Gate Thirteen: The Synthetic Position in the Beit Midrash

From the book Two Wagons and a Hot Air Balloon by Rabbi Michael Avraham. Translated from Hebrew using gpt-5.4 (reasoning_effort=high, batch API).

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The Synthetic Position in the Study Hall

This gate contains four chapters:

1. Chapter 1: The Meaning and Character of Torah Study
2. Chapter 2: Halakha (Jewish law) and Reality: What Is Halakhic Expertise?
3. Chapter 3: Implications for the Character of Study
4. Chapter 4: The Dilemma of Simple Faith

Introduction

In this gate, which concludes the book, I will present several consequences of adopting a synthetic position within the study hall. This will find expression in our attitude toward the goals of study, and therefore also toward the manner of study.

In Gate Eleven, we saw that the source of the synthetic capacity is prophetic, or divine, but we did not present any difference between Torah study and the study of other fields. As we saw, intuition and common sense are necessary instruments in every area of learning, and therefore it would seem, at least at first glance, that once the auditory element in thought and cognition has been identified, no difference remains between the various fields.

One of the aims of the present gate is to clarify that there is nevertheless an essential difference between these domains. Torah study improves the auditory and intuitive capacity, whereas in other fields there is no more than use of that same capacity. In fact, as I will argue below, developing the auditory capacity is one of the principal functions of Torah study.

Moreover, as we saw in the previous gate, if we use only Greek logic, then not only will we be unable to learn anything new about the world, but even the kind of thinking usually classified as logical-analytic (though in fact it is a priori rather than analytic) cannot exist without synthetic reinforcement. In light of this, auditory logic receives an additional role, one even stronger than those described above. It is not merely an addition to accepted epistemology and thinking, but sometimes must also serve as a substitute for them. In the previous gate we saw that conventional logic is not only insufficient for recognizing truth, but not even necessary. If so, the role of Torah study in shaping the auditory component of cognition and intellect acquires added importance. At times it must bridge gaps left by ordinary human logic.

Needless to say, I cannot exhaust the discussion of these various points here, but I will try to identify several central ones. Some of them are relevant even to readers who are not interested in Torah aspects as such, since they clarify distinctions and concepts presented throughout the discussion and some of their implications. Some of the discussions, especially the examples in Chapter 3, will enter in detail into halakhic discussions, and a reader who is uninterested, or finds them difficult, may skip that part.

Chapter 1: The Meaning and Character of Torah Study

Torah as a Tool for Developing the Synthetic Capacity

In the previous gates we saw that God implanted synthetic capacities within the human being that enable him to learn about the world. The question is whether this is an acquired tool or an innate one. Clearly there is something innate here, as we saw in the arguments of Chomsky and Wittgenstein, but one may still ask whether this tool can be further developed, or brought from the raw potential state in which it is implanted within us at birth to an optimal mode of use.

Rabbi David Cohen, known as the Nazir, maintains that the Holy One, blessed be He, also gave us a basic instrument intended to develop that same synthetic capacity—“auditory,” in his terminology—so that we might contemplate, or listen to, reality properly. This instrument is the Torah, which was given to us so that through it we may develop the synthetic component of our thought and cognition. He adds that the endpoint of such development is prophetic ability, which will return to Israel at the end of days.

Implications for the Character of Study

1. In Gate Ten we saw that synthetic study must proceed through examples rather than through rules. In Gemara (the Talmudic dialectical discussion), these examples can at times seem detached from the real-life situations of our own generation, and more appropriate to ancient life. This limitation should not trouble the learner. He is merely constructing the lenses through which, and by means of which, he will later be able to contemplate contemporary events as well. While studying Talmudic thought, which deals with those examples, we are trying to develop intuitions and common sense that will also be valid today.¹

The reason there is no direct discussion in halakha of contemporary situations, except in the context of practical rulings, is not merely a fossilized adherence to an ancient and irrelevant reality, but the belief that earlier generations possessed a more developed “auditory” capacity (see the discussion in Chapter 2 of Gate Three). We try to draw from their capacity as much as possible—we study in “their studio,” according to the metaphor brought there—and therefore we are compelled to deal with the subjects that occupied them, in order to receive feedback on our own conclusions from the conclusions they themselves reached, and thus sharpen our instruments of listening. Once a significant auditory capacity has developed, one can also contemplate current events in the real world through it, and formulate a position regarding them. The conclusions drawn for contemporary conduct and thought are not always the result of a direct application of Talmudic principles, as it might seem. Rather, this is the use of the patterns of thought and intuition that developed through Torah study, which find expression—sometimes indirect expression—in contemporary Torah decision-making (see also the next chapter).

2. People who are not closely acquainted with Torah study, and sometimes even some of those engaged in it, ask themselves why the study is not goal-oriented. Why does it not end with examinations? Why is there no clear finish line? Why are there no objective criteria for certification and completion of study?

In light of what I have said, it is clear that the goal of study is not only the acquisition of a certain amount of information, but the shaping of the intuitive tools of thought, something that is difficult to examine through tests and formal instruments. I will try to illustrate this through a brief discussion of two concepts unique to the world of Torah: “one who errs in judgment” and “attendance upon Torah scholars.”

“Attendance upon Torah Scholars”

To learn from a text and allow it to shape you, a certain measure of self-effacement is required. One who does not feel such self-effacement—because he does not acknowledge the divinity of the text—cannot truly learn from it. At most, he can give it a free and non-binding interpretation. Anything in the text that does not seem reasonable to such a learner will be interpreted in a liberal and flexible enough way to make it seem reasonable to him—or simply discarded.

More generally: when something in the Torah does not fit the learner’s plain logic, some sort of change must be made in order to bring the two into alignment. For learners of this type, the changes are made only in the Torah and not in themselves. By contrast, learners who feel self-effacement before the text will tend specifically to change themselves, rather than the text, in order to conform to the standards it sets.

Rabbi Shimon Shkop writes in the introduction to his Gates of Integrity:

Therefore I hope that, in publishing this book and spreading it among the many, the good and beneficent One will grant me the grace of drawing the hearts of those who labor in the depths of halakha, so that they may meditate upon it and gain additional instruction, and my portion will be with them forever.

I know that this book of mine will not be accepted by all, for many learners are not accustomed to thinking in the analytic way that runs throughout most of the matters discussed in this book. There are many paths in Torah, and each person finds taste according to his habit. In addition, most of the matters explained here require thought and effort, and they are not grasped, even by an understanding mind, through a mere glance. Not every person wishes to attribute the deficiency to himself, whether because of the depth of the concept or the inadequacy of the one grasping it.

I heard a fine and persuasive comment in the name of my brother-in-law… It is told in the Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kamma, in the discussion of “this one benefits and the other loses nothing,” that Rav Hisda asked Rami bar Hama a question, and he answered him: “When you have attended upon me, I will answer you.” Rav Hisda took his scarf and wrapped it for him, and then he answered him. At first glance, this is astonishing.

That rabbi explained that in any matter requiring thought and effort, the essential issue depends on whether the student believes in the stature of his teacher. If he does not understand at first, he will then attribute the deficiency to himself and make a greater effort, and in the end he will understand. But if the teacher’s words are light in his eyes and not worth his labor and exertion, then if he does not accept them upon first consideration, he will leave them aside or reject them in his heart, and that will suffice for him.

Therefore, when Rami bar Hama understood the depth of the matter he wished to teach, he did not want to teach it until it was clear to him that Rav Hisda longed to learn from him as a student learns from a master. Therefore he did not teach him until he served him as a student serves a master.

So too I think that only those who will value my words before they have seen or heard them will find pleasure in studying this book, and will deem it worthwhile to deepen their inquiry even if they do not understand them at first consideration; then, with God’s help, they will accept my words.

We see that without the credit a student gives to the one teaching him, or to the book from which he is learning, genuine study is impossible. In such a case the student will receive from his teacher, or from the book, nothing that he himself does not already agree with at first glance. But with such an approach the result of study will be only confirmation of what was already known and understood beforehand. Everything else will be rejected or processed until it fits prior insights. Such a learner can therefore never improve his understanding; he will emerge from study in exactly the same state, with the same knowledge and the same understanding, as when he entered it. By contrast, a student who assumes that his understanding is inferior to that of his teacher will give him the necessary credit and be willing to toil in order to understand his words, even when he does not understand them at first or even second glance. Through that effort he changes what seemed obvious to him before the learning, and arrives at conclusions that are new for him. Only in this way can one derive something from study.²

These things are true to a great extent in the study of any other discipline as well. Let the reader imagine a physics student who does not accept his lecturer’s words because they do not seem reasonable to him. What knowledge will he have after the lecture? These things are all the more true in Torah study, which, as noted, is not the study of information alone, but “attendance.”

The following sharp passage from the Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 22a, sharpens the point:

It was stated: One who has read Scripture and studied Mishnah but has not attended upon Torah scholars—Rabbi Elazar says: he is an ignoramus. Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani says: he is a boor. Rabbi Yannai says: he is like a Samaritan. Rabbi Aḥa bar Yaakov says: he is like a sorcerer. Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak said: it is reasonable like Rabbi Aḥa bar Yaakov, for people say: the sorcerer mutters and does not know what he is saying; this reciter repeats and does not know what he is saying.

And Rashi comments there:

“Sorcerer”—a magician who deceives the eye and steals hearts; so too this person.

“Mutters”—the Aramaic translation of “one who casts spells” (Deuteronomy 18); the sorcerer whispers his spells and does not know what they are or what they mean, but that is how sorcery works, through those spells.

“This reciter repeats”—this too is a “sage,” ironically: one who has not attended in Talmudic study, but repeats his teaching and does not know what it is.

The Talmud describes one who has studied but has not attended upon Torah scholars as a sorcerer who does not himself know what he is saying. That is, he knows the information—he can recite it—but he does not know its meaning.³

“One Who Errs in Judgment”

In halakha there are two concepts, one of which may sound somewhat strange and antiquated to modern ears: “one who errs regarding an explicit teaching” and “one who errs in judgment.” One who errs regarding an explicit teaching is someone who did not see, or did not notice, an authoritative source that explicitly contradicts his words. This is a demonstrable and conclusive error—or, put differently, an analytic error. In such a case there is an analytic proof against the mistaken person. But halakha also has the concept of “one who errs in judgment,” meaning someone who errs in his reasoning. Even though there is no conclusive proof against him, it is still clear that he is mistaken.⁴

“Error in judgment” is a term that sounds very strange to the modern ear. If this is a person’s judgment, how can one determine that he erred without a clear proof? At first glance, all one can say is that this is his opinion, and I disagree with him. But contrary to this modern—or postmodern—intuition, the Talmud assumes that there really is such a thing as error in judgment. The conclusion is that it is not enough to be consistent with your premises, that is, to meet the analytic criterion; you must also be right, that is, meet the synthetic criterion. The premises themselves are also open to examination and criticism.

Torah study gradually develops the auditory-intuitive capacity to distinguish between what is right and what is not, even, and especially, without proofs. Every learner knows the unequivocal feeling he sometimes has when he hears faulty reasoning. Very often this feeling exists even when he has no clear proof against that reasoning, and perhaps never will have one.

Most surprising of all is that despite the fact that there are generally no definitive proofs, and one might therefore have thought there was no point in argument, experience nevertheless shows that one can argue, and even persuade another person. Such argument uses the auditory capacity and also develops it. This is the capacity to discern the deep and hidden content of a law or a piece of reasoning, and to judge whether it is correct or not. Another name for this phenomenon is “intuition” or “common sense,” but under no circumstances is it “emotion” (see the discussion of the relation between emotion and intellect at the beginning of Gate Eleven). In Gate Four we saw that only from a synthetic position can genuine argument take place. In a pluralistic world, where discussion proceeds in analytic ways, one can only find mistakes in proofs—which almost never happens—or else conduct a coercive dialogue among deaf monads.

Who Is a “Torah Scholar”?

As noted, according to the synthetic conception not every opinion, even if consistent, has equal standing. There are correct opinions, and there are also mistaken ones. Therefore, to reach a correct decision, learned argumentation and the presentation of evidence and relevant information are not enough; one also needs sound common sense and healthy intuition. When the learner, with the help of his teachers or of the public around him, comes to recognize that his mind has “straightened itself out” to a certain degree, he becomes increasingly independent. This depends not only on knowledge, but also on the endorsement of authorized sages who confirm it. That act was called ordination in the era when it still existed.⁵ Such approval cannot be based on a formal examination alone; it requires deep acquaintance with the candidate in order to assess his manner of thinking. In the next chapter I will illustrate this claim in greater detail.

This is admittedly a non-democratic conception, since not every opinion and not every person has equal weight and status, but it follows directly from the position that there are those who are right and those who are mistaken. Sages have a greater chance of making decisions that are not mistaken, and therefore their opinions carry disproportionate weight relative to those of ordinary people. Such a conception is more rational, since it allows the wise to make the decisions. Of course, according to the analytic conception—where there are no objectively mistaken decisions and every consistent position has equal standing—it is natural that every person should also possess an equal right and equal power of influence. This is the basis of the democratic conception, as we saw in detail in Gate Three.

A “Torah scholar” is a person with a developed synthetic capacity, and therefore his reasoning and opinions are themselves the Torah’s own perspective. As I noted above, after he has been tested and developed in the crucible of study, he can also apply his common sense to contemporary reality.

This is the meaning of the recourse to the opinions of sages, which sometimes appears to the contemporary observer as a lack of intellectual independence. The fundamental reason for this is that in the Jewish conception there is a possibility of error in decision-making, since there is “error in judgment,” and such an error has objective meaning. In a secular-analytic-postmodern world there is no objective meaning to error in values, and therefore no meaning to such consultation. An analytic thinker does not “clarify” what he should do but “decides” what he should do, and therefore he may at most consult, if at all, but certainly does not subordinate himself to anyone.

In an analytic world, where there is no such thing as “one who errs in judgment,” it is no great achievement to be independent and autonomous. When it is impossible to err, and you do not answer to anyone for your mistakes, it is no wonder that you have complete self-confidence in your decisions. But in the religious conception one turns to a person who is more likely to make the correct decision, and who will additionally help shape the thought and cognition of the person seeking guidance. This is somewhat similar to consulting an expert in one professional field or another. See also the next chapter on this point.

Clearly the goal of every learner is to attain intellectual independence and to acquire the ability to make correct decisions on his own. But until he reaches that point, he must study a great deal of Torah and attend upon Torah scholars. It is something like an internship.

“These and Those Are the Words of the Living God”

This description seems, at first glance, to contradict the well-known statement about disputes among sages, according to which “these and those are the words of the living God.” I do not intend to enter here into a detailed analysis of this seemingly anti-logical statement, but only to examine its relation to what has been said here.⁶

First, I must sharpen the previous description and say that once a learner has formed a healthy intuition and has received the endorsement mentioned above, he has the right to present an independent opinion. Such opinions may not accord with one another, but at that stage this is not disturbing. Only an unauthorized opinion is illegitimate and is considered mistaken. The Holy One, blessed be He, allows a broad margin of error—if one may even call it “error”—provided that the position rests on broad scope, toil in Torah, and the acquisition of a Torah cast of mind.

It should be emphasized that the statement “these and those are the words of the living God” does not justify the interpretation very common today, according to which anyone can express a position in the Torah sphere and it will be as legitimate as any other position. Secular study halls for Torah learning are for the most part based on interpretive freedom of this sort.

This is a fundamental mistake based on an analytic—and democratic—conception of Torah study (see Gates Three and Five on the analytic root of democracy). According to this conception, study is a kind of art, and all positions and interpretations have equal standing. There is no right and wrong, because there is complete freedom of interpretation.⁷

Such a conception uproots the meaning of Torah study at its very root. I mean to argue here also against the claim so often heard today—from those who hold that secularity is an alternative “full wagon”—that the religious public has no monopoly on Judaism and Torah. It most certainly does: whoever invests himself in Torah and develops Torah intuitions and a Torah intellect does have such a monopoly. In the study halls mentioned above, a person usually finds himself, as he presently is, inside the Torah. There is no intention there to learn from the Torah through self-effacement before it and before the Giver of the Torah, but only to give an interpretation that accords with the learner’s prior view. As we saw above, there is a great difference between study accompanied by self-effacement before the teacher and the subject matter, and study without such self-effacement. In this form of study, the learner does not shape himself according to the Torah, but shapes the Torah according to himself. He himself is not influenced by the learning, and therefore cannot claim that his understanding and personality have developed as a result of the learning process.

Summary

The conclusion is that Torah study is a different kind of study. It is “auditory” study, touching the inwardness of things rather than the manifest information on the surface—the “visual” layer. This is in contrast to academic-scientific study, which is the study of relevant information in some defined field, a “visual,” external kind of study. This is also the reason for the term “external wisdom,” which denotes the other disciplines, in contrast to “inner wisdom,” which denotes the wisdom of Torah. The next chapter will demonstrate the meaning of what has been said here more sharply, and will also clarify the great contemporary relevance of these matters to various debates currently taking place in Israeli society.

Chapter 2: Halakha and Reality: What Is Halakhic Expertise?⁸

Introduction

Usually, when the comparison is raised between consulting a rabbi and consulting an expert, people wonder how there can be an expert in all areas of life. Every expert has studied relevant information in some specific field and specialized in it, and people consult him in that field. The halakhic expert, by contrast, is supposedly an expert in all areas, sometimes even when he has never studied them at all, and sometimes when it is perfectly clear that he understands nothing of them.

The answer lies in the different character of Torah expertise. Expertise here does not derive only from knowledge of relevant details of information, but from well-developed intuition. Such intuition can cope with questions from various fields, even if some relevant details of knowledge are lacking. Those details can be supplied when needed by experts of the usual kinds. In this chapter I will try to sharpen this point a bit, since it has many contemporary implications.

Presentation of the Problem

Several years ago, a proclamation by rabbis was published stating that transferring territories to the Palestinians involves danger to life. Many objected to this rabbinic determination, arguing that sages have no authority to make it. This is a professional determination entrusted to security or policy experts. According to these views, Torah sages should provide Torah-value guidance and should not engage in determining reality.⁹

According to the opponents, it is legitimate for a halakhic decisor to rule that territories should not be transferred to Palestinian control for some halakhic reason—for example, the sanctity of the Land of Israel—and also to rule that this halakhic reason overrides considerations of danger to life, which is also a halakhic consideration. But the decisor cannot determine the factual claim itself, namely, that such a step in fact involves danger to life, that it actually endangers us. This factual determination belongs to the expert. Is a person whose security assessment differs—even any private individual whatsoever—not just as qualified as those rabbis to make that call?

The halakhic model for this claim is the model of the rabbi and the physician, which classical halakha already discusses. In the medical context it is clear that the physician determines reality, while the rabbi decides how one ought to act within that reality. At first glance, the present case seems very similar. Here too, the expert determines reality and the rabbi decides how one should act in such a reality.

These claims recur in various contexts in the State of Israel today, both outside the Torah world and within it.

What Is Expertise?

The question here concerns the concept of “expertise” in general. One can formulate it as follows: the rabbi is an “expert in Torah,” and therefore he should not pronounce definitively on questions outside his field of expertise. But in light of what I argued in the previous chapter, this is not the rabbi’s expertise. He is not merely a vessel that contains information; he is also an expert in the Torah mode of thinking. Here I will try to clarify this point somewhat.

First, I must examine in greater detail the role of expertise in value determinations generally. Take, for example, the determination of the maximum legal speed on a certain road. At first glance, the question whether travel at a given speed is dangerous is a factual question, and therefore entrusted to traffic experts. Only the formulation of the law and its enforcement—and perhaps also the selection of the expert who will decide—are entrusted to the institutions of government.

But this is too simplistic a picture. The expert can determine at most, if at all, the degree of risk involved in travel at a given speed. For example, he can determine that driving on the road in question at 90 kilometers per hour involves a 2% risk of an accident. He can likewise determine that driving at 100 kilometers per hour involves a 3% risk, and so on. When such an expert has completed his work, what we have in hand is a graph of risks: each speed is paired with a percentage of risk.

But the decision in the matter under discussion is a normative decision—halakhic, moral, legal, or all of these together. Therefore the normative authority, or value-decider, now enters the picture. He must determine what degree of risk is to be prohibited by law, or by halakha. His determination is of the following type: travel involving a 2% risk or more shall be prohibited. From that determination it follows that on this road one may not travel at a speed exceeding 90 kilometers per hour.

Notice that in this description the value-decider takes part also in determining “reality.” In fact, he is the one who determines the permitted speed, not the traffic expert. The value-decider—the legislator or the halakhic decisor—determines the norm, and the expert merely “translates” it into the language of reality.

If we return to the security-political example, a similar process must take place there as well. Security or policy experts determine the risks involved in each course of action, and the value-decider determines whether we are permitted to take risks at such levels.

Thus, perhaps surprisingly, the determination that handing over territory to Palestinian rule constitutes danger to life is indeed entrusted to the halakhic decisor—at least with respect to a religious person who accepts his authority. He is the one who determines that the risk created in such a situation exceeds what halakha permits.

The question of what to do when his determination conflicts with the decisions of policy-makers is an entirely different question. Here the situation is very similar to the case of traffic law where the law sets the “risk threshold” at 1.5% and the halakhic decisor sets it at 2%. In such a case a dilemma will arise for a person who accepts the authority of halakha in addition to the authority of the law.

But this is an entirely different problem, which concerns the question of who is the value-decider each of us accepts upon himself. It has nothing to do with the question of halakha and reality, and therefore I will not discuss it here.

What has been said here can be generalized to every normative-value field. No decision lies intrinsically within an expert’s field of authority. Every decision that has a value dimension is entrusted to a value-decider, not to an expert. Even if the analytic thinker believes that he himself is the proper value-decider, and does not wish to hand that authority over to another party, he must still accept the distinction presented here: the expert is certainly not the address. Disagreement can arise only regarding the question of who the proper normative authority is.

Another example may be seen in the question whether homosexuality ought to be regarded as legitimate. Here too one hears claims that the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of diseases already in the 1970s, and since the experts have stated their position, rabbis or legislators have nothing to say in this area.

Here too this is incorrect. The psychiatric expert can determine whether homosexuality has a genetic root, whether it can be treated, and in what cases. He has no authority whatsoever to determine whether it is forbidden, or whether it is legitimate—that is, normal or normative. That question is entrusted to a value-decider—a rabbi, a legislator, or perhaps each individual for himself—not to any expert. The American Psychiatric Association is no more authorized in this matter than any ordinary person in the marketplace. The value-decider may, of course, need the information supplied by psychiatry.

The same is true of abortion (see note 26). The physician determines what functional components a fetus has at a given stage, and afterward the decision whether abortion is permitted or forbidden—that is, from when that fetus counts as a “person”—is entrusted to a value-decider. And so it is with every value decision in every field. There is no decision in the world, in any field, that is a matter for an expert alone.¹⁰

Interim Summary

The common conception is that the rabbi, or value-decider, enters the picture only after the expert has spoken and determined reality. The expert determines what speed is dangerous, and only then can the value-decider say that one may not drive at such a speed because there is value in not endangering life. But from what I have said thus far, we have seen that the value-decider takes part in the decision at two distinct junctions, not only one: first, he must determine what counts as “dangerous,” or what is called a “person,” or a “patient,” and the like; and only afterward does he also decide whether it is permitted to kill a “person” or not, whether it is permitted to drive at a “dangerous” speed or not, and so on.

What Is Halakhic Expertise?

In light of what has been said here, it follows that the rabbi, or halakhic decisor, is not an “expert” in the usual sense. An expert in some field is equipped with the best knowledge and research methods in his domain, and therefore is an authority regarding facts. The rabbi is indeed an expert in this very sense with respect to halakhic information, but in addition he is an “expert,” in an entirely different sense, with respect to value decisions.

It should be noted that at the stage of value decision, which always comes after the determination of reality, there is seemingly no method that can help us arrive at a decision. In that area, apparently, we are all equal. Who knows how to determine what constitutes significant risk on a particular road? Or who should count as “ill”—for example, whether homosexuality should be classified as illness? At first glance this is a matter of values and not of facts, and therefore in relation to such questions we would all seem equally authoritative.

My claim is that the halakhic decisor is more authoritative than others precisely here as well, and perhaps especially here. In other words, I reject both polar positions: both the view that these are questions for an expert and not for a rabbi, and the opposite view that these questions are entrusted equally to every individual.¹¹

The claim is that the study of Torah and halakha sharpens the ability to make value decisions. Such study calibrates a person’s intuitions regarding what degree of danger should be forbidden, what degree of pathology should be defined as illness, and so forth.

Torah study therefore differs from other fields in that it is not only one discipline among many, but also a meta-discipline. It is a foundational field for decision-making in all the other fields. That is why a religious person goes to ask a halakhic decisor about various value-laden domains, as noted in the previous chapter.

This topic requires expansion and elaboration on a good many points, and this is not the place. In the next chapter I will discuss the implications of this conception of Torah study for the learner himself and for the character of the study.

Chapter 3: Implications for the Character of Study

Introduction

This chapter will briefly discuss the implications of this conception of Torah study for the form that study should take. A detailed discussion of this topic would require a place of its own, and I will not go beyond the minimum necessary for understanding the matter. At the end of the chapter I will present several examples in order to illustrate the meaning of the desired form of study.

In Chapter 2 of Gate Three we saw that the difference between Torah study and “external studies” lies more in the method than in the subject matter. One can study the Talmud in the manner of external studies, and on the other hand one can examine the world, even at the scientific level, in the manner of Torah study.¹² Synthetic-auditory thinking about any subject is Torah study. Analytic-visual thinking about any subject is not.

For Torah study to become genuinely significant in shaping auditory logic, as I argued above, the learner must be aware that this is its purpose and must study in a way that brings him closer to it. This means that Torah study is not concerned only with the discussions of Abaye and Rava, but also with broader issues, which are not usually associated directly with Torah study. For the Torah to guide the learner toward such understandings, one must try to find in the Torah, and especially in its halakhic part—which is the most developed, detailed, and precise—understandings of various philosophical issues. The familiar halakhic study of the world of the Torah academies must be linked to the whole range of problems that arise in human thought. The innovation required in Torah study is not supposed to address the needs of changing reality only in order to find halakhic solutions. The main innovation required is the finding of solutions to various philosophical problems, which arise with greater force and greater clarity in the analytic age of recent generations. Torah should teach us how to observe the world in general—and also how to make value judgments, as we saw in the previous chapter.

“Thought”¹³ and Halakha

In the world of the Torah academies, conceptual halakhic study is generally not connected to the world of thought or philosophy. These appear as two separate fields, or even two disciplines that have no connection at all with one another. Here is the place for one of the main innovations required by everything said thus far.¹⁴

In conceptual study one usually reaches abstract levels and quasi-mathematical definitions, as Rabbi Soloveitchik describes in his book Halakhic Man. The continuation of the questioning beyond the accepted level of conceptual study, as I will try to show, leads us directly into the world of philosophical thought. I will try to show that the difference between conceptual halakhic study and the study of Jewish thought does not lie in the contents of study. It is exhausted by one additional question: “Why?”—asked after the completion of the conventional halakhic analysis. That question takes us from the plane of halakhic analysis to the plane of philosophical thought. The difference between conceptual halakhic study and philosophical-theoretical study lies not in the subjects studied but in the number of “why” questions.

In the Torah world, the old conception still prevails according to which philosophy is the field concerned with knowledge of divinity and metaphysics. Today, general philosophy deals with the structure of logic, language, and law, with aesthetics, ethics, and many other fields in addition to metaphysics—which, as we saw, has actually been somewhat neglected in the analytic age. By contrast, the main books of thought studied today in the world of the Torah academies, if they are studied at all, are the books of the medieval Jewish philosophers, such as Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, Saadia Gaon’s Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Judah Halevi’s Kuzari, and so forth. These books deal for the most part only with the classical metaphysical questions, and most of them rely on Greek-Muslim ideas and a Greek-Muslim conceptual world.

What is called for today is a revolution similar to the one made by Maimonides when he introduced Aristotelian philosophy—the dominant philosophy in his time—into the realm of learned Torah discussion. In our day, one must continue and critically “convert” Descartes and Leibniz, Hume and Kant, Russell, Wittgenstein, and the other modern philosophers. As noted, parallel to this process of “conversion,” one must connect philosophical study with conceptual study of the halakhic sections of the Talmud, in order to resolve problems and decide various philosophical issues.

It should be noted that a connection of this kind was made by Rabbi Yosef Rozin of Rogatchov, known as the Rogatchover, in his books entitled Deciphering the Hidden. The Rogatchover’s halakhic system is based on a conceptual framework drawn from philosophical literature, especially Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. That is, in a certain sense the Rogatchover continued the move begun by Maimonides. After Maimonides “converted” philosophical terms and problems, the Rogatchover came and connected those problems and terms to the halakhic-learning world.¹⁵ True, the Rogatchover too stopped with ancient philosophy, since he was based on Maimonides. Something like what he did must be continued with respect to modern philosophy as well.

I wish to note that the Rogatchover built his intellectual edifice from a desire to understand learning in its classical sense, but he saw fit to use a philosophical conceptual framework. He did not intend to clarify philosophical problems as the goal of his study, but to expose the philosophical assumptions underlying halakha. Here, by contrast, I am speaking about clarifying philosophical questions in their own right. In this sense, the tendency proposed in this chapter takes one further step in recognizing these general issues as a Torah value of study in their own right.¹⁶

A profound clarification of this kind requires mastery of classical Torah study, and only afterward the development of an additional level of philosophical interpretation. One who tries to replace classical study directly with study of this kind is doomed to shallowness and superficiality. The attempt is to learn from the Torah, and not to find my own forms of thought—or those of one philosopher or another—retroactively inside the Torah, as explained above.

In the world of the Torah academies two contradictory claims are common. On the one hand, there is a conception of the Torah as including all wisdoms that exist. On the other hand, engaging in those wisdoms is perceived as something external and is considered neglect of Torah study. According to the interpretation proposed here, the main difference lies in the aim of the engagement. If engagement in the “external” wisdoms is undertaken in order to clarify the Torah’s view and shape a Torah worldview, then it falls under “Torah study.” If the engagement is only in order “to amuse oneself with them,” as Rabbi Moses Isserles writes in the Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah 246—and see also Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s article “Response to an Inquirer from a Certain Country,” printed in his Collected Essays—then it is only in the category of permissible amusement.¹⁷ Clearly, there must be an attempt here to clarify truth, and not merely to amuse oneself by raising possibilities. The form of study characteristic of such clarification should proceed from Torah sources and clarify their stance on the various subjects, similar to halakhic clarification. But since the discussion is generally not explicit in the sources, one must learn it by implication. I will try to demonstrate this form of study below.

The Capacity for Decision

It should be noted that one of the factors that deters people from dealing with the abstract problems of philosophy is the feeling that no decision can be reached and that everything is possible. Many therefore feel that progress in such engagement is impossible. Yet through a mode of clarification like that found in the world of Torah study, this distress seems to lose much of its force—though it does exist for quite a broad public even with respect to conceptual study itself—because there there are ways of deciding, at least to a certain degree, as anyone involved in conceptual study in the academies knows. For example, halakhic ruling can serve as an indication of the correct philosophical conclusion.¹⁸

Productive and conclusion-oriented thinking depends on granting authority to the sources. That is, the learner must assume that the sources he studies are authoritative also with respect to the philosophical conclusions that arise from them (see the quotation from Gates of Integrity in Chapter 1). If the learner does not feel that a philosophical conclusion that arises from study of Talmudic discussions has force, then once again there is no productive and conclusion-oriented study here. Such an approach can be based on the credit given to the authors of the books: even if they did not explicitly think about these conclusions, they had healthy Torah intuition, as described in Gate Three, Chapter 2. An additional and different basis for such an approach may be found in my article “Hermeneutics of Canonical Texts.”

We see, then, that such engagement can provide us with a tool for reaching conclusions about philosophical problems, and not merely for amusement. The general world of philosophy is analytic in its basic character, and therefore does not think in a conclusion-oriented way. It is no accident that many people feel that engaging in philosophy is not goal-directed. In an analytic world it cannot be otherwise. By contrast, from a synthetic approach that trusts the intuitions developed through Torah study, one cannot dismiss out of hand the possibility of a conclusion-oriented clarification of philosophical problems, however abstract they may be.

Examples in This Book

Throughout the book, several examples are interwoven of clarifying philosophical foundations from halakhic determinations. These include discussions of sukkah and the concept of ownership in relation to the material content of a concept; names and ostension; the simplicity of the ostensive presentation of a complex concept (essentialism); the delivery of a bill of divorce as a process; action under coercion; a fortiori reasoning and the logical status of the interpretive principles by which the Torah is expounded; the logical difference between positive commandments and prohibitions in relation to negation and the various kinds of opposites; and more. I will now add briefly three more examples—two particular ones and one general one—in order to illustrate what I mean regarding the form of study.

1. The Common Denominator¹⁹

There is a Talmudic form of inference built on analogy, called in Talmudic terminology “constructing a paradigm,” or “what do we find?” There are disputes, into which I will not enter here, regarding the terminology and content of these forms of interpretation.²⁰ Here I wish to illustrate a principle that underlies the study form called “what is the common side,” or “the common denominator.” In this kind of study one begins with an analogy, or an a fortiori argument, from subject A (source A) to subject C (the derived case), and tries to learn that C has the same law as A. One then finds a refutation showing that C differs from A in some respect, and therefore the analogy cannot be relied upon. After that one finds an additional matter—source B—from which the same law can also be learned regarding C, except that B too differs from C in another respect, and therefore it too cannot suffice on its own. Finally, the two sources are combined, and it is said that their common denominator will teach us about C: if the law exists in A and B, that is, in both sources, then it exists in C as well. We infer this despite the differences between C and each of the source cases, A and B, taken separately.

Let us now take an example in order to clarify the procedure of the “common denominator.” The Talmud in Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kamma 6a, discusses a person who placed objects at the top of his roof, and they fell down in an ordinary wind, and while lying below they damaged the property of someone else passing there. In note 13 in the previous gate we encountered the halakhic concept of the “primary categories of damages.” From a halakhic standpoint, in order to obligate a person for damage caused by his property, one must find a source in the Torah that can teach that causing damage in such a way obligates payment. To obligate the person who placed his objects on the roof, this manner of causing damage must be likened to the forms of damage that appear in the Torah, called the “primary categories of damages.”

The Gemara there tries to compare this case to damage caused by a pit, which is one of the primary categories, since it too causes damage while lying in the public domain. The Gemara rejects the comparison by saying that a pit is different because “no other force is involved in it,” meaning that it did not arrive at the place of damage by means of the wind, but was dug there by the damager himself. The meaning of such a rejection is that perhaps liability for damage is caused by this very characteristic of remaining stationary—or of direct causation—which does not exist in the derived case. The Gemara therefore tries to learn from damage caused by fire, which does indeed “go” to other places by means of the wind and causes damage there. It then rejects the comparison to fire as well, on the ground that fire is by its nature apt to go and cause damage, which is not the case with these objects, which after coming to rest are usually not mobile. This rejection assumes that perhaps the obligation to pay is caused by the fact that the damager is of a sort that tends to go and cause damage, and therefore one cannot learn from it to obligate in the case of stationary damagers as well. Finally, the Gemara concludes that “the law returns,” meaning that one learns from the common denominator shared by fire and pit together. In other words, from the fact that both fire and pit are forms of damage that obligate the one who causes damage through them to pay, we learn that one who places his vessels on a roof and they fall and cause damage is likewise obligated to pay for the damages caused.

The Problematic Nature of the “Common Denominator”

At this point the following question apparently arises, and it applies to every study of this type: how can the combination contain more than what exists in the two individual source cases? Potential source A, the pit, differs from the derived case C, the vessels on the roof, and potential source B, the fire, differs from it in another property. If so, one could object and say that perhaps one of these two properties is specifically required in order to create liability for payment—either the damager must be stationary, or it must have a normal tendency to go and cause damage—and it is not clear how one can infer liability in the derived situation C, which has neither of these two properties.

In other words, one may ask: why can the combined derivation—the analogy from the two subjects together—not be refuted by the following argument? Liability for payment is caused by the fact that the damager possesses at least one of two properties: either it is stationary, or it has a normal tendency to go and cause damage. Therefore, objects that were placed on the roof, which possess neither of these two properties, should exempt their owner from liability for the damages they caused when they fell. This is what the methodologists call a “refutation from a more stringent side” (see Tosafot on “for,” Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 32a).

To this question the commentators answer, in several places, that if we accept this mode of refutation, we abolish the entire form of learning called the “common denominator.” Since the Oral Torah teaches us that there is such a mode of learning, it follows that such a refutation is not accepted.²¹ This explanation is meant to show that such is indeed the intention of the Oral Torah. But we are still not exempt from the obligation to understand the assumptions underlying this apparently strange rule. What does such a rule tell us? Precisely here, after one additional “why?” question, we move to the plane of “thought.”

Every Law Has Only One Cause

It seems that the assumption we are compelled to posit at the basis of the claim that such a refutation is illegitimate is that every law has only one cause, and no more. That is, the Oral Torah, which accepts the “common denominator” derivation as legitimate, assumes that there cannot be a law caused by two different reasons—unless they are merely particular cases of one general reason—or by two different factors. For example, liability for damages cannot be caused by either one of two factors—in our case, either being stationary or having a normal tendency to go and cause damage—unless we can understand the connection between them and see that they are two expressions of one higher-order factor. If that is the case, then there is indeed one difference between the two source cases and the derived case, and then the “common denominator” derivation would indeed be refuted.²²

In the example brought here, one must consider whether these are causes of liability or causes of exemption, for causes of exemption can apparently indeed be many and different from one another. A detailed continuation of the discussion of this issue lies beyond my present scope. What I wished to show is the general principle that emerges from the very fact of the “common denominator” derivation: every law can have only one cause. That is, one cannot formulate a law of the following type: when either A or B obtains, the law will be thus-and-so. Such a formulation can only be interpreted as a definition by extension (see note 23 above) of the reason for the law, meaning that when A or B obtains, this is merely an indication that there is one state of affairs of which both are expressions. That state is the essential principle underlying the law, and it must be singular.

This claim can have very important principled implications. Does it mean that nothing in the world has more than one cause? Is this how we should understand causality in general—that there cannot be an essential plurality of causes for one principled result? I am inclined to think that this is indeed what emerges from here, but this is not the place to discuss it.²³

Thus we have seen that one can arrive at philosophical implications through ordinary conceptual study simply by asking one additional question. If one does not suffice with the conventional scholastic answer, as formulated by the commentators cited above, according to which the “refutation from a more stringent side” is illegitimate, and instead asks one more “why?”, that question leads us directly to the plane of thought.²⁴

2. Presumptions

This example will deal with a classical Torah-theoretical topic, rather than with general philosophy, but I will look at it from an unexpected angle. The topic will emerge from a common halakhic-learning discussion which, at first glance, does not seem to have any relation to thought. This is precisely the main lesson I wish to draw from this example, even more than the contents themselves. We will ask “why?” one additional time after exhausting the conventional conceptual level, and arrive at the plane of thought.

Rules of Clarification

Halakha is full of rules for clarifying situations of doubt. A court seeks to clarify the reality that prevailed in the cases brought before it. Beyond that, every person often finds himself in conditions of uncertainty that require him to try to clarify a reality—or a law—that is unknown to him. There are many rules pertaining to this, such as the rules of doubt, presumptions, and all the laws of evidence—witnesses, credibility based on what one could have claimed, and so forth.

One of the things to which the world of the Torah academies has already become accustomed, but which seems highly surprising to an outside observer, is the fact that the search for truth does not always appear to be the only criterion guiding the decisor or the court. True, even in an ordinary legal system there are rules that are not only rules for clarifying reality but also rules of procedure, but they always have a clear source and motivation. Such motivation may be the desire to prevent legal complications or procedural problems (see note 24 above, a proposal intended to reduce such situations). In the halakhic system, by contrast, the restrictions seem to go far beyond procedural problems.

For example, witnesses who are related to one another, or to one of the litigants, invalidate the testimony. The Talmud, followed by the early commentators, gives an example in order to sharpen the point: if Moses and Aaron—who symbolize people whose words are certainly true—were to testify together about some case, their testimony would be void. It would seem from this as though the court knows the truth, yet is not interested in it, and rules according to strange procedural rules.

One might have thought that this is only a safeguard so that we not accept the testimony of other brothers, who are less reliable. This explanation is ruled out by the Talmud and the early commentators, who make quite clear that the testimony of relatives—including relatives of the litigants themselves—is not invalid because of concern that they may distort their testimony, but by “decree of Scripture,” meaning that this is a law decreed by the Torah and we do not know its reason (see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Testimony, end of Chapter 13, and more. There are also proofs for this from the Talmud).

A detailed discussion of this topic lies beyond my present concern,²⁵ but I will take as an example specifically the common halakhic concept of clarification called the “original presumption.” There is a halakhic principle according to which, as long as there is no evidence that a certain legal status has changed, we assume it has not changed. For example, if doubt arises about a person’s legal fitness—for marriage or for testimony—one follows what was known up to the moment at which the doubt arose. Thus, if a woman’s status is doubtful because we do not know whether she was divorced from her husband, and therefore do not know whether she may marry another man, she is presumed married. The reason is that until the moment of doubt she was presumed married to her husband. Therefore, so long as it has not been clearly established that she was divorced, we leave her in the presumption of being married.

The Nature of the “Original Presumption”

Some commentators discuss whether the “original presumption” serves as a clarification of reality, or only as a rule of conduct in the absence of other knowledge. That is, the question is whether, so long as nothing else has been proved, the woman is actually considered married for all purposes, or whether, lacking other knowledge about her, we merely behave as if she is married.

This question has a number of halakhic consequences, and I will mention only one by way of example. In explaining the passage in Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 13b, the commentators dispute a case in which a baby girl is born to a mother, and it is not known whether the father was disqualified or not. In such a case there is a doubt regarding the mother and a doubt regarding the daughter. With regard to the mother, there is a doubt lest she was disqualified from priestly marriage—that is, forbidden to marry a priest—as a result of an illicit sexual relation. With regard to the daughter, there is the same doubt, since according to halakha the mother’s illicit relation also disqualifies the daughter, thereby preventing her too from marrying a priest.

With respect to the mother there is an “original presumption,” for she was fit for priestly marriage until the doubt arose, and therefore one rules that in doubt, and in the absence of other knowledge, she remains permitted to marry a priest. With respect to the daughter, the situation is even more complicated, for in her case the doubt exists from the moment of birth, and she has no prior legal status on which we can rely. We cannot leave her in her “prior presumption,” since she has no prior presumption.

Here the commentators divide into two main camps. Some hold that the mother’s presumption, which halakhically helps the daughter as well, operates because there is a formal rule according to which the mother’s presumption counts also as an original presumption for the daughter. According to this, the daughter too formally has an original presumption of fitness. Others, by contrast, hold that the daughter has no such presumption, but since in the question concerning the mother we decided, by force of the mother’s presumption, to leave her in a state of presumed fitness, it follows that it has become clear to us that the mother had relations with a fit man, and therefore the daughter too is clearly fit.

At first glance, that argument really does seem persuasive. If the mother is fit, that follows from the fact that we ruled she had relations with a fit man. If so, how can one simultaneously rule that the daughter is disqualified? The commentators of the first camp are not alarmed by this difficulty. They hold that nothing at all has been clarified regarding the mother. Formally, we merely continue to behave toward her as we did until now. There is no true decision here about the reality that she had relations with a fit man. If so, regarding the daughter, who has no original presumption of her own, we cannot continue to treat her according to a prior presumption, and she therefore remains in a state of doubt. For that reason, to explain why the daughter is nevertheless fit, they must say that formally the daughter too has a presumption of her own. There are additional examples of consequences of this dispute, but I need not prolong the matter here.²⁶

Up to this point, this is conventional halakhic analysis. As noted above, in the world of the Torah academies people are accustomed to the inquiry whether original presumptions are rules of conduct or clarifying presumptions. But anyone who hears this—unless he is overly accustomed to the mode of thought of the academies—may be astonished: can it really be that there is here a clarification that the mother in fact had relations with a fit man? If we truly do not know who the man was, how can the mother’s legal status before the doubt arose clarify what in fact happened? Does the fact that the mother was presumed fit before the relation prove—or even bear any relevance at all to the conclusion—that the man was fit? What connection is there between the halakhic identity of the man and the fitness of the woman? There is no logic in this.

A similar question arises in every case of a clarifying rule that does not fit reality.²⁷ In the case where Moses and Aaron testify before us, the matter is even more severe. There, despite the fact that we know they are telling the truth, we invalidate their testimony because they are brothers. Here we rule in complete opposition to our knowledge of reality, and not merely behave differently in a case of doubt, as in the example of presumptions.

It seems that what troubled the commentators of the second camp—the ones who hold that the presumption clarifies—was the question how one could permit the daughter to marry a priest on the basis of an original presumption that has no clarifying force. It was clear to them that the Holy One, blessed be He, who supervises every detail in creation, will bring reality about in such a way that the correct law emerges. That is, if there truly is a formal halakhic rule that decides in favor of the daughter—the Talmud derives from verses that one may rely on original presumptions—then apparently that is indeed the legal reality that ought to come into being. The court has no evidence, but since halakha instructs us to act this way, it is clear that God will arrange reality so that this is indeed what should have occurred. But now a surprising conclusion follows: if that is indeed what happens, then clearly the daughter too may be permitted, since ultimately it has become clear to us—albeit indirectly—that the mother did in fact have relations with a fit man. True, there is no evidentiary inference from the mother’s presumption of fitness to the fitness of the man and the daughter, but a metaphysical assumption may explain the puzzling formal halakhic assumption we encountered here.

We found an example of a similar principle regarding an unintentional murderer. There is a midrash (Babylonian Talmud, Makkot 10b) which says that a person who was killed had deserved to die, and therefore was killed, even though it happened unintentionally. And the killer too had deserved to kill and to go into exile, and therefore God “brings them to one inn”—that is, causes them to happen upon the same place so that one kills the other by mistake. In other words, even something that happens to a person unintentionally accords with divine justice and individual providence.

On the other hand, it is clear that one cannot murder intentionally and say that apparently God decided the victim deserved to be murdered. This can be said only about actions done accidentally, that is, specifically unintentionally. In actions done from choice, a human being has the power to act even against the calculations of Heaven (see above, note 28 and its context). It is possible, and even likely, that afterward God will employ compensatory means so that ultimate justice nevertheless emerges in the final account, but the murder itself is not something that had to happen.

We found another example in a different context. A commandment is imposed on a person to make a parapet for the roof of his house so that no one should fall from it—and so too with regard to removing other hazards from the home, see above, note 29. The Talmud (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 32a) says that even if one does not build a parapet and someone falls from the roof, the fallen person was destined to fall from the six days of Creation, “for liability is brought about through the guilty and merit through the worthy.” That is, the killer had deserved to kill, and the fallen person had deserved to die. God merely “brought them to one inn,” just as in the case of the unintentional murderer.²⁸

In a very similar way one may approach the common theological question: how can a person choose to act against the will of God, who of course wants the good to be done? The answer, according to this approach, is that God truly gave human beings the power to act against His own will. The benefit of the very existence of free choice outweighs the benefit of doing good in a deterministic way—if one can speak at all of “good” in such a situation.²⁹

In exactly the same way, according to this camp of commentators, one may say that when a court rules in accordance with halakha, it is clear that what happens is what should have happened. Therefore, when there is an original presumption in favor of one side in a doubtful case, and halakha instructs us to act accordingly, it is clear that this is also what the ruling would have been had we known the actual reality, even though at present the court does not know it.³⁰ One may not infer from this, however, that the court may rule however it pleases, even against halakha. In the case of an act not done according to halakha, there is no divine guarantee that justice will indeed come to light through the court, exactly as in the case of the intentional murderer above.³¹ Here the laws of error enter the picture (see the previous example).

The first camp of commentators—the ones who hold that the presumption is only a rule of conduct and not clarifying evidence—apparently understand that there can be a case in which we rule that the mother is fit even when in reality she is not. Divine justice will come to light in another, more indirect way. One might even say more: perhaps the law is not determined by reality at all—whether the woman had relations with a fit man or with a disqualified one—but by our knowledge. Such an approach also emerges from some sources, though this is not the place for that discussion.³²

According to this camp of commentators, the outlook on free choice will change accordingly as well (see note 28 and its context). God did not forgo His will that good be done in order to create a situation in which free choice exists, as we saw above in the second approach. According to this view, there is no genuine good at all; obedience itself is the good. And if one acts in a way that seems, on the plane of reality, not to accord with halakha, that is not an act against the will of God at all. These seem to be two answers to the same ancient ethical-theological inquiry, already found in Plato—the Euthyphro dilemma: is the good good because God wants it and commands it, or did God command it because it is good?³³

The questions raised here touch the roots of the Torah worldview. They concern providence, freedom, good and evil, reward and punishment, and more, and clearly require a much broader discussion. My purpose was only to show once again the transition from the plane of conventional Talmudic conceptual study to discussion of an issue traditionally regarded as belonging to the field of Jewish thought. Here too, the transition is made by puzzlement over a common claim in halakhic literature—namely, that an original presumption is a clarifying rule.

3. Fasting on Yom Kippur: Definition and Rationale³⁴

This example has a more general character. It deals with the relation between formal definition and rationale, a subject that has implications both for the entire field of halakha and also for the concept of “explanation,” which is of course a general concept in the various fields of philosophy, usually discussed in the philosophy of science. True, there is no direct implication here from a halakhic statement to the plane of thought, but there is a demonstration of the way one can proceed in trying to make such implications. We shall see that it is preferable to examine the semantic plane in addition to the syntactic one. Indirectly, broader philosophical implications will also arise, regarding the concepts of explanation and understanding in various domains.

There are two ways to justify and describe a halakha: one can give its reason, and one can define its rules and principles. In practical halakha, we rule that one does not derive law from “the reason of the verse,” that is, we do not follow the rationales of the commandments, but rather do as the Torah’s language instructs us in the law under discussion.

It is commonly accepted that Rabbi Ḥayyim of Brisk expanded this principle to the Talmud as well. He held that we do not seek the reasons for the laws found in the Talmud, but at most their formal definitions. That is, we seek the principles that define our obligations: where they apply and where they do not, what is imposed upon us and what is not. We do not seek the reason for those laws. In his terms: we ask “what?” but not “why?” The reason is that we are unable to penetrate fully into the minds of the sages of the Talmud, and of its early commentators, and therefore we must not attempt to do so lest we err.

The distinction between definition and rationale parallels the distinction between semantics and syntax, which I discussed above in Gate Three, notes 12 and 13; see there concerning the problematic nature of this distinction. I will now examine an example of this problematic nature through a brief consideration of a question concerning the obligation to fast on Yom Kippur.

Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger, author of the responsa Binyan Zion, discusses the question whether a person who ate on Yom Kippur must continue fasting, or whether, once he has already broken the fast, he can no longer complete it. The basis for understanding the obligation to fast as one single unit throughout the day is the verse: “From evening to evening shall you rest your rest,” which describes the command to fast on Yom Kippur as applying to one long unit: “from evening to evening.”

Some later commentators formulate this inquiry in terms of “definitions,” at the syntactic level: is Yom Kippur one unit of time, or is it composed of parts? If it is composed of parts, then it is clear that failure to fulfill one’s obligation at one moment does not detract from one’s obligation to continue fasting during the remaining moments. But if it is one unit, then once one has not fasted for the entire day, one has not fulfilled the commandment at all, and therefore it will not help to continue fasting, since in any case the obligation to fast the whole day will not be fulfilled.

Presented in this way, the inquiry seems impossible to decide. How can we test whether Yom Kippur is composed of parts or is one unit? Definitions cannot be tested beyond their internal consistency. This is precisely the emptiness of the analytic. One cannot examine syntax beyond its consistency and its conformity to rules.

We saw above that it is important to reach halakhic decisions, and that this also enables us to decide philosophical-theoretical questions. But on the level of syntax, even if we try to test the various definitions through their consequences—the halakhic ramifications—almost every inquiry can be reconciled, on both sides, with all the available data, as anyone familiar with conceptual study in the Torah academies knows. If so, the attempt to develop intuition—auditory, synthetic logic—that will help us decide often cannot make significant progress through this kind of analysis of formal definitions.

It therefore seems that in order to examine our position on this question, we must move to the plane of rationales, the semantic plane, and ask: why should there be such definitions at all for the obligation to fast on Yom Kippur? What could be the rationale for each such definition?

Here one may proceed along two paths:

1. One may examine halakhic concepts of time and arrive at conclusions regarding the nature of halakhic time in different contexts.³⁵
2. One may examine the matter through understanding the nature of the obligation to fast on Yom Kippur.

In the second path, one may ask whether “fasting” can be defined with respect to a single moment, or whether it is a state that must endure. In such a question one can reach decisions through understanding the essence of the obligation to fast on Yom Kippur. Is the fast meant to help us repent, or is there here a demand for total cessation from everyday life, as is suggested by Maimonides’ formulations at the beginning of the Laws of Rest on the Tenth Day? The plane of rationales appears more accessible to intuition.³⁶

I do not intend to discuss here the issue of fasting on Yom Kippur itself, which requires a broad discussion in its own right. Here I wish only to illustrate the relation between definition and rationale, and its implication for our ability to decide a halakhic-theoretical question.

As an anecdote—though a highly significant one—one can point to a surprising phenomenon in this example. Ordinarily we would expect there to be no difference between the halakhic consequences of the definition and those of the rationale, for these are two parallel planes of description: the definition is shaped on the basis of the rationale.³⁷ The halakhic rules are derived from the rationale of that law. If so, then if these are indeed a matching definition and rationale, such differences should not be possible at all. In logic, this correspondence is called the soundness and completeness theorem between semantics and syntax.

But here the situation does not seem so simple. As is well known, a minor is exempt from the commandments. Once he reaches the age of thirteen—or if signs of maturity appear—he begins to be obligated in commandment observance. Let us consider a minor who, in the middle of Yom Kippur, develops signs of maturity. The question is whether, once he is considered an adult, he must begin fasting from that point onward, or whether, since he did not begin the fast, he is under no obligation to complete it either.

If we analyze the problem according to the formal definition—the syntax—that describes the obligation to fast as one unit of time, it is clear that there is no point in that minor fasting half a day, since the basic obligation is to fast the whole unit of time. By contrast, if the obligation applies to each moment, it is clear that he is obligated to fast during the remainder of the day.

However, once we move to the semantic plane, we must take into account the fact that minors too fulfill commandments on a rabbinic level. In that situation it turns out that the minor also fasted during the first part of Yom Kippur, because he was rabbinically obligated to do so. On the semantic plane, the explanation—the rationale—for the need to fast the whole day as one unit is that the concept “fast” is defined only over a larger unit, a day, and not over a single moment. Not eating for one moment is not “fasting,” but only refraining from eating. According to this, if that minor continues fasting he will certainly fulfill the concept of “fasting” in its proper sense, for in practice he will have fasted an entire day. If so, according to this rationale the minor certainly must continue fasting.

But unfortunately, from a third perspective we must note that this very rationale—that “fasting” applies only to a prolonged unit of time and not to a moment—seemingly underlies the definition of the obligation to fast as an obligation applying to the whole day as one unit of time. Yet according to that definition our conclusion was that this minor is not obligated to continue fasting.

If so, we apparently find here a distinction between formal definition and rationale: according to the definition he is not obligated to fast, while according to the rationale he is. But this cannot be, as explained above.

I do not wish to enter into the solution of this halakhic paradox, but it is clear that there is some lack of care in the transition from formal definition to rationale. This is symptomatic of the dangerous process of following rationales, and it illustrates why, in the world of the Torah academies and in halakha generally, there is a tendency not to follow rationales.³⁸

Summary and a Re-Definition of the Relation Between Thought and Halakha

In light of what was said in the last example, the relation between thought and halakha may be formulated as follows: halakha deals primarily with formal definition, that is, with the formal-syntactic layer. In this realm, the accepted approach is that one should mix in very little consideration of rationales, that is, semantics, and should deal almost entirely with formal definitions, that is, syntax.

When we try to fit a semantic layer to the halakhic level—which is syntactic by its very nature—we arrive in the field of Jewish thought. That is the meaning of the “why?” question with which I have been occupied throughout the discussion.

There nevertheless remains an obligation to preserve compatibility between semantics and syntax, for otherwise theoretical inquiry does not expose the assumptions underlying halakha.

Chapter 4: The Dilemma of Simple Faith

Introduction

In this chapter I wish to address another point concerning analytic and synthetic attitudes within the world of the Torah academies: the fear of philosophical inquiry.

A well-known folk tale tells of Hermann Cohen, the famous German-Jewish philosopher, who met a simple Jew in his city of Marburg and enthusiastically laid out before him the main lines of his doctrine concerning his concept of God. After the professor had finished his learned lecture, accompanied by deep philosophical theories and describing an abstract concept of God, the fruit of years of Cohen’s research and reflection, that simple Jew wondered: “And where, in all this, is the Master of the Universe?” At that point tears flowed from Cohen’s eyes. Unlike Hermann Cohen the philosopher, the simple Jew does not search for God. He found Him long ago.³⁹

The question whether “simple faith” is preferable, or rather faith reached through philosophical-scientific—that is, rational—inquiry, is disputed in the world of Torah thought. Among medieval Jewish philosophers, the approach is widespread that “rational” faith is preferable and more perfect. True, some support this only in order to answer difficulties and doubts that arose among the public in their time, while others support it as an ideal from the outset.

By contrast, among Hasidic thinkers the view is very widespread that simple faith is preferable. Here too there are some who treat this as a second-best state, because those who are not sufficiently wise may arrive at mistaken intellectual conclusions. Others, however, treat it as the ideal from the outset. According to this conception, there is no point at all in engaging in theological investigation, and the Jew is commanded only to believe on the basis of transmission and tradition from home and society, and to observe the commandments.⁴⁰

Religious Analyticism

If so, the question arises: according to the approach of simple faith, how can one arrive at belief in the Creator of the world at all? In this form of simple faith, it would seem that it is not the “simple” person who believes, but rather whoever “programs” him. His upbringing is responsible for his faith, not a rational decision of his own. But meaningful faith is only the result of drawing conclusions, of judgment and choice.

Such an argument is the argument of a religious analytic thinker, that is, a religious person who believes that only through intellectual proofs can one arrive at certainties.

But throughout the book—see also the concluding chapter—we saw that religious faith is incompatible with postmodernism, or with analyticism. Let me sharpen this somewhat: there is no belief, in anything whatsoever, that has a foundation in the sense of an analytic proof. We saw that there is not even one single principle that can be grounded in that way. In the end, all worldviews of every kind—including the analytic worldview itself—are beliefs that function as assumptions of the discussion, not conclusions drawn from it.

A Hidden Assumption in the Formulation of the Dilemma of Simple Faith

In fact, we must examine the very way the question is presented. The two approaches described above share a common underlying assumption, taken as obvious: although the usual path to faith is by inner feeling, education, receiving tradition from one’s home and society, and so forth, inquiry too is an alternative path for reaching truths and beliefs.

On the basis of this assumption, many among those who advocate the superiority of simple faith reject inquiry; others, on the basis of that same assumption, deny the existence of God. Just like secularism, which denies the existence of God, so too the rejection of inquiry tacitly assumes an analytic position. Both sides together assume that if there is no proof, then there is no God; they differ only in the practical question of what to do with this conclusion.

But if that were indeed the case, then the deniers would be right.

However, if we understand that inquiry as such, detached from its underlying assumptions, leads neither to unbelief nor to faith, then we can conclude that just as inquiry is not a foundation for faith, so too there is no reason to reject it as dangerous to faith.

In other words: in light of everything said in this book, I reject the assumption that sets faith opposite inquiry. Faith and inquiry are not opposing alternatives standing against one another at all. Inquiry is a method and not a worldview, and it has no connection to specific contents. In the book I expressed this in the claim that the analytic is empty. The contents with which inquiry deals, and the assumptions on the basis of which it proceeds, are what determine its conclusions. But these, of course, are not the results of inquiry, but the basic foundation on which it stands.

A good and familiar example of such inquiry is Euclidean geometry. Mathematical investigation cannot lead us to the theorem that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. That investigation leads only to the fact that if a person accepts the assumptions of that geometry, then he is also compelled to accept that theorem. The certainty I have regarding this theorem is no greater than the certainty I have regarding the assumptions on which it rests—the axioms. Those assumptions are of course not proved within geometrical inquiry, but are posited at its base. The same is true of all the logical forms of thought we use in geometrical inquiry. These assumptions and rules underlying geometry—the axioms—are a kind of “simple faith,” not the results of research.

If so, the picture that emerges from this argument is that investigation is nothing but a method, and therefore in itself empty of all content. This is an expression of the emptiness of the analytic. The contents are always inserted into the theory by the axioms, which are a kind of “simple faith.” Research merely helps me clarify for myself what I already knew in advance, by means that I also already knew in advance.

Therefore, the dilemma presented at the beginning of this discussion is not relevant. There is no competition here between two ways of arriving at faith—simplicity and research. There is only one principled path: to clarify, by means of research, the assumptions of simple faith.

Another Formulation of the Dilemma of Simple Faith

But according to this, it would seem that research is superfluous. It is quite reasonable to assume that we would not be interested in investigating what we already know.

In order to understand the usefulness of research, let us return specifically to the example of geometry mentioned above. Anyone who has studied geometry sees that the claim that research is superfluous is very naive. Even one who accepts all the Euclidean axioms—and there is no doubt that most pupils in the higher grades of elementary school already understand and accept them—still cannot regard himself as someone who knows geometry. The clarification of knowledge already present within me in potential is extremely important and meaningful. Without the help of the teacher, the student will generally be unable truly to understand even what he theoretically already knows, simply by virtue of knowing the axioms.

Thus analytic-scientific investigation does indeed have a very important role. It serves to clarify what a person already knows in potential form. It does not add principled items of knowledge, but only clarifies knowledge that is already present within us. Yet without such clarification, that knowledge does not possess the meaning and depth it can have after clarification. The example of convexity and concavity that I brought in Gate Ten (note 27) clearly shows the contribution of definition and analysis to clarifying what is already known.

A person who believes in God, or in the obligation to observe and study the Torah, in divine providence, and so forth, does not believe these things fully if he does not examine for himself what those beliefs mean. He arrives at them in a non-analytic way, but the analytic method is important in order to clarify for him the beliefs that exist within him in a vague or implicit way.

It therefore appears that investigation does have an important role. Precisely once we understand that it is not an alternative to faith, there is no reason at all to reject it as dangerous. On the other hand, there is also no reason to conclude that it is superfluous.

In light of what has been said here, when different investigators arrive at conclusions different from those of the “simple believer,” this is only because they themselves are “simple believers” in a different system of assumptions. Pure analytic investigation does not lead to conclusions, but only to the derivation of conclusions from assumptions. Belief in the conclusions derives from belief in the assumptions. It therefore follows that there is nothing to fear from investigation as such.

In note 25 above I gave a definition—at least apparently—of the difference between theology and philosophy. In philosophy we assume premises and derive from them the necessary conclusions. In theology we assume conclusions and derive from them the premises necessary in order to reach those conclusions. The brief discussion conducted here, together with its elaboration in the body of the book, casts serious doubt on that distinction. In light of what I am arguing here, every philosophy is in many respects a theology. Its whole power lies merely in clarifying what is already known.⁴¹

We therefore arrive at the conclusion that the picture underlying the dilemma under discussion is incorrect. Research neither contradicts faith nor supports it. It is a method that can only clarify what we already know. The danger that some people may arrive at unbelief does not stem from research itself. Research can only clarify for them that they were never believers in the first place, but merely thought of themselves as believers—or were thought of as such by others.

The necessary conclusion is that, on the one hand, there is no point in making an ideal out of stupidity, rejecting research, and placing simple faith at the top. On the other hand, the picture according to which this is making an ideal out of stupidity is also inaccurate. Simple faith is not stupidity but vagueness. It is not ignoring the truth, as it seems at first glance, but leaving it in a raw or potential state. No result of “rational” research will be truer; it may only be sharper and clearer. In the end, even a conclusion reached by such research is itself a form of “simple faith,” except that it is clearer and more unequivocal.

Summary of the Discussion in This Gate

In this gate I dealt with the meanings of syntheticity within the study hall, and with Torah study more generally. We saw that, on the basis of the synthetic tendency, one can understand several of the features of classical Torah study, such as study by examples rather than by rules in an axiomatic form, and more.

In light of this I explained the unique concepts of “error in judgment” and “attendance upon Torah scholars.” I tried to understand better the role of the halakhic decisor, and the two types of expertise with which he is supposed to be endowed: informational expertise, and expertise in decision-making—that is, in setting a level or threshold for theoretical concepts. In light of this, the answer to the question—usually asked critically—why one consults a rabbi or a decisor becomes self-evident.

After that I brought several examples concerning the way Torah should in fact be studied in order to progress toward developing the synthetic capacity. The central claim was that one must distinguish between different planes of discussion—formal definition and rationale, which parallel syntax and semantics. Halakhic study deals mainly with formal definition, with syntax, and there very little account is taken of rationales. Once one asks about the rationale of a halakha—the “why?” question—one immediately moves into the field of thought, which has been defined here more broadly than is customary.

I concluded the gate with a chapter discussing the importance of philosophical research within the world of Torah study and thought. The main claim there was that the dilemma of simple faith is based on a misunderstanding of the role of philosophical research, which is analytic in its main character.

Footnotes