Vaetchanan (5765)

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 Holy Sabbath, Parashat Va’etchanan, 5766

Questions

1. Does the midrash (rabbinic interpretation) read the wording of Scripture differently from the peshat (plain sense), or does it merely generate additional laws?
2. When there is an external constraint that changes the legal result stated in a verse, does that also change the meaning of the verse itself, or not?
3. Is there a commandment to write the Song of Ha’azinu?
4. Another example of a halakhic gematria.

The hermeneutical principle

Gematria.

“And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.”
— Deuteronomy 6:9

Rav Pappa came to the house of Mar Shmuel. He saw a doorway that had only one side-post on the left, and a mezuzah had been affixed to it. He said to him: In accordance with whom is this? In accordance with Rabbi Meir? …
What is Rabbi Meir’s view? For it was taught: A house that has only one side-post—Rabbi Meir obligates it in mezuzah, and the Sages exempt it. What is the reason of the Sages? Because Scripture says “doorposts” in the plural. And what is the reason of Rabbi Meir? For it was taught: “Doorposts”—I might infer a minimum of two doorposts. But when it says “doorposts” in the second paragraph, which is unnecessary, this is an amplification after an amplification, and an amplification after an amplification serves only to restrict. Scripture has therefore restricted the requirement to one doorpost. These are the words of Rabbi Yishmael. Rabbi Akiva says: There is no need for this, for when it says, “upon the lintel and upon the two doorposts,” the word “two” is unnecessary. What then does “two” teach? This establishes a general rule: everywhere that “doorposts” is stated, it means only one, unless Scripture explicitly specifies two.
— Babylonian Talmud, Menachot 34a

A. Summary of last year’s article

In the Menachot discussion, the tannaitic sages disagree about a doorway that has a side-post only on one side. The Sages exempt such a doorway from mezuzah, whereas Rabbi Meir obligates it. The verse itself uses the plural form, “doorposts,” and therefore the view of the Sages in the teaching is to exempt such a doorway from mezuzah. Rabbi Meir, however, obligates it. The rationale cited for Rabbi Meir may be based either on Rabbi Yishmael’s exposition or on Rabbi Akiva’s.

Rabbi Yishmael expounds here by means of the principle, “an amplification after an amplification serves only to restrict.” Rabbi Akiva argues that there is no need for this exposition, because another passage clarifies that the expression “doorposts” means one doorpost, unless the Torah explicitly states “the two doorposts.” We noted that Rabbi Akiva’s wording implies that in principle he accepts Rabbi Yishmael’s exposition, and only claims that it is unnecessary here. Rabbi Yishmael, by contrast, apparently does not accept Rabbi Akiva’s exposition at all.

We noted that perhaps they are following their broader methods: Rabbi Akiva derives inclusions and exclusions from every word, and even every letter. Rabbi Yishmael, by contrast, adopts the rule that “the Torah speaks in human language” (see the pages for Parashat Toldot and Vayetze, 5765).

Both sages must explain the following difficulty: the plain sense of the word “doorposts” is indeed plural. If so, how are we to understand the verse after the exposition establishes that even a single side-post is sufficient?¹ Our conclusion was that the literal meaning of the word “doorposts” is indeed plural, and Rabbi Akiva’s and Rabbi Yishmael’s considerations belong to the realm of drash (exegetical interpretation), not to the level of literal plain sense. From this we reached the conclusion that the rule “an amplification after an amplification serves only to restrict” is one of the rules of drash. We should recall that in the article for Parashat Miketz, 5765, we proposed viewing several applications of the rule “a restriction after a restriction serves only to amplify” as interpretations on the level of plain sense.²

One may ask why the Torah does not write directly in the singular—”and you shall write them upon the doorpost of your house”—so that we would not err about the legal meaning. It could have been formulated so that the plain sense would lead us to the legal conclusion, rather than drash. The answer to this question depends on different approaches to the concept of drash (see the page for Parashat Masei, 5765). We saw there that some approaches hold that the plain sense is intended to teach non-legal lessons—philosophical, moral, reasons for the commandment, hidden meaning, and the like. Other approaches hold that drash is the true plain sense, but those approaches do not fit what we saw here. And there are still other approaches according to which even the plain sense must have legal significance.

We presented an illustration of the third approach, according to which the Torah is trying to hint that although one side-post is enough to create an obligation of mezuzah, the doorway must still have two sides. A possible consequence would be a case in which one wall extends beyond the place of the opening, while on the other side there is a side-post at the edge of the wall; but this is not the place to elaborate.

Thus, this principle belongs to the realm of drash. In the second half of the article, we pointed out that this principle and the principle “a restriction after a restriction serves only to amplify” (discussed on the page for Parashat Vayeshev, 5765) do not appear in any of the tannaitic lists of hermeneutical principles.

In the fifth part of Sefer Keritut, called Leshon Limmudim (part 1, principles 12–13), Rabbi Samson of Chinon brings the principles that were not included in the tannaitic lists—about thirty of them, including these two. He notes that only when it is impossible to restrict twice do we interpret a double restriction as amplification, and only when it is impossible to amplify twice do we interpret a double amplification as restriction. This is the difference between the two principles of Rabbi Eliezer ben Rabbi Yose ha-Gelili (principles 3 and 4) and these two principles.

On the page for Parashat Vayeshev, 5765, we saw that a double restriction teaches amplification. The logic of this exposition is very simple: the second restriction does not restrict the subject itself, but rather the first restriction; and when one restricts the restriction, amplification results. In other words, the second restriction teaches us that there is less restriction than we had thought, and amplification therefore results. Our claim was that all instances of the principle “a restriction after a restriction serves only to amplify” are based on this logic, although sometimes this is a rule of drash and not merely a simple interpretive consideration.

By contrast, it seems obvious that there is no parallel logical move that can explain the principle “an amplification after an amplification serves only to restrict.” Even if we understand the two amplifications as referring to one another, an amplification of an amplification does not produce a restriction.

We cited the words of Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Fano, according to whom the amplification is a restriction of the conditions of obligation: the amplification of “doorposts” is in fact a restriction of the doorways obligated in mezuzah—only doorways that have two doorposts. Therefore, an amplification after an amplification sometimes functions in practice like a restriction after a restriction. We saw that this is problematic, at least in certain cases and according to certain views.

We then considered the historical development of the hermeneutical principles, in light of the fact that the principle “a restriction after a restriction serves only to amplify” does not appear in tannaitic literature. We suggested that this is probably the result of a process of development and conceptualization of methods of drash, which we discussed in the articles for Parashat Lekh-Lekha, Vayikra, and Nitzavim, 5765.

We raised the possibility that the principle “an amplification after an amplification serves only to restrict” is included within another principle that does appear in the tannaitic lists, and from there later developed into an independent principle. We suggested that this may be the principle of “a generalization followed by a generalization” in the school of Rabbi Yishmael, or “an amplification followed by an amplification” in the school of Rabbi Akiva.

This historical-evolutionary discussion may also illuminate the logical problem discussed above. Even if there is no logical rationale behind the principle “an amplification after an amplification,” it may nevertheless be a development within a family of hermeneutical principles that was accepted by tradition from Sinai—the family of “generalization and specification” principles.

We concluded with a linguistic discussion: why is this principle described as “an amplification after an amplification,” rather than “a generalization after a generalization”? We suggested that this is because we apply this principle only where we have no possibility of amplifying twice. If that is possible, we use the principle of “an amplification after an amplification” from Rabbi Eliezer ben Rabbi Yose ha-Gelili’s list. Therefore this principle is described as “an amplification after an amplification serves only to restrict,” in order to teach us that, contrary to intuition, here the result is not amplification but restriction.³

B. Drash and the Language of the Torah

Introduction

In last year’s article we pointed out that there are legal conclusions that are obtained through the methods of drash and do not accord with the wording of Scripture. Sometimes drash offers an alternative reading to the plain reading, and sometimes it offers no coherent reading of the scriptural text at all, but only a local extension.

In this year’s article we will deal briefly with the question of reading the scriptural text through the “lenses” of drash.

Example: the opening discussion of Sanhedrin on a court of three

The Mishnah at the beginning of tractate Sanhedrin deals with the composition of courts in various legal contexts. It opens as follows:

“Monetary cases are judged by three; cases of theft and bodily injury by three …”

The Mishnah rules that a court for monetary matters consists of three judges. In the Gemara they look for a source for this law, and on Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 3b, the following exposition appears:

From where do we know three? For the Sages taught: “‘Then the master of the house shall approach the judges’—here is one; ‘the case of both of them shall come before the judges’—here are two; ‘whom the judges shall condemn’—here are three.” These are the words of Rabbi Yoshiyah. Rabbi Yonatan says: “The first occurrence was stated at the outset, and initial statements are not expounded. Rather: ‘the case of both of them shall come before the judges’—here is one; ‘whom the judges shall condemn’—here are two; and a court may not be evenly balanced, so we add one more; here are three.”

From the number of times the word translated here as “judges” appears in the passage, we learn that a court for monetary cases requires three judges. This is an application of gematria (a hermeneutical inference based on numerical value or count), one of whose forms is based on counting the number of appearances of a key word in a passage. On the page for Parashat Balak, 5766, we discussed this principle in its various forms and presented several examples of its application.

The tannaitic sages disagree about this exposition. According to Rabbi Yoshiyah, we count three appearances of the word “judges” in the passage, and from that derive that a court requires three judges. According to Rabbi Yonatan, only two of them are relevant to the exposition—the reasons are discussed later in the Talmudic passage—and therefore only two judges can be derived. However, there is a separate rule that a court may not be evenly balanced, and therefore the court must contain at least three judges.

Two ways to understand Rabbi Yonatan

Rabbi Yonatan’s exposition can be understood in two ways:

1. From the standpoint of this passage, two judges are sufficient for the court. However, the external rule that a court may not be evenly balanced compels us to rule that three judges are required.
2. The rule that a court may not be evenly balanced reveals to us that the minimum requirement for a monetary court is three judges. According to this possibility, the rule operates on the interpretive plane, not on the legal plane. It tells us that what the passage means is three judges, not two.

According to possibility 1, the meaning of the term translated “judges” is a court of two judges, whereas according to possibility 2 its meaning is a court of three judges.

We will now present another example in which similar interpretive alternatives arise because of an external principle that compels the interpreter.

Another example: the commandment to write a Torah scroll

In Parashat Vayelekh it says:

“And now, write for yourselves this song, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, so that this song may be for Me a witness among the children of Israel.”
— Deuteronomy 31:19

What is this “song”? Some commentators explain that it refers to the Song of Ha’azinu. Others explain that it refers to the entire Torah, which is called a “song.” And indeed, the Sages derive from this verse that every Jew has a mitzvah (commandment) to write a Torah scroll for himself, as stated in Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 21b:

Rava said—according to another textual tradition, Rabbah—: Even though a person’s ancestors left him a Torah scroll, it is a commandment to write one of his own, as it is said: “And now, write for yourselves this song” …

Maimonides cites this law and writes as follows (Laws of Tefillin and Mezuzah 7:1):

It is a positive commandment for every man of Israel to write a Torah scroll for himself, as it is said: “And now, write for yourselves this song”—that is, write for yourselves a Torah that contains this song, for one may not write the Torah in separate sections.

Maimonides spells out the Gemara’s consideration when it derives from this verse the commandment to write a Torah scroll. He says that there is a principle that one may not write the Torah in separate sections (see Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 60a), and therefore when the Torah says to write the song, we must write the entire Torah.

Here too, the move can be understood in two ways, parallel to the two we saw above regarding a court in monetary cases:

1. From the standpoint of the commandment “write for yourselves,” it would be enough to write the song and nothing more. However, the rule that the Torah may not be written in separate sections compels us to write the entire Torah.
2. The rule that the Torah may not be written in separate sections reveals to us that the meaning of the word “song” is the entire Torah. Here the rule operates on the interpretive plane and not on the legal plane.

According to possibility 1, the meaning of the word “song” is the Song of Ha’azinu. According to possibility 2, the meaning of the word “song” is the entire Torah.

Now, Maimonides’ wording cited above could be understood in either of these two ways. By contrast, in Sefer ha-Mitzvot, positive commandment 18, it seems quite clear that he intends the second possibility. This is his wording there:

The eighteenth commandment is that He commanded us that each of us have a Torah scroll of his own … and that is His exalted statement, “Write for yourselves this song.” For it is not permitted to write the Torah in separate sections, and therefore by “this song” He truly intended the entire Torah, which includes this song.

From his words here, especially the marked line, it appears that the meaning of the word “song” is the Torah that includes the song.

Two different conceptions of the relation of midrash to the wording of Scripture

The two possibilities that accompany these examples express two different ways of understanding the essence of midrash:

According to possibility 1, midrash does not change the meaning of what is said in Scripture. Nor does it offer a reading of the biblical wording different from the plain reading. According to this possibility, midrash merely teaches us an additional law beyond what is written in Scripture itself. From the standpoint of Scripture, we would have had to write only the song, and that remains its meaning even after the interpretive tools are applied. But the law requires us to carry this out differently because of the external constraint that the Torah may not be written in separate sections.

According to possibility 2, by contrast, midrash changes the meaning of the biblical wording. According to the plain sense, the verse refers to the song, whereas according to drash it refers to the entire Torah. This possibility treats midrash as proposing an alternative interpretation of the biblical wording, and not merely as generating some additional law beyond what is present in the plain sense.

A halakhic implication

The author of Sha’agat Aryeh discusses the commandment of writing a Torah scroll (sections 34–36), and with respect to Maimonides’ view he raises these two possibilities (in section 34). He also gives a practical legal difference between them: suppose a person wrote a Torah scroll, and it wore out, so that only the Song of Ha’azinu remained on the parchment. According to possibility 1, he has fulfilled his obligation, since the song alone is enough, and the constraint concerns only the prohibition against writing that passage by itself. According to possibility 2, however, he has not fulfilled his obligation, since in practice he does not now possess a Torah scroll.

He argues that Maimonides’ wording implies possibility 2, and therefore rules that in such a case the obligation has not been fulfilled.⁴ He then proves this from the Gemara, since it can be shown there that there is no legal difference between the king’s obligation to write a Torah scroll for himself and the ordinary person’s obligation. If possibility 1 were correct, there ought to be a legal difference between the two commandments: in the king’s case, the obligation is to write a Torah scroll, and therefore if it wore out he would have to write a new one. In the case of an ordinary person, however, the commandment would be only to write the song. On the other hand, from Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 38a, he proves that the meaning of the word “song” is the song alone and not the whole Torah; see there, where he cites a dispute among the medieval authorities on this matter.

A similar practical difference would also arise with respect to a court of three. What happens in a court where, for some reason, there is no problem of an evenly balanced court? According to possibility 1, in such a case two judges would suffice, since that is the Torah’s basic requirement. According to possibility 2, however, we would obviously have to add a third judge, since in the end that rule merely revealed to us the meaning of the term translated “judges” in the Torah, and we now know that it means three judges, regardless of the rule that a court may not be evenly balanced.

Maimonides’ view in the Commentary on the Mishnah at the opening of Sanhedrin

We find that Maimonides, in his Commentary on the Mishnah at the beginning of Sanhedrin, cites the source for a court of three in a somewhat different way:

The reason all these matters are judged by three people is the word of God in monetary law: “before the judges.” There are never fewer than two, and one of the principles in our Torah is that the number of judges must always be odd, so that if there is disagreement among them in some legal matter, at least a majority will agree with one opinion and the minority with the opposite, and we will follow the majority opinion, as the Torah obligated us by saying, “Incline after the majority.” Therefore a court cannot consist of fewer than three.

Maimonides derives the source for a court of three from the term translated “judges” itself, which is in the plural, and the minimum plural is two. But the principle that a court may not be evenly balanced compels us to add a third judge, and therefore a court cannot consist of fewer than three.

Several commentators have already noted that the description of the exposition here differs from that which appears in the Talmud, even according to Rabbi Yonatan. See Rabbi Qafih’s note ad loc., where he remains perplexed by Maimonides on this point. In Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 3b, we saw that Rabbi Yonatan derives the matter from two appearances of the word translated “judges,” and only afterward applies the rule that a court may not be evenly balanced. Maimonides, by contrast, derives the first two judges here from the plural form of the word itself. He does not use the principle of gematria at all here, which we discussed above.

It should be noted that later in the first chapter of Sanhedrin we do indeed find several expositions similar to the one cited here by Maimonides, deriving the number three from a plural expression in a given context together with the rule that a court may not be evenly balanced. But in the context of monetary cases, the Gemara derives it differently, as we saw above.

A difficulty in the relation between plain sense and drash in the Sanhedrin discussion

It may be that the solution to the difficulty in Maimonides’ words lies in the questions discussed above. How should he read the word translated “judges” that appears in the passage? Seemingly, the plain sense of the verse indicates that this word means the court before which the matter is adjudicated. The verses cited by the Gemara say: “the case of both of them shall come before the judges”; or “the master of the house shall approach the judges”; or “whom the judges shall condemn.” If so, the word means the entire panel that judges the case.

On the other hand, the exposition seems to read the word differently, since every appearance of the word translated “judges” teaches us to add another judge to the court. If so, on the midrashic plane the word means one judge, not the whole panel. According to the midrash, only the total number of appearances of this word expresses the full composition of the court, not the word itself.

The question is what the meaning of the word translated “judges” is after we have applied the tools of interpretation. Seemingly, we have learned that the meaning of the word appearing in the verse is three judges. After all, the verse tells us to appear before “the judges,” and following the exposition the law determines that in monetary cases one appears before three judges. Thus, de facto, the meaning of the word is three judges.

However, if that is indeed the meaning of the word, then we should now be able to return and apply the gematria-based exposition once again, and conclude that a court should contain nine judges—three times three.⁵ Seemingly, this proves that the meaning of the word translated “judges” remains one judge even after the interpretive tool has been applied. The full panel is obtained through the combination of the word’s three appearances in the passage, but it does not follow from the meaning of the word itself. If so, the midrash presupposes a different interpretation of the wording of Scripture, and that interpretation remains in force even after the exposition is completed: the word translated “judges” means one judge. Yet, as stated, on the level of plain sense its meaning is the whole panel before which the case is heard.

A proposal for a partial resolution of the difficulty in Maimonides

We saw above that Maimonides maintains that on the plane of drash, the interpretation of the verse itself changes. Drash does not suffice with teaching an additional law beyond what is present in the plain sense; it rereads the verse itself. As we saw, according to Maimonides the word “song,” after the exposition, means the entire Torah—and not that the legal obligation is to write the whole Torah while the word “song” continues to mean only the Song of Ha’azinu, as in the plain sense.⁶

If so, according to the plain sense the word translated “judges” means the one before whom the case is brought. The exposition teaches us, in plain-sense terms, that the reference is to the entire panel and not to an individual judge. Maimonides can now return and reread the verse, interpreting the word not as one judge but as the court as a whole. Once we know that, Rabbi Yonatan’s exposition is no longer needed, for the word is plural and the minimum plural is two. And as is well known, Maimonides often cites an exposition that is more convenient and easier to connect to the law being derived, even if it is not the exposition that appears in the Gemara.

Another way to explain Maimonides

First, we must examine why the Gemara itself did not bring the exposition suggested by Maimonides. After all, as we mentioned, parallel expositions based on the rule that the minimum plural is two appear throughout the chapter in Sanhedrin. It is possible that Rabbi Yonatan’s consideration taught the Gemara that when one encounters a plural form, it may be interpreted as two—that is, according to the minimal possible interpretation.

If so, once this principle has been learned from here, Maimonides can again apply it even to this very verse, and derive the number of judges in monetary cases just as the Gemara does in all the other contexts.

We may add a further suggestion: the crucial point is that the use of gematria always requires some indication. Without an indication that we should use gematria, such usage becomes speculation, and the law does not accept it as an adequate legal basis.⁷ But if there is a word translated “judges,” whose meaning is several judges though the number is unknown, that itself hints that we should look for some number. It is only natural, then, to search for that number through the principle of gematria. We then turn to the passage and see that the key word, “judges,” is repeated twice, and from this derive Rabbi Yonatan’s exposition. The exposition teaches us that the word means two judges, and this in turn teaches us the general principle that the minimum plural is two, which the Gemara then uses in the subsequent contexts.

Two pieces of evidence for our proposal

Our conclusion is that Maimonides, as in the case of writing a Torah scroll, here too interprets the biblical word in light of the results of the midrash. According to Maimonides, the word translated “judges” does not denote a single judge but the court as a whole. As we saw, in our case this is also the plain sense, once drash reveals it.

From here we can understand Maimonides’ formulations in several places in the Laws of Sanhedrin. We will now present two representative examples:

1. In Laws of Sanhedrin 4:4, Maimonides writes:

Only a court ordained in the Land of Israel bears the biblical designation “judges.” These are the wise men fit to adjudicate, whom a court of the Land of Israel examined, appointed, and ordained.

2. And similarly there, in 5:18:

An individual recognized as an expert by the public, even though he judges monetary cases alone, a confession made before him is not a confession made before a court, even if he has ordination. But three persons, even if they are not ordained and are laymen, and I do not apply to them the biblical designation “judges,” a confession made before them is a confession before a court. Likewise, one who denied a claim before them and witnesses later came is established as a denier and cannot retract and advance another claim, as we explained. In short, with respect to confessions, loans, and the like, they are in all regards like an ordained court.

In both these sources we see that Maimonides relates to the biblical designation translated “judges” as expressing the court as a whole, not an individual judge. This is the interpretation that emerges after the application of the interpretive tool.

Footnotes