To the Perplexed of the Generation – Lesson 18

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or above or below—I don’t know, I really don’t know—maybe it’s only in order to create a distinction between the sacrifices, like I said earlier about the burnt offering and the sin offering. So it was only important to the Holy One, blessed be He, that there be a distinction between the sacrifices, because these really are different kinds of sins. So the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to show us that there is a difference between sins, and that an appropriate response to each kind of sin requires a different sacrifice. So that has a reason. But why was the distinction set as this one above and that one below, or this one a ram and that one a lamb and not the other way around—why does that matter? If they had set it up the other way around, that also would have been fine. There had to be some distinction, so they established a distinction. That’s what Maimonides wants to say. So there is an underlying framework here whose purpose is indeed to achieve something. I don’t think—and this is a pretty important point, maybe we’ll see it later on—I don’t think Maimonides means to say that there were rules that were just arbitrary for the sake of bothering us. Clearly every rule has some purpose, but in order to achieve that purpose it was not always necessary to have specifically this particular rule; it could have been done with a different rule. If you had distinguished between a burnt offering and a sin offering by making one a ram and the other a lamb, that also would have been fine; that too would have distinguished between them. That part doesn’t matter. But the distinction itself is something the Holy One, blessed be He, did want to achieve. Meaning: that has a reason. Okay? So I think that’s the point. Because things that really don’t need to be fixed at all—well, then for no reason at all, the Holy One, blessed be He, really didn’t fix them, as was rightly asked: what difference does it make what color the lamb is? Fine—obviously that wasn’t fixed. So why did the Holy One, blessed be He, see fit to fix other things? Therefore it is reasonable to assume that what the Holy One, blessed be He, fixed was meant to serve some purpose, but in order to achieve that purpose it was necessary to set some arbitrary details; they could just as well have been set the opposite way, but something had to be fixed. Okay? So that the distinction between the kinds of sacrifices would remain. “For one cannot do without one species,” and similarly, why were there seven lambs and not eight? Yes, if there had been eight, or ten, or twenty, they would have asked too. “For one cannot do without some number necessarily. And this resembles the nature of the possible, where one cannot do without one of the possibilities existing. And it is not proper to ask why this possibility existed and not another among the possibilities.” There are all kinds of possibilities; you choose one of them. “For that question would equally apply had another possible thing existed in its place.” If you took one of the other possibilities instead of this one, they would ask the same question. So you take one possibility from among them. “Know this matter and understand it.” “And as for what was said, wondering how every commandment has a reason, and that Solomon knew them”—that is, Solomon knew the purpose of the commandments in general. Yes, that Solomon knew all the reasons for the commandments. It says, “And Solomon…” how does it go there? I don’t remember. “And four I do not know.” Anyway—yes, “the way of an eagle in the sky,” right. Solomon knew all the reasons for the commandments. Meaning, he knew the reasons for the commandments—if there are no reasons, then what did he know? What did he know? He knew the principles; he knew what actually has a reason. The details are really details that have no reason, and there is nothing to know about them. Okay? And then he goes on and says that he will explain the reasons for the commandments. From here he starts explaining the reasons for the commandments—really the principles, not the details.

There is a conception here that directly clashes with the kabbalists. The kabbalists revolted against such a conception, because for them it is obvious that every detail must have some essential purpose. And in fact Maimonides’ view is very far-reaching in the theological sense. Because Maimonides—after all, this is true when we want to set a meeting, say: we have to choose some hour, even if that hour is arbitrary. Why? Because of the world in which we live, which we did not determine. This world is a world into which we were born. So we act within given circumstances, and within them we have to function. So in order to function, there may be cases where we set arbitrary rules. But the Holy One, blessed be He, created this whole world. Why did He create the world in such a way that it contains degrees of freedom? That it contains things that can in fact be arbitrary? That something could be one way or its opposite? After all, it was in His power to create the world differently. That’s not the same as us. Therefore there is in Maimonides a very novel point in the theological sense. Because what Maimonides says sounds very logical if the world is given. In this given world, when you want to distinguish between a burnt offering and a sin offering, fine—make this one a ram and that one a lamb, or the reverse—what difference does it make? It doesn’t matter. But the distinction itself is something the Holy One, blessed be He, did want to make, and that has a reason. But if You are creating the world from the outset, why create a world in which arbitrary degrees of freedom remain, which then have to be fixed arbitrarily? I would expect an all-powerful Creator to do something perfect, optimal, with no redundancy in it—meaning, yes, with no surplus. What? Redundancy. Okay. With some feature that could be this way or that way arbitrarily, yes? The kabbalists say something else. Yes, exactly—that’s what I’m saying. Maimonides doesn’t really, it seems to me at least, answer that theological question. That is a substantial theological question. I only want to say—I’m not, of course, going to get into it in detail; I don’t know what more to say about it except that Maimonides didn’t really solve the theological problem. I just want to point out that this is Maimonides’ position in several places. This acceptance of arbitrariness in the governance of the Holy One, blessed be He—that is, the willingness to accept arbitrary degrees of freedom in His governance of the world—is something the kabbalists are unwilling to accept.

And where do we see this? I brought two more examples here. Sorry. Gladly. Exactly—that’s the second example here. I brought two examples. One example is the holy tongue, on Maimonides’ page, on the second page or the first, it doesn’t matter. Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, chapter 8. Maimonides writes there: why is Hebrew called the holy tongue? Nachmanides and the Raavad, who were closer to Kabbalah, claim that it is called the holy tongue because it is an essential language. Nachmanides, in his commentary on the Torah, writes this in even two places, I think: that Hebrew is called the holy tongue because it is directed to the essence of things. Usually language is conventional. We decide that this thing is called a chair; we could just as well have called it yikumfurkan. Something has to be called something; some word has to be attached to this object. We attached the word “chair,” just like giving someone a name. A name is arbitrary; he could have been called this or that—the main thing is that the whole community agrees that this is the term being used. That is a convention. That is the accepted view. Nachmanides and the Raavad say no—not exactly; that’s true of ordinary languages that are human products, but Hebrew, the language in which the Torah was written, is a language made by the Holy One, blessed be He. There every detail is essential; there is nothing arbitrary there. No word was chosen casually. It is all the letters as a kind of building blocks of reality, and the words—yes, the thirty-two paths of wisdom and all sorts of things, and 231 is 22 times 21 letters, all the combinations of pairs of letters—these are all the building blocks of reality. Meaning, there is an essentialist conception there. Meaning, it’s not conventionalism. It’s not something we decide because somehow we need to decide, as in a language developed by human beings. Rather, here it is an essential determination. For the Holy One, blessed be He, the language He chose—Hebrew, the language in which the Torah is written—is a language that grasps the roots of things. An ox is called an ox because it is somehow connected, I don’t know, to something in the shin-vav-resh, to the name and foundations of reality. It’s not some word chosen by chance because they had to find a name for this animal.

And Maimonides—and Nachmanides attacks Maimonides on this point—Maimonides here opposes this. Maimonides says, “I too have a claim and a reason for our language being called the holy tongue. And do not think this is exaggeration on our part or an error.” Don’t think that calling Hebrew the holy tongue is some mistake or some empty flourish. No, there is a good reason for it. And what is the reason? “But the truth is that in this holy tongue no original term was assigned at all for the sexual organ, neither of men nor of women, nor for the act itself that leads to procreation, nor for semen, nor for emission. For all these things no primary term was assigned at all in the Hebrew language; rather, they are spoken of by borrowed terms and hints. And the intention in this was that these things are not fit to be mentioned in a way that assigns them names, but are matters about which one should remain silent, and when there is a need to mention them, one should devise a way through euphemisms from other words, just as one restrains oneself from performing them unnecessarily as much as possible.” In short: why is it called the holy tongue? Not like the kabbalists say, that every letter and every word has meaning and was not chosen arbitrarily. It’s completely arbitrary. Hebrew is no different from any other conventional language. It’s all conventions. Why is it the holy tongue? Because here no names were chosen for the reproductive organs. Base words are not used; there is no terminology in Hebrew for such things, and therefore it is the holy tongue.

And Rabbi HaNazir also discusses this; he writes about it in Kol HaNevuah. He says there is a fundamental dispute here between Maimonides and the Raavad and Nachmanides. He shows that this even has halakhic implications. There is a dispute in the laws of Megillah and in the laws of reciting the Shema. In the laws of reciting the Shema, Maimonides writes that one who recites the Shema must—must recite it, “provided that he pronounce its letters precisely”; I don’t remember the exact wording—“in any language, provided that he pronounce its letters precisely.” So the Raavad asks him there: what does it mean, “in any language, provided that he pronounce its letters precisely”? Why do you need to be precise with letters in English? I understand why you need precision in Hebrew, because every letter is essential, yes—but in another arbitrary language, why be precise with the letters? The main thing is that the content be clear. If I don’t speak standard English but some slang I invented, as long as it conveys the content that has to be said, everything is fine. What is there in English more than in slang I invented? Yes, as he says there, “every language is an interpretation, and who is precise about an interpretation?” That’s what the Raavad writes. What is there to be precise about? Imagine you are reading, I don’t know, someone’s interpretation of a Tolstoy book, and you are being exacting with the interpreter as to precisely how he worded it—that makes no sense. It is only wording in the interpreter’s language; he is explaining to me what is written in the book, that’s all. What is there to be precise about in the letters of an interpretation? It has no significance. In the original text there is reason to be precise. That’s what the Raavad says. Why? Because according to his view, the original Hebrew text is one in which every letter is essential. But when you say it in another language, then what is there to be precise about regarding the letters? That only makes sense where the language is essential. In a conventional language, do whatever you want, as long as you say the content.

Maimonides sees no difference between these two kinds of language. For Maimonides, Hebrew and the other languages are the same thing; both are conventions. And still, there is apparently some value—perhaps so that we relate to it more seriously or something like that—so one must nevertheless be precise with the letters. Not because every letter truly has meaning, but because that is the proper attitude toward the word of God. One must be precise with every letter to show respect, not because every letter actually has meaning.

There is also a parallel dispute in the laws of Megillah; he discusses this there in Kol HaNevuah. What is there regarding that? He says that according to Maimonides, one may read the Megillah in any language. And according to Maimonides, even someone who knows Hebrew may read it in any language. And the Raavad objects there, if I remember correctly. He says no: “in any language” means for someone who does not know Hebrew, but someone who does know Hebrew must read it in Hebrew. And once again Rabbi HaNazir says this is exactly the same point, because Maimonides sees no difference between Hebrew and another language. There is no reason to say that preferably one should read it in Hebrew; let everyone read it in whatever language he wants. What difference does it make? All languages are the same; there is nothing special about Hebrew. You can see this in several places, but the source is this passage in Maimonides. Here Maimonides truly does not see Hebrew as anything essential; it is something completely conventional. And here again the kabbalists disagree with him, exactly as with the reasons for the commandments that we saw earlier—the reasons for the details of the commandments—because they hold that everything the Holy One, blessed be He, does cannot be arbitrary. Every detail must have some role, otherwise it simply would not have been created. After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, determined the rules of the game. He does not play within a world whose given rules are imposed on Him. He determines the rules. Why determine rules that contain arbitrariness, that contain unnecessary degrees of freedom? There is no reason. It contradicts the perfection of the Holy One, blessed be He, His omnipotence.

A third example is providence, actually in Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, chapter 17. There too, regarding providence, I brought only the last part of the chapter. He presents five views there regarding providence, and the fifth is what appears here: “And this is the view which I believe has fewer absurdities than the previous opinions and is closer to rational inference. Namely, that I believe divine providence in this lower world—that is, below the sphere of the moon—applies only to individual human beings. This species alone is such that all the conditions of its individuals, and whatever good or evil befalls them, follows judgment.” Because only a human being has laws—he has commandments he must do and must not do—and therefore only he is subject to providence. Animals—what is there to supervise for them? They do good, they do evil—they have no free choice, no command, so what difference does it make? Never mind all the details now; you can read them later.

He says—and look after the middle—“And the proof that the other animals are not subject to providence except as species…” Do you see it? It’s about mid-line; there’s a period there, and then “And the proof that the other animals…” Meaning, animals are under providence only as a whole species. All cows, or all sheep, or all deer, are supervised, but not each deer individually. There are medieval authorities (Rishonim) who say this also about the nations of the world. I don’t think Maimonides says this, if I remember correctly; I don’t think Maimonides distinguishes in providence between Jews and gentiles. But there are medieval authorities who say that regarding gentiles too, providence applies to the nation as a whole, not to the individual, unlike providence over Jews. So here too providence is only over the species. “For the prophet Habakkuk, peace be upon him, when he saw the power of Nebuchadnezzar and his great killing of human beings, said before the Lord God as if human beings had been abandoned and forgotten and made ownerless like the fish of the sea and the creeping things of the earth.” So you see that when human beings are forgotten and abandoned, what do they become like? Like fish and creeping things of the earth. That means that fish and creeping things of the earth are abandoned; they are not under providence. So he brings a proof from here that there is a providence over humanity that is more than the providence over animals. “He showed in this statement that the species are abandoned,” as in, “You make man like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things that have no ruler over them. He brings them all up with a hook,” etc. “And afterward the prophet explained that the matter is not so—not because of abandonment and forgetfulness and lack of providence, but as punishment for them, for they deserved all that befell them,” etc.

In any case, that is the claim. The claim is, in short, that providence is providence over the species in general. There is no providence over each individual deer. And when it says that He provides “from the eggs of lice to the horns of wild oxen,” Maimonides also says this does not mean that every single wild ox is individually under providence. It means that wild oxen have food in this world; this world is arranged such that wild oxen have something to eat and lice also have something to eat—everyone has something to eat on the fundamental level. It does not mean that each individual one is supervised separately. So that is Maimonides’ claim.

And again, of course, the kabbalists do not accept this. The kabbalists do not accept it because again there is something here—so the Holy One, blessed be He, created, I don’t know, a million cows and it simply doesn’t matter to Him at all what each cow does. He could have switched their places, putting this one here and that one there, and nothing would be different. So why did He place that one here and that one there? Again Maimonides would answer them as he answers in our case with the details of the commandments. Somewhere He had to put them, right? If you want Yankel to have three cows and Berel also to have four cows, you have to give some concrete cows there. True, these three could have been here and those four there, but some cows have to be there, so naturally these cows. But the kabbalists will once again argue: what do you mean? The Holy One, blessed be He, created the rules of the game; He created the world. So you cannot tell me, well, the rules of the game say that the goal can be achieved this way and can also be achieved the opposite way, so I do something arbitrary. If the Holy One, blessed be He, created the rules of the game, it is not plausible that He created rules that leave degrees of freedom in the middle. And again, this is the same dispute Maimonides has with the kabbalists in all these contexts. Maybe there are more, but these are the three I remember.

Okay, so back to us. What we have discovered so far is that we have two fundamental conceptions of how to relate to the details of the commandments. The approach—let’s call it for now—that of the kabbalists in general, namely that every detail has meaning; it is derived from the meaning of the commandment, from the essential conception of the commandment. And Maimonides’ conception, which says that the details can be—at least some of them can be—arbitrary. And now what? Now Rabbi Kook asks himself: how do I relate to the details of the commandments? Yes, that is basically the question, so we need to keep in the background what we’ve said up to now.

“The precise details of the commandments generally have two foundations”—I’m reading from the book, chapter 9—“The first foundation is that one of the principal things produced in a person by the act of observing Torah and commandment is that he is elevated to a lofty spiritual level by the fact that deeds done as service of God act upon him to impress within him the quality of recognition of the honor of God. And this moral quality will be firmly established in all its perfection only through fulfilling the word of God with very exact care, so that there be seen in his conduct a greater precision than the precision appropriate to any ordered law from any ruler, commander, or lawgiver.” “Nomos” means law; “the customs of the nations” means the laws of the nations. “A lawgiver” means someone who established a legal system. Okay? So when you relate to someone who established a legal system, you want to relate to him with respect, and therefore you have to pay attention to the details he established. Meaning, it has to be something that descends to details; it cannot remain at the general level. “Therefore it is very fitting to be precise in the words and letters of the Torah and to perform the commandment according to the most exact meaning possible. And conversely, if we abandon the work of precision, then the impression of this abandonment will produce the opposite effect, and the light of the honor of God in his heart will be dimmed, and the moral stature of a person will sink into materiality and coarseness of thought to a very great degree.”

There is note 2 below, if you see it. I think they are mistaken. When he says here that one must perform the commandment according to the most exact meaning possible, they say, “that is, even where it is not indispensable.” Rabbi Kook is not speaking about a place where it is not indispensable; he is speaking about a place where it is indispensable. He is speaking about a case where it is indispensable. And still, the question is why is it important? Why are these details important—even the details that are indispensable? Bringing a ram and not a lamb is indispensable. It is a detail in the commandment which, although arbitrary, once it has been fixed it is essential. If you didn’t do it, you didn’t bring the right sacrifice. Fine? And still, says Rabbi Kook, why do it? Because it shows an attitude of respect toward the lawgiver, toward the One who established this system of laws. I take every detail seriously; I’m not just doing things on the general level according to the general direction. A legal system has to descend into details. Up to here, that is the first foundation.

“However, joined to the work of precision by virtue of the exaltedness of supreme honor, it is also fitting to find that every law emerging from exact detail accords with the spirit of the Torah in general, and leads to good guidance in refining traits and opinions, and also acts for good in social life and bodily health and strengthening the powers of the soul in the nation as a whole and in its particulars. And this is the second foundation, that our sages—especially when the nation was properly established and the Great Court stood in the place chosen by God, from which Torah went forth to all Israel, or even in central courts in exile, as long as the order of the laws was decided from the source of the Written Torah, where the paths are very broad and the hermeneutical rules by which the Torah is expounded require great judgment lest the expositor stray from the proper path—the second foundation was always before their eyes: to see the value of the good action that emerges from the details of the commandment by way of interpretation. Then it is most verified that, along with preserving the precision of the words and letters of the Torah, it also produces additional good guidance or some beneficial foundation for the nation as a whole in its material and moral ways, and also the strength of civic life.”

What he is basically saying here is that these two foundations, it seems to me, parallel the two conceptions we discussed before. In the first section he explains how to relate to the details of the commandments according to Maimonides’ view. It’s pretty discouraging, because according to Maimonides, the details of the commandments come out arbitrary. So what is the motivation to be exact about every detail and to examine whether the sacrifice should be this way or that way when I know in advance that what I’ll end up with will actually be something arbitrary and unimportant? So what is the point of being exact and studying it and then also observing it—dealing with all the details? That is what he devotes the first paragraph to. And what he says is that even regarding things that—even if you view them as arbitrary, there is a first foundation. And the first foundation is that when you relate to the lawgiver in an honorable way, you have to relate to all the details he stated. You have to serve the Holy One, blessed be He, also in the details; yes, God is in the details, as they say. That is the first paragraph, which is basically about Maimonides’ conception, that the details of the commandments are arbitrary and have no reason in themselves. I do not have to deal with the details because this makes me more perfect or perhaps the world more whole, but because this is the proper way to relate to the lawgiver, to give honor to the lawgiver. “And if we abandon the work of precision, the impression of this abandonment will produce the opposite effect”—the light of the honor of God in our hearts will dim. If we do not relate to the details, we will not relate to the Holy One, blessed be He, with respect.

In a certain sense, this was the kabbalists’ claim against Maimonides—that he is actually diminishing the honor of the Holy One, blessed be He. You turn Him into someone who does things arbitrarily for no reason. So Rabbi Kook says: fine, but even if we adopt Maimonides’ perspective, that these details are arbitrary, still it is clear that one must engage with the details because in the end the Holy One, blessed be He, established them. And part of the honor we are supposed to give the Holy One, blessed be He, is to engage with the details that He established. And even more than that, it also gives some sense to why the Holy One, blessed be He, did this, even though there is no real reason. He did it so that we could serve Him also in the details, because otherwise the whole meaning of serving God and connecting to the Holy One, blessed be He, would remain at the level of general and abstract ideas—which there are all kinds of people today who think they can serve the Holy One, blessed be He, that way: they keep the general ideas, just not the details. Well, that’s it—that is not a way to truly connect with the Holy One, blessed be He, to truly serve the Holy One, blessed be He. There is no choice: details have to be set, even arbitrary ones, so that a person will engage also in the details of his life in serving the Holy One, blessed be He, so that he can connect to the Holy One, blessed be He, in all the corners and cracks of his life. That is why details were fixed—and note, still within the conception that they are arbitrary.

The second part of this chapter now moves on, because Rabbi Kook apparently—Rabbi Kook, in my opinion, does not agree with Maimonides. That is, he belongs to the kabbalistic camp, and he does see every detail as having an essential reason; they are not arbitrary things. Therefore he builds it in two stages. The first stage: even according to Maimonides there is still significance to engaging in the details, because that is our way of connecting to the Holy One, blessed be He, serving Him, relating to Him with respect, making Him present in our lives. At every stage we have to ask ourselves what the Holy One, blessed be He, said and what He did not say, what He forbids and what He permits, what He obligates and what He does not obligate. The moment we ask that question at every single step, then there is honor of God, there is connection to God—that is serving God. So even if the details are arbitrary, Rabbi Kook is basically offering here some explanation for why the Holy One, blessed be He, fixed them. He fixed them even though they really have no true reason, but He fixed them for our sake so that we would be connected to Him with every step we take.

But Rabbi Kook is not satisfied with that, because he does not think Maimonides is right—or so it seems to me, that this is what lies behind this chapter—and he basically says that the details do have an essential reason. Therefore he says: the second foundation is that every detail should contribute positively to social life, bodily health, strengthening the powers of the soul in the nation as a whole and in its particulars, and every such detail has an essential contribution. It is not arbitrary; it has a reason. Therefore it is important to engage with the details—not only because of divine honor, the service of God, and so on, but because it truly leads to good guidance, to benefit for the body or society or whatever the purpose may be.

[Speaker E] And is that even in rabbinic law? What? Does he continue this even into rabbinic law? Yes, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in rabbinic law it is even clearer. Because in rabbinic law, when they established something, they certainly did not do it only so that we would serve them. If they established something, it’s presumably because they thought it was actually needed, that it was genuinely beneficial. So on the contrary—in rabbinic law it is perhaps even fairly obvious that this is so, that the details are not arbitrary. But in Torah law, Maimonides at least says that the details are arbitrary. The main thing is that the Holy One, blessed be He, according to Rabbi Kook’s explanation, basically did this only so that we would be in relationship with Him even in our small daily lives, in the little details, because that attaches me more to the Holy One, blessed be He, in my day-to-day life. Rabbinic law has no such aim, of attaching me to them in my private daily life. They legislate what they see fit to legislate; what not, not. So specifically in this regard, there is actually more logic to there being arbitrary dimensions in Torah law than in rabbinic law. That is the first explanation. But then in the second paragraph Rabbi Kook says that he is really following the kabbalistic conception, and that the details do indeed have an essential reason. Therefore what makes it important to engage in the details is not only divine honor and serving God and so on, but that it truly leads to good conduct, benefit to the body or society or whatever the purpose may be.

[Speaker G] But that’s only on the side of actually doing the details; it’s not—if I don’t understand and it just does something that I don’t understand, it’s not the study of the details that does that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and afterward he continues and moves on also to study, but he links it to study. Because he says, “As long as the order of the laws was drawn from the source of the Written Torah, where the paths are very broad and the hermeneutical rules by which the Torah is expounded require great judgment”—and how is this judgment made, so that the expositor not stray from the proper path?—“the second foundation was always before their eyes.” Here this time it is no longer about doing, but about determining. When the sages determined the law and expounded the Torah and derived this detail or that detail from it, they were supposed to have the second foundation before their eyes. Because according to Maimonides it is really hard to understand how the sages expound and derive details from the Torah. Again, this is all behind what he says, but it seems to me that this is the point. Because if the sages really derive some detail through exposition, and that detail is arbitrary, then according to what did they derive it? I mean, if there is no logic in it, then how did they know it was this and not the opposite? On what basis did they determine it this way so that it should be arbitrary and not the reverse? So you are forced into a somewhat formalist conception, a conception that says the expositor is basically doing mathematics with verses and out comes the answer; the details come out. In fact it is all already in the verses. And the expositor, because he doesn’t really understand—if the details are arbitrary, then I do not really understand that this detail is the correct way to fulfill this commandment rather than the other detail. So if I don’t understand, how do I know it is really correct? Well then apparently the methods of exposition are some kind of mathematics where even without understanding you can reach the right result. But that’s implausible.

[Speaker H] And that’s what we saw last year.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and last year we saw that this isn’t true. Even with the non-rational hermeneutical rules there’s no point discussing it, but even with the rational ones—an a fortiori inference and the two forms of analogy—you still have to decide which laws are the relevant ones that you put into the table. Right? So you do have to understand some kind of connection between the things; you can’t operate outside a context. Okay? Therefore, in the second paragraph, when Rabbi Kook is already talking about the second foundation—the kabbalists’ foundation, essentially—that every detail does indeed have a reason, then when he describes the method of the expositor, he really says: the path is very broad and there are all kinds of ways to expound the verse. So how does the expositor know how to expound? He must always keep the second foundation before his eyes. In other words, not to be like Maimonides, but to understand.

[Speaker E] Maybe the sages determine the meaning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the Torah determines it. The sages understand it from within the Torah.

[Speaker E] In a number of examples, for instance, they determined thirty-nine primary categories of labor. Could the Great Court tomorrow determine two primary categories of labor?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right,

[Speaker E] No, but the meaning—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is the application of the meaning, but the meaning is clear, it is written in the Torah. The meaning is that one may not do labor—say, for the sake of discussion, creative labor. Now what counts as creative labor—today’s court may think differently from a court of former times.

[Speaker E] Exactly, and there are many things that maybe have no meaning and the sages supplied them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is exactly the point. Meaning, if you go with Maimonides, then the details really do not have meaning. What matters is not doing creative labor. Now exactly how, and what yes and what no, is something that can be at least arbitrary. Then the question is: how did the sages actually determine it if it is arbitrary?

[Speaker E] How did they determine it, really?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is the question. But Rabbi Kook really does not accept this, and therefore I think that is his claim. Because Rabbi Kook says that “the paths are very broad,” as he writes here. There are many possibilities for interpreting the verse, so how do you choose the correct one? You must keep the second foundation before your eyes—the foundation that says they have meaning, that there is a reason why those labors were prohibited; they are not just arbitrary details. That doesn’t mean there cannot be disputes about it or that a court in one generation will agree with what a court in another generation said—that doesn’t matter. But clearly there is some meaning here. And the second foundation stands before the expositor’s eyes. He has to understand what the commandment is saying, and in light of that he formulates. We spoke about this quite a bit last year—when the sages say, “‘The Lord your God shall you fear’—to include Torah scholars,” the word “et” comes to include something. So they include Torah scholars. It is obvious that the expositor’s reasoning is involved in the exposition; it is not mathematics. Because the word “et” comes to include. Now the expositor asks himself: include what? Maybe include pillars, or chairs, or I don’t know, Torah scrolls? What does “‘The Lord your God shall you fear’” come to include? He has to activate his reasoning, and his reasoning says: Torah scholars. Why? Because that is apparently the thing closest to the Holy One, blessed be He, that the expositor found. And therefore Shimon HaAmsuni would expound every “et” in the Torah until he came to “‘The Lord your God shall you fear’” and got stuck, because he did not understand what could possibly resemble the Holy One, blessed be He—how anything could be compared to the Holy One, blessed be He. Until Rabbi Akiva came and said: to include Torah scholars. What? Rabbi Akiva said: true, Torah scholars also are not like the Holy One, blessed be He; nothing can be likened to the Holy One, blessed be He. But who is least unlike Him? Meaning, you must include something from the “et,” so now you look for the best thing you have within your framework, and he found Torah scholars. So we see that reasoning plays a role in exposition. Exposition is not mathematics. It is not that when there is an “et,” I do some gematria and out comes Torah scholars. That is what would seem to follow from Rabbi Kook’s first paragraph. No—I look at the meaning: what is the meaning of awe of Heaven? And from understanding awe of Heaven, I derive from it the inclusion that Torah scholars too should be held in awe. Okay? Because the second foundation has to stand before my eyes. There are many ways to expound any verse, and the sage by his reasoning decides which of them to apply. How does he decide? He decides according to logic, because every detail has logic. But if no detail has logic, then how does he decide? That is why he needs this matter of the expositions—suddenly the second paragraph enters. Why does he suddenly need the expositions in the second paragraph? Because in the second paragraph he brings support for the second level—for why he does not suffice with Maimonides’ picture. Because he says that according to Maimonides, it is not clear how the expositor is supposed to find his way among the different possibilities; there has to be a second foundation before his eyes. Okay?

[Speaker E] Maimonides agrees, though, that if it’s rabbinic—decrees and enactments—that they have a reason. Obviously. On the contrary, that’s what I said earlier: Maimonides actually relates to exposition differently from most medieval authorities; he does not treat it as Torah law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—on the contrary, although I think Maimonides also treats exposition in general as something in which the expositor’s reasoning is involved. Right, to the point that Maimonides—

[Speaker E] would call it rabbinic law. Therefore he does not equate it with details of Torah law, because in his view the details of Torah law have no meaning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, those are not enactments. According to Maimonides, the details of the commandments are—

[Speaker E] can be arbitrary. By contrast, exposition, in which the reasoning of the Torah scholars is involved, cannot be arbitrary. Therefore it is not on the same level as the precise details of Torah law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but then the question is how expositions produce arbitrary details. Or do you want to claim that every detail derived through exposition is really not arbitrary—that it is among the non-arbitrary details?

[Speaker E] That’s why it is not on the same level as the precise details of Torah law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I think that its not being on the level of the precise details of Torah law is, on the contrary, precisely because this thing does not emerge from the Torah but comes from the sages. They are not extracting from the Torah the—Rabbi Kook understands here that the expositor is actually extracting from the Torah what it intended. By his logic he understands what it intended, and Maimonides says—

[Speaker E] It’s not extraction from the Torah; even in Maimonides’ approach, his relation to exposition fits his broader position. Since there is a difference—since he does not accept that one can derive the exact details of Torah law because they are arbitrary—therefore he does not grant them the status of Torah law.

[Speaker B] Okay, okay, I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I hear what you’re saying.

[Speaker H] Well, you made a distinction here that seems correct: what Maimonides said, he said only about what is written in the Torah, about Torah law. Meaning, the Rabbi took it a bit further, which seems to me to be about—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the expositions, because there are details of commandments that come out of expositions. But then what—

[Speaker H] But it is obvious that Maimonides would not dispute that there is logic in that. Meaning that what Maimonides said—even according to

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the examples he brings, it is obviously about Torah law. Yes. The question is what would Maimonides answer to Rabbi Kook’s question here? Maimonides would say—that is exactly your point—I accept it. What Maimonides would say is that when the sages make an exposition, obviously there is logic in it, because otherwise how did they choose one out of all the options? That is what Rabbi Kook is asking. Maimonides too has to give an answer to that. And Maimonides would say: correct, the sages chose according to their reasoning, but precisely because of that, it is rabbinic law and not Torah law. And the Torah-law details are the arbitrary details. That is basically what Maimonides would claim.

[Speaker E] Most of the details are rabbinic.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but the details probably won’t be arbitrary. Again, I don’t know—the Maimonides doesn’t write this anywhere—but it seems to me that what was suggested here is a possible explanation. Now maybe one more comment, or maybe we’ll leave that comment for later. Let’s go for a moment to chapter 18. Chapter 18 basically continues what appears here, and Rabbi Kook writes like this: “To understand the value of all the commandments and the fine points of Torah, how they are drawn toward the great principle of the general purpose of the Israelite nation”—this is on page 76—“which is to make the name of God known throughout the whole world by its existence and its conduct—this is the stumbling point for all those who fail, since it is easy to bring them back to the principle, but difficult to establish them upon an intellectual illumination so that they will not come to cut off tendencies and branches.” Again, the issue is the fine points of the commandments, the fine points of Torah. So Rabbi Kook says here: it’s easy to explain to people the general idea of a commandment. What is hard for people to understand? All the little details, all the subtle nuances in every commandment. Okay? But notice how Rabbi Kook relates to the details. There is an intellectual illumination in the details. And then, if you go with Maimonides again—this keeps accompanying us all the way through—if you go with Maimonides, then what does that lead to? Cutting off the branches from the roots. Because the branches are arbitrary; they aren’t important. The principles—the things that contain logic—I’m willing to accept what the Holy One, blessed be He, said. But why do I need to deal with all the arbitrary details? The same distress we started with, which Rabbi Kook also says he himself feels. Right? So that’s what troubles many people, and that’s why it distances them from the whole matter. But Rabbi Kook says there is intellectual illumination in that too. This is his second passage in chapter 9. It’s not true—Maimonides is not right that it’s all arbitrary. There is intellectual illumination in the details too, and when you explain that to people, maybe that is the way to bring them closer to the details of the commandments and not only to the general ideas.

“And behold, how to understand that the name of God in the world cannot be proclaimed except through Israel. One only needs to know that proclaiming the name of God, through which the world will be perfumed from its impurity, cannot be understood through superficial recognition. For as long as the name of God is called in people’s mouths and does not enter deeply into the depth of the balance of all life and its details, then that hoped-for universal peace will not be drawn from it.” So what is he basically saying up to this point? That if we do not serve the Holy One, blessed be He, also in the details, then our whole goal—to bring the name of God, or the proclamation of the name of God, into the world, to perfume the world from its impurity, right?—will not be realized. Because general ideas are not enough; you need details. You can interpret this according to either of the two meanings we spoke about in chapter 9. First of all, in the first meaning, the practical, simplest one: right, the details don’t really have meaning—you’re right. But if we don’t engage the details, then the Holy One, blessed be He, is not present in our lives. You’re not thinking at every moment about what the Holy One, blessed be He, says yes to and what He says no to. So the whole purpose of proclaiming the name of God in the world will not be achieved. So you have morality—there is also secular morality. People don’t need the Holy One, blessed be He, in order to be moral. In order to be moral you need all kinds of commandment-details that are not the rational and moral principles. So that’s first of all the first stage. But it’s not clear; it could be that there is also the essential point of the second passage in chapter 9—that you need the details because the general principles really are not important enough on their own.

So he says, “In several respects, yes, that hoped-for universal peace will not be drawn from this, for several reasons. The first is that as long as the knowledge is floating and not deep in the heart, then it cannot strengthen its power enough for us to determine that through all human beings recognizing themselves as partners and brothers in this exalted idea”—that is, all working together to establish universal peace and the true good for all the works of God—“that despite all this, their private calculations will not prevail over this recognition; and therefore the power of the fist will still rise, and continue for many days to bring devastation upon the earth.” Meaning, the first principle is that you must internalize that we are all really one organ standing before the Holy One, blessed be He. “All” meaning all nations. All people and all nations. And if you don’t internalize that in the soul, then there won’t be—then there will be fists between… there will be wars, there will not be peace, because people will not grasp themselves as parts of one organism. That connects exactly to the previous chapter we saw in the previous lesson. Okay?

Now how do you bring this in, how do you internalize in people this idea that the Holy One, blessed be He, is really the root of us all? Through engagement with the details. And again, for now these can still be arbitrary details. But I need engagement with the details in order to internalize that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the foundation of us all.

“And the second is that the very certainty of this knowledge, such that it will no longer remain doubtful as a general human mission, requires preparation of the heart, so that the inner feeling will be full of it, to the point that one cannot imagine at all the possibility of acting contrary to this general recognition.” Yes—not only to announce outwardly that the Holy One, blessed be He, is in the details, but also to internalize it within myself. Meaning, if I do not understand within myself—if within each and every one of us it is not clear that he stands before the Holy One, blessed be He, or that the Holy One, blessed be He, is in fact his root—then it won’t happen.

“And for these two corners the name of God must be proclaimed not in large quantity but in quality; that is, the matter does not emerge by the mere majority of the number of people who say, in the way of a commandment by rote, that they believe in one God.” That is basically service of God in generalities without the fine points of the commandments. Well, we hear this a lot today too: “I also believe, I also more or less keep some tradition, a little, something”—but not details, the details of the commandments are not significant. “Rather, the value of this knowledge must be so deeply imprinted that it can surely be a cornerstone for all the private human calculations.” That’s why you need details. It has to be part of every moment of your life. “Through it the paths of life are supported and many stumbling blocks and ruptures are removed from humanity in general, nation against nation”—“nation against nation” here in the sense that nations break into factions, not together—“and family against family. And the special power to imprint deeply in the heart the concept that fills all the paths of life, that ‘the Lord is one,’ and ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might’—that comes only through the multitude of actions,” meaning the details, not only the general ideas. “The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to grant merit to Israel; therefore He gave them much Torah and many commandments.”

“Therefore, just as there is a purpose to the very power that unifies the nation in all its private qualities through the broad system of the acts of Torah and its fine points, which fill Jewish life in order to place upon it a unique stamp, so too there is also a great root for all this even according to the more far-reaching perspective: that there should be a general purpose emerging from this whole great spectacle of the separation of nationalities.” Meaning, this is both inward and outward. And however a person is oriented in his intellect and feelings—whether toward the more national axis or toward the universal perspective—yes, whether inward toward the Jewish people or outward—either way, he must recognize the greatness of the obligation to be God-fearing in keeping Torah and commandment with love. And all the fine points of Torah and the rabbinic fine points that add to engrave deeply in the heart the exalted universal purpose will be considered a great righteousness extending to limitless breadth, “and justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

It seems to me that this whole chapter—at least that’s my feeling—continues the first passage in chapter 9. He doesn’t say a word about the details having real intrinsic importance. Nothing. On the contrary, he keeps extending more and more the approach of the first passage, which says that the role of the details is to bring the Holy One, blessed be He, into each and every detail of our lives. Not that the details themselves really have a genuine role. They have a technical role: if you deal with the Holy One, blessed be He, in every detail of your life, then He is more present in your life and in the life of the world, inwardly and outwardly, and from that this organism he speaks about is created.

[Speaker D] So in order to explain the importance of the details, he starts going through each detail and giving something…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. First of all, if there is importance, he doesn’t mention it.

[Speaker D] Here, at the level of principle, he’s only touching on a general argument that says—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, because really in the first passage, as I said, in the first passage of chapter 18, he says, “but it is difficult to establish them…”

[Speaker D] “…upon an intellectual illumination so that they will not come to cut off tendencies and branches.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, it’s hard to tell people that there is really something in the details, because for that you need… And then what does he go on to say? So let’s actually go with them. Let me really not try now to explain the logic and the essential idea in each detail, but I will explain why it is still important to engage with the details, even if you hold Maimonides’ approach. Even if we say that there is no intellectual illumination in the details, still there is great importance in causing everyone to engage with the details, because we will not achieve even our general moral purpose if we are not committed also to the details. It’s true that in the second passage of chapter 18 he says that personally he also agrees with level two—that is, there is also… and he hints at it in the first passage here too. He says, “to establish them upon an intellectual illumination” that exists in the branches. Fine. But it’s hard to do that, and therefore in his preaching, in his explanation, he really remains in the first passage with Maimonides’ conception specifically, because that is the easier conception. He says: let’s go with your method; let’s say the details are arbitrary, they have no reason, there is no reason to do them—still, it is very important to be committed also to the details. So that is basically his claim, even though on the principled, theoretical level, certainly he sees—he’s from the kabbalists, not from the Maimonidean camp—that he basically understands that the details too have essential significance. Fine, we’ll continue with this next time. Maybe bring Rabbi Kook’s page next time, okay? We’re done with Maimonides’ page. No, no, first I’ll continue this passage of Maimonides and then we’ll move on. We’ll switch—

[Speaker A] lesson—I switched a lesson for the lectures that took place at Ben-Gurion University. There was a lecture there by Ariel Picard. I thought there were some lines of similarity to what the Rabbi is saying, and I thought maybe the Rabbi knows it. He opened the lecture like this—he said something like: even if we assume that everything biblical criticism and philology say is correct, and the whole story of Mount Sinai and all the miracles that created them—still, that’s okay. And sort of the gist of his lecture, which I’m not sure I fully grasped—if you want, should I send you the link? Yes, I opened some lecture series at Ben-Gurion University, so you’ll already see it among the contents. Okay.