The torah doesn't make sense to me

amother

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:02 am

I struggle with my faith. I've have a question that have been bothering me lately.

1. Why is the torah so cryptic about the halachos? Sometimes the torah wants to make a point, but instead of saying it, it writes another point in an unusual way and we then learn out from there the actual point. For example the torah writes 3 separate times not to cook a goat in it's mothers milk. The It torah is telling us:

1. Don't cook meat and milk together.
2. Don't eat milk and meat together.
3. Don't benefit (for example sell) products containing milk and meat.

The obvious question is why didn't the torah simply say what it wanted us not to do? This is awfully confusing and in fact there is a big machlokes what hashem is telling us. The mishna debates whether hashem was telling us this law applies to all domesticated kosher mammals, all kosher mammals, or all kosher animals. There are over 23,000 pesukim in the torah. It seems like an additional 2 pesukim would have made these halachos very clear. Actually, they aren't even an extra 2 pesukim. The original posuk was repeated 3 times. Just take out the 2 repition and replace it with....what it was actually trying to say. I just don't get it and it seems bizarre.

ectomorph

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:06 am

Sit down and start learning the parsha with Rashi

I had a partner in Torah who had the same question. She said to me "what does Rashi know that I don't?"

we learned parsha w Rashi for a year. At the end she says "Rashi was the greatest genus ever!"

There is no substitute for sustained, in depth learning

amother

Violet

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:19 am

ectomorph wrote:

Ectomorph: you could'nt have said it better!

Once you learn a bit of chumash daily (you could use metzuda chumash

https://www.chabad.org/dailyst.....g.htm

hopefully you will feel a connection to the truth of the Torah even if you don't have answers.

The truth of the Torah will seep into your conscience and subconcsious and peace will overcome you.

amother

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:28 am

ectomorph wrote:

I'm not sure what rashi has to do with anything. There are many commentaries that interpret the torah differently and disagree with rashi. For example rashi's own grandson, the rabbeinu tam, disagreed with his own grandfather about the order of the pashos that are in teffilin. My point is that there are many examples of ambiguity in the torah that lead to a difference in opinion about what the hashem is literally trying to tell us. Rashi will have one view point and because it's unclear, his own grandson or many others will disagree with him and say no, the torah meant something else. What's the harm in just being clear?

amother

Blue

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:30 am

Your questions are very valid, and you deserve valid answers. From someone whose speciality is Torah, aka a rabbi. Unfortunately, you will get all kinds of answers from laypeople (on this site and off as well), some of which will be absolutely false.

ectomorph

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:31 am

There is a purpose to every word. Learning Rashi would give you the framework you need to answer your question.

It's like saying, lehavdil, why does calculus need special notation? Why can't it be written more simply? If you understand calculus, you will understand why the complexity is necessary.

amother

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:46 am

ectomorph wrote:

I can learn rashi and than I can learn all the other commentaries who say rashi was wrong and disagree with him. Which leads right back to my original question of why things are written in a confusing way that leads to not just our generation with 25 different opinions, but even torah giants of years ago completely disagreeing with each other regarding the correct interpretation of the totah. If the torah didn't want us eating milk and meat together, why not just say so instead of writing multiple times not to cook a goat in it's mothers milk?

DrMom

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:54 am

ectomorph wrote:

This analogy doesn't work.

Calculus may require special notation, but the meaning is unambiguous.

You don't have mathematicians arguing over the final evaluation of a basic integral, whereas scholars do argue over the interpretations and implications of every pasuk of Torah.

I think the OP's question is very valid.

For me, I look at it as if the Torah is like the US Constitution: The Constitution lays out the legal framework and founding principles, but there is still a need for judges and courts to interpret that law, and an entire body of law grows out of it. Of course, the Torah is law mixed up with narrative, whereas the Constitution is a concise document with a more singular purpose.

Ravenclaw

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 1:14 am

I have the same question. I want to be a good, erliche person. But what does that mean? Just take a look at threads on this site and you will see how many differing opinions there are on how to interpret the Torah. And this upsets me, because what does Hashem want from me? I want to be good, why can’t he just tell me what that means?

But lately I have been thinking that maybe this is what Hashem wants. The search for answers. The inquiry. We learn better and care more when we are directly involved in interpretation. Also, shive panei ltorah... maybe this is it? Hashem wants all of our service in different ways? It’s not whether the litvish or chassidish way of limud hatorah is better, for example. They both are and they both have to exist.
No source, just my thoughts.

real israeli

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 1:14 am

I’m not a rabbi and I’m far less learned than many women on this site as well. But here’s what comes to mind regarding your question:
It was written with ambiguity because it was MEANT to be delved into and have all the commentaries on it. Chazal wrote שבעים פנים לתורה for a reason - there are 70(+) ways of interpreting it! And ה׳ wants us to do that learning, delving and interpreting.
When משה saw ר עקיבה learning in the future what was he told? That there will be a time when this person will be דורש על כל תג ותג תילין ותילין של הלכה - he would learn many halachos from each of the “crowns” located on the alef beis forming the words.
It isn’t meant to be confusing; it is meant to be multifaceted

real israeli

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 1:20 am

Ravenclaw wrote:

My 12th grade teacher explained שבעים פנים as follows: imagine a large pipe which branches into 70 smaller pipes. Hashem said אנכי ה into the large pipe and the individuals at the end of each of the 70 heard it differently based on which of the 70 they were at. One heard the chassidish Havara, I’ve heard litvish, one sefardi, one American, one Israeli etc. there’s no one right and one wrong. We all heard it directly from hashem and we all heard differently. All this is obviously within the confines of Halacha and no one heard things directly contradicting that which the Torah wrote...

bluebaker

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 1:32 am

The reason is the Torah (the Book of Light and Instruction) is giving you the CODES to build your brain/mind/soul so that they know how to then build your body. 613 codes which will build you up. In order to do this, learning is the first step. You're in nursery school right now. You do, then you understand.

ectomorph

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 7:21 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Every analogy is imperfect.

I'm telling you, the only way to answer your question to your satisfaction is to sit down and start learning.

imasoftov

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 7:44 am

ectomorph wrote:

Rashi will tell you how it is that the written Torah says X but Chazal understand it to mean Y (although Ramban will sometimes criticize Rashi for picking a view of one of Chazal that was not accepted as the halacha) but that will only tell you that the halacha is Y, but not why the Torah didn't write Y in the first place. Neither will many repetitions of this process. I say this to neither criticize or belittle Rashi nor to discourage studying Rashi, I just don't think it will answer OP's question.

PinkFridge

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 8:05 am

Yoyo613 wrote:

I would phrase a little more positive the question: help me understand this torah comandment or please help me make sense of...

She said "The Torah doesn't make sense to me." Those last two words make the difference; I had no problem with her thread title.

And OP, you can ask about any number of mitzvos - shechita, mezuza for starters. What I learned (and amother blue, feel free to chime in if I'm wrong) is that this was crucial for the authenticity of mesorah. We couldn't just use "the book." We needed IRL teachers. And we would have to actively transmit it to the next generation.

I think that his need for authenticity and transmission, I.e. mesorah back to the Source, is innate. When I was in college 100 years ago (early/mid 80s) a teacher said the class, "You know, one day I won't need to show up. You'll just have a computer." People were really put out by that. They couldn't verbalize why it was so upsetting to them but I knew.

There's a Reader's Digest essay I read called Beethoven's Kiss. I just googled it. It was in the Nov. 86 RD but there's a much greater body of writing about it that I don't have time to review.

leah233

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 9:58 am

This question to a largely boils down to why was is there Torah Sbaal Peh at all?

Just put everything clearly in Torah S'Bichsav.

Like most questions of this nature it is not just a three paragraph easy answer and has a lot more reasons than one (Hashem and the Torah are way too deep for it to be otherwise) but most of the many answers I seen over the years to that question would also answer the OP.

amother

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 11:05 am

I realize that the reason why many aren't bothered by this question (and many others) is not because they have and understand good solid answers, but because they either fool themselves into fully accepting a nonsensical answer, or they accept that there are things that we just don't understand fully, and that's ok. I'm more of a black and white type person and I like direct questions to have direct answers. Unfortunately, I don't think they exist with many religion questions.

amother

Blue

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 11:15 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Who did you ask these questions to IRL that wasn't able to answer them clearly?