the parts of the oral torah i've received are a bit different and much more interesting/aware of...something although you have to do a bit of digging and cajoling (i'm an art student. it worked for the israelis around 9/11, anyway) to get it condescendingly spoken at you in an indecipherable accent

it provides: a generally decent to good although narrow and finicky moral code to live by but by and large it i doubt that it is "perfect" nor is it likely the "indisputable word of god". authorship is questionable and messy and it doesn't always match the historical record provided by other scribal cultures and civilizations to a T. the rabbinical (and for their own part, and for aims that often but don't always overlap, the christian) commentaries surrounding it built up during succeeding eras deal with this in detail and for the most part manage to reconcile things you'd never think would be reconcilable considering the intellectual and conceptual difficulty involved in doing so.

it doesn't provide: all sorts of answers to questions and issues posed in other epochs that can really only be satisfactorily answered by thinkers and tools of thought and perspective from those same epochs.

imo, the most important jewish thinker after christ was not paul or maimonides (pbuh) but a dry, salty, and world-weary dutch jew named baruch spinoza. he comes at the worldview posed by the OT with a sort of busy fury that only can come from genuine love from the heart and produces a set of the most jewish and scripture affirming texts that the world has ever seen in the process.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5743379&forum_id=2).#49050675)

(27.) The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered.

(28.) Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

that's spinoza's story, and the story of many other "great jews" as well.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5743379&forum_id=2).#49050685)