[Avodah] on orthopraxy

[Chana Luntz]

RMB wrote a comment responding to Yitchok Adlerstein's take on the subject
<http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2013/08/11/living-with-questions>
which he also posted here which said:

    >To accept any document theory r"l is to accept that (for example)
    >the juxtaposition of Shabbos to building the Tabernacle was not
    >necessarily the product of Divine Wisdom. After all, the entire
    >foundation is the claim that one could perceive the seams between
    .documents, that the composition has imperfections. But without
    >attributing that juxtaposition to the Creator, the basis of a Shabbos
    >of resting from 39 specific categories of work becomes human. The
    >basis for (again, one example among thousands) distinguishing between
    >"little things" like whether I remove what I don't want from what I
    do or if I remove the good from the bad is being questioned.

Reading this debate (to the extent that I have had managed to do so over the
summer) had me automatically responding in a manner closest to the paragraph
above, although the examples I was thinking of are, perhaps, more pointed.
The first example that sprang to my mind came out of our discussions here on
the obligations vis a vis a ger toshav on Shabbas.  In the course of those
discussions we noted that there were two key psukim that operated.  The one,
in Devarim 5:13, says:

ויום השביעי שבת לה' אלהיך לא תעשה כל מלאכה אתה ובנך ובתך ועבדך ואמתך ושורך
וחמרך וכל בהמתך וגרך אשר בשעריך למען ינוח עבדך ואמתך כמוך

And the seventh day is Shabbas to Hashem your G-d you shall not do any work
you and your sons and your daughter and your manservant and your maidservant
and your ox and your donkey and all your animals and the ger who is within
your gates that they may rest your manservant and your maidservant like you.

And the second in Shemos 23:12:

 ששת ימים תעשה מעשיך וביום השביעי תשבת למען ינוח שורך וחמרך וינפש בן אמתך
והגר 

Six days shall you do all your work and on the seventh you shall rest in
order that shall rest your ox and your donkey and the soul the son of your
maidservant and the ger.

And Chazal learn out (Talmud Bavli Yevamos 48b) that the reference to a ger
in Devarim refers to a ger zedek, leaving the second (in Shemos) to refer to
a ger toshav.

But note what we have here - a difference is style, and phraseology and all
the aspects noted by proponents of BC between Devarim and Shemos, precisely
the sort of differentiation that bothered R' Z Farber regarding (for
example) the story of the meraglim.

And yet what these two different psukim do in halachic terms, is provide the
twin supports upon which the halachic edifice of who is obligated in the
observance of shabbas rests.  Without an understanding of a deliberate
interplay between these two psukim, the whole halachic framework of hilchos
shabbas begins to fall apart.

And let's take another and even more famous example: Shemos 20:8 has Zachor,
Devarim 5:12 has Shamor.  And we learn out that Zachor is a mitzvah aseh,
and Shamor a mitzvah lo ta'aseh.  We also learn women's obligations in the
mitzvos aseh of shabbas, despite them being mitzvos aseh shehazman graman,
directly out of the interplay between Shamor and Zachor.  Once you attempt
postulate independent authors for these two different sections of the Torah,
this whole careful and intricate structuring falls apart.

On the other hand, the very way the different psukim from different places
in the Torah, with different linguistic constructs, coalesce to construct a
unified whole in the form of the halacha is what, to me personally, provides
the strongest evidence of divine authorship.  Skilled novelists can and do
write in different linguistic styles (especially when attempting to view a
given story from different perspectives).  But it is a step considerably
beyond this to create different linguistic styled sentences that operate as
supporting struts to one another in the manner that underpins the unity of
structure of the halacha.  

RMB went on to comment:

 >Anyone who has observed a halachic Shabbos, one so different than
intuitive
  >  notions of how to structure a "day of rest", and has felt it heal
  >  his soul, couldn't take such theories seriously.

   > We lived with the questions because, as R' JB Soloveitchik put it,
   > we had "erev Shabbos Jews" -- people who not only kept the laws of
    >Shabbos, but felt its approach on Friday. 

But perhaps my reaction is less about the experiential aspect of living
shabbas,  than about the experiential aspect of learning about shabbas.  The
parts that the BC people focus on, seem more often to be the more narrative
parts of the Torah, perhaps because those are more often learnt without
recourse to the Torah she baal peh, and hence psukim are more likely to be
analysed purely against one another, without recourse to the greater edifice
of which, in the light of the Torah shebaal peh, they are just a part.  To
my mind, answers to the questions raised by setting different psukim from
different parts of the Torah off against one another, can only reasonably
and realistically be found (as they have always been found) in more fully
comprehending the glory of the whole that constitutes the unity of the Torah
shebichtav and the Torah she baal peh.  Any attempt to look solely at the
Torah shebichtav alone is not surprisingly going to throw up problematic
questions, as it did vis a vis the Saddukim and Karaites historically.
Indeed, why should we expect any different?  Isn't this also the way the
Torah was designed?

-Micha


Regards

Chana