The letter was, they believe, the word of God. If God hadn't meant the loophole to be there then he would have used different words. The loophole is divine.
If you assume omniscience and omnipotence as a starting point, then you can justify anything that exists using the same reason, otherwise it wouldn't exist, right? I don't mean to get into a theological or ontological argument, though. It just seems like you can use the foundation to justify anything you want.
God doesn't explicitly forbid cannibalism anywhere in the Bible. We just have to find a way to define humans as ruminants with cloven hooves and it'll all be kosher.
No Rabbi approves of eating humans; it is more a technical debate about whether it is explicitly prohibited by the rules, versus "not strictly prohibited but ewwww... so don't do it"
Where did you get the idea that the Hebrew God is supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent? I am told that biblical Hebrew does not even have a word for omnipotent.
Orthodox Jews accept Rambam (Maimonides)'s 13 principles of the faith. Rambam taught that all his 13 principles can be derived from the Torah.
The 10th principle explicitly says that God is omniscient. The 1st principle "Belief in the existence of the Creator, who is perfect in every manner of existence and is the Primary Cause of all that exists" doesn't explicitly mention omnipotence but rather obviously entails it. (If God is not omnipotent, then God is not "perfect in every manner of existence" since God would not be perfect in power.)
Whether or not the ancient Hebrews believed in divine omniscience and omnipotence is something that can be historically debated. But contemporary Orthodox Jews do.
(I'm not Jewish but I hope I've stated the Orthodox Jewish viewpoint accurately.)
Thanks for pointing this out. I encountered the claim recently that the concept of divine omnipotence was invented by Catholic theologians. maybe in the early middle ages, and does not quite exist in Judaism. But you’re pretty convincing.
