tim@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Tim Maroney) (10/03/85)
Perhaps some of the Jewish readers of this group can help me with an issue in Judaism that has puzzled me for some months. I have been told two mutually exclusive things by Jews concerning the interpretation of Torah. Some have told me that the Torah is a symbolic book with multiple valid interpretations, as set forth by the multiple interpretations given in the Talmud. Therefore, any "historical" passage in the Torah may not be truly historical, but a vessel of divine symbolic meaning. I asked whether this applied to all branches of Judaism, and was told that it did. Some others have told me that any historical passage in the Torah happened as described, that the facts given in the historical books are unimpeachable, and in fact that proof exists for the story of the Exodus. (Of course, when an outsider asks to see this proof, the claimant equivocates fully as much as a Christian asked for the alleged proof of the resurrection, but that's neither here nor there.) These are obviously not compatible. Am I seeing a controversy within Judaism, or have both sides described these attitudes in a way that doesn't let me see the internal harmony, or what? In case you're wondering why I ask, I am religiously eclectic and feel that most religions, including Judaism, contain divine inspiration, and so I try to learn as much about various religions as I can. This issue of Torah interpretation seems to be a major hole in my understanding of Judaism. -=- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 audio: shout "Hey, Tim!"