Uncertainty and Probability—in Halakha, Philosophy, and in General—Lesson 43 – Rabbi Michael Abraham
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
- Two majorities, majority within a majority, and parallel majorities
- The dispute between the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef regarding the law of “water with no visible boundary”
- Value-weight, rationality, and decisions in interpreting the Sages
- Halakhic policy, motivation, and reasoning: the distinction between Modern Orthodox and Reform
- The Chazon Ish’s claim: if a majority is not enough, why would a majority within a majority help?
- A proposed metaphysical explanation and its rejection
- Negative majority, positive majority, and three levels: majority, overwhelming majority, and absolute majority
- The preliminary condition for permitting an agunah: factual conviction that the husband is dead
- A homily on Parashat Beha’alotekha: Miriam, Tzipporah, and gossip
- Applications, open questions, and then a siren and Zoom
Summary
General overview
The text continues a discussion of permitting agunot through the principle of trei rubei and the distinction between ruba deruba and two “parallel” majorities, raising the question of what it means to multiply majorities as opposed to relying on a single majority. It presents a sharp dispute between the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef over where the novelty introduced by the Sages lies in the law of water with a visible boundary and water with no visible boundary, and connects this to the value tension between the desire to save an agunah and the fear of making a mistake in the severe prohibition of a married woman. The discussion then broadens into a conversation about rationality, adopting premises, “agenda,” and halakhic policy, and proposes a distinction between the motivation to seek a leniency and a halakhic argument that stands on its own. Finally, it offers a systematic explanation of why ruba deruba may help specifically when dealing with a “negative” majority that cannot be quantified, dividing the concept into an ordinary majority, an “overwhelming majority,” and an “absolute majority,” while setting a preliminary condition: permitting an agunah begins only once there is factual conviction that the husband is dead.
Two majorities, majority within a majority, and parallel majorities
The text describes a case of permitting an agunah after a plane crash: there is doubt whether the pilot was killed on impact, and even if he was not killed there is doubt whether he drowned at sea; and in water with no visible boundary one permits here on the basis of trei rubei, because to prohibit one would have to rule stringently at two “junctions.” It brings a case attributed to Rabbi Herzog in which there is doubt whether the man fell onto land or into the sea, and on either side there is a majority that he died, and it states that this is not trei rubei in the sense of ruba deruba, because the majorities are parallel and do not “eat into” one another’s minority. It illustrates that one can “generate” additional artificial splits (first kilometer/second/third) without changing anything, because all the paths lead to the same distribution, so there is no multiplication of probabilities that reduces the minority. It defines ruba deruba as a majority within a majority, where the second majority narrows the minority left by the first majority, and demonstrates this numerically (for example 80/20 and then within the 20 another 80/20) until one reaches a higher death rate than from the first majority alone.
The dispute between the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef regarding the law of water with no visible boundary
The text states that the Chazon Ish opposes a leniency based on ruba deruba even in cases where the structure really is a majority within a majority, because the Sages prohibited water with no visible boundary and permitted water with a visible boundary, and “you have only what they explicitly permitted.” It presents Rabbi Ovadia Yosef as arguing the opposite: to prohibit you need a reason, and the novelty lies precisely in the prohibition in water with no visible boundary despite the fact that most likely the husband died; therefore “you limit a novelty to its explicit case” is said about the prohibition, and elsewhere one follows the simple logic that the husband is dead and the woman is permitted. It formulates the issue as a matter of starting point: is the novelty the leniency, and therefore it is restricted, or is the novelty the prohibition, and therefore that is what gets restricted?
Value-weight, rationality, and decisions in interpreting the Sages
The text describes two “weights” in permitting agunot: the woman’s severe distress on the one hand, and the grave fear of a mistake that would lead to mamzerut and the harsh consequences of “she must leave both this one and that one” on the other. It ties the question “what did the Sages innovate here?” to a value judgment about what is more obvious as a starting point: the prohibition of a married woman or the agunah’s suffering, and argues that such a judgment affects how one understands the novelty. It presents a discussion in which it is argued that there is no real separation between “cold rational discussion” and values, because every logical inference rests on premises, and the adoption of premises is itself part of rationality. It objects to describing this as “agenda” in the negative sense, and distinguishes between drawing conclusions from relevant premises and forcing an unreasonable interpretation because of a prior image.
Halakhic policy, motivation, and reasoning: the distinction between Modern Orthodox and Reform
The text argues that one should not say “we need to be creative” or “we need to be lenient” as a method; rather, one should say what seems correct, and act accordingly whether the result is leniency or stringency. It says that explicit halakhic policy belongs to scholars who analyze decisors, not to the decisors themselves, because a halakhic decisor is not supposed to choose an interpretation because “he wants to permit,” but because it is the correct interpretation, even if a scholar later analyzes his tendencies. It distinguishes between being motivated to look for ways to permit and using the distress itself as the argument, and says that this is the difference between Modern Orthodox and Reform: the Reform approach permits because of the distress, whereas the Modern Orthodox approach uses the distress as motivation to search for internally halakhic arguments that really hold up. It adds that the effect of motivation always exists in human beings, but is not supposed to function as an explicit consideration in the ruling itself.
The Chazon Ish’s claim: if a majority is not enough, why would a majority within a majority help?
The text sharpens a strong claim attributed to the Chazon Ish: if in water with no visible boundary one does not rely on even a large majority, then there is no principled reason to distinguish between a single large majority and a majority within a majority that reaches the same numerical result, because trei rubei is only a way of calculating the majority. It compares this to a double doubt, where there is a substantive change from a 50/50 probability to 75/25, and argues that in ruba deruba there is no such substantive change if in the end it is just a “bigger majority.” It gives the example that trei rubei of 51/49 still leaves a significant chance that the husband is alive, so no halakhic decisor would actually permit in practice, which shows that the underlying assumption is not mathematics alone.
A proposed metaphysical explanation and its rejection
The text proposes an explanation that it does not accept, based on an approach attributed to Eli Merzbach according to which the Holy One, blessed be He, “hides” behind statistics and acts in the world through decisions within the distribution. According to this explanation, the difference between one majority and ruba deruba is the number of “interventions” required to save the person: with one majority, one “miracle” is enough, while with a majority within a majority two miracles are needed, and therefore one does not assume they will occur. It challenges this by saying that such an explanation is strained and creates problems even when both majorities lean toward survival, and it rejects making Jewish law dependent on such metaphysics, arguing that statistics reflect laws of nature rather than hidden individualized decisions.
Negative majority, positive majority, and three levels: majority, overwhelming majority, and absolute majority
The text proposes a principled solution: the distinction between an ordinary majority and ruba deruba becomes meaningful when we are dealing with a “negative” majority for which there is no quantitative data, rather than a “positive” majority that can be measured numerically. It argues that if the majority is positive, the Chazon Ish is right that there is no principled difference between one majority and the product of multiple majorities, because what matters is the bottom line; but in almost all agunah cases we are dealing with a negative majority such as “most people who fall into the sea drown,” without a precise rate. It proposes a conceptual division into three levels: an “ordinary majority,” which does not even open the discussion of permitting an agunah; an “overwhelming majority,” which leads to a strong factual conclusion but still is not enough on the rabbinic level in water with no visible boundary; and an “absolute majority,” which is the practical certainty required to permit. It argues that ruba deruba is a mechanism meant to ensure that we have reached an absolute majority specifically when the majority cannot be quantified, because the product of two overwhelming majorities quickly gets us into the zone of practical certainty.
The preliminary condition for permitting an agunah: factual conviction that the husband is dead
The text states that discussions about permitting an agunah begin only where, factually, it is clear that the husband is dead, and all the halakhic “maneuvers” are meant to get around formal barriers only after reality has already been settled in the judge’s mind. It explains that trei rubei of 51/49 does not fail because it lacks the formal condition of trei rubei; rather, it fails at the prior condition of factual conviction, so one never enters the discussion at all. It argues that in permitting an agunah there is no practical significance to “majority” in the ordinary halakhic sense of 51%, because no one would permit when there remains a real possibility that the husband is alive; only an “absolute majority” enables permission. It connects this to the pattern of “extreme stringencies” on the level of establishing death, alongside “extreme leniencies” on the formal level once the death is clear.
A homily on Parashat Beha’alotekha: Miriam, Tzipporah, and gossip
The text incorporates a short homily on Parashat Beha’alotekha: Miriam and Aaron speak about Moses “because of the Cushite woman whom he had taken,” and Rashi explains that “Cushite” comes to indicate beauty, just as everyone acknowledges the dark complexion of a Cushite. It describes how Miriam saw that Tzipporah was not adorning herself, heard that Moses had separated from her because he needed to remain ready for prophecy, and told Aaron in puzzlement why Moses was being more stringent than they were. It states that the Holy One, blessed be He, clarifies that Moses is not like the other prophets and that “mouth to mouth I speak with him,” and Miriam is punished with leprosy even though she meant well, in order to teach the severity of gossip even when it is spoken out of concern.
Applications, open questions, and then a siren and Zoom
The text includes a practical interruption following an air-raid siren and a move to the safe room, along with a short discussion about following instructions and the question of someone who hears a siren on Zoom while not being in the danger zone. It raises the possibility that the law of water with a visible boundary itself may be understood as the source for the structure of ruba deruba—most likely he drowned, and most likely if he had emerged he would have been seen—but notes that the second majority is not necessarily “overwhelming,” so perhaps an ordinary majority joining an overwhelming one is enough to reduce the minority. It notes that this may serve in examining various rulings, and mentions as an example questions about Maimonides’ rulings in the laws of divorce regarding dangers such as snakes and scorpions, arguing that if Maimonides permitted, that must mean that in his view the factual plane involved an absolute majority.
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Full Transcript
[Speaker B] We talked
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Last time about permitting agunot and about the principle of trei rubei in permitting agunot. And we saw that there are two cases brought by the halakhic decisors—of course there are many cases, and we took two as examples. One case is a plane crash, where there is one doubt that the pilot was killed at the moment of impact, and even if he fell, he fell into the sea, and then maybe he survived and maybe he didn’t survive. That’s trei rubei. Most likely he was killed, and even if not, most likely he drowned in the sea. Again, this is water with no visible boundary, because with water with a visible boundary we permit even without any addition, but here it’s water with no visible boundary, and we permit it by virtue of trei rubei. We saw several examples of that kind of leniency, and I said that trei rubei is basically some sort of multiplication of probabilities. We saw the tree diagram that describes this situation: we have one doubt whether, say, he was killed in the impact of the plane itself or remained alive, and even if he remained alive he fell into the sea, so then there is doubt whether he drowned in the sea and maybe he didn’t drown in the sea. So basically, in order to permit her—in order to prohibit the woman—I have to rule stringently at two junctions, and therefore this is called trei rubei, and we permit the woman.
We saw a case of Rabbi Herzog, which is more problematic, because Rabbi Herzog is basically talking about a case—at least that’s how his wording sounds—where there is doubt whether the person fell onto land or whether he fell into the sea. If he fell onto land, there is a majority that he died, and if he fell into the sea there is also a majority that he died. In that situation he calls it trei rubei, but that’s a mistake. It’s not trei rubei, because here the majorities are parallel and don’t come one after the other; one does not eat into the other. Rather, these are two majorities that are basically operating in parallel. If he fell onto land, there is a majority that he died and a minority that he lived; and if he fell into the sea, there is also a majority that he died and a minority that he lived. So in practice it’s one majority, because in both… it doesn’t matter whether you go right or left at the upper junction, your situation is the same: a majority that he died and a minority that he lived. So there is no multiplication here that reduces the chance of permitting—and therefore the chance of prohibiting—so this is not a case of trei rubei.
I said that, in principle, let’s say a person fell onto land and most likely he died; still, you could say there is doubt whether he fell in the kilometer closest to the sea, where there is a majority that he died, or in the second kilometer nearest the sea, where there is a majority that he died, or in the third kilometer nearest the sea, where again there is a majority that he died. I can generate as many doubts as you want in that way, but of course that changes nothing, because it doesn’t matter whether he fell in the first kilometer, the second, or the third—in every case there is the same distribution: most likely he died and a minority chance that he lived. So the extra split does not reduce the chance that the woman is permitted—it doesn’t mean she is prohibited, sorry—it changes nothing. It’s one majority. That’s not called trei rubei, or maybe you can call it trei rubei, but not ruba deruba. Ruba deruba is a majority within a majority, right? If he fell onto land, then he died; if he fell into the sea, then even if you say he fell into the sea, still most likely he died—so that’s ruba deruba.
Say there is an 80% chance he fell onto land and a 20% chance he fell into the sea, and if he fell into the sea there is an 80% chance he died and a 20% chance he lived. Now, if falling into the sea would have meant complete rescue—if it were clear that he would come out alive—then the probabilities would be 80/20: 80 that he fell onto land and died, and 20 that he fell into the sea and survived. But since even in the sea most likely he drowns—80% that he drowns—then in practice the chances that he died are 96%, not 80%. The second majority eats into the minority of the first majority, and so it reduces the minority and therefore strengthens the leniency more. Think about it: if there is an 80% chance he fell onto land and a 20% chance he fell into the sea, then out of that 20% which, at least on the face of it, is what would leave her still prohibited because he is still alive—even from that I take away 80%, because maybe after all he died there too. So that 80% eats into the minority of 20% from the first majority. Therefore it is very important that the structure be a multiplicative structure.
By contrast, in Rabbi Herzog’s case, if he fell onto land there is an 80/20 split that he died, and if he fell into the sea there is also an 80/20 split that he died. The second majority does not eat into the minority of the first majority; they simply exist in parallel. Therefore this is not ruba deruba. Again, maybe you can call it trei rubei—we’ll see later—but it is not ruba deruba.
[Speaker C] What exactly happens in trei rubei? I mean, after all, you can still include everything and make some kind of statistic, no…?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s what I started talking about last time, and I’ll continue today. That’s our topic. So indeed we saw that the Chazon Ish completely opposes this whole idea of permitting on the basis of ruba deruba. Even in Rabbi Ovadia’s case, not only in Rabbi Herzog’s case, but even in a case where it really is ruba deruba. He opposes it. Why does he oppose it? He says: we found no such thing. Water with no visible boundary the Sages prohibited; water with a visible boundary they permitted; and you have only what they permitted. Meaning, we cannot permit beyond what they permitted. Rabbi Ovadia says the opposite. In order to prohibit, you need a reason, because after all, with water… the novelty is that they prohibit in water with no visible boundary, not that they permit in water with a visible boundary. Right? Their dispute is over the question of where the novelty lies. In water with no visible boundary we prohibit; in water with a visible boundary we permit. Which of those is the novelty? The Chazon Ish claims that the novelty is the leniency in water with a visible boundary. And therefore he says: you limit a novelty to its explicit case. That is what we found; that is the novelty. But beyond that we cannot permit. Rabbi Ovadia, by contrast, says the opposite: of course we should permit here. The novelty is that in water with no visible boundary we nevertheless prohibit, despite the fact that most likely the husband is dead. Nevertheless we prohibit. That is a great novelty, and you limit a novelty to its explicit case. Where we found this novelty, we found it; and elsewhere we follow the simple logic. If the husband is dead, then the woman is permitted. So basically the question is: what is the starting point? Where exactly is the novelty here? Now, in a…
[Speaker C] How does the Rabbi explain their dispute? Is it just such a simple dispute on some abstract level, or does the dispute come from their original orientation, what they are aiming to rule?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Orientation” is already a loaded word, but yes. I mean, I spoke about the fact that in permitting agunot there are two very heavy weights here, in both directions. On the one hand, we have a major motivation to permit, because the woman is in terrible distress. On the other hand, we are very afraid—very greatly afraid—to permit, because if we permit unlawfully, meaning if the husband didn’t die and then comes back, we are in serious trouble. The woman married someone else, her children are mamzerim, “she must leave both this one and that one,” the whole story from the haftarah. So the weights on both sides of permitting an agunah are very, very heavy. Now the question is how you view the permitting of the agunah: is the novelty that we permit the agunah despite the fact that she is a married woman, or is the novelty that we prohibit the agunah despite the distress? In other words, there are two… the question is which of the two weights you take as your starting point. Is your starting point the fear of permitting, because this is the prohibition of a married woman and it’s terrible, and then of course the novelty is that in water with a visible boundary we permit? Or is your starting point: no, what are you talking about? The woman is so miserable that obviously in any situation where I can permit, I will permit; leave me alone with the formalistic concerns. And therefore the basic point is that I permit, and the novelty is that in water with no visible boundary, even though the husband probably died, we nevertheless do not permit. So I limit that only to where it was explicitly said.
[Speaker C] So that’s really a classic example of a value judgment, right? One that affects rational considerations that ostensibly don’t quite follow from it, but here we are simply deciding them in light of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s rational too. What’s not rational
[Speaker C] about it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] These are two conceptions.
[Speaker C] Yes, but both are rational. Seemingly you should say: I can’t know what’s right here. But you say: I do know. Why? Because I want something else. What does wanting have to do with it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I said “orientation” is a loaded word. I’m not talking about what you want. I’m talking about the question of what, from your value standpoint, carries more weight. The woman’s misery, or the difficulty of permitting a married woman to the general public. I’m not talking now about wanting in the subjective sense.
[Speaker C] Right, no, I didn’t mean want or not want in an interested, self-serving sense. I meant in the value sense, exactly as the Rabbi described so nicely. But how does that connect to the cold rational consideration? What does it have to do with it? You need to decide whether the novelty of the Sages is this or whether the novelty of the Sages is that. Seemingly that’s some kind of legal-juridical consideration that should be weighed on its own. But you decide it based on…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the discussion here is a value discussion. I’m asking: what did the Sages innovate? So I say, what do you mean, what did the Sages innovate? If it is value-wise obvious to me that the woman should be prohibited, then the innovation of the Sages is the permissive case. And if it is obvious to me that the woman should be permitted, then the innovation of the Sages is the prohibitive case. That sounds simple to me. Why?
[Speaker C] Why? Seemingly the novelty of the Sages is a matter that—if we could meet the Sages—we would ask them: tell us, what was your basic premise? That she is permitted and there is a novelty to prohibit, or that she is prohibited and there is a novelty to permit? Then they would answer one way or the other. We don’t know what they would answer us. But we can’t meet them, so we have to guess what they thought, and we decide what they thought based on what we think is important, which isn’t necessarily connected—there may be no objective truth in that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, fine. If I think this is important, then in my estimation the Sages also thought this was important, because I really believe that this is what is important. What do you mean?
[Speaker C] But they seemingly decided according to what Jewish law is, what
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] God told us
[Speaker C] in the revelation at Mount Sinai,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does the revelation at Mount Sinai have to do with it? They too decided by the same consideration—what seemed to them, from the starting point, to be most important.
[Speaker C] Ah, so it turns out that the Sages’ decision—no, but this has very broad implications for how the Sages decided. They didn’t decide because of some truth detached from people’s lives, but according to what matters to us in our lives. And that is…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Important in a value sense, yes, certainly. What’s the question?
[Speaker C] A value matter that is deeply connected to what matters to us in life.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, that’s already another discussion that we won’t get into now, but some value scale of some sort—never mind exactly which. A lot of disputes in these contexts are connected to some sort of value scale. Why is that surprising? It sounds obvious to me.
[Speaker C] No, because usually the arguments are conducted as rational arguments about various things in our lives—about politics, about the war. “Rational” means, supposedly, that we say we weigh it rationally in light of considerations of pure, distilled truth, and then there is what matters to us, which is unrelated.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, no, no.
[Speaker C] So the answer is that the separation is artificial and not correct.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The separation is artificial because you are defining incorrectly what a rational consideration is. You assume that a rational consideration is only a logical one, and I claim that every logical consideration is based on premises, and adopting premises is part of rational thinking. Because if adopting premises were not part of rational thinking, then what do I care that deriving conclusions from the premises is rational? What’s the point? Obviously, if I believe in rational thought, I also have to include in it the way I adopt premises.
[Speaker C] True, but when I adopt those premises, I pretend, I justify myself, I wrap myself in the mantle of pure objectivity that is unrelated to any personal values.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it is related to values.
[Speaker C] The consideration…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The objective value judgment leads me to this conclusion. It is completely related to values. The discussion is about values.
[Speaker C] Meaning in the end what determines things is what seems right to me, not what is actually right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But in a value discussion, that’s always how it is. I don’t understand. A value discussion is always about what matters.
[Speaker C] Right, but since I determine the premises based on value considerations, then when I come to the discussion itself I kind of say: no, you’re the one coming with an agenda—why are you coming with an agenda? But really every person comes with an agenda, and that affects his premises.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not agenda. I don’t call this an agenda.
[Speaker C] Why not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because this is what I think is correct. That’s not an agenda.
[Speaker C] No, an agenda is my scale of values. What else is an agenda?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] An agenda is, for example, in a place where I don’t know—let’s say you think Bibi is thoroughly wicked, for example—and you interpret something he did in a way that is not compelled by the facts because you assume in advance that he is thoroughly wicked. Or the other way around, it doesn’t matter. For me that is agenda, in the negative connotation, in the negative sense. But the fact that I interpret something on the basis of my premises—that’s not an agenda.
[Speaker C] No, but also to decide… obviously the Bibi/not-Bibi argument is superficial, because you need to get down to the basic premises: why did you decide he is like this or like that, and then…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You need justified reasons, fine, I don’t care, we’ll get to those arguments and discussions soon enough. But still, that isn’t necessarily relevant to your interpretation of what he is doing now. Suppose the question is whether he is managing the war well. So, you know, almost all those who oppose Bibi say he’s not managing it well, and all those who support Bibi say he is managing it well. Now the question of whether Bibi is corrupt or not corrupt—what does that have to do with the question of how he is managing the war?
[Speaker C] Right, because…
[Speaker D] …
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s agenda.
[Speaker C] Right—no—but for example, speaking about myself, I’m very critical, the Rabbi knows my position on Bibi from the coronavirus onward, including and especially the war in Gaza, but I…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But for many people, that’s what I call agenda. But agenda is not that if I have premises I derive conclusions from them. That is not called agenda. That is rational thinking.
[Speaker E] There is…
[Speaker D] But there is an assumption, there is a rational basic assumption based on analysis of the past, and it also affects our opinion about the way the war is being conducted, and it—wait, wait—and no, but it, I don’t know, call it agenda or call it assumptions from the past that I analyze, namely that his considerations are not substantive and only involve political considerations.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not what I came to discuss—Bibi’s conduct. That’s not the point. I’m saying: if you have relevant considerations from which you derive your conclusions, that’s perfectly fine. You may draw the conclusion that he is managing the war incorrectly, and even if you take into account—not only even if, but perhaps especially if—you take into account the background you know about him, your position regarding him, that’s fine. I’m talking about a situation where there are no indications that he is managing the war incorrectly; on the contrary. But you force the unreasonable interpretation because you have an agenda. That is what I call agenda. I’m not saying that everyone against Bibi is agenda-driven, or everyone for him—it doesn’t matter, I’m saying it symmetrically, it goes in both directions. But here in this context I have some premise and from it I draw a conclusion—that’s not an agenda. That’s perfectly fine. Yes, it reminds me of Aharon Barak’s remarks about Ruth Gavison—yes, agenda.
[Speaker D] So in any case…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe I’ll add another remark here since it came up. Once I participated in some panel with two yeshiva heads—I don’t remember anymore what the discussion was about—and in the course of it someone said that we need to be more creative, or I don’t know what, to be lenient, or things of that sort. I don’t remember exactly what the issue was or what the argument was, I only remember what I answered. And I said that it is not true that one needs to be creative, and it is not true that one needs to be lenient. What one needs to do is say what one thinks is right. Now, if you think it is right to permit, then permit; if you think it is right to prohibit, then prohibit. But you are not supposed to say: look, I want to permit, so let’s make such-and-such an argument and permit. That—that is agenda.
Now, that does not mean—and this is an important point—that in my subconscious I don’t have agendas because I want to permit. Of course I do.
[Speaker D] I assure you that you do, you do.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I’m saying, we are all human beings. I’m just saying: that consideration belongs to whoever studies my thought. Whoever studies me can say: look, he apparently wanted to permit here, and therefore he chose this interpretive option, because there was another interpretive option—why didn’t he choose it? He probably wanted to permit. That’s a legitimate consideration for a scholar. But I, as the one issuing the halakhic ruling in this case, should never say to myself: look, I want to permit, and therefore I’ll choose this interpretation. I choose this interpretation because it seems to me to be the correct interpretation. Someone from the outside who looks at me can say: look, this fellow wanted to permit, or this fellow wanted to be creative, original—or not original, on the contrary, wanted to be conservative, whatever. In my view, halakhic policy belongs to the scholars, not to the decisors. For decisors, policy is agenda. And that is not because there is no agenda. There is agenda; we all have agenda; we are all human beings. But I am not supposed to take that explicitly into account. I have to say what I think is most correct.
Now, “I” am a reflection of the landscape of my birthplace; I am the sum of all my environment and my experience and all those things, and of course my personality too—everything. So obviously what I think is correct is not independent of my biography and my environment and so on. But that dependence is the scholar’s business, not mine. I need to say what I think is correct.
[Speaker D] Is a halakhic decisor allowed to say: as far as I’m concerned, I have a basic principle—I am not willing to leave an agunah forever. I have to, no, I have to find solutions. So in other words, I have an agenda to permit agunot, and I am occupied with finding the solution?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So here, I’m saying, one has to distinguish among several levels. And I talked about this a little at the beginning of our discussion of agunot. One has to distinguish among several levels. First of all, in the context of agunot, this is guidance that comes from Jewish law itself—to search for leniencies. But where would there be agenda in the context of permitting agunot—and we’ll encounter such cases too—agenda in the context of permitting agunot means that because I want to permit, I will choose the interpretation that leads to a leniency even though that interpretation, on its own, doesn’t really hold water. To use my motivation to permit because the woman is miserable—after all, decisors constantly say: look, the person is unfortunate, we need to find some way to permit for him—and that’s fine, as long as the way you found really holds water. Meaning, your desire to be lenient for him is motivation; it is not an argument. It’s motivation. The arguments for why you permit have to be substantive arguments. If your desire to be lenient is itself the argument, then that is agenda.
And in one of my columns—I think I spoke about this once—I wrote that I think this is the difference between Modern Orthodox and Reform. On the face of it, it looks very similar. In the bottom line, in many cases it looks similar.
[Speaker E] That’s in Masoret.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The difference is that for the Reform approach, the distress is the reason why he permits. Meaning, he says: this doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t fit the generation, we’re in moral distress over something like this, therefore we need to permit. The Modern Orthodox person says: look, I’m in the same distress, I am also committed to moral values and all these contemporary considerations, but I won’t permit because of that. Rather, it will motivate me to search for intra-halakhic arguments that support a leniency. Meaning, as motivation that’s perfectly fine. If it is itself the consideration for permitting, then no.
[Speaker C] Rabbi, Rabbi, what the Rabbi is saying is clear, but still, let’s go a bit deeper all the way. So obviously the question is whether the consideration is good enough or not good enough. The decision whether the halakhic consideration really is strong enough and stands on its own or not—at the end of the day it’s hard to say it is not affected by the motivation. If I really, really, really want something, then I’ll say this consideration sounds very logical to me. You said it is affected. I said it is affected. So what are we arguing about?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said it is affected.
[Speaker D] There is no argument.
[Speaker C] It is affected, but now you still have to decide whether the consideration is strong enough to base a halakhic ruling on or not. You’ll examine it on its own. Wait, wait, just a second. If it is affected by the original motivation, then we’re coming back a bit to the problem the Rabbi raises—what really distinguishes them? I’m suggesting a possible answer. No, I don’t have a problem.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What problem are we returning to? We’re not returning to anything. I don’t see any problem.
[Speaker C] Since the Rabbi says that the Modern Orthodox person also has a motivation perhaps very similar to that of the Reform person, but he says: I want there to be a sufficiently good halakhic consideration in order to decide here. Okay. But then the Reform person will say to him: what is a sufficiently good rational consideration? It’s obvious that it’s affected. Whether you decide it’s good or not good depends, in my eyes, on the motivation with which you approached the decision. Not at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the job of the scholar studying me. I do not take that into account.
[Speaker C] No, but when that halakhic decisor reflects on himself, he says: wait, but I know…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t reflect on himself! I argue that he shouldn’t do any reflection at all. Just say what you think is right in your eyes.
[Speaker C] So he’s deceiving himself a little.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he’s not deceiving himself. He says what matters in his eyes and what is right in his eyes, where “in his eyes” means the whole of his personality and biography and everything.
[Speaker C] What I’m proposing as a certain solution—in fact I think the Rabbi is also aiming at this—is that we all come with basic premises. True, we decided on them at an earlier point in time: first we thought that X, Y, and Z were important, and then we come to the current concrete case and deal with it, and we are already bound to those premises. And the Rabbi says that’s how all rationality works. I propose that when we come to make a practical halakhic decision in a concrete halakhic problem now, we should know: true, we had premises, but we put them in brackets, suspend them, and we need to decide them again in light of the current practical case. Then perhaps we come closer to some kind of… no problem.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We have no disagreement.
[Speaker C] It’s not the same thing at all. We are always bound. If I’m anti-Bibi…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Shmuel, you’re putting words in my mouth. We have no disagreement. A person can reconsider his basic premises at any moment he wants, and if he finds it appropriate to change them, let him change them.
[Speaker C] No, but he should actually do that. He should put them in brackets and say: I need to decide them again in order to rule in this case.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem, perfectly fine. Do it. Everything is fine. We have no disagreement.
[Speaker C] Right, right, I didn’t say there was a disagreement.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say you are required to go your whole life with the same premises you adopted at some stage. Of course not. At any moment you can decide that now it no longer seems right to you, or yes it does. What do you mean? There is no reason to enslave myself to what I thought yesterday.
[Speaker F] Rabbi, when things always repeat themselves—meaning when Beit Shammai are always stringent relative to Beit Hillel, and Beit Hillel are lenient—are they not aware of that, in a sharp way, beyond the arguments that they directly believe in?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, I don’t know what they were aware of. I can only say what should have been their consideration when they ruled. And I claim that this should not be their consideration. The scholar from the outside can look and say: listen, these people have a tendency to be stringent. And that’s perfectly fine, and he’s right too—not, again, not because he isn’t right. But when Beit Shammai come to decide, they don’t say: look, we want to be stringent, so therefore we’ll rule this way. Rather, they say: it seems to us that here one should prohibit.
[Speaker F] But what is a little puzzling is that in every field, whatever it may be, in general they will always be more stringent than Beit Hillel, always more stringent.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that isn’t puzzling, because they have a tendency toward stringency. The scholar is right—it’s not that the scholar is wrong. I’m claiming that this consideration is not a consideration of Beit Shammai themselves. But not because the scholar is wrong.
[Speaker D] Even in today’s court system you see not the agenda, but let’s say the reasoning: one judge is conservative and another isn’t conservative. But even the conservative one, if he doesn’t give a reason that holds water and has logic, it won’t be accepted. It doesn’t matter that he’s conservative. The question is whether his ruling holds water.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And we also see that conservatives sometimes surprise us, and liberals also sometimes surprise us. Meaning, no one is enslaved to whatever he once decided. That’s fine, it’s perfectly fine to reconsider it.
[Speaker D] Even though you once said that you would know in advance what ruling each judge would give, at least on religious issues.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Statistically I think that works not badly. But obviously there are exceptions; every now and then there are exceptions, clearly.
[Speaker F] By the way, it’s a little hard to say about Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, or about anyone who disagrees with someone else and tends toward stringency or leniency, it’s a little hard to say that they are not aware, in as sharp a way as the scholar will later discover, that one has a tendency to be stringent and the other has a tendency to be lenient.
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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I actually strongly tend to think they’re really not aware. I know how people inside the halakhic world think; this kind of awareness, this kind of reflection, is something very modern. Meaning, this reflection of looking at myself and thinking about what the underlying assumptions are that drive me—that’s something very uncommon. Very uncommon in the halakhic world to this day, because the halakhic world is somewhat closed off to modernity. And by the way, that’s one of the problems of Modern Orthodoxy—that they can’t really detach from it. And so there really is a certain distrust toward them, because in some sense they really do put their agenda on the table, since they’re more aware, more modern. But I think halakhic decisors throughout the generations, and also the sages of the Talmud, in my opinion most likely really were not aware. What do I mean by “not aware”? If you cornered him and asked him, “Tell me, do you tend more toward stringency?” he’d tell you, “Yes, I suppose so.” He knows his rulings and his disputes with Beit Hillel, but when he thinks about the passage itself, that isn’t sitting there in his system of considerations as “I want to be stringent.” That’s what I mean. It’s not that he’s stupid, and if you asked him whether he’s more stringent than Beit Hillel he wouldn’t know how to answer. He does know how to answer. But when he’s discussing the question whether the rival wife of a daughter is permitted or forbidden, he doesn’t say to himself, “Wait, I tend to be stringent, so I’ll forbid it.” That’s not a consideration that’s supposed to come into his head. He has to state the considerations that seem to him to be the reasons one should be stringent here. The researcher standing on the side will say to him, “Yes, but that’s because you tend to be stringent.” And I’ll say, “Right, you’re correct.” I’ll even confirm what he says. Doesn’t matter. But that won’t be written in the ruling. In the ruling, when I write the reasoning, I won’t write, “I tend toward stringency, and therefore I decided to forbid it.” That’s absurd. Meaning, that’s not supposed to be part of the considerations—not because it isn’t true, but because it’s extra-halakhic; it’s not the halakhic consideration. It’s an academic consideration of a researcher examining how I think.
[Speaker E] By the way, why aren’t we bringing in here the whole topic of the agunah from the Talmudic period, which says that the power of leniency is preferable? Because even though we have a Torah-level prohibition here, still two rabbinic elements come in—one, water with visible boundaries, and one, water without visible boundaries. Both of them are rabbinic, and in both rabbinic cases the power of leniency is preferable, and then you could say—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand how both of them can be rabbinic. Both of them can’t be rabbinic. “Water without visible boundaries” is a rabbinic prohibition? So that means that in Torah law, water without visible boundaries is permitted? Then in water with visible boundaries it’s certainly permitted on the Torah level.
[Speaker E] That’s what I’m saying. If we have a rule that the power of leniency is preferable, then everything the rabbis considered should also go toward leniency, also in water without visible boundaries. I didn’t understand. They thought water without visible boundaries should be forbidden.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What are you trying to do—forbid the permitted and permit the forbidden because the power of leniency is preferable? What kind of thing is that? Permit the forbidden because the power of leniency is preferable? Why not eat pork because the power of leniency is preferable? No, but the “power of leniency” has assumptions built into it. It appears in the Talmud in Beitzah, for example. There’s always an assumption, yes, that if the majority—
[Speaker E] Fine, so—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, we drifted a bit. So at the end of the last class we talked about the reasoning of the Chazon Ish. And I said that beyond the point of departure—yes, whether the novelty is in water without visible boundaries, that it is forbidden, or in water with visible boundaries, that it is permitted—the Chazon Ish basically has a more fundamental claim behind his words. He’s really saying: what do I care if it’s a majority upon a majority? So instead of eighty percent, it becomes ninety-six percent that the woman is permitted, right? Because he fell on land—and if it was in the sea then most likely he drowned, eighty-eight, so in practical terms it comes out to ninety-six percent. If I had one majority of ninety-six percent—not a majority upon a majority, just one majority—let’s say he fell on land and on land there’s a ninety-six percent chance of dying, okay? That’s it, just one majority. But it’s ninety-six percent. We still wouldn’t permit, right? Because after all, we need two majorities. So why does it matter, those two majorities? The two majorities are only a way of calculating the majority. But in practical terms we don’t rely on the majority, right? That’s what you see in water without visible boundaries—that we don’t rely on the majority. So if we don’t rely on the majority, what difference does it make that there are two majorities? And that’s already a very strong claim for the Chazon Ish.
[Speaker C] Exactly. Exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s really the question we need to understand. What does Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin answer to this, or Rabbi Ovadia, or whoever? All those who permit on the basis of two majorities—it really doesn’t make sense. What exactly are two majorities? You have to understand, two majorities are different from a double doubt. In a double doubt, it’s very similar, right? On the face of it it’s similar. There too you have a kind of tree: either permitted or forbidden, and on the forbidden side again there are two possibilities, either permitted or forbidden. But there, if there were only one doubt, then it would be fifty-fifty. Now when there’s a double doubt, it’s seventy-five twenty-five. So it’s clear why in a double doubt we permit even though with one doubt we don’t permit. But a majority upon a majority is by definition not like that. Because a majority upon a majority means that even with just one majority there is still already a majority toward permission, and I want that even on the side where there was prohibition in the first majority, I should have another majority that narrows down that prohibition. Right? That’s the double tree. Now here, when it’s a double doubt, it’s clear what the difference is between a doubt and a double doubt. But when it’s a majority, what’s the difference between a majority and a majority upon a majority? What does it matter? Let’s say the majority is fifty-one percent against forty-nine—let’s formulate it differently—and there’s another majority that is also fifty-one against forty-nine, okay? So the chance to permit is basically twenty-four percent. Half of half, a bit less, right? A quarter, a little less than a quarter. That’s twenty-four percent. Suppose there were two such majorities—would anyone permit the woman to the market? A twenty-five percent chance that her husband is alive, and you allow her to remarry? No chance.
[Speaker B] It’s less probability and more—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] From a realistic perspective, in the end, in the end—wait, there’s noise here. We’re used to and accustomed to, and maybe—
[Speaker B] Also much more mature than the Israeli public, and the question is… okay. There are—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are some who apparently can’t disconnect from the news.
[Speaker C] Rabbi, doesn’t this prove that the approach of the sages of the Talmud or of those halakhic decisors—not the sages, sorry, those decisors, and maybe in general—isn’t really that reality itself is what matters to us, the reality supposedly out there, but rather our consciousness?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s actually the very question I meant, so it’s a shame to discuss now what it proves. I’ll explain what I’m explaining, and maybe you’ll agree, maybe you won’t agree, and then we’ll talk. But that’s exactly the question I’m about to address. So what I basically want to say is that two majorities, in and of itself, has no logic as something to rely on. If it were two majorities of fifty-one and forty-nine, then there would be a one-in-four chance that the husband is alive. No halakhic decisor in the world would permit the woman to remarry when there is a twenty-four percent chance her husband is alive, even though it’s two majorities. If the majority is a very strong majority, ninety-nine percent, then what do I care whether it’s two majorities or one? Ninety-nine percent is good enough, so permit the woman on ninety-nine percent. Why do you make this cut between one majority and two majorities? Why is that interesting? That’s basically what the Chazon Ish claims. And since the Chazon Ish tells us that in water without visible boundaries the majority is very large, and nevertheless the sages did not consider it sufficient, we see that a majority isn’t enough, and then a majority upon a majority can at most create an even more overwhelming majority—so what? It still won’t be enough. Therefore he says, why on earth should we distinguish between a majority and a majority upon a majority? That is already a deeper claim than the question of what your point of departure is—the misery of the woman or the severity of the prohibition of a married woman, which is what I said earlier. Here there is already a real argument on the merits; it’s almost a statistical argument. So what it really says is: what difference does it make whether it’s a majority upon a majority or a majority? If a majority is enough for you, then permit on one majority. If a majority is not enough for you, what help is a majority upon a majority? And that’s a very strong argument. And I want to deal with that argument, and here we’ll need several things we saw earlier. So I’ll offer one explanation that of course I don’t agree with, but a first explanation—this is something we discussed—remember the ship from Liverpool? Where I brought Eli Merzbach’s position. He claims that the Holy One, blessed be He, uses statistics in order to act in the world, yes? He hides behind statistics. Basically, everything that happens here in the world is the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He; we just don’t see it, and we treat it as though there is some sort of statistical distribution here. Yes, a view I think is common among religious people. If that is really the view, I can explain to you what the difference is between one majority and a majority upon a majority. Because what happens in one majority—say there were a case where the person, the pilot, fell to the ground and there’s a 96 percent chance that he crashes, yes, that he dies, and a 4 percent chance that he doesn’t. Case two: the pilot fell to the ground—80 percent that he dies, 20 percent that he doesn’t. And if he fell into the sea—20 percent that he fell into the sea, sorry, no, 80 percent that he was hit in the plane and 20 percent that he fell, and when he fell into the sea there’s an 80 percent chance he drowned and 20 percent that he didn’t drown. In practical terms, the chance he died is 96 percent. In both cases it’s 96 percent. Now, the second is a majority upon a majority and the first is just one majority. In the first case we don’t permit and in the second we do. Why? asks the Chazon Ish, right, what’s the difference? Both are 96 percent. I’ll tell you what the difference could be according to Eli Merzbach’s view. If we’re talking about falling on the ground and the chance of dying is 96 percent, there is a chance that the Holy One, blessed be He, saved him, even though his spontaneous chance of survival is only 4 percent. The Holy One decided to save him anyway, to intervene and save him. In the second case, the Holy One has to intervene twice. First, to make sure he falls into the sea and not on land, because most likely he should fall on land—sorry, on land. And after he fell into the sea, He has to intervene again and save him from drowning. Then we say: we do not build on the assumption that the Holy One will intervene twice, make two decisions in order to save you. One decision, yes—notice—even though in both cases it’s 96 percent. Because in that view, and this is what I talked about when I argued with him there, in that view the distribution doesn’t really matter. The whole question is whether the Holy One wants to save you or not. If He wants to save you, then even if the distribution is 99 to 1, He will bring about the one-percent outcome and save you. It’s like the bucket with the black and white balls—you remember? There are 99 white balls and one black one. The person chooses with open eyes, chooses a ball. What’s the chance he picks black? The answer is fifty percent, not one percent. Why? Because if he likes black, he’ll pick black, and if he likes white, he’ll pick white. Meaning, in a place where this is not something happening by itself, there is a guiding hand deciding which option we proceed with, which option we choose. The distributions aren’t important. What difference does it make whether it’s 96-4? If the Holy One decided to save me, He can save me when it’s 50-50, He can save me when it’s 90-10, and also when it’s 99-1. Let’s say maybe He won’t do it at 100 percent, because that would be an open miracle. But if there is even the smallest percentage, He can save me. So in a case where we have one junction, just one majority, the Holy One needs to make only one decision in order to save me. In a case where it’s a majority upon a majority, He needs to make two decisions: first, that I won’t die when the plane is hit, and second, when I fall into the sea, He also has to intervene and make sure I don’t drown. Two interventions by the Holy One—we don’t assume those happened. One intervention, yes.
[Speaker F] “Observe” and “remember” in one utterance—so it’s the same, the same decision.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, the same decision?
[Speaker F] It’s the same decision. The Holy One decided he would fall into the sea, period, and not drown there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He decided he would die—that’s what I’m saying.
[Speaker F] No, no, no, no—if He wants to save him. Even if He wants to save him, He doesn’t need two decisions. First of all, to decide—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One decision: He has to intervene because naturally he would have fallen on land. So one decision is needed to make sure he falls into the sea. That’s the Holy One sending His hand and moving him toward the sea. After he fell into the sea, now naturally he is supposed to drown. The Holy One sends His hand and sends him a whale to swallow him so he won’t drown.
[Speaker F] No, but that’s hard to divide, because there’s one episode and then another episode. It’s exactly like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud’s line of thought is something very common. We don’t enter a place of definite danger. Why not? What’s the problem? If the Holy One wants me to die, I’ll die anyway, and if He doesn’t want me to die, then I won’t die even if it’s a definite danger.
[Speaker F] Fine, but to say that at the Holy One’s expense seems to me a bit—okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, I don’t want to defend something I don’t agree with. I said this is not an explanation I agree with. But if we go down that path, then it seems to me I can understand the distinction between one majority and two. Do you need one miracle or two miracles to be saved?
[Speaker E] Wait, and why can’t we assume it’s one miracle? The Holy One can decide he’ll survive in the sea, so falling into the sea saves him automatically.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand—but how? In the sea people usually drown.
[Speaker E] No, that’s not “usually.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, it is usually.
[Speaker E] In the sea people usually drown. Usually those who fall into the water, especially in our context, don’t—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the sea you fall into water without visible boundaries. The fall itself doesn’t kill you. When you’re in the middle of an ocean, floating at sea, you won’t die?
[Speaker E] Look, in most cases where planes fell into the sea, where they identified it and came quickly—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, leave identification aside for now. I’m speaking at the conceptual level. At the conceptual level, when you fall into the sea, you generally drown. So if the Holy One wants to save you, He has to do another miracle for you, to make sure you don’t drown in the sea. So it takes two interventions by the Holy One to save you. It could—
[Speaker E] No, those are just our assumptions. Meaning, we assume it’s two, and it could be that the assumption of—this is the meaning of two majorities.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? Two majorities means there are two decision points. At each point, naturally you should have gone in the direction of the majority; the Holy One intervened and sent you in the direction of the minority, and He did it twice.
[Speaker E] No, I’m saying: who said that when the minority decision is made, that doesn’t determine that this is the one majority and it’s final? Meaning, in other words, at the very moment the Holy One moved the person toward the sea, that means he will live.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but in the sea people drown—again. In the sea they also drown. He would have had to take care of him even after he fell into the sea, so that he wouldn’t drown.
[Speaker E] No, but those are our assumptions; we don’t know. In a case where a person swam—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We do know. That is the meaning of two majorities. There is a majority who drown, a majority who are drowned. The Talmud says so. One who falls into the sea—a majority drown. So the simple assumption is that the person drowns. So it requires the intervention of the Holy One, as it were, so that the minority-probability case happens to him and not the majority-probability case. So two interventions by the Holy One.
[Speaker G] Yes Rabbi, but a question. This explanation is a bit strange to me, even though I understand the rabbi doesn’t agree with it. But even when a religious court has to determine whether a person is dead, or a halakhic decisor rules he is alive, he’s not checking whether the Holy One is intervening. He checks what the textual conditions are.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He goes by the halakhic rules. I’m only asking why they established the halakhic rules this way. So an explanation I’m proposing here is the interventions of the Holy One. The judges are not thinking about when the Holy One was involved and when not. For them there is a rule: you need two majorities in order to permit.
[Speaker G] Okay, so what is the connection to intervention by the Holy One?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: why do we need two majorities? What is the difference between one majority and two majorities? The one who established this rule, that there is a difference between one majority and two majorities—possibly what stood behind it was the perception that more interventions by the Holy One are required here.
[Speaker G] So supposedly you don’t need two majorities—one majority should be enough because the Holy One can intervene already at the beginning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. With one majority we do not permit. Because with one majority, one miracle may have happened to him. But in order to permit the woman in a case of a majority upon a majority, two miracles would have to happen to him. And we do not assume that two miracles happen to a person in one event. We see—the Talmud says that every time the Holy One helps someone, it deducts from his merits in the World to Come, right? Meaning, the Holy One does not tend to intervene beyond some minimum, even in views that say He is involved. This definitely fits with a lot of things we see in the Talmud. There’s nothing here—I don’t accept it because I don’t accept this fundamental view of interventions by the Holy One, but if we go with that common view, it can offer an explanation for the difference between a majority and a majority upon a majority.
[Speaker G] But that shouldn’t be a consideration for the halakhic decisor in any way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The halakhic decisor does not have to think about the reason behind the matter. He has the rule. The rule is that if there is a majority upon a majority, we permit. I’ll maybe even say more than that: take water with visible boundaries. In water with visible boundaries we permit the woman, right? Why? First, because most people who fall into the sea drown. And second, if he had come out we would have seen him, because we can see all the shores in water with visible boundaries. Okay? Now in practice, there too it’s a majority upon a majority. Most people who fall in drown, right? But as in water without visible boundaries, that alone isn’t enough to permit. So what else do I need? I need that I can see all the shores around, and then there’s another majority saying that if he had come out, usually I would have seen him. It could be that I didn’t notice, it could be that he slipped past my eyes. But then there is another majority here. So one might even have said that the law of water with visible boundaries itself is the source for the permission based on a majority upon a majority. The difference between water without visible boundaries and water with visible boundaries is that water without visible boundaries is one majority—most people who fall into the water drown—and water with visible boundaries is two majorities. “Visible boundaries” means two majorities: first, most who fall into the water drown, and also if they came out, most likely I would see them coming out. I talked about this in the previous class—whether such a thing is really a majority upon a majority; it isn’t so simple, but yes, Tosafot in Yevamot. But for our purposes, the difference between water without visible boundaries and water with visible boundaries could itself be the source of this whole distinction between a majority and a majority upon a majority. All right. Now, as I said, I am not inclined to accept this explanation of interventions by the Holy One. Beyond the fact that it is just metaphysics, and generally we are not inclined to make Jewish law depend on metaphysical considerations, beyond that I also do not accept this metaphysics itself. Meaning, regardless of whether Jewish law should depend on it or not, I don’t think it is correct in itself. Statistics in the world are statistics because the laws of nature do not determine the result, not because the Holy One decides this way or that way. Because if the Holy One were deciding, then why is the distribution 80-20 at all? It would depend on whether they are righteous, wicked—what does that have to do with it? There wouldn’t be one distribution at all. You couldn’t determine any statistical probabilities for what would happen to you when you fall. It would depend on whether you are righteous or wicked. That has nothing to do with the question of your chance of being harmed. This whole way of thinking about statistics and majority seems to me to imply that the Holy One is not involved here. More than that: if it really were so, then I would say you could also permit the person even in a majority-upon-a-majority toward stringency. Let’s think, say, either he fell into the sea or he fell on land. Fine? Now suppose for the sake of discussion that most likely he fell into the sea. Okay? And even if he fell into the sea, let’s say most likely he survived. Suppose in both cases it is the majority. Then on the face of it here it is certainly permitted, right? But still, in order for him to survive, two decisions have to be made. The Holy One still has to make two decisions. True, they are two easy decisions—it’s a decision to take him in the direction of the 80%, not the 20%. But it’s still a decision, because he could have fallen in the 20%. So in principle, there too I could have been lenient for the same reason, that it takes two interventions by the Holy One for him to survive. In short, I hope I don’t need to convince you that this explanation is a somewhat forced one.
[Speaker C] It’s easier for God to decide in favor of the majority, so two such decisions are not hard for Him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? You’re saying it’s easier, okay. Fine. In any case, I want to propose another explanation. I think this is the correct explanation.
[Speaker E] Wait a second, Rabbi—if there’s a siren, do you stop or do you keep going?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I go to the safe room. I’m generally a law-abiding citizen.
[Speaker E] A Kantian,
[Speaker C] Exactly, a Kantian.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A Kantian. You mean, I don’t obey the law—I obey the categorical imperative. Okay. You’re speaking in my defense. Fine. In any case, I want to preface by saying that I’ll go back to the example I gave earlier. Suppose there are two majorities, but each one is only 51-49.
[Speaker B] Let’s assume we agree—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that no halakhic decisor would ever think of permitting it. Right? There’s a 24 percent chance the husband is alive; no one would ever think of permitting the woman to remarry when there is a one-in-four chance that the husband is alive. But it is two majorities. So I said in the introduction to this whole topic, I said that all the manipulations of leniency are based on the fact that we are factually convinced that the husband is dead. All we have is a halakhic barrier. Right? A formal barrier. So we cancel out the formalism. But of course we need to be convinced that the husband is dead. What happens in a majority-upon-a-majority of fifty-one and forty-nine is not that the condition of a majority upon a majority has not been fulfilled—it has been fulfilled. What has not been fulfilled is that we are even within this sphere of “the husband is dead.” All the discussions of permitting an agunah begin only where factually it is clear to me that the husband is dead. And now I say, okay, is this one majority, is it two majorities, is it one witness, a woman’s testimony, all those things. Because here I say: if the problem is formalistic, then I disregard it. But on the level of being convinced the husband is dead—there I’m discussing facts, not halakhic pilpul. I need to decide that the husband really died. Now, if it’s two majorities of fifty-one and forty-nine, then it doesn’t fail on the level of two majorities. It is two majorities; the requirement that there be two majorities is fulfilled here. It fails on the prior condition. The prior condition says: I was not convinced that the husband is dead. If I was convinced that the husband is dead, still one majority would not be enough, as in water without visible boundaries. There I need two majorities. But all of that only begins after I was convinced the husband is dead. But where the basic condition is not fulfilled—I have not been factually convinced, the way any person on the street would be convinced, not Jewish law, facts—that the husband is dead; I have not been convinced of that—then I don’t begin discussing whether it is a majority, a majority upon a majority; it’s irrelevant.
[Speaker E] By the way, one more—well, I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll talk about it later, but there are wonderful examples of this point where in my view halakhic decisors made serious mistakes because of this. So the claim I want to make is that a majority upon a majority only begins to be discussed in a place where I have already passed the threshold of being factually convinced that the husband is dead. And now I begin the discussion. Now notice what this actually means. It means that in order to permit the woman to remarry, as in water without visible boundaries, I in fact need an overwhelming majority. A plain majority is not enough. In the laws of majority in Jewish law, fifty-one percent is a majority. With kosher and non-kosher stores, fifty-one percent is permitted according to the basic law. With an agunah, it’s not like that. With an agunah, if there is fifty percent chance the husband is alive, obviously we won’t permit. Forty-nine percent chance the husband is alive—certainly we won’t permit. With an agunah there is no such thing as “follow the majority”; it simply doesn’t occur to anyone. So what is the case? You need to decide that the husband is dead. How do you decide the husband is dead? In principle, you need an overwhelming majority. Not a majority of fifty-one percent, but a majority—well, let’s be law-abiding for a moment. I’ll come back here in another ten minutes, God willing, unless there are more sirens, okay? So we’ll stop; I’m leaving the link open.
[Speaker C] Excellent. Malakhi, if you hear a siren on Zoom, do you have to go or not?
[Speaker E] Good question.
[Speaker F] What did you say yourself? Gentlemanly. He agreed.
[Speaker E] In principle, if you hear one—not in your area at all—you don’t need to move anywhere. I see almost everyone stayed here. Everything’s fine, maybe Arabs?
[Speaker C] What? Mutual responsibility, maybe we should? No—
[Speaker E] It’s interesting where the siren is. I see the rabbi is in Lod; by us in Gush Etzion there isn’t one. Peace be upon you, good morning everyone. We’re in the weekly Torah portion, Parashat Beha’alotekha. At the end of the portion we find the special story of Miriam and Aaron, who spoke about Moses our teacher. The Torah says: “And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had taken, for he had taken a Cushite woman.” Holy Rashi brings us the midrash and asks several questions. First of all, was she really a Cushite? Wasn’t her name Tzipporah? Rather, what do we learn? That everyone acknowledged her beauty just as everyone acknowledges the blackness of a Cushite. Meaning, the title “Cushite” comes to indicate her unusual beauty. But the main point here is what Miriam said. What did she say? Miriam saw that Tzipporah was not adorning herself, not wearing jewelry, and asked her why. Tzipporah answered that Moses our teacher had separated from her. When did this happen? When Eldad and Medad prophesied in the camp, Tzipporah said: “Woe to the wives of these men if they become involved in prophecy the way my husband separated from me.” Miriam heard this, went and told Aaron. They were astonished: Has not God also spoken with us? Did we separate from the ways of the world? Why is Moses being more stringent with himself? Immediately the Holy One, blessed be He, suddenly calls them and explains to them that Moses our teacher is not like the other prophets. “Mouth to mouth I speak with him.” Moses our teacher must be ready at every moment for speech with the Divine Presence. We see that Miriam, although she meant well and shared Tzipporah’s pain, nevertheless was punished with leprosy. How severe is the sin of evil speech, that even a righteous woman like Miriam, who wanted to help her sister-in-law—if it was said in the form of evil speech, there is punishment here. May it be God’s will that we merit to guard our speech.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right, this time too I survived. Rabbi? Yes. Rabbi? Yes, yes. Rabbi? Yes, yes, I hear.
[Speaker C] I can’t hear. What? I don’t know, it’s not coming through well.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Can you hear me?
[Speaker F] We can hear, we can hear, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. In any case, what I want to say is this. In practice, to permit an agunah you need an overwhelming majority. But not only do you need an overwhelming majority—an overwhelming majority by itself is not enough rabbinically, as in water without visible boundaries, and therefore they require two majorities. Maybe it is like water with visible boundaries, which is also the example of two majorities. Now, what does a majority-upon-a-majority do as compared to a single majority? Because that was the question the Chazon Ish asked. What difference does it make whether you arrived at this ninety-six percent by multiplying two majorities, or whether it is one majority of ninety-six percent? What’s the difference? So I want to make the following claim. If indeed the majority we’re talking about is a positive majority—and this is, remember, the distinction we made between a negative majority and a positive majority. A positive majority is a majority for which I have data; I know it’s seventy-thirty. Okay? If it is a positive majority, the Chazon Ish is entirely correct. There is no significance to a majority as opposed to a majority upon a majority. Because in the end you have a number, which is the majority, and you can reach that number either by multiplication or by a single majority. So it doesn’t matter. However, in almost all cases—in my opinion in all cases, certainly in almost all cases—we are dealing with a negative majority. What is a negative majority? Suppose someone falls into the sea. Most likely he drowns. How much is that? Ninety percent? Seventy percent? I don’t know—I didn’t do a statistical study, and certainly the sages of the Talmud didn’t do one. Okay? We have no positive information about that, about the rate of the majority. But it is clear to us that it is a very, very significant majority. Okay? Now, in such a situation, if I want to make sure there really is a fully overwhelming majority here on the basis of which I can permit the woman, then I require that there be a multiplication of two majorities. Because the whole argument of the Chazon Ish stemmed from the fact that every majority is a positive majority—what I put into the mouth of the Chazon Ish, no matter—all he’s saying is that every majority is a positive majority, and if we multiply the two majorities, another positive majority is created, a better one. Then the Chazon Ish asks, correctly: what difference does it make? After all, one majority is not enough to permit a woman, as in water without visible boundaries. I am claiming no: all the majorities we are talking about are negative majorities. What is the chance that the pilot here dies from the missile strike as opposed to not dying from the missile strike—what is the chance? What is the chance that someone drowns in the sea or does not drown in the sea? We have no quantitative measures that determine the probability. So what do we want? We want there to be an absolute majority, yes, an overwhelming majority sufficient to permit the woman. What do we do? We basically require that the two majorities we are dealing with be such that, in order for an absolute majority to be created on the basis of which the woman may be permitted, I want a multiplication of two majorities. That ensures that we have reached an overwhelming majority. Meaning, since I don’t have numbers, how can I still impose some threshold that constrains the majority so as to make sure it is overwhelming? I say: I want a multiplication of two majorities. Because a multiplication of two majorities gets me fairly quickly into the zone of an overwhelming majority. Eighty-twenty is a majority, but not an overwhelming one. But twice eighty-twenty is already ninety-six to four. And if it’s twice ninety-ten, that’s already one percent, ninety-nine against one. Okay? So the multiplication of the majorities is basically Jewish law’s way of making sure we’re talking about an overwhelming majority, precisely because this is a negative majority and not a positive majority. Maybe I’ll divide it a bit differently into three levels.
[Speaker C] But if the first majority was already very, very—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If already from the initial impression it was ninety-nine percent, then what? Wait, one second. Hold on. I’m dividing it this way, and I’m answering that. I divide it into three levels. There is a regular majority, like throughout all of Jewish law: fifty-one forty-nine is also a majority. There is an overwhelming majority. And there is an absolute majority. An overwhelming majority is water without visible boundaries. An overwhelming majority—on the Torah level, the woman is permitted. In water without visible boundaries, with fifty-one percent, on the Torah level she would be forbidden, not merely rabbinically. In water without visible boundaries, this is an overwhelming majority, therefore on the Torah level she is in fact permitted. The sages say no: we are not satisfied with an overwhelming majority. In order for it to be certain that the husband is dead, we want a majority upon a majority. In other words, water with visible boundaries and not water without visible boundaries. Because water with visible boundaries is two majorities: first, he probably drowned; and second, even if he didn’t drown, we would have seen him come out. We did not see him, so apparently he did not come out. So we require a majority upon a majority. What happens now? When each of the majorities is itself an overwhelming majority, then the majority upon a majority is an absolute majority. That’s the definition. Rabbinically, as it were, we are not satisfied with an overwhelming majority; we want an absolute majority. An overwhelming majority is not good enough, as in water without visible boundaries. Now, I have no quantitative way to verify that I am not in the zone of overwhelming majority but have crossed into absolute majority. How do we define such a thing? We don’t have numbers here, after all; it’s a negative majority. What the sages decided to do—that is my claim—is this: we want a multiplication of two overwhelming majorities. If each majority on its own seems overwhelming to you, then their product is an absolute majority. That is the claim.
[Speaker C] But what if from the outset there was an absolute majority?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. In a place where it is an absolute majority—for example, if they identified the face together with the nose, okay? There you don’t need another majority in order to permit. Why? Could it be that you missed something even though you saw his face together with the nose? You saw his face and were sure it was him. Fine, there is some chance you were mistaken, right? It is absolute enough for the sages to say: that’s enough. I permit the woman. But in a place where the majority is—and again, the question where the line is drawn is not a simple question—but on the conceptual level I think it is very helpful to understand it through these three concepts: majority, overwhelming majority, and absolute majority, where a majority-upon-a-majority of overwhelming majorities is an absolute majority. That is really the claim. Now, what happens—if you remember from the classes I gave on statistical ideas in law—we talked about the difference between a case where two witnesses saw someone murder, and there is some chance they’re mistaken, they didn’t see well or something like that; that we accept. But the case of the hundred prisoners, ninety-nine of whom attacked the guard—and now one accused person stands before me; there is only a one percent chance he is innocent, a ninety-nine percent chance he is guilty—that is not enough to convict him. Why not? So I said there, in various ways—the detailed reasons don’t matter right now—but in broad strokes what I said was: when the witnesses testify, I know that the person murdered. True, a doubt can arise that maybe my knowledge is mistaken, but I know the person murdered. When there are ninety-nine prisoners who attacked the guard and one who did not, and then one of them comes before me and I judge him, I cannot say, “I know you murdered.” That is simply not true. Remember? I spoke about the concept of knowledge. True, there is a ninety-nine percent chance that you murdered, but I cannot say that you murdered, and that I just have some doubtful concern that perhaps this knowledge is incorrect. No—I do not have knowledge at all that you murdered. The same thing, I want to claim, is true here. When I speak about a majority upon a majority, or about an absolute majority, I no longer relate to it as a majority. It is certainty. Once I have certainty that the husband is dead, I can permit the woman. The formalism does not interest me. The basic condition has been fulfilled—that I have certainty that the husband is dead. I don’t care; the formalism is no longer important. If I have an overwhelming majority, then on the Torah level that is still true. It is good enough to regard the husband as dead, and the formalism is not important. The sages nevertheless decreed regarding an overwhelming majority to say: no, I am still not convinced that the husband is dead. It is an overwhelming majority, not an absolute majority. I am not convinced that the husband is dead. Most likely he is dead, like with the prisoners. Ninety-nine percent that he is dead—it is still impossible to say that I know he is dead. Therefore, rabbinically, one still does not permit the woman. With a regular majority, it is not that I have a concern that maybe he is dead—there is no reason to assume he is dead at all. It is fifty-fifty.
[Speaker E] The majority isn’t even in the picture here, Rabbi. What? You divided it into three tracks: majority, overwhelming majority, absolute majority. So the first “majority” doesn’t exist here; it has to be a majority—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, a majority of fifty-one to forty-nine, or sixty-forty, even seventy-five to twenty-five—in my view, that is not at all a situation in which the husband is dead.
[Speaker E] That’s what I’m saying—so it turns out that “majority” doesn’t exist here from the outset. So there are only two tracks.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. In the context of permitting agunot, even on the Torah level we do not follow the majority. Because no one could possibly imagine that when there is a forty-nine percent chance the husband is alive, we would permit the woman to remarry. Such a thing simply does not enter one’s mind. Therefore it is clear that in order to permit the woman to remarry, we need to know that the husband is dead. Now, “to know that the husband is dead” does not mean one hundred percent. We never have one hundred percent. Nothing in the world is one hundred percent. It could always be that we were mistaken. But in what is called “for all practical purposes,” one hundred percent on the practical level—that is what I call an absolute majority. An absolute majority permits. An overwhelming majority—on the Torah level it is permitted, but rabbinically they nevertheless still require more. And now we need to examine, in all the situations that come before us—now we already have a conceptual framework, even if we don’t have criteria—but we do have a conceptual framework according to which we can really begin to think. There will be situations where it is one majority and from my perspective it is an absolute majority, and I won’t need a majority upon a majority. Like identifying the face together with the nose. There will be situations like water without visible boundaries, where it is an overwhelming majority, and rabbinically I need another majority in order for there to be a majority upon a majority. There will be situations where it is a fifty-two percent majority or sixty percent—then there is nothing to discuss at all; even a majority upon a majority will not help.
[Speaker E] Wait, then what was the story with the submarine Dakar? Why did they have to discuss that? That is obviously an absolute majority.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why is it an absolute majority? That is water without visible boundaries.
[Speaker E] Yes, but it was closed inside the submarine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not at all. Once they opened the hatch and got out? What can you know? That’s a classic case of water without visible boundaries. No, I’m not familiar with the discussions that took place there, but the submarine Dakar is water without visible boundaries.
[Speaker G] Rabbi, but what the rabbi calls an absolute majority—what is that? Is it one hundred percent?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I’m saying: there is no mathematical one hundred percent. There isn’t. In life, nothing we know is one hundred percent. The law of gravity is not one hundred percent. But the law of gravity is solid knowledge on which I can build any halakhic ruling in any field. Okay. There is always some doubt; you can never be completely certain. Fine. But on the practical level, it counts as certain knowledge. That is enough to permit a woman to remarry, and here the formalism is no longer important.
[Speaker G] No, but it’s also not important, because as the Rabbi said, since this is a negative doubt, and I never know how to quantify it or where to draw the line.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I’ll say it again. If the doubt is a positive doubt, then there’s no real meaning to discussing whether we have a majority upon a majority or just one majority. That’s a major practical difference. If I know the rate for both majorities, then there’s no difference at all between a majority and a majority upon a majority. No difference at all. The multiplication is not what matters. What matters is the bottom line. If it’s ninety-nine percent and that seems sufficiently absolute to me, then even with one majority I would permit it. And if it doesn’t seem like an absolute majority to me, then I wouldn’t permit it even with two majorities. The whole issue of the difference between a majority and a majority upon a majority exists only with a negative majority. Because with a negative majority, you have no way of setting a threshold for from what point to what point you can permit. So the Sages found some kind of trick, a way to ensure as best as possible that we’re in the zone of an absolute majority. They require multiplication of majorities. Okay? Now just a side comment in parentheses: I said that a possible source for this is the very distinction between waters that have an end and waters that have no end. Because waters that have no end are one majority; waters that have an end are a majority upon a majority. Even though “majority upon a majority” is a concept coined only two hundred years ago, still, I’m saying… in my opinion you can even bring proof for it from the Talmudic text about waters that have an end. Because waters that have an end are a majority that he drowned, and even if he didn’t drown, we would have seen him come out. Now here there’s an interesting point, because the fact that he drowned, let’s say, is probably fairly clear. But the fact that we would have seen him come out—even if we can see the shore from all directions, say within a hundred meters, right?—to tell you that we definitely didn’t miss a person coming out, that’s not… in my view, I’m not even sure that’s an overwhelming majority. So I’m a bit uncertain. It could be that a majority upon a majority works through the multiplication of a regular majority with an overwhelming majority—sorry, an overwhelming majority. You don’t need two overwhelming majorities. You need an overwhelming majority multiplied by a regular majority. Why? Because understand: even if it’s multiplied by a mere doubt, fifty-fifty—not a majority—it still cuts the minority in half. Right? Let’s say there’s a ninety percent chance that he fell on dry land, a ten percent chance that he fell into the sea, and in the sea there’s an even doubt whether he died or not. So now instead of a ten percent chance that he’s alive, I have only a five percent chance that he’s alive. It cut the chance that he’s alive in half. So even in a doubt that is not itself a majority, it still greatly strengthens the overwhelming majority. And that can definitely perhaps turn it into an absolute majority. So if we want two majorities, the second one can’t be just a doubt; it has to be a majority. But what kind of majority—does fifty-one percent suffice, or does it itself have to be an overwhelming majority? I’m not sure. It could be that the multiplying majority—one of these majorities—has to be overwhelming, and maybe it’s enough for the second one to be an ordinary majority. Later on we’ll see—though I probably won’t have time to get to it now—but we’ll see some interesting examples that test this theory, and I’ll argue that there are incorrect halakhic rulings there.
[Speaker E] Wait, what Maimonides rules in the laws of divorce in the Mishneh Torah, there in chapter 13, regarding snakes and scorpions, or where the two signs were slaughtered, and so on—what kind of majority is that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can go, you know, by engineering—reverse engineering, as they call it. Meaning, if Maimonides says she is permitted, then it’s an absolute majority. If Maimonides says no, then apparently in his view it’s not an absolute majority. I don’t know how to determine that a priori. It also depends, of course, on opinions. I assume there will be cases where one halakhic decisor says this is an absolute majority, and another halakhic decisor says no, this is only an overwhelming majority, it’s like waters that have no end. I don’t know how to set criteria, but I still think these categories help us think about the problem. That doesn’t mean we now have a mathematical algorithm for making decisions.
[Speaker E] But still, it was ruled as Jewish law,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, if it was ruled as Jewish law, then he probably thought it was absolute.
[Speaker E] Yes, even though he himself writes that even if he remained alive, we determine that he will die. That’s what he writes in the Jewish law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, because for him it’s clear that he will die.
[Speaker E] And that’s interesting, because it’s not an absolute majority at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it weren’t an absolute majority, then I don’t think there would be any basis to permit it. I’m saying, I’m reasoning backward. I’m not even arguing with your assessment of reality—that’s a question one could debate. I’m saying: if Maimonides ruled that it is permitted, then in my opinion his assessment was that this was an absolute majority. You can disagree with him, fine.
[Speaker E] No, actually I want to relate what the Rabbi said to Jewish law, to what Maimonides ruled, right? And he’s not alone in this; he also relies on the Rif.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter. I’m saying again, I’m not getting into the details at all. The fact that he rules to permit the woman means that in his view there is an absolute majority there. Without that, you don’t permit. This is simply logical to me—it can’t be otherwise. If there’s a real chance that the husband is alive, no one is going to allow the woman to remarry. We talked about the extreme stringencies imposed in the laws of agunot, about that contradiction that on the one hand there are extreme stringencies, and on the other hand extreme leniencies. I said that the extreme stringencies are at the level of the certainty required that the husband died. But if it is factually clear to me that the husband died, then now there are extreme leniencies on the formal plane. Because it’s clear to me that he died, so now formalism is less important. Okay, we’ll stop here and continue onward.
[Speaker C] Rabbi, Rabbi, all of this nevertheless gives the feeling—the discussions, and I agree with the Rabbi about this distinction—that what determines things is not the actual statistics of reality, but how we define reality, and that completely changes halakhic ruling.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, and that’s the topic I said—I’m going to get to it. I didn’t manage to get to it now; it’s literally the next thing. Meaning, at the beginning of the next lesson I’ll deal with that.
[Speaker C] But that raises another important halakhic question that came up when the Rabbi was in the safe room. A question came up: the Rabbi rules that you can pray with a quorum on Zoom, right? Yes. And the Rabbi said that he goes to the safe room because of the categorical imperative, not because of the objective risk. So the question came up whether we, who heard the siren even though it isn’t in our actual area—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay.
[Speaker E] Rabbi, what about when we started talking about a majority upon a majority—I mentioned lineage, and you said we’d talk about it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] About lineage? I don’t remember. There? Yes, we’ll get to it, we’ll get to it. The majority upon a majority in Ketubot there, in the case of rape and Tzippori—we’ll talk about it.
[Speaker E] Right, what’s in the passage in Ketubot, yes, rape and Tzippori.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll talk about it. Okay. All right, goodbye, Sabbath peace.
[Speaker E] Sabbath peace.