Analytical Talmudic Thinking – Lesson 5
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Table of Contents
- An investigation of liability for property damage: ownership and negligence
- Analysis and synthesis as a form of conceptual thinking
- These and those are the words of the living God as a weighing of reasons
- Teiku and deciding between considerations
- Two sources in the Talmud and the example from Gittin
- Either-or, both-and, and Occam’s razor
- Causality: a necessary and sufficient condition
- The hermeneutic principle of the common denominator in Bava Kamma
- Building a general principle from two texts: pit and fire, and the logic of elimination
- Repentance and joy according to the Baal Shem Tov
Summary
General Overview
The text presents a model of conceptual thinking built on two complementary moves, analysis and synthesis, through an investigation of liability for damaging property, between negligence in guarding and ownership, and argues that usually both parameters themselves are reasonable, so what is called for is to build different combinations from them rather than choose only one. It interprets the principle these and those are the words of the living God as applying mainly at the level of reasons and considerations, where both sides can be right, while in the bottom line a decision or weighing is required, and sometimes teiku. It uses examples from aggadic literature and Jewish law, especially the structure of the common denominator in Bava Kamma, to argue that learning is built on eliminating “stringencies” that are not necessary and identifying one shared factor, and connects this also to the question of simplicity in the style of “Occam’s razor” and to a philosophical discussion of causality as a necessary and sufficient condition.
An investigation of liability for property damage: ownership and negligence
The law of damages from one’s property is depicted as built on two relevant parameters, ownership of the property and negligence in guarding it, and the investigation is not just “either this or that” but the question of the relation between them. One possible conclusion is that both are central and both are required, so that the combination of “it is my property” together with blameworthy guarding is the cause of liability, and this is illustrated through the case of setting a dog upon someone. The distinction between different approaches can lie in one seeing one parameter as primary and the other as a condition, or in both together creating the obligating factor.
Analysis and synthesis as a form of conceptual thinking
Analysis identifies the plausible components that have logic relevant to the topic, such as ownership and negligence, and removes accidental parameters that carry no weight. Synthesis connects the components that were found into different possible combinations and examines which construction is correct, and sometimes the difference between approaches is expressed in a different hierarchy among those same components. The text argues that analysis alone is almost never enough, because every component that remains on the table has a justification, and therefore a serious approach will usually make use of both.
These and those are the words of the living God as a weighing of reasons
The Ritva on Eruvin 13 asks how it can be that two contradictory positions are both the words of the living God, and the text answers that justice is complex and truth can be a composite of the two opinions. The principle is interpreted to mean that both sides can be right at the level of the reasoning, while the conflict lies in the bottom line, which requires a decision. The example of chocolate says that the claim “it is tasty” and the claim “it is fattening” are both true, and action depends on circumstances and on weighing. The Sanhedrin test, requiring one to produce 150 reasons to declare a creeping thing impure and 150 reasons to declare it pure, is explained in the name of the Maharal as recognition that complex topics include valid considerations in both directions, and the judge is tested on the ability to see them all and build a ruling from them.
Teiku and deciding between considerations
The text presents teiku as a possible conclusion when the considerations seem evenly balanced, and then the practical implications are determined according to the laws of doubt or other decision frameworks. It states that at the level of reasons “everything is correct,” and the real discussion is about relative weight and the model built from the considerations together.
Two sources in the Talmud and the example from Gittin
In Eruvin 13 it says these and those are the words of the living God regarding the dispute between the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel, together with the ruling “and the Jewish law follows the House of Hillel,” without explaining how both sides are true. In Gittin 6b, in the dispute between Rabbi Evyatar and Rabbi Yonatan about the concubine at Gibeah, Elijah the Prophet reports in the name of the Holy One, blessed be He: “My son Yonatan says thus, My son Evyatar says thus,” and when asked, “Is there doubt before Heaven?” the answer is these and those are the words of the living God, with a concrete interpretation: “He found a fly and was not particular; he found a hair and was particular.” The explanation there states that the truth is a combination, so both descriptions are true together, and the catastrophe is created from the accumulation, and the text uses this as a general model for synthesizing reasons.
Either-or, both-and, and Occam’s razor
The text distinguishes between “either this or that” as a division between different approaches, and the logical possibility that one approach itself might say “either negligence or ownership” as alternative causes. It argues that such an “either-or” almost never arises, while “both-and” may be more correct, and brings examples from the Chazon Ish and the Pnei Yehoshua as a “both and” conception. It uses the principle of “Occam’s razor” to explain the tendency to look for one simple factor, but argues that “A and B” can count as one factor and not necessarily as a more complicated theory, because even “A” itself may be a complex concept that breaks down into many conditions. It says that specifically “either A or B” is more complicated in an objective sense, because it proposes two distinct alternative causes rather than one unified cause.
Causality: a necessary and sufficient condition
The text presents the philosophical debate whether a cause must be a necessary and sufficient condition for the effect, or whether it can be only a sufficient condition. It illustrates this with fire created either by striking a match or by focusing the sun’s rays with a magnifying glass, and concludes that according to one who requires a necessary and sufficient cause, two different “causes” point to one deeper cause hidden behind them, such as generating a sufficiently high level of heat. It shows that choosing one “real” cause is done by abstracting the different mechanisms to a shared factor.
The hermeneutic principle of the common denominator in Bava Kamma
The Mishnah in Bava Kamma states, “There are four primary categories of damages: the ox, the pit, the grazer, and the fire,” and the Talmud concludes, “The common denominator among them is that their way is to cause damage, their guarding is upon you, and when they cause damage, the damager is liable to pay compensation for damage from the best of his land,” with the Rif adding, “and they are your property.” The text argues that the Mishnah here is unusual in that it gives a rule and not only cases, but the Talmud asks, “What does the common denominator among them come to include?” and from this emerges the preference of the Sages for casuistic thinking over rules. It cites the rule “one does not derive law from general rules, even in a case where an exception is stated” from Kiddushin, and applies it also to “the Jewish law follows Rava” as against the exceptions of Ya’al Kegam, to show that rules are not absolute even when they are formulated precisely.
Building a general principle from two texts: pit and fire, and the logic of elimination
The text describes the derivation regarding one’s stone, knife, and load that came to rest and caused damage, where it is impossible to derive it from pit alone because “what is unique to pit is that no other force is involved in it,” and impossible to derive it from fire alone because “what is unique to fire is that it tends to move and cause damage.” It explains “and the law returns” as a structure in which each source neutralizes the refutation of the other, so the unique stringency of each is not a necessary condition for liability, and the obligating factor that remains is the shared feature: “your property,” “their way is to cause damage,” and “their guarding is upon you.” It presents a theoretical alternative according to which the factor is “either X or Y,” but argues that preferring “Z” is preferring a model with one unified factor over a model of two alternative factors. It connects this to the general claim that a common denominator is the discovery of one necessary and sufficient factor at the level of the model, even if it is made up of several components.
Repentance and joy according to the Baal Shem Tov
When a Jew repents, he feels holy, refined, and radiant, and the Baal Shem Tov says that if the repentance is not repentance of joy, then it is not real repentance. Joy is described as the feeling of the soul when it reconnects to its source, and therefore a Jew should be in great joy in repentance, like the joy of a son returning home and his father receiving him with open arms. The verse “and though your sins be as scarlet, they shall become white as snow” is interpreted as turning sins into merits through repentance out of love, while in repentance out of fear intentional sins become like unintentional ones. The power for this is attributed to the Jewish soul, which is “truly a portion of God above,” and it remains pure even when it gets dirty, like a pearl that fell into mud and is washed and shines again. The prayer text “Return us, our Father, to Your Torah, bring us near, our King, to Your service, and restore us in complete repentance before You” is brought as a request to return “in complete repentance out of love, with joy and gladness of heart,” and it concludes, “Amen, selah.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, last time we talked about this conceptual inquiry regarding liability for damages caused by one’s property—whether it’s negligence in guarding it, or responsibility for the very fact that my property caused damage—and through that I tried to demonstrate how conceptual analysis is built. And the claim is that in many cases we look and find that there are two parameters that can be relevant to the law under discussion, to the topic—in this case, negligence in guarding and ownership—and the question is what the relationship is between them, what role each one plays. So one could have formulated the inquiry as: is it negligence in guarding, or tort liability, or responsibility for the property? But in practice it’s not really like that. Both parameters are needed, and the inquiry is about which of them is primary and which is secondary. Though the conclusion in the end was that even those two sides are not the only possibilities. It could be that both parameters are primary: it has to be my property, and there also has to be negligence in guarding it, and neither is primary and neither is secondary; rather, both are required. The combination of the two is the reason I incur liability for damages. And I explained this through the case of setting a dog upon someone, and things like that.
So this is basically a first taste of the form of conceptual analysis, because what we really see here is two steps in two opposite directions, which is very characteristic of conceptual thinking in general, or theoretical thinking more broadly: analysis and synthesis, or breaking apart and reconnecting. Analysis basically says: I’m trying to look at the situation of my property causing damage and check what the relevant parameters might be. First of all, that it belongs to me—it’s my property. Second, that I was negligent in guarding it, that I bear some blame for what happened. So here I identify two relevant parameters. That is the stage of analysis.
From here on, I start trying to produce a synthesis, or several syntheses. Then I say: maybe this is possible, maybe that, maybe both together, maybe this one is primary and that one secondary, or vice versa. Here we are already in all the different ways of connecting the components, fusing them, or building some sort of structure out of them. In other words, after the analysis reveals to me what the relevant components are, I make different syntheses and check which synthesis is correct—maybe more than one. It could be that Maimonides’ approach is like this, and Rashba’s approach is like that. But all of that belongs to the stages in which I connect the components I discovered in various ways. That is really the stage of synthesis.
Now, why should we often expect there to be a synthesis? Why is analysis by itself never enough, or almost never enough? When would analysis alone suffice? Say there is a dispute between Maimonides and Rashba, and I say: according to Maimonides it’s negligence in guarding, and according to Rashba it’s ownership of the property. Okay, there only analysis worked. I found two components, and each opinion adopts one component and no more. So in that case I didn’t really do any synthesis. I found the two components and assigned a different one to each opinion.
Usually that isn’t what happens. And why not? Because when we identify two such components, each of them has good reasons why it is relevant to the topic. Right? When I ask myself why I am responsible for damage caused by my property, then first of all ownership itself sounds like a perfectly decent reason for that: if you have property, be responsible for what it does. Negligence in guarding, of course, is also a very good reason to see as an important parameter. Now if there are good reasons to view both of those parameters as relevant to the topic, then it is only natural to understand that in any approach I find, both of them will probably be used, because each has a good reason why it takes part in this game, in this picture. And therefore synthesis is something we should expect.
In other words, after I identify two components, very often, since each one has some logic behind it—I didn’t just arbitrarily decide that it was a component in the topic, I didn’t decide that because the text says “ox,” then anything that begins with the same letter should also be something that makes me liable for its damages, since the Torah says, “If one man’s ox gores another man’s ox”—why not? Because clearly the fact that the word starts with that letter is accidental. In my reasoning it doesn’t sound like a relevant parameter, an important parameter. That means that even when I do the analysis, I am already examining each one of the parameters: how plausible is it that it plays a role in the game? And I leave on the table only the plausible parameters. In this case, say, I was left with two. But once both are plausible, why assume that Maimonides gives up one of them? If both are plausible, Maimonides will probably want both, and so will Rashba. So what, after all, is the difference? Maybe the difference is that one sees A as primary and B as secondary, and the other sees B as primary and A as secondary. Maybe. Or whatever other definition there may be. But this synthesis should not surprise us. Because after we find that there is logic in each component, it follows naturally that both should be combined in order to describe the full picture.
I’ll maybe show you, illustrate this idea through a meta-halakhic statement, or an aggadic one if you like: these and those are the words of the living God. So when we talk about these and those are the words of the living God, of course the question is obvious. The Ritva—it’s a Talmudic passage in Eruvin 13—and the Ritva there asks: what does that mean, these and those are the words of the living God? It’s like the judge’s wife. Do you know the story about the judge? Reuven comes before him and presents his arguments. The judge says to him: you know what? You’re right. Then Shimon comes and presents his arguments too. He says to him: you know what? You’re also right. So the judge’s wife comes and says: what do you mean? If Reuven is right then Shimon isn’t, and if Shimon is right then Reuven isn’t. He says to her: you’re also right.
The point is that if both sides are right, then justice is probably more complex than it appears at first glance. And when we say these and those are the words of the living God, the very same question arises—the question of the judge’s wife. The House of Shammai and the House of Hillel disagree. So if the House of Hillel are the words of the living God, then the House of Shammai aren’t. And vice versa. After all, they disagree. They say opposite things. So how can it be that both are the words of the living God?
The claim is that clearly not the whole truth is found with each one of them, but the truth may be some sort of composition of the two opinions together—in different proportions, in different positions, maybe this is primary and that secondary, this is primary and that one secondary. Everything we did with the two sides of the conceptual inquiry I mentioned before, I am now expanding more generally. And I’m saying that neither the House of Shammai nor the House of Hillel were fools. So if they put forward some reasoning, then presumably there is something to that reasoning. And if the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai put forward two different lines of reasoning, then most likely both are correct. Except that they lead to contradictory conclusions. So what does that mean? It doesn’t mean that one of the two lines of reasoning is necessarily false. Both are correct. The conclusion is what emerges from the combination of those two lines of reasoning. And I’ll now show you a few examples of this.
I brought—I think I brought—the example of chocolate, I mentioned it, right? The argument about chocolate. Yes—one person says not to eat chocolate because it’s fattening; the other says eat chocolate because it’s tasty. Who’s right? Both are right. It’s both tasty and fattening. Meaning at the level of reasons, both are right. It’s both tasty and fattening. Except that each reason leads us to a different bottom line: eat it or don’t eat it. The conflict lies in the bottom lines. The reasons do not contradict one another. The reasons can both be true. It’s both tasty and fattening.
Now the only question is what to do in practice—eat it or not. So here it already becomes a matter of weighing. It could be that under certain circumstances I’ll eat it, under other circumstances I won’t. If I’m thin, then I’ll eat it because it’s tasty; I don’t care if I put on a little weight. If I’m overweight, I won’t eat it. True, it’s tasty, but I don’t want to gain more weight. Or if I eat only a little chocolate, or if I haven’t eaten chocolate in a long time—it doesn’t matter. Once I understand that both reasons are true, then the bottom line can already be some kind of blend of the two. You don’t have to choose one of them. In one situation, taste will override health. In another, health will override taste. In another situation, there will be some balancing between them, so I’ll eat a little chocolate, not a lot. I don’t know. The practical consequences will depend on the circumstances. But at the level of reasons—when I’m talking about the theoretical question, what the reasons are for the two sides—both sides are right. There’s no contradiction between them.
Okay? This is logic, the logic of norms. In the logic of norms, two different norms are not contradictory. One thing can be true together with something else that leads to the opposite conclusion. Both can be true. At the level of conclusions I’ll have a conflict—what to do: eat or not eat. But the fact that it’s both tasty and fattening contains no contradiction at all. It can be both tasty and fattening.
The Talmud says that one of the tests they gave for the Sanhedrin—for those who were candidates to serve on the Sanhedrin—was whether they could produce 150 reasons to declare a creeping creature impure and 150 reasons to declare a creeping creature pure. A creeping creature is impure; it’s written explicitly in the Torah. Rabbenu Tam asks: what are these empty hairsplittings? Am I testing candidates for the Sanhedrin with empty pilpul? What is this, are we appointing a Purim rabbi here? So what’s the idea?
The Maharal says no, these are not empty hairsplittings. There really are 150 reasons to declare the creeping creature pure, and there are also 150 reasons—obviously that number is typological, it could be another number, it doesn’t matter—to declare the creeping creature impure. In the end, you have to decide which set of reasons carries more weight. So I will decide that the Torah decided the creeping creature is impure. That does not mean that the 150 reasons to declare it pure are not correct. They are all correct. But the reasons to declare it impure weigh more, carry more force, and therefore in the end, in the bottom line, the creeping creature is impure. But that does not mean that there are not good and valid reasons to declare it pure.
And the Maharal says more than that: this is the right test for someone who wants to serve on the Sanhedrin. Someone who wants to serve on the Sanhedrin has to understand that the issues that come before him are complex issues. There is no black and white. In life there is no black and white. None. Anyone familiar with the world of law, in court—every case you encounter, there is almost never a perfectly righteous person and a perfectly wicked person. It is always something more complex than it appears at first glance. And a good judge, a good magistrate or a good dayyan, has to understand that. He has to understand that there are sides in both directions. In the end he has to make decisions. He has to decide which side outweighs which side, or to compromise in the middle—it doesn’t matter. So he takes all that into account and creates some kind of synthesis of all the valid considerations that pull us in different directions.
But the considerations in themselves are all valid. I have good evidence that so-and-so committed murder, but I have other evidence that, say, he had no motive. But he had opportunity; he was in the area. But he had no motive. The fact that he had no motive is an excellent consideration against saying he committed the murder. The fact that he had opportunity is an excellent consideration in favor of saying he committed the murder. Is one of those considerations false? No, both are true. In the end I have to decide: murder or not murder. I have one consideration for it and one against it. I have to decide which seems more significant to me. But this is not a decision about which consideration is correct and which is not. Both are correct.
At the level of reasons, at the level of considerations, these and those are the words of the living God—everything is correct. The 150 reasons to declare the creeping thing pure and the 150 reasons to declare it impure—all 300 are correct, completely correct. And what must be decided in the end in order to issue a halakhic ruling is to see what model I build from all 300 reasons together. That is the synthesis I was talking about. The analysis is basically finding 150 reasons this way, 150 reasons that way. But in the end I need to make some kind of synthesis, connect all those reasons, and see what conclusion that whole totality leads me to.
Here there is already one conclusion—and maybe it depends on circumstances: under these circumstances it will be this way, under other circumstances it will be that way. But given the circumstances, let’s say, there will be one conclusion. Yet all the reasons are valid. So if, say, the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai are arguing whether to declare the creeping creature pure or impure, just for the sake of discussion, and the House of Hillel offer 150 reasons to declare it pure and the House of Shammai offer 150 reasons to declare it impure—who is right? Assuming both are Torah scholars, both are intelligent people, then both are right. All 300 reasons are correct. And more than that, they probably aren’t even arguing with each other about the reasons. On the level of reasons everybody agrees with everybody, because nobody is talking nonsense. The argument is about how to weight the reasons. Do the reasons to declare the creeping creature pure carry more weight, have more significance, than the reasons to declare it impure, or not? That is the argument.
And in that argument only one side is right, not “these and those.” These and those are the words of the living God refers to the reasons, not to the bottom lines. In the bottom line there is one halakhic ruling. But at the level of reasons there is no contradiction at all; you can say that all the reasons stand. There is what is called teiku, right?
[Speaker C] What? There’s what is called teiku.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and that’s another example of synthesis. The moment I can’t see that these considerations weigh more than those, it seems evenly balanced to me, so I’m at a tie. Fine, that’s also a conclusion. And then the laws of doubt may apply, or whatever it may be; that too is one of the possible conclusions. I’m just saying that what we’re really seeing now, from a broader perspective, is the processes of analysis and synthesis. Analysis is seeing which reasons are playing on the field here. The moment an intelligent person does analysis, the conclusions he reaches are always correct; there’s no such thing as a conclusion that is not correct. A person isn’t talking nonsense; an intelligent person at least doesn’t talk nonsense. If you think about arguments you know, between groups or between people or between ideologies or whatever you want, think carefully—you’ll see that both sides are almost always right. Almost always, both sides are right. The argument is not over whether his reasons are correct or his reasons are incorrect. The argument is over how to weigh the reasons and what bottom line to reach, what to infer. But nobody is talking nonsense. In any argument you want, any public argument, any argument on earth you can think of, almost every argument will be like that. Nobody is talking nonsense. Nobody—at the principled level, at the group level. There can be individuals who say nonsense because they’re not especially bright. But at the group level, where there are two positions and they’re common positions, then these are not things without any basis. There are always good reasons there, and there are good reasons on the other side too. To formulate a position, you have to decide which reasons are more persuasive or carry more weight. It’s not deciding which reasons are correct and which are incorrect; that’s not the point. Therefore I think this is the more correct interpretation of the principle that “these and those are the words of the living God.”
Now, this principle of “these and those are the words of the living God” appears in the Talmud in two places. In one place it appears in Eruvin 13a, and there it says that for three and a half years, or two and a half years, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed and could not decide, and then a heavenly voice emerged and said: “These and those are the words of the living God, and the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel.” In Gittin 6b, the Talmud brings a dispute there between Rabbi Yoshiya and Rabbi Yonatan. And the Talmud says the dispute was about the episode of the concubine in Gibeah. Yes, that fellow killed the concubine there out of sheer rage, that whole terrible story, and there’s a debate in the Talmud over what caused it, what set him off. Why was he so angry? So one tanna says that he found a fly in the soup—she cooked him soup and he found a fly in it. And the second tanna says that he found a strand of hair, a hair—not משנה where exactly, a strand of hair, something else. Okay? So the Talmud tells there that Rabbi Yonatan meets Elijah the Prophet. And he asks Elijah the Prophet what the Holy One, blessed be He, is doing now. He tells him that He is occupied, surprisingly enough, with the topic of the concubine in Gibeah. Okay? He says to him, well, excellent opportunity—so tell me what He says, which of us is right. So Elijah the Prophet says to him: the Holy One, blessed be He, says, “My son Yonatan says thus, My son Yoshiya says thus”—Evyatar, sorry, Rabbi Evyatar and Rabbi Yonatan. So it’s Rabbi Evyatar who meets Elijah the Prophet, and the Holy One, blessed be He, says: “My son Yonatan says thus, My son Evyatar says thus.” So he says to him: Heaven forbid—can there be uncertainty before Heaven? Does the Holy One, blessed be He, not know what happened there, whether it was a fly or a hair? So he says to him: “These and those are the words of the living God”—he found a fly and was not upset; he found a hair and was upset.
Now, in the Talmud in Eruvin, where “these and those are the words of the living God” appears, it appears regarding halakhic disputes between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. Here it’s an aggadic dispute, right? In those halakhic disputes there, when they say “these and those are the words of the living God,” there is no explanation of what that means. And so there the Ritva indeed asks: how can that be? But in the Talmud here in Gittin, not only do they say “these and those are the words of the living God,” they also offer an explanation. What is the explanation? One says hair and one says fly. The explanation is: he found a fly and was not upset; he found a hair and was upset. What does that mean? That the concept, the principle, “these and those are the words of the living God,” what does it really mean? That both sides are right. There was both a fly there and a hair there. So what ultimately set him off? Apparently the combination of the two. At first he found a fly; that wasn’t enough. In the end he found the hair. Not that the hair alone set him off, but the hair joined the fly, and together that’s what blew his fuse. Okay?
Now, at the moment I don’t care what this dispute means, or whether it’s interesting, or what difference it makes whether it was a fly or a hair. But for our purposes, what interests us there is the explanation the Talmud offers for the principle of “these and those.” The principle of “these and those” basically says that we do a synthesis of the reasons. You saw that she found a fly—you’re right. You saw that he found a hair—you’re also right. And the judge’s wife is right too. Meaning, the fly and the hair together are the full explanation. Not the fly by itself and not the hair by itself. So what does it mean when we say “these and those are the words of the living God”? That when you want to understand the whole picture, you need all three hundred reasons. The hundred and fifty raised by this one, and the hundred and fifty raised by that one. The full picture, the full truth, is all three hundred reasons together. That’s the full picture.
What do you do with that? What conclusion does it lead to? So in the case of the hair and the fly, that’s the easiest. The combination of the two is what created the catastrophe. So there you don’t even need to make some overly complex structure out of them. Regarding the impurity of a creeping thing, there apparently the reasons for impurity outweigh the reasons for purity, and therefore the creeping thing is impure; the Torah says the creeping thing is impure. So the game—what do I do with the reasons? How do I build them? Is negligence in guarding the main thing and ownership a condition, or is ownership the main thing and negligence a condition? That’s already a question of what synthesis I make out of all the elements that the analysis has raised. Okay? So I can make all kinds of syntheses. I can connect them, I can present one as primary and the other as a condition, I can present it the other way around, I can say each one by itself is enough, I can say—I don’t know what—all kinds of things I can do. But those are already stages of synthesis. And syntheses can take all kinds of forms. Once the analysis raises the relevant elements, usually none of them will remain outside the picture. All the arguments will be about how to arrange these building blocks differently. And here it may be that there are different ways to arrange them, or different levels of importance, or different roles within the overall picture.
So what this really means, if I go back to the analytic style of Talmudic learning, is that when there is a dispute or an inquiry with two sides explaining a certain law, usually the explanations will not be foolish explanations. So therefore both explanations are probably correct, and not just one. And consequently it is natural that various syntheses should emerge here, combining the explanations in different ways. Therefore a synthesis is simply to be expected.
Sometimes there can be a situation where we won’t combine the characteristics, or we will combine them in an either-or way. That too could theoretically happen. I said in the previous class why—usually when people raise this inquiry about negligence in guarding or ownership, they say either it is negligence in guarding or it is ownership. Meaning, one of the two. One person will say it’s negligence; someone else will say it’s ownership. But usually in the world of conceptual Talmudic analysis you won’t find an approach that says it’s the combination of the two, that it’s both negligence and ownership. And I tried to show, both in the Chazon Ish and in Pnei Yehoshua, that this was probably actually their view as well—both and. But there is another possibility: maybe it’s either-or.
Now, either-or is not what I said before, negligence or ownership, because when I said that before as either-or, I meant that one view says it’s negligence and another view says it’s ownership. Now I’m saying no: there could be one view that says it’s either negligence or ownership. That’s a different combination of the two elements. One of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) could come and say: look, either if you were negligent in guarding you have to pay, or if it is your property then even if you were not negligent in guarding you still have to pay. That is not correct in terms of Jewish law, but I’m saying that at the logical level it is also an option. That is, it could be one of the two, it could be both together, and it could be either-or, either this or that.
Now the either-or combination—I don’t think you find that at all. As for both-and, the initial tendency is not to raise that possibility, but in many places one can show that it is indeed the possibility that arises, or perhaps even the correct possibility. But either-or is a possibility that almost never comes up. And I think the reason for that is—look, in philosophy people are used to talking about what is called Ockham’s razor. Ockham’s razor says that we basically choose the simplest explanation. Among all the possible explanations, I choose the simplest explanation. Okay? Ockham, William of Ockham, was some Christian scholar who tried to show that there is a God and used this assumption that I look for the simplest explanation. The simplest explanation for the existence of the world is that there is something that created it. Okay, never mind, that’s just… But in philosophy generally they use this term, Ockham’s razor, to say that if we have several possible explanations for something, we choose the simplest one. We do not add unnecessary assumptions. If I have two assumptions by means of which I can explain something, why assume a third as well? It isn’t needed to explain what I want to explain. Or alternatively, if I have one explanation with two assumptions and another explanation with three assumptions, don’t add another one. Rather, either an explanation containing two assumptions or one containing three assumptions. I will choose the explanation containing two assumptions because it is simpler. Okay? That is Ockham’s razor.
Now, if I say that the explanation is—let’s go back to liability for property damages—the explanation that everything depends on negligence in guarding is of course a simple explanation, right? There is one factor, and because of it one is liable for property damages. The explanation that everything depends on ownership is also a simple explanation. There is one other factor that determines tort liability. So anyone who adopts one of these two approaches has adopted a simple approach. The tendency is to think that the approach saying you need both this and that is less simple. Therefore it usually doesn’t come up. Therefore usually we look either for an explanation that A causes it, or an explanation that B causes it. But we do not look for an explanation that A and B together are the cause, because that seems more complex, less simple. And Ockham’s razor says: why adopt a complex explanation if I can explain it in a simpler way? Okay?
But that’s not entirely accurate. Because when I say the explanation is A and B, that is not necessarily more complex than when the explanation is A. Because there is still only one factor here. It’s just that this factor is A-and-B. How is that different from the factor A alone or the factor B alone? Each of those three theories is really speaking about one factor. The only question is: what is that factor? Is the factor A, is the factor B, or is the factor A-and-B?
I’ll give you an example. When I talk about negligence in guarding—suppose that’s the factor, okay? Negligence in guarding can be made up of many things. In order for me to be negligent in guarding, I have to have some ox, and there has to be a door in front of it, and for that door to stand up to the ox it needs a certain lock, and I didn’t lock it at the right level, and maybe if there was wind there then you need to lock it even more strongly, and so on. You can describe the concept of negligence in guarding as a combination of many parameters. So to say that negligence in guarding is the factor that creates liability is the same as saying that the factor creating liability is one and two and three and four, because one, two, three, and four together are what create the concept of negligence. Therefore it is something of an illusion to say that seeing negligence as the factor for tort liability is a simple theory in the sense that it is a theory with a single factor. No—the single factor very often… When I say that a certain person caused this result, what does it mean that the person caused this result? A person is an enormously complex creature; he has lots of limbs and cells and desires and psyche and I don’t know what, and strength—lots of things. This whole complex together I call “a person” when I say “the person caused this phenomenon.” Is that a simple explanation? Why? Because I called it “a person”? But really “a person” is just a code name for a collection of many things, for a very complex system.
So the simplicity of the explanation does not come from the fact that only one element is involved, but from the fact that the factor is one. The factor is one, but that one factor can be a combination of many elements. But as long as that combination as a whole is the factor for the law, then from my point of view this is a simple explanation—there is only one factor. Therefore I want to argue that when I say the factor is A and B—negligence in guarding and ownership—that too is a simple explanation. It is no less simple than negligence in guarding alone or ownership alone. Because I can also break down both negligence and ownership into many components, into a combination of many components.
But if I say the factor is either A or B, that already is objectively more complex. Because here there is not one factor. I am actually saying that A causes the phenomenon by itself, and B, even if there is no A, also causes the phenomenon by itself. That means that here I am already proposing a theory in which there are two possible causes; each of the two factors is a possible cause. That is always more complex than saying there is only one factor, even if that factor is A and B and C and D. But if that whole combination is always the factor for the law, then for me this is a simple explanation: there is only one factor. If it is either A or B, then that means it is not always the same factor; sometimes it is A, sometimes it is B. So that is already a less simple explanation. Okay? Therefore I think explanations of the type either A or B are usually not correct. Usually they are not—not correct; they are less simple.
There is a very interesting dispute among philosophers, philosophers who deal with the issue of causation. Suppose I say that A is the cause of B. Does that mean that A is a necessary and sufficient condition for B? Do you know the concepts of a necessary condition and a sufficient condition? A necessary condition is a condition without which the result cannot happen. If the result happened, then clearly it was there in the background; without it, it would not have happened. A sufficient condition means that if it exists, the result will happen. But the result can happen even without it existing. Still, if it exists, that is enough to say that the result will happen. That is a necessary condition and that is a sufficient condition. And there is a condition that is both necessary and sufficient. Meaning: whenever it is here, the result happens, and whenever the result happens, it was apparently there, because without it the result would not have happened. All right? That is called a necessary and sufficient condition.
Now there is a dispute among philosophers over the question: when I say that A is the cause of B, does A have to be a necessary and sufficient condition for B, or can A also be merely a sufficient condition for B? Where is the practical difference? Can there be two different causes for the same result? Suppose for example—how can I produce fire? I can produce fire by striking a match, right? And I can produce fire by focusing a magnifying glass on paper so that it ignites the paper, right? The sun. I concentrate the sun’s rays and that ignites the paper. That means that for the existence of fire there can be two different causes or two different explanations. Each of those causes can produce fire: either striking a match or focusing the sun’s rays with a magnifying glass, right? So that means that the phenomenon of fire does not have a single explanation. Either striking a match or focusing the sun’s rays. It’s either-or.
Now therefore striking the match is not a sufficient condition for the existence of fire, right? Sorry, it is not a necessary condition for the existence of fire. Fire can exist even without the match if I focused the sun’s rays on the paper. So there will be fire even without a match. Meaning the match is not necessary for the existence of fire, but it is sufficient. It is sufficient in the sense that if I strike the match, fire will come out. It is not true that if there is fire, then clearly I struck a match first. No. The fire can also come from another source. That is what is called an explanation that is sufficient but not necessary. Right?
Someone who holds that an explanation or a cause must be a necessary and sufficient condition—how would he relate, for example, to fire? After all, fire can be lit either by striking a match or by focusing sun rays. So how can philosophers say that the phenomenon of fire can have only one cause? That is, this cause is necessary and sufficient. There cannot be two different causes that produce fire. But clearly there can be—what do you mean? Apparently there is some component within each of these causes that is the same component. For example, the production of very high heat. That is what really creates the fire. Now to produce the heat, you can do it by striking a match and you can do it by focusing sun rays. But when I ask myself what the cause of the fire is: high heat. Only one cause. And that cause is necessary and sufficient.
So when I see that there are two causes for the existence of fire, according to those philosophers it apparently just means that I have not identified the real cause. Yes, if the cause has to be unique, a necessary and sufficient condition, then it means I haven’t identified the real cause. The real cause is hiding behind the various possibilities, and it is apparently found within them. Now striking a match is itself a complex thing, striking a match. I take a piece of wood with sulfur at the end, and I rub it, and there is some rough surface that you need to rub it against for the fire to ignite, right? But in the end, none of those things are what matters. Not the rough surface, not that it is made of wood, not that there is sulfur there, nothing. What you need is that enough heat be generated there. That’s it—that is really the issue. All the circumstances I described here are only the ways in which I produce that great heat. Okay? So that means that in fact I can maintain the position that a cause is a necessary and sufficient condition for its effect. Meaning that a cause can only be a unique cause of its effect. And even if I see that there can be two different causes that bring about this effect, apparently hidden within them is one cause that is really the true cause: the heat. In striking the match as well, what produced the fire was the heat generated by the striking, not the match. Okay? And in focusing the sun’s rays as well, what produced the fire was the heat generated by the focused sun rays. These are just different ways of producing the heat, but what produced the fire was only one factor, and it always has to be there, and that is the heat. Therefore there can be a view that a cause is a necessary and sufficient condition for its effect, that a cause can only be unique.
Now let’s try to understand, to see this in Jewish law. Fine, I—yes, let’s see it in Jewish law. So let’s take an example, an example from the study of… I’ll look at this through a hermeneutic rule called the common denominator, building a general principle from two texts—familiar. What is the common denominator? We have two source cases—let’s call them A and B—and we want to derive from them a conclusion, conclusion C. Two primary cases and a derivative, okay? We want to derive this derivative from the two primary cases. So an example of this can be found in the Talmud in Bava Kamma. Fine, so let’s have a look. The Mishnah in Bava Kamma says this: “There are four primary categories of damages”—wait, I’ll do this also in the recording—“four primary categories of damages: the ox, the pit, the grazer, and the fire.” Okay? Meaning I have four primary categories of damages; there are some disputes over what exactly “grazer” and “fire” mean, I’m not going into all the disputes right now, but I have here several primary categories of damages.
Then the Talmud says: “The ox is not like the grazer, and the grazer is not like the ox.” They do a tzrikhuta analysis. Why can’t one be learned from the others? Each one has to be written in the Torah. One cannot derive one from the other primary categories. After all these tzrikhuta arguments are completed, showing that each one is unlike the others and cannot be learned from the others, the Talmud says: “The common denominator among them is that their way is to cause damage, and you are responsible for guarding them, and when they cause damage, the damager is liable to pay compensation from the best of his land.” Right? So basically the claim is that at the end the Mishnah says: there is something common to all these primary categories, and what is it? “Their way is to cause damage”—these are things prone to cause damage—“you are responsible for guarding them”; the Rif adds here “and they are your property,” since they are your property, their guarding is upon you, you have to guard them, and therefore when they cause damage the damager is liable to pay compensation from the best of the land. That is the common denominator.
A remark before I continue. Usually both the Mishnah and the Talmud work not with rules but with examples. In the legal world this is called casuistic thinking, thinking through cases. Right? The Mishnah basically gives me a case and says: in this case, yes, someone who comes and lives in another’s courtyard without his knowledge—does he have to pay him, does he not have to pay him? A halakhic question about a specific case. Suddenly the Talmud turns this into a principle: “This one benefits and that one does not lose”—is he liable or exempt? That is already a formulation in the form of a rule, in the form of a general principle. Usually in the Talmud and the Mishnah they talk about cases and not about principles or rules. The principles and rules are made by the commentators. Excellent. Suddenly the Talmud turns it into some kind of principle. “This one benefits and that one does not lose”—liable or exempt? That is already a formulation as a rule, also as a principle, a general principle. Usually in the Talmud and in the Mishnah they talk about cases and not about principles or rules. The principles and rules are usually made by the commentators. The Talmud deals with cases.
Now here we have a relatively unusual case, where the Mishnah itself does not make do with examples—there are examples: ox, pit, grazer, and fire, all these categories—but also gives me the rule: “the common denominator among them.” Meaning: what is the basic rule of which all these are only examples? “Their way is to cause damage, and you are responsible for guarding them,” and “they are your property”—I’m also adding what the Rif writes, right? And what does this actually mean? Forget all these categories and forget everything. In the end, if you want a criterion to know when you are liable, what one must pay for—anything that is your property, whose way is to cause damage, and that you are required to guard. That’s it. If it caused damage, you have to pay. That is the rule. And now we no longer need to talk about ox, pit, grazer, and fire; that is not interesting. They are examples. I want to talk about the general principle. The general principle is the common denominator that appears at the end, and all of those are just examples of it. Okay?
The question that of course arises here is: fine, for once you did me a favor and gave me the rule and didn’t suffice with examples alone, so why do you also need to give me the examples? Once you told me the rule, I already understand that the examples are only particular cases, right? So surprisingly, that’s not true. In the Talmud on 6a, the Talmud asks there an amazing question: “The common denominator among them—to include what?” What does that mean? You told me the four primary categories—ox, pit, grazer, and fire—then you added the common denominator. Why? You already gave me the examples, so why do you give me the general principle, the common denominator? Now this is the opposite of what I would have expected, right? You gave me the general principle—excellent. Why do I need the examples? But the Talmud doesn’t ask that. The Talmud says: you gave me the examples; why do I need the general principle? What is the idea? On the contrary, the general principle is much better if you give it to me than just giving me the examples.
Again we see that the Talmud and the Mishnah—the Talmud too—do not place great trust in rules. They prefer to work with examples. All right? That’s the principle. Rules are something like, yes, every rule has an exception, and rules are something that may give you some kind of general direction, but it is not right to take rules too seriously. The Talmud in Kiddushin says—it speaks there about positive time-bound commandments. So it says: “All positive time-bound commandments, women are exempt from, except for A, B, C, and D.” Four exceptions. The Talmud asks: “But what about this one?” There is also a fifth. The Talmud says: fine, don’t make a fuss. “One does not derive from general rules, even in a place where it says ‘except.’” That is what the Talmud says there. What does that mean? If they had only told me this rule—that all positive time-bound commandments women are exempt from—and I were to find some exception, okay, so they gave the general rule and didn’t go into every exception. Fine, that’s the general rule, but here and there there are exceptions. But in a case where they tell me: look, the general rule is that women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments, but I have one, two, three—these are the four exceptions. Fine, if I find another exception, that’s really strange. After all, they already told me the exceptions. Now how can I find another one? If they didn’t mention exceptions at all, then maybe they only gave the general law without mentioning the exceptions. But if they also told me the “except,” right? “All positive time-bound commandments women are exempt from, except A, B, C, and D.” Then that is a precise formulation, so it should mean exactly that. So now you’re bringing me another exception? What do you mean? The Talmud says yes—don’t make a fuss over everything. “One does not derive from general rules, even in a place where it says ‘except.’” Even where the formulation is precise, where they tell you all the exceptions—even from that, don’t make too much of it. There are more exceptions; there can be more exceptions; nothing happened.
When a Jew repents, he feels holy, he feels purified, he feels radiant. But the Baal Shem Tov says that if the repentance is not a repentance of joy, then it is not true repentance. Joy is the feeling of the soul when it connects to its source. Therefore, when a Jew repents, he should be in great joy. This is the joy of the son who returns home to his father. And his father receives him with open arms. That is what is written: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall become white as snow.” Repentance turns sins into merits. That is the power of repentance out of love. When a Jew returns in repentance out of fear, deliberate sins become like inadvertent ones for him. But when he returns in repentance out of love, deliberate sins become merits for him. It is utterly wondrous. How can one turn evil into good? But that is the power of the Jewish soul, which is truly a part of God above. And it always remains pure, even when it becomes dirty. Like a pearl that fell into mud—wash it, and it shines again. So too the soul: through repentance it returns to shine with its radiance. And this is what we ask in prayer: “Bring us back, our Father, to Your Torah, and draw us near, our King, to Your service, and return us in complete repentance before You.” May we all merit to return in complete repentance out of love, with joy and gladness of heart. Amen forever. The Talmud says no—even from fire you cannot derive it. Why? “What is unique about fire? Its way is to move and cause damage.” Right—his stone, knife, and burden that came to rest on the ground do not go around causing damage. The one who is damaged by them is the person who comes to them and stumbles over them. Fire tends to move; it advances to various places. Therefore, the fact that one is liable for fire—from that I cannot derive liability for his stone, knife, and burden that came to rest on the ground, because they are not mobile things, they are not things that move. So perhaps for such a thing I am not liable? Whoever stumbled on it should be careful. Fire, you cannot guard yourself against because it advances unpredictably. So perhaps there the Torah imposes liability, but for his stone, knife, and burden that came to rest, perhaps it does not impose liability.
The Talmud says: the pit proves otherwise. So you cannot learn it from fire alone, but then the pit proves it. What does the pit prove? A pit does not go anywhere, and nevertheless in the laws of pit-damages one is liable, right? If a pit causes damage, the owner of the pit has to pay. So we see that the fact that something does not move does not exempt me from payment. Therefore, you cannot learn it from fire alone, and you cannot learn it from pit alone, and the law returns on itself—so we learn it from fire and pit together. That is basically the conclusion.
Now look for a moment. Let’s look for a moment at this structure called the common denominator. Fine, basically I am saying this: I have one source case, pit, and the second source case is fire. Okay? Now I want to learn about his stone, knife, and burden that fell from the roof, came to rest, and caused damage after coming to rest. Okay? Now how does this derivation work? We do it like this, look. We try to derive from pit to his stone, knife, and burden, right? That’s the first derivation. Then they tell me: no, you cannot derive from pit. Why can’t you derive from pit? Not because it does not move; its not moving is a reason to be lenient. Rather because no external force is involved in it. Okay? So let’s call this X; I’ll write on the side: X = no external force involved. Fine? That’s X. No external force is involved in it, whereas in those cases an external force is involved, so X absent, right? X is not present there. No external force is involved in it.
Fine, so I say: okay, then let’s derive from fire. What happens with fire? They say: from fire too you cannot derive. Why? Because “its way is to move and cause damage”; its way is to move. Okay? Its way is to move and cause damage. So in fire there is Y, and here Y absent, right? It is not its way to move and cause damage, okay? So basically I cannot derive from pit, and I also cannot derive from fire. But suddenly the Talmud, by some hocus-pocus, says: “and the law returns on itself.” What does that mean? It doesn’t now say, okay, then let’s derive it from a third place. No. From this you cannot derive, and from that you cannot derive, but from the two of them together you can. You don’t need to bring an additional source. The two together teach me what each one alone fails to teach. Yes, the two together teach me what each one alone fails to teach. How does this miracle happen? What do you mean, they complement each other? From pit alone you cannot derive because pit has a certain advantage, right? That is called a stringency. Pit has a certain stringency because of which perhaps one is liable, and therefore you cannot derive that here too one will be liable. Because here it is X absent, and there it is X. So why can one derive from the two of them together?
[Speaker B] Together they create the liability? Yes. So why is that different from the earlier example with inciting the dog, where you take two different things and use them to exempt? I didn’t understand. We said that if you incited the dog, there are sides to exempt—on one side, like…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That I’m not the owner or that I’m not at fault for not guarding. Okay, fine. There it’s a discussion of exemption; here it’s a discussion of liability. So if I can’t derive from each one alone, then how can I derive from the two together? Something here is not logical. “And the law returns on itself”—what kind of hocus-pocus is that? Zero plus zero equals one?
So this is usually a structure called the common denominator. In the common denominator structure, what it basically means is that apart from these two parameters there is another parameter Z that is present here. And what is that parameter? All these are your property, their way is to cause damage, and you are responsible for guarding them. That is Z. The common denominator. Why is it called the common denominator? Because it is the only characteristic common to all of them. Right? It is found in all of them; therefore it is called the common denominator.
Now note another interesting point here. The characteristic X that is present here—in the common denominator structure, it will always not be there. This will be similar to Z with regard to X. Yes, what was X here? Pit means that no external force is involved in it. Right? Yes. So in fire an external force is involved, right? And in fire its characteristic is that its way is to move and cause damage. Pit does not have a tendency to move and cause damage. Right? Now what I have drawn here is the standard structure of the common denominator. It is always like this. There are dozens, hundreds of examples in rabbinic literature; the structure is always like this. There are two source cases and a derived case. All three have a shared property that I call Z. Each of these has one stringency, Y, and one leniency, X. This one has the stringency X and the leniency Y. This one has both X and Y as leniencies, but Z exists in it too. That is always the structure.
Now what do I do with this structure? Why does this structure let me learn from the two together what each one alone cannot teach me? The answer is that what they are really telling me is: I want to derive from pit, so I have a refutation, right? Why? Because pit has X and this is X absent, it doesn’t have X. Right? They say to me: yes, but look, this one also does not have X and nevertheless it is liable, right? Therefore fire shows that the advantage of X over against Z is not important. Because the fact is that for fire too one is liable even though fire too has that leniency of X absent. No—but fire has the stringency of Y, that its way is to move and cause damage. Fine, but Y too is not important, because this one does not have Y. And I say that Y too is not important because the leniency of Y is found here, and nevertheless liability applies. So we see that even if you don’t have Y, you can still be liable. Thus each one fills the lack that exists in the other.
When I tried to derive from this one, there was a deficiency here because this is X and that is X absent. And I say: look, here too there is X absent, and nevertheless one is liable. So the fact that it is X absent does not get in the way. Now I try to derive from here; they say: here there is Y and here Y absent. And look here—here there is Y absent and that does not get in the way; one is still liable. A sign that Y absent, or X and Y, are not really necessary advantages for imposing liability. Therefore the fact that this one does not have X and does not have Y—so what? That is not necessary for imposing liability. All right? That is basically the logic called the logic of the common denominator, or building a general principle from two texts.
The big problem that arises here is that what you are really telling me is this: when I am looking for the factor behind the liability for damage, I ask: which parameter is responsible for the liability? I say: these two, the Torah says, are liable for damage. I want to know whether this too is liable for damage. Can it be learned from the two of them? So let’s see. I’m trying to identify the responsible factor; I’m doing elimination. I say: look, here you can tell me that if Z is the factor, then no problem—here they are liable and that’s the end of the story, right? But what? Who says that is the factor? Look at this—maybe X is the factor and not Z? Z. If I prove from here that X is not the relevant factor—look, here it lacks X and nevertheless it is liable. Fine. Here perhaps Y is the relevant factor. No—I see here that it lacks Y and nevertheless it is liable. So Y too is not the relevant factor. So by elimination we have proven that apparently Z is the important factor in the liability, and consequently in the derivative case too, if it has Z then there is liability. Okay? That is the logic of the common denominator.
The big problem is that this logic is really comparing between—it is really telling me this: the factor Z is what causes the liability. Right? Whoever has Z is liable. Right? Now I have an alternative theory. I’ll write it in red. I have an alternative theory. Okay? What is the alternative theory? That what causes liability is either X or Y. Right? Look, you see, that too explains the whole picture. If you have either X or Y, you are liable. Why is this one liable? Because it has X. True, it doesn’t have Y, but it has X. This one is liable because it has Y. True, it doesn’t have X, but it has Y. Now if this theory is correct, and it explains my two source cases as well, then what will happen here? Exempt—because you need either X or Y, and this one has neither X nor Y. But if the theory is that one, which also fits the two source cases, then here it will be liable—it has Z.
Basically, the question is which of these two theories is correct. Agreed? That is really the question. If this is the correct theory, then one can derive from the common denominator. Z is the common feature, something shared by both of them; the common denominator between them is Z. So I derive from their common denominator that anything that has Z is also liable. So I derive the common denominator because I assume that this is the correct theory. But really, why do I assume that? Why not assume that this is the correct theory? Yes? Why not assume that this is the correct theory? What do you say? What gives this theory priority over that one? What?
[Speaker C] Because that’s what the Mishnah says.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but why? I’m asking why the Mishnah says that. How does it know? Why did the Mishnah choose this theory and not that one? Because this one is simpler. That is why I made this whole move. What is this theory really saying? What does this structure say? This structure says that when we are looking for a factor for a certain law—in this case, liability to pay for damage—and I have two possibilities: one possibility is to ground this liability in a single parameter, that it is your property and you are responsible for guarding it. Notice: a single parameter, but a composite one. It is also your property and you are responsible for guarding it and its way is to cause damage. Right? That’s what the Mishnah says. So this Z is really A and B and C. Indeed, it is somewhat composite. But as I said before, a composition of A and B and C that produces some Z—that is a simple theory.