Shavuot

I deem it proper to mention a few points in regard to the truth of Tradition. Unless men had the confidence that there exists in the world such a thing as true report, no man would build any expectations…since it is gain which man requires and for which he exerts his strength. Nor would he fear what he should guard against, be it the dangerous state of a road, or a proclamation prohibiting a certain action…Unless there was a true tradition in this world…man would be in a state of perpetual doubt…

Saadya Gaon (10^th Century)

Know that every commandment which (God) gave to Moses…was given with its clarification. First He told him the commandment and then He expounded on its explanation and content, including all that which is included in the Torah…(those) who did not hear the decision directly from Moses…derived te laws by means of reasoning or by means of the…principles given at Mount Sinai through which the Torah may be expounded. These interpreted laws were sometimes free of argumentation…On some of them, however, differences of opinion occurred between two views…When such a difference of opinion does occur, then one follows the ruling of the majority…Know too, that prophecy is not helpful in the interpretation of the Torah, nor in the derivation of the details of commandments through the thirteen principles…

Maimonides (12^th Century)

With the revelation at Sinai, all Israel perceived them and gained a clear grasp of their (God’s attributes) true nature. They then taught them to their children, generation after generation until this very day…These concepts can also be logically verified by demonstrable proofs. Their veracity can be demonstrated from what we observe in nature and its phenomena. Through such scientific disciplines as physics and astronomy, certain basic principles can be derived, and on the basis of these, clear evidence for these concepts deduced.

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (18^th Century)

The Midrash states, “To reveal the power of the act of creation to flesh and blood is impossible, and therefore the text says simply, ‘In the beginning God created.’” A most important is the knowledge derived from all this in knowing God and the life of true ethics. The Holy One, who measures out even the spirit upon the prophets, engaged in contraction (Tzimtzum), that these great matters will enter into precisely these images that man will be able to draw upon, with all their effort, that which is most useful and lofty for them. And the precious light and that which is of little account, which are the secrets of Torah, which in this world are dear but will be taken for granted in the world to come, only He will reveal the details of the matters.

Avraham Yitzchak Kook (20^th Century)

The “initial revelation” does not refer to the initial reception of the Torah but to the unqualified acceptance of the Torah…which took place during the time of Ezra….The concept of an “incomplete” revelation may be understood, aggadically, along the lines of the discussion in Talmud Shabbat (88a) about the question of choice versus compulsion in the Israelites’’ acceptance of the Torah…Rava adds the following important footnote…”Even so, the generation in the days of Ahasuerus accepted it anew.” Rava’s rejoinder accentuates the significance of the voluntary and wholehearted acceptance of the torah…during the crisis of the Purim episode. At the time of Mordechai, the Jewish re-acceptance of the Torah was done willingly, and thus represented a more lasting, authoritative, and decisive acceptance of the torah. Only then could the revelation be considered “complete…”

David Weiss Halivni (Contemporary)

The Torah that Akiva was teaching was so different from the Torah given to Moses because the social, economic, political, and religious conditions were so different from Akiba’s day that, at first, Moses could not recognize his Torah in the Torah taught by Akiba. But he was reassured when he realized that Akiba’s Torah was implicit in his Torah, was, indeed, an attempt to make his Torah relevant to the spiritual needs of Jews in the age of Akiba.

Revelation must be understood as a far more complicated and complex process of divine-human encounter and interaction and quite differently from the idea of direct divine communication of infallible laws and propositions, upon which the traditional theory of Halakhah depends.

Louis Jacobs (Contemporary)