How do we know that we are still practicing the same Torah given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai 3300 years ago? Maybe along the way it’s become corrupted or altered? How do we know that all the additions made by the Rabbis are part of God’s original intent? Maybe our Judaism today is so far removed from Sinai that even Moses wouldn’t recognize its authenticity?
An answer lies in the secret of the blockchain.
What is the Blockchain
You have probably heard of the blockchain and its primary use – Bitcoin. But few people actually understand how it works. Here's how.
Throughout life we use ledgers that record transactions. Take your bank account, for example. Back in the day when you would walk into the bank, you would record each deposit and withdrawal in your little ledger book. Nowadays, it’s all done on computer and you receive a monthly ledger statement.
Your bank is basically a middle-man, taking your deposit money and lending it out to borrowers on your behalf. If you could lend the money directly, you would also use a ledger to record the transaction. The only difference is that, without the middle-man, either party could forge the ledger, leading to a dispute between the two parties. Your bank safeguards the trustworthiness of the transaction.
But let’s say we could introduce a system whereby every transaction was verified by millions of people around the world instantly. Any individual attempting to forge a transaction would be flagged immediately by every participant in the system and the transaction would be rejected. Since we have millions of verifiers, we no longer need the stamp of approval of the middle-man.
The fact that so many people are watching doesn’t mean business can’t get done. Transactions still take place. But any changes introduced must be verified and approved by the entire system.
Moses wrote thirteen Torah scrolls. If any tribe were to attempt to change the Torah, all the others would flag the ‘transaction’ as invalid and reject it.
That’s the blockchain – it’s a gigantic, global ledger. Every time a commodity, such as Bitcoin, changes hands, every ‘node’ in the blockchain – millions of computers across the globe connected via the internet – must approve the validity of the transaction. The new system is now decentralized, power is peer-to-peer and distributed, and the system is fortified by the validation of the consensus of all the users in the system.
Moses' Blockchain
The blockchain has been a foundation of Judaism from the time of Moses. The Midrash teaches:
Once Moshe knew that he was going to die that day, what did he do? Rabbi Yannai says: He wrote thirteen Torah Scrolls – twelve for each of the twelve tribes, and one that he placed in the Ark. For if someone should come and attempt to forge something, they would find the original in the Ark (Midrash Rabba, Deuteronomy, 9:9).
Essentially, the Midrash is describing the first blockchain. If there were only one copy of the Torah, it would be easy to forge. But Moses wrote thirteen Torah scrolls. If any tribe were to attempt to change the Torah, all the others would flag the ‘transaction’ as invalid and reject it.
Maimonides describes the transmission of the Torah:
All of the mitzvot (commandments) which were given to Moshe at Sinai were given with their explanation, as it says (Ex.24:12), “I have given you the Tablets of Stone and the Torah and the Mitzvah.” Torah refers to the Written Torah, and Mitzvah refers to the explanation. This Mitzvah is called the Oral Torah.
The entire Torah was written by Moshe Rabbeinu by his own hand, before his passing. He gave a Scroll to each and every tribe, and one scroll he placed in the Ark as testimony. The ‘Mitzvah,’ which is the explanation of the Torah, he did not write down, but he instructed it to the Elders and Joshua and the rest of all Israel. It is therefore called the Oral Torah (Mishnah Torah, Introduction).
Maimonides is building on the Midrash with a powerful, fundamental addition: the element of the Oral Torah. Not only is the Written Torah immutable, due the multiple copies on the blockchain, but so too is the Oral Torah. Moses added the Oral Torah to the blockchain system by teaching it to multiple parties: Joshua, the Elders, and all of Israel. Now if anyone were to attempt to alter its content, it would have to be accepted by the entire diffuse system.
The Oral Torah does undergo development, as new legal cases arise all the time. Just think about some contemporary issues, from questions about identifying parenthood in the case of surrogacy to the permissibility of online business transactions on Shabbat, to name just a couple. When God gave the Torah to Moses, He provided guiding principles as to how to develop the Law, based on rules of legal precedent and methods of interpretation and extrapolation.
So if a rabbi wanted to make a change to the system due to a challenge that had arisen, they posted the ‘transaction’ to the Torah blockchain, which required approval by all the ‘nodes’. If the system accepted it, it became part of the global tradition of Judaism. If the consensus did not deem the transaction to be valid, it was rejected. And the system remained intact.
The best example of our consensus-based Torah system is the Talmud. Despite its myriad debates around minutiae of Jewish law, our Sages agreed upon a system of determining the final, bottom-line halacha, which then was deemed standard Jewish practice. At the same time, despite the establishment of universally-accepted practices, Judaism has never shied away from debate or attempted to hide minority opinions – they remain enshrined in our tradition for posterity (See e.g. Raavad on Eduyot 1:5).
This process has kept our tradition intact throughout the millennia, even when our people have been exiled to the four corners of the Earth. As novel situations have arisen, our Rabbis have not hesitated to respond to those challenges. Nevertheless, Judaism prides itself on the paucity of difference between Jewish practice from Sefard to Ashkenaz, and everywhere in between. While people tend to think that the different parts of the Jewish world were completely separated from one another, it’s simply not the case. We always remained in close contact, and travel between communities happened regularly. One of the greatest medieval Ashkenazi rabbis, Rabbeinu Asher, for example, was born in Cologne, and later appointed to the community of Toledo, Spain. And, Maimonides kept a correspondence with the Jewish community in Yemen.
At various times in our history, movements attempting radical reinterpretations of the tradition have appeared. However, when their propositions differed with the letter of the law or even the spirit of the law, they have been rejected by the system. Like any other field of expertise, most people – rabbis included – are not sufficiently qualified to engage in major ‘transactions.’ It takes a lifetime of dedication to the Jewish people, proven proficiency in the entire corpus of Torah knowledge, and widespread respect as an authority in Jewish law to begin to earn the ability and right to be part of the grand Torah conversation.
From the time of Moses until this very day, we have been blessed with towering giants of Torah, possessing the wisdom and sagacity to maintain the strength and sanctity of our tradition. These leaders of each generation have grappled with every new situation with caution, sensitivity, and a foreboding sense of the awesomeness of their task. Their piety, encyclopaedic knowledge, and, above-all, their deep commitment to the mesorah (tradition) have provided the foundation for any transaction they have entered into the system. As a result, long before the advent of Bitcoin, the Torah blockchain has proved to be robust and enduring.
(7) Isaac Jebreel, November 12, 2019 10:23 AM
Rabbi Daniel Friedman Blockchain article brilliant and original.
Hope we hear from from Rabbi Friedman.
(6) Anonymous, November 11, 2019 7:54 PM
blockchain
an interesting take on an ancient concept. "old wine new vessels". yasher koach.
(5) Anonymous, November 11, 2019 2:18 PM
Everyone needs to understand this
Thank you for this important article, that clarifies for all of us , how we can know the Torah remains unchanged.
(4) David Travers, November 11, 2019 5:45 AM
Why is Christianity Different?
Christianity also recognises the Bible but it has added the Gospels among other books to make the New Testament.
Obviously, we do not accept any of these canon, many of which are contradictory and inconsistent. Several of which were written down a generation after events actually occurred and were not written with Ruach Hakodesh like the Bible.
But there are plenty of people in the world (2.2 billion) who do believe what is written as the 'gospel truth.', Does that give it any efficacy? The fact that there are >2 billion people who believe this versus only 18 million Jews who claim the Torah is the word of G-d, does that make their claim stronger?
Clearly not.
But what is the actual difference?
Anonymous, November 12, 2019 4:24 PM
Oral Law versus written record
First, it is important to acknowledge the variant timeframes of the texts you are comparing. Our Written Torah has survived intact from a much earlier period. Very few texts remain from that period. But second, and more importantly, the extraordinary feat of Judaism is the survival of our Oral Torah. In the absence of a formally recorded legal tradition, we have a system that has remained robust and mostly uniform across the globe.
(3) Anonymous, November 10, 2019 11:18 PM
So Interesting.
The discovering of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 came at the perfect time. (as G-D would have it. ) there discovery proved to the scoffers the inerrancy of the Hebrew Bible. " The grass withers,the flower fades but, The Word of G-D endures Forever." as I understand this, these scrolls are over 95% accurate. The differences were minor-mostly punctuation and in no way changed the intended meaning. G-D wants us to have His Truth!! This is the first time I've heard of the "block chain." Thank you for such a interesting article.
(2) David Raften, November 10, 2019 7:10 PM
Multiple versions did exist
Differences were noted when studying the Dead Sea scrolls. In fact Maimonedes had noticed different versions out there. Interesting article here:
https://forward.com/news/198210/torah-scholars-seek-original-version-of-bible-bu/
I remember reading that in 1948, Israel analysed different versions of the Torah out there, noting 9 differences, although they did not affect the reading or meaning of the text.
On the other hand, the "Bible Codes" which span the much of the entire text of the Chumach point to its validity, so maybe a few hundred years ago they figured out which version was valid?
Rabbi Friedman, November 12, 2019 4:15 PM
Textual variants
Indeed, the Gilyon HaShas to TB Shabbos 55b notes some minor textual variations. Important to note that no differences exist in the Torah text other than male/chaser and placement of parsha-breaks (i.e. minor punctuation that does not affect the meaning).
(1) Eli Willner, November 10, 2019 5:32 PM
An excellent exposition!
Very clear explanation of "blockchain", and an innovative use of it as a metaphor for our mesorah. Thank you, Rabbi Friedman!