A Platonic Perspective on Ukimtot

Akdamot – 5773

The Talmudic Mode of Thought and the Relation Between the Mishnah and the Gemara

Introduction

Every student of Talmud is thoroughly familiar with the phenomenon of ukimtot. The word ukimta literally means “setting up.” It refers to a case in which a difficulty arises in understanding a source (usually a tannaitic source, a Mishnah or a baraita) according to its plain sense, and the Gemara, in order to resolve the difficulty, “sets up” what is said in the source as referring to a specific and rare case; that is, it claims that the source deals with an esoteric situation or mode, contrary to the plain meaning of its wording. In almost every Talmudic discussion one can find a ukimta made by the Gemara, usually to a tannaitic source and sometimes to an amoraic source. At first glance, the mechanism of ukimta appears extremely puzzling, perhaps even lacking in intellectual honesty. Seemingly, the Gemara proposes an interpretation that removes the source from its plain sense, without regard for the source’s wording. No wonder this problem troubles quite a few students. Usually a novice is more troubled by it, for experienced learners have simply grown used to it.

In light of these difficulties, the term ukimta has in recent years become something of a pejorative, or a synonym for a strained interpretation. A Google search quite readily yields statements in which someone praises his wares by saying: "My interpretation requires no ukimtot or other forced readings." Quite a few Talmud scholars, unwilling to accept this problematic interpretive method, conclude that ukimta is nothing more than a “polite” way for the amoraim to disagree with the tannaim in the Mishnah. They refuse to see ukimta as an innocent interpretation of the earlier source, and seemingly not without reason. Some have even brought support for this from the words of medieval authorities, and especially from the Vilna Gaon.[1]

For my own part, it is difficult for me to accept such an attitude. I expect the sages of the Talmud, like any other human beings, to display intellectual honesty. If someone wishes to disagree with a mishnah, let him do so explicitly, and not wrap it in a pseudo-interpretive cloak. And if indeed an amora lacks authority to dispute the Mishnah, then it cannot be done even by “polite” means. Moreover, I mentioned that ukimtot are also applied to amoraic sources (below we shall see such a case), and there there is no obstacle at all to disputing the earlier amora; so why not do so directly and openly? Beyond this a priori consideration, I also do not accept the proofs brought from medieval and later authorities in favor of such an approach. But in this article I will not deal with those “ideological” aspects, nor with the various proposals for explaining ukimta, which will be mentioned here only in passing. My purpose here is to offer an alternative that, to the best of my judgment, is far more plausible.

The explanation I will propose for the phenomenon of ukimta solves, in my view, the principled problem, and it is also fairly well known in the Talmudic world. Yet for some reason it seems not to receive the attention it deserves. In this article I would like to present it in a broader philosophical context, while discussing several examples. The discussion of the examples will clarify the principle itself and demonstrate it in different passages. Beyond sharpening the general principle, the examples show the importance of the mechanism underlying ukimta for understanding the passage itself, as well as for understanding the principled relation between the Gemara and the Mishnah with which it deals. As we shall see, an incorrect understanding of the role of ukimta leads to errors in understanding the specific passages under discussion.

Still, in fairness I should note that I have not tested the claim systematically against every ukimta in rabbinic sources (that is an almost impossible task, given how many there are). But in virtually all the cases I examined I arrived at a satisfactory solution. Below I will demonstrate this with three Talmudic discussions.

Three Examples of Ukimtot in the Talmud

I will begin with several typical examples of ukimtot in Talmudic discussions.

A. In the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 78a, we find the following amoraic statement:

Rava said: If he wrote her a bill of divorce and placed it in the hand of her slave while he was asleep and she was guarding him, it is a valid bill of divorce,

but if he was awake, it is not a bill of divorce, because it is like a courtyard guarded without her knowledge.

If he was asleep and she was guarding him, it is a valid bill of divorce.

The delivery of a bill of divorce must be made into the woman’s hand or into her guarded courtyard. Rava rules that even delivery of a bill of divorce into the hand of the woman’s slave, when he is asleep and the woman (his mistress) is guarding him, counts as valid delivery.

To this the Gemara objects:

Why? It is a moving courtyard, and a moving courtyard does not acquire!

And if you would say that sleeping is different,

did not Rava say: Anything which, if it were walking, would not acquire, even when standing or sitting does not acquire!

This slave does indeed function as the woman’s courtyard, but it is a special kind of courtyard—a moving courtyard—and a moving courtyard does not acquire. The Gemara answers with a ukimta:

And the law is: when he is bound.

That is, Rava’s statement is “set up” as referring only to a slave who is asleep and bound. This is an example of a ukimta applied to an amoraic source.

The question that arises here is: if Rava really intended to speak about a slave who was asleep and bound, why did he not say so explicitly? Is it plausible to infer that he really meant a bound slave, when that is not mentioned at all in his wording? The seemingly obvious solution is that Rava’s original statement meant this law regarding any sleeping slave, and only the later amoraim disagree with him “politely,” that is, they qualify the law and apply it only to a sleeping, bound slave. According to this proposal, the ukimta is not an interpretation of Rava’s words but a different opinion that disagrees with him, only doing so “politely,” by masking its real intent and meaning in what looks like an interpretation.

B. In the Mishnah at the beginning of tractate Beitzah we find a dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel:

An egg that was laid on a Festival,

Beit Shammai say: It may be eaten, and Beit Hillel say: It may not be eaten.

Seemingly the case is simple: an egg was laid on a Festival, and the question is whether one may or may not eat it. Yet here too the Babylonian Talmud has difficulty understanding the dispute and raises several possibilities for explaining it. One of the possibilities raised there, on 2b, is Rabba’s proposal:

Rather, Rabba said:

Actually, it is dealing with a hen designated for eating,

and we are dealing with a Festival that falls after the Sabbath,

and the reason is preparation,

for Rabba holds: Any egg laid today was completed yesterday.

Rabba applies a ukimta to the Mishnah: it is not speaking about an ordinary Festival, but about a Festival that follows the Sabbath. He then proposes an explanation according to which the dispute in the Mishnah revolves around the law of preparation. If the egg was laid on the Festival, its formation inside its mother was completed the day before, on the Sabbath. Therefore Beit Hillel hold that the egg may not be eaten on the Festival itself, because Festival food requires preparation on a weekday. This is an example of a ukimta applied to a tannaitic source (in this case, a Mishnah).

Again the question arises: if the Mishnah really came to teach a special law that pertains only to a Festival following the Sabbath, and not to every Festival, why does it not say so explicitly? From the plain wording of the Mishnah it appears that this is the law for every ordinary Festival. Once again, then, the seemingly obvious conclusion is that the Gemara is disagreeing “politely” with the Mishnah. The Mishnah establishes the prohibition for every ordinary Festival, and the Gemara limits it only to a Festival following the Sabbath. The ukimta is presented as if it were an interpretation of the Mishnah, but in truth it is a rejection of the tannaitic view in interpretive guise.

C. In the Mishnah at the beginning of the second chapter of Pesachim we find:

As long as it is permitted to eat, one may feed it to cattle, wild animals, and birds, sell it to a gentile, and derive benefit from it; once its time has passed, deriving benefit from it is forbidden.

Leavened food is forbidden both for eating and for deriving benefit from it on Passover. Generally speaking, the prohibition begins at midday on the fourteenth of Nisan (Passover eve). The Mishnah rules that before the prohibition takes effect, leaven is permitted for benefit, and afterward it is forbidden.

The Babylonian Talmud there, 21b, objects:

“And it is permitted for benefit.” That is obvious!

The Gemara is puzzled: what is the Mishnah coming to teach us? Obviously, before the time of prohibition there is no prohibition against deriving benefit from leaven. Here too it answers by means of a ukimta:

This is necessary only for a case where he charred it before its time. And it teaches us in accordance with Rava, for Rava said: If he charred it before its time, deriving benefit from it is permitted even after its time.

The Gemara explains that it is really not speaking about ordinary leaven, nor about a case in which it is consumed before the prohibition takes effect. Rather, it speaks about leaven that was charred before the time of prohibition, and the novelty is that there is no prohibition against deriving benefit from it even during the time of prohibition. That is: if someone charred his leaven before midday on the fourteenth, he may derive benefit from the charred leaven even on Passover itself. This too is a ukimta applied to a tannaitic source (again, a Mishnah): instead of ordinary leaven, it speaks of charred leaven, and instead of benefit before the prohibition takes effect, it speaks of benefit during the time of prohibition.

Once again the question arises: if the Mishnah really intended to speak about eating leaven that had been charred before the time of prohibition at a time when the prohibition was already in force, why did it not say so explicitly? As in the previous two cases, here too it seems at first glance that there is a rejection of the Mishnah’s original intent and its replacement by an amoraic position. Once more we have a dispute hidden beneath the “polite” guise of interpretation.

The Core Difficulty

As noted, the picture that seems to emerge from the plain meaning of these passages is that the amoraim do indeed disagree with the tannaim, even if they do so in a “polite” fashion. On the other hand, as I already noted briefly in the introduction, it is very difficult to accept this. Throughout the Talmud it is clear that when a mishnah is cited that contradicts an amoraic opinion, if no explanation is found, the amoraic opinion is rejected. That is, the simple assumption is that amoraim cannot dispute tannaim unless they find another tannaitic source that supports their position.[2]

According to the view that sees ukimta as a covert dispute by amoraim against the Mishnah, it is not clear why the Talmud assumes that citing a mishnah whose content contradicts an amoraic opinion counts as an immediate refutation of the amoraic opinion. Even if we are unable to find a ukimta that will “reconcile” the tannaitic source, why not simply disagree with it directly and openly? Is the “impoliteness” of direct disagreement what decides against the amoraic opinion, even though we think it is correct? That is implausible.

I will not dwell on these difficulties, since they are self-evident. But of course the task falls to me to offer an alternative explanation for the phenomenon of ukimta. If ukimta is indeed not a dispute with the Mishnah but an interpretation of its original intention, how are the difficulties I described to be resolved? Why do the mishnayot not trouble themselves to spell out their intent, and instead state their words in a manner that creates such confusion?

Several meta-halakhic explanations have been proposed for this phenomenon. Almost all of them view ukimtot as a form of esoteric writing.[3] Some have suggested that the Mishnah is a product of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch’s permission to write down the Oral Torah because of It is a time to act for the Lord; they have nullified Your Torah; and in order to preserve the character of the Oral Torah even after it was written, the editor of the Mishnah deliberately wrote it in a manner that would still require an oral tradition to accompany it. He wrote the mishnayot so that they could not be interpreted according to their plain sense, and we would need further interpretation that, even after the Mishnah was written, remained oral—the Gemara. This view sees ukimta as a kind of Oral Torah accompanying the mishnayot, just as the original Oral Torah accompanied the Written Torah. Just as the whole Oral Torah was transmitted from Sinai, so too the ukimtot were essentially transmitted orally from the editors and formulators of the mishnayot to later generations.

Other proposals attribute ukimtot to hidden intentions of the authors of the Mishnah, concealed between the folds of Mishnaic phrasing.[4] In the name of the Vilna Gaon it is reported that just as there are plain meaning and homiletical meaning in the Torah, so there are plain meaning and homiletical meaning in the Mishnah.[5] Some attribute the Mishnah’s imperfect formulation to hidden intentions belonging to the realm of esoteric lore. Other approaches speak of faulty editing of the Mishnah. These approaches see the Mishnah as an eclectic collection of earlier sources, which led to its cumbersome and imprecise formulation. The difficulty has been felt so strongly that some even wished to attribute it to fitting the text to the melodies that accompanied the various mishnayot in the period when they were transmitted orally.[6]

It seems, however, that none of these explanations is truly convincing. It is difficult to see why one should sacrifice the clarity of the written Mishnah in order to achieve all kinds of hidden goals. It is not plausible to mortgage Jewish law and our ability to understand and implement it for the sake of other objectives, especially in light of the fact that every Jew is obligated to study Torah. The basic policy of the Oral Torah is not concealment and esotericism but disclosure and broad dissemination.

In fact, these problematic explanations do not seem more credible than the simplistic and problematic conception of ukimta as interpretation. They do provide an explanation for a problematic state of affairs, but these explanations are themselves tainted by at least the same level of difficulty as the problem they are meant to solve. So what have we gained? Such esoteric interpretation neutralizes our ability to understand the texts of the Oral Torah. We can always suppose that perhaps their intention differs from what appears in their words, and we will always be able to read into them whatever we wish, without commitment to their language. It seems, then, that such explanations do not really heal the problem.

No wonder, then, that many conclude that ukimta is not interpretation of the Mishnah but a dispute (covert?) with its positions. I mentioned that this is a common approach among academic scholars of the Talmud, but it is worth noting that Rabbi Shlomo Fisher, in his book Beit Yishai, also agrees that by means of ukimtot the amoraim are in fact disputing the tannaim (he grounds their authority to do so in the consent of the nation).[7]

But is this conclusion necessary? Is the only alternative really that we are dealing with esoteric writing?

A General Preliminary Formulation of the Explanation of the Phenomenon of Ukimta[8]

The explanation I wish to propose for the phenomenon of ukimtot is that the ukimta comes to remove a secondary difficulty that arises regarding a general principle appearing in the interpreted source (Mishnah, baraita, or amoraic statement). The principle the Mishnah seeks to teach is a general law, or a theoretical principle, and it is present in the plain wording of the text with no change whatever. But that principle encounters difficulty appearing in the real world, and that is what the ukimta comes to solve.

According to this proposal, the ukimta never contains the main novelty of the earlier source. The main novelty appears in the simplest possible form in the language of the Mishnah. The purpose of ukimta is always to remove side difficulties that interfere with our seeing the realization of that theoretical principle in the real world. It does so by presenting a “laboratory situation,” far from the real world, and precisely there the general principle of the Mishnah can appear in its pure form.

As we proceed, we shall see that ukimta moves us from the seemingly real world described in the Mishnah or the interpreted source to a Platonic world of abstract ideas dealing with theoretical entities and “pure” situations, sometimes very far from the real world. To understand this better, I will describe a similar phenomenon in the scientific world. Science, too, deals with general laws and their application to reality, and it is therefore not surprising that this mechanism appears there as well.

Several Scientific Examples

Consider Newton’s first law (the law of inertia), which states that an object continues moving at constant velocity in a straight line unless a force acts upon it. This law never appears in its pure form in our real world, for in every situation we can imagine there is some force—attraction, friction, and the like. Every body in the real world is subject to some forces. So how can we nevertheless observe the appearance of this law? How can we empirically test it at all, whether to refute or confirm it?

That is possible only in the laboratory, if one succeeds in creating a special state that neutralizes all those disturbances. The laboratory is a fragment of the world in which an object is present with no forces acting on it. For example, one places the object in a Faraday cage that screens electromagnetic force, and in another cage that screens gravitational force; one creates a vacuum so there is no friction with the air; one lowers the temperature to zero so there are no thermodynamic effects—and only then can one observe the motion of a body with no force acting on it. This abstract and unrealistic laboratory state is what enables us to observe the phenomena described by Newton’s first law in their purity. This example teaches us that, ironically, it is precisely when we distance ourselves from the real world that we can observe a general scientific law in purer form (that is, without interference from side factors).

In the same way, if we want to observe the effect of gravity on a body with mass, we must place that body in a space devoid of other bodies and empty of air (so that no other forces act on it), and/or “clean” the body of charges that respond to additional forces (such as electromagnetic forces). Only after making these changes—that is, after constructing a unique laboratory situation—must we place within that laboratory space another theoretical body that will exert a force on it, and see what happens. Again, we must create in the laboratory unreal, “pure” situations and entities, far from reality; and precisely thus one can see the scientific law embodied correctly and in purity. Here too the role of the laboratory is to “clean the screen” of side influences and thereby allow the scientific law to appear clearly.

Another example, this time from the social sciences and psychology. In those fields it is common to connect frustration and aggression. Clearly, in the real world one can never observe such a direct connection, for a person can always refine his feelings of frustration and not react aggressively. Sometimes he reacts aggressively even when he does not seem frustrated at all, but for other reasons (despair, anger, inability to sublimate, an innate tendency to violence, and the like). How, then, can we observe phenomena that obey this law? Only if we create the situation of an abstract person, stripped of every relevant trait except frustration (no despair, no other angers, no ability for sublimation, no violent tendencies in his character). When we provoke such a person, we can see whether his frustration leads him to react aggressively, and if he is not frustrated we can see that no aggressive response appears. Again, a hypothetical laboratory state, far from the real world, is precisely what enables us to observe the phenomena that the scientific law describes.

Many people think that the reason for deviations from the general law is that the law is not precise. Some will say that life is very complex, and therefore our simplistic laws cannot really account for it. But that is not necessarily correct. One can offer the opposite interpretation: the general law is completely precise, and yet in real situations it is not realized. The pure law deals only with the hypothetical situation (when there are no side disturbances), and there it is entirely precise. For example, if I succeeded in creating in the laboratory an environment with no friction and no forces at all, I would indeed see Newton’s first law in operation, and the law would be perfectly accurate.

According to this interpretation, scientific laws can be completely accurate, except that they deal with Platonic worlds populated by abstract objects and pure states, not with our world and the real entities found within it.[9]

How, then, does a scientific law help us understand phenomena in the real world? When we descend from the Platonic worlds and try to apply the laws to real phenomena, we must take into account, for example, several different influences that can lead to aggression (frustration, despair, an innate tendency to violence, provocation, and so forth). We must examine each of them separately and formulate a law describing its operation in the Platonic world, and only afterward return and combine all those influences as they appear in the real world. The reason is that in the real world the states (or environments) are not pure, and the entities possess various traits, some of which interfere with the appearance of the law under discussion. Real behavior is the sum of the effects of all the general laws, each of which deals with a pure Platonic world.

If we return to the example of the mechanical motion of a real body, we must apply to it the general law of friction, also take into account the general law of gravity and Newton’s first and second laws, add the laws of thermodynamics, and only then can we approach a description of the body’s real behavior. Recall that each of these laws separately deals not with the real world but with a different Platonic world (one deals with motion in a world without temperature and without friction, another with a world that has temperature but no additional bodies, and a third with a world without friction but with other bodies).

The conclusion from these examples is that the laws of science each deal with its own Platonic world. In that world there are pure situations and abstract entities, and one general scientific law rules there with full precision (so long as there are no real disturbances). To arrive at those scientific laws, we must decompose the real phenomena we observe into different theoretical components and distinguish them from one another. Then we must try to isolate each such component and ascend to its own abstract Platonic world, and there formulate a general law for it. Finally, we return from those Platonic worlds to the real world, where all those general laws combine and create real behavior.

On Composition, Abstraction, and Generalization

How exactly does the transition from our world to the Platonic world occur? Formulating the law of gravity begins from observing attraction between bodies in the real world. But a real object has very many properties: red color, round shape, an owner whose name begins with the letter G, the year 1987 in which it was manufactured, and many others. The law of gravity requires us to abstract from the body all its other properties, except for mass (once we have understood that mass is indeed the body’s relevant property for the effect of attraction).

A similar process is performed not only on the real body but also on the environment in which the event occurs. When we examine real objects that fell toward the earth, we ask what special feature of the environment causes them to fall (the earth’s mass): is it the shape of the room, the homeowner’s name, the density of the air, the time that has passed since the last Knesset election, or perhaps something else? The environment therefore also undergoes a process of elimination, in order to isolate the relevant properties and abstract away all the rest.

The conclusion is that the law of gravity deals with an abstract object that has only mass (and no other property), and with an abstract environment (in which only gravitational force operates, and no other source of force or disturbance). Once we have isolated attraction and mass as the relevant feature, we can construct the “Platonic world” in which that law appears in purity. The elimination of properties, entities, and states is precisely the creation of the Platonic world relevant to the law of gravity.

We should note that every abstraction from properties is really a generalization. A specific body is loaded with properties; if we remove one property from it, more bodies may fit the same description. If we remove additional properties, we obtain a description that fits an even broader group. For example: let us take some ball that is black, has a radius of 6 cm, and was manufactured six years ago by a manufacturer named Jacob. Now remove one property—for example, the manufacturer’s name. We are left with a concept having fewer properties: a black ball, radius 6 cm, six years old. That description obviously fits more balls. If we remove another property, such as the radius, we get a thinner description: a black ball six years old. That description fits many more objects. Once we arrive at “black ball,” the group expands, and “ball” is broader still. The more properties one removes, the more items fit the resulting description. Abstraction and generalization are therefore almost synonymous.

To say that a scientific law deals with objects abstracted from properties means that the law is the result of generalization. On the other hand, it is obvious that every scientific law is a generalization (by definition, a scientific law does not deal with specific situations); therefore it is equally clear that a scientific law deals with Platonic and not real bodies and environments. This is simply the same point from a different angle.[10]

On the Opposite Process: Application and Scientific Explanation

Up to this point I have described the formation of a new scientific law through generalization from observations of particular cases. Such a generalization requires abstraction from the particular situations and bodies observed (removing irrelevant properties), and thus it moves us from the real world (in which the observations are made) to a Platonic world, where theoretical laws govern theoretical entities. That is how a new theoretical law is formed.

I already mentioned that science also has the opposite direction of operation: after theoretical laws have been discovered, science uses the totality of known laws to explain new situations. This is an application of those laws in the real world. We saw that this is done by combining the known laws and integrating them into an explanation of a real situation in which they all appear together. Giving scientific explanations of real situations is therefore the reverse of the generalization that leads to scientific laws. Generalization requires abstraction from a real situation to a “clean” situation (creating a laboratory, or a Platonic world), and thus new laws are formed there; application to a real situation, by contrast, is the combination of many such clean situations and the known laws that govern them, in order to explain a real state through them. Technological implementation of a scientific law (such as building a rocket or spacecraft sent to the moon, a telephone, or any other device) is likewise a transition from the Platonic world to the real world. If explanation is the application of general laws to a natural situation in the real world, then technological realization is the application of the laws we have reached to an artificial situation in the real world—a state we create with our own hands (as in building an airplane, spacecraft, and the like).

In summary: if abstraction and generalization move us from real phenomena to the general scientific law that deals with the abstract and unreal, then composition and realization return us from abstract states and general laws to the real state.

On the Laws of Nature as Simplistic Generalizations

In my book Two Wagons and a Hot-Air Balloon[11] (in the introduction to the second section), I proposed an explanation for many cultural and social phenomena on the basis of one philosophical distinction, between what I there called “analytic thinking” and “synthetic thinking.” Quite a few readers accused those explanations of being nothing more than simplistic generalizations, that is, of dealing not with the real world but with a world I had created for myself. To anticipate that criticism, I there stressed what we have seen thus far: scientific understanding is always based on simplistic generalizations. Very often one hears an objection to a general theoretical law that it is merely a simplistic generalization and does not really describe the real world. But in light of what we have seen, it is clear that this is not an accusation: simplicity and generality are inherent features of scientific law as such.

Would anyone accuse Newton of making simplistic generalizations, since his laws ignore friction, which can alter the results? He does indeed ignore friction, but he does so in order to formulate a general law dealing with an abstract Platonic world, all in order to return and understand real reality. I do not think we have any other way to understand our real world. Understanding always requires a move to pure Platonic worlds and then a return to the real world.

The accusation of simplification becomes justified only if one applies the simplistic generalization to reality without noticing that in real situations additional relevant components also appear (such as friction). Simplification in itself is nothing but a pure expression of the form of scientific understanding and thinking. As we have seen here, a scientific law, by its very definition, is nothing more than a simplistic generalization.

The Problem of Ukimta in Scientific Laws

Suppose now that we are reading a book on mechanics, and it describes Newton’s law of gravity as follows:

Every body with mass that is subject to the influence of another massive body feels a force proportional to the product of the masses divided by the square of the distance between them.

This is our “mishnah,” which states the general law.

Now an “amora” comes and asks about this “mishnah”:[12]

But many bodies carry electric charge, and therefore the force acting on them is entirely different from what is described in the mishnah, since electric fields in the environment also affect them. And further, in our real world there is friction, and that too changes the force and the acceleration of the body.

If we think for a moment, we will realize that each of us would answer such a question by means of a ukimta:

What case are we dealing with here? A body with mass but without electric charge, situated in a completely empty universe, with no air and no other bodies or force fields.

Now the “Tosafists” come and object:

But if so, this is a simplistic generalization that has nothing to do with the real world. Where do we ever find a world empty of air and of every other object besides one massive point-object?! And besides, Psalms says: The whole earth is full of His glory?

The answer is that it is indeed a simplistic generalization, because every law of nature is a simplistic generalization that appears in purity only in a Platonic world. A law of nature does not deal with real objects and situations.

Beyond the problem of simplistic generalization, the Tosafists raise a further objection, this time interpretive:

A further difficulty: the main point is missing from the book, for the mishnah states explicitly “every body,” and nothing more!

The second difficulty is on the interpretive plane: did the author of the book really intend that? If so, why does he not say it explicitly? This is exactly the problem of ukimta.

Now consider: would any of us conclude from this that the amora is really disagreeing with the law of gravity in the “mishnah” (only doing so “politely,” in interpretive guise)?

I do not think that any reasonable reader is troubled by the fictitiousness of the situation with which this scientific “mishnah” deals, and still less by the general and “imprecise” formulation (the interpretive problem). The author indeed intended precisely what we have put in his mouth: when he states a general law of nature, he intends the reader to understand on his own that the law appears in its plain form only in a Platonic world, which is not mentioned in the mishnah (or in the mechanics book).

On the other hand, it is not correct to say that this law is untrue or imprecise. It is a general law, exact regarding every mass in every situation: the force exerted on every real mass by another massive body is indeed proportional to the product of the masses divided by the square of the distance. At the same time, it is obvious to all of us that the practical consequence of that law—namely, the force or acceleration with which that real body will move—will not be as the book describes, unless we clear the space of all side disturbances and create a simplistic (or abstract) laboratory situation.

The conclusion is that the law in the “mishnah” is formulated generally because it does not really describe the laboratory state. That law deals with a general phenomenon, in every body and every world, and it is always true and completely precise (not approximately). The problem arises only when we approach the practical consequence of the law in the real world. That consequence does not always appear in situations familiar to us, but only in laboratory states (a particle without electric charge, or a hypothetical empty world with no air and no electric fields or additional bodies of any kind).

Back to the Question of Ukimta in the Talmud

My claim is that this is exactly what ukimta does in the Talmud. The ukimta performs a simplistic generalization, and thereby creates laboratory states in which, because of (not despite) their distance from the real world, one can see the implications of the general law in their purity. In the Talmud too, the ukimta points to an unreal state in which one can actually see the general law in the Mishnah in its pure form. It is therefore clear that the ukimta does not explain the Mishnah, but only points to the relevant “Platonic state.”

As we have seen, this description solves the two problems that accompany ukimta: (a) the problem of simplistic generalization (who is interested in discussing leaven charred before the time of prohibition and then eaten afterward, or specifically an egg laid on a Festival that follows the Sabbath, or a woman’s slave receiving a bill of divorce while bound and asleep?); and (b) the interpretive problem (did the author of the Mishnah indeed intend what the ukimta puts into its mouth?).

Before returning to the examples of ukimtot cited above, let us look at one more example, this time from an aggadic passage.[13] The Babylonian Talmud (Shevuot 18b) brings the following exposition:

Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan:

Whoever recites havdalah over wine on Saturday nights will have male children,

as it is written: “to distinguish between the holy and the profane,”

and it is written there: “to distinguish between the impure and the pure,”

and immediately afterward it says: “When a woman conceives.”

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: children fit to render rulings, as it is written: “to distinguish and to teach.”

The Sages promise us that whoever recites havdalah over wine will have male children, and perhaps children fit to issue rulings. As is well known, throughout history there were great sages and righteous people who were not blessed with children at all, or not with sons. For example, the Chazon Ish had no children at all. Does that necessarily mean that he did not recite havdalah over the cup, or that this statement is false? Seemingly it has been empirically refuted.

From what I have said so far, it is clear that this is not necessary. Every statement of the form “whoever does X will receive Y” is a general law; as such, we should understand it as a theoretical law. As we have seen, a general theoretical law can be completely precise even if it does not operate in the real world, because it appears in purity only in a hypothetical Platonic world. For example, perhaps there was some other reason that prevented the Holy One, blessed be He, from giving that person children. Perhaps because of the sin of vows he was not granted children (see Shabbat 32b). That other reason is also a general law, and it too can be completely precise, yet appear only in its own Platonic world (one in which there is no commandment to recite havdalah over the cup). When a real person in our real world remains childless, that may be the result either of violating vows or of not reciting havdalah over the cup. Both laws are precise and true, each in its own Platonic world. In our world we must take all influences into account in order to explain actual reality.

In effect, we have made a ukimta here: the law in the Bavli, Shevuot, which states that one who recites havdalah over the cup will have male children, deals with a world in which there is Torah but no section about vows, or a world in which children are not punished for the sin of violated vows. But that is a Platonic world. In our real world, the law of havdalah is only one component among several, and we must take them all into account in order to describe actual reality.

A Note on the Uniqueness of Talmudic Formulation as Opposed to Scientific Formulations

Up to this point I have pointed out a similarity between the Talmudic context and the scientific one, but there is also an important difference between them. Science formulates its general laws explicitly, in forms such as: “Every … is ….” By contrast, the Sages—both in the Mishnah and in the Gemara—hardly ever use theoretical formulations; that is, they rarely state abstract and general theoretical principles. The Sages prefer to express themselves through specific cases that embody the general laws (in legal terminology: a casuistic method, as is common in British law).

But despite that, as we shall see below, it is clear to the Gemara that the Mishnah intends to teach a general law and not merely a specific rule. The case appearing in the Mishnah is understood as a casuistic expression of a general law. That is why the Gemara abstracts the case appearing in the Mishnah and turns it into a “laboratory case,” thereby distilling the general law from the Mishnah’s casuistic formulation.

I must add that even the Gemara, when extracting the general law from the Mishnah, does not formulate its conclusion as a general law. The ukimta is the formulation the Gemara uses to describe the general law. The Gemara thus continues the casuistic mode of formulation used by the tannaim in the Mishnah: the general law is presented in the Gemara through test cases (laboratory states), in which one can see what general law the Mishnah intended.[14]

When Rava says that one may divorce a woman by placing a bill of divorce in the hand of her sleeping slave, he does not really mean to discuss that specific case, but to point to a general law. And when the Gemara sets up Rava’s words as referring to a bound slave, it points to the state in which one can see that general law. It prefers this form to an explicit formulation of the general law. This will become clearer in the three examples now to be analyzed. In two of the three passages I will also present further implications of this conception of ukimta, and we shall see that it solves additional difficulties that arise there.

A. The Passage of the Bound Slave

We saw the ukimta that the Gemara makes in Gittin regarding Rava’s words, so that the sleeping slave of whom he spoke becomes also bound. My claim is that Rava’s innovation really applies to every sleeping slave, not specifically a bound one. Rava means to state the following general law: a person’s sleeping slave is considered like his courtyard. Rava does use a specific illustration to express this law—he does not formulate the general rule explicitly as I have just done, but states a ruling about the case in which a man wishes to divorce his wife by placing the bill of divorce in the hand of her slave. Yet the Gemara understands that his intention is not to focus on that specific case, but to state through it a general law: a slave is like a courtyard.

That determination has several implications. For example, the slave’s hand can acquire something for his mistress, just as a courtyard acquires for her. This is also the implication Rava points to explicitly in his words, even though his intention is only the general law. Even Rava does not formulate explicitly the general law—that a slave is like a courtyard—but refers instead to the halakhic implication of that law: the slave can acquire like a courtyard. But the Gemara finds it very hard to see that implication in the real world. A real slave is not only the property of his mistress; he is also a living human being in his own right, capable of walking. If so, even if the general law that a slave is like a courtyard is correct, here we are dealing with a “moving courtyard” that is not guarded in accordance with its owner’s knowledge, and in the laws of courtyard-acquisition such a courtyard does not acquire. If so, the implication of the general principle (the acquisition of something placed in his hand) cannot appear in an ordinary slave, and therefore the Gemara sets up Rava’s statement as referring to a bound slave. That ukimta solves the side problem that troubled the Gemara (how can a real slave’s hand acquire by virtue of the law of courtyard?).

According to my proposal, Rava never intended to innovate a rule about a bound slave. His innovation concerns every slave. His novelty is that a slave is like a courtyard, and he demonstrates this through the specific implication that the slave can acquire for his master. The principled (theoretical) novelty is indeed true regarding every slave. But as for the specific implication of that general principle—namely, the validity of acquisition in something delivered into the slave’s hand—one cannot discern that general law in the real situation of an ordinary slave. Therefore the Gemara performs an abstraction: it removes from the slave the property of movement (by setting the case up as one of a bound slave), and thus creates a “laboratory situation” in which one can see the implication in question: the slave acquires for his mistress, and that is an expression of the law that a slave is like a courtyard.

The “laboratory” created here (a slave who is bound and asleep) is indeed far from the real world (an ordinary slave) and from Rava’s wording, but only by moving the discussion there can we see the general law without interference. Why did Rava not say explicitly that he was speaking about a bound slave? Because his innovation concerns every slave. An unbound slave is also like a courtyard, and that is what Rava wished to teach. Exactly so, Newton did not state that his law of gravity concerns objects lacking electric charge, because his law concerns every object with mass. True, the effect of gravity can be seen only in an abstract object—one that has mass but is, by ukimta, set up as lacking electric charge. In the general formulation of the law there is no need to mention this, because the law is true of the real object as well. Only the practical consequences of the law are hard to discern in a real object, because of its side properties, which introduce the consequences of other laws and additional phenomena (electrical charge, in this case).

As noted, there is a difference between Talmudic formulations and scientific ones. The Talmud is casuistic, and therefore formulates itself in the language of cases rather than rules. By contrast, laws of nature in science books are generally stated explicitly as general theoretical laws. In our case, Rava does not really mean to establish a practical ruling that placing a bill of divorce in the hands of a sleeping slave effects divorce. This is only a common Talmudic mode of expression, intended to teach us a general theoretical principle: a sleeping slave is like his mistress’s courtyard. The Gemara expresses that fact by pointing to the ukimta in which this law can appear. The ukimta tells us that Rava did not lay down a rule about some isolated case but rather a general principle, for which the ukimta is the “laboratory” in which it may be observed.

The problem of ukimta—namely, the question why Rava did not explicitly say that he was speaking about a bound slave—is based on a misunderstanding of the Talmudic mode of expression. Mishnayot (and in this case amoraic statements) are formulated casuistically, as though discussing a real case, but their intention is to teach a general theoretical principle, not a single specific rule. The Gemara is what clarifies the intention of the Mishnah or statement, by finding a laboratory state in which the general principle can be discerned without interference.

Let me repeat that, as we saw here, the ukimta does not contain the novelty of the statement. The novelty of the statement does not concern a bound slave but a slave as such, and therefore the wording of Rava’s statement is perfectly precise.[15] The ukimta only removes side problems.

B. The Passage of the Egg That Was Laid

A similar solution can also be seen in the second example I brought, from the Babylonian Talmud at the beginning of tractate Beitzah. We saw that Rabba proposes there a ukimta according to which the Mishnah deals with a Festival following the Sabbath, and not an ordinary Festival, as the plain wording seems to indicate.

Here too I would propose a similar solution. The Mishnah deals with a general law regarding Festivals, and not specifically a Festival following the Sabbath. It also does not really deal with the laws of an egg laid on a Festival, but with the general principle of preparation. The Mishnah’s novelty is that food intended for a Festival requires prior preparation; food not prepared beforehand is forbidden to eat. This law is expressed in the Mishnah through its application to a specific rule (eating an egg), just as Rava’s teaching is applied to the slave who acquires the bill of divorce for his mistress.

But now a side problem arises: an egg laid on an ordinary Festival undergoes preparation on the eve of the Festival, which is a weekday. The law of preparation does not appear at all in an ordinary Festival, not because preparation is unnecessary, but because in an ordinary Festival there is always preparation. An egg laid on an ordinary Festival is permitted, because it was prepared on the eve of the Festival, which is a weekday. How, then, can we see a case in which prohibition of eating appears on a Festival because of lack of preparation? Only in the special situation of a Festival that falls after the Sabbath. In that case, the egg laid on the Festival was prepared on the Sabbath, and preparation on the Sabbath is not effective preparation (because preparation must be done on a weekday). Therefore the egg may not be eaten on the Festival.

Here too, as in the previous passage, the Mishnah intended to tell us a general law that is true of every Festival, and therefore its formulation is general: “an egg that was laid on a Festival.” The Mishnah need not say that it speaks of a Festival following the Sabbath. The implication of eating an egg that appears in the Mishnah is only a casuistic form of expression for the general law. The problem with which the Gemara grapples is the actual appearance of that implication. Preparation is indeed required, but on an ordinary Festival it is always present. Only in the Platonic and distinctive laboratory state of a Festival following the Sabbath can one see that implication of the general law. But the law itself is also true of every ordinary Festival.

If so, it is again clear that there is no room for the question why the Mishnah did not state that it is speaking of a Festival following the Sabbath. It did not state that because it is not dealing only with such a Festival. It deals with every Festival; its point is that food on every Festival requires preparation. The ukimta removes a side disturbance: before every ordinary Festival there is a weekday, and then there is no problem of preparation. It creates the laboratory state of a Festival preceded by no weekday, and then the prohibition of eating on account of preparation appears in its purity. Once more, the Gemara does not formulate the general law but demonstrates it through a laboratory case in which it comes to expression.

We can now see several further implications of this understanding within the passage. Rashi (there, 2b, s.v. “and a Festival does not prepare for the Sabbath”) explains Rabba’s words as follows:

“And a Festival does not prepare for the Sabbath”—for a Festival too is called ‘Sabbath,’ and its meal requires preparation, and that preparation must be on a weekday. But an ordinary weekday meal is not significant, and preparation is not relevant to it. Therefore, on an ordinary Sunday we have no reason to forbid an egg laid on that day on account of its having been prepared by Heaven, for the Merciful One did not require weekday meals to be prepared in advance, since the law of muktzeh does not apply to them.”

He explains that the egg is forbidden because Festival food requires preparation, and preparation on a holy day (such as the Sabbath) does not count as effective preparation. In this way he also explains why there is no prohibition against eating an egg laid on Sunday or on the day after a Festival, even though it was completed and prepared on a holy day: his answer is that on Sunday, which is a weekday, there is no obligation of preparation, and therefore the egg indeed underwent no effective preparation (because preparation on a holy day is not preparation), but on a weekday there is no prohibition against eating an unprepared egg.

By contrast, Rashba’s words there imply a different conception:

And I am astonished by this wording: if the Sabbath meal requires preparation from beforehand on a weekday, then the Sabbath too should not prepare for itself. But in fact, on a plain Sabbath or Festival an egg is permitted by law; and on a Festival after the Sabbath, were it not that it was completed yesterday, it too would be permitted. And in Eruvin we say that the beginning of the day acquires the eruv; the Sabbath prepares for itself. Rather, this is the meaning: the meals of a Festival and of the Sabbath are significant enough to require preparation, and therefore, whenever preparation is required for them, it is not proper that the Sabbath prepare for a Festival nor a Festival for the Sabbath—but they do prepare for themselves. An ordinary weekday, however, is not significant, and preparation is not relevant to it; therefore an egg laid on the day after the Sabbath or after a Festival is permitted, because preparation is not relevant to an ordinary weekday meal.

Rashba argues against Rashi that the Gemara grounds the egg’s prohibition in the fact that it was completed yesterday, which implies that if the egg had been completed on that same day, there would have been no prohibition. But according to Rashi, even in such a case it should have been prohibited, since in the end the egg was prepared on a holy day and did not undergo preparation on a weekday. According to Rashi, the Sabbath and the Festival do not prepare even for themselves.[16]

The alternative possibility that Rashba himself proposes is that the problem is not that on the Festival one eats food that was not prepared, but that the preparation took place on a holy day, and that harms the dignity of the day doing the preparation. According to him, eating an egg on a Festival following the Sabbath is an affront to the Sabbath and not an affront to the Festival (as emerges from Rashi). Therefore, Rashba explains, if the egg had been completed on the day of its laying, there really would have been no problem eating it, because the Sabbath or a Festival can prepare for themselves.

The basis of the dispute between Rashi and Rashba is the question: what is the problem with eating an egg laid on a Festival following the Sabbath? Rashi holds that the problem is that one is eating food that did not undergo preparation; that is, the problem is an affront to the importance of the Festival. But Rashba holds that the problem is the affront to the Sabbath, since it prepared for another holy day, and that detracts from its importance.

Which of them is right? In light of what I argued above, it is perfectly clear that Rashi is right. According to Rashi, the Mishnah contains a novelty in the laws of an ordinary Festival: the determination that food on a Festival requires preparation, and that eating unprepared food is an affront to the holiness of the Festival. The practical appearance of that general law required a ukimta, according to which the case is one of a Festival following the Sabbath, but the Mishnah’s fundamental principled novelty is valid for every ordinary Festival, as I explained above. According to Rashba’s reasoning, by contrast, the Mishnah’s novelty emerges as belonging at all to the laws of the Sabbath preceding the Festival: if it prepares for the Festival after it, that is an affront to it. On his view, the text really is missing its main point. Why does the Mishnah speak about the Festival when it comes to teach a law relating to the Sabbath after which a Festival falls? According to my proposal for understanding the phenomenon of ukimta, it is impossible for the basic and principled novelty of the Mishnah to appear only in the ukimta. The Mishnah’s novelty appears in the plain sense of its language, and its formulation is always precise. The ukimta, as noted, is intended only to remove side disturbances. According to Rashba, it seems that the principal novelty of the Mishnah appears in the ukimta (that is, without knowing that the case is a Festival following the Sabbath, one cannot understand the Mishnah’s novelty), and then the problem of ukimta indeed bursts forth (why did the Mishnah not write that explicitly?).

This is a clear implication of understanding the role of ukimta. Such an understanding helps us grasp the basic principle appearing in the passage. That principle cannot concern the Sabbath before the Festival; it is clear that its concern is precisely the Festival after the Sabbath. This projects onto our conception of the law of preparation, which is the subject of the passage, and enables us to decide in favor of Rashi and against Rashba.

An Explanation of Rashba’s Approach

Still, to complete the picture in this passage, I will suggest here a possible explanation within Rashba’s approach. Immediately after Rabba’s words quoted above, the Gemara asks:

Abaye said to him: If so, then on an ordinary Festival it should be permitted![on an ordinary Festival it should be permitted]

– A decree on account of a Festival after the Sabbath.

An ordinary Sabbath too should be permitted!

– A decree on account of a Sabbath after a Festival.

First, we must note that Abaye’s question to Rabba is not self-evident. He asks why we should not permit an egg laid on an ordinary Festival or on an ordinary Sabbath. How does he know that it is in fact not permitted? If the case is indeed a Festival after the Sabbath, from where does he understand that the egg is forbidden on an ordinary Festival or Sabbath as well? I will explain immediately.

Rabba’s answer is that the egg was forbidden by rabbinic decree on account of a Sabbath after a Festival or a Festival after the Sabbath. That is, the conclusion is that even an egg laid on an ordinary Festival or ordinary Sabbath is forbidden to eat on the rabbinic level. We are now open to the possibility that Rabba’s explanation of the Mishnah is not a ukimta at all: Rabba merely explains the basis of the law of preparation by saying that if a Festival falls after the Sabbath, the egg is biblically forbidden because of preparation. That law is agreed upon by both Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. In the Mishnah, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel dispute only the decree regarding an ordinary Festival (one not following the Sabbath): do we decree and forbid the egg there too, or not? If so, the wording of the Mishnah, “an egg laid on a Festival,” really does deal with an ordinary Festival, and not a Festival following the Sabbath. At bottom there would then be no need at all to assume that Rabba made a ukimta here.

Indeed, Rashba there wonders about Rabba’s language, which sets up the Mishnah as dealing with a Festival following the Sabbath:

Rather, Rabba said: It is dealing with a hen designated for eating, and we are dealing with a Festival that falls after the Sabbath, etc. This is difficult for me: how can he say that we are dealing with a Festival after the Sabbath, when even a Festival by itself is forbidden because of a Festival after the Sabbath?

He does not understand why Rabba makes a ukimta and claims that the case is a Festival following the Sabbath, instead of understanding the Mishnah as referring to an ordinary Festival. According to our approach, we would say that the conception of the Mishnah here as requiring a ukimta was indeed difficult for Rashba, because on his view it really does not make sense. He therefore apparently understands that Rabba did not actually make a ukimta to the Mishnah here, but explained it as dealing with an ordinary Festival, as we have seen. Rashba is merely commenting on Rabba’s language, because it sounds like a ukimta, and that is what troubled him. Rashi, by contrast, reads Rabba’s language literally: the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel concerns the law of preparation itself, and this is true of every Festival, as I explained.

Above I asked: how was it clear to Abaye that Rabba also forbids an egg laid on an ordinary Festival or Sabbath? According to my proposal for understanding Rashba, this is very clear. If Rabba is not making a ukimta to the Mishnah, that means the Mishnah itself forbids even an egg laid on an ordinary Festival. If so, the Mishnah itself states that an egg laid on an ordinary Festival is forbidden. To that Abaye objects: why should this be forbidden? In such a case there is no problem of preparation, since the egg was prepared on a weekday. Rabba answers that this is indeed only a rabbinic prohibition, decreed on account of a Festival following the Sabbath.[17]

C. The Passage of Charred Leaven

We saw that the Gemara in Pesachim set up the Mishnah as referring to leaven that was charred before the time of prohibition, and the discussion concerns its status during the prohibited period. This is unlike leaven charred during the prohibited period, from which deriving benefit is forbidden. According to the principle we have seen here, ukimta never contains the central novelty of the Mishnah, but only removes side impediments. How is that expressed in our passage?

I would propose the following explanation. The Mishnah introduces the general law that there cannot be a prohibition of benefit regarding leaven that belongs to the time before the prohibition takes effect (midday on the fourteenth of Nisan). But with ordinary leaven that general law has no meaning, because before midday on the fourteenth it is obvious that it is not forbidden, since the prohibition against deriving benefit from leaven has not yet begun; and from midday onward it is certainly forbidden in its own right, not because it had been leaven before the time of prohibition (that is, it is now leaven belonging to the time after the prohibition has taken effect). The Gemara therefore seeks a ukimta that will show us an unusual, nontrivial implication of the principle laid down by the Mishnah: how can we see a halakhic expression of the principle that leaven of the pre-prohibition period is not forbidden in any way?

The side difficulty with which the Gemara grapples is that in our real world, when one eats leaven at a time when there can be prohibition (after midday on the fourteenth), it is leaven from after the time of prohibition and is obviously forbidden. This difficulty prevents us from seeing the Mishnah’s law in its purity, and that is what the ukimta comes to solve. The purpose of the ukimta is to create a situation in which a person eats leaven during Passover, but the leaven being eaten belongs to the period before the time of prohibition. The object eaten and the act of eating are at the same point in time, but in truth they belong to different time-points. This is a splitting of the time-axis into two different axes: from the standpoint of the leaven, we are before midday on the fourteenth; from the standpoint of the act of eating, we are in the real time, which is already after midday on the fourteenth.[18]

And indeed, it turns out that the Gemara found a ukimta that “does the job”: charring. Several medieval authorities (see Tosafot Rabbenu Peretz and Meiri here, among others) note that charring is not full burning. In full burning, the time at which it occurs has no significance, for if a person benefits from the ashes, he is not benefiting from the leaven. The ashes are no longer the thing that burned but something else, and therefore they are permitted for benefit (according to most medieval views; here we will assume for simplicity that ashes are permitted). On the other hand, leaven that has undergone no process at all is of no use to us, for it is clear that deriving benefit from it during the period of prohibition is forbidden. Charring is an interesting intermediate case, because it contains a kind of “freezing” of the state that prevailed before the time of prohibition (the moment of charring). Charred leaven is leaven whose status froze at the moment of charring. Therefore charring is a ukimta that creates a split between the two time-axes, that of the leaven and that of the time of eating, and thus it enables us to express in our halakhic “laboratory” the novelty that no prohibition can take hold of leaven belonging to the time before prohibition. Leaven charred before the time of prohibition remains throughout leaven belonging to the time at which it was charred (that is, before the prohibition). Even when one eats it during the festival, this counts as eating leaven of the pre-prohibition period.

Two Mechanisms of Splitting Time-Axes in the Medieval Authorities

To solve the side problem that prevents the Mishnah’s law from being seen in the real world, we seek a mechanism capable of creating a laboratory situation in which the time-axis is split. In our laboratory there should be two time-axes: one describing the temporal belonging of the leaven being eaten (is it leaven from before the time of prohibition or during it?), and the other describing the timing of the act of eating (is it done after the prohibition has taken effect or not?). The ukimta is supposed to bring us to a state in which, from the standpoint of the first axis, we are at a point before the prohibition (therefore this is pre-prohibition leaven), and from the standpoint of the second axis, which is the ordinary time-axis, we are at a point during the period of prohibition (therefore the act of eating is performed during the prohibited period).

As we have seen, charring allows such a split of the time-axis: this is leaven from before the period of prohibition, but its consumption takes place during the period of prohibition.

How does this mechanism of duplication work in our passage? To understand this, let us look at the words of two medieval authorities in the passage.

1. The Meiri here explains the law as follows:

As for what it says afterward, “and it is permitted for benefit,” this was entirely unnecessary. Therefore the Gemara explained it as referring even after the time of prohibition, where he charred it before the prohibition, enough that it left the category of food—that is, it was charred even internally—and it is permitted for benefit, for example as fuel or for some other use. And the same applies to eating: it is permitted, for even its eating is not considered eating once it has left the category of food, since no prohibition takes hold of it, seeing that it is mere dust.

Up to this point he states that charring is simply a kind of burning that removes the leaven from the category of food, and therefore it is permitted for benefit and for eating. He then specifies:

But if he charred it after its time, it is forbidden for every kind of benefit, because once the prohibition of leaven has taken hold of it, its prohibition does not lapse until after complete burning—that is, until it becomes coals. In that case it is entirely permitted even after its time, for with all things that must be burned, their ashes are permitted, and coals have the status of ashes. But anything short of that, even if completely charred, remains forbidden, because the full prohibition of benefit has taken hold of it and does not lapse.

Meiri explains that if the leaven was charred before the time of prohibition and at the moment the prohibition took effect it was already charred, then it is no longer considered leaven and is therefore permitted even afterward. But if it was charred during the prohibited period, then when the prohibition took effect that leaven was forbidden, and therefore even if one chars it afterward, its prohibition remains upon it. Only actual burning can remove it from the prohibition that has already taken hold. In this sense, charring is not really burning. Unlike burning, which removes the leaven from the world, charring freezes the leaven’s status at the moment of charring. Meiri in effect holds that the leaven “takes hold” of its charcoal (on the model of the phrase “takes hold” of its monetary value); that is, charring freezes the leaven’s status, and the rule applying to the charcoal is exactly the rule that applied to the leaven before it was charred.

I would note that in the Ritva’s novellae (there) this conception appears even more sharply. According to him, just as leaven charred in the sixth hour at midday on the fourteenth is forbidden for eating and permitted for benefit, so too precisely is the status of the charcoal after the charring: throughout the festival it remains forbidden for eating and permitted for benefit. This is a vivid expression of the phenomenon of “freezing status” created by charring.

2. Maharam Chalava, in his novellae on the passage here, explains the law of charred leaven as follows:

And Rabba said: If he charred it before its time, deriving benefit from it after its time is permitted; that is, he charred it until it left the category of bread and became unfit even for a dog’s consumption, and then deriving benefit from it after its time is permitted. And it says “for benefit” because it is not fit for eating, but the same would apply if he wished to eat it, for it is mere dust. And this applies only if he charred it before its time; but after its time, once it has been forbidden as leaven even once, it remains forbidden forever, because in that case he is benefiting from something forbidden to him, unless he burned it completely until it became dust, in which case it is permitted. For thus we learned: with all things that must be burned, their ashes are permitted. And that is why it is brought under the clause of the Mishnah dealing with before its time—to teach that permission to derive benefit after its time depends on an act done before its time.

Maharam Chalava explains this law somewhat differently from Meiri. Leaven charred during the period of prohibition remains forbidden because when one benefits from its charcoal, one is really benefiting from the leaven that was present here before the charring. It seems that he means that even though the charred substance itself is no longer leaven, when a person benefits from the charcoal during the prohibited period it becomes clear retroactively that the act of charring was an act of deriving benefit from the leaven. The charring turned the leaven into something from which one can benefit on Passover (charcoal), and thus by the act of charring the person already derived benefit from the leaven, which the Torah forbids.

Why, then, when the leaven was charred before the time of prohibition, is its charcoal not forbidden? Because although benefiting from the charcoal during the festival retroactively reveals that charring the leaven was an act of deriving benefit from it, that act of deriving benefit took place at a time when there was not yet any prohibition against deriving benefit from leaven (before the time of prohibition), and therefore it is permitted.

The two mechanisms I have described here explain in different ways the determination that charring freezes the prior state. Therefore charring effectively splits the time-axis in two: for the leaven, time stops and it remains in the state it was in before charring; but regarding the act of eating, time continues to run, and therefore eating charred leaven during the prohibited period is an act of eating during a forbidden time of leaven that belongs to the time of permission.

If so, according to both these approaches we see that the novelty in the Mishnah is a general law stated regarding leaven from before the prohibited time: leaven belonging to the pre-prohibition period cannot be forbidden in any way. The ukimta of charring is meant only to remove an impediment that interferes with the appearance of the novelty of that general law: it destabilizes the unity and singularity of the time-axis (with respect both to the leaven’s temporal belonging and to the act of eating). The separation between those two time-points enables us to see, in a nontrivial way, the Mishnah’s principled novelty: a prohibition can never take hold of leaven belonging to the period of permission.

Understanding the Framework of the Sugya in Pesachim

We saw that the first clause in the Mishnah of Pesachim states that leaven from before the time of prohibition is permitted for benefit. The question “obvious!” was raised there, and the Gemara explained it by means of the ukimta of charring.

Now the next clause in the Mishnah of Pesachim states that leaven during the period of prohibition is forbidden for benefit. Again, the Gemara (21b) opens with the objection: “Obvious!” At first glance this is very puzzling. If the previous clause dealt with leaven charred before the time of prohibition, and its novelty was that such leaven remains permitted for benefit even during the period of prohibition, then it would be natural to say that this clause of the Mishnah deals with leaven charred during the period of prohibition, and the novelty is that such leaven is forbidden for benefit (even though it is now charcoal). If that is indeed the novelty of this clause, it is hard to understand why the Gemara sees this as such an obvious rule containing no novelty. Why does it challenge it as “obvious”? Why does it not answer that the case is one of charring during the period of prohibition?

In light of what I have argued thus far, this difficulty disappears of itself. As we have seen, the first clause in the Mishnah does not deal with leaven charred before Passover, but with ordinary leaven before its time. The novelty is that no prohibition of benefit takes hold of leaven from before the time of prohibition (even during the time of prohibition). The ukimta—that it was charred before the time of prohibition—is intended only to show a halakhic realization of the Mishnah’s principled determination. If so, it is clear that the next clause also does not deal with charred leaven but with ordinary leaven; from this it follows that its primary novelty is that leaven during the time of prohibition is forbidden, and there is no permission at all to derive benefit from it. Here, of course, no ukimta is needed setting the Mishnah up as referring to charred leaven. Leaven during the time of prohibition is forbidden without any ukimtot. On the contrary, we have seen that charring freezes the leaven’s status, and therefore in this case charring would of course leave the leaven forbidden.

The conclusion is that when the Mishnah says that after its time leaven is forbidden for benefit, there is no problem at all with the realization of this principle in the real world, because ordinary leaven too is forbidden during the time of prohibition, and therefore no ukimta is needed. That is why here it is clear that there is no point in setting the case up as leaven charred after the time, for it is not essentially different from uncharred leaven at all. Hence the difficulty: “Obvious!”—for clearly leaven during the time of prohibition is forbidden.

And indeed, the answer the Gemara proposes to this question is not a ukimta. It explains that the clause concerns the rabbinically prohibited hours (the sixth hour). The reason is that the difficulty the Gemara addresses here was not how the principle is realized in the real world, but only what novelty that principle comes to teach.

In summary, the explanation of the Mishnah in Pesachim now appears as a logical chain, each link connected to the previous one. To explain this, I will now describe the whole chain (including an earlier link not discussed until now):

As long as it is permitted to eat, one may feed it to cattle, wild animals, and birds, and sell it to a gentile. The Gemara in an earlier section (21a) discusses the purpose of this sentence in the Mishnah. The Gemara there explains that it comes to exclude the view of Beit Shammai, who hold that there is a prohibition on selling leaven even before Passover (unless it will be consumed before the time of prohibition). Why is such a novelty needed? Why should there at all be a prohibition on selling leaven before Passover? It seems that this is because there is an obligation of removal, which applies to leaven even before the time of prohibition (in anticipation of the time of prohibition). The upshot is that bread is already considered leaven before the time of prohibition, at least with respect to the commandment of removing it (“you shall remove it”).[19]

And it is permitted for benefit. We can now see that this clause, discussed above, advances the Mishnah’s movement further. In the previous clause we saw that there is an obligation of removal before the time of prohibition, and therefore even at that stage the object already bears the name “leaven” with respect to the obligation of removal. This clause teaches that nevertheless it is not considered leaven with respect to the prohibition of benefit. Here the Mishnah determines that leaven from before the time of prohibition can never become forbidden for benefit in any way. We saw that the Gemara explains that this novelty is relevant in the real world only in a case where that very leaven appears after the time of prohibition (which occurs when one chars it before the time).

Once its time has passed, deriving benefit from it is forbidden. This clause seemingly introduces nothing at all, as I explained above, and therefore the Gemara objects: “Obvious!” It answers that the clause comes to teach a rabbinic prohibition on leaven in the sixth hour on Passover eve.

The Relation Between the Mishnah and the Gemara: The Essential Meaning of Ukimta

First, I should summarize the general structural diagram that emerges from what I have said. In the scientific context there is a world of abstract ideas and pure entities, where general laws of nature prevail; “beneath” it exists our practical world, populated by complicated real entities, and the laws of nature appear there intermingled. In scientific experiments we observe specific cases, and the theoretician extracts from them general laws that were not yet known. In doing so, he ascends from the practical plane to the world of ideas, for we have seen that those laws deal only with abstract entities and Platonic laboratory states. Once we have found those laws, we can use them to say what will happen in real situations we have not yet encountered (or make technological use of those laws of nature, or infer the outcome of a future experiment from known laws). This is the reverse activity, in which we descend from the world of ideas to the real world.

Now in the halakhic context, if the Mishnah were to formulate general laws, there would be no need for interpretation by way of abstraction and generalization. The rules would appear explicitly in the Mishnah. In such a state, all that would remain would be to apply them to different real situations. If the mishnayot were formulated in that way, Jewish law would not need the first kind of activity that I defined above with respect to science (finding laws from cases—generalization and abstraction), but only the second kind (applying laws to different practical situations).

However, as I noted, neither the Mishnah nor the Gemara uses formulations of general laws. The Sages prefer casuistic formulations, that is, to convey halakhic information through legal determinations in cases that are ostensibly specific. Therefore when we have such a Mishnah or statement, it speaks in the form of a specific legal ruling (if he places a bill of divorce in the hand of her sleeping slave—she is divorced; an egg laid on a Festival may not be eaten; and the like). But the Gemara approaches the Mishnah with the assumption that this case is merely a casuistic form of expression for a general law. In order to show this, the Gemara constructs, by means of abstraction and generalization, an abstract laboratory state in which the general law can appear.

The Gemara itself also does not use formulations of general laws, and therefore instead of explicitly formulating the general law it finds in the Mishnah, it prefers to point to a ukimta in which that law appears in purity. This is merely a casuistic way of expressing the claim that behind the seemingly specific case in the Mishnah there stands a general, theoretical law. This is the Gemara’s way of generalizing from the seemingly particular case in the Mishnah to the general law. We can now see that this is, of course, a distinctively interpretive process, and from this emerges the conclusion I noted at the outset: ukimta is an interpretive process and not a covert dispute. Interpretation moves us from the cases in the Mishnah (which are formulated as though they deal with the real world) to the general laws in the world of ideas.

Ukimta is the most distilled expression of that process: the transition from the real to the abstract. It distills the Platonic idea from the real cases, and thus enables us to understand that when the Mishnah speaks of a Festival it is not dealing with the real Festival but with the “idea of Festival”; when it speaks of a slave it is not dealing with a concrete slave but with the pure idea of slavery; and so too with leaven.

But just as in science, so too in Jewish law the opposite process also occurs. After we have arrived at a collection of general halakhic laws (each of which can be observed only in a laboratory state, that is, in the world of ideas), we use them to analyze a new real situation. This is what is called halakhic ruling: the ruling process uses the general laws discovered by interpretation in order to decide the law in new situations. We see that legislation/ruling is the bringing down of general laws from the world of ideas into situations in the real world, like technological use of scientific laws.

One can say that the Gemara and the Oral Torah generally (down to our own day) deal both with interpretation and with ruling (application to new situations). Interpretation deals mainly with the first transition, from the real to the abstract (abstraction and generalization); halakhic ruling and the analysis of new situations also require walking the opposite path: from the world of general laws back to the real world (composition). The unavoidable conclusion from all this is that the existence of ukimtot is essential to the relationship between the Mishnah and the Gemara. Not only should ukimtot not trouble us; we should have expected their existence from the outset.

I would add that later commentators and halakhic decisors continue both directions of this process. Commentators take us back from the Gemara to the world of ideas. They do to the Gemara what it itself did to the Mishnah along the first route: they extract from the cases discussed in the Gemara abstract general principles, which can then be applied to new situations in the real world. The decisors continue the second route. They do to the Gemara what it itself did to the Mishnah along the reverse route: they construct a response to a new and complex real situation from the general laws reached through processes of interpretation.[20]

Two Approaches to Torah Study and Scientific Research

I will conclude with one further comparative note. When a scientific researcher examines phenomena in the real world, his goal is to arrive at the general theoretical laws. Interpretation (which, as we have seen, is the move from the real world to the world of theoretical ideas) is the goal of scientific inquiry and analysis. True, some view those laws only as a means of understanding additional real situations (the descent from the world of ideas to the real world). According to that view, the scientist’s goal is understanding the real world, not understanding the world of ideas (the general laws of nature). Accordingly, if the scientist knew what would happen in every possible situation that could arise in the real world, scientific research would have completed its task. According to the former view, however, that is not so: the goal of research is understanding the general laws, and the facts are only the means to reach them. Knowledge of all the facts would of course not satisfy the scientist who holds that view.

The same two approaches exist with respect to Torah study. Some see Talmudic analysis, that is, interpretation of the sources of Jewish law, as having value in itself. According to this approach, the goal of study is to arrive at the general theoretical laws that stand behind previous rulings, that is, at the theoretical world of halakhic ideas. The halakhic rulings are means (parallel to facts, or observations, in science) from which we extract the ideas.[21] Others, by contrast, see Talmudic analysis only as a means, for the laws are merely an instrument through which one can issue rulings in new situations. According to this approach, the goal of Talmudic and halakhic analysis is ruling (descent from the world of ideas to the real world) and not interpretation.[22]

Summary

In this article I proposed an explanation that sees ukimta as a faithful interpretation of the Mishnah’s original intention. This explanation fits well with the tradition clearly expressed throughout the Talmud, according to which amoraim are not permitted to dispute tannaim. Contrary to what many suggest, I argue here that the amoraim indeed do not do so. What emerges from my discussion is that ukimta can quite definitely be an interpretation of tannaitic statements, and not necessarily a covert (or “polite”) dispute with them. This proposal also renders unnecessary, of course, the whole collection of problematic explanations that have been offered regarding ukimtot (some of which I presented).

I also pointed to the connection between ukimta and the scientific mode of thought, and the interpretive mode of thought more generally. In this way we reached a better understanding of the nature of the relationship between the Talmud and the Mishnah, and in fact between the world of ideas and general theoretical laws on the one hand and the real world on the other. From this I also clarified the relation between halakhic ruling and interpretation, which represent opposite movements between those two kinds of worlds. By means of the comparison to scientific thought and method, I also presented two possible understandings of the nature and goal of Torah study.

In closing, it is important to repeat that I have not examined all the examples in the Talmud. And indeed many will say that perhaps this solution fits some examples but not all. To that I would answer in two ways:

• It is enough for me that the explanation is valid for some of the examples, for just as in the scientific context, so too here, in a situation where there are a few exceptions to the general theory, it remains acceptable and usable. The Talmud itself tends to dismiss overly rigid rule-bound thinking. A clear expression of this is the Talmudic rule (!) One does not derive rules from generalizations, even where an exception is stated (see Bavli, Eruvin 27a and parallels). The principle that explains ukimtot is also a rule, and therefore here too we should not be alarmed by the existence of several exceptions.
• As we saw in the three examples I brought, in some passages the explanation does not arise simply and clearly, and it requires further analysis. Therefore even if we encounter a passage that seems to be exceptional, that is, one in which we do not easily find the general law that the ukimta merely applies, we should not despair. Further analysis may very well uncover such a law (this statement is based on personal experience in quite a number of passages).

We will receive some compensation for the effort when the explanation we seek illuminates several other difficulties raised by the passage. In the last two examples discussed above, we saw that understanding the role and meaning of ukimta clarifies the flow of the passage, the subject with which it deals, and the general principle it is trying to teach; and sometimes it also sheds light on disputes among the commentators and perhaps even enables us to decide between the different views. It is certainly worth the effort.

[1] See remarks from a lecture by David Henshke, cited in the newsletter of the hesder yeshiva in Yeruham, Mimidbar Matanah, and my response in the following issue (Mimidbar Matanah, Parashat Chukat, Tammuz 5760), where I addressed both the claim itself and its attribution to the Vilna Gaon. Those who attribute it to the Vilna Gaon rely mainly on remarks brought by his student R. Menasheh of Ilya in the introduction to his book Bina Mikra, but several other passages in the words of his students point in a different direction. Here I will cite only one example from Kol Eliyahu, Beitzah 8a:

And as for what they sometimes say, “Something is missing here, and this is what it teaches,” one may say that there is no deficiency at all in Rabbi’s Mishnah’s wording, and what they added is already implicit in the pure language of our holy master, of blessed memory. Yet in order to explain it to the eyes of the masses, who at first glance see only what is before them, one must explain more fully; and one who examines his words will see that it is included in his words through the surplus of a single letter, and so it should be explained in all places.

See also Rabbi Shlomo Fisher’s article in his book Beit Yishai (Derashot), Jerusalem 5760, no. 15, which proposes a meta-halakhic explanation. See also Hanan Gafni’s book Peshutah shel Mishnah: Iyyunim be-Cheker Sifrut Chazal be-Et HeHadashah, Tel Aviv 2010, a substantial portion of which is devoted to this controversy.

I would add that Meiri, in his introduction to his commentary on Avot (at the end of his remarks on the tannaim), writes that sometimes the amoraim do in fact dispute the tannaim, but it seems that his intention is not to the matter of ukimtot but to the principled claim; certainly he does not suggest there that all ukimtot as such should be interpreted this way.

[2] There are a few exceptional cases, but they do not undermine the rule. The phenomenon of ukimta is so common in the Talmud that if one really sees it as a dispute (even a covert one) with the Mishnah, this would completely shatter the principle of tannaitic authority over amoraim.

[3] See R. Yitzhak Hutner, Pachad Yitzhak – Chanukah, New York 5755. The claim is reminiscent of the policy of esoteric writing that was once common in philosophical and scientific literature in order to prevent laymen from intervening and trying to understand the material (see Aaron Katzir, Bekhor ha-Mahpekhah ha-Mada'it, Tel Aviv 5732), or as an attempt to address only a defined target audience (as with Leo Strauss; see the entry on him in Wikipedia). In the Jewish context, though regarding medieval literature, see Dov Schwartz, Setirah ve-Hastarah ba-Hagut ha-Yehudit shel Yemei ha-Beinayim, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5762.

[4] See, for example, the “Introduction to the Eight Gates,” printed as an introduction to Sha'ar ha-Hakdamot and also as an introduction to Etz Chaim (p. 11 in the standard edition) in the writings of the Ari. See also Rabbi A.Y. Kook, Shemonah Kevatzim, II, paragraphs 10 and 29.

[5] For sources on this matter, see my article cited above in Mimidbar Matanah (above, note 1).

[6] See the commentary Tiferet Yisrael to Mishnah Arakhin 4:1.

Additional relevant sources in halakhic literature on the question of ukimta appear in the two articles by Yonah Emanuel mentioned below, in note 8. See also Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, “Ha-Parshanut ha-Talmudit la-Mishnah,” Sridei Esh, IV, Jerusalem 5729, p. 235.

[7] See R. Shlomo Fisher, Beit Yishai there (above, note 1). This also seems to follow from the introduction of the Netziv to his work Ha'amek She'elah, where he writes that the amoraim made ukimtot to the Mishnah “in order to establish the law.” His language there implies that they interpreted against the Mishnah’s original intention so that the conclusion would accord with the law. This is a more moderate view, for according to it they are not disputing the Mishnah but setting up its language so that it conforms to the accepted law, which itself also derives from tannaitic sources; but still, from the standpoint of intellectual honesty, this seems problematic (because they present the Mishnah as though it says what it did not intend to say).

[8] The basic principle of this explanation is not mine. It circulates in various forms, and one explicit formulation appears in Rabbi Yitzhak Shilat’s book Be-Torato shel R' Gedalyah, Ma'ale Adumim 5764 (available online), p. 36. Later my friend Menachem Teitelbaum pointed out to me that something similar had already been written by Rabbi Yonah Emanuel in HaMa'ayan 12, no. 1 (5731), p. 27, and again in a follow-up article in HaMa'ayan 31, no. 2 (5751), p. 27. In his second article, Emanuel addresses various misunderstandings that arose regarding what he had written in the first. Almost all of them disappear in light of the explanation given here.

See on this as well Rabbi Yehuda Brandes, “Akirah ve-Hanachah me-Al Makom Arba al Arba,” Netu'im 11–12 (5764), pp. 9–38. In note 27 there he refers to Mattityahu Gutman, “She'elot Akademiyot ba-Talmud,” Dvir I (5683), p. 38, and Dvir II (5684), p. 101, and offers a concise explanation of the phenomenon of ukimta. I think his intention is to propose an explanation in the direction presented here. I believe that the context in which I place these matters here and the examples I bring clarify and expand that explanation, and thus perhaps it will receive its due place.

[9] I do not mean to say here that every scientific law known to us is completely accurate, or that it will never need updating. My point is only that such a state is possible; that is, the fact that a law is not realized in the real world is not a sufficient reason to conclude that it is false. Only a laboratory experiment—that is, observation in a non-real situation—can bring us clearly to the conclusion that the law should be replaced or updated.

[10] I have not addressed here the details of the elimination process at all. It is a very unclear process, and its justification is a serious philosophical problem (part of what is known as “the problem of induction”). The root of the problem is that even after abstracting from all the properties not shared by all the events we observed, there still remain very many possible modes of generalization. See discussion of this in the second appendix to my book God Plays Dice, Tel Aviv 2011.

[11] Second, revised edition, Jerusalem 5767.

[12] The touches of Aramaic in that text are, of course, intended only to demonstrate the resemblance to Talmudic give-and-take.

[13] I have been told that the source for using this example is R. Elchanan Wasserman (see Aharon Surasky, Or Elchanan, Jerusalem 5758). When he was asked how Zionism, led by wicked people, succeeds in its path, he answered by citing this statement, and it seems that he had in mind the move described below.

[14] Why do the Sages in fact prefer casuistic formulation, and not the formulation of theoretical laws (as in the positivist method)? I cannot address that important question here, and for my purposes it is enough to establish the fact that this is indeed the Sages’ way.

[15] It is interesting that Rava saw fit to state explicitly that he was speaking about a sleeping slave, even though he omitted the fact that the slave was bound. If my proposal is correct, one might have expected Rava to state his words about a slave in general, and the Gemara to set it up by ukimta as bound and asleep.

Perhaps this is connected to the fact that Rava is a later amora, and therefore his primary concern is not the setting out of abstract principles, as the Mishnah does, but interpretation and application in the real world (see below). Of course this is only a suggestion, since it is clear that the polar presentation of the distinction between Mishnah and Gemara is not completely precise; nonetheless, it is true that this is the general or characteristic tendency of those two genres.

[16] Rashi apparently holds that the Gemara’s statement that the egg is completed the day before is intended to exclude the possibility that it was completed two days earlier, and not to exclude the possibility that it was completed on the same day.

[17] Rashi cannot learn this from the Mishnah, for according to his view the Mishnah deals with a Festival following the Sabbath and with the biblical prohibition of preparation. If so, according to Rashi it is not clear how Abaye knew that Rabba also forbids an egg laid on an ordinary Festival. It seems that according to Rashi, Abaye knew this from the halakhic tradition in his possession (for indeed that is the law, since we do not actually rule according to Rabba’s law of preparation), and therefore he asked Rabba how he explained it. Rabba answered that it is a rabbinic prohibition decreed on account of a Festival following the Sabbath.

[18] In the fourth volume of the series “Studies in Talmudic Logic,” Logic of Time in the Talmud (London 2011), my colleagues and I (Y. Belfer, D. Gabbay, and A. Schild) discuss such a split from two perspectives: the reasons to posit the existence of two time-axes, and the implications and expressions of this split in Jewish law, jurisprudence, physics, and more generally.

[19] Penei Yehoshua there explains that even according to Beit Hillel there is an obligation to remove the leaven even before the time of removal, except that they hold the leaven will be consumed before the time of prohibition.

[20] There is of course no obstacle to the decisor also being an interpreter, and vice versa. This distinction itself also deals with ideas and not necessarily with concrete persons; indeed, in the concrete world almost every decisor worthy of the name is also an interpreter (though not every interpreter is a decisor). A creative act of halakhic ruling (such as a responsum in the responsa literature) always involves constructing interpretive conceptions of the situations discussed in the Talmudic passages and earlier sources, and only afterward using them to reach a conclusion about the new real situation.

[21] Broadly speaking, this conception describes the approach of the Lithuanian yeshiva world.

[22] This approach is represented most clearly by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and his sons.