2019-04-22 – Between Midrash and Logic – Lesson 2

Table of Contents

• Authority, skill, and the possibility of renewing the use of the hermeneutical principles
• The historical development of the lists of hermeneutical principles and the textual problems
• The baraita of thirty-two principles, its relation to Rabbi Akiva, and the explanations of the author of Sefer Keritut
• Peshat and derash, halakhic status, and the debate over “the depth of peshat”
• Three approaches to the foundation of the hermeneutical principles: Ralbag, Maimonides, and Rabbi HaNazir
• Research versus tradition: scholars, law given to Moses at Sinai, and a proposed reconciliation
• The Talmud in Temurah, Otniel ben Kenaz, and reconstructing the rules as a formalization of a “mother tongue”
• The meaning of the lengthening lists and the continuation of the project

Summary

General Overview

The text argues that the hermeneutical principles are a legitimate tool for interpreting the Torah and deriving conclusions from it, and that there is no intrinsic limitation requiring ordination, only the ordinary halakhic limitations of authority, such as the prohibition against disagreeing with the supreme religious court once it has ruled. It claims that the main reason these principles are hardly used today is not a lack of authority but a loss of skill, and that one can aspire to reconstruct that skill responsibly and with rabbinic critique, without waiting for the Messiah or for ordination to be restored. It presents a historical development of the lists of hermeneutical principles: from seven in the teachings of Hillel the Elder, to thirteen in Rabbi Ishmael, and then to thirty-two/thirty-three in Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili. It argues that this development appears to contradict the view that everything is law given to Moses at Sinai, but proposes a reconciliation: the principles were transmitted from Sinai, while the formalization and the lists are a later reconstruction of an interpretive intuition that had weakened. It connects this to the Talmudic passage in Temurah about forgotten laws and their restoration through the dialectical reasoning of Otniel ben Kenaz, and concludes that the combination of tradition and logic also explains why similar patterns can appear in other cultures as well.

Authority, skill, and the possibility of renewing the use of the hermeneutical principles

The text states that ordination is not needed in order to use the hermeneutical principles, and that any individual or any court of three may expound by them as long as the supreme religious court has not ruled otherwise. It says that when the supreme religious court derives an interpretation, one may not disagree with it—not because the hermeneutical principles require ordination, but because of the general prohibition against disagreeing with the supreme religious court, like any other halakhic rule. It argues that the reason these principles are barely used today is that we lost the skill, not necessarily the authority, and therefore we stopped deriving interpretations.

The text proposes, as a central goal, reconstructing the lost skill in order to return to using the hermeneutical principles, with responsibility, critique, and the creation of broad agreement among sages and study houses. It raises the possibility that what is missing is also an element of divine inspiration, but presents an understanding of divine inspiration in rabbinic literature and among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) as inner certainty and a correct understanding of reality more than as a mystical event, and says that in practice we have to see whether such certainty arises once the skill returns.

The historical development of the lists of hermeneutical principles and the textual problems

The text presents a baraita at the beginning of Sifra according to which Hillel the Elder expounded seven principles before the Elders of Beteira, and notes that the list there appears to contain only six, identifying a textual variant problem. It presents a parallel in Tosefta Sanhedrin where a different list appears, including binyan av, one verse, two verses, general and particular, particular and general, something analogous from another place, and a matter learned from its context, and there too the number does not match the actual content. It suggests possible resolutions such as combining sub-principles under one broader principle, omissions due to similarity, or interpreting “two verses” as two verses that contradict one another until a third verse comes and decides between them, and notes that Finkelstein made the same claim in his edition of Sifra.

The text concludes that at least most of Hillel’s principles also appear in Rabbi Ishmael, and describes this as a process of expansion in which new principles are added. It adds that in the baraita of Rabbi Ishmael it says “thirteen,” but in practice there are sixteen there, and remarks that the medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagree over how to count and combine the principles of general and particular, though that is less decisive for understanding the historical process.

The baraita of thirty-two principles, its relation to Rabbi Akiva, and the explanations of the author of Sefer Keritut

The text presents the midrash of Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili as the source for a list of 32/33/34 principles, and notes that the textual versions differ, though it is customary to speak of thirty-two principles. It rejects the common explanation that the entire list consists only of “principles of aggadic interpretation,” and argues that in practice it also includes principles of halakhic interpretation and that it is connected to the school of Rabbi Akiva. It cites the author of Sefer Keritut (Rabbi Shimshon of Kinon), who proposes three explanatory directions for the gap between the lists: that some principles are intended for aggadah, that some belong to Rabbi Akiva’s method and were not counted by Rabbi Ishmael, and that some are in fact means of uncovering peshat because the plain sense cannot stand without them.

Peshat and derash, halakhic status, and the debate over “the depth of peshat”

The text argues that usually peshat and derash are two parallel layers in relation to a verse, even when they differ in content, and gives the example “You shall fear the Lord your God”—to include Torah scholars—where the peshat remains fear of the Holy One, blessed be He, while the derash adds another layer. It argues that there are interpretations that look like derash but in fact replace the peshat where the peshat has no sufficient explanation, and therefore they function as peshat; it connects this to discussions about a word being “free” in a gezerah shavah. It cites Rabbi Shimshon of Shantz as explaining that principles of this type are not counted as principles of derash because they are tools of plain-sense interpretation.

The text describes a popular approach that claims derash is “the depth of peshat,” in the sense of a non-local peshat that takes broader contexts into account, but rejects it as tending to erase the distinction between peshat and derash and as contradicting the differences in halakhic status between derash and peshat. It cites Rav Menashe of Ilya in the name of the Vilna Gaon, saying that the verse is “crooked” both according to peshat and according to derash, and that precisely the incompleteness of each layer requires adopting both. It adds that the sages were aware of the distinction between peshat and derash, and brings the example, “I expound the verse.”

Three approaches to the foundation of the hermeneutical principles: Ralbag, Maimonides, and Rabbi HaNazir

The text presents three foundational approaches. It describes Ralbag as holding that all the laws were transmitted by tradition, and that derash is “authoritative derash,” not a system for generating new laws. It describes Maimonides as presenting the hermeneutical principles as a code given at Sinai—like Atbash—that makes it possible to decipher laws encoded in Scripture, and explains that according to the image of an arbitrary code, it is hard to reconstruct a system once it has been forgotten. It presents a third approach, identified with Rabbi HaNazir, according to which the rules were given at Sinai but they also have logic behind them; it brings proof from the use of general and particular even on texts that are not verses, which suggests interpretive logic rather than a purely arbitrary cipher.

Research versus tradition: scholars, law given to Moses at Sinai, and a proposed reconciliation

The text states that the historical process from shorter lists to longer lists makes the “traditional thesis” that everything is law given to Moses at Sinai seem, at least on the face of it, problematic. On the other hand, it presents the view of scholars, especially Lieberman, who argue for historical development and at times influence from the ancient Near East. It argues that the medieval authorities (Rishonim) meant law given to Moses at Sinai in a historical sense, and discusses the fact that Maimonides’ criterion—that there is no dispute about a law given to Moses at Sinai—does not always stand up to scrutiny, including mention of Chavot Yair, who shows that there are indeed laws given to Moses at Sinai over which disputes arose.

The text proposes a reconciliation according to which there is no necessary contradiction between tradition and development: the principles are from Sinai, but the formulation, classification, and formalization of the rules develop across the generations as a process of reconstructing a skill that has weakened. It adds that if there is logic in the hermeneutical principles, it is no surprise that similar patterns appear among others too, and this does not require any claim of borrowing.

The Talmud in Temurah, Otniel ben Kenaz, and reconstructing the rules as a formalization of a “mother tongue”

The text cites the Talmud in Temurah about “three thousand laws that were forgotten during the days of mourning for Moses,” and another baraita about “one thousand seven hundred a fortiori arguments, verbal analogies, and scribal inferences” that were forgotten and restored through the dialectical reasoning of Otniel ben Kenaz. It cites the passage about a sin offering whose owners died, which was forgotten, and the appeal to Pinchas and to Elazar, answered with “It is not in heaven” and “These are the commandments—from now on a prophet is not permitted to introduce anything new,” and the statement elsewhere that a sin offering whose owners died is law given to Moses at Sinai. From this it concludes that a law given to Moses at Sinai that was forgotten cannot be reconstructed in the ordinary way.

The text interprets “a fortiori arguments and verbal analogies” as standing for all the hermeneutical principles, and distinguishes between traditional laws, which if forgotten cannot be recovered, and interpretive laws, which can be reconstructed from existing examples. It describes Otniel’s work as a kind of “scientific” reconstruction of rules out of a body of derashot, such as generalizing that the word “et” comes to include something extra, and then applying the rule in places where the tradition had not been preserved. It argues that Moses our teacher did not use formal terms like “gezerah shavah” or “a matter that was included in a general category,” but rather functioned like a native speaker passing on intuitive usage, whereas later generations create a formulated system of rules to compensate for the loss of that intuition.

The meaning of the lengthening lists and the continuation of the project

The text explains that the lengthening of the lists—from seven to thirteen to thirty-two—reflects growing distance from the source and a loss of intuition that requires more auxiliary rules, rather than the invention of new principles. It states that in the Talmud itself there are many principles that do not appear in the well-known lists, and that one of the tasks is to gather and identify the full variety of principles actually used. It concludes with an ideological and practical link: there is real significance to the project of renewing the study of the hermeneutical principles today, and this connects especially well with the approach of Rabbi HaNazir, according to which there is logic that makes reconstruction and renewed use possible.

Okay, so last time we were really dealing with what midrashic exposition is, whether there are criteria for who can use these interpretive principles, whether one has to have ordination for that. We talked a bit about the question of why we lost the ability to expound—if we lost it, or if we only decided that we no longer have the authority. And my claim, basically, was that no special authority is needed here; rather, we simply lost the skill. Meaning, we no longer know how to do it, and that’s why people stopped delivering these interpretive derivations. Obviously, the regular concepts of authority in Jewish law exist here too. Meaning, if the Great Court derives some exposition, then a court of three, or just some other person who claims it should be derived differently, cannot argue with them. Just like in any area of Jewish law—not because using the interpretive principles requires ordination, but because it is forbidden to dispute the Great Court. The Great Court is what decides. But on the theoretical level, as long as the Great Court has not spoken, anyone, any court of three, or whoever you want, can derive interpretations. This is a legitimate tool for interpreting the Torah and drawing conclusions from it, so in that sense there is no limitation.

Then the question is: if there is no limitation on who can use the interpretive principles, then why indeed don’t people use them? And the answer was: because we simply lost the ability. In other words, we no longer know how to do it.

Okay, now—I’m just wrapping up the previous session here—this is a kind of introduction, or a way of motivating why it’s worthwhile to deal with this. So I said that one of the important goals, in my view, of engaging with these topics is to try to reconstruct that lost skill. And once, if we succeed in reconstructing the lost skill, we can return to making use of it as well. This does not have to wait for the Messiah; we do not need to restore ordination for this. Anyone can use the interpretive principles, provided that he of course knows how to do it. Meaning, one has to do it responsibly, not just decide offhand, “This is what seems right to me, this is what I feel like, so this is what I’m doing.” But assuming there is responsibility, and it has undergone some kind of critique—as any idea needs to undergo some critique—and if some kind of consensus develops among the sages, among the study halls, and they begin to recognize that this skill has indeed returned and works, then it really would be possible to use it again.

It could be that there was also some kind of divine inspiration operating here, and not only a missing skill. So maybe we won’t manage to convince the study halls that the skill has returned, because they will feel that something is still lacking. Fine—if that’s true, then maybe so. I think, again, that many times the notion of divine inspiration is, well, as the Talmud itself already says: “Divine inspiration has appeared in our study hall,” right? “Divine inspiration” there means that we are convinced that something is correct—that’s what it means. The Talmud asks: what does divine inspiration look like? In the Jerusalem Talmud—and also in the Babylonian Talmud, in tractate Shabbat, and in the Jerusalem Talmud in Chagigah or Megillah—they ask there, what is divine inspiration? So divine inspiration there means understanding the reality around you very well—that’s called divine inspiration. And there are several examples there; there are some differences among them. But divine inspiration doesn’t necessarily have to be something mystical, some heavenly voice bursting forth from mountain peaks. In the Jerusalem Talmud they ask about a heavenly voice, not divine inspiration. Ah, sorry, right, right, right—that’s a heavenly voice there, sorry. Right, that’s a heavenly voice, not divine inspiration. No matter. But we see in the literature of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) that when they say “divine inspiration appeared in our study hall,” they do not necessarily mean a mystical event, or some event—I don’t know—some sort of communication with the Holy One, blessed be He. Rather, they mean that there is something here about which we have an inner certainty that it is correct; we are convinced that it is correct.

Maybe that certainty was lost because of a lower level of closeness? Maybe yes, maybe no. If such certainty arises, then it will arise; and if not, then we have no freedom anyway. Meaning, we have to see whether such certainty is created or not. I think that if we reconstruct the ability to use these principles and see that it really works and hits the mark—we’ll talk about that a bit more today—then either that certainty will arise or it won’t. And that’s all. From there we’ll see whether this depends on some degree of righteousness that we don’t have, or not. There are righteous people today too, I don’t know—I hope so. The question is what level of righteousness is required; I don’t know.

Okay, to our topic. I want now to talk a bit about the historical development of the interpretive principles, in the reverse direction. Last time we spoke about the forgetting of the interpretive principles; now I want to talk about how they were formed, not how we forgot them. So I’m going backward in history, okay? Throughout history, we see use of the interpretive principles; we see disputes about the use of the interpretive principles; and we also see some development of the whole system of exposition, even on the purely quantitative plane—how many principles there are.

There is a baraita that at the end of the baraita of the thirteen principles of Rabbi Yishmael, at the beginning of Sifra, says this: “Hillel the Elder expounded seven principles before the Elders of Beteira: an a fortiori inference, a verbal analogy, two verses, a generalization and a specification, something similar in another place, and a matter learned from its context. These are the seven principles that Hillel the Elder expounded before the Elders of Beteira.”

Okay, so they bring seven principles here that existed in Hillel the Elder’s time. We know this Talmudic passage about Hillel coming from Babylonia and there being a question about the Passover offering, and he derived it for them by verbal analogy and a fortiori reasoning and various interpretive principles. Hillel was some sort of milestone in the development of the principles; that is quite clear from several directions. And here we see a formulation: there were seven—seven principles.

Now when you look and count, let’s count. There is a fortiori reasoning, verbal analogy, two verses. What are “two verses”? Two verses that contradict one another? An inductive principle built from verses? I had thought of two options, not only that one. Either an inductive principle from two verses, which we know from Rabbi Yishmael, or “two verses that contradict each other until a third verse comes and decides between them.” Those are two principles we know. There is also “two verses do not teach,” but I don’t think that’s what’s intended here. In lists of principles, that doesn’t appear as a principle. So what is it? There is some third thing here that we don’t know. What? There are actually many more principles—many more than the thirteen, many more than the thirty-two as well, and later I’ll talk about that too.

In any case, if we say: a fortiori, verbal analogy, two verses—I’m saying this means either the inductive principle from two verses or two verses contradicting each other. Those are the two possibilities. Then: general and specific, something similar from another place, and a matter learned from its context. That makes six. But they said seven. “Hillel the Elder expounded seven principles before the Elders of Beteira,” and they bring six. So what is going on? Apparently there is some textual problem here.

You know there is an opposite problem in the baraita of Rabbi Yishmael, where it says there are thirteen principles, but in truth there are sixteen. There it is easier, because we can say: fine, these two count as one, or these are two forms of one principle. But here it is more problematic, because they also say there are seven, and in fact there are six. What, are we going to split one into two? Maybe “two verses” means the two things I mentioned—the two principles involving “two verses”? Fine, that’s strange; I don’t know. Or maybe something was simply omitted because of similarity. So “two verses” in this sense, “two verses” in that sense—someone may have said, fine, no need to write it twice, wrote “two verses” only once, and in practice we were left with a list of six when originally there were seven. There could be all kinds of hypotheses here.

There is a parallel text in the Tosefta in Sanhedrin, and there it says as follows: “Seven things Hillel the Elder expounded before the Elders of Beteira: an a fortiori inference, a verbal analogy, an inductive principle from one verse, two verses, a general and a specific, a specific and a general, something similar from another place, and a matter learned from its context.” Eight. Here everything is present except the number seven. So how do we understand this? As I said, the problem of too many principles is easier to solve, right? If there are too many principles, I can say: fine, two of them count as two sub-principles of one principle—for instance, an inductive principle from one verse and from two verses; one can say that’s really one inductive principle that has two appearances, or two possibilities, two sub-rules. Okay? So that is one possibility here indeed, because here there appears an inductive principle from one verse and from two verses. So if these are really two types of inductive principle, then I say: fine, the inductive principle is one principle, and then there really are seven principles.

Another possibility is, of course, to omit something. Here we have “general and specific” and “specific and general.” That is the added item beyond the source in Sifra. That too is a change. An inductive principle from one verse is one addition, and splitting “general and specific” and “specific and general” into two is the second addition. That’s how we got from six to eight. Now we have to see which of these can be adjusted—one of the two will be the solution to the problem. So either we omit the inductive principle from one verse and leave only “two verses,” or we treat both of them as one principle. Okay? But then it becomes a bit more problematic vis-à-vis the version in Sifra, because the version in Sifra brings “two verses.” If you wrote only “inductive principle,” I would understand. But if “two verses” appears, what is “two verses”? “Two verses” is the second sub-principle. So to my mind—again, these are hypotheses—but it seems less likely that this is the root of the issue.

It seems more likely that the root lies דווקא in “general and specific.” In Sifra it appears as “general and specific,” while in the Tosefta it appears as “general and specific” and “specific and general.” And apparently the intention is that these are one principle, with two sub-principles of the same form of exposition. We’ll see later that this is indeed the case, in an even broader way.

Now if this conclusion is correct, let’s move on for a moment with this hypothesis. If it is correct, then let’s go back to the inductive principle. So what are the “two verses”? An inductive principle from one verse and from two verses would be two principles, right? That’s two. You can’t combine them, because we combined “general and specific.” So an inductive principle from one verse and from two verses is two principles. So now what happens with the version in Sifra? There only “two verses” appears. Something there doesn’t fit. So one possible explanation—which seems reasonable to me—is to continue this hypothesis and say that “two verses” does not really mean an inductive principle from two verses, but rather “two verses that contradict each other until a third verse comes and decides between them.” Then what happens is that when “two verses” is written at the beginning of Sifra, it is indeed not some tail-end of the inductive principle, but rather the principle of “two verses”—namely, two verses contradicting one another. And in the Tosefta both principles appear: both the inductive principle from one verse and two verses contradicting one another. And the inductive principle was simply omitted from the list in Sifra. That seems like a more plausible proposal.

What? It says there “and from two verses.” No—“and two verses,” not “and from two verses.” It says there: “and an inductive principle from one verse and two verses, and general and specific.” Meaning that the “and” does not have to continue the inductive principle, but can be: and this, and this, and this—they are simply listing all the principles.

Now I also saw in Finkelstein and in various scholars of the interpretive principles—he has an edition of Sifra, five volumes; the first volume is devoted to the baraita of Rabbi Yishmael at the beginning of Sifra—he too argues that “two verses” here means two verses that contradict each other. He has various proofs regarding that. But if that is indeed correct, then it seems to me that this explains the difference between the versions.

In any case, bottom line: Hillel has seven principles, right? How many of them appear in Rabbi Yishmael? A fortiori appears; verbal analogy appears. If we adopt my proposal, then an inductive principle from one verse appears; two verses that contradict one another also appear; general and specific appears; “something similar from another place” does not appear; and “a matter learned from its context” does. Right? So “something similar from another place” is some other principle; that’s something different. But aside from that, almost all of Hillel’s principles appear also in Rabbi Yishmael. Right? What does that mean? It basically means there is a process of expansion here: at least six of Hillel’s principles appear also in Rabbi Yishmael, but with Rabbi Yishmael several more principles were added. So that already gives us some indication of the historical process.

Then there is the baraita of Rabbi Yishmael, the thirteen principles, as we said. There are sixteen there. I mentioned that earlier. Although it says at the beginning, “By thirteen principles the Torah is expounded,” the list contains sixteen. But those problems are easier to solve. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagree about exactly how to solve them, exactly how to count the principles. Are all the “general and specific” principles one principle? There are various possibilities. And that isn’t all that important for our purposes. It seems to me less significant for understanding the overall process.

What happens next? We have a midrash of Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosei the Galilean. And there, again, the original text does not survive, but we have various secondary sources that bring this baraita. And there appear 32, 33, 34—again, the version is unclear. Usually it is accepted that this is a baraita of 32 principles. Thirty-two principles. Rabbi HaNazir already speaks about places where there are 34 and 33. Also in Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer, the version there really is: “By thirty-three principles aggadic literature is expounded.” And the version indeed says “aggadic literature is expounded by them.” Because the medieval authorities already ask why this baraita contains 32 principles when Rabbi Yishmael has only 13. Okay? So the standard answer—the way people usually put it—is that these are principles for aggadic exposition. But that is not correct. It does not stand the test of reality. That is Rabbi Akiva’s midrash. What? That is Rabbi Akiva’s midrash. These are principles that fit Rabbi Akiva better. And the tanna who states them is also from Rabbi Akiva’s school. That is part of the point.

When you examine these principles, you see that some of them are principles of legal exposition, some are indeed aggadic exposition. But some of them are principles of legal exposition. Therefore the author of Sefer Keritut, one of the medieval authorities, Rabbi Shimshon of Kinon, when he brings this baraita, says that there are three explanations for the principles that appear there. The second explanation is that these are disputed principles, and Rabbi Yishmael brought only the agreed-upon principles. That explanation is a bit problematic, because Rabbi Yishmael brought the principles agreed upon by him—but Rabbi Akiva disagrees with him and expounds by inclusion and exclusion and inclusion, and Rabbi Yishmael does not expound that way, and it is not brought by Rabbi Yishmael. So it is not entirely clear what the author of Keritut means when he says these are principles that are not agreed upon.

It seems likely, at least, that he means this includes also—or perhaps only—principles of Rabbi Akiva, which Rabbi Yishmael did not include because he did not agree with them. Not because they are “not agreed upon,” but because Rabbi Yishmael did not agree with them; he belongs to a different school. But this school of the thirty-two principles is a set of principles belonging to Rabbi Akiva’s school. That is another explanation.

The third explanation—which is no less interesting, and we’ll see its significance later—is that some of the principles—again, these are not three alternative explanations, but for each of the principles that appear among the thirty-two and not among the thirteen, he offers one of these three explanations for why that is so—there are some principles which are there because they are aggadic; some are there because they are Rabbi Akiva’s principles and not Rabbi Yishmael’s; and some, this is the third explanation, are such that the result is as if it is explicitly written in the Torah. When we make that derivation, the result is basically as though it were explicitly written in the Torah. What does that mean?

I think what he means is the following, and we’ll expand on it later. Usually exposition and plain meaning—and on this too I’ll expand later; I’m only saying it briefly now because I’m dealing only with the overall framework—usually exposition and plain meaning are two layers that both exist in relation to the verse. They are not supposed to contradict each other. They may contradict in content, but I adopt them both. This is the exposition, and this is the plain meaning. Okay? “You shall fear the Lord your God”—to include Torah scholars. So the plain meaning says to fear the Holy One, blessed be He, and the exposition says to fear Torah scholars. The plain meaning does not say to fear Torah scholars, but it does not contradict the possibility that the exposition adds further laws. So these two systems exist in parallel with respect to every verse.

But there are derivations that are only seemingly derivations, while really they reveal to me what the plain meaning is. And therefore it looks like exposition, but in fact this derivation is based on the fact that the plain meaning cannot be read literally. The exposition replaces the plain meaning. Once the exposition replaces the plain meaning, then that exposition is not called exposition; it is called plain meaning. And later we’ll see what the practical difference is—there are halakhic ramifications.

Since it is called plain meaning, one cannot treat that principle as a principle of exposition. Just a borrowed example—even though it probably is still an exposition—but just to illustrate: for a verbal analogy, you need the term to be available on one side, on both sides, there are all kinds of discussions about what one does with each case. Once a word is available, what does that mean? It means that it has no explanation in the plain meaning; it is superfluous, right? So one could argue that someone who derives something from such a word has not created an exposition parallel to the plain meaning. After all, that is the only explanation for the available word. It has no explanation in the plain meaning, and the exposition offers another explanation. The exposition explains why this word appears here; the plain meaning offers no such explanation. So in that case, the exposition is really the plain meaning. For that word, the exposition is the plain meaning. And if so, then the principle we are using is not a principle of exposition; it is simply a tool of interpretation.

That is what Rabbi Shimshon of Shantz says: therefore, principles of this sort are not counted among the principles of exposition, because they are only seemingly exposition; in fact they are plain meaning.

If the plain meaning has no explanation and there are two derivations? What? If there are two derivations? Then there is a dispute over what the plain meaning is, just as there can be two plain-meaning interpretations. Fine. You have to decide which one you think is correct, or say one of them is the plain meaning and the other is the exposition if one seems more convincing to you, or something like that. There are various possibilities here.

There are such principles even among those of Rabbi Yishmael. A fortiori reasoning is also a principle of plain meaning. I didn’t understand? A fortiori reasoning is really a plain-meaning principle. What does it have to do with plain meaning? Fine, we’ll talk about that later, so let me just finish the framework. A fortiori is not really an interpretive principle at all. There may be something like “a matter learned from its context.” What? The derivation, the principle that says a matter is learned from its context? Or from its end? That has to do with place; something learned not in its own place. No—“context” means context. It means I shouldn’t look for it here; I take it to another place. Okay. Maybe “context” would indeed count as plain meaning according to Rabbi Shimshon. Could be. It depends what you think—whether you think there is also some plain-sense interpretation there. Something that has no plain-sense interpretation and only a midrashic interpretation—perhaps that is what Rabbi Shimshon means when he says this is not called a principle of exposition. It is called plain meaning.

You know, there is a debate here. Why not simply say that among the thirty-two there are also agreed-upon principles? Why not just say that the 32 principles also deal with kinds of things that really were not present in the thirteen principles? And why say they were present, but Rabbi Yishmael did not mention them? That’s a good question; I’m about to get to it. Why does Rabbi Yishmael add things that were not with Hillel? So let’s say Rabbi Eliezer added things that were not with Rabbi Yishmael. Right, I’m heading there. I just want to—one more remark before I continue.

There is a general debate among commentators, and scholars also deal with this, over the relation between plain meaning and exposition. There is an approach, characteristic mainly of commentators who fought against biblical criticism and so forth, or against critics of various kinds, that says exposition is really the depth of plain meaning. It is still very popular in Gush to this day—that exposition is the depth of plain meaning. Meaning, why? Because exposition ultimately relies on difficulties that may not be local, but on comparisons to other verses, or parallel sections, or the broader context in which this appears. There are more global interpretive considerations there. But once I take account of those global considerations, then I understand that this is indeed what is written here. Sometimes verbal analogy can be seen this way. Verbal analogy basically teaches me that at least some verbal analogies teach me that the meaning of this word is like the meaning of that word there, because after all the same word is used, and if there the meaning is such-and-such, then here too the meaning is such-and-such.

In fact, if you look even at Maimonides in the Book of Commandments, you can see this: a verbal analogy in the sense of clarifying a matter—as distinct from a regular verbal analogy—is really not considered a principle of exposition. It is plain meaning, because it merely reveals the meaning of the word. It is not adding laws as the result of some use of a principle of exposition. So sometimes there is room to say that exposition is the depth of plain meaning—the non-local, non-immediate plain meaning, taking somewhat broader considerations into account. But really, according to that conception, everything turns out to be plain meaning. There is no difference between exposition and plain meaning. So in fact everything is plain meaning. And therefore, it seems to me, that cannot be right. In other words, I do not think it is correct to define the interpretive principles that way. The interpretive principles are principles of exposition. True, they emerge from inquiry and investigation of the verse. Maybe one could have understood that from the term. What is inquiry? Inquiry means seeking, like searching, searching deeply—“inquiry and investigation.” Yes, inquiry and investigation.

I don’t know whether you discussed this last week, but part of the whole difficulty in relating to Scripture in terms of plain meaning and exposition is the assumption that plain meaning is the author’s intention, whereas exposition is supposedly not the author’s intention. And when you have a text in which the author supposedly has no single intention here, then all the terminology of plain meaning and exposition becomes problematic. Or he has several intentions. So if he has several intentions, then what have we done? Then the whole use of plain meaning and exposition is problematic. Why? The usual conception is that plain meaning is the author’s intention. No—plain meaning is not the author’s intention. Plain meaning is the meaning of the words in the verse, let’s say in a very rough definition. But the author also intended the exposition. Why can’t I say that? The author intended it; that is why he gave me the interpretive principles so that I could use them, because he intended both this and that, and he used two forms to convey this message: through the words as one reads an ordinary text, and through the interpretive tools.

Now regarding the definition of plain meaning—the assumption you just presented is that plain meaning is local. But if plain meaning is global—that is, to compare it to Rashi and Tosafot on the Talmud: Rashi interprets locally, whereas Tosafot interpret by bringing difficulties from another passage, and therefore understand everything as one whole, and therefore they must interpret it accordingly. Then someone may say that Tosafot are not plain meaning because they do not interpret the plain meaning. But this all comes out of an assumption. The question is whether we interpret locally or broadly. And that is exactly the claim. The claim that says exposition is merely the depth of plain meaning says: look like Tosafot, not like Rashi, and you’ll see that this is really the plain meaning.

But it seems to me from many places that this is not correct. When we get to clarifying that issue itself, I’ll expand more. Rather, plain meaning stands parallel to exposition. Both have to be derived from the verse. It’s not that exposition replaces plain meaning. From the very fact that exposition has a different status from plain meaning—and we’ll see this later as well—that follows automatically. If exposition were the true plain meaning, then exposition would be plain meaning. There would be no basis for distinguishing in halakhic status between exposition and plain meaning. And there are distinctions in halakhic status, at least according to some views.

According to this approach, this is something unique to the Torah. Meaning, you cannot find such a thing in external sources. If I say exposition is the plain meaning, that is something found אצלנו. Right, right—unique to that text, such that… I could also write you another text and tell you: “Look, take this code too and derive from it more information beyond the interpretation you give it.” If I did that, then that too would appear in the text I gave you. Fine—in principle, that is possible. Yes. Correct. Usually this is treated as an internal Torah issue. Exactly.

Maybe I’ll formulate it now a bit more explicitly. There are basically three fundamental approaches to exposition in general, or to the interpretive principles.

One approach says—Ralbag, I think I mentioned him last time if I remember correctly—Ralbag in the introduction to his commentary says, basically: look, you can’t really build anything serious on this; all the laws were known already and transmitted by tradition. Exposition came only afterward, I don’t know exactly for what purpose, but it is not really a system one can rely on to produce new laws. Therefore he claims that all derivations are derivations of authority.

The second approach is found in Maimonides, at least according to the straightforward sense of his language. In his introductions, Maimonides writes that the interpretive principles are some unique code that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us at Sinai together with the Torah, and told us: use these tools. It’s as though He said, this is like a substitution cipher. Okay? An arbitrary code—I could have used a completely different system of rules. I encoded laws in Scripture, besides the plain meaning of course, also in these forms. So if you make a verbal analogy, an a fortiori inference, an inductive principle, a general and specific, all kinds of things of that type, you will also arrive at correct laws. I took care of that—that’s what the Holy One, blessed be He, says. In the same way He could have encoded it in a substitution cipher, right? Or in any other code—it makes no difference.

According to this conception, there is no logic in the rules themselves? What? There is no logic in the rules themselves? Exactly. That’s why I went into this after your question. They were given in advance, and there is no possibility of adding to them. Yes, they were given in advance, and these rules are agreed upon. The Holy One, blessed be He, gave them; they are agreed upon; and this is a kind of convention. You know, both sides of the communication have to use the same code, otherwise the message cannot be decoded, right? On the other hand, there is no intrinsic meaning to the code. It has no internal logic. On the contrary: the less internal logic it has, the better—it is a better encryption, right? So it is not supposed to have any internal logic, but to be some system arising from agreement. Since the Holy One, blessed be He, told us in advance such-and-such, we accepted it, understood it, and now we make use of it. So there is an agreement.

One second. According to this conception, just understand the connection to the previous lesson, it seems there is no way to reconstruct it. If we lost it, if we forgot it—think of a spy who lost the codebook. How can he now try to understand the messages being sent to him? He cannot. There is no way to reconstruct it. Why? Because it is arbitrary, right? Because there is no logic to the code itself. If there were logic to the code itself, there might perhaps be room to try to reconstruct it based on various pieces of data. But if the code itself is arbitrary, there is nothing to be done with it.

No, no, no—it’s not really encryption in the sense that you don’t want anyone else to understand. No, of course not. Here it’s not so that others won’t know. No, it just creates some kind of arbitrariness, but a meaningful one. Meaning, something that can be reconstructed. So it is arbitrary but meaningful? A fortiori is something meaningful, it is logical reasoning; there is a lot of logic in that. Fine, a fortiori—let’s talk about the principles here. There is also the inductive principle. The inductive principle is also fine. Let’s talk about the textual principles, not the logical ones. General and specific. That too is textual logic. One has to see whether that is indeed so or not. Maimonides, for example, probably thought not. Probably. That is not his explicit language, but that is how it seems at least. No, he thought something entirely different. The point is: obviously this comes from some agreement. No, no—certainly not one-to-one and unequivocal; no one claims that. Yes, and obviously it comes from some sort of agreement. But it could still be that there is logic in it. Let me continue, because right now I’m just laying out the general framework.

Yes. According to what you said, should we have a different perspective when we study exposition than when we study plain meaning? For example, if we want to rule Jewish law from it, or things like that? Yes, yes, yes. It could be that there is a different perspective on exposition and plain meaning. We’ll see. Maimonides says that exposition is rabbinic teaching, for example. Now exactly what he means by that we’ll discuss, but he does say there is a difference. And that supposedly contradicts what you said—that exposition is also something… Not necessarily. I’ll get to that too later when we come to Maimonides. Again, I’m putting out lots of points here, all of which will be developed later. I’m just trying to set up the framework. Okay?

Why is it impossible to reconstruct? If it’s just points in a space… trying to make exposition… if it is an arbitrary code, I can produce infinitely many midrashim. Right? The classic example you’ve already heard from me several times, with points on a graph: you can connect them this way, and you can connect them that way, you can connect them in any shape you like. If it’s completely arbitrary, there is no way to reconstruct it. There’s that sharp line about sampling, right? Even if you sample at a resolution that satisfies the sampling theorem, you still won’t be able to sample it, because even there there is some assumption of Fourier expansion or something like that.

Does Maimonides say the rules are arbitrary, or that their application is arbitrary? No, no—the rules. The rules, not the application. You say the rules themselves. So I don’t understand what the problem is with reconstructing something based on the rule. You don’t know what the rule is. No—if you forgot the rule. You forgot the rule; we lost it. The examples are scattered… so what? So what? That’s what Nati asked earlier. There is no way to do it, because for every finite number of examples—even infinitely many but countable examples—there are infinitely many generalizations that fit them all. So what happens? Obviously you choose what seems more plausible, what… just as when you choose the straight line connecting points in an experiment—you connect them with a straight line. Why? Because it seems more likely to you that the line is straight. There is some logic to it. Simplicity—it seems that way to you. So you don’t make crazy connections; you take the simple one. Here too there must be some logic in order for reconstruction to be possible.

And therefore the third view—and this seems to me to be what Rabbi HaNazir conveys in many places—is that these rules were indeed given at Sinai, but there is some logic in them. They are not arbitrary rules. We’ll still see what the relation is here between logic and tradition, how exactly it works together. But yes, there is some logic in it.

For example—and I think maybe I mentioned this last time—derivations from general and specific that look completely arbitrary, like a code, there are quite a few sources where people use general-and-specific derivations on ordinary statements, not on verses. Did I mention that? I don’t remember. Yes? Meaning, there are cases where they apply general-and-specific derivations to texts that are not verses, not something someone intentionally formulated knowing that the reader would derive from them by general and specific. No. Rather, the assumption is that apparently when a person speaks, that is what he means. If so, then Rabbi HaNazir is right when he says that these rules probably do have some logic. Okay? Some logic. That doesn’t mean it is mathematics, of course, but there is some sort of logic here, some kind of skill.

Yes. If so, then according to Radbaz—meaning, is there really no logic in classifying the rules? Is it just… there is no logic in making derivations at all, not just in classifying the rules. What you arrive at in the classification… and secondly, where, in your opinion, does Lieberman come in? Meaning, Lieberman’s approach that the rules… are you familiar with it? He argues that according to the two other approaches—not Radbaz at the moment—what he says is that the interpretive principles have a source in the ancient Near East and things like that. Yes, meaning something like saying it’s not from Sinai. In the Greeks and the Hellenists. So I’ll get to that in a moment. Because according to both Maimonides and Rabbi HaNazir, as the rabbi presented them, it comes out that this is how Moses learned. Now according to Lieberman, as I understood him, he says that this was actually invented—meaning that Hillel, or in Hillel’s generation, introduced it. That was Hillel’s great innovation from heaven. So I disagree, and I’ll get to why in just a moment.

Yes. If we take the apologetic approach, which assumes that exposition is the plain meaning, what bothered them wasn’t the exposition—what bothered them was the plain meaning. What do you mean? They simply were not at peace with the plain meaning. So? They were forced to decide: “an eye for an eye”—there is no plain meaning. It has to be that the exposition is the plain meaning. No, I don’t remember—I think I mentioned this in the previous lesson too; you took me in various directions, so… I don’t remember. Rabbi Menashe of Ilya brings in the name of the Vilna Gaon—no, Rabbi Menashe of Ilya brought in the name of the Vilna Gaon an explanation of the relationship between plain meaning and exposition. He says the verse is always crooked when expounded. There is some difficulty in the plain meaning. Incidentally, some people build on this and say that exposition is the depth of plain meaning, because the verse is really crooked when you read it in its plain sense, and therefore it has to be expounded. But the Vilna Gaon himself does not write that. He himself writes that it is a very great mistake to identify exposition with plain meaning.

The Maharal of Prague, in Gevurot Hashem, says that every exposition also emerges from the wellspring of plain meaning. No, the Vilna Gaon says that too. Fine. He says it, but that still does not mean that exposition is the depth of plain meaning. Because the Vilna Gaon adds something else. He says, yes—but on the other hand, if you interpret it according to the exposition, then the verse is crooked that way too. Why? The verse is not complete either according to the exposition or according to the plain meaning. Yes, that’s the difficulty in the plain line. Meaning, “an eye for an eye”—you expound that as money, not an actual eye, right? So why didn’t the Torah write “money for an eye”? Didn’t it know how to write? Is exposition smooth too? Exposition isn’t smooth either. Rather what? I have some difficulty in the plain meaning. I offer a midrashic solution. But the midrashic solution still doesn’t explain why that midrash wasn’t written as the plain meaning. Why not? Didn’t the Torah know how to write that? Some combination? Exactly. So the Vilna Gaon says—and this is what he says—the reason is that the Torah wanted to tell us to derive both the exposition and the plain meaning. The only way to tell us that is to build a verse such that neither of the two interpretations will be complete. So you are forced to adopt both; let them both come. Yes, you cannot choose one of them. That is one of the principles, incidentally: let them both come. At the beginning of tractate Bava Kamma there, right? With iron horns there… not iron horns—with tooth and foot.

There is an understandable difference: the difficulty in the plain meaning is substantive, whereas in the exposition the difficulty is linguistic. It’s the same thing, it doesn’t matter; still, in both cases there is a difficulty. But it is a difficulty only—meaning, the difficulty in the plain meaning usually depends on worldview, many times. The question is why “an eye for an eye” is so difficult. It doesn’t matter to me why it is difficult, but for the sages it was difficult. Fine. So they came up with the solution: money for an eye. According to their view—why didn’t the Torah write “money for an eye”? Didn’t it know how to write that? Because it wanted us both to read “an eye for an eye” and to expound it as “money for an eye.”

The question is whether the exposition contradicts the plain meaning. In this specific case it does seem that it does contradict it, rather than complement it. And therefore you need both. And still you need both. But the question is whether the Sages were aware that there are two layers here, or whether they erase the first layer. No, I have no doubt they were aware. No doubt. There is exposition and there is plain meaning, and when the Sages say exposition they mean exposition parallel to plain meaning. The question, though, is whether when the Sages say this, they are aware that they are introducing a novelty, or whether they think they are uncovering some… That is the novelty. They are aware that they are deriving exposition, and that it is exposition and not plain meaning.

In this specific case it is very hard to know. If, for example, really in no… fine, but even in this specific case. In general, the Sages are fully aware of the difference between plain meaning and exposition. “I am expounding the verse,” he said to him. “Jacob our forefather did not die—I am expounding the verse. What do you want from me?” The question is whether the Sages knew the plain meaning, because nowhere do they explain the verse there according to the plain meaning. Huh? It seems more to me that the Sages are aware of the distinction. No, “nowhere” is a bit exaggerated, but they do not bother to explain the plain meaning when the plain meaning is known. They only add the exposition. Where the plain meaning is problematic, they add the exposition. Sometimes plain meaning is called by whatever it is, and then they also sometimes… but those are very isolated passages. And there really are problems in those sugyot; at one point I even wrote something about it. If you want, I can…

So let’s move forward. In practice, we have some process of development: we move from seven principles to thirteen principles, and after that to thirty-two principles. What does that actually mean? What it means, basically, is that the traditional thesis, which generally sees the interpretive principles as a law given to Moses at Sinai, is a problematic thesis. The unanimous view of all the medieval authorities, to the last of them as far as I know, is that the interpretive principles are a law given to Moses at Sinai. Midrash halakhah is a law given to Moses at Sinai. There is no medieval authority who disagrees with this, as far as I know—and people greater than me do not know of one either. There are some who wanted to say Maimonides disagrees with this—not at all. It is a law given to Moses at Sinai.

On the other hand, almost all scholars claim that this is not so. One can debate where it came from—whether it was borrowed from the Sumerians and Akkadians or not—but it developed over the course of history. There were seven principles; then there became thirteen; after that thirty-two. So how can it be a law given to Moses at Sinai? We see with our own eyes how this thing develops historically. So how can it be a law given to Moses at Sinai?

So here, it seems to me, we need to understand… When the medieval authorities say this, do they use the expression “a law given to Moses at Sinai”? Or do they say it was given to Moses at Sinai? Because the category of “a law given to Moses at Sinai” really contains a lot, as… No, no—“a law given to Moses at Sinai,” that’s what they say. In the historical sense, or in that other sense? However you interpret “a law given to Moses at Sinai.” I think that when the medieval authorities say “a law given to Moses at Sinai,” they mean it in the historical sense. Today there are all kinds of attempts to interpret that somewhat differently. But when the medieval authorities say “a law given to Moses at Sinai,” I think that is what they meant. Were they right or not? That can be debated. But that is what they meant, I think. It’s hard to say in the same place… what? If they claim this is a law given to Moses at Sinai, again we return to the question of what that means, and again it could… it could fail to contradict the scholarship in that sense. What do you mean? If “a law given to Moses at Sinai” is not meant in the historical sense, but in the sense of… Yes, of course. But they did mean it in the historical sense. No, there are also things that were renewed over the generations and we still call them “a law given to Moses at Sinai.” So in what sense is that “a law given to Moses at Sinai”? What, then everything is a law given to Moses at Sinai? As something agreed upon and beyond dispute, or something like that. But this is disputed. These thirteen principles are heavily disputed. There is a very fundamental dispute between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael about how to derive laws. So where is the difficulty? The difficulty, to my mind, is with the medieval authorities. Because apparently it does not look like a law given to Moses at Sinai from the straightforward reading of the sources. Okay?

When the Talmud says that measurements are a law given to Moses at Sinai, is that historical? Straightforwardly, yes—that’s the understanding. Measurements are a law given to Moses at Sinai. There too, what I’m about to say is relevant, I think. The Talmud itself brings there maybe a verse, maybe… there are various possibilities, right? “A land of wheat and barley…” The Talmud itself already raises the question whether this is a law given to Moses at Sinai or not. And once there are already several possibilities, that contradicts Maimonides’ criterion for a law given to Moses at Sinai—namely that no dispute arose about it. Okay? But even according to Maimonides, after all, in the end according to… Maimonides says no dispute arose until the students of Shammai and Hillel ceased to serve properly. But once there was no dispute, and today there is dispute. That is one possibility. In Chavot Yair there is a very famous responsum—I think 192—in which he collects all the laws given to Moses at Sinai in the Talmud, goes through them one by one to see whether they meet Maimonides’ test, and many of them don’t work. They do not meet it. There are laws given to Moses at Sinai about which disputes did arise. Some of them he succeeds in explaining; others he does not. One of the possibilities—I don’t remember whether it already appears there or among others—is indeed this: that no dispute arose about them until…

Look, what I really want to claim is the following. There is a passage in tractate Temurah. The Talmud says this, on page 16 toward the end of the tractate. “Returning to the main issue.” Sorry, Rabbi, there is an inspection from the Ministry of Education. Everyone in the 22-hour program, I ask that you just go out to sign for the people from the Ministry of Education and come back. Sorry, okay? They just came out of nowhere, told me “half an hour, hello.” No, they don’t work for me; they’re accounting inspectors from the Ministry of Education. They’re not… what time is it now? Two-thirty. No, no, they’ll leave in another half hour, salam. That’s it—all the scholarship funding here is on the line. Come on, two minutes, go write your names there in the room next to the library. Okay? And sorry—lost Torah study is on me; what can I tell you? Carefully, don’t go wandering off. Scattering is worthwhile… no doubt, no doubt. Can’t we add names? Not sure. That’s what they write, I don’t know. What can I tell you? Add your name, say you want to register, and go to the office. Afterwards go sort it out. I don’t know exactly how it works.

That’s the book where he speaks about the second root, that everything—all that is derived—is of Torah-level status, whereas what is “rabbinic” is “of the Sages.” There is no difference between rabbinic and “of the Sages.” Those well-known comments. There is no difference. In the Arabic translation—you have to remember—in the original Arabic it says “rabbinic”; there is no difference. Only the translator added “of the Sages”? No, what do you mean “added”? He translated the term “rabbinic” as “of the Sages.” That’s perfectly fine; it’s a reasonable translation. Mishneh Torah? No, not Mishneh Torah. That’s the difference. In the Book of Commandments, yes. Wait—is “rabbinic” there like how we use “rabbinic” today, or is it…? That is a question to which we’ll devote at least one session. We’ll discuss it later. The thirteen principles? General and specific. The thirteen principles of a fortiori and general and specific. Is that from Bar-Ilan University Press or from your publishing house? The Torah unit? Neither this nor that. Not the Torah unit. It’s from King’s College London. Not here? Not here—on Amazon. And one can also order it through Rashi Publishing, especially those in computer science who want it. Through Rashi Publishing.

There are implications in Rabbi HaNazir’s approach, and this matters for the various trends of recent years that try to renew study that actually derives laws using the Torah’s interpretive principles on the verses. I also think this is, overall, an ideological continuation of him; after all, he wanted this too, he aspired to it. People who work on this also see themselves as his continuers in that sense, even apart from his basic national conception. But it is definitely also connected to his basic conception, because if you do not understand the interpretive principles this way, then this whole project has no chance. That is really what I wanted to say today. Fine—we’ll continue next week.

Aggadah—do the rules apply also to principles of aggadic exposition? Not always. Not always. That is a different system. The principles of aggadic exposition I know less well. I don’t know whether the principles there look the same. In this version it says, “These are the thirty-three principles by which the Torah is expounded in aggadic literature.” You couldn’t ask for a stronger expression than that. Although again, the question is whether that version there is from a secondary source. I don’t know what the original said there.

We also saw that in the thirteen principles there is a kind of ping-pong in the Talmud. Meaning, there isn’t… there is one dispute, and all the rest is just ping-pong. He derives it from here, and he derives it from there. According to the first two approaches—even according to the second approach that the rabbi presented in the name of Maimonides—that’s what you can take and derive. That lacks all meaning; it has no meaning. No meaning? Why? According to Ralbag it really has no meaning at all. To make it vivid, to give some critical sense. According to Ralbag all derivations have no meaning; he is very straightforward about it. From the way the Talmud discusses the columns we mentioned, it is hard to understand what according to him… But even according to Maimonides, it seems to have no meaning. Why? Because it is not trying to teach you how to learn, and it has no practical difference. In this approach of making the derivation, there certainly is a practical difference. We talked about that in the previous lesson: if you derive that word in some derivation, then that word is no longer free to support another derivation. Fine, but really, given the ping-pong we have… But all that is important. In that ping-pong you have to decide from which word the derivation is made. Right? But all the ping-pongs get closed in the end. No—even if they get closed, it doesn’t matter. Why? Because if you seized this word and the other person did not seize this word, then he’ll do something else with it. He’ll do something else with it. So there is a practical difference. If he already expounded the word “et,” then he cannot derive another law from it. That has implications for another potential derivation that could have been made there.

Okay, I’ll just say that maybe it can’t be organized under a formal derivation, but most of the derivations I learn in the Talmud are not according to this category of one of the principles you are talking about. Just some derivation—how he learns it from the verse—in a simple way like that, abracadabra, and out comes a law. Okay, so what is that kind of derivation in relation to everything we’re talking about here? Look, in this lesson, in this course generally, I’m talking about the interpretive principles. So wait, that thing that currently has backing—those three times—it’s… Many of the derivations you don’t recognize, Tosafot in many places also note this, many derivations you don’t recognize do in fact belong to one of the principles, but it isn’t stated explicitly. For example, there are several general-and-specific derivations where Tosafot themselves say this is a derivation by general and specific. Even though in the Talmud nothing of the kind appears, they derive some law, you don’t understand where it came from, and Tosafot suddenly says it is general and specific. Or “something that was included in a general rule and came out from the general rule to teach,” and other things of that kind.

But it seems to me that most derivations in the Talmud are hard to identify in terms of which principle exactly they came from, if any. Part of the issue is that there are simply many principles—more principles than appear in our lists. We do not have a list of all the interpretive principles that exist. One of the important tasks is to collect the interpretive principles, to identify what principles there are at all, what people use, to gather them. Still, I feel that it does not have to be some formal principle. It is some kind of learning. It doesn’t feel so structured and organized and fixed in advance. That can be debated, because I truly don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it to you otherwise. I am speaking about the part of exposition that is institutionalized, the part where they already set rules and formulated them. I am speaking about that part precisely because there we have tools to see how it works. The second part—I don’t know. One can make hypotheses.

Okay, let’s continue. What I really want to say—and I’ll say it briefly because we are really nearing the end—is this. The Talmud in Temurah says that three thousand laws were forgotten during the mourning for Moses, and Othniel son of Kenaz restored them by his analytical reasoning. Afterward there is another baraita saying that 1,700 a fortiori inferences, verbal analogies, and fine points of the Sages were forgotten during the mourning for Moses, and nevertheless Othniel son of Kenaz restored them by his analytical reasoning. Okay? Two different versions.

Now these laws—it is not entirely clear what they are. Later the Talmud says: Rabbi Yitzchak Nappacha said: even the law of a sin-offering whose owners died was forgotten during the mourning for Moses. They said to Pinchas, “Ask.” He said to them, “It is not in heaven.” They said to Elazar, “Ask.” He said to them, “These are the commandments”—a prophet is not permitted to introduce anything from now on. And that’s it.

So what happened with that in the end? It does not say that Othniel restored it by his reasoning. They tried to clarify it in heaven, and it got stuck. Why did it get stuck? The Talmud says elsewhere—or even on the next page in Temurah itself—that the law of a sin-offering whose owners died is a law given to Moses at Sinai. A law given to Moses at Sinai cannot be reconstructed. How can you reconstruct it? The Holy One, blessed be He, told you some law; you forgot it. It did not emerge from some derivation from somewhere. You did not use some logical instrument to derive it so that you could now try to derive it again. It is an oral tradition. If you forgot it, it is gone. That is why they turned to Pinchas and the others—to heaven: tell us, give us the information. But that was forbidden. “It is not in heaven.” So we are stuck; we do not know the truth.

Incidentally, we do have a law about a sin-offering whose owners died. The discussion is whether it must die or graze until it develops a blemish. And the law is that it grazes until it develops a blemish, right? But the Pnei Moshe says that this does not have the status of a law given to Moses at Sinai, because the law given to Moses at Sinai that was originally said was forgotten. And now they reconstructed it anew. The question then is whether the reconstruction… I don’t know how they did it, but they generated that law anew; they did not recover the original law given to Moses at Sinai. So then the question is: what is its status? Is there room to say it still has the status of a law given to Moses at Sinai? Why? Because if I believe I reached the correct answer, then that correct answer is probably also what Moses transmitted. So it is probably a law given to Moses at Sinai. Even if I reached it by means of derivation or reasoning or whatever, still, if I truly believe this is the correct reasoning, then my assumption is that this is also the law that existed before it was forgotten. So it is a law given to Moses at Sinai. But Pnei Moshe on the Jerusalem Talmud—or Korban HaEdah—says there on the Jerusalem Talmud: no, it is no longer a law given to Moses at Sinai, because it no longer comes by force of tradition.

So what, then, did Othniel son of Kenaz actually restore? The 1,700 a fortiori inferences and verbal analogies. What did he actually do there? After all, during the forty days of Moses’ mourning they did not study Torah, right? It was forbidden to study Torah. There were forty days during which the people of Israel did not study Torah. And all the Oral Torah was then transmitted orally. It wasn’t written. So it says they forgot the Torah in that generation. But Moses transmitted all that Torah to Joshua, right? So how did Joshua forget so much? Yes—they forgot the laws. That is what the Talmud says. They forgot three thousand laws and 1,700 a fortiori inferences and verbal analogies. They forgot. “A fortiori inferences and verbal analogies,” incidentally, is obviously a term for laws derived by exposition. A fortiori and verbal analogy often appear in the words of the Sages as two poles. A fortiori—any person can derive on his own. Verbal analogy—only one who received it from his teacher may derive it. So this is a symbol for the most logical principle and the least logical principle, the one most dependent on tradition. When they say “a fortiori inferences and verbal analogies,” they mean the interpretive principles in general. That is the intent. And they forgot 1,700 derivational laws. And Othniel son of Kenaz restored them.

What does it mean that he restored them? He took the laws we still remembered—some were remembered, not everything was forgotten—and tried to distill from them the rules that had originally produced them. So if he saw that they included from the verse “You shall fear the Lord your God” to include Torah scholars, and “et” to include the elder brother, or the father’s wife, or all these occurrences of “et” that come to include, he found several such laws. Then he understood that the word “et” always comes to include. So he wrote down for himself: there is a rule—“et” always comes to include. Now I can go to the other occurrences of “et,” regarding which I no longer remember the laws, and derive them now using that rule. Then I create new laws after I have understood that this is the rule. And he did the same with the rest of the interpretive principles.

And what happened, basically, is that the “analytical reasoning” of Othniel son of Kenaz was nothing other than, in my humble opinion, scientific research. What he did—one second—was to take a collection of laws and try to distill from them the rules by virtue of which those laws had originally emerged. Once he distilled the rules, he formulated for himself a system of rules. If Moses had heard those rules, he would not have known what we were talking about at all. If you had said to Moses, “What is a verbal analogy? What is a verbal analogy? Or a fortiori? Or something that was part of a general category and came out of the category?”—he would not have known what that even means. Why? Because Moses transmitted things the way he received them at Sinai. The Holy One, blessed be He, studied the verse with him, and gave him this verse, “You shall fear the Lord your God,” and from this one learns also Torah scholars. Fine, move on. He did not even tell him the principle that every “et” comes to include—just as an example—or that there is verbal analogy, or that there is “something that was included in a general rule and came out from the general rule to teach.” These terms are later terms.

One second. These terms are later terms. If so, why is it obvious that this comes from Moses all the same? Wait, wait, one second, let me just finish, because I want to end on a point that can close the topic. What did Moses transmit? Moses transmitted it like language acquisition. When a baby learns language from his parents, they don’t tell him rules about pronunciation or grammar. They speak to him. And once he understands how people speak, he can speak even sentences he never heard.

Moses received this from the Holy One, blessed be He, as a kind of language. A mother tongue. He knew how to read the Torah and derive from it without using a formulated system of rules. When we forgot this—it is a kind of craft. And a craft can be forgotten. So what do we do? We try to reconstruct it by means of scientific research. We take the examples and try to generalize from them and identify the principle behind them. Once we have found that principle, even Moses would not have known it. Moses did not know that principle. Moses simply used it. Just as if you tell a child rules of pronunciation, he will ask what you are talking about. But he does pronounce correctly. He simply does not know there is a rule. Moses is the same. And there is a long historical process of reconstruction and formalization of what Moses did. Moses did it intuitively, and we take what he did and cast it into fixed patterns of rules and create lists of rules from it.

That is the reconstruction done by Othniel son of Kenaz, and in my opinion it is a reconstruction that continues throughout history, until the stage when people at least began to forget. And the fingerprints of that reconstruction we saw today: Hillel had seven principles. In Hillel’s time, the list of reconstructions already contained seven formulated rules. Okay? In Rabbi Yishmael’s time it already contained thirteen, and not by accident six of them already appeared in Hillel—because Rabbi Yishmael does not dispute Hillel. Rabbi Yishmael continued the process of formalization, and now he already has a list of thirteen. After that comes the list of Rabbi Yosei the Galilean, and now there are already thirty-two. Continue onward, and there is the Eshkol HaKofer, which is Karaite, or other additional sources where you see there are many more principles. Rav Sherira Gaon’s letter. Just look in the Talmud itself—there are more principles. “Two verses that contradict each other,” “two verses that come as one do not teach”—none of that appears in any of the lists, and yet it is also a principle.

There are many principles that do not appear. If you make a complete list of all the principles, I don’t think you’ll succeed, because the question is what counts as a principle and what does not. One must continue Othniel son of Kenaz’s process of reconstructing the DNA. But you will discover lists that become more and more detailed.

Therefore, in fact—and here I’ll stop for today—on the one hand this is a law given to Moses at Sinai; everything came down from Sinai; nothing was invented. On the other hand, there is a historical process of reconstruction and formalization and the creation of lists, because we are constantly forgetting—or really losing—the basic intuition of how to use the language. We no longer understand it in our blood; it no longer flows naturally for us the way it does for a small child learning language from his parents. So we need to work with rules, and we reconstruct the rules. And the farther we get from the source, the farther we are from that simple intuition, the more rules we need in order to help us nonetheless use these techniques. That is why the lists keep getting longer.

But those ever-lengthening lists do not mean this is not a law given to Moses at Sinai. They only mean that the concept of “a law given to Moses at Sinai” has to be interpreted a bit more liberally, let’s call it that. In other words, the principles all came down from Sinai; nothing was invented. But the formalization, the phrasing, and the definitions of the rules are something that developed over the course of history. But what are people trying to formalize and reconstruct? What Moses did. It is not an invention; it is a formalization of something that was transmitted by tradition. And we continue that process of formalization even beyond that.

This point I’ll still expand a bit next time. What I want to say here, basically, is that the scholars’ conception on the one hand and the traditional conception on the other do not necessarily contradict each other. And if we add one more idea—and with this I’ll finish—if we add the idea that these principles have some logic to them, because otherwise they could not have been reconstructed, as I said earlier, then it is also no surprise that people find their fingerprints in the ancient Near East. Because if they contain logic, why shouldn’t others use them too? Others use them too. If it really makes sense to interpret texts this way, then why shouldn’t others use that as well? That is not surprising at all.

If, on the contrary, we understand that there is no logic in them, then you can say: “Well, how could this appear both among us and among them? Apparently we copied it from them.” But then of course the question arises: why did they use it if it has no logic? That is not clear. But if it has logic, why should it bother us that it appears there too? Right? Everyone uses logic to interpret texts. That’s all. Among us, of course, it underwent a more precise formulation, more order, more formalization, because the Holy One, blessed be He, also transmitted information to us. It is not merely the use of logic, full stop. Otherwise we would not need anything like a law given to Moses at Sinai; we would simply use our own logic, and that would be enough. Our logic alone is not enough. But there is some logical dimension here that helps us place the language we received from the Holy One, blessed be He, into patterns, into more defined rules.