Mysticism – Lesson 6

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, last time I presented an explanation for why, in Jewish law, there is a qualified status—let’s call it that—for matters of the hidden realm, for Kabbalah, for mysticism, and so on. My claim was that the problem is not that we suspect it may not be true—maybe mistakes can creep in there because not everyone understands it. One could have said there’s some concern here that there are errors, maybe it’s not from an authoritative source, yes, it’s not something that came down on a broad front like the halakhic tradition. But I suggested that it’s not because of that. Even if it’s completely true, since mysticism—or Kabbalah in the Jewish context—I defined as something that is inherently subjective. It is not accessible to people, to the general public, but only to a certain individual who has some kind of, I don’t know, spiritual intuition, spiritual charisma. So because of that, these things have no halakhic status. That was basically the claim. And therefore I said that maybe this can also explain why among the kabbalists they do not behave the way Magen Avraham and the Beit Yosef write—that when there is a contradiction between the revealed tradition and the hidden tradition, you follow the revealed tradition. They follow the hidden tradition. And I said that in light of the previous explanation, maybe that can be understood, because in their view this really is not mysticism. From their perspective, these are considerations accessible to them, and they reached that particular conclusion, and therefore from their point of view this is a completely valid and legitimate conclusion in the halakhic context. Only for someone to whom this is not accessible, and who can only believe someone else who tells him so—for such a person this is mysticism. And mysticism has no halakhic status. I brought various examples for this. Yes, I already mentioned the Talmudic passage there about Rabbi Meir, yes, that Jewish law was not ruled like him because his colleagues could not reach the depth of his reasoning. And I said that, on the face of it, that’s the opposite of logic. Because if he is so wise that his colleagues—if they disagree with him, it’s probably simply because they didn’t understand him—then ostensibly one should rule according to him. That’s actually a reason to rule according to him. Because if I disagree with him, then apparently I’m wrong and he’s right. My claim was that even though it’s more likely that Rabbi Meir is right than that I am, from my perspective I don’t hold that way. I have not been convinced. Now, even though I know that my not being convinced stems from my weakness—yes, I’m small compared to Rabbi Meir—in the end I’m not supposed to rule Jewish law just because I believe Rabbi Meir. Even though it would be justified to believe him—not because it wouldn’t be justified, but because that is not the way of Jewish law. Jewish law is supposed to be something public. Something accessible to everyone, something through which we can persuade one another, something each of us can examine and come to a conclusion about. And if there is something that may be very true, perhaps even truer than what I think, but it isn’t accessible to me, and I’m required to accept it only because someone said it and I’m supposed to accept his words or believe him—that is not the way of Jewish law. And that is the claim. So that’s what I explained last time, and today I want to continue a bit and show this from additional angles. Someone also mentioned it during the lecture, and afterward someone emailed me about it, and yes, it’s in the plan. I’m now going to speak about my article on Parashat Miketz in Midah Tovah, because there I discuss a bit the halakhic status of dreams. And in the end I want to argue that the halakhic status of dreams, or the low halakhic status of dreams—there are disagreements about how low, but it is low—does not stem specifically from the concern that maybe the dream isn’t true, from the point I spoke about before, but from the very fact that it is not something public but something subjective. But let’s look at this a bit more systematically.

[Speaker B] In the Talmud, yes—according to the claim that Kabbalah developed, I don’t know, developed, but sort of came to the masses much later than the plain, straightforward halakhah—isn’t it a matter of it not being accepted because this was something new to people? Something they hadn’t learned, hadn’t known at the time?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand. What do you mean, they didn’t know it at the time?

[Speaker B] Maybe the halakhic status of Kabbalah wasn’t accepted and didn’t take root not only because it’s accessible or inaccessible, but because it came much later than the simple standard halakhah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are tannaitic and amoraic sayings in the Zohar. Is that later than the Talmud?

[Speaker B] No, but the Zohar itself developed…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t understand. In revealed Jewish law too there are earlier and later layers; the hidden tradition is the same. There isn’t some clear chronological distinction between the revealed and the hidden.

[Speaker B] I don’t know, from what I know it’s commonly thought that the Zohar was revealed much later than the Talmud.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Book of the Zohar was edited later, fine, but it contains tannaitic and amoraic sources. There are hidden-tradition sources, early kabbalistic works, there are all sorts of things, Sefer HaBahir, I don’t know, things like that. Fine, attributed—you know, there are always disputes about how accurate those attributions are—but there are ancient books there. But the point is not chronology. In Jewish law too, by the way, there are things that were innovated very late. What, did the entirety of Jewish law come from Sinai fully formed?

[Speaker B] Not as a method—as a worldview, I mean, as a way of conduct.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In ordinary Jewish law there is no such time-order in this matter. I don’t think there’s a time-order here. You can again debate what the source of the Zohar is, how reliable it is, I don’t know, or Kabbalah not necessarily the Zohar. But no, there is no defined time sequence here. And let’s say certainly, absolutely certainly, that among traditional sages—not today’s academics—they thought the Zohar was ancient too. The fact that today we think otherwise, fine. But if you’re asking why people did not accept the authority of Kabbalah when it clashes with revealed halakhah, it seems to me difficult to hang that on scholarly conclusions from our own day, or from the last hundred or two hundred years. So that reason doesn’t seem plausible to me. And as I said before, there are explanations—the common explanations are that maybe it isn’t authoritative, maybe it didn’t undergo such review, because kabbalists after all are a narrow stream, a tradition transmitted on a narrow front, all things of that kind. I’m trying to propose a thesis that follows from the definition I proposed of what mysticism is; that’s why I prefaced all the definitions and the earlier discussions. My claim is that from that very definition, the result regarding the status of Kabbalah in the halakhic world is demanded—it comes out of the definition. Meaning, there’s no need to add some extra assumption. And that’s what I’m trying to show now: that this claim, that esoteric subjective dimensions have no halakhic status, or have a lower halakhic status, has sources in various areas even apart from Kabbalah. Meaning, the fact that this is the character of Jewish law can be seen in other places too, not specifically in the kabbalistic context.

[Speaker B] Okay. Huh? I said okay, thanks.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so I want to talk a bit about dreams, because there too it seems to me you see a similar principle. The Talmud in tractate Nedarim says on page 8: Rav Yosef said, “If they excommunicated him in a dream, he requires ten people to release him.” Then the discussion begins: who are the ten? Those who learned halakhot, those who taught but didn’t learn, it doesn’t matter—there are discussions about who these ten are, okay? And then they talk there about excommunication in a dream, and so on. So from the Talmud here—and this is also ruled in practice—from the Talmud here, yes, look at Maimonides: “One who was excommunicated in a dream, even if he knows who excommunicated him, requires ten people who study Jewish law to release him from his excommunication.” And the Shulchan Arukh as well, in section 334, rules this as Jewish law. Now here, seemingly, it appears that things that happen to me in a dream have halakhic status, like things in reality—like someone who is excommunicated in life, in reality, the same thing happens when he is excommunicated in a dream. Yes? So it seems that events occurring in a dream have a status like ordinary events. But there is here—and I’m not going into all the sources in this context—also a vow in a dream and excommunication in a dream and so on. With regard to a vow there is a dispute, about someone who vows charity in a dream, but I’ll just note that there is discussion—and this is really among the halakhic decisors—it’s not always clear to what extent the status of this excommunication is truly binding. Meaning, the fact that he needs ten to release him from the excommunication—that is ruled in practice. But am I supposed to treat him as excommunicated? If someone else dreamt and they excommunicated him in the dream, am I supposed to treat him as excommunicated? On the face of it, no. He needs release. By the way, there are places where it seems he needs release only in order to calm him down. Because the person needs to settle down, so he won’t constantly be worried about this excommunication—not because there is really some valid excommunication here that requires an actual halakhic process of release. But even if we say there is, I have hardly found anyone who says that others are also supposed to treat him as if he is excommunicated.

[Speaker B] How do they know? How do they even know? What, does he now have to announce, “You excommunicated me in a dream”? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He tells them. Fine. He tells them that they excommunicated him in a dream. That’s the question. After all, he gathers ten in order to release him, right? Those ten he tells. So for those ten, before they released him, are they supposed to treat him as excommunicated? Okay. No, I once saw someone who wanted to argue that, but it seems to me that the plain understanding implies not. So why is there a need to release the excommunication if the excommunication isn’t relevant anyway? There are laws about someone being excommunicated with respect to himself—that is written, that the laws of one under excommunication do apply to him. But that others should treat him as excommunicated—that plainly does not seem required. So maybe the release is needed to remove the excommunication from himself, and maybe just to calm him down, and not really for formal halakhic reasons.

[Speaker B] Excommunication in a dream—normally excommunication is the result of some deviation, some behavior that’s not right… So what, if—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If they excommunicated him in a dream—

[Speaker B] —does he need to believe that he did whatever it was—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —even though he didn’t do it? That there’s some basis, and that’s why they excommunicated him?

[Speaker B] Yes, but does he need to believe he actually did what he did, or is it only in the dream?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know who said he was told what he was being excommunicated for, I have no idea.

[Speaker B] Just like that? Usually they tell me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know what those fellows who show up in his dream do, if there are such fellows at all, but he received excommunication in a dream. I have no idea whether they told him there what the excommunication was for and what exactly happened there. Fine, I’m not… He was excommunicated, that’s all. Even if he can’t find it—he looks back and searches, what for, why, for what reason—and he can’t find anything. Doesn’t matter. But if they excommunicated him, then the Holy One, blessed be He—yes, the discussion there is about the master of the dream, yes, or someone—who is that one who excommunicates him in the dream? By the way, there are sources that imply it is he himself. Actually a very modern conception of dreams, yes, like Freud—that a person uncovers things within himself that appear to him in the dream; in fact it is he himself. Where do you see this? Among those who apply it, for example, to a vow. When I make a vow in a dream, there are those who want to learn from this Talmudic passage that that too takes effect. Now when I make a vow in a dream, obviously no one else can make a vow on my behalf. If that vow takes effect, that means I made it. Okay? When I make a vow in a dream, that basically means that somewhere within me, yes, in my subconscious, I made the vow. True, it’s not conscious—I’m not aware of these things—but somewhere inside me such a process took place. That’s basically the claim. And that thing perhaps can count as a vow; this is a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim), but there are Rishonim who take it that way—Ran and Rashba there on the spot. In any case, I’m saying: it’s not clear at all to what extent there is any public status here, and it doesn’t seem there is. There is some more halakhic status—you can find places that suggest yes, meaning that he himself must relate to himself as excommunicated. And maybe, maybe it’s not even that, but simply just to calm him down from these things. It’s like a fast after a dream. Someone is shaken by a dream, so he undertakes a fast after a dream. Basically the point is—there are those who explain that it’s to release something real, that some decree has come upon him—but it seems to me that a fast after a dream comes to calm the person. Meaning: okay, do a fast after a dream, some sort of halakhic hocus-pocus that allows people who get worked up by their dreams to calm down. Anyway, that’s about excommunication in a dream. And notice that excommunication really is something—and this is the point important to me—something that, at least in the context of this Talmudic passage, seems to be primarily on the subjective plane. Meaning the consequences. The public probably is not supposed to treat him as excommunicated. It may be that with respect to himself he must behave as one under excommunication—there are laws of one under excommunication—but the public, it doesn’t seem they need to treat him as excommunicated. Meaning that we have here some Jewish law that is a subjective law. Okay? Maybe I’ll even anticipate what comes later. There are—where do we find such things? For example, there are two halakhic rules that, if you think about them a bit, seem to me very similar to what I described here: a litigant’s admission, and self-imposed prohibition (“shavya anafshei chatikha de-isura”). A litigant’s admission means that a person comes and admits that he owes someone money. So a litigant’s admission is like a hundred witnesses, and therefore he must pay. But in a place where it harms someone else, then a litigant’s admission does not apply. A litigant’s admission is not valid. Meaning, where the admission imposes some kind of obligations on other people, not only on himself, it is not a litigant’s admission. It does not bind.

[Speaker B] Not even for his own part? What? Not even for his own part?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an interesting question. On the face of it, not even for his own part, but that’s a more specific question—you have to get more deeply into the Talmudic topics for that. There are explanations that say: why is it that where it harms another, a litigant’s admission is ineffective? Because if it harms another, what is the logic of a litigant’s admission based on? A person does not just obligate himself for no reason. If he admits that he himself is liable, then apparently that is the truth, because a person doesn’t lie in order to hurt himself. Okay? But if he’s hurting others, then maybe there is concern that he is lying. There can be all sorts of “let me die with the Philistines.” I’m willing even to obligate myself provided that this other person gets hurt too. And therefore some concern arises regarding this admission, and where it harms another, the litigant’s admission is invalid. I want to claim something else. There is some evidence—I want to claim something else. I want to claim that the whole force of a litigant’s admission is force on the subjective plane. Because a litigant’s admission is where there is no other evidence before the religious court, only the litigant’s own admission. But the litigant’s own admission is really a subjective matter. He himself knows the truth, but it is not accessible to us. We have no independent evidence. All we can do is believe him. Okay? And as for testimony—he obviously cannot be a witness because he is an interested party, a litigant. He does not have the status of a witness, and a witness provides objective evidence. So the religious court itself never knows the truth on its own; witnesses come and tell it what happened there. But witnesses are understood as objective evidence, because witnesses tell you what the situation there was as it would have appeared to any person who had been there. Okay? But where the person himself tells you what happened, the person himself does not have the status of a witness, because he is a litigant. He has no status as a witness. So what does he have? He is believed for subjective reasons. Meaning, he himself presumably would not hurt himself, and therefore it is pretty clear that he is at least convinced that this was the reality. If you remember, I also mentioned in connection with migo that the evidence of migo is different from all other evidence, because ordinary evidence is evidence about the matter itself, whereas migo is evidence about the person. Yes, I compared it to a case where two witnesses come and say: so-and-so never lies. Would that be testimony of two witnesses that decides the law? Of course not. The witnesses have to testify about the thing, not about the person. They have to say there was a loan, there was no loan—but not about the person. Witnesses who testify about the person—it’s not that we don’t believe them, but testimony about the person is testimony about the person and not about the matter. What we need is to know what the reality was. Now migo, in that sense, is exceptional, because migo is evidence that I am not lying. But it does not tell me what the reality was. For example, as I spoke about, if I am imagining things—what the Talmud calls “in imagination”—then migo obviously won’t help. Because migo only says that I certainly am not lying. But if I don’t mean to lie, and I genuinely think that this is the truth, only I’m mistaken, I’m imagining things, then migo won’t help in any way. Migo only proves that I’m not lying, but it doesn’t tell me what is true in the matter itself—not about the matter, but about the person. So migo really is exceptional evidence, and that is why we do not say migo in order to extract money. Notice: why do we not say migo in order to extract money? Because migo cannot affect money that is in someone else’s possession. Since that already has implications for other people. Okay? Things that are subjective, that are about the person, are relevant to the person himself. They cannot carry consequences for other parties. That’s not entirely precise, because even migo to retain possession also in the end harms someone else, because the fact is I need the migo—without the migo, he would have succeeded in extracting the money from me. But still, in the end this is money in my possession; it does not intrude upon another person’s domain in an overt way, at least. I’m not presenting some new thesis here, I’m trying to show a direction, a line of thought. I return to a litigant’s admission. So a litigant’s admission basically says that it is unlikely that the person is lying. Because a person doesn’t lie in order to hurt himself. In that sense it is very similar to migo. A litigant’s admission too is really a very strong kind of migo, if you think about it. What is a litigant’s admission? I say: I owe you one hundred shekels. Believe me because I have a migo that I could have said I owe you nothing. I had a better claim that would have put me in a preferable legal situation. So if I make the weaker claim, the one that puts me in a worse legal situation, then you believe me. Because if I wanted to lie, I would have used the preferable lie. If you think about it that way, then a litigant’s admission is basically a kind of migo. There, instead of hurting myself, I could have exonerated myself. It’s of course a somewhat crooked migo, but basically I’m trying to show that this too is evidence about the person and not about the matter. It is evidence that I am not lying. It does not tell us what actually happened there in reality.

[Speaker C] So basically the claim—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that a litigant’s admission is like a hundred witnesses means: it is like a hundred witnesses as long as I am speaking about myself. But it will not count as a hundred witnesses when it concerns someone else. Yes, there is a dispute between Ketzot and Rashba: what happens in kiddushin, when both members of the couple admit that there was kiddushin without witnesses? A litigant’s admission is like a hundred witnesses. So if they admit it—it’s not about money, doesn’t matter, it’s about personal status. But they admit it, so if both admit it, that’s like a hundred witnesses. Especially with regard to the woman, because when the woman admits, the husband—it’s not so serious for him—but when the woman admits, she is effectively hurting herself, because she is forbidding herself to the world. A person who hurts himself—that is a litigant’s admission. Okay? Therefore, ostensibly, a litigant’s admission is like a hundred witnesses. And on that conception there is a dispute between Ketzot and Rashba; it doesn’t matter for the moment. But the claim is that there are those who say this is a case of harming others. Why is it harming others? Because if we believe her that she is a married woman, then she is forbidden to others. But that is a very strange claim, because clearly she can refuse anyone who wants to marry her. No one can marry her against her will.

[Speaker B] No, but her sister can’t marry the one she said she married.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s something else. The point is that others can’t betroth her. The fact that others can’t betroth her means that, in any case, she has the power to refuse them; that power is hers regardless. You’re right that there is some harm to others here—specifically regarding her relatives. Her relatives, for example, would not be able to marry this husband. Okay? In any event, there are those who explain that this is harm to others, and therefore a litigant’s admission does not work here. The assumption is that if there were a valid litigant’s admission here, then if it were not harm to others, it would help even for betrothal. It would be like betrothal in the presence of two witnesses. But the accepted view is not like that. The accepted view is that it would not help even if it were not harm to others. A litigant’s admission is not witnesses in the full sense. It cannot serve as witnesses for establishing the matter in betrothal. Why not? According to what I’m saying now, it’s very clear why not. Because these are not really witnesses. It has force like witnesses only for implications that concern me. Not because of harm to others and fears that maybe you’re trying to hurt someone. Rather, because a Jewish law rule that is essentially subjective, like a litigant’s admission, can have consequences only for the subject who is the source of that rule—only for me myself. Anywhere it touches someone else, regardless of the formal category of harm to others, anywhere it touches someone else it is irrelevant. I am not willing to accept Jewish law rules that are in a subjective dimension with respect to other people, only with respect to the person who is the subjective source of those things.

The same is true of self-imposed prohibition. Because self-imposed prohibition is when a woman comes and says, “I am a married woman.” Meaning, she is not testifying to the… she is not constituting testimony about the betrothal; she is saying, “I got married before two witnesses, I was betrothed before two witnesses, but nobody knows who they are and the witnesses are not here, but I admit that this happened, that was the situation.” Okay? So in such a case we say: self-imposed prohibition. What does that mean? It means that she herself certainly cannot marry someone else, because she herself claims that she is a married woman. Someone else is permitted to marry her. He does not need to be concerned with the prohibition she imposed on herself. But for her it is forbidden to do so. She is forbidden to marry him.

Say, for example, if a woman comes—or not specifically a woman, a man too, it doesn’t matter—someone comes and says about a certain piece of meat, even though there are two witnesses that it is a kosher piece of meat, “This meat is non-kosher, pork.” Okay? Then he himself is forbidden to eat it, even though there are two witnesses that it is kosher. Why? If you ask the religious court whether it is kosher or not, what will the court say? Kosher. But he made it a self-imposed prohibition. Meaning, he imposed a prohibition on himself and he is obligated to abide by it. So the rule of self-imposed prohibition is by definition a subjective rule. And many later authorities already said this—the Ketzot and the Mahaneh Ephraim are famous for comparing a litigant’s admission to self-imposed prohibition.

By the way, this is true for a litigant’s admission as well. Suppose I admit that I owe—say, you sue me over a loan, and I admit: “I borrowed and I did not repay.” Fine? Now two witnesses come and say: “You borrowed and you repaid.” So what will the religious court rule? There are two witnesses that the loan was repaid. From the court’s perspective, the loan was repaid. But since I admitted that I did not repay, then they obligate me to pay. Why? But from the court’s point of view, if you ask them, the loan was repaid—they have two witnesses that the loan was repaid. True, but you imposed upon yourself through a litigant’s admission that you are liable. Not because we believe you that this is the truth—again, “believe” not in the objective sense. In the legal sense. In the legal sense we do not believe you; in the legal sense the loan was repaid. But since you admitted it was not repaid, admitted that you are liable, then you made yourself liable and you must pay.

What about others? If there were someone else whose situation depended on whether the loan was repaid or not repaid—for every other matter, the loan was repaid. There are two witnesses that it was repaid. Only with respect to you yourself do we ignore the witnesses and say: then go pay. Yes, there’s the famous case of a litigant’s admission: someone comes and sues me and says, “You owe me one hundred shekels.” I tell him: “What are you talking about? I never borrowed anything from you.” Then two witnesses come and testify that I did borrow. So I say: “Yes, yes, but I repaid.” Right? It doesn’t help. Why? Because anyone who says “I did not borrow” is as though he said “I did not repay.” Meaning, if you say “I did not borrow,” included in that is also “I did not repay”; there is a litigant’s admission that you did not repay. Now here there are two witnesses saying that I borrowed, and you yourself implicitly admitted that you did not repay. You must pay.

More than that: if the witnesses who come and testify about the loan—or other witnesses, the same witnesses, it doesn’t matter—say, “Yes, he borrowed, but he also repaid,” and he says, “I never borrowed, none of this ever happened,” we will obligate him to pay. It is explicit in the Talmud and ruled in Jewish law: anyone who says “I did not borrow” is as though he said “I did not repay.” “I did not borrow” is as though he said “I did not repay.” So that means there are witnesses that he did repay, but he admits—and again, admits implicitly—he is basically saying, “None of this ever happened,” not that he is admitting he did not repay; he is claiming he owes you nothing at all, not even the loan. But someone who says “I did not borrow” is as if he said “I did not repay,” so there is effectively a litigant’s admission that he did not repay. There are two witnesses who say that he did repay, but because he admits that he did not repay, we obligate him to pay. But of course this is only with respect to him, not with respect to anyone else.

And notice that here too you can see that the understanding of a litigant’s admission is not the common understanding, the migo understanding. People say: why is he not lying? Because if he wanted to lie, he wouldn’t lie in order to hurt himself. But here, when he says “I did not borrow,” that is not a claim that hurts him—on the contrary, it is the claim that puts him in the best possible position from his perspective. Only after two witnesses come and say that he did borrow does he find himself as though he also said “I did not repay.” But he never intended to admit anything, and certainly did not intend to hurt himself. The whole migo explanation is irrelevant here. Rather, a person is believed about himself not because of migo but because “when he says: this is it.” Yes? The Torah says that a person has credibility about himself. But that credibility is, in its essence, subjective. All the consequences are consequences only with regard to the person himself, and not with regard to anyone else.

And again, in my opinion, not because of schemes, but because consequences or credibilities whose foundation is subjective apply only to the person himself and not to someone else. And in that sense I can even say more than that—I’m now taking one more step. When I accept a litigant’s admission, it may really be that I fully believe his litigant’s admission. It even overrides witnesses. After all, that is why they say a litigant’s admission is like one hundred witnesses. “One hundred witnesses” in Jewish law—after all, two are like one hundred. So why say “one hundred witnesses” here? Two witnesses and one hundred witnesses are the same thing. The point is to say: no, a litigant’s admission overrides witnesses—that is what is meant by “like one hundred witnesses.” If there are two witnesses that I repaid and I admit that I did not repay, I have to pay. It overrides two witnesses. That is the source of the expression that a litigant’s admission is like one hundred witnesses.

So let’s say that this credibility—and this is a whole discussion; I mentioned the Mahari ben Lev and the Ketzot—the Mahari ben Lev wants to argue that this is not credibility at all. That is the common reading of him. I don’t think they are right; I don’t think that is what he says, but that is how he is usually understood. That the Mahari ben Lev argues that this is not credibility at all; it is a kind of vow. He vowed to pay, not that we really believe him. There are two witnesses against him, so why believe him? And he is also a party to the case, so how can there be credibility at all? I say that a litigant’s admission is credibility; it can be full credibility. But even though it is full credibility, it is credibility whose source is subjective. There is no way for the public to check whether this is true or not, because only you know, and you are reporting what you subjectively know. It is a kind of proof that is not limited because it is false—it may be completely true—but I apply it only to the subject who is the source of the proof. Because things that…

[Speaker B] Sorry, according to the Mahari ben—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Lev, do we compel fulfillment of a vow?

[Speaker B] I can’t hear. According to the Mahari ben Lev, do we compel fulfillment of a vow? If he defines it as a vow, for example.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to the Mahari ben Lev, ostensibly it comes out that the coercion here is coercion under the rule that we compel observance of commandments, and not legal coercion. Okay, and there is coercion regarding commandments too. But fine, it is a difficult approach, and in my opinion the Mahari ben Lev does not say that either. But the claim is that even if I fully accept this credibility, still it is credibility only with respect to myself. With respect to consequences touching others—and again, not because there is some concern about… because say even if there are consequences for others. Even if there are consequences for others, at the end of the day I hurt myself. There is definitely room for the argument that says I am still credible, because a person does not lie in order to hurt himself. So once I am credible, why should I not extend this also to consequences for other people? The logic is there. And if it is like one hundred witnesses, why should I not obligate other people too? If there are witnesses, I obligate the whole world. And if this credibility has the force of witnesses, then what do I care that it is harm to others? The claim that maybe he wants to hurt others and “let me die with the Philistines” is a far-fetched claim. At the end of the day, if with respect to himself he is not credible—he is credible, sorry—because a person does not hurt himself, then practically we know that he borrowed or that he did not repay. So even if this has consequences for other people, what difference does it make? If we know it, then all the consequences follow naturally.

My claim is that I do not apply this because of harm to others. It is not that this creates fears of schemes. Rather, the point is that once the source of the credibility is subjective, the application too is only to that subject. It has no objective Jewish law status, this kind of proof—just as migo cannot extract. Same idea: we do not say migo in order to extract, because migo is a subjective proof, so we do not use it to extract from someone else. And the same with self-imposed prohibition: if a person defines for himself that this meat is pork, then it may be that he is credible—for example, if this meat is his meat, okay, then the person incurred the loss himself. When he says that this meat is pork, what logic would there be for a person to lie like that? So now what—he is credible. Does that mean I should also obligate others not to eat this meat? At the end of the day, I believe that this is pork. On the one hand, a person is believed with regard to prohibitions, but say there is a witness against him saying that this meat is not pork, or even two witnesses saying so—he himself would still be forbidden to eat the meat, because there is no reason to assume he is lying. But it would not carry over to others.

I am trying to show here a general Jewish law direction: things that are subjective, I do not apply to others—not because of the concern that maybe they are not true, or that this proof is not good enough, but because that is the way Jewish law works. Jewish law that belongs to the public domain is law that must be accessible to the public, not accessible to some subjective individual whom I merely believe. That is not interesting. It must be public law. That is the way of Jewish law—not because I have doubts and suspicions about subjective matters, that maybe these proofs are not good. That is basically what I want to argue.

Good. Now I want to demonstrate this with the status of dreams, yes? So with dreams we started with… may I ask a question, Rabbi?

[Speaker E] Yes. Good evening. I wanted to know—this reminds me a little of the matter in Sanhedrin, where it rules Jewish law for the whole Jewish people, so the Jewish people are obligated by it; but if a person is certain that the Sanhedrin erred, he is supposed to act against it. Of course, he may not instruct others.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is that really a parallel? It may be the other side of the coin. Up to now I’ve been talking all the time about the fact that subjective Jewish law does not obligate others. That means that if there is a reliable subjective source, then it does obligate me—even though with respect to others I am not allowed to instruct that way, and it does not concern others; even if they believe me, it doesn’t matter, they have to obey the Sanhedrin—but it does obligate me. The other side… and it comes from the same source, okay?

[Speaker E] So it comes from the same source, it’s not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, these are two sides of the same coin. If there is a Jewish law rule whose source is subjective, then it is valid with respect to the subject who is its source, but publicly it has no status. Yes, now, you can also see here the other side of the coin in the Jewish law point you are mentioning. Although here I would say there is some room to hesitate, because when I disagree with the Sanhedrin, I assume I also have reasons. And once I have reasons, I can convince others, and then they too may see that I am right. Okay? Now I think that if I convince others and they too see that I am right, then this Jewish law ruling will apply to them as well. Because what is the difference between them and me? I reached this conclusion, so I need not obey the Sanhedrin; now he too has reached this conclusion. What difference does it make that it was with my help? What I am forbidden to do is to instruct him. What does “instruct him” mean? Not to persuade him. To persuade him means that in the end he instructs himself, because he has become convinced. To instruct him means: accept what I say because I am a great Torah scholar. That—no. Because when there is a Sanhedrin, you must obey them. But if I convinced you that the Sanhedrin are mistaken, now you think so too, then your status is like mine. What is the difference? That is not called issuing a Jewish law ruling. Okay. If that is the issue… what? If—

[Speaker E] If that’s the issue, then it’s not subjective? Not because it’s subjective?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so that is why I say: on the one hand it is subjective for each person who is convinced, but on the other hand you can convince anyone. In that sense it is public. I am not asking people, “Believe me.” If I ask people, “Believe me,” that I am not allowed to do, because it is not relevant to others; others must follow the Sanhedrin. That is a subjective matter. But if I convince others, then now they are not supposed to accept it from me because they believe me, but because they themselves are convinced. Now they think that too. Which is exactly what I said about the kabbalists: kabbalists act in accordance with Kabbalah even against the revealed law. Why? What about me? If I accept it from the kabbalist because he said so and I believe him, that is forbidden to me. I need to go by the revealed law. But if he taught me Kabbalah and convinced me, and I too reached that conclusion, then what is the difference between me and him? Now I too am allowed to act that way. That is exactly the continuation—another implication and another implication of the same picture. Okay? Thank you.

Good, so let me return for a moment to dreams. We started from dreams—where a person was excommunicated in a dream, and maybe took a vow in a dream; I said there is a dispute—and I said that even excommunication in a dream, if that excommunication is valid, it is valid only with respect to the person himself. Others are not supposed to relate to that excommunication. Again, not because they do not believe him that he dreamed he was excommunicated. Because if you do not believe him, then why would he need annulment before ten? Then he is not excommunicated; he is just fantasizing. No. The claim is that I believe him, and in principle he is excommunicated and needs ten in order to release him. But even though that is true, since the source of the matter is subjective—it is a dream—then for the public it has no Jewish law status. Because Jewish law is determined only by things accessible to the entire public.

And again, not because it is not true. Not because I suspect it is not true. I keep repeating this because with mysticism too I want to disconnect the question of the status of mysticism from the question of whether that mysticism is true or reliable. I want to argue that even if it is—and we will discuss whether it is or is not, and how to know, and so on—even if it is true, still it has no Jewish law status. Why? Because even if it is true, it is a subjective truth. It is not accessible to public examination. Therefore it has no Jewish law status. That is basically the claim.

Now look, there is another Talmudic passage in tractate Sanhedrin on page 30. The Talmud brings: “The Sages taught: one person said to them, ‘I saw your father hide money in a chest, box, or cabinet, and he said: it belongs to so-and-so, it is second tithe money.’ In the house he said nothing; in the field his words stand”—that doesn’t matter for our purposes—“anything in his power to take, his words stand.” That is less important for us. Then: they saw their father hiding money in a chest, box, or cabinet and saying that it belonged to so-and-so, that it was second tithe. But the third case—notice the third case. “He was distressed over money that his father had left him”—meaning, a person knew that his father had left him money, but he couldn’t find it. His father had died and he couldn’t find it. But he knew there had been ten thousand dollars that his father had put somewhere and left to him, and he can’t find it. He is distressed over this money and can’t find it, “and the master of the dream came”—who is the master of the dream? That’s an interesting discussion; in Margaliyot HaYam here you can take a look—“and said to him: there is such-and-such an amount, in such-and-such a place, and it is second tithe.” It actually happened—there was such a case—and they said: “Words of dreams neither elevate nor lower.”

Meaning, he basically knows his father left him money; he doesn’t know where it is. Someone appears to him in a dream, the master of the dream—the Holy One, blessed be He, his father, there are different interpretations—and this master of the dream tells him: look, it was ten thousand, and it is located in such-and-such a place, and it is second tithe, meaning it may be eaten only in Jerusalem. Now if we ask ourselves whether this is reliable—is there a reliability concern? On the face of it, no, because everything checks out, right? The master of the dream told him the amount and the place, and he also knew that such money was supposed to be somewhere; he went to that place that was told to him in the dream, found exactly the amount—so if the dream says that it is second tithe, presumably this is a true dream, and apparently it is second tithe, and it may be eaten only in Jerusalem. There was such a case, and they said: “Words of dreams neither elevate nor lower.” Meaning, you can eat it wherever you want, even “within your gates,” yes, not only in Jerusalem.

Why? From the standpoint of all the indicators, this seems to be a reliable dream. So usually the accepted explanation is that just as there is no grain without chaff, so there is no dream without idle matters—the Talmud says that. What does that mean? The Vilna Gaon also said this. But you can never know which detail in the dream is unreliable, and there is always something mixed into the dream that is an unreliable detail. So they explain that maybe this detail—that it is second tithe—even though the dream is reliable because in fact I found the amount in the stated place, maybe this detail that it is second tithe is not reliable, because dreams can always have unreliable things mixed into them, and therefore there really is a concern about the reliability of the dream. But that is very difficult. What? I can’t hear.

[Speaker B] So with excommunication too, say—he told the dream fine, people fine, everything fine, but the excommunication wasn’t there. Right. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) really ask that: why does he need an annulment for it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The medieval authorities (Rishonim) ask: we have a contradiction between these passages, sort of, versus second tithe. Shlomo, Shlomo, can you hear me? Yes. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) ask about a contradiction between these passages.

[Speaker B] Yes, there are different answers.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are possibilities, there are various answers. In any event, I’ll get to that in a moment. So this explanation seems problematic to me. Why?

[Speaker B] Who picks that particular detail?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because at most it raises a doubt. Right, but with a doubt involving a prohibition, we rule stringently. So maybe I have a doubt that this detail—that it is second tithe—is not true, and maybe it is true. But because of doubt I should be stringent: a Torah-level doubt. So how can it be that words of dreams neither elevate nor lower? Even the wording—“words of dreams neither elevate nor lower”—means there is nothing to worry about at all. Because if it were a doubt, then dreams definitely would elevate or lower, just not fully; they would raise a doubt. When they say “words of dreams neither elevate nor lower,” the meaning is that we pay no attention whatsoever to dreams. Not interesting. And what does “not interesting” mean? At the very least there is a doubt here, if not more than that.

So here there are all sorts of pilpulim from the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) trying to explain this. And indeed there are those who want to argue that second tithe is not a prohibition but property law, and therefore the dream can only create a doubt. The Tashbetz, for example, says that the dream is only a doubt, and since this is money, but doubt does not extract from someone in possession—and since I am in possession of this money because it was found in my domain, and so on—so now when the dream comes and wants to tell me that it is second tithe, it is as if it comes to extract from me, and by doubt you cannot extract money from one in possession. The practical difference would be: what would happen if this money were not in my possession and was somewhere else? Ostensibly then I really should be concerned for the dream, because there there would be a Torah-level doubt requiring stringency, since there is no presumption that the money is mine. There is no hint of this in the Talmud, no—it is hard to say such a thing.

And indeed, when Maimonides brings this law—Maimonides also rules this law—it appears very clearly that Maimonides says it categorically: “He was told in a dream…”

[Speaker C] What? Does Maimonides say this about every dream in the ruling, that every dream neither elevates nor lowers, or is this…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “He was told in a dream: the second tithe of your father that you are seeking is in such-and-such a place. Even though he found there what he was told, it is not second tithe; words of dreams neither elevate nor lower.” Notice: this wording is much more extreme than the Talmud. Because here it is talking about money where not only did he know his father had left it, he also knew it was second tithe. So this is not a new claim by the master of the dream. He knew that his father had left second tithe money. Now the dream comes and tells him it is in that place, in that amount, and it really is second tithe money. Maimonides says: not interesting. Take that money and do with it whatever you want. Don’t worry. Words of dreams neither elevate nor lower.

So Maimonides says it in the most radical way possible. Yes, in Maimonides it is very clear. Also there in the laws of second tithe, and also in the laws of acquisition and gifts: “If one was distressed over money that his father had left him and he did not know where he had hidden it, and they told him in a dream: there is such-and-such an amount, in such-and-such a place, and it belongs to so-and-so, and it is second tithe.” Here it is talking about a case where he did not know it was second tithe; he only knew that his father had left him money. But there is the Talmud’s case where according to the dream there are indications that it is reliable, because they told him the place, told him the amount, and so on, “and he found it in the place that was told to him and in the number that was told to him.” Notice that Maimonides sharpens what the Talmud says. You can see that he wants to emphasize a certain principle here. Even though there are all the indicators that this dream is a reliable dream, “there was such an incident, and the Sages said: words of dreams neither elevate nor lower.” With no explanation. Say one word—because I have a doubt, because one cannot dream without idle matters—nothing. Because words of dreams neither elevate nor lower.

And I argue that what Maimonides is saying—and the later authorities (Acharonim) are all tangled up over this Maimonides, how can this be and why don’t the laws of doubt apply and so on—I argue for a very simple claim. Maimonides here is simply saying that a thing whose basis is a dream—even if the dream is entirely reliable, even if I have indications that it is reliable—since the source of that reliability is subjective, it has no Jewish law status. Maimonides’ great novelty is that it has no Jewish law status even with respect to me. And that is already an even bigger novelty. Because until now the examples I brought were cases where things rooted in subjectivity are at least valid for me. They have no status in public Jewish law—it is not in publicum, yes? It does not concern other people—but for me it is valid. Like migo, a litigant’s admission, self-imposed prohibition, and so on.

Maimonides comes and says: no. Words of dreams neither elevate nor lower; it is not relevant at all. What the dream says—that it is second tithe—is irrelevant. Why? Because here the claim is that it could be that this money is not the money that I know to be second tithe. How do I know that this is the money? From the dream. How do I know that the dream is true? Okay? I know I dreamed it, but how do I know that what I dreamed is true? So I know because I believe the dream or something like that—then even I am in some kind of situation where, from my point of view, this is mysticism. Not necessarily with respect to others, maybe. But in any event, certainly with respect to others it definitely neither elevates nor lowers.

So that means that even though—I would have said, on the face of it, I would have expected that once I find this money, it says “they are in such-and-such a place and they belong to so-and-so.” What does “they belong to so-and-so” mean?

[Speaker B] You owe them to somebody.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They are not yours. This is monetary law, yes? They are not yours, they belong to someone else. “Neither elevate nor lower.” You can take that money and do whatever you want with it, without giving it to so-and-so. Now why? There is a reliable dream here that showed you the location of the money, the amount, and it tells you that it belongs to so-and-so.

[Speaker B] So even if so-and-so comes to him with the claim that your father owed me such-and-such money, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Not only if so-and-so comes to him with the claim—even if I myself knew that he owed him. It still doesn’t help. Why? And here I say: it could have been said like this. It may be that from my own perspective there might indeed be reason for me to return this money to so-and-so. After all, factually I think it is his. But legally, the religious court will not force me, because at the public level, at the legal level, what I know has no status. Okay, maybe. And then it could be that personally there really is reason to act as the dream told me, if I believe this dream. But it has no legal status.

[Speaker B] The fact that Maimonides uses the phrase “neither elevate nor lower,” isn’t that basically canceling the whole significance of the dream—legal consequences?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. I said, on the face of it you are right. But I said it could be that what he means by “neither elevate nor lower” is at the public level. If you want to be concerned about it, and you believe that this is second tithe money, then stringently treat it as second tithe—that’s fine. But we will not even compel you in that regard. From our perspective this is not even a matter of doubt, because regarding doubt we compel stringency. And if you do not act stringently in a doubtful case, the religious court will compel you. But here the religious court will not compel you, because from the court’s point of view it is not even a doubt. It is a subjective matter. Words of dreams neither elevate nor lower.

Yes, this reminds me of that midrash, Midrash Rabbah in the section of Shemot, I think—or Vayikra Rabbah, I think—where it tells of Alexander who came to Africa and heard there was a very wise king there, and he wanted to see for himself. So the king invited him in to watch how he judged the people. Two people came before him, each making his claim, and one of them says: look, I sold to Reuven and Shimon—yes? So Reuven claims: I sold Shimon a courtyard. Shimon bought the… and Shimon says: what are you talking about? I bought a field; I never imagined there was a treasure in it; the treasure belongs to Reuven. There you go, two righteous people. Each one argues in favor of the other. So the midrash says: okay, what did the African king do? He says: do you have a son? do you have a daughter? Fine. Let the son marry the daughter and they will receive the treasure. You know, like Yonatan ben Uzziel—good for the pious. But then, yes, the bird flying overhead gets burned. But what do I ask myself, as a Litvak? Forget the son and the daughter; that’s cute storybook stuff. I want to know the law in such a case. Forget the tricks. One has no son and the other has no daughter. Rule on the law! Don’t play matchmaking games with me. What is the law? You won’t find a law on this anywhere. No ruling was made anywhere. Why? I’ll tell you why. Is this anyone’s legal claim? No. If you want to give him a gift and he doesn’t want to accept it, throw it into the sea—what business is that of mine?

When you come to a religious court, you come because your rights were violated, and you want the court to protect your rights so they won’t be violated. The role of the court is to rescue the oppressed from his oppressor. Here no one is claiming that his rights were violated. On the contrary, he is claiming that the other fellow’s rights were violated—but the other fellow is not claiming that his rights were violated. So leave me alone—what do you want from my life? You want to give him a gift and he doesn’t want to accept it—find yourselves a solution. What business is that of the judges? That is not a Jewish law question. That is a question of human relations. Work it out. And that is the point: find some solution—you have a son, you have a daughter, all good. But what is the law? There is no law. It is not a Jewish law question.

Here too I say the same thing. You believe that this is second tithe money or money belonging to so-and-so? Then give it to him. Or treat it like second tithe and eat it in Jerusalem. But if you ask us as a court, it has no Jewish law status whatsoever. This is not a Jewish law statement. We will not compel you even at the level of compelling stringency in cases of doubt. Nothing. From our perspective it has no status; words of dreams neither elevate nor lower on the Jewish law level. It may still be that subjectively, if you are concerned that this is second tithe money, then perhaps it is indeed proper to be concerned; or if you are concerned that this money belongs to so-and-so, then perhaps it is indeed proper to be concerned. But that is your subjective matter. It has no Jewish law status.

In short, what I basically want to claim from here is that in laws whose source is subjective, there is no Jewish law status—at least no public Jewish law status. It may be that subjectively, from your perspective, it is proper to conduct yourself according to what you think, according to what you know, but we as halakhic decisors, or the public, do not recognize that; it is a subjective matter. And I repeat and emphasize again and again all the time: not because we doubt what you are saying, not because one cannot dream without idle matters—I want to argue that this is not the explanation. This dream has strong indications that it is true; there is very good evidence that it is true. But since that evidence belongs to the subjective dimension, then in the public sense it has no status. Not because I think it is false, but because the way of Jewish law is that it deals only with the public plane, the objective plane, the plane accessible to everyone. We do not deal with the question of who believes you because you are a great person or because you are trustworthy or whatever. Not because you are not great and not because you are not trustworthy, but because that is simply not a relevant Jewish law consideration; Jewish law does not deal with that.

There is—I want to show this from another angle. The Magen Avraham, whom I am so fond of, in section 156. The Shulchan Arukh there, yes, at the end of the laws of the morning prayer, says: “and afterwards he should go out to his work.” That is the ruling in the Shulchan Arukh that kollel fellows tend to gloss over, yes—“and afterwards he should go out to his work.” So the Magen Avraham there brings various laws for which he doesn’t find an appropriate place to position them, so he brings them there. One of them. One of the laws—yes, I’m very fond of this one; I’m sure some of you have already heard it from me more than once—is that one may say things in the name of a great person so that they will accept them from him. Say that I think—I don’t know—that something is permitted on the Sabbath, fine? Sorting forks out of the silverware drawer, fine? In my opinion that is not selecting. Now people don’t accept it.

[Speaker D] Was there an explosion in the Temple?

[Speaker C] Not the Temple—at first it was the Magen Avraham—

[Speaker D] The last one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Now I’m back, all right? Yes, yes. Yes. In section 156 in the Magen Avraham, he says that one may say things in the name of a great person so that they will accept them from him. Meaning, if I want to say that sorting silverware is permitted on the Sabbath, the public does not accept it from me, or the people around me don’t accept it from me. But if I tell them, “You should know that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ruled this way”—which never happened—but I tell them that in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein so that they will accept it from me, that is permitted. That is what the Magen Avraham says. It is a Talmudic statement; the Magen Avraham brought that Talmudic statement as Jewish law. “One who wants to be hanged should hang himself on a great man,” or on a great tree, yes.

Now this law in itself is very puzzling. How can it be that I am allowed to deceive people in a way that causes them to stumble in Jewish law—in desecration of the Sabbath, or any other law? They were not persuaded by me. I bring it to them in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, and now they will accept it because who argues with Rabbi Moshe Feinstein? And they desecrate the Sabbath, because Rabbi Moshe Feinstein never said it at all. I am just some ordinary ignoramus quoting Rabbi Moshe Feinstein to them, and I am causing them to desecrate the Sabbath. How can Jewish law permit such a thing? My claim is that such a thing is permitted precisely because the Magen Avraham assumes that even if I say it in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, people will not accept it. Because if the assumption were that they would accept it, then obviously it would be forbidden to do this. So clearly the Magen Avraham assumes that when I tell someone this law and I say to him, “Listen, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said this,” the assumption is that he will not accept it.

[Speaker B] So then what? He says: and if he was convinced? If he accepted it, that probably means he was convinced. What do you mean he won’t accept it? Then it’s okay?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They would not accept statements in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein even if I say them in his name, as a matter of fact. The assumption is factual, and also value-based. The assumption is that even if I state a point of Jewish law in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, people are not supposed to accept it—somewhat against the usual halakhic outlook, but this is explicit in the Magen Avraham; actually it’s in the Talmud, once again, not just the Magen Avraham. So you might ask: then why say it in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein at all, if in any case they’re not going to accept it? What does that help me? The answer is very simple. The answer is: when I’m trying to persuade you of this halakhic ruling, and I bring you various arguments that sorting with cutlery is not forbidden on the Sabbath—now I see that you’re not accepting it, but you’re not rejecting it for substantive reasons. You’re not giving me enough credit, and you’re not investing enough thought to seriously weigh the arguments I’m presenting. So what do I do? I tell you: listen, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said this. If Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said it, then you won’t dismiss it out of hand. Now, you still won’t accept it just because Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said it, but on the other hand you’ll reconsider the arguments, because clearly it’s not nonsense. Because you understand that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein is a great Torah scholar, so you won’t dismiss it out of hand; you’ll be willing to think about it again. And then what? If you accept it in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein—then you were persuaded. You’re not accepting it only because Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said it; you accept it because you were convinced. And if you’re not convinced? No problem—you won’t stumble, because you won’t do it. All I’m trying to achieve is simply that you not dismiss my words out of hand, but rather think about the arguments and the reasoning I’m presenting. And so the assumption here, in a kind of reverse logic, is that even if I say things in the name of a great person, the person standing before me is not supposed to accept them. At most, he’ll give them some credit and think about them again. But in the end, he will accept them only if he is convinced after reconsidering. If he reconsidered and still wasn’t convinced, then even though he was told this in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, he will not follow it. And therefore I’m allowed to lie, because in any case it won’t cause him to stumble. And in my opinion, that’s the explanation—there can’t be any other explanation. My assumption is that if your estimation of the people standing before you is not like that, then the Magen Avraham’s ruling really isn’t relevant. The Magen Avraham is speaking only in a situation where people behave in this way. I’ll give you an example. There’s a famous story about—I don’t remember who it was—the Jew who forged the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim. At the beginning of the twentieth century, I think, he claimed he had found a manuscript. There is no Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim, right? So he claimed he had found a manuscript—Friedlander, they say, yes—he found a manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim, but really it was his own novellae; he wrote them in that kind of Jerusalem-Talmud Aramaic and forged it as if it were the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim, when in fact it was his own work. Okay? There were debates about this—he was a talented fellow—there were major debates about whether it was a forgery, whether it was authentic, what exactly it was; there are all kinds of stories about it. The Kli Chemdah wrote an entire book about it. And there’s some story that the Rogatchover claimed it was forged because there’s a rule that in the Jerusalem Talmud, in every chapter, a sage appears who had not appeared until then—a new sage—and that didn’t happen there in this Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim, and therefore he argued that this Jerusalem Talmud was forged. It’s a fascinating argument. I don’t know if it’s true about the Jerusalem Talmud; it would be worth checking sometime. Maybe someone already checked it; I don’t know. Obviously that argument isn’t sufficient, even if it’s true about the Jerusalem Talmud generally, because maybe with Kodashim it’s different. But anyway, there are all kinds of stories about it. Later on, people were very angry that he had forged it. In the end it became clear that he had forged it, yes—like Besamim Rosh; there are a few famous forgeries. So people really denounced him and got angry at him: how could he forge a Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim? Now ostensibly, what do they want from him? This is an explicit ruling in the Magen Avraham, explicit in the Talmud, that it is permitted to say things in the name of a great person so that people will accept them from you. He said his own novellae in the name of the Jerusalem Talmud so people would accept them from him—what’s the problem? What’s forbidden about that? And the answer is that the Jerusalem Talmud is Talmud, and our rule is that one does not disagree with the Talmud. In a place where the assumption is that people really will accept your words when you say them in the name of a great person, then of course it is forbidden. The entire ruling of the Magen Avraham and of the Talmud permitting one to say things in the name of a great person is only because there is some assumption here that they will not accept it even when I say it in the name of a great person. But if they really do accept it, then no—then of course it’s forbidden to do that, because you’re causing people to stumble. But for our purposes, what does this actually mean? It means that the halakhic assumption—apparently this is what the Magen Avraham assumes, and I assume this is the reasonable person in his view—should behave this way: not to accept things from a great person unless he has convinced me. Unlike the Sanhedrin, by the way: regarding the Sanhedrin, “do not deviate”—what the Sanhedrin rules, in principle, I’m supposed to accept. I’m not getting into the Jewish law they mentioned earlier regarding a halakhic decisor. But just an ordinary great person—not the Sanhedrin—a great Torah scholar who is obviously more likely to be right than I am, that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that he’s more likely to be right than I am, like Rabbi Meir; as long as I am not convinced, I am not supposed to act in accordance with him. I’m supposed to act in accordance with what I understand. Even though Rabbi Moshe Feinstein is certainly a much greater Torah scholar than I am. Therefore, if you ask me, I myself would say that there’s a good chance he’s more right than I am. Doesn’t matter. As long as I’m not convinced, I’m supposed to conduct myself according to the arguments accessible to me, exactly as we saw with Rabbi Meir. And therefore that is also what the Magen Avraham is saying: that I’m supposed to act according to the arguments I understand, according to the conclusions I reach. And if I accept things because Rabbi Moshe Feinstein reached some conclusion—if he has not convinced me, and I accept it anyway—that’s wrong; one must not do that. That’s really the claim. And if I close the circle here once again—I’ll continue a bit next time—but if I close the circle here once again, all these things are being brought here in order to reinforce the thesis I want to argue here regarding the hidden. Namely, that the hidden does not have full halakhic standing—again, there are debates as to how much standing it has, but it does not have full halakhic standing—not because it is false. What Rabbi Moshe Feinstein says is true; there’s a good chance it’s true. But if I can’t reconstruct the reasoning and become convinced myself, then as far as I’m concerned it has no halakhic standing. That’s the claim. And therefore I say that in this sense there is no special halakha here for the hidden. It is true in every other halakhic context as well. Halakhic arguments are arguments that are supposed to persuade the public. And Rabbi Eliezer the Great—I did bring up the Oven of Akhnai—who brought all kinds of proofs, the stream of water and all those things, that’s of no interest. Those are arguments meant to persuade me that you are a great person. I agree that you are a great person even without that. But the fact that you are a great person is not enough for me to accept halakhic rulings from you, as long as you haven’t convinced me. If you convince me, no problem. Right, that’s what people always say about “Tishbi will resolve difficulties and problems,” that acronym explanation of teyku—I don’t know who invented it—but after they invented it, people also raised questions against it, yes? When Elijah comes, Elijah will explain, will resolve this teyku. So they ask there: how will Elijah resolve it? After all, “it is not in heaven.” And one of the common answers is that Elijah will explain to me why it is correct—not that he will use his authority as Elijah the prophet, but that he will use his abilities as a Torah scholar to show me and explain with reasons why it is correct. That is no problem; that is not called “it is not in heaven.” And the whole idea of “it is not in heaven” is that we do not accept esoteric Jewish law. In a place where the prophet is not acting in his capacity as a prophet but is persuading me that this is correct, no problem—that is not called “it is not in heaven.” Like any other Torah scholar: if he convinced me, then excellent, then there’s no problem at all. So again and again we see that esoteric and subjective matters have no standing in Jewish law, or at least no full standing in Jewish law. There are some debates and different contexts, but broadly speaking they do not have full standing in Jewish law. And I argue that this is the basis for why the hidden, too, does not have full halakhic standing, and that circles back and reinforces what I said at the beginning of the series: that hidden teaching means esoteric Jewish law. For me, even Jewish law that comes through a dream is hidden teaching, even though it has nothing to do with Kabbalah—but it is hidden, it is mysticism. In that sense it is esoteric; it is subjective. Okay? Good, I’ll stop here.

[Speaker C] Sabbath shalom.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, Sabbath shalom.

[Speaker D] Thank you very much. Sabbath shalom. Sabbath shalom, thank you very much.