The way I look at the Gemara (i.e. Talmud) is that it says what it means. This is different than interpretations of charity--looking at it in the way that agrees with what one already thinks.
It did not occur to me to mention this until yesterday when I mentioned that the path of my parents is Reform.
So I thought today just to mention a few Gemaras that go along with this idea.
One would be the Gemara in Bava Batra [14b] that Moses wrote his book (that is Deuteronomy) , the Book of Job, and the parsha [section] of the Holy Torah that deals with Bileam. [משה כתב ספרו ופרשת בלעם ואיוב] The simple way of understanding this is that that is all that he wrote. Not the rest of the Five Books of Moses. The Five Books were certainly Divinely inspired, but that does not mean that Moses {Moshe} wrote them. [There is a Gemara in the very first tractate of the Talmud that says that Moses wrote all Five Books, but that seems to disagree with the Gemara in Bava Batra. [The 13 principles of Faith then would be deciding like the other Gemara].
[At any rate, the Gemara in Bava Batra can not mean that Moses wrote all Five Books because that would include the section on Bileam. It has to mean just "his book", ספר דברם Deuteronomy
The other very well known Gemara is in the end of Makot where the obligations of the commandments are lessened. Rashi explains that if people would be required to keep all the commandments then no one would merit to the next world. Therefore the obligations were lessened down from 613 to one [faith]. It was a long process starting with King David and Isaiah.
Another lesser known example is the opinion of Hillel [the Amora] in the Gemara that the whole idea of a final redemption does not apply since we already had a final redemption in the days of King Hezekiah.
There are many more examples of where you can see that the Gemara is not "PC." It says lots of things which offend many people's sensibilities.
[The author of the regular commentary on the Guide for the Perplexed, Joseph Albo also wrote on the principles of faith in a separate book where he disagrees with the Rambam about the actual principles. I vaguely recall that Rav Joseph Albo reduced the principle one must believe in down to six and I think Abravenal down to three.]
It did not occur to me to mention this until yesterday when I mentioned that the path of my parents is Reform.
So I thought today just to mention a few Gemaras that go along with this idea.
One would be the Gemara in Bava Batra [14b] that Moses wrote his book (that is Deuteronomy) , the Book of Job, and the parsha [section] of the Holy Torah that deals with Bileam. [משה כתב ספרו ופרשת בלעם ואיוב] The simple way of understanding this is that that is all that he wrote. Not the rest of the Five Books of Moses. The Five Books were certainly Divinely inspired, but that does not mean that Moses {Moshe} wrote them. [There is a Gemara in the very first tractate of the Talmud that says that Moses wrote all Five Books, but that seems to disagree with the Gemara in Bava Batra. [The 13 principles of Faith then would be deciding like the other Gemara].
[At any rate, the Gemara in Bava Batra can not mean that Moses wrote all Five Books because that would include the section on Bileam. It has to mean just "his book", ספר דברם Deuteronomy
The other very well known Gemara is in the end of Makot where the obligations of the commandments are lessened. Rashi explains that if people would be required to keep all the commandments then no one would merit to the next world. Therefore the obligations were lessened down from 613 to one [faith]. It was a long process starting with King David and Isaiah.
Another lesser known example is the opinion of Hillel [the Amora] in the Gemara that the whole idea of a final redemption does not apply since we already had a final redemption in the days of King Hezekiah.
There are many more examples of where you can see that the Gemara is not "PC." It says lots of things which offend many people's sensibilities.
[The author of the regular commentary on the Guide for the Perplexed, Joseph Albo also wrote on the principles of faith in a separate book where he disagrees with the Rambam about the actual principles. I vaguely recall that Rav Joseph Albo reduced the principle one must believe in down to six and I think Abravenal down to three.]
