Disputes: History and Essence – Rabbi Michael Abraham – Lesson 5

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Therefore, the disputes are not only a result of that; disagreements can arise without any distortions at all, and they arise abundantly even without distortions. There are always disagreements because people think differently. So what can you do? You argue. You come either to be persuaded or not to be persuaded. Meaning, it’s clear that we’re not going to reach certainty. You can never really reach certainty. Someone who has certainty about something, in my opinion, is fooling himself. But there is probability, and you go with that. That’s what we can do; we have nothing beyond that. So I return to our subject: in fact, distortions can even produce things, positive results. This distortion too, the one described in the Jerusalem Talmud, that they did not fully attend upon their teachers, maybe the Jerusalem Talmud can be read simply, literally, because many people struggle over that Jerusalem Talmud and this Maimonides, trying to explain how disagreement is nevertheless an ideal thing—as we saw in the Talmud with Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Eliezer, and in Chagigah there on page 3, and all the Talmudic passages that idealize dispute—how do you reconcile that with this description, that it’s really the result of a malfunction, that they did not fully attend upon their teachers? So people come up with all kinds of reconciliations. But maybe there’s no need to look for reconciliations. Maybe the right thing is that it is the result of a malfunction, and yet that malfunction produced something that is itself positive. That can happen. The fact that it is the result of a malfunction and the fact that the product is positive do not contradict each other. Therefore many times Greece darkened the eyes of Israel, and in Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner you can see this about Hanukkah—that Greece darkened the eyes of Israel—but in the end, as a result of that, disputes arose, the Talmudic method of analysis arose. He claims that the entire Oral Torah was essentially created out of the encounter with Greek wisdom, and wonderful things were created, things we are only happy came into being, even though the whole thing emerged from some struggle against Greeks who darkened the eyes of Israel and tried to make us abandon our religion and forbade us to observe commandments and study Torah and all those things. Meaning, many times, yes, shtreimels were created because of decrees. There are those who see something positive in that too. So today as well, okay, it was created because of a decree, but now it became an ideal after it was created because of a decree. Meaning, many times this is even a Jewish trait in a certain sense—our way of dealing with decrees is to turn the product into an idealization, into an ideal. But sometimes that’s really true. Meaning, even though Jews are used to doing that, sometimes it’s also actually true. So in this case I think it’s not certain that we need to look for a reconciliation; there is no contradiction. The fact that it is the result of people who did not fully attend upon their teachers is true, but many times when you fully attend upon your teacher, you are a little captive to your teacher. If you know how to reproduce exactly his way of thinking, then you basically say exactly what he says, and that is seemingly a wonderful transmission—you are a hollow pipe, you pass along exactly what he passed on to you, you pass it onward, and Torah is transmitted precisely. But a huge number of options that ought to have emerged won’t emerge that way. Therefore, you yourself of course are not supposed to distort yourself in order to create options—that we do not do. So therefore a distortion is a distortion, meaning, it is a malfunction. But once there is a malfunction, very beautiful things may come out of it. Like I once told you about my maggid shiur from Bnei Brak: he taught us tractate Sukkah. I told this already—he taught us tractate Sukkah. At that time there still weren’t shiurim of Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky—he was a clear, outstanding student of Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky—and at that time there still weren’t published shiurim of Rabbi Shmuel, books, Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky’s shiurim. So fine, we studied tractate Sukkah. That year the first volume of Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky’s shiurim came out, and it was on Sukkah—the red ones, not the general lectures, the daily lectures. Though both are red—the smaller ones, the daily lectures. In short, we look in the book, and honestly it was just exactly the lectures he was giving us. It was embarrassing, because he didn’t say it in Rabbi Shmuel’s name, and he was simply giving us Rabbi Shmuel’s lecture without saying so, as though it were his own lecture. Fine, we were embarrassed, wondering what to do. In the end I decided to go over and ask him anyway; I was the veteran of the group there, and I allowed myself. Listen, Rabbi, or Rabbi, it’s uncomfortable, but Rabbi Shmuel’s shiurim on Sukkah have come out, you know. He said, I hadn’t heard about that. So I said, actually, your lectures are just exactly what’s written there. He looked. He said to me, listen, I haven’t seen Rabbi Shmuel’s shiurim, and I didn’t study Sukkah with him. I didn’t study Sukkah with him at all. But what he produces is exactly what Rabbi Shmuel said on the topic. I’m telling you, the similarity was amazing—it was literally one to one. That is exactly students who fully attended upon their teachers. Meaning, he attended upon Rabbi Shmuel, he was attached to Rabbi Shmuel, he admired him; I made his year when I told him that. Because he suddenly got some feedback that he was thinking correctly. Everything he said was written in Rabbi Shmuel’s shiurim. Meaning, he didn’t need to study Sukkah with Rabbi Shmuel; when he studies on his own, Rabbi Shmuel comes out too. Now from his perspective this was the height of happiness. I don’t so much agree, actually. I think it’s a bit problematic. But for him it was the height of happiness. Now that doesn’t mean I now have to distort my commitment to Rabbi Shmuel, or force myself to disagree with him just so as not to agree with him. No, on the contrary. If you think he is a great Torah scholar and you agree with him, then go with that. It’s not that I’m claiming he did something wrong, but the result was problematic. The result was problematic because he did not uncover options that he could have uncovered, and he didn’t uncover them because he was attached to his teacher’s method. So on the one hand it is a malfunction; we are not supposed to create that malfunction from the outset. But on the other hand, these malfunctions produce things that are positive things. And what does that actually mean? Many times, a person who fully attends upon his teacher, especially in the Rabbi-Eliezer ideology, yes, that says we are supposed to be a hollow pipe—such a person, even if he is not built like his teacher, and I assume there were differences between the natural mode of thought of my maggid shiur and Rabbi Shmuel’s mode of thought—it’s not as though by nature he was born exactly like Rabbi Shmuel, thinking like Rabbi Shmuel. He happened to fall into his class, but the truth is that even if he had studied with Rabbi Yankel, it would come out the same, because that’s who he is. It’s not like that, right? Obviously he bent himself toward Rabbi Shmuel and tried to build his tools of analysis and tools of thought exactly like Rabbi Shmuel. And therefore that’s how it came out. So to some extent he bent himself a bit in order for that to happen. And in that sense, that’s Rabbi Eliezer’s ideology. And what I basically want to claim is that here there may indeed be some distortion, because you don’t need to bend yourself. Meaning, and here there is an ideological argument, but I think you don’t need to bend yourself. I, for example, don’t learn like him at all, but we talk, we argue, and fine—but everything I learned I learned from him. We agree on almost nothing. Meaning, and still, in my opinion, everything I say comes from him. I once spoke about this in Rabbi Kook’s eulogy for the Sochatchover. He wrote that eulogy to the Sochatchover’s Hasidim, and he wrote there that he had the quality of Rabbi Eliezer, who said things no ear had ever heard before, and on the other hand it says that he never said anything he had not heard from his teacher. So Rabbi Kook says there that he heard from his teacher things no ear had ever heard before—and it seems to me that even his teacher had never heard them. Meaning, this is completely real, and anyone who studied with someone intensively like that, I think, knows this experience. I heard from him things that he himself does not agree with, but he said them. I insist that it appears in what he said. My maggid shiur said it—even though he himself does not agree. There is something in my ear that heard it out of what he said. I really think it is there. Now he is not only the speaker, he is also the hearer. And as a hearer, he is different from me as a hearer. Even if we hear the same speaker, our result is a different result when the hearers are different. Do you understand? Meaning, he hears himself and understands differently from the way I understand him. Okay, this is just good—as an association, if I once spoke about Ron Aharoni’s book The Cat That Isn’t There, I think I mentioned it once, and then Ofer, you gave me his book afterward where it appears more briefly. So there he talks—he tries to define philosophy—and he claims that all of philosophy is a confusion between subject and object. Meaning, all the topics of philosophy, he goes through them one after another, and says all the topics of philosophy are one great fallacy. And exactly the same fallacy: the fallacy in which the philosopher essentially does not distinguish between himself as object and himself as subject. When I think about how I think, I appear here in two roles. I am the thing being thought about, and I am the thinking agent.

[Speaker B] And that’s all Rabbi Yosi’s megalomania.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, and therefore from that—he claims that from that come all the topics of philosophy, down to the very last one, all of them. What can you do?

[Speaker B] An example? Never mind now.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a bit complicated; I’m not sure I agree with it either, but that’s his claim. He says here too—but this is an important point—because here too I really allow myself to argue with him about the meaning of what he himself says. Truly. This is not homiletics. Completely true. I think I’m right and he’s wrong. I interpret him more correctly than he interprets himself—my maggid shiur. Why? Because when he interprets himself, he hears what he says. He interprets himself; he is the subject. I talk about him as an object. What is written in what he said? Not what is written, rather what is the meaning of what he says. And here, in my ear, I hear different meanings.

[Speaker B] That’s what S.Y. Agnon once said—you know the story with Kurzweil? Right? They asked him, what did you mean? He said, ask Kurzweil. I completely, completely agree.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I completely agree. In my eyes this is not a joke; it’s reality. He’s right.

[Speaker B] Yes, that’s exactly it.

[Speaker E] A lot of things the writer doesn’t intend, yes,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, there are such things, and those things are inside the words even though the writer doesn’t know it. Kurzweil found things in Agnon that Agnon himself did not know were there. What?

[Speaker B] Not only did he not know—he opposed it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He may even oppose it; it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. And it’s true. This is not that postmodern notion that says you have no authority and it’s not yours and do whatever you want with interpretation. No. This is the true interpretation.

[Speaker F] Like the subconscious? The subconscious is hiding there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When you analyze yourself, many times you do not understand yourself correctly. And for example, there are people—and now I’m really going far afield—but there are people who, for example, are committed to morality. In my opinion, it is impossible to be committed to morality without believing in God—my personal opinion. Now how do I explain an atheist who is committed to morality? I claim that this is an atheist who does not understand himself. He actually believes in God; he’s just not aware of it. And then when you push him into a corner, he blurts out all kinds of answers—no, no, I don’t believe in morality at all, it’s just convenient for me to act this way; I act because it feels good to do good or feels bad to do evil—and all the theories come out of that, out of a denial of some intuition, not a conscious denial, but a lack of understanding of what really lies behind your behavior. And many times when a person tries to interpret himself, he gets cornered, because he doesn’t understand what really—sometimes if I presented him with this option, he would thank me. Sometimes even if I present him with this option, he won’t thank me, because he is not prepared to accept such a thesis; it seems mystical to him—what, God? I don’t believe in such a thing. If you say such a thing to an atheist, he will never in his life admit it to you. But on the other hand, if you manage to convince him that it doesn’t fit with moral commitment, then he’ll have to blurt something out. Because he doesn’t want to abandon morality—he is committed to morality—but he is not willing to believe in God, because that’s primitive. So what does he do? He explains to you that morality is social agreement; morality is just, well, I feel like behaving morally; it’s not commitment at all, it’s just nice for me to behave that way. And why do you judge others? Because it’s nice for me to judge others. And in my eyes all of these are absurd excuses, but they all stem from the fact that a person does not understand himself. In the good sense—sometimes he is just fooling me and fooling himself—but I’m saying, sometimes it is sincere. Sometimes I think he really does not fully understand himself.

[Speaker C] But is that necessary? It could also be that, you know—you once said this—it’s like laws. Fine, maybe it’s worth asking the legislator what he meant. There’s no point in asking him. What is written is what there is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a question of interpretive ideology in law. One can discuss why indeed—whether to ask the legislator, not ask the legislator.

[Speaker C] Seemingly, if you want—if his rationale is what determines things—once the law has been issued, now it is subject to other people’s interpretation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, because you assume in your legal ideology or legal theory that the legislator is not the authority; the law is the authority. Fine, we can discuss now whether that makes sense, doesn’t make sense, why they do it—every context on its own terms. But in philosophy, when I want to know what someone thinks, then I want to know what he thinks, not what he wrote. So when I want to know what he thinks, seemingly I’m supposed to ask him. But no: sometimes I will interpret him better than he interprets himself, because I am looking from the outside. There is a certain advantage to looking from the outside. There are of course disadvantages, but I’m saying: sometimes there is something where you can grasp things—you know, there was the argument at the beginning of anthropology, a very big argument among anthropologists. At the beginning of scientific anthropology, so-called—there is no such creature; it hasn’t really begun even to this day—but what is called the beginning of scientific anthropology. There was a debate over whether you are supposed to assimilate yourself into the tribe you are studying, live with them and understand from within how the business works, how they think, how they relate to things; or the opposite—to sit on the hill above with binoculars—not a scale, yes, like in tanks, binoculars—and document the facts scientifically, not enter the subjective dimension at all, and preserve scientific distance. Now I think both sides are not absurd. Meaning, there is here—if it were possible to go inside and still preserve distance, that would be best. I don’t know how possible that is; maybe it is. I think to some extent it is. But still, that’s true, there are these two sides. Sometimes from the outside you grasp better, and sometimes you miss things, because something that is understood from within cannot be understood from without.

[Speaker C] That’s thinking outside the box. There are people who only think outside the box.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, and thinking outside—outside the box, outside your own box.

[Speaker C] I’m saying, and there are people who only think outside the box.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the claim, if I now return to our issue—I took one step back and now I’m bringing it back—is that human beings really are different. And when they fully attended upon their teachers in that supposedly “ideal” state, when they fully attended upon their teachers and there were no disputes, that was the distortion. Because people bent themselves toward their teacher. That was Rabbi Eliezer’s ideology, in my opinion. Because people were different; they are always different. People were not once all the same and then suddenly became different. That is not the process. People were different—what do you mean? In other areas of life, not in the area of Torah, I assume there were arguments even then. So why in Torah, until they fully attended upon their teachers, did everyone agree? Because everyone was Rabbi Eliezer. Because everyone was the kind of person who bent himself toward his teacher—some ideology of obedience. Yes, exactly. Right. So they fully attended upon their teachers, and fine, they did it properly, they were careful not to distort anything, they fully attended upon their teachers until the distortion happened and suddenly they no longer fully attended upon their teachers. And then what happened? Then you no longer know what your teacher says, because you did not fully attend upon him, you are not completely attached to him. So what do you do? You say what you think. And then what happened? Disputes are created, because everyone thinks differently, and suddenly disputes arise. But those disputes reflect something real. Because who says your teacher is right? After all, there are different modes of thought that lead to different conclusions, and those really are possible conclusions. Therefore, this distortion—that they did not fully attend upon their teachers—actually brought Torah out from narrowness into breadth, even though it is the result of a supposed distortion. Liberation from commitment to the teacher often enriches Torah rather than narrowing it. This is a very delicate art. When you study with him, be attached to him. I agree that there has to be a certain period of attaching yourself that way, but with the aim that slowly you will build yourself and stand on your own understanding, and from then on do what you think. I just think doing it wildly, without formation, is not worthwhile; you still need to shape it through someone learned. That is the meaning of tradition. The meaning of tradition is not to pass things along as though in a hollow pipe. The meaning of tradition is to shape your method carefully מתוך a connection to everything that came before you—not to copy what came before you, but yes, to generate it. Meaning, I say things that I heard only from my teacher—or that I could have heard from my teacher. I didn’t necessarily learn them from him. But it is obvious that what I say and what my teacher says will not be the same thing. This open tradition is a very delicate business—being committed to the previous stages of the tradition, and on the other hand being authentic. Meaning, being committed also to yourself, not being artificially subordinated to the previous stages. And then what comes out of this is that indeed the stage we dealt with until now—I stepped back and now I’m returning—is indeed an ideal stage. The fact that there are different opinions is not a malfunction. It may be the result of a malfunction, but it itself is not a malfunction; rather, different people think in different ways. And since the Holy One, blessed be He, created us, apparently one who sees the multitudes of Israel blesses: “Blessed is the Wise One of secrets.” The Holy One, blessed be He, created us differently apparently not for nothing. Apparently each person has some ability to grasp things differently from how someone else grasps them. Therefore we are not supposed to give up our authenticity—except perhaps temporarily, until we are formed, until we learn; certainly yes. Meaning, you shouldn’t do it too early, but with the aim that in the end that is what will happen. Therefore disputes among sages, once they are already formed—I’m talking about Torah scholars who are already formed—then of course they should say what they think, and when they say what they think, disputes emerge, because people who are built differently think differently and say different things. Now this result is not only a matter of how you are built, of course, but also of your environment. Ultimately it is rooted within you—your environment affects how you are built. What you are is the sum of many things: genetics, environment, education, home, society, all kinds of things, the biography of what you encountered. Someone else happened to encounter other things; maybe he formed himself a little differently, and of course also your judgment. In the end we are not deterministic machines, and there is your own judgment, but still this exists within a certain framework, and that framework differs from someone else’s, and therefore we can arrive at different results.

[Speaker H] But maybe, maybe the Jerusalem Talmud is expressing criticism. It treats it as something not good, when they did not fully attend upon their teachers. So maybe the Jerusalem Talmud adopted Rabbi Eliezer’s approach. Fine—the Rabbi is following Rabbi Yehoshua’s approach, that’s perfectly okay, but that is not the Jerusalem Talmud’s approach.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I’m not—the question is whether this is an interpretation of the Jerusalem Talmud or not. I’d need to look at the Jerusalem Talmud again to see whether it really must be that it is said there critically. I don’t know, maybe. The factual description is true. The question is whether there is also a judgment there. I don’t remember; I’d have to look. I can check that. Because in Maimonides himself there are expressions in both directions. In Maimonides himself it really looks like a contradiction. He brings this, and on the other hand there are places where it looks as though he does see it as something ideal.

[Speaker F] Wait, so the ideal that there is dispute—I’m trying to understand—the ideal is what there was at the beginning, where there was really one opinion and one way? Or like… No, no. Because seemingly that is the truth. If we are striving for truth, then no, absolutely not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not true. The ideal is that Torah pass through people and be colored by their colors.

[Speaker F] So here—it is colored in different colors.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, the principles are the same principles, but each person hears something different in those principles. Everyone expounds the relation of general and particular rules, and there is a dispute over the result. Why? Because I apply that very same principle as you do, but since I am the one applying it, it comes out differently. There is no such thing—no two people think exactly the same. By the way, it almost never happens that when you read carefully, for example, things written by later authorities and by medieval authorities, the most classic things there are—no two formulate them in exactly the same way. It almost never happens. They are ostensibly saying the same thing, but when you are sensitive to nuances and you examine carefully, there are always some differences. Meaning, it almost doesn’t exist that there is literally the same formulation, the same most classic foundations there are. Miggo, force of claim—all the later authorities repeat the same thing, and each says it differently.

[Speaker C] Because those are the rules, Rabbi, not the result. Only the rules, the derivatives.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning that in mathematics such a thing could not happen.

[Speaker C] Of course. Why not? Because Torah is not mathematics. Right—because Torah is not mathematics, that’s true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s true.

[Speaker C] Rabbi, can you arrive at two opposite conclusions? For one person this is a man and for the other it isn’t?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Truth is more flexible. We already discussed this when I said in the name of Nefesh HaChayim that in the end, both sides are certainly right. The synthesis—there I think there is only one truth. The synthesis of the sides—and that’s my personal view. What does synthesis mean?

[Speaker C] Right, I agree with you, Rabbi.

[Speaker B] That’s exactly the explanation of “These and those are the words of the living God.”

[Speaker C] Yes, but even there the explanation is not entirely convincing, because it’s true that it’s about the totality of reasons; they are working with the same reasons. But in the end it’s like two pharmacists compounding—one makes it eighty-twenty, I don’t know, seventy-twenty-ten, and the other seventy-five-ten-fifteen.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in dosage one of them is wrong. Only one is right.

[Speaker C] Fine, so if it’s only on the plane of the reasons, in the end it’s still not right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, not right? But if we speak about the reasons—when you don’t weigh the reasoning of the Maggid Mishneh because it doesn’t exist for you, then even if you would have ruled in its favor had you known it, you don’t know it because it doesn’t exist. Yes, but first of all you have to know his reasoning, his rationale. Does it have great weight? Should one rule that way or not? That’s another question; I don’t know. But the reason is a real reason in a certain sense, with a certain weight. One has to discuss what its weight is.

[Speaker C] Rabbi, when a pharmacist compounds medicine, it has to hit exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One hundred percent. A halakhic decisor also has to hit exactly.

[Speaker C] But he has nothing exact to hit, unlike medicine, where there is a dosage—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] one dosage that is correct and the other dosages are incorrect. He does have something exact to hit; it’s exactly the same as the pharmacist, in my opinion. But in practice that doesn’t happen. What do you mean it can’t happen? Obviously there is one who is right and one who is wrong. What do you mean? In practice there is always one who is right and one who is wrong. We have no way—we do not ask the Holy One, blessed be He—we do not know who is right and who is wrong. We have rules for what to do.

[Speaker B] And even when you ask—even when you ask—He says, not Me, you decide.

[Speaker C] That’s exactly what we’re saying—what he says no, the Talmud says—

[Speaker B] Also—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That too is what we say—the Torah says.

[Speaker C] Because that shows that it’s true only regarding the derivatives, only regarding the method of calculation—that the Holy One, blessed be He, says the Jewish law is like Rabbi Eliezer, and they say to Him, listen, but incline after the majority, because that’s the mechanism by which we make the decision. It’s only the mechanism of decision-making that is correct; the result doesn’t matter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is not true that the result doesn’t matter. Why do you think the result doesn’t matter? The mechanism for making decisions overrides the problem that there is in halakhic error. Okay, so that is what matters. The homilies of Ran once—the homilies of Ran ask: how can one derive from the rebellious elder that he must obey the Sanhedrin if he has reached the level of issuing rulings—he knows it is a mistake. You are demanding that he stupefy his soul into transgression just because of “do not deviate”? So he says yes, because “do not deviate” is also a transgression. And that does not mean the Sanhedrin is right. No. He is right—at least in his own view he is sure he is right—but the value of obeying the Sanhedrin and not breaking the framework of “do not deviate” overrides the value of doing what is true. Here too I say the same thing. The Holy One, blessed be He, was right; Rabbi Eliezer was right in terms of Jewish law. “It is not in heaven” is the rule for how to decide. But what is the truth? The truth is Rabbi Eliezer—that is obvious. The Holy One, blessed be He, said Rabbi Eliezer was right. But what is more important to the Holy One, blessed be He, is that we follow our understanding and the majority opinion rather than follow the truth. So what comes out is that people’s views are formed in light of their personality, their circumstances, their environment, and so on. Now something very interesting happens here. There are many people who think—again, ideologically, these Rabbi-Eliezer types—that this is bias, meaning my personal tendencies are bias. One should try to neutralize them as much as possible. They know you cannot neutralize it completely—we’re human beings, at least the more clear-eyed among them—but at least on the ideological level they say that as much as possible we need to neutralize it. Fine? And I want to argue no: you do not need to neutralize your personal inclinations, your a priori approach—be subject to… How much should remain? Exactly—that is the question. Should the Talmud remain, say, or the medieval authorities, I don’t know. Fine, the question is where you draw the line as to what counts as something without bias. Did the medieval authorities not have biases? Presumably they weren’t human beings. But fine.

[Speaker I] No, “meaning” can be thought of in two ways. Meaning, the idea is to avoid biases and cleave to what those before us said. Yes. Okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, avoiding bias in the sense of emotional bias—I agree with that too. Meaning, or impulses. You need to work with your head. With that I agree. But many times people understand that when you have an opinion, that itself is bias. Meaning, you should try to understand what Rabbi Akiva Eiger or the Mishnah Berurah said, not what you think. They say, what you think is bias. Fine? Now I argue no, in continuation of the same point.

[Speaker B] I claim that—and what was Rabbi Akiva Eiger supposed to do?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, he too was supposed to leave himself aside, and that is of course what he did. Because Rabbi Akiva Eiger is Rabbi Akiva Eiger, so that’s what he did. We alone have bias; he doesn’t. He saw himself as an interpreter.

[Speaker G] What I meant is, I understand what he’s saying,

[Speaker B] There are rabbis who come—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you’re talking about the question of awareness. I’ll get to that in a moment. How aware are you that this is—because nobody really does it that way. Even those who want to clean out bias—nobody really does that. Obviously everyone rules according to what he thinks. So what is the difference?

[Speaker J] For example, the Rabbi of blessed memory—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. In the end he too does what he thinks. True, he worked so that it would be very close to Rabbi Shmuel; there is an ideology in this matter. But people do do what they think. Meaning, it’s not… The only thing is that they are not aware. And that is one of the big problems of our generation. In previous generations people did the same thing as in this generation, but they were not aware. People were sure, on the level of consciousness, that they were adding nothing of their own. Of course—I mean, it says so in Maimonides, I’m only telling you what it says in Maimonides, I’m not… Oh, someone else thinks differently from you? Fine, then he is apparently mistaken. But I’m telling you, it’s obvious, this is what is written in Maimonides; this is Maimonides, not me. Now today we have reflection. We are more sophisticated; we already understand that interpretation is obviously involved. Postmodernism of course helps a lot with this, but you don’t need it for this, because it is obviously a real phenomenon. Meaning, one should not exaggerate its importance, but it exists. It’s obvious that we have some aggregate of characteristics, parameters, ways of thinking, influences—that a person is shaped by the landscape of his birthplace. The question is not what I think, the question is who this “I” is. The “I” includes everything they call bias—this whole business, this whole aggregate, that is me. And if this whole aggregate arrived at a certain halakhic conclusion, then that is my correct halakhic conclusion. Why should I remove myself from myself? Meaning, that is me. It doesn’t matter that the self is also made up of influences—outside influences, inner influences, social influences, it doesn’t matter. Everything is fine. As long as it is me, and with that I approach the text honestly, as much as I can, and I interpret. The only thing is that today I am already sophisticated, and today I already understand where I am coming from and what my influences are, because we are used to looking at ourselves too. Once that wasn’t the case. And then all sorts of problems arise, and I think this is one reason that today people cling to precedents more than they used to. The reason is an ironic reversal: precisely because once people were not aware that this was their interpretation and not Maimonides’, they were not troubled. What they thought was simply Maimonides. I did nothing here; this is just Maimonides. So he has no problem; he doesn’t feel distressed that he isn’t sticking to some precedent that explained Maimonides this way or that way. Fine, this seems to me to be Maimonides and that’s that; let’s move on. And Maimonides is of course Moses our Teacher; Moses our Teacher is the Holy One, blessed be He, so basically what I’m doing is the Holy One, blessed be He—obviously. We are all hollow pipes. It never was and never existed, but that was the consciousness. Now modern consciousness, and certainly postmodern consciousness—we are already aware of it. We know that a person is shaped by the landscape of his birthplace. And then what happens? The hysteria begins—caution about bias. The concept of bias comes from there. Bias not in the sense, again, of urges. Bias in the intellectual sense, meaning: remove yourself from the interpretation. Not your real personal temptations, your impulses, but move aside your own reasoning. You don’t want—I want to see what the precedents say. I want to see what this one said and what that one said. I do not begin from the question of what seems right to me. That is almost not a relevant question for many halakhic decisors. And why? Why did earlier decisors do this? Not because they were braver. Because they were less aware. And today’s decisors are more aware, and therefore they are careful about putting themselves into it. If the decisors of the past had been aware that they were putting themselves into the matter, they too would have been careful. And I want to argue that both these and those are mistaken. In the end, I am aware that I am putting myself into it, and that it is perfectly fine that I am putting myself into it.

[Speaker B] When it comes out of honesty.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes—not bias in the impulsive sense, as I said. Honesty in the sense of what I really think. That influences.

[Speaker F] The impulsive element can influence some of the reasoning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Try to clean that out as much as you can. We all try, fine?

[Speaker F] No one… Seemingly someone more refined, let’s call it that—precisely great rabbis, you know, their reasoning is supposedly much cleaner.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, we can discuss that now. It may be that you should follow him; that already depends also on the value of autonomy, but fine, I’m willing to accept that claim. It’s not important to me on the principled level right now. I’m not talking about the question of autonomy—whether to follow a known rabbi or follow what I myself seek. I’m not looking for what he said; I’m looking for what is correct.

[Speaker F] No, because I’m saying—suppose you have a rabbi who is cleaner, and you have a rabbi—not a rabbi, you know—and someone, say… Do you go with the cleaner one even if the other one’s reasoning sounds much more convincing?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it depends who I am. If I am capable, then I follow neither of them—I do what I think. But if I want to choose a rabbi and follow what he says, then I suggest choosing the one who is cleaner. That seems simple to me. Two different things. Therefore when I—if I am already in a position where I decide for myself that I am capable, then when I listen to rabbis, I listen to them and want to discuss what they say, but I do not hear them as sources of authority. So why do I care who is cleaner and who is less clean? We discussed this in previous lectures: after Rabban Gamliel was deposed, three hundred benches were added to the study hall. Why? Because Rabban Gamliel examined people: one whose inside was not like his outside should not enter here. He wanted to examine people, whether their inside matched their outside, whether they were clean. Why did Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, who was appointed nasi in his place, add three hundred benches? He did not examine the people. Why should he care? Why should he care whether they are clean or not? State your arguments, and I will weigh them on their own merits. I do not rely on you. If I need to rely on you, then I need to verify that you are clean. But if you are only raising possibilities for me, on the contrary—the dirtier you are, raise me more… dirty in the metaphorical sense, of course—raise as many possibilities as you can. Earlier we said that people who did not fully attend upon their teachers raise possibilities I would not have thought of. I would bring them into the study hall, into the very center of the pot. Why? So that they raise more possibilities for me, because then I can weigh and make decisions, since I do not relate to them as sources of authority. I relate to them as people who raise more options for me, options I might not have thought of. So that is excellent. The farther he is from me, the greater the chance that he will raise an option I did not think of. By the way, you often hear this from complete ignoramuses. When you want to hear options you wouldn’t have thought of, go to ignoramuses. Go to ignoramuses and take them seriously. Sometimes that’s a bit hard. But really. Because sometimes you’ll hear things you would not have thought of; stop for a moment and see that it is not stupid. There is something there that you are not thinking about. Usually you dismiss it—nonsense, stupidity, they don’t understand. Sometimes that’s also true. But I’m saying, sometimes you’ll hear things there that you would not have thought of. It has happened to me more than once in the past. I even told a bit about some such cases. Why am I saying all this? Because this basically means that Torah in its essence—again, without yet getting into the question of what the Holy One, blessed be He, intended, that’s another question—is in the end like a hammer that shatters rock. In the end there are different shades, because after Torah is broken through my prism, or colored by my colors as it passes through me, it receives a certain form. Passing through you, it receives another form. And all these forms, all this diversity, in the end—that is Torah. And there is no need to clean anything out. I need to do what I think, you need to do what you think, assuming that we have already reached the level of issuing rulings and everything is in order. Now the next step—and I noted this in one of the previous times, I think—in the academic perspective this is exactly what they look for. In the academic perspective, in the end what they look for is: what created the opinion of a sage or of a certain study hall? What was the context? Who influenced it? What were the pressures? What was this? Now the standard apologetic says: what are you talking about? They were ministering angels, exalted seraphim; they were not influenced by anything. In my eyes that is the opposite of ministering angels. In my eyes a human being is a human being precisely because he is influenced; a person who is not influenced is not a person. On the contrary, you must be influenced. Torah must come through influence—through the world. The Torah was not given to ministering angels. And that is what it says. Torah needs to be made by human beings, not by ministering angels. But that is the standard apologetic: what are you talking about? They were not influenced by pressures, or by realities, or by desires, or by ideologies—only intellect operates, a pure intellect that calculates. Why did disputes arise? I don’t know. Ask the people who say that; I have no idea.

[Speaker B] There was a bug in the system, there was a bug, I don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, in any case, they did not fully serve them as they should have. But this is the apologetics against the academic approach, the contextual academic research. Why does this defensiveness arise? It arises because the subtext, really the background assumption, is that if this ruling is truly a product of the decisor’s native landscape, of his environment, of his personality, of all that, then it isn’t Torah, then it’s bias, then it’s a problem. So I imagine for myself some picture according to which no, it is not dependent on bias. And again, bias not in the sense of some temptation or desire—free of bias in the sense that he had no specific personality at all; he was some kind of universal personality. You can hear statements like that. That’s the apologetics. Now I claim that the concern is justified, but what people do because of that concern is not justified. And I want to argue that people, including the medieval authorities (Rishonim), were products of their native landscape, they were human beings like me and like you. Of course they could also make mistakes, and even more than that—but leave mistakes aside for the moment. They formed positions the way human beings form positions. And that is a Torah position, because a human position is a Torah position; it is not the position of an angel. “It is not in heaven.” That is exactly the point. “It is not in heaven” means that Torah is a human position. And human beings are products of their native landscape. You cannot get rid of that even if you want to, and therefore apparently you also do not need to get rid of it. On the contrary: if you live in a certain society and it influences you, excellent. Then what you need to rule is what you need to rule according to what you are. And it doesn’t matter that in some other society people see this as bad influences from your society. That’s uninteresting. So that’s one side.

On the other hand, if you take the research perspective all the way—and I brought the example of the Crusades, I think, I spoke about it one of the previous times—then it basically comes out that there are no disputes at all. There really are no disputes. Take the example of the Crusades: the sages of Spain, Maimonides and the sages of Spain, were more lenient regarding the laws of sanctifying God’s name and saving life. Meaning, they forbade a person from being killed when one is not required to be killed—not in the case of the three cardinal sins. Anyone who gets himself killed, according to what Maimonides writes in his famous letter, is liable for his own life; someone who kills himself over a transgression that is not one of the three cardinal sins is liable for his own life. The Tosafists and the sages of France were stricter regarding saving life—stricter, more lenient, depends how you look at it—and they said yes, yes, give up your life anywhere you possibly can. Blessed are you—not obligatory, but blessed are you if you do it, it’s excellent. Certainly permitted, even desirable. Okay? Now whether that is leniency or stringency is another question.

[Speaker K] No—if they only permit it and don’t require it, then by definition it can’t be a stringency.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s already the question of leniency and stringency, what we once discussed—what is leniency. What we discussed was that leniency means there are more options, not that it’s easier. But if you look at it from a research perspective, then basically what the scholars are telling us—and there is a lot of sense in it—is that the sages of France lived in the stormy period of the Crusades. And in effect, the Tosafists needed to establish a fortified wall against these threats and the killings and slaughters that took place there: give up your life all the way, even over a shoelace, over anything. Fine? Then came the sages of Spain, who lived in a different environment—let’s say not ideal perhaps, but calmer. And therefore there they acted in a more moderate way. Now if I take this one step further, then basically that means there is no dispute at all between Tosafot and Maimonides. It’s all a question of what environment you are operating in.

Now I want to know what the Jewish law is. What do you mean, what the Jewish law is? I don’t go to the Talmudic passages and check who is right, Maimonides or Tosafot, and what reasoning is more correct, who has proofs and who doesn’t—that’s not relevant at all. What I need to check is whether the period in which I live and act is similar to the Crusades, and then I need to say Tosafot—because even Maimonides, had he lived there, would have said what they said. Since a person is a product of his native landscape, then had he lived there, that’s what he would have said. And the fact that he said something else was just because the environment was different and the influences were different; but the Tosafists too, had they lived there, would also have said that. So it comes out that there are no real disputes in Jewish law. Of course I’m presenting this in an extreme form, but on the conceptual level, if you take it all the way, it comes out that there are no disputes in Jewish law. Because what comes out is that, given the pattern or environment in which a certain decisor operates, I can tell you what the ruling will be. It doesn’t really depend on the decisor at all; anyone who was there would rule the same way. But then it follows that when I want to know how to act, I need to look not at what the decisor said but at the environment in which he lived. If my environment resembles that of the Tosafists, I’ll rule like them. Not because of the Crusades—suppose you have a different family, that’s not important. I’m saying, of course, I’m taking this to an extreme, but on the conceptual level it is always the result of some other thing that influenced you.

[Speaker C] But there are lots of disputes between people who grew up in exactly the same reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, there is no “exactly the same reality.” So the question is always what causes the differences. Sometimes it can come from different genes, like identical twins—they have the same genetics, not only did they grow up in the same reality, they have the same genetics—and they behave differently. Esau and Jacob. Right? Yes. Okay.

[Speaker H] There was something in TheMarker today: they filed a petition to the Supreme Court under the Freedom of Information Law, because they wanted to know which newspapers all the senior officeholders in the country read—the Justice Ministry, the police commissioner, the attorney general—which newspapers they read. Which newspapers they read, I saw that. Which newspapers they read, and why? Because they say it affects a person’s judgment. If the attorney general reads Haaretz, then he thinks X; if he reads Makor Rishon, it’s something else. And it really turned out—well, all kinds of things. Did they get the information? They got it today, yes, and there’s a very interesting breakdown of who reads what.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have to see that, that’s interesting.

[Speaker B] There’s a very interesting breakdown. In the police they read Haaretz, there’s the—

[Speaker K] This information, in the senior positions.

[Speaker L] Subscriptions? What?

[Speaker B] Subscriptions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Subscriptions, subscriptions paid for by work.

[Speaker B] Senior civil servants? No, no, senior civil servants on the ministry’s account—that’s what you mean. Yes, no, that’s what this is about.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but what if they buy it at home?

[Speaker B] No, this is what it’s about.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, that’s interesting. There are no senior people who buy it at home.

[Speaker M] In any case, nowadays it’s all online anyway, and someone who reads Haaretz ends up reading Ynet on the computer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know.

[Speaker B] Who nowadays even buys newspapers?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, the fact that they buy newspapers already says something about them—probably computer-disabled people like me. Anyway.

[Speaker F] So what I’m saying is, take for example the Mitnagdim and the Hasidim. They all grew up in the same territory and the same area, and you see two people living next to each other, and one can be a Mitnaged and one can be a Hasid.

[Speaker B] No, they’re in a different community.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously.

[Speaker F] No, but I mean before that started.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly afterward communities were created. But neighborhood and region are not enough. One was rich and one was poor; one was smart and one was less smart—that was probably the difference there.

[Speaker F] But that means you take the research and say: who was where, what environment, what economic condition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, again, this is extreme, but on the conceptual level, if you take the contextual research approach all the way, in the end it comes out that there are no disputes; the whole question is the context. And then what happens is really a banalization of Jewish law.

[Speaker C] It’s totally banal. It’s like those answers that say nature changed, so you don’t have to fast. So no problem, fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There too I would say the same thing; it’s exactly the same thing. They could—

[Speaker C] Fast for three days; now they don’t have to.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The point I want to make is that the circumstances in the end may very well not generate the position, but they definitely contribute to the position that takes shape. Obviously there is also judgment; they contribute to the position that takes shape. And therefore, statistically, it is clear that different environments will produce different positions. And still, I think I evaluate those positions according to what they are, not according to the circumstances. Meaning: in my apologetics against the research approach I do not claim that they were not influenced by their environment. Of course they were influenced by their environment. And I agree that the Tosafists radicalized their views because of the Crusades, and the sages of Spain were calmer because there were no such great troubles there. I agree completely. And that does not interest me. It doesn’t interest me because in the end, as I said about the Maggid Mishneh, in the end they arrived at a position they are prepared to stand behind, right? This is a halakhic position they stand behind. It is supposed to fit the sources—that is, the Talmud, say, or something like that—and they stand behind it. What do I care what brought them to it? Now I ask which of the two positions is correct in my eyes, and I examine the proofs, I examine the Talmudic passages, I examine what seems more reasonable to me.

[Speaker B] And you also check that with your environment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With my environment. And then the scholars can come and ask what my environment did to me—let them ask, what do I care. But I’m saying that in the end, yes, it is a product of the native landscape of the sages of France and the sages of Spain, but that is not important. It’s like the difference between the context of discovery and the context of justification in philosophy of science. In philosophy of science, Reichenbach said that when we create a scientific theory, it could come from my grandmother appearing to me in a dream and telling me there is a law of gravity. That does not disqualify it as a scientific theory. What does it have to pass—what tests does it have to pass in order to be accepted? Not how you discovered the theory, but whether it works. Test it experimentally and see whether the theory works or doesn’t work. So therefore, again, on the conceptual level, I assume that if someone came and told me about revelations from his grandmother then maybe I wouldn’t bother checking. Doesn’t matter. But in principle, if it stands the test—if it passes the test of justification—then I’ll accept it even if it came from his grandmother’s revelations.

[Speaker C] Only there, in the test of justification, you have something to attribute it to; you can test it. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here you don’t. No, but never mind—I’m taking the example from the world of science precisely because there I can explain it. No, what I want to claim here is that the way I arrived at my position is not important. I want to examine the position. Now, I agree that the Tosafists arrived at their position because of the distress and the Crusades and all that, and I agree that Maimonides arrived at his position because of the environment in which he lived. But why should I care how he arrived at the position? I’m asking about the position itself. Is it logical? Is it not logical? Does it stand the test of the sources? Not stand the test of the sources? What is more reasonable? What is less reasonable? And when I issue a halakhic ruling, as far as I’m concerned Maimonides and Tosafot and I are sitting around a round table conducting a negotiation. And I don’t care that under his table there are all kinds of Nazis stabbing him from below there in the Crusades, and on his chair there are all sorts of Moorish fellows petting him—not stabbing him.

[Speaker B] That’s how Rabbi Soloveitchik describes it. Yes, exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And I say: we are all sitting around the table and discussing. I know that each one comes from a different place and looks different, but that doesn’t matter. I too come from my own place and look the way I look. But I relate to their products, not to how those products were created. For me, what determines things is the context of justification, not the context of discovery. I want to see whether the theory he presents seems right to me. Is it reasonable? Does it stand the test of the sources? Does it seem reasonable to me? Then I accept it. Even though I know how he got there; even the Maggid Mishneh got there because of the corruption in Maimonides’ text. But now when I examine what he said, I will check whether it is sensible; I will not check whether that text of Maimonides is corrupt or not. That does not matter to me. Because in the end, if this is a halakhic position that a decisor stands behind, it is worth my examining it. Maybe it is correct. Why should I care how he got there?

And so I say that the right way, again—as in every argument, both sides are wrong, that’s always how it is—also in the argument between the scholars and the apologists, both are wrong. Meaning, the scholars are right that it is also a product of the environment, not only of the environment but also of the environment. But on the other hand, those who say that because of this there is no dispute between the two approaches are not right. Of course there is a dispute, because both approaches are possible. It’s only that the circumstances affect the way you arrived at those approaches, but in the end the approach has to hold water on its own.

And now this is the important point: there are situations—and this whole introduction was supposed to lead to the homily—there are situations, and here I was supposed to get to Holocaust Remembrance Day, there are situations in which the circumstances are so extreme that I cannot judge at all the statements made in that place. Meaning, years ago I spoke about the article I wrote on monetary law in the Kovno Ghetto. And there there was a description of a Jew named Rabbi Gibraltar. His son wrote a series of articles in Yated Ne’eman about his father, who was in the Kovno Ghetto. The Dvar Avraham was there; there were a few important Jews there, but he too was there, apparently a lay leader, probably a Torah scholar or considered one of the rabbis of the ghetto. And he described there a very unique approach in monetary law held by Rabbi Gibraltar, his father. The claim was that there is no monetary law in the ghetto. There is no monetary law in the ghetto. And in fact he had lent money to people, they came to repay him after the war, and he said: it wasn’t mine; you have nothing to repay me, because in the ghetto there is no ownership of property. And this has all sorts of implications. For example, if a person dies, can you take his coat? So if he died and that’s it, then certainly yes—but he has heirs. So he says: if you take the coat from the person while he is alive, it is forbidden—not because he owns it, but because you are a murderer. Theft is permitted because there is no ownership of property, but you are a murderer, because without a coat there that was probably a death sentence. It is somewhat similar to what the Chazon Ish says about two people walking in the desert. Two who are walking in the desert—he says, why shouldn’t I steal from him the… if the flask of water is his, then he drinks, right? The halakhic ruling follows Rabbi Akiva, that the owner of the flask drinks. Okay. Now why shouldn’t I violate “do not steal”? It’s a life-and-death situation. Don’t we violate “do not steal” to save life? Except according to Rashi’s view—we talked about this once too.

[Speaker B] Rashi says no—it’s not that now I too will die.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not that I too will die, but there it’s only indirect causation already. He has no water; I merely violated “do not steal.” So the Chazon Ish said no, it’s not indirect causation—you are a murderer, not a thief. In such a situation, taking the water is called murder, not theft and then indirectly causing death. That’s not important right now, but that was the claim. What?

[Speaker N] With indirect causation there still isn’t a death penalty, a punishment, but it’s still not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter. I’m only saying that he claimed the same thing there too. The claim is that taking the coat from a person while he is—while he is still alive—that is murder. But if he dies, that’s the practical difference, because if he dies, if there were monetary laws it would pass to his heirs, right? But there are no monetary laws, so if he dies, take it.

[Speaker L] Meaning even if his children also have no coat and now they’ll die? Yes, that doesn’t matter. But still, it’s permitted to take it in order to save yourself?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, it’s ownerless property. So anyway, there were all kinds of things. Then there was some criticism by someone who deals with monetary law—a critical article was published saying this has no basis, it is not correct, it is not proper. He’s not judging him—they had no books there, I don’t know, all kinds of things like that, whatever. But it’s not correct and it doesn’t stand the test of the sources, and so on. I wrote an article—in Tzohar I wrote it, not in Yated Ne’eman. But I wrote there, first of all, opening by saying that there is a situation there that is so far from us that it seems to me we truly cannot judge it with the usual tools. Meaning, as far as I’m concerned, someone who is inside the situation is a witness, not only a decisor. Meaning, when he tells me that this is the right way to act in that situation, I assume he is right. Now I can only try to understand why. Fine, it is important to try to understand why. But my basic assumption is that he is right, because he was in the situation and I was not there.

And I say this also about less extreme cases; we spoke about this once. I say this also about less extreme cases, yes? I once spoke about rulings by Haredi rabbis regarding hearing a female singer’s voice. Fine? Now suppose this is not a formal prohibition. If it is a formal prohibition, fine, then you don’t need to understand anything; you say it is forbidden, period. But suppose it is forbidden because of improper thoughts, or because of things that depend on the situation and the context. Now, a person who has never in his life heard a female singer, has never been to a performance, he doesn’t know what it does, why people go, what the significance of it is—he doesn’t understand it. It’s not the Holocaust, it’s not that far removed, but it is still far from his world. Right? He cannot issue a ruling about such a situation. He simply cannot issue a ruling. Only someone who knows such a situation can understand what this thing does. And therefore only he can issue a ruling. Now if someone who is inside the situation—a rabbi qualified to rule—is inside the situation and says this is permitted, I do not argue with him. I cannot argue with him. I do not know the situation, I do not understand what is right in that situation, it is unfamiliar to me, it is far from my world. I can try to understand why he says that, try to ask him, clarify it with him, but in the end he has to decide.

I said that sometimes an older rabbi is approached by a young community rabbi, who comes to his rosh yeshiva, to his rabbi who is older, and consults with him on some question. And the older rabbi always backs him up: no, honorable rabbi, you should rule—his student, yes? “Honorable rabbi, you should rule.” It’s always presented so nicely, as though the great older rabbi is honoring the younger rabbi. People think this is only in order to give him standing in the eyes of his community. I don’t think that’s the only reason. Maybe that too, but not only that. Rather, the older rabbi simply does not understand the mindset of a young community. Certainly if it is far from his world, and it isn’t surrounded by their thousands and is mixed and Haredi and he isn’t—whatever. But yes, he does not understand their mindset. In truth, he has to rule and not me. I can advise him, I can suggest: look at this, think about that, but in the end he will have to make the decision. He understands the situation, not I. And this is not only a matter of encouragement and giving him honor, but a recognition that this is a situation you cannot decide about from the outside.

And so, think of a case where someone is in an elevator whose cables snapped. The elevator is falling; we’ll be dead in a second. Two people are in the elevator. We’ll be dead in a second. Now you have a pen and I want to write a quick will to tell my wife that I loved her—to lie before we crash, fine? That’s allowed in such a situation. So I steal your pen—you don’t want to give me the pen—I steal your pen, write the will, and we crash. Did I violate the prohibition of theft? Formally, apparently yes. Where do we find that if in one second you’re going to die, then there is no prohibition of theft? Every person dies after some amount of time; it doesn’t matter whether it is a second or ten years or fifty years. There is a prohibition of theft. Someone who lives inside that situation understands and experiences it: in such a situation there is no theft. It’s nonsense. It’s simply detached. Someone outside does not understand. There are no rules for this; it doesn’t work with the rules; it isn’t right. Because you were not in the situation, you don’t understand what is right and what is not right there. And again, I am saying: this has to be someone qualified to rule who is in the situation; not just gut feelings. Rather, someone competent, who knows how to rule, but is in the situation—then he knows what is right there.

Afterward I can come and try to formulate some rules and definitions and incorporate it; and then maybe I can take his ruling in that extreme case and attach it to the body of Jewish law, and then we have learned something new. And now it joins the halakhic corpus, and from now on it too passes onward. Part of the halakhic canon has been added—that part which was innovated there after I understood it, deciphered it, and set it on halakhic foundations. Halakhic foundations. Then I may perhaps also add it to Jewish law and say that in such-and-such a situation there are no monetary laws, no ownership. If I haven’t done that, then it may remain only for its time, and I cannot add it to the Shulchan Arukh, because it remains tied to its own time and moment. It does not become some law that I know how to define as a sweeping law for certain situations, but rather a law whose parameters I know how to define—when yes, and when no. If I know how to define it, it will join the Shulchan Arukh.

So here we have a situation where, on the one hand, in extreme cases, the situation creates the ruling. What I said earlier—in extreme cases it is not only that the situation creates the ruling, but that when I try to understand how this happened, many times I will not succeed. In an ordinary dispute, I can understand why you think differently from me. If the Tosafists had met Maimonides, I assume they would have been able to understand one another. Fine, not—I don’t live there, I may not think it is the most reasonable, but I can understand why you think that way. I can step into your shoes and try to understand your view. There are situations in which even that is impossible. It is simply far from your world. A person who has never in his life heard a female singer is convinced that every time one hears a woman’s voice all the hormones spring to life. That is not true for someone who knows the situation. Sometimes maybe yes, but not always, and sometimes not.

[Speaker F] But you don’t have to know the situation just in order to say “a woman’s voice is nakedness,” a singer. When people say a women’s singer, they make the definitions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I said: if you claim it is a formal prohibition, then I’m not talking about that. That’s why I said, just for the sake of the example, suppose it is not a formal prohibition, it is only a question of what it causes. If the question is what it causes, then you need to know the situation. You can’t—

[Speaker F] What’s the difference between formal and causing?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it is formal, then I say: that’s it, it is forbidden to hear a woman’s voice. It doesn’t matter whether it causes you improper thoughts or doesn’t cause you improper thoughts; it is forbidden to hear a woman’s voice.

[Speaker F] But if you explain it on the grounds that it—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not explaining it. I’m saying: the prohibition of improper thoughts, not a woman’s voice. It is permitted to hear a woman’s voice; only if it causes you improper thoughts is it forbidden to have forbidden thoughts. Fine, so then you need to understand what kind of thoughts it causes, how much it causes, to whom it causes them, when, under what circumstances. So once again, someone looking at this from the outside says: you are all evil inclination, obviously it causes all of you improper thoughts. He doesn’t believe me when I tell him that it isn’t so. He won’t believe me. Because he has never experienced it; because it is obvious to him. But he also doesn’t give enough credit—if he isn’t sufficiently clear-headed or generous—then he doesn’t understand that, listen, a person who is in the situation can tell you that there are certain situations you simply don’t understand. You cannot understand them.

And I say: the Holocaust is an example of this kind of thing. During the Holocaust there were all kinds of rulings which I think, at least some of them, can later be understood, but at first glance they fit no rules. It doesn’t work. There are, for example, famous questions—why did people shave off their beards? I don’t know. According to Jewish law, even over a shoelace one must be killed rather than transgress. Even over the color of the shoelace. After all, they decreed these things against them because they were Jews; it was forbidden to grow beards, forbidden this… how? Now the Dvar Avraham indeed kept his beard in the ghetto. But most Jews, including the most punctilious ones, removed their beards. Why? Fine, now one can discuss the precise definition, and here the law itself speaks about a time of religious persecution, a time of persecution. The law itself speaks about the extreme situation. Yes—but there are extreme situations that are still more extreme than that, I don’t know. I’m just saying, just as a possibility, just to explain that one has to live the situation, one has to understand: this situation is not the “time of persecution” the Talmud spoke about. I’m telling you, I was there—it’s not, it’s not that. They weren’t talking about this. They didn’t know this. It can’t be.

Meaning, afterward I can fit this into a pattern that says that if everyone keeps the beard, they will simply kill all of Israel, kill all the Jews and no one will remain. About that the Talmud was not speaking when it said “time of persecution.” It spoke about one person faced with a dilemma: don’t give up the beard, or even the shoelace, even at the cost of your life. But what about the cost of the life of the entire Jewish people? Or of fifty percent of the Jewish people? Doesn’t matter—I’m not talking right now about literally the whole Jewish people so that no Jew remains in the world; fifty percent is also in effect the whole of it, meaning it is something macroscopic, not just one person or another. Who says the phrase “time of persecution” was said about that? Now I don’t know. I have no proofs one way or the other. But someone who lives in the situation can feel when something is right and when it is not right. If he is a decisor qualified to rule and also lives in the situation, he can feel it.

And so I think that the meaning of how disputes are created—which is what I’ve spent too much time talking about here—ultimately leads, in the context of the Holocaust, to a very interesting attitude toward or interpretation of the unusual rulings that existed during the Holocaust. Because suddenly you understand that the circumstances really do create different Jewish law. It’s not nonsense. It’s not that because you were in those circumstances, let’s clean away the circumstances; they influenced you and therefore you missed the mark, and now I, sitting comfortably in my armchair, will tell you the correct Jewish law. There is some truth in that claim too—I don’t dismiss it. Sometimes distress really can cause you, because of the distress, to rule differently—not because it is right to rule differently, but because it is hard for you. Fine, that is a problem. And therefore I say there is a very delicate balance here. But that balance has two sides, and that is what I want to argue.

Okay, I see I didn’t get to finish, so maybe we’ll continue with this a bit next time. Really, I’m not dismissing that claim. Sometimes distress really can cause you, because of the distress, to rule differently—not because it is right to rule differently, but because it is hard for you. Fine? That is a problem. And therefore I say there is a very delicate balance here, but that balance has two sides—that is what I want to argue. Okay, I see I didn’t get to finish, so maybe we’ll continue with this a bit next time.