:)
R' Weinberg had a tremendous library. I am surprised perhaps that he showed someone his copy, not that he had one.
I'm not surprised he had it. R. Yosef Reinman cites Cassuto in "One People, Two Worlds" which was a pretty good clue that he is on the "Enlightened Yeshivish" bookshelf.
Do you think R Weinberg also has "The Goddess Anath' ?
Had.
I meant in the Yeshivah Shel Maaloh.
Of course.
I wonder if Rabbi Reinman had Cassutto on his bookshelf or got a hold of it in preparation for his exchange with Rabbi Hirsch.
That's an interesting question.
If there is a standard "yeshivis" literature refuting higher Bible criticsm, it would have to include Cassuto.
If there would be it should include Cassuto; of course there isn't.
"the consistency and brilliance demonstrated in the Torah understandably would lead one to believe,if not for the impossibility, that the Torah is min hashamayim."
Well, he is deeply wrong, so Rav Weinberg was close.
I am the Leizer that posted that comment. I also used to go by Anonymouse.
I never would have thought that a two year old comment would have seen the light of day again. A good thought for Ellul, I suppose.
It's a small book. Where does he say that? English or Hebrew? Doesn't sound familiar to me...
I assume it is a paraphrase with maybe a little editorial projection, since I can't believe that Cassuto ever wrote something to the effect that Torah min ha-shamayim was impossible. He believed that the Torah was written during the Davidic age, but he was a very religious man, "God-fearing and scrupulous regarding the mitzvot" in the words of Nehama Leibowitz so if anything he'd have said it about Torah mi-sinai in the technical sense, not Torah min ha-shamayim (eg, divine).
Cassuto says elsewhere (I believe it is in Torat Hateudot and I admit I am paraphrasing) that the holiness of the Torah is independent of its literary genesis.
That's right! It was indeed in the Torat Hateudot. And it's true, I don't remember his exact words: maybe he did say "miSinai" and not "min hashamayim." Rabbi Weinberg only used it to demonstrate that when faced with evidence of the truth of the Torah, a non-believer will rationalize it away.
I'm not sure I understand. Cassuto apparently had a gut feeling it was al pi Hashem be-yad Moshe (if I can put the words into his mouth) because he thought the Torah was just so excellent; but he felt the evidence showed otherwise.
In other words, it seems like he was not "faced with evidence of the truth of the Torah," but an internal feeling. For him the evidence he faced contradicted his gut instinct.
Correction: the idea of Torah from Heaven, or from Moses, or belief in anything, does not appear in Cassuto's 8 lectures on the Documentary Hypothesis, aka Torat Hate'udot. (Not surprising, considering that Cassuto was talking to mostly secular pre-state Bible teachers.)
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