Bottom Line: You cannot have the Written Law without the accompanying Oral Law. A quick review of some basic laws will bear this out. The common practice of Jewish males thirteen years and above putting on teffilin (phylacteries) is based on a verse in the Written Law, “And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as ‘totafot’ between your eyes” (Deuteronomy 6:8). But nowhere does the Written Law, i.e. The Five Books of Moses, explain what ‘totafot’ are. However, the Oral Law explains what this word means and how to create teffilin. Similarly, other laws like fasting on Yom Kippur, laws of “shechita – ritual slaughter,” what is an etrog, what constitutes circumcision (the Written Torah never says where on the body to perform this), what is a shofar, the definition of an “eye for an eye” – the list goes on and on – can only be understood and fulfilled with the explications found in the Oral Law. Thus, the Written Law and Oral Law are part and parcel of each other. Of course throughout Jewish history there have been certain sects that disputed parts of the Oral Law, but even these philosophical arguments are generally misunderstood. For example, the 24th gatekeeper of the Written Law and Oral Law from the times of Moses was known as Antignos from Socho. He is recorded in Pirkei Avot – Ethics of Our Fathers – as having taught the principle that we should serve the Almighty as servants, and not as employees waiting for a reward (all the while knowing that there will be recompense in the world to come). Two of his students (Tzadok and Baisus) were so disappointed with this principle that they left their teacher, broke with Torah tradition, and founded their own schools of thought. Tzadok is “credited” with the foundation of the break-away group known as the Sadducees (a derivation of his name). They were a formidable force, both in size and influence, in the times of the Second Holy Temple. But while it is commonly believed that they rejected the Oral Law and strictly held to the Written Law, this is a fallacy. The Sadducees, as hard as it is to believe, were an attack on Rabbinic Judasim not from the left, but rather from the right! They absolutely believed in the authenticity of the Oral Law, because, as we explained above, it would be impossible to fulfill many mitzvot like fasting on Yom Kippur, circumcision, or teffilin without it. Rather, their argument on Rabbinic Judaism stemmed from laws in which the Oral Law seemed to contradict the Written Law. For example, based on the Oral Law the rabbis ruled that when the Torah says “an eye for an eye” it refers to monetary compensation. To the Sadducees this was an unacceptable contradiction, and they rejected it and all other instances that the Oral Law, in their opinion, contradicted the simple reading of the text of the Written Law. Thus, “an eye for an eye” meant exactly that. Like most radical factions, they eventually disappeared completely though, as we shall soon see, their effect on Judaism remains to this very day. One of the classic examples of the Sadducees break from Rabbinic Judaism appears in this week’s Torah reading. “Do not kindle any fire on Shabbat, no matter where you may live” (Exodus 35:3). According to the Rabbis this meant to ignite a fire on Shabbat. However, the Sadducees interpreted this according to the literal translation of the verse: “You shall not have a fire burning on Shabbat.” Thus, according to the Oral Law, it is permitted to have a fire burning on Friday night as long as it was ignited prior to sundown. But the Sadducees prohibited having any fire whatsoever – thus no lit candle could be in their homes on Friday night, nor could they have any hot food when they got home from synagogue because all fires had to be extinguished prior to sundown. It also meant that during the winter their homes on Friday nights would be fairly miserable; they’d have to sit in a dark, cold house eating cold food. Yet for many hundreds of years the Sadducees had an outsized influence, and their subtle change in some customs caused many issues, including their interpretations of the service of the High Priest on Yom Kippur. Because of this, every year the High Priest was made to swear that he wasn’t a Sadducee and that he wouldn’t deviate from the accepted Jewish Tradition as elucidated in the Oral Law. Today, we too have a custom to show that we aren’t Sadducees. According to many early sources, this is the origin of the custom of eating hot foods on Shabbat day that have been cooking all night. Ashkenazic Jews have the custom to eat cholent (some say the word comes from the Old French “chalant – hot cooked”) and Sefardic Jews have the custom to eat “hamin – hot food.” The codifiers of Jewish law (Bal Hamaor, Rema, and others) all say it is important to follow the tradition of eating hot foods on the Shabbat day to show that we are not Sadducees. In other words, we permit fires (and the foods that are placed on them) before sundown Friday night to continue burning throughout Shabbat. So, enjoy your cholent (or hamin) knowing that this simple food has its roots in a two and a half thousand-year-old dispute – one that we get to address in a most delicious way! | 
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