Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Vol. 5: Traditional Jewish Objections by Brown Michael

Author:Brown, Michael [Brown, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 1881022862
Publisher: Purple Pomegranate Productions
Published: 2015-11-04T21:00:00+00:00

Again, with all respect to Rabbi Shulman’s devotion to our people and to our traditions, words fail at the astonishing leaps of logic—or, more accurately, the relative suspension of logic—in this short paragraph. All the more, then, do words fail when the confident conclusion is asserted: “This is a clear proof from the Tanach that the Oral Law does exist and it is the same as ours today!” Such an assertion is tantamount to the coach of a college football team declaring after his team sustained a 70–0 loss, “This is a clear proof that we have the superior team!” Moshe Shulman’s assertion is no less astounding.

First, the text does not state that “one cannot buy food needed to eat on the Shabbos”; it simply mentions the oath of the men that “When the neighboring peoples bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day.” In other words, “We will not do any business on the Sabbath”—note that the text mentions merchandise as well as grain—a completely logical application of not doing any work on the Sabbath. Second, Nehemiah himself tells us some of what was going on during a similar time frame:

In those days I saw men in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. Men from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this wicked thing you are doing—desecrating the Sabbath day? Didn’t your forefathers do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity upon us and upon this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.” (Neh. 13:15–18)

This really is quite clear: The people of Judah were working on the Sabbath as if it was an ordinary day—they obviously hadn’t mastered the Talmudic Sabbath laws!—including carrying loads of produce into Jerusalem, just as they did in Jeremiah’s day (see above; it seems obvious that this was the violation of the Sabbath that was taking place in Jeremiah’s day—in fact, this is stated explicitly—rather than an endless set of rules about transferring anything, including tissues for blowing one’s nose, from a private domain into a public, or the reverse). The text also states plainly that “men from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah” (Neh. 13:16), and Nehemiah rebuked them, since they were thereby inducing the men of Judah to do business on the Sabbath. And what is mentioned explicitly in Nehemiah 10:31?

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