Between a Rabbi and an Expert – Lesson 1

Table of Contents

• Trigger for the discussion: Yoram Yovel’s article and the relationship between a rabbi and an expert
• The simple model: a division between facts and norms
• First example: “saving a life” in territorial concessions and the debate over factual authority
• A dispute between experts and a rabbi: a sick person on Yom Kippur as a test case
• Advice versus obligation: an analogy to a doctor
• Second example: permitted speed on the road, “you shall greatly guard your lives,” and a disagreement with Rabbi Nebenzahl
• A lecture on Jewish law and medicine, and the need to rely on an expert
• A rabbi who is also a doctor, the laws of doubt, and the distinction between a factual determination and a halakhic determination
• A religious court versus a rabbi, freedom of speech versus the question of authority, and Rabbi Lichtenstein of blessed memory
• The example of a solar water heater and returning the question to the principle of authority over facts
• Moving from a two-stage model to a three-stage model: a risk graph and setting a cut-off
• Non-identity between the legal threshold and the halakhic threshold, and the possibility of linking them as a matter of choice
• A critique of “permission from a rabbi” and describing the rabbi as an expert advisor
• A community rabbi as an authority by virtue of appointment versus a general halakhic decisor
• Returning to territorial concessions: experts provide a “risk graph,” and the decision about “saving a life” is value-based and halakhic
• A legal example: the Poynting case and transferring the doubt “through the air”

Summary

General Overview

The text presents a critique of the simplistic understanding according to which the professional determines the “facts” and the rabbi merely applies Jewish law to them. It argues that in many cases, the very definition of what counts as “dangerous,” “saving a life,” or a “relevant fact” includes a value-based halakhic component that is not handed over to the expert. The author brings examples from rabbinic rulings on territorial concessions, eating on Yom Kippur, and the permitted speed on the road, and proposes a three-stage model in which the expert supplies data, like a risk graph, the normative authority sets the risk threshold, and only then is the practical ruling determined. He distinguishes between a rabbi as a professional advisor and a community rabbi as an authority by virtue of appointment, rejects the idea of “permission from a rabbi” as a real concept, and emphasizes that the clash between expertise and authority depends on the question of what belongs to the realm of decision and what belongs to the realm of data.

Trigger for the discussion: Yoram Yovel’s article and the relationship between a rabbi and an expert

The author explains that the topic came up for him following an article by Yoram Yovel about homosexuality, which argued that since the 1970s psychiatry no longer sees it as a deviation or an illness. He describes a claim according to which rabbis who relate to it as an illness are seen as outdated or as people who are not operating according to the “usual model” of relations between a rabbi and a professional, and he says this is a fundamental misunderstanding that he keeps encountering and wants to clarify.

The simple model: a division between facts and norms

The author describes a common model based on the relationship between a rabbi and a doctor, in which the professional is authorized to determine facts like illness or mortal danger, and afterward the rabbi determines the Jewish law relevant to those facts, such as desecrating the Sabbath or eating on Yom Kippur. He says that this model is true in a certain sense, but it gives only a partial picture, because the boundary between “facts” and “norms” is not as sharp as it seems.

First example: “saving a life” in territorial concessions and the debate over factual authority

The author brings a ruling published in the name of Rabbi Neriya, Rabbi Israeli, and another rabbi, according to which handing over territory to the Palestinians constitutes saving a life and is therefore forbidden from a halakhic standpoint. He describes an internal critique within the halakhic world according to which the rabbis exceeded their authority when they determined that this was a case of saving a life, since that was treated as a factual determination. He raises the question whether a rabbi has authority to determine the factual groundwork when there is no clear scientific expertise, and whether a private individual needs to “bend” to a rabbi’s factual determination even when he does not accept it. He quotes the position attributed to Rabbi Amital, according to which in areas of politics, policy, and security, rabbis have nothing to say “as rabbis,” only at most as ordinary people with an opinion.

A dispute between experts and a rabbi: a sick person on Yom Kippur as a test case

The author raises a case in which two doctors disagree about whether the situation involves saving a life on Yom Kippur, and the rabbi hears both of them and decides that it does, and therefore permits eating. He asks whether the sick person is allowed to decide differently if he believes the second doctor, and whether the rabbi’s determination carries any “extra weight” when he is not a medical expert and not an expert in choosing between experts. He sharpens the point that the need for the rabbi is for a halakhic determination, but the question remains whether turning to a rabbi obligates a person to accept his interpretation of the facts as well.

Advice versus obligation: an analogy to a doctor

The author compares a rabbi to a doctor and argues that just as a person is not “obligated” to take medicine only because a doctor prescribed it, so too a rabbi can be heard as a source of advice and not as someone who binds you in the factual realm. He formulates the problem as an inquiry into what a rabbi’s authority is with respect to factual determinations, and not as a technical question about the very act of asking.

Second example: permitted speed on the road, “you shall greatly guard your lives,” and a disagreement with Rabbi Nebenzahl

The author cites rulings he has seen, especially one by Rabbi Nebenzahl, that someone who drives in violation of traffic laws at excessive speed is a “halakhic offender” by force of “you shall greatly guard your lives.” He emphasizes that he is not talking about “the law of the kingdom is the law,” but about a halakhic prohibition against placing oneself in danger, and he argues that he does not agree with the conclusion that anyone who exceeds the speed limit is a halakhic offender. He points out that according to the simple model, Rabbi Nebenzahl relies on experts to determine what is dangerous and what is not dangerous, but he himself argues that this does not require the legal threshold and the halakhic threshold to be identical.

A lecture on Jewish law and medicine, and the need to rely on an expert

The author describes how he participates in a lecture on Jewish law and medicine by Rabbi Zilberstein, in which doctors present questions and statistics, and sometimes the rabbi asks for an additional opinion. He emphasizes that in certain fields the rabbi cannot determine the facts on his own and therefore must rely on an expert. He says that his discussion focuses precisely on cases where the rabbi thinks he knows the facts and makes a factual determination, while the listener evaluates the facts differently.

A rabbi who is also a doctor, the laws of doubt, and the distinction between a factual determination and a halakhic determination

The author raises the possibility of a rabbi who is also a doctor and argues that this only changes “hats” and does not fundamentally alter the problem, because in the factual domain he is acting as a doctor and one can choose another doctor who disagrees with him. He distinguishes between a case in which the rabbi rules on the laws of doubt in a situation of disagreement between experts, which in his view is a purely halakhic determination, and a case in which the rabbi decides which expert is factually correct, in which case he is entering the factual domain.

A religious court versus a rabbi, freedom of speech versus the question of authority, and Rabbi Lichtenstein of blessed memory

The author distinguishes between a religious court as a governing authority that binds through its determinations, and a rabbi as a professional figure whose ruling is not necessarily binding in the same way. He says there is no logic in “silencing” rabbis in non-sacred matters just because they are rabbis, and he distinguishes between their right to express an opinion and the question whether there is an obligation to obey them. He tells how he met Rabbi Lichtenstein of blessed memory, who combined the view that rabbis have no authority in political and factual areas with anger that the National Religious Party consults everyone “except the rabbis,” because even without binding authority, it is still proper to consult wise people and scholars of Torah.

The example of a solar water heater and returning the question to the principle of authority over facts

The author examines a scenario in which a rabbi publishes a ruling based on a factual determination regarding heating water on the Sabbath, and the questioner disagrees about the facts but not about the Jewish law itself. He insists that the fundamental question does not depend on whether there is an expert, whether there is a consensus, or whether he is “stupid,” but on whether authority in the realm of facts exists at all, and whether a factual disagreement creates an obligation to obey the rabbi.

Moving from a two-stage model to a three-stage model: a risk graph and setting a cut-off

The author presents a model in which a traffic expert cannot determine “dangerous speed” as such, but can only supply a graph of risk as a function of speed. He argues that an additional decision is needed in order to determine what level of risk is the threshold above which something is considered “dangerous,” and only afterward can one determine a norm such as a prohibition against driving at a dangerous speed. He defines the setting of that threshold as a value-based halakhic decision, and compares this to the realm of law, where the legislator must determine the level of risk he is willing to allow, rather than merely relying on experts.

Non-identity between the legal threshold and the halakhic threshold, and the possibility of linking them as a matter of choice

The author argues that the fact that the law sets a permitted speed does not necessarily mean that this is also the halakhic threshold of “you shall greatly guard your lives,” because Jewish law may place the cut-off elsewhere. He agrees that a person of Jewish law may choose to align the halakhic threshold with the legal one for reasons of logic or policy, but he rejects the essential claim that the legal threshold itself “determines” the Jewish law. He notes that in Rabbi Zilberstein’s lectures, probability data are in fact used in order to connect them to halakhic questions such as minority, and he describes this as an illustration of the model in which the data come from the expert but the threshold is a halakhic decision.

A critique of “permission from a rabbi” and describing the rabbi as an expert advisor

The author describes cases involving questions about women being called up to the Torah and about “family planning,” and argues that people look for a “clear halakhic ruling” or “permission” in order to shift the responsibility for the decision onto the rabbi. He says that “there is no such thing as getting permission from a rabbi,” because if something is permitted, then it is permitted, and if it is forbidden, then “permission” only causes a stumbling block. He defines the rabbi’s role as presenting the halakhic picture and laying out the halakhic costs of the various options. He says that deciding where to draw the line in situations of pressure, difficulty, or risk is sometimes a decision that the questioner himself must make according to his own situation, similar to drawing the line on the “graph.”

A community rabbi as an authority by virtue of appointment versus a general halakhic decisor

The author distinguishes between a rabbi as a professional advisor and a community rabbi as an authority, and explains that the authority of a community rabbi comes from the mandate the community gave him to decide, and not from his knowledge as such. He says there may be Torah scholars greater than he is who nevertheless have no authority in that community, because the authority is institutional and not epistemic.

Returning to territorial concessions: experts provide a “risk graph,” and the decision about “saving a life” is value-based and halakhic

The author argues that in the question of territorial concessions too, experts can at most describe scenarios and levels of risk, but they cannot determine what counts as “saving a life” as a binding category. He presents the decision whether a certain level of risk falls under the heading of saving a life as a value-based decision entrusted to the normative decision-maker — in the halakhic context, the rabbi, and in the political context, the government — and emphasizes that this is the same basic structure of decision-making. He acknowledges that in practice the rabbis may not have had complete information and that they operate under conditions of uncertainty, but he maintains the principled claim that the question is halakhic and not merely professional.

A legal example: the Poynting case and transferring the doubt “through the air”

The author brings an anecdote about a federal law in the United States under which payment to an intermediary state is required if a transfer is made “through wires” but not if it is made “through the air,” and he describes a case in which a physics opinion was brought based on the Poynting vector, according to which power is transferred through the fields around the wire. He presents this as an example of how a legal definition depends on a complex factual-scientific question, in which an expert may change the application of the law by clarifying the mechanism of reality.

The topic I thought I’d deal with now is Jewish law and facts, or really the relationship between a rabbi and an expert, a professional. Why did this suddenly come to me now? I don’t know whether any of you happened to read in Makor Rishon, but two weeks ago there was an article by Yoram Yovel, the psychiatrist, about homosexuality. And he argued that psychiatry, already since the 1970s, stopped relating to this phenomenon as a deviation or an illness, and rabbis who still relate to it that way, like Rabbi Avenstein and things that have come up lately, basically gave the impression that they’re not up to date on the professional knowledge, or that they’re not acting according to the usual model of the relationship between a rabbi and a professional. That’s a very fundamental misunderstanding. I think it’s not the first time I’ve run into it, and that’s why I responded there, and we’re still continuing with it, and we also continued on our websites with this discussion, and I want to clarify this topic a bit. In the usual accepted model of relations between a rabbi and a professional, it seems to me that it’s drawn mainly from the relationship between a rabbi and a doctor. In rabbinic sources there are very few fields considered professional fields. In earlier periods there weren’t professionals in so many areas; a doctor was considered a professional. Today there’s technology and all kinds of fields with professionals, so this area is much broader, much more discussed, much more relevant to our lives. But the model we draw from, from what actually appears in Jewish law, is the relationship between a rabbi and a doctor. What happens there? In the simple model that usually stands before people’s eyes, the professional is supposed to provide the facts and the rabbi is supposed to determine what the Jewish law is with regard to those facts. The rabbi isn’t supposed to determine whether the person is sick, or whether he’s in mortal danger or something like that—that’s determined by a doctor. After the doctor determines those facts, the rabbi can determine whether one is allowed to desecrate the Sabbath, whether one is allowed to eat on Yom Kippur, I don’t know, idolatry—here the halakhic determination enters. So basically there’s some sharp division between two planes of discussion: the factual plane, which is entrusted to the professional or the expert, and the normative plane, which is entrusted to the rabbi, the halakhic plane. That’s true in a certain sense, but it’s only a partial picture. I’ll bring two examples to sharpen this point. The first example—and that’s where this coin first dropped for me: years ago some halakhic ruling was published—that’s what they called it—by Rabbi Neriya, Rabbi Yisraeli, and someone else, I don’t remember who the third was, maybe Rabbi Avraham Shapira, I don’t remember anymore. They said that handing over territory to the Palestinians is a case of saving life, and from a halakhic standpoint it’s forbidden to do so. That’s how it was published: a halakhic ruling that all three signed. From time to time things like this get published; there it was a bit unusual because the figures were considered more significant. And then a big debate arose—by the way, much more within the halakhic world than outside it, within the religious and halakhic world than outside it—because people felt, and people spoke to me that way too, various people and students as well, that basically those rabbis had exceeded their authority. Because if the rabbi had said that in his view handing over territory is this sort of mortal danger—something one must die rather than transgress—this is his halakhic determination, that it’s forbidden to hand over territory even if it’s mortal danger—that would be a pure halakhic statement, and that is within the rabbi’s authority. Whether he’s right or wrong—there are opinions this way and that way—but that is a halakhic statement. And therefore that statement is entrusted to the rabbi, meaning he’s supposed to determine what the Jewish law says. But what they wrote there was not that. They wrote that this is a matter of mortal danger and therefore it is forbidden. Now, the determination that this is a matter of mortal danger is a factual determination. That it is forbidden is a normative determination—if it’s mortal danger, it is forbidden. But that it is a matter of mortal danger, that determination itself, the factual basis for the halakhic ruling, is ostensibly not entrusted to rabbis; that is supposed to be determined by experts, generals, politicians, whoever it may be. It’s doubtful whether there are experts on this matter—I tend to think not—but that doesn’t matter at all for the principled point. It isn’t all that scientific. Right, so that’s exactly what I’m pointing out now. I’m saying it’s doubtful whether there are experts on this matter, but that doesn’t change the principled issue. Fine, so there are no experts on this matter. Then I’m the expert. I’m the ordinary private person. I arrive at the conclusion that in my opinion there’s no mortal danger here. Fine, let’s say. Now, there are no experts here, there’s no absolute truth, all fine. Even in places where there are experts there’s no absolute truth. But fine, there are no experts. The question still remains whether this is within the rabbi’s authority. Meaning, if he says there is mortal danger here, am I supposed to bow to that? When I set a rabbi against an expert, it’s only to sharpen the issue, only to illustrate it. My question isn’t about experts. My question is about the status of a rabbi with respect to factual determinations. There are factual determinations that require an expert, and there is an expert for them; and there are factual determinations that don’t, so I’ll determine them. The question is whether he has authority to determine such a thing. That’s a factual determination. So students came to me too from various yeshivot—I don’t remember anymore—people came to me and said: what do you mean? This is a factual question, regardless now of whether they’re right or not. Why are they suddenly issuing a halakhic ruling on this issue? It’s a factual question. Why should I obey them at all? If we broaden this more, Rabbi Amital, I think, wrote more than once that in general, in the areas of politics and policy and security, these things aren’t entrusted to rabbis at all. Rabbis have nothing to say about them as rabbis. They can speak like anyone else; everyone gives an opinion. But in their capacity as rabbis they have nothing to say in those areas. And that’s equally true. What would the law be if two doctors say on Yom Kippur that according to one this is mortal danger and according to the other it isn’t? And the rabbi hears both and says: this is mortal danger and therefore eating is permitted. Then he isn’t ruling? Same question. So the rabbi hears two experts and says: I think this is mortal danger and therefore I permit eating. And I, the patient say, think not, and therefore I won’t eat. Am I allowed to? I trust that expert, the rabbi trusted the other expert. It may be that because this is a public question it’s different from a private question. Fine, that’s technical. Let’s speak for a moment about a private individual; afterwards we’ll see what to do in public matters. But it seems to me that fundamentally he also means with respect to a private individual in the same kind of determinations, not only because it’s public. We’ll talk about the public issue afterward. First I want to demonstrate it in simpler cases regarding an individual. Like in this example. There’s a dispute between two. My intuition goes with this doctor. I’m not an expert either, but fine, that’s what I think. The rabbi goes with the other expert; he’s not an expert either. Is his determination worth more than mine? No, but there he relies on one opinion and I rely on the other. He’s not an expert about experts either, meaning he isn’t an expert in which of the two experts is more authoritative, right? It’s the same question. So the question is whether his determination carries extra weight in his capacity as a rabbi. So what do you need the rabbi for at all? To determine halakhic determinations. Wait—you said the rabbi ruled that this is mortal danger and you said no, I don’t accept that. Are you ignoring the rabbi’s ruling? Obviously. Because that’s a factual domain. So what do you need the rabbi for? For the Jewish law. Go to the facts, accept the doctor’s opinion, and then make a decision. You don’t know whether when you’re in danger you’re allowed to eat on Yom Kippur or forbidden to eat. You go to a rabbi to ask him, because that’s a halakhic statement, not a factual one. You go to a doctor; he tells you you’re in mortal danger. Now I go to the rabbi and I say: listen, the doctor said I’m in mortal danger, am I allowed to eat on Yom Kippur? How should I eat—tiny amounts, or eat normally? That’s the rabbi’s determination, a halakhic determination. If you know the Jewish law there’s no problem. But you go to the rabbi when you don’t know the Jewish law, not when you don’t know reality. If you didn’t go to the rabbi, no problem. But if you did go to the rabbi, do you have to accept his interpretation of the facts? And where does that come from? So why do you go to a rabbi? To consult. When you go to a doctor, do you have to take the medicine he prescribes? Otherwise why go to the doctor? You go to the rabbi to decide factually what to do. No, I’m asking now a completely different question, just independent of Jewish law. You go to a doctor with some illness and he prescribes medicine. Do you have to accept what he said? No. If you consulted him, do you have to accept it? No. So why go to him? You go to him because he is the expert and you want to hear what he thinks. The rabbi is the expert in interpreting the facts. Right, so I go to the rabbi and I’m not obliged to listen to his opinion, exactly as I go to the doctor and I’m not obliged to listen to his opinion. So is that walk there just worth the travel expenses? Why just travel expenses? I wanted to hear his opinion. Yes, what’s the problem? Maybe he’ll enlighten me, maybe he’ll persuade me, maybe. The question is the other way around. You’re saying it from the side of the questioner. Then say: make for yourself a rabbi—if you already went to him, then listen to his voice. Your question is about the rabbi. So that’s one example, the example of mortal danger. And already here I’ll say that I agree with the rabbis—uncharacteristically for me. I think this is a halakhic question, and the rabbi does have authority to determine it. That’s one example. A second example is the example of the permitted speed on the road. There are a number of rulings by rabbis that I’ve seen—Rabbi Nebenzahl once wrote this and others—that someone who drives not according to traffic laws, at excessive speed or something like that, is a halakhic offender. “You shall greatly guard your lives,” and so on. Meaning, someone who exceeds the permitted speed is a halakhic offender. And again, what stands behind this? Behind it is a conception that says the experts determine which kind of driving is dangerous, and after the experts determine which driving is dangerous, the Torah forbids putting oneself in danger: “You shall greatly guard your lives.” And therefore anyone who violates the determination of the traffic laws is a halakhic offender. Again, the same conception. What? No, the law of the land is law is something else. I’m speaking right now about violating “You shall greatly guard your lives,” not about the law of the land is law. Apparently the rabbis have some sort of Bureau of Statistics. Again? Bureau of Statistics. Bureau? Bureau… bureau. Bureau. And by means of that they determine so many things that it’s… okay, so that’s often a claim against them. Fine, I’ll return to that point, because I actually agree with it—not with the claim, with the exclamation point at the end. In a moment, later on, I’ll come back to it. But this example is exactly the opposite of the previous example. Right, completely opposite. Because here he didn’t make an objective determination; he determined according to the experts. Exactly. Here Rabbi Nebenzahl actually takes the side not of the rabbis in the previous example. He basically says: render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto the pope what is the pope’s. Meaning, the expert will determine what is dangerous and what is not dangerous—that’s the professional—and then I, as a rabbi, tell you that this is forbidden to do; beyond that speed one may not drive. So he actually adopts the position of those who criticized the rabbis’ ruling in the previous example. And I really don’t agree with him. I don’t agree with him, and in my view someone who exceeds the permitted speed is not a halakhic offender. Again, I’m not talking about the law of the land is law and the obligation to obey the law; that’s a different issue. I’m talking about the laws of “You shall greatly guard your lives.” Fine, the first issue too was one where the rabbis brought in the same thing here, “and you shall guard yourselves.” So those are two examples; there are many such examples. And in both of these examples, according to the simple model of the relationship between a rabbi and an expert, one is driven to accept the words of the critics of the ruling of the three rabbis in the first example, right? What are you doing determining what counts as mortal danger? Let the expert determine what counts as mortal danger, and you determine what should be done with that. And to accept the words of Rabbi Nebenzahl in the second example, who says that the expert determines what speed is permitted or dangerous or not, and then the rabbi determines whether one may drive that way or not—“You shall greatly guard your lives,” so it’s forbidden. That’s the halakhic determination. Right? That is basically the result of the simple model, in which the expert determines the facts and afterward the rabbi says what is forbidden and what is permitted. I don’t quite agree, because there are things you ask a rabbi and he says: how can I know? For example, I go once a month to Rabbi Zilberstein’s class on Jewish law and medicine. Is it open also to non-doctors? It’s open also to non-doctors. Most are doctors. But the whole class is that some doctor presents some question and statistics and so on, and then there’s an hour-and-a-half lecture. Sometimes the rabbi asks another expert to get more information. And the rabbi says: how can he determine the facts? He doesn’t know; it’s not his field; it’s something very specific, so he has to rely on the expert. There’s no alternative; he can’t say I disagree with the doctor. He can’t agree. So what’s the question? I’m saying that in something like mortal danger in settling the land, the rabbis say: we understood something, we think we know the facts. But with speed, what—how can the rabbi say that seventy kilometers is dangerous, sixty isn’t, and so on? He has no way to determine that. I’ll get to that in a moment—even the expert has no way to determine that. But the question you’re asking deals with an entirely different plane. You’re talking about whether a rabbi has authority to determine facts in a place where he can know the facts. If he can’t know the facts, then in a place where he doesn’t make the factual determination I’m not talking. I’m speaking about a situation where the rabbi does make a factual determination and apparently thinks he knows, but I evaluate the facts differently from him. Do I need to obey him? Yes, but I’m saying that in the case of Rabbi Nebenzahl, the rabbi can’t know what speed of driving on this road is dangerous. I’m saying, but that distinction isn’t important because basically you’re talking about a technical distinction, that there are fields in which the rabbi simply can’t know the facts, so he won’t express a view about them. But where the rabbi does express a view, he says: I know the facts, in my opinion these are the facts, and now I’m issuing a halakhic ruling. I’m only saying that Rabbi Nebenzahl doesn’t have to disagree with the other rabbis. He says that in terms of facts, in the case of road speed… No, he can say that there I have no way to know and here I do. Fine, but then it really isn’t a disagreement, only a practical distinction, that there are fields where I can… But it doesn’t matter for my purposes, because I want to discuss the principled question: even if the rabbi has a way to know the facts, but I disagree with him about the facts—about the facts, not the Jewish law—do I need to obey what he says? I think differently about the facts. Does he have halakhic authority on that matter? Meaning, the question is whether he can determine the facts at all; if he’s a responsible person he simply won’t express a view if he can’t determine the facts. I’m talking about a responsible rabbi. Meaning, he did his checking, he reached the conclusion that this is the factual situation. Fine? I have no problem with him, no criticism of him; he acted responsibly according to his approach. And still I evaluate the facts differently from him. Now in the factual realm he isn’t a greater expert than I am; he’s a rabbi, not a security or traffic expert. So now the question is whether I have to obey him, whether he has authority in that field. That’s the question I’m asking. Okay. Fine, so I want… So wait, there’s a difference if he is, let’s say, a rabbi who is also a doctor. Then he has to switch hats. Meaning he’ll wear the doctor’s hat and make the factual determination, and afterward switch the hat to the rabbi’s hat and determine what is forbidden and what is permitted. Fine, but still at the substantive level there’s some homunculus inside him, yes, another little man who… He’s basically two people, this rabbi. It doesn’t change the situation in principle. No, it doesn’t change it at all. But as a doctor I need to know which hat he’s wearing. Yes. As a doctor I can also choose another doctor, right? Meaning, if there’s another doctor who thinks differently from him, then his rabbi-hat I’ll ask as a rabbi, but as a doctor I can choose another doctor. But he’s a rabbi who understands the facts. Fine, and there’s another doctor who also understands the facts and thinks differently from him. Do I have to accept specifically his interpretation of the facts? Why? In the factual realm he’s a doctor, not a rabbi. It’s the same question; it just complicates it a little, but at the principled level it’s the same question. The question is whether the rabbi also has some specific expertise in how to decide in cases of doubt, when there is a dispute between one expert and another… Is that the rabbi’s expertise? That’s an interesting question; I’d like to get to it at the end. What kind of expertise is that? What, is it not medical expertise to determine which doctor is right when there’s a dispute? He doesn’t determine which doctor is right; he determines what the Jewish law is in a case where there’s a dispute. Ah, so he can tell me the laws of doubt. If he tells me the laws of doubt, no problem. But if he tells me: look, I think Doctor A is right and not Doctor B, and therefore I say you need to do such-and-such—then he’s already entering the factual realm. If he says: look, the two doctors say this, I can’t do anything with that issue, but these are the laws of doubt, and in such a situation one should do such-and-such—no problem, that’s a pure halakhic determination. Is the definition of mortal danger even a factual determination? A factual determination is to say the level of risk is such-and-such. Fine, I’m getting to that, yes. In capital cases and monetary cases, when two people come to a religious court and they speak about the facts, and the court rules according to what they believe, there you clearly see that there is authority over facts. Yes. So first of all there are two things I want to say—that’s an excellent example I intended to get to, only I want to say one thing for now and not two things. There’s a difference between a rabbi and a religious court. When a case comes before a religious court, it has authority. A religious court is a governmental authority; we talked about this yesterday. A religious court is a governmental authority. Meaning, when a religious court determines something, it is binding. A rabbi is a professional. Meaning, if a rabbi says something, so what? I can do something else. Fine, but there’s a case where the rabbi or the court might be mistaken or there’s some degree of probability… It can be like the story of Rabban Gamliel. No, there’s no problem with expressing an opinion; of course that is permitted. The fact that he’s a rabbi doesn’t mean he has to keep his mouth shut. The question is whether he has authority as a rabbi. Meaning, if he expressed his opinion, do I also have to accept it? That’s another question. Obviously everyone can express an opinion. There are more examples. By the way, that’s one of the common mistakes. A lot of times people take this so far that they oppose rabbis speaking in this realm at all, and that I really don’t understand. What do you mean? Everyone is allowed to express an opinion. The question is whether I’m obligated to obey him if he expressed an opinion—that’s another question. But how can you silence someone just because he’s a rabbi? Not in the capacity of that. Once I was with the rabbi, yes. No, in that capacity, okay, he can say whatever he wants in whichever hat he wants, but maybe I won’t listen to him. Once I was with Rabbi Lichtenstein, of blessed memory. We were talking—I was still a bit of a Bnei Brak type then. Me, I’m going to Rabbi Lichtenstein when I’m in Bnei Brak? Usually I’m a thousand parasangs away from that environment. So we talked there a bit—church and state and the rabbis determine everything and so on—and it bothered me, and I wanted to hear from him. I was there with my wife. So he said: look, I think rabbis have no authority in mundane matters, factual matters, political matters, and the like. But on the other hand he was very angry that the National Religious Party goes to consult with everyone it wants except rabbis. Meaning, with rabbis they don’t consult. Leave it—you don’t have to accept what they say, they have no authority—but why not consult with them? They’re still wise people, they learned Torah, it’s worth hearing their opinion too. Meaning, silencing someone because he’s a rabbi is certainly not sensible. The question whether I have to accept it—that’s another question. Okay? Fine. So what if you turn to a rabbi and ask whether it’s permitted to use hot water on the Sabbath if the water is heated by a solar boiler? You get a ruling from the rabbi that it is not permitted, and because of such-and-such and such-and-such, I don’t agree with the rabbi. Don’t agree in what sense? Factually or halakhically? Factually. That’s my question. But if you’re already asking him and you get a ruling… That’s what was noted earlier. It may be a question if—it’s a question involving the relationship between the questioner and the rabbi. But leave that; I didn’t ask him, he published a halakhic ruling on the boiler. Fine? I didn’t go ask him. I’m asking the principled question: what authority does the rabbi have? It may be that if I go ask him then I have to obey him—about that I’m not sure, but suppose yes. But that’s just a technical question of questioner and rabbi. I’m talking about the principled question: what authority does the rabbi have? The rabbi published a halakhic ruling; I didn’t ask him. And that ruling is based on some factual determination about the solar boiler, and I disagree with it, I think it’s otherwise. The question is whether I have to obey it. Assuming I don’t disagree with the laws he taught, because there is no other rabbi—there is halakhic consensus on all the halakhic planes, he said things that are completely clear. But factually I don’t agree with him. Do I have to obey him? Is that assuming there are other facts, that there is some expert who says it’s different? Either an expert or not an expert; the rabbi isn’t an expert either. If everyone says those are the facts… Fine, that’s one thing. No, if everyone says… okay, but that doesn’t matter. If there’s a dispute regarding the facts, then you can choose not to obey. It still doesn’t matter. Because if everyone says those are the facts, so what? I have the right to disagree with someone who says those are the facts. What, is there a halakhic prohibition against disagreeing with an expert? I think differently about the facts. What, did I commit a halakhic transgression? Maybe I’m foolish, but did I commit a halakhic transgression? All the experts say one thing and I think something else, I think they’re all idiots. So maybe I’m foolish, but is it forbidden? This is a factual question. I may, or I may not. Is there authority over facts? The question still exists. All these cases are only factual distinctions. I’m speaking about the principled question. Is there, in the realm of facts, such a concept as authority at all? Fine? Regardless now of whether it makes sense to follow the expert, whether there is consensus among experts. That is already a question of how one ought to make a factual decision. But I’m asking: fine, whether I made it correctly or incorrectly, is there authority in this realm? If I can make a factual decision… Of course there is. If all the doctors say something regarding Yom Kippur and I don’t agree… Rabbi, someone will say you may eat. The experts say… So the experts say. Is there some Torah commandment to listen to experts? I don’t know such a commandment. I think differently. “The heart knows the bitterness of its soul.” Doctors don’t go to the synagogue and say… But obviously in general we do accept what experts say. Now I’m talking about someone who says no, I’m not willing to accept it, I think they’re all foolish, what you need to do is take homeopathic drops. That’s what you need to do. There are strange creatures like that too. Fine? So that’s exactly what I’m saying. All those doctors are murderers, “the best of doctors go to Gehenna.” That’s what I say. Am I halakhically obligated to listen to what they say? They’re professional experts, not rabbis. Why? I think differently about medicine, not about Jewish law. The question is whether they have authority. I don’t see why they should have authority. From what I know in the laws of Yom Kippur… What laws of Yom Kippur? I’m asking the question. What are the laws of Yom Kippur? I’m asking whether there is such authority or not. I’m inclined to think not. But let’s see in a moment. Fine. So let’s go back and I want to explain a little why I think the Avnei Nezer is right, and that those rabbis about mortal danger were indeed right on the principled level. They are right in that this is a halakhic question. Whether they are right in the ruling is another discussion, but they are right that this is a halakhic question. Let’s take the example of the permitted speed on the road. That’s a simpler example. It’s like physicists who want to discuss how a donkey behaves, so they start with a point-donkey. First of all you start with a point-donkey; afterward you add a tail, one leg, two legs, four legs; slowly you raise it until you can begin discussing it. If you start by talking straight about a donkey, you won’t understand anything. So let’s take the simpler example of the permitted speed. Let’s say we are talking about one very specific road, the Haifa–Tel Aviv road, and we ask what the permitted speed on the road is supposed to be, the maximum permitted speed on that road. Let’s say I’m now sitting in the Transportation Ministry and I want to know what to write on the sign. What am I supposed to do? According to the simple model I described up to now, I’m supposed to go to the traffic-engineering faculty at the Technion and say to them: friends, give me the datum—what is the dangerous speed? Once they say, let’s say ninety kilometers per hour, I say: here it’s permitted to drive up to ninety kilometers per hour, no more. That’s the simplistic model, right? The model in which the expert determines the facts and then the normative decider—let’s call him the legislator or the rabbi, doesn’t matter—comes and determines what is forbidden and what is permitted. But that’s not how it works. It doesn’t need to—it works that way unfortunately, but it shouldn’t work that way. Why? Because the expert at the Technion has no way whatsoever to determine what is a dangerous speed or a non-dangerous speed on this road. What he can do is give me a graph of risk as a function of speed. Right? He can tell me: look, if you drive at sixty, then the risk is, let’s say—it isn’t linear, right? It’s something like this. So let’s say if you drive sixty the risk is five percent, if you drive seventy then it’s four percent, eighty then three percent, ninety two percent. The other way around. It’s a bathtub curve. Yes. At some point driving too slowly is dangerous too, and driving too fast is dangerous too, doesn’t matter. Give me some graph. Fine? I’m saying it deliberately because not all problems are linear. Nonlinear. Yes. Nonlinear means there’s some bend. Fine. In any case, the expert gives me some graph, no matter, some wild graph of whatever kind, with risk as a function of speed. Fine? Now this graph still doesn’t tell me what the dangerous speed is. Because I have to decide which level of risk counts as dangerous speed. Is two percent risk a dangerous speed? One percent? Three? Half a percent? I don’t know. Right? Basically what I need to decide is the cutoff. Meaning, I have some graph of risk as a function of speed, and I need to decide where I draw the line of forbidden risk. Let’s say forbidden risk is one and a half percent; I draw a line, and where it intersects the graph, that will be the speed. And if, by the way, it intersects in two places, then it will be forbidden to drive—yes, then there’s a minimum and a maximum. Then it will be permitted to drive on this road between seventy and one hundred. Fine? Not below seventy and not above one hundred. By the way, that’s true. Meaning one has to drive according to the required circumstances, even according to the laws. They don’t really determine a speed; they determine something like that, right? A vehicle that can’t drive—can’t go more than that isn’t allowed onto this road, I think. There are such things, I think. Yes. Fine. In any case, it doesn’t matter right now whether it is linear or not, but the point is that the so-called factual determination is made up of two stages and not one. Stage one is drawing the graph, and stage two is determining which percentage counts as risk severe enough to be dangerous. But why call that a factual determination? No, that isn’t a factual determination. The so-called factual stage. I said the so-called factual stage. Meaning, basically we are now saying the following. The halakhic decision about what speed one may drive on this road is actually made up of three stages and not two. The first stage is entrusted to the traffic experts. They will give me a graph of risk as a function of speed—or whatever, road conditions and so on. Let’s say only speed matters—we said a point-donkey. The second stage is to determine what counts as dangerous speed. Now, the expert from the Technion of course has no ability to determine that. His expertise gives him no tool whatsoever to determine whether problematic risk is one percent, one and a half percent, three percent, half a percent—by what would he determine it? He can determine what risk there is at each speed. But he cannot determine what percentage of risk counts as dangerous, right? A line has to be drawn. Before you draw it, there’s no such thing as dangerous speed. What is dangerous speed? Every speed is dangerous to some degree; the question is what counts as dangerous for our purposes. Therefore, to say that the expert from the Technion determined what is dangerous and afterward I will determine what the Jewish law says about dangerous speed—that is only a partial picture. The expert from the Technion cannot determine what the dangerous speed is. He can give me the graph. And now I do two things—I, as the rabbi, let’s say, do two things. First, I determine on the graph—sorry, I determine the line—what counts as dangerous. Let’s say one percent risk, so it comes out to eighty kilometers per hour. And now I say: there is a prohibition against driving at a dangerous speed. That’s the third stage—that’s the pure normative determination. There is a prohibition against driving, because of “You shall greatly guard your lives”; there is a prohibition against driving at a dangerous speed. So the decision is not two-stage, as the naive model assumes, but three-stage. It’s not that the expert says this is dangerous and the rabbi says it is forbidden to drive at a dangerous speed. Rather, the rabbi is involved also in the decision about what counts as dangerous, even before the decision that it is forbidden to drive—rather, what counts as dangerous, there too the rabbi is involved. Why do I call this the rabbi? It doesn’t have to be specifically the rabbi, but it isn’t a decision for an expert. It’s a decision that is halakhic in its nature. True, the rabbi also has no tools to know what percentage is forbidden—fine, I don’t care right now who has the tools. No one has the tools; I’m asking who has the authority, not the tools. That’s something else. Okay? The expert does not have the authority. And if I need to make a halakhic decision, it makes sense to entrust the authority to the body authorized to make halakhic determinations—or in the legal or statutory sphere in the state. We entrust it exactly the same structure—it isn’t, the question I’m asking is not specifically regarding a rabbi; it’s also regarding the legislator. It’s exactly the same question; it is built in exactly the same way. The legislator too is not supposed to take the data from the traffic faculty and then determine a prohibition. He is supposed to intervene also at the first stage. He needs to say to them: friends, as far as I’m concerned, one percent risk I am not willing to allow. Tell me what speed here yields one percent risk. And only then can he determine what the forbidden speed is. But that determination is made by the legislator, not the expert. Meaning that the picture I described earlier, in which the expert determined that this is dangerous and now the rabbi says it is forbidden to drive, or the legislator says it is forbidden to drive, is a simplistic or partial picture. Because there are three stages and not two. The expert gives the graph, the rabbi determines what is dangerous, and afterward he also determines that it is forbidden to drive at a dangerous speed. That is the normative determination. But even the factual determination actually contains value components. Factually, I said so-called. What is called the factual—whether this is dangerous or not. Okay? For the purposes of our discussion, basically the rabbi moved the point where you moved the point of where the normative determination really enters. Right, right. But as to the matter itself, what would happen if the rabbi started arguing with the expert about the graph? Okay, so there, that would be a factual dispute, and then the question arises whether I need to obey the expert in the realm of facts. Another question—I don’t know what the answer is, maybe I’ll comment on that later. But clearly that is not a question that comes under the authority of the rabbi. The question whether there is such a thing as the authority of an expert or not—that is what you are asking now. But the authority of a rabbi is not involved there. Meaning, he has no authority to determine facts. He cannot draw his own graph. That is obviously not relevant. He can draw whatever he wants, but that certainly doesn’t bind me. But the cutoff he sets on the graph, meaning what percentage of risk is dangerous—that is a value decision. So in the area of Jewish law, that is determined by the halakhic authority; in the legal sphere, it is determined by the legal authority, the legislator. And what the rabbi—maybe you didn’t give a good example, but experts still have territory that does not belong to rabbis. No, that’s fine, but he wasn’t right in what he said. Obviously I’m not claiming that experts have nothing to do in the world, that we need to close the Technion. Maybe there’s a third intervention that we might call public policy? Okay. Meaning, there is the expert, there is the rabbi who is an expert in Jewish law, but there is also someone who needs to balance things. We said danger, but the best thing is not to drive at all, then there is no danger. Meaning, obviously for the public good that’s impossible. So that balancing isn’t halakhic, it isn’t the rabbi’s, and it also isn’t the expert’s—it belongs to public policy. I’ll get to that later. I think you’re right, but for that I need a few more points. And there are more questions, and then the questions go not only to the matter of mortal danger, but for example to the level of income tax. Is it then? Obviously. But that doesn’t mean Rabbi Nebenzahl was wrong, because it may be that what he ruled—that halakhically it is forbidden to do that—is not because it is dangerous, but because the state established a law. No, but then how did I violate “You shall greatly guard your lives”? I violated the law, not “You shall greatly guard your lives.” Here’s the point, look. Basically what I’m saying is a general model for how one determines a prohibition that depends on facts. This has nothing to do specifically with Jewish law. The same in law, the same in morality, the same in Jewish law. In all these fields it is a decision composed of three stages. Now what is the result of this model? The result of this model is that the legislator determined, say, a forbidden speed on this given road, say ninety kilometers per hour. It is forbidden to exceed ninety kilometers per hour. But Jewish law could place the threshold somewhere else. It may be that from a halakhic standpoint it is reasonable to take a risk of one and a half percent, not one percent; or to be stricter and accept only half a percent, not one percent, whatever. And then the permitted speed will be higher or lower, but not necessarily equal to the permitted speed set by the law. If in practice it comes out the same, then fine, but it doesn’t have to come out the same. Meaning, a rabbi can come and say: my assessment is like the Knesset’s assessment, no problem, legitimate. It can come out the same. But I’m arguing against the substantive conception that says that if this was determined that way, that means there is a halakhic prohibition here. That’s not correct. It may be that the rabbi can say: it seems right to me too, just like them, me too in my smallness. What tools does the state have to make decisions like that? They set ninety kilometers per hour. The state, because there is some public here represented by the public mind or by the… So what? So what? That isn’t tools—exactly, you’re talking about authority, which is something else. I’m talking about tools, not authority. Maybe a bit, but I’m going back to Rabbi Zilberstein’s class. The whole class there is questions of what is the statistic? What is the percentage? That’s what he demands from the doctors: tell me if something happens, the chance he survives the operation is five percent, and so on. And then he goes to various halakhic decisors who say if there is even some minority chance I desecrate the Sabbath—what is the definition of a minority? And then he says some decisor said four percent or something. And that is exactly the model I’m claiming. I’m saying this is what rabbis already do today. But also what the line is—he’s not just throwing out numbers, he says there is some decisor or something who said four percent or something. And how did that decisor decide? And how did that decisor decide? It’s like someone asks me a halakhic question, I give him an answer, and he says where is that written? I tell him: here, I just wrote it for you, now it’s written. If it had been written, you would ask the one who wrote it where it’s written. At some point someone writes it for the first time. I understand how Jewish law works. Fine, which decisor was it? That decisor was Rabbi Akiva Eiger or something, Maimonides, doesn’t matter to me. The Noda B’Yehuda ruled that way, so I go—how did he know? No, but I have no problem with that. But you understand that in the end, the one you are citing made that same decision from the gut, without tools, just as I could have made it. I once told the story—I heard it, didn’t read it anywhere, it’s not written, but when I write it, it’ll be written. I heard the story that once they went to the Hatam Sofer with some question about Kaddish. Who has priority? Only one person says Kaddish in the synagogue, so the question was who has priority. I think it was about Kaddish, I don’t remember anymore. So he said: it seems to me that priority belongs to him. They said: wait, but the Magen Avraham wrote that in such-and-such a case priority belongs to the other one. So he said: on what basis did the Magen Avraham decide that? Just because he felt like it. Okay, so I feel the opposite. Meaning, what? The fact that it is written somewhere only means that someone else made the same arbitrary decision before you. It has no significance at all. Unless we have arrived at an authoritative source—that it is written in the Talmud—then it has authority. But halakhic decisors have no authority; they can express an opinion. In short, this puts all modern questions in… Not only modern, also non-modern. Most halakhic questions are open questions of this kind. You need to assess how important this is in order to determine Jewish law. Usually these are not yes-or-no questions. Again, the simple things are, yes, but almost everything beyond the simple obviously requires judgment. Many people who ask rabbis these questions don’t know that this is… Obviously, and I’ll talk about that too later. A while ago some woman came to me and asked me about women receiving aliyot to the Torah and all kinds of things like that. I told her more or less what the opinions are and also what my opinion is. Fine. And she said to me: but I need a clear halakhic ruling. I said to her: what does a clear halakhic ruling mean? I told you what I think. What you decide is your own decision. If I tell you something and it isn’t correct, then you made a mistake even if I said it. And if you did the right thing even if I didn’t say it, then you did the right thing even if I didn’t say it. Meaning, all I can do is tell you what I think. What is a clear halakhic ruling? Or people come to ask me, I don’t know, about family planning, so-called, yes? Whether to wait a bit with children, or stop for a bit, or something like that. So I present to them what I once wrote to some rabbinic forum on that issue. They want a permit from me. There is no such thing as getting a permit from a rabbi; it’s simply a conceptual absurdity. There’s no such thing. A rabbi can tell you every possible option and what the halakhic costs are, how forbidden it is, how permitted it is, at what stage it is recommended to do it. The decision—you make. What does it mean, a permit from a rabbi? If it’s permitted, then it’s permitted, and if it’s forbidden, then it’s forbidden. If I tell you that something forbidden is permitted, then did you get a permit from me? Then you committed a prohibition; I merely caused you to stumble. That’s all. Meaning, a rabbi does not issue permits. A rabbi is an expert advisor. Meaning, he tells you what the halakhic situation is and what the price of each step is. That’s all. To get a permit from a rabbi is a baseless concept; there’s no such thing. Yes. Right, there’s no such thing. I’m also against the claim—and then they pressure me, I know, because I always say this to people and they always pressure. They pressure because they want you to make the decision in their place. I say: I don’t make decisions in your place. These are the data, these are the options, do what you think, what do you want from me? You know how pressured you are, say in family planning, you know your distress, how hard things are financially, to what extent such a financial situation really bothers you, what it means in terms of your relationship. I’ll never be able fully to understand what is going on with you; you can describe it to me a little. So I tell you: this is the range of possibilities. It’s exactly like what I described before with the graph. This is the range of possibilities, this is the graph. You will draw the line where you think—how dangerous it is, yes? Or how difficult it is, how much of an exigent circumstance this is for you. Only you can determine that; I can’t determine such a thing. It’s only an attempt to remove responsibility, that’s all. Right. But there is another position—for example the view of the local community rabbi. Or if we had a situation where we had a rabbi here in the community, and then—that too is a topic in itself, supposedly—but if we had such a thing, there is a demand of the community to rely on someone. That’s a different matter, a different story. The authority—I said earlier that a rabbi is a professional advisor. A community rabbi is not a professional advisor. Right, he is something else, but not—he isn’t an advisor. He isn’t an advisor. He is something else, he is an authority. Why? Not because he knows. There are Torah scholars greater than he is elsewhere; they know more than he does and they have no authority. Because he received the mandate from the community to decide. No problem, that’s fine. So his authority is not because he is a rabbi—meaning ordained as a rabbi—but because he was appointed as the community rabbi by the community, so he has authority to determine. Again, authority on a certain level, but he has it. That is something else. I’m talking about a rabbi’s authority by virtue of the knowledge he has. Meaning, a general halakhic decisor—he isn’t my rabbi, but he is a decisor, an expert in ruling, and I ask him a question. Fine? That’s a bit different. A community rabbi is a somewhat different story. Let’s return to the example of eating on Yom Kippur when someone is dangerously ill. So here too, why do people go to the rabbi? Exactly the same. Obviously, exactly the same. Listen to what the doctor says and decide on your own? Right, the doctor has to determine the graph, and afterward one has to decide what level of risk cuts the graph in a way that justifies eating on Yom Kippur. Come on, the doctor can’t determine that. No, I understand. The question—not regarding what you just said about a permit for family planning and so on—so here too, let’s say I’m the patient. I go to the doctor, hear his opinion, and rule on my own? No, it may be, no—it may be that the rabbi is authorized to draw that line. I have no problem with that determination, only it’s not the expert. No, that’s fine, I’m not discussing that. When you say that from a rabbi—you don’t get a permit from a rabbi—in this case I won’t get a permit? You don’t get a permit, you get a determination of whether it is permitted. No, getting a permit isn’t the same as determining whether it is permitted. Determining whether it is permitted means asking him what the Jewish law says, and that’s fine. But getting a permit is a concept that has a different meaning. Getting a permit means: look, I understand that this is forbidden, but give me a permit. What would that help? If it is forbidden, then if he gives you a permit he only causes you to stumble. That’s all. He can’t change the Jewish law. There is no such thing—that’s what I mean. Not in the sense of… okay. So the first example I opened with was the example of the halakhic ruling about giving up territories—about mortal danger. Same thing. There too, the decision isn’t entrusted to experts. Not only because they aren’t experts in those areas, in my personal opinion, but even if there were experts in those areas—because what the experts can do is give me the graph of risks. In that case it isn’t a one-dimensional graph but some kind of multidimensional graph, but it doesn’t matter. Still, they tell me for every step you take what is likely to happen, what risks you are taking—political, security, or other. So there is a very, very complex graph here, and this is brought before the decision-maker: either the government in the legal sphere, or the rabbi in the halakhic sphere. It doesn’t matter. It’s the same thing—it doesn’t matter if it’s a rabbi or not a rabbi—but it’s a value-based decision maker. Let’s call him “the one who makes the value decisions.” Fine? So he receives the graph, and now he has to decide what counts as dangerous. The chief of staff can’t tell me: look, this is mortal danger—by the way, on the matter of work on the Sabbath, yes?—whether it is mortal danger or not. The chief of staff can’t tell me if it is mortal danger. He has no tool to determine that. The chief of staff can say what the level of risk is or what is expected to happen in such-and-such a situation. After that I have to decide whether that thing is acute enough to be treated as mortal danger. That is a value decision. The only difference is that in the case of that halakhic ruling, I think that in fact five cabinet judges sat there and heard the chief of staff, the head of Military Intelligence, the head of the Mossad, this one and that one. Fine, all sorts of things were heard. No, that’s bringing the information. Maybe, I don’t know, but that’s technical. That’s fine. But on the principled level they did something incorrect. Maybe, but that’s still a technical question. They did many things incorrectly there. In principle they could have done it, in principle they could have done it; practically, practically they could not have done it because no one brought them that information. And if no one brought them that information, then maybe they have to make decisions under uncertainty. What can you do? Because someone else is making decisions not under uncertainty? No, in Jewish law he isn’t making the decision on that. No, with public matters there are always very, very broad implications. And this isn’t something—there are implications, okay, you think here there is danger, but you don’t know something about missiles from the United States, if we—there are all kinds of things, also even on roads. You can tell a rabbi: come on, maybe—what can you determine in… maybe at night, when there’s no one else on the road, maybe then there’s no problem driving faster. But you can’t get into all that. But the legislator can’t either, so who will do it? Maybe what Rabbi Waldenberg says, that in Jewish law one can’t determine all kinds of things in the ordinary way. We know that they determine it by some sort of estimate or other, so we have to go in that direction. So there is authority here to determine broadly what this is, and halakhically we have to go in that direction. So I’m saying: if he were to say, look, I, as the one responsible for the halakhic threshold, am telling you: I want to align it with the legal threshold—but that is my decision. No problem, I said. The halakhic authority can say: the threshold is in the same place, even for your reason, or because by chance it comes out the same, or because he doesn’t want to create embarrassment and confusion and so on, and he says: come on, there’s already a legal threshold, let’s stick to it. I have no problem with that. But the claim that substantively the legal threshold determines the Jewish law—that isn’t correct. Understand? I’m speaking on the principled level. I don’t care right now whether Rabbi Nebenzahl did something right or not. On the principled level it isn’t the same threshold, not necessarily the same threshold. The fact that someone else will decide to align them—that’s fine, there’s logic to it. Fine? The same also with those rabbis. Maybe they acted improperly because they didn’t have enough information—that may all be true. On the principled level I want to argue that this is a halakhic decision and not a professional decision. That’s the point. Now, true, to make the decision one has to be excellent at… It’s not a halakhic decision; the second level is a value decision, not a… No, it is a halakhic decision. Mortal danger is a halakhic decision; there is the prohibition of “You shall greatly guard your lives.” What do you mean? The threshold? What threshold? That’s a decision… Of course, of course. From when does “You shall greatly guard your lives” apply? Is there halakha on this issue? Of course. What? There is… If there were a Sanhedrin… Yes, yes, if there were a Sanhedrin and they determined that it’s seventeen and a half percent, then that would be Jewish law. Yes, but there is no Sanhedrin. Fine, therefore I say this is technical. On the principled level it is a halakhic decision. That is another question entirely—what a halakhic decisor does today when he has no authority because there is no Sanhedrin today. Fine, assuming there is a Sanhedrin, okay. And if you turn on a light on the Sabbath, you are liable to stoning. What? And how do you know? What? Because there is an expert who says that this is fire and that is fire, and an electricity expert… No, fine. The expert cannot tell me whether it is fire or not. The expert can tell me what is there. Whether it counts as fire or not is a halakhic determination, because the question is what characteristics of fire are relevant for halakhic purposes. Okay, and there are experts who say it is not fire. Fine. So I can make my own decision that it is… No, then that is a halakhic question. I’m not talking about that. The question how much I need to obey rabbis—that’s another question. Right now I’m talking—leave me—I’m asking now how the rabbi makes the decision. I don’t have to obey him, that’s important. I’m asking how the rabbi makes a decision. Does the expert give him the full information and then he only makes the halakhic decision, or is he also involved in determining reality? Understand? I’m arguing that the rabbi is also involved in determining reality. Even though this is actually the opposite example, there’s no dispute among the experts. There’s a dispute among rabbis about the halakhic meaning of it? Yes, exactly, right. Once I heard one of our introductory engineering lecturers tell a story. We were learning electromagnetic waves, and he said that in the United States there had been a federal law that if two states transmit something from one state to a third state through a middle state, through a second state, they have to pay it. Okay? They have to pay it if it passes through wires, but if it passes through the air then they don’t. Okay? Now State A transmitted to State C an electric line, a voltage line. Fine, and they didn’t pay State B. State B sued them in federal court, and they brought a physicist expert who brought what is called Poynting’s theorem. Poynting’s theorem says that the power doesn’t pass through the wire but around it, in the fields around the wire. Okay? Therefore they don’t need to pay. So here is an example of a dispute between experts that determines the legal issue. That isn’t a dispute, of course.