In this episode, Rabbi Reinman explains why the Oral Torah does not have a text and why there was such instability during the years in the wilderness.
Chapter Twenty-two: Forty Years of Instability
There are two parts to the Torah, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. The Written Torah on its own is clearly not an adequate code of law. The Torah commands us to wear tefillin but does not tell us what tefillin are. The Torah states that the desecration of Shabbos is a capital offense, but it does not tell us what constitutes desecration. Clearly, there must be a second body of law that provides the details, an orally transmitted body of law of which there was no written record until over a thousand years later.
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