Platonism – Lesson 23
This transcription was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
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Table of Contents
- [0:00] The distinction between rabbinic law and Torah-level law
- [2:18] Studying Torah-level commandments — an end, not a means
- [4:11] Rabbinic laws as a technological end
- [6:00] The Written Torah and Oral Torah versus rabbinic law
- [12:08] Halakhic clarification as a metaphysical journey
- [15:49] Ukimta — Platonic halakhic questions
- [19:19] Halakhic implications of the learning
- [27:19] The blessing on Torah study and halakhot
- [28:31] The dispute over building a sukkah — a blessing on preparatory acts for a commandment
- [29:48] The need for metaphysical dimensions for the blessing on Torah study
- [31:22] Jewish mysticism versus other mysticism
- [32:40] The metaphysical core in Jewish law and Torah
- [33:46] The legal status of a married woman — a halakhic metaphysical concept
- [36:47] Copyright — a metaphysical approach versus a purposive one
- [40:07] Platonism and Aristotelianism in philosophy and mathematics
- [41:46] Platonic love — the distinction between love and desire
- [44:39] The joke about gifts to the poor on Purim
- [55:27] The question of a blessing over gifts to the poor in the prayer leader
- [56:39] Whether one should recite a blessing over acts of charity
Summary
General Overview
The text argues that Torah-level commandments express a “Platonic” metaphysical reality that stands behind halakhic determinations. Therefore, studying them is an end in itself, meant to uncover the normative-metaphysical infrastructure of Jewish law and not merely to guide practice. Rabbinic laws obligate by virtue of the authority of the sages, but they do not reflect metaphysical structures. Therefore, studying them is mainly a means to know what to do, without the intrinsic value of “Torah study” in the same sense. From this follow distinctions in the purpose of study, its character, the attitude toward halakhic ruling books and “second-order” study, and the possibility of reciting the blessing on Torah study over rabbinic material. The text also presents a broader connection between ontological Platonism and Platonism as a moral-psychological posture of acting for the sake of something outside oneself, such as “Platonic love” and serving God for its own sake.
The distinction between Torah-level and rabbinic law as a metaphysical reality
The text states that Torah-level commandments are grounded in a metaphysical reality similar to Platonic ideas, not an Aristotelian conception that sees ideas as merely human categories. The text defines the goal of Torah study as striving to understand and connect to this abstract metaphysical world that stands behind halakhic determinations. It argues that rabbinic laws contain no such component, and the obligation toward them is obedience to the sages’ command rather than the expression of metaphysical “facts” or “structures.” The text concludes that rabbinic laws are part of Jewish law but not part of Torah, because Torah is about expressing metaphysical truths.
The purpose of study: understanding for its own sake versus practical knowledge
The text argues that studying Torah-level commandments is an end and not a means. It is meant to understand the metaphysical-moral-normative foundation behind the laws, even if the study also clarifies what to do. The text compares this to scientific research pursued for its own sake, where knowledge is the goal, as opposed to research aimed at technological applications. It defines the study of rabbinic laws as mere “technology,” study meant for practical implementation, and declares that the study itself has no intrinsic value as an exposure of spiritual layers in the way Torah-level study does. The text distinguishes between “Torah study” as a fundamental activity and “the commandment of Torah study” in the narrower sense of merely discharging one’s obligation.
The Written Torah and Oral Torah versus rabbinic and Torah-level law
The text argues that the difference between rabbinic and Torah-level law does not depend on the question of the sages’ involvement in creating the law, because the sages are involved in both. It states that the Oral Torah and Written Torah are internal distinctions within the world of Torah-level law only, and do not overlap at all with the distinction between rabbinic and Torah-level law. The text defines rabbinic law as law that is not “Torah,” neither oral nor written. It clarifies that the gap between Written Torah and Oral Torah concerns writing versus interpretation and human activity within Torah-level law.
The Talmud, the “stubborn and rebellious son,” and the value of study even without application
The text acknowledges that one who studies in the Talmud is dealing with laws and clarifying what to do, but adds that the central question is why one studies, not only what one studies. It cites the case of the “stubborn and rebellious son, who never was and never will be,” in order to argue that study has intrinsic value even when there is no application, and presents this, in the name of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, as a paradigm for all Torah study. The text states that in rabbinic laws, study is only for the sake of application, whereas in Torah-level law the goal is understanding the principles and structures that generate halakhic decisions.
The mode of study: uncovering principles, ukimtot, and “Platonic” topics
The text argues that when the goal is to uncover the metaphysical infrastructure, the mode of study focuses on logic, assumptions, and concepts such as legal effect, and on revealing structures that underlie the laws. It argues that relying only on halakhic ruling books is insufficient, because one must ask about the assumptions and conceptions behind the rulings. The text presents involvement in ukimtot and imagined situations such as “wheat that descended in the clouds,” “a flying camel,” “one who was permitted by the mouth of a demon,” and “an elephant that swallowed an Egyptian basket” as expressions of the Platonic character of study, because the goal is isolating ideas and reaching a purified principle, not practical decision-making. The text compares this to a scientific experiment that creates artificial conditions in order to isolate a law of nature, and states that practical ramifications serve the theory, not that the theory is meant to serve the experiment.
Rabbinic law as a purposive system with nothing “to uncover”
The text argues that in rabbinic laws there is not only no primary motivation to uncover meta-halakhic dimensions, but it is not even certain that such dimensions exist at all. It explains that rabbinic laws are meant to achieve practical goals, such as forbidding poultry with milk so that one not come to eat meat with milk, and therefore there is no necessity to seek in them metaphysical truth or a coherent overall picture. The text states that the sages did not try, and perhaps could not try, to build such a system, and formulates this by saying that “in rabbinic laws there are no laws in the object; it is all laws in the person.” The text expresses discomfort with analytical lectures that build conceptual structures in rabbinic law similar to those built in Torah-level law, because in his view they seem like creation rather than exposure.
Halakhic ruling, autonomy, and first-order versus second-order study
The text argues that in rabbinic laws there is no reason to avoid “second-order” study or ruling, because the goal is to ensure correct action. Therefore relying on the Mishnah Berurah as an authoritative figure is reasonable even if the learner would have reached a different conclusion from the passage itself. It argues that in Torah-level law there is value to autonomy in the sense of doing the work oneself of uncovering the metaphysical structures and deciding in light of them, even when “pure truth” is not identified with the greatest authority, as in the example of Rabbi Meir, whose view was not accepted as Jewish law. The text connects this to the phrase “and they were made according to the sugya in accordance with Jewish law” as a realm in which the very work of understanding and uncovering is part of the value.
The blessing on Torah study and the study of rabbinic law
The text argues that, simply speaking, the blessing on Torah study is not a blessing over a commandment but a blessing of praise or thanksgiving for the giving of the Torah. It suggests that even if it were a blessing over a commandment, one should not recite it over the study of rabbinic laws because such study is only a preparatory act for a commandment, meant to know what to do, and according to the accepted halakhic view no blessing is recited over preparatory acts, as in the case of building a sukkah. It adds that if the blessing on Torah study is a blessing of praise, then rabbinic commandments were not “given to us by the Holy One, blessed be He” but by the sages, and so there is nothing here over which to offer praise in the blessing on Torah study. The text defines the blessing as fitting a state of “being awed by the landscape” that is revealed through uncovering meta-halakhic depth, and argues that such a landscape is not found in rabbinic law.
Metaphysics as an intellectual tool and Jewish law as “garment”
The text responds to the question of how one engages in metaphysics and argues that metaphysical engagement in Torah is done through the tools of intellect and the logic of halakhic analysis, not through meditation or experiential methods. The text quotes the phrase “to embrace the king in his garments” in the name of the author of the Tanya, and places alongside it Nefesh HaChayim, as describing how the laws are garments through which one connects to the depth. The text argues that one who studies “an ox that gored a cow” is engaged in metaphysics even if he is unaware of it, because the halakhic clarification reflects metaphysical truths. It gives the example of “the legal status of a married woman” and argues that the distinction between “a married woman” and “the legal effect of being a married woman” reveals a metaphysical concept that can be characterized through its halakhic consequences, alongside concepts such as object-status and person-status, ownership, and betrothal.
Maimonides, the “great matter,” and “the discussions of Abaye and Rava”
The text quotes Maimonides as saying, “A great matter is the account of creation and the account of the chariot; a small matter is the discussions of Abaye and Rava,” but argues that metaphysics is also done within those very discussions through halakhic clarification. It claims that The Guide for the Perplexed is a “small matter,” and disagrees with Maimonides, who saw the study of Aristotle as the “great matter.” The text states that studying “the first four chapters of the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah in Maimonides” is “not only not Torah, it is neglect of Torah,” and defines it as studying “unnecessary Aristotelian physics.” It presents the “great matter” as an additional layer clothed in the “small matter,” so that Jewish law is the garment in which metaphysics appears.
Law, metaphysics, copyright, and positivism
The text argues that in the world of civil law, at a deep level, one can create metaphysical conceptualizations, but usually this would be creation rather than exposure of what stood at the legislator’s basis. It describes how in modern law metaphysical interpretations have been pushed aside in favor of purposive interpretations, and gives as an example the discussion of copyright between an approach that treats it as “essential property” — a metaphysical claim — and a purposive approach of encouraging creativity. The text presents this as a legal movement in a teleological rather than metaphysical direction, and argues that this reflects a modern reluctance to recognize metaphysical truths. It adds that he himself believes that law also has such dimensions, but jurists deny them, and connects this to the discussion of natural law versus positivism.
Studying truth outside Jewish law and the blessing on Torah study over physics
The text argues that if a person is convinced that he has uncovered an objective metaphysical truth through legal analysis, it is possible that for him this would count as “Torah study,” and he would even be obligated to find it in Jewish law as well, because “if it is true then it is true.” The text rejects the possibility of reciting the blessing on Torah study over the study of physics, even from a Platonic perspective regarding physical truths, because physics reveals physical facts whereas Torah reveals norms. It formulates this as “Torah is norm” and “facts are not Torah,” and adds a distinction between “Torah study in the object” and “Torah study in the person.”
Platonism: from ontology to “Platonic love”
The text opens a transition from the ontological use of Platonism to additional uses such as mathematical Platonism and Platonism in physics, and raises the question of how a concept like “Platonic love” is related to this. It defines Platonic love as love that places the beloved at the center rather than the lover, and distinguishes it from desire, which places the person and his satisfaction at the center. The text cites the verse “and they were in his eyes like a few days because of his love for her,” and explains in the name of commentators that time was perceived as short because Jacob loved Rachel and not himself. It presents an analogy to serving God and contrasts service for the sake of reward with service “for His sake,” identifying the first as desire and the second as love.
Altruism, “gifts to the poor,” and postmodernism
The text brings a yeshiva joke about a kollel fellow who would rob a person so that he would be “an enhanced poor man,” and interprets this as behavioral altruism that is inwardly selfish — just “to fulfill one’s obligation.” It suggests a conceptual practical difference regarding gifts to the poor on the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar, depending on whether the focus is the poor person’s need or the giver’s obligation. The text argues that someone who does not believe in the real existence of something outside himself will have difficulty acting for the sake of something outside himself, and therefore altruism is a Platonic form of action. It identifies postmodern and idealist conceptions as placing the human being at the center and denying objectivity, and describes how this leads to acting for the self and to hedonism.
Serving God for its own sake and Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance
The text refers to Maimonides at the beginning of chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance, regarding “doing the truth because it is truth,” and presents this as a Platonic model of acting for its own sake. It contrasts this with serving for the sake of reward or avoiding punishment, and calls that “service not for its own sake,” as an Aristotelian model of acting for the sake of the self. The text concludes that the concept of Platonism includes both the distinction between uncovering objective truth and subjective creation, and the distinction between acting for the sake of objective value and acting for self-interest.
A question about “Shehecheyanu” and gifts to the poor
The text presents a question whether, when having in mind the blessing of “Shehecheyanu” in the morning, one should also include gifts to the poor, alongside the argument that it is not fitting to rejoice over the existence of poor people. It replies that one can thank the Holy One, blessed be He, for the opportunity “to repair the world” and contribute so that there will not be poor people, while mentioning “for the poor will never cease from the land.” The text brings the sugya of Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva in Bava Batra as a reason that there is room for acts of charity, and emphasizes that the intention is a mission to repair, not a wish for poverty to exist. It concludes by referring to Rashba, who explains that no blessing is recited over charity because the poor person may refuse, and therefore the matter does not depend entirely on the giver.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Last time I finished the issue of the distinction between rabbinic commandments, or rabbinic Torah, and Torah-level Torah. And if I sum it up in one sentence, the claim basically was that at the foundation of Torah-level commandments there stands some kind of metaphysical reality, similar to Platonic ideas, and not like the Aristotelian conception in which ideas are really nothing more than categories that human beings created. And the goal, basically, in Torah study is really to try to understand, to connect, I don’t know what to call it, to this Platonic world, this abstract metaphysical world that stands behind the halakhic determinations. And in rabbinic laws there is no such dimension, no such component. Meaning, rabbinic laws are laws that we are supposed to obey because the commands of the sages have authority, but they are not something that expresses a reality or facts or metaphysical structures behind them. And therefore I said that rabbinic laws are part of Jewish law, but they are not part of Torah, because Torah is really about reflecting or expressing some kind of metaphysical truths, let’s call it that. That, in short. Before we continue to the next chapter in the series, I just want to close the halakhic issue we’ve already been dealing with for quite a few lectures, and talk a little about the meaning of this distinction between rabbinic laws and Torah-level laws. And the distinction I made here has several implications. Right now this isn’t a discussion about Platonism itself, but about the meaning of Platonism in the context of Torah study, in contexts of Torah study, let’s say.
So I said — and this too I already said — that studying Torah-level commandments is an end; it’s not a means. Meaning, it’s not a means in order to know what to do, even though when you study it you also know what to do. But we don’t study in order to know what to do. We study in order to know — not in order to know what to do, but in order to understand. Let’s call it that. I made an analogy to scientific understanding versus technological applications. Technology is a means to make life easier, to succeed in doing all kinds of things we couldn’t do before. You can investigate reality and do scientific research with the goal of improving our technology. We are basically at the center, and we are the goal. In contrast, in scientific research for its own sake, the goal is the knowledge itself. We want to know how the world works, what happens in the world, irrespective of our interest in making life easier, producing technology, and so on.
The same is true in the context of Torah study. In studying Torah-level commandments, Torah study is about understanding the metaphysical, moral, normative foundation — whatever you want to call it — that stands behind the laws. And it is not a means to know what to do, even though, again, the study of course also enables me to know what to do — that too is true. But the study is not a means; the study is an end. And I’ve already spoken about this in several contexts in this series. In that sense, it’s similar to scientific research and not to understanding science for technological needs. In contrast, studying in order to know what to do is technology. It’s basically for implementation, right? It really parallels the distinction between scientific research and research directed toward technology. So in that language, the study of rabbinic laws is all technology. Meaning, I basically study in order to know what to do; that’s why I need to study. But the study itself has no intrinsic value in and of itself. I’m not uncovering any spiritual or metaphysical layers of the world here, unlike the study of Torah-level commandments. And therefore all the meaning I described of Torah study does not exist when we are studying rabbinic laws. They are simply a means to know what to do.
One more thing — maybe just a note I thought of. When I speak about Torah study, I’m not talking here about the commandment of Torah study; I’m talking about Torah study. The commandment of Torah study may be that by reciting the Shema morning and evening you fulfill your obligation. But actually studying Torah is something more fundamental than the commandment of Torah study. I’m talking about Torah study, yes? Not about the value of Torah study, not about the commandment of Torah study. Those are two different things.
[Speaker B] But basically, what we’re learning all the time is Talmud. Talmud, if so, is rabbinic, no? It’s not really Torah-level.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Absolutely not. I said beforehand that the difference between rabbinic laws and Torah-level laws is not the question of how involved the sages are in creating that law. The sages are involved in creating both Torah-level laws and rabbinic laws alike. The difference between the Oral Torah and the Written Torah does not overlap in any way with the difference between rabbinic and Torah-level law. There’s no connection. On the contrary, the distinction between the Oral Torah and the Written Torah is entirely within the world of Torah-level law. Within the world of Torah-level law, there is Written Torah and there is Oral Torah. A rabbinic law is not Torah at all — neither oral nor written. It’s law; it’s not Torah. The difference between Written Torah and Oral Torah is whether it is written or is done by people — interpretation and so on, yes? That’s the difference between Written Torah and Oral Torah. It is, as I said, entirely rooted inside the world of Torah-level law. In Torah-level law there is Written Torah and there is Oral Torah.
[Speaker B] Yes, but isn’t the Talmud mainly involved in clarifying the laws, understanding what one should do or shouldn’t do?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said: clearly, when we study Jewish law we study laws, we study what to do. The question is why we study. And that also affects the question of how to study. But first of all, the question is why we study. And my answer is not that we study in order to know what to do. We study what to do, but we do not study it in order to know what to do; rather, studying what to do has value in and of itself. I brought the example of the stubborn and rebellious son, who never was, never came to be, and never will be — and still there is Torah study, there is value in Torah study even about that. The commandment of Torah study is another topic, but there is value to Torah study even there. And as Rabbi Yisrael Salanter said, it’s a paradigm for all Torah study, even in laws that are applicable. The goal of study is not application, even though there is application. Those are two different things.
In rabbinic laws, study is study only for the sake of application — simply to know what to do. As a result, the character of the study can also be different, because when we study Torah-level laws, our goal is not to know what to do. Our goal is to understand the foundation that lies at the base of the laws. What is the logic, what are the principles that lead the law to say this or to say that. What are we assuming? You can talk about the question of how we view the axis of time or of space, or how we view, I don’t know, various things, the concept of legal effect that I spoke about before. What is legal effect at all? Questions of that kind are connected to the halakhic clarifications we make, but that clarification exposes structures that stand at the base of the laws. And our goal is to uncover them, not in order to know what to do. To understand the laws of nature themselves, not in order to apply them technologically. That’s the point.
So first of all, this is a distinction in the goal of study, but there is also a distinction here in the way of studying or the mode of study. Someone who wants to know what to do will often stick to the books of great people, of great Torah scholars, and then more or less you hit the truth — at least you have a better chance of hitting the truth. In contrast, if your goal is to uncover the metaphysical dimensions, the metaphysical foundation underlying the Jewish law, then it won’t help to study the Shulchan Arukh or Maimonides or something like that. When you study them, there too you have to ask yourself what conceptions stood behind those things, what assumptions stood behind those things. So the whole point of view changes, not only in terms of the goal of study but also in terms of the mode of study. I want to just a little — Rabbi?
[Speaker C] Yes. Rabbi, I think we would expect — we should expect — that if Torah study, the value of Torah study, is to clarify and know some sort of metaphysical apprehensions about being, about existence, then you’d expect it to be like in medicine for us: learning anatomy, learning — not connected — there may be practical aspects, but that’s secondary to the story, it almost shouldn’t even be mentioned, it should be marginal. The main thing should be engagement with truth, supposedly like Maimonides says, supposedly to engage in divinity, in metaphysics, in the account of the chariot, to deal with some metaphysical structures — but in reality, neither in Maimonides nor anywhere else, Torah is 99.999% concerned with action. And you ask yourself how it happened, how it happened that the central engagement rolled into that. Even if it should really have been something very minor and small.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’ve canceled me out, so I’ll answer you in two ways. First of all, Maimonides himself says that a great matter is the account of creation and the account of the chariot, and a small matter is the discussions of Abaye and Rava. It’s the same Maimonides. Exactly!
[Speaker C] But I’m saying in reality — I’m asking also about Maimonides, sorry, not only about the rabbi. Maimonides says grand and lofty things, and I think people don’t understand Maimonides, but Maimonides supposedly speaks grandly about engaging in divinity, and when you ask, okay, so let’s see the product — where are Maimonides’ great series on divinity?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Shmuel, hello, Shmuel, that’s it — I’m trying to answer; we can’t go on too long. The claim is, first of all, that in Maimonides you see this from him himself. Now the question is also about Maimonides, true. And here I come to the second claim. My second claim is that engagement in metaphysics can be done in various forms. In my view, someone studying “an ox that gored a cow” is also engaging in metaphysics. He just doesn’t know it. Meaning, he is actually clarifying metaphysical ideas, only he’s doing it indirectly. He’s doing it because halakhic clarification exposes or reflects certain metaphysical truths even if he himself is not aware of it.
And therefore it doesn’t mean that in practice you’ll speak in the language of metaphysics and ideas and worlds and angels and I don’t know what, all kinds of things of that sort. This is what the author of the Tanya calls — and we spoke about this in one of the previous lectures — both the author of the Tanya and Nefesh HaChayim speak about it as embracing the king in his garments. Meaning, I embrace the king, but I do so through his garments, and his garments are the laws, the halakhic determinations. Now true — and this I agree with — that ultimately there is greater value if one does this explicitly. Meaning, if you are aware of those dimensions that are exposed through Jewish law and you really try to expose them and conceptualize them. In that sense I completely agree. Most of the world that studies Torah does not do that. Fine. Most of the world does not engage directly in metaphysics.
The great advantage is that if you engage in halakhic clarification, you are actually doing metaphysical clarification even if you’re not aware of it, even if you don’t know it. You are clarifying certain metaphysical truths here. And if someone comes and tries to conceptualize what you did — by the way, I do quite a lot of that — trying to conceptualize things that later authorities did: Rabbi Shimon Shkop doesn’t write anywhere about metaphysics, but in my opinion he has so many metaphysical intuitions and so many — or meta-halakhic, metaphysical — so many things can be exposed with one small step after finishing the Shkop-style analysis, yes, after finishing Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s conceptual halakhic analysis, that basically he did most of the work. He just didn’t call the child by its name. Meaning, he didn’t point and say: here I exposed this phenomenon, this property, this truth. But basically he does that all the time.
And therefore often it’s a bit similar to what Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin describes: a person prays, and then he sets all kinds of spiritual worlds in motion, I don’t know what, of one kind or another. He has very vivid descriptions there of that matter. That doesn’t mean the person praying is aware of it. But the fact that the things he does — again, I’m not sure I identify with what Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says, I’m just bringing it as an example — but the fact that when a person prays, I’m bringing this as an example and not as a fact, the fact that when a person prays he really moves all sorts of metaphysical things, even if he isn’t aware of it. So too the metaphysical clarification is done in a language that is a halakhic language. But it is still metaphysical clarification.
In the end, when you conceptualize it, you’ll see that when one grasps the laws of vows or oaths this way or that way, suddenly you discover object-status and person-status, and there is meaning to one kind of human speech and meaning to another kind of human speech. And all that I could also have learned in a philosophy department. I would just have needed to formulate it in the language used there. That’s all. And therefore a halakhic learner may be totally unaware of the metaphysical aspects standing behind his clarifications, but they are there. And therefore he is engaging in metaphysics.
I completely agree that ideally this should be done explicitly. Meaning, if you do it explicitly — but again, when you do it explicitly, I do not mean Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed. In my eyes, Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed is a small matter, not a great matter. In that sense I disagree with Maimonides. Maimonides thought that learning this from Aristotle was the great matter. In my eyes, halakhic clarification is the ultimate tool for conducting metaphysical clarification. The metaphysical clarification can be done from within the halakhic form of thought and the halakhic data. And this is a certain tool, unique to Torah study. And therefore in my opinion, studying the first four chapters of the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah in Maimonides — not only is that not Torah, it is neglect of Torah. Meaning, it is studying some unnecessary Aristotelian physics.
I think that engagement in metaphysics, what’s called the great matter, is not different from the small matter of the discussions of Abaye and Rava, but is only exposing another layer that stands behind the small matter. The small matter is the garment of the great matter. The great matter clothes itself in halakhic language and a halakhic conceptual system. We speak about damages and thieves and goring and an ox that gored a cow and all kinds of impurity and purity and things of that sort, and all of these are simply terminology, language, a garment, which metaphysics wears. And we can engage in metaphysics even without being aware that we are engaging in it. And best of all is to be aware and really try to expose it.
And that brings me back to the issue of the mode of study. So I’m saying the mode of study is affected not only by the goal of study but also by the mode of study itself. The mode of study, for example — I spoke about ukimtot — so I said that we deal with all sorts of phenomena that are not applicable, or at least not simply applicable. Yes, and we talked about all sorts of sugyot involving ukimtot, and the claim that speaking about wheat that descended in the clouds, or a flying camel, or someone permitted by the mouth of a demon, or an elephant that swallowed an Egyptian basket, or all kinds of amusing sugyot of that sort — people laugh a lot at engaging in bizarre fictional sugyot like that, and that’s simply a lack of understanding. That is exactly the expression of the Platonic nature of the study.
Why do I deal with bizarre sugyot of that sort? Because I am not engaged in clarification in order to know what to do in such a sugya, in this state or that state. I’m not interested in what the law is regarding an elephant that swallowed an Egyptian basket. I will never encounter such an elephant. And probably I’ll also never encounter wheat that descended in the clouds, and I assume I’ll also never encounter someone who was permitted by demons’ mouth. And if I do, that’s grounds for hospitalizing him, not for executing him after due warning. Sugyot of that sort — I call them Platonic sugyot — are really sugyot whose purpose is to clarify ideas. And sometimes I can isolate the ideas, or bring them to a purer refinement, in situations that are fictional situations. So what do I care? I’ll deal with that.
Think about science: when you build an experimental system in a laboratory, you’re building something as far from the practical world as can be. You empty it of air, you lower the temperature to zero, you do all the things that do not exist in the real world we know, and that is called scientific research into the world. That is the research through which we understand the world. How do we understand the world if we do it on the basis of situations farthest from the practical world we know? So I already explained this there and said that only in those situations can I isolate a single law of nature. In our reality there are many laws of nature mixed together, and it’s hard for us to investigate and understand them that way. So we create an abstract, unrealistic situation in the lab, as much as possible, in order to isolate one law and try to understand how it works. That is exactly what the ukimta does.
But then we see that the ukimta, or the Platonic situations I described earlier, the non-practical ones, are simply an expression of the fact that our goal is not the practical world. We are not trying to understand what to do. The study is not for that. The study is in order to understand the idea. “A practical difference for kiddushin,” as people always say. When you bring some conceptual investigation like that, they ask you, wait, but what practical difference does it make? There’s no practical difference for kiddushin. Why should I care about the practical difference? Meaning, I want to understand what the truth is, not to talk about practical differences. Practical differences are an important tool for sharpening the distinction between two possibilities, and therefore the scientific experiment is very important in clarifying the correct theory. But it’s not that the theory’s purpose is to lead to what will happen in the experiment. The opposite: the experiment serves the theory in the scientific perspective, not the theory the experiment, as in the technological perspective.
Okay, so that is the meaning of Platonic study. We are really trying to clarify the truth, not in order to know what to do. It’s not a means. So therefore the mode of study itself also changes in light of the goal of study. Now look at the implication. The implication is, for example, that in rabbinic laws there is no point in dealing with such a thing — or not much point — because in rabbinic laws, for two reasons. First, in rabbinic laws I’m not so interested in what metaphysical structures stand at the basis of the law. I want to know what to do, because this is not Torah study. It is a means to know what to do, because I am obligated in rabbinic laws. So there’s no point in all the Platonic study we do in the context of Torah-level law doing the same thing in the context of rabbinic law. That’s one thing.
Second, of course there is still some point in doing it, because after all it is also the means to better understand the halakhic world, and in any event it also has practical consequences. And I claim that analytical study — in the world of Torah-level law, analytical study is not an intellectual game. If I correctly uncover the metaphysics, I will also issue more correct halakhic rulings. Meaning, in the final analysis, it also affects how to rule Jewish law correctly, only that is not the goal. So in that sense, even in rabbinic laws, certainly one should enter into the question of what stands at the basis of the law, what this law is saying, because that may also have practical consequences. So what is the goal there? In order to know what to do.
[Speaker B] Rabbinic law obligates us in order to know what to do. No, no, we said that isn’t the goal, but rather there’s a side result. But seemingly the study — the importance of the study — is for itself, not in order to know what to do.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re mixing things up. I’m talking about Torah-level laws. In Torah-level laws I don’t want to know what to do, although the clarification also tells me what to do. That is the way I conduct the clarification. In rabbinic laws, all there is is only knowing what to do. There is no value to the clarification itself, because there is no Platonic dimension there.
[Speaker B] So I’m asking, what is the goal of studying Torah-level law, then? If not clarification of behavior, then what is its great importance?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To know, to be exposed to, or to expose, the meta-halakhic, Platonic dimensions that stand at the basis of Jewish law.
[Speaker B] Right, so we say that an intelligent person is curious; he wants to understand what’s going on around him. But no one obligates him, no one turns that into the goal of his life. If he’s curious, he’ll be interested; if he’s not curious, he won’t be interested.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the case of Torah, curiosity is a commandment. Not curiosity — study. Why? Why is it forbidden to eat pork, do you know? That is a value in itself. I can understand that value, but I’m not looking for explanations. Meaning, I think understanding — in my eyes scientific research too is a value. There too I don’t ask “why” in the sense of whether it will help me technologically. I think understanding the world, looking deeply at the world, is a value. But if someone doesn’t think so, fine, then not. So the Torah commands it; the Torah sees value in it. That’s enough for me for the purposes of this discussion.
I just want to say that there is another aspect of rabbinic laws that arises from here, and I think one has to notice that in rabbinic laws not only is there not much motivation to expose Platonic dimensions, because all that matters to me is to know what to do, but it’s not even clear that there are Platonic dimensions at all. Meaning, I want to say: when I try to understand the idea behind some rabbinic enactment, who says there even is an idea? It’s not clear there is one at all. Not just that I have no interest in exposing it — there may be nothing there to expose. That’s the point.
Meaning, it’s not only a question of what the goal of the study is — not to expose the Platonic dimension but to know what to do. I’m claiming more than that. Not only the goal of the study, but the very option — there is nothing to expose. Rabbinic laws do not sit on some overarching, coherent, meta-halakhic, metaphysical foundation the way Torah-level laws are supposed to, at least according to my hope, yes? In rabbinic laws there isn’t that. And why? Because rabbinic laws are meant to achieve practical goals. They forbid you to eat poultry with milk so that you won’t come to eat meat with milk. So do I care whether the prohibition of poultry with milk — not “do I care,” rather, it does not reflect any truth that it expresses. You simply have to look and see what will cause me not to stumble into eating meat with milk. That’s all.
And now don’t look — don’t compare it to other rabbinic laws and try to find some connecting thread and a larger coherent picture. There isn’t one, there isn’t one. Both because the sages didn’t try to do that and because maybe they couldn’t do that. The Holy One, blessed be He, did that; the sages do not do that. Therefore, in rabbinic laws there are no laws in the object; it’s all laws in the person, as we saw in recent lectures. Meaning, my claim is not only that there is no point in exposing meta-halakhic dimensions in rabbinic laws, but that there are no such dimensions. And therefore I often feel uncomfortable in various analytical lectures, general lectures in yeshivot and so on, that deal with rabbinic laws. Lectures that deal with rabbinic laws and build conceptual structures the way we build them in Torah-level laws often seem unconvincing to me. They seem unconvincing because maybe that points to the genius of the lecturer, but it’s not really what stands at the basis of the rabbinic law. And therefore I feel that nothing is being exposed here; at most, something is being created. Meaning, you created an interesting structure; you didn’t expose one. In Torah-level laws, I at least tend to think that you don’t create the structures — you expose them. They’re there, and all you’re doing is exposing them.
And by the way, you can see here — and we’ll soon see it more — another point, which is the next stage in my series: another dimension of the concept of Platonism. The concept of Platonism, in this context, is basically… it deals with creation versus exposure. Meaning, or with the question of how I see the world — well, I’ll sharpen that more in a moment.
[Speaker C] So isn’t creation preferable to exposure? Intuitively, it would seem that creation is loftier than exposure.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It depends on how you analyze it. In my view, no. But maybe in another moment I’ll sharpen this a bit more, and then maybe it’ll be easier to understand. So that’s with regard to the form—I’ll get to that in a moment. That’s with regard to the form of learning. Beyond that, for example, there’s another aspect of the form of learning. I spoke about halakhic ruling, or first-order learning and second-order learning—not only halakhic ruling, but also first-order and second-order learning—and I argue that in rabbinic laws there is definitely no reason not to learn at the second order. Meaning, if I want to know what to do, I’ll open the Mishnah Berurah and do what it says. Even if, had I studied the Talmudic passage myself, I might have thought otherwise, since the Mishnah Berurah is a great Torah scholar, greater than I am, there’s a reasonable chance that he got closer to the truth than I would, and if so, then why not do what he says? That’s perfectly fine; I’m certainly doing the right thing. In Torah-level laws there is a value of autonomy. What does that mean? It means there is value in my exposing the metaphysical structures as I understand them and acting according to what I have uncovered. “And the discussions were made in accordance with Jewish law”—we spoke about this. But all this is not because that is the pure truth. Rabbi Meir got closer to the truth than I do, and nevertheless the Jewish law was not ruled in accordance with him; yes, I brought that example. Meaning, the value involved here is not only the dimension of truth; there is also a dimension of autonomy beyond the dimension of truth. But that dimension of autonomy can arise only in a context where I am trying to uncover certain meta-halakhic dimensions, and I have to do that uncovering work myself. But in rabbinic laws there is nothing there to uncover. All you need is simply to make sure that you are doing the right thing. You are not sinning. So if you do what the Mishnah Berurah says, you are not sinning; you are doing the right thing. Even if, when you studied the passage, you might have come out differently. And therefore there I can much more accept people who learn or rule at the second order and not at the first order. So that’s another implication of this distinction between the Platonic learning of Torah-level laws and the non-Platonic learning of rabbinic laws. Maybe one last implication that I want to focus on is the blessing over Torah study. I’m not going to get into the sources and the halakhic discussion right now, but in the simple sense the blessing over Torah study is not a blessing over commandments. I already noted that in one of the previous lessons. It is not a blessing over commandments; simply speaking, it is something like a blessing of praise. We praise—or say thank you to—the Holy One, blessed be He, gratitude, praise, yes, we say thank you to the Holy One, blessed be He, and praise Him for having given us the Torah. And in that sense, the blessing over Torah study is not a blessing made over the act of learning, yes, it is not a blessing over commandments. It is a blessing of praise or a blessing of thanksgiving. But even if it were a blessing over commandments, I think there is no reason to recite the blessing over Torah study for learning rabbinic commandments, for learning rabbinic laws, because that is not Torah study. There is nothing here to bless over with the blessing over Torah study. It is a means. It is a means in order to know what to do. You do not recite a blessing over a means. There are those who make the argument that this is a dispute between the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud, that the Babylonian Talmud holds that one recites a blessing over building a sukkah. And in Menachot in the Babylonian Talmud it says that you do not recite a blessing over anything that is not the final stage of the commandment, or something like that—I don’t remember the exact wording—the point being that you do not recite a blessing over preparatory acts for a commandment, for example over building a sukkah. Because many times people make the mistake of thinking that the dispute between the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud is whether there is a commandment to build a sukkah. According to the Jerusalem Talmud, which says one recites a blessing over building the sukkah, there is also a commandment in building the sukkah, not only in sitting in the sukkah. I think that is very far-fetched; there is no logic in it at all. The Jerusalem Talmud is simply saying that one also recites blessings over preparatory acts for a commandment. That is the point—not that there is a commandment to build a sukkah, but that one recites blessings over preparatory acts for a commandment. Why? Because a preparatory act is the beginning of the fulfillment of the commandment. Never mind, you can formulate it in all sorts of ways. So this basically means that at least in practice we do not recite a blessing over building a sukkah. So even if the blessing over Torah study were a blessing over commandments, to recite it over rabbinic commandments, over the study of rabbinic Torah, would in effect be reciting a blessing over preparatory acts for a commandment. Because the commandment is to observe those rabbinic laws, but studying them is simply in order to know what to do. That is preparatory to a commandment, and we do not recite blessings over preparatory acts. But beyond that, if I see the blessing over Torah study as a blessing of praise, then all the more so there is nothing to recite over rabbinic law for rabbinic commandments. Rabbinic commandments were not given to us by the Holy One, blessed be He; what is there to praise here? They were given to us by the sages. The Holy One, blessed be He—bless the sages for that. Meaning, you recite the blessing over Torah study when you are engaged in uncovering the dimensions, the deeper dimensions, the meta-halakhic, metaphysical dimensions that underlie Jewish law. Call it some kind of wonder at the landscape that you discover when you uncover this matter. But there is no such landscape in rabbinic laws, and therefore there is nothing to bless over in that kind of study. Okay.
[Speaker D] I have one more small question. In Torah-level learning, in the end, that’s also how we relate to it, I think in the yeshiva world too and all that, what characterizes it there is plausibility, deep logic, the wisdom of making distinctions between logically different things. Where exactly do we connect here to metaphysics at all? On the contrary, we deal with intellect, with logic; that’s all we’re impressed by. We don’t get to metaphysics at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in metaphysics, with what tools do you engage? With meditation tools?
[Speaker D] With metaphysics I have a problem in general; I don’t know how I get to it. But I’m saying, when…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That can be debated separately, but the whole claim is exactly that. I once heard—I don’t know if I mentioned this—Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen. Once I traveled with him in the… there was a memorial for Rabbi HaNazir. We traveled from the Western Wall—it was there at the Idra by the Western Wall—to the Harry Fischel Institute. And on the way in the car I got to talk with him a bit, and he once told me in the name of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, he said to me: what is the difference between Jewish mysticism and other mysticism? By the way, I don’t think he was right, but that’s what he said there: that Jewish mysticism is not something mystical. Jewish mysticism is an intellectual matter, completely logical; one works on it entirely with the tools of the intellect. The playing field, the concepts, the principles, are drawn from a different conceptual world, but everything is done with the same tools that you use in any other field. As opposed to other mysticisms, where there you meditate, take pills, and float around in mystical worlds, and that’s how you engage in mysticism. I think that in the Jewish world too, by the way, there are these two kinds, and in the non-Jewish world too there are these two kinds. It’s not a distinction between Kabbalah or Jewish mysticism and other mysticism; it’s two ways of relating to the concept of mysticism. And I once had a series on the concept of mysticism, and there I explained this in detail. But what I want to claim in answer to your question, Ezra, is that here too it’s the same thing. It is exactly this. This is exactly it—the halakhic engagement that you know, the halakhic analysis that you know, that they do in every yeshiva—that is the metaphysical clarification. It’s just that they don’t finish by exposing those very layers that are revealed through that clarification. They do only the formal analysis, let’s call it that, without exposing the meanings that underlie the matter. And so in fact this is the way to do metaphysical clarification, and even if you haven’t exposed it, you have in fact done metaphysical clarification. Of course, the ideal version is if you do expose it, because then you also see the results or findings of your metaphysical clarification. When you asked how to do metaphysical clarification—here is the answer. The answer is: engagement in Torah, what you did in yeshiva, or what you do in analytical Torah study—that is how one does metaphysical clarification. Those are the tools.
[Speaker D] Has the Rabbi ever studied in depth a passage in Choshen Mishpat and suddenly understood the metaphysics that are there?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only has that happened to me, we even did it here in the series. When I spoke about the concept of legal effect. What is the legal effect of being a married woman? And suddenly I think I showed you that in the course of discussing halakhic questions, you’re actually saying: wait a second, how can it be that a woman is both divorced and also a married woman? That’s a contradiction—a classic yeshiva-style analytical question. Okay. And suddenly it tells you: now notice, what does that mean? It means that the legal effect of married-woman status is not the same thing as being a married woman. The legal effect of married-woman status is actually some sort of metaphysical concept that has halakhic consequences. And one can try to characterize that concept through the halakhic consequences. There, I think, we really encountered the kind of exposure I’m talking about here. And laws in the object versus laws in the person, and I spoke about that there in various aspects. How to understand the concept of ownership, how to understand the concept of betrothal, a slave whose bill of manumission is being withheld—if you remember, I spoke about that. Meaning, all sorts of things of this kind, which are exactly attempts to uncover the metaphysical dimensions. Notice, I’m not talking about some mystical sefirotic category. The conceptual system is legal effect, a Hebrew slave—that is the halakhic conceptual system. But I am charging it with metaphysical meaning. I am trying to show that there is a difference between saying that a woman is a married woman, and saying that there is upon her the legal effect of married-woman status. When you say that there is… although we saw there that sometimes it is possible to separate them. Okay? That is exactly meant to illustrate this point—what we did.
[Speaker D] And if I study civil law in depth, won’t I be able—won’t there be a metaphysical component there?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think you could make such conceptualizations, but that would not be uncovering; it would be creating. Meaning, behind the regular legal world there is no metaphysical system standing there. What stands there are systems of considerations—justice, fairness, decency, efficiency—all the regular considerations of a legislator and a legal interpreter, and that is what you would be doing there. The moment you give it metaphysical interpretations, that’s your own responsibility. You are not really uncovering what stood at the basis of the legislator’s action. And therefore, for example, in the world, the more modern the world becomes, the closer we get to our own generation, metaphysical interpretations of law are pushed into a corner; they are very unpopular. Think—I think I gave this example—I gave this example actually regarding copyright. When you study it at university, they teach that there is the property theory and the theory… yes, there are two basic approaches to copyright. There is an approach that says: this is essential property; if I created it, it is mine—that is a metaphysical statement. There are claims that are teleological claims: it is worthwhile to preserve copyright because it will lead to more creation, it will motivate people to create, and thus the world will be better. Therefore it is worthwhile for us to protect the creator’s rights. These are two legal conceptions. When you study this at university, they teach both conceptions. When you get to the practical world, you will not find the first one. There are even articles showing how, over the years, judicial rulings in Israel and in the world are moving more and more in the direction of the teleological, purposive view, and not the metaphysical view. Because in a modern outlook on the legal world, people have detached themselves from the metaphysical dimensions that people once thought underlay the law. Today people see that as some sort of primitive thinking. In my view, their thinking is primitive. The principles that underlie the legal principles of Jewish law, at least, are metaphysical principles. And in my opinion, by the way, this exists in law as well, although people are not aware of it—but that’s a different opera. In the end I come back to affirming what you said, Ezra. I think that at the foundation of law too there are things like this, only jurists deny it, deny them. Because they have some aversion to saying that there are metaphysical truths here. They say: we determine it, it is a convention. We can legislate this way, we can legislate that way. What we enacted is basically what exists. Maybe there is some difference between natural law and positivism. But all these things I already noted when I spoke about halakhic contexts, and I also noted legal contexts.
[Speaker D] But is there no chance that if I delve deeply into legal theory and uncover something metaphysical, that I could also enter the category of Torah study?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an interesting question. I actually tend to think there is such a chance. If you are convinced that you have uncovered something true here, then in my opinion that is Torah study. And not only is it Torah study, but once you have uncovered something true, you are in fact supposed to find it in Jewish law as well. Because if it is true, then it is true. Meaning, in that sense there is no separate law of Jewish law and the law of Bnei Brak and British law and I-don’t-know-what law. Of course there is, but only in those parts that are not objective, that are conventional. But those parts that reflect metaphysical truths are supposed to be universal. And if I discovered that through analysis of legal issues, what difference does it make? In the end I discovered here some kind of truth, and now from my point of view that is also part of Jewish law. This is what Rabbi Shimon called “the Torah of laws”; I also spoke about that once. If I study physics?
[Speaker E] What? I can’t hear. If I study physics? Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Do I recite a blessing over that? No. Here I really do not agree with Maimonides. When he talks about physics and metaphysics, I really do not agree with Maimonides. In this matter, that is not Torah study at all—not in the object. It is Torah study in the person. I said that the blessing over Torah study is recited over Torah study in the object, not in the person. Meaning, over something that is objective study, that is the uncovering of objective things. Now in physics I am a Platonist. I think physics uncovers real things in reality, but the real things it uncovers are physical facts, whereas what Jewish law uncovers is norms. Torah is a norm. Torah is not a fact. Facts are not Torah. A norm is Torah. It’s just that there are normative facts, and I’ll get to that in a moment—that is, later in the series, I don’t know how far we’ll get today. That’s my next stage. So let’s leave that for now. I now want actually to start moving on to… until now we have spoken about Platonism versus Aristotelianism in the sense of whether ideas exist—that is Plato’s view—or whether they are only categories that human beings create, as Aristotle understood. But the concept of Platonism is used by us—and I haven’t found, by the way, any discussion explaining why—but the concept of Platonism is used by us in various senses. For example, Platonism in the conception of mathematics, or even of physics; in mathematics it is more prominent. There is mathematical Platonism. That is the question whether the mathematical ideas investigated by the mathematician actually exist, or whether they are our mental constructions. Fine, that is what is called the discussion of mathematical Platonism. And Platonism in physics is the question whether the laws of nature describe the world itself or the way we see the world. Fine, that is basically Platonism in physics. So that is a regular application of the concept of Platonism versus Aristotelianism, because it is the question whether the ideas we are talking about are our conceptualizations or things that really exist somewhere in the world of ideas or in our world—it doesn’t matter—but they have some kind of existence in a certain sense. But how does this connect, for example, to a concept like Platonic love? Why, in the realm of love too, do people speak about Platonic love? Yes, what is Platonic love? It is some kind of love that, I think, puts the beloved at the center and not the lover. There are those who make the distinction—basically the same distinction—between love and desire. Yes, you know, like the old comedians ask: “A fisherman loves fish? Then why does he eat them?” Meaning, if he loves them, why does he eat them? And the answer is: he doesn’t love the fish; he loves himself. To love fish means to love myself, and therefore I eat fish because I am taking care of myself, not the fish. But loving fish would mean taking care of the fish, not yourself. Or in more Torah language, which says exactly the same thing, it says regarding our forefather Jacob, “And they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.” Yes, when he loved Rachel, it says he had to work seven years, and from his point of view it was really like just a few days because of his love for her. So the commentators ask there—several commentators—we are generally used to it being the opposite in our world. After all, if you love a woman and you have to wait seven years until you can attain her or marry her, that seems like eternity to you. Why do seven years seem in your eyes like a few days if you love her? It should be the opposite: a few days should seem to you like long years if you love her. And the answer is just what the comedians answered: Jacob loved Rachel, not himself. When you love yourself, you want to attain the thing, so every passing moment seems like eternity to you. But if you love Rachel, then I’ll work seven years, as long as in the end I reach the goal, because my goal in the end is not me, not my immediate pleasure, but some goal outside me. And that is what is usually called Platonic love. Platonic love is love that does not come to serve me; it is not desire. Desire is something in which I am at the center. Love is something in which the beloved is at the center. Yes, those who serve the Holy One, blessed be He, because it benefits them—that is desire. Those who serve the Holy One, blessed be He, because they want to do what He said for His sake, or for the sake of the world, or for His sake—that is love. Okay, that is a Platonic attitude. That is what it’s called. How is that connected to Plato? Meaning, why is this distinction too called a distinction between Aristotelianism and Platonism? Why is it connected to the original distinction I described earlier? From the little I looked at, I searched to see if there was some discussion of this issue, and I found none. It seems like a bit of a separate thing—it also comes from Plato versus Aristotle—but it is not connected to the distinction of Platonism in the ontic sense, in the sense of whether ideas exist or do not exist. I think it is connected. This use of the concept of Platonism is connected to the previous use of Platonism, and that is the point I want to start dealing with now. Because in fact the Aristotelian conception is a conception that says that the only thing that exists in the world is me. All the statements I make about the world are basically the conceptualizations I impose on the world. Yes, we just got through Purim. The well-known yeshiva joke says: what does a God-fearing kollel fellow do if in his city there is no poor person through whom he can fulfill his obligation of gifts to the poor? Obviously, he robs someone so that he will become officially poor and then he can fulfill in the best possible way the commandment of gifts to the poor. What does this actually mean? It means that for that kollel fellow, all the obligations that Jewish law imposes and that morality imposes are basically in his personal world. As far as he is concerned, the poor person does not really exist at all. The goal is not to help the poor person; the goal is to fulfill an obligation. I need to be righteous, me, yes? I need to be righteous. I need to find a highly qualified poor person in order to give gifts to the poor. It’s not for him; it’s for me. I need to fulfill my obligation. This is phenomenological altruism, altruism in behavior, but of course it is not altruism; it is pure egoism. Basically everything you do, you do for yourself. Even when you save the universe and spend your whole life for the sake of others, basically you do it in order to fulfill your obligation. You do it so that the Holy One, blessed be He, will mark a check next to your name. So you are in fact a perfect egoist, even though your behavior looks completely altruistic. The practical difference that I once thought to derive from this: what happens if I send gifts to the poor when I am in a walled city, yes, celebrating on the fifteenth, and the poor person is from an unwalled city? So when should I send it to him? Should I send it on the fourteenth or on the fifteenth? So if I am a real altruist, I should send it on the fourteenth, right? Because I need to care that he will have a Purim meal. His Purim meal is on the fourteenth. But if I am an altruistic egoist, then I basically need to do it in order to fulfill my obligation. My Purim is on the fifteenth, so I need to see to it that on my Purim I give gifts to the poor. If that miserable poor person is not here, I’ll bring him here by force. I’ll send a gang of robbers to bring him here by force, because I absolutely must fulfill my obligation. That outlook, on the behavioral level, looks very similar, but in the spiritual motivations—I don’t know what to call them—the normative motivations, it is completely opposite. You do everything the same way, but fundamentally it is all when you are at the center. You do kindness with your surroundings because it makes you feel really good when you do kindness. So in fact you are acting for yourself, not for your surroundings. You want that good feeling of doing kindness. By the way, that is a good person. A person who feels good because he does kindness is really a good person. And still, his kindness is done for himself, not for his surroundings. In that sense he is egoistic, self-centered. By contrast, the Platonist, the Platonist works for the self—or the Platonist loves Rachel for Rachel, not for himself. He does not want to attain her for himself; he wants to live with her because he loves her. She is the goal. There are two books, by the way, in this context of love—I read them at the same period, during a romantic crisis in my life in the distant past—and I also read a book by Don Judah Abravanel called Dialogues of Love. A book that went through fascinating transformations; people were convinced he was a Christian philosopher in the nineteenth or twentieth century, I don’t remember. It was then revealed that he was actually the son of Don Isaac Abravanel, and there is a debate whether he converted or did not convert. Never mind, but it’s an interesting book, published by the Bialik Institute; I got it once from Knesset member Michael Biton. That’s one book I read. And another book I read was by a Spanish philosopher named José Ortega y Gasset, who wrote Five Essays on Love. And in both of them, the motto that runs through the whole book, in both books, is this distinction between love and desire. Which may look similar—yes, think of Cupid’s arrow. Cupid’s arrow in Greek mythology is shot into my heart and an intense love for so-and-so awakens in me. Okay? It is actually clear that this places me at the center. All the romanticizing attached to love is often actually empty of content. It is romanticizing whose purpose is to glorify my pursuit of a feeling of wholeness or satiety or whatever, my satisfaction. True romances should be written about a true lover, not someone driven by desire. About someone acting for someone else. About a Platonic lover. A Platonic lover—that is real romance. And I think that is the meaning of Platonism when you act for something outside yourself. And here Platonism in this sense connects with Platonism in the ontic sense that I have been discussing until now. Ontology is the theory of being. Platonism in the ontic sense is the question whether ideas are entities, whether they exist, or whether it is only form. Now I mentioned this in connection with that joke. Do I understand ideas as existing entities, or as my conceptualizations? That obviously has nothing to do with love and motivation, but you can see the relation between these two kinds. It is the same distinction between Platonism and Aristotelianism. If I see ideas as something that exists in its own right, the step to the next stage is already very short, where when I act, I do not act only out of my own considerations and for myself; I act for the sake of larger ideas that are outside me. That is basically Platonic action—Platonic action in the sense that now I am talking about the soul’s movement, the person’s inner orientation, not ontology, not the theory of being. And now you can see the connection between them. Someone who does not believe there is something outside himself cannot act for something outside himself. He will always act from considerations that are his own. Therefore altruism, in a certain sense, is a Platonic mode of action, because altruism places the other—or some value outside me, objective, that is imposed on me—at the center. The service of God, if you like—yes, the Holy One, blessed be He—to serve the Holy One, blessed be He, for the sake of the Holy One, blessed be He, not for myself. Or what Maimonides calls at the beginning of chapter 10 of the laws of repentance, to do the truth because it is true, and he contrasts that with service for the sake of reward in the world to come or avoidance of punishment in the world to come, which is service not for its own sake. What is the difference between them? The first is Platonic and the second is Aristotelian. Service for the sake of something outside me is Platonic; that is service for its own sake. Service for my own sake is service not for its own sake; that is Aristotelian service. So you can see that the concepts of Platonic love are connected to mathematical Platonism, to logical Platonism, and to Platonism in all the senses we have discussed until now. In my opinion it is the same distinction. And if I return to what we just finished about Torah study, notice that there too the distinction I made is basically a distinction between Platonic learning and non-Platonic learning. When I study Torah, the goal is not that I should know what to do. The goal is not to complete my soul in some sense, to turn me into something more—I don’t know what—better, or to do something for me. No. First of all, I do it because I want to understand what is happening around me. Of course there are implications, and the implications are that what is happening around me also obligates me to act. But it obligates me to act not because that will make me more complete; it obligates me to act because the world will be more complete, or because the Holy One, blessed be He, wants it. Meaning, that is a Platonic view of Torah study. When I say that the concept of legal effect, or the Torah entities, the halakhic entities, are in fact existing entities—it is not my conceptualization, not Aristotelian categories, but rather conceptualizations I make of existing entities, Platonic ideas—that also means that my way of working, both in learning and also in the service of God, my way of working is not that I am at the center. All postmodern outlooks, for example, are blatantly Aristotelian outlooks. Also in the ontic sense, they do not recognize the existence of objective entities of various sorts, because it is all subjective. They put the human being at the center, and from that it follows—not at the center; he is the only thing that exists—and from that all forms of action are also forms of my action: this is my narrative, and this is done for my purposes and out of my schemes; basically schemes are always yours, for me they are just goals. And basically I am at the center, I and nothing besides me. And this is also idealism, the idealist conception in philosophy, which says that in fact there is no objective world; the whole world is nothing but my visions. Things I experience, things I see. Beyond the question whether this is correct or not, which has to be discussed separately—I think it is of course incorrect, but that has to be discussed separately—I am only saying that this too reflects Platonism and Aristotelianism in the sense I have been talking about here. Because it basically means that my whole mode of action is intended for me. Hedonism is, in my opinion, a result of postmodernity, or the two go together—whether it is a result or not is another matter, but the two go together. Once you understand that there is nothing in the world except you, then obviously everything you do, you do for yourself. Yes, all that the Holy One, blessed be He, said: “Everything I created, I created for My glory; I formed it, indeed I made it.” Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, is an egoist. He did it for Himself; He did everything for Himself. We are supposed to be altruists. Because from the perspective of the Holy One, blessed be He, there is nothing outside Him. From our perspective, there are things outside us, and we are supposed to act for them too, not only for ourselves. And in that sense, I think this distinction between Platonism and Aristotelianism in the abstract philosophical-metaphysical sense has very many implications also for moral questions, for questions of the service of God, for questions of how to behave and why to behave in such a way. But we’ll deal with that next time. I have to finish, so you’ll forgive me, because I need to wrap up.
[Speaker C] Rabbi, Rabbi. Yes. Rabbi, when the Rabbi spoke about the issue of the fourteenth and fifteenth regarding gifts to the poor, this year a question came up for me in the synagogue: when the prayer leader recites Shehecheyanu in the morning, should he also have in mind the gifts… the gifts to the poor? I thought not, because… Why? Why not? Because my goal is not Shehecheyanu—“how wonderful that there is a poor person and now I can fulfill the commandment.” I wish there were no poor person and I wouldn’t have to fulfill the commandment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You are thanking the Holy One, blessed be He; you are thanking the Holy One, blessed be He, for having given you the opportunity to repair the world, to improve things. That is perfectly fine.
[Speaker C] But it would be better if there were no poor person and I wouldn’t have to give.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If there were no poor person—then if I am not poor, then who am I at all? As the song says.
[Speaker C] No, not poor as in me—poor person.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, if there were no poor person, I understand, sorry.
[Speaker C] It would be better if there were no poor person and I wouldn’t have to give.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But “the poor will never cease from the land.” I do not pray that there should be poor people; I thank the Holy One, blessed be He, for the fact that I can contribute to the reality that there will not be poor people. That is the Talmud in Bava Batra, after all—Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva—that if the Holy One, blessed be He…
[Speaker C] If He loves the poor, why did He make them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why doesn’t He support them? “So that through them we may be saved from the judgment of Gehenna.” But I think on the conceptual level the intent is that He wanted us to eliminate poverty, not that there should be poverty. We have a mission to repair the world, and for that we thank the Holy One, blessed be He.
[Speaker C] That doesn’t contradict it. Why don’t we recite a blessing over commandments on giving charity? Why do we just lay our hands on the poor person and say we’ll fulfill the…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is a completely different question. A completely different question, not related to the issue. The Rashba, for example, writes in a responsum that because the poor person can refuse and not accept, anything that does not depend on you, you do not recite a blessing over.
[Speaker C] That seems more essential.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think it’s because of the issue of altruism; there is no contradiction there to altruism. Okay, I really have to finish, so forgive me, I just need to leave, which is why I started earlier today. Sabbath peace, sorry for the interruption.
[Speaker C] All the best.