Unit 2(G): What Did Moses Write? A Maximalist Traditional View, Part 2 "Torah from Sinai in Medieval Thought"

Moses received Torah from Sinai and passed it on to Joshua:

Both the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, since the [Written] Torah was given [to Moses] with its explanation. For if this were not the case, it would be impossible to understand it. For note [as an example] that it is written, "Do not rob" (Lev 19:13), and all of the laws concerning property damages come under this negative commandment [as well]. And these things are an essential part of the Torah received by Moses at Sinai, even though they were not written down....

And it is written, "And I will give you the Tablets of Stone, and the Teaching, and the Commandment" (Exod 24:12). "Teaching" refers to the Written Torah; "And the Commandment" refers to the Oral Torah. You must conclude that all the commandments that were given to Moses at Sinai were given with their explanation. And the written text is what is called Written Torah, and the explanation is what is called Oral Torah. And Moses learned all of it from the mouth of the Almighty.

Maimonides’ Eighth Principle of Jewish Belief (Kapach/Qafih Edition)

And the eighth principle is “Torah is from Heaven,” that we should believe the entire Torah in our possession today is the Torah that was given to Moses, and it is all from the mouth of the Almighty, meaning that all of it reached him from the Lord by means of a medium we metaphorically call “speech.” And no one knows the nature of this medium except Moses, may he rest in peace, to whom it reached. And that he was functioning like a scribe who wrote it all down—its histories, its stories, and its commandments. Therefore, he is called

"an inscriber."

There is no difference between [the verses] "And the sons of Ham were Cush, Mitzraim, Put, and Canaan" (Gen 10:6), "And his wife's name was Meheitavel, the daughter of Matred" (Gen 36:39), and [the verses] "I am the Lord your God [who brought you out of the land of Egypt]" (Deut 5:6), or "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one" (Deut 6:4). For it is all from the Almighty; it is all the Lord's Torah—complete, pure, holy, true.

And [the wicked Israelite king] Menasheh was only considered [by our Sages] to be more heretical and destructive than any other heretic because he thought that the Torah has an “inside” [essential] part, and an “outside” [unimportant] part, and that these histories and stories are useless, and that Moses said them himself. And this is what it means to believe that “Torah is not from Heaven.” They [the Sages] taught that one who says the entire Torah is from the mouth of the Holy One except for one verse which the Holy One did not say, but rather Moses said it with his own mouth, such a person has "disgraced the word of the Lord" (Num 15:3). May the Lord be exalted above what heretics say.

Rather, every word in the Torah has wisdom and wondrous insights for those to whom the Lord grants understanding. And its wisdom is unfathomable, "broader than the earth and wider than the sea" (Job 11:9). One can only pray like David, the anointed one of the God of Jacob, who prayed, "Open my eyes so that I may behold wonders from your Torah" (Ps 119:18).

And so too the received interpretation of the Torah is also from the Almighty. And the way we today observe the form of the sukkah, the lulav, the shofar, the tzitzit, the tefillin, and so forth is the same form as what the Lord said to Moses, and he [Moses] told us. And he [Moses] was simply a reliable transmitter of a message in what he brought.

And the verse which indicates this eighth principle is, "Through this you shall know that the Lord sent me [to do all these things], but [it was] not from my own heart" [that I, Moses, did them] (Num 16:28).