Q&A: Several Questions
Several Questions
Question
Hello Rabbi,
A. Can the Zoharic statement, "He looked into the Torah and created the world," be explained in some way? Does it contain a specific claim? What idea lies behind it?
B. Is someone who got on a bus and didn’t pay considered a thief? (Seemingly there is no "this one loses out" here.)
C. In Eruvin 48, the Talmud discusses the source for the four cubits of resting on the Sabbath and asks, "Where are these four cubits written?" Why דווקא here does it ask that, and not throughout the Talmud? After all, throughout the Talmud this is treated as a law given to Moses at Sinai, as in Shabbat 97 and Eruvin 4, etc. And if the intention really is that this is a law given to Moses at Sinai and they merely attached it to a verse, then why doesn’t the Talmud say so at the end?
And another question on this topic: Maimonides in Laws of Sabbath 15 writes that there are three levels. A. One who carries within his own four cubits is completely permitted. B. One who carries diagonally (one cubit and two-fifths and three-fifths) is exempt, but it is still forbidden, etc. I wanted to understand the basis for the distinction between the diagonal and within the four cubits. I’m not familiar with such a distinction in the Talmud.
D. Tosafot on Bava Kamma 17b write a distinction between a case where the vessel fell through the air, in which case it is considered already broken, and a case where one shot an arrow at it, where even though it is destined to break, it is not considered broken, because the condition of the vessel itself does not show that it is broken. But there is a passage in Arakhin 6a: "One who is being taken out to be executed—if he injured others, he is liable. If others injured him, they are exempt." Why are they exempt? After all, he is not a tereifah in the sense of having a bodily defect; he is only destined to be killed. So why is he not like a vessel at which an arrow was shot?
Thank you very much in advance
Answer
A. A number of interpretations can be suggested. For example, that the world was created so that we could fulfill the Torah’s instructions within it. Or perhaps that the Torah is the basis for knowing how to behave in the world. The interpretation that everything in the world is somehow hinted at in the Torah is a conjecture for which I see no basis whatsoever. Moreover, even if that really was the Zohar’s intention, who says the author of the Zohar knew this, such that we would have to accept his assertion?
B. Getting on the bus is an implicit acceptance of a service contract between you and the bus company. As someone who accepted that contract, you are obligated to pay for a service you received. The payment is not required because of "this one loses out," but because you entered into a binding contract. Would it occur to you not to pay a worker who did a job for you? (Not for a product, but for a service.)
C. There are plenty of things whose source is clarified in only one place. I don’t see the problem with that. Once they clarified the source, elsewhere in the Talmud the law is simply taken for granted. By the way, this is about boundaries of movement on the Sabbath—the four cubits a person may walk when he is outside his boundary—so why are you talking about a law given to Moses at Sinai? There is a dispute whether this is Torah-level or rabbinic. In Gaon Yaakov here, he writes that the Talmud follows the view of the tannaic sages who hold that boundaries are Torah-level (and indeed Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda appear here in the Talmud, and they are the ones who hold that boundaries are Torah-level). In Ritva on 51a, he writes that this also works according to the view that boundaries are rabbinic, and they merely attached it to this verse.
As for Maimonides, I suggest you look in the standard commentaries or in the index volume of the Frankel edition. I’m sure you’ll find the source there. I don’t have time to look for it right now.
D. I answered a similar question here not long ago. See here toward the end: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%92-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%99%D7%99%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A9-%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%A2%D7%AA-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%92%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%91%D7%94
Regarding the Zohar’s statement: it may be that it was addressing the difficulty of the fit between the Torah’s narratives and what actually happened in reality—in history.
After all, on the one hand, it cannot be that the events happened first and only afterward were written down. For then it would turn out that the Torah is not from God, but derived from history.
Following the previous argument, we agreed that the Torah preceded the world. But it is still difficult: how can it be that things happened in history exactly as they appear in the Torah? Where does that synchronization come from? And the answer is: "He looked into the Torah and created the world."
That is, the Torah says that God said, "Let there be light," so God said, "Let there be light." The Torah says that Laban said such-and-such to Jacob, so God created the world in such a way that Laban would say such-and-such to Jacob.