The Way of Halakha – Only the Servant of God Is Truly Free – Lesson 9

Table of Contents

• [0:00] The structure of reasons and halakhic pluralism
• [1:30] The harmonistic approach: these and those are the words of the living God
• [2:34] Circles of error: legitimate and illegitimate
• [4:40] Definition and differences between one who is qualified and one who is not qualified
• [9:49] Errors in the Talmud: an explicit Mishnah versus discretionary judgment
• [15:26] The criteria of Jewish law: truth versus autonomy
• [22:10] Summary: combining the value of truth and the value of autonomy
• [29:57] The Maharal’s article on one who is qualified
• [32:20] The issue of the Kesef Mishneh and the division between generations
• [34:51] The criterion for being qualified – going back over Talmudic topics
• [37:57] Great is Talmud study, for it leads to action
• [39:53] Ordination and the determination of who is qualified
• [43:09] Autonomous halakhic ruling and its value
• [44:49] The Talmud in Sukkah – decorations four handbreadths away
• [47:36] The Talmud in Avodah Zarah – “do not place a stumbling block”
• [51:13] Monism versus pluralism in the halakhic outlook
• [54:13] The discussion of “do not place a stumbling block” – is it rabbinic?

Summary

General Overview

The text assumes that in every halakhic question there are valid reasons pointing in different directions, and that the dispute among the sages concerns mainly the question of the relative weight of those reasons rather than their correctness. Thus, “these and those are the words of the living God” is said about the plane of reasons, not the plane of practical ruling. The practical ruling is understood as one in which one side is right and the other is mistaken, but a distinction is made between legitimate error and illegitimate error through the concept of “one who is qualified.” At the same time, a view is presented according to which Jewish law is determined through a combination of two values: halakhic truth and the value of autonomy to act according to what the decisor understands. On that basis, the text examines a practical implication in the laws of “do not place a stumbling block” in the context of a halakhic dispute, and suggests that the permission and prohibition there are understood through the interaction between truth and autonomy.

“These and Those,” Reasons, and Ruling

The text states that in every halakhic question there are reasons pointing in different directions, and that all of those reasons are completely valid. It defines halakhic ruling as the result of weighing those reasons, and argues that the disagreements among the sages are about how those different reasons should be weighted. The text limits “these and those are the words of the living God” to the plane of reasons, and states that on the plane of practical ruling one side is right and the other is wrong, because there is a correct weighing and an incorrect weighing.

Pluralism, Monism, and Harmonism

The text presents a division attributed to a book by Avi Sagi between pluralism, monism, and harmonism, and concludes that the division relates to different aspects of the same picture. It formulates the overall position as a harmonism in which all the positions together create a more complex truth. The text declares that anyone who disagrees with this is mistaken, and frames it as a logical problem.

Legitimate Error, Illegitimate Error, and the Concept of One Who Is Qualified

The text distinguishes between positions that are a legitimate error and positions that are an illegitimate error outside the framework. It describes how, within Jewish law, rulings by different halakhic decisors are treated as legitimate, whereas a position that does not fit within Jewish law, such as a Reform position, is seen as an illegitimate error, about which one does not say “these and those are the words of the living God.” The text ties the legitimacy of an error to the status of the person saying it as “one who is qualified,” and assumes that if someone is qualified, then even if he is mistaken, his mistake is legitimate, whereas someone who is not qualified may make illegitimate mistakes.

The Rosh, “Has Reached the Level of Ruling,” and Halakhic Truth

The text refers to the Rosh in Sanhedrin, chapter 4, who distinguishes between one who is qualified and one who is not qualified, and identifies “has reached the level of ruling” with being qualified. It concludes that the very distinction between one who has reached that level and one who has not indicates that there is halakhic truth and also halakhic error, and that not every halakhic position is equally acceptable. The text states that this rejects substantive pluralism in which all halakhic positions are equally correct.

Two Stages in Ruling: Correct Reasons versus Incorrect Weighting

The text describes two stages in ruling: gathering the relevant reasons in all directions, and then weighing those reasons in order to arrive at a practical decision. It defines an illegitimate error as a situation in which someone who is not qualified raises reasons that are not correct at all. It defines a legitimate error as a situation in which someone who is qualified weighs reasons that are correct according to everyone, but gives them the wrong relative weight.

One Who Erred Against an Explicit Mishnah and One Who Erred in Discretionary Judgment

The text connects this distinction to the categories, in monetary law, of one who erred against an explicit Mishnah and one who erred in discretionary judgment. It defines one who erred against an explicit Mishnah as someone who ruled against a clear and authoritative source on a question that is no longer open. It defines one who erred in discretionary judgment as someone who assigned the wrong weight without saying something blatantly opposed to a clear source. The text notes that in the Sanhedrin passage, the presentation is that an error in discretionary judgment is where there is no Mishnah against him, and it brings the criterion of “the accepted course of the world,” meaning going against practice or widespread halakhic consensus even without a formal ruling.

“The Accepted Course of the World” as an Indication, and the Broader Use of the Concept in Responsa

The text raises a linguistic and conceptual difficulty about why going against “the accepted course of the world” is called specifically an error in discretionary judgment. It states that in responsa literature the concept of error in discretionary judgment is used in a broader sense, and attributes examples of this in a note to an article in HaMa’ayan. The text defines “the accepted course of the world” as an indication that helps diagnose an error in discretionary judgment, not as a definition of the concept itself, and says that an error in discretionary judgment is hard to define, and it is unclear who determines it, even though Jewish law recognizes that it exists.

Halakhic Truth versus Autonomy: Rabbi Meir

The text asks why, if there is halakhic truth, legitimacy is nevertheless granted to the legitimate error of someone who is qualified. It presents a view according to which halakhic ruling is a combined product of two criteria: halakhic truth and what I think is correct, such that the answer to the question of how to act does not derive only from the truth but also from personal understanding. The text brings Rabbi Meir in Eruvin as an example, that the Jewish law was not ruled in accordance with him because his colleagues could not fully grasp his reasoning, and concludes that Jewish law is determined not only by who is closer to the truth but also by what is understood and accepted among the teachers.

“Jephthah in His Generation Is Like Samuel in His Generation” and the Boundary of One Who Is Qualified

The text interprets “Jephthah in his generation is like Samuel in his generation” as instruction that even though Jephthah is lesser than Samuel, if this is what seems right to him, then that is what he must do. It ties this to the value of autonomy, which for someone who has reached the level of ruling is no less important than the value of truth, and defines the privilege of acting according to a mistaken understanding as applying only to someone whose mistake lies within the legitimate range. The text states that someone who is not qualified must listen to the halakhic decisor even without understanding, because illegitimate error is not granted legitimacy.

Derashot HaRan, “Do Not Deviate,” and the Rebellious Elder

The text brings Derashot HaRan on “do not deviate” and his question how one can obligate a rebellious elder to obey the Sanhedrin even though, in his view, they are mistaken and this harms him. It brings Ran’s answer that the very rebellion itself is a transgression that causes the harm. From this the text concludes that sometimes halakhic ruling does not derive only from the question of what is true, but also from additional considerations such as the authority of the Sanhedrin, to the point of “even if they tell you that left is right and right is left.” The text stresses that Ran justifies submission to the Sanhedrin even when it may be that the elder is right and they are wrong, and brings as an example that the bull-offering for an erroneous communal ruling shows that a religious court can make a mistake.

The Maharal: The Preference for Ruling מתוך the Talmud Even with the Risk of Error

The text quotes the Maharal in Netivot Olam, Netiv HaTorah, chapter 15, and presents his position that it is more proper to issue rulings from the Talmud even though one must fear that he may not follow the path of truth. The text reports that the Maharal says that a sage has only what his intellect gives him and understands from the Talmud, and that even when his understanding errs, he is beloved before God when he rules in accordance with what his intellect requires, and that “a judge has only what his eyes see.” The text sets this against someone who rules from one code without understanding the reason for the matter, and explains that these words apply to someone who is qualified and include a message of “do not be afraid to rule.”

Talmudic Study Directed to Practical Jewish Law, and the Critique of Splitting Analysis from Practical Ruling

The text defines “to engage in Talmudic discussion directed to practical Jewish law” as analytical study that leads to a practical conclusion which one then actually carries out, even against the Mishnah Berurah, when a person is qualified. It criticizes a situation in which people study a Talmudic topic analytically and produce independent reasoning, but afterward observe practice only according to books of rulings without allowing the analytical conclusion to be translated into action. The text connects this to the value of autonomy as a halakhic value linking the world of abstract ideas with the world of action.

Kesef Mishneh, “They Accepted It Upon Themselves,” and the Boundary Line of One Who Is Qualified

The text brings the Kesef Mishneh on the beginning of Maimonides’ Laws of Rebels and his question why people do not disagree with Amoraim, or why Amoraim did not disagree with Tannaim. It answers in the name of the Kesef Mishneh: “because they accepted it upon themselves.” The text proposes a substantive understanding of “they accepted it upon themselves” as a determination that with respect to the Tannaim we are not qualified, a category similar to “not qualified.” It emphasizes that there is an area in which a person is simply not in the game, and there he does not operate through autonomy, and that the line depends on awareness of the distinction between a place where one is qualified and a place where one is not.

An Indication of the Consolidation of Discretionary Judgment

The text proposes a possible criterion for being qualified, based on Meisharim I: someone who returns to a Talmudic topic after time has passed and usually reaches the same conclusion, as evidence that he is already formed and that his judgment has become settled. The text describes situations in which returning to a Talmudic topic after time has passed overturns the earlier conclusion, and infers from this a lack of consolidation, meaning that the person has not yet reached the level of ruling. It notes that changing one’s mind from time to time is not a disaster and may even be praiseworthy, but the general pattern serves as an indication.

Ordination, Ruling for the Public, and Determining the Reality

The text distinguishes between historical ordination, which had significance, and modern ordination, which it calls “just nonsense,” while still recognizing that a rabbi can determine for his student that he is qualified. It states that regarding ruling for the public, the public will decide whether to accept his rulings, and regarding ruling for oneself, a person can determine whether he himself is qualified. The text describes practical determination of who is fit to rule as being created through a weighing of the public, his teachers, and he himself, and says that there are no clear rules, so the matter is amorphous and opens the door to problematic things, but “that’s life.”

“Do Not Place a Stumbling Block” in a Halakhic Dispute: Sukkah, Ritva, and Chullin

The text presents a practical question in the law of “do not place a stumbling block” when there is a halakhic dispute between two people, such as whether a piece of meat is forbidden fat or permitted fat, and whether they may feed one another. It brings the Talmud in Sukkah 10 about a sukkah with decorations hanging four handbreadths away from the roofing, and the case where Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna sat in such a sukkah in the house of the Exilarch in accordance with Rav Nachman, even though according to their own view it was forbidden. The text attributes to the Ritva the inference that someone who considers something permitted may feed it to another person who thinks it is forbidden, but limits this, based on the Ritva and on the Talmud in Chullin 111, “God forbid that the descendants of Abba bar Abba should feed me something that I do not hold by,” to a case where the matter is recognizable to the eater.

“Two Sides of the River” and Understanding the Novelty in “Do Not Place a Stumbling Block”

The text raises the difficulty that if the matter is recognizable to the eater, what is the novelty in “do not place a stumbling block”? It answers through the Talmud’s distinction in Avodah Zarah between “two sides of the river” and “one side of the river.” The text states that “do not place a stumbling block” applies even when the sinner acts intentionally, so long as without the helper he would not have been able to commit the transgression. It concludes that there is a novelty in the Ritva: that in the case of a dispute it is permitted to feed the other person when the other knows, so that here there is permission in a case where in ordinary “do not place a stumbling block,” even intentional sin would be prohibited.

Monism, Pluralism, and the Intermediate Model of Truth and Autonomy

The text argues that monism would permit causing another to stumble even when the other person is unintentional, because from my perspective it is permitted, while pluralism would prohibit causing another to stumble even when the other person knows, because both sides are equally right. The text suggests that the Ritva’s distinction between someone who knows and someone who is unintentional is understandable through the conception that there is one halakhic truth, but there is also an obligation to act according to what one understands. Thus, when the other person knows, his autonomy to choose is preserved, whereas when he does not know, he is being caused to stumble because he is not acting according to what he himself understands. The text describes this as a form of “do not place a stumbling block” in which one causes a person to fail not in a transgression itself, but in non-autonomous behavior, and notes that later authorities discuss whether such a form of “do not place a stumbling block” is rabbinic. The text mentions a book called Lifnei Iver, published by Bnei Torah, as discussing the sources for these matters, though without the autonomy framing.

Okay. Last time we discussed “these and those are the words of the living God,” halakhic pluralism and pluralism in general. And the conclusion, at the end of the day, was that in fact there is a structure according to which, in every halakhic question, there are reasons pointing in different directions. The basic assumption is that all the reasons for all the different directions are completely correct, and the halakhic ruling does not stem from the fact that some of the reasons are correct and some are not, but rather from the relative weights of the reasons. There are reasons that carry greater weight, and other reasons whose weight is lighter, and the disagreements among the sages are really about the question of how to weight the different reasons, and that is how they arrive at rulings. And then, generally speaking, I argued that “these and those are the words of the living God” was said on the level of the reasons: the reasons for both directions are correct, and they are completely correct. Not eighty percent correct or ninety percent correct; they are entirely correct. But regarding the question of the ruling, of how one ought to act in practice, which is also a result of the balancing, here one is right and the other is wrong. Meaning, there is a correct balancing and there is a balancing that is not correct. So in effect the three approaches—people usually divide things this way, or in Avi Sagi’s book he divides them into pluralism, monism, and harmonism—are really just different ways of relating to different aspects of this picture, but in practice it is really harmonism, harmonism, in the sense that all the positions together create some more complex truth. In that context we also spoke about the two circles, or two radii, of mistakes. The claim that all thinkers in Judaism—is that how you put it just now? Yes. I claim that anyone who does not agree with this is mistaken. He is not a thinker in Judaism; in any event he is not a thinker at all, not a thinker in Judaism. It is a simple logical problem not to agree with this. Within that framework I spoke about two circles of error. Meaning, there are positions that we will treat as a legitimate mistake, and there are positions that we will treat as an illegitimate mistake, a mistake that is outside the framework. In the world around us we know such attitudes. For example, disputes within Jewish law—usually we say “these and those are the words of the living God”: Rabbi Ovadia, Rabbi Elyashiv, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, whatever, any halakhic decisor—what he says is legitimate. But if someone were to put forward a position that does not fit Jewish law at all—I don’t know, a Reform position, some position I don’t know exactly what—about that no one would say “these and those are the words of the living God”; rather, that would be an illegitimate mistake. That led us, really, to the concept of bar hakhi. I did that quickly at the end. The claim was that positions considered legitimate—even if mistaken, but legitimate—are positions put forward by a person or halakhic decisor who is bar hakhi. And someone who is bar hakhi—even if he says something I disagree with and I think he is wrong—certainly the mistake is a legitimate mistake. Someone who is not bar hakhi can make mistakes that are also illegitimate mistakes. What is the difference between bar hakhi and not bar hakhi? This comes up in several places. The Rosh in Sanhedrin, for example, in chapter 4, has a long passage dealing with these issues, and he too makes a distinction there between someone who is bar hakhi and someone who is not bar hakhi. The Talmud says: one who has reached the stage of issuing rulings and does not rule, or one who has not reached that stage and does rule. “Has reached the stage of ruling” is—it seems to me—what is called bar hakhi. Why, really, is there a difference between bar hakhi and not bar hakhi? First of all, the very fact that there is a difference really says that there is such a thing as halakhic truth—or alternatively, that there is also such a thing as halakhic error. Not every halakhic position is equally correct. There are positions that are not acceptable in Jewish law. So that obviously rejects substantive pluralism. But why is the boundary drawn between bar hakhi and not bar hakhi? Here it can be explained in two ways. One way is that if someone is not bar hakhi, there is too great a chance that he will err. And the chance that he will err is too great, and that we are not willing to allow. Someone who is bar hakhi, his chance of error is smaller. But such an explanation is not sufficient, because I am already assuming from the outset that there is some concept that defines error and non-error on the one hand, and on the other hand that there are some people who are allowed to err. Meaning, even if they have erred, it will still be a legitimate position. So then it is not enough for me just to talk about the people—who is bar hakhi and who is not—but I also need to talk about the kinds of mistakes. Which kinds of mistakes shall we call legitimate mistakes, and which kinds of mistakes are illegitimate mistakes. Here I come to the second way—which I think is a continuation of the first way—of explaining the difference between bar hakhi and not bar hakhi. Why is this a problem? There is simply a halakhic decisor so great that even his balancing can be mistaken; there is concern that someone may issue a ruling because of a mistake, simply… Now if he ruled by mistake… No, no, those two issues are not necessarily connected, that is clear, but still I am saying that even the issue of who can or cannot issue a ruling does not tell us about the positions themselves. Meaning, why is his position—if it is a mistake—still legitimate, while his position—if it is a mistake—is not legitimate? Examine the position itself. And once you are examining the position itself, what really is the criterion? Not the decisor, but what is the criterion that distinguishes among the positions and not among the decisors who state them. So here, I mentioned at the end last time, I think the distinction, in the language I described earlier, is really between someone who raises reasons that are not correct reasons, and someone who gives the wrong weight to reasons that are in fact correct. We said before that there are two stages in ruling. Stage one is to gather the reasons in all directions—the relevant reasons to forbid, to permit, to declare impure, to declare pure, and so on. And then—and the assumption is that all those reasons are correct. And then comes the question of balancing them. How to weight each of the reasons in order ultimately to reach the practical ruling of how to act. Now if there is someone who is not bar hakhi, then it may be that the reasons he considered are not correct reasons at all. He simply raises reasons that are not correct reasons. That is an illegitimate mistake, because you are relying on something that is not true. By contrast, what is a legitimate mistake? Or someone who is bar hakhi—the assumption is that if someone is bar hakhi, then even if he errs, he errs in a legitimate way. What does legitimate mean? That the reasons among which he is operating, or which he is weighing, are reasons that are correct according to everyone. Only with respect to the relative weight he gives those reasons might he err. So he is not relying on falsehood; he is relying on incorrect weighting. But the arguments he is speaking about are correct arguments. Such a person, basically, is someone who has reached the stage of issuing rulings. The reasons he gives are correct reasons; he knows the material. But it may be that his judgment, the weight he gave to each of the reasons in that case at least, was not the correct weight. So he is mistaken. But why is it a legitimate mistake? Because all he is doing is weighting correct reasons. So here we recognize the possibility, or the right, of a person—a halakhic decisor who is bar hakhi—to weigh things as he sees fit, so long as he is weighing correct reasons. This leads us to the concepts I mentioned last time as well: one who errs in an explicit Mishnah, and one who errs in judgment. The Talmud distinguishes in monetary law between judges who erred in judgment and judges who erred in an explicit Mishnah. This has practical implications as to whether they have to pay out of their own pocket and so on, whether the judgment is reversed or not reversed. But what really is the difference between these two kinds of mistakes? “One who errs in an explicit Mishnah” means one who rules against an authoritative source—and it does not specifically have to be a Mishnah; today it includes other things too. He rules against an authoritative, clear, cited source, meaning a question that is no longer open. That is called one who errs in an explicit Mishnah. What is one who errs in judgment? One who errs in judgment is someone who gives a judgment—it comes from the word weight—he gives the wrong weight, but he does not say something that is blatantly incorrect. Not something that is simply a necessary error against a clear source; rather only the relative weight he gives the considerations is perhaps not the correct weight, and therefore it is called an error in judgment. The mind gives weight to each of the arguments, and this person erred in the weighting. One who errs in an explicit Mishnah is someone who simply says something incorrect—it is against a Mishnah. One who errs in judgment is someone who balances incorrectly among reasons that are correct reasons. I already mentioned that in the Talmud itself, when you look in Sanhedrin at the distinction between one who errs in judgment and one who errs in an explicit Mishnah, usually it is not presented that way there. It is presented as follows: one who errs in judgment is someone where there is no Mishnah against him. So if there is no Mishnah against him, in what sense did he err? Why did he err? That is his view. If there is no authoritative source, no Mishnah, no Shulchan Arukh, no unambiguous source against him, and he says something different from what you think, in what sense did he err? Why is what you say correct and what he says not correct? So the Talmud says: where the general practice does not follow him. He went against the general practice. What is “the general practice”? The intention is the common practice in the world, or what became accepted as Jewish law even if it was not decided in some formal way, but the common practice in the world is not like that. And then indeed the criterion is not what I said earlier, but simply: all right, since that is how it spread, we already conduct ourselves that way in Jewish law, and one who does not do so erred, and we will call him one who errs in judgment. That of course only raises questions about the terminology. Why is this called one who errs in judgment? What does judgment have to do with it? You exercised judgment that may even have been correct, but it was not accepted in the world that way. Fine, so why is that called one who errs in judgment? And in fact when you examine the responsa literature of various kinds, you see that the concept “one who errs in judgment” is used in a broader sense than what appears there in the Talmudic passage. Meaning, in several places—you can see some examples in an article in HaMaayan, in a note there—“one who errs in judgment” really means someone whose judgment is not correct. Only in the Talmud, when they tried to find some criterion—this sage says this, that sage says that—“the general practice” is an indication. It is not the definition of one who errs in judgment, namely someone who goes against the general practice. Rather, the general practice is an indication that can help us identify that here there is an error in judgment. But basically the fundamental concept is an error in judgment, not the general practice. The general practice is only the criterion. So what is one who errs in judgment? It is someone whose judgment is not correct. He is not against a Mishnah, not against the Talmud, not against the Shulchan Arukh, but his judgment is not correct. And that is very hard to define. So who will determine that this judgment is not correct? It is not clear. I do not know, but Jewish law says there is such a thing. Meaning, apparently if enough established decisors say that in this case that particular decisor erred, then this will be called an error in judgment. Even though we do not have some clear criterion, his reasoning stands against their reasoning. Both sides fit all the authoritative sources, because otherwise it would be one who errs in an explicit Mishnah, and yet it is still called an error, one who errs in judgment. And then I return to what I said before: apparently what we really have here is simply a mistake in the relative weight that the person or the decisor gave to the different reasons. And then it is obvious that in such a situation you cannot point—you have no Mishnah that says that the weight he gave is incorrect. All the arguments he gives are correct arguments, all have a source; the only question is how to weight them relative to each other. That is something fundamentally left to the decisor’s reasoning, and he may have erred in that, but even if he erred, that is an error in judgment. But behind this whole discussion really stands the question: why, if there really is halakhic truth—as we began with—that there is halakhic truth, and only one is right and the one who says otherwise is apparently mistaken—why, nevertheless, if he is an authorized decisor, is his mistake a legitimate mistake? Why give a mistaken person legitimacy to act as he understands? Just as they ate chicken with milk according to Rabbi Yosei and things like that. Meaning, there is some degree of legitimacy for a decisor who is bar hakhi to do as he understands, even though we may decide that this is called a mistake. It is called a legitimate mistake. But it is still a mistake. And still, a legitimate mistake is different from an illegitimate mistake. A legitimate mistake—even if he acts accordingly—is legitimate. An illegitimate mistake—someone who acts that way is outside the legitimate boundary. What is the meaning of this whole business of a legitimate mistake? Underlying it is really a conception—and maybe I already mentioned this last time, I do not remember—a conception that says that the halakhic ruling is really the combined product of two criteria, not one. One criterion is halakhic truth: what is correct. And the second criterion is what I think is correct. And when I ask myself how to act, the answer is not only according to the question of what the truth is, what the halakhic truth is, but also according to the question of what I understand the truth to be saying. An example—I do not remember whether I mentioned it or not—the example of Rabbi Meir, yes, there in Eruvin, where the Talmud says that the halakhah was not ruled in accordance with him because his colleagues could not get to the depth of his reasoning. So if he was such a great sage that his colleagues could not get to the depth of his reasoning, then ostensibly we should have ruled like him everywhere, even if we do not understand his reasons; the halakhah should have been like him. He was the greatest sage of the generation, he apparently hits the truth in the clearest way, so even if we do not agree with him, the halakhah should ostensibly have followed him. But no. Since his colleagues could not get to the depth of his reasoning, they do not rule like him. Why not? Because Jewish law is not determined only on the basis of the question of what the truth is, but also on the basis of the question of what I understand the truth to be saying. And why? Because Jewish law is determined by two values: one value is the value of halakhic truth, and the other is the value of autonomy, that a person should do what he understands. And once I do not understand what Rabbi Meir is saying, then even if it is clear to me that he is probably more right than I am, I will not do what he says. Of course, this is when I am bar hakhi. Meaning, even if I am mistaken, my mistake is a legitimate mistake. Because if I am someone who is not bar hakhi, then the fact that I do not understand something a decisor says does not mean I can now do what I think. Why? Because there my mistake may be the kind of mistake that falls into the illegitimate zone. Meaning, the privilege of doing what I think even if it is mistaken is given only to one whose mistake falls within the legitimate range. Meaning, a legitimate mistake may be acted upon even though it is a mistake, and even though perhaps I have a way to get closer to the truth, I do not need to. Why? Because if I think this is what is right, then even if Rabbi Meir, such a great genius, thinks otherwise, my obligation of autonomy—to conduct myself as I understand—says that I need to do what I understand. Just a second. But if I am not bar hakhi, if my mistakes are mistakes that may fall into the illegitimate sphere, then there I need to listen to the decisor even if I do not understand what he is saying, because an illegitimate mistake is not legitimate. There is no legitimacy to act on it. Legitimacy exists only to act on a mistake that is a legitimate mistake—that is why it is called legitimate, because there is legitimacy to act in accordance with it even though it is a mistake. It is a kind of intermediate state. One could argue that at this point perhaps we should say that there is no truth, and only autonomy exists, only what I understand. But that is exactly the claim with which I opened: that cannot be, because otherwise what is the difference between bar hakhi and not bar hakhi? So what difference does it make? You can see that there is such a concept as halakhic error. That there is a range of considerations, and there is a range of considerations that is correct, and there are considerations that are not correct. That is something one apparently must assume within the concept of bar hakhi. But still, there is no correct consideration and incorrect consideration; there is the consideration I understand and the consideration I do not understand. But I did not understand. You say there are correct considerations and incorrect considerations. There is a range of correct considerations, whether to give a reason in this direction or in that direction, and these are the relevant considerations. Outside those considerations are illegitimate considerations. And one who rules based on them—it depends on how you understand the whole spectrum. Obviously it depends on that, but now the question is still, after you understand, whether there is one truth here or whether there is no one truth in this matter. Here you see—and I think we will see—that very clearly throughout, one sees that there is error on this level. Meaning, one who ruled otherwise erred. We see all the time in every introduction to responsa, after they speak about the power of a decisor to rule as he understands—the Sema and Igrot Moshe and all the introductions always cited in these contexts—they still speak about this fear that perhaps I am mistaken. According to that view, there would be no room for such fear. There is no problem at all, because what I think is by definition correct. How can you even fear perhaps I am mistaken? “Perhaps I am apprehensive”—what does that mean? Is it just a politeness game? If I had not understood the reasons of that decisor. But the assumption is that I do understand. I simply weigh things differently. If I had not understood the plain meaning… Well, then it says there is error. Otherwise, what are you afraid of? What is the problem? You weigh it this way, he weighs it that way; you are no less right than he is, because in weighting there is no truth. So if you have these weights and he has other weights, what is the problem? That same decisor whom you think is correct—even then, if I had not understood his ruling. Right, that is what I am saying. What does that prove? It proves that it is not true that the criterion is only truth. There is also an obligation to go according to what you think, and therefore he rules as he thinks. Even though he sometimes disagrees with the greatest halakhic decisors, he says: okay, but this is what seems right to me and this is what I need to do. “Jephthah in his generation is like Samuel in his generation”—that is basically the meaning of that expression. “Jephthah in his generation is like Samuel in his generation” means not because Jephthah is no less correct than Samuel. On the contrary, otherwise there would be no novelty here at all. The whole novelty is that even though Jephthah is lesser than Samuel, if this is what seems right to him, that is what he needs to do. He does not have Samuel here now, and even if he did, if he did not understand him and was not persuaded, he still might not have been obligated to listen to him. So there is really a balancing of two factors that lead to the halakhah. One factor is what the halakhic truth is, and the second is what I think. Now if I am bar hakhi, then what I think—even if it is mistaken, even if I have external indications that it is mistaken, such as the fact that Rabbi Meir, the great genius, says otherwise, and all in all it is reasonable to assume that I am the one who is mistaken and not he—but since I am bar hakhi, I have legitimacy to act according to what I understand. Even though it is a mistake, it is an error in judgment, a legitimate mistake. It is not an illegitimate mistake. And then we see that there is indeed a balancing here between two values. I will perhaps give an example by way of analogy. In Derashot HaRan, when he discusses “do not deviate,” he says: we obligate the rebellious elder to listen to the Sanhedrin. Now the rebellious elder is someone who has reached the stage of ruling—bar hakhi in our language. So the author of Derashot HaRan asks: we know that every transgression harms a person in some sense. There were those who wanted to say even physically, but let us say spiritually. It harms him in some sense. Now, are we going to harm a person? Maybe it could also harm others? It does not matter; to harm others, same idea. He assumes it is the person himself, I think, as far as I remember at least. In any case, he says: how can it be that in the name of submission to the authority of the Sanhedrin we force a person to harm himself? We force a person to listen to the Sanhedrin, to hear what they say, when he has reached the stage of ruling and is no less wise than they are, and he knows they are mistaken—he is sure they are mistaken. How can one obligate someone to do something that harms him? And there he says that not listening to the Sanhedrin is also a transgression; there is “do not deviate.” That too will harm him. So if we allow him to do what he understands, he will not be free of harm; he will suffer the harm that comes from violating “do not deviate.” Fine, let us leave aside the language of harms for a moment, but what does this really mean beneath the surface? What it means is that sometimes we tell a person: do not act in the way that is correct according to Jewish law because of some other consideration, such as the authority of the Sanhedrin. And it is very important to preserve that, even if they are mistaken, even if they tell you that left is right and right is left. There is another example, for instance, of danger to life, where we say that with regard to that same problem of the authority of the Sanhedrin, we tell him: do what you do because not harming, not injuring, not causing harm to someone else is a value that, in our view, comes before the halakhah. Therefore we would tell him: do not do what… We would say to him: were it not for that value of harm to the Sanhedrin, the authority of the Sanhedrin, we would tell him: do what you think in order not to harm others. And what if he acts against what we think is the halakhah in order not to harm others? No—who says? Maybe we would tell him no? What does “we would tell him” mean? Maybe he asks us because we have no authority. They recognize that he is doing something on account of that same harm he would otherwise cause himself. In other words, the harm he causes himself is something of value. You are saying that the very question of the Ran already assumes a degree of legitimacy to error. That I think differently from him, and yet the assumption is that he would have had to do what he thinks were it not for the injury to the authority of the Sanhedrin. Legitimate. What—I am bringing this as an example that sometimes the halakhic ruling does not derive from the question of what the truth is. Because that elder basically thinks the truth is what he thinks. In his eyes he is wiser than the Sanhedrin—or at least no less wise. He is convinced this is right. And yet we say to him: do not do it. Why? Because of an external consideration. It is an example of a situation in which the halakhic ruling is not necessarily the halakhic truth. The halakhic ruling is the halakhic truth plus additional considerations. Why do we rule something that is not the halakhic truth? What the Sanhedrin decided is not truth? Not necessarily. What do you mean? The rebellious elder, for example, thinks they are mistaken. What do you mean? No, but for others, as regards others, it is certainly no better than the Sanhedrin. And I am asking him, not the others. If you had said to me “listen to the Sanhedrin, not to the elder,” fine, I understand. But you tell the elder: do not instruct so-and-so. Why? That is the truth; he wants to prevent harm from him. What do you mean? But he thinks the truth is not like that, so what is this? Therefore God… therefore God gave a special reason that he should not err? If we were saying that this is a halakhic ruling for people and this is what we think is the truth, then… You can hold that the Sanhedrin only reveal the truth, and in essence once you disagree with the Sanhedrin, you are simply mistaken. But that is exactly what the Ran says is not correct. That is why I brought the Ran; I did not invent this difficulty myself. The Ran says exactly this: not true. That statement does not mean that you are necessarily mistaken because you disagree with the Sanhedrin. Fine, but it is plausible. No, not even that. No, not even that. Because if it were only plausible that he was mistaken, there would be no need for the Ran’s additional consideration. One would simply have to say: listen, it is reasonable to assume you are mistaken because the Sanhedrin are correct. That is all. That is not the Ran’s argument. The Ran’s argument is that you must do what the Sanhedrin think, even though it could be that you are right and they are wrong. Why? Because listening to the Sanhedrin is also a value. Not only not desecrating the Sabbath or whatever dispute you have with the Sanhedrin—that is one issue. The authority of the Sanhedrin is itself a halakhic value, even if they are wrong, even if they tell you that left is right. But what is the logic? On what is the Ran’s argument based? Why does he need it? That is what the Ran says. Why does he need it? Because the Ran grasps exactly the point I mentioned earlier: it is not at all certain that the truth lies with the Sanhedrin. What, do we not find “the bull offering for the communal error”? A court that erred? Fine, but in the end the reality is that it is more likely that the Sanhedrin will be right than the individual. I am not at all sure. It depends who this elder is. What do you mean? Rabbi Akiva was the greatest sage of the generation and was not on the Sanhedrin. So what? He intercalated years outside the Land of Israel because they would not let him do it in the Land of Israel. And he was not on the Sanhedrin. At the end of tractate Makkot he says: Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva—if we had been on the Sanhedrin, no person would ever have been executed. They were not on the Sanhedrin; he was the son of converts. That does not have to be contradictory. No. Do not tell anyone, but it is forbidden. Fine. So in essence the value of autonomy is a value that takes part in the halakhic ruling, not only the striving for truth itself. The decisor himself, of course, has to strive to get as close to the truth as he can. But what he understands—that is the truth from his perspective. And if someone comes and says “I am a greater sage, and therefore know that the truth is probably with me,” and he may be right about that, it does not matter. If I think otherwise, I need to do as I think, if I have reached the stage of ruling. Because the value of autonomy is no less than the value of truth. And this is what the well-known Maharal writes in Netivot Olam, Netiv HaTorah, chapter 15: “For it is more fitting and more correct that one should rule out of the Talmud, and even though there is reason to fear that he will not go in the path of truth and will not rule truly, so that the ruling will accord with the truth, nevertheless the sage has only what his own intellect yields and understands from the Talmud. And when his understanding and wisdom mislead him, even so he is beloved to God when he rules in accordance with what follows from his intellect. And the judge has only what his eyes see. And this is better… than one who rules from a single code and knows no reason for the matter at all, who goes like a blind man on the road.” Meaning, the Maharal is basically saying that a person who rules according to his reasoning from the Talmudic passages, according to what he understands, even if he is mistaken, is more beloved in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He, than someone who rules from books of rulings, even if he is right. Do you hear? In other words, in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He, it is preferable to have someone who desecrates the Sabbath in a way punishable by stoning—why? Because he thinks that this is the correct thing to do on the Sabbath—than someone who is careful because it says in Shemirat Shabbat Kehilkhatah or in the Mishnah Berurah that it is forbidden to do this, even though he does not understand it, does not agree with it, does not understand their reasoning, but is careful not to desecrate the Sabbath. The Maharal says: the first is preferable in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He. That is it. This is clearly a qualification that obviously must be inserted here. He does not write it, but it is obvious that this is what he means. Meaning, obviously he is speaking about someone who is bar hakhi. In other words: do not be afraid to rule. If this is what you think, and if you are bar hakhi, then you are in fact obligated to rule as you understand, as your own intellect tells you; that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects from you. This is exactly the value of autonomy, and not because you are greater than the Mishnah Berurah. No, you do not need to be greater than the Mishnah Berurah. Besides, the Mishnah Berurah is greater, and it is more likely that he is right, and still the Holy One, blessed be He, expects you to act as you understand. Not because of the value of truth, because if the value of truth were operating alone, you would need to do what the Mishnah Berurah says. Rather, because in addition to the value of truth there is also the value of autonomy, that you need to do what you think is right, to act according to what you understand. That is what is called engaging in the Talmudic discussion for the sake of practical Jewish law. In the end, you are supposed to study the sugya, reach some conclusion, and carry out that conclusion, not as we generally do: we study the sugya analytically, and there we say whatever we want—this reasoning, that reasoning, disagreeing with Maimonides, with Rashba, with whomever we like—and afterward we study practical Jewish law, read the Mishnah Berurah, and observe what is written there. That is not called engaging in the Talmudic discussion for the sake of practical Jewish law. Engaging in the Talmudic discussion for the sake of practical Jewish law means to study the sugya analytically, to come to a conclusion with all the arguments we said in the analysis, to arrive eventually at a conclusion—what our conclusion is in the sugya—and then to do that. Even if it is against the Mishnah Berurah. If you are bar hakhi. Is it possible to disagree with medieval authorities (Rishonim) and anyone one wants? So now the question—this we already discussed—I think I mentioned that Kesef Mishneh that asks about Maimonides at the beginning of Hilkhot Mamrim, where Maimonides says that any court in any generation does not need to be greater in wisdom and number in order to disagree with previous courts in Torah-level laws, and in rabbinic laws there is a rule that one must be greater in wisdom and number. The Kesef Mishneh asks: so why do we not disagree with Amoraim? Or why did the Amoraim not disagree with the Tannaim? So he says: because they accepted it upon themselves. That is all. It is only a formal issue. Where we accepted it upon ourselves, fine, but within the range that falls into the framework we accepted upon ourselves, one need not be concerned that someone else is a greater sage. If I have a clear position on the matter, and if I am bar hakhi, then what is expected of me is to do what I think. Why did we accept it upon ourselves? If I am supposed to act according to autonomy and according to how I understand the truth, why is the fact that I accepted it upon myself legitimate at all? No, now the claim—I think the claim that we accepted it upon ourselves—is really a claim saying: with respect to the Tannaim, we are no longer bar hakhi. It is like a fence of not being bar hakhi. One who is not bar hakhi has no right to act autonomously according to his own understanding. Right? The claim is that if you go against the Tannaim, you are not bar hakhi. Then there you are already like a blind man. You can say about anything that I am not bar hakhi. You can say whatever you want, fine, but I am trying to define it. Fine, but that is exactly the point. I think one needs to be aware that there is a domain with respect to which you are not bar hakhi, and there is a domain with respect to which you are bar hakhi. One who is aware of that distinction—where to place the line, I do not know, each person will place the line where he understands—but one has to know that such a line exists. There is such a domain and such a domain. And “we accepted it upon ourselves,” I think, really could be understood merely as a formal matter—that is usually how people read that Kesef Mishneh. That in truth you could disagree with whomever you wanted; we just accepted it upon ourselves. But I think that really what is written there is no, it is not entirely formal. There is something substantive behind it, and that is exactly the same as someone who is not bar hakhi. There is a certain level where you say: on this field, I do not play. Who is bar hakhi and who is not bar hakhi, and who is authorized to divide these domains? You. But regarding Tannaim and Amoraim? No, no, that is only in our present discussion. Tannaim and Amoraim and so on—that was a decision of the sages of that generation, or those generations, who decided that from this point on we are no longer bar hakhi; we do not disagree with previous generations that preceded us. The end of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), the end of the Amoraim, the end of the Tannaim, whatever—the generations themselves decided so. But now if a person simply asks himself whether he is bar hakhi or not bar hakhi, let him answer himself as he understands, I do not know. One of the possible criteria for this—I wrote about it in Meisharim I, where I discussed this a bit—the issue of autonomy, of the obligation to rule autonomously, so one of the criteria is, it seems to me at least, someone who returns to a sugya after time has passed and his conclusion in the sugya is the same conclusion he reached the previous time. Not in one sugya, but he already sees that this is a pattern. That things do not change dramatically when you come back to the same sugyot again. What does that mean? It basically means that you are already—you do not have to be Moses our teacher—but you are already Zusha. Meaning, you are already yourself. That is all that is required of you. You do not need to be Moses our teacher; you can be much smaller than Moses our teacher, but you need to be yourself in order to rule. Meaning, you already need to have brought your capacities and your way of thinking into actual expression. If that has already come to expression and it is functioning well, then you can rule according to what you understand. That is called bar hakhi. But there are cases where Maimonides, for example, came to a sugya and his opinion changed. Fine, I am saying—obviously many times; what, did Amoraim and Tannaim not retract from various things? Of course they did. That is to your credit. I am only saying: when you see that the general pattern is like that. The fact that here and there you retract, fine, nothing happened. But I know, at least from myself, many stages in which I was in a sugya, came to a conclusion, and it seemed to me really clear. Two years later I came back to the same sugya, and I did not understand why it had seemed so clear to me; really not, really the opposite. And that happened to me in quite a few sugyot. So the conclusion that emerges from such a situation is that I am apparently still not consolidated. Once that generally no longer happens, even if it occasionally does, but if generally it does not happen, that means I am already consolidated. Meaning, my judgment really is my judgment. And still, of course, a person can retract from time to time; nothing happened, no great disaster. On the contrary, one also has to know how to retract from time to time. But the general pattern does give you some indication. There is no power of presumption here. Why should we say that a person expresses his own opinion? Why can truth not serve as the thing? Because there is value in doing what you think; the value of autonomy is also one of the halakhic values. So why—what do you mean, why ask about values? We strive to reach truth. You strive to reach truth, and you also need to strive to reach autonomy. But there is someone wiser than you. Right, so therefore he hits the truth better than you do. But you still have to preserve the value of autonomy. Why is it important what I think? To you it is important what you think. If the assumption is that Rabbi Meir is wiser than I am. No, because the purpose of Jewish law is not only to do what is true, but there is a purpose—what today is called being rational. Rational means doing what, after exercising your judgment to reach a conclusion about what is right, you then carry out. The value of Torah—“great is study, for it leads to action.” I think I mentioned this once before, maybe here. “Great is study, for it leads to action”—that is a sentence that contradicts itself. Great is study because it leads to action, so action is the goal and study is the means. In what sense, then, is study great? Because it is a means to action, therefore it is great? Then action is what is great; action is the goal and study is the means. I said that the reading there has to be: “Great is study-that-leads-to-action”—that is what is great. Now, what is study that leads to action? Study that leads to action is precisely the value of autonomy. Meaning, you study the sugya, and the conclusion you derive from the learning is what you then do in practice. To translate those abstract ideas with which you deal when you learn into the practical plane—that means to do it with your own hands and feet. And this connection between some abstract world and the practical world is the whole point of Torah. To engage in the Talmudic discussion for the sake of practical Jewish law, or “great is study that leads to action,” is the connection between the abstract analyses we discuss when we study a sugya. Sometimes it can reach completely abstract reasoning, and this gets translated into something practical. The connection between those worlds, that higher world and our practical world—that is the goal here. Now, if when you study that higher world you learn one way, and what you actually do is just what is written in the Mishnah Berurah, that does not connect the world of ideas with the world of action. And the value of Torah is not only to implement the correct ideas, but that there be a process at all of implementing ideas. Meaning that you have ideas as to why this is right, and that brings you to do this or not do that. That connection between that world and the world of action is the essence of the halakhic ruling. And therefore it is no less important than what is true. And again, for one who is bar hakhi. But if someone has ordination, does that not qualify him to be bar hakhi? What? Ordination. A rabbi who ordains his student. Yes, when he nullifies himself but still ordains. No, the ordination that once existed—that was a value. The ordination that exists today is just nonsense. That does not count? There is some kind of thing where you got ordination from your rabbi who is… Fine, if he tells you that you are bar hakhi, then very good. But I am saying, bar hakhi is what your rabbi determines. A rabbi who also… One who has a rabbi who ordained him—then his rabbi can determine that he is bar hakhi. And one who does not have one, does not. So just… can everyone determine for himself whether he is bar hakhi, or does a rabbi have to determine it for him? For being bar hakhi in order to issue rulings to the public, the public will decide whether they accept your rulings or not. For issuing rulings to yourself, you can determine whether you are bar hakhi or not. What? That does not sound logical to me. If you think of yourself as bar hakhi—right, but there is nothing to do; when… there is no other way out. What? Is issuing rulings to the public only a matter of social realization of what the public wants? Are there no criteria for who is fit to issue rulings and so on? Fine, but who decides? What do you mean? Who decides whether someone has reached the stage of ruling or not? If a community accepted upon itself someone who is a rabbi, and he understands himself to be fit for that, then let him issue rulings for them. He can issue rulings for them. I do not think today, in practice—what, do you think every rabbi today in every community got some ordination from someone? But say today, with the whole internet thing and the public being sure that every rabbi is like Rabbi Shapira, but say in the matter of refusal of orders, where there was a ruling about whether another rabbi may disagree with Rabbi Avraham Shapira—on that subject there is something very real here, because the public thinks everyone is equal, I do not know. The public thinks everyone is equal, but that Jew who issues the ruling against Rabbi Avraham Shapira also takes into account the fact that Rabbi Avraham Shapira may be a greater Torah scholar than he is, and still he thinks he wants to disagree with him. Legitimate. Yes, I understand, a Torah scholar—but how do you know if he is a Torah scholar fit to deal with such public matters? I do not know. Let him have indications—from his teachers, from himself. I do not know, there is no… you cannot draw a clear line here. It is not… I do not know how to establish clear criteria in this matter. Fine, there is something that somehow emerges in some way from the sum of the public, his teachers, and himself. Once he has some sort of recognition, then he is fit to issue rulings. And each person moves along different tracks. I do not think there are any clear rules here. What—every rosh yeshiva or every community rabbi—do you really think he received some formal permission to issue rulings from someone? Absolutely not. It did not work like that, it does not work like that. Reality does its own thing. Meaning, the public—there are those who will tell you this is some kind of holy spirit of the public, I do not know exactly what. Maybe. But it is some balancing of many things. Fine. And because this is so amorphous and so non-unambiguous, yes, it certainly opens the door to problematic things. There is nothing to do. That is life. Life is not guava, as was said there somewhere. Okay, now regarding autonomous ruling, this really leads us to the value… the value of autonomy. Regarding autonomous ruling, in that context there is the article in Meisharim I, and I will simply refer you there to read it. There I bring various sources for this idea that a person is actually obligated to rule according to what he himself understands, and not to show favor even to very great Torah scholars. At least that was accepted until a few centuries ago; I do not know—today a somewhat different approach has taken over. But still, I think it should be taken with a grain of salt. But what I want, just in closing, is really to speak about a practical halakhic implication. So let us discuss the law of “do not place a stumbling block” when there is a halakhic dispute. Meaning, there are Reuven and Shimon. They have a halakhic dispute—for example, a certain piece of meat. One thinks it is forbidden fat, the other thinks it is permissible fat. The question is whether I may feed it to him, or whether he may feed it to me, from the standpoint of the laws of “do not place a stumbling block.” Am I allowed to feed someone something that is forbidden according to his view and permitted according to mine? Or the reverse—to feed him something that is permitted according to his view and forbidden according to mine? Is there a “stumbling block” prohibition here? Is it forbidden? Is it permitted? This is in a sense a test case for the different conceptions I presented earlier regarding “these and those are the words of the living God,” and now I will sharpen it a bit further. In the Talmud in Sukkah 10, a dispute of Amoraim is brought there regarding a sukkah whose decorations are suspended four handbreadths below the roofing. And it happened that Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna came to the house of the Exilarch, and of course Rav Nachman was in charge there in matters related to the Exilarch, and he seated them in a sukkah whose decorations were suspended four handbreadths below the roofing—something that according to their view was forbidden and according to his view was permitted—and they sat there. The Ritva on the spot learns from here that someone who considers a given thing permitted may feed that thing to someone else who thinks it is forbidden. Do you hear? So if I hold that this thing is permitted, then I may feed someone else that thing even though that other person thinks the object is an object of prohibition. But the Ritva brings a Talmudic passage in Chullin 111, where the Talmud says: Heaven forfend that the seed of Abba bar Abba should feed me something I do not hold by. Ostensibly that is directly the opposite—it cannot be that they would feed me something that I think is forbidden. Therefore he says that this is true—the permission we find in the Talmud in Sukkah is true only in a situation where the thing is evident to the person eating. Where the person knows that the decorations here are suspended four handbreadths down, and then I say to him: please sit here; this is the sukkah I am offering you, or this is the place I am offering you in the sukkah—he sees that the decorations are four handbreadths below the roofing—there I may feed him. But if he does not know, he does not notice at all that there are decorations above, and I simply, while he is distracted—not while I am distracted but while he is distracted—I say to him: please sit here, that is forbidden. He learns this from the Talmud in Chullin. So there is a somewhat strange situation here, because it seemingly turns the whole picture upside down. Because if he really sees that the decorations are suspended four handbreadths down, then what “do not place a stumbling block” is even relevant here? So what is the novelty here at all? Fine, he decides to sit there. What does that have to do with me? He decided to sit there; he saw that that was the situation, he knows that that is the situation. Let him decide whether he sits there. Apparently he thinks it is permitted, or he is a transgressor, or whatever. But what does that have to do with me? He causes himself to stumble. “Do not place a stumbling block,” ordinarily, is where he is the sinner. Right, here one really needs to pay close attention. Take the example brought by the Talmud in Avodah Zarah in the passage of “do not place a stumbling block”: to hand a cup of wine to a Nazirite. The Talmud there says that if it is on two sides of a river, then there is a Torah-level prohibition; if it is on one side of the river, then there is no Torah-level prohibition—perhaps a rabbinic prohibition of assisting, perhaps not—but no Torah-level prohibition. What happens in the case of two sides of the river? There is a cup of wine, a river, and a Nazirite, yes, like those riddles with the sheep and the cabbage: cup of wine, river, and Nazirite. The Nazirite cannot reach the cup of wine because the river blocks him. What do I do? I hand him the—apparently this is a river in the Land of Israel sense—I hand him this cup of wine, and then he can take it and drink. Now is not the choice in his hands whether to drink or not? He decides to drink; I only brought him the cup. He can now drink, or do what he wants. So why is this called “do not place a stumbling block”? If it is on two sides of the river, it is a Torah-level prohibition of “do not place a stumbling block.” One needs to remember well: the prohibition of “do not place a stumbling block” was not said only about a situation where the other person acts unwittingly. That is not true. Even if the other person is fully deliberate, if without me he could not have done that transgression, then I violate “do not place a stumbling block” even though he knows it is a transgression and is acting deliberately and decides to commit it. I did not decide; he did. That is called “do not place a stumbling block.” So if that is the case, then there is a novelty in the Talmud in Sukkah according to the Ritva: regarding something that Reuven thinks is prohibited, I may feed Reuven that thing so long as he knows. Meaning, if he acts unwittingly then it is forbidden for me, but if he acts deliberately then it is permitted for me. In the ordinary case of “do not place a stumbling block,” even if he acts deliberately it is forbidden. Meaning, there is still a difference between this situation and a situation of prohibition according to everyone, an agreed prohibition. All right? So now, if this is so, let us return and ask ourselves what this says regarding the legitimacy of the different positions. If indeed the conception is pluralistic—everyone with his own prohibition. Let us begin with the monistic one. If the conception is monistic, there is one truth, and I am convinced that decorations suspended by four handbreadths pose no problem whatsoever. On the face of it, why should I not seat him there? I am seating him to do something permitted. That is the truth to the best of my judgment; I am seating him to do something permitted. So it is permitted to cause him to stumble. But then it should be permitted for me to cause him to stumble even if he acts unwittingly. Why? But then there is the problem of falsehood. Fine, but not “do not place a stumbling block.” In the categories of “do not place a stumbling block” there is no problem. Falsehood—I will do it indirectly, I will stay silent. Come sit here please. No, but the problem of deception is one thing. I am now talking about the categories of “do not place a stumbling block,” not the categories of “keep far from a false matter.” And what about his self-imposed prohibition? What? And what about the other person’s self-imposed prohibition? What is self-imposed prohibition? If I cause him to stumble in his self-imposed prohibition, who says that there is really causing to stumble in that? Not causing to stumble. There is a self-imposed prohibition on his side that he has to keep. Yes, on his side. So why would there be “do not place a stumbling block” on my side? So I say: in the categories of “do not place a stumbling block,” I have no idea. It may be that I would say that even in self-imposed prohibition there is no “do not place a stumbling block.” Only for you it is forbidden from your side because of self-imposed prohibition, but for me to cause you to stumble in your self-imposed prohibition, I do not know if there is a prohibition. Who says there is? I do not know. There is a Mishnah there. Huh? There is a question of what the category of self-imposed prohibition is. This is the Ketzot and Maharib ben Lev. This is the… okay, no, let us leave that for now. If the conception were truly monistic—there is one halakhic truth—then ostensibly it would be permitted to cause him to stumble even if he acts unwittingly, in terms of the laws of “do not place a stumbling block,” because that is the truth to the best of my judgment. To the best of my judgment there is no problem sitting there. So that is it. What is the problem? And the fact that he thinks otherwise—so he is mistaken, so what? If he acts otherwise that may be a legitimate mistake. But do I have to worry about his mistakes? Of course not. By contrast, if the conception is pluralistic, then what? I am not more right than he is; we are both equally right. If he holds that it is forbidden, then what difference does it make that I hold it is permitted? It should have been forbidden for me to cause him to stumble in both cases. How can there be a situation like the one described by the Ritva, where it is permitted for me to cause him to stumble if he knows, but if he does not know—if he acts unwittingly—it is forbidden for me to cause him to stumble? It seems to me that this works only if we say what I said before—that in fact there is one halakhic truth, but on the other hand not only truth determines my behavior; there is also the obligation to act as I understand, autonomy. So since there is one halakhic truth, and one who says otherwise is mistaken, then basically I can cause him to stumble in the prohibition. Like monism, right? I can cause him to stumble in the prohibition, because to the best of my judgment it is not prohibited. So why is it forbidden when he acts unwittingly? Because I am causing him to stumble in autonomy, not in halakhic truth. He is not doing what he thinks is right. And that sort of causing to stumble is forbidden, because he must not only do what is right. What is right, to the best of my understanding, is that it is permitted to sit under such decorations. That is what is right. But in terms of what he ought to do, not only what is right determines it, but also what he himself thinks. So if he himself is aware of it, then I gave it to him—there is no problem from the standpoint of truth, I did not cause him to stumble in prohibition, even if he is a deliberate transgressor, there is no problem in that. And as for the possibility that I enabled him to do what he thinks, I certainly enabled him. Meaning, he knows the situation here, so I enabled him to act autonomously. Therefore that was permitted. Of course, to act autonomously where the matter is forbidden according to everyone—to cause someone to stumble in something forbidden according to everyone when he knows, like giving a cup of wine to a Nazirite—that has nothing to do with this at all. That is simply enabling him to be a transgressor. All right? But to enable him to do something that, out of his own autonomous decision, he decides to do—why is that “do not place a stumbling block”? He decides to do it, and he is allowed to, even though it is not the truth. Because he is allowed to act autonomously as he understands. So I did not violate “do not place a stumbling block.” But if he does not know—if he does not know—then he is not doing what he thinks is right, and so I caused him to stumble. Not in prohibition—there is no prohibition here, because the truth is with me, at least that is how I understand it—but I caused him to stumble in that he did not act according to his own understanding. He is obligated to act according to his own understanding. And in that I caused him to stumble. So on that there is “do not place a stumbling block.” By the way, the later authorities (Acharonim) really discuss here whether this “do not place a stumbling block” is rabbinic. This “do not place a stumbling block” of the Ritva. And why? Because in truth there is a somewhat different kind of “do not place a stumbling block” here. This is “do not place a stumbling block”—I am now translating everything, of course, into the language I am proposing—meaning, this is a “do not place a stumbling block” that does not cause a person to transgress, but causes a person to fail in the obligation to act autonomously, to act as he understands. But if he is not bar hakhi, then perhaps there would be no prohibition. What? If he is not bar hakhi, there might be no prohibition at all. But here we are speaking about Amoraim, yes? If he is not bar hakhi, there may be no prohibition at all. But wait, if he is not bar hakhi but there is someone who is bar hakhi who forbids it, then one can begin to discuss. Then one can begin to discuss. If he is simply not bar hakhi, then certainly… Huh? If he is just not bar hakhi and everyone permits it, then… If I am right in this explanation, then yes. Presumably yes. If he is not bar hakhi in his own view… no. Is he not bar hakhi to determine that he is bar hakhi? That is not… In any event, the point I want to sharpen here is that this intermediate state presented by the Ritva is a very good indication of the picture I described earlier. Because understand: this is neither monism nor pluralism. Monism should have permitted causing him to stumble in every case, and pluralism should have forbidden causing him to stumble—note well, here pluralism comes out stringently—pluralism should have forbidden causing him to stumble in both cases. A situation in which we permit causing him to stumble when he knows, but do not permit causing him to stumble when he does not know, it seems to me cries out to be explained as I suggested earlier, through this interplay between truth and autonomy. And it is of course a novelty that there is also a “do not place a stumbling block” that causes someone to fail, not in a prohibition, but in non-autonomous behavior. And indeed, later authorities say perhaps this is only a rabbinic prohibition, a rabbinic “do not place a stumbling block.” What about the reverse case? Where for me it is forbidden and for him it is permitted. The reverse. For me it is forbidden and for him it is permitted. Am I allowed to give him that thing to eat? There too there is a dispute. I do not remember the details right now, but when I worked it out, I found that that dispute would not help me; in other words, there I can reject both directions. I can arrange it both with monism and with pluralism. Work it out afterward as an exercise, because I need to do the calculation. But here I think this is a good proof. In this direction it is a good proof. There is a book called Lifnei Iver published by Bnei Torah—do you know it? He discusses these matters there, not in the context of autonomy and so on, but he brings the sources on causing someone to stumble in prohibition.