As no movement in Judaism completely follows all the "revealed" mitzvot (commandments), what right does any voice have in specifying which ones to follow?

From an Orthodox perspective, I am not sure what you mean by your assumption that no movement completely follows all the "revealed" mitzvot.  The Orthodox belief is that the Written Torah was given with an Oral Torah, which included both specific interpretations of certain texts and an halachic process for how to react to new situations that arise. Certainly Orthodox Jews believe they are trying to follow all the revealed mitzvot, as the Oral Law told us to, and as applied by the rabbis of each generation following the appropriate halachic process. There is much debate about specific issues, but there is also broad agreement, within Orthodoxy, as to what is obligatory-- especially when it comes to those laws that are deoraita, from the Torah, or revealed, as you say. 

 

I can see where the proliferation of versions of Orthodoxy, or the occasions where Orthodox practice doesn't match what an uneducated reading of Scripture would suggest should be the law, but neither of those are actually germane. If you pick any mitzvah in the Torah, and follow it through it's lifespan in the Oral Law, the Talmudic literature, and the commentary, codes, and responsa, you will see that Orthodox Jews certainly strive to fulfill all the revealed mitzvot-- and all the later rabbinic ones as well-- to the best of our abilities, as understood by our tradition.

 

 

            Throughout Jewish history, Jewish practice has always been the result of an ongoing conversation between God, Torah, and the Jewish people.  The commandments were not dropped from the sky or given, fully formed, to one person or one community at a mountain in the wilderness.  Instead, the Torah is better seen as a compendium of the collaboration of people (who self-identified as Israelites) and God, a work many centuries in the making. It is a redacted record of the Jewish people attempting to understand what God asks of us. 

God worked continuously with, through, and in those people in an attempt to show them their basic human responsibilities; to contextualize, interpret, and apply those responsibilities in the lives of the individual members of their group as well as of the group as a whole; and to provide a technology for transmitting those values to future generations.

At its core, the Torah instructs us to live, to live well, and to be responsible for the lives and well-being of other humans (and, ultimately, all of creation).  Additionally, the Torah urges us to deepen our relationship with God so that we may sustain and comprehend more fully those instructions.  Finally, the Torah teaches that human flourishing is impossible without a commitment to ensuring personal happiness and growth; pursuing knowledge, meaning, and integrity; building relationships and communities based on love, joy, justice, and peace; and helping all life flourish and thrive.  This is what the author of Proverbs meant when he refers to the Torah as “a tree of life to those who take hold of her.”  

The Torah teaches and contextualizes these basic responsibilities through story, song, poetry, and proverb.  More importantly, the Torah uses commandments – laws – to embody and implement those responsibilities and to help maintain the continuity of those commitments over time.  The Torah’s laws are not the only norms that could have emerged from the values that underlie them.  And over time, some laws will no longer serve the values that undergird them and will simply die out or will need to be reinterpreted, reapplied, or possibly overturned.

That is why people are important.  Jewish individuals are – and have always been – free to formulate their own understanding of those responsibilities.  They can also, of course, reject some or all of them.  Similarly, different groups of Jews will reasonably disagree about how to interpret those basic responsibilities, how to contextualize their authority, and how to apply them.  And whole groups of Jews past, present, and future may choose (and have sometimes chosen) to reject those responsibilities as a compelling way to live.  Individuals and groups also have a right to persuade others to adopt their approach.  Ultimately, though, individuals are free to decide for themselves how to live.

And yet while no one can force any individual to live according to its understanding of God and Torah, there are many good reasons to adhere to a particular community’s norms.  In order for human responsibility to be productively actualized, “we must either live together, or we will die alone.”  Unless groups of people reach consensus and cooperate, every person will do only “what is right in his own eyes,” making conflict inevitable.  As a result, everyone’s ability to live in accordance with God’s will be impeded.  Working together with others, adhering to an agreed-upon set of behavioral norms, helps us be better able to make our lives and the world a godlier place.  And it helps us ensure that future generations will live the same commitments, so that our important work continues long after we leave this world.

The Torah offers us 613 mitzvot that deal with life: vertical laws dealing with humans vis a vis God and horizontal connecting humans with each other; essentially societal laws. The Talmud and all Responsa literature made Judaism “portable”, not necessarily land based in Eretz Yisrael. Those commentaries have as a raison d’être to contemporize laws to make them operable in different times and different lands and societies. Scientific advancement and discovery allows societies to evolve, and Judaism has always appreciated and even elevated scholarship, both religious and secular. Maimonides himself was physician, Aristotelian scholar as well as Jewish respondent par excellence. We have sought as our mission the ongoing inspiration and revelation of the Sinaitic experience; never allowing Judaism to be static.

 

Judaism is not unidimensional. The Shulchan Arukh is a prime example of differing legal opinions including both Caro and Issurless as acceptable halachah. No one would accept the physical stoning of a belligerent child or the enslavement of another human being, even though the Torah demands both.

 

Thus, Judaism allows for a polydoxy; differing interpretations of traditional mitzvot; so long as the original ideal essence is maintained and the spirit of the law elevated.