Ein Ayah – Lesson 26
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Berakhot 10a: Hezekiah, Isaiah, and “A person should never refrain from asking for mercy”
- Rabbi Hanan’s statement: the master of dreams and the verse from Ecclesiastes
- “Immediately Hezekiah turned his face to the wall”: the sugya’s framework and the amoraic parentheses
- Later authorities on Rabbi Hanan’s novelty and a plain-sense reading: the Vilna Gaon, Maharatz Chayot, and the difference between a sword and a dream
- Ein Ayah by Rabbi Kook: a bad dream, emotional destabilization, and prayer as strengthening confidence
- Rabbi Kook’s interpretation of “fear God” and its relation to prayer
- A parallel to ideas of growth out of crisis and to theses about prayer and thanksgiving
- Sanhedrin 30a: “the master of the dream” and “dream statements neither add nor detract”
- Maimonides and the tension between monetary law and prohibitions: the inadmissibility of dreams even when verified
- A conceptual proposal: dreams in Jewish law, the public plane versus the personal plane
- Conclusion and the pause in the lectures
Summary
General Overview
The text studies the passage in Berakhot 10a about Hezekiah and Isaiah and the rule, “Even if a sharp sword is resting on a person’s neck, he should not refrain from asking for mercy,” emphasizing that “mercy” here means prayer even in the face of a decree. It presents Rabbi Hanan’s statement, “Even if the master of dreams tells a person, ‘Tomorrow he will die,’ he should not refrain from asking for mercy,” as different from the saying about the sharp sword, because the verse “For in the abundance of dreams and vanities and many words, but fear God” sounds like it reduces the validity of the dream rather than describing a certain threat. It reads Rabbi Kook’s Ein Ayah, which explains that a bad dream destabilizes the soul and may actually prepare the evil to come, and that specifically prayer strengthens confidence and courage in God and removes the evil of the decree by virtue of its spiritual quality, without worrying that dealing with the dream will deepen the fear. It then brings the passage of “the master of the dream” in Sanhedrin 30a and Maimonides in the laws of acquisition and gifts and in the laws of second tithe, and proposes an understanding that “dream statements neither add nor detract” establishes the halakhic inadmissibility of dreams on the public plane even when there are objective indications that the dream was true, while possibly distinguishing between the personal-subjective sphere and the public-halakhic sphere.
Berakhot 10a: Hezekiah, Isaiah, and “A person should never refrain from asking for mercy”
The Talmud in Berakhot 10a describes the end of the meeting between Isaiah and Hezekiah, and Hezekiah says to Isaiah, “Son of Amotz, finish your prophecy and leave,” and hands down a tradition: “I have received from my father’s father’s house” that “even if a sharp sword is resting on a person’s neck, he should not refrain from asking for mercy.” Rabbi Yohanan and Rabbi Elazar both say that same rule and bring proof from the verse, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.” The simple meaning of “mercy” is prayer, and therefore even when a decree has been issued, there is still room to turn in prayer.
Rabbi Hanan’s statement: the master of dreams and the verse from Ecclesiastes
Rabbi Hanan says, “Even if the master of dreams tells a person, ‘Tomorrow he will die,’ he should not refrain from asking for mercy,” and brings a verse: “For in the abundance of dreams and vanities and many words, but fear God.” “The master of dreams” is explained as one who conveys a message to a person through the dream, and it is explicitly noted that this expression also appears in Sanhedrin. The simple reading proposed is that the verse teaches that most dreams are vanity and empty things, and therefore one should not be alarmed by the message in the dream. The phrase “he should not refrain from asking for mercy” may just be a habitual expression and not really be about rescue from a certain decree, but rather about not falling into despair in the face of a dream-message that is not necessarily real. According to this, the saying about the “sharp sword” deals with a tangible danger that is beyond doubt, and yet prayer may still save, whereas the saying about the dream deals with the limited reliability of dreams and the possibility that there is no danger here at all, or at least no certainty that there is anything to be “saved” from.
“Immediately Hezekiah turned his face to the wall”: the sugya’s framework and the amoraic parentheses
The Talmud returns to the story and says, “Immediately Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord,” and asks, “What is ‘wall’?” Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says: “the walls of his heart.” A reading is proposed according to which the amoraic statements are editorial parentheses supporting Hezekiah’s words, and “immediately” does not refer to Rabbi Hanan’s statement, which was said generations later, but to the continuation of Hezekiah’s actions after he sent Isaiah away. According to this, Hezekiah’s prayer stems from the message “do not refrain from asking for mercy” in the context of danger and decree, while Rabbi Hanan’s statement was brought in by association and is not necessarily the key to understanding “immediately Hezekiah turned.”
Later authorities on Rabbi Hanan’s novelty and a plain-sense reading: the Vilna Gaon, Maharatz Chayot, and the difference between a sword and a dream
It is said that later authorities, among them the Vilna Gaon and Maharatz Chayot, discuss what Rabbi Hanan adds to the previous saying. The position proposed is that this dilemma is not necessary, because the two sayings do not overlap: “a sharp sword” describes a definite danger and requires one not to despair, in the hope that divine mercy may change matters, whereas the verse in Ecclesiastes sounds like a declaration that the dream experience is unreliable, so there is not necessarily a decree here that needs to be changed. It is also suggested that the dream may not express any real danger at all, but at most arouses a psychological need, and the verse is aimed at the idea that “matters are in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He,” not in the hands of dreams.
Ein Ayah by Rabbi Kook: a bad dream, emotional destabilization, and prayer as strengthening confidence
Rabbi Kook in Ein Ayah says, “A bad dream destroys the powers of the soul through great panic,” and out of fear and mental depression “the bad thing may, Heaven forbid, become prepared to come,” and there is a need “to get ahead of this and remove the preparation.” He describes a concern that a bad dream can function as a destabilizing factor, and that as a result of that destabilization a situation may arise in which the evil actually comes—not because the dream predicted it, but because the soul has been prepared for it. He presents a hava amina, an initial thought, that praying for the cancellation of the dream will strengthen the dream’s impression on the soul and deepen the fear, and he rejects this by saying that prayer brings “confidence and courage in the blessed God,” strengthens the soul, and also removes “the evil of the decree by virtue of its nature and quality through the will of the blessed God,” and that “the fear of God adds days, and sorrow is not added with it.” He adds another hava amina, that perhaps one should not pray about a dream because it is “a weak thing” and “empty matters,” and he rejects this too by saying that “everything is prepared to do the will of the blessed God in order to perfect the human being,” and that even “airy thoughts and vanities that have no substance” can instill fear that leads to fear of Heaven, and therefore “it is fitting to make use of this according to human nature and to pray.”
Rabbi Kook’s interpretation of “fear God” and its relation to prayer
The argument explains the end of the verse, “but fear God,” as guidance about how to relate to the human reaction to a dream and channel it into prayer, not as proof that the dream is a certain decree. Rabbi Kook depicts a situation in which even if the dream-content “has no substance,” the very fear that entered the heart becomes an opportunity for prayer and spiritual completion, and divine providence works to increase fear of God in the world. In the course of this, a practical question arises: what is the content of prayer when the person understands that there is no real danger? It is suggested that the direction may be to use the dream as a trigger for Psalms, for spiritual cleaving, or for spiritual growth not dependent on the dream’s prophetic content.
A parallel to ideas of growth out of crisis and to theses about prayer and thanksgiving
A connection is drawn to an idea that appears in Rabbi Kook elsewhere, such as in Orot HaTeshuvah, of progressing toward repair without “digging around” in the negative source. Here too, it is said that prayer over a dream is not necessarily preoccupation with the dream, but rather leveraging the destabilization for forward growth. The speaker compares this to a personal thesis about prayers and thanksgivings in situations of rescue: even if one does not view the rescue as a direct intervention, the very destabilization is an opportunity to give thanks for the creation of the world and the laws of nature and for spiritual closeness. According to that model, prayer is not necessarily a request for rescue from the specific event, but a spiritual response to distress and to the recognition of lack, while distinguishing between a possible thesis and an interpretation of what the Sages meant.
Sanhedrin 30a: “the master of the dream” and “dream statements neither add nor detract”
A baraita in Sanhedrin 30a is brought regarding someone who was distressed over money his father had left him, and then “the master of the dream” came and told him the amount and the place, and also said, “They are of second tithe,” and the incident ended with the ruling: “Dream statements neither add nor detract.” Rashi explains “the master of the dream” as “the prince who shows dreams at night.” A sharp difficulty is raised: the dream supplies hidden objective details such as the location and amount, which were indeed found in practice, so it is hard to say that everything is vanity, and yet Jewish law does not accept the dream’s conclusion regarding the status of “second tithe.”
Maimonides and the tension between monetary law and prohibitions: the inadmissibility of dreams even when verified
Maimonides is quoted in the laws of acquisition and gifts, where he brings a version that includes both “they belong to so-and-so” and “they are of second tithe,” and rules that “dream statements neither add nor detract” even after the sum and location were found exactly as described. Maimonides is also cited in the laws of second tithe: “If they told him in a dream, ‘Your father’s second tithe is not second tithe,’ dream statements neither add nor detract.” It is said that there are medieval authorities (Rishonim) and halakhic decisors who omit this or interpret it differently, but Maimonides’ language is presented as sharp: there is not even a doubt created by the dream, and the dream does not generate halakhic status even in matters of prohibition, where one might have expected to apply the reasoning of a Torah-level doubt requiring stringency.
A conceptual proposal: dreams in Jewish law, the public plane versus the personal plane
A distinction is proposed according to which “dream statements neither add nor detract” means that Jewish law is not based on dreams as admissible evidence on the public-judicial plane, even if the dream may in fact be true, similar to disqualifying evidence not because it is false but because it is inadmissible. Alongside this, a passage in Nedarim 8a is mentioned about “he was excommunicated in a dream” and needs annulment, and it is brought in the name of Rashba (via Ran) that even a vow in a dream requires annulment, as an example of sources that treat a dream seriously in the sphere that concerns the person himself. From this, a conclusion is proposed that a dream may carry significance in the personal-subjective domain, whereas in domains with social consequences or public halakhic status, a dream has no power to determine law.
Conclusion and the pause in the lectures
At the end it is said that this is “the last lecture of the season” unless other announcements are made, and time is opened for questions and comments, and after mutual thanks it closes with, “Goodbye, all the best.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I’m starting. First of all, I’m sharing the Talmudic text. The Talmud in Berakhot 10a. We talked there about the meeting between Isaiah and Hezekiah, where a decree had been issued against him regarding children and divine inspiration and all those matters, and the conclusion at the end is that even if a sharp sword is resting—right, that’s what Hezekiah says to him at the end. He said to him: “Son of Amotz, finish your prophecy and leave. Thus I have received from my father’s father’s house: even if a sharp sword is resting on a person’s neck, he should not refrain from asking for mercy.” It was also stated—basically the story ends here. It was also stated is already, of course, an addition that the Talmud inserts. Rabbi Yohanan and Rabbi Elazar both said, both of them say: “Even if a sharp sword is resting on a person’s neck, he should not refrain from asking for mercy,” as it says, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.” “He should not refrain from asking for mercy”—simply speaking, “mercy” means prayer. Meaning, even though a sharp sword is resting on a person’s neck, he shouldn’t stop praying, and therefore even though a decree has been issued, Hezekiah says, basically, there is still room for prayer. And then the Talmud goes on—that’s really the section we’re dealing with today. Rabbi Hanan said: “Even if the master of dreams tells a person, ‘Tomorrow he will die’”—meaning, tells the person that tomorrow he will die—“he should not refrain from asking for mercy.” Meaning, if a message comes to him in a dream—the “master of dreams,” they explain here, means the angel or the heavenly prince who conveys the dream to a person; this expression also appears in the Talmud in Sanhedrin, maybe we’ll get to it later. So even if the master of the dream, right, the one who conveys the message through dreams, tells a person, “Tomorrow he will die,” he should not refrain from asking for mercy. At first glance, Rabbi Hanan is just another statement repeating the previous one. The previous statement said that even if a sharp sword is resting on his neck, he should not refrain from asking for mercy. Here it says that even if the master of dreams tells a person, “Tomorrow he will die,” he should not refrain from asking for mercy. But there is still a difference—we’ll see it in a moment—“as it is said: ‘For in the abundance of dreams and vanities and many words, but fear God.’” So that’s the verse they bring, a verse from Ecclesiastes, from which they learn that still, even though they tell you that tomorrow you’ll die, don’t refrain from asking for mercy. “Immediately Hezekiah turned”—suddenly they return to Hezekiah. Until now there was some kind of timeout with amoraic statements, and now the story resumes. “Immediately Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord.” “What is ‘wall’?” Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: “the walls of his heart,” and so on. So now the Talmud explains the continuation—what does “to the wall” mean—and they make various homiletical interpretations there, and that’s that. And maybe—maybe what I said isn’t exact, that it returns to the story. Rather, it returns to the course of what happened with Hezekiah. It’s no longer the meeting with Isaiah—Isaiah has apparently already left, after Hezekiah told him to leave—but now it says “immediately.” “Immediately” is a word that tells me this is really a continuation of what was described earlier. Immediately Hezekiah turns his face to the wall. So we’ve finished the comment of the editor of the sugya, who brought additional amoraic statements supporting what Hezekiah said, and now he returns to describe what happened with Hezekiah. I’m deliberately pointing this out because in a moment you’ll see that the context here is an interesting one. So here’s the thing: there are several later authorities who discuss the question of what Rabbi Hanan adds. There was the statement of Rabbi Yohanan and Rabbi Elazar—right—“even if a sharp sword is resting on a person’s neck, he should not refrain from asking for mercy,” right? As it says, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.” Then Rabbi Hanan comes and says—not about a sharp sword resting on his neck, but if the master of dreams tells a person, “Tomorrow he will die,” even then he should not refrain from asking for mercy, and on that a different verse is brought. I already said that several later authorities discuss what exactly he comes to add here—the Vilna Gaon and Maharatz Chayot and others. The truth is that if you look simply at the Talmud, this doesn’t overlap with the previous statement at all. It’s a completely different statement; it says different things; there’s no connection at all. I don’t really understand why these later authorities struggle over what Rabbi Hanan is adding. The first statement says that even if a sharp sword is resting on a person’s neck, he shouldn’t despair of mercy—he should not refrain from asking for mercy. Meaning: don’t despair, pray, maybe you still have some chance of being saved. What’s written here is that if you see in a dream that tomorrow you’re going to die, don’t refrain from asking for mercy. Apparently that’s how the later authorities read it—again, it’s some kind of threat, and still they tell you not to despair; there’s still something you can do, pray. But look at the verse he brings: “For in the abundance of dreams and vanities and many words, but fear God.” And what does that mean? Simply speaking, it means that this dream is not serious; it contains empty things. Therefore, basically, you don’t need to get worked up over it. That’s what it says here: even if the master of dreams tells a person that tomorrow he’ll die—most dreams are vanities, many words—fear God, don’t worry, matters are in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He; these dreams speak falsely. Meaning, there’s nothing to it. If that’s really so, then this is a completely different statement from the previous one. The previous statement tells a person not to despair. Meaning, there is a sharp sword, this is a tangible danger, there’s no doubt about the level of danger. But they tell him: fine, but if you pray, maybe you’ll still be saved. Here the claim is that the dream is not an expression of real danger at all—empty things, vanities, many words, most dreams are nonsense. Or at least there’s a good chance they’re nonsense. Therefore what they’re telling you—actually, I’d even say more than that—“he should not refrain from asking for mercy” is really just a set phrase. It doesn’t mean that you need to pray in order to be saved from this; rather, there’s nothing to be saved from. “Do not refrain from asking for mercy” means don’t despair—who says anything is going to happen to you at all? There is no dream without idle elements in it, as it says in several places; we’ll see them in a moment too. So this is really a completely different statement. Except that afterward it says, “Immediately Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord.” So it does seem that the conclusion is that there is a real danger here, only that one can pray and there’s a chance the prayer will help. That somewhat contradicts what I’m saying here. I’m just not sure that’s necessary. Because we have to remember that all these amoraic statements—both of the amoraic statements brought here—are in parentheses. Meaning, when Hezekiah immediately turns his face to the wall, this “immediately” refers not to Rabbi Hanan’s statement, of course—he was an amora who lived hundreds of years later. Rather, we’re talking about the end of the story with Isaiah. Meaning, Hezekiah turns his face to the wall בעקבות the first statement, which tells him not to despair. The second statement appeared only by way of association: since we were already talking about not despairing, so in dreams too they tell you the same thing—don’t refrain from asking for mercy—but it’s not really connected to the issue. What Hezekiah did was not a result of Rabbi Hanan’s instruction, but a consequence of what he himself said to Isaiah, when he told him: “I have received from my father’s father’s house: even if a sharp sword is resting on a person’s neck, he should not refrain from asking for mercy.” And then, immediately, Hezekiah turned to the wall and prayed. And the statement of Rabbi Yohanan supporting what Hezekiah said also belongs here. But Rabbi Hanan’s statement is something else; it’s brought by way of association after Rabbi Yohanan. But really it doesn’t belong here; it’s a completely different statement. It’s a statement saying that dreams speak falsely. Therefore even if in a dream it is decreed upon you—don’t get excited over it. It’s a little strange because it’s brought in the context of the story, which in any case begins with some kind of vision that Hezekiah sees through divine inspiration, that a wicked son, not a righteous one, will come from him. In that context, you could have taken Rabbi Hanan there and said to him: listen, what you saw—dreams speak falsely. But I don’t think it’s brought in that context, because there we’re talking about seeing through divine inspiration, not about a dream. That’s something else. A vision through divine inspiration is taken seriously; Isaiah takes it seriously and Hezekiah takes it seriously. The question of whether one should despair or whether one can cancel the evil of the decree remains; in the end, the conclusion is that one can cancel the evil of the decree. But it’s not that there is no decree, or that they don’t take seriously what Hezekiah saw. By contrast, here, with the master of dreams, it really seems to be a matter of dreams, empty things, vanities, many words. In short, you have nothing to get excited about—it’s not that you can be saved; there’s nothing to be saved from. Or at least, it’s not at all clear that there is anything to be saved from. And if there is something to be saved from, then fine, maybe that will depend on prayer—but the verse they bring is a verse that basically says you have no reason at all to pay attention. Maybe let’s take a look for a moment at Rabbi Kook, and afterward I’ll come back to this discussion about dreams and their status. So now I’m moving to Rabbi Kook’s words; I’m sharing Ein Ayah.
[Speaker B] Wouldn’t it have been simpler to write, “dreams speak falsely,” and bring the verse “dreams speak falsely”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be, I don’t know. No, because—
[Speaker B] It could be that there’s significance in the verse here, that it goes further precisely because it’s vanity. Meaning, apparently there is reason to be worried. About what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Many words and vanities”—so that’s what the verse says, apparently. You’re right that in the end it concludes with “fear God.”
[Speaker B] Well, if it’s like the Rabbi says, then what does that have to do with “fear God”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you say—
[Speaker B] If all of this is vanity, then it has nothing to do with fearing God.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it does have to do with it. The meaning is: you have nothing to get worked up over with these dreams; your fate is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He, not in the hands of dreams. Dreams speak falsely. Of course, those later authorities who raised this difficulty read it differently. They read “fear God” as meaning: pray, and it will work out. And therefore they ask: what does this add to Rabbi Yohanan’s previous statement? I’m only saying that in the plain sense this verse says something else. Let’s look at Rabbi Kook for a moment. In this context I think it’ll be interesting to read Rabbi Kook. I’ll come back to him. “A bad dream destroys the powers of the soul through great panic. And out of fear and dullness of thought, the evil thing may, Heaven forbid, become prepared to come, and one must get ahead of it and remove the preparation.” First of all, Rabbi Kook opens with a pretty surprising opening. He says a bad dream is something that destroys the powers of the soul because it causes panic. I don’t understand. Is that what this is about? We’re talking about a dream telling me that tomorrow I’m going to die. Is my problem that a bad dream will destroy me, cause me panic, and destabilize my soul? Is that the discussion here? The discussion here is whether tomorrow I’m going to die or whether prayer will save me. Rabbi Kook assumes that this isn’t what it’s about at all. In my opinion he read the Talmud the way I did. He doesn’t say it explicitly, but almost—we’ll see in a moment. He read the Talmud like I did. He’s basically saying that this whole dream is nonsense; you have no reason to pay attention to it; it’s empty stuff. But what? A dream—even a false dream, a dream made up of empty things—can destabilize the soul, because we know people wake up from bad dreams and they’re shaken, they come out unsettled. So there is a fast for a dream and all those things, in order to repair what the dream damaged. But notice: Rabbi Kook’s whole focus is on the question of what the very act of dreaming did to the soul, not the death that’s supposedly awaiting me tomorrow because the master of the dream told me so. But then there’s fear and mental dullness, and the evil thing may become prepared to come, Heaven forbid, and one must get ahead of it and remove the preparation. There’s another interesting point here, because he’s really talking about the phenomenon of what do you call it—self-fulfilling dreams. He’s basically saying the concern is that as a result of the destabilization that happens to a person because of the dream, the dream will also come true. Meaning, in the end he will die—but he’ll die not because the dream predicted what was going to happen, but because the dream created it. Meaning, it destabilized his soul, in the end he’ll be convinced he’s going to die, and a destabilized person who is convinced he’s going to die—maybe in the end he will die. By the way, this is a well-known psychological phenomenon; a great deal has been written about it—the Pygmalion effect and other things like that that talk about self-fulfilling dreams, or not dreams, what’s the term? I have it in my head. Prophecies. No, no—
[Speaker C] Prophecies. Self-fulfilling prophecies.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not prophecies—I don’t know, for some reason the term slipped my mind, because today when I looked at Rabbi Kook I searched for it; there’s a Wikipedia entry about it. But it’s not dreams—wait—it’s things that fulfill themselves, what is it, a known expression. A self-fulfilling prophecy?
[Speaker D] A self-fulfilling prophecy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be, maybe I’m confused, but let me just see if I can find the entry.
[Speaker E] A self-fulfilling prophecy.
[Speaker D] Yes, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But of course this isn’t talking about prophecy in the—right, right, self-fulfilling prophecy, correct, that’s it, prophecy. Okay, there’s a Wikipedia entry here on the subject, and it begins by saying that this is a collection of effects—that’s the expression, a layman’s expression, right? It’s not a technical term, but it’s an expression under which various psychological phenomena are grouped. It’s part of social psychology: once a person relates to himself in a certain way, society also relates to him in that way, and somehow that also ends up being realized. Right, there are very well-known interesting experiments. They tell teachers about their students—there’s a very famous experiment—someone new comes in to teach a class, and the previous year’s teacher tells him: look, these students A, B, C, and D are very weak, you have no chance with them, and these others are excellent, it’s worth investing in them. And even though they’re exactly the same, in the end that’s what materializes. Meaning, in the end that’s what happened, because once the teacher is hopeless about those students, he doesn’t invest in them, and when he projects that attitude toward them, in the end they also perceive themselves that way, and then it ends up coming true. The interesting point is—and this appears less on Wikipedia here but in other places—that it’s not only an effect in social psychology. It’s also an effect in individual psychology. Meaning, there are things that a person perceives about himself—not that society perceives about him. And when he perceives himself in a certain way, that is realized. A person often trips himself up and falls. He’s sure he’ll fall, and out of so much fear that he’ll fall, he trips himself up, and because of that he falls. Right, independently of society; this isn’t social psychology, it’s the psychology of the person himself. And here I think that’s what Rabbi Kook is really referring to, when he says that from great panic, or from fear and dullness of thought, the evil thing becomes prepared to come, Heaven forbid. Meaning, this evil thing—really, this whole dream is empty nonsense. I told you, he reads it the way I do: the dream is empty nonsense. It’s not that the dream is really telling me what will happen tomorrow. Rather, it destabilizes me, I get into a whole panic over the problem, and as a result it may actually happen. And then he says one must get ahead of it and remove the preparation. Meaning, once such a state has been created in me, it prepares me for the possibility that in the end it will really happen. The way to deal with it is to remove the preparation—that is, to repair this destabilization so that in the end it won’t fulfill itself. Then he says as follows: “And there was room to err”—I’m reading here—“and there was room to err, that prayer for the cancellation of the dream would strengthen the impression of the dream in the soul even more.” Right, you might think that in such a situation it’s actually not advisable to pray. Why? Because once you pray, you project even more to yourself a kind of fear of what’s going to happen to you. That prayer can implant in you even more strongly the destabilization, this fear of the death that will come tomorrow. Look—you’re now defending yourself, praying to the Holy One, blessed be He, to save you. You’re putting yourself under even more pressure. And then there’s an even greater chance that this thing will materialize. Therefore there was a sort of initial thought specifically not to pray over such a dream. Then he says—Rabbi Kook says—“It was said that this is not so.” And therefore that is the novelty of the Talmud. It comes to reject that initial thought. You might have thought that one should not pray over such a thing, that it’s not worthwhile to pray over such a thing. “It was said that this is not so, because from prayer there will be drawn confidence and courage in the blessed God, to the point that by its power it will strengthen the soul and also remove the evil of the decree by virtue of its nature and quality through the will of the blessed God. And there is no need at all to worry about increasing the impression in the soul, for the fear of God adds days, and sorrow is not added with it.” Okay? So he’s basically saying: the whole novelty of the Talmud is that you might have thought there is nothing to pray about here—on the contrary, prayer will only make it worse. He tells you: don’t worry. Prayer doesn’t harm. In the end, prayer will strengthen you, repair this destabilization you experienced. The confidence and courage in God, of course, will turn you into someone confident and strong not only in the Holy One, blessed be He, in the faith sense, but also psychologically—the destabilization will pass, and automatically this won’t fulfill itself either. Now look: Rabbi Kook’s whole story is a very strange one if you read it without the introduction I gave from the Talmud. It’s really a strange thing to say here. Is this what the Talmud is talking about? Is this the novelty of the Talmud? The novelty of the Talmud is that when there is a dream hanging over you saying that tomorrow you’re going to die, know that it’s not certain it will happen—pray, there’s a chance you’ll change it, exactly as Hezekiah did, exactly as with the sharp sword in Rabbi Yohanan’s previous statement—that’s the context of the Talmud. How did he suddenly arrive at subjective destabilization and self-fulfilling prophecy? Here the issue is whether the dream predicts something for me tomorrow. Is it necessarily going to happen, or can prayer change it and save me? Rabbi Kook doesn’t even bother to say that that’s not so. He just reads the Talmud as if it’s obvious that that’s not what it means. He immediately starts speaking as if it’s obvious that this dream is just empty nonsense and there’s nothing to get excited about. On the contrary—so what is the novelty here at all? That’s obvious. The novelty is that you might have thought—and here I go back to what you said, Aharon, right? What you asked earlier—so what does “fear God” at the end have to do with prayer? So now Rabbi Kook says—look, he’s explaining what, according to my own reading, I would have had to answer you. Because you asked: according to my reading, if all the verse is saying is that the whole dream is just empty nonsense and you have nothing to get worked up over, then what does the ending “fear God” mean? Why didn’t they bring the statement “there is no dream without idle elements,” which is brought elsewhere in the Talmud, or the verse “dreams speak falsely”? Why didn’t they bring that? Rabbi Kook now explains—it completes what I said earlier. He’s basically saying that here they wanted to teach you that there was an initial thought not to pray. It’s all such nonsense that basically you just need to get over it and that’s all. And if you start praying and get anxious because of it, you’ll only deepen the problem. Therefore there was an initial thought not to pray at all, and about that the verse says “fear God.” Meaning: don’t be afraid—you can pray. Prayer won’t interfere here; it will help. It will strengthen you. It’s not at all in order to be saved—the prayer is not in order to be saved from a decree that tomorrow you must die. The prayer is in order to strengthen you so that you don’t yourself fulfill a decree that was never decreed in the first place. It won’t happen on its own. So if I hadn’t given this introduction from the Talmud, Rabbi Kook’s words would look very strange. When I started reading him, that’s how it sounded to me. I didn’t understand what he wanted at all—how is this connected to the Talmud? So I went back to the Talmud and looked, and suddenly I saw that in fact the Talmud needs to be read differently. The Talmud isn’t talking at all about whether you have a chance to change something, whether there is even anything to change in the first place. Rabbi Kook just takes it one step further and says that even things that speak falsely and contain nothing can destabilize you, and in the end they can happen to you—look, things can happen to you—that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then he says the novelty is that you have nothing to worry about and everything will be fine, because fear of God in the end always strengthens you and everything will be fine; it won’t destabilize you. “Nor should one say”—I’ll keep reading his words—“Nor should one say that the matter of a dream is a weak thing and contains empty matters, and therefore it is not fitting to pray over it.” He continues in the same direction and offers another answer to your previous question: what does “fear God” at the end mean? What does he say? He says: look, the dream is nonsense, so it won’t destabilize me. The dream won’t destabilize me. So basically I’m not expected to die tomorrow, because this dream is empty nonsense. I’m not destabilized. There’s no issue here of self-fulfilling prophecy. So why should I pray about it? On the contrary, to pray over it is some kind of bizarre act. What are you praying for? What is this nonsense? Nothing is expected to happen to you; everything is fine; go eat your bread with joy. This is what you’re praying about? That was the initial thought. And about that he explained that this is not so, “for everything is prepared to do the will of the blessed God, to perfect the human being.” Pray even when there is no real substance to the matter, because in the end prayer will advance you. Make use of the opportunity. Even though there is no need to pray, there is nothing to pray about—but that’s why there was an initial thought not to pray. Not because it’s harmful, as in his previous line of thought, but here there’s a different initial thought: there’s nothing to worry about, so why pray? Rabbi Kook says: what do you mean? “Would that a person would pray all day long.” Meaning, then pray. They gave you such a situation; this situation has basically provided you with another opportunity to pray—make use of it. And that’s what “fear God” means at the end. Meaning, there was an initial thought that there was no need to pray and no point in it. So he says: no, pray. Even when they send you a dream with no substance, maybe they sent it to you for that very reason: to create an opportunity for you to pray, even though, again, no real danger is actually awaiting you. Okay?
[Speaker B] There’s another innovation here in Rabbi Kook—that prayer is basically meditation, a kind of meditation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the first move. In Rabbi Kook’s thinking.
[Speaker B] That prayer brings a kind of calming down, some sort of something that isn’t—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And again, it’s not—but it’s cognitive meditation, not psychological. Because once you pray and place your trust in the Holy One, blessed be He, then rightly you gain confidence. Meaning, it’s a conclusion; it’s not that you’re doing some kind of self-suggestion. Rather, the claim is that once you truly trust in the Holy One, blessed be He, then you really should have more confidence. So that’s the difference between the cognitive—yes, it’s not that you’re doing some kind of self-suggestion, but the claim is that once you truly trust in the Holy One, blessed be He, then you really should have more confidence. So that’s—
[Speaker E] I think Rabbi Kook has another innovation here regarding himself, in relation to things that he himself said elsewhere. Meaning, for example, I’m reminded of Orot HaTeshuvah, where he talks about not dealing with the sin itself. Just leave it—repair, go to a better place, I don’t have his exact words right now. And I feel that here he’s saying something a little like: don’t be afraid to pray about the bad dream and by doing that, as it were, strengthen the significance of the bad dream within you and increase the fear, the anxiety, and all that. No. Prayer is something else; it has its own advantages.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Use this bad dream to move forward, regardless of the dream itself. Go with the positive direction of where you’re advancing; leave aside what caused you to do it. On the contrary, leverage all the things that happen to you in the direction where you can make use of them, move forward, grow.
[Speaker E] So it’s just different from what he says there—don’t deal with it, deal with things of repair. Don’t go back and dig around in your sins. Just as here he could have said: don’t dig around in your dreams, don’t now start asking for repentance and all kinds of things because of the dream, leave it, go somewhere else. But here he says no, there is a point in praying about it. I hear, as it were, that small initial thought that I know from Orot HaTeshuvah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] נכון, although praying about it isn’t called dealing with the dream. I think it fits with what you’re describing from Orot HaTeshuvah. Praying about it means: after all, I know there’s nothing to it; there was an initial thought not to pray at all. He says: why not? Pray. Not because you need to deal with the dream, but because it will lead you to grow onward, to grow forward. I think that can fit what is written there; it doesn’t contradict it. By the way, just in parentheses here—what exactly is the person supposed to pray? After all, if I really understand the insight Rabbi Kook is saying here, that this dream is empty nonsense, it’s not doing anything to me, it didn’t even destabilize me, and I also don’t believe that tomorrow anything is really expected to happen to me—so now I want to pray, to carry out Rabbi Kook’s instruction. What am I supposed to do? Pour out my heart before the Holy One, blessed be He—about what? I’m not really afraid of anything. So what am I supposed to do? Save me so that I won’t die tomorrow? I don’t know. Maybe he means: just say Psalms, pray for spiritual progress, I don’t know. But then it really has nothing to do with the dream at all. Rather, maybe he means to say that the dream is only some sort of hint that came to awaken you. But he’s not talking about praying over the dream or praying to be saved from what the dream said. Rather, take it as a trigger to pray about things you want to pray about—not really connected to the dream at all. And then it goes even more in the direction you said earlier, Hayuta—that it’s not really dealing with the dream itself or with the content of the dream. I don’t know, because otherwise it’s really difficult.
[Speaker E] That’s not unreasonable, because a dream like that—a person who has a bad dream at night wakes up with some kind of anxiety, with emotional distress, and needs some kind of calming. And prayer contains that calming.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s his first line of thought, that’s clear. But in the second line of thought he’s saying something else. He says: leave it, even if you didn’t get stirred up and you have no confidence in it, the dream doesn’t bother you in the least, you don’t believe it. So then there was an initial thought: so why pray? There’s no need to pray; it would be a vain prayer. So he says: no, not at all. Even then, use this opportunity to pray. Fine, I don’t know. That’s not praying about the dream at all, so I don’t know exactly how far it can really be read into the Talmud or the verse; it’s not clear to me. “He explained that this is not so, for everything is prepared to do the will of the blessed God, to perfect the human being. Even airy thoughts and vanities that have no substance”—here he writes explicit things, because after all this is the verse brought in the Talmud; you can’t ignore that. By definition these are airy thoughts and vanities that have no substance—this dream. But even though this dream is vanity with no substance, airy thoughts, nevertheless, since they bring fear into a person’s heart, and through this he comes to fear of Heaven because his heart is soft—
[Speaker B] That fits the first line of thought.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, he does go back a bit to the first line of thought, because after all it does put fear into my heart. Meaning, I am in fact somewhat stirred up by it. So what did he say? Basically we now have to think again: what is the second line of thought after all, and how is it different from the first? Here he means to say—I would put it this way, for example. If you had asked me: take a pill, or get a grip on yourself, shake yourself out of it, explain to yourself—you know this is nonsense—and get out of it, that’s all. Why do you need to pray here? There’s no danger here, nothing at all. You don’t need anyone’s help. You just need to be a rational person and ignore all this psychological nonsense. So Rabbi Kook says no. Meaning, fear entered into you. If fear entered into you, that’s a good reason to pray, even though cognitively you are right that this fear has no basis. In other words, it’s not that there really is something here to be afraid of. But the advice he gives is not the advice I would give. He says: fine, pray. Fear entered into you; maybe he even sees that as some kind of deliberate action from above, that this fear was put into you in order to make you pray. Not that it just happened by chance and now you’re afraid. Yes, so again, it could be that this follows his approach and I have my approach as well. Yes, I don’t think things like that are put into me from above. But he apparently is still introducing some dimension here of a disturbance that I am going through. Okay? It’s just that the initial assumptions are different initial assumptions. In both of his approaches, the point is that I was shaken up. It’s just that in the first initial assumption he says there was a thought that maybe it’s not worthwhile to pray because it will shake you up even more. So leave it alone, don’t pray; the conclusion comes to teach us: pray—the prayer won’t harm you. The second initial assumption was that you should convince yourself rationally that there is nothing to it, and then there would be no need to pray. The proper advice for dealing with such a thing is to be rational. That’s all. That’s the initial assumption. So Rabbi Kook says no. Not true. If fear has already entered your heart, that’s a good opportunity to make use of it in order to pray, so pray. Okay, so these are two approaches; they really both do speak about the fact that I am shaken by this dream. It’s not that in the second approach I am completely calm. There is a disturbance here, and that disturbance exists in the second approach too. Yes, and from this one comes to fear of Heaven, “because his heart is faint.” If so, everything is prepared by providence to increase fear of God in the world. That, I think, is the hint to what I said earlier: he assumes that this dream came to me intentionally. Not to tell me that I’m going to die tomorrow—that’s idle nonsense. But it came to me in order to stir me to pray. He still sees something intentional in the dream, not something that just happens to me and now I find myself in this situation. No—he claims this is a deliberate move: they sent me this dream in order to shake me up so that I would pray. Even though there really is no danger that I’ll die tomorrow; this is not prophecy. It’s a dream that is a trigger for prayer. Therefore it is proper to use this according to human nature and to pray. So go with your nature already—you were shaken up, you have an opportunity, so pray. It’s a good opportunity to pray, so pray. Go with it. Even though it really is only human nature. Again, on this he insists. It’s not that you truly face some real danger. But since human nature is such that it shakes you up, then go with it. It’s a bit like what I say in other contexts—in the book, in the trilogy, I talk about the fact that… since my thesis is that there is almost no, or perhaps no, divine intervention in the world. Then the question is: what place is there for prayers of thanksgiving? Something miraculous happened to me, yes? I was saved from something—from an illness, from an accident, whatever it was—I was saved, so should I bless or thank the Holy One, blessed be He, for what… for what happened to me? Now if this really was not the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He, then what place do these thanksgivings have? So my claim was that, at the end of the day, it’s obvious that a person who goes through something like that is shaken up. True, the first instinct is to say, okay, the Holy One, blessed be He, saved me, so let’s pray and thank Him. Now I, as a rational person, think that… I think that’s what rationality says, but never mind—as a rationalist, let’s call it that, I think that this is not the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He, but simply the way of the world. But that is precisely the point. Since, after all, I too go through that emotional shaking—with all due respect to rationality, there are all sorts of additional dimensions in all of our souls. We undergo an upheaval when we fall into trouble and come out of it. So basically my claim in the book was that this is the opportunity to thank the Holy One, blessed be He—for what? Not for this rescue as such, but for the creation of the world, for the laws of nature, thanks to which I was also saved here, of course. Nature is what did it. So at some point I need to look for an opportunity to thank the Holy One, blessed be He, for what He did—for the world that He created. “I give thanks before You” in the morning, “that You have returned my soul within me.” I thank the Holy One, blessed be He, on that occasion for the fact that, by nature, a person sleeps and afterward his soul returns. Not because He decided right now in the morning to return my soul to me and not leave it above. But even so, these psychological opportunities, when a person is in a shaken state, can definitely serve as a lever for prayer. Or for thanksgiving regarding other things—regarding the very creation of the world, not necessarily regarding this specific event. So I think that in this sense Rabbi Kook does have a fairly, fairly similar move. He is basically saying: you have nothing to pray for, because there is no trouble here at all. But if you already find yourself in a situation where you feel a need to pray about it, then leverage that—then pray, even though this is not really prayer in order to be saved as a request for protection from the Holy One, blessed be He.
[Speaker B] Maybe, though, from that direction one could extend the Rabbi’s thesis about prayer as well—that there is also a possibility of praying over something bad that is happening, in supplication, not because it will help save me, but because right now it causes me—right now I’m in a time of distress, so I feel the lack in creation, I know there is something not whole, and I turn to the Holy One, blessed be He. Whether it works or doesn’t work is another matter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because you are right—except that then there is the difficulty I mentioned earlier: what exactly am I praying for? Am I asking Him to save me from the trouble? In practical terms, what will be the content of my prayer? Am I asking Him to save me from the trouble? After all, I don’t think that’s what happens.
[Speaker B] In theory that’s true, but we just don’t really have a way to do it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is a way to do it. So maybe I should say Psalms, cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He, I don’t know exactly what to say, do all sorts of other things. But what the sources say, what is written there—that one should pray in order to be saved from the trouble—that, no. So therefore I don’t think that can be an explanation of what the Sages meant. It can be a thesis that stands on its own. Meaning, even if you think that this is not something in which the Holy One, blessed be He, is now intervening, there is still room for you to turn to the Holy One, blessed be He, to save you—but there is certainly room to make use of the upheaval you experienced in order to draw closer to the Holy One, blessed be He. Fine, that is possible. I just don’t think it is a plausible explanation of the words of the Sages. Meaning, that’s not what they meant. They meant that you should pray so that He will save you.
[Speaker B] But regarding the continuation of what we saw—“let him examine his deeds”—about that maybe one could say, not from the standpoint of prayer, that repenting in a time of distress—that does fit.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and there’s also that, which I wrote there, yes. “Let him examine his deeds” is simply an opportunity. Like on Rosh Hashanah. About that I did write regarding Rosh Hashanah, yes—Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Judgment. Now I’m not sure to what extent it is the Day of Judgment and what exactly happens up there on the first day, and certainly not on the second day, which is only because of a possible day uncertainty, when there isn’t even really a possible day uncertainty—just a commemoration of the possible day uncertainty there once used to be. They explain to us that there is a judgment of the first day and a judgment of the second day for this world and the next world, and the Vilna Gaon, and all these little homiletic flourishes that I have no faith in whatsoever. These are inventions—I don’t know where they came from. It’s possible day uncertainty, that’s all. They do Rosh Hashanah again because you’re in doubt, and even that is not true—it’s only a remembrance of the possible day uncertainty. The position of the Rif and the Ran is that in the Land of Israel one really does not need to observe two days of Rosh Hashanah even today. In any case, what I said was: yes, true, but this is an opportunity for soul-searching. After all, once a year you do need to give yourself an accounting: where are you standing, what do you need to improve? That is certainly something important to do. So what do I care now whether there are scales sitting up there or not sitting up there? So the kindergarten stories—of the kindergarten teacher and of the Sages—are basically meant to arouse me to make a personal accounting. That’s perfectly fine. A day of self-examination is a very important day, even if all the metaphysics wrapped around it and the things they tell me about it are not exactly… I don’t exactly believe all of them. Okay, but it is still a good opportunity for soul-searching. So that is certainly true. “And prayer—does it not add completeness and fear of God? If so, even from vanities will God’s desire emerge for the perfection of the human being.” Even though it’s all vanities—he keeps coming back to that. He clearly read the Talmud just as I did. Meaning, Rabbi Hanan’s statement is not just a duplicate of Rabbi Yohanan’s statements. Rabbi Yohanan’s statement is: don’t despair, pray—it can change. Rabbi Hanan’s statement is: it’s all nonsense; you have nothing to pray about. That is Rabbi Hanan’s statement, and Rabbi Kook nonetheless explains why there is still a point to prayer anyway. You could have concluded from it that not praying is fine, but the direction is the direction I said in the Talmud. He only adds this aspect—why there is nevertheless “fear God” at the end. Why one nevertheless somehow ends up with prayer, because according to my approach you should have said: okay, I understand that this is all nonsense, there’s nothing to pray about, don’t get excited, just go on your way, that’s all. So he says no: in the end, as Aharon asked earlier, at the end of the verse it says “fear God.” After all the vanities and wind and everything—still, “fear God” appears at the end. So yes, in the end it does speak about prayer, and Rabbi Kook explains that. Therefore I think that although he doesn’t explicitly point this out on the Talmud and doesn’t lay out the difficulty and the answers and all that, in the background of this whole passage lies exactly what I said at the beginning—and he starts from there. That’s where he starts. Wait, wait—so why pray at all? Exactly Aharon’s question. That is what he asked. This whole passage comes to answer that question. After you analyze the Talmud as I analyzed it above, the question really arises: so why did they bring this and not “dreams speak falsely”? And why does it say at the end “fear God”? So Rabbi Kook says: this is to teach you that even—yes, even in such a situation it is worthwhile and necessary to pray. That’s the story. Okay, now I do want to talk a bit about this matter of dreams, “dreams speak falsely,” and so on, because there are a few interesting points here. The association that came to me—I once wrote an article about this—but the association that came to me was a Talmudic passage in tractate Sanhedrin. What, tractate Sanhedrin 30a, the concept of “the master of the dream”—it appears here. “The Rabbis taught: One said to them…” See? “The Rabbis taught: One said to them, ‘I saw your father, who hid money in a chest, a box, or a tower, and said: it belongs to so-and-so; it is second tithe money…’” That first case isn’t what I’m after here, fine, that’s another matter. Wait, it starts here. “If someone was distressed…” this is the passage that matters for our purposes. It is brought in a larger context, but the context is less important. “If someone was distressed over money that his father had left him.” Yes? His father died, left him money, and he can’t find it. He knows there’s a stash of, I don’t know what, ten thousand shekels somewhere, it ought to be there, and he has no idea where. “And the master of the dream came”—there’s our phrase—“and the master of the dream came.” Look at Rashi below: what is “the master of the dream”? “The master of the dream—the prince appointed over the showing of dreams at night.” Exactly the expression in our Talmudic passage. Okay? Meaning, an angel in charge of transmitting these messages to human beings. “The master of the dream came and said to him: There are such-and-such an amount.” What does that mean? It means ten thousand shekels. “And they are in such-and-such a place.” He tells him where the place is. “They are second tithe money,” meaning this is second tithe money that you have to eat in Jerusalem. “This incident occurred, and they said: the words of dreams neither raise nor lower.” This is astonishing; this Talmudic passage is wonderful. So the master of the dream came, yes? I dream a dream at night. Someone comes to me, and I know my father left me money. I have no idea how much, where, and so on, but I know he left me money and I can’t find it. The master of the dream comes to me and says: look, it’s ten thousand shekels, it’s under the third floor tile to the right of the oven in the kitchen. Lift the third tile. And know that this is second tithe money. I go there, lift the tile, and in exactly the place he said I find ten thousand shekels, which is the amount he said. “The words of dreams neither raise nor lower.” It’s all nonsense. In short, it’s not second tithe; you can take it, “go eat your bread with joy,” not specifically in Jerusalem—you can eat with it wherever you want. It is not second tithe; it is ordinary money. This is utterly astonishing. Why is it astonishing? Because with all due respect to “dreams speak falsely,” this dream has objective indications that it is not speaking falsely. After all, it gave you hidden details, what in police investigations are called non-public details. It gave you hidden details. It told you how much—you didn’t know how much money. You didn’t know where it was. It told you exactly how much money it was; it told you where it was. So how can you say this is “dreams speak falsely”? And the Talmud says: “they neither raise nor lower.” In truth, most commentators on this Talmudic passage claim that “dreams speak falsely”—by the way, that phrase doesn’t appear here; it says “the words of dreams neither raise nor lower,” and in a moment I’ll come back to that. But they bring in “dreams speak falsely,” and their claim is that in a dream there are always true things mixed with false things. A dream is a dangerous medium. Even if it has a reliable source—meaning it gives you details that you can check and see are true—it is still entirely possible that other details are mixed in there that are not true. In this case, the amount turned out to be true, the place turned out to be true—but the fact that it is second tithe, maybe that is not true. Maybe that detail is not true.
[Speaker B] Can’t you begin from the assumption that the information he had about the money did not come from the dream? Meaning, that the Sages would say it can’t be that he really knew—what he did know, he didn’t know from the dream.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? But the story says that that is exactly what happened. He was distressed over money that his father had left him. He knew there was money; he didn’t know how much, where. And the master of the dream came and said to him: there are such-and-such an amount—he tells him how much money it is—“in such-and-such a place,” which place it is. “This incident occurred,” says the Talmud—this is what happened—“and they said: the words of dreams neither raise nor lower.” Now there are objective indications, so already the medieval authorities (Rishonim) discuss it. Their claim is that in a dream things are always mixed up, just as—the Talmud says—just as there can’t be grain without straw, or straw without grain, I don’t remember exactly which way around, so too there cannot be a dream without idle things. The claim is that dreams are mixed up. You have no way of knowing what in the dream is true and what is not. So even if there were a few details that were correct, that only means that the master of the dream knows certain details and conveyed them to you. That does not guarantee that the other details are also correct. Therefore the words of dreams neither raise nor lower. This is difficult. It is difficult because, again, I’m not going into all the details here. Anyone who wants, I can send him an article—send me an email, whoever wants, and I’ll send him the article, or there is also an article on the site on Parashat Miketz, Midah Tovah 5767. The claim is that in monetary law, for example—if he tells you… there are versions here, I think. Let’s see. In the previous story it says, “and he said: they belong to so-and-so.” You see that? “And he said: they belong to so-and-so; they are second tithe money.” Here it says, “they are in such-and-such a place; they are second tithe money.” What about “they belong to so-and-so”? Meaning, if the master of the dream tells me: this money is ten thousand shekels under the third tile by the oven, and it belongs to Reuven—then here you can say there is a doubt, and one does not remove money from someone’s possession on the basis of doubt. The money is in my house; it is in my possession. Reuven wants to sue me for the money. The burden of proof is on him. Why? Because in this dream, since there can be idle things, I am in doubt whether the information that it belongs to Reuven is one of those idle things or not. The burden of proof is on Reuven—“the claimant bears the burden of proof.” So in monetary law I understand. But here it says “they are second tithe money.” Second tithe is not monetary law; it is prohibition law. In prohibition law, if I am in doubt, what is the rule? A Torah-level doubt is treated stringently. I have a doubt whether this money is second tithe, because dreams can also contain idle things. Okay? Maybe yes, I don’t know which parts are the idle things, and if there are idle things, then I am in doubt. So what do I say? The question whether this is second tithe or not is doubtful; I don’t know. Fine—but if it is doubtful, there is a Torah prohibition here, and a Torah-level doubt is treated stringently. So how can they say “the words of dreams neither raise nor lower”? Indeed, some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and halakhic decisors omit this, and they claim that it is doubtful. But now look at Maimonides’ language. Wait, what did I do here? Look at Maimonides’ wording. What did I do? You see—
[Speaker D] Maimonides? “And likewise if there came…” Wait a second. There. Mishneh Torah, law 17.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This is the previous case in the Talmud—here. “If someone was distressed over money that his father had left him and did not know where he had hidden it, and they said to him in a dream: there are such-and-such an amount, they are in such-and-such a place, they belong to so-and-so, they are second tithe money.” Do you see in Maimonides? In Maimonides the version is “they belong to so-and-so” and “they are second tithe money.” In our Talmudic text that doesn’t appear. Meaning, Maimonides says there is both monetary law and prohibition law here. “They belong to so-and-so”—that is the question of to whom the money belongs. “They are second tithe money”—that is a question about their halakhic status. “And he found them in the place that was said to him and in the amount that was said to him—this incident occurred, and the Sages said: the words of dreams neither raise nor lower.” Maimonides says here explicitly: it is not even a doubt. You have nothing to worry about. It is yours, period. Not only in monetary law, also in prohibitions. And this is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). The Tur writes differently, the Tashbetz omits it. There are all kinds of medieval authorities from whom something else is implied. But in Maimonides it is very clear. Maimonides says: ignore it. What do you mean ignore it? There is at least a doubt here—how can you ignore it? By the way, Maimonides repeats this elsewhere too. This Maimonides is in the laws of acquisition and gifts, and Maimonides also in the laws of second tithe. I’ll read it to you from here: “If they said to him in a dream: your father’s second tithe…” Yes, and here he writes even more explicitly: “it is not second tithe. The words of dreams neither raise nor lower.” And in truth the language of the Talmud sounds like Maimonides. To say there is a doubt here—that is not right, it is not right to say that: “the words of dreams neither raise nor lower.” They should have said: just as there cannot be grain without straw, so there cannot be a dream without idle things. That is a statement of the Sages; that is what they should have brought here. When they say “the words of dreams neither raise nor lower,” the meaning is: there is nothing to relate to here, it has no significance. It is not second tithe, period. Not that it is doubtfully second tithe. But the question is how to explain such a thing. And here—well, there is much to expand on—but I’ll just say briefly. The claim, I think—what?
[Speaker B] I’m still having a bit of trouble understanding why you can’t say this is a bluff. Meaning, that we mean to say “the words of dreams neither raise nor lower” because we don’t trust him that he really saw it in a dream and really saw that this was the place.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He got to the tile—
[Speaker B] Because he knew, because he saw the father hide it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He didn’t know; that was the dream.
[Speaker B] He comes and tells us that that was the dream. He tells us that was the dream. We assume—I said, the words of dreams—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then you shouldn’t have said “the words of dreams neither raise nor lower.” You should have said: the man doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “The words of dreams neither raise nor lower” means: you saw the dream, but it neither raises nor lowers anything.
[Speaker B] That’s an interpretation. Maybe I answer here: “the words of dreams neither raise nor lower”—I say that even if you saw it in a dream, it doesn’t interest me. But in truth you really didn’t see it there, because I know it’s nonsense.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then why assume such a thing? If you are saying that even if I saw it in a dream it doesn’t matter, then why do you need that extra addition that in fact I also didn’t see it? So maybe he did see it, because—
[Speaker B] But how was it really there then? How was it really in that place? I didn’t understand. Since it really was in that place, there must have been some other disclosure that that was the place, not the dream.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, so he saw it in the dream, that’s all. Why assume something else?
[Speaker B] And the dream really revealed the place to him? Yes. According to the Rabbi, it comes out that the dream revealed where it was. Obviously, yes. I want to say that the dream didn’t reveal it to him, and I understand that this is a very forced reading of the Talmud.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud doesn’t say that. The Talmud says that the dream revealed it to him. He was distressed, and someone came and said… “I was distressed all my days, and the dream revealed it to me.” Ignore him because he’s an idiot—that’s what it should have said. But it doesn’t say that. It is a factual description. A dream came to him. We know that. Still, “the words of dreams neither raise nor lower.” Not because we don’t believe you that you saw it in a dream, but because dreams are not taken into account. And my claim in that article is that at least according to Maimonides—the other medieval authorities probably do not hold this way, and therefore they are forced into strained readings—but I think the plain sense of the Talmud is Maimonides. The claim is that even if the dream is right, it neither raises nor lowers these matters. I do not draw halakhic conclusions from dreams in a categorical way. Not because the dream is not right. The dream told me this is second tithe; it may well really be second tithe. It doesn’t say here that it is grain and straw. It says that the words of dreams neither raise nor lower. Meaning: even if the dream is right, in Jewish law we do not take dreams into account. In Jewish law we work with rules of evidence, with ordinary considerations; metaphysics do not play a role in Jewish law. Not because I don’t believe it—maybe it is true. On the contrary, here there are very strong indications that it is true. But it makes no difference. When it comes in a dream, it is not admissible as evidence. A kind of “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Meaning, even if it is good evidence—you played me a recording—the evidence is invalid. Not because it is false; it is invalid, it is inadmissible. That is Maimonides’ claim, and I’ll bring all kinds of examples for halakhic principles that live only in the subjective dimension. Regarding dreams themselves, by the way, in that same article I show that there is another passage in Nedarim 8a. The Talmud says there that if someone was excommunicated in a dream, he needs release. The Talmud treats the dream seriously. And the Rashba there—the Ran brings the Rashba there on the Talmud—says that if someone himself made a vow in a dream, he has to go to a sage to have it annulled. That is called a vow. Otherwise he is forbidden to eat what he vowed off. There is serious treatment of dreams. And my claim is: there is serious treatment when it concerns only you. But if it is something public, something connected to Jewish law—and by the way second tithe, although it also in a sense concerns me, still has implications for other people too. It is the status of this money. It also affects other people. Then it has no significance. Things in a dream do not project onto the halakhic legal system, onto what happens in the public social dimension. In the personal realm, if something was revealed to you in a dream, it is certainly possible that it tells you things and that you need to draw conclusions from it—that is a dispute among the medieval authorities, by the way—but at least some of the medieval authorities do say that. But that is in the personal, subjective realm. A dream may have halakhic standing so long as we are talking in the subjective sphere. In the objective sphere, where it concerns society or has implications for other people, it has no standing. The words of dreams neither raise nor lower. Not because they are not right, but because they have no standing; they are inadmissible. And therefore they did not bring here “dreams speak falsely,” but rather “the words of dreams neither raise nor lower.” In the context of our Talmudic passage, of course, we are talking about dreams not in a halakhic context; but beyond that, we are also talking about dreams that concern the person himself. Dreams that concern the person himself may well have some sort of standing, and therefore this does not relate to the matters here. What I said here is another category—this is dreams in Jewish law. Not dreams in Torah thought or dreams in the Torah worldview, but dreams in Jewish law. And the claim is that dreams have no halakhic standing in the public realm. Some of the medieval authorities say that dreams do have halakhic standing in the subjective personal realm. And that is a separate issue, a different issue.
[Speaker B] Okay, I just understood from the plain sense of the Talmud that “the master of the dream came and said to him” meant that someone else came and told him this, but Rashi there says that it is the minister appointed over the dream, and Maimonides himself says “and they came and said to him in a dream.” For a moment I thought it meant that he dreamed it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course it means that. First of all, I explained: “the master of the dream” means the minister responsible for bringing you this dream, yes. Yes, yes. It’s a message from above—that’s the claim. There is the Vilna Gaon—the Vilna Gaon writes, and I no longer remember in what context, that there was… I think he was speaking about the Ramchal, that the Ramchal had some kind of heavenly maggid, and the Vilna Gaon claimed that one must not believe anything that the maggid told him. So they asked the Vilna Gaon: but Rabbi Yosef Karo also had a maggid—Maggid Meisharim, the book Maggid Meisharim. So the Vilna Gaon says that in the Land of Israel it is different. In the Land of Israel the maggids say things that are reliable. Outside the Land, all sorts of other things from other sources get mixed into these maggids. Here the claim is not connected to the Land of Israel and outside the Land. Every dream contains idle things too. But Maimonides claims more than that. The fact that a dream contains idle things could only create doubt for me. Maimonides says no—it is certainty. They neither raise nor lower. A dream has no halakhic standing whatsoever. Therefore I am not even in a situation of doubt. Okay, up to here. That’s it. If anyone wants to comment or ask, you can. This is meanwhile the last class of the season—unless there are some other announcements, but it seems to me that for now we’re ending here. Does anyone else want to ask or comment?
[Speaker D] Thank you.
[Speaker B] I already did more than enough during the class, thanks.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, goodbye, all the best.
[Speaker B] Thank you very much.