Midrash and the Principles of Interpretation – Lesson 2

Table of Contents

• The plain meaning, midrashic interpretation, and practical Jewish law
• Global correspondence and topological defects
• Miracle, scriptural decree, and plain meaning versus secret meaning
• Three approaches to the relation between plain meaning and midrashic interpretation
• Examples of “weighing” between sources
• The Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Menashe of Ilya, and “If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him suppress it”
• Why the Torah does not write “money in place of an eye”
• Creative interpretations and supportive interpretations

Summary

General Overview

The text presents a complex relationship between the plain meaning and midrashic interpretation, in which there is usually no contradiction because they operate on parallel interpretive planes, but sometimes there is a local break, as in “an eye for an eye,” where Jewish law is ruled in accordance with the midrashic interpretation even though “a verse does not depart from its plain meaning.” The author defines a “global correspondence” between different systems that cannot be mapped one-to-one, and explains that local breaks are “topological defects” that in the realm of Jewish law appear as scriptural decrees, and in the realm of nature as miracles. The text then presents three approaches to the relation between plain meaning and midrashic interpretation, cites the Vilna Gaon’s explanation via Rabbi Menashe of Ilya of the verse “If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him suppress it,” in order to show that midrashic interpretation is not the “depth of the plain meaning” but an additional reading hinted at by means of a deliberate irregularity, and finally discusses the dispute between creative interpretations and supportive interpretations, rejecting the claim that all interpretations are merely mnemonic supports and proposing a practical rationale for the existence of supportive interpretations.

The Plain Meaning, Midrashic Interpretation, and Practical Jewish Law

The relationship between midrashic interpretation and the plain meaning includes rare cases of contradiction, such as “an eye for an eye,” where the midrashic interpretation explains it as monetary compensation while the plain meaning points to literally taking out an eye, and in such a case it is accepted to rule in accordance with the midrashic interpretation and not the plain meaning. The principle that “a verse does not depart from its plain meaning” obligates us to retain the plain-sense interpretation as well even when Jewish law is determined according to the midrashic interpretation, and the question of why the plain meaning was written as it was remains open as a problem that must be dealt with. The example of “do not place a stumbling block before the blind” is presented as a case where the midrashic interpretation adds a prohibition against giving unfair advice or causing someone to sin, without canceling the straightforward prohibition of placing a physical obstacle, and the mistake of the Minchat Chinukh is described as giving up on the plain meaning where there is no contradiction.

Global Correspondence and Topological Defects

The author defines “global correspondence” as two completely different systems of rules that in practice produce the same boundaries of permitted and forbidden, without one being a translation of the other. Hofstadter’s example of the language built from M, I, and U presents the possibility that two different generative systems can produce the same set of legal words, though one should expect isolated exceptions. The example of polar and Cartesian coordinates illustrates a local breakdown of correspondence at the origin, and the claim is that such breakdowns are a sign of global correspondence rather than full local equivalence.

Miracle, Scriptural Decree, and Plain Meaning versus Secret Meaning

A miracle is described as a place where the correspondence between natural explanations and theological explanations breaks down, because the Holy One, blessed be He, “breaks the laws of nature” in order to achieve a goal, as in the splitting of the Sea of Reeds. A scriptural decree is presented as the halakhic parallel to a miracle: a law that has no explanation “on the level of the plain meaning” in terms of ordinary logic, yet does have a reason “on the level of the secret meaning,” even if that reason is inaccessible. The text argues that there is no certain way to identify a scriptural decree, because failure to find a plain-sense reason may stem from lack of wisdom rather than absence of an explanation, and it distinguishes between Torah-level laws, where scriptural decrees may exist, and rabbinic laws, where the Sages necessarily had a humanly accessible reason.

Three Approaches to the Relation Between Plain Meaning and Midrashic Interpretation

The first approach, presented through an article by Hanska that calls it “apologetic,” claims that the midrashic interpretation is the “depth of the plain meaning,” and that the literal plain meaning is set aside because of difficulties; therefore when there is a contradiction, one rules in accordance with the midrashic interpretation because it is the true plain meaning in a broader view. The second approach presents a parallelism: the midrashic interpretation determines the practical Jewish law, while the plain meaning expresses “what ought to have been” or the value message, such as the idea that the Torah wrote “an eye for an eye” in order to teach what would be fitting even if in practice money is collected. The third approach claims that Jewish law is created by weighing both principles together, so that the plain meaning and the midrashic interpretation are both practical interpretations contributing to the final result, and the text illustrates this through an opinion in the Talmud that “an eye for an eye” obligates payment of the value of the injurer’s eye as a punishment rather than compensation.

Examples of “Weighing” Between Sources

The text presents “an eye for an eye” as an example in which monetary payment can be interpreted as a substitute for bodily punishment, and explains why, according to the view cited, the payment is the value of the injurer’s eye: the money replaces taking out his eye and is not meant to reflect the value of the victim’s injury. The example of the indentured servant whose ear is pierced presents a tension between “and he shall serve him forever” and release in the Jubilee year, and the resolution, “for his forever of the Jubilee,” is explained as creating ownership of the body for a limited time through combining the two passages. The distinction between ownership of the body and ownership of produce, and the claim that ownership for a limited time is generally only ownership of produce, are used to show that the Torah needs two formulations in order to create a “hybrid” of full ownership that the king revokes in the Jubilee as “the king’s annulment.”

The Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Menashe of Ilya, and “If There Is Anxiety in a Man’s Heart, Let Him Suppress It”

The text cites Rabbi Menashe of Ilya in the book Binat Mikra in the name of the Vilna Gaon, that midrashic interpretation does not explain the plain meaning of the verse but exists alongside it, and it quotes the words of Rav Kahana: “A verse does not depart from its plain meaning… and the interpretation will still be expounded.” The verse “If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him suppress it” is explained in its plain meaning as “let him suppress it” in the sense of bending low or bowing down, and the proof is the parallel phrase “but a good word gladdens it,” which requires a contrast between heaviness and joy. The Talmudic interpretation that reads it as “let him remove it from his mind” or “tell it to others” is described as reading “right as though it were left,” because the shin is exchanged for a sin, and the text argues that the syntactic irregularity in the verse was intended to allow two readings at once and not to replace the plain meaning.

Why the Torah Does Not Write “Money in Place of an Eye”

The text raises a difficulty for the apologetic approach: even if various problems prove that “an eye for an eye” is not literal but monetary, the question still remains why the Torah did not write “money in place of an eye” in the first place. The Vilna Gaon’s solution is presented as a principle of deliberate double reading, in which the plain meaning remains true but is not the only meaning, and the wording that appears “irregular” was intended to require an additional midrashic interpretation. The text applies this principle also to interpretations that seem far-fetched, such as “you shall not eat over the blood,” which is interpreted as a prohibition against eating before prayer, and argues that the lack of thematic correspondence between the plain meaning and the midrashic interpretation is not a problem when the purpose of the verse is to carry two laws.

Creative Interpretations and Supportive Interpretations

Ralbag is presented as claiming that all interpretations are supportive: the law already exists in the tradition, and the interpretation merely anchors it in order to protect it from criticism, since the interpretation can appear playful and non-binding. The text rejects this as impossible in light of the Talmudic reality of disputes over interpretations that actually change the law, and attributes to Maimonides the position that most interpretations are creative. The loss of “midrashic skill” is presented as an explanation for why interpretation seems strange to us, using the analogy of Stradivarius violins in Michael Polanyi to describe artistic knowledge that erodes from generation to generation. The text concludes that there are both creative interpretations and supportive interpretations, and that supportive interpretations are not a pointless game, because they determine which verses are already “occupied” for interpretation and therefore unavailable for creating new laws; accordingly, the Talmud assumes that a verse interpreted for one matter cannot be used for another interpretation without a new difficulty or an extra word.

Okay, so last time we saw—I spoke a bit about the relationship between derash and peshat. We saw that sometimes there is a contradiction between derash and peshat, but usually there isn’t. They’re two planes, two levels, that don’t really talk to each other. Right? The clearest example of a contradiction is “an eye for an eye,” where the derash says it means monetary payment, and the peshat says it literally means taking out an eye. In Jewish law, even when there is a contradiction, we usually—I mean, that’s the accepted approach—we rule like the derash, not like the peshat. Which raises the question: so what do we do with the peshat? Why is the peshat written the way it’s written? So we’ll touch on that. In any case, even if we rule like the derash, “a verse never departs from its plain meaning.” Meaning, we still interpret the verse according to its plain meaning too, not only according to its midrashic meaning.

We spoke about the relationship between derash and peshat, what kinds of relationships can exist between them, and to define it better I introduced what I called global correspondence. Global correspondence means that we have two systems of rules that are completely different. In other words, you can’t map one onto the other—not like, say, translating from one language to another. And still, what is forbidden and permitted, or right and wrong, according to these two systems of rules, is completely identical. Right? I brought the example of that language with M, I, and U, right? I mentioned Hofstadter’s example, that you can describe two different systems of generative rules that produce legal words in a language. And in principle, two different systems can produce the same set of words. In other words, there’s no reason this can’t happen. That can explain why I relate to derash and peshat as two parallel interpretive systems, both of which are correct. Okay? And therefore one doesn’t necessarily cancel out the other.

And I talked about Newton, and repentance, and going secular, and all those parallel explanatory planes. We saw that an explanation is supposed to be a sufficient condition, and therefore seemingly there can’t be two explanatory systems for the same phenomenon unless one is just a translation of the other. So I said: that’s not true. There can be global correspondence, and therefore such a situation is possible, though you’d expect that in such cases there will be what I called topological defects. Meaning, some local breakdown of that correspondence. I brought the example from coordinate systems, polar and Cartesian, where at the origin there’s a kind of breakdown in the correspondence. And that’s characteristic of global systems in general. Usually the correspondence can’t hold at every single point.

Say in the earlier examples: if I have two different systems of rules that construct the same dictionary, the same set of legal words in a language, there will probably be one or two words that are legal here and not there, or vice versa. In other words, it’s very likely that the correspondence won’t be perfect. If there are, I don’t know, a million words in the language, and ten words where it doesn’t match, I’d still call that more or less a match, with ten exceptions. Okay? So you can talk about correspondence, but it isn’t hermetic. There are points where it breaks.

I mentioned that these mismatches are what are called, in the context of Torah interpretation, a scriptural decree, and in the context of how the world runs, a miracle. A miracle is basically something that has no natural explanation; it doesn’t fit the laws of nature. Okay? Why does it happen? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, in His reckoning, decided that here the laws of nature need to be broken, here something else has to happen. We have an event, the splitting of the sea. A particular event for which we have no natural explanation, but we do have a theological explanation. The Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to save the Jewish people and drown the Egyptians, so He decided to split the sea. The laws of nature didn’t do the job in this case. They didn’t manage to hit what really needed to happen here. So this is where the correspondence breaks.

Usually, for any event, you can explain it in natural terms, and you can explain it in theological terms. Why did it happen, what does the Holy One, blessed be He, want to achieve through it? We do this all the time. Okay? You can discuss the Holocaust by asking what caused it, what happened, what was going on—arguments by historians, okay? And on the other hand, someone can come and say the Holocaust was a punishment for I don’t know what, and therefore all the Jews were killed. Is there a contradiction between the two? Not necessarily. The claim is that there is some correlation between the theological explanatory system and the natural explanatory system—in this case, the historical one—and these are two parallel systems that are supposed to correspond. But if this is indeed global correspondence and not one-to-one mapping, there will be breaks here and there.

And the break, for example, is in a place where what needs to happen according to the theological consideration won’t happen if I leave it to the laws of nature. So the Holy One, blessed be He, freezes the laws of nature and performs a miracle. So that means that when I come to explain the miracle, I won’t have a natural explanation for it; I’ll have a theological explanation for it. So the miracle is a point where the correspondence between theological explanations and natural explanations breaks down.

With regard to biblical interpretation, the parallel to that is a scriptural decree. A scriptural decree is a law for which we have no explanation by way of peshat. We don’t understand, in our own logic, why this law is correct. But if it was written, then I assume it is correct; that is, the Holy One, blessed be He, determined that this is the law because apparently this is what is right from His perspective. What does “right” mean? Apparently, I don’t know—explanations in what we call the esoteric mode. Okay? Something that isn’t from our ordinary conceptual world, but, I don’t know, divine considerations.

Usually there is a correlation, and therefore we can read the Torah, the Talmud, explain everything by way of peshat according to our understanding, explain it this way or that way. And the assumption is that all of the Holy One’s aims—why He established the law this way or that way—fit, turn out to fit, what comes out of our logical analysis. Question? One second, I just want to complete the analogy.

So this is supposed to correspond: the theological consideration—or call it the esoteric consideration—to the peshat consideration. But there are cases where we have no peshat explanation. That means that what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to achieve—what I called esoteric considerations—doesn’t emerge through peshat. It just doesn’t. So what happens? Then a scriptural decree appears. A scriptural decree is a law for which we perhaps have an explanation by way of the esoteric—we won’t know—but there is an explanation by way of the esoteric, while there is no explanation by way of the revealed. So the correspondence, or the correlation, between peshat explanations and esoteric explanations has broken. Exactly like what we said regarding a miracle.

These indications are indications that the correspondence is global correspondence, because with local correspondence such breaks are impossible. With local correspondence, after all, I translate every rule in this system into a rule in that system, and it’s one-to-one, and then everything that comes out according to this system will also come out according to that system, and vice versa. That’s how one mathematically proves equivalence between systems. Therefore there can’t be these local mismatches there, like the topological defects I mentioned. But if there are topological defects, that means the correspondences are global correspondences. That’s the claim.

What did you want? Yes. So first of all, a question: just say, if we had gotten to Mount Sinai, or to the splitting of the sea, and there had been someone there with a camera and all kinds of measuring equipment and things like that—what would we have seen? I assume we would have seen something moving without a force acting on it. In other words, something that breaks the laws of physics. Meaning, we would have seen the world, matter, behaving differently? Probably. That’s what’s called a miracle, yes. Got it.

And the original question is about a law that is a scriptural decree. How do I know when it’s a scriptural decree, and how do I know when it’s a law that may have been developed by inspiration or as a result of something, but is still human handiwork? A sage came and instituted a law. If a sage enacted an enactment—not a Torah law, but an enactment, meaning a rabbinic law—then he has an explanation for it. The fact that you don’t understand it, maybe you don’t understand it, but clearly he had a reason for it; he didn’t just do it for no reason. Yes, but it’s different, because an explanation I can understand, whereas a scriptural decree I can’t understand. Okay, so there are no rabbinic laws that are scriptural decrees. If the sages did it, they were human beings and thought like you and me, and they did it because it seemed reasonable to them. It could be that I don’t understand why they did it or don’t agree with their reasoning, fine, there can always be arguments like that, but those aren’t scriptural decrees.

A scriptural decree is always when the law doesn’t merely lack an explanation for me personally; it has no explanation in terms of our accepted explanatory framework. Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, did it for His own reasons. So how do I know to identify it? You don’t always know. Sometimes the Talmud says this is a scriptural decree because it didn’t find an explanation. But you can always suspect: maybe it didn’t find an explanation, but there is one; you just weren’t smart enough to find it. We have no way of knowing for certain that if we didn’t find an explanation, none exists. It could be that one exists and we’re just not smart enough, and therefore we didn’t find it. The claim, in principle, is that a scriptural decree has no explanation by way of peshat, but it does have an explanation by way of the esoteric. Okay. And we have no way to characterize a law and verify it—I don’t think that’s possible. How can you know that what you don’t know really doesn’t exist, rather than that you’re simply not smart enough to know it? I don’t see how we can decide that.

Let’s say there is no law that has behind it some identifiable person—I would say, a law that has behind it some legislator, a human being, so you can point to him and say okay, that’s the source of the law. Yes, I said: rabbinic laws. Laws from legislators are rabbinic laws. Rabbinic laws—there, there is no scriptural decree. And that’s most of our laws today, no? I don’t know what “most” and “minority” means. In rabbinic laws there is no scriptural decree. And in Torah-level laws, there is. Okay.

So that’s in general. Now we can go a bit deeper into the question of peshat and derash. In the question of peshat and derash too, after all, there are the four levels of Torah interpretation, Pardes: peshat, remez, derash, and sod. So the relation—I talked about the relation between peshat and sod—what about the relation between peshat and derash? The relation between peshat and derash is also basically a relation of parallelism. Meaning, you take a given verse and read it through two kinds of lenses: peshat lenses and derash lenses. When you read it through peshat lenses, it’s “an eye for an eye.” When you read it through derash lenses, it’s monetary payment for an eye. The very same verse. The whole question is how you read it, how you interpret it.

And the claim is that here there are two different kinds of interpretation. Okay? One is called peshat and one is called derash. And therefore sometimes—and I said these are rare cases—there really is a contradiction between peshat and derash, where peshat leads in one direction and derash leads in another. Why? Because the correspondence between peshat and derash, if it exists at all, is global correspondence, not local correspondence. Therefore there are certain places where the midrashic laws contradict the plain reading. In most places they don’t contradict; they just add another law.

“You shall fear the Lord your God”—that includes Torah scholars. So “that includes Torah scholars” doesn’t contradict the verse. The verse says to fear the Holy One, blessed be He, and that is also true by way of derash. The derash adds another law: one must also fear Torah scholars. It doesn’t contradict. But “an eye for an eye”—monetary payment—there there is a contradiction. Okay? Here there’s no contradiction; it’s simply two readings, each one giving its own thing. The question of which one to follow only arises in places where there is a contradiction. If both of these…

It’s like what I mentioned: the Minchat Chinukh writes that there is no prohibition against tripping a blind person in the road. If you put an obstacle before a blind person and he stumbles, you did not violate a prohibition. It says, “Do not place a stumbling block before the blind,” but the Sages expound it: “do not place a stumbling block” means giving unfair advice or causing him to sin. Giving him unfair advice—invest in this thing even though I know the stock is going to crash—or causing him to sin, giving him something forbidden to eat or drink. Okay? That’s “before the blind.” So the Minchat Chinukh says: fine, then apparently the Sages removed the verse from its plain meaning, and there is no prohibition against tripping a blind person in the road.

Meaning, in practice the obstacle—he says it’s as though it gets canceled out? Yes, because derash—after all, the law follows the derash against the peshat. Where is the mistake? The mistake is this: where the peshat contradicts the derash, or the derash contradicts the peshat, there we rule like the derash, as in “an eye for an eye,” so indeed we rule that it means monetary payment. So what about the plain peshat, “an eye for an eye,” an actual eye? I don’t know; we’ll have to examine it, we’ll see later. But we rule like the derash. That is true. The peshat, so to speak, is canceled for Jewish law. But in places where there is no contradiction between derash and peshat, that’s not true. So clearly when they say derash, they’re not saying the peshat is wrong. They’re saying that besides the peshat there is also the law of derash.

So just as it is forbidden for you to trip a blind person in the road with a physical obstacle—which clearly is true, because the Torah says so, “a verse never departs from its plain meaning”—even after we have expounded the verse, it still does not depart from its plain meaning; there is still the plain interpretation. Alongside that there is also a prohibition against giving unfair advice, or causing him to sin. That’s additional. The derash plane adds further prohibitions or further interpretations to the peshat; it doesn’t replace the peshat. Okay?

Another question? About halakhic derashot: was there first of all already a law—what we’d call a law given to Moses at Sinai—we knew what it had to be, and then we built some kind of derash around it? We’ll talk about that later. We’ll talk about whether derashot are supportive or creative. We’ll get to that. Okay.

So now I want to… when we have two such interpretive planes, derash and peshat, the question really arises: which of them is the correct one? Or what is really the meaning of the verse? Okay? Here there are several approaches among the commentators. There’s a very interesting article by Henshke, now a professor of Talmud here at Bar-Ilan. He wrote it at age nineteen. Impressive. Yes, he’s a very talented fellow.

And in that article he argues—he presents the approaches, he calls them the apologetic approaches—which claim that derash is really the depth of peshat. Derash, yes. Meaning, derash isn’t some kind of invention, suddenly another interpretation. No. The plain interpretation has difficulties. And once there are difficulties in the peshat—say, you check parallels where that same word appears elsewhere and it isn’t interpreted that way, there are difficulties; or this law contradicts other laws, or I don’t know exactly—those difficulties are resolved by a broader mode of thinking, not by the literal reading of the verse. Through the broader reading, you reach the conclusion that the verse doesn’t mean that; it means something else. And their claim is that derash isn’t really something other than peshat, but rather peshat viewed more broadly. That is the real peshat.

That’s why, too, whenever there is a contradiction between derash and peshat, we always rule like derash. Because peshat is the literal interpretation of the verse, but one doesn’t always follow the literal interpretation. You have contradictions in various places; you need to look with a broader lens, and then you can conclude that the meaning is actually something else. And they argue that derash is not really something other than peshat, but simply that the perspective serving as the basis for interpretation is broader. When you look at parallels, at difficulties in the verse, and so on, you reach the conclusion that the peshat is not this but that. That is called derash.

Now this is what I asked last class, in the context of whether derash comes as a kind of renewed reading in response to a difficulty in the original verse. Yes, that’s what they claim. They claim yes. So these are called the apologetic approaches? That’s what he calls them—it doesn’t matter, that’s his label—but he says they are apologetic approaches because it’s unlikely that things actually work that way. But those who say it… No, the point is that derash often looks very unconvincing. Right? Many times: “an eye for an eye” means money. Where did you get money from? It says “an eye for an eye.” What, the Torah knows how to write “money for an eye”; if it wanted, it would have written that. In other words, there’s a difficulty with the midrashic interpretation.

Now the easiest way to deal with that—the critics always say, “Fine, it’s nonsense, they just did what they wanted.” What do the apologists, those who want to defend, say? They say no, you don’t understand, they looked with a broader lens, and in fact this is the correct peshat. They weren’t doing whatever they wanted; this is the meaning of the verse. Only in order to understand it, you need to look at parallels and difficulties and at the broader picture. So it’s a kind of defense against the attacks on derash, because it often seems terribly disconnected from the wording of the verse, terribly unjustified, basically arbitrary in some senses. And therefore…

Wait, can I ask a question about that? There’s also some logic to that point, in the sense that if I read something absurd—because I do come with a certain human background—so if it contradicts human life as I understand it, that encourages me to look for… That’s what they say. “Contradicts human life,” I don’t know, but yes, that’s the basis of the claim. The claim is that peshat is not always what you read literally. After all, many times we know that when we read a given sentence, the literal meaning is not the correct one. “Take refuge under His wings”—what does that mean, that the one under whose wings I’m taking refuge has wings? “You devour my people who dwell among you”—that’s cannibalism. Exactly. In other words, you do not interpret things in a simple literal way. It’s obvious that context matters. And sometimes the context is self-evident and sometimes it demands broader analysis.

But still, the general direction of this approach—many biblical commentators went in this direction—is that derash essentially comes to solve difficulties in the plain reading, and therefore in fact derash is the true peshat, the deeper peshat. What you call peshat is literal peshat, but literal peshat is not always really peshat. According to this approach, one has to understand that there is some kind of competition between derash and peshat, and in fact derash is right and peshat is not. That’s the claim. And therefore, when there is a contradiction, we rule like derash and not like peshat. Okay?

Now there is a second approach that says it may be that derash and peshat are parallel planes. Derash basically determines what is ruled in Jewish law: “an eye for an eye” means money. And peshat says what would have been appropriate. It would have been appropriate to take out your eye, literally. In actual Jewish law, they take money from you. Fine? So there is significance, according to this approach… And according to the first approach, peshat is simply an incorrect interpretation. Derash is the correct interpretation. Right, that’s the first approach, because peshat has difficulties and derash comes and resolves them. According to this second proposal, that’s not right. There are two parallel interpretations here.

The actual practical interpretation in practice is derash, but it’s not that derash is the depth of peshat. Peshat is another interpretation, and another interpretation that is not ruled as Jewish law but is still a true interpretation in that sense: that one really deserves to lose an eye if one took someone else’s eye. And therefore the Torah wrote “an eye for an eye” in that form, because it wanted to tell you: listen, the truth is that you really deserve to have your eye taken out. I am sparing you, and therefore you will pay money—and that is the derash. But the peshat speaks not about the law, but about the reason, about the idea, something like that, okay? That’s a second interpretation.

Wait, and what would they say? In such a case are they claiming that peshat is what should have happened but it isn’t implementable, or it isn’t… Exactly. So that’s what I’m getting to now. Meaning, the question is: if peshat really is what ought to be, then why don’t we do it? Apparently there’s some additional consideration that tells me: true, in principle it would be appropriate to do this, but in practice there is another consideration and because of it you have to take money and not remove the eye.

What does that really mean? It really means that the peshat interpretation is also practical, not merely theoretical—of what ought to have been. Except that it’s only part of the picture. Let me give you an example, one I once wrote about in an article of mine on ukimtot. Suppose we see in the Talmud: the Talmud says that anyone who is careful with vows, anyone who is careful with wine for havdalah, will have male children. Anyone who recites havdalah over a cup of wine will have male children. Right? Now we know quite a few people who are careful with wine for havdalah and do not have male children. There are some who didn’t even have children at all, not only male children. The Chazon Ish, who I assume recited havdalah over wine, had no children. How does that fit the Talmud? Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman asks this.

So he says—the question of course isn’t particularly difficult—but the answer is very interesting. He wants to claim that someone who recites havdalah over a cup of wine truly deserves male children; he ought to receive male children. But there is also another Talmudic statement—and now I’m adding this—that because of the sin of vows, a man’s children die. Because of the sin of vows. Vows. Suppose there is a person who is careful with havdalah over a cup but not careful with vows. What happens in such a case? He deserves male children, but the children are supposed to die because he isn’t careful. So instead they don’t bring him children at all. Why bring him children and kill them? In other words, what am I trying to say? I mean that when you say someone who recites havdalah over a cup deserves male children, that can be a perfectly precise and always correct rule. It’s just that there are other perfectly precise and always correct rules, and sometimes the outcome is a combination of several rules.

You know, in the laws of physics for example, there’s Newton’s first law in mechanics. It says a body continues moving in uniform motion in a straight line if no force acts upon it. It keeps moving at the same speed, without changing direction, if no force acts upon it. Has anyone ever seen such a body? Never in his life. Why? Because there is always friction and this and that, there are always disturbances; it’s never a body sitting in a perfect vacuum. So how do we know whether that law is correct or not? The answer is: it is completely correct, completely correct. But in reality there are other laws that are also operating in the situation. For example, the law of friction. So Newton’s first law together with the law of friction will produce the behavior that actually occurs. That doesn’t mean that each of those laws is only partially correct or not fully correct. No. Each of those laws is fully correct. It’s just that this law doesn’t always operate alone in the situation.

Sometimes there are… yes, my sister studied criminology, and she told me they had all kinds of jokes there about the scientific status of the field. Jokes casting doubt on it? Yes—not casting doubt; obviously it isn’t scientific. She said every course began with the definition of what science is. Every course started that way. I told her, I don’t know, I studied physics, no one ever entered into the question of what science is, because when your tail—or your hat—is on fire, then you need to look for excuses. She told me that among other things the lecturers in criminology would always say: let’s take, for example, a law in the social sciences, say, frustration and aggression, the relationship between frustration and aggression. That was always the example. As though you’re now surveying six hundred laws in the social sciences, and in the end the example is always the relationship between frustration and aggression—there’s no other law, that’s the only law they’ve got there. That frustration leads to aggression. Okay, that’s the… They don’t have another law there. Apropos the scientific status of the field.

So. The claim is that there’s a rule saying that there is a connection between frustration and aggression. If you’re frustrated, you’ll respond aggressively. Is that always true? Obviously not. A person can be frustrated and still control himself and not react aggressively. Sometimes a person will react aggressively even though he isn’t frustrated, for other reasons. That doesn’t mean that the law that posits a connection between frustration and aggression isn’t fully correct, precise, always true. It’s not because the law isn’t correct, but because there are other parameters, other factors participating in the situation. If I underwent strong education against aggression, then although I’m very frustrated, I’ll stop my tendency to be aggressive and won’t behave aggressively. Not because the law linking frustration and aggression isn’t correct, but because it isn’t the only law in the situation.

Now in the context of peshat and derash, when I say “an eye for an eye” means money—basically they’re telling me the peshat says literally “an eye for an eye.” And now the claim is: that too is the correct interpretation, not just what would have been appropriate. It’s the correct interpretation. Except that there is another rule saying that you don’t gouge out people’s eyes, unless, I don’t know, in very exceptional situations, but you don’t just gouge out someone’s eye. So then we say: all right, then let’s take money instead. Not because the first interpretation is wrong and he doesn’t deserve to have his eye removed. He really does deserve it. That’s what should have been done. It’s just that there’s another rule saying yes—but if I have another way to punish him, I don’t gouge out his eye. So I give him a monetary punishment. This is already a third way of looking at the relationship between peshat and derash.

Why? Because here I’m claiming it’s not that peshat is what ought to have been and derash is what happens in practice. No. What happens in practice is the sum of derash and peshat together. I’ll give you a nice example specifically regarding “an eye for an eye.” Derash is the peshat—what you’re really saying is that there is “an eye for an eye,” but there is something… No, I’ll sharpen it. Look, I’ll take the example of “an eye for an eye.” There is an opinion in the Talmud—not the one ruled in Jewish law, by the way—there is an opinion in the Talmud that “an eye for an eye” means money, but what do you pay? Not the value of the injured party’s eye, but the value of the damager’s eye. Meaning, if I took out your eye, they take money from me, not my eye. And the money they take is the value of my eye, not yours.

What on earth is that? After all, I took out your eye; I damaged you; I’m supposed to pay you, compensate you for what I did. What I did to you concerns your eye, not mine. So Henshke there, in that same article, brings this example and says: basically, when you say “an eye for an eye,” what does the plain meaning say? They need to take out my eye. Right? But there is another principle: you don’t just take out someone’s eye. Instead, take money from him. But which money? The money comes instead of taking out my eye, not as compensation for your eye. Therefore I pay the value of my own eye. So instead of taking my eye out, they take money from me equal to the value of my eye. Do you understand that if only the derash were written, I would pay the value of the injured party’s eye. If only the peshat were written, they would literally take out my eye. Derash and peshat together combine to create a third result: they take money from me equal to the value of my eye, not the injured party’s. That is the sum of derash and peshat. Derash and peshat together build the final picture, the bottom line, what we actually do. That’s a third way of looking at it.

But Rabbi, from the standpoint of wanting to repair the damage done, we’d want to pay specifically what his eye is worth for him. Let’s say one always gives the example that if someone damages a person’s voice, it’s not like damaging your voice, because he’s a singer and that’s his livelihood, so one has to provide for him for life. Exactly—that’s the difference. And according to that opinion, you would pay for your own vocal cords, not his—not the ruling in Jewish law. According to that opinion you pay for your own vocal cords. That’s exactly the point. And why? Because the idea isn’t compensation. It isn’t a compensatory payment. It’s a punishment. Except that instead of the punishment being to take out your eye, they extract from you the monetary value of your eye. The whole idea here is not compensation at all. It’s punishment. You give the money to the injured party because who else are you going to give it to? He was injured, so if they’re already punishing me by making me pay money, I’ll pay it to the injured party. But not because the purpose of the payment is to compensate him. It’s like a fine. What happens with a fine? A fine isn’t compensation, and still the money goes to the one who was harmed. If they’re punishing me by making me pay money, I may as well give it to the one who lost out, the one I harmed, but not because the purpose of the payment is to compensate him. Okay? Rather, it is to punish you. To punish me. It’s punishment. Like someone who desecrates the Sabbath, like someone who—whatever—it’s criminal punishment. It’s not civil law. Okay?

So the claim basically is that the peshat—that’s what Henshke argues there, and he brings several examples for it—the peshat and the derash together add up to the final result. And that’s a very interesting perspective, because it means that derash and peshat are both correct interpretations, and each of them is also practical. Not just what would have been appropriate, but once I have two interpretations that don’t allow one another to go all the way, the final outcome is their sum, what comes out of the balancing between them. And therefore they have equal standing. It isn’t true that the law follows derash. The law follows the sum of derash and peshat, and both contribute to the halakhic conclusion or to the decisive interpretation in the final analysis.

Right, although we said this opinion isn’t actually ruled in Jewish law? No, it isn’t the ruling. He explains that even according to the second opinion it may be possible to understand it this way; not important. But that opinion demonstrates it, I think, very, very clearly. He also brings another example there. For example, the Torah says in Parashat Mishpatim that if there is a slave who does not want to go free, an ear-pierced slave, then they pierce him and “he shall serve him forever”—“his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.” Okay? So he remains a perpetual slave. In the Torah, in Parashat Behar, it says he goes free in the Jubilee year. So what is it—forever or Jubilee? The Talmud says: it means until the Jubilee’s “forever,” meaning for the duration of the Jubilee cycle. What is that, word games? What is “the forever of Jubilee”?

First of all, practically he goes free in the Jubilee. So what does “he shall serve him forever” mean? “The forever of Jubilee”—what is that? So Henshke wants to make a very interesting claim. He says this: there is a difference between two kinds of ownership in Jewish law: ownership of the substance and ownership of the fruits. Ownership of the substance means the thing belongs to me. My cow, my chair, it belongs to me, it’s my property. Ownership of the fruits—what is ownership of the fruits? The uses belong to me, but not the substance itself. For example, if I rented something from you—a house—the house isn’t mine, the house is yours, but the use, the right of use, is mine. It’s really ownership, not just permission to use—it’s mine. It’s like a tree, for example: you can be the owner of the tree and I can be the owner of the tree for its fruits. Meaning every fruit that comes out is mine, but I’m not the owner of the tree; you are the owner of the tree. That’s called ownership for fruits, ownership of rights in the substance insofar as it yields fruits or uses. Okay?

Now, the accepted approach among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) is that temporary ownership, ownership for a fixed period, is always ownership of the fruits, not ownership of the substance. For example, if I rent you a house for a year, clearly the house remains mine—after all, after a year it comes back to me. You have usage rights for a year, and therefore you basically have only ownership of the fruits in the house. If I sold you the house outright, now it’s yours, then you have ownership of the substance too. Meaning, ownership that is for a fixed period is ownership of the fruits. That is the accepted view—not everyone agrees, but that is the view; Rashba in Nedarim and others.

So he says that when the Torah says an ear-pierced slave serves forever, it means that he is acquired by me in ownership of the substance—it’s like perpetual ownership, like anything that is fully mine forever. When the Torah says in Parashat Behar that he goes free in the Jubilee, it means that despite being acquired by me in ownership of the substance, after a finite time he goes free. But during the time he was mine, he was mine even in his substance, not only for fruits. And that is the sum of two principles. On the one hand, he goes free after a finite time, but on the other hand, he is acquired by me in his substance. Usually a fixed term means ownership of the fruits, and usually what is owned in its substance is forever, not for a finite time. Here there is some kind of combination. In other words, it is mine in its substance for a fixed period.

How can the Torah write such a thing? If it had written only Parashat Mishpatim, I would understand it as ownership of the substance forever. If it had written only Parashat Behar, I would understand it as temporary ownership of fruits. The Torah has to write both passages to tell me that it is ownership of the substance for a fixed period. And that has practical ramifications; if ownership of the substance is mine, can I consecrate it, can I damage the substance—there are various practical ramifications, not important right now. But when the Torah wants to tell me that the slave is basically mine in his substance for a fixed period until the Jubilee, it has to write it in two different passages. The sum of those two instructions from the two passages together is what gives me the law, not Parashat Behar and not Parashat Mishpatim.

Even though Parashat Behar would seem sufficient, no? No, because if there were only Parashat Behar, you’d think it was ownership of fruits. And what would the practical implication be? For example, whether I can damage it. Land that is mine in its substance, I can also dig pits in it; think of a house. And regarding these differences, the slave is acquired by me in his substance during the period he is with me. In the Jubilee he goes free. And what is the idea behind that? Think, for example, that I bought land from you forever, permanently, so the land is mine in its substance, right? Ownership of the substance. Now the king comes and expropriates the land from me. He needs to build a road or a highway there and expropriates the land. It’s his right; he can expropriate. So it turns out the land was mine for a fixed period. In fact yours too, because you sold it to me after some period that it was yours.

So did both of us have only ownership of fruits in the land, because it was for a fixed period? No, it was ownership of the substance. Why? Because when you sold me the land, you sold it to me forever. In principle it was not a sale for a fixed term. You sold it to me forever. Then suddenly the king came and expropriated it from me. That was not built into the sale. A sale for a fixed term is when I sell it to you in advance for five years. From the outset, you know you’re not getting full ownership. Here not so. Here you got full ownership, and the king decided to expropriate it from you. But your ownership was completely yours. The substance didn’t remain mine while I gave you only usage rights. No—I transferred everything to you. Does it depend on the seller, not the buyer? It depends on both sides—what you want to sell and what he wants to buy.

So if, say, you sell me a field and I know that in another ten or fifteen years I’m going to sell it to someone else… No, that doesn’t matter. What matters is what you intend to sell. Obviously. When you intend to sell, you could also choose not to sell; that’s your decision. So all the rights are yours; no rights remain with me. Therefore it’s clear that you bought everything; everything passed to you, both the substance and the fruits. Ownership of fruits means the substance still belongs to me, and I gave you rights of use for a few years. But if I transferred to you everything I had, then the substance is yours, even if in the end you decide to sell it or the king expropriates it or whatever—it wasn’t built into your ownership. It isn’t a limitation on your ownership; rather, something happened later in time, and fine, it happened. But your ownership itself is not limited. Ownership of fruits is limited ownership.

But why is it necessarily connected to time? That isn’t necessarily connected to time, is it? What? No, there can be ownership of fruits forever. There can’t be ownership of the substance for a fixed term. That can’t be. A fixed term is always ownership of fruits. But it could be that I sell you—I give you usage rights in my house forever, but it always remains mine, okay? That’s a rental forever, for life. That’s still a rental. That can happen. But if I sold you the substance of the house, it can’t be for a fixed term, because it’s all yours and I’m no longer in the picture. What happens in another five years—how would it come back to me? I’m no longer connected to that house; I sold it. You can sell it back to me, but it can’t revert to me automatically. There would have to be a new act of acquisition to return the house to me. Okay? That isn’t contained in the sale transaction itself.

When it is ownership of fruits, that is when your ownership is defined from the outset as partial and not full. Okay? Now that’s exactly what happens with the slave, he argues. Basically Parashat Mishpatim teaches me that the slave who has his ear pierced is acquired by me like a chair; he is completely mine. Now the Jubilee comes—the Talmud says that Jubilee is a royal release, the king’s expropriation. The king comes and expropriates everything that is acquired forever: lands, slaves, whatever is acquired forever. So it’s like expropriation in a field. So basically my ownership of the slave is absolute; it’s not that the ownership is partial and the substance remains with someone else and only the fruits are mine. No, my ownership is absolute, and then suddenly the king comes and expropriates my slave from me. Therefore it is ownership of the substance for a limited time.

So Parashat Mishpatim speaks about the nature of my ownership in the slave; the nature of the ownership is ownership of the substance. Parashat Behar doesn’t deal at all with the nature of my ownership in the slave; it only says that in the Jubilee the king comes and expropriates. That has nothing to do with property law at all. The king has the right to expropriate, so he expropriates it. That doesn’t affect the fact that until that moment my ownership was ownership of the substance. That is what is defined in Parashat Mishpatim. Okay? Okay, fine. Okay, I think I got it.

So once again, basically this is a combination of two principles whose halakhic result is the combination of both, not either one by itself. Yes, the combination of both together produces the halakhic result. It is ownership of the substance for a fixed term. Or it is money, but the value of my eye, not your eye. It is a combination of two things that are seemingly different, which create a joint result. Okay.

Now this is a consequence—or at least that’s how it seems—a consequence after the fact. Meaning, I discovered in practice that I have two verses here that contradict one another, so how do I reconcile them? Why wouldn’t the Torah have written it in a more orderly way from the outset? How would you write it? When the Torah writes ownership for a limited term, that means fruits; when it writes ownership of the substance, that means forever. The Torah’s way of writing this strange hybrid is to say: it is perpetual ownership—ownership of the substance, sorry—but not perpetual. And it also emerges from different angles. In Parashat Mishpatim it talks about the type of ownership I have in the slave: the type of ownership is ownership of the substance. In Parashat Behar it talks about the duration of the ownership: only until the Jubilee. This is in the laws of Jubilee, that is in the laws of slaves—two different things. The law of my ownership in the slave is ownership of the substance; from the laws of Jubilee, anything with ownership of the substance goes free in the Jubilee. That’s from the laws of Jubilee; it’s not related. It’s the king’s expropriation. Therefore they speak about two different aspects of the issue. This is the proprietary aspect, and that is the king’s rights to expropriate ownerships. So there’s no reason to combine them into one passage; they are two completely different passages. Okay.

In short, for our purposes, what comes out is that here peshat and derash are combined to produce the final result. Now here there’s… this is the second approach, right? The third. The first is apologetics, right, which says derash is basically the depth of peshat; there is no peshat. Right. The second view says there is peshat, but it isn’t for practical Jewish law; it’s only what would have been appropriate. And the third approach says no—derash and peshat are both for Jewish law, and the law is the combination of the two. Okay? Got it.

Now look, there’s a very beautiful example. There was a very interesting Jew named Rabbi Menashe of Ilya, a student of the Vilna Gaon. And he wrote a book called Binat Mikra. And in that book he brings, in the name of the Vilna Gaon, a demonstration of why the Vilna Gaon claims that derash is not the depth of peshat but another interpretation. Why is derash not the depth of peshat, but another interpretation? Okay. He says like this. The verse says: “If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him suppress it, and a good word gladdens it.” You see? The verse in Proverbs. Let’s enlarge it a bit. See it? Okay? Yes, and then there’s the famous derash about distracting oneself from worries, but that isn’t the original meaning of the verse. Exactly.

So he says: after all, it says “yashchena,” not “yasichena”—that’s the original vocalization. Yes. So the Talmud in Sanhedrin brings: “If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him suppress it.” Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi disagreed about this interpretation. One said: he should remove it from his mind. And one said: he should speak of it to others. Okay. “Remove it from his mind” means put it out of his mind, and the other says: share it with someone else. So there are actually two ways of reading this verse.

Rabbi Menashe of Ilya, in his book Binat Mikra, brings the Vilna Gaon’s explanation of this derash. He says: Rav Kahana said—and this is the well-known Talmud in Shabbat 63a, you see?—Rav Kahana said, “When I was eighteen years old, I had already learned the entire Talmud, yet I did not know that a verse never departs from its plain meaning.” And this opens the door to making an effort to interpret every verse according to the depth of its plain meaning, while the derash is to be expounded separately.

And I heard from the holy sage himself that “a verse never departs from its plain meaning” means: we made the derash, but that doesn’t mean the plain interpretation changed. The interpretation you still have to interpret by way of peshat. The derash is to be expounded—it’s a parallel track—but there is also the peshat interpretation. The fact that you made a derash doesn’t mean you can ignore the peshat, like that Minchat Chinukh, yes, who says there is no prohibition against tripping a blind person in the road.

So he says like this: “And I heard from the holy, pious genius, our master Rabbi Eliyahu,” meaning the Vilna Gaon, “who explained at length the error of those who think that derash interprets the plain meaning of the verse”—that is the first approach, that derash is the depth of peshat—“and he brought an example from what the Talmud expounded on the verse: ‘If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him suppress it.’ One said: he should remove it from his mind, and one said: he should tell it to others.” Since it is written without vowels, he switches the shin to a sin. Okay? Just to make clear what…

And behold, they said of right that it is left. What does he mean? He means they turned it around. The shin of “yashchena” is a right-sided shin—after all, the dot in shin is on the right, and the dot in sin is on the left. A right shin is “sh,” a left shin is “s.” They said of right that it is left. Because after all, it actually says “yashchena,” which is a right shin, and in the derash they expound “yasichena,” which is left, dot on the left side. Right? Which is also a double meaning, because it literally means turning what… Obviously it’s a double meaning; that’s why he’s playing with it. They said of right that it is left. What does that mean? He means that if you say derash is the peshat, then you are saying of right that it is left. After all, the Torah writes right, and you explain to me that what’s written there is left. No—it says right. True, the derash can be expounded, but the plain meaning remains in place. You can’t identify the two. It isn’t true that derash is the depth of peshat.

Okay, that’s the point. Therefore he pokes fun at those apologists, saying they “say of right that it is left,” okay? Which of course also echoes saying of right that it is left in the context of an erroneous ruling by the Sanhedrin. That’s the wordplay. Who is this from? Rabbi Menashe of Ilya in the name of the Vilna Gaon.

And then he says: “Behold, they said of right that it is left”—for the shin of “yashchena” is right-sided. “But the simple meaning is yashchena,” meaning the anxiety bows the heart down, from the language of bowing, stooping. When you are bent over, you’re hunched. Anxiety lies on us and somehow makes us stoop, yes, causes us to bend. That is the plain interpretation. “The latter half of the verse proves it.” And I can prove it to you, he says, from the continuation of the verse. Why? Because the continuation says, “but a good word gladdens it.” So “yashchena” is the opposite of “yesamchena,” right? “If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, yashchena, and a good word yesamchena.” It’s obvious this is an antithetical parallelism, right? So he says “yashchena” is the opposite of “yesamchena,” not “yasichena to others.” “He should tell it to others”—what does that have to do with “gladdens it”? Right? Therefore it is obvious that it means to stoop, to become weighed down, the opposite of joy, right? A handbreadth of sadness and a handbreadth of laughter—in Jewish law a “laughing handbreadth” is a larger handbreadth, because when you stoop you shrink, when you are joyful you expand, right? Therefore “anxiety in a man’s heart yashchena” means it causes him to stoop, constricts him, bends him over; and “a good word yesamchena” means that a good word causes him joy. After all, the verse is talking about the person and what human states cause to him, not giving instructions of what to do—remove it from his mind, tell it to others.

Now he says: but what troubled our Sages was that it should have said “tashchena”—“anxiety in a man’s heart tashchena.” “Tashchena” should really have been “tashchenu,” not “tashchena,” but never mind, with a tav. So there’s a difficulty. So the peshat is difficult. True, the peshat is “yashchena,” yes, clearly that means to stoop, but that peshat is not perfectly smooth. It is difficult to read the verse according to peshat; there is a syntactic difficulty. Okay.

So he says that “anxiety” is feminine, and therefore it ought to have been “tashchena.” Although Ibn Ezra’s expression is known—that anything without a living spirit may be referred to as masculine or feminine—still, they expounded every thorn for praise and so on. What does he mean? He means this: we are saying that the plain reading is right-sided shin, “yashchena.” That is the plain reading. But why does he bring proof from the end of the verse? Can he prove from what is written that the midrash is wrong? He says yes, if you look at the end of the verse. Because at the end of the verse you see that it really is a right-sided shin. Because the contrast to “yesamchena” is “yashchena.” Okay?

Now, pay attention—there is a fascinating situation here that many people miss. The plain reading remains what it is: right-sided shin, yashchena. But that reading has a bug, it has a difficulty, because it should have been “tashchena.” Therefore they make a derash. “Tashchena” or “tashchenu”? “Tashchenu,” but he’s ignoring the masculine/feminine issue at the end. I’m talking about the masculine/feminine at the beginning: yashchena or tashchena. Okay? So he says: the peshat is difficult. Therefore we make a derash. And the derash says: okay, then let’s read the shin as a left shin. And then it becomes either “yasichena from his mind” or “yasichena to others.” In both cases it’s a left shin. But that’s derash. They disagree what the derash is. Okay?

Now, that derash does not replace the peshat, because that would be “telling us right is left.” The vocalization is right. So you cannot change the peshat; it is not the depth of peshat and it isn’t peshat at all. The peshat is what it was. It’s just that the peshat is difficult. The peshat is difficult because there is a yod there instead of a tav, “yashchena” instead of “tashchena.” Therefore it is clear that I have to make a derash. But once I make the derash, that hasn’t solved the problem, right? It hasn’t replaced the right shin with the left shin. Rather, it added another interpretation with a left shin. Because if you thought it replaced the peshat—that the derash replaced the peshat, and really we should read it with a left shin, not a right shin—then how do you explain the continuation of the verse? “And a good word gladdens it”? “Yesamchena.” But by the way, the difficulty of “yasichena” is also true regarding “yesamchena,” isn’t it? It’s the same… No, “a good word” is masculine, so “yesamchena,” not “tesamchena.” “A good word yesamchena.” We’re not talking about the end. The masculine/feminine at the end is off in any case according to our language. We’re talking about the beginning. Okay?

So the contrast within the verse tells me that the peshat must remain what the peshat really says; the derash does not replace the peshat. If I really thought the verse means to tell me to tell my anxiety to someone else or to put it out of my heart, and that really is the meaning of the verse—that the derash taught me the peshat is wrong, I was mistaken, this is the explanation of the verse—that doesn’t fit the continuation of the verse, the contrast with “a good word gladdens it.” Therefore derash does not come to replace peshat; it comes to add to peshat.

But then what did you gain? You still have a difficult peshat. So why isn’t it written “tashchena”? Why is it written “yashchena”? You haven’t answered the difficulty in the peshat. What helped me that you added a derash? You gave me an unrelated answer—fine—but I’m still left with the difficulty. Exactly. You didn’t explain anything about the difficulty; you didn’t solve anything. Look at the Vilna Gaon’s genius explanation. I think this is what he means to say. He says the Torah deliberately wrote it in a flawed way, because the Torah wanted to tell you that you must read this verse in another way besides the plain one, in a midrashic way. If the Torah had written it correctly, it would have said “anxiety in a man’s heart tashchena.” Okay. Again, “tashchena” and not “-nu”; I’m ignoring the end. “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down.” That’s the plain meaning. There is no difficulty in it and everything is fine. “And a good word gladdens it,” and everything works out.

The Torah deliberately distorted it. To hint at the derash. To tell you: this remains the peshat, the peshat does not get replaced, but there is another reading and I want you to read it in that reading too. Okay? Therefore he says “yasichena to others,” and then indeed it is not “tashchena” but “yashchena.” Why? Because he tells it to others—he is the one who “yasichena.” “Yasichena” should indeed be with a yod, not with a tav. Right? Therefore it was written here with the yod to tell you that you need to read it by way of derash. Now notice: we have no other option for writing this, exactly like the examples I brought you earlier. No other option for writing the verse in a way that gives us both interpretations. If you wrote “anxiety in a man’s heart tashchena,” then I’d read only the peshat, right? If you wrote “anxiety in a man’s heart yasichena” or “yashchena” but without the continuation, without “and a good word gladdens it,” then I would probably read it as “yasichena”—after all, the Bible is written without vowels—and I’d understand it probably means left shin, and all would be fine. But no: the Torah writes “yashchena” and adds the continuation to make sure that… that you understand it is a right shin, because the contrast to “yesamchena” is “yashchena” and not “yasichena.” Okay?

So you cannot escape the fact that there is peshat here, but you also cannot escape the fact that the peshat is flawed. So you are forced to read it also—why did the Torah put a yod there instead of a tav? Apparently because it wants to tell you to read it also in the way of derash. In other words, it wants you to read this verse in both ways together: both this interpretation and that interpretation. They don’t contradict, by the way; they supplement each other. “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down,” and besides that there is also advice to tell it to others or put it out of one’s mind. And both interpretations are meant to be packed into the same verse—not the Torah, this is Proverbs—they want to put both into the same verse. The only way to do that is to write the peshat in a way that makes clear what the peshat is, and to distort it. So the distortion is intentional. There is no point asking, wait, how did that answer the question why there is a yod there and not a tav? There is no question. There is a yod there and not a tav in order to hint that I need to read it also through derash, not only through peshat. Got it.

So the peshat doesn’t have to be smooth, and the derash doesn’t have to be smooth. On the contrary. Neither of them should be smooth, because if one of them were smooth, it would be the only interpretation. I wouldn’t assume there was another one; there’d be no need for another interpretation. So basically this approach claims that first, all the derashot were already known in advance? No, that’s your earlier question—we’ll still discuss that. No. The derash is expounded here; it isn’t known in advance. But if not, then why write the verse in a strange way from the outset? So that you’ll expound it. Exactly. So it assumes the derash already exists. No, once again. It tells you to expound, and you expound it—the Holy One, blessed be He, didn’t expound it. But you expound it; the Torah tells you to expound it another way. How? There’s Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi—you see there’s a disagreement; I don’t know who’s right. But then how do you know which word to distort so that afterward you’ll know how to expound it? Like every interpretation: you activate your reasoning and ask yourself, what is the yod doing there instead of the tav? Apparently the person should tell the anxiety to others, or someone else should remove it from his heart.

So okay, my question is: did the author of Proverbs intend one of those two? Apparently yes, but there’s a disagreement as to which. Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi disagree. So apparently he—what do you mean, one of those two? One of the two derashot. After all, there are two derashot here: remove it from his mind, and tell it to others. Right. And the peshat is “weighs it down.” Right. Okay. Now what King Solomon intended was: peshat, and expound something else too. What exactly to expound? I don’t know what Solomon intended; there’s a disagreement between Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi. Yes, but for one of those views we say that he intended it. Apparently. Or at least that he wanted us to derive something further. That’s it—because then we’re assuming there is both a peshat understanding and also some derashic conclusion that the author expects us to reach, whatever it may be.

No—with derash, I want to sharpen the point. When we talk about creative derashot and supportive derashot, the question is not what the Holy One, blessed be He, intended. Everyone apparently claims that the Holy One, blessed be He, intended the derash. The question is whether the Holy One, blessed be He, said it to Moses and Moses transmitted it by tradition down to us, okay, and then the law was already known and we merely found a derash for it—or not, we created the law now. After we created it, we indeed claim that this too is what He intended from the start, but we created it. That is called a creative derash. Do you understand? It doesn’t mean a derash that the Holy One, blessed be He, never intended at all—that isn’t an option. Any derash we make, we assume that’s what He intended. Maybe we’re mistaken, but that’s what we assume. Okay?

You’re talking about something else. You’re talking about the question of intent. What was intended? Obviously this was intended from the outset. But the question of creative versus supportive derash is not the question of what was intended; it’s the question whether this law is being created now or whether it was transmitted through tradition from Sinai. So Rabbi, I want to go back to what we discussed last class, where basically you raised a sort of criticism of the Torah in the context of: why does the Torah write things that I already know? No, that was in the non-halakhic questions. That’s what… But also on the halakhic point: if I already know something, then why do I now need to look for the hint as to where it appears if I already know it? About that I said we’ll talk about creative derash and supportive derash. I just want to explain that here, that isn’t the question. You asked a question that on the face of it is similar, but it isn’t this question.

Take, for example, “an eye for an eye.” Fine? We expound that it means money. Did the Holy One, blessed be He, really intend money from the outset? The assumption is yes. The assumption is yes? Yes. According to all views, whether it’s a creative derash or a supportive derash. What’s the difference between them? A supportive derash means we received a tradition from Moses, down to us a tradition was transmitted, that “an eye for an eye” means monetary payment. Okay, now we are searching for why. After all, it says “an eye for an eye,” so why money? We find a verbal analogy, “under” “under,” or some other verbal analogy. We find a scriptural support. Exactly, and this is the derash that supports or manages to ground the law, but the law was already known; the law wasn’t created now when we expounded it. That is supportive derash.

Creative derash means we received no tradition at all, but it is clear to us because of the verbal analogy that “an eye for an eye” means money, not an eye. From comparison to another place where “under” is written—doesn’t matter, a verbal analogy. That is creative derash. And we didn’t know it before? No. So how can we possibly give the same force, the same force, to a creative derash, when we’re not sure about it? Sure—so what? Then what I think… No, why should that obligate me? I’ll say no, I don’t think that’s what it means. If you don’t think so… You’re telling me this is, say, Torah law… If you don’t think so, then don’t do it. I’m telling you: that’s what it says. I bow my head. You don’t think so? It’s not that now everyone can just expound. If you don’t think so, then don’t. But when the Sanhedrin expounds, you can’t say “I don’t think so.” They have authority, that’s exactly the point. If someone without authority expounds, fair enough, you can disagree with him. But if the Sanhedrin expounded, even if they are mistaken, and they have authority, what they determine is binding. So it isn’t a matter of “it doesn’t seem right to me.” If it doesn’t seem right to you, fine, try to persuade them they’re wrong. But that’s not relevant. They have authority. So this is not really about authority.

I want to sharpen this again. When I expound “an eye for an eye” as money, whether it is creative derash or supportive derash, my assumption is that this is what the Torah means. That is clear. And still there is room for disagreement. The disagreement is over whether I knew this when I came to expound it—whether I knew the result was money but found the verbal analogy that grounds it; that is called supportive derash. Creative derash means no, I didn’t receive by tradition that it means money. So then how did you know that this is what…? There is a verbal analogy, “under” “under,” and I have to learn from it that it means money and not an eye. So you didn’t know it meant money and discovered it by analyzing the verses? Right, by means of a verbal analogy. So I think this again raises a question about its force. No, I’m explaining again: no. The force is unrelated to the issue. The Sanhedrin did this, okay? So it has force. But we also said about the Sanhedrin that it is like an expert, right? No. The Sanhedrin is not like an expert. The Sanhedrin is formal authority, not substantive authority. You must obey what they say even if they are wrong; it doesn’t matter. That’s exactly the… which is why I’m bringing up the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin has authority not because it never errs—it can err, okay?—but it is the law. The Knesset can err, but it is still the law.

Okay, so I’m saying: the claim, the question whether derash is creative or supportive, is the question whether the law that I expounded was created by me, or whether it came to me by tradition and I merely grounded it. But whether the derash is creative or supportive, in either case, whoever makes the derash is sure that this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, intended. Otherwise he wouldn’t make this derash. So this is not the question whether the Holy One, blessed be He, intended it from the outset or not. That is not the dispute between creative and supportive derash. No, wait—He intended it from the outset, but it could be that we didn’t receive it and we arrived at it through understanding, that we’d understand it ourselves? Exactly. And therefore the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, intended it from the outset is agreed upon by both sides. The disagreement is over whether He also transmitted it to us, or whether we discovered it from the derash and only now realized that this was what He intended. Okay?

Now in our context, same thing. You can ask whether King Solomon, who wrote Proverbs, intended this. The answer is yes. But that doesn’t mean Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi received by tradition that it should be read with a left shin. No—they inferred from the yod in place of the tav that apparently this was the intention, and therefore it has to be read in a midrashic way and not only in a plain way. So Solomon did intend the derash? Obviously he intended the derash. But that still doesn’t mean the derash isn’t creative. And I’m saying these are two different questions.

In any case, when I say “derash,” I am claiming the text intended this. That is clear. I am not playing games. But the question is whether this is my conclusion that the text intended this, or whether I have a tradition that this is the intention, only I attach it to this derash—but I know the result is money, or “tell it,” in this case. That’s the question of whether it is creative or supportive derash. It isn’t connected to the question whether the author intended it. The author intended it according to all views; otherwise why would I say it? What, am I just playing around? I mean that Solomon, in this verse, wanted to say this too. So basically that’s somewhat begging the question, no? In the sense that we say okay, I don’t know, say I’m some sage or something, and now I understand the verse in some particular way, and then I can come and claim that this is what the author intended—when how do we know? How do we know? Now every interpretation of every person… But Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi aren’t the Sanhedrin. Fine, then no—you don’t have to accept what they say. Don’t accept it. Who said you have to? That’s unrelated.

I’m talking now about you expounding it, okay? Not someone else. You expounded it. So what you expounded seems logical to you, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t expound it. So let’s talk about that. Forget it—what difference does it make? The question of authority is the question, if he expounds, whether I must accept it. That’s a completely different question. I’m talking now about me myself having expounded it. What does that mean? How does it stand in relation to peshat? From my standpoint. Not the question what someone else would say about it. I myself found a derash for a verse. I also have a peshat reading of the verse. How do I conceive these two readings, the relation between them? Not related to the authority question. The authority question is when I expound it and now the question is what you do with my derash. Are you obligated to accept my derash or not? If I’m the Sanhedrin, yes. If I’m not the Sanhedrin, then no. But that’s a completely different question; it doesn’t interest me right now. What interests me is the relation between peshat and derash. Not authority, and not who is supposed to expound, or who has authority to expound. What is the relation between derash and peshat?

Any derash whatsoever? Yes. Even if I myself am expounding, and I myself also read the verse in its plain meaning—what does that mean? Does it mean that, for me, the meaning of the verse is the peshat? For me the meaning of the verse is the derash? For me both are interpretations of the verse? Do they combine? Are they parallel? All the questions I asked until now concern only myself. I’m not talking about authority; that’s a completely different question. Got it. Meaning, we’re trying more to understand how one should correctly act or decide between the derashic understanding I have and the peshat? Yes. How those two relate to one another and how they relate to the verses. Fine. That’s the question.

So we argued that the derash has to be hinted at in the peshat, according to Rabbi Menashe of Ilya, yes? Okay. The point people always notice—look. I asked earlier: it says “an eye for an eye,” and they expound it as money. Fine? Now those who claim that derash is the depth of peshat are basically saying: how should one read the verse? Money. Right. If you think “eye” is wrong, look at the parallels, verbal analogy, and so on—money. They never answer the question: but why did it say “eye”? Why not write “money for an eye”? That question they don’t answer. They can bring me arguments why the reading “an eye for an eye” has problems. There are difficulties. And they can prove that the true, deeper reading is “money for an eye.” That’s usually what they do when they explain why derash is the depth of peshat.

But there is one question they never answer. Fine, you convinced me. But still explain to me why the Torah chose that form instead of writing “money for an eye.” Why did it write “an eye for an eye” in such a distorted way, so that I then need to make a verbal analogy and conclude that it means money? Let it write “money for an eye.” There must be some significance to the Torah’s choosing to write it in a way that, on your method, is not the correct interpretation. Why? Necessarily because it too is a correct interpretation. You can’t say the derash replaces the peshat. Because if the derash replaced the peshat, you have no explanation for why the peshat was written. Let it write the derash directly. And therefore I think there is a lot of logic in what the Vilna Gaon says. The apologetic approach is problematic. It can explain why the derash is sensible, because there are difficulties in the peshat and so on. It cannot explain why the Torah wrote it in the peshat form rather than just writing the derash directly. Right.

You can convince me that “an eye for an eye” cannot be interpreted literally because that raises all kinds of difficulties, so we must say it means “money for an eye.” But you still need to explain to me why the Torah didn’t write “money for an eye” and solve the whole problem. Why did it write it in the form “an eye for an eye,” so that I’d have difficulties, and then I’d conclude it means money? What for? That’s what you have to explain to me if you’re an apologist. Right. The Vilna Gaon’s answer is: it wrote it that way because it is saying both readings need to be true, and both are true—the reading of “an eye for an eye” literally, and the reading of the derash that says it means money. Both are true. Not that derash replaces peshat. Because if it replaces peshat, there is no answer to the question why the peshat is written.

Exactly like “anxiety in a man’s heart yashchena” and “yasichena.” There is a distortion in the peshat, but that doesn’t mean the peshat is not true. The peshat is true. It only means that the peshat isn’t the only thing. You have to read it in the midrashic way too, not only in the plain way. That is why the peshat was distorted. The peshat was distorted in order to tell you that it is to be read in two ways, the plain reading and the derash reading, in parallel. Both are true. Yes.

Rabbi, then let’s say: in what kinds of cases, for example, would you say are classic cases where the Torah hints at… at two understandings, two understandings that a person is supposed to have. What about various derashot where this really isn’t clear? There’s, for example, “Do not stand by your neighbor’s blood”—sorry, “Do not eat over the blood.” So the peshat says it literally means don’t slaughter and eat the animal over its blood. Whereas the Sages took it in the direction of “don’t eat until you pray for your blood,” meaning they took it to eating before prayer. It seems like two completely different things, with no connection between them. And that’s the derash and that’s the peshat. What’s the problem? Why should there be a connection? That’s the derash and that’s the peshat. To teach me two laws. What’s the connection between “anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down” and “tell it to others”? Those are two things with no connection between them. The word itself too, and neither this nor that. Fine, but in terms of meaning there’s no connection. What’s the connection?

Yes, but there the verse itself hints to me. It says to me: look for it. Right. When the Torah—when the Sages—made a derash on “Do not eat over the blood,” you have to look at what in the plain interpretation doesn’t work. You need to see there, I don’t know what, but something in the plain interpretation doesn’t work, and therefore they make the derashot. So every time there is some derash, something in the peshat doesn’t work, and that invites the derash and invites two understandings? That’s basically the claim, yes. Something in the derash doesn’t work—or alternatively, you have a verbal analogy. Meaning, a key word that appears elsewhere too, and that hints to you that there is another meaning here. Then it could be that the peshat works perfectly well. It’s just that there is a verbal analogy telling you: know that you also have to expound, because there is a verbal analogy here.

By the way, with a verbal analogy there is also a requirement that it be free on at least one side. “Free” means one of the words has to be superfluous. If they are just two words each of which is needed in its own place, then one doesn’t make a verbal analogy. Only if one of them is superfluous. And again, that shows you that in order to make derash, even when there is a verbal analogy, you need a reason. Something in the peshat doesn’t work; this word is superfluous. In terms of peshat, it has no explanation. And that comes to tell you: make a derash of verbal analogy. Something in the peshat doesn’t work. If the peshat works completely, then you don’t make a derash. Okay.

Now, I’ve taken a lot of time, so I just want to get to the second question, that of creative and supportive derashot. It’s a very similar debate to what we saw earlier, but it isn’t the same thing. There are commentators—for example Ralbag—in the introduction to his book Wars of the Lord, in his commentary on the Torah, who wants to claim that all derashot are supportive. What does that mean? That derashot never created a new law. They always anchored a law that we had already received by tradition from previous generations. Is that Maharal? Ralbag, Ralbag. Yes, there are others who also want to claim this. Why claim such a thing? Because often the derash doesn’t sound convincing. You derive some law from a derash, and it looks like a game; you can get whatever you want out of that derash. So Ralbag says: you’re right, true—but don’t worry, because the law didn’t come out of that derash. We knew that law was true already before. So we make some sort of game to plant it inside the verse. At this point we built a shell around something that already existed. Exactly.

So don’t worry, there are no halakhic mistakes here. Meaning, in that sense it’s a very convenient method for dealing with attacks on derash. Yes, because that’s begging the question. It’s a kind of apologetics, basically. I don’t know if it’s begging the question, but it is a good defense against the attacks. You tell me, what is this nonsense? I don’t believe this law because it isn’t serious—you can’t… Don’t worry. This law is a tradition in my hand; it didn’t come from here. Therefore the law is well grounded, and I’m playing games in order to anchor it, but the law did not come from there, so you needn’t doubt the law. It’s an assumption, but okay, assumptions can’t be proven; presumably you can’t prove that it was always there. No, I think that is their claim. Their claim is based on the criticism. They share the criticism that if it were really created from the derash, that wouldn’t make sense, because you can get whatever you want out of it. So therefore it is obvious to them—whereas the critics say “fine, then it’s all nonsense”—the defenders, the apologists, say no, the laws were transmitted by tradition and the derashot merely anchor them.

Though then the apologists would have to come and explain why build such a weak derash for something you already know. Why play that game? Yes, for something serious, something quality. Convince me—what’s the point of that? So that is the view that all derashot are supportive. And the motivation for reaching it is clear, because there is a difficulty in seeing how the law really emerges from the midrash. Against that, anyone who knows the Talmud sees this simply cannot be true. It is obvious that there are creative derashot. There are places where it is clear from the Talmud that there are creative derashot. Maimonides himself writes that all derashot, aside from a few isolated ones, are creative. He wrote this in a responsum. But you can already see it from the Talmud itself, that most derashot are creative. So this view of Ralbag cannot be right.

Factually, you can see it can’t be right. For example, there is a disagreement about a derash. Fine? I do not accept this derash, and therefore the law for me is different. If I have a tradition from Sinai that this is the law, and you don’t accept the derash, then instead go knit a kippah and don’t get involved in derashot. But that’s the law—why are you arguing with the law? The law didn’t come from the derash. And the fact that you dispute the derash causes you not to accept the law that came from it? Why? There are also other places—you can see in many places—it just can’t be right. In short, it is very convenient apologetically as a defense against attacks, but it can’t be right.

More than that: there is really the question—what is the purpose of this game? What is the purpose of the game? You’re just playing games, and it’s not even convincing. If it were convincing, then maybe it would strengthen my confidence in the law that I received by tradition. But it isn’t convincing. And you’re not only playing games, you’re playing unconvincing games, and they have no value at all, because you know everything in advance. You’re presenting the process by which you reached your conclusions, and if you had just told me “that’s what is written, accept it as is, there’s no choice”—and now you’re trying to convince me in an unconvincing way. Exactly. So then what is the point of the whole thing? Therefore I think this approach cannot be said.

Now then—what is the truth about the world of derash? The world of derash is a world that has vanished from us. We’ve forgotten it; in other words, we lost the midrashic skill. And I think that’s one of the reasons it seems so strange and illogical to us—we’ve simply lost that mode of thinking, those lenses of derash. I, by the way, devoted several years to trying to reconstruct them a little. Successfully? Very, very partially. But we did manage to understand some things. Still, there are many things we haven’t managed to understand. To try to show how derashot work, really explain them: what is consistent across all derashot, where one does make a verbal analogy and where one does not, what it is based on, general and particular, a fortiori, all those kinds of things. So my assumption is that that’s probably the case: they weren’t playing games; rather, we lost the skill.

What can happen—as an example of this sort of thing, philosophers of science bring the example of Stradivarius’s violin. Stradivarius was a craftsman of violin-making, and the violins came out with extraordinary quality. I don’t understand this field, but that’s what the people who do understand say. But to this day, with all our equipment and micrometric instruments and gauges and devices, we still cannot reach the quality of Stradivarius. Now Stradivarius’s apprentice learned from him how to build violins. He probably didn’t reach his level, but more or less—because it’s an art, you can’t transmit it exactly. And so too the apprentice of the apprentice, down to today, and in effect we have completely lost it, that skill. We try to compensate for it with all kinds of advanced technology. And we can try to compensate, but probably technology won’t get us to the level of a true artist, someone with an instinct for how to do it.

Now my claim is that derash is that kind of skill. Meaning, the rules can help us somehow get closer, but if you don’t study with someone who understands that language, then you won’t really succeed in understanding how the business works. And therefore, little by little, from generation to generation, we lost that skill, that language vanished from us. We try—there are measures of derash and we try to understand and we have rules and so on—but these are always approximations. It’s never the thing itself. And therefore I think this skill was lost to us.

So then what is the truth about creative and supportive derashot? My claim is that derashot can in principle also create laws, not only support existing laws. I can make a derash, a verbal analogy, and create a new law. But some derashot are supportive and some are creative. There are both. The argument is not over whether there are supportive derashot—obviously there are. The argument is over whether there are creative derashot, or whether all of them are supportive. The second position says there are supportive and creative derashot; there is no position saying they are all creative. There are creative and there are supportive derashot, while Ralbag and others say no, all are supportive; there are no creative derashot.

Now notice what I gain from that. If there are creative derashot and there are supportive derashot, then there is no longer a question why I’m playing this game of support. I have an existing law—why make some derash that supports the law? I already know the law, so what is the game for? I say: if there really are creative derashot and supportive derashot, then this is an important game. Because if I derived that law from this verse, then I can no longer create another law from that verse, because it’s already occupied—I already derived something from it. And since there are creative derashot in the world, it becomes very important to know which verses are available for creative derivation and which verses are already occupied. So I also have to check, for laws I received by tradition, from which verse they came and how they came out of the derash. That way I know which verses are free for new derashot and which verses are already taken. So there is a point to the game.

If all derashot are supportive, then it’s just a pointless game, because why should I care which verse is free and which isn’t? In any case I’m not deriving any verse for real in order to produce a new law. But if I do derive verses in order to create new laws, then it becomes very important to know which verses are available for that and which are not, and for that reason I also need supportive derashot.

Wait, Rabbi, okay, first question: why can’t I take one verse and make several derashot from it? No, you can’t, because that’s what the Talmud always assumes. Once I’ve expounded it for one matter, that’s it. And we always said that when I make a derash there has to be a difficulty in the verse that causes me to read the verse also in a derashic way and not only in a peshat way. Now once I got one derash out of it, that’s it—the difficulty has been solved. On what basis would I get another derash out of it? There is no more difficulty in the verse. I used up the difficulty. Yes, yes—there is no further difficulty saying, “Wait, there is yet another way of reading that you have to read.” On what basis? How do you know? A difficulty proves there is one additional reading, but how can you prove there is yet another? And therefore, indeed, as you see in the Talmud, the Talmud everywhere says: wait, you are deriving this from that verse? Then you can’t derive something else from that verse, so you must disagree with the something else. The Talmud is always playing these games and always assumes that from each verse comes one law, not more.

But okay, then the second question… Only if there is a difficulty in the peshat do you derive another law from it by way of derash, but that’s it. Yes, but it seems like I have something I understand I need to derive and extract, and now I’m looking for where to derive it from. No, that’s supportive derash. That’s supportive derash. But many times there is creative derash. I say “an eye for an eye”—I have some difficulty, I don’t know what to do with it, so I say, ah, then apparently “an eye for an eye” means money. And I’ve created a new law. Not that I know it means money and I’m searching for where to derive it from, but the opposite. I have a difficulty in the verse—apparently it needs to be expounded. Ah, then apparently the derash is that it means money and not an actual eye. That is creative derash. There are supportive derashot and there are creative derashot. There are both kinds.

So it’s making use of the flaws in… in order to create new laws or to support existing laws—it doesn’t matter—but you have to do something with it. Okay? Fine, let’s stop here. Okay, thank you very much, Rabbi.