The Year of Living Biblically

Here's the book review part: This book is great. Funny, sad, clever, all you could ask for in a book about religion.

Here's the discussion part: The author, like me, does not understand why the Torah speaks in code. For example, he finds a halacha (Devarim 25:11-12) in which a woman who protects her husband from a beating (by grabbing the assailant by his balls) is punished by having her hand chopped off. He finds out that this is not meant to be taken literally and is just a rule against embarrassing people and the wife's hand is not actually chopped off, she just has to pay a fine. So the author is perplexed. Why does the Torah speak in code and couldn't have just said Rule #387: Don't embarrass people ? He searches and searches and the best he gets is an answer from Aish, from Noah Weinberg. Ready? Here's the answer: Life is a jigsaw puzzle. The joy and the challenge of life -and the Bible- is figuring things out. if a jigsaw puzzle came numbered, you'd return it to the store. 

Agh. Rabbi Weinberg.  
How many things are wrong with this argument? Let us count.

1. Is the Torah a jigsaw puzzle or an instruction manual? Let's get the analogies straight.  

If you are postulating that a Being created the world with a goal in mind and provided the world with an instruction manual as to how to achieve that goal, it is counterintuitive to accept that the Being is going to write the manual in code, which you are not going to understand without additional supplements. An instruction manual is written clearly and simply, so that an average person can understand and follow the directions. It is not written in code. In contrast, a jigsaw puzzle is for play, a hobby. It is not something to base your life on. People do not live their lives by jigsaw puzzles.

2. Writing that the woman gets her hand chopped off directly contradicts the assertion that she just has to pay a fine. If I bought a jigsaw puzzle where the numbers were opposite from what they were supposed to be to complete the puzzle, I would, um, return the puzzle and file a complaint.

3. There are so many things spelled out in great detail in the Chumash. Things that were relevant for only a tiny portion of Jewish history, such as rules about korbanos and tumah/tahara. Things that were never relevant to begin with, such as Eisav's genealogy or that each leader of each tribe brought the same exact offering for the mishkan. Why waste so much space on this and somehow miss out on writing important rules that everyone could potentially use?

4. Why does it seem again that everywhere I look,  the Frum God is trying to trick me? I look to scientists and they tell me the world is billions of year old and the dinosaurs died out ages ago, but this is a trick because the world is not even 6,000 years old and there never were any dinosaurs, Hashem just planted the bones in the ground to confuse the scientists. I look to chumash devarim where every other pasuk lists another death penalty crime, but that's also a trick, the sanhedrin very rarely condemned anyone to death because the laws regarding witnesses and evidence were so strict. Moreover, some of these crimes were just theoretical and there was never any case of a rebellious son for example. Now again. The chumash says her hand will be cut off, but really it just means she has to pay a fine.

Why should I assume God means anything that He says? He couldn't manage to dictate his word accurately, why shouldn't I believe all of halacha is just a game of broken telephone?

Thanks for playing Rabbi Weinberg. Please come again.

P.S. What is with this weird halacha? Ladies, if your husband/son is in a physical fight with someone, say an intruder, you wouldn't grab the assailant by whatever necessary? Is it better if I just shoot him?