Interpretations 3
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The model of ukimta as a laboratory state and a general principle
- The example of the bound and sleeping slave and the rule “a slave is his master’s hand”
- The passage in Beitzah: a holiday following the Sabbath, preparation, and Rashi versus Rashba
- Casuistic formulation versus rule formulation: law, responsibility, and the role of examples
- The purpose of Torah study: principles as theory versus halakhic ruling as application
Summary
General Overview
The text presents a model for understanding the ukimta of the Amoraim as an interpretive procedure whose purpose is to isolate a general principle expressed in casuistic language, rather than as a correction of the wording of a Mishnah or baraita. It demonstrates this through the passage about an egg laid on a holiday, and shows how the disagreement between Rashi and Rashba stems from the question whether “a holiday that falls after the Sabbath” is an ukimta or an explanation of a decree. From there it suggests that the preference of the Sages for examples rather than explicit rule formulations is connected to the tension between formalism and essentialism in law, and to the conception that Torah study aims more at understanding principles and theory than at practical application alone.
The Model of Ukimta as a Laboratory State and a General Principle
The Amoraim set a Mishnah or baraita within a situation for which there is no explicit hint in the source language, and the difficulty is whether this was really the intention of the Tanna or whether artificial conditions are being inserted. The claim is that the Mishnah and baraita use casuistic formulation in order to express a general rule, and when the example is mixed with additional principles that obscure the principle being sought, an ukimta is made in order to neutralize the interference. The ukimta is described as creating a “laboratory state,” similar to the sciences, where the relevant factor is isolated so that the rule can be seen in its purity. The ukimta does not correct the wording of the source and is not part of its main novelty, but rather solves a side problem that prevents the example from representing the rule.
The Example of the Bound and Sleeping Slave and the Rule “A Slave Is His Master’s Hand”
Rava’s statement about a bill of divorce placed in the hand of a slave is interpreted as the practical expression of a general principle according to which “a slave is his master’s hand” or “courtyard,” and not as a unique law about a bound or sleeping slave. Since the practical expression is not correct in the case of every slave, the Talmud makes an ukimta to a bound and sleeping slave in order to remove the side problem and allow the example to reflect the principle. The example was chosen in order to express a general rule, and therefore it requires laboratory conditions that neutralize interfering features. From this it is learned that the ukimta clarifies what is interfering in the example, but cannot be the place where the novelty of the Mishnah or the statement itself is found.
The Passage in Beitzah: A Holiday Following the Sabbath, Preparation, and Rashi versus Rashba
In the Mishnah at the beginning of tractate Beitzah it says, “An egg laid on a holiday”—Beit Shammai permit it and Beit Hillel prohibit it—and the Talmud brings Rava, who establishes it as “a holiday that falls after the Sabbath” and explains it “because of preparation,” and “every egg laid today was completed yesterday.” According to the reading based on the ukimta model, the ukimta itself proves that the novelty of the Mishnah is not a special law of a holiday following the Sabbath, but a general principle that on a holiday “food requires preparation”; the setting of the case as a holiday following the Sabbath is only meant to turn the egg example into a case where it is clear that the egg is not halakhically “prepared,” because its preparation on the Sabbath does not count as preparation for a holiday. A distinction is presented between understanding the problem as lying in the present day, on which one may not eat something that was not properly prepared, and understanding it as harm to the “preparing day,” where the Sabbath does not prepare for a holiday.
Rashi explains that the principle is that “all Sabbath meals and holiday meals must be designated and prepared while it is still a weekday,” and therefore an egg laid on a weekday after the Sabbath is permitted, because “for a weekday meal the Merciful One did not require prior designation.” Rashba objects to this language and argues that if so, then “even the Sabbath does not prepare for itself,” and he proposes a conception according to which the Sabbath and a holiday “prepare for themselves” but not for one another, and preparation receives halakhic significance only when it is directed toward a Sabbath or holiday meal. Rashba concludes that the wording “we are dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath” is not a genuine ukimta but rather “because of a decree due to a holiday after the Sabbath,” and he even cites Rashba on Sabbath 149a that it does not say “we are dealing with,” and this should be understood as the reason for a decree rather than as a limiting interpretation of the Mishnah.
Later in the Talmud, “Abaye said to him: if so, then on an ordinary holiday it should be permitted,” and the answer, “a decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath,” are presented as the point that sharpens the disagreement. According to Rashba’s approach, this fits with the idea that the Mishnah deals with an ordinary holiday and the prohibition there is a decree; according to Rashi’s approach, this is interpreted to mean that although the Mishnah was established by ukimta for the law of preparation, there is also a received tradition of prohibition on an ordinary holiday by force of a decree. The text suggests a practical difference according to which, for Rashba, the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel concerns the decree on an ordinary holiday, while on a holiday following the Sabbath “Beit Shammai agree” to the prohibition because of preparation; whereas according to Rashi and those who follow him, the establishment is a real ukimta highlighting a general principle of preparation on a holiday.
Casuistic Formulation versus Rule Formulation: Law, Responsibility, and the Role of Examples
A parallel dispute is presented from the world of law between a formalist method based on general rules and deduction, and an essentialist method that emphasizes justice and distinguishing among circumstances. German law is described as a utopia of legal science based on laws and rules, and the text argues that the collapse of positivism after World War II and the Holocaust highlighted the danger of blind adherence to rules, as expressed in claims like “that was the law” and “we received an order” in the context of the Nuremberg trials. On the other hand, an opposite danger is described in systems where there are no clear rules, in which “the judge is essentially the legislator,” and a constant tension is created between positivism and “natural law.”
The text argues that the Sages prefer casuistry, working through examples rather than through explicit rule formulations, and brings the Talmud’s response to a rule in the form “what does this general rule come to include?” as evidence that an explicit rule is viewed as an exception that requires explanation. It explains that serving Torah scholars and practical apprenticeship are meant to impart a “feel in the fingers” that cannot be acquired merely by abstracting rules, and that examples clarify when similarity between cases is genuine and when it is not. At the same time, it states that examples do not replace rules, because every interpretation of an example is done in terms of principles, and ukimtot are a tool for isolating the principle behind the casuistic case even when the source does not formulate it explicitly.
The Purpose of Torah Study: Principles as Theory versus Halakhic Ruling as Application
The text presents two meta-scientific conceptions: one according to which the purpose of science is to know what will happen in every situation, and another according to which the purpose of science is the laws themselves, while experiments and cases are a means to reach principles. It uses the example of Einstein and unified field theory to illustrate the striving for a unifying law that is not merely a matter of elegance but an essential goal of understanding reality. On the basis of that analogy, it sets out in Jewish law a distinction between someone whose goal is to know “what to rule in every situation” and someone whose goal is the conceptual understanding of “the general laws, the principles, the modes of thought,” where the cases are merely possibilities for clarifying the theory.
An example is brought from Ran on Sanhedrin 15 concerning “how many judges for the Sinai ox,” where the question “what practical difference does it make?” receives an ironic answer about a Nazirite, to emphasize that the goal is “to know what the truth is” and not to produce immediate usefulness. The text defends engagement with esoteric cases like “a flying camel” and “a baby with two heads,” arguing that they parallel the physics laboratory under non-realistic conditions, because the objective is to approach the “Platonic state” in which the law becomes clear. It concludes with the claim that the purpose of Torah study is to understand “the mind of the Holy One, blessed be He,” and to cleave to it, while practical decision at the end of study is required in order to clarify the theory fully and not remain with unresolved possibilities.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, we’re at the station of discussing ukimtot. Today I want to finish this—I hope to finish it—and what we basically still have left is three things. First, I said I wanted to complete the passage in Beitzah, because there you can see more clearly the meaning of the explanation I gave for ukimta. After that I’ll talk a little about the implications of this issue for how we conceive of Torah study in general. And then what I still have left is—I said, I committed some time ago—part of my model that I proposed for ukimtot assumes that the Sages preferred a casuistic formulation, meaning a formulation through examples and not a formulation that uses sweeping rules. And the question is: why? What is the logic of such a policy? So I’ll start with the passage in Beitzah, but again, just to get back into things, I’ll briefly summarize what we saw. Basically, the claim was—or the problem was—the problem of how Amoraim make an ukimta for, say, a Mishnah or a baraita, when in fact they place it in a situation for which there is no hint in the words of the Mishnah or baraita. And the question is whether they really mean to say that the person who composed the Mishnah or the baraita intended that—like a bound sleeping slave and so on, or an egg laid on a holiday after the Sabbath, or an egg laid on a holiday—where did a holiday after the Sabbath suddenly come from? So I said that it seems to me that what is really happening here is that there is an assumption—as I said just now—of casuistry. Meaning, when the Mishnah says that an egg laid on a holiday may be eaten or may not be eaten, a dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, it means to state some general rule. It uses this example in order to express that general rule, and when there are problems with the example, because the example has other principles mixed into it that interfere with the appearance of the law we’re interested in, then we make an ukimta. I said this is similar to what we do, for example, in scientific contexts, where there is a general law that characterizes every body under the influence of another body with mass—a body with mass under the influence of another body with mass accelerates with an acceleration inversely proportional to the distance. That’s a general law. Now, it’s almost never true, because whenever you put two bodies next to one another there will be other bodies around affecting the situation too, there’ll be friction, there’ll be lots of things involved in the matter. So we always say: fine, I’m trying to isolate only the influence of the second massive body, and I’m not interested right now in other things. So let’s talk about a world in which there are no other bodies, a world with only two bodies, zero temperature, no electromagnetic fields, nothing except gravitational force. That’s an ukimta. Now, in scientific literature this is taken as obvious, and the reason is that there the formulation from the outset is not casuistic. Meaning, the formulation in a physics book states the law in completely general form: every body under the influence of another body develops this acceleration. It doesn’t say that Moshe went to the moon and it turns out that he accelerates at three meters per second squared. Okay? The law itself is written, not an example. So once the general law is written, everyone understands that the law is really speaking about some Platonic state, not the realistic one. And if I want to see it in our realistic world, then I need to build some sort of laboratory, and the laboratory means neutralizing various other influences involved in the matter, and then I may be able to see it, at least approximately, in this world too. But basically the law deals with Platonic worlds. My claim is that in Talmudic interpretation the same thing happens, if I add the assumption I mentioned earlier—that even when a case is brought, the Tanna in the baraita or the Mishnah does not mean to tell us the Jewish law for that specific case, but to use the case in order to express a general law. From that point on it’s like a mechanics textbook. Meaning, I add only that assumption, and that assumption basically takes us to a place that seems to me obvious. The meaning of this is basically that when a baraita or Mishnah formulates some Jewish law, then generally—not generally, I think it must always be so—the ukimta never takes part in the main novelty of the baraita or Mishnah. It always comes to solve a side problem. Yes, just like in a mechanics textbook where there’s a law concerning the interaction of two masses, you can’t say that the distance wasn’t brought there, and then say “what are we dealing with here? A case where the distance is such-and-such.” No. Because the law comes to teach you the dependence of acceleration on distance. You can say: yes, what are we dealing with here? A case where there isn’t some other body interfering. Meaning, so it won’t interfere with your seeing this phenomenon. When you come to solve a side problem, you make an ukimta. But the Mishnah or baraita—their wording says exactly what is written in them; there’s no need to correct a single word. Meaning, the claim is that an ukimta is not a correction of the wording of the Mishnah or baraita. Okay? If the ukimta is a correction of the wording of the Mishnah or baraita, then it isn’t an ukimta; it’s a missing-text reading or some variant version. Ukimta is always an interpretive procedure. It isn’t a procedure of correcting the wording. And as an interpretive procedure, I think it is completely legitimate. Now, this has, as I told you, many implications beyond the difficulty of ukimta itself. When you approach a passage and find an ukimta there, it is a tool for understanding the passage’s intention better. I can tell you from experience that in many places this solved a lot of other difficulties for me that had nothing to do with understanding the ukimta. Why? Because once the passage makes an ukimta for a Mishnah or baraita, I already know that the problem raised by the Talmud is not the problem the Mishnah or baraita is dealing with. That’s not the point the Mishnah or baraita wanted to introduce. Rather, it’s a side point that interferes with understanding what’s being discussed, so we remove it by means of an ukimta. But the ukimta never contains the main novelty of the Mishnah or baraita. It cannot be that a Mishnah or baraita came to say something, and that something they came to say lies in the ukimta. That can never be. If that’s the case, then something…
[Speaker D] But the ukimta sets up the situation in the Mishnah. It says what the Mishnah is dealing with.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but it sets it up—and that’s what I said—it creates a laboratory state. Meaning, it creates a situation in which you can see the law of the Mishnah in its purity. For example, let’s go back to the bound and sleeping slave. What they really wanted to say there—what they really wanted to say there—is a law that is true of every slave, not a law about a sleeping slave: that a slave is his mistress’s hand, okay? He is the courtyard, the domain of his mistress—or his master. Fine, that’s a general law. There’s no need to set it up as a bound slave. I didn’t say sleeping slave, I said bound slave. Ah, bound slave—I said elsewhere that sleeping also doesn’t appear there; sleeping too comes from the ukimta. Yes. But it doesn’t matter. What appears in the wording of Rava’s statement there is exactly what he meant to say; he didn’t want to correct anything. When he talks about a slave he means to say something about every slave. It’s just that he didn’t say “a slave is his master’s domain.” If he had said that, there wouldn’t have been any problem, no question would have arisen. What he did was use a casuistic formulation. Meaning, he didn’t state the law but rather a practical expression of it, an example. So he says, for instance, if you place a bill of divorce in the slave’s hand, then the woman is divorced—the one owned by him is divorced. Now, what he means—the Talmud’s assumption is that he really means to state a general law that the slave is his master’s domain, okay? But since now you’ve said the practical expression, the practical expression isn’t correct for every slave, only for a bound and sleeping slave. So we make an ukimta. That ukimta basically explains to us why this law of the bill of divorce is a correct law, because it’s only with a bound slave. But it’s not true that Rava’s statement came to tell me something about a bound slave. It came to tell me something about every slave. True, he said it through the law of acquisition via the slave’s hand, and that is true only for a bound slave. Meaning, the practical expression of this law can only appear if we create a laboratory state, where in the laboratory state we neutralize the side problems. We neutralize the side problems and we can see the thing itself more simply. That’s exactly what we do in a laboratory. Okay, so what I want to do now is show another example of applying this idea, and I think there things really become more illuminating. One of the examples we talked about is the Mishnah at the beginning of tractate Beitzah: “An egg laid on a holiday—Beit Shammai say it may be eaten, and Beit Hillel say it may not be eaten.” And the Talmud there discusses whether this is a hen designated for eating, or for laying eggs, and what the law of set-aside is—what exactly is being discussed there? What is the prohibition under discussion? Then comes Rava’s statement on 2b, and Rava says: “Rather, Rava said, actually we are dealing with a hen designated for eating.” He says if it’s a hen designated for laying eggs, then basically it’s not—it’s not… I mean, a hen designated for eating, then basically it’s not—it’s not… it isn’t designated for eggs, it’s not prepared for the eggs to come, and “we are dealing with a holiday that falls after the Sabbath,” and “because of preparation.” Meaning, this is a holiday after the Sabbath. And again, “we establish it as dealing with a holiday that falls after the Sabbath”—notice: an ukimta for the Mishnah—“and because of preparation.” And Rava holds that “every egg that is laid today was completed yesterday.” Meaning, every egg laid today is completed yesterday. So if we’re dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath, and I want—the egg was laid on the holiday—then it was prepared on the Sabbath. So I can’t eat the egg that was laid on the holiday afterward. That’s what the Talmud says. Again, of course the ukimta problem arises here. And on an ordinary day? What do you mean, an ordinary day?
[Speaker F] Can you eat an egg that was prepared on the Sabbath?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll see that in a moment. That’s exactly what I’m about to discuss. But in any case, on the face of it, it seems there’s some novelty here: that an egg laid on a holiday after the Sabbath may not be eaten because it was prepared on the preceding Sabbath, right? There’s no hint of that in the Mishnah. The Mishnah says, “An egg laid on a holiday may not be eaten”—according to Beit Hillel it may not be eaten. Who said anything about a holiday after the Sabbath? Here it’s especially difficult because, as I said before, if I understand the ukimta as something that comes to remove a side problem, then it can’t be that the ukimta contains the novelty of the Mishnah, the very novelty of the Mishnah. The whole novelty of the Mishnah was said only about a holiday after the Sabbath. It’s not that there’s some general novelty about holidays and some side problem and I say, fine, this is a holiday after the Sabbath. Here the whole novelty is stated about a holiday after the Sabbath, because the egg was prepared yesterday and you can’t eat it today. So therefore it’s forbidden. That’s a very problematic ukimta according to the conception I’m proposing here, right? So the Talmud continues: “And Rava holds that every egg laid today was completed yesterday.” And Rava follows his own reasoning, for Rava said: “What is the meaning of that which is written, ‘And it shall be on the sixth day, and they shall prepare what they bring’—a weekday prepares for the Sabbath, and a weekday prepares for a holiday, but a holiday does not prepare for the Sabbath, and the Sabbath does not prepare for a holiday.”
[Speaker C] So Rava holds by the law of preparation, that the Sabbath cannot prepare for a holiday,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And because of that, he can establish the Mishnah as a holiday after the Sabbath. Okay, so as I said before, on the face of it this seems like a problematic ukimta, but now look how the principle of ukimta is used here to understand the passage—not only to solve the problem of the ukimta, but as a tool for understanding the significance of the passage. I’m now going to turn the question mark into an exclamation point, because we have to stretch it and then it becomes an exclamation point. What do I mean? If we make an ukimta, then it’s obvious that this was not the novelty of the Mishnah, because the novelty of the Mishnah cannot sit inside the ukimta. The Mishnah is not speaking about a holiday after the Sabbath; the Mishnah is speaking about an ordinary holiday. Rather what? The Mishnah wants to say exactly what we saw with Rava. The Mishnah wants to say that if someone wants to eat something on a holiday, that thing has to be prepared beforehand. That’s a rule. It’s true for every holiday, by the way, not only for a holiday after the Sabbath. It’s a law about holidays: the meal you eat on a holiday has to be prepared beforehand. It’s just that—how does this come to expression? For example, an egg laid on that holiday.
[Speaker B] Excuse me, excuse me—but it’s permitted to cook on a holiday, isn’t it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, the preparation of the thing itself, not the cooking. Whether cooking is permitted—that’s in the continuation of the passages there in Beitzah, why cooking is considered or not considered, that’s heavenly preparation for now. Okay? So the novelty of the Mishnah—now I’m going in the opposite direction—since an ukimta was made here, clearly the novelty of the Mishnah has nothing at all to do with the question of whether a holiday prepares for the Sabbath and whether the Sabbath prepares for a holiday. Because otherwise the Mishnah should have said that it’s talking about a holiday after the Sabbath. The Mishnah speaks about every holiday. So what? The novelty of the Mishnah is that on a holiday, food requires preparation. It is forbidden to eat food on a holiday without preparation. Okay? And in fact that is the beginning of Rava’s statement, right? “And it shall be on the sixth day, and they shall prepare what they bring”—a weekday prepares for the Sabbath and a weekday prepares for a holiday, and a holiday does not prepare for the Sabbath and the Sabbath does not prepare for a holiday. Meaning, “a weekday prepares for the Sabbath” means: preparation is required. That’s the law. It’s just that, as usual, as I said earlier, the Mishnah chooses a casuistic formulation. So it doesn’t state the general rule that food on a holiday requires preparation. If that were the case, there’d be no problem. But the Mishnah says it through a particular law: “An egg laid on a holiday may not be eaten”—according to Beit Hillel, it may not be eaten. Okay? That law comes to tell me the general principle that is true for every holiday, that a holiday requires—food requires—preparation. But where, what practical expression, what practical implication does that have? For example, an egg laid on a holiday. So the Talmud says—just a second—this practical expression is problematic, because an egg laid on a holiday, after all, was prepared the day before, and the day before was a weekday, so what’s the problem? So the Talmud says: no, no, we are dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath. What does that mean? Once it’s a holiday after the Sabbath, then preparation on the Sabbath is not preparation. Since that’s so, an egg laid on this holiday is an egg that was not prepared. Since it was not prepared, it is forbidden to eat it on the holiday. This is not a law about a holiday after the Sabbath; this is a law about a regular holiday: it is forbidden to eat unprepared food—on every holiday it is forbidden. It’s just that regarding the egg, which is the particular case through which that general principle was stated, there you won’t see it on a regular holiday. Why? Because on a regular holiday the egg was prepared beforehand, so what’s the problem? It was a weekday; that’s fine. So he says yes, we are dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath, when the preceding day is not a day that can prepare, and then you see this general principle that on an ordinary holiday food must be prepared.
[Speaker C] Right. But I don’t understand why the Mishnah chooses such an exotic case to explain the rule.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said: because there’s almost no other case. Exotic? No—there’s almost no other case. Look there in the Talmud; the Talmud deals with this over several pages. There’s almost no other case. And the principle is still a general principle, yes.
[Speaker G] But that means that Beit Hillel doesn’t hold the view that preparation on the Sabbath… that the egg was prepared the day before.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Indeed. Or that it wasn’t prepared the day before, or that preparation on the Sabbath also counts as preparation.
[Speaker G] If it’s an ordinary holiday, yes, and Beit Shammai says it may not be eaten, but the preparation was on Tuesday.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what’s the problem? Then no… On an ordinary holiday, again, the law that the egg may not be eaten applies only on a holiday after the Sabbath. But the principle the Mishnah is stating is not a prohibition against eating eggs. The principle the Mishnah is stating is that food on a holiday must be prepared.
[Speaker G] But that principle—the example given isn’t a good example. Exactly! So the Mishnah chose an example that doesn’t prove the rule?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So we’ve gone back to the previous example. That’s the whole idea of ukimta. When you use an example in order to state a general principle, the example will always have special features. There is no example without special features. Almost none. Here there are almost no examples at all, as I said earlier—it’s hard to find examples for the problem of preparation. Therefore, whenever the Talmud or the Mishnah uses an example, we will need an ukimta—always.
[Speaker H] There’s another problem with your rule that the Mishnah isn’t dealing with the specific case of the ukimta.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, I’m not done yet. I’m just starting, just starting. No, it doesn’t work like that. You didn’t explain it properly. The Mishnah really—the principle of the Mishnah—is not dealing with the case of the ukimta. The principle of the Mishnah deals with every holiday, and that’s what it says. True, the law through which the Mishnah states that principle is a law that applies only on a holiday after the Sabbath, but the principle is a principle true of every holiday. Like Rava—think of Rava. When Rava says that if a slave in whose hand I placed a bill of divorce, then the woman… her husband… okay, the woman is divorced. That law is true only of a bound slave. But the principle that a slave is his master’s courtyard is true of every slave. So the ukimta always comes to fix the particular law we chose in order to express the rule, so that it really does express it. But the rule itself requires no ukimta; it is true in every case. And by the way, that is exactly why the Tannaitic source does not mention the ukimta, because the question still remains: what’s the problem? So say “a holiday after the Sabbath.” No—if it said “a holiday after the Sabbath,” you would think it came to state that specific law about the egg. No, it came to tell you a general law: on a holiday it is forbidden to eat food that is not prepared. True, with an egg you have to place it after the Sabbath—so what? Fine, in order that this thing really count as something unprepared.
[Speaker I] Okay, why wouldn’t I understand the rule? According to your approach, Rabbi, I’d also understand the rule if the ukimta were there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe yes and maybe no. Maybe you’d think this was a particular case about an egg, that they made a decree
[Speaker I] about an egg, and that’s how the Talmud deliberates and eventually reaches a conclusion. I understand, what… You could say it this way: the Talmud deliberates and then reaches a conclusion. Okay, so it could have been otherwise too if they had brought the specific rule. Then I’d think it was a specific case, the Talmud would deliberate, forget the Talmud, I’m
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] talking
[Speaker I] about
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the Mishnah—how does the Mishnah convey that it is speaking about a general principle? How does the Talmud know that a general principle is being discussed? It knows it precisely because the Mishnah spoke about a holiday, not a holiday after the Sabbath. Therefore it is clear to the Talmud that the Mishnah too does not mean to state laws about eggs or about a holiday after the Sabbath, but means to state a general law true of every holiday. That’s the point. Meaning, there’s a kind of interplay here between the Mishnah and the Talmud. Okay? And the general law is…
[Speaker J] I would have thought the general law is
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that there is no preparation from the Sabbath to a holiday—that’s… no, no, that’s probably a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim); I’ll get to that in a moment.
[Speaker E] Something still isn’t entirely clear to me. The general law that the Mishnah is trying to express in such a casuistic clause is that what isn’t prepared on a holiday, don’t eat on a holiday. And then it uses the example of something that is in fact prepared on the holiday. It’s not that there are other conditions; it directly contradicts the rule itself, because the egg is prepared on the holiday. When the holiday begins, the egg is already prepared, so it fits the rule.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t contradict the rule; it’s a reality that doesn’t reflect it.
[Speaker E] You said your rule is: what isn’t prepared on a holiday, don’t eat. Fine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This egg—
[Speaker E] this chosen case—is prepared on the eve of the holiday. So why use it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because there was a difference between them—that’s what was asked before. If you have examples of preparation—
[Speaker E] Exactly what I asked before. I’m looking for an example now. I’m saying, in terms of the principle itself, what
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] example should I use?
[Speaker E] But here—but
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] here that’s exactly why we unpacked the big question of when it is prepared and the like. The Talmud later really discusses this. There are very rare cases here. And therefore the Talmud chooses an example where the example always has details that characterize that example specifically. No, true.
[Speaker E] You’re saying the body of the rule is: what is prepared on the eve of the holiday, eat; and what is not prepared on the eve of the holiday, don’t eat. That’s the rule. The case I’m using, when I say “don’t eat,” is one that actually is prepared.
[Speaker K] But not on a holiday after
[Speaker E] the Sabbath, not on a holiday after the Sabbath.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But also in Rava’s words about the bound slave you could ask the same question. No, why not? A slave may eventually be bound if he isn’t bound—what do you mean?
[Speaker E] There it’s a narrowing. Here it’s a contradiction.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When I say “don’t eat,” only on a holiday of that sort where the egg is not prepared. So that’s all—it’s a narrowing. Only on a holiday of that sort where it isn’t prepared? No—on a holiday after the Sabbath it isn’t prepared.
[Speaker E] It’s prepared at the onset of the holiday.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, on a holiday after the Sabbath the egg is not prepared. I’m saying only on a holiday like that is it prepared.
[Speaker E] You’re saying it was prepared on the Sabbath.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But on a holiday after the Sabbath,
[Speaker E] on a holiday after the Sabbath, from the beginning of the holiday the egg is prepared.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it was prepared on the Sabbath! But that is not preparation.
[Speaker E] The rule is that if it
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] comes in—no, if it comes in on the Sabbath then it is not prepared. In a moment we’ll read Rashi. If it was prepared on the Sabbath, then it is not prepared. Not prepared. Preparation at entry that is done on the Sabbath is not preparation. This is an unprepared egg. In a moment I’ll read you Rashi’s wording. That’s what Rashi writes here; we’ll see in a moment. It’s not the word “prepared” in the physical sense the way you understand it. No, okay. But it’s preparation in the halakhic sense. Obviously physiologically it is prepared. Physically it is prepared.
[Speaker B] Yes, no, there is preparation there already, as it were. There’s just one case here, and this is the case. It’s not just one case; there are a few cases besides this one—so what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There can be a rule with only one case. There are rules for which no case applies. We’ll talk about that later.
[Speaker B] What is the point of such a rule?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And who said there has to be a point? It’s true. We’ll talk about that in a bit—that’s one of the next topics I want to get to. But let’s first finish the passage. Understand that there is a difference between a set—a set containing one element—and one element. It’s not the same thing. This is a set and that is an element. Even though, in terms of what it contains—yes, for example the empty set is one element in a set that contains only one element. It contains only the empty set. So here too, there is a rule that applies only to one specific case. It is still a rule. For example, another case might appear 2,000 years from now that also fits that rule. Then you know that this is the correct rule. So if at the moment it has only one example, so what? But we’ll still talk more about utility, about considerations of usefulness in Torah study. That is exactly the topic I want to get to. So let’s continue. So basically, if I really understand this matter, let’s try for a moment to think: what exactly is the problem with an egg laid on a holiday after the Sabbath? It can be understood in two ways. One way is what I presented now: this egg is simply not prepared. It is forbidden to eat it on the holiday because it wasn’t prepared. The fact that the Sabbath came before is only the practical possibility that lets me show you how there can be an egg laid on a holiday that nevertheless is not prepared, because the Sabbath came first. Okay? This move is essential to the ukimta. Meaning: fine, you’re asking a side question, we made an ukimta. Leave me alone, I’m talking to you now about something else. Okay? Another way to understand the matter of a holiday after the Sabbath is that the problem is harm to the preparing day. Since the Sabbath is preparing for the holiday, that harms the Sabbath. The Sabbath is not supposed to prepare for another day. Okay, it is harm to the Sabbath. Now, what I said earlier is not for nothing in need of the first formulation. Because if the second formulation were correct, it wouldn’t be possible to make an ukimta here. Do you understand why? No. Because if, in the case of a holiday after the Sabbath, where an egg is laid on a holiday after the Sabbath, the problem is the harm to the Sabbath that preceded it—not the fact that you may not eat it now on the holiday because it isn’t prepared food; the problem is in the previous Sabbath—then such an ukimta is impossible. There is no such ukimta. Why? Because then it comes out that the ukimta contains the novelty of the Mishnah. The novelty of the Mishnah exists only on a holiday after the Sabbath. I argue no—the Mishnah speaks about every holiday. The fact that I have to establish it as a holiday after the Sabbath is only to remove some problem in the specific law I chose in order to express the general principle, but the general principle is true on every holiday. So here you have, for example, a consequence of this—and in a moment we’ll see its significance.
[Speaker L] If you turn it into a problem only of the Sabbath, exactly—then you’ve turned the ukimta into a specific case.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ve turned the ukimta into something the Mishnah cannot possibly be dealing with. That is where the ukimta problem lies, and that is what we’re going to try to address. What are you really trying to tell me—that Rabbi was talking about a holiday after the Sabbath? He was speaking about every holiday; he didn’t mention a holiday after the Sabbath. According to the first interpretation I gave, he really was speaking about every holiday. He said that on a holiday one must eat prepared food. No problem. Regarding the egg, you ask how that happens? Because it comes after the Sabbath. Fine? If we went according to the first interpretation, even if it were the Sabbath before,
[Speaker C] you still wouldn’t be allowed to eat it because it was prepared—if there’s a gap
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of a week between the preparation and the laying? Indeed, it would still be forbidden. In any case, according to both interpretations that’s true. No, no, in both interpretations that’s…
[Speaker C] What difference does it make?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s prepared on the Sabbath for the holiday, or whether it harms the Sabbath or whether it’s simply not prepared on the holiday—both interpretations would forbid it. No, but if there’s a week in between, then what? If you say it was prepared on the Sabbath,
[Speaker B] yes,
[Speaker C] then you
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] can understand according to both interpretations that it’s forbidden to eat
[Speaker C] that egg on the holiday, assuming it really isn’t prepared twenty-four hours earlier but a week earlier. A week and a day. And you’d also have this: according to the second understanding, that a holiday requires preparation, we’re not talking about physical preparation, right? So even if it was prepared on the Sabbath before, a week before. That’s a question, as I said.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can—
[Speaker C] can
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] be that yes, it can be that no, but I’m not sure that it makes a practical difference. Because here it may be that the stage of preparation is the stage where it is completed. And that happened on the Sabbath. The fact that afterward there were another six weekdays—so what? It was already prepared. It would seemingly always be forbidden. Always, on holidays and Sabbaths. Yes. But as I said, that’s already a separate specific question that needs separate discussion. So in short, let me return to the basic distinction. If I understand that this is… yes, sorry.
[Speaker B] You can eat an egg even before it comes out of the hen. You slaughter a hen, and there’s an unfinished egg inside. Fine, but it… why isn’t it prepared?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It wasn’t laid.
[Speaker B] It wasn’t laid, but it’s ready to be eaten, right? There’s a Talmud about an egg that wasn’t laid on a holiday. How do you define an egg that wasn’t laid?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it isn’t prepared because it was completed on the preceding Sabbath.
[Speaker B] If
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] you had slaughtered it on the holiday and taken it out before, then the egg is there. What’s the problem? If it had already formed, if it was already ready. Indeed, what’s the problem? But that’s not prepared on the previous day. I’m talking about a situation where it was prepared the previous day and that previous day was the Sabbath. A second before
[Speaker E] it starts to… what? A holiday after the Sabbath?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Obviously, forbidden. What’s inside the… not obvious.
[Speaker E] Why? No, forbidden. Why? Because it was prepared on the Sabbath.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it isn’t in the category of an egg, no? Why? It wasn’t laid, but it is prepared. It was prepared yesterday. Why?
[Speaker M] Wait, you slaughtered an animal on a holiday and there’s a fetus inside it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a different discussion. It could be that regarding a fetus, since the slaughter permits the fetus too, you don’t need it separately, perhaps that wouldn’t be considered so. Regarding an egg, I don’t think that’s the case. But come on… That egg is dairy. What? A dairy egg.
[Speaker C] That egg is meat, that egg—if you slaughtered it and there was an egg inside, that egg is meat, isn’t it?
[Speaker B] Not meat. So that means it has a different status.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t remember any Jewish law like that, that an egg becomes meat. I don’t think so.
[Speaker B] What about the embryo of the chicken?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The embryo, you know, is of course meat, also because of itself, not because it comes out of the animal. But the egg is not meat, I don’t think. Fine, that’s a different discussion, let’s leave it, it’s not our issue. So I just want to clarify the meaning—here you can see the meaning. The meaning is that if you understand that the problem is with the preparing day, the first Sabbath, that can’t be. It can’t be, because if that were the problem, then this ukimta would be an illegitimate ukimta. Because the novelty of the Mishnah speaks only about a Jewish holiday that comes after the Sabbath, and the problem is the injury done to the Sabbath. So if that’s the case, from reading the Talmud and understanding the concept of ukimta, then I understand that it really isn’t correct to learn the Mishnah and the Talmud that way. The novelty of the Mishnah is not injury to the preparing day, but rather a prohibition on the day for which the egg was prepared. That you’re eating an egg that isn’t prepared—that’s the problem. So here, for example, we have a tool for understanding what the novelty of the Mishnah is, what principle the Mishnah is coming to state. And we learned that only from understanding what an ukimta is. If I understand, the way I suggested, what an ukimta is, that gives me a tool for knowing what the Mishnah is coming to teach.
[Speaker B] But that contradicts the approach of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but if I approach it with that understanding—
[Speaker B] If
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] if I find that this really is the understanding in the Talmud, it’ll work out. But if not, then fine, that’s indeed one possible understanding. So why…
[Speaker B] How can you eat an egg that was laid the day after a Jewish holiday? Because it…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, we asked that earlier. We asked that earlier, I’m getting to it now. Now look. Rashi really did learn it this way. And I’ll read you his wording. Rashi says as follows, and here I’m getting exactly to these questions about a weekday. Rashi says: “Even though it is by the hand of Heaven. And even though what is by the hand of Heaven is prohibited, because we require that all Sabbath meals and all holiday meals be ready and prepared from while it is still daytime on an ordinary weekday.” So Rashi says, the principle is that food you eat on the Sabbath or on a Jewish holiday has to be prepared beforehand on a weekday. It’s clear in Rashi that the problem is on the holiday, not on the preceding Sabbath. Right? That you are eating something unprepared. He even says it explicitly in the next stage. “And a Jewish holiday does not prepare for the Sabbath,” says Rashi, “and a Jewish holiday too is called Sabbath and its meal requires preparation, and its preparation must be on a weekday. But an ordinary weekday meal is not considered important and the idea of preparation does not apply to it. Therefore, on Sunday in general, we do not prohibit an egg laid on that day because it was prepared by Heaven, for the Merciful One did not require prior designation from while it was still day for a weekday meal, because the concept of set-aside does not apply to it.” Fine, that’s Rabbah according to his own view, that this goes according to set-aside. So what does Rashi say? The question asked here: what happens with an egg laid on Sunday, which is a weekday? The egg was prepared on the Sabbath, right? If the problem were injury to the preparing day, then what difference does it make that today is a weekday? It should still be forbidden to eat it. It’s a disgrace to the Sabbath that it prepares for another day. But if the problem is that it is forbidden to eat food that is unprepared on the current day, what’s the problem? On Sunday there is no rule that food has to be prepared, so it isn’t prepared—so what? Right? That’s what Rashi says. Now, the Rashba apparently disagrees with Rashi and says the second conception. You said before that this Talmudic passage contradicts my understanding. Come see how I turn the Rashba too into evidence for me. The Rashba says to him like this. He says: “And I am astonished at this language, for if the Sabbath meal requires preparation beforehand on a weekday, then the Sabbath too does not prepare for itself.” Let’s say the egg had been prepared not yesterday but today. After all, the Talmud says, Rabbah according to his own reasoning, that every egg laid today was completed yesterday. Why do you need to get to that? Say it was prepared today. Suppose the egg developed and was completed today and was laid immediately, let’s say. What should the law be according to Rashi? Also forbidden, right? Because after all the egg is not prepared. A holiday and the Sabbath cannot prepare. Okay, so therefore the Rashba says that what Rashi says cannot be.
[Speaker B] Explain for a second why it can’t be.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because the egg was still prepared on the Sabbath or holiday. If Sabbath and holiday don’t count as preparation, then basically the egg is not prepared. Why should I care whether that was the previous day or just now?
[Speaker E] But you’re placing it in a case where the egg is prepared—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] on the day it is laid.
[Speaker E] That’s not the case.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he says: why did the Talmud need to get to the point that Rabbah holds that an egg is prepared twenty-four hours before it is laid? If it weren’t so, the law would still be the same, says the Rashba. If the egg were prepared five minutes before it was laid, yes, it still would have been prepared for—on the contrary, I wouldn’t even have needed to make an ukimta. What’s the problem? An egg laid on a holiday—even better. Why do you need to make an ukimta and assume it was prepared twenty-four hours earlier?
[Speaker E] What do you mean, assume? That’s factual.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, and the Talmud says, “And Rabbah according to his reasoning,” meaning Rabbah relies on his unique view that it is prepared twenty-four hours earlier.
[Speaker E] Rabbah knows.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now you’ll say, as is accepted by us, that twenty-four hours before it’s formed—the Talmud doesn’t say, “as is accepted by us, that it is prepared twenty-four hours beforehand.” “Rabbah according to his reasoning” means there is some additional assumption here. Because you understand, after all, what is called preparation? It’s not exactly a fact. Obviously there are different levels of preparation. When is it already considered complete? You can look at every stage in the process and say, from my point of view this is already complete. Rabbah places the line twenty-four hours before the egg is laid. He says that counts as prepared. You can argue about that; it isn’t a binary fact of true or false. So the Rashba says, “Surely on a plain Sabbath or holiday, by law an egg would be permitted,” and that cannot be according to Rashi; it should be forbidden even if it were prepared on that very day. “And on a holiday following the Sabbath, were it not that it was completed yesterday, it would even be permitted. And in Eruvin we say that the beginning of the day acquires the eruv”—never mind—“rather this is the explanation: the meal of a holiday and the Sabbath is significant enough to require preparation, and therefore whenever they require preparation, it is not proper that the Sabbath prepare for a holiday nor a holiday for the Sabbath, but they do prepare for themselves.” What is he saying? The problem is with the preparing day, not like Rashi says, the problem on this day. He says the Sabbath meal and the holiday meal are meals that require preparation. Even if the egg was prepared on the previous day, which was also Sabbath or holiday, we still have a problem. Why? Since the completion of the egg yesterday counts as preparation, because what I do with the egg the next day is a significant meal, a meal that requires preparation. Since that is so, that constitutes injury to the preparing day. And therefore the Rashba goes on: “And an ordinary weekday meal is not considered significant and preparation does not apply to it, and therefore an egg laid on the day after the Sabbath or after a holiday is permitted”—Sunday, the Sunday problem—“because preparation does not apply to a weekday meal.” He explains that the law is like Rashi, but for a different reason. Why is an egg laid on Sunday permitted to be eaten? After all, in the end, we said that according to the Rashba it should have been forbidden because of injury to the preparing day, regardless of the fact that this current day is a day that does not require preparation. He says no: since today is a day that does not require preparation, the completion of the egg yesterday does not count as preparation. Preparation is when you really prepare toward an important meal, but if not, fine, then it’s not preparation; it’s just some merely physiological event, it has no halakhic significance. So a different explanation from Rashi, even though the bottom line is the same bottom line.
[Speaker E] But he bases—everything is based on what you said at the beginning, why do you need to explain it according to Rabbah that it was twenty-four hours earlier? Right, but that’s what Rabbah claims. What are you going to do? Do you have an approach that doesn’t say that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary, that’s what the Rashba says. Why does the Talmud need to add, in order to explain Rabbah’s words, another assumption—that the completion happened twenty-four hours earlier?
[Speaker E] You don’t need that. But if there’s someone who says the completion happens now, you need to find someone who says that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, later in the Talmud there may be—this is a dispute among medieval authorities regarding Rav and Shmuel later in the Talmud. But beyond that, the language of the Talmud is: “And Rabbah according to his reasoning, who said every egg laid today was completed yesterday.” Meaning, it seems the Talmud sees here some additional assumption, and it is needed in order to understand. Otherwise, even if that fact is true, what difference does it make to you? Why mention it at all? An egg laid on a holiday—eat it. That’s all. What’s the problem?
[Speaker E] So that really goes against the Rashba.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the opposite—that supports the Rashba.
[Speaker E] The reality is that the Talmud does indeed hang it on Rabbah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. From that Rabbah proves that the problem is not the holiday on which the egg was laid, but the Sabbath that prepared for it. Now, you couldn’t have said that this problem exists if you didn’t say there are twenty-four hours. That is exactly what the Rashba proves.
[Speaker C] So I didn’t understand the Rashba correctly: the Rashba says that a Sabbath or a holiday can prepare for themselves? Yes, yes. On that same day? Right, because that’s not a disgrace, it’s—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] for themselves; it’s not preparation for another day.
[Speaker C] They aren’t serving another day. The disgrace to the Sabbath is that it serves another day. Serving itself is fine. But then it comes out that Sabbath and holiday meals do not necessarily require preparation from beforehand?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They need to be prepared, but the preparation can also be on that same day. Right, also on that same day—that’s what the Rashba claims.
[Speaker C] But according to the Rashba, why didn’t the Mishnah—
[Speaker E] say that it’s a holiday after the Sabbath, if so? Wait, wait, here it becomes—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that’s exactly where I’m heading, that’s exactly where I’m heading, right now. Yes.
[Speaker N] Well, I don’t know if it really says it now, but I think you read that the Rashba says that a Sabbath after a holiday is also forbidden.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, the Mishnah and the Talmud say that.
[Speaker N] Is that a practical difference for Rashi or the Rashba?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no difference between a holiday and the Sabbath—what difference is there? The meals of the Sabbath also require preparation, and a holiday is not preparation. There is no difference. Holiday and Sabbath are the same with respect to the preparing day, the same thing. Yes, and he says it explicitly, both the Talmud and Rashi. Look, now we come to the really interesting point. Why? Because now the question is: so how did the Rashba explain the Talmud? If the Rashba really says that preparation is an injury to the previous day, then essentially in the Mishnah there is no hint to the novelty it is coming to state. I said that according to my explanation of ukimta, such an ukimta cannot be accepted. But the Rashba did do that. So is there a problem? Right, the Rashba has a problem. You know, if I can… okay. In any case, that’s fine, nobody—
[Speaker M] is greater than him,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] certainly none of us has a problem. I’ll show you in a moment why. The Talmud later, immediately afterward, says as follows. Abaye said to him—after Rava makes this ukimta in the Mishnah—listen to something beautiful. Abaye said to him: “If so, then on an ordinary holiday it should be permitted.” So if that is the case, then on a regular holiday—an egg laid not on a holiday after the Sabbath, an ordinary holiday—it should be permitted. The Talmud answers: “A decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath.” Okay? It’s a decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath. But I ask: already at the stage of the question—meaning, “on an ordinary holiday it should be permitted”? Obviously, no? That’s what Rava said. What do you want? Rava said the Mishnah is talking about a holiday after the Sabbath. Right, so “if so, on an ordinary holiday it should be permitted”? Don’t you understand what’s being said to you? I’m telling you that what the Mishnah prohibited is a holiday after the Sabbath. A regular holiday is permitted. What do you mean, “it should be permitted”? I’m telling you it is permitted. Not “it should be permitted.” Meaning Abaye asks a very strange question here. What is “on an ordinary holiday it should be permitted”? Do you know why? Now it’s difficult against Rashi, not against the Rashba. Because it was clear to the Talmud that this is not an ukimta. It was clear to the Talmud that this is not an ukimta. Why? I now read this through the Rashba’s glasses. After all, it cannot be an ukimta if the novelty is in the preparing day, right? So it isn’t an ukimta. So what are you trying to tell me? That essentially we are speaking of a general principle. Fine, but in the Mishnah it says holiday, not holiday after the Sabbath. This also comes back to what you said, that it limits the principle itself—even more strongly now. So in the Mishnah it says holiday, not holiday after the Sabbath. And you can’t make an ukimta, after all. So fine, therefore it was clear to the Talmud that a regular holiday too is forbidden. Why? Because the Mishnah says holiday, not holiday after the Sabbath. So therefore Abaye, even though seemingly from Rava’s words it follows that on a regular holiday it should be permitted, not only does he not conclude that, but he assumes with certainty the opposite and challenges Rabbah. What are you challenging Rabbah with? Rabbah is telling you now that holiday is permitted. What do you mean? It cannot be that holiday is permitted; the Mishnah says if it was laid on a holiday, it is forbidden. So he said right, you are correct—it is a decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath. And in fact according to that what does he say? The Mishnah deals with a regular holiday, not a holiday after the Sabbath. More than that: when Beit Hillel say that an egg laid on a holiday is forbidden,
[Speaker O] that means every holiday.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. True, the source of the law is a holiday after the Sabbath, but a regular holiday is because of a decree lest one come to a holiday after the Sabbath. Now when I read the Mishnah, this is not an ukimta. The Mishnah says: an egg laid on a holiday may not be eaten. You ask me why? Rabbah says: a decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath, where on a holiday after the Sabbath itself there is the law of preparation—that’s all.
[Speaker E] So when the Rashba disagrees with Rashi and challenges him, why does he challenge him?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, one second, now I’ll show you that. The Rashba does not say there is an ukimta. In the Talmud it seems there is an ukimta—now we’ll see.
[Speaker E] But Rabbah doesn’t say decree.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Of course—therefore the Talmud asks, and then the Talmud answers: no, no, Rabbah means to say it as a decree. And then look: “Rather, Rabbah said”—I’m reading the wording of the Rashba—“Rather, Rabbah said: we are dealing with a hen designated for eating, and with a holiday that occurs after the Sabbath.” It troubles me, says the Rashba: how can he say “we are dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath”? For even on a plain holiday it is because of a holiday after the Sabbath. Why does Rabbah need to make an ukimta, “what are we dealing with here? A holiday after the Sabbath”? We aren’t dealing with anything of the sort. After all, it is a regular holiday, only because of a holiday after the Sabbath. But we are speaking about a regular holiday. For example, a major practical difference comes out of this: Beit Shammai, who permit such an egg, are permitting the decree of holiday because of holiday after the Sabbath. But what about the Torah-level law of preparation? The Torah-level law of preparation may be something everyone agrees is forbidden. So the dispute is over whether there is a decree, because all the Mishnah is talking about is only the decree—it is only a regular holiday, not a holiday after the Sabbath.
[Speaker E] Is it possible that on a holiday after the Sabbath there would be no dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. There would be a law of preparation according to everyone. And by the way, several medieval authorities ask: there are contradictions in Beit Shammai showing that there is a law of preparation, so how can they say here that there is no law of preparation? According to this, the whole problem doesn’t even begin. There is no contradiction at all. Beit Shammai accept the law of preparation. I’m telling you, there are many implications to this discussion.
[Speaker C] So the discussion in the Mishnah is not a discussion about preparation, but a discussion about a decree.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, according to the Rashba’s explanation. But what leads him to that? Yes. One second. What leads him to that?
[Speaker B] The ukimta of after the Sabbath.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The understanding that this simply cannot be an ukimta. First of all, he proved against Rashi that Rabbah’s conception of the prohibition is because of the preparing day and not because of the current day. Fine—but according to that it cannot be an ukimta. Why? Because ukimtot of this sort, as we explained, cannot work. So if it cannot be an ukimta, then when the Mishnah says holiday and does not say holiday after the Sabbath, and you tell me this is not an ukimta, that means the holiday itself is also forbidden. So Abaye asks, wait a second: then Rabbah, why “holiday after the Sabbath”? Because a regular holiday is forbidden. Right? Sorry—according to your view a regular holiday should be permitted, and that is not true, because the Mishnah says forbidden. He says no: holiday after the Sabbath is the source of the decree. Meaning the whole move of the Talmud is really exactly around this point. Now one more comment. The Rashba in… actually I saw this just this morning during the reader’s repetition of the Amidah—don’t tell anyone. Rabbi Akiva Eiger writes here: “We are dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath”—that means because of a decree lest one come to a holiday after the Sabbath. Rashba on Sabbath 149a. What is he saying? That this is not an ukimta. The Rashba on 149a—in our passage I inferred this from his wording. The Rashba in Sabbath 149a says the same thing. The Talmud says, “Here we are dealing with a metal mirror.” There the Rashba says: “There is no ‘we are dealing with’; erase ‘we are dealing with’—this is not an ukimta. A metal mirror is a decree because of other mirrors. But what they are doing here is not an ukimta, only an explanation of what this thing is due to, and that is not an ukimta.” And the example the Rashba brings there is our Talmud here. The Rashba says that here too this is not an ukimta even though it says “we are dealing with.” “What are we dealing with here? A holiday after the Sabbath”—we are not dealing with that.
[Speaker J] How does Rashi explain it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, so that is the Rashba. So now, now, yes?
[Speaker J] No, no, don’t stop before what you were adding here about that dimension you quoted earlier, that you already wanted to say and didn’t get to, and you brought the example of the decree and…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—according to the Rashba, we don’t learn here the rule I was talking about earlier. What I said earlier is according to Rashi. The Rashba does not see an ukimta here, so this is not that kind of rule. Here we are dealing altogether with a decree: whether on a holiday we make a decree because of preparation.
[Speaker J] So the reasoning now is not resting on a decree.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it is a decree altogether, a different rule—not the rule of preparation on a holiday, but the question whether on a regular holiday we make a decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath. Now this is… so according to the Rashba it comes out that there is no ukimta here at all, and I’m showing you why according to the Rashba he has to reach that there is no ukimta here. He says it here—I infer it from his wording—he asks why you need “we are dealing with,” after all you can establish it on a regular holiday. There in Sabbath 149a he says it explicitly. Why? Because according to his own view it cannot be an ukimta. I told you that the Rashba too was evidence for my position. Because the fact is that the Rashba, who does not learn it that way, really understands immediately that this is not an ukimta. Meaning that is evidence—not only is it not a difficulty, because the fact is that when he does not learn it that way, he says: wait, but this can’t be. Meaning everyone agrees that such a thing cannot be an ukimta. So now how does Rashi learn? How does Rashi learn, as most of the medieval authorities learn? After all, it says “we are dealing with”—this is an ukimta. Exactly. That is the source for Rashi’s words that the problem is not on the preparing day but on the day the egg is laid here, because it says “we are dealing with.” The Rashba is troubled by the phrase “we are dealing with” and how to manage with it. Wait a second. Now, now. Therefore Rabbah says: this is a holiday after the Sabbath. And we make an ukimta, and that ukimta is everything I explained earlier about ukimta. Now Abaye asks—and this is how later and earlier authorities explain it too—we have a tradition that even on a regular holiday it is forbidden. According to your view I don’t understand that. It is a tradition, not because of the wording of the Mishnah. After all, we know that an egg—there is actual practice, right?—an egg laid on a regular holiday, not a holiday after the Sabbath, people did not eat. So Abaye asks him: Rabbah, how do you explain that? So Rabbah says to him: fine, there is also a decree. But the Mishnah is not dealing with the decree; the Mishnah is dealing with the law of preparation itself. And according to Rashi, this is an ukimta. And Rashi’s proof is from the fact that it says “we are dealing with.” So “what are we dealing with here?” is an ukimta. The Rashba really is troubled by the word “we are dealing with.” And from this Rashi derives that the problem must be not injury to the preparing Sabbath, but rather that it is forbidden to eat it on the holiday on which it was laid, because it is unprepared. That is the problem. The Rashba argues with him all the way through. He says the “we are dealing with” has to be deleted; it cannot be that the injury is on the holiday, but rather it must be injury to the Sabbath, because otherwise on that same day itself it should also be forbidden. And so he understands the whole move as not being an ukimta either, and everything is fine. Now suddenly you see that not only do we understand the Talmud—we understand the dispute among the medieval authorities, we understand everything excellently. Why? Because we understand what ukimta is. So I am not only explaining why ukimta is not some difficult thing, but I am using that explanation to decipher principles in the passage that have nothing to do with the question whether this is an ukimta or not. What is the passage coming to teach? Look what a major practical difference. An egg laid on a holiday after the Sabbath—is it permitted according to Beit Shammai or forbidden? I claim that this is a dispute between Rashi and the Rashba. A dispute between Rashi and the Rashba. It is a Torah-level prohibition according to the Rashba. And here we are speaking about a regular holiday, not a holiday after the Sabbath. On a holiday after the Sabbath, Beit Shammai too agree that it is forbidden. And by the way I have proofs for this from Talmudic passages. The medieval authorities really struggle with this, but according to the Rashba I think nothing is difficult at all. Now, so I…
[Speaker E] Can you go over that one more time?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to Beit Shammai, according to the Rashba, this is not an ukimta. What the Mishnah says is a regular holiday, not a holiday after the Sabbath—a decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath. So the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel in the Mishnah is about a regular holiday, because that is the subject of the Mishnah. And what happens on a holiday after the Sabbath? Beit Shammai agree. That is obvious—that is preparation, that is something simple, that there is a law of preparation. Beit Shammai also agree. The argument is whether we make a decree on a regular holiday because of a holiday after the Sabbath, a decree on a regular holiday. So if that’s the case, on a holiday after the Sabbath Beit Shammai too say there is a law of preparation.
[Speaker K] As opposed to what…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s the opposite of what people usually learn.
[Speaker K] That’s the opposite of what we learned.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, you learned like Rashi. Right, fine—and the Rashba learns differently. That’s what I’m saying: there are two tracks in this passage, but they all assume—the whole discussion starts from the question how can there be an ukimta where the ukimta carries the main point of the Mishnah? That cannot be. That’s what drives the whole process. So the Rashba chooses one track, and Rashi with most of the medieval authorities choose another track. Each track is internally consistent.
[Speaker E] But according to both approaches, they both understand the whole issue of ukimta the same way. Yes, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—
[Speaker E] Everyone agrees on the understanding of ukimta—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] nobody is mistaken about that.
[Speaker E] But they differ here on whether this is an ukimta or not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, they dispute it, not make a mistake. They dispute whether this is an ukimta or not. But what is the basis of the dispute?
[Speaker E] The basis of the dispute is that everyone understands that according to the Rashba’s conception this cannot be called an ukimta. On that everyone agrees.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the Rashba says, fine, then it really isn’t an ukimta. Rashi says, but it says “we are dealing with,” so it is an ukimta. A sign that the Rashba is not right. But everyone agrees that the Rashba’s conception cannot be an ukimta. Does the Rashba do the same thing in tithes too? What do you mean? Yes, yes, he says… he brings the example from here. And there too there is a “we are dealing with”? Yes. And there too he deletes it? Yes, he says “we are dealing with”… he doesn’t delete it; he says don’t be impressed by it. Sometimes they say “we are dealing with” and nevertheless it is not an ukimta. And he brings our example here. What comes out of all this is that no matter which choice you make, everyone agrees on the principle that the ukimta does not touch the principle of the Mishnah. Exactly. That’s what I want to say. And precisely for that reason I say that not only is the Rashba not a difficulty, the Rashba is a proof. He is even better than Rashi. Because why does the Rashba get entangled with this whole “we are dealing with” business and say, wait, what kind of ukimta are they making here? What’s the problem? Like all the medieval authorities. He gets entangled because he does not accept that the problem is on the holiday; the problem is on the preparing Sabbath. But if the problem is on the preparing Sabbath, this cannot be an ukimta—not a matter of “we are dealing with” or not “we are dealing with,” it cannot be an ukimta. That’s where the whole issue starts. Okay, so that was just to see the significance of the matter. Fine. It took me longer than I thought. Okay, so I’ll do the rest briefly because I still want to finish this today. Look, what does this actually mean? Basically it means two things. Why do they really use casuistic wording, and why is what matters really not the example but the principle? Is the principle useful? Six or seven minutes. Yes. So like this: regarding the casuistic wording, I already spoke about it a bit, I’ll say it briefly now. This is also a dispute in the world of law. You know, British law is more casuistic, and the Yekkes—they are more people of legal science, they are positivists. Or at least they once were; today still more than others. And the big question is indeed a very interesting one: is it right to build a legal system according to rules, and to proceed so that the judge derives the particular cases from them in processes of deduction, in processes of logical derivation? The Germans’ utopia is yes. Law is supposed to be a kind of science. And therefore what there should really be is a collection of general laws, and the judge comes with a case before him and derives the particular case from the general laws. All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. That is deriving a particular from a general principle. They want the whole legal world—again, it’s a generalization, but broadly I think it’s true—they want the legal world to look like that. That is a conception that believes in rules. The significance of that conception, it seems to me, we saw in the middle of the previous century. And I think following—really following—the great crisis that legal positivism underwent in legal thought was precisely because of the Holocaust. Also the Second World War. Because there the real question was whether you can always stick to rules and that exempts you from responsibility. The Nuremberg trials. That was the law—what do you want? We received an order, we carried out orders. There is a law, one must obey orders, accuse the one who gave the order; we received an order, that’s what we did. Why? Because we stuck to the laws, the laws said that, and that’s it. So suddenly there was a very great shock and rupture in legal or meta-legal thought, seeing where such a formalist, logical conception can lead. Where sticking to rules that are blind to the difference between individual cases can lead. After all, the cases are very different from one another. So true, one has to obey the law, but there is a limit. Meaning there are situations in which we still demand that you use your head. And therefore even in Germany this gets undermined, and in other places in the world even more so, and it gets almost to complete nihilism. But because of that issue, people suddenly understand that it is not right to build a legal system on formal laws. We sometimes experience the opposite phenomenon. We, in the United States and in all kinds of places like that, where formalism is less beloved, experience the danger in that when you don’t set the rules. Because then the judge is basically the legislator. The judge decides what should be done, what is similar to what and what is not similar to what. And if you don’t set the rules for him, you won’t manage to control what he does. And in principle the conception ought to be that the legislator should determine the law and not the judge. That’s the other side of the coin. This tension is always a tension between the two sides, the formalist and the substantive—or natural law and positivism, as they are often called. The natural law of Aquinas, which basically understands law as a collection of rules of natural justice. Not because the enacted rule is what obligates us, but because this is what is just or right. And then of course it is free, it does not work according to rules, but rather you simply see what is just in each and every case. So in the sages too I think one sees clearly—and I already spoke about this—I think the sages very much believe in casuistry, meaning in a conception based on examples and not on rules. I already mentioned that what the Mishnah says is “This is the rule,” and the Talmud immediately asks, “This is the rule—to include what?” What do you mean, you bring me rules? At long last, for once they act like sensible people and give the rule, and you say, “This is the rule—to include what?” Meaning the Talmud clearly understands that we work with examples, not with rules. You tell me a rule, so you came to say something specific here. But that is one side of the coin, and therefore I think the logic of working through examples is a logic that contains a lot of truth. Meaning when you—this is what apprenticeship with Torah scholars is, or before a person issues halakhic rulings or becomes a judge, he has to accompany someone who does it in practice. Why? Because if he only learned the rules in the classroom and applied them, he would not work correctly. You need to get the feeling in your fingers for what is right and what is not right. And that feeling you get from examples. And often the example is much stronger than the rule. You understand whether this really is similar or not similar. With the rule, the rule is blind to examples. One must always obey orders—that is a rule that sounds right. Suddenly you encounter some case where it is impossible to work with that rule. Right? Fine, look, one must always obey orders. Okay, what are reasonable orders? Can you define that in a rule? No, it depends on the situation. So what do I do? I bring you examples. Here this is a reasonable order, this is an unreasonable order. But if so, then leave the rule aside—“This is the rule—to include what?” Just bring me the examples. To this kind of example, obey; to that kind of example, do not obey. Figure out on your own how the business works.
[Speaker E] So why does the Talmud look for the rules?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hm? The Talmud very rarely abolishes the rules. What it—it isn’t abolishing any rule here. “The Sabbath prepares for this”—that is true. But in the formulation of Rabbah’s motivation, in principle the Talmud usually makes an ukimta and that’s it. It doesn’t state the rule—say in Rabbah’s case. “Bound and sleeping,” it says nothing about the rule that a slave is his master’s courtyard. Fine? But that is the other side of the coin. That explains why the Mishnah is sold in casuistic wording. But the other side of that same coin is that the Talmud still thinks that behind the cases there really are rules. It isn’t that the legal or halakhic world is just a collection of examples. There are rules, but someone who sticks to the rules and works with the rules and only with that kind of formal logic will not get very far. So we work through examples, but it is obvious to the Talmud that these examples are coming to express general principles. By the way, that is always how we think too—you can’t interpret it otherwise. When you interpret an example, you always analyze it in terms of rules. You see here that there is such-and-such a principle and such-and-such a principle, and then you make different constructions, and in another case the result will be different. If you don’t work with rules at all, just with some intuition that compares one example to another, you can’t work. Meaning it is obvious that we need to look for the rule behind things because there are rules. The claim is not that there are no rules, but that the proper method of handling rules is to do it through examples rather than through explicit formulation of the rules. But still the assumption is that behind the individual cases sits some general principle, and that is what the Talmud is constantly trying to look for or isolate by means of the ukimtot.
[Speaker P] The question is whether we begin from the rule and the Mishnah gives examples, or whether there was a rule—or we begin from the examples and want to uncover it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On that question, maybe I’ll devote a session to it, because the question you just asked can be formulated in at least three ways, at least three ways that I can tell you right now, and it requires a more orderly analysis, so I won’t do it now.
[Speaker O] In study halls over the generations, does their tradition look for the rules? Yes, certainly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And it was—yes, now I’m saying—as we get closer to our own period, meaning the later we are in history, the more the thinking is thinking through rules, more analytic. And therefore today we generally work with rules, and there are people who for some reason also cling to the rules after they have found them and forget that the rules are only some sort of approximation. That is because of the developing character of more analytic thinking. Once that was less clear, but it is still clear that the process is a process of moving from the individual cases. In the Talmud already, as was mentioned here, there are a bit more rules—still not many, but more rules. The medieval authorities already bring more rules. Among the later authorities there is already an entire literature of rules—you can write an encyclopedia out of it; sometimes most of them are completely invented.
[Speaker E] Doesn’t this method have a flaw? You are looking for the rule, but there can be disputes about the rule itself. And if it’s in the background? That’s the price.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The price—exactly, I said that also in the legal context. The price of using examples without formulating the rule is that there can be arguments about the rule. How do you know what the correct rule really is? After all, this example can express several rules. There—Rashi and the Rashba don’t know what rule is written in the Mishnah. That is the price as opposed to the other side. The sages apparently preferred this price over that price. Everything has a price; there is no perfect method. By the way, “general and particular and general,” one of the interpretive principles, is an attempt to propose rules with particulars. Meaning, to try to gain both at once. But maybe that too is for another time. What this thing basically means—and here just allow me a few more minutes to finish this point—is the question of what our motivation is in study, in Torah study. It is known that in the scientific world there are two conceptions regarding what the value or the goal of scientific research is. Some understand that the goal is to understand the situations in the world better. If you know the general law, then you know what will happen in every situation, right? But basically the goal is to understand the situations in the world. Suppose now I give you a book in which it is written what will happen in every situation, without rules—a casuistic book but with all the cases. Suppose I have some way of drawing that up for you. Then this scientific conception, this meta-scientific conception, will say: okay, I’m done. Meaning, I know what will happen in every situation, finished. Some go even further and say the rules are a fiction, there are no rules at all, it is just our way of organizing the information about all the examples. But the goal is to understand what will happen in every kind of circumstance—that is the goal. Real scientists do not see it that way—of course that is a semantic definition because those are the people I call real scientists. Rather, they understand that the examples are just a means for understanding the principles. And the goal of science—if you gave me such a book, I would throw it in the trash. It would be no help to me at all. I wouldn’t throw it in the trash—I might use it to see from it how to formulate the rules correctly. Instead of doing the experiment, the result is already written in the book. So I’ll use the book instead of doing experiments in order to reach the general laws. But my goal is to reach the general laws. One indication, for example: Einstein’s dream—and he was apparently a real scientist—was to reach what is called a unified field theory. Unified field theory means, say, we think today that there are four basic forces in physics. And the claim, at least of the reductionists, is that from this you can derive everything—chemistry, biology, psychology too, whatever you want. You can derive everything from it. These are the four basic laws. But Einstein all his life strove to find a formulation of one law that would contain all four. Now why should you care? If these four are correct and give you all the behaviors in all circumstances, then why should you care whether to formulate it by means of one law or whether there are four here? You can say it is a matter of elegance—it would be nice if we found a formulation of one law. But it is clear that this striving does not stem from a desire for elegance, but because he understands that if there is such a single law, that is what we are striving for, and that is our goal. The examples, the experiments, the laboratories, all that—the cases in which we observe—those are all means to grasp the laws. The goal of the scientist is to know the laws, not to know what will happen in every situation. Now in the halakhic context it is the same.
[Speaker Q] If he knows what the rules are, then he’ll know what will happen in the situation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He will know that too, but that is not his goal. His goal is the rules. He wants to understand the theory intellectually. His goal is the theory, not the application. And conversely, the technologist takes the theory and tries to apply it, to create cases or circumstances in which he can harness the theory to his purposes. His goal really is the application. The goal of the scientist is the theory, the laws.
[Speaker E] And that is drawing close to the Holy One, blessed be He—what you talked about a few lessons ago—and what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe, yes. Einstein certainly, in terms of his God-concepts, certainly saw it that way. The unified field law is more or less a kind of the Holy One, blessed be He.
[Speaker E] Is this ultimately a matter of faith?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. You can see it that way, yes. In any case, even in the context of Torah study you can see these two approaches side by side. There are those who understand that the goal of learning is to know what to rule in every situation. The application. What is correct to do in every situation. To issue a ruling, to act, and so on. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and his school, I think, represent this approach very clearly. That in the end you need to know what the Jewish law is.
[Speaker H] Especially in kashrut?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, generally, not specifically in kashrut. In any case, I think the approach, say, of the Lithuanian yeshiva world—but not only that one—which today, I think, has very much taken over the Torah world to a large extent, is what Rabbi Ovadia used to call pilpulim. So the approach there is that the goal is understanding, theory, the general laws, the principles, the patterns of thought. The cases are just ways of getting there. The cases—what do I care about the cases? The cases are only a means through which I test which theory is correct, exactly like an experiment in relation to a scientific theory. And therefore the Torah scholar in this sense parallels a scientist, and the technologist parallels a halakhic decisor. Meaning, the question is whether your goal is the laws and understanding the principles, and the cases are only the way to get there—they are the experiments that I perform, I test my theories on cases, and that is how I build the theory; I have no other way to reach theories. And the other side says, what are you talking about? The laws or the principles are a means to get to what one should actually rule—that is the bottom line. If you were to give Rabbi Ovadia some encyclopedia of instructions telling him what to do in every circumstance, from his standpoint he would just memorize it. That is all that remains to be done. Yes, or he would build a good index for it, so he would not even need to memorize it. Though he probably would already know it by heart. But for the yeshiva-style analyst, it would change nothing. It would remain in the storehouse; no one would even take it out. It is completely irrelevant. He is looking for the question: what is the understanding, what is the theory? The cases are only ways of arriving at the understanding.
Now, the claim I am making from here is that when the Talmud reads the Mishnah, even though this is a very early stage in the development of Jewish law, say compared to us, it was still clear to the Talmud that when the Mishnah comes and states a law, it means to state a principle, not just a law. The law is a casuistic expression of the principle. And the goal of the Talmud is to search for the principle, to use the particular case in order to understand from it what the correct principle is. That is why there are often—not often, but there are quite a few—completely esoteric cases that the Talmud deals with. Nobody understands them: wheat that fell from the clouds, a flying camel, things you do not know, a baby with two heads, whatever you want. There are all kinds of inventions; some could exist, some obviously could not exist. And yes, Rashi says—wheat that fell from the clouds—has anyone ever seen that Rashi? He says it is a ship loaded with wheat that, in some storm, rose up and was swallowed into the clouds, and then the wheat came down with the rain. There, you see? Who said wheat cannot fall from the sky? Meaning, now the only question is how a ship full of wheat rises upward—that is a question of physics. That is just a forced explanation. Okay.
In any case, what we were looking for here was the universal principle. And that is exactly the point, and here I return to what you asked earlier. Even if there is a rule that has only one appearance, only one case to which it can be applied, that does not matter at all. Since I do not see the rules as servants whose job is to tell me what to do. The rules are the real thing. I want to understand, as it were, the mind of the Holy One, blessed be He. I want to understand how He thinks. The goal of Torah study is not to know what to do. The goal of Torah study is to understand the mind of the Holy One, blessed be He, to cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He, what you said earlier.
Now, it is true that you do not do this if you do not conclude every learning process with a halakhic decision, with what it means in practice. Because that is how you clarify things to the end. If you remain with possibilities, who cares about possibilities? There is this possibility and that possibility and another one. What is correct? So check. There are practical ramifications, there are sources, there are cases, and through the cases you clarify what the correct theory is. But the goal—yes, there is the Ran, I think I mentioned him once—the Ran on Sanhedrin 15. The Ran says there, the Talmud says there: how many judges were there for the Sinai ox? I think I mentioned this here. The Sinai ox—yes—how many judges judged the ox that approached the mountain? “And the ox shall also be stoned.” And also, “Neither flock nor herd shall graze facing that mountain.” So the Talmud asks: with how many judges did the religious court sit to judge the ox that approached the mountain? Because the death of the owner is like the death of the ox, so just as a person is judged by twenty-three, the ox too is judged by twenty-three. So it asks: with how many did they judge the Sinai ox?
So the Ran asks: what practical difference does it make? What happened, happened. Meaning, fine, whatever was there was there—what will you learn from that? What practical difference can you derive from it for here and now? So he gives two answers there; I no longer remember the second. One of them is that it makes a difference for a Nazirite: if a Nazirite vows Nazirite status depending on whether the Sinai ox was judged by twenty-three, whether he is a Nazirite or not. Now, anyone who does not understand that this is a joke in the Ran does not know how to read the Ran. Clearly this is a joke. It is a joke saying: I do not care about practical ramifications. Why are you asking me what practical difference it makes? Who cares about practical ramifications? I want to know the truth. How many judged the Sinai ox? That is all. Why should I care about the practical ramifications? The goal of Jewish law is not practical ramifications. Practical ramifications are a means for clarifying what the correct theory is. The goal of Jewish law is the theory.
Not long ago there was some—there is a nice blog by David Assaf from Tel Aviv University, called Oneg Shabbat. Really, oneg Shabbat. There are very nice things there. A bit antisemitic, but very nice. Not necessarily him, maybe, but generally that is how it is. And among other things he brought something there from one of those Sabbath tabloids—I no longer remember which one—where they had some halakhic ruling about whether one may use a cat to turn off the light or turn on the light on the Sabbath. I do not know, whether to place it near its tail, I do not know exactly, something completely bizarre. So they made fun of it there, he and his commenters, saying these people are bored, and so on. And I wrote to them: you simply do not understand the essence of halakhic discussion. Neither the cat nor the light is all that interesting. What is interesting are the principles involved in this issue. Now you build a case—what difference does it make which case? Through this case you want to see how the set-apart status of animals interacts with a prohibited labor not needed for its own sake in turning on a light, and so on. So I construct some crazy situation of a cat whose tail is wagging and turns on the light. So what? The discussion is not—the goal is not to understand what the law is in the case. The goal is to use cases in order to clarify the principles.
And after all, every laboratory is like that. By the same token, I could laugh at someone who sets up a lab for me at zero temperature, in a vacuum, with all external forces screened off, and now he wants to test the law of gravity. I could say to him: are you an idiot? In no situation in the world will you have such a state, where there is gravity without all the other influences. What is this? It is a crazy case. But what? He wants to know the law, to understand the law of gravity. So you have to create a very special case in order to get close to the Platonic state with which the general law deals. It is the same in Jewish law. The goal is the Platonic worlds, not our world. We want to understand the mind of the Holy One, blessed be He. That is what we want to understand. That is the primary goal. Yes, yes. No, I already mentioned that this is basically what is called Torah study. Studying in order to know what to do is not Torah study; for that, women too are obligated. Okay.