The Path of Halacha: Yeridat HaDorot — A Bird’s-Eye View of the History of Halacha — Lesson 2

Table of Contents

• The decline of the generations and its accepted halakhic implications
• Maimonides: the authority of a religious court in Torah-level law versus rabbinic law
• The Kesef Mishneh: not disagreeing with Tannaim, and the Talmud as a technical tradition
• Exceptions, transitional generations, and the attitude toward rules in Jewish law
• “We do not derive law from general rules”: irony and rules that are not really “serious”
• Historical perspective: from the Bible to the Oral Torah
• Conceptualization and formalization: “the hand recoils from it” and measuring temperature
• The hermeneutic principles: between a Sinaitic tradition and the scholarly claim that they developed later
• Temurah and Othniel ben Kenaz: reconstructing the laws by refining the tools
• Innovating Torah-level laws and the interpretive possibility throughout the generations
• The language-school analogy: rules as an approximate description, not the engine of creation
• The Oral Torah as a language: “it cannot be written,” and practical apprenticeship is greater than study
• The decline of the generations as a weakening of intuition, not of intellect
• The sealing of periods, public acceptance, and the inability to decide disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim)
• Critique of being trapped by rules in halakhic ruling: anonymous ruling and “some say”
• Conclusion: why we accepted not disagreeing with the medieval authorities (Rishonim)

Summary

General overview

The decline of the generations is presented as a study-hall assumption according to which earlier generations were greater, and it affects the public acceptance of not disagreeing with earlier periods, even though there is no essential halakhic necessity for this in Torah-level law. Maimonides rules that the limitation requiring a court to be “greater in wisdom and number” applies only to enactments and decrees, and the Kesef Mishneh explains that refraining from disagreeing with Tannaim and the Talmud is a technical acceptance, not a principled legal rule. Here, the decline of the generations is defined as a decline in intuition and in the “halakhic sense of smell,” not a decline in intelligence, and the historical development of Jewish law is described as a process of conceptualization, formalization, and rule-making intended to preserve and transmit a halakhic “language” that has grown distant from its source.

The decline of the generations and its accepted halakhic implications

The decline of the generations is presented as the assumption that earlier generations were greater, to the point of the description, “If we are like donkeys, they are like human beings.” The common halakhic approach draws period lines according to which Amoraim do not disagree with Tannaim, medieval authorities (Rishonim) do not disagree with Amoraim, and later authorities (Acharonim) do not disagree with medieval authorities (Rishonim). Those lines are seen as a result of the assumption of the decline of the generations, but not as an explicit halakhic requirement establishing an unchallengeable authority relationship.

Maimonides: the authority of a religious court in Torah-level law versus rabbinic law

Maimonides states that the requirement that a religious court be greater in wisdom and number in order to disagree with an earlier religious court exists only with regard to enactments and decrees. Maimonides holds that in Torah-level law there is no such limitation, and if a court in our time is convinced of its interpretation on the basis of the sources, then “you have only the religious court in your own days,” and what it determines is binding. Maimonides describes the possibility that a court could newly establish a principled understanding such as the number of primary categories of labor, provided that this comes from interpretive conviction and not from self-interest or a desire to be lenient.

The Kesef Mishneh: not disagreeing with Tannaim, and the Talmud as a technical tradition

The Kesef Mishneh asks why, in practice, Amoraim do not disagree with Tannaim and medieval authorities (Rishonim) do not disagree with Amoraim if there is no essential limitation in Torah-level law. The Kesef Mishneh answers that this stems from a technical public acceptance that we took upon ourselves, and not from a principled halakhic reason. The Kesef Mishneh points out that within the periods themselves there are chronological disputes, and later Tannaim disagree with earlier Tannaim, and later Amoraim disagree with earlier Amoraim.

Exceptions, transitional generations, and the attitude toward rules in Jewish law

It is said that there are cases where “But didn’t Rav say…” or “But didn’t Shmuel say…” is raised as an objection, yet at times the Amora simply replies that he does not accept those statements. The example from Yoma concerning saving a life is brought, where Shmuel says that had he been there he would have offered a different reason, and his reason remains in the conclusion against Tannaitic reasons, most of which were rejected. It is emphasized that the lines marking the close of periods are formed from a later perspective, and in the transitional generation greater flexibility is evident; this is why situations appear such as “Rav is a Tanna and may disagree,” where Rav can even disagree with a Mishnah if there is no alternative.

“We do not derive law from general rules”: irony and rules that are not really “serious”

The Talmudic statement in Kiddushin is cited: “We do not derive law from general rules, even where it says ‘except,’” together with the determination that this is true “except for this very rule itself.” The statement is described as reflecting open contempt for rules, because even when it says “except for A, B, and C,” more exceptions still turn up, such as “but what about Hakhel?” From this comes the claim that generalizations do not describe the system precisely, and therefore the rule that Amoraim do not disagree with Tannaim and the like also bends in various places and is set mainly as a period boundary, not as a mechanical determination in each and every generation.

Historical perspective: from the Bible to the Oral Torah

It is argued that in the biblical period there is no hint of the halakhic give-and-take and dialectical argumentation as it appears in the Talmud, and dispute is seen as a later phenomenon. The Talmud and Maimonides are cited with the assertion that “when the disciples of Hillel and Shammai increased, who had not sufficiently apprenticed themselves, dispute increased in Israel.” A picture is described in which, at earlier stages, Jewish law functions more through an intuitive sense of the meaning of the commandments, and as the generations pass, ambiguity develops that requires decisions, arguments, and conceptualization that defines the original intuitions.

Conceptualization and formalization: “the hand recoils from it” and measuring temperature

An example is brought from the beginning of Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah about “the hand recoils from it,” and the setting of a lower threshold of forty-five degrees. The point is made that once people simply checked whether the hand recoiled or not, without a thermometer and without precision over “forty-five point two” versus “forty-four point nine.” The phenomenon is described as a modern intensification of an ancient, ongoing process of conceptualization, formalization, and turning Jewish law into something more technical and less rooted in simple intuition.

The hermeneutic principles: between a Sinaitic tradition and the scholarly claim that they developed later

It is said that most medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) who addressed the issue held that the halakhic hermeneutic principles are a law given to Moses at Sinai, whereas most scholars of recent generations think they are not a law given to Moses at Sinai, and that there are indications of this in the sources. The tractate Pesachim is cited regarding Hillel, who came up from Babylonia and expounded to the sons of Beteira using seven principles, along with the historical expansion of the principles from seven to thirteen with Rabbi Ishmael, to thirty-two with Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, to many dozens in Sefer HaKeritot, and eventually to seventy according to Rav Sherira Gaon. Also cited is a teaching in tractate Shabbat about Rabbi Akiva, who expounded “and she shall remain in her impurity” to permit women to adorn themselves during menstruation, while asserting that the Jewish law came from Sinai even though the earlier practice had been different.

Temurah and Othniel ben Kenaz: reconstructing the laws by refining the tools

A midrashic teaching is brought that during the mourning for Moses, “one thousand seven hundred a fortiori inferences and verbal analogies were forgotten,” and then Othniel ben Kenaz came and restored them through his dialectical analysis, with the note that there are different versions as to the number and content. A suggestion is offered that Moses our teacher received the laws from the Holy One, blessed be He, “directly,” attached to the verses, without an established system of named tools such as verbal analogy and inclusion from the word “et,” and therefore it was easier for the laws to be forgotten when there was no defined method for transmitting them. Othniel ben Kenaz is described as extracting the rules themselves from the laws that remained remembered, such as identifying patterns of inclusion from the word “et,” and patterns of identical words between passages that lead to the rule of verbal analogy, and only afterward using those tools to reconstruct laws that had been forgotten.

Innovating Torah-level laws and the interpretive possibility throughout the generations

It is said that once formal tools come into being, the possibility also arises of expounding new laws, and not only reconstructing laws that were forgotten. The claim is formulated as meaning that even today new rulings could emerge that would count as Torah-level law by virtue of the correct interpretation of a religious court, in accordance with the principle cited from Maimonides regarding the authority of the religious court of one’s own time in Torah-level law. The example of changing the number of primary categories of labor is presented as an application of this principle, even if throughout the generations people thought otherwise.

The language-school analogy: rules as an approximate description, not the engine of creation

An analogy is brought that he heard from Moshe Koppel of Bar-Ilan, about learning a language as a mother tongue versus learning it in an ulpan through rules. The claim is that rules are created after the language is already alive and in use, so they are an approximation that helps bring an outsider into the language quickly, but they do not describe it accurately. It is argued that someone who tries to speak purely according to the rules will find himself correcting others while actually being mistaken, because every rule has exceptions, and a “language” cannot be reduced to a rulebook.

The Oral Torah as a language: “it cannot be written,” and practical apprenticeship is greater than study

It is said that the reason the Mishnah is written in such a “crooked” way is not only that “it is forbidden to write down the Oral Torah,” but also that “it is impossible to write down the Oral Torah,” because writing strips away its essence. The Oral Torah is described as a language in which one has to understand the “head” of it, and not be trapped by rules, because the rules learned from books are “usually not correct,” or at least do not describe the system well. The expression “its practical apprenticeship is greater than its study” is explained as the ability to learn through actual use with Torah scholars how to think and how decision-making works in practice, beyond just knowing the written rules.

The decline of the generations as a weakening of intuition, not of intellect

The decline of the generations is defined as a decline in halakhic intuition and in the sense of “what the Torah wants,” not as a decline in measures of intelligence, which according to the speaker actually increase over the generations. The claim is that later generations are more skilled in analytical tools, in the ability to offer distinctions and resolutions, and in building logical systems, but this is described as a compensatory tool “of a blind person” who develops another sense in place of the intuitive sense that was lost. It is said that when “the mind says, it seems to me,” this expresses an intuition above rules and proofs, and in the face of such intuition the proofs may turn out to be just another “exception to the rule.”

The sealing of periods, public acceptance, and the inability to decide disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim)

It is said that acceptance of boundaries such as “we do not disagree with Tannaim,” and so on, arises when people feel that a line has been crossed, that of a living language no longer shared, and so a formal rule is set after the fact and in retrospect. The claim is that today refraining from deciding disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) does not come from excess piety or from some prohibition against disagreeing, but from an inability to decide because of the absence of the right “sense of smell” for who is correct. The example of the dispute between Rashba and Maimonides about “in a Torah-level doubt we rule stringently—does that itself come from Torah law or from rabbinic law?” is presented as a case where one can analyze the positions consistently but cannot decide, and therefore even the dispute itself is treated as a doubt.

Critique of being trapped by rules in halakhic ruling: anonymous ruling and “some say”

A critique is leveled against a modern ideology that decides according to technical rules such as “in the Shulchan Arukh, the law follows an anonymous ruling,” or the order of “an anonymous ruling followed by ‘some say.’” The claim is that these rules distract from the main point, which is understanding the intent of the Shulchan Arukh and what is actually “written” there, and they turn halakhic give-and-take into a formal discussion about quotation structure instead of content. The goal of study is defined as trying to acquire the intuitions hidden behind the rules, to distill rules out of the tradition but not become captive to them.

Conclusion: why we accepted not disagreeing with the medieval authorities (Rishonim)

The concept of the decline of the generations is summarized as a decline in intuitive ability and in the sense for making decisions, so that earlier generations “speak the language as a mother tongue,” while we are like “students in ulpan” compared to them. The public acceptance of not disagreeing with earlier generations is explained as a practical recognition of the high probability that they are “more correct” in the realm of intuition, even if we are not less intelligent in the analytical sense. The conclusion is that the limitation stems from awareness of the gap between mother tongue and rules, not from a claim that we are “more stupid,” and therefore there is only a very slim chance that later generations can reliably correct the medieval authorities (Rishonim).

Okay, today we’re dealing with the issue of the decline of the generations, the big topic of the decline of the generations. The accepted assumption in the study hall is that the earlier generations were greater. If we are like donkeys, they were like human beings, and so on; and if they were like human beings, then we are like donkeys, and so on. And this really does show up also in what you could call halakhic implications, or at least halakhic approaches. The prevailing halakhic approach is that we do not dispute sages who belong to an earlier period, or an earlier enough period. There are some lines there, one way or another, that mark boundaries: say, Amoraim do not dispute Tannaim, medieval authorities (Rishonim) do not dispute Amoraim, later authorities (Acharonim) do not dispute medieval authorities (Rishonim), and so on. And people usually understand this as a result of that same assumption called the decline of the generations. So first of all, from a halakhic perspective you have to know: Maimonides—and I mentioned this in the class—writes that the requirement of a religious court greater in wisdom and number in order to dispute an earlier religious court applies only to enactments and decrees. But in Torah-level law there is no limitation whatsoever. Meaning, if today a religious court arose and decided that there are two primary categories of labor on the Sabbath and not thirty-nine, then there are two primary categories of labor on the Sabbath. And there is no problem with that. As long as the religious court is genuinely convinced that this is correct—meaning, not just because it feels like it, not because it wants to; it’s not a question of interest or wanting to be lenient or something like that, but rather this is how it interprets the sources, this is what it thinks. Then “you have only the religious court of your own days.” And since that is so, whatever the religious court of your own days says is basically what determines things. There is no limitation—not greater in wisdom, not greater in number, and not anything else. All those limitations apply only to rabbinic law. One of the proofs is the Talmudic passage we brought today. So the Kesef Mishneh there, at the beginning of the laws of rebels, when Maimonides writes this, the Kesef Mishneh asks: if so, then why do we find that Amoraim do not dispute Tannaim, or that medieval authorities (Rishonim) do not dispute Amoraim? If you don’t need to be greater in wisdom and number, then what’s the problem? You can dispute; anyone can dispute anyone. More than that: in a case where an Amora says something and we find a baraita or a Mishnah against him, that’s a knockout win, not a win on points, right? Meaning, he’s off the stage; the clear assumption is that it has been proven that he’s wrong. So the Kesef Mishneh says that the reason for this is only a technical reason that we accepted upon ourselves. We simply accepted upon ourselves—not that Amoraim do not dispute Tannaim, but that we will not dispute what appears in the Talmud, and so on. There is no essential halakhic reason for this matter. He says more than that: within the Tannaitic period itself, later Tannaim dispute earlier Tannaim; later Amoraim dispute earlier Amoraim. True, sometimes we find an objection raised against an Amora… the saying of earlier Amoraim. “But didn’t Rav say?” “But didn’t Shmuel say?”—these are sayings of Amoraim from the first or second generation, or sufficiently earlier generations, sometimes brought as a difficulty against Amoraim, but usually he can also say: okay, but I don’t accept that. There are rare cases, by the way, where this happens even with Tannaim. There is, for example, the famous passage in Yoma about saving a life, where they bring all these examples of why it is permitted to desecrate the Sabbath to save a life, so they bring a collection of Tannaitic sources, and then Shmuel says: if I had been there, I would have explained to them what’s right. He brings his own reason, and that is the reason that ultimately remains in the conclusion. All the Tannaitic reasons were rejected, except for one that maybe—well, there is room to discuss it there. But broadly speaking, that’s the situation. So the Kesef Mishneh says there is really no essential reason; the principle is simply that we accepted it upon ourselves, and that’s all.

Okay, so on the one hand it’s very encouraging that anyone can dispute anyone, but on the other hand, then the question really is: why did we accept such a thing upon ourselves? And here it seems to me that the natural rabbit to pull out of the hat in favor of this is the issue of the decline of the generations. The decline of the generations is not some halakhic concept; it’s not that Jewish law obligates us to treat earlier generations as some authority whom one may not dispute. There is no such Jewish law. But there is an assumption, a recognition of facts. And the recognition of facts is that since they were greater, it’s not worthwhile to dispute them, even though halakhically it is permitted. And that “not worthwhile” at a certain point became some kind of public acceptance. The public accepted upon itself not to dispute. But even when it accepted upon itself not to dispute, that does not mean that anyone born a day before me is always the one whose ruling we follow. As the Kesef Mishneh says, later Amoraim dispute earlier Amoraim, later Tannaim dispute earlier Tannaim. So where is this said? In periods. There is some closing off of periods, such that from one period to another one does not dispute. But within a period there is no chronology; chronology does not determine in any one-to-one way what the law is.

And one more thing that is completely clear, first of all in the factual realm: it says, “Rav is a Tanna and disputes.” Yehoshua ben Levi is considered an Amora and also a Tanna; he appears in the Mishnah, that whole first generation that sat in Rabbi’s court. And some of them later went down to Babylonia, but they are considered half-Amoraim, half-Tannaim. Yes, Rav went down to Babylonia, and Rav Chiya too says… his nephew went down to Babylonia, “He may issue rulings, he may issue rulings; he may judge, he may judge,” there in Sanhedrin. So you see, they sat in Rabbi’s religious court, Rav and Rav Chiya his uncle, and both are considered Amoraim. But on the other hand, “Rav is a Tanna and disputes.” Sometimes people challenge Rav from Mishnayot, but when there is no choice they say, “Rav is a Tanna and disputes,” and fine, there is a Mishnah against him and he disputes it. And this leads us to another statement that maybe we’ll come back to later, the statement in Kiddushin that “we do not derive from general rules, even where it says ‘except.’” Except for this rule itself. Meaning, this “except” is binding. There is a kind of contempt, open contempt, for rules in Jewish law; I feel it’s hard to ignore a bit of irony in that statement. You tell me: all positive commandments dependent on time, women are exempt, except for A, B, C. Period. “But what about hakhel?” There’s another one. So there’s another one—so what happened? “We do not derive from general rules, even where it says ‘except.’” Fine, then hakhel too. So why are you telling me the rule with the exception and all these things? Meaning, crosses, penalties—what’s the point? Do you mean it seriously or not seriously? What does it mean, “we do not derive from general rules”? Understand, if it had just been a general rule, that would be one thing. You hear: all positive commandments dependent on time, women are exempt. Fine, there are one or two exceptions, we’re not getting into the details right now; generally speaking, know that this is the rule. But they already do get into details, they tell you: except for A, B, C. Then they say there is also D. So there’s also D—so what happened? “Even where it says ‘except,’ we do not derive from general rules.” Why? Because general rules are not really serious; you shouldn’t take them too seriously. It’s the same with the rules that Amoraim do not dispute Tannaim, and medieval authorities (Rishonim) do not dispute Amoraim, and later authorities (Acharonim) do not dispute medieval authorities (Rishonim). There are places where we bend this matter a bit, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, and first and foremost this happens in the transitional generation. Because these kinds of closures of periods usually occur in retrospect. Meaning, after some perspective has already passed, then I say: ah, so in Rabbi’s time a period ended—let’s call them Tannaim—and everyone after him. And everyone after him, if he is legible from our perspective, cannot dispute him. And therefore if he doesn’t fit with the Mishnah that we bring against him, we reject him from the law. Well then, why did he say it? Didn’t he know the Mishnah? The assumption generally is that everyone knew everything, at least that is the assumption of the Talmud. That no one forgot any Mishnah, none of the Amoraim. And by the way, it’s not such a big deal. Meaning, the quantity of material they had to remember wasn’t all that huge. All in all, to remember the Mishnayot—it’s not beyond reach. So the simple assumption of the Talmud is that any Amora who says something is supposed to stand the test against all the Mishnayot. Now, what happens in a place where this—where we found a Mishnah and he has no answer; we rejected him. How do you explain that? What did he think? We rejected him, okay—he got confused? He didn’t notice? In my humble opinion, no. He disputed the Mishnah. He disputed the Mishnah, only we, in retrospect, decided that Amoraim are overridden by Tannaim. And since that is so, we reject his words from the law. Not that this is some difficulty against him. It is a halakhic consideration that if there is a Mishnah against him, the law is not in accordance with him. That’s all. Because we accepted upon ourselves that the law follows the Tannaim against the Amoraim. But there is no difficulty against him—how did he not notice that there was such a Mishnah? Sometimes it’s the Mishnah that deals with this very topic. How can you miss it?

Isn’t there a place where the Amora retracts because they tell him? Sometimes maybe yes. Sometimes maybe yes, and there it may indeed be so. So maybe he forgot? Then maybe he forgot. You see, he tells you himself. Maybe he forgot. So if there is a place where he retracts, then why doesn’t he retract? No, but that’s no longer the difficulty of how it could be that he forgot. No, I’m saying: then why doesn’t he retract? I don’t know; so they rule the law not in accordance with him, and that’s it. Then say that he retracted, and that’s it. But we said there’s no such thing there as forgetting. Meaning, in places like that you see that a Tanna could forget? That an Amora could forget? I didn’t come to claim that Amoraim can’t forget Mishnayot as a rule. Even if I had said that as a rule, you can take him outside the rule. What I said is that this is the assumption of the Talmud. And I think the assumption is reasonable because it’s not a very large amount of material. Sometimes it may happen that they forgot, and the simple assumption is no. On the other hand, then what happens in a place where he did not retract but it remains unresolved? “A refutation of so-and-so is a refutation.” And he didn’t retract. So why not? Because he disputes the Mishnah; therefore he didn’t retract. Or he forgot. Maybe he forgot. In any case, what I wanted to say here is that this delineation of periods is a delineation done in retrospect. Several generations of Amoraim passed, they are already looking backward, they see that some significant transition took place after Rabbi, and then they determine, they draw a line, that from there onward one no longer disputes. They really no longer disputed the Mishnayot. Those before them—“Rav is a Tanna and disputes”—he can sometimes dispute. And sometimes not only can he dispute, we will also accept his words because he still has permission to dispute. He still sat there; it’s really the first generation. So how does this whole business work? Why does this happen?

Here we need to look a bit at the history of Jewish law in a broader perspective. In the biblical period, the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), when you look—as much as one can—at life as it is reflected there, it seems fundamentally different from the period of the Oral Torah. A few commandments are mentioned there—new moons, Sabbaths, holidays, now and then commandments are mentioned—but there is no hint at all of all the give-and-take and dialectics that we find in the Talmud. All the considerations, the halakhic give-and-take, the discussion, the deliberations, the convening in order to reach decisions—all kinds of things of that type. Why really not? And this is already what the Talmud says and Maimonides follows it: when the students of Hillel and Shammai increased and did not serve their teachers sufficiently, dispute increased in Israel. Meaning, dispute is something created later, when students stopped serving their teachers adequately. Before that, what happened? Either the disputes were decided. It’s not certain there were never disagreements; that’s not so likely. Disputes were decided. But broadly speaking, it seems to me that beyond the fact that disputes were decided, there also weren’t really disputes in the way we know them today. Because the whole business was conducted differently.

For example, I thought—I know that one has to keep the Sabbath, to rest on the Sabbath. Now when I discuss a certain labor and ask myself whether it is permitted or forbidden—does this seem like rest to me, or not? Meaning, is this a violation of rest? I think this is not something worth doing, so I don’t do it. And if it does not violate rest, then I… More or less, it seems to me, that’s how people worked, at least in the earlier stages. Slowly, as the generations went on, a certain vagueness arose, there was some need to make decisions, arguments arose, and then certain conceptualizations were created. Meaning, they began to define more precisely those intuitive feelings that existed at the beginning. At first everyone worked… You know, for example with measures, right? Do you know the beginning of Shemirat Shabbat Kehilkhatah, with the duck’s belly or the baby’s bottom, or I don’t know exactly—something there where he discusses what “the hand recoils from it” means. He reaches the conclusion that the lower threshold is forty-five degrees. Why—why until Shemirat Shabbat Kehilkhatah did nobody make these calculations or even struggle with these questions? Because if you wanted to know whether the hand recoils from it or doesn’t recoil from it, you would put in your hand and see whether it recoils or not. That’s all. If it recoils, then it’s “the hand recoils from it,” and if it doesn’t recoil, then it’s not. You don’t put in a thermometer—which itself is a question whether one may use it on the Sabbath—and then discuss the question—which is also a question I still don’t know, perhaps it needs discussion—and then decide that if it is 45.2 degrees then the hand recoils from it, but if it is 44.9 then there is absolutely no problem, it is permitted from the outset. This is a late phenomenon, and this phenomenon of course reaches an extreme in our day, but I think it is a phenomenon that continues throughout all the generations: more and more conceptualization and formalization of Jewish law.

An example? Yes. I think they were closer, in certain respects, to what Maimonides means when he says that all in all there were not so many disputes because the essential idea passed on—meaning, people succeeded in conveying to one another what was meant when speaking about resting on the Sabbath. When you understand the intuition of the matter, what it means, you can more or less feel in your fingertips what is right to do and what isn’t. Once you stop feeling in your fingertips exactly what is meant, you begin to become an accountant, a calculator. You begin to check what is yes and what is no, derivative category and primary category and derivations and all kinds of things like that. Those are anachronisms, anachronisms—those are anachronisms that are not relevant to our issue. There are also midrashim, and you can also say that they too are some kind of anachronism—and there are even different versions in that midrash—but even if it is an anachronism, it comes to teach something. There are also preachers who certainly explain to you that Vashti and Achashverosh disagreed in the dispute of Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the Ketzot. By the way, that’s not absurd; I once wrote an article about this in BeMidbar Matana, I think. The plain meaning is that Vashti and Achashverosh never were and never existed—what exists are the verses about Vashti and Achashverosh, and the verses present it this way. Why should I care what they thought? Who cares what those two idiots thought? Meaning, the verses present it this way, and the verse knows what it wants. So if you understand from this such-and-such an outlook or such-and-such an outlook, the verse is hinting to you at two outlooks that also appear in the dispute of Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the Ketzot. Fine, let’s leave the defenses of pilpul.

Another example I’ll give for this process of conceptualization at the beginning of the history of Jewish law: it is agreed upon by all the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim), with one exception I think—everyone who expressed himself on this issue at least, except for the famous Chazon Ish—that one does not follow the ruling according to the majority of books, because why should those who wrote books have an advantage over those who did not? There are many Torah scholars who did not write books, so why should the majority of books determine things? The majority of Torah scholars—what was the indication? One should follow the majority. But the majority of books? So what, those who chose to write books are counted because of that? So most, most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) who addressed the matter—sorry, all the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) who addressed the matter—say that the hermeneutical principles are a law given to Moses at Sinai, the thirteen principles of Rabbi Ishmael. I’m talking about legal exposition; aggadic exposition is a different matter. In contrast, most scholars of recent generations almost unanimously agree that this is not a law given to Moses at Sinai. Well, you know, we have proof from Maimonides that it is permitted to raise such a question. You know Maimonides in the Eight Chapters? Maimonides says that the philosophers say it is preferable to be one who controls his inclination rather than one for whom it comes naturally, and on the other hand, “Do not say: I do not want to eat pork, but rather: I do want to, but what can I do, my Father in heaven has decreed it upon me.” And then he reconciles the two positions with each other. So it follows that one may ask such a question. Yes.

But the point is that all the laws were from Sinai from the outset, no? And this gradation, this gradation did not appear there in his original source, that all the principles are expounded in such a way that they put them in Yavneh. In my humble opinion these things are absurd. I don’t know how one can say them at all, but that’s another discussion. There is a derivation in the Talmud in Shabbat. The Talmud says that in earlier generations women would not adorn themselves and paint themselves while in the period when they were forbidden to their husbands. Rabbi Akiva came and said: how can that be? It follows that you are making her repulsive to her husband. Therefore he expounded “and she shall remain in her menstrual impurity”—what? That during the time of menstrual impurity she may adorn herself and paint herself and do what she wants, put on eye makeup, do what she wants, against everything the earlier generations did. And this law came from Sinai. And Rabbi Akiva expounded it at that very moment, and he also says why he expounds it. Fine, but there are more examples, it’s not only this. Today too, by the way, on this issue many scholars actually agree with Rav Saadia Gaon. Agree with Rav Saadia Gaon? They agree with Rav Saadia Gaon that all the expositions are merely mnemonic supports. But this is absurd; I don’t know, this whole business requires major analysis. Rav Saadia Gaon requires major analysis; as for them, it’s just nonsense. Fine, what? With Rav Saadia Gaon there is Maimonides’ answer that it was said against the Karaites. Yes, exactly. We know the explanations. Maimonides also speaks about Rav Saadia Gaon the same way. Maimonides? Yes, that it was said as an answer to the Karaites, not really. I think there are many Torah scholars who say it was only as an answer to the Karaites, but I don’t know, maybe in the end it also convinced them, because they seem pretty convinced by it, I don’t know. Anyway, these Karaites are damaging, you know—the serpent’s venom also enters the one defending against it.

In any case, with regard to the hermeneutical principles, the scholars say this is all a late creation. Why really? There are fairly good reasons for it, indications from the sources. We know that Hillel came up from Babylonia, a student of Shemaya and Avtalyon, and the Bnei Beteira there were deliberating what to do with the Passover offering—the passage in Pesachim—and a Passover offering when Passover eve falls on the Sabbath, what does one do in such a case? So Hillel expounded it to them by means of seven hermeneutical principles, which they apparently did not know; that’s how it seems. And Hillel introduced to them seven hermeneutical principles that he brought with him from Babylonia, or I don’t know exactly from where, and then they accepted it and appointed him as head over them and so on. After Hillel and Shammai—that was the last pair. Right, after Hillel and Shammai there was Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, who received from Hillel and Shammai. After Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai there were Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer, right? That’s the first generation of Yavneh or the second of Yavneh. And half a generation after them or one generation after them, there were Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael. By Rabbi Ishmael there are already thirteen principles, not seven. Rabbi Eliezer ben Rabbi Yose the Galilean already brings thirty-two. Some of them are principles of aggadic exposition, but still there are more than thirteen. Sefer Keritut, by Rabbi Shimshon of Kinon, gathers additional principles from the Talmud; it reaches many dozens. Rav Sherira Gaon already gets to seventy, I think, hermeneutical principles. So how does this fit? You see that this world of exposition is a world that is gradually being built; it is not a rigid tradition passed down to us from Mount Sinai to us, from teacher to student, and so on. So apparently the scholars are right.

There is a certain midrash, and one can also say that it too is some kind of anachronism—and there are even different versions of this midrash—but even if it is an anachronism, it comes to teach something. The midrash says in tractate Temurah that during the mourning for Moses, one thousand seven hundred a fortiori inferences and verbal analogies were forgotten, and Otniel ben Kenaz restored them through his dialectic. A hint that pilpul is from the Torah. Now there are different versions here: some say 3,000 and not 1,700; some say laws, not verbal analogies and a fortiori inferences; there are parallel sources with different formulations. But that is the version in the Talmud, I think, if I remember correctly—one of the versions is like that. What was really going on there? It seems to me that what was going on there is that Moses our teacher, metaphorically, sits with the Holy One blessed be He by the lectern on Mount Sinai, and they study Torah together. The Holy One blessed be He reads the verses with him, and with each verse He teaches him what is derived from that verse. “The Lord your God shall you fear”—that includes Torah scholars, He says to Moses our teacher. I don’t know, “lah” “lah”—a slave is like a woman, therefore he is released with a bill of divorce, or therefore never mind, exempt from positive commandments dependent on time, and so on. He didn’t tell him that this is a verbal analogy of “lah” “lah.” He also didn’t tell him that this is an inclusion from the word “et.” He simply read the verses and told him directly, along with them, the plain meaning, the exposition, everything, accompanying the verse. And little by little, as you learn this more and more, you get into the mindset and begin also… I’d bet that if they had said these words to Moses our teacher, he would have stared at us blankly; maybe he wouldn’t even have known what they were talking about. Maybe this is part of that same midrash which says that when Moses our teacher came to the study hall of Rabbi Akiva, he sat there at the end of twenty rows and didn’t understand what was happening. That’s part of the issue.

What happens in such a situation? In such a situation, when you try to pass it on, it is very hard to pass on things like that. What does it mean that a slave is equivalent to a woman? Where does that come from? Why? What suddenly? Meaning, how? The student doesn’t exactly understand where it comes from. You don’t yet have this tool called verbal analogy: here the word “lah” is written, there too the word “lah” is written, and there is such a rule of verbal analogy, that when the same word appears in two contexts one makes a comparison. Despite all the vagueness that this rule still leaves, and one still has to add a great deal beyond that definition, but it adds an enormous ability to pass things on further. We will no longer forget the similarity between a slave and a woman, and not only because of feminism, but because we know that there is a verbal analogy of “lah lah” from woman. As long as that tool did not exist, was not conceptualized, there was no defined rule called verbal analogy, it was very easy to forget such things. It was more art than a defined technique. And art is hard to pass on. Yes. How does this stand in relation to the rule that a person may not derive a verbal analogy on his own? Wait, maybe I’ll get to that later, and maybe not, but it will take me off track. Nachmanides around the entry “verbal analogy” in the Talmudic Encyclopedia—look there; all the medieval authorities (Rishonim) say that a person may indeed derive one.

So the whole business began to be forgotten. During the mourning for Moses they did not study Torah. But when one doesn’t study Torah for some period of time—forty days there they didn’t study Torah—then they began to forget even more, they stopped engaging with it. One thousand seven hundred a fortiori inferences and verbal analogies were forgotten. What does that mean? Such and such one thousand seven hundred a fortiori inferences and verbal analogies? There is a fortiori inference and there is a verbal analogy. What was forgotten was not the tool of a fortiori inference and verbal analogy, but the laws derived by these rules. They were forgotten. Why were they forgotten? In my opinion—and it’s all speculation, but I think it makes very good sense of the matter—because they did not know these rules of a fortiori inference and verbal analogy at all. The laws came down to them just like that, and you don’t remember things like that—how can you remember them? Then what? Otniel ben Kenaz came and restored them through his dialectic. What did he do? And again, this whole midrash is a midrash that Tannaim say. It is not documentation from the days of Otniel ben Kenaz. I think this midrash comes to teach this mechanism I’m talking about now; I’m not sure it comes to describe history. It comes to teach this mechanism.

Otniel ben Kenaz began doing scientific research. He took the laws that we still remember and their connection to the verses. He said: from this verse comes such-and-such, they didn’t say how it comes out, by which exegetical tool, but it comes from this verse; this comes from that verse. Let’s try to distill some rule out of this collection. I see there are lines of similarity here. Suddenly, every place where the word “et” appears, something is included. “Honor your father and your mother”—that includes a stepmother and stepfather and an older brother; “the Lord your God shall you fear”—to include Torah scholars. For some reason it is always in places where the word “et” appears. So apparently there is an exegetical rule that when there is the word “et,” one includes. After that, he suddenly saw other indications of verbal analogies, that similarity between sections is always accompanied by some equal word in both sections. Ah, so apparently there is such a rule called verbal analogy. And he began extracting principles from the laws. He worked backwards. He did not create laws from the principles; he distilled principles from the set of laws that had not yet been forgotten. And after he distilled the a fortiori inference and the verbal analogy, he could restore the laws that had been forgotten. Now activate the a fortiori inference, the inclusion, the verbal analogy, whatever you want, and reconstruct all the laws that were forgotten. You already know how to do it. And now this also will no longer be forgotten, because now it is already based on tools that we know how to work with. And then this whole business undergoes conceptualization and formalization. What does that mean? Now a list of a system of rules begins to emerge, because I am now distilling out of this collection of laws certain basic methods of exposition. Now clearly such a process takes many generations and keeps continuing all the time, because Hillel’s system of seven rules is very far from covering the whole world of exposition that we find in the Talmud, or even in the Mishnah. There is no choice; you have to continue distilling. And then more hermeneutical principles are born, and more hermeneutical principles. Some are branches of earlier principles, some are new principles. But all of these principles were said to Moses at Sinai. Not in the form of a list: know that the Torah is expounded by thirteen principles—a fortiori inference, verbal analogy, an archetype from one verse, from two verses, and so on. Who even knew those names? Moses our teacher did not know the concept. More than that: when they said “a law given to Moses at Sinai” in that midrash, Moses our teacher was reassured. Why? Because he understood that this is what they had done. They were simply trying to reconstruct what he had done through formal tools, because they did not have the same simple intuition that he received directly from the Holy One blessed be He. The farther one gets from Mount Sinai, the more the intuition diminishes. You no longer intuitively understand how this works. So you need to use formal rules to help you reconstruct how it works.

And since that is so, throughout the course of Jewish law, every generation that gets farther from Mount Sinai forgets the intuition a bit more, it loosens a bit more. There is more forgetting of Torah. There is no choice: one has to become more inclined to pilpul, more analytical, define things more, conceptualize things more, formalize more, write things down so they won’t be forgotten—the Mishnah is written, the Talmud is written, suddenly Maimonides does something—and every such stage is of course accompanied by enormous controversies, because every such stage is a transgression. Yes. But according to how the Rabbi has presented it now, then these are just two different methods of reaching exactly the same result, there’s no… No, no, I don’t think so. In another moment I’ll qualify it; I’ll get to that. The question is whether laws were innovated that did not exist from the days of Moses until, I don’t know, the days of Maimonides, meaning they did not keep these laws, and suddenly they are Torah-level law. First of all, even according to what I’m saying, what I said until now, the answer is yes. Because Otniel ben Kenaz, just as he restored those laws that had been forgotten through his dialectic—once he has these tools, he can use those tools and derive new laws. That is exactly what could not be done in the time of Moses our teacher. Because in the time of Moses our teacher, you don’t understand how to derive a law from a verse; you understand that from this verse A, B, C comes out. You learn it by heart and pass it on to your student. Once there are tools, suddenly the possibility is created of deriving new laws. That is exactly the point. But that’s still not all. Later on I’ll qualify it even more. But if the Holy One blessed be He did not bring us these laws, then apparently it isn’t right. The Holy One blessed be He did not bring Moses our teacher… Of course not—what do you mean? If He didn’t bring… There are laws that can be innovated today and they will be Torah-level law. That’s what Maimonides said, what I brought earlier, no? That a religious court today can decide that there are 58 primary categories of labor—let’s say not two, so it’ll be less uncomfortable. Fine? 58 primary categories of labor, and this will be a Torah-level law, not a rabbinic law. That is how it understands the Torah. Whether by means of hermeneutical principles or by means of other interpretive tools, it doesn’t matter to me. But it will obligate; it is Torah-level law. Even though all generations until today thought there were 39—so what? I think there are 58. They thought that this is what the Holy One blessed be He told Moses at Sinai. They didn’t think—they interpreted the Torah, they counted how many times “labor” and “work of” are written in the Torah and got 39. That’s what it says in the Talmud. There are some suggestions that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai; in my humble opinion there is no hint of that. In Maimonides it even seems to say that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai. But there is no hint of it. Or it is a law given to Moses at Sinai in the same sense as the principles.

Actually, if we try to generalize this phenomenon, I once heard a nice example from Moshe Koppel from Bar-Ilan, a mathematician from Bar-Ilan. He suggested seeing this process as a comparison between two ways of learning a language. There is one way… You can learn a language as a mother tongue with no connection whatsoever to rules and begedkefet and subject-predicate and all those annoying things. Just learn how to speak from your parents, from the home, from society—simply jump into the water and start swimming. And there is a way to learn it in an ulpan. In an ulpan they use rules and principles, they explain to you the logic behind things, insofar as there is any. Someone born in a certain place usually learns the language with no connection to rules. He can spend his whole life speaking the language and not know even one rule. Subject, predicate—if you ask him that, he won’t know what you’re talking about at all. What is a predicate, what is a subject? Why is there a dagesh in begedkefet at the beginning of a word? He’s never heard of it in his life, and yet he always says it correctly. After all, if we hadn’t learned it in school, we wouldn’t know. Which means you don’t need these tools at all. You can speak perfectly without knowing anything about these rules. It’s exactly the same process with Torah. Torah is a kind of language. You can know everything without knowing the rules at all. But what? It may be forgotten somehow, there may be some weakening, or suddenly several schools of thought may arise. In order to synchronize the matter, you create rules. The rules come after the language is formed; the language did not come out of them. Someone who comes late to a certain place and has to learn the language spoken there learns it in an ulpan. He doesn’t know the language, and now he has to get into things quickly. And maybe as an adult it takes more time, it’s harder, I don’t know exactly. And therefore he learns it through rules.

Now he goes outside, out of the ulpan, and of course discovers that nobody speaks according to the rules. Then the enthusiastic among the ulpan students starts correcting everyone around him and explaining to them how to do it properly. But usually he is the one who is wrong. Why is he the one who is wrong? Because in the ulpan they also taught him another rule: every rule has several exceptions—except for this rule too, once again. And why is that? Because language is a living thing, and language is born naturally, the way a child learns it, not from the rules. The rules came after the language, not before the language, and therefore the rules are an approximation. That’s the second qualification I said I would mention. The rules are an approximation of the language. They do not describe the language precisely; they are the best approximation possible. That is the best way to get someone into things quickly who did not learn the language as a mother tongue. But don’t take it too seriously. These rules—someone who tries to write poetry with these rules will never write poetry in his life. You can’t write poetry with the rules they teach in ulpan. Those rules are a ladder you need to climb, and once you are up there, throw the ladder away. It gets you into it, but afterward you have to listen carefully and understand how the thing really works. After the internship you understand how the thing really works. Therefore not only do the rules come after the language, they are also not precise. They are not precise. Therefore we do not derive from general rules even where it says “except.” Therefore sages generally have contempt for rules and do not work with rules. Almost nowhere does a rule appear, and even when it does appear it has a hundred exceptions, even beyond the ones listed. And when they bring a Mishnah, there are reinterpretations and it is written like this. Nothing works properly, nothing works in an orderly way. It looks like some kind of ideology of not doing things in an orderly way. Why? I really think it is an ideology. Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner says this. Why was the Mishnah written in such a crooked way? Because it is forbidden to write the Oral Torah. I think it is not because it is forbidden to write the Oral Torah; it is because it is impossible to write the Oral Torah. And that is also the reason it is forbidden. The moment you write it down, you strip away its whole essence. The Oral Torah is like a language. And because the Oral Torah is like a language, you cannot fit it into a set of rules. You cannot. You need to understand the mindset, how the thing works. This is what is called “serving Torah scholars is greater than studying Torah from them.” Serving Torah scholars is not learning the rules; the rules you can read in books, and they are generally not correct anyway. What you can learn when you serve Torah scholars is to understand how the thing works, how he thinks, how he thinks about things. That is what you learn there. And that is more important than the rules. Because that leads you to the correct answer. The rules lead you to a reasonable approximation when there is no other option, when you are an ulpan student.

One second, I just want to finish because I’m pressed for time. So if we take the ulpan analogy, then when I look at earlier generations, from my perspective the farther I get from Mount Sinai, the language, that immediate intuitive sense of what the Torah wants from me, keeps being forgotten. Today we no longer have a clear feeling of what it means to keep the Sabbath. We are terribly technical. Is this a derivative of this, or a derivative of that? Or not? Rabbinic? Torah-level? From here, from there? We no longer have the simple feeling of what is right to do on the Sabbath and what is not. Truly, we do not have it. This is not a criticism, first of all it is simply a statement of fact. We do not have that feeling. And because of that, we have no choice but to go to those who did have that feeling, take what they said, and try to do what Otniel ben Kenaz did: distill rules out of it, and with those rules work and learn other laws too that they did not say. Who is more right if I get stuck in the rules and I found that a medieval authority (Rishon) goes against the rules? I have a massive difficulty against a medieval authority (Rishon) or against an Amora. Then obviously he is more right. But not because he is smarter, but because he has simple intuition—he understands what is right; he does not need the rules for that. This is known in the yeshivot, yes? When the Rosh brings proof for something, one can argue, but if the Rosh says “it seems to me,” then you can tuck in your tail. Why? Because when the Rosh says “it seems to me,” it means it is obviously so, no proofs are needed, he isn’t looking for proofs, it is simply so. So if you have a hundred thousand proofs against it, then there you are—you have simply found yet another exception to the rules that you think are correct, that’s all. Nothing more than that.

Which means that the concept—I now return to the decline of the generations—the concept of the decline of the generations does not mean that we are stupider. In my humble opinion, by the intelligence measures accepted today, the generations only improve, only improve all the time, monotonically upward. There is no doubt that if Moses our teacher did not understand a class of Rabbi Akiva, with Rabbi—Rabbi Akiva Eiger he would run away in his long underwear. He perhaps wouldn’t understand a word. It would be too sophisticated for him. Why? In three… It really would be too sophisticated for him. But if Rabbi Akiva Eiger remained at the end—of course he remains with two sides at the end after all the investigations—but even if, let’s say, he has some conclusion, and the conclusion is that a certain thing is forbidden, while Moses our teacher said it is permitted, or the opposite—who is right? Rabbi Akiva Eiger is smarter, smart in the sense of IQ tests, but Moses our teacher is more right. On the road, don’t be clever, as they say. Moses our teacher really is more right, like that person who leaves the ulpan and sees differences between himself and those who speak the language as a mother tongue. Who is more right? Sometimes there are just distortions, but generally they are more right, even though they do not know the rules. Who is smarter? It is entirely possible that דווקא the one who studied in the ulpan is smarter—he learns complex theory; not certain they all would manage to learn it—rules with applications, with very sophisticated analysis. But what is all that? Those are tools of a deaf person or a blind person. A blind person develops his sense of hearing very strongly in order to compensate for his blindness, so his hearing is better than that of an ordinary person—but he is blind. Meaning, these analytical tools, the intellectual tools we use, in which we are better than all previous generations—whatever earlier generations leave unresolved, I can produce five answers for you on the spot, no problem at all. Not only me, anybody. We know this at every step. Why is that? We really are more skilled in the tools of logical analysis, there is no doubt about that. We would score better on average on any intelligence test than previous generations. But in the simple intuition of what the Torah wants, obviously they are right, because they speak the language as a mother tongue.

Now what does that mean? My rabbi whom I studied with—fine, what is that? Does he have more intuition than I do? That gap of one generation versus another is really negligible on the scale from the giving of the Torah until today. There is some decline, but fine, it may be that he is smarter than him and I will know better than him, or the reverse; it can happen either way. You cannot establish hard-and-fast rules that anyone born two days before me presumably has higher intuition than mine. That is absurd. But the overall process is a process that exists throughout history. At a certain stage, when the sages feel that a line has been crossed, they demarcate the period. After Rabbi, people felt: look, what came before that—we can argue with them, but it’s not the same language. We didn’t speak with them, we weren’t there. Rav was in the court of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi; he can argue with him, he knows how he thinks, he heard him. So there, maybe he is not greater than Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, but he can sometimes dispute him. Meaning, fine, he is in the same league, the same language, the same principle, there is not such a great difference between them, so he can argue. But ten generations earlier—that already has no point. There is some chance of one in a million that maybe you are right, but it is a tiny chance; it is not worth relying on. So what do they do in such a case? They set a formal rule: one does not dispute Tannaim. And after the Talmud ends, one does not dispute Amoraim; after that, not medieval authorities (Rishonim); and after that, I don’t know whom. Again, this rule is of course set retrospectively, meaning backward-looking; not that we got through today and until yesterday the law followed whoever was born until yesterday, but in retrospect we understand that some period has passed here. Today, compared to them, it is already an ulpan; we study in their ulpan. So if we are learning in their ulpan, let’s not correct them. Let us hear what they say and try from that to understand what lies behind their words. A: to distill the rules, and B: not to be captive to the rules. And that is what they themselves convey to us, that even when they convey a rule to us, they tell us: don’t be captive to it. And this is the meaning of the decline of the generations: the decline of the generations is decline in intuition, in halakhic instinct. And in that there is unequivocally a decline. That is completely clear.

Today, when we do not decide disputes among medieval authorities (Rishonim), what is that? Is it because we don’t dare dispute medieval authorities (Rishonim)? There is no problem at all disputing medieval authorities (Rishonim) within a dispute, deciding like this one against that one. See my article in Meisharim 1 for the sources. There is no such problem; on the contrary, one should do it. Not only is there no problem, if someone doesn’t do it, he is a transgressor, because one must rule as one understands; that’s how one must rule. So why don’t we do it? We don’t do it because we are not capable of deciding. Not because they were great; we do not have the capacity to decide. We can analyze Maimonides and the Rashba wonderfully, anyone can erect here a magnificent tower upon his approach throughout the whole Talmud, but who is right? I have no idea here who is right. He is consistent and has this object-status and person-status from here and there, and the other one has person-status and not object-status, and he fits that baraita there in this and that way, and analyses here and there. Okay, and now who is right? We have no ability to decide because we do not have the instinct for who is right. What we use are analytical tools, and all they tell me is that I can establish what he says on a solid logical basis. But decide? I cannot. This is one of the indications of it. We become more users of rules and less people with instinct for what is right. We do not refrain from ruling in disputes among medieval authorities (Rishonim) because of an excess of fear of Heaven. We simply do not feel capable. We do not know who is really right. Tell me, who is right—the Rashba or Maimonides? Is a Torah-level doubt treated stringently by Torah law or only by rabbinic law? A dispute between the Rashba and Maimonides. If I had a position on this issue, I would rule like one of them; what is the problem? No—today we also turn that into a doubt. Even that dispute is a kind of doubt. Then whether in Torah-level matters or rabbinic matters, stringently or leniently, doesn’t matter. Why? Because we are incapable of deciding. What does it mean, who is right? He thinks this is a law concerning the person, and he thinks this is a law concerning the object. Who is right? I don’t know who is right. I make definitions; I do not test who is right. And why? Because I don’t have the instinct they once had. Really—think about someone who arrives at an ulpan and starts correcting people on the street before he’s gone through the ulpan. Just some American who doesn’t speak a word of Hebrew, and he explains to you that you don’t say it like that, you say it like this. You would laugh at him. It really makes no sense. Why on earth should he decide disputes? He has no instinct at all regarding the matter. Why on earth should he decide? He cannot decide. And after he has gone through the ulpan, even then he cannot decide. All he can do is establish rules and show that actually one can speak this way and one can speak that way because this belongs to rule 17 and that belongs to rule 38. So who…? But which is more correct speech? He says: I don’t know. I know that rule 17 is this and rule 38 is that. It is exactly the same thing. That does not mean someone here is smarter than someone else. It means one person has a healthier instinct than another, that’s all. For him it is a mother tongue, and for me it is an ulpan. And every generation is a mother tongue compared to the next generation, which is ulpan. It studies in that generation’s ulpan. And the goal of study ultimately is to try to acquire as much as possible of those intuitions hidden behind the rules. And not to be attached to the rules, as today for some reason there is this kind of ideology that everything works on “anonymous view” and “some say”: in the Shulchan Arukh, the law follows the anonymous view. If it says “some say” and “some say,” then the law follows the “some say,” because otherwise he would have put it as the anonymous view and “some say.” Therefore it is clear that he intended… So why does he bring both views at all? If the law is like this one, then why bring both opinions? These kinds of rules—I don’t know where they dropped from, these rules. And today that has become the halakhic give-and-take. Is it an anonymous view followed by “some say”? Again, we are no longer hearing at all what is written in the Shulchan Arukh, what he means.

Anyway, the bottom line of what I mean to say is that the decline of the generations means the loss of intuitive ability. That is what the decline of the generations means. And what we accepted upon ourselves, what the Kesef Mishneh says, not to dispute earlier generations, is because of this feeling that we are ulpan students in relation to them. It is not that we are stupider; we are smarter. But we are less right. Usually, if a medieval authority (Rishon) or an Amora says a law, it will be correct. There is a tiny chance that he is wrong, very tiny; it is not worth building on that. Today too one cannot build on that; we accepted upon ourselves not to allow such a thing at all. But it is also not worthwhile; there is good reason why we accepted it upon ourselves, because it really is not likely. Okay, that’s it, because I have to take off here.