I was reading another thread recently in which the Jewish (law/rules/guidelines?) state that a married man must not even touch his wife while she’s menstruating, 7 days afterward, and until she’s had a ritual cleansing. I’m also aware of some of the Jewish dietary prohibitions (pork, shellfish, etc.).
I was just wondering if these laws have changed much over the millenia. I guess I mean have they changed much among the Orthodox Jews? I understand that Conservative and Reform Jews view observe them differently, but what about the Orthodox? Since more is known now about the underlying concerns that formed the basis of some of the prohibitions, have any of the laws been changed to adapt?
Jewish law recognizes two broad categories of law - Torah Law and Rabbinic Law.
Torah Laws do not change; Rabbinic Laws also do not change, but are obviously added on at some point after the Torah law.
To use the example you gave: The Torah forbids a man from having relations with his wife during the time she is menstruating. According to strict Torah law, once she stops bleeding, she can go to the mikveh and be permitted to her husband. However, by Rabbinic decree (for reason that are really beyond the scope of this thread), a woman must wait seven full bleeding-free days before going to the mikveh. In addition, touching a menstruant wife is not strictly forbidden under Torah law (although it will render one tamei). However, since the prohibition of sleeping with a menstruant is very severe, the Rabbis added additional “safeguards” to help ensure that people do not violate the prohibition. One of those is against touching one’s wife during menstruation.
However, it should be noted that such Rabbinic laws are adhered to universally among Orthodox Jews. Rabbinic laws carry significant weight.
The prohibitions on shellfish, pork and the like are mentioned in the Torah and, therefore, have been in effect since Sinai. Likewise the prohibition on milk/meat mixtures. However, the prohibition on fowl/milk mixtures is strictly Rabbinic (although universally adhered to).
So I am correct in assuming that Torah Law, and therefore Rabbinic Law, has not ever changed to reflect any further understanding of the circumstances that caused those laws to be placed into effect in the first place?
Well, as ultrafilter pointed out, Torah Law was given by God Himself. As for Rabbinic Law, in most cases, it is simply a “safeguard” around Torah Law, and as such, there are really not many circumstances that would cause them to change – the basic structures of fowl meat and milk haven’t changed all that much in the last 2500 years.
Nitpick: Once she stops bleeding but a minimum of a full week after the bleeding began. And there needs to be one full day blood-free before she can go to the mikveh, she can’t determine she stopped just before sundown and immerse that night.
Rysdad:
That is correct. Simply put, since we believe that the Torah and its laws were decreed by G-d, the fact that we may think we may have some insight into the underlying reason doesn’t allow us to assume we know the entire reason. Divine wisdom has layers and levels that man cannot presume to be able to penetrate. Therefore, just because men may think that changed circumstance means the law should change (and I doubt you’d find many such instances of that anyway) doesn’t result in a negation of the law.
I believe the saying goes: “G-d said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Is that right?
The concept of Torah law revealed on Mt. Sinai presents me no intellectual difficulty, once we accept the premises that God exists, is a lawgiver, and communicates to people via prophets. But I just do not get the concept of rabbinic law, as explained by Zev, at all. If religious law has to be divinely ordained, but humans get to make new laws that actually alter the practices ordained by God—it looks to me like human authority superseding God’s authority, which seems to contradict the whole point of monotheism, that God is sovereign over the people, not the other way around. I must be misunderstanding something here, because logically I cannot see how it adds up.
God says “You can have milk with chicken.” Rabbi says, “No you can’t.” Point goes to rabbi.
It’s not so much that God said that you can have milk with chicken; it’s that God didn’t say that you can’t have milk with chicken. As I understand it, the relationship between Torah and Rabbinical laws is very much like that between federal and state laws here in the US–the former sets the minimum laws that must be enforced, and the latter may include additional restrictions, but may never contradict the former.
Backing up ultrafilter - Rabbinic law, or human authority as you put it, never supercedes the law of God described in the Torah. Rabbinic law exists to cover things that need further clarification or interpretation, which links back to Rysdad’s earlier question.
My last manager was an Orthodox Jew and we discussed this at length. After university he went to a (not sure the technical name for it) Jewish law school where all the laws and the processes and thinking behind them are taught and discussed. It’s through the tradition of having Rabbis and such schools that decisions are made on things like using electricity on the sabbath are decided (the Torah being rather silent on the subject). New laws aren’t created, but the old laws are applied in the modern context.
It is worth noting that there are some Torah laws that are actually impossible to carry out now whether you wanted to or not, such as proscriptions related to the Temple (which was destroyed in the first century AD) and relations between the Israelites and certain tribes of the middle east who no longer exist. Mitzvot 607 talks about not making peace with the Ammonites and the Moabites, which again isn’t hard because there aren’t any now. If pigs were wiped out and there weren’t any to eat the law would still forbid you from doing so.
If G-d commanded that something be done, the Rabbis can’t say “Don’t do it”
If G-d commanded that something not be done, the Rabbis can’t say “Do it”
If G-d left permitted something to be done, but did not require that it be done, the Rabbis have discretion to say “Don’t do it.”
Of course, the Rabbis are not supposed to act without reason. In the specific case of eating fowl with milk, it was so people won’t confuse fowl meat for mammal meat and accidentally transgress the actual prohibition from the Torah.
Actually, many of the commandments relating to the Temple are still “on the books” and in valid force - although how one observes them has been modified a bit.
For example, if someone were to, today, consecrate an animal as a sacrifice, the consecration is valid. One could no longer work it, milk it, eat it, or derive any benefit from it. In the normal course of events, one would eventually bring the animal to Jerusalem to the Temple and have it offered as whichever type of sacrifice you consecrated it as. That, of course, is impossible today, since we do not presently have the Temple. However, the act and consequences of the consecration would still be valid even today.
Minor nitpick: yesh koach b’yad chachomim la’akor din d’orissa. (Under certain circumstances, the Rabbis do have the authority to surpress a Biblical command. An example of this is the fact that we do not blow Shofar on the first day of Rosh HaShannah when it falls on Shabbos).
[QUOTE=zev_steinhardt]
An example of this is the fact that we do not blow Shofar on the first day of Rosh HaShannah when it falls on Shabbos).
There is a biblical command to blow the shofar on Rosh HaShannah. The Rabbis abrogated that practice when Rosh HaShannah falls on Shabbos. The reason given is that they were afraid one who was unfamiliar with how to blow the shofar would carry one through a public domain (a Biblical Sabbath prohibition) to an expert for instruction on how to blow it.
Sorry, we’re getting carried away with each other here and speaking in shorthand.
The commandment to blow the Shofar comes from Numbers 29, where it states that Rosh HaShannah should be a “day of blowing” yom t’ruah.
The commandment is also mentioned in Leviticus 23, except that there the wording is a bit different - there the wording is “it should be a rememberence of blowing” zichron t’ruah. The meaning of “rememberence” as opposed to actual blowing was the justification for allowing the people to not blow Shofar on Rosh HaShannah.
The Lulav is one of the four plants taken by Jews on the holiday of Succos. This commandment is also mentioned in Leviticus 23. However, when Succos occurs on the Shabbos, we do not take the Lulav (and associated plants). (As an aside, it was done in the Temple - but nowhere else).
