We have profound principles for explaining the Law passed on until this very day from generation to generation. These principles have been listed in the name of Rabbi Yishmael son of Rabbi Elisha. Rabbi Yishmael was a colleague of Rabbi Akiva, of Israelite and convert stock, both died martyrs’ death. If it were not for these principles we could not understand the plain meaning of Scripture. We need them to understand the clear directions of God’s will, commandments, and love.

You know what they say. Where you have two Jews, you have three opinions. Let us apply our Torah rules or principles of logic. For example, to the concept of eye for an eye, not a single disagreement exists among 2,000 saintly Rabbis of the Talmud. All agree it means in every application only monetary compensation for injury. Not a single, solitary case was ever decided in any way but money compensation.

Take a look at the clear prohibition of accepting money  compensation for malicious murder.  “Ye shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer.” (Numbers, 35/31). You see, for anything less than murder, compensation is in order.  The Torah asks for compensation which would not be accomplished by merely damaging the offender. Also, the Eye for an eye means compensation. If my eye was 20/40, and yours 20/20; if mine was the hand of a piano player and yours is not, it would not be a fair exchange. Clearly the impossibility of literal application is obvious. The language is such to convey a moral standard, namely the enormity of causing personal injury and it is as if you should lose your corresponding body part. But that is merely a moral lesson, as the Torah never tires of making statements so as to set moral standards. The practical application is to compensate and make good, not to create more pain and loss in the community. The actual Hebrew shows this by using a term that means to complete, make peace, make up and
compensate. Also, the word ‘for’ (tachat), in the expression ‘eye for an eye,’ means under, beneath, implying that the very letters of the Hebrew word for ‘eye’ fall underneath significant letters, which in fact, spell the three letter word for money - kesef(k-s-f-)  is literally found next to the three letter word for eye, showing literally that monetary compensation
was the intention. In the Hebrew Biblical mind, the term ‘life for life’ is only a term meaning fair compensation. Look at the parallel verse:
[LEVITICUS 24:18]  “HE THAT SMITHETH A BEAST MORTALLY SHALL MAKE IT GOOD ‘LIFE FOR LIFE’.”
Again, this simply means fair compensation, otherwise anyone who killed an animal would have to forfeit his life in return to take away all doubt as to the intent of this technical legal term ‘life for life.’  The same paragraph [LEVITICUS 24/21] says, “HE THAT KILLS A BEAST SHALL MAKE IT GOOD; AND HE THAT MURDERED A MAN SHALL BE PUT TO DEATH.”
The sages regard eye and tooth as typical and list twenty-four organs of the body which come within operation by the law.  In computing compensation, the actual damage, loss of time, cost of cure, pain, disfigurement, and
embarrassment, were all taken into consideration (Hertz Pentateuch). The whole gist is,… “SHALL MAKE IT GOOD, HE SHALL GIVE MONEY”, [EXODUS 21:34].

To paraphrase the Rabbi Dr. Herzog (the late chief Rabbi of the British Empire), nothing can illustrate the difference of ancient legal system better than the application of the law of taliation. Today the evocation of life for life, etc., is recognized as one of the far-reaching steps in human progress.  It has always meant the substitution of legal due process in place of wild revenge. One eye not two, one tooth not ten, one life not a whole family. For the founders of International Law  Hugo Grotius, Jean Bodin, and John Seldan  all maintain that ‘eye for an eye’ enjoins that a fair and equitable relation must exist between the crime and punishment and that all citizens have merit before the law.  John D. Michaelis (pioneer of modern Bible exegesis) said, “This rule is appropriate for free peoples, in which the poorest member has the same right as his most aristocratic assailant, the tooth of the poor peasant is as valuable as the nobleman’s, even if the peasant must bite crust while the nobleman eats cake.”  All of the above scholars were at varying levels of common sense.

Come; Let us learn together for a while. Examples of these principles that serve as laws of Exegesis include the following: One of the ancient principals is that an inference (conclusion) can be made from a minor premise (lenient law) to a major premise (strict law) and vice versa. This concept in Hebrew (a very precise and beautiful language) is communicated in two words: “Kal veChomer”. Now say we have an act that is forbidden on a regular festival (holiday), then it would be so much more forbidden on a special stricter holiday such as The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). However if a certain action is permissible on Yom Kippur then so much more so should it be permitted on an ordinary festival. In other words logic shows that a lenient case has a strict dimension and the same stringency would be
relevant in a much stricter case.

Let us go on to another principal through which the Torah is elucidated. When we have a tradition from a similarity of phrases and words in various contexts it can be inferred that what is meant in one passage can clarify and be applied to the other. Hebrew succinctly expresses this rule of logic in two words: “Gezera Sheva”. Now for several examples that will enable us to see the dynamics at work here. The verse fragment concerning a “Hebrew slave” [Exodus 21:2] is unclear.

“IF THOU BUY A HEBREW SERVANT, SIX YEARS HE SHALL SERVE: AND IN THE SEVENTH HE SHALL GO OUT FREE FOR NOTHING” [EXODUS 21:2].

This could conceivably apply to a pagan slave owned by a Hebrew or else it could perhaps be a slave who is Jewish (Hebrew). It cannot be both. We know that it is referring to a Jewish slave because of a reference to “your Hebrew brother” in [Deuteronomy 15:12]. “AND IF THY BROTHER, AN HEBREW MAN, OR AN HEBREW WOMAN, BE SOLD UNTO THEE, AND SERVE THEE SIX YEARS; THEN IN THE SEVENTH YEAR THOU SHALT LET HIM GO FREE FROM THEE” [DEUTERONOMY 15:12].

This is the same case as that in Exodus 21:2 and here it clearly refers to “your brother, a Hebrew man.” Thus the two verses clarify each other.

Another pertinent example is found in the Book of Numbers. [NUMBERS 28:2] COMMAND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, AND SAY UNTO THEM, MY OFFERING, AND MY BREAD FOR MY SACRIFICES MADE BY FIRE, FOR A SWEET SAVOUR UNTO ME, SHALL YE OBSERVE TO OFFER UNTO ME IN THEIR DUE SEASON” [Hebrew: BeMoado].

[NUMBERS 9:2] LET THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL ALSO KEEP THE PASSOVER AT HIS APPOINTED SEASON ” [Hebrew: BeMoado].

We find the same word “in its time” (i.e. due season, appointed season, Hebrew: BeMoado). Used regarding the daily-continual (“tamid”) sacrificial offering. This offering had to be sacrificed on the set time even on the Sabbath. A positive commandment (thou shalt) commandment (here to bring the “tamid” continual daily offering) pushes aside the negative (“thou shalt not”) of the Sabbath. With some reservations this principle (of positive commandments overriding negative ones) held throughout all our history. The same goes for the holy act of circumcision that must be performed on the eighth day even if this falls on the Sabbath. Similarly exactly the same expression “in its time” (Hebrew: BeMoado) is used concerning the Passover sacrifice. We learn from one case to another. These expressions serve to clarify our obligations and G-d’s will. Likewise if one was to be in a state of ritual impurity “in its time” (Hebrew: BeMoado) would tells us to offer the sacrifice despite the status of otherwise not being allowed to offer sacrifices in a ritually impure state.

Are you still here?  Good, take a deep breath. Relax, and let’s continue to learn.

A general principle learned from one verse and a general principal derived from two verses. In other words a general rule expressed in two Biblical Law will be applicable to all similar related laws. For example:
[DEUTERONOMY 24:6] NO MAN SHALL TAKE THE NETHER OR THE UPPER MILLSTONE TO PLEDGE: FOR HE TAKETH A MAN'S LIFE TO PLEDGE.

 We are here told that no man should take a hand mill or millstone [general rule] to pledge [as security for a loan/debt] for he would be taking a life [livelihood] in pledge. This Sinaitic rule of logic would dictate that generally, the just established principal applies to all similar issues. The conclusion of the Rabbis is that everything that is necessary for the preparation of food is forbidden to be used as a pledge. The Torah says that a man cannot marry the daughter of his mother by another father (maternal half sister). There is also a law against marrying the sister of your father.   The general principle demands that the law against marrying your maternal half sister apply to the maternal half sister of your father. The Torah says that if a man strikes the eye or knocks out the tooth of his slave he must let him go free. Based on the above principle of application to related cases the Rabbis concluded whenever any part of the body of a slave is mutilated by the master then the slave must be set free.

Now one more of the more simple rules of Biblical exposition. Two similar passages that contradict one another can be
harmonized by a third passage that reconciles the others. In Genesis 22:2, Abraham is told to offer up his son. God however had already told Abraham that his son Isaac would become a great nation (Genesis 21:12). The answer
is that the command was to place Isaac as an offering but not to slaughter him (the literal Hebrew said merely to raise him up). Thus there was no contradiction.

 In Exodus 13:6, the Israelites are told to eat unleavened bread for seven days whereas elsewhere they are told six days:
 [DEUTERONOMY 16:8] SIX DAYS THOU SHALT EAT UNLEAVENED BREAD: AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY SHALL BE A SOLEMN ASSEMBLY TO THE LORD THY GOD: THOU SHALT DO NO WORK THEREIN.

To solve the problem of an apparent contradiction all that is needed is to apply the exegetical principal:
[LEV 23:14] AND YE SHALL EAT NEITHER BREAD, NOR PARCHED CORN, NOR GREEN EARS, UNTIL THE  SELFSAME DAY THAT YE HAVE BROUGHT AN OFFERING UNTO YOUR GOD: IT SHALL BE A STATUTE FOR EVER THROUGHOUT YOUR GENERATIONS IN ALL YOUR DWELLINGS.
[LEV 23:15] AND YE SHALL COUNT UNTO YOU FROM THE MORROW AFTER THE SABBATH, FROM THE DAY THAT YE BROUGHT THE SHEAF OF THE WAVE OFFERING; SEVEN SABBATHS SHALL BE COMPLETE:

This is the law of new produce. It was forbidden to eat new grain of the season until the second day of Passover (called “Sabbath” on the verse Leviticus 23;15 above) when the Omer barley offering was sacrificed. If the unleavened bread (matzah) was made of new grain it could only be eaten on six days of the Passover week. Therefore the verse in Exodus 13:6 about eating unleavened bread for six days refers to unleavened bread made from new grain.

Exodus 19; 20 says that God came down: [EXODUS 19:20] "AND THE LORD CAME DOWN UPON MOUNT SINAI, ON THE TOP OF THE MOUNT: AND THE LORD CALLED MOSES UP TO THE TOP OF THE MOUNT; AND MOSES WENT UP".

In Exodus 20:22 it says that God spoke from heaven: [EXODUS 20:22] "AND THE LORD SAID UNTO MOSES, THUS THOU SHALT SAY UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, YE HAVE SEEN THAT I HAVE TALKED WITH YOU FROM HEAVEN".
Deuteronomy makes peace between the two versions by explaining that out of heaven did He make his voice heard to take you under the bond of His discipline and on the earth He let see his great fire from the midst of which you heard His words.
[DEUTERONOMY 4:36] "OUT OF HEAVEN HE MADE THEE TO HEAR HIS VOICE, THAT HE MIGHT INSTRUCT THEE: AND UPON EARTH HE SHEWED THEE HIS GREAT FIRE; AND THOU HEARDEST HIS WORDS OUT OF THE MIDST OF THE FIRE".

These are but a few simple examples of how the written Torah is predicated on the Oral Torah through logical rules of exegesis. The same Oral Torah decides how the rules are utilized. No one has authority to use these principles in just any old way. Only the path given by the Oral Law can be used to apply these principles in a way that does. The Oral Torah saves us from gross violation of Gd’s true intentions. For example, the concept of eye for an eye means equally fair compensation is the proper literal understanding. This policy is clearly felt, understood and learned with any sensitivity to the texts as a whole. But it takes the guidance of the Oral Tradition to protect, guide, nurture this sensitivity.
The Written Torah would be comparable to hard earth and all the fruit and vegetables which are growing from it is comparable to the Oral Torah. The Written law appears fixed, rigid, unchanging. The Oral Law is moving, alive, dynamic, flexible and has the potential to deal with categories, define, analyze, adjust, and raise the times to the Torah’s standards. The Written Law is similar to the magnificent skeleton of the human body. The Oral tradition fills out the body, gives skin, eyes, and hair-coloring, personality and healthy body systems. The Oral and written tradition
together is what makes the Hebrew people and the Bible together the longest living faith,. It exemplifies the covenant which is in a continual state of renewal and rejuvenation. Just as is the dynamic ongoing discussion energized by the tensions of debates whose purpose is to reveal G-d’s will desire and directives. This is both exciting and depicts the ongoing revelation and dialogue between Gd and Israel.
There is much evidence for the antiquity of the Oral Tradition. For example we have laws in the Mishna which only make sense and were relevant to the times before the Land was conquered and settlement commenced. The
inheritance question of the daughters of Zelophehad (Numbers 27;1) The Mishna said they had rights to the portion of both their father and grandfather. The land was split up according to the families that went out of Egypt  upon their death their immediate descendants inherited their portions. This is Oral Law at the very beginning of Israelite History. The prohibition of orlah (which limits the use of trees before their fifth year) and how it influenced the Israelite settlers. What was the law of an already planted tree, etc. The Mishna says it did not apply.
As with the example of an eye for an eye all of our important institutions assume the existence of an Oral Torah. The written law never stood alone. It was always accompanied and elucidated by the Oral Torah. This does not require a leap of faith but merely looking over the Torah one is immediately struck with the absolute necessity for the Oral Law.
Arguments, decisions, as to the six cities of refuge where accidental manslayers could stay and be rehabilitated and safe. three cities on each side of the Jordan  River: the Mishna tells us that even though three cities were already set up on the east side in the time of Moses they only went into operation when all the six cities had been established (Makot 3b).  A Mishna in Negaim occupies itself with a person afflicted by special spiritually-generated type of leprosy that broke out before the monumental revelation at Sinai. The Misha lays down the law that in such a case those
particular signs of leprosy did not make a person ritually unclean even after the revelation at Sinai. We see how the Oral Teaching was delivered, functioning, and cleaning up issues from the dawn of Jewish history. Thus the Oral Tradition clarifies difficulties in understanding and implementing the Biblical words from the earliest times of manhood. The Oral Law would not need to legislate and enact laws that applied to situations that were not in existence. No one
would need a legal enactment for folk with leprosy even before the Torah was revealed except for the real people and their families immediately affected at that time. We see that the teachings which came to us from the Mishna of the Sages have identical date and origin with that which is derived by interpretation of the Scriptural word. All is given by the One God and communicated by the one same Prophet Moses. Moses, and thereafter the Elders, Prophets, Sages, down to our own times. The principles by which the sages in future generations deduced the laws applicable to any
generation (Sifra, Behar, Exodus Rabah 41), Rabbi Akiva asks, “Did Moses learn the whole Torah?” To which he replies, “NO.” God only needed to teach him the principles.
To paraphrase Professor Nicholai Berdyaev (The Meaning of History, London, Moscow Academy of Spiritual Culture, 1936), the Jewish people and the Jewish Torah’s survival seems absolutely inexplicable. Its survival is a
mysterious and wonderful phenomenon demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by a higher special process transcending the processes of adaptation expanded by materialistic interpretations. All of this points
to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny.  Scientific criticism applied to traditional Biblical history can neither discredit the universal role played by the Jews nor offer a satisfactory explanation of their mysterious destiny.  Nor does this criticism grapple with their extraordinary intense feeling for history.

As Blaise Pascal said, “This people are not eminent solely by their antiquity, but are also singular by their devotion, which has always continued from their origin, until now. In spite of all the endeavors of many powerful kings who have a hundred times tried to destroy them, as their historians testify, they have nevertheless been preserved (and this
preservation has been foretold), their history comprehends in its duration all our histories.”

Ellis Rivkin points out in his The Dynamics of Jewish History, “In any given century, Jews would be living simultaneously in as many as three or four radically different societies, each of which demanded a distinctive form of Jewish adaptation if survival was to be sustained. Not only was this challenge met, but it was met without annulling a distinctive Jewish
identity.”

This continuity was made possible by the unique combination of meshing of the Oral and Written Torah.  “YOU ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE BEEN SHOWN SO THAT YOU WILL KNOW,” says the Torah, “THAT G-D IS THE SUPREME BEING AND THERE IS NONE BESIDES HIM.” [DEUTERONOMY 32:40]. The same chapter links this personal G-d with a practical transmission.

You might inquire about times long past, going back to the time that G-d created man on earth, exploring one end of the heavens to the other, see if anything as great as this has ever happened. G-g related and relates to His people within history and through His Torah. A living process of transmissions highlighted here and there with miracles. “REALIZE IT TODAY AND PONDER IN YOUR HEART G-D IS THE SUPREME BEING IN HEAVEN ABOVE AND ON EARTH BENEATH  THERE IS NO OTHER.  KEEP HIS DECREES AND COMMANDMENTS THAT I AM PRESENTING TO YOU TODAY.”  [DEUTERONOMY 4.] Decrees and commandments that are to be kept in a real time practical way; the only way was, and is, with a living Oral Torah explanation enabling us to do so.