Are we supposed to believe everything that says in Chumash?

Blessing1

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 7:43 pm

I read a little Chumash here & there, & some things I just have a hard time believing. Like Adams kids had s*x with each other's, Lavan's daughters having s*x with him, rape leshem shamayim & many other relationship related topics. Are we supposed to believe it all??

southernbubby

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 7:46 pm

Blessing1 wrote:

I think that you are talking about Lots daughters and not Lavan's daughters.

Why is it so hard to believe? Society was very different then.

Blessing1

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 8:18 pm

Many of these things are only mentioned in Rashi & other meforshim. These are what they assume took place, we don't know for sure. So why do we believe it??

Chicco, no need to be harsh, one is allowed to ask questions.

pause

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 8:22 pm

Blessing1 wrote:

In most places in Chumash, rashi is pshat.

Water Stones

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 8:23 pm

Blessing1 wrote:

I believe it. My Rebbe said we don't need to understand but to know there's reason in Hashem.

southernbubby

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 8:23 pm

Blessing1 wrote:

The midrashim were written with ruach ha Kodesh.

pause

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 8:27 pm

southernbubby wrote:

The midrashim were written with ruach ha Kodesh.

Midrash is ruach hakodesh? I know rashi was written with ruach hakodesh. But midrash is a level of understanding torah (there's pshat, remez, drash and sod). Midrashim are not all literal.

southernbubby

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 8:31 pm

pause wrote:

Midrash is ruach hakodesh? I know rashi was written with ruach hakodesh. But midrash is a level of understanding torah (there's pshat, remez, drash and sod). Midrashim are not all literal.

There are midrashim that contradict each other but they were all Divinely inspired but were not from the Mouth of Hashem like the Torah was.

Blessing1

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 8:35 pm

Only Rashi had some form of Ruach Hakodash. Whoever wants can write midrashim & p'shat. Ohr Hachayim, Rambam, Ramban... they didn't have ruach hakodesh. And many are contradictory, so what are we supposed to beleive??

chicco

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 8:39 pm

I'm sorry if I was harsh, I didn't mean to be. My point was merely if we can pick and choose which part to believe in, then none of it can be real. If we accept it as truth, it has to all be truth. We can ask questions that help us understand, but our premise has to be that we accept all of Torah and not just parts of it. My question would be, how do we understand x y or z...

southernbubby

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 9:03 pm

Blessing1 wrote:

I thought that the midrashim were part of the oral tradition that was handed down prior to the writing of the Gemorrah and did have a level of ruach ha kodesh and that even though they contradicted each other, they all had some level of truth. For example, one midrash says that Yosef ha Tzaddik lost 10 years of his life, one year for each time that his brothers referred to Yosef's father as his servant and he didn't correct them and another midrash (that we don't teach in Cheder), stated that Potifar's wife still pursued Yosef after he went to jail and he lost 10 years of life for spilling 10 drops of semen. Can't both be true?

We learned that ruach hakodesh existed through the Taz and the Shach.

Last edited by southernbubby on Fri, Dec 29 2017, 9:36 am; edited 1 time in total

Mommyg8

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 10:37 pm

"Ein hapasuk yotzei medei peshuto" - loosely translated, that means that the chumash is simplistically true - we have a tradition that everything that is written in the chumash is literally true. The medrash on the other hand, is not "literally" true, as most medrashim are metaphorical.

Lot's daughters got him drunk and had sx with him because they thought that the world was destroyed and they thought that they were doing a good thing.

But why is everyone so shocked? Don't you think that these things happen all the time in the real world? Obviously, they are not shouting this from the rooftops, but the Torah knows everything....

agreer

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 11:46 pm

Yes. We are supposed to believe everything, including that there are 70 different ways to explain everything, and though they may appear contradictory, they are all true.

I believe we cannot understand everything, and that is the way it's supposed to be.

Mommyg8

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 11:48 pm

agreer wrote:

No, there's four ways, pardes. Pshat, remez, drush, sod (kabalah).

Everything that is written in the Torah is true on a simplistic level as well.

tichellady

Fri, Dec 29 2017, 12:01 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

No, there's four ways, pardes. Pshat, remez, drush, sod (kabalah).

Everything that is written in the Torah is true on a simplistic level as well.

I’m not sure what you mean but among the rishonim there is plenty of machloket about what needs to be taken literally and what doesn’t, so I don’t see why you need to take everything literally if the rambam doesn’t

Mommyg8

Fri, Dec 29 2017, 12:06 am

tichellady wrote:

Ok, we don't hold like the Rambam, that is a minority opinion Smile

.

Then how do you explain אין הדבר יוצא מידי פשוטו?

And I never heard of something that is not literal. Example?