On Lamdanut as a Talmudic Paradigm (Column 57)
With God's help
The previous column dealt with an issue that arose somewhat incidentally around an article I published in the Shabbat supplement of Makor Rishon (Parashat Mishpatim): the publication of articles by women in Torah journals. In the next columns I will return to the main issues in that article—Torah study, the rabbinate, and positions of authority for women—but before that, in this column I want to begin clarifying the meaning and importance of lamdanut. I ask your forgiveness in advance for the conservative speech I am about to deliver here, contrary to my usual habit. What can I do? Sometimes conservatism is not a dirty word—or, more precisely, sometimes even if you say something conservative, it can still be true. The condition is that it be something reasoned and plausible, not merely backed by conservative declarations as such.
What Is Lamdanut
The term lamdanut—the analytic-conceptual mode of Talmud study—is fairly vague. Some use it in broader contexts to denote knowledge, broad learning, or breadth of horizons. In the yeshiva world, however, it has a more specific meaning. The yeshiva lamdan is, of course, also a person of knowledge and Talmudic background, and the more the better; but knowledge and breadth are far from exhausting this concept. Lamdanut is a type of thinking and analytical ability accepted in the yeshiva world (primarily the Lithuanian one, though today almost everywhere). This skill, like any skill, includes familiarity with earlier lamdanic analyses, including canonical works such as Hiddushei Rabbi Chaim HaLevi (Soloveitchik of Brisk) on Maimonides and on the Talmud (the 'Stencil'), Sha'arei Yosher, and the novellae of Rabbi Shimon Yehuda HaKohen Shkop, Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky, Rabbi Nachum Partzovitz, and many more. It requires acquaintance with kinds of distinctions and with fundamental conceptual rationales current in the world of study (some of them written nowhere). It is a form of thinking and analysis, a kind of atmosphere within which Talmudic study and inquiry are conducted in the yeshivot.
More specifically, these are tools developed in the Lithuanian yeshiva world. They include conceptual analysis, separation and distinction between similar principles and between different components within the same principle itself (two distinct legal layers), and more generally the analysis and synthesis of Talmudic and halakhic concepts and principles.[1] Thus, for example, if a lamdan hears someone studying the topic of lishmah—doing something 'for its own sake'—in some context (offering sacrifices, spinning tzitzit threads, building a sukkah, writing a bill of divorce, and so on) and connecting it to the topic of whether commandments require intention, he will recoil at the lack of precision. Despite the similarity, there is no real connection between lishmah and intention. A yeshiva lamdan who hears a migo argument immediately distinguishes between two dimensions of migo, 'the strength of the claim' (or credibility) and 'why would he lie?' He also knows that something being within a person's power, despite the similarity, is not migo. His ear is sensitive to subtle distinctions and to differentiations hidden from a less trained eye.
Lamdanut, in its basic definition, does not necessarily include originality, and even depth only in a certain sense. The world of lamdanut consists of many kinds of lamdanim at different levels. Some are original and some less so. Some innovate and some cling to lamdanic precedents. There are unmistakable lamdanim—indeed, in my estimation, most of them are of this sort—who apply the analytical tools and conceptual system of the founders of the method to each and every topic in a rather banal way. Some of them simply know very well everything that has been written, and that alone suffices for them to be considered lamdanim. Others know how to apply this analysis to new topics and new difficulties as well, and still what they call a 'novel insight' is usually just another application of the same lamdanic techniques. A few succeed in creating an additional layer in the lamdanic edifice. These are genuinely original and innovative people, who use the existing tools and add something of their own. All the types I have described here, each at his own level, are fully entitled to be called 'lamdanim,' each according to his rank and honor. What is at issue is a basic analytical and synthetic skill that a lamdan possesses, a kind of language and paradigm of study and inquiry; anything beyond that can of course add further value. If he is also original and innovative, so much the better, but that is not necessary to define him as a lamdan.
There can of course be other ways of approaching the Talmud as well. Most of them do not merit the title of lamdanut. There is academic analysis and literary analysis, psychologizing, cultural analysis, historicization, social analysis, and much more. Yeshiva lamdanut is not occupied with the text as text, nor with its authors or its implications; it is committed to its ideas. It deals with the content the text contains and conveys, and touches the text itself only insofar as that contributes to understanding the ideas. It does not seek inspiration in the text for psychological or literary ideas; rather, it is interested in the meanings hidden between its folds. Lamdanut focuses mainly on the legal-halakhic parts of the Talmud, but there can be lamdanut in other parts as well (though that is usually something different). There may also be new methods that can certainly be identified as lamdanut even though they propose paths different from the canonical ones (Rabbi Chaim and Rabbi Shimon), and I assume that a sufficiently skilled and open lamdan will know how to recognize them as such; if he is open enough, he may even be able to acknowledge the truth and perhaps adopt them.
A Note: Lamdanut as a Paradigm
My claim is that lamdanut is not something subjective. Not everything goes. Not every way of thinking or handling a text is lamdanut. I want to argue here that the validity of lamdanut does not stem merely from the fact that it is what became accepted; rather, it embodies insights drawn from the accumulated experience of studying Talmud and Jewish law. It is not merely the customary way of treating the text, something arbitrary; it is the 'correct' way to treat it. The philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn gave the term 'paradigm' a bad name. A paradigm is defined as the framework of thought within which science proceeds, but Kuhn argues that it is nothing more than an arbitrary framework adopted for purely sociological reasons. Science could equally well have proceeded in an entirely different way. My claim, by contrast, is that both in science and in Talmudic study the paradigm is not a mere convention, but the result of accumulated experience and skill. It is a collection of tools and techniques that have been accepted, tested in the world of study, and recognized as the proper tools for decoding the text and the world of Talmudic ideas. Anyone who works differently simply misses the truth. Just as a sane person would not regard science as something arbitrary founded on nothing but convention: whoever does not work in accordance with it will simply fail to hit the truth. Of course, exceptions are possible, since we are all human and all liable to err. But as a rule, this is the accumulated experience, in science no less than in Jewish law and the Talmud. One indication of this is that if such a student presents his conclusions to a lamdan, he will encounter difficulties and explanatory possibilities that he probably had not thought of himself, and in many cases these will cause him to abandon his conclusions. Usually such an argument does not end in a draw.
Let me stress again that I do not mean a narrowing claim, as if only one particular form of analysis (for example, that of the Lithuanian yeshivot) hits upon the truth, and certainly not the claim that every result of lamdanic analysis is correct. On the contrary, the accepted lamdanic analysis suffers from quite a few shortcomings, and there is certainly room for improvement. What I mean here is that lamdanut in its broader sense is not merely a paradigm but a tool that cannot be ignored in interpreting the Talmud and the halakhic decisors. There are different ways to use it, and there are different forms of lamdanut (sometimes mistaken, and sometimes superficial—forms that ignore the nuances of the text, usually in favor of the interpreter's a priori logic). Even so, anyone who ignores this corpus and does not know it well will usually make embarrassing mistakes. Without it, even if you know by heart all parts of the Talmud and its commentators, you are not truly at home in Torah study. If you want to add another layer, you must do so on top of what exists, not in its place. It is certainly important to refine and develop lamdanut, but that cannot be done by replacing it with something else. Incidentally, Thomas Kuhn is gravely mistaken in the scientific context as well. He describes a revolution in which a paradigm is replaced as demolition and rebuilding from scratch. Since modern science began using empirical, controlled, and systematic methods, I know of almost no such revolution. Changes are usually made on top of previous layers, not instead of them.
In the Talmudic-halakhic context as well, the tradition as it has developed down to our own day matters. Even if modern lamdanut is not the way Moses our Teacher, Rabbi Akiva, Abaye and Rava, or Rav Ashi learned, it is still the point to which that tradition has arrived, and only from it and on top of it can we continue. One need not accept the tradition lock, stock, and barrel, but it would be a mistake to ignore it and replace it.
A Nose for Lamdanut
There is a nose for lamdanut, and it is acquired over time. On the one hand, this instinct enables me to know very quickly in what direction I should look for the answer to a difficulty; it hints to me at the fundamental questions in the topic, at the analytical tools it would be worth using in the case at hand, and more. At the same time, this instinct enables me to tell within a minute whether my interlocutor is a lamdan or not. Rarely will I need three minutes (if he is speaking lamdanut translated into modern language rather than in actual yeshiva idiom), but usually not more than that.
Again, there will no doubt be those who claim that this is subjective closed-mindedness, and that in effect I am labeling all ways of thinking and all the people who do not think and act as I do as if they were not lamdanim and their approach were not lamdanut. But I do not accept that. There are certainly people who do not think as I do and with respect to whom I fully agree that they are lamdanim—indeed, more so than I. And yet, anyone engaged in this field has a nose by which one can determine fairly quickly the quality of one's interlocutor on this plane. Exactly as in science, where you can tell very quickly whether the person before you simply disagrees with you or is just talking nonsense.
To be sure, there are conservative lamdanim whose conception is narrow, and they disqualify everyone who does not think as they do. Thus, for example, students of the Ponevezh Yeshiva are convinced that Slobodka students do not know how to learn (the truth is, as a former Ponevezh student I have to say they are pretty much right. But don't tell anyone). That is using the paradigm in Kuhn's sense. But it seems to me that I, in my small way, have passed that stage, and I am fairly convinced that I know how to identify and appreciate other kinds of lamdanut, even ones with which I disagree. It is a matter of maturity and openness.[2] And yet, even for me there is a fairly sharp difference between a lamdan and someone who is not a lamdan. An outsider will not understand this.
There are laypeople who will be deeply impressed by the knowledge and analytical and rhetorical ability of the person before them and will proclaim him an outstanding Torah scholar, while the yeshiva students standing there will chuckle to themselves dismissively and instantly see that the fellow is mixing apples and oranges and has no idea what lamdanut is—even if the polite ones among them keep the chuckle behind their mustaches. I think each of us, members of the lamdanic guild, knows this phenomenon. More than once I have heard people marvel at some rabbi or anonymous speaker, at his vast erudition and enormous depth, and it was uncomfortable for me to tell them what I thought of him. In many cases laypeople—and even some among them who serve as rabbis and teachers—have no tools whatsoever for judging the degree of lamdanut and Torah greatness.
These things are true in almost every field of knowledge and professional skill. Philosophers, physicists, jurists, and mathematicians have similar experiences. On the one hand, there are clear intuitions about who is good and who is not, who is speaking to the point and who is not, and laypeople will not always understand this or be properly impressed. On the other hand, in these fields too one can of course find the closed-mindedness that labels people as non-lamdanim simply because their way of thinking differs from mine. And yet I am among those who think that even if these labels are sometimes misused, they have real substance. In a postmodern fashion in which anything goes and there are no criteria, it is very easy to produce statements that everything is subjective and that these labels are really manipulative tools for advancing agendas. This is nonsense, of course, and that nonsense itself is nothing but a manipulative tool for advancing agendas—and in many cases the tool of the lazy person who does not wish, or is not able, to think, sort, and distinguish between good and bad and between quality and what is not quality.
Is a Judge Influenced by His Worldview?
To sharpen the point, let me tell a story from my own experience. A few years ago I participated in a conference at the Israel Democracy Institute, where rabbis and jurists met for discussion and mutual clarification. It was in the heyday of Aharon Barak, when criticism of judicial activism, mainly from the religious and right-wing camp, had reached a fever pitch. Among the participants was Prof. Englard, an observant, kippah-wearing man who at the time served as a justice of the Supreme Court. In his lecture and in the discussion he repeatedly insisted, with great stubbornness, that agendas and ideologies have no influence whatsoever on judicial decisions of the courts (including the Supreme Court!). Everything is done with professional tools and in accordance with pure, impartial legal judgment. When there is a disagreement between judges, he argued, it is a professional disagreement unrelated to ideology or worldview.
The rabbis in the discussion chuckled, below or above their mustaches, and it was obvious to everyone that the man was living in a fantasy. Surely every judge is deeply influenced by his worldview. A few columns ago I mentioned the split in the Amona case before the Supreme Court (the judges sitting there were Hendel, Joubran, and Danziger. Guess how each one voted…). True, in the overwhelming majority of cases that reach the Supreme Court—and even more so the lower courts—worldviews and ideology are irrelevant. But in those charged cases that make headlines, the division of opinion is certainly related to worldviews.
And yet his words struck me as sincere. It was evident that he believed them wholeheartedly. And since, in my estimation, the man is far from stupid, I decided to give him credit and think again about what he was saying. What immediately came to mind was a very similar critique of rabbis and halakhic decisors. Here too it is commonly thought that each one does whatever he likes—that is, that a halakhic ruling always reflects the decisor's ideological stance and worldview. Examples are not lacking. Think what a Haredi decisor will say about army service and what a Religious Zionist decisor will say about it. What will a liberal decisor say about women's enlistment and what will a conservative decisor say. What will a Hasidic decisor say about the formulas for the sake of the unification and angels of mercy, and what will a rationalist decisor, far removed from Kabbalah, say about them. And yet, as someone at home in the world of halakhic rulings and of Talmudic and halakhic study, it is clear to me that this is a mistaken analysis, or at least a biased one, produced 'from the outside.' Someone who is inside this world knows that there are rules and lines of reasoning that can be advanced and others that cannot, some that hold water and some that do not. Within that framework each person forms a worldview. That is why you sometimes find surprises, when one decisor or another issues a ruling that does not fit his general outlook—because he was persuaded that his ideology does not fit the halakhic paradigm and that his reasons do not hold water.
It is indeed true that within this framework there are degrees of freedom, and Jewish law does not dictate one clear answer. Nachmanides already wrote this in his introduction to Milhamot Hashem: for every student of our Talmud knows that the wisdom of our Torah is not like astronomy and geometry, whose demonstrations are conclusive… ('for every student of our Talmud knows that the wisdom of our Torah is not like astronomy and geometry, whose demonstrations are conclusive…'). (Today we know that astronomy too—that is, the natural sciences—does not yield conclusive demonstrations, unlike mathematics and logic.) At these points the decisor's worldview enters, and by it he chooses among the possible halakhic options. But this takes place within a disciplinary framework in which there is right and wrong, and it is a mistake to think that everything is arbitrary and everything depends on ideology. Hence, although there are disputes and different conceptions among students and decisors, halakhic discourse between them can take place and in fact does take place. Sometimes they are persuaded and sometimes not, but almost always each of them knows whether the person before him is a great decisor or not, whether his arguments are good or not, and above all which arguments merely differ from his own opinion and which are the nonsense of ignoramuses who neither understand nor know the discourse.
Following these thoughts, I went back and reconsidered Englard's remarks. With respect to Jewish law I am 'inside,' but with respect to judging I myself am somewhat 'outside.' Thus, from my position outside it seems to me that judges do whatever they want and that everything is ideology. But among themselves there is a kind of discourse in which there is right and wrong, and worldview is not a substitute for arguments. There are methodological and structural constraints on your judicial decision, and aside from exceptional cases of abuse of judicial power, worldviews operate only within that framework. For the outside observer, the illusion is created that the ruling is the result of worldview alone, whereas worldview operates only within the discipline's degrees of freedom. Those sitting around the table in court probably understand one another, and despite their disagreements there is a discourse among them with arguments and reasons. Sometimes one persuades his colleague and sometimes not, but each knows when what the other says, even if he disagrees with it, is legitimate according to the rules of the discourse and when it is not. Exactly as in halakhic discourse.
Looking 'From Within' and 'From Without'
This is the difference between looking 'from within' and looking 'from without.' Those on the outside are of course convinced that everything is subjective, and the 'fact' is that rulings break down according to worldviews. But this is a partial view born of ignorance and unfamiliarity. There is indeed a connection, because within the framework worldview certainly has an effect, but all of this takes place within the constraints of professional discourse. Very often outside observers are disappointed when 'their' man—whether a Supreme Court justice or a rabbi—rules contrary to 'what he was supposed to rule' (according to 'our' ideology, which he obviously shares. He is our representative there, isn't he?). But to someone well versed in the discourse from within, it is clear that the reason is not necessarily cowardice and conformity, as we tend to tell ourselves. Sometimes things seen from there are not seen from here. The intellectual integrity customary in legal or halakhic discourse dictates a different result, and with all the ideological pain, the professional makes an honest decision even if it is not 'correct'—that is, ideologically correct. Thus a religious judge, or even, heaven forfend, a settler, can rule against settlers in Judea and Samaria, and a left-wing judge can rule in favor of some government decision, and so on. This happens, and then everyone vents with rage over the 'betrayal' on the one hand and points to the fact that they are all leftists/rightists, heaven help us, on the other. From here come claims that that judge is merely a token religious figure or a token leftist, because in truth he has bent himself to the prevailing left-wing agenda there.
This is also the right way to look at lamdanut. Halakhic and Talmudic discourse is likewise a discipline. Someone who looks at it from the outside thinks it contains infinite flexibility and a great deal of arbitrariness, but that is ignorance. It has flexibility within a disciplinary framework. There is a discipline there, and with all the differences in conception and the deep disagreements, there is a discourse of right and wrong, and there are reasons that hold water and reasons that do not. Those who observe from the outside do not understand at all when it is lamdanut and when it is a donkey carrying books; when it is a reasonable and acceptable analysis, even if mistaken and disputed, and when we have strayed beyond the boundaries of the discourse and are simply talking nonsense; when it is original depth and when it is unfounded drivel. From their perspective, anyone who quotes Talmudic sources and discusses them is a Torah scholar or a lamdan. And if he has fascinating psychological ideas or edifying moral lessons, he is immediately deemed qualified for the rabbinate and for heading a yeshiva.
From an outside perspective one cannot understand or accept labels like 'lamdanim' and 'non-lamdanim.' From that perspective everyone is the same, and the label of lamdanut is perceived merely as a tool for excluding the other out of conservatism. Lamdanut is indeed a kind of closed disciplinary club, since only its members know who belongs to it and who does not. This naturally infuriates those outside, but it is only natural. Yet irritation is not an argument, and what is irritating is not necessarily wrong. To express an opinion one must study and become conversant, and only then can one offer alternatives and voice criticism.
In Conclusion: Two Conceptions of the Meaning and Importance of Lamdanut
Up to this point I have tried to sketch a portrait of lamdanut. A precise definition, or even a less superficial characterization, requires research and this is not the place for it. You can see from my remarks that I believe that without it something very important is lacking in the study and understanding of the Talmud and Jewish law. Beyond that, in my article I also argued that it is a condition for various rabbinic offices (head of a yeshiva, halakhic decisor, rabbi, and judge), and I will return to that in the next columns.
In any event, although I personally support the view that sees lamdanut as a necessary condition for greatness in Torah scholarship, I assume there will be those who disagree with me and, in their view, the dominance of lamdanut is only a convention. Yet it seems to me that even one who advocates the second conception (very mistaken in my opinion), which might be called a Kuhnian conception of lamdanut, will not be able to deny the fact that this is indeed how it is perceived by students and Torah authorities. This is an important point to which I will return in the next columns.
This description has considerable significance for the claims raised in the debate surrounding my above-mentioned article in Makor Rishon (some of them here on the site, around the previous column; some of them in the responses published in last week's Shabbat supplement; and some of them in email responses and in other media, for example here and here). In these remarks I wanted only to discuss the subject of lamdanut without the emotional charges, insult, and anger that accompanied the discussion of my words. In the next columns I will address the claims raised in those responses.
[1] In this connection it is worth seeing the discussion in the eighth and ninth volumes of the Talmudic Logic series, which deal with analysis and synthesis in Talmudic thinking.
[2] I still remember myself in my youth in Bnei Brak joining all those who mocked Rabbi Ovadia Yosef as a donkey carrying books. The prevailing view was that he was a man with a phenomenal memory but lacking analytical ability. Later, when I matured, I understood how deep the mistake was. This was a man with exceedingly impressive powers of analysis, thought, and classification. I hold that his lamdanut was very different from the yeshiva variety, and at times it seems a bit too basic, but anyone who says he did not understand lamdanut does not know what he is talking about. Part of this was ideology. Rabbi Ovadia knew all the books, including the lamdanic ones, so it is clear that he knew yeshiva lamdanut and understood what it was. Rather, his conception probably rejected it on principle. This case is truly a borderline case: a great Torah scholar who certainly knew very well how to learn (and needs neither me nor people like me), who can appear rather superficial in his learning, yet even through a lamdanic eye you will not find many errors in him. He uses non-yeshiva formulation, but the man obviously knew very well how to learn. Sometimes it is necessary to translate him into yeshiva language, but the dismissive label attached to him really expresses nothing more than conservatism and lack of openness.
Discussion
I fear that this paragraph—
"Even in the Talmudic-halakhic context, tradition as it has developed until our own day has significance. Even if modern lomdus is not the way Moses our Teacher, Rabbi Akiva, Abaye and Rava, or Rav Ashi learned, still this is the point to which that tradition has arrived, and only from it and on its basis can we continue."
does not withstand the critical test you set at the beginning—
"Sometimes even if you say something conservative it can be right. The condition is that it be something reasoned and sensible, and not merely backed by conservative declarations alone."
A less conservative person might think that modern lomdus is indeed the point to which the tradition in question has arrived (by the way, has the entire tradition arrived at this point? Or only a certain Ashkenazic tradition?), but that someone made a mistake along the way and the time has come to correct it.
Hello Yishai.
I was waiting to see who would be the first to raise this claim. 🙂
I don’t know whether or where I promised to justify it. What I did was explain the matter. Explanation and justification are two utterly different things. I was only trying to explain that there are situations in which it is very hard for some discipline to be intelligible and to explain itself to someone standing outside it. I also proposed an experiment in which someone who is not a lamdan presents his wares before lamdanim, and I conjectured that he would encounter difficulties or possibilities he had not thought of that would cause him to change his conclusions.
As an example, try explaining to someone why mathematical knowledge is necessary for understanding physics. Someone else may claim that for him a description of the sensations produced by seeing physical phenomena is enough. Do you have a justification for why mathematics is necessary, beyond the fact that it is simply necessary and that an outsider will not understand this? The point is that with respect to physics this is clear to everyone, whereas with respect to halakhah it is not. So this analogy is a helpful explanation even if not a justification. It seems to me that in your field (if I understand correctly who you are) you can see this much more than in physics.
By the way, I’ll just say that my impression is that when you speak about lomdus you mean something rather narrow. As you know, I too have criticism of that. But I was trying here to describe something broader.
Incidentally, those who criticize lomdus, even in its narrow sense, are all very well versed in it. Without it they could not offer an alternative. Therefore that criticism has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wrote here (I share it partially). At most it calls for adding another story beyond the lomdish one, not for replacing the ground floor. In my experience, someone who is not a lamdan—his academic research is not worth much either.
Yondav, see my reply to Yishai above you here. All the remarks I wrote to him apply to your words as well (including the fact that you too are referring only to one very narrow kind of lomdus, the Lithuanian one).
Regarding the remark about Rabbi Ovadia: really, I never thought (even after reading a bit in Yabia Omer) that he was a donkey carrying books, and even as a student at Gush it seemed very strange to me how lightly the Lithuanian Haredi students disparaged him. But I did find it difficult to compare him to Rabbi Soloveitchik, or even to Rabbi Lichtenstein, and really to any talented ram. But that is a general question regarding the entire Sephardic Torah world, and in general regarding the world of classic halakhic ruling (whose members were not raised on Rabbi Chaim, like Rav Kook for example). There is indeed a form of thought (if you like, a paradigm) of halakhic decisors and halakhic decision-making, but it is separate from Rav Chaim-style lomdus. I don’t know of people who came from the lomdish world, were lomdish in their souls, and somehow that spilled over into their world of halakhic ruling.
(I know of Rabbi Chaim Ozer, but it seems to me that it did not catch on; and it seems to me—though I do not really know—that this did not happen with Rabbi Moshe Feinstein either—I did not get the impression from what I read that he was different from an ordinary classic posek.) There is a sense that the relation between the two worlds is like the relation between physics and engineering, and so far I haven’t seen a practical physicist.
I would be glad if the Rabbi would elaborate on why he thinks Rabbi Ovadia really knew how to learn (Brisker-style and not only as a posek), and not merely knew and understood the writings of Rabbi Chaim of Brisk. Someone who truly understands in depth what Rabbi Chaim wrought cannot but be among his disciples, whatever he may be—a rosh yeshiva or a posek. It is roughly like someone who learns Newtonian physics and continues to do science the way the Greeks did (even though among them too there was already a kind of science—Archimedes, and to some extent Aristotle as well—the way he reached the conclusion that there is no vacuum, because he knew that frictional force is proportional to velocity). Whenever I think about the greatness of rabbis I always ask what they would have done had they not gone into the rabbinate, and that shows their inner inclinations. Though this does not work one hundred percent, it helps to understand who truly deserves to be called a genius (very few in number, and even originality is not enough for that) and who does not. In the case of Rabbi Ovadia, when I look at his family, I see that his brother was a grocer. Is that what Rabbi Ovadia would have become? I don’t know, but I am sure that this is connected to how one should assess his greatness in Torah. Are all Sephardic rabbis like that? Again, I don’t know, but I am sure that Arab culture and the practical Sephardic character derived from it are connected to the form of learning. Why did Rav Kook not adopt Rabbi Chaim’s method? Despite what he said on the subject (the tradition from the Netziv, who by the way according to his own story would have become a shoemaker had he not gone to learn Torah), I still don’t know, but it is certainly a point against him.
It seems to me that Rabbi Ovadia should be evaluated in relation to any talented lamdan in the yeshivot that learn in Rabbi Chaim’s path and inspiration in the same ratio as that between a Nobel Prize-winning biologist and a talented third-year physics student, respectively. Who is smarter? Assuming that the more talented person goes to study physics rather than biology, that is an interesting question. It seems to me the physicist. It is a question of potential versus actual achievements.
Only regarding where you promised to justify it: I inferred it from “I will begin by clarifying the meaning and importance of lomdus. I already ask forgiveness from your honors for the conservative speech I am about to deliver here, contrary to my usual way. What can one do? Sometimes conservatism is not a dirty word—or more precisely, sometimes even if you say something conservative it can be right. The condition is that it be something reasoned and sensible.”
I think my inference is quite reasonable, even though it is not written explicitly.
To Yishai
I don’t know whether this counts as a justification, but the idea is that in every field of study we study the subject for its own sake. As part of what “for its own sake” means, the aspiration is that we draw the explanations for problems in the field from the field itself and not from outside. Therefore “research” is not Torah study even in the methodological sense, and certainly not the next floor up. This is true also in the study of Tanakh, and in science and mathematics generally (science for its own sake and mathematics for its own sake, and also art for its own sake). When there is a problem in some field, research can provide external “interim explanations” as scaffolding, training wheels, crutches—whatever you like—until the true explanation for the problem is found. Thus, for example, when something in Tanakh is not understood, one should seek the solution from within Tanakh itself. Reliance on inscriptions, external documents, things like the Code of Hammurabi and Semitic linguistics can serve as scaffolding until we build the building ourselves, and then we can remove the scaffolding. The lomdish approach is basically an axiomatic approach to Torah. This is the approach that in all fields of knowledge and spirit (again, see art and music) has proven fruitful. And in Torah there are many more layers to the concept of learning for its own sake, and they are floors above what I said, which is at the level of the secular world and not holiness. That is the essence of Rabbi Chaim of Brisk’s revolution.
In connection with Rabbi Ovadia’s lomdus and the Haredi scorn for it, it is worth mentioning the Bnei Brak joke that when a contest was held between Rabbi Ovadia and the Bar-Ilan Responsa Project, Rabbi Ovadia won in breadth of knowledge and the Responsa Project won in understanding.
As for the claim that judges are constrained by the discipline, I’m not sure I agree.
Take an extreme case as an example—the Eichmann trial. It is clear to everyone that no sane judge could have let petty legal details such as the fact that Eichmann was kidnapped from Argentina, or that the State of Israel did not exist at the time of his crimes, affect what was obviously required: that a Nazi war criminal be put on trial before Hebrew judges in the capital of the State of Israel and be executed by a Jewish executioner.
Since the court is committed to the legal discipline, it could not answer claims about the illegality of the trial with “don’t bother me with nonsense” (which is the proper response when petty technical claims are pitted against historical justice), and so it was forced to formulate some response to each of the claims of illegality, even though everyone knew what the outcome would be.
The problem is that to the claim that the court had no authority because the State of Israel did not exist at the time the acts were committed, no really persuasive legal answer was found, and the court supplied the embarrassing justification that the State of Israel has authority to judge crimes committed in the Holocaust because it had also been planned against the Jews living in the Land of Israel.
So perhaps judges are constrained by the discipline, but it seems they can knead it so freely that at times it almost becomes meaningless.
Hello Rabbi,
Isn’t your ability to assess who is a good lamdan and who is not the result of the fact that you studied halakhic literature a great deal, and therefore your patterns of thought and your judgment were influenced (too much) by the halakhic sages?
In other words: I completely agree that there is a lomdish-halakhic argument that is legitimate and objectively acceptable, and an argument that is not—but that is only because over the years certain rules and forms of thought have become fixed, and they are not necessary. Traditional-conservative halakhic orthodoxy adopted a certain form of thought, and the question whether a certain lomdish argument is legitimate is basically the question whether it meets the rules established by the halakhic sages.
I’ll give an example: in the legal world, a purposive method of interpretation is accepted. In the world of halakhah this method is not accepted, and the path of interpretation is more literal-formalist (one can dispute this and say it is not precise, but for present purposes let us assume this distinction is correct). When someone comes before you and presents a halakhic argument by way of purposive interpretation, I assume that, in light of the sense of smell you have developed, you will say that he is not a true lamdan and that he is making an illegitimate argument.
And here I ask—why? For surely one cannot say that a purposive interpretive approach is objectively incorrect, but at most that it is not accepted in the halakhic world. If so, then there is really no such thing as a good lomdish argument and a bad lomdish argument, but rather a lomdish argument according to a certain approach (the accepted one in the halakhic world) and a lomdish argument according to another approach (one not accepted, but one cannot say it is objectively incorrect).
I would appreciate a response. Thanks!
The article explains the use of lomdus from a certain school (without limiting generality) as a paradigm, but not what is distinctive about the “yeshivish-Lithuanian” lomdus of the last generations (influences of the Sha’agat Aryeh, the Gra, the Ketzot HaChoshen, Brisk) as opposed to other schools, regarding which similar things could be said—for example, pilpul in the style of the yeshivot of Poland and Hungary (R. Yosef Engel, and even more so R. Menachem Ziemba, and there are more extreme cases, like the Chiddushei HaRim) or classic pilpul (Maharam) of the sixteenth century, against which Maharal, Shelah, and their contemporaries fought, while mentioning the traits that make pilpul a method that bypasses understanding and therefore gets used also “not for its own sake” by fake lamdanim—a phenomenon that can also be described with regard to the other paradigms; and in simple words, the main interesting characteristic of a lomdish paradigm is that belonging to the type of lomdus is more important than the correctness of the content. This is true also of the various methods of pilpul, but specifically in theoretical lomdus based on Brisk it is easy to build castles in the air. (Once I was present at a shiur in some yeshiva, and during the shiur the rabbi’s Gemara fell from his hand onto the table. He of course picked up the Gemara and remarked that in truth one could have delivered the shiur without the Gemara, because the Gemara is only an excuse to say the things.)
I didn’t understand—the author is speaking about lomdus in the broad sense, and that includes R. Yosef Engel as well. Even an ordinary yeshivish-Lithuanian lamdan would not think that, for example, Atvan DeOraita is a book of nonsense written by an ignoramus.
With God’s help, 10 Adar 5777
On the place of “yeshivish” lomdus as compared to other methods of study common in the Torah world or the academic world, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein expanded in his article “The Conceptual-Brisker Approach to Torah Study—The Method and Its Future,” Netuim 18 (5773). The article can also be viewed through a link from the entry on Rabbi Lichtenstein in Wikipedia.
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
My impression is that the great halakhic decisors, even those whose “hand is mighty” in explanatory analysis, focus more, when they come “to draw practical halakhic conclusions,” on “careful analysis of the plain meaning and clarification of the positions,” as R. M. of Kotzk instructed his son-in-law R. A. of Sochaczew (brought in his introduction to Aglei Tal).
Even so, the Lord is one and His Torah is one. Any additional knowledge in one of the branches of Torah—analytic study and breadth, halakhah and aggadah—brings the learner closer to understanding the wisdom and will of God in the other areas as well; and the more the Torah of God is whole and complete, the more it “restores the soul.”
And so when the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim, established in 1957 the “Beit Midrash for Rabbis and Judges in Jerusalem” in order to train Torah leadership for the Land and the Diaspora, his aspiration was that the students be grounded not only in “drawing practical halakhic conclusions,” but also in Scripture and Jewish thought, and also in analytic study in the style of the Lithuanian yeshivot (and in this subject the shiur was given by Rabbi Yaakov Arieli).
Rabbi Nissim wanted Rabbi Dr. B.Z. Benedict to stand at the head of the Beit Midrash, since he was both a distinguished halakhic authority and an important Talmud scholar, but it did not come about. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef too was fond of the Torah of the sages of Brisk, for it is told that on the Seder night he had before him a Passover Haggadah “MiBeit Levi,” in which the teachings of Rabbi Chaim Halevi, his descendants, and his students were collected.
Eilon, there are several assumptions in your words with which I disagree, and even rebel against. The fact that someone works in a grocery store or as a shoemaker does not necessarily mean he is not talented. Sometimes circumstances lead people to different places (do you think the Netziv was not talented? You yourself cited that he testified about himself that he would have become a shoemaker). Second, the assumption that one brother testifies about the other is also far from necessary.
It is hard for me to demonstrate this regarding Rabbi Ovadia because it requires detailed analysis. In my opinion, if you study almost any responsum of his you can see it. Sometimes it requires translation into spoken lomdish language, but even to a lomdish eye you will not find many mistakes there. I remember in yeshiva I asked my ram about the Sema, who seemed to learn like a simple householder. He told me that it was a matter of formulation and translation into lomdish language. One has to be careful not to be taken captive by style and formulation, and to examine the content.
Amitai, I think you are very mistaken. Clearly, sometimes the law deviates from the formal rules in favor of justice, but that itself is part of the law and of the legal discipline (see Ronald Dworkin). Beyond that, I think you are mistaken about Eichmann. I can certainly see the possibility that a judge would say that he cannot be tried because of legal problems. For example, Demjanjuk was acquitted after a public proceeding before all Israel that looked like a field trial.
Regarding retroactive judgment, you assume that it is legally impossible, but you are mistaken. There is a tendency not to do this, but there are several exceptions. The Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law is entirely a retroactive law, irrespective of Eichmann. I have not heard of the “embarrassing” justification you mentioned, but I doubt that this was the justification that established the authority to try him, and certainly not the main one. Incidentally, it is not so far-fetched. How is this different from trying a terrorist who planned to murder Jews and was caught before doing so?
First of all, thank you for taking topics and discussing them and breaking them down into different issues, and for treating the objects of your study patiently.
A. It seems to me that a distinction similar to the one you made in the post can be made between the outside and the inside of Talmudic research.
Research that deals with understanding the text correctly and the difficulties arising from it, and that tries to decipher it according to the paradigm of Talmudic research (layers, different sources, manuscripts, and so on), will find itself dealing with the same questions of the Talmud or of the Rishonim (and sometimes Acharonim) and will offer a different explanation. Sometimes the explanation will accord with the distinctions of the Acharonim or the Rishonim, but it will be better grounded—that is, the idea will “sit on the text” in a clearer and more convincing way.
B. Returning to the inside-versus-outside resolutions, I am reminded of your words about the “Breaking the Silence” lamdanim. Perhaps when one goes inside and reads testimony after testimony, one sees the reasoned truth of Yaniv Iczkovits (an article in Haaretz in response to Kasher’s post, below) more than in Asa Kasher’s cursory glance (a Facebook post)? That is, “Breaking the Silence” lamdanim and Lithuania-style lamdanim—what is the practical difference between them? They too, after a minute’s conversation or three minutes’ conversation, will identify phobias that obstruct a straightforward response to injustices and to other things they see.
C. And on another matter that you did not discuss in this post, though it is connected to your newspaper article: there are quite a few lamdanim with disabilities in communicating with the world around them. I do not know whether this is a “causal paradigm”; rather, here, in my opinion based on my acquaintance, we are often dealing with a correlation. By the way, the lamdanim of academia also do not excel in reasonable communication patterns or empathetic abilities.
When a lamdan is detached from the surrounding Western world, with its moral habits and all its whims, he misses something that can lead to an interesting shiur (for people who have the potential to become good kollel scholars—no less), and certainly to discussing what is happening within the community.
.
Baruch, hello.
Obviously every discipline develops tools and rules, and in the bottom line it is hard to distinguish between those rules and the discipline itself. But we see in the Talmud that we do not derive laws from the reasons for the verse, and we see in the Talmudic give-and-take and in the commentators that they make almost no use of purposive interpretation. And since the Talmud is the binding canonical text, one can learn from this that it is not correct to make use of purposive interpretation. If one disputes the Talmud, one can also dispute the Torah, but then one has gone outside the framework of the discipline. The accepted assumption in halakhah is an assumption of continuity in some sense (and I do not think I am suspected of stringency on the issue of continuity). That is part of the discipline. The arguments accepted in the halakhic world are part of halakhah. It is absurd to interpret halakhah in ways that contradict what it itself says one should do.
From a skeptical perspective one can always cast doubt on everything. There is no way to prove to someone that he is wrong if he is willing to challenge all the basic assumptions. In that case there is no point in discussion. The discussion can be conducted only with someone who defines himself as committed to the discipline.
You are speaking about fake lamdanim, who are really pilpulists. I am speaking about true lamdanim. And incidentally, the rabbi’s remark does not mean he is a pilpulist. His claim is that there are things that are correct in themselves (a priori), and therefore one does not need the Gemara in order to say them. You surely know the story about R. Chaim and “there is no such Tosafot.”
Shlomi, hello.
A. I completely agree. One can make a similar distinction regarding Talmudic research as well. I am even willing to agree that sometimes its conclusions are more convincing.
B. I did not understand the analogy to Breaking the Silence. I was talking about taking sporadic cases and turning them into the general picture (the law of small numbers). This is not a question of lomdus and careful study versus superficiality. The problem I was talking about is not in the interpretation of the cases but in estimating how many such cases there are.
C. I’m not sure I understood this section. If your intention was to say that lomdus is not enough, and that it is also important to know the world and to be communicative, then you burst through an open door. But I will get to that later when I discuss the role of lomdus in a community rabbi.
Regarding B, similar to your insight about Englard: the outside view claims that what is inside is driven by biases (superficiality, agendas, the law of small numbers), while the inside says there are no biases and no superficiality here.
That is, according to their view these are not sporadic cases because they are on the inside.
A very poor analogy. The number of cases is an objective datum, and it does not depend on whether you are inside or outside. They may be right (though I am not impressed that they are), but that has nothing to do with inside and outside. The difference I spoke about between inside and outside is in the realm of interpretation. Your example may be more similar to the difference between a physicist and a layman regarding claims in physics. Here the difference is that the physicist knows the facts and the laws and the outsider does not. That is a difference in knowledge, not in the mode of looking.
The Rabbi can rest easy. It is obvious (and it surprises me that the Rabbi even thought that I thought otherwise) that when I speak about a profession I am not talking about what a person actually does, but about where his mind and heart are. After all, there are kabbalists who work in simple jobs (let us assume for the sake of argument that they are real and not fake)—say, “the milkman” (if the Rabbi has heard of him; he even had several kabbalist friends: “the shoemaker,” “the street cleaner,” “the painter”). And if someone asks what he does in life, people would not answer that he is a milkman, but that he is a kabbalist. The Chafetz Chaim owned a grocery store and people would say he is a rabbi, and likewise the Ari, who was a spice merchant; and there were philosophers and scientists (Newton managed the Royal Mint) and world chess champions who did not earn their living where their mind and heart were. I hope the Rabbi’s indignation is not a politically correct reaction (which is not characteristic of the Rabbi. What is there to be indignant about? Either I’m right or I’m wrong. One can disagree, but what does indignation have to do with it? Heaven forbid that we should think such a thing, or even raise it as a possibility. Forgive me, Rabbi, but one may raise anything as a possibility—even though there is no such thing as “a possibility”—and if it is not correct we will remove it from there). I am speaking typologically, and I can assume that in the case we are discussing the brother was not a Torah scholar. By the way, about the Netziv there is much to elaborate, but this is not the place. It is simply the case that there is a similarity [to our situation], in that the Torah world (at least today) is a refuge for all the untalented.
Regarding what this indicates about Rabbi Ovadia, people always ask whether a genius can grow in a primitive society. In practice it seems to me that this does not happen (Ramanujan, it seems to me, received mathematical education and training already in his youth). One cannot deny Rabbi Ovadia’s background in connection with how he was perceived by the media. Strangely, no Ashkenazic rabbi ever had “slips of the tongue” like Rabbi Ovadia did. And all this is connected to the method of learning. I cannot flatter Rabbi Ovadia and, because of his greatness, deny what does (not) seem to be the case, and it does not seem that Rabbi Ovadia knew how to learn “Brisker-style.” He did know how to learn like any ordinary classic posek, and he excelled in memory (which actually does testify to understanding, which is the fabric into which the details one remembers are woven), in halakhic straightforwardness, and in courage. But it does not seem that he could have been a Brisker. Simply because anyone who understood what the Torah of Brisk is as a whole cannot but learn in its spirit—whether in the method of R. Shimon Shkop, Telz, original Brisk, or the method at Gush (where they mainly study the Rishonim). But one cannot remain behind, and certainly not disagree with it. And as I wrote, it was a kind of Newtonian revolution in the Torah world.
Therefore I would be glad to know whether the Rabbi really thinks he truly understood what Rabbi Chaim did (even without an explanation why) and decided not to proceed that way. The Sema is not an example. He belongs to a different generation. True, he is not the Shakh or the Ketzot HaChoshen, but he is still canonical. He is what needs to be understood, and he is not standing before us on trial. The question the Rabbi asked his teacher bears some resemblance to the claim that some amora did not know how to learn. Does the Rabbi even understand how those people thought and experienced the world? And the matter of language is not secondary. In the language we speak, we think. Every scientific advance depends on the development of language. And one cannot offer excuses on this point even for the Sema; one must find a real explanation.
I am sure Rabbi Ovadia understood Brisker-style learning. Only now did I see that the Brisk Haggadah was beloved to him and lay by his table on the Seder night. That was probably a conscious decision on his part to reject that method. You assume that everyone who encounters it cannot oppose it, but I know quite a few such people who know it and oppose it. You can see such comments here above as well.
On the lack of connection between learning for its own sake and the question whether commandments require intention:
See Keren Orah at the beginning of tractate Zevachim.
To “Ein HaKoreh,” the next-to-last paragraph:
On the “Beit Midrash for Rabbis and Judges in Jerusalem” established by the Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim—see Rabbi Dr. Shlomo A. Glicksberg’s article, “Rabbinical Seminaries under the Presidency of the Sephardic Chief Rabbis,” Pe’amim 135.
Regards, S.Z. Levinger, librarian at “Yad Harav Nissim”
Aryeh, hello.
Rabbi Lichtenstein of blessed memory writes in his book on Zevachim that precisely there the Keren Orah does make a connection between them, and he criticizes him for it. However, when I looked there I saw that this is not entirely clear.
I too saw, before writing the comment, the comment about the Brisk Haggadah, and indeed it seemed strange to me. Chaim Navon told me that there is some responsum of Rabbi Ovadia in which he adds, to the balance (in his usual way of bringing heaps of decisors for each side of a sugya), R. Chaim—and this seemed even stranger to me… (in light of the fact that I once read that regarding the Rogatchover he claimed that his method is not for halakhah…)
In light of the Rabbi’s view, what does he think, for example, about Rabbi Soloveitchik’s words in the essay (eulogy) “Mah Dodekh MiDod”? I mean the comparison between Rabbi Chaim’s path and those who preceded him and those who disagreed with him, as the relation between marriage and betrothal (especially regarding “halakhic sense of smell,” in his language). This is not just a homiletical metaphor; he really makes a lomdish distinction and explains it. Personally, I identify with what he describes there with every fiber of my being, and it seems to me that anyone who disagrees simply does not truly understand deeply enough (= marriage). Many people can read R. Chaim and understand the distinctions. Does it really seem to the Rabbi that Rabbi Ovadia would understand that essay itself (“Mah Dodekh MiDod”)? Would he understand the concept of “conceptualization and postulation of halakhah”? (Not only as an English speaker—the philosophy behind it. Does he really know what the scientific revolution is from the standpoint of thought? Does that speak to him at all?). I do not know those whom the Rabbi knows who “know it and oppose it,” but from all the references I have the impression (and perhaps I am mistaken) that they are the type of people who belong to the humanities and do not really understand what the scientific method is. (And the humanities as such are not inferior, but the people in them, for the most part, are suspect for lack of intellectual honesty. Forgive me, Rabbi, for the generalization and perhaps also a little for the contempt—but it is Torah, and I must learn.)
What is the point of this discussion, Eilon? You remind me of the case told about Rabbi Akiva, that in the future he would expound heaps and heaps of laws from each tiny crown of a letter, and Moses our Teacher came and said to the Holy One, blessed be He: You have such a man, and yet You give the Torah through me?
What was, was—let us leave them in their place. Why dig around? This is slander!
It seems to me that even Rabbi Chaim himself would not understand what “conceptualization” is and what “post-politization” is. 🙂
Brisker lomdus did not grow out of nowhere. For example, the distinction between gavra and cheftza is brought in the Gemara in tractate Nedarim to explain the difference between a vow and an oath. Rabbi Chaim took the Talmudic principle and applied it in many other sugyot.
Explanatory analysis occupied an important place in the investigations of the sages of Turkey such as the Mishneh LaMelekh, Sha’ar HaMelekh, and Machaneh Ephraim, and after them among the sages of Galicia, such as the Ketzot HaChoshen and the Minchat Chinukh—whose writings were a cornerstone in the literature of interpretation and halakhic ruling, among Sephardim and Ashkenazim alike; and the Lithuanian sages brought their method to further development and refinement.
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
To S.Z.,
Of course Rabbi Chaim himself was aware of what he was doing. As I wrote, he did not know the foreign words, but if one translated them for him (or explained their meaning), of course he would know what they were. And he was very aware of what he was doing and of his uniqueness. His uniqueness, of course, is that he was the first to turn what his predecessors occasionally did into a systematic approach. That is no small thing. It is the difference between childhood and adulthood. It is a moment of achieving self-awareness. I suggest you read both “Mah Dodekh MiDod” and also a very insightful article by Rabbi Krombein (“Rabbi Chaim of Brisk and Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik through ‘Shiurei Harav Aharon Lichtenstein’—On the Transformations of a Learning Tradition,” Netuim 9).
Don’t you know Talmud scholars who studied in yeshivot and excelled there? Henshke, for example.
If you insist specifically on someone with a background in the exact sciences, look at how Rabbi Rabinovitch of Ma’ale Adumim learns (and his students who have the same background). In a collection of his essays published a few years ago, he also directly attacks the conception of the conceptualization of halakhah from Halakhic Man and “Mah Dodekh MiDod.”
As for the growth of a genius in a primitive society—R. Chaim himself grew up in a primitive society. And so did all the great sages of Israel in Eastern Europe over the last 400 years. I do not think the society in which Rabbi Ovadia grew up was different from that, or from the society in which R. Shlomo Zalman grew up (roughly the same place and period as Rabbi Ovadia).
(But in truth there is a problem in the way the question is posed. For of course an extraordinarily talented person can be born in any society; it is just that in a primitive society he will invent a device for herding sheep or discover something already known, because he will not be up to date with the human knowledge accumulated until now. Therefore regarding lomdus, where everything is in the books, the primitiveness of the surrounding society is less relevant).
To Uziyah,
The examples you gave are indeed good, but they do not change the claim. Obviously not all learners are cut from one cloth. At Gush too, halakhic figures emerge from the beit midrash (like Rabbi Rimon, Rabbi Gigi) and people of thought. And from physics departments too engineers emerge, but no one disputes the superiority of physics. And in the Brisker beit midrash too everyone acknowledges the superiority of the rosh yeshiva. And I studied in Rabbi Rimon’s first-year shiur, and he too had a method of learning included in the Brisker method (each ram had his own style). Henshke too is a Talmud scholar who excelled, but Talmud research is not Torah study. Rabbi Rabinovitch is indeed an example about which I do not know what to say. But despite his background, I understand that he has a strong tendency toward halakhic ruling, and I need to read the articles you mentioned. That is indeed new to me, and one needs to look inside at this criticism. A priori, it is hard for me to believe that he would directly dispute the conception and method of the “conceptualization” of halakhah (that is not a method. That is how one learns. Whoever does not conceptualize does not learn. It seems very strange to me. Perhaps he disagrees with some very specific, very theoretical shade of it—of Rabbi Chaim himself and his sons, for example. I don’t know.)
Eilon, I have to tell you that in my opinion even R. Chaim would not understand this essay, and his son (= the uncle) even less so (as the HaGashashim used to say). Nor did they surely know what “the scientific revolution from the standpoint of thought” is. Does that mean they were not lamdanim?
I do not think people in the humanities are suspect of dishonesty. There are all kinds, as everywhere. These “sciences” have other drawbacks, and let us not add to them. And Uziyah answered well from Rabbi Rabinovitch, who is certainly not suspect of being a man of the humanities or unfamiliar with the natural sciences. Incidentally, Rabbi Lichtenstein was a quintessential humanities man. I know many very smart, very educated, very honest people, and outstanding Torah scholars, who disagree with Brisker conceptualization.
I now see that several answers have already been given here, and I can only join what was said.
Henshke is a Talmud scholar who excelled as a yeshivish lamdan, and today he does not learn that way. “Talmud research is not Torah study” is a slogan. Read what he writes—he studies Torah, just in a different way.
“A tendency toward halakhic ruling” is an interesting definition of someone who has already been influenced by a certain lomdish conception that separates between two domains, study and halakhic ruling. In the view of Rabbi Rabinovitch and others like him, there is no essential division between study and halakhic ruling, because there is only one Torah study, from which one can also render halakhic decisions when necessary. Just to be sure, I went to the bookcase to see what he writes (Mesillot Bilvavam, pp. 126–127). Selected passages:
“Indeed there is an approach that likens the decisor to one who possesses a pure theoretical-categorical world, and knows how to fit the case before him into the structures he has shaped. This approach likens halakhic thinking and the work of the student of halakhah to logical-mathematical thinking as a system with its own internal regularity. However, this approach requires scrutiny… Unlike logic and mathematics, where only the laws of logic rule, the Torah addresses human beings with all their moral and intellectual weaknesses… The behavior of a human being endowed with freedom of choice cannot be bound and exhausted by an ideal legal system alone. Moreover… the commandments and laws are instructions for how to act in our real world… In theory one can represent all sorts of models… Halakhah is intended for deeds in this world, and only through prolonged experience in coping with all the complications of reality and the complex behavior of man can one come to understand how to act effectively and also to reflect justly the balance of forces within human souls. Thus there are concepts and principles that Hazal established out of their observation of human reality in their day…”
It is easy to see that he took Halakhic Man, “Mah Dodekh MiDod,” and “This Is Sinai,” and tried to write exactly the opposite of them: away with models, conceptualization, and mathematical thinking. Torah simply does not work that way.
“Whoever does not conceptualize does not learn”—either we do not agree on the meaning of “conceptualize,” or on the meaning of “learn” (or both). I don’t know where you got that from.
I do not understand exactly the similarity. One must understand the Midrashim of Hazal. Rabbi Akiva lived in a period in which the resolution of language, thought, and perception was more developed than that of Moses our Teacher. He sat in the last row in Rabbi Akiva’s lecture (a famous Midrash) and understood nothing, and he was distressed by this until he heard that Rabbi Akiva’s teachings were from Moses at Sinai (Rabbi Akiva is like a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant in relation to Moses). But obviously Moses our Teacher was greater; he was a prophet, and with the level of prophecy of a luminous speculum, and perhaps he did not age at all (the skin of his face shone). One cannot compare sages from different periods just like that. In any case, this is not slander (did Rabbi Ovadia do something bad?), and if it is, then it is for a constructive purpose. I remind you of the Chazon Ish’s words that “we must know the great men of Israel in their true character.”
Their true character? And you would count that as Torah study?
Go on dreaming in your speculum.
Regarding Henshke, I guess that this way of yeshivish lomdus “was not from the root of his soul.” That says nothing about the hierarchy between it and the way he learns now. Rabbi Lichtenstein too does not learn like Rabbi Soloveitchik. From my experience, someone who is very good at what he does sticks to it and loves it and does not go to something else (that is, of course, a sign and not a definition). To be very good at lomdus is not to be one of the fellows in the study group, but to devote your whole heart and soul to the matter. Even getting a B.A. with an average of 100 in mathematics still does not mean you are good as a mathematician. That is another league. There one needs vision and originality and passion. I do not know Henshke (except by name), but it is hard for me to think that he is as good as, say, Rabbi Ezra Bick from Gush, if you know him.
Regarding Rabbi Rabinovitch’s words: one begins by separating and ends by unifying. Indeed, I too agree that Rabbi Chaim’s Torah is only the beginning, and real learning is supposed to end in halakhic decision. But one must indeed separate and only then unify. As far as I know, we have not yet reached the stage where it is possible to begin unifying. We are at the stage where there is still physics and not yet engineering derived from it (although engineering always existed—even before Newton—but it was based on experience and empirical laws, not on simple foundational laws). If that is what he said, then he does not disagree and certainly does not mount a frontal attack. He is simply claiming that too much emphasis was placed on the theoretical side. But the batei midrash are still engaged in theoretical understanding of the Oral Torah. As long as we have not yet reached 150 ways to declare the creeping thing pure, there is still room for theoretical work. What he is saying is that, like every theory, when you try to apply it to reality, it never works one hundred percent, and one constantly refines the theory, and there is a back-and-forth between reality and theory. In physics too there is theoretical physics and experimental physics and applied physics and engineering. But everyone begins with theoretical physics (to which halakhah should be compared, and not to mathematics, though there is a small place for comparison).
I claim that even if one understands both sides well, as R. Chaim did, still in reality only one of the ideals at a given time can be implemented. R. Chaim too made decisions in his life. He simply had the privilege (some would say, the lack of need to take responsibility) of not having to render halakhic decisions, but if he had been a decisor it would have stemmed from his method. He would not have become a classic posek (and not necessarily a stringent one detached from reality). R. Chaim was a great man, and if he had become a posek, he would have become a great posek.
I understand the Rabbi. Regarding R. Chaim and the Griz I still disagree (perhaps they did not speak and think philosophically, but they did have self-awareness), but I understand. But still I was not answered: does the Rabbi agree (presumably he understands it) to the distinction between marriage and betrothal? And if so, in his understanding, was Rabbi Ovadia married, or only betrothed?
According to those who know him from his yeshiva period (among other things, a short period at Gush), he was actually excellent at it. What so troubles you about saying that someone chooses a different path?
And yes, I know Rabbi Ezra Bick very well.
Everything you wrote about halakhic ruling and study and engineering and physics is beside the point. The question is not only how one decides what to do in practice. Rabbi Rabinovitch’s claim is that Torah has no physics, and in general is not built according to the scientific structure since Newton, of a theoretical model existing alongside practical application. It is simply a different discipline that does not submit to scientific conceptualization, and one who does this to it wrongs it.
I truly do not understand why it is so hard for you to free yourself from the idea that there is only one way to learn. Maybe open a Chazon Ish on a few sugyot and it will pass.
(Suddenly I thought of an example of brilliant conceptualization that is very, very non-Brisker here: https://musaf-shabbat.com/2014/04/25/%D7%91%D7%9B%D7%9C-%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A8-%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A8-%D7%A0%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%96%D7%A8-%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A5/ )
With God’s help, 11 Adar 5777
Perhaps Jewish society in Eastern Europe and in the Eastern lands was undeveloped in terms of European culture and science, but it was many times fuller of love of Torah and aspiration for greatness in Torah.
If a Jewish mother would sing her child lullabies in which she wove the dream that “the kid will buy merchandise and my son will learn Torah.” The Jewish child imbibed literacy with his mother’s milk. Even the poorest parents paid with the best of their money so that their children would learn Torah from morning till evening. And even compassionate mothers sent their sons to distant places of Torah, where they would sleep in the synagogue and “eat days” so that they would grow in Torah.
It was commonplace that even poor families hosted yeshiva students day after day, feeding them at their table and sharing with them their meager bread. It was commonplace for a man to promise his son-in-law years of kest so that he could learn quietly and grow in Torah. Young men in their teens who had filled their bellies with Shas were not rare. When Rav Kook founded the “Universal Central Yeshiva,” he spoke of sixteen-year-olds who would come to the yeshiva already proficient in two orders of Talmud with commentaries.
Lithuania, Poland, Galicia, and Hungary (and until the beginning of the nineteenth century also Germany, Italy, and Holland) were full of yeshivot and batei midrash in which young and old Torah scholars sat and immersed themselves in Torah. And no less so the Eastern lands and North Africa—Baghdad, Aleppo, and Damascus, Constantinople, Izmir, and Salonika, Fez, Meknes, and Marrakesh—and of course the holy cities Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias, which were filled with yeshivot and batei midrash in which people immersed themselves in all expanses of Torah—Scripture and Midrash, analytic Talmud study and halakhic ruling, thought and homiletics, the revealed and the hidden.
Indeed, we were “primitive”: in our eyes, love of Torah and diligence in it were “premium,” a value of the first rank!
Regards, Zvi Shimshon, the caveman, from the cave of the pious community of Neanderthal, may it be rebuilt and established
It may very well be that I am mistaken, but I’ll tell you what bothers me. I am a great believer in hierarchy. I once had a friend who went to study history (and was successful at it), and he sincerely believed that he was no less talented than a similarly successful mathematics student. He argued that he could have succeeded equally in mathematics, but that it did not interest him. I told him that that was exactly the point: the lack of interest itself is his central weakness, because interest creates talent and success, and the very lack of interest testifies to a lack of abstract grasp of reality. In general, if someone comes and claims that he is no less good than I am, I would expect him to claim that he is better than I am, not that he is equal. If he thinks history is not inferior to mathematics, he should claim that it is superior to it. Then one can argue. But this sort of democracy usually is an evasion of thought. Everyone is the same and everyone is wise and understanding. The same is true regarding methods of learning. “Practical halakhic conclusion” is also a legitimate method; the question is its status relative to Brisker learning.
Regarding Rabbi Rabinovitch, I need to study the issue. But then I would expect him to argue for the superiority of his way, and of course to provide reasons.
With God’s help, 9 Adar 5777
To RMDA—greetings,
Regarding Judge Englard—he indeed fulfilled what he preached and made very little use of Jewish law in his judicial rulings.
And in general, among religious judges there is a marked tendency to rule contrary to their religious and national worldview in order to express their complete objectivity. By contrast, secular judges are much less careful about this. The question is whether the reason for this phenomenon is that the religious, as members of a minority group, have to prove themselves, or whether among religious people every principle they accept upon themselves is fulfilled with full halakhic meticulousness.
Regarding a sense of smell as a halakhic paradigm, Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues (and in their wake Maimonides and the Raavad) already disagreed whether the Messiah must be “able to smell and judge.” We received the blessing “Be lord over your brothers” by virtue of “and he smelled the smell of his garments.” 🙂
And regarding yeshivish lomdus—
We have not seen wide use of it among practical halakhic decisors, even those who emerged from the Lithuanian yeshivot. So what do you want from the girls?
We most certainly have seen it. There is no great posek who is not a lamdan. Lomdus is not necessarily Rabbi Chaim, of course. I am not dealing with “Mishnah Berurah poskim,” who are no poskim at all.
With God’s help, 11 Adar 5777
To Eilon—greetings,
The Torah of God, when it is whole and complete—then it restores the soul. Maimonides already taught us in the Eight Chapters that the human soul is one, with all the complexity of its manifestations. How much more so the Torah of God is one in all its manifestations: rooted in the abstract worlds of emanation, and descending to the depths of repairing the world and man, with all their complications and weaknesses.
Every field in Torah and every method of study bring us closer to understanding one handbreadth of the vast whole. The world of the esoteric teaches us the roots of Torah in the upper worlds of emanation. The worlds of thought and ethics teach us the values toward which the practical commandments aspire to bring those who fulfill them. And the world of Talmudic analysis teaches us the bodies of the laws and their foundations.
The world of Talmudic analysis breaks down into a whole series of necessary fields. One must clarify the exact text and the “explanation of the words” of the sources. One must study the parallels of every sugya in the other sources of Hazal. One must gather all the literature of commentary by the Rishonim and Acharonim, and understand how they read the words of Hazal and why they explained them this way and not another. One must study the methods of the hermeneutical principles by which the Torah is expounded, in order to know how they derived new laws in matters for which there was no tradition from Sinai. One must define the guiding rules from which the particulars and sub-particulars are derived. One must establish rules of decision in disputes. One must establish rules for halakhic rulings in situations of pressure and distress. One must know the historical background in which the sages acted, to teach us how they dealt with the problems of their time. And one must understand modes of expression and style so that we understand “what the poet meant.”
Therefore it is important that each person enlighten seekers of Torah with what he has attained in his study, and listen to the words of others who bring their own angle of vision. Torah is acquired through the “teamwork” of sages from different “disciplines,” and even from different generations, and slowly our understanding increases, “they receive judgment one from another.”
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
With God’s help, 11 Adar 5777
To RMDA—greetings,
I assume that when you speak of “Mishnah Berurah poskim” you mean compilers from the Mishnah Berurah and abridged books, for the genius and lomdus of the author of the Mishnah Berurah shine both from his words in Bi’ur Halakhah and Sha’ar HaTziyun, from Be’er Mayim Chayim on the Chafetz Chaim, and from his commentary on the Sifra and Likkutei Halakhot on Seder Kodashim.
However, even the compilers and gatherers have great value. Our sages already taught us: Sinai is preferable to one who uproots mountains, for “everyone needs the master of the wheat,” and without the collectors who present us with material scattered through dozens and hundreds of books, many of which are not included in the information databases.
The very act of gathering exposes the compiler to a variety of opinions and ideas of sages from many generations and different circles, who analyzed the sources from different points of view and drew from them pearls and jewels. Gathering the words of sages necessarily enriches and fertilizes thought.
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
What I wrote above (under the pseudonym Sh.) regarding the position of Judge Englard and other religious judges—after a brief wander through Google, I see that things are not simple, and a fundamental clarification is needed regarding their correctness.
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
A. I agree that lomdus is a discipline and not a paradigm in the Kuhnian sense. It clearly has distinct tools; one can identify a lamdan; it is not open to every bit of nonsense, etc.
B. I do not think this is the discipline that defines greatness in Torah. One can be an excellent lamdan and a complete nobody. For greatness in Torah, in my view, requires knowledge across all expanses of Torah, and also additional abilities in halakhah and aggadah. Thus, for example, to give a list that includes R. Chaim, R. Shimon, R. Shmuel, and R. Nachum, but not to mention the Chatam Sofer, the Noda BiYehudah, and the Maharsham, seems to me a very, very partial grasp of the concept of a Torah giant. Of course, if you define “great in Torah” as the greatest of the lamdanim, you will be right. But the circularity is obvious.
C. I enjoyed the analysis of Rabbi Ovadia. And I agreed completely. I think even more than that: he had an esoteric rhetoric of writing. For example, he piles up heaps of sources to justify his own (lomdish) reasoning, or a halakhic ruling, and conceals all those who went another way. The innocent reader thinks that the proof of his words lies in the sources on which he relies—not at all. He could have piled up all the others to the same degree and reduced these, as he wished; when he wants he expands and when he wants he abbreviates. Not only that, but he also cites all those who did not say as he did, yet brings them in abbreviated, fragmented fashion, so that one cannot understand that they disagree with him.
D. A story: once a very talented fellow landed in Yeshivat HaKotel, someone who had studied in top Lithuanian and Hasidic yeshivot and who wanted to do army service in the Hesder framework. They sent me to learn with him as a chavruta, because he looked down on the lomdish abilities of the typical Hesder student (were I not afraid to endanger my life like you do in matters concerning women, I would say he was also right), and they needed someone who would survive מולו. I very much delighted in learning with him, because he really was sharp as a scalpel, but I also put him in his place more than once when I showed him that his lomdish surgery was at times investigations of the sort of “what sweetens the tea.” From that chavruta I learned much about lomdus, and also about the duty to beware the charms of excessive lomdus, like any method and discipline that over time becomes a kind of idolatry—both in addiction to it and in disdain for everything unlike it.
Hello there.
I fully accept all the comments (and from the outset I did not intend otherwise).
1. Lomdus is not only that of R. Shimon and R. Chaim, and I meant to mention them only as an example (I too have already matured beyond my yeshiva-boy period). Certainly the Chatam Sofer and the Noda BiYehudah and R. Akiva Eger and the Maharsham (like all the great Acharonim, and even the Rishonim) were outstanding lamdanim. But these examples are more convenient for demonstrating that this is a discipline. I would define a lamdan as someone who does not make mistakes and does not miss things by following the language of the source too literally. This certainly need not be analytic analysis in the style of R. Chaim and R. Shimon.
2. Moreover, I completely accept the phenomenon of a distortion of lomdus, and fastening on to insignificant details, and inability to distinguish between primary and secondary, and between a coherent distinction and a plausible distinction. Still, in my opinion the lomdish basis is very important in order to build on it a second story. If the story of plausibility is built in place of lomdus, in my opinion there is almost no chance of succeeding in doing anything useful.
Now I think I should have distinguished between two senses of lomdus: A. lomdus as a tool (a collection of analytic techniques). B. lomdus in essence. When I spoke of greatness in Torah I meant B, but A too is no small matter. It is a necessary condition (though not sufficient) for B.
Even regarding the comment about Rabbi Ovadia I completely agree. I have noticed this more than once. It is convenient for him to present things as though counting coins, as if he is listing all the opinions and deciding according to majority and weight. In truth, behind the ruling there often lies a decision of his own based on reasoning. And as is known, he even dared to disagree with Maran in Maran’s own domain, against his own emphatic declarations.
Many thanks for the comments, and a happy Purim.
It seems to me that lomdus means valuing the question more than the answer, and in this it is actually closer to philosophy, even though the object of discussion is different (Torah as opposed to reason).
Halakhic ruling is the acceptance of responsibility to give an answer. Of course the answer mostly depends on understanding the question properly, and therefore is connected to lomdus.
Great lamdanim like the Mishneh LaMelekh or the Minchat Chinukh did not present answers, because what matters are the questions and sharpening them as much as possible. By contrast, poskim are occupied with giving answers and not necessarily with questions, though in the case of a great posek the questions peek out through the answers.
Y.D.,
I do not agree with that formulation, neither in Torah study nor in philosophy. It is true to say that the question is important and not only the answer, and it is also true that without good and properly formulated questions there are no good answers. But the idealization of questions is not acceptable to me, neither here nor there. A lamdan should ask appropriately and answer properly. As for those lamdanim who deal not with answers but only with questions—many of them suffer from lomdish pilpul (see the comments I received above from Y. and what I answered him).
Does everything said above apply to the modes of study of the judge and the priest in the introduction to Ein Ayah? I mean: the lomdish—Brisker—mode of study belongs to the judge, who is exacting and refines his reasoning, like the Talmud of Babylonia, which is indeed very deep but belongs to “though I sit in darkness,” a place where one needs “external” clarification, as opposed to the mode of study of the priest, who relates to every individual case/law מתוך an overall perspective and not in an exacting-analytic-(Brisker?) way?
And perhaps one can add that even after the priest reaches his conclusion, the Brisker can come and explain to “those who are not priests” the logical-lomdish-analytic course of the priest’s thought, even if the priest himself did it naturally and unconsciously. For by virtue of this reasoning we are so exacting in the words of the Rishonim / Tannaim / prophets. And this perhaps belongs to explaining the Sephardic form of learning, which (tries to) follow the more ancient form of learning (amoraic / tannaitic), in which general-natural comparison is dominant, and after it comes the “cold” analysis of lomdus and confirms its correctness and precision—just as the biologist explains to the body, which acts unconsciously, why it did what it did, and so on.
With God’s help, eve of Shabbat “And I shall dwell among the children of Israel,” 5777
To Avraham—greetings,
The judge breaks halakhah down into details and sub-details in accordance with the complications of reality. Lomdus comes closer to the work of the priest by joining the multitude of details into overarching halakhic-juridical principles. The priest goes one step further and connects all the juridical rules and details to the ideal aspirations—spiritual, moral, and social.
Obviously, one must be careful that in the ardor for connection to generality and ideality there not be trampling of exactitude in the details, and here the Levites stand on guard.
Regards, Shimshon Zvi HaLevi
This is a very interesting comparison (I happened to see Rav Kook’s words exactly a few weeks ago). I would only add that the priest must also possess the skill of a judge, and only then transcend it. But a direct leap to priesthood is a mistake. There is an order to the Mishnah.
A simple question—you emphasize that you are not speaking specifically about Lithuanian lomdus—so do you simply mean analysis? Is that Talmudic lomdus? If so, that is accepted in every serious field of study, and it is self-evident that this is the way to learn Gemara.
Another question—what exactly did the heads of the Lithuanian yeshivot innovate? Only certain forms of analysis (root and essence, sign and cause, essentially and in the particular case, and so on), or something beyond that? Or is it that by innovating certain forms of analysis and placing the educational emphasis on them, they thereby created a kind of revolution in the mode of study?
Many thanks and Shabbat shalom
They innovated a certain form of study/analysis, which is part of the lomdus more commonly accepted today. But this is an innovation within the lomdish world, not an innovation of the lomdish world ex nihilo.
Regarding the comparison to the other sciences, that is indeed correct. Here too there is a discipline, as in other fields, and that is what I wrote both in my article and in my column (there I compared it to the sciences). It was necessary to write this because for some reason, precisely in the lomdish context, claims arise as if here we are not dealing with a discipline and everyone may do what is right in his own eyes and the gates of interpretation have not been locked and nobody has a monopoly, etc. etc.
I have a feeling that ties this concept of lomdus to three letters, or five.
Regarding the remark about Rabbi Ovadia (and the responses to it), which of his books did you study and come away impressed that he was a lamdan?
And do you not think that the disdain for him also stems (and perhaps mainly) from racism?
I remember how I was always astonished by the bluntness and arrogance of the yeshiva boys and kollel men who criticized him, who even if we assume they were right in what they said, would never have dared speak that way about a rabbi “of their own.” Not to mention that usually they themselves were complete zeros. In any case, if as you say he would hide his reasoning under mountains of other decisors, he did rather bring it on himself.
Not particular books. A general impression, both oral and written. I am not sure this is racism, though there is Ashkenazic Haredi disdain for Sephardim. It is mainly contempt for his way of learning, because it is not analytic and does not build lomdish structures the way they do in the yeshivot. I remember the period in Bnei Brak before R. Chaim Kanievsky became a holy rebbe and the great lamdan of the generation, when there were similar jokes about him too.
He did not hide his lomdus. He had a different kind of lomdus, not an analytic one. He was definitely not an analytic lamdan, and on that point they were right.
May the lips of the righteous be kissed.
I greatly enjoyed your wise words.
You promised to explain why lomdus is important, but it seems the only justification is your sense of smell. I’m afraid that justification isn’t all that valid. It may be valid for yourself—you say you directly recognize the importance of lomdus—but it is not valid at all in a discussion with others. Your claim is synthetic, and in order to persuade, you need to start from agreed premises and make analytic arguments.
On the substance of the matter, it seems to me that quite a few Torah scholars are not all that enthusiastic about lomdus, especially those who, after years of yeshiva-style lomdus, opened themselves to the world of research. I’m not claiming they would say that this tool has no importance whatsoever, but that in their eyes its importance has dropped considerably. Of course this too is a matter of their sense of smell, which obligates no one, but if your claim is that the sense of smell of everyone who has experienced lomdus grasps that this is the truth, I’m afraid it is mistaken.
It is of course possible that you would say that in their eyes too lomdus is important, and that even when they use their scholarly tools they add to them a layer of lomdus translated into modern language. But that of course requires a definition of lomdus, and brings us to the edge of the abyss that defines lomdus as the correct methodology for studying the halakhic part of Torah. Such a definition of course empties the term lomdus of content.