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When we speak of the Oral Law’s value, people stress that the Written Law is often inexplicit and general, making it necessary for the Oral Law to make the Torah sufficiently understood and able to be fulfilled in practical life. This is true, but not obvious. If this were the need for an Oral Law, why was it fundamentally forbidden to write down texts of the Oral Law (see Gittin 60b)? It is also difficult to understand Chazal’s far-reaching statement: "Hashem cut a covenant with Israel only because of the oral matters" (ibid.).

The Oral Law’s main element is that Torah scholars were given the authority not only to pass on what they received from their teachers, but also to arrive at new conclusions. These ideas become part of the corpus of Torah, to the extent that even opinions like which we do not rule are not erased, as they contain elements of Torah. Undoubtedly, every deliberation and decision of a scholar is impacted by his essence, personality, and approach to things. While the Torah forms one’s personality and imprints his logic and characteristics, this is only in regard to providing form and direction; it does not create the characteristics. Therefore, Hillel and Shamai had different fundamental styles, despite both learning Torah, and this played a role in the differences in rulings by the two academies they led.

The authority the Rabbis received to confer Torah status on their ideas is the great novelty that comes from the Oral Law. This authority is not very limited and does not have an end point. It is alive, renewing, and continual. For this reason, it was not meant to be written down, as writing gives it rigidity and finality.

Moreshet Shaul (20)

Various Rabbis

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However, there are limitations on the power to personally create, as it must conform with accepted rules; it must fit in a framework of continuity, not contradiction. It is along the lines of the verse, "The words of the scholars are like prods and like planted nails..." (Kohelet 12:11). The gemara (Chagiga 3b) comments: "Just as plants are fruitful and multiply, so too the words of Torah are fruitful and multiply." However, this is on condition that they are like nails – set and immovable. A very high level of wisdom is needed to preserve the proper balance between that which is set and that which is being renewed. Lack of clarity can turn planting into "cutting down the planted" (a phrase for heretical ideas).

Because of the Oral Law’s double characteristic, Judaism has continued creating the corpus of Torah even after the Oral Law, as expressed in the Mishna and Talmud, was largely committed to writing. The wellspring continues to expand. New approaches to analysis and understanding, new insights and in-depth study, are added in every generation. Questions arising in practical life that could not have been imagined in previous generations raise new challenges for leading rabbinic experts. The rulings made on these enable the nation to continue the Torah’s path of life in a changing reality. Occasionally, Judaism encounters challenges raised by students who did not learn sufficiently, who break the continuity of Halacha and claim they must change the Torah to make it relevant for the demands of the time. However, eventually we overcome the crisis, and the nation remains within the accepted channel.

We are in such conflicts these days, for example, in America, between those faithful to Judaism and different "innovators" – the Reform and Conservative. Occasionally, they assemble their "rabbis" to deal with issues, and they imagine they solve them with arbitrary decisions, unrelated to existing principles of Halacha. In that way, they permitted driving a car to synagogues on Shabbat, while limiting travel for pleasure. They permitted wine improperly touched by non-Jews if needed for Kiddush and Havdala. Any reasonable person realizes that these "improvements" have no basis in Halacha and are just destructive rulings, whose point is to accept what is happening instead of overcoming difficulties. How comical and illogical it is to permit these things on a limited basis, which is done just to quiet their conscience and make it easier to destroy everything. This is not the way of the Oral Law, which they only pretend to follow.

Moreshet Shaul