Month: May 2023

Rabbinic Authority—The Real Reason behind the Lie

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Or why was the Second Temple Destroyed?

Mainstream Judaism claims that “baseless hatred” between the varying factions during the era of the Second Temple was the reason for its destruction. See My Jewish Learning

“The Jewish Amoraim attributed the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as punishment from God for the “baseless” hatred that pervaded Jewish society at the time.” Wikipedia

This exemplifies the reasoning claimed for the story of the Oven of Akhnai from the Talmud, circa 2nd century CE. The story shows the rabbis’ desire to solidify the beliefs of Judaism into one stream and avoid sectarianism in Judaism and this would be accomplished by establishing Torah Law on the studied opinion of the majority of the leading rabbis. They claim as the basis for their authority:

Deu. 17:11

“According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.”

A closer examination of this text shows that this is not it’s context—see the entire chapter. A thorough look at Deu 17 reveals:

1. The context concerns disputes -verse 8, it was not about authority over Torah Law as given on Sinai nor its openness for change by the leadership of the day.

2. The context involves the case where there is a controversy in a town over a matter that the people of that town cannot resolve without outside help, in this situation, the people of the town were to take the matter to the Cohanim and Levites, see verse 9. (Note, there is nothing here to establish the authority of Yeshiva-trained rabbis as a qualified replacement for the Torah designated hierarchy of Priests and Levites, yet strangely today, this has become the recognized authority of the Jewish people.) How did this happen?

3. The resolution to the case in Deuteronomy had to be completed “in the place that YHVH should choose” not wherever the leadership chose to work on it. See verse 9. This refers to the Holy Mountain in Jerusalem where the Temple should stand—not some diasporic location wherever there is group of recognized rabbis. So how did a chief rabbi of England or New York or any other country come to be if the Holy Mountain where the Temple stood was to be the place of Torah authority?

In the story of the famous Oven, already mentioned, the change that this sect of leadership made was that the laws of Torah not be interpreted by individual groups of Torah students nor by Heaven itself, but by they themselves whom they established as the majority at the time. And thus they claimed were given this authority by G-d Himself. They quoted the following verse:

“It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe” (Deuteronomy 30:12-14).

This verse as it is used here, was taken out of context. Look at the first part of this chapter in Deu. 30:

1 And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the YHVH thy God hath driven thee, 2 And shalt return unto the YHVH your God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.

To whom should those in Exile return? To YHVH their G-d, and “obey His voice, not to a self-appointed leadership who have reinterpreted the Torah to their own understanding. (And yes they have added to and taken from the original words of Torah and have assumed the right to do this by ridding themselves of Heaven’s Voice and altering Scripture to fit their claim.

First of all those in the Exile– (the exile itself was a result of not following the voice of The LORD your GOD), these must return to listen to His voice—not that of any group. That is what we saw in Deuteronomy 30:1-2, and also:

Deu 4:30

“When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice; 31 For the LORD thy God is a merciful God; he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.” (Note this does not say that they should go study with the rabbis or join a Yeshiva to know what is the correct Halakhah of YHVH, simply put: it says to turn to Him, and remember the covenant that He gave to the forefathers).

Deu 30:8

“And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.” (Again taken from Deuteronomy 30, the same chapter where verses 12-14 are used to qualify the rabbinic stand against hearing Heaven’s voice. Look again! It says to “do all his commandments which I command thee this day. This is Moses speaking, right? So do we obey the voice of Moses or not?)

Rabbinic thought conveys the following:

“This idea is reflected in another well-known Midrash relating to the giving of the Torah. Moshe Rabbeinu, the Gemara (Menachot 29b) tells us, is transported to the Beit Midrash of Rabbi Akiva and is disheartened that he cannot follow the discussion. Only when Rabbi Akiva explained the source of a law as being halacha leMoshe miSinai was Moshe pacified. Note the Gemara does not say that Moshe now understood the conversation. He did not, but that mattered little; what mattered was that this law originated with him at Sinai. Just as scientific principles are developed and applied in all kinds of ways far beyond what the one who discovered such could ever imagine, so Torah ideas are developed and applied to an ever-changing world. Halacha as the intersection of an unchanging Torah and constantly changing reality can look very different in different time periods or places. Only by “changing” the halacha given at Sinai can we assure the continued relevance of Sinai.” Quoted from Torah in Motion

But this thought is a polar opposite to what the Bible says! Was the Torah as given to Moses to be eternal?

Speaking of the End Times and the final return of God’s people, Mal 4:4 states:

“Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.”

Neither is this argument–that the Torah is to be observed as the leadership of the day decides– born out in God’s instructions to Joshua when he was called to lead the people of Israel.

Jos 1:7

“Only be strong and very courageous, that thou mayest take heed to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whither soever thou goest.”

And no, they do not listen to God. I refer in particular of the above incident of the Oven of Akhnai, where the majority of the rabbis clearly stated that they do not listen to Heaven. (And this became a standard from that point onward).

“Torah is not in heaven (Devarim 30:12)…and we don’t pay attention to heavenly voices.”See Torah in Motion

There are many things to be discovered about who what when and why the Rabbis came to replace the chosen priesthood of YHVH and how they now had the right to shoulder full responsibility for the definition of law and the direction of the Jewish people. How did this change in leadership which has completely stolen and replaced the direction of Heaven and God’s ordained priesthood come to be? It has been a long journey which started back in the days before the building of the second Temple. It happened in Babylon and Persia, where the Jews were exiled after having left the worship of the Eternal, schools were established in these lands of exile and the authority over the people was switched out of the Hands of God to the self-imposed leadership of Yeshiva-trained rabbis. It almost seems a direct copy of what we see in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic religion. And the question is, who copied whom? But we will save that for a later discussion.

“The Rabbis, in dramatic fashion and super hyperbole, make very clear that it is the Rabbis and not G-d who determine Jewish Law. To phrase it somewhat differently, it is the Rabbis who are authorized to interpret G-d’s Torah, even over the objections of the Divine author Himself[2]. It matters little what G-d had in mind. It sounds heretical, but such is the nature of Torah and the will of G-d.” See Torah in Motion by Rabbi Jay Kelman.

And as I mentioned earlier, it was the voice of the majority that was to rule in basic Torah Halakhah, even in the case where Heaven itself was in the minority: see following:

“In the Talmud the phrase aḥarei rabbim le-hattot was converted into a decisory canon: “where there is a controversy between an individual and the many, the halakhah follows the many” (Ber. 9a). The sages of the Talmud explained the existence of this rule as a practical necessity, for if the Torah had been given in the form of an exhaustive codex, “the world could not have existed” (TJ, Sanh. 4:2, 22a; cf. Mid. Ps. 82:3). The halakhic opinion that has prevailed is that the law is decided in accordance with the view expressed by a majority of the scholars, and this is so even if in a particular matter a heavenly voice (see *Bat-Kol) should declare that the law is according to the minority opinion (BM 59a).” Jewish Virtual Library.

One thing we see from this is the attempt to cover up the real reason for the destruction of the second Temple. It is universally believed that Sinat Chinam or “baseless hatred” was the principle reason for the destruction of the Temple by Rome. We have seen that it had a lot more to do with the desire of the rabbis to change the validity of the Torah of Moses and replace it with an Oral Torah–one that they could manipulate by popular rabbinic vote.

It is as if the Almighty got up from His Earthly dwelling, packed His bags and shook off the dust from the mountains of man made laws and left the Holy Precinct. And as if He remarked: “They want to create their own Torah, then let them, and see what happens when my Throne is no longer in My House! And that is pretty much what happened.

Ezekiel 9:8-9:

“And I fell face down and cried out, “Oh, Lord GOD, when You pour out Your wrath on Jerusalem, will You destroy the entire remnant of Israel?”

9He replied, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of perversity. For they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land; the LORD does not see.’ 10But as for Me, I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. I will bring their deeds down upon their own heads.”

Ezekiel 5:11:

“Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity.”

This is what happened which set the stage for two millennia of Jews to embrace the twisted truths that were taught—the very things the ancient rabbis who came out of Babylon used to establish their throne of leadership and replace the Seat of the Most High God. But can we make a change today?

We must!

Ariella Tiqvah

Torah Law: What’s Behind the Details?

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Sometimes it is what’s behind the details that determines what we must do!

When we read the Torah, do we take every detail of how the people lived at that time and use that as a guide to how we are to live today? Some would say yes, but to those I would ask if the way the Israelites lived, dressed, worked, worshiped, etc, was something we need to go back to or has our world today a different manner of living to which we must apply Torah principles, and not necessarily apply the descriptions around the principles as rules in themselves.

Let me show a few examples. Today in rabbinic Judaism, men wear a four cornered garment often under their shirts with white tied Tzitzit hanging from the corners. When we look at what the Torah says, it is true that it says to wear a blue string tied to the four corners of the garment. (Why did they change from blue to white—we’ll see this in a bit)

Numbers 15:37-41: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by chasing after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all my commands and will be consecrated to your God. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God.’”

Deuteronomy 22:12 specifies four corners.

The question we must raise is, does the fact that the Torah specifies four corners mean that our garments today have to have four corners? Or was it applying to the garment of the day? Would it be acceptable to tie these strings to the edges of modern clothing? What was the law anyway? Does it say, thou shalt wear a four-cornered garment, or does that insertion tell the ancient Israelites where to fasten them on the accustomed clothing of their day? I might add that the commandment says to use a “blue string” and that seems to be the command, yet the rabbis have insisted on the four cornered garment and broken the rule of the blue string by replacing it with the white. Are we somehow taking things out of context? Have we made man’s rules our rules when a clear understanding of the Torah renders something else?

When the Sotah was dealt with by the priest at the Tabernacle, to prove her faithfulness or lack thereof, she had to have her veil removed. Numbers 5:11-31. Does the fact that a veil is mentioned mean that it is mandatory in today’s women’s clothing or was it an application used with what was the normal garment for women at that day? This has been explained to me a couple of times as to why Orthodox women wear a covering if they are married and many even after they are widowed. But what is this law really based on? Could the principle of covering oneself be about modesty and deference to one’s spouse, and not about the particular application shown in the Bible?

The instructions about the shmita year…Does the fact that the Torah speaks of keeping from planting on the 7th year mean that everyone must plant? In fact in this case, I believe people actually get it that if one plants crops, that they should not plant in the seventh year.

There are things like the price and treatment of slaves, whether they be Israelite or from the strangers in the land, the return of lost cattle, the payment paid for intentional injury of another person, the command not to boil a kid in it’s mother’s milk. What did it all mean and why do we make laws out of things that never were intended to be law?

Fanaticism in religion comes from making rules that were never intended by the Creator out of references to the way things were in those days. As we study the Torah let us try to see the principle behind the description.