For the Perplexed of the Generation – Lesson 23

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So here he talks about this—he continues discussing it later, and I’ve already talked about it too; I’ll get to it later on. I’m not even sure that this tradition we received—and certainly, over the generations people definitely acted this way—that with problems of this kind you need to deal with them by piling on protective fences, I think today that isn’t right. Even as a tactic. But we’ll talk about that later; I think I already spoke about it in the first classes, and we’ll discuss it more later on. He himself will get to it, so for now I’ll leave it aside.

But I want to add something else. I was in the middle here of presenting two possibilities for understanding the split between the root of service and the root of rebellion. So one possibility is to tie everything to motivation. Basically the question is: what is your motivation? Is your motivation preservative, or destructive? And then I say: if that really is the root, then apparently the only way to deal with such a question is actually to go down to the root. Instead of dealing with the question, go to psychology.

But I think that very often that’s not the situation. And there’s another scenario, and I think it’s no less common. The claim is that many times there are people who are genuinely troubled by real questions—really troubled. And some of these are hard questions. Not because of motivations or anything; they really are troubled by these questions. There are hard questions.

Now what happens? Many times there are good answers. Sometimes there are good answers, sometimes maybe less so, but there are answers. When they don’t receive an answer, they conclude that this is a question that has no answer. And then they go in the direction of rebellion and not in the direction of service. It doesn’t begin with motivation.

I’ve encountered many examples, and I think I’ve mentioned this already more than once too—people who come to me and tell me that basically they don’t believe in anything. Religious people, but yes, like I already said, these Hazon Ish types with the full uniform. They come to me and tell me they don’t believe in anything. It’s all a social game; they’re stuck inside whatever society they’re stuck in, never mind, and that’s it. They don’t believe in anything.

So I try to talk with them, to understand: how did you arrive at the conclusion that you don’t believe in anything? He says to me: there’s no proof for anything; it’s all just feelings, or wherever you were educated, wherever you grew up. That’s all. I just happened to be born into a religious family, so what? If I had been born in Australia, then I’d be Australian and believing to the same degree. What difference does it make?

And then I try to talk with a person like that about what exactly he expects when he talks about proof. Meaning, what does “there are no proofs” mean? What in the world has proof? Is there nothing in the world that he accepts as true, and its opposite as false? Or are there things that do seem true?

And if I get—maybe someone will tell me: listen, I’m skeptical about everything. Fine. If he’s skeptical about everything, then it really is hard to deal with such a matter. But someone who says: no, no, specifically regarding faith / belief I now have problems because there are no proofs—so come on, give me examples. Meaning: for what things do you have proof?

And little by little I try to take him to a place—and I know this because, well, it’s autobiographical, meaning I also went through this process—to a place where he understands that there’s no point, and no need, to look for proofs in the mathematical sense. Because proof in the mathematical sense is based on axioms, and axioms always begin without proof. So what do you need? You need to look for some level of plausibility. Meaning, either it’s plausible or it’s less plausible, and based on that you make decisions.

Now if you come to the conclusion that this whole thing seems plausible to you, even without managing to build some perfectly constructed logical argument that proves beyond any doubt that phylacteries need to be square and black—rather, you say: listen, this tradition seems plausible to me overall, more plausible than its opposite, the claim that it isn’t true—then I’m here. That’s all. I have no proofs.

That too is faith / belief—not only that too is faith / belief; in my opinion that’s the only thing that is faith / belief. Never mind, that’s another issue. But very often a person simply doesn’t interpret correctly either his concepts or himself. And that too can sometimes take a person in all kinds of directions.

A person understands faith / belief as emotion. Because what does that mean—if I grew up there, then I have faith / belief, and if he grew up somewhere else, then he has no faith / belief. So what does that mean? That it’s only emotion, that’s all. Not true. And if you solve this conceptual problem, you can stop the root of rebellion.

It comes from the same place. Meaning, it’s not that he came from an improper motivation. He isn’t looking for ex post facto justifications for what he wants to do because of his impulses. He’s asking a real question. He really thinks everything is emotion. Now I can at least try to explain to him: listen, it’s not necessarily emotion. Something that isn’t logical and orderly, as in some properly built logical argument—the alternative to that is not necessarily emotion. There is intuition, what you might call it—some kind of immediate sense that something is true. Not emotion in the emotional sense, in the subjective sense, in the psychological sense.

The moment you make that conceptual distinction, the person can now begin asking himself: when I speak about emotion, do I really mean emotion, or do I mean intuition? And if he discovers within himself that he really does have an intuition that there is God and that the Torah was given, and things of that sort, then he’ll no longer be troubled by the question of whether I have proofs, what proofs I have.

And then it will stop—he’ll return toward service and not toward rebellion, even though the root is exactly the same root. Meaning, the question of whether you go in the direction of service or the direction of rebellion is not because you came from a different motivation. It’s the exact same motivation itself—you didn’t receive answers. Meaning, you’re looking for an answer to a real question, and you didn’t get it. The moment you don’t get an answer, you say: well, if that’s the case, then this question is difficult, so apparently it isn’t true.

[Speaker C] And from your experience, people like that who came to you and you gave them the answers and so on—did that actually do anything?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think that for quite a few of them—not all, but I also don’t know what happened with all of them afterward, because I don’t meet with them other than once or twice, or in phone calls, by email—but I think for quite a few people it definitely helps, the conceptual clarification.

There are no magic solutions. Some people, by the way, really will discover that they don’t believe. Fine—then they don’t believe, so what? Then they’ll discover that they don’t believe. Until now they were living in falsehood with themselves, and at some stage they reach the conclusion that they really don’t believe—so what happened? What happened? I’d be very happy if they believed, but if they really don’t believe, then that’s what they are—what good does it do for them to keep playing games? So I don’t think there’s any reason to panic over all these clarifications.

In any case, what I simply wanted to say is that this split between rebellion and service can come from two basic points, and not only one, as people often tend to portray it. Usually they tend to portray it as though everything depends on the initial motivation—why you ask your questions, there are no answers, and so on—why are you asking the question? And then of course what is the required pattern of response? So let’s address the psychology from which you came with the question, not the question itself, right?

But sometimes it is true that it comes from there; that too is true. I’m not sure it’s right to relate to it that way, as I said before. Sometimes that’s true, and sometimes it’s also not true. It’s not true that this split between rebellion and service comes because you had some different initial motivation—not talking now about good or bad, just different. I don’t think that’s true. Sometimes it has nothing to do with motivations at all. You ask a real question. You really think there are no answers here. You’re simply honest with yourself, that’s all. You’re honest with yourself, and you come to the conclusion that you don’t accept the matter.

So if I have good answers, I’ll try to give them, and if it doesn’t persuade him, what can I do? Then it doesn’t persuade him. But here what are you going to tell him—that your questions are their own answers and all that nonsense? That’s not a correct way of responding, not a true one and not a useful one. It isn’t right in any sense.

That’s why I say that the root of service and the root of rebellion is not always in intention and thought, as the author of the Tanya says. Sometimes the split between service and rebellion lies in whether you receive an answer or don’t receive an answer. Very simple. This terribly naive view that says: a person asks a question; if he got an answer, he calms down, and if he didn’t get an answer, then he thinks the question requires great further analysis and leaves the whole business—or questions, never mind right now, okay? That too can lead to the difference between rebellion and service, not only all kinds of hidden roots and scheming motivations of one sort or another.

He simply didn’t get answers, and he decided that it’s difficult, that it requires great further analysis—even if there are answers, but if he didn’t receive them, then he doesn’t know; then he really thinks it’s difficult and there are no answers, and he leaves.

So I’m saying that in the first case, I think it’s not useful to relate to the psychological layer, even though it exists. But it’s still usually not useful, or at least it’s not useful to relate only to that—if I correct what you commented earlier. Rather, you also need to address the questions themselves. In the second case it isn’t relevant at all. In the second case the questions really are good questions. It doesn’t stem from psychology, so you start telling him stories—don’t hug him. He has questions, so if he doesn’t get answers, then the question requires great further analysis. Here it’s not merely that it’s ineffective—you’re simply not talking about the issue. It doesn’t begin from psychology. He really has a question. There are non-simple questions, all kinds of non-simple questions that nobody really has good answers to.

Fine, the question is what the dosage is, and how many such questions there are, and so on. But usually the accepted rabbinic tactic is to hug the person and give him lots of love. You can’t work that way. It’s not right. You may need—you can try to explain what one does when one has questions. Or whether questions automatically decide the matter, because you have to see what the questions are on the other side. In the end every person has to make decisions.

That’s another very important habit. A lot of people are like Peres, right? What’s their solution? Peres always asks, yes, of the right wing: what’s their solution? He never takes into account the possibility that maybe there is no solution—what can you do? That too can happen, right? The fact that the right has no solution doesn’t mean you need to adopt the left’s solution. If the reality is that there is no solution, then you have to live with the fact that there is no solution and see what to do in such a situation.

So there’s this feeling that if you’ve seen that this side isn’t right, that means the other side is right. It may be that the difficulties on the other side are stronger than the difficulties on this side, and you’ll have to make a decision when you don’t know the answers to all the questions, and still you have to decide what is more plausible.

I think that’s a more realistic approach than the naive attempt to think there are good answers to all questions. I don’t buy that. I don’t think there are good answers to all questions. And still, I do think there’s value in addressing, on the rational plane, the question of what you do when you have unresolved questions. Fine? That happens to us a lot in life. There are all kinds of unresolved questions that we’re supposed to keep living with, even in scientific contexts. Different scientific fields have different questions, and still people continue using the accepted tools and try to move forward.

Or at some stage it crosses over—yes, like Thomas Kuhn’s description. At some stage the questions pass some critical threshold, and you say: all right, this whole business requires a paradigm shift. Meaning, you need to throw away the whole conceptual platform, yes, the whole conceptual framework, and start with something new. Because here there are already too many patches, yes? Too many patches are needed to hold up this structure. But as long as it doesn’t pass the minimum threshold, you continue with the existing paradigm and live with your questions. You manage the crisis; you don’t solve it. And I think that too is no small art regarding these matters, with questions of faith / belief and the root of service and rebellion.

“There is no doubt in the world”—I’m reading the next paragraph—“that the foundation of the attachment of the Oral Torah to the Written Torah is so that the Torah be expounded by the religious court of every generation.” He’s now beginning to speak about the root of service, basically, yes? Meaning: okay, so if there are problems that need to be solved with the Oral Torah, this question is entirely justified. So what do you do? So indeed there are claims here that are correct claims; you can’t just ignore them. So the rest of the chapter is devoted to addressing those claims, basically.

The general statement that many things in service and rebellion stem from a shared root—that’s a general statement. What he really intends is to deal with one type of problem of this sort. This problem of adapting the Torah to circumstances, to values, to the reality in which we live. And the feeling—again, here too he says it—the feeling that there is some problem here, that it doesn’t fit, is a correct feeling. It’s a real feeling. You can’t say it’s not true, it’s nonsense, or it doesn’t need answers, and so on. The feeling is a correct feeling. So what do we do now? Meaning, how do you deal with this?

So he really does offer some sort of solution here that doesn’t so much answer the questions themselves as teach me to manage the crisis instead of solving it. As I said before: okay, the questions are good questions, and you need to acknowledge that they are good questions. Let’s see what we do. It still matters to keep observing the prohibition on legumes on Passover even though you say it’s nonsense. You still need to… At some point there’s a feeling that too many things are like legumes in Jewish law. Meaning, there’s too large a mass. If it were one or two exceptional problems, fine, then you live with one or two oddities. But in a place where half the things you do are just some kind of craziness, and you don’t really think it’s right or necessary or fitting, and sometimes even harmful, then you stop buying into it. Meaning, there’s some kind of critical threshold here that the theory can no longer withstand. Meaning, if there are too many difficulties, then it can no longer withstand them.

What he’s basically trying to argue here is that in a certain sense this is true, and nevertheless you have to grit your teeth and continue. That’s the rest of the chapter. So later in the chapter there is a lot of comfort, but it’s comfort that depends on utopia. Meaning, he talks about the question of what will happen when we have the Great Court and they solve all the problems. That’s really the heart of the matter. But today, when we don’t have the Great Court, then we need to continue like this. That’s basically the core of what he argues.

But within what he says there, the theory he constructs, or the principle, the picture he presents, really is, it seems to me, a very far-reaching picture—and that’s probably why this chapter was omitted.

So he says as follows: “There is no doubt in the world that the foundation of the attachment of the Oral Torah to the Written Torah is so that the Torah be expounded by the religious court of every generation.” In other words, the demands for changes in every generation are justified demands. That’s why the Torah established that a religious court is supposed to do this. That is the role of the Oral Torah.

“And the rulings, even though they are received in their essence”—the halakhic rulings—“contain countless details.” What does “received in their essence” mean? One could have read that as meaning that the Torah in its general principles and details was given at Sinai. Basically, they’re received—we’re just playing games here, but in the end it’s all a law given to Moses at Sinai. And he certainly does not mean that. “Essence,” in the language of the Torah—maybe in the language of the Sages too—means root. Received in their essence means their root is received. But all sorts of branches and implications and developments and changes and so on did not come down from Sinai. Those are done by the religious courts in each generation.

[Speaker C] He puts in some kind of “only” here—received only in their essence.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even though they are received in their essence, there are still very, very many additions that are added throughout history.

[Speaker C] Only in their essence—only the core is from Sinai, and everything…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The rest is exactly the role of the religious court, which is how he began the paragraph. Okay? I think that’s how this sentence should be read all the way through. Later we’ll see it very, very clearly. Meaning, he says there in the clearest possible way that very many details of Jewish law were innovated throughout history; none of that was given at Sinai.

“They contain countless details, and the distant future will certainly give rise to new expositions that will be of great benefit according to the generations and the times.” “New expositions” means something we obviously don’t do today, but something that will exist when that religious court comes and expounds those expositions. So they did not receive this in the tradition; it didn’t come to them from Sinai. The religious court of that generation will make an exposition and create some law that was not previously received—a new law.

We’re talking here about Torah-level laws, by the way. We’re talking about scriptural expositions, not enactments. Enactments are easy to understand as rabbinic—not that they’re rabbinic, but that they were not given at Sinai, that they were added along the course of history. But here he’s speaking about Torah-level laws.

[Speaker C] Torah-level laws—about the thirty-nine primary categories of labor on the Sabbath. He means much more than that—expositions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What are expositions? Expositions are Torah-level law. You expound the Torah. “You shall fear the Lord your God”—to include Torah scholars. An inclusion. Reverence for Torah scholars—that’s a Torah-level law.

[Speaker C] Right now we’re not in this mode of expounding the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question of when that is done and who does it is a separate question. But on the principled level, when there is the Great Court that expounds expositions, it innovates new laws. It does not reconstruct laws that it received by tradition. That’s the claim. And these are Torah-level laws.

I think we’ve already talked about this more than once as well—that if there were a Great Court today and it decided that there are three primary categories of labor and not thirty-nine, then there would be three. Where is it written that there are thirty-nine primary categories of labor? It’s a Mishnah in “Klal Gadol.” Where does it come from? This exposition, that exposition, thirty-nine instances of the word labor in the Torah, or I don’t know, the labors of the Tabernacle, all kinds of things like that. I think maybe Maimonides somewhere writes that it’s a law given to Moses at Sinai. Never mind. On the principled level this is some exposition the Sages made, and if a religious court today expounded it differently, then it would be different. Then we could go hunting on the Sabbath—trapping, I mean. Those too are Torah-level matters.

I spoke about how, in the halakhic status of laws, the distinction between Torah-level and rabbinic—people often tie it to a historical distinction. A Torah-level law is a law created at Mount Sinai or given at Mount Sinai; a rabbinic law is one that was created later. But that’s not correct. There’s no historical linkage, no necessary correlation, between the historical axis and halakhic status. There are very many Torah-level laws that were created at very, very late stages, and they are still Torah-level laws. They are Torah-level laws because their creation came through interpretation of the verses or an exposition of the verses, not through a rabbinic decree or enactment. The mode of action of the Sages determines whether something is Torah-level or rabbinic, not the time when it was done or when it was given.

[Speaker C] He means an expositional reading that uncovers.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] An exposition that creates. “Uncovers” is something… I called it creating and supporting, because “uncovering” is a little different. A creating exposition and a supporting exposition can both be uncovering. “Uncovering exposition” means that the exposition uncovers something that is present in the text. But even then, it may be that the thing I found in the text was transmitted to me by tradition, and I merely found which verse it comes from—then that’s a supporting exposition. I’m supporting an existing law.

And it may be that I am now creating that law, a new law—the earlier generations did not practice it—even though I believe I’m uncovering it from the verse. It’s really there in the verse; it’s not that I’m inventing something now. But my predecessors didn’t think so. So the exposition can be uncovering and still creating. I mean… well, that’s a matter of semantics, of course. But in any case, the claim is that very many Torah-level laws—in fact the overwhelming majority of them—are creations of later generations, and those laws certainly can be changed by any religious court in any generation. There’s nothing preventing it. It’s not that all Torah-level laws were given to Moses at Sinai in their exact wording and formulation. To Moses the Torah was given.

[Speaker F] And the claim is that this is hypothetically possible—that’s clear. The question is whether there’s documentation of something that actually happened, where some drastic change was made, something like the thirty-nine primary categories of labor, some case where someone got up and changed it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, I don’t know, because I… we’ll get to that in a moment. There’s some convention that the Talmud and the Mishnah don’t disagree, and before the Talmud and the Mishnah nothing was written down. So now go figure out what the Talmud and the Mishnah did relative to what came before them, because that’s really where you’d need to check it. There are lots of things there that look very revolutionary. “An eye for an eye” means monetary compensation; or statements like “the stubborn and rebellious son never was and never will be”; that he had to steal a tartemar of meat and a log of wine—in short, it’s impossible for there actually to be such a son. Or all kinds of things of that sort. It looks like massive interpretive revolutions.

Now, you can say that this is a tradition received from Sinai and not something the Sages of the Talmud innovated. I don’t know, because we have no documentation from earlier generations. So it’s a bit hard to answer that question. Because after the Mishnah and the Talmud, we accepted upon ourselves not to change what the Talmud did—I’ll get to that in a moment—and therefore indeed we don’t do it afterward. But not because of a principled problem; rather because we accepted upon ourselves not to do it. He also talks about that later.

It’s really a bit difficult to check this matter. There are things in the Talmud that look completely revolutionary, without doubt. One of the expositions, I think, that I brought—and one of the famous ones—is with Rabbi Akiva in tractate Shabbat 64, where the earlier generations had the practice that a woman should not use eye makeup or cosmetics during the days of her menstrual impurity. Then Rabbi Akiva came and expounded: could it be that she would become repulsive to her husband? How could that be? And therefore he said no, it is permitted for them. And he expounded “in her menstrual impurity” to teach that she remains in her menstrual impurity until she comes into water—meaning she is not purified until she comes into water. From here comes the whole matter of the ritual bath. By the way, a ritual bath is not written anywhere explicitly, and this is one of the sources from the phrase “in her menstrual impurity.”

Meaning, what does it mean? “In her menstrual impurity” when she is in her menstrual impurity. That implies that she can be in her menstrual impurity and she can be not in her menstrual impurity. Then you ask yourself: how does she move from being in her menstrual impurity to not being in her menstrual impurity? Apparently there is a ritual bath. That’s where the ritual bath came from, from this exposition, okay?

But in any case, beyond the question of the ritual bath, Rabbi Akiva overturned what the previous generations had done—that women should not use eye makeup or cosmetics during the days of menstrual impurity. And the assumption was that this was a Torah-level commandment, because they learned from “in her menstrual impurity” that there must be distancing practices regarding a menstruant, and therefore she may not adorn herself, and so on—precisely in order to make her unattractive to her husband in some sense. And Rabbi Akiva came and simply turned it upside down. And this is documented in the Talmud. The earlier generations did it this way; Rabbi Akiva came and said it can’t be, because that would make her repulsive to her husband—boom, he flips the whole thing over, expounds “in her menstrual impurity” differently, and that’s it. He made a revolution. He turned a Torah-level law on its head. Here, for example, there is unequivocal documentation. There aren’t many places where you have both documentation of what was before and what was done afterward. We know what the Sages did; we don’t know what came before them. So therefore… But that’s one example of something that is documented.

[Speaker G] And what is the attitude in a case where a religious court errs in its ruling?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It discovers on its own that it…

[Speaker G] Erred, and there are things—I don’t remember, maybe I’m mistaken—where there’s a law that in matters of fundamentals it’s clear that it’s erring…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s written in the Torah. But that’s completely theoretical. What religious court doesn’t know that one has to keep the Sabbath? Fine—if it rules that one doesn’t have to keep the Sabbath, then it erred, okay.

[Speaker G] Say that this is its interpretation, this is its exposition—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it says it has an exposition, then it didn’t err. If it makes an exposition, then it didn’t err. What does it mean that “an eye for an eye” is monetary compensation? It says in the Torah “an eye for an eye,” and our interpretation is that it means money, so why isn’t that a mistaken religious court? Those who established it did so because they had an exposition that says this is how we learn the Torah. And then they really aren’t mistaken.

With the Great Court you won’t be able to catch it in a mistake; only it itself can catch itself in a mistake. Who will decide that the Great Court erred? Only if someone convinces them themselves that they ruled in error and they come to that conclusion, then they will bring the bull-offering. Who else can tell them they erred? There’s a kind of phenomenon here of who judges the judges, right? Before whom do you petition against the Supreme Court? There isn’t any. There’s always someone at the top of the hierarchy; there’s no way around it. Every hierarchy ends with some apex.

Yes: “Even though they are received from their essence, they contain countless details, and the distant future will certainly give rise to new expositions that will be of great benefit according to the generations and the times. And complete faith / belief is that any religious court that will arise for Israel and expound the Torah according to the general consensus in every matter of doubt—that itself is the very foundation of Torah.”

What is he basically saying? That any religious court in any generation that makes a new exposition and derives a new law from the Torah—that is the very foundation of Torah. Now that is Torah. You have only the judge in your own days. Right? That is Torah.

[Speaker D] A development of Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. What they derive—that, for us, is Torah. That is Torah. It’s not that they innovated something, changed something. For us, that is the Torah that was given to Moses at Sinai.

We talked—I don’t remember if I already spoke about this—about the statement that the Torah’s general principles and details are from Sinai. When people say its general principles and details are from Sinai, they don’t mean that every tiny little point written in the Mishnah Berurah was given at Sinai. Anyone who thinks that, I don’t know where his head is. Really, I don’t know where his head is. It can’t be. Rather, what it means is that you need to relate to all the details that we derived from the general principles as though they too were given at Sinai, because they branch out from the general principles. And the Torah told us—its authority. Yes, exactly. The Torah told us that it was given on this understanding: that when we derive from it all kinds of details, then for us it is as though this was given to Moses at Sinai. That’s the point. Not that it actually was given to Moses at Sinai.

By the way, there are medieval authorities—I no longer remember where—who say this. There are expressions in the Talmud. There’s a Tosafot in Bekhorot, I think, that brings some Mishnah in Parah saying “this is a law given to Moses at Sinai,” and then it asks: but this is rabbinic. What do you mean, a law given to Moses at Sinai? This is a rabbinic law, so what does “law given to Moses at Sinai” mean? Tosafot says: yes, they wanted to say that it’s very strong, and therefore they said it’s a law given to Moses at Sinai.

All right, now I can reopen all the sources and say that every place it says Torah-level, the meaning is: they wanted to say it’s very strong, so they said Torah-level, but really it’s rabbinic.

[Speaker F] You said that if you have something real to say—that you heard it from that Magen Avraham fellow—we heard.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. “Indeed, the religious court must be in the place that the Lord will choose.” The matter is understood: it is impossible for the center to be strong and secure except when we have the Temple and a king and a stable standing, free from every obstacle, in the land of our ancestors. “And the sealing of the Talmud”—this is an important point—“is preparation for the needs of exile, and very necessary in place of the living center that was nullified because of our sins.”

“Therefore, anyone who wants to destroy the talmudic center, by disparaging the laws practiced according to it in the nation, because according to his private vision he feels in them heaviness and lack of necessity”—meaning, he sees that these laws are not right, they don’t fit this generation, but it’s written in the Talmud. So when you have a feeling that very many laws are like that, you begin to feel that it isn’t necessary, that it’s burdensome, and that these aren’t really the true laws. But we are committed to the Talmud, so what can you do?

So he says: “because according to his private vision he feels in this heaviness and lack of necessity, he harms the soul of the nation and its center and darkens the chain of the great destiny of our Torah from his side. But we will not hesitate for a moment”—that is, it is completely clear—“that were we to merit the true Oral Torah, the Great Court that is in the Chamber of Hewn Stone, for example, in the place that the Lord will choose, with sturdy and secure national force, then we would not be bound by the sealing of the Talmud.”

This sentence, I think, is why they omitted the chapter; he comes back to it later. He says: when we have the Great Court, the whole Talmud can remain in the Jewish bookshelf, to learn it on beanbags as they do everywhere that respects itself, but in the end we will decide for ourselves what is right and what is not right. The whole obligation to what is written in the Talmud is an obligation that is the result of going into exile. That’s all.

In other words, the conception is like this: usually when people want to explain to us why we are truly obligated by everything written in the Talmud, why one cannot dispute what is written in the Talmud, the accepted model is that they were heavenly seraphs, the amoraim, and we have no grasp at all of what they say, and they all had divine inspiration, and all sorts of things like that, and therefore who are you to put your head between mountains? And Rabbi Kook says: not true. Not because of that. Maybe they were heavenly seraphs; that’s another matter. But I’m also allowed to put my head in there. Rather, we accepted upon ourselves not to do that. That’s all.

Before we went into exile—and as I already said, we went into exile, though the Talmud itself was already written in Babylonia—but when we say “went into exile,” we mean before we were dispersed. Because in Babylonia there was still autonomy. The Jewish people functioned as a people in one place, almost like the Land of Israel. There was a center in the Land of Israel and a center in Babylonia, but there were two very clear centers with a clear hierarchy, the Exilarch, and everything there was organized.

The real going out into exile was after Babylonia, in the eleventh century, let’s say, or something like that, when they began to disperse into Europe—the four captives, we talked about it. So at the stage where—and I think the authority of the Talmud really was not fixed the moment the Talmud was sealed. Things like this are often done with a certain perspective. A hundred, two hundred, three hundred years pass. The geonim and the savoraim do in fact argue with the Talmud. Their statements enter into the Talmud. Tosafot themselves say that Rav Hai who appears in the Talmud is Rav Hai Gaon—not even a savora. Rav Hai Gaon is one of the later geonim. Rav Hai Gaon lived, I think, something like four hundred years—I don’t know how much—at least three hundred years after the sealing of the Talmud. And that entered into the Gemara. Which means that in that period it was not clear that nobody disputes the Talmud.

These things are formed in retrospect. We look backward and say: ah, those people—the amoraim, tanaim, whatever—we no longer dispute them. And after two hundred, three hundred, four hundred years, the community of sages, or the Jewish people somehow, comes to the conclusion that we are giving this thing some canonical status; nobody disputes it.

It’s not that Ravina and Rav Ashi decided to seal it and from that point on nobody disputes. Mar bar Rav Ashi argues with Rav Ashi, his father. You don’t need to go far. There is some historical process of sealing. Why did this happen, really? And I think it happened with great wisdom—I’ll speak about that later. Because once the people are dispersed, if everyone will really be able to do whatever he wants, nothing will remain of this, nothing. Within ten years nothing will remain of all our traditions.

There is nothing wiser than what they did there, even though today it is perceived as something terribly burdensome and annoying and constraining, because many things already feel not right, not fitting. You can’t live with norms from fifteen hundred years ago and simply continue exactly as they lived there. The world has changed a bit since then. But Rabbi Kook says there is some far-seeing vision here that says: if we don’t leave something fixed, something canonical, something that nobody touches, we will pay a much heavier price than the price we pay for carrying out things that are burdensome. And they are burdensome, and they aren’t fitting, and not all of them are right.

[Speaker F] That’s a nice explanation, but what is the halakhic argument behind it? What is the halakhic point that causes this?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That I’ll say in a moment—the acceptance of the nation. Rabbi Kook talks about this more than once.

[Speaker C] You mentioned a similar thing that exists in the Talmud itself, where there is an opinion that says that observance of commandments outside the Land of Israel is in the category of “set up markers for yourselves.” Nachmanides. And the second day of the festival in the diaspora—this is Nachmanides—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the second day of the festival in the diaspora is rabbinic, so it’s not a problem at all. But Nachmanides—the Talmud itself in Beitzah says—

[Speaker C] The second day of the festival in the diaspora—“now that we know the fixed calendar of the month,” I don’t remember exactly, but something there where in terms of the reason it’s long been irrelevant.

[Speaker F] Yes, right, and it sounds like the opposite—that maybe specifically in the Land of Israel now we no longer need it, because we do have centralization in the Land of Israel. Seemingly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but in any case they sanctify based on sighting, so what difference does centralization make? Today you have a telephone. You reach Australia with the same speed you reach Jerusalem from Petah Tikva. No, there’s no real issue with this. This whole business today is not relevant in any real sense.

And what else do they hang it on? “May the Temple be rebuilt speedily.” Why do you keep two festival days today? Because if the Temple is rebuilt and they return to sanctifying based on sighting, then we’ll be in trouble. If the Temple is rebuilt, we’ll be perfectly fine. They’ll sanctify based on sighting, and with the telephone they’ll inform everybody. That is the last scenario in which one would need two days in exile.

[Speaker C] They’ll put a webcam on the Western Wall, just turn it a bit. Yes, exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll know it even before the residents of Ramot.

[Speaker F] Maybe there will be false messages on the phone, like the sabotage of the Cutheans.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Okay, in any case, what I’m saying is that there are real costs here, Rav Kook says, but if they had not fixed the Talmud in a way that cannot be disputed, the costs would have been even heavier. Nothing would have remained; even the things that really are relevant and really are important, nothing would have remained. There really is a claim here that the authority of the sages of the Talmud, of the Sages, is not an authority of charisma, of some higher inspiration; it is a formal authority, because we accepted them upon ourselves. Not because they are always right and what they say is certainly true and we are too small to disagree with them; it’s not because of that. Not because of the decline of the generations and not because of anything like that. It is simply because, when we are scattered into exile, there is a problem here. We need to preserve this whole enterprise. And there is an interesting point here. This is Maimonides in Laws of Rebels, at the beginning of chapter two. I think I mentioned this; I believe I did. Maimonides says: “If the Great Court interpreted through one of the hermeneutic principles according to what seemed right in its eyes, and ruled that the law was such-and-such, and after them another court arose and found another reasoning to overturn that ruling, then it overturns it and rules according to what seems right in its own eyes. Every court in every generation”—as it says, “to the judge who shall be in those days”—“you are obligated to follow only the court of your own generation.” That is halakhah 1. Halakhah 2: “If a court enacted a decree, established a regulation, or instituted a custom, and the matter spread throughout all Israel, and after them another court arose and sought to abolish the words of the first court and uproot that regulation, that decree, or that custom, it cannot do so unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. If it was greater in wisdom but not in number, or in number but not in wisdom, it cannot abolish its words. Even if the reason for which the earlier court decreed or enacted has lapsed, the later court cannot abolish it unless it is greater than the first.”

So there is a kind of reversal here. Meaning: in Torah-level Jewish law, any court in any generation can overturn; you do not have to be greater in wisdom and number. If today you decide that there are three primary categories of labor—three primary categories of labor on the Sabbath—then there are three, not thirty-nine. By “you” I mean the Great Court, yes? If there is a Great Court today that decides there are three primary categories of labor, then there are three. But if the Great Court tries to uproot the prohibition of poultry with milk, they will not be able to. They would need to be greater in wisdom and number. More than that: if they wanted to uproot the enactment of the second festival day in the Diaspora, which is no longer relevant today, even though its reason has lapsed, that would not help them—they would still need to be greater in wisdom and number. So in fact, in Torah-level law, anyone can dispute any earlier court; there is no condition that you be greater in wisdom and number. Only in rabbinic law did the sages “strengthen their words more than those of the Torah.” Therefore, in rabbinic law they established that a court cannot overturn it unless it is greater in wisdom and number.

About this, the Kesef Mishneh asks, here in halakhah 1: where did our teacher learn this from? From the fact that we find later Tannaim disputing earlier Tannaim. And indeed we find later Tannaim disputing earlier Tannaim, and later Amoraim disputing earlier Amoraim. So we see there is no special sanctity in the earlier generations; one can dispute earlier generations. Now of course the obvious question arises—well, never mind the mishnah in the first chapter of Eduyot, yes?—so he says that all of that is in rabbinic matters, where you need a court greater in wisdom and number. But if they disagreed because one interpreted through one hermeneutic principle and the other through another, then indeed it can overturn the earlier ruling even if it is not greater than the first in wisdom and number. In Torah-level law, every court is authorized to do what it understands.

Now he states his question: “And if you say so, then why do Amoraim not dispute Tannaim?” Fine, you gave me beautiful examples: later Tannaim dispute earlier Tannaim, later Amoraim dispute earlier Amoraim. But why do Amoraim not dispute Tannaim, if every generation can disagree and does not need to be greater in wisdom and number? For everywhere we challenge an Amora from a Mishnah or a Baraita. Everywhere we find a Baraita or a Mishnah against the words of an Amora, that is considered a knockout. He cannot say, “Yes, so I disagree with them—what’s the problem?” No, he cannot. If there is a Mishnah or Baraita against him, his position is rejected—more or less; let’s say in practice it is not quite that precise. And one must say, “I am speaking in accordance with that Tanna.” And if he does not say that, then it is difficult for him. He has to find a Tanna who supports his view. Yet according to the words of our teacher, they should have permission to dispute the words of the Tannaim. “And it may be said that from the day the Mishnah was sealed, they upheld and accepted that later generations would not dispute the earlier ones. And so too with the sealing of the Talmud: from the day it was sealed, no permission was given to anyone to dispute it.”

So what does the Kesef Mishneh say? Exactly what Rav Kook says here, without calling it “the perplexities of the generation.” What is he saying? He says that yes, in principle every generation, every court of every generation, can dispute the courts of earlier generations. Here, the authority of the Mishnah over the Amoraim, or of the Gemara over those who came after it, is a formal authority, because we accepted upon ourselves not to dispute it. Not because they are supreme holy ones and they do not make mistakes, but because we accepted upon ourselves not to dispute. That’s all.

What does it mean that we accepted upon ourselves not to dispute? Why, really? What is the idea? Why at some stage do they suddenly seal a period—Tannaim, Amoraim, and so on—and not allow the later generations to dispute the sages of the previous generations? What is the meaning of this sealing? That is what Rav Kook is suggesting here. He claims that every such sealing was probably around some fear of dispersal. After all, what was the sealing of the Mishnah? The sealing of the Mishnah was a few generations after the destruction of the Temple. Again, everything is in perspective: the destruction. People saw there was no choice—they had to begin writing. People were scattering,

[Speaker C] the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel had become very weak, and the center of gravity shifted to Babylonia.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so there was some process there that followed the destruction. The settlement here in the Land was thinned out, and because of that it became necessary to fix the Mishnah. So suddenly the words of the Tannaim were written down and could no longer be disputed. So it was decided that one does not dispute Tannaim. Again, all of this was because of concerns about what dispersal would do. And then the Gemara—what happens with the Gemara? Once the next dispersal begins, in the eleventh century, as I said earlier, they decide that the Gemara too is not disputed. That is the end of the Geonic period, because the Geonim and the Savoraim did dispute the Gemara, or at least allowed themselves more room than we do. It was something that crystallized over time. And why don’t we dispute the medieval authorities (Rishonim)? “Don’t dispute the medieval authorities (Rishonim)” is simply because there is a kind of inertia. That people do dispute?

[Speaker C] Yes,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—yes, they do dispute the medieval authorities (Rishonim), but the discourse says that one does not dispute the medieval authorities (Rishonim), and there is this kind of inertia that says we seal generations. So just as they sealed the Tannaim and the Amoraim and forgot somewhat the root of those sealings—for fundamentally one is allowed to dispute any previous generation—these sealings were created, as Rav Kook says here, so that we would not scatter completely. And I think that was extremely far-sighted. Try to think—try to think what would have happened if it were allowed to dispute the Mishnah and the Gemara. There would be nothing today, I’m telling you, Haggai, nothing. There would be nothing today. There would be nothing shared among everyone sitting here around the table, in the study hall. Nothing. Every one of us would be doing something completely different.

[Speaker D] Definitely.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] At the level of the Amoraim, who explain that “an eye for an eye” means monetary payment, and that one this and one that, and distinctions between menstrual blood and other blood—they reverse things; you would reverse everything. Nothing would remain of it. Nothing. So there is something here that I think has to be understood in historical perspective. Maybe it weighs very heavily. And as generations pass, it weighs even more heavily, because it seems less relevant, and more and more things somehow seem a bit forced or not quite fitting. But on the other hand, if we loosen the reins here, Rav Kook says, there will be a kind of mass casting-off of the yoke.

[Speaker F] And that’s what the Haredi person will say, based on what the Rabbi has said several times—that the reason we have the Haredi world is because at the beginning they saw what was happening after the Holocaust, and as an emergency measure the Chazon Ish said: now it has to be Torah only. And then the Rabbi said that this is not relevant today; thank God, the Torah world is only growing, not being cut down. So they’ll say the same thing: it was an emergency measure, and we do not change an emergency measure; from their perspective too there is a period here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s perfectly fine. I’m not saying that—

[Speaker F] No, I mean, how can we—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why at this point does the Rabbi yes… I’m not arguing with the fact that there can be a sealing of a period. The question is whether there was one. I’m saying there wasn’t, and I think things need to be weighed on their own merits. And the sanctity of the Chazon Ish’s directive in the 1950s—with all due respect—we are living twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years after him; that still has not become canonical. And even in the Chazon Ish’s own time, I’m not sure everyone agreed with it. Therefore to treat it as something that has the acceptance of the nation—yes, that we have accepted upon ourselves not to dispute it—seems to me to take the matter completely out of context.

I have already mentioned more than once that the person who established the status of the Mishnah Berurah was the Chazon Ish. The Chazon Ish said that anyone who disputes its words is like one who disputes the Chamber of Hewn Stone, like a rebellious elder disputing rulings that come out of the Chamber of Hewn Stone. The Mishnah Berurah received its status here in the Land of Israel, not in Lithuania. In Lithuania they ruled according to the Arukh HaShulchan. And here in the Land they decided to rule according to the Mishnah Berurah, and it was really the Chazon Ish who founded that. Now, there are many—not a few—places where the Chazon Ish disagrees with the Mishnah Berurah. Meaning, we have no greater rebellious elder than he. So one has to be careful with these huge ideological statements. So yes, if you want to strengthen greatly the status of the Mishnah Berurah, fine—but don’t read those words literally. Okay, it was true for that period; now twenty or thirty years have passed—let’s weigh it again. Meaning, it’s not… I’m saying such a consideration is possible; it is not an absurd consideration, I accept it. I am not challenging the very claim as a claim—that there can be something here that must be preserved simply for the sake of preservation. I’m only saying that I do not always have to accept it.

Anyone can come along now. Tomorrow morning I’ll tell them: from today on I have decided such-and-such. Now if for twenty years you think everyone has to go back to full-time kollel study from stage one because today I decided so—then that too is the sealing of a period; I can say that too. True, I don’t assume people will accept it. Meaning, one can say anything; the question is whether it is really agreed upon. After all, that is exactly why you need the acceptance of the nation. And here I return to your previous question. Rav Kook bases this in several places, and it also stands behind what he says here: what does it mean that we accepted upon ourselves not to dispute the Gemara, the Talmud? What does “we accepted upon ourselves” mean, and by what power does that obligate us? About this, Rav Kook speaks in several places about this idea that the acceptance of the nation is something binding. Meaning, if the entire public decides something, that is binding. He does not explain exactly what or why—that is, what the mechanism is here, on what verse in the Torah this rests, that the whole nation accepts it.

First of all, the acceptance of the Torah itself is some kind of acceptance by the nation. But still, fine, so you brought me proofs that indeed this is how they relate to the acceptance of the nation—but why is that really true? And here—we spoke about this when we discussed the roots, I don’t remember, in one of the previous years—I said that according to Nachmanides, after all, he says that rabbinic laws do not derive from “do not veer.” The force of rabbinic laws is not from “do not veer.” Maimonides says it is from “do not veer”; Nachmanides says it is not. “Do not veer” is just a textual support or something like that, but it does not come from there. So the question is: where does it come from? Rav Kook says about that too that it is the acceptance of the nation. And what does the acceptance of the nation mean? I think it means this: many times, when we discuss the question, for example, why obey the law, we discuss the question why obey the law, and the initial conception with which we approach it is that the legislator stands opposite us and I ask him: who put you in charge? Who says you have authority to tell me anything? And then we have to look for all sorts of justifications or explanations for the legislator’s authority, for why what he establishes obligates me. But if I grasp it differently—if I understand that the legislator is really my spokesman, speaking through my voice—then he is not standing opposite me. I do not ask him who put you in charge; you have no authority over me. It is not about authority at all; he speaks in my name. Meaning, when he decided something, we all decided it through him, because we chose him; he is our representative. That is the whole idea of representative government.

So I think all these discussions in legal theory, yes, about what the authority of law is—those are discussions that miss something very fundamental. They grasp the legislator… they grasp the legislator like the king of old. The king of old was not chosen by the public. He took over the whole business and then started dictating all kinds of things. So people ask: who put him there? Fine—“the law of the kingdom is law,” and there should be order, and all sorts of considerations of that kind. But when we are speaking about a democratic system, the situation is completely different. What do you mean, who put him there? You did. You put him there. You elected him. So that means that when he established some law, he is speaking in your name. It’s not that he established it and you have to obey; you established it, not he. And what you establish, of course you have to uphold. You yourself established it, not he. So it is simply a matter of upholding what you yourself established. It is an idea that apparently is self-evident. I think this is what Rav Kook means when he speaks about the acceptance of the nation. And therefore, of course, the entire public has to accept it. You cannot tell me that three yeshiva students in Bnei Brak decided that the whole public accepted that whatever the Chazon Ish said we all have to do. I did not accept it; I don’t know. You understand? It really has to be agreed upon by the public as a whole in order for it to receive some kind of binding status. It is not enough just to recite that phrase. Okay? So I think that here too lies the root of the matter of accepting the sages of the Mishnah and the Talmud. These pages got torn—we’ll continue next time.

[Speaker F] So the question now is: what is the force of the obligation that continues? Because if—I don’t know—if there are no exit points… for example regarding law: if the whole point is to enable normal social life, and now I’m alone in a sterile situation where I’m not bothering anyone, and I decide to go through a red light—there are no cars, it’s Yom Kippur, I go through a red light—did I do anything? No. So maybe here too I’m not bothering—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not sure you didn’t do anything. I’m not sure.

[Speaker F] There are no cameras, there’s nothing, I don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If in the end—I think there is certainly room for a view that says that the law is binding because you decided on it, and therefore you have to uphold it.

[Speaker F] But then the secular person will come—and this is a claim I hear all the time at work, every lunch break—“You decided; I didn’t decide. I don’t want to be obligated, so I do what I want. Why does your obligation bind me too? Even if you say that my great-great-grandfather was obligated, why am I obligated?”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Can one deal with that claim?

[Speaker F] Can one deal with that claim in principle?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The claim is just like a constitution. Suppose the Knesset had adopted a constitution in, say, 1950. Suppose the constitution said that a law could be changed only by a seventy-percent majority. Fine? Now a hundred years pass; everyone from that year has died. Everyone from that generation is gone. There is a new Knesset, a new public, everything is new. Now there is a majority against that law, but not a seventy-percent majority—a sixty-percent majority. You still cannot change the law. You can’t. What do you mean, you can’t? We are the public—it’s us. We, the majority, want to change the law. Because you decided a hundred and fifty years ago, you now allow the minority to impose its opinion on the majority? What you are doing here is that the forty percent today who agree with the law are imposing their opinion on the sixty percent who oppose it. Why? Because in your time there was broader agreement about it; you saw it as a constitution, as something fundamental. You saw it that way; we do not. Here, the majority opposes it.

[Speaker F] But is there no situation where they would say, okay, many years have passed, the first one who did this is no longer here—but now in reality, in reality, there are, I don’t know, some percentage of the nation that simply doesn’t keep the law, so maybe it should no longer remain valid?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it remains valid. If it is a constitution, it remains valid as long as it has not been changed. What do you mean, remains valid? It could be that they say, listen, if this is not practiced and it is not reasonable and it is not logical, then let’s change it—but in order to change it you need a seventy-percent majority. And if you have only sixty percent, then the forty percent, who are a minority, will impose their opinion on the sixty percent. Why? Because a hundred and fifty years ago our forefathers decided that this was terribly important. Every legal system works like that.

[Speaker F] Maybe if we had integrity, we would have to come to the secular public and say: okay, there is such a large percentage in the nation today—we need to do something about that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I think that’s not right. That is exactly the point. And that large percentage is not a percentage saying that this halakhic detail or that halakhic detail is irrelevant. They do not accept the entire framework at all. That is something a bit different.

[Speaker A] You don’t conduct a discussion about the laws of the state with someone who is altogether anti-Zionist.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you go conduct a discussion with Hamas about by what right you ask them not to commit terror—they do not accept the system at all, so with what tools will you conduct the discussion?

[Speaker A] That concludes the lecture of Rabbi Michael Abraham, Thursday, the third of Nisan 5771, April seventh, 2011.