This was a question asked of me a few years back and my answer:
(from the beginning of this May 4.5.12):"First, I am in need of some kind of deprogramming. I attended aish ten years ago for ten months and have never been able to shake the feeling that I am a bad person for not being orthodox. Any suggestions?
Second, do you believe or think that the Torah was actually given to Moses on Mt. Sinai? Everything I read in the academic world (James Kugel and some of his footnotes, David Carr at Union Theological, several others here and there) tells me that Orthodox Jews are mistaken in this belief. Also, the Greeks began the idea of authorship and it it is even likely that until Hellenic times no one said that Moses wrote the Torah. But once they gave authorship out, the Jews gave the Torah to Moses.
Third, are all of us ex-aishers suffering cult like symptoms of guilt and fear? Are all Jews suffering this as well? What is the future of Orthodoxy? I think it will always “pretend” because the community matters so very much. But what do you think?"
Torah from heaven is not the same as Torah from Sinai.
The Written and Oral Torah are inspired from Heaven. That has nothing to do with the physical location of where there were written. From what we know from the Rambam many parts of the Torah are allegories and were never meant to be taken literally. That includes Genesis.
Genesis was meant to tell us Creation ex nihilo. (That already cancels Orthodoxy. The irony is they like to claim others are falsify Torah.)
First Torah from Sinai is often confused with the issue of "Is the Talmud from Sinai?"
Part of the problem in the Orthodox world is that they succeeded in spreading the claim that everyone in Europe accepted that the Talmud was from Mount Sinai. This stacks the deck for Orthodox Judaism.
But it is false. No Jews in Europe thought the Talmud was given at Mount Sinai. The very idea in itself is ludicrous. Jews thought it is a great book that explains with great logical rigor how to keep the Torah. Saying it is a great book is not the same as the claim that it is from Sinai. No Jewish people in America thought the Talmud was from Sinai before the fanatic Orthodox came. The way the got people to believe this is by the fact that faith is a good. When it gets too expensive people don't buy it. The orthodox paid people to believe it by the promise of sex, shiduch, and money.
[My parents and all their friends had never heard of the idea that Talmud was from Sinai and if it had been mentioned they would have laughed.]
However being influenced by Plato and Kant (I believe in the world of Forms), I have to admit that I think there is a deep spiritual reality inside the Torah and Talmud [numinous is the current word for it]. (The dinge als sich selbest- the thing in itself.) Normally I would have just gone with Schopenhauer on this question and called God "the Will" and be done with it [i.e. an irrational force]. But according to later writings of Schopenhauer the the thing in itself is multidimensional. The irrational will is just one dimension. So I am led back to the basic idea of God being good in the long run. i.e the God of Moses, Job and Plato.
First I think holiness belongs to the realm of the thing in itself.
note: Things-in-themselves are the way that reality exists apart from our experience, our consciousness, our minds, and all the conditions that our minds might impose on phenomenal objects.
(from the beginning of this May 4.5.12):"First, I am in need of some kind of deprogramming. I attended aish ten years ago for ten months and have never been able to shake the feeling that I am a bad person for not being orthodox. Any suggestions?
Second, do you believe or think that the Torah was actually given to Moses on Mt. Sinai? Everything I read in the academic world (James Kugel and some of his footnotes, David Carr at Union Theological, several others here and there) tells me that Orthodox Jews are mistaken in this belief. Also, the Greeks began the idea of authorship and it it is even likely that until Hellenic times no one said that Moses wrote the Torah. But once they gave authorship out, the Jews gave the Torah to Moses.
Third, are all of us ex-aishers suffering cult like symptoms of guilt and fear? Are all Jews suffering this as well? What is the future of Orthodoxy? I think it will always “pretend” because the community matters so very much. But what do you think?"
Torah from heaven is not the same as Torah from Sinai.
The Written and Oral Torah are inspired from Heaven. That has nothing to do with the physical location of where there were written. From what we know from the Rambam many parts of the Torah are allegories and were never meant to be taken literally. That includes Genesis.
Genesis was meant to tell us Creation ex nihilo. (That already cancels Orthodoxy. The irony is they like to claim others are falsify Torah.)
First Torah from Sinai is often confused with the issue of "Is the Talmud from Sinai?"
Part of the problem in the Orthodox world is that they succeeded in spreading the claim that everyone in Europe accepted that the Talmud was from Mount Sinai. This stacks the deck for Orthodox Judaism.
But it is false. No Jews in Europe thought the Talmud was given at Mount Sinai. The very idea in itself is ludicrous. Jews thought it is a great book that explains with great logical rigor how to keep the Torah. Saying it is a great book is not the same as the claim that it is from Sinai. No Jewish people in America thought the Talmud was from Sinai before the fanatic Orthodox came. The way the got people to believe this is by the fact that faith is a good. When it gets too expensive people don't buy it. The orthodox paid people to believe it by the promise of sex, shiduch, and money.
[My parents and all their friends had never heard of the idea that Talmud was from Sinai and if it had been mentioned they would have laughed.]
However being influenced by Plato and Kant (I believe in the world of Forms), I have to admit that I think there is a deep spiritual reality inside the Torah and Talmud [numinous is the current word for it]. (The dinge als sich selbest- the thing in itself.) Normally I would have just gone with Schopenhauer on this question and called God "the Will" and be done with it [i.e. an irrational force]. But according to later writings of Schopenhauer the the thing in itself is multidimensional. The irrational will is just one dimension. So I am led back to the basic idea of God being good in the long run. i.e the God of Moses, Job and Plato.
First I think holiness belongs to the realm of the thing in itself.
note: Things-in-themselves are the way that reality exists apart from our experience, our consciousness, our minds, and all the conditions that our minds might impose on phenomenal objects.
