Unanswered Questions

Rabbi Reisman of the Agudas Yisrael of Madison in Brooklyn presented his past shiur in a different fashion. Rather than discuss ideas he had, he asked questions he thought of that bothered him. These questions did not all have answers and he left it up to the audience to think about.

One of his questions went as follows: In Pirkei Avos it says that the world was created with 10 maamaros ("sayings") to which the gemara in Rosh Hashana asks: But there are only 9? The gemara answers: we count the word "breishis" ("in the beginning") as the 10th.

However, Rabbi Reisman asked: If we count all the times the Torah writes the word "vayomer" during the creation, we will only find 8!? Count "breishis" and you only have 9??

This question was not found amongst the very many sources and commentaries on Chumash, which is all the more puzzling.

Another question: if we know that bnei yisroel only got the Torah on the 51st day of counting, why do we still celebrate the 50th day?

Lastly he asks: the book of Devarim is called "Mishnah Torah" (the review of the Torah) but if this is so, why do we find so many new laws that were not mentioned previously? How is it "review?"

There are other questions he brings, such as the discrepancy in the age of Moshe, and the difference of counting the Jewish people as 600,000 or as 603, 550. There are other problems but they require more detail.

What we are left with is twofold:

1. The Torah has technical discrepancies (40 malkus when we know it is really 39 but "the number is rounded") and yet, if the Torah- which represents "Din" (judgement) is imprecise, what message does that carry for us, who often hold each other accountable for things to the most minute detail.

2. The questions Rabbi Reisman brought forth are questions that every person should have asked in his or her own learning of the sources. How did we miss them? Why have we not asked these blatant and most obvious questions?

(What is harder to fathom is the detail people will get into when talking about Talmudic issues, yet these "imprecise" quandries which are rooted in the Highest Source of all have been taken for granted and overlooked)