Pekudei (5764) — Variant

From the book Mida Tova: Articles on the Hermeneutical Principles by Rabbi Michael Avraham. Translated from Hebrew using gpt-5.4 (reasoning_effort=high, batch API).

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With God’s help

Midah Tovah — Eve of the Sabbath, Parashat Pekudei, 5765

Questions

1. The law of the threads in the white garments: semantic implication and drash (rabbinic derivation).
2. The division of the methods of drash into two types.
3. To which of the two does inclusion belong?
4. What is discussed in Maimonides’ second root-principle?
5. Why is the rule that one does not derive from what has itself been derived not applied in sacrificial law?
6. What is the rule in sacrificial law that “Scripture must repeat a requirement in order to make it indispensable”?
7. The importance of general rules for understanding different rulings in Maimonides.
8. How many valid interpretations can Scripture bear?
9. Is drash a genuine interpretation? What is the difference between it and peshat (plain sense)?

The Principles

• Inclusion.
• One does not derive from what has itself been derived.
• In sacrificial law, Scripture must repeat a requirement in order to make it indispensable.

A. Of What Are the Priestly Garments Made: Inclusion and Semantic Implication

“And they made the tunics of fine linen, the work of a weaver, for Aaron and for his sons; and the turban of fine linen, and the ornamental caps of fine linen, and the linen breeches of twisted fine linen; and the sash of twisted fine linen, and blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, the work of an embroiderer, as the Lord commanded Moses.”

(Exodus 39:27-29)

The Rabbis taught: Wherever “shesh” is stated, the thread is sixfold; “twined” means eightfold; the robe, twelvefold; the curtain, twenty-fourfold; the breastpiece and ephod, twenty-eightfold.

From where do we know that the thread is sixfold? Because Scripture says: “And they made the tunics of shesh … and the turban of shesh, and the ornamental caps of shesh, and the linen breeches of twined shesh.” Five occurrences are written. One is needed for itself, to teach that they must be of linen. One teaches that the thread must be sixfold. One teaches that they must be twined. One teaches this regarding the other garments in which “shesh” is not stated. And one teaches that these requirements are indispensable…

(Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 71b)

The Rabbis taught: “Bad” means that they must be of linen. “Bad” means that they must be new. “Bad” means that they must be twined. “Bad” means that their thread must be sixfold. “Bad” means that he may not wear ordinary garments with them.

Abaye said to Rav Yosef: Granted, “that they must be of linen” — this teaches us that linen, yes, but anything else, no. But as for “bad” meaning that they must be new: new, yes; worn, no? Yet a baraita teaches: if they are worn, they are valid!

He said to him: According to your reasoning, “bad” meaning that their thread must be sixfold is also difficult, for “bad” implies single, one by one, separately! Rather, this is what it means: garments regarding which “bad” is stated must be of linen, new, twined, and have thread that is sixfold; some of these are a matter of preferred practice, and some are indispensable.

(Babylonian Talmud, Zevahim 18b)

“Bad” — meaning that it is of linen, as explained below from the semantic implication. “New” — as they were when still in their flax stalks. “That they be twined and that their thread be sixfold” — below the Gemara challenges this, since “bad” by itself means alone, as in by itself. “That he should not wear ordinary garments with them” — for it implies that he should wear them alone.

“According to your reasoning” — if you derive it from the semantic implication, from where does he derive that their thread must be sixfold?

“Garments in which ‘bad’ is stated require…” “Some are a commandment” — newness, for beauty, since it does not come from the semantic implication. “And some are indispensable” — linen, twined, and sixfold thread. Linen, as he goes on to explain: something that grows from the ground stalk by stalk. Twined, since “bad” means linen, and elsewhere Scripture calls them “twined shesh.” And sixfold thread, as we say in tractate Yoma 71b, where we derive from the verses that wherever “shesh” is stated the thread is sixfold, and it is derived there as indispensable.

“That grows from the ground stalk by stalk” — a single stalk from each root, and not two stalks growing from one root.

(Rashi ad loc.)

3. The white garments are four vestments in which the High Priest serves on Yom Kippur: a tunic, breeches, a sash, and a turban. All four are white, their thread is sixfold, and they are made only of linen…

4. Everywhere in the Torah where “shesh” or “bad” is stated, it means flax, that is, linen…

5. Everywhere in the Torah where “shesh” or “twined shesh” is stated, the thread must be sixfold. But where “bad” is stated, if it was a single thread alone it is valid, though it is preferable that it be sixfold…

(Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Temple Vessels 8)

Introduction

On this page we shall encounter a rare phenomenon. We shall return to Maimonides’ interpretive theory, which we briefly presented on the page for Parashat Yitro, and see that it has a direct consequence for halakha (Jewish law). We saw there that, according to Maimonides, drashot do not uncover what is already present in Scripture; they expand it. Usually such a claim is understood as a meta-halakhic interpretation, with no necessary legal consequence. According to most interpreters of Maimonides, the legal status of laws derived through drash, which Maimonides defines as laws of rabbinic origin, is the same as that of laws of Torah origin. The claim that they are rabbinic laws testifies only to their source — not in the Torah itself, but outside it — and not to their normative force. Surprisingly, we shall see here a legal implication that follows directly from this theoretical determination. From it we shall also understand several common rules relating to drashot, such as the rule that one does not derive from what has itself been derived. We shall thereby also understand the meaning of inclusive derivations, and their interpretive and logical status as against interpretations drawn from semantic implication and as against the other methods of drash.

The Verses in Our Portion

The verses cited above describe the making of some of the priestly garments. Mentioned here are the tunic, the turban, the caps, the breeches, and the sash. These garments are both the white garments of the High Priest, in which he serves on Yom Kippur, and the garments of the ordinary priest. Three of them — the tunic, the breeches, and the sash — are the same for the High Priest and the ordinary priest. On the head, however, there is a difference: the High Priest wears a turban, while the ordinary priests wear caps.

The Passage in Yoma

All the garments described here are made of shesh, that is, linen, and the Torah takes the trouble to repeat this requirement separately for each garment. The Babylonian Talmud in Yoma, quoted above, is troubled by this point: why did the Torah not write once, in general terms, that everything must be made of linen? The Gemara concludes that the repetition of the word “shesh” is meant to teach us several laws regarding the priestly garments: 1. for itself — that they must be made of linen; 2. that the linen thread from which they are made must be spun from six strands; 3. that the threads must be twined together; 4. that the other garments, with respect to which “shesh” is not stated, must also satisfy these requirements; 5. that these requirements are indispensable.¹

The Passage in Zevahim

In the parallel passage in Zevahim 18b there is a different derivation, also quoted above, that extracts five laws regarding garments for which the word “bad” is written. There it is derived that they must satisfy the following conditions: 1. they must be made of linen; 2. they must be new, like flax when it is still in the stalk in which it grew — that is, fresh; 3. they must be twined; 4. they must be sixfold; 5. one may not wear ordinary garments together with them.

This derivation does not mention any superfluity, that is, it does not note that the word “bad” appears several times unnecessarily. It therefore looks like a derivation based on the meaning of the word “bad” itself. Hence it is not surprising that specifically in this passage there arises a discussion over what follows from the meaning of the word “bad” and what follows from some act of drash. In the Yoma passage there is apparently no discussion of this point, presumably because the superfluity in the verse can teach everything by way of drash.

In the Zevahim passage Rashi explains that the meaning of “bad” is linen. In other words, that point is learned from the meaning of the word itself. As for the other requirements, they do not seem to arise from the plain meaning of the word. Some of them even contradict the plain meaning. Indeed, Abaye objects to the requirement that the garments be new, on the basis of a baraita that states that, after the fact, even worn garments are valid. Rav Yosef answers him that, on Abaye’s own view, there is another problem as well: the requirement that the thread be spun from six strands contradicts the meaning of the verse, since “bad” means single, not multiple. From the wording of the Gemara it is not clear why this is connected to Abaye’s difficulty. Does Rav Yosef have a better explanation of how one derives from this verse a law that contradicts its plain sense? Why does he link this problem to Abaye’s difficulty raised from the baraita?

Rashi, in his commentary here, addresses this and explains that Abaye’s intent was to object on the basis of the plain wording of the verse. Abaye’s claim is that the verse does not imply that the garment must be new, and the baraita he cites is merely evidence for that, since it shows that this is not an indispensable requirement. Rav Yosef responds that sixfold spinning also does not fit the plain sense of the verse, and on that point Abaye certainly agrees that this is indeed the law, and that it is indispensable as well. Its source is the Yoma passage cited above, as Rashi notes in his commentary, and as we indeed saw there: even garments with respect to which the word “shesh” is not stated must be spun from six strands, and these rules are indispensable.

The Gemara concludes that among the laws stated with regard to these garments, some are indispensable and some are only required ab initio. Rashi goes on to set the criterion that distinguishes between the two kinds of laws: those that are not indispensable are the laws that come from drash, namely, that the garments must be new. The indispensable laws are those that arise from semantic implication: that they be made of linen, spun from six strands, and twined.

Summary of Rashi’s Approach

According to Rashi’s approach, only the laws that emerge from the meaning of the verse are indispensable. Still, it is hard to infer from here that, for every law stated explicitly, we would not need the principle that “Scripture must repeat it in order to make it indispensable.” The reason these laws are indispensable is presumably the derivation in the Yoma passage, which teaches that these laws are indispensable. By contrast, the laws that emerge from drash are not indispensable. According to Rashi, the two categories are these:

1. Indispensable, because derived from semantic implication:
   – being made of linen;
   – being spun from six strands;
   – being twined.

2. Not indispensable, because derived by drash:
   – being new.

As for the rule that one may not wear ordinary garments together with them, it is not clear from Rashi where to place it — whether it arises from the meaning of the word or from drash, and therefore whether it is indispensable or not.²

Rashi understands that all the derivations in the Yoma passage are based on semantic implication, not on drash, and therefore they are indispensable. Only the law that the garments must be new does not appear there, and indeed it is not indispensable.

These remarks require some explanation. The Gemara in the Yoma passage derives these laws by way of drash. Moreover, the fact that they are indispensable is itself learned by drash and not by semantic implication. If there were a rule that laws learned from semantic implication are indispensable, then it is unclear why one needs a derivation from the word “shesh” to teach this. Nor does that fit the rule we know in sacrificial law, namely, that every law, even one explicitly written in a verse, is not indispensable unless Scripture repeated it with that effect.

It therefore seems that Rashi does not mean to say that there is a general rule that whatever appears explicitly is always indispensable even in sacrificial law, and that the principle that “Scripture must repeat it in order to make it indispensable” applies only to laws derived by drash. Rather, Rashi’s point seems to be this: in the Yoma passage there is a derivation teaching us that the laws appearing there are indispensable. But it is not clear which of them are indispensable. All of them? And what of the laws regarding garments for which the word “bad” is stated and not the word “shesh”? Are the three laws learned there also indispensable for those garments?

Rashi seems to hold that the laws stated in that very verse are indispensable, because the derivation that teaches their indispensability also appears in that verse. By contrast, the law derived only from the word “bad” — that the garments must be new — does not appear in that verse, since it is learned not from “shesh” but from “bad.” Therefore the rule that it is indispensable does not apply to it. The reason is not that it is learned by drash, but that it is learned by drash elsewhere.³

Maimonides’ Approach

From Maimonides’ words in Laws of the Temple Vessels 8:14, quoted above, it emerges that he does not learn the passage in Zevahim as Rashi understood it. Maimonides rules there that where Scripture says “shesh” or “twined shesh,” the rule that the thread must be spun from six strands is indispensable. But where Scripture says “bad,” it is only preferable that the thread be sixfold. In other words, Maimonides distinguishes between places where “bad” is written and places where “shesh” is written, and he does not seem to divide the laws learned from the word “bad” into two categories, as Rashi does.

The Proposal of Maimonides’ Commentators

Maimonides’ commentators address this disagreement and understand that he read the passage in Zevahim differently from Rashi. The Kesef Mishneh, on 8:14, suggests that Maimonides simply divides the laws learned in Zevahim differently: what is indispensable is that there be one kind of thread — apparently meaning one type of thread, namely linen, without blue, purple, and scarlet — whereas the law of sixfold spinning is not indispensable. The Kesef Mishneh itself notes that this is very forced in the wording of the Gemara. Nor is it clear how this connects to the distinction between semantic implication and drash, and the entire give-and-take between Abaye and Rav Yosef — which takes for granted that sixfold spinning is indeed indispensable — becomes unclear.

Rabbi Yosef Korkus, there on the spot, offers another explanation of the Zevahim passage. According to his proposal, Rav Yosef answers Abaye that in fact the law of sixfold spinning is not indispensable after the fact, just like the law that the garments must be new. And all this is only where Scripture says “bad”; where it does not say “bad,” it is indispensable, as in the Yoma passage. That is, “some of them are indispensable” applies where “shesh” is stated, and “some of them are not indispensable” applies where “bad” is stated. According to this, where “bad” is written, none of the laws is indispensable, unlike Rashi, who divides them into two categories. Still, the course of the Gemara remains unclear — both the relation to Abaye’s objection and the relation between semantic implication and drash.⁴

Our Proposal for Explaining Maimonides

In our view, the more plausible explanation of Maimonides is to say that he in fact read the Zevahim passage as Rashi did, but he regarded it as contradicting the Yoma passage and therefore ruled in accordance with Yoma. The proof is that the law that one may not wear ordinary garments with them, which is one of the laws learned only in Zevahim, is not brought by Maimonides at all. By contrast, in Laws of the Temple Vessels 8:4 he does indeed bring the other law learned only from Zevahim, namely, that the garments must be new, and the commentators there also inferred from his wording that he rules that this is only preferable and not indispensable. However, he derives that law from a different verse, and not from the word “bad,” as in the Zevahim passage:

The commandment regarding the priestly garments is that they be new, attractive, and well-proportioned, like the garments of dignitaries, as it is said: “for glory and for splendor”…

(Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Temple Vessels 8:4)

From this a general picture emerges: Maimonides did not codify the Zevahim passage at all. For him, the laws of twisting and of spinning from six strands come from the Yoma passage, which, as noted, he does codify. But now we must ask ourselves: from where did Maimonides derive the conclusion that in places where Scripture says not “shesh” but “bad,” the law of sixfold spinning is not indispensable? After all, the Yoma passage explicitly says that the laws learned there apply also to garments with respect to which “shesh” is not written, that is, where “bad” is written, and it also indicates there that these laws are indispensable. Beyond that, it is not clear why Maimonides infers any contradiction at all between the two passages.

B. Rules in Interpreting Maimonides: Peshat and Drash

A Necessary General Introduction for Understanding Maimonides

There is a common failure in interpreting Maimonides, noted by Rabbi Nahum Eliezer Rabinovitch in the introduction to his book Studies in the Thought of Maimonides.⁵ Rabbi Rabinovitch explains that the commentators on Maimonides divide into two camps:

1. Those who formulate general rules for understanding Maimonides’ words. A considerable portion of these rules comes from Maimonides himself, who possessed a highly developed self-reflective sense and was one of the few medieval authorities who took the trouble to explain his own methodological rules in great detail. Yet these commentators do not usually apply those rules to local difficulties.
2. Ordinary commentators, who treat each difficulty locally and try to answer it only in its immediate context, while ignoring the overall system of rules, including those established by Maimonides himself.

Rabbi Rabinovitch argues there that in order to understand Maimonides’ thought properly one must apply the general rules when resolving local difficulties as well. The discussion with which we are concerned here is a good example of that principle. Here too we are dealing with the application of a rule on which Maimonides himself insists in several places, in order to understand what he says in our passage.

Peshat and Drash in Maimonides’ Thought

From several passages in Maimonides⁶ it emerges that his definition of “Torah law” differs from the accepted one. According to most commentators, laws of Torah origin are laws that reflect the direct will of God. By contrast, laws of rabbinic origin are laws whose source lies in a decision of the Sages — although the authority of the Sages may itself be nourished by the Torah, for example by the prohibition “do not turn aside.” Here is not the place to pursue those disputes.

By contrast with all of these, Maimonides defines laws of Torah origin as laws that appear in the written text, and laws of rabbinic origin, or “the words of the Sages,” as laws that do not appear in the written text. For example, Maimonides states in several places that a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai is a law of rabbinic origin; see, for example, his Commentary on the Mishnah, Kelim 17:12, and Responsa of Maimonides, no. 355 in the Blau edition. In the second root-principle Maimonides determines that laws emerging from drash are likewise not ordinary Torah laws, but laws of rabbinic origin.⁷

It is important to understand that the terms “rabbinic” and “Torah” in Maimonides’ thought usually denote, and certainly do in these contexts, the source of the laws and not necessarily their force or legal standing. Laws whose source is the Torah itself are called laws of Torah origin, while laws whose source is outside the text are called laws of rabbinic origin. In certain respects, Maimonides thereby identifies the distinction between Written Torah and Oral Torah with the distinction between Torah law and rabbinic law. As noted, virtually all other commentators disagree with him on this point.⁸

As Nahmanides already observes in his glosses to the second root-principle, the assumption that leads Maimonides to this surprising conclusion — for which he offers no substantial proof — is chiefly the interpretive assumption that Scripture can have only one valid interpretation, and no more. In the language of the Sages: “A verse never departs from its plain sense.” Nahmanides disagrees with him on this point; see briefly the page on Parashat Vayetze, part 3.

Nahmanides expresses himself as follows; the discussion is on pages 74-78 of the Frankel edition:

And behold, the Rabbi [Maimonides] hung this collapsing mountain on a hair, saying: “The principle our Sages, peace be upon them, gave us is their statement: ‘A verse does not depart from its plain sense’…”

(Nahmanides, Glosses to Maimonides’ second root-principle)

In order to explain why this is only “a hair,” and why Maimonides’ mountain is therefore “a collapsing mountain,” Nahmanides attacks Maimonides directly on his most basic conception of interpretation. He states that there can indeed be several different interpretations of the same biblical verse at one and the same time.⁹ Nahmanides writes, page 78:

And so it is in every place where they expound by way of parable and figurative language: they believe that both are true, the inner and the outer…

And again, at the end of his remarks on this subject, page 78:

This is their statement: “A verse does not depart from its plain sense.” They did not say: “A verse means only its plain sense.” Rather, we have its drash together with its peshat, and it does not depart from either of them. The verse can bear them all, and both are true.

In any event, Maimonides himself thinks that each verse can have only one valid interpretation. If so, a difficult question immediately arises: according to Maimonides, are the laws that emerge from drash not true? Do they not correctly describe the intention of the verses? Maimonides himself sensed this problem and raised it in the second root-principle immediately after laying out his view regarding the relation between peshat and drash. He answers by saying that the laws derived through drash are “branches from the roots that were told to Moses at Sinai in explanation, and these are the 613 commandments.”

Maimonides’ meaning is that drash is certainly correct, but it is not an interpretation of the text; it is an expansion of the text. The law learned from drash cannot be considered an interpretation of the verse, because only peshat is the one valid interpretation of the verse. But this does not mean that drash is false; it means only that it is not an interpretation of the verse. As we explained on the page for Parashat Yitro, according to Maimonides the law that emerges from drash is not uncovered from the text but built upon it, as a branch grows from a root — against the view of Tosafot there, who apparently hold as Nahmanides does here.

Returning to Maimonides on Midrash

We can now apply this general rule in order to understand Maimonides’ view regarding the priestly garments. As noted, in the Yoma passage we include the other garments, for which “shesh” is not written, by means of one of the superfluous occurrences of the word “shesh” in our portion. According to what we have said here in explaining Maimonides, that inclusion does not uncover a law already present in the verses; it constructs a new law that expands what is present in the verses.¹⁰

Immediately afterward, we derive from another superfluous word that all the laws stated here are indispensable. To what does that law apply? Quite simply, to all the laws found in the verse from which it is derived. If we derive that everything stated in that verse is indispensable, then it applies to all the laws found in that verse. But are the laws regarding garments for which “shesh” is not written also found in those verses? As we saw above, according to Maimonides, the answer is no. The laws regarding such garments are learned by inclusion, and as we have seen, drash, and especially inclusion, constitutes an expansion of the text and not its decipherment. Therefore the laws regarding garments in which “shesh” is not written are not present in those verses, and the inclusion that teaches that the laws in those verses are indispensable does not apply to them.

Now Maimonides’ view emerges clearly on its own. For garments in which “shesh” is written, all the laws derived with regard to them fall under the principle that they are indispensable. But for garments in which “bad” is written and not “shesh,” those same laws apply by way of inclusion, yet they are not indispensable. The conclusion is that one inclusive derivation cannot be built upon another.

Of course, this conclusion requires systematic investigation. We must examine whether, in every place where there is an inclusive derivation regarding laws arising from certain verses, Maimonides indeed does not apply it to laws derived from those very verses by way of inclusion.¹¹

This is also the contradiction Maimonides finds between the two passages. From the Yoma passage, on his view, it follows that these laws are indispensable with respect to the white garments, but not indispensable with respect to the other garments. But from the Zevahim passage it follows that even for the other garments some of them are indispensable. Maimonides read the passage there as Rashi did, for that is the simple reading, as later authorities wrote.

As stated, this is a unique example in which Maimonides’ interpretive theory yields a legal result. A systematic test of this thesis would require a study of situations involving an inclusion built on another inclusion.

C. What Is Inclusion?

Returning to Rashi

This point brings us back again to Rashi’s approach. As we concluded above, according to Rashi the distinction is not between laws derived from semantic implication and laws derived by drash. Rashi’s meaning is that laws learned from somewhere else, and not from our verses, are not subject to the rule learned from these verses that declares them indispensable. But laws learned by inclusion from our verses certainly are indispensable, such as sixfold spinning in garments for which “shesh” is not written. Rashi thus understands inclusion as revealing, not expanding, for in his view the teaching that a law is indispensable applies even to laws that emerge from inclusion from the text. For him, laws derived by inclusion are considered present in Scripture itself. This is like Tosafot on the page for Parashat Yitro, and like Nahmanides here. By contrast, Maimonides holds that even laws derived by inclusion from these very verses are not considered present in them, and therefore the rule that they are indispensable does not apply to them.

Inclusion and the Thirteen Hermeneutical Rules

We may conclude the discussion with a brief examination of the hermeneutical principle of inclusion. At the beginning of the second root-principle Maimonides states that laws that emerge from drash are not to be counted, and he specifies: the thirteen hermeneutical rules and inclusion. The other methods of drash are apparently not included in the discussion of the second root-principle. The question is: what is the difference between the thirteen hermeneutical rules and the other methods of drash? We must also understand why inclusion is itself grouped together with the thirteen rules.

On the page for Parashat Vayeshev we discussed the three explanations proposed by the author of Sefer HaKeritut for why Rabbi Ishmael decided to include in his baraita of rules only the thirteen rules. The author of Sefer HaKeritut explains that the baraita does not include rules that are disputed, nor rules of aggadic exposition, nor rules that are considered explicit in the biblical verses. For our purposes, the third criterion is the important one. From his remarks it follows that accepted rules of halakhic exposition that are nevertheless not included in the baraita are only rules that are considered explicit in the verse.¹²

According to this proposal of the author of Sefer HaKeritut, we can understand Maimonides as well. As we saw above, in the second root-principle Maimonides deals only with rules that are not considered explicit in the verse, but only with rules that expand the verse. Therefore he deals only with Rabbi Ishmael’s thirteen rules, since the other rules are considered explicit in the verse and therefore produce laws of Torah origin. In the second root-principle Maimonides deals only with expansive rules, which generate laws of rabbinic origin.

According to this, we must examine the nature of inclusion. Why does Maimonides, contrary to Rabbi Ishmael’s own decision, include it among the rules that are not explicit in the verse? It may be that Maimonides includes it in the system of rules because he rules after a historical process — carried out especially in the Amoraic period, though not only there — that integrated Rabbi Akiva’s methods of exposition, which used inclusions and exclusions, into Rabbi Ishmael’s rules, which used general and particular categories, thereby creating a broader and more varied hermeneutical system. See the pages for Parashat Toldot and Parashat Vayetze.

The conclusion is that Maimonides sees inclusion as a rule that expands what is said in the verse, not as one that reveals it. For example, in the second root-principle Maimonides attacks BeHaG for counting laws learned by inclusion, such as the obligation to revere Torah scholars, which is included from the word “et.” He asks why BeHaG does not also count the duty to honor one’s stepmother, one’s stepfather, or one’s elder brother, all of which are likewise learned by inclusion from the word “et” in the verse “Honor your father and your mother.” Nahmanides, in his glosses there, defends BeHaG by saying that these commandments are included within the commandment of honoring father and mother. This implies that, for Maimonides, who challenges BeHaG, they are not included in that commandment. We see from here that in Maimonides’ view, laws learned by inclusion are not included in the commandments present in the verse from which they are included. This is exactly the point we made here.

The Connection to the Question of “Deriving from the Derived”

We mentioned at the outset that there are several differences between sacrificial law and other areas of halakha. We have already noted the rule that in sacrificial law “Scripture must repeat a requirement in order to make it indispensable.” Beyond that, in sacrificial law one often does not derive from what has itself been derived; see the discussion in the Babylonian Talmud, Zevahim 50a and the surrounding passage. That is, one does not apply one of the thirteen hermeneutical rules to the result of a previous application of one of those rules, although there are quite a few exceptional cases there. There are other differences between these areas as well, but we shall not deal with them here, nor with the question of the common denominator between them.

We wish to note only one point here. In effect, the rule we arrived at here is a kind of principle that one does not derive from what has itself been derived. We have seen that one cannot apply an inclusion to the result of another inclusion. This is really the prohibition against deriving from the derived in sacrificial law, applied to inclusions. It should be remembered that in the Zevahim passage the principle of deriving from the derived is stated only with respect to the thirteen hermeneutical rules, whereas here we see something analogous to it also with respect to inclusion. Perhaps this phenomenon is connected to what we saw above: inclusion has a character similar to that of the thirteen rules, since, just like them, it is not considered explicit in the written text. For that reason, in the relatively late stages of the development of the methods of drash, it was joined to Rabbi Ishmael’s thirteen rules.

For this reason as well, it is reasonable to assume that such a rule would be subject to the principle that one does not derive from what has itself been derived. If this were a revealing rule, there would seem to be no reason why we could not apply one revealing rule to the result of another revealing rule. All these dimensions are present in the text, one within another. On our approach, the rule that one does not derive from what has itself been derived applies only to rules that do not reveal what is present in the text, but expand the text. It places a limit on the quantity of expansion — how far we may expand beyond what is in the text itself.¹³

From this we have learned something both about the nature of the rule that one does not derive from what has itself been derived, and about the nature of inclusion. Since inclusion, like the thirteen rules, expands the text — at least according to Maimonides — and since the rule that one does not derive from what has itself been derived applies only to expansive rules, it is clear that it applies both to the thirteen rules and to inclusion. The same is true of the principle in Maimonides’ second root-principle, which, as we have seen, is likewise stated only with respect to the fourteen expansive methods of derivation: the thirteen rules and inclusion.

Footnotes