From: gertler@ptms_dev.sbi.com (User - Don Gertler)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Targeting Jews
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:58:31 GMT
Reply-To: <gertler@ptms_dev.sbi.com (User - Don Gertler)>
Organization: Nysernet
Originator: scj@israel.nysernet.org

MASH@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL (Michael Shimshoni) writes:
>...Hillel  advised the  potential
>convert who wanted  to learn "all of the Torah"  while standing on one
>leg: "What is hateful to you do  not do to your neighbour, that is the
>Torah, all  the rest is commentary,  go and study".  So  where is here
>the "God  given Oral Law"? Anyhow  where is the Oral  Law mentioned at
>all? Hillel  says all the  rest is a  commentary which can  be deduced
>from this one maxim (he was careful not to say how :-) ).  So that all
>the later additions  claimed to be Sinaic, remain, at  least as far as
>that citation  is concerned,  just a claims,  in strict  opposition to
>Hillel's rule.

What was "Go and study [it]" referring to?  Just those 11 words (in
your translation), or the "commentary"?  Since we're talking about
all of Torah being mere commentary on this one statement (Where does
this statement appear in the Torah, BTW?), how did you distinguish
between the texts of the Pentateuch, the Prophets and Hagiographa,
on the one hand, and Oral Law -- just more commentary -- on the other?

In current usage at least, "THE Torah" refers to the Pentateuch.
But "Torah" generally refers to the entire corpus of this "commentary."
It would seem unlikely that a person like Hillel, who spent his life
studying Torah (including the Oral Law), would advise someone to completely 
ignore the Oral Law.  If Hillel is to be taken literally in his statement,
then I should sit here all day staring at those 11 words saying, "What
else can I come up with."

Your argument that Hillel's statement, strictly interpreted, refutes
Sinaic origin for all the other stuff is fallacious.  First, Hillel
himself would probably say that the Pentateuch, at least, is G-d's
commentary.  Perhaps later "commentary" is mere exposition of further
events at Sinai.  Yes, commentary.  But it could sometimes be the
expositive kind instead of the interpretive kind.

>Actually the demand to deduce all  the rest by studying this one rule,
>tends  to  support  Herman's  view  that every  Jew  has  to  try  and
>understand what God wanted him to do, and not be governed by the rules
>previous generations have laid down.

Did he actually say that this "commentary" can all be deduced from the
one statement?  And even if he did, who does the deducing?  In the case
of the Pentateuch, should we be expected to muster the same powers of 
deductive reasoning as the Author?  Should I feel free to ignore G-d's
mere "commentary"?  Perhaps I'll ignore Him and come up with my own 
interpretations.  What about the Prophets?  What about Hillel?  I'm
willing to take his advise, where it suits me, but the rest is just
babble.  I don't like his commentary.  I'll use my own instead.  It's
easier.

Don't get me wrong.  I feel every Jew should delve into Torah and
"comment."  But I also feel you've presented a very disingenuous
argument to shake off the rules of previous generations.  Perhaps
all US Constitutional law (lehavdil) is "commentary" on the US
Constitution.  But we are still bound by precedents of previous
generations, until we are able to change them.  But even this
change must be perfomed within the framework dictated by those
earlier generations.

-Don Gertler