Circumcision This is my covenant which you are to keep, between me and you and your seed after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, so that it may serve as…
Legal System When any legal matter is too extraordinary [פָּלָא] for you, in justice, between blood and blood, between judgment and judgment, between stroke and stroke, in matters of quarreling within your gates, you are to arise and go up…
Kosher Birds Now these you are to hold detestable from fowl – they are not to be eaten, they are detestable-things: the eagle, the bearded-vulture and the black-vulture, the kite and the falcon according to its kind, every raven according…
Slaughter Only: in all your appetite’s craving you may slaughter (animals) and may eat meat according to the blessing of the Eternal One your God that He has given you within all your gates; the tamei and the pure (alike)…
Calendar Rabbi HaLevi asks what month is being referenced in Shemot 12:24: “Let this new moon be for you the beginning of new moons, the beginning-one let it be for you of the new moons of the year.”1 We clearly…
Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to light Shabbat candle[s]. Many of us have heard these words spoken on Friday nights in honor of Shabbat (Sabbath).…
Returning to Egypt Still another argument for the “Oral Law” is that Uriyyahu returned to Mitzrayim.2 Now there was another man who prophesied in the Name of the Eternal One – Uriyyahu son of Shema’yahu of Qiryat-hayye’arim, He prophesied concerning…
Martyrdom Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi points to the prayer of Dani’el and asks why Dani’el would risk his life to pray if there is not a mitzvah in the Torah to actually pray. Without an “Oral Law” to explain martyrdom there…
Instructions Rabbi Shimon ben-Tzemach Duran points out the following passage as proof of an “Oral Law.” You should make clear to them the laws and the instructions, you should make known to them the way they should go, and the…
Rabbinic Judaism (specifically Orthodox and Conservative) offers to the world the idea that the “Oral Law” – as enthroned in the Talmud – was given to Moshe at Har Sinai along with the Written Torah. Orthodox and Conservative Jews claim…
