| THE TRADITION OF THE ORAL LAW |
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| Thursday, 19 June 2008 08:51 |
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“Write Thou These words for yourself, for through these words I have sealed the Covenant with you and Israel” – {exodus 34 27} When you read this article we are 3 weeks after the Festival of Shavuot, the festival of receiving the Torah that we celebrated here in our community with prayers, reading the Ten Commandments, reading the story of Ruth and lessons about children's education. In the tradition of the Tikun laeil dinner (that the parents of the Kindy and the school organized very well). We are also three weeks before the Fast of the 17th Tammuz (this year will be on Sunday 20th July). This day according to the tradition commemorating the beginning of the destruction of the second Temple. But many many years ago on this (shivah asar betamuz) day Moses broke the Tablets that he brought from Mount Sinai when he saw the people dancing around the Golden Calf.(32 19) Since the people went against G-d by creating the Golden Calf, G-d instructed Moses to write a new Covenant which the people would accept by saying “We will do and we will hear”. Moses sat for 40 days and 40 nights not to rewrite the ten commandments because they were inscribed by G-D Himself. You could ask why it took him so long? The answer is in the first line of this article: Moses stayed there to learn the Torah and to know how exactly to teach it orally to the people of Israel that they will adhere to it and not change it. “ We believe with perfect faith that the entire Torah now in our hands is the same one that was given to Moses …. And will not be changed “(from the Thirteen Principals of the Jewish Faith) Approx for 1,000 years the Torah was learnt from generation to generation by word of mouth. As a matter of fact until the writing of the Mishnah it was forbidden to write the oral Law. Its true that we can find many ways to explain the Torah and interpret its meaning and this is the greatness of the Torah but when we come to the Halacha (which means the practicing Law) we don’t have this luxury. We are not allowed to invent a new interpretation on modern Halacha. We can’t change dates of Holidays to suit ourselves. We can’t change the tradition of more than 3,000 years and this is the reason that we carry on our Jewish identity in spite of the destructions and the exile of our people and the Shoah. AM ISRAEL CHAY Rabbi Haim Dovrat |
