With God's help

Tzohar – 5760

I once heard in the name of Rabbi Shagar that the average student in hesder yeshivot has a problem with the concept of 'chalut' (the instantiation of a halakhic status). Everyone knows what a married woman is, but there is a problem with the question of what the 'chalut of being a married woman' is (in the Haredi yeshiva world: chaloys, with a holam (?) ).[1]

On the other hand, Rabbi Shagar continued, in the Haredi yeshiva world they do manage with concepts of 'chalut', but this is a rote recitation of a notion that is vague for them as well. They too cannot clearly define the concept of 'chalut', and only the avoidance of a precise definition helps them get along with it. That is, an 'understanding' of this sort often testifies to the weakness of the Haredi learner rather than to his advantage, because he does not trouble himself to clarify concepts for himself all the way through, and in fact he merely 'recites' them out of habit.

In this article I would like to disperse some of the fog surrounding this vague concept, 'chalut', and from there to try to see the implications of not understanding its meaning, and the reasons that underlie that lack of understanding. Once we are equipped with a better understanding of the concept of 'chalut', we will try to see some interesting implications of the insights we have accumulated in several areas; we will discuss a philosophical-contemporary point; and we will also try to illuminate some of the roots of the very troubling dilemma regarding the relation between devekut (cleaving to God) and Torah study in the service of God. Even someone who feels that there is, in our yeshivot, an understanding of the concept of 'chalut', and not as Rabbi Shagar claimed (with whom I usually agree), can examine the matter in light of what will be said here.

A. Ownership and the Chalut of Ownership.

When one thinks about the concept of 'chalut' and how to characterize it, it is worth trying to look for its implications, its practical ramifications. We are looking for a situation that cannot be explained by the halakhic concepts 'married woman' or 'ownership', but only by 'the chalut of married-woman status' or 'the chalut of ownership'. Such a situation would be one in which it is not enough to say that someone owns the object; rather, we are forced to say that there is here a chalut of acquisition, or a chalut of ownership over the object.

It seems to me that an example of this can be seen in the Talmud, Gittin 42b, which discusses whether there is a law of fine in the case of a slave awaiting a writ of manumission. Such a slave is a Canaanite slave who is no longer his master's property (the master no longer has a kinyan mammon—proprietary title—in him), but belongs to himself monetarily; yet his status with respect to prohibition (a kinyan issur) is still that of a slave, until he receives a writ of manumission from the master. In its discussion there, the Talmud takes it as self-evident that when such a slave is injured, the payment goes to his master. Tosafot there (s.v. 'Chavlei') asks why, when he is injured, the payment goes to his master, for the one who lost from the injury was the slave himself, since the earnings of such a slave belong to himself.[2] Tosafot answers that since the fine goes to his master, the damage payment does as well: what difference is it whether he killed him entirely or killed half of him ('what difference is there between killing him entirely and killing him halfway').

In light of these puzzling remarks, the difficulty immediately arises—precisely the one that Pnei Yehoshua asks there: part of the injury payments are monetary compensation (and not a fine) according to all views among the medieval authorities, and if so, how can one infer that because the fine goes to his master, the monetary payments do as well? A fine is a novelty of the Torah, obligating the damager in a case where there is no monetary liability, and therefore the Torah can also decide to whom the fine goes. But damage payments are, in their essence, compensation for harm, and since that is their nature, it is clear that they should go to the injured party himself, whom one must compensate for the harm that was caused to him. The master lost nothing from the damage caused to his slave whose writ of manumission is being withheld, so why should he be compensated for it?

Pnei Yehoshua's words in his answer are not entirely clear to me, but I think he means what I will now say here. Let us begin with the question:[3] The terminology already common from the period of the medieval authorities for the state of a slave awaiting a writ of manumission is that the master has a 'kinyan issur' in him. The question that arises is why a 'kinyan issur' is called a 'kinyan' at all. This is a status of prohibition of the slave without direct monetary implications, so why should such a state be called a 'kinyan'?

It seems to me that the Talmud here expresses a position according to which a master's ownership of his slave, like any ownership, is not a collection of monetary rights. It is a metaphysical state, or relation, between the owner and his property (his slave), which has monetary implications. The monetary rights are not the ownership itself, but implications of the state of ownership, which is metaphysical in essence. In the context of a slave, we claim that he is always his master's acquisition, except that so long as the slavery is complete (including a kinyan mammon), the acquisition grants the master monetary rights as well; whereas when the slave is awaiting a writ of manumission, the master has only a kinyan issur in him. That is, the master's ownership remains, but it has been emptied of all the content of rights that usually accompanies acquisition. Therefore one can say that a 'kinyan issur' is indeed a kinyan, except that in this form it has none of the implications that a state of ownership usually has, namely, rights of the owner in his property.[4]

Let us continue and say briefly that even in the case discussed in the above Talmudic passage in Gittin, one can present it this way. Damage payments are paid to the owner, and not necessarily to the injured party or the one who incurred the loss. This is not compensation in the accepted sense of civil law. Usually, of course, the owner is also the one who suffered the loss, since, as stated, ownership is usually accompanied by monetary rights as well. But, as we have seen, this is not always so. If so, the owner of a slave awaiting manumission is still his master, despite the fact that he has no monetary rights in him at all, and therefore the injury payments are paid to the master.[5]

What we see here is a description of the concept of ownership as something prior to its practical ramifications. Our conclusion is far broader: with respect to many halakhic concepts, one must not identify the concept as such with its practical ramifications, which are only a result of the concept's existence as a metaphysical state. With regard to the concept 'married woman', it is easier to agree that this is not merely a description of a woman with whom I have permission to have sexual relations and with respect to whom I have rights and obligations, but a metaphysical state of relation between her and me, which has ramifications in the form of rights and obligations. This state is described by the expression that a 'chalut of married-woman status' rests upon this woman. The fact that the woman is a 'married woman' describes only the legal implications of the fact that a 'chalut of married-woman status' rests upon her. In the context of our discussion here, one can say that the master has a 'chalut of ownership' over the slave, not merely 'ownership'. There is a metaphysical reality of ownership, called a 'chalut of ownership', whose expression in our legal world is usually a collection of monetary rights. 'Chalut' is a metaphysical concept and not merely a legal one. It is certainly true that it usually has legal implications in the form of monetary rights, but that is not necessarily always the case; sometimes the chalut appears without its legal implications.[6]

A number of examples can be brought for this understanding of ownership as deriving from a layer of metaphysical relation.

1. The Sabbath rest of one's animal, according to some of the medieval authorities, is not a prohibition on the person to work with his animal, but 'upon the animal' (upon the object), that is, a prohibition on the person that his animal do labor.[7] It appears that the animal is an extended periphery of the human being, and not merely a separate object over which he has rights, and therefore it, like the person's own body, must rest. This is an extension of the human periphery beyond his body.
2. Another example is the well-known inquiry of the later authorities (see, for example, Even HaEzel at the beginning of Laws of Monetary Damages, and elsewhere): is a person obligated to pay for damage caused by his animal because he did not guard it properly (and the fact that it is his is only the reason for his obligation to guard it), or because his property caused damage (and proper guarding is a reason for exemption)? To the best of my understanding and knowledge, the prevalent side among the medieval and later authorities is the second. Here too, at first glance, it is not clear why this is a reason for liability to pay. What is contained in the fact that the animal is my property, beyond my obligation to guard it? Again one can see here a metaphysical relation between the person and his property, as though it were an extension of his body. A person is liable for damage caused by his animal just as he is liable for damage caused by his body. His monetary ownership is not the reason for his obligation to pay; it merely serves as an indication that such a metaphysical relation exists, and that relation is the cause of the liability for damages.
3. A third example is the Talmud's initial assumption in Sanhedrin 10a to apply 'split the testimony' to the case of 'so-and-so violated my ox', that is, to accept a person's testimony regarding the violator but not regarding his own ox that was violated (since the person, as owner of the ox, is disqualified from testifying about it). According to the view of Ra'avad (see Rosh, Makkot 7a), splitting is done only for a litigant, not for a relative. According to Ra'avad, one must understand the initial assumption in the Sanhedrin passage to mean that the ox is literally like my own body; I am a litigant with respect to it, and therefore one splits testimony in a person's testimony about his own ox. Again one can see that property is part of the person's own periphery.[8]

We thus learn that a 'chalut of ownership' is a reality of a metaphysical relation between the owner and his property, and not a collection of monetary rights. That collection of rights is what is called 'ownership', and these are only expressions (practical ramifications) of the state in which there is a 'chalut of ownership'.[9]

From here one can begin to infer something about the essence of chaluyot in general. We may now perhaps say that chaluyot are metaphysical entities that apply to concrete objects, and cause various consequences with respect to our relation to those objects (or people) on the legal-halakhic plane.

In light of what has been described here, one may say that the world of chaluyot is something like a Platonic world of ideas. Plato argued that above our world there is a world of ideas, a world that includes 'objects' that are abstract forms, such as horseness, redness, squareness, and the like. Objects in the real world receive their form from the world of ideas, so that in the real world the form of objects is grasped as an attribute that accompanies them. In the real world, the rectangular form of the table accompanies the table and does not exist in itself. It is an attribute of the object and not an object. In the world of ideas it is an object, or an entity, in itself. Parallel to this, in Jewish law there is a world of chaluyot in themselves, which come to expression in the real world as forms of objects. In the world of chaluyot there exist, as entities, notions like 'chalut of married-woman status', 'chalut of holiness', 'chalut of ownership', and the like. In our real world a woman has the 'form' of a married woman, or of a divorcée. An object has the halakhic 'form' of being holy. These rules are not entities but attributes that accompany objects (their forms). These attributes, or forms, draw their existence from the world of chaluyot, just as forms draw their existence from the world of ideas.

B. Conditions, Quanta, Logic, and Again Chaluyot.

Up to this point we have seen that chaluyot are metaphysical realities reflecting a relation between objects, and especially (perhaps only) between human beings and objects, in the real world. We now want to continue sharpening the analogy to the Platonic world of ideas and claim that the main characteristic of chalut is not the fact that it is metaphysical (and not material-real), but that it is an object, or entity, and not an attribute. In this chapter I will try to show that the statement that a certain woman is a married woman is a description of the woman. 'Married woman' is an attribute, a characteristic, a property, or a state of the woman. By contrast, to say that there is upon the woman a 'chalut of married-woman status' means that a metaphysical reality (= an idea) called a 'chalut of married-woman status' rests upon her. My claim here is that chalut is not an attribute of the person, or of the object, but an existing entity attached to tangible objects. This is only the natural and necessary continuation of the analogy above to the Platonic world of ideas, but it requires explanation and halakhic grounding. We will illustrate our point through an issue connected to understanding the topic of conditions.

In Jewish law there is a known reality of a person who performs a halakhic act conditionally; that is, he conditions the application of the chalut he creates on the fulfillment of a condition. For example, a person can divorce his wife if (or on condition that) she gives him two hundred zuz. This is not the place to enter the entire topic of conditions and the understandings proposed for it by the commentators. Here I will try to present a small part of Rabbi Shimon Shkop's interpretation in his treatise on conditions, which appears in his novellae to Gittin (sec. 6).[10]

Rabbi Shimon opens his treatise on conditions with several apparently strange examples from the words of the medieval authorities on the subject of conditions. I do not wish to dwell on this subject, since it serves me here only as an illustration, and therefore I will refer only to one of the examples. According to the view of Ba'al HaIttur (see Rashba, Gittin 77a), even in a condition of 'from now' (for example, when a man betroths a woman from now if she gives him two hundred zuz), the stipulator (the man betrothing her) can retract the act (the betrothal) so long as the condition has not been fulfilled (the giving of the two hundred zuz by the woman). The later authorities (see, for example, Torat Gittin there) asked Ba'al HaIttur why at such a stage one can retract the act and nullify it, when it is clear that the act has already been completed, and the future fulfillment of the condition merely reveals retroactively that this is indeed the case. Why does Ba'al HaIttur hold that one can at this stage nullify the act, when we rule that speech does not come and undo an act?

Rabbi Shimon proposes, as a solution to this difficulty and many similar ones, understanding the concept of a condition not as something that reveals retroactively the meaning of the act (the betrothal), but as something that creates the betrothal. True, the betrothal takes effect retroactively, but the act that applies it is the fulfillment of the condition (the giving of the two hundred zuz). Therefore, so long as the condition has not been fulfilled, the chalut is not in the category of an act that cannot be nullified, but in the category of speech, and therefore it can be nullified by speech. Had the betrothal taken effect through the giving of the betrothal money, then the later authorities would be right that the act is already complete, and speech cannot undo an act. But according to Rabbi Shimon's proposal, the act is completed only when the woman gives the man who betrothed her the two hundred zuz; that is the action that applies the betrothal (and not merely reveals retroactively that it had already taken effect). Therefore, so long as the woman has not fulfilled the condition, the betrothal is only in the category of speech. Consequently, the position of Ba'al HaIttur, who holds that at this stage it can be nullified by mere speech, is understandable.

The question that arises here is what the intermediate state is; that is, what the woman's status is in the days between the act of betrothal and the fulfillment of the condition. Rabbi Shimon's formulation is that this is a state of tenuous betrothal, as a result of its being a state of doubt. As emerges from reading his words in the aforementioned treatise, he means to say that until the woman gives the two hundred zuz, she is married and divorced simultaneously. This conception, which he calls 'from now on retroactively' (and which also describes several other halakhic situations besides conditions), also prevents mystical jumps backward in time, which usually characterize the other understandings of the concept of condition. According to Rabbi Shimon, the condition does not operate backward in time; rather, from the time of its fulfillment and onward, one can relate differently even to the past. All the implications of the fulfillment of the condition are only for the future. By using conditions, we rewrite history rather than actually changing it.

Rabbi Shimon goes on to explain this rewriting of history by saying that the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the condition determines the state in accordance with one of the theoretical possibilities that took effect simultaneously before the condition was fulfilled. That is, the act of betrothal applies both chaluyot at the same time: the woman is both a married woman and a divorcée together; this is a state of 'tenuous maritality', and the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the condition selects between these two possibilities, and thereby also rewrites history 'from now on retroactively'. There is much and decisive evidence from the Talmud and the medieval authorities for this conception, and this is not the place to elaborate on it (see also Beit Yishai by Rabbi Shlomo Fisher, part 1 sec. 35).

Rabbi Shimon calls this state a 'doubt', but it is clear that he does not mean doubt in its usual sense; that is, that we do not know what the true state is, while before Heaven the correct reality is known. Here there is a state that even before Heaven is not known—or, more accurately, that on earth too is fully clear: both characteristics are present in the woman simultaneously; she is divorced and married together. Fulfillment of the condition nullifies the chalut of being married and elevates the second chalut to the exclusive and ordinary status of a divorced woman, but all this is done only from that point onward. Of course, from that point onward the relation is that this was so retroactively, for otherwise we would not solve some of the problems that the halakhic concept of condition came to solve.

When we learned this topic in yeshiva, the students forcefully raised the question of how such a thing can be said. True, the mysticism of jumping back in time was spared us, but we were exposed to a much more difficult claim on the logical plane: how can a woman be divorced and not divorced simultaneously? We bypassed a problem that was partly physical and partly logical (= reverse causality on the time axis), but paid for that with an overtly logical problem (= the existence of two contraries in one subject), which is of course much more severe.[11]

This question reminded me of Daniel Weil's arguments, in his article in 'Higgayon', volume 1, where he argues regarding the statement these and those are the words of the living God ('these and those are the words of the living God') and similar statements that they do not accord with the law of non-contradiction in ordinary logic. The law of non-contradiction is the basic logical principle that determines that it cannot be the case that A and not-A are both true at the same time. We cannot adopt two propositions that contradict one another as jointly true. In note 5 of that article he points out that the method of 'two laws' (or 'aspects') also does not pass the test of the law of non-contradiction. There cannot be a state in which two contradictory properties characterize a given object at the same moment. His argument there is that statements of this kind should be understood as deriving from a different logic, not classical but quantum. That is, according to his proposal, in such contexts we must give up the ordinary logical way of thinking to which we are generally accustomed.

It seems to me that Rabbi Shimon's statement above fits exactly the kind of thinking against which Weil directs his arguments, and for which he proposes his suggestion, and my students felt the same difficulty that he raised. There are here two contradictory realities (two laws) that exist simultaneously in one woman: she is divorced and married together.

Here too it seems, as I brought above in the name of Rabbi Shagar, that the classical yeshiva world continues reciting the answers of 'two laws' even in contradictory cases (that is not always the situation), simply because it does not try to define for itself the meaning of the expressions and methods it uses. Here the situation is seemingly even more difficult, for here we are not dealing merely with a concept lacking clear meaning, but with a statement that is logically contradictory.

I do not agree at all with these statements (those of Weil). I do not agree with the problematic nature attributed to those statements and methods, and independently of that I also do not agree with the solution Weil proposed. The method of quantum logic, which claims that quantum theory operates according to a logic different from the one ordinarily accepted by us, seems to me implausible, and even impossible, even within quantum theory itself. Such a statement cannot be correct, because one cannot arrive, by means of instruments, formulas, and tools of expression and thought that themselves are based on classical logic, at conclusions that contradict that very logic. All the physical measurements that confirm quantum theory are based on instruments whose mathematics, used in their construction, was based on classical logic, and the mathematical formulas used extensively in quantum theory are likewise based on such logic. But that is already a different discussion.[12]

Below I will try to show that Weil's questions, like those of my students in the topic of conditions, are based on the same mistake, whose root lies in misunderstanding the halakhic concept of 'chalut'. We will see, with God's help, that all these statements are subject to the law of non-contradiction and fit very well with it, as well as with all classical logic. Before I do so, I would like to clarify one more point about the impossibility and the lack of philosophical legitimacy in escaping from classical logic (ordinary reason).

I would like to draw the reader's attention to the fact that statements not subject to the law of non-contradiction, whether in the field of physics or in the field of Jewish law, cannot be examined and refuted, for all methods of refutation and objection are based on the law of non-contradiction. If one may say that a certain principle is true and false at the same time, then nothing can be argued either against or for such a statement. When you prove that it is not true, the person asserting it will tell you that indeed you are right; he himself also agrees that it is also not true. On the other hand, when you try to refute it, you will receive exactly the same answer; here too the proponent of the 'principle' in question will agree with you.

This is a place for reflection on the subject of the 'unity of opposites', which passed from the school of the Christian Nicholas of Cusa directly into parts of modern Jewish thought (and perhaps postmodern Jewish thought), where it is embraced enthusiastically in order to 'solve' philosophical problems for which no other way out is found. It seems to me, for the same reasons described in the previous paragraph, that a 'theory' of the 'unity of opposites' is at most a repetition of those same paradoxes in different language. The common and accepted reliance on quantum theory is nothing but clinging to a weak branch, a case of one guarantor needing another guarantor. I do not understand why quantum theory is permitted what the Torah is forbidden. If such things can be said, then they should be said even without quantum theory, and if not, they should not be said in quantum theory either (and this is, in my opinion, exactly the situation there as well, as I mentioned).[13] In the classical Torah world, as it is generally familiar to us, the basic experience is an experience of understanding, not a mystical experience, and a concept like 'the unity of opposites' in my view contributes nothing to such an experience. It may be that in the Christian world of Cusa, which often seeks different things, there is more room for 'statements' of this kind (as an addition, see a brief discussion of this in the next chapter; it is connected to our point here).

We thus learn that contradictory statements cannot be adopted—not in logic, not in physics, not in theology and metaphysics, and certainly not in Jewish law. If so, we must all the more forcefully understand whether there is indeed meaning to the statements so common in the yeshiva world about the existence of 'two laws' or 'two aspects' in one subject.

In the last paragraphs I tried to sharpen the difficulty in Rabbi Shimon's conception of condition, as a model for classical yeshiva analysis, and to reject ideas that might arise here about mystical solutions with which we sometimes amuse ourselves in different religious contexts. We have no choice but to examine whether there really is a contradiction here or not. If such statements are indeed contradictory, one must abandon the entire Brisker method.

When we say that two things are in the category of opposites to one another, we are referring to their properties. Sugar and salt are not opposites to one another; it is their tastes that are opposite to one another. Opposition is a relation between properties of objects and not between the objects themselves. I remember that when I was engaged with the topic of opposites, I wondered whether there was anything that had no opposite, and I could not find anything. A friend whom I asked immediately supplied me with a whole list of such beings: a table, clouds, a box, and so on. That whole list is of course a list of objects. As stated, opposition does not exist between objects but only between properties. Salty is the opposite of sweet (not salt the opposite of sugar). Hot is the opposite of cold (not coffee the opposite of Coca-Cola), sharp is the opposite of dull (not triangle the opposite of circle), illuminated is the opposite of dark (not day the opposite of night).

When we say that there are two chaluyot upon the woman (that of married-woman status and that of divorce), we do not mean to say that she is a married woman and divorced at the same time. To say that is an internal contradiction, for 'married woman' and 'divorced' are properties of the woman, and opposite and contradictory properties cannot characterize the same object simultaneously. This is the law of non-contradiction, to which we are subject like every mortal, whether we wish it or not. When we say that there are two chaluyot upon the woman, we mean that two metaphysical realities rest upon her: a 'chalut of married-woman status' and a 'chalut of divorce'.

As I sharpened at the beginning of the chapter, chaluyot are objects and not attributes, and therefore there is no relation of opposition between them. Both can apply simultaneously to the same woman, and there is no clash here with the law of non-contradiction. A clash with the law of non-contradiction would arise in one of two possibilities: a. when we say that a woman is a married woman and divorced (two contradictory attributes) at the same time. b. when we say that there is upon her a 'chalut of married-woman status', and also that there is not upon her a 'chalut of married-woman status' at the same time (the existence of a chalut and its absence simultaneously).[14]

One cannot ignore the fact that there is nevertheless a feeling of contradiction between the chalut of married-woman status and the chalut of divorce. This feeling, of course, stems from the fact that the attributes, or characteristics, of these two chaluyot are opposite to one another. Just as the taste of sugar is opposite to the taste of salt, so the laws of a woman upon whom there rests a 'chalut of married-woman status' are opposite to the laws that characterize a woman upon whom there rests a 'chalut of divorce'. On the other hand, just as there is no problem from the standpoint of the law of non-contradiction in understanding that a certain dish contains sugar and also salt, so too in the case of a particular woman upon whom both a 'chalut of married-woman status' and a 'chalut of divorce' can rest together. These are two rivals whose mutual hatred does not prevent them from dwelling together, despite the fact that they do not love one another very much. The reason for this lies not in the fact that these are metaphysical rather than real entities, for sugar and salt are entirely real, but in the fact that chaluyot are objects and not attributes; and, as stated, opposition exists only between attributes.[15]

Of course the question arises here what the laws will be that characterize such a woman, in a state in which two opposing chaluyot rest upon her. On this plane the contradiction that we intuitively feel can indeed arise. Here one must recall what we saw in the previous chapter. We saw that a chalut is indeed characterized in the legal world by essential properties, but these are only its properties and not it itself, and therefore exceptional cases can arise in which those properties do not appear despite the presence of the chalut (as in the chalut of ownership in a slave awaiting manumission, which appears without rights of use). This is precisely the situation in our case, where there are 'two laws' upon one object. Some of the halakhic characteristics that usually appear together with the chaluyot under discussion will not appear.[16]

Determining the law in such a case is problematic, and at first glance it would seem that the proper course is to go stringently in accordance with both chaluyot. Whichever of them yields the more stringent law should prevail. A woman upon whom both a chalut of married-woman status and a chalut of divorce rest would be forbidden, since the chalut of married-woman status is the more stringent one and therefore determines the law. This seems to be what led Rabbi Shimon to speak of 'doubt' as a description of this complex state, for in doubt (at the Torah level) we follow the more stringent side.

I wish to argue that this is not a state of doubt, but two certain chaluyot that rest upon the object (or the person), and this state has an expression different from an ordinary state of doubt also in the halakhic aspect. Here the correct description for determining the laws regarding that woman is not that we go stringently, but that we follow the 'positive' rule and not the 'absence-based' rule. To illustrate this somewhat vague determination, let us look at someone who wishes to have relations with a woman who was divorced on condition that she give two hundred zuz, and he wishes to do so before she has fulfilled the condition and given them (see the discussion in Gittin 74a, which addresses this, though this is not the place to elaborate). In such a case, if the situation were one of doubt, we would say that he is forbidden to have relations with her because in doubt we go stringently. Here, as stated, the situation is not one of doubt, and therefore we will say that he is forbidden to have relations with her for a different reason: from the perspective of the married-woman status in her he is forbidden to have relations with her, whereas from the perspective of the divorced status in her he is permitted to have relations with her.[17] In order to determine the halakhah, one must notice that a prohibition is a positive halakhic reality (a 'positive' rule), whereas permission to have relations with a given woman is the absence of a prohibition and is not a reality in its own right (an 'absence-based' rule). Therefore the halakhic conclusion will be that it is forbidden to have relations with her, because there is upon her also a chalut of married-woman status, and that is a 'positive' rule. A chalut of divorce does not actively permit an act of sexual relations, but only allows it; that is an 'absence-based' rule. The prohibition on relations with such a woman is a definite law and not one born of doubt, and a practical ramification would be, for example, that in principle one could execute him in a religious court for sexual relations with a forbidden relation (a married woman).[18] There will be situations in which the ruling will not be stringent at all, and then one cannot confuse such a state with a state of doubt. Such situations will appear when the positive rule is lenient and the absence-based rule is stringent.

Another practical ramification of the difference between such a state and a state of doubt will arise in a rabbinic doubt. In an ordinary state of doubt, if the doubtful law is rabbinic, we rule leniently. By contrast, in a state where there is a positive rule that yields stringency and an absence-based rule that yields leniency, we will of course follow the positive rule stringently. One can bring another similar practical ramification according to the view of Maimonides, who holds (when a prohibition is not fixed in place) that a Torah-level doubt is lenient by Torah law (and only rabbinically do we rule stringently). In a state of two rules, one positive toward stringency and one absence-based toward leniency, we will rule stringently by Torah law (even when the prohibition is not fixed in place), for we follow the positive rule.

I will note here that because the two chaluyot under discussion here are opposite in all their properties relevant to maritality, the conflict will generally (and perhaps always) be between a positive property and an absence-based property, and not between two properties of the same type; and therefore in all the cases I am able to think of, it will be possible to resolve it accordingly. If nonetheless a collision between properties of the same type is created, that indeed will be a state of doubt, and we will conduct ourselves according to the laws of doubt. Even in such a case, it should be emphasized that this is not an ordinary doubt, for the doubt does not stem from lack of information about the nature of the object (a factual doubt); that nature is known and clear. Rather, it stems from lack of knowledge of how to act with respect to an object of such a nature (a legal doubt). The implications will concern the different halakhic treatment that exists for legal doubt as opposed to factual doubt.

I will note briefly here that the Sages' statement these and those are the words of the living God, which is also frequently criticized because of its apparent incompatibility with the law of non-contradiction (see Weil's aforementioned article), can also be given a similar interpretation. One can say that the reasons for permission and prohibition of a given law are real chaluyot, all of which exist in that law, and there is no contradiction in this. The dispute arises regarding the characteristics of the matter in the realm of halakhic conduct, that is, in the realm of the attributes of those chaluyot, or the laws that emerge from them. Only on this plane does the dispute exist. Admittedly, according to this, the transition from the chaluyot to their characteristics is indeed what is under dispute (the weight given to the various reasons in determining the halakhah), and in that there is indeed one side that is wrong and another that is right, but this is not the place to elaborate on it.

To summarize what has been said so far, we learn that the main characteristic of 'chalut' is its being a reality and not an attribute. In addition, it is also a metaphysical reality and not a material-real one, something like a Platonic idea; but that is a clearer characteristic and, on the other hand, a more secondary and less important one. The existence of two apparently opposing chaluyot in one body is not problematic, because contradiction exists only between properties and not between entities. I also tried to present the solution to the contradiction that can be created on the halakhic plane by defining a state of the coexistence of a positive rule and an absence-based rule, and the mode of ruling required in such a state.

Toward the end of the chapter, and as an introduction to the next chapter, it is important to sharpen a conclusion that emerges from these remarks. In contrast to the accepted legal systems that view legal rules, the laws, as a conventional fiction among human beings grounded in norms of justice and social order, Jewish law is grounded in a world of metaphysical ideas, whose legal implications are what we call laws. That is, if at the foundation of civil law stand justice and social order, at the foundation of Jewish law stands a real spiritual-metaphysical system.

The root of the misunderstandings above concerning contradiction between chaluyot, or 'aspects', lies in the unjustified conflation the learner makes between a secular legal conception and the halakhic world. We are used to the fact that the other sections of the Shulchan Arukh and the Torah are based on metaphysical worlds; one must get used to the fact that Choshen Mishpat and Even HaEzer are also based on such metaphysical worlds. Not only lulav and etrog draw from and affect higher worlds; migo, married-woman status, slave, forbidden sexual relation, ownership, and acquisition do so as well.

• What Has All This to Do with Devekut: The Divine Attributes.

It is well known that Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, in his book Nefesh HaChaim, elaborates at length that the main point of the service of God should not be the aspiration to a mystical experience of devekut; Torah study is itself devekut in the Holy One, blessed be He, in the sense of the Holy One, Israel, and the Torah are one ('the Holy One, Israel, and the Torah are one'). To study migo, or a goring ox, is itself cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, and not merely a means of reaching that state.

As is known in our circles, there is an existential problem with this conception of devekut, and of the service of God through Torah study. In the world of hesder yeshivot, Torah study is usually not really perceived as itself the service of God, and therefore questions are always asked such as: 'What does this say in terms of the service of God?' Or: 'What does this contribute to my understanding of the real world, or to my understanding of divinity, and certainly to my experience of the service of God' (or with regard to the improvement of character traits). The service of God and devekut are the self-evident concepts, and in those terms one must explain to students the importance of Torah study as well.

I feel that the problem in the conception of the essence of 'chalut', which, as we have seen, reflects a problem in understanding the foundation that underlies Jewish law, and Torah study in general, is also what lies at the base of some of these problems.

In the common discussion in the books of medieval Jewish philosophers on the divine attributes, the Holy One, blessed be He, is conceived as distant, and as possessing only negative attributes. The distance between us and Him is infinite and therefore cannot be bridged. At most one can aspire to a mystical experience that will remove me from my everyday being and raise me to exalted peaks of union with divinity. This is the accepted conception of devekut, contrary to Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin.

Rabbi HaNazir, in his book Kol HaNevuah, elaborates at length on the kabbalistic conception according to which there are positive attributes of divinity (and, of course, many preceded him in this). The difference between them and the attributes of ordinary objects is that the divine attributes are an essence, an entity, and not an attribute. As is known in Kabbalah, all the higher worlds are nothing but positive divine attributes, while at the same time they are objects and spiritual entities, unlike the attributes of human beings or material objects, which are not entities but abstract appendages to entities. Redness is not an object, but a fictive abstraction. What exists is only a red object. In the case of the divine attributes, the attributes exist in themselves and are not merely attributes attached to divinity. The difference between them and 'separate' objects is that the Holy One, blessed be He, is present 'with them' (= emanation) as a soul in a body.

The philosophical approach that tended to conceive the attributes as negative conceived the divine attributes in the same way that one conceives the attributes of material objects, and therefore determined (usually) that there are only negative attributes, for the attributes are found in the object itself, and the divinity itself cannot be grasped.[19] Devekut in such a philosophical world is cleaving to Him Himself, which is of course an impossible task in the human world, and therefore requires a mystical and exceptional departure beyond this world.

By contrast, if we conceive the attributes as 'mediating' worlds (with all the problems from which Kabbalah suffered in all the well-known debates on this subject), then it becomes possible to cleave to the divine attributes, which, as stated, are objects more within our reach. In fact, the entire goal is to try to ascend gradually through all the mediating worlds upward. Devekut in such a conception is with respect to the positive divine attributes, that is, with respect to the spiritual worlds (or, more precisely, with respect to the Infinite Light revealed through them).

This devekut is not achieved by mystical experiences, but has expression in our rational language. 'A goring ox', 'migo', 'the chalut of married-woman status' (and not 'married woman'), 'the chalut of ownership' (and not ownership)—this is precisely the language that we must understand and clarify, and as Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin teaches, this itself is cleaving to Him, blessed be He. One who does not understand that in the concept 'the chalut of married-woman status' there is more than a description of legal status, indeed will not be able to cleave to divinity without mystical experiences and ecstatic departures.

The halakhic concepts that exist in the world of chaluyot are the very names (or positive attributes) of the Holy One, blessed be He.

The Jewish way of cleaving to Him, blessed be He, is precisely by engaging in these subjects while attempting to decipher their secret. One who does not feel that he is deciphering a secret, and lives with the feeling that 'married woman' is a description of a woman's legal status, or that 'ownership' is a description of an object's legal status, will not be able to find satisfaction in the study of analysis as accepted in the yeshiva world, and will seek, as is common today, various mystical substitutes. For him, engagement with Torah is like studying a merely legal system. He of course also will not be able to understand what 'the chalut of married-woman status' is, for in his world there is only 'married woman' as an attribute.

I once heard from Rabbi She'ar Yashuv Cohen, in the name of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, that one of the differences between ordinary mysticism and Kabbalah is that the kabbalistic conceptual world is indeed not drawn from the human conceptual world, but the mode of engagement with these concepts is entirely rational. The goal is to grasp them as one grasps any other concept and to build through them a clear and coherent picture of the world, not to ascend with them into vague mystical worlds. In the discussion above on the unity of opposites I mentioned that, in my opinion, the basic Jewish experience, as it emerges from most of the sources, is an experience of understanding and not a mystical experience, and therefore concepts like 'the unity of opposites' are usually foreign to the spirit of the classical Torah familiar to us. Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda's statement means that even in the realm of Kabbalah, which is ostensibly esoteric, we generally try to arrive at an experience of understanding and not of mystical ecstasy.[20]

Here we arrive at the difference between the classical yeshiva world (the Haredi one) and the modern world (the hesder one). In the classical yeshiva world, they did not trouble themselves to define the use of the concept 'the chalut of married-woman status' as opposed to 'married woman', because it was self-evident to them, and habituation to it and the ability to use it correctly ultimately bring one to absorb its meaning. Also in the normal process of learning a language, an infant learns words not drawn from his own world; beyond words that function as nouns, he also learns to recognize and use abstract concepts. His understanding of those concepts is not always measured by the ability to define them explicitly (in fact, no basic concept can be explicitly defined; it itself serves in defining other concepts, derivative concepts), but by the ability to use them correctly. Of course, I do not mean to argue for conventionalism, that is, for the approach according to which concepts have no meaning at all, only use (the approach of Wittgenstein and some of his fellow analytic philosophers in this century). I mean here to argue that use is a symptom of correct understanding even when no explicit definition accompanies it.

In the classical yeshiva world, concepts of 'chalut' are self-evident concepts and do not require definition. This is not necessarily superficiality and shallowness, though that exists too, of course, but rather the life of a person who speaks his language as a mother tongue and does not trouble himself to define for himself the meanings of words in that language. One who tries to define such usages through the spoken language and its conceptual system does so only because the concepts of the modern spoken language are clearer to him than these halakhic concepts. He himself has no sharp explicit definition for the concepts of the spoken language, nor does he trouble himself to seek one. One who grew up at the knees of Torah, and whose mother tongue is its language, does not require sharp definitions even for its basic concepts, and the use of the terms fully suffices for him. Of course, one must not ignore the fact that this vagueness and lack of understanding do indeed characterize the situation in our yeshivot, and one should try to respond to that need, and for that, among other things, this article is intended.

D. A Philosophical-Contemporary Implication.

We distinguished between concepts as such and their implications, or their halakhic characteristics. We saw that sometimes the concept itself exists in the background, even though some of its implications do not appear with it.

The existence of chaluyot was connected in the previous chapter to the existence of the divine attributes as entities and not as attributes. The halakhic concepts are some expression of the divine attributes, and therefore they are entities that exist in their own right and not merely as attributes of material objects.

It seems to me that there is an important implication to the understanding that concepts in general have an existence in their own right. Here I mean to argue for the existence of concepts (a Platonic world of ideas) even beyond the halakhic sphere. Usually there prevails the conception that concepts are not entities. They do not exist; rather, they have a definition as a collection of characteristics, accepted by the society that uses those concepts. I do not think that this is a correct description of reality. In my humble opinion, concepts in general (or at least some of them) do have an existence in themselves, and their characteristics are only their attributes. Aristotle, who distinguished between matter and form of objects, did so also with respect to the matter and form of concepts. Similarly, Kant in the modern era distinguished between the thing in itself (the noumenon) and its appearance (the phenomenon). My claim here is that, following Aristotle, one should make the Kantian distinction also on the plane of concepts, and not, as Kant himself proposed, only in the realm of objects. In a concept too, one can distinguish between the concept in itself and the way it appears to us.

We may illustrate this by considering a contemporary issue, and even a painful one.

Throughout most of the years of the State of Israel's existence, a fierce public dispute raged over the question 'Who is a Jew?' Many of the newer proposals suffer from elementary logical failures (such as circularity: a Jew is one who feels himself to be a Jew), but here I wish to address the very existence of the dispute. Some argue that a Jew is one who feels identification with the Jewish people, while others, by contrast, argue that a Jew is one who was born to a Jewish mother or converted according to Jewish law.

If the concept 'Jew' were really only a linguistic convention, then the conflict could be solved very easily, by saying that we will call the first notion 'Israeli' (or 'Yekum Purkan', for one who likes that better), and the second we will call 'Jew'. If the sentiments nevertheless feel injured, one can decide that neither of the two groups will be called 'Jew', but rather by some other name. It is clear that on a conventionalist conception there is no place for a real dispute; there is no reason at all to argue about arbitrary definitions. Seemingly, this is a quarrel for the sake of quarreling, which could be solved very easily.

It seems to me that, although there is usually no awareness of this, both sides in this dispute agree on one point. Both agree that they are dealing with the same concept in itself, and the dispute is only over the correct definition of its characteristics. As stated, if the two sides are not speaking about the same concept, there is no place for a dispute at all. A simple agreement on a semantic change would put an end to all the problems. Therefore it is clear that the concept 'Jew', which ostensibly is an attribute, is in fact one existing entity, and that entity is the subject of all these disputes. The sides in the dispute 'observe' this entity: these say that its characteristics are such and such, and those opposing them say that the characteristics are different. The dispute can only be over the characteristics of the one entity that everyone is talking about, and not over a concept conceived as an arbitrary conventionalist definition, over which there is no reason at all to argue.

One can repeat this argument with respect to the concept 'good', and infer from the existence of moral disputes the opposite of what is usually inferred from them. The existence of moral disputes sometimes serves as evidence that morality is relative, or that the concept 'good' is used in different meanings by every society, or every person. In my opinion, precisely the opposite is proved from this. If there is a dispute, and it is agreed by the sides that it cannot be solved by deciding that the collection of rules of the Eskimos will be called 'poser', those of the Indians 'toser', and those of the West 'morality', then it is clear that the dispute is being conducted on the same plane. The meaning of the words 'morality' or 'good' is universal, and the dispute rages only over the characteristics, or the modes of conduct practically required by it (in the terminology above: the moral laws).

We see that the assertion of a Platonic world of ideas in Jewish law, which is applied later in our discussion to the problem of devekut or the divine attributes, returns again to our world. Concepts, which are usually perceived as attributes, are presented here as entities that have characteristics, and those characteristics are what stand at the center of the various disputes. Concepts have, on the one hand, 'matter', or 'essence', or 'the thing in itself' (noumena), and, on the other hand, 'form', 'nature', or 'appearance' (phenomena).

This is a philosophical implication with important existential significance from the discussion we have conducted here. It is also a demonstration of how one can move from halakhic analysis to the plane of thought and philosophy by continuing the inquiry into the same matters. Usually it is accepted that Jewish thought deals with transcendental questions, while Jewish law deals with the concrete-halakhic world. That is, the difference between thought and Jewish law is understood mainly as lying in the nature of the subjects with which these fields deal. In my opinion, these fields deal with the same subjects themselves; the difference lies not in the objects of inquiry but in the level at which one engages them, or alternatively in how many 'why' questions precede the engagement. Every analytical argument in study conceals behind it a philosophical world that can be uncovered by asking one additional 'why'. Engagement with a 'halakhic topic' that leads us to a certain analytical argument can serve as an excellent point of departure for a philosophical discussion. The objects of inquiry of Jewish thought and Jewish law are the same objects, and this too is part of the answer I propose to the recurring call in our circles to connect these fields to one another, but that is already another discussion.

E. Summary.

In this article I tried to propose an explanation of the concept of 'chalut', in which I argued that it is an entity, and not an attribute, existing in a metaphysical (ideal) world. I tried thereby to explain the method of 'two laws' as it appeared in the example of the problem of condition according to Rabbi Shimon Shkop's understanding, and following that, to argue that the misunderstanding of the concept of chalut reflects a substantive misunderstanding of the world of Torah and Jewish law, which is based on metaphysics and not on justice and social order, on which other legal systems are based. I tried to show that this misunderstanding is connected to a different understanding of divinity, and therefore to a different conception of devekut, which finds expression in the dilemmas of devekut that are so prevalent today.

Finally, I tried to suggest one philosophical implication of the claims proposed here regarding the ontic foundation of attributes, which concerns the conception of the essence of concepts in general as composed of matter and form, or of essence and characteristics (attributes). I concluded with a brief hint at the significance of the discussion here for the matter of connecting thought and Jewish law.

Many of the subjects that arose here in passing require much fuller elaboration and further depth. On some of them I already have a certain amount of elaboration, and when I find the time, with God's help, I will revise these chapters.

Finished, but not completed. Blessed is the Merciful One, who assisted me up to this point, from world to world.

[1] In recent days I saw an offprint of a lecture Rabbi Shagar gave at a study day on teaching Talmud, where he argued that the average student knows what the taking of betrothal is, but he does not manage with the 'act of taking' (= ma'aseh kikhah), and this is exactly the same point.

[2] Tosafot's difficulty can also be understood differently: why does the payment go to his master, when the payment itself is the fruit of the slave's labor, and the fruit of his labor belongs to himself. It is clear that these two formulations are umbilically connected to one another, and since this is only an illustrative example, we will not address that difference here.

[3] Many years ago I discussed this subject with my teacher Rabbi Moshe Reichenberg of Bnei Brak, who refused to understand Pnei Yehoshua's answer as I suggested, and yet when we went to a Torah adjudication before a third Jew, he was the one who presented the matter in this way in order to support what I had argued.

[4] In light of this, it will be easier to reconcile ourselves to the assertion found in the medieval authorities and in the Talmud regarding the woman as her husband's acquisition. This comes up chiefly in the context of a priest's wife eating terumah, which is learned from the verse that which is acquired by his money may eat of it ('that which is acquired by his money may eat of it'). In the responsa Avnei Milu'im, sec. 17, he brings from the Shitah Mekubetzet that the meaning is that the woman is acquired by means of a monetary acquisition, and not that the relation between her and her husband is one of his monetary ownership over her. According to what we have said here, one can say that there is a metaphysical relation between them, just as there is such a relation between a person and his property, and therefore it is created in similar ways. The legal implications of ownership in the form of monetary rights do not exist in this case. It should be noted that the husband divorces his wife, and not the wife her husband, just as the slave awaiting a writ of manumission is not his master's property in the monetary sense of rights, despite the fact that the owner is the only one who can free (or divorce) him.

For the solution of this problem it is common to rely on other derivations regarding a woman's eating terumah from the verse every pure person in your household may eat holy food ('every pure person in your household may eat holy food'). In my opinion this will not help, and certainly not according to all views, and the matter is longstanding (see, for example, Imrei Moshe sec. 13, and elsewhere).

[5] It is clear that the understanding of the Gittin passage is still not complete, for there is here also a novel claim regarding the nature of damage payments, and not only regarding the nature of ownership. In my opinion, one can also ground the claim that payments for damages are not mere compensation (see, for example, the dispute between Rashi and Rosh at the beginning of chapter HaChovel regarding the valuation of bodily damages—whether one assesses as a Canaanite slave or as a Hebrew slave), but for our purposes here this is enough.

[6] In the context of the tannaitic dispute regarding lesser sacred offerings—whether they are the owner's property or Heaven's property—it always bothered me that the medieval and later authorities bring practical ramifications for the claim that they are the owner's property instead of mentioning permitted uses of the animal. They bring examples of legal acts that one can perform with lesser sacred offerings, but do not bring any permitted use of the animal by the owner himself. It seems that there is here an attempt to show the existence of the metaphysical concept of ownership and not possibilities or rights of use in the body of the animal. There too, at least according to some views, the concept of ownership itself appears without the elementary rights of use, and this is not the place to elaborate.

[7] See Ritva at the beginning of chapter Mi Shehechshikh, who disagrees with Tosafot Rid on this point, and others.

[8] It would be more correct to present these three examples from the opposite direction: my body too is not my very self. The person himself is the spirit, or the soul. The body is a periphery for which the person is responsible, and in that sense property too is like the body, except that it constitutes a more distant periphery. The hierarchy that exists among these peripheries is expressed, for example, in the fact that for damage caused by his property a person is not liable in a case of complete accident, unlike the case of damage caused by his body, and in the fact that, in the conclusion, one does not split testimony in a person's testimony about his own ox. These are only hierarchies among different peripheries of the person, but all of them are circles around him that are connected to him metaphysically (or physically).

[9] One might have tried to learn the pure concept of ownership from the views that hold that a person has ownership over objects from which benefit is prohibited. At first glance it would seem to be proven from here clearly that ownership can appear without the implications of rights of use. But this is an optical illusion, for in a case of objects from which benefit is prohibited, according to the one who holds that there is ownership over them, legally the owner has all the monetary rights of use in the object, except that he is forbidden (from the standpoint of prohibition) to realize them. No one else has the right to object to his use of the object; this is a prohibition vis-à-vis Heaven and not vis-à-vis his fellow (prohibitions of benefit are in their essence matters of Yoreh De'ah and not of Choshen Mishpat). The second view, which holds that there is no ownership over objects from which benefit is prohibited, is the puzzling one in this context, for it links Yoreh De'ah to Choshen Mishpat. From it there indeed appears clearly the opposite of what I have argued here: that all ownership is nothing but a collection of rights of use, and in their absence there is no ownership. But it may be that what this view holds is that in prohibitions of benefit the Torah does not prohibit uses, but actually removes the object from the owner, and the use-prohibitions are only a consequence of that removal, and this is not the place to elaborate.

[10] Rabbi Shimon deals extensively with conditions. See, for example, Sha'arei Yosher, gate 2, chapters 9-10; gate 7, chapters 8 and 18; his novellae to Ketubbot, sections 1-2; and more. There are apparent contradictions between the various treatments, but it seems to me that these represent a continuous and non-contradictory development of the concept of condition in Rabbi Shimon's interpretation. In the above-mentioned gate 2 he argues that the condition is the factor that creates the chalut, and not, as is usually understood, that it merely reveals retroactively whether the act created it. In the treatise on conditions, which was written after Sha'arei Yosher, he moves further and argues (an argument that can be made only on the basis of the conception in Sha'arei Yosher just mentioned) that the state until the condition is fulfilled is a kind of doubt, and that is the approach to which I refer in my remarks in the body of the text.

[11] The distinction between logical and physical problematicity appears, for example, in Yehudit Ronen's article on foreknowledge and free choice, 'Between Religion and Morality', edited by Daniel Statman and Avi Sagi, Bar-Ilan University, 1994, and in issue 2 of 'Higgayon'. Physical problematicity means a situation that contradicts the laws of nature, something to which the Holy One, blessed be He, is of course not subject. Logical problematicity is a situation that contradicts the laws of logic, something about which we cannot even speak, for our speech presupposes the laws of logic. It should be noted that viewing the problem of foreknowledge and free choice as a paradox depends on the conception that returning in time is not a physical problem but a logical one, and as such even the Holy One, blessed be He, so to speak, is not 'able' to overcome it. As a number of medieval authorities already wrote, the Holy One, blessed be He, can perform miracles against the laws of nature (= physical impossibilities), but He 'cannot' make a square triangle (= logical impossibilities). See, for example, Aviad Biller's article in Alon Shevut-Bogrim, volume 7, p. 139, note 26 (and Rashba responsa, part 4, sec. 234, which formulates this distinction clearly, and many others). For this reason too I do not agree with Ronen's solution in the aforementioned article, and this would require much elaboration, but this is not the place.

[12] Weil himself presents there the approach that the logical law breached in quantum theory is not the law of non-contradiction but another law. I did not entirely understand how this claim solves the problems of the law of non-contradiction, and therefore I do not intend here to argue against his solution in quantum theory, but only against general statements that in quantum theory there prevails a logic different from the one that serves us in daily life. I will comment further on this later in the discussion.

[13] One cannot say that I believe in foreknowledge and free choice simultaneously if I indeed think that there is a real logical contradiction between them. The thought and language that I use are built on logical foundations. One who says such a thing joins words together into something that is not a meaningful sentence. He cannot really believe in this pair of concepts, which contradict one another, at the same time. Statements of this sort point to philosophical distress, but they cannot be regarded as a solution to it. Even if I am commanded to believe in a logical contradiction, I am simply unable to do so. One who says that he believes such a thing is, in my opinion, merely piling up words.

Sometimes there is a feeling that there is indeed a real solution to the problem, but that it is difficult to formulate it in the accepted language, and 'the unity of opposites' is no more than a covering for such a situation. It seems to me that this is usually indeed the case. In such a situation one should seek and try to sharpen the reason why there is no logical contradiction here, and not repeat the paradox in a different language and 'resolve' the difficulty by the unity of opposites, that is, by statements as if we believe the matter despite the fact that it contains a logical contradiction. To summarize: if these are not really opposites, one does not need 'the unity of opposites' in order to solve the problem, and if they are indeed opposites, then in my opinion a stubborn repetition of the mantra of the unity of opposites will not help us at all.

[14] One must consider what the law would be in the case of a woman upon whom there rests a 'chalut of married-woman status' and also a 'chalut of not-married-woman status' simultaneously. It seems to me that there are no negative chaluyot at all. There is a chalut of divorce, but there is no chalut of 'not-married-woman'. A chalut of divorce, as stated, can dwell together with a chalut of married-woman status.

[15] In my opinion, the solution to the interpretation of quantum theory also lies in a similar move. Physical properties are not properties but objects. Particle and wave are entities and not attributes, and therefore they do not contradict one another, for entities as such cannot contradict one another at all. These are entities that have contradictory properties, and the solution proposed here is that these are two chaluyot resting together upon the particle, while the practical implications (the particle's attributes) are determined in accordance with the laws of quantum theory. Of course, the problem here is that apparently 'particle' and 'wave' are both positive chaluyot (neither of them is absence-based), and therefore the solution on the plane of actual characteristics is not trivial, and this is not the place to elaborate.

[16] Also in the Platonic picture of the world of ideas, when perfect horseness descends into the real world and characterizes a real horse, it is not perfect. There are changes in it relative to the perfect idea as such. Some of the characteristics that characterize the idea of horseness do not appear in the horse.

[17] Similar expressions appear in the Talmud and the medieval authorities with respect to one who is half-slave and half-free, where they discuss the slave side in her and the free side in her, and likewise with respect to one who is half-slave and half-free, a slave of two partners (and this depends on the well-known inquiry into the essence of partnership: whether it is an undifferentiated half or a partnership of everything in everything), and more. In every case one must discuss whether this is a state of doubt or a state of composite certainty as here.

Incidentally, one must also discuss the composition of additional concepts such as Yom Kippur that falls on the Sabbath, as in Ohr Sameach on the Laws of the Temple Service of Yom Kippur, and in the Rogatchover's discussion in Tzafnat Pa'neach, responsum 2, and more. My claim is that every composition of halakhic concepts, such as a Jewish holiday that falls on the Sabbath, creates a new concept and does not simply combine two concepts one on top of the other. See the above works regarding the practical ramifications of such an understanding, and elsewhere I have elaborated.

[18] In Rabbi Shimon himself the matter is not clear. He argues that there is a tenuous maritality, and it would seem that a religious court cannot impose the death penalty in such a case, and he is right in light of the Talmud, Gittin 74a. But in order to illustrate and sharpen the complex reality, I chose to present such a position. It seems to me that one cannot rule it out on purely logical grounds.

[19] Philosophy deals with the worlds of Beri'ah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, while Kabbalah deals with Atzilut. In BYA the attributes are indeed such, but the entire essence of Atzilut is the existence of attributes as entities. This is, in my opinion, the meaning of the well-known aphorism 'Where philosophy ends, Kabbalah begins.' This sentence is to be taken literally, and not merely as a phrase, as it is usually understood by those who merely 'recite' it. One may say 'geographically' that the place of transition between the two realms is called the Throne of Glory, located in the upper part of the world of Beri'ah. The world of Atzilut serves here as a continuation of the analogy to the Platonic world of ideas, where the attributes exist as entities. In the worlds of BYA they function only as attributes of objects.

[20] The time has come to write the Jewish counterpart to James's popular (and confusing) book The Varieties of Religious Experience. That book has an overtly Christian orientation, and despite that, many use it in order to learn and draw conclusions even about the meaning of Jewish religious experience.

Elsewhere I have noted the interesting phenomenon that in the modern world there are two accepted characteristics of religion: religiosity and morality. An examination of contemporary Judaism and its sources through these tools would yield surprising results, and at times results very disappointing from these points of view. It would not seem 'religious' at all. It seems to me that here too there is an attempt to force the Jewish religion into the theoretical mold of the general definitions of 'religion', which are fundamentally drawn from thinkers with a Christian orientation (many of them Jews, and a large proportion of them analyze Judaism that way as well). See Kant's criticism, following Spinoza, of Judaism, and his seemingly absurd determination that it is a system of behavioral laws (social laws), and not a 'religion' in the accepted sense. This is not entirely absurd; there is a healthy intuition here, but it is nourished by Christian tools of observation. It is interesting that precisely some of the neo-Kantian Jews who criticized him for this approach (Hermann Cohen being the most prominent among them), in my opinion understood Judaism less well than he did in several respects.

I will add that the phenomenon of Hasidism is very exceptional in this whole context. It is certainly a thoroughly Jewish phenomenon (and it does not need my approval, or that of people like me, on that score), but one cannot deny that it is not classical, and does not fit the central Jewish traditions in the service of God. The concerns of some of the great sages of Israel at the beginning of the Hasidic era, that there would be there a breach beyond the boundaries of Jewish law, were not accidental. Such a breach happened, and still happens at times. There is apparently a contradiction between religion in its mystical-experiential sense and punctilious observance of Jewish law (the law, 'nomos' in Kant's terms), and concentration on rational study and understanding as the essence of the service of God (it is clear and well known that some of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin's aforementioned remarks, as a disciple of the Vilna Gaon, are directed against the Hasidic conceptions that emerged in his time).

Beyond that, it is worth noting that today's Hasidism no longer has those same mystical characteristics that it had in the past (and it is even criticized for that), and if indeed the phenomenon of mystical Judaism as a social phenomenon is passing from the stage of history, that too probably points to an essential aspect of the rationalistic character of Judaism, or of the Torah, as we said above.