Perfect/Imperfect

 Joshua's Altar - Mount Ebal

 

The kind of rabbinic polemics offered by those such as Kuzari, Duran, Saadia Gaon etc, in justifying the Oral Law, are based on attacks aimed at the Torah itself. These various claims, which have been refuted by Ami Hertz, and also on this blog, make allegations against the Torah on 2 fronts.  The first is that the Torah in itself is illegible.  This basically attacks the grammar, the script, punctuation etc, and falsely claims that the nikkud, or little vowels had to be created by the rabbis (or given on Sinai) in order to make the torah legible.

The second line of attack, is that the Torah, if read on its own, is imperfect, and leaves out certain details of practice, such as shechita, the 4 species of Sukkot etc.

Although there are many previous posts which destroy such atrocious claims, there are also textual proofs which show the mendacity of these rabbinic apologists. In essence, these are the strongest disproofs, since they are not philosophical  but textual.

The first of these prooftexts is from Devarim:

Deut 27:

ח  וְכָתַבְתָּ עַל-הָאֲבָנִים, אֶת-כָּל-דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת--בַּאֵר הֵיטֵב.  {ס}

8 And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.'

The phrase בַּאֵר הֵיטֵב is one that destroys the allegation that the Torah is somehow illegible.  Whilst it cannot be expected of rabbis to understand Biblical Hebrew, this in itself does not make the Torah illegible.  The Torah itself says that it is legible, and hence those who claim otherwise are heretics of the torah.

The second text is in Tehillim 19:

Ps 19;8 The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.

This disproves the claims that the Torah is imperfect.  If it was imperfect, as the rabbis claim this would make King David a liar.  Since the rabbis are now denying the words of David, it makes them illegitimate in terms of Israelite citizenship, as it is a rebellion against King David.