Dear Rabbi.  I have seen some rabbis and yeshiva students get singularly animated when discussing makhlokeses (differences of opinion) in the Gemara or among Poskim (halachic authorities). But shouldn’t we be grieving the fact that there are these differences which have arisen due to the uncertainty over what was taught to Moshe on Mount Sinai?  Meir P. 

Dear Meir,

In yeshivishe-speak that is a moredike kasheh (a tremendous question)! It really deserves a whole book in response, but there are many already written on the development of Torah she-be’al Peh (the oral Torah) by scholars far more equipped than I, so I shall attempt a mere overview before answering your direct question.

Rambam (1138-1204) in his introduction to his magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah, outlines with precision the chain of oral tradition from Moses who received the Torah at Sinai (2448AM = 1312BCE) to Rav Ashi (c. 4260AM = 500CE) who compiled the (Babylonian) Talmud, a unique unbroken chain of which we can be justly proud. He goes on to write about the further Jewish dispersion throughout the then known world that occurred subsequently, and the emergence of divergent practices that ensued. His aim in writing Mishneh Torah was, in his words, “to compose a work …in clear and concise term so that the entire Oral Torah could be presented in ordered fashion …without questions or objections”. His intent was that “a person will not need any other text at all with regard to any Jewish law”.

As we know, this didn’t happen. Rambam........

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