start there were enormous troubles on the road today actually took me more than an hour and a half to get here from gedion which is a bit strange so uh at least we're here um and I'm very happy to be back with you after PES I'd like to ask if you could please turn off your cell phones so that we can get through the Sho with without musical entertainment um and also I'd like to thank the sponsors for the full 2024 Academic Year the sh have been sponsored Ben and we are very very grateful to that Anonymous donor the uh the topic that I'd like to deal with we even though it was in the Tor tibits Amed War we've we've dealt with a lot of those topics there's still more to talk about but I actually want to move away from from that specific topic uh not that there's not important things to discuss but I think we need to move on to other things as well um I'd like in the runup to shavat to talk about something we haven't really dealt with in this forum before and in some cases not for a very long time which is the actual safer Torah itself the thing which is at the very heart of Judaism Matan Torah cabal Tor receiving Torah what is the the nature the halakic nature of the safer Tora that we had uh that we have that we had and that we have uh today I give you a preview as to what I mean by this today I'd like to talk about how the Torah was written how the Torah was communicated uh and why that makes any difference to us 3,300 years later which we'll see I think it really does um next week I want to look at the issue of the accuracy of the sa of Torah and the how do we know what Pim were allowed into the sa of Torah there all sorts of interesting questions that come up on that we'll allude to that a little bit today and talk a little bit about the izra but the izra will come mostly next week then three weeks from now I'd like to talk about the fonts of the saer Torah the scripts of the saer Torah and how that fundamentally changed or did it and whether that matters to us today and why it should or shouldn't make any difference so these are all actually very Central issues to what is Torah and what is the saer Torah climbing the ladder that's good at least we're going up um so uh and then maybe the week before shus we'll get a chance to do something a little bit different or maybe we'll stay on that theme so we'll see okay for now hopefully you have a sore sheet and we will uh look at that together it's actually very good timing because not only is it before sh but it's also pares Bahar and those two things are not uh actually coincidental because the the year the reading of the sa Torah in SCH is is set up in such a way that the end of vayikra coincides pretty much with shavat so we'll see how that works and why Bahar is important so look at number one some of these issues are well known but some of them actually are really really not so suddenly in Paras Bahar at the beginning of the par we see another reference to Hari now Hari the the uh theop at har the giving of the Torah was in the middle of shm we're already towards the end of aayra why do we have a new reference to Har and of course quite famously Rashi asked the question which has made its way into modern iFit as well what on Earth does have to do any more than anything else with har we've had loads and loads of Mitzvah since har number two says rash weren't all the Mitzvah given on Sinai well that's a good question were they or weren't they we'll see he gives an answer from just like we see here inah the details for the first time of shita we had shita in outline in but now we have all the details so it's telling us these details that we see today in Bahar not just the general ideas but the details and the very fine details were given on SI so so to all the M this is like a ban this is setting up a paradigm all the mitv we learn from here were're given not just in their outline but in their detail and in their very fine detail at Sinai I can hear talking is that oh it's a r an echo okay well at least I'm talking to myself I suppose I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing okay I don't we shouldn't play with any buttons already it might stop working but it is a little bit off-putting maybe we could ask for some technical help we'll see if the voice of the back saying the same sh is the voice the front okay fine so so what does that mean says Rashi I want to tell you he says this was from this is what we read in but what does that mean that the details were all given on sin and he says a very interesting thing says because when you look in darim there is no more reference to the shmita on land which is unusual because darim is meant to be a repetition of the Torah it's not every Mitzvah that's repeated but is not repeated so ladu so we're learning because we don't see it later that the details were actually not given later they were given earlier and the here tells us I'll every single thing that was given to this is actually very interesting what Rashi is doing he is giving as a an explanation of what is a very fundamental idea that the Torah at least according to Raba we'll see was given three times it was given at Sinai Vishnu and it was given Nish sheni second time in the ohel moed in the Tabernacle the Nishu and it was given a third time in the AR Mo in the book ofarim these are basically what we call the book of schot The Book of VRA and the Book of darar and he's saying the fact that we're seeing these details here not later and it's referring to Hara explicitly is telling us this principle that the details were given and then given again and then given again so why is this so important to know why why is he stressing this in this way so what Rashi is doing is's quoting here from tasim but we also have this in the gamarra itself the gamarra in number three if you look with me please rab so RMA and Raba have a fundamental difference of opinion RAB Ismael says clu that the the what we got at sin what we're celebrating on Shas or for that matter by the way on y kipor because sh was the first L if you like which were the abortive L but the idea of Sinai is just a CLM just the outlines Masha got like an overview the chapter headings these are the things that we're going to get into over the coming years together but the details were in the ohal moed okay so let's just look down for a second at Rashi number four as how he's explaining RAB isma so number four Clos many things were given in a very simple way to they weren't elaborated upon says RAB this is very important for you to know Sinai was an overall experience but they were explained to Moshe and I I underlined the law after the Mish was set up in the oh so as you know Sinai came to an end the people heard the Torah Sinai and they were given the the Mitzvah to build a mishan there is a major debate which we'll get back to later between Rashi and the rambam on the one hand who says that the mitzer to to build the Tabernacle was only after the sin of the golden calf as a response to the sin of the golden Cal maybe we wouldn't have needed a tabernacle and ohal moed if not for the lowering of the levels to be to be addressed in a minute and of course the ramban who we're going to see also soon who says no the mishan was given before if you look in the par it goes MIM and then it goes yro Mish tumak PUD there's an order the golden CF happens after the mishan was commanded and he says I want to keep the Paras in order wherever I possibly can and therefore the mishan is fundamental it's not a Bev it's not something that came later it's fundamental to the idea of there being a Sinai that can move around with them so RAB isma says okay that's fine but sin was the outline and the mishan which was the next was the was the detail look rash number four line two once they directed The Mish mosha communicated with God go spoke God spoke to him over the koret with the wings of theim so then at that point sham that's when God explained all the details to him now by the way nobody has Spen yet about when mosha gives it over to the people and when they eventually write it down all that's being discussed right now is when did it get from God to Moshe and RAB ishma says the outline was at the beginning but the details came later now flip back to number three and look at rabaa Raba says no which is what Rashi quoted in number two CL all the details were given at Sinai the and they were given again at the oh mo the and they were given a third time byas Mo in the plains of Mo inim so it wasn't just an outline of the beginning everything was given then everything was given again and then everything was given again so question is why why why do we need to get this three times and is it different has it changed the second and the third time but there has to be this threefold pattern yeah why did M go up0 days which time which 40 days the first ones or the second ones so the first ones he was being taught the Torah he was being taught the first Torah he was okay so you're saying according to R is why does he take why does he take 40 days to get maybe I'm not saying what you're thinking you're asking why does it take 40 days just to get the outline or you're not asking that no I'm asking if he went up for given well I don't know why you I don't know where you get five times exactly from but he there were very lots of 40 there was 40 at the beginning and then the golden Cal and then there was 40 dealing with the people then there was 40 daving for S and then there was another 40 receiving the second her we'll get we'll see a little bit the r the ramban we'll come on to that so what's with this threefold um repetition just look for a second back in number four look back at rashley on RAB AA Nishu third line of number four Nishu pamit he was given over a second time the and it was the same says Rashi what was said here was said here but don't think that anything was written down nothing was written down nothing was written down yet that's interesting all the Moshe got at the beginning was the luos they were smashed he got another set of L but nothing else was written down says Rashi don't think they had a saf Torah many of my students have this idea that Moshe walked down har with a with a luus in one hand and a saor in the other hand rash said no no no no no nobody says that nothing's written yet and then look at the last line of rash and it was given a third time in the plains of moav that was when it was communicated that's when Moshe gives it all over in seim so this is really interesting did the Jewish people know anything before saim or did they just like as an as needs basis what you need to know in order to do this or to do that Etc and it's actually interesting how the Jewish people are asking Moshe what about this what about that we don't know about P we don't know about so this is making more sense because it could be that a lot of the details were just not given to them until the final schav sh Mar and he brings the posk there now what what I what I brought you in the the bottom of the page was something which actually my daughter blessa did many many years ago I I even attribute it to her here research and Graphics by yel Manning based on SE when she was about about eight or nine she's now 27 um I asked her to do hence the very simple graphic I asked she'd probably do something much more flashy today but I asked her to plot on a graph the number of mitv given in each para according to with the para itself and lo and behold what do you see you see this kind of ECG this electrocardiogram of Torah where you see that very little is given in braus because braus is not a book of mitzvah but then you get a peak around B yro mtim Etc that's Sinai what rabi calls Sinai and then it kind of dies down again a little bit and then you get a second Peak which is bigger than the first Peak which is what we call ohel moed that is saferra especially the Paras we've just been reading kadim andos and Etc and then it really dies down through Saab midbar and then at the very end you get an even bigger Peak a third peak in SA Bim um which is the if you like the last pulse of the Torah it's very very visual now that you see what RAB was getting at when he talks about three pulses of Torah very very fascinating and of course when you think about it it makes perfect sense because after the Torah was given the first time there was no to there was no there was no warning at the end of shmat don't mess up because nobody had messed up until or I should say in mbim there was no warning then they did mess up so that was the AEL haav so they messed up so when the Torah is reiven which Rashi said was the same but we'll see in a minute that's not so clear it was given in with a at the end that we're about to read in which is this is this isav well it's not really because don't forget plan a was Gan aen and plan B was Noah and plan C was we're already on Plan F or G but the second download of Torah is given with a to just don't mess up this time and of course they did they messed up with theim with the sin of the spies so when it's given a third time it's given with darim with a mega with a much bigger to which is really really really take me seriously don't don't mess up this time whether they did or didn't is the rest of Jewish history which I'm not getting into now but you see this pulse of the Torah which is RAB y's understanding which is what Rashi was they're alluding to so go over the page we I I have a little bit less time than I thought I would so I'm not going to read the ramban inside but the ramban at the beginning of Bahar says not so quick meaning where were they in safe of aayra where were they situated in safe of aayra and the answer is at Hari they didn't leave Hari until sa midbar and therefore when the kazal talk about what was given at sin ramban says don't just think it means the first schav in Mish in in shmat but everything that's given through shmat and through vayikra is all called at sini it just depends whether you're talking about plan a which was the what was given before the golden Cal and then the ramban said that was completely scrubbed I just want to bring you one line um from the ramban maybe go to the fourth line where it says lamosa you see what I mean by lamosa fourth line number five he talks about when his when mosha finally re received received atonement from God for the sin of the golden C with a second he had a whole new covenant as it say afterwards so he got back the like the key the the really the very serious uh string mitz that he had the first time round okay which he'd got in and he brings the but God needed to push down on them further with this second Brit why it's not the same as the first Brit and there's a there's a at the end so ramban is saying something very interesting which is when the Torah is given over again in vayikra it's not quite the same Torah it's a different Torah suited for a different group of people it has the same basic outline we still have Pak sukus but by the way if you look carefully there are some things in VRA that we never had in schot in schot we didn't have rashash Shan yum kipa well that kind of makes sense because the whole process of rashash makes more sense now in a post sin world than in a prein world we have shates but we also have more than that and I want to look at the sorno cuz look at the sorno in number six says the sorno at the beginning of the Mitzvah of in these are the animals that you're allowed to eat so he he picks up on an interesting point which is why are there no tray for animals in saos they only appear in sa ofra in sa ismos you've got milk and meat as a Prohibition but you've got no tray for Animals also in saos you've got a number of the sexual prohibitions that come up in VRA don't appear in shm you've got no nid you only have nid in VRA you only have TR animals in he said is there a reason for this so This forigner in Italy 500 years ago says the following after the Jews had had their been stripped of their spiritual jewelry as it were from Kisa after the CF shik Tor which they got a mat Torah so they'd now gone down a level and before they lost this had been able to rest on them buil without any intermediary the Jewish people were on such a level like it says in the end of he's going with rash's approach on the rambam's approach which is they didn't need a safe of they didn't need a mishan until they went down that level and then he says something very subtle but super controversial as it will be one day again in the future what does that mean we're going to go back to the level of okay we'll see after we went down the god refused it was not possible for the to rest on them because it says there I'm not going to be with you directly anymore managed he achieved through to get back some of what was lost he that you can now have a connection with God but only through a mishan the now you have coronus and now you have Kim and gold and silver and sprinkling and blood that was never says the farno the original plan we didn't need that originally and until you get him God reappears comes down from so now the second time round God had to kind of improve their new low level and get them back somewhere closer to where they were before so they'd be able to receive this new light so they had to have new restrictions there's I'm sorry guys he says there's new food that you can't eat after the golden calf you're on a new level now you can't eat pigs and now you can't eat shellfish and now you can't eat insects Etc before you did the sin you know maybe maybe you would have been fine eating everything but now you have the laws of casus okay and also the laws of to of sexual relations and he prohibited got prohibited inra TR food you don't don't make yourself disgusting this is all new and now we have a whole trunch of new prohibitions Nida Zava yed which it sounds from the farno we would never have needed those had we only just been able to avoid the sin of the golden C this is a very interesting uh thesis and it becomes even more interesting thing when you know what he said before which is and one day we're going to get back there one day we're going to get back there what we're going to go back to that place where we don't need sa ofik we're back on the level of the Hari so what does that mean does that mean that when mhia comes or whatever schav he's talking about we're going to just jettison certain ideas from the Torah and go back to this preik reality so actually that is exactly what the cabalists say that is exactly what the ran says he doesn't as far as I can recall refer specifically to trth animals and Nida but if you look at ramban in onar where he talks about the you know God will circumcise your heart and you'll come back he says we'll go back to a level where we don't need the Torah anymore it's a whole britad now this may not sit comfortably on your ears because according to my Mones it's entirely heretical because the ninth of the principles of faith is the Torah will never change can't change Mitzvah will be Mitzvah when we die go to shamayim you know ultimately we don't need Mitzvah in shamay because we have no bodies in shamayim but as long as we've got bodies we need Mitzvah and Mitzvah can only be one thing yes sir he'll give it a different shot torus toor doesn't might just mean without a mum clear like aat level without any blemishes it doesn't mean that they were D kosha not Kosher that's a Dr that's broad there Tam and toras don't dka mean kosher not Kosher they know could give a different read so this idea of the Sarno is actually very interesting and we're not we don't have time for this now but if you look in the midashim which which fuel the kind of Saban heresies that started happening in the 1660s and post shab the things that kazal in those midash in which were pulled out focus on that we will change in the world to come like the farno being will to come here meaning Yos mashia are things like kazir why is the kazir called a kazir because it iser to its level of Casas the pigs will become kosher and Nida which was introduced will be rolled back Etc now the rambam gets very very uncomfortable when you start talking about that because he says number one no mes will change number two Messiah is not going to be a mystical spiritual only reality it's going to be a real nuts and bolts physical reality so what you have baked into this question of when was the Torah given and what was given and when was it given is actually some really fundamental um hashkafic ideas which have driven different movements within the Jewish people over certainly the last 500 years but probably much longer than that um in a in a kind of roundabout kind of way the reform movement was also playing into this idea the reform movement in the 19th century obviously there were other drivers and reasons as well many were saying well this is our Utopia we have been emancipated we have been allowed into non-jewish society this is what they meant when they talked about Yos hamashia they focused not on the person but on the period therefore why do we need mitv they were coming off this idea and in fact there are some interesting theories about whether the early reform leaders had connections with uh Saban underground Tendencies you can do your PhD on that if you're interested there's all sorts of things to talk about there now of course as I said the reform movement were coming from a lot of other practical places too but there's a lot going on so that's the first reason why this is not just a theoretical you know conversation about what was given when but it actually drives some uh some very interesting contemporary questions let's move on to the next question uh when was it written down all of this is about when it was given over to Moshe and Moses gives it over to the people when was it written down so the seems to be explicit looking number seven this is at the end of Moshe is about to die he writes down the Torah he gives it to the and says to God he says to the people rather write down this sh why is the Torah being called a Shir now you might say well this could be it's another way of approaching it absolutely but write down this sh put it in there write it down and give it over put it in their mouths so that this will be a testimony to them and then he says at the end there when Moshe had finished writing down this T saer in its book what does add to mean in its complete sense we'll see in in a minute why that's a question so then commands and he says to them take this saer you now have a safer Torah put it next to Theon and it will be for you a Master Copy this will be your master copy of the Torah any future Torah has to be compared with this one and written accurately keep that idea in your mind till next week please when we talk about those ideas okay so when was the Torah written down it sounds like it was written down at the end and that's kind of what rashy said before when we said when we talked about when it was given over he said no nothing was written nothing was written and then later it seems to have been written and in fact this is also debated by kazal which is a question why would kazal care why would kazal introduce a a discussion as to when and how the Torah was written kazal lived thousands of years after this point of time just like you and I do so why are they interested we'll see that in a minute number eight very important um Source here I'm says the following Torah the Torah was given in mot it was given in Scrolls it was given in installments m m and he brings a which I'm not getting into exactly now but look at Rashi again sorry to have you flipping around but look at Rashi number nine m m nna he explains when Moshe was given a he would write it down himself but at the end of the 40 years what did he do when they'd all been given tan he joined them together and sewed them all up and now you have a safer Torah so according to Rashi the first view magila magila is that Rashi is writing all this stuff down putting in sorry Rashi Moshe is writing this stuff down excuse me putting in a drawer saying let's keep this safe and then at the end of moshe's life God says okay put it all together sew it up put it together and actually that is how you write a safeer Torah today they don't just take an enormous scroll and start from the beginning and get to the end you can write a safeer Torah in any order you like you can start in and you can go on to Braes and you write one Lu at a time and keep them in the drawer and then at the end you put them all together which is of course not the case with M andin which have to be written in order there is a din with a muza that if you make a mistake in the middle of a mu and you realize that you've gone on and there's a mistake in the middle you can't just correct the mistake with a safe you can correct the mistake it doesn't have to be in the exact order for reasons that will become evident soon and you may have been in shore on a weekday when someone's noticed a mistake in the safe of Torah and somebody a handy guy there with a quill and a bit of ink has come up and looked and said H yes all done we're we're done it's easy you can't do that with a muuza if you notice a mistake in a mauza what the sofa has to do is he has to scratch out all the letters going back to where the mistake was and then write it back properly from there and if by scratching that out he hits sham Hashem on the way then he's finished because you can't scratch out sh Hashem so in he goes to the ganesa and we start all over again that is why muzas are in terms of proportional to the number of words in them much much much more expensive than buying a safer Torah if you think how much it costs to buy muuza and how little there is written on it and how much it cost to by sa Torah it's not like the same proportion because Torah are less stressful in that sense to right okay that's m m okay go back to Number Eight Second Line so this is in Number Eight Second Line says no no the Torah wasn't written m m I'm on number eight Torah the Torah was given what's a it's a seal it's one unit it was given in one go go back to Rashi number n according to this view it wasn't written at all at until the end of 40 years till everything was already explained to whenever wherever it was explained in si in in and all the Torah he got in the first and second year iidb first part of midbar it was all until it was written at the end now that's actually very interesting because according to the second approach there were no installments the Torah was written in one go right at the end according to mcgilla mcgilla there were installments by the way maybe not even that many just flip over very quickly to number 10 you'll see that the ramban when he talks about mcgilla mcgilla he says even mcgilla mcgilla only means two installments lashi thought it meant like every every time mush wrote something down he pushes it in the drawer the ran says no mcgilla mcgilla is literally mcgilla Milla one mcgilla up to harai everything up to that point and another mcgilla maybe you'll call it the Ganser mcgilla okay at the very end where he gets the whole thing so even according to Milla Milla says the ramban it might not be 50 installments it might just be two installments but my question for you is why do I care why does this matter why are we talking about this I have a safeer tono I know what it is where however it was said over and written down doesn't seem very relevant and of course the answer is it's highly relevant because it goes to the question as how do I read the sa of Torah how do I interpret the sa Torah how do I learn the sa Torah and one of the things that we've been um Z to over the the last 40 50 years is a whole Revival in parut on the Torah uh even when I was growing up and I'm not so old there was there was nothing like the amount of um breadth out there of par ideas the whole gush etsion type Torah the Baran academic but religiously focused Torah that's coming out of ravani grman and Engish rol bin this is all a new growth which is very exciting now some people are not so keen on it some people are very into it but really what we're talking about is to what how am I how do I read this book do I read this book in way X or way Y and I'll tell you what I mean if the Tor was written Milla Milla let's go with rash's most expansive understanding M writes it down puts it in the drawer writes it down puts it in the drawer it's a bit like a diary you know you write February the 5th put it in the drawer later you write August the 5th put it in the drawer December the 10th put it in the drawer does the entry on February the 5th know what's happening in December in a diary and the answer is no how how can it know it's like it's an installments the early installments by definition do not yet anticipate the later installments it's installments even if you take the ramban it's still two installments but if you take the view that no everything is Bal everything says right theuma approach is in is between God and Moshe and at the very end of his life he says okay now this is how I want you to write it down this is the form I want the written version to take now ask yourself does safer braus already know what's happening in savarim yes yes because it's not an installment it's like a novel can a no I mean havil we'll see in a minute the literature comparison can a novel start at the end and then flashback of course he can of course he can and it sometimes does and he uses flashbacks and Flash forwards in also why because the person writing the novel has the whole thing in front of them and they're writing it in such a way which thematically is designed in order to take you backwards and forwards if you understand that the Torah is written all at the end that's how I'm going to read a sa for Torah of course prous knows darim and shos knows darim it's all being put together to the same way by God Sosha which is a very new and exciting way of reading the Torah as opposed to Milla Milla which may change the way that I actually approach the text so I actually think that this is a very important idea and we'll develop this in the literary angle of it in a minute this is not just a a a technical debate but this is actually going to the question of how was it written and how do I read it I just want to show you a source which I'm not going to read with you but I want you to see Source number 18 just for a second Source number 18 is a is a k is now the K is this is a written translation of the K is now I do apologize well actually I didn't do anything wrong but the translation was taken from um Rabbi Yakov ha's website Torah lab and I took it some years ago and I now went on the link and the link is broken so I don't know if it's just temporarily broken or whether it's broken for good and I actually know who runs the website so I'll try and find out but if you try this link you won't find it right now but I promise you this is what I got from the link when it wasn't broken and the Kazan ish actually had a very interesting interface with a young man back in there I don't exactly know when the 1940s I imagine early 50s or 40s and this young man had been exposed to biblical criticism and the documentary hypothesis and was concerned as to how an authentic Jewish Orthodox approach is going to look at these issues of what was written when and how Etc and the is actually includes this it's a real gem that not everybody knows in this part of the K is he talks about all these ideas we've been talking about and I just want to bring out one um one point here he says just look at the last um three paragraphs where he says here and at The Plains of moav this is saarim the Commandments were T to him the third time he goes with reab AA because reaba versus RAB ishma we usually go with Reb AA more of that in a minute and the divine presence was as it were speaking from the throat of mosha and at this time he was commanded to write them down in accordance with the language that had been spoken to him in the case of each individual section at the time they' been commanded to transmit it to the people of Israel so it's getting more and more complex what language is he using it he said among them were Commandments that were written in the language in which he'd received them at Sinai and the Commandments in and Commandments in the language he'd be said to him in the ohel mo and some in the language of the Plains of Moab and there were some that had been repeated and some that were taught a third time and there were changes last paragraph in the language in the case of some Commandments that had been taught at sin in the oh mo in the plains of moav and this variation was to hint to as in his written form the Torah was taught to mosha in the form of tal and he's going with the version of Kum so the is also thinks that this is important enough to flag to this young man says just be aware that you shouldn't be reading he's saying to him the Torah like a like a like a diary you shouldn't be reading it in installments cuz that's not exactly how it works and I'll give you a good example of this I'm sorry I really am having you run around this sheet a little bit but just look for a second on page six on source 26 um actually we probably keep you on this page from now on for for a while look at source 26 every now and then you come across a posk and you scratch your heads and you think how how does that work here at the end of the Jewish people are coming out of Egypt the man has fallen says thek the Jewish people ate the man for 40 years until the land that they came to the land they settled so you're going to ask yourself 40 years who's talking 40 years inash bashak they're just going straight up yeah few weeks pick up the Torah get to Isel it's not going to be 40 years so why is it talking for years because if you say no everything is written at the end and it's flashing back and flashing forward and da d d so how else are you going to explain that POS if it's if it's installments this is a strange installment to be writing there so there and there are more Pim like this okay while we're on this theme let's talk about the NV the NV says a very beautiful idea in his to the uh to the the was the r ofin in the 1800s he died in the 1890s and he was the main pillar of that's why they called him the NV that was obviously his name but NV is a pillar okay um there was a book written many years ago um in by art girl called my Uncle the NV which I don't want to talk about now it has a whole story backstory to it it was it was a translation of a book book written by the nv's son the torima sorry the's nephew excuse me that's the point the tarima um who wrote In The mcor Boro an account of his uncle's life and then when art scroll wrote it they censored it and they changed certain parts of it and then anyway it got banned and and then everybody got up and screamed and and and then they said well actually maybe the original that was written in Hebrew by the turret M was also a little bit like Broad in its understanding of reality so maybe their censorship actually brought it back into line with reality not going there you can if you if you enter things like this then I suggest you read Professor Mark Shapiro's blogs where he goes into this in great detail but have a look now at the nv's understanding of the gave a in the which I've been told not many of the Bim came to uh which I can't verify but sound Rings true honestly um and he but he turned that into the pish of the of the number 27 write down this Shir now what what is the Shir so look at this n with me in 28 this is a source I want to look at in some detail he quotes from says this word sh says it means the whole Torah and it brings a proof from the end of that because it says this is your testimony this is your proof Etc says we need to understand in what way can you call the whole Torah a he doesn't look like I meaning there are parts of the Torah which do look like poetry and they're written in a stanza type or poetic type way Etc but when you read you know and and it doesn't look like a poem to me it looks like a of Pros he says you have to say Torah every part of Torah has the nature and the hidden qualities of a Shir of a poem bash M which is in figures of speech it's written in Parables it's written in um in metaphors because you know full well people who are educated no that poetry and Pros are two different beasts in two ways but like I'm going to explain to you the nature and the and the hidden qualities and he says when he comes to a poem things are not always what they seem come B prosy when you're reading Pros when you're reading the New York Times or the Washington Post well you may argue things are also not as they seem when you're reading those papers but but in theory you're not meant to be inter interpreting it like poetry you're reading poetry you're reading Pros you're reading it is what it is what you see is what you get but poems are not like that you need to bring out you know outside ideas this stanza is alluding to this idea and this stanza is alluding to a different idea uh if you write an essay for your you know your uh undergraduate or post-graduate degree you're doing an English literature degree and somebody they give you a sonnet of Shakespeare shall I compare thee to a summer's day Thou Art more Lovel and more temp temperate and you write down please please explain Shakespeare's uh you know focus in this sonnet and you just write well Shakespeare's going out for a walk in the park with his girlfriend whatever I'm not getting into whether Shakespeare would have had a girlfriend or not that's a different discussion um but uh you won't get any marks for that your mentors say no this line is an illusion to act 4 scene three of hamlets and there you're meant to bring it all together and show that Shakespeare he's a very very powerful um author and he's alluding to many many things says the says the the N second line of Al he says that's not called that's called that's Pat that's what the means okay Dr andat are often fairly relative andit's famous line that is what I say and Dr is what you say like there's an element of Truth to that and there's drat and thereat but he says I'm not even talking about D just how you read the Torah has to be like a poem that's the nature of poetry even if it's written by not by God by a regular person like by Shakespeare someone who really knows what they're doing can bring to this to this metaphor he can bring sweet ideas M sweet to him the beautiful light of the language of the poem is so sweet the and its details someone who doesn't know how to read poetry is just going to mess it up they're not going to read it properly they're not going to see the depth someone uneducated will just get the basic idea it's not what it's really there and therefore he'll misunderstand it and he'll read things which were never there and he won't understand what the writer was trying to intend now just let me stop there for a second the miv is saying something very very fascinating that if you just read the Torah in a very straightforward and literal way you won't understand it you'll make up stuff that's not there because you're not meant to read it like that you're meant to read it like a poet and if you can't read poetry then go and learn poetry and learn how to read it meaning the wouldn't have said go and do a history an English degree in Hebrew U but I mean ra Aron lonstein would I'm sure argue it can't harm and the fact that he had a doctorate from Harvard in English literature was an immense tool that R Aon used in his understanding of of and of T and says this is not D and at the end where I've underlined Nik H so how we read the Torah which depends on how it was given and whether this POS links with this posk and that POS links with that posk you have to do this in an extremely um Deep Way which requires an understanding that things are not always as they seem and in the second paragraph he goes on to say that uh poetry also contains um patterns sometimes it's alphabetic can be an acostic sometimes you're looking for for hints and and and connections between different words and things rhyme and things he says that's the kind of structure that you're also looking for in he's telling you look for these structures and of course if you're into you know the gush Torah chastic structures are everywhere first of all youve never heard of a chastic structure and then someone explains the chastic structure it goes a b c d c ba A and D is in the middle and each one reflects the other and then there comes a point when you start seeing chastic structures in everything you know this whole book is a chastic structure and this whole pic is a ktic structure and the NIT saying you know kakav you know go and work out what it means by the way the nits have also said something interesting which is if you get this then you'll understand what the author really intended now how do you do that with Torah exactly meaning maybe I can get to the depths of what Shakespeare intended maybe okay but what possible hope do I have of getting to the depths of what an infinite author intended in a book how does an infinite author write a book that's a good question and then you have to ask your question well are you ever really when you're reading literature trying to work out what the original person meant or are you trying to work out what it actually means to you in today's world which is a important question in law when when the when lawyers are reading the US Constitution are they trying to work out how would Benjamin Franklin have reacted if he was teleported to 2024 and looked at what we're looking at what would he have said very few people argue that because Benjamin Franklin would have probably run and jumped off a cliff if he could have seen how everything worked out in 2024 and I'm not sure he would have interpreted the way the Supreme Court do but that's a separate question um so there's Torah as poetry as well and then and the last question I want to to to to bring you with um today to bring to you today is this issue of chronology now hopefully you'll get an understanding of when we say what is that why do we say is it just some I know some of my students seem to think it's it's just something that MIM say when they can't work out what it means oh it's it's not it's not chronological hopefully you see now that it's actually much much more fundamental that we have to say and everybody agrees of okay Rashi and theb Ezra are more ready to use and I brought you those sources and and the ramban is less ready to use that and that's why for example like I mentioned the ramban looks at the Paras of the and the Mish is chronological and therefore the misham precedes theel also korak which we're coming up to soon um the iban Ezra understands the parous korak didn't happen in b midbar not there in bamidbar it happened when Moshe separated off the leim from the rest of the people and all the makus started up at the beginning of bbar before the sin of the spies and korak is just placed later on thematically because now that we're listing all the things that went wire so we'll list this and we'll Lis that but actually korak was before the S of the spies not after the S of the spies and the ran says no it was before the it was after the sin of the spies because I'm more likely to take it chronologically but he agrees that from time to time it's clearly not chronological sometimes it's explicitly sa forba begins in the second month of the second year and then later goes back to the first month of the second year when it deals with P sh okay so this idea of is not some kind of get out out it's now fundamental to how we read Torah as to how we understand when it was given one final Point uh and and I will leave you on shilas hopefully uh until next week um there is a major discussion about the last ukim in the Torah just look for a second and I'm going to bring you these sources in outline and give you a little teaser for next week just go back for a second to page number three and look at source number 12 Now The KES did say that MOS wrote the Torah he wrote the whole thing ramban says he wrote the whole thing he gave them a full sa Torah right until the last words of and the rambam in number 13 says the same thing but there's a problem with that what's the problem with that the last eight Pim of the tah is dead and the last 12im mosha has gone he's left so this gives rise to a an interesting debate in the gor which I'll just quickly mention to you in number 14 where they say as follows the last they an individual can read them in it's different to the rest of the Torah next week we'll see what that means comeand who does this follow certainly not reim how how can it be how can Moshe be alive and write down this is she how can Moshe write she how can that be Moshe writes and Moshe died he's alive Ella it has to be says the first opinion MOS from this point up to this point mosha wrot it yesu finishes off the safe of Torah that's re's View gave them Apostle sa Torah he handed over Apostle sa Tor with ap missing maybe 12im missing it's that he wrote These Pim with tears he wrote them in a different way we'll see what that means was he crying or was he taking tears out of his eyes sort of Harry Potter like and and using the tears to write things down you obviously never watched Harry Potter it's fine you didn't miss anything you miss Mish nothing okay okay don't worry if you never read the Lord of the Rings then you missed out but but JK ring you can live without it's fine and and and the iban Ezra actually goes with rabuda at the IB Ezra and we'll see theb Ezra we'll finish with him but we'll start with him next time according to my opinion he says wrote but he wrote them because he was a Novi you can't have any Joe just R him in the safe of Tera Yeshua was a Novi he was a navi Yeshua opens God speaks to him so that's okay he says and later also where it says and God buried Moshe in uh the in moav in har so look at number 17 rash says and well I read you 16 first because this is the key word H to this very day nobody knows when Moshe is where Moshe is buried now if you know R bazak ra bazak he wrote a whole saer called which we'll allude to next time a little bit and it sounds like it's written later the izra says okay no problem number 17 it's still but it's not yua the week later it's Yeshua at the end yeshua's life okay fine so now we have suim being put into the Torah by Yeshua decades later anyone have a problem with that clearly not the Ezra but other people do have a problem with that and we'll get to that next week but hopefully just to summarize and we'll finish here this week and again I'm sorry we started five minutes late you can see how every minute is needed um the the way the Torah was given both by God Moshe and in writing by Moshe to the world is extremely relevant it's not just a theoretical idea and as we go into and we talk about these are ideas that we can pick up and run with and help us deepen and appreciate our our understanding of Torah have a nice week we'll see you next week please God