- Style of the Torah
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- Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim
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- Reader: Why does the torah not say things in a 'strait'
fashion - always beating around the bush, saying generalities and then
contradicting itself somewhere else - or worse, giving 2 versions of
the same account, ie man was created as male female or a male and then
a female - and if you say first a male-female and then split, etc.
- Why can the torah just say that in plain Hebrew? Why all the
cover-up that can throw people off?
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- Mesora: This is the method of
the Torah - to draw the student's attention by raising questions
through inconsistencies. As the student investigates, he not only
learns explanations of those questions, but his mind is sharpened in
the process. His sense for subtleties becomes honed, sharpened and
acute. As he continues to advance, his growing sensitivity will alert
him to new questions, providing new insights.
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- I will suggest my own idea on this point: All knowledge could not
possibly be committed to writing. It is too vast. To lead man to the
basic categories of thought, justice, morality and science, God
condensed pathways for the exploration of His knowledge via a discreet
Torah. Such a condensation requires that there be avenues to expose
man to the infinite knowledge which exists, after he reads all the
fixed number of verses. These avenues are the subtleties, the
contradictions, exaggerations, omissions, and repetitions in the
texts, which alert us to a required, deeper understanding. From that
deeper level, we go even further, we repeat the process again and
again for the duration of our lives.
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