Topics in Halakhic Thought – Lecture 8

Table of Contents

• Administrative announcements and the structure of the lectures
• Summary: command, authority, and dynamic tradition
• Tradition and give-and-take: the example of Rabbi Akiva and the hermeneutic principles
• Halakhic tradition versus “thought”: Torah in the object and Torah in the person
• A position on studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and aggadic literature, and the concept of “Jewish thought”
• Kabbalah as tradition and interpretation as creativity
• Canonization, codification, and the closing of periods
• The decline of the generations: intuition versus analysis
• Rabbi Chaim and Maimonides, precedents, and rules of halakhic ruling
• The aspiration to combine intuition and analysis, and the continuation of the course

Summary

General overview

The lecturer announces that next week there will be a class on Wednesday during Hanukkah at six o’clock, as a “self-contained” lecture that is also meant to make up course hours and therefore will not affect the continuity of the course. He summarizes the course so far around the concept of command as the basis of the philosophy of Jewish law, the question of authority and the distinction between formal authority and substantive authority, and the move to the question of tradition through the “revolution at Yavneh” and Rabbi Akiva’s synthesis between a “Torah of tradition” and a “Torah of give-and-take.” He then argues that in the halakhic realm there is a dynamic tradition of interpretation from generation to generation, whereas in the realm of thought there is no binding tradition but rather the creation of independent positions, and he develops a model of the “decline of the generations” as a reduction in intuition alongside the “ascent of the generations” as an increase in analytical ability, leading to canonization, rules of halakhic ruling, and codification.

Administrative announcements and the structure of the lectures

Next week we’ll give a lecture on Wednesday even though it’s Hanukkah, at six o’clock after candle lighting. The lecture is defined as an option for making up missing course hours, so it is built as a specific, self-contained topic, so that the course can continue whether people attended it or not. The lecturer asks people to turn on their cameras so it’s possible to see who he’s talking to.

Summary: command, authority, and dynamic tradition

The concept of command defines the concept of Jewish law, and it is the basis of the philosophy of Jewish law. A system of commands requires a system of authorities that creates commands and interprets them, and these are the two powers of the sages: to create new laws and to interpret existing laws. Formal authority is given only to the Sanhedrin or to the Talmud, which received it from below, while substantive authority is entrusted to every teacher, though it is not authority in the full sense. The lecturer presents the Yavneh confrontation as the question whether the Torah is a “Torah of tradition” or a “Torah of give-and-take,” describes the removal of Rabban Gamliel, the excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer, the reinstatement of Rabban Gamliel and the rotation with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, and presents Rabbi Akiva as someone who learned both from Rabbi Yehoshua and from Rabbi Eliezer, and who creates a synthesis of tradition plus give-and-take.

Tradition and give-and-take: the example of Rabbi Akiva and the hermeneutic principles

Rabbi Akiva’s synthesis is presented through the example of gathering cucumbers through sorcery: Rabbi Akiva heard it from Rabbi Eliezer and did not understand, and then went to Rabbi Yehoshua, who explained it to him. The lecturer argues that tradition is not the rigidity of a “relay race,” as Rabbi Eliezer thought, but depends on give-and-take that clarifies, interprets, and adapts it to circumstances in order to prevent it from falling apart. The hermeneutic principles are presented as a tradition transmitted as a law to Moses from Sinai, and yet one that develops and proliferates throughout the generations, and this is explained through the description of the mathematician Moshe Koppel as the development of a language in which rules arise that describe how it operates, without it being possible to cling to the rules alone. The lecturer connects this to the continuation of the course through a distinction between first-order halakhic ruling and second-order halakhic ruling, and the question of changes in Jewish law, as an ongoing tension between precedents and reasoning within a framework that still continues to be regarded as the same tradition.

Halakhic tradition versus “thought”: Torah in the object and Torah in the person

In the halakhic context there is a clear sense of transmitting a tradition even when it is dynamic and full of disputes, where the Ketzot interprets Maimonides, Maimonides interprets the Talmud, the Talmud interprets the Mishnah, and the Mishnah learns from the Torah. The lecturer argues that in the context of thought there is no tradition, and that Maimonides builds his world out of philosophy and logic and then interprets the Torah accordingly. He cites Maimonides’ remarks about the eternity of the world and anthropomorphism in Guide for the Perplexed as evidence that he would have given a creative interpretation to the Torah in order to adapt it to philosophical conclusions had he been convinced by them. He quotes Rabbi Abraham ben HaRambam at the beginning of volume 1 of Ein Yaakov about the aggadot of the sages as material with no binding authority, and the Talmudic passage in Pesachim about the sages of Israel conceding to the sages of the nations of the world, in order to ground the principle of “accept the truth from whoever says it,” and he describes decision-making in science and philosophy “like any gentile,” not out of the Torah or the sages, and only afterward interpreting the Torah and the sages accordingly. The lecturer presents a conception of “Torah in the object” in the study of Jewish law even when one does not rule in accordance with it, as opposed to “Torah in the person” in thought, where the value of study depends on whether it “builds” the person, and he argues that in his eyes there is no difference in status between Guide for the Perplexed and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, aside from their subjective influence.

A position on studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and aggadic literature, and the concept of “Jewish thought”

The lecturer argues that he has never seen anyone learn something new from the aggadot of the sages or from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and claims that interpretive Torah ideas can be brilliant at the level of the interpretive move, but the message itself remains general and predictable. He says that reading the weekly Torah portion can create inspiration, connection to the people, to culture, and to history, but he does not call this learning in the sense of producing a new insight, and defines it as “Torah neglect at its best” in a substantive sense, even though it is called Torah study by scriptural decree. He argues that Jewish thought is “the philosophy of someone whose mother was Jewish,” and that Spinoza too is included in that, and that there is no advantage to ideas because of the identity of their author, but only because of whether they are true, while “Jewish thought” is in his eyes an “empty set.” He agrees that there are a few basic principles that define a framework, such as the existence of God, commitment to the Torah, and the giving of the Torah at Sinai, but he calls them “the correct thought,” not “Jewish thought,” and adds that labels such as “heretic” are not substantive arguments that decide a debate, but social-halakhic labeling.

Kabbalah as tradition and interpretation as creativity

The lecturer says that the claim of tradition in Kabbalah is “far from clear” in his view, and he is willing to consider a basic core that was passed down through tradition, but sees the structures around it as interpretations influenced also by foreign influences. He brings the introduction to Rabbi Shabbetai Donnolo the physician’s commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, in which he tells of having learned a conceptual system from a Persian scholar in the deserts of Persia, to illustrate that interpretation can arise from study with a non-Jewish source without having any formal authority. He notes that the Dor Daim do not accept Kabbalah and that there are disputes about the Zohar, and argues that there is no argument of authority here that obligates acceptance of Kabbalah, but at most a claim about truth that has to be examined.

Canonization, codification, and the closing of periods

The lecturer describes a periodization in Jewish law with closure: Tannaim, Amoraim, Savoraim, Geonim, medieval authorities (Rishonim), later authorities (Acharonim), and it is conventionally accepted that one cannot, or that it is problematic to, dispute those who came before the dividing line. He mentions the Kesef Mishneh at the beginning of chapter 2 of the laws of Rebels, according to whom “we accepted upon ourselves not to dispute,” and raises the question why such a norm was accepted even when there is no principled barrier to disagreement. He emphasizes that the authority of the Sanhedrin and the Talmud draws from formal authority and not from greatness or correctness, whereas after the Talmud what remains is mainly substantive authority based on expertise. He describes fierce polemics against the codification of Maimonides and of the Shulchan Arukh, and brings the claim that someone who supplies “bottom lines” without reasons adds no value for someone who wants to decide on the basis of reasoning.

The decline of the generations: intuition versus analysis

The lecturer argues that the “decline of the generations” is not necessarily a decline in intellectual ability, but a decline in intuition stemming from distance from the source, similar to a game of “telephone.” He brings the aggadah of Moses in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall as indicating that Moses did not understand because of the absence of a sophisticated system of tools, but calmed down when he understood that this was “a law to Moses from Sinai” in the sense of a continuation of a dynamic tradition. He presents a model of two axes: on the synthetic axis there is a decline in halakhic intuition about “what is right,” and on the analytical axis there is an increase in logical ability that compensates for the lack of intuition, and he compares this to learning a language in an ulpan versus a native speaker, who is more precise without knowing the rules. He argues that the medieval authorities (Rishonim) answer briefly out of a halakhic “sense of smell,” while later authorities (Acharonim) elaborate in analyses because they do not have intuitive decision, and that high analytical ability also makes decision harder, because it allows one to answer every difficulty and support every approach.

Rabbi Chaim and Maimonides, precedents, and rules of halakhic ruling

The lecturer mentions the dispute between Seridei Esh and Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner about the relationship between Rabbi Chaim and Maimonides, and adopts the position that Rabbi Chaim interprets Maimonides within a new conceptual framework even if Maimonides himself would not have understood the formulations. He argues that Rabbi Chaim is analytically smarter than Maimonides and that there is an ascent of the generations in analytical ability, but that the medieval authorities (Rishonim) are more correct because of their closeness to the source, and formulates it as: “In Torah, don’t be smart, be right.” He presents the story attributed to Rabbi Chaim, who demanded from Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan an answer of “yes or no without reasons,” because reasons allow for analytical dismantling that prevents decision. He argues that as a result of the inability to decide, an attachment to precedents develops, expanding sets of rules of halakhic ruling are created, and he brings the example of the rule “the Jewish law follows Rava except for YAL KAGAM,” and the attempt to invent ad hoc distinctions in order to explain exceptions in Maimonides. He connects the closing of periods to the fact that generations retroactively accept not to dispute their predecessors out of trust in their correctness as being closer to the source, and emphasizes that the rules are determined retrospectively, and therefore exceptions are found such as “Rav is a Tanna and may dispute,” or later identifications such as the words of Tosafot that every “Rav Acha” in the Talmud is Rav Achai Gaon.

The aspiration to combine intuition and analysis, and the continuation of the course

The lecturer says that exceptional individuals can appear in any generation, and that it is possible that someone may possess both strong intuition and strong analytical ability, and he presents this as the goal of combining tradition and give-and-take, similar to Rabbi Akiva. He compares this to an ulpan student who in the end also develops the intuition of a native speaker, and thereby has the advantage of two toolboxes. At the end he again mentions next week’s lecture as an exceptional lecture that is not part of the regular progression, and announces that in two weeks the regular progression will continue.

Okay, let’s begin. First of all, just regarding next week: there will be a class in a week, on Wednesday, even though it’s Hanukkah, so take note. At six o’clock—it’s already after candle lighting—there will be a class. I also think it’s defined as an option for making up missing hours. Meaning, whoever wants can join that class. I think maybe also people who aren’t registered—I’m not exactly sure how it’s defined there—but those who need to make up missing hours. So next week I’ll talk about something that’s self-contained, meaning a specific topic that we’ll deal with only in next week’s class, not as part of the general progression, so that people who don’t need it can miss it, and those who do need it can join, and it won’t affect the continuation. In other words, we’ll be able to continue whether you were there or not at next week’s class.

Okay, as for where we are holding, let’s briefly summarize what we’ve done so far. I spoke a bit about the concept of commandment. We’re talking about the philosophy of Jewish law, and what underlies the philosophy of Jewish law is commandment. So first I talked about what a commandment is, what the meaning of commandment is. One more note: whoever can turn on cameras, I ask that you do so, so it’ll be possible to see who I’m talking to—unless, again, someone has some special problem, that’s a different matter—but in principle cameras should be on, and I’m asking for that beyond the formal requirement as well.

So we began with the issue of commandment, which basically defines the concept of Jewish law, and after that I moved to the subject of authority. I talked about the fact that basically, parallel to a system of commandments, there also has to be a defined system of authorities that, first, creates the commandments, and second, interprets them. And those are essentially the two authorities of the sages: to produce new laws and to interpret the existing laws; maybe we’ll still talk more about that. And this system of authority—I spoke about essential authority and formal authority. Formal authority was given only to the Sanhedrin, or to the Talmud, which received it from below. Essential authority is entrusted to anyone who is a teacher, with its limitations; yes, essential authority isn’t really authority in the full sense of the word.

Then I moved on to deal with the question of tradition, and I spoke about the meaning of tradition through the description of the aggadic passages in the Talmud regarding the revolution in Yavneh, in the first generation of the sages of Yavneh, where I showed that there was a sharp confrontation over the conception of Torah. Is Torah a Torah of tradition, or a Torah of give-and-take? The conception of Torah as tradition, which was the older conception, led Torah—or the path—to something of a dead end, you could say, because there was no way to decide open questions, to resolve disputes. And therefore some kind of revolution was required: they deposed Rabban Gamliel, they excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer, Rabban Gamliel repented so they reinstated him, and he rotated with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah.

And in the end I concluded that the one who received both from Rabbi Yehoshua, who was the head of the rebels, and from Rabbi Eliezer, who was from the deposed establishment, let’s call it that, was Rabbi Akiva. And Rabbi Akiva basically creates some kind of synthesis between these two approaches, like the example we saw in the Mishnah regarding cucumber-gathering in tractate Sanhedrin—that Rabbi Akiva heard many Jewish laws about cucumber-gathering, meaning sorcery, gathering cucumbers by sorcery, from Rabbi Eliezer and didn’t understand, and then went to Rabbi Yehoshua who explained it to him. And the claim is basically that Rabbi Akiva later created a kind of synthesis between thesis and antithesis. The thesis was Torah as tradition; the antithesis was Torah as give-and-take; the synthesis is some combination of tradition plus give-and-take.

And on that issue I talked last time about what the meaning of this combination actually is—what does that mean? It means that tradition is not what Rabbi Eliezer thought it was. Rabbi Eliezer thought that tradition means something rigid. I receive from my teachers and pass it on as-is to my students, and so on; each person is supposed to pass it on in some kind of relay race, passing the baton from generation to generation. Whereas tradition cannot be detached from give-and-take, otherwise it’s a sure recipe for disintegration. The give-and-take is meant to clarify what the tradition is, to interpret the tradition, to adapt it to the existing circumstances.

And I brought various examples of this: Rabbi Kook on Rabbi Eliezer, who never said anything he hadn’t heard from his teacher, and I spoke a bit about the hermeneutic principles, which are themselves a tradition. I brought that as an example of a dynamic tradition, and all the medieval authorities (Rishonim) claim that the hermeneutic principles were basically transmitted as a law given to Moses at Sinai. And yet we see that over the generations they develop—not only develop but multiply, because they branch out, new principles are born. And I explained that there through the description of Moshe Koppel, the mathematician, that basically this is like some sort of development of a language: rules are created that describe how the language works, but we can’t cling only to the rules. There is basically some combination here of tradition with give-and-take.

Meaning, tradition basically turns into something much more dynamic than it seems at first glance. Tradition is something that leaves a great, great, great deal of room for the human being—for his insights, his interpretations, his adaptations to the reality in which he lives—and it isn’t something frozen, as people usually think.

So that’s where we got to. Maybe I also noted, I think, a connection to two subjects I’ll deal with later. One subject is the distinction between first-order halakhic ruling and second-order halakhic ruling, meaning to what extent a halakhic ruling should stick to precedents, or whether it can be entrusted to the discretion of the halakhic decisor. And you understand that this is exactly this tension between give-and-take, or rational reasoning, or conceptual reasoning, and tradition—what we received from previous generations. So that’s one expression of this tension between Torah as tradition and Torah as give-and-take: the question of the degree of attachment to precedents versus reliance on reasoning in halakhic ruling. That’s one note, and we’ll still deal with that, we’ll devote time to it.

The second subject, which is also connected to this matter, is changes in Jewish law. Because changes in Jewish law, on the one hand, are supposed somehow to change what existed before, but on the other hand it’s clear that you can’t just do whatever you want, because otherwise in what sense is this changes in Jewish law? It’s simply erasing Jewish law and inventing something else in its place. When you talk about changes in Jewish law, you’re basically saying: I’m still within the framework of Jewish law, but within that I’m making changes. So that means that the tradition within which I live is still dynamic in such a way that there is room for my forms of thought, and there is room for changes within the tradition that will still constitute a continuation of that same tradition.

Therefore both changes in Jewish law and first- and second-order halakhic ruling are issues tied at the navel to this matter, to this tension between Torah as tradition and Torah as give-and-take, and to this synthesis that Rabbi Akiva made. I’m saying this only in order to connect chapters we’ll deal with later in detail to the things I’ve done so far. Basically this series is some kind of series that tries to build things systematically, meaning there’s a connection between each stage and the previous stages. So I’m trying to get you to pay attention to that, so you can see that I’m really trying to lay out a whole picture here of this system.

Okay, one more note before we go on, and that concerns the nature of the tradition we’re talking about. In the first stage, when I talked about commandment, I distinguished there between the realm of Jewish law and other realms in Torah—thought, interpretation of Torah, ethics, the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), things like that. The difference between the realms is not just a difference in content; it’s also a difference in methodology and a difference in attitude. And I’ll do this briefly, even though it’s a broad subject and not really the place for it here; I’m only noting it in order to complete the picture.

There is a difference—I think anyone who studies these subjects can feel it—there is a very clear difference between how tradition functions in the halakhic context and how tradition functions in the intellectual context, if at all. Because in the halakhic context there is a very clear feeling that we are basically engaged in transmitting a tradition. That doesn’t mean that things are not renewed; after all there are plenty of disputes, and every generation renews things and changes things and rules among disputes and new questions arise, and you can also disagree with previous generations on various topics, so it’s not something frozen. It is definitely a dynamic tradition. But the feeling is that there is a tradition, and we are all playing within the traditional playing field, as much as the give-and-take within that framework allows. Okay? Meaning, there is room to maneuver, but we are within some framework that can definitely be called tradition.

By contrast, in the intellectual context, the situation is—let’s call it—much more, I don’t know whether complex or problematic. There really is no tradition there. Let’s put it that way. Meaning, in the halakhic context, when I study Ketzot, Ketzot interprets Maimonides, Maimonides interprets the Talmud, the Talmud interprets the Mishnah, the Mishnah derives from the Torah. It is clear that each such link in the chain innovates and inserts its own forms of thought into the matter, whether it’s a person or a group of people. And it’s clear that different forms of thought produce different interpretations, and there are disputes, and we talked about that; I mentioned that conference I participated in with Justice Englard, yes, and I brought a few more examples of the dynamism of tradition. But still, the feeling is clearly that basically we are engaged here in interpretation, and each generation interprets the generations that preceded it. Interprets, disagrees a little, decides disputes, changes—but you are dealing with material that was transmitted to you from Sinai.

In the intellectual realm, people try to describe it that way. I’m really not convinced. That’s not what happens there. In the intellectual realm there is no tradition. In my opinion, talking about tradition in the intellectual realm is nonsense. When Maimonides built his intellectual world, he did not do it as an interpretation of previous generations. He took Greek or Muslim philosophy plus his own forms of thought, and tried to give this or that interpretation to verses, but it’s clear that these are illustrations. Maimonides himself writes this.

Maimonides himself says, regarding both corporeality and eternity—two issues in the Guide for the Perplexed—that if he had reached the conclusion that the world is eternal, then what is written in the Torah, that the world was created, would not have deterred him. Then he would have given a creative interpretation to the Torah and remained with his scientific or philosophical conclusion that the world is eternal, and he would interpret the Torah creatively. Okay? He says the same thing regarding eternity. And regarding corporeality—sorry—if I had reached the conclusion that God is corporeal, I would have said He is corporeal. But now that I’ve reached the conclusion that God has no body, that He is not made of matter—one of Maimonides’ great battles was against corporealism—so now, true, in the Torah there are verses that imply that the Holy One, blessed be He, has a hand, and God’s will, and that He regrets and thinks this way and that way, and all kinds of anthropomorphic forms—with an aleph, yes—turning the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were into something human-like or made of some sort of matter, but all these Maimonides interprets metaphorically. He interprets them metaphorically because it is philosophically clear to him that God has no body, that He is not made of matter.

Meaning, the idea that God is not made of matter—Maimonides did not learn that from the Torah. He did not receive it in tradition. He reached that conclusion philosophically. And after he reached that conclusion, he goes back to the sources and interprets them accordingly. He chooses sources that fit this and rejects sources that don’t fit. And Maimonides says more than that: he would have done the same with eternity if he had been convinced, like Aristotle, that the world is eternal. But there, regarding eternity, the proofs show that the world is created and not eternal, so I don’t have a problem, I don’t need to give a creative interpretation to the Torah.

But Maimonides confesses here in a very honest and straightforward way that he does not build his thought as an interpretation of Torah. He builds his thought as a result of the conclusions of his reason and his philosophy. The Torah comes afterward, and certainly the sages do as well. And therefore Maimonides writes—Rabbi Abraham ben HaRambam, in the introduction to Ein Yaakov—not in the introduction to Ein Yaakov of course, because Ein Yaakov was compiled after him, but at the beginning of volume one of Ein Yaakov there are various essays about the aggadic literature of the sages. And among other things, there’s an essay there by Rabbi Abraham ben HaRambam discussing the attitude we should have toward the aggadic literature of the sages. And he says that we are not supposed to accept this as Torah from Sinai, and it has no authority. We can disagree with it.

And following his father in the Guide for the Perplexed, he brings the Talmud in Pesachim, where the sages of Israel disagreed with the sages of the nations of the world whether the sphere stands still and the constellations revolve, or the sphere revolves and the constellations stand still—yes, what the relation is between the stars and the spheres, and all the gadgets of ancient Greek astronomy. The conclusion is that the sages of Israel conceded to the sages of the nations of the world. There was some proof there, and the sages of Israel admitted it. Maimonides says: what does that Talmudic passage come to teach us? Maimonides in the Guide and Rabbi Abraham his son in that letter printed at the beginning of Ein Yaakov bring it in his father’s name. He says: what does that Talmudic passage teach us? It teaches us to accept the truth from whoever says it. And if the sages of the nations of the world are right, and brought a good proof for their words, then the sages of Israel admit that they erred, and they admit their mistake, and acknowledge that the sages of the nations of the world were right.

Or in other words: scientific, intellectual, philosophical questions—we decide them according to our own reasoning, like any gentile. Not from within the Torah, not from within the sages, not from anything like that. And on the contrary: after we decide, we interpret the Torah and the sages in accordance with our conclusions. And anyone who looks straightforwardly at texts in Jewish thought sees that everyone does this. Not everyone admits it like Maimonides, but everyone does it.

If someone wants to tell me that the Maharal derived his worldview from the aggadic literature of the sages, then he is one of the astonished. The Maharal forced the aggadic literature of the sages in a brutal way just to explain in them what he had already decided ought to be there, on every page of his writings. And I’m not an expert in his writings precisely for that reason, because I have no interest in dealing with them. I can think on my own too; I don’t need to know what the Maharal thought. Fine—whoever finds it interesting, or whoever finds it useful, by all means. And whoever feels not, then not. I feel that the Maharal is a downer for me, unlike the halakhic writings of the Maharal or of Maimonides or whoever, where we live within a consciousness of tradition. We have to understand what previous generations passed down to us, including their interpretations, and be partners in that process. In the intellectual sphere, in my opinion—or at least that’s the very clear feeling, and I think it’s very hard to argue with this—every thinker creates his own intellectual doctrine out of nothing. Fine, as an illustration, he brings verses, he brings midrashim of the sages, but it’s only illustration. They create intellectual worlds of their own: Hasidism, of course; not to mention Maimonides, Kuzari, the Maharal, Saadia Gaon, and so on.

Can I ask a question? What? Can I ask a question in that context? Yes, yes. If you have no interest in the Maharal’s writings, then in that sense what interest do you have in the writings of Rabbi Kook or of any—what is this? Me neither. I don’t study intellectual writings. Personally, it’s a matter of interest. I’m not saying one shouldn’t study them or that it’s forbidden to study them. Whoever finds it interesting and useful, and is persuaded by what those Jews wrote—peace and blessing, let him study them and grow wise. Personally, this kind of material doesn’t speak to me, so I don’t deal with it. I don’t feel it builds something for me. In general, you’re saying this about the whole range of writings in Jewish thought? Yes. I’m saying, here and there there may be an interesting idea, certainly. Again, these Jews were important and wise Jews. But in general, if it speaks to me, fine; and if not, then not. My personal taste is that very little of these things speaks to me. But again, this is very personal—each person according to his own taste.

I only want to say that there’s a difference. Once I defined this as Torah in the object versus Torah in the subject. When studying Jewish law, even if I study a view that I don’t rule like or don’t agree with, I have studied Torah. Why? Because it is Torah in the object. Meaning, object and subject in the Brisker sense, yes? Meaning Torah in an objective sense. It is simply an object of Torah. I studied it, so I studied Torah. In thought, it is Torah in the subject. What does subject mean? In the subjective sense, yes? Subject versus object in the Brisker sense. This is subjective. What does that mean? If it builds me, then I studied Torah; it’s important to me. If it doesn’t build me, then I have neglected Torah. If it doesn’t help me, then there’s no point in learning it; it has no value. It is not Torah in an objective sense. It is Torah to the extent that it helps me and builds me.

And then yes, there’s no problem. I’m also not saying that it is less important. This is also not a statement that it’s less important. It’s just a different kind. It’s Torah in a certain subjective sense, because in the end each person has to build his own intellectual world by himself. If there are people who help you build it, excellent, use them. And those people can also be gentiles, they can be Jews, and they can also be—I don’t know what—Zionism from a cat. But if someone wants to learn from cats or telephone poles, that’s also perfectly fine. Whatever helps you. It makes no difference whatsoever. There are no things here that have objective status as Torah. That’s what I mean.

There is no difference between the Guide for the Perplexed and, say, Critique of Pure Reason. No difference at all. On the contrary, in my opinion Critique of Pure Reason builds me much more than the Guide for the Perplexed. Critique of Pure Reason—who wrote that? Kant. More Torah in the subject than the Guide for the Perplexed. Still Torah in the subject, not in the object. In the halakhic context, any work dealing with interpretation of Jewish laws, with transmitting tradition onward—even if I don’t rule like it and don’t even think like it halakhically—it doesn’t matter. When I studied it, I studied Torah. Because that is Torah by objective definition. That is what I want to claim: that in Jewish law… the basis is some kind of tradition. Things pass from generation to generation, and in the end each generation of course interprets, expands, applies. Everything is fine. But still, we’re building some world here that is built in tradition, with each generation adding on top of the previous ones. Okay? In the intellectual world, nothing is built here. Maimonides has one doctrine, Saadia Gaon has another, Rabbi Kook has another, Saadia another, Kuzari another. Here and there there are influences, yes, it’s not that there are no influences at all. But basically these are certainly not sources of authority. I am not obligated to accept something written in Kuzari or in the Maharal. It is not a source of authority.

And beyond that, it’s not really tradition either. It’s not that each one interprets his predecessors and then expands, or deepens, or applies. No—each one builds his own intellectual doctrine. It’s a collection of inventions that came one after the other along the timeline. That’s all. There is no single structure being built here.

Can I ask a question about the subject as well? Regarding, for example, Saadia Gaon’s approach—if I remember correctly, Rabbi Saadia Gaon also presents something similar to what you’re saying in Beliefs and Opinions. He says, I build this supposedly from scratch, but he says I have the Torah to rely on as something that guides me in case I stray too far. Right, you can find those slogans among all of them. But when you look inside the book, I think you won’t find the fingerprint of that. Again, I’ve hardly dealt with these things, but from what I’ve seen, you won’t find it there.

But Rabbi, that creation ex nihilo they create—it’s not really ex nihilo. Every person who builds an opinion lives in a world, and that world gives him a language. Obviously. That’s what I’m saying: each person basically builds his own things. Yes, each one builds his opinions on the basis of previous opinions, on the basis of the whole collection of things he’s learned in his life. But not in the strict sense. There are influences from lots of things, but there are influences on everything. Even my children influence me, and my wife, and my surroundings, and everything. So does that mean that when I listen to them I’m learning Torah? A lot of things influence me. Obviously, texts I’ve read also influence me, no question. But it’s not that I’m engaging here in interpretation in an intentional, deliberate way, consciously approaching and interpreting previous things and on that basis building my doctrine. That’s not how it works. I really am not impressed that way and don’t accept that description. True, it’s hard to admit this. It sounds a bit radical to say it. And so you’ll hear statements like the one quoted earlier—yes, of course the Torah guides us, etc. I’m not buying it. Those are educational statements. In practice, that’s not how it works. It simply doesn’t work that way, practically.

But also in Jewish law a lot of things are like that too, where someone comes with a halakhic opinion and then hangs it on some verse—you see that a lot too. Where did that halakhic opinion come from? That’s fundamentally different in Jewish law. If I now want to permit something and he’s looking for something to hang it on, based on the same idea, then it’s also like that. It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way. In the end, when a person studies a halakhic topic, I study the halakhic topic. Clearly I interpret it according to my reasoning and my way of thinking, and you may approach that topic and your conclusions and interpretations may be different. I said that before; it’s absolutely clear. Tradition is—this is why I’m tying it to what we discussed before—tradition is not rigid tradition. It is tradition with a lot of room for give-and-take and reasoning. But in the end, I use those reasonings to interpret the sources of Jewish law. And unlike thought, where it works the other way around. First of all I have my own reasoning, and afterward I will use, if at all, sources that can support it, or I’ll force the sources to support it. But the direction is the opposite direction.

And I think the difference is a very clear difference, although it’s obvious that in Jewish law too my opinions and my education and my surroundings carry weight—there’s no question of that, it’s obvious. But still, in the end there is an orientation here that is an interpretive orientation. The consciousness within which I operate is an interpretive consciousness. Each generation interprets the preceding generations. Therefore too you’re forbidden to disagree with previous generations—that’s a matter we’ll talk about shortly—there are senses in which you’re forbidden to disagree with previous generations, meaning there is some framework in which each generation adds on top of the previous generations, for the generations after it. It passes on in a relay race. With all the qualifications I made, that this relay race is not passing a rigid baton. The tradition is a dynamic tradition. But in Jewish thought it simply doesn’t work that way. It’s not true that these generations interpret the previous generations. These generations represent a new halakhic doctrine—sorry, a new intellectual doctrine—each generation presents its own doctrine. It does not interpret the previous generations, it doesn’t build on them, it isn’t committed to them at all; sometimes it maybe didn’t even read them, I don’t know. It’s just not built that way. Although on the face of it it seems very similar, but if you look carefully and really get an impression of where things come from, you’ll see.

In my column I wrote about this a lot. This is a subject I’ve said quite a bit and written about quite a bit, and it aroused the anger of many people, because basically I argued—and I’ll tell you something even more radical—I basically argued that I have never seen anyone learn something new from the aggadic literature of the sages or from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Never. I have not seen a single example of someone learning something new from the aggadic literature of the sages or from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Now read any essay, with the eyes I’m suggesting to you here, listen to any lecture you know, whatever you want. I once randomly chose something on the internet, clicked on an article on the weekly Torah portion or something in that week’s portion just to check, and I showed people. I literally chose at random, because there is no exceptional article, no exception, no—it simply doesn’t exist. I don’t know a single human being on earth who wrestled with some question, studied an intellectual topic or a passage in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and reached a conclusion. It always, always works the other way around. Always. You have some conclusion that you know already, and then you explain how it fits into the passage in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or into this or that aggadic passage.

If someone is a feminist, no aggadic passage and no verses in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) will change the feminist position. And if someone is anti-feminist, the reverse won’t happen either. Same thing. Everyone with his own positions. And of course our positions are also the result of the sources we’ve been exposed to; all that is true, as I said before. But in the end, when it comes to the most brilliant things I know in contexts of Bible or thought or something like that—there are few such things—but when someone produces something brilliant, that brilliant thing is brilliant at the interpretive level. He shows you that in this chapter in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) there is folded an idea you didn’t think was folded there. But the idea itself will always be an idea he had already reached on his own. The conclusion in the end will be that it’s very important to educate children, that one has to be humble, and that one has to be meticulous in commandments. That’s what one has to do. Only to say that the chapter is about this—I would never have thought of that if someone had not opened my eyes with some interesting interpretive move that really shows that this is the message the chapter wants to convey. That’s where the flashes of insight lie, not in the message. I have never, ever seen someone learn something genuinely new from there. It just doesn’t happen.

When you read now, when you study the weekly Torah portion, is it impossible that you learn something that changes your perception of something you know? Is such a thing impossible? When you read the passage of the monogamous relationship of Isaac and Rebecca—is it impossible for someone coming from outside, someone who didn’t grow up on this, didn’t grow up on weekly Torah portions—that it changes something in his head? Nothing, nothing, nothing. At most it can be a source of inspiration that awakens in him an insight which he understands is true not because of the passage, but perhaps he wasn’t aware of it and now he understands that it is true—but he didn’t learn it from the passage. Because if in the end he doesn’t understand that it’s true, then even if it came out of the passage he won’t accept it, and it also won’t come out of the passage for him.

But is that basically true of any text? Is that what you’re saying? By the way, Isaac’s monogamous relationship contradicts Jacob’s non-monogamous relationship. So now decide whether you’re in favor of monogamy or against monogamy. There’s nothing there. I’m telling you, I checked this, and people tried and brought examples by the dozens and hundreds and protested and got angry about the heresy and all that. I told them: I don’t know, I’m not expressing an opinion, so it has nothing to do with heresy. I’m stating a fact. The fact is that I have never encountered such a thing or such a person. Something new—I have never encountered it.

Rabbi Michael, are you basically claiming in a sweeping way that no text whatsoever that I read or study will change my mind? Of course it can. From a physics text I will certainly learn something new. I’m not talking about science. I mean again a book that is intellectual or inspirational, supposedly? Nothing. At most it can show me, awaken in me an insight that I understand on my own. I hadn’t thought of it, so it was a source of inspiration that inspired me toward it, but… It also awakens in me lots of insights. There’s some noise here from someone, I…

Okay, thank you. Rabbi, religious people do indeed experience the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the aggadic literature of the sages as something that builds in them a worldview and fear of Heaven and personal opinions. They experience it, not justly. They very much want to experience it, and so they experience it. It’s not really happening. It’s not really happening. I’m talking about facts, not about theory or what I would like to be the case. I would very much like this not to be the case. I have a real distress about these facts. It’s not that I love them so much, but I can’t deny that these are the facts.

Ask me why the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) was written—I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t know. In the distant past people certainly did learn from it. Values were certainly embedded into humanity through the power of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh); that’s absolutely clear as a historical fact. I agree. I’m only saying that for me today, when I approach a chapter in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), I don’t see why to do it, other than as a decree of Scripture that this too is called Torah study—which is true. I can’t deny that, but I don’t know what to do. The black swan theory—isn’t that, as far as I remember, by Nassim Taleb? Someone asked in the chat. But the fact that I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. On the contrary, I’m waiting for examples. So far I haven’t seen any. On the contrary—bring me an example and I’ll agree.

Meaning, you don’t find value in reading the weekly Torah portion? And this… it doesn’t arouse anything for you beyond your saying: I accept the decree of Scripture that I’m doing Torah study, that’s all, basically? Right. Neglect of Torah at its best, in my opinion. Essentially. Not neglect of Torah because it is called Torah study, but essentially you could do something at the… it’s a shame for the time. That’s the most extreme formulation. It might perhaps build, you know, some connection with the people, with the culture, with our history. So it does those things for some reason for people, I believe them, I don’t think they’re lying. Okay, but that isn’t called learning. Learning means to produce information or something new that I wouldn’t know without this. That’s what I usually define as learning. There are people for whom it has all kinds of positive effects. Maybe it even helps them improve their character traits or connect to our history and culture. Everything is fine. But all of that is not learning. Those are important things that are not learning, but other important things.

Okay. But I learn that there was Abraham our forefather, and I learn that he had a son named Isaac. I wouldn’t know that if I hadn’t read the Torah. Right. But in terms of values or insights that I’ll get now from going and studying some chapter, I don’t see what I get from it.

Okay, this really isn’t our subject here. Even though someone started with a short question, can we move on here? It comes out, from what you’re saying, that overall Jewish thought is simply the sum total of the opinions of people who fall into this category called Israel, because after all there are no two different opinions… Jewish thought is the philosophy of someone whose mother was Jewish. That’s all. Spinoza too is Jewish thought, because he too was a Jew. In terms of content, that’s something else, but there is no content-based definition of Jewish thought. There is true philosophy and false philosophy. If the philosophy is true, I accept it from any gentile; it doesn’t have to be a Jew. And if it isn’t true, I won’t accept it even from a Jew. So why should I care from whose belly these pearls emerged? Whether his mother was Jewish or gentile—what difference does it make? What matters are the ideas themselves.

We spoke exactly two weeks ago, I think, about that study hall there, where Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer tested the people, and Elazar ben Azariah, from the younger revolutionaries, was in favor of testing the ideas and not the people. And therefore the water channel and the walls of the study hall and all the proofs about the person were not accepted by them. Bring me proofs about the oven itself, the one we’re disputing. I want to examine the ideas and not the people. So if I’m learning ideas, why should I care whether they’re written in Rashi script, in Hebrew, or in English, or whether the one who conceived them was a gentile or a Jew? Why does that matter?

The medical book that Maimonides wrote—is that also Jewish thought? Is it Jewish medicine? No, it’s a medical book written by someone whose mother was Jewish. In my view, books of Jewish thought are in exactly the same status. And they have no advantage over a philosophy book written by a gentile. Everything has to be checked whether it is true or not. Why should I care who wrote it? Unless it were a tradition from Sinai—then it would have added value. Then I would say that the thought written by Maimonides is true because he received it from Moses our teacher from the Holy One, blessed be He. And the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what the right philosophy is and what is not right. So even if it didn’t seem right to me, I’d accept it, because the Holy One… the Holy One, blessed be He, knows. But since there isn’t—I don’t believe that there is some tradition here that Maimonides is transmitting as tradition—then if I don’t accept what he says, then that’s Michael’s thought, not Jewish thought. And if I don’t accept what he says, then I won’t accept it even if Maimonides says it from now till tomorrow. Therefore I don’t see—the field of Jewish thought doesn’t exist. In my opinion it’s an empty set.

That’s also what we said in Jewish law, that in the end when a person reaches a certain level of autonomy… binding rulings. The Talmud or rulings of the Sanhedrin are binding sources. But in the end in Judaism too there’s some conceptual framework that one has to align with in—look, we see in the Talmud that there are people who are heretics or people excommunicated by—like we said about what’s-his-name? He denied resurrection of the dead.

Let’s distinguish between two things. The first question is whether there is authority regarding intellectual questions. Is there a definition of who is inside the fence and who is outside the fence? Here I agree to some extent. What do I mean? I say there are very, very, very basic foundational principles, but only a few, where one can say that whoever does not—whoever doesn’t accept the existence of God, that has nothing to do with Jewish law. That is an intellectual principle. Whoever doesn’t accept the existence of God is not in the game. That’s clear. Or whoever doesn’t accept the giving of the Torah at Sinai, or doesn’t see the Torah as something binding—that too is an intellectual principle, but of course it is a necessary condition. So I do accept that there are a few basic intellectual principles that define some sort of framework.

But those principles themselves—I don’t call them Jewish thought. Not even those basic principles. Why? I call them correct thought, not Jewish thought. The fact that there is a God is the correct thought, not Jewish thought. A gentile who thinks there is no God is no less mistaken than a Jew who thinks there is no God. They are simply wrong because the fact is that there is. Not because you’re a heretic and he’s not a heretic. Because that thought is incorrect, that’s all. So I don’t call it Jewish thought.

There is a difference between saying what can define a framework, and the question whether that thing is Jewish thought or not. These are entirely different things. Okay? And even that, I’m speaking only about a very few very basic principles: the existence of God, commitment to Torah, I don’t know, maybe there’s something else, I’m not sure. That’s it. All the rest of the details can be debated. Yes or no. Very many of the details, including Maimonides’ thirteen principles, I don’t think at all are things you have to accept. And in fact there were sages who did not accept some of them. So Maimonides thought that way. Okay. But he is not transmitting to me some tradition here, not even in the flexible sense I spoke about in the halakhic context.

And therefore my claim—and let me summarize this part, which took me much longer than I thought—is that when we define here the concept of tradition, and transmission in its dynamic sense, I am still talking about tradition in the halakhic context and not about tradition in the intellectual context. In the intellectual context we are not talking about tradition. We are talking about formulating a philosophical, intellectual position on the world, on whatever you want, and you can use whatever sources you want, but in the end that’s what you’re doing.

And by the way, even if someone is outside the fence, and you say to him: look, if you don’t believe in the revelation at Mount Sinai—it’s illegitimate. You’re a heretic. So you can say he is a heretic in the sense that if he does not keep the commandments out of obligation from Sinai, then it is not commandment observance. We talked about that. But of course this will not constitute an argument that will persuade him of anything. Because if that’s what he thinks, then that’s what he thinks. Why should I care whether you define him as a heretic or not? That’s what he thinks. It is not a relevant argument on the issue itself that such a thing is called heresy. Why is that interesting? The question is whether it is true or not, not whether it is heresy or not. If you have arguments showing that it is not true, present them to that person you are arguing with. But if you only think he is a heretic—okay, think he is a heretic, don’t drink his wine. But that is not a relevant argument to the discussion between you, because he will not be persuaded by your calling him a heretic. It is not a substantive argument. Okay?

Rabbi, what about Kabbalah, which is in fact called something transmitted through tradition? Can you hear? The whole thought-world of Kabbalah—they claim that it really did pass by tradition. Obviously. To me it is far from obvious. I think there are a few principles there that I tend to think did pass by tradition, although there are people who didn’t think so, and I don’t see how they can simply be attacked. But these are really a few very, very basic principles. All the structures built around them are all interpretations by people, taken from their conceptual and intellectual world, including foreign influences, by the way. And I really don’t see anything unusual in that.

You know, in the introduction to the commentary on Sefer Yetzirah by Rabbi Shabbetai Donnolo the physician, he tells there—this is printed in the standard editions of Sefer Yetzirah—that as a young man he didn’t understand these writings, he didn’t understand this language, these concepts. Then he went traveling on long journeys and met people of all kinds, and he says that once he met some learned Persian in the deserts of Persia, a gentile. And he basically explained the whole conceptual system to him, and from then on he began to understand Kabbalah. And now he wrote the commentary on Sefer Yetzirah. That’s apropos the tradition we supposedly received from our teachers regarding Kabbalah. The interpretation he offered to Sefer Yetzirah was basically created from inspiration or learning he received from a Persian sage, a gentile.

By the way, I don’t reject his interpretation at all because of that—on the contrary. I only claim that if that interpretation seems right to me I’ll accept it, and if it doesn’t seem right to me I won’t accept it, because it is only a structure from the spiritual world of the person who conceived it, that’s all. Not a matter of tradition he received from his teachers and their teachers from Sinai. There is a text that passes by tradition, but perhaps the interpretation each time, each generation… But that text too was created by someone. Sefer Yetzirah too was not received from Sinai. What, this whole business… Fine, but these are ancient disputes, and one can argue about them at length. I’m only saying that you can think this way, you can think otherwise, but there is nothing here that I can come to by force of an authority argument: you must accept it because such-and-such. No, you don’t have to accept it. The Dor Daim among the Yemenites do not accept Kabbalah. Not to mention the Zohar, about which there are many disputes. So what? Does that make them heretics? Is it forbidden to drink their wine? What? No—that’s what they think. What’s the problem? Again, I think they are mistaken, because I think there is indeed a true core here, and the surrounding interpretations are interpretations like anything else, but they think not.

Okay, so I digressed a bit. What I only want to summarize for our purposes is that even when I speak about tradition, I’m speaking about tradition in the halakhic context. Tradition in the intellectual realm, in my opinion, no such animal exists. There is no such thing as an intellectual field at all, because if there is no tradition, then there is no such field either. What is a field? Think, and then you are engaged in Jewish thought when you think. Think. But there is nothing disciplinary here to study, to acquire from our teachers some transmitted tradition or some structure that was built. Nothing was built there. Everyone with his own thought. And to study Jewish thought is basically the opposite of thinking. Instead of thinking, people study Jewish thought. You don’t need to study Jewish thought. You need to think. That’s what needs to be done. Studying Jewish thought means learning what other people thought. So what? You can learn what they thought; maybe that gives you inspiration. Very good—that can certainly be useful. But there is no value in the bare knowledge that Maimonides thought this and Kuzari thought that. Why is it interesting what they thought? They thought many other things too. What interests me is what the Torah says and interpretations of Torah.

All right, let’s stop here. Let’s take five minutes, freshen up a bit, and come back to our topic.

Okay, let’s begin. Those who joined us, turn on your cameras. All right friends, let’s return. It looks like quite a few are still missing. Fine, I’ll continue. I now want to continue dealing a bit with the matter of tradition from some additional aspects. The first aspect is basically the question of canonization and codification, which is also connected to the question of the decline of the generations.

We are used to the fact that in halakhic tradition—and again I return to focus on the tradition of Jewish law—within the halakhic tradition there are different periods, and each such period ends with a closure. One period is sealed and the next begins: Tannaim, Amoraim, Savoraim, Geonim, medieval authorities (Rishonim), later authorities (Acharonim), and so on in a rough scheme. Somehow it is accepted that in such a period there is closure at the end of each period, and there is a problem—or perhaps it is even entirely impossible—to disagree with those who lived before the dividing line of the previous period. Thus Amoraim do not disagree with Tannaim, post-Talmudic sages do not disagree with Amoraim, and even between medieval and later authorities it is accepted that later authorities do not disagree with medieval authorities, or at least hesitate greatly before doing so. And even between the medieval authorities and the Geonim there are discussions. The well-known Rosh that I already mentioned brings several opinions on this matter. But there too there was some sort of closure that created a barrier before the generations after it: can one disagree with the Geonim?

What is the meaning of this division into periods? In other words, where does it come from? What is its significance? Why should earlier generations be more authoritative, wiser, why is one forbidden to disagree with them, and so on, while of course in the background we remember what I spoke about regarding authority. And I said that formal authority, as distinct from essential authority, basically doesn’t exist after the Talmud. It exists for the Sanhedrin, for ordained sages, and for the Talmud itself. That’s it. After that there is no formal authority. So whatever exists afterward can only be essential authority.

So you might say, fine, not to disagree with things said by a Sanhedrin or even by the Talmud, because they have formal authority and we no longer do. But even within the period of formal authority, what about one Sanhedrin that wants to disagree with a previous Sanhedrin? It simply can; there is no barrier to doing that. So why don’t Amoraim disagree with Tannaim? I brought the Kesef Mishneh at the beginning of chapter 2 of Laws of Rebels, where the Kesef Mishneh says: because we accepted upon ourselves not to disagree. We do not disagree with the Talmud; Amoraim do not disagree with Tannaim, and so on. Meaning, on the principled level there is no obstacle to disagreeing, but we nevertheless accepted upon ourselves not to disagree. What is the meaning of this matter? Why did we accept upon ourselves not to disagree? And why did later authorities accept upon themselves—not sure whether not to disagree with medieval authorities, but at least to hesitate before disagreeing with them. What is the meaning of this? Why does this happen?

Very often people hang this on the notion of the decline of the generations: if the earlier ones were like angels, we are like human beings; and if the earlier ones were like human beings, we are like donkeys—and not even like the donkey of Pinchas ben Yair. So this is basically linked to the question of how wise we are. And this is an important point, because here there is a big difference between the authority of the Sanhedrin and of the Talmud—their authority does not derive from their being wiser. Even if we accept that they were wiser, which I’m not sure about, even if we accept it, their authority does not begin there. Their authority begins from the fact that they had formal authority, unrelated to their greatness or to whether they are right. We already talked about that.

The authority of later sages can rely only on their greatness, because there is no longer any notion of formal authority there, only essential authority. And essential authority is given to an expert, to someone who probably understands better than I do, and therefore is less likely than I am to make a mistake—or better, it is less likely that he makes a mistake compared to me. Okay, so that is authority of an essential sort.

And now I basically want to make the following claim: there is a process of what the sages call the decline of the generations, which I am not entirely sure is rooted in a decline in intellectual level or Torah level or however you want to call it. Meaning, that previous generations are somehow always destined to be wiser and wiser, and we are destined to become more and more stupid throughout history. That doesn’t sound convincing to me. It doesn’t seem that way in other fields, and I don’t see why specifically in Torah this should be the case.

If you ask me, I’ll tell you even more than that. That well-known aggadic story about Moses our teacher in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall, where he sat at the end of eighteen rows and did not understand what they were saying, and then they told him it is a law given to Moses at Sinai, and he was calmed. Part of the message that this gives—and I already brought it in the earlier context when I talked about dynamic tradition, yes, that a student hears from his teacher things that no one else hears, including his teacher himself, as I said there—but here I want to speak about a somewhat different nuance that emerges from that aggadah. And the claim is that Moses our teacher really did not understand what they were saying because he was not wise enough. That is why he didn’t understand them. They had some analytical capacity, some mode of thought, that he did not have, and therefore he didn’t understand. But they told him: look, when we analyze things with all the sophisticated tools we have, we are analyzing the same laws that we received from you. We are not disagreeing with you; we are only interpreting and explaining the things we actually received from you. It is a law given to Moses at Sinai. Then he was calmed. He says: right, I don’t understand, but this is a continuation of the tradition I transmitted to them—that same dynamic tradition I talked about.

I’ll give you an example. The dispute—I think I mentioned it as well, one of the examples of dynamic tradition—the dispute between Seridei Eish and Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner regarding the relation between Rabbi Chaim and Maimonides. When Rabbi Chaim builds some intellectual structure, a conceptual-analytic structure, to explain some Jewish law in Maimonides, to solve contradictions and things like that—a very sophisticated structure—did Maimonides really think that? Did Maimonides think that way? Quite clearly not. So is Rabbi Chaim interpreting Maimonides or inventing things? We spoke about tradition, right? In the halakhic field, supposedly we interpret our predecessors. Is it really true that Rabbi Chaim interpreted Maimonides, or did Rabbi Chaim invent things and hang them on Maimonides?

So there was a dispute between Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner and Seridei Eish. And this is an important point, because I think I mentioned this then too, and said that I’m actually on the side of that one—if I remember correctly it was Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner—I’m on the side of Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner who says that Rabbi Chaim interpreted Maimonides. He interpreted Maimonides. That doesn’t mean that after Maimonides heard it he would agree, but that doesn’t matter. It is still an interpretation of Maimonides’ words. We talked about this; I brought it in the context of dynamic tradition.

And my claim is that Maimonides would not agree because he would not understand what Rabbi Chaim is talking about. Because he doesn’t have the system of analytical tools and concepts that Rabbi Chaim used, and in Maimonides’ conceptual and intellectual world that structure is complex—he would not grasp it, he would not understand it. Therefore the fact that Maimonides does not agree or does not understand does not mean that what Rabbi Chaim said is not really the interpretation of Maimonides. It is the interpretation of Maimonides’ words. Again—not that Rabbi Chaim was always right. But on the principled level, if one examines it and it really stands the test of reasoning and logic and analysis, then I claim that when Rabbi Chaim presented his structure, that is the correct interpretation of Maimonides, one given within the conceptual and intellectual framework of our time, which was not accessible or familiar to Maimonides.

And therefore, if Maimonides had encountered these formulations, he would have said: I never dreamed of this; these are not the things I said. But he would have been mistaken, because these are indeed the things he said. He simply does not understand what Rabbi Chaim is saying, so he thinks that is not what he said. If he understood Rabbi Chaim fully, he would understand that what Rabbi Chaim says is the interpretation of what he himself said.

And now let me ask you another question: who was wiser, Rabbi Chaim or Maimonides? Again, of course, only as a question—I’m not going to decide this and I have no tools to examine it—but just to illustrate. I claim that Rabbi Chaim was wiser. Or that Rabbi Chaim had a far stronger and sharper analytical ability than Maimonides had. I have no doubt about that. I have no doubt that Rabbi Akiva was not capable of doing even a fraction of what Rabbi Akiva Eiger did. Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s systems are super-complex, brilliant structures, and it is clear to me that Rabbi Akiva never dreamed of them; more than that, Rabbi Akiva could not have done it even if he wanted to. He did not have the ability that Rabbi Akiva Eiger had.

And I think that when one compares medieval authorities to later authorities, and medieval authorities to Amoraim, one sees very clearly a great rise of the generations. The generations only rise in their intellectual ability. The later the generations, the more brilliant things are said. And not brilliant in the negative sense—that they are mere pilpul, flashy but incorrect. No, no—more brilliant and deeper, and I mean more correct, more accurate to the truth of Torah.

If I’m not mistaken there’s an explicit Talmudic passage like this, no? That we are wiser than the generations before us but inferior to them in holiness, something like that. I don’t remember exactly where or the wording. Are you referring to that idea? I think in Sanhedrin; I don’t remember the wording right now. If you remember, I’d be happy to see it. I don’t remember at the moment. In any case, Rabbi Michael, do you think that today too—you’re saying Rabbi Akiva Eiger would not have been able to do what contemporary interpreters, people engaged in this, do? I don’t know. When you have a lot of wise, good people sitting for a long time and breaking their heads to understand a complex structure—I can’t understand.

I’m saying there are things people know how to do today that Rabbi Akiva Eiger didn’t know how to do. We think in a more advanced way than Rabbi Akiva Eiger. Rabbi Akiva Eiger had very complex thought, very complex structures he built, and the links he made with the practical ramifications show how complex the structure is—it is very complex. But Rabbi Chaim’s analytical ability was much higher than his. Rabbi Chaim’s conceptual structure, the ability to distinguish between two things that look the same and, when you do analysis, suddenly you see they are not the same thing—in my opinion Rabbi Chaim had a higher ability than Rabbi Akiva Eiger. And for that matter you’re saying that I, for example, may have an even higher analytical ability? Correct. Fine. I claim this happens all along history, throughout history up to our time and probably beyond.

What’s the point here? I want to say the following. Look, then what is this? Someone here asked what the decline of the generations means. First of all, who said I agree there was a decline of the generations? I’m not sure I have to agree to that. We spoke about the fact that in thought there are no authorities. Beyond that, I don’t care what the Maharal held. I told you, I don’t deal with the Maharal. And even if he held otherwise, then I disagree with him.

What I want to say is basically this claim. We need to go to a break. So why does Rabbi Chaim interpret Maimonides more sharply than Maimonides himself? No, we need to go to a break. You won’t get off without anything. Let’s mute.

So why does Rabbi Chaim interpret Maimonides more sharply than Maimonides himself? The answer I suggest—at least a model—is that there are two axes along which the history of Torah moves, and perhaps history in general, and the direction along them is opposite. Let’s call them the synthetic axis and the analytic axis. Or if I use the same analogy—if you remember—of speaking a language and studying in an ulpan, Moshe Koppel’s analogy that I brought one of the previous times.

My claim is basically this: the closer a person is to Mount Sinai, the better his intuition is about what is right and what is not right. Not because he is wiser, but because he is closer to the source. Play telephone—obviously the farther you get from the source, the less faithful it is to the source, the farther away it is, right? What you are saying is farther from what was said in the first link of the chain. Is that because you’re stupider? No, because you are simply farther from the source.

The tradition of Torah also basically passes from generation to generation, and the farther we get, our intuition about what is right and what is not right—what the poet meant, so to speak—declines. We are farther from the source. Therefore, if you ask me who is right, Rabbi Chaim or Maimonides, I say usually Maimonides. But to compensate for the lack of intuitive ability, or the diminishing of intuition, we instead develop analytical abilities that serve as a substitute.

Like a person who is blind—his sense of hearing becomes much sharper because he has to do with his ears what others do with their eyes, as much as he can. Then his hearing becomes much more acute than that of another person who uses his eyes. Meaning, when we have a deficiency in one faculty, we often develop another faculty that compensates for it and serves in its place. In our context, someone with weak intuition has to develop analytical ability in order to arrive, by logical-analytical means, at the correct answer.

Someone with good intuition—when you ask him a halakhic question, he’ll tell you: permitted. Period. Without explaining. Because that is his intuition telling him that this is right, and that’s it, and usually he’ll be right. But if there is no intuition—I don’t know intuitively whether this is permitted or forbidden—what do I do? I do analyses and build structures and examine precedents and make two laws and object and subject and this and that and difficulties and resolutions, and in the end I arrive at some halakhic conclusion, I hope. But who is more right? On the road, don’t be right, be smart; in Torah, don’t be smart, be right. The one who is more right is Maimonides. The one who is smarter is Rabbi Chaim. Because if you ask who has the intuition for what the Jewish law should be, it seems that the one who was in previous generations, closer to the source, who learned from people closer to the source, is probably more right. But the later generations, precisely because their intuition diminished, had to develop a more refined analytical ability, and we indeed see that the analytical ability only rises.

When the medieval authorities remain with a difficulty unresolved, any yeshiva student can offer you three resolutions on the spot, no problem. And not because all three are wrong—multiplied errors, as I once told you in the joke of my study partner. When I resolve a difficulty of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, I probably have an even number of mistakes. Meaning an even number of mistakes, one canceling the other, and therefore I arrive at the correct answer. Rabbi Akiva Eiger made one mistake because he didn’t understand the Talmud. When I resolved the Talmud, I didn’t make zero mistakes, because I’m not smarter than Rabbi Akiva Eiger. I probably made two mistakes instead of one, only the second mistake canceled the first, and so I reached the right answer. Okay, that is of course just a sharp joke. But on the principled level, the claim is that when we do analysis, it serves as a substitute for that intuitive ruling.

You see in the medieval authorities that their responsa are very short. The halakhic responsa of the later authorities are much longer. Why? Because the medieval authorities could cite some Talmudic passage and say, this is how it seems to me, and that’s it; that’s the Jewish law. Intuitively, they say this is what is right. The later authorities begin to analyze and analyze here and there, and sources and difficulties and analysis and a series of answers, and arrive in the end at a conclusion. Why? Because they don’t have a simple intuition that can answer immediately whether it is permitted or forbidden. So they try to reconstruct it by logical means. Thus they developed a much more refined, sharp, and deep analytical ability. But in the end, the medieval authorities are probably more likely to be right. If a later authority disagrees with the medieval authorities, usually the medieval authorities will be right and not the later authority, even though he is smarter than them in his analytical wisdom, in his analytical ability. Okay?

Therefore on the synthetic axis there is decline of the generations, on the axis of intuition. On the analytic axis there is rise of the generations. And these are two processes, one of which is definitely fed by the other, because analytical ability compensates for the decline in synthetic ability.

Now think about language. Like what I talked about. When someone learns a language in an ulpan, he has no intuition for how to speak correctly. He didn’t grow up in a house that speaks that language or in an environment that speaks that language. So what do they do in the ulpan? They teach him rules. Rules are the logical way to handle it; he makes a calculation using the rules and arrives at the conclusion how to say what he wants to say. The hope is that this calculation will help him speak correctly like the native speaker.

When the native speaker says it, he says it without doing the calculation according to the rules; he often doesn’t even know the rules. But when there is a dispute between them, usually the native speaker will be right. Because he has some intuitive sense of how it is right to say things and how it is not right to say things in this language. The one who lacks intuition needs all the grammar, all the wisdom and craftsmanship and analyticity of grammatical analysis, and then the hope is that he will nevertheless manage to speak correctly despite lacking the simple intuition that tells him immediately how it is right to speak and how not.

So if you ask who is wiser, the ulpan student is wiser. He knows many rules, he knows how to use them, he has logical abilities in using these rules—he is wiser. Ask who is more right: the native speaker is probably usually more right. Okay? And I think that’s exactly the picture by which one can understand the decline of the generations. There is decline on the synthetic axis—the intuition gets farther from the source and weakens. And today, when you ask me what the Jewish law should be, I can’t intuitively just say immediately permitted or forbidden based on some Talmudic passage and that’s it. You have to do some analysis, think, logic and precedents and this and that. Therefore I do all the analysis, and the responsa of the later authorities are very long, very analytical, with proofs and conceptual analyses and all these things. Why? Because they don’t know how to say immediately what is right and what is not right.

So on the one hand they are wiser in their logical-analytical ability, but on the other hand they are less right. Therefore there is no contradiction between the claim that there is decline of the generations—I claim that the decline of the generations consists in distance from the source, in our intuition—and the claim that there is a rise of the generations in wisdom. Analytical and logical wisdom. Which is very clear: there is a strong rise of the generations. The analyses done today put Rabbi Chaim in the small pocket, even in the last hundred years—you don’t need to go far. The analytical ability that Rabbi Chaim founded—his students and successors do much better than he did. Not everyone; there are more talented and less talented people. But generally there are people today, not even first-rank people, who do analyses Rabbi Chaim could not have done. Not to mention conceptual dimensions with which Rabbi Chaim did not deal at all, or meanings that go somewhat beyond pure analysis. There is no comparison. The abilities that exist today are immeasurably higher. And I think this process continues throughout history.

And perhaps I’ll bring a few examples. Look, in philosophy of science there is some Hungarian philosopher named George—I don’t remember what his name was exactly—who brought an example of a similar phenomenon from Stradivarius, the famous violin maker. That Stradivarius, according to experts—I’m not an expert in this and I don’t understand it, not only not an expert—but experts say that Stradivarius made violins of qualities that apparently people can’t reproduce. Extraordinary qualities, okay? Now today with all the computers and micrometric equipment and all that, they’re starting to get somewhat closer, but still not reaching the qualities of Stradivarius.

And that philosopher—again I forgot his name, I think he appears in the Open University book on philosophy of science—Polanyi, Michael Polanyi, not George, Michael Polanyi. He says this: think about Stradivarius’s apprentice who worked with him in his workshop, okay? The apprentice is basically trying to learn from Stradivarius how to make a violin. The apprentice, even if he is a good apprentice and learned properly, will not succeed in reproducing Stradivarius’s qualities in full. He’ll make good violins, but not really like his master. And his own apprentice will make somewhat less good violins, and his apprentice even less good. Why? Because Stradivarius cannot transmit his craft in full to his apprentice. Why? Because there is an artistic dimension here. Stradivarius did not work according to rules when he built violins. He tapped the wood a little, tested its softness and hardness, bent it according to the feeling in his fingers, and because he had a good intuition, he succeeded in producing violins of outstanding quality.

So his student already tries to translate this into a set of rules, because he doesn’t have Stradivarius’s intuition. So he says: wait, tell me what length should it be, what ratio between length and width, what thickness of wood, how to stretch the strings, and all kinds of things of that kind. And Stradivarius somehow tries to explain it to him through rules. You cannot transmit to him that same intuitive feeling—this is right, this is not right. How can you transmit that to a student? You can’t. So you try to create some set of rules that will help the student. And the same thing with the student and his own student, more rules are created, and more rules are created. Why? Because you fail to transmit the intuition.

Do you remember the tradition we spoke about in the context of the hermeneutic principles? There too more and more rules are created because we’ve lost the intuitive ability to know what is a correct derivation and what is an incorrect derivation. We work with rules; we do mathematics or logic of midrash, okay? The earlier generations didn’t do logic of midrash, and didn’t even know it. They simply worked intuitively: this seems to me a correct derivation, this an incorrect one, and that was it. Whoever lacks that intuition has to create rules.

And craft is very hard to transmit from teacher to student; rules are easy to transmit. You study mathematics in class; you know mathematics like your lecturer. What he taught you, you know as he does. But an artist cannot produce a student who is an artist like him, unless the student also has similar talents. If not, you won’t be able to learn that from the great artist to reach his level merely by learning with him—unless you have your own abilities. Because craft or intuition is hard to transmit from teacher to student; rules, you can. And therefore what happens is that more and more rules are created because they fail to transmit intuition from teacher to student. So more and more rules are created. That is why in Jewish law too more and more rules are constantly created, because we don’t manage to transmit intuition properly.

And then what happens is that each generation basically learns from the previous generation, where the previous generation is in effect the Stradivarius, and the new generation is the student trying to use rules to reconstruct Stradivarius’s intuition. And thus it passes from generation to generation, and from generation to generation it declines. The intuition declines, and the analytical ability to use the rules rises—and of course the number of rules also increases. Okay?

People think that in Brisk—you know the mythic story about Rabbi Chaim of Brisk—that once he had a halakhic question, and he sent it to Rabbi Yitzhak Elchanan, the greatest halakhic authority of that generation in Kovno. He told him: answer me yes or no without explanations. Because if you bring me a reason, I’ll bring you ten reasons why you’re wrong. Just tell me yes or no, and that’s it. What is the point of that? Rabbi Yitzhak Elchanan, as a decisor, had an intuition for what is right. If you do the logical calculation—I can show you with the logical calculation that it is right, and I can also show you that its opposite is right. I can define whatever you want. That’s what we do all the time in yeshivot and in our study.

In in-depth learning in yeshivah or in the study hall, we usually explain the Rashba beautifully, explain Maimonides beautifully, build a structure for this, a structure for that; the analytical analysis is wonderful, and in the end it comes out that Maimonides and Rashba are equally right. They simply start from different assumptions and therefore arrive at different conclusions. Now who is right? I have no idea. He thinks it is a law in the object, and he thinks it is a law in the subject. Who is right? Fine. He thinks it is a law in the object, and he thinks it is a law in the subject. That’s what I know how to say. To know who is right, logic alone is not enough—you need a sense of smell, you need intuition.

Rashba and Maimonides worked with intuition; therefore they didn’t make calculations. He said this is permitted, and he said this is forbidden. I don’t have that intuition, so I make logical calculations, and the logical calculations don’t help me decide. And people think that in Brisk they are stringent for all views because they are very God-fearing—maybe they are also very God-fearing, I don’t want to slander them. But the reason they are stringent for all views is not fear of Heaven. It is because they don’t have the ability to decide. Because one who has a developed analytical ability loses the ability to decide. I can explain Rashba magnificently, in a splendid analytical structure that resolves all the difficulties on Rashba, and Maimonides too, the same. So if both are right and each is well founded and fits all the sugyot, now ask me: which of the two is right? I don’t know. I have no analytical ability to determine who is right.

Because analytical ability means I’ll bring you a difficulty, and from that difficulty I’ll show you that Maimonides is right. But someone with good analytical ability will offer you three ways that Rashba could answer that difficulty, so you won’t be able to decide. With logic you can’t decide. Decisions are always made with intuition. Logic can resolve difficulties, and because it can resolve difficulties it prevents the possibility of deciding, because one always decides through a difficulty: I have a difficulty on this, so proof that the other is right. But whoever has a developed analytical ability will offer three answers to every difficulty, and then there is no remaining way to decide.

That is why Rabbi Chaim asked Rabbi Yitzhak Elchanan to decide for him. Or Rabbi Simcha Zelig, yes, the dayan of Brisk. Rabbi Chaim didn’t really deal much with practical halakhic rulings, even though he was the city’s rabbi. And I think the reason is that he had a developed analytical ability. Therefore, when the medieval authorities write something, they don’t deliberate too much—here and there, yes—but in general they reach a decision and that’s it: this is how one should act, period. Usually a fairly short responsum. The later authorities are analytical and complicated and full of rules of decision and all sorts of things like that, because we lost the ability to decide due to our highly developed analytical ability; we don’t succeed in deciding.

And then what happens, even more than that, as a result, a conception begins to develop that halakhic ruling should be based on precedents. Because I can’t decide, so what I can do is only establish a rule: in a dispute between Rashba and Maimonides the law is like Maimonides, or in this area it is like Maimonides, in that area like Rashba, or we’ll follow the majority, or the earlier authority, or the later one, or local custom, or all kinds of rules; anonymous statement and then dispute, or some say and then anonymous in the Shulchan Arukh, all kinds of rules—I don’t know where they were pulled from—according to which we decide Jewish law. Why? We have no choice. We don’t know how to decide.

But in the Talmud there are rules of decision—when so-and-so and so-and-so disagree, the law follows him. In the Talmud it’s not an invention of the later authorities. Even the rules of decision in the Talmud—I’ll still discuss that, we’ll still talk about it. But generally, most of the rules we know today are rules people invented ad hoc. They have no basis, and many of them are simply not true, certainly not universally true. This attachment to rules stems from helplessness. We simply lost the ability to decide. We have such good analytical ability that every view we can explain magnificently, resolve all its difficulties—so how does one decide? The earlier generations didn’t have a very impressive analytical ability; they smelled it and said this is permitted, this is forbidden, that’s all. That’s how they made their halakhic rulings.

And then, out of no alternative, we become people who cling to precedents. There is no choice. And then what happens as a side effect, as an accompanying process, is that two things are created. First, sets of rules are created that keep expanding and becoming more detailed. These have no source; they are inventions, and I don’t know where they invented them from. Yes, the Talmud says the law follows Abaye only in YAL KGM, right? And in the rest it follows Rava, with YAL KGM being six cases where the law follows Abaye. Now in the halakhic authorities we see that they ruled like Abaye in another case. In Maimonides there are several topics where he ruled like Abaye against Rava. The authors of the rules found it difficult—how can this be? So they said, fine, we must say that the rule that the law follows Rava except in YAL KGM applies only when Abaye and Rava themselves are directly disputing. But if they are disagreeing over how to rule in a tannaitic dispute, there perhaps the law can follow Abaye in other cases too. Why? What? Where did that come from? They simply invented it because Maimonides decided not to rule like Abaye—that is, to rule like Abaye, sorry—and so they invented a new rule.

And now you’ll see that the next generation will begin checking whether that rule works elsewhere, and if it doesn’t they’ll invent another rule to resolve the other places, and thus the literature of rules keeps developing wildly. Most of these rules are baseless. It’s an answer people invented for some such difficulty or other. They have no real basis. I could have proposed other answers, or maybe there is no answer, or I don’t know exactly what. But they invented these rules, and now there is a whole literature of rules. By the way, not for nothing do people almost not deal with it; decisors deal with it more. These rules are a result of helplessness. These are people with analytical ability, who know how to calculate, how to apply rules, how to work logically, and they don’t know how to decide. So they develop methods of clinging to precedents, to rules, to some technique of decision where I lack the sense of smell. So I use technology—technology of decision—because I don’t have a sense of smell that tells me how to decide.

Now, one second, there was a good question here, and I hope I’ll get to it in a moment. What I want to say is that beyond the expansion and increasing detail of the rules, something else is created. Every so often a codex is created that sums up the fruit of the labor of that period. The Mishnah sums up the Tannaim, the Talmuds the Amoraim, after that there is Maimonides, Shulchan Arukh, Tur—various collections that summarize certain laws, various codices. These codices are basically meant to collect the fruit of the labor of a person or of a period, in order to present the bottom lines to the next generation.

And by the way, there were fierce controversies around codification. Both the codification of Maimonides and the codification of the Shulchan Arukh—Menachem Elon expands on this in his book—there were harsh and stormy controversies. And most sages criticized Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh for what they did. Because what they did was basically to bring a list of bottom lines. But who cares about the bottom lines? The fact that you think the Jewish law is thus-and-so interests my grandmother. If you have reasons, state your reasons, and I’ll consider whether I agree or not. Why should I care about your bottom lines? What are you, Moses our teacher? That’s what was argued against both Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh, by leading medieval authorities and leading later authorities.

But slowly the approach nevertheless took over—the one that clings to texts of rulings, to rules of halakhic decision, to a technology of decision instead of give-and-take and deciding with a sense of smell. And over the generations it becomes more and more technical and less and less intuitive. And the reason for that is what I described earlier: we become more analytical and less synthetic. This is not a positive phenomenon. It is a phenomenon resulting from distress. Therefore the codices that are created basically summarize—and usually codices are an endpoint. The Mishnah is the end of the period of the Tannaim, the Gemara the end of the Amoraim, and so on. What is this meant to do?

After all, this process of decline in intuition, decline in synthetic ability—what does it really mean? It means that sages, looking backward in retrospect, suddenly say: look, the sages from five hundred years ago—I already have a pretty high degree of trust that what they say is probably correct even if I don’t understand it. Therefore I accept upon myself not to disagree with them. Not because they were wiser—I am wiser in logical ability—but because they were more right; they were closer to the source. And then periods get sealed. A sealing of periods saying that Amoraim do not disagree with Tannaim, medieval authorities not with Amoraim, later authorities not with medieval authorities—this stems from that. It stems from the fact that… and from this point on I begin with my own rules or analyses, and that is the meaning of the sealing of periods.

The meaning of the sealing of periods is basically this. It is not binding, as I said before, but this is the rationale behind it. That is why periods were sealed; that is why sages forbade themselves—accepted upon themselves—not to disagree with the sages of the previous period, because they were closer to the source. So one generation versus the one immediately before it—there they still do disagree. Even Rav is a Tanna and disagrees, yes; Amoraim on the seamline generation disagreed with Tannaim. These rules are established retrospectively. Two generations pass, and now I see those generations in perspective and say: with them, I do not disagree. Someone who studied with them, or lived twenty or thirty years after them, still disagreed with them; he did not yet have that perspective.

Therefore the sealing of periods is something created after the fact, in retrospect, once enough time has passed. Then that rule is set. And therefore when one finds an Amora who disagrees with Tannaim, it’s not a big deal. The earliest Amoraim did not think they couldn’t disagree with Tannaim, or the Geonim did not think they couldn’t disagree with Amoraim. Tosafot writes in several places that every Rav Acha appearing in the Talmud is Rav Acha Gaon. Rav Acha Gaon—one of the later Geonim, not an early period, and there were Savoraim before him—meaning I’m talking four or five hundred years after the sealing of the Talmud, four hundred years after the sealing of the Talmud, and he enters the Talmud. Not that he disagrees with Amoraim—he enters as an Amora into the Talmud. This conception, that one does not disagree with the Talmud, was not created with the sealing of the Talmud by Ravina and Rav Ashi. It took hundreds of years until sages retrospectively established: okay, with this we do not disagree.

And that is basically the process I described earlier as the sealing of periods, the decline of the generations and the rise of the generations, and so on. Just on that note I still want to answer briefly the question raised here earlier. I don’t think the sages of previous generations had better intellectual intuition than ours. Better halakhic intuition—yes, because there is halakhic tradition. In thought there is no tradition, and therefore Maimonides has no advantage over me. Because on a traditional axis you can say who is closer to the source and who is farther from the source. The one closer to the source probably has intuition that hits more accurately. But if there is no tradition in the intellectual field, then why does it give Maimonides an advantage that he was earlier or lived before me? There is no source here relative to which we are measured in closeness, because there is no tradition. Therefore, at least according to my approach as I understand it, in the intellectual realm Maimonides has no advantage over me. That’s what someone asked earlier—why don’t we trust the intuition of the medieval authorities also regarding thought. If Stradivarius had good intuition about politics, I’m not sure I would take him seriously. He has a good, proven intuition regarding building violins. But who says his intuition is good in other matters?

Okay, I’ll stop here. Does anyone want…? Can I ask one more question? Yes, yes. Regarding the general principle you stated: do you see value in studying—let’s say the Talmud, where this is common—studying Talmud for breadth? Meaning when I’m not now going in and breaking my head over… let’s say in the next class I’ll continue and I’ll talk a bit about the structure of the Talmud, so remember to ask me that question then—not next week, in two weeks, because next week I have an extra-territorial class. But in two weeks, when we continue, write yourself that question and ask me then, because I need a bit of preparation toward the answer. Understood, okay.

And one more small one. Do you have some rational or satisfying explanation for this story that as generations pass we get farther from this intuition, and this becomes a source of confusions and divisions? A simple fact. That’s exactly what I’m saying—but about that simple fact I’m asking: do you have some satisfying explanation? Again. Whoever lives… For the sake of argument. Yes, but I’m saying, the Holy One, blessed be He—God—could have made it otherwise, it didn’t have to be this way. I have no explanations for why He did things as He did. But once what He did is this, then I have explanations for why there is decline of the generations. His limitation—why didn’t He solve the problem? I don’t know. Ask Him. I have no idea. Thank you very much, it was fascinating.

Okay, thank you very much. Yes, yes. I have a question. Regarding the matter—again, you present it as though there are these trends of decline in intuition and increase in wisdom, but let’s suppose it’s still possible that someone could appear in our generation who would also have intuition? Of course. What I’ve done now is a wild generalization. Obviously. I’m speaking only in very broad brushstrokes. There are always exceptional people. By the way, there are later authorities who systematically disagree with medieval authorities: the Vilna Gaon and the Rogatchover. Right, and that’s also—it’s not—there are people who are different. Obviously. But my question is this: can there be a situation in which someone has both strong intuition and strong analytical ability because he was born in our generation and already learned the methods, but he also has intuition? I think so. More than that, I claim that this should be our goal. But that connects to the question Uri asked earlier, and I need to answer it next time. I think that in the end we should aspire to what Rabbi Akiva did—to connect Rabbi Eliezer with Rabbi Yehoshua, tradition with give-and-take. And that basically means, think of a person who studied in ulpan, learned the language, and then goes out into the street and starts speaking it. After he starts speaking it, he begins to acquire an intuition for how to speak correctly—he gains intuition too. Then what happens is that suddenly it turns out that he has an advantage even over the native speaker, because he is equipped with two toolboxes. He also succeeded in reconstructing the intuition and also uses the analytical toolbox. We’ll still talk about this, but I think that in the end that’s where we should aspire. Not to cling hysterically to precedents the way people do today. On the contrary, to rely on our intuition and use it in order to develop it as well.

Thank you very much. Wait, one more question? Yes. Maimonides explains that all the disputes we see from the schools of Shammai and Hillel onward are because their intellectual ability declined. No, he didn’t say their intellectual ability declined. He said they did not attend sufficiently. And he explained what it means not to attend sufficiently: that they could no longer understand their teachers properly because their ability to learn was not the same ability. That’s not the same thing. It’s exactly like Stradivarius and his apprentice—exactly, look at it that way. And what is attending? After all, a student who studies under an artist is not like a student who studies under a mathematician or a physicist. A student who studies under an artist has to serve him. He’s not learning material, because there are no rules to transmit. A mathematician or physicist—you don’t need to serve him; he teaches you the material, you practice, you understand, you know.

Attending in Jewish law is the same thing. There is a difference between studying, being tested, and knowing the material, and attending. What is attending? Attending is to acquire the sense of smell. To receive from the decisor not the knowledge—I have the knowledge—but let’s see how to apply it correctly, where to apply it, how to apply it. That’s a sense of smell. That you cannot study; you learn it from life together with him. There there is decline, and that is exactly what I said. But Maimonides is talking about intellectual discussion, not about… No, Maimonides is talking about halakhic discussion. Halakhic discussion is made up of intuition plus analysis. And the moment you lose the language, you no longer have intuition for what is right, and you fail to understand what previous generations did. Right, like what I said earlier about medieval and later authorities too. But you fail to understand them not because you are stupider, but because you lost the language. They did not succeed in transmitting the language to you, that intuition. On the contrary, you are smarter, because you build tools that compensate for it. Fine, thank you very much. You’re welcome.

Okay, so next week—someone asked—I said earlier: next week there will be a class. I think it’s not mandatory; check with the institute. It is open so that people can make up hours if they’re missing hours. Therefore I’ll give here an unusual class, not on the regular progression, and in two weeks we’ll continue our regular progression. Thank you very much, goodbye.