A Look at Am Ha’aratzut (Column 62)
With God’s help
Lately, many thoughts have been passing through my mind about the matter of am ha’aratzut (the mentality of the am ha’aretz, the religious ignoramus). The phenomenon can be very annoying from several angles. It is commonly assumed that am ha’aratzut leads to a lack of halakhic and Torah caution (An ignoramus cannot be pious—an am ha’aretz is not pious), but sometimes it leads to excessive halakhic and Torah caution, an am-ha’aretz-style piety, which is no less annoying and perhaps sometimes even more so.
A Turing Test for the Am Ha’aretz
The medieval authorities (Rishonim) on the eighth chapter of Yoma cite that the Ra’avad was asked a halakhic question about a sick person whom the doctors ordered to eat meat. We are on the Sabbath, and there is no properly slaughtered kosher meat here. Two options stand before us: either give him forbidden meat to eat (pork, for example), or slaughter a calf on the Sabbath and give him kosher meat. Which of the two is preferable? Is it better to violate the prohibition of slaughtering on the Sabbath, or to give him pork to eat? (My daughter would of course say that one is nevelah and the other is trefah, but it is Torah, and we must study.)
Answer A: Better to Slaughter
Any good Jew who hears such a question will certainly answer immediately that it is preferable to slaughter. First, he of course knows that desecrating the Sabbath is permitted in a life-threatening situation. But beyond that, can one even imagine eating pork and defiling our souls with forbidden foods when the life can be saved without it? Our ancestors gave up their lives over eating pork, and not for nothing did it become a distinctly Jewish and halakhic symbol.
Answer B: Better to Eat Pork
By contrast, a Torah scholar who hears the question does not understand it at all. Clearly, the sick person should be fed pork, and one should not slaughter on the Sabbath. The prohibition of eating pork is an ordinary Torah prohibition like any other. By contrast, the prohibition of labor on the Sabbath (such as slaughtering, which is considered taking life) is an exceedingly severe prohibition, one for which the punishment is stoning. One who apostatizes with regard to the Sabbath is considered an apostate with regard to the entire Torah (one who rejects the Sabbath is deemed to reject the entire Torah).
So Who Is Right?
The first answer is the answer of an am ha’aretz. It comes from the gut, not from the head. It is like a Jew who insists on fasting on the Sabbath even though the doctors say he must eat. This is the fear of Heaven of an am ha’aretz—genuine, but distorted. A Torah scholar, by contrast, His eyes are in his head (his eyes are in his head), not in his belly or heart, and therefore gives the second answer.
There are indeed medieval authorities (Rishonim) who hold that it is preferable to slaughter rather than feed him pork, and they presumably were not amei ha’aretz. But precisely because of that, you can find in their words specific halakhic arguments and reasons. None of them, so far as I know, recoils from the very act of eating pork. Some of them do invoke the consideration that a Jew who is told he may eat the pork will refuse to do so, and therefore his life will not be saved. On that basis they recommend slaughtering rather than feeding him pork. But that is not a substantive position; it is merely taking into account that there are amei ha’aretz among us.
The view of householders is the opposite of the Torah’s view[1]
It is common in yeshivot to say that The view of householders is the opposite of the Torah’s view. They tell of the Haredi writer and publicist Moshe Sheinfeld, whom the Brisker Rav once asked how he managed always to hit upon Torah opinion. Sheinfeld answered: very simply—I go out into the street and ask people what they think, and then I write the opposite.
The source of this is in the words of the Sma (=Sefer Me’irat Einayim, one of the most important commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh in the Hoshen Mishpat section). The Shulchan Arukh writes in section 3, paragraph 4:
All those sitting on the religious court must be Torah scholars and worthy, and it is forbidden for a learned person to sit in judgment until he knows with whom he is sitting, lest he sit with people who are unfit and thus be included in a conspiracy of traitors, not in a religious court.
And on this the Sma writes there, in subparagraph 13:
In the responsum of Mahari”v, no. 146, he wrote to Mahara”sh, of blessed memory: If you will listen to my advice, do not sit with the community in any judgment at all, for you know that the rulings of lay householders and the rulings of scholars are two opposites. And they said in the chapter Zeh Borer [Sanhedrin 23a]: Thus the clear-minded people of Jerusalem would act—they would not sit in judgment unless they knew who would sit with them, etc.; see there.
He recommends that Maharash keep away from laymen, even if a situation has arisen in which there is no halakhic prohibition against seating them in judgment (for example, when the litigants accepted them).
Now if laymen always said the opposite of the truth, our situation would actually be good, for then we would have a simple way of knowing the truth: hear what the amei ha’aretz say and do the opposite. The problem is that they do not err consistently, but in a completely random way. Therefore their opinions have no significance whatsoever, and nothing can be learned from them (see also on this in Column 9).
The Wisdom of Crowds
Nowadays it is very fashionable to speak about the wisdom of crowds. The basic claim is that a collection of non-experts comes remarkably close to the truth, more so than a single expert. This has been tested in several cases, but at least some of them apparently have a simple statistical explanation. In 1906 Galton attended a competition of farmers that took place in Plymouth, England. The general public was shown a bull that had been slaughtered, and their goal was to guess the bull’s exact weight. The participants wrote their guess on a slip of paper and handed it to the presenter. About 800 people took part in the competition (13 entries were disqualified), and the person whose guess came closest to the bull’s weight would win. After the competition, Galton took the used cards and carried out a statistical analysis of them. He discovered that the average of all the guesses was 1,198 pounds (543.4 kg), whereas the bull’s actual weight was 1207 pounds (547.5 kg). The average of the guesses was the closest guess, even among the cattle experts who took part in the competition.
There is of course a simple statistical explanation for this. If people are guessing some quantitative magnitude, it is likely that their errors are distributed symmetrically around the correct answer (there is no reason to assume their errors will lean specifically upward or downward). Therefore, taking the average of the answers of a large number of people will produce an answer close to the truth. But that is a result of the number of respondents and the character of their errors, not of their collective intelligence, and certainly not of their amateurism. Moreover, from this you can also understand that a group of people driven by the same biases and the same kinds of considerations will not yield this good result when averaged, because their errors are not independent. Thus, in the case of the Ra’avad’s dilemma, a poll of a collection of amei ha’aretz is unlikely to produce a better result than that of a Torah scholar. The amei ha’aretz are driven by the same failures, emotions, and mistaken intuitions, and so their errors are likely to accumulate rather than cancel each other out. One should not idealize am ha’aratzut. A collection of amei ha’aretz is not really worth more than a single am ha’aretz.
The Constructive Role of the Am Ha’aretz
It is commonly thought that the am ha’aretz has an important constructive role. He keeps Torah scholars from going too far with their reasoning. In fact, tradition is held by the amei ha’aretz, and they protect us from deviations from it. Torah scholars make decisions by means of halakhic judgment, sometimes theoretical, and they can arrive at conclusions that are too bold and speculative, conclusions that will not work in the real world. They are also not always deterred by changes in tradition. The am ha’aretz, by contrast, recoils from such conclusions and opposes them. Tradition is sustained by the masses, and their inertia plays an important role in ensuring that it does not drift in directions that are too foreign and strange.
Thus various myths are created that idealize am ha’aratzut. Many speak of our holy mothers who did not know how to read or write, and therefore preserved the tradition with great devotion. It seems to me that in many cases Haredi women are actually more “religiose” than their scholarly husbands or sons. The scholars can reach all sorts of conclusions, and they are willing to enter into discourse and discussion with people who hold very far-reaching views (some of whom I know very well and at close range). But the women will reject such things out of hand. Try convincing Haredi women that studying in kollel is not obligatory, or that perhaps there is no obligation for men and women to pray separately. No chance. Try convincing women that there is room to equalize their status with that of men. They will oppose it much more than the men do. Why? Because they receive their Torah education with no connection at all to the sources. They do not know how to read Talmud and do not understand how Jewish law works. From their point of view, separate seating in a synagogue is like keeping the Sabbath or not eating pork. Everything came down to Moses at Sinai, and One who breaches a fence will be bitten by a snake (he who breaches the fence will be bitten by a snake). Just dare tell them that perhaps there are mistakes in the Talmud, or that Maimonides, or the author of the Mishnah Berurah, were human beings like you and me. Alternatively, in the Turing test above, a woman would prefer to die of the illness rather than eat the pork. The husband, by contrast—a kollel scholar who is a Torah scholar—understands that sometimes we are dealing with a custom, and perhaps even a foolish custom. He may observe it and act in accordance with it, but he will understand very well the considerations and arguments raised by someone who opposes that custom. He will be able to discuss the matter with him and will not automatically see him as a heretic. He will of course understand that from a halakhic point of view it is preferable for the sick person to eat pork rather than slaughter on the Sabbath. Many people think that Haredi men abuse and discriminate against women, and they pity these miserable women; the more extreme even work to rescue them. All these people do not understand that if the men merely dared to propose ending the separation, or equalizing the women’s status with their own, they would get into serious trouble with their wives. Activists for women’s equality constantly want to save Haredi women from their husbands, and do not understand that usually the main resistance to change comes from the women themselves.
The rule is that the more of an am ha’aretz you are, the more conservative and the more “religiose” you are. And in Nachmanides’ well-known words: Whoever is holier than another is more ruined than another. The conservative uncertainty principle says: the product of the amount of knowledge and scholarly skill, on the one hand, and the degree of conservatism, on the other, is constant. As one rises, the other falls, and vice versa.
This is how the elders of Bnei Brak tell us, with great pride, about the wife of the Chafetz Chaim, who was so righteous that she did not know how to read or write at all (a real role model), and therefore her husband had to interrupt his learning for a few moments every day in order to do the accounts in the shop (just see what a righteous man he was! He neglected Torah study in order to perform an act of kindness for his saintly wife). Ah, go and see what kind of righteousness we are talking about. It may be that she was righteous—if she was the wife of the Chafetz Chaim, then it is even likely that she was—but her ignorance has little to do with the matter. Ignorance may produce conservatism and naïveté, but those are not related to righteousness. The Sages tell us An ignoramus cannot be pious, and the conservative myth tells us that the am ha’aretz is the truly pious one.
The Myth of the Hasid Yaavetz
One of the central myths invoked to reinforce the myth of am ha’aratzut as a criterion for righteousness is the statement of the Hasid Yaavetz. He lived at the time of the Expulsion from Spain, and according to his account it was specifically the simple folk who possessed innocent faith and withstood the test more than the Torah scholars and intellectuals who converted to Christianity. Perhaps that is true (sometimes even myths and stories of saints can be factually true), but even if so, I am very far from being impressed by it.
A Torah scholar and an educated person understands that there is no claim that is beyond doubt. Even belief in God is not certain. We are all human beings and we can all err, and therefore there is no guarantee regarding any claim or any conclusion of ours that it is necessarily correct. The same applies to the laws of self-sacrifice and sanctification of God’s name, which were shaped by the sages according to their reasoning and not solely on the basis of the written Torah or a tradition from Sinai. Therefore mistakes may have entered there, and certainly the scholar also knows that there are differing opinions about different situations. It is therefore obvious that he will find it harder to withstand the test, and easier to find grounds to regard himself as acting under compulsion. It is no wonder that specifically the Torah scholars did not withstand the test.
An educated and open person knows that even what appears in the written Torah is not certain. Perhaps these are later additions? Perhaps it was not even given at Sinai? After all, nothing is certain. All these are our own conclusions, and therefore they should be held with limited confidence. It is no wonder that it is much harder, and indeed not reasonable, to display self-sacrifice over every detail. This healthy skepticism does not mean that we should believe in nothing, but it certainly does mean that our beliefs should be held with some reserve, and that each time we should weigh the loss involved in a commandment against its reward. Thus, for example, if I may be permitted to go far in my heresy: if we see a gentile in mortal danger on the Sabbath, but helping him involves desecrating the Sabbath, what should we do? Jewish law says that one should not violate the Sabbath (by the letter of the law, were it not for considerations of peaceful relations or the danger that Jews would not be rescued).[2] Now would a person still deliberate whether to save him? If he is an am ha’aretz, he will of course say to himself: this is the counsel of the evil inclination. After all, this law was stated to Moses by the Almighty before all Israel. But if he is a Torah scholar, he knows that those who established this law (which is of course a Torah-level law) were human beings, and human beings can err. He may even know that there is no clear source for it. Not to mention that the interpretation I give to the words of the Sages who established it may itself be mistaken. True, I am usually bound by the Talmud, since that is the binding law, but here a human life is at stake, and the concern that this may be an error can certainly arouse doubts as to whether it is right to pay that price. People must make judgments according to the best of their understanding, and when you are in doubt it is only natural to weigh such considerations as well. The am ha’aretz, of course, does not hesitate about this, because for him this law came down to us directly from God at Sinai. So what is there to deliberate about? The mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted—the same authority that forbade is the one that permitted. God, who created all of us, can also forbid us to save a human life. That may be a correct consideration, but the Torah scholar may (or perhaps is liable to) ask himself whether He really did forbid it.
It is very likely that in a situation of this sort the wise person will find it harder to cope with a demand for self-sacrifice and to pay the price, because he lives amid doubts. Sometimes he will even fail because he finds for himself an inauthentic escape route born of the evil inclination, difficulty, or self-interest. On the other hand, sometimes his escape route will be genuine, because the accepted law is not necessarily correct. Wisdom is indeed a recipe for questions and doubts, and hence also for problems and even mistakes. And yet, even if wisdom is a recipe for problems and mishaps, it is hard for me to accept an idealization of stupidity. One who behaves with self-sacrifice because he is unaware of other possibilities and does not understand that the laws on which he was educated are not certain is not necessarily more righteous; he may simply be more foolish. That does not mean that he is acting incorrectly; even if he is acting correctly, he is doing so for the wrong reasons. He thinks there are no other options, and that this is a law given to Moses at Sinai, delivered to us by God on Mount Sinai, and so it is no wonder that he sacrifices himself. Is that a reason to idealize stupidity and naïveté? Wisdom is an advantage, and stupidity or lack of education is a disadvantage. Period. Wisdom can indeed create problems, but problems are to be confronted, and one certainly does not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Having money, too, can subject a person to difficult tests. Does that mean we should idealize poverty? That is foolishness.
This is the meaning of the well-known quip about a leniency that the public cannot endure. Once it was customary to say that there are stringencies the public cannot endure, but today leniencies of that kind are no less common. Sometimes a halakhic decisor arrives at a lenient conclusion, but the public will not be willing to accept it. Not because of any argument, but simply because it seems like a deviation from the path of our ancestors, it does not sit well with them for various reasons, and above all because of stomach pains. Such situations are deeply frustrating. You raise arguments, but your interlocutors (?!) wave slogans. They of course declare with complete self-confidence that you are a heretic, since we have not seen such a thing among our holy rabbis. Go explain to them that reality has changed, or that this is not Torah but custom, or that there are other opinions, or that even if there are not, perhaps it is an error.
The Power of These Myths
It seems to me that these myths are meant to console the amei ha’aretz and explain to them how important it is that we have such righteous amei ha’aretz. In the same way, they console the righteous women of Israel, on whom—and on whose self-sacrifice—the world supposedly depends. How important it is that they continue not to study and to buy all the nonsense sold to them, and of course to sacrifice themselves for it as well. Am ha’aratzut really does protect us, but it is deeply annoying and usually wrong. In truth, difficult as it is to admit, without these irritating myths it is doubtful whether we would still be here today. On the other hand, survival value is not a criterion of truth. The fact that such a myth is necessary for the survival of our tradition is not enough to persuade me to adopt it, encourage it, and preach it. No wonder that here I preach against it.
Why do I do this? Because again and again I get annoyed when I receive am-ha’aretz responses to my arguments. Torah scholars, conservative though they may be, are interlocutors. They understand that the arguments have substance (when they do), and they can get angry, disagree, oppose strongly, or at least ask that I not publish. But my feeling is that there is someone to talk to—in other words, that we are speaking and understanding one another. But when I come to an am ha’aretz, the feeling is that these are the sort of leniencies the public cannot endure. The arguments are irrelevant, because grandmother is the final decisor.
The problem is that the myth becomes reality. The myth magnifies, glorifies, and elevates the role of the amei ha’aretz, and explains to them that the world stands upon them. And what happens is that this myth becomes reality. Our public sphere is now truly led by amei ha’aretz. Halakhic decisors and rabbinic leaders do not dare raise considerations that would count as a leniency the public cannot endure. What determines matters is not the decisor’s reasoning but the gut of the am ha’aretz.
An Implication for the Approaching Passover
There is a well-known story about Maharil Diskin’s wife, who had a sharp tongue. As is the way of proper Jewish women (married to Jewish men?), she worked her husband mercilessly in preparation for Passover (for reasons that remain as hidden from me as from most men and decisors to this very day). When he complained and said jokingly that the only leaven left in the house was she herself, she answered immediately: Don’t worry, my father sold that to a gentile long ago. This joke is sometimes told with great pride about the self-sacrifice of the daughters of Israel in their Passover cleaning. From my perspective, that self-sacrifice is a combination of folly, ignorance, and self-interest. Some women are sure that the obligation to clean and scrub was handed down to Moses at Sinai. Others do it as part of what I call the “spring festival” (the obligation to replace winter clothing with summer clothing, air out and clean closets, and the like), which of course has not the slightest connection to Passover, but neither does it have anything to do with fear of Heaven.
On Am Ha’aratzut, Laymanship, and Common Sense
I will conclude with an important distinction that will certainly occur to many readers upon reading these remarks. There is a difference between a layman and an am ha’aretz. To illustrate this, I will bring a story that I once read. Rabbi Lichtenstein’s daughter wanted to have her ears pierced. She asked her father, and he recoiled—justifiably—because of the prohibition against inflicting injury (and perhaps also because of the foolishness of the matter). They went to ask Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, and he answered that his grandmother had done it, and therefore it was obviously permitted (with no halakhic reasoning, of course). There you have a folk tradition overriding the halakhic judgment of a Torah scholar. On the face of it, an expression of the rule of am ha’aratzut.
But it seems to me that here we are dealing with judgment based on common sense and familiarity with the world, even if it is not based on sources. Sometimes a layman really can correct the judgment of the scholar by adding common sense (which is sometimes lacking in the study hall). This is a blessed phenomenon, and I have written in its praise several times in the past. In my view, this is the root of the rule that a decree or enactment that did not spread among the majority of Israel is not valid. People tend to interpret this as a compromise with reality. The people out in the fields are not on a sufficiently high spiritual level, and so we take them into account and are lenient. But in my opinion the interpretation is the opposite. If the people do not accept that decree, then apparently it is not correct. This is feedback from the street to the study hall. The theoretical halakhic logic of the study hall and of the sages has deviated too sharply from common sense and logic, and it is the task of the people out in the fields to return us to the proper track. The Torah was not given to ministering angels but to the people as a whole, and what does not suit the people as a whole is probably not correct. Here the layman truly contributes a very important added value to the determination of Jewish law. The am ha’aretz, by contrast, contributes nothing.
How does one distinguish between them? It is hard to give criteria that would distinguish between the am ha’aretz as I described him above and the layman with common sense. But it seems to me that Torah scholars can distinguish between the cases. Perhaps the difference is that in the case of a common-sense correction by a layman, the Torah scholar himself also understands that he erred, and after the fact he can explain the layman’s words. By contrast, in the case of the am ha’aretz, we are dealing with nonsense that comes from the gut, and so even on second or third thought there is no logic in it, only ignorance. But that is of course not really a criterion (at most it is a characteristic). And perhaps there is no difference, and the scholars are simply incapable of understanding it?!…
[2] My view is that it is permitted, and required, to violate the Sabbath in order to save a gentile’s life, and that is also what Meiri writes in the eighth chapter of Yoma. See my article in Akdamot , ‘Is There ‘Enlightened’ Idolatry?’ But here I assume for the sake of the discussion that the law is that it is forbidden. That is the view of most decisors today.
Discussion
In my opinion that is only a manner of expression. “Advisable” means that in his view there is some basis for considering it prohibited as leaven.
With the number of sacred cows slaughtered here in one post, you could almost celebrate the appointment of a new government minister.
Maybe you should put a disclaimer: “Not for the faint of heart” 🙂
Precisely here? I think that quite a few people actually agree with what is said here. The jokes about a leniency that the public cannot withstand are not mine…
Are men and halakhic decisors two disjoint sets?
And while we are dealing with trifles, why does the Jew insist on fasting on Shabbat?
You focused specifically on ignoramuses on the right, who reject leniencies that the public cannot withstand.
It seems to me that in discourse there is also a common kind of ignoramus-ness on the left, which embraces leniencies from the gut, out of wishful thinking that if I think this is how halakhah ought to rule, then apparently that is indeed how it should be.
With regard to that sort of ignoramus-ness, the two sides of the discussion about saving a non-Jew’s life on Shabbat reverse places, and my impression is that in most discussions of this kind the stringent ones are Torah scholars who know the halakhah despite all the moral difficulty it raises, whereas the lenient ones are ignoramuses, or just people who do not feel bound by halakhah and for some reason feel the need to cast their arguments within its framework, and who are unwilling to hear any argument that contradicts their initial gut feeling.
Turn your approach into a “school,” and then ignoramuses won’t argue; they’ll simply say: “Ahh, that’s Rabbi Michael Abraham’s school of thought…”
In my opinion these myths have an important role precisely vis-à-vis the sages—to teach them what humility is. A sage should not look at ignoramus-ness with condescension and mock people’s gut feelings; rather, he should understand that with all his wisdom he may be worth far less than they are, because the question is what he does with all his wisdom. Does it go toward destroying a world or building one?
I meant the part that speaks about the (non-absolute) self-sacrifice of sages, and the part that speaks about principles of faith that are not certain.
Two marginal points…
A. I know several homes where, if it were not written that one must clean the house before Passover, they would never clean it at all.
B. By the way, regarding “the householder’s view.” There is a well-known story about a rosh yeshiva who tested his students with the question, “What is a sukkah?” One said: “A delimited area in which one is commanded to stay,” another said: “Shade under which one is commanded to sit,” another said: “An object of a house in which one is commanded to dwell,” and so on, until one student answered: “A sukkah is a few boards and some sekhakh.” “Ah!” said the rosh yeshiva, “At last someone gives the right answer—too bad that’s the only thing he knows”…
This reminds me of the saying that “one who studied and then left is worse than all of them.” Someone who knows the kishkes of halakhah, who knows the development of halakhah, understands that one can do many halakhic “tricks” that are very well grounded in the sources. A heretic who denies out of knowledge is denying something he knows—there is an effective status of the title “heretic” upon him; one who does not know cannot deny, he simply does not know.
In my opinion there is room to sharpen the central problem of our generation: the fear that Torah scholars have of the masses. That is, many times I feel that decisors understand that there are halakhot that changed, and halakhot that were created by mistake, but they will not say so openly. In the better cases they will find a halakhic pilpul in order to neutralize the original halakhah, and will not simply say, “Folks, we got carried away.” I have the feeling that many decisors take into account how the halakhah I state will be received by the public, how people will relate to me, etc. By the way, it is worth noting that even among the more “lite” rabbis this exists—they too will not be stringent in matters that will not “catch on” among those who listen to them.
When I pray “Restore our judges as at first,” I have this problem in mind. Hoping that once it did not exist… though I am not sure—what is certain is that the dosage was smaller.
Your “advantage” is that you are in a place where you have nothing to lose when you really say what you think. This does not exist אצל many rabbis. [Regardless of whether I agree or not, I simply connect to the short range between the mouth and the brain, in the positive sense.]
Hopefully you will revive us with a few more refreshing posts like these between the scrubbing and the scouring.
Men and decisors are not disjoint sets, but both groups (including their intersection) are baffled by the custom of our holy wives.
I did not understand the remark about the fast.
A correct remark (see my debate with Rabbi Benny Lau in Akdamot around his article on Rabbi Aharon Shmuel Rosenthal).
But regarding the substance of the matter, see my article on enlightened idolatry, where I explain that even according to halakhah there is an obligation to save a non-Jew’s life:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%95%D7%93%D7%94-%D7%96%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A0%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%97%D7%A1-%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%95%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%95/
That is what I do. 🙂
The question is not what role these myths play, but whether they are true. I explained this in the post.
Here I דווקא disagree.
That same structure (a few boards and some sekhakh) in the month of Tevet is not a sukkah. I have several proofs of this, and I will bring one here: Rashba on Beitzah 30 asks how the sanctity departs from the wood of the sukkah at the end of the festival, for inherent sanctity does not simply lapse. (He interprets the juxtaposition in the Gemara there, “just as the festival is for the Lord, so too the sukkah is for the Lord,” as a real comparison between sukkah and the festival offering, against the other Rishonim.) And it seems that there is no difficulty, because at the end of the festival it is not the sanctity that lapses; rather, the object-status of the sukkah disappears (evaporates). Examine this carefully.
Many thanks. I will only note that I placed myself in this position, not that I simply “am” in this position. Many times rabbis who are afraid remove responsibility from themselves by claiming that the public will not accept what is said (one does not say something that will not be heard, etc.).
Hello Michi, first of all I want to thank you for sharing with us your reflection on what is actually happening among the people, and not only what happens in the Gemara (as if we lived in the period of the Gemara). But I wanted to point out that there is a serious problem with an approach that says sages erred, or that even one sage erred or did not hit upon the truth. And again… true, they are human beings and can make mistakes, but still these are sages who did not just write things down casually… and especially since some of them merited to live in the time of the Temple. And even if they erred, is it possible that whole generations missed this error? In addition, a difficult problem arises in that there will be laxity at a time of trial, because each person will rationalize to himself: maybe some tanna or amora made a mistake, and maybe the Shulchan Arukh did not mean exactly my situation, and maybe under other circumstances the halakhah is different… and then he will commit a serious transgression.
Regarding leniencies… why be so lenient in our generation? On the contrary, in such a difficult generation, with such hard trials, one needs to put certain fences in place so as not to fall, because it is very easy to fall into sins… and on the contrary, the more one invests in the fear of Heaven of the ignoramus, the farther one is from sin. In addition, who says that meat really is healthy? Even if one doctor or another says so… many times doctors kill patients with their own hands… or frighten “patients on the verge of death” that they have little time left to live, and maybe they really will die only because of the fear… “the best of doctors goes to Gehinnom.” But again, let us suppose meat is necessary… can one not wait until Shabbat ends? I have seen many vegetarians and none of them died because they did not eat meat on Shabbat…
And for example, today they want to permit everyone to eat carrion and trefot because truly kosher meat and glatt Beit Yosef certainly does not exist (there are many doubts and certain stringencies)… claiming that this is a decree one cannot impose on the public and it will not accept it… when in fact no one wants to eat tref. On the contrary, the public is innocent and looks for kashrut, but it does not know what goes on behind the labels. I do not believe that many in the public would agree to eat industrial trefot or meat that Arabs smuggled in.
There are leniencies that were imposed on the public, and likewise decrees from Heaven that God decrees in parallel—for example: terrorists who stab, corresponding to invalid knives.
And in conclusion I will say that if everyone lives in doubts (doubt = Amalek) about the Torah—maybe this verse was added, and maybe elsewhere they erred in the vocalization, and maybe we will believe only in the Ten Commandments—then we will reach the lowest abyss. “A wise man’s eyes are in his head,” and the sages did not place fences for nothing. Especially since it is known that they abolished the evil inclination for idolatry—do we have the strength to do such things? Moses our teacher also erred, and King David also erred, but their greatness was that they erred and admitted the error. Also so that we may learn from their mistakes. And also so that we may learn to admit mistakes. And so too the sages of the Gemara… Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai killed one another because of disputes, and the incident of Megillat Ta’anit is well known… If a Torah scroll is invalid, we fix it. If the prayer leader errs in the reading, the congregation corrects him. And so on. There is the commandment, “You shall surely rebuke your fellow…” There is error and corruption, and there is also repair. There are sins and there is repentance. “From all my teachers I have gained wisdom…” Sometimes the greatest sage needs to learn from the simple poor man…
And one last thing… if only everyone were poor and not pursuers of money and greed… then everyone would make do with little and be rich in spirituality… and instead of chasing money and honor and wealth and status, they would seek simple food, to eat dry bread with salt and engage in acts of kindness and love of others. There is no real reason for there to be rich and poor in such extreme form. If your friend has a little more than you, that is excellent and one should rejoice in it; but when there is a system in which the poor remain poor and the rich continue to enrich themselves at his expense—that is a problem, and the Torah commanded commandments to prevent it.
Good night 🙂
A few sources making the rounds on WhatsApp:
Responsa Hatam Sofer (part 1, Orah Hayyim, no. 136): *“As I am outside my study room, for righteous women have driven me out while they are cleaning for the festival day of Passover, therefore I could not elaborate as much as necessary.”*
Responsa Hatam Sofer (part 6, Likutim, no. 30): *“Your precious letter reached me in these days, days of a man’s being tossed about, for these women of ours move objects from one corner to another; even books are not available to me to consult.”*
Responsa Noda BiYehuda (second edition, Orah Hayyim, no. 57): *“And in addition to this, I have no free place, and I am moved from room to room and from corner to corner, for they scrape the walls and clean the house in honor of the festival. Therefore I shall write briefly what appears to me in my humble opinion.”*
Greetings.
Indeed, as I wrote, this approach involves problems, and still the question is whether it is correct. Survivability and truth are not identical questions. Moreover, simple faith also has problems, as I wrote.
In our generation there is room both to be lenient and to be stringent. There is no single policy here for all questions.
And further, I will remind you that in my remarks I distinguished between a ba’alabatishe type and an ignoramus. This distinction is very important for our matter.
And as for your concluding remarks: if only everyone were not greedy, but not if only everyone were poor. That is exactly what I wrote.
I think this “ignoramus-ness” is a necessary thing in our world. The fear of Heaven that exists within it, even if it does not come from deep study of halakhah and outlook, is needed for the continuation of the tradition (indirectly). It is very easy to lose commitment to halakhah when you come to the conclusion that certain laws are not binding in certain cases. At some point, even in cases where the halakhah actually is binding, you may find yourself treating that lightly as well. They basically provide a counterweight to Torah scholars, who may be more prone to falling into this.
A bit the other way around: if we use the rabbi’s “ulpan” model, perhaps the ignoramus grasps Judaism intuitively, and the role of the learned scholar is to get feedback on his constructions from the popular intuition of the ignoramus? The ignoramus in the role of native speaker, and the scholar in the role of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. Who knows better how to speak Hebrew (not to justify the rules of grammar)?
As I recall, I read that R. Shlomo Zalman answered in a similar way to the question whether one may prepare egg salad on Shabbat: my grandmother prepared it, therefore it is permitted; now all that remains is to find the halakhic reasoning why. (The story is quoted here https://musaf-shabbat.com/2013/05/10/%D7%A1%D7%9C%D7%98-%D7%94%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%A1%D7%91%D7%AA%D7%90-%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%A0%D7%9F-%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A8/) .
What I mean is that the poorer people are materially, the richer they are spiritually, and therefore if everyone were materially poor they would have true wealth. True wealth is out there in nature, not in money in the bank, not in political connections… but in real friendships. In cooperation and not in disputes. In the desire to restore and not exploit nature in order to inflate one’s pocket and sell others something that in the first place did not belong to any private person… the world has gone completely mad economically and occupationally.
“Who is rich? He who rejoices in his portion” 🙂
That is exactly what I said (the survival value of ignoramus-ness). And still I cannot encourage it or idealize it.
That is not the other way around. I myself wrote that. Except that I called it ba’alabatishe-ness and not ignoramus-ness. The difference between them requires further characterization, of course. See the end of the post.
Daniel, I understood that that is what you meant, and still I do not agree. As I wrote, true happiness is when a person is both rich and content with his lot. To be content with one’s lot does not mean to be poor. And about this our sages said: it is better to be young, healthy, rich, and wise than old, sick, poor, and foolish.
Alternatively, it is well known in the name of Rav Kook that it is better to fail through baseless love than through baseless hatred. And I, the small one, always thought that the best thing is not to fail in either of them. You might say that it is better to be poor and content with one’s lot than rich and not content with one’s lot. But the best is to be rich and content with one’s lot. Admittedly, one may argue that this very statement itself contains a measure of not being content with one’s lot, but this is not the place.
Forgive me, but your words are infuriating.
A. As you wrote, ignoramus-ness indirectly causes the preservation of tradition. That is definitely a reason to idealize ignoramus-ness. Not with respect to ignorant people themselves—toward them one can indeed sometimes feel deep contempt, since in practice they are not all that different from the ignoramuses of Islam/Christianity/any other nonsense who sacrificed themselves with similar zeal—but with respect to the phenomenon, there is certainly room for idealization, if I think the Jewish way is the way of truth that will lead to the repair of the world, etc. etc.—everything that assists the process becomes a “means of a mitzvah.” And if it causes the preservation of the Jewish tradition in its hardest hours, then it is a means of mitzvah of the first order. There are many commandments and customs whose sacred force is of this kind, for example many commandments according to Rambam (as protection from idolatry and so on)—and the matter is simple and I will not elaborate.
B. With respect to the ignoramuses themselves—there is a difference between Jewish ignoramuses and Muslim ones, etc. Statistically I would guess there is no comparison between the self-sacrifice of the two groups. Of course, this can be interpreted in a “technical” way (for example, that the rabbis’ brainwashing is better than that of the waqf), but it can also be interpreted as a spiritual-soul expression. (I suspect these are expressions you do not so much “like,” but one cannot turn Judaism into philosophy. On this subject too I do not want to elaborate, because it really is a whole world; and although I think I can guess your opinion on the matter, I would be glad if you would refer me to articles of yours on the topic, since I assume you have dealt with it more than once.)
C. It is true that an ignoramus is not pious, but if the center of gravity of the ignoramus’s life is fear of Heaven (here too one could elaborate, but for lack of time and space I will not do so; of course I do not mean an “idolatrous” ignoramus in a shtreimel)—then the fact that he errs in the halakhic “details” because of lack of knowledge and even stupidity is a side loss. And see the issue of Mitnagdim and Hasidim. “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.” And in Greek, “hen” means “one.” “Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?” Although the intellect is “an interceding angel between God and man,” concrete intellect, however great, is of no account next to fear of Heaven. “I have strayed like a lost sheep; seek Your servant.” “I was brutish with You.” Since in this forum it is not accepted to cite sources as proof (and I strongly agree with that), I will not point to the dozens if not hundreds of sources in the writings of our sages, early and late.
D. I will note that I greatly appreciate the rabbi, open my email every day hoping for a new article, read your words eagerly, and usually agree with their content.
Thanks and blessings
Hello Yochai. The question is whether my words are correct, not whether they are infuriating or not.
A. I disagree. Even if it has survival value, I oppose it, especially since it has many disadvantages.
B. I did not understand. Are you claiming that the self-sacrifice of Jewish ignoramuses is greater than that of Muslims? That is of course completely untrue, but why is it relevant to our matter?
C. “An ignoramus is not pious” does not, in my view, refer to halakhic mistakes. Fear of Heaven that does not come through intellect is not worth much in my eyes. You can also hypnotize people and implant in them a fear of Heaven immeasurably deeper.
Instead of mocking our wives, one should give them respect and honor. Before Passover they make sure the house is clean and shining, even in homes where the rest of the year people are not so particular (or where there is no cleaning help). They take care of order and organization (sorting, arranging, and giving away or throwing out things that are no longer relevant).
Believe me, Rabbi Michi, no woman who washes the curtains before Passover, or even dusts the books, does it because of fear of hametz. It is no accident that Passover is in the spring, and this is a good time to air out the house and renew it after the long dark winter, before the coming summer.
So true, many women overdo it; and true, the men and children (and surely the women themselves!) at times feel the slavery of Egypt (at least that way they can really feel the Exodus from Egypt :)), but it is enough to enter an average boys’ room in a high-school yeshiva/yeshiva/academy/army/students’ residence, as compared to the parallel room among girls (again, only on average; there are exceptions), in order to understand what would happen if our wives did not sacrifice themselves and our souls 🙂
Greetings.
I enjoyed every word of the article. I drank it in eagerly, truly.
I was very surprised by the rabbi’s words claiming that there is something flawed in ignoramus-ness even though it is what helped (perhaps) preserve Judaism. Is the rabbi essentially claiming that the situation would have been better if Judaism had become extinct? Assuming, of course, that this is the means that brought about Judaism’s survival over the years.
Another question: what does the rabbi say about the fact that one can find sources in Judaism that permit lying in order to draw people close? For if ignoramus-ness is invalid in your eyes, lying is worse. For with your own hands you bring people to ignorance and ignoramus-ness by means of the lie that is “sold” to them. What does the rabbi think about this permission? I can attach a link that deals with the topic, but I prefer not to because it is from one of those all-swallowing sites of people who studied and then left, and unfortunately I do not see in their words a striving for truth, but only mudslinging and hatred. There are examples there from Rabbi Dessler and Rabbi Yerucham of Mir and others.
The mockery is only a form of expression (see column 63). One should give respect to women who clean the house, but that respect is for maintaining the home. The mockery is directed at hanging it on Passover and hametz. As I wrote, this is the spring festival, and it has not the slightest connection to Passover.
When the slave is despairing, all that remains to him is the weapon of mockery. It is the weapon of the weak 🙂
Greetings.
First, as I explained, one must distinguish between survival and truth. Even if something helps survival, that does not mean it is the truth. Second, would you recommend preaching stupidity so that people will not think and go astray, or poverty so that they will not be afflicted with greed? Third, ignoramus-ness does contribute, but I very much want to believe (and do believe) that this is only a certain contribution, and that we can manage without it. If only ignoramus-ness keeps us on the stage, that is a very bad sign about the measure of truth here. Fourth, there are aspects of ignoramus-ness in which it is harmful and does not contribute, even to the issue of survival (we lose quite a few people because of the dominance of ignoramus-ness). For the sake of completeness I noted in my remarks that ignoramus-ness also has positive sides, but not only such sides by any means.
Indeed, I oppose lying in order to draw close. That may perhaps be considered, and only sparingly, only in a case where one is dealing with a person who lacks understanding and for whom you can make decisions (an imbecile or a minor). Otherwise, every person should make decisions for himself. See my column on holy lies:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%A9%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%A7%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8-21/
In this context, I have already heard from several women (including a feminist who studies Gemara, etc.) the same foolish sentence, more or less in this form:
“If I let my husband kasher for Passover, we would eat actual hametz! Men do not understand that the laws of kashrut are not learned from books; it is something passed from mother to daughter in the kitchen.”
On this occasion I want to thank you for your tremendous work—in writing the articles, in devoting time and attention to nearly every comment (when do you sleep?!), and even before that in the books you wrote and in the voice you make heard. Your words are, for me and for my friends, cold water for a weary soul. Thank you.
Many thanks. A happy holiday to you, and a kosher and happy one to all the women of Israel. 🙂
With God’s help, 11 Nisan 5777
Even with respect to ignoramus-ness, one must be careful not to develop a condescending attitude. The story is well known of Rabbi Yannai, who harshly denigrated an “am ha’aretz” who did not even know how to recite Grace after Meals, and in the end Rabbi Yannai learned from him that the Torah is “the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob,” not “the congregation of Yannai.”
The Torah was given to the people of Israel in order to establish a “holy nation,” an entire people whose head is rooted in the world of spirit, while its feet stand on the earth and its hands labor day and night in building and cultivating it. And this destiny cannot be properly fulfilled except when there is connection and coordination between the people of spirit and “the people in the fields,” the people of action.
The foundation of that connection is mutual appreciation, as the sages of Yavneh said: “I am a creature and my fellow is a creature; my work is in the city and his work is in the field. Just as I do not vaunt myself over my work, so he does not vaunt himself over his work.”
The very definition of a person as a “disciple of sages” inherently means “a disciple of sages.” Even the greatest of geniuses is first and foremost a “disciple,” learning from his teachers, his colleagues, and his students—a disciple who toils to understand the words of his teachers, and out of that can sometimes also reveal “new facets” and make his teachers wiser.
Even one who did not merit broad knowledge of Torah and whose times do not permit him to delve deeply into the wisdom of Torah can and should cultivate within himself the aspiration to be “a disciple of sages.” Even if in practice he lacks much, the aspiration “to learn in order to do” is the gateway to greatness. More than once, a practical man encounters unique questions that do not arise in ordinary situations, questions that bring him to “ask a sage” and receive illuminating answers.
The sages relied on the testimony of “two weavers from the Dung Gate” about what they had heard from Shemaya and Avtalyon. When the sages forgot the halakhah on how to carry the knife for the Passover slaughter on Shabbat, they went out to see how the people acted and found the solution in the people’s custom of placing the knife in the wool of the lamb. The custom was not a “popular invention,” but reflected a tradition of ruling from earlier sages, according to which the custom had spread among the people.
Even popular customs that contain a fence or an embellishment of a commandment were welcomed by the sages insofar as they found in them something praiseworthy. Thus Rabbi Yohanan instructs the people of Beit She’an to preserve their ancestors’ custom not to sail at sea on the eve of Shabbat; thus the Talmud establishes as fixed law the custom of the daughters of Israel to sit seven clean days for a drop of blood the size of a mustard seed; thus the Jerusalem Talmud rules that the women’s custom “not to drink amra (or: hamra)” from the time Av begins, because the foundation stone was taken away from it, is a proper custom; and thus the Jerusalem Talmud rules that the women’s custom to scrub the walls before Passover is also a proper custom, since there is concern that pots touched the wall.
The Jewish heart aspires to religious, social, and moral elevation, and wisdom, the wisdom of Torah, is the “brain” that critiques and examines the heart’s aspirations and charts their boundaries so that they will not slide into excess that leads to collision with other values. There is value in the aspiration “to walk broadly” in the service of God, and there is vital importance in the Torah distinction between the letter of the law and embellishments, a distinction needed in times of stress and in situations where one must take “the ways of peace” into account.
With blessing, S.Z. Levinger
Indeed correct. Therefore I added the distinction between the ba’alabatishe type and the ignoramus. By the way, our sages in the Talmud already spoke of the “praise” of the ignoramus (although there it has a somewhat different meaning, but in my opinion it is still similar).
I am not sure it is preferable to eat pork rather than slaughter a chicken on Shabbat. The Rogatchover (Tzafnat Pa’neach, vol. 1, p. 17b) speaks of something called “the law of override,” meaning that it is Shabbat that is overridden with respect to violating Shabbat, but not with respect to eating non-kosher meat.
Of course it is not certain. The Rishonim already disagree about this. What I wrote was only about the starting point of someone entering the discussion—what he sees at first glance. By the way, I think the reasoning (very puzzling indeed) that specifically Shabbat is what is overridden already appears in the Rishonim. In my humble opinion this is really unfounded, because the sources brought in the sugya do not deal specifically with Shabbat (except for “desecrate one Shabbat for him,” which itself does not really speak specifically about Shabbat).
I just received from a friend a letter of Lilienblum:
They are charlatans in every law of charlatanism … a man who smokes on Shabbat goes to say Kaddish for his deceased father, and before he enters the synagogue he puts out his cigarette. One who publicly carries on Shabbat will pour out his water when there is a corpse in his neighborhood, and will be very punctilious about a white chicken for kapparot, and the like. I knew one man who did his work in a printing press every Shabbat day, yet he fasted on the Fast of the Tenth of Tevet! … The reason is that it was not the Enlightenment that cast off the yoke of religion from the inhabitants of these districts, but Hasidism. The Talmud did not have its effect upon them, for they are Hasidim; therefore they are free of its heavy yoke, though not of all the vanities. And every vanity to which the inhabitants of these towns held fast, many of them are more punctilious in than a Jew living in Lithuania.
And I wrote to him:
Well said indeed.
Interesting that he attributes this to Hasidism. The Lithuanians apparently cast off the yoke entirely, and that was that.
If so, then his argument about the Enlightenment is incorrect. The Enlightenment cast off the yoke from everyone, but the Hasidim, because of their Hasidism (and their ignoramus-ness), retained a few peripheral markers, whereas the Lithuanians not even that.
And he replied to me:
In any case I really recommend the book (Letters of M.L.L. / Y.L.G.)—there are many interesting passages there, and it even reminded me a bit of the Greenzayg affair.
I was especially amused by a passage where he described the uproar that broke out in Vilkomir after the townspeople discovered that he supported reforms in religion. He says that the women especially were “cursing me with forceful curses, for they were told that I wished to abolish the prohibition of niddah—their whole lot in life!” I wonder whether they viewed the prohibition of niddah as their Yiddishkeit, and that is why it pained them that people wanted to abolish it, or whether they wanted freedom from the husband for part of the month.
And to this I wrote him that this characterizes ignoramus-ness pretty much everywhere, and as is known women are forbidden to study Torah. And whoever is more desolate than his fellow (= an ignoramus) is holier (more “religious” and more zealous) than his fellow. See the post above here.
Well done
and a friend already told me
that in his youth he would cross the orchards of an urban settlement
in order to reach the Rebbe for the Rosh Hashanah prayers
and on his way he saw a Romanian Jew plowing his field in the midst of the
festival
when he told the farmer his destination
the latter almost fell over
Geist kein rebbe? (You’re going to the Rebbe?) in awed reverence
he got down from the plow and escorted him a few steps, as one who escorts the Divine Presence
One can add, in connection with what was said, what is stated in tractate Shabbat 63a:
“If an ignoramus is pious, do not dwell in his neighborhood” — Rashi there says that perhaps the ignoramus will not know the details of halakhah correctly.
But it can also be interpreted that an ignoramus will be stringent out of a gut feeling, and will violate Torah prohibitions out of good intentions of fear of Heaven and doing God’s will. Like the example mentioned of eating pork on Shabbat.
And thus I saw that Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, of blessed memory, explained this Gemara in his book Darkhei Taharah—in the laws of modesty there, he brings this Gemara and notes that sometimes people bring all kinds of stringencies and ascetic practices into marital relations, and thereby violate Torah commandments such as “And you shall love your fellow as yourself,” the mitzvah of conjugal duty, and more.
They also say in the name of the Rebbe of Kotzk that he is not afraid of a wicked person, only of a fool. For a wicked person has a limit to his wickedness, but a fool has no limit to his foolishness. That is, sometimes out of good intentions combined with lack of understanding, a person can commit great wrongs and great distortions.
The story about Maharil Diskin and his rebbetzin should not be accepted at all. She was a great Torah scholar in her own right. That joke is about just some ordinary Hungarian couple. What there is, however, is a story that Rabbi Hayyim of Brisk wanted to tell his wife that there was no need to scrub the wall so hard. And she said to him: “If we listened to you, we would be eating rolls on Passover
Regarding Passover and your post
What do you think about rulings of the “advisable” type, for example in the issue of whether toothpaste is kosher for Passover?
Torah scholars (such as Rabbi Ariel) issue rulings like “it is advisable to buy a new one,” but not “there is no problem” or “there is a problem”!