Topics in the Philosophy of Halakha – Lecture 17

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that doesn’t mean—what does “obvious” mean? I don’t live that way, but basically that’s what I think. I can’t live that way, so what? The question is what the truth is, not how I live. How do I live? I live this way because that’s what I feel like. What’s the truth? So there are people who, if you push them into a corner, will say: right, I simply behave this way because that’s how I’m wired, but in truth it’s not true that I’m more right than someone else, or that there is truth here or there isn’t truth here—it doesn’t really exist. I just—this is how I live, that’s all. So that’s it. But I’m saying that in practice I don’t think there is even one real pluralist in the world, according to the definitions I’m using here. Why is this distinction I’m making here important? Because it’s important to explain this to people, since people often—I talked about Sde Boker, after all, that’s where this whole realization started to dawn on me last time or the time before—I talked about it and said that people come to me with the claim: wait, why are you interfering? Be a pluralist. What do you mean, why are you interfering? You’re assuming pluralism, but what you actually mean is tolerance. But within tolerance there are reasons why I would interfere. That’s why people themselves aren’t aware of the view they hold. They think they’re pluralists, and it’s very important to clarify for them that they are tolerant. Because that can affect what they argue or what they demand. People live in a confused world; their concepts aren’t defined for them. So it’s true that basically there probably isn’t even one real pluralist in the world—that’s my assessment, there isn’t one real pluralist. But there are a great many people who live within a pluralistic ethos, within a pluralistic consciousness, and then they arrive at all kinds of unfounded claims because they aren’t consistent with themselves. And in that sense it’s very important to make this conceptual distinction—not because there are such people in the world and such people in the world. I don’t think there are actually pluralists in the world like the ones I described here; that’s a very, very extreme pluralism. Of course, there can be situations where on certain questions I think there is no single correct answer. I talked about that last time too—say, a positive commandment versus a prohibition; what about a positive commandment versus a positive commandment? There’s no way to decide, so either choose this or choose that, passive omission; these are decisions of the person deciding, in a place where the two options are equally weighted. So there isn’t just one correct answer here, and that’s true even in a monistic world. A monistic world does not mean that every question must have exactly one answer. There are questions for which there will be several correct answers even in a monistic world. A monistic world means that there are incorrect answers. Not necessarily that every question always has only one correct answer, but there are answers that are not correct. In a pluralistic world, in principle, there are no incorrect answers. So all the answers are correct, and on every multiple-choice test you should mark D. So all the answers are correct; among pluralists, on every multiple-choice test you should mark D. You can hand in the exam before you’ve even seen the question. By the way, we’re all laughing because—because you can see exactly that no one is really a true pluralist. A real pluralist would have to mark D for every answer. But nobody does that, and everyone understands that you shouldn’t do that, because pluralism is just lip service; people aren’t really pluralists. Anyway, back to our topic. I’m now returning to the explanation of the monistic reading in the Talmud, and what I want to claim is that the Talmud’s statement, “These and those are the words of the living God,” is actually based on tolerance and not on pluralism. And I said that in a monistic world you can absolutely speak about tolerance. Okay? In a monistic world you can talk about tolerance. And what is that tolerance? “These and those are the words of the living God” means that both the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel are within the legitimate sphere, within the sphere with regard to which I am tolerant. Now I, as the House of Hillel, think that the House of Shammai is mistaken. I’m not a pluralist; I’m a monist. But they are “the words of the living God” in the sense that they are supposed to act according to what they think; that is legitimate. That is different from someone who is outside my radius of tolerance—say, some ignoramus who understands nothing and suddenly has a halakhic position. About him I would not say, “These and those are the words of the living God.” Why not? After all, if I’m a pluralist, then so what? Everybody is right. But I’m not a pluralist; I’m a tolerant monist. So about what lies beyond the radius of tolerance, I won’t say that it is true. I won’t take seriously a child who understands nothing and states a halakhic position. So the phrase “These and those are the words of the living God” refers to the sages of the Oral Torah, the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai. They are not speaking nonsense; they know what they are talking about. So even if I think they are mistaken, because I’m a monist, their mistake is within the legitimate radius, within the radius that can be considered “the words of the living God,” a legitimate position according to which one can and even should act. If that’s what you think, then that’s what you should do. Okay? Even though not because you are right—you are mistaken, because I’m a monist. But I also think that you should act according to what you think, not according to what I think. Okay? And that is “These and those are the words of the living God” in the monistic reading. So that is my claim. I’ll illustrate it a bit more. Look, when the Talmud says that when they choose a sage for the Sanhedrin, they test him to see whether he can give one hundred and fifty reasons for declaring a creeping thing pure, then Rabbenu Tam asks there on the spot: what do we need these empty dialectics for? What are we testing him on—as if it were a Purim joke? The creeping thing is impure; the Torah explicitly says that the creeping thing is impure. What do I need one hundred and fifty clever arguments for, to declare the creeping thing pure? So he explains it differently. The Maharal argues that these are not empty dialectics. There are one hundred and fifty real reasons in favor of the claim that the creeping thing is pure. But there are also one hundred and fifty reasons in favor of the claim that the creeping thing is impure—one hundred and fifty reasons to declare it impure, one hundred and fifty reasons to declare it pure. In the end, the Torah tells us that the reasons to declare the creeping thing impure outweigh the reasons to declare it pure; they carry more weight, and therefore the creeping thing is impure. But that does not mean that there are no correct reasons to declare the creeping thing pure. And a Torah scholar being tested for the Sanhedrin, chosen for the Sanhedrin, must be someone who understands the complexity of the picture. He knows that in the bottom line the creeping thing is impure, but he must understand well that there are also one hundred and fifty correct reasons to declare the creeping thing pure. Otherwise he won’t be a good judge. A good judge has to understand the full complexity of the picture and in the end also make a decision. But first of all, you have to understand the considerations in every direction, and after that decide. Again, the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel—the House of Hillel put the words of the House of Shammai before their own words; they heard the arguments of the House of Shammai, whether they were persuaded or not persuaded, and they reached their own conclusion. If they continue to disagree with the House of Shammai, that means they did not accept the words of the House of Shammai. But the words of the House of Shammai were correct arguments; it’s just that the House of Hillel did not accept them because they thought their own arguments carried more weight, outweighed the arguments of the House of Shammai. Therefore, a good judge is a judge who understands the arguments in every direction and in the end makes a decision. That is why, when I say that the judge must give one hundred and fifty reasons to declare the creeping thing pure and one hundred and fifty reasons to declare the creeping thing impure, that is genuinely true; these are not empty dialectics. There are one hundred and fifty reasons of this kind and one hundred and fifty reasons of that kind. Now if you really think about it, look—just think for a moment and you’ll see: there is no halakhic dispute you know of among serious sages in the Talmudic halakhic world, not one dispute in which one side is talking nonsense and one side is right. There is no such dispute. Even if I agree with one side, that is because its reasoning seems to me to outweigh the reasoning of the other side, not because the reasoning of the other side is incorrect. The reasoning of the other side—if they raise that argument, it is a correct argument. Usually there is no disagreement between the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai about the reasons themselves. Even if, let’s say, the House of Shammai declared the creeping thing pure and the House of Hillel declared the creeping thing impure—just for the sake of discussion—then all the reasons that the House of Shammai would raise would also be accepted by the House of Hillel. They’re not speaking nonsense; these are correct arguments. And the reasons of the House of Hillel would be accepted by the House of Shammai. Those too are correct arguments. The dispute is only about the question of how to weight the reasons. Which reasons carry more weight, which reasons are more significant. And that is what will determine whether, in the final analysis, the creeping thing is impure or the creeping thing is pure. That means that on the level of reasons, everyone is actually right. The dispute is over the question of how to weight the reasons, not whether the reasons are correct or not. There is a reason why reasons

[Speaker C] the stronger ones are stronger. But that argument—it doesn’t work with

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Reasons—this works with some kind of intuitive sense. Usually you don’t need to provide a reason for it. It seems to me a more substantial reason. Anything you manage to formulate as a reason goes into the one hundred and fifty reasons against the other one hundred and fifty reasons. Now the question of weighting remains. The question of weighting, you know, is always this sort of intuition: this seems more significant to me than that. Should 17-year-olds be given the right to vote? There are good arguments in favor, and good arguments against. Right? At some age you have to draw the line, but it’s not some sharply defined age. Age 18 is not sacred. Someone could come and say age 17 is also fine. There’s an intuitive sense that says yes, but 18 seems more reasonable to me. It’s not that if someone raises arguments in favor of age 17, he’d be wrong in all his arguments. He wouldn’t be wrong. But there are also counterarguments. And I think the counterarguments are still stronger than the arguments in favor. Meaning, there are questions—not there are questions, all significant questions are ultimately decided by intuitive judgment. An intuitive judgment that determines how much each reason weighs. Because the reasons you bring are all correct, and all sides accept them. Think about every halakhic or conceptual analysis you know. The reasons given by all sides are always correct, and accepted by all sides. There’s no argument about the reasons. The argument is only about which reason overrides the others. I think reason A outweighs B, and he thinks reason B outweighs A. That’s why we have a disagreement in the bottom line about what Jewish law is.

Let’s say: if my property causes damage, I have to pay. There are views among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) that I have to pay by virtue of the simple fact that it belongs to me. If my property causes damage, I have to pay. Others argue that I have to pay because I was negligent in guarding it. Both reasons are good reasons for obligating payment. The whole question is which is the primary reason. There’s no dispute—nobody argues with the other that his reason is simply wrong. Okay? And it’s like that—think about every conceptual and halakhic discussion and disagreement you know. All of them. Everything you can think of will be like this. You’ll see—try it. Check every dispute you know in Jewish law and in conceptual Talmudic learning. On this example, someone could come and say: the very fact that something belongs to me doesn’t obligate me… it’s not strong enough to obligate me. Not that it’s absurd. Surely you can’t obligate you, right? There’s more reason to obligate me than to obligate you when my property caused damage, even if I wasn’t negligent in guarding it. Right? He can say that’s not enough to obligate. Again, it’s a question of weight. You can’t say it’s absurd. It’s not absurd; there’s a certain logic to it. Okay? And if you think about it, you’ll see. Why? Because sages don’t speak nonsense. When sages say something, they’re intelligent people, Torah scholars, they know what they’re talking about. So what you say is certainly correct. The whole question is one of weight. We disagree about weight—which carries more weight. And that’s where the disagreement arises in the bottom line about what the Jewish law is.

So now I return to “these and those are the words of the living God.” “These and those are the words of the living God” means that your reasons and my reasons are completely correct. Even in the monistic view—now pay attention—in the monistic view, I’m now saying that “these and those are the words of the living God” really means both sides are right. And that is still monism. Why is it monism? Because in the end there is a halakhic truth and a halakhic falsehood. In the bottom line—that these reasons are stronger than those, or vice versa—there there is only one truth. And that’s “the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel.” “These and those are the words of the living God” is on the plane of reasons, and “the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel” is on the plane of the bottom line, the plane of decision.

I’ll give you an example that may sharpen the point more. There’s an example I really like; anyone who knows a bit of my material has probably heard this. I talked about a disagreement between two people over whether to eat chocolate. Okay? One side says it’s not advisable to eat chocolate—it makes you fat. The other side says it’s very worthwhile to eat chocolate—it tastes good. Who’s right? Both of them. Both of them are right. It tastes good and it makes you fat. The decision is a subjective matter of weighting. The decision is ultimately subjective. I say first of all: is there really any disagreement between them? Not really. In terms of the reasons—no. Both agree that chocolate is tasty and fattening. But they disagree about the weight assigned to each factor. When I say not to eat it—not to eat the chocolate because it makes you fat—what am I really saying? I mean: even though it tastes good, the consideration of weight overrides the consideration of taste, of enjoyment. Of course it tastes good; I’m not denying that it tastes good. It’s a shorthand form, but that’s what I really mean to say. And conversely, the other person says: listen, eat a few squares of chocolate, what happened? Maybe you’ll gain a little weight, but you’ll enjoy it a lot, so the enjoyment outweighs the concern about gaining weight.

So that means we really have no argument at all about the reasons—we completely agree: these and those are the words of the living God, one hundred and fifty reasons to render impure and one hundred and fifty reasons to render pure—they are correct. And the fact that they’re all correct does not contradict monism, because these are the reasons; there’s no contradiction between the reasons. Does the fact that it’s fattening contradict the fact that it’s tasty? That’s not accepting a thing and its opposite. Okay? Therefore this is fully monistic truth; it doesn’t contradict monism at all. Okay? In the bottom line, when you ask me which weighs more—and here “weighs more” is literal too, right?—whether to eat the chocolate or not eat the chocolate, here only one side is right. The Jewish law follows Beit Hillel. But still, it’s not that Beit Shammai made a mistake—they weighted it differently. They weighted it differently, but the reasons they took into account were correct. That’s why they are within the radius of tolerance; that’s why their words are the words of the living God. Meaning, what they say is not a mistake in the reasons, but a mistake in weighting. Someone who errs in the reasons—meaning he’s just not really a Torah scholar, or doesn’t understand, doesn’t know what he’s talking about—then he is not within the radius of tolerance, and I won’t relate to him tolerantly at all because it isn’t serious; that’s not a position I’m willing to accept. Okay? So there it won’t be “the words of the living God,” because that’s too problematic a mistake, too simple a mistake, an illegitimate mistake. There are legitimate mistakes and illegitimate mistakes. Even in a monistic world where there is someone right and someone wrong, we still distinguish between two types of mistakes: legitimate mistakes and illegitimate mistakes.

And when we say “these and those are the words of the living God,” it means that all the sages of the Oral Torah, when they say something, even if they err, it is a legitimate error, because the reasons they use are certainly relevant reasons, and it may be that they erred in weighting. Okay? And someone who says you should eat chocolate because whoever eats chocolate flies in the air—that’s just nonsense, so that certainly is not the words of the living God. Would someone say you should eat chocolate because it tastes good? Those are the words of the living God—that’s true, even if he errs in the balancing. And if someone says you shouldn’t eat chocolate because it makes you fat, he’s also right; that too is a true statement, it too is the words of the living God, a correct reason. The whole question is just the weight. But what you’re saying is true—it’s a correct reason. By contrast, if someone says I’ll fly in the air when I eat chocolate, what he says is not true; it’s just nonsense, there’s no truth there, it’s not the words of the living God. So that’s outside the radius of tolerance. Okay?

And basically what this brings us to is a monism that I think I called a few minutes ago, if I’m not mistaken, harmonistic monism. What does that mean? I spoke about the Talmud in Gittin regarding the concubine in Gibeah, where one says he found a fly in her, and one says he found a hair in her, and then Elijah comes and says: he found a fly and was not particular, he found a hair and was particular. What does that mean? It means that the whole truth regarding the concubine in Gibeah is that he found both a fly and a hair. And in that sense both sages who disagreed were both right. The question is what set him off, okay? That’s really the question, but both sages were right. This is exactly parallel to what I’m saying here. What I’m really trying to say is this: the full halakhic truth is the collection of all the correct reasons, all 300 reasons—one hundred and fifty to render impure plus one hundred and fifty to render pure—that is the full halakhic truth. After that there is a decision. The decision will require the question of which weighs more and which overrides which. But the full halakhic truth—when you ask what the halakhic truth is—it is all 300 reasons. Someone who thinks only about 150 of them does not possess the truth. So you have to think about all 300, and now the only question is how to weigh them. Okay?

So this basically means that when I now look through such lenses at halakhic disputes, then in fact the difference between monism and pluralism narrows a bit. Because I’m basically saying that when Beit Shammai say not to eat the chocolate because it makes you fat, and Beit Hillel say to eat the chocolate because it tastes good, okay?—now I ask who is right? My answer is that both are right. Is that pluralism? No—it’s harmonistic monism. It is harmonistic in the sense that all the views combine together to create a harmonious truth, a truth composed of them all. The truth is that chocolate is both tasty and fattening. Therefore the monism here is more complex than simple monism. Monism does not mean that Beit Hillel are right and Beit Shammai are wrong in the simple sense. Beit Hillel are right and Beit Shammai are wrong in the bottom line, in the weighting. But in terms of the reasons—the full halakhic truth, after all, is the collection of all the reasons. The decision is a result, but first of all you have to understand all the aspects of the topic, all the reasons in the topic, the reason of taste, the reason of weight, and the chocolate, yes? After that you also integrate them. In that sense, the one monistic truth is a harmonious truth composed of all the perspectives. And therefore every person who sees a certain truth sees one part or one facet of the truth. God’s truth, yes? That is really seeing all the faces of the truth together, which human beings generally cannot do. Because human beings have their own angle of vision, and from that all postmodernism and pluralism and everything else emerge, because people understand that we are trapped within our point of view. But the solution to that, or the right way to relate to it, is not to say that everyone is right or that no one is right, but to understand that in fact each person grasps a particular facet of the truth. But there is truth—the truth is the whole, seen from all angles.

In that sense Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai basically…? Right, because Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai took into account also their own reasons—exactly. This is the parable of the elephant from Maimonides, yes? Well, no, it’s not from Maimonides, it’s another elephant parable actually. Someone says: an elephant is an animal that has two legs, a tail, and one eye. Two legs far apart from each other, a tail, and one eye. Someone else says no, an elephant has two eyes, two legs very close together, and no tail at all. Who is right? Both are wrong. Both are right. Both are wrong. Why are they both wrong? They are right. To say it has one eye? One eye—but it has two eyes. No. It’s simply that one sees the elephant from the side and one sees it from the front. The one who sees the elephant from the side sees that it has two legs far apart and one eye—the eye facing him. The one who sees the elephant from the front says: it has two eyes and two legs close together; the two front legs are close together. Who’s right? Each one is right, but his correctness consists in seeing one aspect of the issue correctly. When you ask: what is the truth? The truth is that all the projections together give you the full picture.

But to say… But if you say that it doesn’t have a tail, that’s not true, because it does have a tail. The fact that I don’t see… In the projection of the elephant that I see, there is no tail. So because you don’t see the whole picture, that’s the problem. No. Because in that projection, there really is no tail. If you say that it has a tail, that is a partial truth, because there are certain projections in which there is no tail. There are other projections in which there is a tail. If you want to describe reality… There is no reality. There is reality. No, there is reality. When I break reality down into its components, then it’s like in mathematics, where you break a point down into two projections, the X-axis and the Y-axis. So the point itself is described by two projections. Each projection describes one thing and knows nothing about the other projection. The truth is the sum of all the projections together. Now when you want to describe an elephant, you really have to describe it from two aspects, because only that way do you truly grasp what an elephant is. Therefore a true description of an elephant is to say: an elephant has a certain projection in which there is no tail, there are two legs close together, and two eyes; and another projection in which there is a tail, two legs far apart, and one eye. Whoever knows how to synthesize all those projections—and that is really only God, who can see the elephant from all directions—understands the full picture you’re talking about, namely that yes, it has a tail, but that’s why you don’t see it from the front. Right, so to synthesize—I’m saying that to synthesize all the projections in this example is really to understand: okay, he didn’t see the tail, therefore he was right, but in fact there is a tail. He was only right because he didn’t see it, because he didn’t receive it. He wasn’t right that there is no tail; he was right from his own perspective—he correctly described his projection, and the other correctly described his. And now I ask: but what is an elephant? An elephant is the sum of all the projections together.

Because if someone says an elephant has a tail, he will be mistaken. Because someone else will think that if so, then from all projections one ought to see this tail, and that’s an incorrect description of an elephant. Because there are projections of the elephant from which you cannot see the elephant’s tail, and that is part of the description of what an elephant is. And to give such a full description, you have to give all the projections. To describe the elephant in itself without relating to the breakdown into components, into aspects, into projections—you describe it incorrectly. A person who hears from you what an elephant is will not know what an elephant looks like. A person who hears all the projections will draw the side projection, will draw the front projection, will integrate them, and then suddenly he’ll understand what an elephant is. And this has to be understood regarding things where it’s as if all the projections, all of which each person says, exist. But when you say there isn’t… Also about the non-existence. In the front projection there is no tail. If I want to draw the elephant, I need to draw it in such a way that from the front projection you don’t see the tail; otherwise I haven’t drawn the elephant correctly. Now if you don’t break it down into projections, and you say “an elephant is a thing with a tail,” then someone is supposed to draw the elephant according to your description, and he’ll draw a tail visible from all directions, I don’t know, from the back, from above. When you want to describe the elephant you have to break it down—that’s how it’s done in physics and mathematics too—you break the thing down into its components, into aspects, because otherwise you can’t deal with it, and each component acts as if only it exists in the world. As if. No, fine—and that is the correct description. That is the correct description of reality. Someone who tries to describe reality correctly without breaking it down into components won’t manage to do anything. He won’t describe it correctly. Breaking into components is the most accurate way for limited human beings like us to grasp reality. If there is God, who can see the whole thing in one sweep from all directions, then maybe He doesn’t need decomposition into components. But human beings can’t do that.

But the components—each component belongs to its own aspect. Say, for example, to say “there is no tail”—then someone looking from the front can say: in the front of the elephant there is no tail. Correct. It’s not that the elephant has no tail at all. No, he only saw the front. Obviously—he only saw the front, so he describes the elephant as he sees it. Now when I ask myself what an elephant really is, I have to understand that each person described the truth from his own point of view. And when I make a synthesis of all those truths, I get the whole truth. In theoretical questions, here I can simply walk around the elephant and see it—maybe not all at once, but I can see it. But in theoretical questions, many times the point of view really determines your conclusion, and that’s what leads to postmodern conceptions. In that sense there is something right about what they say; it’s just that their conclusion is wrong. Their conclusion says that there is no truth and no one is right. On the contrary—the conclusion is that everyone is right. In the full picture there is one correct full picture, which is the combination of everyone’s partial pictures from his own point of view. The intellectual point of view in this case, not a visual one like with the elephant. Okay? That is really the claim. And that is the meaning of “these and those are the words of the living God.”

Now I want to bring—can we continue, or are you… I usually took a break in the middle of a class, but today we started a bit late, so I’ll continue. Okay? No objections there from the Zoom people? Everything okay. Okay, so let’s continue.

In any case, what comes out for us so far is this: we have three principal conceptions regarding halakhic truth. One conception is the pluralistic conception. In the pluralistic conception there is no tolerance, no openness, no radius of truth—everyone is right. That’s one conception. The monistic conception divides into two types: there is tolerant monism and intolerant monism. There is an extreme monism such that if the truth is with me, I am not willing to contain any other view. That is intolerant monism. There is also tolerant monism. What I described until now is tolerant monism, because it resembles pluralism a bit, and I needed to make the distinctions so that we would distinguish between tolerant monism and pluralism. Ordinary intolerant monism is easy to distinguish from pluralism. Those are two different things. Okay? So there is tolerant monism and intolerant monism, and behind tolerant monism, it seems to me, there really sits harmonism. Harmonism is what I just described: truth as composed of all our particular points of view. Okay?

Now, good, I have three conceptions. Now I ask which one of them is correct. And since I am a monist, I think one of them is correct. I also think I know which of them is correct. Monism, of course. But how do you test that? You know, when people ask questions of this kind—look, for example, in Avi Sagi’s book, which I mentioned, called These and Those. He talks about halakhic dispute and halakhic truth, and he really does try to discuss this question of monism versus pluralism and harmonism; he defines these concepts. And when he discusses this question, he brings all kinds of sources from halakhic decisors or sages or thinkers, and so on, about what they thought on the matter. That’s how we’re used to treating a Torah topic. A Torah topic that we study—we basically just bring sources and check what each one said. That’s a problematic way of dealing with it. It’s problematic for two reasons. First, because many times you need to do conceptual analysis before I bring all the views and place them side by side. Conceptual analysis can often weed out various possibilities for me and say these possibilities are not relevant. Not only that—sometimes it can show me that some of the views are mistaken. So what if there are such views? Maybe they’re mistaken. Conceptual analysis shows that they are mistaken. Sometimes it can explain the various views better, because if you did conceptual analysis, you know better how to distinguish what was what. The difference between, say, two views that look different but are actually the same thing after conceptual analysis—that can clarify the picture.

But beyond that, recourse to sources is problematic because sources in matters of thought are problematic sources, unlike halakhic sources. You know, in the introduction of the Pnei Yehoshua to his book, he tells there that there was an earthquake in his city and the house was destroyed, and the house collapsed, and he lost a wife and daughter in that earthquake, and he himself was trapped for two days under the stones until they rescued him. And he tells there that while he was trapped during those two days, he vowed that if God saved him, he would not engage in aggadic literature. And if you look at the Pnei Yehoshua on the Talmud, you’ll see that the man lets nothing go—every line of Rashi, every line of Tosafot, the initial assumption of Tosafot, the conclusion of Tosafot—he analyzes everything, leaves nothing out. The moment they reach aggadic material, you won’t find Pnei Yehoshua. He has no commentary on the aggadot. He passes line after line in the Talmud; the moment they reach aggadot, look for him only when the next halakhic topic begins. He doesn’t deal with it. Why not? He says because in aggadah people are not aiming at truth. People toss off little Torah insights easily; it’s not something a person really stands behind. You say something, you have some interpretation of a midrash, this or that, you said a nice idea, and you lived to tell the tale. If you desecrate the Sabbath over it, then I believe you more. If you desecrate the Sabbath over it, that means you checked it and it really is what you think. But if you said a nice insight and remained alive—you had to say some Torah thought at an upcoming sheva berakhot, so you looked for a midrash, found a brilliant interpretation of it, and there you have a wonderful free Torah thought. Fine—intuition. It doesn’t really hold water.

And in fact I think that if you look in Avi Sagi’s book, all the sources he brings are either from books of thought or introductions to halakhic books. And in introductions, you know, the author always writes all kinds of philosophical ideas of one sort or another. But these are texts of thought—I call them journalistic texts. You want to promote ideas. If you really want to examine a question, examine it through halakhic sources. See who is willing to desecrate the Sabbath over his answer to that question. If he is willing to desecrate the Sabbath over that answer, then that is probably really what he thinks. Not that I’ll necessarily agree with him, but that’s what he thinks; that’s reliable, he checked it and that is his true conclusion.

I’ll maybe give you an example—it’s the story of the procedures of Yom Kippur, where someone told him to come on the date with… yes, Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabban Gamliel? There, the fact that he was willing to tell someone else, as it were, to desecrate the Sabbath? Well, yes, although there it’s not such a big proof, because with the calendar there is a rule: “you,” even if mistaken; “you,” even if unwitting; “you,” even if deliberate. The head of the Sanhedrin determines the calendar even if he errs, even if he errs deliberately. So once he fixed the calendar, Rabbi Yehoshua was not desecrating Yom Kippur, because that was the real Yom Kippur. On the contrary, the question there is how Rabbi Yehoshua even argued at all, since Rabban Gamliel was head of the Sanhedrin.

In any case, for example, the Yam Shel Shlomo writes in several places—writes in several places—that he… folks, I see quite a few people there without cameras. Everyone who can, please turn on your cameras; I want to see who I’m speaking to. Okay? The rules nowadays are that people sit with cameras open during classes. It disappears on your screen, I think, because I see that my camera is open and on your side you don’t see me. Right? Really? I see you. Yes, somewhere, but it’s the list above. Because I don’t see myself here in this thing. Oh right, in the list above they don’t see you. They see it, but it’s important that… Oh really? Very strange. All right, I don’t know. In any case, please turn on cameras—anyone who doesn’t have some special constraint, I ask you. Okay? In general too, in class. I’ll try turning on a light; maybe then you’ll see. Oh okay, yes, if it’s dark then you can’t see. Ah, that could be. And there was light. The radiance of your face has now appeared on the screens. Okay, fine.

Anyway, the Yam Shel Shlomo—yes, the Maharshal—writes in several places that he strongly supports a very powerful autonomous position. He argues that if there is, say, a dispute among Tannaim or Amoraim, he will rule like one of the opinions based on proofs. Meaning, he’ll bring a proof against the other opinion and rule like the first one. Nobody does that. If there is a dispute among Tannaim or among Amoraim that was not decided as Jewish law, then for us that is a doubt, and the laws of doubt apply there. Think how we study Talmud. We study a dispute between Abaye and Rava. Now suddenly we find a baraita that poses a difficulty for Abaye. So what do we say? Okay, then apparently the Jewish law follows Rava. What do you mean? Immediately we ask: so what does Abaye do with that baraita? And we find some answer for how he reconciles the baraita. Right? That’s how classes are always built. The Talmud does the same thing. It brings a baraita and explains how each side gets along with it. But the Maharshal says no. If there is a dispute among Amoraim or a dispute among Tannaim, he will decide on the basis of proofs in favor of one side. Not to mention disputes among medieval authorities (Rishonim). In several places he writes very sharp things: that a halakhic decisor must decide on the basis of proofs. Historians pretty much agree that this statement, together with the statement of the Maharal in Netivot HaTorah, chapter 15—we talked about this when we prepared for the Shulchan Arukh, actually. Yes, exactly. It’s a polemic within the polemic against the Shulchan Arukh.

When the Shulchan Arukh wrote his code, his book, he basically did it according to the majority among the three pillars of instruction: the Rif, the Rosh, and Maimonides. Not that he himself always stood by that criterion, but that’s what he writes—that this is his practice, that this is how he rules Jewish law. And against the Shulchan Arukh, and also the Rema, who in the end also decided on the basis of precedents, against both of them there came out a group of sages in that period and a bit afterward who said: what do you mean? A decisor has to determine autonomously what his own position is. Examine it and see. What do I care what the Rif said, what the Rosh said, what Maimonides said? What is this, magic? You do hocus-pocus and produce Jewish law? Check what your own position is and decide what you think the law is. You’re not supposed to make calculations or lotteries or whatever, or follow the majority among decisors who preceded you. You need to formulate a position yourself. So as part of what is called the codification controversy—these were controversies launched against the codes. There was a similar controversy against Maimonides, and afterward when the Shulchan Arukh together with the Rema appeared, there was a controversy against them too. At the head of the fighters there stood the Maharshal and the Maharal, and the Maharal’s brother, who wrote an entire work on this, Vikuach Mayim Chayim. A whole composition intended to attack the Shulchan Arukh.

In any case, within that framework it is clear that the Maharshal’s statements that I mentioned before were really meant to promote his autonomous agenda—that a decisor should rule according to his own view, not according to precedents, even precedents of Tannaim. Again, you may not dispute Tannaim. If Tannaim said something, you can’t dispute them, nor Amoraim. But if there is a dispute among Tannaim or among Amoraim, you are the one who must decide on the basis of proofs. You need to decide who is right by proofs, not according to rules like “the Jewish law follows so-and-so in this case and not Abaye,” or “the Jewish law follows Shmuel in monetary law or in ritual law.” Not rules. You need to decide according to what seems right to you in reasoning, from a proof from a Mishnah or whatever it may be. So clearly he had some agenda here—not agenda in the negative sense; agenda meaning that this was his conception. His halakhic conception was an autonomous conception, and he wrote those statements as journalism against the Shulchan Arukh and the Rema. That’s why I call them journalistic statements.

Now it turns out—open the responsa of the Maharshal, Responsa Maharshal—and you’ll see that overall it is built like any other responsa collection. He brings the medieval authorities (Rishonim), discusses their words, rules Jewish law like this one, rules like that one—there is no trace of the autonomous pretension that you can see in various places he wrote. And when he rules practical Jewish law in responsa, he rules practical law like all the rest of us. So how should one relate to what he wrote in his introductions, or in various places, even in the Yam Shel Shlomo, which is a work that basically extracts legal rulings from the Talmud, but it doesn’t rule law on an actual case; rather, it decides what the law would be among different Talmudic views. So that too is not a fully halakhic work, okay? Responsa is the most halakhic work there is. Okay? So how should we relate to what he says in those other works? That’s journalism. He was fighting against the Shulchan Arukh and the Rema, but overall he doesn’t really mean it to the very end. He doesn’t really mean it to the very end. In the end, when he actually has to decide law regarding a case, he does it according to medieval and later authorities, discusses them, and reaches a conclusion with the help of precedents. He doesn’t ignore precedents and decide whatever he thinks. Which means that one has to take those journalistic statements with a grain of salt. What you do in Jewish law—that’s what you really think. In those attacks he launched. Anywhere there is no position of your own and Maimonides and all the great medieval authorities say something, you can say, fine, if I have no position of my own, I rely on them. I assume the Maharshal would agree to something like that. But in principle, you are supposed first of all to decide for yourself.

We talked about autonomy last semester, so I said then that I brought this Maharal and this Maharshal and talked about it a bit, and I said that I brought the story about Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, among other stories told about him: that once a priest came to him and said, why don’t you follow us? After all, we are the majority. It says “follow the majority”; the Christians are more numerous than the Jews. So he said to him: you follow the majority where I am in doubt. If I am not in doubt, I don’t follow the majority. Now that’s not a joke; it’s a serious answer. Meaning, let’s say I found a piece of meat—I gave this example—I found a piece of meat in the street. If most of the butcher shops in town are kosher, then by strict law I may eat it, right? Whatever separated, separated from the majority. If most of the shops are non-kosher, I may not eat it. What happens in a place where most of the shops are non-kosher, but it has a kosher seal on it? It is permitted to eat, right? Why? After all, most of the shops are non-kosher. Because here I have no doubt. Where I am not in doubt, I do not follow the majority. If I have a piece and I don’t know what it is, I am in doubt, then the rule is to follow the majority. But if I am not in doubt, why should I follow the majority? And that is a serious answer, not a joke, okay? In the same sense, I think that is what the Maharshal and the Maharal—because I spoke about this then—are also basically saying. Look, you can rely on Maimonides where you have no position of your own. If you are in doubt, then you can go with legal rules like following the majority or whatever. If you have a position of your own, then you are not in doubt, and you don’t need to rely on anyone—do what you think. That is basically their claim. Okay, and that’s in parentheses, reminding us what we discussed last semester; not everyone was here last semester.

In any case, my claim is basically that when I really want to examine an issue seriously, it’s better to examine it through its halakhic implications, through what the decisors say in their rulings, not in journalistic writings, in their introductions, in books of thought—because there people want to emphasize ideas; they don’t state precisely what they really think, the position they are truly prepared to stand behind. Okay?

Good. So now we want to examine the question of monism versus pluralism, tolerance versus intolerance. What do we do in such a case? Ostensibly this is a meta-halakhic question; you can’t examine it halakhically. The question of how many right positions there are—there is one halakhic opinion like this and one like that. How will you check halakhically how many correct opinions there are? Is there only one, or more than one? It seems meaningless; ostensibly you can’t examine that halakhically. So first of all, I think that when you examine the words of the decisors when they speak offhandedly, it is pretty clear that they are monists. After all, almost every decisor always writes perhaps I erred, I fear this, I fear that. Like Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in his introduction, and the Ketzot in his introduction—they dwell on this point, that you need not fear that perhaps you erred, because the Torah was not given to ministering angels. If you did your best, then you may rely on what you concluded. But they don’t say: you need not fear that you erred because there is no such thing as error, because we are pluralists. There is halakhic truth—that is what everyone assumes. And therefore you may err. It’s not impossible for a Torah scholar to err. So the language of all decisors speaking naturally is monistic language. When they say “these and those are the words of the living God,” and especially those two introductions I just mentioned dwell on this point, they are speaking about tolerance, not pluralism. Tolerance even toward oneself. Meaning, where I reached some conclusion—true, I’m not sure I’m right, but even if I’m mistaken, since that is my conclusion, that is how I need to act. That is basically the claim, a kind of tolerance or autonomism. Yes, both toward myself and toward others. Meaning that the decisors speaking naturally basically express a monistic position. Even before I get into books of thought and philosophy and so on, where you’ll find all kinds of pluralistic statements. Because there they are not precise in their wording, and you can’t know whether they mean pluralism or tolerant monism. “You have to contain everyone and everyone should act as he thinks”—when you hear sentences like that, what is that? One person immediately says that’s pluralism. Not true; it could be tolerant monism. Therefore, in books of thought, in places where people are not precise, and don’t define well the concepts they use, it is very hard to draw conclusions. Therefore, I personally don’t deal with that literature at all; in my eyes it’s a waste of time. Sorry.

In the Shulchan Arukh, when “some say” appears, does that mean tolerant monism? It states the law and afterward “some say.” Depends—depends whom you ask. All those who formulate rules about the Shulchan Arukh explain to you that if there is an anonymous ruling and afterward “some say,” then the Jewish law follows the anonymous ruling in the Shulchan Arukh. Where did that rule itself come from? They pulled it out of the clouds; I don’t know where they got that rule from. But the Shulchan Arukh wrote what it wrote, and now you decide how to relate to that—I don’t know. No, no, it makes sense, but it seems to me reasonable in places where it’s reasonable that… I mean to write it in that form… To me it makes sense, but there are other rules in the Shulchan Arukh that make less sense. Never mind. You’re right—this rule in this case does sound reasonable. Again, though, that’s still my logic; it’s not because of some external rule. If my logic said otherwise, I wouldn’t accept that rule. It’s not that the rule itself is binding by its own authority; it just seems logical. Okay.

In short, the Shulchan Arukh is certainly monistic, but it is monistic on the basis of precedents, meaning it is not autonomist. In other words, it doesn’t believe in the autonomy of the decisor. On the contrary, it says one should rely on precedents. Against that came out the Maharal and the Maharshal, etc. In short, how do we examine this question halakhically? Beyond the natural speech of the decisors. So let me suggest a way to check it. How do you check halakhically whether the law is pluralistic, monistic, or tolerant monistic? Here—I’ll give you a halakhic practical difference.

Suppose I have an argument—what’s your name? Shimon. Suppose I have an argument—sorry, I have an argument with Shimon. Fine? I have a disagreement with Shimon regarding some food. Shimon thinks it is permitted to eat it, and I think it is forbidden to eat it. Okay? A halakhic disagreement. Is he allowed to cause me to stumble in that prohibition—in that prohibition? Is he allowed to give me that thing to eat? Or does he violate “do not place a stumbling block”? That’s a halakhic question, right? Good. This is litmus paper. This is the litmus paper that can test exactly the question I’m asking. Why? Let’s analyze. I claim that the outcome of this experiment will depend on whether you are a monist or a pluralist. If you are a pluralist, what’s the answer? Forbidden. Notice: pluralism here is a stringency. Usually people think pluralism is lenient. Here pluralism comes out stringent. To take his prohibition into account. Yes. Because if you’re a pluralist, then you also think that according to my view it’s forbidden. According to your view it’s permitted, and each of us is right—so when you feed me that thing, you are feeding me something forbidden to me. Even you agree that it is forbidden to me. So you violate “do not place a stumbling block.” Meaning that if you are a pluralist, it is forbidden. If you are a monist? Permitted, right? If you are a monist, then from your perspective what do you care that I think it’s forbidden? Nonsense. After all, you know that it’s permitted, so if you cause me to stumble, you are not causing me to stumble in a prohibition, because according to your view it’s permitted. Again, not necessarily that you’re right—that doesn’t matter. You are allowed to assume that you’re right. Once you assume that you’re right, what do you care that I am mistaken and think it’s forbidden? If you give it to me to eat, you have not given me a prohibition to eat, because according to your view it is permitted. Therefore, monism here comes out lenient. Right?

So here we have a halakhic issue: if we can find halakhic sources for this question, those sources will be able to decide whether the law is monistic or pluralistic. Now look, I found such a source. Let’s look at it together and you’ll see that it also holds some surprises for us. One moment. I have a problem with the projector here. One second. There, can you see? What? We can see, we can see. Oh, you can see it? Because I can’t, because the screen is closed. Yes, we can see it, but not here on the computer; it’s closed so we don’t see. Ah, so I need to share it here too. No, just open the file. I opened it. One moment. Do you see it on the computer? What? On the computer, do you see it? Yes. Oh, then how can that be? I think I know why—because the screens are split. Because it’s split, yes. Right, so it doesn’t show. It’s been split for a while; it should show. You can define that what’s seen here will also be seen there, not that they’re two screens but… No, I know, but I actually want the split. So one moment. Split. Okay? Good. I switched it. I just took your images over to me and put the… wow, I’m a champion. Fine, so let’s read, let’s read the Talmud in Sukkah. The Talmud in Sukkah. My son was my—my, I think—he was always a computers expert; I always went to him to save me from these things. Okay.

Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna happened to come to the house of the Exilarch. You see it, right? Friends, can you see on Zoom? Yes, but not that. No, you see the Talmud in Sukkah. We see Sukkah; we see from the word “impurity.” Yes, so I marked there—you see Rav Chisda—I blacked it out. No, we don’t see that you blacked it out. It isn’t blacked out on your screen? Not at all. No, I blacked it out here; on our end it’s blacked out. One moment—now? Still no. “Rav Chisda and Rav Huna”—I found where you’re talking about. No, do you see my cursor? No. Second line in the Talmud. Yes yes, I found it, but it’s not blacked out. Okay, look at the second line there in the Talmud, “Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna,” do you have it? Yes.

“Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna happened to come to the house of the Exilarch.” Wait, sorry—I need to start earlier. “It was stated”—I’m starting from the first line. Okay? First line: “It was stated: regarding decorations of a sukkah that are four handbreadths or more below the roofing—Rav Nachman said it is valid; Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna said it is invalid.” They have a disagreement whether it is permissible to sit in a sukkah beneath decorations when the distance between the decoration and the roofing is four handbreadths or more. So Rav Nachman says it is allowed, and Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna say it is forbidden. What happened now? Of course—as always—Murphy was already in Babylonia in that period. “Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna happened to come to the house of the Exilarch. Rav Nachman lodged them in a sukkah whose decorations were four handbreadths below the roofing.” I remind you: according to his view this is permitted; according to their view it is forbidden. Exactly the case I described earlier with Shimon and me. Okay? “They kept silent and said nothing to him.” They were silent, sat there, and ate; they didn’t say a thing to him. “He said to them: Have the Rabbis retracted from their teaching?” Meaning: what, you changed your minds? How are you eating in such a sukkah? “They said to him: We are emissaries engaged in a commandment and are exempt from the sukkah.” In short, they were the ones who had the last laugh. You came trying to pull a trick on us—it didn’t work. Okay? Good. Now, this one too is often cited. What? How can you get around the problem?

Wait. The Ritva on the spot—do you see the Ritva? No. What do you mean no? I opened the Ritva there. It seems to me that when there are changes you have to share again, otherwise it doesn’t update. You see yourself now. Yes yes, I exited the share and I’m doing it again—out of the share, into the share, as they say. Now do you see the Ritva? Yes. Ah, what a nice idea. Novellae of the Ritva. So “Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna”—you see the paragraph that begins “They happened to come to the house of the Exilarch.” Okay? Yes yes. Excellent.

Explanation, says the Ritva: “And even though Rav Nachman did not yet know that they had retracted from their teaching, or that they were emissaries engaged in a commandment, still he lodged them there according to his own view, and was not concerned that for them it was an object of prohibition and that they were sitting in an invalid sukkah and reciting blessings there improperly, and this would be like placing a stumbling block before them.” He asks: forget their answer—how, Rav Nachman, did you do that? After all, you’re giving a person something that according to his own view is forbidden, and you still don’t know that they are emissaries engaged in a commandment or that they changed their mind. How do you allow yourself to cause them to stumble in a transgression?

Now notice his wording is very interesting: “like placing a stumbling block before one who can see.” We are used to “placing a stumbling block before the blind.” This is “placing a stumbling block before one who can see.” Why? They saw. They saw that there were decorations there. In a moment we’ll come back to that point, because it’s important.

“Some say,” I continue reading in the Ritva, “that from here we learn that one who feeds his fellow something that is permitted according to his own view does not violate ‘do not place a stumbling block,’ even though he knows that according to his fellow’s view it is forbidden to him. And his fellow is qualified to issue rulings, and the one feeding him is also fit to issue rulings and relies on his own opinion to feed himself and others according to his opinion.” What is he saying? We see here from the passage that a person may cause another to stumble in a transgression that according to the other is a transgression. Right? That’s what we see, because otherwise how could Rav Nachman have done it? They gave him good answers afterward, but he didn’t know that when he seated them there, so he did something that seems forbidden. The Ritva says no—from this passage we see that it is not forbidden. Or in other words, Shimon was allowed to cause me to eat this thing that according to me is forbidden. Right? That’s what we learn from here. What does that mean? Monism. Right? There—we have proven monism. Okay.

Now watch—he continues. It’s not over. Look how beautiful this is. “And it seems to me,” I continue reading—maybe you won’t see it, but for Shimon I’m marking it—do you see my mark? Now we see. Wonders of wonders. “And it seems to me that here this applies specifically because the prohibition is apparent to the other person, and if he thinks so, he should not eat. But where it is not apparent to the other person, no.” And he brings support from the Talmud in Hullin, which we won’t go into here. “And so my teacher, the rabbi—may his light shine—ruled to me,” namely the Ra’ah. The Ra’ah says the same thing also in Hullin. What is he saying? True, Shimon may cause me to eat the thing that according to me is forbidden—but only if I know what that thing is. Now ostensibly, in that case, you threw the baby out with the bathwater—you poured out the baby. Fine, obviously if I know, then it’s my decision; you didn’t cause me to stumble. So we’ve proven nothing; our proof collapses. Not true. Why? Because the prohibition of “do not place a stumbling block” also exists where the other person can decide not to commit the prohibition. Think of a Nazirite standing on the other side of a river—what is called “the two sides of the river.” And he asks me to hand him a cup of wine. If I hand him the cup of wine, I have violated “do not place a stumbling block.” He can take the cup of wine and pour it into the trash. He decides whether to drink, not me. Why do I violate “do not place a stumbling block”? Because that prohibition exists whenever I cause you to stumble, even if in the end you decide to commit the transgression. As long as you needed me—that is, as long as without me you couldn’t do it; that’s why we need “the two sides of the river.” But where you needed me, I violate “do not place a stumbling block” even if you choose knowingly, deliberately, to commit the transgression.

So if that’s so, let’s return to our case. Then I don’t understand what the Ritva is saying here. He is basically saying: one may feed the other person, but only if the other person knows that according to his own view what he is eating is forbidden. What do you mean? If there is “do not place a stumbling block” here, then what do I care that the other person knows? I still violated “do not place a stumbling block.” After all, even when he knows, I violate “do not place a stumbling block,” as with the cup of wine. If there is no “do not place a stumbling block” here, then what difference does it make whether he knows or not? I’m a monist; I am permitted to feed him whether he knows or not. Something here doesn’t fit either monism or pluralism. Tolerant monism. Exactly! This is proof for tolerant monism. And it’s a wonderful point. Why? Because what is tolerant monism? Basically there is no “do not place a stumbling block” here, because I’m a monist; according to me it is permitted, so what do I care that you are mistaken and think it’s forbidden? I am permitted to cause you to stumble. Why do I need to inform you? Because you have an obligation to act according to what you think—not because of my causing you to stumble, but because of the value of autonomy. And that is where I must be tolerant. I have to respect your autonomy—after all, that was the basis of tolerance—to respect your autonomy and allow you to err, even if according to me you are mistaken. Therefore he had to reveal it to them, not because of the laws of “do not place a stumbling block.”

And then—one second—what emerges is this: this passage about causing someone to stumble in a prohibition that is a prohibition according to him but not according to me yields three different outcomes for pluralism, intolerant monism, and tolerant monism. So it is really the ideal halakhic litmus test for resolving this issue. If you are a pluralist, it is forbidden in every case to cause him to stumble, whether I revealed it to you or not—because that’s “do not place a stumbling block.” If you are an intolerant monist, it is permitted in every case to cause you to stumble, whether I revealed it to you or not, because it is not causing you to stumble. Right. If you are a tolerant monist, then I may cause you to stumble, but only if I revealed it to you. Therefore the Ritva here is a wonderful indication not only of monism but of tolerant monism. In other words, the resolution of this test is excellent—each of the three views gives a different halakhic answer.

But couldn’t you also say that even according to intolerant monism there are also issues of deception and so on? I can’t trick people, give him something he thinks is permitted, that he thinks has some certification, and so on. For “do not place a stumbling block” they don’t say deception, they say “do not place a stumbling block.” Deception is more specifically defined. Deception is where I sell you something and don’t tell you what I sold you. I don’t owe you anything. I have to reveal the truth to you? I don’t owe you anything. Here in the sukkah, I’m not expert in this, but is it forbidden to trick people? No, not necessarily. You’d be cheating him? No, there’s no prohibition. “Keep far from falsehood,” maybe, or something—but here it’s not even falsehood. I’m seating them in the sukkah; I didn’t say anything false, I seated them there. The only issue here is “do not place a stumbling block.” There’s no source, or some Torah concern, regarding trust or fraud outside commerce? No, no, no. Morality maybe, but not law. In any case, here even morality doesn’t apply, because if there is no halakhic problem here, then what difference does it make? There is no halakhic problem, so I caused you no harm either. So what’s the problem? Only because autonomy is a value is there also a harm here, because I didn’t allow you to behave as you think. So even if you see here a moral problem, the moral problem too derives from a conception of tolerant monism.

Okay, good. This is the halakhic passage from which one can extract the conclusion of tolerant monism. When you combine the passage in Hullin from which the Ritva proves his reservation with the passage here, that is really a proof taken together. It gives you clear proof that Jewish law basically contains tolerant monism. And not from journalism and not from books of thought, but from halakhic decision-making—they permit you a prohibition on that basis, or forbid or permit between the two sides. Okay, we’ll stop here. More power to you. Okay? All right, friends, goodbye. Thank you very much.