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Following my other question "no-anti-altering-failsafe-measures". Please correct me if I'm wrong, one who alters one letter of a Torah scroll invalidates it in whole (שו"ע יו"ד רעד).

But I don't recall a special Torah prohibition to do that (see Rambam Hil. Sefer Torah). This seems suspicious that G-d "didn't mind" the Torah be eventually altered (maybe it follows the approach of "דברה התורה כלשון בני אדם" that it does not matter as long as the meaning stays the same). I would expect it to be in the first Mitzvahs to [try to] prevent any future arguments.

If the Torah does not contain any anti-altering built-in measures and there's no prohibition of altering it, what, besides one's conscious, would stop people from altering Torah scrolls?

So why didn't G-d include a special prohibition of altering the Torah scroll whether intentionally or not?

Al Berko
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  • I would imagine that falsifying a Sefer Torah would fall under the prohibition of destroying Holy Objects, i.e. - לא תעשון כן
    • – Danny Schoemann Aug 04 '19 at 12:42
  • @DannySchoemann You know the joke - "the lack of prohibition to lie puts the whole Bible in question..." I didn't say falsify, but alter! Let's say you write ברשית - you got lashes. How come G-d makes no steps to prevent distorting his words? – Al Berko Aug 04 '19 at 12:53
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    בל תוסיף ובל תגרע? – DonielF Aug 04 '19 at 14:46
  • You have a number of questions. As far as why the Torah itself didn't prohibit altering, this may have been intentional. Besides the numerous questions of kri vs. Ketiv, apparently, there were doubts regarding some words and even the arrangement (type - closed vs. open) parshiot. I have a M.Y. question re the parsha of the Pesach sacrifice as written in Pinchas. Tosfot had a different Torah version than we do. – DanF Aug 04 '19 at 17:17
  • @DonielF Acc to Rambam it only applies to additional Mitzvos, not letters. – Al Berko Aug 04 '19 at 18:07
  • @DanF I'm glad you understood the severity of the question. Examples of distortions are so numerous. Nobody was writing Torah scrolls so fearfully because in the worst case if anybody finds and verifies, only the Sefer is invalidated. – Al Berko Aug 04 '19 at 18:09
  • I might say it's implicit in the mitzvah (on every Jew) to write a Torah scroll, but I'm more inclined to connect this to the broader question of why the Torah didn't (explicitly) prohibit/define heresy... which is what it would be to write a false sefer Torah and inplicitly claim it was the word of Moshe (heresy) or G-d (possibly a false prophet)... basically, there are some fundamentals which we actually must accept before we accept Torah as opposed to after. – Derdeer Apr 12 '21 at 07:11