Types of Interpretation, Lecture 5
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Table of Contents
- The three hermeneutic approaches and the axis of despair
- “These and those are the words of the living God” and the rejection of Torah deconstruction
- Yeshiva interpretation as text-centered and the tension with combining goals
- The justification for textual meaning: the Holy One, blessed be He, canon, and law
- An illustration from Menachot 99b: the commandment of Torah study, Torah study, and neglect of Torah
- Ben Dama, Greek wisdom, “it shall not depart,” plain meaning and midrashic interpretation, and “and this disagrees with”
- Summarizing the passage through “the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught” and illustrating the gap between text and author
Summary
Overview
The text presents three hermeneutic approaches—authorial intent, textual meaning, and what the text “does” to the reader—and maps onto them three kinds of study halls: the academic, the yeshiva, and the new pluralistic one. It argues that the third approach leads to nihilistic relativism and therefore does not faithfully describe Torah interpretation, even in light of the expression “These and those are the words of the living God,” and proposes that in yeshivot what stands out is a focus on the text itself rather than on the author. It then tries to justify the authority of the canonical text through the idea of a meaning embedded in the text not by virtue of the author but by virtue of the Holy One, blessed be He, or by virtue of “what was accepted” as law, and illustrates this with a rereading of a passage in Menachot 99b about Torah study, in which he proposes an interpretation that in his view “falls into place” as the meaning of the text even if it is not the intention of the editor.
The three hermeneutic approaches and the axis of despair
The first approach grounds interpretation in the author’s intention and seems intuitive, but is presented as problematic because the author is inaccessible and there is no “feedback” outside the book itself. The second approach grounds interpretation in the meaning of the text and replaces authorial intent with a search for structures and meanings embedded in the text, with a connection to structuralism and to the idea that the environment and culture are embedded in the work through the author even without the author being aware of it. The third approach denies that the text has meaning and shifts interpretation to what the reader experiences, which is presented as subjectivity without criteria and as the peak of postmodern relativism, in which there is no real access to anything outside the interpreter’s consciousness.
“These and those are the words of the living God” and the rejection of Torah deconstruction
The text attributes to Chaim Navon the claim that the Torah outlook is the third, deconstructionist one, through “These and those are the words of the living God” as a space of multiple truths. It rejects this by arguing that the Talmudic give-and-take, proofs, difficulties, fear of ruling, and fear of error all assume a standard outside the interpreter, and therefore do not fit with “that’s just how it seems to me.” It adds a logical argument according to which total pluralism about “These and those” contradicts itself, because it must also validate one monistic interpretation as final while at the same time affirming a multiplicity of interpretations.
Yeshiva interpretation as text-centered and the tension with combining goals
The text argues that in yeshivot there is no systematic engagement with manuscripts, historical context, or the author’s other writings, and cites as evidence the saying that “Maimonides is not a person; Maimonides is a book.” It insists that the dispute is not mainly about “tools” but about the goal of interpretation: are we seeking authorial intent, textual meaning, or personal experience? It presents the combination of all three goals together as philosophically unjustified. It is willing to accept the use of background and personal impression as auxiliary tools for understanding the meaning of the text, but not as a mixing of different goals that replaces a definition of “what interpretation is.”
The justification for textual meaning: the Holy One, blessed be He, canon, and law
The text proposes that a possible justification for textual meaning in the Torah canon is that the meaning does not derive from the human author but from the Holy One, blessed be He, who supervised the text and its canonicity. It explains that resolving contradictions in Maimonides through complex structures is not plausible as Maimonides’ own intention, and so is interpreted as assuming that the canonical text “ought to be coherent” because the Holy One, blessed be He, is free of contradictions. Against this, a reservation is presented: there is no reason to assume providence in the details of halakhic literature, and an alternative is given in which authority derives from what was accepted by the public as law, similar to the legal principle that one interprets a statute according to its wording and not according to statements in the Knesset, together with mention of the Chazon Ish’s letter about manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza and the position that “we have the Talmud we received from our rabbis, and that’s it.”
An illustration from Menachot 99b: the commandment of Torah study, Torah study, and neglect of Torah
The text brings an interpretation of the passage in Menachot 99b that begins with “Rav Ami said” about fulfilling “it shall not depart” through one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening, and continues with “Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai” that even reciting Shema in the morning and evening suffices to fulfill “it shall not depart.” It interprets this as a principled attempt to “empty out” the commandment of Torah study of formal content in order to distinguish between a minimal formal commandment and Torah study as an idea-based obligation that produces the category of “neglect of Torah.” It reads “and this matter may not be said in the presence of the ignorant” as meaning that an ignorant person might think that “Shema is enough” and therefore refrain from accustoming his sons to Torah study, and “Rava said: it is a commandment to say it in the presence of the ignorant” as the opposite tactical proposal, meant to make them understand that there is a dimension beyond the formal obligation.
Ben Dama, Greek wisdom, “it shall not depart,” plain meaning and midrashic interpretation, and “and this disagrees with”
The text interprets Ben Dama’s question, “For example, someone like me, who has learned the entire Torah, what is the law regarding learning Greek wisdom?” as a question about what lies beyond the formal obligation, not as ignorance of a basic halakhic point, and therefore sees its place in the passage as part of one continuous flow. It reads Rabbi Yishmael’s answer, “Go and find an hour that is neither of the day nor of the night,” not as a halakhic stringency against Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai, but as an application of the plain meaning of the verse “and you shall meditate upon it day and night” as an idea-based dimension alongside the midrashic reading of the verse that places the formal obligation at a minimum. It connects this to the principle “a verse does not depart from its plain meaning” and to the model of “an eye for an eye” meaning monetary compensation. It explains “and this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani” not as a halakhic dispute of an Amora with a Tanna, but as a dispute in the realm of interpretation about the source and meaning of the verse, where “this verse is neither an obligation nor a commandment but a blessing” is interpreted as meaning that the verse itself is a blessing to Joshua and not a source for obligation, without denying the general distinction between formal obligation and a value that is binding on the level of ideas.
Summarizing the passage through “the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught” and illustrating the gap between text and author
The text concludes by reading “The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: the words of Torah should not be upon you as an obligation, yet you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them” as continuing the terminology of “obligation” versus “commandment,” in which Torah study is not merely a formal “obligation,” yet still “you are not permitted to exempt yourself” from its value dimension. It states that this interpretation creates a structure in which “every word falls into place” and resolves difficulties such as the transition from one segment to the next and the status of “and this disagrees with,” but it also says that he has almost no doubt that this is not what the editor of the Talmud intended, and therefore it is an example of the distinction between “the interpretation of the text” and “what the author intended to convey through the text.” He uses this to reinforce the claim that yeshiva interpretation grants authority to the meaning of the text itself even when historical-authorial intention does not seem to be the determining basis.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So let me just briefly summarize where we were. Last time I talked about different hermeneutic approaches, and I tried to show that basically there are three kinds of study halls, each of which maps onto, or is situated on, a different hermeneutic approach. The three hermeneutic approaches—the naive one, let’s call it that—hangs on the author: you look for the author’s intention. The second is an approach that hangs on the text: what is the meaning of the text, not the author’s intention. Structuralism—I talked about that. And the third approach hangs on the reader, on the interpreter: basically, what does it do to me? And of course each one is simply more despairing than the one before it. Meaning, these approaches are arranged on an axis of despair. Because those who talk about authorial intent—seemingly that’s the straightforward conception. That’s what we would expect: when you read a book, you want to understand what the author wanted to convey to you through the book, or through an artistic work, doesn’t matter—interpretation applies to all sorts of things. But those who reject that conception are basically saying: maybe it would be nice, but it’s impossible. Because how can you know what the author intended? All you have before you is the book. The author died long ago, or is somewhere else, another culture, different assumptions, different connotations. So you can’t really step into his shoes, and you have no feedback at all. I said there’s no feedback that lets you know you’re really interpreting correctly, because all your feedback comes from the book. And the question is whether you’re interpreting the book correctly or not—you can’t check that from inside the book. Because that’s exactly the question: are you interpreting it correctly or not? So basically you’re caught in a kind of circle, trapped in that limitation that binds you to the book. You have no other access to the author.
That leads to the second conception, which says that really you should look for the meaning of the book and not the intention of the author. But I also said this conception is very problematic, because what does “the meaning of the book” even mean? The meaning of the book is what the author put into it. A book is just paper with ink on it. Inanimate things don’t have meaning. Meaning gets inserted into things by people, or by beings with intelligence, who try to embed some kind of meaning into a work, a composition, something like that. Meaning is supposed to be connected to human beings. In other words, there is no meaning that exists in a thing from its own side. Meaning in itself—say, if you’re looking for religious meaning in things, you’d say that the Holy One, blessed be He, inserted something, some meaning, into a certain natural phenomenon. So if someone thinks that’s true, he can look for meaning there, because behind it there is some intelligent agent that put something there. But a natural phenomenon in itself has no meaning. What is meaning? It just is what it is, that’s all. So how can you talk about meanings of books? So I explained that maybe this is structuralism: things get into the book, certain meanings get into the book, but not necessarily from the author—maybe through the author. And there I distinguished between the Torah conception, which speaks about inserting meanings into the text perhaps, and the ordinary conception—structuralism—which speaks about meanings entering the text from the environment. Meaning, the culture in which the text was composed is embedded in it. And that passes through the author in some sense, so it doesn’t have to be things the author was aware of, but he is some kind of mediator who transfers the structures around him into the text, and that’s what you’re looking for. Fine. So that’s one explanation of how a text could have meaning at all.
The third possibility says that in fact there is no such thing as the meaning of a text. That’s the next stage of despair. What do you mean, the meaning of a text? Nonsense. So what’s left? Fine—if not the author and not the text, then what’s left is only the reader or the interpreter. And then he says: okay, so what is interpretation? Whatever it does to me. But of course that’s already completely subjective, because you’re not really bound by anything. It doesn’t have to stand up to any test. You don’t even have to check whether it’s coherent with the book, because if this is what it does to me, then that’s the interpretation. What difference does it make whether it’s contradictory? That’s not important. That’s what it did to me. After all, I’m not checking it against the book. If I assume the book itself has meaning, then I have to check whether what I’m proposing fits, check other places, see whether some coherent picture emerges. But if you say you’re not looking, because books have no meaning and there’s no way to get to authorial intention, then what remains is something very nihilistic, very relative, relativistic—everyone has his own meaning. And that’s basically one of the forerunners of postmodernism: relativism, everyone trapped in his own narrative, his own discourse, his own assumptions, his own connotations. That’s really the peak of despair. And basically it says: you have no access to anything outside yourself, you can’t criticize it, you can’t understand it. It’s like you live in your own world, and everything around you is just extras. For a real postmodernist, when he talks to someone, he may as well be talking to a wall. It makes no difference. The only question is what he experiences from the speech he hears and what he experiences from the speech he says—but he’s not actually talking to anyone.
[Speaker C] He’s not even arguing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, he’s not talking to anybody. He’s talking to his image of that other person out there, as reflected in his own consciousness. That’s basically the… Of course, in my opinion, nobody is really like that. But that’s what follows from a pure postmodern conception, if you take it all the way seriously. So that’s despair in its purest form. “Despair becomes more comfortable,” as they say.
Now, what I wanted to argue is that Chaim Navon wrote in that article there, in the introduction, that he thinks the Torah conception is the third one—the deconstructionist one. “These and those are the words of the living God”: there are several truths, everyone has his own truth, everyone is right, and so at first glance it really does look like some kind of deconstruction is going on here. I wanted to argue that this is not true. Because if it were true, then really what would be the point of all the Talmudic give-and-take, the disputes, the proofs, the examinations? You are still trying somehow to ground your halakhic thesis; you’re not just saying, “That’s how it seems to me, period.” That’s not enough. I mean, you need to… what is the meaning of a Torah scholar in that sense? What is a Torah scholar? It’s not just, this does it for him and that does it for him.
[Speaker C] Does the give-and-take end with “difficult”? That’s it? “Difficult.” What does “difficult” mean? “Not difficult.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A person—all those who fear issuing halakhic rulings, who are afraid maybe they made a mistake, afraid to issue a practical halakhic ruling—there’s no such thing as making a mistake if whatever you think is the truth. To make a mistake always means that there is some standard outside yourself that you’re checking yourself against—either it fits or it doesn’t, either you were mistaken or you were right. All these assumptions are there casually, almost unconsciously. Even if people write theses that sound very postmodern, in practice, when you check how they think, how they spontaneously relate to this issue of multiple halakhic truths, nobody really thinks in a deconstructionist way. I don’t think so, anyway—there’s no such thing.
I said it’s not consistent, and I talked about that: what do you do with the interpretation of the phrase itself, “These and those are the words of the living God”? Even with respect to the interpretation of that very phrase, there are three possibilities: either monism or pluralism or, let’s say, tolerance—some third approach. Now, if you go with the pluralistic approach, the pluralistic approach says everyone is right. So if everyone is right, then with regard to “These and those are the words of the living God” itself, all interpretations should also be right. But one of the right interpretations is a monistic one, which says there is only one interpretation. Right? So that too is right, and also… It’s nonsense. The thing collapses into contradiction. No good. “These and those are the words of the living God” is an exception? Fine, and if it’s an exception and there there is already an error, then why assume that elsewhere there isn’t an error? There’s no logic to that. In short, it’s a conception that does not stand the test of reason, does not stand the test of facts, and it seems to me it doesn’t hold water.
So what is it, then? Last time I talked about the fact that there is some kind of meaning really in the text. We’re not exactly looking for the author’s intention, at least not in the full sense, but meaning is the meaning of the text. And… let’s say there are several implications. One implication is that we don’t check manuscripts; generally we don’t tend to check manuscripts or other writings of the author of the book, or what influenced him—all the things scholarship tries to investigate. And that’s an indication that we’re not looking for authorial intention, right? The author is not what interests us here, the text is. Maimonides is not a person; Maimonides is a book, as is well known. In the yeshivot, Maimonides is not a person—it’s not interesting. Maimonides is a book. So indeed we are not looking for the author’s intention. So why should I care about his other writings? Why should I care whether these manuscripts are accurate or not accurate? Why do I need to know the context in which he operated? Why do I need to know who influenced him, who his rabbi was? What difference does it make? The whole business is simply that I want to know what the book says, what the meaning of the book is. I don’t care about the author. On the other hand, there is still a discussion—as I said earlier—of right and wrong, there is give-and-take, you don’t just say things because you feel like it. So this is not deconstruction either. Therefore it stays in the middle. Meaning, it apparently remains that the meaning is in the text, not in the author and not in the interpreter.
[Speaker D] Okay. Why can’t we say that the correct, or reasonable, or effective interpretation is a combination of all three? A little more from here, a little less from there, but you take all three, and each person picks portions for himself from that trio.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question isn’t, in practice, what we do. I’m not talking about practice. I’m asking what ought to be done.
[Speaker D] So maybe what ought to be done really is to combine all three together?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But why? If I truly believe I can find the interpretation in the text itself, that there is meaning there, then why should I insert myself into it as a kind of interpretive dishonesty? What does it do to me? Okay, so what if it does that to me? I’m looking for what the text says, not what it does to me.
[Speaker D] No, but if I want to know what the text does, and let’s say—fine, fine—I have interpretive tools and I’m trying to know what the text does, what’s wrong with getting some additional shade from when it was written?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not a question of what’s wrong. It’s a question of what you’re looking for.
[Speaker D] No, it can add something.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Add what? Add to what? What are you looking for?
[Speaker D] To the interpretation you want to know, that you’re arriving at.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But what is interpretation? Define it for me. That’s why I’m saying: if you’re talking about psychology, then we have no argument, because everyone does what he wants. But I’m talking about ideology, not psychology. Meaning: what are you looking for? What is interpretation, from your perspective? Not what you do—first let’s ask what the goal is, and afterward we’ll see how to get there. What are you looking for? Are you looking for what the author intended? Are you looking for what the book says? Or are you just looking for what it does to you?
[Speaker E] Maybe a combination, as he says. Maybe the author wanted, within the text, to arouse in you some particular aspect, so he wrote it specifically in that way, and what was aroused in you because of what he wrote in the text is what he wanted to happen.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem. Then that’s completely authorial intention. Isn’t it?
[Speaker E] Because he wanted… No, but Rabbi, you yourself even said several times that when someone doesn’t know—you write something—and you’re even surprised that they interpreted you the way they did. Meaning, even you didn’t think it all the way through, and something comes out of it. I’m saying: it’s not that you intended to produce it, but interpretation is a combination, as he says—that you also managed to roll it onward, another level, also what it aroused in you, also the autonomy, as the Rabbi explained, so in “These and those are the words of the living God” all those things together create some whole that is the truth. Meaning, interpretation is all of that together.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t see the philosophical justification for that. Of course it’s possible. I just don’t see the philosophical justification for it. If there is such a thing as the meaning of a text—let’s say there is, according to your philosophical conception—
[Speaker D] No, but—
[Speaker E] Here—
[Speaker D] It starts… There’s a difference between if you want to arrive at a halakhic ruling—say you read the language of the law and take rulings of others and now in your case you want to reach a legal verdict—then I have no doubt that, by the way, you must not go to statements in the Knesset, you must not go and check what the rationales were when they made the law. You read the law according to its wording and infer from it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think that changed. I mean, because I know they do sometimes go to statements in the Knesset.
[Speaker D] They go because they want to, and that’s exactly what I wanted to say now—they go in order to get some additional angle. But you can’t come and interpret the text because when they voted in the Knesset, this speaker or that speaker said, I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, they don’t ask what the legislator wanted; they ask what the law says.
[Speaker D] Correct. But you can still use that as a small aid to interpretation. And likewise if you interpret a contract, you also try—first, you look only at what the text says, but you also try to think what the intention of the parties was when they made the contract. You want to get another angle from that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s why I’m saying: if it’s another angle that really helps your goal, then no problem. But I first want to hear what the goal is.
[Speaker D] What other goal is there in interpretation?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I’m asking. Define for me what your goal is. If your goal is to understand what the law says, then why should I care what the members of Knesset said?
[Speaker D] Fine, so one goal is legal—to reach some conclusion.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s the practical goal. I’m asking, what counts as a conclusion? You want to understand what the law says, so why should I care what the legislator thought? You’re assuming there is some meaning in the law itself, so why should I care what the legislator thought? If you think it’s possible to get to what the legislator intended—in this case I think it is possible, because the legislators spoke—but never mind. Then go check that. I don’t see the philosophical justification for combining them. Meaning, what? I can’t deal with philosophical justification; I can deal with something practical. But I’m saying that in practice I have no argument about what people do, I agree. But still, when I read interpretation, I want to reach the maximum number of insights, and maximum insights means a combination. What are “insights”? That’s a very general word. Insights about what? Insights about what the text says? Insights about what it does to you? Or insights about what the author said? If you combine— all three. No, but that’s exactly the point: those three don’t add up. They are three different things. So what do you want—to do three different things? You combine them. So I’m asking: what is the philosophical justification for that combination?
[Speaker D] Listen, I can say—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I run—I don’t know—for sport and also for pleasure. That’s something you can of course do, both to be healthy and to enjoy yourself. If someone enjoys it—there are people like that, I don’t know. Fine. But here I don’t see the justification for the combination. Meaning, if you think there is meaning in the text itself, then look at the text itself. Why do I need to add what it does to me and what the author thinks? And what is interpretation of the text itself? What? No, I’m asking: if you think there is meaning in the text itself—
[Speaker E] Of course—no, I mean, what does “meaning of the text” mean? What meaning does a text have in itself?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I’m asking. I don’t know.
[Speaker E] In general, apart from his question.
[Speaker D] I read the text itself and I’m a human being and I have limitations, and I say: I don’t fully understand exactly what this text says. But then—look—I can get certain hints from the background in which this text was written, and I can also gather from myself, from the education I have or whatever I have, and combine that into my understanding of the text.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here you’re already saying something else. You’re basically saying: you’re looking for the meaning of the text itself, only you’re claiming there are additional auxiliary tools. For example, what it does to me sheds light for me on what the text says. I have no problem with that. But that’s entirely the second approach. It’s not a combination. Because basically you’re looking for what the text says. The fact that you have additional tools—that’s fine, we haven’t even gotten into the question of which tools one uses. You can argue, or use many tools. But when you search, you are searching for the meaning of the text. Fine, no problem—but that’s the second approach, not a combination. It doesn’t matter that you use what it arouses in you, because from your perspective that’s an indication of what the text says. Fine, if that’s your philosophical conception, okay. But that isn’t a combination. It’s a combination at the level of tools, not at the level of what interpretation is.
[Speaker E] Isn’t the “reason of the verse” the same thing? I mean, there’s a text and there’s what it wanted to say.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course—“the reason of the verse” is an excellent example. After all, we do not derive Jewish law from the reason of the verse.
[Speaker E] And the one who does?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Shimon. Okay, I do not issue halakhic rulings like Rabbi Shimon. And the one who does derive Jewish law from the reason of the verse is in fact looking for the author’s intention and not for the meaning of the text. That’s exactly the dispute there. Purposive interpretation.
[Speaker D] And when there is a dispute over the meaning of the text and you somehow want to decide?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why a dispute? I don’t know—you have to decide. We’ll take a vote, I don’t know. Use more tools and more hints. No, because the tools—again—if those tools are tools that, according to your conception, help in understanding the text, the meaning of the text, no problem. If there are such tools, use them. But when you combine goals—not tools, but goals—like, well, if there is no meaning in the text, then we’ll find the meaning in myself. No. Decide what meaning is. If there is meaning in the text, look for it. I don’t see the justification for combining goals. Obviously my own impression is, for me, an indication of what the text says, because in the end I am always the interpreter. Interpretation is not detached from me; to say that would be absurd. Of course interpretation happens here. But I still see that as a tool to understand what the text says. The goal is the text. I’m just a reader. I have this belief that if it arouses something in me, then apparently that’s the meaning emerging from the text. Okay? And therefore, if it arouses something else in someone else, then I have an argument with him—as opposed to the deconstructionists, where if it arouses one thing in you and something else in me, no problem, we can go hand in hand and walk peacefully into the sunset. We have no argument at all. You understand? That’s exactly the indicator of the difference.
So that’s why I’m saying we somehow converge on some intermediate conception—the conception that the meaning is in the text itself. But still the question is: what is the justification? Because the usual justification for the second conception is structuralism, namely that the environment embeds things into the text. But here we don’t—quite the contrary—in yeshivot we don’t look for the environment and the contexts, because the context, what it did to him—they don’t deal with context at all. So in that sense it contradicts my conclusion that we’re dealing here with the second conception. What I’m saying is: no, they do look for meaning in the text, and the one who embedded that meaning—and this is where I began to say, and I said I underwent some changes on this point after I wrote the article—I said: yes, the one who embedded that meaning is the Holy One, blessed be He. The providence of the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning, the structures that pass through the author into the text are not from the environment, because if they were, we would have to examine the context. And in yeshivot they don’t examine the context. Rather, it’s from the Holy One, blessed be He. And therefore there is meaning in the text, because the text is not a lump of matter. There is an intelligent being who inserted meaning into it. But it’s not the author—it’s the Holy One, blessed be He. The author of course did compose it; we’re not ignoring that. But through the author entered the structures that the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to be entered, in some sense.
I said there even more than that—this was my attempt, according to the outlook of yeshiva learners. When you assume you find a contradiction in Maimonides, and you build some edifice and resolve the contradiction—between us, Maimonides was a human being, so he made mistakes. It could be there was a contradiction and he missed it, he didn’t notice, there’s a contradiction in his words. He wrote so much, such a comprehensive book—it would be a wonder if there weren’t contradictions there.
[Speaker C] He intentionally made a contradiction so there would be something to learn afterward in the yeshivot.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Even though at the beginning he wrote that he doesn’t want us doing that.
[Speaker H] He corrected his contradictions, but even that becomes subject to interpretation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So now the question is: what justifies the assumption that everything in Maimonides has to be reconciled? And sometimes we’re willing to create a terribly complex structure in order to reconcile it. Now, the chances that this is really what Maimonides intended are pretty much zero. And I think the claim is that the authority, or what we are looking for, is not Maimonides’ intention. Maimonides certainly made mistakes. But if the Holy One, blessed be He, created such a text, then the text itself probably ought to be coherent, and that’s why I reconcile it. I reconcile it not in order to understand what was in Maimonides’ mind, but because the Holy One, blessed be He, is indeed supposed to be free of contradictions. Meaning, if He decided that Maimonides or the Shulchan Arukh are canonical books—that these are the books by whose light we are supposed to conduct ourselves—then apparently the contradictions have to be reconcilable somehow.
[Speaker F] Like Fermat’s last theorem. Like Fermat’s theorem, which they proved using mathematical tools that didn’t exist in Fermat’s day.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.
[Speaker F] It could—
[Speaker C] be that there was.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be that Fermat had a different proof.
[Speaker C] Right. He said he had a very simple proof. Right. And clearly he didn’t have a proof.
[Speaker F] But clearly he was right, no?
[Speaker C] He was right—so what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The theorem is true. The theorem is true, but his proof cannot be the proof.
[Speaker C] An incorrect proof, definitely.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why do you think that? I’m not sure of that. Not sure. It could be that he hit on a brilliant idea and for three hundred years nobody wanted to… Right. They proved that—
[Speaker F] Meaning, they proved he was right by means that he definitely did not use to prove it.
[Speaker C] He didn’t prove it that way,
[Speaker F] that’s much later mathematics. Right. And clearly he didn’t prove it that way, right? He didn’t prove it that way, but it could—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] be that he proved it some other way.
[Speaker F] But it may be possible to build a structure that justifies the… explains the contradiction in Maimonides, even though Maimonides didn’t see it as a contradiction and never even thought of our structure.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, of course that’s possible. But if in fact Maimonides’ ruling came from mistaken judgment, then who says we need to look for a structure at all? With Fermat, if you found a proof, then it turns out the theorem is indeed true—you found a proof, not an explanation. With Maimonides I want explanations. If I had a proof that this halakhah is true and that that halakhah is also true even though they contradict each other, then the logical contradiction would force me to find a reconciliation, because I have proof that this is true and proof that this is true.
[Speaker F] It could be that what they attributed to Fermat is true. Suppose if they had taught Fermat and there had been no proof and there had been—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] he had—
[Speaker F] an error.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But then in that strange case… then it would be a strange case. But then Fermat really wouldn’t have been right, and what they proved would be a new theorem on the substantive level. Because he wasn’t right, he was wrong, since the proof was incorrect, and he just happened to say it. Even a small child can accidentally recite a mathematical theorem and it will be brilliant and true.
[Speaker F] No, but in his intuition he grasped something true.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but intuition in mathematics is dangerous. Meaning… Fine, intuition works many times, but there is one case in which it doesn’t work, and that’s enough for it not to be a theorem in mathematics. So fine—I’m saying this is a philosophical question of how to define it, but it’s not the same as with Maimonides. Because with Maimonides the assumption is that there must be such a structure. Now, you have no proof that he was right—after all, he was a human being. Maybe he got confused? Maybe. There’s no question that he sometimes got confused—he was a human being, wasn’t he?
[Speaker E] But I think the assumption there is a bit different. The assumption is that… because otherwise there’s no point in building any construction at all. Meaning, with everything you can say, look, maybe he made a mistake and it’s a shame to bother.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think so. That takes it too far. I’m saying: look, if the structure is a structure within the bounds of reason—you found some reconciliation such that, say, if I’m looking for Maimonides’ intention and not the meaning of the book—if the structure is plausible enough that Maimonides might have thought of it, then I have no problem. The principle of charity says that if I can reconcile a contradiction, I reconcile it.
[Speaker E] So they try with all their strength, because sometimes, you know, they attribute to him—there’s no chance Maimonides thought of that, that that’s what he meant. Maybe he did.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—not because he wasn’t smart enough. What are the chances that he meant exactly that?
[Speaker E] Meaning, suppose there’s some claim forever, I don’t know, that the Rabbi writes in some book, and to me it seems to contradict something. So listen, I would really make an effort again to understand what he wrote, unlike if I were reading some random fool. I’m saying it’s all within the realm of probability. So with Maimonides, the probability allows for high-level constructions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think so. Maimonides did not make sophisticated constructions like the ones we make. There’s no hint of that anywhere. Maimonides wasn’t an analyst in the way we know today. He was an incredibly brilliant person, but he didn’t work with these analytic methods. Maybe he had one intuition or another, could be. I don’t know. And maybe—he probably had some intuition—but it could be he made a mistake. There are contradictions. Human beings fall into contradictions. Where does this great confidence come from, that you’re willing to stand behind such a complex and speculative structure?
[Speaker E] There are places where they write that they disagree with him. There are places where they write that they disagree with Maimonides.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Disagreement isn’t a problem, but contradiction is. Contradiction is outright illegitimate. Sure, Rashba can disagree with Maimonides.
[Speaker E] Yes, no, because he finds a contradiction. He says, look, here you say this and there you say that and so on.
[Speaker F] The problem is that he disagrees with himself—that’s the problem. Fine. And if he explicitly contradicts the Talmud, then either he had a different version or he’s an idiot, right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if he’s not an idiot—no, of course not, that’s exactly the point. Or he had a different version.
[Speaker F] But what if he didn’t have a different version?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who says he didn’t? You don’t know what Maimonides’ version was. So why are you building some magnificent, extremely complex structure, with no chance at all that that’s what stood behind Maimonides? No chance. So what is it? He apparently had a different version, and you don’t know what the version is, because we don’t have the Talmud according to Maimonides’ version.
[Speaker C] Why no chance? If there’s a chance that Fermat came up with a correct proof, then the probability there is much lower.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, on the contrary. There we’re talking about a proof. Fine, but here I’m not talking about a proof. Maimonides doesn’t have proofs. Nobody has proofs in Jewish law.
[Speaker C] A simple proof that for three hundred years mathematicians around the world couldn’t come up with seems to me to have zero probability.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no. But what difference does it make? In the end, when I prove the theorem, it’s true not because Fermat knew it, but because it’s true.
[Speaker C] Right, same thing with the contradiction in Maimonides.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But with the contradiction in Maimonides, that’s exactly the point. You build a terribly complex and speculative structure—you would never accept it if you didn’t know there was a contradiction in Maimonides between these two halakhot. That contradiction is your proof that the structure is correct. Meaning, without that you would never accept such a speculative structure.
[Speaker C] Why assume such a thing?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] After you’ve built it, and if it convinces you… It doesn’t convince me—that’s exactly the point. It’s speculative. But I say: I have no other reconciliation; there’s a contradiction in Maimonides here. So there’s the proof that this structure is correct, even though it’s speculative. No—why? Maimonides got confused.
[Speaker F] But he wrote a manuscript that he himself corrected. Here I find a contradiction in what Rabbi Shilat printed. It’s a manuscript that Maimonides signed. From his own book.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, clearly, no problem. So what’s the problem?
[Speaker F] It’s hard to say there’s a contradiction. No—why?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? He made a mistake, or made a mistake and checked it. So what if he checked it? People can’t fall into contradictions? Very smart people can fall into contradictions—we’re human beings, what do you mean? Okay, I’m defending something I don’t so much believe in, so there’s no point getting too stuck on this.
[Speaker E] So we’ll explain whatever constructions we built.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So I was a little more, kind of… wait, and why don’t we agree with
[Speaker F] that the Holy One, blessed be He, is some kind of falsehood?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because I don’t think the Torah is a human creation. I don’t see any reason to assume that the Holy One, blessed be He, supervises what happens in books of Jewish law that get written, or in textbooks. That’s a product of human beings, and I think the alternative goes in the same direction. The alternative is that fine, all right, but this is what was accepted, and therefore this is what is binding, this is the law. The text itself has significance.
[Speaker F] But that’s not what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But no, that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants. The Holy One, blessed be He, wants us to follow what takes shape.
[Speaker F] There’s the Torah as He wants us to do it, and there’s what He wants us to determine on our own. Like I said regarding autonomy. But we’re trying asymptotically to hit His Torah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everyone is trying to hit it, certainly.
[Speaker F] The goal in the end is to hit that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But now, after Maimonides tried to hit what the Holy One, blessed be He, meant, he wrote the Mishneh Torah. That’s what he thinks the Holy One, blessed be He, wants.
[Speaker C] So if in the end you didn’t hit it, and there are, so to speak, two alternatives, or it’s the heavenly voice, right, the famous story, that that’s the truth, so to speak. There’s something he didn’t hit, but the Sages wrote it, so the alternative you need to follow is what the Sages did.
[Speaker F] I understand, but it would help, advance us, even though it’s not necessary.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying no. If that were true, then of course it would be more comfortable for me in the theoretical sense. I’m just not convinced that it’s true. I don’t think so. It’s part of the outlook we talked about, that I don’t think the Holy One, blessed be He, is involved here in what happens in the world, and not in what happens in books of Jewish law either, things that are determined by human decision.
[Speaker C] He disconnected; He gave an instruction that ‘according to
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] what they instruct you,’ that’s how you should go.
[Speaker C] But He’s in heaven. The story of the heavenly voice says exactly that the Holy One, blessed be He, thinks differently,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He still thinks differently, but you need to do what you think.
[Speaker E] But it could be that He still puts His hand in so that, all in all, you don’t get completely lost. That’s a fact. I agree, I’m saying, but there
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] got lost in the leavened food, what
[Speaker C] can you do if he got lost?
[Speaker E] and I’ll straighten it out along the way, when they say, and I’ll arrange it so that you reach the place. You understand what I mean. All in all, in the end the Holy One, blessed be He, does direct things.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “As he said,” and not “as he did.” Because if it’s “as he did,” that means he didn’t deserve to die, otherwise the Holy One, blessed be He, wouldn’t have let him die.
[Speaker F] Who knows, everything is interpretive. I don’t agree. According to Nachmanides, it could be that also…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. Ask lots of people, not only Nachmanides—lots of people today would also say the outlook I presented in the article. Today I’m not there. Right now I’m not there. Everyone with his own outlook. I’m not there today, but I still think this is correct. The basic trend is a text-oriented trend and not an author-oriented trend, and that’s true, and I think that’s where I remain as well. The only question is: what’s the philosophical justification for it? Is it that the Holy One, blessed be He, implanted the matter there? Or is it that these are the things that were accepted? By the way, when you look, there’s a very famous letter by the Chazon Ish about writings being uncovered from the genizot. Don’t go to manuscripts—it’s not interesting. What is this, the Munich manuscript or not Munich? That’s not it. We have the Talmud that we received from our teachers, and that’s it. When you look there, it seems to me—I need to check the wording again—but it seems to me that he really bases it on the fact that we all gave ourselves over for the Talmud or for the medieval authorities, our teachers, and so on. He doesn’t talk about providence of the Holy One, blessed be He; that’s not his justification. His justification is that this is what was accepted by the public, and that is the law; this is what was accepted. Like what you mentioned earlier in law, where the legal rule, or legal interpretation, says that we don’t go by what the members of parliament said. Why not? After all, the law was written by them. Look at what they meant, and that is the meaning of the law. And the answer is no: there’s a certain legal logic in sticking to the law as it is written, because in truth the law does not derive its authority from the legislators. The law derives its authority from the fact that it was enacted in the manner accepted in society as the way laws are enacted. And in a very similar way, I claim that this is also the authority of Maimonides—the book of Maimonides, not the man. Meaning, the authority of the Mishneh Torah does not come from Maimonides. Maimonides could have made a mistake, but the Mishneh Torah isn’t supposed to have mistakes. That’s the law, and now we’re going to resolve them. Not because Maimonides intended that; he didn’t intend it.
[Speaker E] And according to this, there are two Torah scholars in the Garden of Eden studying Maimonides, and then a simple Jew comes and sits with them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does a Frank know about Maimonides? Do you know the joke?
[Speaker E] What did he answer them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m Maimonides himself. There were two Lithuanian yeshiva students arguing over Maimonides, and some Sephardi-looking Jew comes over and says, it seems to me the explanation is different. What does a Frank know about Maimonides? He says to them, I’m Maimonides himself. It’s like another joke I once heard from some Aliza—American, Tzipora. She said that once a Jew went into a church—her friend was a priest—but he went into the church one Sunday, and the priest sees the Jew there and says: I very much ask that anyone who is not Christian, anyone who is Jewish, should leave. This place is for Christians. The Jew stays seated. I’m asking a second time, anyone who… fine. After the third time, the Jew got up, took the statue of Jesus, and said, they don’t want us here, let’s go. Anyway, the claim—let me just summarize where we stand. The claim is basically this: there are three kinds of study halls that we know. This is more or less the yeshiva-style learning, what I mentioned earlier. There are three study halls—I think I mentioned this too: there’s the academic study hall, no, the academic study hall, the standard yeshiva study hall like here, say, with the differences among them, and the new pluralistic study hall, the study halls that have been opening in recent years. These three study halls map onto these three hermeneutic approaches. The difference between them is simply what their hermeneutic view is—that’s the difference. The academic study hall has the naive approach: what did the author mean? And so let’s see the context, let’s see what the influences were, let’s see—I want to go back and try to understand what lay behind the written thing, how it was written, what the person who wrote it thought. The yeshiva study hall is what we talked about before: the text itself. And in the new study hall, it’s deconstruction: what does this do to me? Quite clearly true, meaning the Torah is a source of inspiration but not a source of authority—that is perhaps the founding claim of these study halls, because we’re not looking for what the Torah says, we’re looking for what the Torah does to me. Okay? And that’s what they’re looking for. And that’s exactly these three hermeneutic approaches. I’ll bring an example that I think is a very interesting example, when I suddenly thought—maybe we even learned this once, I don’t remember—it’s a passage in tractate Menachot dealing with Torah study. And I have an interpretation of this passage that I enjoy to the hilt, really a perfect interpretation, every word falls into place, and I have no doubt it’s an incorrect interpretation. Really—I have no doubt that it’s not what they meant when they wrote the passage, and I’ll show you: every word falls into place. It’s a wonderful example of this, and afterward I’ll explain why. And I think it’s an excellent example of the fact that there is some place the text claims for itself, not the author’s intention. The text itself—that’s its interpretation. It’s not what the author intended. But it’s so clear that that’s what the text means, to the point that I’m considering going back to the approach that the Holy One, blessed be He, did this. It’s so perfect that it couldn’t have come out on its own. Okay, look at the Talmud on page 99b.
[Speaker E] It also works out with another Talmudic passage—the Rabbi brought it there. What? It works out with the Talmudic passage in Berakhot.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Menachot versus Berakhot, yes. It works out very well there too. Very nice. So yes, but let’s see it in this hermeneutic context; in my view this is really page 99b. Page 99b, there’s the Mishnah there. After the Mishnah, lower down in the Talmud. Found it? Yes. I’m going to skip a little there too because it doesn’t matter. Rabbi Ami said, the last narrow line. See it? Yes. Rabbi Ami said: From the words of Rabbi Yosei we may learn that even if a person studied only one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening, he has fulfilled the commandment, “This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth.” Meaning, he is basically saying that “shall not depart from your mouth” sounds very demanding, right, that you have to learn all the time. No. “Shall not depart” means a chapter in the morning, a chapter in the evening; something in the morning, something in the evening—that’s fine. All in all, a pretty minimal requirement. Now comes Rabbi Yohanan. Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And by the way, this appears quite a bit in the Talmud—Rabbi Yohanan is an amora and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is a tanna, but somehow Rabbi Yohanan transmits a lot of things in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. That’s how it comes out; I don’t know exactly why. Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: Even if a person recited only the Shema in the morning and in the evening, he has fulfilled “shall not depart.” What is he coming to do? To trim down the chapter, to turn the chapter into
[Speaker I] something,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to empty the commandment of Torah study completely of content. Meaning, if Rabbi Ami still left some minimal content in the commandment of Torah study, he empties it completely of content. Because he says: you know what? Shema in the morning and evening you recite anyway—there’s a commandment to recite the Shema. That’s enough, no problem; you don’t even need the chapter. Meaning, nothing. You do it anyway. There is no commandment of Torah study; it’s gone from the world. There’s no such thing. It’s been completely emptied of content.
[Speaker C] No, but there prayer also fulfills…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, on the practical level it’s been emptied of content. You do it anyway; there’s the commandment of Shema. He says—you can also see what he’s adding in relation to what Rabbi Ami says. “Shall not depart.” Exactly. No, more than that—what is he adding in relation to Rabbi Ami? Rabbi Ami wants a chapter in the morning, a chapter in the evening. He insists on emptying even that little bit of content that Rabbi Ami still leaves. Meaning, no—nothing, nothing remains of the commandment of Torah study.
[Speaker C] He even says “even.” Yes, right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, he basically empties it entirely of content. So why indeed does Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai—compare this to the passage in Berakhot. There, he doesn’t even agree that one should go out to work for a livelihood, only learn Torah all the time. So what’s going on here? And this is the contradiction that the later authorities ask from the passage in Berakhot to the passage here. So it seems that what lies behind this outlook is that Torah study is not a commandment. There is a commandment of Torah study, but when we say Torah study, it’s not a commandment. The commandment of Torah study—you fulfill with Shema in the morning and evening; that’s nonsense. We’re not talking about Torah study, no—the commandment of Torah study. Torah study is a basic obligation that you need to do because you understand that this is the most basic thing. Not because of a commandment. If they had commanded it to us, that would lower its value; it would become one of the 613 commandments. There are lots of commandments; this too is a commandment. Important, everything is fine, and still it’s one of 613. But if I understand that Torah is something much more than being one of 613, “Torah study is equal to them all” and things like that, then that means that there’s something in Torah study that goes beyond just being an ordinary commandment. And therefore Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai has some ideological interest in completely emptying the commandment of Torah study of content. This is not belittling Torah; on the contrary. It’s to prevent the belittling of Torah. Okay? And therefore, for example, the concept of neglect of Torah study—how does it fit with this? In tractate Nedarim they bring Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai as Jewish law: if you swear to study a chapter, then the oath takes effect, even though an oath cannot take effect on top of an oath, and he is already sworn and standing from Mount Sinai. So the Talmud brings Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, that with Shema in the morning and evening you fulfill your obligation, so you don’t need to learn anything else. Therefore if you swear to learn something more, you are swearing concerning something optional; you are not swearing about something you are already obligated to do anyway. Meaning, the Talmud understands it legally that way. So what is the concept of neglect of Torah study? It appears many times in the Talmud—people complain about neglect of Torah study, that it heads the list in the heavenly court, and so on. There are many severe punishments: children die because of the sin of neglect of Torah study, all kinds of terrible things. What is neglect of Torah study, if you don’t need to do anything besides Shema morning and evening? Clearly, neglect of Torah study belongs to the plane of Torah study, not the commandment of Torah study. Neglect of Torah study is a claim against someone who doesn’t understand what Torah is, because the fact is he does not study when he could have studied. The commandment of Torah study is Shema in the morning and evening; that’s not interesting. So I think that’s what lies behind the statement of Rabbi Yohanan and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Now he continues: And it is forbidden to say this before the ignoramuses. See that I’m not violating that here. What does it mean, forbidden to say this before ignoramuses?
[Speaker E] Why? So that they won’t belittle it, as if to say, ah, so with this,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] because then they’ll only learn, like, just the Shema and that’s it, right? What’s wrong with that? That really is what’s required. No need for more. So what’s the problem? What’s the concern? Clearly, inherently—of course there’s a concern, because there is Torah study. The commandment of Torah study is Shema in the morning and evening, but the ignoramuses don’t understand that there is also Torah study, not only the commandment of Torah study.
[Speaker C] And that’s explicitly in Rashi, because he says that they won’t say that Shema is enough and won’t accustom their children to Torah study. Yes. So it’s clear that this isn’t the commandment. Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. So that’s why not to say it before an ignoramus. And Rava said: It is a commandment to say it before ignoramuses. Why?
[Speaker E] So they’ll see how easy it is?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or so they’ll see how easy it is—that’s how they usually understand it. I think not.
[Speaker D] So they’ll see that there is Torah study.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. It is a commandment to say it before ignoramuses in order to tell them: friends, you think that Shema morning and evening is enough? You’re mistaken. We empty the commandment of Torah study of content in order to explain how important Torah study is, not in order to explain why Torah study is unimportant. The ignoramuses need to understand that there is something beyond the formal obligation. You have to explain to them that there is a formal obligation, which is Shema morning and evening, but there is Torah study itself, not the commandment of Torah study. And then maybe they won’t remain ignoramuses; maybe they will actually study. After all, with Shema morning and evening you don’t cease being an ignoramus, right? Meaning, you remain a Torah-level ignoramus and a rabbinic scholar, as the saying goes. So with Shema morning and evening you don’t get anywhere in Torah study. You may reach nice things in commandment observance, maybe, but that’s not… So therefore it is a commandment to say it before ignoramuses. Meaning, my claim now is basically this: no one here is arguing with anyone else—at least they don’t have to be. Everyone agrees; one just adds another layer to the other. The first says: the commandment of Torah study is a chapter in the morning, a chapter in the evening. The second says: forget it, you recite Shema anyway. I assume the first one would agree too—it’s also a chapter. Why not? Fine? He’s not arguing; he’s just coming to emphasize even more how much the commandment of Torah study is a non-issue. Meaning, practically speaking it’s almost nothing. Then come these two views—whether it is a commandment or forbidden to say it before ignoramuses—which also are not arguing over the idea itself; it’s just tactics. Meaning, how is it right to relate to ignoramuses? But the conception of Torah study and the commandment of Torah study is agreed upon. So far everyone agrees. Okay. Now we’ll get to this story. Ben Dama, the nephew of Rabbi Yishmael, asked Rabbi Yishmael: someone like me, who has learned the entire Torah, what is the law regarding studying Greek wisdom? So here it’s maybe half a pilpul, but there is something to it, I don’t know. A good pilpul is always when you can’t quite put your finger on why it’s just pilpul. A student once asked me in Yeruham—he said to me, if Ben Dama, Rabbi Yishmael’s nephew, learned the whole Torah, then how does he not know this? He asks Rabbi Yishmael a question, a legal question, right? Someone like me, who has learned the entire Torah, what is the law regarding studying Greek wisdom? If you learned the whole Torah, answer yourself. You should know this too, no? A sign that you haven’t learned the whole Torah. Why are you telling me stories? I told him that I read the Talmud and said to him: this is simply a continuation of the same matter; that’s why it is brought here. He learned the whole Torah. He knows everything, all the commandments, all the parameters of Jewish law, he knows everything. But he asks whether in Torah study there is something beyond the commandment of Torah study. Things that are outside the system of commandments—those he didn’t learn. He learned the Torah, all the Jewish law, the whole system of commandments—he knows all that. But here the question is not about the commandment. The commandment is Shema in the morning and evening. He asks whether I can study Greek wisdom at another time; Shema in the morning and evening he has recited. Meaning, in other words, he is asking whether there is some matter beyond the commandment of Torah study. Is there Torah study, not the commandment of Torah study? Or in other words, is there a concept called neglect of Torah study? Right? When I study something else, he asks whether that is neglect of Torah study. And I asked earlier: what is neglect of Torah study? After all, according to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai there is no neglect of Torah study—Shema morning and evening is enough. So what is neglect of Torah study? Neglect of Torah study exists only on the meta-halakhic plane, on the plane of the conceptual commandment, not on the plane of the formal commandment. And that is what Ben Dama asks Rabbi Yishmael. So that’s fine—he learned the whole Torah. He knows the entire Shulchan Arukh by heart; he has been tested for rabbinic judgeship. Fine? He knows all of it—rabbinic ordination, judgeship, everything, all of Jewish law. But this is not a question in Jewish law. Because this question touches on what lies beyond formal Jewish law. And that he doesn’t know. Therefore I claim that this story appears right after the previous statements because that is exactly what this story is saying. This story deals precisely with that. So I’ll show you how this whole Talmudic passage falls into place—every word falls into place. It’s just one idea threading through the whole passage. Let’s continue a bit further, look. So what does Rabbi Yishmael say to him? He recited this verse concerning him: “This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate on it day and night. Go and find an hour that is neither day nor night, and learn Greek wisdom in it.” Rabbi Yishmael with an imperialistic approach. Meaning, no—in short, you can’t. An hour that is neither day nor night, because in yeshivot they say that means in the bathroom. That’s the yeshiva joke—that’s where they put all secular books.
[Speaker F] Didn’t he study mathematics in the bathroom?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe. It could be. I’m not sure that’s true, but yes, in this accepted historical rewriting.
[Speaker F] But he answered him from the Torah. Huh? He answered him from the Torah, answered a meta-halakhic question and brought a verse.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, and he brought a verse: “This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth.” He says—what do you mean? There is an obligation to study Torah all day, apparently. In a moment I’ll show that that’s not correct. But then, that means Rabbi Yishmael is an imperialist. Now I remind you of the Talmudic passage in Berakhot, the same contradiction there was with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai earlier, where I said that here Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says Shema morning and evening is enough, while there he says not to go out to work, to study all the time. Rabbi Yishmael—they switch roles, because here Rabbi Yishmael shifts in the opposite direction. Here Rabbi Yishmael is the imperialist, while there he says why? A person must go out to work, that’s fine, one needn’t be hysterical about Torah study. And here he says, go and study in an hour that is neither day nor night. Meaning, he switches roles with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. There is also a contradiction in his own view and also in Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s. So this is a bit strange already, this kind of stringency of Rabbi Yishmael, “the Torah speaks in human language”—Rabbi Yishmael is specifically one of the more relaxed figures; he’s not hysterical. Fine, but that’s what Rabbi Yishmael apparently says. Another possibility, of course, is that this continues what I said earlier. That’s how it is usually read, and therefore they ask about the contradiction from the Talmudic passage in Berakhot and all that, because that is how it is usually read. I say: what do you mean? This is a continuation of the same move. Rabbi Yishmael did not answer him with a legal answer. Rabbi Yishmael answers what he asked. Is there something beyond Jewish law? The verse “shall not depart” is not Jewish law. The verse “shall not depart” reveals to me that we are expected—not commanded, expected—to study day and night. Therefore he says: are you asking me whether there is some matter beyond the halakhic obligation of Shema morning and evening? The answer is yes: the verse “shall not depart.” It’s true that if you read the verse “this book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate on it day and night” to mean that this is just Shema in the morning and evening, that doesn’t fit the wording of the verse so well. So what Rabbi Yishmael is saying—I am now claiming—is that he doesn’t disagree with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai at all, notice. He doesn’t disagree with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai; he just continues the move. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai explained what the parameter of the commandment is: Shema in the morning and evening. Now the story with Ben Dama comes to ask whether there is anything else besides the commandment, and Rabbi Yishmael answers yes, there is something else, and we learn it from the verse “this book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate on it day and night.” The intention is day and night all the time. So then what is Shema in the morning and evening? That is the commandment. And “you shall meditate on it day and night” is the ideal. Okay? So Rabbi Yishmael is also continuing along the track this passage is following.
[Speaker D] But there’s a problem, because he still relies on that same verse from which they learn the commandment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The verse can’t teach both a commandment
[Speaker D] and something beyond the commandment, right? It can.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly the point. We expound the verse; the exposition of the verse is Shema morning and evening, because that’s the halakhic command. But there is also the plain meaning of the verse; the verse in its plain meaning says all day. So what am I saying? The plain meaning teaches me the conceptual dimension, not the halakhic dimension. The halakhic dimension—it’s like “an eye for an eye” meaning monetary compensation. So the exposition says you pay money, but there is still the plain meaning, “an eye for an eye.” I explained—we talked about this once with Henshke’s claim—that basically I take both the plain meaning and the exposition and combine them into Jewish law. “A verse does not depart from its plain meaning”; even if I expound the verse, it still also has the plain meaning. And that is exactly what happens here. Therefore he says: you expounded it as Shema morning and evening, I agree, but the verse still has a plain meaning. And the verse in its plain meaning says day and night, and that is what he answers Ben Dama. Usually, by the way, the exposition is the Jewish law and the plain meaning is the idea, the conceptual dimension. Also in “an eye for an eye” meaning monetary compensation, in the simple understanding even without Henshke’s twists, the Jewish law is that it means money—we do not take out the eye—but the conceptual dimension is that it would have been fitting to take out your eye. Meaning, the plain meaning usually remains in the conceptual dimension and the exposition tells us what the Jewish law will be. Now I’ll prove to you that that is the plain meaning here. The Talmud continues and says: And this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani. Here I’ll stop for a moment before we read Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani. Rabbi Yishmael the tanna dares to disagree with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani the amora? “And this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani”? Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani poses a difficulty against Rabbi Yishmael? Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani is an amora, Rabbi Yishmael is a tanna. More than that: Rabbi Yishmael disagrees with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai—there’s a tannaitic dispute. So why are you bringing me some amora as though he disagrees with an amora? There’s already a dispute among tannaim. You just told me there’s a dispute between Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Yishmael. So what does “and this disagrees” mean? What kind of thing is that? What does “disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani” mean? Who is Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani, Moses our teacher? He lived later, after all. He’s an amora.
[Speaker C] Now what he brings here is in the name of a tanna. What? He brings it in the name of Rabbi Yonatan.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then let it say “and this disagrees with Rabbi Yonatan,” at least linguistically. So he says like this—let’s now see what Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani says. First of all, I want to claim—already here I’ll say it—that Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai are not arguing; that’s what I claimed earlier. Therefore the Talmud cannot bring that Rabbi Yishmael disagrees with Rashbi, because he doesn’t. With Rashbi… with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani he does disagree, and then we have to check why an amora disagrees with tannaim; in a moment I’ll explain that too. Then he says as follows: what does Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani say? Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: This verse is neither an obligation nor a commandment, but a blessing. The Holy One, blessed be He, saw Joshua that words of Torah were especially dear to him, as it is said, “and his attendant Joshua son of Nun, a youth, would not depart from the tent.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Joshua, since words of Torah are so dear to you, “this book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth.” So it is a blessing. The Holy One, blessed be He, blessed Joshua. It’s not a commandment, not an obligation, and nothing of the sort. Now let’s look at the language. What does “neither an obligation nor a commandment, but a blessing” mean? What is an obligation and what is a commandment? Why does he rule out two possibilities before he says it is a blessing? He rules out the possibility that it is an obligation, and he rules out the possibility that it is a commandment. What is the difference between obligation and commandment?
[Speaker B] Commandment is the plain meaning, that’s what we said…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now I’m saying this is simply a continuation of the same matter.
[Speaker B] That’s exactly what he says. Why does Shmuel bar Nahmani disagree with Rabbi Yishmael?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Commandment is the exposition. No, no, no. It’s the plain meaning—read in the original… the language is confusing; I’ll get there in a moment. Shmuel bar Nahmani disagrees with Rabbi Yishmael and with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, with both of them, because they are not disagreeing with each other. What did they say? They basically said that there is the commandment—Shema morning and evening—and there is the meta-halakhic matter, not the obligation, as we’ll soon see, the meta-halakhic matter of studying all day. Now Shmuel bar Nahmani, in order to show that he disagrees with them—for it says “and this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani”—has to be seen ruling out both the possibility that it is an obligation and the possibility that it is a commandment, because otherwise what is left of “blessing”? After all, both of them agree that it is not an obligation. There is no obligation to study; there is a commandment to study, in the language of the Talmud—what we call a commandment. Usually, commandment means obligation to do. But when commandment is contrasted with obligation, the word obligation means the regular concept of commandment—meaning commandment, in that sense, is Jewish law, what one is obligated to do. But when it says commandment here, it is like when people in the street say, “you did a mitzvah,” meaning you did a nice thing. That is what commandment means here, namely, you did something important, something of value, as distinct from obligation, which is a halakhic obligation. Therefore the word commandment is a bit confusing here. And this is true in many places, by the way: when there is a difference between obligation and commandment, obligation is always the binding thing, and commandment is a non-obligatory commandment or something more voluntary that has value, it is important, but it is not the obligation. In another context, we call the binding thing a commandment, but here, when it is contrasted with obligation, that’s not what it means. Now, in order to show that Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani disagrees with Rabbi Yishmael, it is necessary to say that it is not enough for him to deny the possibility that it is an obligation—Rabbi Yishmael also does not say it is an obligation—but he must also deny the possibility that it is a commandment. It is not a commandment either. There is no matter beyond that. It is a blessing. The Holy One, blessed be He, blesses Joshua that this book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth. That’s all. Therefore it’s a rather rare expression when someone says, “it is neither a commandment nor an obligation”; that’s very rare. There is an obligatory war and an optional war—there you have those two expressions. And also Sabbath candles…
[Speaker E] About Sabbath candles Maimonides writes not a commandment and…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the Talmud. It could be that in the medieval authorities there’s more, but in the Talmud it’s quite rare. Maybe there are other places, but it’s rare. It’s a very unusual expression. Because here it has to be said, since the whole idea of the passage until now was to distinguish between obligation and commandment. So when Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani disagrees with this, he has to say: it is neither an obligation nor a commandment. Only then do I know he disagrees with Rabbi Yishmael.
[Speaker D] So then what is Torah study?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a blessing. “Shall not depart” is a blessing. So maybe with Shema morning and evening he agrees that there is a commandment, there is an obligation, so to speak, but the commandment dimension that Rabbi Yishmael introduced he does not accept, and that is what “and this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani” means. Earlier they said what Rabbi Yishmael newly introduced, and I claimed that that is the dimension of commandment beyond obligation, and on that Shmuel bar Nahmani comes and disagrees with him—“and this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani.” And what does he say? There is no dimension of commandment. Maybe obligation, but not commandment. Maybe—even that maybe not, I don’t know. Now I want to claim more than that. After all, here you have an amora disagreeing with tannaim, and the whole passage is strange. It should have said that Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani is challenged from Rabbi Yishmael, or that Rabbi Yonatan, in whose name he speaks—Rabbi Yonatan said—disagrees with Rabbi Yishmael. So I want to claim more than that: Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani also does not disagree with them. Not Rava, not Rabbi Yohanan, not Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, not Rabbi Yishmael, and not Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani. All the sayings that appear here—Rabbi Yosei too—all the sayings that appear here, not one disagrees with another. This is one long move in which everyone is saying the same thing. Each one adds another layer, but they are all saying the same thing.
[Speaker C] But the Talmud explicitly says “and this disagrees.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, wait—what does it mean? Where do we find amoraim disagreeing with tannaim? It happens when the issue is the meaning of the exegesis. Meaning, if the amora brings a different source for a law from the one the tanna brought, he is not disagreeing on the law; the law is agreed upon, but he brings a different source. There are several examples of this. For example, in the passage about saving life. Five tannaim, each one brings a reason why saving life overrides the Sabbath. Each brings a different source—in tractate Yoma. Then Shmuel comes and says: mine is better than theirs; I have a better exposition, “and live by them,” not die by them. The Talmud leaves the conclusion with Shmuel. All those expositions don’t seem adequate to the Talmud. Shmuel does not disagree in practical law—saving life overrides the Sabbath—but this is the best source. Now not only does he disagree, this is even what remains in the conclusion. So there’s no problem: if he is not disagreeing legally, he can disagree about the source. And here too this brings me back to what I said earlier, that the authority of the Talmud is not because it is wiser or because it is more correct, but because it is law, formal authority. And therefore that is exactly what is written here: there is no problem disagreeing about the meaning of the exegesis, because the authority of the Talmud is only that in Jewish law what the Talmud determines is authoritative. Tannaim versus amoraim—in this case it’s not the Talmud but the Mishnah, yes, when tannaim say something it has authority relative to amoraim; what they say is the law. It’s not that they are the most correct or the smartest, or that if you disagree with them then you are certainly wrong. No. It’s just that there is a formal authority that was established—this is the law, this is what was legislated—you cannot disagree with that. But if I propose a different source for the same law, no problem. I’m not disagreeing with the law, and I may be no less smart than they are. It’s not a question of wisdom, it’s a question of formal authority. The formal authority applies only to the halakhic determination and not to the interpretation or the exposition from which it emerges. Okay, and there are several proofs for this. If so, then Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani himself also joins the same move. He too agrees that there is commandment and obligation. The only thing is: the verse “shall not depart” is not the source. The verse “shall not depart” is a blessing. Look, the Holy One, blessed be He, blesses Joshua: “this book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth.” You, Rabbi Yishmael, learned it from the verse. I agree with you completely: the commandment of reciting Shema is Shema in the morning and evening. Beyond that there is the matter of Torah study itself—not the commandment of Torah study—which is day and night, all day, but we don’t learn it from “shall not depart.” That is what he says. Look and see what he says: “This verse is neither an obligation nor a commandment, but a blessing.” He does not say there is no obligation and no commandment. He says this verse is not obligation and not commandment. What you learned from this verse, I do not agree with. That is what he disagrees about. Now, if he disagrees about the meaning of the exegesis, then there is no problem with an amora disagreeing with tannaim. He agrees with Rabbi Yishmael’s law; he just interprets the verse differently.
[Speaker D] And what is his source? Reasoning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not for the meta-halakhic matter. Yes, the command is Shema morning and evening according to everyone. But Rabbi Yishmael’s innovation is that there is some other matter as well, and Rabbi Yishmael, as we saw, learns it from “shall not depart.” And we said that this is the plain meaning of the verse, while the exposition removed it from its plain meaning. He says no: the plain meaning of the verse is the blessing to Joshua; the Holy One, blessed be He, says a blessing. It is not a law imposed on us. Therefore he disagrees with him in the interpretation of the verse, not in Jewish law. That is why there is no question why Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani disagrees with tannaim, or why the Talmud doesn’t struggle with it at all. Now look how this Talmudic passage ends. So basically everything falls exactly on the same axis. This whole passage, although it looks like things that are only associatively connected—it’s not. It is one move in which everything says the same thing. Now look how beautifully it ends. A teaching from the school of Rabbi Yishmael: Let the words of Torah not be for you an obligation, and yet you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them. How do we understand it? So Rashi writes what we would usually understand, right? We would say that it means it shouldn’t be some burden on you; rather, learn joyfully. Right? Not like a person who has a debt and says, when will I pay it off and be free of it? So too a person should not say, I’ll study one chapter and be rid of it, because you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them. Fine? That’s how it is usually understood. I’m not even sure in Rashi that this is correct, but in the Talmud I propose a different interpretation. This is what Rabbi Yishmael says: let words of Torah not be for you an obligation. In summing up the move, because it is not an obligation. Obligation is Shema in the morning and evening. But let it be a commandment—there is commandment. “You are not permitted to exempt yourself from them.” Commandment not in the sense of the commandment of Torah study, but commandment in contrast to obligation, yes, that’s what I meant. It is not obligation, not a formal commandment, but rather commandment in the sense that it is something beyond the formal obligation, yes? And that is what he says: let it not be for you an obligation, but a commandment. Because earlier we saw that there is a contrast between obligation and commandment, so the Talmud here simply continues the same terminology. He says that it should not be an obligation for you—not psychologically an obligation. This is a definition: it is not an obligation, it is a commandment. Therefore he says “and yet you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them.” Know that although this is not an obligation, you cannot exempt yourself from it. And that is exactly what has to be said to the ignoramus at the beginning of the passage: that the commandment of Torah study is Shema in the morning and evening, but that does not mean that you are permitted to exempt yourself from it, because there is the matter beyond that. And on precisely this Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani disagrees with Rabbi Yishmael. Therefore the Talmud says that Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani disagrees with Rabbi Yishmael in what? In the interpretation of the verse. And afterward the Talmud summarizes Rabbi Yishmael’s statement, which sums everything up, and it is agreed by everyone that this is not an obligation and you are not permitted to exempt yourself from it. That’s it. That is the move of the passage. Very nice. Now apparently every word falls into place. Commandment, obligation, why an amora disagrees with a tanna, the connection among the different parts—really one thing falling on another. It’s a wonderful interpretation. I really love it. I almost have no doubt that this is not what the editor of the Talmud meant. He didn’t say it—there’s a way to say it. To say it more unambiguously. Meaning, all this is true and very beautiful, I think so too, but I don’t know, somehow it’s hard for me to justify, but I don’t think this is really what the writer—the editor of the passage—meant. That when Ben Dama asked his uncle, “someone like me, who has learned the whole Torah, what is the law regarding learning Greek wisdom,” then with the pilpul I said earlier—if he learned the whole Torah then how does he not know this?—that’s a sign that this is not from the Torah but something outside the Torah. Fine, it’s a nice pilpul and it fits the passage beautifully, but I don’t think that’s really the interpretation they meant to put into this story.
[Speaker B] So what is the interpretation?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The interpretation is the usual one. Look at Rashi. Even in Rashi—I don’t know, as I said, in Rashi himself there is room to hesitate a bit, because Rashi on the end, yes, “let them not be for you an obligation,” like a person who has a debt and says when will I pay it off and be free of it. Apparently that’s not the interpretation I’m suggesting, right? Rather, psychologically, relate to it with affection and not as some burden you want to get rid of. But look how he continues: so a person should not say, I’ll study one chapter and be rid of it, because you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them. What does “you are not permitted” mean? So now we’re back to obligations, not to the psychological attitude.
[Speaker E] Right? Maybe it can be both? Meaning, it’s something where it shouldn’t even enter your mind that you’d exempt yourself from it. Why? I’m saying, that’s what Rashi says.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says obligation. I think even what I’m saying is included in Rashi. Also in Rashi. Yes, that’s what I said, yes. Because in the end, at first it seems he’s talking about the psychological dimension, but later he says “you are not permitted to exempt yourself.” How can that be? So it really fits. I don’t know. Also in Rashi. Maybe there are two other interpretations? Huh?
[Speaker E] That’s the interpretation. It’s not—this isn’t how they tried to aim it, but that’s the interpretation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, right, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m bringing this as an example of something that, in my view, is the interpretation of the Talmudic text. Even though I don’t think that’s what the editor intended when he placed these stories here, or these sayings here, one after the other. I don’t think that was the line of thought he had in mind. Maybe in some unconscious sense, I don’t know exactly. Intuitively. It’s like the rabbi’s Stradivarius. Yes, exactly.
[Speaker D] Another level of interpretation is that, basically, so what follows from that? Is it in fact a commandment to engage in Torah day and night?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All the later authorities, all the later authorities learn it that way. The later authorities ask about a contradiction: after all, afterward there’s the Talmud in Berakhot, what I brought earlier, where Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says: can a person plow at plowing time, reap at reaping time—what will become of Torah? You’re going to work? What, are you crazy? You’re supposed to sit and learn Torah. Today everybody is Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. So Rabbi Yishmael says no, many acted like Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and it did not
[Speaker E] work out for them,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and you do need to work, “conduct yourself according to the way of the world,” yes, that’s Rabbi Yishmael. And here it’s exactly the opposite. Here it’s exactly the opposite. Rabbi Yishmael is the imperialist of day-and-night learning. And all the later authorities ask this and come up with reconciliations and all kinds of things like that. According to what I’m saying, there’s no difficulty at all. Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai don’t disagree here at all; they don’t disagree with each other at all. They both agree that the commandment of Torah study is reciting Shema in the morning and evening, and they both agree that beyond that you should learn as much as you can. They both agree; there’s no disagreement at all. The disagreement in Berakhot is about the concept of neglecting Torah study, which belongs only to the non-halakhic dimension. How far does that go? And there Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is the bigger imperialist, but that has nothing to do with what they’re saying here in the passage in Menachot. Within the concept of neglecting Torah study, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says that even going to work is neglecting Torah study. And Rabbi Yishmael says no, going to work is perfectly fine.
[Speaker D] If you accept that interpretation, then can you make do with reciting Shema in the morning and evening and fulfill your obligation of Torah study, and that’s it? Right. According to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And then there are those who say, fine, but from the words of the Prophets and Writings or from midrash—“and you shall teach them diligently,” meaning that words of Torah should be sharp in your mouth—that’s the Ran in Nedarim on page 8; the Ran says this on that statement of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai that reciting Shema in the morning and evening is enough. So he says, what do you mean? How will you reach the point where words of Torah are sharp in your mouth? It says, “and you shall teach them diligently to your children,” meaning that words of Torah should be sharp—don’t stammer; if someone asks you, don’t stammer and tell him, and so on. So he says that the exposition of “and you shall teach them diligently,” that words of Torah should be sharp in your mouth—that’s an exposition, and from the verse itself it really is enough to recite Shema in the morning and evening. So there is an obligation, but it’s an obligation on maybe a somewhat lower level or something like that.
[Speaker F] Just like Maimonides doesn’t rule that way. What? Just like Maimonides doesn’t rule that way. What? That reciting Shema in the morning and evening is enough.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he doesn’t bring it, yes. So really you have to look in Nedarim, by the way. Because in Nedarim the Talmud brings this as a practical implication. You can look. There’s a practical implication here. Someone who swears, “I will study this chapter”—since it’s optional, because reciting Shema morning and evening is enough, then the oath takes effect. We need to see there what Maimonides rules. I don’t remember.
[Speaker J] But with Rabbi Yishmael in Berakhot, he says you have to work; he doesn’t say there’s no value in learning all day.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is value in learning all day. He wants you to learn. But work is fine. Why not Greek wisdom? Greek wisdom is a luxury. Work—a person needs to make a living.
[Speaker G] Greek is for your free time? Is that what he says? No, he doesn’t agree here about work.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Work is obvious; work is the passage in Berakhot, because work is something permitted to a person. The passage in Berakhot deals with work; here they’re not dealing with work. Here they’re dealing with what you do during the time when you do need to learn. Work is something else; it’s outside the game—that’s the Talmud in Berakhot. Here they’re dealing with, okay, but from the standpoint of… So that’s a different dispute, about the question of what is included in neglecting Torah study. So automatically there’s no contradiction between them, and there’s no need to look for reconciliations. It’s wonderful. It’s just a wonderful interpretation. I don’t think that’s what they intended. So I bring it as an example of what I said earlier—that somehow my feeling is that yes, this is the correct interpretation of the text. So he says, this is the correct interpretation of the text. It could be—well, it doesn’t seem to me that that’s what they intended. I don’t get the sense that that was the intention behind what we have here. And therefore, to my mind, it’s a very nice example of the ability to distinguish between the interpretation of the text and what the author intended to convey through this text. Maybe the author intended it consciously. If he intended it unconsciously, that’s like structuralism.
[Speaker B] You’re not giving enough credit for depth.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re not giving enough credit. No—actually, I am giving him credit. I’m saying that if you intended to do something that sophisticated, you should have written it. I’m not saying you weren’t sophisticated; on the contrary, I’m saying that if you had wanted to, you would have written it, because you’re an intelligent person—you wouldn’t miss that. So why didn’t you write it? Apparently that’s not what he meant.
[Speaker C] If he had written it, we would have lost a whole lecture.
[Speaker H] It would have been obvious. Okay.