Nomologia o discursos legales (Nomology, or Legal Discourses)

In Which Are Set Forth Seven Fundamentals Whereby the Necessity of the Oral Law Is Proved

If, in order to understand the human laws, we utilize the explanations and glosses made by the experts, and according to their declaration we can understand the essence of the law and the desire of the legislator, it will not be in the least irrational, for the understanding of the sacred and divine law, to avail ourselves of the exposition of the sages, finding particularly in their doctrine the truth and purity that one may desire, and that no others, apart from them, were capable of achieving, because they received the truth from the prophets who, in turn, received it one from the other until Moses, who heard the exposition of the sacred law in its true purity, as being the one instructed by the sovereign legislator Himself. Thus, it is impossible, without the teaching of the sages, to perfectly understand the truth of the sacred scripture, unless it were by divine revelation. And to prove this we have put in this treatise seven fundamentals, upon which, like posts and columns, we shall, with divine grace, go about erecting the present work, in imitation of what the sage teaches: Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her seven pillars (Proverbs 9:1).

The first fundamental will be to show how, in the sacred scripture, there are some apparently grave contradictions between some texts and others, and which cannot be reconciled without the teaching of the sages.

Second fundamental: that one cannot understand in which manner we should observe the divine precepts without the said teaching.

Third fundamental: that without the explanation and declaration of the sages we cannot understand some obscure precepts and processes of ambiguous nature in the sacred law.

Fourth fundamental: that we cannot grasp when, and under what circumstances, we must let ourselves be killed for the faith and sanctification of the divine name, and for the safekeeping of His sacred law, and when it will be a sin not to transgress it and manage to live, all of which the sages teach us.

Fifth fundamental: when a single precept is duplicated and repeated in the sacred law, two or more times, we cannot know the reason for this without the said teaching.

Sixth fundamental: that in the computation of the calendar, and the order to celebrate Passover, Israel maintains the truth that our forefathers always observed, which is not clearly evident to us from the sacred text—but, nonetheless, the sages teach it to us with great precision—and which, without their teaching, we would not be able to grasp.

Seventh and last fundamental: that we cannot understand the sacred scripture without the Thirteen Rules [of biblical interpretation], or conditions with which the sages state it. But despite all the difficulties of the seven aforesaid fundamentals, they may be resolved perfectly by means of the understanding of the true teachings of the sages of Israel.