To the Perplexed of the Generation – Lesson 21

[Speaker A] Thursday, 27 Adar I 5771, March 3, 2011, Rabbi Michael Abraham’s lecture on Rabbi Kook’s Perplexed of the Generation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We saw that throughout the chapter Rabbi Kook talks about our attitude toward the environment, toward animals, and he says that the Torah’s attitude toward them basically characterizes an intermediate state—some situation in which the world still isn’t sufficiently repaired. And until it reaches its full repair, we’re supposed to relate to them in a certain way and make use of them. There are various purposes here, among them to sharpen the difference between human beings and animals, so that people won’t come to harm human beings. If we equate human beings with animals, then people may end up harming human beings for the sake of animals—that’s Rabbi Kook’s very extreme formulation. In any case, it’s very important to preserve the distinction between human beings and animals, and a relation of full equality can blur that. And in fact his basic ideological direction does not say that animals are equal to human beings, but only that our attitude toward them should be one of dominion, as in “and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea”—dominion for the benefit of those ruled, not for the benefit of the ruler; not simply using them. That doesn’t mean they’re on the same level. Even in the future, when the world will be completely repaired, the intention is not that human beings and animals will be equal in rights or status, but only that dominion will be exercised entirely for the sake of the animals. So that’s what we discussed at some length.

Here on page 53—we got up to the top of page 53—he says that all the laws and commandments for which one cannot find a role in the present, and so on, that’s the first paragraph, and then there’s an omission. And that omitted passage appears on the page I handed out to you. That page was important to me because it contains a very important focal point, the focal point regarding sacrifices, which doesn’t appear in the rest of the chapter. Even though in the article I sent—the article by Henkin, by Eitam Henkin, I don’t remember if I sent it or not, an article reviewing this book—he brings the omissions and so on, and he really writes there that he doesn’t understand why this section was omitted. Rabbi Kook says these things elsewhere too, in connection with The Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace and so on—the idea that sacrifices are destined to be abolished in the future. So as for why it was omitted, I really don’t know, but there’s a very important point here that’s worth paying attention to: how he relates to this whole matter of abolishing sacrifices. And I’ll start from this omission.

So Rabbi Kook writes as follows: “And our judges and our counselors, when they interpret the Torah, and find our people fit to bring these buds into actuality”—to bring into actuality, sorry, “these buds”—yes, these buds of the higher moral state—“then instruction will go forth to the entire people.” As for individuals, he had already said earlier that regarding individuals it would not be harmful if we practiced vegetarianism and refrained from harming animals, but for the masses it would be harmful. But when these buds begin to appear in the broader public, then the judges and counselors will interpret the Torah and see that indeed the generation is fit for this, and they will issue instruction to the whole people. “And the people, rising to this wondrous mode of conduct with an inner natural feeling of compassion, modesty, and acts of kindness that will come into actual expression in their full sense, will necessarily be a light to the nations, and all the nations, when they hear these laws, will say: ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’”

And then he moves to the subject of sacrifices. “As for sacrifices, certainly, as long as the state of human morality finds it necessary—or upright, in its view—to use the killing of animals for its material needs, it is fitting that the most purposive use, namely, the instruction of the inner recognition of the duty of gratitude to the good God, should be through animal sacrifices.” As long as we are in a state where we use animals and eat animals, then it makes sense that there should also be sacrifices to the Holy One, blessed be He, through offering animals.

“And this too may continue for that period, even when morality rises to the point of recoiling from the flesh of every living thing.” For that period—sorry—even when that period has already passed, this may continue, even though people will apparently already begin to recoil from what is done to every living creature around them. “However, awareness of the reality of the attribute of justice and of the use of cruelty in the world should certainly exist for some period, in order to preserve the condition of the human spirit, so that it not be degraded by the evil acts of the morally fallen in human society.” In other words, even in the intermediate period when we still have not made the needed halakhic change and abolished sacrifices, we still have to preserve the moral attitude in some way. That is done by all the prohibitions or limitations that the Torah imposes—some of which he listed earlier and some of which he’ll list later—forbidden fat, carcasses, torn animals, and so on. In Rabbi Kook’s view, all of these are meant to preserve that moral feeling, which has faded somewhat, and therefore can’t be used halakhically—we can’t abolish sacrifices and forbid eating animals—but the Torah still has a goal, even in this intermediate period, to preserve this human moral feeling so that it won’t be degraded by the evil deeds of the morally fallen in human society.

Yes, this somewhat recalls what the Torah says about the idolatrous city: “and He will give you compassion and have compassion on you.” After you do what the Torah says—the idolatrous city is a pretty קשה commandment, killing everyone there—there’s a concern that it might harm a person’s moral purity. So on the one hand, you might say: fine, then let’s cancel this commandment. No—you can’t, the Torah says to do it. But the Torah promises that even if you do it, it won’t damage your spiritual purity—“and He will give you compassion and have compassion on you.” Because usually a person who kills a lot becomes coarse in this matter of killing human beings—yes, the effect of executioners or slaughterers. “The sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.” So there will be this reminder of sacrifices, which at least has some effect on the one occupied with them, some reminder that there is still a need for the attribute of justice in the world. Yes, someone who deals with sacrifices—which is ostensibly a commandment, the Torah commands it—still, it can leave some not-good, not-moral imprint on the soul. “However, when the condition rises to the loftiest level, such that no safeguard at all is needed, then certainly the Great Sanhedrin sitting in the place that God will choose will delve into the Torah to see whether it is then possible to sacrifice any living creature to God, when a human being cannot possibly desire this on the basis of moral consciousness—and it is said, ‘you shall slaughter for your acceptance.’ Since complete human willingness in this matter is impossible, certainly the great court will have the power to replace the sacrifices of animals with meal-offerings from plants.”

“And about this the final prophecy was said: ‘Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to God.’” Specifically an offering, not an animal sacrifice. Why use specifically the term offering? Because that means something from plant life, right? “And concerning this it was said in the words of the Sages: ‘All sacrifices will be abolished, but thanksgiving will not be abolished.’” And thanksgiving, of course, can also be an animal sacrifice, but he says it means the thanksgiving meal-offering, added to the bread, which is its principal component. “It is understood that one cannot define the details of the periods; those periods will be entrusted only to the great court in the place that God will choose.” In other words, he can’t tell us in advance when this will be. When will the Sanhedrin be able to sit and determine the period in which the Sanhedrin will abolish the matter of sacrifices?

“And whatever they decree in interpreting the Torah and defining its boundaries, whether by the reason for the verse or by finding support from the Torah, once the view of the great court is joined to it, this is complete Torah, and one who disputes it is a rebellious elder”—such a disgraceful sinner will not be found in the time of perfection. In other words, once the great court sits and decides to abolish sacrifices—whether on the basis of the reason for the verse, or by finding support in the Torah, or a midrashic derivation, or something like that—then obviously it will not be possible to dispute it. The great conservatives who try to fight against it will in effect fall under the category of a rebellious elder, because they are going against the ruling of the Sanhedrin.

The comment I want to make before moving to the substance is this: he says here, “whether by the reason for the verse or by finding support from the Torah.” That’s very interesting. Usually the accepted Jewish law is that we do not derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse.

[Speaker B] But support from the Torah—there’s plenty of that, no? What? Support from the Torah here… they didn’t take a plant sacrifice and then take—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Only—according to Cain and Abel. It could be that that’s already the beginning of the decline, since this is after Adam sinned and had already left the Garden of Eden. And he says that in the intermediate stage, certainly this is what we need to do. But in the future, when we return to that original illumination—after all, Adam originally certainly didn’t offer sacrifices, and also didn’t eat meat. So this is a kind of return to the state before the sin.

[Speaker B] I wasn’t at the previous lecture, but connected to the previous lecture, I wanted to ask something: what’s the difference between Christianity, which grew out of the people of Israel, and their reformers, and Rabbi Kook?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In other words, some kind of triangle. So that’s what I’m going to talk about today. As for the matter of the reason for the verse here, that’s just an interesting side remark, not really the topic of the chapter, but as a remark. There’s the dispute between Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda whether we derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse or not. And in practical Jewish law, all the halakhic decisors say that we do not derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse.

That is, we say: “You shall not take a widow’s garment as collateral”—it is forbidden to take collateral from a widow. And there there’s a dispute between Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda about what happens with a wealthy widow. If she’s wealthy, then seemingly there’s no problem. After all, the whole problem is concern for a poor widow. But if she’s rich, what difference does it make that she has no husband? Why can’t you take collateral from her? On the contrary, maybe the lender is poor and not the borrower. So Rabbi Shimon indeed says that in the case of a wealthy widow, no—as I think I mentioned once already, that’s not exactly the reason in the way I’m describing it here. There the Sages present it this way: why not a wealthy widow? Because with a poor widow you’ll need to return it to her at night, and then suspicion will arise, because you’re appearing at the house of a woman who lives alone, at night, and so on. But with a wealthy widow you don’t have to return the collateral to her, because she has pillows at home, so no suspicion arises. That’s interesting, but it’s really a different issue.

In any case, Rabbi Shimon says that indeed, with a wealthy widow no, and Rabbi Yehuda says that even with a wealthy widow it is forbidden to take it. And the disagreement, as the Talmud explains, is whether we derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse or not. The verse says, “You shall not take a widow’s garment as collateral.” It says nothing beyond that. So Rabbi Shimon, in his usual way, always goes after the underlying idea, the hidden man, and he says: fine, but we have to understand what is meant—why not take a widow’s garment? Apparently because she is poor. So if she is rich, this law doesn’t apply. He derives halakhic conclusions from purposive interpretation, as it’s called today. That’s what is called the reason for the verse. It is interpretation of the purpose of the law, and accordingly you define various halakhic categories and limitations.

[Speaker B] And his disputant too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. And Rabbi Yehuda does not derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse. Rabbi Yehuda goes after what is written in the Torah. If the Torah says that it is forbidden to take a widow’s garment as collateral, it doesn’t matter whether she is poor or rich. In any case, it is forbidden, and we do not derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse. And the Jewish law follows Rabbi Yehuda: we do not derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse.

Now here Rabbi Kook comments—and I assume it’s not by accident—he says that when the Sanhedrin sits down to deliberate and tries to permit or abolish this matter of sacrifices, they will do it either by the reason for the verse or by support from the Torah, a midrashic derivation or things like that. What is “the reason for the verse”? He probably means to hint that there really is no such thing as not deriving from the reason for the verse. When you make a midrashic derivation, every derivation we make, or every interpretation we make, always presupposes some understanding of the interpreted text. In other words, you can’t interpret without presupposing some understanding of the interpreted text. If you don’t assume any understanding at all—that naïve view that we approach the text as such, like a blank page, without any prior assumptions, without any particular interpretation—you can’t do any interpretation that way. In other words, we always have to…

[Speaker B] And certainly in monetary law you can derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What’s special about monetary law?

[Speaker B] It says exempt maybe—I really don’t want to go into the reasoning itself—but monetary law is about relationships between one person and another.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? What difference does that make? Why is that important? Because it’s rational? In monetary law, let’s say the Torah says that a paid guardian is liable for theft and loss. I don’t derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse. I don’t know why that is; I just uphold it. If I happened to have some special paid guardian for whom I could come up with some theory why the Torah wasn’t talking about him, I don’t think they derived from the reason for the verse there either. If the Torah said he is liable for theft and loss, then he is liable for theft and loss. There is, of course, freedom of contract in monetary matters, meaning if I want to make a contract with the paid guardian and not obligate him for theft and loss, and we both agree, that’s perfectly fine. The Torah allows us to make contracts as we wish. But what it defines, it defines in the way it defines it. We are not supposed to interpret it purposively.

[Speaker D] In practical Jewish law, this law could change depending on whether you derive from the reason for the verse or not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think that’s what he means. I think he really means to throw in, parenthetically, some remark against this naïve notion that we truly do not relate to the reasons behind things. There is no such thing. In other words, there is no interpretation that does not relate to the reasons behind things—something we discussed maybe two years ago, whoever was there, when we talked about Maimonides’ roots, or I don’t remember when that was. And there I tried to show that many, many derivations the Sages make are actually based on the reason for the verse. Not many—all of them. That is, when I make a derivation—let’s say, not even necessarily a derivation—when we talk about the four primary categories of damages in Bava Kamma, at the beginning of Bava Kamma.

Fine. So among the four primary categories of damages you have, say, horn, tooth and foot, pit, fire, and so on. The Talmud discusses there what horn is and what tooth and foot are. And it starts with the idea that goring, biting, crouching, and kicking are subcategories of horn. Right? When the animal gores with its body and causes damage, that’s a subcategory of horn. Or when the animal bites with its mouth, that’s a subcategory of horn. The Talmud asks: why is biting a subcategory of tooth? It’s done with the teeth, like eating—why is it a subcategory of horn? And then the Talmud says: no, because with horn its intent is to damage, whereas with tooth there is benefit in the damage. And when the animal bites, true, it uses its teeth, but it uses them not in order to benefit, but in order to damage. The purpose of the bite is to damage. So what? You are assuming here that when the Torah speaks about horn or tooth, it is not speaking about types of organs—horn or tooth—but about some idea. What is that idea? Damage by means of horn is something whose way is to damage, whose intention is to damage. You do it in order to damage, not for some other purpose. What is that if not deriving from the reason for the verse? In other words, what is that if not some kind of interpretation that stems from understanding the matter, and not only from what is written in a bare sense? What is written in a bare sense is the initial assumption in the Talmud, that biting is a subcategory of tooth: look, it says tooth, and biting is done with a tooth.

[Speaker B] The Torah itself didn’t use the words tooth and horn.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, but the Sages understood that the Torah says “if it gores”—

[Speaker B] And the Torah talks about “and it consumes in another’s field.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, and “consumes” is tooth, it—

[Speaker B] It talks about the result.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the Torah—no, but the Talmud says that “consumes” means tooth; it proves it too, “as dung burns until it is finished,” and so on. The Talmud assumes that “consumes” means tooth. It doesn’t matter right now how it reaches that conclusion. But after it reaches that conclusion, it still doesn’t interpret the term “tooth” literally. Rather, it explains the idea behind it. So what is that if not deriving from the reason for the verse?

There’s Rif at the beginning of Bava Kamma as well. Rif says that the exemption for tooth and foot in the public domain is because a person has the right to walk in the public domain, and so does his animal. And if someone leaves things there just like that without guarding them, that’s his own problem. I’m allowed to walk there—that’s what the public domain is for. I’m allowed to take my animals through the public domain, and therefore if my animal eats some fruit that someone left there, that’s his problem. I’m exempt; tooth and foot are exempt in the public domain. Then Yam Shel Shlomo asks: what is this—does he derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse? There are some implications to Rif’s ruling; you can see practical differences that would follow from it. So Yam Shel Shlomo says: what do you mean, does Rif derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse? After all, we don’t do that. But at every step we do derive Jewish law from the reason for the verse.

There’s that Brisker myth that says we don’t ask why, we only ask what. We ask what the Torah says, not why. Right? That’s basically an expression of this whole matter of not deriving from the reason for the verse, even when talking about the Talmud, not only the Torah.

[Speaker B] An analytical approach.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. And of course, like every analytical approach, that’s complete nonsense. There’s no such thing as asking what and not why. You can’t ask the what without having asked the why. What is the what? How do you understand what the what is if you don’t use some understanding of the why? “You shall fear the Lord your God”—to include Torah scholars. It says “et,” which comes to include. So what does it include? Fine, let’s include—I don’t know—fans. “You shall fear the Lord your God,” and also fear fans. Why Torah scholars specifically? What is it about Torah scholars? “Et” comes to include, that’s all I know. It’s obvious that a certain conceptual direction was chosen here. What is this prohibition or commandment of fearing God meant to achieve? What characterizes the matter of fearing God? And they understand that fear of Torah scholars apparently contains similar elements, and therefore they include Torah scholars. You can’t move even a millimeter in interpretation without presupposing understanding.

[Speaker B] I’m saying the opposite: if they don’t derive and don’t ask why, then they can’t make the derivation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the derivation is not only the why. You use the why in order to understand the derivation, but you are still subject to the textual triggers.

[Speaker B] So could it be that the result of the derivation is the opposite of the why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you have another option that would fit the why and still work with this derivation as a difficulty, then you need to understand it. It can’t be—or else it’s a tradition, or it can’t be. In short.

[Speaker B] Okay, because it can’t be a situation where the prohibition—however you look at it, a prohibition is a prohibition—will cause you to have compassion, or that compassion for the creatures you are going to slaughter is somehow irrelevant if you kill it in a way that isn’t ritual slaughter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For example. But I can give you a hundred thousand explanations. What do you mean? For example, if I do it through proper ritual slaughter, then I bring the Torah into it, and you can’t present the Torah as something that contains no compassion. You yourself need to kill it? Fine, kill it. But don’t think that the Torah, within its patterns, allows you an act that is devoid of compassion. I’m just throwing out some weak suggestion, but I can come up with lots of explanations. I don’t think there’s any such thing—understand, the Sages did not operate like mathematics. If the Sages derived or interpreted something, then either they had a tradition about it—fine, tradition is something else—or if they really drew it out of the verse by means of interpretation, why would they draw out specifically the illogical thing? They would obviously take the more reasonable thing. Why would they do something just because it’s unreasonable, or despite the fact that it’s unreasonable? Why? Clearly they chose the most reasonable option among the options available to them.

[Speaker B] There’s a kind of inclusions and a kind of exclusions, so there’s a kind of positivism here—people who are really positivists, as in exactly what the Torah prohibited and that’s it, no more and no less.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that only applies where “you only have what is explicitly novel there.” Where the whole Torah law is fundamentally a novelty, then the rule is: you only have what is explicitly novel there. So you narrow it as much as possible. A conspiring witness, for example, is disqualified only from now on. Why? Because you only have it from the point of its novelty onward—the dispute between Abaye and Rava. Fine, because the disqualification of a conspiring witness is a novelty, so I minimize it as much as possible. But there it starts the other way around: because I have no understanding of what the verse is saying, I reduce the unintelligible piece to a minimum. Then I say: only what is written in the Torah do I apply in this unintelligible way; I’m not willing to extend it to a place where I could have acted differently and in a way that is understandable. Only there.

Meaning, if there is a law that is understandable, it is not applied in the narrowest possible way—that’s simply not true. We do not say “you only have what is explicitly novel there” about a law that is understandable; we say it about a novelty, about something that is not understandable. On the contrary, many times—we talked about this once, I think—there’s a tendency, especially in the yeshiva world, to say that every verse teaches the opposite of what it says. If it says something, that means that ordinarily the situation is the reverse. “Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice.” So what—ordinarily you shouldn’t listen to women? What is the yeshiva answer to that? Of course—if you were supposed to listen to women ordinarily, there would be no need for a special novelty teaching Abraham to listen to Sarah. So the very fact that the verse says to listen to Sarah means that ordinarily you really should not listen to women, and here there’s a special novelty that you need to listen to her.

[Speaker A] The same thing, certainly—we’d say, for example, that killing Amalek, killing the seven nations—ordinarily it is forbidden to kill people; genocide is a crime according to the Torah. You need a very specific command, with an address and a name, for it actually to be permitted, because otherwise the prohibition does not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the prohibition takes hold, then it doesn’t open up, so you don’t even need to get into speculations—the Torah forbids it. I’m talking about a situation where I don’t know the background. Suppose, for example, there’s tzitzit: “You shall make yourself twisted fringes,” and “You shall not wear sha’atnez, wool and linen together,” “You shall make yourself twisted fringes.” The Talmud in tractate Yevamot learns from this that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. How does it learn that? Because there’s a juxtaposition between the commandment of tzitzit and the commandment of sha’atnez, and then they say that in a place where you are making tzitzit, you can also make it from sha’atnez—wool and linen together. Fine. Why didn’t they learn the opposite—that from the fact that they’re juxtaposed, it’s a sign that a positive commandment does not override a prohibition, and therefore it’s forbidden to fulfill the positive commandment if it comes at the cost of violating a prohibition? Why not the other way around? After all, there’s no hint in the Torah that specifically the solution to the juxtaposition is that the positive commandment should override; maybe the prohibition should override. The question of what the Torah is coming to teach us will definitely depend on the question of what I would have thought without the Torah. If without the Torah I would have thought that the prohibition prevails—and I think that’s the simple intuition, that when a positive commandment conflicts with a prohibition, we do not fulfill the positive commandment—that’s the simple assumption. Before we asked, everyone would have said: no, you don’t have to fulfill the positive commandment; the prohibition prevails. And if that’s the simple assumption, then clearly when the Torah juxtaposes a positive commandment and a prohibition, it comes to innovate that point, it comes to take us out of that assumption, because that is the simple assumption. But if what the Torah teaches is itself something simple, then obviously I won’t restrict it. So if it’s an understandable thing, then I’ll expand it everywhere. Fine. You could come and say: maybe really what the Torah innovated here is specifically regarding tzitzit, that it overrides the prohibition, but this is not a general principle that a positive commandment always overrides a prohibition. Who says this isn’t a local innovation? What’s the rule? In what cases, when the Sages make an exposition, do you say: this applies only here, because generally it isn’t like that—and in what cases, when the Sages make an exposition, is that an exposition teaching a principle that is true throughout all of Jewish law? After all, there are expositions of both kinds. What’s the rule? The rule is very simple: if the exposition is an exposition—that is, this is done in two stages. Stage one is to check what happens without the exposition. And in stage two, I say: the exposition probably comes to teach something that isn’t trivial, something I wouldn’t know, at least something that isn’t completely trivial. Fine? On the other hand, though, there’s an opposite consideration as well: if the exposition teaches something that is an understandable principle, then I see it as a general principle. If I see that the exposition teaches something that goes against logic, I will limit it to that place where it was said, no more. So everything depends on how I understand the situation without the exposition, and how I understand the Jewish law learned from the exposition itself. That will determine whether this verse teaches what is written there and makes it into a general principle for all of Jewish law, or on the contrary, whether it comes to teach some specific point here, that here it’s an exception, and generally in Jewish law it isn’t like that. Okay, so let’s get back to our matter. That was a side comment on the rationale of the verse. Let’s return for a moment to the issue of the sacrifices. Why do I think this section is very central, also in the methodological sense beyond omissions and sacrifices and so on? Because there is some reasoning here that is very important. Rav Kook doesn’t say—he doesn’t suffice with saying—that since we will be in a different moral state, therefore the laws of sacrifices need to be changed. That raises the question, yes, of Christianity, Reform, and the like. So what’s the difference? Now I’m beginning to deal with that. Rav Kook doesn’t say that, or at least he doesn’t suffice with saying that. He says it, but he doesn’t stop there. He adds and says that the Sanhedrin will sit over the matter and expound it from within the Torah. They won’t say, ah, the moral situation has changed, so now let’s erase Leviticus, it’s no longer relevant. That’s what Reform Jews or Christians or various sects usually do when they erase parts of Jewish law because they’re no longer relevant. But Rav Kook doesn’t say that. He says that at the foundation, it really is because there’s something here that is no longer relevant, but that argument by itself isn’t enough. He also has to bring a reason that anchors it in the sources themselves. Meaning, he has to provide an argument. Right? So what would the argument be? He even writes an argument—for example, he himself suggests such an argument, what would happen if he were sitting on the Sanhedrin. So that’s the argument he would propose. He says: it is written, “You shall sacrifice it for your acceptance.” That is written in the verse. What does “for your acceptance” mean? It means that only if this really fits your will, your values, and so on, may you sacrifice, bring a sacrifice. But in a place where any reasonable person does not want this and detests it, then you cannot fulfill “for your acceptance,” and in such a situation it really is no longer possible to bring sacrifices, either impossible or unnecessary to bring sacrifices. Just an example, of course, which he inserts in passing, but throughout he writes that when the Sanhedrin sits, they will expound this from within words of Torah, whether on the basis of the rationale of the verse, or by finding some textual support in the Torah, and so on—they will expound it from within the Torah. These are not people who will sit and say, ah, now this is no longer relevant, okay, the book of Leviticus is canceled from now on because it doesn’t suit our values. Someone who does that really is Reform, or is not faithful to Jewish law. Meaning, you cannot say, okay, Jewish law says this, but today it’s no longer relevant, so I cancel it. You can say that it’s no longer relevant and then try to look for an interpretive anchor for that statement. Meaning, if you manage to find some exposition or some interpretation of the Torah that anchors what you think, that’s perfectly fine. That is, you’re allowed to act in a way that also fits logic. That doesn’t contradict anything. But you still have to anchor it in the sources. You can’t do it without an anchor, and that’s the whole difference. After all, many times even Reform claims, in various writings of theirs, say: what do you mean? The Sages were Reform too. Listen, what is “an eye for an eye” means money. What is “an eye for an eye” means money? But “an eye for an eye” means money—the Sages say that by means of interpretation, there’s some interpretive consideration or midrashic consideration; they don’t just say, well, it’s not moral to take out an eye, so let’s substitute money. That isn’t enough. Meaning, you introduce some additional consideration of midrash, some consideration of interpretation, in order to explain why in fact you are remaining true to Jewish law. If in the end you are motivated by moral motives, that’s fine, but if the moral motives become the argument, that is already more problematic. And I’ll show this in a moment later on, but that still isn’t enough to serve as an argument. According to that line of argument, you could say that killing Amalek is not relevant today because it isn’t moral. But you don’t have any anchor. Did the Torah write that killing Amalek is a commandment limited in time, only “for your acceptance”? There’s no such verse, there’s no simple anchor for such a thing. Therefore, someone who says it’s not moral and therefore we don’t kill Amalek today—that is Reform. But someone who says we don’t kill Amalek today because he found some exposition or something like that—that is a legitimate claim. Now you need to discuss whether it is correct or not correct, but that is the claim. That is already a claim that lies within the halakhic framework,

[Speaker B] But you have to want to look for it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right. That’s what I said.

[Speaker B] No, first of all you have to decide that it’s correct. That’s exactly what I said.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As motivation, morality is perfectly fine, but when it is also the argument, that’s already problematic. That’s exactly the point.

[Speaker B] But we keep stopping at the level of motivation. Why? Because we don’t even get to the point where we look for an argument for the sake of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s already social criticism. Right now I’m talking about the principled models. The principled model—once I had an argument about this with Rabbi Benny Lau in an introduction. He wrote an article there about a Jew named Rabbi Professor Rosenthal. He was the rabbi of Kibbutz Sa’ad, I think. Afterwards he was a scholar at the Hebrew University, and he talked there about the dual hats Rosenthal wore, Professor Rosenthal: the hat of a scholar and the hat of a rabbi. And he claimed that the scholar within him also influenced his activity as a rabbi. And his example was—and he didn’t make this up, this was already Kahane, Rosenthal’s student, Menachem Kahane from Jerusalem, who had already written this in an earlier article. And he argued basically that Rosenthal spoke in the early 1960s, when they founded the movement for Torah Judaism, I think that’s exactly what it was called. Oz VeShalom? Yes, exactly. So the movement, yes, of religious liberalism—today maybe they’d call it the religious left, I don’t know exactly what. A collection of intellectuals from the Hebrew University, of that sort, as apparently there had already been a few such groups in the past. And this whole matter arose, or sharpened greatly, around some case publicized by Shahak, the famous chemist, Professor Shahak. He wrote, I think in Haaretz, that he saw Jews passing by some gentile on the Sabbath and not saving him because of Sabbath desecration. He had all kinds of canards like that that he published in the newspaper in order to sharpen some of the problematic elements in Jewish law. Then a storm and an uproar broke out, and so on. In the end, a large part of his publications were canards, meaning it didn’t really happen. But of course that doesn’t matter, because even if it didn’t happen, it could have happened. Because that really is the Jewish law. So what difference does it make now whether it happened or not? And the accepted halakhic approach to saving a gentile on the Sabbath is that it is permitted because of “the ways of peace.” And “the ways of peace,” what is the reason usually? What does that mean? So that Jews should not be killed around the world—that is preservation of life. And since that is so, you may desecrate the Sabbath in order to save the gentile. Some say only regarding rabbinic prohibitions, but where there is an assessment that this is truly preservation of life, then it also applies to Torah-level prohibitions. Today the accepted approach among almost all halakhic decisors is that even Torah-level prohibitions may be set aside, although the Mishnah Berurah does not say that. In any case, Rosenthal there in the opening speech—I think this was the founding speech of that group—argued that the Hatam Sofer was in general motivated by moral motives when he permitted even Torah-level prohibitions in order to save gentiles. And he explained that he was really motivated by moral motives, and in fact even if someone were on a deserted island and there were no television cameras there, no television lens, yes, and no gentile and nobody seeing him, he would still have to desecrate the Sabbath to save a gentile in distress. Why? Because the reason is a moral reason, not these devices of “the ways of peace” and all kinds of things of that sort. Now, that’s ridiculous from an interpretive standpoint, because anyone who looks at the responsum of the Hatam Sofer, and anyone who knows the Hatam Sofer even a little, understands that he was talking nonsense. It’s just nonsense; the Hatam Sofer himself says that, that it’s not true. He says to be careful with that and to limit it, and only in a place where it is dangerous, and so on. The interpretive freedom there was also absolutely total. But the main problem I saw there was, beyond the question of interpretive honesty toward the Hatam Sofer, I think that this consideration simply doesn’t hold water. Meaning, if it is forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath in order to save the life of a gentile, then you cannot raise a moral consideration in order to override that. A moral consideration cannot override that. Because that is the Jewish law, just as you cannot cancel the killing of Amalek because of a moral consideration. So you can tell me that if I find some sufficiently halakhic anchor to justify that action—say, “the ways of peace”—then afterwards I can dance at home with joy because I really wanted that. I am distressed that I cannot desecrate the Sabbath in order to save the life of a gentile. My motivation can certainly be moral, and it ought to be. But morality cannot serve as the argument. Meaning, the halakhic argument—you cannot cancel Jewish law because in your opinion it is not moral. You can cancel Jewish law where you found some interpretive or midrashic tool showing that you have a method for changing it, or for saying that today it is no longer true, or that perhaps even then it wasn’t true—doesn’t matter, that can be done. And it may be that your motivation is moral motivation; with the Hatam Sofer I very much doubt that it was. But even if the motivation is moral, that’s perfectly fine of course, but you cannot use that motivation as the device that serves as the argument. It can only serve as the trigger that causes me to do the work, to look for different directions. Meaning, after I’ve found that “its ways are ways of pleasantness,” I am inwardly delighted and happy, and usually whenever some gentile passes by I’ll quickly call gentiles to come see, so that I’ll be obligated to save him, because if no gentile sees then I won’t be able to save him, and what do you mean, after all it’s only because of “the ways of peace”? No—I have a moral motivation. So the motivation is fine, but it cannot be that the motivation replaces arguments. I could change all of Jewish law with these motivations. There are certain ways that Jewish law operates, and that requires some internal argument in order for me to change the matter. Now about this I want to talk a little more, to flesh it out a bit more. I later wrote an article on the issue—not on rescue, on the Meiri’s statements regarding the attitude toward Christian gentiles, and in the end I also concluded with the issue of saving a gentile on the Sabbath—but it is an example of the mechanism of changes in Jewish law, or of analyzing possible changes in Jewish law, and therefore I want to bring it here, because I think this is basically what is presented here by Rav Kook, and this is the difference from Christians and Reform and all kinds of such people, who in essence are not really faithful to Jewish law. The difference lies in the point of what the argument is, not in the point of what is done. The motivations can be very similar, but a motivation does not automatically translate into interpretation except where it really holds water on the interpretive level. And if you do it while skipping that stage, then it is not a relevant halakhic consideration. Meaning, then you are not in the halakhic arena. So there are the very famous statements of the Meiri; they are quoted quite a lot. The Meiri writes in very many places that the various laws concerning gentiles are laws that speak about ancient gentiles who were wicked, or of idolatrous religion, ugly, and so on, but the gentiles of our times are bounded by the norms of the nations and by the ways of religions, and since that is so, the gentiles of our time—he means Christians; he lived in a Christian environment, not of today of course but of his own time, or even of his own time he means to say—and therefore the halakhic instructions are not valid regarding them. And the normal halakhic instinct, of course, immediately upon seeing such a thing breaks into a fever. The Meiri was really Reform—that’s what it seems like, at least. What do you mean? It’s not moral, the gentiles are good people, and so on; it can’t be that it should be permitted to rob them, or that the prohibition of murder would not apply to them, or appropriating repayment of their loans, and all sorts of not returning lost property to them, all kinds of behaviors that do not fit morally—and therefore he says: today it is not relevant, today the Christian gentiles, everything is fine. He changes an entire series of Torah-level laws wholesale without blinking at all—the Meiri, in dozens of places. So the standard apologetics say that the Meiri wrote this out of fear of the censor, and that is the usual line, yes, he was afraid of the censor so he said yes, yes, this is only about the gentiles of old. There are those who write it like that; you know, it’s a common approach. What?

[Speaker B] Also in Shomer? At the beginning it says—and don’t think—okay, there are many books like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but in the Meiri that can’t be right. Yaakov Katz already wrote an article about this. It can’t be right in the Meiri; the Meiri really believed this. There are several indications of it. Usually when someone does this for the censor, he writes it on the first page in a big announcement in giant letters: know that every “gentile” mentioned in this book refers only to the wicked gentiles, but not to His Exalted Majesty the emperor, who is righteous and a man of kindness, and of course we do not mean him. And then you go on, throughout the book, grinding all the gentiles down—kill them and throw them into a pit and don’t pull them out—doing whatever you do, because since you wrote it at the beginning, you’re exempt and everything is fine. But the Meiri works the opposite way. In the introduction to the book there is nothing, and in every topic, in the small print, in every place, in every topic he reaches, one topic after another—he hardly skips any place, and there are dozens and hundreds of such places—in every topic he reaches, he writes: this is only about the ancient gentiles and not about the gentiles of today. And that is the opposite of the logic of people who do things out of fear of the censor. Meaning, he probably really thought this way, and therefore it was very important for him to express it. Fine. So if we’ve taken off the table the idea of writing out of fear, then we need to understand the thesis itself. How exactly does it work? Why is this not Christian-Reform? That is exactly what I’m asking here about Rav Kook, and that’s why I’m bringing this here. I’ll perhaps begin with a principled discussion, and afterwards we’ll return to this question. I’ll begin from a logical angle. When arguments are raised in favor of changes in Jewish law, they are usually based on the following structure. Suppose they want to validate women as witnesses; that’s the example we already discussed at some point, I no longer remember when. To validate women as witnesses—the pattern of argument is usually the following. The Sages disqualified women as witnesses, meaning the Torah—it is Torah-level law, although the Sages derived from the Torah that women are disqualified as witnesses. Women in the past were not educated, were not involved in society, in economic life, and so on. Today that has changed, and therefore women should now be validated as witnesses. Those are, say, the arguments you can find among many Reform Jews, for example, or among various Orthodox liberals today who speak about these things. It’s an argument pattern of that kind. And this is true of many changes in Jewish law, not only regarding women. I’m taking this example only in order to use it. Now this argument as it is presented here is an invalid argument. It is invalid because it suffers from what is called the naturalistic fallacy. Meaning, the naturalistic fallacy is deriving normative conclusions from factual premises. Fine? I cannot say that if this wall is white, then this wall is beautiful. Fine? “This wall is white” is a fact, and “this wall is beautiful” is a judgment. Fine? You cannot derive judgments from facts. That kind of argument is invalid. What needs to be done in order for that argument to become valid? You need to add one more premise, which was probably there implicitly, and that is a bridge premise that leads me—we already talked about this one of the previous times, I’m not sure—a bridge premise that moves us from the plane of facts to the plane of judgment. For example, everything white is beautiful. Fine? So “this wall is white” is a factual premise. The second premise is “everything white is beautiful”; that is a premise that takes me from the plane of facts—whiteness—to the plane of judgment, “all white things are beautiful,” and then I can infer the conclusion that this wall is beautiful. But if I take the facts alone, then it is impossible to derive a judgment from them; it is impossible to derive a norm from them. And that is always true. If we see an argument of that kind, even before we checked the details, if the premises are facts and the conclusion is a norm or a judgment or something like that, the argument is void. That is obvious; there is no need even to check. What is happening in this argument? Clearly this argument implicitly assumes another premise, which is the bridge premise—the argument for changes in Jewish law, I mean. Because what were the premises as I presented them earlier? The Sages derived from the Torah that women are disqualified as witnesses. That is a fact; the Sages did that, that’s clear. Second premise: women in the past were not educated, not involved in the economy and social life, and so on. That too is a fact. Third premise: today it is not so; women are educated and involved and so on. That too is a fact, right? We have three premises that are facts. How can you get from that a normative conclusion that women today ought to be valid as witnesses? You cannot derive a normative conclusion from three facts.

[Speaker B] Some say that already in the time of the Sages evidence was found for this, even in ancient documents, that women were economically involved.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s exceptional; in the normal case that was not so. We are talking about the normal case. Even today there are women who are not intelligent, right? We are talking about the normal case. We’re not talking about exceptional cases. Usually a woman sat at home in the time of the Sages; that was the accepted norm.

[Speaker B] There’s another premise here, that the reason women are disqualified as witnesses is because of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is some hidden premise here that is the bridge principle. The principle that connects me from the facts to the judgment. Namely what? That the reason women were disqualified as witnesses is because of lack of education or lack of social-economic understanding and the like.

[Speaker B] And that isn’t the rationale of a Torah law?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe yes, maybe yes, but that is the assumption at the basis of this argument; we’ll soon see. But that is the assumption at the basis of this argument. At the basis of this argument—you cannot make this argument without it. Meaning, there is some assumption here.

[Speaker B] The question is whether there is justification for that assumption?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, we’ll check that in a moment. But first of all, anyone who raises such an argument also assumes that premise, because otherwise his argument is invalid. Okay? Meaning, clearly you have to assume implicitly something that connects you, that carries you from the plane of facts to the plane of judgment. You need basically to say that someone who is not educated or not involved in social life is disqualified as a witness, yes? Facts from which the norm follows. Fine? Because the disqualification of women as witnesses is because of that. Now, why is this usually not stated explicitly? The simple reason is, of course, because that is the thing that is hardest to prove. If as a reasonable demagogue you want to obtain agreement from your interlocutors, then it’s worthwhile to focus on the premises where you will have agreement. So everyone agrees that the Sages disqualified women as witnesses—that’s a fact. Everyone agrees that in the past women were not educated and not involved and so on—and that too is a fact; nobody argues with that. Everyone agrees that today women are in a different position. Almost everyone agrees that today women are in a different position. That too is a fact. So what’s the problem? That’s it, finished; what remains to prove? It’s easiest to focus on the factual premises because everybody agrees with them. You just don’t notice, or don’t draw the other person’s attention to the fact, that this isn’t enough. You still need to prove something else. To prove that the disqualification of women as witnesses is because of lack of education. But that is very hard to prove. Good. How can you prove such a thing?

[Speaker B] Men weren’t disqualified when they were not educated.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but here we’re not talking about being an intellectual; we’re talking about someone who knows how things work among people, otherwise he doesn’t know how to interpret situations and he can’t be a witness. In the common case. Yes. A normal person walking down the street knows how people buy, how they sell, what happens among people, what a person meant when he said such-and-such. By the way, it makes sense—if someone is always shut up at home, what sense is there in using him as a witness? He doesn’t understand the meaning of a situation he is observing. You really can’t use him as a witness.

[Speaker A] About three who are disqualified as witnesses, Rashi there says: because they do not engage in the settling of the world. So they don’t understand how the world works.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe, maybe there’s some element of that there, it could be. In any case, that is of course the reason why they don’t state this premise, since that premise is obviously the focal point of the argument. That’s exactly the argument. The easiest thing is not to state the premise that is the focal point of the argument, to state the three agreed-upon premises, and to win the argument.

[Speaker B] Another kind of slip of paper left by some Knesset member that said: “This is a weak point, here you need to raise your voice.” Yes. Where there’s no explanation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I once said… someone else, same approach: here

[Speaker B] you need to raise your voice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. I once had some study partner that I learned with, and when I would start getting excited like that—with my hands—he’d say: put your hands behind your back and explain it to me like that. When I start getting excited it means I have no explanations, so I use my hands to convince him. No hands—explain with your hands tied behind your back. In any case, the problem is that there is some premise here which may be correct, but is very hard to prove. And when you put it on the table, you are of course exposing the weak point of the argument. Because now go prove exactly why women were disqualified as witnesses. Maybe it is simply a decree of Scripture, what you said before. Who says one is even allowed to make this sort of consideration. And therefore, for our purposes, it is clear that if we want at all to raise an argument in favor of changes in Jewish law, that argument has to contain such a premise as well. It isn’t enough for it just to point to a change in circumstances. You also need to show that the change in circumstances occurred in those parameters that are relevant to the Jewish law under discussion. Suppose that women today are more educated—you need to argue that the change in education is relevant to disqualification from testimony, that disqualification from testimony is because of lack of education. Otherwise, what does it help that there are changes? Today the world is also hotter, so because of that women should be validated as witnesses? What does that have to do with it? You need to show the relevance of the parameter that changed to the law under discussion. Okay? And that really is terribly hard. By the way, it is not impossible. It is not impossible in principle. Meaning, one can look in the Talmud or in rabbinic sources for evidence regarding why women are disqualified as witnesses. In yeshivot they usually don’t do this regarding women; they do it regarding wicked people. Fine? Regarding wicked people it’s already in the Talmud itself, basically. It could be that Abaye and Rava, at least according to some interpretations, do not disqualify a wicked person for financial wrongdoing, and also an ordinary wicked person—or in tractate Sanhedrin—there a discussion begins as to why a wicked person is really disqualified as a witness. Is it because of concern for lying, because a wicked person is not concerned about lying and therefore there is no point relying on his testimony? Or is it a personal-status disqualification? Some disqualification not dependent on these concerns or others—the Torah disqualified him; it is unwilling that we accept testimony from wicked people. I would even perhaps say that it didn’t want us to give them some sort of social standing, social recognition. It’s some sort of sanction against wicked people. At least that seems to me a better explanation of the intrinsic disqualification. In any case, it doesn’t matter. And they bring evidence for this from medieval authorities (Rishonim), later authorities (Acharonim), from the Talmud, from various places. Evidence can be brought for it. In the same way, one could try to look for whether the disqualification of a woman as a witness is because there is concern that she does not perceive reality correctly—lying or something, not necessarily intentional lying, but poor interpretation of reality—or whether it is an intrinsic disqualification. The same kind of question. Those are the questions. They are asked in study and halakhic analysis. These are not impossible things. I’m only saying that of course it is much harder to prove this than to prove the facts. So therefore it is easy to hide that premise. Fine. In a moment we’ll see what happens when you don’t find it. If we don’t find proof, what do we do? I’ll say in advance. We don’t find proof either way as to why women are disqualified as witnesses. That is not a simple question. It could still be because of lack of education, and it could be an intrinsic disqualification. We are basically in doubt. And here too we need to decide what to do. So automatically we don’t change? I don’t know.

[Speaker D] It’s harder to change than to leave the status quo in place.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe. I’ll speak about that later, but I’m not sure of it. Fine, but that too is not a trivial question. Meaning, there is not immediately a clear answer that if you didn’t find proof, that means women are disqualified as witnesses. Not really. In fact, you know what? Since my tongue has already run on, I’ll say more. The assumption is that I leave the status quo in place—if there is no proof I leave the status quo in place—there is some assumption that where the two sides are evenly balanced, passive omission is preferable. But if I come to the conclusion that preserving women’s disqualification is something very harmful, that it has a price—just a second—it has a very heavy price, in such a situation I am not sure we should leave the status quo in place. Then I would say: no, the burden of proof is on whoever claims that they remain disqualified. There is someone who stole, murdered, I don’t know exactly what, and only women saw him. There is testimony only from women. So now what, we’ll leave it and let a murderer go free, or leave the money with the robber? Why? Because there is a decree of Scripture that women are disqualified as witnesses. Who told you it’s a decree of Scripture? Maybe women were disqualified as witnesses because they were not reliable, but today I think they are reliable. So there is also a price on the side of conservatism. Meaning, even leaving the status quo in place is not some safe route without cost. There are heavy costs to that as well.

[Speaker D] This problem also existed in the period of the Talmud.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there they really were not reliable. So I claim that in the period of the Talmud they disqualified them because they were not reliable. Fine—if they were not reliable, you can’t accept their testimony.

[Speaker B] Are there examples in halakhic rulings where such a consideration of cost was made?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, the Meiri, in my opinion. No, not only cost—it’s not just cost—but the example the rabbi gave. No immediate decision. I’m talking about—are you talking about the first level or the second? The first level basically says that I can make a change in Jewish law if it is based on some assumption of a bridge principle. Afterwards I say, fine, I did not find proof of the bridge principle. But I claim that it is possible, a possible interpretation. Now I have two possible interpretations of women’s disqualification: either it is an intrinsic disqualification, or it is because of reasons that changed over time.

[Speaker B] When there is that doubt, have people ruled to make a change because of considerations of cost or something of that sort?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know many such cases.

[Speaker A] The rabbi gave

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] an example.

[Speaker A] That Rava or Rabbah accepted his wife’s testimony against—meaning, because he knows her and believes her.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, in monetary law it’s easier, because in monetary law the judge has before him what he understands to be the truth.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is also how Maimonides rules, among other things following Rava’s case. In monetary law you are not bound by the formal rules of evidence; the judge can do whatever he wants. Not whatever he wants—whatever he thinks is correct. And if there are two witnesses, whatever you want—if

[Speaker B] I think he’s right, he gets the money. That’s the essential law. Today they already have the practice not to do this, enactment of the rabbinical courts and so on. Yes. There is another completely different model to explain women’s disqualification as witnesses, and that is the fact that it was a patriarchal society. Meaning, there was a certain social order built on hierarchy.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I can produce other explanations too. I’m saying all these explanations are possible. Suppose I didn’t find proof, didn’t find proof, okay, still the question is what I do. I didn’t find proof, and therefore what? I didn’t find proof, therefore they remain disqualified? Maybe not. I didn’t find proof, so I am in doubt.

[Speaker B] But why does the moral price—if someone is murdered—change the Jewish law? If you don’t know, then yes? Stringently. I don’t know, Torah-level. What is “stringently”? You can’t override a Torah law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s go with you—what is “stringently”?

[Speaker B] To leave it as it is, if you don’t

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] know, then no—what suddenly? “Stringently” means to let a murderer go free?

[Speaker B] No, of course not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? After all, we know. “Stringently” means to go with the safe option—that’s what it means. You know there are later authorities who say that with positive commandments we do not go stringently. Do you know why? Like with tzitzit, for example, the Radziner Rebbe discusses this. Rabbi Akiva Eiger argued this and the Radziner Rebbe rejects it. Why don’t we go stringently with tekhelet in tzitzit? Because if you go stringently, you are in doubt whether this tekhelet is the real tekhelet or not. Now even if you put on that tekhelet, it is still not certain that you fulfilled the positive commandment, because on the possibility that this is not the real tekhelet, you still did not fulfill the positive commandment. About that it was not said to go stringently. Meaning, to go stringently means to go with the safe option, that is, to go without prices. Here it is not going without prices; there are prices on both sides. So what is called stringency here? Is it stringency to disqualify women as witnesses, or is it stringency to release murderers? In both cases it is stringency, and in both cases there are prices. That is exactly what I am saying, and therefore one needs to be a little careful with this automatic conservatism. Fine, if there is no evidence then we stay put. If there is no evidence, then I am in doubt—that is what I know. Now in laws of doubt one needs to know what to do with doubt. In fact, I’ll say more than that. If there is doubt, then let’s choose the plausible option—why choose the implausible option? There are two options for explaining the law of women’s disqualification as witnesses, right? One option is to say it’s a decree of Scripture, I don’t understand it. The second option is to say I do understand: women simply were not reliable witnesses then. Two options. Now I have no proof either way. Fine, I’m in doubt, and let’s even say for the sake of discussion that there are no costs on either side. No costs. Still, why assume that I remain in doubt if I have a reasonable explanation? I have a reasonable explanation and an unreasonable explanation. Why should I choose precisely the unreasonable explanation? What, is there a presumption about the Holy One, blessed be He, that He acts unreasonably? Why? I would say the opposite: the presumption is that the Holy One, blessed be He, acts reasonably unless I have evidence that not, and then it is a decree of Scripture. But if not, the burden of proof is on whoever says that there is an unreasonable law here, not on whoever says there is a reasonable law here. Okay, in short, there are many considerations one can discuss; I’m not getting into them now, I only made it a bit more difficult.

[Speaker B] And also the additional reason of “all the honor of the king’s daughter is inward,” that this is not her way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that joins what Ido said earlier. Of course one can raise other possibilities here; I’m only laying out the discussion schematically, of course. And I’m also not arguing for a specific conclusion, I’m only trying to show the pattern of thought, the form of thinking. Let’s move one step further. That was the logical introduction. Legitimate arguments for change are supposed to be based on an additional premise, not only on factual premises that there was a factual change compared to what was once the case, but also on a value-bridge principle. On a logic that says the norm derives from such-and-such facts. Okay, that was the logical introduction. Now let’s move to the sociological introduction. This is an example I once heard from a friend of mine: a group of people is walking in the desert in swimsuits, and that is also how their forefathers walked throughout the generations, and at a certain point they reach a colder area, and then a dispute arises. Some of the people say: we’re changing into parkas; it’s starting to get cold. Another part of the people says: we continue the tradition of our forefathers; we continue to walk in swimsuits even though it’s cold. Fine? Who is the conservative one and who is the Reform one, let’s say, in this situation—what do you think? The one who continues in a swimsuit is the conservative one and the one who changes into a parka is the Reform one, right? No, I don’t think that’s right. Why? Because the question is what the one who changes into a parka says. He can come with several claims—three, to be exact. He can claim: I’m changing into a parka because I don’t care about anything, I’m cold and I’m changing into a parka—that’s one claim. Second claim: our forefathers bequeathed to us the principle, or passed on to us the principle, that one should wear clothing suited to the weather—not that one should wear a swimsuit, as you are saying. You keep going as our forefathers did and therefore you decided that one should keep wearing a swimsuit. But I say that to continue our forefathers’ way does not mean to wear a swimsuit; to continue our forefathers’ way means to wear clothing suited to the weather. When our forefathers lived in a hot environment, they wore swimsuits, and in a cold environment, to wear a parka is to continue the way of our forefathers. Okay, so that too is basically a form of continuity or conservatism, right? So that too is conservative. So let’s give names to these three fellows. The one who says I’m changing into a parka simply because I’m cold—he is a heretic. He doesn’t accept the system, doesn’t accept the norm. The one who says I’m wearing a swimsuit despite the changes in weather—he is conservative of course, but let’s call him a simplistic conservative. Why simplistic conservative? Because he is basically interpreting the heritage he received, or the principles he received, in a simplistic way. It says wear swimsuits, so I wear swimsuits. I don’t know, I don’t make expositions and I don’t make interpretations. It says wear a swimsuit, so I wear a swimsuit; I do not expound the rationale of the verse. Yes, exactly, I do not expound the rationale of the verse. Yes, and in a moment I’ll call him that. And the third type is the person who says: I wear clothing suited to the weather, and in that way I continue the heritage of my forefathers. Let’s call him—he too is conservative, right? He is not Reform; he is conservative. He is a midrashic conservative. What does that mean? He is conservative, but the principle he preserves is a principle that emerges from interpretation and not the simplistic principle. He does not preserve the principle that one must wear a swimsuit; he preserves the principle that one must wear clothing suited to the weather. That too is a principle he received from his forefathers, and he preserves it zealously. Fine? And if they want to cut corners and wear swimsuits in weather—he’ll stone them, because they are not preserving the way of their forefathers. The way of our forefathers is to wear clothing suited to the weather. Let me sharpen this so you understand: we have some automatic instinct in favor of the person who wears swimsuits even in the cold. There is no reason for that; meaning, there is no presumption that our forefathers were stupid. There is a presumption that our forefathers did something and we want to continue their way. The question is what they did; one can interpret it this way or that way. Okay, good. Now the question is of course: who is the Reform one? One is a midrashic conservative, one is a simplistic conservative, and one is a heretic. So who is the Reform one? Where is the Reform one here? What argument can the Reform one raise? Is there still something left in the field of discussion?

[Speaker B] The one who wears a parka without explaining why.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the heretic. He doesn’t accept the commitment to… A Reform person and a heretic are not the same thing. From a halakhic / of Jewish law perspective, you might see Reform as a kind of heresy, but that religious stance is not identical; it’s not two… it’s not the same thing.

[Speaker B] The Reform person will say that once, in the time of our ancestors, the weather was hot, so they established that people should go around in swimsuits. Today the weather has changed, so we transfer that over—they didn’t establish going dressed that way because of the weather; they established going dressed warmly because it was hot.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the simplistic version. No, no, no, that’s something completely different. But that’s… okay, I’m willing… willing to hear that, but then the question is: what would our ancestors do today?

[Speaker B] You don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t know, so once again you’re in doubt, so you… that’s not Reform, that’s midrashic conservatism, which is prepared, even out of doubt, to follow its approach. In other words, that still doesn’t really capture the Reform person.

[Speaker B] The Reform person will say it’s impossible that in cold weather… but that’s the heretic, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, when I…

[Speaker B] When it’s cold I wear a parka, period. He analyzes it and says that when it’s cold, reason says—and probably that reasoning would have worked there too…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but then again that’s midrashic conservatism, because then he’s saying that our ancestors too, if they were here, would wear a parka. So again it comes back to midrashic conservatism. It somehow seems there’s no fourth foothold, no room here for a fourth approach.

[Speaker B] Right, because you didn’t formulate a written law here that raises the question whether you relied on it or not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s say the written law says, “One must go with

[Speaker B] a swimsuit,” or “go with a parka.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You formulated, “One must go with whatever was customary.” No, no—“One must go with a swimsuit,” that’s the written law. Okay? Written on parchment, black fire on white fire: you have to go with a swimsuit. So what… now look, this is a very common failure. There is a fourth possibility, but in order to understand why there’s a fourth possibility, we have to go back to the assumptions of the discussion. I keep assuming—in other words, the simpler possibility might be to say, and in my opinion it’s not correct, to say that… yes?

[Speaker B] The Reform person will say that yes, there is indeed a law to wear a swimsuit, but I’m colder, so it’s uncomfortable for me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s better. In just a moment. A first possibility would be to say that a Reform person is defined only in a system that has more than one instruction. Here I’m talking only about a system with one instruction. A Reform person is someone who accepts some instructions and doesn’t accept others. And in a system of one instruction there is no Reform person, because either you accept it or you don’t accept it. I don’t think that’s right. That means that you’re basically a heretic—you’re not willing to accept the foundational system. So what if you do some of the things? That still doesn’t make you Reform. I really think the Reform person is something like this. There’s an assumption here—we already talked about the paradox of the heap; I’m sure I talked about it. The paradox says that there are different degrees: one pebble is not a heap; a million pebbles are a heap; and adding one pebble doesn’t change the status. Okay? So those three things don’t go together, and I said the solution is that heap or not-heap isn’t measured in terms of yes or no. Rather, when you add one pebble it becomes a little more heap-like. When you add another pebble, it becomes a bit more of a heap, and when there are enough pebbles, it’s really a heap. Okay? That’s basically the point. And all our everyday concepts are really concepts measured not by binary logic of yes or no, but by continuous logic. In other words: totally not, a little, a little more, fairly, very, completely, really—or something like that, it doesn’t matter right now; I have enough terms for this. But that’s the point. Now here too, with the Reform person, there is a fourth way. The Reform person is the one who is not committed to the system one hundred percent, but only fifty percent. As distinct from the heretic, for whom the whole system says nothing at all—he is not committed to it at all. And then he says this: basically yes, our tradition matters to me, and the commandments matter, and things of that kind—but not at any price. There are certain prices I’m not willing to pay. In other words, my commitment to the system is not a one-hundred-percent commitment; it isn’t full commitment.

[Speaker B] And that’s not heresy? What? And in Reform there are study halls; they don’t come and just say, “It’s uncomfortable for me to observe.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I didn’t say uncomfortable; I didn’t say uncomfortable. You can’t take the analogy too far. The analogy is only an analogy. The principle of wearing a swimsuit is not a religious principle either. So there you speak in terms of comfort or discomfort. But if we return to the point of the analogy, there we’re talking about conflicts in a moral context, in the context of—I don’t know—one value or another. And the Reform person says: look, there is an important value in preserving our tradition; the commandments are very important commandments. But on the other hand, values are also important. My commitment to tradition is not full, not one hundred percent, not total. It’s not that if you prove to me that Jewish law says such-and-such, then I am automatically obligated to do it. It depends at what price—not at the price of violating very fundamental values. And so he says, look, where this harms one value or another, I won’t do it. That is not the same thing as the heretic, for whom this whole business is of no interest to begin with. He doesn’t need to look for justifications. He doesn’t recognize the obligation of this system; he isn’t committed to it at all. Okay? That is basically the Reform person. But for our purposes, what this classification means in our context is of course that plain-text conservatism is, say, closer to a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) view; midrashic conservatism is Modern Orthodox; Reform is Reform; and a heretic is a heretic. I think in these sociological classifications, that’s usually the classification. And of course, this classification—you know—is a classification of arguments, not of arguers.

[Speaker B] Is there Conservative?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, Conservatives—I’ll address that in the first passage itself. I don’t think that’s a fourth type; it’s a fifth type. It’s one of these four types, and among Conservatives there are some of this kind and some of that kind. What? I said one of the four types. Ah, right, maybe. Yes, the arguments again—the arguments. Some of the arguments, for example, that you’ll see among Reform Jews are arguments of very strict Orthodox Jews. They are arguments that really move in the direction of midrashic conservatism. They say, basically, if you interpret correctly for today, then you’ll know that the conclusions are not the conclusions—for example, what I said earlier, qualifying women for testimony. Some of the arguments are those arguments; those arguments are completely Orthodox arguments. There is nothing problematic about them; they are arguments within the field of halakhic / of Jewish law discussion. You can reject them, you can accept them, you can argue about them, but the argument is the argument of a person committed to Jewish law, an argument that in itself is objective. The argument in itself is a halakhic argument in every respect. You can start arguing whether it’s right or not, but it is a halakhic argument that has been made throughout the generations, and it is entirely legitimate. And we have this sort of automatic recoiling, this automatic tendency to reject these kinds of arguments because it’s Reform, because people don’t make the conceptual distinction between the different types of arguments. When someone says, “I’m wearing a parka because I don’t care,” then that really is irrelevant; he doesn’t belong to the halakhic field. But if someone says, “I’m wearing a parka because I think that’s what the rule I received from my ancestors says,” that is a halakhic argument. You can say you agree; you can say you disagree; but it is a halakhic argument. And therefore this automatic aversion to such arguments is simply an Orthodox reaction to Reform, but it doesn’t really characterize halakhic thinking. Now let’s move one step further. What emerges from here is basically the following: when change—it’s very important to distinguish between Reform and what the whole purpose of this lecture has been to distinguish, namely between Reform and the midrashic conservative, because they look similar. They look similar, and the difference between them is one thing: the question is whether you have a midrash. So you want to replace the swimsuit with a parka. The Reform person says: look, Jewish law says swimsuit. I didn’t say that Jewish law says parka. But there are other values that tell me that here they override the halakhic value. Okay? He is not doing a midrash. The midrashic conservative does a midrash. He says: what we received from our ancestors—when it says you have to go with a swimsuit, that’s not what it means. We expound the reason for the verse, as Rabbi Kook wrote here. I am basically saying they told us to wear clothing appropriate to the weather, not to wear a swimsuit—and on that I insist zealously. So there is a midrash here in the background. By the way, that midrash is the same missing assumption I talked about in the logical introduction too. Yes, that assumption which says that women were disqualified because they were not educated—that turns the argument into a halakhic argument, because here you are making an interpretive claim within the halakhic field. You can argue whether it is right or not, but it is an interpretive claim, as distinct from someone who says, “I want to qualify women for testimony because circumstances have changed today and it is simply intolerable that this is contrary to Jewish law and that’s the situation.” Exactly. And one has to distinguish between those two arguments; they are not the same thing. The second argument is a halakhic argument, and you have to examine whether it is right or not. Okay? Here too, with Rabbi Kook—I can already see I need to finish, so I’ll just close this. Here too, with Rabbi Kook, what we basically see is the same thing. Maybe one more word about Meiri. I already anticipated this, but Meiri in all places does not understand it like… He writes that all these laws do not apply to the gentiles of our time, only to the gentiles of old. He has no midrash. We do not see anywhere the reasoning that says those laws are based on the fact that the gentiles were wicked and so on, and that today’s gentiles are different. He assumes it as self-evident. But it’s not that he has no midrash. He writes explicitly that he assumes it. He has no proof for it. Those are two different levels. In other words, someone can come and say: look, today we have to relate differently to gentiles, because “gentile” is not exactly compatible with today’s values; that is not according to Jewish law. That is Reform. Okay? Someone else can come and say: we need to relate differently to gentiles because I have evidence from such-and-such a midrash, from the verses, that this is how it was meant to be. That is plain or midrashic conservatism. And everybody would accept that. If you had evidence, everyone would accept it. So what’s the problem? Meiri’s whole novelty is in a case where he does a midrash and has no proof for his midrash. He has no proof. When he sees that the Sages prohibited returning a lost object to a gentile, or that “you shall not murder” does not apply to them, or stealing from a gentile, cancelling his debt, and all sorts of things of that kind, he says: I tell you, from my own reasoning, that they did this because the gentiles were in a morally degraded state. They were not human beings. He brings this also in the name of Maimonides. But today’s gentiles are not like that. Therefore today this does not apply. He is doing a midrash here. True, he did not bring proof for his midrash. He did not say, who says so—bring evidence that this is really why the Torah established these laws. He brought no proof at all. But he did take the trouble to make the midrash. And therefore it is not Reform. It is a halakhic argument. And that brings me back to the question I asked earlier: what happens if I could not prove whether women were disqualified from testimony because of lack of education or for some other reason? Someone will come and say: true, but by reasoning I say they were disqualified because of that. That is exactly like Meiri. It is a completely halakhic, sensible, and reasonable argument. What? Finally. So the halakhic argument is completely reasonable. Exactly what Meiri does. As long as you say that you have an interpretation of the Torah that fits what you want to say, that keeps you inside the conservative world, or the world faithful to Jewish law. Understand? If you say, “I am not willing to do this because there are other values,” then you are outside. And if I return to Rabbi Kook—exactly. That is Rabbi Kook’s claim here. Rabbi Kook is not satisfied with saying that it is immoral, that it is no longer fitting, that one cannot eat animals in such a state. If he had said that, he would be way outside. But he doesn’t say that—explicitly no, consistently—and that is why this passage is so important. I brought it here. What? Also five times. Exactly. To bring it in. Right. And the claim is precisely this: Rabbi Kook says no—“for your acceptance it shall be slaughtered.” He is doing a midrash. He brings reasons. He says that the Sanhedrin sat with the reason for the verse, with scriptural support—“for your acceptance it shall be slaughtered.” He makes a point of saying: there is a midrash here. It is not just that a change in values changes Jewish law. Therefore that is the answer to the question why he is not Reform.

[Speaker A] That concludes the lesson of Rabbi Yitzhak Abraham on The Perplexities of the Generation, 27 Adar I 5771, Tuesday, March 3, 2011.