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  • From: Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] oral law
  • Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 23:11:29 -0500

I did originally mention the verse: Deut. 12:21

The commandment of Tefilin is actually mentioned 4 times in the Torah: Deuteronomy 6:8, Exodus 13:9, Exodus 19:16, Deuteronomy 11:18

And while it is your opinion that details of how to follow the law do not matter to G-d, our opinion - those of us who are careful to observe Torah - is completely the opposite. A commandment that is mentioned 4 times, must be important enough not to be left to random interpretations about how to perform it.

And of course principle behind it is also important, but there are many cases where we don't know the principle behind a commandment.

Shoshanna




You wrote:
I am looking at the Hebrew in this verse. You can slaughter the animals as I have commanded.

But you didn't say which verse. Presumably we are permitted to discuss the interpretation of the Hebrew of a particular verse, but we can't do so if you don't tell us which verse. You also wrote
The written text tells us which texts to put into the Tefillin, but it doesn't tell us how to make them, how to tie them, and more.

Of course it doesn't. That's because such matters, like so many details of religious practice, are not divinely specified. If this verse, I suppose you mean Deuteronomy 6:8, is intended to be taken literally at all, God did not choose to specify exactly how these commandments were to be tied to hands and foreheads because this was a matter for each person, or each community, to decide for themselves. And that is what happened; one community's decision on these details has become traditional Jewish teaching and practice. But what matters to God is not the details the principle behind it.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/




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