Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel’s Thought – Explanation in Halakha – Lesson 3

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, at the first stage, first of all, you need the theory in order to collect the facts. Now once you have the theory, you collected the facts, of course you go back again; it doesn’t end in one loop. And then you test against additional facts, another theory, obviously, it doesn’t end there. But the basic step is not a step from facts to theory, the way people usually think; rather, the collection of facts itself presupposes some kind of theory. And this seemed to him like a very remarkable discovery, this interesting loop between the facts and the theory. Now, in the philosophy of science regarding the natural sciences, these things—I didn’t check again where this first originated, it doesn’t matter, but no one mentions the other. There, in the Open University book, it’s Hempel, never mind, he’s the source for this, and he says the same thing. The famous example is Semmelweis, a Hungarian Jewish doctor, who was head of a department in a hospital. Maternity. What? Exactly, head of the maternity ward. And there was another maternity ward in the same hospital, and the mortality of women in childbirth from childbed fever was at percentages much higher than in his ward. And he tried to figure out what the reason was. Now he didn’t have the slightest clue; they still didn’t know there could be bacteria that transmit diseases and cause things like this, and so on. He had no idea where to look. He started looking in all sorts of directions: how the priest walked through, what the size of the ward was, what the doctors’ ages were. He was shooting in the dark; he didn’t know. Until you have a theory, you don’t know which facts to look for. At some point they discovered—it doesn’t matter—that the students here had dissected corpses, and in that ward there were students who dissected corpses and didn’t wash their hands, because nobody knew you had to wash your hands. Okay? And somehow he discovered, he caught on that this was actually what caused the issue, and indeed they checked it, they washed their hands, and gradually the percentages equalized. But that is exactly an example of the point: as long as you don’t know what really causes the difference, you have no way to collect facts. How will you collect the facts? You don’t understand what bizarre facts he collected there. What experiments. The pitch of the priest’s bell as he passed through the ward—he started trying to change it—various strange and unusual things could be relevant; he had no idea what caused this whole matter. And Hempel makes a whole fuss over this, yes, he says that this is exactly the same conclusion that Carr draws in the historical sphere; in fact he draws it in the realm of philosophy of science. And again he says that theory dictates which are the relevant facts. Think about it: if you don’t know there are bacteria, if someone told you to check whether here they wash their hands and there they don’t wash their hands, it would sound like magic. Check whether here they say the morning blessings and there they don’t say the morning blessings—it’s the same thing. What connection is there between washing hands and the fact that women there die of childbed fever? If you understand that there’s something on the hands, you need to wash them, and that’s what causes the fever, no problem, everything makes sense. Now that’s a relevant fact. But as long as you don’t know the theory, that relevant fact looks totally irrelevant. I’m bringing this just as an example because I just remembered it as a… interesting move. Carr devotes a significant part of his book to it. And really this is something very well known; in philosophy of science this is completely trivial, I mean, it’s elementary. Now, it’s the same kind of thinking that develops in history and in the natural sciences, and here this is not simple logic, meaning not the law of non-contradiction. Obviously it is reason, I mean reason is one thing. So here I think this is a less trivial example of that statement—that the same powder is sprinkled over all fields. Meaning, if you really understand how reason works—not, again, logic in the narrow sense, but how to think correctly—then you can decipher all fields, or many fields. It works similarly. It works similarly. Okay, so when he says human reason is uniform, it seems to me that by “uniform” he doesn’t mean that it is uniform among all people and therefore he’s not talking about logic; rather, uniform across all fields. Meaning, Torah reasoning is not different from the reasoning that governs other fields. The bodies of knowledge in different disciplines differ from one another, but ordered thinking is always dictated by the rules of logic. Obviously the contents of each profession are different contents, but the method, the forms of inference, the thinking, the principles, are more or less uniform, universal. A person uses these rules even without being aware of it. What does “without being aware of it” mean? Aristotle, for instance, created the Organon; there he basically formulated for the first time in an ordered way the rules of logical inference. Now, clearly people also made logical inferences before Aristotle. He didn’t invent logic; he formulated it, conceptualized it, but he didn’t invent it. Why? Because before him people used it intuitively. Yes, intuitively, and each of us has that reason built in, and people make use of it; you don’t have to be a logician to use logic in your everyday thinking. But on the other hand, Aristotle was the first to formulate and understand that there are some rules here that are detached from content, formal rules. Yes, rules that don’t depend on content, that work the same way in every field. If the inference is: all frogs have four legs, Berlo is a frog, therefore Berlo has four legs—that’s exactly the same inference as: all books are interesting, this thing is a book, and therefore this thing is interesting. The logic is exactly the same logic. The facts, the medium in which that logic is embedded, are different, but the reasoning is the same reasoning. I think I once told here about a book, a book written by some German scholar in the early twentieth century, Eugen Herrigel. A book called Zen in the Art of Archery, and he tells there how he went to Japan to visit a friend of his, a professor of law, and asked him because he wanted to study Zen. So he asked him to connect him with some Zen teacher. So he arranged some teacher for him, he went to that teacher, and the teacher says to him: fine, tell me what you want to study. Do you want flower arranging? Fencing? Target shooting with bow and arrow? Or there was something else too, I think, I don’t remember anymore. He said to him: no, I want to study Zen. He said: yes, I understand, but do you want flower arranging or target shooting or wrestling, fencing, or something like that. In the end he understood—and the whole purpose of the book is to describe these experiences to the Western reader, and it was fascinating. He writes there that in the end you’re learning the same thing; it makes no difference at all whether you learn it through flower arranging, fencing, or target shooting. It really makes no difference. You learn exactly the same thing through a different medium. So by analogy I’m saying: you can learn logic through the study of history; make the arguments about historical events, people, historical phenomena—but you can learn all the logic through that. You can learn it through mathematics or physics or whatever you want; it makes no difference at all. The rules or the method—when you deal with method, you aren’t dependent on content. The contents can change, but the method is exactly the same method; it’s formal. It doesn’t depend on content. That’s what’s called formal logic; “form” means shape, yes, it’s logic that depends on form and not on content. So that’s what he means: a person uses these rules even without being aware of it, and Aristotle’s greatness was that he noticed what no one else had noticed. Someone had to notice that there is air around us. We all breathe it and all live in it, but the first time someone noticed that it’s not a vacuum, there’s something here. Meaning, there are many things we use unconsciously, but we don’t even notice they’re there. Until someone puts it on the table, defines it, conceptualizes this system of rules—today we know that without that there wouldn’t be computers or various other things. Meaning, there is value to this conceptualization, to this formulation. But obviously the very ability to make a logical argument doesn’t depend on that. You can, if you’re a smart person, make good arguments even without studying Aristotle’s logic or some other logic. Okay? So that’s why people use this reasoning even without being aware of it. But still it is basically there. And maybe, going back to what I said about him himself, people who study—say, study Jewish law, Talmud, and so on—also use the same things that he is about to try to define; they just don’t notice it. Meaning, for them it’s transparent. They are inside it and make use of it, and then someone with a kind of reflective gaze looks and says: wait a second, let’s formulate the rules by which we work. Meaning, how does this business operate. And that is essentially building the logic book of that field. When you look at it this way, it doesn’t really innovate anything. Meaning, the people doing the work—as I said before—it’s not necessarily a practical tool. It won’t change the way I learn if I formulate the rules for myself. I go on learning the same way.

[Speaker F] Practically speaking, it’s easier to debug.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Huh? Yes, so why—obviously, there are implications in the end. Even with logic, in the end you see there are implications. In complex systems, you won’t manage to reach the right conclusion without using formal tools. Meaning, simple arguments you can do, but complicated arguments you won’t manage without formal tools. Let me maybe give you another example. I once wrote an article about what a halakhic effectuation is in the legal sense. Meaning, what is the effectuation of betrothal, or the effectuation of ownership, or things like that. And the penny dropped for me when I gave a class in the yeshiva in Yeruham. I gave a class on some passage by Rabbi Shimon Shkop where he tries to explain how a condition works. And he says that suppose I divorce a woman on condition that she not drink wine, say, for a year. Fine? So what is her status until the year passes? So he says—without going into it now, there’s a condition of “on condition that” and a condition of “if,” I’m not getting into details, I just want to explain the principle—he says she is both divorced and married at the same time. Fine? And if she drinks wine, then she remains, sorry, on the track of being married. If she doesn’t drink the wine, then the divorce takes effect and she is basically on the track of being divorced. They said to me: what do you mean? What is a woman who is both divorced and married? Divorced means not married; married means not divorced. That’s a logical contradiction. It’s like a square circle. What do you mean? What kind of thing is that? So I stopped for a moment, because really this was— to me it was completely obvious; I had never even thought there was any problem here. And then suddenly the guys there asked me this question, and I paused for a second, tried to think what was going on here, how I had missed such an elementary question. And then I told them I realized it wasn’t wrong—that I was in fact right. Meaning, the claim—what I told them, basically—was that if I’m talking about the woman’s legal status, then obviously she is either divorced or a married woman. But if I’m talking about the—let’s phrase it differently. I can’t say that something is both salty and sweet. Both completely salty and completely sweet. Yes, leave mixtures aside. I can’t say that. I can say that in a dish there is both salt and sugar. No problem at all, right? Meaning, when I talk about attributes, opposite attributes can’t characterize the same object simultaneously. An object can’t be both triangular and circular. Fine? But when I talk about objects, objects are not opposites of one another. When I say that inside the dish there is salt and there is sugar, I didn’t speak about properties of the dish. Inside it there are two kinds of things, there’s salt and sugar; what’s the problem? That doesn’t contradict anything. If I say the dish is both salty and sweet, that’s a contradiction. Fine? Now, a halakhic effectuation, unlike marriage itself for example—an effectuation of betrothal—betrothal is the legal status. The effectuation of betrothal is an object. A metaphysical object. Meaning, two objects rest upon the woman; there is salt and sugar inside her. Two packs are resting on her back. Yes, a pack of “married” and a pack of “divorced.” You ask me what this means on the practical level? Fine—may a priest marry her or is he forbidden? For someone else, not a priest, may he marry her—she

[Speaker I] Is she single, or maybe it’s only one of the two and we just don’t know which?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no.

[Speaker I] The Holy One, blessed be He, knows that she won’t drink wine, so the Holy One, blessed be He, knows she’s divorced. For us it’ll become clear at the end of the year.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, that’s a case of doubt. A situation of doubt is something else—when I don’t know what the truth is. Here I know what the truth is. The truth is that she is both divorced and married. That’s the truth. There is no doubt here; ask the Holy One, blessed be He, and He’ll tell you: this woman right now is both divorced and married. Now on the practical level, what do you do with such a thing? No problem. Meaning, once you ask whether she is forbidden to a priest, certainly she is forbidden to a priest, certainly, because she is divorced. Yes, to a priest she is forbidden no matter what. No, her husband died. Fine, her husband died for the sake of the discussion. So widow or divorcée, okay, that’s basically the question. So if the question is whether she is forbidden to a priest, certainly yes; she is forbidden to a priest because of the divorced aspect in her. Fine? Ask me whether she is permitted to someone else, whether she is forbidden to someone else—then she may be forbidden to someone else because of the married-woman aspect in her. Not because of the divorced aspect. So you go, as it were, stringently on the basis of both sides.

[Speaker B] But what is this metaphysical pack that seems contradictory? The Rabbi is describing it as if there’s also some dish here with triangles and squares. But that’s exactly the point, that simply being

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a married woman and being divorced is a contradiction, because those are two characteristics of the woman. But to say that there is upon the woman an effectuation of married status and an effectuation of divorced status—that’s the same as saying that inside the dish there is both salt and sugar. That still doesn’t tell me what the laws will be. What laws apply to her? Here you have to do calculations and say what happens when there are two such effectuations. Those are the implications. But the fact that there can be such a state—that’s Rabbi Chaim’s “two laws,” where he tells you that there are two laws—that too is some kind of logical contradiction. With that law too, at first you ask: is it this law or that law? And what is the answer always? It’s both. What do you mean, it’s both?

[Speaker B] It’s obvious that there can be several identities. I can be Israeli, Jewish, and male all at once.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, we’re talking about two contradictory possibilities.

[Speaker B] Right, that’s exactly it. With contradictions that’s the point. Can I say I’m both Jewish and not Jewish?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes—you have an effectuation. No, dead and alive, again, those are properties. But if you’re talking about entities, again, metaphysical entities, those are not passive objects. An effectuation of betrothal doesn’t mean the woman is betrothed. To say the woman is betrothed—that’s her legal status. To say there is upon her an effectuation of betrothal—that’s her metaphysical status, from which the legal implications are derived. And therefore—now every kid in yeshiva understands this. Every kid in yeshiva understands this. You will never hear anyone tell you this explicitly, of course. But I’m telling you that the guys who asked this there at Bio-Conde—it was simply because they didn’t grow up inside Talmudic thinking. Meaning, they’re a bit outside it. These are guys who had a regular education, standard Religious Zionist education; they’re not guys who live the Talmud, the Talmudic text. In the little shtiklach in Bnei Brak nobody asks this question. If you tell him this shtikel from Rabbi Chaim that she is both married and divorced, nobody asks. That doesn’t mean they understand what I just said explicitly. It’s not that they know how to answer you with what I just said. But they do understand that it isn’t contradictory. Meaning, they use it without formulating for themselves exactly why it isn’t contradictory. If you ask them, they might get stuck, because at first glance it really does look a bit strange. Again, I’m bringing here an example of something people basically understand completely intuitively. When you try to describe it explicitly, meaning to formulate the matter, it can turn into quite a complex theory. Meaning, you have to keep your head on straight to understand exactly what it means, what the difference is between this and doubt, how you derive implications from such a complex state. All those are excellent questions, and I think they have good answers too. But what I’m trying to bring here is another example of something that is, in the end, quite a complex idea, that every kid understands. It’s not at all… tell him this…

[Speaker D] You encounter it with someone who is half-slave and half-free.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly! And nobody peeps. Exactly. She is both a maidservant and a free woman, and everything is fine. What’s the problem? What do you mean, what’s the problem? Either she’s a maidservant or she’s a free woman—what does it mean that she’s both? So sometimes there’s a fifty-fifty that isn’t difficult. There’s a fifty-fifty—for example, a woman of two husbands where one freed his share—that’s not hard. But there are combinations that are really… a maidservant of two masters, yes. These combinations are completely clear, just as they were clear to the Amoraim, and the Amoraim too couldn’t have told you, I assume, what I just said now, but it was intuitively clear to them; they simply used it. The first time you look at it… that’s the advantage of someone looking from outside, by the way. Someone looking from outside basically asks these innocent questions: wait, what’s going on here? And then that forces you to define for yourself, or conceptualize for yourself, what you’re normally used to using intuitively. Okay? So that’s basically what he means to say, that many times people use this reasoning without actually being aware of it. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know how to use it; on the contrary. We were born with capacities… Androgynos, yes, all kinds of things like that. Androgynos not in the physical sense; in the physical sense you can say it has this and that. In the legal sense, what is an androgynos, yes? There it’s an interesting combination. The point is that a person uses rules without noticing. People are accustomed to think that Jewish law does not need human reason, that there is “Torah insight,” yes, that stands in place of human reason. Here he’s already spelling out more than I said earlier. But that is a mistake. Even Torah insight is insight. What is insight? Insight is what a person acquires through understanding. If there is no understanding, there is no insight. And understanding is reason. Obviously reason operates on prior knowledge that a person has, whether from first intelligibles, which later we will explain what they are, or from what he sees and finds before him, meaning either observation or first intelligibles. And later he’ll explain what he means. If there is no insight, there is no understanding. From the knowledge a person has, he generates additional knowledge by means of reason. No Jewish law can come into being without using human reason—and again, universal reason, not some reason specific to Torah. That is basically what he’s trying to say here. So it could be that the first intelligibles perhaps—we’ll see later—maybe some basic data from which you begin your move are unique. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, said, I don’t know, the law of the red heifer, or the beheaded heifer, or whatever you want, Sabbath observance. Fine, that doesn’t have to be simple human reason or universal reason. But how I infer conclusions from that, how I interpret the verses, how I shape Jewish law from it—that is universal reason, not something particular to Jewish law or to the Talmud.

[Speaker H] And on the plain meaning of his words, all the things in the Torah are also human reason.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Rabbi already refined that; maybe we’ll see that later, maybe we’ll see that later.

[Speaker B] On the ontological level that doesn’t necessarily have to be so in principle, because if a law given to Moses at Sinai or the Torah says things that are not rational, in principle there’s no problem with that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Theoretically, it could be. The question is whether he accepts that—we’re not sure. Didn’t he have the question as a difficulty? Right. For example, things that sharply contradict morality. That doesn’t mean they’re irrational. It doesn’t mean they’re irrational.

[Speaker B] You have to understand what they are doing, then.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why are we paying this moral price? There is some reason for which we pay this moral price.

[Speaker H] Irrational in the sense that I can see—if I were able to see the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If someone explained it to me maybe I could, I don’t know. Fine. I don’t know how to answer that.

[Speaker H] Fine, theoretically devoid of understanding, right. But once we see these things with our own eyes…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’ll say later too—he’ll talk about that. There can be a situation where you won’t arrive at understanding, but that doesn’t mean there is no understanding.

[Speaker H] You also can’t really know whether necessarily…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. He claims a priori that there must be reason behind it.

[Speaker A] The thirteen hermeneutical principles—are they the reason, or is using them the reason?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? I didn’t understand.

[Speaker A] For example, a generalization, then a specification, then a generalization. Is “generalization-specification-generalization” a principle we received, and now whoever uses it is using reason because you want to apply that to every issue? Or is “generalization-specification-generalization” itself something rational?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, again, I don’t understand the difference between the two things. I thought you meant something else.

[Speaker A] Is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the second option you said the same thing.

[Speaker A] No? Is the universal—if I take the generalization and specification…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or what’s the alternative, or what? Or that it isn’t universal reason but what?

[Speaker A] Were the thirteen principles derived through universal reason, or is their use what is already universal reason?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does it mean, their use? They themselves are not rational? Then in what sense is their use…? I took… so what does it mean that their use is rational? You’re operating correctly according to that rule—is that

[Speaker A] not what’s called reason?

[Speaker H] In order for you to know how to use

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the rule—is that what you mean, that the use is rational? That’s not what’s called reason. Would it be legitimate to do a generalization-specification-generalization on physics?

[Speaker A] No, that I understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But then the alternative is not that their use is rational—no—the alternative is that it’s not universal reason. That’s it. Either it is universal reason or it isn’t. You stated two options, both of which are reason, so I didn’t understand the difference. Look, specifically regarding generalization-specification-generalization, in the book—we also wrote a book about this—there’s a very interesting phenomenon. On the face of it, the principles by which the Torah is interpreted—we’ll talk about this later, he’ll also talk about it—the principles by which the Torah is interpreted are divided into two kinds. There is the type of rational principles: an archetype construction, an a fortiori inference, two archetype constructions. A fortiori—maybe even up to “until a third verse comes,” which may also be a textual principle.

[Speaker B] And there are textual principles.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Textual principles are principles that say: if the Torah writes in a certain way, you derive a conclusion in such-and-such a way. Generalization-specification-generalization is, simply speaking, a textual principle. Meaning, if the Torah begins with some general statement, moves to several specific examples, and ends with a general statement—that is generalization-specification-generalization. And then the Talmud tells us what needs to be done with such a verse, okay, we won’t get into the details now. So ostensibly here this is something that is not universal, seemingly, because it’s a code according to which the Torah was written. The Torah was written in such a way that if there is a general statement, then a specific one, and then a general one, that gives the reader instructions what to do with it. It turns out that this isn’t precise. Meaning, there is no small amount of reason in this in other places too. Right, and therefore I’m answering you. One indication of this: we found quite a few sources—Alon, the first time I encountered it was in Alon’s book—he brings one example from the responsa of Maharam of Rothenburg; we found many examples, at least ten I think, where people make generalization-specification-generalization interpretations on responsa. Someone wrote a responsum, one of the sages wrote a responsum, then someone else comes—okay, or medieval authorities, it doesn’t matter—someone else comes and interprets one of the sentences written there by the rule of generalization-specification-generalization. He explicitly says, “I interpret this as a generalization-specification-generalization,” not just that he does it in some…

[Speaker A] But the one who wrote it knew the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, but that is exactly the point: he doesn’t need to know. That is exactly what I said before as well. Meaning, there is something—when, for example—what is the logic, really, of generalization-specification-generalization? This is also a problem in legal interpretation. There’s a famous example of Hart, where he writes, say, that there is a sign: “It is forbidden to bring vehicles into a public garden.” Okay? And now the question is: what is a vehicle? Is a child’s little ride-on toy also forbidden there? Or if I want to place a tank as a monument up there on some platform—the tank is in memory of, I don’t know, the fallen of some war, I don’t know exactly what—is that also forbidden? Is that also a vehicle? How do I know which vehicles are forbidden and which are permitted? So of course you can tell me: fine, use reason—vehicles that disturb, that make… But it could be vehicles that make noise; it could be vehicles that endanger the children playing there, cause pollution, I don’t know exactly what; it could be many things. So the Torah chose an option that isn’t all that far from what we do in other contexts too, in order to encode or give us some instruction how to interpret the concept of “vehicle.” And what does it say to you? “Do not bring any vehicle into the garden,” for example, a motorcycle, a car, and a tractor, “and anything similar to them”—that’s the following generalization. Now look, this is really a normal definition, regular language, totally normal, completely universal. I tell you the general rule, give you examples, and then I tell you: and whatever is similar to them. Now the examples help you focus what the general rule means; without the examples the general rule could be interpreted in more directions. It’s not that the examples completely close it off, but the examples give you a direction—what kind of generalization to make, how to make the extension.

[Speaker B] Similar to the specification. What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Similar to the specification. Similar to the specification, yes, exactly. Fine? So a generalization-specification-generalization means only things similar to the specification. Fine; a generalization-specification means only what is in the specification, and so on. So there are various forms of expression that ostensibly are textual principles—I’m coming back to your question—ostensibly they’re textual principles, some code we received from Sinai; the Torah was written with that in mind. What does that have to do with other texts? It’s universal in the sense that, as a matter of fact, people who express themselves—not necessarily consciously—still make use of a very similar structure in order to give you guidance on how to generalize.

[Speaker H] Doesn’t the second generalization look unnecessary? What? Doesn’t the second generalization look unnecessary?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because if there weren’t a second generalization then it would be more narrow.

[Speaker H] Like the example you’re giving, not exactly like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m saying, it’s

[Speaker H] if it were without the second generalization,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Do not bring vehicles into the garden—a tractor, a car, or a motorcycle”—then if you say “for example,” it’s already clear that you made… The Torah doesn’t say “for example”; the Torah gives particulars. No, so I added the “for example” because that’s how we talk in our language. It’s not one-to-one; I’m trying to show the general logic. “And anything similar to them,” because if you didn’t do “and anything similar to them,” then someone would say: fine, but this is only what is in the specification, because a generalization-specification means only what is in the specification. They wanted to narrow the generalization just to those examples or what is completely similar to them. No, no—“and anything similar to them,” broaden it, but understand that this is the direction. Meaning, it gives you some direction how to make the generalization, how to make the extension. In that sense it is universal.

[Speaker A] But in the example of… if there’s one specification that’s true; if there are several specifications, then isn’t that lacking?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? On the contrary—several specifications give you even more direction. Why not? On the contrary, one specification still leaves you with many possibilities; several specifications already give you a better direction. It narrows things. Yes, right. That’s a major question in the Talmud too: when there are several specifications, what do we do with them? The question is how exactly they appear; that’s a topic in tractate Hullin, the question is exactly how they appear. It’s very interesting; there are some very interesting rules there. Now, I’m not saying each of them appears in exactly the same way in every language and every context, but it is true that there’s something similar here. Meaning, it’s not entirely some scriptural decree, some arbitrary code; there’s something here that contains universal reason. Furthermore, universal human reason is the reason of the Holy One, blessed be He. Again, this is the same claim. Meaning, the universal reason of the gentiles, of everyone, is the reason—it is Torah insight, meaning it is the reason of the Holy One, blessed be He. In that sense there is here—Shalom Rosenberg once wrote something like this—a kind of double giving of the Torah. The giving of the Torah took place on two planes. One plane is that the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, and the second plane is that we were given the reason with which we use and interpret the Torah. We received that too, after all; we were created in a certain way. Someone implanted that reason in us in a certain way. That too is a kind of giving of the Torah. Meaning—and it is implanted in all people. Everyone was created by the Holy One, blessed be He, in His image. Therefore human reason is Torah insight; it is Torah reasoning. It is not the antithesis of Torah reasoning; it is that. It is the reason of the Holy One, blessed be He.

[Speaker B] Is it possible to say that the built-in obligation in us to accept a true thing obligates us to accept the Torah? So in principle there could be a Torah, but I’m not obligated to observe it even if it’s true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, okay. Fine, that’s a question of truth; the question is whether one understands what Torah is, whether there really is an option not to accept, if it isn’t already analytic. Fine, but that’s a different discussion. It’s like thinking something is moral but doesn’t need to be done. I’m not sure you can say such a thing. If you understand what moral means, then moral means that’s what should be done. There isn’t really… Fine. However, “My thoughts are not your thoughts,” and with the Holy One, blessed be He, there is no process—“My thoughts are not your thoughts.” How do we usually interpret that? That He has a different logic; you won’t be able to understand. He says no: with the Holy One, blessed be He, there is no process of thinking like there is with a person. Yes, He is not flesh and blood; He doesn’t have a brain with neurons carrying out a thinking process. But if the Torah says that man was created in the image of God—I’ll continue reading—the image of God is intellectual apprehension, as Maimonides explains in the Guide for the Perplexed, then understanding is an absolute concept. So to speak, the Holy One, blessed be He, also thinks that way. He doesn’t think in the mechanistic sense; the mechanism of thinking is not found with the Holy One, blessed be He. But the reason found within us is His reason. Meaning, this is an interpretation that turns “My thoughts are not your thoughts” completely upside down. Meaning, the fundamentalist “My thoughts are not your thoughts”—which is exactly the point, right?—to distance it from us, so it won’t be subject to the criticism of our reason; it’s something lofty, absolute truth, above us; we are subordinate to it, nullified before it. The opposite: “My thoughts are not your thoughts” means that although I do not engage in processes of thought as you do, your reason is exactly My reason.

[Speaker B] But he really is taking it a bit out of context, because the discussion there is not a discussion of the question of how He is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m not getting into the question of whether this interpretation is a good interpretation of the verse. That’s another question. I’m saying that what he says is a claim that, yes, as I said, reverses the plain meaning of the verse, but that only sharpens even more what I said earlier: his whole tendency is to say there is no such thing as “Torah insight.” That’s basically the statement. This is a clearly anti-fundamentalist statement, and if you like, a clearly anti-Haredi statement. I keep returning to the big questions even while we read the details he talks about. Because a Haredi outlook is fairly essentially tied to concepts of Torah insight, to concepts of Torah as something above us, elevated, inaccessible to our criticism. Again, that’s a generalization, of course there are variations, but broadly speaking it’s a fundamentalist, if you want, or Haredi outlook, and here he is expressing the exact antithesis of that. Really the opposite of that. Why is it the opposite? Because he is basically saying everything is subject to human intellect, everything is subject to the criticism of my own thought—says Rabbi Daliah, yes, me.

[Speaker E] But he really was a great man.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, what difference does that make? Still—what do you mean, he was great? So was there Torah insight?

[Speaker E] He says there is no greatness here. It’s like understanding wine or not understanding wine, or understanding music or not understanding music.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re not talking about someone who understands nothing; that’s just not serious. If someone who understands nothing starts giving interpretations and saying whatever seems

[Speaker E] to him, that’s not like what Amos understood. In the end, the one who decides by reason in music is someone who is one of the greatest there is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, but again—

[Speaker E] someone who deals with it day and night, exempt from the army and everything, dealing only with that in order to reach genius.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He was in favor of reserve duty; army matters—we talked about it—he actually enlisted.

[Speaker B] No, but I think you’re right. I think in the end Rabbi Daliah will not drift into anarchy. In the end he will also say that reason can tell you: listen to Torah insight.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, no. That he explicitly says not.

[Speaker E] I also know that he says not, but beyond that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even here he doesn’t say that. No, he doesn’t address that here. He’s talking about the root of things, that the root of things is rational.

[Speaker B] And at a certain point he could say: look, you’re a first-grade child; obviously you can’t decide what… That’s something else, that’s obvious, also

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] in physics—it has nothing to do with fundamentalism. If someone is unfamiliar,

[Speaker H] doesn’t understand a certain field,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] or in dentistry,

[Speaker E] someone who doesn’t understand a certain field, should he suddenly make decisions there? That’s just idiotic. It has nothing to do with fundamentalism. Huh? There’s always someone who understands better. Never mind. If you understand enough, you can make a decision. Never mind. Why does it matter?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But still, it remains under the supervision of rational thought.

[Speaker E] We say it without asking. But you can’t—if you have someone who has seniority of

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] thirty years and this—

[Speaker E] but you

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] understand that thirty years of seniority is not Torah insight. Thirty years of seniority is an approach that says it’s worthwhile to listen to someone who knows more. That’s very rational; it’s not fundamentalism. Torah insight means that someone has certain abilities that are not only experience or knowledge, but that he comes from some source above us. It isn’t subject to our criticism at all. I have some surprises for you. What’s the issue? Yes, certainly—what do you mean? You’ve never been in any… What is Torah insight? Expertise because he knows a lot? Torah insight… what are you talking about? Again, there may be people who think that, but that is not the accepted conception of Torah insight. Of course it requires a great deal of knowledge; that’s a condition. But it’s not that knowledge is Torah insight. Not at all. It could be that a person has more knowledge and still doesn’t have Torah insight. No problem; everything is in order. And Torah insight is someone who merits illumination. Exactly, something like that, but not only.

[Speaker E] And with Torah insight he will receive the correct truth from Heaven.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Like… fine, I’m no longer talking about—

[Speaker B] Sorry, but I think you’re making some bridge here from the principled discussion to lower-level resolutions. He is making a principled claim. He says that in the end things have to work by reason. Now, what is the reason? Is the reason because that person guarded the holiness of the covenant, or because he studied for thirty years, or because he attended upon some other rabbi, or because he sat in close fellowship with friends? What is the reason that in the end is the right reason that gives him those tools that enable him to come and issue the legal ruling? It doesn’t matter. Why does it matter what the reason is? The question whether the thing… that question is a completely different question: how does one acquire Torah insight?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That really wasn’t what I was talking about. I’m talking about the question whether the principles according to which I conduct myself, or the instructions I receive, are instructions given through a reason that can be criticized, that is the result of critical thinking. It could be that the great expert—not only could be, it’s likely—that the great expert will reach better conclusions than I will; that’s obvious. It’s not that this is not Torah insight. Torah insight means that if that person said something, you have no permission to question him.

[Speaker B] That’s the concept of Torah insight. It’s not the same thing. Yes, but even a fundamentalist would argue that reason says that such a person, for example, so holy, a hundred and five years old—that is the person who… that is a rational claim.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] can say whatever he wants; that’s fundamentalism. I don’t care—maybe fundamentalism is correct—but that is fundamentalism. Because what he’s really saying is not that this person is more right. If he’s more right, then after he explains it to me, I’ll understand it too. Okay?

[Speaker B] No, he’s claiming that that itself is a reason for being right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, what do you mean… that’s not a reason.

[Speaker B] The fact that he’s a hundred and five years old, that he’s already been thinking for sixty years…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s fundamentalism. You can always say it’s because of something, and then by that move you’ve exempted yourself from fundamentalism. So it’s fundamentalism. The claim is that this is not the result of systematic critical thinking that is accessible to everyone. Even though, again, not everyone is on the same level. You have to study, you have to know things, all fine. But at the principled level, it’s a form of reasoning that belongs to all of us, and if you explain it well to me, I’ll understand it. No problem.

[Speaker E] The fact is that the people who received that definition, that title called the halakhic decisors of the generation, really were the greatest professionals. It wasn’t given to the people who were the holiest or who walked around wrapped in seven prayer shawls.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The halakhic decisors of the generation are not “Da’at Torah.” What does that have to do with it? Someone can agree that there is such a thing as the halakhic decisor of the generation; that still doesn’t mean he attributes “Da’at Torah” to him. He’s saying exactly this—that’s the difference between an expert and “Da’at Torah.” This is the halakhic expert, so I follow him. That’s very logical; there’s nothing fundamentalist about it.

[Speaker E] But people ask for “Da’at Torah.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Da’at Torah” also exists within Jewish law. Both in Jewish law and outside Jewish law. Certainly. What do you mean? The conceptions of… Outside Jewish law it isn’t relevant.

[Speaker E] What does “outside Jewish law” mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly. What do you mean?

[Speaker E] Where to buy, where to invest.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe you don’t go, but somebody does. Okay, but there are a lot of idiots like that. So what can you do?

[Speaker E] You know, because sometimes it’s like voodoo, so he goes to voodoo.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Or sometimes he goes to voodoo; sometimes he goes to a rabbi who isn’t—where the rabbi himself isn’t voodoo—but the attitude toward that rabbi is a voodoo attitude. You know, sometimes people go to these Pintos or “X-rays,” I don’t know, all kinds of things like that, and there it’s voodoo. But sometimes they also go to important rabbis and ask them the same questions and expect from them exactly the same magic. Now, there are some cases where the magical dimension is more obvious, and there are others where it’s just more refined, but it’s still very similar. Now, if you’re not there, that’s perfectly fine; I’m not there either.

[Speaker E] But the boundary between this and that is marginal.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, exactly—that’s what I’m talking about.

[Speaker J] So where does “a righteous man decrees” fit in? What? So where does “a righteous man decrees” fit in?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, where does “a righteous man decrees” fit in? “What a righteous man decrees, the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills”—that’s perfectly fine. But a righteous man cannot decree that truth should become falsehood. He can ask that something happen, and the Holy One, blessed be He, will fulfill it. That’s something else. I’m asking what the Jewish law is.

[Speaker A] Come on, leave it—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s not argue about facts. Look, there are people who think this way, and there are people who think differently. How many of these there are, how many of those there are—I haven’t done a survey. But when I talk about fundamentalism, I’m talking about those people. Okay? That’s it. He is arguing against that. Now how many such people are there? I don’t know, I’ve never done a survey, I have no idea.

[Speaker A] When you speak about “Da’at Torah,” you mean those people who say: the rabbi said so, and it’s forbidden to ask why. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I told you—I think I told you about all the paradoxes I experienced when I was in Bnei Brak. People are actually very clear-eyed overall. People with both feet on the ground. They tell jokes about Rabbi Elyashiv’s court—this was when he was still alive—and about Rabbi Elyashiv’s court and all those people bustling around him, and how they manipulate him. And afterward, whatever Rabbi Elyashiv says, everybody does.

[Speaker A] Whatever the Gri”sh says.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, it’s not a contradiction. And I know super clear-headed people, all of them smart people with both feet on the ground—people I respect very much, by the way, some of them. They know exactly all the shticks, they know how decisions are made there in stupid ways, how sometimes only partial information is brought before him—not always, sometimes. He speaks about things that sometimes he understands absolutely nothing about. Unambiguously. And they basically say this. The jokes about it, Gri”sh Efrati, right? The jokes—not just that, about all sorts of things. “Gri”sh Efrati” is a Bnei Brak joke; they didn’t invent it in Tel Aviv. They invented it in Bnei Brak. “Gri”sh” is the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, but “Efrati” is his attendant. Right. So “Gri”sh Efrati” is a well-known Bnei Brak expression. And together with that, after he said something, people do it. Why? Maybe it’s social fundamentalism? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter—each person has his own reasons. But it’s fundamentalism, because it basically means that you understand that the decision-making process there is not being conducted properly. The result sometimes doesn’t seem reasonable to you—depends; sometimes yes, sometimes no. But you say: if Rabbi Elyashiv said it, then it has to be done. Because that’s apparently the truth; there’s divine assistance in it, I don’t know exactly what—each person with his own explanations. In the end, you do it. That is an expression of fundamentalism. And Rabbi Elyashiv was a great Torah scholar; he wasn’t Pinto. He wasn’t Pinto. But the attitude toward him is an attitude like toward Pinto in that sense.

[Speaker H] And what difference does it make whom they accepted upon themselves, that what they accept—why…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They accepted it upon themselves. If I know that he is being fed by unreliable information channels…

[Speaker H] If you know there’s an error—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —in the Talmudic text, that doesn’t help you now, right?

[Speaker H] Of course it helps me. If I know there’s an error, I won’t do it. If they established something and you think they made a mistake in a ruling that is binding, that the Sanhedrin…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A louse, yes—killing a louse. The worn-out example that people always bring. If I’m convinced that a louse is not generated from decay, then it is forbidden to kill it even if it says in the Talmudic text that it’s permitted. In this case that’s a stricter ruling, so maybe it’s easier. But it’s obvious: it’s forbidden to kill it; the Talmudic text was mistaken. That’s all. And if you do research on utensils and you find that they do not absorb, then you don’t… then I don’t, yes, right. Once I’m convinced that they don’t absorb, then they don’t absorb.

[Speaker B] There are halakhic decisors who said that about the louse, by the way—even as far as Pachad Yitzchak. What? But what is the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That he said what there?

[Speaker B] That maybe one should be less stringent.

[Speaker H] What does this “they accepted him upon themselves” mean, that it is binding from the standpoint of halakhic ruling? They had authority to rule on it, meaning…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but if it’s based on a factual mistake, then in my opinion it has no validity. It has no validity; it’s simply a mistaken transaction, based on an error.

[Speaker H] But not a factual mistake—a mistake in reasoning. I think that in terms of reasoning they made a mistaken judgment here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know; for that I’d need an example. Meaning, if I were extremely, extremely convinced that the reasoning was wrong—I don’t know, something really unequivocal—I don’t… maybe. If there were such an example, we’d have to think about it; I don’t know. Usually with reasoning, okay, maybe I don’t understand, maybe not fully, fine. But I understand there are arguments in both directions; we accepted the Talmudic text, it determines things, all right, that’s what we do.

[Speaker H] But something that is plainly based on an error, like those people working, say, around Rabbi Elyashiv—I can accept that that’s the binding factor… why? I don’t know, for the same reason…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because—

[Speaker B] There are considerations of gain and loss, let’s say, or in the end it’s important to establish authority even if sometimes he slips, in order to preserve the framework. There’s a certain logic to it. Again, it’s a question of probability and risk, cost versus gain.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You need to preserve the framework when there’s a dispute between him and other rabbis? So how does preserving the framework help? Go with the other rabbi.

[Speaker B] Okay, we’re not going to argue now whether that’s logical or not, but I’m—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —coming—

[Speaker B] —to answer, you know, to account for it, because at some level there is some logic in it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, then less in principle, that no—I don’t know—

[Speaker B] The more esoteric it is, and the less it is things that are influenced—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] More by biases, and all that—I don’t know—the attitude toward Slifkin, toward Slifkin’s books, and all kinds of other things of that sort, where it’s obvious to you that he understands nothing about it, only partial information was brought before him, everything is clear—and people still wouldn’t allow themselves to say, “Friends, there’s a mistake here. This can’t be. It’s not true.” Now, I spoke with people; I was there—what do you mean? I’m telling you clearly that there are people who say, no, if Rabbi Elyashiv said it then it’s true—not preserving the social framework or whatever. If Rabbi Elyashiv said it, then it’s true, even though I know that the whole business there is all mixed up. There are many like that.

[Speaker B] Just a second, before—okay, there’s another question here before the whole “mixed up” issue—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In general, what authority does a rabbi have? Fine, that’s another discussion. I’m saying beyond that—I’m saying these are the reasons I heard. I don’t think one can…

[Speaker E] But that happens everywhere; after all, who—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —determined whether the decision—

[Speaker E] —or whether there’s someone below who is manipulating the one above…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I didn’t say this doesn’t happen everywhere. I said that this is what is called fundamentalism, and Rav Gedalia isn’t there. Now, if you tell me there are others who also aren’t there, great, excellent, say so—

[Speaker E] That there’s someone underneath pulling the strings of the one on top? Was he almost even there at all?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he was a professional; that’s something else, true. But I’m not talking about a professional. I have no problem if Rabbi Elyashiv goes to consult with a professional in a certain field. I don’t call that manipulating him—on the contrary, that’s what should be done. I’m talking about something else. All right, in short: when we touch on current events, it always pulls us into all kinds of arguments about facts. I’m not interested in that. Meaning, the facts don’t matter to me—so there are such people and there are such people, I don’t care. I’m not going to judge anyone. I’m trying to put conceptions on the table and place Rav Gedalia among them, or in relation to them. Okay? So in that sense, there are such fundamentalist conceptions, that’s clear. How many such people there are, who is like that and who isn’t—leave it, you can argue about that endlessly. But Rav Gedalia is not there.

[Speaker E] Okay, so try to understand that as we go on.