Types of Interpretation, Lecture 10
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Pilpul, interpretation, and homiletics
- Pilpul as a historical method and as intellectual entertainment
- An example of pilpul from Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz
- A multi-layered reading of the Talmud, Kabbalah, and hermeneutics
- Brisker learning versus the accusation of pilpul
- The toolbox of pilpul and the historical transition
- Brisker methods: conceptual inquiry, permitted versus overridden, and the danger of empty inquiries
- A damages inquiry: damaging property versus negligence in guarding, and the burden of proof
- Inciting a dog, positioning another person’s animal, and liability of the property itself
- Introduction to the topic of ox and pit: ransom payment and the thirty shekels of a slave
Summary
General Overview
The lecturer distinguishes between three genres of study and interpretation: consistent interpretation based on tools and a valid line of reasoning that leads to the necessary conclusion, as opposed to pilpul and homiletics, which are evaluated by the quality of the reasoning and the conclusion. Pilpul is defined as reasoning that appears valid and orderly but arrives at an incorrect conclusion, while homiletics is defined as incorrect reasoning that nevertheless leads to a correct conclusion, and the lecturer describes pilpul as a kind of riddle and at times even as an artistic intellectual amusement. After a detailed demonstration from a pilpul of Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, the lecturer contrasts pilpul-as-amusement with yeshiva-style Brisker analysis, which he sees as a kind of modern conceptual translation tool that can capture real intuitions of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) when done properly. The lecturer criticizes scholarly inquiries that lack practical implications or even conceptual content, demonstrates this through a discussion of whether something is fully permitted or merely overridden and through the inquiry into damaging property versus negligence in guarding, and concludes by opening the topic of ransom payment and the thirty shekels of a slave in the case of an ox versus a pit as a basis for further study.
Pilpul, interpretation, and homiletics
The lecturer states that “derash” is a term of disparagement, and rightly so, and that both “homiletics” and “pilpul” carry a disparaging connotation, along with the yeshiva joke that “pilpul is what you say, and interpretation is what I say.” The lecturer proposes an orderly definition of interpretation and homiletics as two kinds of interpretation that use different tools but are both supposed to be consistent and meet two tests: the reasoning is correct, and the required conclusion is correct. He defines pilpul as correct reasoning that produces incorrect conclusions, and homiletics as incorrect reasoning that produces correct conclusions, placing the clever moralizing “vorts” of spiritual supervisors in the category of homiletics, and the art of pilpul among the “Polish types” and “Galicians.”
Pilpul as a historical method and as intellectual entertainment
The lecturer presents the method of pilpul as an approach that arose in Poland in the 14th century with Rabbi Shakhna and Rabbi Yaakov Pollak, and describes how at first it served serious learning rather than entertainment. He describes a process in which people came to feel that the method was indeed sharp but that “something here isn’t right,” and from that point it also became a form of intellectual amusement. He describes the pleasure of reading the pilpulim of Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz as “a true Sabbath delight,” while also stating that “of course the whole thing is nonsense” and that one should not recite the blessing over Torah study on it because “it has nothing to do with Torah study.”
An example of pilpul from Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz
The lecturer brings a pilpul on Ta’anit 5b, where Rav Nachman asks for “some new idea,” and Rav Yitzchak replies, “One does not converse during a meal,” and afterward says, “Our patriarch Jacob did not die,” and he presents the difficulty of how Rav Yitzchak knew that this was a novelty for Rav Nachman. The pilpul explains that someone who does not know “one does not converse during a meal” certainly also does not know “our patriarch Jacob did not die,” and then ties this to a dispute between Rashi and Nachmanides in the story of Sarah: according to Rashi, “and he did not bring bread” is because “Sarah had become ritually impure as a menstruant,” and therefore “after I have withered, shall I again have delicate skin?” is interpreted as amazement about herself and astonishment only about Abraham, whereas according to Nachmanides she had not become ritually impure as a menstruant, and her astonishment was also about herself. The pilpul connects this to “it is permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace” through God’s changing Sarah’s words to “and I am old,” adds the Ba’al HaTurim on “and they ate and they said” as a hint either to “one does not converse during a meal” or to Grace after Meals, and concludes that according to Nachmanides there is no hint to “one does not converse,” nor is it proven that one may alter the truth, and therefore Rav Nachman, who did not know “one does not converse,” must hold like Nachmanides, and consequently the novelty that “our patriarch Jacob did not die” really would be new to him. The lecturer stresses that the logical structure is impressive and that it connects “two things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other,” but it is obvious that “this is not what was intended,” and therefore this is pilpul in the sense of an incorrect conclusion, while on closer reading one also discovers weaknesses in the reasoning itself, since a valid argument from true premises cannot lead to a false conclusion.
A multi-layered reading of the Talmud, Kabbalah, and hermeneutics
The lecturer describes a conception of “the Torah has seventy facets” that tries to apply a multi-layered reading even to the Talmud, but he distinguishes between interpretation that uncovers a deeper layer that is in fact the intended meaning, and pilpul, which is an amusement and not an interpretation of the Talmud. He mentions Ein Ayah as an interpretation of rabbinic homiletics and aggadic passages in which “once you see it, you understand that this is what they meant,” and brings examples of Kabbalistic approaches that treat the text of the Talmud as exact and free of error, including an interpretation by the Ramah of Fano of the wording “Rabbi Yaakov pays” in Bava Kamma as the basis for an entire move “in the realm of esoteric teaching.” He places Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz’s pilpul in the category of “just amusement,” also intended to plant, almost incidentally, content such as Rashi, Chizkuni, and Nachmanides into a memorable and interesting structure, but not as a binding interpretation of the passage.
Brisker learning versus the accusation of pilpul
The lecturer moves on to analytical yeshiva-style learning and emphasizes that it too is sometimes called “pilpul,” but he resists identifying it with something incorrect. He mentions a well-known exchange of letters between Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner and the Seridei Esh concerning the claim that Rabbi Chaim’s method is “nonsense, pilpul,” and adopts the position that Brisker structures, when properly built, may indeed capture distinctions that Maimonides stands behind even if he did not formulate them in those terms. He presents yeshiva-style analysis as “poured from vessel to vessel,” introducing the words of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and the Talmud into a contemporary language and a modern conceptual system, and distinguishes between using tools and creating pilpul that is simply incorrect.
The toolbox of pilpul and the historical transition
The lecturer quotes from Dov Rappel’s book The Debate over Pilpul and describes familiar patterns of questions and answers that were referred to by names such as “that’s a Regensburger,” as a kind of methodological shorthand. He defines such use as pilpul in the sense of formal analytical tools, not in the sense of error, but says that the brilliance of the tools also makes it possible “to fool people” and slip errors through, sometimes even without the learner himself noticing. He presents a historical process from Poland in the 15th–18th centuries through the Shelah, the Pnei Yehoshua, the Ketzot, the Netivot, and Rabbi Chaim, and notes that in Shulchan Arukh editions printed by the Almanat Re’em press it says that the Ketzot is brought “since the words of the Netivot are directed toward it,” contrary to the yeshiva conception in which the Ketzot is central and the Netivot serves as a response to it.
Brisker methods: conceptual inquiry, permitted versus overridden, and the danger of empty inquiries
The lecturer describes Brisker analysis as deconstruction and reconstruction of concepts and principles, and presents the “scholarly conceptual inquiry” as one of the methods identified with it. He notes that the Talmud itself asks conceptual inquiries such as “Is impurity fully permitted for the community, or merely overridden for the community?” and presents “this one benefits and the other does not lose” as a later conceptual inquiry into what generates payment liability—benefit or loss—including the natural continuation, “this one does not benefit and the other does lose.” He brings Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s interpretation in the introduction to Sha’arei Yosher of “go serve me” as a request for a reading that respects the author and does not immediately throw away strange statements, and offers a similar interpretation of “it is permitted to say things in the name of a great person so that they will accept it from him” as a mechanism that obligates the listener to think again, not as a trick.
The lecturer criticizes inquiries that are “devoid of halakhic content,” and even inquiries “devoid of conceptual content,” and presents the inquiry into whether lifesaving on the Sabbath is fully permitted or only overridden as an inquiry that in his view does not necessarily have a practical implication, because the proposed practical differences can be explained according to either side. He rejects practical differences such as whether one must repent for Sabbath desecration, or whether one should act with an unusual method, arguing that what is not required for rescue is not permitted even according to the view that it is fully permitted, and that in some cases even according to the view that it is only overridden there is no room for dangerous delays. He describes a distinction between conceptual meaning and halakhic practical consequence, brings the Ran’s homilies on “How much was the Sinai ox worth?” as an example of the demand to clarify truth even without practical implications, and objects to an extreme positivist position according to which a claim without a possible way of deciding it is meaningless.
A damages inquiry: damaging property versus negligence in guarding, and the burden of proof
The lecturer presents the inquiry whether liability in damages stems from the fact that “your property caused damage” or from the fact that “you were negligent in guarding” as an inquiry that is sometimes formulated incorrectly, because in his view both components are needed, and the question is what is primary, what is a condition, and what serves as an exemption. He proposes a central practical implication concerning the burden of proof when an ox gores: if negligence is what generates liability, then the injured party must prove negligence, but if the very damage caused by one’s property generates liability and negligence only serves as an exemption, then the damager must prove that he was not negligent. He notes a dispute between the Chazon Ish and the Pnei Yehoshua regarding the burden of proof, and argues that the standard yeshiva explanation does not actually fit the Chazon Ish’s text, because according to him the Chazon Ish bases the burden of proof on the fact that the damager’s claim of “I guarded properly” is a less plausible claim once damage has occurred, and he innovates that someone who advances an implausible claim loses the advantage of possession even if he is holding the money.
Inciting a dog, positioning another person’s animal, and liability of the property itself
The lecturer brings the topic of “inciting a dog” as a difficult point from which one can argue for a real practical implication in the inquiry, and describes a situation in which one view leads to exemption even when one incites one’s own dog. He presents the possibility of understanding liability for horn-damage as a liability imposed on the property itself, and therefore in the case of an innocuous horn “payment is collected from its body,” and he describes an ownerless ox that caused damage as something the injured party acquires because the ox itself is liable to pay. He suggests that the concept of transferring liability from the property to the owner may be based on negligence in guarding, and therefore when the dog is acting under compulsion because it was incited, there may be no liability on the property itself, and accordingly nothing to transfer to the owner.
Introduction to the topic of ox and pit: ransom payment and the thirty shekels of a slave
The lecturer opens a study of the Mishnah’s topic, “An ox has a stringency over a pit,” and states that an ox that kills is liable for ransom payment and liable for the thirty shekels of a slave, whereas a pit that kills is exempt from ransom payment and exempt from the thirty shekels of a slave. He brings the Talmud’s exposition from the verse, “The owner of the pit shall pay; he shall return money to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his,” from which they derive: “he shall return money to its owner”—excluding ransom payment, and the challenge, “perhaps we should learn it from an ox,” and the answer that the Torah excluded it. He notes that the source exempting a pit from the thirty shekels of a slave is also derived from “he shall return money to its owner,” as “he pays money for damages, but not the thirty shekels of a slave,” and explains that the continuation of the passage will clarify the details of these derivations and the reasoning for why the Torah distinguished between ox and pit in these laws.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So today I want to deal a bit, as I said, with pilpul versus Brisker learning, more analytical learning, and next time to talk about first-order and second-order halakhic ruling, and with that we’ll finish this topic of the different interpretations, and of the year. Okay, I think I once mentioned the difference between pilpul and homiletics. Pilpul—really, pilpul, interpretation, and homiletics, where for me derash is interpretation, meaning homiletics is something else. Homiletics is always a somewhat disparaging term, and rightly so. Meaning, homiletics is some kind of clever little vort, and pilpul too comes with a somewhat disparaging connotation. The joke in the yeshivot is that pilpul is what you say, and interpretation is what I say—that’s the definition. In any case, it’s clear that pilpul is something that’s supposed to be negative. Rabbi Ovadia was always talking about the pilpulim of the yeshivot; that is, anyone who opposes something defines it as pilpul. And it seems to me that one can offer a somewhat more orderly definition of these three genres. Basically, interpretation and homiletics are two kinds of interpretation that use different tools, but the use is supposed to be consistent. Meaning, there are reasonable premises, and from them, using the relevant tools, you derive the required conclusions. The tools differ between homiletics and the plain-sense reading, straightforward interpretation, but it’s supposed to meet two tests: the argument is supposed to be correct, and of course the conclusion that follows from it should be correct. Which brings us to the definition of homiletics and pilpul: the difference between them is which of those two requirements is not fulfilled. Meaning, pilpul is correct inference that gives incorrect conclusions, and homiletics is incorrect inference that gives correct conclusions—that’s basically the difference. I spoke about this, I think, at the end of the tractate that Menachem did here with Rabbi Lau. Rabbi Lau was a little offended; he thought I was talking about him, but no—it was before he spoke, I think. In any case, the claim was basically this: pilpul is something built in a logically valid, consistent way. Meaning, every step is built correctly on top of the next step, and in the end you suddenly arrive at some conclusion that is obviously wrong. Basically, pilpul is a kind of riddle. The question is always either that you missed something in the logic—the logic isn’t right, it isn’t properly built—or that you’re mistaken and the conclusion really is correct even though it only seems wrong to you. Anything is possible. Pilpul is a kind of riddle. And there are artistic pilpulim; there are people who are artists of pilpul. And artistic pilpul is pilpul where you won’t be able to find where the problem is, but the conclusion is obviously nonsense. Somehow it’s clear—your sense of smell tells you there’s nonsense here—but you can’t put your finger on where. That’s good pilpul. Less good pilpul is when you also understand where, like those mathematics riddles that prove that one equals zero or something like that, with a collection of steps that superficially look good. That’s pilpul. Homiletics is basically a situation in which the inference is terrible but the conclusion is correct. There’s this midrash and another midrash like that, and it’s very difficult because of this midrash, and then you reach the conclusion that one should be humble and modest and righteous. Meaning, in the end the conclusion is obviously correct, and nobody really cares why the inference itself is nonsense. Those are usually the vorts of spiritual supervisors; the vorts of spiritual supervisors are homiletics. And pilpulim are those Polish types, artists of pilpul, Galicians. So many times Hasidic learning is learning in pilpul. The thought that this is because the Hasidim were from Poland—that’s not essential to Hasidism. I think it’s something Polish, not specifically Hasidic. The method of pilpul, what’s called the method of pilpul, arose in the 14th century in Poland, with Rabbi Shakhna—and there are some of the early masters of pilpul there—Rabbi Yaakov Pollak, who basically founded the method of pilpul, and they really did learn that way. They really did learn that way. It wasn’t some little thing just for amusement. And at some stage it became a means of amusement because, at least it seems to me, even when they learned that way they thought it was correct, but in the end somehow a feeling developed that it wasn’t. It’s very sharp, but it’s not—something here isn’t right. And from then on it became a sort of form of entertainment. For me, every Sabbath I would read the pilpulim of Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz for enjoyment. I’ll bring you one of them in a minute, and it was simply a real Sabbath delight. I mean, pure pleasure. A beautifully constructed pilpul that weaves together midrashim and opinions and pilpulim and the approaches of medieval and later authorities—it’s unbelievable. Vashti and Achashverosh are disputing within a dispute between Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the Sema, and everything is organized, every word in its proper place—wonderful. While of course the whole thing is nonsense, but still, it’s just delightful. And there are many who learn this in Bnei Brak, and nobody would dare tell you that it’s nonsense. It’s a book on the weekly Torah portion, by Yonatan Eybeschutz. It’s clear to me that he himself never imagined that it was really correct. But still, even when you read his Urim VeTumim—that’s his well-known halakhic work, which is also somewhat homiletic, but Urim VeTumim is his halakhic work—there too, say, he’s in the Polish intricate style. Meaning, it’s true that he also learned that way. There are many works—Divrei Yonatan, Nefesh Yonatan, all kinds. But there it seems clear to me that he also understood that these were just amusements, though not really in Urim VeTumim. Urim VeTumim is an intricate style, but I think he did stand behind it; he thought it was also correct. So yes, that’s a conception one can accept. These things, though, it’s clear that they’re just amusement. There are people who have no sense of humor—they don’t understand. I think he even hints at this inside the text. Within his pilpulim, for example, there are midrashim that apparently don’t exist—at least nobody knows them and nobody has found them. I don’t know, I’m not such a great expert, but today we have the responsa database, so you can search electronically—nothing. There are no such midrashim. He simply was missing the seam from here to there, so he invented a midrash. You can also see it sometimes in the way he formulates things. I’ll try here to point to something, through an example. So that’s basically pilpul. And homiletics, as I said—the pilpul is a correct enterprise with an incorrect conclusion, and homiletics is an enterprise that is nonsense with a correct conclusion. That’s basically the difference. Now I want to demonstrate this through the example—I don’t know if everyone will have one, I hope everyone will—here, you have it. Look. Let’s read one pilpul inside, and see what it sounds like. Just something I already had; you can pull them out. On every weekly Torah portion there are five or six like this, no problem. You can find them in the books of Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz; there’s a collection of all his writings. It’s a compilation of, I don’t know, some twenty books, collecting his pilpulim on the weekly Torah portion. A treasure trove of Sabbath delight—but of course this does not fulfill anything; there’s no reason to recite the blessing over Torah study on this. Meaning, it has nothing to do with Torah study. Okay, so let’s see an example here. Just a random example—every portion has ten of these. Tractate Ta’anit 5b: Rav Nachman and Rav Yitzchak were sitting at a meal. They were sitting at a meal. Rav Nachman said to Rav Yitzchak: “Let the master tell us something new.” Yes, tell us something new, a novelty. He said to him: “One does not converse during a meal.” That was the novelty he told him: one does not converse during a meal. Levatar desa’id—meaning, he said to him, “One does not converse during a meal, I can’t tell you the novelty right now.” So levatar desa’id, then he ate, right? And levatar desa’id he said to him: “Our patriarch Jacob did not die.” That was the novelty. Right? “One does not converse during a meal” was only to postpone saying the novelty until afterward. “And many have seen and wondered”—which of course never existed. “How did he know that ‘Jacob did not die’ was a novelty for him?” A tremendous question, right? How did he know that “our patriarch Jacob did not die” was something new? Right, he said to him: tell me a novelty. So he says: our patriarch Jacob did not die. How does he know that this is a novelty for him? I don’t know. A tremendous question, yes? The “many have seen and wondered”—I assume not. I didn’t do a search, but I’m sure you won’t find it anywhere, those “many” who wondered there.
[Speaker B] The novelty is the problem.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? Yes. Why did he assume at all that this thing was a novelty for Rav Nachman? So in short, I think this itself is a hint: friends, I—yes, you understand, no one is going to ask this about anything; it’s just nonsense, but I’m saying it like this so that you’ll enjoy it. Don’t recite the blessing on Torah for it. “And the above gaon said that he proved this”—the “above gaon” is the father-in-law; I’m not sure, someone is writing this in his name—“and the above gaon said that he proved this from the fact that since he did not know this rule, that one does not converse during a meal, he also did not know that our patriarch Jacob did not die.” Meaning, why did he ask him to speak during the meal? Apparently he didn’t know that one does not converse during a meal. Someone who doesn’t know that one does not converse during a meal—then obviously he also doesn’t know that our patriarch Jacob did not die. Meaning, obviously it will be a novelty for him when I tell him that our patriarch Jacob did not die. How does that happen now? Yes, that’s basically the question in pilpul: you always set up the two extremes. There’s one conception, or one midrash, or one statement; there’s another midrash or statement, and now I have to show how this depends on that. It’s always like that. And then pilpul has to show how this thing is connected to that thing, and whoever doesn’t accept this also doesn’t accept that; meaning, there’s no connection whatsoever. What does “our patriarch Jacob did not die” have to do with “one does not converse during a meal”? What does the Sabbatical year have to do with scrambled eggs? Fine, but pilpul always comes to tie together two things that aren’t connected. “And the above gaon said that he proved this from the fact that since he did not know this rule, that one does not converse during a meal, he also did not know that our patriarch Jacob did not die, for it is said in the Talmud in ‘One Who Hires Workers’: It is permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace, for the Holy One, blessed be He, altered the truth for the sake of peace and said, ‘And I am old.’” Right, when God reports what Sarah said, Sarah said “and my lord is old.” And when the Holy One, blessed be He, reports what Sarah said, He says “and I am old,” as if He tells Abraham that Sarah said “and I am old.” For the sake of peace, He didn’t want Abraham to get angry at her for saying that he was old. So God altered the truth for the sake of peace; that’s the hint that it’s permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace, meaning to lie. “And He said, ‘And I am old.’ But in truth Sarah had said, ‘And my lord is old.’” So that’s the hint that it’s permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace. “And Chizkuni challenged, according to Rashi’s view, who explains ‘and he did not bring bread’—from here, that Sarah had become ritually impure as a menstruant.” Right, he learns from the verses that Sarah was a menstruant at that time, and so she didn’t make bread. No issue of separating challah here, yes? So therefore Sarah had become ritually impure as a menstruant, that’s what Rashi says there. “If so, how did she laugh and say, ‘After I have withered, shall I again have delicate skin?’” Sarah says, after I’ve withered, I can’t bear children at all anymore. What do you mean—she still has a cycle? She had become a menstruant. So what’s the problem? She can bear children, give birth, that is. So this doesn’t fit that Rashi, right? “And he answers that in truth the main astonishment was about Abraham.” I didn’t even check whether this is in Chizkuni. Maybe yes, maybe no, I don’t know. I already told you—you can’t assume anything here, of course. It’s a good question. Yes, yes, a good question. Rashi is explicit in the Humash. “If so, how did she laugh and say, ‘After I have withered, shall I again have delicate skin?’ And he answers that in truth the main astonishment was about Abraham. And the interpretation is this: ‘After I have withered, shall I again have delicate skin’—and I am fit to bear children, but ‘my lord is old.’” Meaning, according to Rashi, “after I have withered, shall I again have delicate skin?” is said with an exclamation mark, not a question mark. Indeed, after I had withered, I had renewed vitality; I can bear children—but Abraham is old, he can’t father children. I’m fine; I can bear children. Meaning, when Rashi read “after I have withered, shall I again have delicate skin,” Rashi read it with an exclamation point, not a question mark. “But my lord is old.” “But Nachmanides explained that in truth her astonishment was also about herself, and she had not become ritually impure as a menstruant at all.” Nachmanides didn’t explain that she had become ritually impure as a menstruant. This is a midrash of the Sages, so already here—what is this? Nachmanides didn’t accept it? He explained differently, but there is such a midrash. Fine, pilpulim, yes. “And she had not become ritually impure as a menstruant at all. Now according to Rashi, where the whole astonishment was only about Abraham and not about her”—right, Sarah was amazed how Abraham would father children; she herself according to Rashi could still give birth—“it was entirely appropriate that God made a major alteration when He said, ‘And I am old.’” So according to Rashi there is proof that one may alter the truth for the sake of peace, because when the Holy One, blessed be He, said “And I am old,” He omitted a very significant part here, because really the main astonishment was about Abraham, not about her. Fine, so that’s a significant change. “But according to Nachmanides, where she was also wondering about herself”—right, she too herself couldn’t give birth—“then this is not a change at all.” So according to that, the Holy One, blessed be He, did not alter anything when He said “And I am old,” because Sarah was astonished both about herself and about Abraham, so what’s the problem? That isn’t called a change. No, there was still some truncation here, but for pilpul that’s fine. “For in truth she had indeed said, ‘And I am old,’ only the Holy One, blessed be He, did not tell him everything. He told him only part, and therefore it is not proven from here that one may alter the truth for the sake of peace.” Fine, so according to Nachmanides you can’t prove that one may alter the truth for the sake of peace. “And behold, the Ba’al HaTurim wrote on ‘and they ate and they said’”—there in the angels’ visit—“that it hints to ‘one does not converse during a meal.’ ‘And they ate and they said’—first they ate and afterward they spoke, because one does not converse during the meal. However, according to Nachmanides one can say that he also brought bread, and ‘and they ate and they said’ refers to Grace after Meals.” According to Nachmanides, after all, he did bring bread there, because she had not become a menstruant, right? So “and they ate and they said,” the speaking is Grace after Meals; it isn’t ordinary conversation. So you can’t prove that one does not converse during a meal. Obviously one says the blessing only after eating, right? “But according to Rashi, that he did not bring bread because she had become a menstruant, then they certainly did not say Grace after Meals, so they were just speaking. Thus ‘and they ate and they said’ is the Ba’al HaTurim’s hint that one does not converse during a meal. It follows from this that according to Rashi there is a hint that one does not converse during a meal, whereas according to Nachmanides there is no hint, and it is also not proven that it is permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace.” Fine, in the meantime we’ve only explained the dispute between Rashi and Nachmanides. “And behold, it is well known that our patriarch Jacob did not die because he did not alter the truth, and said to his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn.’” Why did our patriarch Jacob not die? Because he never lied, even though it says in a number of places that he did. And he said to him, “I am Esau your firstborn”—right, when he lied to Isaac, the Sages interpret that he did not really lie. He said not “I am Esau your firstborn,” but “I am; Esau is your firstborn.” So he didn’t lie, okay? And by virtue of that Jacob did not die, because he did not lie. This is well known. Where is it well known from? I don’t know. Maybe there is such a midrash, I’m not sure—maybe yes and maybe no. I told you, I have to be suspicious here about all these “it is well known” statements. Very often, I think, that’s almost a humorous signal that there is no such thing, but fine. “And this depends on whether it is permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace.” Right? “And nevertheless he did not alter the truth, so he is indeed fit to receive his reward.” So what’s the great novelty that he didn’t alter the truth? If it is permitted to lie for the sake of peace, then that is the great novelty—that although it was permitted, he went beyond that, yes, a great righteous man, and still did not alter the truth even though it was permitted. If it were prohibited, then he deserves nothing for not altering the truth. Well, even that of course can be debated—he would get reward for standing by the requirements of Jewish law; what’s the problem? Fine, but here the reward is apparently for going beyond the letter of the law. So if it is permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace, then in general he does deserve something; so what it says, that our patriarch Jacob did not die, must be only according to the one who says it is prohibited to alter the truth. “But if it is prohibited to alter the truth even for the sake of peace, what is Jacob’s distinction?” Rather, certainly this follows Rashi’s view, that it is permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace. “And now it comes out well: from the fact that he did not know this law, that one does not converse during a meal”—right, we returned to Rav Nachman—“he must necessarily hold like Nachmanides, that ‘and they ate and they said’ is not a hint to one not conversing during a meal, because that he did not know.” How did he not know? What, Rav Nachman didn’t know such a Rashi? Rav Nachman, right? He didn’t know such a Rashi? No, apparently he learned like Nachmanides, not like Rashi. “And consequently, ‘and they ate and they said’ refers to Grace after Meals, and therefore nothing is proven that it is permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace,” because “and they ate and they said” refers to Grace after Meals, yes? “And consequently, if it is prohibited to alter the truth, then what distinction is there in Jacob?” So what’s Jacob’s distinction if it is prohibited to alter the truth? He didn’t accept that, and therefore certainly this matter was a novelty for him—that Jacob did not die. So that’s why it’s a novelty that our patriarch Jacob did not die. Simple. So this is wonderful pilpul. Now in truth I already commented while reading that here the inferences themselves—obviously, if you read them seriously, you can see where the weakness is, where it isn’t precise. But really it’s a beautiful structure. This, I mean, is an impressive structure intellectually. The man managed to connect two things that have no connection whatsoever, and overall the inferences are not absurd. Meaning again, they’re intricate; obviously Rav Nachman could also have interpreted neither Nachmanides nor Rashi nor any of them. But there are such Rashi and Nachmanides positions, and according to Rashi this really doesn’t work, so he probably learned like Nachmanides. So in terms of structure there is a logical framework here that basically holds together. But somehow it is obvious that it isn’t right—it’s obvious that it isn’t right. What do I mean by “not right”? It isn’t the intended meaning. Right? It isn’t the intended meaning, or the conclusion is incorrect. Sometimes pilpul shows a conclusion that is itself incorrect, and here in this case not. Sometimes—it’s pilpul in two senses. If we had read this casually from above, then it would be pilpul in the first sense, because it is obvious to me that there is no connection between one not conversing during a meal and Jacob. This connection—fine, I don’t know where the mistake is here, but it’s obvious that it’s nonsense, the conclusion. I don’t know, the inference looks fine, but this is pilpul in the sense I mentioned before: the inference is correct, the conclusion is obviously wrong. Okay? When you read it more carefully, then of course you can see where there are weaknesses in the inference itself as well. And it has to be that way, you understand. If the premises are true and the conclusion is false, the argument cannot be valid. A valid argument from true premises must lead to a true conclusion—that’s the definition of a valid argument, right? Therefore once you see that the conclusion is incorrect, you go back to the argument, and in the argument itself we’ll somehow find something problematic. But still, the indication of pilpul is the conclusion. Yes.
[Speaker E] There’s the famous expression, “the Torah has seventy facets.” And the written Torah we certainly study at least in plain meaning, allusion, homiletic interpretation, and secret teaching. Meaning, you can read the same words in several different ways. Now here there is seemingly an approach that tries to do the same thing with the Talmud too. To read the Talmud twice: both in the plain sense, what in your terms would be the logical reading, and also in a way that says the editor of the Talmud created an additional layer here. Beneath the surface of the same words there is another reading here, call it an allusion or something like that. This is a conception—I’ve encountered it dozens of times—where they tried to read Talmudic passages in a non-simple way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but I—
[Speaker E] I’m saying, there’s here—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But you have to distinguish between a few things.
[Speaker E] Meaning, there are people who always did this, always did it this way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. No, no, precisely here I think he is not doing it that way.
[Speaker E] The working assumption is that the Talmud too is multi-layered.
[Speaker G] But that’s exactly the difference. Among other things he wrote several books that way. Ein Ayah is several good books.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not true. Ein Ayah is not pilpul. Ein Ayah is not pilpul.
[Speaker G] It’s not pilpul, but it takes the layer—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As if—why? Ein Ayah is interpretation of homiletic passages, very fine interpretation in large sections of the aggadic literature of the Sages.
[Speaker G] I didn’t say it was pilpul. I said it fits what I’m saying. It takes—there are several layers here of the same thing. He says it explicitly in the introduction: there’s the revealed part of the words and the deeper part, and both—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but that deeper part, in the end, once you see it, you understand that that’s what they intended.
[Speaker G] Right, but they also intended the revealed part. Maybe. Not necessarily.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not necessarily. In aggadah, what is the revealed part? It’s just a story; it doesn’t say anything. They intended the idea conveyed by the story. Not always only aggadah.
[Speaker G] Ein Ayah is on aggadah. Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there’s a whole genre of homiletic literature, yes? Parashat Derakhim by the Mishneh LaMelekh. I think that, for example—I don’t know, actually I’m not sure. Maybe he meant it seriously, I don’t know. But there too the structures are beautifully built. And incidentally, halakhic decisors use Parashat Derakhim and derive halakhic conclusions from it. From Parashat Derakhim. Meaning, it may be not necessarily because they take the pilpul seriously, but because they say that if this person—the Mishneh LaMelekh wrote it, Rabbi Yehuda Rosanes, right?—if he wrote it, then he presumably really stands behind what is written there. It doesn’t matter at the moment why he connects it that way and whether Achashverosh really meant that. But still he means the halakhic conception written there, and then you can draw halakhic conclusions from it. It doesn’t have to mean they take his pilpul all the way. But here, truly, I think that’s different. You know, there are, for example, Kabbalistic approaches that relate to the Talmud as if it were sacred scripture. So in Bava Kamma there is, for example, I remember, I think the Ramah of Fano—there in Bava Kamma it says “Rabbi Yaakov pays.” That’s what it says there. Not “Rabbi Yaakov said: he pays,” meaning the one who did such-and-such is liable to pay. Rather, it says there, “Rabbi Yaakov pays.” There it’s obvious that this is a mistake. Meaning, Rabbi Yaakov said that he—he pays, that is, the damager must pay. But it says, “Rabbi Yaakov pays.” Now for the kabbalists there are no mistakes; every word has to fall exactly into place, everything is precise. So “Rabbi Yaakov pays”—the Ramah of Fano has an entire conceptual treatment of the significance of “Rabbi Yaakov pays” and why it was written exactly this way, and all sorts of things in esoteric matters, yes?
[Speaker G] And the conclusions are surely correct in any case. What? The conclusions in esoteric matters—he can say them, but what are conclusions in esoteric matters? Do they have some—do they say something?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I assume so, but you know, one has to—
[Speaker G] No, I mean, do they tell us something we can—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, I don’t remember at the moment. I saw this many years ago. But he has some move there in the esoteric realm. Usually things in the esoteric realm also have a halakhic implication, yes? I assume you can translate it into something that says this too. And it’s clear to me that he meant it seriously. Meaning, he really assumed there was significance to the text as it stands, either because it really is an exact text, or because the Holy One, blessed be He, somehow directed even the mistakes in a way that makes it hold together. And there you really can say what Ido said earlier. Meaning, that there is some kind of double reading—or more than double—of the text. You can read it in its plain sense, but you also understand that behind it there are all sorts of parallel planes of interpretation. Okay? Here, I don’t think that’s the case. Here, in my view, it’s just amusement. He doesn’t really mean that it’s written there. We spoke about hermeneutics—whether things are in the text, whether things are in the intention of the author. Here it seems to me it’s neither in the text nor in the intention of the author.
[Speaker C] It’s really a foundational question for—what? I know all sorts of books that bring quotations from Winnie-the-Pooh. So Winnie-the-Pooh doesn’t interest me because it’s in Winnie-the-Pooh—whether it was there or not, whether they composed it, intended it, didn’t intend it. Doesn’t matter. I’m saying, it doesn’t matter at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But he intended to bring the real idea.
[Speaker C] I agree, because you only need the infrastructure. You want examples of substitution—he didn’t say who said it, give me an example, any one, it doesn’t matter which. No, I’ll tell you what he—this conversation of Rav Nachman and Rav Yitzchak, when he said to him, listen, if he told me to say a novelty I’ll tell him that our patriarch Jacob did not die. He really intended to tell him that as a novelty. Okay, now he—they—it’s just a conversation of Torah scholars.
[Speaker B] It says in the Talmud that he intended to tell him that as a novelty.
[Speaker C] I assume so—that’s what it says explicitly. Okay, so I said, listen, it can’t be. Now he comes to analyze this casual conversation of those Torah scholars, and he built this whole move on it not because he wanted to prove that there is a connection between “our patriarch Jacob did not die” and “one does not converse.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This move says nothing except—
[Speaker G] Besides that, what does he want to say?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He said nothing except the connection.
[Speaker G] No, it’s a riddle.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s find a connection between these two. Here, I’ll show you that if I sew together enough connections, enough Talmudic passages or approaches of the medieval authorities, I can give you a connection between anything. Like those stories that say that even in the United States, any two people can be connected in five steps. In the huge United States—three hundred million inhabitants or something like that—in five steps or fewer.
[Speaker G] Because of, I don’t know, social networks and things like that.
[Speaker H] The connection between people—what he added, in my opinion, is what the dispute is between Chizkuni and Rashi, that there’s a family connection here, not just some connection. It seems to me that’s what he explains.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, that one?
[Speaker H] No, for us it was a novelty. For me, for example, it introduced the difficulty about whether she had become ritually impure as a menstruant or not.
[Speaker C] He slipped it in—
[Speaker H] Along the way, exactly, he slipped it in. Now, what—I wouldn’t have read either Rashi or Chizkuni or—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or that one.
[Speaker C] And now because of this—
[Speaker H] That’s what’s nice. Through the back door he slipped in lots and lots of things.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you can say that it’s a good method for learning quantity. Meaning, you bring in a lot of things that otherwise who would ever read them, within some structure like this that is much more interesting and also easier to remember.
[Speaker C] You can remember it, that’s it, no problem, perfectly fine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it’s still clear that he doesn’t mean that this is the explanation of the Talmudic text. He doesn’t mean that this is the explanation of the Talmudic text; it’s just a device to bring in all kinds of things or to amuse himself.
[Speaker H] The Talmudic text is just a commentary on the Hizkuni? What? What do you mean, amuse himself? What, he has the option of writing a commentary in order on the Hizkuni and on Rashi, and he has the option of giving a pilpul that people will study on Friday night to have a bit of fun, and incidentally he slips this in?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, and that’s also why we’re doing what we’re doing here now. But it’s not an explanation, it’s not an explanation of the Talmudic text. Certainly, obviously. He wanted to teach me the Hizkuni or Nachmanides or whatever, perfectly fine, no problem, you really do learn from it. Here, yes, maybe, maybe as you say, maybe you can recite the blessing over Torah study not over the structure but over the little pieces planted inside it, over the content inside.
[Speaker E] Is this really connected to the Torah portion of Vayechi?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Huh?
[Speaker C] No question, completely the Torah portion of Vayechi.
[Speaker E] No.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Jacob—
[Speaker E] Our forefather is connected to Vayechi, but “one does not converse” is connected to… right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, in any case, I’m saying this is just an example of what I called earlier pilpul, fanciful pilpul. Now I’m doing this in order to create the contrast. Now I’m moving to the other side of the equation, and that is yeshiva-style analytical learning, okay? Which also has people who call it pilpul, pilpulim, yes? And there I’ll bring several— I also have criticism of it at certain points, but the criticism is not that it’s pilpul. And on that I completely disagree. There’s a very well-known exchange of letters between Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner, one of the editors of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, I think, and the Seridei Esh. There’s an exchange of letters between them; I don’t even remember who says what. I saw it maybe many years ago. One of them, I think, wants to claim that Rabbi Chaim is not… that the whole yeshiva method of learning, or Rabbi Chaim—Maimonides never dreamed of it, never intended it, it’s nonsense, it’s pilpul. And the other one answers him—and in my view rightly; I agree with the second one, again I don’t remember who said what—that that’s not true. He says it’s true that Maimonides did not think in Rabbi Chaim’s framework, but frameworks that are correctly built—and not every framework there is necessarily correct—but frameworks that are correctly built really do capture a distinction that Maimonides stands behind. Meaning, even if Maimonides did not formulate it in that way, still, if he were alive in our time and entered into the Brisker mode of expression, and we asked him now whether this is a law in the object or a law in the person, he would answer what Rabbi Chaim puts in his mouth. I believe that. I think that’s true. And the fact that it’s formulated in contemporary language that was unfamiliar to Maimonides doesn’t matter; it’s a translation or an exposure of intuitions that Maimonides had somehow in an abstract or raw form or—
[Speaker I] The tools developed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. We know how to formulate it more sharply, put it on the table, contrast it with other conceptions, things that maybe Maimonides had fewer analytical tools for doing, but in essence, if you do it correctly, that’s what he meant. And therefore very often, when you build some very complex structure on the basis of a position of the medieval authorities or on a Talmudic text or something like that, people immediately accuse it of being pilpul. It’s not pilpul. That’s not right. Pilpul is something incorrect. This is not something incorrect. It’s just being poured from one vessel into another. Meaning, taking the words of the medieval authorities or of the Talmudic text and placing them into conceptual tools, into contemporary language, into a conceptual framework or contemporary form of thought. If you do it correctly—they don’t always do it correctly—sometimes it will be pilpul because it isn’t right. But the mere use of these new tools doesn’t make it pilpul. Even in the pilpul method—I may have mentioned this once, I don’t remember anymore—even in the pilpul method there’s a pamphlet by Rappel. Yoel Rappel? There were two brothers there. Dov Rappel.
[Speaker I] One of the Rappels wrote a basic book…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Dov, Dov Rappel. Yes, his book The Dispute over Pilpul. So there he brings things from sixteenth-century Poland. It began in the fifteenth century, as I said, but these are later things, the period of the Shelah, the Maharsha, where there are certain kinds of questions that are known, where people say, “That’s a Regensburger,” and move on. That’s the answer. You don’t need to say anything more. Meaning, someone who raised a question is told, “That’s a Regensburger.” Why? Because there are certain structures of questions for which I already have a fixed method of answering. Meaning, know that if you do such-and-such, you’ll see that it’s not a question. For example, dividing topics in a certain way, that this topic follows a position that was rejected in that topic there—I’m just saying this generally, I don’t remember right now exactly what that Regensburger means, okay? But that’s what they did in the yeshiva of Regensburg. So now it’s called a Regensburger. And in the pilpul method there was this kind of toolbox where now you don’t need to start the whole battle from scratch every time. You say, “That’s a Regensburger,” and everybody understands how to resolve this question. Notice: it’s simply a question whose pattern we already know. We know how to answer it; no need to reinvent the wheel. And there’s Ravensburger and Regensburger and all kinds of things like that—they already have names for all, not all but many, methods of questions or methods of answers that save time. That too is among the characteristics of the pilpul method. But notice that there it isn’t pilpul in this sense. They called it pilpul because I think that’s where this sharpening was born, the sharpening that to this day made possible the incorrect pilpul. It only enables it; it isn’t identical with it. Meaning, once you have good analytical tools, you can build wonderful pilpulim. Pilpul for amusement—that’s a new phenomenon. I don’t think you’ll find it among the medieval authorities. The medieval authorities studied seriously; they didn’t play around. At least from what, again, from what has reached us. Maybe they did it in their spare time, I don’t know. But it seems to me they also couldn’t really do it. Because as long as the tools of what was later called the pilpul method had not yet been created—and that is not pilpul in the sense I’m speaking about here, but rather this analytical method that knows how to define types of questions and types of answers, like Aristotle’s logic, which defines types of arguments and gives them names—then now you can analyze arguments without getting into the question of what’s written in this argument, whether it talks about frogs, tables, or clouds. If every X is Y and Y is X, then Y is Y. That’s all. I already know… that’s a Regensburger. Meaning, I can tell you immediately, I don’t need to give you a lecture now that if every cloud is white and this thing is a cloud, then this thing is white. I don’t need to explain to you why that’s correct; it’s a Regensburger and you know it’s correct. You understand? So in that sense, pilpul is a different meaning of the concept pilpul. It’s pilpul not in the sense of being incorrect, but pilpul in the sense of using sophisticated analytical tools in sophisticated analytical legal reasoning in order to analyze topics. And that’s basically what was called pilpul then, and people criticized it because it seemed new and wrong and so on. But it seems to me that after it developed a bit and went through various transformations from fifteenth-century Poland, today I do see those things as a kind of incorrect pilpul in a certain sense. Not like this, because they meant it seriously, but I think they don’t hit the truth, the pilpulists of the fifteenth century. They don’t hit it? The entire sixteenth century criticized them for that.
[Speaker C] Because you lose the intuition along the way, because the more sophisticated and formalistic you make it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. You detach from the foundation, from the simple sense of what is right and what is not right.
[Speaker C] If you ask, it’s more secure though. What? Processes like that are more secure, it’s like giving it to a computer.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but we know it’s not a computer. That’s why I’m saying it’s dangerous. Meaning, if it really were logic in the usual sense, you’d be right, but it’s not logic. Here, like here, you can see that it can fake things.
[Speaker F] Did you see that point you made about the Pozner, that they kind of invented the conclusion, and apart from the pilpul itself? The construction of the conclusion is also correct.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not sure, maybe. In Jewish law, in Jewish law and in aggadic literature. It’s not enough. Look, since we have nothing written from Rabbi Yaakov Pollak and from Rav Shachna, the later figures already really underwent some changes. Ketzot? Yes, fine, but the Ketzot is much later. I’m talking about the pilpul method of Poland at that time. The pilpul method of Poland at that time—that was their method of learning. It wasn’t… And on the other hand, many criticized them for it, that it wasn’t right. They related to it as pilpul in the way that I relate to this as pilpul, meaning that it isn’t right. Now they themselves, Rabbi Yaakov Pollak and Rav Shachna and all their students—almost all the early commentators on the Shulchan Arukh were their students, the Maharshal and all his students—they were all their students, and they learned that way, maybe in a somewhat more refined form, but still in that intricate pilpulistic method. Until it came in and underwent refinements and improvements and definitions, and the Ketzot later greatly refined the pilpul method and, it seems to me, really turned it into a grounded analytical method. You can’t really toy with the conceptions of the Ketzot anymore. The Ketzot is already truly a technique that is closer to logic. Meaning, if you do it correctly, then the conclusion will probably be correct. And after that Rabbi Chaim continued it, maybe Rabbi Shimon as well, though in a somewhat different way, until it reached today’s yeshivot, which basically do quite similar things. But it seems to me—again, maybe because I’m a product of that world, so maybe I’m captive to it—but to me it seems right, as opposed to those earlier things, which seem less right. Okay? But notice that there is a shift here in the terminology called pilpul. It began as brilliant analytical tools, supposedly sophisticated, for analyzing topics and ideas. And such tools can also be correct, but once they become too brilliant, then that enables you—especially if you’re a brilliant person—to fool people as well. Meaning, to slip in mistakes without anyone noticing; sometimes maybe even you yourself don’t notice, because you’re so brilliant and doing it so fast. So it can allow mistakes. But to identify pilpul with mistakes—if that’s how we define pilpul—that’s not right. Pilpul enables mistakes, but pilpul is not identical with error. Therefore I say: that is pilpul that is not right. But regarding yeshiva learning, it isn’t right to say that it is not right. It’s right to say that one must be careful with it, or that it is partial, but not that it is not right. And that is the criticism I said I have of it, but it isn’t right to say about it that it is pilpul. I don’t agree with that radical approach, let’s say, yes. So let’s talk a bit about the yeshiva pilpulistic method. As I said earlier, there’s a kind of historical process of refinement of this method. Meaning, there are several shades of it, but broadly speaking the refinement of this analytical method began with the pilpul method in Poland, continued through the later pilpulists of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries—the Shelah and so on, the Polish learners, and also the Yekkes, by the way. Poland and Germany then were roughly moving in the same direction. The Pnei Yehoshua, yes, basically learns like a Pole, even though he was in Germany. So it was all the same then. There was also migration then between Poland and Germany. At the end of the Middle Ages there was enormous migration of Jews from Germany eastward. And it continued in the Ketzot and already in more modern figures, say the Netivot. I mentioned—I don’t remember whether I mentioned—you know that on the first page, if you look in the Shulchan Arukh in the old Widow and Brothers Romm editions, the ordinary editions before all those newer editions of recent years came out, the standard editions of Shulchan Arukh, it says there, when they list all the commentators, it says there: and we included the Netivot of course, and we also included the Ketzot since the words of the Netivot are built around it. Now every yeshiva student’s ears perk up when he reads that. Usually he doesn’t open the Shulchan Arukh, and if he does open the Shulchan Arukh: good Lord, they brought the Ketzot only so that we’d understand the Netivot? It’s the opposite. If anything, I brought the Netivot in order to clarify better what the Ketzot meant. But that’s not how it is. In the yeshivot the Ketzot is central, but among the halakhic decisors the Netivot is central. And the Shulchan Arukh is broadly a book of decisors, so for decisors you have to explain why they brought the Ketzot. They brought the… the Ketzot because the Netivot discusses it, therefore they brought the Ketzot. In any case, the Ketzot is the continuation, and I think that Rabbi Chaim basically fixed it in place. Akiva Eiger was Polish. He is not on this track, in my opinion. He was very sharp, very Polish, and straighter than the pilpulists, but read the conceptual systems of Rabbi Akiva Eiger—it’s not Ketzot and it’s not Rabbi Chaim, it’s something pilpulistic. There’s more of a scent of pilpul there. I’m not talking about one question and answer that he says in the conceptual systems, when you study Derush VeChiddush. He too was Polish. In any case, this method that eventually reached the yeshivot is a continuous refinement of what began as pilpul, and in the middle it branched off into that pilpul of Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz. That also basically comes from there, and perhaps is even more similar to what was there originally, and that is another branch. These two branches basically emerged from pilpul. For me, this is the correct branch and that is the incorrect branch, two developments of the early pilpul. Good, so let’s go with the correct branch—the correct one, but not the complete one. Brisker analysis often speaks in analytical or dialectical methods that basically analyze the subject into its components and look at it from different angles. Sometimes they separate between angles and sometimes they combine two angles, two laws, or all kinds of things of that sort. But basically this is a kind of manipulation of concepts and principles, to break them apart and reassemble them, a kind of deconstruction and reconstruction of concepts and principles. One of the methods most identified with this method of study is the inquiry, the scholarly inquiry, the yeshiva inquiry. There are certain hints to such inquiries already in the Talmudic text itself. When the Talmudic text, for example, speaks about things that are entirely permitted or only overridden. This is a later-authorities-style inquiry. Is what is permitted—I don’t know, impurity, for example—entirely permitted for the community, or only overridden for the community?
[Speaker J] Person and object?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Person and object is something a bit different, because in the Talmudic text it isn’t presented as an inquiry. It’s a distinction between oaths and vows. Therefore the expansion that Rabbi Chaim made to the concepts of person and object is not an expansion of what appears in the Talmudic text; it’s almost an entirely new face. But the question whether impurity for the community is entirely permitted or overridden is a question that the Talmudic text itself asks. How should one understand the permission of impurity for the community—is it overridden or permitted? And after that they continue this also regarding saving life on the Sabbath. That already doesn’t appear in the Talmudic text, but the medieval authorities already discuss it and the later authorities discuss it. The concepts of entirely permitted and overridden are basically rooted in the Talmudic text. And this form of thought already appears a little in the Talmudic text. By the way, once I was with Shmuel at the National Library when I was there on a panel, and we talked there about “this one benefits and that one does not lose.” I suggested to them that that evening we speak about that topic. I think that “this one benefits and that one does not lose” is also a later-authorities-style inquiry. Because “this one benefits and that one does not lose” is basically an inquiry into what creates liability for payment—the benefit or the loss. And the practical difference is in the case of “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” because from the standpoint of loss, one would not be liable because the other did not lose. If you place the emphasis on the benefit, then from the standpoint of benefit one would be liable, because there is benefit. Therefore “this one benefits and that one does not lose” is a practical implication of the inquiry. And therefore the medieval authorities there immediately ask what happens with “this one does not benefit and that one does lose.” A dispute of Tosafot, and there you have it—“this one does not benefit and that one does lose,” because that too is a practical implication, the opposite practical implication; it’s obvious. Everybody understands that in the Talmudic text they’re basically carrying out a later-authorities-style inquiry here, and in the Talmudic text itself there are even hints of it. Whoever sees how that topic is formulated there—Rami bar Hama, I think, comes there, and he asks what they studied in the study hall at that time. “They studied a great matter in the study hall at that time.” What did they study? “Go serve me, and afterward I’ll tell you.” Then he serves him and so on, and then he tells him the topic of “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” one who lives in another person’s courtyard without his knowledge, whether he must pay rent or need not pay rent. What is this ritual of “go serve me”? It’s clear that the Talmudic text is impressed by what they did there, because it was unusual. It was something unusual, something sharp, something refined. And in order for me to tell you something refined, you need to serve me. I explained there using Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s introduction. Rabbi Shimon Shkop, in the introduction to Shaarei Yosher, says there—he brings this Talmudic text—and he explains what “go serve me” means. He doesn’t connect it back to “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” but he explains “go serve me.” He says: I request that whoever reads this book should read it only if he has some regard for me. That’s what Rabbi Shimon says. And whoever has no regard for me will see many strange things here, will simply laugh at what he reads, and leave it all. Whoever does have regard for me—even if he sees strange things—will think about it again.
[Speaker J] Apparently there’s something here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. No, the Jew who wrote this wasn’t an idiot, so let’s think about it again, and then he can nevertheless understand that there is substance here. He says maybe I’m mistaken, and you don’t have to agree with me; having regard for me doesn’t mean agreeing with me, but it does mean that you won’t immediately throw me out—you’ll think again about what I’m saying. I once brought the Magen Avraham, yes, who brings this law from the Talmudic text in paragraph ten of the Magen Avraham there in section 156; later it came in by way of the Shulchan Arukh, it’s there after the laws of prayer, and the Magen Avraham there inserts all the laws that have no other place. So one of the laws there is that it is permitted to say things in the name of a great person “so that they will accept it from him.” Talmudic text. “If one wishes to be strangled, let him hang himself on a tall tree.” So he brings the law. It is known in the name of Rabbi Shalom Schwadron that he said the Chazon Ish once told him that it is permitted to say things in the name of a great person so that they will accept it from him. And I won’t tell you whether he really said it or not. In any case, the Magen Avraham brings this law, he brings the law, and this is astonishing. Suppose I tell you some law in the laws of the Sabbath that I happen to think is correct and I say to you: Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said this, or Rabbi Elyashiv, or I don’t know who, some important halakhic decisor—then you’ll accept it even though it’s my nonsense, maybe nonsense, I don’t know, but that’s how it seems to me. How is it permitted to mislead people in such a way? After all, this is—
[Speaker G] Now you’ve already told us, so we’re already—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s Rabbi Shalom’s joke, that after I tell you this you can no longer hear anything from me. In any case, this thing is extremely strange—how is one permitted to trip people up in this way? Therefore it seems to me that what is written there is the same thing Rabbi Shimon Shkop says in the introduction. What is written there assumes that even if you hear something in the name of a great person, you don’t just accept it. Otherwise it would be forbidden to do such a thing. Rather, obviously, we’re talking about people who, when they hear things in the name of a great person, do not simply accept them. So why do the whole exercise? Exactly. They do the whole exercise for this point of Rabbi Shimon Shkop. Meaning, when I tell them the thing and they think it’s nonsense, they’ll think again because Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said it, not me. Nonsense he didn’t say. You may disagree, and in the end if you don’t agree, don’t accept it, but you’ll think again. And that’s exactly the point. When I feel that people are not taking me seriously and I’m convinced that I’m right, I say to you: look, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said it. Then you’ll think again, and maybe you’ll indeed discover that I’m right. It’s a way to get the listeners’ attention, to be taken seriously, and that’s perfectly fine—it doesn’t mislead anyone. Think seriously. If you don’t come to the conclusion that it’s correct, then don’t do it. No problem. The assumption is that you don’t do what Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said just because he said it. That is exactly the point, and only because of that is it permitted to say it. And that’s also Rabbi Shimon Shkop there. So what’s the idea there? Why specifically in this topic of “this one benefits and that one does not lose”? He doesn’t ask; I think this is—
[Speaker E] “So that they will accept it from him” is so that they’ll actually do it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? No.
[Speaker E] The reason it’s permitted is because—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that they will accept it from him.
[Speaker E] So I claim not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because if it were like that, then… I’m saying, you’re right in the plain meaning of the wording, but it’s better to strain the wording than the reasoning. It can’t possibly be that way in logic. How could one say such a thing? Any little kid could say some nonsense in the laws of the Sabbath and attribute it to the greatest halakhic authority and everyone would accept it?
[Speaker F] He wouldn’t say something that is really simple to anyone who understands, but—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But this permission is a problematic permission. Then I could also say things that aren’t simple, or that seem simple to me but I’m an idiot and understand nothing, so what does “really simple” mean? This permission is very dangerous; it’s hard for me to accept such a permission.
[Speaker F] Sometimes in Jewish law, or in this area, it’s not written exactly about the same case, but someone who studied Jewish law understands that it perhaps also refers to a case like this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Either you understand or you don’t understand.
[Speaker F] Either you understand or you don’t understand, but if you—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Really don’t understand, and you say “Rabbi Ovadia said it,” because to you it’s obvious that it’s right, but you’re talking nonsense because you don’t know how to learn.
[Speaker H] In whose name does the Magen Avraham say this? What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He brings the laws—I don’t remember if he brings the source from the Talmudic text, but the Machatzit HaShekel brings it. It doesn’t matter; the sources are in the Talmudic text. The Talmudic text says this in two places. I’m saying it in the name of the Talmudic text. It’s written there in the Talmudic text; go check. I can check because it’s… yes, exactly.
[Speaker C] The chance they’ll check is even lower…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Don’t ruin even that for me. In any case, and “something that is bound to be revealed” as well. In any case, it seems to me that this thing, as placed in the topic of “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” shows that the Talmudic text was tremendously impressed by this method. There is a later-authorities-style inquiry there in the Talmudic text. The Talmudic text suddenly understands: wow, this is something deep, wonderful, amazing, we haven’t seen anything like it. Serve me and I’ll tell you what was there. Meaning, this isn’t something I’ll just bring to you in a simple way.
[Speaker G] A new style of Talmudic text, this kind of thinking? Meaning, in that period it was already a period after… the world had already…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This analytical analysis is not common.
[Speaker G] It’s not common in the Talmudic text, but the sages of the period, the sages of Israel—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In practice, no. Once you say it to people, it’s not quantum physics; everyone understands it.
[Speaker G] Not in the Talmudic text, but even then the sages afterward already had the Greeks, philosophy, and there were such sophisticated modes of thought.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the Talmudic text you don’t see it. I don’t know how much they knew Greek forms of thought. The question is who knew what and when. Why is there a mistake in the Talmudic text about the Pythagorean theorem? So what? The Greeks knew that too. Fine. In any case, I’m saying that these inquiries—I once also spoke about this—there was once a conference on the Pnei Yehoshua at Bar-Ilan. So I gave a lecture there on Brisker sparks in the Pnei Yehoshua. And I prefaced it with a few minutes on the problematic nature of this field called the history of ideas. The history of ideas is a very dangerous thing. Once you state an idea, of course you’ll find it all the way back, from Moses our teacher onward, everywhere. If someone wrote enough things, you’ll find that idea there too. After I wrote the book Two Wagons, my first book, I got several kinds of responses. One person said: it’s all already in Rabbi Tzadok. Another said: it’s all already in Rabbi Kook. A third said: it’s all in Rabbi Nachman. A fourth: it’s all in the Maharal. And they were all right.
[Speaker J] And they didn’t know that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, they were all right. When you look there, it really is true. But I’m saying it’s a problematic thing, because only after you conceptualize and define the matters do you look back there and see that it was basically hidden there, like Rabbi Chaim in Maimonides, what I said at the beginning.
[Speaker E] Everything is already in Achilles. What? Everything is in Achilles. Okay. Learning every text starts already with the ancient Greeks.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Many have already asked—there at the conference we saw Rabbi Yonatan. So I’m saying the history of ideas is a very dangerous thing. It’s obvious that after you say it, if it’s not some terribly sophisticated thing, everyone understands. And if everyone understands, then everyone also used it in one way or another implicitly. Even Aristotle, who invented—or defined, conceptualized—logic, obviously people made logical arguments before him too. If every wall is built of stone and this is a wall, then it is built of stone. Everyone understood that even before Aristotle. The bird’s differential calculations, though—
[Speaker G] It’s already like the bird’s differential calculations. Right, right, right, in a certain sense, but—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They knew how to use it. But there is still great value in conceptualizing the idea, putting it in the toolbox so it stands at our disposal. It’s like the Regensburger we discussed in pilpul. Pilpul did not invent ways of thinking that were previously unknown; it conceptualized them. Meaning, it defined methods and put them in the toolbox, and now we have the means to use them. Rabbi Chaim too—that’s what he did. Object and person, cause and sign, it doesn’t matter, all kinds of distinctions of that type, which we now have in the toolbox, and now everyone can pull from there what he needs where he needs it. These things were also known before Rabbi Chaim, but still, he deserves the credit for the idea, because he was the one who conceptualized it for the first time, he understood that there was a general tool here. Okay? That’s exactly the point. Okay. So there’s this inquiry, say, of entirely permitted and overridden. To tell the truth, I’ve always been puzzled by this inquiry, because this inquiry is basically empty of content. There is no practical implication to this inquiry. Think about saving life on the Sabbath: is it entirely permitted or overridden? What practical implication is there? You won’t find any practical implication. Many bring practical implications—the later authorities, the medieval authorities—they bring enormous practical implications. Not one of those practical implications is necessary. For every one of the practical implications, I’ll show you that you can explain it both with entirely permitted and with overridden. Whatever you want, say it.
[Speaker G] Your feeling when you do it? Your feeling? Okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A practical implication for feelings—but why… take one novelty. What? What practical implication? There? That you need to repent. I would maybe say so. No? That if you desecrated the Sabbath to save a life, you committed a transgression, except that it was overridden. Fine, so repent as for an unintentional sin or something like that. In contrast, if it’s entirely permitted, then you didn’t commit any transgression at all, so no repentance is needed. For example. Not true. That’s not a practical implication. Why? If it’s overridden, what transgression did you commit? It’s obvious that this is a transgression that you are obligated to commit. So what? As part of repentance, you have to accept upon yourself not to return to this sin in the future ever again, right? So what will you do in the future when there’s a life-saving situation—leave him to die? Obviously you don’t need to repent when you do something that Jewish law imposes on you as an obligation. You need to repent for that? That’s complete nonsense. What on earth? What kind of silliness is that? Obviously not. So now a second practical implication: maybe one should do it in an unusual manner. If you do labor on the Sabbath in order to save a life, then do it in an unusual manner, because after all there is a transgression here. If it’s entirely permitted, there is no transgression here. Nonsense. Not a practical implication at all. Why? If you can do it in an unusual manner, then who permitted you to do it not in an unusual manner? Even under the view of entirely permitted, I don’t allow you to do it not in an unusual manner.
[Speaker H] If it’s entirely permitted, then it’s not the Sabbath now?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course it’s the Sabbath now. It’s not the Sabbath with respect to the labors required in order to save the life. But if you can do it in an unusual manner, then that labor is not required; do it unusually. You don’t need to do that labor in order to save life.
[Speaker G] You can save his life without labor—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can save his life without desecrating the Sabbath, so they permitted you to desecrate the Sabbath? So even according to entirely permitted, you need to do it in an unusual manner, sorry. What? What kind of practical implication is that? No, this is a practical implication that people often bring. It isn’t a practical implication. Many times what they call entirely permitted and overridden is this practical implication, but it is not really a practical implication between a conception of entirely permitted and a conception of overridden. Some want to claim that truly now it isn’t the Sabbath when there is a sick person. Rabbi Chaim was very stringent in the laws of saving life, as is known—and not lenient in the laws of the Sabbath, but stringent in the laws of saving life. So Rabbi Chaim, following the Maggid Mishneh, wants to claim that it is not the Sabbath at all now, and therefore one need not do it in an unusual manner. But that is not the conception of entirely permitted. It’s just some invention; I don’t know where it was invented from. But the conception of entirely permitted as such does not mean that you need not do it in an unusual manner.
[Speaker B] Yes unusual, no unusual—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so that’s another question. Again, that too is not a practical implication. That too is not a practical implication; they also bring that, and it’s not a practical implication. Why is it not a practical implication? Because then even according to the conception of overridden they tell you not to do it in an unusual manner, because you’re putting him into danger—maybe you’ll think too much and in the end he’ll die. Don’t think about anything, just do what you need and that’s it. So even according to the conception of overridden, you need not think about anything. All these considerations are not considerations of entirely permitted and overridden. People mix them up—even later authorities mix them up with entirely permitted and overridden unjustifiably. There is no practical implication between entirely permitted and overridden, no practical implication whatsoever. It’s an empty inquiry. A practical implication for kiddushin of a woman.
[Speaker B] It could be that there’s no practical implication in it; it’s a form in Jewish law of how to conduct oneself—whether it’s in the form of entirely permitted—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I don’t mind, I’m willing to accept the terminology, but there are no practical implications. There are no true practical implications between an authentic conception of entirely permitted and overridden.
[Speaker B] There’s no difference in the way one feels, as if… no, no, I said there, just as an example—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If one should do it in an unusual manner or not, yes—then you call that entirely permitted; you say no unusual manner is needed. You call overridden the view that does require an unusual manner. But that’s just giving it names; that is not really a practical implication between entirely permitted and overridden. Yes, fine, no, it’s an empty inquiry.
[Speaker F] A practical implication for kiddushin of a woman—that there might be a definition such that if she was betrothed according to one side and another definition—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I don’t see that with entirely permitted and overridden. I don’t know, it sounds—if there’s a suggestion, I’m willing.
[Speaker H] Bringing food to fighters on the Sabbath, okay, if it’s entirely permitted, do you need it? You need it. So that’s exactly what we said. Overridden—then he says, wait, let’s find a non-Jewish driver and bring it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem. But then if you can do
[Speaker H] it by means of a non-Jew—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] then it wasn’t permitted to you without a non-Jew. Why? It doesn’t need to be permitted. The approach is that yes, it’s entirely permitted. So the approach—there are questions. If the thing is not required for saving life, why permit it? Even according to the view of entirely permitted, that is not permitted. What they permitted is only what is necessary.
[Speaker H] Because once you define bringing food to fighters on the Sabbath, say, that is permitted from the outset.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ve returned to your proposal. What you’re saying is that the concept entirely permitted is not really the scholarly entirely permitted; it’s just an expression that says here I permit beyond what is necessary. Fine. But the real, essential, scholarly conception of entirely permitted versus overridden has no practical implication between them. There is no practical implication; I have not found any practical implication.
[Speaker B] Now, Rabbi, could it
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] be—
[Speaker C] that it’s not like that, but simply in places… I don’t know, in the ghetto. Okay, in the ghetto ostensibly you could say, listen, it’s entirely permitted. Okay, everything. Because it doesn’t apply here—I can bring almost any conclusion, in the end it’s all saving life.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There it’s overridden, as it were, everything still exists—
[Speaker C] we’re just in the situation we’re in now where it’s impossible to observe. You can say that everything is overridden, everything, everything is overridden, but not call it entirely permitted. What difference does it make? But everything is overridden. But he still does answer, doesn’t answer. But that isn’t the scholarly entirely permitted and overridden; that’s the layman’s entirely permitted and overridden that all the later authorities use, but they use it in popular language. That’s not correct in scholarly terms. In scholarly terms there is no practical implication between entirely permitted and overridden.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] At least I haven’t found one.
[Speaker B] Overridden is a concept that is not understood just on its own. What does it mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because if Jewish law obligates it, then what transgression is there in it? No, you could say that there’s a transgression from the side of the Sabbath, but a commandment from the side of saving life.
[Speaker G] Not a transgression—there’s a blemish here, there’s a damage—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not a transgression—a blemish, a damage in reality.
[Speaker G] It is permitted to do it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the concept—
[Speaker B] The Sabbath command, the command is the Sabbath command—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is a command. Again, it’s like the chocolate example that I keep coming back to all the time. Yes?
[Speaker B] Eating chocolate, that’s not overridden.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? Two conflicting commands, what’s the problem?
[Speaker B] This command was said under certain conditions and limitations—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, command—no, it wasn’t said under conditions and limitations.
[Speaker J] It’s like a positive commandment overriding a prohibition, like the railing example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, according to most conceptions it is indeed overridden. Only Rav Nissim Gaon there wants to speak of identity. But I’m saying, I’ll give you the example, the chocolate example that I’ve repeated here many times. Suppose there’s a dilemma whether to eat chocolate or not, okay? One says eat chocolate because it tastes good. The other says don’t eat chocolate because it’s fattening. Fine? Now, someone who decides to eat—does he think it isn’t fattening? It depends how he understands it.
[Speaker D] But obviously it is fattening, chocolate. He’s not denying that it’s fattening.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’ll just eat because in his eyes the taste is more important than health, right? And the one who says not to eat also agrees that it tastes good. But in his eyes being healthy is more important than the taste. I’m saying: when you have two commandments, the Sabbath and saving life, and they clash, that doesn’t mean there is no Sabbath prohibition here. There is a Sabbath prohibition here; it’s just that saving life overrides it. No problem. And the Sabbath prohibition remains in place. These are two aspects. It’s true that there is no transgression here, and therefore there won’t be a practical implication, because I don’t need to repent when I fulfilled the will of God. What would I repent for? But you can define it on the theoretical level as a transgression. I’m not mistaken. Exactly, and therefore I say there is—entirely permitted and overridden are different concepts. I’m not claiming there is conceptual identity between them. I’m claiming that the practical implication—there is no conceptual identity. Commandments are not commands. The definition.
[Speaker G] You don’t think that the Sabbath is a thing in itself that you can override.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So if you don’t think that, then you’re right. But I do think that.
[Speaker G] One can frame it that way: the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it because it really does something.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m saying one can frame it in a way that gives meaning to the concepts even though there is no practical implication whatsoever. Yes, if you don’t learn it the way I do. Fine.
[Speaker F] The world of reasons? What? In the world of rules, in the world of reasons.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s already a question of definition. I don’t care—in some conceptual world, call them reasons or laws, however you understand what laws are. Fine, that’s what he said. But you can define it in a way that creates a conceptual distinction even if it has no practical consequence at all. I once brought this from Derashot HaRan, right, where he asks on Sanhedrin 15, where the Talmud says there: how many judges were required for the Sinai ox? That’s the source of the yeshiva jokes about a practical consequence for a woman’s betrothal. The Talmud asks, how many for the Sinai ox? The Ran asks there: what practical difference does the Sinai ox make? The ox that approached the mountain—how many judges were needed to try it? Like the owner’s death or like the ox’s death, meaning it needs to be judged by 23. The Talmud asks, how many for the Sinai ox? Why do I care how many judged the ox back then in the time of Moses when he went up Mount Sinai? Who cares? What practical difference does it make? So the Ran gives two answers there. One answer is that there’s a practical consequence for studying it and receiving reward for it, something like that, if I remember correctly. And the second practical consequence is for a nazirite vow: if someone vows naziriteship on condition that the Sinai ox required 23 judges, the question is whether he becomes a nazirite or not. Now obviously that’s a joke. The point is that these are really one and the same answer. And he’s coming to say: not everything needs a practical consequence. I want to clarify what the truth is. Why should I care about practical consequences? The practical consequence is knowing what the truth is. That’s the practical consequence. No problem. It’s just that there usually isn’t much of a way to figure it out. Because if there are no practical consequences, how will you determine it? You determine things through practical consequences; you look through the practical consequence, like an experiment in the scientific world, right. Fine, but in any case, these are the conceptual investigations. And in investigations like these, very often you have to be extremely careful about investigations that have no halakhic content. Sometimes they also have no conceptual content—that’s the worst kind of investigation. Where you’re just saying the same thing in two different words. It’s exactly the same thing even on the conceptual level. Sometimes there’s a case where it is conceptual—where conceptually you can define two different concepts here—but they have no practical consequence at all. In that case there isn’t much reason to talk about it, or at least you can try and suggest that there are two ways to understand it, but I have no way to decide which is correct because I can’t test it. You could write an entire book about investigations that have no practical consequence. It seems to me that could actually be a very interesting analytic book. No, really. It could be a very interesting analytic book.
[Speaker G] But that’s an investigation with no practical consequence.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not an investigation—it’s a book surveying investigations that have no practical consequence.
[Speaker F] There’s a general rule saying that a claim that can neither be proven nor refuted isn’t a claim.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Popper, yes—the scientific theory. Yes, but I’m not a positivist, I don’t agree.
[Speaker J] It can’t be refuted.
[Speaker F] Why?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because the extreme positivists want to argue that if something has no practical consequence, then it has no meaning at all. And I argue that, as I said earlier, it can have meaning on the conceptual level, and that doesn’t necessarily depend on the existence of a practical consequence. “Set aside” and “permitted” are, in my view, two different meanings, even though I don’t know of any practical consequence between them. Here—there’s a practical consequence for a woman’s betrothal, for example. By the way, I’m just saying this offhand, really just jokingly: a practical consequence for a woman’s betrothal—if you take it seriously, if there’s a conceptual difference, then there’s a practical consequence for a woman’s betrothal, depending on whether this concept is correct or that concept is correct. If there is no conceptual difference, then even a practical consequence for a woman’s betrothal is not a practical consequence, because “set aside” and “permitted” are the same thing. So what does it mean if I say, “I’m a nazirite on condition that this is permitted and not merely set aside”? “Permitted” and “set aside” are the same thing.
[Speaker F] So on this very point, the question is whether it’s a conceptual difference or whether it’s fine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m only saying that if I accept that there is a conceptual difference here—and I do accept that—
[Speaker F] If there’s a conceptual difference, then there ought to be—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The possibility of something—that’s what the positivists claim, and I don’t agree with it. Or at least I don’t see any necessity for it. Maybe they’ll show me that in every case it does.
[Speaker B] Certainly not a halakhic practical consequence—there could—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There could be a practical consequence if I damaged the eternal aspect within the hod. If it’s “set aside,” then there’s some stain there in the eternal aspect within the hod. And if it’s “permitted,” then there’s nothing at all—I didn’t commit any transgression. There’s no practical consequence, because I’m not doing repentance over it. Fine, so there’s no halakhic practical consequence. But an implication—an implication there could be. I’ll call a plumber. Fine, maybe. I don’t know. No, fine, maybe. So that’s a non-halakhic practical consequence. Repairs, repairs. Fine. There are other investigations too that were suspicious in my eyes, like the investigation about damage caused by one’s property. Here: is it because you have to pay when your property caused damage? That whole investigation of Even HaEzel and all the investigations—already before him it started. Do you have to pay because it’s your property, or do you have to pay because you were negligent in guarding it? Right? That’s what the yeshivot spend the whole year of Bava Kamma on, this investigation.
[Speaker F] If you were negligent in guarding it but it didn’t cause damage? Huh? If you were negligent in guarding it but it didn’t cause damage, then yes, you don’t pay.
[Speaker B] There’s nothing to pay for.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there’s no issue there. That’s no issue at all. You pay for the ox itself. No, there’s no problem. Let’s say it was my ox and I was negligent in guarding it. I have to pay all the owners of the oxen around me. I paid them. I gave them back their oxen themselves. You paid zero. Or I paid them zero damages—doesn’t matter what you call it. I paid them a value of zero; the appraisal is zero. Fine. The empty set is also a set, as is well known. Anyway, so… again, there’s a lot to elaborate on in this investigation, because as stated it’s not even formulated correctly. After all, according to everyone, you clearly need both negligence in guarding and that it be your property. Everyone agrees. The only question is what is primary and what is the condition. Meaning: is the main thing the negligence, with the condition that it be your property? Or is the main thing that it’s your property, with the condition that you were negligent? But there’s no way to obligate payment if it isn’t your property or if you weren’t negligent. “Your property” in the broad sense—say, also a guardian, it doesn’t matter, or someone who places another person’s animal onto another person’s standing grain. Meaning, there are also extensions.
[Speaker H] What’s the practical consequence between them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So for a long time I thought there was no practical consequence at all. The plain meaning is that there’s no practical consequence, and understand: almost every class in the yeshivot on Bava Kamma revolves around this investigation. And in every case I suddenly realized that it’s not a practical consequence. You can explain it according to this view and also according to that view. There are places where you’ll see that they bring a practical consequence between the two and reverse it. Meaning, one place explains that the law is X if you say ownership is decisive, and the law is Y if negligence is decisive. And in another yeshiva they’ll give the exact same class with the exact same enthusiasm saying that Y is here and X is there. I’ve already seen several examples of this. Meaning, it’s not—there’s no—no, it’s very hard to find a practical consequence. I found one practical consequence, or maybe you can sort of find one, but that’s the issue. It’s not so simple. Most of the practical consequences are not practical consequences. The practical consequence usually brought—Rav Shmuel brings it—the most common practical consequence is: on whom is the burden of proof? Right? My ox gored someone else’s ox. I claim that I was not negligent, that I guarded it properly and this was an unavoidable accident, so I’m exempt. And he claims that I was negligent in guarding it. Fine? Now, if what obligates me is negligence in guarding, then I claim I was not negligent. Bring proof that I was negligent. The burden of proof is on the claimant. You’re suing me, right? You want payment. I claim I was not negligent. There’s no tort basis here. Prove that I was negligent; the burden of proof is on you. But if the fact that my property caused damage is what obligates me to pay, and only lack of negligence will exempt me, then my property caused damage, so I must pay. Now I want to exempt myself by claiming that I wasn’t negligent. The burden of proof is on me, because I’m the one trying to get out of liability.
[Speaker F] And that’s only if it takes time. What? That’s only if it takes time. What do you mean, time? What do you mean? It doesn’t take time. So what doesn’t take time?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he first—
[Speaker F] Became liable and then afterward he became…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it has nothing to do with time. I’m not talking about possession status. It’s not… you’re thinking like a yeshiva student, in the language of possession status. It has nothing to do with possession status. This is “certainty is not displaced by doubt.” It’s not possession status. I’m not claiming that because my property caused damage, he became the possessor. He’s the claimant; he’s still the claimant. But doubt does not displace certainty. There is definite damage here and doubtful exemption. Doubt does not displace certainty. It has nothing to do with time at all.
[Speaker F] There can’t be liability if both things aren’t there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. If you say that the liability is because my property caused damage, and only I can exempt myself if I wasn’t negligent. You can call that verbal maneuvering. No, it’s not verbal maneuvering. That’s the conception, that’s the second side of the investigation. What do you mean? This is what obligates, and that other thing is a condition. What’s the problem? That’s the straightforward conception.
[Speaker F] What difference does it make what you call the obligating factor and what you call the condition?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here, it makes a difference for this.
[Speaker F] You need both details.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter. But one of them is needed so as not to be exempt, not in order to obligate. Negligence is not required in order to obligate me; rather, if I was not negligent then I’m exempt. What is required in order to obligate me is that my property caused damage.
[Speaker F] I’ll say a third side: that I need both.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem, but according to that side there is a practical consequence. You’ll say a third side, but according to the side I just stated there is a practical consequence, that’s all. So there is a practical consequence.
[Speaker F] No, you need both details, so what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, one of them is needed and the other is a condition. A condition. No, having a role doesn’t make it the same thing. It’s not the same thing, it simply isn’t the same thing. Negligence is an exempting factor, not one of the obligating factors—it exempts. No, afterward that becomes a way of looking at possession status. Fine, you’re claiming that once it caused damage he became the possessor, and now I want to exempt myself, so he’s the possessor and the burden of proof is on me. No! It’s not because he’s the possessor. I’m the possessor, and still the burden of proof is on me. Because a possessor who wants to exempt himself bears the burden of proof even though he is the possessor. In another second I’ll show this more clearly in the Chazon Ish. Look. Usually there’s a dispute between the Chazon Ish and Pnei Yehoshua on this issue—on whom the burden of proof falls. And they always say that the dispute is about this, the question whether negligence in guarding is what obligates or…
[Speaker B] There’s just an independent investigation here about burden of proof; you also have to agree that this is the investigation. I can simply agree, in terms of legal theory, that in reality there’s a basis of both.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so the third side is fine, but between these two sides there is a practical consequence. That’s why I said—he also wanted to say a third side. What do you mean, agree? I’m raising two possibilities. You can’t not agree. There are two possibilities. There’s also a third possibility. There’s also a third possibility.
[Speaker B] Between those first two possibilities, you can’t—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —exempt me because I hold… no problem, and there are three possibilities.
[Speaker B] I’m asking whether there’s a practical consequence between the first two. That’s all. Let there be a practical consequence between them regardless of the third possibility—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —whether it exists or not. In practice, if I say… there is a practical consequence. If one person thinks this way and another thinks that way, will there be a difference between them in Jewish law? There may also be someone who thinks the third way, fine, a third position. Between the first two, is there a practical consequence? There won’t be a practical consequence in the actual ruling. Always… if there are only two possibilities, not three. If the law follows the second possibility, then there’s no practical consequence, because the law follows the second possibility. I’m asking about the practical consequence between the different positions. So if there are three positions, no problem, then I look for a practical consequence between every pair. It doesn’t matter. The legal ruling comes afterward. In short, here too it’s not simple. The Chazon Ish, for example, writes—the Chazon Ish says that the burden of proof is on the damager in every case. Pnei Yehoshua says it’s on the damaged party. And the Chazon Ish says that the burden of proof is on the damager. And then they always explain him as saying that this is because he holds that the very damage done by one’s property creates liability, while negligence in guarding exempts. But when you actually look inside the Chazon Ish—it was Rabbi Blumentzweig who once pointed this out to me—when you look inside the Chazon Ish, it simply doesn’t say that. All the later authorities repeat this and all the yeshivot always say it—the dispute between Pnei Yehoshua and the Chazon Ish. Nonsense. The Chazon Ish explicitly writes the opposite. The Chazon Ish writes that the burden of proof is on the damager because his claim is less plausible. Because if damage occurred, then it is likely that you were negligent. Otherwise why did it cause damage? If you guarded it properly, it’s unlikely that it caused damage. It can happen—otherwise it would be simply impossible—but it’s improbable. And that’s a major novelty in the Chazon Ish. His novelty is that someone making an implausible claim loses the advantage of possession status. Meaning, not everyone holding money counts as the legal possessor. If you make an implausible claim, then even if you are holding the money, you won’t count as the possessor. The burden of proof will be on you. That’s his novelty. Doesn’t matter right now; I don’t want to get into the details. I’m only trying to show the structure. What does that mean? That the Chazon Ish is really claiming that the possessor is in fact me. Or in other words, according to the Chazon Ish, what creates the obligation to pay? Negligence in guarding. Right. Not my property having caused damage, correct? I’m not trying to exempt myself; he is trying to obligate me. And since my defense claim is an implausible one, the burden of proof is on me. That’s his novelty. So you see that even according to the conception that what obligates is negligence in guarding, it can still be that the burden of proof is on the damager and not on the damaged party. That remains open. But it is still a practical consequence in the other direction. Meaning, someone who says that the burden of proof is—
[Speaker E] Or someone who says that the very fact—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that my property caused damage is what obligates me to pay, will certainly say that the burden of proof is on the damager. Someone who says that the burden of proof is on the damager does not necessarily say that, but someone who says that certainly says that the burden of proof is on the damager. I think that really is a practical consequence. Now the nice thing is… well, this already is… that in another place I can prove to you that Pnei Yehoshua says the opposite of what he writes in this passage about burden of proof. He says that the burden of proof is on the damaged party. And therefore it would seem from his approach that if the burden of proof is on the damaged party, that means the damager is really the… that negligence in guarding is the stronger claim.
[Speaker H] As if… wait.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The fact that my property caused damage is what obligates me to pay. Right. And therefore really… yes, exactly. And therefore… no, sorry, no. The opposite. Negligence in guarding is what obligates. Right. Negligence in guarding is what obligates.
[Speaker D] I got pulled to the other side, you could say. Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And then also… right. And therefore even according to Pnei Yehoshua, it’s not necessary. More than that: in Pnei Yehoshua I can show you elsewhere, in another Talmudic passage, that he holds that it is one’s property causing damage that creates the obligation to pay, and not negligence in guarding. I have proof of that. And if I have proof of that, then it means there is a practical consequence to this investigation, because otherwise how could there be proof? Proof always means that I can show he says this practical consequence one way and not the other. The practical consequence is in the case of setting a dog on someone. There is a very strange position that comes up in several places in the Talmud, and later authorities explain it already in a few places—Pnei Yehoshua among them explains it. If I set someone else’s dog on another person, then I’m exempt. Why? Because the dog isn’t mine; it isn’t my property. Right? So why isn’t the dog’s owner liable? Because he isn’t at fault, he wasn’t negligent—I incited the dog. So either way, what happens if I set my own dog on someone else’s property? There’s a view in the Talmud that I’m exempt. I set my own dog on someone else’s property and I’m exempt. If I didn’t guard the dog properly and it caused damage, I’m liable. I just left the door open. But if I actually spurred it on to cause damage, I’m exempt? Human beings. Right, human beings. Why? How can such a thing be? It simply can’t be—is that even the same category? No, no—if I didn’t guard it properly, I’m liable. The only way I can make sense of this is only according to the view that what obligates payment is that my property caused damage. That seems to me to be a real practical consequence. Why? One second, I’ll explain. Why? Because if what obligates is my property causing damage, then what’s the idea here? When the dog causes damage—and this needs a lot of elaboration—when the dog causes damage, the one obligated to pay is the dog, not me. At least in damage by goring, that’s how it is. That’s why, in the case of a non-habitual goring ox, payment is collected from the body of the ox itself, because the ox has to pay. Except what? The ox belongs to me. So therefore in practical terms it comes out that I give from my property, but really the obligation is on the ox. And when the ox has an owner, then the obligation on the ox passes to the owner, and the owner has to pay the money in place of the ox because an ox can’t pay. There is no ox. If the ox dies then payment is collected from its body, but that’s not… the ox has no way to pay. For example, an ownerless wild ox that caused damage—the Talmud says that payment is collected from its body. An ownerless ox that caused damage—it caused damage, fine. And now I come and acquire the ox; it was ownerless. I’m just some unrelated person. Then the damaged party comes and says, wait a second, I’m owed payment. How are you taking this ox? I’m owed payment from the ox. They’ll tell him, what do you want? It’s an ox that caused damage. Sue the ox—what do you want from me? The Talmud says it belongs to the damaged party. Why? Because that ownerless ox is liable to pay the damaged party from its own body. If it has an owner, then that payment passes to the owner, and the owner pays money in place of the ox. That’s an additional novelty. But for that you need negligence in guarding. Meaning, property that causes damage must pay because it is my property that must pay. When I was negligent in guarding it—that’s why you need both elements. When I was negligent in guarding it, then the Torah imposes my property’s liability onto me. Now, since he can’t sue my property, he has a problem. But if I was negligent in guarding it, he comes to me, and I have to pay what my property really became obligated to pay. Now what happens when I set my own dog on someone?
[Speaker G] Isn’t that an a fortiori argument?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When I set my own dog on someone—when I’m the one who incited the dog—the dog isn’t liable to pay, because it isn’t at fault. I incited it; it was under compulsion. So there’s no liability on the dog. So what difference does it make that I was negligent in guarding it? There’s no liability to transfer onto me so that I should pay, because the dog itself isn’t liable to pay. After all, the dog has to be liable to pay, and then if I was negligent in guarding it, that passes to me. But if the dog isn’t at fault and it isn’t liable to pay, then so what if I was negligent in guarding it?
[Speaker J] And what appears in the Talmud, right, the medieval authorities and later authorities—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The later authorities say this even about my own dog.
[Speaker J] No, how do they explain this? That it isn’t even the same category.
[Speaker C] So whenever the Talmud says “liable to pay,” is that about the property? It’s liable—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I pay because I was negligent.
[Speaker C] When the Talmud says “liable to pay,” does it mean the property?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes.
[Speaker J] Rashi…
[Speaker C] And every time it says “I’m liable to pay,” that’s the owner?
[Speaker J] Why is he liable to pay? Why? Now the dog isn’t liable, but you should be liable? No, you’re not liable. Oh yes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t remember exactly.
[Speaker J] A different kind of liability. But a different kind of liability, like liability—
[Speaker F] It’s not the liability that you took from the dog and transferred to me.
[Speaker J] No—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Setting on is like you did it yourself. Ah—it’s like placing another person’s animal onto another person’s standing grain. There’s a dispute between Tosafot and Rashba whether that is damage caused by a person or damage caused by property. Right—placing another person’s animal onto another person’s standing grain, where one is liable. But that’s not my animal, so why am I liable? It isn’t my animal. So the medieval authorities ask that there. Some of them want to say that this is damage caused by a person. That animal is like my axe; I positioned it there. Others say it’s damage caused by property. That’s Tosafot and Rashba there at the beginning of HaKones.
[Speaker B] The first time they talked about setting a dog on someone too—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Same thing.
[Speaker B] Same thing—that one is liable.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? The Talmud says one is liable.
[Speaker B] Does it say “setting a dog on someone” is liable?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Setting a dog on someone—no, exempt, sorry, exempt, yes.
[Speaker B] And what are they saying here about setting a dog on someone?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] About setting a dog on someone—no, it’s a dispute in the Talmud. That opinion in the Talmud would go with the opinion that in the case of placing the animal there, one would probably also be exempt. That’s… it wasn’t. Yes.
[Speaker F] What if this is damage by eating, and there it’s damage by goring?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Maybe if you say “my pit,” then maybe altogether this was only said about goring, where the liability is on the property itself, and then altogether… Next week, God willing, we’ll see it on 22a. The Talmud there will discuss it; there’s a dispute there in the Talmud whether in the case of placing the animal there one is exempt or liable. It wasn’t here. And then we’ll see whether it really depends on this investigation, or whether it depends on other things too. Fine, let’s move on. The Mishnah says: there is a stringency in the case of an ox over a pit, because the ox pays ransom and is liable for the thirty shekels for a slave, which is not the case with a pit. An ox that killed is subject to the law of ransom and the law of the thirty shekels for a slave; a pit that killed is exempt from ransom and exempt from the thirty shekels for a slave. The Talmud brings sources for these laws. The source for the exemption of a pit from ransom is the verse: “The owner of the pit shall pay; he shall return money to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his.” “He shall return money to its owner”—excluding ransom. The Talmud learns from here that a pit is exempt from ransom. And the Talmud asks: maybe we should learn it from an ox? If an ox, which is liable to death, is liable for ransom, then a pit, which is not liable to death, should all the more so be liable for ransom. The Talmud answers: the Torah excluded it—“The owner of the pit shall pay”: he pays money, but not ransom. The Mishnah continues: and it is liable for the thirty shekels of a slave. An ox that killed a slave pays thirty shekels. A pit that killed a slave is exempt. The source for this too is from a verse: “He shall return money to its owner”—he pays monetary damages, but not the thirty shekels for a slave. The Talmud discusses this: why did the Torah really distinguish between an ox and a pit in these laws of ransom and slave compensation? After all, in the end, in both cases there is death, and in both cases there is monetary damage. Rather, in the case of an ox the Torah revealed special liabilities to us, and in the case of a pit the Torah excluded them. We’ll see in the Talmud the precise details in the scriptural derivations—how these exclusions are learned—and what reasoning lies behind them. Is it because the ox is alive and a pit is inanimate, or is there some other definition here in the laws of monetary liability?