Study and Halachic Rulings – Lesson 10

Table of Contents

• The status of rabbinic laws as akin to legal studies
• Definitions, safeguards, and the example of poultry with milk
• Hanukkah and Purim as rabbinic laws with substantive meaning
• Hatam Sofer, Lag BaOmer, and community Purims
• Bahag, Maimonides, and the status of derashot and kal va-chomer arguments
• Torah study as cleaving to God's will
• Nedarim 8a, an oath regarding a commandment, and reciting Shema as the minimum
• Torah study as a value that does not fit into formal Jewish law
• Rabbi Yisrael Salanter: “Study it and receive reward” and the blessing over Torah
• The blessing over Torah: a blessing of praise versus a blessing over commandments, and women
• Menachot 99b: “It shall not depart,” the unlearned masses, and Greek wisdom
• “This verse is neither an obligation nor a commandment, but a blessing” and completing the passage
• Berakhot: “What will become of Torah?” and the absence of a contradiction
• Implications: women, logical reasoning, and clarifying the boundaries of rabbinic law

Summary

General overview

The claim is that rabbinic laws are similar to legal studies: they are a halakhically binding system by force of “do not deviate,” but clarifying the words of the Sages is itself a factual clarification and not Torah study, because it does not involve engagement with the essence of the Holy One blessed be He's will, but with commands and boundaries. The possible exception is laws such as Hanukkah and Purim, which have behind them a substantive value of giving thanks for a miracle, and therefore it may be that studying them is “rabbinic Torah study” or Torah of rabbinic origin. From there a conception is built according to which Torah study is cleaving to God's will—“He and His will are one”—and it is broader than the formal commandment of Torah study; on that basis the concept of neglect of Torah study is explained, as well as the meaning of “study it and receive reward,” the significance of the blessing over Torah, and the distinction between study for the sake of knowing what to do and study as something of intrinsic value.

The status of rabbinic laws as akin to legal studies

The claim states that rabbinic laws are an additional legal system, binding like dina de-malkhuta dina and the accepted local custom, and therefore one must clarify what the Sages said in order to know what to do. Clarifying what was said in rabbinic law is defined as a collection of facts and not as Torah study, similar to clarifying what the civil law says or what so-and-so vowed. The claim concludes that rabbinic laws are “not part of the Torah,” and that involvement with them is not called studying Torah, indeed “not even Torah in the person,” because they do not reveal divine insights but only boundaries and safeguards.

Definitions, safeguards, and the example of poultry with milk

The claim uses the example of poultry with milk to show that the rabbinic prohibition does not express an essential problem in the act itself, but rather a concern that one may come to meat with milk. The claim states that there is no point in analyzing “what is bad about poultry with milk,” because “there is nothing bad about poultry with milk,” and the entire content is simply knowing what to beware of because the Sages decreed it. The comparison to law returns here as well: the law or decree binds by force of authority, but does not reflect “God's will” in and of itself.

Hanukkah and Purim as rabbinic laws with substantive meaning

The claim takes out of the rule those rabbinic laws that really do have substantive meaning behind them, especially Hanukkah and Purim, because they “have independent status” and are not merely an added safeguard for Torah-level laws. The claim defines their value as marking miracles, giving thanks to the Holy One blessed be He, and an act that has value in its own right and not just as a means to something else. The claim suggests that perhaps involvement in such rabbinic laws is Torah study “of rabbinic origin,” and maybe even “Torah in the object itself, but rabbinic.”

Hatam Sofer, Lag BaOmer, and community Purims

The story is brought from the responsa of Hatam Sofer: he did not want to immigrate to the Land of Israel so as not to get entangled in matters of Lag BaOmer, because in the Land of Israel they celebrate Lag BaOmer, which according to Pri Hadash involves the prohibition of adding to the Torah, and he did not want to quarrel but also did not want to be part of it. Hatam Sofer distinguishes between Lag BaOmer and the “Purims” of communities, such as Purim Casablanca and Purim Frankfurt, which were established because of a miracle that happened to a community. Hatam Sofer justifies these communal Purims by force of the Talmud's kal va-chomer argument in tractate Megillah regarding Purim, and presents the reading of the Megillah as “its reading is itself praise,” so that giving thanks for deliverance from death to life is learned as something of real force and not as adding to the Torah.

Bahag, Maimonides, and the status of derashot and kal va-chomer arguments

Hatam Sofer uses a kal va-chomer argument to explain the view of Bahag, who counts Hanukkah and Purim among the 613 commandments, and Maimonides attacks this in the first root principle. Hatam Sofer argues that something learned through the hermeneutic principles is law given to Moses at Sinai, and therefore the obligation is Torah-level Jewish law in every respect and there is no reason not to count it. The suggestion regarding Maimonides is that the problem is not that there is no Torah-level commandment in principle to give thanks for miracles, but that to count Hanukkah and Purim as separate commandments would be duplication—different implementations of the same principle; still, Maimonides' view in the second root sees things learned through the hermeneutic principles as “words of the Sages” that are not counted, and that is his unique approach. The conclusion is that Hanukkah and Purim express God's essential will that one give thanks for a miracle, and the Sages merely determine the practical patterns, such as reading the Megillah and lighting candles.

Torah study as cleaving to God's will

Nefesh HaHayyim and the author of the Tanya are cited as defining Torah study as cleaving to the will of the Holy One blessed be He, through clarifying His wills and modes of thought and internalizing them, because “He and His will are one.” The claim distinguishes between obeying the Sages as God's will and understanding the content of a particular decree, which is not God's essential will, and therefore studying rabbinic laws is a practical need in order to know what to do, but it is not Torah study in the essential sense. The claim further expands that studying Torah “in order to know what to do” is an instrument for a commandment and not the value of Torah study itself.

Nedarim 8a, an oath regarding a commandment, and reciting Shema as the minimum

The Talmud in Nedarim 8a is brought to show that a person may “spur himself on” with an oath to fulfill a commandment, and that one who says, “I will rise early and study this chapter,” takes on “a great vow.” The Talmud asks, “But is he not already sworn from Mount Sinai?” and answers that since he can discharge his obligation with reciting Shema in the morning and evening, the oath takes effect regarding study beyond that minimum. The Ran asks that the verse “and you shall teach them diligently” obligates broad knowledge, and suggests that the obligation beyond reciting Shema is not written explicitly but learned through exposition, and therefore an oath can take effect upon it even though, according to his view, it is Torah-level. Other medieval authorities (Rishonim) argue simply that beyond reciting Shema this is not an obligatory commandment but voluntary. From here a distinction is built between the “commandment of Torah study” as a formal minimum and “Torah study” as a broader value, and the concept of neglect of Torah study is explained as failure to realize a value rather than the nullification of a formal positive commandment.

Torah study as a value that does not fit into formal Jewish law

The claim presents the possibility that there are things that do not enter into formal Jewish law not because they are unimportant but because they are “too important,” and Torah study is presented as such a value. The explanation is that turning it into just another formal commandment “would diminish it,” and therefore the emphasis is on studying because one understands that this is a way of cleaving to God's will and not merely “to fulfill one's obligation.” The comparison to a scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah and to the idea of “you shall be holy” is used to show that the Torah leaves certain values outside the details of formal obligation.

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter: “Study it and receive reward” and the blessing over Torah

The article by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter on the stubborn and rebellious son is brought in order to explain that “study it and receive reward” is a principle of Torah study even in matters that are hypothetical, “that never were and never will be,” to teach that Torah study is not only for practical observance. He explains the Talmudic statement about “because they did not first bless over the Torah” as meaning that Torah scholars saw Torah study as an instrument for the commandment of knowing what to do, and therefore thought there was no need to bless over instruments of a commandment; and from this outlook they did not pass on to their children the value of study itself. The claim uses this to say that turning the whole Torah into technical study of halakhic ruling is like turning “the whole Torah into rabbinic laws,” in the sense of study as no more than clarifying what to do.

The blessing over Torah: a blessing of praise versus a blessing over commandments, and women

A position is argued that the blessing over Torah is a blessing of praise and not a blessing over commandments, because in the plain sense of the Talmud in Berakhot it is a Torah-level blessing learned by kal va-chomer, and Nachmanides even counts it as a positive commandment. The explanation is that a blessing of praise is said when the matter is “present before your eyes,” and therefore they instituted saying verses or Mishnah so that the praise has something to attach to; the comparison to blessings over enjoyment shows that praise is connected to a practical situation and is not said abstractly. The discussion in the Shulchan Arukh, siman 6, regarding women's obligation in the blessing over Torah is brought through Magen Avraham and the Mishnah Berurah, who ask the question since women are exempt from the commandment of Torah study and answer that they are obligated to study the laws relevant to them; from here it is argued that study in order to know what to do is an instrument for a commandment and is not the “commandment of Torah study” itself. In addition, it is argued that if the blessing over Torah is a blessing of praise, that praise also belongs to women as part of the Jewish people who received the Torah, similar to the idea cited in the name of Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank that “they too were part of that miracle.”

Menachot 99b: “It shall not depart,” the unlearned masses, and Greek wisdom

The Talmud in Menachot 99b is brought as a central source for the distinction between the minimum of the commandment and the value of study: Rav Ami says that one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening fulfills “it shall not depart,” and Rabbi Yohanan in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai says that even reciting Shema in the morning and evening is enough, but “it is forbidden to say this in the presence of the unlearned masses,” lest they become negligent, and Rava says, “It is a commandment to say it.” The question of why it would be forbidden to say something true is explained by saying that the unlearned masses might identify the formal minimum with the entire essence of Torah study. Ben Dama's question to Rabbi Yishmael—“What is the law regarding learning Greek wisdom,” after “I have already learned the entire Torah”—is interpreted as referring to learning all the laws and commandments, alongside the question whether there is a fundamental obligation of constant engagement; Rabbi Yishmael's answer, “Go and find a time that is neither part of the day nor part of the night,” is presented as setting a demand for Torah study beyond the minimum of the commandment.

“This verse is neither an obligation nor a commandment, but a blessing” and completing the passage

The Talmud states that Rabbi Yishmael's words are “in disagreement with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani,” who says in the name of Rabbi Yonatan that “it shall not depart” is not a source for an obligation or a commandment but a blessing to Joshua, because “words of Torah were especially beloved to him.” The distinction between “obligation” and “commandment” is connected to the two layers presented: a formal threshold of obligation as opposed to a principled value that is not defined as a commandment. The conclusion—“The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: words of Torah should not be upon you as an obligation, yet you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them”—is presented as a declaration that study is not exhausted by narrow halakhic obligation, but neither is it optional in the sense of being something one may simply dismiss; rather, it binds by virtue of its value.

Berakhot: “What will become of Torah?” and the absence of a contradiction

It is argued that there is no contradiction between Menachot and Berakhot despite the apparent reversal between Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and Rabbi Yishmael, because in Menachot Rabbi Yishmael does not dispute the minimal definition of the commandment of Torah study but completes it on the level of Torah study as a value. In Berakhot, the dispute between “conduct yourself in them according to the way of the world” and “what will become of Torah?” is presented as a dispute within the broader framework of Torah study regarding the relationship to earning a livelihood, and not about the very distinction between the minimum of the commandment and the value of study.

Implications: women, logical reasoning, and clarifying the boundaries of rabbinic law

It is argued that the broader Torah study is “an obligation grounded in logical reasoning” and not a formal commandment, and therefore there are no exemptions in it; from here comes the conclusion that women are obligated in Torah study in this sense as well, and even “need to learn the entire Talmud with the medieval authorities and later authorities.” Regarding rabbinic laws, it is argued that the study is mainly an instrument for knowing what to do, and therefore is not Torah study, whereas regarding Torah-level laws, studying only for the sake of halakhic ruling is seen as a mistake in relation to the value of study itself. In conclusion it is argued that one needs a special dispensation to study rabbinic laws from the standpoint of neglect of Torah study, similar to the dispensation of “conduct yourself in them according to the way of the world” to engage in earning a livelihood, and that the division between rabbinic and Torah-level law is not always sharp, with the note that laws of modesty have intrinsic value, some of them Torah-level and some shaped by the Sages.

We’re in the series on study and halakhic ruling, and right now we’re discussing the significance of rabbinic laws. Let me briefly summarize where we are regarding rabbinic laws. The claim I’ve been trying to make in the last few sessions is that rabbinic laws basically have a status similar to legal studies. Legal studies are really the study of principles that obligate me on the halakhic level. Yes, “the law of the kingdom is the law,” and likewise the custom of the state—in terms of, at least, monetary law, what the government determines is basically the Jewish law; that’s what obligates me halakhically. And still, the claim is that engaging in legal studies cannot be considered Torah study. And the reason is that, from the standpoint of Jewish law, legal studies are a collection of facts. In other words, clarifying what the law says is a factual inquiry. After I’ve clarified that fact, Jewish law comes and says: this also obligates you halakhically. But that’s no different from clarifying what so-and-so vowed in a certain context—that’s a clarification of a person’s intention, a psychological clarification, a factual clarification. Once I’ve clarified that, that is what obligates him in terms of the laws of vows. And the claim is that with rabbinic laws it’s basically the same thing. Rabbinic laws are, let’s call it, another legal system. It’s like “the law of the kingdom is the law.” There is another institution or factor that has halakhic authority; what it says obligates me halakhically, and therefore I need to check what it says in order to know what to do. But clarifying what it says is not, in itself, Torah study. It’s only a means, a factual clarification, like I said before. Once I’ve clarified what the Sages said, there is “do not deviate,” exactly parallel to “the law of the kingdom is the law,” which tells me that this thing obligates me on the halakhic level. And therefore my claim was that rabbinic laws are not part of the Torah. It’s not called studying Torah when I study rabbinic laws. I said even more than that: it’s not even Torah in the person, not only that it isn’t Torah in the object. Meaning, it’s even worse than Critique of Pure Reason or studying some conceptual theoretical field or some other branch of wisdom. Because with another branch of wisdom you can say: that is divine wisdom. It’s not the hard-core Torah—not physics, philosophy, psychology, whatever, each person and his field—but it’s not included in the Torah given at Sinai. Still, it is the work of the Holy One’s hands; it shows His will, it shows how He created the world, it says something about Him—about Him and His will. So in that sense it is Torah in the person even if it is not Torah in the object. But rabbinic laws don’t even do that. Rabbinic laws do not show something about the Holy One. As we saw, behind rabbinic laws there do not stand some essential insights—what the Holy One wants, some fundamental problem in this act or some fundamental benefit in another act, prohibitions and positive commandments. Rather, these are just fences or things of that sort, lest I come to do an act that is not okay—or one that is okay—on the essential level. But if I ate poultry with milk, at that moment I didn’t do something problematic in itself. Therefore there is no point in analyzing the issue and asking what is bad about poultry with milk. There is nothing bad about poultry with milk. The only thing problematic about poultry with milk is that the Sages said not to eat it out of concern that you may come to eat meat with milk. So it is only a matter of clarifying what they said in order to know what to avoid. But the content in itself does not reflect divine insights, does not reflect divine will; it has no essence behind it, as I said. It only has a command behind it. And in that sense it really is like legal studies. Legal studies have no essence behind them in the sense of God’s will. The law does not reflect God’s will. But there is a rule of “the law of the kingdom is the law,” or custom, or whatever it may be, that tells me this obligates me halakhically—that is, I need to behave this way. But it is not Torah because there is no essence behind it. That is the basic claim.

Notice that this category—this conclusion is pretty far-reaching. The claim, essentially, is that there is no difference between going to study at a law faculty and studying rabbinic laws. It is exactly the same thing. These are two legal systems; both obligate me, but both are external to Torah, meaning they do not themselves reflect divine will. The divine will is that we obey them, like “the law of the kingdom is the law.” I maybe excluded from this the rabbinic laws that perhaps do have real essence behind them, like Hanukkah and Purim, for example. Those are not clauses added onto Torah-level laws; they are laws with independent standing. There is essence behind them. So why are they not Torah-level? Because the essence is not sufficiently unambiguous or not sufficiently connected to God’s will to count as Torah-level. But still, it is not just some fence; it is not just something that in itself has no importance, but can bring you to something else that does have essential problem or essential value. Here there is essential value in Hanukkah and Purim: commemorating the miracles, thanking the Holy One, things of that sort. So that, in itself, has something behind it—it is an act that has value in itself. It is not a fence or something that merely serves as an instrument for something else. And therefore there is essence here. The essence is not Torah-level essence, so I said perhaps we can treat engagement with these rabbinic laws as rabbinic Torah study, as rabbinic Talmud Torah. Meaning, there is Torah study here, like with Torah-level laws, but it is not Torah-level; it is rabbinic. And therefore one can divide this category of rabbinic laws and place it somewhere in the middle. At the very least—I don’t know if this is even Torah in the person—maybe it is actually Torah in the object, but rabbinically.

Maybe I’ll illustrate this through an example. In the responsa of Hatam Sofer, he discusses the question of Lag BaOmer. And he says that he did not want to go up to the Land of Israel—an interesting statement—he didn’t want to go up to the Land of Israel so as not to get entangled in the Lag BaOmer issue. Because he says that here in the Land they celebrate Lag BaOmer, and according to the Pri Hadash there is a prohibition here of “do not add.” They simply invent a holiday of their own, though nothing happened then, and on the other hand it is clear that their intentions are good, and he doesn’t want to fight with them, but he wants no part of the matter. Now within the discussion, when he tries to explain what the problem is with Lag BaOmer, he brings up why the same problem does not exist with the various Purim holidays of different communities—Purim Casablanca or Purim Frankfurt, all kinds of communities to which a miracle happened at some point and they established a holiday, what’s called the “Purim” of that community, like the Purim we have in memory of the miracle of the whole Jewish people. So when a certain community had a miracle, they make a kind of little Purim—Purim Frankfurt or whatever specific community. So he says there that there is no problem like the one with Lag BaOmer. Why? Because there they are celebrating a miracle that happened to them, marking a miracle that happened to them, and that can be learned by an a fortiori argument from what the Talmud says in tractate Megillah regarding the original Purim. What does it say? “If on Passover, when we were saved from slavery to freedom, we recite song, then on Purim, when we were saved from death to life, all the more so.” An a fortiori argument. On Passover we say song over being saved from slavery to freedom. Being saved from death to life is a more significant salvation. So if over salvation from slavery to freedom we say song, then certainly over salvation from death to life we say song. Hallel, yes. And the reading of the Megillah—“its reading is its Hallel,” as the Talmud says—so that is like Hallel, and that is essentially the song of Purim. So Hatam Sofer says: from the force of this a fortiori argument, I learn that one may establish a Purim in certain communities when a miracle happened to them. Because if a miracle of salvation from death to life happened to them, then the same a fortiori argument the Sages bring regarding our Purim, the general Purim, exists there too. Therefore you cannot say this is “do not add,” because an a fortiori argument is one of the methods by which the Torah is expounded. So this is an actual obligation.

Elsewhere, for example in his novellae to tractate Shabbat, Hatam Sofer uses that same a fortiori argument to explain the position of Behag, who counts Hanukkah and Purim among his 613 commandments. Maimonides attacks him for this in the first root principle, and Hatam Sofer says: what is the problem? Hanukkah and Purim are learned from the Talmud’s a fortiori argument in Megillah, and something learned by an a fortiori argument from a verse in the Torah—the hermeneutic methods are of Sinaitic standing—so if you learn this obligation by means of a hermeneutic principle from verses, then this is really a Torah-level law in every respect. Therefore there is no reason Behag should not count it in his enumeration of the commandments. Now Maimonides, who does not accept this, can maybe explain it—and in my article on the first root principle I discussed this a little—that the problem is not that it is not a Torah-level commandment, but that it is not a unique Torah-level commandment or a separate Torah-level commandment. One could say that perhaps there is some Torah-level principle of thanking for miracles, learned by an a fortiori argument from Passover. That one can count. But to count Hanukkah as a commandment and Purim as a commandment, and each of these things as one more commandment in the 613—that is duplication. These are just different realizations of the same commandment. But still, on the conceptual level, there really is a Torah-level commandment here because it is learned by an a fortiori argument from verses.

Maimonides’ position in the second root principle is that things learned from hermeneutic methods are also rabbinic words and are not counted, but that is his own position. Most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagree with him. So I’m saying that on the fundamental level, even Maimonides agrees that this thing is learned from a hermeneutic method, and for the rest of the medieval authorities it is what is called Torah-level. He personally thinks it is not Torah-level because, in his view, even something learned from exposition is not Torah-level. Fine—that is Maimonides’ unique view. But fundamentally, these things are really expressing—and now I’m translating it into our language—these things are really expressing God’s will. The Holy One wants us to give thanks for a miracle. What does it mean “the Holy One wants”? Meaning, the Torah wants, just as we say song on Passover, so the a fortiori argument teaches us that behind Hanukkah and Purim there is a layer of essence. It is not just an obligation to obey the Sages. The Sages only established the pattern—how we celebrate Hanukkah and how we celebrate Purim. Here it’s reading the Megillah; there it’s lighting candles. There are patterns—sending portions and so on—patterns that the Sages established. But those are only patterns that shape an obligation which is itself an essential obligation. The essential obligation is basically to mark the miracle that happened to us. And in that sense, although Hanukkah and Purim are rabbinic laws, it is still clear that there is essence behind them. In essence they are no different from Passover or things that are certainly Torah-level, or from Purim, the original rabbinic law—it’s the same principle. And therefore there is definitely room to say that engagement with rabbinic laws of that type does contain essence; that is Torah study. It’s not like poultry with milk or rabbinic decrees and fences. That is the claim.

Now what this means is—yes, I spoke at the beginning of the series about the meaning of Torah and Torah study, and I want perhaps to return and expand a little in order to see what this means for us. There we saw Nefesh HaChayim, and the author of the Tanya says similar things, that Torah study is basically a kind of cleaving to the will of the Holy One. Cleaving to the will of the Holy One means clarifying His will, clarifying His modes of thought, and internalizing them within us. When we do that, it is a kind of cleaving to the Holy One, because He and His will are one, as Nefesh HaChayim writes. Therefore when we engage in His will, we cleave to Him. In that sense, when I engage in rabbinic laws, in some sense I am engaging in the will of the Holy One, because He wants me to obey the Sages. But the specific rabbinic content—the prohibition of eating poultry with milk—is not the will of the Holy One, and understanding it is not called internalizing another piece of His will.

Let me expand this a bit more. In earlier series I spoke a little about the question of the relationship between the commandment of Torah study and Torah study itself. So maybe I’ll begin with the Talmud in Nedarim—one second, just a moment.

“And Rav Giddel said in the name of Rav”—I’m reading here in tractate Nedarim 8a—“From where do we know that one may swear to fulfill a commandment? As it is said: ‘I have sworn and I will fulfill it, to keep Your righteous ordinances.’” In principle, we’re not supposed to swear either not to fulfill a commandment or to transgress a commandment. But one may swear to fulfill a commandment, from a verse. There is a verse that teaches us this. The Talmud asks: “But is he not already sworn and standing from Mount Sinai?” That oath has no significance, because I am already sworn from Sinai to fulfill that commandment. “Rather, this teaches us that a person is permitted to spur himself on.” This is basically an oath of encouragement. I swear in order to motivate myself to fulfill this commandment. One can discuss what exactly that motivation is, what this oath adds beyond the oath I already swore at Sinai to fulfill the commandment. But okay, maybe two oaths motivate more, whatever.

“And Rav Giddel said in the name of Rav: One who says, ‘I will rise early and study this chapter; I will study this tractate,’ has made a great vow to the God of Israel.” If someone now swears that he’ll learn the third chapter of tractate Beitzah, okay? Or tractate Megillah. The Talmud says: he has made a great vow to the God of Israel. Of course, technically it’s an oath and not a vow, but in the Talmud the terms oath and vow often get interchanged, even though they’re not the same thing. The Talmud asks: “But is he not already sworn and standing?” And an oath cannot take effect on an existing oath, as they asked before. We have the commandment of Torah study. The commandment of Torah study—we are sworn from Mount Sinai, like all the commandments, to fulfill that commandment. So what is the point of swearing now to study a chapter of tractate Beitzah when I am already sworn anyway to fulfill it? An oath cannot take effect on an oath. “What is this teaching us? Even mere encouragement?” So what will you say—maybe this too is an oath of encouragement, like we saw above? The Talmud says: “That is the same as Rav Giddel’s first statement.” It teaches us nothing, because the previous statement already taught us that. So why do I need to learn it again?

So the Talmud says: “This teaches us that since, if he wishes, he can exempt himself with the recitation of the Shema morning and evening, therefore the oath takes effect upon him.” A person can exempt himself from the commandment of Torah study by reciting Shema in the morning and the evening. So anything he studies beyond morning and evening Shema is beyond the minimum he needs in order to fulfill the commandment of Torah study, and therefore in such a case the oath takes effect on him.

Now the medieval authorities already ask: how can the Talmud say such a thing, that morning and evening Shema are the parameters of the commandment of Torah study, and everything beyond that—basically the implication of the Talmud is that it is not a commandment? Everything beyond morning and evening Shema is not a commandment, because if it were a commandment then the earlier question returns: what novelty are you teaching me, that one may swear to fulfill it? You already taught me one may swear to fulfill commandments, the oath of encouragement. So what is the novelty here? Rather, apparently, everything beyond morning and evening Shema is not a commandment at all, and therefore one can swear to do it. How can that be?

The Ran here wonders how that can be, and he also brings “and you shall teach them diligently,” that the words of Torah should be sharpened in your mouth so that if someone asks you, you should not hesitate and tell him. Meaning, you should be thoroughly grounded in all the Torah; you need to know the entire Torah. But morning and evening Shema will not bring you to such mastery of the Torah. So clearly there is a commandment to study Torah beyond morning and evening Shema. Therefore the Ran argues something—which he writes also in Nedarim—that yes, but that obligation is not a Torah-level obligation, or not an obligation written explicitly in the Torah, but rather an obligation learned through exposition. And since it is an obligation learned through exposition, that is the Ran’s novelty, an oath takes effect on it. The rule that an oath cannot take effect on a matter of commandment applies only to a commandment written explicitly in the Torah. But with a commandment learned through exposition, which is not explicitly written in the Torah, if I swear to fulfill it, the oath does take effect. It is not merely an oath of encouragement; it is a full oath. It is not considered swearing on a commandment. Here the rule that an oath cannot take effect on an oath does not apply, because regarding this I was not sworn at Sinai. That seems to be the Ran’s view.

There is a lot to elaborate on in this Ran, and there are many assumptions here that most medieval authorities do not accept, but that is his claim: what appears in the Torah we swore to at Sinai; what comes out of exposition—even though the Ran explicitly writes that it too is Torah-level, unlike Maimonides, who says that what emerges from exposition is not Torah-level—the Ran claims that what emerges from exposition is Torah-level. He says that despite this, we were not sworn on it, because we were sworn at Sinai on the Torah we received at Sinai, on what is included in the Torah. But something that emerges from exposition—that is not written in the Torah, and therefore we did not swear on it, even though it is Torah-level. Therefore one can swear. That is the Ran’s claim.

But other medieval authorities write here—the Rosh in this place, and the commentator; Rashi on Nedarim is not really Rashi, it is probably the Rivan—so other medieval authorities claim that simply, no, it is not a commandment. Morning and evening Shema are the commandment; everything beyond that is, in principle, optional, and therefore the oath takes effect on it. So of course the question arises: then what is this concept called neglect of Torah study? What is neglect of Torah study? Neglect of Torah study means that there were times when I could have studied and did not. What is the problem? Morning and evening Shema are the commandment of Torah study; everything beyond that is optional. So what is the meaning of neglect of Torah study? Why is a person held accountable for neglect of Torah study?

So the claim is that apparently one has to distinguish between the commandment of Torah study and Torah study. Torah study is something broader than the commandment of Torah study. Morning and evening Shema fulfill the commandment of Torah study. In terms of the halakhic obligation to study Torah, morning and evening Shema are enough. But that does not exhaust the concept of Torah study, the study of Torah. Torah study more generally is an obligation to study all the time. And if you did not study when you could have studied—again, what does “all the time” mean? Later authorities discussed this. It doesn’t mean you have to stop all your other activities and just learn Torah every second. Rather, within the limits of common sense: when you have other things to do, do them; but when you can, you have to study Torah. And if you don’t do that, that is neglect of Torah study.

What is the source of the obligation to do that? An obligation derived from reason. It is not a formal halakhic obligation in the parameters of the commandment of Torah study. It does not belong to the commandment of Torah study. It is the value of Torah study, and that is not the commandment of Torah study—those are two different things. And the concept of neglect of Torah study belongs essentially to the value of Torah study, not to the commandment of Torah study. Neglect of Torah study is not the neglect of a positive commandment. If you neglect a positive commandment, then you have committed a kind of transgression—neglect of a positive commandment. Here you have not committed a transgression in the formal halakhic sense. It is not neglect of a Torah positive commandment, because as far as the positive commandment goes, morning and evening Shema fulfilled my obligation. But there is an obligation outside formal Jewish law—an obligation from reason, if you like—to study Torah as much as I can. And there, if I didn’t do it, that is called neglect of Torah study.

Audience: Is it like a non-obligatory commandment—not mandatory, but…?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Hard to hear. Is it like a non-obligatory commandment, where it’s not mandatory but…? There’s room to hesitate. It could be. It could be. And it could be that it’s not even that. It could really be that it isn’t even a commandment at all. It’s like ethics. It’s like something that comes from reason. It isn’t a non-obligatory commandment, but it is a value. And it is a value no less important, sometimes, than commandments—but it is a value.

Because it seems to me I’ve said a few times in the past that there are certain things that do not enter formal Jewish law because they are not important enough, like the rabbinic laws we saw last time. It isn’t important enough to count as Torah-level, but it still must be done, so it is on the rabbinic level. But there are things that do not enter formal Jewish law because they are too important, not because they are not important enough. And I think that the commandment of Torah study—or Torah study, not the commandment of Torah study, but Torah study—is a value so important that they specifically did not want to put it into the framework of formal halakhah, of a commandment, of an obligation-as-commandment to study Torah, because that would have diminished it. It would have turned it into just one more of the 613. Not because we were commanded, but because we understand how meaningful it is. Because it is basically our way of cleaving to the will of the Holy One. And someone who does not himself understand that one should cleave to the will of the Holy One, and who does it only because there is a commandment of Torah study and he wants to fulfill his obligation—that loses the value of it.

What I mentioned regarding—yes, “a scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah,” as Nachmanides says on “You shall be holy.”

Audience: The Rabbi mentioned that.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: What?

Audience: About “a scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah.”

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Of Nachmanides, “You shall be holy.” Yes. The Rabbi explained that the Torah didn’t want to diminish it.

Audience: Right, there are things that don’t enter…

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Right, but I mentioned something else. I think I mentioned Rabbi Israel Salanter’s article on the stubborn and rebellious son. He asks there: why does it say that the stubborn and rebellious son never was and never will be? There is a dispute among Tannaim, but according to one of the Tannaim it never was and never will be. So why was it written? “Study it and receive reward.” Rabbi Israel Salanter asks: what does “study it and receive reward” mean? Do I need these three verses in the Torah because I already finished everything else, and if these three verses weren’t there then I’d have nothing to do? That sounds absurd. So he says we are reading the Talmud incorrectly. The Talmud says that the verses of the section of the stubborn and rebellious son were written in order to teach me the principle of “study and receive reward,” not so that I should study them and receive reward. Verses are written about something that never was and never will be—why were they written? To teach me that when I study Torah, I am not supposed to study only things that will actually happen, that I will have to fulfill. Even fully hypothetical things are included in Torah study. There is Torah study that is “study and receive reward,” and not only study in order to know what to do. This is the concept of Torah study. Torah study is studying the will of the Holy One, even something that will never materialize. It doesn’t matter. I still cleave to the will of the Holy One.

And on the contrary, studying Torah in order to know what to do is not Torah study; it is a preparatory means for a commandment. Meaning, I need to study in order to know what to do. That is not Torah study. Torah study is cleaving to the Holy One, which is a value in itself. Therefore he says that the verses of the stubborn and rebellious son were written in order to teach me that idea: that Torah does not mean Jewish law. Torah does not mean what one has to do on the practical level. Rather, it means the will of the Holy One, which generally one also has to fulfill when one reaches a relevant situation, but their value lies in the fact that they are the will of the Holy One, not in the fact that they tell me what I need to do and what I am forbidden to do.

And within that article, Rabbi Israel Salanter brings the Talmud that asks: why is it uncommon for the sons of Torah scholars to become Torah scholars themselves? One of the explanations is: because they did not bless over the Torah first. So he says every soul is astonished when it sees that Talmud. Torah scholars who invest all their energy and time in Torah, but when it comes to the blessing over the Torah they cut corners. They don’t bless over the Torah first. That’s the disease of Torah scholars—they cut corners on the blessing over the Torah. And therefore their sons do not become Torah scholars. What is going on here?

He wants to say that it is not corner-cutting but an incorrect conception. His claim is that those Torah scholars do not say the blessing over the Torah because the Talmud says one does not recite a blessing over preparatory means for a commandment. One recites a blessing only over the final act of the commandment, but not over preparatory means. For example, one does not recite a blessing over building a sukkah. The Jerusalem Talmud says yes, but the Babylonian Talmud says no. One does not recite a blessing because one does not recite blessings over preparatory means for a commandment. The commandment is to sit in the sukkah. Building a sukkah is just building so that I’ll have a sukkah in which I can later fulfill the commandment, but the building itself is not a commandment. When I build the sukkah, I am not thereby fulfilling any commandment. I am doing something that enables me later to fulfill a commandment—yes, like rabbinic fences. It is not a value in itself, and therefore one does not bless over it.

So Rabbi Israel Salanter says: those Torah scholars who did not bless over the Torah first are those Torah scholars who think that Torah study is a means to know what to do—Rabbi Ovadia, for example. His approach was—and his sons’ approach as well—that the whole point of study is clarifying what is incumbent on me to do. Meaning, it is a tool to know what to do. And basically that means Torah study is a means, not an end. And over a means, a preparatory means for a commandment, one does not recite a blessing. Therefore those Torah scholars did not bless over the Torah first; it came from a principled conception, because they thought it was a preparatory means for a commandment, and over that one does not recite a blessing. And where was their mistake? Their mistake was that Torah study is not a preparatory means for a commandment. And one who sees it as a preparatory means in order to know what to do—that is a recipe for one’s children not becoming Torah scholars. Because he does not pass on to his children the true value of Torah. He sees Torah as a means to know what to do. In my language, he turns the entire Torah into rabbinic law. I learn so that I’ll know what to do, but the study itself has no value; there is no cleaving to the will of the Holy One, there are no essential insights behind it. Rather, I need to know what to do—do this, do that. I don’t study the “pilpulim,” what Rabbi Ovadia called the “Ashkenazic pilpulim”—that is, I don’t study the ideas behind the conceptual analysis, the ideas behind these laws. I study the laws in order to know what to do. And if I try to analyze those laws—even Rabbi Ovadia can do that, although less than is common in the Ashkenazic yeshiva world—he does it simply because that analysis enables him to understand the law and know what to do, not because that analysis is itself the value of Torah study, because Torah study has intrinsic value. From his standpoint, it is a preparatory means for a commandment, in order to know what to do. And because of that, you do not give your children the essential value of Torah study, and they do not become Torah scholars. That’s how Rabbi Israel Salanter explains it.

And actually you can see this from another angle as well. Rabbi Israel Salanter assumes here that the blessing over the Torah is really a blessing over a commandment. It is a blessing over the commandment of Torah study. And therefore he says that those Torah scholars did not recite this blessing because they thought Torah study was not a commandment but only a preparatory means for a commandment, because he understands that it is basically a blessing over a commandment. But the truth is that in my opinion he is mistaken. This is a well-known conceptual inquiry among the medieval authorities, mainly among the later authorities, though it starts a bit already among the medieval ones: is the blessing over the Torah a blessing over a commandment, or a blessing of praise? Because according to the plain meaning of the Talmud in Berakhot, the blessing over the Torah is Torah-level, like Grace after Meals. It is learned by an a fortiori argument from Torah and food—the Talmud in Berakhot discusses this. Nachmanides even adds it to Maimonides as another positive commandment; he adds it to Maimonides’ count, a positive commandment of the blessing over the Torah. Sefer HaChinukh mentions it alongside Grace after Meals, but it still sounds like it has Torah-level standing. If so, then it is not a blessing over a commandment in the usual sense. A regular blessing over a commandment is rabbinic. If the blessing over the Torah is Torah-level, then it is not a blessing over a commandment.

More than that—actually, blessings of praise are also usually rabbinic enactments to bless, so what I just said is not conclusive proof. I still want to claim that the blessing over the Torah is really a blessing of praise and not a blessing over a commandment. That’s the claim.

Audience: So why does one have to bless before study, Rabbi?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Hard to hear.

Audience: So why must one bless before study?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Because when you offer praise for something, it needs to be before your eyes. You recite a blessing of praise over a rainbow when there is a rainbow. So the way the Torah is present before me when I praise the Holy One for having given me Torah is when I am engaged in it. So they tell me: engage in Torah, say—yes, the Mishnah in Peah, or what we say in the morning—some kind of piece of Torah study so that the blessing of praise has something to take hold of. Not a blessing over a commandment—just so that it will be present before your eyes and you can praise for it.

Audience: It’s not like the blessings of the morning, where even if I don’t see, I still recite them?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: What can you do? You just woke up, so you say “I give thanks” or “My God, the soul.” Fine—you woke up, it just happened. But someone who didn’t study Torah, let’s say, didn’t study and didn’t even recite Shema—would he be able to recite this blessing or not? No—that’s what I’m saying, no. And it’s not because it’s a blessing over a commandment, but because even a blessing of praise is said where the thing for which you are praising is before you. You don’t just suddenly stop in the middle of life and praise the Holy One for something. You praise Him—when you say “Who creates the fruit of the tree,” why do you say it before you eat? He did create the fruit of the tree—that’s always true. I could just stop now and say, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the tree.” That’s true, no? I’m praising Him for creating the fruit of the tree. No. I need to say that praise—yes, it’s a blessing over benefit, but the idea is similar—before I eat. It is always done where there is some connection to a practical situation in which I find myself. So too the blessing of praise over Torah—they established it that way. They established that it should be said prior to the act of study. Okay?

Audience: And with washing hands, Rabbi, there I don’t need a rooster in front of me.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Okay, right. There, why and from when do I do it? There, because they wanted me to bless: I encounter the world after waking up, and I bless the Holy One for everything He has done in the world. The general encounter with the world is enough for me to detail now, in the morning blessings, all the goodness the Holy One has done for me and bless for them. Every morning I encounter this world anew. Even if I didn’t see a rooster right now or hear the rooster, the way the world functions is itself something I encounter every morning. I encounter the world anew. Yes, my soul has been restored to me, and now I get to encounter again the world the Holy One created, and I bless Him for everything He created in the world.

Where were we? Right. So the claim is that the blessing over the Torah is a blessing of praise. And a blessing of praise still has to be said when the thing is present before one’s eyes. By the way, it may be that Rabbi Israel Salanter doesn’t really need to say that his insight depends on its being a blessing over a commandment. Even if it were a blessing of praise, one could say something similar. Because if Torah is merely a means to know what to do, then there is nothing to praise the Holy One for in having given me Torah. Torah has no value in itself. It’s just a law book so I know what to do. A law book is not itself something of value. The laws perhaps are meaningful, but not the law book, not engagement with the law book. That is only a preparatory means for a commandment, to know what to do. So praising is not relevant there either, not only if it’s a blessing over a commandment.

There is another place where this comes up, and that is in the Shulchan Arukh, section 47. The Shulchan Arukh writes there that women are obligated in the blessing over the Torah. So the Magen Avraham and the Mishnah Berurah ask: women are exempt from the commandment of Torah study. So if they are exempt from the commandment of Torah study, why are they obligated in the blessing over the Torah? What are they assuming? That the blessing over the Torah is a blessing over a commandment. They say: someone who is exempt from this commandment—why would she recite a blessing?

Now, whether women recite blessings over commandments they are not obligated in is a dispute among medieval and later authorities. Ashkenazim and Sephardim practice differently here. But in the Shulchan Arukh this appears as obvious, and therefore the existence of his own view is enough to challenge him. So why don’t you connect it to the dispute among the medieval authorities whether women can bless over time-bound positive commandments or commandments they are not obligated in? They say—the Magen Avraham and the Mishnah Berurah say—that I, for my part, would say their question is not difficult at all. Why? Because this is not a blessing over a commandment; it is a blessing of praise. Women also praise the Holy One for having given us the Torah. Obviously He gave the Torah to the whole Jewish people. So what if they do not have the commandment of Torah study? Fine. But Torah is part of their world, and therefore they can praise the Holy One for the Jewish people having received Torah. They are part of the Jewish people.

This reminds me—I once saw in Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank’s Mikra’ei Kodesh. He brings there: the Talmud says that women are obligated in candle-lighting because “they too were included in that miracle.” Meaning, because women too were saved—or Holofernes, or whatever, for various reasons, women too were included in the miracle of Hanukkah—therefore they too need to light candles. Women too are obligated in the commandment of Hanukkah. So he asks there: and if not? If the decree had been only against the men and not against the women, then women wouldn’t have to light candles? Then the miracle didn’t happen to them? They would have remained an island of Amazons, all the men would have been killed and there would have been a nation of women left. Is that not considered the salvation of the women? Meaning, only if women themselves were in danger and were saved from it? It’s the same idea. The fact that women are exempt from the commandment of Torah study does not mean that the giving of the Torah is not something for which they too ought to offer praise. They too should praise the Holy One—or rejoice in the fact that we received Torah. Because the Jewish people as a whole received Torah, even if there may be a division of roles between men and women. But the Torah was given to the whole Jewish people, and for that there is certainly room for praise.

So the question of the Magen Avraham and the Mishnah Berurah doesn’t get off the ground at all. But what is no less interesting is their answer. They say: then why do women bless over the Torah, according to their view that it is a blessing over a commandment? Because they need to learn the laws that apply to them. Now if women need to learn the laws that apply to them, then they too are included in Torah study, and therefore they need to bless over the Torah. So then I ask: if so, why do we say women are exempt from the commandment of Torah study? They aren’t exempt—they are obligated. They are obligated, just regarding the commandments relevant to them. It’s like an Israelite who needs to learn the commandments relevant to him and not the priestly commandments. Everyone should learn the commandments relevant to him. Why, if women are obligated to learn the commandments relevant to them, is that still called being exempt from the commandment of Torah study?

The answer is—or exempt from Torah study, or from the commandment of Torah study—the answer is: because that is not the commandment of Torah study. Studying in order to know what to do is not Torah study; it is a preparatory means for a commandment. Torah study is when you study and there is intrinsic value in the study itself, not when you study in order to know what to do. One who is obligated to study in order to know what to do is exempt from the commandment of Torah study; that is not an obligation in the commandment of Torah study. Therefore, on the one hand women are exempt from Torah study as a commandment, yet on the other hand they still belong to Torah in some way, and therefore they nevertheless bless over the Torah. That is probably how one must understand the Magen Avraham and the Mishnah Berurah. Again, according to Maimonides it is a blessing of praise, so there is no need to get into all that. But according to them—

Audience: So according to them too, it’s not really a blessing over a commandment, Rabbi? They don’t have a commandment. So even according to them it’s not a blessing over a commandment.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: So they claim that enough connection to the commandment exists here—unlike, say, time-bound positive commandments. Here they have enough connection to the commandment that even if they don’t do the formal commandment, they still have enough connection to it and therefore they bless.

Audience: Couldn’t one say that maybe they too are saying, like the Rabbi, that it is a blessing of praise, but they mean: okay, they otherwise wouldn’t have any connection to that praise, and now we’re saying they do have a connection?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: I don’t remember the exact wording, but in my view they explicitly say it is a blessing over a commandment. Yes, one could maybe say that. But again, if it’s a blessing of praise then the question itself is strange, like what I brought from Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank. To praise the Holy One for the Torah—that obviously includes women too, even if they are exempt from the commandment of Torah study.

So the claim in the end is that the commandment of Torah study—or Torah study in general—is not studying in order to know what to do. So what is it? It is study that is cleaving to the will of the Holy One. If you study something that expresses the will of the Holy One, as the author of the Tanya writes and as we saw in Nefesh HaChayim at the beginning of the series, then when you study Torah you cleave to the Holy One because He and His will are one. And that is Torah study, or the commandment of Torah study—not studying in order to know what to do. Studying in order to know what to do is not Torah study; it is a preparatory means for a commandment. You simply need to learn the law in order to know what to fulfill, exactly like legal studies. Legal studies are studying in order to know what to do, in Torah terms, if Jewish law also recognizes the validity of state law or “the law of the kingdom is the law.” So studying Torah-level law in order to know what to do is not the commandment of Torah study, is not Torah study; it is a preparatory means for a commandment in order to know what to do. In rabbinic laws there is nothing else. In Torah-level laws, studying that way is a mistake. You should study because study itself has value, not only in order to know what to do. In rabbinic laws that is not a mistake; that is what the study of rabbinic laws is. Rabbinic laws really are only a preparatory means for a commandment in order to know what to do, like legal studies. In Torah study there is value in the study itself, and if you study only in order to know what to do, you are mistaken. You have not correctly grasped the concept of Torah study; therefore your sons will not become Torah scholars, and so on. But in the study of rabbinic laws, like legal studies, that is exactly what there is—there one studies in order to know what to do. There these are only preparatory means for a commandment; it is not Torah study.

In this context I also mentioned that there is a difference between the commandment of Torah study and Torah study, because Torah study is essentially cleaving to the will of the Holy One. The commandment of Torah study is some minimum threshold that says: morning and evening Shema, and you’ve fulfilled your obligation. But Torah study is something broader than the commandment of Torah study.

Now I want to show this through a Talmudic passage as well. I once did this in one of the series. Look how beautifully this appears in the Talmud in Menachot. Let’s read: 99b.

“Rav Ami said: From the words of Rabbi Yosei we learn that even if a person studied only one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening, he has fulfilled ‘This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth.’” If you learn some section, some chapter, Mishnah, Torah, whatever, one thing in the morning and one chapter in the evening, you have fulfilled: “This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate upon it day and night.” Remember the continuation of the verse: “This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate upon it day and night.” What does “day and night” mean? During the day and during the night. A chapter in the morning, a chapter in the evening. Not the way we understand it now—that “day and night” means every single moment.

“Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: Even if a person recited only Shema in the morning and the evening, he has fulfilled ‘it shall not depart.’ And this thing is forbidden to say in the presence of ignoramuses. But Rava said: it is a commandment to say it in the presence of ignoramuses.”

First of all, Rabbi Yoḥanan wants to go further than Rav Ami. Rav Ami says: a chapter in the morning, a chapter in the evening, and you’ve fulfilled the obligation. Rabbi Yoḥanan says: what are you talking about? Even that is unnecessary. Morning and evening Shema itself—that is already the commandment of Torah study. Meaning, you don’t even need to add another chapter in the morning and another chapter in the evening in order to fulfill the commandment of Torah study. That same Shema that you say anyway for acceptance of the yoke of Heaven—there is a commandment to say Shema in the morning and evening—that itself already is the commandment of Torah study. You don’t even need the chapter. He is reducing the commandment of Torah study even further than Rav Ami. And regarding that he adds there that it is forbidden to say this in front of ignoramuses.

Why not? Why is it forbidden to say it in front of ignoramuses?

Audience: It will lead to negligence.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Yes, because they won’t study. They’ll think there’s no need to study. But they’ll be right, won’t they? There really is no need to study, so what’s the problem? This concern is a kind of oxymoron. You’re forbidden to tell the truth in front of ignoramuses lest they think that’s the truth—but it really is the truth.

Audience: Yes, but they grasp the truth in a simplistic way. They don’t have the internal distinction between one type of Torah study, which is the commandment, and Torah study, which is the value.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Exactly. So from here you see what we also saw in tractate Nedarim. Clearly Torah study means studying all the time. The commandment of Torah study—there is a kind of competition here in the Talmud in Menachot to reduce it as much as possible: a chapter in the morning, a chapter in the evening, or not even that—morning and evening Shema. But that is the commandment of Torah study. However, Torah scholars may think that that is all there is, and then not study Torah. Therefore it is forbidden to say this in front of ignoramuses, because the truth is that one needs to study all the time. But not because of the commandment of Torah study—for that, a chapter in the morning or morning and evening Shema are enough—but because of Torah study, not the commandment of Torah study.

And on this Rava says—disagreeing with Rabbi Yoḥanan—Rava says it is a commandment to say it in front of ignoramuses. Why? Because of what we saw in Rabbi Israel Salanter: how are ignoramuses produced? Because of the wrong approach to Torah study. The identification of the commandment of Torah study with Torah study itself. What happens when Torah scholars’ sons do not become Torah scholars because they did not bless over the Torah first? There is an identification between Torah study and studying in order to know what to do. They don’t understand that Torah study has intrinsic value. It is not just fulfillment of a commandment and not only in order to know what to do; it is cleaving to the Holy One. Therefore Rava says: on the contrary, this principle must be said in front of ignoramuses. You need to say it in front of ignoramuses in order to explain to them that the commandment of Torah study is so great that precisely because of its greatness it was not fully absorbed into the count of commandments, into the formal system of commandments. Not because of its smallness, not because it is not sufficiently binding, but because it is so fundamental that they did not want to make it into a formal commandment. Therefore this competition between Rav Ami and Rabbi Yoḥanan—who can reduce the obligation of the commandment of Torah study more—is really a statement of just how great Torah study is. It is not an attempt to minimize Torah study; it is an attempt to minimize the commandment of Torah study. Why? To tell you that Torah study is not exhausted by the commandment of Torah study. Forget the commandment of Torah study—you fulfill that with almost nothing. Torah study is not about the commandment of Torah study. Torah study is something much more fundamental.

That’s why, in my opinion, unlike the commandment of Torah study, women are obligated in Torah study as well. Women were exempted from the commandment of Torah study. But from Torah study? Torah study is an obligation grounded in reason. It’s not a commandment. An obligation grounded in reason binds anyone who understands the reasoning. And why should it matter? All the exemptions women have from commandments apply where the commandments are rooted in a command. Then they tell me: the command does not apply to women; the command does not apply to minors; the command does not apply to whoever, each commandment according to its rules. But if there is an obligation grounded in reason, then there are no exemptions. Whoever understands the reasoning is already obligated. And there is a lot of evidence for this from many places; one can bring proof for these things. I won’t get into it here, but it is clear.

Therefore, since Torah study, unlike the commandment of Torah study, is an obligation grounded in reason, I think women are also obligated in Torah study. Not only in learning the laws relevant to them—they need to learn all of the Talmud with the medieval and later authorities, backwards and forwards, exactly like men. There is no difference. The difference is only formal: in the commandment of Torah study women are exempt and men are obligated. But the commandment of Torah study is a minor matter. Torah study—in that women are obligated. So the whole question of the Magen Avraham and the Mishnah Berurah doesn’t even get off the ground if you understand it this way. And the blessing over the Torah is a blessing of praise, not a blessing over a commandment. You recite a blessing of praise over the fact that we received Torah, over the fact that we have a way to cleave to the Holy One, over the fact that we belong to Torah study—not over the fact that we were commanded in one of the 613 commandments, the commandment of Torah study. That would be a blessing over a commandment. I’m talking about a blessing of praise. And that blessing of praise obviously applies to women too—not only because men belong to Torah study, which I say would have been enough anyway, but because I’m saying more than that: women belong to this just like men. They need to engage in it exactly the way men need to engage in it, not because of the commandment of Torah study, but because they understand that this is the way to cleave to the Holy One. That is reason.

And that is the message of the Talmud in Menachot. The Talmud in Menachot comes to tell us exactly this point: that the commandment of Torah study is a minor matter. Torah study is the fundamental thing, not the commandment of Torah study. And the more I reduce the commandment of Torah study, the more I actually magnify the concept of Torah study, because I show you that the Torah insists on not putting it into the formal system of commandments in order to explain to you how fundamental it is, to explain to you that you need to do it not because you are commanded in commandment number 430-something to study Torah, but because there is value in cleaving to the will of the Holy One. Anyone who understands that understands that he has to study as much as he can. And if he does not do that, that is neglect of Torah study, and all the rest of what we said before. And neglect of Torah study is not neglect of a positive commandment. Neglect of Torah study is a failure to understand what Torah is. You don’t study Torah because you don’t understand how fundamental this thing is—that is the meaning of neglect of Torah study.

And that is the whole message of the Talmud. Now look at the continuation of the Talmud.

Audience: Excuse me, Rabbi, yes. So this concept of Torah study, whose obligation comes from reason and is different from the commandment of Torah study—is it not a commandment in its own right?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: No. I’ll say again: someone remarked earlier that maybe it is a non-obligatory commandment. It could be, but I suspect it is beyond that. Why, for example, do I say that? If it were a non-obligatory commandment, then maybe even over a non-obligatory commandment one cannot swear, because an oath cannot take effect on an oath—you are already sworn and standing from Sinai. How do I know that? For example, the Raavad at the beginning of the Sifra, at the beginning of Leviticus, says that with time-bound positive commandments women are exempt. What happens if they perform a time-bound positive commandment that overrides a prohibition? A positive commandment overrides a prohibition. What if they need to perform—sorry, don’t need to; they are not obligated because it is a time-bound positive commandment—but carrying out the positive commandment involves transgressing a prohibition? For men, a positive commandment overrides the prohibition; you do the positive commandment anyway. But women are not obligated in the positive commandment. The Raavad says: even for them, a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. Why? He understands that this commandment is still a commandment for women, just not an obligatory one but a non-obligatory one. They are not obligated, but if they do it, it is a commandment. If it is a non-obligatory commandment, then it overrides a prohibition, even though one is not obligated to do it.

Now if so, it could be that the same thing happens here: if the Torah study beyond the commandment of Torah study were a non-obligatory commandment, then one could not swear about it, because he is already sworn and standing from Sinai, even if it is only a non-obligatory commandment. Therefore I think the plain meaning of the Talmud in Nedarim, which says that an oath does take effect on it, means that it is not a commandment at all, not that it is a non-obligatory commandment. It is not a commandment at all. It is an extra-halakhic value, not a commandment. It is not less important than commandments—on the contrary, it is more important. That is why they did not define it as a commandment. It is so fundamental that they did not want to define it as a commandment, because that would have diminished it. But it is not a commandment in the formal sense, and women are obligated in that as well. It slightly turns upside down the whole picture of how we understand neglect of Torah study, how we understand women’s relationship to Torah, and what Torah is altogether. But I think it is correct.

Now look at the continuation of the continuation of the Talmud in Menachot. See how the whole story revolves around this issue. Up to this point we said that one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening is enough, or morning and evening Shema—meaning the absolute minimum of the minimum. It is forbidden to say it in front of an ignoramus, or it is a commandment to say it in front of an ignoramus. And the whole point of this is the message that Torah study is not the commandment of Torah study. Torah study is something more fundamental. The commandment of Torah study is one of the 613 commandments. Torah study is something else—“Torah study is equal to them all,” as the Mishnah says. Not the commandment of Torah study is equal to them all—Torah study is equal to them all.

Then the Talmud continues: “Ben Dama, the son of Rabbi Yishmael’s sister, asked Rabbi Yishmael: As for someone like me, who has studied the entire Torah—what is the law regarding learning Greek wisdom? He read to him this verse: ‘This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate upon it day and night.’ Go and find an hour that is neither of the day nor of the night, and learn Greek wisdom then.”

Once a student in Yeruham asked me this on Shavuot night—I remember I came to the study hall and one student approached me and said: tell me, Ben Dama studied the entire Torah, so how does he not know the answer to this question? If he asks questions, that means he doesn’t know everything. What does “I have studied the entire Torah” mean? So I told him—and it kind of made the penny drop for me regarding this passage—that this continues the previous part of the passage. Ben Dama studied the entire Torah—all the commandments, all the laws, everything the Torah commands. Now he asks: what about learning Greek wisdom? Does the concept of Torah study get exhausted by the commandment of Torah study? If so, then one can learn Greek wisdom, right? Because I’ve done morning and evening, there is no concept of neglect of Torah study. And Rabbi Yishmael answers him: go find an hour that is neither day nor night and study then—in other words, you can’t study it. You need to study all the time. There is neglect of Torah study. But this principle is not a formal halakhic principle. Because Ben Dama has already learned all the halakhah; he knows the entire Torah. This is an extra-halakhic principle. He is saying to him: the extra-halakhic conception, the fundamental conception of what Torah is, says that one needs to engage in it all the time. And that is the concept of neglect of Torah study. And that is what Rabbi Yishmael answers his nephew, Ben Dama. Meaning, it continues the previous part of the passage that teaches us the difference between Torah study and the commandment of Torah study. Here Ben Dama and Rabbi Yishmael continue that same line. Ben Dama assumes that the commandment of Torah study is everything, and Rabbi Yishmael answers him: what are you talking about? There is Torah study, not just the commandment of Torah study. Torah study obligates you to learn all the time, even if you recited Shema in the morning and evening, even if you know the entire Torah. Engagement with Torah itself has value. Why? Because it is cleaving to the will of the Holy One. Therefore there is such a concept as neglect of Torah study, and you cannot refrain from engaging in Torah, at least to the obligatory degree.

Now look at the continuation.

Audience: Does the Rabbi still see this as a halakhic obligation?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: What?

Audience: Does the Rabbi still see neglect of Torah study as a halakhic obligation?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: No, it is a meta-halakhic obligation. First of all, it’s also halakhah—I don’t mind—but it’s not by virtue of a commandment.

Look at the continuation: “And this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani.” Rabbi Yishmael, who answered Ben Dama that one needs to study all the time, disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani. Let’s stop here for a second. If I asked you: tell me, with whom does Rabbi Yishmael disagree—what would you have been supposed to answer? With Rav Ami, with all the Amoraim just quoted in the passage. What are they telling me? Morning and evening Shema are enough. And suddenly Rabbi Yishmael comes and says: wait, “day and night” means all the time, you can’t stop for even a moment. So if anything, if you’re looking for someone Rabbi Yishmael disagrees with, you’d expect it to be all the views cited earlier. Yet the Talmud doesn’t say that. It says he disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani, whom we are about to see, and not with them. Why? Do you know why? Because he does not disagree with them. He really does not disagree with them. They are speaking about the parameters of the commandment of Torah study. As for the commandment of Torah study, morning and evening Shema really are enough, and Rabbi Yishmael agrees. Rabbi Yishmael adds that beyond the commandment of Torah study there is also Torah study, which is the obligation of all the time. He is not coming to disagree with them. He is coming to complete the picture. On the contrary, he is coming to tell you what the message is in their subtext. They say the commandment of Torah study is morning and evening Shema. Rabbi Yishmael says: know why that is so? Because Torah study is the great thing, not the commandment of Torah study. And from the standpoint of Torah study, then, one needs every moment. That is what Rabbi Yishmael is saying there. Therefore he really does not disagree with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Rav Ami and Rabbi Yoḥanan and all the views above.

Whom does he disagree with? Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani. Let’s see why. What does Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani say? See how the entire passage revolves around this point. “And this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani, for Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: This verse is neither obligation nor commandment, but a blessing. This verse—‘This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth.’ The Holy One saw Joshua, that words of Torah were especially dear to him, as it is said: ‘And his attendant Joshua son of Nun, a youth, would not depart from within the tent.’ The Holy One said to him: Joshua, are words of Torah so dear to you? Then ‘this book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth.’”

Now we understand. There is a very strange expression here: “This verse is neither obligation nor commandment, but a blessing.” What is the difference between obligation and commandment? Two things are being negated here. It is neither obligation nor commandment; it is a blessing. They are blessing Joshua son of Nun that this book of the Torah should not depart from his mouth. Don’t think it’s a commandment, and don’t think it’s an obligation. What are commandment and obligation here? What are they excluding? “Commandment” and “obligation” are the same two things I mentioned before. There is the commandment of Torah study—morning and evening Shema—and there is Torah study, which is also an obligation, but not a commandment: Torah study all day. Okay? Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani argues that this verse says neither the commandment of Torah study nor Torah study. It speaks neither of the obligation to study nor of the commandment to study. What does it say? It is a blessing to Joshua son of Nun. Notice, Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani is not saying there is no obligation and no commandment. He is arguing that this verse is not the source. Because this verse is a blessing to Joshua son of Nun. The dispute is not a fundamental one; it is an exegetical dispute about what the verse means. Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani can agree with everything I have said until now, but in interpreting the verse he claims that this verse is a blessing. It is neither obligation nor commandment.

So when the Talmud looks for whom Rabbi Yishmael disagrees with—the one who says there is Torah study beyond the commandment of Torah study—it does not say he disagrees with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who said morning and evening Shema. Because the Talmud understands that he does not disagree with him. Morning and evening Shema are the commandment of Torah study, and Rabbi Yishmael comes to say that there is also Torah study that is broader than that. Whom does he disagree with? With the one who says that in this verse there is neither commandment nor obligation. Therefore he disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani. That’s whom he disagrees with. Again, in the plain sense, he disagrees with him regarding the interpretation of the verse. He does not necessarily think that Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani disagrees with the whole conceptual distinction between the commandment of Torah study and Torah study altogether.

Now look at the continuation.

Audience: Rabbi, I have a question before you continue. You said obligation, commandment, but a blessing—but obligation is something you become bound by and must do. A commandment is something you do in order to receive reward, and a blessing is also a kind of reward, no?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: No, a blessing is not reward. A blessing is a good wish. I am wishing Joshua son of Nun that this book of the Torah should not depart from his mouth. But it is a kind of blessing—didn’t he receive reward?

Audience: He did receive reward.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: True, but this verse is talking about a good wish. As I said, Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani does not necessarily say there is no value in Torah study and in the commandment of Torah study. Obviously there is. He says, however, that this verse is not talking about that. This verse is only wishing Joshua that this book of the Torah should not depart from his mouth.

Audience: Okay, so neither reward nor obligation, just a good wish?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Nothing at all, not connected to obligations. It’s just a good wish. I wish that you continue engaging in Torah day and night.

Audience: Got it.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Okay? Now look. By the way, the terms commandment and obligation here are the opposite of how I used them, I think. The “commandment” here is not morning and evening Shema; that is actually what I called Torah study. And the “obligation” here is what I called the commandment of Torah study. In terms of terminology it flips, but that doesn’t matter. It’s just terminology in this particular passage. The word “commandment” in the Talmud here is like when people say in everyday speech, “Ah, it’s a great mitzvah to do that.” Meaning there is value in doing it, not commandment in the formal halakhic sense. “Obligation” is the formal legal obligation. That’s how I understand the terminology, though it makes no difference fundamentally. There are these two things. Which one is called obligation and which one is called commandment—that’s a separate discussion.

Now look how the Talmud continues. This saga still isn’t over. “A teaching from the school of Rabbi Yishmael: Words of Torah should not be upon you as an obligation, yet you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them.” What is this? Usually people understand it as some moral statement: don’t do it as a burdensome obligation, but rather be happy in it; let it not be a yoke upon you. I claim this is the summary of the whole passage. The whole passage revolves around this issue. Words of Torah are not an obligation in the formal halakhic sense, like I said before—they are not the commandment of Torah study—but you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them. The fact that it is not the commandment of Torah study, because one fulfills that with morning and evening Shema, does not mean you can exempt yourself and learn no more. That is the ignoramus we saw above. You need to know that there is the value of Torah study. It is not exhausted by the commandment of Torah study.

Therefore, I think this is the most beautiful conclusion to the whole passage. Rabbi Yishmael comes and explains what this whole movement was about. This whole movement came to tell you that the commandment of Torah study is a formal and minor part of the concept of Torah study. The concept of Torah study is far broader and more fundamental. Therefore, even if you recited morning and evening Shema—Ben Dama, his nephew, who recited morning and evening Shema—that does not exempt you from Torah study. Not because you are neglecting the positive commandment of Torah study—you aren’t; you fulfill that with morning and evening Shema. You are not permitted to exempt yourself because there is Torah study, which is an obligation grounded in reason, not the commandment of Torah study. That is the summary of the whole passage. The whole passage revolves around this point, and every word falls into place if you understand that as the subtext.

Now one last thing in this context. There is a passage in Berakhot, and all the later authorities ask about a contradiction. In Berakhot, Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai switch positions. Here in our passage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai minimizes the commandment of Torah study: morning and evening Shema. And Rabbi Yishmael is the imperialist. Rabbi Yishmael says you can’t exempt yourself—go look for a time that is neither day nor night—you must study all the time. So here Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is the lenient one: morning and evening Shema are enough, and Rabbi Yishmael is the stringent one: one must study all the time.

In Berakhot it says the opposite. The Talmud there says that when Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai came out of the cave—there’s a whole story there about his emerging from the cave—he saw people plowing and sowing and he said: what will become of Torah? Can a person plow in the season of plowing, sow in the season of sowing, reap in the season of reaping—what will become of Torah? How can people be engaged in earning a livelihood? They should sit and study all the time. Suddenly Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is the imperialist, saying you must not even work for your livelihood; you need to study all the time. But here he said morning and evening Shema are enough. And who answers him there? None other than Rabbi Yishmael. Rabbi Yishmael tells him: many acted in accordance with that and it did not work for them; rather, “conduct yourself in the way of the world.” Go earn a living and study Torah in the time left to you. But here it is Rabbi Yishmael who says, “Go and learn at a time that is neither day nor night,” and “you are not permitted to exempt yourself for even one moment.” So this is a complete reversal of the positions in the passage in Menachot.

There are various answers among the later authorities, but no answers are needed, because the difficulty is mistaken. It’s not a real difficulty. There is no contradiction. There is no disagreement. The Talmud itself in Menachot says that Rabbi Yishmael does not disagree with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. “He disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani,” not with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Rabbi Yishmael is only completing the picture given to us by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says the commandment of Torah study is morning and evening Shema, the absolute minimum. Rabbi Yishmael says yes, but you are not permitted to exempt yourself, because there is Torah study, not only the commandment of Torah study. Right? So there is no disagreement here; he is really just completing the picture.

Now we move to Berakhot. What happens there? There Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says one has to study all the time. Why? Because he too agrees with Rabbi Yishmael. What he minimized here was the commandment of Torah study. But Torah study, which is all day long—that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai also agrees to. He does not disagree with Rabbi Yishmael. Now the only internal debate is how to relate to work for a livelihood—very topical. Rabbi Yishmael argues that one may work, one may earn a living, conduct oneself in the way of the world, and in the rest of one’s time study Torah as much as one can. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says one should study all the time. But that whole debate takes place within the parameters of Torah study, not the commandment of Torah study. Everyone agrees that the commandment of Torah study is morning and evening Shema. Everyone agrees that one should study all day, not because of the commandment of Torah study but because of Torah study. The question is: to what extent? Some say all the time. Some say no—you may work for your livelihood, and in the time left over, study Torah as much as you can. That is not a contradiction to the passage in Menachot; it is just a continuation of the same picture. There is no difficulty, and therefore no answers are needed.

So when you read the Talmud this way, you understand what the meaning of Torah study is. The meaning of Torah study is not fulfilling a commandment—that is done by morning and evening Shema. It is also not studying in order to know what to do. Rather, it is cleaving to the will of the Holy One. And in that sense one should see all His will and encompass everything—study all the time, know the entire Torah. Why? Because that is complete cleaving to the will of the Holy One. That is the meaning of Torah study—not of the commandment of Torah study, but of Torah study.

Audience: And Rabbi, Torah in the person also fits in here.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: It is also Torah in the person, yes. In my humble opinion, yes. But rabbinic commandments are not. Because rabbinic commandments are a means to know what to do, a preparatory means for a commandment. Therefore they are not included there. The permission to study rabbinic commandments requires permission, because not only is it not a commandment—without permission it would be neglect of Torah study to learn rabbinic commandments. You need permission. But okay, just as “conduct yourself in the way of the world” means one may go work, so one may also study in order to know what to do. There are rabbinic obligations; one needs to know what to do, so one needs to study in order to know what to do. So there is permission to study rabbinic commandments.

Audience: Rabbi, the laws of the bathroom?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: What?

Audience: The laws of the bathroom—what category do they belong to? The Talmud says reveal one handbreadth, reveal two handbreadths.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: So I’m saying: some things are Torah-level, some things are rabbinic. Concepts of modesty, in principle, are Torah-level, not rabbinic. The Sages inserted them into certain patterns; they tell us what counts as modest or not modest. But the concept of modesty is a concept with essence behind it. It’s not like eating poultry with milk, where in itself it changes nothing; it is just concern for something else. Modesty is something with intrinsic value. Each thing has to be judged on its own.

I’ll still get to the point that the distinction I made between rabbinic and Torah-level is really not simple—it’s hard to put your finger on when you are engaging in this and when you’re engaging in that. But on the conceptual level I think the distinction is correct, and it sheds much sharper light on what I said about rabbinic laws: that everything I described until now does not apply to rabbinic laws. Rabbinic laws are studying in order to know what to do. That is neither the commandment of Torah study nor Torah study. It is neither one. It is simply a preparatory means for a commandment in order to know what to do, like legal studies. It is exactly the same as legal studies.

Okay, we’ll stop here. Next time I hope to finish the issue of rabbinic commandments; it’s already taking us too much time. But it seems to me that this itself is also Torah study, right? Understanding that rabbinic commandments are not Torah study is of course Torah study. We need to know what Torah study is. Here we are clarifying a Torah-level concept.

Audience: Rabbi, one last question? Okay. Rabbi, can I? A question or a comment?

Audience: A question, yes. Are legal studies considered Torah study?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: No.

Audience: Why?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: That’s everything I just explained. Yes, he’s asking why it isn’t Torah in the person. Because it’s studying in order to know what to do; it’s a preparatory means for a commandment in order to know what to do. There are no ideas there that express the will of the Holy One. It’s the decision of a legislator.

Audience: And that’s like Jewish law?

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Like rabbinic law.

Audience: Ah, okay, I understand. And Torah-level law is Torah in the person and in the object, yes.

Audience: But the Rabbi really did say, for example regarding economics, that that is also Torah in the person.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Right. A rabbinic commandment is Torah in the person. Law studies—why not? Because law is the handiwork of human beings; it is not some study of how the world is built. It is the study of decisions made by human beings—they could have decided this way, they could have decided another way. Maybe jurisprudence, the conception of what law is—that’s something else.

Audience: And also, Rabbi, do you have a source for the fact that the laws of modesty are really Torah-level? The Rabbi always refers to Nadav Shner.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Yes, right, that’s an issue Nadav also dealt with in his article. You can bring sources, but they’re not terribly convincing. In the plain sense it seems to be a conception derived from reason—that one ought to be modest. You can see surveys online, you can see people bring all kinds of sources one way or another, but that doesn’t exhaust the concept of modesty.

Audience: Yes.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Okay. Thank you very much, Rabbi. Goodbye, see you, Sabbath peace.

Rabbi Michael Abraham: Goodbye, goodbye. Thank you very much.