'Researcher' and 'Covenant Member' – On Whether the Dilemma Exists

2000

Recently, a discussion has arisen concerning the possibility and the need to integrate research tools and modern methods into yeshiva Torah study. The question primarily concerns philological-historical methods used in Talmudic research ('the Wissenschaft des Judentums').[1]

In a previous article[2] I discussed the aims proposed for the use of the aforesaid research methods, and I distinguished between two types, essentially different from one another: 1. Clarifying the meaning and sense of words and concepts. 2. Understanding the background and reasons for various halakhic statements.

As I wrote there, with respect to the possibility of making use of the first type, it seems to me that there are no principled disagreements, and the question is more technical (what is worth investing time in, and the like). In the second context, the problem is more complex, and is bound up with questions of value and not only with methodological questions. There I distinguished between two modes of engaging with Torah, and through them between two truths: the first, which the 'classical' study hall seeks, is the eternal truth expressed in the terms of the present and embedded in the text itself. The second, which research seeks, is the historical truth: what obtained at the time the text was composed, and what context underlay the activity of the sages who composed it.

Here the question may arise how there can be two true interpretations of the same text. I do not mean the question of the meaning of the rule These and those are the words of the living God ("these and those are the words of the living God") (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 13b), which deals with the meaning and essence of dispute among sages, and has already been much discussed, but rather the question of how there can be two interpretations of the concrete words of the very same sage, and both be true. At first glance, this question may seem banal, perhaps even superfluous, but I wish to argue that the failure to understand this question lies at the root of the debate (of the second type in the division above) about research.

In the present article I wish to address this question, and to clarify its implications and its relevance to the controversy over integrating research methods into yeshiva study. In what follows I shall refer mainly to Kahana's aforesaid article, which raises what he calls "the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher"; there, in my opinion, this problem can be discerned in all its force. By means of this typological[3] route I shall try to illustrate my claims in a more concrete way.

A. Kahana's Position

Kahana's article opens with a description of the two disciplines, the yeshiva one and the research one, set over against one another. The differences lie in the aims of study, its methods, and the basic assumptions that underlie it. For Kahana, the methodological differences between the two disciplines are described as stemming from the differences in aims. In my aforementioned article I argued that the significant source of the principled differences is the difference in basic assumptions, and not only in aims, and I attempted to describe and substantiate some of those assumptions.

At the beginning of the second part of his article, which deals with the need for and possibility of integration between the methods, Kahana describes the figure of a covenant-member researcher who cannot ignore the truth in his findings. He writes there as follows:

Talmudic research has great persuasive power for anyone who has grown accustomed to grappling with its findings, methods, interpretations, and discoveries. The force possessed by many of its conclusions, general and particular alike, and the confirmation they receive from different directions, obligate every honest-hearted person, trained in critical thought, not to reject them out of hand and dismiss them with the claim, 'What have we to do with this trouble?'…

This duality, of the covenant-member researcher, who sees himself as continuing the tradition that is itself the object of his critical study, obligates those who hold it to reexamine a series of basic issues, such as the biblical and Talmudic principles of faith… the place of revealed and rational elements in shaping a religious way of life, faith in the sages and their evaluation, the relation between religion and culture, the question of Judaism and humanism, the developing encounter between God and man, and more.

At the beginning of the next chapter Kahana describes, in words that strike me as sharp and apt, the basic problematic embedded in these dilemmas:

The sting of the theological and authority-related problems with which the religious Talmud researcher struggles lies, in my opinion, in his awareness of the subjective and relative character of the commandments he observes. The internalization of the conclusions of research by members of the religious community will make it difficult for them to accept the authority of Jewish law—both that which is implied by the accepted law books of the past and that which is determined by the decisors of the present. And this because of an awareness, which will only grow stronger in the future, that both these and those are the words of living human beings, closely bound to their time, place, and worldview.

Later on Kahana explains that these processes do not stem only from Talmudic research, but from a cluster of phenomena, perhaps even a cultural atmosphere prevailing in the humanistic Western world; see his remarks there. This is the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher as Kahana presents it, and it is the subject of our inquiry in the present article.

I feel that this is indeed the sting of the problematic that many see in the adoption of research methods in yeshiva study as a whole. A person who perceives the entire Torah creation as context-dependent, and as arising from the context within which it was created, cannot feel bound to the authority of this relative Jewish law. It is important to sharpen here that the issue is not one of correct or incorrect interpretation of texts, which I tried to touch on in my aforementioned article, but of the danger to the religious character of the researcher that apparently arises from his use of these tools. It should be emphasized that this is so even if we accept the validity of research methods as interpretive tools for Torah texts (a subject discussed in my aforementioned article; see also below).

One might feel that the problem lies on the psychological plane, for it is difficult for someone who is aware of the contexts in which Jewish law was created to continue accepting its absolute authority, or the authority of the sages. It is important to emphasize that this is not so. This is a substantive problem, and that is precisely its force. If the halakhic creation is indeed context-dependent, then apparently there is no room at all to accept its rule over us wholesale, for two main reasons: a. Our historical-cultural context is different from that of the earlier sages. b. Even for someone who does live in the same context as the sage or decisor under discussion, a human creation, dependent on context, by its very nature cannot be perceived as possessing objective and binding divine significance. The sage lives with them "amid their impurity," and surely he is a human being like them and influenced by the same influences as they are. If so, what room is there to accept his authority as absolutely binding? This is the crux of the problem that apparently exists in the research approach.

Kahana's argument leads, as we have seen, to an inability to accept the yoke of Jewish law. Acceptance of the yoke is the lifeblood of halakhic Judaism, and such a concession leaves it without a living spirit.

It is important to note that the whole discussion here concerns a situation in which what changes is the world of values of the decisor. If what is involved is only a change in reality, then it is clear to everyone that the very same law, when applied to different realities, will yield different rulings. My intention here is to discuss only claims that pertain to the plane of values. If we see in the results of research that value-statements change in light of circumstances, then and only then does Kahana's dilemma of the covenant-member researcher apparently arise. A dilemma of this type entails a change in values as against what we have received from our teachers, and in practice this means reform. Decisors who respond to a changed reality do not thereby create a principled problem.[4]

The last part of Kahana's article reflects this problematic in all its sharpness. After presenting the dilemma embodied in the figure of the covenant-member researcher, he discusses its aspect that concerns the mode of halakhic decision-making and the manner in which it is presented.

Kahana's example of this problematic is the question of saving the life of a gentile on the Sabbath. An overwhelming majority of decisors prohibit doing so, and their sources already go back to the Talmud. Pithei Teshuvah cites Hatam Sofer as permitting it because of desecration of God's name and danger to Jews, and the matter is old. Prof. A. S. Rosenthal, whose words are cited by Kahana there, analyzes this ruling and interprets it as an attempt to reach a moral ruling by means of creative interpretive devices. From this Rosenthal concludes that everything depends on one's viewpoint (emphasis in the original). Later in Rosenthal's remarks he even concludes as follows:

Even if he [=the decisor] should find an ostensibly open and unequivocal contradiction in the sanctified holy books, he will not be able to rest until he knows how to discover, in the hidden recesses of the rich and varied tradition of Jewish law, the authoritative support that will make peace between his opinion and his Talmud. He will even know how to fashion it with sovereign halakhic-interpretive talent. This is the way of the wisdom of Jewish law, and this is its praise. Thus it has always been, and thus it always will be, the way of sages in their Talmudic study (emphasis in the original).

After this quotation, Kahana expresses doubt as to whether indeed "thus it always will be the way of sages in their Talmudic study." In my humble opinion, this never was, and apparently never will be, their way. As is clear to even the rawest novice in the study hall, Hatam Sofer too would not have permitted this if he could not have justified it in the ways he chose, or in other ways. It is entirely possible that Hatam Sofer had a moral motivation to find a lenient interpretation, but this still had to be a plausible interpretation. It may be that Rosenthal intended in his remarks to define sages as those who act this way, and not to give a description of the way of those who are usually called sages of Torah and Jewish law; otherwise I do not understand how he arrived at such a conclusion, especially on the basis of an example that says precisely the opposite.

Kahana himself is not satisfied even with what his teacher proposes. He criticizes the proposal on the ground that the authority of Jewish law thereby becomes ridiculous. The sage does what he wants, and afterwards sees to it that his words are dubiously attached to sources. The supporting citation does not improve the public's trust in his rulings; perhaps it even undermines them. In his words there: "The enlightened public will sense the lack of honesty in the process."

Kahana fully agrees that this is how one should rule, and his reservation concerns only the way the matter is presented. The presentation is unconvincing. Even speaking in a double register, one directed to the educated few and one to the masses, is in his eyes almost impossible today for the same reason. He therefore proposes saying things clearly, in an approach he calls: conscious innovation. One should say explicitly that one is ruling differently from the sources, and not try to base the ruling on dubious supports. In this way, Kahana argues, the standing of Torah among the enlightened public of our own time will also improve.

As stated, the shared assumption of both Rosenthal and Kahana regarding Hatam Sofer's ruling is that he ruled this way for reasons of humanism, and only presented a halakhic grounding (a supporting citation, in Kahana's terminology) in order to leave this ruling within the domain of accepted Jewish law.

These assumptions can be challenged by innumerable examples involving agunot (women trapped in marriages that cannot be dissolved), mamzerim (persons of stigmatized forbidden lineage), and the like, for which no fitting halakhic-'moral' solution has been found; and yet not a single decisor proposes changing Jewish law in these and similar areas. Kahana's remarks imply that one should indeed change the ruling in such areas, and even say so explicitly. In practice this is the standard Reform approach, and there is not much novelty in it. Kahana's main innovation is the claim that such a position is forced upon every covenant-member researcher—that is, that from the assumptions or results of research, which possess great persuasive force, it follows that this is what must be done.

First, I do not see why Kahana calls his approach "integration." In such a picture, what exactly is integrated with analytic yeshiva study, or with traditional decisional practice? Kahana proposes solving the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher by adopting the left horn of the dilemma—that is, to be a 'researcher' (which in his terms means Reform), and to give up being a 'covenant member' (I mean this only in the sense Kahana himself uses it, namely loyalty to Jewish law, of course).

For my modest part, despite the fact that I am committed to yeshiva learning and not to the use of research methods (see my principled opposition in my aforementioned article), I nonetheless find it necessary to argue that this inference is invalid. Between Kahana's premises and his conclusion there is a logical gap that points to the existence of an additional hidden premise. I claim that a person can be a 'researcher' (and not accept my position in my aforementioned article, which opposes research as a tool of halakhic interpretation), and nevertheless be a 'covenant member,' that is, a God-fearing and upright Jew; indeed such Jews certainly exist. I deny the inevitability of the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher.

The very structure of Kahana's article demonstrates by itself that the research approach does indeed differ from the yeshiva approach in values and not only in methods, and in practice it does contain something of the problematic of the aforesaid dilemma. Even so, this is only in practice, for it is by no means clear to me why it must be so. Why should the first part of the article, which discusses the difference in methods and the possibility of integrating them, lead in any way to the revolutionary conclusions of the second part?

The connection between the two parts of Kahana's article is apparently based on the claim that the researcher who takes seriously his conclusions regarding the contextual background of halakhic rulings and various interpretations permits himself to rule differently because the context within which he operates is different from that of those sages or decisors who established the law or the interpretation under discussion. This is the dilemma we described above, and this is apparently also the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher that Kahana describes.

Yeshiva-Orthodox Judaism sees the dangers in the research approach in exactly the same way as Kahana presents them. There is a tendency there to defend against these dangers by presenting a position according to which the sages of Jewish law are not subject to environmental-contextual influences, and rather their detached divine intellect determines positions in a universal way that is not context-dependent. In effect, a position is being set out here according to which halakhic rulings have no principled context at all. Context determines only the reality to which the decisor refers, but he himself approaches it with a priori tools.

We shall now bring examples of this kind of argument. The first is found in Rabbi Soloveitchik's well-known essay Halakhic Man, chiefly in chapter 6:[5]

When halakhic man approaches reality, he comes with his Torah, which was given to him at Sinai, in his hand. He addresses the world with fixed laws and solid rules. A complete system of laws and judgments shows him the path that leads to being. Halakhic man approaches the world armed with his staff and his pack, with his statutes, his laws, his principles, and his ordinances, in an a priori relation. His approach is one that begins with an ideal creation and ends with a real creation. To what may the matter be compared? To a mathematician who fashions an ideal world and uses it in order to determine the relation between it and the real world…

Rabbi Soloveitchik is of course not referring to the problem before us, but the halakhic man that emerges from his description is a kind of mathematician—or, more precisely, a natural scientist—whose categories for deciphering the world and knowing it are a priori. It seems to me that Rabbi Soloveitchik himself does not mean to argue that these a priori structures are uninfluenced by the world around the sage who employs them (and this is especially true with respect to him himself), but there is no small element in his description of the approach we mentioned above.

A more distinct example is found in Rabbi Rabinovitch's book Binu Shenot Dor Va-Dor,[6] and even earlier in Rabbi Aspis's book On Jewish Law and Economics,[7] which, it seems to me, faithfully represent the approach of yeshiva Judaism (especially the Haredi world; see at the beginning of both books the approbations of the various leading Torah authorities).

Rabbi Zevin, in his approbation to Aspis's book, writes:

Many and varied critics, from different angles, have risen up against the Talmud, and what they all share is an intention to remove the crown of holiness from Jewish law and clothe it in profane garments of natural, historical, economic, and similar development. As a result, Heaven forbid, permission—and perhaps even obligation—is granted in every generation, according to its tastes and the conditions of its life, to add, to 'develop,' to alter, and to cut away plantings, and so forth.

Credit is therefore due to this dear man… who girded himself with strength and with a scribe's pen did well to set down in a separate volume the refutation of all the empty critical claims of the 'wise' critics, and by clear and lucid logical proofs showed both the negative side of those who gore the wall of the Oral Torah with their horns, and the positive side—the rock-solid stability of Talmudic Jewish law, its holiness, and its eternal endurance from Sinai until now.

We see the dilemma exactly as Kahana presents it in the remarks cited above, and the direction of the solution recommended by Rabbis Zevin and Aspis. The direction is to clash with the researchers over their conclusions, while trying to prove that there are no contextual influences on Jewish law at all. It is eternal from Sinai until now.

Rabbi Aspis himself writes in his introduction there:

In order to explain to the reader briefly and concisely, and to define the true outlook regarding the essence of Jewish law and its foundation, I shall say: the matter is not as the critics, the erring and the misleading, think—that Jewish law gradually came into being from time to time, and in every generation in accordance with influences and conditions. Rather, the fixing of Jewish law, its tempering, its explanation, and its polishing were already accomplished by Hillel and Shammai and by their disciples after them. They were the first who engaged in analytic discussion of the law—not in order to make it and innovate it, for the law had long since already been practiced, widespread, and fixed in Israel.

Throughout his book, Aspis's aim is to prove that there were no contextual influences whatsoever on the sages of the generations. Rabbi Rabinovitch too, throughout his book, and especially in the last chapter (where he criticizes Rabbi Aspis for not having done enough in this direction, and adds further examples of his own), presents a similar position.

We thus learn that the accepted yeshiva defense against the dangerous conclusions that apparently arise from the research approach is the denial of the influence of context on halakhic decision-making throughout the generations.

The tendency in the yeshiva world, to which I pointed above, to argue that the sages were detached from the human surroundings around them, and possessed a divine intellect, and therefore their words need not be interpreted from the context within which they acted, does not inspire confidence. Kahana is apparently right in arguing that the results of research appear sufficiently persuasive to reject such a basic position. One can sometimes see contextual influences on the words of sages quite clearly. Therefore, in my humble opinion, this position quite plainly does not seem reasonable.

My claim is that there is a common denominator between the attackers and the defenders in this topic: everyone assumes that a research approach obligates one who espouses it to draw relativistic conclusions in his relation to Jewish law. Both sides are aware of and agree to Kahana's dilemma of the covenant-member researcher. Hence, on the one hand, Kahana proposes adopting such a relativistic approach, and on the other, Rabinovitch and Aspis propose rejecting the conclusions of research in response. In what follows I wish to argue against the very conflict, or against the accepted connection between research and reform. My claim is that one can be both a 'researcher' and a 'covenant member' loyal to Jewish law. I agree that on the psychological plane this is more difficult, but I intend to argue that the problem is not substantive, and not as emerges from Kahana's article (as explained above).

In the chapter that now follows, I shall try to explain why the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher is illusory, and thereby refute the necessity of the connection between the two parts of Kahana's article. I shall try to point to the existence of the logical gap, or the additional assumption hidden in Kahana's argument, and thereby to propose a different solution from the militant, apologetic, and implausible solutions presented above to the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher.

B. Correlations and Parallel Explanatory Levels

A result of Talmudic research of the second type defined above at the beginning of section A (a contextual explanation for interpretation or for a halakhic ruling) generally points to a correlation between a ruling, or halakhic interpretation, and certain factual circumstances. On the basis of this correlation, the researcher infers the existence of a causal connection between the ruling and the circumstances that prevailed at the time (the context). The evaluative conclusion recommended by Kahana is that the validity of that interpretation or ruling is derived from the circumstances that prevailed in that period, and therefore, when the circumstances change, one may change the Jewish law relevant to them as well. That is, in his view, every researcher possessed of intellectual honesty must, on the basis of the research method and its results, arrive at a Reform outlook.

There are three directions from which an argument of this kind can be attacked. In all three, as I wish to argue, one can challenge—in three different ways—the argumentative move of this type, which grounds halakhic reform on the assumptions of Talmudic research.

1. The first challenge concerns situations in which the correlation does not indicate a real connection between the context and the ruling or halakhic interpretation. In such a case we do not accept the research claim itself, and we determine that the cause of the ruling is not the particular factual situation that prevailed at the time. This is the direction taken by the apologists mentioned above, and one may see in their remarks many examples (some of them quite persuasive).

The basis of this problem lies in a principled difficulty involved in inferring from correlations, which in themselves do not suffice to indicate an essential connection. The philosopher David Hume already advanced this claim with respect to the concept of cause in general. If a log always burns when it is in fire, these facts do not in themselves suffice to say that being in fire is the causal factor in its burning. On the basis of what we have observed, at the factual level, all that can be determined here is, at most, the existence of a temporal sequence between being in fire and burning.

Hume concluded that the notion of efficient cause is nothing but a fiction. One can argue against this position from various directions, and this has indeed been done, but this is not the place. For our purposes, even one who does not agree with such an extreme claim can certainly understand the difficulty that led to it. Some correlations are indeed accidental and do not point to an essential connection or to causal efficacy. In a situation of this sort, it is obvious that the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher carries no weight at all, and he is not obliged to infer anything regarding the relativity of a halakhic ruling of this kind.

However, this challenge is a matter for an intraresearch debate, relevant to all branches of empirical science: is the researcher correct in his conclusions or not? This does not suffice to undermine the very problematic of the researcher and the covenant member, if we accept the assumption that research does yield correct conclusions even when they are based on correlations (unlike Hume's approach).

2. The second challenge arises in situations in which the correlations to which the researcher points do indeed exist, but the interpretation he proposes for that correlation is incorrect. I shall illustrate such a situation with an example from an article by Prof. Gilat, in his book Chapters in the Development of Jewish Law[8], where he argues that Rabbi Judah the Patriarch determined that the Sabbatical year in our time is of rabbinic status because of local constraints in his own day.

Gilat reaches this conclusion through an analysis of the development of the prohibitions of the Sabbatical year throughout the history of the Second Temple period and afterwards. In his view, the tannaitic sources, according to their plain sense, support the position that plowing and the other agricultural labors are prohibited in the Sabbatical year by Torah law. From this point on I shall quote passages from the article describing the halakhic-historical development, with the necessary omissions:

Throughout the entire Second Temple period, when the commandment of the Sabbatical year was observed with particular stringency, opinions multiplied that regarded plowing and the other labors in field and vineyard as a Torah prohibition and made them punishable by lashes…

Even after the Destruction, in the Yavneh period, the laws of the Sabbatical year were observed strictly, despite the great loss on which the observance of this commandment depends, for in the opinion of the sages of the generation the Sabbatical year still applied by Torah law even in this time…

However, following the harsh economic conditions after the Destruction, those 'suspected with respect to the Sabbatical year' and those 'transgressing in the Sabbatical year' multiplied. At first the sages tried to prevent deviations from the law by means of decrees and by imposing punishments on the offenders… the increase in offenders together with the worsening economic distress also served as a factor in another decree, namely the decree regarding aftergrowths…

But those decrees, whose purpose was to close the breaches in the observance of the Sabbatical year, did not help. When the economic situation worsened after the Bar Kokhba revolt, and the burden of taxes and levies steadily increased, this commandment weakened still more. The many difficulties with which the masses were confronted in Sabbatical years served as motives for a renewed examination by the sages of the foundation of the commandment of the Sabbatical year and of the details of its laws, for changing their attitude toward those who were not careful in observing it, and for responding to the needs of the hour and of the nation…

Out of a desire to ease the people's economic hardship in observing the Sabbatical year, Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, availing himself of a halakhic midrash founded upon Scripture, advanced a major principle: that the Sabbatical year in our time is of rabbinic status.

There is, of course, a difference between a change in attitude toward offenders, which certainly may be context-dependent, and assigning a different status to the prohibitions of the Sabbatical year. It is clear that the statement that the Sabbatical year in our time is of rabbinic status cannot be the result of constraints, but only the result of an interpretive understanding of this commandment based on its sources. Therefore one may agree with Gilat's entire analysis, but not with the last part, which determines that Rabbi ruled that the Sabbatical year in our time is of rabbinic status in order to ease the burden on the public.

The claim that the Sabbatical year in our time is of rabbinic status is an interpretive position of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, which may well have suited the time at which it was determined; but such suitability could not have been the reason for his position, unless we suspect him of grave intellectual dishonesty. Can one really say, persuasively, that in Rabbi's opinion the Torah implies that the Sabbatical year in our time is of Torah-level status, and yet he nevertheless rules that it is rabbinic in order to find solutions to the economic distress of his own time? If one truly wishes to act for the public good, one can make use of mechanisms such as enactments or decrees, or temporarily suspend a Torah commandment through passive omission, and not perpetuate an erroneous and misleading ruling. But it would be superfluous for me to cite the sources for the prohibitions against adding and subtracting in the face of such a scandalous halakhic ruling.

In Gilat we find an approach very close to Kahana's aforementioned proposals. According to such approaches, I could decide today that the laws of agunot are only rabbinic, and mamzerim as well, and so on, and thus solve all halakhic dilemmas. According to such approaches, one could simply abolish all the commandments of the Torah in order to ease the burden on the public; why, then, engage in sophistical distortions of the Torah's commandments?

At first glance, this seems to be a situation in which the first type of challenge is at work, that is, that the researcher's conclusions are simply incorrect and the correlation accidental. In other words, it would seem that there is here a disagreement about the research determination itself: the socio-economic situation was not the cause of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch's enactment. Yet it seems to me that the historical development and correlations Gilat adduces do indeed appear too significant for us to ignore. To the best of my understanding, one need not ignore them in order to explain the situation differently.

In the philosophy of science, a distinction is drawn between what is called the 'context of discovery' and the 'context of justification' in the stages of the creation of a scientific theory.[9] There are scientific theories whose birth lies in the researcher's nocturnal visions, or in prophetic visions revealed to him, or in various strange forms of esoterica (see Freudenthal's aforementioned book regarding the discovery of Kepler's laws in physics). The question of how the researcher arrived at the theory he proposes—the matter called the 'context of discovery'—is not the concern of science. Science is supposed to examine the result of those visions, namely the proposed theory, by various scientific and empirical means. That is the 'context of justification,' and it alone is the concern of science.

If Einstein had arrived at the theory of relativity because of a nocturnal dream, or because of a religious—or secular—belief that relativity must prevail in the world, that would not have sufficed to impair the truth of that theory, even for one who did not share that belief. We examine the proposed theory through its fit with experience, and through the various scientific criteria a scientific theory must satisfy, and not through the ways in which it was discovered.

In the case at hand, one can say that Rabbi Judah the Patriarch came to examine the topic of the status of the prohibitions of the Sabbatical year because of the economic circumstances that prevailed in his time, and because of his sensitivity to the distress of the public. But it is clear that the conclusion he reached, namely that the Sabbatical year in our time is of rabbinic status, must satisfy the criteria of acceptable halakhic interpretation, or be based on some tradition. In the previous terminology, one can say that we are interested in the 'context of justification' of his determination and not in its 'context of discovery.' The circumstances caused him to discover his ruling, but they certainly were not the cause of that ruling. Rabbi was obliged to ground his determination in the accepted halakhic and interpretive tools.

If indeed this is how we understand Rabbi's ruling, then one cannot argue that the circumstances caused the ruling, but only that they caused a renewed examination of the topic. The evaluative conclusion that follows is that even under other circumstances that trouble our own generation, we may reexamine the various topics—but we shall be obliged to justify our conclusions in an intellectually honest way, and not wrap conclusions we wish to reach in distorted interpretive arguments (as Rosenthal proposed). And it is surely self-evident that one may not rule simply according to whatever comes into one's head (as Kahana proposed).

Thus, even in a situation of the second type, like the one discussed here, the covenant-member researcher is not obliged to infer from the results of his research conclusions about the relativity of halakhic ruling, but only, at most, to say that the motivations arising from reality caused a renewed examination of the topic under discussion. Reasons for renewed examination of various halakhic topics are a legitimate and obvious feature of the accepted world of Jewish law.

3. The third type of challenge that can be raised against Kahana's argument arises in a situation where the scientific explanation does indeed appear to be correct. In such a case, we would agree that the particular circumstances really were what caused the ruling of that decisor. Here, apparently, a relativistic attitude toward the ruling seems called for, and doubt arises regarding its absolute validity for us. Here lies the heart of the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher. It seems to me that even in such a case we are not obliged to agree with Kahana's aforesaid conclusions regarding the necessity of adopting a relative attitude toward halakhic determinations. Let us clarify this by means of several examples.

Sir Isaac Newton, according to the well-known story, sat beneath a tree and suddenly an apple fell on his head. Newton asked himself why apples fall from the tree, and reached the conclusion that there is a law of nature according to which every two masses attract one another (the law of gravitation). One might seemingly have asked why Newton, who as is well known was a believing Christian, did not suffice with the explanation that the apple's fall on his head was the result of some sin he had committed, for which God was punishing him by striking him on the head. Seemingly, the only conclusion a believing person should have drawn from an apple falling on his head was the need for religious and moral self-examination.

It turns out that Newton could have believed that this was indeed a punishment he deserved for a sin he had committed in the past, and nevertheless sought a scientific explanation for the fall of bodies toward the earth. These are two planes of explanation that exist in parallel, and neither touches the other by a hair's breadth. The punishment imposed upon him on the theological plane is carried out physically by means of the action of gravitational force.[10]

As another example, one may cite a passage from Oscar Wilde's well-known story, The Happy Prince, which tells of the swallow that remained in the lands of cold in order to help the Happy Prince (who was a statue adorned with gold and precious stones) distribute some of his treasures to the needy throughout the city. After some time, when the cold had greatly intensified and snow began to fall, and the swallow was on the verge of dying from the cold, Oscar Wilde describes the following event:[11]

The strength left in him was just enough to fly up and settle on the Prince's shoulder one more time. "Good-bye, dear Prince!" he murmured. "Will you allow me to kiss your hand?"

"I am glad that at last you are setting out on your way to Egypt, my little swallow," said the Prince. "You have stayed here much too long. Please kiss me on the lips, for I love you!"

"It is not to Egypt that I am going," said the Swallow. "My face is turned toward the House of Death. Death is the brother of sleep, is it not?"

And he kissed the Prince on the lips, and afterwards fell down dead at his feet.

At that moment a strange cracking sound was heard, as though something had burst inside the statue. And indeed the Prince's leaden heart was split in two. The frost truly was terrible.

I leave it to the reader to decide whether the leaden heart broke because of the cold or because of grief over the death of the swallow. It seems to me that here too, on the literary plane, there are two parallel explanations, both of them true, and one does not necessarily contradict the other. The heart broke from grief, and the physical manner in which this occurred was the inability of the metal to withstand the severe cold that prevailed there.

A final example, directly connected to our subject, is the existence of two explanatory levels for human decisions: the psychological level and the philosophical level.

When a person becomes religiously observant, secular society tends to ask what happened in his home, what crisis he underwent that caused him to take such a step. The interpretation will be psychologistic. Religious society, by contrast, will claim that he has at last discovered the light of truth. The interpretation will be on a philosophical-evaluative basis. In the opposite case, when a person leaves the religious world, the positions reverse, and quite independently (?) each side switches its previous description from psychological to philosophical, and vice versa.

It seems that most value-decisions made by human beings have philosophical dimensions and psychological dimensions. Usually one cannot reduce the whole explanation of a decision to only one of these two levels. The psychologistic reduction, in both directions, is intended in such cases as a way for a society to cope with a step that threatens its legitimacy; that is, it is a way of fleeing genuine confrontation. When people claim that someone becomes religious only because of a crisis, or leaves religion only because he does not want to struggle with his impulses, these are often partial answers intended to evade a genuine confrontation with such steps.

In all these examples, we have seen a mechanistic explanation (psychological, physical), and alongside it a metaphysical, emotional, evaluative, or other explanation. My claim is that both these explanatory planes are correct, and they do not contradict one another. They both exist in parallel.[12]

To say that the claims of one who has left religion are not correct because the motives for his claims are a crisis in his home and the like is an evasion of confrontation. I do not mean to say that these are not the motives, but rather that there is also another level, and it is precisely that one that requires the intellectual response of the surrounding society.

In the same way, to say that the law of gravitation is not true because in truth God is the one hurling the apple (the Church's claim against the scholars), or that there is no divine providence because the law of gravitation is responsible for the apple's fall (the scholars' claim against the Church)—these are errors of exactly the same type.

The conclusions of the Talmud researcher too may be correct on the mechanistic plane. When he determines that a custom, enactment, interpretation, or ruling is the result of various environmental or psychological influences that operated upon the sage who issued the ruling, it is entirely plausible that he is correct. There is no point in adopting the yeshiva apologetics mentioned above. On the other hand, my claim is that this explanation concerns the mechanistic-developmental level of explanation, whereas Jewish law is interested in the essential explanation. Torah study deals with the meaning of a law that has been ruled upon, despite the fact that it is clear that such a ruling also has contextual causes (psychological, social, economic, and others). The student of Torah is interested in the essential meanings possessed by the ruling as such, and not in the background to its determination.[13]

Examples of the kind of approach discussed here would be, for instance, when a researcher points to a different attitude among Jews of Eastern communities toward the graves of holy men, and explains it as deriving from Muslim or broader Eastern influences, whereas the attitude of Ashkenazic Jews is different because of other influences. In such a case we would say that he may indeed be correct, except that the different approaches are not to be evaluated on the mechanistic plane but on the essential plane. The world of Torah will examine the different positions with halakhic-evaluative tools, and not in terms of mechanistic development.

A concrete example of this type of approach appears in Akdamot 7-8, where Dov Maimon's articles appeared on the influence of mystical-ascetic Islam (Sufism) on Jewish pietism in Egypt (under the leadership of Rabbi Abraham son of Maimonides). This is a description that belongs chiefly to the developmental level of the occurrence. In parallel, there is also an essential level (and those articles address it as well), which deals with the question of the meaning of this path in the service of God. For students of Torah, unlike researchers, the way of the Egyptian pietists in the service of God should be examined only on the second level. One who wishes to examine whether it is fitting for him to serve God in these ways should not reject these forms of worship merely because their source is Muslim. He relates to them only on the essential level. There is no denial here of the existence of Muslim influence, which certainly does exist, but rather a (justified) disregard of it.[14]

From these three challenges, which seem to me to cover the entire range of research situations, we learn that usually, when a research conclusion appears regarding the influence of circumstances on a halakhic ruling, this does not touch the halakhic considerations themselves. Consequently, this does not suffice to claim that halakhic ruling is relativistic, or to undermine the authority of Jewish law or of the decisor.

This is the logical gap, whose existence I claimed above, between the research assumptions of the covenant-member researcher and the conclusion of halakhic relativism. The research explanation may be correct, including the assumptions that underlie it, but it deals only with the historical development of Jewish law and not with its essential meaning. Taking the developmental explanation as exclusive, and failing to recognize the existence of an additional essential explanatory level parallel to it—this is the hidden assumption that underlies the dilemma of the covenant-member researcher in Kahana's school. My conclusion, therefore, is that the problem of the covenant-member researcher lies on the psychological level (and that too should not be underestimated), and not on the substantive level.

The conclusion is that one can certainly adopt the conclusions of research carried out properly (from a research standpoint), and there is not necessarily anything in this that damages halakhic authority or leads to halakhic relativism. The common denominator between Kahana and the yeshiva apologists mentioned above is that neither recognizes the possibility of parallel explanatory levels of the types discussed above. The apologetics described above choose to ignore research, or at most to adopt the first type of rejection (arguing with researchers over their research conclusions themselves, argument 1 above), whereas in contrast to both of them I have proposed adopting arguments 2 and 3 above.[15]

C. Talmudic Research and the Commandment of Torah Study

In my aforementioned article I dealt mainly with the hermeneutic relation of the yeshiva learner to canonical halakhic texts, and I argued that in his eyes the contexts within which they were created are not relevant on the halakhic-Torah plane, because the yeshiva learner seeks the eternal truth embedded in what was written in the text and not the author's intention. The canonical text passes out of the author's control and reflects what divine providence has implanted within it. In this way I explained the principal methodological differences between the disciplines, such as the disregard for philological-historical analyses that seek the original version, because the yeshiva learner is not seeking the original version but the correct version. This is also the reason for the disregard of context, and for the fact that learners use terms and forms of thought drawn from the present, even though it is clear to them as well that the tannaim (Mishnaic sages), the amoraim (Talmudic sages), or the medieval authorities did not think in these ways. My conclusion there was that the context that emerges from Talmudic research may indeed be correct, but it is not relevant to 'religious,' yeshiva Torah study.

In the present article I have discussed the halakhic rulings themselves (and not necessarily questions of the hermeneutics of texts). My conclusion is that the contextual analysis of Jewish law, and of the context within which it was created, may indeed hit upon the truth in the sense of being a correct description on the level of the mechanistic development of the interpretive-halakhic position under discussion. But here too it emerges that this is not Torah study, for Torah study deals with the essential level of halakhic positions and not with the question of their development. This is another angle on the same conclusion from my aforementioned article. The yeshiva learner seeks the essential explanation, and this is the level that providence has implanted within the text, sometimes without the awareness of its author (see my aforementioned article), whereas the Talmud researcher seeks the mechanistic explanations for the formation of the different laws.

It follows that the shared conclusion emerging from both discussions is that, in the eyes of the yeshiva learner, engagement in research is not necessarily incorrect, but it is usually devoid of Torah value.

Such a determination has many significant implications for the question of integrating the tools of modern research into study. As we have seen, integration of the first type (clarifying terms) is indeed in the nature of preparatory instruments for the commandment of Torah study. The second type of integration, the 'dangerous' one, as we have seen, is not necessarily dangerous on the philosophical level, but perhaps on the psychological level (if some researcher is not aware of the logical gap between the truth of a scientific explanation and the conclusion that it is exclusive). Our conclusion is that this activity is indeed not dangerous in any substantive way, but it is not connected to the commandment of Torah study. In practice, it is a branch of research in general history, and not of Torah study. History deals with clarifying historical developments, and the motives and causes (the mechanistic ones) of their formation, whereas Torah study deals with clarifying the meanings embedded in the result of those developments, that is, Jewish law, and Torah in general, as it has been handed down to us from our ancestors.

Study of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), which bears a 'research' character in the sense discussed here because it deals with clarifying historical questions, draws its significance as Torah study from the fact that the description of those developments was given by the Holy One, blessed be He, through the hand of Moses, or by prophets and possessors of the holy spirit, the authors of the Hebrew Bible. There is a very great novelty here: historical development, when it is described by such people, acquires the significance of Torah study. This is the way to find essential meaning in an apparently 'mechanistic' development. To infer from this that every historical engagement has the value of the commandment of Torah study does not seem plausible to me.

In the same way, we would not say that the study of archaeology, or of any external history book dealing with the same phenomena and the same periods as the Bible, constitutes the commandment of Torah study. At most, that would be in the nature of preparatory instruments for the commandment of Torah study, if at all.

One may say that yeshiva study of Jewish law is, in these terms, 'historiosophy,' that is, a discussion of the meaning of historical events in terms of God's providence over His world and the like. Only study and analysis on this plane possess the value of Torah study.

The upshot of all the foregoing is that Torah study is not defined as engagement with a given collection of texts, but as a certain mode of looking at them (which of course also has many shades, and this is not the place to elaborate). Perhaps one might say that looking at other texts in that same way would also count as Torah. In the same way, one may say that Torah itself is a kind of pair of glasses through which one looks at the texts (and perhaps also at reality), and not some informative collection or another.[16] The glasses called 'Torah' reflect, to the one who looks through them—that is, to the one engaged in Torah study—the meaningful aspect of the things at which he looks. Extracting the mechanistic-developmental aspect from those sacred texts is nothing more than historical research.

It is important to note here that all my remarks concern the value of Talmudic research as the commandment of Torah study per se. One can certainly see (as I myself certainly do) a very great cultural and national value in these historical inquiries as such, even when they are not serving as preparatory instruments for a commandment. The study of the history of the Jewish people, and of Jewish law and Torah literature in general, is a very important value, but not every important value can be adorned with the crown of Torah. One must beware of blurring the boundaries between the domains.

I shall sharpen my position by citing practical consequences. When Jewish law establishes relations of priority between commandments, which have implications for the commandment of Torah study, this will not apply to research activity, however important and valuable it may be. For example, when a commandment comes before a person that is not time-sensitive, or that can be performed by others (see Maimonides, Laws of Torah Study 3:4), in which case a person may not interrupt his Torah study, I wish to argue that if he is engaged in Talmudic research he must turn away from it and attend to that commandment. Likewise, a person does not fulfill the commandment of Torah study, either for himself or for his son, through engagement in Talmudic research. Similarly, if he wishes to conduct research while his son wishes to study, his son takes precedence over him (see there 1:4), and there are additional examples of this sort.[17] To be sure, I am too insignificant to issue legal rulings in such matters, and I mean only to propose this in order to stir the hearts of those who reflect upon them. As for practical Jewish law, greater authorities than I must come and decide.

[1] See, for example, Menahem Kahana, in In the Bonds of Tradition and Change, Kivunim, Rehovot, 1990 (hereinafter: Kahana). Daniel Sperber, in BDD no. 6, Bar-Ilan University, 1998. Haim Navon, in Akdamot 8, Beit Morasha, Jerusalem, 2000. And my article mentioned in the next note.

[2] "Between Research and Analysis: Hermeneutics of Canonical Texts," Akdamot 9, Beit Morasha, Jerusalem, 2000.

[3] Typology generally creates a characteristic type that does not exist in reality, by attempting to 'synthesize' from what is common to all holders of the approach under discussion an entity that is ostensibly concrete. Kahana's article, beyond being one of the first to address the problem under discussion in an orderly and direct fashion, and beyond being cited by those who came after him, is in my opinion highly typical of the mode of thought I am trying to examine, and therefore I chose it as a typological representative of the research position of the 'covenant-member researcher' (in his terminology). My intention here is not to respond to his concrete article; I am using this article as representative of an approach, and it is toward that approach that my remarks are directed.

[4] I am aware that sometimes the boundaries between the two situations become blurred. For example, a ruling concerning Torah study for women, determined in a period when the status, abilities, and education of women were utterly different from those of women today, would seemingly fall into the category of a change in reality and not of a change in values. Seemingly, in such a case we would say that that law simply does not apply to a reality such as today's. It is clear, however, that the matter is by no means simple, and there is a change in values here as well, but I cannot elaborate on this here. My aim here was only to clarify, for the sake of sharpening the discussion, that we are not discussing situations (sometimes hypothetical) in which it is perfectly obvious that there is no change in values, where there is no principled problem in saying that the law changes in accordance with the new reality, but only situations that involve such changes.

[5] Halakhic Man, World Zionist Organization, third edition, Jerusalem, 1989.

[6] Binu Shenot Dor Va-Dor, Rabbi Natan David Rabinovitch, Ahavat Torah Yeshiva Press, Jerusalem, 1986.

[7] On Jewish Law and Economics, Rabbi Moshe Ze'ev Aspis, Masora, Bnei Brak, 1976.

[8] Bar-Ilan University, second printing, 1994, p. 262, in his article "The Force of Plowing and Other Labors in the Sabbatical Year," and see there also p. 224.

[9] See, for example, Gad Freudenthal, Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, the Open University course book, experimental edition, Center for Educational Technology, Tel Aviv, 1977. Especially at the end of unit 1 (pp. 39-40).

[10] This is a prototype for the resolution of many of the problems commonly called Torah-and-science dilemmas. In the same way, the creation of the world by the Holy One, blessed be He, may have been carried out through processes of a Big Bang and evolution. The dilemma of the covenant-member researcher is in fact no more than another typical Torah-and-science dilemma, and this is not the place to elaborate.

[11] The Happy Prince, Yavneh, Tel Aviv, 1997. In Raphael Elgad's translation. Page 15.

[12] The question—interesting in its own right—of how this claim accords with a conception of cause as a sufficient condition for the coming-to-be of its effect does not belong here. I am content with pointing to a mode of description that most people, at least those who are not determinists, would accept. It may be that someone will reduce this situation to the previous one, namely that the psychological motives caused the person to examine the topic of becoming religious or leaving religion, but the decision itself was wholly philosophical. It seems to me that this is an oversimplification, and in practice both dimensions participate in the explanation of the decision itself.

[13] In this context, see also my aforementioned article and combine it with the present discussion.

[14] From here also follows the attitude toward the conclusion that appears at the end of the second of the aforementioned articles regarding the positive value of foreign influences on the world of Torah. In my humble opinion, this is a classic researcher's approach. A (rational) yeshiva student will say that such influences do exist, but one cannot judge the matter solely on the basis of developmental comparison. Every influence will be examined on the essential plane and not by the question of its origin. Usually, when there is a tendency to adopt ways from outside merely because one wants to be influenced, this is a negative phenomenon. The fact is that such influences exist, and we adopt them because they are part of our world. Each of them will be examined on its own merits in the crucible of Torah and Jewish law. Therefore, contrary to Maimon's opinion in those aforementioned articles, in my humble opinion there is no significance to adducing precedents for foreign influences on ways of serving God, precisely because it is so trivial to recognize that such influences surely exist. The adoption of those influences occurred because they seemed to the pietists of Egypt to be a fitting path in the service of God, and not because they wanted to resemble the Muslim Sufis; if so, we too must examine their approach only on that plane.

[15]I would further note that even in the context of other Torah-and-science dilemmas (see note 10 above), the apologetic stance of the Church (especially in the Middle Ages, and to some extent afterwards as well) is that science is simply incorrect. There are also Jews who employ the same apologetic direction.

My claim in this context is very similar. Here too, if science is not correct, that is an intrascientific problem and is not the concern of the religious person who is defending himself. The solution to these dilemmas is likewise found in looking at two parallel explanatory levels. There is a scientific-mechanistic explanation, which is correct in its own right, and in parallel to it there is also the theological-religious explanation. A good example of this is Newton's case discussed above.

[16] Many sources can be brought for this point from Rabbi Zadok Ha-Kohen of Lublin and others, but this is not the place.

[17] It is clear that in many cases engagement in research also contains dimensions of Torah study. It is difficult to concern oneself only with the mechanistic-developmental aspect and to ignore the essential content entirely (perhaps this falls under the category of one who lacks intent, or one who is merely occupied, with respect to the commandment of Torah study). Therefore these may be only theoretical practical distinctions, but nevertheless, in my humble opinion, it is important to sharpen the position presented here by bringing them. In my view they possess important theoretical value.