Interpreting A Religious Text In Rabbinic Judaism

In Rabbinic Judaism, a rabbi’s main duty was to interpret religious text. Similar to how judges interpret the U.S. constitution today, a rabbi formulated his interpretations on texts directly derived from God and attempted to perceive how the text was applicable to a Jew’s daily life. Therefore, the claim, “Despite the theological claims of the Jewish tradition, it is actually not God who legislates Rabbinic Judaism, but the Rabbis,” is false because rabbis focused on making God a constant participant in the process of legislating and interpreting texts. In the procedure of interpreting a religious text, the rabbis always kept God as their central focus as they deciphered. To accomplish this, the rabbis essentially based their interpretations …show more content…
In time, the rabbis created the Midrash, which became a line-by-line interpretation of the religious texts from God. Through this line-by-line scrutiny, it allowed the rabbis to closely examine each word and as the rabbis begin to interpret, it would allow them to not sway much from God’s original meaning of the text. The rabbinic writers were clear that it was not their task to “write the Bible… [Rabbis] considered its text unalterable— but rather to understand the significance of what the text contained” (Jewish Traditions, 66). In other words, since the religious text was directly from God, the holy text is therefore sacred and law but was still open for interpretation. Furthermore, the rabbis formed the Mishnah, otherwise known as the oral law given by God to Moses. Along with the five books ascribed to Moses, there was also a direct line of oral tradition that was transmitted throughout generations, which in turn, allowed the rabbis to believe …show more content…
Without the rabbis’ interpretations, God’s texts would not be able to do what it originally intended: to be applied to daily life. Interpretation became essential since the Torah was viewed as a guide for moral conduct and due to the Torah being ancient, it had to be adapted in order to stay relevant to Jews. Through the rabbis clarifying certain laws, only then did the Talmud become a source of moral conduct. For example, in Exodus, a text read “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” in relation to how to compensate for damages (Jewish Traditions, 74). Literally, this text could mean a variety of harsh punishments, however, rabbis concluded that compensation should be limited to paying a financial price for the victim’s loss. In this case, through interpretation, a more humane and understanding law was formed that could be applicable to everyone. Granted that, rabbis were essential and interpretation was mandatory to fully utilize the text from