2019-04-22 – Between Midrash and Logic – Lesson 19

Table of Contents

• Transition from logical hermeneutic rules to textual hermeneutic rules
• Gezerah shavah, tradition, and judgment
• The family of general-and-specific rules and the distinction from repetition-based rules
• The three rules and the question of “specific-general-specific”
• The school of Rabbi Yishmael versus the school of Rabbi Akiva
• The claim of “chaos” in interpretation and a proposal for logical order
• Linguistic logic and the use of the general-and-specific rule on a non-biblical text
• Formalization, intuition, and the development of the hermeneutic rules
• Choosing the Eruvin passage on second tithe and the methodology of the table
• The verses about second tithe as a “general-specific-general” structure
• The “radius of inclusion” and the difference from binyan av
• The hierarchical table of items in the passage
• The beginning of the Talmudic discussion: water and salt, salt water, and fish brine
• Mapping the study houses and the editorial note “later on”

Summary

General Overview

The lecture opens with a study of the hermeneutic rules of general and specific, and distinguishes between *logical* rules such as binyan av and kal va-chomer, where the trigger for interpretation is logic itself without any textual hint, and *textual* rules such as gezerah shavah, hekesh, and general-and-specific, where the way the Torah is written is what triggers the interpretation. He presents general-and-specific as a textual family based on a shift in wording from a general expression to specific examples, rather than on repetition. He marks out three basic rules—general and specific, specific and general, and general-specific-general—and sets the goal of showing a “rigid logic” that organizes what looks messy in rabbinic literature and in scholarship. Later he says he will mainly focus on the branch associated with the school of Rabbi Yishmael as opposed to the school of Rabbi Akiva, and he begins with the Eruvin passage about redeeming second tithe in order to build a methodological approach of the “radius of inclusion” through a hierarchical table of items.

Transition from logical hermeneutic rules to textual hermeneutic rules

The lecturer defines binyan av, kal va-chomer, and the two forms of binyan av as logical rules in which the result of the interpretation is connected conceptually and logically to the verses, but does not rely on a textual hint that obligates one to interpret. He presents general-and-specific and gezerah shavah as textual rules in which the Torah “hints” at interpretation through a certain form of writing, such as juxtaposition in a hekesh or an identical word in a gezerah shavah. He notes that “two verses that contradict one another” are a kind of hybrid creature, because the trigger there is textual, but the solution returns to logic; still, if you classify by the trigger of interpretation, they count as textual. He establishes that even in textual rules, logic is involved after identifying the trigger, but the text does not hint at the result, only at the need to carry out an interpretation.

Gezerah shavah, tradition, and judgment

The lecturer presents gezerah shavah as a unique rule in which “one interprets only if one received it from one’s teachers,” and he cites the dispute between Rashi and Tosafot over whether the novelty lies in kal va-chomer or in gezerah shavah. He attributes to Nachmanides and other medieval authorities (Rishonim) the view that even gezerah shavah has an element of judgment, and explains that disagreements over gezerah shavah show that not everything is transmitted as a closed tradition. He presents Nachmanides’ claim that a certain foundation is indeed received through tradition, but the interpretation itself can be reconstructed in order to justify a halakhic ruling or to connect between words, and therefore disputes can arise. He argues that if everything were pure tradition, gezerah shavah would become similar to a law given to Moses at Sinai, and then it would be “an unnecessary hermeneutic rule.”

The family of general-and-specific rules and the distinction from repetition-based rules

The lecturer defines general-and-specific as interpretations based on a shift in the language of the verse from a general formulation to specific examples, and sometimes back again to a general formulation. He distinguishes this from rules of repetition, such as “something that was included in a general category and then singled out to teach,” where a general law is repeated regarding a particular case in order to teach about the broader category. He states that one should not mix the repetition family together with general-and-specific, even though all of them are textual rules, and he says that the historical similarity some scholars propose, suggesting a common root, does not persuade him. He therefore narrows the discussion to the three general-and-specific rules that are based on a change of formulation rather than on repetition.

The three rules and the question of “specific-general-specific”

The lecturer presents three rules: general and specific, specific and general, and general-specific-general, and raises the question of why “specific-general-specific” does not appear as a rule in the standard lists. He mentions one passage in tractate Nazir in which an interpretation of specific-general-specific does appear, and suggests the possibility that this was a development that was not documented, or that it can be derived by the same logic that unifies the three rules. He includes discussion of additional structures such as “general and specific and specific” and “general and general and specific,” and presents the position of the Talmud that in “general and general and specific” one inserts the specific between the two generals and interprets it as general and specific. He argues that there is “a whole family” behind this, all driven by a single logic that becomes increasingly differentiated.

The school of Rabbi Yishmael versus the school of Rabbi Akiva

The lecturer states that the central dispute attributed in the Talmud to the school of Rabbi Yishmael and the school of Rabbi Akiva focuses mainly on the rules of general and specific, where Rabbi Akiva interprets by inclusion and exclusion, while Rabbi Yishmael interprets by general and specific. He says that at this stage he does not yet see an orderly structure that would allow him to explain the method of inclusion and exclusion with the same clarity, and therefore he will focus on the Yishmaelian branch, where the structure seems clearer to him. He notes that in almost every passage the alternative of Rabbi Akiva also comes up, but its logic is not equally clear to him.

The claim of “chaos” in interpretation and a proposal for logical order

The lecturer describes how scholars and commentators are perplexed by general and specific because of contradictions and parallel sources that classify the same interpretation at one point as general and specific and at another as general-specific-general, until it looks as though the Sages are “doing whatever they want.” He declares that he will present a “rigid logic” and proceed didactically from the structure to the chaos, in order to explain how a failure to grasp the logic creates confusion. He mentions scholarly works, especially an article by Menachem Kahana as a foundational marker, and a book by Czernik as a classifier that does not offer an underlying structure.

Linguistic logic and the use of the general-and-specific rule on a non-biblical text

The lecturer cites, in the name of Menachem Elon, an example of applying the general-and-specific rule to the wording of a responsa of Maharam of Rothenburg, and adds that other examples have also been found in which general-and-specific is used on a non-biblical text. From this he concludes that perhaps this is a kind of linguistic logic that characterizes a form of expression, and not only an “arbitrary code” established by the Torah. He defines this as linguistic logic within a textual rule, and distinguishes it from the logical reasoning of the first part.

Formalization, intuition, and the development of the hermeneutic rules

The lecturer suggests that the hermeneutic rules are a later formalization of messages transmitted to Moses our teacher by the Holy One, blessed be He—not as explicitly formulated rules, but as intuitive forms of reading that are learned like a language. He uses the image of a Stradivarius violin to explain that formal rules are approximations to a lost intuitive mastery; therefore, as intuition weakens, the resolution of the rules increases and one rule splits into several sub-rules. He argues that the rules are not a full substitute, and that reconstructing the “intuition” requires an archaeology of the development from Hillel’s seven rules to Rabbi Yishmael’s thirteen rules, in order to understand what is shared by the different branches.

Choosing the Eruvin passage on second tithe and the methodology of the table

The lecturer chooses the Eruvin passage because it appears in the baraita of examples and therefore, in his view, is early and representative, and he argues that ignoring it lies at the root of the chaos in interpretations of general and specific. He describes how some twenty passages in the Babylonian Talmud were surveyed in order to locate a logical order, and he mentions that in his opinion there is an additional stage of formalization among the Geonim, with appearances of “Rav Aḥai,” about whom Tosafot write that he is Rav Aḥai Gaon. He explains that he begins with the Babylonian Talmud because there the conceptualization and orderly rules are already explicit.

The verses about second tithe as a “general-specific-general” structure

The lecturer quotes the verses about second tithe and places the verse “And you shall spend the money for whatever your soul desires: for cattle, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your soul asks of you” as a structure of a general statement, particulars, and then a return to a general statement, and therefore as a clear trigger for the general-specific-general interpretation. He presents the halakhic question of what may be bought with second-tithe money in Jerusalem, and the need to determine the boundaries of inclusion for the particulars listed in the verse.

The “radius of inclusion” and the difference from binyan av

The lecturer states that the general-and-specific rules are “rules of inclusion,” and that the difference between them is the radius of inclusion: in general and specific, “one judges only according to what is in the specific”; in general-specific-general, “one judges only items similar to the specific”; and in specific and general, “the general adds to the specific.” He distinguishes this inclusion from the induction of binyan av, where one generalizes only on the basis of shared relevant parameters, and presents general-and-specific as a tool that extends even beyond similarity in essential parameters. He explains that the textual trigger is needed precisely in order to justify an extension that does not arise from logic alone, and that here too, reason determines which parameters count as relevant for implementation.

The hierarchical table of items in the passage

The lecturer builds a hierarchical table from the passage itself: water or salt at the bottom, above them salt water, above that fish brine without fish, then brine with fish innards, then fish, birds, and finally cattle, sheep, wine, and strong drink, which are the items named in the verse. He presents the disputes as marking the “line of inclusion” along this scale, where moving the line downward increases inclusion and vice versa, and he uses the table to track the movement of the line throughout the Talmudic discussion.

The beginning of the Talmudic discussion: water and salt, salt water, and fish brine

The Mishnah states, “Everything may be bought with second-tithe money except water and salt,” and the Talmud brings Amoraim who distinguish between water and salt each on its own and a mixture of water and salt. In the context of second tithe, they explain that there is room to make such a distinction, but there is also a basis for saying that for second tithe one needs *fruit produce*. The testimony of Rabbi Yehudah ben Gadish before Rabbi Eliezer raises the point that one may buy fish brine with second-tithe money, and Rabbi Eliezer limits this to a case where fish innards are mixed into it. The Talmud thus sketches a scale in which water and salt are the lowest level, salt water is above them, and brine is considered “the fat of produce,” while the dispute is formulated as shifting the line of permission and prohibition between the levels of the scale.

Mapping the study houses and the editorial note “later on”

The lecturer emphasizes that the Talmud asks, “What is the point of dispute between Rabbi Yehudah ben Gadish and Rabbi Eliezer, and these Tannaim later on,” and presents this as a sign of editorial activity already anticipating the Tannaim who will be brought later in the discussion. He mentions a search for appearances of “later on” throughout the Talmud as proof of editorial awareness, and cites in the name of Epstein a distinction between the stage of arranging sources and the stage of an editor who links them together. He concludes by saying that the Talmud identifies Rabbi Yehudah ben Gadish and Rabbi Eliezer as “interpreters by inclusion and exclusion,” in contrast to “those Tannaim, who interpret by general principles and specifics,” and announces that the continuation of the study will delve more deeply into inclusion and exclusion and into general and specific on the basis of this passage.

Okay, now we’re going to start learning the hermeneutic rules of general and particular, and here the orientation will be a bit different from the first part of the series, which dealt with the logical rules. Maybe before I get into the question of what the differences are between that orientation and this one, first let me say a little something I already spoke about at some point during the first semester, still something about the difference between these types of rules. Rules like binyan av and kal va-chomer, and the two forms of binyan av and kal va-chomer, and also I think at least the rule of two verses that contradict one another—those are what I called logical rules. Logical rules are rules where the result of the exposition is a result that is logically connected to the verses on which it is being performed. Now, when I say logically connected, that doesn’t necessarily mean deductively; I discussed that at length at the end of the first part. But the connection is a substantive one. Meaning, if you say: if chuppah effects such-and-such things, then you say: so apparently money also effects such-and-such things, because after all there is a similarity between them, and therefore they basically do the same thing. There is no textual hint in the Torah that causes us to make a kal va-chomer or a binyan av. Maybe with two verses that contradict one another there is such a hint, but at least with the two forms of binyan av and with kal va-chomer, the exposition is not based on a textual hint. The exposition is based on our reasoning. If it exists in one case, then all the more so in the stronger case, or binyan av regarding something similar. In that sense, the rules of general and particular belong to another group of rules that I call textual rules. Like gezerah shavah. What? Like gezerah shavah. Exactly. Textual rules are rules that do not begin with our reasoning, but begin with the text. Hekesh is not textual. Hekesh is textual. Is it? Yes. But that’s a very logical rule, no? Hekesh is simply because two things are written next to each other in the Torah. That’s hekesh, so I compare them. Exactly. Just like gezerah shavah, where the same word is written in two places. So it starts from the text. You begin from the way the Torah wrote the matter, and from that you derive some exegetical conclusion. By contrast, with the forms of binyan av and with kal va-chomer there is no hint at all in the verse telling us to make a binyan av or a kal va-chomer. There is a law, and you say, fine, my logic tells me that there too there should be the same law because it is similar, or because it is a kal va-chomer, or whatever we did in previous sessions. But that is all on our side, all in our reasoning; there is nothing in the text itself. Therefore I call those the logical rules. By contrast, the rules of general and particular that we’ll deal with now, and also gezerah shavah, and really you could say all the other rules, are textual rules. Meaning, these are rules whose basis—or the trigger for performing the exposition—is a textual trigger. Because the Torah writes things in a certain way, it hints to us thereby to make an exposition. Gezerah shavah is a classic example: the Torah uses the same word in two contexts, and so it tells us to compare those two contexts. When the Torah uses the language of a general term and then moves to the language of a particular term and then again to a general term, or plays these kinds of games, again we see that as some kind of hint to perform an exposition. So the basic difference between these two groups of rules is this: all the rules we’ve discussed—the three rules, really, and all their combinations and refutations that we have discussed until now—those were logical rules. They are rules where the trigger for the exposition is our reasoning, not the text. The text gives us data, but it doesn’t tell us whether to expound them or not—that’s our decision. In the textual rules, the trigger for the exposition is the text. Clear? That’s why I hesitated somewhat regarding two verses that contradict one another, because there too, with two verses that contradict one another, the trigger for the exposition is also the text. It is the text, because the text tells us in one place one law and in another place the opposite law—two verses that contradict one another. But that returns to logic. What? It returns to logic, and therefore I said it’s some sort of hybrid creature. But according to the classification I just gave—what is the trigger for the exposition—then two verses that contradict one another are also a textual rule. Now within the textual rules, as we’ll see in a moment—and I think I also spoke about this—it’s obvious that there too, there too reasoning is involved. There too reasoning is involved. The difference is not whether reasoning is involved; the difference is what point causes us to make the exposition. That’s the difference. Once I’ve identified the textual trigger and now I perform the exposition, the exposition definitely takes logical considerations into account, as we’ll see. Meaning, reason definitely enters there; it isn’t some kind of mathematics completely disconnected from our reasoning, some sort of code where the text hints to us at the result. The text hints to us to make an exposition; it doesn’t hint to us at the result. So what is this business of “he received it from his teachers and did not receive it from his teachers” if it’s logical? That’s with gezerah shavah. Yes, okay. So then how can that be? If he received it from his teachers, why do I care? Well, with gezerah shavah, first of all, it really is an unusual rule, because with gezerah shavah you expound only if you received it from your teachers. It’s true that there’s a dispute between Rashi and Tosafot, because kal va-chomer you derive on your own, gezerah shavah you derive only if you received it from your teachers. What about all the other rules? Is the novelty with kal va-chomer, or is the novelty with gezerah shavah? That’s the question. So that’s a dispute between Rashi and Tosafot. But the straightforward simple reading, and that is the view of most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), is that only gezerah shavah is a unique rule. And even with gezerah shavah—and I think I mentioned this too sometime at the beginning of the series—even with gezerah shavah, Nachmanides discusses this at length; look in the Talmudic Encyclopedia under gezerah shavah, and you’ll see that even there it isn’t true. The fact is that there are disputes over expositions based on gezerah shavah. Not everyone learns the same gezerot shavot. Those disputes are not just: this teacher taught him one thing and that one expounded another way? But where did it begin? There can be corruptions along the way. So you can say it’s a corruption, or you can say it’s the result of judgment and not corruption. The result of judgment, meaning that even in gezerah shavah there is an element of judgment. And that is what Nachmanides says, and so do other medieval authorities (Rishonim): that even in gezerah shavah there is an element of judgment. What is unique in gezerah shavah compared to the other rules is that in gezerah shavah there is some element that we received through tradition. I don’t understand this point. What does it mean to say one may not expound unless he received it from his teachers? Either he received it from his teachers and then there’s nothing to expound. Exactly. Therefore Nachmanides says: if you received it from your teachers, then you received it. Therefore Nachmanides says that’s not correct—not everything was received; rather, I expound it, but there is something I received from my teachers that stands at the basis of the exposition. Or I received from them the law, and then I look for an exposition from which it emerges, and I generate a new gezerah shavah that I did not hear from my teachers. And then in such a place a dispute can indeed arise. One person took that gezerah shavah, that word and that word, for one thing, and another took it for something else. Right, that’s how disputes arise—that’s exactly what Nachmanides says. Interesting, because to say otherwise—that the whole gezerah shavah is only what his teachers expounded—means it isn’t an exegetical rule at all, it’s tradition. Correct. An exposition that the Holy One, blessed be He, already expounded. Yes, that’s not an exegetical rule. The Holy One, blessed be He, expounded it; it’s like a law given to Moses at Sinai, basically. The Holy One, blessed be He, transmitted it to Moses at Sinai, and since then it has passed down through tradition to us. And then it really is no longer an exegetical rule, because an exegetical rule is something— Right. And therefore Nachmanides, along with quite a substantial group of medieval authorities (Rishonim) following him—and they also have proofs from Talmudic passages—say that this simplistic understanding of gezerah shavah is not correct. Even gezerah shavah, which is a unique rule—even there some element was transmitted by tradition, but not the entire exposition. Because otherwise there’s almost no point in doing it—what for? Then just give me the law and that’s it. Why transmit to me the gezerah shavah from which one learns the law, if you’re also transmitting the law itself? Then just tell me the law and be done with it. Why all these gezerah shavah games? Then it’s a superfluous exegetical rule. So it’s obvious that even in gezerah shavah human judgment is involved. And from there the disputes arise. Even gezerah shavah, which is the most traditional rule, the one most grounded in tradition. In any case, these textual rules are rules whose basis, or whose trigger for exposition, is the text itself. What textual rules do we know? We know gezerah shavah, which we just discussed. We know—well, perhaps we’ll start with general and particular. The three rules of general and particular. And I spoke about this at the beginning of the series: whether it’s one rule or three, how the development went from Hillel’s seven rules to Rabbi Yishmael’s thirteen, where I showed a gradual development in the specification of the rules of general and particular. I’ll return to that point. A matter learned from its context. What? A matter learned from its context. No, no, I haven’t gotten there yet. First of all, general and particular. So general and particular is where the Torah uses general terms and then moves to specific examples and then returns to general terms, or where the wording in the verse changes from general language to particular language. Those are expositions of general and particular. Meaning, expositions of general and particular are based on that trigger. Now there are additional textual expositions, like a matter that was included in a general category and then left the category in order to teach, for example. Or a matter that began with one requirement that is of its own kind. I’ll see if I have time to get to that. I’ll still explain a bit what the difference is between all these, because it really is not clear, but all expositions of that type are also textual expositions whose basis is repetition. Don’t confuse them with the rules of general and particular. The rule of general and particular is not a rule of repetition. The rule of general and particular is a verse that is worded strangely because it shifts from general language to particular language. By contrast, “a matter that was in the general category and went out from the general category in order to teach”—that is repetition. You taught me some law regarding all sacrifices, and then you return and teach me that same law regarding peace-offerings. But why did peace-offerings leave the general category? They left the general category in order to teach about the general category. That’s when the general law is repeated regarding something specific. Right, exactly. So that is a matter that went out from the general category, or a matter that had one requirement of its own kind—all these are rules of repetition. The rule of general and particular is a rule of changing the wording from a general formulation to a particular formulation. For example, with the forbidden sexual relations—is that where they talk about the rule of general and particular? Yes, and we’ll see today—in a moment I’ll start with an example. But those too are textual exegetical rules; there are three of them. The other rules that look like rules of general and particular because of how they are formulated—they are actually a completely different family, and you shouldn’t mix them up with one another, even though there are all kinds of hypotheses by scholars that everything came from a common root. I’m not inclined to think so. Okay, so right now we’re focusing on the three rules of general and particular, which are what I just defined now: a change in the wording of the verse, not repetition. There are basically three such rules. One rule is general and particular, a second rule is particular and general, and a third rule is general and particular and general. Yes—two double appearances and one triple appearance. Naturally we immediately ask the question, the question arises: what about particular and general and particular? Why doesn’t that appear as a rule? Because it isn’t—what would you derive from particular and general and particular? It gives you a particular, then a general, then a particular—that’s just a particular law and a general one. Why? Then why do we derive from general and particular and general—what’s the difference? You have some kind of general category, let’s say—this is logic, I’m saying—when it gives you a general category and then details and then once more the same general category, then there’s some kind of repetition or shift. Why with particular and general and particular can’t you say: it didn’t give you anything general at first, it gave you something specific, and then the general category in the middle—so what? But with particular and general too, the particular appears first and then the general, and that is an exegetical rule. Maybe there’s no such thing at all. Maybe there’s no such thing at all—just simply because it doesn’t appear in the Torah. So we’ll see: there really is such a thing, or at least there is a dispute whether there is or not. There is one passage in the entire Talmud that expounds particular and general and particular, and that is a passage in Nazir. In Nazir there is an exposition of particular and general and particular, and the question is what to do with it. And that exposition appears in Rabbi Yosei HaGelili? No, it does not appear anywhere as a separate listed rule. It doesn’t appear as a separate rule in the list. No, nowhere. So who said it’s allowed? The claim is that apparently the same logic that underlies these three rules also tells us how to expound that rule, even if it is not listed there. And maybe someone would want to say that this is another development that simply wasn’t recorded and documented in the lists we have. Just as I said that the move from Hillel’s seven rules to Rabbi Yishmael’s thirteen rules really broke down the rule of general and particular into three sub-rules and turned them into three instead of one. Where were they in Hillel? The claim was that they were there in Hillel too; all three rules existed, and all of them were called expositions of general and particular. They didn’t get into the higher resolution that appears with Rabbi Yishmael. And of course that claim obligates me to show that there is indeed one same logic underlying all three, because otherwise you can’t say such a thing. Meaning, if I make such a claim, I have to show you that there is one logic here that becomes more and more specified into further and further rules, and then I can also claim the same thing about particular and general and particular: that even though that is a rule that doesn’t appear at all, it can still be expounded with the same logic. Now I can keep going wild—what about general and particular and particular? Ah, and general and general and particular. General and particular and particular is just general and particular. Why? General and particular, and then another particular after that same general category. Why? Who said so? Maybe because there are several particulars. Because there are several particulars. So who said that a general category followed by several particulars is general and particular? We’ll see later that yes, but it’s not so simple. When it’s in different verses it becomes more problematic. Or general and general and particular, for example—even more problematic, because with general categories there are no repetitions. With particulars, sometimes in general and particular there are several particulars, but in a general category the general category always appears as one thing. So what about general and general and particular, for example? General and general and particular. On that, the Talmud itself deals with general and general and particular, and the Talmud brings a dispute. But the law is apparently that what they do is throw the particular between the two general categories and expound it as general and particular. You change the order? Anything that is general and general and particular, or particular and particular and general, is not included in Rabbi Yishmael’s count of the rules, let’s put it that way. If there are two general categories— No, no, no, the relation between that and binyan av is another issue that I’ll have to discuss. Binyan av is a logical rule. Right now we’re speaking in a completely different conceptual world, the world of textual rules. We’ll have to see what the relation is between these rules; I’ll return to that issue. So we said general and general and particular—they throw the particular between the two general categories; that’s a dispute in the Talmud, and that’s the approach the Talmud ultimately takes. And general and particular and particular—there indeed it’s apparently just general and particular where the particular is a list of particulars. We’ll see what to do with such a thing. So overall, once again, the rules of general and particular are also some kind of family, a whole family of exegetical rules—this time textual, not logical—but the same logic sits behind them. And what is that logic? On the basic level, it changes a bit depending on whether you take Hillel’s rules and take what looks like one whole thing and then give the particulars within it. What does it mean when you also want to bring in the rule of particular and general and particular? It’s kind of like completing something missing. What did the three—what did Rabbi Yishmael’s elaboration do? It also added two more rules that didn’t appear in Hillel. I’m claiming they did appear. Under Hillel’s heading, which included general and particular, these three rules appeared. In the next projection we’ll say that under the heading general and particular in Hillel appeared four rules. You can’t say there’s something missing when you have only one and you derive two things from it. Here you’ve got kind of a square table. Why not? Why not? It’s really not parallel. Why? There’s a way to make it parallel—I’ll show that too. Not to make it parallel, but to show that they really are branches from the same root. Yes, but you need to show that it’s a branch from the same root, not because of some square. But particular and general and particular too will be a square; it will have the same root, in that square. What? What do you mean, particular and general and particular will be a square? No, no. It too is a branch from the same root, exactly like the previous two rules. There is no difference on the conceptual level. I’ll even prove it. I’ll show in the logical structure of these rules that it also has to be so. And I’ll also show how it should be expounded. It comes out very clearly from the logical structure of the expositions. Okay? Now, first, you need to know that the dispute over methods of exposition between the school of Rabbi Yishmael and the school of Rabbi Akiva, which is mentioned in the Talmud in several places—especially in Shevuot 26, where it seems there are two study houses with different ways of expounding the Torah—is mainly about the rules of general and particular. That’s where the dispute mainly is. It’s a big question whether there is also a dispute in other rules. With two verses that contradict one another there is also a dispute in practice; I didn’t find a connection to this dispute, but there too Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva expound differently. But usually when people speak about the school of Rabbi Yishmael and the school of Rabbi Akiva in methods of exposition, they mean the rules of general and particular and general, or general and particular in general, all these rules. Now Rabbi Akiva expounds this by inclusion and exclusion, whereas Rabbi Yishmael expounds it by general and particular. Inclusion and exclusion is a topic I did not deal with, and at the moment, at least with the information currently available to me, I don’t see some orderly structure I can derive in order to explain Rabbi Akiva’s method of exposition. I’m not even sure that in Rabbi Akiva there really is a difference between these sub-rules of inclusion and exclusion and inclusion, inclusion and exclusion, exclusion and inclusion, and so on, in the way we find that very orderly structure with Rabbi Yishmael. Therefore I’m going to focus on the Yishmaelian branch, yes—the branch of Rabbi Yishmael—just as we did until now. The two forms of binyan av also come from Rabbi Yishmael’s list; and now too, I’ll teach the rules of general and particular according to Rabbi Yishmael’s mode of application or use. Clear? What to do with Rabbi Akiva and inclusion and exclusion—I don’t have much to say about that. We’ll see that in almost every passage the alternative suggested by Rabbi Akiva also comes up, but it isn’t entirely clear what the logic behind it is. By contrast, with general and particular it seems to me that the logic behind it is very clear. And in this matter too there is, I think, a rather interesting innovation in the second book of our series. The innovation here is not so much new in the logical sense, but more in the Talmudic sense. Because both scholars and commentators are very perplexed by these rules of general and particular. There are lots of contradictions; it is not clear what lawfulness underlies this kind of exposition. Somehow it looks as though the Sages do whatever they want. There are parallel sources where one time the same exposition is treated as general and particular, and another time as general and particular and general. So somehow the whole business looks completely ruleless. Meaning, they just do whatever they do. Very much so, completely. I’m going to show a really rigid logic, and I’m intentionally choosing the opposite route because I think pedagogically it’s more correct. First I’ll try to show the logic, and then I’ll try to show the mess that gets created when one doesn’t understand that logic, and why usually the commentators and scholars fail to understand these expositions of general and particular—because they didn’t grasp them in this logical way. And then indeed it looks like a terrible mess, with lots of contradictions and some sort of collection of—there’s also something a bit therapeutic in it because of that. So this is a given logic, right? At the beginning of the lesson you said that textual rules, including general and particular, are textual rules and not logical rules. Yes, I said, and I’m saying now too, that general and particular are textual rules. But again, when I speak about logic, I don’t mean that our reasoning tells us this; rather, the Torah told us: when you see such-and-such a textual appearance, you are supposed to act in such-and-such a way. There is an orderly logical algorithm for how we are supposed to do this—how we are supposed to do it with general and particular, how we are supposed to do it with particular and general, and how we are supposed to do it with general and particular and general, and so on, and all the ramifications. And we have no direction for explaining why this is an appropriate way of looking at life in general outside the text? I’ll offer suggestions like that. I’ll offer such suggestions, and I’ll also support it with a very interesting phenomenon. Menachem Elon, in his book on Hebrew law, brings one example—we found quite a few examples, maybe ten or even more—of an exposition of general and particular on a non-biblical text. Meaning, he brings an exposition of general and particular on the wording of Maharam of Rothenburg in a responsum. This is not the Talmud. The wording of a responsa text, the responsa of Maharam of Rothenburg—there is a dispute over what he meant, and someone—I don’t remember who, we’ll see—uses a general-and-particular exposition to show what Maharam of Rothenburg meant, on a sentence of Maharam of Rothenburg. Which means—unless it’s just wordplay, but that’s hard to believe, what sort of wordplay? You’re making a halakhic claim; it’s supposed to hold water. So apparently you really think that this is the correct way to interpret such a form of expression. It isn’t just some arbitrary decree of Scripture, some agreed-upon code where the Torah said to us: look, I encode what I say in this way; know that if it says general and particular, do such-and-such; if it says general and particular and general, do such-and-such—but this is some arbitrary agreement between us, and it doesn’t really have meaning in the language itself. If we apply this exposition to wording in a responsum, not biblical wording, that means that this form of expression probably really does tell us to do this. Makes sense—that it’s logical. Exactly—a linguistic logic. Again, this is still a textual rule; the logic is linguistic logic, not logic in the sense we discussed in the first part. That when one expresses oneself this way, one really means that you should do such-and-such. That is the speaker’s intention; that is the meaning of such a sentence. So isn’t that linguistic logic? It is linguistic logic. When you express yourself that way, you apparently mean that this is the meaning of that formulation. I’ll clarify this when we get there, so I’m just introducing it now so you’ll see where things are going. In answer to you, yes, I do think there is some linguistic logic behind this—that when one expresses oneself this way, even if just an ordinary person speaks that way, there is some logic in checking whether he may not mean that we should do some sort of general and particular. Okay? But all these difficulties and all these issues that seem a bit speculative and a bit up in the air—I don’t want to open them and then solve them by more orderly analysis of the passages. I’m going to do the opposite. First I’ll present the orderly structure, then I’ll present the general picture I’m proposing, and then I’ll go through all the difficulties and right there I’ll show how I solve them. Instead of leaving all the difficulties open and nobody remembers them, and then I’ll propose a solution and go back to them again—there’s no point. So I’ll present the whole picture, but you should know that this whole picture comes against the background of total chaos. Hardly anyone deals with the rules of general and particular because of this issue. There is an article—yes, among the scholars—there is an article by Menachem Kahana which I think is the foundational article, and there is some book by Chernik as well, but he only classifies; he doesn’t really propose a structure. Now, regarding this point that at the beginning we said the theory that there is a dispute really started from Hillel, that all the rules are a later formalization of some natural reading—what sense is that? Not a natural reading. A natural observation? No, not that either. Then what? Rather, something that we learned from the Holy One, blessed be He; Moses learned it from the Holy One, blessed be He. Not necessarily something natural, but he received it in some unformulated way, and gradually over the generations it broke out and became—formal rules. Like what you call second-order logic? There are dimensions of that. Rabbi HaNazir uses this, after all, regarding the hermeneutic rules when he argues that these are the logical tools of second-order logic. Maybe we’ll talk about that after I present things more fully. I think I mentioned the Stradivarius issue, right? With the Stradivarius violin. Today, with all the modern equipment, they still can’t produce a violin of the same quality as the one he produced. And they try to imitate it with all sorts of micrometric tools, to check every detail and imitate it completely, and they apparently still can’t produce something of his quality. And that means that there is something—there are some unformulated rules that Stradivarius used, and probably not even consciously himself, which we are trying to imitate by formulating formal rules that attempt to track what he did intuitively. But we aren’t really succeeding. Because what he did intuitively apparently cannot—or at least not easily—be fit into some system of formal rules. And therefore all the formal rules are only approximations. I spoke about this in previous parts. So here too it’s the same thing, and in answer to you, I don’t think this is a specification of some simple intuition. It’s a specification of messages that Moses transmitted—Oral Torah—that he received from the Holy One, blessed be He. But he did not receive it as something formulated, as formalized rules, but rather as some kind of intuitive modes of reading. But it’s not that he was born with that intuition. He received it, like we learn a language. Clear? And afterward, when you come to learn the language in an ulpan, as I also discussed, then you have to track that linguistic intuition through rules. So that’s what also happens with the hermeneutic rules—with the rules of the— As you lose more and more of that linguistic intuition, because of the distance exactly, therefore you have to cling more and more to rules, and therefore there are more and more rules, and therefore the resolution of the rules also increases. So instead of one exegetical rule of general and particular, suddenly there are three exegetical rules, because now you have to define what to do in each kind of linguistic appearance. You no longer have that simple intuition by which you naturally know how to handle every such appearance. Now you need to define rules. So you tell me the rules for what to do with general and particular, and I actually don’t know—wait, what about general and particular and general? Now I already don’t know. I don’t have the intuition, so I need a rule for that too. And that is exactly the mechanism by which the number of rules keeps growing and the resolution becomes more and more refined. And our ability to depart from them becomes smaller and smaller. No, I’m not sure. Because if we really are still trying to understand the rules and trace where they came from, and that’s why I do think the archaeology here is important, we may also be able to reconstruct that intuition. Meaning, if we believed that the rules are a full substitute for intuitive handling, maybe there would be no point to all this archaeology. It would be a matter for historians—the historians of halakhah in this case. But it would have no relevance to Torah study. It would not be interesting in the religious sense, because in the end we have the rules and we work with the rules. So who cares how they worked in the past and what they did? It’s not interesting. But I do think the rules are only an approximation. And therefore one must be careful not to become enslaved to the rules. But we know how many exceptions there are to each of these rules, and therefore I think these rules are a means to help us reconstruct the general intuition that once existed. And once we are equipped with that intuition, we’ll know how to deal with the material better—better than someone who uses the rules formally. Now how do you reconstruct the intuition? It seems to me that one of the important elements is precisely trying to trace how it developed forward, and then walk the road back. Meaning, with Hillel there was one rule. From it Rabbi Yishmael derived three rules. After that, suddenly a fourth rule appears, and maybe a few others. Let’s go backward and see what is common to the three rules we have today. Why are they really three branches of the same trunk, which with Hillel was essentially perceived as one exegetical rule? If we understand what is shared, then we can also understand intuitively how this whole business works. In other words, reconstruct what was transmitted to Moses at Sinai. That’s what Otniel ben Kenaz was doing, basically, in Temurah—in tractate Temurah. I also spoke about that. Okay, so that’s basically the idea. And what I’m going to do now is begin with the passage in Eruvin. Maybe take the pages. The pages with the passage, and keep them for next time too; I assume we won’t finish this today either. This is basically a passage that deals with second tithe, also with the eruv, but that’s secondary in the end. This is really a passage dealing with second tithe, also with the eruv, but in the end it branches off into redeeming second tithe. Why am I choosing this passage before we go in? I’m choosing this passage first because it appears in the illustrative baraita, and I think that in the illustrative baraita there is some logic in focusing on the exposition that the baraita itself brings as an example, because apparently, first, it is an early example, and second, it is probably a representative example. I assume they didn’t choose the examples randomly; at least one may suppose that if there was a more representative example and a less representative one, they would certainly choose the more representative one. Maybe there is a case where all the examples are the same and then they chose arbitrarily, but if one is more representative and one is less so, it is reasonable to assume that whoever edited the illustrative baraita chose the former. Therefore, when dealing with hermeneutic rules, it is worth trying to begin from the source that appears in the illustrative baraita. Now what turns out here, surprisingly, is that this passage is really wonderful methodologically. The neglect of this passage is what lies at the root of the entire mess surrounding expositions of general and particular. You’ll see that when we learn this passage in an orderly way, it organizes the entire matter. There are dozens of passages with expositions of general and particular, with all kinds of parallels and corruptions and very problematic things. I’m not saying I’ll be able to explain every detail in every rabbinic source; there are places where we get a bit stuck, at least on the level of who says you draw the line here and not there—that’s a bit a question of line-drawing, and sometimes even a bit more than that. But I do think this is the framework, and I may even have a thought that those places that are hard to explain really are corruptions, or developments created by people who didn’t really know how to use general and particular and just did it mechanically—that is, without really understanding the logic, and as a result all kinds of corruptions were created. So I don’t know—by “people” do you mean amoraim? Also. Or versions of the amoraic material that came down to us. I don’t know at what stage the corruption was created. I didn’t do manuscript work. But I’m not reluctant even to say that about the amoraim. Because after all, it is already quite clear in the Talmud itself that even in the Talmud itself they no longer really know how to handle this material—or at least not in every place, not entirely. The Talmud itself hesitates greatly; certainly the medieval authorities (Rishonim) do. It is not entirely clear where we lost it. But many have already spoken about the fact that in the Talmud there are almost no new expositions; they are only trying to interpret tannaitic expositions or spell them out more, but the expositions themselves were made by the tannaim. In the Talmud itself the forgetting of the methods of exposition has already begun. So I would not rule that possibility out either. Again, I’m saying: I don’t know; one has to be convinced. The question is whether we are convinced that we really captured here some skeleton that is a serious skeleton. If so, I don’t think we need to panic over exceptions here or there that don’t exactly fit this skeleton, because otherwise I at least can’t see any way to really organize everything properly. All right, so let’s begin with the passage. In the Torah, in the section of second tithe, it says as follows: “You shall surely tithe all the produce of your seed that comes forth from the field year by year. And you shall eat before the Lord your God in the place that He shall choose to make His name dwell there, the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, and the firstlings of your cattle and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God all the days.” That is the tithe itself. “And if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry it”—that is the redemption, right? You can’t haul the tithe, “because the place is too far from you, the place that the Lord your God shall choose to place His name there, when the Lord your God blesses you, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand.” Right? So you redeem the tithe into money, take the money, “and go to the place that the Lord your God shall choose”—meaning to Jerusalem you go up with the money; you redeemed the second tithe. “And you shall spend the money for whatever your soul desires”—then you buy foods with that money in Jerusalem and you eat them in Jerusalem, and that is called second tithe—“for cattle, for flock, for wine, or for strong drink, and for whatever your soul asks of you; and you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household.” This is the verse they expound. “For cattle, for flock, for wine, or for strong drink, and for whatever your soul asks of you.” So there is already some kind of structure in this verse, before we even enter the passage. There is some structure in the verse: “and you shall spend the money for whatever your soul desires”—that is a general expression. Then comes a series of examples: cattle, flock, wine, and strong drink. Then once again, “and for whatever your soul asks of you,” once more some kind of generality. So there is here a structure of general and particular and general. Clear? So this structure says “expound me,” literally says “expound me,” tells us to expound it. What does that mean? And that is basically what the Talmudic discussion is dealing with. Before I enter the Talmud, notice the table below. What I’m doing in the table below is simply the methodological way we proceeded when we examined the passages. We checked all the passages in the Babylonian Talmud involving general and particular and general. Less so the parallels, but in the Babylonian Talmud, because in the Babylonian Talmud— What? How many does that come to? I don’t remember, something like twenty, on that order of magnitude. Some more detailed, some less. Fully detailed passages are fewer, but there are various places, and there are parallels, and one has to see whether there are differences or whether there are differences. Why did we choose the Babylonian Talmud? Because I think the Babylonian Talmud reached a stage where there is already an orderly logical structure. And we got there—and I’ll show that there is one additional stage we identified among the Geonim, even after the Babylonian Talmud. Rav Aḥai enters into the Talmud itself as Rav Aḥai, and Tosafot already says that Rav Aḥai is Rav Aḥai Gaon, right? Meaning this is basically a geonic insertion into the Talmud, and that is the end of the formalization of the expositions of general and particular, at least as far as we managed to identify. Wait, does the name Rav Aḥai actually appear in the Talmud? In Ketubot 2b, in many places. And Tosafot says everywhere that every place where Rav Aḥai appears, it is Rav Aḥai Gaon. There are quite a few such places. Every place where Rav Aḥai appears, it is Rav Aḥai Gaon. Notice: Rav Aḥai Gaon is three hundred years after the sealing of— Yes, something like that. Roughly three hundred years after what is called the sealing of the Talmud. So they discuss this, debate it. What? That they write this—I don’t remember the source exactly right now, one has to look—but they write it, as far as I recall, as some sort of principle. There may be another place where they hesitate; I don’t know. And I think that from the passage itself one can also see some sort of later addition. I’ll return to it. I’ll get to the passage where Rav Aḥai appears in our context and then we’ll see. But in principle it seems to me that in this passage, the passage in Eruvin, there is already an orderly structure. That is why we chose to focus on the Babylonian Talmud, because in the Babylonian Talmud the conceptualization already existed. With Hillel he was still working intuitively. He had one rule of general and particular. I’m not sure I could derive the orderly structure from there. In the Talmud it was already explicit. Meaning, it was already known to the Sages in explicit form, the orderly rules of how to work with it, and we’ll see that in this passage here. This passage is the clearest form of it. Now, how do I reconstruct it? So I go in the opposite direction from the Sages, of course, because we are doing a kind of reconstructive work. The Sages knew how it worked, so they simply made expositions of general and particular on the verses. I go the other way. I’m trying to track what the Sages did. In order to do that—and we’ll see this in all the passages, to the extent that we manage to get into them—but in all the passages first of all I make a hierarchical list of the items, as you see here in the table at the bottom of the page. You’ll see there are water or salt—that’s item seven, the lowest, the least food-like, the simplest, the most raw material. Clear? The level above that is salt water; that is already some kind of mixture, already some human processing of the raw material. After that comes fish brine without fish, fish brine with fish innards, fish, birds, and after that cattle, flock, wine, and strong drink—which are exactly the items that appear in the verse. But fish and birds are also ostensibly raw material. What? Fish and birds are also ostensibly raw material. All of this is raw material; cattle and flock are raw material too. Fine, but I’m saying it already counts as something edible, a clear food item. Even if it still has to be processed. In any case, I make this list. Where did this list come from, you’ll ask? Simply from the passage. I don’t have— From the Torah itself I could have derived only item one, the items appearing in the Torah’s list. Now why do I make this list? Because the basic principle is that all the rules of general and particular and general are rules of extension. That’s the principle. These are rules of extension, and the difference between them is the question of what the radius of extension is. I’m already giving you the bottom line. The difference between them is the question of what the radius of extension is. So for example, with general and particular, “you judge only what is in the particular”—that is the narrowest. You stick to the particulars that appear in the Torah; that is the narrowest extension. General and particular and general—“you judge only things similar to the particular,” not only what is in the particular but things of the same kind as the particular. That is a broader extension. And particular and general—“the general adds to the particular,” adds to the particular—that is the broadest extension. We’ll soon see whether this is induction or not. It isn’t induction. Induction is narrower than all three of them. This is broader than all three; even the narrowest of them is broader than induction. Because induction was binyan av. Exactly. And the relation between general and particular and binyan av—we’ll still talk about that. So we are speaking here of extensions that are not induction, because maybe I’ll already explain here so it will be clear what we’re talking about. What do we do in induction? I say: I see one frog that is green, so I say probably all frogs—are green. Right? Why? Because I assume that the parameter relevant to greenness is only that it is a frog, and not that it lives in Israel, or that it is one hundred meters above sea level, or any other parameters. Rather, what matters is that it is a frog. Clear? So there is only one relevant parameter here, and then I make an extension. What does that extension say? Every object that has that relevant characteristic will also have the property—the green color. Clear? What do I do when I make a refutation? I show one instance that has it— Yes, that’s one possibility: a frog that isn’t green. Right, but what stands behind that? What stands behind it is basically that there is another relevant parameter. Another relevant parameter for being green, and it is not enough that you are a frog for that. That’s the alpha and beta, right? Alpha and beta basically tell us that to be green you need both alpha and beta. Alpha is being a frog, and beta is something else. And if there is another frog that doesn’t have beta, only alpha, it won’t be green. Which means that an extension is always made only to things that are similar in all the relevant parameters. We don’t extend to something that is not similar in a relevant parameter. It can be dissimilar in other parameters, but not in the relevant ones. With general and particular, the purpose of all these expositions is to make an extension that erases even relevant parameters. Meaning, to make an extension to a group that includes items not similar even in part of the relevant parameters. The question is to how many such items; that will be the difference between general and particular, particular and general, and general and particular and general. That is the radius of extension. So basically, if I want to make some kind of hierarchy of extensions here, if I ask myself why the Torah even needed this tool of general and particular and general—why wasn’t binyan av enough? That too is a tool of extension. You understand? There is a difference between what we do and what the Torah does. We look at a structure of general and particular and make an extension. We look at binyan av and also make an extension. Fine, no problem. But I’m now asking from the point of view of the author of the Torah, from the point of view of the Torah itself: why does the Torah need two tools? If one can do by means of one what one can also do by means of the other, then why need both? Why didn’t the Torah leave it to binyan av? It wrote some item and relied on my making the extension by binyan av. Rather, it is clear that what is done with general and particular cannot be done with binyan av, and vice versa. These are two different tools in their logical function. And the difference between them is that in binyan av it will never include items that differ in an essential parameter. That was our focus in the first part. Right, and therefore it is just logic. So with general and particular, why do I need the textual trigger? If it really were similar, I would make it into a binyan av even without the shift in wording from general to particular. Why do I need the textual trigger? Binyan av doesn’t need a textual trigger. The textual trigger, exactly—the textual trigger comes to tell me: here, when you make the extension, make it to a broader radius than you would in binyan av. How much broader? That depends on whether it is general and particular, particular and general, or general and particular and general. That is essentially the idea of the rules of general and particular. Clear? And the rest—go learn. Meaning, that is essentially the idea. These are rules of extension where the Torah gives us examples as a basis for extension. The radius of extension is determined by how the Torah writes. That determines how far the extension goes. And binyan av makes the narrowest extension possible—only to items completely similar to the detail written in the Torah. Clear? Now of course you’ll ask: what determines which characteristic is relevant or who is similar and who is not? The tables—that’s what we said, the radius. What determines it? No, what determines which is a relevant parameter and which is not? That we already learned in the previous part. Reasoning! We have nothing else. So here too and there too reasoning comes in—and we’ll see, here too reasoning comes in. Who exactly are the relevant parameters and who are the irrelevant ones—that we determine by reasoning, also in expositions of general and particular. Once we have made such a classification, and in that sense this is like the alpha and beta we had in the first part, although the formalism is entirely different—not really formalism. And what we do after identifying the relevant aspects, the relevant characteristics and parameters, is that we look at how the Torah wrote in order to see how many of them we may ignore. What the radius of extension is. If the Torah had written nothing, then we would make the tables we made in the first part and draw the conclusions we drew—that’s all. We would draw only the conclusions that fit all the relevant parameters. That is when there is no textual trigger. The role of the textual trigger is to tell us: don’t settle for the logical rules; here the Torah itself tells you to broaden further. And that is really the purpose of this table—to give us the minimum we need to know. This table will simply help us follow the course of the passage. Because here the items, as you see—say if one is the items appearing in the verse, yes, one is the items appearing in the verse, then do I also include birds—meaning the line is below two, between two and three—or do I also include fish, between three and four, or fish brine too, between four and five, and so on. The different tannaitic disputes will simply be about where I place the line of extension on this table. So in order to help us follow the passage, I simply wrote this table below, and when we read the passage, each time we’ll mark for ourselves where the line of extension runs. If this were binyan av, then where would we place it, besides cattle and flock and everything written there? Nowhere. Nowhere. And you’d need something, some kind of induction. No, you don’t need anything. Just that. All the cattle—for example, if the Torah had written ox, I would say all cattle. That yes. But if it says cattle, I would not derive birds from that. Because we see in the Talmud that they discuss that. For that you need a textual trigger in order to broaden to birds. Meaning, the mere fact that you are doing binyan av is not enough for that. So there isn’t some intermediate level between one and two? What do you mean? Cattle and flock and so on. That would be done by binyan av. If there is such a thing, maybe there is, but that too could be done by binyan av. Since if it had written cattle, flock, and so on, you see that even without any general-and-particular structure you would make that extension. You get stuck only with birds. Only to include birds do you need a textual trigger. And Rabbi Akiva’s inclusion, which says I go for everything? That is inclusion and exclusion. No, for everything except one thing. What? No, if it’s exclusion, and if it’s inclusion and exclusion and inclusion, you exclude only one thing. Yes. And that’s what you’re forgetting: here we’re speaking in terms of general and particular and general, so Rabbi Akiva’s alternative is inclusion and exclusion and inclusion. No, I’m saying: ostensibly he too here says to put the line lower and lower. In the formal sense yes, but there I don’t find a logical structure like the one we’re about to see with general and particular. So clearly on this whole series of where the line passes, Rabbi Akiva simply sits with the line lower down. That’s clear. But is there some map that unifies it and lets me generate some kind of logic of the matter? At the moment I don’t know how to do that, if there even is such a thing. Is there a question whether when interpreting we also look at the wording of the general category? For example, “whatever your soul desires,” and after that it says “whatever your soul asks of you.” Only not in the formal sense. Maybe it gives you a hint as to what the relevant parameters are, but not in the question of what the radius of extension is. The radius of extension is determined in an almost mathematical way, entirely by the biblical form. Whether it is general and particular, particular and general, general and particular and general—that is what determines the radius of extension. Of course you have to define who the relevant parameters are in order to apply the different radii of extension, and that can come from all sorts of places. I don’t even always know where such things came from. Okay, so in the Mishnah—we’ll just begin, because I see that time has run out. In the Mishnah it says as follows: “One may establish an eruv and join in a partnership with anything, except for water and salt. And anything may be purchased with second-tithe money, except for water and salt.” That is about the laws of eruvin. And the association is what connects those two things in the Mishnah. The Mishnah is in Eruvin, but we are going to focus on the tithe. In the Talmud: “Anything may be purchased with second-tithe money.” Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina—one taught this regarding eruv and one taught it regarding second tithe. One taught it regarding eruv: they taught this only of water by itself and salt by itself, that one may not establish an eruv with them. But with water and salt together one may establish an eruv. And one taught it regarding second tithe: they taught this only of water by itself and salt by itself, that they may not be purchased, but water and salt together may be purchased. Clear? So here, up to this point, what have we seen? That there is a distinction between six and seven. Salt water is already a level above water or salt alone. Again, we saw this in the Sages. Why the Sages decided this, I don’t know. But first of all I’m just trying to track what the Sages did. Clear? So in the eyes of the Sages, salt water is one level above water or salt separately. Now what is the dispute? The Talmud says as follows: the one who taught it regarding second tithe certainly would say it regarding eruv, but the one who taught it regarding eruv—regarding second tithe, no. What is the reason? Because for second tithe we require fruit. So in practice, for our purposes, everyone agrees that for second tithe anything may be purchased except water and salt. We’re done with second tithe there—now we’ve moved on. Finished with eruv, sorry; now we move to second tithe, and from here on the discussion is only about second tithe. Regarding second tithe, there is a dispute here. Right? The one who says there is a distinction between water and salt and salt water for second tithe puts the line between six and seven. The one who says that distinction was not stated regarding second tithe, in effect puts the line above six. Since we require fruit, and we’ll see that fish can also count as fruit, or at least can perhaps count as fruit. Clear? But it is above six. We are already beginning to move the line upward. In a moment we’ll see that this process continues. An objection was raised: Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah testified before Rabbi Eliezer that in his father’s household they would purchase fish brine—there, we’ve reached five—they would purchase fish brine with second-tithe money. So until now our line passed either between six and seven or between five and six. Now he says no—even fish brine they would purchase. So now it passes between five and six. They would purchase fish brine. Fish brine belongs above; the line passes below fish brine, and they would not purchase salt water. Rabbi Eliezer answered him: perhaps you heard this only when fish innards were mixed into it. You see? The line passes between four and five, not between five and six. You see how the line slowly moves upward. And even Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah said it only with fish brine, because it has the fatness of fruit, but water and salt—no. That’s what we saw earlier. Meaning, leave water and salt down below. The Talmud establishes a clear hierarchy. First, water or salt separately are at the bottom of the ladder. Clear? Then in the Mishnah it says that water and salt may not be bought with second-tithe money. Meaning the line passes above seven. Right? That is basically the meaning: the line passes above seven. Clear? Then one taught it regarding eruv and one regarding second tithe: they taught this only of water by itself and salt by itself, that one may not establish an eruv with them, but with water and salt one may. And one taught it regarding second tithe: they taught this only of water by itself and salt by itself, that they may not be purchased, but water and salt may be purchased. Clear? So here we see a distinction between six and seven—that salt water is already above water or salt alone. Now the Talmud says: the one who taught it regarding second tithe certainly would say it regarding eruv, and the one who taught it regarding eruv—but regarding second tithe, no. Why? Because for second tithe we need fruit. So practically for us, in second tithe everyone agrees that everything may be purchased except water and salt. Finished with that, and now we move on. Regarding second tithe there is a dispute. Right? One view says there is a distinction between water and salt and salt water in second tithe, and that means the line is between six and seven. The other says that distinction was not said about second tithe, which in effect moves the line above six. Since we need fruit, and we’ll see fish may also count as fruit, or at least perhaps. Clear? But it’s above six. We’re already beginning to move the line upward. We’ll soon see the process continues. An objection was raised: Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah testified before Rabbi Eliezer that his father’s household would buy fish brine—that gets us to five—with second-tithe money. Until now our line passed either between six and seven or between five and six. Now he says no—even fish brine they bought. Now it passes between five and six. Fish brine is on the upper side; the line passes below fish brine, but they would not buy salt water. Rabbi Eliezer answered him: perhaps you heard only in a case where fish innards were mixed in. You see? The line passes between four and five, not between five and six. You see how the line keeps creeping upward. And even Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah said it only about fish brine, because it has the oiliness of fruit, but water and salt—no. That is what we saw before. Meaning, leave water and salt down below. The Talmud sets out a clear hierarchy. First, water or salt separately—they are at the bottom of the ladder. Then salt water is one step above. All of that is still below fish brine, which is below fish brine with actual fish organs in it, and we’ll soon see the continuation. So the hierarchy in the Talmud is very clear. The dispute is where the line is drawn in that hierarchy. Why does he answer him “except for water and salt, no,” if with fish brine the line passed between four and five? He should have said to him: not even fish brine. No—that’s the dispute. Four or five, or five to six. Right? According to Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah, who says fish brine—plain fish brine without fish. He says only fish brine, but not water, not salt, and not salt water. That means between five and six. Clear? We see that the line starts moving upward, although as we will see later in the passage, we are still in Rabbi Akiva’s territory. We’re still on Rabbi Akiva’s side, the one who extends more broadly. The lower the line is, of course, the broader the extension. Right? Meaning, we are still in the area of the broader extensions. Now, what are Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah and Rabbi Eliezer disputing? I’ll say this and from here we’ll continue next time. What are Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah and Rabbi Eliezer disputing, and these tannaim mentioned later? Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah and Rabbi Eliezer also disagree with each other, right? After all, one puts the line between five and six, and the other between four and five. Right? Yet the Talmud understands that both of them disagree with certain tannaim that will be mentioned later. This is a very interesting structure, appearing in a few isolated places in the Talmud, from which one sees that the passages were edited. Because it refers here to tannaim who will appear later, not to tannaim who have already appeared. Yes—what are Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah and Rabbi Eliezer disputing with the tanna who will be brought later in the passage? Meaning the passage had already been edited when this was written. Epstein argues that there were two stages. There is the arranger of the baraitot and there is the editor. Meaning, the whole point of editing is to produce some kind of order so that we can—the sequence of the arrangement of the anonymous baraitot that was placed there had some logic to it. That is, the arrangement of the sources is much earlier, and this is only an attempt to connect them, meaning. But did they just arrange them arbitrarily? I didn’t understand. No, there was someone whose job it was to arrange them. And probably why did he place these baraitot here? What? Because they are connected. No, surely, but he did not—but he knew all that was connected for all sorts of reasons, and he didn’t bother to explain exactly what the relations were between this and that. That also wasn’t his job. But still the claim is that we trace his way of thinking, or at least try to. It’s not that he just did things randomly and then we come and force it artificially. Rather, the claim is that we are trying to trace his way of thinking. Maybe we didn’t succeed, doesn’t matter, but— Or not; or maybe there wasn’t an orderly way of thinking, but he just knew these sources were related because he was familiar with them, and that’s all. I don’t see any reason to assume that, but never mind. I don’t see any reason to assume that. Here I’m just saying this is a hint—that this is an interesting point to notice. I looked afterward for other places in the Talmud where it says “later on.” An interesting investigation. Because every place it says “later on,” that means the passage was already edited when they wrote it—they made a second pass and edited the passage. If it says “above,” that says nothing. If they write “later on,” now there are—there are a few more. Not very many, but there are; I found, I don’t remember exactly, I think five or six places. Anyway, so what is the dispute between them? Notice, the Talmud already knows here that Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah and Rabbi Eliezer belong to the same study house; the dispute between them is a local dispute. And there is another tannaitic branch that will appear shortly, belonging to a different study house. I’ll already tell you: they are Akivan. They basically interpret by inclusion and exclusion, whereas the tannaim later are Yishmaelian, although there are also disputes within those study houses. It’s not that— And yet the Talmud says there is some line here that cuts between two study houses, even though there are also disputes within the study houses. Because these expound by inclusion and exclusion, and these expound by general and particular. And that is what the Talmud says: Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah and Rabbi Eliezer—moving to the next paragraph—Rabbi Yehudah ben Gudgedah and Rabbi Eliezer interpret by inclusions and exclusions, I won’t go into the details now, and those tannaim interpret by generalities and particulars. That’s the next paragraph, yes? Meaning, that is the basic dispute between the tannaim. And then now we’ll go in—after that, in the next stage we’ll continue the passage. Bring the pages with you. We’ll learn the inclusion and exclusion and the general and particular. I’ll give them back to you—doesn’t matter to me. If you want to return them to me, then return them, no problem. I’ll bring them. And then we’ll get more deeply into the questions of general and particular. Good, there’s room here, you can write.