GET IT RIGHT—OR ELSE!

Jewish law is a complex body of rules that have different qualities: some are written and can be found in the canon of books that constitute the Jewish bible. Others, initially handed down orally, were later set down in writing. Each of these sets of law is interpreted, and extrapolations derived from it, through different rules of logic and inference. It goes without saying that expounding and developing rules of Jewish law, applying them in situations for which there is no precedent, is a highly skilled task best suited to the well-trained and rigorously educated mind of a suitably qualified rabbi.

Having said that, it is unusual to find a Jew familiar with the Torah who does not privately nurse his or her own opinion on what the law really is, or indeed what the law really should be. One is always entitled to one’s own opinions, but we are not encouraged to share them in any situation in which a listener might believe and accept as law a “ruling” that is plausible, reasonable—but wrong.

Pirkei Avot addresses the all-too-human urge to apply and interpret laws the way we want to. Thus in Avot we find two somewhat veiled warnings against coming up with one’s own rulings that, however sane and sensible they seem, are not in accord with the consensus position reached by halachic jurists. The first, in Avot 3:15, is a mishnah in which Rabbi Elazar HaModa’i lists five types, including

הַמְגַלֶּה פָנִים בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁלֹּא כַהֲלָכָה

The one who reveals aspects of the Torah that are contrary to halachah.

whose fate is spelled out in no uncertain terms:

אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּיָדוֹ תּוֹרָה וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים, אֵין לוֹ חֵֽלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

… although he may possess Torah knowledge and good deeds, he has no share in the World to Come.

Then there is an anonymous mishnah at Avot 5:11 which focuses on the wider consequences of making up one’s own version of the law which reads like this:

חֶֽרֶב בָּאָה לְעוֹלָם, עַל עִנּוּי הַדִּין, וְעַל עִוּוּת הַדִּין, וְעַל הַמּוֹרִים בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁלֹּא כַהֲלָכָה

The sword comes to the world on account of justice delayed, justice denied, and because of those who reveal aspects of the Torah that are contrary to halachah.

So the consequences of informal and literally unorthodox interpretation of Torah laws are serious not just for the individual but for the wider community.

The Gemara (Sanhedrin 99a-b) quotes the mishnah at Avot 3:15 but does not drill down deeply into its possible meanings. There it seems to be understood as a general admonition not to be impudent towards Torah scholars. Rabbis Shimshon Raphael Hirsch and Shlomo P. Toperoff (in his Lev Avot) adopt this meaning of the mishnah.

Some early commentators did not need to offer detailed explanations of this principle since its thrust was clear to them, but their understanding was not one that we would find obvious: for them the word הֲלָכָה (halachah) in these mishnayot did not just mean “law” but also the way that an aggadic passage might be learned. So for Rashi and Bartenura this was a warning not to give the Torah’s narrative passages strange meanings by casting its words as metaphors when they were not, or by interpreting them literally when they are not to be taken as such. The Meiri applied this principle much more widely. For him, in the extensive explanation of Avot 3:15 in his Beit HaBechirah,

Also in this category is one [who] portrays himself as one who knows the secrets of the Torah which he “reveals” to contradict the halachah. He does this by completely denying the revealed part of the Torah, saying that this was “not God’s intention but was an allegory to something else, and the revealed part is not at all true”. This is one of the toots of heresy, for though some mitzvot do contain esoteric aspects, the actual commandment of each mitzvah is undoubtedly its revealed aspect.

The Meiri continues in this vein for page after page, giving many examples.

Since the earliest days of the Reform movement, this mishnah has been seen as the appropriate attitude to take towards those who would modernize not merely Jewish lifestyles but fundamental principles of Jewish law for the sake of conformity with contemporary society or in the intellectual conviction that laws without an apparently rational basis could be discarded. Thus Rabbi Dr Marcus Lehmann invoked it when he thundered against “so-called Mendelsohnians” who used their knowledge to fight, and then distort and ridicule traditional Judaism. This sentiment was echoed by Rabbi Eliezer Liepman Prins who, commenting on Avot 5:11, added:

The nations believe that law is a variable, a social factor which can be determined by the views of any given society at any given time, based on what they see as their needs. That is why the law and social order of other nations are constantly changing and have no enduring basis.

But the need to change, and to adapt to change, has always been accepted by Jewish law—so long as it is done within the bounds of Jewish law itself. Flexibility within limits is axiomatic. As Nechama Leibowitz put it: there are 70 faces to the Torah—not 71. I shall leave the last word to Ruchi Koval (Soul Purpose), who comments (at Avot 1:11):

The Torah is a document that transmits the will and values of God, so tread carefully here. The Torah is here by means of unbroken transmission from one generation to the next from Sinai. Those who transmit it must check and double check that they are sharing correctly.

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