Bullet list:
- Written Torah
- 5 Books of Moshe plus the Nevi’im and Kesuvim—different levels of prophecy and different rules of understanding each set
- The 5 books of Moshe are the pure will of God encapsulated in letters and words, sentences and sections of text. It is the most amazing thing that the Divine mind has been compressed and expressed in a way that we can understand it at all.
- Moshe had the highest authority in Judaism because he has the highest possible level of prophecy. He became a completely transparent medium for the Divine will. This was because he was the humblest of all men. Why does the Torah testify to his humility? Because that’s how it established the fact the only Moshe’s prophecy was completely transparent. This comes from the story of Miriam and Korach. It became one of the Rambam’s ikkar of emunah. This is why we execute any prophet who contradicts the Torah.
- Interesting difference in style between the language of the first four books of the Torah and the fifth--see Ramban
- The Torah itself is the tool by which Hashem created the world-“He looked in the Torah and created the world” It is the blueprint of creation. Everything in the world only exists because it has its roots in the blueprint. This is why we believe that if not for the constant learning of Torah by the Jewish people without a moment of interruption, the world would simply vanish into non-existence. (Nefesh Hachayyim) The existence of the physical universe was made contingent on the perpetuation of Torah since Sinai. God made a condition with the creation on Yom HaShishi.
- Those who have mastered the entire Torah must by definition have mastered all the inner workings of the physical world. Moshe Rabbeinu and Shlomo Hamelech knew it all and understood all wisdom. Great sages know different parts of Torah and can have knowledge about the physical world that was not obtained through scientific investigation. Hafoch bo--Kula bo They got it from the Torah—gestation period of the nachash.
- Oral Torah-indispensable to make the written Torah a text with practical instructions. What is a pri eitz hadar? What are totafos and tefillin? What is a melacha? Some of these instructions come with a death penalty. How can you be killed for doing something if you don’t know exactly what you weren’t supposed to do?
- Part of the ikkar emuna in Moshe’s prophecy of the five books is that he also received oral explanations for each mitzvah at the same time on Sinai. Not made up and interpreted by humans as we went along. This is true only of NEW cases which arose. But even with interpretations, the RULES for interpretation are technical and objective—received from God Himself. No room for subjective biases to make new rules of interpretation. Gezeiros and takkanos are completely made up and it is an aveira to call those things part of the Torah itself. This is Ba’al Tosif.
- Ba’al Sigrah: Do not subtract from the Torah—Since the Torah is the blueprint of all creation from its beginning till its end, it is illogical to claim that the Torah was only intended to be applied in ancient times as a response to ancient pagan concepts and uncivilized societies and that parts of it have become obsolete. Since the blueprint of all mankind is sourced in the Torah, it follows that the Torah’s laws and demands for man are always relevant. They are designed for the existential make-up of the human personality which does not change from culture to culture or era to era.
