The Written Torah, the Secret of the 12 & Maimonides’ 8th Ikar (principle) By Rabbi Anthony Manning

Professor Mark Shapiro has written about this extensively um on the sarin blog which is a very interesting blog which many of you or some of you may know about which is the issue of stemming from the last 12 suim in the Torah and broadening out into how the other maim other commentators than myones um in the Middle Ages regarding the issue of Mosaic authorship of every PUK in the Torah now we're going to have a look at the rambam's ethar which is very clearly that every single verse in the Torah was written by Moshe was dictated by hasm to Moshe and there are zero exceptions and even the suggestion that there's an exception is itself heresy um we're going to see that that is for sure a majority position and it's very much the position that's taken by most Aron as well um but there are other opinions uh definitely in a minority and we're going to have a look a little bit at the iban Ezra today who who leads us through a a very uh uh what's the word subtle sort of breadcrumb Trail so that we'll find our way through to a an understanding of this which is at the same time accurate and at the same time hash graphically um appropriate so let's this sheet you may be you may have noticed is a bit thicker than the normal one there's one and a half shearim here and I'm not going to try and give it all in one I debated whether to do it in two or to just give you the whole sheet for homework and do most of it in one and I went for the most of it in one answer so do not fear we will not read every single word on the page but nevertheless uh let's start at the very beginning I'm not going to read the last apim of the Torah actually the last 12im of the Torah but the last verses in chapter the the in saim chapter 24 of dorim talk about mosha leaving the camp for y then he goes through to his death and Moshe died in God him and nobody knows looking the Bold POS in and in the middle of number one God buried him there in until this very day nobody knows where he's buried and we talked a little bit about that last week but now I want to go into it in more detail as we deal with these questions on the sa Torah and the Torah itself and the writing of the Torah in the run up to look at number two says the could Moshe have died and still write these people can't write Pim after they've died of mosha it's clear it says the the first Anonymous tanak in this BR up until this point mosha wrote the and from this point onwards yosua picked it up the re may may says no it says M wrote the Torah which presumably means the whole Torah is it possible that mosha would have given over a Torah which was missing even one letter how could that be we'll get back to the in a minute remember that question no Moshe was taking dictation God dictated he wrote down the last eight or maybe 12uk him in the Terah there is no real distinction between the last eight and the last 12 and in fact some of the classic before when it says eight they really indicate that they're talking about 12 which is where we're going to see soon in the lib and Ezra fine so has an interesting idea that there was a Bas call that says M died so they could re write those PIM in and then it brings I couldn't resist at the end an opinion of Salon has anyone heard of somon somon is either one of the tanim or one of the malim uh maybe I mean sometimes it was maybe confusing between them if you met them I'm sure they were amazing people but the whole of the last was dictated out from this basol and if you're interested in sealon I really don't know anything about sealon but I brought you a link to Jewish encyclopedia you can have a look at sealon and think about that okay the two opinions Yeshua wrote them or God dictated them to mosha seems very straightforward then you get into the gamorra the gamorra deals with this in in a few places pick it up in number three who wrote the books of the Bible say MOS MOS wrote his book The excuse me and Moshe wrote which is what we Callas Bak why might you have thought the M didn't write because the whole thing took place on a Mountaintop a long way from way from the camp and E there's many debates as to who wrote sa here it attributes it to MOS and Yeshua Yeshua wrote the book of it just says quite clearly he wrote the last aim in the Torah by the way thisor in Basra goes on to uh to list all the books of the Torah and who wrote them and it's not always as obvious as you think kazal for example do not say that Shir Hashim and KET were simply written by schom that's not what they say they say they would been by the so I it's very interesting to read that um section in Basra it's not always what they tell the kids in uh in elementary school as to who wrote the books K themselves were aware that the authorships of different books in the tanak I'm not talking about the Tor is more complex than we think but the main source is in the G in in number four have a look in number four so this is where all the action happens the last in the T can read them in the what is meant by is something which I'm going to get into in a little bit but in not too many details but can read them in the better actually I apologize with all the excitement of the microphone I forgot to read out the dedication I'll do that now before I forget again but the sheir uh is dedicated by our Anonymous donor for 2024 benman and that is a very much appreciated Anonymous dedication and also today Shar is specifically dedicated foral for the daughter of manak P maybe people know ra manak P from the OU and other places who is scheduled to have a serious surgery this morning and we uh we D that the should be for the Merit for and I apologize for not reading at the beginning and I didn't ask anyone to turn off their phones but we haven't had any phone yet so don't speak too soon right fine let's look again in Source number four so the question raised in the is as follows and we don't know what Yak means yet and we're not going to dwell too much on it but they're they're different an individual can read them they're written in one go we'll talk about that in a minute who gives this special din to the eight of the last it's obviously not's opinion says the because it says mosha died the could Moshe be alive the and still right that mosha died that's not that's not Ames that's she just out of a just in parenthesis you note the question in the CRA and the gamor is slightly different the CRA was worried that Moshe had died and yet some somehow wrote this Pim and the gar is worried that m is alive but could write something that's not correct not going into that now but there is a subtle difference M the gor then says it's quite simple M wrote up to that point okay yesu finished off the Torah that's re's opinion so we have we have we have the first opinion in the that we saw Yeshua finished off the Torah soim says no how can that be can aah be missing a single letter doesn't it say says to the tribe of Le take this Torah gave them a sa for Torah which is not the same POS that the brought but he brought but again not for now so rather om mosha up until this point God dictated and Moshe repeated the word to get it WR to clarify it and then wrote it down but from this moment God dictated these last eight or maybe 12im Moshe doesn't repeat them but he writes them down bemma we'll see in a minute what badema means pastas it means in tears but it's not so straightforward by the way the idea of the Scribe repeating the PK the the the the word before they write it down it's brought down in Al I brought you in a footnote that the sh rules that when a scribe is taking the dictation and writing muas or Torah if he's not got a text in front of him he has to repeat the word again that he's being dictated and then write it down and the villon says even if he's writing from an existing text he still has to repeat the word so it's not surprising that the the Torah was written in such a way uh getting from this source that Moshe repeats the word and then writes it down but the last he didn't repeat Rashi says he was so distressed and you know there's a debate as to what exactly he was distressed about he wasn't necessarily distressed that he was going TOA in a few minutes he was distressed maybe that he couldn't go into AR Israel there's all sorts of discussion about that and he brings a posk from y where Ben wrote down theim dictated to him by Yeshua and he says I just wrote down exactly what I heard he didn't repeat those either because he was safe the idea which y yakim threw on the fire it's a whole discussion there in in in the book of Y okay so reiman says it cannot be that Yeshua wrote down the last ukim it has to be that Moshi wrote them in some different way so so this first opinion that said that the last suim a read which we now read on Torah in a different way does Rish shim disagree with that because he disagrees that Yu wrote them so the says no I feelim even Rim says they have a different status since they differ in some way in the way they were written not he says because Yeshua wrote them but because mosha wrote them in a different format so they're different and therefore a y can read them so what does he mean a y I'll just mention very briefly there's a few different opinions one opinion is that they have to be read together with other him so as not to highlight the fact that they were different in any way other opinions in the say exactly the opposite that we dafa take them and read them on their own to highlight that they're different other MIM say no the idea is that you can read them even without a minion other PIM in the Torah need to have a minion this even a y even an individual can read them so the ramban brings down that opinion and there's a very interesting rivot because we of course read these sukim tor and that was the Minag in Babylonia that finished the Torah every year and even the Minag in erit Israel that finished the Tona every three and a half years they still read thesim on Sim Torah according to many opinions to finish off the Torah so the rambam says even an individual can read them so the r comes in there I didn't bring it on the sheet because I don't want to get too distracted with that and says I don't understand what happened to the minion you were reading the Torah up until now with the minion and now all of a sudden the minions disappeared where's the minion disappeared to which the answer is to the kidish of course downstairs like poor fellow is sitting whatever there there are other more aidite answers to the rivs Casher than that um and there is an opinion which is we kind of fulfill many of these opinions but we the opinion is that a yak an individual special person is called up to read these which of course is what we do we call them the the T he's called up to read this Pim but anyway that's what it means but this this detail of these last eight is something that Kaz want to clarify either some else wrote them Yeshua or Musha wrote them in a different way now this this this this expression BEDA is not clear at all nowhere in um the tanak or elsewhere as far as I'm aware in kazal is the word Dema used for Tears de used for tears but not Dema um it's a singular or mean tearing maybe it means tearing or so some of thean bring down straightforwardly he wrote them when he was crying um the has a fascinating explanation number six if you look at from this point on what does that mean he wrote them the difference between these and the former up until now he's been writing in ink and now he's taking his tears and is writing these him down in tears which is interesting because if you say that then Moshe did write the last ukim of the Torah but yosua went over them as it were in in ink it's trying to get its mind round how both opinions could be right I brought you also R Dov Hoffman in number seven who has an article on this um obviously R do Hoffman from the vensa schools in Berlin about 130 years ago so he says Dema is the word for invisible ink and there's a whole halakic debate is invisible Inc called Inc in Hala if you write a get in invisible ink that will become visible either 24 hours later or it will you need to put us some kind of solution on it and it will make it visible is that a good get is that not a get is that called writing on shabas is that not called writing on chabas anyway that will take us too far away from what we're looking at today but RIS Hoffman says that invisible ink is what he used um theaba in number eight has a a tradition that he brings in the name of the villon where he wants to say that the word Dema is from apos inm that refers to truma and he wants to argue that Dema is another word for Muma in in kazal means truma that's been mixed up within and therefore you have a mixture of different things and theah gabala wants to suggest from the gone that actually what Moshe did is he wrote the words but he wrote them in a code he wrote them in a way which was not the final un decoded version of theim and that's what it means P Dema and he brings in this respect the ramban I did want to mention this because the ramban is an important and fascinating Source look in number page number three again we will slow down as we go forward because these are these first issues I wanted to deal with quite quickly the ran in the the number nine he says as follows this is absolutely clear the whole from the very beginning to the very end was said from God's mouth as it were to the years of mosha and we also have a tradition says the ramban he was a cabalist after all early cabalist sh emit we have a tradition based on the mystical um Torah of uh going back already and he'll quote Rashi as well that all the Torah is really God's names because if you reorder this idea the the the wording in the Torah in a different way it it spells out a completely different Torah a Torah of God's names I give you an example he says elim the very beginning what could be easier than just break up the words in a different way and you get you can rewrite the Torah through different combinations of the letters all the Torah is like this and I'm not even talking about gatria coding through gatria I'm talking about just coding through the letters of the names of Etc I'm not talking about that and then he says if you look in rash you'll see rashes to this as well but and he writes on the the 72 letter name of God this is in when the Jewish people set off across the sea there are three Pim one after the other each with 72 letters exactly and Rashi on the gamorra I think it's in Suka there says I'm not sure 100% where Rashi is he says this is an illusion to God's mystical 72 letter name and the ramban jumps on this because this is one of the proofs if it's a proof that Rashi was a cabalist it's not clear that Rashi was a cabalist most commentators and academic Scholars will say the Rashi was certainly not a cabalist but he does throw us a bone as it were with these 72 letter names but the point is that ramban is saying that when it says the Torah was written at the end in a code this is the code it's alluding to and actually somebody asked me last last week at the end of the Shia why are we talking about the writing of the Torah isn't the Torah didn't God look into the Torah the midash says and create the world many of my students uh ask me this question and and when you think about it for more than a second you realize that what Torah could that midash possibly be talking about it's not talking about a physical Torah with ink on parchment that it's God doesn't look into physical things God is not a physical entity so that mid is obviously talking about something else and uh there's a very very thin book really a pamphlet that was written about 35 years ago by R um Nathan Lopez cordos um called the mind so the Torah is God's mind it's a fascinating fascinating book and it talks about the idea that when the midash the Zohar and the midash talks about God looking into the Torah that is the primordial Torah which somehow represents the essence of God's mind obviously God doesn't have separate parts but that's what it's getting at and then this Torah coalesces and goes through different stages until it reaches eventually what the Torah that we have one of those stages is what the midras calls black fire on White Fire this is a process of crystallization from a completely non um structured form of Torah into a fire form of Torah into this jumbled uh coded form of Torah and eventually into the Torah we have today it's a little bit if you're into cosmology imagine the beginning of the universe after the big bang is pure plasma where things are not cool down enough to actually form um atoms and gradually forms atoms it cools down and cools down atoms then bigger structures and big structures eventually you have the universe that we that we have today so don't get fooled by bashim and think that they're talking about something simple they're never talking about something simple Bima complex and looking to Shas there's a a beautiful radas which I didn't bring you again on the sheet but I I you can look it up in one of his Chas and he brings this a famous midash that a lot of people talk about on shavat that when Moshe went to to receive the Torah the malim said how can you give the Torah to to Mankind and God says uh you answer them so the midash there says MOS says it's very wellknown midash MOS says to the MIM okay what's your problem it says in the Torah do not murder people do you murder people do you need this and the malim go like he's good he's good he's good do not uh make sure you honor your parents do you have parents and at each stage the malim are getting more and more impressed by mosh's erudition and the rvas says I don't understand what's he telling them that they don't already know they didn't realize that that's what the Torah said they kind of now you know Asim fell so he says it's clear that when it says that God was going to give the Torah to man they thought that this meant says the rvas that primordial spiritual Torah which somehow represents the essence of God's mind and they said how can that happen and then mosha says no no no we we're taking a ink written on a on a parchment that says things like you know don't murder people they oh yeah that you can have yeah take that that's not a problem so it's actually worthwhile thinking again about these midashim in a way which is a bit more sophisticated okay fine so that's the if you like the last 8 12 Pim of the Torah basically two opinions yeshu wrote them mha wrote them in a different way fine is there aack is there a a final answer on this so look at number 11 so the ramban says we saw the we saw the ramban in the introduction to the says the same thing when it says from the very first word to the very last word he Pas like re shim RAB Maya not like Reb Hood reab and the tanak of the SI this is also the rambam and we'll see the rambam in more detail however the iban Ezra says otherwise and we saw this briefly last week looking 13 says the Ezra when it says mosha left at the beginning of the 34th per there from here on Yeshua wrote them obviously after mosha left he didn't write them but he makes a point of telling you it's D through Yeshua was a na'vi he didn't just Stam right them God gave him this Pim as a na'vi not obviously the same as giving theim to Moshe we'll get back to that soon but he gave them these last aim to Yeshua and so too number 14 when uh when it says that no one knows mha's grave to this very day it sounds like not just a week later or a month later it sounds like many years later he says this is yeshua's writing and it was at the end of his life okay all seems very unpro so far the already in the time of he alerts us to some concerns with the izra number 15 immediately he sets out very clearly this is not anyone but Moshe Moshe wrote this down I'm going with those opinions in so too the things that came before this P that Moshe left and Moshe died they're all written by Moshe Ezra IB Ezra by the way he's not ra AB Ben Ezra IB Ezra was his family name his father was not called called Ezra IB Ezra was the whole family was called I Ezra so I read in the I that wrote this you shouldn't write things like this just in the like to explain you can't write things like this why not write things like this he says no I have heard myself says the from people in the community here in in North Africa they get very confused when you start to tell them things like this and it quickly rolls this the slippery slope quickly rolls out into full-blown heresy isn't that what the non-jews say the Muslims the Muslims accused the Jews of corrupting the Torah that that it wasn't actually that was on the ARA was yesma Etc we know that this is what the the Muslims said very late in the game meaning the Muslims are coming to this claim thousands of years after everyone else has been writing the other Torah I'm not getting into that right now but he says that you don't want to give of course that claim is ridiculous he says but you don't want to give fuel to that by giving all these opinions that other people the MOSI wrote the Torah and he says the Muslims say that there are things in the Torah that weren't never happened and there are things that are not there that did happen the you should forget everything you heard of this nature Shield your eyes from them the thing you need to know is you have to follow the other opinion you can't follow the opinion of Yuda because people are going to start to take this run with it into places you don't want them to run okay so that makes a lot of sense Rashi quotes both sides he doesn't seem concerned when it says at the end of your Shu number 16im it says in the end of Yeshua Yeshua wrote certain things in the safer Torah of God well what could that be so Rashi there on yeshu number 17 the debate this one view says M these are the last eight or 12im of the Torah T the sa Torah was it was Ling finished it off and another opinion says no no no it's nothing to do with that all this is the accounts of the the Cities of Refuge in Yu's book itself when it says he wrote them inim it means he wrote them like they were written inim but Rashi seems to bring both opinions doesn't have a problem with them and not just Rashi but the mishna breur when the mishna Breer brings this T and he says that we don't break up those last 8 12im the Torah we read them all as one unit for whatever reason we discussed before he says says the Miss bre number 18 we don't break up this we don't call up two people it's just one because they're different from the rest of the and again he says very comfortably yesu wrote the and even if you say m m wrote them in tears or whatever that that means since they're different they're different he's following that opinion the gamor so it doesn't sound like there's a sack on this issue different people through the ages are bringing different opinions you can go like this opinion you can go like that opinion okay again so far everybody nobody's hyperventilating so far okay however the IB Ezra was a very concerned man and he was right to be concerned because he'd gotten himself into all sorts of hot water through his life um he had a very unfortunate life the iban Ezra he ran away from Spain from the alahad invasions he ran to France where he uh well first to Italy I should say where they regarded him as way too I think what you would say in today's world modern which became a negative word sometime over the last 25 years uh for their liking and he says they chased him out of town throwing garbage on his head and he ran and he ran to France where he became fast friends with bam he got to France just in time for the Second Crusade that came rampaging through France um and then he moved North he moved to the to the to the Atlantic coast of France and then he moved to England he moved to Oxford and he moved to London um and uh he was killed by a r rampaging mob somewhere uh north of London my guess is probably on borm wood High Street which is pretty rough on a s that was just whatever but but but he he he he lived a difficult life and he he died Al kashem um but he he had to couch his his commentary quite carefully cuz people already looking out and gunning for him and in some places by the way he takes a very hard line against other commentators partly because I think he really held that way but partly to show you know I am really a hardliner don't think that I'm not um and I maybe mention some of that later but this year you could give eight sheim on what the on the on the issues are raised in today's sh but let's have a look at the ibra number 19 at the beginning of darim it talks about Moshe saying the the speeches ofarim Bearden Bearden in trans Jordan now he's immediately alive to a problem which is that they're in aarden why would they call it aarden it's only really ever called aarden you might have suggest by people living on the west side of the Jordan they call it trans Jordan of course it's not such a strong question in chat because you could just say this land is called aarden and it makes sense within um the book of bamidbar andar to say that because remember ruven and Gad said we don't want to cross the Jordan and this was always meant to be the land on the other side of the Jordan not where the Jewish people will it's not a a bombshell question but he's concerned by it so he says like this number 19 if you understand the secret of the 12 and he brings you some other Pim which are part of this secret for example we're going to focus on that one in a minute and they says at the end of the ARA that this is the mountain on they will say this is the mountain on which God Appears which is Haram which was only later when the temple was built and also brings a posk about OG meash and his crib it saidel it's made of iron and it's it's in am it's in the capital of what now is Jordan Etc if you understand the problems inat with those then you'll know the true story end of quote so what's he talking about so it seems pretty clear and I'll bring you some of the MIM on the EV in a minute the secret of the 12 of these last 12im in the Torah and there's a secret in them he says which applies to other Pim let's have a look at one of them that he mentioned number 20 goes through the land of Israel to the cananim with then in the land so what does the cananim with then in the land mean so it could mean two things it could mean then that's when they came to the land but beforehand they weren't in the land or it could mean in those days the Canan were in the land but they're not there anymore now the second chat is difficult because this is being written in the and the cananim were still in the land and only someone living much later would put in AOS saying that can are no longer there so look at the number 21 it could easily be the firstat that I said which is that Canan who from the family of came into ER Isel they shouldn't have been there they're meant to be in Africa that's their you know and this is the point at which they begin to impinge on the land of Shem okay it could mean that but if it means the other which he won't even tell you then there's a secret there and if you're clever you'll keep your mouth shut okay so what's he talking about um elsewhere he takes a very hard line on any suggestion that suim were written later than M look at number 22 these are the kings that reigned in this is the end of before there was a Jewish King over the Jewish land in ER Israel now if ever there was a posk that was a good candidate for this posk sounds like he was written later because who was the first king in erit Israel Sha Sha is way way later than the sa Tor has been written if ever there was a candidate suggesting some kind of later authorship of this PK this is the one however the iban Ezra very in a very fiery way jumps in in number 23 you could give a nice he says that this whole para was written with prophetic Insight that this is going to be the king and the King's going to come and it's not a uh uh and inconsistently to say the books of Prophecy include prophecy uh like the whole conversation whether there are two Isaiah because the first half of Isaiah seems to be dated in the the time that we think of as Isaiah and the second half of the book of Isaiah which they sometimes call juto Isaiah the second Isaiah he's talking about shivon it's talking about the restoration of uh of the Jewish Commonwealth after Ezra Etc so again it's not a problem to say Isaiah was a prophet he can get prophecy that's a perfectly legitimate chat within the the uh if I assumed parameters the a priori assumptions of the Torah however he says there are other people that say differently middle of the first line in 23 thei now Yaki is not Rashi let me get that clear he wouldn't have called Rashi Yaki and Yaki is a carite commentator from a couple hundred years earlier than the izra probably y Ben yush of toled um he says he wrote this book this caride commentary that this was written in the time of and then he kind of reads into all the different uh individuals at the end of a something that would apply in the time of yat and then he says and that's why his name is because anyone who hears such nonsense will laugh at him in the face and then he says God forbid God forbid it should be later in and this book should be burnt very uh very strong in his words and yet this is the ibra who gives you this the secret of the 12 what is the secret of the 12 so I brought you three two commentaries on the Ezra and a commentary that disagrees with him but but quotes him number 24 says that sa on the Ezra classic commentary on the was 14th century Spain one of the he gives this he hints to the secret of the beginning of and this is what it means how can it say about the can they were then in the land they were in the land then but they're not in the land anymore says very clearly the can was still there when MOS wrote the Torah it seems from this mha didn't write the word as he didn't write it says the Ezra Ru either Yeshua orim not just Yeshua but maybe one of the other Nim could it be dorah could it be you know shmu someone else wrote the word as since we have a Mitzvah to listen the why do I care if Moshe wrote this word it's why it's one word it it it's all it's not since they're all true and they're all NAA now you'll already be kind of edging out of your seats and saying but isn't the ninth uh the the sorry the seventh of moshe's of the ramarim of the Ron's 13 principles of faith the seventh is that the N of mosha is fundamentally different from every other na'vi fundamentally and to say that another na'vi wrote words in the Torah is absolute heresy for the rambam so the is saying so everyone has to agree with the rambam the izra doesn't agree with the rambam's 13 principles of Faith or at least not all of them I give you I mean I raise another question does does myones even agree with the rambam's 13 principles of Faith which is a strange way of putting it but of course when you read theim it doesn't always sound exactly like the mission of Torah and of course many people will say of course you can harmonize them you should harmonize them that was Professor yak's approach very much that we're not dealing with two people my Mones and the rambam but I'm just saying it's uh Professor manak Kelner wrote A Few uh uh many years ago he wrote an article called would the rambam would my amones get into the rambam's heaven which was a like a clever title for an article um and I I I commend you to his writing on this which is which is very clear um and and very very instructive but the says this was the secret of the 12 a l noi wrote them now number 25 ra mosha aloso also one of the main commentators on the izra 16th century turkey he says if so he can't be the saying the MOs wrote this specific thing because the people the canites were were still there when mosha wrote wrote the Torah Yeshua or Ezra Ezra another candidate early second temple this is the secret and if you look in this to in number 26 he disagrees with this position but he quotes it in the name of the Ezra and this is why they said there is a secret if there a different means by this this is not what Moshe wrote it was written later after the land was conquered and the can can were booted out and this is the's view on many we don't follow that we don't agree with that we go after the view but it there doesn't seem to be any question and um Professor Shapiro Mark Shapiro scores of sources from the Middle Ages all of whom may dis many of whom disagree with the imra but all of whom or most of whom think that's what he was talking about when he said this now what are we going to do with this because don't we hold by theim maybe you could say this maybe the Izar could say this maybe even he couldn't say this but like can we say this can we say this today so I'm not giving you an entire she on theim here but the uh the the mishna already in Sanhedrin says that someone who doesn't believe that Torah is min is a heretic and they have no place in the world to come and the gor expands on this in number 28 what does this mean baz they have insulted they have scorned the word of Hashem that's the posk from bamidbar what does that mean second line of 28 there that's someone who denies the Heavenly origins of Terah even if such a person would say I believe all the teris it's just one wrote it himself that's absolutely heresy scorning the word of hem even if a person said all the except this piece of this is also baz and the rambam takes this very much at face value and he writes I'm not going to give you the whole thing shouldn't have touched the microphone sorry number 29 I brought you most of the rambam's wording for his um for his uh eighth which is ter sh and there I give you a little summary the ramban basically says that manasha King manasha uh was one of the greatest the worst of Heretics of all time because he said there were different layers to the Torah this is from mosha this is from someone else this is from later this is from earlier and that's absolute heresy you cannot say this on any level at all and he pask this in h number 30 three kinds of people are deniers Heretics in terms of Torah even one word this is absolute and the uh there's a CH I brought you an extract here although we'll see the cha in more in more detail in a minute ra MOSI Feinstein says this is absolutely how number 31 even though the only mentions someone who thinks that the MOSI didn't write a whole verse even one word the not only one word even one letter one letter that Moshe didn't write didn't mention a letter but it's all the same idea no one is allowed to add to the Torah or take away from the Torah including the the ramb is very very clear on that in and here's a a trailer for next week what's the final letters what's with the final letters ah doesn't it say in the G to work out what is in the middle of the word what is at the end of the word on the fourth line how could the Nim bring in the final letters change the font they're not allowed to change anything says ra not a problem the answers there they were forgotten and they were brought back again meaning the Nim didn't invent them they just brought them back theed even Ezra the that changed the entire Hebrew font which we'll get to next week next week I have lots of pictures and slides for you well on the on the sheet not on a PowerPoint even Ezra who changed the font he says no the gar is very clear he only did it because the Torah gave him the ability to do that and therefore it's very clear that anyone who argues that even one letter even one word even one posk is from the Torah other than what God Said to Moshe certainly if even to say that Moshe wrote it on his own is heresy it's certainly herit was written later even by another Prophet the rambam is clear you could not be more clear at least in the Mish Torah so what's with the izra first of all does he have to fit with the rambam but the izra might turn around and say to you I only said and I insist that only a later Prophet can add words into the Torah the reason he was so upset with Yaki by saying that this this PK was added this par was added in the time of yahosh because Yaki was arguing that some scribe just wrote it in the Torah any old Joo wrote it in the Torah says the to say that people added to the Torah who were not n which is what this kite commentary was saying but if I say that they added through naua that's completely different it's possible to add apk here aosc there through NAU that is not considered heresy and in fact there's a much deeper question going on here the Rama makes it clear that latua can never add to the Torah can never take away from the Torah and is not on the level of uh of Torah of mosh Renu however um not everyone agrees with that for example the kusari clearly says the later prophets are part of an ongoing Sinai experience the Sinai experience does not end as the rambam says it does at the the death of mosha but continues there's aim this again very good for this Torah look at number 32 in the Bold it says that that sin was aadf go over the page what does Rashi say there means there was no s the sin experience never ended and then he says alternatively means it didn't continue two completely opposite Chim in laf either Sinai didn't continue was it ended or it never ended and these are the two ideas we're talking about can leua continue the sintic revelatory experience on some level or not the rambam says not the kusari says yes the Mii says yes the izra seems to say yes as well however I would add that the Ezra has a uh unfortunate history of being terribly misquoted I might say without any pun intended um the izra is very often misquoted um and people say well you know the izra says this and the izra says that most of what they say the izra says he never said the izra simply said that occasional Pim here and there could have been inserted by a later da by na'vi but only PUK him here and there one of the most famous um misinterprets of the Ezra is of course Spinosa and we could talk about Spinosa for at least an hour and and I quite like to but there's another sh going happening in 10 minutes from now um but Spinoza said well you know it's not just me that doesn't think that Moses wrote the Torah the bzra says the Moses didn't write the Torah and everyone calls an Spinosa on that poor scholarship and incorrect um incorrect quotation and I brought you in number 34 um shadal ra David lato who himself calls out the izzar on this and says the izzar actually wasn't just mistaken but he tries to trick people by misquoting and selectively quoting and shadal is not exactly an uncontroversial commentary in and of himself but his his attitude to the izra is terribly negative and says God forbid you should believe what the spin sorry attitude to Spinosa sorry that you God forbid you should you believe what Spinosa says he's trying to trick you Hashem should have rim on you you should understand you know that spoa is not correct so there's a lot to say about spinza but the izra is often often miss understood are there any people other than the izra who clearly agree with the izra in the time of the rishonim so I brought you a AR ran which I'm not doing in detail here in 35 and 36 deals with the king of Arad and there's a discussion as to whether that the theim dealing with the King ofat are from the time of the Kash or some somehow refer to a time later on and the ramban brings an option that maybe it's a n for later on what I'm interested in and this mentioned now in in number 38 the abarbanel and you can read this in your own time the abarbanel thinks that the that the ramban is following the position of the izra on the secret of the of the 12 and goes ballistic how it's one thing for the izra to do it it's another thing for the ramban to do it now you don't have to read the ramban as doing that but it's interesting that the abar brel would assume that this is something that the r might do in a in alleging a later authorship of ukim every here and there the rashbam is a whole um para in itself I brought you in 39 and 40 but I wanted just to mention um R because RAB I was listening to a podcast this morning which just innocently mentions rabid as one of the players in this discussion so for this we'll need three or four minutes and and we could spend a lot longer but I given you all the sources to go away and look at this in the 1970s ritak langa in Switzerland published a manuscript which he said is from RAB HUD attributes itself to rabid rabid was one of the Ron him in the PST School in in Northern Germany in the 14th in the 13th century um and the uh the the the parish the manuscript talks in a number of places about later prophets adding inim to the Torah like we talked about from the iban Ezra there's one about etson gaver which I brought you and I'll flick a little bit forward in 41 and 42 and was that a reference to something that happened later there's one just go over to page nine in in when yov puts Ephraim before manasha so look in number 43 for a second pish AI Yakov Nar it's not Yakov that put Ephraim before manasha K mosha it's MOS that put before man Yeshua must have written this about what Moshe did or or one of the an the the committee the Ana they must have added that in so apparently has a similar line um also and perhaps even more strikingly number 44 um inid so we have the number 44 so they sang A Shir and it's a very truncated Shir we expect to find a whole Shir so says this manuscript of RAB number 45 as what does it mean there the this is after they were saved from and they they cross they said it was inav took out from the all of the M from the time of put them into this is dynamite stuff so the publisher before publishing this manuscript decided to ask Shila and he went to his RAV in Switzerland and said can you publish this is this for real that says apparently was extracted from the K and put into saim so the rav looked at this and you probably had heart failure and sent it to Rav MOSI Einstein and that's the truver that we were WR reading from before so let me just show you and you'll have a lot of fun reading this on your own look at page 10 so page 10 is a lot of words which we're not going to say but RAV MF heinstein writes back to the rav in Switzerland and says this is a forgery it cannot be that R said this and by the way there are good reasons for questioning some of these com said they don't even address problems in why can't you say that yov put before manasha he said no somebody else is causing trouble and they inserted their words into the words of RAB because they thought it would give them more authenticity but this saer is heresy it's not true it's a forgery and absolutely may not be printed okay then ra mosha addresses the fact that someone found there's a book called Sai which is he wasn't as Zionist particularly but Sai is a very well-known cabalistic commentary from the 14th century and the Saad quotes rabud saying the things that ra mosha said he could never have said they were forgery so what's he going to do with the SEI so he says so he's also a heretic and that's also a forgery and who who knows who the saion even was you can't bring me proofs from the sa mosha is very worried about this the question then went to other rabbonim when he went to thear ra manasha Klein he writes a CH in number 48 where he says you know with respect to ra Moshe Feinstein I understand this is this is challenging Etc but how could he be the rosha Feinstein disregarded the saeri which is such a well-known cabalistic safer how could he B mha would have dismissed such a safer and says the Anar it must be this is a forgery in the igis mosha and some talmid put in to the words of RA mosha Feinstein that this is the case so you now you see the Sparks are flying to cut a very long story short the book was printed in two formats R shom abak was also involved in this the format in Israel did not have the offensive sections the format in America had them still in the book but this is very very well documented I do not have time uh at more length but I don't I want to bring you just one last thing for you to read it is very important because on the page 12 I brought you the RCA put out a statement on this in 2013 and um I I think it's important I'm not going to read this whole thing because it is the hour is late but you should read it for yourself and they said look don't let's get this out of proportion the ibra may have said this may have said that maybe was R said maybe a couple of people weighed in in the same idea but the clear mainstream of the rishonim and certainly the akronim is that the rambam's position is the pigion we take and this doesn't in any way open up the floodgates to biblical criticism um which for reasons which are very clear which you can read also in in Professor Shapiro's work as well and and ra YY blow also I brought you in um in 52 who says that just because you say the ezzar was an outlier doesn't mean you accept you know Lock Stock and Barrel the whole of biblical criticism which is not which is what Spinosa as it were tried to do which is not legitimate on any in any way so there is a debate I've given you all the sources or many of them go away do the searches this is well documented and you'll you'll you'll come back well educated next week but next week we turn to other things which are I don't know about less controversial but more visual let's say we'll we'll reconvene them