The Relationship Between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah – Lesson 6

This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

[0:03] Tradition is not a hollow pipe
[0:03] Presenting tradition without a hollow pipe
[2:11] A soft, non-logical connection between Sinai and custom
[3:22] Three forms of inference
[3:22] Three forms of halakhic inference
[4:58] Critique of a fundamentalist perspective
[6:25] The authority of interpretation and analogies
[6:52] The broken-telephone metaphor in the process of transmission
[8:32] An evolutionary model of tradition
[9:32] Evolution of tradition without feedback
[9:51] Lack of feedback in processes of halakhic evolution
[12:28] “An eye for an eye” — interpretation and obligation
[14:43] The example of “an eye for an eye” and its connection to analogy
[15:47] Derash as a tool, not as an invention
[17:20] Analogy and induction as speculation?
[18:56] An inference from tefillin: women are exempt
[18:56] Example from the Talmud: women’s exemption from time-bound commandments
[21:59] “In her menstrual state” — a change in Jewish law
[23:58] David Hume and doubt about deduction
[26:09] The difference between induction and deduction, and probability
[26:09] Induction and probability — examples of ravens
[27:17] The role of analogy and induction in thought
[27:17] The difference between deduction and induction
[29:07] The role of the broader public and rabbinic authority
[30:05] The role of the broader public and rabbinic guidance
[31:24] The problematic nature of tradition and the extremism of the outlook
[31:24] The problematic nature of tradition — two extremes
[33:02] The stages of a person’s personal maturation
[33:02] The stages of a person’s intellectual maturation
[34:14] Adolescent rebellion and the demand for proof
[36:25] The adolescent and the difficulty of proving anything independent
[38:02] Three paths out of the crisis of maturation
[46:16] Humanity’s dogmatic period
[50:50] Positivism versus postmodernism in the twentieth century

Summary

General Overview

The text presents a model of halakhic tradition that is not a “hollow pipe,” in which commitment to Jewish law does not depend on the historical authenticity of every detail as though it had been said to Moses at Sinai, but rather on a cumulative interpretive process carried out across the generations using the tools that accompany the Torah. The model rejects both the claim that everything was given at Sinai and the claim that there is no connection at all to Sinai, and instead proposes a “soft” connection that is not logically necessary. That allows for mistakes—and indeed makes it likely that many mistakes occurred—while commitment is still preserved through institutions of authority. This distinction is explained through forms of inference such as deduction, analogy, and induction, and then through a broader picture of intellectual maturation and cultural parallels among dogmatism, skepticism, and fundamentalism, with the proposed alternative being acceptance of what is reasonable even without absolute certainty.

Commitment to Tradition Without Dependence on Authenticity

The commitment to Jewish law as written in the Mishnah Berurah does not stem from the assumption that this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, told Moses at Sinai, and perhaps not even what He intended. The commitment stems from the fact that Jewish law was created through interpretation, expansion, and refinement of what we received at Sinai across the generations, using the tools that accompany the Torah, and it obligates us even if we did not correctly grasp what the Holy One, blessed be He, intended. The claim is that to create a valid obligation one does not need to reach historical authenticity, and therefore there is no need to say that every detail in a law book was given to Moses at Sinai and passed down from generation to generation, something defined here as completely implausible. Most of it was formed throughout history, and yet that does not mean that everything that emerged is some capricious invention with no connection to what was there before.

The “Middle” Position Between “Everything from Sinai” and “Everything Is Invented”

The text states that what we observe today is not the logical result of what we received at Sinai, but neither is it independent of what was given at Sinai. The connection to what was given at Sinai is defined as a connection that is not logical, not tight, and not necessary, and therefore it can be challenged and one might think it is merely an invention. But the claim is not “this is binding even though there is no connection,” but rather “this is binding because there is a soft connection.” Halakhic development is described as development on the basis of what was given at Sinai, without any guarantee that it hits the original intention, and therefore it is possible—and even likely—that in a large number of cases we missed the mark. But the obligation still stands, because this is the product of the attempt to interpret what we received.

Modes of Inference: Deduction, Analogy, Induction

The text defines deduction as moving from a general rule to a particular case, analogy as moving from one particular to another or from one general rule to another at the same level, and induction as moving from particular cases to a general rule. Analogy and induction add information beyond what one previously had, but the new information is connected to what was observed and is not “out of the blue”; the connection simply is not a logically necessary one. From this, the text argues that the model of tradition relies on “soft” inferences that are not certain but are also not sheer speculation, and that the mistake lies in identifying uncertainty with lack of foundation.

Authority, Institutions, and the “Broken Telephone”

The text presents institutions of authority as the ones that make the analogies and inferences, and what they say is binding, but not every individual is authorized to interpret. It distinguishes between a Sanhedrin, which binds everyone, and a local religious court, which may bind only its own locale, and emphasizes the problem of “broken telephone,” where over thousands of years there is analogy upon analogy upon analogy, so things grow blurrier and errors multiply. It rejects the explanation of “decline of the generations” as the claim that everyone used to be geniuses and today we are all fools, and instead grounds the authority of earlier generations in the fact that greater distance from the source increases the chances of error.

Maimonides on the Multiplication of Disputes and Change in Jewish law

Maimonides is cited as saying that because the students of Hillel and Shammai multiplied and did not serve their teachers sufficiently, disputes increased in Israel, and this is linked to the analogical character of the process, which is not mathematically certain and is therefore prone to error. Maimonides is also cited from the beginning of chapter two of the laws of rebels, according to which any religious court in any generation can disagree with previous courts on Torah-level laws where it has become convinced that an error occurred, without needing to be greater in wisdom and number. The text distinguishes between a general assumption that many mistakes were probably made and concrete knowledge that a specific mistake was made, and argues that if there is clear information showing that something runs against what is written in the Torah, then it is replaced.

“What an accomplished student will one day innovate” as a Normative Statement, and the Reservation About Evolution

The text adopts the description of the development of Jewish law as a kind of evolution-based process built on some foundation, and interprets “what an accomplished student will one day innovate” as the basis for commitment to the result of that process as a normative rather than historical statement. It says that the claim “what an accomplished student will one day innovate was shown by the Holy One, blessed be He, to Moses at Sinai” is not historical but normative, and that one should relate to what emerged as though it were given to Moses at Sinai because, from our point of view, that is what came out of there. It qualifies the analogy to evolution by noting that evolution includes feedback that eliminates errors and preserves what succeeds, whereas in Jewish law there is not necessarily feedback that guarantees that what emerged is truly the correct thing. Therefore there is a problem of moving farther from the source and accumulating errors.

“It Is Not in Heaven” and the Question of Divine Involvement

The text presents uncertainty regarding the degree of the Holy One’s involvement in the process, and the theoretical possibility that feedback does exist if He is involved, but emphasizes that the model does not depend on that assumption. It interprets “It is not in heaven” as a determination that obligation and procedure do not depend on divine intervention, and that even if the Holy One Himself were to come and say we erred, that would not change the ruling. It concludes that one need not assume the absence of errors in order to remain obligated.

Simple Meaning, Derash, “No Uprooting,” and the Example of “An Eye for an Eye”

The text argues that “there are no uprootings” and presents “an eye for an eye means monetary compensation” as a derash that is not a contradiction but an addition to the written text, combining simple meaning and derash in a way that leads to a shared conclusion. It gives an example from the Talmud of an opinion that one pays, using the eye of the damager, for the value of the eye of the damager, and explains this as a combination in which the plain meaning requires taking out the eye, while the derash instructs us to take money instead of the eye that should have been taken out, and therefore we take the monetary value of the damager’s eye. It argues that the tools of derash were given at Sinai—perhaps not necessarily in the form of the interpretive principles as we know them today, but what later developed into those principles—and therefore derash is not an invention but a tool, though errors could also occur there.

Nachmanides on “Soft” Inferences and the Distinction from Speculation

Nachmanides is cited from the introduction to The Wars of the Lord as saying that the wisdom of our Torah is not like astronomy and mathematics, whose demonstrations are conclusive. The text argues that halakhic and midrashic inference is not deduction and therefore is not certain, but uncertainty does not turn it into baseless speculation. It presents a scale of levels of reliability and probability, and argues that the opposition “either certain deduction or speculation” is false.

Positive Time-Bound Commandments: A Rule Produced by Induction

The text cites the Talmud in Kiddushin, in the first chapter, which brings the rule that women are exempt from positive commandments that are time-bound and obligated in those that are not time-bound, and asks where this is known from. The Talmud derives it from tefillin, and tefillin are learned by juxtaposition to Torah study, from which women are exempt. The text rejects presenting this as a “supportive derash” that merely props up a law already received from Sinai, and argues that the sages here actually created an induction from one or two examples in order to infer a general rule.

Ralbag on “Supportive Derashot” and Rejection of the “Everything Was Already Known” View

Ralbag is cited in the introduction to his commentary on the Torah as saying that all laws derived from derashot were really given at Sinai and all derashot are merely supportive, because otherwise one could end up anywhere in the world of derash and there would be no trust in its reliability. The text argues that this solution stems from doubting induction and derash, but is incorrect, and stresses that there are places where one can clearly see that the result was not known in advance and that the derash produced a real change.

Rabbi Akiva, “In Her Menstrual State,” and Changing an Ancient Custom

The text relates that Rabbi Akiva interpreted the verse “in her menstrual state” to permit a woman during the days of her menstruation to adorn herself, and to permit what earlier generations had forbidden, so that she not become repulsive to her husband. The example is presented as proof that Rabbi Akiva did not receive a ready-made Sinaitic tradition here, but inferred Jewish law through the power of derash and a broader consideration. It also serves as an example of a case in which he found what, on his view, was an error and changed it.

David Hume’s Critique of Certainty in Deduction

The text mentions David Hume’s challenge to deduction, namely that even if a deductive conclusion is certain, its premises are not certain because they are themselves produced through induction. It presents the idea that in practice there are not really three separate modes of inference, but that analogy is the basis, and sometimes it is carried out in two stages—induction followed by deduction. It clarifies that science too uses induction, and that a person does not in practice doubt that an apple will fall, but there is still no absolute logical certainty here, only a gradation of probability and reliability, which also depends on assumptions about the distribution of the sample.

An Explicit Rule in the Torah as the Basis for Rare Deduction

The text notes that a place where the Torah itself contains a rule such as “fins and scales” allows for a “fuller” deduction, but defines such cases as rare, and says that even there room remains for interpretation. It presents this as the difference between a rule that appears explicitly and a rule created by generalizing from examples.

The General Public, Choosing Authority, and Marketing

The text compares the place of the general public in Jewish law to its place in particle physics, arguing that one who does not understand does not engage in interpretation but chooses an expert. It states that when there is no Sanhedrin there are no clear rules for determining authority, and therefore marketing plays a role, and no non-Sanhedrin “authority” is absolutely binding. It formulates the decision as a personal choice of an individual to choose a rabbi he trusts and is willing to follow, since one who does not know cannot perform inductions on his own.

Both Extremes Make the Same Mistake, and the Proposed Alternative

The text argues that those who challenge tradition and those who defend it fall into the same mistake: both assume that induction and analogy are speculation and therefore unacceptable. The critics conclude from this that there is no obligation, while the defenders conclude that one must say everything was given at Sinai in order to guarantee reliability, as in the explanation that attributes “an eye for an eye” to a Sinaitic source so as not to rely on uncertain derash. The text offers a third picture in which there are inductions and analogies that are not certain but are also not pure speculation, and from this arises an obligation that does not require hanging everything on Sinaitic certainty.

The Maturation Model: Dogmatism, Adolescent Rebellion, and the Crisis of Proofs

The text describes three stages in intellectual development: a dogmatic child who accepts what adults say, a teenager willing to accept only things that are proven and deductive, and a more mature person who understands that nothing can be proven without relying on assumptions. It describes the crisis in which the demand to accept only what is proven collapses because every proof rests on foundational assumptions, and therefore anyone who insists on proof for everything cannot accept anything. Out of this crisis it presents three exits: skepticism, which accepts both assumptions; fundamentalism, which gives up the claim that there is no certainty and brings in “certainty” through extra-rational tools; and a third path, which gives up the assumption that only certainty is acceptable and accepts what is reasonable.

A Cultural Parallel: From Positivism to Postmodernity and Fundamentalism

The text parallels these stages of maturation with the development of civilization, beginning with an early dogmatic period and then moving into a stage that demands proofs. It describes the beginning of philosophy in Greece as the awakening of questions like “Who told you? Prove it,” and logic as something perceived as threatening, and places that encounter as the background for the development of the tools of the Oral Torah. It presents positivism at the beginning of the twentieth century as an outlook that treats science and certainty as conditions of acceptability, and postmodernity in the middle of the twentieth century as a natural result of that very same assumption, because once there is no certainty, nothing ends up being acceptable. It also presents fundamentalism as a reaction to skepticism, and argues that the skeptic and the fundamentalist share the assumption that only what is certain is acceptable, so the way to deal with both is to give up that assumption and accept what is also merely reasonable.

Fundamentalism as Avoidance of Criticism, and the Skeptic’s Difficulty

The text defines fundamentalism as a philosophical phenomenon of unwillingness to subject principles to the test of critical thought, and not as violence itself, although violence can be one expression of it. It argues that the skeptic has difficulty dealing with a fundamentalist because the skeptic himself lives in a vacuum of content, and when someone claims transcendent certainty he has no answer. It argues that the solution requires creating positive content and accepting plausibility even without certainty, and presents the argument around the “full wagon” in the context of Ben-Gurion and the Chazon Ish as an expression of a change in which people are no longer willing to be regarded as an “empty wagon.”

The Educational Difficulty and the Mistake of Identifying “the Reasonable” with Dogmatism

The text explains that the teenager does not accept the adult’s statement “it’s reasonable,” because he mistakenly identifies it with the dogmatism of the childhood stage, as though the adult has “gone backward” to accepting things without proof. It argues that the teenager has not yet passed through the second maturation crisis and therefore does not recognize the third possibility, in which one accepts what is reasonable as the only practical alternative. It concludes by saying that this dynamic repeats itself across generations: the adult understands the reasonable while the teenager demands proofs, until that teenager himself passes through the crisis and encounters the same problem with his own son.

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A brief summary of the previous chapters. I tried to sketch a picture of tradition in a way that is not a hollow pipe. Meaning, the validity of things does not necessarily derive from their authenticity. When I’m obligated by a certain Jewish law written in the Mishnah Berurah, it’s not because I assume that this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, told Moses at Sinai, and maybe that’s not even what He intended. But it obligates me because it was created through interpretation, expansion, and refinement of what we received at Sinai throughout the generations, using the tools that accompany the Torah. And it obligates me even if I didn’t correctly grasp what the Holy One, blessed be He, intended. In other words, my claim was that obligation does not depend on authenticity. In order to create a valid obligation, you don’t need to arrive at authenticity, and therefore you don’t need to resort to all kinds of problematic claims such as that every detail that today we read in some law book was obviously all given to Moses at Sinai, and it was just somehow passed down from generation to generation. Which is, of course, completely implausible. It’s perfectly clear that most things were created throughout history, throughout the generations, and were not passed down as tradition. I’m not summarizing everything we saw; I’m saying this is the point we ultimately arrived at. Here I need to make some clarification, because the feeling that was created—I think what I said wasn’t properly understood. Meaning, I do not mean to say that all the things that were created throughout history are some sort of invention, some human whim, completely unrelated to what was there before, and that it obligates me for some reason—I don’t exactly know what. My claim is more complex. On the one hand, what we observe today, or what has reached us today, is not the logical result of what we received at Sinai. Meaning, it’s not that what the Holy One, blessed be He, said was transmitted to us as-is, and that’s why we observe it. But the other side is also wrong. The other side, which says there is no connection between this and what was given at Mount Sinai, is also wrong. The whole claim is that there is something in the middle. It is not exactly what was given at Sinai, and it is not independent of what was given at Sinai. Rather, there is something here that is connected to what was given at Sinai, but that connection is not a logical connection. Meaning, it is not a tight connection, not a necessary connection. And therefore it can be challenged, one can think that maybe it’s an invention, and then people come and say, wait a second, so why does it obligate me at all? My claim is not merely to say: it obligates me even though you’re right that there’s no connection—but it still obligates me. No. My claim is: it obligates me because there is a connection, but connection does not mean a logical connection. Connection does not mean a necessary connection, a connection such that if you dig into what was given at Mount Sinai you will discover it there. Rather, connection means something softer. Now, in order to explain this principle, toward the end I moved on to speak about forms of inference. And I spoke about three forms of inference. One form is deduction, moving from a general rule to a particular case. The second is analogy, and the third is induction. Analogy is from one particular to another, or at the same level from one general rule to another. And induction is from particulars to a general rule. And we discussed the connection between these three ways of inferring. But I want to sharpen why I moved to that, because I think this misunderstanding probably happened because I didn’t present well enough the connection to what I’m doing. I moved to these three modes of inference precisely in order to define what I said earlier. Meaning, analogy—when I make an analogy from one thing to another—the analogy is not an invention. It’s not that I’m saying: this frog is green, so apparently that’s also a frog, so it too is green. Obviously, when I infer that the frog is green, I have added information beyond what I had when I knew that this frog was green. I said that analogy or induction is something that adds information. But on the other hand, it is clear that this information is connected to what I saw there. It’s not like saying: this frog is green because it seems to me frogs are green. I see from here that this frog is green, and from that I infer that if that too is a frog, then it too is green. There is a relation between the premises. It’s just that this relation is not a logically necessary one. Fine? That’s a very important point, because what I want to argue for is the middle position. One could come along and claim in a kind of fundamentalist way, saying: what, everything is binding, it’s not connected to Sinai and not connected to anything at all, it’s binding because—I don’t know—because Maimonides is a ministering angel, and whatever he says is like what the Holy One, blessed be He, says. I’m not claiming that. What I’m claiming is that the connection to what was given at Sinai can be softer, not only a logical connection. But it’s still clear that this is a development of what was given at Sinai, while I absolutely do say that this development does not necessarily hit the original intention. That I do say. Therefore it is certainly possible that this development—since it is not certain, it is not deduction—we may have missed the mark. Meaning, it’s likely that in a large number of things we missed it. But that doesn’t matter, because in the end what we are trying to do is interpret what we received at Sinai. And since even if we missed it, in the end this is what came out, then that thing is binding. In other words, I’m walking here on a thin rope between saying that everything is an invention—invention meaning not connected at all to what was given at Sinai—and saying that everything was given at Sinai. I want to argue that neither of those is correct. There is something here in the middle. Meaning, this thing developed on the basis of what was given at Sinai. The connection is not necessary, not certain, not logical, and therefore it can be challenged. One can say that maybe it isn’t right, and in all likelihood some of these things are not right. But in my view, that challenge is not important, because even if it isn’t right, it is still binding. That is basically what I want to argue.

[Speaker B] To whom is the authority given? So there are certain institutions of authority that will make the analogies or the… and what they say, that’s what is binding. Right. Okay. But it’s not that every person can go and interpret.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say every person. Every person is a different question. Whoever is authorized to make that interpretation—that’s the interpretation I’m talking about.

[Speaker B] And then everyone is obligated by it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s a Sanhedrin, then everyone is obligated, yes. And if not—if it’s a local religious court—then maybe that particular place.

[Speaker C] The problem is what I call broken telephone. After thousands of years it’s not just analogy, but analogy upon analogy upon analogy.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It becomes hazier, right? And therefore there will be more errors. Obviously that’s true. By the way, that’s one of the reasons there’s some assumption of decline of the generations, of obligation toward earlier generations. Why is there obligation to earlier generations? Because once everyone was geniuses and today we’re all fools? I don’t buy that. It’s exactly because of the broken telephone. Meaning, because we’re dealing here with analogy, it’s obvious that the farther your distance from the source, the greater the chance that an error fell in somewhere along the way.

[Speaker B] And is that the answer to disputes? What? Is that the answer to disputes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Obviously. That’s what Maimonides says: because the students of Hillel and Shammai multiplied and did not sufficiently serve their teachers, disputes multiplied in Israel. Meaning, that’s exactly the point. The moment you proceed by analogy and not by deduction, not by mathematical, logical, certain inference—when you’re talking about analogy, analogy is a soft thing. Errors can occur there, and the more you take another analogical step and another analogical step and another analogical step, the chance of error keeps growing. Therefore I say, on the one hand it is certainly plausible

[Speaker B] that a large part of what we hold today is mistaken. That was not the original intention.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second. But on the other hand, what we hold today is not an invention. It’s not something out of the blue that we just made up for no reason and that has no connection whatsoever. No. The attempt is to interpret what we received. It’s just that if we are clear-eyed, then we’ll know that what we interpret does not necessarily hit the truth. And the larger the number of interpretive steps, the greater the chance that we deviate from the truth. We are human beings. And the sages were also human beings. So that’s the point. I want to say: there is a tradition—otherwise this isn’t tradition, it’s just invention. It’s commitment to what emerged. I’m trying to describe here a model of tradition. Tradition means taking what we received, not as a hollow pipe, but processing it, refining it, interpreting it, passing it on, while it is clear that in this process of refinement and processing errors can occur. And errors did occur. I have no doubt errors occurred. Okay?

[Speaker B] Basically, what you’re describing is an evolutionary process. There was some basis, and then it developed, and when it says, “What an accomplished student will one day innovate,” that’s really our commitment to the result of this process.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is a normative statement and not a historical one.

[Speaker B] That’s what I said.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The claim that all the details were given at Sinai, or that what an accomplished student will one day innovate was shown by the Holy One, blessed be He, to Moses at Sinai—that is not a historical statement. It’s not that historically the Holy One, blessed be He, gave everything there. It’s a normative statement: that what has come down to us should be treated as though the Holy One, blessed be He, gave it to Moses at Sinai, because as far as we’re concerned, that’s what came out of there. Okay? One more sentence, since you mentioned evolution. Evolution in some senses doesn’t fit. And this is not entirely evolution in the bad sense of the term, nor in the good sense of the term. Because evolution has feedback. Meaning, if an error is created, it will die out. It won’t persist; it will die out. What remains will be the successful thing, the correct thing—correct in a certain sense, yes? Here it’s not like that. There is no feedback. Again, one can argue about it, but that’s my claim. There is no feedback. Meaning, we have no indication that what emerged is really the right thing. There’s no mechanism saying that if it’s wrong, it will die out. There isn’t that feedback that constantly returns the evolutionary process to the right track. And in that sense it’s evolution only in the bad sense of the word. Meaning, it’s evolution only in the sense that it keeps developing; it’s not evolution in the sense of control mechanisms that say, if you stray too far, we’ll put you back on track. That doesn’t exist here. And therefore we need to be aware of that, and in a certain sense this creates many difficulties for people. It creates many difficulties for people because it basically means that we are moving away from the source, and there are lots of errors. So why should we be obligated? I say no—we are obligated to the evolutionary process of the matter, and there is no need to get to the point of saying no, there is no evolution and everything is just as it was given at Sinai.

[Speaker B] Right, the fact that there is development and we adapt ourselves to the fact that today we live in a history that didn’t exist before—that itself is the good sense of the word. We aren’t obligated to exist in a reality where they hadn’t yet invented the wheel and all sorts of other things like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but that’s not Jewish law. I’m talking about the development of Jewish law, not of our culture or our technology. I’m talking about the development of Jewish law.

[Speaker B] Yes, but where is the Holy One, blessed be He, in this whole process? It’s like what the deists wrote: He created a world and that’s it. He gave a constitution and that’s it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He—

[Speaker B] He’s not involved, He doesn’t want to…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no idea. If He’s involved, maybe— I don’t know.

[Speaker C] If He’s involved, then maybe there is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] evolutionary feedback that keeps correcting things all the time. I used to be sure that was true; today I’m less sure that it’s true, but I don’t know.

[Speaker B] But we saw that He—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] tried to intervene and it didn’t help Him. What?

[Speaker B] We saw that He tried to intervene and it didn’t help Him. “It is not in heaven.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. I think that’s what we talked about—that’s what it comes to say. “It is not in heaven” basically says that we are not dependent on intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He. Maybe He intervenes in ways we don’t know; I have no idea. But we are not dependent on that. One need not assume that it happens. One need not assume that we have no errors in order to be obligated. That is the meaning of “It is not in heaven.” Even if the Holy One Himself comes and says, “You made a mistake,” it doesn’t matter. Yes.

[Speaker B] There’s a similar but different question. Where is revelation in this matter? According to what you describe, the mechanism that should correct the evolution is comparing it to the revelation, which is the Written Torah. If you claim that the Oral Torah was given in a fundamentalist way, that it was given at Sinai, then when I say “an eye for an eye” means monetary compensation, then everything was given by one shepherd. But if you say it’s a later development, then each time you check it against the source.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but there isn’t—you can’t check it against the source; that’s exactly the point. If this were deduction, then I could interpret the source and extract with certainty what the result is, and I could compare, but then there would be no errors.

[Speaker B] But what you’re saying is that this is not logical deduction. That’s different from an antithesis, from something that simply contradicts it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t contradict, no.

[Speaker B] Therefore “an eye for an eye” meaning monetary compensation is a contradiction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not a contradiction; it’s a derash.

[Speaker B] It’s a derash. No, you’re removing the simple meaning from the… with this example I explained—I don’t agree with you. I don’t agree. The necessary conclusion is that it’s not that. No, that’s not true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We talked about “an eye for an eye” meaning monetary compensation, and I said that there—no, in every case. As an example for everything: there are no uprootings. There are no uprootings. That’s exactly the point. There are no uprootings. Even “an eye for an eye” meaning monetary compensation means—we talked about this—a combination of the simple meaning together with derash, which in the end leads to some shared conclusion. And derash was given at Sinai—maybe not necessarily in the sense of the interpretive principles of derash as we know them, but what later developed into the principles we’re talking about. Fine? And when you take those two things together, you arrive at the conclusion that this, for me, is what was given at Sinai. The point is that maybe I made a mistake. If I know I made a mistake, I’ll change it. If I know I made a mistake and I compare it to the source and say this result is wrong, I’ll change it. Obviously that’s true, because my goal is to interpret what was given there. Therefore I say: the fact that I assume many things are mistaken—not that I know some specific thing is mistaken, but I assume that in such a process many errors occur—that doesn’t bother me. If I had clear information saying: this goes against what is written in the Torah, this is definitely wrong—then no problem, I replace it. Obviously. My goal really is to interpret what happened there. I’m just saying I don’t need to be troubled by the fact that errors occurred along the way if I don’t know about them.

[Speaker B] But again, I think this is something that on the face of it completely contradicts… No, it doesn’t completely contradict. You have here a kind of control-group method that you’re not addressing…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I disagree. I disagree. You’re treating it as deduction. Therefore I say that “an eye for an eye” meaning monetary compensation does not contradict, does not contradict what is written in the Torah. It adds to what is written in the Torah. I’ll give you the example I gave back then, an example from damages. There is an opinion in the Talmud—Jewish law was not ruled that way, I’m bringing it only as an illustration—that one pays with the eye of the damager in “an eye for an eye.” When I injured you and put out your eye, they take from me the value of my eye, not the value of your eye. Why? Where did this strange invention come from? The answer is that it comes exactly from here. The Torah says, “An eye for an eye.” You should have to take out my eye if I took out your eye. The derash tells me: don’t take out an eye, take money. But take the money in place of the eye that you should have taken out of me. So the combination of the derash and the simple meaning together is what yields: take from him the value of his eye.

[Speaker B] But the derash has already uprooted the simple meaning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course, because the derash tells me to do so.

[Speaker B] How is that not humanization?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m not doing that; that’s what was there in the source. The claim is that this is the meaning of derash. The tools of derash were also given at Sinai. So when the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Torah, He basically told us: use the tools of the simple meaning, use the tools of derash, and whatever comes out for you from the totality of that together—that is the Torah that, from My standpoint, I expect from you. That’s the picture. Derash is not an invention. Derash is a tool. Again—and errors could also occur there, and errors did occur there. But that’s the evolution of how this thing proceeds. If I go back to the source and it is clear to me that there is a mistake here, I replace it. That’s what Maimonides said at the beginning of chapter two of the laws of rebels, where Maimonides writes that every religious court in every generation can disagree with all the previous courts. It doesn’t even have to be greater in wisdom and number, in Torah-level laws. That is in a case where the court became convinced that an error had occurred. But this concern that maybe there are errors here, and probably there are errors here, without pointing to something concrete that simply contradicts and that I see is a mistake—if I can point to it, I’ll change it.

[Speaker B] But in this context Maimonides says that it’s from Sinai. Okay, fine, in my opinion that’s too sharp a move to make.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what he thinks. I—

[Speaker B] think not. Do you think there’s a mistake? What? The Rabbi spoke about mistakes—do you think there are mistakes in…? If I knew, I would replace it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, really—when a person does a lot of business, I assume that a lot of mistakes also got into it. If there is something that I know is a mistake, I’ll replace it. But the drift is obvious. I’m only saying we don’t need to be troubled by the fact that apparently there are many things here that are mistakes.

[Speaker B] That shouldn’t bother us. Conditional experiments. What? Why is this an example of something that you think you see and therefore…?

[Speaker C] Okay, there are all sorts of things.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The point I wanted to describe when I spoke about deduction, induction, and analogy is exactly this point: people think that induction and analogy are just speculation. In a moment I’ll explain this more. Just speculation. And only deduction is really an acceptable argument. Even when I say all human beings are mortal, Socrates is a human being, therefore Socrates is mortal—only that can I accept. Why? Because it’s certain. It’s clear. From those premises, that conclusion follows necessarily. This assumption—that only deduction is acceptable—basically treats analogy and induction as speculation. All of science works with induction, not deduction. Yes, true. So it treats analogy and induction as speculation. And then it says that when you make an analogy, it’s like inventing that the frog is green. It doesn’t matter that you saw that this frog is green, because that information is not contained within this information. You added something; you made some move here that is speculative. And what I want to argue is that this is not correct. There is a move here that contains a certain measure of speculation—it’s not deduction—it’s a move that added information for me; it’s a softer kind of interpretation. And about this I spoke of what Nachmanides brings in the introduction to The Wars of the Lord, where Nachmanides said that the wisdom of our Torah is not like astronomy and mathematics, whose demonstrations are conclusive. It’s not like that.

[Speaker B] Yes, it’s not deduction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Halakhic and midrashic inference is not deduction.

[Speaker B] And neither is mathematics.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, no, astronomy maybe yes, but not geometry. So Nachmanides’ claim is that we’re talking about soft forms of inference. But soft inference doesn’t mean speculation. Soft inference means something that isn’t certain. That’s true, but it isn’t speculation. I’ll clarify that a bit more in a moment, but before that I’ll take an example. The Talmud in Kiddushin, in the first chapter, at the end of the first chapter, the Mishnah brings the rule there that women are exempt from positive commandments that are time-bound, and positive commandments that are not time-bound women are obligated in. Then the Talmud asks: how do we know that? And the Talmud says: we learn it from tefillin. Then the Talmud says: and regarding tefillin, how do we know that? It’s juxtaposed to Torah study. Women are exempt from Torah study, which by the way is not time-bound, but from that we learn to tefillin, which is time-bound, because there is a textual linkage between them, and now tefillin, which is a positive time-bound commandment and women are exempt from it, teaches me that for all positive time-bound commandments women are exempt. You can view this as a supporting exposition, like Maimonides on “an eye for an eye.” And that is basically to say: okay, it’s obvious that women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments—that was given at Sinai—and we’re looking for some exegetical anchor in the verse. But really it was given at Sinai. And people say this many times because we have some kind of skepticism about the exegetical method, that you can reach all kinds of strange and different conclusions with it. And if the Sages use it, apparently it’s something grounded—it can’t just be speculation. So people say: okay, apparently this was received from Sinai and the exposition is just a supporting exposition. Basically the Jewish law itself was received from Sinai. What I want to argue is that this is not true. Rather, what the Sages did was a kind of—in this case—induction. Meaning, you take one or two examples and from them infer a rule; you create an induction. The need to say that it’s all a law given to Moses at Sinai stems from our skepticism about induction. And people basically say: okay, if it’s induction then it’s not certain, not necessarily correct. So how can it be that women can be exempted from many Torah-level commandments on the basis of such a loose inference, something so non-decisive? So no, it was all received from Sinai. That’s what Ralbag says, for example, in the introduction to his commentary on the Torah. He says that all the laws learned from expositions were really given at Sinai; all the expositions are only supportive. And he explains why: because otherwise it can’t be, since with exposition you can get anywhere in the world. He has no trust in the world of exposition, in its reliability. And the solution he offers is: okay, if so, then everything was apparently received from Sinai. It can’t be that the Sages inferred, using such loose tools, such non-decisive tools, conclusions that exempt women from Torah-level commandments and obligate men in Torah-level commandments—that isn’t reasonable. So clearly the results were known in advance and the whole game was fixed. And clearly that isn’t true. Meaning, there are places where you unequivocally see that it isn’t true. One of the places I mentioned is Rabbi Akiva with the exposition of “she shall remain in her menstrual state.” Earlier generations used to practice that a woman would not groom herself and would not adorn herself during her menstrual days, would not arrange her hair, would not beautify herself. So Rabbi Akiva says: could it be that she would become repulsive to her husband? How could that be? Such a thing can’t be. So he expounded the verse “she shall remain in her menstrual state” as referring to immersion in water, meaning the mikveh, and he permitted it. And all the earlier generations had forbidden it. So there Rabbi Akiva created Jewish law by force of scriptural exposition.

[Speaker B] And that’s an example where he found an error. What? That’s an example where he found an error.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] An error according to his own view. The earlier generations probably didn’t think so, exactly, and then he changed it. So what does that mean? That he didn’t receive this tradition from Sinai. Rather what happened? He made a broader judgment, which is part of those same judgments that Nachmanides talks about, that are like astronomy and geometry, and on that basis he reaches conclusions. Yes, that’s what we do. Analogy and induction are tools by which we infer conclusions. Now another interesting point you can see in this context: we’re usually accustomed that if some question comes before us—ah, this is a positive commandment that is time-bound—then yes, of course, women are exempt. We’re calm, because we worked with a rule. We have a rule that women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments. This thing is a positive commandment that is time-bound, so women are exempt. Everything is fine, we’re set. Here there’s no problem; there can’t be a mistake, right? Because we took the rule—this is deduction. We took the existing rule that applies to all positive time-bound commandments and applied it to a particular commandment that is time-bound. That’s all fine. But we’re ignoring Mill’s challenge to deduction, which I mentioned last time. Where did the rule come from that women are exempt from all positive time-bound commandments? People think this rule came down from Sinai. But it didn’t. The Talmud says it is learned from tefillin. Meaning, the rule itself was created by induction. Meaning, we have an example or examples where women are exempt from one or another commandment. From that we create a rule that women are exempt from all positive time-bound commandments. And now, since a time-bound commandment comes before me, I say women are exempt. We look only at the second part of the inference and then everything is fine, it’s clear, there can’t be mistakes. But how do you know the rule is correct? The rule was created by generalizing from examples. And the Sages created that rule too. So our feeling that if we work with rules then everything is fine—we forget that the rules were not given at Sinai. The rules were actually created through processes of induction. And that is exactly what David Hume challenges, the certainty people ascribe to deduction. Yes, if all human beings are mortal and Socrates is a human being, the conclusion is obviously that Socrates is mortal. David Hume asks: true, everything is clear—but how do you know that all human beings are mortal? Because you saw many people.

[Speaker C] Because you saw many, and therefore what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And you inferred that they’re all like that. So you made an induction. So how can you be convinced of the conclusion even if it comes from deduction, when the premise of the deduction is itself the result of induction? Meaning—and this is what I talked about last time—what we are actually doing is only analogy. There aren’t three forms of inference; there’s only one. We do only analogies. It’s just that we perform the process of analogy in two stages. First of all we do induction, we take the particulars—say we make an analogy from item A to item B. Okay? How is an analogy made? I take item A and I generalize, I induce. I say: all objects of this type, like item A, have this rule. So item B is also like that—that’s deduction. Meaning, induction takes me from particulars to a rule, and deduction takes me from the rule to another particular. What did I really do? I made an analogy from this item to that item, I just did it in two stages: first induction and then deduction. And therefore in the end nothing is certain. No, but deduction is an illusion. When you make an analogy you go from one particular to another particular. Right. When you do the process above, you don’t take one particular—rather, you have many particulars and you create the rule. No, no, no, you don’t create the rule from one particular.

[Speaker B] That’s not true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here—

[Speaker B] Here in this case—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In this case I created it from one particular, from tefillin, one particular. There is no such rule. Obviously, the more examples I have, in science too, the more examples I have the better, but there is no principle that says you can’t make an induction from one particular. By the way, analogy too—if you take several particulars and infer from them to another particular, that’s still analogy, even though it’s several particulars. There’s no principled difference there.

[Speaker C] The issue of this and Socrates—that every person is mortal, which is deduction—they say the probability rises. Fine. So let’s say that’s a better induction and I create an induction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s a more—

[Speaker C] Strong induction, the probability is higher. There is a connection here, but it’s not certain. It’s something small: I saw five ravens and they were all black.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When you do probabilistic calculations—

[Speaker C] You assume some kind of distribution.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the question is what the distribution is here. If the distribution is uniform, then you’re right that your certainty rises as your sample gets bigger. But it’s not certain that this is true. If, say, you achieved that you saw a hundred ravens, you say: ah, then all ravens are black. That’s good, right, because I have a hundred examples. But you saw them all here, in Israel. Maybe the ravens in Israel are black, and in Europe or Australia or I don’t know where, the ravens aren’t black? You’re assuming some premise about the distribution—that this is a representative sample, the sample you saw. Therefore you’re always in a world of speculation; there’s no way around it. Now true, the more examples we have the more it convinces us, and that’s fine—in Jewish law, in science, everywhere it’s like that. But I still want you to notice that we make inferences that contain a measure of speculation. This is not deduction; it’s analogy or induction. That’s really the basis of everything.

[Speaker C] Someone doesn’t believe in gravity, which is induction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right, that’s what I’m saying.

[Speaker C] I don’t think anyone would take an apple and say okay, maybe it won’t fall.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. That’s what I want to argue, and therefore I don’t think we should cast doubt even on inductions we make in other areas. The question is how reliable they are. It may be that they won’t be equally reliable, we may not have enough examples, that’s all fine. But on the principled level you can’t say this is speculation, it has no basis at all. You can say: okay, this is less clear than gravity. Okay, analogies and inductions have many levels; they have many levels of certainty. But my claim is that it isn’t either one or zero—either it’s completely certain because it’s deduction, or it’s just speculation. No. There are different levels of reliability or certainty, and I’m willing to accept those too.

[Speaker B] Are there situations where you can think of one where the rule that was given is itself—that is, the basis itself is already general? For example, fins and scales is a rule, and from there you can do deduction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. Those are the only places where you can really do deduction in some fuller sense—when the Torah itself contains a rule, not when we extract a rule from examples in the Torah. But those are rare cases. They are rare cases. Even fins and scales, by the way, you can always say: okay, but that’s fins and scales of a certain kind; how do you know that everything with fins and scales counts? There are interpretations like that; even there you won’t reach full certainty. You’re right that there it’s more convincing. It saves me the second part—it saves me the first part, sorry. Yes. You don’t need to do the induction because the rule is already there.

[Speaker B] Because it comes entirely from deduction, that’s what I mean. Yes. Okay.

[Speaker D] And where is the broader public in this picture? Because what you’re describing is the activity of rabbis and Torah scholars, but where are we in this story? Because we’re only spectators. What you’re describing—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —is like the in-group.

[Speaker D] That’s what Torah scholars do, the interpretations and everything.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Whoever becomes a Torah scholar will get to the proper level, will play the game; he’ll also be part of the game. But what is the broader public supposed to say? What does the broader public do in elementary-particle physics?

[Speaker D] Doesn’t do—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anything, doesn’t understand it.

[Speaker D] But sometimes they make mistakes and all that. So where are our rules for knowing which rabbi to follow, and maybe there’s marketing here, some rabbi—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —who markets himself best, and we get dragged after him? That’s exactly the problem: there are no rules. How do we know? So I say there are no rules for how to know. When there are no rules, then of course marketing plays a part. When there is a Sanhedrin, then it’s clear. There is one elected institution, those seventy people have authority, they decide. Where there is no Sanhedrin, then as I said before, precisely because there is no authorized institution, and because marketing really plays a major role here, then there is no authority. Authority other than the Sanhedrin—there is no such authority. That’s just an invention.

[Speaker B] It’s every person’s interpretation. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does that mean, every person’s interpretation? A person won’t interpret the Torah himself. A person will choose a rabbi for himself who will do the interpretation, someone he’s comfortable with, relies on, is willing to follow. In the end it will always be our choice.

[Speaker D] But what if he has no right to make inductions?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course not. Someone who doesn’t understand the matter can’t do it. I don’t know what rabbis are—

[Speaker D] Whoever can—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know what rabbis are personally. I don’t know what rabbis are. It’s a concept I don’t know what it means. Now there may be someone here who says that I’m not a rabbi. I’m not, fine. So what is a rabbi? Whoever knows should do it, and whoever doesn’t know shouldn’t. I want now to sharpen this point a bit more through a look at this dilemma, because basically you should understand that this is what lies behind the whole problem of tradition, this argument. That’s why I say it’s very important to understand this point. The problem of tradition is that both extreme sides in relation to it make the same mistake. Meaning, those who challenge tradition assume that induction and analogy are speculation, and since that’s so, why should I be bound by it? Those who defend tradition assume the same thing. So what do they say? That everything was given at Sinai; there are no inductions and analogies; everything was given at Sinai, so that’s it. We don’t make any inference. But both fall into the same mistake. And what do I think is actually the correct picture of tradition? It’s the picture that says: there are inductions and analogies. It’s not certain, but it’s also not speculation—speculation in the sense of total speculation. It’s not certain, that’s true, fine, we’re human beings, but that doesn’t mean that nothing was done here that has a basis, that is binding. This product is the product that is important for me to describe, because this is what lies behind all the arguments about tradition in the end. Either you go in the direction of the rebel, the heretic, or you go in the conservative fundamentalist direction that everything was given at Sinai, so that’s it. And I say both are making the same mistake, because both basically assume that if it was done by softer methods of analogy and induction, then it’s speculation, it doesn’t count. So one says, because of that I throw out the whole thing, and the other says, because of that we have to say that everything was given at Sinai, like “an eye for an eye.” How did Maimonides decide that it was given at Sinai? Because it was clear to him that without that it wasn’t reliable. So therefore it was clear to him that it was given at Sinai. And I say that’s not true, because in the end even softer rules of inference are rules of inference that I am willing to accept, and you don’t have to hang everything on Sinai in order to solve the problem. That’s really the point. Now I’ll place this in a much broader context. I also described a person’s maturation as a process of three stages, and you can parallel them to the development of our civilization in general. And this too revolves around this point, and that’s why I want you to notice how the question of our attitude to tradition isn’t just an attitude to tradition; there’s something much broader here. When a child is young, then when he wants to know something he asks his parents, his teachers, the adults, and whatever they say he accepts. If they say it, they probably know. Let’s call this stage the dogmatic stage. He accepts it because he has some assumption that they know. And at a certain stage a point arrives when adolescent rebellion begins. I am of course talking about development on the intellectual plane; there are obviously emotional and psychological aspects and I’m not getting into that. I’m talking about the development of a person in the intellectual sense. So what is adolescent rebellion on the intellectual plane, not the psychological plane? On the intellectual plane adolescent rebellion basically says: listen, it’s very nice that you say the sun rises every morning, but how do I know you’re right? Prove it. Who says? Fine, until now that’s how it’s been—who says tomorrow it will be? The adolescent basically says: who says? Prove it to yourself, prove it to me, right? That’s often what you hear from some rebellious teenager. That’s what you say, that’s very nice—so what if you say it? Prove it. I don’t have proofs. I try to explain, to persuade, common sense, reasoning, analogies, inductions, to do softer things, not just proofs—from his point of view, if it isn’t proven it isn’t acceptable. This adolescent is maturing. He basically wants to be rational; he is willing to accept only things that are deductions. You can already see the connection to our issue. Right? He is willing to accept only deductions. Everything else, from his point of view, is speculation. You could say this, you could say that—who knows if it’s true or not. At a certain stage the adolescent matures and reaches the insight that nothing can be proven. Why? Not proof in his sense. Why? Because proof is always based on premises. Every argument is based on premises. Now, if I accept nothing unless I have a proof for it, then I can’t accept proofs either. Because proofs are based on premises. And why should I accept those premises? If I have a proof for them, then we’ll go back again to the premises of that proof. Fine? In the end I’ll be left with some set of premises for which I have no proof. So the adolescent, according to his own view, won’t accept that. And then it turns out that what he was looking for—proofs—is something that can’t be found. Meaning, the approach that says I accept only proven things is an approach that leads me to complete breakdown. I can’t accept anything. Because when they bring me a proof I immediately notice that there are some premises here, and the question is why I should accept them. And then in the end, if I really accept only things that have proof, I can’t accept anything. And then at the end of adolescence the second point on the timeline arrives; let’s call it the point of maturation. And at the point of maturation, the adolescent who is maturing understands that nothing really has independent proof. Meaning, something based only on proofs. Yes, I once mentioned that Descartes’ cogito, “I think therefore I am,” his project was to try to produce something like that. To try to produce a claim that is necessary not on the basis of premises. Without premises. To create a factual claim out of nothing, without premises. That’s the whole idea. By the way, the same is true of arguments like Anselm’s argument, the ontological argument for the existence of God. That argument too is the same thing. Some attempt that tries—in Descartes it’s to reach the conclusion that I exist; in Anselm it’s to reach the conclusion that God exists. But what characterizes both these arguments is that they try to build a factual conclusion without needing premises at all. That’s the rationalist project. Meaning, an attempt to show that rationality without empiricism, without observation, can also yield factual claims. But that probably doesn’t work so well. And then our maturing adolescent basically finds himself at a crossroads. He says: okay, if I accept only things I have a proof for—that’s the assumption I’ve had since the point of adolescence—and then I reach the conclusion that there is nothing that can be proven in a way that doesn’t rest on premises, right? So what do we do? So now there is a second crisis here, the crisis of maturation. And from this crisis one can emerge in three ways. Three or three? Three. Like the Talmud at the beginning of Kiddushin, whether “way” is masculine or feminine. One can emerge in three ways. The first way is to draw the required conclusion. Really, you can’t accept anything; I’m a skeptic. Meaning, if I’m not willing to accept things for which I have no proof, and nothing has proof—that itself is a proof, yes?—the conclusion is that I can’t accept anything. I’m a skeptic. Anything can be true just as much as its opposite. Okay? That’s really what is called for as a solution, or as a way out of the point where he is. Notice that there are two premises here that lead to the tangle. It’s important to understand this. The first premise is that only something proven is acceptable. Right? That’s the adolescent’s premise. It’s a principled assumption, a philosophical premise. The second premise is a factual premise: there is nothing in the world that is provable—proof, again, in this sense of something not dependent on propositions that themselves cannot be proven. As a result of these two claims, the tangle is created. The required conclusion, if I adopt these two claims, is that nothing is acceptable. I become a skeptic. And then if this adolescent is not willing to give up either of these two claims, these two premises, the only way out is to be a skeptic. That’s how skepticism is created, basically. The adolescent’s skepticism is methodological skepticism, like Descartes’ skepticism. Meaning, he casts doubt on everything because he is looking for proof. The skepticism of the adult—the adult’s is outright skepticism, not methodological, because he has already reached the conclusion that there is nothing that has proof. Fine, so I remain with my skepticism. What’s their alternative? What’s their alternative? Shimon Peres. What? Yes, that’s postmodernism; in a moment I’ll get to the social analogy. In the meantime I’m in the realm of the individual person. So that is the required conclusion if I stay with the two premises I mentioned earlier. What else can you say to such an adolescent or such a maturing person? Why not be skeptical? One of two things. There are those who want to say: no, it’s not true that nothing has proof. Give up the second premise. There are things about which we have absolute certainty. Now true, that’s not proof in the sense you’re talking about, but—and this I now call fundamentalism. The first way out of maturity is skeptical, yes? To leave the point of maturation in the first way is to be a skeptic. Skeptic means saying: okay, nothing is acceptable; I don’t accept anything more than its opposite. The second possibility is fundamentalism. Fundamentalism means: true, proofs can’t do the work for us, can’t give us certainty, because proofs always depend on premises. But we have some non-logical ways of reaching certainty. Because the prophet said so, because the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself to me, because I had some ecstatic experience, I don’t know, one sort or another, that revealed the absolute truth to me. Reborn. Usually those statements are really meant to bypass the need for logical thinking. Meaning, I’m not using logical tools; rather there are some transcendental, non-logical tools, transcendent, non-logical, that can give me the desired certainty not through logic, because from logic, true, I have despaired—there is no certainty through logical tools. So I have alternative certainty. And that is basically fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is created as a reaction to skepticism. The fundamentalist basically says to the skeptic: give up the assumption that certainty can’t exist; your second premise isn’t true. Meaning, he agrees with the first premise, that only something certain is acceptable. That he accepts. He only says: what is certainty? You think certainty is only logical arguments. No. There is certainty in some kind of mystical form or whatever, and basically that’s what gives us the solution. That’s how fundamentalism is created. Fundamentalism is created as a reaction to skepticism. That’s true in the world generally too. Fundamentalism is usually created as a reaction to skepticism. Meaning, you won’t find an extreme fundamentalist or something like that unless some skeptical thing is threatening him. It’s always like that. People say that Orthodoxy even in the Jewish world is a reaction to Reform; it’s not something that really existed in the past. People think Orthodoxy came down from Sinai. Orthodoxy is a modern phenomenon, a new phenomenon. It is a reaction to skepticism; it is a reaction to skeptical responses. Likewise, by the way, ISIS—and of course this is not a comparison, obviously—or all sorts of other fundamentalist movements are also a response to skepticism that you can’t cope with. People say, wait, who told you? Maybe it’s not true. Do you have proof? I can always be mistaken. And then you have to cling to some mystical something, something that is definitely true and doesn’t depend on logic, in order to say no, no, I know with absolute certainty. What are you implicitly accepting? That only something certain is acceptable. You have to provide alternative certainty in order to justify your path. Okay? In that sense the skeptic and the fundamentalist share the same premise: that only something certain is acceptable. The skeptic just says: nothing is certain, and therefore nothing is acceptable. The fundamentalist says: what are you talking about? There are certain things—what the Holy One, blessed be He, told me, or the prophet told me, or I don’t know who, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told me—if he’s still alive, I don’t know if he’s still alive, there are disputes. It could be that even if he’s dead in the end—we know this, we know this—not that even if it’s certain, that’s fine; there are people who speak to us from the grave too, we know this in our circles as well. In any event, what fundamentalism and skepticism have in common is basically the view that says that only something certain is acceptable. On that they both agree. And therefore understand that if we really share this view, that only something certain is acceptable, we are forced to choose one of these two paths: either be a skeptic or be a fundamentalist. So what is the alternative? What else could there be? Either there is something certain or there isn’t something certain. No, there can be a third option, a third path. The third path basically says: let’s give up the first premise; we won’t argue with the second premise. I said that what creates the tangle is two premises. The first premise is that only something certain is acceptable. The second premise is that nothing is certain. So the skeptic says: let’s accept both premises. The fundamentalist gives up the second one; he says no, that’s not true, there are certain things—but he adopts the first. And I say: you can give up the first and adopt the second. That’s also an option. Meaning, to say that it isn’t true that only something certain is acceptable. I am willing to accept things that are not certain, that are reasonable, and then I don’t need to arrive at all sorts of mystical truths, supra-logical truths, beyond reason, I don’t know exactly all these strange expressions, in order to justify my path. I say: the wisdom of our Torah is not like astronomy and geometry. True, it isn’t mathematics. On the other hand, I also don’t need mathematics, because I don’t think only something certain is acceptable. That’s the third path. Now understand that this is really a dilemma we run into not only in the context of Jewish tradition or religious tradition, but in many areas of life. Meaning, as I mentioned earlier, this three-stage maturation appears not only in an individual person as he matures, but also in our society in general. Let’s try to sketch the map briefly. In the ancient period there was a dogmatic period. Humanity was in the state of a child. Child, adolescent, and adult—the three stages I described earlier. The child basically accepts whatever he is told. The tribe’s sorcerer, I don’t know, those who know everything—so if you want to know what to do, what is happening, what is true, you ask them, and whatever they tell you, you know. If it doesn’t rain, you need to dance around the fire, recite some mantras, and everything is fine, rain will come. If it doesn’t come, in the end it doesn’t matter, there are explanations for that too, everything is fine. So in the end that is a dogmatic period. It parallels childhood. At a certain stage humanity reaches the first point, the first crisis point, when the child becomes an adolescent. And then people begin to ask: wait, why? Who told you? So what if the sorcerer says so? So what if our mythology says so? Or our tradition says so? Maybe it’s not true. Do you have proof? Hillel and Shammai, the emergence of the disciples of Hillel and Shammai who did not fully serve their teachers. There are different expressions; in some places this is interpreted negatively, in some places positively. Dov Yitzchakov talks about this in his book on Purim—or actually on Hanukkah, a lecture on Hanukkah. He says that in the end we relate to dispute as something blessed, even though ostensibly it’s just people who did not fully serve their teachers. Why? Because the point of Hillel and Shammai, historically too by the way, is the zeitgeist. It awakened precisely around this issue. Meaning: who says you’re right? The truth is not deduction. And I spoke about the crisis there in Yavneh, with sages like Rabbi Akiva and Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer, where the question really was whether we are a hollow pipe—everything is deduction, everything is absolute. Then the Sages come and say: wait, who told you? You can also say the opposite; here, I disagree with you. So how can you prove it? Can you prove it? No. But I say what I received from my teachers, from heaven—that’s fundamentalism, yes? Rabbi Eliezer resorted to fundamentalism. He said, what do you mean, heaven will prove that I’m right. A conception of that kind of charisma, these mystical conceptions that say: what, obviously I’m right with certainty. And the Sages are not willing to accept that. They’re not willing to accept it because they say: no, we are not willing to accept such tools. There are no tools beyond reason. On the other hand they agree that nothing is certain. So what do we do? There’s no choice—we’ll use tools that don’t give us certainty, and if there is a dispute we’ll take a vote, and that’s what will be. That’s how our disputes were created. But I think this really begins, or at least takes shape, in Greece, not with us at all. The beginning of philosophy in Greece—why was it perceived as so threatening, say, in the Jewish context? Our tradition tells us that the Greeks are really the source of all evil, yes? The source of all sin—Greece. Why? What was so threatening there? I think what was threatening there, aside from idolatry—idolatry existed in many places; that’s not the point. What was perceived as threatening in Greece was that they had a philosophical doctrine, logic was created there, yes? Aristotle’s Organon. Philosophy, systematic thought, was created there. And the Sages didn’t know how to deal with such a thing. Sorry to say it. The Sages didn’t know how to deal with questions. Who told you? Maybe you’re not right? After all, it’s possible to make a different claim and reach the opposite conclusion. And there was no choice; there you could only go to war. So Hasmonean fundamentalism was created. Yes, it is created when you don’t have good answers to questions. The questions are good and you don’t have good answers to them, so you resort to force, you resort to mysticism, you resort to—you’re unable to cope, you don’t have a good answer to the question. And I think Greece is the expression of the crystallization of the adolescent’s questions. Who told you? Prove it. The concept of proof was created in Greece, logic. And by the way, Hillel and Shammai are more or less shortly after the period of the encounter with Greece. Okay? Therefore it’s not for nothing that the Talmud says, “May the beauty of Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem.” Meaning, something Greek entered the study hall, and that’s how the Oral Torah was ultimately created, with tools of reasoning that are not astronomy and geometry. They are tools that in the end we understood had to be developed as an alternative to absolute logical certainty, the conception of the hollow pipe, and we learned that from Greece. That’s where it ultimately developed. And if I now return again to Judaism and then return for a moment to the world, then in the world this process continues. Let’s say Greece was literally the point of adolescence. Where is the next point? The point at which the adolescent understands that nothing can be proven. That point arrives in the twentieth century. In the twentieth century, in the middle of the twentieth century, something happens that historians of culture don’t quite know how to deal with. Because in the first half of the twentieth century, what ruled the day was positivism. I’ve already talked about positivism. It is an approach that says that mathematical, logical, scientific thinking, precise definition of concepts—these are the condition for our ability to speak or make claims. Anything beyond that I’m not even willing to discuss. Meaning, these are basically people who reach the conclusion that science is everything. There, law became science. Everything became science. And at the beginning of the twentieth century everything became scientific; they were looking for certainty in everything through the tools of reason. In the middle of the twentieth century a crisis occurs. People tie it to World War II, but of course it’s not only that. Maybe World War II is its result and not the other way around. That’s a bit simplistic too, but still. In the end, suddenly what we now call postmodernity rises up. Postmodernity immediately rises and replaces positivism as the main approach, the dominant mainstream. And ostensibly it is the complete opposite of positivism. Because positivism believes in certainty, in logic, in precise definition of concepts, in logical arguments, in science, in observation—and postmodernity, at least the extreme version, undermines everything. It is unwilling to accept arguments, observations, science, anything. Each person according to his own level of extremity. But the postmodern avant-garde doesn’t even accept Newtonian mechanics. Meaning, nothing. It’s female physics—sorry, male physics—sorry. It’s not really something one can accept. So what? How does this happen? How does this reversal in the middle of the twentieth century flip things from one extreme to the other? My claim is that it’s not from one extreme to the other, but two sides of the same coin. Because the positivist approach assumes that only something certain is acceptable. The postmodernist also agrees that only something certain is acceptable—sorry. The postmodernist agrees with that too. Only something certain is acceptable. Except that nothing is certain. So therefore nothing is acceptable. That’s a natural result of positivism; it’s not a reversal. It’s a natural result. And because the world doesn’t know how to deal with this, what is created here is, on the one hand, postmodernity, skepticism, and on the other hand fundamentalism. Because that’s what is born as a reaction to skepticism. When you don’t know how to respond to skepticism, you become a fundamentalist, you kill all the heretics. And that business doesn’t work. We see that it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because fundamentalism won’t really succeed in persuading the skeptic, but on the other hand the skeptic also can’t cope with the fundamentalist. He can’t cope with him because he too understands that the fundamentalist is right. Because there is no truth. After all, I have nothing—I champion the sacred vacuum, meaning nothing is sacred. It’s hard to defend that kind of thing. When a fundamentalist comes and says, “What? I discovered God, I met Him and He told me such and such.” What can you say to him? You can’t say anything. You didn’t meet God? Okay, your problem. And the skeptic has no way to cope with an idea like that. Today they invent all sorts of examples like militant democracy and things of that sort, because people have reached some conclusion that the skepticism that ruled the day until a few decades ago can’t deal with fundamentalism. Meaning, if you don’t create positive content of your own, affirmative content of your own, you won’t be able to offer a real alternative to fundamentalism. And I once defined fundamentalism. Fundamentalism isn’t killing people. Fundamentalism isn’t extremism; that’s an expression of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is being unwilling to subject the principles you believe in to the test of critical thought. Fundamentalism is a philosophical phenomenon. It has practical expressions, where people then go and murder or behave violently and extremely, but it begins in the philosophical world. It begins with believing that there is a set of dogmas that are not subject to the test of critical thought. And then of course, if by chance it also tells you to murder the other person, then you murder him. It will be more pleasant to live next to him. Or more precisely, so that it will be possible to live next to him. Next to the other, it’s impossible to live at all. But he is fundamentalist to the same degree, because he too does not subject the principles he believes in to critical examination. And the claim I really want to make here, the claim I really want to make here, is that the only way to deal with these two phenomena, both skepticism and fundamentalism, is to give up the first premise. And not argue over the second premise—they argue over the second premise. On the first they both agree: that only certainty is acceptable. You argue whether there is certainty or there isn’t certainty. So you have to give up the first premise. Not only certainty is acceptable. The reasonable is okay too. Reasonable is also okay. I’d like more, but I don’t have more. What can I do? A person goes with the reasonable. The moment I give up the premise that only the certain is acceptable, I offer a third path, a third path of maturity. And I think that’s an alternative that succeeds a bit better.

[Speaker B] But who will decide what counts as reasonable? Fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s the price.

[Speaker B] That’s what everyone is afraid of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everyone.

[Speaker D] Each person and his own hat. No, each person—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Each person. Yes. Even when you choose a rabbi, that’s your decision, understand. Even when you choose a rabbi, that’s your decision; you chose him. In the end you are always the one deciding. It’s not—the person in the end decides. The person is responsible. He doesn’t decide in areas he doesn’t understand, so he chooses someone whose instructions he follows. But that’s also my choice, that’s also my decision. So that’s why I say the only way to deal with these two extremes is to give up the first premise they share. And that is to give up the premise that only the certain is acceptable. That’s the only way to deal with it. And until the world understands that, it won’t help. It will be impossible to deal with either skepticism or fundamentalism. And I think the world does understand this. Meaning, postmodernity today is much weaker than it once was. Because somehow, in global processes, this is happening. I’ll maybe finish with an analogy.

[Speaker B] Weaker, yes, but for the better because it has a counterweight. It’s weaker because it has the counterweight of fundamentalism, not because it’s in the middle. In the United States too—you’re talking about the world, you’re talking about the Western world. The West too is weaker because it has the counterweight of fundamentalism. No, no.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think that even the modernists today are no longer embarrassed to be modern. Not post-modern—many of them today. Not because of the fundamentalist side. I’m not talking about statistics; I’m talking about essence. Meaning, people say: what do you mean, we too are a full wagon, right? Ben-Gurion—everyone gets angry about him—it’s exactly an expression of this point. Ben-Gurion and the meeting between Ben-Gurion and the Chazon Ish. People claim about Ben-Gurion today, after Amos Oz, they say: what do you mean, we’re not an empty wagon? Why did Ben-Gurion stay silent? Because Ben-Gurion was in a period when he thought he really was an empty wagon. Meaning, people today say: I’m not willing to accept being classified as an empty wagon; I’m a wagon with alternative contents. That’s an expression of this change that took place. This example, this context, just clarifies what I said about tradition. In tradition too there are these two alternatives that I mentioned. On the one hand, there is fundamentalism, where I have some kind of absolute certainty because it all came down from Sinai. On the other hand, there is skepticism, which says: what, this isn’t that; this is an analogy, this is an induction, it has nothing at all to do with what happened at Sinai—this is speculation. I’m skeptical. Meaning, who says it’s true? Okay? And the only alternative that can deal with these two arguments is simply to accept arguments that are not certain—analogies and inductions. That’s what Nachmanides says, yes, unlike astronomy and mathematics. Just one last sentence: I’ll go back for a moment to the child’s maturation. What is the educational difficulty reflected here? When the parent says to the child, or the teacher says to the child: listen, it’s reasonable, right, I don’t have proof, but it’s reasonable. Who says? Prove it. Maybe the opposite? There’s always the adolescent rebellion. There are considerations this way and that way; look, here we saw, there we saw, so apparently that’s how it is. Ah, that’s not proof. So where does this thing come from, that he can’t get past it, just can’t get past it? It won’t help. Everyone shaves on his own beard. Meaning, nobody shaves on someone else’s beard. Why doesn’t it get through to him? It doesn’t get through to him because think about how this biography is formed. What has this adolescent gone through? He went through childhood, and now he’s in adolescence. In childhood he knows—it’s familiar to him already—that’s dogmatism. Meaning, whatever they tell you, you accept without thinking twice about it, without putting it to a critical test. Now I’ve already matured, I’m a rational person, I’ll accept only things that are proven. Right? That’s the rebellion of adolescence. Then the parent comes to him, and the parent is already at the third stage. The third stage is when he already understands that the reasonable is the only alternative there is, and reasonable is also okay, even if I don’t have certainty. But the child still doesn’t know this stage. What does he know? He is an adolescent; he knows his dogmatism from when he was a child, and adolescence. So when he sees the parent standing before him, from his perspective the parent has regressed back to the womb—meaning, he has gone back to being dogmatic. You accept things without proof; I was there too, but I’ve already moved past that, I’m already rational. Meaning, I’ll accept things that I have proof for, because you mistakenly identify what your parent is telling you with your own previous stage, and you think you’ve already gotten out of it, but your parent, your father, is still stuck there. But that’s not true. You don’t understand that this is a third stage. When will you understand that? When you go through the crisis of adolescence, the second crisis, and understand that you have either a skeptical option or a fundamentalist option, and understand that in the end you have no choice but to mature in this way—and then of course you’ll run into problems with your own son.

The Relationship Between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah – Lesson 6

Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

Commitment to Tradition Without Dependence on Authenticity

The “Middle” Position Between “Everything from Sinai” and “Everything Is Invented”

Modes of Inference: Deduction, Analogy, Induction

Authority, Institutions, and the “Broken Telephone”

Maimonides on the Multiplication of Disputes and Change in Jewish law

“What an accomplished student will one day innovate” as a Normative Statement, and the Reservation About Evolution

“It Is Not in Heaven” and the Question of Divine Involvement

Simple Meaning, Derash, “No Uprooting,” and the Example of “An Eye for an Eye”

Nachmanides on “Soft” Inferences and the Distinction from Speculation

Positive Time-Bound Commandments: A Rule Produced by Induction

Ralbag on “Supportive Derashot” and Rejection of the “Everything Was Already Known” View

Rabbi Akiva, “In Her Menstrual State,” and Changing an Ancient Custom

David Hume’s Critique of Certainty in Deduction

An Explicit Rule in the Torah as the Basis for Rare Deduction

The General Public, Choosing Authority, and Marketing

Both Extremes Make the Same Mistake, and the Proposed Alternative

The Maturation Model: Dogmatism, Adolescent Rebellion, and the Crisis of Proofs

A Cultural Parallel: From Positivism to Postmodernity and Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism as Avoidance of Criticism, and the Skeptic’s Difficulty

The Educational Difficulty and the Mistake of Identifying “the Reasonable” with Dogmatism

Full Transcript

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Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

Commitment to Tradition Without Dependence on Authenticity

The “Middle” Position Between “Everything from Sinai” and “Everything Is Invented”

Modes of Inference: Deduction, Analogy, Induction

Authority, Institutions, and the “Broken Telephone”

Maimonides on the Multiplication of Disputes and Change in Jewish law

“What an accomplished student will one day innovate” as a Normative Statement, and the Reservation About Evolution

“It Is Not in Heaven” and the Question of Divine Involvement

Simple Meaning, Derash, “No Uprooting,” and the Example of “An Eye for an Eye”

Nachmanides on “Soft” Inferences and the Distinction from Speculation

Positive Time-Bound Commandments: A Rule Produced by Induction

Ralbag on “Supportive Derashot” and Rejection of the “Everything Was Already Known” View

Rabbi Akiva, “In Her Menstrual State,” and Changing an Ancient Custom

David Hume’s Critique of Certainty in Deduction

An Explicit Rule in the Torah as the Basis for Rare Deduction

The General Public, Choosing Authority, and Marketing

Both Extremes Make the Same Mistake, and the Proposed Alternative

The Maturation Model: Dogmatism, Adolescent Rebellion, and the Crisis of Proofs

A Cultural Parallel: From Positivism to Postmodernity and Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism as Avoidance of Criticism, and the Skeptic’s Difficulty

The Educational Difficulty and the Mistake of Identifying “the Reasonable” with Dogmatism

Full Transcript

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