1. During the Babylonian Exile the prophetic word became the source of
comfort and rejuvenation for the Jewish people. Now in its place Ezra the
Scribe made the Book of the Law of Moses the pivot about which the entire
life of the people was to revolve. By regular readings from it to the
assembled worshipers, he made it the source of common instruction. Instead
of the priestly Law, which was concerned only with the regulation of the
ritual life, the Law became the people’s book of instruction, a Torah for
all alike,(93) while the prophetic books were made secondary and were
employed by the preacher at the conclusion of the service as “words of
consolation.”(94) Upon the Pentateuch was built up the divine service of
the Synagogue as well as the whole system of communal life, with both its
law and ethics. The prophets and other sacred books were looked upon only
as means of “opening up” or illustrating the contents of the Torah. These
other parts of the _Mikra_ (“the collection of books for public reading”)
were declared to be inferior in holiness, so that, according to the
Rabbinical rule, they were not even allowed to be put into the same scroll
as the Pentateuch.(95) Moreover, neither the number, order, nor the
division of the Biblical books was fixed. The Talmud gives 24, Josephus
only 22.(96) Tradition claims a completely divine origin only for the
Pentateuch or Torah, while the rabbis often point out the human element in
the other two classes of the Biblical collection.(97)
2. The traditional belief in the divine origin of the Torah includes not
only every word, but also the accepted interpretation of each letter, for
both written and oral law are ascribed to the revelation to Moses on Mt.
Sinai, to be transmitted thence from generation to generation. Whoever
denies the divine origin of either the written or the oral law is declared
to be an unbeliever who has no share in the world to come, according to
the Tannaitic code, and consequently according to Maimonides(98) also. But
here arises a question of vital importance: What becomes of the Torah as
the divine foundation of Judaism under the study of modern times? Even
conservative investigators, such as Frankel, Graetz, and Isaac Hirsch
Weiss, not to mention such radicals as Zunz and Geiger, admit the gradual
progress and growth of this very system of law, both oral and written. And
if different historical conditions have produced the development of the
law itself, we must assume a number of human authors in place of a single
act of divine revelation.(99)
3. But another question of equal importance confronts us here, the meaning
of Torah. Originally, no doubt, Torah signified the instruction given by
the priests on ritual or juridical matters. Out of these decisions arose
the written laws (_Toroth_), which the priesthood in the course of time
collected into codes. After a further process of development they appeared
as the various books of Moses, which were finally united into _the Code_
or _Torah_. This Torah was the foundation of the new Judean commonwealth,
the “heritage of the congregation of Jacob.”(100) The priestly Torah,
lightly regarded during the prophetic period, was exalted by post-exilic
Judaism, so that the Sadducean priesthood and their successors, the
rabbis, considered strict observance of the legal form to be the very
essence of religion. Is this, then, the true nature of Judaism? Is it
really—as Christian theologians have held ever since the days of Paul, the
great antagonist of Judaism—mere nomism, a religion of law, which demanded
formal compliance with its statutes without regard to their inner value?
Or shall we rather follow Rabbi Simlai, the Haggadist, who first
enumerated the 613 commandments of the Torah (mandatory and prohibitive),
considering that their one aim is the higher _moral law_, in that they are
all summed up by a few ethical principles, which he finds in the 15th
Psalm, Isaiah XXXIII, 15; Micah VI, 8; Isaiah LVI, 1; and Amos V, 4?(101)
4. All these questions have but one answer, a reconciling one, Judaism has
the two factors, the priest with his regard for the law and the prophet
with his ethical teaching; and the Jewish Torah embodies both aspects, law
and doctrine. These two elements became more and more correlated, as the
different parts of the Pentateuch which embodied them were molded together
into the one scroll of the Law. In fact, the prophet Jeremiah, in
denouncing the priesthood for its neglect of the principles of justice,
and rebuking scathingly the people for their wrongdoing, pointed to the
divine law of righteousness as the one which should be written upon the
hearts of men.(102) Likewise, in the book of Deuteronomy, which was the
product of joint activity by prophet and priest, the Law was built upon
the highest moral principle, the love of God and man. In a still larger
sense the Pentateuch as a whole contains priestly law and universal
religion intertwined. In it the eternal verities of the Jewish faith,
God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and moral government of the world, are
conveyed in the historical narratives as an introduction to the law.
5. Thus the Torah as the expression of Judaism was never limited to a mere
system of law. At the outset it served as a book of instruction concerning
God and the world and became ever richer as a source of knowledge and
speculation, because all knowledge from other sources was brought into
relation with it through new modes of interpretation. Various systems of
philosophy and theology were built upon it. Nay more, the Torah became
divine Wisdom itself,(103) the architect of the Creator, the beginning and
end of creation.(104)
While the term Torah thus received an increasingly comprehensive meaning,
the rabbis, as exponents of orthodox Judaism, came to consider the
Pentateuch as the only book of revelation, every letter of which emanated
directly from God. The other books of the Bible they regarded as due only
to the indwelling of the holy spirit, or to the presence of God, the
_Shekinah_. Moreover, they held that changes by the prophets and other
sacred writers were anticipated, in essentials, in the Torah itself, and
were therefore only its expansions and interpretations. Accordingly, they
are frequently quoted as parts of the Torah or as “words of
tradition.”(105)
6. Orthodox Judaism, then, accepted as a fundamental doctrine the view
that both the Mosaic Law and its Rabbinical interpretation were given by
God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. This viewpoint is contradicted by all our
knowledge and our whole mode of thinking, and thus both our historical and
religious consciousness constrain us to take the position of the prophets.
To them and to us the real Torah is the unwritten moral law which
underlies the precepts of both the written law and its oral
interpretation. From this point of view, Moses, as the first of the
prophets, becomes the first mediator of the divine legislation, and the
original Decalogue is seen to be the starting point of a long process of
development, from which grew the laws of righteousness and holiness that
were to rule the life of Israel and of mankind.(106)
7. The time of composition of the various parts of the Pentateuch,
including the Decalogue, must be decided by independent critical and
historical research. It is sufficient for us to know that since the time
of Ezra the foundation of Judaism has been the completed Torah, with its
twofold aspect as _law_ and as _doctrine_. As _law_ it contributed to the
marvelous endurance and resistance of the Jewish people, inasmuch as it
imbued them with the proud consciousness of possessing a law superior to
that of other nations, one which would endure as long as heaven and
earth.(107) Furthermore, it permeated Judaism with a keen sense of duty
and imprinted the ideal of holiness upon the whole of life. At the same
time it gave rise also to ritualistic piety, which, while tenaciously
clinging to the traditional practice of the law, fostered hair-splitting
casuistry and caused the petrifaction of religion in the codified Halakah.
As _doctrine_ it impressed its ethical and humane idealism upon the
people, lifting them far above the narrow confines of nationality, and
making them a nation of thinkers. Hence their eagerness for their mission
to impart the wisdom stored in their writings to all humanity as its
highest boon and the very essence of divine wisdom.