MiMidbar Matanah – 2000

With God's help

At the beginning of the article 'Kidnapping' in the latest issue of 'MiMidbar Matanah' (a summary of a lecture by David Henshke), an opinion attributed to the Gra is presented regarding strained forms of interpreting mishnah texts that appear in the Gemara, such as ukimtot (restrictive contextual interpretations), tevara — Whoever taught this did not teach that. ('he who taught this did not teach that'), chasurei mechasera, and the like. I emphasize that my intention here is not to address the rest of the content of that article, which also calls for extensive discussion, but only this point.

As described there, the Gra (in his commentary to Jerusalem Talmud Hallah 1:4, and as also cited in the introduction to 'Pe'at HaShulchan') explains that the Mishnah was formulated by Rabbi in a way that fit the Jewish law he accepted, whereas the Amoraim twisted it by means of the mechanisms mentioned above in light of a different tradition or line of reasoning that they accepted as law. According to the author, this is how the various strained readings in the interpretation of the Mishnah came about: the strain stems from motives of legal ruling, not interpretation. Chasurei mechasera, or tevara, are amoraic corrections of the language of the Mishnah so that it accords with the law accepted by them. In what follows I shall try, briefly, to challenge this picture. However, it is possible that what was meant there was something akin to the proposal I shall present here. If that is indeed the case, then there is no objection here, though there certainly is, in my view, a need for clarification.

These remarks are, at first glance, baffling. The fundamental question is what such an Amora would have done in a case in which he could not apply chasurei mechasera to the Mishnah. Would he then have given up the law accepted by him?[1] If he would have given up the law he held in such a case, then it is clear that, in his opinion, the chasurei mechasera is the Mishnah's true plain sense, and it accords with the law he holds. On the other hand, if in any event he would adhere to the law he holds, then it is not clear why he should twist the language of a Mishnah, in a way that he himself does not believe, merely so that it will fit the law accepted by him. What would be the point of wasting his time doing so, especially when it is not really necessary (for he would adhere to the law he holds even without it)? Is he trying to persuade someone—falsely—that the basis of his view lies in the Mishnah? Even if so, I think he does not succeed. One who tries to do this is suspect not only of wasting Torah study time and of intellectual dishonesty, but even of foolishness. I see no reason to twist Rabbi's mishnah texts, and in so unconvincing a fashion, especially when one could simply say instead—the truth—that the ruling does not follow this Mishnah but another tanna, and explain why that view is followed (whether because of tradition or reasoning).

The difficulty may be presented differently as well: the description above explains the development of the wording of the Mishnah, but it contains no essential explanation. We have here a 'historical' account of how the strained reading in the Mishnah developed, but it still offers no remedy for the question of how chasurei mechasera or tevara constitutes an adequate interpretation (at least according to that Amora) of the language of the Mishnah, and why the Amora would do such a thing. What place is there for the Amoraim's interpretation of the Mishnah if, in the final analysis, it does not fit the text, and certainly is not what its intention contains? If indeed this 'strained' interpretation does not fit the Mishnah, even according to the one proposing it, what do we gain from a historical account of one sort or another? Talmudic scholars often content themselves with a historical explanation for difficulties that are essential in nature, whereas for us that is neither satisfying nor sufficient.

This is especially difficult to say as an understanding of the Gra's position, for it is known that he was careful to derive precision from the language of the Mishnah, and wrote that it has modes of plain sense and exegetical interpretation just as Scripture does.[2]

Therefore, it seems to me that one must carefully examine the language of our master the Gra and his disciples, and see whether this is indeed what they meant. Such an inquiry may yield three possible conclusions: 1. If it turns out that this is indeed the case, then it requires great further study on my part, and even so I would not interpret on the basis of this reasoning. 2. If it turns out that this is not required by the meaning of the Gra's words, then it is obvious that he should not be understood this way. 3. And if it turns out that it is positively likely that the Gra did not mean this, then so much the better. In what follows I shall try to show that there is no necessity to understand the Gra this way, and that alone is enough to reject the proposed interpretation, since the reasonable interpretation enjoys presumptive standing, and whoever seeks to depart from it bears the burden of proof. In addition, I shall also try to show that it is positively likely that this is not what the Gra meant.

To that end, one must carefully examine the Gra's words cited in the sources above (in addition, I was told in Henshke's name that there is such a discussion also in the book 'Rav Pe'alim' by his son, Rabbi Abraham, though it is not before me at present).

The Gra's direct discussion concerns only chasurei mechasera and tevara. As for ukimtot, the explanation is already well known: the ukimta is the straightforward plain sense in the Mishnah; rather, the Mishnah in its simple form states the pure rule, and the Gemara, by constructing ukimtot, merely tries to align the words so that they fit side constraints (somewhat along the lines of Henshke's own illuminating article in 'HaMa'ayan' from 1977 regarding the interpretation of biblical verses; see there). In this connection, it is my understanding that the Mishnah's principal rule never appears in the ukimta. If so, we need discuss only the two remaining mechanisms ('tevara' and 'chasurei mechasera'). In the introduction to 'Pe'at HaShulchan' the Gra refers to chasurei mechasera as follows:

And he knew that all the supposed omissions indicated in the Talmud by the phrase 'there is a missing clause' are, in his approaches, not missing at all from the order in which our holy Rabbi arranged the Mishnah; for it is not his way to omit anything. Rather, Rabbi held in accordance with one tanna, and according to that tanna he stated the Mishnah anonymously, and from that perspective nothing is missing. But the Gemara held in accordance with the other tanna, and from that perspective the Gemara says, 'there is a missing clause, and this is what it means.' And he expounded, on the basis of 'the hidden curves of your thighs,' that is, as an acronym for 'there is a missing clause, and this is what it means'—just as the thigh is concealed, so too words of Torah are concealed; and within these hidden matters lies the greatness of the ways of the Oral Torah. In brief: in Rabbi's arrangement nothing is actually missing; the Gemara resorts to chasurei mechasera only because it follows a different tannaic view, and the greatness of the Oral Torah lies in the hidden way this is encoded.

At first glance, the Gra's words here do indeed sound as described above. However, there is room to understand the Gra in either of two ways:

• The wording of the Mishnah is an earlier wording, which Rabbi adopted in line with his own approach.[3] That same wording itself suited the Amoraim's views and could be interpreted differently with the aid of chasurei mechasera. According to this proposal, Rabbi does not compose the wording but only transmits it, and therefore one may disagree with him regarding the intention of the wording.
• Even if we say that Rabbi himself formulated the Mishnah, one may still explain it differently. In my article on halakhic hermeneutics[4] I argued that the content transmitted through the tradition of the Oral Torah, to which later generations are bound, is the wording, not the author's intention.[5] Therefore, even if Rabbi himself arranged the Mishnah, we are still bound by the meaning of the written text as such and not by Rabbi's intention (see Babylonian Talmud Bava Kamma 111a, where Rava explains the Mishnah in accordance with a baraita against the words of Rabbi, the redactor himself, and Rashi there writes: And we are not concerned with what Rabbi taught his son Rabbi Shimon. — that is, we are not concerned with what Rabbi taught his son Rabbi Shimon. See also 'Seridei Eish', vol. IV, in his article 'The Talmudic Interpretation of the Mishnah', where he explains this in terms of the wording of the Mishnah itself). If so, an Amora may interpret the wording of the Mishnah differently from Rabbi.[6]

And if you ask: according to these two explanations, what basis did those Amoraim find for interpreting the Mishnah in such strained ways, while the straightforward sense of the words seemingly points in Rabbi's direction? One must say that what appears strained to us in the Mishnah did not appear so to the Amoraim. At least two possible reasons suggest themselves:

1. Perhaps even if they agreed that this is a strained linguistic reading, one can still say that they preferred straining the language to straining the reasoning (as in the well-known Beit Yosef on Yoreh De'ah, and as is known from the Hazon Ish),[7] and if so, this is the true mode of interpretation of that Mishnah in their eyes (at least according to their understanding of the reasoning on which the law is based). As is known, the 'plain sense' of a Mishnah is the reasonable—though not necessarily the literal—way of reading it.[8]

According to our suggestion here, everywhere the medieval authorities (Rishonim) or later authorities (Acharonim) wrote that the Sages bent or twisted the plain sense of the Mishnah (see, for example, the Netziv on She'ilta 128, sec. 1), they meant a bending of the literal plain sense in order to arrive at the reasonable plain sense—exactly as in the understanding of the Gra proposed here.

2. A further possibility is that chasurei mechasera was not really strained in their eyes, for some reason. That reason may be specific to each particular Mishnah, or it may reflect a general understanding that the Mishnah is, in essence, abbreviated (although this is a bit more strained in the case of chasurei mechasera of the type that omits significant content from the Mishnah. In cases of the type that merely adds detail to an abbreviated Mishnah, this can be said more comfortably). Compare Babylonian Talmud Nedarim 23b, which explains chasurei mechasera in the Mishnah with the words The tanna presents it anonymously. — that the tanna stated it in deliberately compressed fashion. See also Rabbi Zadok's book 'Takanat HaShavin' (p. 160), where he expands this into a substantive principle of interpreting the Mishnah, much as we are suggesting here.

The upshot of what we have said, according to all these explanations, is this: the Amoraim who 'strain' the text are not performing a merely formal trick; rather, they are claiming that according to their understanding this indeed is the true and original intention of that wording.

Up to this point I have proposed a possibility that merely enables us not to say, in explaining the Gra, what the proposed interpretation says. It seems to me, however, that this is in fact the reasonable way to understand the Gra, and if not a proof, then at least something like a proof for my position may be found in the wording of the 'Pe'at HaShulchan' cited above. He concludes in wonder (that is, the Gra himself) at the greatness of the ways of the Oral Torah that is hidden in the concealed dimensions. If he really meant what Henshke proposes, what great thing did our master the Gra find here? Seemingly there is nothing here at which to marvel. The amoraic interpretation does not suit the wording, and is not present in it even in hidden form. These interpretive methods are nothing more than a formal act (whose purpose I do not understand, as explained above). What greatness, then, did the Gra find here in the ways of the Oral Torah?

According to what we have said, however, the end of the Gra's statement makes much better sense, for on our view his main claim is that the wording of the Mishnah genuinely accommodates, in a fitting way, both interpretations (Rabbi's and the Amoraim's). The greatness of the Oral Torah is that two different interpretations suit the very same Mishnaic text.[9]

In fact, the matter is stated explicitly in Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin's introduction to the Gra's commentary on 'Sifra DiTzni'uta', s.v. Let us see for ourselves., where he explicitly writes several times that there is nothing in the Gemara and baraitot that does not have its source in the Mishnah (that of Rabbi). For example:

And so too every generation and its sages—some of them saw this and did likewise, composing works, down to Arukh HaShulchan, with all the particulars and fine points of the laws in fullest abundance. Yet all their holy words are the finest flour, which they dug out and quarried as flowing springs from their source in the two Talmuds, the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud. And the source of all sources—all of them are alluded to in the holy Mishnah. In brief: all later legal literature ultimately flows from the two Talmuds, and the two Talmuds themselves are rooted in the Mishnah.

See there, where he elaborates on this and repeats it. It is therefore clear that everything found in the Gemara arises from the Mishnah (and perhaps sometimes not from the Mishnah in the particular passage under discussion, but this is not the place to elaborate).

In his commentary to Jerusalem Talmud Hallah the Gra discusses tevara. There too one may say as I proposed above, and there the matter is even more spacious, for the basic problem is less substantial. In the case of tevara nothing is missing from the wording of the Mishnah; there is only a certain manner of formulation that may have been customary among them. If indeed we accept that the purpose of the wording of the Mishnah is brevity, and it was known to the Amoraim that sometimes such brevity was achieved by joining two contradictory tannaic positions, then there is no significant difficulty in saying tevara (and it seems to me that this is how the author of 'Seridei Eish' explained it there). In the context of the Jerusalem Talmud Hallah passage mentioned above I see no reason to go into detail, and shall say only that Rabbi, who holds (according to the Jerusalem Talmud; in the Babylonian Talmud the version is the reverse) the upper one prevails — that the upper element prevails — will interpret the Mishnah in its straightforward sense, whereas Samuel, who holds the lower one prevails — that the lower element prevails — will interpret it by way of tevara. As stated above, in cases of this sort the strain in the amoraic interpretation is not so great, and our previous explanations can be stated with even greater ease.

Much more must be discussed regarding this matter, and there is more to say, but I came only to awaken the attention of those who study.

Summary:

1. According to Henshke's proposal, the amoraic methods of strained interpretation of the Mishnah are deliberate amoraic distortions, which do not constitute an adequate interpretation of the Mishnah even according to those who propose them.
2. My conclusion is that the three types mentioned above of amoraic strain in interpreting the Mishnah cannot, a priori, be understood as mere distortion of the Mishnah, and especially not in the Gra's position. On my proposal, the 'strained' interpretations constitute an adequate interpretation of the Mishnaic text as such (at least in the eyes of those who propose them). In addition to the plain sense of the Mishnah, there is also a specifically Mishnaic exegetical reading—and not merely as a borrowed label, but a genuine one.
3. I have shown that at the very least we are not compelled to say otherwise in understanding the Gra's intention; and, as I already noted, even if all that can be said is that we are not compelled to accept the proposed reading, it is clear, because of the principled difficulties in that understanding, that we must reject it.
4. Beyond that, it seems to me that I have shown that it is even plausible to understand the Gra as I have proposed. This emerges from a close reading of the wording of the 'Pe'at HaShulchan' cited above, from the words of the Gra's disciples in note 9 here, who report in his name that the Mishnah has modes of exegetical reading and plain sense, and from the words of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin in his introduction to 'Sifra DiTzni'uta', cited above.
5. And I still do not know whether what is found here is an objection to Henshke's words, or merely a clarification.

[1] It is clear that if we say that one can always apply chasurei mechasera and thereby alter the Mishnah from the ground up, then chasurei mechasera has no meaning at all.

[2] See, for example, Betzalel Landau's book 'The Pious Gaon of Vilna', p. 128 and the notes there, and also note 9 below. Even with respect to rabbinic enactments, the Gra is known to have said that they contain additional layers of meaning; if so, it is difficult to say that the wording in the Mishnah (according to the 'straining' Amoraim) is incidental and imprecise.

[3] The question of the date and identity of the arranger of the Mishnaic wording has been much discussed among scholars; see, for example, the article by 'Seridei Eish', vol. IV, entitled 'Toward the Study of the Mishnah'. For our purposes, however, I wish to suggest this only regarding the 'strained mishnah texts'.

[4] See 'Akdamot', issue 10, now being published, and the earlier issues of 'MiMidbar Matanah'.

[5] Incidentally, some of the proofs I brought were based precisely on the type of argument advanced here.

[6] See the above-mentioned 'Seridei Eish', who explained it similarly, though his remarks require discussion and this is not the place. Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann brought proof for the Gra's view from this Gemara.

[7] See on this also Ezra Cohen's article 'Linguistic Strain and Conceptual Strain', in 'MeAvnei HaMakom' (Yeshivat Beit El), vol. 11, 2000, p. 118.

[8] See on this the articles of Rabbi Witman and Rabbi Breuer in 'HaMa'ayan' 1978. There too Rabbi Witman advances this argument against Henshke, except that there the subject under discussion is the definition of 'plain sense' with respect to the Torah, not the plain sense of the Mishnah as in our present topic.

[9] There is an interesting resemblance here, and I wonder whether it is accidental, to Maimonides' formulation in his principles (Principle 2), with respect to laws that emerge from exegetical readings and that also have support in tradition. For Maimonides, laws that arise from the exposition of verses count as Torah-level laws only if they are supported by tradition. Maimonides says there: For it is due to the wisdom of the text that it is possible to find in it an allusion indicating that accepted interpretation, or that an inference points to it. — that is, it is part of the wisdom of Scripture that one may find in it a hint to the accepted interpretation, or an inference pointing toward it. Maimonides' intention is that the wisdom of the text lies in this: although the plain sense is the true interpretation (A verse does not depart from its plain meaning. — a verse never departs from its plain sense), another interpretation is also embedded within it. When two interpretations are embedded in the same text, that is the wisdom (or greatness) of the text. Elsewhere I have discussed his words at greater length.

I later found in 'Aderet Eliyahu' of the Gra on Parashat Mishpatim as follows:

"Then he shall approach the door or the doorpost" (Exodus 21:6) — the plain meaning of the verse is that the doorpost, too, is valid; but the Jewish law displaces the verse, and so it is in most of this passage, and likewise in many passages in the Torah,and this is part of the greatness of our Oral Torahwhich is a law given to Moses at Sinai, and it turns like clay under a seal. End quote. In brief: the plain sense of the verse points one way, while the binding legal meaning points another way, and this itself is part of the greatness of the Oral Torah.

And that is striking indeed. We see that the 'greatness' or 'wisdom' of the Written Torah or the Oral Torah is an expression that reflects the presence of parallel interpretive levels in the same text, both of which suit it and are present within it.

It follows that the amoraic methods of strained interpretation of the Mishnah are akin to exegetical readings of the Mishnah. According to what I am saying here in explaining the Gra's position, even in the Oral Torah there are 'rules by which the Mishnah is expounded'. I later found in the name of the book 'Gevi'ei Gevi'a HaKesef' on Bava Kamma 14b (Shklov, 1804): And I heard from my teacher [= the Vilna Gaon] … that the Mishnah is interpreted both according to the plain sense and according to homiletical exposition. — 'and I heard from my teacher [= the Gra] that the Mishnah is interpreted by plain sense and by exegetical reading' (see Betzalel Landau, 'The Pious Gaon of Vilna', p. 131 note 16). Several of his disciples likewise write this explicitly, such as Rabbi Menashe of Ilya in the book 'Binat Mikra' (see there, and in Rabbi Kalman Kahana's book 'Heker Ve-Iyyun', p. 132, Tel Aviv, 1960). It is interesting that the 'Seridei Eish' too, in the articles mentioned above, calls these strained methods 'exegetical interpretation' of the Mishnah.

[10] True, the expression used is that these matters are hinted at in the Mishnah, but his intention is clearly that their source is there. See Nachmanides in his glosses to Maimonides' Principle 3, where he discusses the matter of a hint at length, showing that in many places it amounts to what is written explicitly in the Torah. Even aside from that, in our context it is clear that this is Rabbi Chaim's intention.