I try not to pretend that one person wrote the TorahRefers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, also called the Five Books of Moses, Pentateuch or the Hebrew equivalent, Humash. This is also called the Written Torah. The term may also refer to teachings that expound on Jewish tradition. Read more.

The traditional view holds that the Torah was given in full to Moses at Sinai. But honestly, that has never felt quite right to me.

One of the gifts of the modern world is access to academic scholarship. Scholars have proposed thoughtful hypotheses about how human hands shaped and edited the Torah over time. (A great overview can be found here.)

I’ve always found those ideas compelling. Which raises the deeper question:

If the Torah came together through multiple voices, shaped across generations, what does that mean spiritually?

For me, it opens more possibilities, not fewer.

Torah as Encounter, Not Dictation

Throughout the year, we experience Torah in a myriad of ways. On Shavuot, in particular, we specifically talk about the giving of Torah and a spiritual return to Sinai. 

This moment is not a download. It is a relationship and an encounter.

To me, the Torah never really presents itself as a perfect transcript. Mostly, what we’re given are a series of encounters with God, a collection of powerful God-filled moments. Yes, there are tablets. But they’re not the whole story.

Awe. Smoke. Thunder. Silence. Presence. Covenant.

Now, to be clear, the rabbis take seriously the belief that Torah is from Heaven. In Sanhedrin 99b, we’re taught that one who says otherwise “despises the word of God.” And in Bereshit Rabbah, Torah is called the blueprint of the universe.

The Holy Blessed One looked into the Torah and created the world. The Torah says: “Bereshit God created” (Genesis 1:1), and reshit is nothing other than the Torah, as it says: “The Lord made me at the beginning of [reshit] God’s way” (Proverbs 8:22).
(Bereshit Rabbah 1:1)

That tension isn’t something to scoff at, but to recognize as reflecting a deeper Truth. Torah is part-received and part-cosmic principle. Something revealed, emergent, and lived.

The very beginning of Pirkei Avot, we learn that Moses received Torah from Sinai and then transmitted it down the chain (that ultimately includes us, dear reader). Moses received it and passed it on.

From the very outset, the rabbis recognize that the key truth is that our encounter with Torah comes through people. This isn’t a bug, it is a feature.

God is in the Process

If the Torah includes “contradictions,” like two Creation stories, conflicting flood accounts, laws that don’t quite align—to me, that’s not a failure of editing. It’s a sign of something else.

Whoever shaped the text didn’t smooth everything out. They left the tensions in place, not as an accident, but as a purposeful invitation. Encounters with God are not the same for everyone. Why should our documentation of those encounters be perfectly smooth?

The nature of Torah itself invites us to live with complexity. Our task is to practice spiritual maturity by holding on to what doesn’t always resolve.

I won’t deny that sometimes I wish I believed the Torah had dropped from the sky, perfect and complete. Not because I think that’s how truth works, but because who doesn’t long for something unshakable?

And there are moments, when I’m learning, praying, or teaching, when it does feel like God is right there in the words. And God is there in those moments! Emerging from that instance of encounter, in the present, in that very place.

Truth Isn’t the Enemy of Reverence

Ultimately, I am moved by the nature of the transmission, the sense of covenant our people have had with God to share Torah. Its mediation through people doesn’t reduce its holiness, but it retains it.

Historical scholarship doesn’t take the Torah away. It provides us with new tools. It helps us understand how this special thing, this cosmic anchor and blueprint, came into the world, not to undo it, but to meet it more truthfully, to love it more deeply.

The academic view doesn’t contradict the tradition. It confirms something the tradition already knew: God was encountered, and what came next was carried forward through human beings.

Truth matters. Encountering God with integrity matters.

If I ignore the truth revealed here, pretending it isn’t there, this isn’t reverence to me. It’s avoidance. 

I still believe that Torah was given at Sinai, that every word and every letter holds meaning, and that this story sustained generations before me.

Covenant Over Simplicity

This isn’t about rejecting our ancestors. It’s about staying in relationship with Torah, with truth, with the people who passed it down.

We were never meant to worship simplicity.
We were meant to live in covenant.

Holiness emerges from our relationships, to each other, to God, to all Torah. The process of uncovering truths and holding them with presence and patience is a gift.

The Torah isn’t a problem to solve. It’s an invitation into relationship.

So, I don’t pretend one person wrote the Torah. I don’t know that I ever have. Seeking deeper truths, holding complexity, and living and breathing through the relationships that Torah provides for us is deeply meaningful.

God may not have dictated the Torah literally. But God is still there, on the mountain, in the silence, and whispering from within our hearts.