Monday 4 April 2011

Divine Origin of the Torah

Originally published 4/4/11, 11:06 am.
In Artscroll's "The Laws of Kashrus" fn8 on pp. 34-35 the author, R' Forst, makes a cogent argument for the Divinity of the Torah based upon the identity of Kosher animals and UnKosher animals with but one siman. This strongly refutes those who deny the Divinity of the Torah.

HOWEVER....

This does not prove that EVERY iota or scintilla of Torah is Divine. It merely PROVES that SOME Torah Passages or Texts are Divine.

This becomes the crux of a much more subtle debate. Surely, we can reject Reform's denial of Torah Min hahshamayim w/o necessarily buying the absolute converse that every p'rat IS min hashamayim. And where to draw that line - becomes a tricky issue.

Illustration - a given Halachah or Principle might be genuinely derived from Torah miSinai, and thereby rooted in Sinai, but not literally from Sinai and therefore not immutable for all time and contexts.

Thus we can discredit the far Left position and not necessarily embrace a far Right position - While the Far Right might reject any such subtle or nuanced positions as untenable.

Shalom,
RRW

1 comment:

Garnel Ironheart said...

> This strongly refutes those who deny the Divinity of the Torah

The exact opposite. As Rav Sliffkin has shown, there are lots of animals that fulfill the "one siman or the other" criteria, not just the ones listed in the Torah. Proposing this as evidence of the divinity of the Torah would lead an educated person to conclude that God wasn't even aware of all the species He created.