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THE RIGHT QUESTION FOR THE WRONG COMMUNITY!

Dear CyberRav,

Thanks very much for your response to my questions about Torah-mandated punishments. I'm grateful for the time and effort you take to help people clarify issues. I suppose the basis of my questions deal with the author(s) of the Torah. If humans wrote it, we should certainly, as you indicate, consider historical conditions prevailing at certain times--wih dire warnings of punishment for dangerous, antisocial behavior. In that event, we might question the author(s)' appreciation of the Torah's prohibition of killing/murder--even by societally-approved groups.

However, if we assume divine authorship, I think we face an entirely different situation; to wit, an understanding of how the frightening punishments square with a compassionate and merciful God. So my question is this: How do we juxtapose Torah delights given by God (Shabbat, mitzvot, etc.), which we are enjoined to observe, with the punishments which we humans have eliminated from use? Perhaps I'm overly curious, but you told me once that I'm an "intellectual Jew," not an emotional one. Can't help it--I like to probe.

Thanks again,

Disappointed in the Divine

THE ANSWER

Dear Disappointed in the Devine,

The question of biblical authorship is broadly speaking, a liberal Jewish question, and more specifically, a Conservative Jewish question. I say this because if you are Orthodox, there's no question: God wrote the Torah. So the question you raise is one that fits squarely into the realm of theological inquiry from a Conservative perspective.

Now you have framed the question as a dichotomy: the Bible is the result of either divine or human authorship. But I would broaden your question. There are at least two other possibilities. The first is that it is neither divine nor human, but came to us by a being or beings from some other planet--and I don't mean to be facetious when I say it since, in fact, I've heard people posit this. The second is that it is both divine and human, that is, a product of some cooperative effort.

Given these four possibilities, the only one that is going to be ultimately problematic is the one that posits divine athorship, for if God is perfect, as we so often presume, how could He have authored a text that contains such deeply problematic passages? Good question.

Yet, as great a question as it is, I don’t believe that it is truly a question for the clear, clear majority of Conservative Jewry. I can tell you that there are very few people left in the Conservative Movement--if, in fact, there ever were--who believe that the Torah was a book written by God and dropped from the Heavens into human hands. I really don't even think the rabbis of the Talmud believed that. There are Orthodox Jews who believe that, but they are Orthodox and approach these texts from an entirely different perspective from you or I.

Most Conservative Jews will see the Torah as the product of human/divine authorship, which is very close to human authorship but with the following twist: God's will can only be discerned via human expression. In other words, people have access to the energy of God and have a way of channeling that energy of God to earth. Justice, compassion, optimism, and spirituality are not ingredients of the natural universe, but when we act on those values, we are accessing the energy of God and channeling the energy of God to earth. The fact that the will of God is mediated via human beings means that error is almost inevitable. God may be perfect but humans are clearly the imperfect receptors of God's will. Torah thus becomes an initial record of the encounter between humanity and God and the attempt to formulate into words what it means to act in a godly manner. The human/divine encounter is on-going and therefore forever evolving. Torah is not the end of morality; it is its beginning.

I guess all this is by way of saying the following—You have asked a great question, yet your question is designed for an Orthodox crowd or a group of fundamentalist Jews. It's not a question for a Conservative Jewish community which has, for all intents and purposes, rejected the notion of Torah as a book written by the hand of God and containing God's words. My colleague, Rabbi Bradley Artson, puts it this way--the Torah is the word of God, but it's not the words of God. It is subject to change over time. This is the fundamental difference between Conservative Judaism and Orthodoxy.

Rabbi Rafi Rank
CyberRav

Shabbat Shalom Everyone!!

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