Midrash and Hermeneutical Principles – Lesson 7

Table of Contents

• Maimonides’ two innovations regarding the hermeneutic principles
• The continuum of links between Jewish law and the verse, and the critique of dichotomous thinking
• The paradox of the heap and the bald man as illustrations of continuous logic
• Torah-level and rabbinic as a later conceptualization, and caution about conceptual schemes
• Breaking up the “package deal” of Torah-level/rabbinic in practical implications
• Analogy, induction, and deduction, and the difference between mathematics and science
• “Begging the question” as an inherent aspect of a valid argument
• Explaining Maimonides’ interpretive innovation: the hermeneutic principles as non-deductive inference
• Rabbi HaNazir and Kol HaNevuah: “auditory logic” versus “visual logic”
• Maimonides’ approach to rabbinic law: law given to Moses at Sinai versus laws derived through interpretation
• Command versus essence: Ramchal, Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, and repentance
• The ninth root in Maimonides and the counting of the commandments: command and content together
• Netivot: rabbinic commandments as obligations on the person, not on the object, and the implications for inadvertent violation and doubt
• Nachmanides’ question on “do not deviate,” and the answer of later authorities through doubt
• Applying the model to Maimonides: why interpretive laws are treated stringently and law given to Moses at Sinai leniently
• Conclusion and the plan ahead: opening the final part of the semester

Summary

General Overview

The lecture presents Maimonides’ innovations regarding the hermeneutic principles: on the interpretive level, the laws derived from those principles are an expansion of the text, not something already “found” in the verse; and on the halakhic level, that expansion does not receive the status of Torah-level law but rather the status of rabbinic law. The whole move rests on rejecting dichotomous thinking of “Torah-level or rabbinic” in favor of a continuous picture of degrees of connection between a law and a verse, and on the claim that consequences such as punishment, the laws of doubt, and human dignity are not one single “package deal” but are determined by different parameters. Later, Maimonides’ approach is connected to the logical distinction between deduction and analogy/induction, and a proposal is built to explain why some rabbinic laws are treated stringently in cases of doubt while other rabbinic laws are treated leniently, through a distinction between command and essence.

Maimonides’ Two Innovations Regarding the Hermeneutic Principles

Maimonides makes the interpretive claim that things derived through the hermeneutic principles are not simply what is written in the verse, but an expansion of what is written. He also makes the halakhic claim that this expansion does not have Torah-level status, but the status of rabbinic law. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagreed about the combination of these two assumptions. Some accepted the interpretive innovation but not the halakhic one, and practical implications were mentioned, such as issues relating to linen garments.

The Continuum of Links Between Jewish Law and the Verse, and the Critique of Dichotomous Thinking

According to Maimonides, the status of a law is determined by the connection between the law and the verse: if the law is explicitly written in the verse, it is Torah-level; if it is expanded from the verse, it is not Torah-level. Within that expansion there are levels, such as formal exposition, plain-sense interpretation, an asmachta, or laws that are not connected to the text at all, like decrees and enactments, which are the classic rabbinic laws. The picture is a continuum of connections, within which one must place a “line” above which we call something Torah-level and below which we call it rabbinic. The difficulty in understanding Maimonides’ approach stems from the habit of thinking in binaries instead of in a continuum.

The Paradox of the Heap and the Bald Man as Illustrations of Continuous Logic

The paradox of the heap is presented as three reasonable assumptions that cannot all coexist: one stone is not a heap, adding one stone does not change status, and a thousand stones are a heap. The proposed solution is that the concept “heap” is not binary but continuous, and therefore adding one stone changes, at least slightly, the degree of “heapness.” The same principle is illustrated by the paradox of the bald man and by the example of “from when is it afternoon,” and all of these show how dichotomous thinking creates difficulties of definition and artificial decisions.

Torah-Level and Rabbinic as a Later Conceptualization, and Caution About Conceptual Schemes

It was said that some scholars, such as Gilat, argued that the sharp distinction between Torah-level and rabbinic is a later development, and that in earlier layers of tannaitic literature it did not exist in the form familiar today. It was pointed out that concepts and rules are necessary tools, but dangerous if we become “captives” of them, because reality is more complex than the conceptual system we try to impose on it. The claim is presented that the difficulties raised against Maimonides come from projecting dichotomous lenses onto a system that is not necessarily dichotomous.

Breaking Up the “Package Deal” of Torah-Level/Rabbinic in Practical Implications

It is said that Nachmanides attacks Maimonides partly because laws derived from exposition appear in the Talmud to be treated stringently in cases of doubt, whereas according to a dichotomous view, rabbinic law should involve leniency in cases of doubt. A proposed answer according to Maimonides is that there may be a situation in which, in terms of punishment, the law is considered rabbinic and one would not receive lashes for it, but in terms of the laws of doubt it would be treated stringently because it is “point-seven Torah-level.” The claim is that each area—punishment, doubt, human dignity, and so on—may place the “line” in a different location, and therefore there is no necessity that all consequences move together under one label.

Analogy, Induction, and Deduction, and the Difference Between Mathematics and Science

Three forms of inference are presented: deduction from the general to the particular, induction from the particular to the general, and analogy from one particular to another or from one general rule to another on the same level. Deduction is described as valid inference that adds no new information but only reveals what was already included in the premises, and therefore it is certain in the sense that anyone who accepts the premises must accept the conclusion. Analogy and induction are described as inferences that add information beyond the premises and therefore are not certain, and from that the difference is built between mathematics as deductive logic and science as progress through non-deductive inference.

“Begging the Question” as an Inherent Aspect of a Valid Argument

It is said that a valid logical argument always “assumes what it seeks to prove” in the sense that the conclusion is already contained in the premises, and therefore “begging the question” is not an essential fallacy but a description of deductive validity. The example of “Socrates is mortal” is brought, as well as the example of Abraham’s hat, and it is said that the difference is between a trivial premise and an “intelligent” premise that requires uncovering what is already contained in the axioms.

Explaining Maimonides’ Interpretive Innovation: the Hermeneutic Principles as Non-Deductive Inference

Maimonides’ interpretive innovation is formulated as a distinction according to which the hermeneutic principles are similar to analogy and induction rather than deduction, and therefore their product is not “written in the Torah” but adds information beyond the verse. It is said that if exposition were deductive, it would merely expose what is already present in the text, and then it would have a Torah-level character; but since it expands, its product is rabbinic law. It is said that the meaning of this claim will be examined especially in regard to rational principles such as a fortiori reasoning and paradigm-building, precisely where they seem deductive.

Rabbi HaNazir and Kol HaNevuah: “Auditory Logic” Versus “Visual Logic”

Rabbi HaNazir, in his book Kol HaNevuah, is presented as claiming that the hermeneutic principles are building blocks of a type of logic called “auditory logic,” as distinct from “visual logic.” This presentation is translated into the claim that we are dealing with the logic of analogies rather than the logic of deductions, and it is argued that the logic of analogical thinking can also be formulated formally in fields such as law and science.

Maimonides’ Approach to Rabbinic Law: Law Given to Moses at Sinai Versus Laws Derived Through Interpretation

It is said that regarding law given to Moses at Sinai, Maimonides rules leniently in cases of doubt, and the source is brought from his commentary to the Mishnah in Kelim, chapter 17. By contrast, it is argued that Maimonides can hold that laws derived through exposition are treated stringently in cases of doubt even though they are not punishable, whereas law given to Moses at Sinai is treated leniently in cases of doubt and is also not punishable. The claim is that these are different kinds of rabbinic law, and the difficulties about lack of “consistency” arise only if one assumes in advance a sharp division that forces all consequences to move together.

Command Versus Essence: Ramchal, Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, and Repentance

A question is brought in the name of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman against Ramchal: repentance is beyond the letter of the law, in light of the discussion in tractate Kiddushin that if someone betroths a woman “on condition that I am completely righteous,” she is doubtfully betrothed, perhaps he thought thoughts of repentance, whereas one who “regrets his former deeds” loses his merits. A distinction is proposed, based on Ramchal in Derekh Hashem, that every commandment and every transgression has two aspects: obedience or rebellion against the command, and the objective benefit or damage that the act itself produces. It is said that repentance erases, as a matter of law, the aspect of rebellion, whereas erasing the damage is beyond the letter of the law. From this it also becomes clear why “greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does,” because the former has both the benefit of the act and obedience to the command.

The Ninth Root in Maimonides and the Counting of the Commandments: Command and Content Together

It is brought that in the ninth root, Maimonides explains that many repetitions of the Sabbath command do not create a multiplicity of commandments, because what is counted is the thing commanded, not the number of commands. The second part is also brought, dealing with a general prohibition such as “Do not eat over the blood,” from which several prohibitions are learned, yet it is counted as one commandment. Rabbi Yerucham Fishel Perla points to an internal tension and leaves it unresolved. The proposed answer is that according to Maimonides, for a commandment to count as a commandment, both a command and unique content are required together; therefore, multiple commands without multiple contents, or multiple contents without separate commands, do not generate multiplicity in the count.

Netivot: Rabbinic Commandments as Obligations on the Person, Not on the Object, and the Implications for Inadvertent Violation and Doubt

The approach of Netivot in section 234 is cited: rabbinic commandments are obligations on the person rather than on the object, such as poultry cooked in milk, where there is no problem in the thing itself, only a prohibition of the act because of the sages’ command. It is reported that one practical implication is the rule “we act, and only afterward raise an objection” in a rabbinic prohibition, because if the rabbi acted inadvertently there is no rebellion here and, according to this approach, no real prohibition. It is said that according to Netivot, one who violates a rabbinic prohibition inadvertently does not need atonement, unlike inadvertent violation of a Torah-level prohibition, where there is also a problem in the object itself.

Nachmanides’ Question on “Do Not Deviate,” and the Answer of Later Authorities Through Doubt

Nachmanides’ question on Maimonides is cited: if rabbinic prohibitions stem from “do not deviate,” then a doubt in rabbinic law should have to be treated as a Torah-level doubt and therefore stringently. An explanation is brought from later authorities such as Rabbi Shimon Shkop and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, in notes on the Sabbatical year, that because a rabbinic prohibition is mainly a duty of obedience, a “possible rebellion” is not rebellion, and therefore one can be lenient in a case of doubt. From here a distinction is built according to which stringency in Torah-level doubt stems from the problematic essence in the object, not from the very rebellion against the command, because in a doubtful case even at the Torah level there is no certain rebellion.

Applying the Model to Maimonides: Why Interpretive Laws Are Treated Stringently and Law Given to Moses at Sinai Leniently

A picture is proposed according to which Torah-level law requires both command and essence, while rabbinic law arises when one of the two is missing. Law given to Moses at Sinai is described as command without essence, and therefore its doubtful cases are treated leniently; whereas laws learned through exposition are described as essence without command, and therefore their doubtful cases are treated stringently even though there is no punishment for them. It is said that punishment requires command and essence together, and therefore there are no lashes for these laws; but the laws of doubt are determined mainly by the essence, and therefore expositions tend toward stringency where there is concern for a substantial problem.

Conclusion and the Plan Ahead: Opening the Final Part of the Semester

It is said that from this point on, the final part of the semester will begin, and it will deal with the logic of the hermeneutic principles and with non-deductive thinking. A quotation is brought: Rabbi Yochanan said: Happy is the person who is always fearful, but one who hardens his heart will fall into evil. Because of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza Jerusalem was destroyed. Because of a rooster and a hen Tur Malka was destroyed. Because of the shaft of a carriage Beitar was destroyed. The note is preserved that the verse is from Proverbs 28:14: Happy is the person who is always fearful, but one who hardens his heart will fall into evil. Attendance arrangements and a summary are also given, with the option of making it up from the recording and receiving an exemption, as well as coordination of a short conversation after Minchah.

Okay, we’re discussing the hermeneutic principles, and last time I talked about the significance of Maimonides’ innovation. We said that he has two innovations. One innovation is the interpretive one: that things derived from the hermeneutic principles are basically an expansion of what is written in the verse. And the second innovation is the halakhic one: that this expansion does not have the status of Torah law, but rather the status of rabbinic law. I said that one can disagree with either of these two assumptions, and we saw among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) at least several who accept the interpretive innovation but do not accept the halakhic innovation, and I also brought some implications of that regarding linen garments, things like that. In the end, the conclusion was that the status of the laws according to Maimonides stems from the connection between the law and the verse. Meaning, if the law is actually written explicitly in the verse, then it is Torah law. If the law expands out of the verse, then it is not Torah law, and there too there are several levels: it expands through a derashah, through plain interpretation, it expands through a derashah, it expands as an asmakhta, or it is not connected to the text at all, which would be decrees and enactments—those are the classic rabbinic laws. And I said that there is really a continuum of connections between the law and the verse, and on that continuum you have to draw a line: from what level of connection and above will it be called Torah law, and from what level of connection and below will it be called rabbinic law. At the end we finished by bringing an example from Maimonides’ first root, about how we know that rabbinic laws have binding force. And I said there—yes, with that starling from Winnie-the-Pooh, with that example. What? The criminals. Yes, exactly, that the criminals will be punished, where I tried to show a mechanism that I called branching as opposed to specification. Branching is basically something that emerges from the verse but is not written in it. And that was the illustration there for this issue. I’m not going back into that trap again because it takes a lot of time, it’s a subtle issue, but that was basically the thesis.

I want to talk a little about the significance of the picture I described here, and then move to an explanation of rabbinic laws, the different types of rabbinic laws, and then move on—we’re already starting to get close to the end of the semester, so I’ll do this somewhat briefly. The difficulty in understanding Maimonides’ view basically stems from dichotomous thinking. Dichotomous thinking says either the thing is written in the Torah or the thing is not written in the Torah. If it’s written in the Torah, then it’s Torah law; if it’s not written in the Torah, it’s rabbinic. And what I basically suggested here is that the matter is not dichotomous, it’s not binary logic, it’s fuzzy logic, yes, vague logic or continuous logic, where there are different levels of connection to what is written in the Torah. It’s not either inside or outside, either zero or one. Rather, between zero and one there is a continuum of levels of connection. And from a certain level of connection and above, that’s what Maimonides calls Torah law; below that it’s rabbinic. Now, in order to understand this a bit better, I think—I haven’t yet… did I talk about the heap paradox, the bald man paradox, those things? On Sundays. Okay, so I remembered that at some point I spoke about it. I’ll say it briefly.

The claim basically is that dichotomous thinking often gets in our way or lands us in a problem that we don’t know how to solve. The most beautiful expression of this is a whole collection of paradoxes in philosophy, whose general name is the heap paradox. But really it’s a whole continuum, or a whole collection, of paradoxes. So the heap paradox says: one pebble is not a heap. If I have a collection of pebbles that is not a heap, adding one pebble does not change the status. But a thousand pebbles is a heap. Now, those are three assumptions, each of which sounds reasonable to us, but all three together are impossible—there’s an internal contradiction there. It can’t be, because if one pebble is not a heap and adding one pebble changes nothing, then how does it suddenly become a heap at a thousand? So the claim I tried to make is that what underlies this failure is dichotomous thinking. When we say that adding one pebble doesn’t change the status, we are basically thinking in terms of either yes-heap or no-heap, and that’s it. And one pebble can’t change something from non-heap to heap. But that’s not true, because the concept of a heap is not binary. There are different levels of heapness. In other words, a collection of pebbles can be not a heap, a little bit of a heap, quite a heap, very much a heap, completely a heap. Okay? A continuum between zero and one, let’s say, of the degrees of heapness of this pile. And therefore the false assumption here is the second one: adding one pebble doesn’t change the status. Not true. Adding one pebble… changes the status a little. It makes it a tiny bit more of a heap, or a tiny bit more heap-like. Okay? And then everything is fine, nothing has changed here.

So basically we solved the problem because what got us into the problem was dichotomous thinking, black-and-white thinking, yes-or-no thinking. And once we get out of that, suddenly we discover that there isn’t really a problem. Same thing with what’s called the bald man paradox. Same thing. If you have one hair on your head, you’re bald. Adding one hair to a bald person doesn’t make him hairy, but with ten thousand hairs you’re no longer bald. Okay, so where is the transition? Again, the point is that adding one hair—well then, it’s just not right to ask which hair made the difference. Rather, every hair adds a little to your degree of hairiness, yes, your degree of baldness is lower, your degree of hairiness is higher, and there’s a continuum here between zero and one, let’s say, or whatever, pick some scale of your degree of hairiness. Or: when does afternoon begin? Children always ask when they’re allowed to go out to play. At noon they’re not allowed because it makes noise for the neighbors, so from when are they allowed to go outside? Twelve o’clock isn’t afternoon; adding one second to noon doesn’t turn it into afternoon, but five o’clock is already afternoon. So where is the transition? And again, adding one second means it is a little more afternoon. That’s the point.

So that means that very often we have failures that stem from the fact that we think about a problem in a dichotomous yes-or-no way, black or white, one or zero. But no—there is a whole continuum of levels between one and zero; between black and white there is gray, there are different shades of gray, and therefore the problem is solved here. The same, my claim is, happens in relation to the connection between the law and the text from which it emerges. The dichotomous assumption says either the law is in the text or it is not in the text: Torah law or rabbinic law. But no, there is a whole continuum of connections to the text, and when we decide whether something is Torah law or rabbinic law, it’s like deciding whether this is a heap or not a heap. I ask: how Torah-law is it? 0.7 Torah-law, 0.9 Torah-law, 0.2 Torah-law. Now of course halakhically you have to draw some line—say, from 0.6 and above it’s Torah law, below 0.6 I’ll call it rabbinic for certain purposes—because the very expression Torah law and rabbinic law is itself really continuous; there is no sharp distinction.

By the way, there are scholars who talked about this—Gilat and others—who said that in fact the distinction between Torah law and rabbinic law is a late distinction. In earlier times there were no such distinctions in the more ancient layers of the Talmud, in tannaitic literature; these distinctions didn’t really exist the way we know them today. It somehow developed over the course of history because once people really lived within a world that was less dichotomous. And then Torah law and rabbinic law—what does that even mean? Everything is somehow written in the verse at one level or another. And then gradually a more orderly conceptualization begins to form, a more logical kind of thinking, definitions. But very often that is not more correct—it is less correct, because it actually gets us into trouble, because we don’t really understand the thing; we are captive to our conceptual frameworks, and we don’t understand that those frameworks are ours. Reality itself is more complicated than the conceptual world we try to impose on it, and therefore we get into all kinds of problems of definitions and boundaries, what yes and what no, and practical implications, and all sorts of things of that type.

Maybe the concepts you’re trying to pour into it today, in the end you’re projecting them backward onto those who originally made the distinction between Torah law and rabbinic law? Is that right? Isn’t it anachronistic to speak today in terms of a continuum when applied to those who distinguished between Torah and rabbinic? So I’m saying: if you want to divide it in a dichotomous way, you’ll get stuck, you won’t be able to find a solution. So I’m saying what you’re doing is not right—don’t think dichotomously. Now, I can’t throw out all conceptual frameworks; we live inside them, we can’t do without them, that’s obvious. But we always have to be aware that these conceptual frameworks are ultimately coming from us, and in reality itself one has to be careful with these frameworks. I don’t think we can function without them, but we need to be careful not to become captive to them, as I talked about there, on Sunday, in the context of rules.

Because I understand that for Maimonides there was a clear line between what is Torah law and what is rabbinic law. No, I don’t think so. That’s the meaning I’m trying to suggest: that Maimonides himself is making here a claim that is not dichotomous. And therefore when you examine Maimonides and ask whether something is Torah law or rabbinic law, you end up raising objections against him. Wait. Wait, wait, no—it’s half Torah-law. There are various implications. It’s not… for example, Nachmanides asks him: then why, in laws that emerge from midrash, do we rule strictly in cases of doubt? Maimonides can say: what do you want from me? At this level of rabbinic law, in a case of doubt we rule strictly, because it’s basically 0.7 Torah-law. But I don’t know, in terms of punishment, it will count as rabbinic—you won’t get lashes for it. Okay? Who said this is a package deal?

The dichotomous view basically says: look, if it is Torah law, then you have a whole series of rules that speak about doubt requiring stringency, human dignity not overriding it, giving up all your money so as not to fail in violating this prohibition, being punished for it if you transgress, lashes, and so on. If it is rabbinic law, the opposite. All the answers reverse themselves. Now, Maimonides can say: hold on, the division between Torah law and rabbinic law is a continuous division. It may be that with respect to the laws of doubt, the threshold is 0.8 Torah-law. Above 0.8 you have to be strict; below 0.8 you can be lenient. With respect to the question of human dignity—human dignity overrides already from 0.7 downward; it does not override Torah prohibitions, and below that it does override, okay? Because human dignity overrides rabbinic prohibitions, but does not override Torah prohibitions. With respect to the laws of doubt, with respect to lashes, then you need such-and-such, and so on. Meaning, who said that the same threshold determines all the implications? My claim is that all these concepts of Torah law and rabbinic law are just conceptual labels. They don’t really exist. You have to discuss each question separately. What do we punish for? That’s one question. In what cases of doubt do we act strictly? That’s a second question. What does human dignity override? That’s a third question. You call all of these Torah law versus rabbinic law, but that’s just a label. It doesn’t have to be at the same line, it doesn’t have to always go together.

And therefore I claim—and I’ll show you—that in Maimonides they really do not go together. All according to Maimonides, because Nachmanides… yes, we’re talking—Nachmanides thought dichotomously, and therefore he attacks Maimonides. Okay? Meaning, so Maimonides, if so, is sort of… that’s how everyone thinks, almost everyone. I’m trying to suggest a proposal within Maimonides’ method, and by the way I identify with it. I think that the whole miss, that people didn’t understand him and attacked him and all that, is because they looked at him through dichotomous glasses. And that’s wrong. Maimonides didn’t see this through dichotomous glasses. Even though in many places one can see that Maimonides has a very dichotomous kind of thinking. But specifically in this sense, if I’m right, I think here Maimonides proposed a non-dichotomous picture.

And the truth is that from Maimonides until today, for roughly nine hundred years, people have been dealing with Maimonides’ doctrine and nobody has proposed a solution. They haven’t managed, because it’s a short blanket. I said: if you cover your head, your feet are exposed; if you cover your feet, your head is exposed. You can’t answer all the questions. You answer these questions and get stuck on those questions. I think the picture I’m proposing here answers all the questions. Where do these glasses of dichotomous thinking come from? Meaning, can you see a historical process in which these glasses developed? Of course—we’ve become more and more dichotomous over the years. We’ve become more and more analytical, more rule-based. We have more developed mathematics, more developed logic—that’s the advantage of dichotomous thinking. We have more developed science. Until Aristotle’s time, people looked at phenomena in a general way; there was no mathematics. The moment you begin to quantify, define very clearly what you’re talking about, propose quantitative measures with mathematical laws of nature—you advance, you get to the moon. But on the other hand, one has to be careful. It is very efficient, but it is not necessarily true. In other words, it is efficient because this is how we think, and if we use the tools in which we are strong, we can advance better. But that doesn’t mean that in the world itself this is really a more accurate description. Those are two different things.

In other words, let’s say—you agree that this might be true in certain fields, but imposing mathematical binary thinking on the world of spirit, or I don’t know, the humanities, let’s say—that’s the paradox? I’m claiming more than that. I’m claiming that even in the world of the natural sciences this is so. It’s just that in the world of natural science we are more successful in advancing with our analytical and binary tools, because of its character—why doesn’t matter now. But even there I don’t necessarily think it’s true. Quantum thinking? Yes, in quantum theory you see that it collapses. Meaning, there too I claim that it isn’t true. Or not necessarily true, I don’t know, but it’s not necessarily true. But there we succeed in advancing because the nature of the field really is such that it allows us more.

There’s a difference between… I’ll give you an example. In biology today, to say vitalism is a dirty word. Vitalism is an old view according to which there is something in a living body besides physics. It’s practically illegal to say such a thing. Someone who says such a thing is primitive; meaning, it is taken as obvious that this simply cannot be. Why? Because biology really constantly tries—science in general, biology in particular—to explain the phenomena of life with the tools of physics and chemistry. Now sometimes it’s biology, but the assumption is that there is a reduction to physics and chemistry; it’s just that biology is so complicated that maybe we don’t always know how to carry out the reduction, but basically there is a reduction. There is nothing there, no spirit, yes, nothing. The phenomenon of life is physics and chemistry in a very, very complex cell. All true, but in the end that’s what it is. That and nothing else. And all the cutting-edge areas of biological research today are biochemistry—that is, trying to investigate the seam between chemistry and biology, to show that biology is really just complex chemistry. Nothing beyond that, and chemistry is complex physics. So in the very end everything is physics. You have a collection of particles, you have the laws of physics. If we had a computer large enough, as Laplace once said, if we had a sufficiently large computer I could explain all of biology with the laws of physics. That’s all. Give me all the particles, I’ll compute what each one does according to the laws of physics, and I’ll give you all the phenomena of life. That’s the accepted view today. Okay?

Except that we don’t have such a computer, we can’t. The number of particles in a biological organism is enormous. Think about the number of elementary particles, how many electrons it has, how many cells it has. In every cell there is a crazy number of electrons, it’s a terribly complex system, and there are a huge number of cells in every body. Now to feed into a computer a particle like this and have it tell me the trajectory with all the interactions between particles and tell me the paths of all the particles according to the laws of physics—that’s absurd. We can’t solve the three-body problem. Three bodies, three electrons—I’m not talking about ten to the fiftieth electrons. It’s just not on our scale at all. So that’s why biological laws developed. Biology averages over physics, sums up a huge number of degrees of freedom in physics, and in the end gives us a nice description of biological reality. That’s biology’s enormous advantage. Okay? What does that actually mean? That biology really succeeded in advancing the moment it gave up vitalism. In other words, if I understand that everything is physics, I’ve succeeded in advancing. Biology has had enormous achievements in recent years, in the last generation. Okay? Why? Because we stopped thinking in a philosophical, vitalistic, Aristotelian language and turned into natural science. It became part of natural science. Okay? Is that true? My answer, in my view, is no—but certainly not necessarily. I claim that there is something else in us besides physics and chemistry. There is a soul in us.

Ah, so biology is against me? No, it is not against me. Biology does not say there is no soul. Biology makes a methodological assumption that I will try to explain all the phenomena of life without resorting to the soul. And that is an excellent methodological assumption. That’s how you make progress. It’s like someone who says: look, science, the natural sciences, physics, prove that there is no God. Why? Because they explain all the phenomena of inanimate reality without God. There are laws of nature—the second law of Newton, quantum theory, relativity, whatever you want. With that we explain all of inanimate nature, so there is no need for God; once again, like Laplace, yes, we don’t need that hypothesis. Okay? Now does the fact that you don’t need that hypothesis in the scientific world mean that it doesn’t exist? That there is no God? I personally think there is a God, and at the same time I believe in physics and work with physics. Why? Because as a methodological assumption, assuming that there is a God is terrible. Science won’t advance. Every phenomenon you get stuck on—ah, God did it, everything’s fine. You’ll never discover a scientific law that way. When you’re trying to discover regularity, then you have to ignore God. You have to show me how God works, yes? I call it how God works, though a scientist would say how the world works. Okay? Does that mean there is no God? No. It means that as a methodological assumption, it is much more efficient to assume that there is no God. That’s how science advances. But the fact that it is a methodological assumption—there is a very big leap from that to saying that it is also a true claim about reality. That in reality itself there is no God, or that in reality itself there is no soul and it’s all just physics and chemistry. These are very important methodological assumptions in science and very fruitful in science. Science advances because of them; without them it would not advance. But that does not mean they are true. It only means that they are efficient. Why? Because they fit how we think. The tools we have to advance scientifically are the tools of science and mathematics. Talking about God won’t advance me in any way; I won’t understand biology or physics better if someone tells me that God did this or God did that. It doesn’t help me at all. What will I explain? So then there’s nothing to explain—whatever happened, why did it happen? Because God did it, everything’s fine. Can you derive any prediction from that? Can you tell me what will happen tomorrow morning? I have no idea—whatever God wants, that’s what will happen tomorrow morning. So you can’t advance in understanding the world if you assume that assumption. Therefore methodologically it is very right not to assume it.

The same thing with free choice. People think that neuroscience or biology show that there is no free choice—that’s nonsense. The methodological assumption of neuroscience is that there is no free choice, because you want mechanistic explanations—that’s what science is called. Science explains what happens in us in a mechanistic way. If you assume that there is free choice, you won’t explain anything, because there is no explanation for things that are the result of free choice. So on the one hand it is an excellent methodological assumption—this is how one should assume things in order to advance, to understand, to explain. But from there to the claim that we have no free choice as a statement about the world, about reality, not as a methodological assumption—that’s a very big leap. It’s true that in certain places where there is human free choice, you won’t succeed in explaining them with the tools of biology and neuroscience. True. Except that those events are very, very isolated and singular, in places where a person makes a decision. How many such places are there? Most of our behaviors are behaviors that can be explained through neuroscience. And therefore it is an excellent methodology on the methodological level, but turning it into a claim about reality is highly problematic.

So if I come back to our issue, to the study of Jewish law, let’s call it that, it’s the same thing. We use the system of tools we have because this is how we work, and therefore it’s a good system of tools. I’m not suggesting throwing it away. I’m only saying one has to beware of the view that says: if it is a good methodological assumption, then it is also true in reality. No. Jewish law itself does not work with rules, even though we cannot think without rules. This is what I talked about on Sunday when I spoke about rules. I said that rules are a device we cannot do without, and one must be very careful not to become captive to them. Jewish law does not work with rules.

So if I come back to our issue here—the same with binarity and dichotomy. We think that way; we always have to decide: forbidden or permitted, impure or pure, stringent or lenient. We function in a binary way; we don’t know how to function otherwise, that’s how we are built. And as the generations advance we are built this way more and more. Once people said: what is a cubit? They put their hand from here to here—that’s a cubit, no problem. You want to know what four cubits are? Do it four times, you’ve got four cubits. Today I ask: wait, wait—is it 152 centimeters or 163 centimeters? Today we work with very precise measures. Now who is right? Nobody is right or wrong. Everyone works with the system of tools that is comfortable and efficient for them. Today we lean very heavily toward analytical, quantitative, binary thinking, so we work that way, and I don’t exempt myself from that; I too am part of this era, and that’s how we function. And that’s fine. And when we calculate the size of an olive-bulk we measure it in cubic centimeters or in grams or something like that. Once people didn’t think that way—it was approximately an olive, so fine, they ate. And that was fine; they were not less right and not more right than us. Every generation works with its own rules. As generations advance we become more scientific, more mathematical, more quantitative, more binary. So naturally Jewish law also looks like that. So it works with more rules and more dichotomies, and halakhic ruling becomes more and more mechanical. But all the time one has to remember: that’s what we are like, but that doesn’t mean that’s what Jewish law is like. Those are two different things. And sometimes these rules will bring us into conflict with Jewish law, just as binary thinking sometimes brings us into conflict with the world, because the world is more complex than the rule system we try to impose on it, and Jewish law is like that too. Language too, with its rules, is like that. We try to impose rules on language, but there’s always an exception, because language is something more flexible, more dynamic than the rule system we try to impose on it. Okay?

Does that mean there is nothing authentic that one should return to? For example regarding the size of an olive-bulk? No, I’m saying let’s continue with our centimeters. I’m saying only: don’t become captive to it. Because when it brings me to a problem, to a contradiction with sources or something like that, then you can get out of it—that’s allowed. I’m not saying to leave it from the outset. I’m saying that if it creates a problem, then you need to know that it’s not a real problem; it’s simply a problem in our system of tools that we’re trying to impose on Jewish law. There are contradictions, after all, between the olive-bulk and the egg-bulk and all the well-known contradictions in the required measures. Some of them stem from the fact that we simply became mathematicians, that’s all. Sometimes you have to let go of that—it doesn’t work that way. So as long as it works and helps…

But there are situations in which suddenly we see that we are stuck or trapped inside our tools. And therefore this is like Kant’s solution, yes? Regarding the synthetic a priori. So how did Kant solve the problem? He says: we are not talking about the world itself, the noumenon, we are talking about the phenomenon. We are talking about how the world is perceived by us. Why does that solve the problem? Because he is basically saying that the problems we encounter are problems in our perception of the world, but that does not say anything about the world itself. In the world itself it could be that there is no… this is the accepted approach to paradoxes. What are paradoxes? From Bertrand Russell onward, people say: obviously paradoxes exist only in us; in the world itself there are no paradoxes. Why does a paradox arise? Because we try to think about the world using a system of tools that is ours, and it doesn’t fit. The world simply does not operate according to those tools. When we describe it with that system of tools, we run into paradox. But it’s not really a paradox. In the world itself there is no paradox, no contradiction in reality itself. Our system of tools fails to describe the world properly, and therefore we run into paradox. Okay? All of Zeno’s paradoxes and things of that kind are all basically problems in our tools of thought when we try to impose them on reality. And we mistakenly think that that is reality. No, that is not reality; it is only our description of reality. Okay? So I’m saying: use these descriptions—this is what we are like. It’s not right to use tools that don’t suit us. We think with the tools we have, but one must know that this is not the thing itself, not the thing-in-itself in Kantian terms.

You can see this metamorphosis, yes, in the different modes of inference. Now I’m coming back, getting back closer to the hermeneutic methods. When we make inferences in logic, people usually distinguish among three modes of inference or three forms of inference: analogy, induction, and deduction. Deduction is moving from the general to the particular. I also spoke about that there. Deduction is moving from the general to the particular. Induction is moving from the particular to the general, and analogy is from particular to particular or from general to general, meaning on the same level. Okay? So basically, when I move from the general to the particular, I say: all frogs are green; this microphone is a frog; therefore this microphone is green. That is a valid argument. Why? Because I moved from the general to the particular. If some statement is true of the whole class, then certainly it is true of every particular in that class. Therefore this is a necessary statement. You can’t argue with it.

Why can’t you really argue with it? Because it doesn’t add anything new. It’s the joke about the hot-air balloon, you know… Two people lost their way; they’re in a hot-air balloon, and for quite a while they don’t know where they are. They ask someone below, working in his field: tell us, where are we? So he says: you are above my field. So they say to each other: “He down there is definitely a mathematician.” Two reasons. First, what he says is completely certain and correct. Second, it doesn’t help us at all. Now, those are actually two characteristics of mathematics. They’re true. It is perfectly precise and certain, and therefore it doesn’t help us at all. What do you mean it doesn’t help us at all? Of course it helps. It doesn’t give us any new information. All the certainty in logic and mathematics stems from the fact that the logical inference or the mathematical proof adds no new information beyond what is already in the premises. It only extracts more and more information from what is already in the premises. And that is why it is certain.

When I say all human beings are mortal, Socrates is a human being, conclusion: Socrates is mortal—the conclusion “Socrates is mortal” contains no information that was not already inside the premises. If in the premises I knew that all human beings are mortal and I knew that Socrates is one of them, that he is a human being, then I already knew he was mortal. So when I reach the conclusion that Socrates is mortal, that conclusion did not add any information I didn’t already have in the premises. Therefore it is certainly correct. What does “certainly correct” mean? Not that it is certainly true in reality, but that anyone who accepts the premises must accept the conclusion. Why? Because the conclusion was already inside the premises. If you accepted them, then you already accepted the conclusion within them. Okay?

By contrast, with analogy and induction, it’s not certain. One who accepts the premises will not necessarily accept the conclusion. Why? Because the conclusion contains information beyond what was in the premises. An analogical or inductive inference adds information beyond what was in the premises. Let’s say I say: this bag is black; there’s another bag over there too, so apparently that one is black too. Good, that’s an analogical inference. It adds information. Because my premise is that this bag is black. That is certainly true. The conclusion is that that thing over there is also black. That is not included in my premise here. It is additional information. And therefore analogical inference added information that I didn’t have when I held the premises. Same thing with induction, of course. In induction I say: this bag is black, so probably all bags are black. Okay? So obviously the conclusion contains much more information than the information I had at the beginning. So analogy and induction are basically forms of inference that add information. Deduction doesn’t help me at all. What do you mean it doesn’t help me at all? It doesn’t add any new information. It doesn’t add information—that’s what I mean by “doesn’t help me at all.” What does it do? It reveals more and more information that is already there for me. I’m not always aware of it. In geometry, for example, someone who knows the four axioms of Euclidean geometry doesn’t always know that the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees. He needs the help of his geometry teacher to show him that from those axioms one can derive the theorem that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. But once they showed me that, I have to accept that conclusion. Why? Because suddenly I discovered that I already knew it beforehand. I wasn’t aware that I knew it beforehand. But it was actually contained within the axioms that I already knew. Therefore what the proof did was reveal to me information that I in fact already knew.

I compare this to someone who has a safe containing treasures. He has no key to the safe. So are the treasures not his? They are his—they are in his possession. But he doesn’t have the key. He doesn’t know what is in his possession. If someone brings him the key to the safe, then I open the safe and discover more and more things that have always been mine. A logical inference or a mathematical proof is a key to the safe. The safe is the axioms. The axioms contain a huge amount of information. But I don’t always know what information I have inside the safe. The logical or mathematical proof, the logical argument, is just a key that opens the safe for me and reveals more and more treasures inside it. But it never adds something that wasn’t in the safe. So deduction is certain precisely because it doesn’t add me any new information. Analogy and induction are not certain. Why? Because in the conclusion there is information beyond what I had in the premises. So maybe it’s not true. Because there is a level of speculation here, therefore there is always some level of doubt. It cannot be absolutely certain. Maybe not. Okay?

Now, logic and mathematics deal with deduction. Analogy and induction are the tools of science. Therefore science deals in adding information, but on the other hand it is never certainly true. Mathematics adds me no information at all, and therefore it is certainly correct. “Correct” here means that the conclusion certainly follows from the axioms. Whether the conclusion is true in reality or not—that’s not interesting. A mathematician does not deal with that. A mathematician deals with the question whether the conclusion follows from the premises. That’s all. And there it is certainly correct. It certainly follows from the premises. So there is a very essential difference between mathematics and science. Mathematics is not science. Mathematics deals with things that are certainly correct. Science by definition deals with things that are not certainly correct. Because I accumulate more and more information. When I accumulate information, who knows—maybe I made a mistake. Mathematics merely tells me what information I already have. So I cannot make a mistake there. If I have it, I have it; if I don’t have it, I don’t have it. You can’t make a mistake there. It’s certainly correct. Unless, of course, you made a mistake in the proof. Fine, then you only thought you had a proof, but you were wrong—you don’t have a proof. But if you do have a proof, then you discovered another thing that is correct.

Okay? Like the joke about Abraham and Jacob. You know it? What is the proof that every Jew has to wear a hat? “And Abraham went…” over there, over there. Now every Jew has to walk in the path of our father Abraham, right? Abraham certainly walked with a hat, because a Jew like him wouldn’t walk without a hat. So if Abraham walked with a hat, and each of us must walk in Abraham’s ways, then each of us must walk with a hat. Which is what we set out to prove. Yes, a fine proof. By the way, really a good proof. It is a valid argument. Why? Because from the premises you really can derive the conclusion. You may reject the premises. Fine. With any argument, if you don’t accept the premises, you don’t need to accept the conclusion. The argument only says that if the premises are true, then the conclusion is true. Now, if the premises are true, the conclusion is true. Okay? If Abraham wore a hat and every Jew must walk in Abraham’s ways, conclusion: every Jew must wear a hat. That’s a correct conclusion. You can only say: yes, but I don’t agree that Abraham wore a hat. Fine. Then you’re challenging the premise, not the logic. Logic only says that the conclusion follows from the premises.

What smells funny there is that one of the premises is basically the conclusion itself. Because when you say that Abraham wore a hat, what are you actually saying? A Jew like him wouldn’t walk without a hat. Why? Because every Jew has to wear a hat. You are assuming the conclusion you want to prove; you are building it into the premises. This is called begging the question. Yes, it’s called a logical fallacy—begging the question. But in truth it isn’t a fallacy. Logicians are mistaken about this. Every logical argument begs the question. Otherwise it would not be valid. What is an argument? All humans are mortal, Socrates is a human, conclusion: Socrates is mortal. Doesn’t that beg the question? Obviously it does. When you said that all humans are mortal, let’s cash it out in small change. You said Jacob is mortal, Ahmad is mortal, Socrates is mortal, Moishe is mortal, right? Everyone. In short, you said all humans are mortal. So what’s so surprising about the conclusion that Socrates is mortal? You assumed that Socrates is mortal. And in every logical argument it is like that. That is the meaning of a valid argument. What did I say? A valid argument doesn’t add me any information beyond what I had in the premises. What does that actually mean? That a valid logical argument means an argument that assumes what it seeks to prove. That’s what a valid logical argument is called. Therefore begging the question is not a fallacy. Begging the question is just another name for a valid logical argument, that’s all. Only sometimes it is banal, trivial, and then it’s pointless, stupid. Sometimes there is an intelligent begging of the question, as in a geometry proof; there too it is begging the question. If you dig well enough into the axioms, you’ll discover that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. That’s what one does when one gives a proof. But the fact is that human beings usually can’t do that unless the teacher helps them, teaches them. Okay? That’s all. That’s the whole difference. It’s not an essential difference. A logical proof, a mathematical proof, or a valid logical argument always assume what they seek to prove. The only question is whether this is an intelligent way of assuming what is to be proved, or a trivial thing that everyone already understands, so it doesn’t help me at all. That’s all.

So basically, why am I saying all this? Because what I want to claim is that Maimonides’ interpretive innovation is that the law that emerges from the hermeneutic principles is actually similar to analogy and not to deduction. If the Torah had written, “All living creatures whose names begin with H may not have their flesh eaten,” and then I would infer the conclusion that pork, since it begins with H in Hebrew, may not be eaten, then clearly the prohibition on eating pork is explicitly written in the Torah even though I only inferred it through reasoning. Why? Because the inference was deductive. Basically, the inference only revealed to me that within the Torah verse there also appears the prohibition of pork. When you say every such thing in general—and this one, pork, also begins with H—right? So if interpretation were done by deductive tools, then the product would be the uncovering of what is already in the Torah. Deductive tools merely expose what I have inside the safe. They reveal more and more things that are written in the Torah. That is Torah law, says Maimonides. But the tools of derash are not deduction. The tools of derash are analogy and induction. And therefore you cannot say that their product is actually written within the Torah. It is information beyond what appears in the verse, like analogy and induction. And therefore that thing, says Maimonides, is from the words of the Sages—that is, rabbinic law.

In short, what Maimonides is telling us in one sentence is that the hermeneutic tools are tools of analogy and induction, not tools of deduction. It is science, not mathematics. That, translated, is Maimonides’ interpretive innovation. On top of that there is the halakhic innovation: if it is not written in the Torah, then it is not Torah law but rabbinic law. What I’m going to do—not now, but in the next stage, I don’t know if it will be today, we’ll see whether I manage to begin it today—what I’m going to do from here on is try to show you the significance of the fact that the hermeneutic tools are analogy and not deduction. Why these tools do not merely uncover but rather expand. And I’ll show this דווקא with the hermeneutic principles where you might think this is not true: a fortiori reasoning, paradigm construction, the logical tools, the logical principles. I’ll show you specifically there that it is analogy and not deduction, that it expands. That is the significance of what Maimonides is actually claiming.

But before I get there, I want for a moment to finish maybe one more sentence. That is basically the fundamental claim. Rabbi ha-Nazir, in his book Kol HaNevuah. Rabbi ha-Nazir has a book called Kol HaNevuah, and there the basic principle he talks about is that the hermeneutic principles are the logical building blocks of a logic that he calls auditory logic, as opposed to visual logic. And in my translation I would say: this is the logic of analogies, not the logic of deduction. Okay. And it turns out, so ha-Nazir claims, that there is a logic—you can formulate logically even scientific thinking, analogical thinking, and not only mathematics and formal logic, which is not a trivial thing. Usually what we give a mathematical formulation to is mathematics or logic. Okay. His claim is that there is an orderly formal logic of analogical thinking. In the legal world, in the scientific world, one can mathematize modes of inference, something people generally do not think is possible. And I’m not only going to claim that it’s possible—I’ll show you how to do it. Okay. We’re going to do that. So that will be in a moment.

But first I just want to finish Maimonides’ view, because we need to close this parenthesis on Maimonides’ view. I said that in Maimonides’ view there are basically different levels of connection to the text. And I said that the connection to the text is fundamentally a relation of analogy. There are strong analogies, weak analogies—very close to what is written in the verse, more distant from it. Deduction is simply written in the verse—it is in the verse. But the hermeneutic principles, asmakhta, all the other things, branching, what I called it in the previous class, are basically kinds of analogies. And therefore there are different levels in a continuum of connection to the text. And what I argued is that the practical implications of the claim that these are rabbinic laws do not all have to go together. There can be rabbinic laws where in cases of doubt we rule strictly, but we do not punish for them. There can be other rabbinic laws where in cases of doubt we rule leniently and we also do not punish. There can be laws where we do punish but in cases of doubt rule leniently—whatever you like, all sorts of such things. Therefore, when I say a rabbinic law, I have not automatically said what all the implications concerning it are, contrary to what all the other medieval authorities think.

Now I’ll bring you examples—or not examples, rather I’ll explain Maimonides’ view of rabbinic laws in more detail. What Nachmanides asks Maimonides, among other things, is: how can it be that laws derived from hermeneutic interpretations—in many, many places in the Talmud we see that in cases of doubt we rule strictly? Maimonides says these are rabbinic laws. Then in cases of doubt they should be lenient. But Nachmanides brings many places where you see that a law derived by derashah is treated strictly in cases of doubt. What I want to claim is that Maimonides can accept this. A law that comes from a derashah—we saw explicitly in Maimonides that one does not punish for it. He writes this explicitly in the introduction to Sefer HaMitzvot, at the end of root fourteen, we saw that. So one does not punish for it. Does that mean that in cases of doubt we rule leniently? No. It may be that from the standpoint of the laws of doubt, in cases of doubt we rule strictly, but in terms of punishment we do not punish for it.

With regard to a law given to Moses at Sinai, Maimonides said that in cases of doubt we rule leniently. In his commentary to the Mishnah in Kelim, chapter 17—we saw that in class—Maimonides said there that for a law given to Moses at Sinai, in cases of doubt we rule leniently. Now I don’t understand. If in laws derived through interpretation cases of doubt are strict, then you’re telling me that even for rabbinic doubt it’s strict? Then why not for a law given to Moses at Sinai? Where is the consistency? So I want to claim that a law given to Moses at Sinai is a different type of rabbinic law: in cases of doubt we rule leniently, but we also won’t punish for it. And with laws derived through interpretation, although we won’t punish for them just as with a law given to Moses at Sinai, still in cases of doubt we will rule strictly, because it is a different kind of rabbinic law, a different kind of “from the words of the Sages.” Therefore all these objections against Maimonides—I only brought you some of them—basically stem from this dichotomous perception, that there are Torah laws and there are rabbinic laws, and there is one sharp line passing between them. For Torah laws all the rules apply one way; for rabbinic laws all the rules apply another way. I say no. There is a whole continuum of levels. Regarding punishment, the line passes here: from this point and up we punish, from this point and down we do not punish. Regarding doubt, the line passes there: from this point and up we rule strictly in cases of doubt, from this point and down we rule leniently. Regarding human dignity, the line passes somewhere else. Each matter on its own.

What lies at the base of all this is some continuum of connection to the text between zero and one. Completely connected to the text—that’s one, that’s Torah law. Completely not connected to the text—there, that’s interpretation. Completely not connected to the text, that is legislation, that is rabbinic. Everything that is connected to the text, but sixty percent, seventy percent, twenty percent—each matter on its own. So we have to see: regarding doubt it will be like this, regarding punishment it will be like that, each matter on its own. Now I’ll show you a picture that gives a possible meaning to this.

I’ll begin perhaps with an essay by Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman on repentance. In that essay he asks a question on the Ramchal. He begins with a question. He says: why, with repentance, does the Ramchal claim that repentance is beyond the letter of the law? Basically, the Holy One, blessed be He, was not supposed to accept our repentance. We sinned, we deserve punishment. The fact that He accepts our repentance is beyond the letter of the law. Then he asks: there is a Talmud in Kiddushin where the Talmud says that if a man says to a woman, “Be betrothed to me on condition that I am completely righteous,” then she is doubtfully betrothed—even if he is known to be an out-and-out wicked person. No, she is doubtfully betrothed. Doubtfully betrothed, perhaps because he contemplated repentance in his heart. We don’t know that he contemplated repentance in his heart, and if he did then she is betrothed, and if not then not, so it remains doubtful. Like the case of something worth a perutah in Media; there too everyone thinks she is betrothed—no, she is doubtfully betrothed. If it is worth a perutah in Media, then yes.

So Maimonides claims that basically what do we see there? That if the wicked person repents—we don’t know whether he repented—but if he did repent, then he is righteous and she is betrothed, right? That’s one direction. On the other hand, it says in the Talmud that if there is a completely righteous person who went off the path, became irreligious, as they say, then he lost his merits. The Talmud asks: why shouldn’t he be considered half-and-half? What he did should earn him merits; what he does from now on, let him suffer for that. Why should he lose the merits he already accumulated as a completely righteous person? So the Talmud answers: because he regretted his earlier deeds. It is taught in the Talmud in Kiddushin: he regrets the earlier acts. What does that mean? He regrets what he did. And if he regrets what he did, he also loses what he did. Not only the sins from now on that he’ll suffer for, but also what he did in the past, when he performed those commandments—once he regrets them, he loses that too.

Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman asks: you’re telling me that regretting deeds doesn’t really help as a matter of law. The Holy One, blessed be He, does us a kindness and accepts our repentance, such that if we regret our deeds then He erases our sins. He bends toward kindness—not in order to harm a person but in order to do good to a person. So if a person regrets good deeds that he did, not bad deeds, he loses them? Why? What happened to beyond the letter of the law? The Holy One, blessed be He, turns him into a wicked person beyond the letter of the law? According to strict law he is righteous, but beyond the letter of the law they treat him as wicked? Beyond the letter of the law means to do good; beyond the letter of the law is not to do harm. So you see that this is according to strict law. If a person regrets an act he did, apparently the act really is lost to him. That is according to strict law. It cannot be that this is beyond the letter of the law, because then it should not have worked in both directions.

So he wants to claim that in every commandment a person performs, or every sin a person commits, there are two aspects. He brings this from the Ramchal too, though it is a question on the Ramchal, but he also brings from the Ramchal in Derekh Hashem. He says that in every commandment a person performs or every sin a person commits there are two aspects. When I perform a commandment, one aspect is that I obeyed the Holy One, blessed be He. A second aspect is that the commandment itself probably produces some benefit—that’s why we are commanded to do it. So there is something good in the fact that I performed the commandment, because I brought about the benefit, brought about the beneficial effect the commandment is supposed to bring, and besides that I also obeyed the Holy One, blessed be He. In every transgression there are two problems in parallel. One problem is that I rebel against the Holy One, blessed be He. A second problem is the damage that the transgression brings. Why were we forbidden to eat pork? Apparently because it causes some damage. So when I ate pork, I both rebelled against the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, and also brought about the damage. That is what he claims.

Now he says… because when he regrets it, he regrets that he obeyed; he no longer wants to obey. But the objective benefit of what he did—that exists, the benefit was achieved. That you cannot erase by regretting what you did. You can erase the subjective aspect. You deserve reward because you obeyed the Holy One, blessed be He; if you regret that you obeyed, you don’t want to obey, then you lose the subjective aspect. But objectively there is a benefit in the world. That benefit, you brought it about. So what if you regret it? The benefit exists. Therefore he says that there is “beyond the letter of the law” in the acceptance of repentance. Why? Because the damage that I caused is not erased by regret. So beyond the letter of the law, the Holy One, blessed be He, erases even that. That is beyond the letter of the law.

What the Talmud says—that if a wicked man betroths a woman on condition that he is completely righteous, she is betrothed—is because there we are talking about the aspect of obedience. He becomes righteous because he is considered as one who obeys the Holy One, blessed be He; his disobedience is erased. The damages he caused really do exist, but you ask whether he is righteous? Yes, he is righteous. If he repented, then he is righteous. Righteous according to strict law. He deserves punishment because there are damages he caused, that’s all true; that requires going beyond the letter of the law for it to be removed. But on the principled level he is righteous. And therefore if he regretted his earlier deeds, he lost them; but if he betrothed her on condition that he is completely righteous, she is betrothed, because he is righteous.

But for our purposes, what we have learned from Rabbi Elchanan’s words—or really from the Ramchal—is that in every transgression and every commandment there are two aspects: one aspect is obedience or rebellion against the command, and the second aspect is the benefit, the damage, or the spiritual benefit that comes from the commandment and the transgression. Okay? For example, Tosafot ha-Rosh and Ritva write about why the Talmud says that one who is commanded and performs is greater than one who is not commanded and performs. Why is the one who is commanded and performs greater? Our intuition would apparently say the opposite. So they explain—it has all kinds of little sermons, yes, he has an evil inclination because he is commanded, these are little sermons. The simple reason is exactly what we just said. Because one who is commanded and performs, when he performs a commandment, gains two benefits. One benefit is what the commandment itself brings, and the second benefit is obedience to the Holy One, blessed be He. But one who is not commanded and performs—he may bring the benefit, but there is no obedience here because he is not commanded. Therefore he is less great.

Can one say that there is benefit also in the statutes? In the lulav and things like that? Then it’s even greater. So if that’s the case, then it’s even greater. I’m saying that even if you don’t say that, still the one who is commanded and performs is greater. A woman who performs a positive commandment dependent on time—she is not obligated. So the benefit of the commandment may still accrue to her. It may even be that the benefit will not accrue in the same way, as you say, but even if we assume yes. The fact is that people say there is value in a woman performing it—whether she should recite a blessing or not is debated, but according to almost all views there is some benefit in the woman doing it, she’s just not commanded. So what is the difference between her and someone who is commanded—why is he greater? Both gained the benefit, but the obedience to the command exists only for the one who is commanded. The woman is not commanded, so she does not have the obedience. Therefore she is less great. Simple mathematics. Not sermons about the evil inclination and all sorts of things of that type.

And is there benefit also in the statutes? In the lulav and things like that? Yes, of course—we’re talking about statutes, what do you mean? You mean as opposed to morality? There is obvious benefit to an act of kindness from a social point of view and so on—that you can’t lose. But when I wave a lulav, the result is subjective, so I don’t know what the result is. I don’t know, but there is a result. Otherwise why would the Holy One, blessed be He, tell me to wave the lulav? Just to torment me? You could say—there are those who want to claim that commandments have no reasons at all, not that we don’t know them, but that they simply have no reasons. But that is very strange. There are different views. Maimonides claims there is no such thing; obviously everything has a reason. He says those who say otherwise want to magnify the Holy One, blessed be He. He says: you are diminishing Him, not magnifying Him. No normal person does things for no reason at all. And the Holy One, blessed be He, does random things just because He feels like it, with no reason? Obviously there is a reason. We just don’t know it. But there is some reason behind things. And that reason is apparently some benefit that comes from performing this commandment. So a woman who waves a lulav—I don’t know what benefit that brings, but there is some benefit that it brings, and therefore we were commanded.

But is that the reason you are giving? No, no—the reason because of which the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us. I don’t know it. Meaning there is basically some short-circuit between the teacher and what rebelled. Fine, no, I’m not relying on Maimonides; I’m only bringing him as an example. I’m relying on myself. I’m saying there is a reason. It’s not reasonable that there isn’t one. You can’t separate them. What’s the difference? If there is a purpose, then that means that’s the reason we were commanded, in order to achieve that purpose. That’s what I call a reason—call it whatever you like. The point is: there is some result from this commandment, so we were commanded in order to achieve that result. So someone who performed the commandment achieved the result. Thus he has the result, but if he was not commanded then he did not obey a command. That’s all.

There is an assumption here that I don’t exactly understand. The assumption is that there is a reason. I didn’t say what the reason is; I don’t know what the reason is. Yes, that I clearly assume. Fine? Almost everyone assumes that; it seems very simple to me. All right, in any case, that is why one who is commanded and performs is greater. But for our purposes, what matters is indeed that there are these two aspects. That’s what matters to me.

Let’s perhaps bring another source where one sees something similar. Look, in the ninth root, Maimonides speaks there about places where the Torah repeats the same command many times. For example, his example is that the Torah says twelve times to keep the Sabbath. The commandment to keep the Sabbath appears twelve times in the Torah. Maimonides says we count that in the enumeration of commandments only once. Why? We were commanded twelve times; one should count twelve commandments. Rather, we count the thing commanded, not the number of commands. And the thing commanded, the content, is one. Fine? That is in the ninth root. In the second part of the ninth root Maimonides says something that is apparently the opposite. Rabbi Yerucham Perla asks this and remains with the matter unresolved.

In the second part of that same root, the second part of the ninth root, Maimonides speaks about a general prohibition. What is a general prohibition? Like “Do not eat over the blood.” “Do not eat over the blood” is a verse from which many things are learned. It is a warning against the rebellious son, it is a warning to the court not to eat on the day on which they issue a death sentence, it is a warning not to eat before prayer—which in Maimonides by the way sounds like Torah law, learned from “Do not eat over the blood”—and more. So basically there are five things, I think, or six, learned from “Do not eat over the blood.” How many commandments do we count? Maimonides says one commandment. Why? Because we have only one verse. True, there are five different prohibitions here, fine, but there is only one verse, so we count one commandment.

So Rabbi Yerucham Perla asks: after all, is the count of the commandments determined by the number of commands or by the number of commanded contents? In the first part of the ninth root it looks like it goes by the content. You have twelve commands, you count one commandment because the content is one. In the second part of the ninth root it looks like it goes by the commands. You have five different contents and you count one commandment because there is only one command. So it goes by the commands, not by the contents. Two parts of the same root contradict each other. And Rabbi Yerucham Perla, in his work on Saadiah Gaon’s Sefer HaMitzvot, remains with the matter unresolved. What would you answer? Where is his mistake? His logic is not right. The second part of the ninth root? What is a general prohibition? A general prohibition is one command from which five prohibitions emerge. And in the enumeration of the commandments we count it as one command, not five. Rabbi Yerucham Perla says: so what do we see from here? That in the enumeration of the commandments, what determines how many commandments there are is the number of commands, not the number of contents. Because there are five contents here, but only one command, one verse. So what determines the count of commandments? The commands, not the contents. But in the first part it seems that what determines it is the contents, because there are twelve commands with one content, and Maimonides counts one commandment. Why? If you go by the commands, then no—there should be twelve commandments, not one.

Derash makes one wise, derash makes one wise. No, it’s not the second root, it’s the ninth root. Maimonides says that from his perspective this is plain interpretation, not derash. He uses the word contents, but really these are five commands, not five contents. Why? There is one command, one verse, that commands this, and from that verse we derive five prohibitions—therefore I call them five contents. But it yields five distinct commands. Correct. So why is it counted as one commandment? Because there is only one command in the Torah. But if it goes by commands and not by contents, what do you do with the first part of the root? Twelve commands with one content—I would expect there to be twelve commandments because we go by the commands and not by the contents, but no, it’s one commandment. Where is his logical mistake?

This is a yeshiva-student kind of question. The truth is that he wasn’t really that kind of person; he was more of a researcher. But on this issue he fell into the trap that yeshiva students fall into. In conceptual Talmudic investigations we always assume it is either this or that, or maybe both. If property of mine caused damage, why do I have to pay? Because I was negligent in guarding it, or because my property caused damage in and of itself? Maybe both? Maybe you need both negligence in guarding and the fact that my property caused damage? In yeshivot it is always either this and not that, or that and not this, and practical distinctions. No—maybe it is both. They always ignore that option. Fine, maybe that’s Occam’s razor—I also once wrote an article about that, where it is right to ignore it and where not—but it’s not always right to ignore it. I even showed in that very investigation of payment liability for one’s property causing damage that I can prove that both Pnei Yehoshua and Hazon Ish—where they tie the dispute to this issue—each of them actually holds that it is both. And all the introductory lectures to Bava Kamma in all the yeshivot fell into the trap. It’s always the opening lecture of Bava Kamma, always.

But for our purposes, what Rabbi Yerucham Perla misses is that for Maimonides, in order for a commandment to be defined as a commandment, it needs both a command and a content. Both are required. If one of them is missing, it won’t be counted. Either one of them. Now everything is simple. If I have twelve commands with one content, how many commandments will there be? One. Because you don’t have twelve commandments with twelve contents. After all, you need both things; if one of the two is missing, it won’t be a commandment. And if I have one commandment with five contents, how many commandments? Again one. Because I have five contents but I do not have five commands attached to them. And in order for a commandment to be defined as a commandment, it has to have a separate command and it has to have its own unique content. And that is exactly what the Ramchal said earlier. Why do you need a unique content and a command? Because when I perform that commandment there are two things here: I obey the command and I also realize the content—the benefit comes into being. Therefore every commandment needs a command and it needs a content. That is why it is so important. Because in order for a commandment to be Torah law, when I fulfill it two things must happen: first, I obey the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, but for that there has to be a command; second, the benefit of that commandment has to come into existence, and that is the unique content of the commandment—what is it trying to achieve, what are we doing here, okay? Therefore both things are needed.

That means that in every commandment, and also in every transgression, there must be a command and there must be a content. Consequently, when I fulfill the commandment, I have the value that I obeyed the command, and I have the value that I brought about the good benefit. And when I commit a transgression, I have the negative value that I rebelled against the command, and I have the damage that the transgressive act caused. That is the picture.

Now let’s go one step further. There is a Netivot in section 234—this is how several later authorities hold—that rabbinic commandments are obligations on the person and not on the object. Let’s say they forbade me to eat poultry with milk. So that poultry and milk which I… if I eat poultry with milk, the poultry with milk in itself is not problematic; otherwise the Torah would have forbidden it. There is no problem in the object itself of poultry mixed with milk. The problem is with the person. What does that mean? The act of eating poultry with milk is an improper act. Why? Because the Sages forbade it. But not because poultry with milk is itself problematic. That is the difference. In Torah prohibitions, not only did the Torah forbid it, but there is also content—the meat cooked in milk is a problematic thing, it causes damage. Poultry with milk does not cause damage; otherwise the Torah would have forbidden it. It is forbidden to eat it lest I come to eat meat with milk, so the Sages nevertheless forbade it. Consequently now I must obey, so it is an obligation on the person to obey, but there is no damage here caused by eating poultry with milk; it does not cause damage. Unless, of course, you slid into eating meat with milk, but then the damage is that you ate meat with milk. If you didn’t slide into that, nothing happened in any essential sense, but you did violate a rabbinic command. Okay, so the prohibition concerns the person.

A practical implication, for example, which the Netivot brings from the Talmud: if someone sees his rabbi about to violate a Torah prohibition, he has to stop him. “Didn’t you teach us, Rabbi, that it is forbidden to do such-and-such?”—in order to prevent his rabbi from stumbling. Perhaps his rabbi didn’t notice, or perhaps his rabbi will explain to him that he was mistaken and it’s not actually forbidden. Fine, but he has to alert his rabbi before he does the act, in order to keep his rabbi from transgression—“do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood”—to prevent his rabbi from sin. With a rabbinic prohibition, first we let him act and only afterwards do we raise the objection. Let him do it, and afterward ask him only in order to know: why did you do that? You taught me that it’s forbidden.

The Netivot asks: why? Isn’t a rabbinic prohibition still a prohibition? The Netivot says: a rabbinic prohibition is an obligation on the person. There is no problem in the act itself. The whole problem is that you are not obeying the Sages, you are rebelling against the Sages. So if I don’t know that the Sages forbade it, I didn’t do any prohibition. After all, the whole problem is that I rebel against the command; the thing itself… In a Torah prohibition, even if I did it unwittingly, I still committed a prohibition, because in the end there was something problematic here. True, I did not know there was a command and I did not rebel against the command, but the content is problematic. In a rabbinic prohibition there is no content; it is an obligation on the person. So if I did it unwittingly, then I did not violate anything, because there is no rebellion against the Sages. Therefore, says the Netivot, if I see my rabbi about to violate a rabbinic prohibition, he presumably doesn’t know or didn’t notice. Even if I’m right, maybe he didn’t notice. And if he didn’t notice, then nothing happened. So let him do it, because basic courtesy says that afterward you ask him in order to learn whether it is really forbidden or permitted. In a Torah prohibition you can’t let him do it, because even if he doesn’t know, there is still a prohibition—a prohibition committed unwittingly. And indeed the Netivot claims that someone who violated a rabbinic prohibition unwittingly needs no atonement, doesn’t need to repent for it. If you violated a rabbinic prohibition unwittingly, that is not a prohibition at all, unlike a Torah prohibition unwittingly. Not everyone agrees, but that is the Netivot’s position.

Now that’s a first datum. Now there is a question asked against Maimonides—Nachmanides already asks it against Maimonides. Maimonides says that all rabbinic prohibitions derive from “Do not stray,” right? Nachmanides asks him: then why in cases of rabbinic doubt do we rule leniently? If you have a doubt whether this is poultry with milk, and if it is poultry with milk then you have violated “Do not stray,” that is a Torah prohibition. So if you have a doubt, it is a Torah-level doubt, and you should be strict. How will Maimonides explain the rule that in cases of rabbinic doubt we are lenient? After all, according to his view every rabbinic prohibition is basically grounded in “Do not stray.” I already explained in the previous class why that’s not actually right. But that is Nachmanides’ objection.

Several later authorities—Rabbi Shimon Shkop in one style, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman in his notes on Shemittah, also in Shevi’it 1, explains similarly—they explain this in light of the Netivot we just brought. And they say as follows: in a rabbinic prohibition, true, its basis is “Do not stray,” but it is an obligation on the person, just a duty of obedience. There is nothing problematic in poultry with milk in itself; I am forbidden to eat it because the Sages commanded not to eat it. Right? Now if I’m in doubt—after all, doubt is like doing something unwittingly. We saw in the Netivot that when something is unwitting, there is no prohibition at all in a rabbinic matter, because there is no rebellion against the command. They say that also if I am in doubt, there is no rebellion against the command. Why? Because I don’t actually know that the Sages forbade it—that’s not rebellion. Rebellion is when you know it’s forbidden and you go against it. Here I don’t know; I’m in doubt, so I allowed myself to be lenient. That is not called rebelling. Therefore they say that in a case of doubt you can be lenient, because doubtful rebellion is not rebellion. In a Torah prohibition, a doubt is strict. Why? Because in a Torah prohibition there is a problem in the thing itself, not only rebellion against the command but a problem in itself. Therefore there one must be strict. The act itself is forbidden. If you ate meat with milk, then damage happened here—you have to beware of that damage. But if you ate poultry with milk, no damage happened. The whole problem is rebellion against the command, and if you’re not sure there is a command, that is not called rebellion. Therefore you need not be strict in a rabbinic doubt. That is how they explain it.

Okay, now let’s do the accounting. The obligation to be strict in a Torah-level doubt—is it because of rebellion or because of the essence? A Torah law has both things, right? Both rebellion and essence. Which of the two determines the laws of doubt? Only the essence. Why? Because the whole idea is that when I am in doubt, then the dimension of rebellion is absent. And this is true in Torah law too, because what is the difference between Torah law and rabbinic law? You are saying that in a case of doubt it is not called rebellion. So if I am in doubt whether this is pork—not poultry with milk, real pork—or meat with milk, I’m in doubt, then there is no rebellion here even if I eat it, because it’s a doubt. Yes, but there is pork here; the pork creates a problematic result.

That means that the obligation to be strict in Torah-level doubts is because of the aspect of essence, not because of the command. Yes, one could say that treating a Torah-level doubt lightly is also a kind of rebellion, rebellion on some level… I’m following Rabbi Shlomo Zalman and the Shema’ata. They say that in a rabbinic doubt we are lenient because doubtful rebellion is not rebellion. Now, if I assume that, you can argue with it, but if I assume it, let’s continue the accounting. Now, in a Torah-level doubt, if I assume that doubtful rebellion is not rebellion, then clearly the obligation to be strict in a Torah matter is not because of the dimension of rebellion but because of the dimension of essence. Correct? Good.

Now, look. We have two kinds of rabbinic law in Maimonides. Laws that emerge from interpretation and laws that come from a law given to Moses at Sinai. I claim that regarding a law given to Moses at Sinai, in cases of doubt we rule leniently; with laws that emerge from interpretation, in cases of doubt we rule strictly, even though both are rabbinic. Why? Because I claim that these two are rabbinic for different reasons. A Torah law needs both a command and an essence. We saw that, right? A rabbinic law is where the command is missing or the essence is missing. Then the requirement for it to be Torah law is not met. Right? In a law given to Moses at Sinai, what is missing? There is a command—not written in the Torah, but a command from the Holy One, blessed be He. What is missing is the essence. In a law given to Moses at Sinai, it’s basically the Holy One, blessed be He, saying: be careful, but these are obligations on the person, not prohibitions in the object. That’s why He didn’t write it in the Torah, because everything written in the Torah is a prohibition in the object. He didn’t write it in the Torah; He transmitted it orally, even though it is His command. And it is His command like a regular prohibition. Meaning, this is basically a command without essence, only on the person. Therefore it is a law given to Moses at Sinai.

By contrast, in interpreted laws—think what we learned from Maimonides’ interpretive innovation—that interpretation expands the idea of the verse. That means that if I failed to fear a Torah scholar, then there is no command here, because it isn’t written in the Torah, it’s a derashah. But the essence of fear of Heaven is present here too. And therefore I expand it, therefore I say: just as one has to fear the Holy One, blessed be He, so one has to fear Torah scholars, because that is similar. The same essence that exists there exists here too. That means that laws learned from interpretation have the essence of the law, a problematic essence, but no command. Because according to Maimonides a derashah is not something written in the Torah; it is an expansion. I have no command.

By contrast, a law given to Moses at Sinai has command but no essence. Where will the practical implication be? Regarding punishment, in both cases I do not punish. Because for punishment you need both command and essence. Therefore a rabbinic law is not punished, even though it comes from “Do not stray,” because that is only command without essence; there is no content there, it is only on the person. So there is no punishment. There may be rabbinic flogging, but not the thirty-nine lashes of a regular prohibition. Right? Why don’t we punish for a Torah transgression done unwittingly? Because the command is lacking. So you see that if the command is missing or the essence is missing, we do not punish. In order to punish, you need command and essence. Therefore there is no punishment neither for a law given to Moses at Sinai nor for a law emerging from interpretation. In a law given to Moses at Sinai because the essence is lacking; in a law emerging from interpretation because the command is lacking.

But regarding doubt, with the laws of doubt we saw that it depends on the essence. So in a doubt regarding a law emerging from interpretation, the problem is still here. I have a concern that I am violating a Torah-level problem. There is no command, so they won’t punish me for it, therefore it is “from the words of the Sages,” but there is a concern here that I am violating a Torah-level problem. After all, if I ate it, the Torah-level problem would come into being. One needs to stay away from that. The whole idea also in an ordinary Torah doubt is that what I am careful about is only because of the essence, not because of the command, because in a case of doubt there is no command. So what is the difference between a law emerging from interpretation and an ordinary Torah law? There is no difference at all. In both cases there is a problematic essence, and therefore in a case of doubt I have to be careful that perhaps I have stumbled into a prohibition like pork. Therefore in a doubt concerning a law emerging from interpretation one should be strict. I am worried that I may be creating the problem.

But in a law given to Moses at Sinai, like an ordinary rabbinic law, in cases of doubt we go leniently. Because it is only command without essence. A doubtful command is not rebellion, that I went against a doubtful command. Now suddenly you see: I have given you a way to explain the whole continuum. Meaning, I am showing you why there is a continuum here. It’s not just some statement that this is thirty percent, this forty percent, this seventy percent. I’m showing you which elements are missing. It is not a quantitative issue; it is a map of essence. Basically, what is in play here all the time is the interplay between command and essence from the Ramchal that we said at the beginning. In every Torah prohibition or Torah commandment there is command and essence. Now every aspect that distinguishes between Torah law and rabbinic law—you have to check: is it because of the command, because of the essence, because of both? What actually determines it? And that is what will determine the whole map.

So if I ask whether we punish—in order to punish you need both command and essence. And the essence is obvious simply so that there be something problematic for which I punish. The command is so that I be deliberate, because we do not punish unless there was prior warning, right? Therefore Maimonides says that for laws that emerge from interpretation we do not punish. Why? Because we do not punish unless there was prior warning, and a derashah is not a warning. Because the derashah does not reveal what is written in the Torah; a warning is only what is written in the Torah. Therefore as to punishment, there is no punishment either for a law given to Moses at Sinai or for laws emerging from interpretation, and certainly not for decrees and enactments. Because the command is lacking, and in order to punish you need both command and essence. So in a law given to Moses at Sinai the essence is lacking; in a law emerging from interpretation the command is lacking. In any case, no punishment.

But with regard to the laws of doubt, it’s not like that. With regard to doubt, essence is enough; you do not need command. It is not like punishment. Therefore in a Torah-level doubt we rule strictly because it is a doubt regarding the essence; I don’t care that there is no issue of command. In a law emerging from interpretation it is exactly like a regular Torah law in this respect, because in doubt, in any case, there is no command—so what difference does it make whether it is explicit Torah law or a law emerging from interpretation? The doubt about the essence remains, and because of that one must be strict.

In a law given to Moses at Sinai there is no essence, and if I am in doubt then there is also no command. Why should I be strict? There is no reason to be strict. There is no essence, and command there isn’t either, so why be strict? There’s nothing. And in ordinary rabbinic laws like decrees and enactments, there there is command from “Do not stray” but no essence, so in cases of doubt we rule leniently. Doubtful rebellion is not rebellion. Rebellion against a doubtful command is not rebellion. So here is an explanation—a nice explanation—that explains to you why Maimonides sees the picture not in a binary way, either Torah law or rabbinic law. In fact here I have even given you a substantive explanation. It’s not just a general statement of thirty percent, fifty percent, seventy percent. It’s not a quantitative difference in how Torah-law it is, but why it is not Torah law: is the essence lacking or is the command lacking? And that will determine all these things.

Doesn’t this come out as an exception that it’s binary? Correct. This is basically a binary analysis of the non-binary map that you drew earlier. Because we always work with our own minds—that’s exactly what I’m saying. By the way, in many, many places and in many, many contexts I find myself using analytical tools in order to show that analytical thinking is not bad, just not exhaustive. But I use analytical tools in order to show that. Because those are our tools—we don’t have others. Is there no exception where a law given to Moses at Sinai also has essence? I’m not talking about measures, because there it is exact… If it had essence—on the contrary, there specifically there is essence. No, but it isn’t essence in that sense because it is only technical. True, it only tells you how to perform the measure. But the measure has essence—that’s exactly the point. Therefore there we rule strictly. If it had essence—what I said now is basically a much deeper explanation in Maimonides’ view. Yes, but the question is whether there is no exception in the explanation… No, I’m saying—I’ll explain. No, there cannot be. Why? I don’t know; I’m saying according to my proposal there can’t be. Why? Because the whole idea is: why did the Holy One, blessed be He, leave certain laws not written in the Torah but left them oral? What is the point? Why? What difference does it make to You to insert another two laws into the Torah? There aren’t that many laws given to Moses at Sinai. So why not put them into the Torah? Because it’s a different kind of law. It’s not just, okay, this one I left out, so I’ll put it in an appendix and it’ll be oral. It doesn’t work like that. He didn’t put it in the Torah because it’s a different kind of law. Into the Torah enter only laws that have both command and essence. Only that enters the Torah. When the Holy One, blessed be He, transmits to us a law that is a law given to Moses at Sinai, He is basically telling us: know that this law is an obligation on the person, not on the object. That’s it. That is the meaning. That is why this division exists between a law given to Moses at Sinai, laws written in the Torah, and laws learned from interpretation. These are not after-the-fact explanations. This is the reason why the Holy One, blessed be He, used three different media to transmit laws to us. Some laws He wrote explicitly in the Torah, other laws He left for us to derive through interpretation, and other laws He transmitted orally. Why? Couldn’t He just write everything and that’s it—what’s the problem? He wants to tell us: there are three different kinds of laws here. Each medium is a different type. Okay, and consequently there are implications here regarding punishment, regarding doubt, regarding all the other things. That is the result.

All right, okay, so we’ll stop here. That’s it. Starting next week we begin the final part of the semester, which is really to enter into the logic of the hermeneutic principles, or the logic of non-deductive thinking. Rabbi Yohanan said: “Happy is the man who fears always, but one who hardens his heart will fall into evil.” Through Kamtza and Bar Kamtza Jerusalem was destroyed. Through a rooster and a hen the king’s mountain was destroyed. Through the axle of a wagon Betar was destroyed. We’ll begin with that. The verse quoted here is Proverbs 28:14: “Happy is the man who fears always, but one who hardens his heart will fall into evil.” The Talmud discusses there beforehand matters connected to legal procedure, maybe returning money, and so on. Then it brings this verse and says: Rabbi Yohanan said, “Happy is the man who fears always, but one who hardens his heart will fall into evil.” Through Kamtza and Bar Kamtza Jerusalem was destroyed. Through a rooster and a hen the king’s mountain was destroyed. Through the axle of a wagon Betar was destroyed.

In the last week of the semester, really the very last week of the semester. End of the month. End of the month, yes. Meaning, I’ll have to leave for about a week from June nineteenth until the twenty-fifth. And I think I’m going to need attendance of about eighty percent of the classes, something like that. But I think because I didn’t start exactly on time… So you won’t get to eighty percent. So tell me that you made it up from the recording and I’ll approve the exemption for you. All right? All right, excellent. Will you have a little time after Minchah? I mean, I’d be happy to see you if you’re heading off to something. No, no, I’m here. I’m here. I’m not sure I’ll pray Minchah right now, maybe I’ll pray later, but I’ll be in the study hall after Minchah. Okay.