Tazria-Metzora (5765)

From the book Mida Tova: Articles on the Hermeneutical Principles by Rabbi Michael Avraham. Translated from Hebrew using gpt-5.4 (reasoning_effort=high, batch API).

---

Midah Tovah — Eve of the Sabbath, Parashat Tazria-Metzora, 5766

Questions

1. What is the difference between “a matter singled out to be judged by a new element” and “asserting another rule not of the same kind as its context”?
2. Can there be two hermeneutical principles that implement the same form of inference?
3. How is this connected to the question of the optimality of the Torah’s wording?
4. More on the relation between textual and substantive principles.
5. Hillel the Elder’s seven principles, and their relation to the principles of the school of Rabbi Ishmael.
6. Are there, in the end, rules of drash (rabbinic interpretation) at all, and what is their significance?

The Principles

• A matter that was included in a general category and was singled out to be judged by a new element.
• A matter that was singled out to state another rule of the same kind as its context.
• A matter that was singled out to state another rule not of the same kind as its context.
• A matter that was included in a general category and was singled out in order to teach.
• Kal va-homer (an a fortiori argument).

“When a person has a boil in the skin of the flesh, and it is healed.”

— Leviticus 13:18

“And if it indeed spreads in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him impure; it is an affliction. But if the bright spot remains in its place and has not spread, it is the scar of the boil, and the priest shall pronounce him pure. Or if the flesh has in its skin a burn from fire, and the healed place of the burn becomes a bright spot, reddish-white or white.”

— Leviticus 13:22–24

“And the priest shall examine it on the seventh day: if it indeed spreads in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him impure; it is an affliction of leprosy. But if the bright spot remains in its place and has not spread in the skin, and it is dim, it is the swelling of the burn, and the priest shall pronounce him pure, for it is the scar of the burn.”

— Leviticus 13:27–28

“And if a man or a woman has an affliction on the head or in the beard.”

— Leviticus 13:29

(2) Any matter that was included in a general category and then left that category in order to state another rule of the same kind as its context emerged to be lenient and not stringent. How so? “When a person has a boil in the skin of the flesh, and it is healed,” and it is written, “or if the flesh has in its skin a burn from fire.” Now the boil and the burn were both included among all afflictions; and when they left the general category to state another rule of the same kind as their context, they emerged to be lenient and not stringent: lenient, in that they are not judged by the sign of live flesh and are judged only by one week.

(3) Any matter that was included in a general category and then left that category in order to state another rule not of the same kind as its context emerged to be lenient and stringent. How so? “And if a man or a woman has an affliction on the head or in the beard.” Now the head and the beard were included in skin and flesh; and when they left the general category in order to state another rule not of the same kind as their context, they emerged to be lenient and stringent: lenient, in that they are not judged by white hair, and stringent, in that they are judged by yellow hair.

— Baraita of Examples, beginning of Sifra

“In the place where they slaughter the burnt offering they shall slaughter the guilt offering, and its blood he shall dash against the altar all around.”

— Leviticus 7:1

“And he shall slaughter the lamb in the place where one slaughters the sin offering and the burnt offering, in the holy place; for like the sin offering, so is the guilt offering—it belongs to the priest; it is most holy. And the priest shall take some of the blood of the guilt offering, and the priest shall put it on the ridge of the right ear of the one being purified, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.”

— Leviticus 14:13–14

(4) Any matter that was included in a general category and then left that category to be judged by a new element—you cannot return it to its general category until Scripture explicitly returns it to its general category. How so? “And he shall slaughter the lamb in the place where one slaughters the sin offering and the burnt offering, in the holy place”—there was no need for Scripture to say, “for like the sin offering, so is the guilt offering—it belongs to the priest,” except because it went out to be judged by a new element, namely with respect to the thumb, the big toe, and the right ear. One might therefore have thought that it does not require the placing of blood on the altar. Scripture therefore says, “for like the sin offering, so is the guilt offering—it belongs to the priest.” Thus Scripture explicitly returned it to its general category, to tell you: just as the sin offering requires the placing of blood on the altar, so too the guilt offering requires the placing of blood on the altar.

— Baraita of Examples, opening of Sifra

A. Annotated Summary of the Two Articles from Last Year

Introduction

In this page we shall expand on a point that arose in the two essays on Parashot Tazria and Metzora from last year. We shall therefore present here a summary of the relevant points from both.

Those two essays dealt with the hermeneutical principles of singling out from a general category. We are familiar with four such principles, and in the essay on Parashat Metzora we presented the differences among all four of them, including in tabular form. Here we shall focus mainly on two of them: “singled out to be judged by a new element” and “singled out to state another rule not of the same kind as its context.”

The singling-out principles deal with a scriptural situation in which there is a general category, while the Torah also refers separately to a particular case included within it. Sometimes the singling out constitutes a redundancy, as in the principle “a matter singled out from a general category in order to teach”; and sometimes there are changes, or even contradictions, between the laws described for the particular case and those stated for the general category. Clearly, in all such cases there is some shared element between the particular and the general category, for the very classification of the scriptural case as one to which a singling-out principle applies presupposes this. The differences among the various cases and principles are differences within a framework of similarity.

The Principle of “Judged by a New Element”

The principle of “judged by a new element” is illustrated in the Baraita of Examples by the exposition concerning the guilt offering of a person with tsaraat, which was singled out from the general category of guilt offerings. All guilt offerings are most holy, their slaughter is in the north, and their blood is applied to the altar. By contrast, in the guilt offering of a person with tsaraat, some of the blood is applied to the ridge of the purified person’s ear and to the thumb and big toe. What, then, of the rest of the blood? Can one infer from the general category of guilt offerings that here too it must be applied to the altar?

The principles of drash tell us that, in principle, the answer is no. The case has left the general category, and it cannot be returned to it. Only when the Torah itself explicitly returns it to its general category may we learn from the general category to it, and that is the situation here.

The Difference Between “Judged by a New Element” and the Principle “Not of the Same Kind”

By contrast, we presented the principle of “singled out to state another rule not of the same kind as its context,” which is also a singling-out principle, and in it too the particular case differs in character from the general category, unlike the principle “a matter singled out from a general category in order to teach.”

The medieval authorities ask what the difference is between these two principles. Rabbi Yaakov of Orleans, cited in Tosafot on the words “Since it went out,” Babylonian Talmud, Zevahim 49a, explains the difference in terms of the character of the divergence between the general category and the particular in the two principles. In the principle of “judged by a new element,” the particular case is in contradiction to the general category. In the example above, the rule for all guilt offerings is that all the blood must be applied to the altar, whereas in the guilt offering of the person with tsaraat some of it is not applied to the altar. This is a frontal contradiction to the rule that governs the general category, and therefore it is a “new element.”

By contrast, in the exposition discussed there in Babylonian Talmud, Zevahim 49a, concerning the sin offering of a person with tsaraat, which requires libations unlike other sin offerings, there is no contradiction between the particular case and the general category, but only the addition of a further rule beyond those that govern the general category as a whole. Therefore this is a scriptural case to which we apply the principle of “asserting another rule not of the same kind as its context.”

In the Baraita of Examples, the exposition that illustrates the principle “not of the same kind” concerns the impurity of scalp or beard lesions, which are rendered impure by yellowing and not by whitening. This is an addition and not a contradiction, because in such a lesion there is no ordinary hair at all, and therefore the criterion of white hair cannot apply there. The same also emerges from Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 7a, where the Talmud explains that a brother’s wife was singled out from the general category of forbidden sexual relations by virtue of the mitzvah (commandment) to enter levirate marriage with her, despite the incest prohibition involved. In the other forbidden relations there is a punishment of karet for one who has relations with them. Here too it is clear that we are dealing with a contradiction and not with an added rule. Therefore, as expected, the relevant principle is “judged by a new element,” not “asserting another rule not of the same kind as its context.”

Two Further Remarks

In the essay on Parashat Metzora we made two further remarks, based on the Tosafot just cited. Tosafot asks why we should not learn back from the singled-out particular to the general category—for example, that all guilt offerings should require the application of blood to thumb and toe. Tosafot offers two answers, reflecting two different conceptions, and we shall discuss them one by one.

1. Is “Judged by a New Element” a Textual Principle Like Kal va-Homer?

Tosafot’s first answer is that if we were to learn back to the general category, then there would no longer be a “new element,” since that very inference would re-establish the similarity between the particular and the general category from which it emerged.

In the page on Parashat Shemini, 5765, we defined kal va-homer as a textual principle, since it is based solely on scriptural data. The conclusion of a kal va-homer can stand in contradiction to the relations of leniency and stringency that emerge from the scriptural data, yet we do not take that into account.¹ Therefore the principle of kal va-homer is a textual principle, because it is based solely on the data that appear in the text, while the legal conclusions are irrelevant to it.

From Tosafot’s remarks here emerges a conception according to which the principle “judged by a new element” is a halakhic (Jewish legal) principle and not a textual one like kal va-homer. As we have seen, the conclusions learned from the midrash (rabbinic interpretation) turn around and intervene in the definition of the very case to which the principle applies, as though sawing off the branch on which they themselves were inferred.

A Possible Explanation, and Its Rejection

A very important point should be noted here. In the case of kal va-homer, the conclusions contradict the assumptions that led to them. The relations of leniency and stringency form the basis of the kal va-homer inference, and on that basis the legal conclusions are inferred. Now those conclusions contradict those same relations of leniency and stringency and saw off the branch on which they sit. In such a case we do not permit this, and we treat kal va-homer as a two-stage structure—that is, this is the “two-overlay model.”

By contrast, in our case, the fact that the particular left the general category serves as the basis for applying the conclusions that appear in Scripture concerning the particular case to the particular case itself. The fact that we do not apply them also to the general category is not derived from this principle itself, but is a kind of ancillary rule. Therefore, even if we were to learn from the particular back to the general category, thereby equating them and thus canceling the particular’s status as a “new element,” there would still be no direct contradiction to the assumptions that led to those conclusions. Those conclusions are written explicitly in the Torah and were not inferred from the assumption that there is here a “new element.” In other words, even if we were to equate the general category to the particular, so that the particular would no longer be a “new element,” we would still apply those laws to the particular, because they were written explicitly in the Torah concerning it.

But in light of these remarks, a different and difficult question arises: what exactly is the content of the principle “judged by a new element”? If its entire content is merely the application of the laws that appear in the Torah to that particular case itself, then why is any hermeneutical principle needed here at all? The Torah explicitly states that these laws apply to this case. Seemingly, the main significance of defining the particular case as a “new element” does not concern the application of the laws to the particular, but rather the fact that one cannot learn from it to the general category.

If so, then the explanation we offered above is apparently unnecessary. Tosafot’s point was not that such an inference—from the “new” particular to the general category—would prevent the interpretive inference, but rather that this itself is the innovation of the principle of “a new element”: one cannot make such an inference, because the particular is a “new element,” and it has already been removed and detached from the general category. This principle has no other content beyond denying the inference from the particular to the general category, as we would make if this were a case of “a matter singled out from a general category in order to teach.”

2. The Relation Between Different Hermeneutical Principles

As we have seen, the two principles are defined for different scriptural cases: in the principle of “a new element,” the particular contradicts the general category; and in the principle of “not of the same kind,” the particular adds to the general category. But what about the inference itself? Is the inference also different in these two cases? At first glance, no. In both cases we apply to the particular only what appears in it—both leniently and stringently, unlike the principle “of the same kind,” where only leniency is applied; see the essay on Parashat Tazria, 5765—and we do not learn from it back to the general category. In both essays we saw that this indeed follows from the Raavad’s commentary on the Baraita of Examples.

But we cited the words of the author of Midot Aharon, who lays down a general principle regarding the hermeneutical principles: in his view there must also be a difference in implementation. If the difference were only in the scriptural case, then we would have one principle and not two. In his words:

The principles are not distinguished merely by gradations if their outcome is one and the same. And if the distinction is only in essence—for example, a contradictory new rule that cannot be restored until Scripture restores it—then the distinction in essence and in law is all one matter. Why, then, should they be made into two principles? He should have grouped them into one principle and brought two examples for it, from which we would understand the two gradations. . . .

Indeed, Tosafot’s second answer, cited above, can serve as an anchor for this approach. Tosafot explains that there must be a difference between the two principles in implementation as well, not only in the scriptural case; and therefore he maintains that one does not learn back from the particular to the general category.² At the end of the essay on Parashat Metzora we discussed the differences in implementation between these two principles.

Can We Detect Consistency Here Also with Respect to the Principle “Of the Same Kind”?

Let us conclude this part with a remark from the essay on Parashat Tazria. There we discussed the difference between the principle “not of the same kind” and the principle “of the same kind.” On the level of the scriptural case, the principle “not of the same kind” is relevant when the particular that was singled out does not really belong to the general category by its very definition, and not merely because of specific legal features. Is there also a difference in implementation between these two principles, or do they apply to different scriptural cases while drawing from them the same kind of conclusions?

At first glance, according to the author of Midot Aharon, there must also be a difference in implementation, for otherwise we ought to classify these two principles as a single principle and at most bring two different examples for it in the Baraita of Examples.

And indeed, in the essay on Parashat Tazria we saw that according to the Raavad, the difference between these two principles lies only in the scriptural case and not in the implementation. In both cases, we apply to the particular only those laws that Scripture states with regard to it. We saw there that Rabbi Nethanel ha-Kadosh of Chinon, whose words are cited in Sefer Keritut, apparently disagrees with him on this point.

If so, the Raavad is consistent with his own position here, namely that different principles need not differ in their implementation. One should note, however, that there is nonetheless a difference between these two principles regarding whether the particular can be returned to its general category or not; see the table in the essay on Parashat Metzora, 5765. And see there regarding the view of the author of Midot Aharon, where there is certainly clear consistency, namely, that different principles must differ in the inference and not only in the scriptural case.

B. Differences Between Principles: The Scriptural Case and the Midrashic Inference

Introduction

We have defined two planes on which hermeneutical principles can differ:

1. The plane of the scriptural case—that is, what textual situation the principle is applied to. Does the particular singled out from the general category contradict the general category? Does it add to it? And so forth.
2. The plane of the midrashic inference—that is, what do we do with the scriptural case in question? What conclusions may be inferred from it by means of these hermeneutical principles?

In principle, the difference between any two principles may lie on either of these two planes, and perhaps even on both together. There must certainly be a difference between any two principles on the first plane; otherwise, if two principles were activated by the same kind of scriptural case, we would have no indication which principle to apply in the given case. The question is whether there must also be a difference on the second plane.

As we have seen, the author of Midot Aharon lays down a categorical principle according to which any two principles must differ from one another on the second plane as well—the character of the inference—and not only on the first. We saw that according to the Raavad this is apparently not necessary. It is enough to observe his position concerning the principles “not of the same kind” and “a new element,” even if with regard to “of the same kind” we saw that he apparently holds that there is also a difference on the plane of inference.

The Claim of the Author of Midot Aharon

At first glance, the author of Midot Aharon raises an excellent argument in support of his position: if there is really no difference in the inference, then why are there two principles at all?

It would seem that the Raavad could answer that these are two principles because they instruct us to apply the shared inference in two different scriptural cases. For example, the principle of “a new element” teaches us to apply the unique laws, whether lenient or stringent, to the particular when the singling out from the general category contradicts that category. And the principle “not of the same kind” teaches us to apply the unique laws, whether lenient or stringent, to the particular when those laws add to the general category rather than contradict it.

Why, then, does the author of Midot Aharon claim that in such a situation we are dealing with one hermeneutical principle? Seemingly, a different conception is at work here regarding the character, the function, and the classification of the hermeneutical principles in general.

It seems that the answer lies at a deeper level. If indeed the same inference were applied to two different textual cases, then there would be a problem in the wording of the Torah itself. Granted, two distinct principles would be needed in order to teach us to draw the conclusion in both cases. But now the question arises why the Torah itself did not suffice with only one textual case, and with one type of instruction concerning it.

For example, the Torah could have written all the cases of these two principles either in the form of “a new element” or in the form of “not of the same kind,” and told us to apply to the particular the laws unique to it. Why does the Torah use two different textual cases, which require two hermeneutical principles in order to instruct us to perform the very same inference?

The author of Midot Aharon apparently thinks that this difficulty forces us to conclude that any two principles must differ in their modes of inference as well, and not only in their scriptural cases. In that event, one could not have sufficed with only one principle, and thus the difficulty that troubled him with respect to the wording of the Torah disappears.³

A Further Clarification of the View of the Author of Midot Aharon

Of course, one might continue and raise the same claim more broadly: the Torah could have written all the laws explicitly, without resorting at all to hermeneutical principles. Or more narrowly: the Torah could have sufficed with a few hermeneutical principles and constructed the biblical wording in such a way that all the laws learned by exposition would be learned only through those principles. Would anything be beyond the Lord?

It is obvious that even the author of Midot Aharon does not go so far. It therefore seems that the basis of his claim is different from the one we suggested above. Perhaps he thinks that the principles reflect modes of thought, and that their purpose is not only the laws learned from them but also the inferential modes themselves. If the goal were only to teach us a given set of laws, the Torah could indeed have made do with fewer hermeneutical principles. But if the principles themselves also have an educative purpose, then clearly none of them can be dispensed with. The laws might perhaps have been taught through fewer principles, but then we would lack modes of inference that the Torah wishes to teach us.

This appears to be the reason he is unwilling to identify two principles with one another on the plane of inference, while being satisfied with distinguishing them only on the textual plane.

We should note that we already discussed such a conception in our first essay, on Bereshit 5765, and elsewhere. There we saw that Rabbi ha-Nazir understood the entire system of principles in this way, unlike Gersonides and other commentators. This conception is one of the primary motivations of the Midah Tovah association, for we wish to derive the very benefit that the principles are supposed to provide, beyond using them in order to learn concrete laws. For this reason, we usually focus on understanding the modes of inference of the principles, and less on the particular laws learned from them.

We have now found that perhaps the author of Midot Aharon as well—Rabbi Aharon ibn Hayyim, one of the greatest interpreters of the principles, perhaps the greatest of them—apparently thinks along these lines too, at least by implication.

The Concrete Claim of the Author of Midot Aharon

If we pay close attention, at the end of the quotation we brought in the previous section the author of Midot Aharon claims that if there were no difference in implementation, then the editor of the tannaitic teaching should have placed the two principles under one heading—that is, treated them as one principle—and brought two different examples in order to illustrate the two scriptural cases in which this principle applies.

Here it is quite evident that he understands the classification of the principles in accordance with the modes of inference. The scriptural cases are nothing more than different textual frameworks for the application of modes of inference, and therefore they should not be used to distinguish among different hermeneutical principles.

The Baraita of the Seven Principles

But we are familiar with a different classification of the system of hermeneutical principles, one that indeed gathers several of them under one heading. I refer to the baraita of the seven principles of Hillel the Elder. One version appears near the end of the Baraita of Examples; see also Avot de-Rabbi Natan, chapter 37. Its wording is as follows:

Hillel the Elder expounded seven principles before the elders of Beteira: kal va-homer, gezerah shavah (verbal analogy), two scriptural passages, general and particular, and the like in another place, and a matter learned from its context. These are the seven principles that Hillel the Elder expounded before the elders of Beteira.

From comparison with the principles of Rabbi Ishmael, it seems that all four singling-out principles are included here under the heading “the like in another place”—that is, where there is a particular that resembles some general category and appears elsewhere. If so, Hillel groups all four of these principles under one heading. This is a more radical approach than the one we described above. Even the treatment of non-identical scriptural cases by different modes of inference is regarded as the expression of a single principle—perhaps it would be more accurate to say, sub-principles.

Researchers might say that in Hillel’s teaching there was not yet a sharp distinction among these four principles, and that they received their final formulation only in the school of Rabbi Ishmael. But according to the view of all the medieval authorities who hold that all thirteen principles are a halakha le-Moshe mi-Sinai (a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai; see the essay on Parashat Lekh-Lekha, 5765), it seems that we truly have here an approach of lower resolution than that of the school of Rabbi Ishmael.

How did Hillel the Elder conceive the hermeneutical principles? It is fairly clear that he does not accept different textual cases as a basis for dividing the principles, since there are four different cases here and all of them are included by him under a single hermeneutical principle. On the other hand, the different inferences too are apparently not separately classified by him.

It therefore seems that both possibilities remain open. One could say that he viewed the principles as forms of inference, and that all the inferences of these principles branch out from one general mode of treatment: how to expound duplication, superfluity, difference, or contradiction between a general category and a particular in Scripture. But one could also understand his approach as based on textual similarity, since in all these cases a particular has been singled out from a general category. The language of the baraita seems more supportive of the second possibility, since it places all four principles in one basket on the grounds that all of them are cases of “the like in another place”—that is, the textual characterization determines the classification.

In any event, Hillel the Elder seems to yield a conception different from the one we saw in the author of Midot Aharon, and the matter requires further consideration. Still, the discussion here concerns only the question of classification. The question why Hillel saw fit to place these four principles under one heading does not necessarily touch on their essential character, but more on their arrangement.

The Development and Differentiation of the System of Principles

In various essays in the past—see the essays on Parashot Lekh-Lekha, Vayikra, and Nitzavim, 5765—we suggested that the historical process was only one of abstraction, generalization, differentiation, and finally conceptualization of principles that had been transmitted from Sinai, and not the creation of new principles. One may view the transition from Hillel’s formulation to that of the school of Rabbi Ishmael as part of that very process.

According to this proposal, Moses our teacher received rudimentary elements of scriptural exposition. The Holy One, blessed be He, told him that when he found in the Torah a general category and elsewhere a particular that pointed to duplication, he should expound that situation, because the wording of the Torah is presumed to be optimal; see the essay on Parashat Toledot, 5766, cited above. But how exactly is one to expound in each such case? At that stage it is not clear whether the different possibilities had already been sharpened, and it is entirely possible that in each case Moses did what seemed reasonable to him with respect to that particular scriptural case.

Later, when the principles were differentiated and conceptualized, Hillel counted seven principles of drash, including the principle of “the like in another place,” which defines the situation of duplication in its various forms. There are very many different situations of duplication, and clearly no one of them is entirely like another. Even so, in the course of time four basic cases were distinguished, as groups of solutions to these situations of duplication. Each type of duplication presents us with a different midrashic solution.

If the duplication takes the form of contradiction, that principle is called “judged by a new element,” and the rule concerning it is that one applies to the particular the laws written about it, but does not learn from it to the general category. The singling out of the particular in this manner teaches us that it has detached itself from the general category to which it ought to have belonged. By contrast, when the particular merely duplicates the general category and is therefore superfluous, the midrashic solution is that the Torah wished to teach us something about the general category: “it did not go out in order to teach about itself, but rather to teach about the entire general category.” And so it is with the other principles.

Thus, the transition from Hillel to the school of Rabbi Ishmael expresses a differentiation of the system of principles on both planes: both on the plane of the textual case, and on the plane of the inference, which is the proposed solution to such a textual case. It is therefore entirely possible that what constitutes each principle is indeed the form of inference, as the author of Midot Aharon understood, as noted above. Yet every form of inference is carried out on a different scriptural case. As we observed, at least at the end of the process of differentiation and conceptualization, it is impossible for us to apply two different forms of inference to the same type of scriptural case.⁴

Epilogue

This process has not come to an end. Each of these principles continues to differentiate into further shades and sub-principles. Every textual case has its own uniqueness, and therefore the midrashic solution applied to it may be somewhat different. That is how exceptions and unusual cases are generated within every hermeneutical principle, and students and scholars are sometimes left perplexed by the failure of the expositions to fit neatly into the rules of the baraita of principles. Many arrive at the conclusion that in fact there are no rules of drash at all, and that every source is a unique case unto itself.

Our claim, however, is that there are indeed rules of drash. The exceptions apparently stem from the living character of a text, and especially of the biblical text. One cannot imprison textual interpretation in the straitjacket of a relatively small collection of formal rules,⁵ and therefore there are different shades of exposition that use one and the same principle. Everything depends on the place, the wording, and the substantive context.

The rules therefore cannot operate in a simple and mechanical way in every case, but they do provide the basic principles from which one can understand how to proceed in each particular case. The process is neither deductive nor entirely mechanical; it involves intuitive understanding, transmitted by tradition from teacher to disciple. Yet the rules do have significance, much like the rules of language, which have significance in guiding speech despite the many exceptions; see the essay on Parashat Nitzavim, 5765.

Just as the process moved from the formulation of Hillel the Elder to that of the school of Rabbi Ishmael, so too it continued afterward, in the period of the Mishnah and the Talmud. Admittedly, the process was interrupted toward the end of the talmudic era, and it falls to us to try to restore it to the course of its development. We must revive scriptural midrash and the creation of halakha, and for that purpose we must continue the process of abstraction, generalization, and conceptualization of the system of hermeneutical principles.

Final Note: A Connection Between the Two Implications of Tosafot’s Two Answers

It may be that the assumption of the author of Midot Aharon concerning the relation among different hermeneutical principles—namely, that a scriptural case cannot be the criterion by which such principles are classified—applies only to substantive principles and not to textual ones. Textual principles are distinguished from one another primarily by the textual case to which they are applied, and therefore, with respect to them, perhaps a different scriptural case can indeed serve as a sufficient basis for defining them as different hermeneutical principles.

By contrast, substantive principles deal with content-relations among the laws under discussion, not necessarily as they appear in the biblical text but as they actually are. If so, perhaps it is only with regard to such principles that the author of Midot Aharon says that they must differ from one another also in the form of inference, and not only in the scriptural-textual case.

As we have seen, according to the author of Midot Aharon, the principle “judged by a new element” is a substantive rather than a textual principle. One can therefore understand more easily why, in his view, it must also involve a different inferential content from the principle “not of the same kind,” and why it is not enough that it applies to a different textual case.

Footnotes