From: gertler@cyclone.sbi.com (Don Gertler)
Subject: Re: The differences, again
Originator: scj@israel.nysernet.org
Reply-To: <gertler@cyclone.sbi.com (Don Gertler)>
Organization: Nysernet
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 18:52:34 GMT

hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
> <gertler@cyclone.sbi.com (Don Gertler)> writes:
> >hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:

> Did God communicate even to Moshe in Hebrew?  This is not intended to be
> other than serious.  There is no reason to believe that Hebrew was the
> language of anyone before our ancestors went down to Egypt, and while
> it is similar to the surrounding Semitic languages (I am using this in
> the technical term referring to the language family), it seems to have
> the closest similarity to a language, Ugaritic, spoken in the present
> southern Lebanon and somewhat to the south of that.  No, I do not believe
> that God gave Moshe the Sefer Torah as we have it.  If He had given Moshe
> any manuscript which was even reasonably faithfully copied to the form we
> now have it, it would not have the problems with literalness which have
> been discussed here.

I'm not sure what you're saying here.  Are you disputing the possibility
that G-d communicated with Moshe in Hebrew?  Could the language have
existed by the time they left Egypt (which is of more significance anyway)?
If you're looking for the calendar date on which Hebrew came into
existence as a natural language, I don't have that.  If you claim that
it was clearly after the traditional date of the giving of the Torah,
that is something else.  But I don't see that in the above.  I apologize
if I completely misconstrued your statement.

> >> At the time of
> >> Moses, nobody would think otherwise; it has been stated, and I believe
> >> quite correctly, that the sacrificial rules in the Torah were there more
> >> to reduce sacrifices, not to command them...
> 
> >All valid points.  Are they yours alone, or does R subscribe to them
> >as well?
> 
> Again, I doubt that R has an official position.  These points have also been
> raised by O scholars, such as Hertz.

I guess that's why I thought they were valid. :-)

> The R version of the _Chumash_ does 
> not convey as much scholarship as Hertz, but does have scholarship which 
> he does not use.  To the extent that there is an R position on the divine
> authorship of the Sefer Torah, I would suggest that their relatively
> recent _Chumash_ cannot be read other than as saying NO.

Few scholars of any flavor can be expected to include all scholarship
available on a particular topic.  Hertz has a sprinkling from several
different sources and at times provides interesting insights.  I am not
surprised that the R version has scholarship that Hertz does not.

Nevertheless, this discussion was about differences between O and R,
and about the respective legal structures.  It would appear, now,
that R does not accept that even the words of the Torah came from
G-d.  What, then, is the basis for the legal structure in R?  Or is
there no such thing, in which case, how can R be said to follow the
same Law as O?

We can certainly go off on the tangent you suggested in asking why a
religion should be "so much of a legal structure."  But let's first
settle this one.

-Don Gertler