Innovation, Conservatism, and Tradition – Lesson 5

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that the values changed, not the facts. If you say the facts changed—that people do collect debts within the set time—that example I gave is a circumstantial change, not a value change, and that’s conservative interpretation. Seemingly, that’s how it looks, at least at first glance. After all, a lot of the time Reform Jews basically come with exactly these claims. Oh, it’s inappropriate—today you can’t discriminate against women, you can’t—those are exactly the typical Reform claims. But I want to make a remark within all this. Very often people accuse someone who comes with proposals of this kind of basically surrendering to the spirit of the times. He’s influenced from outside, he deviates from the Torah’s values, and he follows external values—liberal ones, Western ones, whatever, or even Buddhist values, values that are not the Torah. Okay? That isn’t necessarily true. Because to say that he’s being dragged along by external values really means: he doesn’t truly identify with them, he’s just dancing attendance. Right, he’s trying to ingratiate himself with the trendsetters of contemporary fashion. To my mind that’s below the belt. In this sense, at least, I believe in the sincerity of these proposals. In a minute we’ll see whether this is Reform or not Reform, but I do believe in the sincerity of the proposals. A person tells me: listen, I myself oppose inequality or gender discrimination—not because, I don’t know, Stanford or Berkeley decided it’s not nice to discriminate against women, but because I myself—again, yes, they think so too, fine, but the fact that they also think so doesn’t disqualify it—these are values I myself identify with. Now you’ll tell me, fine, even if you identify with them, they’re still external values, not values that come from the Torah. Values you absorbed from wherever, true, you identify with them, it’s not just following the wind. So that we’ll discuss later. But I just want to say that often people accuse such people of surrendering to the spirit of the times. I’m not surrendering to anything—I identify with them. The spirit of the times is me. The times contain these winds partly because of me too—I think this way as well. Not because some fashionable bon ton exists and therefore I get dragged after it. What are my psychological motives? I don’t know, ask the psychologist I never went to. But that’s already another issue. Everyone has psychological reasons for their worldview, so again, that’s below the belt. I myself honestly and genuinely identify with these values. And in that sense, by the way, I really believe the Reform people too. I don’t accept these accusations that they’re simply surrendering or being dragged after fashions. No—they really identify with it. A person is shaped by the landscape of his birthplace; he is part of the world in which he lives and acts, and he identifies—at least he may identify—with these values, and he comes with a claim not so that there won’t be desecration of God’s name—a disgusting claim in my eyes—that there shouldn’t be desecration of God’s name. He comes with a claim because in his eyes it is not right. He himself thinks it is wrong to discriminate, not because he says that if we discriminate then what will the nations say about us. That’s an argument I really don’t like. In certain cases maybe it has a place, but I hate the use of these arguments about desecration of God’s name. I’m talking about the substance itself. I oppose inequality—not, I don’t know, the fashionable trendsetters. I think it’s wrong. Now you can tell me, fine, even if you think it’s wrong, still subordinate yourself to Jewish law. We’ll still get to that. I just want to clear off the table these hair-trigger accusations that people are simply being dragged after the spirit of the times. Okay, so let’s return for a moment to this claim. Does such a claim nevertheless have a place even within a conservative framework? Okay, so I basically want to make two claims that complement one another. The first claim is that even what we see as the values of Jewish law is usually a result of interpretation. I hardly know—there are a few here and there, but I hardly know—values that are explicitly written in the Torah. There are value dimensions in the Talmud, in the medieval authorities (Rishonim), yes, certainly. But where did they themselves derive those values from? From the Torah through equidistant letter sequences? Or did they themselves also derive those values from things they believed in? And they embedded those values into their halakhic interpretation, like everyone does. So now a trickier question arises. Here I’m not deviating from the values of Jewish law—I’m deviating from the values of the Sages. But the values of the Sages—where did they themselves come from? If someone tells me the Sages derived all their values from the Torah, then at least he’s consistent, but in my opinion he’s talking nonsense. People are, as I said, shaped by the landscape of their birthplace. People are influenced by many things—obviously also by the Torah and by our understanding of the Torah, but not only. Right? We would learn modesty from a cat and diligence from an ant and all sorts of things—there are totally external sources from which you understand that these are right things, and you identify with them, you become convinced. That’s how our values are built. And that was true in the time of the Sages too, not only in our time. People were always shaped by the landscape of their birthplace, only the birthplace changed. So now the claim becomes a little more problematic. So what does it mean to deviate from the values of the Torah? Most of the values people talk about in this context—again, not all of them. Humility, for example—it is written in the Torah: “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.” It is stated explicitly, and apparently that is praise, not a condemnation of Moses our teacher for being more humble than anyone else. So I assume the Torah advocates humility. Fine. But things that are less clear-cut—and many, many of our issues are less clear-cut—I’m not sure how far such things can be attributed to the Torah or to Jewish law. They relate to interpretations of the Sages, or of medieval authorities (Rishonim), or of later authorities (Acharonim), or whatever, which in the end of course entered into Jewish law, because people interpreted Jewish law, and the Jewish law we have in our hands today is Jewish law as the result of interpretation. And that interpretation is saturated with things we can draw from all kinds of places. Just as I draw them from sources around me, I assume Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and Abaye and Rava and everyone else also probably drew the values that guided them from various sources. Now why is it permitted for them and forbidden for me? Why is what I do called deviation from the values of Jewish law, while what they did was not considered deviation from the values of Jewish law? They too implemented their own value conceptions when they interpreted the Torah, so I’m implementing mine too. Therefore this claim is a very far from simple one. Now someone can come and say—and now I’m saying the second point; I said these two points complement one another, they’re not two independent points—someone will say: fine, but Abaye and Rava and the sages of the Talmud have authority. We accepted the authority of the Talmud on the halakhic level. True, they did exactly the same thing: they embedded the values they identified with into their halakhic interpretation, but that is what was established as binding Jewish law. Therefore I am forbidden to do it where my values differ from those of Abaye and Rava. So I’m forbidden to do it. That is already a question of authority; it’s a different question. And I’ll still address the question of authority. But on the principled level, someone can come and say: you’re right in principle. There isn’t really such a thing as values of the Torah—or there is, but a large part of the values are not values of the Torah but values of Jewish law as it was received down to our own day, and within that there are many inputs from human beings across the generations. So if so, then I can also make my own inputs. What’s the difference? It’s not deviation from the will of God—it’s deviation from the will of Rava. And people will say: true, but Rava was accepted as binding Jewish law; you are forbidden to deviate from his rulings. Here I want to make the second claim, which says: not true. I am not committed to Rava’s values. I am committed to his halakhic determinations, not to his values. And on this matter I’ll explain it a bit more later and also bring examples, but these are basically the two points I want to elaborate on now. So now, the first principle, yes? What are the values of the Torah? The first principle is: what are the values of the Torah? And the second is authority regarding values. So what are the values of the Torah? So I say again: there are certain things that maybe one can say are written clearly in the Torah. You can always insert some interpretive dimension. Someone could come and say, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth”—that is a major condemnation of Moses our teacher; the Holy One, blessed be He, is accusing him of being extremely humble. I don’t know—an implausible interpretation. Okay? You can quibble over these matters, but that is an implausible interpretation. Just as there have already been interpretations claiming that Abraham our father failed in the binding of Isaac. Meaning, interpreters can sometimes go far. But I’m teaching you again: there are no values of the Torah. It’s all the result of their own values, which they try to impose on the Torah. But in this context, there are perhaps certain values I’m willing to accept as values of the Torah, and deviating from them really does seem problematic. But in many cases, as I said before, these are values that sages throughout the generations embedded into Jewish law, and now they have been ruled as Jewish law—Shulchan Arukh, Torah, Talmud, Maimonides, and so on—but it is saturated with interpretations that have value dimensions, and those values can change. And therefore the question returns: why shouldn’t we make a conservative interpretation on a value basis, not on the basis of circumstantial change? The Sages who disqualified women from testimony, or determined how to relate to gentiles in one way or another, lived in a world with built-in inequality on the value level. There was no problem of discrimination, no problem of male chauvinism, no problem of Jewish chauvinism. We live today in a different world—a different world in value terms. Again, let us assume for the sake of argument that reality has not changed: gentiles are as wicked as they once were, or they never were wicked and today they are not wicked either, it doesn’t matter. But reality hasn’t changed, or people haven’t changed—just for the sake of discussion, let us assume reality has not changed. And now I come with a value claim. And my value claim says: today it is inappropriate to disqualify women from testimony. Okay? Or it is inappropriate to treat gentiles this way—not to save them on the Sabbath. Fine? Claims we hear often. Usually from the mouths of Reform Jews. Orthodoxy pushes this away a bit, but many there also make these claims. So what do we do with such a claim? And here I say: it is not trivial that this is an illegitimate claim in Jewish law, because at least at the threshold I don’t think you can dismiss it, because as I said before, even the values of the Sages, the values that guided the Sages, were not necessarily values drawn from the Torah. Rather, they were values the Sages used—of course values they likely identified with—and used in their interpretation of the Torah. And they thought it was perfectly fine for a woman to sit at home. I think it is not fine for a woman to sit at home, or that she should be given equal standing in the public sphere, in the courtroom, everywhere—let’s say for the sake of discussion, okay? Now, this idea that a woman should sit at home, “all the glory of the king’s daughter is inward,” right? Is that a value of the Torah from which I am deviating? Where is that written in the Torah? It’s a value of the Sages. You can infer it somewhat from the Torah, but it seems to me—again, I said, I don’t deal with the Bible, you tell me—maybe there is something that can be learned from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), tell me if there is something I’m missing, something terribly unambiguous. There are places where you certainly see a different status of women, but there isn’t some explicit statement—I don’t think at least—that there is some fundamental principle that women should be kept aside, should stay home. It seems to me those are generally rabbinic statements, not statements of the Torah. So now, that was the atmosphere in the time of the Sages. We know the whole world was like that until not so long ago. So now the world has changed; it changed in its values, not in factual circumstances, but it changed, and it didn’t change because of the Torah. If the Torah had said that humility is important and I would say, what are you talking about, today all the celebrities are full of pride—today pride is the right thing, not humility—so therefore today we need to change, there is no such thing. The Torah said humility is important. “There is no counsel and no understanding against the Lord.” That is going against the Torah. But in a place where this is a rabbinic value, not a value of the Torah—and now it entered into Jewish law; women were disqualified from testimony and so on—but it entered Jewish law through sages to whom these values came not necessarily from the Torah but from the reality around them, and we know that was the reality around them, right? That is obvious. If so, then is it illegitimate to argue that the reality around us broadcasts different values with which I identify—again, not because I want to ingratiate myself with anyone; I identify with them—and therefore today I should make a change? Of course here the second question arises. This sounds reasonable, legitimate. So if the Sages did it, why is it forbidden for me? Why isn’t that conservative? Why am I obligated to preserve the values that existed in Babylonia eighteen hundred years ago? What holiness was there—“two thousand years of Torah” of the Chazon Ish? What holiness is there in Babylonia eighteen hundred years ago? What’s wrong with Israel or Belgium of the twenty-first century? Or Tanzania? Okay? Why is that more holy? If we were talking about the values of the Torah, I understand. But when we talk about—the values of the Torah, note well, in many, many cases are not really values of the Torah. They are values that entered in. I mentioned a favorite example of mine, actually in the Muslim context. Several times I’ve spoken with Muslims who explained to me that murder for family honor is not an Islamic value at all. It doesn’t come from Islam, that whole business. It’s Arab culture from the deserts of Arabia, from tribes in the Arabian desert. It’s just that this culture somehow entered in, and at least some Muslims—I’m not an expert in Islam—but at least some of them apparently perceive it as a principle with religious significance, although their scholars, it seems to me—at least those I spoke with—claim that it has no real source in their authorized sacred texts. It was drawn from the surrounding culture and somehow entered into actual conduct, and then at some stage you no longer remember what came from Sinai and what came from the guys around the coffee pot by the campfire. Okay? You live the world in which you live—especially in periods that were less aware of the influence of context than we are. Today we are very aware of this. For the Sages, it looked self-evident, but they perhaps did not always notice that what was self-evident to them was the landscape of their birthplace. It was not necessarily something absolutely true, or that came down from Sinai, or whatever you want to call it. And the same is true for us. There is no doubt it is true. Many, many things that seem self-evident to us in halakhic and Torah discourse are things absorbed from outside and today are considered principles of faith.

[Speaker E] Leibowitz once said that Judaism has no positions; Jews have positions, Judaism has no position—that’s what he used to say.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, the question is in what context. In halakhic contexts, I think it does have positions. In value contexts, apparently—

[Speaker E] It seems that in value contexts too they have positions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Humility is something positive. It’s written. There it’s hard to argue. But it’s true that many, many things are positions of Jews and not a position of Judaism—that I agree with. Leibowitz always takes things to the extreme.

[Speaker E] It seems to me Spinoza said that humility is a disgraceful trait; I think he said that. Okay. But it’s good that the masses keep clinging to it so they won’t disturb the wise.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that was also a dispute between schools of the Musar movement. There was the greatness of man of Kelm, and there was the lowliness—the self-abasement—of Slabodka or Kelm, and opposite them there was—what was his name—the Alter of Novardok. Right, Novardok. Yes, it was Slabodka versus Novardok. Okay? The greatness of man, which is seemingly against humility, but it’s not really against humility. It’s the greatness of the human being as a human being, not my own personal greatness. It’s not humility in me; it’s the demand made of me as a human being. Okay? But fine, there are nuances. Within these matters of humility and pride, of course there are many nuances, and there worldviews certainly enter. The fact that it says in the Torah, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth”—what humility is and how one implements it, about that one can argue from here to Australia. That’s obvious. But still, there are some basic foundations that I think one can say may indeed be a binding conception, a conception of the Torah or something like that. But many things are not. And that—

[Speaker E] That Moses was humble is just a factual claim. It didn’t say whether that’s good or bad.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but from the context you understand that this is praise of Moses our teacher. They didn’t point out that he had two legs. He had two legs too. They mentioned it because they wanted to show that he was a great person. “More than any person on the face of the earth”—what does that mean? They mentioned it in order to put him in a cage at the circus and collect money? Look at this strange man—he is more humble than anyone on earth. It doesn’t work like that. They praised him, right? That seems to me an interpretation—

[Speaker E] I said it. Why is there no commandment: be humble? What’s the problem with writing that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no commandment because there is no command. There is no commandment without a command. The fact that you can learn from the Torah that something is blessed does not turn it into a commandment. For a commandment you need a command. It’s not the same thing. In any case, I’m saying: first, this claim is not at all a simple one—the claim that interpretive change is not conservatism. But even so I want to qualify it, because the second question remains, the second point, the point of authority. So in what sense, under authority, can you dispute the authority of the sages of the Talmud, even if in principle you are aware that they inserted values there? Fine, but that is what became fixed, and that is what became fixed as authorized Jewish law. So that is a question of authority. Suppose we had a Sanhedrin today. Then fine, one really could change it. So in that sense it’s a technical problem. But on the practical level that technical problem is a problem—on our practical level, when there is no Sanhedrin. So that is the question of authority. I want to say another important point. Suppose we set aside the authority problem. There is a Sanhedrin, okay? There is a Sanhedrin. What can be done with this on the principled level? Because just as the values of the Sages shaped the Jewish law of their time, the values of today’s Sanhedrin will shape the Jewish law of today, and that is perfectly fine. A Sanhedrin can disagree with the Sages and with previous Sanhedrins and so on. The question—and this raises an extremely difficult question—is: what, then, is preserved? So you’re right that this is legitimate; it does not contradict what the Torah says. But Buddhist meditation also does not contradict what the Torah says. Is doing Buddhist meditation conservative interpretation? No, because it preserves nothing. Yonatan, I muted you. So the argument here—this is a very subtle point. Think, for example, about women. Suppose that in the time of the Sages there was no problem with discriminating against women or excluding them, keeping them at home. And today there is. So let’s say I reached the conclusion that it is indeed proper to change this law—the disqualification of women from testimony, or whatever, positions of authority, women in positions of authority. By the way, I proved in an article that there is no problem with that and it can be changed. Or that was actually about converts; with women I didn’t prove it, I argued it. Regarding converts I even have proofs. In any case, let’s say I reached this conclusion, and I have a Sanhedrin that can carry it out in practice too, so there is no authority problem. Now the question is: so what remains of the Torah of the Sages in our time? In what sense are we conservative? After all, in the end—yes, it was legitimate, but if you ask what was preserved, nothing was preserved. Because in conservative interpretation, we preserved the instruction of our ancestors to wear clothing appropriate to the weather, or to disqualify people from testimony—people who lack education. That remains today too; only today people are educated, and so it no longer applies to them. So that is called preserving the Jewish law that existed in the time of the Sages. But what I am doing now does not preserve even the principle, not only its practical application. So in what sense is that called conservatism? That is the difficult question. But this question, if you translate it—and I’ll translate it into a blunter formulation—what is Torah altogether? Because slowly you discover that everything you point to is not really the Holy One, blessed be He—it’s human beings. And I say no. Even though the Torah is from Sinai—I am not casting any doubt right now on the fact that the Torah is from Sinai, all of it, to the very last letter, including, yes, “to this day,” fine, including the verses saying “to this day,” everything is fine, all of it was given at Sinai for the sake of our present discussion. Okay? But all right, now when I examine the concrete questions, I basically discover that I can do almost whatever I want with it, and nothing is preserved. The concept of conservatism is basically emptied of content if I allow conservatism even regarding values. But on the other hand, what am I supposed to do? To remain conservative, should I preserve the values of Iraqis in the third century CE? Why? What was holy about those values? Let’s say—not the world I would hold up as an ideal model to imitate, I assume. I don’t know it firsthand, but I suspect. Okay? So this is an impossible dilemma. On the one hand, there really is nothing there to preserve; on the other hand, if I take this to its conclusion, then nothing at all is preserved. So in what sense? I’m basically doing whatever I want in every generation, with no connection to what previous generations did; nothing is preserved. So this really is a problem that seemingly has no answer. Meaning, even if I reached the conclusion—and this is an important point so you understand the difference from what I said earlier—what I showed earlier is that such an argument does not contradict the principles of conservatism. You have not harmed—sorry—the values of the Torah here, and you are preserving the values of the Torah, not the values of the Sages. From your standpoint, the Sages may express what the Torah says, but the principle is to preserve what the Holy One, blessed be He, commands, not what the Sages said. So in that sense it’s fine—you have not deviated from that. But on the other hand, in the end you ask yourself, okay, what am I left with? So what exactly did I preserve? What is this Torah that will not change and that we are supposed to preserve and that is eternal and all these things? In effect, it remains empty of content. You can do with it whatever you want. So here I want to sharpen this a bit more. These are subtle points, but they are very, very important, because every little point, every tiny nuance like this, turns everything upside down—from beginning to end. I’ll add one more epicycle, yes, one more qualification. Take women, for example. If the Sages had had a problem with the value of equality, the question would have been harder. But if the Sages were not troubled by the value of equality, the problem is easier. I today am troubled by it. I am not going against the Sages. I am claiming that if the Sages had been troubled by the value of equality, they too would have validated women for testimony. It’s just that in their world, the value of equality was not something troubling. Or inequality was not something troubling. Okay? In their world, yes. That is not the same as going head-on against a rabbinic value. Even that, as I said earlier, is not so simple to say one can’t do, but to go head-on against a rabbinic value is basically to say that what the Sages said is important is, in my eyes today, invalid. The Sages did not say that it is important to discriminate. They permitted themselves to discriminate. They were not troubled by it. But discrimination itself was not a value there. So the contradiction is less frontal, I would say. And now I can argue for a kind of conservative interpretation, and then maybe there even is something preserved. Because I would want to make the following claim. Suppose I accept conservative interpretation—conservative interpretation on the basis of values—and I would say this: if the Sages had lived in a world in which the value of equality was significant, then they would not have disqualified women from testimony, even though there may have been reasons to disqualify them from testimony—at least then there were. Okay? A claim of this type actually contains something that does preserve loyalty to the Sages. I’m basically saying: just like a factual change—if the Sages were here today, they too would permit it. It’s still a bit hard to put your finger on what exactly is preserved here. But maybe that is because in the disqualification of women from testimony there really is no value dimension. It simply depends on—I’ll now make the following claim. It may be that even the values of the Torah allow consideration of value-based distress such as inequality and exclusion, okay? And therefore, if there had been sensitivity to inequality in the time of the Sages, they would not have disqualified women from testimony. It just wasn’t there. Today it is. Today it is. Now it may be that Jewish law allows this, because the disqualification of women from testimony is not some value principle, and so Jewish law would allow changing it by the force of an external value consideration. That is not like going against, say, a place where there is a clear value consideration. One must honor Torah scholars, fine? Honoring Torah scholars is a clear, positive value consideration. Not just that we don’t care about discrimination. Here, it is important to us to honor Torah scholars. Now suppose that today honoring Torah scholars isn’t done anymore. What do you mean? Why does he get preferential treatment? Isn’t he a person just like me and you? Fine, then he should stand in line like everyone else. We don’t give line priority to Torah scholars. Okay? Here it may be that we really are speaking of a value change. Because the Sages tell me there is such a value, and I reject that value. But in the context of disqualifying women from testimony, the Sages did not say there is a value-based matter in disqualifying women from testimony. There are facts that compel them to disqualify women from testimony, and they were not troubled by the value of equality. Not that they had a value of inequality—they were not troubled by the value of equality. Fine. But if we are troubled by the value of equality, it may be that we are allowed in our time to validate women for testimony because of the value of equality. That is different from canceling the Jewish law of honoring Torah scholars. That, a conservative person would not do, let’s say for the sake of discussion.

[Speaker D] The question is who is “we”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying—

[Speaker D] The Sages—the Sages agree with you that “it is not in heaven,” but who are today’s Sages who will make the change?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Listen to me, that’s what I said earlier: changes of this kind will probably require some sort of consensus among the sages of this generation. Not full consensus—there never will be on anything—but you need a significant number of sages who agree on the matter.

[Speaker D] You hear—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that Rabbi Lior there identified with them—behave in that way—and it’s not that only one person thinks so.

[Speaker D] Nobody wanted to join Rabbi Lior.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] True, but I said that nobody wanted to join not because they disputed the scientific findings.

[Speaker D] No, no—where is this consensus?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here. You don’t need consensus. There was consensus, because the consensus on the facts exists—that’s what I said, and that’s what matters to me. You don’t need consensus on the practical act. You don’t need consensus on the idea that one may change Jewish law if the factual circumstances changed. That I decide by myself. I only want some agreement that the facts really changed, so it won’t just be my own private whim. And if Rabbi Lior’s opponents agree that the facts changed and they only disagree with him ideologically, that should not have interfered. With values, it really is more sensitive. With values—so what? They’ll agree that today’s values have changed? Fine, but they themselves do not identify with those values, and what matters is what we identify with, not what the fashionable trendsetters think. So here, in the context of a value change, it really is more complicated. There, apparently, the consensus would have to be about the step itself, not only about the underlying change in circumstances.

[Speaker E] Rabbi, what about matters of kashrut that also depend a lot on fear of social mingling with gentiles? Today that’s no longer really the case—for example, wine handled by gentiles. No one is pouring libations to idolatry anymore, so would you permit that too?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wine used for libations—if no one is pouring libations to idolatry, then it isn’t wine used for libations. What do you mean?

[Speaker E] So is it permitted today to take wine from a gentile?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s ordinary gentile wine. Ordinary gentile wine is prohibited even without its being poured as a libation to idolatry; it’s a rabbinic prohibition. Wine used for libations—we don’t continue that category today if they aren’t idol worshipers. If it wasn’t poured as a libation, then it isn’t wine used for libations. That’s straightforward Jewish law.

[Speaker E] So what is all this fear when a gentile pours wine in a restaurant—is that just nonsense, basically?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, nobody disputes that. There’s only a rabbinic prohibition of ordinary gentile wine. So really, regarding the value shift—let’s say the practical formulation—the concern you described earlier, that basically nothing is preserved, I understand it very well and I even identify with it. But on the other hand, I don’t see why I need to preserve Iraqi values from the third century. Maybe not the third—slightly later. Well, actually around the third, more or less. Why do I need to preserve that? And it may be that at least where there is no positive value statement, I would certainly allow myself to make a change, even on the basis of a change in values and not only on the basis of a change in facts. Where there is a positive value statement, I also don’t really understand why I shouldn’t make that change, but I understand that it creates a kind of problem, that nothing remains preserved. I just want to say a few more things, because the feeling that comes up here is that in the end I’m leaving nothing. This whole story is basically blown away by the wind, carried off by the wind, because everything can be changed. But that’s a demagogic statement. It’s not true. All in all, for very many halakhot there simply are no serious arguments that would really justify changing them. There just aren’t serious arguments like that. There are quite a few halakhot where there are, yes, but to say that this is how we’re going to change all of Jewish law—that’s hysterical naivete, because you have to check whether there is really a convincing conservative interpretation. The fact that formally you can produce some kind of conservative interpretation and maneuver with it—that’s true, but that’s just games. If I’m talking about looking at this seriously, not out of fear of a slippery slope, then if there are convincing interpretations, fine; if there aren’t convincing interpretations, then no. And I think the interpretations regarding women and regarding gentiles are convincing interpretations. But if, say, I now wanted to change the prohibition on eating pork, then you could make something up and say that once pork was something disgusting and today it isn’t disgusting, so now it can be eaten. That’s a weak interpretation, because I don’t know—it doesn’t convince me that pork was prohibited because it was disgusting, nor that today it isn’t disgusting. Of course you can say such a thing; with words anything goes. But to say there’s some convincing interpretation here? Absolutely not. And therefore there’s no need—there’s no need to recoil so quickly from these fears, as if we’re going to change everything with these kinds of conservative interpretations. It depends. There are things where yes, and things where no. And Hazal themselves changed a great deal, by the way, and didn’t agonize too much before carrying out all their halakhic revolutions—the Tannaim and Amoraim. So that’s perfectly fine. We also don’t need to be overly frightened. I don’t know—even on the man-God side, I think interpretations can be made. “The honor of a king’s daughter is inward,” for example—I don’t know whether that’s called man-to-man. The idea that a woman should stay at home—is that man-to-man? No, that’s a religious value, not a moral value. And so on. The holiness of a priest. “You shall keep them as bondmen forever.” Yes, exactly. In any case, the fears—in short, what’s at stake here, what often makes this approach so intimidating, is my feeling that this approach is hard to deal with. I think the arguments are strong arguments. The fear is that nothing will remain. The fear is that in the end we’re great conservatives who preserve nothing. And that fear—I’m saying, I understand it and I don’t dismiss it, but one has to pay attention. I’m asking: I’ll be willing to make a change if someone brings me a convincing interpretation. Not every random thing that someone once says is automatically a conservative interpretation that lets him do whatever he wants. In the last column in the series—I just wrote a series of four columns on this subject; actually I didn’t even notice that both here and there I was going on about the same topic. It must have been on my mind, apparently. It’s not a coincidence, but it wasn’t conscious. So there I tried to show, for example, arguments by a Reform rabbi, Moshe Zemer. He has a book called Sane Halakha, and I brought several examples from his book that once really embarrassed me, because I saw that he was making claims where I honestly couldn’t put my finger on what exactly was wrong with them—claims that various very fundamental halakhot need to be changed. So that really upset me. But when I tried to think about it directly, I couldn’t actually put my finger on what was problematic in his arguments. So that was one of the triggers for developing this whole doctrine of halakhic change. And then in the fourth column, after I defined—and we still haven’t finished the first three—but after I defined the concept of conservatism, including Modern Orthodoxy, we’ll still get to that and everything, I tried to show why the Reform arguments are still Reform arguments. They still don’t really hold water. And therefore I’m not so alarmed by these fears that the whole system is falling apart. No. Part of it really will fall apart, and deserves to fall apart, and another part will remain—everything according to what reason says, and with some level of consensus, yes, so that it won’t be the whim of one individual. Yes, that’s how things should be run, and if Jewish law changes, it changes. Why is that frightening? Jewish law ought to change according to the circumstances and according to human understanding. The Torah was not given to ministering angels.

Now with regard to—there’s only one point left for me, the point of authority. After all, I said, fine, everything is true, everything is possible, but the question of authority is still troubling, because Hazal in the Talmud do have authority. So true, on the theoretical level, if there were a Sanhedrin today, then apparently I’ve given them a track they could run on. But there is no Sanhedrin today. And you can’t disagree with the Talmud. So what do we do with that? Here I want to make a few more comments. First comment: maybe I’ll formulate it this way. Even if we understand that there is authority to the Talmud, that is not “do not deviate.” “Do not deviate” was said about the Sanhedrin. The fact that we accepted upon ourselves the authority of the Talmud means that it has authority. It does not mean that someone who disagrees with the Talmud violates “do not deviate,” because “do not deviate” simply doesn’t enter here in the straightforward sense. There is Sefer HaChinukh, which says that “do not deviate” was said about all the sages in every generation, but that is a solitary view, accepted by no one. And therefore, true, there is an obligation to obey, but it is not “do not deviate.” Why is that important? Because with “do not deviate” there are halakhic definitions for how you change laws, how you disagree with a Sanhedrin. For that you need a Sanhedrin that is itself a Sanhedrin that disagrees with the first Sanhedrin, and in rabbinic laws it needs to be a Sanhedrin greater in wisdom and number. Okay—but all that is where the problem is “do not deviate.” But if the problem is that we accepted upon ourselves the authority of the Talmud, then today we can choose not to accept its authority, can’t we? The mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted. So if the authority of the Talmud derives from the Jewish people, then the Jewish people can decide that on this issue it departs from the Talmud. By the way, Rabbi Kook writes in Nevukhei HaDor that the whole idea that anything established by count requires another count to permit it, and a court greater in wisdom and number and all that—even that itself the Sanhedrin will be able to change when it arises. Okay? So even that can be changed. So in our context, there is room for the reasoning that authority that does not derive from “do not deviate,” but from public acceptance—the public that accepted it can also depart from it, deviate from it. That of course means there has to be broad public agreement about it, as I said before. Without that it won’t work. You can’t do it alone. But it is a situation that can also be done today. So that’s the first comment.

The second comment—on the question of authority I’ll get back to it; I can already see that that will only be next time—but I want to manage one more point. Since the Talmud’s authority rests on what we accepted upon ourselves, then the definition of that authority—what is included in it and what isn’t—is determined by what powers we gave it. This is not an analysis of the verses of “do not deviate,” or of the tradition of a law given to Moses at Sinai—what are the boundaries of “do not deviate.” Rather, if this is the result of what we accepted upon ourselves, then let’s check what we accepted. Just as, for example, another example of authority that comes from below and not by force of “do not deviate” from above—because “do not deviate” is authority that comes from above. The Holy One, blessed be He, to Moses; Moses to Joshua; Joshua and so on; one court ordains the next ordained judges. It comes from above. It is not elections in which the public chose the ordained sages. The Sanhedrin is not a parliament elected by majority vote. It is appointed by the previous Sanhedrin. Therefore this is authority that descends upon us from above. And the authority of the Talmud is authority determined from below—we accepted its authority upon ourselves. Another example of this is the local rabbinic authority, the mara d’atra. A rabbi’s authority over a community is not from “do not deviate,” but from the fact that the community accepted him upon itself. Therefore, for example, the community that decides can also throw him out. Where have we ever heard that one can dismiss the Sanhedrin? Once they did it with Rabban Gamliel, but that was sages from the Sanhedrin itself. Factors outside the Sanhedrin cannot dismiss the Sanhedrin. Its authority comes from above, and if it is ever removed, it will be removed only from above. But authority that comes from below can also be removed from below, just as with a local rabbinic authority it is obvious that a community can replace its rabbi. So we too—if we accepted upon ourselves the authority of the Talmud, then we can decide that under certain circumstances we depart from it, or that certain powers were not given to it. So that’s the second point. I’ll get back to it later, but let’s leave it at that for now.

What I want to say is that the authority of the Talmud is, first of all, authority regarding Jewish law and not regarding other things—that’s one. And two, even within Jewish law it is authority granted to bottom lines, not to reasons. On that I have a column, column 257. I won’t go into details here, but I showed there, I brought several sources there that show this—Shulchan Arukh in section 25, there is Maharik and Shakh and others—who discuss the question of what happens when there is a majority in a court but for different reasons. A majority in a court based on different reasons overcomes the minority, even though from the standpoint of the reasons there is no majority here. Let’s say there are two against one, but the two each have a different reason, then there is not actually any reason that was decided by the majority. In terms of reasons, there is one judge supporting each reason. But what determines the majority is the bottom line. By the way, this is true also in the legal world, not only the halakhic world. In the legal world too, this is how it works. The best example of this—how do I know I spoke about it once? Because in that column, 257, there’s a note there from Shmuel Kenner, meaning this issue must have come up here in the lectures at some point—is what’s called the doctrinal paradox. Look, let’s say a case comes before a court in which Reuven and Shimon signed a contract, and Shimon claims that Reuven breached the contract. And he asks for compensation. Now the court needs to decide two questions, whether it’s a civil court or a religious court. It has to decide two questions: the factual question—did Reuven in fact breach the contract or not? Witnesses or whatever there may be; the factual question has to be clarified. But there is also a legal question: does the contract in fact prohibit what Reuven did? That is already a question of contract interpretation, a legal question. So one has to decide a legal question and a factual question.

Now let’s assume that among the three judges the distribution of opinion was as follows. There are judges A, B, and C. Judge A argues as follows: on the interpretive question, one interpretation is correct, yes? On the interpretive question, the contract indeed prohibits what Reuven did. On the factual question, Reuven indeed deviated from—violated the contract, yes? He breached the contract, did not fulfill the contract. Conclusion: Reuven is liable for compensation. Right? That’s according to judge A. Judge B says this: the contract does not require this, so there is no problem. You are right that factually Reuven did it. I accept the factual claim, but there is no problem with it because the contract does not prohibit it, and therefore I do not obligate Reuven to pay compensation. That’s judge B. Judge C says: on the interpretive question I agree that the contract prohibits it, but factually Reuven did no such thing, therefore Reuven is exempt from paying compensation. Now what is the ruling in such a case? Reuven is exempt, right? You look at the left column, the final ruling. There are two judges who exempt Reuven and one who obligates Reuven. So the law follows the majority, and he is exempt. Now let’s look at the reasons. On the interpretive question, there are two against one that the contract does prohibit it. On the factual question, there are two against one that Reuven indeed violated that clause. So if we decide this in stages—the interpretive question two against one, the factual question two against one—the result is one thing: the result is that Reuven must pay. What does that mean? It means that what determines things on the legal level is not the reasons; what determines it is the final ruling. And I brought additional indications and proofs and so on for this.

Also regarding—by the way, there was some case; I brought here a real-life example. I happened upon it—a real-life example from a ruling of the Supreme Court where there was an appeal there, an appeal over the abduction of a girl. In the case of a kidnapped girl, this happened to be a couple whose case came to me regarding annulment of marriage, and afterward my son found that they had already been going through the courts for a long time. I wasn’t even aware of this when I wrote their ruling. And there, when I read the court rulings, in the Supreme Court there was an argument that the husband had abducted the girl. Fine? Abducted in the sense that, yes, he took her and did not return her; he took her with permission but didn’t return her. The question was: first, was there an abduction? All the judges agreed that yes, there were three judges there. All the judges agreed that this is called abduction. But there are two reservations in the Hague Convention dealing with child abduction. Two reservations: first, was there retroactive acquiescence by the other parent to the abduction, and second, was there consent at the time she was taken, and only now he regrets it. Fine? Those are the two reservations. If there was consent, it’s not abduction; if there was retroactive acquiescence, it’s also not abduction. That was the legal claim. Now the distribution of opinions among the judges was exactly like the table you saw before. In the bottom line they exempted the woman. But if you checked the reasons, you would see that there was a majority that there had been acquiescence and a majority that there had been consent—that there had not been acquiescence, yes, there had not been acquiescence and there had not been consent, sorry. And therefore the woman should have been required to return the girl. But that was only at the level of reasons. In the bottom line, the girl remained with the woman—with the husband, despite the fact that he abducted her. Okay, exactly the same thing as here.

And what is my claim in practice? We know that in the Talmud, for example, there are Amoraim who rule like two disputing Tannaim—who rule like the first Tanna in case A and like the second Tanna in case B. Now in that sense, this is not really like the position of either one of the Tannaim, because each of those two Tannaim, in his reasons, his reasons apply to both cases together; after all, their dispute is over both cases. But the Amora who rules, rules in case A like the first Tanna and in case B like the second Tanna. This means that at the level of reasons he is actually going against both of them. But how can that be? Amoraim are not allowed to dispute Tannaim. Because he is not disputing them on the bottom line. On the bottom line, for each of his rulings there is a Tanna. But in terms of the reasons, he did dispute them. That is exactly the indication that says the authority the Amoraim gave to the Tannaim—or that we gave to the Amoraim—is authority of bottom lines. And therefore, if I make a conservative interpretation—yes, I change the reasons and not the bottom lines—I am not obligated to the values of Hazal, to the foundations, to the infrastructure of Jewish law. I am obligated to the laws, to the bottom lines, but not necessarily to the underlying foundations. And this makes it possible to deal with the question of authority. The authority of the Talmud. Fine, with the authority of the Talmud, where the public itself can deviate from it—that’s exactly the point. The public did not give the Talmud authority over the foundations but only over the bottom lines. Consequently, what obligates the public is the bottom lines, not the foundations. And therefore, even if I go against the values of Hazal, that does not necessarily mean that I am deviating from Jewish law, because Hazal is not a deviation from Jewish law on the essential level either, because Hazal too may have brought those values from various places. But even on the level of authority, it is not necessarily a deviation, because who says Hazal have authority on the level of values? They have authority—if Hazal thought that socialism, say, were a terribly important value, am I obligated to be a socialist just because they embodied that in halakhot? I’ll keep the halakhot, but I won’t be a socialist. Where there is no halakha obligating me, I’ll be a capitalist, even though Hazal—clearly, for the sake of discussion, I don’t think that’s actually the case—but let’s say for the sake of discussion that one could extract from Hazal a socialist value position. I’m not obligated to the values that emerge from Hazal. Therefore aggadic literature is not binding either; only Jewish law is binding. Okay, we’ll stop here. There’s still more to complete here, but our time is up.

[Speaker D] Thank you very much. Sabbath peace, happy holiday.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Happy holiday, bye. When you receive the Torah on Shavuot, you have to hold onto it tightly, because there’s very little you can actually hold onto.

[Speaker D] The whole Talmud, the medieval authorities (Rishonim), the later authorities (Acharonim), all rely on the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They rely on the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), right? Everyone relies on the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). All the conceptual debates, the moral debates, everyone relies on the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)—both the one who says X and the one who says not-X.

[Speaker D] So it has its place and its honor.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everyone has their place and their honor—just don’t tell me they got it from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).

[Speaker D] Why not?

[Speaker B] It’s not based on the Bible.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everyone takes out of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) whatever he wants.

[Speaker D] Really? And if you don’t disagree with—if it was the Sanhedrin that derived it, then…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the Sanhedrin derived it, that’s authority. Fine, that’s a different discussion. But if we’re speaking substantively—substantively—if Hazal say they don’t want people gouging out an eye, then “an eye for an eye” turns into monetary compensation.

[Speaker D] But that’s exactly it—if we accepted upon ourselves the Talmud, we accepted… where does the Talmud come from? From the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that is the question of authority. I’m talking about a substantive question. The question of authority is a different question; it has to be discussed on its own terms. I’m talking about the substantive question: is this really a reflection of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)? My answer is no. It could be that even though it is not a reflection of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), I still have to obey because there is a problem of authority.

[Speaker D] It’s not a reflection, it’s interpretation. Interpretation—we’re always talking about interpretation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Interpretation that I accept—I don’t accept it… I don’t think the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) meant that, but I still may have to obey because there is “do not deviate.” Yes, that’s the question of authority. That’s why I’m saying these are two different things. It doesn’t mean I learned it from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh); it means I accept what so-and-so said because he has authority. But it’s still so-and-so who said it, not the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).

[Speaker D] But there’s still also “do not deviate.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, granted. I need to distinguish between the question of authority and the substantive question. I’ll come back to the question of authority in the next lecture as well.

[Speaker D] Okay, Sabbath peace.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, Sabbath peace, happy holiday.

[Speaker B] Thank you very much,

[Speaker D] and goodbye.