Innovation, Conservatism, and Tradition – Lesson 8
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
Table of Contents
- Changing Jewish law in light of changing factual circumstances: Meiri and the attitude toward gentiles
- A value-based change of *pas nisht*: destroying idolatry and respect for other faiths
- Secular courts: an intermediate case between changing circumstances and value change
- Rabbinical courts, compromise, and the practical difficulties of “Torah law”
- A dispute over interpretation and morality: a non-value-based interpretive tool versus the claim of conscience
- Additional examples: women’s testimony, intellectual property, the captive infant, and annulment of marriage
- Torah and morality, Amalek and the beautiful captive woman, and a model of conflict
- The question of authority: repealing enactments, the Torah-level/rabbinic distinction, and the limitation of the Great Court
- The authority of the Talmud as acceptance “from below” and its implications for change
- A quorum over Zoom and the definition of “place” in virtual reality
- The beginning of the transition to defining Modern Orthodoxy and distinguishing it from Haredi Judaism
- Acceptance by the many, “covenant,” and the difference between divine authority and authority we accepted
Summary
General Overview
The lecturer presents examples of changes in Jewish law that arise from changed factual circumstances, from a value-based change of pas nisht, and from an intermediate case combining circumstances and values, emphasizing that the practical ability to change also depends on the question of authority. He argues that Meiri’s attitude toward gentiles is a halakhic change based on a change in facts, whereas the fact that idolatry is not destroyed today reflects, in practice, a value change rooted in respect for other people’s beliefs, even if halakhic decisors formulate it as “enmity” or “our hand is not strong enough.” He develops the example of secular courts as a complex case in which there is no “clean” halakhic justification for cooperating with state courts, yet in practice people do so because of pas nisht and the need for a legal system, and he tries to anchor this also in the Talmudic topic of the courts in Syria and in an internal value of Jewish law that requires the existence of a legal system. Later he shows that formal limitations on the authority of a court may make the theoretical discussion impractical, but qualifies this by distinguishing between repealing a law and applying it anew, and by pointing out that most of Jewish law rests on the authority of the Talmud, which we accepted upon ourselves “from below,” rather than on the “do not turn aside” authority of the Sanhedrin, so avenues of change may exist even without a Sanhedrin. Toward the end he begins building a definition of Modern Orthodoxy in contrast to non-modern Orthodoxy, and argues that the categories in Israel get confused because of a mixing of attitudes toward Zionism with attitudes toward modernity, with the lecture stopping before the full definition.
Changing Jewish law in light of changing factual circumstances: Meiri and the attitude toward gentiles
The lecturer presents Meiri as an example of halakhic change that stems from a change in factual circumstances, because the gentiles “became people who behave in a reasonably human way,” and therefore Meiri argues that the halakhic attitude toward them should change, both on the Torah level and on the rabbinic level. He defines this as a change in facts, not in values, because the change does not stem from a new moral value but from new behavior by the gentiles, which in his view is a fact relevant to the application of Jewish law. He contrasts this with a hypothetical possibility of change based on a modern value that forbids such treatment of human beings, and argues that this is a more problematic kind of change, while still pointing to possibilities such as choosing a plausible interpretation, pas nisht, or recognizing a conflict between Jewish law and morality.
A value-based change of *pas nisht*: destroying idolatry and respect for other faiths
The lecturer argues that in practice there is no actual instruction today to destroy churches and ritual objects, even if halakhic decisors explain it in terms of “our hand is not strong enough,” “because of enmity,” or “desecration of God’s name.” He thinks that “the heart does not reveal itself to the mouth,” and that a deeper motive is pas nisht, because in today’s world it is simply unreasonable to harm the institutions and ritual objects of other religions, especially when we demand that others respect synagogues and Jewish institutions. He formulates this through a general principle of universal treatment of human beings, and gives it moral weight that explains the practical distancing from the written halakhic requirement. He connects this to “the ways of peace of Rabbi Unterman” and “this is the ways of peace of Rabbi Hutner.” He defines this as a value change driven by an external value that is not an internal value of Torah and Jewish law, and emphasizes that he identifies with this value not in order “to curry favor,” but because he sees it as true.
Secular courts: an intermediate case between changing circumstances and value change
The lecturer argues that from a “pure” halakhic perspective there is no justification for cooperating with the Israeli court system, and he agrees with the halakhic decisors who call it “gentile courts.” He argues that in practice both decisors and the public rely on the legal system, and explains this as pas nisht, because it is impossible to live in a modern democratic state while boycotting an accessible legal system that protects rights. He sharpens the point that this is an intermediate case: at root there is a factual change, because “there is no possibility of setting up a system that judges according to Jewish law” and the public will not accept it, but the result is a value judgment that conflicts with halakhic values because there is no “conservative midrash” that allows the permission to be derived from an existing principle.
The lecturer discusses the courts in Syria and presents the interpretation of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), according to which the community appointed laymen because there were no Torah scholars, and the Sages recognized this; he then explains that in his view one cannot directly compare that to the situation in Israel today, because today there are Torah scholars, but the obstacle is practical-social. He cites the Chazon Ish, who distinguishes between Syria, where there was no alternative systematic legal system, and a modern state that has an alternative legal system “in place of Jewish law,” and therefore “there is no basis to compare the courts in Syria to here.” He nonetheless argues that the Talmud itself recognizes the need not to leave a community without a legal system, without bringing any exegetical source, and therefore there is here a Talmudic anchor for the pas nisht of the need for a legal system, and he also points out that this is an internal value of Jewish law, because “one of the seven Noahide commandments is the commandment of laws.” He responds to questions about “they accepted it upon themselves” and stipulations in monetary law by saying that an orderly alternative legal system is not comparable to a private stipulation, and adds that there are areas where stipulations are impossible, such as inheritance.
Rabbinical courts, compromise, and the practical difficulties of “Torah law”
The lecturer quotes an example brought by Nadav Shnerb about a man who requested “Torah law,” and the court demanded that he sign in advance for compromise; when he refused, they issued a contempt notice against him. He presents this as an illustration that rabbinical courts are not willing to adjudicate Torah law in its strict sense. He also brings a personal case—“this happened to me”—in a private religious court in Jerusalem, where they refused to hear the case without agreement to a certain track, and uses this to argue that it is hard to demand that the public avoid secular courts when even a religious court does not allow full Torah law. He mentions a claim he heard from Rabbi Ratzon Arusi that a judge who errs has to pay out of his own pocket, and he presents this as an explanation that sounds absurd to him in light of the question, “then what is he a judge for?”
A dispute over interpretation and morality: a non-value-based interpretive tool versus the claim of conscience
In a discussion with a student, the lecturer rejects the claim that all interpretation necessarily rests on morality, and points to linguistic interpretation and to non-moral considerations. He brings the example of “do not form separate factions” and presents a modern interpretation according to which a “city” is an ethnic community and not a geographic space, so that two courts in the same geographic city are not necessarily “two courts in one city.” He argues that there is no moral consideration here, but rather an adaptation of concepts to the reality of a “global village” in which geography loses significance, and he refuses to accept the assumption that the only motivation for interpretation is moral conscience.
Additional examples: women’s testimony, intellectual property, the captive infant, and annulment of marriage
The lecturer mentions the example of accepting women’s testimony in places where otherwise a “territory” would be created with no possibility of enforcement, such as “the murder in the mikveh,” and presents this as a solution arising from practical necessity. He presents the topic of intellectual property as an area in which economic-technological reality makes non-recognition impossible if the world is to function, and argues that there is room for interpretation that defines intellectual property even on the Torah level, while citing the criticism of “Pe’at HaSadeh,” who asked, “what are you learning from the gentiles?” He presents the captive infant as an innovation of the Chazon Ish, who explains a change in attitude toward secular Jews on the basis of changed facts—being raised without awareness of obligation—but adds that there is also a value dimension of “it is inconceivable” to behave with extreme violence toward someone who thinks differently.
The lecturer concludes this chain of examples with Rivka Lubitch’s proposal to abolish the institution of marriage acquisition because of paternalism and preference for the man, and he presents this as a Reform red line that is not “in the game.” He argues that the Torah commands, “when a man takes a wife,” and therefore marriage acquisition cannot be abolished on value grounds; if the problem is chauvinism, then one has to interpret what kind of marriage acquisition the Torah intended and do that, but not give up the institution itself.
Torah and morality, Amalek and the beautiful captive woman, and a model of conflict
In response to a question about blotting out Amalek and other prohibitions, the lecturer says that under present circumstances something may be pas nisht even if it was not in the past, and he suggests possibilities of interpretive narrowing, such as Maimonides on Amalek—“one must first call to them in peace”—and conditions of war. He also presents the possibility of conflict between Jewish law and morality, in which “Jewish law does not always prevail,” and clarifies that this is the mechanism he had in mind. He rejects the notion that the Torah is “entirely moral,” and presents the prohibition against eating pork as an example of a commandment that has “not the slightest thing to do with morality,” and criticizes explanations in the Guide for the Perplexed and in the words of other rabbis as, in his view, “ridiculous” explanations.
The question of authority: repealing enactments, the Torah-level/rabbinic distinction, and the limitation of the Great Court
The lecturer presents two Talmudic principles: “a matter that was instituted by count requires another count to permit it,” and the requirement that the permitting court be “greater in wisdom and number.” He adopts the approach of Maimonides and most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), according to which the first principle relates to Torah-level law and the second to rabbinic law, and offers an essential explanation and not merely one based on reinforcing rabbinic authority: in Torah-level law the court interprets Torah, and therefore a later court is not opposing earlier authority but determining what the Torah says in its generation, whereas in rabbinic law the court legislates an enactment by virtue of “do not turn aside,” and therefore change requires superior authority. He cites Maimonides, who writes that even if the reason for the enactment has ceased, the authoritative framework is still required to repeal it, and he cites the dispute with the Raavad, who argues that if the reason has ceased there is no need for a court “greater in wisdom and number.”
The lecturer concludes that apparently, without a great court, many changes are not practically possible, but he qualifies this by saying that many of the examples are not “repeal” but rather renewed “application” of principles in a new reality, and therefore it is not clear that the rules of repealing enactments apply to them. He adds that in practice there are “very many examples” of rabbinic enactments that were repealed over the generations without a Sanhedrin, and refers to a book by Neria Gutel and to a collection of tools he himself presented in his book, including suspension because of harm, repeal when the reason is explicitly stated, and the distinction between a law and a concern. He illustrates this through the prohibition against lighting Hanukkah candles because of the Persians, which returned to being permitted once the concern passed, and through the analogy of a pit in the road, to argue that when a concern disappears there is no “law” requiring a court to repeal it.
The authority of the Talmud as acceptance “from below” and its implications for change
The lecturer argues that most of the binding laws today are laws enacted in the Talmud and not in the Sanhedrin, and explains the authority of the Talmud through public acceptance “from below” rather than through “do not turn aside” authority from above. He notes the theoretical possibility of turning such acceptance into something like the status of a Sanhedrin, according to the logic of Maimonides regarding the renewal of ordination by agreement of the sages of the Land of Israel, but says that more simply it is an obligation of the kind of a vow or acceptance by the many, similar to accepting the local halakhic authority. He concludes that when the people are the source of authority, the people also determine its boundaries, and therefore it is possible that the acceptance was not intended to apply in cases where a Talmudic law becomes “absurd or irrelevant,” even if that would require a very broad consensus.
A quorum over Zoom and the definition of “place” in virtual reality
The lecturer brings up the question of a prayer quorum over Zoom as an example of applying halakhic principles in a new reality rather than repealing Jewish law. He argues that in a reality in which “a Zoom meeting is a meeting in every sense” and a “site” is a place, there is no necessity to say that the Divine Presence rests only in a physical place, and he suggests that the Divine Presence may rest in the virtual place where ten people join in the service of God. He presents this as a reasoning that depends on experiential familiarity with the digital world, and connects it to the possibility of saying Kaddish for participants in an online class.
The beginning of the transition to defining Modern Orthodoxy and distinguishing it from Haredi Judaism
The lecturer argues that all the streams committed to Jewish law fall under “midrashic conservatism,” including Haredim, Modern Orthodox, and Conservatives, and therefore the previous map is not sufficient to distinguish between them. He takes Reform out of the game on the grounds that they repeal Jewish law because it is irrelevant and not by means of midrashic arguments, and presents the Conservatives as more complex, because their main difference may be in relation to the authority of the Talmud rather than in the type of argument itself. He rejects an explanation that distinguishes the groups only by quantitative “dosages” of change, and looks for a qualitative difference in a single argument that would make it possible to identify whether it is Haredi, Modern Orthodox, or Conservative.
He returns to the claim that the concept “Haredi” mixes together two independent axes: opposition to Zionism and opposition to modernity, and explains that the confusion in Israel causes people mistakenly to identify Religious Zionism with Modern Orthodoxy. He defines Hardal as Zionist but anti-modern, and points to figures or groups that are non-Zionist yet modern, and emphasizes that the central discussion relevant today is the attitude toward modernity rather than toward Zionism. He stops before giving the full definition of Modern Orthodoxy and announces that the definition will come in the next lecture.
Acceptance by the many, “covenant,” and the difference between divine authority and authority we accepted
In the concluding discussion about an analogy to Mount Sinai, the lecturer agrees that the term “covenant” is not precise with respect to the Talmud, because acceptance of the Talmud is not a contract with “a party standing opposite us” like the Holy One, blessed be He, but rather the internal acceptance by the people of the authority of its sages. He defines this as a vow or acceptance by the many, and emphasizes that “it is not a contract that the Jewish people made with Rav Ashi,” because Rav Ashi “stands on our side.” He refers to Beit Yishai, the derashot of Rav Shlomo Fischer, siman 15, as an analysis of the status of acceptance by the many.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so really, in the previous lecture, basically all I did was go over a few examples, some of which we had even touched on before, in order to see how things look on the ground, how the various situations and mechanisms I talked about actually appear in practice. So I started with Meiri and the attitude toward gentiles, and there basically this is an example of changing Jewish law in light of changing circumstances. Gentiles became—I don’t know—people who behave in a reasonably human way, and therefore Meiri argues that the required halakhic attitude toward them should also change. I talked about that both on the Torah level and on the rabbinic level, and we talked about the question of conservative midrash; I’m not going into details here. In any case, this is a halakhic change in light of changing factual circumstances. It’s really a change in the value-based behavior of the gentiles, but for our discussion it counts as a change in the facts. It’s not a change in values. Because I’m changing the attitude toward gentiles not because of a new value, but because of new behavior on their part, behavior that is more ethical—but for me that’s a fact. If I were to make the argument that the attitude toward gentiles should change because today’s values forbid that sort of treatment of human beings, then that would already be change on a value basis, and of course that’s a more problematic kind of change. But there is room for what I called “pas nisht” changes, right? There are things where it simply isn’t possible to behave that way today, and so we don’t do it. Either you choose a plausible interpretation that fits moral principles, or there’s a conflict here between Jewish law and morality. I talked about the different ways to introduce a moral solution into Jewish law even according to my own approach, which denies any connection between Jewish law and morality; maybe I’ll get back to that later as well. The second example I dealt with, which came to illustrate exactly this point—for with gentiles Meiri did not raise the argument on a value basis, it was on a factual basis—but in the context of destroying idolatry, there the fact is that today nobody instructs people to do that, at least not in practice. To destroy churches, objects of idolatrous worship, and the like. And of course if you push the halakhic decisor into a corner, he’ll tell you, “our hand is not strong enough,” “because of enmity,” all kinds of things of that sort. But I at least suspect that that’s not the whole picture. Maybe, basically, the heart doesn’t reveal itself to the mouth—he isn’t really willing to state explicitly what is truly motivating him to relate to the matter this way—and in my opinion what motivates him is the pas nisht. Meaning, in our world today it’s simply not reasonable to behave that way toward other beliefs. Even idolatry, grave as it may be, grave as the sin of idolatry may be, you cannot fail to respect the beliefs of other people or other groups, certainly when you demand that others respect your beliefs and your religious institutions, such as synagogues and the like. If somebody abroad dared to do something to a synagogue because it’s a synagogue of Jews—and of course that happens from time to time—then the State of Israel, obviously, and the Jewish people and everyone would protest terribly, and say: how can that be, this is despicable behavior, where is human dignity, where is respect for other people’s beliefs, and so on. And everyone would say that from within a very deep sense of identification with the claim; I don’t think it’s some kind of external game. But somehow people don’t always notice that Jewish law, at least in its written form, demands that we behave differently toward other beliefs. There exactly, we are required to do precisely those same things that we protest against here. And therefore this consideration—let’s call it the categorical imperative, right?—that conduct should be universal, the veil of ignorance in Rawls’s terms, right, that you are supposed to relate to a person independently of his origin, of his views—I’m not talking now about views that are morally defective, but just views: he believes in other beliefs. So this moral principle, in my opinion, although many decisors may deny it, I have no doubt that this principle lies at the basis of the accepted attitude that rejects harming the institutions and ritual objects of other religions. And it’s not only desecration of God’s name, not only enmity, not only concerns and fears, but rather there is something here that is simply pas nisht. And so I think this really is a good example of what in Meiri I raised only as a hypothetical claim. In the case of destroying idolatry, I think it is very, very present. So therefore this is an example of a value change: today it simply doesn’t belong to treat things that way. Maybe this is the ways of peace of Rabbi Unterman that I mentioned, and more. The third example I focused on was the example of secular courts. Right, so we basically had an example of change on the basis of changing circumstances—that’s the attitude toward gentiles. We had change on the basis of changing values, the pas nisht—that’s destroying idolatry. The third example is secular courts. Secular courts, I said, are an intermediate case between the first two examples. And why? Because basically my claim is that the attitude toward the Israeli courts today—or in general among gentiles as well, but in Israel today in particular—from a purely halakhic perspective, when you examine it, there is no halakhic justification for cooperating with that system, for turning to it, for resorting to it; there is no halakhic justification for that. Meaning, the decisors who say that these are gentile courts, not the courts of Syria—gentile courts—are right. Okay, and therefore on the halakhic level it’s hard to find justification for this. On the other hand, it’s very clear that the decisors, despite the fiery speeches that from time to time come out of their mouths, don’t really rule that way in practice, and probably don’t really think that way either. And again, if you push them into a corner they may not say it, but your actions do show that this is what you think. In the end everyone resorts to the courts, and I argue that the reason for this is some kind of pas nisht. What does that mean? You can’t boycott a court system; you’re a citizen of a state, a democratic state, right, in which there is equality among people, everyone has a right to go to court, the courts are supposed to protect us, to realize our rights, and so on. It is impossible to demand of people that they boycott their own state’s legal system or refuse to cooperate with it, all sorts of things like that. And therefore, from my perspective, because of that impossibility, not only is it permissible to turn to them, but even to be a lawyer, a judge, and all the other things, despite the fact that it is prohibited. It is prohibited; there is no justification for cooperating with it, no halakhic justification. The halakhic justification is pas nisht. But why is this nevertheless not exactly the same as the case of pas nisht, but rather an intermediate case? For one reason—really two reasons that are one. First of all, the change here may have a value dimension, right? You cannot allow a democratic state to exist without an effective legal system that is accessible to everyone and so on. But at base this is a factual change, not a value change, because factually speaking today there is no possibility of establishing a system that judges according to Jewish law. There is no possibility; the public will not agree to it, there is no possibility. And therefore, at bottom, there is also a change in factual circumstances here, not only in values, which brings us to a situation in which there is no escape—you cannot uphold Jewish law. But it’s also not entirely like Meiri, meaning a change in factual circumstances that generates a halakhic change. Why not? Because the change in factual circumstances in Meiri does not lead to a consideration of pas nisht, but rather to an interpretive consideration. He says: the attitude the Talmud tells us to adopt toward a gentile refers to the ancient gentiles, not the gentiles of today. So I have a conservative midrash that justifies the halakhic change on the basis of changing circumstances. Here I don’t have that; we don’t have a conservative midrash. I can’t take a principle written in the Torah or in Jewish law and say that under the new circumstances it must be applied differently, and therefore it is permissible to resort to the courts; I don’t know of such a principle. Therefore, although this does involve changing circumstances, the conclusion is ultimately a new value judgment. It is not the application of existing values to new factual circumstances. It is a value judgment that conflicts with halakhic values. But as I said, it’s not entirely like that, because there is the topic of the courts in Syria. The courts in Syria are a topic that appears in the Talmud, and the medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain what the courts in Syria are. The Jewish community in Syria in the Talmudic period was a community that appointed laymen to be judges, and the Sages recognize this, right? One may resort to them and it is a legitimate court, and so on. So the medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain why this happened: because they had no Torah scholars. There was no one to seat there, so they took those who knew a little, or people who had some integrity, no matter—some people were chosen who were at least a bit more… Rabbi, isn’t it because they were fit judges? Now what results from that? If we compare this to our situation today, then in our situation today there are judges who are Torah scholars. There is someone to appoint. You can’t take the topic of the courts in Syria and apply it to our situation today and arrive at the result I mentioned before, that one may cooperate with the courts. Because today we have judges who are Torah scholars, and in principle there is someone to appoint. So why not, really? Because in practice it isn’t possible. The public in the State of Israel will not agree to it, because a large part of the public does not accept the authority of Jewish law, does not think the judges can adjudicate. There is another legal system, and the judges are not necessarily expert in that either. And that leads to another distinction pointed out by the Chazon Ish between the courts in Syria and our issue. Because in the courts in Syria, he argues, there was no orderly, systematic legal system different from Jewish law. A case came before them and they said what seemed like reasonable justice in that case. Here, by contrast, we are dealing with an alternative legal system in place of Jewish law, with fixed laws enacted in the law book. The whole system is a system that comes to displace Jewish law; it is an alternative to Jewish law. Therefore it is not comparable to the courts in Syria, and so the Chazon Ish says there is no basis to compare the courts in Syria to our case. I say: correct, so there is no basis to compare—in that sense there is no conservative midrash here. Notice: on the one hand, there is a change in factual circumstances here; on the other hand, I have no conservative midrash that can build, on the basis of the factual change, the halakhic change. And then when I say the law has to change, what I’m really saying is: we have to adopt a value here that stands in opposition to halakhic values. There is no conservative midrash here, so this is indeed a value change, and the matter is basically pas nisht. It says: you cannot live in a modern democratic state without an effective legal system.
[Speaker B] Now, Rabbi, isn’t that—but doesn’t it matter, excuse me Rabbi—the point is that most court cases are in monetary law. And in monetary law there’s this idea of something agreed upon, or a person making a stipulation against what is written in the Torah. Doesn’t that open some kind of door? At least according to what’s accepted?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying again: the claim of the Chazon Ish at least is that where there is an orderly legal system different from Jewish law, that is not the same thing as “they accepted it upon themselves” or a stipulation in monetary law. Besides, there are things—inheritance, for example—there are matters where you can’t make such stipulations. Not all monetary law.
[Speaker B] The issue of gentile courts—is it also about who is judging, or only the kind of law? There’s another point here, namely who is judging.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Clearly it’s also who is judging. On the contrary, the religious judges claim that it’s only about who is judging, not about the legal system, but that’s a strange claim. So it’s both.
[Speaker C] But there’s another component here, besides the two components you mentioned, and that is that at least from what I hear in lectures, but also from my own impression, a large part, I think, of the religious public doesn’t want to apply halakhic law, because you can’t live with it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I added that in parentheses; it’s less relevant to our issue, but absolutely correct. I think I mentioned the example that Nadav Shnerb brings in his article, about some Jew who was summoned to a rabbinical court and told them: I demand that you judge me according to Torah law. So they wanted to force him to sign that he waived Torah law, so that they could make a compromise agreement with him. Before any litigation in rabbinical court, they sign an arbitration document, right, for compromise. So he said no, I’m not willing, I want Torah law. They issued a contempt notice against him, like someone who refuses to litigate in rabbinical court. They issued a contempt notice because he wanted Torah law—not because he refused to litigate in rabbinical court. That’s how far it goes: they are not willing to adjudicate according to Torah law. Not just that they don’t always do it; if someone wants Torah law, they’ll throw him down the stairs. So how can anyone now demand that I go to rabbinical court when it refuses, if I want Torah law? By the way, the same thing happened to me. This happened to me personally. I accompanied some kollel fellow from Jerusalem who got into trouble—poor guy, he really was unfortunate; he was a bit to blame, but he was also not very wise. He got into some trouble, and he was under terrible pressure. I accompanied him to a rabbinical court in Jerusalem. Not of the official rabbinate, a private court. And at first I didn’t know how things worked. I told him, look, I’ll come, I’ll get to know the system; I can find sources, arguments and so on, but I don’t exactly know how this thing works. Fine, so I said we’ll do what I can. I went there. And they absolutely wouldn’t agree. They didn’t issue a contempt notice against me, but they said: if that’s the case, then we won’t hear the case. So in the end he didn’t want that, and he agreed to litigate before them anyway, but it’s almost the same story. In other words, rabbinical courts are not willing to adjudicate according to Torah law. Not only do they not always do it—they are not willing. If you want Torah law, they won’t agree.
[Speaker B] According to what law do they judge? Do you hear? According to what law do they judge in rabbinical court?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s compromise close to the law; whether it’s close or not so close, you can argue about that now. They are not committed to Torah law.
[Speaker B] There was such a discussion with Rabbi Ratzon—
[Speaker D] Arusi, and he said the reason they’re not willing is that a judge who made an error pays out of his own pocket.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, that’s well known. It’s in the Shulchan Arukh already; these are ancient things, it didn’t start today. But it’s ridiculous. If that’s the case, then why should I come to a rabbinical court?
[Speaker B] I just don’t know—I mean, what exactly is he a judge for? If—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You tell me it’s forbidden to go to gentile courts—what does that mean? We have our Jewish law, our legal system. I get there, and they won’t give it to me. So what is this? It’s a bizarre setup. Okay, never mind. In any event, by the way, I also have a disagreement with the Shulchan Arukh on this point. In other words, these people didn’t invent the fact that this is outrageous. Okay, anyway, let’s get back to our subject. The additional point I just want to make is that there is, after all, some basis in the Talmud for this pas nisht claim. Why? Because in the Talmud itself no source is brought for the legitimacy of the courts in Syria. The Talmud says it’s legitimate. From where? Is there a verse for that? An exposition? What is the source? There is no source. In my opinion, the source is pas nisht. As the medieval authorities (Rishonim) say, when you have no qualified judge, then you appoint whoever you do have. In other words, this is basically a pas nisht consideration. What does that mean? That we cannot leave a Jewish community without a legal system. Certainly not a state, but not even a community, without a legal system. So this argument itself appears in the Talmud. So I can apply it to our case today despite the differences from the courts in Syria: here it’s an alternative legal system and there it wasn’t; here we have judges who are Torah scholars, there they didn’t. All these differences exist. But at the bottom line, after the whole story, once you take the facts as they are today into account, we are in the same situation as Syria. Because we have no practical possibility of appointing proper judges and adopting halakhic law. So now the alternative is either that there be no legal system at all, or to give up and say okay, we are going with state law even though it doesn’t fit Jewish law, and the judges are not fit according to Jewish law to adjudicate, and all sorts of things like that. But just as they did in Syria, there I do here, despite the differences. And in that sense, the reasoning I’m talking about already exists in the Talmud. Now notice: it doesn’t help me that it exists in the Talmud. Because the Talmud doesn’t bring a source for it. I now ask: so why did the Talmud do it? What was it based on? It was based on a pas nisht consideration. It too was based on that, and therefore the fact that I brought the Talmud—if it had brought some exposition or source from a verse or an enactment or I don’t know exactly what, then I could understand. But the Talmud doesn’t; it says it as a simple matter. It’s a kind of pas nisht and that’s it, period. So why can’t I do that today, just as the Talmud did? What do I care about the differences? Why do only the Talmud’s pas nishts have to fit exactly the circumstances of the Talmud? And if I have a different pas nisht today? But it’s the same thing. All I need to ensure is that there be some legal system here, because the alternative of having no legal system is worse than having a legal system that is not according to the Torah. So I think this principle of pas nisht does have an anchor in the Talmud, but that doesn’t take it out of the category of pas nisht. And therefore in the end there really is some going against—so to speak against—the values that appear in the Talmud. It’s not merely an application of those same values to changing circumstances. But there is another difference that I mentioned, and that’s why this example is very interesting. Because the value in whose name I invoke pas nisht is not an external value. It is an internal value of Jewish law. In other words, Jewish law itself essentially says that there must be a legal system in every group—certainly in a state, you cannot function without a legal system. One of the seven Noahide commandments is the commandment of laws. And therefore clearly the Torah is not willing to accept a society that operates without a legal system. So the pas nisht here is not done by virtue of values imported from outside, but by virtue of some value or meta-value that appears in the Talmud. Again, I don’t have a clear source that I can now apply and say: okay, so under today’s circumstances I fulfill the commandment “judge your fellow justly” in this way. I don’t have such a conservative midrash. But the value in whose name I say the pas nisht is not a value of equality, liberalism, I don’t know what—values borrowed from contemporary society. Rather it is a value that has accompanied halakhic thinking for a very long time, or some say from the Torah itself, and therefore it is an internal value. Not an external one. So this is a very, very interesting example, and it is not all that simple either in the direction of Meiri with factual change, or in the direction of destroying idolatry, which is value change. There is something in the middle here. By the way, destroying idolatry is a value change by virtue of an external value, not an internal one. The value that every belief, whatever it may be, should be respected—there is no such value in the Torah and in Jewish law. That’s a value we draw from outside. I draw it from outside, but I identify with it. Meaning, it’s not that I do it because of “how fair you are,” right? Not in order to curry favor with the gentiles, and not because of desecration of God’s name, but because it’s true. This is the ways of peace of Rabbi Unterman. I really think it is not proper to behave that way. The fact that the outside may have influenced me—maybe. We are all shaped by the landscape of our birthplace. But I still believe in that value. So the first two examples are relatively simple. The example of secular courts is made up of many parameters and sits somewhere in between those two examples. So that’s regarding the courts.
[Speaker E] Can I ask something? Yes. The Rabbi said that everything is interpretation and we have to use interpretation for everything, and in previous lectures the Rabbi also asked several times, so what do we have left? But regarding that—when we approach things through interpretation, the only tool we have, absolutely the only tool, is moral values. All the other values of “eternity within splendor” and things like that—it’s really ridiculous, we have no other values. The only and necessary tools, as the Rabbi said—you can’t approach Torah verses without interpreting them, and you interpret them with your own tools, and your tools are only a moral outlook.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not true. Wait, wait, that’s not true, not true. You think all interpretations are based on values, but they’re not. There are interpretations based on all sorts of other things, other considerations—not necessarily value considerations.
[Speaker E] What other considerations are there in life besides moral considerations? There are interpretive considerations, how I look at it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But even interpretation, you—
[Speaker E] after all, the Rabbi himself emphasized several times—linguistically, linguistic interpretation, not interpretation—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker E] It says “an eye for an eye”; in Hebrew, “an eye for an eye.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is linguistic interpretation, not only moral interpretation. Linguistic.
[Speaker E] Yes, but even with the linguistic one, couldn’t we, in a hundred and fifty ways, make the creeping thing kosher if we wanted? We don’t want to, because we are moral.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why do you think that? I don’t understand. With linguistic interpretation you can do a great many things. What do you mean?
[Speaker E] Even there—but what is your motivation for using interpretation, for realizing it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Only moral considerations—that’s what is right. But what does “right” mean?
[Speaker E] What are my tools for looking?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I already told you with the examples I gave. “Do not form separate factions.” “Do not form separate factions”—don’t make two courts in one city, two synagogues in one city. Nobody does that today. In every city, every moshav, every hole in the wall, there are two courts, two synagogues, everything. Why? Because the interpretation has nothing to do with morality in any way. Our interpretation of this law says that today a city is not a geographic place; today a city is an ethnic community. So there are Sephardim and Ashkenazim, Yemenites, whatever—and we establish two courts in one geographic city, but that is not two courts in one city because they belong to different communities. Now that has nothing to do with morality, no connection to morality whatsoever. That is the interpretation I make by virtue of considerations of understanding the law itself, not because of moral principles or “eternity within splendor.”
[Speaker E] What do you mean it’s not moral principles? It’s certainly a value consideration here too. What, do you feel good about it morally or not feel good about it morally?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That too is a value consideration.
[Speaker E] If you felt there were an injustice here because of this thing—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If some baseless hatred and things like that were caused here—there’s no injustice either in this interpretation or in the opposite one. So how do I choose this interpretation? There’s no injustice in this interpretation and no injustice in that interpretation. So what’s the problem? Why do I choose this one? Because it seems reasonable to me under today’s circumstances. Because under today’s circumstances geography doesn’t play a role. In the global village, geography doesn’t have much significance. People move around, travel long distances every day, so you can’t treat them as if they belong to some territory. And that’s all.
[Speaker E] A moral evaluation no less.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Moral? What does this have to do with morality?
[Speaker E] That’s good, that’s you doing the right thing in God’s eyes, that’s what God wants us to do. When the Rabbi said, for example, in the previous talks, when the Rabbi then discussed and said that from his perspective, the root of the problem, in my view, is to say that the Rabbi wants to separate morality from halakhic values. No!
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those aren’t values at all! No! Those aren’t values at all! It’s a matter of interpretation, it has nothing to do with values at all. The question is what counts as a city.
[Speaker E] Fine, I’m saying not specifically about this example, but never only about this example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You said there’s nothing other than interpreting moral values; that’s not true.
[Speaker E] There can be many right steps that don’t involve morality at all. Fine, then you make substantive, utilitarian considerations, fine. But in principle, when we come to interpretation and want to, we first and foremost come with our conscience. And if our conscience says there’s a problem, then in the end there are things—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are interpretive tools besides morality. What you do first and what you don’t, you can argue about that, I don’t—it doesn’t matter anymore, what difference does it make. Okay, let’s continue. So these are basically the three foundational examples, I would say, because they illustrate the different lines of discussion for us. I brought another example about women’s testimony in places where this is also a kind of doesn’t-pass-the-smell-test—again, not exactly doesn’t-pass-the-smell-test, but factual or something in between. Right, murder in the mikveh, where you can’t allow there to be a territory in which people can do whatever they want and there can’t be testimony about it because there are only women there. Therefore, in such places there are halakhic decisors who wrote that we accept women’s testimony. I brought the example of intellectual property. Again, there’s some dimension here, let’s call it moral or value-based, that a person has a right over the creations he creates; but on the other hand, that morality was also true in the days of the Sages, and in practice intellectual property in the simple sense was commonly understood not to exist. And so I argued that one can—it doesn’t matter, I proposed some kind of interpretation that allows it, since today the circumstances don’t allow us not to recognize intellectual property, because almost all the things that are meaningful property for us today are in fact virtual, conceptual, spiritual. Not to recognize that property today means you can’t run the world. You could say fine, let’s make an ordinance. But no, there’s a possibility of making a midrash here that allows us to define intellectual property even on the Torah-level plane, and I showed that the halakhic decisors, without presenting this midrash explicitly, write as a simple matter that obviously this isn’t possible, and if among the gentiles it’s this way then among us it won’t be this way—yes, all kinds of statements of that type. And I remembered that there’s someone, some zealot in Haifa, Edge of the Field I think, who accused those halakhic decisors who wrote that way: what are you learning from the gentiles? Those are your standards? So what if the gentiles recognize intellectual property? Yes, we learn from the gentiles because there are things that are obviously out of place today. Fine. I spoke about a child captured among the gentiles, the innovations of the Chazon Ish and of all the halakhic decisors today, that we don’t relate to secular Jews the way the sources of Jewish law would seemingly require us to. And there you can call it a factual-change consideration, because a person who doesn’t observe commandments today does so against a completely different factual background. He grew up in a place where he has no idea that these things really obligate him. But I think it’s not only that; there’s also some understanding here that it can’t be that if someone thinks differently from you, you throw him into a pit. Such a thing is inconceivable, like destroying idolatry. So there is also a value dimension here. And I ended—I took too much time with this summary—I ended the previous class with Rivka Lubitch’s proposal, the female rabbinic advocate, who argues for abolishing the institution of kiddushin because of the paternalism, because of the preference it gives the man over the woman, and basically because she sees the acquisition involved there—she understands kiddushin as the husband acquiring the woman and turning her into something he owns. And I brought this example specifically to show the opposite side. Meaning, where even I, as a midrashic conservative, who is prepared to make considerations even on a value basis, on whatever basis there may be—this is a consideration that in my view is Reform. Meaning, it’s outside the game. Because the Torah says, “When a man takes a woman,” there is a commandment to perform kiddushin. So whichever way you look at it: if you think the Holy One blessed be He intended chauvinistic kiddushin, then that’s what He intended—what can you do? You’re not fulfilling what He wants. And if you think He did not intend chauvinistic kiddushin but something else, then do that something else. You can’t decide, no, kiddushin is a chauvinistic matter and therefore I won’t do it. If you don’t think that’s proper, then apparently that’s not the concept of kiddushin that the Holy One blessed be He commanded. No problem—then find what is, and do that. But you can’t say I’m giving up on kiddushin because it’s chauvinistic or paternalistic or whatever. So I’m saying briefly: I brought this example of kiddushin to show where this interpretive freedom ends, meaning what cannot enter into this apparently flexible picture. And we’ll get to that further on with additional examples in which I’ll show why here it’s not true that everything becomes possible—in contrast to what people may often tend to think. It’s not that with this approach you can do whatever you want. I think that’s not true.
[Speaker B] Excuse me, regarding a woman’s testimony. Rabbi, regarding a woman’s testimony. The fact that the Sages accepted a woman’s testimony in matters of an agunah—doesn’t that give some opening to see that it’s not really that a woman is stupid and she’s nothing?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, according to most opinions it really is a rabbinic law, but it’s based on the presumption that a woman investigates carefully before marrying—”a woman examines carefully and then marries”—and it’s a rabbinic ordinance. And once there is an authorized institution, it can make ordinances.
[Speaker B] Yes, but you see that the Sages already opened some kind of door.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but making ordinances happens a lot. They also forbade poultry with milk even though the Torah permits it. They also said not to blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah that falls on the Sabbath, even though by Torah law one should blow even when Rosh Hashanah falls on the Sabbath.
[Speaker B] Yes, but no—you see that a woman’s testimony isn’t something categorical, that she’s somehow at a lower intellectual level and therefore she can’t testify.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, it’s completely categorical. A woman’s testimony is inadmissible, period, according to Torah law. And nevertheless the Sages enact an ordinance. Very often ordinances uproot Torah law—passive omission, positive action, it doesn’t matter, you can discuss it—but they even write this regarding positive action. Okay, thank you.
[Speaker E] Rabbi, but I’m sorry that I’m doing this again—suppose today we identified Amalek, unequivocally, all the halakhic decisors from all communities and streams agreed that we have a people of Amalek, we discovered them—would the Rabbi go and fulfill “you shall surely blot out the memory of Amalek,” stabbing Amalekite babies? It’s just an example; obviously not. Would we carry out the law of the beautiful captive woman? “Do not show them favor”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What are you trying to prove—I understand.
[Speaker E] That the Rabbi said that if there are values that are in the Torah itself, then we can’t go against them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why, idolatry is a value from the Torah itself.
[Speaker E] So how do we interpret?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I, I—this is exactly what I’m claiming, you’re bringing—
[Speaker E] So I’m not getting to the bottom of the Rabbi’s view. If today morality says this doesn’t-pass-the-smell-test—what does that mean, doesn’t-pass-the-smell-test? It’s immoral—and the Torah says yes, it’s moral, what do we do? Because the Torah spoke two thousand years ago, three thousand years ago.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m saying—exactly—there are cases where in current circumstances it doesn’t-pass-the-smell-test, while in the circumstances back then it didn’t. So there is here—and I talked about this—the question whether that can lead me to a different interpretation of the Torah’s prohibition. After all, Maimonides narrows this prohibition of Amalek very much: you have to call for peace first, and only in war, and all kinds of things like that. Or we can say that there is a conflict here between Jewish law and morality, and in such a conflict Jewish law does not always prevail. Fine, that’s the mechanism we talked about.
[Speaker E] But if, for example, Rabbi, if we interpreted the Torah as a direction of travel? The Torah’s direction of travel—and morality is infinite. After all, in another five hundred years they’ll look at us and say, what barbarians, they kill animals for a few bites, for some steak—obviously that’s how they’ll look at us when everything is engineered. So morality is infinite, and the Torah is only moral and calls us to an infinite direction of travel; therefore it told us then what it told us, while aspiring to much better things. All the slavery, all the commandments about slavery back then—they suited that time but aimed us toward liberation from slavery, the way the Rabbi says about sacrifices. I’m trying to understand what the claim is. No, because that’s another approach. Why, when the Rabbi says correctly that there is a conflict, not a contradiction, there is a conflict—there is morality and there is Torah—and sometimes we’ll go with morality, but this all stems from the fact that the Rabbi chooses to say that the Torah has some eternal and majestic values that we have absolutely no understanding of, no grasp of them whatsoever, and we cannot interpret them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t choose to say that; I prove it.
[Speaker E] But it’s such an illogical thing—to think that there are values, that the Holy One blessed be He wants all kinds of things and we have no understanding at all of what He wants, what good all these stories do Him, what does He need them for? That’s morality. No, but isn’t it puzzling to the Rabbi that he could exempt himself from this whole dilemma by saying that the entire Torah is solely moral? But I can’t exempt myself.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If I could exempt myself, then I wouldn’t have proofs. But I do have proofs. So I can’t exempt myself. What can I do—those are the facts. I’m sorry, it bothers me, it doesn’t fit for me—maybe. For me it actually fits pretty well, but never mind—even if it didn’t fit, those are the facts. You can’t deny facts. That’s all. The prohibition of eating pork has absolutely nothing to do with morality.
[Speaker E] What, Rabbi Kook can’t explain it, and others—Rabbi Berkovits can’t explain the commandments? With a few flicks of the finger I could also explain pork in a moral sense. I don’t know—the Rabbi knows that one can do that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—no, I don’t know. They—and also Maimonides in Guide for the Perplexed, in part… that’s it. That’s what they manage to come up with.
[Speaker E] So instead of that we’ll load onto ourselves one giant mishmash, that all the commandments we understand nothing about are some bizarre burden of halakhic values.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t load it onto myself; the Holy One blessed be He commanded me. But—
[Speaker E] For what purpose? Why? To what end?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, ask Him. I don’t know. I don’t know—what can I do? So now because I don’t know, I’m supposed to invent things that aren’t true? These are the facts.
[Speaker E] So what am I doing? Am I fixing things, doing things in order to fix something in the book… in the upper spheres?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s my hypothesis. If you don’t accept it, then think—no,
[Speaker E] It’s not a matter of not accepting it, Rabbi. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it, to understand the matter, because this really is a whole world of infinite sacrifice for something we have no grasp of at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. So what?
[Speaker E] And because the Rabbi is a man of science, apparently he should really reject such a view.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary, I’m very used to sticking to the facts. And if the facts are like that, then I once brought the example of jaundice, if you want. You know, there was someone in our yeshiva who was sick with jaundice. For half a year—I spoke about this in the past. He had jaundice for a long time, about half a year I think, something like that. He wasn’t in yeshiva, he was hospitalized at home, that’s it, he didn’t come back. Fine. At some stage they brought—there’s a mutual friend of ours, so he told me that he was with him in the hospital, and they brought some kind of witch with doves, she put them on his belly button, and those doves died. A few days later, three days or something like that, he came back to the yeshiva. Recovered. I went back to my parents, and they clapped their hands and said, that dark yeshiva is messing up that boy’s head. Where’s your rationality? You grew up in a normal home and got there—yes, Gush Etzion it was—to that dark yeshiva there, and it ruined your brain. So I told them: look, I don’t know. As a person who thinks rationally and is used to sticking to facts even when I don’t understand them—if I have a reliable witness who told me that’s what happened, then for me the assumption is that apparently that’s what happened. And if I don’t understand it, okay, then there are facts I don’t understand—what can you do. But because I don’t understand them, does that mean the facts aren’t true? Same thing here. If I was factually convinced that this is the situation, then the fact that I don’t understand it doesn’t change the facts. Those are the facts. That’s all. Everything else is wishful thinking. Fine, but that’s really another discussion; I don’t want to get into Torah and morality here. There were whole series on that; you can watch them there. Let’s get back to our topic. So these are the examples, briefly—it took me much longer than I thought. Let’s move on. I now want to devote a certain section to a point I somewhat skipped over until now in the discussion so far, and that is the question of authority. Even if there are changes that can be made, should be made, are called for, there are still limits of authority. And therefore it may be that practically speaking these conceptions that advocate conservative changes, conservative midrashim, cannot be implemented today. Where does this begin? I’ll do this fairly briefly because I really do want to move on. It begins with two passages in the Talmud. One passage says that in order to change Jewish law, a matter decided by a count requires another count to permit it. Meaning, what was determined by the Great Court—a “matter decided by a count” means by a court—requires another court of the same scope to permit it, likewise the Great Court. Another passage says that in order to permit something that an earlier court prohibited, you need a court greater in wisdom and number. It’s not enough that it be a Sanhedrin; it has to be a court greater in wisdom and number. What does greater in wisdom and number mean? Maimonides says: after all, a Sanhedrin is always seventy-one, so he says it means all the sages of Israel who join the Sanhedrin—that is what is called greater in number. Fine, doesn’t matter, there are additional requirements beyond its being done in the Sanhedrin. What’s the relation between these two passages? The medieval authorities (Rishonim) differ a bit on this matter, but most of them here go together with Maimonides—Ritva goes this way and others—that the first passage speaks about Torah-level laws, and the second passage speaks about rabbinic laws. Torah-level laws—if they were determined by the Sanhedrin, then a Sanhedrin can overturn them even if it is not greater in wisdom and number; the main thing is that it be a Sanhedrin, meaning the same kind of court, with the same status as the court that prohibited it, but it doesn’t have to be greater in wisdom and number. It can be smaller. It just has to be the same type of court. With rabbinic laws there is an additional requirement, that the court annulling the law be greater in wisdom and number than the court that enacted it. In the simple reading, this is Maimonides at the beginning of chapter 2 of Hilkhot Mamrim. In the simple reading, the difference is because the Sages sometimes reinforced their words more than those of the Torah. Therefore even though these are rabbinic laws, where ostensibly we’d expect them to be easier to change, sometimes the Sages, because of— I wanted to argue, as we once discussed, that this is a substantive issue. It’s not just a matter of stringency in order to strengthen the status of the Sages. With Torah law, after all, the first court is not the source of the authority of the law. The Torah is the source of the authority of the law. The court merely interpreted what is written in the Torah. After the court interpreted what is written in the Torah, from my perspective I now do it not because the court said so, but because the Torah commanded it. Now if a later court comes and interprets the Torah differently, then we’re not going against the first court. We’re doing what is written in the Torah. It’s just that the court of our own day is the one entrusted with interpreting the Torah for us. And if the court of our day tells me that the Torah says such-and-such, then from my perspective that is what the Torah says and I need to do it—not because the court said so, but because that’s what the Torah says. I’m not here going against the authority of the first court, because I’m not observing these laws by virtue of the authority of the court. Torah-level laws I observe because the Torah commanded them. So here the whole question is what the Torah actually commands. So if the court of my day tells me that the Torah commands Y and not X, as had previously been accepted, then from my perspective the Torah commands Y, and that’s what I do. Therefore here the court does not need to be greater in wisdom and number. It is enough that this is the court authorized to determine what the Torah says for this generation. What happens with rabbinic laws? With rabbinic laws, when a court determines a law, it is not doing so as an interpretation of the Torah. It enacts an ordinance—that is legislation, not interpretation. It legislates a new law. I observe that law not because the Torah commanded it. I observe that law because I am bound by the authority of the court, the authority of the Sanhedrin—”Do not stray.” Okay. Now if that’s really the case, then when a later court comes and says, listen to me and not to them, here the Sages say: one minute—if you are greater in wisdom and number, fine, but if not, then no. Because here we are going against the authority of the first court. Unlike Torah-level laws, where this is not about the authority of the Sages; the question there is what the Torah says. But here, when you want to do something against what the first court determined, you need to rely on a court that is greater than it in wisdom and number. Therefore I think the distinction between Torah-level and rabbinic law is a substantive distinction. It’s not only that the Sages want to reinforce their words more and therefore are stricter.
In parentheses. In any case, for our purposes, we see that there are limits on changing Jewish law. More than that. Maimonides writes that even if the reason for the ordinance has lapsed, these rules limiting the court’s authority to annul still apply. Meaning, even if the reason for the ordinance has lapsed, you still need a court greater in wisdom and number to annul it. Even if the reason no longer applies. The Talmudic discussion there is about adorning the markets of Jerusalem with fruit. This is in tractate Beitzah. There was an ordinance that when the pilgrims came, when they brought the first-fruits, they adorned the markets of Jerusalem with fruit—to decorate, to decorate the city. Now, once the Temple was destroyed, they no longer brought first-fruits. And if they didn’t bring first-fruits, then there was no reason to decorate the markets of Jerusalem. The reason for the ordinance lapsed. And on that the Talmud discusses how Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai annulled this ordinance, for after all one needs a court greater in wisdom and number. Meaning, the requirement that there be a court greater in wisdom and number still exists, Maimonides says, even where the reason for the ordinance has lapsed. Here, by the way, Raavad disagrees with him. Raavad claims that if the reason has lapsed, then you don’t need the requirement of a court greater in wisdom and number; you need a court, like with Torah-level laws. And you can explain that in light of the explanation I gave earlier, but it doesn’t matter now. In any case, these are the limits on annulment. Now what does this mean for us? That even if I am convinced by one interpretive consideration or another that a certain Torah-level or rabbinic law ought to be annulled, there is still a formal halakhic limitation: the one authorized to annul such a Torah-level or rabbinic law has to be the Great Court. Maybe greater in wisdom and number, maybe not, but it has to be the Great Court. We do not have the Great Court today. So it turns out that all the discussions I’ve had so far are basically a dead letter. Even if I proved that in principle this doesn’t contradict the eternity of the Torah and there is no change in Jewish law in principle here, because we have conservative midrash with the bathing suits and all those things—still, in practice, even when the reason for the ordinance or the law has lapsed, you still need a court to decide that. Without a court deciding it, then maybe that’s what should be done, but in practice we won’t be able to do it. Because there is a formal limitation. You can’t change Jewish law unless a court of the same status does it. And therefore the conclusion is—beyond the discussion whether this is possible, whether it doesn’t contradict our theology, the eternity of the Torah, whether it doesn’t go against the laws, against the Torah, commitment to the Torah, all those things—all that I got through safely. But there is still a formal obstacle here. Meaning, without a court, ostensibly you can’t make these changes even where they are justified. Now, I want to qualify all this and explain why it’s not so terrible. It’s there and we have to take it into account, but there are several considerations that need to be taken into account in this context. If we say that the circumstances have changed, and therefore I want to annul a certain law or change a certain law, there is a difference between changed circumstances and annulment of a law, whether a Torah-level ordinance or a rabbinic one. The cancellation of decorating the markets of Jerusalem with fruit—I am not applying that ordinance to the new circumstances; I am simply annulling it because it is no longer relevant. For that you need the Great Court. But with the bathing suits, for example, or with Meiri regarding gentiles, the claim is that I am not annulling anything. I am saying: I am applying the same principles that the Torah writes, but I am applying them in the circumstances in which I live and exist and act. I’m not annulling anything. Who said that here you need the Great Court? On the contrary, here I am applying what the earlier court said, only my circumstances are different so the application has to look different. That’s the whole idea I was talking about. The whole idea of annulling ordinances is when I say: once the reason has lapsed, I want to annul the ordinance—not to apply it differently because circumstances changed. To annul the ordinance, you need the Great Court; or to annul a Torah-level law, you need the Great Court. But to apply the ordinance differently because the circumstances have changed—I am not at all sure that you need the Great Court. I continue to apply it; I am not disagreeing with the one who enacted that ordinance. I am only saying: look and see, learn from it internally and establish it in its proper place. Take the principle but apply it correctly according to the circumstances in which you are operating. Who said that needs a court? On the contrary, everyone has to understand that under these circumstances, that same ordinance you want to uphold—or that Torah-level law you want to uphold—under these circumstances has to be upheld differently. Yes, like “do not form separate factions.” What I brought earlier about “do not form separate factions,” I now want to apply to a city in a virtual sense, not in a geographical sense. Okay? That’s not an annulment of a law. It’s not annulling the law of “do not form separate factions.” It’s applying it under different circumstances. Therefore I am not sure that all these limitations on annulling laws apply here. I am not annulling anything from the Torah; I am only applying it in a way that is relevant to our reality today. That doesn’t require authority. On the contrary, you need authority in order not to do it, because you want to fulfill what the Torah instructs you to do. So that’s the first comment I think needs to be taken into account. Meaning, the claim—or, I don’t know, I also brought the example of a Zoom minyan. Ten people located throughout the universe joining together for a minyan, praying together in a minyan. According to straightforward Jewish law, there is no such thing; they need to be in the same area, see one another, maybe under the same roof—there are various definitions in Jewish law for how the joining of a congregation, of ten people, for a minyan is determined. I wanted to argue that in the virtual reality in which we live—this came up during the coronavirus period, but in my opinion it’s not relevant only to the coronavirus period but more generally. For us today, a meeting on Zoom is a meeting in every respect. A “site” on the internet is a place, right? “Site” is the Aramaic translation of place. Okay?
[Speaker D] But the Sages say that in a place where ten people gather, the Divine Presence dwells. If they’re scattered all over the world, then what does that mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Divine Presence dwells on that site on the internet. Why can’t the Holy One blessed be He dwell on the internet, only in the physical world? The Holy One blessed be He dwells wherever ten people join together and worship Him. So if their joining is done on a site on the internet, I don’t see why the Holy One blessed be He wouldn’t rest His Presence there. I’m saying: that’s a conception. One can argue about it, but in my view it’s sound reasoning, that from the way we look at things today, that site or that joining together in a Zoom meeting is a place in every respect. Now, someone who doesn’t know the world—what its meaning is, how we experience it. And therefore you can say Kaddish at the end of the class, right. So the claim is that there are those who would say that one should say Kaddish based on someone participating in this class. The claim is that this change is not a change that requires a court, because what I am basically claiming is that I am upholding the principles of ancient Jewish law, only I am doing so in the new circumstances in which I operate. I am not annulling any law. And if I am not coming to annul laws, who said all these rules are relevant to me? Okay, so that’s the first qualification: there is a difference between annulling a law and changing the way it is implemented. The whole idea of what I spoke about until now—that there is conservative midrash—does not go against the earlier positions. It is conservative; it preserves the earlier instructions, only it preserves them in a way relevant to its own reality. And on the contrary, preserving them exactly as they were then would actually be not to implement them, because under today’s circumstances one is called on to implement them differently. Just a parenthetical note I’ll add: this is less connected to the principled discussion, but you should know—there are a great many examples, many dozens of examples, of rabbinic ordinances that the Sages annulled throughout the generations without there being a Sanhedrin. And yes, I referred to the book of Neria Gutel; at the end of his last chapter he collects many such examples. I brought several more in my own book, in the third book of the trilogy, and I tried to classify them, to build a sort of toolbox of halakhic changes without a Sanhedrin. Under what circumstances can one make the change despite the limitation that you need a court greater in wisdom, and you need a court, and it needs to be greater in wisdom and number. In a place where it causes harm, where the reason for the ordinance is written explicitly in the ordinance, it doesn’t matter—all kinds of things can be distinguished, where it creates a very, very serious problem, and so on. I gathered there many tools that halakhic decisors used—not things I invented—that halakhic decisors used, and they change these things all the time. Not to mention things that are merely concerns, like legumes, or like the Chavrei, another passage in tractate Beitzah, where they didn’t allow lighting Hanukkah candles because of gentiles, where there was a danger in lighting Hanukkah candles, so they prohibited it. Then once they disappeared, you go back to lighting Hanukkah candles, and you don’t continue not lighting Hanukkah candles because there used to be Chavrei. Why? Because a concern is not a law; a concern is a response to a situation. Once the situation is gone—yes, that’s the example I brought in the column on legumes—I’m driving on the road and there’s a pothole in the road, so I steer around the pothole from the right with the car, because I don’t want to fall into the pothole, and “you shall greatly guard your lives”—I’m even thereby fulfilling the law of “you shall greatly guard your lives.” The pothole gets fixed, fine, the municipality covered the pothole, fixed the pothole, everything’s okay. Am I supposed to keep driving around that spot because we don’t change from what previous generations did? That is, there is a command of “and live by them,” preservation of life; then you needed to steer around the pothole, now the reason has lapsed but the law remains, and we don’t have a court to annul it. You understand that that’s nonsense. Why? Because steering around the pothole is not a law; it’s a concern. In a place where the concern is gone, there is nothing. And that is what I wanted to argue also regarding legumes: that it is not a law, it is a concern, and once there is no concern there is no reason at all to keep it. So there are all kinds of examples like this that in practice also allow changing even Torah-level laws today, despite the fact that we have no Sanhedrin and ostensibly these limitations are relevant. So all these changes I’m talking about are not a dead letter.
Another comment I want to make on this matter: most of the laws we discuss today are laws whose source is the Talmud, not the Sanhedrin. This is an important point. How many laws do we know that were enacted in the Sanhedrin? Very few; a youth could count them. Most of the laws we discuss today, the binding laws to which we are all obligated, are laws established by the Talmud. The Talmud is not a Sanhedrin. So why are we nevertheless bound by what the Talmud established? I brought the Kesef Mishneh and others—the Rambam is inferred by some this way, though it’s not clear that this is really correct in Maimonides—that we accepted upon ourselves the authority of the Talmud. Therefore it has formal authority, but from below, not from above. From below. Yes, the authority of the ordained sages of the Sanhedrin is from above. The authority of the Talmud is from below, but it is still formal authority—not because it is right, but because it is the Talmud. Understood? It is formal authority, not substantive authority. Now, the question is how to relate to that authority. There is no “Do not stray” here. “Do not stray” was said only regarding the Sanhedrin. Now, it’s rather far-reaching to say that the agreement of the public turns the Talmud into something with the status of a Sanhedrin, and now “Do not stray” applies to it. That’s not entirely absurd. Because according to Maimonides’ own view, for example, who says that ordination can be renewed from below if all the sages of the Land of Israel agree, then ordination can be renewed. So one could say, by that logic, that if all the Jewish people accepted upon themselves the authority of the Talmud, then from our perspective the Talmud is like an authorized institution, like a Sanhedrin, and then indeed the principle of “Do not stray” also applies to it, and we’re back to “Do not stray” as with the Sanhedrin. But—I say—it’s not absurd, certainly according to Maimonides, but according to those who disagree with him it’s certainly not correct, and even within Maimonides I’m not sure it’s correct. In the simple reading, we accepted the Talmud upon ourselves and therefore it obligates us; there is no “Do not stray.” We accepted it upon ourselves, just as we accept upon ourselves the authority of the local rabbinic authority. So the community has to listen to what the local rabbinic authority says, but there is no “Do not stray” for someone who does not listen to what the local rabbinic authority says. It’s more like contract law or a vow or something like that. We accepted it upon ourselves and therefore it obligates us, but it’s not by virtue of “Do not stray”; it’s acceptance from below. Why is that important? Because with “Do not stray,” once the Torah imposes the authority upon me, it also determines its boundaries—when it obligates, how to change it, and so on and so on. In a place where we are the source of the authority, then we also determine the definitions of that authority—what it applies to and what it doesn’t apply to. Now who says that for laws appearing in the Talmud, if the reason has lapsed, you need a court like the Talmud, accepted by the whole generation, in order to annul those laws? That was said about laws based on “Do not stray,” authority based on “Do not stray,” on the Sanhedrin. There the law established the authority, so it also established the limitations on the authority—that is, how it can be annulled, how it cannot be annulled, and so on. But here, when we are the source of the authority, then we also determine its boundaries—when it exists, when it doesn’t exist, to whom we gave the authority and over what we gave the authority. It may very well be that we gave the Talmud authority, but not in places where it becomes absurd or irrelevant. In such places we may indeed permit ourselves to change things. Now, I say, there is a great deal of logic in saying that if the Talmud has the agreement of all the sages of Israel, then for change too we will need broad agreement. I don’t deny that; there’s a great deal of logic in it. But you can’t say it is impossible. It is possible. It may require broad consensus—fine, I accept that. But you can’t say it isn’t possible because of the authority limitations I described earlier. That’s not really necessary, and in my view it’s also not likely. So that’s a very important comment about what limitations there are on the substantive considerations. The substantive considerations in favor of change—that’s what we were dealing with until now. Now there is a formal limitation: can we implement such considerations, do we have the authority to do that? So ostensibly no, and now I’ve shown various channels that show there is, yes, it can be done.
Now I want to get to—I have finished the issue of authority and its connection to us—and I want at least to begin the next part, and here I now finally want to define Modern Orthodoxy. We’ll use what we’ve seen until now to try to define this concept and distinguish it from non-modern Orthodoxy. Now I’ll begin with a problem I already mentioned in previous classes: in the end, all the streams committed to Jewish law fall under the heading of conservative midrash. All the other models I described on the map are really not relevant. Plain-text conservatism does not exist. That is a Haredi ethos; it doesn’t really exist. They too are midrashic conservatives. Sometimes they don’t admit it, sometimes it’s done quietly, sometimes with a wink—but that’s only the ethos of their plain-text conservatism. They are midrashic conservatives. Of course religious modernity is also conservative midrash, and of course Conservatism is also conservative midrash. So it turns out that if I want to sharpen what Modern Orthodox means as against non-modern Orthodoxy, the resolution of the map I drew until now is not enough for me. Conservative midrash includes Conservatives, Modern Orthodox, and Haredim as well. So what nevertheless are the differences between these groups, if there are any? That is basically the underlying question I want to grapple with here. So of course I take Reform out of the game. Why? I mentioned this, and we’ll get to it further on as well. When Reform changes Jewish law, it does not understand itself as conservative midrash. It’s simply not relevant, it doesn’t seem suitable to us, and therefore we simply annul it. Basically Jewish law for them is more folklore than something one is obligated to, and there are arguments for why one annuls or doesn’t annul. So again, I’m speaking about Reform arguments, not Reform groups. It may be—you will certainly find people who define themselves as Reform, I know such people—and yet they belong to the wing of conservative midrash. They raise arguments of conservative midrash. But Reform in its essence is not like that. Sociology is more complex than the classification of arguments I proposed here; I’ve already said that. Therefore I am not dealing with Reform. I am dealing with Conservatives, Modern Orthodox, and Haredim. So what is the difference? One could say the difference is one of degree—how much, how many changes you make, how far-reaching those changes are, what level of certainty you want before you’ll rely on the argument and make a halakhic change. There’s something to that. Yes, it does make some difference between Haredim, Modern Orthodox, and Conservatives. But it’s hard for me to accept that that’s the whole story. That the whole story is merely quantity. Because if it’s only quantity, then what’s the difference? So Haredim do it less; Modern Orthodox do it more—do it less—according to what do they decide? Why do it less or do it more? The question is what convinces you and what doesn’t. Do you accept this argument and simply not act on it? Or do you not accept the argument? If you don’t accept the argument, then there’s also a difference in relation to the argument itself; it’s not only quantitative. And then the question becomes more subtle. So how do we nevertheless manage to distinguish between these three models, if at all? I think it isn’t a matter of degrees and quantities. I am looking for an argument such that when I examine it in itself—I don’t want to look at all the arguments of this group, because then I’ve gone back to sociology. I said I’m not dealing here with sociology; I’m dealing with types of arguments. And therefore, for me, I want to examine a single argument, look at it and say: this is a Conservative argument, this is a Modern Orthodox argument, this is a Haredi argument. Okay? The question is whether such a thing can be done, okay? So I’ll say this: regarding the difference between Modern Orthodox—I will do it against non-modern Orthodoxy, which in this context is what I’ll call Haredi-ness, okay? Non-modern Orthodoxy. But both of them fall under conservative midrash. So what is the difference between modern and non-modern Orthodoxy? That’s the first question I will ask. After that I’ll look leftward—this is a look to the right—afterward I’ll look leftward: how does this relate to Conservatives and Reform? As for Reform, I said: Reform does not raise midrashic arguments, and therefore it’s not—even in places where they do raise arguments, I’ll show you, I’ll demonstrate to you, that these are not really midrashic arguments at all; it’s just a façade. Therefore Reform is not in the game. But Conservatives are much more complicated, because in my opinion there is no sharp line between them and Modern Orthodoxy. There really isn’t. It may be a matter of degree, of scope. Maybe the one point at which I can mark a difference is in relation to authority. Conservatives do not accept the authority of the Talmud in an absolute way. They take it into account, but there are extra-Talmudic sources, manuscripts, other sources by which they can change a Talmudic law on the basis of other sources. So that may be what distinguishes them from Modern Orthodox and Haredim—but not in the type of arguments; that’s only a question of authority. Between Modern Orthodox and Haredim, I think there is a difference in the type of arguments, and that’s what I want to demonstrate here.
[Speaker E] Rabbi, may I suggest something small?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Please. After all, it’s impossible—
[Speaker E] I think it’s very reasonable to assume that the difference between Haredim and Modern Orthodox is not specifically in the rabbis or the thinkers or the halakhic decisors, but rather in the ordinary people, in the mentality of the ordinary person who belongs.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As I said from the very beginning, I’m less interested in sociology. I want to talk about the arguments, and in that sense what interests me specifically is the halakhic decisors, not the public. The question is which arguments the Haredi halakhic decisors, or the Modern Orthodox, or the Conservatives, will accept and which they won’t. What their flock does—you’re right, that is a real difference—but from my point of view it’s less interesting, because I want to look at halakhic arguments, not the question of whom I rely on and whom I follow, but rather which argument I accept and which argument I do not accept. And in that sense this really is a question about halakhic decisors, not about the public. Therefore I focus on questions that are not sociological, but on questions that are more connected to the essence of the matter. I’ll mention what I said at the beginning of the series, right at the start, because now we’re coming back to it again. I hope we won’t really return to it today, but I’m starting with it today. I said that the term Haredi folds into it two attitudes. One attitude is toward Zionism: Haredi-ness is some kind of opposition to Zionism—more militant, less militant, but an attitude toward Zionism. Haredi-ness expresses some kind of negative attitude, at one level or another, toward Zionism. And Haredi-ness expresses a negative attitude toward modernity. That is, toward values brought by modernity. Okay? These are two conceptions that are ostensibly independent, but for some reason the Haredi group adopted both of them. Why is that important? Because the opposition to someone who is not Haredi—he might not be Haredi because he is Zionist, but he will not be Modern Orthodox. He may be hostile to modern values, but he is Zionist. That’s what is called Hardal. Okay? And there may be someone who opposes Haredi-ness because he is Modern Orthodox, but he may be non-Zionist. Breuer—I don’t know how to define him—but Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch or something like that, yes, there were groups like that that were modern Haredi. They were not Zionist, at one level or another, but they did hold more modern outlooks, relating sympathetically to contemporary ideas, to ideas that come from outside. So in that sense, the two groups that stand opposite Haredi-ness are really two independent sisters. One is the Zionist group, which can be modern or not modern, and one is the modern group, which can be Zionist or non-Zionist. Among the Haredim these two things were gathered under one roof—opposition to Zionism and opposition to modernity—and therefore their opponents somehow, anyone who is not Haredi, can in fact oppose either one of those two components. And what happens is that there is some terribly great confusion, mainly in Israel, but I think it’s a confusion in general—in Israel it is certainly much more prominent—that somehow all the anti-Haredis are assigned to the same group. That is, Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionism are considered, as it were, synonymous terms. But they’re not. Not only are they not synonymous; they are completely independent. These are two completely different ideas. And in recent years this has become sharper and sharper, as the Hardal camp, the Kav camp, whatever you want to call it, has begun struggles against the more liberal Orthodoxy. And this all takes place within Religious Zionism, but suddenly you see that a gap has opened up between these two groups, which somehow for some reason look like one group—the non-Haredi group—and therefore they call them Religious Zionism. But that’s not right. It’s not Religious Zionism. It’s Religious Zionism on the one hand, and Modern Orthodoxy on the other. Of course, a Modern Orthodox person can be Zionist, but he can also be not. I think there are quite a few Haredi groups that are modern in their worldview and are not Zionist. There are such groups, and whether there are many or not many is debatable; usually these are not groups but isolated individuals, but there are, there are quite a few like that. And there are of course, as I said before, the Hardal camp—and these are Zionist groups that are completely Haredi in terms of their attitude to modernity. Sometimes the slogans are not like that, but the practice is. And therefore this strange mixing that happens here in the country is a mixing that stems from that very… from that conceptual fog that I am trying to disperse here. When I now define Modern Orthodox, I define it in order to clarify why it opposes Haredi-ness not on the axis of Zionism versus non-Zionism but on another axis. Therefore there is no point in tying it to Religious Zionism and Hardal and all kinds of things of that sort. These are completely different groups. And in my view, by the way, the discussion about modernity is far, far more important than the discussion about Zionism. Because the discussion about Zionism is already behind us. What does it even mean today to oppose Zionism? What does it mean to oppose Zionism? Not to say Hallel on Independence Day? My old age will rejoice. So don’t say Hallel on Independence Day. What do I care? What does that mean in practice? In practice it means nothing. There is no practical implication to opposition to Zionism. I’m not talking about extreme elements, okay? Neturei Karta and the like, but mainstream Haredi-ness. The ones who are now in the Knesset, even ministers—they participate in the game completely. There’s nothing, I do not see any feature I can point to in their anti-Zionism, and therefore in my opinion today the whole discussion about Zionism really is an uninteresting discussion. Not relevant. It is behind us. We’re stuck there, I have no idea why. A completely crazy anachronism. All the parties move between Religious Zionism and Haredi-ness, as though the axis were Zionism. And therefore the Hardalim and the moderns really do seem to belong to the same group, because they are both Religious Zionism and not Haredi. And then people are astonished at how Bennett suddenly betrays Religious Zionism. He is not betraying Religious Zionism; he is Modern Orthodox. He is betraying non-modern Religious Zionism. He is Zionist exactly like them. He is just modern and they are not. And all this nonsense stems from that same abstract theoretical conceptual confusion that I am trying—the fog that I am trying to disperse here. So in that sense this is very much a current issue. These are totally up-to-date questions. And therefore the important discussion that I really want to focus on right now is the discussion about modernity. And if we want to look for what the difference is between Haredi-ness and modern religiosity—modern, not Zionism and non-Zionism—then clearly it is connected in some way to modernity, to the attitude toward modernity. And here I’ll stop. The definition will come in the next class. Okay, comments or questions if there are any? Sabbath peace.
[Speaker B] Rabbi.
[Speaker G] Can I ask a question?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes.
[Speaker G] So this is somewhat connected—the question came to me following what you said earlier about the source of the authority of the Talmud, that it basically depends, let’s say, on the general consent of the Jewish people. So associatively that immediately reminded me of the revelation at Mount Sinai, which also, as described in the verses, basically stems from the consent of the Jewish people to this thing, and…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, I completely agree.
[Speaker G] They say that from the moment the Jewish people entered into the covenant with God, it was a one-way ticket.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but that’s not—who said every covenant is like that? More than that, I’m not in favor of violating the covenant we signed with the Talmud. On the contrary, I’m only arguing that this covenant is defined differently from the covenant at Sinai, and therefore this is not considered undermining it, because it does not forbid what I am perhaps proposing to do here. So there’s no problem. It can be a one-way ticket from my side.
[Speaker G] If I don’t call it a covenant, but I call it, as we said regarding the Talmud, giving it authority, or accepting something upon myself, then can the Rabbi sharpen the differences, and whether there are differences?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously if I accept authority upon myself, then I have not made a covenant with some party standing opposite me. It’s something I decided. That’s a vow, not a covenant. I decided with myself what I accept upon myself to do. It’s not a contract that the Jewish people made with Rav Ashi. Rav Ashi stands on our side, not on the side opposite us. He is part of the Jewish people. In the covenant with the Holy One, blessed be He, we stand opposite Him. There are two sides. So the question is what we committed ourselves to, and He can compel us to do what we committed ourselves to. Here it depends on us. What we accepted upon ourselves, we accepted; and what we did not, we did not.
[Speaker G] You used the term covenant earlier, but I guess it came out intuitively for me, but now I understand that maybe it really isn’t the most…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, it’s not a precise term, covenant, in this context. You can call it something like a kind of vow. Contract, vow, I don’t know, the consent of the many. Rabbi Shlomo Fischer, in the book of his homilies, Beit Yishai Derashot, in section 15, discusses this at length. He talks there about the status of acceptance by the many. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Okay then, goodbye, Sabbath peace.
[Speaker F] Thank you very much.