Ohr HaChaim: Moshe got everything - yet Rabbi Akiva said chidushim he didn't know!?

from Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Ohr HaChaim  (Vayikra 13:37): I would like to reconcile the apparent contradiction between two opposing views found in the Medrashim. In Vayikra Rabbah (22:1) it states that everything was given to Moshe at Sinai – even that which a student would innovate in the future. However Bamibar Rabbah (19:7) says that Rabbi Akiva gave interpretations that Moshe didn’t know. There are many other sources regarding these two views. It would appear that the reconciliation of these views is that in truth that all the Torah was told to Moshe. And therefore no scholar can possibly know more than Moshe did. And that is true across the generations from the day the Torah was given until the Messianic days – there were no new Halachos that weren’t known to Moshe. The explanation is that G d in fact gave Moshe the Written and Oral Torah. G d in His wisdom also encoded in the Written Torah the entire Oral Torah that he had taught Moshe. However He did not tell Moshe how the Oral Torah was encoded in the Written Torah. Ascertaining this encoding is in fact the work for all those engaged in Torah study. They are to determine where the halacha which was given to Moshe and the secrets and interpretations are alluded to in the Written Torah. Thus we find that the Tanaim came and composed works such as Torah Cohanim and the Sifre. Thus all their analyses of the verses are to determine where the known halacha is encoded in the Written Torah. This work which continues until the present is the holy work of Torah scholars to investigate the verses of the Bible and reconcile them with the Oral Torah. This effort is call Eretz HaChaim. This knowledge of exactly how the Oral Law was encoded in the Written Law was not given by G d to Moshe. It is in reference to this encoding that our Sages state that Rabbi Akiva made interpretations that Moshe didn’t know. This doesn’t mean that Moshe didn’t know the basis of the interpretations since after all everything was transmitted by him even that which a student would say in the future. However he didn’t know how the Oral Law was hinted at in the Written Law. This is the key to understanding the present issue where Hillel expounded the halacha from the verse that which was said to Moshe orally and G d did not reveal this halacha to Moshe from the verse. It was left for Hillel to find how this halacha was encoded in the verse.