Written and Oral Law
The feature that distinguishes Rabbinic Judaism is the emphasis placed on the Oral Law or Oral Torah. The authority for that position has been the insistence by the Rabbis that the oral law was transmitted to Moses at Mount Sinai at the same time as the Written Law — the Torah — and that the oral law has been transmitted from generation to generation since. The Talmud is said to be a codification of the oral law, and is thereby just as binding as the Torah itself. As an example, in Exodus 18 and Numbers 11 of the Bible is cited to show that Moses appointed elders to govern with him and to judge disputes, imparting to them details and guidance of how to interpret the revelations from God while carrying out their duties.
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Famous quotes containing the words written, oral and/or law:
“The demonstrations are always early in the morning, at six o’clock. It’s wonderful, because I’m not doing anything at six anyway, so why not demonstrate?... When you’ve written to your president, to your congressman, to your senator and nothing, nothing has come of it, you take to the streets.”
—Erica Bouza, U.S. jewelry designer and social activist. As quoted in The Great Divide, book 2, section 7, by Studs Terkel (1988)
“The Americans are violently oral.... That’s why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all—isn’t respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“When shot, the deer seldom drops immediately, but runs sometimes for hours, the hunter in hot pursuit. This phase, known as ‘deer running,’ develops fleet runners, particularly in deer- jacking expeditions when the law is pursuing the hunters as swiftly as the hunters are pursuing the deer.”
—For the State of Maine, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)