The Thought of Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel – Rov – Lesson 1
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Table of Contents
- The three laws of majority
- The source of the laws in “follow the majority”
- The division within following the majority: a majority that is before us and a majority that is not before us
- The relation between “before us” and “not before us,” and the question of which is stronger
- The passage in Chullin 11a: the source for a majority that is not before us
- Nullification in a majority: the views of Rashi and the Rosh, and the difficulty with comparing it to a religious court
- The difficulty: “follow the majority” as a law of majority in a religious court versus nullification in a mixture
- Probability, reasoning, and criticism of the understanding of the nine shops case and the Sanhedrin
- The example of David Levi and the illustration of the “legal force” of a majority that is not before us
- The Rashba on dry mixed with dry and liquid with liquid as approximating following the majority
- The approach attributed to Rabbi Chaim Halevi: nullification in a majority even in the Sanhedrin
- Tosafot in Bava Kamma 27: monetary law does not follow the majority, and their minority is considered as if it were not there
- A note on the nature of nullification: “it becomes permitted” versus “as if it were not there”
- The pursuit of truth versus authority and peace: “these and those are both the words of the living God”
- Conclusion and continuation
Summary
General overview
The laws of majority are divided into three types: following the majority, nullification in a majority, and the rule that a majority is treated as the whole. Following the majority is learned in the Talmud in Chullin from the verse “follow the majority,” and splits into a majority that is before us and a majority that is not before us, while nullification in a majority and the rule that a majority is like the whole are not explicitly sourced in the Talmud, and the medieval authorities (Rishonim) tend to attribute them as well to “follow the majority.” The text raises a difficulty with deriving from a verse that deals with a majority of judges in a religious court the law of nullification in a mixture, examines whether majority means probability or a legal principle, and brings the approach attributed to Rabbi Chaim Halevi, who explains the derivation through the concept of “nullification” even in the Sanhedrin, while criticizing his reading of Tosafot in Bava Kamma.
The three laws of majority
The function of the laws of majority is divided into three types: following the majority, nullification in a majority, and the rule that a majority is treated as the whole. Following the majority deals with a case of a single piece over which there is doubt, and we are allowed to decide based on the majority of shops; it is learned in the Talmud in Chullin from “follow the majority.” Nullification in a majority deals with a mixture of prohibition and permission in which the majority of permitted matter nullifies the prohibition and allows eating, even though in reality there is a minority of prohibited matter within what is being eaten; it is defined either as the loss of the status of prohibition or as being considered as if it were not there, according to different approaches. The rule that a majority is like the whole operates in communal situations, such as the first Passover offering when most of the community is impure; then impurity is permitted for the community, because the majority is regarded as the whole, and this is neither following the majority nor nullification in a majority.
The source of the laws in “follow the majority”
Following the majority is learned in the Talmud in Chullin from “follow the majority.” The medieval authorities (Rishonim) write regarding nullification in a majority, and almost all of them write that it too is learned from “follow the majority,” and regarding the rule that a majority is like the whole there are also some who write this, though fewer. The text notes that no other source for these laws comes to mind, and that all of them are learned in one way or another from “follow the majority,” if not from the Talmud then from the medieval authorities (Rishonim).
The division within following the majority: a majority that is before us and a majority that is not before us
Within the law of following the majority there is a majority that is before us and a majority that is not before us. A majority that is before us is the majority of a defined group standing before us, such as nine kosher shops and one non-kosher one, and we decide that a piece found in the city came from the majority. A majority that is not before us is not a defined group before us, but rather a natural phenomenon and a generalization, such as “most women give birth at nine months,” and therefore regarding a woman who comes before us we assume that she will give birth at nine months if we have no other information.
The relation between “before us” and “not before us,” and the question of which is stronger
The text argues that once there is information of a majority that is before us, the majority that is not before us is irrelevant, because there is no need to fill in missing information through generalization. The text defines a majority that is not before us as the result of scientific induction and a law of nature, and a majority that is before us as the result of data standing before us. The text notes a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) over which is stronger, and cites Rabbi Shimon Shkop as bringing this dispute in Sha’ar 3. It also presents a view according to which the strength of a majority that is not before us is legal strength, in that every new case is decided according to the majority even when the majority is small, as opposed to the view that a majority that is before us is stronger because it is based on knowledge and requires no generalization.
The passage in Chullin 11a: the source for a majority that is not before us
The Talmud in Chullin asks, “From where do the rabbis derive this matter that one should follow the majority?” and answers, “As it is written: follow the majority.” The Talmud goes on and establishes that “follow the majority” is understandable for a majority that is before us, such as nine shops and the Sanhedrin, and then asks about a majority that is not before us, such as a minor boy and minor girl in matters of levirate marriage. The text explains that the Talmud assumes a majority that is not before us is weaker, and therefore requires an additional source for it, and presents the possibility that Rashi’s conclusion wavers between a law given to Moses at Sinai and derivation from “follow the majority,” while wondering what the point of the Talmud’s discussion is if in the end it too is learned from the same verse.
Nullification in a majority: the views of Rashi and the Rosh, and the difficulty with comparing it to a religious court
The text states a fundamental rule in matters of a mixture of prohibition into permission: by Torah law, a prohibited item is nullified in a majority, though there are distinctions and disputes in the details, such as like-kind mixtures, liquid with liquid, and dry with dry. Rashi explains that the source for the law of nullification in a majority is “follow the majority,” and this is also the plain view of the other medieval authorities (Rishonim), such as the Rosh in Chullin. The Rosh writes that one item in two is nullified and that “the prohibition is transformed into permission and it is permitted to eat them even all at once,” and explains that were it not for Scripture’s decree there would have been reason to apply the rule that a Torah-level doubt is treated stringently even when the doubt is not evenly balanced.
The difficulty: “follow the majority” as a law of majority in a religious court versus nullification in a mixture
The text objects that according to the plain meaning, the verse deals with a religious court’s decision between those who obligate and those who exempt, and there there is one halakhic truth, with the Torah establishing that the decision follows the opinion of the majority. The text asks what similarity there is to a mixture in which definite permission and definite prohibition became mixed, and why one should say that because there is a majority of permitted matter, the prohibited matter ceases to be prohibited. The text adds the puzzle that the Rosh calls this a “Scriptural decree,” while the Talmud never said that this is the source of nullification in a majority, and therefore asks how the Rosh knows to attribute it to this verse rather than to a law given to Moses at Sinai or some other verse.
Probability, reasoning, and criticism of the understanding of the nine shops case and the Sanhedrin
The text presents an initial understanding that the nine shops case is compared to the Sanhedrin because there is a “greater likelihood” that the truth is with the majority, or that the piece came from the majority, and formulates this in terms of probability. The text argues that in nullification in a majority there is no room for probability, because it is known with certainty that a minority of prohibited matter is being eaten, and adds that understanding the nine shops case and the Sanhedrin according to a principle of probability does not withstand rational criticism. The text sharpens the point that in a majority that is not before us there is a sample and observation from which one makes a generalization, whereas with respect to deciding truth in a religious court there is no empirical feedback about whether the majority is correct, and therefore this is a matter of reasoning or a decision-making mechanism, not a probabilistic calculation grounded in data.
The example of David Levi and the illustration of the “legal force” of a majority that is not before us
The text brings an anecdote about David Levi in the Likud Central Committee complaining that he had thirty percent support but no executive positions, and explains that a system in which each position is decided by majority vote leads to 51% receiving 100% of the positions. The text connects this to understanding the “legal force” of a majority that is not before us, in that each new case is decided as though it belongs entirely to the majority, even when the majority is only 51% or 60%. The text distinguishes this legal force from mathematical force, and on the other hand suggests that the force of a majority that is before us lies in the fact that it is based on knowledge and not on generalization.
The Rashba on dry mixed with dry and liquid with liquid as approximating following the majority
The text suggests that according to the Rashba’s view, in the case of dry mixed with dry, eating piece by piece resembles following the majority, because each piece is either prohibited or permitted, and the question is whether it belongs to the majority of permitted pieces or the minority of prohibited ones. The text distinguishes this from liquid with liquid, where each spoonful contains a mixture and one cannot assign a single spoonful to a separate majority. The text notes that this understanding leads to the conclusion that one must “stop” in a way reminiscent of the idea of leaving one or two pieces until the end.
The approach attributed to Rabbi Chaim Halevi: nullification in a majority even in the Sanhedrin
The text cites later authorities (Acharonim), based on an approach attributed to Rabbi Chaim Halevi, that the novelty of learning nullification in a majority from the Sanhedrin is that even in the Sanhedrin there is nullification in a majority. The text argues that the Torah required a certain number of judges, and if the minority opinion is not counted at all then the quorum is lacking, so the Torah revealed that the minority of judges is nullified into the majority and becomes like the majority, so that the ruling is considered to have emerged from the full required number. The text adds that on this view there are two layers: a decision that the truth is ruled like the majority, and the joining of the minority to the majority through nullification.
Tosafot in Bava Kamma 27: monetary law does not follow the majority, and their minority is considered as if it were not there
The text cites Tosafot in Bava Kamma 27, which explains why in monetary law one does not follow the majority even though in a religious court one rules by majority, because in monetary law one combines the minority with the presumption of prior ownership and the result is half-and-half. Tosafot distinguishes that “judges are different, and their minority is considered as if it were not there,” and therefore there is no minority that can be combined with presumption against the majority. The text notes that Rabbi Chaim learned from this that the minority is nullified and turned into the majority, but objects that Tosafot does not say the minority became like the majority, only that it is as if it were not there, and declares that their intent is different, as will become clear later.
A note on the nature of nullification: “it becomes permitted” versus “as if it were not there”
The text notes that even in the laws of nullification themselves there is no necessity to interpret nullification to mean that the prohibition “becomes permitted,” and mentions that there is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), as well as a long responsum by Oneg Yom Tov on the matter. The text suggests that if one understands nullification in a majority as “as if it were not there” rather than as transformation into permission, then there is much greater affinity to the language of Tosafot regarding the minority of judges, though even so this still does not solve the requirement for a full quorum at the root of Rabbi Chaim’s approach.
The pursuit of truth versus authority and peace: “these and those are both the words of the living God”
The text presents two possibilities for understanding majority rule in halakhic decisions: seeing it as a pursuit of truth, or as a criterion of peace and authority when truth is inaccessible or when “there is no truth.” The text cites “these and those are both the words of the living God” in Eruvin concerning Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, and presents a pluralistic possibility in which the decision is meant for social order, as opposed to the interpretation attributed to Rabbi Yosef Karo in his rules of the Talmud, according to which the preference for Beit Hillel stems from a method that gives a higher probability of reaching the truth, because they were gentle and humble and cited the words of Beit Shammai before their own. The text concludes that on this view the law follows Beit Hillel as a rule of decision that maximizes the chance of a correct ruling, even if there is no certainty, and not merely as an educational reward.
Conclusion and continuation
The text concludes by noting that some wished to bring proof from a religious court to the rule that a decision must emerge from the full number of judges, and says that this point will be left for next time: “And anyway, well, the truth is we’ll leave that for next time.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The function of the laws of majority is divided into three types. The first law, and the most familiar one, is what’s called following the majority. That law, as the Talmud brings there in Chullin, is learned from “follow the majority.” Beyond the law of following the majority, which itself also splits into two, as we’ll see in a moment, there is the law of nullification in a majority. Nullification in a majority means that when there is a mixture of prohibited and permitted matter, let’s say there is a majority of permitted matter and a minority of prohibited matter, then the permitted matter nullifies the prohibition. Meaning, you can eat those pieces without worrying that we’re eating prohibited food. There is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) whether you can eat all of them or whether one should leave one over, or whether this is Torah-level or rabbinic, but in principle you can eat almost all the pieces at least. It may be that the last one or two are already forbidden. That’s the law of nullification in a majority, and it is not the same law as following the majority. In nullification in a majority, we are certainly eating prohibited matter—almost certainly, if we leave the last two or the last one—but if you eat them all, and there are also views like that, then you are certainly eating prohibited matter. Nullification in a majority means that the prohibition loses its status; it stops being prohibited. Following the majority is something completely different. In following the majority, we have one piece and we don’t know whether it is prohibited or permitted, and we are allowed to follow the majority of shops. That is something completely different from nullification in a majority. So that’s the second law, nullification in a majority. The third law is the rule that a majority is like the whole. There are situations in which, for example, as you know, on the first Passover, if we are impure then we can observe the second Passover, or if one is on a distant journey—impure or on a distant journey. At the time of offering the first Passover sacrifice, then the Passover is postponed to the second Passover. Now if most of the community is impure, then impurity is permitted for the community; you can do it on the first Passover. You don’t need to postpone it to the second Passover. The second Passover is only for individuals who are impure. If the majority of the community is in that state, that’s not following the majority and it’s also not nullification in a majority—it’s neither of those two laws. It’s the rule that a majority is like the whole. A majority is like the whole means that if most of the community is impure, it is considered that the whole community is impure. The majority has the law as though it were the whole. And that is a third law among the laws of majority. Now, the law of following the majority is a Talmudic discussion in Chullin where it is learned from “follow the majority.” The law that a majority is like the whole, and nullification in a majority, do not appear in the Talmud with an explicit source. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) write regarding nullification in a majority—almost all of them write that it too is learned from “follow the majority.” Regarding a majority being like the whole, there are also some who write this, though fewer, but there are also such views. I don’t think there is another source; as far as I remember, no other source is brought for these laws. So there are three different laws that all, in one way or another—at least if not from the Talmud then from the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—are learned from “follow the majority.” Now, within the law of following the majority, it too splits into two. One more introduction, because otherwise we’ll have to stop every time. There is a majority that is before us and a majority that is not before us. “Before us” means literally present before us, and “not before us” means not present before us. A majority that is before us is a majority like the shops I described earlier. Let’s say there’s a city where they find a piece of meat thrown somewhere in the street, and there are nine kosher shops and one non-kosher one—one non-kosher one, fine. So that majority is before us. We know: there are ten shops here, nine kosher, one non-kosher, and we follow the majority. There is a majority that is not before us. A majority that is not before us is a majority that is not a defined group lying before us, but usually some kind of natural phenomenon, laws of nature. For example, in the days of the Sages it was accepted that women gave birth either at seven months or at nine months. Fine, it’s not entirely clear to me exactly what the point of that is, but that was how they thought then. Today there are women who give birth early, but we don’t see it as two designated dates. In any case, that’s how the Sages saw it, and there is such a majority that most women give birth at nine months. They give birth at nine months. Most women give birth after nine months, not after seven months. That majority is not a majority that is before us; it is a majority that is not before us. Why? There isn’t a defined group of women or objects in front of us about which we know something. We know that there is such a natural phenomenon, that the statistics in the world are that most women give birth at nine months. So if a woman comes before us, we assume that she too—if we don’t know—we assume that she too gave birth at nine months. Fine. Just to sharpen it, let’s say that before us there are a hundred women who gave birth, and we know each one—we did exact statistics, we have a list from the hospital—ninety of them gave birth at nine months. And ten gave birth at seven, fine. Now a question comes up about one of them. That’s a majority that is before us, right? Because here we’re speaking about a group standing before us, and we ask to which of the two parts of it that woman we’re speaking about belongs.
[Speaker C] But don’t you then also have to take into account the majority that is not before us, since the statistics still exist?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, here I know the reality.
[Speaker B] You know that she is one of those hundred.
[Speaker C] The moment—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that I have, yes, I know that she is one of those hundred, certainly. Otherwise this is… If I already know the nature of the group, I don’t care about the laws of nature, because I already know everything there is to know about this group.
[Speaker B] Suppose that in this defined group most of them are seven months; it could also be that the majority is the reverse.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] נכון, if in this group there is a majority of seven months, then we will assume about the woman that she gave birth at seven months. If she is one of this group, that’s exactly the point. In other words, a majority that is before us is the result of data standing before us. A majority that is not before us is the result of scientific induction, meaning some sort of generalization, some law of nature or another. Which of the two is stronger? A majority that is before us or a majority that is not before us? That’s an interesting question. There is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about this. Rabbi Shimon Shkop brings a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) on this matter there in Sha’ar 3.
[Speaker B] But here the majority that is before us wins out in the case of the defined group.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t win out; this is a majority that is before us.
[Speaker C] Only that one exists here, the majority that is before us.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no majority that is not before us here. Ah, you mean if there is one—yes—but it’s not a matter of one overpowering the other. A majority that is not before us doesn’t apply where I have information. Laplace, I think, once said that probability is meant for fools. In other words, probability is meant to fill in missing information. Here there is no missing information; I know everything there is to know about this group. I don’t need to make use of laws of nature in order to decide. And if this group is distributed differently from the way women in general are distributed in the world, fine, I know that this is the group.
[Speaker B] So how can a situation arise where you have a dilemma between a majority that is before us and a majority that is not before us?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I’m saying: what Meir said before, that apparently there’s a dilemma here—I don’t think so. It seems to me that in any situation where there is a majority that is before us, the majority that is not before us is no longer relevant.
[Speaker B] No, I don’t understand. The question is which is stronger, a majority that is before us or a majority that is not before us?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Which is stronger comes up in the context of a passage in Chullin. Because the passage in Chullin asks what the source is for the law of majority, and it brings “follow the majority.” And afterward it says: granted, for a majority that is before us, that we learn from “follow the majority”—but what about a majority that is not before us? Where do we learn that from? Now, if a majority that is not before us were stronger, or at least the same as a majority that is before us, then we would learn it from “follow the majority.” What’s the difference? If the Talmud assumes that even after we know a majority that is before us, a source is still needed for a majority that is not before us, then the Talmud apparently assumes that a majority that is not before us is weaker. And even if we follow a majority that is before us, that still doesn’t mean we will follow a majority that is not before us. That’s how the Talmud assumes. The question is what remains according to the Talmud’s conclusion. There are two answers in Rashi, and Maimonides of course says the opposite, that a majority that is not before us is stronger.
[Speaker B] What does stronger mean? I don’t understand what stronger means. In what sense is it stronger?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I mean that if we learn a majority that is before us from the verse, then all the more so we should be able to use a majority that is not before us.
[Speaker B] Fine, but after we’ve learned it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] After we’ve learned it, הרי—
[Speaker B] —they can never clash.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, they can clash. It can come up in various places. For example, there are claims that in monetary law one does not follow the majority. Fine? The question is: which majority? It could be that this applies only to a majority that is before us and not to a majority that is not before us. Or if a majority that is not before us is stronger, maybe we would follow it—and vice versa. In other words, there are places where the law of majority does not operate, and then there is room to wonder whether that refers to both kinds of majority or only one of them. Okay. So that’s a majority that is before us and a majority that is not before us. This is just an anecdote, yes? It’s the story of David Levi that I always use to illustrate the point, how one can understand that a majority that is not before us is stronger. David Levi was once in the Likud Central Committee. He raised the problem that he had thirty percent supporters, a bloc of thirty percent of the committee supporting him, and yet he wasn’t getting any executive positions. Not he himself, meaning his people, weren’t getting executive positions in the movement. Fine? So they told him: what do you want? This is democracy; we hold a vote and the majority decides. He said: the simplest thing in the world. This democracy—with a democratic method like that—it means that fifty-one percent of the people get one hundred percent of the jobs. Because for every position you hold a vote: fifty-one against forty-nine, and your group gets the position. Every single position that comes up, each time, you get one hundred percent of the jobs even though you are only fifty-one percent of the people—or seventy percent, it doesn’t matter.
[Speaker D] In every election in the United States it’s like that. What? You get a majority in the state and you have the whole Senate.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, yes. Okay.
[Speaker D] And they want to do that here too; they say that’s the best.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not good, but the question is what it represents. Whether it’s good or not, sometimes maybe the representation isn’t good but it is practical—yes, exactly—because you can’t govern otherwise, coalitions and so on. But in terms of representation, clearly that is not a proper representation of the population, certainly. That’s obvious. And if you want the elected body to reflect its voters, then clearly this is not a good method. Okay. It may be that that’s not the only consideration, and that’s fine. So yes, that illustrates why a majority that is not before us is, in a certain sense, stronger than a majority that is before us. Because a majority that is not before us basically says: every woman who comes before us, we will decide that she gave birth at nine months, even though it is clear that there are women in the world who also give birth at seven months. But in the world of the Sages, as they understood reality, it is clear there are women who give birth at seven months—but every single woman who comes before us, if we have no data, we follow the majority. It comes out that 100% of the women are treated according to a majority that might be 60% or 51%; that too is a majority in halakhic terms. Fine? In a majority that is before us there is a bit more room to hesitate. I mentioned earlier the disputes about whether one or two final pieces should be left over; and if it’s 40%, then maybe you have to leave the last 40% of the pieces, and according to the one who says two, then 80%. So you can eat only 20% of the meat pieces. So that is the force of a majority that is not before us—you see, it is legal force, not mathematical force. But from a legal standpoint, everyone who comes before us, we assume he follows the majority. It’s not really that there is some majority here that is stronger. On the contrary, in some senses the majority that is before us—and that’s the reasoning of those who say the majority that is before us is stronger—is stronger because it is based on knowledge. It doesn’t require generalization. There is no generalization at all. You have ten shops, nine of them kosher and one non-kosher. You know the ratio is one to nine. And if a piece of meat comes before you, and it is clear that it is one of the pieces that came from those shops—
[Speaker B] The majority that is not before us is exactly the same thing; here the population is the whole population, all women.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? That’s not true. Why? I’ll explain in a moment.
[Speaker D] Shops certainly aren’t. Fifty percent of the shops in the city may be kosher and non-kosher, and here specifically it’s nine and so on.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he’s not saying it’s the same factually; he’s saying it works the same way on the logical level. No, it doesn’t. We’ll see in a moment. So there are nine kosher shops and one non-kosher one. We know the situation in this city exactly. No generalization is needed, nothing. Now a piece of meat comes before us. The assumption is that there is a 90% chance it is kosher. Ninety percent is enough; we follow the majority. This is based on knowledge. We have knowledge about this piece. Ninety percent it is kosher. Now think about a different situation. There is a woman who has never given birth. The women we have known so far—and no one has done statistics on all the women in the world—but among the women we know, more or less, most women give birth at nine months; that’s generally how it works. Okay? Now a woman who has never given birth comes before us. She is not part of the statistics we compiled. She is a new woman. Now I ask: when will she give birth? That is a question about which we have no knowledge. We make some generalization and say that what was true of women until now, or of the women we knew until now, will also be true of this woman. With the piece of meat, the piece belongs to the same group about which we have information.
[Speaker B] No, I’m not saying until now. This woman gave birth; she is one of the population, and in that population there is a majority.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s also not correct. You’re speaking about a woman who is pregnant. That we agree about. Now even with a woman who already gave birth it’s still like this. Because if regarding this woman you don’t know, then you don’t have statistics. Let’s say you know all the women in the world, you made your statistics here without generalization—still, it involves more generalization than a majority that is before us. Why? Because this woman, if she was not included in the statistics… she is in the statistics? No—every woman in the world except for her. Now she gave birth and you have no idea whether it was at nine months or seven months. You made statistics on all the women who gave birth until now, all the women in the world. That is a majority that is not before us, not a majority that is before us, because this woman is not part of the group regarding which you have information. You have to make some generalization and say that what was true for that group is relevant also to the new woman. That involves generalization. The piece of meat I was speaking about before—I have information about this very piece, statistical information. I don’t know whether this piece belongs to those shops or to that shop, but it itself is included in the group about which I have information. That’s called a majority that is before us. Okay? So in that sense a majority that is before us is stronger, because a majority that is before us comes from knowledge; I don’t need generalizations.
[Speaker C] It’s not only that. You also only start looking for a majority that is not before us when you don’t have a majority that is before us. Meaning, you immediately first look for one that is before us. Why? Because for you it’s simply stronger.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. In most cases you don’t have it, true. All laws of nature are cases of a majority that is not before us, because they are actually built on phenomena that I observed, I made a generalization, and I reached the conclusion that there is now a law here, and that this law is also supposed to behave this way going forward, or in other places where I didn’t observe that it behaves the same way. Who says? Maybe the group I saw was a special group. There is an assumption here, that I am generalizing and saying the group I saw is a representative sample. That is an assumption that with a majority that is before us you do not need to assume. Therefore a majority that is before us is stronger in that sense. Okay? Now I’m already speaking not only legally—truly, it is stronger. It is stronger even though, again, the distribution can be seventy-thirty here and seventy-thirty there. But the implication for the case before me is stronger in the distribution of a majority that is before us than in a majority that is not before us. Okay, so in short, there are arguments both ways. Okay, now let’s start reading. A simple rule in matters of a mixture of prohibition and permission: by Torah law, a prohibited item is nullified in a majority. True, in the details—like kind or unlike kind, liquid with liquid or dry with dry, and so on—there are a number of distinctions and disputes, as is known. But the basic rule is that in a mixture we follow the majority. Fine, we’re not getting into the details here of liquid, dry, like kind, and the like. And Rashi explains—in Chullin and Beitzah and elsewhere—that the source of the law of nullification in a majority is the verse in the Torah, “follow the majority.” And this was also simply taken by the other medieval authorities (Rishonim), such as the Rosh in Chullin. The phrase “in a mixture we follow the majority” can sound like two different things. Here it means nullification in a majority, not following the majority. Okay? It’s not… it’s not connected to mixture. Because following the majority is a Talmudic discussion that is learned from “follow the majority.” Nullification in a majority—that’s Rashi. Rashi and the Rosh and other medieval authorities (Rishonim). Such as the Rosh in Chullin, who discusses the matter of eating a mixture of one in two, dry with dry, all at once. And he says: “Even if he eats them one by one, there is only a single doubt, and a Torah-level doubt is treated stringently. Rather, because it is a Scriptural decree, as it is written, ‘follow the majority,’ therefore one in two is nullified, and the prohibition is transformed into permission, and it is permitted to eat them even all at once.” The Rosh’s view is that one may eat everything. You don’t need to leave the final piece. But for our purposes, what the Rosh is saying is that this is a novelty of the Torah—that one follows the majority. Were it not for this novelty, which is learned from “follow the majority,” we would conduct ourselves here according to the laws of doubt, even though the doubt is not evenly balanced. A doubt of one against ten, or I don’t know how much, where the majority… how much the majority exceeds the minority here. But were it not for the law of “follow the majority,” we would think that the laws of doubt apply everywhere there is doubt, not only where the doubt is fifty-fifty. The law of “follow the majority” teaches us that the laws of doubt apply when it is fifty-fifty. But if it is not fifty-fifty, then the laws of doubt do not apply; rather, one follows the majority. What kind of derivation is that?
[Speaker B] Meaning, what kind of process gets from “follow the majority” to that kind of conclusion?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’ll discuss that more. He’ll discuss it; it’s a topic he talks about. A lot—Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Chaim talked about it a lot. It’s a very interesting question because on the face of it, it has nothing to do with nullification in a majority. Fine, he’ll discuss it. Meaning: even if we were to forbid eating the entire mixture together, still, eating part of it is certainly permitted if one in two is nullified. And why is it permitted? Isn’t a Torah-level doubt treated stringently, and perhaps he is eating prohibition? Rather, the Torah decreed “follow the majority,” and because of that we say that the prohibition is nullified in the majority of permitted matter and has the status of permission. If so, then even eating all of it is permitted. According to the Rosh, and also according to other later authorities who permit eating everything except one piece—or except two pieces at the end—it doesn’t matter. There is still a novelty here. Because were it not for the law of “follow the majority,” I would already have been forbidden to eat the first piece; I have a doubt about it whether it is prohibited or permitted. Okay? We won’t get into the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) concerning whether eating the whole mixture at once is forbidden and whether its prohibition is rabbinic or Torah-level. One thing is clear according to everyone: there is a concept of nullifying prohibition in a majority; by Torah law, a prohibited item is nullified in a majority, which in certain situations permits eating the prohibition, and this is learned from “follow the majority.” And at first glance this is not understood, because the verse speaks about following the opinion of the majority in a religious court. That is, if these judges obligate and those exempt, we rule the law according to the opinion of the majority. And what similarity does a mixture of prohibited and permitted matter have to that? In a judicial ruling, there is a halakhic truth that one wants to clarify, and the truth is either with these or with those. And the Torah established that we follow the majority and decide that the truth is with them. But what does that have to do with a case where before us there is permitted matter that is definitely permitted and prohibited matter that is definitely prohibited, and they became mixed? Why should we say that because there is a majority of permitted matter, the prohibition ceases to be prohibited? It is astonishing, right? What’s the connection? That is exactly the question. What is the connection between following the majority in a religious court, where I have, say, two judges who say one thing and one judge who says another—the truth is one truth. Now following the majority means: assume that the truth is with the majority.
[Speaker D] Fine? It just cancels the opinion of the minority—they’re nullified. After that they say that a court of seventy ruled such and such; they don’t say—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait. Wait, that’s one of the solutions; in a moment he’ll get to it, but first the question. On the face of it, we don’t need any nullification. We follow two against one with no nullification and nothing at all—”follow the majority.” The truth is with the two. That’s not nullification, it’s not majority rule in that sense, it’s nothing. If we also make it majority rule it comes out about the same here, doesn’t matter. In contrast, in nullification in a majority we are certainly eating prohibition. Where does this invention come from, that the prohibition becomes permission through a process of nullification? In our case, in the simple reading, you don’t see that in a religious court.
[Speaker E] But according to his approach—what? According to the Rosh’s approach that this is how it works? Because here there is a certain similarity between the things. Why? Because here too, in the religious court, the truth might actually be with the one judge out of the three, and the two who think the opposite are thinking differently. And with the pieces in the mixture, maybe in fact—he said to leave one—then that is exactly like the opinion of the one. The truth is with the one, and the other two are kosher, there’s no problem with them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You left them—but that one, who told you that it’s the one?
[Speaker E] I’m not saying otherwise, but I said if there are three, so-and-so, it doesn’t matter—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who told you that this one is the prohibited one? That’s just speculation.
[Speaker E] Exactly like the one who said that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, here there definitely is one prohibited item. Now you have to decide whether it’s this one or that one.
[Speaker E] If in a religious court there were three, and two said A and the third said B, and the truth is actually B, okay? That is exactly like where you permitted him to eat two pieces.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there it’s maybe; here it’s certain.
[Speaker E] Why is it certain here?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because here there is definitely prohibition.
[Speaker E] Why? If you chose two pieces and not one?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is definitely prohibited matter in the mixture. I agree. The whole question is: which is the prohibited one—is it the one left over, or the ones you ate? Not a simple question. But in the mixture it’s clear that the majority—
[Speaker D] —that the one left over is permitted, with greater probability.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And that’s exactly—
[Speaker D] —just like with them, the truth—
[Speaker E] —might actually be with the one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s why I’m saying it’s not exactly the same thing. Because there the truth is one truth. The question is whether it’s this or that, but it is one truth. There aren’t two truths that got mixed together. I’m just looking for which is the one truth. And my assumption is that the majority is right; sometimes I’m wrong. I’m not saying it always works. But there is one truth there.
[Speaker B] Not because of logic—because of a verse.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? It’s the verse, no? Fine, but the verse says it: “follow the majority.” How does the law of nullification in a majority emerge from that verse? After the verse said it, there is also this logic behind it, because legal systems also do the same thing even without verses, right?
[Speaker D] The first logic is that everything should be logical. What’s the logic? Usually the majority is right.
[Speaker B] What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But still, his point really shows that it’s even further removed. Not always, but in terms of probability—the majority. The verse is even further from mixture, because in a mixture we know from the outset that the majority is okay. Here we don’t know; it could be that the majority is not okay. Meaning, it’s even worse. There we behave… it can’t be? In principle. That’s the other side of the same coin. Assuming everyone has the same intellect, the same knowledge, the same—
[Speaker B] Then it’s not logical.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But definite prohibition, obviously, is present in greater quantity. Right. Here it could be that we don’t know whether the actual truth… Why? We estimate that the majority is probably right.
[Speaker B] When there are three judges then always—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —the one in the minority is smarter? A higher chance. Sefer HaChinukh writes this, for example, as an explanation: that the greater likelihood is that the majority is right. And if we need some general algorithm, there is no choice; we have to establish some halakhic mechanism and not argue afresh every time. And we say that the majority is the more reasonable mechanism. Obviously it sometimes misses; there is no mechanism that guarantees we are right. But it is better than the mechanism of following the minority. But is it precise to say, as he writes, that we assume this is the truth, or that we act as if this is so? That’s what he means. He’ll say that later. Although I think he’s wrong about that. In my opinion we assume that this is the truth. Because there is halakhic truth; it’s not correct that whatever a religious court determines is the truth. So in a moment we’ll see that later on. In any event, the question is how one can learn from “follow the majority” in a religious court to the matter of nullification in a majority. Just parenthetically I’ll say: it seems to me that the Rashba’s approach in a dry-with-dry mixture, where you have pieces mixed together and I take each one and eat it one by one—here it does indeed resemble following the majority. Because with respect to each one that I took now, it belongs either to the nine kosher ones or to the one non-kosher one, exactly like the shops. And then I say: it probably belongs to the nine kosher ones, and therefore I may eat it. That is really a mechanism of following the majority. And in fact the Rashba argues that in nullification of liquid with liquid—meaning liquids, and the liquids mix—you can’t take only the prohibited liquid; every spoonful you take probably contains both prohibited and permitted matter. But in dry with dry, when you take a piece, it is either prohibited or permitted. Now you ask yourself whether it belongs to the majority of permitted pieces or to the minority of prohibited ones.
[Speaker B] But then I can eat three and I need to stop.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Three times you need to stop, right? But that is exactly his claim: that this is simply following the majority, and from there he derives the conclusion that you need to stop. Just like “follow the majority.” Right. And as the Pri Megadim briefly noted at the beginning of his introduction to the laws of mixtures, the difficulty becomes even greater. Because we are used to ignoring questions about the rabbinic expositions and solving everything with, “I don’t know,” because we are not expert in the methods of exegesis and the like. Only when the medieval authorities (Rishonim) introduce an exposition do we certainly have to ask: from where do they get this, and what did they see in it? The medieval authorities do not work with these tools; the medieval authorities do not make expositions. Generally speaking, they do not innovate them, except for unusual exceptions. In principle, even in the Talmud the expositions that exist are usually either supportive expositions or creative expositions, but among the medieval authorities there are really no new expositions at all, neither creative nor supportive, aside from truly rare cases, and in even rarer cases there are expositions even among the later authorities (Acharonim). But generally the medieval authorities do not make expositions at all. So apparently this is either logic, or they derived it from the exposition that the Talmud itself makes regarding following the majority, and then the question really arises: what is that logic? He does not bring the logic. If this is an exposition, I don’t know, tell me they saw it through letter-skipping, I don’t know how. But if it is logic, then explain to me how it comes out of “follow the majority.” And moreover, the Rosh expresses himself by saying that it is a decree of Scripture, and according to the usual understanding, a decree of Scripture is something without a reason, yes, a thing without a reason. If the sages had said that nullification in the majority is a decree of Scripture, fine. But if the sages did not say that this is the source for nullification in the majority, from where does the Rosh get to say that the decree of Scripture is “follow the majority”? After all, the verse is speaking about something else, and the law of nullification in the majority that the sages transmitted to us might be a law given to Moses at Sinai and have no source in Scripture, or perhaps its source is another verse. Basically the principle is this: we see in the Talmud that there is a law of nullification in the majority. The Rosh did not invent that. But we do not see in the Talmud its source. Now the Rosh had several possibilities before him. He could have said, fine, this is probably a law given to Moses at Sinai, or that they derived it from some other verse, I don’t know. But the Rosh decided that they derive it from “follow the majority.” How does he know? It is not written in the Talmud, so how does he know that it comes from “follow the majority”? Apparently he had some reasoning that showed him that this is the same thing as what we derive from “follow the majority,” but is that really so? Is there such logic? That is what he says: I do not understand this logic. Fine, if it were the sages, you could tell me, methods of exegesis and all that. But for the Rosh this is supposed to be something rational, so where is the logic? And apparently the words of the medieval authorities are based on the Talmud in Hullin 11a: “From where do we know this thing that the sages said, ‘go after the majority’?” Where does this idea come from, that the sages said to follow the majority? And the Talmud answers rhetorically: “From where do we know it? As it is written: ‘follow the majority.'” Obviously. What is the question? It says “follow the majority.” And the Talmud had to explain its problem: “A majority that is before us, such as nine shops and the Sanhedrin, is not what we are asking about; what we are asking about is where it is not before us, such as a minor boy and a minor girl.” What I said earlier: when the Talmud brings “follow the majority,” it then goes on and asks: from “follow the majority” you can learn a majority that is before us. What are its examples? Either a majority in the Sanhedrin among judges, or a majority of shops, what we saw earlier, a piece of meat in the shops of a city. But a majority that is not before us, such as a minor boy and a minor girl, there it is discussing matters of levirate marriage, where the question is whether it is permitted to perform levirate marriage when there is concern that the girl is barren by nature and cannot bear children. If she is barren by nature and cannot bear children, then in effect the man is sleeping with his brother’s wife, which is a forbidden relation, and there will be no levirate marriage here because she will not bear children, so he has violated the prohibition of forbidden relations. How can it be that he is permitted to do such a thing? Rather what? We follow the majority. Right? We say: most women are not barren by nature. In the meantime we do not yet know because she is a minor; when she grows up we will be able to see, but while she is still a minor we do not know, so we follow the majority: most women are not barren by nature. But that is a majority not before us, not a majority before us. The question is: how do we know that we follow that majority, a majority not before us? Yet it was obvious to the Talmud that following the majority in prohibitions, in a case of a majority before us, such as nine shops selling properly slaughtered meat and one selling carrion meat, or vice versa, so that what is found follows the majority, is learned from following the majority of judges in the Sanhedrin. We learn the majority of shops from the majority of judges in the Sanhedrin. And a majority not before us is the Talmud’s question: where do we know that from? He says yes, but even in the case of majority—well, he himself will ask that. But in truth this does not answer our difficulty, because at first glance it seems that the reason we compare a majority before us of nine shops to the Sanhedrin is because in both cases the reason is following the greater probability, what in mathematical language is called following the higher probability. Meaning, when we ask ourselves whom to rule like, and the Torah says to rule like the majority, we understand that the reason is because it is more likely that the truth is with the majority than with the minority. And likewise with meat found in a city that has nine shops of one kind and one of another kind: the odds are that the meat came from the majority. And although perhaps we should be concerned for the minority and treat it as a Torah-level doubt, from “follow the majority” we learned the principle of following the greater probability. But what does all of that have to do with nullification in the majority? Meaning, following the majority in the Sanhedrin and in the shops, fine, maybe that is probabilities. But nullification in the majority has nothing to do with probabilities. In nullification in the majority you are not asking a question of probability; you are eating the prohibition. The prohibition becomes permitted because it is nullified in the permitted majority. This is not a statistical question of which source a certain piece belongs to. How does that come from there? What does it have to do with there? How can you say that truth is with the majority as something statistical? What? How can you say that truth is with the majority as something statistical? Probability. How can you say that, when here the majority of judges are speaking, yes. In just a second I’ll comment on that. Fine. I’ll come back to it in just a second; let’s just finish this section first. And can we speak, regarding nullifying prohibition in permitted substance in a way that permits eating the mixture, about probability? After all, we know with certainty that there is here a minority of prohibited matter that we are eating, and this is not a matter of probability at all. And later we will see that the very understanding of nine shops and the Sanhedrin according to the principle of probability does not withstand rational criticism. It is not probability at all, that is what he will argue later. But let’s really talk about that for a moment now. First of all, let me ask a simpler question. Is the majority in the Sanhedrin a majority before us or a majority not before us? There are three judges: two say Reuven is liable and one says Reuven is exempt. Fine?
[Speaker B] That is a majority not before us. Why? Because it is not the judges, it is the issue.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We are talking about panels; we are not talking about taking one judge and asking whether he belongs to the majority judges or the minority judges. If one judge came out and I asked who he belongs to, that would be a majority before us. Okay? But we are asking a question: what is the likelihood that in a panel of three judges split two to one, the law is with the two? That the two are right. So what is our sample space? The event space?
[Speaker B] Every panel that has two.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All panels, all panels where there were two against one—count in how many cases the two were right and in how many cases the one was right, and that will create the majority. That majority is a majority not before us. It is not before us; nobody counted it. But I’ll say more than that: here it is far worse than a majority not before us, and here I get to your question. It is not even a majority not before us; it is just plain reasonable conjecture. Because a majority not before us is the result of generalization. Say I saw many women giving birth in the ninth month and few giving birth in the seventh, so I assume there is something in a woman’s physiology that causes her to give birth in the ninth month. That is a generalization. And we do things like that in scientific thinking, as we said; there is a certain flaw in it, but fine, that is how we work, we have nothing better. Here even that does not exist. After all, you get no feedback about who was right. When you have two judges against one, you assume the two are right and the one is not. Has anyone ever checked that against the Holy One, blessed be He? Against what is it checked? What feedback do we have that would give us an indication whether the two are right or the one is right? In order to get the sample—I am not talking about after I do this study and get feedback from the Holy One, blessed be He, and say I did it on a hundred panels—then a majority not before us would be formed, and on the next panel I would also say that the two are right and not the one. So I say: it would become a majority not before us if I had such feedback. But I claim this is not even a majority not before us, because I do not even have that feedback; the sample itself does not exist.
[Speaker E] Except in cases like “the murdered man came walking in,” where it is something you can check. Yes, but there are no such cases.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are no such cases. So in the case of “the murdered man came walking in,” you can see that the majority made a mistake. Meaning, I don’t know how many such cases there were, and whether anyone checked whether in those cases it was really against the majority or with the majority. Ah, actually yes—on the contrary, in the case of “the murdered man came walking in,” it is usually that the majority is wrong; it is against the majority. After all, what happened? They accused someone of murder, and then the murdered man came walking in, while the majority had argued that he was dead. Right? So there it is against the majority. In any case, that is why I say that here it is far more difficult. It has nothing to do with probability at all. It has no connection to probability. It is just reasoning. It is reasoning; there is such reasoning. You can argue with it, but there is reasoning. Let’s say, if we do not get into levels of talent and expertise. But what is this?
[Speaker B] It is not statistics, but it is still probability. It is reasoning that this is the probability. What do you mean, it is not probability?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Reasoning that this is the probability? Certainly. Probability is not reasoning; probability is calculation. Probability assumes certain premises, and from them it knows how to calculate what will happen. Here, the premises—the premises themselves—you are talking about the premises themselves, not the result. The premises themselves are the result of reasoning. There are no probabilities here. It has nothing to do with probabilities. Let’s say you have, I don’t know, a coin that you know is fair, okay? Now you ask: you toss it once and ask what the chance is that it lands on an even side. Fifty percent. Fine? You can test it by tossing it a hundred times and you’ll probably get something like fifty-fifty. No, if not, then over a million tosses it will come out closer. The law of large numbers. Okay? So that is probabilistic calculation. I have basic data, and from those data I calculate a more complex event. My data say that it falls on each side equally. Those are data; I checked them empirically, okay? And now I say, I am asking a more complex question: what is the chance that it lands on an even side, not on a particular side? Here it is of course a very simple probability calculation: one-half. Okay? That is what probability does. It takes some assumptions—assumptions about the distribution, in this case a uniform distribution over all sides—and it calculates what follows from that distribution regarding certain events: what their probability is, what the probability is of getting five, what the probability is of getting six.
[Speaker B] Here too I assume an assumption, that for each of these judges, the distribution of cases in which he is right and wrong is the same for all of them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where does that assumption come from?
[Speaker B] Where does the assumption come from that it will fall on that side? What do you mean, where does the assumption come from? It is a reasonable assumption! It is a reasonable assumption!
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can test it!
[Speaker B] But it is a reasonable assumption!
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, reasonable—but not probability. It is plausibility.
[Speaker B] What is the difference between plausibility and probability?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This is not mathematics. Can a mathematician tell me that? If a mathematician told me that, I would throw him down all the stairs. It is not within his mandate at all. To tell me that the majority in a court is most likely right—that is not a determination a mathematician can make. It has nothing to do with him. It is not the result of a calculation. Now, true, if you assume all kinds of assumptions—for example, that every Torah scholar sitting on the court has equal ability, and that each one has a fixed error distribution, say seventy-thirty—
[Speaker B] Then if there are two against one, do the calculation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, then you can do a calculation. That is true. But where did all these assumptions come from? Fine. So that is why I say: you can call it probability after you have adopted a set of assumptions for which you have no feedback at all. With a die, you can test these assumptions: roll it many times and see. Just see that it is a fair die. You have feedback with a die. Then you can begin doing calculations on the basis of the data. Here the data determine everything. If someone came and argued against this—he said, what are you talking about, the majority is not right—could you prove to him that the majority is right? No. In mathematical calculation you are supposed to be able to prove it to him: here, I did the calculation, see that I am right.
[Speaker B] So you know what, then in a majority not before us it is also an assumption. It rests on an assumption. Nobody counted all the women giving birth in the world.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right! Again! I saw the sample with my own eyes. The sample? No, that is not the point. As I said, there is generalization in a majority not before us, obviously. There is a gap, there is a leap from the sample to the case before me, but I saw the sample with my own eyes.
[Speaker B] So what? Then I can say I saw a sample—you
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] see
[Speaker B] that in most cases where there are panels, where there is a dispute and the majority—what happened? How do you know?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You have no feedback whether they were right or not.
[Speaker B] A lot of times you do have feedback.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where is the feedback? There is no feedback.
[Speaker B] It becomes clear afterward. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nobody checked it. It never happens. No, nothing becomes clear.
[Speaker B] Is the sample itself before us?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The sample, certainly. But a majority not before us always rests on the sample that is before us. The sample before us—you make a generalization to another case.
[Speaker B] Because your case is not in the sample.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is why it is “not before us.” I saw the sample. But in the case of the majority of judges, you did not even see the sample. I have no data. Again, I understand the reasoning; it is reasoning. But there are no data here. You cannot really test that reasoning.
[Speaker C] Why is the initial assumption at all that going after the majority is reasoning? It is simply a rule of decision, an imposed necessity. I have to arrive at some ruling. I have no other way, and this is the way I choose. It is not logic at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you certainly need that one hundred percent. One can make that claim, but Sefer HaHinukh does not say that. Sefer HaHinukh says that we go after the majority because the majority is more likely to be right. That is his claim. You are claiming that the issue is not at all who has the truth; the issue is how peace is to be created, basically.
[Speaker C] On the contrary—even if I knew it was not true, I would still go after the many. It would not help.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you knew it was not true? How would you know it was not true? Sometimes. Someone who knows truths by divine inspiration from Heaven? Maybe.
[Speaker C] But there is a religious court—
[Speaker E] —that made a mistake.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We follow the religious court, we follow the majority, and the court itself later reaches the conclusion that it made a mistake, so it brings the bull-offering for an erroneous ruling. It is not that the majority determines the truth; rather, there is a law to follow the majority. And if you know that this is not the truth, then with all due respect to the majority, they should retract. No, but the law of… legal truth is truth. How? What do you mean, how? The fact that you have no way to know it is a different question. But the claim that there is no truth—that is not… that is a different claim. The question whether it is accessible to me, whether there is some immediate way to know what the halakhic truth is, that is one question. The question whether there is halakhic truth at all—there are those who claim there is not. What the religious court determines is the truth—that is another claim. I claim there is truth, even though it is not always accessible to us. And there are some practical implications within this difference.
[Speaker C] But if it is not accessible, then I will never know it for all eternity.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—but if you assume there is truth, if you assume there is truth, then you need arguments of majority. You say: so probably the majority hits on that truth. If you say there is no truth, then majority is not relevant to the discussion at all. What does majority have to do with it? Then the majority determines the truth; it is not approximating anything. You are not making some calculation. The majority is simply the halakhic ruling. That creates some novelty here. But if that were really the case, then the whole move by which we learn following the majority in mixtures, and nullification in the majority, and “the majority is as the whole,” would be irrelevant. Right. That is one of the proofs that you are not right. Not right—again, in terms of the sages’ conception. You can say you disagree, but the sages’ conception was that “follow the majority” is probably a rule meant to get closer to the truth. You never have certainty; you can always be wrong. But yes, we do think this gives a better chance of getting closer to the truth than not following the majority.
[Speaker D] There are realities in which a religious court ruled something and the person knows—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the person knows, there is nothing to be done; the court does not know.
[Speaker D] And the court does not know, so what should he do?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is nothing to be done, he must… what do you mean, what? Are you asking whether he can evade the court?
[Speaker D] The court judged—let’s say execution by the sword, just as an example—the court judged a case of murder, that this man murdered according to witnesses and so on, and sentenced him to execution by the sword. Let us say that is the punishment. Then the murdered man comes walking in before the sword. So what? Does he have to kill him?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, of course not.
[Speaker D] But the court does not know. The court thinks its truth is that he is a murderer, and he already knows that he is not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the murdered man came walking in, you can bring him to the court too. To the court—but he…
[Speaker D] Okay, I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I saw the murdered man, and then he slipped away from me. That’s it, he can no longer be found.
[Speaker C] I saw him. Okay. “The murdered man came walking in” proves that we do not go after the actual truth, meaning… On the contrary, yes we do. No, when the murdered man comes walking in, then I say: although with the majority I thought that when a majority says something, that is the real truth, but here I see that the murdered man came walking in, and then I allow myself not to accept the opinion of the majority, although seemingly you should have…
[Speaker B] No, you bring him to the court and cancel it, cancel the ruling.
[Speaker C] Wait, wait—but if he comes to you, not to the court. If you say that behind “follow the majority” there is reasoning that the majority reached the legal truth and the actual truth—that is the reasoning. More likely, fine. But if we think that is why they reached the actual truth, then when the murdered man comes walking in, I cannot now change the actual truth. Of course you can. Why can I change it? Because I do not attribute truth to the majority, but only a bounded rule of decision. And here the murdered man came walking in, so I change the whole ruling.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not at all. That is a mistake. No—again, what you are saying is possible, it is not a mistake, but the argument is mistaken, because there is no proof here. When I say we follow the majority because the majority reaches the truth, that does not mean the majority certainly reached the truth. It means that the majority is more likely to reach the truth. There are situations where it does not reach the truth. Now if the murdered man comes walking in, it becomes clear to me that this is probably one of the situations where it did not reach the truth. That is all. Like I once told—I think—the story from Rabbi Shach’s letter about Entebbe. In Rabbi Shach’s letters it says there that they asked him, before the Entebbe operation he said that in his opinion it was not right to carry out the operation, because it endangered soldiers and the chance of success was very small, and he thought it was not right to launch the operation. Fine, they carried out the operation, everyone knows.
[Speaker B] He was not the only one who thought that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, true, fine, he said something reasonable. Now it succeeded. Okay, they came back to him afterward: Well, Rabbi, you see that it succeeded? He said: I too said there was a ten percent chance it would succeed, but you do not launch an operation on a ten percent chance. Meaning, the fact that something happened in the end does not prove I was wrong. After all, I too agreed that it was not impossible; it might succeed. But the probability was low, and it was not right to endanger the soldiers. In this regard, by the way, I think he was mistaken. Why? He was statistically mistaken. If the dispute was whether to go out on a ten percent chance or not to go out on a ten percent chance, then of course the eventual success proves nothing; the dispute is not about the facts. But if the dispute was about the facts—say the generals claimed it would likely succeed, while he… Rabbi Shach, let us say, estimated that the chance of success was low—
[Speaker B] How could he estimate such a thing?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let us say, I am just saying, he heard another general; it does not matter. He estimated that the chance of success was low. And now it succeeded. When we calculate the conditional probability—given that it succeeded, what is the chance that Rabbi Shach was right, as opposed to, given that it succeeded, what is the chance that those who thought it would succeed were right?
[Speaker B] I did not understand how, after the fact, it helps me to know what the earlier probability was.
[Speaker C] Exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly, it is relevant. Probability is statistics. No, no, no—it is probability, conditional probability, posterior probability. I can show it to you mathematically. If it succeeded, that is some evidence—one time is not that much evidence—but it is some evidence against Rabbi Shach. Because if it succeeded, it is more likely that those who said there was a high chance of success were right.
[Speaker B] No, that is assuming the dispute was over the probability.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, I am talking under the assumption that the dispute was over the chances of success. The dispute is factual, an evaluation of reality. Fine. But anyway, for our purposes, when the murdered man comes walking in, that only means this belongs to the minority of cases in which the majority is not right. That is all. At least that is one possible explanation. It may be that you are right, and it is not about truth at all. You know, in “both these and those are the words of the living God,” in that passage in Eruvin about Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, there the heavenly voice says: “Both these and those are the words of the living God, but the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel.” And that is somewhat contradictory, right? If both are right, then in what sense does the Jewish law follow Beit Hillel? If the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel, then what does it mean that both are right? There are two directions for explaining that statement. The natural direction is the pluralistic direction. The direction that says both are right, that there is no halakhic truth. Fine, both these and those are the words of the living God—so what does it mean that the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel?
[Speaker B] In the end you have to do something.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the end you have to do something. So peace, let us say—the criterion of peace is not the criterion of truth. So the criterion of peace is what determines it. Let us go with the majority, because it is more likely that the majority should determine it rather than the minority. Okay? So let us call that the criterion of peace. Then according to that conception, halakhic decision-making is not a striving for truth but a striving for peace. We have no way to know what the truth is, if there even is a truth. Both are right, but we go after the majority because it will create more peace. That is more plausible. Rabbi Yosef Karo, in his Rules of the Talmud, writes there that… wait a second. The continuation of the Talmud explains why the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel: because they were gentle and humble, and they mentioned the words of Beit Shammai before their own. They were so humble that they first presented the position of Beit Shammai, and only afterward their own position. And because of that, the Jewish law was decided in accordance with them. Under a pluralistic conception, then, we are really supposed to read this as a reward for good behavior, right? Basically, Beit Hillel were polite and nice, so let’s gain something from that. In any case there is no truth, so what difference does it make how the Jewish law is decided? So let us decide in accordance with them; at least we gain an educational benefit. Okay? But Rabbi Yosef Karo does not write that. In his Rules of the Talmud that is what seems to emerge; his language is not perfectly clear, but he writes there that the Jewish law was decided like them because this method—of presenting the words of Beit Shammai before their own and being humble—is the method that will bring you, with greater certainty, to the truth. If you are willing to seriously consider the opinion of someone who disagrees with you, and only afterward decide your own position, that is better decision-making. You will reach the truth that way.
[Speaker B] A higher probability of reaching the truth.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. And although the Talmud says that Beit Shammai were sharper, they were intellectually more brilliant. But the method of Beit Hillel brings them to a better decision, even though they were less brilliant. And therefore the Jewish law was decided in accordance with them. And then from this Rabbi Yosef Karo it really emerges that halakhic decision-making is indeed a striving for truth, and not following the majority for the sake of peace. Rather, they are searching for the truth, and the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel because the truth is with them. But what does it mean that the truth is with them? Not one hundred percent—we said majority. Obviously sometimes they were wrong. But if I need to adopt some general rule, then I say: I go with Beit Hillel because in most cases I will be right that way, and not when I go with Beit Shammai. Okay? Fine. So in short, to return to your question—this started the whole thing. In what sense is there even a majority in this matter of “follow the majority”? The majority there is really a majority not before us, based not on data but on reasoning. It is something very problematic.
[Speaker B] That is not what he says. Huh? That is not what he says.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says probability. I am trying—this is the truth of the matter. It is a majority not before us. He tells you it is a majority before us; the Talmud says so. It is a majority not before us. It is a majority not before us because we do not see the judges before us, and it is weaker than a majority not before us because it is a majority not before us based on a priori assumptions, not on observations, not on facts we saw.
[Speaker B] Okay, for that you need a verse; otherwise you would say without a verse, you probably would create a consensus.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine, I am saying—but this verse teaches
[Speaker B] us. That is why the verse is necessary, because without
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the verse you would think—but more than that, I am saying, obviously that is why the verse is necessary. But I am saying more than that: once there is a verse saying that even this is possible, then certainly a majority before us, or a majority not before us based on an empirical sample, can certainly be followed. And indeed Rashi, at the conclusion of that passage in Hullin—and he does not bring it here; he ignores that Rashi—at the end of that passage they bring… after all, the Talmud says there that a majority before us is learned from “follow the majority.” What about a majority not before us? That is the question the passage deals with. Then they bring sources, more sources, reject them, and so on, and in the end they remain without a source. There is no source for a majority not before us, that’s it. The passage is left there; it does not even say “refutation,” it does not say what to do—”it stands unresolved,” “a law given to Moses at Sinai,” nothing. With complete indifference, that is: it brings all the sources, rejects them, and moves on to the next topic. Rashi there goes back and forth, on page a and page b, over where ultimately we learn a majority not before us from. He gives two possibilities: either it is a law given to Moses at Sinai—which is strange, because the Talmud does not say that—or that it is learned from “follow the majority.” And that is odd, because all the Talmud assumes is that you cannot learn it from “follow the majority,” because “follow the majority” is a majority before us, right? And a majority not before us—we searched for another source and did not find one. So now suddenly you are telling me that this too comes from “follow the majority”? Then what was the whole discussion in the passage? Why did the whole passage start searching for a source if from the outset we already knew there was “follow the majority”? So one possibility is to say exactly what I just said: the Talmud assumes “follow the majority” is a majority before us—an assumption that is far from simple, and the later authorities try to explain it, and he too will explain it later, but in a moment. It assumes that this is a majority before us. But in truth, Rashi thinks to himself: this is a majority not before us. In truth it is a majority not before us. And once it is a majority not before us, then first of all you can learn from it a majority not before us, and second, since a majority before us is stronger, then of course you can also learn a majority before us from it by an a fortiori argument—not because it is the same thing—and therefore in our case we learn from there. But what the Talmud assumed was that “follow the majority” is a majority before us, and it knows that a majority not before us is weaker, so it says: if so, if this is a majority before us, then from where do we know a majority not before us? It searches for sources, searches and searches, and does not find one. In the end, what remains? Rashi tells us: no, “follow the majority.” Why? Apparently in the end Rashi says that “follow the majority,” as Sefer HaHinukh explains it—that most of the time the majority in the court is the one that is right—that is a majority not before us, not a majority before us. If so, you can learn from it a majority not before us. But the Talmud’s assumption that a majority not before us is weaker still stands, as the Talmud assumes, and therefore a majority before us can also be learned by an a fortiori argument from that verse. Maimonides’ position is a problem, because Maimonides says that a majority not before us is weaker. Avnei Miluim brings this up, but that is another discussion. Okay, so that is his claim in short. First, he does not understand how nullification in the majority comes from “follow the majority.” Second, he says that “follow the majority” and shops—that too is not probability, and therefore even between them the analogy between “follow the majority” and the majority of shops is inappropriate. And he brings the explanation attributed to Rabbi Chaim of Brisk. The words of the later authorities are well known, and their basis is attributed to Rabbi Chaim HaLevi, in the stencil edition of Hiddushei HaGra”h on the Talmud: that the derivation of nullification in the majority from the Sanhedrin is because in the Sanhedrin too there is nullification in the majority. Right—the question was, what does “follow the majority” have to do with the law of nullification in the majority? In “follow the majority,” the question is: with whom is the truth, the minority or the majority? The minority or the majority. Nullification in the majority is not a question of where the truth lies. The prohibition becomes permitted; the majority overpowers the prohibited minority and transforms it. What does that have to do with this? It is a completely different principle. So he says: in the Sanhedrin too there is not only following the majority; there is also nullification in the majority. That is to say: the Torah required a certain number of judges—three in monetary cases, twenty-three in capital cases, and so on. If we follow the majority and rule according to them, and the minority view is disregarded, then the required number of judges is lacking. The Torah wanted monetary cases judged by three, capital cases by twenty-three. Suppose there are two against one in a monetary case; then effectively we ruled on the basis of two, not on the basis of three, but the Torah wants three judges. Therefore, perforce, the Torah revealed that the minority of judges is nullified in the majority and becomes like the majority, and thus we have a court of three, or of twenty-three. Three who issued the ruling. And his claim is that in order to fulfill the Torah’s requirement that there be three judges—not three judges who all say the same thing. Yes, that is the Ra’avad’s assumption. It is a problematic assumption.
[Speaker F] The American method. The majority swallows up.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Like the electors. In court there I assume it is not like that. In any case, he says that since in monetary law you need a judgment determined by three judges, and when there are two against one it is really by two, there is no escape from saying that the one joins the two, and therefore we really have three judges. And since that is so, from here one can also learn the law of nullification in the majority. Because the judge who says so-and-so is exempt is nullified before the two who say he is liable, or vice versa. He changes his skin. How do we learn from here following the majority? We can learn following the majority too. Why is the one nullified to the two, and not the two to the one? First of all, you need to decide what the truth is. The truth is like the two, right? That is the law of following the majority. Afterward you need to establish that there are three judges here, so I say: the two swallow the third, as if changing the third’s skin, and thus we have three judges who state the ruling. So two things happen when we follow the majority in court. First, there is following the majority: that is the determination that the ruling is the ruling of the two and not of the one. And second, there is nullification in the majority. The second is the nullification of the one relative to the two and his joining with the two. Thus both nullification in the majority and following the majority are learned from “follow the majority.”
[Speaker D] And from where do we learn a court of three and of twenty-three?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] At the beginning of Sanhedrin there: “God, God…”
[Speaker D] “God” appears three times in the verse. Because twenty-three, I think, is from “the congregation shall judge” and “the congregation shall save.” A congregation to convict and a congregation to acquit. “Save” are those in his favor, and “judge” are those against him. And the Torah does not require that all twenty-three be in his favor. They get to twenty-three because you need a majority to tip the scale. I think that is Nachmanides. So if you derive it from needing some to be against him, how can you now say all of them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you can say like Rabbi Chaim that we derive from this that even if there is a congregation against and a congregation in favor, there still has to be a majority in capital cases, and therefore you need twenty-three—because as you know, you need a majority of two to convict. Therefore twenty-one is impossible, twenty-two is no good because that is an evenly split court, so twenty-three. Fine? But Rabbi Chaim will say, fine, but once there are twenty-three, the Torah wants a court of twenty-three. True, the way you calculate it is that there is a convicting side and an acquitting side opposite each other, but still you need a court of twenty-three, and here you have a court of thirteen, not twenty-three. Therefore there is also nullification of the ten who are nullified.
[Speaker F] If you were saying thirteen is enough?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then that assumption would apply in monetary cases too. Whatever you say in monetary cases, you would say in capital cases too.
[Speaker F] But on the contrary, in capital cases if all twenty-three ruled he is guilty, they do not execute him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously, right, right. Fine, so I agree. Meaning, this statement of Rabbi Chaim, both in capital and monetary cases, is a substantive statement. What we want when we require three judges is that three should deliberate; but we go with the two against the one, that is all.
[Speaker C] But maybe the intention behind nullifying the minority is that after the law was ruled according to the majority, anyone who thinks and supports the minority must act according to the majority, like Rabbi Yehoshua who thought Yom Kippur was on a different day—he still had to obey what was ruled by the majority.
[Speaker B] Obey, obey, obey—that is something else.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why is that nullification? That is following the majority. That is the meaning of following the majority: to act as the majority said.
[Speaker C] You are sort of saying that the minority opinion plays no role for the public at all.
[Speaker B] No, but it does still need to play a role. That is the Jewish law. But it still has to play a role—it has to be part of the three. That is what he said.
[Speaker C] I brought this explanation after he saw several difficulties with that explanation.
[Speaker B] No, that is true.
[Speaker C] I am saying that maybe the nullification of the minority is not because that judge becomes one of the three, but because the meaning of the majority ruling is that anyone in that group who still thinks like the minority opinion cannot act on it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that is following the majority, not nullification. You cannot learn nullification from here, though. We found a piece of meat, and there are nine kosher shops and one non-kosher one. Fine? There too I say: I simply do not take the non-kosher shop into account at all; I assume all the shops here are kosher. So in effect you are turning the law of following the majority into nullification in the majority too. You are blurring the distinction between these two laws, basically.
[Speaker F] If I understand, he is raising what Rabbi Yehoshua thought when he came with his staff and his bag.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker F] What did he think?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The head of the Sanhedrin fixed the year, so it does not matter what he thought. There, by the way, it is not a good example, because there the verse says: “even if they err, even if they act intentionally”—in fixing the calendar, the head of the Sanhedrin has mandatory authority. Even if he is wrong, even if he acts intentionally.
[Speaker F] It does not matter. In principle he said it was not Yom Kippur.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but authority, yes—but authority is following; authority is not nullification.
[Speaker F] I am saying: I do not agree with the majority.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You do not agree. Fine, so what? Let us say he did not agree, but that is what he had to do. I am saying that according to your approach, every law of following the majority includes nullification in the majority.
[Speaker C] Why is that nullifying the minority?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only with witnesses; with shops too. There is no law of following the majority at all. According to your approach it is always nullification. Because with shops too it is the same: when I find a piece of meat and there are nine kosher shops and one non-kosher one, I assume the non-kosher one does not exist. For me it is completely kosher, without any hesitation.
[Speaker B] But if it is nullification, then again here nullification, but—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it is nullification—
[Speaker B] then you do not need to stop.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I’m saying even more than that: the Talmud itself distinguishes between these two laws; they’re treated as two different laws. So I think you can’t derive nullification from there. And besides that, another law is learned from following the majority, namely that we assume the truth is with the larger group—that is, that we decide a doubt based on the majority. And that is the source of the law of the nine shops that I mentioned: first of all, we decide that the majority is correct, and then we also nullify the minority view into it. And there is support for these points in Tosafot in Bava Kamma 27. Tosafot explain there—Rabbi Chaim builds on this Tosafot—that in monetary law we do not follow the majority, even though in capital cases we do. That’s very strange. Several Tosafot passages throughout the Talmud deal with this question: how can that be? In monetary matters, we do not follow the majority to extract money, but in capital cases—in killing a person—we do rely on the majority. Because in monetary matters we say: combine the minority with the presumption, namely that a person is in possession of his money, and the majority cannot overcome a minority plus a presumption. What does that mean? When someone is in possession and the other person—say I’m in possession of the money, and someone else claims it from me, and suppose there’s a majority against him. For example, the case discussed in the dispute between Rav and Shmuel about whether we follow the majority in monetary law is where someone sold an ox to another person and it turned out to be a goring ox. This ox was in the habit of goring, and he didn’t tell him that at the time of purchase. So the buyer says: this was a mistaken purchase—take back the ox and give me back the money. The seller says: I sold it to you for slaughter; why do you care that it gores? The buyer says: I bought the ox for plowing, not for slaughter. And most sales are for plowing—most sellers sell for plowing. So if most sales are for plowing, then I, the buyer, bring a majority in my favor, namely that I bought it for plowing, and I want you to return my money. I’m trying to extract money from you by means of a claim based on the majority. We do not follow the majority in monetary law—this is a dispute between Rav and Shmuel, and the Jewish law ruling is that we do not follow the majority in monetary law. So why is it different in capital cases? There we do follow the majority. Now why, in monetary matters, do we not follow the majority? That’s what we said: combine the minority with the presumption, and it comes out fifty-fifty. Meaning: I’m in possession—meaning that other person is in possession of the money—and besides that there is also a minority of people who buy for slaughter. The combination of the minority plus the presumption is considered equal to the majority, and therefore it’s balanced, so we do not follow the majority. By contrast, in capital cases there is no such presumption; this is not about possession, because it’s not money, so we are not dealing with presumptions. If there were such a presumption there, then apparently it would be the same there as well, and that is why there they do follow the majority. And as for the fact that in a court we follow the majority even in monetary cases—after all, in a court, “follow the majority.” What is the source for following the majority in court? “Follow the majority.” And regarding what? Monetary law too. In court, in monetary cases, we follow the majority. But wait—if in monetary matters we do not follow the majority, then how does a court decide according to the majority view? So Tosafot explain in Bava Kamma that in court there is no minority that can be combined with the presumption. That’s what Tosafot say there: judges are different, and their minority is considered as though it does not exist. The minority in court is not regarded as an existing minority that can be combined with the monetary presumption, and then stand against the majority on equal footing. In court there is no minority; the minority is as though it does not exist—it is nullified. And on this Rabbi Chaim writes his little insight that he mentioned earlier: that from here we learn the law of nullification by majority, because that minority essentially becomes like the majority. And later authorities learned from this that the minority is nullified and transformed into the majority. But in truth Tosafot are not saying that the minority became like the majority
[Speaker B] but rather it is as though
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it does not exist—not present, not present at all, not as though it turns into the majority. And their intention is different, as will become clear below. By the way, even in the laws of nullification this is not clear at all. He assumes here, and Rabbi Chaim also assumes here, that in the laws of nullification what we are really saying is that the prohibition turns into permission. And that is not clear at all; it is probably a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). There is a long responsum by Oneg Yom Tov on this issue. At least according to some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), the prohibition becomes as though it does not exist; it does not become permitted.
[Speaker B] As if there’s nothing here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everything I eat belongs to the majority. The minority is not there. As though it does not exist—halakhically, of course. If, in fact, we understand the law of nullification by majority this way, then the law of majority among witnesses too—what Tosafot said here—is basically the same thing. The minority is as though it does not exist. And if so, then one can proceed along Rabbi Chaim’s line, that the law of nullification by majority is learned from this foundation in Tosafot here. Because in nullification by majority too, it is not that the minority turns into permission; rather, the minority is as though it does not exist. And that also exists with witnesses, and since that is so, it can be learned from “follow the majority.” So his refutation is not necessarily a refutation.
[Speaker B] And that really does explain Rabbi Chaim—that there are three if it does not exist.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but for Rabbi Chaim himself that won’t help, because Rabbi Chaim wants there to be three. And Rabbi Chaim also assumes that nullification by majority means turning the prohibition into permission. That is what is called nullification by majority. And on that Rabbi Daniel agrees with him—that this is the meaning of nullification by majority—and therefore he says: Rabbi Chaim, you can’t learn it from Tosafot, because Tosafot is not talking about turning the minority into the majority, but rather about it being as though it does not exist. I’m only commenting parenthetically against both of them that this is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). Some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) understand nullification by majority to mean rendering the minority as though it does not exist, not turning the prohibition into permission. And if it means rendering the minority as though it does not exist, then that principle can indeed be learned from witnesses, from “follow the majority.” Because that is exactly what happens with witnesses. I’m rescuing Rabbi Chaim, but not for his own reasons. Because of course that still will not help us in order to count the judges as three judges who issued the ruling.
[Speaker B] What do we learn from the first part of the verse, “Do not be after the majority to do evil”—that you can’t, that it can’t be for conviction?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is in a capital court: a simple majority is not enough, and you need a majority of two. Not every majority works “to do evil,” meaning to convict someone in capital cases. And some wanted to bring proof from this point that in a court the ruling has to emerge from the full number of judges. And in any case—well, actually, we’ll leave that for next time.