Reasons and Rationales for the Commandments, Lecture 9
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
- Scriptural decree and the reasons for commandments
- The meaning of command and how it turns reasoning into something binding
- Reasoning without a command and its halakhic status
- A distinction between types of reasoning: decrees, enactments, and the strength of reasoning
- Examples of levels of reasoning and the application of scriptural decree
- Rabbinic versus Torah law: selecting and atypical performance, and the halakhic spectrum
- Explicit sources for multiple levels of reasoning: Shevut Yaakov
- Torah-level safeguards and the basic assumption about the roles of the Torah and the sages
- Changes in circumstances and their relation to Torah law: “do not form factions” and the heifer of unsolved murder
- “Scripture handed it over to the sages”: “and you shall afflict yourselves” and the definition of affliction
- Maimonides, the ninth root: command and content as two conditions for counting commandments
- One who is commanded and acts versus one who is not commanded and acts: Ritva and Tosafot Rosh
- Blessings over benefit: reasoning, Torah law or rabbinic law, and the dispute between Pnei Yehoshua and Tzelach
- Tzelach: interpretive reasoning versus reasoning that generates a new obligation
- Resolving the tension: command as a condition for formal obligation, and reasoning as the basis for content and interpretation
Summary
General Overview
The text presents the ongoing tension in Jewish law between command and reasoning, and argues that even in places that appear to be pure scriptural decree, there is logic and purpose, in line with Maimonides’ view that there is no commandment without an explanation. It presents the dispute over whether one expounds the reason of the verse as a question of whether the reason is used to shape Jewish law or only to interpret the Torah, and then moves from the binding significance of command itself to the halakhic status of reasoning even without a command. Through Talmudic passages such as “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning” and through discussion of rabbinic versus Torah law, it clarifies that there are different levels of reasoning, and that not every reasoning can generate a new Torah-level obligation. It concludes with the dispute between Pnei Yehoshua and Tzelach regarding blessings over benefit and the meaning of a law based on reasoning.
Scriptural Decree and the Reasons for Commandments
The text states that a scriptural decree describes a case of a command that appears to lack explanation, but in practice even scriptural decrees have an explanation, and sometimes we even know what it is. It cites Maimonides’ statement that there is no commandment without an explanation. It presents the dispute over whether one expounds the reason of the verse as an inquiry into the relation between a commandment and its reason, and defines the question as whether the reason serves as a tool for determining Jewish law or remains only an interpretation that does not shape halakhic ruling.
The Meaning of Command and How It Turns Reasoning into Something Binding
The text teaches that the meaning of a command is not merely the communication of what is permitted and forbidden, but the creation of obligation. It compares this to legislation: even without a law against crossing at a red light, doing so is dangerous and irrational, but prohibition and punishment exist only by force of legislation; so too in Jewish law, obligation is created by force of command. It states that reasoning in itself is a proper and moral recommendation, but not binding, and therefore there is no place for punishment by a lower religious court for someone who does not act according to reasoning alone. It connects this to Maimonides’ eighth root and to the distinction between command as the source of obligation and reasoning as content and logic.
Reasoning Without a Command and Its Halakhic Status
The text presents the position of medieval and later authorities that reasoning has halakhic status, and cites formulations from the Talmud such as “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning” and “if you wish, say a verse; if you wish, say reasoning,” which place verse and reasoning as alternative sources. It sharpens the difficulty: if without a command there is no halakhic obligation, how can one say that the Torah did not need a verse because we would have known it from reasoning? It adds that reasoning is not free of error, just as interpreting a verse also involves reasoning, but these are the tools given to human beings, and therefore we are expected to use them.
A Distinction Between Types of Reasoning: Decrees, Enactments, and the Strength of Reasoning
The text distinguishes between reasoning behind a decree or safeguard and reasoning about an act that is problematic or obligatory in itself. It gives the example of poultry cooked with milk as reasoning that prevents one from coming to meat cooked with milk, and argues that such reasoning does not turn the act itself into Torah law, because the problem is consequential rather than intrinsic. It raises a difficulty regarding enactments such as Hanukkah and Purim, where the act itself is proper, and brings up the discussion surrounding Bahag and Maimonides in the first root, and Maimonides’ question of how the Torah could command events that would happen in the future, such as the Hanukkah miracle, while suggesting the possibility of a general command to commemorate miracles. It presents a principled solution according to which there are different levels of reasoning, and reasoning that is not unequivocal can justify a rabbinic obligation that grants binding force to something not sufficiently clear to count as Torah law.
Examples of Levels of Reasoning and the Application of Scriptural Decree
The text brings the example of the stubborn and rebellious son: the exposition “a son and not a daughter” is defined as a scriptural decree, even though medieval authorities explain that “it is not the way of a woman to rob people,” and it raises Meiri’s question of why a scriptural decree is needed if the distinction is sensible. It explains that the reasoning exists but is not necessarily sharp enough to apply a halakhic distinction, just as one would not distinguish between different types of sons based on an assessment of who is likely to become the leader of a gang. It uses this to establish that reasoning can be correct but still not be sufficient on its own to determine binding boundaries without an explicit command.
Rabbinic versus Torah Law: Selecting and Atypical Performance, and the Halakhic Spectrum
The text illustrates the principle of the strength of reasoning through the prohibited labor of selecting on the Sabbath: separating refuse from food is forbidden by Torah law, while separating food from refuse is rabbinically forbidden, even though the action is similar, because the similarity is not strong enough to be included in the Torah prohibition. It compares this to the reasoning “what difference is there between bringing in and taking out” regarding carrying in and carrying out, where the similarity is understood as essential and therefore forbidden. It presents a parallel principle in the laws of atypical performance on the Sabbath, where the degree of atypicality determines whether something is forbidden by Torah law, rabbinic law, or permitted, and emphasizes that many concepts in Jewish law are not dichotomous but continuous.
Explicit Sources for Multiple Levels of Reasoning: Shevut Yaakov
The text cites the responsa Shevut Yaakov, which rejects a sweeping rule that whatever emerges from reasoning is only rabbinic, and challenges this from passages of “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning.” It presents his conclusion that there is strong reasoning and weak reasoning, and that strong reasoning can count as the basis for Torah law, whereas weaker reasoning requires a rabbinic enactment in order to receive binding force. It uses this to explain how there can also be rabbinic obligations that have internal logic but do not arise from reasoning at a level of certainty that makes command unnecessary.
Torah-Level Safeguards and the Basic Assumption About the Roles of the Torah and the Sages
The text notes Rabbi Yosef Engel’s discussion in Atvan DeOraita of whether Torah-level safeguards exist, and brings examples such as “it shall not be seen and it shall not be found” according to Nachmanides as a safeguard for eating leaven on Passover, as well as seclusion as a possible example of a Torah-level safeguard. It presents the accepted conception that the Torah deals with things problematic in themselves, whereas fences and safeguards are the task of the sages by force of “make a guard for My charge.” It connects this also to the issue of the reason of the verse, where many reasons seem like safeguards, such as “he shall not increase wives for himself, lest his heart turn away,” and clarifies that not every reason is merely a decree and that there are also other types of reasons.
Changes in Circumstances and Their Relation to Torah Law: “Do Not Form Factions” and the Heifer of Unsolved Murder
The text argues that changes in circumstances affect Torah law as well, not only decrees, and gives as an example the interpretation of “do not form factions,” which is not territorial but communal. It distinguishes in the case of the heifer of unsolved murder between a change in relevance and a change in applicability, and explains that the nullification of the rite when murderers became numerous is not because the reason ceased to apply, but because the ritual loses its practical meaning when the event becomes commonplace. It emphasizes that the reason can remain valid even when reality makes it difficult to apply a particular halakhic institution.
“Scripture Handed It Over to the Sages”: “And You Shall Afflict Yourselves” and the Definition of Affliction
The text uses the example of “and you shall afflict yourselves” to show that the Torah hands over the detailed definition to the sages, and the sages determine five forms of affliction on the basis of interpretive reasoning about what counts as affliction. It notes that there is a dispute among medieval authorities as to whether the forms of affliction beyond eating and drinking are Torah law or rabbinic law, and suggests that the dispute depends on the question of how essential they are to the concept of affliction. It adds that reality may affect the details of implementation, such as the discussion of wearing shoes in our time, while maintaining that the sages’ rulings are part of shaping the law even when its source is in the Torah.
Maimonides, the Ninth Root: Command and Content as Two Conditions for Counting Commandments
The text presents Maimonides’ distinction in the ninth root between multiple commands for the same commandment and a general prohibition, and raises Rabbi Yerucham Fishel Perla’s question about an apparent contradiction: does the count follow the content or the number of commands? It resolves this by saying that for a Torah commandment to be counted, it requires both a unique command and unique content; therefore, multiple commands do not create multiple commandments, and multiple contents that emerge from one command are not counted as separate prohibitions. It translates this into a map of the relation between reasoning and command: the content is what the prohibition or commandment is meant to address, and the command is the binding and formal aspect.
One Who Is Commanded and Acts versus One Who Is Not Commanded and Acts: Ritva and Tosafot Rosh
The text cites Ritva in Kiddushin in the name of “our rabbis,” that the reason “greater is one who is commanded and acts” is because Satan prosecutes him, and according to the pain is the reward. It adds in the name of “our great rabbi of blessed memory” that one who is commanded and acts fulfills the King’s decree and receives greater reward because he does the will of his Creator. It emphasizes that there are two aspects in a commandment: the good deed and what it accomplishes, and responding to the command as a value in itself. It brings Tosafot Rosh, who formulates that the constant concern lest one transgress, and the coercion of the inclination, as well as doing the will of one’s Creator, distinguish between one who is commanded and acts and one who is not commanded and acts. From here it identifies that a law derived from reasoning without command lacks the dimension of responding to a command, even if the act itself is positive.
Blessings over Benefit: Reasoning, Torah Law or Rabbinic Law, and the Dispute between Pnei Yehoshua and Tzelach
The text presents the Talmudic discussion in Berakhot about blessings over benefit, which concludes: “Rather, it is reasoning: it is forbidden for a person to benefit from this world without a blessing, and whoever benefits without a blessing commits misuse of sacred property.” It brings Pnei Yehoshua’s difficulty that according to the Talmudic rule “something that comes from reasoning is considered Torah law,” blessings over benefit should have been Torah law and not a case where in doubt one rules leniently. It suggests an answer according to which even if the obligation is Torah law, in doubtful cases blessings are ruled leniently because of the concern for a blessing in vain and the prohibition of “do not take [the name of God in vain],” and raises a difficulty from grace after meals, where in doubt one does rule stringently. It cites the students of Rabbenu Yonah, who understand that one who eats without a blessing becomes liable for a misuse offering, and uses this to sharpen the question of how such a mechanism could rest on a rabbinic law.
Tzelach: Interpretive Reasoning versus Reasoning That Generates a New Obligation
The text presents Tzelach’s argument that one cannot infer from the expression “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning” that reasoning creates new Torah commandments. Rather, it refers to one law among the laws within an existing system, such as evidentiary rules like “the same mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted” and “the burden of proof rests on the claimant.” It adds that if reasoning alone created a Torah obligation, then rational commandments would not have needed to be written, and blessings over benefit would also have obligated non-Jews. It concludes that the reasoning is the reason why the sages enacted the law, not a Torah-level source for the obligation itself, and establishes a distinction between reasoning that interprets an existing command and reasoning that innovates an obligation about which no command was given.
Resolving the Tension: Command as a Condition for Formal Obligation, and Reasoning as the Basis for Content and Interpretation
The text states that strong reasoning does not replace command in the binding dimension. Rather, command adds another dimension that is not merely strengthening the logic, but creating halakhic obligation, similar to a law that turns dangerous behavior into an enforceable prohibition. It explains that interpretive reasoning can count as Torah law because it interprets a command that has already been given, but reasoning that seeks to create a new law cannot be like ordinary Torah commandments without a command. It notes as an example that bringing an object into a domain on the Sabbath, learned from the reasoning “what difference is there between bringing in and taking out,” is described as a derivative category and not a primary category because there is no explicit command about it, even if its practical severity is the same. It concludes that the real dispute between the approaches focuses mainly on the question of how to act in cases of doubt when the obligation rests on reasoning, and not on the assumption that reasoning alone replaces command in every respect.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We are in the topic of
[Speaker B] reasons
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] for the commandments and explanations for Jewish law, reasoning in Jewish law. We dealt with the issue of scriptural decree, which is really talking about cases where apparently we have a command—not apparently, we do have a command—but apparently there is no explanation. And I tried to argue that that is not so. Even things that are scriptural decrees have an explanation; sometimes we even know it, not only is there an explanation. But certainly, as Maimonides says, there is no commandment without an explanation. After that we moved to the dispute over whether one expounds the reason of the verse. And again, what really stood behind the discussion was the relationship between the commandment and its explanation. The reason of the verse means that when we see a command, there is supposed to be some explanation behind it. The whole question is only whether we use that explanation to shape the Jewish law—that is what it means to expound the reason of the verse—or whether we use it only to write an interpretation of the Torah, to write underneath what the explanation is for this law, but not to use the explanation as a tool for determining the Jewish law. So that is the discussion: whether one expounds or does not expound the reason of the verse. This whole topic that we are dealing with is really about that tension between command and the reasoning that stands beside it. Last time, which was around Shavuot, I spoke about the meaning of Shavuot, but really that was the next chapter in this series, because what I wanted to present was the two sides of the coin that accompanied us in the first two chapters. Both the chapter on the reason of the verse and the chapter on scriptural decree deal with the relationship between the command and its explanation, between the reasoning underlying it. So last time I dealt with the meaning of command. I said that the meaning of command is not only to inform me what is forbidden and what is permitted. At Mount Sinai, the Holy One, blessed be He, did not merely give us information about what He wants and what He does not want; He commanded. And that command has meaning. I gave the example that before the Knesset legislates against crossing at a red light—it does not matter who legislates it on its behalf—it is still irrational to cross at a red light because it is dangerous. But there is no prohibition there. For there to be a prohibition, you need legislation. The parallel here in Jewish law is command. The whole point of command is to turn reasoning into something binding. Reasoning in itself makes sense, meaning it is proper to act in accordance with it, but it is not binding. One implication, for example, is that punishment—certainly in a lower religious court—you cannot give for such a thing. Someone who does not want to act according to the reasoning need not act according to the reasoning. He is not acting properly, but you cannot punish him, since it is not a prohibition. That is the meaning of command. I spoke about the eighth root in Maimonides, and through that we saw this idea of command. Now I want to move to the other side of the coin, the side of reasoning. I said this whole time that there is this tension between reasoning and command, so I spoke about command, and now I am moving to speak about reasoning. And again, we will see how these things are supposed to connect, or what happens when they do not connect. I spoke about commands without reasons—that is the reason of the verse and scriptural decree. Now I am going to speak about reasons without command, and the question is what we do with them. The accepted view among quite a few medieval and later authorities is that reasoning has halakhic status. You see this in the Talmud in several places where it says, “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” or “if you wish, say a verse; if you wish, say reasoning.” In other words, the Talmud sees reasoning and command as two alternative sources.
[Speaker B] When it says
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” it is basically saying: why do you need to give me a verse or a command? Even without a command, the situation would be the same. Why? Because there is reasoning. Now if reasoning—something based only on reasoning—had a different halakhic status from what emerges from a command, it would make no sense to ask that question. Because when you ask, “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” fine—but if it came from reasoning, it would have halakhic status X; you need a command in order for it to have halakhic status Y. Say, for example, if reasoning were only a rabbinic law. Then if this were based on reasoning, the result would be rabbinic law; you need a command to tell me that it is Torah law. Therefore, when the Talmud asks “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” or says “if you wish, say a verse; if you wish, say reasoning,” it is assuming that verse and reasoning are two sources of the same status. Meaning that something derived from reasoning is the same as something derived from Scripture—from a verse. And of course that puts a question mark over everything we have seen until now, because everything we have seen until now—certainly last time—is that without a command it is not something binding. Without a command it is only a recommendation, something proper to do because it is sensible, because it is moral, and so on. But without a command there is no obligation. In other words, it cannot be part of Jewish law.
[Speaker C] Isn’t it first of all that there is already a command—even if there is a command to do something, then the sages look for its source?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The sages—reason of the verse—that is the details.
[Speaker C] Whether it is a written verse or whether it is reasoning. So when the Talmud asks, “why do I need a verse?” this command sounds very sensible.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is asking why a command is needed.
[Speaker C] Yes, but the command is already there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where is it there? The Talmud is asking why it is needed. Why is a command needed? You could omit that verse.
[Speaker C] The question is not why are you looking for a verse if this is obvious from reasoning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that is the question.
[Speaker C] Meaning, the command is there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the question is about the Torah: why does the Torah write a verse at all? It is unnecessary. We would have known it even without the verse, from reasoning. And then I ask: what do you mean we would have known it without the verse? Without the verse it would have been something proper to do, but it would not have been Jewish law, it would not have been an obligation. The whole idea is that there is no such thing. So how can one say, “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning”? How can one say that reasoning has the same status as a verse?
[Speaker B] What about here—when there is reasoning, can there be error in the reasoning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There can also be error in interpretation. You read a verse—that is exactly what we talked about yesterday in Beit Tahtiyot. Yes, when you read a verse, you understand what the verse says. Now, within what you understand there are always dimensions of interpretation; in other words, it is never the naked verse. It is not just: this is what is written in the verse, so that is what you say. There is almost no situation in which you simply learn the verse itself; it is always bound up with some reasoning. Therefore even things that are written ultimately pass through interpretation, and error is always possible. What can you do? “Who can discern errors?” In other words, the Torah was not given to ministering angels. We can do only what we are able to do. You can never be completely certain. And that is true, it is a good point. But we do not have better tools than this. Incidentally, that is probably the basis for reasoning having status, because these are the tools we have. If our reasoning tells us something, the Holy One, blessed be He, presumably planted these modes of reasoning within us, so apparently He expects us to use them.
[Speaker B] Sorry—the Talmud says “it is reasoning.” Doesn’t that imply that its conclusion is unequivocal? Meaning, are there several kinds of reasoning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there can be several levels of reasoning. Just a moment—that is my next point, I am about to get to it.
[Speaker B] The Talmud uses “it is reasoning” maybe in two or three places, but in most new laws, the rules, the Talmud asks for a verse or reasoning. I agree. But when it says verse and reasoning, that is something else.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I will get to that in a moment; I agree. First of all, I will indeed say in advance—just as people here already pointed out in different ways—when we talk about reasoning, there can be several levels of reasoning. There is a question, say, about rabbinic enactments. The sages enacted an enactment. There is logic behind it, right? Otherwise they would not have enacted it. Well then, if there is logic behind it, it ought to be—if it is Torah law, why do we need the sages’ enactment? Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning. There is reasoning here. The sages, by their own authority, enacted it, so there is no verse; therefore the sages had to enact it. What difference does it make that there is no verse? If there is reasoning, that is a substitute for a verse. So why is this rabbinic law and not Torah law? So that is not really a question. Why not? For two reasons—or at least two explanations can be given. First, one must distinguish between two types of reasoning. There is reasoning, say, the reasoning of a decree, that if you do this you may come to do a problematic act. That reasoning does not say that the act itself—the act to which… say, if you eat poultry cooked with milk, you may come to eat meat cooked with milk, and that is forbidden. On the face of it, that is reasoning that forbids poultry cooked with milk. But clearly that reasoning does not mean that eating poultry cooked with milk is itself a problematic act. It is not problematic in itself. If it did not lead to anything—if I locked up all the meat in the world so that no one could get to it—eat poultry cooked with milk as much as you want; the act itself is not problematic. We are afraid that if we do it we will come to another act that is problematic. Such reasoning may not turn the law into Torah law, because it does not say that the act is problematic. There is logic in forbidding it, but that does not mean it is in itself a problematic act. When we say “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” we mean reasoning of a kind that says that the act is in itself obligatory or problematic, depending whether we are talking about a prohibition or a commandment—not that it leads to something else that might be problematic or positive. That is one explanation of why rabbinic decrees are needed, but it will not explain enactments. Take enactments like Hanukkah and Purim, for example. Fine? There the sages enacted Hanukkah and Purim because it seemed to them that this was the right way to act. Now they did not enact some—this is not a decree. They did not enact it so that we would not arrive at some other problematic thing, or so that we would arrive at some other thing, as if it were a means to achieve something else. Clearly they enacted it because in itself it seemed proper to them, like reading the Megillah on Purim or lighting Hanukkah candles or something like that. So? Here we no longer have the previous explanation I gave. The act itself has reasoning behind it, not just because it leads to something else. These are not decrees, they are enactments. And with enactments, then, apparently it ought to be that they are Torah-level obligations, because there is reasoning behind them, and after all, “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” right?
[Speaker C] Isn’t it a result of what happened in practice? Of course not. The Torah cannot command that Hanukkah should happen.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It did not command that—that is exactly the point. But even without commanding it, there is reasoning, and the reasoning is a substitute for command. That is exactly the point: you do not need command. Obviously it should then be Torah law. You remind me that Maimonides, in the first root, argues with Bahag, because Bahag counted some rabbinic commandments in his enumeration of the commandments. And Maimonides says that one should not count rabbinic commandments, and among other things he mentions Hanukkah and Purim in Bahag. And then he says: could it enter your mind that the Torah commanded that if the Greeks should come and do such-and-such to you, then you should light candles? That had not happened yet when the Torah was given, so how could it be Torah law? A very strange question. It is strange because obviously Bahag did not mean that the Torah prophetically commanded that if the Greeks should come and defile the Temple and so on, then we should light candles. Rather, the Torah commanded that if some miracle happens to us, then a halakhic obligation is established that commemorates that miracle, that reminds us of that miracle, and then each time something happens we implement that general command.
[Speaker C] Meaning that it has to be included within the 613—that is the problem.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If there is such a general command within the 613 to make
[Speaker C] a day
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of celebration to commemorate some miracle that happened to us, then you can count it among the commandments, and now each miracle would be a Torah commandment.
[Speaker D] That would have been true if Bahag had counted all those miracles together at once.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, and incidentally there actually is an enumeration in which Hanukkah and Purim are not counted as two but as one. It is not clear, because the versions of Bahag that we have are not precise. Every edition has somewhat different things, and they quote in his name things that are even more different, so it is not entirely clear what was in the Bahag that Maimonides saw.
[Speaker B] Is this included under “do not stray”? What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All that comes in only after you decide that this is not Torah law but rabbinic law. But I am asking: why do we need to get there at all? “Do not stray” gives force to the sages’ enactments,
[Speaker B] but
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I am asking a different question: why is that needed? Forget it—let there be no enactment of the sages and no verse of “do not stray.” Reasoning says that one must do this, so it is Torah law, it is binding. Why do I need all these mechanisms giving force to the sages’ enactments?
[Speaker E] But there are considerations: whether it is a sufficiently great miracle, whether there are all kinds of considerations, and that is exactly what the sages discussed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—the first half I agree with, but not the second half. Meaning, the sages need to decide whether the considerations are such-and-such, fine, let them decide. But after they decide, it should be Torah law, because that is the basis of Torah law. I thought you were going to say something else, which I now want to say, namely that clearly when we speak about reasoning there are different levels of reasoning. There is reasoning where something is completely clear; there is reasoning where it seems likely to me that it is so, but I do not know, I am not sure. There are different levels of reasoning, right? Now, what level of reasoning is needed for something to count as Torah law?
[Speaker C] I don’t know,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I do not have the criteria, but there must be some sufficiently strong level of reasoning for us to treat it as though no command is needed at all. The reasoning says so, so it is obvious to me that this is the case, period—and it ought to be as obvious to me as a situation in which a command was given. Okay? That is not—it means we are demanding a pretty high standard from reasoning. Now there are reasonings about which you can hesitate; you can say, “yes, that sounds reasonable to me,” but I cannot tell you with certainty that this is so. I gave an example of this when we spoke about scriptural decrees. I brought there the Meiri in the chapter of the stubborn and rebellious son, where the Talmud says that we apply the law of the stubborn and rebellious son to a son and not to a daughter. It expounds, “if a man has a stubborn and rebellious son”—a son and not a daughter. And on this the Talmud says, and the Jerusalem Talmud says it even more explicitly, that this is a scriptural decree. Now on that, Maimonides and other medieval authorities explain: yes, but there is an explanation—because it is not the way of a woman to rob people, and all the concerns there in the case of the stubborn and rebellious son. But Sefer HaChinukh and Maimonides present that as a kind of reason—not clear to what degree. What is the difference? What do you see, that in the case of a daughter the reasoning of the stubborn and rebellious son does not apply, so you do not apply it? Meiri asks that question—I brought him. He asks that question: if indeed the Talmud says this is a scriptural decree, then why are you giving me explanations like “it is not the way of a daughter” or of a woman to do such things? Then it is not a scriptural decree—there is an explanation. So why do they say it is a scriptural decree? So I said there: let us think what we would do had there not been this exposition of “a son and not a daughter.” Everyone understands there is a difference between the character of boys and the character of girls, right? In terms of the fear that they will become heads of robber gangs in the street. Right, that is sensible reasoning. But on the other hand there is also a difference among boys themselves, between the timid ones and others, right? There are those likely to become heads of robber gangs and those whom you know will never be gang leaders. Okay? So there too—are we not going to apply the law of the stubborn and rebellious son? Maybe we should send them for some assessment and see whether this child is sufficiently, let’s say, mischievous, a leader, I don’t know what to call it, wicked—call it whatever you want. And whether there is concern that he will become the head of a gang of robbers or not. Why do we not do that? Because we do not make such distinctions. Who knows how certain you need to be, and where yes and where no? The Torah said a stubborn and rebellious son is a stubborn and rebellious son. In other words, had there not been the exposition of “a son and not a daughter,” even the reasoning for that distinction between son and daughter—even though it is correct—we would not necessarily have applied it. We would not necessarily have said that the law of the stubborn and rebellious son applies to a son and not a daughter. True, the reasoning exists, but who knows how unequivocal it is. There are also girls who can be like that. Where exactly is the line? How clear does it need to be before you draw that conclusion even without a verse or without an exposition? So there are different levels of reasoning. It may be that some levels of reasoning are indeed sufficiently unequivocal to count as Torah law, and lower levels of reasoning are those for which you need a rabbinic enactment to tell you: okay, this reasoning too—even though it is not all that strong—this reasoning too has halakhic force. And therefore, since it is not strong enough, from the Torah’s perspective it is not a Torah prohibition. Had the Torah prohibited it—say the sages, here I am probably speaking again about a decree, though you could argue about this, but probably a decree—for example, not to separate food from refuse. Refuse from food is a Torah prohibition of selecting. Food from refuse is rabbinic, even though there are the three conditions there, but that is not important now, it is just for the example. So what? Why is it rabbinic? Why is it not Torah law? What is the difference between refuse from food and food from refuse? Apparently the Torah—or the sages as they understood the Torah—sees the essential, more significant selection as separating refuse from food. Now clearly food from refuse is also a kind of selecting. Clearly it has something of the dimension of separating refuse from food. What is the difference? You are separating this from that or that from this. You are doing a similar action. Now the question is how meaningful that similarity is. In other words, to what extent is separating food from refuse really a significant form of selecting. If it were completely significant, then it would be Torah law, not rabbinic law. It would be included in the prohibition of selecting, just as the Talmud says, “what difference is there between bringing in and taking out,” like carrying out and carrying in. So the Talmud says this from reasoning. Why is carrying in also prohibited? Why not only carrying out? “What difference is there between bringing in and taking out?” In other words, the reasoning says it is the same thing. So why here does it not say, “what difference is there between food from refuse and refuse from food”? Food from refuse is rabbinic; it is not Torah law. Why? Because apparently there the sages at least understand that the similarity is not so strong. There is something about refuse from food that is more significant than separating food from refuse. Or because it was more characteristic of the Tabernacle—it does not matter for the moment, I am not getting into the definition of the Sabbath labors right now. So what does that mean? That the reasoning exists also in what the sages said. The question is how strong it is. If it is clear reasoning, that this is simply exactly the same thing, then indeed no rabbinic enactment would have been needed; it would have been included in the Torah command. If it is reasoning that I understand but it is not unequivocal, not something completely strong, then you need the sages to determine that such a thing too is forbidden. So when I ask about rabbinic laws why they are not Torah laws, since there is reasoning behind them, then I say: first, in decrees, the reasoning is not reasoning that says why the act itself is problematic, but that it may lead to another act that is problematic because it is Torah law. So there is no problem in this act itself. Since that is so, it cannot be Torah law, because the rule—as many later authorities discuss—is that the Torah does not speak about decrees and safeguards. The Torah states only the things that are problematic in themselves. Things that are a decree or safeguard are left to the sages. It is the sages’ role to forbid things that are not problematic in themselves but may lead to something else that is problematic. So first of all, if the reasoning does not say that the act itself is problematic, it will not turn it into Torah law; it will only be a decree. Second, in enactments, where the act itself is positive or problematic, depending whether it is a positive commandment or a prohibition—even there it will not be Torah law because apparently the reasoning is not sufficiently unequivocal. There is reasoning there, but it is not completely clear. And we spoke about this once—that in many places we tend to think dichotomously, as though it is black or white. Either there is reasoning or there is no reasoning. If there is reasoning, it is Torah law; if there is no reasoning, then why did the sages enact it? Because that is basically what I asked here. The sages enacted it, so apparently they had reasoning behind it, otherwise why did they enact it? If there is reasoning, then why do we need the sages’ enactment? It is Torah law. These are always questions of “either way.” I said that in logic, arguments like these are called dilemma arguments. Yes—the example I always bring in this context, and I am sure I brought it here too, is: why do we need exams? The diligent students study even without an exam, and the lazy students do not study even with an exam. So in either case the exam helps neither these nor those—so why have an exam? The answer is that we are not talking only about pathologically diligent people or pathologically lazy people; there is a whole spectrum in between. And if a person is not all that diligent but is also not pathologically lazy, then maybe if there is an exam he will study, even though without the exam he would not study. Right? It is not only black and white; the world also has many shades of gray in the middle.
[Speaker B] Are there other situations where they specifically resolved the reasoning? A private person?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, certainly, in all situations.
[Speaker B] Then it could happen that one person decides this way and another that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Just as in halakhic interpretation—there can be disputes. There are disputes not only in reasoning; there are disputes in Torah law and in rabbinic law, in everything. Yes, we are not frightened by disputes.
[Speaker C] Is a fence itself reasoning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. I said it is reasoning that does not say the thing is problematic in itself; it only says: do not do it, because you may come to do something else that is problematic. So that is reasoning, but it is not reasoning that turns the thing into Torah law, because Torah laws are only those laws whose subject matter is problematic in itself. Therefore there is a section in Atvan DeOraita by Rabbi Yosef Engel where he discusses whether we find Torah-level safeguards. For example, he brings two examples from the medieval authorities—if I remember correctly mainly two, the others less so. One is “it shall not be seen and it shall not be found,” which I think is Nachmanides’ view that this serves as a fence around eating leaven, in which case you see that there is a safeguard that is Torah law, because “it shall not be seen and it shall not be found” is a Torah prohibition. And the second is seclusion. I do not remember which medieval authority he brings, that seclusion too is a safeguard lest one come to sexual prohibitions, but the prohibition of seclusion is Torah law. But generally the accepted conception—why is there such a section in Atvan DeOraita? There is such a section because usually that is not the case. Right? Usually Torah laws are not safeguards. And there he searches for whether there are nevertheless some that are. Why? Because the simple assumption is that when the Torah determines that something is problematic—say, a prohibition—it is problematic in itself. Something that is not problematic in itself but is only liable to lead to a problematic result is the sages’ role. “Make a guard for My charge.” In other words, you have to deal with the fences and safeguards.
[Speaker B] There are no punishments for that and no prohibition from the outset.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly. So in this context—in the context of our study of the issue of the reason of the verse—I said that it all revolves around the same point. In the discussions of the reason of the verse, when we discussed the question of expounding the reason, the question really arises what kinds of reason can even be proposed. On the face of it, the common reasons, the usual reasons, are reasons that are safeguards. “He shall not increase wives for himself, lest his heart turn away.” Okay? So really, increasing wives is not problematic in itself; what is problematic is that afterward your heart may turn away. So why is this not a safeguard? Why is it a Torah prohibition?
[Speaker E] There are also other kinds of reasons, like the final washing of the hands. It is not so that you should not come to a transgression. There are all sorts of such cases… Sodomite salt is because of danger, so that could be Torah-level.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I am getting to that in a moment. Meaning, on the face of it, the reasons we will find when we expound the reason of the verse will generally be reasons of the type of decree or safeguard. Meaning, if you do this—what is an explanation for something? An explanation for something means that if you do it, I will show you what problems are created. So seemingly that is a safeguard or fence. So does all the expounding of the reason of the verse really amount to understanding the Torah prohibition as some sort of safeguard or decree or something like that? But that is not true—exactly as you said.
[Speaker F] Because what I wanted to say is that decrees keep changing all the time because things change; what was a relevant decree…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, relevance can change both in decrees and in non-decrees, that is not—relevance is a bigger question. We spoke about it once when we discussed changes in Jewish law, so it is not characteristic only of decrees; it applies to everything.
[Speaker F] Because, say, if they said that red margarine resembles butter, so it is forbidden to…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but that is true in other areas too. Today it is no longer relevant…
[Speaker F] Not only decrees—really every law, you can see that with change…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There isn’t a house without two synagogues. So then why is the Torah prohibition of “do not form factions” in effect? It’s a Torah prohibition. Rather, obviously today “do not form factions” is not territorial. It’s not two courts in one city, but within one community—that is, an ethnic community or a community of origin or something like that. Meaning, circumstances affect even a Torah law, not just rabbinic decrees.
[Speaker B] The beheaded heifer?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The beheaded heifer was suspended for other circumstances, not because the circumstances are different in that sense.
[Speaker B] Why was it suspended? How can they suspend it? First of all, today there are no sacrifices at all, and no—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No Temple and nothing like that, so the law of the beheaded heifer doesn’t apply. What was suspended back then, because murderers had become numerous—that’s what it says. Right, “they became numerous”—is that circumstance? Yes, but that’s a circumstance not in the sense that it says the beheaded heifer is irrelevant, but that it’s hard to implement. It’s not that the rationale lapsed. The beheaded heifer should still be brought for murder, and that makes sense, but there are so many cases that it’s no longer reasonable to operate by the law of the beheaded heifer.
[Speaker B] I learned that it was only because it’s not relevant.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What you called the beheaded heifer is not lack of relevance; it’s lack, let’s call it, of practical applicability. The logic of it still exists even when there are many murderers—what does that have to do with anything? But when there are many murderers, it no longer makes sense to perform a huge ceremonial act for something that happens every five minutes. Therefore, it’s not because it’s no longer dramatic that a person was murdered, that a life was taken, and not because people shouldn’t pay attention to what happened here. They should—murder is murder. But if it happens a lot, it loses its relevance. Not because it’s become something else; it’s not that the rationale lapsed. The rationale didn’t lapse. There’s still a great deal of logic in doing the beheaded heifer ceremony for every murder. The relevance lapsed—I agree. That’s a different kind of change. Not because sometimes the rationale lapses and the law no longer applies. With “do not form factions,” it’s not relevance; with “do not form factions” it’s something else. It’s not irrelevant; today it’s not irrelevant. The rationale doesn’t exist in the same way for “do not form factions,” because the disputes are not in the city—the disputes are in the community. That’s something else; reality changed. Anyway, I learned that there are several levels of reasoning. And reasoning at an unequivocal level, say, would be Torah-level, while weaker reasoning would be rabbinic. There really is, in the responsa Shevut Yaakov, where he writes here: “Also, what follows according to the words of your honored Torah scholarship—that whatever is derived from reasoning is only rabbinic”—because the questioner asked him: if it comes from reasoning, then it should only be rabbinic. So he says: “This rule does not seem correct to me for several reasons.” I don’t think what you say is right, for several reasons. Then he explains, and I’m skipping a bit, and then he says this: “And what he wrote in defense of his words from the Talmud in tractate Pesachim, etc.,” where you see that a law derived from reasoning is not Torah-level—so he says: “This is not a rule.” It cannot be a sweeping rule. “For if so, it is difficult from several Talmudic passages where it asks, ‘Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning.’” In the Talmud it says, “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” so you see that reasoning is in fact Torah-level. “And Tosafot also ask this in Shevuot 22; and if your honored Torah scholarship were correct, there would be no difficulty at all, for from reasoning it is only rabbinic. But according to the answer of Tosafot, it is proven that not all reasonings are equal, for there is strong reasoning and weak reasoning.” So what is he really saying? You’re right that certain kinds of reasoning won’t produce a Torah-level law, but it’s not true as a general rule that anything derived from reasoning is not Torah-level. So what’s the explanation? There are places where we see it one way, and places where we see it the other way. The explanation is simply that there are several levels of reasoning—strong reasoning and weak reasoning. Strong reasoning is Torah-level, and weaker reasoning is rabbinic.
I spoke about vague concepts with dichotomies, about dilemma arguments. There too, many times we find, say, some labor done in an unusual manner, and we say it’s not similar to Torah-level labor and therefore it is permitted. Very often you see in the later authorities that they ask: fine, if it’s not similar, then it should be rabbinically prohibited, because doing it in an unusual manner is rabbinically prohibited. Doing labor in an unusual way on the Sabbath is rabbinically prohibited. So if you tell me it’s not similar to Torah-level labor, that’s a reason to exempt it at the Torah level but to prohibit it rabbinically. How do you get from that to saying it’s permitted? That’s not a question. It depends how different it is. For example, standing on one foot is very different from eating pizza, right? So maybe that would be… eating pizza rabbinically, standing on one foot. It’s so different that it’s something else altogether. It depends on how much difference there is. Meaning, clearly when we talk about an unusual manner as a rabbinic prohibition—doing labor in an unusual way is basically violating a rabbinic prohibition—that’s when the change is not so significant. Meaning, there is still something here of the original labor; it’s not far enough removed to permit it entirely, so that it would not be considered that labor at all, but something in between. That would be a rabbinic prohibition. How much change is needed? I don’t know; I don’t have criteria. But it’s clear that there is a spectrum of levels of change that you have to distinguish between. A very small change—that would be Torah-level. A greater change—that would be rabbinic. A very great change—that would already be completely permitted, because it no longer belongs to the original category at all.
There are many concepts that we’re unsure about. In Maimonides, I once spoke about this in the context of the relation between rabbinic law and Torah law—the claim that whatever isn’t written in the Torah is rabbinic. That’s not precise in Maimonides; it depends what “not written in the Torah” means. Does it have no hint in the Torah? Does it have a scriptural support? Is there a midrashic derivation from the Torah that can produce it, or is it really explicitly written in the Torah? There are several levels, or a continuum of levels, of connection between a given Jewish law and what is written in the Torah, and that is what will determine whether it is Torah-level or not. What is explicitly written in the Torah is Torah-level; what is not written explicitly is severe rabbinic law or something in between.
[Speaker E] “You shall afflict yourselves”—here too the Sages worked it out and arrived at this, right? Yes, but it’s considered Torah-level.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, that’s obvious.
[Speaker E] But not necessarily in a standard way—it’s enough that it counts as affliction. That’s a decision of the Sages, certainly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I said, it’s a decision of the Sages—you can argue with them—but I’m saying that at the conceptual level, when the Torah says “you shall afflict yourselves,” what’s written there was handed over by Scripture to the Sages. What does “handed over by Scripture to the Sages” mean? If the text doesn’t say what counts as afflicting oneself, then you, as a halakhic decisor, have to decide: okay, what does this prohibit? So the Sages determine that there are five afflictions, because they think that’s enough—
[Speaker E] Reasoning—what does “affliction” mean. Right, and reasoning, obviously. There are five things that are certainly affliction; there are other things that are somewhere in between.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and indeed the medieval authorities dispute whether the five afflictions are rabbinic or Torah-level, aside from eating and drinking—the other afflictions. That is probably exactly the dispute. The question is how essential this thing really is to the concept of affliction, or whether it has some dimension of affliction but isn’t really quite like not eating and not drinking. That is probably exactly the argument.
[Speaker B] And that too is not relevant anymore—I mean, wearing shoes; today shoes aren’t leather.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, they really do discuss that. It may be that today it really isn’t. The claim is that there are arguments like these, that a normal shoe that you wear in everyday life, even if it isn’t leather, should be prohibited on Yom Kippur. Most halakhic decisors probably say no, but yes, there are such arguments. It’s not—
[Speaker B] You have to give the power of definition to the Sages, because otherwise if you leave it open-ended—no—or there will be differing opinions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, these are two sides of the same coin. One side is what you described earlier. Meaning, clearly the Sages have to shape the Jewish law, because without the interpretation of the Sages the law says nothing. And clearly the interpretation of the Sages relies on reasoning, right? But it’s also clear that this is Torah-level, because the Sages are shaping Torah law, not by reasoning as the source of the law, but as the shaping of Torah law. On the other hand, clearly there can also be disputes. One sage thinks this, another sage thinks that, and then there will be disputes over Torah law. There’s no need to panic over that—so what? There are many disputes in Torah law, so there are disputes in reasoning too.
[Speaker B] What I’m saying is: it can’t be that everyone determines for himself what counts as affliction.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? It can. If the Sages had not determined, right, what is included in affliction, for example, then I would have had to determine it for myself. The Torah said, “you shall afflict yourselves”—what am I supposed to do? I don’t know. I need to think about what counts as affliction and what doesn’t, and act accordingly.
[Speaker B] And that means there would be different Torahs?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly. That’s not different Torahs; that’s different interpretations of the same Torah. Right? What, we have arguments in Jewish law—is that called different Torahs? Almost every law has some dispute.
[Speaker B] But there’s always a ruling.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not always. What does “always” mean? For practical law, yes. There is nothing in the world you can bring me that I won’t find a dispute about. Also in the Talmud, to this day. So what should one do? Halakhic decisors, yes? What thing is fully settled?
[Speaker B] Okay, so you have “make for yourself a rabbi,” and you follow him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And what will the rabbi do? And you’ll make the rabbi—and what will the rabbi do? The rabbi studies.
[Speaker B] No, what I’m—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What I’m saying is fine—you have to decide. In the end someone has to decide, like the Supreme Court, you know. Who judges the Supreme Court? No one. What can you do? At the top of the pyramid there has to be someone who makes decisions. There’s no choice. Yes. Okay. So good, okay, that’s the introduction. Now I want to get into the substance, because in this introduction I’ve actually already introduced the problem. The problem is that reasoning stands somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, we say that for something to be prohibited at the Torah level, you need a verse, you need a command, and you need reasoning. On the other hand, Jewish law treats reasoning as if it were a substitute for a verse: “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning.” As if you don’t need a verse. So do you need a verse or not? Maybe I’ll sharpen this point further. In Maimonides, in the ninth principle—if you remember Maimonides’ principles—the ninth principle is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the question of what happens when the Torah commands something several times. For example, observing the Sabbath. It appears in the Torah many times. The commandment to observe the Sabbath—Maimonides counts it there twelve times. Right, that’s a positive commandment. So Maimonides says: we count it in the enumeration of the commandments as one commandment. Why? Because if the same command appears twelve times, you don’t count twelve commandments; you count one commandment. In the second part, Maimonides speaks about a general prohibition. What is a general prohibition? For example, “Do not eat over the blood.” So there is a verse from which all kinds of laws are derived. For example, it is a warning regarding the stubborn and rebellious son. For example, that a religious court may not eat on the day they issue a death sentence. Not eating before prayer—Maimonides also implies that this is Torah-level law, because he derives that too from “Do not eat over the blood.” And more. I think there are five things there derived from that general prohibition. And Maimonides says that a general prohibition is also counted only once. For example, in the context of “Do not eat over the blood,” he counts only the stubborn and rebellious son. All the others are not included in the enumeration of the commandments. Because regarding the stubborn and rebellious son, what is written in the section is only the punishment: “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son,” they take him to the elders—
[Speaker B] At the gate, and they do to him what they do.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t say that it is prohibited to be a stubborn and rebellious son. There is no warning; there is only a punishment. The warning is from “Do not eat over the blood.” That’s what the Sages say. So Rabbi Yerucham Perla asks, in his book on Rav Saadia Gaon, in his treatment of Rav Saadia Gaon, he asks about Maimonides that there seems to be a contradiction between the two parts of the principle. Why? Because in the first part of the principle Maimonides says that we basically go by the contents, not by the commands. If there are twelve commands to observe the Sabbath—twelve commands to observe the Sabbath—then we count only one commandment, even though we were commanded twelve times. Why? Because the content is one content. What determines things is the content. Okay? In the second part Maimonides says that we go by the commands, not by the content. Because we have one verse, “Do not eat over the blood,” one command, and there are five contents prohibited by it, and we count one commandment. Right? So do we go by content or by command? In the first part it seems we go by contents; in the second part it seems we go by the number of commands. So what determines it? This again is connected to what we discussed yesterday about dichotomy. Meaning, his assumption is of course that either this determines it or that determines it. But it can always be that it’s either-or, and it can also be both-and. And those options, in ordinary yeshiva-style thinking, usually aren’t taken into account. But they are real options, and in this case that is obviously the answer. He leaves it unresolved and says it requires further analysis. I don’t understand what the problem is at all; it’s not difficult. Meaning, clearly in Maimonides, what is needed for a commandment to be a Torah-level commandment is both things. There has to be a special command regarding that thing, and there has to be a unique content to that thing. If there is something that has the same content as another command, or a different content that comes from the same command, it will not be counted as a separate prohibition. Because in order to count it as a separate prohibition, there has to be a command about it and it has to be different from the other prohibitions, to have a unique content. And therefore these are the two parts of the principle. But for our purposes, what this basically means is that according to Maimonides, for a prohibition to be counted in the enumeration of the commandments, to be considered Torah-level, there has to be a command concerning it, and there also has to be some content or reasoning or something that makes it prohibited in terms of its content.
[Speaker C] Who puts it into the category of a general prohibition? Because in order to define it as both content and command, you’re saying it’s a general prohibition. Who decides?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, if I learn several things from the same verse—after all, the Sages learned several things from the same verse.
[Speaker C] So that’s their option in learning, they have such an option, and then everything will be—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it will be a general prohibition, and you’ll count one prohibition. Clearly this does not emerge from the Torah itself, because if all these things emerged from the Torah itself, it wouldn’t be one command—they’d be five. It is always where the Torah gives one command and we derive several things from it. And what about the warning? The warning is the prohibition—that’s what is meant; “command” here means warning. I spoke about this last time, that at the beginning of the eighth principle Maimonides makes a distinction there between a command and a warning. He says it is basically the same type, but not exactly the same thing. So what is needed, basically, is both command and content. And if I translate that into our terms, then content means what the Torah prohibits, and behind that sits the reasoning why it is prohibited, what the problem is here, and the other thing is the—
And indeed among the medieval authorities there are the Ritva and Tosafot HaRosh. The Gemara says in Bava Kamma 38: “Thus you learn that even a gentile who engages in Torah is like a High Priest.” They said: “They do not receive reward like one who is commanded and does, but like one who is not commanded and does.” For Rabbi Hanina said: “Greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does.” He is like a High Priest, but he does not receive reward in the same way as one who is commanded, because he is not commanded. Why is one who is commanded and does greater than one who is not commanded and does? So here there is a Ritva in Kiddushin 31—there too this statement of Rabbi Hanina appears. “Our rabbis of blessed memory explained the reason for the matter,” why one who is commanded and does is greater: “because when he is commanded, Satan prosecutes against him, whereas in the other case Satan does not prosecute against him, and according to the pain is the reward.” That’s the well-known explanation, right? If you are commanded, then you have a stronger evil inclination; you need to work harder to fulfill it, and therefore you deserve more reward. “And our great rabbi of blessed memory explained”—this is probably Maimonides—“that the commandments are not for the benefit of God, blessed be He, who commands them, but in order to benefit us. And one who is commanded fulfills the decree of the King, and therefore his reward is greater than that of one who did not fulfill the King’s command. Nevertheless, the latter too deserves reward, for out of goodness of heart and piety he undertook to do the commandments of God, blessed be He. And this applies specifically to commandments that God commanded others, in which He has an interest. But one who, on his own, performs actions as commandments that the Torah did not command at all—this is what they said: anyone who is not commanded regarding a matter and does it is called a commoner.” And then there can sometimes be a case where it is not correct at all to do what the Torah did not command. One who is exempt from the matter and does it is called a commoner. I’ll leave that aside for now.
What he is basically saying is: why is one who is commanded and does greater? Because in every matter, in every commandment in the Torah, there are two aspects. One aspect is the command, and the second aspect is the content, as we saw also in Maimonides—or the reasoning, the benefit that comes from this thing or the harm that needs to be prevented through this thing. So if I am commanded and do it, then in doing that thing I have actually fulfilled two aspects—there are two virtues in what I did. One virtue is that I obeyed the Holy One, blessed be He. The second virtue lies in the act itself: it is a good act, an act that brings blessing, right? So it is a positive thing. One who is not commanded and does—for example, women who take the lulav. They are not commanded, because it is a positive commandment dependent on time, and so they receive reward like one who is not commanded and does. Why? They seemingly did it voluntarily and all sorts of things like that—why isn’t that greater? So he says that what they did really does bring about the repair that waving the lulav or taking the lulav brings about, but they do not have the response to a command, because they are not commanded. Meaning, one who is commanded and does has two virtues in everything he does. He also responds to a command—which is a value in itself, apart from the fact that the act itself is good. The very fact that you responded to a command, that you obeyed the Holy One, blessed be He—that itself is a value. Besides that, there is also the value of the act. These are two things. One who is not commanded and does has only the value of the act; he does not have the response to the command. Therefore the commanded person is greater.
Tosafot HaRosh writes similarly. He says: “Also, greater is one who is commanded and does, even though we say in tractate Chagigah, by way of analogy, about a king who told his servants to rise early at his gate: to whom should one show greater gratitude? To women, whose way is not to rise early like men.” Right, someone who works harder deserves more reward. So he says it is not comparable there, because there both are commanded, and the one for whom it is not the norm is greater when he does it. “And the reason one who is commanded and does is preferable is because he worries and suffers constantly, fearing lest he transgress, and he has to force his inclination more than one who is not commanded, who can simply refrain if he wishes.” That’s the first explanation, parallel to what we saw in the Ritva. “And furthermore, the Holy One, blessed be He, needs nothing from all the commandments, except that His will be done; therefore one who is commanded and does is doing the will of his Creator, but one who is not commanded and does—it is not applicable to say of him that he is doing the will of his Creator, since He commanded him nothing.” Nevertheless he receives reward, because the act in itself is a positive act; it’s just that you were not commanded. So “greater is one who is commanded and does” because you have both virtues, as opposed to one who is not commanded and does.
[Speaker B] Is this connected to whether commandments require intention? Why? No, because the intention should be toward the content.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, intention there means to fulfill one’s obligation. On the contrary, intention is connected to the command. Even someone who is not commanded can do it with intention. The intention that is indispensable, the intention discussed in the topic of whether commandments require intention, is the intention to fulfill one’s obligation. So what I’m saying, if we take this in the direction of reasoning, is that when there is a command that comes from reasoning, then obviously in this map something is missing. We are all like people who are not commanded but do, with respect to that command that comes from reasoning. So therefore it’s not—I don’t know how to define Torah-level and rabbinic right now—but it is something that is not like something we are fully commanded in by the Torah. There is something here that is not quite the same.
Now I want to get into the matter a bit more. So the Gemara—and I think we really discussed this one of the very first times—the Gemara in Berakhot teaches on the question of where we know that one must bless over food, blessings of enjoyment—the blessing before, not after. So the Gemara brings several possibilities there, and in the end it concludes: “Rather, it is reasoning: it is forbidden for a person to enjoy this world without a blessing.” “The Rabbis taught: It is forbidden for a person to enjoy this world without a blessing, and anyone who enjoys this world without a blessing has committed misuse.” What is his remedy? “He should go to a sage.” Fine, but rather: he should have gone to a sage beforehand and learned blessings from him, etc. In short, that is the conclusion: that this is reasoning—that one who enjoys this world without a blessing is as if he committed misuse, and therefore one must bless before eating.
On this the Pnei Yehoshua asks there, in the discussion in Berakhot. The Pnei Yehoshua says this: “It appears from the language of all the halakhic decisors, and according to this conclusion here, that all blessings over enjoyment are rabbinic, except for Grace after Meals alone, because ‘and you shall eat and be satisfied and bless’—there is a verse. But blessings over enjoyment are rabbinic blessings; in cases of doubt regarding blessings we are lenient”—right, that’s a rabbinic law. “And according to Rashba, the after-blessing on the seven species is also Torah-level, but regarding the other blessings he agrees.”
[Speaker B] In general—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In general, the blessings before eating are rabbinic blessings. “And in my humble opinion this is puzzling,” says the Pnei Yehoshua, “for throughout the Talmud it appears that anything derived from reasoning is Torah-level. On the contrary, the Talmud asks, ‘Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning.’” So we really see that reasoning is a substitute for a verse; it’s Torah-level. So if here the conclusion is that it is forbidden to enjoy this world without a blessing, and one who enjoys it is as if he committed misuse, then we have reasoning saying that one must bless before eating. If so, this should have been a Torah-level law—for example, a case of doubt should be treated stringently, not leniently. So why is it accepted among us that blessings are rabbinic and cases of doubt about them are treated leniently? “And indeed from the language of Tosafot it is possible that what they wrote, ‘the verse is merely taken up,’ means only as a scriptural support.” In short, he says that even in Tosafot it is not clear whether it is rabbinic or Torah-level, but clearly the consensus of the halakhic decisors is that it is rabbinic. But from the sugya here it emerges that this is reasoning, and it is accepted among us that reasoning has the status of Torah-level. So why are blessings rabbinic?
He says: “However, it appears to me in my humble opinion that even if you say that this reasoning is also Torah-level, it still works out well that we rule that in cases of doubt about blessings we are lenient, because it is not relevant to be stringent, since it is forbidden to recite an unnecessary blessing, and therefore this reasoning falls away automatically.” He says: really, it could be that blessings are a Torah-level obligation. And the fact that we rule that in cases of doubt about blessings we are lenient is not because it’s rabbinic, but because an unnecessary blessing violates “You shall not take the name of Heaven in vain.” If you recite the blessing on the assumption that maybe you weren’t required—after all, if you are in doubt, there is a possibility that you need not bless—then if you do bless, you violate the prohibition of a blessing in vain. So if there were no prohibition of a blessing in vain, and you were in doubt whether you have to bless or not, this would be a Torah-level doubt and we should have treated it stringently. But here, in this case, when you are stringent regarding the laws of blessings, you are lenient regarding the law of “You shall not take [God’s name in vain].” Since that is so, says the Pnei Yehoshua, it may really be that the obligation to bless before food is a Torah-level obligation, and the rule that in cases of doubt about blessings we are lenient does not stem from the fact that it is rabbinic, but from the fact that there is concern for a Torah prohibition here. Only then—what about Grace after Meals? In a case of doubt regarding Grace after Meals, you do recite it. Why? Because that is explicitly Torah-level.
[Speaker B] But maybe then you are violating “You shall not take the name of Heaven in vain” there too—the same issue. What’s the difference?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good question. I don’t know. Good question. Then he says afterward: “And concerning food, he blesses, however, after eating.” It could be that this is not Torah-level, because in the end you are released from the misuse by the blessing you recite after the food as well. So if you didn’t bless beforehand, it’s not so terrible, and therefore it is rabbinic. Yes, yes—that’s another reason; he brings another answer. “And so he does not enjoy this world without a blessing.” That’s how it seems to me, and it still requires further analysis. Meaning, his final conclusion is that it may indeed be a Torah-level law; he says there is some side reason not to say so, and then he really does not understand—it still requires further analysis. So why really is the doubt treated leniently? Especially what Shmuel asked here—I really hadn’t thought of that. Seemingly according to his first answer, then also in Grace after Meals the doubt should have been treated leniently even though it is Torah-level, since this too is Torah-level. What’s the difference?
[Speaker C] Maybe the difference is between what is written in the verse and reasoning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s why I’m bringing the—
[Speaker C] That’s obvious.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Therefore the result is that with Grace after Meals you do have to recite it, because it comes from a verse.
[Speaker B] If it’s not explicit, if it’s not of the same strength, then the Gemara wouldn’t have asked, “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning.” Right—and like a verse, in order to make it stronger.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Right. This claim—that the blessing before Grace after Meals is Torah-level—you can also see in the Students of Rabbenu Yonah there on the Rif. And they say: “What is his remedy? Rava said: he should go to a knowledgeable sage, etc.” Meaning, one who does not know blessings—how can he eat at all? For if he eats, he would become liable for a misuse offering every single time. And they answer that he should go to one who is knowledgeable and learn from him the blessings for each and every thing. “And the same law is that even if he knows only the blessing ‘by whose word all things came to be,’ he has discharged himself from misuse by that.” “And if on all things he said ‘by whose word all things came to be,’ he fulfilled his obligation,” as the Gemara says in Berakhot. “But he should learn so that he can recite the appropriate blessing for each and every thing.” He says basically: you have to go to a sage and learn, because otherwise you will incur a misuse offering every time you failed to bless, every time you ate without blessing, or blessed with the wrong blessing. Now—how is there a misuse offering here? The obligation to bless before food is rabbinic. If you didn’t bless, it is “as if” he committed misuse. But a misuse offering is a matter of sacrilege. And in general, is a rabbinic prohibition enough here, and not a Torah prohibition? In the Students of Rabbenu Yonah you can see—no, it sounds like this is a Torah prohibition, not a rabbinic prohibition. A Torah prohibition, because otherwise what would a misuse offering have to do here? Again, just like—
[Speaker B] They use the term “as if”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “As if he committed misuse” means it’s not misuse of consecrated property, but misuse of another kind. But it is misuse—that’s the claim.
[Speaker B] It seems to me that… maybe before that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Tzelach, in his novelties there, really brings the words of the Pnei Yehoshua and challenges him. “As for what the genius, the author of Pnei Yehoshua, wrote—that since the Gemara concludes that it is reasoning, it is thereby Torah-level, for we find that they said, ‘Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,’ from which it follows that reasoning is effective like a verse”—that’s a quotation from the Pnei Yehoshua. And I say, says the Tzelach, that this applies only to one law among the laws, as in Ketubot: from where do we know that ‘the mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted’? And in Bava Kamma: from where do we know that the burden of proof lies on the claimant? In these places the Gemara asks, “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning.” But to say that something based on reasoning should be considered a Torah commandment—that we have never heard. And if it were so, then why were all the rational commandments written? What was the point? Rational commandments we would know even without that. And furthermore, this reasoning—that it is forbidden to enjoy this world without a blessing—belongs to all human beings. If so, blessings over enjoyment should be obligatory even for gentiles, not only for Jews. Astonishing. Rather, certainly the intent is that since it is reasoning, for that reason the Sages instituted blessings over enjoyment. That is the reason the Sages instituted them, not that it is the basis of the prohibition itself. And this applies to all the other fruit blessings, but concerning bread there is room to discuss whether it is a kal va-chomer, etc.”
So what is he basically saying? He—
[Speaker B] He’s saying it can’t be that everything derived from reasoning makes the verse unnecessary.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Otherwise all rational commandments would not need to have been written, and yet they were written. Therefore his claim is that this is rabbinic, and that this reasoning of “as if he committed misuse” is the reason why the Sages instituted it—not the reason why it is prohibited, but why the Sages instituted it. And how does he explain “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning”? He says it applies to one law among the laws. I read it—he says it applies to one law among the laws. What does that mean? What’s the difference between “one law among the laws” and something else? Someone here mentioned it earlier; I just don’t remember who. I think he means that if you have a Torah commandment or Torah prohibition, and by reasoning you derive some detail within that commandment, then the reasoning is interpretive reasoning. It is the reasoning through which you interpret the law the Torah states. Obviously, interpretation is always done through reasoning. So about that the Gemara says: when you make an interpretation of a law that is written, you don’t need a separate source for that interpretation. If you have reasoning, then interpret the command according to your reasoning. But if there is a new law that comes out of that reasoning—not a detail in an existing law or a definition of an existing law, but a new law that emerges from the reasoning—then we do not say, “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning.” Because without a verse, without a command, it cannot—
[Speaker B] Be that it would be a Torah prohibition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Otherwise “do not murder,” “do not steal”—there would have been no need to write them.
[Speaker B] And is that a test for all the cases where this—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There aren’t many cases. There really aren’t many cases. He brought two here; maybe there are one or two more in one formulation or another. There aren’t many cases, and in all of them it seems to me that this is the situation. Meaning, what the Tzelach is basically claiming is this: and in my opinion the Pnei Yehoshua would not disagree. What the Tzelach is basically claiming is that when we say, “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” I do in fact have a source in the Torah for the prohibition, and what I do with the reasoning is only to interpret the prohibition written in the Torah. For that interpretation, I do not need a source from a verse; I can do it by reasoning. I understand what the verse means, and then I interpret it. In the final analysis, what I am doing is by force of the verse. The reasoning here tells me that this is what the verse means, and that is interpretive reasoning.
But here, with blessings over enjoyment, the reasoning is not introducing a detail into an existing commandment or an existing prohibition. The reasoning introduces a new commandment. Basically, there is a new obligation here: one must bless before food, and this obligation has no source in the verses at all. The whole thing is only the reasoning that it is forbidden to enjoy this world without a blessing. About that the Tzelach says: is it possible to create a command whose whole foundation is reasoning—whose whole foundation is reasoning, not as interpretive reasoning—and have it be Torah-level? If that were what was meant when they say, “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” then you could delete all the rational commandments. There would be no need to write them, because they follow from reasoning—so why write them? So really, according to his view, why write them? Because if it were not written, then it would not be Torah-level. “Do not murder” or “do not steal” would not have been Torah-level, and only because it is written does it become Torah-level. And that doesn’t mean there is no reasoning, and by the way it’s not because the reasoning is weak—this isn’t connected to what I said earlier—not because the reasoning is weak, but because reasoning is not enough; you also need a command. That is what I discussed in the previous lesson. Reasoning only says that this is the proper way to act, but without the command it does not become an obligation. The law of the Knesset does not make running a red light more problematic in the consequential sense—it is obviously dangerous even beforehand—but without the law of the Knesset it is not forbidden; it is only dangerous. Okay? So the command is not needed in order to complete the dimension of reasoning, as if the reasoning is not strong enough and then the command comes and tells me, all right, still, it’s binding. No—the command is an additional dimension of an entirely different kind. Without a command, if there is only reasoning, even very strong reasoning, it cannot produce a full Torah-level law. You need a command. Without the command, it is not part of Jewish law. Not because the reasoning is not strong enough—that’s the point. But because it is a different kind of thing. Reasoning does not create a command; it cannot create a command. Why can interpretive reasoning do so? Because interpretive reasoning does not create a command. Interpretive reasoning simply interprets for me the command written in the Torah; the Torah gave the command. What are the categories of labor on the Sabbath? Right. Those are reasonings that interpret “you shall do no labor,” which is written in the Torah. So there is no problem with interpretive reasoning; indeed, reasoning there has the status of Torah-level. But when reasoning creates a new law—and by the way, this almost never happens—reasoning that creates a new law, there indeed it cannot be Torah-level without a command.
For example, “what difference is there whether he brings in or takes out,” regarding bringing into and carrying out on the Sabbath? In most opinions, and in my humble opinion it cannot be otherwise, bringing in is a subcategory of carrying out; it is not an independent primary category, but a derivative of carrying out. Why? Because there is no command regarding bringing in; there is only the reasoning of “what difference is there whether he brings in or takes out.” Now that does not mean it is less severe; it is just as severe. But there is no command about it, and therefore it cannot be a primary category. Okay, so what the Tzelach is really arguing against the Pnei Yehoshua is a strong argument. At first glance the Pnei Yehoshua sounds very sensible, but when you look at the Tzelach, the Tzelach is making a strong point. Pnei Yehoshua, do you really want to claim that when reasoning introduces a law, that law will be Torah-level without a command? Not interpretive reasoning, but reasoning like here in the blessing before food. I think that even the Pnei Yehoshua does not mean that, and the Tzelach does not mean that either. Meaning, the Pnei Yehoshua means what the Tzelach means.
What the Pnei Yehoshua says is that if something—if reasoning introduces a new law, then that truly is not a rabbinic law, but it is also not Torah-level in the sense that one would be punished for it. We would not punish for it. Why? Because there is no warning. In order to punish, there must be a warning, and a warning is something written in a verse. For something that seems reasonable to you on your own, we do not punish—just as you are not punished for running a red light when there is no Knesset law about it. It is equally reasonable, but punishment is given only for something that has a command attached to it, where you were warned. Okay, so therefore they would not punish for it; even the Pnei Yehoshua does not claim they would punish for it. That’s obvious: we do not punish unless there was prior warning. But the Pnei Yehoshua says: fine, but still, on the substantive level there is clearly an obligation to do this, and therefore in cases of doubt it should have been treated stringently. That is his question. Even though it is not Torah-level in the sense that we would not punish for it, still in cases of doubt it should have been treated stringently. And I think that this is also what the Students of Rabbenu Yonah mean. I spoke about this once.
[Speaker B] According to the way you explained the Pnei Yehoshua, the whole Mount Sinai status from the previous lesson—the whole matter of command—is only in order to punish?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Not to punish—to turn it into Jewish law. The implication is punishment.
[Speaker B] To turn it into something—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is obligatory, like legislation in the Knesset.
[Speaker B] No, and before that it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Was it obligatory, just without punishment?
[Speaker B] No, no, it was not obligatory.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it was not obligatory; it was reasonable. No, it was not obligatory, and therefore they do not punish. Not that they simply don’t punish—they do not punish because it was not a halakhic obligation. It’s like a law before it has been enacted. It’s reasonable; someone who does it is foolish, fine, but you can’t sue him. Why can’t you sue him? Because he wasn’t obligated.
[Speaker B] So the whole story of Avner is only about what you do with someone caught in a case of doubt?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. He claims that in cases of doubt we still should have been stringent here, because there is reasoning behind it and in the end you can fail. I spoke about this once when I discussed a guilt-offering, and then I also brought these Students of Rabbenu Yonah, because in the Students of Rabbenu Yonah too, in my humble opinion, that is what is written. When they say that he violated and brought a misuse offering, they do not mean that this is Torah-level. I once spoke about misuse offerings, about all guilt-offerings, not only the guilt-offering for misuse, and I argued that guilt-offerings are brought for something that is not an offense in the formal sense. It does not have to be a Torah prohibition in order to require a guilt-offering, and this is one example. Therefore I think that both the Students of Rabbenu Yonah and the Pnei Yehoshua do not mean to say that reasoning is literally Torah-level and turns into a prohibition in every respect. Their dispute with the Tzelach—or the dispute of the Pnei Yehoshua with the Tzelach—is only over the question of what to do in a case of doubt. There there is a real disagreement. But they both agree: it cannot be that “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning” refers to every place where reasoning introduces a law. That cannot be; even the Pnei Yehoshua does not say such a thing. If reasoning introduces a new law, that law will not be like a regular Torah law. In all the places where it says, “Why do I need a verse? It is reasoning,” it is always when the reasoning interprets an existing law. “The burden of proof lies on the claimant,” or “the mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted”—these are laws of evidence. Within the framework of “with righteousness shall you judge your fellow”—what counts as righteousness? What counts as evidence? There they bring reasoning. This is good evidence, this is weaker evidence—these are all rules of judicial procedure. But a novel law like here, regarding blessings, cannot be given Torah-level status by reasoning. Okay.