On Daas Torah

A post from our friend in the IDF

The World's Oldest Tribunal, Dating From Moses, The Beth Din, Or Court of the Chief Rabbi- Illustrated London News, August 14, 1926

We have already talked about our guest poster, who is now almost a regular. I listed his other contributions in the intro to his last post, here. See especially his post about yeshiva and IDF service, here (I also wrote several articles on the issue, differentiating between those who have a completely different religion from us, and those who have the same religion as us but are wondering why we supposedly consider our son’s blood redder than theirs [short answer- we don’t]). This essay in on a different topic, that of the importance of Daas Torah.

In this past week's parsha we studied the events in which Moshe Rabenu was judging the Jewish Nation and his father-in-law Yisro realized that this was not the proper way to go about it. So he made a suggestion that Moshe appoint various levels of judges and that only the most difficult issues be brought directly to Moshe. Moshe Rabenu accepted his father-in-law's advice and with Hashem's endorsement enacted the program that he had suggested.

Yisro was an accomplished philosopher, a man who had examined all of the various theologies common to mankind, and had succeeded in discovering the error in every single one of them. Moshe himself was quite a wise man, aside from the fact that he was a prophet. And yet when Yisro suggested a project to Moshe and the project found favor in Moshe's eyes, nonetheless Yisro warned him that he must consult Daas Torah, otherwise the project would fail. As the verse states explicitly:  אם את הדבר הזה תעשה וצוך אלוקים ויכלת עמד (Both Rashi and Ibn Ezra interpret this as Yisro warning Moshe not to try his suggestion without first getting Hashem's approval, but that is also the simple reading of the verse, even without commentaries). So we see that even such wise men as Yisro and Moshe would not want to innovate without first consulting Daas Torah, certainly lesser beings such as ourselves should not have the hubris to think that we can innovate without consulting Daas Torah.

Daas Torah is a frequently misunderstood concept. Since it is such a fundamental concept in Judaism and goes to the very basis of our relationship with God, it behooves us to try to understand what this concept involves.

But before we can try to understand Daas Torah, we need to be clear about what Torah itself is. There is a mitzvah to study Torah that is independent of the need to know how to fulfill the mitzvot. In fact, the mitzva of studying Torah is considered by God to be equal to the fulfillment of all of the other mitzvot. If the purpose of studying Torah was merely to know how to fulfill our obligations, there would be no need for a mitzva of studying, just like there is no mitzva of building a sukka or baking a matzah, even though those are obvious prerequisites to fulfilling those mitzvot. Rather the ultimate purpose of studying Torah is to learn to think like God, to know God, and this is the vital center of our entire relationship with God.

Initially it was mankind in it's entirety that was charged with developing this relationship with God. But other than a few notable exceptions, mankind as a whole failed to live up to it's purpose. Our forefather Avraham began a movement to bring mankind back to the purpose for which it was created. But at the same time, he was prepared to stand in opposition to the rest of mankind when it became clear that large swaths of humanity were not interested in returning to God, and he developed the essential strategies for passing on his legacy to future generations. Because of this, God chose Avraham to be the founder of a nation that would take on the purpose for which all of mankind had originally been created. This choosing of Avraham to take on the mission of humanity, the original replacement theology if you like, would eventually culminate in God revealing himself to Avraham's descendants through the giving of the Torah, on Mount Sinai. In doing so God placed himself and the Jewish people in a relationship that can be metaphorically understood as a marriage, and God appointed the Jewish people to be his partners in creation.

This idea, that the Jewish people were to become God's partners in creation, is reflected in the form in which the Torah was given over to them. The Torah was given in two different interdependent formats. The first is commonly known as the written Torah, and consists of the precise text that was dictated by God and written down by Moshe. A good metaphor for the written Torah is how we understand a mathematical model. It contains every necessary element, no extraneous elements, and a change to even the smallest detail renders the entire formula meaningless. This type of revelation offers no opportunity for partnership. One can be aware of it or unaware of it, understand it or not understand it, but all of that takes place within the one receiving it. It unto itself is unchanging and absolute, because it relates to something that is objectively real, and completely independent of the recipient.

Together with that, God gave the Jewish people the oral Torah. While the oral Torah does serve to explain the written Torah, it does much more than that. Although without a doubt the oral Torah corresponds to some objective truth, that is not how we experience it, nor is that how it is revealed. The oral Torah is the process by which the sages discover and reveal the wisdom that is hidden within the text of the written Torah. The oral Torah is the insight and the understanding of the Torah sage. It is the way he understands God's will. And because the mind of each sage is different than that of his colleagues, his insight into God's will is different as well. The only person in all of history that was able to understand God's will from every possible human perspective was Moshe Rabenu, and that is why Chazal point out that every new insight of all future accomplished Torah students was already revealed to Moshe at Sinai.

How is it possible to have novel insights into the Torah, if the entire Torah was revealed to Moshe at Sinai? The answer is that the novelty lies not in the Torah itself (if a particular perspective is truly new in the sense that it is not inherently part of the Torah, then by definition is a corruption of the Torah), but rather in the human appreciation of the Torah. The novelty is not in the objective truth but in the subjective appreciation of the truth.

God chose to reveal himself both through creation and through prophetic revelation. And he chose first humanity and then later the Jewish people, to be the recipients of that revelation. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is present, it may or may not make a sound. But what is certain is that a spoken word does not become communication until someone else both hears it and realizes it's significance. God's purpose in revealing himself is only accomplished when the recipient of that revelation, the Jewish people, appreciate the significance of what God is revealing. And God created each person as a unique individual with a unique perspective precisely in order that there should be a corresponding uniqueness to each Jew's appreciation of God's revelation. Only Moshe Rabenu, who received the Torah directly from God, was able to appreciate divine revelation from every possible perspective.

This is why Chazal instituted that in one of the blessings that we make on the Torah we say "and eternal life he has implanted within us". It is not contained within us as something independent of us, but is rather implanted in us. It grows from us, and we are its source.

God broadcasts eternal truth, but it doesn't become revelation until we appreciate it. In that sense we truly are God's partners in revelation. The purpose of creation is accomplished when we enter into a relationship with God by virtue of being his partners.

If we take the time to consider it, the result of this partnership are truly astounding. The Torah sage contemplates God's Torah, and the words that he speaks describing what insight he has gained are themselves Torah! One is obligated to pronounce the blessing on the Torah before studying the words of Hillel and Shamai every bit as much as one is obligated to do so before studying Chumash, God's own words. And one is a heretic, excluded from the Jewish people and without a share in the world to come, for rejecting the words of Ravina and Rav Ashi just as one would be for rejecting the Chumash. If the words of the sages are God's words, then the thoughts of the sages are God's thoughts. God is infinite and all-inclusive, while a human Torah scholar is able to appreciate only a limited aspect of God's infinite thought, so to speak, nonetheless qualitatively the sage is learning to think God's thoughts. That is the literal meaning of Daas Torah.

Of course, God could have revealed His will in the written Torah in such a way that all of its terms would have been defined, negating the need for the derashot of Chazal. But that would have gone against the purpose of creation, limiting our ability to be in a relationship with God.

There is a certain parallel to how God revealed himself through creation versus how he revealed himself through revelation. Creation has two aspects, a fixed nature that is objective and static, and an evolving history that is dynamic, interactive, and subjective. Revelation also has these elements, as expressed in the written and oral Torahs. Every genuine Torah sage expresses Daas Torah by perceiving God's will from his own unique perspective. The greater his understanding of God's revelation, the greater his Daas Torah.

But there is another condition for greatness in Daas Torah as well. The sage's perspective cannot be corrupted by values and insights that are not Torah. The inverse of Daas Torah is called by megaleh panim batorah shelo k'halacha, to reveal aspects of Torah that are not appropriate. What does this mean? Surely Chazal cannot be referring to one who makes an error in his understanding of Torah. After all, Chazal state that such a megaleh panim is completely rejected from the world of eternity. Rather the concept is as follows. One who sets out to impose God's way of thinking (so to speak) upon his own, becomes capable of expressing insights into God's perspective, becomes God's partner in creation and revelation, and therefore has a true relationship with God, and a share in God's eternity. The polar opposite of that is one who sets out to impose his own agenda, ideas and values that he derived from other sources, upon God's revelation. Such a person corrupts the Torah and destroys any possibility of being in relationship with God. As such, he is completely rejected from God's eternity.