Analytical Talmudic Thinking – Lesson 7

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If this case took place in the public domain, then we should have ruled leniently in a case of doubtful impurity, regardless of whether it was a double doubt or a single doubt. If it was in the private domain, we should have ruled stringently, and again it makes no difference whether it was a double doubt or a single doubt. So it should not depend on the question whether there can or cannot be part of a placenta without a fetus. That is Tosafot’s question. A very difficult question. And one can say that our passage is dealing with the question of forbidding her to her husband. Tosafot says: our discussion here in this passage is not about the laws of ritual impurity. In truth, in the laws of impurity there should be no difference whether there can or cannot be part of a placenta without a fetus. Our discussion here is about the prohibition of the woman to her husband. They are forbidden to have marital relations during the period when she is impure, and the discussion is about the prohibition, not about the impurity. And regarding the prohibition, we basically follow the ordinary rules of doubts in prohibitions, where there is a difference between a single doubt and a double doubt. In a single doubt we are strict; in a double doubt we are lenient. That is what Tosafot says.

This is somewhat connected to a question that later authorities (Acharonim) discuss: what is the relationship between the impurity and the prohibition? When a woman gives birth, there are two things. First, she is impure, meaning that if she touches things she imparts impurity to them. Second, she is forbidden to have marital relations with her husband. Right? The question is whether this is one and the same law, or two separate things. Maybe, whether by coincidence or not, they come together, but they are not the same thing. Right? An impure woman in general—for example, a woman who is impure with corpse impurity—there is no prohibition against having relations with her, no prohibition against marital relations with her if I’m not a priest. That’s not the issue; there is no prohibition on her becoming impure. But here, with this impurity, there is a prohibition on marital relations. This is where you might say these are simply two things: first, she is impure; second, there is a prohibition on marital relations. No connection between them. A second possibility: no—because of her impurity she is forbidden; because of this impurity, which is different, it is forbidden to have relations with her because of her impurity.

So the later authorities bring proof from this Tosafot that these really are two things that do not depend on one another: the impurity and the prohibition. The proof is that Tosafot says we can decide the question of impurity one way and the question of prohibition another way. For example, if we are in the public domain, then regarding impurity, in a single doubt—let’s say that “there is no partial placenta without a fetus” makes this a single doubt in the public domain—what should the law be regarding impurity? She is pure, because it is in the public domain. Regarding the prohibition? She is forbidden, right? Because in a single doubt we are strict about prohibitions. Okay? So here we see that she is forbidden to her husband even though she is not impure. So we see that the prohibition and the impurity do not necessarily come together. The same with a double doubt in the private domain: regarding impurity we would treat her as impure, we would be strict, but regarding the prohibition we would be lenient because it is a double doubt. These two situations show us that there can be situations in which impurity appears without the prohibition, or the prohibition without the impurity. So in itself, that is already an interesting lesson for us.

When we talk about conceptual analysis and different components, analyzing components, then I’m saying here that in the case of a woman who gives birth, two laws apply to her: she is impure and she is forbidden to her husband. Immediately the analytical question arises: what is the connection between these two? Is it one law? Are these two expressions of the same thing, two sides of one coin? Or are they two independent laws? So here, from this Tosafot, you can show that at least according to his view there is no connection between the two things. In the simple reading, this even emerges from the Talmud, because Tosafot says this due to a difficulty in the Talmud. If this were a doubt in impurity, the Talmud should not have distinguished between a single doubt and a double doubt. So this is not even Tosafot—it is really the Talmud that says this here, unless some other answer to the Talmud is found. So that is what the later authorities learn here from Tosafot.

But there is another question that arises in this context of Tosafot, and it is a question of the Avnei Nezer. I copied here a passage from a book. He says as follows. This book is called Nefesh Yonatan; it is a book of sharp dialectical Torah discussions by Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz on the weekly Torah portions. At one point I had this hobby—on Sabbaths I would read these books of pilpul, a real delight. We once talked about the difference between homily and pilpul, didn’t we? I think I didn’t mention it—just an interesting point. What is the difference between homily and pilpul? When you make a reasonable Torah argument, or any reasonable argument, not specifically Torah, that argument is supposed to be logically sound, meaning logically valid. And its conclusion is true, the premises are true, and therefore the conclusion is also true. That is called a good argument, right? What happens if I have an argument that is logically valid but its conclusion is wrong? Or the conclusion is good but the argument is defective? Then the first is pilpul and the second is homily.

Pilpul is a situation where the inference is correct, but the conclusion is not true. And homily is a situation where the inference is terrible, but the conclusion is true. Yes? All the little Torah quips you hear in synagogue are all homilies. All of them, practically every last one. What are homilies? They say all kinds of unrelated nonsense, they raise a difficulty and expound on it and resolve it, nothing begins and nothing ends, but in the end you conclude that one should be God-fearing, serve God, and be humble, and everything is fine. Well done, and may you merit children and grandchildren. Meaning, in the final analysis you end with a correct conclusion, so who cares about all the nonsense you said along the way, right? That is called homily. These things are totally worthless; it is a waste of Torah study. The other side is pilpul. What is pilpul? It is when you present an inference that is correct, or at least seems correct, but it leads to an incorrect conclusion.

Give me an example? Here is an example. Come, I’ll show you that we need to put tassels on this doorpost. If a four-cornered garment, which is exempt from a mezuzah, is obligated in tzitzit, then a doorpost, which is obligated in a mezuzah—shouldn’t it be all the more so obligated in tzitzit? A perfectly good a fortiori argument. There are hundreds of a fortiori arguments like this in the Talmud, right? A perfectly good a fortiori argument. Who can show me what is wrong with this argument? It is an excellent argument. The conclusion sounds obviously ridiculous to us. No one would think of putting tzitzit on a doorpost. The same thing, by the way, I could have learned in the other direction: to put a mezuzah on a four-cornered garment. If a doorpost, which is exempt from tzitzit, is obligated in mezuzah, then a four-cornered garment, which is obligated in tzitzit—shouldn’t it be all the more so obligated in mezuzah? Again, an argument that is an a fortiori argument and looks perfectly fine. But the conclusion is obviously nonsense. That is called pilpul.

So pilpul is like Purim Torah quips—good Purim Torah quips are pilpul. The inferences are such that it is hard for you to put your finger on what exactly is wrong with the inference, but the conclusion is of course nonsense. And basically I would say this is a kind of riddle. You have a riddle. After all, you know the conclusion is incorrect. That means something along the way is defective. So put your finger on what is wrong with the path. And that is not easy. If the pilpul is well built—and there are people who are masters at building pilpul, Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz for example, a master at building pilpul—then you say: something here stinks from the root, but I can’t put my finger on what is wrong in his inferences. Okay, so pilpul is something of value, because it sharpens you, it gives you a riddle, it is an intellectual challenge. Homily is just nonsense; a waste of Torah study. And of course both are incorrect. What should be right is an argument where both the argument is correct and the conclusion is correct. That is what it should be.

Okay, fine. In any case, here in this book, in a note below by the editor who brought it to print—the publisher was the grandson of the brother of the Sochatchover. His great-uncle, yes, his great-uncle was the Sochatchover, the author of Eglei Tal, the Avnei Nezer, right? He brings here below a note in the name of the Sochatchover. He says as follows: “And I heard from the holy mouth of my revered great-uncle, the holy genius, master of all the exiles,” yes, he doesn’t stop with the titles, “may he live long, head of the rabbinical court of Sochatchov,” and so on, “an explanation of the words of Tosafot above, based on the words of the Kuzari in article 3, section 49, that impurity exists only where there is holiness.” What does that mean?

His question is really this: how do we know here—and I’ve already gotten to the answer—but how do we know that the laws of doubtful impurity are different from the ordinary laws of doubt? A doubtful impurity in the public domain is pure; a doubtful impurity in the private domain is impure, and it makes no difference how many levels of doubt there are. So the Talmud learns this from the sotah, a suspected adulteress who secluded herself away from her husband, and the question is whether she became defiled or not. Once she secluded herself, that was in the private domain, so in a single doubt she is impure. If she did not seclude herself—if it was in the public domain—then whatever the level of doubt, she is pure. Okay, never mind, the Talmud learns it from there. The Sochatchover asks about our Talmudic discussion, the passage we saw here in Bava Kamma. You are telling me that this is about the prohibition of the woman to her husband after childbirth, and that it has nothing to do with impurity; it is a prohibition. But this whole law of doubtful impurity is learned from the prohibition of a woman to her husband, from sotah. So how can you tell me: no, no—here this is not a discussion of impurity, this is a discussion of the prohibition of the woman to her husband; impurity is something completely different. How is that connected to the prohibition of a woman to her husband? He says: what is the relation between all the laws of doubt in the prohibition of a woman to her husband and the laws of impurity? Okay? Is the question clear? Okay, so that is the question.

Now he answers it. He says: explain the words of Tosafot above based on the words of the Kuzari in article 3, that impurity exists only where there is holiness, such as with sanctified offerings, terumah, and tithes. Okay? What does that mean? In Jewish law there are concepts of holiness, impurity, prohibition, and permission. Holiness and impurity, prohibition and permission—these are not the same thing. They are different categories. What does that mean? Holiness belongs, and impurity belongs, only in a place of holiness. Where there is holiness, the opposite of that is impurity. Where there is permission, the opposite of that is prohibition. These are different categories. Okay? So he says: where do things belong that involve holiness? In sanctified offerings, sacrifices, the Temple, and so on. Terumah—this also involves holiness. Tithes, I’m not sure why he includes them too, but with terumah at least, that is also a matter of holiness. There impurity is relevant; therefore it is forbidden to render terumah impure, forbidden to enter the Temple in a state of impurity, forbidden for an impure priest to perform the service, because impurity disrupts holiness. Okay? Where there is holiness, impurity is problematic.

But where there is no holiness, it is not relevant to speak in terms of impurity. It does not operate in those categories. In the sphere of ordinary things there is no holiness and no impurity; it is just ordinary, neutral. That does not mean the domain of the ordinary is neutral in the sense that it does not matter what you do there. There are prohibition, permission, commandment—everything exists in the domain of ordinary life. But it does not belong to holiness and impurity. For example, in the Temple there are holiness and impurity. But the prohibition against eating pork does not belong to holiness and impurity; it belongs to the ordinary domain. It has nothing to do with holiness. But it is forbidden to eat pork and permitted to eat kosher meat. Okay? There is prohibition and commandment and everything, in the ordinary domain. In the sphere of holiness there are also impurity and holiness, which is a category unto itself.

Now the prohibition of a menstruant, or a woman after childbirth—it is the same point—toward her husband, that is a prohibition in the ordinary sphere. Right? It does not belong to holiness; it belongs to prohibitions. Okay? As written in tractate Hullin 31, where the Talmud discusses immersion. There is immersion in order to become pure regarding impurity, and there is immersion of a menstruant for her husband. The immersion of a menstruant for her husband belongs to the ordinary sphere; therefore, for example, intention is not needed in order to become permitted. For immersion relating to ordinary matters you need intention in order to become pure. So he says: a menstruant, in essence, the prohibition of a menstruant to her husband is a prohibition. In the ordinary sphere. It is not connected to holiness. Therefore, the fact that the Torah forbade a menstruant to her husband is not because of impurity, but simply a prohibition. See there in his delightful golden words. And these are the words of Tosafot above: that a doubt regarding a menstruant—or a woman after childbirth—for her husband is not judged as doubtful impurity in the private domain or the public domain, but simply as a doubtful prohibition.

Okay, a doubt involving a menstruant or a woman after childbirth, regarding the prohibition to her husband, is a doubt in prohibition. It is not a doubt in impurity. Just as Tosafot says: it is a doubtful prohibition, and therefore in a doubt we are stringent, and in a double doubt we are lenient. We asked: yes, but the whole law of doubtful impurity is learned from sotah, and sotah too is a prohibition of a woman to her husband. He says: correct, but the fact that we learn doubtful impurity in the public domain from sotah to her husband—where the husband is in the ordinary sphere—how is this considered doubtful impurity? after all, the prohibition of a woman to her husband is ordinary. So how do you learn the law of doubtful impurity from sotah?

So he says: when the Talmud says that “her husband is ordinary,” that is only with respect to the prohibition of menstruation, because the prohibition is not due to the betrothal, since even with an unmarried woman there is the liability of karet. If so, the prohibition of menstruation has no connection to betrothal, only to the act of intercourse itself. And so it is correct to regard “her husband” there as belonging to the ordinary sphere. But with a sotah, where the prohibition is only to her husband, to whom she is consecrated, and kiddushin—betrothal—has the language of sanctification, for he has forbidden her to everyone else like something consecrated. And the Talmud asks whether the consecration spreads to her whole being, comparing her to an offering. Since the prohibition of sotah continues by virtue of holiness, the prohibition is properly one of impurity, because it exists in a place of holiness, in accordance with the words of the Kuzari above. So a sotah with respect to her husband is indeed a case of doubtful impurity and not a doubtful prohibition. Whereas a menstruant, where the prohibition is not because of betrothal, but simply a prohibition, is considered a doubtful prohibition and not a doubtful impurity.

What is he saying? He says as follows. The prohibition of a woman who has gone astray—she is forbidden to the husband and to the adulterer. Right? She is forbidden to the husband. Why is she forbidden to the husband? Because she violated the holiness of the kiddushin, the marital sanctification. Why are kiddushin called kiddushin? Because there is an aspect of holiness there. The Talmud in Kiddushin 7b compares kiddushin to laws of sanctity. The Talmud there says that if someone betroths half a woman, the holiness extends to the whole of her, just as if someone consecrates half an animal, the holiness extends through the whole animal. We see that the Talmud compares kiddushin to the laws of consecration, to laws of holiness. That is why it is also called kiddushin; the Talmud says that he has forbidden her to all the world like something consecrated. When you betroth a woman, you make her forbidden to the rest of the world like consecrated property, which is forbidden for use by everyone else except for the needs of the Temple. Therefore kiddushin is a category of holiness.

If a woman went astray, then she has committed a trespass against him, as the Torah says. What does it mean that she committed a trespass against him? Me’ilah means desecration of holiness—that is what me’ilah is called, right? That means her prohibition to her husband is a prohibition in the category of impurity, because it is an injury to the holiness of the kiddushin. The indication of this is that after she did this with another man, she is not forbidden to everyone else. Only to the husband and the adulterer. It is not a general prohibition; it is not that she suddenly became some forbidden object to all men in the world. She is forbidden to the husband and the adulterer because of the injury she inflicted on the bond of kiddushin between them. Therefore, since this is an injury to holiness, the category of this prohibition is one of impurity, because impurity belongs only where there is holiness.

But a menstruant or a woman after childbirth—this is not a prohibition only to her husband; it is a prohibition for anyone who has relations with her. An unmarried woman who gave birth, or who is menstruating, it is forbidden to have relations with her, forbidden to have sexual relations with her. It has nothing to do with a husband; it has nothing to do with kiddushin. This is a state in which she herself becomes forbidden. That really is prohibition, not impurity. Since the prohibition here is not due to injury to holiness, it does not belong to injury to kiddushin, it is a prohibition like any other prohibition. Therefore, a doubt regarding a woman who went astray is a doubt of impurity, because the prohibition there is due to injury to holiness, to the kiddushin. And when there is a prohibition that comes due to injury to kiddushin, then it has the category of impurity. But the prohibition of a woman after childbirth or a menstruant is not connected to holiness at all, and therefore it is not in the category of impurity; it is a doubtful prohibition.

And that is what Tosafot says: the prohibition of the woman to her husband, when we are talking about a woman after childbirth—the woman after childbirth is not forbidden only to her husband; she is forbidden to everyone. Of course, as a practical matter she is only permitted to her husband, so that is the discussion. But the prohibition on a woman after childbirth is not specifically to her husband; it is not connected to some injury to the marital bond. On the contrary, the fact that she gave birth is what creates the bond. So there is no issue here of injury to holiness, and therefore the category of the prohibition is not impurity. That is why Tosafot says that the doubts here work under the definition of doubtful prohibition, not doubtful impurity. What we asked—that all doubtful impurity is learned from the prohibition of sotah to her husband, and that too is a prohibition of a woman to her husband—no. The prohibition of sotah to her husband is not like the prohibition of a woman after childbirth to her husband. The prohibition of sotah to her husband is because of injury to the holiness of their kiddushin, and therefore it has the category of impurity. Injury to holiness is impurity, and therefore the law of doubt concerning sotah to her husband is the law of doubtful impurity. By contrast, the law of doubt concerning a woman after childbirth to her husband is the law of doubtful prohibition. And that is really what Tosafot is saying.

Tosafot is saying that here the discussion is about doubtful prohibition, and therefore the rules are that in an ordinary doubt one must be stringent, while in a double doubt one may be lenient. And regarding the impurity of the woman after childbirth, which comes together with the prohibition—that is something else, independent. The impurity is discussed according to the rules of doubtful impurity in the public domain and in the private domain, depending on where it happened.

The whole business of impurity among menstruation and impurity—it is just an apparent similarity. Like when she sits during the days of purity, she is actually impure even now. No—she is impure. Again. With a menstruant there are two aspects: one aspect of impurity, which is really impurity—that she is impure and renders other things impure—but her prohibition to her husband is not connected to the impurity; these are two independent things. I did not say she has no impurity; she does have impurity. No, but according to what he says, holiness and impurity are totally separate. Her prohibition to her husband belongs to the ordinary sphere. No—there is impurity; even creeping creatures are not holy, and yet there is impurity in one who touches a creeping creature. Obviously. When the Torah says that a certain thing is impure, by that it tells us that it apparently belongs to the category of holiness and impurity. When the woman is menstruating, she has impurity, that is clear, and that is judged according to the rules of doubtful impurity. The claim is that the prohibition of the menstruating woman to her husband is not connected to her impurity; these are two different things. That prohibition is an ordinary prohibition. And of course there is also an aspect of impurity in her, and that is exactly what Tosafot says: if you discuss the woman’s impurity, then you go according to the rules of doubtful impurity, and she truly has that impurity. But if you discuss her prohibition to her husband, then the category is doubtful prohibition, not doubtful impurity.

So here is an example of the kind of analysis we do. We see that when a woman gives birth, or when she is menstruating, two things exist in her: there is impurity and there is a prohibition to her husband. The initial way of looking at it says: well, these are probably two sides of the same coin. They come together; it is not accidental that these two things come together. Probably… probably they are two sides of the same coin. Tosafot says: no, what are you talking about? There are two aspects here, and each one is basically independent of the other. It does not necessarily mean they are two sides of the same coin. That is just a lesson, an important lesson.

You know, there is a parable of Leibniz, the parable of the clocks. He says: imagine that you have two clocks, and both show exactly the same time, in complete synchronization all the time, exactly the same time. You can assume several possible explanations for this correspondence. One possibility is that clock A causes clock B. Clock A drags clock B along, and therefore there is correspondence between them. A second possibility is that clock B drags clock A along. A third possibility is that neither one drags the other; they are simply two things synchronized because of a third factor—which is of course the correct answer here: the clockmaker built the two clocks in such a way that they run in synchronization. But not because one depends on the other or is caused by the other. Okay? Therefore, when we see a correlation between two things, we have to be careful. Statisticians always warn about this: correlation does not imply causation. The fact that there is a correlation between two things does not mean there is a causal relation between them. Okay? There may be a correlation for other reasons; there may be some third factor causing this correlation, but it does not mean one is the cause of the other.

Like when people say it is not a good idea to go on a diet. You know why? Because people who go on a diet are fat. If you go on a diet, you will be fat. It is not a good idea, because everyone who diets is fat, and therefore it is not a good idea to diet. What is the problem here? There is a correlation, right? There is a correlation between fat people and people who diet. But do not infer from this that there is a causal relationship whereby dieting makes you fat. In this case, the causal relation is the opposite: whoever gets fat goes on a diet—or at least should go on a diet. Okay? So the jump from the existence of a correlation to the claim of a causal relationship is a problematic jump. You have to be careful with it.

There was once an article, a letter to the newspaper, by some professor from the Technion, who said that the State of Israel does not invest enough in higher education and this is showing up in GDP. Meaning, one has to increase investment in higher education in order to increase GDP. He had proof. What was the proof? Make a statistical comparison across countries in the world: the more a country invests in higher education, the higher its GDP. Therefore, if the State of Israel wants to increase its GDP, you think you are saving money by not investing in higher education, but you are mistaken—you are hurting yourself. Because if you invest, your GDP will be higher. What do you say? Is he right? It could be; the question is whether he is right. Think about it—logic, not information, logic. Is his logic correct? Hint: no. Why not? Because many times the causality can be the other way around. Countries with high GDP have lots of money, so they can invest in higher education. The question is what is cause and what is effect, just like the fat person and the diet. Okay? That does not mean that investment in higher education increases GDP. It may be that increased GDP causes investment in higher education. Maybe yes, maybe no; it could be that he is right. But when you present an argument, it is not enough that you might be right. When you present an argument, you have to show me that you are right, and there is no argument here. Okay? And this is a well-known fallacy.

You know, so many studies in medicine, for example—I don’t know—you drink coffee and it causes cancer. How do you know? Because you do statistics on populations of coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers, and you check how many cancer patients there are in each population. But maybe people who have cancer tend to drink coffee. Maybe, I don’t know. You cannot know. To know something like this, you need to do regressions; it is a more complicated story. You can try to deal with these things, though not always. You can try, but it is not trivial. A great many studies in psychology and medicine are not worth the paper they are written on. Really. And people quote them as solid facts. If you have a plausibility argument, then say you have a plausibility argument, forget the data. If it seems logical to you, then say it seems logical. But you want to prove to me that it is true. There is no proof here. He says: what do you mean? In the probabilities, that is how it works, that those who drank coffee got cancer. Why? Why? Where does this probability come from? What, do you know that cancer patients do not have a tendency to drink coffee? Do you know something about the matter? Fine, investigate. But you have to investigate, that is what I’m saying. You can investigate, but you have to investigate. This data by itself… Okay, and there is not a single study reported in the media that does not suffer from exactly this problem. None, you will not find one. I don’t want to say that in the original article it was necessarily like this, but when it is presented in the newspaper, at least—about the original article I want to hope that at least some of them do insist on orderly statistical thinking. But when it reaches the popular press, my ears ring every time I hear these things. Completely absurd arguments are presented as though they are facts. I mean—what, there are numbers, who can argue with numbers? Data, mathematics, science—how can you argue with that? It is crazy. There is not a single article in these fields that holds water. Nothing, simply nothing.

Anyway, for our purposes, what I want to say is that one must be careful with correlations. Correlations are misleading. Yes, in fact today I was talking about spurious correlations in one of the other classes. Think, for example—once I was riding on a bus and from the window I saw a sticker on a car that said: “Rabin has no mandate to return the Golan.” This was during Rabin’s government, never mind, almost thirty years ago already. During Rabin’s government the issue of the Golan with the Syrians came up again: whether to make an agreement, not make an agreement, and so on. And there were arguments, as usual. There were arguments. And the sticker said: “Rabin has no mandate to return the Golan.” I asked myself whether the car owner was on the right or on the left politically. What are his views? And I answered myself that I had no idea; I had no way of knowing. Why? He says he opposes it, no? So apparently a right-winger. No, not true. Because the question whether Rabin does or does not have a mandate to return the Golan is, at bottom, a moral question. Completely apart from the question of what you think on the political, security, ideological level—whether such an agreement is worthwhile or not. There are two opinions, okay? But quite independently of that there is a moral question, political morality.

You ran for election and announced that your policy was not to return the Golan. The Golan is a strategic asset; we do not relinquish it. Now, “things seen from there are not seen from here,” as someone said a few years after Rabin—the first one—and you changed your position. Meaning, that is legitimate, by the way; a person can change his mind. As Moshe Dayan said, only donkeys do not change their minds. A person can change his mind. The big question is whether you are allowed to act according to your changed view, or whether you need to go back to the public and say: friends, I changed my ideology. I ask you to vote for me; now my ideology is this. As they say: I have many principles, and if you don’t like them, I have plenty of others. In this case it is a joke, but changing one’s worldview is allowed, it is legitimate. A person can say: okay, I was mistaken, now I have a different worldview. But the question is whether he has to return to elections and ask the people for a mandate to act according to his new view. Because the mandate he received was for a different view, so who says he has a mandate to act according to his current best understanding? And I believe him that this is his best understanding—I am not now talking about someone doing things improperly. I mean that it really is his best understanding. Okay? Not a simple question; it is a difficult moral question in political ethics.

But you understand that this is completely independent of the substantive question of whether it is worthwhile to make an agreement with the Syrians or not worthwhile—ideologically, religiously, in terms of security, diplomatically, whatever you want. A completely different question, with no connection between them. How many groups should there be in the population? Two independent questions, elementary combinatorics: four, right? People who answer yes to the moral question and yes to the substantive one; yes and no; no and yes; no and no. Right? Four groups. Two independent questions, each with two sides—that is four groups. Okay? How many were there in practice? Two, right? There was one group that said Rabin has no mandate because it is immoral and also because such an agreement must not be made. And the second group said of course he has a mandate and it is very moral and everything is excellent, and it is also proper to make such an agreement. That’s it. The two off-diagonal groups did not exist. The group that says: listen, it is very moral, he can do what he thinks best, although I personally oppose an agreement with Syria—you did not hear such a voice in the argument. Or the opposite: I personally favor an agreement with Syria, but I think he has no mandate to do it because it is immoral; he ran on a different ticket. You did not hear that voice either. Out of four groups, in practice there were only two on the ground. Just two.

By the way, that is a relatively simple case. There was the story—I talked about it today in one of the classes I gave today—there was a ruling of the rabbinical court in Ashdod that invalidated all the conversions of Rabbi Druckman’s conversion system. It said outright that all the judges there were wicked, and therefore all the conversions were null. Because once the judges are wicked, that is not a religious court, and if there is no court the conversion is invalid. Okay? And this reached the higher rabbinical court of the Rabbinate, which approved that ruling, and then Rabbi Amar intervened and reversed it, meaning he nullified it. It created—yes—it turned thousands of Jews, who already had children and everything, into non-Jews, with the stroke of a pen. In any case, there was a whole argument around this matter.

Now, my impression from what I heard was that people had positions both ways—by the way, I did too. I thought he was right. Not that they were wicked, that they were wicked—rather, that they were mistaken; they did not require acceptance of the commandments in conversion, and in my opinion without acceptance of the commandments it is not a conversion. Okay? So on the substantive level I thought he was right. And there were opinions both ways. But after a few weeks the battle lines sorted themselves out. All the Religious Zionist rabbis came out against him and thought he was wrong, and all the Haredi rabbis were with him and thought he was right. Okay? That was it. There were two groups among the rabbis, among the opinions—not only rabbis of course; everyone expressed their opinions, you do not need to understand something in order to express an opinion about it. But even those who did understand divided into two groups.

Now, I wrote an article in Makor Rishon about the matter and said that without thinking at all, within ten seconds, I could present, I think, thirteen independent questions that one has to answer in order to form a position on that matter. Thirteen questions, each of which had a genuine side this way and a genuine side that way. These were not fictional questions. Okay? How many groups ought there to be in the population? Eight thousand, right? Two to the thirteenth. Eight thousand groups. Eight thousand different positions should have existed in the population. How many were there? Two. One group answered yes to all thirteen questions and one group answered no to all thirteen questions.

Now I remember, yes, I talked about this in a class on dispute and truth. The claim is that we are not intellectually honest. There may indeed be a person who happens by chance to answer yes to all thirteen questions or no to all thirteen questions; there is such a group too. But the fact that everyone sorts themselves into those groups means something here is not being conducted honestly. Why? Because people harness the answers to the questions to the goal they want to reach. Meaning, if in the end you want to reach the conclusion that they are all wicked and all their conversions should be invalidated, then you will answer no to all the questions. And if you want to reach the conclusion that they are righteous and the conversions are valid, then you will answer yes to all the questions. But not because you examined each question separately and reached a conclusion about it, but because you know where you want to get and you harness all the questions toward that end. Or in other words, you are conducting yourself in an intellectually dishonest way. You are thinking simplistically, dishonestly. Okay? In a certain sense, you are lying.

What should one do? What one should do is think about each of the questions and form a position on it. It could be that on question one, two, three, seven, ten, eleven, and fifteen I will say yes, and on the others I will say no. Okay? Then in the end I need to form an overall position, so I will weigh all the considerations and finally arrive at one position or the other. You can reach a bottom-line position even through complex thinking. But you do not have to give up the complex thinking and think in black and white. True, it will be harder to decide. Fine—life is no picnic, as our sages used to say. That is part of the matter. You have to think in a complex way because that is the world.

That is why the Talmud says that someone who was a candidate for the Sanhedrin had to be able to declare a creeping creature pure using one hundred and fifty arguments. They tested him: did he have one hundred and fifty reasons to declare pure a creeping creature that the Torah says is impure? There is no question here. Why? So Rabbenu Tam asks: why do I need empty pilpulim? Am I testing him to be a Purim rabbi? He is a judge on the Sanhedrin, not a Purim rabbi. He does not need to say pilpulim, like I said earlier. The answer is no—there really are one hundred and fifty reasons to declare the creeping creature pure. These are one hundred and fifty correct reasons. And there are also one hundred and fifty reasons to declare the creeping creature impure. In the end the Torah says the creeping creature is impure because the one hundred and fifty reasons to declare it impure outweigh the reasons to declare it pure. Fine, so they prevail, they are more significant. But that does not mean there are not one hundred and fifty reasons to declare it pure. All three hundred reasons are correct. In the end you have to form a position by weighing all the reasons in all directions and deciding what to do with this whole mess. But you have to be aware of all three hundred aspects and then arrive at a conclusion.

Okay? Again, I remembered correlations—these are spurious correlations. There are correlations between two questions that have no real connection. Whoever answers yes to the moral question will answer yes to the political question, and vice versa, even though there is no connection between the political and the moral question. Once again, a correlation with no causality behind it. There is no real cause creating a link between the political question and the moral question. Okay? So this is another example of confusion between correlation and causality. There is no causality, there is correlation. And one has to be careful: when we see a correlation, we have some tendency to jump immediately to the conclusion that there is some causal relationship here or some essential link between the two things. But no, sometimes a correlation can rest not on causality but on some other basis.

Okay? So in our context there is prohibition and impurity regarding a woman after childbirth; there is both prohibition and impurity, so the correlation exists, right? When she gives birth she is both impure and forbidden to have relations with her husband. The question is whether this correlation hides causality behind it. Is there a connection between these two things? Tosafot says: no, there is no connection. The laws of prohibition are one thing and the laws of impurity are another, and there can be cases where the woman is impure but not forbidden to her husband, and a case where she is forbidden to her husband but not impure—in a double doubt in the private domain or in an ordinary doubt in the public domain. So this is an example of analysis, conceptual Talmudic analysis of concepts.

Let us see another example. There is a question—I am talking about homiletic interpretation and plain meaning, plain meaning and interpretation—there is a question: what is the relation between the plain meaning and the interpreted meaning? We say “an eye for an eye,” so in the Torah it says that if someone takes out another person’s eye, we take out his eye. The Sages interpret “an eye for an eye” to mean monetary payment—he pays the value of the eye, but we do not put out his eye. Okay? That is an interpretation. What is the relation between the interpretation and the plain meaning? The Torah did not write “money for an eye”; it wrote “an eye for an eye.” If it meant money, why did it not write that?

Here one has to pay careful attention that there are approaches that want to claim that the interpreted meaning is actually the depth of the plain meaning. In the plain sense there are difficulties, or you make comparisons to other places, I don’t know, broader considerations than just the literal meaning, and therefore you are forced to reach what we call interpretation. But really, this is the true plain meaning if you look at the whole array of considerations, not only at the literal wording. Okay? So the interpretation is really the true plain meaning. There is such a claim—the HaKetav VeHaKabbalah, no matter, there are several Torah commentators who think this way.

The problem all these people do not answer is: okay, I understand, there are all kinds of difficulties and comparisons to other places, and therefore apparently “an eye for an eye” means money. Why did the Torah not write it? Let it write “money for an eye.” Why does it write to me “an eye for an eye,” which is not correct, and rely on me to do all kinds of investigations and comparisons and then eventually reach the conclusion: no, no, the Torah means money? Even if we grant that you are right—that there are difficulties in the plain meaning and it must be interpreted as money—you still need to explain to me why the Torah phrased it incorrectly. That question is usually not answered. Whenever people try to explain the idea behind interpretation, they come and show you what difficulties there are in the plain meaning. They say: in the literal plain meaning there are difficulties, therefore you have to arrive at the interpretation. But I say: fine, even if I grant that you are right, you still have to explain to me why the Torah wrote the plain meaning in a way that creates difficulties and therefore requires interpretation. It wrote it incorrectly—why? Why did it formulate it that way?

So there is—do you know who David Henshke is? He is a professor of Talmud here. When he was a nineteen-year-old young man, he wrote an article in HaMaayan, actually a series of three articles, on the relationship between plain meaning and interpretation. There he made a very interesting claim. He basically wanted to argue that… maybe I’ll first mention another possibility. One possibility is that the interpretation is the depth of the plain meaning. A second possibility is that the plain meaning tells you what would ideally have been, and the interpretation tells you what we do in practice. Ideally it would have been proper to put out your eye, but in practice you pay money. This explains why the Torah wrote it in a way that is not technically accurate. Okay? He suggested another proposal. He argues that both the interpretation and the plain meaning are legally correct. Both are correct in Jewish law, and the law is actually some sort of mixture or combination of the interpreted and the plain meaning together.

I’ll give an example, for instance with “an eye for an eye.” How much money must be paid? Which money? The value of his eye, or the value of my eye? There is an opinion in the Talmud that I have to pay the value of my eye, not the value of his eye. In damages, usually you pay for what you damaged. If you damaged his eye, you should pay what his eye is worth. Why on earth would you pay the value of my eye? So Henshke says as follows. It says “an eye for an eye.” “An eye for an eye” means that if you took out someone’s eye, your eye should be taken out. Besides that, there is another rule: we do not take out people’s eyes; instead, we take money from them in place of taking out their eyes. But if you take money instead of taking out his eye, then the money should be the value of my eye, not the value of the injured party’s eye. Because that money is in exchange for my eye, not for his eye. You could say it is punitive money; not compensatory money. Punitive money—but instead of punishing me by taking out my eye, they punish me by making me pay the value of my eye. But it is my eye, not his.

Then he says: if the Torah had said “he shall pay money for an eye”—now pay attention—if the Torah had said that, what would we say? That was my question: why doesn’t the Torah write the correct thing—let it write “he shall pay money for an eye.” Right? Then we would say that he must pay the value of the eye he damaged, because that would be compensation for the eye he took out, right? If it had written only “an eye for an eye,” and that was all, then they would literally take out an eye. What does the Torah do? The Torah explicitly writes “an eye for an eye”; literally, it writes “an eye for an eye.” But there are additional interpretive considerations—in this case a verbal analogy from “under” to “under”—and these further interpretive considerations tell me that this “eye” means money, money for an eye. So now I have two correct interpretations. One must take out an eye for an eye, and that is legally true; and one must take money for an eye, and that too is legally true. Now I join the two together and say: in fact the law is the combination of the interpreted meaning and the plain meaning together. The plain meaning says: take out my eye in place of the eye I took out. And the interpretation adds: yes, yes, but instead of my eye, take the money—the value of my eye. And together, the plain meaning and the interpretation give me the law as it stands. That is the relation between plain meaning and interpretation.

What is the difference between compensating based on your eye and compensating based on his eye? For example, if he—I don’t know—has the eye of a Torah scribe; he can’t be a Torah scribe without an eye, so his eye is worth millions. But I, say, work in a dark room; my eye is not all that significant. Fine, when we evaluate people—it is a question how one evaluates people at all—we evaluate them as though they were slaves. How much he is worth as a slave. That is how we determine how much one must pay for the damage done to him. Hebrew slave or Canaanite slave—that is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—but one evaluates him as a slave. Slaves have different values; they may have good eyes, bad eyes, whether they are strong or not, depending on what kind of work you want to use him for. So it matters a lot whether he has an eye or does not have an eye, depending on what kind of work we are talking about. What? Teeth? Same thing. Everything. What do you want to do with him? I don’t know—if he is tasting foods for you in your factory, and that is why you hired him, then what he has in his mouth matters, I don’t know. Any such thing can depend on what the person is or what one wants to do with him. So for our purposes that does not matter; I am not going into that right now. I just want to show here an example of how the interpreted and the plain meaning are both correct, and the combination of the two is what gives me the law.

Another example he brings there is a contradiction between two sections in the Torah. In one section, in parashat Mishpatim—the weekly Torah portion—a servant who does not want to leave his master says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go free,” and then “his ear shall be pierced, and he shall serve him forever.” So he serves him forever. Instead of the regular six years of a Hebrew slave, he remains a perpetual slave. In parashat Behar, where the laws of the Jubilee year appear, it says that all slaves go free in the Jubilee. Thirty years passed since I bought him; the Jubilee arrived. I bought him in the twentieth year of the Jubilee cycle; another thirty years passed and the Jubilee arrived; the slave goes free. How can that be? after all in Mishpatim it says “and he shall serve him forever.” Yes, the Talmud in Kiddushin says this means: for the world of the Jubilee. What does “for the world of the Jubilee” mean? What is this, wordplay? What does “for the world of the Jubilee” mean?

So Henshke says in his article: “forever.” He wants to argue: what is the difference between perpetual ownership and temporary ownership? This depends somewhat on disputes among the medieval authorities, but the simple conception is that perpetual ownership is ownership of the essence, while temporary ownership is ownership of use. What does that mean? Let us say I bought something and it belongs to me completely. Okay? Then its very substance is mine. I am the owner of it. And besides that I can also use it. Fine. But it itself is mine. By contrast, if the object is mine for two years, say, land or an object or whatever is mine for two years, then you cannot say that its very substance is mine. Am I allowed to destroy it? In two years I have to return it to the owner; it is only mine for two years. Right? I am allowed only to use it. It is mine for its uses, its produce, but it is not mine in its very substance. Its very substance is not mine. Okay? That is what the Ran in Nedarim and other medieval authorities say: ownership of the essence is perpetual ownership, while temporary ownership is ownership of use; it is not ownership of the essence.

Now Henshke says: we have two passages regarding the pierced servant. In one, it says he serves forever. What does that mean? No, no—forever means forever. What does forever mean? Ownership of the essence. Right, he belongs to me like an ox or a donkey; he is my property. Fine. Ownership of the essence. Then parashat Behar comes and says that he goes free in the Jubilee. What does that mean? It is not that it becomes ownership of use; it is ownership of the essence that ends in the Jubilee. It is ownership of the essence for a fixed time. Therefore both passages remain fully in place, both are true. He also serves forever in the sense that he belongs to me with permanent ownership, ownership of the essence, but he also goes free in the Jubilee. In what sense is this ownership of the essence if he goes free in the Jubilee? What practical difference does it make? No, there are practical consequences to his belonging to me by ownership of the essence—I don’t know, for example he may eat terumah. Never mind, various things like that. If I am a priest, yes. So he is ownership of the essence for a time.

Look, think for example of the following case: suppose you sold me a table. Now I owed the king a thousand shekels in taxes and didn’t pay. The king’s officers come and take my table; they confiscate the table because of the debt to the king. Okay? Now the table belongs to the king. So the table was with me for a year. Was it owned by me with ownership of the essence during that year, or only ownership of use? Why? after all it was only for a year? But it was mine. And it was only for a year. We said ownership for a limited time is ownership of use, not ownership of the essence. It was supposed to be forever. Right. Meaning: when I bought it, I bought it forever; I did not buy it from the start for a fixed time. I bought it forever; therefore it is ownership of the essence. After a year the king comes and takes it from me. It is not that from the outset the acquisition was for one year; the acquisition was permanent. At some point the king came. I could also just sell it, without confiscation—simply sell it onward. So because of that, was it not mine with ownership of the essence beforehand? Of course it was. I decided to sell it after a year or two, so I sold it. As long as the initial sale does not contain a built-in time limit, it is not ownership of use but ownership of the essence. In the original sale I bought it completely. Afterward all sorts of things can happen. Natural forces, an earthquake could destroy the table, there could be a fire, the king could come, or I could sell it. But that is not built into the original sale. The original sale was without limitation and without qualification. Therefore it is mine with ownership of the essence. And afterward the king can come and expropriate it.

Now the Jubilee, the Talmud says, is the king’s expropriation. When things go free in the Jubilee—lands or various things like that, slaves who go free in the Jubilee—that is expropriation by the king, and the King is the Holy One, blessed be He. He expropriates this property from us. What does it mean that it is the king’s expropriation? That when I sold you the land or the slave for an unlimited duration, it becomes yours with ownership of the essence. When the Jubilee comes, it is as if the king comes and confiscates your property from you. It is not that from the outset this was a sale until the Jubilee. The sale is forever. There is simply a law that when the Jubilee comes, the king comes and takes from you slaves and lands. Since Jubilee is the king’s expropriation, that means the acquisition from the outset was a perpetual acquisition; it really was perpetual. “And he shall serve him forever” is not just that it is ownership of the essence; he really serves him forever. He acquired him forever. He is his completely, permanently. Except that after twenty or thirty years the Jubilee arrives and the king comes and confiscates it from me. Fine? This is not built into the original sale; it is an event that happens later.

Therefore, the original acquisition was acquisition forever and was ownership of the essence, and yet in the Jubilee it goes free. What that effectively means is that here there is ownership of the essence for a fixed time, which is almost an oxymoron. Usually ownership of the essence is permanent, and temporary ownership is ownership of use. But here we see: no, the Torah wants to tell me that in this situation there is ownership of the essence for a fixed time. How can it say that? If it had said only “and he shall serve him forever”—again, exactly like “an eye for an eye”—we have two passages, one says “and he shall serve him forever,” one says he goes free in the Jubilee. If only the first passage existed, “and he shall serve him forever,” then I would understand that this is ownership of the essence forever; he does not go free in the Jubilee, right? He is mine forever. If only the second passage existed, that he goes free in the Jubilee, I would say this is ownership of use; I bought him until the Jubilee. Okay? But now both passages are written—he serves forever and he goes free in the Jubilee. What does that mean? That both laws are true. He is mine with perpetual ownership, ownership of the essence, and in the Jubilee he is expropriated. There is no other way to say this except by writing two apparently contradictory passages. Therefore these two passages are not contradictory; they are cumulative, and together they create the law, exactly as with “an eye for an eye,” where the interpreted and the plain meaning together create the law even though they apparently contradict each other. It is an eye and it is money—decide, eye or money, that is a contradiction. Or Jubilee or forever—that is a contradiction. No, it is not a contradiction. When you look on the conceptual level, you understand that the sum of these two contradictory instructions is actually the law we are talking about.

Okay, and this sort of analysis is also conceptual Talmudic analysis, because I am saying: when I look at ownership over a thing, I can look at it on the axis of time—whether it is for a fixed time or forever—and on the essential axis—whether it is ownership of the essence or ownership of use. Now, at first glance there seems to be a connection between these two things. Ownership of the essence is forever, and ownership of use is for a fixed time. But now suddenly we see that these are not two sides of the same coin. You see that this is exactly like impurity and prohibition. You see that they are not two sides of the same coin; there can be a situation of ownership of the essence for a fixed time. In the same way that a woman can be impure but permitted to her husband, or pure and forbidden to her husband. In other words, we see that these are not two sides of the same coin. One can appear without the other. In that sense, with ownership for time, the claim is that the time element is only a sign. It is a sign of the quality of the ownership. Unlimited time is a sign that the ownership is ownership of the essence. Limited time is a sign that the ownership is ownership of use. But time here serves only as a sign, not as a cause.

This is another common conceptual distinction, by the way: the question whether something is a sign or a cause. For example, if I am talking about signs of maturity in a boy or girl, the Talmud brings several signs—two pubic hairs, say, for a boy, never mind, and with a girl too there are two hairs or such and such physiological signs of maturity. Okay, the question that always arises in this context is whether these signs are a sign or a cause. Does the appearance of the signs make you legally mature by definition—meaning, being mature means physical maturity, so the physical signs show that you are mature? Or no—the signs, as their name indicates, are only a sign that you are mature. Meaning, if you have these signs, you are probably mature, but the maturity being discussed is mental maturity, not physiological maturity. The physiology is some sign that we use for maturity.

For example, what happens if someone is biologically incapable—a eunuch, an aylonit, people who do not develop these signs for biological reasons, not because they did not mature? Then it may be that we view them as mature even without the signs, because the sign is only a sign, not a cause. And if it is a cause, then not. The same with the deaf-mute, the mentally incompetent, and the minor. If I say: if he is deaf, is that a sign that he is mentally incompetent, or does the deafness itself deprive him of legal competence and that is that? It could be. If, for example, I have deaf people today—deaf-mutes who know how to communicate in sign language—then they have understanding; they are competent people even though they are deaf-mutes. So if I understand deafness as a sign and not as a cause, I can say that they are legally competent even though they are deaf-mutes. One can separate between the sign and what it signifies, because they do not always go together. Usually it is an indication, but only an indication. If the thing itself is what determines, then nothing else interests me. Once you tell me he is deaf, he is exempt from the commandments. Not because deafness is a sign of lack of understanding, but because deafness itself exempts him from the commandments, then I do not care whether he has understanding or not. He is deaf, that is it. Deaf, again—in the Talmud this means deaf-mute.

So the discussion that arose here in the examples I brought connects us to another common conceptual distinction: the distinction between a sign and a cause. Right? The question is whether time in acquisition is a sign or a cause. Meaning, “and he shall serve him forever”—does that mean this is the thing itself, that he serves him forever, or no? “And he shall serve him forever” means only that this is a sign that his ownership is ownership of the essence. In that case it is not really forever; in the Jubilee he goes free. It is only a sign that the ownership is ownership of the essence. Because usually perpetual ownership is ownership of the essence. Here in this case it really is not perpetual ownership, but it behaves like perpetual ownership. The perpetual element is given here as a sign and not as a cause.

Another example of this kind of analysis appears in the ninth root of Maimonides. Before the Sefer HaMitzvot of Maimonides there are fourteen roots in which he explains the rules according to which he counted the commandments. Okay? There are fourteen roots in which he establishes the rules for how he counts the commandments—what enters into the 613 commandments, how the commandments are counted. The ninth root out of the fourteen is the root you have before you: that one should not count the positive and negative commands themselves, but rather the things that one is commanded to do and the things one is warned against. What does that mean? Maimonides says as follows. Know that all the commands and warnings of the Torah are only in four things—this is an introduction. Later he explains his intent in the root. And when these matters occur—this is what matters for us—then what should be counted are the matters one is commanded about or warned about, whether they involve action, speech, belief, or character trait, and we do not pay attention to the multiplicity of commands that came regarding that matter if it is something commanded, nor to the multiplicity of warnings that came regarding it if it is something forbidden. For they all are only for reinforcement. For sometimes a warning is repeated about one and the same matter for reinforcement, and likewise a command is repeated for reinforcement as well.

Okay? For example—he gives a sample. This is his conclusion. It has already been explained that the number of commandments does not increase because of a multiplicity of positive or negative formulations. The fact that the Torah warns many times does not mean there are many commandments. It is already known—here is an example—that the command regarding the Sabbath rest is repeated in the Torah twelve times. Could anyone among those counting commandments imagine saying that included among the positive commandments, the rest on the Sabbath is actually twelve commandments? The Torah says twelve times that there is a commandment to rest on the Sabbath. Does anyone count twelve positive commandments to rest on the Sabbath? No. Why not? The Torah repeats the same commandment twelve times; it is one commandment. Why does it repeat it? For our benefit, to strengthen it. That is what Maimonides claims. Nachmanides disagrees, but never mind. The Torah repeats this commandment for some reason, but that does not make it twelve commandments. There is one commandment to rest on the Sabbath.

The same applies to warnings, to prohibitions. There too the Torah repeats things many times. For example, with eating blood: the warning against eating blood appears seven times. Would any sensible person think and say that the prohibition of blood is seven commandments? This is something no one would err about—to say that Sabbath rest is one commandment among the positive commandments, and the warning against eating blood is one commandment among the negative commandments. Right. That is obvious, says Maimonides. If the Torah repeats something many times, that does not mean there are many commandments. Everything is determined by the question: what is the content of the matter? If there is one content, that is one commandment. That is the first part of the root.

Now, “and what should be joined to this root” is the second part of the root. “And what should be joined to this root is what I am about to explain, namely: what we said—that it is fitting to count the matters one is commanded concerning and warned about—is on condition that in the matter prohibited there is a distinct prohibition for each and every matter, or some proof transmitted by the tradition that the matter has been divided into parts and made independently liable.” And this is because they said: “You shall not eat over the blood.” There is a verse in parashat Kedoshim, “You shall not eat over the blood.” They explained it as follows: from where do we know that one who eats from an animal before its life departs transgresses a negative commandment? The verse says, “You shall not eat over the blood.” Another interpretation: from where do we know that one who eats sacrificial meat before the blood has been thrown has transgressed a negative commandment? The verse says, “You shall not eat over the blood”—do not eat meat while the blood is still in the bowl. Rabbi Dosa says: from where do we know that we do not provide a condolence meal for those executed by the court? The verse says, “You shall not eat over the blood.” Rabbi Akiva says: from where do we know that a Sanhedrin that executed a person does not taste anything the whole rest of that day? The verse says, “You shall not eat over the blood.” Rabbi Yose son of Rabbi Hanina said: from where do we know the warning to the stubborn and rebellious son? The verse says, “You shall not eat over the blood.” Here are five matters, all of which are forbidden, and they are all included under this single prohibition.”

There is one prohibition of “You shall not eat over the blood,” and it contains five different prohibitions that have nothing to do with each other. Okay? And further they said in Berakhot 10: from where do we know that a person should taste nothing before he prays? The verse says, “You shall not eat over the blood”—do not eat before you pray for your blood, for your life. Which is interesting, because Maimonides seems to imply from this that eating before prayer is a Torah prohibition, a Torah-level negative commandment learned from “You shall not eat over the blood.” Do not eat before you pray for your life. Usually we are used to thinking of it as some rabbinic prohibition so as not to be distracted or things of that kind. But never mind. For our purposes, there are six different prohibitions here, independent of each other, all learned from the verse “You shall not eat over the blood.”

Maimonides says: all these things—and it is not proper to count every single prohibition included under this one verse as a commandment unto itself—but rather one counts only the prohibition itself, which includes all these matters. So in this case, if I have what is called a general prohibition, a broad prohibition, and five or six different prohibitions are learned from it, how many commandments do we count in the enumeration of commandments? One. Because we do not have a separate verse for each of these transgressions. Even though they are different prohibitions, you count one commandment that has five implications or five clauses.

Rabbi Yerucham Perla, in his work on the commandments of Rav Saadia Gaon—yes, there is a Sefer HaMitzvot of Rav Saadia Gaon; it is two words on each commandment, the 613 commandments, a few pages, a kind of poem. The edition we know of Sefer HaMitzvot of Rav Saadia is three thick volumes; all of it is Rabbi Yerucham Perla’s notes. In the yeshivot they joke about it: “Rabbi Yerucham Perla’s Sefer HaMitzvot with notes by Rav Saadia Gaon.” Anyway, his notes are marvelous, a wonderful work, by the way. But in his introduction, Rabbi Yerucham Perla discusses the various roots of Maimonides and whether Rav Saadia agrees with them or not, what the other medieval authorities think, and so on. In his essay on the ninth root he raises an objection to Maimonides.

He says: Maimonides, in the first part of the ninth root you said that if the Torah repeats twelve times the commandment to keep the Sabbath, we count one commandment. Why? Because although we have many commands, they all have one content. What determines the count is the contents. If there is one content, that is one commandment. The number of commands does not matter, right? What happens in the second part of the root? There Maimonides talks about a broad prohibition. What do I have there? One command with five contents, right? Or six contents. Maimonides says we count one commandment. So do we go by the commands or by the contents? No, Maimonides says no. “You shall not eat over the blood”—do not eat before you pray for your life, do not eat while the blood is still in the bowl, do not eat… There is no connection between these things. It does not seem there is anything common among them; otherwise it would not be a broad prohibition. A broad prohibition means—not that one prohibition has many applications; many prohibitions have many applications under various circumstances. A broad prohibition is when different prohibitions emerge from the same verse. If it were really one prohibition with one root and just different applications, that would not be a broad prohibition; that would just be a regular prohibition. A broad prohibition is when there are different prohibitions and they share one verse.

So Rabbi Yerucham Perla says: the first part of the ninth root contradicts the end of the ninth root. In the first part, Maimonides says what matters is the contents. I do not care if there are many commands; if there is one content, one commandment. What determines the count is the contents, not the commands. In the second part Maimonides says: I have five different contents under one command. What determines the count is the command, not the contents. So what if there are five contents? There is one command, so it is one commandment. So Rabbi Yerucham Perla says: I do not understand—do the commands determine or do the contents determine? You are contradicting yourself. At the beginning you said the contents determine; at the end you say the commands determine. A frontal contradiction.

What do you say? Completely right. Exactly. Right—we are already practiced in these syntheses. Basically we have broken down the concept of a commandment into its components, and now I say: in every commandment there is the command that appears in the Torah and there is the content about which the Torah commands. Right? Two things. And now I ask myself: okay, this is the analysis; now I have two components. What do I do with these two components? What is the relationship between them in constituting the concept of commandment? You could say only the command matters, or only the content matters, or both, or one on condition of the other, the other on condition of the first, all the possibilities we saw in the investigation of damaging property, right? So here too, exactly the same.

The answer here is very simple, and Rabbi Yerucham Perla remains with the matter unresolved. I do not understand the problem. It is obvious that what is needed in order for a commandment to count as a commandment is both things: it needs to have its own unique content, and it needs to have its own separate command. If one of the components is missing, it is not counted as a commandment. In the first part of the root, Maimonides says that if the contents are missing, then it is not counted as a commandment. In the second part of the root, Maimonides says that if the commands are missing, then it is not counted as a commandment. Because you need both.

And once again this shows you why the disease of yeshiva-style analysis is dichotomy. You decide that it must be either this or that, and you never take into account that it might be both together. You do not have to decide dichotomously either this or that. Maybe it is both together; maybe some sort of combination of them. Therefore, after doing the analysis one must always think about the different possibilities of synthesis—how do I combine these two things? And essentially, Maimonides’ claim is that in order for a commandment to be counted in the enumeration of commandments, two requirements must be met. One requirement is that it have a unique content of its own that is not included in other commandments. The second requirement is that it have a separate command of its own, not be included within the command for other commandments. If both these requirements are fulfilled, then it is a commandment that will be counted in the count of commandments. If one of them is missing, then not.

Okay, so here is an example of analysis and synthesis, where someone who does only the analysis gets stuck. You have a question against Maimonides. But pay attention: after you break the thing into its components, think what to do with the components. It is not that now you must decide either component A or component B. No—there are also stages of synthesis. It may be both A and B, it may be A on condition of B, B on condition of A, all kinds of combinations are possible. Or A or B—I said that is less likely, but theoretically even that is possible. Therefore the stage of synthesis is no less important than the stage of analysis. One must always check it after doing the analysis.

I’ll say one sentence and finish with this point, because next time I’ll continue from here and use this again. Basically what this analysis shows is that the concept of a commandment contains two components. When I perform a commandment—so says the Ramchal in several places—when I perform a commandment, I have done two things. One thing: I have fulfilled the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. That has value in itself; I obeyed the command. A second thing: why did the Holy One, blessed be He, command me to do this? Apparently this act has some positive result; it comes to achieve something. Okay? So when I did the commandment, first I obeyed the command; second, I produced the benefit for the sake of which this commandment exists. Let us call them the command and the essence.

Okay? If I commit a transgression, again there are two aspects. One aspect is that I rebelled against the command; that in itself is wrong. Second, why does the Torah define this as a transgression? Apparently if I do this, it does something bad—I don’t know, causes harm in some way. So if I commit a transgression, there are really two aspects to the problematic nature of the act: one aspect is the rebellion against the command, the disobedience; the second aspect is the essence. If you do such a thing—I don’t know, ate pork—it dulls your soul. Fine? So besides the fact that by eating pork you did not obey the Torah’s command, there is also the spiritual consequence that your soul has been dulled.

Okay? So in every commandment and every transgression there are two aspects. I think that this distinction of Maimonides that we saw—that every commandment needs both the command and the essence—really stems from this point of the Ramchal. Why is that? Because every Torah-level commandment must have a command and it must have an essence. Why? Because if I perform it, then I both fulfill the command and bring about the essential benefit. And if I transgress it, then I both rebel against the command and bring about the harm that the prohibition aims to prevent. Okay? And for that reason, for every commandment to count as a Torah-level commandment, it needs a command and it needs content, it needs an essence.

Okay, so that is what lies behind the conceptual mathematical exercise we did with the ninth root of Maimonides. In the ninth root I only did a kind of logical analysis, meaning I showed that a commandment needs a command and it also needs separate content. What lies behind this? What lies behind it is the conception of what a commandment is. In a broad prohibition there is content but no command? Right, right. It is not enough rebellion for it to count as real rebellion, because it is just a clause within one verse; maybe you did not think the verse was commanding that, maybe you thought it was commanding something else. It is not written there clearly enough, so that is not enough for it to count as rebellion. That does not mean it is unrelated to the verse; it appears in some form through the verse. Fine?

Okay, so let’s stop here. I’ll continue from this point next time.