Style of the Torah
 
Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim
 
 
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?
 
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.
 
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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