The Thought of Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel – Midrash in Halakha – Lecture 2

Table of Contents

• Interpreting general concepts and the purpose of the law
• General and particular, and general-particular-general and the radius of inclusion
• Logic, formality, and code in the hermeneutic principles
• Orot HaKodesh, the ways of language, and biblical Hebrew
• Derash and peshat as parallel paths according to the Vilna Gaon
• Maimonides: the derivations are not from Sinai, supportive derivations and creative derivations
• Apologetics: “everything is just support” versus “an arbitrary code,” and the middle way
• Expansion rather than exposure: why not write everything, and what “was said to Moses at Sinai” means
• The transmission of the Torah, rules from Sinai, and the dispute between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva
• “The fruit of a beautiful tree,” the citron, and the qualities of hadar
• Sign or cause: the citron, tekhelet, and the search for identification
• The development of Jewish law, disputes, and halakhic ruling
• Critique of Maimonides regarding a law given to Moses at Sinai and disputes in tradition
• Text, reasoning, and textual emendations
• The 613 commandments and rhetorical language in Nachmanides

Summary

General overview

The text presents the need to interpret general concepts like “vehicle” according to the purpose of the law, and demonstrates how the hermeneutic principles of general and particular, especially general-particular-general, mark the radius of inclusion through “aspects” and common features shared by the examples. It argues that these interpretive principles are neither merely an arbitrary code nor merely ordinary interpretive logic, but a combination of logic and formal components. It cites Orot HaKodesh as arguing that derash rests on knowledge of the ways of language and is therefore “the depth of peshat,” in contrast to a position attributed to the Vilna Gaon that derash and peshat are parallel paths. The text then presents a view of the development of Jewish law: the derivations themselves were not given at Sinai, only the rules were; there are supportive derivations and creative derivations; it is impossible “to write everything”; and halakhic decision is meant for guiding the community, even when both opinions can be legitimate within the framework of “these and those are the words of the living God.”

Interpreting general concepts and the purpose of the law

It is forbidden to bring vehicles into a kindergarten, and then the question arises how to define “vehicle” and what the law would be regarding a drone or a floating platform placed on water as a memorial. The decision depends on the purpose of the law, such as preventing someone from being run over as opposed to preventing noise, and so the concepts by themselves are not enough without interpretation. The interpretation is based on defining a category according to similarity to relevant examples, and not according to an abstract word alone.

General and particular, and general-particular-general and the radius of inclusion

The Torah uses the principles of general and particular to indicate how to expand particulars and define a category, in a structure like “it is forbidden to bring in a vehicle… a tractor, a car, a motorcycle… and anything similar.” General-particular-general indicates a “medium-sized” inclusion; general-particular narrows things greatly to what is in the particular; and particular-general expands most broadly. The Talmud defines the radius of inclusion according to “aspects” and features, and the number of features required to establish similarity determines how broadly “anything similar” will be interpreted.

Logic, formality, and code in the hermeneutic principles

The text argues that the hermeneutic principles combine logic with formal components that do not arise from ordinary interpretive logic, and therefore they are not a “code,” but they also are not the regular way one interprets any text. The move from general language to particular examples and back to general language is seen as logical, in that it instructs us to include more than just the examples. But the precise distinctions between different formulations are seen as something that would not be applied in other books without prior agreement with the author.

Orot HaKodesh, the ways of language, and biblical Hebrew

In a passage from Orot HaKodesh, pages 19-20, it is argued that derash is based on knowledge of the ways of language, and that implies that derash is the depth of peshat for someone who properly understands the language. An example is brought from the phrase “and to visit in His sanctuary,” where the meaning of the word “visit” in modern Hebrew could mislead, and in the name of Rabbi Moshe Shapira it is said that there “visit” means examination or serious, regular engagement, not a brief visit. It is argued that Hebrew speakers are more liable to make mistakes because they are sure they understand the Bible, whereas someone who is not a Hebrew speaker does not carry this “illusion of understanding.”

Derash and peshat as parallel paths according to the Vilna Gaon

A conception is cited in the name of the Vilna Gaon that derash and peshat are two parallel modes of approaching the text, each with its own rules, and that derash is not meant to decipher the plain meaning of the verse and is not “the depth of peshat.” According to this position, both readings exist side by side, and derash is another way of working with the same verse, not a substitute for the plain reading.

Maimonides: the derivations are not from Sinai, supportive derivations and creative derivations

It is argued that we should understand that the derivations themselves were not given to Moses our Teacher at Sinai, and Maimonides is cited from the introduction to his Commentary on the Mishnah to the effect that the Talmud searches for a scriptural source for an accepted law, and each Tanna or Amora brings a different derivation. An example is brought from “the fruit of a beautiful tree” and the different derivations that lead to the citron, and it is said that precisely the multiplicity of derivations for the same result fits a supportive derivation, where the law is already known and the derivation anchors it in the verse. On the other hand, it is argued that in most cases the derivations are creative derivations that generate new laws, and then the question of the non-univocal character of the methods of inference becomes sharper.

Apologetics: “everything is just support” versus “an arbitrary code,” and the middle way

One apologetic approach is presented, according to which all the derivations are merely supportive, so there is no problem even if the methods of derash seem “strange.” Against that, it is argued that this “does not stand the test,” because there are creative derivations. An opposite apologetic is then presented, of a “code” like atbash, in which there is no logic but only an agreed key, and it is said that this too raises the question: why encode things at all, and why create such a game? A middle position is proposed: a combination of a transmitted framework with human logic, the development of sub-principles by the sages, and recognition that there is no single unequivocal answer, but that even plain interpretation has disputes, so interpretation cannot be avoided.

Expansion rather than exposure: why not write everything, and what “was said to Moses at Sinai” means

It is argued that it is impossible to write everything, and that the results reached are not necessarily what was originally intended in detailed form, but rather expansions made with the tools that were given. It is argued that truth is “through your own glasses” and can change from generation to generation, with an attempt to make a worthy expansion rather than expose some hidden intention already embedded in the text. “Everything that an experienced student will one day innovate… the Holy One, blessed be He, showed Moses at Sinai” is explained as a normative statement: one should relate to the innovation as something that has the authority of permission granted from Sinai. Tosafot Yom Tov is cited as distinguishing between what the Holy One, blessed be He, “showed” Moses and what He “gave” him, so that the students’ innovations are not a transmitted tradition but innovations foreseen in prophecy.

The transmission of the Torah, rules from Sinai, and the dispute between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva

It is argued that what was transmitted at Sinai were the rules: the Written Torah in its form, and an instruction to read it carefully and derive details of the laws through the hermeneutic principles, the ways of language, and reasoning. It is said that the Written Torah was transmitted over the course of forty years, but everything is attributed to Sinai, and the dispute between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva is mentioned: whether its generalities were given at Sinai and its details in the Tent of Meeting, or whether both its generalities and its details were from Sinai. It is argued that the text does not specify whether the hermeneutic principles were transmitted as a closed list, and a suggestion is made that the midrashic mode of approach was transmitted, while the lists of seven principles and thirteen principles developed as conceptual formulations over the generations.

“The fruit of a beautiful tree,” the citron, and the qualities of hadar

Derivations are brought on hadar as beauty and freshness, and the claim that there is no fruit that is always fresh like the citron, which “grows by all waters” and “dwells on its tree from year to year.” It is argued that “the fruit whose tree causes its beauty,” because the freshness comes from the tree, and that “the taste of its tree and its fruit are the same” in the citron, unlike other fruit trees. It is said that all these derivations fit “the idea expressed in the depth of the language of the verse,” and that the sages’ statement that “in the Greek language they call water hidur” was said elegantly as a mnemonic sign, not because the Torah is written in Greek.

Sign or cause: the citron, tekhelet, and the search for identification

The question arises whether the qualities of hadar are signs indicating that the Torah meant the already existing citron, or whether they are the cause that defines a category, so that any fruit matching those qualities could count. An analogy is brought to tekhelet in tzitzit and to the question of identifying the snail, and it is said that if the goal were only the color, it would seem there would be no need for identification. But the fact that the sages invalidated k’la ilan is taken as a hint that the Torah is aiming at a specific substance or source, and not only the visual result. The text does not decide the question regarding a new grafted fruit that would meet the criteria, but it points out that the continuation of halakhic discussion about the beauty requirements of the citron suggests that the qualities of hadar are real requirements and not merely a means of identification.

The development of Jewish law, disputes, and halakhic ruling

It is said that the development of the details of Jewish law from Scripture and from reasoning continued after Moses our Teacher, and that disputes arose also because of differences in opinion and reasoning. “These and those are the words of the living God” is explained to mean that no one can claim absolute truth, and that both possibilities can be right because the Torah was given to be discussed according to human judgment, but for the purpose of guiding the community a decision is required. It is brought that when Jewish law was not decisively settled, they say, “Rabbi so-and-so is worthy to be relied upon in a pressing situation… even in a Torah-level matter,” and the question remains what counts as “the law was settled” and whether the rulings of the Shulchan Arukh count as such a settlement.

Critique of Maimonides regarding a law given to Moses at Sinai and disputes in tradition

It is brought that Maimonides says that in laws received from Moses our Teacher no dispute ever arose, but it is argued that there are examples in the Talmud, such as the willow branch and the water libation, where it says “a law given to Moses at Sinai” as opposed to “a custom of the prophets.” Chavot Yair is mentioned as discussing laws given to Moses at Sinai in which there is dispute and trying to reconcile Maimonides, but against that it is argued that it is plausible that even in such laws distortions and doubts could arise. It is said that even what was innovated in later generations and agreed upon or decided in the Great Court was transmitted from generation to generation as accepted law, and Netziv is mentioned on the phrase “it was learned as a tradition” as an ancient tradition that is not necessarily from Sinai.

Text, reasoning, and textual emendations

It is said that when the wording of a source seems unintelligible in terms of content, one should follow the understanding and not cling rigidly to the wording, and sometimes emend the text if the understanding requires it. The principle attributed to the Chazon Ish is brought, that it is preferable to force the language than to force the reasoning, and it is said that the rule has no absolute meaning because everything depends on the degree of strain. A warning is brought against emending texts inside books, to the point of “the ban of Rabbeinu Tam,” and a philological rule is cited in the name of Haym Soloveitchik: between a “corrupt” version and a “corrected” version, if there is no simple explanation of how the copying error occurred, the corrupt version tends to be original, because corrections are usually made in order to resolve a difficulty.

The 613 commandments and rhetorical language in Nachmanides

It is said that “everything that an experienced student will one day innovate… was said to Moses at Sinai” is rhetorical language, meaning that everything flows from the rules given at Sinai for reading the verses carefully and learning new laws from them. It is brought that Nachmanides, at the beginning of his glosses to the Book of Commandments, wrote that the sages’ phrase “the 613 commandments were said to Moses at Sinai” is not exact, because some of the commandments were said later, and rabbinic commandments too were counted. The text ends by noting that this is not entirely precise regarding Nachmanides’ conclusion, but presents him as support for the idea that these traditions and formulations are not necessarily historical in the literal sense.

Suppose now that it’s forbidden to bring vehicles into a children’s playground in some public park. Then the question comes up: what about a drone? What about some floating platform they put on the water as a memorial? Is that also forbidden to bring in there? In other words, how do you decide what the concept “vehicle” includes? So you can suggest all kinds of possibilities, and of course it will depend on the question of what the purpose of the law is. If its purpose is to prevent children playing there from being run over, that’s one thing; if its purpose is to prevent noise, that’s something else. So the concepts themselves don’t say all that much, but in the end you always have to do some kind of interpretation. Now, the Torah specifically uses the rule of generalization and specification and generalization to solve a problem like that, or really all the rules of generalization and specification, not only generalization and specification and generalization. What it’s basically saying is: if I want to indicate to you how to expand the particulars, or how to determine the set regarding which, say, vehicles may not be brought into the park, then I’ll say it in a way like: it is forbidden to bring vehicles into the park, for example a tractor, a car, a motorcycle, and anything of that sort. Now if you think about the structure of that sentence, you’ll see what’s written there: “it is forbidden to bring vehicles” is a general expression, then there is a list of particulars—tractor, car, motorcycle—those are the particulars, and “and anything of that sort” is the generalization. So this is really some kind of form which overall seems to me reasonable, logical. It’s not some arbitrary code that tells us more or less what I mean; it gives me a certain direction. Now in the hermeneutic rules of generalization and specification there is even greater precision at the level of the generalization, because the rule, or the form of wording the Torah chooses, signals to us how far to generalize, how broadly to take the generalization. Generalization and specification and generalization—that’s a medium-sized generalization, the radius of the generalization is medium-sized. Generalization and specification—that’s a very narrow radius of generalization, only what is in the specification. Specification and generalization is the opposite, the broadest one. So the structure, or the form of writing in the verse, basically tells us what radius of generalization to use, aside from the content itself, which tells us “vehicles such as this and this and anything of that sort,” which already tells us roughly what we’re talking about. They also signal to us how far to take the “anything of that sort,” meaning how broad, because the radius depends on the structure. And there the Talmud even actually defines the radius by what are called aspects. How many aspects must something share with the examples in order for it too to be forbidden? Say with vehicles: if I characterize those vehicles by certain features—let’s say they make noise, they are large, and they are motorized, not manual, just for the sake of the example—then there are three features here. Now I ask myself, okay, and what about a tank? So I check how many of those features a tank also has, and the form in which the sentence is written tells me how many features the thing has to have in order to determine whether it is included in the generalized group or not. Therefore the number of features actually determines the radius of the generalization. So if I say that the number of features is two—the typical structure is that there are three aspects, that’s the typical structure. They usually take the three typical features, not always but usually that’s how it works. And then I say this: if you want a minimal generalization, you require similarity in all three aspects. Meaning all the essential features of the examples have to be present also in the thing under discussion, and then it too is included in the matter. If not, then not. If it’s generalization and specification and generalization, then only two aspects. If it’s two aspects, that means two out of the three features have to be there. In principle, by the way, it could be any two, meaning there can be generalizations in all kinds of directions in principle. There are certain forms that prevent even the “any two,” and then that means a broader generalization. In other words, you loosen the requirements a bit, and that means that more things are included in this matter. And if you say specification and generalization, that means similarity in one aspect. That’s the broadest. It’s enough that there is one side of resemblance and it’s in. If a thing only makes noise, or is large, or is motorized, then it is forbidden to bring it into the playground. Okay? And that is of course the broadest set. The smaller the number of aspects, the greater the radius of the generalization. I’m just bringing this as an example to show that there is some combination here of a rule in the sense of a kind of arbitrary code that is simply set between the encoder and the decoder, because I don’t think the difference between generalization and specification and generalization, and generalization and specification, and specification and generalization, is logical. It seems to me that this isn’t something I would apply in other books if it weren’t agreed upon with the author, with the writer, who tells me that this is how he wrote the book. But the very fact that there is a change between general and particular within the wording of the verse—that is logical. And when there is a shift from general wording to particular examples to general wording, those transitions usually really do express that the particular examples need to be generalized. It’s not only those examples, but what resembles them. So there’s a combination here of something that has a certain logic to it, together with some rules that were given along with it. Okay, that’s basically, I think, a good illustration of the character of the rules in general. They are not a code, but clearly this is not just ordinary interpretive reasoning either. I mean, if it were ordinary interpretive logic, then there would be no need for a system of rules; just as you interpret any text, you would interpret the Torah too. But it’s not exactly like that. When we approach War and Peace, nobody interprets it exactly according to a set of hermeneutic rules, right? That’s not our usual way of interpreting texts. So we shouldn’t take too far the statement that there is logic in them. There is logic in them, it’s not a code, but mixed into it are also formal or arbitrary elements and not only logical elements. So here we read the first paragraph of Orot HaKodesh on pages 19 and 20, where he claims that the derashot are actually based on knowledge of the ways of language. Once you say that it is based on knowledge of the ways of language, you are basically assuming implicitly that derash is the depth of peshat. That this is actually the meaning of the verse, only someone who understands the ways of language well enough. We talked about the fact that our language is not exactly Biblical Hebrew; there are differences. “To visit in His sanctuary,” right? Remember that example? No? Yes? I have it in my head. I once heard this from Rabbi Moshe Shapira. By the way, I’m not one hundred percent sure he’s right, but it’s an example that represents the phenomenon well. He says: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek: that I dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the pleasantness of the Lord and to visit in His sanctuary.” What is called “to visit”? Usually in our language, “to visit” means to drop by for a moment, to see what’s going on. In other words, it points to a certain temporariness. Now, “that I dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,” so what is “to visit in His sanctuary”? Rather, “that I dwell in the house of the Lord and to visit in the sanctuary”? In the sanctuary. Okay. But usually the meaning is that this is parallelism, meaning it’s not a continuation, it’s the same idea. And today there are lots of derashot on this. “That I dwell in the house of the Lord,” for example, derashot like: you need to dwell in the house of the Lord all your life and constantly feel like a visitor, as though it’s new, “let them be new in your eyes each day.” But all of that is derashot that come from modern Hebrew; it has nothing to do with Biblical Hebrew. In modern Hebrew, “to visit” means to be a guest for a moment. So how does that fit with “that I dwell in the house of the Lord”? So we make derashot. But Rabbi Moshe Shapira claimed—and I didn’t check this, but that’s what he claimed—that “to visit in His sanctuary” means to be there, to dwell there permanently. Like the state comptroller—not a visitor who visits for a moment, but someone who conducts an inspection; that’s someone who does it seriously, meaning takes it all the way. So that is called “to visit in His sanctuary.” And many of the ways in which we read Scripture are ways that are actually influenced by our Hebrew today, which is not necessarily the Biblical language, or at least not exactly the Biblical meaning. We shouldn’t exaggerate the differences, but yes, in the Haredi world they like to point out those differences. About guests who come to visit and get stuck. Ah yes, there are also guests, right. But yes, there are some differences, and therefore what he is saying here is really that the derashot—he claims that, for example, the reason the derashot seem strange to us, odd, illogical, is because we lost our command of the ways of language. In other words, we are not familiar with the Biblical language. By the way, we as Hebrew speakers are more prone to this than someone who doesn’t speak Hebrew. Because a person who speaks Hebrew is sure he understands what is written there, since after all he knows Hebrew. But in Hebrew, that is not always really the meaning there. Someone who doesn’t know Hebrew has no illusions. He may not understand, he may understand, but if he understands, he understands what is written there. But someone who speaks Hebrew is more prone to this type of mistake. And really behind what he writes here lies the conception that I said I don’t think is correct, namely that derash is basically the true peshat. Meaning, if you understand the ways of language and you’re sensitive to all the nuances and so on, then you understand that in fact derash is the way to interpret the verses. And I quoted the Vilna Gaon to the effect that derash and peshat are two parallel modes of relating to the text, and each has its own rules. Derash is not supposed to decode the plain meaning of the verse—it is not the depth of peshat—but rather another way of relating to the same verse, and it lives alongside the peshat mode. In other words, both exist; we received both. He proposes a combination of peshat and derash and so on. Okay, now I’ll continue on page 20, in the middle of the page, the paragraph there in the middle. One must understand that the derashot themselves were not transmitted to Moses our teacher at Sinai. Maimonides writes in the introduction to his commentary on the Mishnah that many times the Talmud looks for a scriptural source for a received and accepted Jewish law, and each tanna or amora gives a different derashah. Had the derashot been transmitted to Moses our teacher at Sinai, there would be no disagreement about them. If the derashot were given at Sinai, then what do you mean that suddenly everyone brings a different derashah to anchor the same known Jewish law? Yes, “the fruit of a beautiful tree”—that’s the example which, it seems to me, is also the example Maimonides brings. “The fruit of a beautiful tree” in the Talmud in tractate Rosh Hashanah—there it says “a fruit that dwells by all waters,” “that remains on its tree from year to year.” In other words, there are various derashot that explain why “the fruit of a beautiful tree” means an etrog. Fine? So he says that if the derashah had been accepted from Sinai, had been part of the Sinai tradition, then what disagreement is there? Why does each sage bring a different derashah? There should be one derashah that we received at Mount Sinai. A parenthetical note: actually these examples really are, it seems to me, clear examples of what—if I remember correctly—I also mentioned when I spoke about creative derashot and supportive derashot. There is—the usual apologetics says that all derashot are supportive. Meaning the Jewish laws were given to us by tradition, and the derashah merely anchors the known Jewish law in the text. Then there’s no problem; there’s no need to worry that the methods of derash are somewhat questionable, because we received the result by tradition. Fine, the result is correct Jewish law. So from an apologetic standpoint it’s convenient to explain it that way. But obviously it doesn’t stand up to examination. We spoke about it—the verse “she remains in her menstrual state” with Rabbi Akiva; I think I brought that example. Clearly there are creative derashot. Not all derashot are supportive. There are supportive derashot; not all derashot are supportive. In a responsum, Maimonides writes that there are maybe three or four supportive derashot; all the rest are creative. He doesn’t mean literally three or four—he means a very small number, it could also be ten or fifteen—but the supportive derashot are isolated cases. Most derashot are creative derashot. One of the indications that a derashah is supportive—we don’t always know whether a derashah creates the Jewish law or merely supports an existing Jewish law—but one of the indications is a derashah of the type “the fruit of a beautiful tree.” Because the fact is that there are five different derashot—I think it’s five—and each of them ends up at the etrog. Meaning, if we didn’t know that it was an etrog, I would expect one person to interpret “the fruit of a beautiful tree” as an apple, one to say etrog, one to say lemon, and each one would bring some derashah supporting his own position. But we see that each one brings a different derashah, meaning there is disagreement; they did not know what the derashah was, there is disagreement about the derashah. But the fact that all of them arrive at the same result, always the etrog—that really does make me think that there it is a supportive derashah. There it was already known that it was an etrog, and people were looking for derashot to anchor it in the text. But that is the exception that proves the rule; usually the derashot are not like that. And many times there is indeed also halakhic disagreement as a result of the disagreement in the derashot. It’s not always that the Jewish law is agreed upon and we merely argue about which route leads to it. Many times the disagreement over the derashah also yields a halakhic disagreement. Okay? So there it is apparently a creative derashah, not a supportive one. That’s one of the objections. If it’s creative, then it should be from Moses at Sinai, no? No, the opposite. The opposite. If it’s creative, that means it creates a new Jewish law. So there is no tradition here about that law. If there had been a tradition, it would be a supportive derashah, meaning that the law is known by tradition and the derashah merely anchors it. I understand. So from an apologetic standpoint it is very convenient to present everything as supportive, precisely because of the strangeness of the methods of derash. But that is not the truth. The truth is that the methods of derash—meaning, the truth is that the derashot create new Jewish laws. But then the question of strangeness comes back up again. How can one rely on methods of inference that are so non-unequivocal? That depend so much on the person making the inference. And here the opposite apologetic side comes up: it’s a code. It’s an arbitrary code—true, there is no logic in it—but whoever was equipped with it, even though we today have lost it, forgotten it, whoever was equipped with it is like someone synchronized with the encoder; then there’s no problem decoding the encrypted message, right? You simply look at the chart we agreed upon—Atbash, for example. So aleph is tav, bet is shin, gimel is resh, and so on. There is no logic in Atbash; it’s an agreement between the encoder and the decoder, but once we’re synchronized, he can send me whatever he wants and I decode it with the key we agreed on. Okay? But why encrypt? And why encrypt in advance? Good question. Why make derashot at all if they are all merely supportive? Also a good question. What do I need this game for? These two apologetic approaches are different, but both of them bring us to a place where maybe you solved the problem of strangeness, but you raised another question: what do I need all this for? And even in the second solution there is a bit of code here, meaning, as I said, there is a dimension here—there is a law given to Moses at Sinai regarding the hermeneutic rules, something was transmitted there. It’s not all our own reasoning. But yes, there is something logical here. We know this from the fact that people also process these rules, develop them, define sub-rules within an existing rule, and all of that is human activity; we didn’t receive it at Mount Sinai. I spoke about that one of the previous times. Therefore there is a combination here of our own reasoning together with some details or framework that somehow was indeed received, but it is something in the middle. And therefore I think that both apologetic approaches—the approach of the arbitrary code and the approach that these are the true ways of language and so on—I don’t think either of them holds up. And the approach of supportive derashot too—I don’t think any of them is correct. Rather, yes, there is some combination here of a system we received together with our own reasoning. And true, it is not unequivocal, and there were many disagreements about it among the sages, and still—what can you do—even in the methods of plain-text interpretation there are disagreements. So because of that, should we not interpret? You can’t not interpret. How can you take a text and not allow yourself to interpret it? It says nothing without interpretation. So what can you do—life is not mathematics, and we do what we can. It’s not unequivocal, and people argue, and if there is a dispute then we vote and follow the majority. That’s just how it is. There’s no need to be frightened by that. Wait, why doesn’t that answer the question of why put in a code? Meaning, why not write the book the way every other book is written? No, because the purpose is that there be two layers in parallel in the same verse: one in interpretation and one in derash. That question you can no longer ask. And if derash is the true peshat, then maybe the question is why not write it? Write two verses. Write two verses—but it’s not two, it’s far more than two. You can give… The sages say in Eruvin 21: why didn’t they write all rabbinic laws? Because “of making many books there is no end.” That’s what the Talmud says—even about rabbinic law, not derashot. In principle, true, He could have written everything, but it’s more than just that He could have written everything. The claim—and this is what I also said in Maimonides’ name—is that you can’t write everything. Not only can’t you write everything, but the result we arrive at is not really what the Holy One, blessed be He, originally intended. We are not uncovering here His hidden intentions. We received certain tools with which we can expand what we received from Him, so this is not the decoding of some intention embedded in the text from the outset, where it was written while inside the Holy One, blessed be He, already knew that we would use this “et” to include Torah scholars and that gezerah shavah. Obviously not. He says to us: look, when there is an “et,” you can expand; when there is a gezerah shavah, make some comparison. What exactly will you do with it? Decide according to your own reasoning, according to the needs, according to who knows what kinds of things—and this can also change from generation to generation. Therefore there is no point in writing it all down; if it were written, that would be a problem. And this is not aimed at some truth that exists and that the interpreter is trying to hit? Clearly it is, but the truth is through your lenses, and the truth of the next generation may be different, or the truth of a sage in another place may be different. You’re not guaranteed to succeed, but yes, you are aiming at some truth. You’re trying to understand how it is right to expand. According to Maimonides this is expansion, not uncovering, so essentially you are not aiming at something that was already the intention of the words; you are aiming that this be the proper expansion, not that it be the original intention. Not that this was the original intention. Again, if it were uncovering the original intention, then the methods of derash would be uncovering and not expansion. Once I define them as expansion, I am basically saying: I’m not trying to hit something that was already there. I am trying to do it correctly. That truth existed beforehand too—even before the interpreter interpreted it, it was true even before he interpreted it. No, because the reality did not yet exist then at all. Right. Who says? It was true that when that reality would arise, then it would be so. I don’t know whether you call that uncovering or not in such a case, but the whole truth already existed when the Holy One, blessed be He, gave it. It existed in potential. If He had expanded the text, then maybe He too would have expanded it in that direction, let’s say if I’m optimistic. But He did not do that, and deliberately did not want to set it in stone. Therefore from His standpoint this is expansion; He gives us the possibility of taking it in all kinds of directions. In every situation, do what you think is right. Did He think of this in advance in the theoretical sense? Maybe yes. It’s like—we talked once, I think, about this matter, in the introduction of Tosafot Yom Tov to the Mishnah, where he writes that there is a difference between all the things that God showed—“everything that a veteran student would one day innovate,” or “a young student.” There are different textual versions. “The Holy One, blessed be He, showed it to Moses at Sinai.” There is a sort of conception that basically we’re playing a rigged game all the way through, that everything was already given to Moses our teacher. Yes, every innovation you say this morning in the study hall, or whatever it may be, Moses our teacher already said long ago. Your lips are merely articulating Moses’ lips. So Tosafot Yom Tov explains—still taking it literally, whereas I think it’s really not difficult at all because the real meaning is not a historical statement but a normative one. Meaning that “the Holy One, blessed be He, showed it to Moses at Sinai” means that everything you arrive at by means of your interpretation or your derash, you should relate to it as though the Holy One, blessed be He, said it at Sinai. Exactly what I just said. Even though this is expansion, it is true, it’s expansion—but you were given permission to expand. The Holy One, blessed be He, did not necessarily intend this, but from your standpoint this is what the Torah wants from you. To my mind that is the meaning, a normative one, not a historical one. It does not mean that historically He actually said it there. But Tosafot Yom Tov does go in the historical direction, though he still softens the overly simplistic historical reading. He wants to say that there is a difference between what the Holy One, blessed be He, showed Moses at Sinai and what He gave him at Sinai. In other words, there is Torah that was given to Moses; the Torah that was given to Moses he passed on to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and it continues by tradition. The things that a veteran student will one day innovate, or a young student will one day innovate—those he innovates. He did not receive them by tradition. The Holy One, blessed be He, merely showed Moses prophetically that these are the things that would be innovated in the future—He showed them to him. Fine, but Moses did not pass them on to Joshua and Joshua to the elders, and now the person is not merely transmitting a tradition when he innovates. He is innovating. And I say: I don’t think you even need to go that far. Obviously this is a normative statement and not a historical one. But even on the historical reading, one can read it in a less dogmatic way than people usually think. Meaning, obviously the Torah develops throughout history, but it is not uncovering; it is expansion. Okay, now I’ll continue reading from him: Rather, at Sinai only the rules were transmitted. That is, the Written Torah was given to Moses in its form. In truth, the Written Torah was given over the course of the entire forty years, but we ascribe everything to Sinai. The dispute between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva whether its general principles and details—whether its general principles were at Sinai and its details in the Tent of Meeting, or whether both its general principles and details were from Sinai. Let me just say: on a simple reading of the Torah, it is quite clear that it was given in sections and not all given at Sinai. And he was given the instruction to read the Torah with precision and to find in it all the details of the laws by means of the hermeneutic rules by which the Torah is interpreted, and by all the rules of language and ways of language, and also with the aid of reason. So this really means that Moses our teacher was given the Written Torah, the text itself, and the principal methods of how to interpret or derive from the Torah. But not the derashot themselves. Wait, according to him were the hermeneutic rules themselves transmitted? He doesn’t write here what his view is about the hermeneutic rules; he writes here about derash in general, about the methods of derash and interpretation. I assume he means the hermeneutic rules. But what does it mean that the hermeneutic rules were transmitted? I spoke about that once. I said I don’t think it means that Moses our teacher received a closed list of hermeneutic rules. Rather, he received that there is also another way to approach this text, namely the midrashic way. Over the years people tried to conceptualize the principles or rules according to which we approach verses in this midrashic way, and little by little we arrived at these lists of rules. Hillel’s seven and Rabbi Yishmael’s thirteen, and so on. But Rav Mandel doesn’t say that this means no examples were given, right? If I understood correctly. I don’t know. He says that the Torah was given and the principal methods of derash and interpretation were given. That can be given by means of examples, or by other means—he doesn’t spell it out here, in my opinion. I said what seems to me. I don’t know what he means here; he doesn’t elaborate. And that is what was transmitted to Moses at Sinai—not the laws and not the results of the derash. That is really what he is trying to exclude. He is basically saying: no, the apologists are not right to say that every law in the Mishnah Berurah was transmitted to Moses at Sinai. Nonsense. Moses our teacher never dreamed of ninety-eight percent of the laws in the Mishnah Berurah. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are not binding; those are two different things. This need not be a historical statement that it was transmitted to Moses at Sinai. It can also be a normative statement. Meaning, if this is what came out for us through the methods of Jewish law, and this is the result, then from our standpoint it is as if it was given at Sinai. This is the result of the Torah we received. Moses our teacher, in his profound wisdom, studied the Torah with the elders who were with him, and interpreted the Torah according to the rules he received, so that he was able to pass on to future generations the essential Jewish laws. They were transmitted from generation to generation from Moses at Sinai—that is, from what Moses our teacher understood in the Torah according to the rules he received at Sinai. And he claims that even the laws that Moses our teacher derived from the Torah, he also did not receive from the Holy One, blessed be He; rather he received the rules. He used the rules to derive laws, and what we call “a law to Moses at Sinai” actually does not come from the Holy One, blessed be He, but from Moses our teacher, who derived it from the Torah through the rules of midrash. Let’s say this is definitely against Maimonides. Maimonides says quite unequivocally not so. But okay, one is also allowed to disagree with Maimonides. I think this category called “a law to Moses at Sinai” is a category that is different from midrashic laws. According to his view it should have been the same thing. Maimonides also defines—what? In what sense is it different? Maimonides defines a law to Moses at Sinai as a law that has no anchor in the text and in derashot. It has no what? It has no anchor in the text and in derashah. You cannot find a derashah that anchors it in the text. That is what in the rabbinic jargon is called a law to Moses at Sinai. But conceptually too, why call it a law to Moses at Sinai if it’s the same principle, just that he was the first one to do it? What? According to… conceptually too, to call it a law to Moses at Sinai if it’s the same thing and he just did it first—there’s no reason to call it a law to Moses at Sinai. If the assumption is that Moses’ interpretation is accepted without challenge, then it is something that is… why is it different? Yes, if Moses did this on his own, what’s the difference between Moses and Joshua? So if it had been Joshua—from Sinai? The point is that Moses was a prophet and he heard… more than Joshua, okay, and Joshua more than the elders. Fine. But still, if it is his own work, so what’s the problem? It didn’t come from above. I don’t know. Fine, that’s what he claims; I don’t think I agree with him. Let us take for example the commandment: “And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree.” Didn’t we read this? Fine. The Talmud gives several derashot for how we know… The Talmud gives several derashot for how we know that the Torah means the etrog, and some of the derashot seem strange to us, but when we reflect we find that the matter is understandable. What is “beautiful”? It is known that “hadar” is beauty, an impressive external form that inspires respect, as in “his majesty is like the firstling bull,” “he had no form and no majesty.” And furthermore, there are many beautiful fruits—pomegranate, apple, and others—but among all fruits there is no fruit that is always fresh like the etrog. All fruits are fresh only in their season. Some have a good smell, but once their season passes they shrivel and wither, their scent dissipates and their appearance becomes poor. The etrog is a fruit that continues to grow the more it is watered. It grows by all waters and remains on its tree from year to year. Those are two of the derashot that appear there in the Talmud. On the tree you find large fruits together with small ones, and they all look fresh. The etrog is “the fruit of a beautiful tree,” a fruit whose tree causes its beauty, because its freshness comes from the tree. Whoever tastes the etrog tree will sense in it the taste and smell of the fruit. “The taste of its tree and its fruit are the same”—this too is one of the derashot the Talmud brings, that the taste of the tree is the same as the taste of the fruit. That was once the case in the creation of the world. Once, the taste of the tree was like the taste of the fruit, and because of part of the curse, now only the fruits retained the taste and the tree became just wood. I don’t know—I’ve never tasted etrog wood; maybe it really is tasty. Which is not the case with other fruit trees. So all the derashot that the Talmud expounds fit the idea expressed in the depth of the language of the verse. Wait, he understands “the taste of its tree and fruit are the same” literally? Meaning that really the taste of the etrog and the taste of the peel are the same… That’s how I understand it. That’s what he says. Of the tree, the hard wood. Yes, that’s how I understand it. So if today’s agriculturalists succeeded in grafting a fruit that is not an etrog but has these properties, then would that also be acceptable? Would it? Not the same… Meaning, that’s the same question. Did they say “etrog” at Sinai and now we are only finding the definitions of the “fruit of a beautiful tree,” or do we need to find the definitions, and if there is another fruit… More than that—the question could also be a third thing. The question is always whether this is a sign or a cause. In other words, is the definition of “the fruit of a beautiful tree” a fruit whose tree tastes like its fruit, and that is always fresh and so on, remains on its tree from year to year and so forth—and if we make another fruit like that, no problem, it too can be an etrog? Or no—these are indications that when the Torah spoke of “the fruit of a beautiful tree” it meant the etrog. If we make something else like it, that won’t help, because the point is not to take a fruit of that type on Sukkot. The Torah meant a certain fruit, it just defined it through its properties. Now if so, then a fruit like that made today is certainly not what the Torah meant, because the Torah meant a fruit that already existed. A similar question comes up with tekhelet, for example—a question that bothered me for a long time. The tekhelet of tzitzit. People are always arguing over the identification of the chilazon, right? Which mollusk is the correct one to produce… Why does it matter which mollusk? If the result is a tekhelet color, that’s what the Torah wants, no? To put tekhelet on the tzitzit—that’s what the Torah wants: “and you shall place on the fringe of each corner a thread of tekhelet.” If it meets all the Torah’s criteria—that it’s tekhelet and stable, and it has the sky-like color, yes, tekhelet resembles the sea—why do we need to identify the mollusk? Because the sages wrote that indigo is invalid. Because the sages wrote that one does not fulfill the obligation with indigo. The question is why. Where did he say why? After all, it says tekhelet. How would we know otherwise? Meaning, what is the reason? How did the sages know this? Yes, why—where did the sages derive this from? So I say: apparently they assumed—again, I don’t know why, but apparently they assumed—that even if I find another mollusk, or not a mollusk at all, or something else, that gives me exactly the same tekhelet as the original tekhelet, it still will not be the right tekhelet. Meaning, you have not fulfilled the commandment of tekhelet. The tekhelet the Torah intended is a specific tekhelet, and maybe the way to describe it is by all sorts of means—its appearance, hue, how stable it is, and all kinds of things of that sort. But if I produce something else that has all these properties, it is not clear that it will still be valid tekhelet. It could be that these are only means to indicate which color the Torah intended. And the Torah certainly intended a specific color. If I now find something else that meets all the criteria, it still won’t be that. So why make us do the hard work? Why not write “etrog”? Why not write “etrog”? Why give us crossword puzzles? Rather, what makes more sense is that I really need to find the fruit with those properties. So until now they found it in the etrog. If there is a grafted other fruit? Good question. I agree, good question. I don’t know how to answer it. Anyway, the claim behind this passage is really a continuation of what he also wrote in the previous passage: that in practice, derash is simply to interpret the verse correctly—that is what is called derash. In other words, derash means following the ways of language; it is not another mode running parallel to peshat. The peshat interpretation of “the fruit of a beautiful tree” is “etrog.” How do I know that? Because it says things like “remains on the tree from year to year” and all sorts of things like that. That is the correct way to read the verse. And he keeps returning to this all the time. “Thus all the derashot that the Talmud expounds fit the idea expressed in the depth of the language of the verse.” In other words, the derashah only exposes the depth of peshat; it is not a parallel mode of relating to the text. And again, this is against what the Vilna Gaon writes. I don’t think he’s right, but that is his claim. It should be understood that the words of the Talmud, that in Greek they call water “hydor,” were said by way of rhetorical flourish. The meaning is not that the Torah is indeed speaking here in Greek, but that the reason for the hadar is that it grows by all waters, and your mnemonic is “hydor” in Greek. So that is just a manner of expression of the sages; it does not mean that the Torah is really written in Greek. It’s like the… Maybe he even brings this regarding “frontlets between your eyes,” I don’t remember anymore. There too, “tat” in Katpi means two, “pat” in Afriki means two, all kinds of things like that. The question is whether the Torah is really written in an African language, or whether this is only the sages’ way of saying what is meant and giving some mnemonic or something like that. By the way, regarding “tat” in Afriki and so on, from the way the Talmud presents it, it seems they really meant that it is actually written in an African language. That’s the claim. I saw a claim that those words somehow migrated from Hebrew into those languages. Meaning we are finding the source again in distant places in remote developments of it. Okay. There is also “Jegar-Sahadutha,” yes, there are also Aramaic words in the Torah. Aramaic was not spoken at the time the Torah was written? Greek I don’t think yet existed—I don’t know. And even the Aramaic there does not appear as the language of the Torah; it appears as… if I remember correctly, Laban called it Jegar-Sahadutha. Right, so that’s something else. It’s not that the text suddenly switched language… Ah no, obviously—I’m saying even more than that: at that time Laban the Aramean really did speak Aramaic, so the Torah is simply describing what was. But even if Greek existed in the Torah’s period, still, if it were being quoted in the name of a Greek person, then it would write Greek. But it doesn’t appear in the name of a Greek person; it’s just suddenly in the middle of the text you’d have a Greek word. Yes. And now that we know that “the fruit of a beautiful tree” means beauty and freshness, there is room for further questions. Does the lulav also need hadar? And is a dry or deficient etrog and the like invalid because it is not hadar? And as is known—by the way, this really is an indication that according to his interpretation at least, hadar itself is indeed required here. Hadar is not merely a sign that the intention is etrog, but an actual requirement for a beautiful fruit. Otherwise what’s the problem? We discovered that it means etrog, finished. As far as I’m concerned, now let there be a hole in it—what do I care? It doesn’t need to be beautiful. Hadar is not the requirement; it’s only a sign, not a cause. Meaning it’s only a sign that when the Torah wrote this it meant etrog. But he says no: after we understand that it means etrog, we continue asking, okay, but it also needs to be beautiful. Meaning that the features are not merely features that come to identify which fruit the Torah is talking about; rather, the Torah really requires the features themselves. Why not identify? He narrows it within the fruit itself—meaning to identify not only the species, but also within the species the subgroup, which fruit. Yes, but if hadar means that it remains on its tree from year to year, then there you go—the etrog is like that, even if it has a hole in it. Fine, so you see there is something here whereby, after we have discovered it, we are left with the beauty requirement and continue to work with it. In other words, it did not serve us only in order to identify which fruit was meant. As is known, there are discussions and even disputes in the Talmud about these questions. The development of additional details of Jewish law from the Bible and from reason continued even after Moses our teacher understood on his own and transmitted to us the interpretation of the text and the principal laws arising from it. Fine—the Torah develops over the years, that is obvious. However, from the language of Maimonides in his introduction to the Mishnah and in the second root in Sefer HaMitzvot, it appears that in his opinion the basic interpretation and the principal laws were transmitted to Moses at Sinai. But it seems there is no need to say so. Maimonides after all says that even the principal laws, such as that “the fruit of a beautiful tree” is the etrog, can be learned from the text—that is, they have an indication and allusion in the text. A full allusion, not an allusion in the sense of wordplay, but a full allusion in the sense that it is implied within the text, meaning that it can be extracted from there. And if so, what is the need for double work? Both to transmit them explicitly and then afterward for us to be able to find them ourselves? And to say that the indication in the text is not clear enough and the Holy One, blessed be He, did not want Moses our teacher to make a mistake—there is no… Here again I disagree with him, because Maimonides himself also explains why this duplication exists. Maimonides answers this question. Maimonides explains that where we have a tradition and we find for it a derashah that anchors it in the text, then the result is Torah-level. If we have a tradition and no derashah, that is what is called a law to Moses at Sinai—a law transmitted by tradition, and we do not know how to anchor it in the text; there is no derashah. So it’s not Torah-level? Then it’s not Torah-level. A law to Moses at Sinai according to Maimonides is rabbinic law. Because it’s not Torah-level, it is not from the Torah. For Maimonides, Torah-level is interpreted literally. Torah-level means what comes from the Torah. A law to Moses at Sinai is not from the Torah, it is not written in the Torah; it was said orally. Okay? So a law to Moses at Sinai is something for which there is tradition but no derashah that anchors it in the text. That’s the jargon here. Many things were transmitted from Sinai; some are written. But what is called in the Talmud “a law to Moses at Sinai” is those laws that were only transmitted orally; they are not written and we also have no derashah that can extract them from the text. By contrast, midrashic laws and creative derashot are laws created by a derashah. They were not transmitted by tradition; we have a derashah and it created the law. That too is rabbinic according to Maimonides. But a law for which we have a tradition—what is called a supportive derashah—a law for which we have a tradition and for which we find an anchor in the text by means of a derashah, that is a Torah-level law according to Maimonides. And Nachmanides challenges him and says: why? Tradition alone, you say, is rabbinic, derashah alone is also rabbinic, so why does tradition plus derashah suddenly become Torah-level? Zero plus zero equals one? In other words, decide: if these two things are methods that yield rabbinic laws, then why does the combination of two such things suddenly turn the law into Torah-level? Right? But for our purposes, Maimonides explains the duplication—what he asks here, why the duplication. Maimonides explains that where there is duplication, that is simply because we are dealing with a Torah-level law. Where there is no duplication—either only tradition or only derashah—then it is rabbinic law. By the way, the answer to Nachmanides’ question, in my opinion, is that, as I said before, according to Maimonides the derashot are expansions. When a derashah derives some law, that is an expansion of what is in the text, not an uncovering. Okay? But sometimes a derashah uncovers what is in the text. Take, for example, this derashah of “the fruit of a beautiful tree.” As I said earlier, there are five derashot there, all of which end up at the etrog. So that means there was a tradition that it was the etrog, right? That is a supportive derash. There was a tradition that it was the etrog, and the sages found different derashot to anchor that result in the text. And then according to Maimonides it comes out that it is Torah-level? That it is Torah-level, not rabbinic. And why? Exactly because the derashot explain to us what the Torah meant when it said “the fruit of a beautiful tree.” So now that we have understood that this is what the Torah meant, then from our perspective that is what is written in the verse. So it is Torah-level. Thus, that derashah—a derashah that comes to anchor an existing law—is an uncovering derashah, not a creative derashah, not an expanding derashah. It is an uncovering derashah. Meaning, the claim that… that is, the difference between a supportive derashah and a creative derashah… is also in the meaning of what the derashah does, not only in the question whether the law was already given and the derashah merely came to anchor it, or whether the derashah created the law. That is the accepted definition of creative and supportive derash. Maimonides understands that the significance of what the derashah does also changes between supportive and creative derash. In supportive derash, the derash interprets the verse for me, and therefore the result is a Torah-level law, because the derash uncovers what the verse means. But creative derash expands beyond what is in the verse, and therefore there it is rabbinic law. The creative derash expands, and the supportive derash uncovers. Therefore the supportive derash yields a Torah-level law, and the creative derash yields a rabbinic law. That is what he means. He says that in supportive derash you need both the tradition and the derash. That is, you received that it is about the etrog, and now the derash tells you that it is the etrog. Exactly. So the derash says to you that the text “the fruit of a beautiful tree” really means etrog, because you also received by tradition that it is the etrog. So if so, why say that it is rabbinic? The text itself, which says “the fruit of a beautiful tree,” is interpreted as etrog. So the Torah writes etrog—how can that be rabbinic? If you say “you shall fear the Lord your God” includes Torah scholars, then the “et”—the derashah that includes from the “et”—is an expanding derashah. I do not claim that the verse itself intended also fear of Torah scholars, and not only fear of the Holy One, blessed be He. The verse spoke about the Holy One, blessed be He. We expand it also toward Torah scholars. So because this is expansion, it is a rabbinic rule, because it is not a rule that is Torah-level as written in the text, that is from the Torah. Fine? But if the derash was the means by which I deciphered the meaning of the verse, then it is Torah law. Okay. And in general, in parentheses, on page 22: when one finds wording in Maimonides or another source that apparently means such-and-such, but it is not understandable in terms of the content, and from the content we clearly understand otherwise, one should not cling too much to the wording but follow the understanding. Moreover, sometimes one must emend the text in the source before us if understanding compels it. In short: don’t get too excited about the text. If something seems illogical to you, emend the text. That’s the claim. Now, this is a known idea that I know in the name of the famous Chazon Ish: it is better to strain the wording than to strain the reasoning. If you have something that seems to be the meaning of the verse, but on the other hand it is terribly illogical, then what do you do now? Strain the reasoning or strain the wording? Better to strain the wording. Meaning, something has to fit the reasoning. This somewhat resembles what I said in the name of Rabbi Weitman from his article, where he says that what we call peshat is not really a purely literal interpretation, but the interpretation of the words plus some assumptions of ours about what is logical and what is not. What naturally comes to us on first reading—that is called peshat. But what comes to us on first reading is not always only the literal interpretation; it also comes wrapped in all kinds of assumptions that we bring from home. Who wrote that? Rabbi Weitman. He brought some very nice examples of this in HaMaayan, 1978 I think, in responses to articles by Einstein. So I know this in the name of the Chazon Ish, and later I saw in a book by Rabbi Moshe Levi of blessed memory—those who know, he was at Kissei Rahamim, a young man about my age. We had a study partnership with someone who had once been his study partner in a junior yeshiva; he was a bit older than me. He passed away already—I don’t know, fifteen years ago—at a very young age. He published several books; he was a terrifying genius. He was a teacher at Kissei Rahamim, and Rabbi Ovadia had great hopes for him. It was clear to him that he was going to be the next major decisor, but he died at age thirty-five or something. Anyway, in his book, and his command of sources is really frightening, in his notes there he brings a few sources for this matter that it is better to strain the wording than the reasoning. He brings a Beit Yosef in Yoreh De’ah that says this. And in the Chazon Ish I didn’t find it, by the way. It’s an oral tradition kind of thing, that people know the Chazon Ish said it. And he was his student, so I assume it comes from there too. But Beit Yosef says it. But in truth, if you think about it, this rule has no meaning at all. It depends what you’re straining. Exactly. It depends how strained the wording is as against how strained the reasoning is. So obviously in the end we do not go with purely literal interpretation almost ever. On the other hand, we also cannot completely detach ourselves from what is written and just do whatever seems logical to us. Therefore it is clear that what we interpret is some combination of attention to the literal meaning and our own reasoning. So what does “better” mean? Do you have some criterion for what I am supposed to do when there is a conflict? It could be that what he maybe means is that in places where you’re not sure—there are places where it will be gray. You don’t know whether to take it this way and then it fits the reasoning well, or take it that way and then it fits the wording well. So where the linguistic strain is small and the strain on reasoning is great, we’ll go with the reasoning. Where the reverse is true, and the linguistic strain is great, we’ll go with the wording. But where I myself am wavering between the two interpretations, prefer what is logical. Maybe that is what he means; I don’t know. Anyway, okay, that’s regarding the parenthetical remark here. By the way, emending the text is what Rabbeinu Tam placed under ban. There is a ban against emending the wording in books, because people took this thesis of Ovadiah Nadel—I’m speaking about the period of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), up to Rabbeinu Tam—and ran with it all the way. Meaning, not only did they emend the text, they also altered the book itself. Now, sometimes you miss something. Meaning, it’s a bit irresponsible. You don’t understand a certain sentence, it seems illogical to you, you replace a word, and suddenly it becomes very logical. So you replace the word. Now once you pass that on to the next generation, the manuscript is already gone, you don’t know where the manuscript is. People are fed from your correction and are convinced that this is the original. And someone else may come and understand what the original really meant, and the original is indeed logical. By the way, philologists have a rule. There is a very interesting book by Professor Haym Soloveitchik, Responsa as a Historical Source. And there he shows—it’s really a fascinating little book, in my opinion, a teaching booklet for his university course, from the Open University—not, this was published by, I think, Hebrew University, a booklet that accompanied his course. He argues that if you have two possibilities, two manuscripts, one with a corrupted version and one with a corrected version, then the corrupted one is the original. Because who takes something correct and corrupts it? At most, you received something corrupt and corrected it because something seemed illogical to you. But it’s not likely that someone takes something corrected and corrupts it. Right. Therefore obviously the corrupted one is the original. Now, obviously where you can see how a copying error occurred, then this rule won’t apply. You can correct something and copy, skip because of similarity, what’s called homoeoteleuton, right? Or all sorts of things like that, where you can see how that mistake happened—then fine, clearly it was simply a copying mistake. But where there is no simple explanation of how that mistake occurred, and you have two versions, one corrupt and one corrected, the assumption is that the corrupt one is the correct original version. Meaning, there are more cases where the original author was mistaken than cases where… No, he wasn’t mistaken—you didn’t understand. Think carefully; this is the original version, and now think why it is correct. Think carefully why it is correct, and if you think carefully you may be able to find it. Meaning, many times we make these corrections too quickly. Sometimes not, but you can think and… Why do they say there are corrected Torah scrolls? I’ve encountered this many times, that people make emendations, emendations, emendations—and miss things. Now when you have a manuscript passing from generation to generation, it’s very easy to explain that mistakes were made, because the copyist first of all is not… No, so I said: you have to distinguish between two types of mistakes. Meaning, if there’s a copying mistake and you can see that it’s a copying mistake, then there’s no problem; I understand that the corruption is the result of a copying mistake. But if there are two versions and there is no simple relation of copying error between them, two versions that stand on their own and you have no simple explanation of how that error happened—sometimes you skip a line, sometimes it was erased by water… Okay, look into it. We know here the possibilities of copying errors; there are already catalogues of these mistakes. Check them. If you have such an explanation, then certainly that is a possible explanation. But if you have no explanation of how this error became corrupted, and you simply have an unintelligible text and someone then corrected it, replaced a word or something like that—but replaced it not with a similar word as a copying mistake, but with a word that fixes the matter—then the original is the corrupt one. The corrupt one is more likely to be the correct one. “There is something missing here, and this is what it should say” in the Talmud? Yes, that is a broader question, and they discuss whether “there is something missing here, and this is what it should say” means a historical claim that this was really the original wording of the Mishnah, or whether what it really means is: this is how it should be read—not that this was the original wording. This is how you should read the Mishnah. And there is also in some article in the name of… I think it brings it in the name of the Vilna Gaon—there is some dispute about it—but it quotes him saying that the Vilna Gaon said that in fact this means the amoraim are disagreeing with the Mishnah. The amoraim come to disagree with the Mishnah. They say it in the language of “there is something missing here, and this is what it should say.” Meaning, this is how you should read the Mishnah. The intention is: true, not that this is how you should read the Mishnah, but rather leave that Mishnah aside and do this. Or he claimed that they were trying to hide it, as it were. I don’t know. In the course of the argument he told me no, he doesn’t mean they intended to hide it, but rather that since it is a canonical text, one does not disagree with it straightforwardly; instead one hangs everything on the version that came down to them. The version is the binding version; one does not tamper with that text. In the Oral Torah too there was, after all, a long period. So somehow once it became fixed, it became sanctified—I don’t know exactly what—so they don’t want… so even when disagreeing with it they insert it into the wording of the Mishnah because it is the sacred book or the canonical text. Fine, I don’t know; it sounds a bit problematic to me. In any case, even if Maimonides’ meaning is that there were laws indeed transmitted to Moses our teacher, certainly he says that not all the laws were transmitted. And even Moses our teacher did not learn all the laws on his own, but in the later generations they continued to produce yet more details and sub-details from the Bible and from reason. It is said of the Torah that it is “longer than the earth in measure,” and it is impossible to transmit everything. We spoke of this earlier—why wasn’t everything written? And why leave everything with all sorts of codes? It is impossible to transmit everything, especially, as I said earlier, because it is not only impossible to transmit everything, but the result is not really what the Holy One, blessed be He, originally intended. So He cannot transmit everything. It is not what He intended. He left us the possibility of doing what we understand according to these rules. But it was not predetermined in advance. The Torah is alive, dynamic. In the laws they produced, disputes arose. By human nature, disputes arose even in laws that were transmitted too. Maimonides claims not, but it seems quite clear that yes. Even with the lulav, willow branch, and water libation—a law to Moses at Sinai—and later someone comes and says the willow branch is a prophetic custom. And that is how Jewish law is decided: that it is not a law to Moses at Sinai, but a prophetic custom, the striking of the willow branch. So there you see that if it is a law to Moses at Sinai, then how can one person say it is a law to Moses at Sinai and another say it is a prophetic custom? So there you have it—a law to Moses at Sinai became distorted. And I say: even the one who says it is a law to Moses at Sinai sees that the one who disagrees with him says otherwise, and that doesn’t stop him from saying it is a law to Moses at Sinai. Why? Because he understands that even laws to Moses at Sinai can become distorted. Maybe Maimonides didn’t know this Talmudic passage? In Chavot Ya’ir there is a responsum—two long responsa, I think, even—191, 192, something like that—and there he goes through all the laws to Moses at Sinai in the Talmud, and in every one where there is a dispute he discusses whether Maimonides can be reconciled. In some of them he tries to propose a reconciliation, and in some he leaves it unresolved. I don’t know. He doesn’t reject Maimonides. He doesn’t say, “Maimonides, I disagree with him.” Read him and decide what you decide. Why do you need to reject Maimonides? After all, this is not even a halakhic question; it’s a historical one. What difference does it make for Jewish law whether disputes did or did not arise concerning a law to Moses at Sinai? By human nature, people’s opinions are not equal, and each person has his own way of thinking. One sage understands the text one way and that reasoning seems right to him, and his colleague understands differently and reasons differently. Each of them admits that the second opinion also has a place—we spoke about the fact that reasoning is not like “the reasoning of one who grabs what he grabs.” Meaning, this is not reasoning that is logic, not something certain, but rather something plausible, and therefore there can also be disagreement about it—yet still his own view seems more likely to him. “These and those are the words of the living God” means that neither of the two can claim absolute truth. The intellect tolerates both their views. And since the Torah was given to be discussed according to human understanding, both possibilities can be correct. Therefore, “these and those are the words of the living God” really means, he says, that both are wrong. Bad formulation. Yes, “these and those are not the words of the living God.” Exactly. So the meaning is that both are wrong. It’s like what the Talmud brings concerning the concubine in Gibeah there in tractate Gittin on page 6, where Rabbi Yonatan and Rabbi Yoshiya disagree whether he found a fly or whether he found a hair. So they asked—Rav Evyatar meets Elijah the prophet and says to him: so, what is the Holy One, blessed be He, doing now? Occupying Himself with the passage of the concubine in Gibeah. Incredible—precisely when they were dealing with it there. So he asks him: and what is He saying? So he says: “My son Evyatar says thus, and My son Yonatan says thus.” And he said to him: Heaven forbid! Is there uncertainty before Heaven? Meaning, what, is there doubt before the Holy One, blessed be He? What happened there with the concubine in Gibeah? Did he find a fly or a hair? The Holy One, blessed be He, saw it. He can say—this doesn’t even require any special abilities. He was there. Okay, so he says: he found a fly and was not upset, he found a hair and was upset—or the other way around, I don’t remember. Something with the two of them. What does this mean? It just sounds like the Oracle of Delphi, some mystical voice leaving something vague that you can understand any way you want, and then it’s always right. That’s the trick of all the oracles, yes—they always come out right. Like the letters of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Meaning, if you are flexible enough with interpretation, it is always right. So “he found a fly and was not upset, he found a hair and was upset”—what it really says is that each one grasped part of what happened there. One says fly, the other says hair. The truth is, there were both. Fine? There were both, and probably—I think the simple meaning is—that what finally upset him about his concubine was the accumulation of the two together. So what comes out is that each one grasped part of the truth. You can call that “these and those are the words of the living God,” or of course you can call it “these and those are not the words of the living God.” Both were wrong, both were right, but basically this is quite similar to what he writes here: that each one has certain correct aspects, it is legitimate, it falls within the legitimate range, and the other too has correct aspects and that too falls within the legitimate range. Truth was handed to us in such a way that there is not one single truth that we are supposed to hit. So long as it is within the range of legitimate claims, then “these and those are the words of the living God.” That is basically his claim. And what is the meaning of “the law follows so-and-so” if both this and that are the words of the living God? You can interpret it technically, meaning that one must reach an agreed-upon bottom line. So we vote and the law follows so-and-so. Or with the divine voice—what you said, that “these and those are the words of the living God, and the law follows Beit Hillel,” so the divine voice said that the law follows Beit Hillel. But not because the truth is with Beit Hillel, but because—we spoke about this once—the words of the divine voice there in Eruvin, “these and those are the words of the living God, and the law follows Beit Hillel,” usually sound like a reward for good behavior. Because the Talmud there goes on to say: why did Beit Hillel merit that the law be established in accordance with them? Because they were pleasant and humble, and they stated the words of Beit Shammai before their own. So that really does hint in that direction—that this means “these and those are the words of the living God,” both are equally right. Why was Jewish law decided like Beit Hillel? A reward for good behavior. In other words, let us harness halakhic ruling to educational goals; let us educate the public that this is how one should behave. But Rabbi Yosef Karo in his book Klalei HaGemara offers another interpretation—his wording is probably not entirely clear, but it seems that he proposes a different interpretation. He claims that “these and those are the words of the living God, and the law follows Beit Hillel because they were pleasant and humble and stated the words of Beit Shammai before their own, and therefore they are more right. Because one who weighs seriously and objectively the opinion of the person who disagrees with him, and only afterward formulates his own position, will come closer to the truth. Meaning, that method brings you closer to the truth. It is not a reward for good behavior; rather, the law follows Beit Hillel because they are right. So there is a different conception here of what halakhic ruling is. Is halakhic ruling something somewhat arbitrary—meaning we simply need to establish some agreed-upon law, but we could also have established the opposite, there is no superiority to the law that was chosen—or is it a conception that says the law is decided because that is the truth, meaning more correct, or at least closer to the truth? You can never know with certainty, but our assessment is that it is closer to the truth than the other side. And this is interesting, especially against the background—since we’re already discussing “these and those”—of understanding this dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel in general. Because how does the Talmud there open? For three years Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed and could not decide, and then a divine voice emerged. So Tosafot already asks there: but is it not “it is not in heaven”? We do not pay attention to a divine voice. So what good does a divine voice do? He gives various answers. But there is a much simpler answer—what are his answers? There is another Tosafot in Eruvin page 6 that says that the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel is fundamentally a dispute over method. Beit Shammai claimed that Beit Shammai were “sharper,” more intellectually brilliant, okay? And Beit Hillel were more numerous. There were simply more members in Beit Hillel than in Beit Shammai. The brilliant ones are always fewer—you know, it’s always like that. So now there was a dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, and ostensibly what’s the problem? Hold a vote and “follow the majority.” But there was a dispute over what counts as the majority. Do we go after the majority of wisdom or the majority of people? Yes, we once talked about this—do you count heads or do you count legs, right? Beit Hillel says you count legs; Beit Shammai says you count heads. Now in such a situation there’s a problem. First you have to decide what is correct, and only then say where the majority lies. No, no—the assumption was that Beit Hillel agreed that Beit Shammai were sharper than they were. That was agreed, a given. Okay? They said: fine, we are more numerous. So basically the dispute was whether to follow the majority of wisdom or the majority of people. By the way, this dispute continues afterward too. Again, we spoke about this. This dispute continues afterward too. Sefer HaChinukh writes that in a court of three for monetary law, one can have one judge who is learned and understands and is accepted as an expert by the public, and two others who understand when things are explained to them, but are not Torah scholars in their own right. Now, when there is a dispute in court, we follow the majority, “follow the majority,” right? What happens when the two ordinary ones disagree with the head of the court, the expert accepted by the public? Rav Hai Gaon claims that the law follows him, because the determining majority is the majority of wisdom. So why are they there? Maybe to challenge him, to raise questions, to criticize him. They are probably not mere flowerpots. Meaning, when he says something to them, they know how to ask a question or try to understand or present the other side. But still, he is the one who completes the panel of three. Yes, completes the panel of three. So that is Rav Hai Gaon. And Nachmanides says no, you count legs. Four legs are more than two, we count that, and the law follows the two. Fine? So that means that the same dispute that existed between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel really continues much later as well. In practice, Jewish law is accepted like Nachmanides, but I assume that is mainly for practical reasons. Just try now to argue over who is the greater Torah scholar and by how much—that is a recipe for quarrels. So it is pretty clear that at the practical level at least one has to decide like Nachmanides. But for our purposes—why did Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel need a divine voice? They needed a divine voice because in such a dispute there is no way to decide. When do we say “it is not in heaven”? When we have the ability to decide according to the rules of Jewish law. If there’s a dispute, hold a vote and follow the majority. In a Torah-level doubt, rule stringently; in a rabbinic-level doubt, rule leniently; whatever. There are rules for how to decide. When you say “it is not in heaven,” you don’t mean to say: come on, I don’t need heaven, I can manage on my own. You say “it is not in heaven” because we do not resort to heaven. Not that we don’t need heaven—it is forbidden to resort to heaven. I need to manage on my own. Not that I can manage on my own. You’re saying more than that: you’re saying heaven has no significance, heaven has no authority to determine Jewish law. Not that it has no power—it lacks the authority, because in the end the Torah was given to us on earth and we are supposed to make the decision. Heaven disconnected itself in a kind of launch-and-forget. At Sinai the Torah was given and that’s it. Exactly. Now you say no, and there is a situation where heaven suddenly does have a role. Why? In that situation where the Torah on earth cannot sort itself out. We cannot decide by our own rules. So what do we do now—vote on whether to count legs or heads? We won’t be able to decide that vote either. We are stuck. Where the dispute is over the framework, over the very method of decision itself, there is no way to resolve it. Therefore a divine voice emerges and says the law follows Beit Hillel. The reason they needed a divine voice there is simply that they were stuck. Why am I saying all this? One moment. It could be that what the divine voice was really saying is that we count legs. And what about “provided that they are humble”? Provided that they are humble. But it could be that the divine voice said we count legs. Okay. You’re saying that is not the decision itself. That is the explanation for Rav Hai Gaon—how can Rav Hai Gaon, almost a thousand years later, come back and say that we count heads and not legs? After all, Rav Hai Gaon in the case of a court of three said that we follow the Torah scholar. So he would answer like the Ari. He would say that what the divine voice said was not that we count legs, but that Beit Hillel were humble, therefore in their case we count legs. But ordinarily not. Or perhaps there the wisdom accumulated—there were enough people and wisdom accumulates. Of course it can be explained in many ways. But what I am saying here is that if we remember this in the background—that there is basically a dispute here between the brilliant and the humble—then Rabbi Yosef Karo’s explanation is all the more interesting. Because he is basically saying that the law follows Beit Hillel because they are more right. Not for educational reasons. Now what does that mean? They are less brilliant, but more right. And why? Because one who works by their method, even if he is less brilliant, arrives at better results. Meaning he gets closer to the truth. If he seriously weighs the other opinion and states the words of Beit Shammai before his own and only then formulates a position. By the way, we also find in the Talmud that Beit Hillel retracted and acknowledged the words of Beit Shammai; that is, there are examples where we see that Beit Hillel really did that. Meaning, they stated the words of Beit Shammai first, and then suddenly retracted—they understood that they were wrong. And the reverse? The reverse I don’t remember. Maybe there is also, I’m not sure. But the Talmud describes this there as a trait—that was the trait of Beit Hillel. Therefore it is all the more interesting to say that the law was decided like Beit Hillel precisely because the truth is with them. Even though a priori you might have expected that this was less close to the truth, but apparently method matters no less than talent. So that is what he means when he says the intellect bears both, and since the Torah was given to be discussed according to human understanding, both possibilities can be correct. Even so, for the sake of guiding the community there must be a decision. So he is clearly going in the direction that the decision does not mean this is the truth; rather, decision means there is no choice, we have to reach a bottom line. Fine? So that the public conduct be uniform. I think he is mistaken in this, by the way. I wrote an article about it. In my opinion, he is mistaken. Meaning, the goal in halakhic ruling is indeed to reach the truth. That does not mean we are guaranteed always to have reached the truth. It is certainly possible that we made a mistake. But the principle in… Once the Great Court has decided, even if the decision was by majority, the decision is binding and it is the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, that this is how people act. However, before the law has been decided, it is known that people say, “Rabbi so-and-so is worthy to be relied on in pressing circumstances,” even though he is an individual against the majority, and even in Torah-level matters, because in truth the individual opinion too has a place in the Torah. And regarding what counts as “the law has been decided,” there is still more to discuss—for example, does what was ruled in the Shulchan Arukh count as “the law has been decided”? This is not the place to elaborate. Those are comments that he just can’t resist slipping in. But even regarding “Rabbi so-and-so is worthy to be relied on in pressing circumstances,” there too I am not sure I agree with him. It is probably a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim). What—does one fulfill the obligation, is that the meaning? Does “Rabbi Shimon is worthy to be relied on in pressing circumstances” mean that in every place where the law was not decided, you can also rely on the minority opinion despite the majority? On the simple level, “Rabbi Shimon is worthy to be relied on in pressing circumstances” applies even after the law was already decided. More than that, there are medieval authorities who say—the Rema says this most clearly in Torat Chatat, in the introduction to Torat Chatat—that if one says “Rabbi Shimon is worthy to be relied on in pressing circumstances,” then that basically means the law follows him. Because if the law does not follow him, then one may not rely on Rabbi Shimon in pressing circumstances. The law does not follow him, so what do I care that he said something? He said it. Does pressing circumstance allow you to violate the law? If the law was decided against him, then the law is against him. What difference does it make that you’re in a pressing circumstance? Rather, “Rabbi Shimon is worthy to be relied on in pressing circumstances” means that in fact the law follows him. So why only in pressing circumstances? Then rule like him all the time. And since ordinarily it is proper to be stringent, but in pressing circumstances you may act according to the strict law. Fine, you can look it up in the medieval authorities; I’m not going into that now. He assumes this point. Maimonides says—let’s at least finish the chapter—Maimonides says that regarding laws received from Moses our teacher and transmitted from generation to generation, no dispute ever arose. That’s what I mentioned earlier. For if one sage were to testify that thus it was received from Moses our teacher, then certainly we would believe him. That is obviously not true. There are disputes in the Talmud where one says—I brought an example earlier—the willow branch, yes, water libation, a law to Moses at Sinai; another says a prophetic custom. So here is a sage who says this is a law to Moses at Sinai, and the other doesn’t accept it. So the mere fact that someone says so does not necessarily mean we accept it from him. And if Moses our teacher understood thus in the Torah, who is the man that would come after the king? Also, what was innovated in the generations after Moses our teacher and agreed upon by all the sages, or decided by the Great Court, was transmitted from generation to generation as accepted law. The Netziv writes this in the introduction, Kedmat HaEmek, in the introduction to the She’iltot. There is a dispute about what “g’mara gemira la” means. Rashi writes that “g’mara gemira la” means this is a law to Moses at Sinai. But in Maimonides it seems that “g’mara gemira la” is some ancient tradition, not necessarily from Sinai. Still, something that passed down as an authorized tradition and went through the generations and so on—that is called “g’mara gemira la.” He is speaking here about that. It was decided by the Great Court and transmitted from generation to generation as accepted law. But certainly in every generation there were doubts and disputes. It is possible that even Moses our teacher himself had doubts; he transmitted his doubts to the next generation and how he resolved them together with the elders. “Everything that a veteran student will one day innovate was already said to Moses at Sinai”—this is a figurative expression, what I said earlier. It is a normative statement, not a historical one. Meaning that everything derives from what was said to Moses at Sinai: that one should examine and scrutinize the verses and derive from them new Jewish laws. Meaning the whole claim is basically that Torah develops; we are not all hollow pipes merely transmitting what was given at Sinai. We find, moreover, that Nachmanides at the beginning of his glosses to Sefer HaMitzvot explicitly wrote concerning the phrase of the sages “613 commandments were said to Moses at Sinai” that it is not exact, because some commandments were not said at Sinai but afterward, and rabbinic commandments too were counted in this number, and so on. Here too this is not entirely exact. Nachmanides’ conclusion is not that. He only raises such a possibility. I think the Tashbetz says it, but in Nachmanides in the end he does not conclude that way; he only defends the author of Halakhot Gedolot, who counts rabbinic commandments. Fine, we’ll stop here.