Beha’alotcha (5764)

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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“Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, ‘Please, God, please heal her.'”

(Numbers 12:13)

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Had her father but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame seven days? Let her be shut up seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be brought in again.'”

(Numbers 12:14)

“So Miriam was shut up outside the camp seven days, and the people did not journey until Miriam was brought in again.”

(Numbers 12:15)

“Rabbi Ishmael says: The Torah is expounded by thirteen hermeneutical principles: by a kal va-homer (a fortiori inference), by a gezerah shavah (verbal analogy), etc.”

“How does kal va-homer work? ‘The Lord said to Moses, Had her father but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame seven days? Let her be shut up seven days.’ By a kal va-homer: with respect to the Divine Presence, fourteen days. However, it is enough for what is derived from an inference to be like the case from which it is derived; therefore Miriam shall be shut up seven days outside the camp, and afterward she shall be brought in again.”

(Sifra, Torat Kohanim, opening section)

Introduction

This baraita, which opens the Sifra, is known as the Baraita of Rabbi Ishmael’s Thirteen Principles, after its opening words, “Rabbi Ishmael says.” It is the source cited throughout rabbinic literature for the existence of the principle of kal va-homer and for its limitation—the dayyo principle (“it is enough”: what is derived from an inference cannot exceed the source case from which it is learned).

The verses in our Torah portion, Numbers 12:14–15, are expounded very extensively, and they serve as the biblical foundation for learning the details of kal va-homer and dayyo. In the “literature of rules,” hundreds of rules governing the application of this principle are based, at root, on this very kal va-homer of Miriam and the Divine Presence.¹ We will, with God’s help and without making a vow, return to this baraita many more times in many additional contexts. For the present, on this page we wish to address several basic aspects that will serve us later, such as the linguistic analysis of the verses above and the idea of dayyo.

Difficulties in the verses

1. Where, in the biblical verses above, are the expressions that hint that this is a kal va-homer derivation?
2. How does the expositor know that offending the Divine Presence would have caused Miriam to be shut up for fourteen days? From where does this number come, and why must one assume it?
3. Are these verses verses of command or verses of implementation—that is, is the discussion theoretical or descriptive?²
4. How and on what basis does the expositor present Miriam’s seven-day confinement as an application of dayyo to kal va-homer? Perhaps the Torah merely wishes to teach us the punishment of one who speaks ill of another, and no more.

The discussion in Bava Kamma on the exposition of the verses

The Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kamma 25b–26a, discusses the famous dispute between Rabbi Tarfon and the Sages in the Mishnah.³ According to the interpretation of the anonymous editorial layer there—”But is not dayyo mandated by the Torah?”⁴—in order to ground Rabbi Tarfon’s view in the verses from our Torah portion, the Talmud explains that the Sages and Rabbi Tarfon interpret the verses differently, but in everyone’s view dayyo is biblical.

To understand their exposition of the verses, we must first turn to the plain meaning of the biblical text.

The plain meaning of verses 13–15

These verses contain the Holy One’s response to Moses’ request: “Please, God, please heal her.”

The first half of verse 14—”The Lord said to Moses, Had her father but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame seven days?”—has no direct thematic connection to Moses’ request. It is therefore interpreted as the presentation of a hypothetical situation by the Holy One, intended to serve as the basis of the kal va-homer.⁵ It is as though He were saying: if Miriam had offended her father and he had needed to rebuke her, would she not have had to be ashamed—seven days, that is, to undergo rebuke? The key word that creates the linkage to kal va-homer is “would she not.”

The end of the verse—”Let her be shut up seven days outside the camp, and afterward she shall be brought in again”—may be interpreted in two ways:

1. As the direct continuation of the first half of the verse; that is, by kal va-homer, if she offended the Divine Presence, she should be shut up seven days.
2. As the result of a kal va-homer together with the limitation imposed by dayyo: by reasoning alone, she ought to have been shut up for at least fourteen days, but the Torah rules, because of dayyo, that she is shut up for only seven days.⁶

Verse 15—”So Miriam was shut up outside the camp…”—may likewise be interpreted in two ways:

1. According to the first possibility above, the Torah reports that this is indeed what was done; that is, it is a verse of implementation.
2. According to the second possibility, this verse cannot be interpreted as implementation, for on that reading the matter has already been stated in verse 14. It may therefore be understood differently—for example, that the Torah testifies that Miriam’s confinement, mentioned in verse 14, was imposed because of dayyo and not because of Moses’ honor. On that reading, this is a verse of command, not of implementation.

An explicit kal va-homer and an implicit kal va-homer

Thus, as explained above, the anonymous Talmud understands the Sages and Rabbi Tarfon with respect to these verses. In fact, these tannaim disagree about the character of the biblical kal va-homer in our portion.

In the Baraita of the Thirty-Two Principles, which presents thirty-two principles of aggadic exposition, the principle of kal va-homer appears as two distinct principles: an explicit kal va-homer and an implicit kal va-homer.⁷

According to the commentators, these terms are defined as follows:

• An explicit kal va-homer: “when both the case from which one learns and the case derived from it—that is, the matter learned from the source case—are both written and explicit in Scripture.”
• An implicit kal va-homer: “when Scripture contains only the source case from which one learns, while the derived case is not mentioned in Scripture.”⁸

According to Rabbi Tarfon, the biblical kal va-homer in our portion is implicit, because the Torah presents only the source case—”Had her father but spit in her face…”—but the derived case—that the Divine Presence adds another seven days to Miriam—is not written. It is therefore an implicit kal va-homer. Rabbi Tarfon completes the inference in accordance with his own rationale.

According to the Sages, the biblical kal va-homer in our portion is explicit, because the Torah writes the whole inference explicitly—source case plus derived case: the additional seven days with respect to the Divine Presence. In the language of the Gemara in Bava Kamma, “the seven days of the Divine Presence are written.” In fact, in this example we are not required to complete anything on our own.

Explanations of the “fourteen days”: the inferred rule in Miriam’s case

The author of Middot Aharon (pp. 136–138) presents, in the name of earlier commentators, several explanations that also make the idea of dayyo more intelligible.⁹

1. In the name of Rabbeinu Tam: “For there are three partners in a human being: the Holy One, his father, and his mother. Each of the latter gives five elements, while the Holy One gives ten. It follows that the Divine Presence has two shares, while the father has one share.” In other words, there is a simple numerical relation between the father’s seven days of confinement and seven additional days for the Divine Presence.

2. In the name of Rabbeinu Hayyim ha-Kohen: “By strict reasoning one should have said, by kal va-homer, that with respect to the Divine Presence it should be forever; but they took fourteen days corresponding to two periods of confinement, for we do not find more than two confinements. This same formulation appears in Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer: by kal va-homer, with respect to the Divine Presence, two confinements.” That is, in Scripture, in the laws of the leper, we do not find more than two periods of quarantine before one is declared definitively impure. This explanation is drawn from the practical law of the leper.

3. In the name of Rabbi Shimshon of Kinon in Sefer Keritut: “For we cannot add more than one level, since this verse comes to reveal to us the law of kal va-homer. It therefore comes to clarify and not to obscure. Hence, if you grasp the smaller measure, you have grasped it; but if you come to add more, you do not know how much.” This explanation is logical in nature. In a kal va-homer whose essence is amplification—that is, the derived case is greater than the source case—we cannot know by how much to amplify. Therefore dayyo equates the source case and the derived case.

4. A second reason in the name of Rabbi Shimshon of Kinon in Sefer Keritut: we find in the Torah that it did not elevate the honor of God by more than one degree. One who curses his father or mother and one who blasphemes God share the same mode of execution, namely stoning; Scripture elevated the honor of God by only one additional degree, in that beyond stoning there was also hanging, and so forth. This interpretation is drawn from the details of the laws of the derived case—that is, the Divine Presence.

5. Nahmanides’ explanation (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 111a), following the Mekhilta at the opening of Mishpatim: “If an Israelite serves six, the convert serves twelve.” Nahmanides explains that doubling is simply a common idiom of biblical language.

6. Ralbag, in Sha’arei Tzedek attributed to him: “An inference contains no more than what is found in its premises.” This is an explanation taken from classical logic.¹⁰

7. According to Sefer Keritut: dayyo is simply a scriptural decree, as in the possibility mentioned above.

Expanding the interpretation of the dispute between the Sages and Rabbi Tarfon

Now, on the basis of the interpretation of the biblical verses, we can explain this tannaitic dispute on additional levels as well.

Rabbi Tarfon holds that the basic kal va-homer—Miriam and the Divine Presence—is implicit. The Torah allows it to be turned into an explicit inference, and the result is that kal va-homer can function as an amplifying inference. That is, one goes beyond the limits of the source case and, by weighing leniency and stringency, applies to the derived case a law that is amplified—more lenient or more stringent than the source case.

When there is no internal legal boundary to this amplification, one may use additional external considerations to determine its limit; in our case, for example, the fact that we do not find more than two periods of confinement. Dayyo is one of the methods for determining the final legal boundary of the leniency or stringency learned from the source case. According to Rabbi Tarfon, the Torah requires us to employ the boundary of dayyo, provided that the amplification or novelty of the kal va-homer is preserved. Otherwise, what purpose would be served by the kal va-homer at all? On this view, kal va-homer is fundamentally an amplifying inference, and dayyo is a logical or contextual restriction.

The Sages, by contrast, view this kal va-homer—Miriam and the Divine Presence—as an explicit kal va-homer. The biblical, halakhic kal va-homer is not amplifying but equating. Relations of leniency and stringency are not intended to amplify the law; rather, they are meant to direct our attention to two laws or topics that stand in a logical relationship to one another.

Kal va-homer is only the trigger for performing an equating inference, just as similar words are the trigger for a gezerah shavah. The Torah innovates, and requires us, to use dayyo whenever kal va-homer is employed to establish a new halakha. In this very kal va-homer as well, dayyo leaves the kal va-homer with no new result at all. Hence dayyo is a scriptural decree, and one should not try to find in it any kind of logic. According to the Sages, this is the novelty: the obligation to apply dayyo even though, in extreme cases such as ours, it cancels the practical result of the kal va-homer.

Dayyo, then, is a kind of definition of the scope of kal va-homer, and that is why it is mentioned in the baraita as an immanent part of the principle itself.

The role of the biblical examples in the Baraita of the Thirteen Principles

After Rabbi Ishmael enumerates the thirteen principles by their formal names, the baraita returns to each principle in order to present it through biblical verses. The opening formula for each principle is fixed and takes the form: “X—how so?”

Among the medieval authorities, there are two approaches to understanding this formula.

Rashi, in tractate Zevahim, writes:

“In the case of kal va-homer—how so? From where do we know that the Torah may be expounded by kal va-homer?”

Rashbam, in tractate Bava Batra, writes:

“At the beginning of Torat Kohanim it is taught: Rabbi Ishmael says, The Torah is expounded by thirteen principles—by kal va-homer, by gezerah shavah, by binyan av (construction from a scriptural paradigm), and so forth—and then it explains them one by one. How does kal va-homer work? In what sort of matter do we expound one thing from another by means of kal va-homer?”

The commentators on the principles identified the disagreement between these two medieval authorities, and each tried to resolve it in his own way.

I wish to discuss this opening formula—”X: how so?”—and its interpretation in the context of kal va-homer, in order to complete the understanding of this important tannaitic source from another angle: the question of the source of the hermeneutical principles in general, and of kal va-homer in particular.

It seems that Rashi’s interpretation of the word “how so?” touches more directly on the question of the source of the principle than does the interpretation of his grandson Rashbam. According to the plain sense of the baraita, and according to the amoraic interpretation of the baraita in Bava Kamma, this indeed seems to be the case.

According to Rashi’s interpretation, the answer to the question “how so?” is a reference to the biblical verses—”Had her father but spit…”—from which we learn the source of the principle of kal va-homer. This interpretation faces several difficulties:

1. The accepted assumption among all commentators, medieval and later alike, is that the source of the principles is a halakha le-Moshe mi-Sinai (a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai). How, then, can this assumption be reconciled with Rashi’s interpretation of the opening formula concerning kal va-homer?
2. In all the other examples of the remaining principles, Rashi’s interpretation does not fit well. With the exception of kal va-homer, which is written almost explicitly in the Torah, the other principles are neither mentioned nor presented in Scripture as hermeneutical principles, but only within their local contexts. By means of the principles of interpretation, the Sages detach these verses from their local setting and expound them in accordance with the relevant principle.
3. According to Rashi, the wording should have been “From where?” and not “How so?”

Rashbam, perhaps because he was aware of these difficulties, took a different route and interpreted the opening formula differently. “In what sort of matter do we expound” is a substitute for “the mode of application of the principle to biblical verses”—something like a replacement for, or component of, a dictionary definition.

Rashbam understands that the baraita is meant to answer a vital need: how to apply the principles of interpretation to the biblical text in the absence of abstract definitions. According to this interpretation, the biblical sources presented as examples of the mode of application of the principles were carefully chosen to be the most suitable sources for that purpose.

This idea is implemented extensively in the amoraic and exegetical literature on the Bava Kamma discussion. The amoraic interpretation of the Baraita of the Thirteen Principles, in the matter of kal va-homer, serves as the main explanation of the tannaitic dispute in the Mishnah. The central rules of dayyo as well are, for the most part, based on the fundamental model in the Baraita of the Thirteen Principles.

If we are to understand Rashi’s interpretation, we must assume that he intended it only with respect to the principle of kal va-homer. This assumption, together with an additional explanation, can remove the difficulties I raised above in Rashi’s interpretation.

It seems that Rashi meant that kal va-homer is a principle actually written in the Torah, even though, like the other principles, it is also accepted as a halakha le-Moshe mi-Sinai. This principle has a unique practical significance: like the other principles, it was received as a halakha le-Moshe mi-Sinai, but in addition it is presented almost explicitly in Scripture.

A similar phenomenon appears in the principle that closes the list of the thirteen hermeneutical principles: “Likewise, when two verses contradict one another, until a third verse comes and decides between them.” With respect to this principle alone, the opening formula that introduces it in tannaitic sources is: “This is a principle in the Torah.”

The Ra’avad, in his commentary on the Baraita of Rabbi Ishmael, noted this and explained it as follows:

“Here, then, you have a principle written in the Torah, while all the rest are entirely from tradition, apart from the principle of two verses that contradict one another, which is also explicit in the Torah. For, as we say below, one verse says, ‘The Lord descended upon Mount Sinai,’ and another verse says, ‘From heaven I spoke with you.’ A third verse comes and decides between them, as it is said, ‘From heaven He made you hear His voice to discipline you, and on earth He showed you His great fire,’ and so forth.”

The Ra’avad explains that this principle, like kal va-homer, is one of the only two principles explicitly written in the Torah. The Torah does not command us to perform gezerah shavah expositions, nor does the Torah itself contain an example of a gezerah shavah being performed. When a piece of biblical information departs from the general rule, the Torah itself does not explain to us that the purpose of that departure was to be lenient rather than stringent, as stated in that principle of interpretation. It is the Sages who expound the verses in that way, because of the thirteen hermeneutical principles they received as a halakha le-Moshe mi-Sinai.

The exceptions are these two principles—kal va-homer and two verses that contradict one another—which the Torah itself demonstrates and presents as hermeneutical principles.

Because of this, the Ra’avad offered, with respect to “two verses,” an original and distinctive interpretation:

“And this is its meaning: this is a principle operative in the Torah, namely, that there are verses that contradict one another—that is, that appear to contradict one another—until a third verse comes and reconciles them. Therefore, from here we must learn to reconcile every two verses that stand in tension with one another, by reinterpreting or even setting one of them aside, rather than holding the Torah to be in error.”

The Ra’avad’s idea, which expands the mode of application of this principle to every pair of verses in the Torah that appears contradictory, even where there is no third verse, is not mentioned even by hint in the description of the principle itself in the baraita. The Ra’avad understands that this principle requires us to resolve every biblical contradiction between two verses, and to try to set one of them aside if necessary, because otherwise the Torah would be left in a state of corruption.

From where did the Ra’avad derive so sweeping and bold an idea? The answer lies in his own words: because this is a principle written in the Torah. That is to say, the Torah itself showed us how to act when faced with two contradictory verses. One must not leave them as they stand; rather, one is obligated to harmonize them and/or decide between them. The third verse is therefore presented as an example of the mode of application of the principle.

The Ra’avad does not complete the same idea with respect to kal va-homer, even though kal va-homer was the original trigger for the insight just described.

Similarly, one may apply the same idea to kal va-homer, since it too is a principle written in the Torah. The Torah explicitly showed us how to apply this principle in every respect, but especially in the matter of dayyo.

According to the Ra’avad’s idea, this demonstration expands the mode of application of kal va-homer beyond what follows from its formal presentation in the baraita. In what way can that mode of application be expanded? The mode of application of the formal hermeneutical kal va-homer—namely, a halakhic inference with quasi-biblical force based on three premises—is an expansion in the matter of kal va-homer, parallel to the expansion the Ra’avad made in the matter of “two verses that contradict one another.”

This explanation also answers additional questions, such as: if kal va-homer is logical, why do we need authorization from the Holy One to apply it to biblical law? Because the formal, principle-based kal va-homer is itself an extension transmitted as a halakha le-Moshe mi-Sinai.

This extension was carried out by the Sages beginning in the tannaitic period—see, for example, the kal va-homer in Mishnah Bava Kamma 24b—and in fact most kal va-homer arguments in rabbinic literature are of this formal, principle-based kind.

The Ra’avad assumed that this fact was familiar and well known to everyone, and therefore did not trouble to explain it, just as he did not spell out the extension in the matter of “two verses.”

This idea of the Ra’avad brings the views of Rashi and Rashbam very close together, and it somewhat reduces the apparent contradiction that arises from their interpretations of the opening formula “how so?” and from the implications of those interpretations concerning the source of the hermeneutical principles.

Footnotes