Professor Jay Harris informs readers that Krochmal was a rational but observant Orthodox Jew. For example: Krochmal was convinced that all, or almost all, conclusions of modern scholarship about the Bible should not be considered challenging to rabbinic tradition. The rabbis knew what modern scholars found in and about the Bible. But they felt that they must hold their understandings from the masses for fear they might be misled by these insights.
For instance, although the biblical book Isaiah appears to be about a single Isaiah, Krochmal recognized that the last twenty-seven chapters of the book of Isaiah was by a second prophet. He offers proof that the ancient rabbis knew the lateness of the second half of Isaiah. He states that “if we moderns can discern the lateness of the book we must then suspect that the rabbis were also aware of this fact.” The rabbis were certainly not unsophisticated Bible scholars. Krochmal also felt that the ancient sages knew that “a number of Psalms are products of the second century BCE, not compositions by King David.
He applied the same reasoning to the biblical book Qohelet, saying it is obvious that Solomon did not compose this book. “In implausibly attributing the book to Hezekiah, the rabbis were furtively indicating that they knew full well that Qohelet was not of Solomonic origin.” He wrote that the ancient Greek Jews called Qohelet “Ecclesiastes,” which means a member of the “assembly,” to indicate that the author was actually a member of the Great Assembly, and not Solomon.
Krochmal recognized the significant dispute between the rational Maimonides and the mystic Nachmanides. Maimonides argued that laws derived from hermeneutic principles but not explicit in the Torah are rabbinic. Nachmanides claimed that the talmudic rabbis considered them Torahitic. Krochmal agreed with Maimonides that the “historical” claims of the Talmud were never meant to be taken seriously as history. Maimonides and Nachmanides similarly differed regarding midrashim. Maimonides taught that any one accepting them as true facts is a fool. Nachmanides accepted them as true despite many of them being outrageous. Krochmal wrote: “It never dawned on the rabbis that such stories, taught for homiletical purposes, were to be accepted as true.”
He considered the laws contained in the Torah as outlines of the basic contours of the legal system, but “the halakhah must necessarily have undergone development, rooted in the needs and desires of a living community.” In essence, the Torah was fluid, to develop over time. Even many Torah words were changed.
Harris states that Krochmal “developed a historical form of hermeneutics in which traditional claims are always taken seriously, but not literally.” Yet, despite his open mind to many Jewish traditions, “None of this was to lead to an abandonment of traditional practice, but to a renewed intellectual – indeed, modern – commitment to it.”
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