Positivism in Halakha and in General, Lesson 10

Table of Contents

• Positivist thinking, logic, and stepping outside the system
• Breaking a dichotomy and presenting a third way
• Yeshiva-style conceptual inquiries, damages payments, and the Chazon Ish and Pnei Yehoshua
• Compromise, the heap paradox, and dilemma arguments (*mah nafshekh*)
• Sabbath: doing something unusually, a continuum of degrees, and the Talmudic text in the chapter Tolin
• Two kinds of rabbinic Sabbath prohibitions, selecting, riding a horse, and a partial measure
• Proportionality in the legal world and an analogy to the Sages’ judgment
• Muktzeh, Maimonides, Nachmanides, Ritva, and the law of preparation
• Indirect force in Bava Kamma as a model for a continuum rather than a dichotomy
• Maimonides in the second root: rabbinic enactments as a continuum of levels
• Rabbi Shimon Shkop: a loop in Gittin chapter 8 and the rule, “Anything that if it takes effect then it does not take effect, does not take effect”

Summary

General overview

The text completes the discussion of positivism by pointing to places where logical-positivist thinking gets stuck, mainly when the dichotomies it assumes break down or when paradoxes and loops arise. A way out of the dichotomy is presented, either by exposing additional possibilities or by using a continuum of intermediate degrees, and examples are brought from life, from law, and from Jewish law, where a yes/no or permitted/forbidden division is not enough. Finally, a principle of Rabbi Shimon Shkop is presented, proposing a halakhic rule that stops a logical loop in the topic of a condition in a bill of divorce by determining that a legal effect which, if it takes effect, would uproot itself, does not take effect at all, while working along a causal axis that advances step by step.

Positivist thinking, logic, and stepping outside the system

Positivist thinking rests on a foundation of logical thinking that presents a system as a collection of premises from which conclusions are derived and a coherent logical structure is built. Departures from positivism appear where logic gets stuck, and then one has to step outside the system, as in Gödel’s theorem, and look from the outside. Resolving loops of contradictions between halakhic principles requires stepping outside the principles, weighing them against one another, and determining which overrides which.

Breaking a dichotomy and presenting a third way

Positivist thinking usually works in a dichotomous way, and an example is given from yeshiva-style analyses in the style of Rabbi Chaim, which set up positions as sets of rules, such as: Rashba says this, Maimonides says this, the Raavad says this, and then derive consequences from those rules. Breaking the dichotomy happens when a third possibility is uncovered beyond the two options on the table, and the way to do that is to identify the common foundation of the two opposites and challenge it. The presentation “Religious Zionist or Haredi” falls apart when a third possibility is presented: no necessary connection between Zionism and religiosity. As Buber said, in Religious Zionism the main thing is the hyphen, whereas in Haredi identity there is an anti-hyphen, and in the third way there is neither a hyphen nor a contradiction. The same move is applied to the debate over evolution between atheist neo-Darwinians and creationists, by arguing that one can be both a neo-Darwinian and a believer, and that both sides mistakenly assume the two cannot go together.

Yeshiva-style conceptual inquiries, damages payments, and the Chazon Ish and Pnei Yehoshua

Pairs from yeshiva-style conceptual inquiries, like a law focused on the object or a law focused on the person, a law focused on the result or on the action, a sign or a cause, are often presented as dichotomies, but it turns out one can think of a third possibility: neither of them, or both together in a combination that is not contradictory. In the example of liability for payment in monetary damage, two possibilities are presented: the mere fact that my property caused damage, versus negligence in guarding it, with a practical difference regarding burden of proof. The text argues that both in the Chazon Ish and in the Pnei Yehoshua, who are usually presented as disagreeing, one can show that it is really both together in some sort of combination, and therefore presenting it as either this or that is only a partial dichotomy.

Compromise, the heap paradox, and dilemma arguments (*mah nafshekh*)

Compromise is presented as another form of escape from a dichotomy by means of a continuum of levels, based on the heap paradox, according to which in everyday concepts it is not correct to think in black and white but along a spectrum. Dilemma arguments are built on the hidden assumption that the world is divided into two extreme types, like the argument that there is no point in giving an exam because diligent students will study even without an exam and lazy students will not study even with one, whereas in reality there are people in the middle who may change because of the exam. A dilemma argument is called in Aramaic mah nafshekh, and the text argues that sometimes something between a claim and its opposite makes possible a solution that does not fall into the dichotomous trap.

Sabbath: doing something unusually, a continuum of degrees, and the Talmudic text in the chapter Tolin

An example is brought of prohibited labor on the Sabbath done in an unusual way, which is rabbinically forbidden, alongside cases in which doing something unusually is permitted. The explanation is that it depends on how much of a change there is, because a sufficiently large change turns the action into something else. The concept of doing something unusually is described as a continuum of levels rather than a one-or-zero matter, allowing movement through small changes until a different action is obtained, and it is said: give Honoré de Balzac a metamorphosis that takes you from a bird to a fish. Someone who is not aware of the continuum of degrees gets stuck in dichotomous questions like why prohibited labor done in an unusual way is not always rabbinically forbidden.

The Talmudic text in the chapter Tolin states that in the laws of the Sabbath there is no dispute from one extreme to the other where one tanna says one is liable for a sin-offering and another tanna says it is permitted. The example is brought of the “golden city” ornament, where one tanna says one is liable for a sin-offering, one tanna permits it, and one tanna forbids it rabbinically. The text raises the question: what does the middle position help, if a rabbinic prohibition is understood as “permitted by Torah law, but forbidden by the Sages”? It suggests that the assumption that resolves this is that a rabbinic prohibition is an intermediate state on a continuum between permitted and liable for a sin-offering. An article in the first issue of Bedad is attributed to Daniel Weiss, a physicist, who connected this to quantum theory, and it is said that he pointed to a correct point even if his logical formalization was playful.

Two kinds of rabbinic Sabbath prohibitions, selecting, riding a horse, and a partial measure

It is argued that there are two kinds of rabbinic Sabbath prohibitions: one enacted out of concern lest one come to violate a Torah-level prohibition, and one forbidden because it resembles a Torah-level prohibition. Riding a horse is presented as an example of the first type, because one might come to break off a branch, and therefore there is no “reaping rabbinically” here, only a concern. By contrast, selecting food from waste is presented as a possible example of the second type, in which there is a less significant form of selecting that does not cross the Torah-level threshold, and the rabbis lowered the threshold and forbade it because it is itself a mild Sabbath desecration, not merely a fence lest one come to violate.

The text connects this conception to the idea that a partial measure is forbidden by Torah law, and presents the possibility of seeing rabbinic prohibitions as a partial measure in quality. It brings a question of the Sefat Emet about lifting an object without setting it down, which is rabbinically forbidden, and asks why that is not a partial measure; his answer is that it is a partial measure in quality. The conclusion of the section is that the division between liable and permitted is not dichotomous but a continuum of levels, and that the Sages set the threshold in the middle.

Proportionality in the legal world and an analogy to the Sages’ judgment

The text argues that non-dichotomous thinking is also required in life and in law, and brings the language of proportionality as a way of saying that the law forbids or permits, but not with sufficient force, even without the ability to quantify it. The analogy is made to a case in which the Sages prohibit an action when it is already “beyond the reasonable threshold” in terms of its resemblance to selecting on the Torah level, while “proportionate” selecting remains permitted.

Muktzeh, Maimonides, Nachmanides, Ritva, and the law of preparation

The question whether the prohibition of muktzeh is a prohibition based on concern, or based on resemblance to another prohibited labor, is presented as a question over which much ink has been spilled. Muktzeh is explained by some as a fence for carrying out, meaning a concern lest one come to carry out, but in Maimonides there are different formulations, and in one place he writes that this is a nullification of rabbinic Sabbath restrictions. The view of Nachmanides and his students is brought, including Ritva on Rosh Hashanah 34, apparently, that rabbinic Sabbath restrictions harm the character of the Sabbath and are forbidden by Torah law, with the example of opening shops and doing business on the Sabbath by force of “you shall rest.” The text suggests that for Maimonides muktzeh is rabbinic, but of the type that harms the character of the Sabbath and not merely because of concern.

It is said that muktzeh is rabbinic, except for the view of Rashi in Beitzah and Pesachim and the view of Rava in Pesachim, who see muktzeh as Torah-level. It is emphasized that the law of preparation and the law of muktzeh are two different laws. The law of preparation is described as an egg laid on a Jewish holiday immediately after the Sabbath, which is a Torah-level prohibition, whereas muktzeh is a conscious setting aside of an object, and its prohibition is rabbinic.

Indirect force in Bava Kamma as a model for a continuum rather than a dichotomy

In chapter 2 of Bava Kamma, a dilemma is presented about whether one’s force is like one’s body, and from this there would seemingly follow transitivity to indirect force. The text argues that the solution is that one’s force is not really exactly like one’s body, but enough like one’s body to impose liability, at levels like 0.7 as opposed to 0.49. The example is meant to show that one-or-zero, black-or-white thinking gets tangled in knots, whereas in reality there is a continuum.

Maimonides in the second root: rabbinic enactments as a continuum of levels

The view of Maimonides in the second root is presented regarding laws derived from interpretive exegesis, which he says are forbidden by rabbinic enactment, with mention of major debates over whether he means Torah-level or rabbinic. The text states that in the simple sense, Maimonides really means rabbinic enactments, genuinely rabbinic, and that for Maimonides rabbinic enactments are a continuum of levels between what is permitted and what is forbidden on the Torah level, with several distinct gradations. It is noted that a law given to Moses at Sinai is also, according to Maimonides, included under rabbinic enactments, and in at least two places in Maimonides a doubt is treated leniently there, whereas in a law derived from interpretive exegesis a doubt is treated stringently. Therefore, in Maimonides, a doubt concerning rabbinic enactments depends on which kind of rabbinic enactment it is; it is not a package deal.

Rabbi Shimon Shkop: a loop in Gittin chapter 8 and the rule, “Anything that if it takes effect then it does not take effect, does not take effect”

The text concludes with a principle of Rabbi Shimon Shkop, presented as a departure from logical thinking, based on a Talmudic text in Gittin chapter 8 about someone who gave a bill of divorce on condition that she not marry a certain man, along with Rabbi Akiva’s statement about a case where later marriage to that man retroactively voids the divorce and leads to mamzer status. Tosafot asks: if the divorce is void and she is a married woman, then her marriage to that man does not take effect, so she has not violated the condition and the divorce does take effect, and so on in a loop. Rabbi Shimon Shkop asks why Tosafot stops there and does not continue the loop.

Rabbi Shimon Shkop proposes a halakhic principle according to which these marriages cannot take effect, because if they did take effect they would be retroactively nullified due to the condition; and anything whose taking effect is impossible in reality does not take effect at all. Therefore the divorce remains valid and the marriage is void. In yeshivot this is formulated as the rule: “Anything that if it takes effect then it does not take effect, does not take effect,” and the text emphasizes that this is a halakhic innovation, not a logical principle. In addition, a complementary assumption is built: the causal axis is spread out as though it were a time axis, where each stage is examined on its own and one moves forward, even though the condition works retroactively. Thus the first divorce can take effect on its own, the marriage to Shimon can take effect, and at the stage of attempting the marriage to Levi it becomes clear that the sought legal effect would uproot itself and therefore does not take effect—not because she is a married woman, but because it is impossible to apply such a legal effect.

Additional loops of the same type are brought, such as a bill of divorce on condition that she marry Shimon, and she married Levi and afterward married Shimon without a divorce; a condition of “from now and after thirty days” with a vow, a konam prohibition, the husband’s annulment, and eating; and a bill of divorce not written for her sake, where on the Sabbath one passed a pen over it for her sake, until writing on the Sabbath creates the status of an apostate that undermines the validity of the bill of divorce. The text states that in each of these cases one can work with Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s two principles and solve the loops, and in the case of vows it is argued that in his view perhaps the principle of progressing according to the order of events is enough, without needing the principle of a legal effect that uproots itself.

And they show that once again—no, I only heard about it, it was some filmed report—that he came to some kibbutz and they didn’t relate to him, and sort of, he’s not one of us, so to speak. But honestly, this thing kills me all over again every time. I mean, people are simply mistaken about things that are so basic. I don’t see any connection to racism or to the ethnic demon. Kibbutzniks are in conflict with the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow. Right or wrong, you can argue about it. But what does that have to do with Mizrahi identity? I mean, the man was active against the kibbutzim. So what do you want—that the kibbutzim should love him and vote for him? And if he had been Polish they would have treated him the same way, I assume. It’s against their interest. Now you can say they’re wrong or they’re right—that’s another discussion—but what does that have to do with the ethnic demon? This shallowness is unbelievable. They make an in-depth report about the ethnic demon when the ABCs are simply wrong—a mistake, a logical mistake. It’s unbelievable. This belongs to psychology. The problem is the psychology of the reporter, you understand? If it were psychology among the public, then there would be a public issue here—making a report about racism that comes from people’s psychology. Sometimes racism comes from psychology and not from thinking. Fine, that’s a legitimate topic for a report; all in all it’s a social phenomenon and it’s interesting to talk about. But here, no—the psychological problem is the reporter’s. In reality itself there was no ethnic demon at all. In his day, Begin talked about the kibbutzniks from Manara. Now I served reserve duty with officers from Manara; my battalion commander was from Manara. It’s a kibbutz where eighty percent of the members are from Eastern communities. Begin was right about the phenomenon, right about the phenomenon of the kibbutzim, but Manara isn’t the example. Not exactly him. Strange thing.

Yesterday I heard one lawyer say that when law firms hire, they hardly bring in people from colleges. Meaning only if you’re from a university. And then he says apparently it’s because there’s a presumption that if he’s from a college, then he’s at a lower level. So I say: if someone made that kind of generalization—that there’s a presumption that someone from a certain ethnic group is at a lower level—people would go crazy over it. Yes, but with colleges it’s right on the table. Meaning, someone who gets into a university goes to study at a university, not a college. There’s a natural filtering there. I’m telling you—except for Haredim, say, Haredim who don’t want to go to university because it’s terrible and things like that, so that’s something else—but the regular public, someone who gets accepted to a university goes to a university. Yes, but why not supposedly give equal opportunity to people who went to university and college and say okay, let’s hear him out, let’s see his level individually? You see it in the results, you see it in the bar exam, certainly. The bar exam is absolutely clear: the universities are up top and all the colleges are down below. And second, I’m telling you as someone who taught both at a university and at colleges—and out of lack of choice at the colleges, because there were no more people at the university—the level is completely different. I think eighteen percent at Ono passed the bar exam in law. Now I heard it was something like fifty percent. No, at Ono, I mean, I’m not talking in general. Ah, colleges? Yes, Ono.

Did someone park a Toyota Corolla blocking the building? A gray Toyota Corolla? None of us has one. Thanks.

They’re at a lower level. They deal more with the practical issue, very narrowly. They prepare the guys for exams; they don’t teach them law. But statistically too, people from Eastern communities are at a lower level, right? So can I then come and say, okay, I don’t have time to filter, so in advance I’ll take a candidate with a name like Kozman or like Weisenkopf? But that already has to do with time. Someone who doesn’t have time to filter can go by stereotypes; that’s legitimate. Say you’re doing, I don’t know, even tests for the army. Gabi has the quality score; in the quality score, the place you come from is factored into it. My children—they’re residents of Lod. Their quality score went down because of Yeruham? Residents of Lod? Really? Yes, when they got to the army they had a low quality score. Low? I don’t know—it lowers their points, which lowers the quality score. That’s how it is. I didn’t believe it when I heard that. That’s the kind of thing—practical experience—where people came to be accepted for a job and when they said their name was Abutbul they weren’t accepted, and when it was Yitzhakevitch, then yes. You also need to rely on a presumption. You say, I have doubts here, so there’s a greater chance that he… Yes, but for example someone who finished university, it doesn’t matter whether his name is Abutbul or Rabinovitch. If he finished university, then in principle they’re at the same level. There’s no… And it’s true that overall, I think that among Eastern communities, say, the level of education is lower when you average over the whole population. But that’s usually not the point. You invite two university graduates to a position and you need… Right, because it’s determined, there’s some standard you need to pass, and that’s the end of it. Look today at who the commander of the Northern Command is. Okay, fine. In the army, by the way, I think the situation has long since been the best. In the army there hasn’t been discrimination for a long time. Right. The army is maybe the first place that erased those discriminations. Right, really. And certainly the elite units, though we see the result.

Is it really… what’s his name… because the army doesn’t care about taking risks. It says: I’ll take a maximum risk, it doesn’t come out of my pocket. But a private company says: if I employ someone who isn’t good, then I pay for it. But these considerations cost them money too, because they lose good people. The army? Who, the army? No, the private companies. Ah, they lose good people. After all, a person who finished university—I don’t think it matters whether he’s Ashkenazi or Sephardi. I mean, you can make an aggregate calculation over the whole public, so I’m saying again, so maybe there’s still a gap. You understand? But if he already finished the same track with the same grade, then it’s just prejudice. The very fact that he got in, that he passed the psychometric exam—it’s just prejudice. And then you’re just losing good people.

Now look, for example, at how private places don’t hire older people. Even though young people in high-tech too, say, also come for a few years and go—they come for a year, two, three, and go. So why not hire a fifty-year-old person who already has a lot of experience? Now, there are things where you need to learn new things and be dynamic and all that; maybe older people really are less able to do that. But there are many places where there’s enormous added value to experience, and still it’s hard for older people to get work. It took the IDF a long time until it matured. What? It took the IDF many years until it matured. If you check the ages of generals in World War II, they were all old. Yes, right. And abroad too, I think the ages in the IDF are still younger than what’s accepted elsewhere. Of course—Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan, they were kids. Even chiefs of staff—they were kids. Fine, but that’s more because it was, yes, obviously, it was a young society, the establishment of the state. No, and it’s a young society, I don’t think there were relevant older people. There it was a natural process.

And this whole thing is strange. You’re already preparing an in-depth report on something—it’s not some little mistake, you know, where a person slips up. He writes something long and there was an error here or there, okay, that can happen. ABC—invest a minimal amount of thought in what you’re reporting on. You’re going to cover a topic and that’s your topic. You reminded me so much of what I asked you for—I don’t know where it is actually—that I once wrote about someone who wrote after the elections that he didn’t understand—not specifically Sephardim and Ashkenazim, but it’s a similar kind of logical error. He doesn’t understand why the weaker classes support the right and the stronger classes support the left. Is the Rabbi talking about T-A-G? In the Rabbi’s book on Emet VeYatziv, where he talks about T-A-G, T-A-G, a person who has T-A-G. Really? So it’s there. I looked for it today, I asked him maybe he could help me find it on the site, so it really is in Emet VeYatziv. Right, because I checked when the last elections were, that’s March 2015, half a year before we started the site, so in the end I concluded it probably wasn’t on the site and I had no idea where it was. So it really is in Emet VeYatziv; I’ll check there.

And there he writes that he doesn’t understand why poor people vote for right-wing parties. What about the masses? That’s the best search. So the Rabbi wanted to ask him: so how does he understand that rich people vote for a socialist party? Yes. Meaning, he had difficulties only about the poor—why they support the right. He has no difficulty with the rich—why they support the left. Someone who distributes your money—why do you support him? Just as someone who doesn’t give to you—why do you support him? What’s the difference between this question and that question? In his view, the rich are those who managed well within the system and its limitations and its troubles and its cleverness and trickery, therefore he succeeded in reaching that wealth. And why does he support someone who will now take his money and distribute it to the poor? Not Labor’s socialism. Fine, and not the right of this one either, nobody is really at the extreme pole. But we said they’re not socialists and not capitalists, but…

By the way, both questions are not questions. Both questions are not questions, because that person assumes, in a completely unfounded way, that a person votes solely according to his personal interest. And that’s simply not true. Voting patterns in Israel are… There you vote in the name of whoever represents your direct interest. Though even there I think it’s not only that. But elsewhere it really has nothing to do with interest—voting that is completely non-interested. You vote for what you believe in. Meaning, you’re a right-wing person—so what if you’ll suffer from it because you’re poor? So because of that you’ll become left-wing? On the contrary—someone who becomes left-wing because he’s poor, in my eyes is not worthy of respect. I mean, on the contrary, a person who expresses a position even though it goes against his direct, personal interest is worthy of respect. A rational person, a person who believes in certain values and votes accordingly. And he’s so astonished. It’s the kind of assumptions that slip in, and you write a whole article on the subject when the whole thing is based simply on a mistake. A basic mistake; it’s not some very sophisticated thing. And it’s so strange.

By the way, the same is true of the rich, of course. Rich people who vote for the Labor Party—people worthy of appreciation. Meaning, if they think a socialist party will take their money and distribute it to the poor, and still they support it, then that’s very nice. Why is that a difficulty about them?

But still, the poor who vote right—there are many things they vote about out of ignorance, where they don’t know that they’re really being harmed. If you take the gas framework, you could have distributed all that money to improve the situation of the poor. They don’t even know that. No, I don’t buy the ignorance around the gas framework. It depends whom you ask. In other places abroad, I read—again, I didn’t check it in depth—they don’t take more from the gas companies in other places, in other gas fields around the world. We take a lot of money from the gas companies for the benefit of the state. And we pay the highest price, that’s what I understood. Even the tariff we pay per cubic meter is somewhere in the good middle to low range. I read this a few days ago. And all the Leviathan and all that is delayed because the socialists won’t allow the gas to be drilled because they care about the poor, and then of course no one profits because they don’t drill the gas. There’s no money—not for the poor, not for the rich—and nothing happens. But fine, I’m saying, that’s already a specific matter. There are all kinds of projects of this sort that people don’t understand. It’s not always ignorance. Many times they just don’t buy it, they don’t buy the arguments, and often rightly so. Because those arguments, you know, can be presented in many forms, and a person chooses how to present them. You make comparisons—after all, all these comparisons are never correct. Meaning, comparisons to GDP in Scandinavia and how much is given to each person.

It’s completely clear that regarding the development towns, it’s completely clear that if they hadn’t invested enormous amounts in the settlements, they would have gotten that money. They would have gotten that money. It’s not clear to me at all. Why would they have gotten that money? Where does the confidence come from? Highway 6—all the protest tents along Highway 6, mainly kibbutzniks, they’re all people with a left-wing worldview. Now today I drive to my son in Yeruham in an hour and a half gross, when I don’t exceed the speed limit. And once it would have taken… That’s really tendentious bias. Who voted against it? What? Really tendentious bias. You’re lacking budget; those wicked people took all your budget. You can do that with everything. You’re lacking a defense budget? The leftist kibbutzniks took all your budget. Obviously, the budget pie is one pie. When you invest budget in one place, it’s lacking in many other places. You care about a certain place, and you decide that that place took this specific budget that’s missing for you. There’s no basis for that. The settlements equally took the hospitals’ budget, and equally education takes the hospitals’ budget, and education takes the army’s budget and the army takes education’s budget. You can look at any two things, choose them, and say this one takes that one’s budget. After all, there’s a budget shortage everywhere.

Again, without my having checked the matter in depth, this is exactly a wonderful example of a kind of discourse that depends on your worldview. You present things according to a worldview, and I think the people who don’t buy it are not such stupid people. They didn’t check it, and maybe they don’t know how to summarize all the numbers, and I don’t know either—I didn’t check it either. But they have some sense that says: friends, these leftists present things in a very tendentious way. I think you need to analyze a budget in a truly professional way with professionals, and then you’ll see it. I myself don’t know exactly how to analyze the budget; after all, the budget pie—there are people who work, for example, in the Budget Department. No, but they don’t know either. They can’t know either. Because the question what comes at the expense of what is a completely arbitrary question. There is a certain budget pie, okay? Now I say there’s a certain budget that goes to the settlements, a budget for defense, for medicine, for the periphery, for all kinds of things like that. Okay? Now I… On what basis do you decide that this comes at the expense of that one? Why not at the expense of that other one? That’s not a professional decision. You have to decide what you choose. A budget proposal in principle is supposed to include all the sections. You can’t say I’m in favor of increasing the line item, the budget. I wanted to look at what the needs were in certain areas and whether we reached a situation where those needs simply aren’t being met. But needs are a question of values, Ezra. What? Needs are a question of values. What do you define as a need? Health is a question of values. Certainly, certainly, since opposite that there are needs in the settlements that people will tell you are security needs. Maybe you don’t think so, fine, maybe you’re also right. But needs are a function of values. What you believe determines what the needs are and what should be invested in. It’s not a matter for the Budget Department; it’s not a professional matter at all. There’s nothing professional here. It’s a question of values.

By the way, that’s exactly the point. The argument between left and right too is often presented as a professional argument. It’s not a professional argument; it’s a value argument. The question is not how we’ll reach a better economic situation, the question is what counts as a better economic situation. Does a better economic situation mean that the GDP is larger? A left-wing person will tell you no, because if it’s not distributed equally among all layers of the population, then it’s not a better economic situation, even if our overall GDP is larger. In contrast, a right-wing person measures it by overall GDP, even if it isn’t distributed equally among all deciles. Therefore even the supposedly professional decisions are decisions saturated with values. There’s no professional way to decide here. You present everything as if in a professional manner, but actually at the base there are almost always values. Very few things can be determined in some objective way that everyone will have to agree with. There’s hardly any such thing.

Maybe this is the left’s blindness to the collective dimension of the group? That is, you say there are always two hats: an individual hat and a collective hat. So maybe the left is simply blind to each person’s collective hat, and then that erases for it some set of values that the right does see? Meaning it’s not a matter of… He’s not blind; he doesn’t accept it. It’s not a question of blindness. It’s a dispute, okay. I already said that value disputes often presuppose ontic disputes in their infrastructure, meaning whether you see the collective as an existing entity or not. But by the way, in this matter it depends what left you’re talking about. There is the old communist left and there is the new liberal postmodern left. The communist one barely exists anymore. Doesn’t matter, socialist. Socialist left also isn’t that, because socialist left does speak collectivism. Meaning, the liberal left, the social left—not the economic left—is a left that basically does not recognize collectivism; it ignores collectivism. But the socialist left, on the contrary, cares about the collective; it speaks collectivist language all the time. We talked about this once when we talked about left and right, one of the first topics I spoke about. Okay.

It’s really frustrating. For me this matter is really frustrating. You can’t listen to the news, you can’t hear a report in the newspaper, read an article in the newspaper or online—nothing, everybody is wrong. It’s simply… but these are basic mistakes. It’s not that I can argue with him—he thinks this way, I think that way, that’s fine, people should express opinions and so on. There are things that are not opinions; it’s simply a mistake, just a mistake. Fallacies, such basic fallacies of thought. For a long time I’ve been thinking about some kind of project, how to make something out of this. Meaning, take one day of news—we’re drifting a bit here—one day of news, all the periodicals, the newspapers, the internet, everything, one day, cover it all and write a murderous critique of every single report, and publish a thick book on one day in the life of Israeli media and show that there isn’t a sentence there that holds water.

My cousin who studied clerical work—what? My cousin who didn’t do the matriculation survey and studied clerical work prepared homework that she showed me as an example back then when I was a high-school student—I remember, this was years ago—she had comparisons between all the daily newspapers, reports, for example on a traffic accident or some accident, something supposedly emotionally neutral. And you can see, for example, say that accident on the Arava road where the jeep climbed onto a private car, or the story with the minibus that crashed into a truck. First of all, you see the video—there’s no correspondence between what you see with your own eyes in the YouTube video and what was described in the newspapers, to that extent. And it’s not something emotionally charged, supposedly. And you see that jeep where it’s completely obvious they changed its wheels; those weren’t the original wheels, they were enormous wheels. Meaning it didn’t have good control of the vehicle because the manufacturer didn’t design it that way. None of that was reflected in the reports about the accident. All the more so when it comes to how to divide the money—whether to take it from the settlements, from the yeshivot. Tell me whom you don’t like and I’ll tell you immediately where to get the budget from. That’s true. In all directions, of course, but I’m saying it’s all value and ideological bias. There’s no… yes, but it’s not the media—you can’t throw everything on the media. The media expresses people’s opinions and their behavior. The media doesn’t express my opinion. The media expresses the opinion of those who write in it. And the opinions of those who write in it—those who write in it are journalists. Journalists and I don’t know, the milieu that writes in the paper. Yes, but not in news—in commentary, fine. Also in news. In news, the one who presents that report about the jeep—I didn’t see it, I don’t know what it is—but the one who presents it is the reporter. What do you mean? He’s not bringing my opinion; he’s bringing his own. No no, it’s not interest, it’s not interest, just—he was simply not properly impressed. It’s negligence or lack of professionalism or not investing enough time. And this whole business comes out, and worldviews are shaped by the pictures you get from the media, when the whole business is simply, I don’t know, an accumulation of things there—nothing holds water, not one sentence. It’s really frustrating. Not one sentence.

Tell me, and when your representatives in the Knesset speak, do you understand what they’re saying? That too no—some say this, some say that. Their Hebrew, surely what? Their Hebrew is bad. There’s wonderful cooperation there: these interview those, those are interviewed by these, and they’re all a bunch of fools who should be packed into a sack and thrown into the sea. Right, and there you’re right, I agree that we’re in a period where common sense has lost its place. It isn’t there. Maybe that’s why we moved to voting for personalities and not parties, because you have no way to evaluate the opinion, so you simply look at the person—he looks smart to me, so I’ll go with him. Smart, I don’t know—nice, handsome, I don’t know, likable, a bit. Yes, well, I don’t know, really, it’s very frustrating.

I think that here and there there are already some things—there are, say, sites that check data that the press brings and beat up on whoever, supposedly, doesn’t… meaning there are already first buds, there are already some first buds of systematic media criticism, even more than first buds. But really I think that here we need not talk about data; we need to talk about arguments. Data is terribly easy. Data you can show: here. With arguments you have to explain and so on. But really there are things—so many things—that are simply mistaken. It’s not a matter of I think differently from you, or why don’t you represent all opinions, say—you don’t represent all… fine, it’s not always possible to represent all opinions. But this is simply a mistake, just an incorrect argument. It’s not a matter of debate. Fine.

There is no study that gets reported on that isn’t nonsense. Really, there isn’t, nothing. I don’t know, I don’t remember an example of a study that, when it’s reported, doesn’t seem to me like complete nonsense. By the way, at a certain stage I was a bit hasty and wrote or expressed an opinion on studies based on how they were described in the press. I said, what kind of fool is this researcher—doesn’t he understand that this is simply rubbish? And then they told me: listen, look at the source. He wasn’t such a big fool; the one reporting on him is the fool. But really at the reporting level it’s terrible. It’s simply terrible. And many times academics also make use of these fools in the media.

I still remember when I was at Bar-Ilan, all kinds of people who wrote some scientific article, I don’t know, in one field or another, started generating from it some kind of thing that would interest the masses because they wanted to create ratings. How can one circumvent corners using beams of light? There was some study like that at Bar-Ilan in the period when I was there. And then they hung for us on a bulletin board a newspaper article—I don’t know which one, Yediot, Maariv, something like that—about two researchers at Bar-Ilan who succeed, with beams of light, in going around corners and seeing, as it were, seeing at an angle. Nothing of the sort. You don’t see at an angle and nothing. There is diffraction, diffraction phenomena, fine, we know these things. You feed that headline to the science reporter—he doesn’t understand a thing—and it seems like a sensation to him, and they bring him professors who explain to him that we discovered America, so he writes an article about it. And he can’t really know, because it really requires professional knowledge in physics. So here I can’t quite come to him with complaints; I only laughed at the professors who did it, who were looking for ratings. And by the way, that is very common. Meaning, if they write about you in a daily newspaper, then you’re a star. When you publish a scientific article, fine, everybody publishes scientific articles. You make it to the daily press, that means you have something significant to say to the general public. That is, among all the anonymous scientists who deal in professional things, you are the person who actually has something to say. And therefore many times a scientist’s status is determined by the question how much he appears in the popular press, not in the professional press. And many times you see that this isn’t really so.

Meaning, a person—you know, there are people, even Hawking who died not long ago. I don’t know, it’s not my field, it’s hard for me to judge how much he… but I’m not at all sure he was as brilliant as they made him out to be. What I read from him was far from brilliant in fields I do understand, meaning in philosophy. Simply inconceivable. But fine, it’s like Rabbi Kaduri, the elder of the kabbalists. I have no idea what he was worth in terms of knowledge and abilities. I don’t know, I’m not familiar. But the fact that they crowned him in the newspaper as the elder of the kabbalists—just two activists who had an interest in promoting him because he, I don’t know, advanced their interests—turned him into the elder of the kabbalists. And from then on that’s what he was called. That’s it, and the whole world is sure he’s the elder of the kabbalists. Maybe it’s true too, I don’t know. I didn’t check; I don’t know him. I don’t think any of us heard him say anything. No, that’s what I’m saying. Flew around in some helicopter somewhere, blessed various places, I don’t know exactly what—it’s bizarre.

Rabbi Elyashiv too, say, who is the elder of the halakhic decisors or something like that. Actually Rabbi Elyashiv really was a great Torah scholar; that I know a little too. But how does everybody know that? Because the newspaper crowned him as the elder of the halakhic decisors or the greatest of the halakhic decisors. That doesn’t necessarily reflect his real status, and sometimes it’s exactly the opposite. Someone who speaks your language—then you can publish things about him, and then he becomes the elder of the physicists, because he’s someone whom the writer for Maariv understands. Other physicists—you don’t understand what they’re saying at all, so what will you write about them?

“Follow in the footsteps of the flock.” “Follow in the footsteps of the flock,” as they say. “Follow in the footsteps of the flock” and go in the opposite direction. The advice is advice in order to reach your goal. Fine, that’s the famous story about the writer Sheinfeld, Moshe Sheinfeld, who came—he was a very central Haredi publicist. So once he came to the Rabbi of Brisk, and the Rabbi of Brisk asked him, “Moshe, how do you always manage to hit upon da’at Torah?” After all, he’s a layman—maybe he knows how to learn, I don’t know, I’m not familiar—but a layman, meaning a journalist. So he told him, “I always went to the street, heard what people were saying, and wrote the opposite.” And that came out as da’at Torah? And that came out as da’at Torah? Da’at Torah according to his view. It came from him. Actually the Sema is the source of this. The Sema in section 3 writes—not exactly “the layman’s view is the opposite of Torah’s view,” there’s a phrase there—but it’s really that very sentence. Okay.

Fine. I want to finish the matter of positivism with a few points. I’ll start perhaps with some general remarks on positivist thinking. Basically, we spoke about logical thinking as some kind of infrastructure for positivism. You present the system as some set of premises from which you derive conclusions, and you build some coherent logical structure. And deviations from positivism are always where logic doesn’t—where logic gets stuck, logic doesn’t work. And then you need—we spoke about going outside the system as in Gödel’s theorem. Meaning, to look from outside. We also spoke about these loops of contradictions between halakhic principles, where if you want to decide you need to go outside those principles, weigh them against one another, and determine which overrides which. There are other deviations from positivist thinking, other kinds of deviations from positivist thinking. One of them is going outside the dichotomy.

Usually positivist thinking is thinking that works in a dichotomous way. For example, analyses of Rabbi Chaim, yeshiva-style analyses, are analyses that are essentially positivist. Because they basically ground each position in some set of rules. There are a few sets of rules. Rashba this way, Maimonides that way, the Raavad that way. But each position is grounded in some set of rules, and the consequences are consequences that come out of or are derived from those rules. And where the dichotomy breaks, basically we arrive at non-positivist territory. How does a dichotomy break? It can break in a few ways. One way to break a dichotomy is essentially to expose the fact that usually dichotomous thinking speaks of one of two possibilities, and if you manage to expose the fact that there is also a third possibility, you have broken the dichotomy. Okay?

Now, there are even fairly systematic ways to do this, because when you set two possibilities against one another, usually they have some shared infrastructure. Say, that something is the opposite of something else—that means they lie on the same axis. Right? Doves are not the opposite of water. Maybe doves are the opposite of fish in some sense, because these fly and those swim, or I don’t know. But they have to be in some sense of the same type to count as opposites. And then once you expose what the two opposites share, you understand where you have to move in order to present a third path, which is neither of the two opposites. You simply have to argue with the shared infrastructure of both of them. And it’s always like that—almost always like that. When there’s some argument, there’s some shared infrastructure for both sides of the argument, and then you think, wait a second, who says that this infrastructure is correct? And then suddenly you discover that there’s also a third way, and maybe a fourth and fifth too. But suddenly you discover that the dichotomous picture being presented to you is actually not a full picture.

That’s why many times people say to you, what are you—Religious Zionist or Haredi? Decide. Either this or that—what else can there be? Either you’re religious and non-Zionist or you’re religious and Zionist. What else could there be? Ostensibly that’s true, no? So no. There’s a third way. The third way says: I see no connection whatsoever between Zionism and religiosity. Neither a positive connection nor a negative one. I see those two things as disconnected. For the Religious Zionist, his Zionism is religious and his religiosity is Zionist. There’s a hyphen, as Burg said. Yes, the main thing in Religious Zionism is the hyphen. Correctly, by the way, it’s no novelty, it’s true. And Haredi-ness has an anti-hyphen. Meaning, in their eyes Zionism contradicts religiosity, or religiosity contradicts Zionism. But if you say there’s no connection—no hyphen and no contradiction either—there’s no connection. You can be religious or not religious, you can be Zionist or not Zionist; there’s no connection between the two things. That’s a third way, for example. I’m just giving this as an example.

In very many cases you can see that arguments—I don’t know, over evolution. Yes? So regarding evolution, there is constant brawling between neo-Darwinians who are atheists and creationists who believe in creation and therefore reject neo-Darwinism. And there too there is some shared infrastructure to both sides of that argument, such that if you attack it—or don’t agree with it—you suddenly discover there is also a third way. You can be a neo-Darwinian and also a believer. There’s no contradiction. It doesn’t have to be. Meaning here both sides agree that the two don’t go together, and now the question is only where to take that. I say no—I dispute that very point. It doesn’t have to go together. There is independence here between these two ideas. Therefore, many times when you see a dichotomy, two possibilities, even in yeshiva-style conceptual investigations. In a yeshiva-style investigation, you ask yourself: is the law of this sort or of that sort? A law in the object or a law in the person? Or a law in the result or a law in the act? A sign or a cause? Or all those pairs dealt with in yeshiva-style analysis. There too, many times, when you think about these pairs more deeply, you discover that it’s not necessarily a dichotomy. It may be that there’s a third option. It may be that it’s both sides together because they don’t contradict. All kinds of things can happen. Or that it’s neither of them—that’s the third option—or that it’s both together because they don’t contradict. There can be many such things.

Like when we once talked about liability for monetary damages caused by one’s property. And I said that there usually the later authorities discuss whether it’s because the very fact that my property caused damage obligates me, or because of my negligence in guarding it. There. And then I showed that both in the Hazon Ish and in the Pnei Yehoshua, who are always brought as those who disagree on this point, because they discuss the question according to the burden of proof. And that’s the classic practical ramification of this dispute. Because if what obligates me is the very fact that my property caused damage, then if I claim that I guarded it properly and nevertheless it caused damage—I’m trying to exempt myself—then the burden of proof is on me to show that I guarded it properly. But if what obligates me to pay is negligence in guarding it, not the very fact that my property caused damage, but negligence in guarding it obligates me, then if I claim I was not negligent, the burden of proof is on the one who wants to take money from me. Prove that I was negligent, because otherwise you have no cause of action at all. So there too it is often presented—and almost always presented—as some dichotomy. Either this, negligence in guarding, or the mere fact that my property caused damage. But as I showed there, both according to the Pnei Yehoshua and the Hazon Ish, it seems to me one can also show that it’s both together, in some kind of weighting. It’s not a dichotomy. It’s not either this or that.

So that’s one way to get outside the dichotomy: simply to say that the dichotomous picture is partial. It’s not that there are only two possibilities; there are more. Either there is a third possibility, or those two possibilities don’t necessarily exclude each other. Meaning, they may be able to go together, some sort of combination between them or something like that.

Another possibility is compromise. Compromise: I’m half this and half that. Some kind of… this sort of thing. I think that more systematically one can present compromise through the sorites paradox, which I’ve already described here more than once. It basically says that for every concept—at least everyday concepts—it’s wrong to look at it dichotomously, as black or white, yes or no. Rather, there is a whole continuum of levels at which that concept appears. And then the claim is that very often you get stuck, your thinking gets stuck—and this is positivist thinking, which often gets stuck, the paradoxes were born from logical positivism as we saw at the beginning of this series—you get stuck because you ignore the fact that it’s not just black and white; there’s also gray.

Yes, a classic example of this is all sorts of dilemma arguments, what they call in logic. There’s no point in giving an exam, because the diligent students study even without an exam and the lazy ones won’t study even with an exam, so why give an exam? And the assumption in the subtext here is that the world is divided into pathologically diligent people and pathologically lazy people. Meaning, these and those are not influenced by the existence of an exam; they either continue to be diligent or continue to be lazy. But in the world there are also people who are a bit diligent and a bit lazy and are somewhere in the middle on the spectrum. And then a person like that—if you give him an exam—it may motivate him to study more. Fine, so these dilemma arguments usually say either this or this, but after all it can’t be, these are mima nafshakh arguments—in Aramaic, a dilemma argument is called mima nafshakh. Yes, mima nafshakh means it can’t be true, because if you assume this it’s not true, and if you assume the opposite it’s also not true, a sign that it’s not true in any case. But sometimes there’s something between this and its opposite; there’s something in the middle, and there it may indeed be true. Therefore such arguments are arguments that usually assume a dilemma.

I’ll bring maybe one or two examples. There is, for example, an unusual manner of performing an act. So when one does a prohibited act on the Sabbath in an unusual manner, then it is rabbinically prohibited. Labors have to be done in their normal way; if you do them in an unusual way, then it is rabbinically prohibited. Now, there are places where we see—and I didn’t check a concrete example right now, but it appears in several places—we see that an unusual manner is permitted. Meaning, that one does something in an unusual manner and suddenly it becomes permitted. And then later authorities ask, wait a second, but doing labor in an unusual manner is rabbinically prohibited, so why does the fact that you’re doing it here in an unusual manner make it permitted? And the answer is: it depends how unusual. Meaning, if after all when I, say, select, okay? So selecting waste from food with a utensil for later use, okay, that’s the ultimate selecting. Now each one of those elements, if you remove it, then you have already removed one parameter from the definition of the prohibited labor of selecting. So that’s partial selecting or something like that. Now if I keep going further and say that if I merely move an item from place to place, that too is somewhat like selecting. True, I’m not leaving another type here, I’m only taking the one type that is here and moving it there, but that too is what you do in selecting, except that in selecting another type remains here. So is that too rabbinically prohibited as selecting? There aren’t even two types here. Fine, so it’s unusual, but it’s an unusualness that already makes it into something else. It’s a sufficiently large change that it really becomes another thing. In such a case it will be completely permitted. Now, someone who isn’t aware of this says, wait, this is labor done unusually, so why isn’t it rabbinically prohibited? The answer is: because it’s a major enough change that this is no longer that labor; it’s another labor. The concept of “unusual manner” is a concept with a continuum of levels, not one or zero. Meaning, either there is an unusual manner or there isn’t one. There are many levels of unusualness.

Standing on one leg is also flying in an unusual manner. There is some similarity between standing on one leg and flying; you can present it in the form of a metamorphosis. But obviously there’s no similarity at all, no connection. So you can present anything in this way as some sort of metamorphosis, as one small change and another small change and in the end I reach the other action. Yes, ask him to make two different things at the two ends, and he’ll show you some metamorphosis that takes you from a bird to a fish. What connection is there between a bird and a fish? There is none. But he makes a metamorphosis that takes you from a bird to a fish. So the claim is that someone who isn’t aware that in everyday concepts—and also halakhic concepts—there is a continuum of levels, gets stuck in dichotomous thinking, meaning either there’s a change or there isn’t one, so it’s rabbinically prohibited. No.

There’s a nice example of this, I think. There’s a Talmudic passage in the chapter Tolin in tractate Sabbath. The Talmud says there a certain principle, that there is no dispute from one extreme to the other. Meaning, there is no dispute in the laws of the Sabbath where one tanna says… So the Talmud brings there regarding a “city of gold,” which is a certain type of ornament, that if a woman goes out wearing a city of gold, there is a dispute among the tannaim. One says that one who goes out with a city of gold is liable to bring a sin-offering, one says it is permitted, and one says it is rabbinically prohibited. And the Talmud says: here we see that there are two tannaim who disagree from one extreme to the other—this one says a Torah prohibition and this one says permitted. So the Talmud answers: no no, there is a tanna who says it is rabbinically prohibited. Therefore it is not difficult. What difference does it make that there is a tanna who says it is rabbinically prohibited? The two tannaim at the two ends disagree from one extreme to the other. Clearly what lies behind this—and there’s an article in the first issue of Badad, I think, by someone there, Daniel Weil, a physicist—he said that behind this there is quantum logic. Fine, that sounds like games. But he put his finger on a correct point, regardless of the logical formalization he gave it. Behind this perception there basically stands—and the Sefat Emet there on the spot notes this—the assumption that a rabbinic prohibition is an intermediate state between what is permitted and what is liable to a sin-offering. Because usually that is not the view. Usually the view is that a rabbinic prohibition is basically permitted, only that the sages prohibited it rabbinically. But if you look at it through Torah-law lenses, it is permitted. Now if it really were so, then there is no significance at all to someone saying it is rabbinically prohibited. Who cares? There is a dispute from one extreme to the other here—two say it is permitted and one says one is liable to a sin-offering. What does it matter that one also prohibits it rabbinically? That doesn’t touch the Torah-law plane.

If you see the one who says it is rabbinically prohibited as intermediate between the one who says one is liable to a sin-offering and the one who says it is permitted, then what you are saying is that a rabbinic prohibition lies somewhere in the middle between the permitted and the prohibited. Or in other words, when something is prohibited rabbinically in the laws of the Sabbath—or at least some things, there are several types of rabbinic prohibitions—then it was really fit to be prohibited by Torah law, but with lower intensity. However, the threshold of Torah law lies above this, so by Torah law it was not prohibited. The sages lowered the threshold and therefore they nevertheless prohibit it. But there is something here of the type of Torah prohibition, only in a lower quantity, lower quality, doesn’t matter—but something from the Torah prohibition also exists in the rabbinic prohibition.

And indeed many later authorities noted that there are two types of shevut on the Sabbath. There is a shevut prohibited out of concern lest one come to violate a Torah prohibition, and there is a shevut prohibited because it resembles a Torah prohibition. And that’s not the same thing. For example, the classic example they always bring in this context is riding a horse. Yes? Riding a horse is prohibited lest one come to break off a branch. Now clearly riding a horse is not reaping rabbinically, right? If you break off a branch, that is the prohibited labor of reaping. But riding a horse—just riding a horse—you’re not doing anything. They only worry that you may come to break off a branch while riding. Therefore they prohibit it rabbinically. So what? Now will you say that riding a horse is reaping rabbinically? There is no form of reaping here. There is concern that you may come to perform the labor of reaping. So that is the first type of prohibition, where the prohibited act itself contains nothing at all of the Torah prohibition, but there is concern that you may come to perform a Torah prohibition and therefore they prohibited it. Fine? That really is zero. Meaning, in terms of permitted or prohibited, on the plane of Torah law it is permitted; it is not half prohibited, it is permitted.

But for example selecting food from waste instead of waste from food—that is rabbinically prohibited. Why is it rabbinically prohibited? Because it resembles selecting waste from food, but is different: food from waste. Okay? Now why did they prohibit it? Some want to claim that they prohibited it lest you come to select waste from food. But there are later authorities who claim: no, they prohibited it because it is selecting. Here too there is selection, only this is less significant selection or less similar to what was done in the Tabernacle, it doesn’t matter what the parameter is right now, but it is less selection, or only half-selection in the qualities, in the parameters, of the Torah prohibition. So in terms of the threshold of Torah law it does not pass the threshold, but the sages lowered the threshold and therefore prohibited it. But they prohibited it not because you may come to select waste from food; they prohibited this act itself, because this too itself is desecration of the Sabbath, only this is soft desecration of the Sabbath, small desecration of the Sabbath, not so significant. So the Torah does not prohibit it, while the sages are more stringent.

This is similar to half a measure, if I’m not mistaken. Yes, exactly. Half a measure is prohibited by Torah law. Meaning, all rabbinic prohibitions are like half a measure, yes. They say that regarding half a measure, for example, there is no half a measure in quality, as they say at the beginning of tractate Sabbath. There is the Rosh and the Sefat Emet there about when you do a placing-down without an uprooting. Then it is rabbinically prohibited. So the Sefat Emet asks there why this is not half a measure. Even the Rosh, if he mentions it maybe—I don’t remember by now—the Sefat Emet certainly asks it: why isn’t this half a measure? He says because it is half a measure in quality. What does that mean? You did half the act. You’re missing the placing-down. It’s not that you did a weak placing-down and a weak uprooting—that would have been half quantitatively. Here it is half because half the act is missing. It isn’t considered transferring at all, because if you only uprooted and didn’t place down, that isn’t called transferring at all. Not half-transferring. It isn’t transferring at all. Transferring is only both things together. If you do it in an unusual way or something like that, then it would be a weak transferring. But if you do it…

Now here in this matter there really is room for rabbinic prohibitions. All rabbinic prohibitions according to this view are basically half a measure in quality. Because half a measure in quantity is prohibited by Torah law. Right? That’s the… But an act prohibited as shevut… The prohibition itself is rabbinic—lest one come to… Not lest one come. “Lest one come” is only the first type. The second type is not because “lest one come.” The sages say: this too is desecration of the Sabbath. Selecting food from waste is also desecration of the Sabbath. Even if I didn’t… I didn’t reach a Torah prohibition, even though I transgressed the prohibition. Right. So is that prohibition also a Torah prohibition? No. It is a rabbinic prohibition. That’s what I’m saying. But not because lest you come to violate a Torah prohibition. This too itself is prohibited. It is not a fence lest you come to a Torah prohibition. But isn’t that the reason for shevut? Why? That’s what those later authorities claim it is, yes. There are two types of shevut. So shevut isn’t a fence? No. It’s not the same thing. No. Shevut means rabbinic prohibitions on the Sabbath. Now there are later authorities who understand that all rabbinic prohibitions are out of concern that one may come to a Torah prohibition, and then they really understand that a rabbinic prohibition in essence is something permitted. They only prohibit it lest one come to a Torah prohibition. But there are later authorities who say no. There are later authorities who claim that at least some shevut prohibitions are prohibited in themselves, not because of concern that one may come to a Torah prohibition. Because in them themselves there is a Torah-level problem, only at lower intensity. Okay? It’s like being more exacting in observing the Sabbath. It is not concern lest one come.

By the way, there are arguments in both directions as to which is more severe. Because there are later authorities who want to claim—even among those later authorities who distinguish between these two prohibitions—there are discussions, or places where you see that each time a different type is more severe. Because a rabbinic prohibition that is half-Torah is less severe, since in the end it’s only rabbinic. But in a rabbinic prohibition of “lest one come” to Torah law, you can actually come to a real Torah prohibition. So that’s more severe. On the other hand, if you didn’t come to a Torah prohibition, then with a rabbinic prohibition you did something that has no problem in it at all. Whereas with a prohibition that is half-Torah, you did something problematic—not at the level of a Torah prohibition, but still something problematic. So the question is how you look at it. Sometimes you can see this as more severe, sometimes you can see that as more severe. But in any event, what we see here is that the view of this division between Torah law and rabbinic law is really not dichotomous. Meaning, it is not prohibited and permitted. There is a continuum of levels between liability and permission. Sorry—“prohibited” is the rabbinic expression. Between liability and permission there is a continuum of levels. A continuum of levels of prohibition, and the sages set the threshold somewhere in the middle. And there is a continuum of levels. And that is exactly the point again, the same point: that we are not looking at it dichotomously.

Someone who looks at it dichotomously asks this question. After all, the Talmud in the chapter Tolin—why do I care that there’s someone in the middle who says rabbinically prohibited? There is one who says liable to a sin-offering and one who says permitted. That is a dispute from one extreme to the other. Someone who thinks dichotomously gets stuck with that question. And this is… this is another proof that it is not correct to think dichotomously. That positivism is not correct. When you look at things this way in Jewish law, you make mistakes—not only in Jewish law, also in life, also in law, everywhere. They talk all the time about proportionality, say, in the legal world. What is proportionality? Wherever you have no reasons, you say this is not proportional, this is proportional. But there is truth in it. There’s no choice. Because there are things where, true, there is in them the dimension that the law prohibits, but not at sufficiently high intensity. Or that the law permits, but not with sufficient intensity. Therefore you say proportionality. You have no way to quantify it, but you say this seems to me beyond the reasonable threshold. Which is exactly the same statement, basically, as when the sages say: this is selecting in a way that is already disproportionate. This we prohibit. Proportionate selecting, okay, that will be permitted. But when the selecting is already sufficiently similar to selecting prohibited by Torah law, then there is already a large enough measure of selecting in it, and so they prohibit it rabbinically. Okay?

What about the prohibition of muktzeh? Is that a prohibition of “lest one come,” or of resemblance to another prohibited labor? That’s a question of the reasons for muktzeh; much ink has been spilled over that. Maimonides and the Raavad and many others. It depends how you understand it. Many explain it as a safeguard for carrying. Then it really is concern lest one come to carry. A safeguard for… carrying. But in Maimonides there are… there are different expressions in Maimonides. In at least one place he writes that it is because of shevut, like the shevut of Nachmanides. After all, Nachmanides on the portion of Emor writes—and there is also Ritva on tractate Rosh Hashanah 32, I think—that shevut is something that harms the character of the Sabbath and is prohibited by Torah law. There is Torah-law shevut according to Nachmanides and his students. Something like, say, opening stores on the Sabbath is always the example they bring, or doing commerce on the Sabbath. That is prohibited by Torah law even though there is no primary category of labor in it. Because it is considered weekday business. Meaning, this is not done; this is not the character of the Sabbath. Now Maimonides’ claim is that muktzeh is of that type. It is rabbinic, but it is of that type. It harms the character of the Sabbath. The problem is not that you may come to carry, but that this itself turns the Sabbath into a weekday. That the Sabbath should be like a weekday in your eyes. If you basically come and do all the fix-ups and so on, as Maimonides writes there, then that basically means that we prohibit it in itself, not out of concern that you may come to violate a Torah prohibition. So it depends what rationale you adopt.

Why not say that it’s like half of “and they shall prepare what they bring”? So, say, on a festival it would be Torah law and on the Sabbath rabbinic, meaning because it’s not enough… Wait—on a festival by Torah law? Muktzeh? Muktzeh is rabbinic. Only according to Rashi in tractate Beitzah and in tractate Pesahim is muktzeh by Torah law. The view of Rava in Pesahim—Rashi in Beitzah page 2 brings it—but usually it is accepted that muktzeh is rabbinic. Also, the law of preparation and the law of muktzeh are two different laws, and this is very confusing. The law of preparation is, for example, an egg laid on a festival that falls after the Sabbath—that’s the law of preparation. Muktzeh is when there is an item designated for use and you do not, you set your mind away from it, and that is a rabbinic prohibition. The prohibition of preparation is a Torah prohibition. Now whether there is muktzeh on the Sabbath and on a festival too is also a dispute among halakhic decisors, but all that is rabbinic.

Another example is indirect force. There too there are all sorts of hesitations in the second chapter of tractate Bava Kamma: one’s force is like one’s body. If one’s force is like one’s body, then how can it be that the force of one’s force is permitted? One’s force is like one’s body, and the force of one’s force is like one’s force. So it’s transitive, meaning that the force of one’s force is also like one’s body. Where does this stop? Also a third force, a fourth force, a tenth force—why should it matter? And again the answer is that when you say one’s force is like one’s body, it does not mean that one’s force is literally like one’s body, but that one’s force is sufficiently like one’s body to prohibit. Say it’s 0.7 of one’s body, okay? Now the force of one’s force is already 0.49 of one’s body. That’s less than fifty percent, so it’s already permitted. At least there is an option to say that the force of one’s force is permitted. There is a tangle there, and disputes. So once again, this way of thinking that says either one or zero, black or white, is a way of thinking that keeps trapping us in these kinds of knots.

Fine, maybe one last example, also touching on Torah law and rabbinic law, is Maimonides—whom we already discussed—regarding laws derived from scriptural exposition. Laws derived from scriptural exposition, according to Maimonides in the second root, are prohibited by the words of the sages. And there are major disputes about exactly what he means. Most commentators claim that he means by Torah law, and he calls them “the words of the sages” only because the sages were the ones who created these laws, but they created them from the verses via the tools of exposition, therefore it is Torah law. I think that is incorrect. In my opinion, in its plain meaning Maimonides really means “the words of the sages,” rabbinic law. But for Maimonides, the concept “the words of the sages” is a continuum of levels between permission and Torah prohibition. And one can even point to several distinct notches on that scale, which are various kinds of prohibition from the words of the sages with different definitions. For example, a law given to Moses at Sinai is also, according to Maimonides, “the words of the sages.” In several places he writes this. And there you even see in several places that in cases of doubt one is lenient. At least two places in Maimonides where in doubt one is lenient. Whereas in a law derived from exposition, which he also calls “the words of the sages,” in doubt one is stringent. Even though both are “the words of the sages.” So if in Torah-law doubt one is stringent and in rabbinic-law doubt one is lenient, then what about doubt in “the words of the sages”? According to Maimonides it depends which “words of the sages” it is. There is a continuum of levels of “the words of the sages,” and each has to be discussed on its own terms; it’s not a package deal.

And this is again an example of the fact that we live in a world where there is rabbinic law and there is Torah law, and we say wait—if it’s rabbinic then it’s not Torah law; if it’s Torah law it’s not rabbinic—and then you get stuck with all sorts of problems. But the truth is that there is a continuum of levels between permission and Torah law, and even a continuum of rabbinic levels, and therefore one must be careful with dichotomous thinking.

Fine. That was a remark about what I earlier called compromise. A way to depart from dichotomous thinking by means of compromise. That is, to speak about intermediate levels in the appearance of the writings.

I want to end this topic with a very interesting principle of Rabbi Shimon Shkop, which is also basically a departure from logical thinking. Actually I should have done this already at the beginning of the series. We spoke at the beginning about paradoxes and logical loops, and we spoke about going outside the system in order to judge these principles. There is Tosafot on tractate Gittin page 83. The Talmud discusses someone who gave his wife a bill of divorce on condition that she not marry so-and-so. And if she marries so-and-so then the divorce is void. Rabbi Akiva responded and said: suppose she went and married one of the men of the marketplace and had children by him, and then was widowed or divorced, and then went and married this one from whom she had been forbidden—does it not turn out that the divorce is void and her children are mamzerim? Basically, say Reuven divorced his wife on condition that she not marry Levi. Okay? So she went and married Shimon, they had children, and then she divorced Shimon and went and married Levi. But when she married Levi she violated the condition of the first divorce, and then the first divorce is void, and then her marriage to Shimon was not really a marriage because she was still Reuven’s wife. Okay? And then her children from Shimon are mamzerim, children of a married woman. Fine? That’s what Rabbi Akiva says.

Tosafot asks about this: but if so, the marriage cannot take effect, because she is forbidden to him as a married woman. Let’s continue the loop further. What are you saying—that the divorce became void? If the divorce became void, then she was not really Shimon’s wife and the children from him are mamzerim, right? And now she went and married Levi. But her marriage to Levi is also not a marriage, since she is Reuven’s wife, a married woman. How can she marry Levi? Then it turns out that her marriage to Levi is also invalid. And if her marriage to Levi is invalid, then she did not violate the condition, because the condition was that she not marry Levi, not that she merely attempt to marry Levi. So the marriage to Levi is invalid, therefore she did not violate the condition. But if she did not violate the condition, then the divorce does take effect, so she was Shimon’s wife and the children are not mamzerim, and then her marriage to Levi is valid. But if it is valid then she violated the condition, and so on and so forth. Okay, that’s basically Tosafot’s question.

On this Rabbi Shimon says in Sha’arei Yosher—he basically grapples with this. Tosafot basically stops there. Tosafot says: but if so, the marriage cannot take effect, because she is forbidden to him as a married woman. And then what? Then basically it comes out that the marriage to Levi did not take effect, and then the condition was not violated. So the condition did not take effect. What? It’s not relevant at all. Why? No—she married Levi, but the marriage to Levi doesn’t take effect because she is Reuven’s wife, since the divorce is void. And that’s it. Then she did not marry Levi and that’s it. So Rabbi Shimon Shkop asks: why do you stop there? Let’s continue further. If she did not marry Levi, then the divorce does take effect because she did not violate the condition. But if the divorce takes effect, then the marriage to Levi is valid, because she is no longer a married woman. But if the marriage is valid, then the condition voids the divorce, so it doesn’t take effect, and so on. That is what Rabbi Shimon asks: why does Tosafot stop there?

So Rabbi Shimon argues as follows: because these marriages—it is impossible that they should take effect, meaning the marriage to Levi—since if they take effect, they will be retroactively voided because of the condition. And likewise, something whose taking effect is impossible in reality does not take effect at all. Therefore the divorce remains in force and the marriage is void. He explains why Tosafot stops there. After all, Tosafot stops there and says the marriage to Levi does not take effect, and that’s it. Meaning, the divorce really remains valid, the marriage to Levi does not take effect, and that’s the end of it. Why don’t you continue? If the marriage to Levi does not take effect, then the divorce is valid. Why do you say it’s not valid? Since she did not violate the condition. Why don’t you continue the loop? He says no—the loop stops here. In yeshivot they call this rule: anything which, if it takes effect, then it doesn’t take effect—then it doesn’t take effect. That’s how they say it in yeshivot.

What does that mean? Rabbi Shimon argues as follows. If now she goes and marries Levi, first of all on the level of pure logic there is no solution to this thing. It’s a paradox, a logical loop. There is no way to solve it. You will keep running around your own tail. It’s similar to that liar paradox, to all the paradoxes we spoke about, where ostensibly one has to go outside the system in order to try to stop or solve them. Now what Rabbi Shimon does here is offer a solution not on the logical plane. He offers a halakhic principle, not a logical principle, because logic does not say this. And what does he claim? He says as follows. If the woman now goes and marries Levi, then if the marriage to Levi takes effect, it itself will uproot itself, because that will void the divorce, and then she will be Reuven’s wife, and then that will cause the marriage not to take effect, right? So such a marriage does not take effect. There is such a rule in Jewish law: if you try to impose a certain legal effect, and imposing that effect will create a state that uproots that very effect itself—meaning, you’re sawing off the branch on which you’re trying to sit—you can’t sit on that branch. That’s the rule. And then he says: when she comes and tries to marry Levi, if the marriage to Levi takes effect, it will be annulled, because all the reasons have already occurred. The reasons that will cancel it, because the condition attached to the first divorce is what creates the problem. Therefore, right now when the marriage to Levi takes effect—when Levi betroths her—that will uproot the marriage. The betrothal did not succeed in taking effect. Rabbi Shimon says: if so, that betrothal does not take effect, because it is a betrothal that cannot be imposed. Anything which, if it takes effect, does not take effect—meaning, will be annulled—does not take effect. That is, such a legal effect cannot be imposed. That is his claim.

Now, this is not a logical claim; it is a halakhic innovation. He claims there is such a halakhic rule that says that if you try to impose a legal effect whose imposition would uproot itself, then such a legal effect cannot be imposed. That is his claim. What about giving a bill of divorce to a woman, where they say that when you give her the bill of divorce, then supposedly she has no hand, and if she has a hand, both come at once? Yes, then both come at once. That contradicts the whole thing. But why don’t you say—you want to apply Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s rule—that you say when you give her the bill of divorce, you’re trying to impose a legal effect, but it itself saws off the branch it sits on, therefore it is impossible to give a bill of divorce? That is the Talmud’s question. Therefore it needs to say that they come simultaneously. Because of that question, that is the question, and to that they answer: they come simultaneously. But here you can’t answer “they come simultaneously,” because this happens long after the divorce. The marriage to Levi—there’s no “they come simultaneously” here. It also can’t come simultaneously; they contradict each other. Meaning, if she is married to Levi then there is no divorce, and if there is no divorce then she isn’t married. That’s the loop. This isn’t a problem of who came first. There is a contradiction between the two; you can’t have both together. But the question really is the same question, I think.

So Rabbi Shimon’s claim is basically a halakhic claim: if you impose a legal effect whose imposition uproots itself, then such a legal effect cannot be imposed. That is his claim. And then he says as follows—maybe I’ll say in advance what comes later. It is not enough to say what he says, because then I could say: fine, and the divorce too cannot take effect, because its taking effect would uproot itself. Why don’t you say that about the divorce? The first divorce. Why only about the second marriage? After all, this loop continues. You asked Tosafot: why don’t you continue the loop? What did you answer? Even according to your view, let’s continue: so the betrothal to Levi did not take effect. Excellent. So if it did not take effect, then now the divorce is valid, right? So if the divorce is valid, then what’s the problem? Now she can marry Levi. How did you stop it? Maybe because that is removing a legal status and this is imposing a legal status? There? That this removes a legal status and this imposes a legal status. As if giving a divorce means you remove from her the status of a married woman, but you place on her the status of a divorcée. The question is how you look at it. You also place on her the status of a divorcée—say, she becomes forbidden to a priest, and so on. Fine, I don’t know, needs thought.

Because I think the point is that Rabbi Shimon assumes another assumption that he doesn’t say, but it’s clear this is in the background. We are basically looking at—and maybe this will be one of the next topics I thought of discussing, I don’t remember, maybe we once talked about it, I need to look at the computer, I no longer remember—retroactive clarification and conditions and so on. Did we speak about that once? Some other thing like that. I don’t remember, we’ll check. In any case, Rabbi Shimon is basically making the following claim. After all, our assumption is that everything happens at the same moment, right? Meaning, if she marries Levi, then the divorce is already void then. Not that it becomes void now—until now she was divorced and suddenly now she becomes a married woman—but rather it turns out she was never divorced. Meaning, everything goes back to the time of the giving of the divorce. Right? Basically everything happens simultaneously, only we analyze it step by step. First there is the divorce and she is divorced, and then she marries Shimon and Levi, and then the divorce is void and we continue. But this whole business actually happens in one moment of time, because due to the condition we go back in time, right?

Rabbi Shimon makes another claim besides the claim about the legal effect that cannot be imposed. Even though all this takes place at one moment of time, we lay out the causal axis as though it were a time axis. Meaning, from our perspective first the woman was divorced and afterward she married Shimon, and afterward she married Levi, and afterward—not before—afterward the divorce given by Reuven is nullified, and afterward Levi’s legal effects do not take effect, and so on. Meaning, everything is spread out over a time axis. To move forward; we do not go back. Then in the end in the end. No, I don’t know. Now look. Now I’m combining the two principles. First, that the causal axis is laid out as though it were a time axis, such that the events on it follow one another and do not happen simultaneously. And second, Rabbi Shimon’s principle that any legal effect that uproots itself cannot be imposed. Now the two together solve the problem. Why? Reuven now gives the woman a divorce. This divorce in itself does not uproot itself—she may fail to marry Levi and everything is fine, right? There is no problem. Therefore the divorce takes effect; there is no problem imposing this divorce. So now she is available. She marries Shimon—no problem, she is his wife and the children are valid. Now Shimon divorced her—also no problem, that doesn’t solve anything. Now she comes to marry Levi. Now what does “now” mean? It all happens at one moment, but this is “now” along the causal axis. Okay? Now a problem arises. The moment she marries Levi, her marriage to Levi will be uprooted, because all the causes have already occurred. The causes that will nullify it, because the condition attached to the first divorce is what creates the problem. Therefore right now, if she imposes the marriage to Levi, Levi’s betrothal—when Levi betroths her—that will nullify the betrothal. The betrothal did not manage to take effect. Rabbi Shimon says: if so, this betrothal does not take effect, because this is a betrothal that cannot be imposed. Everything that happened until now remains. And then what comes out? That she is in fact divorced from Reuven, right? And her marriage to Levi did not take effect. Right—even though if she is divorced, why shouldn’t it take effect? Exactly. After all, she isn’t a married woman. It won’t take effect not because she’s a married woman. It won’t take effect because its taking effect uproots itself. And there is a rule in Jewish law that such a legal effect, where if you impose it it uproots itself—such a legal effect cannot be imposed. That’s a different rule. She is not not married because she is a married woman. She is not married because this marriage cannot be imposed. She is not a married woman; she is free. Everything is fine. Okay?

So you need the combination of Rabbi Shimon’s two assumptions in order to solve this loop of Tosafot. Also that at every stage you examine it on its own terms: if the divorce takes effect, then I no longer go back to it—it took effect, period. After that, the marriage to Shimon—there’s no problem. After that, the marriage to Levi—here I have a problem. Why? Because if it takes effect then it will be annulled. So this is a legal effect that according to Jewish law cannot be imposed, and therefore it does not take effect. But why did you start precisely from that stage in the loop? You could have started from another stage. Which stage? You started from the stage where he gives a divorce. Because that was first in time. I start acting along the time axis, and then there comes a condition that determines causality. After all, the condition creates the causality, right? And now I continue as if to go along the time axis. The truth is this is also a real time axis, because she married Levi at a later time, only the condition sends me back. But I go along the real time axis. Only I do not go backward even though there is a condition. Rather, I look at it as if I continue forward even though the condition returns me backward. Because the nullification of the divorce due to her marrying Levi is as if it went backward, but for me it is something that happens at the next stage, not at the previous stage. Because causally it is a result, even though chronologically it goes back; on the causal axis it is a result, therefore it happens afterward.

But the husband will come and say: from the moment she married Levi… She did not marry Levi. No, she did not marry Levi. The betrothal did not take effect, because betrothal of that sort—where if it takes effect it does not take effect—cannot be imposed. So she did not marry Levi. Then you’ll ask: but why didn’t she marry Levi? After all, she is divorced from Reuven, she is not a married woman, why shouldn’t she marry Levi? Here—I now know that it won’t take effect. Exactly. Meaning it is not because she is Reuven’s married woman. Tosafot says that the marriage to Levi does not take. Rabbi Shimon says: the fact that the marriage to Levi does not take is not because she is Reuven’s married woman. She is not Reuven’s married woman—the divorce took effect—but because this is a kind of legal effect such that if it takes effect, it does not take effect. Such a legal effect cannot be imposed.

Now these two principles together solve all the loops I can think of. They stop the loop. Yes. You simply go according to the order of events, continue with the causal order, and at the point where you get stuck you stop. Everything that happened up to now happened. You don’t go back. And then I’ll give you examples of other loops. We collected many loops here in the book, the fifth book in our series. I’ll give you, for example, another case. Reuven divorced his wife on condition that she marry Shimon—that she specifically marry him, not as in the Talmud, okay? And the woman went and married Levi, and afterward left Levi without a divorce and married Shimon. Without a divorce she married Shimon. So what is the law in such a case? If she married Shimon, then she fulfilled Reuven’s condition, right? So essentially she is divorced from Reuven, and consequently her marriage to Levi is valid. But he divorced her without a divorce, so she is still Levi’s wife. Now she goes and marries Shimon—she cannot marry Shimon because she is Levi’s wife. But if she did not marry Shimon, then she did not fulfill the condition, so she is not divorced, so she is not Levi’s wife. If she is not Levi’s wife, she doesn’t need a divorce from him in order to marry Shimon. Again the same loop.

Another example: someone divorces his wife with the condition “from now and after thirty days,” okay? And during those thirty days she must be careful not to eat anything prohibited. If she guards herself for thirty days from prohibited food, then it will be a divorce. And if she tastes prohibited food, then it won’t be a divorce. Now within those thirty days she made a vow—konam—concerning a loaf, that she would not eat it, okay? Her husband, the one who divorced her, annulled it for her on the day he heard it. Okay? Now she ate the loaf based on his annulment; he annulled it for her. Now the question is whether she is divorced or not. After all, if he annulled it for her, then the loaf is not forbidden to her, right? So no problem—she did not eat prohibited food. If she did not eat prohibited food, then she is divorced. But if she is divorced, then he is not her husband; only her husband can annul the vow for her. So she violated a prohibition. So if she violated a prohibition, then the divorce did not take effect, and so on. Fine, that’s another example.

There are lots of them; we collected several, and there are more—we didn’t bring everything here. There are dozens of such amusing cases in the Talmud. A bill of divorce was written not for her sake, and on the Sabbath he went over it with a pen for her sake. Fine? On the Sabbath I go over the writing of the divorce document with a pen, and thus it is written for her sake, deliberately. Now one who writes a bill of divorce deliberately on the Sabbath is an apostate. Writing on the Sabbath violates the prohibition of labor on the Sabbath, so it is not a valid bill of divorce. But if it is not a valid bill of divorce, then he is not an apostate, since the writing was already there. Only if you turn it into a bill of divorce does going over writing that already exists count as violating the prohibited labor of writing. Because merely tracing over writing that already exists is not the prohibited labor of writing; only if you turn it into a valid bill of divorce written for her sake is it considered writing. But if you turn it into a valid bill of divorce, then you are an apostate, so the bill of divorce is not valid. If the bill of divorce is not valid, then you did not turn it into a valid bill of divorce, you did not violate writing, so you are not an apostate, and so on. In short, there are many examples like that.

In every one of them—I won’t do it here now—but in every one of them you can follow Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s two principles, and that solves all these loops of all kinds. And in the Minhat Hinukh there are several of these too. What’s interesting is that in that case with the vows, where her husband annulled the vow for her, there I think—I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think—the second principle of Rabbi Shimon is enough; you don’t need the first one in order to solve it. It’s enough that we proceed according to the order without needing that principle that any legal effect whose application cancels itself cannot be applied. Even without that we solve the problem. That’s very interesting: just the principle that Rabbi Shimon doesn’t write explicitly but assumes implicitly is enough to solve that problem. Fine, but that belongs to other loops, never mind.