The Receiver Chapter – Lesson 25

The Maharal certainly doesn’t think that. He wrote so much on the aggadot of the Sages and drew so many conclusions from them; I don’t think he would sign on to such a claim. I think almost no one would sign on to it. I’m expressing my personal position here. The Maharal here is in good company and I’m less so, but that is the feeling. And I think that if you look, if you really check, you’ll see that in the end what they do there is take the aggadah and ultimately find in it something that if I had told you in advance, you’d have agreed with it anyway. Meaning, I’ve never heard in my life of someone who thought one thing, studied an aggadic sugya, came to the conclusion that he was wrong, and said: Ah, I understand, I was wrong, I’m changing my position. Never. Meaning, if it doesn’t fit what you think, then either you’ll force the aggadah, or you’ll find another aggadah that disagrees with it and say okay, I’m going with that one, or I don’t know what you’ll do—but you’ll never really take that lesson and change what you think.

Now, study means learning something new, not something I knew beforehand. That’s what it means to study. Once I told my students in Yeruham that the argument from which you gain is the argument in which you lost. Because in an argument in which you lost, you learned something. Before, you thought X, and it became clear to you that you were mistaken; the truth is Y. But an argument in which you won is one where you thought X beforehand and it turned out indeed to be X. You gained nothing from that argument; your opponent gained. Meaning, ultimately the place where I learn something is when I think X and after I learn, I discover that it’s not X but Y. That doesn’t happen in aggadah. It simply doesn’t happen. Not in aggadah, not in the Hebrew Bible, not in any of these studies—it just doesn’t happen.

I’ll tell you simply: you see that our forefather Jacob lied, okay? When he came to Isaac, he lied there. So ostensibly, if we were learning from those verses, we’d say okay, so from these verses it comes out that apparently it’s a commandment to lie or permitted to lie, and then we move on to the next portion. Of course not. How can it be that Jacob lied? Then the explanations begin. Why do we need explanations? We need explanations because it’s clear to us beforehand that it’s forbidden to lie, and no passage in the world will convince us that we are wrong. And if there is a passage that contradicts that, then we’ll arrange it so it won’t contradict it.

All the problems of Torah and morality—what are “problems of Torah and morality”? We have, say, the beautiful captive woman. Yes, the passage that came up when the last Chief Military Rabbi was appointed. So they pulled out of the archives some answer he had once given about the beautiful captive woman, when someone asked him—before he was appointed—whether it is permitted to rape a female captive in war. He said yes, there is the passage of the beautiful captive woman in Ki Tetze. Immediately they brought it out, rejoiced, total chaos. Okay? Then all the explanations and justifications started, this and that, it doesn’t matter, all sorts of issues.

But in the end everybody feels that they’re in some kind of problem, and they need to look for explanations. What’s the problem? The Torah says it’s permitted to rape female captives, so it’s permitted to rape female captives. Next portion. What’s the dilemma? Why do we need to look for explanations of how the Torah could write this? Because our assumption is that what we think is moral is morality. And if we see something else in the Torah, then we need to reconcile it. But in the end we will remain with the principles we knew in advance. We won’t learn anything new from the Torah. And that’s how it is.

If you examine this honestly, not with slogans—I know it’s uncomfortable to think this way, it’s uncomfortable for me too—but if you’re honest and really examine the things people teach in aggadah and Hebrew Bible and all these things, you’ll see that there’s no one in the world ever—I don’t know, at least I haven’t seen it—who learned something new from these genres, aggadah or Hebrew Bible. You simply don’t learn anything new.

These discussions of altering the truth for the sake of peace—that’s a halakhic discussion. A halakhic discussion. A halakhic discussion. There is study in it. There is also aggadic study in it. What is the aggadic lesson? That changing for the sake of peace is a safeguard around the prohibition of lying. Fine. You understand that if we didn’t think it was permitted to alter for the sake of peace, we would have found explanations there too. It doesn’t work like that. It’s clear that it starts from the fact that we also think that way.

Now the interpretive dimension—the interpretive dimension—there are verses that say it is forbidden to eat pork; there too we learned something. I wouldn’t have known from the verse that it’s forbidden to eat pork. Therefore I’m not talking about a halakhic lesson; I’m talking only about non-halakhic verses, aggadic verses or aggadot, okay. The verse about Sarah and Isaac—those are aggadic verses; it doesn’t say, “And God said to Abraham: it is permitted for you to lie.” No, no, fine—but from those verses we learned a halakhic lesson. The lesson is a halakhic one. I’m talking about a non-halakhic lesson.

But I’m saying: even if you want to insist on this, then I’ll go even further with you. What I said before: if we didn’t agree that it is permitted to alter for the sake of peace, we would have interpreted that differently too. Rather, we also think that way—that it is permitted to alter for the sake of peace. Doron, did you want to say something? The interpretive dimension—many aggadot interpret verses for us. And therefore what? So there’s value in that. You can’t say it’s less than Jewish law. Also to interpret and understand the verses of the Written Torah, of the Hebrew Bible, is a value in itself. Certainly one can, Jewish law—and I even say it. I can’t tell you there’s no value in it; who am I? Verses of the Hebrew Bible, I can’t say there’s no value in studying them. But the fact that they have value—I’m not to blame. I prefer to study a little. What does “value” mean? It doesn’t teach me anything. So the fact that I engage with it may be something valuable in some mystical sense, but there’s no study here. I don’t learn anything from it.

The point is that yes, look at what was mentioned here earlier, the Maharal. What the Maharal does to the aggadot of the Sages is really a group assault. Meaning, he simply decides what seems correct to him and then forces aggadah after aggadah to explain exactly what he wants them to say. You understand that this doesn’t work in an intellectually honest way? Meaning, if he were really checking what the aggadot say—no. He comes as a blank slate? None of what he says comes out of there, or almost none of it. Let’s not exaggerate, but almost none of it comes out of there.

In any case, the point is that there are these genres that are very popular today. In my view part of this is a search for experiences, or a search for an easier life, or I don’t know exactly what, such that Jewish law is less popular and Hebrew Bible and aggadah fill halls. And in the end they learn nothing there. Literally nothing. It simply isn’t study at all. I think you can’t recite the blessing over Torah study on that, for example, in my opinion.

In any case, I think what lies behind the argument between the two students of Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaḥa is this very feeling. One of them doesn’t want to hear aggadah. He says there’s no such thing; it isn’t study. And the other wants to hear aggadah. I assume this doesn’t mean… he didn’t boycott Jewish law; I don’t know anyone who does that. But he did want to emphasize that the study of aggadah is study like any other study, study of value.

You mentioned earlier Nefesh HaChayim, Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, Gate 4, where Nefesh HaChayim deals with Torah. And there he talks about the idea that the study of Jewish law is the study of God’s will, and the value of Jewish law is cleaving to the will of the Holy One, blessed be He. So cleaving to the will of the Holy One, blessed be He—contrary to what the Hasidim say—is not an experience of cleaving, but the very engagement with Jewish law is itself a state of cleaving. It has nothing to do with experiences at all. The fact that I hold in my head a proposition that an ox that gores a cow must pay such-and-such—I’m holding in my mind a piece of the will of the Holy One, blessed be He. So I am cleaving to Him by definition. It’s an objective state, not a question of mystical experiences or ecstatic convulsions or cleaving to God in the experiential, emotional sense. That’s Nefesh HaChayim.

Now within that discussion there, he says: and if so, perhaps you’ll say that in matters of aggadah he is not… and pardon me, he says: and also in matters of aggadah he is cleaving to the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it says, “Everything that an advanced student will one day innovate was already spoken or said by the Holy One, blessed be He, to Moses at Sinai.” Now his initial assumption is very interesting—why did he need to add that sentence? That even if he engages in aggadah—what? What do you mean, what’s the problem with aggadah? Why is an explanation needed here? Obviously in the Lithuanian yeshivot—he was Lithuanian—obviously in the Lithuanian yeshivot aggadah is less important than Jewish law. But that doesn’t mean it’s true. That doesn’t mean that’s how it is. Who says it isn’t true? I’m presenting my position; each of you should form his own position as he understands. I’m only presenting what I think.

So Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin argues that Jewish law—and by the way, almost the exact same words are also in the Tanya, literally almost the same words, from the other side of the divide. In any case, his claim is that Jewish law is norms; it is the commands of the Holy One, blessed be He—what is permitted, what is forbidden, what is commanded, and so on. These are the wills of the Holy One, blessed be He. To engage in aggadah, to engage in stories of what happened—that is not the will of the Holy One, blessed be He. Even “And Abraham went,” you learn nothing there about His will, what He wants from you; there’s no command there, no prohibition there, none of that. Therefore Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says: if the value in Torah is to cleave to the will of the Holy One, blessed be He—he brings there “He and His will are one”—therefore if you cleave to His will, you cleave to Him, then why would the study of aggadah be cleaving to His will? There is no will of the Holy One there. So he says: the Holy One did a special kindness. What? He speaks the aggadah in such a way that one who studies aggadah is also cleaving—not to the will of the Holy One, but to the speech of the Holy One.

By the way, “these and those are the words of the living God”—he brings there the Talmud in Gittin regarding the concubine in Gibeah, where they disagreed whether he found a fly or he found a hair, and then Rabbi Yonatan and Rabbi Evyatar encounter Elijah and ask him: What is the Holy One, blessed be He, doing? He too is engaged in the concubine in Gibeah. And what does He say? My son Evyatar says thus; My son Yonatan says thus. And, Heaven forbid, is there doubt before Heaven? Doesn’t the Holy One know what happened there? So he says: these and those are the words of the living God. He found a fly and was not upset; he found a hair and was upset.

Now, this is interesting—what does “these and those are the words of the living God” mean? Factually, ostensibly only one is right, not both. So when it says there “these and those are the words of the living God,” it doesn’t say “the wills of the living God.” The Holy One said both this opinion and that opinion. That doesn’t mean both are true. But He said both in order to give both the status of Torah words. Because what you are saying are things that the Holy One said. And I think this may perhaps be the source of what Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says—he brings that Talmudic passage there.

And basically what he claims is this: when you study Jewish law, you cleave to the will of the Holy One and to His speech. He also said it in the Torah, but it is also what He wants. When you study things that are not Jewish law, you cleave to His speech, but not to His will. And therefore in the end it is less important. He brings there King David’s request from the Holy One, blessed be He, that Psalms should count like engagement in the tractates of Nega’im and Oholot. So you see that fundamentally Psalms is not Nega’im and Oholot. But he asked the Holy One that it should count that way. And Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says: and we also never heard what the Holy One answered him. Meaning, we didn’t hear that the Holy One said, okay, I agree, that too will be like Nega’im and Oholot. That’s a somewhat pilpulistic remark. But his thesis is that maybe it has value, but it is certainly of lesser value than Jewish law.

By the way, Rashi’s very first comment on the Torah starts with: Why did the Torah not begin with “This month shall be for you the first of months”? Why should it have opened with that? Because that is the first commandment with which Israel was commanded. Meaning, the basic conception is that Torah means commandments. That is Torah. The whole book of Genesis and the first quarter of Exodus are unnecessary. Why were they written there? That is the question with which Rashi opens his commentary on the Torah. And one has to understand: it’s not just written there casually. He is coming to tell us what Torah is. There he begins to explain to us what Torah is. Torah is commandments. It is Jewish law. That is Torah. You’ll say to me: yes, but there is Genesis and the first portions of Exodus before the first commandments. Fine—that is “He declared to His people the power of His works, in order to give them the inheritance of the nations.” Meaning, there is an explanation why this too is needed. Do you hear the melody? It is exactly Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin’s melody, long before the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim. The melody is that basically the main thing is Jewish law, and what surrounds it—okay, I have explanations; that too has some kind of value or another. But the main thing is Jewish law. Torah is from the language of instruction; that is the meaning of the word Torah. Torah is instruction, and instruction is Jewish law.

In any case, I return to our Talmudic passage. So there was an argument here between the two students of Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaḥa whether to study Jewish law or aggadah. So maybe one more sentence that I can’t resist. Once I defined the difference between pilpul and derashah. What did I say once? What’s the difference between pilpul and derashah? A good halakhic or analytical discussion is an excellent argument that ends with a correct conclusion. You know those don’t always have to come together. There can be correct conclusions with a failed argument. There can be a good argument with an incorrect conclusion. Okay? But good lomdus is good arguments that end in a good conclusion.

Pilpul is a good argument that ends in a wrong conclusion. Right? That’s pilpul. What is pilpul? Pilpul is when I prove to you something that is nonsense on its face, but the proof looks like a good proof, it holds water. And this creates a kind of challenge—put your finger on what exactly in the argument is problematic, how we got to an incorrect conclusion with an argument that looks so good. Yes, the example is—one of the examples—am I obligated to put a mezuzah on a four-cornered garment? You know that argument? Several of the authors of the “rules” books bring this example. There is an a fortiori argument: if a doorpost, which is exempt from tzitzit, is obligated in mezuzah, then a four-cornered garment, which is obligated in tzitzit, is it not all the more so obligated in mezuzah? And of course one can prove with equal force that a four-cornered garment is exempt from tzitzit. Right? Because if a doorpost, which is obligated in mezuzah, is exempt from tzitzit, then a four-cornered garment, which is exempt from mezuzah, is it not all the more so exempt even from tzitzit? And so on. I can prove that a four-cornered garment is obligated in mezuzah and that a doorpost is obligated in tzitzit. In short, I can prove whatever you want in this matter.

Now it’s obvious to us that this isn’t true. But to put your finger on what is wrong in that argument—ostensibly it’s a perfectly respectable a fortiori argument—it’s not simple to put your finger on what exactly is problematic in the argument, aside from the fact that we know the conclusion is obviously incorrect. That is what is called pilpul. I won’t go into the explanations now, but that is what is called pilpul. Pilpul is basically an analytical riddle. I present to you an analytical argument with a conclusion that is clearly wrong to both you and me; come put your finger on what in the argument is wrong. It’s a riddle, it’s a challenge. Okay? So that definitely has value in my view. The conclusion is nonsense, of course, but it sharpens one’s analytical abilities. It’s a riddle for students.

What is derashah? Pilpul, we said, is a good argument with a failed conclusion. Derashah is a failed argument with a correct conclusion. Yes? When you say some derashah, you take—what the Maharal does, it doesn’t matter—you take homiletical material, take aggadot or take verses, interpret them, and arrive at some conclusion: one should be humble, righteous, and holy. Okay, so the conclusion is certainly correct. But the argument doesn’t lead there; the argument doesn’t hold water. Only many times—many times—people don’t notice the poor quality of the argument because they are captivated by the conclusion. Since the conclusion is obviously correct, nobody bothers to examine the quality of the argument that led to it. And then you can force midrashim and verses and everything—as long as in the end the conclusion is a correct one, or a conclusion accepted by the public.

This happens every day in our times. You can see it in every political or ideological argument of one kind or another. The arguments are mostly awful. But since the person cherishes the conclusion, anyone who agrees with the conclusion is delighted by all the arguments. He doesn’t notice that these are really stupid arguments. Why? Because it’s obvious to him that the conclusion is right, so who cares about the arguments. This is what is called, in the humorous or not-so-humorous tradition: one does not refute a derashah. Right? You don’t raise objections to the arguments of a derashah. Why? Because from the outset that argument is worth nothing. Derashah is just empty chatter. Meaning, derashah is a genre intended for laymen, where instead of simply telling them “be righteous,” you have to explain to them that the verse says “be righteous.” So you have to show them from the verse that it comes out that they should be righteous, and then they’re all happy and they fill the hall at a conference in honor of righteousness and all kinds of things of that sort. And there are wonderful Torah talks with gematrias and little flourishes and all kinds of things of that kind. And everyone leaves happy, except that they didn’t learn a thing there. There’s nothing. So that’s what is called derashah.

Usually studies of aggadah or Hebrew Bible are in the category of derashah. They are derashah in the sense that the conclusions are probably correct. But the arguments—sometimes the arguments are okay—but the arguments are not examined seriously. Since if the conclusion is right, what do I care about the argument?

Fine. Sometimes I also have the feeling that the aggadot of the Sages are like that. In the end these are the same derashot you hear today from preachers in synagogues, which were said two thousand years ago. It’s just that two thousand years ago they got into the Talmud, and now we treat them with holy reverence. And today you can all see the nonsense said in synagogues by some rabbis—even very great rabbis, great scholars, great Torah scholars, great halakhic decisors—and when they get to the level of derashah, they simply babble themselves to death. And often my feeling when facing aggadot in the Talmud is maybe it’s the same thing, I don’t know. I don’t know because I have no way of knowing what they really intended, but I’m not sure it isn’t, let’s put it that way.

Okay, back to where we were. So what I really want to say is that this was the argument between the two students of Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaḥa. Now the question was: okay, so what did he do in the end? He proposed, found a solution. He gave them an exposition on this verse, “If a fire goes forth and finds thorns,” and he gave them an aggadic derashah and a halakhic derashah. So what did you gain? They still should have silenced him. The one who doesn’t want the halakhic derashah won’t let him say it; the one who doesn’t want the aggadic derashah won’t let him say it.

It seems to me that what is written here is the following. Not only is this two expositions from the same verse—it’s not two expositions from the same verse. It is one exposition from that verse. These two expositions are not two; they are one. And that exposition says that liability for one’s fire is because of his arrows. What does that mean, “because of his arrows”? There is a dispute between Rabbi Yoḥanan and Reish Lakish, right, in the second chapter. Why? Because when you shoot an arrow and kill someone or damage someone, it’s obvious to everyone—that’s by your hand. That’s by your own force, it’s damage caused by a person. Nobody regards that arrow as my property that went and caused damage. Because by my power I shot the arrow and caused damage—whether I used an arrow, a hammer, or whatever—it is direct damage by a person, with no problem. It’s not indirect causation or anything like that.

Damage caused by one’s property is indirect causation, obviously. When I open the door and the ox leaves the stable and goes and causes damage, I’m only in the category of indirect causation; that is damage by one’s property. So we have two sides: damage by a person and damage by one’s property. What is fire? I light the fire and the fire goes and burns. It’s an intermediate situation. It’s intermediate because on the one hand it isn’t really damage directly by my own hands, but on the other hand it isn’t my property that went and caused damage. I do have some direct responsibility for what happened here. Therefore Rabbi Yoḥanan and Reish Lakish really dispute which category to classify it under: damage by one’s property or damage by one’s person. So Reish Lakish says liability for one’s fire is because of his property; fire is like damage by one’s property. Rabbi Yoḥanan says it is because of his arrows.

But when Rabbi Yoḥanan explains why liability for one’s fire is because of his arrows, he explains that it is because there is no ownership over fire; it is something without substance. Meaning, the reasoning is reasoning that says: I have no category into which to place it. It doesn’t fit into the category of property. Therefore there’s no choice but to say that it’s apparently damage by a person. But even he feels that it isn’t entirely damage by a person. And not for nothing there is a dispute among the medieval authorities, but some of them say that if I kill a person by means of fire, I am not liable as a murderer. As for damages, I am liable like damage by a person, liable for the five categories like damage by a person, but it is not really exactly my own force. For example, if I murder with fire, I am not liable to death, at least according to some of the medieval authorities. Because it’s clear that even according to Rabbi Yoḥanan, who says liability for one’s fire is because of his arrows, fire is something intermediate; it’s not really his own force. That’s the point.

Now where do we learn this from? So the Talmud here brings a verse. It says: “If a fire goes forth and finds thorns… the one who kindled the fire shall surely pay.” That’s how it ends. The fire goes out by itself—I didn’t do it—by itself. So what does it mean, “the one who kindled shall surely pay”? The kindler is apparently someone who kindled it; it didn’t go out by itself. The Talmud says: to teach you that liability for one’s fire is because of his arrows. What does that mean? Even though the fire really goes out by itself—and it goes with the wind, unlike an arrow, which goes by my own force; I shoot the arrow by my own force. The fire advances because of the wind, not because of my force; therefore it is not the same thing as an arrow, okay? So even though the fire is not really like an arrow but resembles property more, nevertheless there is a kindler here, and the kindler is considered as though he were the person causing the damage. Just as the cow goes and causes damage, or the ox goes and causes damage, this is considered as though it were my act, even though it isn’t really my act, it’s the act of the ox. I am only indirect cause. Okay? But it is considered as though it were my act. That is the novelty of “because of his arrows.”

The same novelty itself exists in the aggadah. That’s the exchange. Yes—after he says, I’ll tell you something that suits both of you: “If a fire goes forth and finds thorns”—it goes forth on its own. You begin with “it goes forth on its own.” “The one who kindled the fire shall surely pay.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said: It is upon Me to pay for the fire that I kindled. I kindled a fire in Zion; I am destined to rebuild it with fire, and so on. So I don’t understand why this opening “it goes forth on its own” is there. It isn’t necessary for this exposition. It’s necessary for the next exposition. In the halakhic teaching it says: the verse begins with damage by one’s property—why does it begin with damage by one’s property? Because the fire went out on its own; the fire is my property that went out and caused damage—and it ends with damage by one’s person: “the one who kindled the fire shall surely pay,” so there is a kindler here; there is a person causing damage. So here I understand the tension that the Talmud creates between the two parts of the verse. On the one hand the fire goes out on its own; on the other hand there is a kindler here. But in the aggadic exposition, why do we need that tension too? Why does it play a role there? The Holy One kindled the fire, and He will rebuild it, He is responsible for the matter, that’s all. What does that have to do with the initial tension that it went forth on its own?

It seems to me that behind this lies a theological question. I won’t go into it here, but briefly, to understand the context. The question is about what happens in the world. They burned the Temple—“I kindled a fire in Zion.” But the Holy One, blessed be He, did not kindle a fire in Zion. Nebuchadnezzar did it, Titus did it. What does that have to do with the Holy One? The fire went forth on its own. The Holy One says: yes, but liability for one’s fire is because of his arrows. Even though it went forth on its own, I am considered the kindler, and therefore the obligation of repair—“I am destined to rebuild it”—the obligation of repair, like payment in damages, is upon Me.

This theological question—the world that the Holy One created now operates by its own power; people make decisions, sometimes they harm one another, sometimes they benefit one another, but things happen here because of human decisions. Does the Holy One have responsibility for what happens here or not? That is the question of liability for one’s fire being because of his arrows. It is the same question. You created a fire; now the fire has power, and with the wind or something like that it goes and causes damage. You who created the fire—are you responsible or not? This verse teaches that yes. The Talmud says that the same verse teaches that although the Holy One is not directly responsible—the one who did the Holocaust was Hitler, not the Holy One. Hitler chose evil and murdered Jews. What does that have to do with the Holy One? The fire went forth on its own. Yes, but the Holy One created the world and of course also allowed this thing to happen, so He tells us: the responsibility is upon Me. Even though I didn’t do it—Hitler did it—the responsibility is upon Me, and the principle is liability for one’s fire is because of his arrows.

Therefore what Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaḥa is expounding here is that this is not two expositions from the same verse. It is the same exposition itself, which has a halakhic aspect and an aggadic aspect, but it is the same thing. And in such a case, it may be that this really does satisfy the one who wants only halakhic expositions. Why? Because if I was right in what I said before, then why doesn’t he want aggadic expositions? Because you say clever little thoughts there and survive; you could have said the opposite too. But if I say no, look, I have here a halakhic exposition that says the same thing, and this Jewish law I rule in practice. I behave this way. It’s not that I said a nice line and survived and everybody applauded and tears flowed like water; I said something and I stand behind it and I rule this way in Jewish law. That means that this principle really is here in the verse. If that principle really is in the verse, then I’m also prepared to take its aggadic implications seriously. Then it’s no longer just a clever line.

So I learned something new here: that one who kindled a fire is considered as one who ignited the blaze, and the responsibility is upon him. And similarly there is, as it were, an aggadic responsibility of the Holy One for evil that happens in the world, but it is the same principle as liability for one’s fire being because of his arrows in Jewish law. If it is that very same principle, then one who opposes aggadah doesn’t object to aggadah in principle. He objects to aggadah only because he doesn’t trust the conclusions derived from it. But if here you show me that the halakhic conclusion parallels the aggadic conclusion completely—it is the same conclusion—then there is no problem; he is prepared to accept the aggadic thought too, not only the halakhic one.

This reminds me of a story about Rabbi Amital. As is known, he was a Holocaust survivor. He once had a meeting with Abba Kovner. You know Abba Kovner was a partisan, a poet, and afterward some kind of political officer in the Palmach. And when they met, Rabbi Amital—I think—told about this meeting, and Abba Kovner said to Rabbi Amital that he lost his faith in the Holy One, blessed be He, during the Holocaust. And Rabbi Amital answered him that he lost his trust in human beings during the Holocaust. And that reversal, that switch, is very interesting, because the secular person hangs the Holocaust on the Holy One, while the rabbi hangs the Holocaust on the human beings who did it. You’d expect it to be the opposite. But the secular person attributes the Holocaust to the fact that the Holy One kindled the blaze—liability for one’s fire is because of his arrows. And Rabbi Amital says to him: liability for one’s fire is because of his property. Meaning, the ones who did it were the Nazis; it wasn’t the Holy One. They have free choice, and they did it. If they were merely a staff in the hand of the Holy One, then why judge them and punish them? What do you want? They were manipulated by the Holy One.

If we come with claims against them, if we see them—or human beings in general—as responsible for the evil they do, then why should we attribute it to the Holy One? They themselves do it. Only by the rule of liability for one’s fire being because of his arrows. Meaning, He has responsibility because He is the One who gave us the power to do all these things, but He of course expected us to choose good, not evil. The fact that someone decided to choose evil and harm others—that person is using the fire that the Holy One kindled; he is the wind that carries it to a harmful place. Now the Holy One is not guilty. He lit the fire. You chose to burn things with it. True, but there is responsibility on the one who lit the fire and did not prevent the damage. If he did not guard his fire, responsibility rests on him.

Now why did He do that? Because it is important to Him to give people choice. If He did not let people do evil, then there would be no value to the good we do either, because every time we chose evil the Holy One would stop us, and all we could ever do would be good. We would have no real choice. Therefore the Holy One intentionally does not guard His fire here. It’s not that it slipped past Him. But on the other hand the responsibility is upon Him. He created the fire; damage resulted from that fire, and He says: the responsibility is upon Me. I have a good reason for why I allow this, but the responsibility is Mine. That is, in my view, a tremendous lesson in this sugya, and specifically because it comes together with the Jewish law. I trust that this really is what the aggadic sugya is saying. Here I believe the conclusion of the aggadic sugya. And it is a very far-reaching conclusion—we need to understand that.

Because we are so used to looking for—I don’t know—a person was injured, killed in a terror attack. People look for why he deserved it, what he was guilty of, whether he was holy or not holy, and all sorts of things. Or the Holocaust, or this disaster or that disaster. They justify the judgment: the Holy One knows what He is doing, we do not understand His ways. I am not troubled at all by these questions. Because the Holy One didn’t do it, and therefore I don’t need to look for explanations. The one who did it was the negligent driver who ran him over in a car accident, or the terrorist who chose to carry out an attack and kill people. He did it, not the Holy One. There is responsibility on the Holy One, as the Talmud says here, under the law of the one who kindled the fire, liability for one’s fire because of his arrows. But the Holy One didn’t do it. And it’s not that the Holy One decided that so-and-so should die because, I don’t know, He had some calculation that so-and-so needed to die. No. So-and-so died because someone decided to kill him, and that someone had free choice.

That is what “the other” says in tractate Hagigah 5. It says there, “There are those who perish without justice,” such as a person who killed his fellow. Meaning, if Reuven decides to kill Shimon, then the fact that Shimon dies does not mean that he deserved to die. It does not mean that there is some heavenly calculation in which the decision was made that now Shimon has to die. No. If it is the result of another person’s chosen action, it can happen even without justice, even without him deserving it. Because Reuven has choice, and if Reuven chose to kill him, he can succeed. Maybe he also might not succeed, but he also may succeed. Therefore there is no point looking for theological explanations of why something happened to someone. Not because we don’t understand the ways of the Holy One. I understand perfectly; I have no problem with the ways of the Holy One. Not because we don’t understand. Because when we say we don’t understand, we still assume that it was His act, only that we don’t understand what His calculation was. I claim: it was not His act. The one who did it was the person who chose to do evil. He did it; therefore the full responsibility is on him. The fact that the Holy One is responsible under the law of liability for one’s fire because of his arrows is also true, because He kindled the fire, He gave us the power to choose good or evil, and therefore He bears responsibility for it. But fine, that is responsibility. But who is guilty of it? The guilty one is the one who did it.

I think that is what is written here in the Talmud. But all of that is a parenthesis just to complete the opening. What I wanted to show is that this opening really talks about the relationship between Jewish law and aggadah, and where there are expositions that, although they are aggadic, even the opponents of aggadah will accept them. This exposition I agree with. Even I, with the attitude toward aggadah that I described to you earlier—this exposition I do agree with. I do accept this interpretation of the aggadah. And again, I would be a liar if I told you that it didn’t fit something that I already agreed with beforehand. And in that sense, it’s still not study in the full sense of the word. Fine, but that’s the situation.

Let’s take a few minutes’ break, and then we’ll really go into our sugya. Up to here was the introduction. So five minutes.

All right, so let’s enter chapter eight. The first topic discussed in chapter eight is the sacrifices. Chapter eight opens with sacrifices that the community offers, and especially sacrifices that are regular, meaning they are offered every single day. The most famous sacrifice is of course the continual offering of the morning and of twilight. And the first Mishnah in chapter eight deals exactly with that. And here we encounter the concept of ma’amadot. What are ma’amadot? The Talmud in tractate Ta’anit explains that a person’s offering cannot be brought while he does not stand over it. Meaning, the communal sacrifices are sacrifices of all the Jewish people. How can all the Jewish people stand in the Temple at the time of the offering? Therefore the early prophets instituted twenty-four watches. Each watch had its ma’amad. What is that ma’amad? Some of the members of the watch would go up to Jerusalem, and some would remain in their towns and pray and fast. Meaning, the ma’amad is the representation of the Jewish people in the act of the sacrifices. That is the basis of what is written here in the first Mishnah.

We’ll begin to read the Mishnah. The Mishnah says as follows: Rabbi Yehoshua said: I heard that a sacrifice that was offered, even though there is no Temple there, is valid; and one may eat the most sacred offerings even though there are no curtains there; and lesser sacred offerings and second tithe even though there is no wall there. Fine.

The Talmud later on, after the opening we spoke about before, says as follows: “And David longed and said: Who will give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate? And the three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate,” and so on. What was he asking? What does “what was he asking” mean? The Talmud assumes that these three mighty men were mighty in the war of Torah, and the water they were sent to bring was really Torah, or a halakhic question if you like, and “the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate” means the elders who sat at the gate of Bethlehem, the Sanhedrin. And David was really sending his mighty men to ask the Sanhedrin a question in the midst of war.

This passage, by the way, appears both in Chronicles and in II Samuel, excuse me, yes, and there are some contradictions between them—one place says barley, another says wheat. The Talmud here deals with this, but I won’t go into all the details. So the first explanation: Rava said in the name of Rav Naḥman, he was asking about concealed property in fire. Is the law like Rabbi Yehuda or like the Rabbis? Yes, so he asked what the law is regarding concealed property in fire—whether the law follows Rabbi Yehuda or the Rabbis. And they answered him what they answered him. This is very interesting. What does it mean, they answered him what they answered him? What did they answer? That’s the most interesting question. So what is the law? I don’t know; the Talmud doesn’t say.

And then the Talmud continues: Rav Huna said: There were stacks of barley belonging to Jews, and Philistines were hiding in them. There was a war against the Philistines, and in the stack there were stacks of barley belonging to Jews, and the Philistines were hiding inside them. And David was asking: What is the law regarding saving oneself with another person’s property? Can he burn the stacks of barley in order to fight the Philistines, in order to save his life in the war against the Philistines, to defeat the Philistines? Which is really the dilemma whether you are allowed to sacrifice another person’s property, to burn that barley, in order to save your life. They sent back to him: It is forbidden to save oneself with another person’s property. But you are a king, and a king may breach a path for himself and no one can protest. So what are they really telling him? It is forbidden to save oneself with another person’s property, but a king has a certain special privilege: he may do so. But in principle the answer is forbidden. That is really our topic.

Later there are still more suggestions as to what exactly he asked. Yes, “And the Rabbis, and some say Rav Huna bar Mari, said: There were stacks of barley belonging to Jews,” and so on—another suggestion, whether one may rob in order to pay later, and more. In short, there are all sorts of further suggestions here, but I’ll go into those less right now.

Now this matter, that it is forbidden to save oneself with another person’s property, on its face seems very strange. Because it basically means that my life is in danger, and I am forbidden to damage the other person’s property in order to save my life. Or in other words, there is a rule of “be killed rather than transgress” regarding robbery, or causing damage, or something like that. I have to die rather than cause damage. Which is a very, very strange business.

Tosafot here on the spot—“What is the law regarding saving oneself with another person’s property?”—this is Tosafot down here: “He was asking whether he must pay when he saved himself because of danger to life.” Tosafot says: the question wasn’t whether he was allowed to save himself with another person’s property, but whether—of course he is allowed—the question is whether when he does so, must he pay or not. That already sounds a bit more reasonable. So of course it is permitted; there is no “be killed rather than transgress” on robbery or causing damage. The question is whether you have to pay or not.

Of course that interpretation also has a price; it is not the plain meaning of the Talmud, that’s clear. The plain meaning of the Talmud is whether it is permitted to save oneself, not whether one has to pay. It is strained in the Talmudic text. But it’s obvious what led Tosafot to interpret it in such a strained way: he says that if you interpret the Talmud according to its simple meaning, then it comes out that there is “be killed rather than transgress” on robbery. We haven’t found anywhere that there are four severe transgressions; there are only three. Each of the three also has a source—murder, idolatry, and sexual immorality—and each of them has a source. In robbery we have no source; one does not innovate such a thing without a source. Therefore Tosafot says there is no choice; one has to force the Talmud and interpret it not according to its simple meaning: the discussion is whether he had to pay or not, and not whether he was allowed to do it.

But notice that this itself has an interpretive cost beyond the strain itself. Because what was the other side? That he would not have to pay, right? When you say the dilemma was whether he is allowed to save himself or forbidden to save himself, according to Tosafot that translates into: whether he is obligated to pay or not obligated to pay. How could there be a possibility that he wouldn’t even have to pay? I don’t understand. You took Ploni’s property in order to save yourself—I understand, you’re allowed, danger to life, everything’s fine. But why don’t you pay him? I don’t understand. You lost his property in order to save yourself, so at least bear the cost. Why should he bear the loss in order to save your life? So in what sense is that permission?

If I just caused damage ordinarily, I’m also obligated to pay. Correct, but there it’s forbidden to you. Here it’s permitted. That only makes a difference for the prohibition, not for the obligation to pay. So I’m not transgressing a prohibition, basically? Right. But in any case, one who transgresses that prohibition only becomes liable in damages. Right, so what? A prohibition that is given over to monetary payment does not carry lashes. Fine, but obviously you still transgressed it. The question is whether it’s permitted or forbidden.

Rashi—the Talmud at the end of the page brings the continuation of the verse. It says: “And he stood in the midst of the field and saved it.” He saved it—they did not burn the stacks. What does “and he saved it” mean? Yes? So they begin to explain, according to each of the interpretations, how to interpret this verse of “and he stood in the midst of the field and saved it.” Rashi here writes, “and he saved it”—the last Rashi on the page—“that they should not burn it.” He saved the stack so they wouldn’t burn it. Why? Since it is forbidden to save oneself with another person’s property. Meaning, King David really was a king, and it was permitted for him to burn the stack for the sake of his war, but he was stringent upon himself to conduct himself according to the strict law that applies to an ordinary person, an ordinary individual: namely, that it is forbidden for you to burn your fellow’s stack in order to save yourself. Therefore he stood there in the field and saved it; he did not let his soldiers burn it. Because it is forbidden for a person to save himself with another person’s property.

All the early and later authorities, or several of them, infer from here that Rashi did not learn like Tosafot. Rashi learned the Talmud according to its simple meaning. “It is forbidden to save oneself with another person’s property” does not mean that he must pay; rather, it means he is forbidden to burn it. Therefore King David did not insist that they pay; King David insisted that they not burn it. This takes us back to the interpretation of the Talmud according to its simple meaning, not as Tosafot suggested, right? That is really the meaning of Rashi’s words.

Before I continue, just a remark connected to the opening. How would you classify this exposition? I already said “derashah,” so I already gave away a certain position, but how would you relate to this exposition in terms of the opening we made before the break? Which exposition? Huh? Which exposition? The one about the gate of Bethlehem? Or this verse? Yes, yes—what was expounded here, that it is forbidden for a person to save himself with another person’s property, except for a king, and so on. You said it was derashah, but actually it feels more like pilpul. This reasoning that gets you to “be killed rather than transgress” regarding robbery. No, I didn’t understand. The reasoning that gets you to “be killed rather than transgress” regarding robbery. What? The reasoning doesn’t seem correct to you? Fine, maybe according to Tosafot. According to Tosafot it’s okay, right? Because you only have to pay. So according to Tosafot it’s fine. But Rashi, when he learns this reasoning, he stands behind it. You can ask about Rashi that it doesn’t sound reasonable, and ask why he says such a thing, but Rashi doesn’t treat this as some merely pilpulistic reasoning. For him this is the conclusion of the sugya. So it’s not pilpul.

Look, in the simple sense it seems to me that this is really derashah. And this opening is an opening that does not come to justify what follows, but to place it in some context—perhaps even one that’s a bit skeptical. Because you understand that when you read this passage, it has no connection to Bethlehem, nor to the Sanhedrin, nor to saving oneself with another person’s property, nor to anything like that. He wanted water, he sent the mighty men to bring him water, and that’s all. What are all these homiletic games? Rather, the Talmud uses this in order to teach us some kind of Jewish law. Where does Jewish law itself know this from? I’d stake my head on it that this law was not learned from these verses. Don’t tell me that people derive such severe laws involving life-and-death matters from some homiletic nuance in verses that has no basis in the verses and no connection to their plain meaning. So what—where did you get it from? I’m not even talking about the fact that these are not verses from the Torah but from the Prophets and Writings, right? Which is even more problematic, because from the Prophets one doesn’t derive Torah-level laws at all. And these are Torah-level laws being discussed here. Not even from the Prophets—part of it is from the Writings. Yes.

So the question is how to relate to, or classify, this exposition. It seems to me that it definitely falls under derashah. And it seems to me that if someone had said this exposition, the student of Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaḥa would have shut him up very quickly. The one who doesn’t like derashot, yes—the one who stops aggadot and wants only halakhic teachings. Yes? Fine, but that’s just a remark. For our purposes it doesn’t matter, because for me this is the halakhic reasoning the Talmud says. If it learned it from the verses or the verses are just a support, the verses are probably just a support. But bottom line, this is what the Talmud says. I’d say it’s harder than what I said here, because if it were just a support, then what is all this precision—“and he stood in the midst of the field and saved it,” whether it was barley or wheat, and whether it belonged to Jews or Philistines? These are textual inferences in the passage; it doesn’t look like a mere support. Somehow it looks like the Talmud is really learning the passage this way. So I’m saying: I don’t know. Question mark. It requires analysis. You should know: on a simple reading of the Talmud, it doesn’t look like the Talmud treats this as a mere support. I’m only saying that if I had to relate to it, it looks to me completely like a mere support.

Fine. But in any case, for our purposes, this is the law written here. And if so, we basically have two interpretations: Rashi and Tosafot. Rashi’s interpretation fits very well with the simple meaning of the Talmud: it is forbidden for a person to save himself with another person’s property. But it is very difficult in reasoning. In reasoning and in the text, very difficult—because where did he get it from? Where does the Talmud, according to Rashi, get that robbery is a severe prohibition for which one must be killed rather than transgress? Why do they say everywhere that there are three severe transgressions and not four? And what is the source that robbery is included there as well? For each such severe transgression there is a source for why one must give up his life. For robbery there is no source. Those are the difficulties on Rashi.

These difficulties led Tosafot to interpret the Talmud not according to its simple meaning, namely that the discussion is only whether one must pay or not. But it is obviously permitted to save oneself with another person’s property. The difficulty with Tosafot is, first, that it is strained in the Talmudic text; second, that a possibility comes up here in the doubt which is very strange, namely that you would not even need to pay for the property you used to save yourself. But still, Tosafot resolves all the halakhic difficulties against Rashi. There really are not four severe transgressions, robbery is not “be killed rather than transgress,” there is no need for a source, and everything is fine. Okay, that is basically what… those are the two possibilities.

I once heard in the name of Rabbi Lichtenstein that this Rashi was written by an erring student. Meaning, it cannot be that Rashi wrote such a thing. It was so absurd in his eyes that it couldn’t be. I want to show you that not only is what Rashi writes reasonable, but there are other medieval authorities who join Rashi in the principled sense. Even if in the bottom line they disagree with him, in the principled sense there are other medieval authorities who go in Rashi’s direction. Afterward I’ll also explain why Rashi seems reasonable to me, at least.

For example, the Rashba in his novellae writes: Tosafot explained that what was asked was whether he is obligated to pay. In the novellae here on the Talmud, “what is the law regarding saving oneself with another person’s property?” Tosafot explained that he was asking whether he must pay. And it seems that it is obvious to them that he may save himself on condition of paying, and without the owner’s knowledge. Yes, it is clear that he may save himself.

Now here I’ll note a point about what you do when there is strain in the wording as opposed to strain in the reasoning. It is accepted in the yeshivot that it is preferable to strain the wording rather than strain the reasoning. I once heard this in the name of the Hazon Ish. I don’t know whether he writes it somewhere, but I heard it once in his name. I found in the book Menuchat Ahavah by Rabbi Moshe Levi that he brings it from the Beit Yosef. The Beit Yosef in Yoreh De’ah, at the beginning of section 228, writes as follows: Even though the plain meaning of the wording indicates the Rivash’s interpretation, since the matter does not fit according to his interpretation, it is preferable to strain the wording and align it with the matter. The language of the Jerusalem Talmud is sometimes unusual, and all the more so in a simple matter where it relies on the understanding reader. In the Jerusalem Talmud it is even easier to do this, because its language is unusual. There certainly it is preferable to strain the wording rather than the reasoning. But he says also in the Babylonian Talmud and everywhere, it is preferable to strain the wording than the reasoning. That’s an interesting remark.

So Tosafot is basically doing just that. He strains the wording of the Talmud in order not to be strained in reasoning. Of course, to see this principle as some absolute binding rule is not serious. The question is how strained it is in wording versus how strained it is in reasoning. You can never know exactly where the line passes, because it isn’t just a question of strained wording versus strained reasoning, but how much strained wording versus how much strained reasoning. And how do you measure quantities of strain, the intensity of the strain? Each person according to his own perceptions. But in principle it does open the door to saying that wording is not the only interpretive component there is. One also has to take reasoning into account. In that sense I don’t see it as a rule but as a guiding principle. A principle that says that when you approach a Talmudic text, sometimes even if you strain the wording, if it fits much better in reasoning, that’s also acceptable. Okay? According to what the rabbi said, Tosafot is also strained in reasoning. So I say: there is some strain in reasoning here, but still it is not comparable to the strain in Rashi. Fine, I said: each person and his own framework. It’s not certain. Someone may come and say that for Rashi, Tosafot’s strain was harder. Or at least together with the strain in wording. And therefore he chose his own option. And of course he still has to explain his own option—how it works out.

So let’s look for a moment at the Rashba in a responsum, part 4, section 17. He continues his remarks from the novellae. He says as follows: You asked about what I wrote in chapter HaKones Tzon LaDir on that question there—what is the law regarding saving oneself with another person’s property—that I wrote there in the name of Tosafot that what he was asking was whether he is obligated to pay. And I further wrote: and it seems to them obvious that he may save himself on condition of paying, and without the owner’s knowledge. That’s literally a quotation from what we just read in his novellae. And now it troubles you: if so, why did they send him back “it is forbidden”? They should have sent him back “it is permitted to save on condition…” yes, they should have said to him: it is permitted to save, only he must pay. It is permitted to save on condition of paying. And furthermore, they explicitly said there that even though he pays, he is called wicked. Later in the Talmud it appears that even if the person who saved himself pays for it, he is still called wicked. Which is the exact opposite of what Tosafot writes. Tosafot says he is permitted to do it, but he must pay. So he is certainly not called wicked.

This somewhat reminds me of the discussion about… I keep stopping every time I begin talking because I want to see you. You know there is an inquiry among the halakhic authorities whether Sabbath is fully permitted in a case of danger to life, or merely overridden in a case of danger to life. Like impurity with communal offerings in the Talmud—there is a dispute—and they apply it to Sabbath and danger to life. I never really understood this inquiry. In my opinion it has no practical difference; it is saying the same thing in different words. What practical difference is there between whether Sabbath is fully permitted or merely overridden? Usually they bring practical differences in the question whether you can do things in a way that—even if you could have violated the Sabbath in a lighter way, you don’t have to. You can violate the Sabbath even in the more severe way. Or whether you can violate Sabbath where it isn’t really needed for saving the other person’s life, or things like that. In my view that isn’t a practical difference, because even the one who says Sabbath is fully permitted means it is permitted when the thing is needed. If it isn’t needed, then why permit it? Because there is a sick person here, the Sabbath has now disappeared from the world? If you do something in a way you didn’t need for saving life, then that means you are not doing it for saving life. That wasn’t permitted. So what is the difference between fully permitted and overridden? There is no difference.

Once someone wanted to tell me—or I thought, I don’t remember already—that perhaps there is a difference regarding repentance. If it is overridden, then in the end you did commit a transgression. True, you needed to, but you committed a transgression under compulsion. And if it is fully permitted, then you committed no transgression at all; you didn’t violate Sabbath, Sabbath was fully permitted. But of course that can’t be either. Because my question is: within repentance, part of the process is accepting for the future—accept upon yourself never to return to this sin again. Now what are you going to do with that repentance here? Say: never again, when there is danger to life on Sabbath, I will not violate Sabbath? I’ll leave people to die? Of course not. To repent for something that is a halakhic obligation imposed upon me, that I am required to do? It’s not that I’m allowed to, not that I was coerced—I am obligated. I wasn’t coerced at all. I could have stood there whistling a cheerful tune while I watched him breathe his last. But the Torah requires me to intervene and violate Sabbath in order to save life. So I need to repent? Let the Holy One repent for that, not me. He made the situation and He commanded me to violate Sabbath to save life. There is no practical difference in this. Fine.

Why did I remember that? Because here too the point is: you can say whether the prohibition of robbery is overridden or permitted in the face of danger to life. But these are just words. Obviously I need to burn the stack in order to save lives—my own or others’. If it’s permitted, then it’s also required, because otherwise I am just losing life for nothing. Okay, so what am I supposed to do now—repent for it? What practical difference does it make whether it is permitted or overridden? I transgressed the prohibition of robbery, but in a way that according to Jewish law I was obligated to transgress it. So then I didn’t transgress. What? There are no words for this; it’s not relevant.

Okay, I return to the Rashba. The Rashba later in the responsum—up to here was the question. Now the answer. What I wrote seems obvious to me, and in brief I would say that I really should not have needed to write it because of how obvious it is. For there is nothing that stands before danger to life except those three enumerated transgressions. Here he adds an explanation for why Tosafot needed this strained interpretation, and he joins him, because the alternative is worse. There would be a fourth transgression of “be killed rather than transgress”: robbery. Think about it, he says. Someone is in the desert and dying of thirst, and he finds a flask of water belonging to another person. Should he die rather than drink, even with intent to pay? Basically, what comes out according to Rashi is that if I’m walking in the desert, about to die of thirst, and I found someone’s flask of water—not a flask of someone who is with me, that is the discussion of Ben Petura. I mean no: I found out there a flask of water with identifying marks. I can announce it and find the owner. Am I allowed to drink so as not to die? Ostensibly, according to Rashi, no—I’m not allowed; I have to die and not drink. Even if I intend to pay, it is forbidden.

The Rashba says: And is this one called a robber, when the owners are obligated to give it to him for free in order to keep him alive? After all, in such a situation, if the owner were here, he would certainly have to give me his flask of water to save my life, right? So if he would have been obligated to give it to me, how can it be that when I take the flask of water I am a robber? After all, the owner himself would have been obligated to give it to me. To the point that Ben Petura taught in tractate Bava Metzia, regarding two people walking on the road and one of them has a flask of water: if both drink, both die; if one drinks, he reaches settlement. Better that both drink and die than that one see the death of his fellow. So Ben Petura says even if I myself will die, I still must give the other half the water. I am obligated to give it to him to save his temporary life at least a bit. But of course we do not rule like him; we rule like Rabbi Akiva.

But he continues: And necessarily Rabbi Akiva disagrees only because it says “and your brother shall live with you”—your life takes precedence over the life of your fellow. Rabbi Akiva, who disagrees with him, says: what are you talking about? I should drink and not give him half the flask. Why? Because my life takes precedence over his. But in a place where I do not need the flask for my own life—I’m at home in the air conditioning, my flask is lying there in the desert and a person there in the desert found it—there it is obvious that I am obligated to give him my flask of water. Even Rabbi Akiva would agree to that. So where it is not needed for his own survival, he is obligated. So of course I am obligated to give. And if so, what robbery is there here, that one should say of him that even though he robbed and pays, he is wicked? Rather, certainly saving oneself on condition of paying is obvious.

Okay? What is the Rashba saying? The Rashba says: if the owner of the property—the barley, the stacks—would have had to give me the barley in order to save my life, as with the owner of the water in the desert case, then it is impossible to call me a robber for taking those stacks. Therefore clearly there is no robbery here.

Notice that this is a very interesting line of reasoning, because the Rashba is claiming that there is no prohibition of robbery here. It follows from his words that if there were robbery, then it would be forbidden to transgress it, right? Like Rashi. He simply disagrees with Rashi by claiming that in such a case there is no robbery, because after all the owner himself is obligated to give me his property in order to save me, so how can one speak here of the prohibition of robbery? But had there been robbery, the Rashba is basically joining Rashi: robbery is not overridden by danger to life. That’s one thing.

What would Rashi say? How would Rashi answer the Rashba’s proof from the flask of water and so on—that I certainly am obligated to give him the water? Regarding the first conclusion the rabbi said—the conclusion the rabbi said—I’m not sure one can infer that. Can we see the Rashba on the screen again for a second? Here. He says: “And if so, what robbery is there here, that one should say of him, even though he robbed and pays, he is wicked? Rather, certainly saving oneself on condition of paying is obvious.” Again: why is he not a robber? Because the owner of the property must himself give it to me. So how can it be that I am a robber? And what does the rabbi infer from this? That he goes out of his way to point out that there is no prohibition of robbery here. It follows that if there were a prohibition of robbery, he could simply have said: there is robbery here, but it is overridden by danger to life. Okay, fine. It seems that if there were a prohibition of robbery, then he agrees with Rashi that it is not overridden; he only claims that there is no prohibition of robbery here. Again, at the beginning of his remarks it doesn’t sound that way, because at the beginning he says that robbery is not one of the severe transgressions. Exactly, that’s what… yes. But in his reasoning it does seem that way.

Now I’ll say even more than that: his reasoning is extremely difficult and patently illogical. Why? Because the fact that I am obligated to give someone the water does not mean that he is allowed to take it from me. I have a commandment of charity. Is a poor person allowed to walk into my house and take my money? He’ll say to me: in any case you’re obligated to give me charity, so I’m already taking it. How can I be called a robber? After all, you yourself were obligated to give it to me. That is exactly the Rashba’s reasoning, no? No, it sounds more like a person taking the law into his own hands, because a commandment of charity, as you said, is not a commandment saying the object belongs to the poor person. And here too it’s the same. It is a commandment on me to save him, but does that therefore make it belong to him? What does that have to do with it? It’s charity, like charity. I have to do him the kindness of saving his life. Does that mean my money belongs to him? Do I owe him? Can he sue me in court? Of course not. There is a commandment on me to do this, a commandment from Yoreh De’ah, not from Choshen Mishpat. Yes.

And what kind of reasoning is this from the Rashba? It’s really very strange reasoning. I think that is exactly what Rashi would answer him. Rashi would answer him: what do you want? It is clear that everyone is obligated to give, but the fact that he is obligated to give does not mean that you are allowed to take. If he gives, then of course take. If you estimate that he agrees, that’s also fine, no problem. But if he is standing here shouting “I do not agree,” that’s the practical difference: are you nevertheless allowed to take? Rashi says: of course not. Just as a poor person is not allowed to take money from a homeowner. And then he reaches the conclusion that robbery does not override danger to life. Exactly. Therefore no—the Rashba’s proof falls away. One could still say there is robbery here. The question is whether robbery overrides danger to life or not; that still needs to be explained. But what the Rashba claimed, that there is no robbery here at all—that isn’t correct.

More than that, now I return to the Rashba—it’s a kind of ping-pong. If this reasoning is indeed so weak, then why does the Rashba use it? After all, he doesn’t really need it. The truth is that there is robbery here. So just say simply: I disagree with Rashi, and robbery is overridden by danger to life. That’s all. Why do you need to invent strained explanations to tell me that there is no robbery here at all? This reinforces even more the point I made to Doron earlier, that from the Rashba here it seems that if there were robbery here, it would not be overridden. And therefore he has no choice; he must somehow explain that there is no robbery here, even though at the beginning of his words it implies yes, because robbery is overridden by danger to life. It seems he probably has to explain there is no robbery, because if there were robbery, it would not be overridden.

He apparently understands that the obligation to give my property to save my fellow means that the Torah somehow renders my property ownerless for the sake of this situation. It is not a commandment upon me to give the property; this property stands ownerless here in order to save the other. That is a very, very great novelty in my view, and especially since he doesn’t need it, so why say it? Therefore I suspect that according to the Rashba, he really does need it. If so, then it means there are other medieval authorities—and by the way, not only the Rashba—who join Rashi on the principled level, that if there is a prohibition of robbery, it is not overridden by danger to life. They only claim that there is no prohibition of robbery here. And if so, then the same question returns for them as well: where on earth does robbery override danger to life? What is the source? Why is it not counted among the three severe transgressions? Okay?

Fine, let’s stop here. Does anyone want to comment or ask? I have a question; I sent it earlier in the chat, but it is very strained in wording, though in terms of reasoning it would work out and answer all the difficulties. Why not interpret this Talmudic passage as not talking about saving a person himself, but saving his own property with another person’s property? Because that’s not what it’s about. This was King David’s war. Just read the passage there. King David was at war with the Philistines, the Philistines were hiding under the barley, so the burning was part of the war against the Philistines. It wasn’t to save property. Okay, so we’ll stop here. Goodbye.