Platonism – Lecture 14

This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

[0:01] Platonism and the existence of concepts
[3:47] An example from the commandment of tzitzit and definition
[5:53] The essentialist approach to concepts
[7:25] The history of marriage before the giving of the Torah
[14:45] Sefer HaChinukh and divorce documents: a get and the dissolution of marriage
[15:57] The Talmud and the concept of a second stage in married life
[25:20] Migo and the connection between a partition for Sabbath and for a sukkah
[28:26] A partition on Sabbath and in a sukkah
[29:35] Defining the concept of ukimta
[30:37] Ukimta in the case of a get and a slave
[34:18] Ukimta regarding an egg on a Jewish holiday
[40:40] Ukimta regarding leaven and Passover
[41:53] Ukimtot and halakhic contradictions
[45:13] The Vilna Gaon: plain meaning and exposition

Summary

General Overview

The text presents a Platonic-essentialist claim about concepts in general, and halakhic concepts in particular: namely, that a concept exists as an entity in its own right and is not identical with the collection of characteristics attributed to it. Therefore, disputes are not really disputes about definitions but about claims regarding the same concept. The text applies this to the distinction between directive legal systems and constitutive legal systems, and illustrates it through tzitzit, marital status (betrothal and marriage), and divorce, as well as through non-evidentiary migo discussions. It then presents the fundamental difficulty of ukimta in the Talmud, gives examples of interpreting a text as referring to unmentioned cases, and explains the interpretive problem that remains even after “justifying the need” for an ukimta, while rejecting common explanations such as viewing ukimta as a polite way of disagreeing with a Tanna.

Platonism, Concepts, and Disputes About Democracy

The text argues that many concepts have an “ideal” existence in reality, and that the characteristics through which we describe them are characteristics of the concept, not the concept itself. It mentions Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles and Borges, and argues that a concept like “a democratic state” is not equivalent to a list of features such as elections, civil rights, and separation of powers, but rather exists as one thing of which those features are properties. The text formulates the attribution of characteristics to a concept as a claim rather than a definition, and argues that public disputes about “what democracy requires” show that both sides are speaking about the same concept and arguing over its characteristics, rather than merely using different dictionary definitions. Opposed to this, the text sets a conventionalist approach, similar to Kripke’s idea of baptism, according to which a concept is a useful agreement among speakers, and defines its own position as essentialist.

Directive and Constitutive Rules, and Tzitzit as an Example

The text distinguishes between directive (regulative) legal systems, which instruct us how to behave properly, like traffic laws, and constitutive systems, which define the activity itself, like the rules of chess. It argues that the Platonic position holds that a concept’s characteristics direct its appearance rather than constitute it, and therefore a “defective realization” is possible, in which some characteristics are missing and yet it is still the same concept, like a “defective democracy.” The text applies this to tzitzit through the Torah’s language, “and it shall be for you as tzitzit,” implying that the concept of tzitzit already exists and the Torah instructs how to make it, so that another form of making it is “not tzitzit” only from a constitutive perspective, whereas the text presents a view according to which it is still an expression of the concept as a symbol, just not in the way the Torah directed. The text cites Ibn Ezra and others as saying that any Jewish symbol, such as a kippah, can count as “tzitzit” in the sense of a symbol, while the Torah prefers that the symbol be realized specifically in the form of tzitzit.

Maimonides, Betrothal and Marriage, and the Continuation of Natural Marriage After the Giving of the Torah

The text cites Maimonides at the beginning of the laws of marriage: “Before the giving of the Torah, if a man encountered a woman in the marketplace… if he and she wished to marry, he would bring her into his home and have relations with her… and she would become his wife.” After the giving of the Torah, Israel was commanded that “if a man wishes to marry a woman, he should first take her before witnesses.” The text rejects reading this as merely a didactic introduction and argues that it is itself Jewish law, meaning that natural marriage through “bringing her into his home” continues to exist even after the giving of the Torah, while the Torah adds a layer of betrothal as a preliminary stage. The text presents betrothal as a directive instruction rather than a constitutive one, so that someone who lives with a woman without betrothal is not “unmarried” but married while violating the positive commandment of betrothal. It emphasizes that betrothal and marriage are two separate components that still exist today: the canopy / bringing her into his home is marriage, while the ring and witnesses are betrothal, and the ketubah is rabbinic law. The text notes that tractate Kiddushin deals almost entirely with betrothal, and that according to most halakhic decisors marriage does not require two witnesses and has no detailed formal system beyond shared life and building a household.

Living Together Without Betrothal, “Noahide Marriage,” and Halakhic Implications

The text argues that two people who live together without betrothal are married “with Noahide marriage,” and that this has practical implications in terms of mutual obligations that stem from marriage rather than betrothal. It cites Rabbi Adalehopsky as having wanted to argue that even without betrothal a get is needed in order to separate, but the speaker argues that the get dissolves the betrothal and therefore does not fully accept that claim, while still asserting that marriage exists even without betrothal. The text ties this conception to the understanding that the Torah did not create the very concept of marital status but added to it a formal halakhic layer.

Divorce, Sefer HaChinukh, and Dissolving Marriage Versus Dissolving Betrothal

The text cites Sefer HaChinukh in the section of Ki Tetze, which says that someone who divorced “not according to Jewish law” has neglected a positive commandment and deserves a severe punishment, and contrasts this with the common intuition that an invalid get means “they were not divorced,” not that one committed a transgression of divorce. The text argues that Sefer HaChinukh assumes that removing the woman from the home dissolves the marriage and therefore she is “not his wife,” but without a get the betrothal remains in force and she remains forbidden forever, and therefore a divorce was done “incorrectly” and a positive commandment was neglected. The text portrays the dissolution of the home as a two-stage process: first the dissolution of the marriage while remaining in the status of betrothed, and then the get, which dissolves the betrothal as well. The text presents the notion of “separated” as a halakhic status parallel to the stage between betrothal and marriage, and notes practical implications such as “from the time he set his mind to divorce her, he no longer has rights to her produce” (Gittin 17), as well as implications regarding impurity and inheritance, and the prohibition of relations because of “children of a divorced heart.”

The Torah’s Formality and the Difference from a Contract Analogy

The text presents a possible comparison between betrothal and a written contract meant to prevent misunderstandings or frivolity, and mentions an article about a judge who claimed that a memorandum of understanding is not a contract. It rejects the comparison as explaining the issue only as a problem of doubt, and argues that the Torah wanted a substantive formal dimension in marital status, so that without betrothal different laws apply, not merely “a doubt whether there was sufficient intent.” The text describes betrothal and tractate Gittin as a halakhic addition built on top of the natural concept of marital status, where betrothal is on the way in and divorce is on the way back.

Non-Evidentiary Migo and a Sabbath Partition Versus a Sukkah Partition

The text presents uses of migo that do not belong to the laws of evidence, such as “since it is a valid partition for Sabbath, it is a valid partition for a sukkah” in the sugya of a sukkah on the Sabbath of Sukkot, and likewise “since it is considered a vessel for impurity, it is considered a vessel for Sabbath.” The text argues that the logic here is not a wordplay between “a partition for Sabbath” and “a partition for a sukkah” as two separate concepts, but rather the assumption that there exists a universal concept of partition that appears in different contexts with different characteristics. The text explains that when in the laws of Sabbath something is established as a partition, then on the Sabbath of Sukkot it is a “partition” also with respect to a sukkah, and that this reflects a Platonic conception in which the concept exists beyond the set of halakhic characteristics in each field.

Ukimta as an Interpretive Problem and Examples from the Talmud

The text presents ukimta as a situation in which the Talmud interprets a Mishnah or saying in a way that departs from its plain sense and establishes the statement in a very specific case for which there is no hint in the source. It gives an example from Gittin 78 regarding a get placed in the hand of a sleeping, guarded slave, where the Talmud objects that this is a “moving courtyard” and concludes “and the Jewish law is: when he is bound,” while emphasizing that the binding is not mentioned at all in Rava’s original statement. The text also gives the example from the beginning of Beitzah, “an egg that was laid on a Jewish holiday,” which the Talmud limits to a holiday that follows the Sabbath because of preparation, even though the Mishnah itself did not distinguish. Another example is brought from the second chapter of Pesachim on the phrase “and it is permitted for benefit,” which the Talmud limits to a case where “he charred it before its time,” in order to teach Rava’s rule that benefit is permitted even after its time, even though the Mishnah seems general.

Judging Favorably, Plain Meaning and Exposition, and the Difficulty of “Why Wasn’t It Written That Way?”

The text accepts the need to explain contradictions based on the axiom of truth and holiness, and partly compares this to “judge every person favorably,” while rejecting a notion of “crooked reasoning” attributed to commentators on Avot and presenting logic as adapted to circumstances. It distinguishes between interpreting reality, like a story about a great rabbi chasing a girl with a knife, explained as returning a lost object, and interpreting a text, where a structural difficulty still remains: even if the plain meaning is difficult, one must still ask why the text did not explicitly write the interpretive meaning or the details of the ukimta. The text illustrates this through “an eye for an eye” and emphasizes that difficulties in the plain meaning do not prove that the interpretive reading is correct unless one answers the question, “Why didn’t the Torah simply write monetary compensation?”

A Proposed Solution in the Verses, and the Vilna Gaon on Plain Meaning and Exposition in Mishnayot

The text cites a student’s question about an explanation in Guide for the Perplexed, part III, which attributes to “an eye for an eye” a message of measure for measure even though the practical Jewish law is monetary compensation, and accepts this as a resolution of the difficulty of why the monetary rule was not written explicitly. The text mentions, in the name of a student of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Menashe of Ilya, an example concerning “If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him speak of it,” and two readings that are each incomplete, and argues in the name of the Vilna Gaon that the tension between plain meaning and exposition creates a double message. The text notes that the Vilna Gaon writes that ukimtot are similar to plain meaning and exposition in the Mishnah, but says that this general statement still requires practical translation with respect to halakhic decision-making.

Rejecting the Explanation of Ukimta as a Cover for Disagreement with a Tanna

The text presents a common academic explanation according to which ukimta is a respectable way for an Amora to disagree with a Tanna, and rejects it as implausible because the rules of the Talmud establish that a Mishnah against an Amora is a “knockout,” and an Amora cannot save himself through rhetorical politeness. The text argues that if disagreement is permitted one should say so explicitly, and if it is forbidden then there is no value in “hiding” the disagreement through ukimta, emphasizing that such an approach would allow every Amora to bypass any Mishnah whenever he wished.

Additional Proposals to Explain Ukimtot and Their Rejection

The text brings a proposal of Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner according to which, after the principle of “it is a time to act for the Lord,” the writing of the Mishnah was still left ambiguous in order to preserve dependence on the rabbi and maintain the oral dimension of the Oral Torah even in writing, and expresses reservations about the assumption that someone is intentionally “confusing us.” It cites Tiferet Yisrael, who argued that the Mishnah was written in meter so it could be sung and memorized, and therefore its phrasing was constrained, and presents this as a strained explanation. The text also mentions claims that the wording hides truth “by way of secret teaching” and that the actual Jewish law is intentionally placed in the exposition / ukimtot, and rejects the whole range of proposals as unconvincing and as stemming from an assumed difficulty that does not necessarily require such solutions.

Closing Notes on Migo, Admissibility, and Majority

The text brings a discussion of self-incrimination and emphasizes that “a person does not render himself wicked” is a matter of admissibility, not lack of credibility, and therefore migo does not help in such a case just as it does not help with testimony from relatives. The text concludes with a question about the majority of judges and an explanation that following the majority is an a priori probability rather than scientific induction, with a promise to expand on this next time.

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, we’re in the topic of Platonism. In the last lecture I talked about the attitude toward concepts in Jewish law and in general, and the claim was that with concepts we can distinguish between the concept itself and its characteristics or its definition. And maybe—I’m formulating it a little differently now as a summary, but it’s still, I think, a slightly different formulation from what I said last time, and it sharpens the point more. The basic claim is that every—I don’t know if every, but many of the concepts we use—have some kind of existence in reality, a Platonic existence as some kind of Platonic idea, and the characteristics through which we define the concept are characteristics of the concept; they are not the concept itself. I’m reminding you of Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles, which I brought in this context. And the claim basically was that the concept of a democratic state is not the collection of characteristics—elections, civil rights, separation of powers, and the like—but rather the concept itself exists, and those characteristics are its characteristics. But not that this collection of characteristics is equivalent to the concept, defines it, constitutes it. No. That collection of characteristics is not a definition; it is a claim. That’s really what I want to argue in essence. I want to say that when I claim that democracy is such-and-such, that’s not a definition. Because if it were a definition, there would be nothing to argue about. It’s like what we often see in arguments about whether democracy means this or that—around the judicial reform, for example, that was very common. “But a democratic state must do such-and-such.” Someone else says, “No, in my view a democratic state should do something else.” But what you call a democratic state is not what he calls a democratic state—so what exactly are you arguing about? That’s not a real argument; it’s just a different definition of the concept. If people are arguing, that means they apparently understand that there is such a thing as a democratic state. I’m claiming that its characteristics are such-and-such, and you claim they aren’t, and therefore there is an argument here. If we weren’t Aristotelians but anti-Platonists, there would be no meaning to the argument at all. Define the concept however you want, just use it consistently. If you defined it one way, use it that way; if you defined it differently, use it differently. There are two different definitions of the same concept; we need to synchronize the dictionary so we can talk and understand one another. But there’s no argument here. The claim that there is an argument means that you’re basically saying: I’m making one claim, you’re making another claim, and we’re arguing. Now why is it another claim? Because we’re both talking about the same concept. There is some kind of view of concepts here similar to what Leibniz did with objects: concepts as some kind of existing entity, an idea, whose characteristics are characteristics—and not that the set of characteristics is the concept. I also spoke about Borges, if you remember, in this context. And that’s basically the claim we also saw in the halakhic context, that there are concepts—there we spoke about halakhic concepts like tzitzit, tefillin, and so on—and we saw that at least some of them, the set of characteristics doesn’t really constitute the concept; it doesn’t define it. I gave the example of the commandment of tzitzit, where even in the Torah’s formulation—and that also seems to be the Jewish law—the Torah’s wording is, “and it shall be for you as tzitzit.” Meaning, the concept of tzitzit already exists beforehand. It existed before; the Torah is telling us to make the tzitzit in this way and not in another way. Because I would have said: if you make it another way, then it simply isn’t tzitzit, it’s something else. It’s not that you have to make tzitzit specifically this way and not another—if you do it differently, it isn’t tzitzit. I spoke about directive and constitutive systems of law, regulative and constitutive. Directive systems are systems of law that tell me how to behave properly, and if I don’t do it that way, then I’m behaving improperly, like traffic laws. If I drive not according to the rules, then I’m driving improperly in some sense. The rules of chess are a different kind of system. That’s a constitutive system, not a directive one. If I play not according to the rules, I’m simply not playing chess. It’s not that I committed an offense; it’s not an offense. I’m simply playing a different game. The system of rules defines the activity itself, the game itself, or the practice. And specifically a game. And in that sense, I want to argue that the Platonic claim says that the system of rules, the system of characteristics, directs the concept rather than constitutes it. It can appear, for example, without some of the characteristics, and it will still be the same thing. A defective democracy is still a democracy, just one that is missing some of the characteristics. Why is it still a democracy? After all, it’s missing some of the characteristics. And if the characteristics define what democracy is, then if some of the characteristics are missing, that’s not a democracy. No—it’s a democracy that appears here in an imperfect way. Because the concept of democracy exists in the world of ideas in its pure form. And the attempt to implement it here perfectly, for it to appear here perfectly, didn’t succeed. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a democracy—it is a democracy. The concept is not the set of its characteristics; rather, the characteristics are characteristics of it. Who is “it”? “It” is not the set of characteristics; “it” is the bearer of the characteristics. That’s the essentialist approach to concepts, as opposed to the conventionalist approach, according to which concepts are really a kind of convention, an agreement among the community of speakers that we will use such-and-such a concept—what Kripke called baptism, like baptizing a child. So we simply define a concept for the sake of use. And the Platonic approach says no, the concept exists. When we try to define it, we are observing the concept and trying to understand its description, its characteristics—but the concept is not the set of descriptions. And that’s why this is called essentialism: the concept has an essence, it’s not just a convention, not just a collection of characteristics. There’s another example of this, like with tzitzit—there’s also the area of betrothal. In betrothal, Maimonides at the beginning of the laws of marriage—wait, let me open it—at the beginning of the laws of marriage, Maimonides gives what seems to be a historical introduction to how this whole thing always worked. So here, let’s look at the law, a very well-known law, I’m sure you know it. A law—already that says something, that we’re dealing here with Jewish law, since in Maimonides that’s what each section is called, law 1, law 2, and so on. So what does he say there? He says: “Before the giving of the Torah, when a man encountered a woman in the marketplace, if he and she wished to marry, he would bring her into his home and have relations with her privately, and she would become his wife. Once the Torah was given, Israel was commanded that if a man wishes to marry a woman, he must first take her before witnesses, and afterward she becomes his wife, as it says: ‘When a man takes a woman and comes to her.’” And then he says: “And these takings are a positive commandment of the Torah,” and so on. What is the meaning of this historical description of what was before the giving of the Torah? Why is that interesting? You could read it as some didactic introduction, meaning, in order to sharpen the Torah’s addition over what was accepted before—but really it’s just history. In other words, it’s a historical introduction to the laws; the laws begin with “Once the Torah was given, Israel was commanded”—that’s where the law starts. Like Rashi’s first comment on Genesis: why didn’t the Torah begin with “This month shall be for you the first of months,” which is the first commandment in the Torah? So in Maimonides too you could have said: why didn’t he begin from here—“Once the Torah was given, Israel was commanded”? Fine, so there’s a didactic introduction before the actual topic. I want to argue that it’s not a didactic introduction. It’s Jewish law; it’s part of the halakhic system. And what Maimonides actually meant here—and there is a lot of evidence for it—what he actually meant here is that the situation before the giving of the Torah was natural marriage. In other words, a couple decided to establish a home, to live together, he brought her into his home and they lived together, and now they are married. When the Torah was given, it did not cancel that situation and replace it with something else; rather, it added another layer on top of it, but that remains in force even after the giving of the Torah. That is what’s called marriage. On top of that, the Torah says: yes, but before you do marriage, precede it with betrothal, with witnesses and an act of acquisition and everything we know from the laws of betrothal. That’s the Torah’s addition. But that addition does not replace what existed before the giving of the Torah; it directs it. Betrothal is not a constitutive law, it is a directive law. If, for example, someone begins to live with a woman without preceding it with betrothal in the presence of witnesses, with a ring or something worth a perutah and so on, do we say that he simply didn’t establish a home? No. He did establish a home; they are married. He just committed a transgression—he neglected the positive commandment of betrothal. He did not precede the marriage with betrothal as the Torah commands. But the concept of marriage itself remains. What the Torah says is not to create marriage, not to replace marriage with betrothal, but to add betrothal before marriage. And after betrothal, what we do is the same marriage Maimonides described as existing before the giving of the Torah. We do that today as well. It’s just that we do it in stage two. That’s why we know that in Jewish law there is betrothal and marriage, right? The wedding canopy, say, or bringing her into his home—that’s the marriage. The betrothal is the ceremony done with the ring and the witnesses and so on. I’m not talking about the ketubah, which is a rabbinic law anyway. And both of these components exist today; one did not replace the other, both exist. The marriage component is the component that existed before the giving of the Torah. That’s why, for example, when you look at tractate Kiddushin, the whole tractate deals only with betrothal; there’s hardly a word there about marriage. And marriage, according to most halakhic decisors—and that seems to me the simple understanding—does not require two witnesses; there are no detailed halakhic definitions of what exactly must be done and how. It’s simply beginning to live together, to build a home—that means to live together, that’s all. And that was true before the giving of the Torah, and it remains true after the giving of the Torah. Therefore this concept is one the Torah did not constitute; it already existed beforehand. The Torah directs it. The Torah says: I want that when you enter into marriage, you do it in this-and-this way. This is a directive legal system, not a constitutive one, exactly like tzitzit. Tzitzit existed before; the Torah says: make the tzitzit this way, with blue and white and so on—not, I don’t know, put a feather on your hat, right? A troll hat with a feather. No, no—make it, I want you to make the symbol in this way and not in another. But the concept of symbol existed before the Torah; the Torah directs it, it doesn’t constitute it, the Torah didn’t create it. That’s why Maimonides gives this introduction: to tell you that even today it works that way. Therefore, for example, what happens if two people live together and didn’t first perform betrothal? They didn’t do betrothal with a ring and two witnesses and so on? I claim that they are married. They are married, just without betrothal—they are married with Noahide marriage. And this has various implications, which you can show in different places, that in fact the mutual obligations between spouses are obligations rooted in marriage, not in betrothal—at least a great many of the obligations. And once there is marriage, those obligations exist even if betrothal was not performed beforehand. Rabbi Adalehopsky went even further—he wanted to argue, in some Torah work he wrote, not important right now—he wanted to claim that a get is required even if she wasn’t married according to the law of Moses and Israel, with prior betrothal, witnesses, and all that. Even so, in order to separate, they need a get. Right? Two people who live together, common-law partners, need to give one another a get if they want to separate—or maybe the man gives it to the woman, I don’t know whether it’s reciprocal, there it’s a question exactly how it works. But I think that’s not correct. The get comes to dissolve the betrothal. But it is true that even without betrothal, if we live together, there is marriage here. And the practical implication is that he supports her and is obligated in all sorts of mutual obligations between husband and wife; there are many implications. For example, maybe I’ll illustrate it through the other side of the coin: divorce. Sefer HaChinukh, in the portion of Ki Tetze, in the commandment of divorce—yes? A major commandment on every person to divorce with a get. So at the end of that commandment, Maimonides says—well, Sefer HaChinukh says—that someone who neglected this positive commandment and divorced, someone who divorced his wife not according to Jewish law, not with a valid get in the presence of witnesses and so on, neglected this positive commandment, and his punishment is severe. Now if I were to ask you: tell me, if someone gives his wife an invalid get, did he neglect a positive commandment? She’s simply not divorced, that’s all. Right? If he gives her a valid get, then he dissolves the betrothal—dissolves in the sense of untying it, right? He untied the betrothal. Okay. But if he didn’t give a valid get—there is no get without witnesses, or whatever, something essential is missing in the laws of the get—the get is void, not just rabbinically invalid, but simply non-existent. Then he didn’t violate any prohibition; the woman is simply still his wife, they weren’t divorced. That, it seems to me, is what any reasonable person you ask in the yeshivot, anywhere, would tell you. If you divorced not according to the law, then you didn’t divorce. That isn’t called divorce. What is the underlying conception here? The conception is that the Torah constitutes the concept of divorce. If you did it in another way, it’s not that you divorced incorrectly—you simply didn’t divorce. But Sefer HaChinukh doesn’t say that. Sefer HaChinukh says that someone who took the woman out of his house but didn’t give her a get and release her according to the law of Moses and Israel, neglected this positive commandment. What does it mean that he neglected the positive commandment? It means he divorced his wife incorrectly. How can you divorce incorrectly if—if it wasn’t done correctly, then she’s not divorced. No, he says, she is divorced, she is not his wife, but the Torah tells you that if you send her away—why? Because what does it mean for her to be his wife? To bring her into his home and live with her, like Maimonides said about before the giving of the Torah. The moment you take her out of the house, she is no longer your wife. And religiously, true, you did not dissolve the betrothal that the Torah added, because as long as you didn’t give a get, the betrothal is still in force. But the marriage has been dissolved. And once the marriage has been dissolved, there was an act of divorce here—it’s just that you did it incorrectly, you didn’t release her, because the betrothal is still in force, and she is forbidden to everyone else, because being forbidden to the world is a function of the betrothal, not of the marriage. And therefore, basically, you did it improperly. That is called neglecting a positive commandment. There is neglect of a positive commandment here, because you performed a divorce, but not properly—not that you didn’t perform a divorce. Okay? And therefore, for example, I claim—the Talmud says in several places, I’m just gathering all these sources and building from them the picture I’m describing to you now—that just as there are two stages in building the home, there are also two stages in dismantling the home. The first stage is that we perform betrothal, and that is basically engagement, because we become betrothed. Then we begin to live together, and that is marriage. In the time of the Sages that used to be twelve months apart. Today it all happens on the same evening. But it’s built of two stages. So there is a stage in which we are betrothed but marriage does not yet exist, and the reading of the ketubah creates the separation between the two stages and so on. In dismantling the home, the same thing happens. There is a stage where I dissolve the marriage but we are still betrothed. When I send the woman out of my home—or we separate; today you’re no longer allowed to say “send the woman out of my home,” we separate. Okay? So if we separate, we are separated. What does “separated” mean? There’s such a concept out in the street today as well. What does it mean? Separated means not living together, but a get has not yet been given. It’s a halakhic concept, this concept of being separated. It’s a halakhic concept. It means that we are basically now in the status of the engaged, we are betrothed. The betrothal is still in force, but the marriage no longer exists—it has been dissolved. This is exactly the situation that existed on the way in, in the first stage, after betrothal and before marriage. Now we have dissolved the marriage and returned to that state. When I give a get, I will dissolve the betrothal as well. And therefore the practical implication is, for example: from the moment he set his mind to divorce her, he no longer has rights to her produce. Talmud in Gittin 17. Right? What does it mean that he set his mind to divorce her? Since when does setting one’s mind to divorce create any halakhic status? Give a get. No. Since the rights to usufruct from her nichsei milog depend on marriage, if you are not married, then once he has set his mind to divorce her—that means what’s called “divorced in his heart”—that means we have basically already dissolved the marriage. We haven’t yet given the get, we haven’t yet dissolved the betrothal, but the marriage no longer exists, so she is like a betrothed woman. If she is betrothed, then her produce is not mine. Likewise, there are Rashash and Rabbenu Tam and others who speak about becoming impure for her: as a priest he no longer becomes impure for her even though he hasn’t given a get and the betrothal is still in force, but as a priest he no longer becomes impure for her, because she is no longer his wife. Meaning, there are halakhic implications here even on the Torah level, not only rabbinic ones. The produce of nichsei milog is rabbinic, but inheritance and impurity are Torah-level laws. And there too—or for example—from the moment he set his mind to divorce her, he is no longer permitted to have relations with her. Those are “children of a divorced heart,” one of the nine traits, and therefore he may not have relations with her. Why may he not have relations with her? Because she is not his wife. Once again, she is betrothed to him, there is betrothal, but it’s like someone who has relations with his bride in his father-in-law’s house. You know the famous joke: one who eats leaven on Passover eve is like one who has relations with his betrothed in his father-in-law’s house. Then someone once said, “I tried it, and it’s really not the same thing.” The claim—yes, the famous fake joke, you know it. In any case, the point is that there are basically two stages here, and each such stage has halakhic implications. And therefore the picture that emerges here is very similar to what we saw in the context of tzitzit. At first we would think that tying the fringes in this way, with blue and white and the knots and the four threads and so on—that’s what constitutes the concept of tzitzit. If you didn’t do it according to the law, then you simply didn’t make tzitzit. It’s not that you made tzitzit in an improper way—you didn’t make tzitzit. It isn’t tzitzit if you put a feather on your hat. Ibn Ezra and others tell us: no, it is tzitzit. Any Jewish symbol—a kippah, for example—is tzitzit, because it is a Jewish symbol, a symbol of my Judaism, so it is tzitzit. It’s just that the Torah wants the symbol of my Judaism to be this and not that. It wants it to be what we call tzitzit and not a kippah. Fine. Therefore this is a directive instruction, not a constitutive one. The concept itself existed beforehand. The Torah wants the characteristics of this concept to be these and not others. You see how we get to Platonism? The concept itself exists independently of the characteristics. The Torah wants us to realize it through these characteristics and not others, but the concept is not the set of characteristics; the concept exists even without them. It can appear in other forms as well. And the same is true in marital status. The concept of betrothal and marriage—or more precisely marriage—is also a concept that exists even before the giving of the Torah, and that is what Maimonides wants to say in his introduction. And it remains true after the giving of the Torah as well. The Torah did not come to replace what existed before; it came to add to what existed before. It came to add the formal halakhic layer of betrothal, and correspondingly the formal halakhic layer of divorce. Because before the giving of the Torah, how did people separate? A man would send the woman out of his house, and that was it—they were separated. Since bringing her into his home is marriage, taking her out of his home is separation. But once the Torah added betrothal before bringing her into his home—that is the formal legal-halakhic part, and not merely the natural part of beginning to live together—then in separation too another halakhic aspect is added: the get. How do you separate in the proper halakhic way of divorce? With a get and witnesses and the like. That’s the whole tractate Gittin. In other words, betrothal and tractate Gittin are added as a halakhic layer on top of the natural concept of marital status. Betrothal is on the way in, and divorce is on the way back. But that is the addition; it is not what constitutes the concept. It’s not that if I didn’t perform betrothal according to the law of Moses and Israel, then the woman is not my wife. She is my wife. And if I didn’t divorce her according to the law of Moses and Israel, is she still my wife? No, she is not my wife.

[Speaker C] In other words, we were taught that an oral contract is binding just like a written contract. Meaning, the act itself, as we said, is an act. Only what? The Torah, either to prevent frivolity or to prevent misunderstandings, set rules. You can’t do it without the formal element, the written contract. And likewise in divorce. In other words, they added the formal part, the document, in order to prevent misunderstandings or to prevent frivolity, so people won’t do things hastily.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll say two things about that. First, just a few days ago I saw some article about a judge who claimed that a memorandum of understanding is not a contract. I had also always heard that it was the same thing, but an oral memorandum of understanding is not a contract. I think even in writing it said that there—not just oral. Only there, apparently, there wasn’t enough of the concepts of sufficient intent to conclude, I don’t know. It was just an interesting article I saw a few days ago. But for our purposes I want to say more than that. Because what I’m trying to argue is that if in fact it were basically the same thing, and the Torah just wants us to do it in an orderly way so there won’t be misunderstandings, then in principle there shouldn’t really be any practical difference whether you did it this way or that way, because the essence still exists, meaning the substance still exists. But here I argued otherwise. I said that if you did it not in the way the Torah directed, then the laws are different. Meaning, there are laws that will be missing. And therefore it’s not only that—I agree that the Torah tells me how to do it properly, I just don’t think that’s merely in order to clarify the matter and sign a contract to remove misunderstandings. Rather, the Torah has some interest in there being a formal dimension in the marital bond. Not just in order to remove misunderstandings and anchor it in writing. Because if that were all…

[Speaker C] I said to prevent misunderstandings and to prevent frivolity. What? And to prevent frivolity. Meaning, so people won’t do it like among the Arabs, where they talk about temporary marriages and all sorts of things like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be, but that’s the rationale behind the verse, and still for our purposes the point is that this has practical consequences. Meaning, if you did it without the kiddushin, the laws that apply to you are different. It’s not that it’s the same thing, just that we have problems and doubts and we’re not sure you did it seriously. Because then only the laws of doubt would apply. Here, no—different laws apply. There is kiddushin and there is marriage. Those are two different things. So I wouldn’t compare this to the relation between a memorandum of understanding and a contract, or an oral agreement and a contract. But fine, in principle that’s the claim, and I’m only bringing it as another example of the Platonic attitude of Jewish law. Because Jewish law basically sees the concept of marriage the way it sees the concept of tzitzit—as some kind of concept that exists even before we imposed on it the characteristics that Jewish law imposes on it. It exists there. Now we want you to do it properly. What does “properly” mean? By means of these and those characteristics. But it’s not that the collection of characteristics is the thing itself. The collection of characteristics is not the thing. The thing exists even before the Torah was given and before it imposed these characteristics.

There may be another example of this. There are several places. In several places in Jewish law there’s another concept of migo. You know, usually migo—literally translated—means “out of” or “from within.” Migo galuta, yes, “out of exile.” So migo, “out of,” is usually brought in the context of the laws of evidence: migo, “why would I lie?” Since I could have made a better claim, I’m believed on the weaker claim. But I’m talking about a different migo. There are various passages—for example in tractate Sukkah, the Talmud discusses, I think on page 7, if I remember correctly, a Sabbath that falls during Sukkot.

Now I made a wall that meets the criteria of a wall for Sabbath, but doesn’t meet the criteria of a wall for a sukkah. A wall for Sabbath means for a private domain on Sabbath, regarding the laws of carrying in and out. So I built a sukkah with walls that are valid—what does “valid” mean? It means that they create a private domain on Sabbath, but under the laws of sukkah that’s not enough. So the Talmud says: on a Sabbath of Sukkot, since that wall is valid for Sabbath, it is also—migo de-havi dofen le-Shabbat havi dofen le-sukkah—since it is a wall for Sabbath, it is also a wall for sukkah. Now why? What’s the connection? The fact that in both places they use the term “wall” is fine, because it’s similar in some sense, but that’s just an external usage. On Sabbath there are certain laws, and in sukkah there are other laws. Incidentally, in both directions: there are walls that are valid for sukkah and invalid for Sabbath, and vice versa. So the claim that migo—since it is a wall for one matter, it will also be a wall for another matter—that too is a kind of migo.

Incidentally: migo de-havi keli le-tum’ah havi keli le-Shabbat—a vessel for impurity is also a vessel for Sabbath, a vessel with respect to whether it is set aside or not set aside. That too is a passage in tractate Shabbat. And there are more places. You can see this mode of thought in this kind of migo—migo not in the laws of evidence. What does this mean? What is it hiding behind it?

Usually we would understand—like Leibniz, or Berkeley as presented by Borges—we would understand that the use of the word “wall” in the context of sukkah and in the context of Sabbath is borrowed usage. It’s convenient for us to use the same word, but really these are two different concepts. There’s a wall for Sabbath and there’s a wall for sukkah. True, in both concepts the term “wall” appears, but really these are two different concepts: the Sabbath wall and the sukkah wall.

When we say that on a Sabbath of Sukkot, since this thing is a wall regarding Sabbath, it will also be a wall regarding sukkah, we’re essentially saying that the concept “wall” is shared by the wall of Sabbath and the wall of sukkah. And if this thing is considered a wall in the laws of Sabbath, then now it is a wall. So if it’s a wall, then for sukkah too it will be a wall. Because in the final analysis, if in the end this thing is a wall, then it will help both for Sabbath and for sukkah. Except that on Sabbath and in sukkah the concept of wall appears in different ways. But on a Sabbath of Sukkot, where now you have to decide—is this a wall or not a wall? If you say it’s a wall—after all, for the laws of Sabbath you say it’s a wall—then it will also be a wall for sukkah.

And again, what stands behind this is a Platonic conception of the concept of wall. Because according to the Aristotelian conception of the concept of wall, what is a wall for Sabbath and a wall for sukkah? They’re just words. A wall for sukkah is something with so-and-so many handbreadths, a certain width, made from such-and-such materials. A wall for Sabbath is according to the Sabbath rules—just shorthand for a collection of characteristics. So what connection is there between something that is a wall for Sabbath and something that is a wall for sukkah? They’re two different things. If the characteristics are missing, then it’s simply not the same thing. If the collection of characteristics is the thing, then the moment the characteristics are missing, it isn’t the thing. If you tell me that even when some of the characteristics are missing, it’s still that thing, then you’re basically telling me that there is some sort of thing here that is not merely the collection of characteristics; rather, the characteristics are its characteristics, but they are not it. Meaning, there is a concept of wall, and it is a universal concept. On Sabbath we want certain characteristics; in sukkah we want other characteristics. But on a Sabbath of Sukkot, once you decided that this thing is already a wall from the standpoint of the laws of Sabbath, then it is a wall. So it will be a wall for sukkah too. If it’s a wall, then it’s a wall.

So you see that the use of the term “wall” here is a Platonic use. Meaning, the concept of wall exists beyond the set of halakhic characteristics that Jewish law requires in the laws of Sabbath and in the laws of sukkah. And this again is an expression of the Platonic relation of Jewish law to concepts.

All right. Now I want to look at the same thing from another angle and talk about what I already discussed a few years ago, the concept of ukimta in Jewish law. And I think the concept of ukimta reflects in a very deep way the Platonism of Jewish law. But for that I want to discuss the concept of ukimta a bit, because it’s a concept that, I think, bothers a great many people.

So what is an ukimta? An ukimta is a situation where, say, a Mishnah says something specific, the Talmud raises some kind of difficulty, and because of that difficulty, the Talmud proposes an interpretation of the Mishnah that takes it away from its plain meaning. Meaning, the Mishnah is dealing with a very, very specific case, with no hint of that in the Mishnah itself.

For example, I’ll give one example that maybe we’ll come back to—several examples, doesn’t matter. One example: in the Talmud in Gittin, the Talmud says—I’ll share it—the Talmud says, Gittin 78: Rava said, “If he wrote her a bill of divorce and placed it in the hand of her sleeping slave, and she is watching him, this is a valid bill of divorce. If he is awake, it is not a valid bill of divorce, because it is like a guarded courtyard not with her knowledge. If he is sleeping and she is watching him, this is a valid bill of divorce.” All right?

Meaning, someone writes a bill of divorce for a woman and puts it into the hands of her slave. The slave is there, fine, he puts it in his hand. Now if the slave is both sleeping and the woman is guarding him—that is, she is standing over him and watching him—then this counts as delivery of the bill of divorce and the woman is divorced. But if one of the conditions is missing—if he is not sleeping or she is not watching him—then it is not a bill of divorce. Why? Because in order to acquire it, you need a guarded courtyard. And the slave is the courtyard of his mistress, but he is a guarded courtyard only if he is sleeping and she is guarding him.

So the Talmud asks: Why? It’s a moving courtyard, and a moving courtyard cannot acquire. Right? A slave is indeed a courtyard—he is property of his mistress—but he is a moving courtyard, a human being, not a stationary courtyard. The Talmud asks: And if you say that sleeping is different? Fine, he is sleeping, but when he is sleeping he is considered a non-moving courtyard. But didn’t Rava say: anything that, if it were walking, would not acquire—even if it is standing or sitting, it also does not acquire. In the laws of acquisition, a sleeping slave is still considered a moving courtyard, because in principle he can walk—he can wake up in another moment and walk. Therefore it doesn’t help that he is sleeping.

So the Talmud says: And the law is that he is bound. Meaning, he is tied up. And what about Rava’s original statement here? He forgot to tell us that? It doesn’t say here that the slave is bound. It says he is sleeping, it says she is guarding him, it doesn’t say he is bound. No, no—the meaning of “slave” here is a tied-up slave. That’s a major omission. Why don’t you say so? It’s not clear.

[Speaker C] Did she receive the bill of divorce from the slave or not? I didn’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sleeping or not? Not from the slave—she received the bill of divorce from the husband.

[Speaker C] Yes, but did it reach her hand?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t need to reach her hand. The hand of the slave is her hand. The slave is her courtyard. It’s as if I placed it in her courtyard.

[Speaker C] So what does “she is watching him” mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “She is watching him” means she is standing next to him and guarding him so he won’t run off anywhere.

[Speaker C] Ah, she’s guarding the slave, not the bill of divorce?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—the slave. Right, I understand. A guarded courtyard means it has to be such that not just anyone can come in, not just… If anyone can take the bill of divorce from the slave’s hand, that’s not called placing it in the slave’s hand. If she is there and guarding the slave so he won’t go away, so they won’t take it, so all sorts of things like that—then it is called a guarded courtyard. Okay?

In any case, for our purposes, the Talmud establishes Rava’s law as referring to a slave who is both sleeping and tied up. Now Rava spoke about sleeping, but did not mention tied up; he is not bound. Where did this invention come from? It’s quite clear that Rava did not mean to state a law about a bound slave. He meant to state a general law about a slave. Why are you putting words in his mouth? You can argue with him, you can disagree with him, but you can’t explain to me that this is what he meant. If this is what he meant, he should have said so.

Well, or another claim—another example. A Mishnah at the beginning of Beitzah: “An egg that is laid on a Jewish holiday—Beit Shammai say it may be eaten…” yes, here, “and Beit Hillel say it may not be eaten.” Right? Beit Shammai say it may be eaten and Beit Hillel say it may not be eaten. An egg is laid on a Jewish holiday, and the question is whether it is permitted to eat it. Plainly this is from the laws of set-aside or not; the Talmud discusses it there. The question is: Beit Hillel prohibit it—this is one of the cases where Beit Hillel are stricter—Beit Hillel prohibit it and Beit Shammai permit it.

The Talmud begins discussing why the egg is prohibited. What is the dispute about? Why do Beit Hillel prohibit it? So one of the possibilities the Talmud raises there: “Rather, Rava said: Actually we are dealing with a hen designated for eating… and with a Jewish holiday that falls immediately after the Sabbath.” And that’s the ukimta. The Mishnah says “an egg that is laid on a Jewish holiday.” He says, no, no—we are talking about a Jewish holiday that is on Sunday, meaning a Jewish holiday that falls immediately after Sabbath, and the reason is preparation. And Rava holds that any egg laid today was completed yesterday. Meaning, an egg laid on such a holiday—on Sunday—actually completed its preparation in the belly of the hen on Sabbath, yesterday. It is always laid the day after it has finished forming, once its tissues were completed the previous day and then it is laid. The next day it is laid. Okay, so since that’s the case, we really have a problem of preparation, because Sabbath prepared for the holiday, and it is forbidden for Sabbath to prepare for the holiday. Therefore Beit Hillel prohibit the egg. And Beit Shammai disagree with the law of preparation, or whatever, and there is a dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. That is the explanation the Talmud offers for the Mishnah.

And once again, we’re dealing with an ukimta. Just like the slave, who wasn’t mentioned at all, where the Talmud concludes that we are talking about a bound slave—here we have the Mishnah speaking about a holiday, and the Talmud decides this means specifically a holiday that falls on Sunday, and not a holiday that falls on Wednesday. There’s no hint of that in the Mishnah. Why assume the Mishnah is speaking specifically about a holiday that follows Sabbath? It speaks about every holiday: “an egg that is laid on a Jewish holiday.” It mentions nothing, it doesn’t say “an egg that is laid on a Jewish holiday after Sabbath.” That too is an ukimta.

A third ukimta, a third example—I’ll just come back to these examples when I explain. So the Mishnah in chapter 2, at the beginning of chapter 2 in Pesachim: “Whenever it is permitted to eat, one may feed it to cattle, wild animals, and birds…” This is talking about leavened food, right? “Whenever it is permitted to eat” means before the fourteenth hour on the eve of Passover—before the sixth hour on the eve of Passover—“one may feed it to cattle, wild animals, and birds, and sell it to a non-Jew, and one may derive benefit from it. Once its time has passed, it is forbidden to derive benefit from it.” Fine.

Now again, what does “once its time has passed” mean? The sixth hour, the seventh hour, it doesn’t matter, there are all kinds of distinctions there on the eve of Passover as is known; I’m not going into the details now. The Talmud there asks: “And one may derive benefit from it”? That’s obvious. Clearly, if it is leavened food before the time when it becomes forbidden, then of course one may derive benefit from it. What is the novelty? Obviously on Purim it is permitted to eat leavened food—is that the novelty, that it is permitted to eat and benefit from leavened food on Purim?

I once wondered whether the concept of set-aside exists only on Sabbath, or whether the concept of set-aside exists all week, but only on Sabbath is set-aside forbidden. But the concept of set-aside exists all week. I once had a proof from Tosafot in Sukkah that the concept of set-aside exists all week. He speaks about sukkah decorations, saying they are set aside all through the intermediate festival days, even though on the intermediate festival days there are no laws of set-aside. So you see that the concept of set-aside exists on weekdays too; the whole question is only when there is a prohibition. So with sukkah decorations there is also a prohibition on weekdays, not just the concept. Well, incidentally, that also suddenly ties in with Platonism now that I think about it. The concept of set-aside is not constituted by Jewish law. Jewish law says when it is forbidden and when it is permitted, but the concept of set-aside exists in the Platonic world of ideas.

Anyway, for our purposes: the Talmud asks why it is permitted to derive benefit from it—what is the novelty in that? Obviously, Passover: as long as the time of prohibition hasn’t yet arrived, it is permitted for eating and for benefit. The Talmud says: no, it is needed for a case where he charred it before its time. We are dealing with a case where he charred the leavened food when there was not yet any prohibition of leavened food. And it teaches us in accordance with Rava, for Rava said: if he charred it before its time, it is permitted for benefit even after its time.

Meaning, we are talking about a case where he charred it before the time. Now if he charred it before the time, then what’s the question? If you eat it before the time, that’s not interesting—you don’t need to char it, eat leavened food before the time. Clearly we are talking about eating it after the time of prohibition, meaning on Passover itself he is eating it. So whichever way you look at it: if this charring takes it out of the prohibition of leavened food, then obviously, it is always permitted to eat because it is not leavened food. If you tell me it does not take it out of the prohibition of leavened food, then why do I care that you charred it? Why is it permitted to eat it on Passover itself? It’s leavened food.

Okay, we’ll talk about that some more, but here too the Talmud is essentially making an ukimta. Look what there is in the Mishnah—go back to the language of the Mishnah. “Whenever it is permitted to eat… it is forbidden to derive benefit from it.” That’s what the Talmud says—the Mishnah says, sorry—plainly. What the Mishnah is coming to say is that where there is a prohibition on eating there is a prohibition on benefit; where there is a prohibition on benefit there is a prohibition on eating. All right? Sorry: “once its time has passed it is forbidden to derive benefit from it”—I didn’t read “once its time has passed.” “Whenever it is permitted to eat, it is permitted for benefit; once its time has passed it is forbidden for benefit.” So what the Mishnah comes to say is that the prohibition on eating and the prohibition on benefit go together. If there is a prohibition on eating leavened food, there is a prohibition on benefit.

But the Talmud says this is obvious, of course. If it is leavened food, then if there is a prohibition on eating there is a prohibition on benefit. If it is not leavened food, then there is no prohibition on eating and no prohibition on benefit. What is the novelty? And because of this difficulty they make an ukimta. We are talking about a case where he charred the leavened food before the time of prohibition, but he comes to eat it after the time of prohibition. Where does all that appear in the Mishnah? Why can’t the Mishnah tell me that it wants to speak about this unique, specific story? It says nothing there; it states a general statement. So once again this is basically a case of ukimta. Okay?

The problem with ukimtot is basically and primarily an interpretive problem. You are proposing an interpretation of a Mishnah or of an amoraic statement—like in Rava’s case with the bill of divorce and the slave, that’s an amoraic statement, not a Mishnah—but you are proposing an interpretation of a Mishnah or an amoraic statement that inserts it into a very, very specific situation. The slave means a bound slave. The holiday means a holiday that falls after Sabbath, not every holiday and not every slave. With leavened food, it doesn’t mean all leavened food, but specifically leavened food that you charred before the time and are now coming to eat during the prohibited time. Meaning, what characterizes ukimta is that it takes a case appearing in the Mishnah or in an amoraic statement and narrows it down to a very, very specific situation that is not mentioned in the source. In the source it is not mentioned that it is speaking specifically about that particular situation. And that raises a difficulty, right? How can you suddenly invent these kinds of interpretive inventions? You surely don’t really mean to tell me that this is actually what the original text meant, right? That’s not a serious claim.

[Speaker C] And the simple claim would say that there cannot be a contradiction—that’s the axiom—that everything written is true, the Torah, no nonsense, that’s the axiom. If something doesn’t work out for you, apparently it’s because of this or that. You know of a person that he is righteous and upright, you know him inside and out, and they come and say they saw him go and say something to the enemy, I don’t know what. You are forced to explain that apparently people were standing behind him—you don’t see the whole picture—they were holding a gun to him and threatening him. That’s the situation, no games. You start from an axiom. Someone who doesn’t accept the axiom—okay, we need to meet sometime, but that’s a different issue. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an interesting proposal. I’ll come back to it later. I’ll just explain to you why I don’t accept it literally as you presented it here. Later on I’ll present a version of it, but as you presented it I don’t accept it. I’ll tell you why.

As for judging favorably, I completely accept it. The Mishnah in Avot says, “Judge every person favorably.” Usually it is accepted—there’s a story about Rabbi Chaim of Brisk. They asked him why the Holy One, blessed be He, created a crooked mind. Everything that the Holy One, blessed be He, created has a reason. Why did He create a crooked mind?

[Speaker C] Good question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And Rabbi Chaim says: in order to find merit. Meaning, in order to judge a person favorably, you have to activate all your interpretive creativity, all your crooked thinking, in order to make him come out right. But that’s a mistake. If you look at the commentators on the Mishnah—Maimonides, Rabbenu Yonah, the commentators on Avot—“Judge every person favorably” is completely straight thinking, not crooked thinking.

When you see the leading sage of the generation chasing after a betrothed young woman down the street with a drawn knife, you have two options—yes, I’m just repeating what you said, correctly. You have two options: either to assume that his evil inclination overcame him and he is going to rape her, or to assume that she worked in his house, forgot the knife there, and he is running after her to return the knife to her as returning lost property. Okay? Which would you prefer? I would prefer the second option. That’s not crooked thinking; that’s straight thinking. Right? It is not plausible that this person is chasing her in front of all Israel in order to rape her—even not in front of all Israel, but certainly in front of all Israel. Right. So you need to find an explanation, even though on the face of it, regarding some other person I might not adopt that explanation. But regarding a person like this, from the context it is clear that this is the correct explanation of the situation.

Here I completely accept what you are saying, and that’s also what the commentators on the Mishnah say there. And therefore the practical difference is that if this explanation is really not logical, then we don’t use it. We use only a logical explanation; it’s just that the logic is logic in context, not universal logic for every person in every situation, but in these particular circumstances—where we are speaking about such a person, in such circumstances—logic says that this should be interpreted this way. It’s not some religious obligation to go against logic with crooked thinking. No. It is completely straight thinking. That is the correct interpretation. Any sensible person should interpret it that way; it’s not a religious command.

Okay. But when we speak about interpretation of a verse, then with interpretation of a verse the whole business has to work differently. Why? Because in interpretation of a verse—and this is always the question—there is a wonderful Vilna Gaon. Rabbi Menashe of Ilya, in the introduction to his book on the Masorah—he was a student of the Vilna Gaon—brings there an example in the name of the Vilna Gaon for the relation between plain meaning and midrashic interpretation. The claim is there about the verse, “If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him…” The question is whether the word is with one pronunciation or another—whether it means to tell it or to suppress it. Two opinions are brought there in the Talmud, not important now. But it turns out that neither option is really comfortable as the interpretation of the verse: “let him tell it to others,” or “let him remove it from his heart.” The question is whether it is from the language of speaking or from the language of bowing down, meaning bending the heart—if I have anxiety then I am bent over. There’s a whole discussion there.

Anyway, the Vilna Gaon’s point is that when we give a plain-sense interpretation and a midrashic interpretation to a verse, neither of them will be a perfect interpretation of the verse. For example, think about “an eye for an eye” meaning monetary payment. “An eye for an eye” in its plain sense means to gouge out an eye, not money. The midrash says no, no—they don’t gouge out an eye; they collect monetary payment instead. Right? Now the usual question is: you have difficulties with the plain sense, therefore you go to the midrash. For example, there is a verbal analogy, “under” and “under,” never mind. You can show—all those who try to show that this is really also the plain meaning—they show that the literal plain sense is difficult. There are contradictions, or whatever, there are difficulties in the plain sense, and therefore the Sages concluded that it means money and not an eye. That is all true. But there is one difficulty that you haven’t answered with that, and this is what I’m answering you.

One difficulty you haven’t answered: why didn’t the Torah write “money for an eye”? Everything is true: when it writes “an eye for an eye,” it is hard to interpret it literally, there are difficulties. So you convinced me that the plain interpretation is difficult. Then what are you telling me? That the Torah really meant money. But there is still one difficulty you need to answer. Why didn’t it write what it meant? Let it write “money for an eye.” And the fact that one explanation has difficulties—as Peres used to say: what is their alternative on the right? Maybe they have no alternative. Who said there must always be an alternative? The fact that one alternative is bad does not mean the second alternative is correct. It could be that it too is bad and there is no alternative.

When you raise difficulties against the plain-sense interpretation, that is not enough to convince me that the midrashic interpretation is correct. Because the midrashic interpretation always runs into an inherent difficulty: why doesn’t the verse write it the way of the midrash? Why does it write the plain sense and not the midrash? Why doesn’t it write “he shall pay money for his eye”? Why “an eye for an eye”? What, the verse doesn’t know how to write that?

And therefore, unlike the leading sage of the generation chasing a betrothed girl—in that case I don’t have this difficulty. I have two ways to interpret the situation; I don’t ask why the leading sage didn’t put up a sign over his head informing all of us that he isn’t going to rape her. He didn’t think of it; he is going to return the knife to her. I have a difficulty interpreting it literally as if he is going to rape her, so I conclude that he is going to return the knife to her. And that conclusion is excellent—it is the correct interpretation, and there is no difficulty about it at all.

But when I speak about interpretation—interpretation of a text, as in the case of ukimtot or as in midrashic interpretation of verses—there, even if I show that the simple interpretation is not correct, that it has difficulties, and I propose a midrashic interpretation or an ukimta or whatever, still I have not escaped the basic difficulty. Why didn’t the Mishnah write that we are speaking about a holiday that falls after Sabbath? The fact that with an ordinary holiday I have difficulties explaining it is not enough to tell me that the Mishnah is dealing with a holiday after Sabbath. What, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi ran out of ink? He couldn’t write “a holiday after Sabbath”? Or “a bound slave”? Or “leavened food that he charred before the time and ate after the time”?

Meaning, this difficulty always remains. Therefore, what you compared to judging favorably—I accept that with regard to the need for an ukimta. That’s why there is a need for an ukimta; those are the difficulties the Talmud always brings because of which there is an ukimta. But I ask: after there is a need—fine, very nice that there is a need, the defense of necessity, so to speak—but in the end the interpretation you are proposing, although necessary, is not logical, because the Mishnah should have written it if it…

[Speaker C] No. There is “and it requires further study.” You have to come to the conclusion that your axiom is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there is no conclusion—what can I do? I have a difficulty here and I have a difficulty there. What can I do?

[Speaker C] So the axiom is not true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the axiom is not untrue—I don’t understand.

[Speaker C] The axiom that says there must not be contradiction, that it’s all holy, that it’s all true, all of it—I need to shake that axiom for you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, again: everything is true, everything is holy, there must not be contradiction, and therefore clearly I’m not understanding something here. That’s all. Now what is the problem?

[Speaker C] Okay, so that’s another escape, fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not an escape, I don’t understand. Tell me, is there such a thing as real physics? There is, right? But I don’t know how to connect quantum theory with relativity. So therefore physics is wrong? No.

[Speaker C] No, then someone else knows. But here nobody knows.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who says nobody knows? No, nobody knows. Quantum gravity is the hardest problem physicists have today. Nobody knows.

[Speaker C] So they don’t know, but we see it exists, we see airplanes fly, we see GPS works. Exactly. Exactly. Here we don’t see it; here it remains in the realm of faith. Everything stays in the realm of faith.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now you are giving up the axiom. So I’m saying: if your axiom is that everything is holy, then what does that mean? That if there is a contradiction, apparently the misunderstanding is yours, and that is perfectly fine. I’m not always such a great genius. Sometimes I don’t understand. One is allowed to remain with “it requires further study.” Okay. That’s it.

So therefore I say that the difficulty raised by an ukimta, by virtue of its being an ukimta, is an essential difficulty. It is not resolved. And therefore all kinds of proposals arise for how to explain this strange phenomenon of ukimta.

So there are accepted views.

[Speaker D] Rabbi, is it the same with verses? Is the rabbi comparing this also to verses? Because, say, with verses there is in the Guide, part 3, what the rabbi spoke about—“an eye for an eye”—there it sounds as if it’s not only that this is the interpretation of the verse, but there is also some point to this verse being specifically “an eye for an eye,” measure for measure and so on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s an explanation for why the Torah did not write it in the mode of the midrash. Okay.

[Speaker D] Yes. So there, as it were, there is no difficulty as to why the Torah didn’t write it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. I didn’t say there is an unanswerable question; I said there is a difficulty, and that difficulty has a solution. Not a question with no solution—there is a difficulty, and that difficulty has a solution. What is the solution? What you are proposing. The solution is that basically the Torah wanted to teach me what would have been appropriate to do. It would have been appropriate to take out his eye. But in practice it said: do not take out his eye. So how did it convey this double message to me? By writing the plain sense the way it did, and alongside that there is a verbal analogy, “under” and “under,” that teaches me the midrashic interpretation. So in practice, according to Jewish law, I collect money, but it would have been appropriate to take out an eye. And this double message is taught through the tension between plain meaning and midrashic interpretation. Okay, yes. That is the resolution of the difficulty. And the difficulty exists, and it requires explanation. Why does the Torah write something that is not correct? The explanation is that it is correct. Meaning, the Torah wrote it because that too is true. Fine, that’s perfectly good.

And if you managed—incidentally, the Vilna Gaon really does write about ukimtot. The Vilna Gaon writes that this is like plain meaning and midrashic interpretation in Mishnayot. He apparently means to say that in the Mishnah too there is significance to the midrash and significance to the plain meaning, and both are true. But of course that is a general statement. How do I translate that into practice? After all, in practice it means two different things. So does the slave acquire it only if he is bound, or is the egg forbidden even on a holiday that does not fall after Sabbath? There is… it’s a slogan. But how do we translate it into practice? So I will propose—soon, or not soon, but later on—I will propose an explanation of this matter.

But first of all, what do people do with ukimtot? Because of this difficulty with ukimtot, there are those who want to claim that this is basically a respectful way for the amoraim to disagree with the tannaim. They don’t want to say, look, I disagree with this tanna—or with the earlier amora, doesn’t matter—so they make an ukimta in his words. But they don’t really mean that he intended that. He did not intend that, because he did not write it. This is some way of concealing the fact that I disagree with the tanna. That’s a common view in academic scholarship. And there are places—in Meiri I think somewhere, someone showed me—there are those who attribute this to the Vilna Gaon; I think that is not correct. But in scholarship it is very common to think that this is basically a respectful way for an amora to disagree with tannaim.

To me that is completely implausible. Because if the rule really is that an amora cannot disagree with tannaim, then what does it help that he does it respectfully? If it is forbidden to disagree with tannaim, you cannot disagree with tannaim. If you tell me that this means you are disagreeing with the tanna, then Jewish law does not follow you. When there is a Mishnah against you—and we said here that the rules in Talmudic discussion are that if an amora says something and there is a Mishnah against him, that’s a knockout. Meaning, his career is over. Therefore you cannot tell me, fine, because I disagree respectfully, I can disagree with tannaim. No. Whichever way you look at it, if you are allowed to disagree with tannaim, put it on the table and say “I disagree with this tanna.” What’s the problem? Why, in a place where they bring a Mishnah against the amora—there’s also some noise here—why, in a place where they bring a Mishnah against the amora, can the amora not simply say: okay, I disagree with the tanna—what’s the problem? Or if you want to do it respectfully, he’ll make some ukimta that of course has nothing to do with what the tanna said, but that’s so that it will be respectful. Meaning, he’ll hand him a bouquet of flowers while disagreeing with him. That sounds to me really unreasonable. We are not playing games. Meaning, if the amoraim can disagree with tannaim, let them disagree, everything is fine, it’s permitted. If they cannot disagree with tannaim, then it doesn’t help me that people look for it and hide it behind polite expressions. So I don’t buy that explanation, even though it is seemingly called for because of the difficulty of ukimta.

So there are all kinds of proposals for explanation. There are those who want to say that it is… Rabbi, after all, the fact that tannaim cannot disagree with…

[Speaker E] That the amoraim cannot disagree with tannaim is not some law given to Moses at Sinai, not some ontological fact. It is simply a matter of preserving the stability of Jewish law, otherwise there will be…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that doesn’t matter, where it comes from. Whichever way you look at it.

[Speaker E] No, but since these are practical considerations, preserving the stability of Jewish law so that not everyone will do whatever seems right in his own eyes, then once they put forward an ukimta and sort of act as if—and what the rabbi described before—then…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then…

[Speaker E] It solves part of that problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So then they’re always fooling me. So any time there’s a Mishnah against me, I’ll produce some ukimta that obviously wasn’t the tanna’s intention, and I’ll disagree with him. Then you haven’t solved any problem. I can always disagree with the tannaim.

[Speaker D] The truth is that this possibility goes against the Talmud. This possibility goes against the plain meaning—the Talmud maintains that you can’t disagree with a tanna.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, it’s… we’re not playing games. It’s not… So I’m saying, all kinds of proposals come up. Maybe this is esoteric writing. Because for example Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner suggests that in the past there was a prohibition on writing down the Oral Torah: “matters written you are not permitted to say orally; matters oral you are not permitted to write down,” a passage in Gittin. Then Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi came—“It is a time to act for the Lord, they have violated Your Torah”—and said there is no choice, the Mishnah has to be written. But when he wrote the Mishnah, he left it in some vague form, so that when I study the Mishnah I will need a rabbi. I won’t be able to read the Mishnah and simply learn it without guidance. Why? In order to preserve the dimension of Oral Torah in these matters even after writing them down. Yes, there is such a claim by Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner.

All right, I’m not sure I agree with that. But that’s one assumption. There are those who argue that there was… the author of Tiferet Yisrael on the Mishnah wants to claim that the Mishnah was written with a certain meter because they sang it in order to remember it, and therefore there were constraints on the wording, and it was not always possible to insert “a holiday that fell on the eve of Sabbath”—it didn’t work with the melody. Well, you understand from the sheer strain in the various explanations that the difficulty apparently still stands. Or there are claims about… what?

[Speaker D] What is the difficulty with Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner’s explanation?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The difficulty is that I don’t think anyone came to confuse us with the Mishnah. To confuse us. Really—it’s just not plausible. You decided to write, so write. What are you… There are all kinds of proposals here. There are claims that the wording of the Mishnah, in its plain sense, actually conceals behind it some entirely different truth on the level of esoteric teaching. I don’t know exactly what. And the practical Jewish law is in the midrash of the Mishnah, with the ukimtot. Again, these are all kinds of statements. I don’t know. Anything is possible, but it sounds so strange that I refuse to accept it. In a moment I’ll explain the correct explanation, and then it will be clear that there is no need to reach for all these things. Meaning, there is no point in starting to discuss whether they are correct or not if they are not needed at all. So therefore the difficulty—the difficulty doesn’t exist.

[Speaker C] All right, I’ll stop here. And incidentally, migo: sixty-two years ago, I think, Rabbi Shimboski used to ask us children: a man came and confessed to theft. They told him, come on, a person’s own admission is like a hundred witnesses, off to jail, to the lockup. And then he complains: wait, wait, why? After all, I had a migo. Why are you sending me to jail? Why are you sentencing me? And what do they answer?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the answer is twofold. First, that’s not correct—they don’t put him in jail, because a person cannot render himself wicked. “A litigant’s admission is like a hundred witnesses” applies only in monetary law, but in criminal law a person cannot render himself wicked, and therefore a confession has no weight in Jewish law. Even Miranda in the United States… But that’s the first thing. And second, the whole idea of a litigant’s admission is exactly this idea: you have a migo and therefore you are believed. So what’s the question? I believe you. You say you stole. You have a migo—you could have said you didn’t steal—so what do you want, that I should believe you? I do believe you that you stole, so go to jail.

[Speaker C] That’s the answer I gave sixty-two years ago.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but the claim to begin with is incorrect, because I don’t believe him. I think the original question was about “a person cannot render himself wicked,” not about a litigant’s admission. Why can a person not render himself wicked? After all, he has a migo, so believe him, and really put him in jail. The question is not why they put him in jail but the opposite: why don’t they put him in jail? Believe him by migo and put him in jail. And the answer is that “a person cannot render himself wicked” is a matter of inadmissibility, not unreliability. And migo does not help with inadmissibility. If relatives came and had a migo, the migo would not help, because the disqualification of relatives is not because we suspect them of lying. If it were because we suspected them of lying, then migo would prove that they are not lying. But with relatives, the disqualification is one of admissibility, not of reliability. If I cannot accept testimony from relatives, what will the migo help? I believe them; I just cannot rely on their testimony.

[Speaker C] Yes, it’s just that here there is an attempt to play a bit with the understanding of the concept of migo. And since the concept basically means “believe me,” then okay, we believe you, and kindly go pay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s like someone who claims “perhaps”—believe him by migo, because he could have claimed certainty. The answer is: I believe him that it’s “perhaps.”

[Speaker C] Right, right, and rule against him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Or “half of it is mine” by migo, because I could have claimed “all of it is mine.” Fine. So we… does anyone else want to comment or ask?

[Speaker D] Rabbi, just regarding the majority—just casually, because the rabbi spoke about it a bit yesterday—so with a majority of judges, there the rabbi holds the view that… why do we follow the majority? Because that is the greater probability that it is the truth? Yes? That that is the ruling? I mean, what is that exactly—is it probability?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, it is a priori probability, as I explained. It is not the result of scientific induction, but I’ll explain it next time.

[Speaker D] Okay, thank you very much.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right, have a peaceful Sabbath.

[Speaker D] Peaceful Sabbath, happy holiday, more power to you, goodbye.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Happy Hanukkah and good health.

Platonism – Lecture 14

Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

Platonism, Concepts, and Disputes About Democracy

Directive and Constitutive Rules, and Tzitzit as an Example

Maimonides, Betrothal and Marriage, and the Continuation of Natural Marriage After the Giving of the Torah

Living Together Without Betrothal, “Noahide Marriage,” and Halakhic Implications

Divorce, Sefer HaChinukh, and Dissolving Marriage Versus Dissolving Betrothal

The Torah’s Formality and the Difference from a Contract Analogy

Non-Evidentiary Migo and a Sabbath Partition Versus a Sukkah Partition

Ukimta as an Interpretive Problem and Examples from the Talmud

Judging Favorably, Plain Meaning and Exposition, and the Difficulty of “Why Wasn’t It Written That Way?”

A Proposed Solution in the Verses, and the Vilna Gaon on Plain Meaning and Exposition in Mishnayot

Rejecting the Explanation of Ukimta as a Cover for Disagreement with a Tanna

Additional Proposals to Explain Ukimtot and Their Rejection

Closing Notes on Migo, Admissibility, and Majority

Full Transcript

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Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

Platonism, Concepts, and Disputes About Democracy

Directive and Constitutive Rules, and Tzitzit as an Example

Maimonides, Betrothal and Marriage, and the Continuation of Natural Marriage After the Giving of the Torah

Living Together Without Betrothal, “Noahide Marriage,” and Halakhic Implications

Divorce, Sefer HaChinukh, and Dissolving Marriage Versus Dissolving Betrothal

The Torah’s Formality and the Difference from a Contract Analogy

Non-Evidentiary Migo and a Sabbath Partition Versus a Sukkah Partition

Ukimta as an Interpretive Problem and Examples from the Talmud

Judging Favorably, Plain Meaning and Exposition, and the Difficulty of “Why Wasn’t It Written That Way?”

A Proposed Solution in the Verses, and the Vilna Gaon on Plain Meaning and Exposition in Mishnayot

Rejecting the Explanation of Ukimta as a Cover for Disagreement with a Tanna

Additional Proposals to Explain Ukimtot and Their Rejection

Closing Notes on Migo, Admissibility, and Majority

Full Transcript

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