Learning and Ruling – Lesson 11

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, we’re in the series on study and halakhic ruling, and last time, over the last few sessions, we dealt with the status of rabbinic laws. The claim was that, basically, rabbinic law, the whole rabbinic layer of Jewish law, does not have the status of Torah in the ordinary sense, but is similar to what I compared it to, namely the law of the kingdom. If I want to study law, if I study law, then in certain areas at least I’m essentially studying rules that are also valid in Jewish law—in monetary law, the custom of the land, the law of the kingdom—so I need to know what the law says in order to know what halakhically obligates me. And still, it seems to me that nobody would think to claim that studying law is Torah study. So that means there is a difference between Jewish law and Torah. Even though Jewish law is the core of the concept of Torah—we spoke about this at the beginning—there’s also an opposite side to the coin: Jewish law is actually a broader concept than Torah. There are things connected to Jewish law that still are not really Torah. The law of the kingdom is one example, and my claim was that rabbinic law is very similar. I need to study rabbinic law in order to know what to do, since these laws obligate me by force of “do not deviate,” by force of—not משנה here—but they obligate me, so halakhically this is incumbent on me, this is what I need to do, and because of that I also need to study in order to know what to do. But that study in itself is not Torah study. And I explained that this difference is expressed perhaps mainly in the question of what exactly stands behind the concept of Torah. And my claim was that Torah-level laws basically reflect ideas, insights, metaphysical dimensions if you like, behind them, which have halakhic implications regarding what is permitted, forbidden, and obligatory. In every Torah-level law, I said, there are these two planes: there is the dimension of command, and there is the dimension of essence. What stands behind the law, what is it trying to achieve? The reason of the verse, perhaps in certain senses. And studying these laws is a kind of connection to the will of God, a connection to the divine insights reflected in these laws. By contrast, rabbinic law—as we saw the circumstances—rabbinic laws are laws that basically have no essence behind them. They contain only the dimension of command, by force of “do not deviate,” say according to Maimonides, but they do not have the essential dimension, though we did distinguish between two kinds of rabbinic laws. There is rabbinic law that is a fence or a decree—poultry with milk because of meat with milk—where there is no essence at all. Eating poultry with milk has no substantive idea behind it. Rather, if I eat poultry with milk, it may lead me to eat meat with milk, and meat with milk is a Torah prohibition, and behind that there is an essence. So poultry with milk is only a boundary or a fence or a decree because of meat with milk, and therefore nothing substantive stands behind it; there is only the command—yes, one must obey, by force of “do not deviate.” But no essence stands behind it, and therefore it’s really hard to call it Torah in the sense in which we call Torah-level law Torah. It’s more similar to the law of the kingdom, to studying law, as I said earlier. There are rabbinic laws that do have a substantive layer behind them, perhaps not strong enough to be considered Torah-level essence, but still there is some substantive layer behind them. These are laws that relate, for example, to morality, like the trait of Sodom, compelling someone not to act with the trait of Sodom, the law of the adjacent property owner, and “this one benefits and that one does not lose.” Various laws like that, where because of the moral value in them, the Sages decided to bring them into the framework of Jewish law and turned them into rabbinic laws. So behind that there really is an essence, a moral essence in this context. Or laws like Hanukkah and Purim—laws like Hanukkah and Purim have an essence behind them: the obligation to thank the Holy One, blessed be He, to mention and publicize the miracle, and so on. It’s not a fence around some other Torah law; rather, these are things that have value in themselves. The same thing—we spoke about another type of rabbinic Sabbath restrictions. There are restrictions that are rabbinic prohibitions lest you come to violate a Torah prohibition, and there are rabbinic prohibitions that are an extension of a Torah prohibition. Yes, riding a horse lest you detach a branch—that, for example, is a law that has no essence behind it at all, because riding a horse itself has no problem on the Torah plane. But if you ride a horse, you may come to detach a branch. And when you detach a branch, that’s the prohibition of reaping, so that is a substantive prohibition. So riding a horse is a decree or fence because of detaching or reaping. But selecting food out of refuse—selecting refuse from food is a Torah prohibition, selecting food out of refuse is rabbinically prohibited. Some explain that this is only a decree lest you come to select refuse from food, and then it’s like riding a horse. But some argue that selecting food from refuse itself also contains some dimension of selecting, some kind of selecting, just a weaker kind with less significant results—it doesn’t matter right now—and therefore it is not Torah-level selecting. But there is some dimension of selecting here at a different intensity, and therefore it is a rabbinic prohibition. So here, according to that approach, there really is some kind of essence, just an essence not important enough to count as Torah-level, only rabbinic. So I said that in these rabbinic laws there is some value in studying them, but it will probably be Torah in the person and not Torah in the object. And I spoke—Torah in the person, say, like studying ethics, studying philosophy, studying wisdoms that have value in themselves but are not Torah. So there is a Torah value there; I called it Torah in the person versus Torah in the object, and I think that these rabbinic laws too can perhaps be treated as Torah in the person, or I mentioned that maybe this is Torah in the object on a rabbinic level. I don’t know; you can define it one way or the other. In any event, studying those laws does have some substantive value, and I assume that this can indeed be called Torah study, at least Torah study in the person. But ordinary rabbinic laws—decrees, fences, and so on—are basically devoid of independent value, only because of concern about where it may lead. And that’s what I was talking about when I said that it’s hard at all to relate to this as Torah. Now let’s look at some implications of this. So the first implication, which I actually already spoke about, is that when I study topics of Torah-level law, then I am engaged in the commandment of Torah study, or in Torah study. I mentioned the difference between the commandment of Torah study and Torah study; I’m engaged in Torah study. I’m not going to enter right now into the question whether this is the commandment or not the commandment. But when I study rabbinic laws, then at most it is a preparatory means for a commandment. It is a preparatory means for a commandment because I am essentially studying it, and the study is a means in order to know what to do. Any involvement in something that is a means, a means to fulfill a commandment, is called a preparatory means for a commandment. Okay? By contrast, studying Torah-level law is an actual commandment; it’s not a preparatory means for a commandment. It’s not something that is a means to another goal. And we spoke about the fact that the goal of halakhic study is not to be a means in order to know what to do, even though it should end in knowing what to do. But it’s not that the study is the means and the observance is the goal. The study is not a means to anything; study is a value in itself. And in that sense it is a commandment. By contrast, the study of rabbinic laws is only a preparatory means for a commandment. So that’s already an interesting point; it has various implications. For example, all kinds of laws that touch on Torah study, or what is set aside for the sake of Torah study, or what overrides Torah study—all that belongs to the plane of Torah-level laws, or maybe Torah-level or maybe rabbinic law of the second type, but not ordinary rabbinic laws, where this is only involvement in a preparatory means for a commandment. “One occupied with a commandment is exempt from another commandment”—there may be all sorts of implications. You’re really not occupied with a commandment; you’re occupied with a preparatory means for a commandment. And there are those who say that even one occupied with a preparatory means for a commandment is exempt from another commandment. It doesn’t matter—I’m not getting into the details right now—but on the principled level you need to understand that this distinction I’ve made here has implications, halakhic implications too, first of all. First distinction: Torah has the value of insights; rabbinic laws have no substantive insights behind them, and therefore that is not Torah, it is not attachment to the will of the Holy One, blessed be He. A second distinction, a second implication of this distinction, is that engagement in Torah, in Torah-level commandments, is a commandment—the commandment of Torah study. And engagement in rabbinic laws is a preparatory means for a commandment. It is only a means to know what to do, but not something that has value in itself. Another thing: in Torah-level laws we’re used to the fact that we deal quite a bit—even the Talmud itself deals quite a bit—with topics that have no practical application. I spoke about, I think I mentioned, the section of the stubborn and rebellious son with Rabbi Yisrael Salanter’s insight, that “study and receive reward” basically—I think I mentioned this—that the section of the stubborn and rebellious son teaches us the idea of “study and receive reward.” Meaning, the idea of study for the sake of study and not in order to know what to do. Because the stubborn and rebellious son never was and never will be. So studying the section of the stubborn and rebellious son is not study in order to know what to do. And when the Talmud says about the stubborn and rebellious son, “study and receive reward,” Rabbi Yisrael Salanter explains that the section of the stubborn and rebellious son comes to teach us the idea of “study and receive reward,” the idea that Torah study is not study in order to know what to do, but study that has value in itself. So in Torah-level laws, for example, I deal with sections like the stubborn and rebellious son, which have no practical implication whatsoever; it never was and never will be. Beyond that, we know all those Talmudic discussions about wheat that came down in the clouds. Wheat that came down with the rain from the clouds—what is its law regarding various laws: offerings, the two loaves, the Omer, and things of that sort. Now, there is no such thing as wheat that came down in the clouds. Rashi there explains that maybe there was a strong wind that took a ship from the sea and lifted it into the clouds, and the ship was loaded with wheat, and the wheat comes down with the rain. I don’t know whether Rashi seriously meant that such a thing could really happen. I once saw various people trying to argue that it really could happen, but it seems to me that in the straightforward reading, the Talmudic discussion there does not mean to discuss a case that happened or will happen. It means to clarify the idea of what happens with wheat that does not come to us from the ground but from somewhere else. And that helps us understand the meaning of wheat that comes from the ground. It is not really a question I study in order to know what to do. What will happen if in the future I encounter wheat that came down in the clouds—can I use it for this purpose or that purpose? That’s not the point. It comes to help me clarify a theoretical issue, an abstract issue, a laboratory case that essentially helps me sharpen some idea. But I’m not really discussing the question of wheat that came down in the clouds, or a flying camel. The witnesses who were here and moved there on a flying camel and managed to cross some very long distance at extremely high speed. There is no flying camel. But the Talmud talks about a flying camel—what happens if they moved from here to there on a flying camel. It does not intend to clarify a practical question; it’s a Platonic discussion, connected to the Friday series about Platonism. So there too we really have all kinds of discussions that deal with situations that never materialized here, never will materialize here. Why is this useful? Because through those situations I can clarify the insights or ideas of halakhic theory. And let’s see how this is realized in a topic, through these practical ramifications or others that never were and never will be. That doesn’t matter.

[Speaker C] But Rabbi, Rabbi, in the Talmud there are several places—there is criticism in the Talmud that they removed someone from the study hall because he asked a non-practical question. In Bava Batra, for example, someone discussed with…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Yirmiyah, yes, with the fifty cubits and the chicks.

[Speaker C] So there’s criticism of dealing with a non-realistic topic.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but the fact is that the Talmud deals quite a bit with topics like that. So the question is whether the criticism there was that you’re dealing with a non-practical topic, or criticism of some kind of pettiness about the exact fifty cubits. It’s not clear. It’s not clear to me whether the criticism was about this or that. But even if the criticism was about that—okay, but there are many topics that deal with this. So maybe the topic is divided. There are many topics that deal with this. A warning from the mouth of a demon. What is a warning from the mouth of a demon? Has there ever been anyone whom a demon came and warned—warned him before a transgression? No. And we want to clarify what happens with a warning that doesn’t come from human beings. What is the role of human beings in the process of warning? So in order to clarify that, I talk about a hypothetical case. Let’s say that a demon warned him, and we’ll see what that means. In other words, all these are theoretical clarifications whose purpose is not to know what to do. On the contrary, their purpose is to try to understand halakhic thinking, halakhic concepts in themselves, while these fictional situations come to sharpen ideas. Yes? That’s basically their purpose. I can’t generate from this a practical ramification, so I create some hypothetical ramification. Okay? It’s like a practical ramification for the betrothal of a woman. You know the yeshiva joke? Someone raises a conceptual inquiry between two possibilities—is it this or is it that? They ask him: what practical difference does it make? He says: a practical difference for betrothing a woman. In what sense? If someone betroths a woman on condition that this is correct, the question is whether she is betrothed or not. So there, there’s a practical ramification for our inquiry. We need to determine whether it’s true or not, because if someone betroths a woman on condition that it’s true, the question is whether she will be betrothed or not. Yes, that’s the yeshiva joke about a practical ramification for betrothing a woman. Meaning, if you have a question with no practical ramification, you can always say it has a practical ramification for betrothing a woman. Now of course, if that alone were enough, then I don’t know, even how to grow tomatoes would also be Torah study, because if someone betroths a woman on condition that tomatoes are grown this way, the question is whether she is betrothed or not betrothed. Okay? In other words, there is no question in the world that would not be Torah study by that criterion. Therefore it’s obvious that when they tell you it has a practical ramification for betrothing a woman, it is not that this practical ramification turns the matter into Torah study. Rather they’re basically telling you the opposite: who cares that it has no practical ramification? I want to clarify a theoretical halakhic issue. Who cares that it has no practical ramification? It has a practical ramification for betrothing a woman. Not that everything that has a practical ramification for betrothing a woman becomes Torah, but that this thing is obviously Torah, and don’t bother me with the fact that it has no practical ramification—it doesn’t interest me that it has no practical ramification. It’s a question that interests me on the level of halakhic theory. Yes, you know that the source of this joke about a practical ramification for betrothing a woman is the Ran in Sanhedrin. In Sanhedrin 15, the Talmud asks there—it discusses there the principle that “the death sentence of the ox is like the death sentence of the owner,” meaning that when an ox is judged for death, it is judged by 23 judges, just as a person is judged for death. Then the Talmud there discusses what about the Sinai ox—how many judges for the Sinai ox? That’s what the Talmud asks there. What do you mean? It says, after all, “also the flock and the herd shall not graze facing that mountain.” They were forbidden to go up Mount Sinai. Now if that ox went up Mount Sinai, then it is judged for death. So the question is: how many judges are needed to judge the ox that went up Mount Sinai? An acute halakhic question—we absolutely have to clarify it, otherwise we won’t know where we stand in the study hall. So the Ran there asks: what practical difference does this Sinai ox make? He gives two answers there. One answer is: a practical ramification for a Nazirite. What if a Nazirite takes a Nazirite vow on condition that the Sinai ox is judged by 23? The question is whether he is a Nazirite or not a Nazirite. That’s a very important practical ramification. Therefore we need to clarify whether the Sinai ox required 23 or not. So you understand that the Ran said this as a joke, yes? That’s obvious. In other words, he was laughing at you. Who cares what practical ramification? I’m discussing an interesting halakhic question. Who cares if it has no practical ramification? Why does that matter? So what stands behind this is that when we clarify an analytic halakhic topic, our purpose is not really to clarify a halakhic issue in order to know what to do. We are supposed to finish with a practical conclusion, but as I explained, the role of ending with a practical conclusion is only to see that we really finished the topic, that we reached a conclusion and understood the topic and formed our position about it. That’s all. Not because study is a means in order to know what to do, but because knowing what to do reveals to you that your study is finished, that your study was serious, that you reached your conclusions from this topic. And this is “to bring the discussion to the halakhic conclusion.” I think I spoke about “to bring the discussion to the halakhic conclusion,” right? People think that “to bring the discussion to the halakhic conclusion” means that study is a means in order to know the law, what to do. But that’s not correct. “To bring the discussion to the halakhic conclusion” means that this is the correct form of study. When you study, you should study in such a way that it brings the discussion to the halakhic conclusion. That is, you study in order ultimately to reach a halakhic conclusion, to reach a conclusion about what this topic says. But not that the study is a means in order to know what to do. Rather, that’s simply how one studies. That is just the definition of how to study properly. I spoke about “is study greater or is action greater?” The Talmud asks whether study is greater or action is greater, and it says that great is study, for it leads to action. That sentence is really an oxymoron. Great is study, for it leads to action—you understand that study leads to action, so apparently study is a means and action is the goal. So why is that sentence supposed to be a reason that study is greater? On the contrary, it means that study is only a means and action is the goal. So that means action is greater, since study is only a means that leads to action. And the Talmud says no—study is greater because it leads to action. What’s the meaning of that? I think the meaning is that when you ask whether study is greater or action is greater, you assume that study and action are two different things, and then you ask which is greater. And that is your mistake. Study itself is study that ends in a practical conclusion, and that is the great study. Great study is study that ultimately ends in a halakhic ruling. As opposed to what they usually do in yeshivot, where they do analytic study, devote a session or a session and a half a day to that, and then study halakhah—I don’t know—half an hour, an hour a day, studying halakhah, Mishnah Berurah or Tur, Shulchan Arukh, or whatever, in order to know what to do. And that is exactly not “bringing the discussion to the halakhic conclusion.” Bringing the discussion to the halakhic conclusion means there is no such thing as analytic study and halakhah study. Your analytic study ends when you’ve reached the halakhic conclusion from the topic, and then you’ve also studied halakhah. It is not two kinds of study; it is the same study itself. “Study that leads to action” means study that leads to a practical conclusion, and that is the proper form of study. And one implication of this, for example, is that when in yeshivot they do analytic study, then creativity really bursts out and you can raise different possibilities and theses here and theses there and all sorts of things—they build castles in the air there. Then when they study halakhah, they look in the Mishnah Berurah or the Shulchan Arukh and see what the practical law is. When you study in a way that brings the discussion to the halakhic conclusion, when you study in such a way that you know the conclusion of your study is the action you yourself will do, then you will not build castles in the air. You have responsibility for the conclusion you reach, so ultimately the reasoning you put forward will be reasoning you are prepared to desecrate the Sabbath on, because now you’re going to reach a halakhic conclusion and act on it. So you won’t just throw out random theories. Because many times in yeshivot this reminds me of a story I once heard about Rabbi Lichtenstein. He was at some conference of yeshiva rabbis—I don’t know exactly what—and there was someone there who was lamenting the condition of today’s yeshivot. Back when I was young, he said, there was noise in the study hall, the walls of the study hall shook from the arguments, and my study partner would say one thing and I would immediately say the opposite—what do you mean?—and we would clash, and that was the heat of Torah. Then Rabbi Lichtenstein got upset—that’s how I heard the story; I didn’t see it with my own eyes—he got upset and said that this is not a Torah of truth. They’re just wasting each other’s time, because you’re saying the opposite just in order to say the opposite. Say the opposite if you actually think the opposite, but don’t say the opposite just because maybe one can say the opposite. It’s like those annoying questions where you say something and someone says, wait, who says so—maybe the opposite? Fine, maybe the opposite. But I think this way. If you have an argument, if you want to say what I’m saying doesn’t seem right to you, and you have an argument against it—excellent, say it, that’s perfectly fine. One should present different views and argue and see who is right. All that is excellent. But the argument is a means; it is not the goal. We do not argue because there is value in arguing. We argue when we don’t know, when there are two opinions and we don’t know who is right, so we argue in order to try to determine who is right.

[Speaker C] Do you know halakhic decisors—I’ve had the impression of some—who rule based on their conceptual analysis? What? Do you know halakhic decisors that I’ve had the impression rule based on their conceptual analysis?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are a few like that, yes, there are.

[Speaker C] There’s Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, maybe Rabbi Shlomo Zalman.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, also Rabbi Shlomo Zalman—yes, there definitely are decisors like that. It’s a matter of degree, look. There is no decisor who is completely not like that. You know, we’ll get to this later, when I speak about first-order halakhic ruling and second-order halakhic ruling. Are there any Sephardic ones among them?

[Speaker C] What? Are there any Sephardic ones among them or not?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know enough to say. I’m sure there are. I’m sure there are.

[Speaker C] I feel that Rabbi Ovadia influenced them too much, that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Ovadia too got that reputation, but he’s not entirely like that in the way people think.

[Speaker C] Yes, but from the impression one gets from studying his books, he seems like that, so other rabbis think one has to rule that way. But you can’t really understand it from studying his books; it’s hard to understand, hard to discern that he…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You have to know how to read it. When you read it properly, I think you can see it. Very often he uses the opinions of halakhic decisors and counts decisors to this side and decisors to that side, but in the end he knows where he’s heading. In other words, he arrives at the conclusion he thinks is correct. And therefore he has his own ways of presenting things. It doesn’t always reflect what… In other words, he’s the most classic second-order decisor there is, but that’s not entirely correct. There’s Rabbi—from Kisei Rahamim, what’s his name—Rabbi Mazuz. I think he is more of a conceptual decisor. As far as I know. Again, I don’t really know in depth, but from some of the things I’ve seen from him, it definitely seems that way. Yes, Rabbi Moshe Levi as well, somewhat. Well, he’s a student there, I think, his student.

[Speaker C] Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron—I was very impressed by his analytical ability.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I’ve seen a few articles of his, but I don’t know enough. There definitely are such people, obviously there are. I just don’t know enough to give an opinion. I’m saying: all decisors are somewhere in the middle. There are no decisors who are entirely this and entirely that. The question is how close you are to the conceptual pole as against how close you are to the non-conceptual pole. And that reminds me that I spoke about this, I think, not long ago—I don’t remember in one of the lectures or where—about why Brisk is stringent. Why are they so stringent in halakhah in Brisk? People think it’s because of fear of Heaven. Not that I want to slander them—I’m sure they are also God-fearing—but their stringency is not because of fear of Heaven.

[Speaker B] The Rabbi already said: because they understand both sides too well.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So did I talk about this? So the claim is, I think the reason they were such sharp analytical scholars is that they lost the ability to decide. The ability to decide and the analytical ability of the yeshiva scholar are really—it’s like the uncertainty principle, right? Like velocity and position in the uncertainty principle. Meaning, they don’t go together. If you’re this kind, then you can’t be that kind, and vice versa. And that’s why all these stories about Rabbi Chaim—when people came to him, after all, he was the rabbi of the city of Brisk, on salary, to serve as the rabbi. People came to him with questions and he didn’t issue rulings. He told them, go to Rabbi Simcha Zelig, the judge. And the well-known story, yes, that he sent a question to Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan of Kovno and told him: answer me only yes or no, without reasons, because if you give reasons, for every reason you give I’ll offer three against it. Just tell me what you say, what the practical Jewish law is, what the bottom line is, and that’s it. Answer me yes-no question, right, without reasons. Never mind now what exactly happened there—I assume he did issue halakhic rulings here and there—but these stories express something that is completely true about Rabbi Chaim, that’s obvious. Quite apart from whether the stories literally happened or not, I think they did, but in any case they certainly should have happened, because that analytical capacity of Brisker learning is such a polished, sharpened analytical ability that you can understand every opinion, set it on its own foundations, in its full structure, and once you understand both possibilities so well, you can’t decide who is right. I think this is an experience every yeshiva student goes through. After you finish the lecture, you say: this is a law in the object, and that one is a law in the person, and he understood it this way and he understood it that way. Okay, but who is right? That question is never asked. In yeshivot they never ask who is right. They raise possibilities. This one says this, that one says that, and I explain the dispute—this is the point of disagreement between them, he understood it this way and he understood it that way. Okay, now he understood this way and he understood that way—but who is right? That doesn’t belong to conceptual learning.

[Speaker D] Can I ask something, Rabbi? Yes. Rabbi, doesn’t this say something—that maybe all these Brisker analyses are actually missing the point entirely? After all, they really do present both sides well, and each side sounds apparently logical and understandable, and the fact that the Rabbi himself says that then it’s impossible to rule because both sides sound plausible—but the Tannaim and Amoraim didn’t think that way. They argued. Abaye said X and Rava said Y, and with one hundred percent certainty. He didn’t say maybe, it seems to me, there’s a possibility, I lean. No. He said unequivocally X, and Rava said unequivocally Y. So that means these analyses probably aren’t even heading in the right direction; they’re not touching the core at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Up to the last sentence I agreed. But the last sentence doesn’t follow from what we agreed on. Meaning, clearly there is a difference—as the generations go by, there is a difference in the form of study. By the way, that’s true; there’s also a difference between… between the Mishnah and the Talmud, between the Talmud and the medieval authorities (Rishonim), between the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and the later authorities (Acharonim), and between the later authorities of our own time and yeshiva-style conceptual learning. This difference continues all along the way. It’s a process that didn’t start now. This is only the end point of a very long process in which we move from a kind of immediate intuitive learning that says what seems right to me, to more and more analytical learning. They said this about Moses in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall—that he became distressed because he didn’t understand a thing. If Rabbi Akiva had visited the study hall of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, the same thing would have happened to him. He also wouldn’t have understood a thing. And then he would hear: yes, but this is Rabbi Akiva’s approach and Rabbi Ishmael disagrees with him, and Rabbi Akiva Eiger would explain what Rabbi Akiva thought and what Rabbi Ishmael thought—and then Rabbi Akiva’s mind would be put at ease. Even though he hadn’t understood anything in the lecture. Why? Because I think what really stands behind this is that the analytical analysis ultimately exposes the form of thought that really lay at the foundation of the position of the medieval authority (Rishon), or of the Tanna, or of the Amora, except that I do it with analytical tools they didn’t have. Now, they probably also didn’t need it. They didn’t need it because their simple intuition told them: this was their position. They had an intuitive position and they said it. If you asked them a question in Jewish law, he’d tell you permitted or forbidden—it was clear to him that this was right. And then we are more sophisticated, and suddenly—wait a second, there are several possibilities. If you understand it this way, then it’s permitted; if you understand it that way, then it’s forbidden. And then suddenly you see that Rabbi Ishmael really thought this way and Rabbi Akiva really thought that way, and all of a sudden you manage to understand what lies behind the conceptions of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), of the Tannaim, of the Amoraim, or whoever it may be. And then in the end, after you become so good at understanding each of the sides, you really are stuck, because you don’t know how to decide. But that’s not because what you’re saying is incorrect—on the contrary, it’s because you understand Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael so well that you’ve actually lost the ability to decide. In a certain sense, precisely because you are more sophisticated or smarter, you can’t decide. Rabbi Akiva decided because he was innocent. He thought his position was obvious and self-evident. He had no idea what Rabbi Ishmael wanted. But Rabbi Ishmael also had a position. And we today, with a more modern kind of thinking—or postmodern, if you like—we understand that there are different sides, and that each position has its own internal logic. And once we work very hard, we manage to understand both Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael, and we understood them correctly. It’s not that we misunderstood them. But precisely because of that, we lost the ability to decide. Losing the ability to decide doesn’t mean we didn’t understand the opinions correctly—on the contrary, it means we understood them so correctly that we understand them all. And therefore now we don’t.

[Speaker D] Can I suggest another option? Okay. Since these Brisker analyses are devoid of any—at least by my own feeling—they’re devoid of any value-based contact, the result really is that both sides of the analysis seem very fitting and logical, and we stand there empty-handed, not knowing how to decide. But I think the original disputants, the Tannaim and Amoraim, were in fact arguing over a value-based disagreement. And in a value-based disagreement you really do decide, because your heart tells you, as the Rabbi usually says, intuitively, that this is the right thing and not the other side. And vice versa. And since we’ve drifted away from that, this scientific Brisker approach has turned it into a kind of dissecting of corpses, and so the matter has lost its value-based flavor, and we’re left with nothing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think you’re right. Because the conceptual analysis of the opinions of the Amoraim or the medieval authorities (Rishonim) is an analysis that exposes the values underlying what they said. It’s not mathematics. The structure is mathematical. But the principles that I am exposing…

[Speaker D] What, a law in the object or a law in the person is value-based? Have they managed to formulate the value context of that? I didn’t understand. For example, all kinds of analyses of the type of object versus person and so on—the discourse there is never value-based. You don’t hear in those analyses…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Value-based discourse? Nobody there is speaking with moral passion.

[Speaker D] To say that it’s a law in the person or a law in the object—that’s a value-based conception?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Completely a value-based conception. This is one value-based conception and that is another. You just have to define it. The definition…

[Speaker D] I mean in the moral sense.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? By values I mean in the moral sense, somehow to formulate it in the context of human life—

[Speaker D] —human life.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, is that only for fools? I don’t understand. Are values not something that has to be thought about and defined? Why?

[Speaker D] No, obviously they are. But in the end, the whole point of value is the human and moral context in it, and there is no such discourse. When I study—as far as I know the yeshiva-style analyses—they are devoid of value significance. Nobody there talks about—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —the moral significance of the issue. You made an Olympic leap here. When I speak about values in this context, it has nothing to do with morality. Jewish law and morality are two independent categories; I’ve spoken about that both on the forum and in this series.

[Speaker D] I’m saying, then that’s part of the problem when we distance Torah from morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying that Jewish law really does not speak about morality. And that’s not a problem of conceptual learning, by the way. What does that have to do with values? There are values at the foundation of Jewish law—not moral values but religious values—and those too have to be exposed with analytical conceptual tools.

[Speaker D] Since religious values don’t find expression in moral significance, then we have no way to decide between them, because the only demand that we—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s not true. Once I get to… that’s the next stage. What I wanted… in just a moment I’ll get to that. What I wanted to explain here is that analytical ability and the ability to decide are orthogonal abilities—they are at right angles; they have no projection onto one another. Therefore, someone endowed with very strong analytical ability will usually have difficulty deciding. And vice versa: someone who decides will usually not have very high analytical ability. And the difference between a halakhic decisor and a conceptual scholar or a rosh yeshiva—let’s call it that as a model—is that a halakhic decisor has more decision-making ability, or if you like call it synthetic ability, and a conceptual scholar has more analytical ability. And therefore these abilities are distributed among people. There are people with a synthetic tendency, and there are people with an analytical tendency. I think that’s not necessarily always so. It’s natural that it should be so, but it’s not necessary. And the yeshiva world has become so accustomed to analytical conceptual study that it doesn’t ask the question, who is right? That question doesn’t arise at all. And at some stage, as a result, you also lose the very ability to decide who is right. And then what happens, for example in Brisk, is that we are stringent in order to satisfy all opinions. Because no one view is more correct than another, so you have to be stringent in order to be sure you fulfilled your obligation, because you have to satisfy everyone. And that is why the Briskers are stringent. The reason they are stringent is that from their point of view there is no right and wrong; all opinions are equally correct.

[Speaker E] But the analyses of Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, and maybe of Shimon Shkop, are more about monetary law, about definitions of what exactly is… so doesn’t that mean it shouldn’t be connected to the value issue? From a legal standpoint, you want to understand the concept precisely.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, values are not necessarily morality. In law too there are values.

[Speaker E] Right, that’s what I’m saying. No, regarding the criticism from before—that they’re only dealing with things that maybe don’t contain values. I’m saying that defining monetary concepts—what is an oath, what is ownership—these are things that are very important from a legal perspective, and they’re also beautiful, because through analytical analysis you can reach various conclusions. Right, so I don’t think we need to look for values here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I’ll say more than that: I argued altogether that there is a disconnect, or independence, between morality and Jewish law. And therefore this applies to all areas of Jewish law, not only to one monetary area or another. In fact, in monetary law there are moral dimensions, but there are areas like ritual impurity and purity or other things, and I claim that both in monetary law and in areas that seem like moral areas, they are not. And therefore I am not looking for moral values there. But there are value conceptions behind it—call them religious values. And I’ll say more than that: I claim there is also a possibility of deciding even though these are religious values and not moral values, which supposedly are not things we have intuitions about. That’s not true; we do have intuitions in those areas too. And the fact is that halakhic decisors do decide between different conceptions. And I’ll get to this later as well: first-order and second-order halakhic decisors are exactly a reflection of the same issue. Because halakhic decisors often also don’t really manage to decide, and the way they decide is simply by counting opinions or relying on all kinds of technical considerations. They follow the majority, or they establish for themselves rules like in the Shulchan Arukh where if there is an anonymous ruling then the Jewish law follows the anonymous statement, or follows the first statement, or the last statement, or various such rules that help them make decisions without really entering into the substantive value-based decision itself. And that basically means that second-order halakhic decisors don’t really have decision-making abilities, but simply built themselves some technical rules that help them bypass the need to decide. First-order halakhic decisors are decisors who really engage in deciding. But even there I say one doesn’t necessarily have to give up. The power of conceptual analysis, in a certain sense, is different from the power of decision, but it doesn’t contradict it. You can develop both abilities in one person. If you train yourself to ask why, and to formulate a position, and to reach a conclusion that this seems more convincing to me than that, and to allow yourself to say: yes, the Rashba is more right than Maimonides, or Rabbi Akiva Eiger more than the Ketzot. True, with all respect to their greatness and everything is fine, but in the final analysis I need to formulate a position, and I can ask myself who I think is right, with whom I stand, whose party I belong to. That is a completely legitimate question, whereas in the yeshiva world it is not legitimate—they don’t ask it. But I think because of that there arises, first, the disconnect between study and halakhic ruling, and second, even those who do go into halakhic ruling do it as second-order ruling. And I’ll define the concepts later, but the claim is that this is ruling without really deciding for yourself; rather, it is ruling through all kinds of technical rules. You build some rules of halakhic ruling, all of them made up of course, they have neither root nor branch, but they help you bypass the need to decide. And then it turns out that the halakhic decisors too have no ability to decide. We have lost—the current generation has lost—the ability to decide. So some become conceptual scholars, and then they don’t need to decide; they perform analyses, what someone here earlier called dissecting corpses, necrophilia so to speak. And others go in the direction of halakhic ruling, but they too do it technically; they don’t really decide. We’ll be stringent, we’ll follow the majority of opinions, we’ll do this, Jewish law follows the later authorities, Jewish law follows here, follows there—all kinds of rules like that. But both sides of this equation, both the second-order halakhic decisors and the conceptual scholars, are really escaping the need, and the development of the ability, to decide. A first-order halakhic decisor has to decide—to decide because that’s what seems right to him, not because of some technical rule that most decisors say this or that. Or because I’m Ashkenazi so I follow the Rema and you’re Sephardi so you follow the Mechaber. Those are technical rules. I’m speaking about halakhic decision. Halakhic decision—first-order ruling—and again, I’ll discuss this at length later. So for now I’m just introducing the concepts because it connects to the issue. When we engage in analytical thinking, in conceptual analysis of the passages, our goal is not to know what to do, but the opposite: the practical implications are a means to know what the correct theory is. The goal of the inquiry is to reach the correct theory. The practical implications are only the means by which I reach that theory. And therefore, to bring the topic to a conclusion in accordance with the Jewish law—once you have finished with that in accordance with the Jewish law, you know that you have brought the topic to a conclusion. You know you studied in such a way that the theory is correctly built; you already have practical ramifications, it works, it is consistent, you tested yourself, and so the theory in your hands is the correct theory. You have completed the conceptual move once you reached the practical halakhic implication. And the goal is ultimately to arrive at the meta-halakhic theory, the conceptual theory. As I once mentioned, this is similar to science versus engineering or technology: in science, cases are a means on which I test theories, but my goal is to formulate the theory, the general law of nature. In contrast, an engineer or technologist takes the laws and tries to apply them to specific cases, solve problems, produce consequences from those general laws. So these are two directions. The conceptual scholar’s goal is to reach theories; the halakhic decisor’s goal is to reach practical implementation. Okay, so first of all, there are different directions of analysis here, or striving toward different goals. Even though both deal with both cases and theory to one degree or another, still his goal is the cases or the halakhic ruling, and his goal is the theory, and the cases are only the means to clarify what the theory is. Yes, these are practical ramifications in order to decide between the analytical possibilities or to clarify them better. Now I’m saying all this in order to say that there is now another difference between dealing with Torah-level passages and dealing with rabbinic passages. When I deal with Torah-level passages, then it makes sense to search for the theoretical structure underlying them. That’s conceptual analysis—to try to formulate the general principle that stands behind the different rulings, the different laws. Okay? But in rabbinic laws, the mode of study should also be different because of the differences I mentioned before. Because in my view, behind rabbinic laws there are no such structures. And therefore there is no… no point in looking for them. For years I’ve gone around with a certain intuitive feeling—I hadn’t formulated it to myself clearly—but I always had this intuitive feeling that when we arrive in the Talmud, or in study, yes, when we study passages dealing with rabbinic laws, I just have no patience for the conceptual analysis of it. When someone gives a conceptual lecture on a rabbinic law, it sounds to me… didn’t you say here that they should do it for its own sake as though he… what? I didn’t hear. Did someone ask something?

[Speaker B] No, no, Rabbi, it just went off and then turned back on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. In any case, that was the feeling, and the two columns—582 and 583—on my website, on which I’m basing the recent lectures, are basically an attempt to define that feeling for myself. And the claim is that behind rabbinic laws there is no conceptual structure, so what exactly are you looking for? If there were an essence behind a rabbinic law, that essence would be the theory underlying those laws, then I would use the different opinions and arguments to expose the theoretical structure, what underlies the laws. The laws are a particular case of the meta-halakhic theory. So that’s in Torah laws, where there is an essence behind them; the law reflects some essential structure. But in rabbinic laws, what does it reflect? Does the prohibition of poultry cooked with milk reflect some conception? Nothing. You have to check which case might lead you to stumble with meat and milk, and then it was prohibited. And if it won’t lead you to stumble, then it wasn’t prohibited. And even if behind the collection of rabbinic laws about poultry with milk we do not find some coherent, orderly structure, there is no problem with that at all. Meaning, we are not… there is not supposed to be such a structure. Since these laws do not reflect some whole coherent theoretical structure that we can test with analytical tools, therefore I think that generally, in most cases—I don’t know if always, but in most cases—when people engage in conceptual analysis of rabbinic laws, it sounds artificial to me. It is not a correct thing. And again, not correct in the sense of a continuation of what I said before—the well-known dispute in Ma'ayan, there was such a dispute published between Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner and the Seridei Esh regarding, I mentioned this here, I don’t remember, regarding Rabbi Chaim. Rabbi Chaim’s book is a book on Maimonides. And the Seridei Esh, who had the soul of a researcher, said: Rabbi Chaim is not Maimonides. He’s Rabbi Chaim, and I respect him, he’s a Torah scholar, an intelligent man, all true. But Maimonides he is not. Maimonides never dreamed of what Rabbi Chaim inserts into him; this is not Maimonides’ approach and has nothing to do with Maimonides. It is Rabbi Chaim’s approach, which is also fine, but it is not Maimonides’ approach. And Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner argued no. And I think Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner is right. That goes against the question that was raised here earlier. I think Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner is right. Why? Because it’s true that Maimonides did not think in Rabbi Chaim’s language, and it could be that if he entered Rabbi Chaim’s world he wouldn’t understand a word, as I said with Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Rabbi Akiva. And even then, when he would hear, yes, this is Maimonides’ approach—he wouldn’t know what they wanted from his life, Maimonides himself. But it really is Maimonides’ approach. He doesn’t understand it because he lacks the analytical tools that we use to expose the intuitions underlying what he said. But those really were the intuitions that stood there. Or at least they could have been. I’m not claiming Rabbi Chaim was always right. But on the principled level, Rabbi Chaim’s method, despite being completely detached from how Maimonides himself thought, is still a method of truly exposing what Maimonides thought. And the fact that Maimonides didn’t think in that way, and Maimonides also wouldn’t agree with what he hears—Maimonides would be mistaken. Because Rabbi Chaim understands Maimonides better than Maimonides understands himself. And he truly understands Maimonides; it’s not Rabbi Chaim, it’s Maimonides. There’s that famous eulogy—yes, I said this in another series—the famous eulogy by Rabbi Kook for the Sochatchover when he died. Rabbi Kook sent a letter to his grandchildren, a letter of consolation. And he said that there is a contradiction in the Talmud, because it says that Rabbi Eliezer never said anything he had not heard from his teacher. A sealed cistern that does not lose a drop—Rabbi Eliezer was so attached to the Torah of his teachers that he introduced nothing of his own. That was the whole confrontation there over the oven of Akhnai, never mind, I discussed that in another series. And against that, the Talmud says elsewhere that Rabbi Eliezer said things that no ear had ever heard. So how can that be? He never said anything he had not heard from his teacher, and suddenly he came up with such novelties that no one had ever heard? So Rabbi Kook says: it does not say that no mouth ever said them, but that no ear ever heard them. What does that mean? When his teacher spoke, he said it; he heard it from his teacher, but no other ear heard these things. Even though this… is what he heard from his teacher. And I would add one more thing: even his teacher himself did not hear it. Not only the other students who heard the lecture, but even the one giving the lecture himself did not understand what really lay behind what he was saying. And Rabbi Eliezer heard there things that no one else heard, and even the lecturer himself did not really understand that this was what lay at the foundation of his words. But it is there, that is what lies there. Rabbi Eliezer may have understood him better than he understood himself.

[Speaker B] And I think the Rabbi also said—the Rabbi’s teacher, the Rabbi said that even with the Rabbi’s own teacher, that’s how it worked.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that was going to be my next sentence. Whenever I get to this point I add: I think everyone should recognize this from himself, from his own personal experience. I know that the rabbi from whom I learned everything I learned—almost all of it I learned from one Jew in Bnei Brak. And I think everything I do today comes from him. That doesn’t mean this is what he said, but it comes from him. And he would not agree with anything I say today. He would agree with nothing, that’s clear to me.

[Speaker F] Rabbi, what will be interesting in the future is that after one hundred and twenty years, when they study the Rabbi’s writings, maybe they’ll say the same thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be. Such people will come and analyze it, and I also won’t agree with what they analyze, and it could be that they understand me better than I understood myself. By the way, very often that’s what Agnon always says when they ask him what he meant—he says, ask Kurzweil. Now usually people tell that as a joke; Kurzweil was his critic. Usually they tell it as a joke, as if to say: ask Kurzweil, because in any case he understands nothing, what he says about what I wrote isn’t remotely close to what I intended. But I think that is the intention. Really, ask Kurzweil, because Kurzweil understands better what is in my stories than I do. Someone who looks at it with the eye of a researcher will often uncover layers there that I myself, as the one who created this work—literary or Torah-based—did not really understand were there, but they are there.

[Speaker G] It’s like a psychologist, Rabbi. What? It’s like a psychologist—you come, you tell him what you think, and he tells you why you think it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there it’s psychological analysis. I’m talking about intellectual analysis of ideas.

[Speaker G] Exactly, with an idea—an idea where you tell him something and he tells you, say, why, what lies—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —behind what you are consciously aware of. Yes, right. It’s a kind of psychological digging, but not into a person’s psyche, rather into a person’s ideas. Okay, into ideas generally. And therefore it seems to me that these conceptual excavations—the fact that they operate differently from how it was done in earlier generations is certainly true, but that doesn’t mean it is a mistake. Not at all. On the contrary, in some respects it is more accurate than what they did. But this analytical ability—the price that comes with it, because we have developed it so strongly—the price is that somehow we lost the ability to decide. And I say that this can be improved. You can avoid giving up, at the end, on the question: okay, but who is right? Or with whom do I identify? These are always questions that in the classic study hall they don’t ask. In newer study halls they always ask that. In a yeshiva study hall they don’t ask such a question. With whom do I identify? What does it mean, with whom do I identify? The Rashba says one law, and Nachmanides says—

[Speaker F] —a law this way. What does it mean, with whom do I identify? Rabbi, but again… what? Isn’t this a call for a completely different discourse? If Rabbi Chaim had been stranded on a desert island and had no possibility of asking anyone else—no halakhic decisors—then he probably would have created a different Torah. He wouldn’t have been satisfied with such dry analyses, but would have been forced to decide. And that means adding some layer we haven’t heard from him until now.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, obviously. Rabbi Chaim did not have the layer of decision; that’s not what we received from him. The analytical layer is very important at the first stage. And therefore I say that the fuller path—and I’m getting ahead of myself a bit here, but we’ve already entered the topic—the fuller path is one that does not give up the conceptual analysis but ends with a first-order decision. A decision about what is correct on the basis of the analysis, not instead of the analysis. On the basis of the analysis. That is the meaning of the matter. And I think you can definitely reach that; these are not contradictory things. They are not contradictory. I think that often, once people allow themselves to ask with whom they identify or who is right, they will also have an answer. Very often it is an ideology that you are unwilling to decide who is right, because who am I? What do you mean? Great medieval and later authorities—who am I to decide who is right? They are all equally right, and so you try to understand this and understand that, which is excellent. Meaning, deciding that everyone is equally right as a methodological tool in order to understand fully what each one says—that is excellent. At the first stage, as a framework within which the conceptual work is done. But afterward a second stage has to come. After you have analyzed thoroughly and to the end, tried to understand each opinion, in the end you also have to reach a conclusion—who is right, what do you rule. And that too can develop the ability.

[Speaker E] Were there halakhic decisors who analyzed Rabbi Chaim’s analyses and ruled in the two directions he proposed? Who?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know about Rabbi Chaim specifically, but we mentioned earlier the names of decisors who certainly were conceptual scholars and used conceptual analysis in order to rule.

[Speaker E] No, not their own conceptual analysis, but taking someone else’s conceptual analysis and ruling along those lines.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Also their own conceptual analysis—everyone’s conceptual analysis is somehow influenced by all the other conceptual analyses. It’s not that Rabbi Chaim influenced all those decisors as well. It’s not necessarily that they are following his exact path, but he is present in them too. Conceptual learning is something created by the work of many people. It’s not that Rabbi Chaim alone has a very important share here, Rabbi Shimon has an important share here, many great roshei yeshiva made many contributions here, but in the end everyone uses many conceptual tools in his own proportions, in his own way, with his own nuances, but clearly he is not disconnected from everything done before him. So for me what matters is that you do conceptual analysis and then you rule. Exactly which conceptual analysis you do—each person with his own conceptual approach. There isn’t just one uniquely correct conceptual method.

[Speaker H] Rabbi, the whole line of thought makes a lot of sense to me, there’s just one thing I probably don’t grasp. When I take some passage and study it from beginning to end—that is, I start from the Mishnah, go through the Talmud, and arrive at Jewish law—then in the end I have a ruling. There is a halakhic ruling at the end. Okay, so when the Rabbi says I have to arrive at a ruling—is that my own ruling, or do I need to arrive at how the Jewish law was decided? My own, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, also—

[Speaker H] —even if I don’t agree with Jewish law as it was ruled, what matters is what I think?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no such thing as Jewish law that was ruled—that’s exactly the mistake. There is no such thing, no such thing. Jewish law was not ruled. Ruled, by the way, in both senses—it wasn’t ruled, meaning it continues,

[Speaker H] it didn’t stop.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’ll get to that in the coming lectures, okay? It’s a topic I’ll discuss at length.

[Speaker H] So what the Rabbi is basically saying is—I need to get to what seems logically sound to me personally? Right, right. But is the Rabbi speaking about small people like us, or about—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m speaking about people who have realized their potential, regardless of what that potential is. Meaning, you don’t have to be Moses our teacher, or Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, or Rabbi Akiva—you have to be Zusha, like the well-known Hasidic story. Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli said that when he gets to heaven they won’t ask him why he wasn’t Moses our teacher; they’ll ask him why he wasn’t Zusha. And I think that in the context of halakhic ruling, a person who can rule autonomously, can rule for himself, in a first-order way and not rely on others—that’s a person who is already Zusha. He doesn’t have to be Moses our teacher, but he does have to be Zusha. And you need to be someone who has already formed or realized his own potential, reached the point of how he sees things. Once you get there, you can rule for yourself, even though—

[Speaker H] —there are—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —halakhic decisors greater than you and perhaps more correct, but we’ll talk about that too; I’ll discuss all of this.

[Speaker H] But if my way seems the most logical, that’s not a way I invented or developed; I just studied all the opinions and need to connect to one of them, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem—then connect. And if you don’t connect to one…

[Speaker H] No, I’m asking, is that what it is?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying: if you don’t connect to any of them, you can invent your own way too—that is also allowed. You don’t have to be different from everyone else; you’re allowed to identify with one of your predecessors. You’re not obligated to be original. If you think differently, fine, rule as you think. But I simply think if we—

[Speaker H] —all go after this theory, there will be total chaos.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When I talk about that, we’ll get there. The total chaos is what we have today, but I’ll talk about that more. What I only want to say is that behind rabbinic laws, since there is no essence, no structure, then all this conceptual analysis that we… meaning, it’s not only that rabbinic laws are a preparatory instrument for a commandment, whereas Torah commandments are the commandment itself to study. Now I’m talking about the form of study. The form of study of Torah laws is analytical study that tries to expose the theoretical structures. The form of study of rabbinic laws is simply to understand what the rabbis said, that’s all—plain meaning, not analytical analysis and nothing of that sort, because there is none. Analytical analyses with regard to rabbinic laws are inventions; they don’t really expose what lies behind those laws. A practical implication—another practical implication, for example: in Torah commandments, as I said before, I support autonomous decision. Meaning, to analyze the passage, reach conclusions, understand the different opinions, but in the end to reach my own conclusion. Because there is a value to autonomy, and I’ll discuss that too later; I’m getting ahead of myself. But in rabbinic laws, I don’t think there is a value to autonomy. Because in rabbinic laws, the study is simple study in order to know what the rabbis said. Now suppose there is a dispute between the Mishnah Berurah and the Arukh HaShulchan on some rabbinic law. Now in principle, if it were a Torah law, I would try to understand what he says, try to understand what he says, but in the end I would reach the conclusion of what I think. And that is what I am also supposed to do. In rabbinic law, what difference does it make? I assume that what the Mishnah Berurah said is one possible interpretation of what the rabbis said. And the Arukh HaShulchan is also possible. And I myself am surely not wiser than either of them, so it is unlikely that I would be more right than either of them. But there is a value of autonomy. The value of autonomy means understanding how I myself grasp this Torah issue. But in rabbinic law there is no such thing. All you need is not to violate “do not turn aside.” If you do what the Mishnah Berurah says, you have not violated “do not turn aside.” Everything is fine. Everything is in order. There isn’t that value of studying, immersing yourself, reaching my own conclusion, and acting according to my own conclusion, because that value exists in a place where, when I study and formulate a position and reach my own conclusion, from my perspective that is my cleaving to the will of God. That is what the Holy One, blessed be He, says according to my understanding. And therefore I need to act in the way I understand God’s will, because that is cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. But with “do not turn aside,” in rabbinic laws, this is not cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. I simply need to do what they said so as not to rebel against them, in order to fulfill “do not turn aside.” Fine. So if I adopt—I’ll study Mishnah Berurah, I’ll understand what he says, and I’ll observe the rabbinic laws. I have no problem learning abridged handbooks and ruling from them in rabbinic laws. In Torah laws I have a big problem with that, because halakhic ruling has to be autonomous.

[Speaker D] Rabbi, but maybe “do not turn aside” is not just simply obey them and preserve their authority, but we treat them with respect. If we treat great artists with respect and interpret them over decades and centuries, then why shouldn’t we think there is great significance in understanding the deep intention of the Sages?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As the Master said, they themselves say there isn’t. Why invent meanings? They themselves say it is a decree lest it lead to meat and milk—the case of poultry with milk. So I need to find constructions standing behind the prohibition of poultry with milk? There aren’t any. The whole question is where there is concern and where there is no concern.

[Speaker D] They said it, and I interpret them however I want. The fact that they said it—the Rabbi already said that earlier too. Meaning, we can disagree with Maimonides and Rabbi Chaim can disagree and say: with all due respect, you said it and I understood you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there’s no such thing, no such thing. Once with rabbinic laws you are supposed to fulfill what they established, then you need to understand what they established. What do you mean? So understand what they established—fine. It’s not certain that the Mishnah Berurah understood correctly, but at least he understood in a legitimate way. And if I understand differently, it’s not clear I understand better. So with Torah law, even if I don’t understand better, there is value in acting autonomously. But in rabbinic law, there is no content to this understanding or that understanding. I only need to see that I’m within the framework, that I’m not violating “do not turn aside.” So there it doesn’t bother me to follow an abridged handbook and act accordingly. That should not trouble me.

[Speaker C] Fine, but all this assumes that one can divide between rabbinic law and Torah law sharply in study. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As I said in one of the—someone asked me last time or the time before—so two comments. First comment: there are, of course, rabbinic laws of the second type, which do have an essence behind them. There definitely is room there to try and think about constructions, although one has to be cautious, because with all due respect to the rabbis, they were human beings. And to build overly abstract towers that are unlikely really to have stood at the foundation of the matter—well, with the Holy One, blessed be He, and with Torah, fine, but with human beings I would question how far human beings—

[Speaker H] Rabbi, but we still haven’t put our finger on what exactly is rabbinic and what exactly is Torah-level, because again, I think, say, I open tractate Megillah, okay? The laws of Purim. So what is that? Is that Torah-level? Is that rabbinic?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Purim is rabbinic, but rabbinic of the second type.

[Speaker H] Right, rabbinic of the second type is like Purim and Hanukkah. It’s not poultry with milk, it’s not poultry with milk. I understand—it’s like Torah and person, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As I just said, this is rabbinic of the second type. That’s one comment. Second comment.

[Speaker H] But there, when I study that Talmudic passage, I really do build towers.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying I don’t think you are right if you build towers there. Why?

[Speaker H] Because it’s less—there are no towers. Does it have less value than another Talmudic passage?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are no towers. There aren’t. It’s not less than another Talmudic passage; it’s just that the subject is rabbinic. A rabbinic subject means human beings thought, reached certain conclusions. Fine. What is there is there.

[Speaker H] Yes, but those human beings, when they discuss another Talmudic passage on another subject, they are still human beings.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Clearly. But when the Torah was involved, then the structure they are trying to uncover is an existing structure, a structure that the Holy One, blessed be He, made. So there is a structure there. Whether they hit on the correct structure or not, that is another question; not necessarily that they did. But they have authority, so we nevertheless rely on them. But in rabbinic laws there is no structure. There isn’t. It doesn’t exist. It’s not that maybe you made a mistake about the structure; there simply isn’t one.

[Speaker C] Rabbi, isn’t there an analytic structure? We need to be precise about that. Maybe the mistake here is that there is no analytic structure, but there is a structure of calculations, of study, of effort?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly, you can study with pilpul and precision, all of that is true. But not to do it in the way we do with Torah-level laws, by way of abstract theoretical constructions. Rather, you need to see where there is concern that one may come to permit actual meat and milk, and where there is no such concern. That’s all. The criteria are commonsense, practical criteria. Right. And regarding another comment, what Eliyahu mentioned earlier, that is completely correct. It’s not always possible; very often it’s hard to draw a sharp line between when you are studying rabbinic law and when you are studying Torah-level law. There are, for example, topics where there is a dispute whether this is rabbinic law or Torah-level law. So the distinctions I am making here on the theoretical level are correct, but on the practical level, in a great many topics this will not be applicable, because in a great many topics it is mixed together, the rabbinic and the Torah-level. Part of the analysis is to try precisely to see which component is Torah-level and which component is rabbinic. Or there is a dispute whether it is rabbinic or Torah-level. So the study of Torah-level and rabbinic law is integrated. Therefore, what I am saying here should be taken as a principled distinction, a conceptual distinction. But on the practical level, in many topics—not all of them; in some topics it is practical too—but on the practical level, in many topics, you still need to analyze them and examine them, at least in order to separate the Torah-level and rabbinic components. One last comment that I still want to get in, because I really do want to finish with this part about rabbinic laws, so allow me one more remark regarding the blessing over Torah study. We spoke about the matter of the blessing over Torah study, so I just want to conclude on that point. Here. The Talmud in Berakhot 11 says: Rav Huna said, for Scripture one must recite a blessing, but for midrash one need not recite a blessing. Rabbi Elazar said: for Scripture and for midrash one must recite a blessing; for Mishnah one need not recite a blessing. Rabbi Yohanan said: even for Mishnah too one must recite a blessing, but for Talmud one need not recite a blessing. And Rava said: even for Talmud one must recite a blessing, for Rav Hiyya bar Ashi said: many times I stood before Rav to review our chapter in the school-text of Rav; he would first wash his hands and recite a blessing, and then teach us our chapter. Meaning, he recited a blessing beforehand. So there is a dispute here over what one recites the blessing on. For Scripture, certainly one must. As for midrash, there is some dispute here. What about Mishnah? There is a dispute about Mishnah. After that there is a dispute about Gemara. In the end, the Jewish law is ruled in accordance with Rava, and Rava says that even over Gemara one must recite a blessing. But it seems that Gemara is the thing one is least required to recite a blessing over. Rava is the most extreme view, saying that one recites a blessing even over Gemara. According to the way I have presented things until now, Gemara is the very first thing one should recite a blessing over. It is the clarification of the topics, trying to understand this pilpul, the attempt to understand the theory behind things. So first of all, notice: the midrash spoken of here is halakhic midrash; it is not stories about Abraham our forefather in the fiery furnace, but halakhic midrashim. Midrash is close to Scripture, as Rashi says, such as Mekhilta, Sifra, and Sifrei, which are expositions of the verses. So not just random scriptural homilies, not Midrash Rabbah, but halakhic midrashim on the verses. So first of all, that does not contradict what I am saying so much. Second, look at how Rashi explains Rava: “Even for Gemara one must recite a blessing.” Rashi says: “For that is the essence of Torah, from which instruction emerges. Gemara means the reasoning behind the Mishnah and the resolutions of mishnayot that contradict one another, and cases of omitted words and so on.” Now this turns the whole picture upside down. Because in the Talmud it appears—the Talmud itself seems to present Gemara as the thing one is least required to recite a blessing over, right? Only Rava says that even over Gemara one must recite a blessing; that is the broadest view of the blessing over Torah study. But then suddenly, when Rashi explains it, what does he say? “For that is the essence of Torah.” So Gemara, specifically, is the main thing over which one most certainly should recite a blessing, and therefore it seems that at least according to Rashi this is not really arranged along a single axis. When we rule in accordance with Rava, the whole axis flips. It is not just that one recites a blessing even over Gemara; rather, one recites a blessing primarily over Gemara. That is Rava’s view. In other words, Rava reverses the axis that came before him. He is not merely adding another layer—although Gemara is something marginal, one recites a blessing over that too. No. Once Rava says that one recites a blessing over Gemara, the entire story is turned upside down. And we are really reciting a blessing precisely over theoretical, analytic study, and not over the simpler things, let’s call it that—the Mishnah, or practical law, or things of that sort. Therefore, in the Talmud itself the structure seems reversed, but the conclusion can be as I am saying. Because in the end we rule in accordance with Rava. And again, one can get into the question here whether the blessing over Torah study is a blessing of praise or a blessing over commandments, and in my humble opinion that is connected. Even if the blessing over Torah study is a blessing of praise—and perhaps especially if the blessing over Torah study is a blessing of praise—the praise is for the fact that we received Torah. So then there is room to discuss: what is worthy of praise? What is this Torah that you received, over which we offer praise? I spoke about the fact that women are obligated in the blessing over Torah study in the previous lecture; I said there that it is a blessing of praise. And then we recite a blessing. Over what do we recite it? Over Gemara. Because Gemara is really the essence of Torah, from which instruction also emerges. But again, not because it is important in order to issue a halakhic ruling, but because the law itself is nothing more than the conclusions of Gemara study, or analytic study. “Study is greater, because it leads to action,” or the topic that arrives in accordance with the practical law. So that in the end, it seems to me that even in the Talmud itself—I think, it seems to me—even in practice I would not recite the blessing over Torah study on rabbinic laws. Only on Torah-level laws. Rabbinic laws are not Torah, in my opinion. Not Torah, and we did not receive them from the Holy One, blessed be He. To bless the Holy One, blessed be He, with a blessing of praise for having given us Torah—over rabbinic laws? Why in the world? That is not Torah that He gave us. The Torah of the obligation to obey the sages is Torah that He gave us. The law of “do not deviate” is of course a Torah law. Because there the Holy One, blessed be He, expects us to obey the sages. So understanding the parameters of “do not deviate” is certainly Torah study. But discussing the parameters of poultry with milk? No. That is preparation for a commandment; you need to know it in order to know what to do. But over that it is not correct to recite the blessing over Torah study, in my opinion. Okay, I’ll stop here. Here we have finished the matter of rabbinic commandments, and from the next stage we will begin really getting into the thick of it: first-order rulings, second-order rulings, questions that came up here as well—ruling autonomously, not autonomously.

[Speaker H] One question, Rabbi? Yes. I’m also following the series the Rabbi is currently giving on dispute and truth, and I think it is very connected. The two series are connected. But the Rabbi said something here today that didn’t quite fit for me with the other series, where the Rabbi says that the halakhic decisors, or the medieval authorities (Rishonim), or the later authorities (Acharonim), basically have intuition. Now, from the other series I understood that there really is no such thing as intuition among the medieval authorities (Rishonim); everything comes from tradition and from the way a person received his ideas. Absolutely not. That’s what—

[Speaker B] what the Rabbi said at the beginning, about the tannaim, from Shimon.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said that the earlier you are in the chain of transmission, I think the stronger the intuition is. I also wrote that in Two Carts. And because our intuition is weaker, we need more developed analytic tools, like a blind person develops hearing more because he doesn’t have eyes. He needs hearing with higher resolution, better hearing. But in the end, of course when there are disagreements and we need to make decisions, that is done through intuition. What do you mean? Of course it is.

[Speaker H] But again, I’m not talking about us, not talking about our generation. I’m talking about the generation of the Mishnah and the Gemara. Certainly. They did not operate based on intuition; they operated based on…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, you’re talking about the first stage—what I said about Sinai and the tradition, and that in the end it was give-and-take. The Rabbi explained with the foundation of justice

[Speaker B] before

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that.

[Speaker H] Right, right. Fair enough. It was.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I said in the end that they had the illusion that they were a hollow conduit, but the truth is that no conduit is hollow. Even Rabbi Eliezer.

[Speaker H] Yes, yes, right right, but okay, because each one received

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a message, and when I look at them, then from my perspective they did indeed have intuition, and they said things out of their own intuition. The fact that they themselves lived within such an ethos, that they were a hollow conduit—they were naïve.

[Speaker H] Ah, because it took on their personal coloring, that already makes it a kind of intuition?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly.

[Speaker H] That’s where all the disputes come from.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s where all the disputes come from: I think this way and you think that way. Okay, so I’ll talk about that a bit more in this series too.

[Speaker H] Okay.

[Speaker B] If I may ask a question, Rabbi—a question unrelated to the series, in general. What can the Rabbi tell me about the Gemara in Hullin regarding the initial presumption, what does it say there about whether a doubt can override a certainty on page 10? A doubt cannot override a certainty, with “the slaughterer is before you,” and the Gemara says that apparently the presumption was undermined, and then the Gemara says that the animal too had its presumption undermined.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Come—there’s no point getting into the details of that topic; you have to go into the topic itself there. Send it in, post it in the responsa section of the site, and I’ll try to address it.

[Speaker B] No, I just mean to understand whether the Rabbi has some idea there, that the Gemara basically says that the animal was undermined but the knife was undermined and the animal was not undermined, and then it’s as though in two separate entities. Right? The presumption is a reasoning across two entities.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The animal remains as it was, even though the knife’s presumption was undermined.

[Speaker B] Yes, and that’s different from if it pertains to the body of the person immersing, where there it was undermined.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so—

[Speaker B] I mean, ostensibly what’s the difference? It amounts to the same thing, one leads to the other, but…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The whole concept of presumption is a formal concept; it does not actually clarify reality.

[Speaker B] So it’s a formal

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] definition, like whether a mother’s presumption helps the daughter or does not help the daughter. There is a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim), and a contradiction in the Talmudic passages, and even a contradiction within the Shema‘ateta on this matter, whether the mother’s presumption helps the daughter or not. Yes—if the mother has a presumption of fitness, does the daughter born to her also have a presumption of fitness? Now what is the connection? If the mother had relations with someone disqualified, then the daughter is disqualified too, even if the mother herself had been fit. But according to certain views, the mother’s presumption helps the daughter. That is a formal statement in the laws of presumptions; it is not an actual clarification.

[Speaker B] Yes, it’s conduct, certainly it’s conduct.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, if it is in two separate entities, then we do not allow the presumption to be undermined. Very good. More power to you.

[Speaker B] Thank you very much, Rabbi. Sabbath peace.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, that’s it.

[Speaker E] So goodbye,

[Speaker H] Sabbath peace.