Means and Ends – Lesson 5

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Shmulik Rosen is trivia, “off with his head,” as they say. Ah yes, Yechiel, Michael ben Hanan, who is the father of General Yossi Ben Hanan, right. In any case, he compared there on that program in 2005 between some Israeli player who played in England, a soccer player, Tal Ben Haim, and an Israeli player who plays here בארץ, David Revivo. David Revivo was there, I don’t know if it was David or Haim. Okay, I don’t remember. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, I have the names written down, I took it from the program there, I’m not… Tal Ben Haim I know the name, but Revivo I’m not… It’s his brother. Okay. In any case, the claim was that he showed the schedule, or daily routine, of Tal Ben Haim in England. Works his tail off. I mean, there’s no comparison: there are hours, you have a menu, you’re not allowed to deviate from it, there are training sessions—it’s professionalism on another level. The guys here, you know, the Middle East is celebrating. The guy gets up whenever he feels like it, late to practice, not late to practice, shows up, doesn’t show up, today he has no energy, tomorrow he does, the diet is whatever, at night they go out drinking, do all kinds of things, eat all kinds of things. In other words, the discipline was beyond comparison. The professional level and the demands made of people were simply worlds apart. Now, it was fascinating not in the sporting sense. It’s an expression, an expression of something much deeper than the sporting question. And the claim, really, is not just the unwillingness to work hard—of course that’s the infrastructure—but in the end you also need to justify it to yourself. At the end of the day you’re getting a salary, how do you… It’ll be fine, the “rely on it” method, the ginger guy will sort everything out. In other words, this “it’ll be fine” mentality is basically the justification we give ourselves when we slack off. Fine, in the end it works out, what difference does it make, this way or that way, the output-to-investment value is not always… England I’m not going to be, the England national team I’m not going to be, okay. Doesn’t matter, one way or another you arrive at this “it’ll be fine” approach. Sometimes it even has advantages, the famous Israeli improvisation, where the myth says that somehow we succeed maybe because of it and not despite it. I’m not sure that’s true, but that’s the claim.

[Speaker C] Our improvisation is always in trying to succeed at what we already failed at.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those who invest don’t need to improvise, meaning they work with the model. Okay, I think we once talked about how I met that guy who was a member of Knesset for Kadima, Doron, the commander of Sayeret Matkal—what was his name? No.

[Speaker C] I don’t remember anymore.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There were two guys from Tze’elim, there were two Dorons there, one was the commander and one was someone—I don’t know—his deputy or something like that. Doron, not Arbel, Doron Avital, doctorate from Harvard. I don’t remember, never mind. I met with him at Pacho’s house too, because he wrote a book on philosophy, I think we talked about this once. He wrote a book on the philosophy of the army—how Wittgenstein translates into military language—and that was basically his doctorate. Actually a very interesting book, and I had various criticisms of it, so we met one evening for a long conversation about that. And he, for example, speaking of improvisation and this “rely on it” attitude, claimed—he was probably responsible for a large part of the combat doctrine of Sayeret Matkal, because he’s that kind of philosopher, so you always need one person to write things down, conceptualize them, define them. It doesn’t always have to be the most successful commander specifically, but Doron Avital, yes exactly. Doron Avital. He was a member of Knesset for Kadima. In any case, he argued that in training, for example, usually the tendency was, when building a mock structure, a model, to make it as close to reality as possible. So they would take mannequins from store windows that look like people, and he opposed that. He said: put silhouette targets there—specifically not figures that look like human beings—and also make the structure not completely identical,

[Speaker C] because

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] when you actually get to the field it’s never exactly what you thought. And if you’re too locked into your model, you’ll get stuck. The Germans, in such a situation, wouldn’t manage, because they worked exactly right all the way through. If it’s exactly the same, no one can beat them—they’ll always come in first place—but if it doesn’t turn out exactly the same, they’ll freeze. And he argued that because of the elasticity of the battlefield, you actually have to leave something sloppy, something imprecise, something somewhat random, and of course you always need to practice all kinds of possibilities and reactions. And if suddenly it turns out the opening is here and not there… and Yossi Laor, yes, he always likes all kinds of anecdotes like that, so he once told—maybe it was even when we talked about this—he once said that in urban warfare, he likes this kind of military doctrine, checking out these issues, that’s his hobby. So there was a regular practice site in Tze’elim, I think, where they practiced urban combat. And they would always enter the room with some drill that if the door opens like this, then you go with your left hand specifically with the weapon so you can fire into the room or something like that, and some grenade, never mind, something—I’m a tank guy, I don’t know exactly what goes on there. So every time—and this is how they’ve trained for generations in the IDF, everyone practices it, you know, almost blindly. Now one time they practiced in a place where the door opened the other way. The door had hinges here, not hinges there, and that can happen. That time, the whole thing was a disaster. I mean, the guys are highly trained—really highly trained. And then something amazing happened. He said there that they were training, I don’t remember anymore, maybe a whole company team, a collection of teams, or I don’t know what unit, but several teams captured the same room, went in, grenades, live fire, yes, finished the drill, came out, and the brigade commander walks out of the room. He had been in the room during their whole drill. Yes—and not a single bullet hit him, and grenades and bullets and they sprayed the place freely, with live fire. He came out and said, “I was on the closet. None of you thought to check anything. You go in like automatons.” In other words, they go in, there’s a drill, they do it, and they come out. After all, you don’t get feedback—how would you know you failed if there’s no person inside? Who would go in there while they’re firing? You’d have to be crazy for that, so you never fail. You go in, do the drill, and go home. And there, he said, he knew—he had so much experience—he knew he would come out alive. He didn’t take any… he knew how it works. It was obvious to him he would come out alive. And indeed he came out alive without a scratch. Yes, someone with real initiative. Pretty strange. So I don’t know, again, maybe it’s an urban legend, I have no idea, but I’m saying, clearly it could have happened. You have to be a little crazy for it, but it could have happened. Okay.

[Speaker C] Those types sometimes really are crazy.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, maybe. I’m saying, fine, you have to be crazy, but it can happen. I mean, it’s not that I would do it, but it can happen. What? Even with a grenade. What, a grenade has that mushroom effect, it depends where you are. A grenade has dead zones, places where it’s blind.

[Speaker C] If you’re lying down,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you’re lying on the floor with your feet toward the grenade, nothing will happen to you. Lying on the floor with your feet toward the grenade, nothing will happen to you. There’s that mushroom shape, after all the grenade explodes like this. So fine, he knows how they enter the room and what they do, he has so much experience already, he knows how it works. After all, they’re also afraid of the grenade themselves, we know how it works. We had guys who refused to throw grenades; the guys threw them onto the equipment on the tank. You throw a grenade—they threw it onto the gear because they were in such a rush to get inside that they didn’t even look where they were throwing it. You’re scared, the grenade explodes right by you, you know, you throw it here—it’s not like a rifle you shoot at 100 meters. The grenade explodes right here, it kills you. So people were hysterical. They went in, all the trainees—when you train them in the tank commanders’ course, when you train them, they need to throw a grenade, it’s hysteria. And when he gets into the turret so fast, you’re afraid he’ll bring the grenade in with him into the turret, he doesn’t know what to do with it, it’s frightening. Anyway, never mind. In any case, just a note on the importance of improvisation. Meaning, it’s not true that you always need to do precise work, but it is true that you need to be serious. And sometimes seriousness means: practice with an imprecise model. That doesn’t mean you’re not serious—on the contrary, you invested serious thought and that’s your conclusion. That’s not what people call “sloppy,” of course. “Sloppy” means I do what everyone does and that’s it, I don’t think. In any case, now, the usual criticism of the “it’ll be fine” mentality, the usual criticism of it, is a result-based criticism. That’s why we always lose to England. Because that’s how it works there, and that’s how it works here. But that criticism doesn’t achieve its goal. Why? Because I always say, “rely on it,” fine—this is exactly the point—when I say “rely on it,” it means the next result will be better, even though I didn’t do anything differently. As Einstein said, only fools think they’ll do the same thing over and over and in the end it will work. If it’s not working, draw conclusions, do something else. But that’s the essence of the “it’ll be fine” mentality. I think the essential criticism of the “it’ll be fine” mentality is not that. The essential criticism is that saying “it’ll be fine” is itself problematic, even if it leads to the right results. Especially with athletes. With athletes, the goal is not to beat England, the goal is to do sports. Now, if doing sports seriously, properly, means doing it with discipline, doing it right, working, being a decent person, being a professional—it’s not because that will bring you victory, maybe it will also bring you victory, but that’s not the point. The point is that therefore victory is the indication that you did your sport properly, when the goal is to do the sport and not to win. Now, true, for the player himself, obviously when he sets the goal before himself, or they set the goal before him, you have to tell him: your goal is to win. And therefore you need to work seriously. But maybe when I tell him that, it’s only an operative goal. What I really want to achieve is that he do it properly, and I don’t care if he doesn’t win. That’s the point. So there’s a difference between the operative goal and the real goal. Therefore here too, understand, this is exactly the categorical imperative, exactly the same structure. Because you’re really saying to the person: look, I’m not talking to you about winning. It may be that in terms of winning, with “it’ll be fine,” in the end you’ll somehow succeed by chance, it can happen. On the contrary, against England in any case only chance will help. So no matter how much we train, nothing will help, so what difference does it make? He says: right, so you’re correct—but I want you to do it because the “it’ll be fine” mentality is no good, not for the sake of winning. Forget it, I don’t want you to win. I want you not to conduct yourself with the “it’ll be fine” approach, because that itself isn’t right. You’re an athlete; that’s what I demand of you. Okay, so really I’m telling him: look, leave the result considerations aside. In terms of results maybe you’re right. I want the action, not the result. Now you understand that this is also the only way to achieve the result, because in the end if it’s possible to achieve that result at all, it’s only if you really don’t work according to “it’ll be fine,” but work seriously. This exactly parallels the move of the categorical imperative, exactly the same thing. And now once again I’ll return and ask in the same context as I asked there at the end, after we finished all the circles and I drew the whole loop, now the question returns that I don’t know how to answer: so what really is the goal? Is the goal, in the end, to win, but you have to ignore result considerations and think as if you’re acting not out of result considerations, while really all of this is done in order to achieve the result? Or not? It’s true that this is how you’ll achieve the result, but maybe the truth is that the result is not what matters, but rather the mode of action is what matters. In the context of sports I really tend to think in the second direction, but again, to each person his own values. And in the moral context you can ask the same question. In other words, this loop ultimately leaves us with an open question. And this interesting game between means and goals is a fascinating game. There’s something here that in the end really remains in a way that’s somewhat hard, somewhat hard to decide.

[Speaker B] The question in this sports example is what happens if you didn’t achieve the goal, you lost. But if you played wonderfully, and you invested, a team that invested…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s what I’m saying,

[Speaker B] that would be the practical difference.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And why wouldn’t it help? It would help. I didn’t advance, but my goal isn’t to advance. That’s exactly the point. My goal is to do the sport properly. The result is simply the way I can measure whether I did it properly, because I need to strive for the result. Fine, that’s exactly the point. In the same context, at the beginning of Etz Chaim of the Ari, so the Leshem has a commentary on Etz Chaim, Sefer HaKlalim, and there the book Etz Chaim begins with two inquiries. And it starts with the inquiry—I think his second inquiry—which is: what was the reason for the emergence of the worlds from potential to actual, something like that. And what he answers is that the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to actualize His names, and therefore He created the world. I think I spoke not very long ago about perfection and self-perfection, which is basically the same thing in different wording. So the Leshem comments on this that he asked what the cause was, and he answered what the purpose was. What was the cause that the worlds came forth, and he answered: in order to actualize His names. “In order to” is purpose, not cause. And again there’s some sort of interchange here between causes and purposes. In other words, the Holy One, blessed be He, basically brought forth the worlds, created the worlds, in order to actualize His names. His names were somehow in potential, right? In the plan, something like that, in a primordial form, in a potential form, and you want to bring that into actuality. So therefore you create the world. In that sense, the desire to bring from potential to actual is the purpose of creating the worlds; it’s not the cause. But really it’s clear that it’s also the cause, because when the Holy One, blessed be He, sees the purpose before Him, He produces a cause by whose power the worlds emerge. That’s basically what always happens in a human decision, when a person activates a will in order to achieve some purpose. For example, I pick up the phone in order to set a meeting with a friend tomorrow morning. Okay? So really the meeting is the purpose of the phone call. But in a certain sense my will turns the purpose into a cause. Right? My purpose is to set a meeting tomorrow morning. The will that sees the purpose of tomorrow morning translates it into a cause and creates a chain that performs the action that will eventually achieve the purpose. And our will, in its essence, is the thing that translates purposes into causes. That is the uniqueness of the will, by the way. The uniqueness of human will is basically the ability to translate a purpose into a cause. Meaning, I have a purpose that I want to achieve, and that purpose, which lies in the future, obviously cannot serve as a cause of something happening now. So you can’t say that tomorrow morning’s meeting is the cause of my picking up the phone today. It is the purpose of picking up the phone today, not the cause. A cause has to precede the effect in time. So what is the cause of picking up the phone? My will. But what is the will? The will is that there will be a meeting tomorrow morning. Meaning, my will actually takes the purpose and translates it, or produces from it, a cause that generates a causal chain which will achieve the purpose. Okay? That is exactly the same reversal. Okay? Or another example in this context: Rabbi Kook in Musar Avikha writes—he’s talking about safeguards in Jewish law. He says: “The matter of the Torah’s safeguards is not due to the very fact that they lead to transgression.” We usually understand that a safeguard prohibition—say, not eating chicken with milk lest you come to eat meat with milk. Okay? So that’s a safeguard. So he says, usually the conception is that really there is no problem in chicken with milk in itself; the whole problem is that if you permit this, we’ll come to do something that is itself problematic. But this itself is not problematic. It’s only a safeguard. A safeguard, in the literal translation, is a fence. So it’s a fence so that we won’t do something problematic. So he says: “The matter of the Torah’s safeguards is not due to the very fact that they lead to transgression”; the safeguard is not only problematic because it can lead to a transgression, “but rather, just as the transgression… is evil in its own matter, so too all the matters connected to it in a causal relation are evil in their own matter, and it is fitting to separate from them very much.” And his claim—understand—is like the reasoning of Kant’s categorical imperative. Similar, in the logic. He says that if the safeguard can lead you to do the act that is itself problematic, there is a relation of cause and effect between them; that is an indication that in the safeguarded act itself there is probably some problem. And that is his claim. A claim—I’m not sure how correct it is—but the logic he presumes is similar to what we’ve seen up to now. And his claim is really that the fact that the safeguard leads to a problematic result is not the problem in the safeguard; it is an indication of the problematic nature of the safeguard. It’s a thought experiment: if by doing this act I might come to a problematic act, even though in practice I might not come to the problematic act, the problem is not result-based. It is an indication, a thought experiment that shows me, as an indication, that this action in itself is problematic. Fine, this is once again the same process as with the categorical imperative. There’s an example of this, say, in modesty. The Sages constantly talk about how the laws of modesty are meant to prevent problematic results—nocturnal emission, or forbidden relations, adultery, or something like that. But it is completely clear, when you read many places, that modesty is perceived as something that is problematic in itself. It’s not only something whose problem is what will happen if you are not modest, and then problematic results will come, but modesty itself is only a safeguard. I think in the world of modesty you see very clearly what Rabbi Kook writes here about safeguards. I don’t know if he’s right about all safeguards; in the area of modesty you certainly see it very clearly in many places, that the problem in lack of modesty is a problem in itself. Meaning, if a person is not modest, that is not okay. The indication is that your being immodest can lead to problematic results, but the problem in immodesty is not the results that will come. If I prove to you that I will be immodest, “I will read and not tilt.” So I will be immodest but I guard myself, I tie myself up, I won’t be able to do the problematic act. So is it permitted? The answer according to this view is no. The answer is no. Why? Because the fact that it leads to a problematic act is only a thought experiment, a hypothetical experiment that gives me indications as to why this state in itself is not right. Therefore it doesn’t matter if you guard yourself. One can challenge this from the Talmud in tractate Shabbat 12, there regarding “one should not read by candlelight lest he tilt.” So Rabbi Yishmael, after all, read, and he said, “I will read and not tilt.” And he came close to tilting, and in another version he actually tilted, and then he said, “How great are the words of the Sages, who said one may not read by candlelight lest he tilt.” Now the very interesting question is, first, what did he think in the first place? After all, it’s simple: if they prohibited it, they prohibited it. We’re not now looking at the reasons. I’ll eat chicken with milk and I’ll make sure of it; there’s a big sign saying, ‘Do not eat meat with milk, only chicken with milk is permitted.’ So now I’ll eat chicken with milk—there’s no such thing. Once the Sages prohibited chicken with milk, then it is prohibited. It doesn’t matter that the reason for the prohibition is because of a safeguard. But now it becomes a prohibition with independent standing. And of course people usually understand this only as an instrumental statement. They don’t say that eating chicken with milk is problematic in itself, but rather that if you permit yourself on the grounds that I won’t end up eating meat with milk, in the end you’ll also come to do that. That is the accepted explanation. What Rabbi Kook says is: not so. Rabbi Kook claims: not because in the end you’ll come to it—even if you certainly won’t come to it, it doesn’t matter; that is only an indication that eating chicken with milk itself is problematic. Now with Rabbi Yishmael this is very interesting, because when Rabbi Yishmael actually read by candlelight, he basically understood unlike Rabbi Kook: he really understood that if the result won’t happen, then there’s no problem, right? Like those who argue not like Kant but those who make a result-based argument similar in structure. But then what happened? He retracts, as if he says, “How great are the words of the Sages.” But pay close attention: what does he retract from? He does not retract from his conception—at least in the straightforward reading of the Talmud. He retracts from his assessment of reality. Meaning, I thought I would not come to it; it turns out I was mistaken, I actually could come to it. But he still does not retract from the fact that, if you could imagine someone guaranteeing me that I won’t come to it, some guards will watch me here, I won’t come to it, no doubt, then he would apparently remain with his position that he really can read by candlelight. He only says: you need to be careful in assessing reality, and I was mistaken here in my assessment of reality.

[Speaker D] And look what he tells you with modesty: modesty itself—you claim that it’s some sort of moral matter. Fine, it’s some sort of moral matter. If we don’t get to the result, that’s still…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I’m claiming, but the question is whether it’s right or not.

[Speaker D] Not to read by candlelight lest he tilt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Kook claims yes. Not that it’s moral not to read by candlelight—no, categories, all of that is a safeguard. Every safeguard is problematic not because it leads to a problematic result. What about chicken with milk? It’s the same thing as chicken with milk; what’s the difference? Chicken with milk lest you come to eat meat with milk. What? What do you mean only because lest you come to it? Yes, that’s the conception. I don’t remember right now whether there’s an explicit Talmudic text, but it’s clear—that’s how all the commentators understand it.

[Speaker B] As the Rabbi brought from the Talmud in Shabbat, that it’s a rabbinic prohibition, and it’s an intermediate prohibition between Torah-level and…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are prohibitions like that, there is a kind here

[Speaker B] of such comparability.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but I’m not talking about whether it is an intermediate prohibition or not an intermediate prohibition. I’m saying it could all be a rabbinic prohibition, not Torah-level. But still it’s a rabbinic prohibition in its own right. It’s not a rabbinic prohibition lest you arrive at a Torah-level prohibition.

[Speaker C] Right, just that there are some like this and some like that, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe. That’s why I said I’m not sure I agree with Rabbi Kook. I’m just describing right now what he says.

[Speaker C] I said

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that regarding modesty, what he says sounds very plausible. He talks about all safeguards, at least that’s how it seems, about all safeguards. I said I’m not sure he’s right, but I’m bringing his logic as yet another example of the same logic we’re talking about here, the reversal of means into goals. And what he’s really claiming is that in all safeguards it’s like modesty. Meaning, in all safeguards… in all safeguards connected to something moral? Why? Why should that matter for morality? What difference does it make whether it’s moral or not?

[Speaker D] After all, according to what did we determine that labors are prohibited on the Sabbath? According to what did the Sages determine that? The labors that were in the Tabernacle. The thirty-nine labors that were in the Tabernacle. Okay. What does that mean? That other labors that were not in the Tabernacle are not labors? They are labors! Now, to do a labor that was in the Tabernacle, suppose it was in the Tabernacle, that’s like—why do we have a safeguard about doing with that? Because those are the labors that were done there. There’s nothing moral here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, who said you need a moral element for this? Why are you willing to make this extension on the moral plane? Say something that can lead to murder, which is a moral prohibition, okay? But I reach the conclusion that there won’t be murder here. I know—I’m doing this act but I have protections, I have guarantees, there won’t be murder. There would you say that this act is not moral? Even in morality you might reject this extension. And if you accept it, then what’s the difference between morality and a halakhic prohibition, a prohibition of Jewish law? What difference does it make? There’s some kind of quasi-metaphysical claim here—I don’t know what else to call it—that anything connected to evil apparently has some kind of evil within itself. I’m saying again, even I’m not sure I agree with Rabbi Kook; on the contrary, I tend to think I don’t agree with him in most contexts. The safeguard itself becomes a rabbinic prohibition

[Speaker C] a rabbinic prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is a rabbinic prohibition, that’s clear. About that I’m not arguing. But I’m saying the accepted explanations are technical explanations. If you permit here, and you think you won’t come to a prohibition, it may be that you’ll make a mistake and you will come to the prohibition, therefore let’s establish this as an independent prohibition regardless of whether you make a mistake or

[Speaker C] not transgress a rabbinic prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That itself is what he learned in the end, that he made a mistake.

[Speaker C] No, he made a mistake because he came

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to that state. No, so therefore he says that in the end you have to prohibit the thing even if I estimate that I won’t come to it, but why? Because it could be that nevertheless I will come to it, not because the thing is prohibited in itself. But still, bottom line, Rabbi Yishmael says it is prohibited to read by candlelight, period. Rabbi Kook goes one step further.

[Speaker B] As if he reached a different situation where he really wouldn’t tilt the lamp?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then he succeeded.

[Speaker B] So then he would basically be nullifying the rabbinic prohibition?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m saying then he would be mistaken. Then he wouldn’t understand what he understood from the fact that he made a mistake. Sometimes a person learns from mistakes. If he had not made a mistake, he wouldn’t have learned that. But that is still the truth. And Rabbi Kook claims something stronger. Meaning, not only technically do I prohibit the thing even if I won’t come to the prohibited result, simply because maybe I will come to it—that’s the technical explanation. Rabbi Kook says: forget it, even if you won’t come to it, that’s not the point. Not because maybe you’re mistaken in your assessment of reality and you will come to the prohibited problem, but because this itself is a problematic thing. If it leads to something problematic, that means that within itself it has some problematic dimension. So that is the claim; there’s quite a far-reaching claim here. But I’m saying that the logical structure of this claim, whether one accepts it or not—I’m just describing right now what he said—the logical structure of this claim once again joins all those examples I brought earlier, this reversal of means and goals. To the idea that you are a means to something—why is there value in being a model athlete? Because in the end you win, right? That’s what it seems. But no. The claim is that the fact that this is how one wins is an indication that this is what’s called sportsmanship. Fine? So that is exactly the same consideration. And you’re actually saying that the result, which is seemingly the goal of the matter, is not the goal at all. It’s a means that serves as an indication that the means is the right means. That the means is right in itself. Not because it leads to the goal. Now again, at the operative level, when you set the person the task or the prohibition, you will present this thing to him as a means to a goal. Meaning, to the athletes you present the means: you need to beat England, that’s the goal. But you, as the person who internally makes this calculation, actually know that from your perspective that’s not the goal. They need to strive for that, because otherwise how will they decide what it means to be sporty? What leads to victory is what counts as being sporty. So be more serious, come to training, keep your diet, and so on. So that’s called sportsmanship because it leads to victory. Therefore from their perspective they see the goal as victory, because that gives them the indication of what is right. But I, being wiser, know that I don’t care whether they win in the end or not. What matters to me is that they perform the sporting actions. That’s the point. And also the Holy One, blessed be He, may often set goals before us. And He tells us: this commandment is so that you will do such-and-such. Like the commandment of procreation—we may talk about that later on. The goal is that you have a son and a daughter. But that is not in your hands; either it works or it doesn’t work, you can’t control that. You can make efforts. Okay? So therefore the goal is a goal: that you have a son and a daughter. There is a dispute here whether this is a commandment of action or a commandment of result; after all, the result is not in your hands, right? But on the other hand, if you don’t set the result before me, I’ll say, okay, so I made the effort and that’s it. No, no, no—you need to get to the result. Even though really what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants is the action, not the result, because the result depends on Him, not on me. Okay? Or on the laws of nature—that’s already a philosophical question—but it doesn’t depend on me. Okay? But never mind, I’m the athlete here, and He tells me: you need to see to it that you have a son and a daughter; that’s what you need to do. Now, it’s not in your hands? Try harder, do more, exert every effort, but you need to see to it. From your perspective, it is a means to reach a goal, but from the Holy One’s perspective, He set the goal before me in order that I engage in the means. By the way, in the commandment of conjugal relations with regard to a wife, there is enormous confusion there between these two things. Because the commandment of conjugal relations is, on the one hand, an obligation of the husband toward his wife. On the other hand, it is obviously clear that all marriage, all betrothal, according to most views, is not a commandment at all. It is only an instrument, or a permit, or an instrument for a commandment toward procreation. So then what is this commandment of conjugal relations toward his wife when all I need her for is as a means for procreation?

[Speaker B] Did someone here talk about this once?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Just what was added about conjugal relations. Yes, I’m saying—but what is the meaning of this? So many times in the Tashbetz and in all sorts of such things,

[Speaker B] and there’s someone here who needs

[Speaker C] to provide his food, needs to provide the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but you’ll see, in the laws themselves—we’ll talk about this one of the next times—in the laws themselves there is a blending of these two things. The question is whether intercourse has as its purpose, whether you have fulfilled the commandment of procreation—then what is your obligation toward your wife? Does it change or not? So it turns out in several places that it does change, even though what does that have to do with anything? Procreation is my goal; what I owe her, I owe her—what does that have to do with it? There is a very interesting blend there, and the point there is the same thing. In other words, the Holy One tells us: your goal is procreation, but in the end maybe the goal is establishing a home altogether. Even though in the halakhic definition, establishing a home is only a permit or a means in order to fulfill procreation. Because from the Holy One’s perspective that is the structure that I need to see in the operative definition. But when you ask the Holy One why He created this whole chain, maybe He created it entirely for the sake of establishing a home. Because for children, He can produce children; He doesn’t need me for that. Let Him make them Himself.

[Speaker C] So why did He command establishing a home?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because He gives you the indication of how you establish a home. A home that brings children in the optimal way—that is, like in sports, the right home that I want. So how do you do that? Instead of explaining it to you philosophically, I said: you are obligated to have children. That’s all. Now do what needs to be done in order to have children. While His goal is actually that I create a home. And in books of thought, and when you see people speaking in lectures and so on, it is completely clear that the home is a goal; it is not only a means to fulfill procreation. Sometimes people treat this as some nice sermonic idea or something, but you can see it in the halakhic categories. It’s not only a matter of a nice idea. “Whoever divorces his wife, even the altar sheds tears over him,” and there are also statements in the Sages—it’s not only… what’s the problem? The altar sheds tears? It doesn’t work out with her, I’ll take someone else, the main thing is that there are children in the end; that’s the point, right? Why should I care about her? We’ll use this one or that one? It sounds bad, but from a dry halakhic standpoint you could come out with such a conclusion. No—the Sages did not come out with such a conclusion. Why not? Because even in Jewish law itself you see that it is not so. Meaning, there’s some game here between means and goals. There’s an operative goal and there’s an essential goal. And sometimes the operative goal is the means and the means is the essential goal.

[Speaker B] If someone says to you that he wants to have children through co-parenting? There’s such a thing today… co-parenting. What does co-parenting mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Say, a gay couple, a lesbian couple, who have children together or something like that. Okay, there’s some rationale to that, it’s… So I’m saying, once the Torah defines the commandment of procreation… But when you ask on the level of thought, then yes, indeed, there’s a problem here, there’s a flaw on the level of thought. It’s not a home as it should be. But still, once Jewish law has been defined, then Jewish law has been defined. We think in halakhic categories. It’s a very delicate tension between the questions, because I’m saying there are halakhic indications of this too; it’s not only the reason for the verse. There’s something here, details in Jewish law that hint at this issue. That’s why this is a very delicate business. I myself don’t know exactly where the line passes and how far one is allowed to interpret the reason for the verse here. But the fact that the details of Jewish law call for the reason for the verse—you can see it. When there is a woman who after seven

[Speaker C] years has not borne children…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there specifically you see that the goal is indeed procreation, and not only the home as a goal in itself. I said—that’s why I say—in the end the halakhic definition is that the home is a means for procreation. That is the halakhic definition. But truly there are quite a few indications, including in halakhic details, that in the end this is an operative goal, and perhaps also an essential goal, but it is not the only essential goal. Meaning, the home too is some kind of essential goal. There is something about the home that is… Therefore people are also very strict about it; they still see divorce as some sort of tragedy. What tragedy? You should ask: what’s the problem? It doesn’t work like this, it works with someone else, what… You see that it is not a matter of a technical means for having children. It’s not…

[Speaker B] That’s what you’re saying, that specifically if it doesn’t work out, that’s the only goal. What, procreation? Do you think that really it’s worthwhile that procreation should come together with the home and also…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, what do you mean “you think”? But that’s what the Torah says—betrothal appears in the Torah.

[Speaker B] No, betrothal I understand. But I’m saying, say, he…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not a commandment, it’s a permit, but the permit still exists.

[Speaker B] Yes, but then he doesn’t really have to establish an actual home—he sits here, he provides support, does that, and doesn’t do anything else.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, fine, in the essential sense of a home, not in the technical halakhic sense. Indeed, yes. Maybe…

[Speaker B] “He found in her some unseemly matter,” even if she burned his dish. And if you say that the goal is the home, then specifically there would be room to set stricter definitions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but I think that there too it’s obvious to all of us that it isn’t true. So how does that fit with the Talmud at the end of tractate Gittin there on page 90? How… what really is the attitude toward that Talmudic passage? After all, when all of us read it, we understand that it isn’t right. We weren’t educated that way, nobody thinks like that. So what is it? The point is that there’s a difference between Jewish law in its formal sense. In the formal sense, even if she burned his dish—that’s exactly the point. Of course, formally the woman is a means for procreation. But it’s clear to all of us that behind that there sits some goal, where maybe even the operative goal is actually the means toward it, and that is the essential goal: building a home. And from that standpoint—which is sort of a layer that isn’t exactly halakhic, meta-halakhic, philosophical, I don’t know what to call it—of course the altar sheds tears over him. The fact that you have the formal right to do it, that’s true on the formal level. Is it proper to do it? Is it right? Of course not. So then what is all the effort about peace in the home? And why are religious courts unwilling to grant a divorce? That’s not some absurd thing, just some whim of the judges; the whole halakhic tradition says this. So that Talmudic passage is actually good evidence for what I’m saying here: that there’s a difference between the formal halakhic definition—which is supposedly as a means for procreation and nothing beyond that—and the entire halakhic tradition, which says exactly the opposite. The complete opposite. Because, again, this is the reversal between means and ends. Meaning, we are supposed to conduct ourselves as though the home is a means for procreation. That is the formal halakhic definition. But it’s clear to all of us that really—I don’t know if it’s exactly the reverse, but there’s also the reverse dimension. It may be that this dimension also exists and remains. That is, procreation is also an essential goal. “He created it to be inhabited”—you see that it’s not just the formal commandment; there really is a goal of bringing about procreation. But… but it’s not only that. Meaning, many times procreation only defines the goals so that the home will be built properly, but really the essential goal is the home. Even though the operative goal is the children. “And they shall become one flesh”… Rashi, sorry, Rashi writes that “they shall become one flesh” means when the child is born, right? At the beginning of Genesis. What does that mean? People think, fine, “and they shall become one flesh” means the whole point is that you become one flesh—in other words, just have a child. But it’s written the other way around. The goal is that you become one flesh: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” That’s what the verse says. And Rashi says: how do you become one flesh? If you bring a child. Meaning that basically you build a home in order to bring a child—that’s apparently the operative perspective. But what does the Torah say? The Torah says the opposite: bringing the child is what makes you one flesh; that’s what creates the home. Meaning, the child is actually the means for creating the home—that’s the plain meaning of the Torah. All right? It’s an interesting game, and it’s very similar to these Kantian games, this play between the… the means that is supposed to lead to an operative goal, while in essence the goal is the means and the means is actually the goal. On the operative level, the direction is one way; on the essential level, the direction is reversed. Okay, like with cause, reason, and purpose in the Ari. You can see the same thing there too. Yes, the famous line from game theory, right, about how to divide a cake into two equal parts between children. You let one child divide and the other choose first. Okay, if the first one divides, then he can’t divide it unequally, because if he divides it unequally, the second one chooses first and will take the larger piece. Therefore the optimal strategy for the first one is to divide it exactly equally. He’ll be totally exact. And then that’s a brilliant mathematical solution to the problem of dividing cake. Okay? And of course it’s a completely failed solution in child education. A seriously failed solution in child education. Why? Because you want the children to divide the cake equally between them not so that each one gets exactly the same amount—what do I care if one eats a bit more or a bit less? You want to improve their character traits. The operative goal, that the cake be divided equally, is actually a means. It’s a means so that you’ll have good character traits. If you have good character traits, the cake will be divided equally. But if you don’t have good character traits, what does it help that the cake is divided equally? I want—the equal division of the cake is only a sign, it’s a sign that you have good character traits. Now what do our cousins from game theory do with this trick? They give you clever devices for achieving the goal without the usual means. Usually, in order to achieve the goal, you need to educate the children, so that they’ll have good character traits, that they’ll care about each other, and then there will also be equal division. But equal division isn’t really what matters; even if there isn’t equal division, I don’t really care. It’s only an indication that they have good character traits, that they care about each other. Okay, so what happens now? You basically say, okay, I’ll get you the goal, I’ll work on the children. Never mind good character traits or not good character traits—I’ll get the goal. But you’re not really getting the goal; you’re getting the operative goal but not the essential goal. The essential goal is to educate the children. It could be that it’s exactly the reverse—the cake is the goal.

[Speaker C] Of course you’re mistaken!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When you let them divide the cake—if you want, just give each of them a slice of cake and let them enjoy it, and that’s it. No problem. I didn’t say that everything you do is only about education; I don’t live in the upper worlds. But when you let them divide it themselves and you expect them to divide it equally, that is an educational goal. When you’re not the one dividing it but you give them that task, then it’s an educational goal. And the educational goal is not that it be divided equally; the educational goal is to improve their character traits, with the indication being that it’s divided equally. It seems to me that this is—

[Speaker C] Not all that fundamental. You divide it yourself and that’s it. Then it’s not an educational goal, it’s not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re already operating on a very high educational level—character traits are corrected and everything is wonderful—and now really, don’t make a big deal of it, cake here, cake there. On the contrary, at that stage I’d say to them: divide it unequally. On the contrary, let’s see whether you can restrain yourself when the other one gets a bigger piece. Let’s test your character even more—not just the trait of caring about the other person. But that’s already when you have saintly children. We’re still talking about children who are mortal human beings, not ministering angels.

[Speaker B] What I wanted to say is that basically we arrived at a result of equal shares, but educationally not only did you fail to educate him, you actually educated him to be selfish.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly my next sentence. My next sentence says that here, in this particular case—and this happens many times—when you turn the operative goal into the essential goal, when in fact on the essential plane it is only a means, when you turn the operative goal into the essential goal, you lose the real essential goal. Not only do you fail to gain it—you damage it. Because what actually happens is that you take those children and cause them to become even more selfish, because the more selfish they are, the better this will work. Understand: the more selfish the children are, the more equally the cake will be divided. If you’re super-selfish, then you’ll be careful over every crumb so that there won’t be any difference at all. Right? Meaning, not only do you fail to gain the education, you actually spoil it. You destroy it. And that’s a parable for technical solutions to essential problems in general. Yes, say in the political world—we’re now on the eve of elections—in the political world there’s some feeling that you can also arrange problems in reality through technical means, through legislation. The idea, for example, of elections and separation of powers and all these technical solutions—they are basically solutions that try, by technical means, to bring about results. Because if people were good people, none of this would be needed, right? If all of us were righteous, there’d be no need for all of this. I’m not talking specifically about wicked people. Even if we’re wicked, it’s the same thing; I assume that if we were in that world, we’d behave similarly. So I’m not trying right now to blame politicians specifically. In general, if human beings were righteous in essence and didn’t get caught in all kinds of moral problems, none of this would be needed. There’d be no need for separation of powers, no need for rotating elections. Everyone would do his best for the public good and everything would be wonderful. It’s like those people who have a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You know those people? There are all kinds of people like that who crack me up every single time. They have a solution. What’s the solution? Come on, why all the fighting? Let’s live in peace, we all want good lives, everything will be wonderful. A brilliant solution, right? It’s like Kishon’s solution, where instead of fighting and killing each other, let’s play chess. And how do you suggest—what do you suggest? Let’s play chess. The only problem with that solution is that after I win, they won’t agree to give me the territory I want, and then what will I do—play chess again? I’ll have to send in the army to implement that victory, and in the end there’ll be a war anyway. So forget all that chess, it won’t help at all. Meaning, the point is that people think you can achieve results through technical gimmicks. So I say: you take a prime minister—it’s like dividing the cake—and you tell him, look, you want to be elected again in four years? Do exactly what we want. If you do what we want, we’ll elect you again. Okay, I’m oversimplifying a bit, but just for the sake of the discussion. And then what have we done? We’ve taken someone selfish to the core, and instead of being utopian and improving his character and building him into a righteous person who behaves properly, we turn it into an interest for him. Exactly—we turn it into an interest. The moment it’s an interest, everything is wonderful: we’ve cut the cake and it will be divided exactly equally, because otherwise he won’t be elected. Self-interest will make him behave properly. Except what? In simple problems like dividing cake, that can work. In complicated problems like a state, it can never work. And therefore in affairs of state, usually—in the vast majority of cases, I think—technical solutions will not solve the problems. They’ll only complicate them even more. Almost every Knesset law that tried to solve some problem only made things worse. Bank fees, the book law, whatever law you want. There are examples from here to forever. They thought they were inventing the wheel, bypassing the market, sticking it to Tnuva, I don’t know what. It doesn’t help at all. Meaning, the market is smarter than everyone. When the problem is a complicated one, you cannot solve it by technical means.

[Speaker C] The ban and emergency decree that you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, the ban and emergency decree, exactly—that’s what I was talking about, exactly. Yes, exactly. Wonderful.

[Speaker C] The political world is very much like that in today’s discourse. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, the point is that it sounds absurd, like I said earlier: so I have a solution to all the problems of government and corruption and everything—let there be good people. If they’re good people, there won’t be a problem, right? That doesn’t work. On the other hand, the technical solutions also don’t work. You have to understand: there’s almost no escaping this utopian solution, because without it you really won’t succeed in solving the problem. In complicated problems it doesn’t work. Like people thought—the classic example is direct election of the prime minister. Direct election of the prime minister—people treated it like some magic solution. There was some professor, Amnon something, I don’t remember which one. Reichman? Eichmann? Uriel Reichman, exactly. Uriel Reichman. Like Amnon Rubinstein, the two of them from the Interdisciplinary Center there. Yes. So he had this sort of idée fixe—this will solve all the problems of the universe. After one round it was abolished. It was obvious that it ruined every good patch of ground. I don’t know, but very quickly it wrecked things. Under every leafy tree he proclaimed—he announced, and overall he is an expert in his field, after all—that this would solve all the problems of the universe.

[Speaker C] I think he also led that move, didn’t he?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, this move here?

[Speaker B] For direct election? Oh wait, the one who was in the demonstrations and stood there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be. It doesn’t matter, I’m not getting into who deserves the credit right now. Again, I don’t think anyone here is stupid or evil; people made a mistake. I’m saying that in principle this is yet another example of a situation where you think that by a technical means you’ll solve essential problems, and it blows up in your face. Technical means do not solve essential problems when the problems are complex. In dividing a cake, yes—but even when it solves the problem, you have to pay very close attention to what problem it solves: does it solve the operative problem or the essential problem? Because in the political context I really do think it makes more sense to say that my goal is not to educate the prime minister; my goal is that he behave properly. If I could solve that by technical means, I would do it—unlike dividing a cake among children. There it simply isn’t right to do it, because you have turned the operative goal into the essential goal, when in fact the operative means is the essential goal.