Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 1 – Lesson 53
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Halakhic background to the prohibition of electricity and the Chazon Ish’s approach
- The Chazon Ish’s three formulations and how to understand them
- Tosafot, Maimonides, and sources for building with utensils
- The line of Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer (Even HaEzel) via Kehillot Yaakov
- A logical critique of the structure of primary category and derivatives, and a proposed alternative
- A philosophical timeout: emergent properties, organism, and the Ship of Theseus
- Space, delimitation, and use as a key to understanding building
- Applying this to the Chazon Ish’s definition: “from death to life” as building
- The implication for indirect causation and Sabbath devices, and a closing note on the course
Summary
General Overview
The lecture presents an attempt to justify the Chazon Ish’s view that activating an electric circuit is prohibited on the grounds of building, contrary to the common approach among many halakhic decisors who see it as an isolated opinion and not really “a serious option.” The lecturer argues that the Chazon Ish is more consistent and more logical than he is usually taken to be, and explains this through a conceptual clarification of the labor of building and a distinction between a “micro” view of a mechanism and a “macro” view of a change in the whole. Through analysis of Tosafot, Maimonides, and the line of Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer as brought in Kehillot Yaakov, a philosophical claim develops: that the labor of building is about creating an organic whole, and through that the Chazon Ish’s formulations about “setting it into its proper form” and “awakening the wire from death to life” are explained as a definition of building.
Halakhic background to the prohibition of electricity and the Chazon Ish’s approach
The lecturer states that prohibitions concerning electricity had previously been discussed under the categories of generating current and kindling, and that in the previous lecture they discussed the debate around the Chazon Ish’s thesis that turning on an electric circuit is prohibited because of building. He cites Rabbi Shlomo Zalman as saying that the accepted approach among halakhic decisors is that building is not really a serious option here, and adds that while some decisors are concerned with every view ever written down simply because it was written, “decisors… who have some shoulders of their own” mostly are not concerned with the Chazon Ish’s view. He declares that at a certain stage he came to understand that the Chazon Ish is “far, far more logical” than he is usually perceived to be, and that the explanation will also draw on philosophical aspects.
The Chazon Ish’s three formulations and how to understand them
The lecturer presents three formulations used by the Chazon Ish for prohibiting electricity on the grounds of building: “he wedges the electricity into the wires,” as a kind of fastening that creates building in utensils; “he sets them into their proper form,” meaning he makes the device active; and “he awakens the wire from death to life,” as giving life to the wire. He explains that the formulation of fastening is mainly relevant to movable devices, whereas with stationary devices we are dealing with structures in which building applies even without fastening. He rejects the understanding that the Chazon Ish is speaking of “building the electrical circuit” as such, including the claim that a switch would count as building even when there is no current because of “closing the circuit,” and says this is a fundamental misunderstanding, because in the Chazon Ish there is no formulation according to which the circuit is a structure that is being built.
Tosafot, Maimonides, and sources for building with utensils
The lecturer cites Tosafot on Sabbath 74b, under the heading Chavitah, who say that there is no building or demolition in utensils only in the case of reassembling a bed or segmented lamps, but “when one makes the entire utensil completely” one is liable because of building. They bring proof from “one who inserts the wooden handle into the metal head of an axe is liable because of building.” He explains that the Talmud is dealing with inserting a handle into an axe head and strengthening it in a way similar to fastening, and stresses that Tosafot raise a difficulty from one who blows glass vessels, who is liable because of the final hammer blow and not because of building. He brings the interpretation of Merkavat HaMishneh that one who blows a glass vessel is not making the essence of the vessel but only finishing it, and therefore it is not building but the final hammer blow. He notes that Maimonides himself formulated the law of blowing glass vessels in a general way without qualification, so the difficulty with that explanation remains, though in the lecturer’s opinion there may be no contradiction here, since Maimonides can bring an example of the final hammer blow even if there is also another aspect involved.
The line of Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer (Even HaEzel) via Kehillot Yaakov
The lecturer brings from Kehillot Yaakov the words of Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer in the journal Knesset Yisrael, Sivan 5713, on the introduction to Maimonides, chapter 10, law 13. He asks why Maimonides wrote “one who makes earthenware utensils, such as an oven or a barrel,” instead of simply “one who makes a utensil” in general, if indeed one who makes a utensil from the outset is liable because of building. He also asks why Maimonides defines “one who makes a permanent tent” as a derivative of building and not building itself, since “one who builds is liable for any amount.” Rabbi Isser Zalman explains on the basis of Maimonides’ wording in chapter 7, law 6, that one who curdles cheese is liable because of building because “whoever gathers part to part and attaches everything until they become one body, this resembles building.” He concludes that the essence of building is gathering and joining separate things into one body, whereas making a permanent tent without gathering parts is a derivative. He defines two kinds of derivatives of building: a tent without gathering parts, and gathering parts without a tent, such as curdling cheese. He sets up the primary category as the case of “a permanent tent by means of gathering parts,” and from there explains that there is no building in utensils on account of the tent aspect, but there is a derivative of building in utensils when one gathers parts into one body. Therefore earthenware utensils fit Maimonides, because they are made by gathering parts, whereas blowing glass vessels is the final hammer blow because the glass is already one lump and blowing it is only giving it form, not joining parts.
A logical critique of the structure of primary category and derivatives, and a proposed alternative
The lecturer presents a logical difficulty with Rabbi Isser Zalman’s approach: if the primary category includes two essential components, gathering parts and creating a tent, then a derivative lacking one essential component should not count as a derivative; and if only one of those components is essential, then one of the two derivatives is not understandable as a derivative. He emphasizes the problem of non-transitive resemblance that arises when two derivatives resemble the primary category in different parameters but do not resemble each other, and argues that one must find a common denominator connecting curdling cheese and making a tent in a way that creates conceptual “continuity.” He proposes an interpretation in which the building itself is the gathering of parts into a whole, where the “parts” are not only bricks but also “parts of space” that become a functional unit through being delimited. So a tent is a gathering of parts of space by means of a frame, and curdling cheese is a gathering of parts of matter into one body, and both are similar as phenomena of creating a whole.
A philosophical timeout: emergent properties, organism, and the Ship of Theseus
The lecturer defines the labor of building in its philosophical sense as creating an “organism” in a conceptual sense—that is, a whole that is “greater than the sum of its parts,” whose collective properties are not just a description of the individual parts. He uses John Searle’s example of liquidity as a collective characteristic of an aggregate of molecules, but argues that this is weak emergence because it can be derived from the properties of the molecules. By contrast, he rejects attempts to explain mental phenomena as a similar kind of emergence, calling that a mystical claim disguised as science. He expands to examples of a biological organism without discussing the soul, to the debate over whether a social collective exists as against individualism, and to the example of “the Ship of Theseus” to show that a whole persists even when its components are replaced, similar to the human body whose cells are replaced and yet it is still perceived as the same person. From this he defines building as creating a functional collective entity, whether from identical parts or from non-identical parts like connecting a handle and a tool, so long as a “functioning body” is created with one name and one purpose.
Space, delimitation, and use as a key to understanding building
The lecturer argues that when building a house, the essence is “everything together with the space,” similar to the question “what is the pit”—the empty space or the walls? He treats the space as the unit that is gathered and defined by means of the frame. He explains that parts of space become “functional space” that one can live in or use, and therefore acts like removing a bump in a house count as building because they add usable space within the existing whole. He mentions Kehillot Yaakov’s question against Rabbi Isser Zalman from the law “one who builds any amount is liable… one who removes a protrusion in a house is liable because of building,” and answers that in that removal “you added another portion of space to the house,” so there is no need for forced explanations about a building already made by gathering parts. He distinguishes between creating space for use and acts like plowing, which is done for aerating the ground and not for creating functional space, and argues that use defines whether what was created here is a gathering of space for a purpose.
Applying this to the Chazon Ish’s definition: “from death to life” as building
The lecturer returns to the Chazon Ish’s three formulations and argues that they are different expressions of the same idea: introducing current into the wires creates a living, functioning whole; “the current plus the wires” become a collective entity; and therefore “awakening the wire from death to life” is an accurate description of building as creating a conceptual organism. He connects this to Chani’s remark that turning the dead into the living is an exalted form of creation, and concludes that from here there is a direct connection to the labor of building—to the point of the claim that “reviving the dead on the Sabbath is the labor of building.” He compares this to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman’s claim that a switch is similar to opening a water tap, and rejects it on the grounds that water flow in a pipe does not change the pipe and does not create a new entity, whereas electrical current changes the wire itself into a living system in a functional sense. The emphasis is not on the fact that the device works, but on the fact that the device becomes a “living device,” and its activation is an indication of a change in the whole.
The implication for indirect causation and Sabbath devices, and a closing note on the course
The lecturer cites Rabbi Brand, who comes out against indirect-causation devices produced by the Tzomet Institute and other technological institutes, and formulates the idea as the claim that one should not focus on microscopic mechanisms but on the macro-level change in which “a device that was dead” becomes alive. Therefore indirect causation is not relevant when the overall significance is the reviving of the device and a Torah-level prohibition of building. He concludes with logistical notes for Tuesday, the possibility of refreshments and breakfast, planning study around the final assignment and its submission, and a farewell to the student Miriam, who is traveling to a conference at the university, together with thanks for the year.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now, we talked about the prohibition against activating an electric circuit on the grounds of generating current, on the grounds of kindling, and last time we saw the debate around the Chazon Ish’s thesis that this is prohibited because of building. And I said that, as Rabbi Shlomo Zalman himself writes, the accepted approach among halakhic decisors is that building here is not really a serious option; it’s an isolated opinion, and people don’t really take it into account. There’s a difference—there are decisors who worry about everything that was ever written, just because it was written. But decisors who have some shoulders of their own, for the most part, are not concerned about the Chazon Ish’s view. And as I told you, at some point I somehow suddenly realized that the Chazon Ish is much, much more logical than he’s usually thought to be, and that’s what I’m going to try to show today, while making use of a bit—or actually more than a bit—of the philosophical aspects of the issue. But that’s part of the point, also to freshen things up a bit toward the end of the year, so let’s begin. We saw that the Chazon Ish uses three formulations to explain why turning on an electric circuit is prohibited because of building. One formulation is, again, that he wedges the electricity into the wires—right? He wedges the current into the wire, which of course has the connotation of building with utensils, where we know that the rule is ostensibly that there is no building with utensils, but if he fastens it tightly, then even with utensils there is building. So he says here there is fastening, and therefore this is building with utensils. And I said that this is relevant only to movable devices. But with fixed devices, it’s not a matter of utensils—it’s structures, and there building applies even without fastening. A second formulation is that he sets them into their proper form, meaning he basically makes them active. And the third formulation is that he awakens the wire from death to life. Right? The wire suddenly becomes something alive. It was dead, and it becomes something alive. Chani said last time that apparently turning a dead body into a living one is the most creative thing possible, so presumably it has to be prohibited on the Sabbath. And I answered her that even if that’s true, and it does sound plausible, we still have to understand why that is connected to the labor of building. Meaning: okay, it’s very creative, so it makes a lot of sense that it should be prohibited—but still, the Chazon Ish doesn’t bring this as confirmation of his claim that it has to be prohibited; he brings it as an indicator that what we have here is specifically the labor of building. The question is: why is that connected to the labor of building? Okay, so that’s really the point. And at the end of the previous lecture I also talked about the fact that there are people who understood the Chazon Ish as talking about building the electrical circuit. In other words, when I close the electrical circuit, I built the circuit—to the point that there are people who claim in his view that even if there is no current, if the main fuse is off, still turning on a switch in the house would count as building, because in the end you closed the electrical circuit even though no current is passing through it. It’s quite clear from the Chazon Ish’s wording that this is not true, but beyond the wording, it seems to me that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding here. The Chazon Ish is not talking about building the electrical circuit. None of his formulations speak of the electrical circuit as a kind of structure that I built. That simply doesn’t appear in his language, and therefore I think there’s a mistake here in understanding the Chazon Ish’s intention, and the mistake—
[Speaker B] Maybe the building is of a new utensil? The current plus the utensil.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That connects a bit to what we were talking about before. I’ll sharpen it a bit more—today a bit more. So let’s begin this with Kehillot Yaakov. I actually brought Kehillot Yaakov mainly because he brings the line of Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, the author of Even HaEzel, one of the sages of Jerusalem. I think he passed away a little before the establishment of the State, something like that. He wrote a book on Maimonides called Even HaEzel. But this line appears there in an article—an article he wrote—and briefly it appears afterward in Even HaEzel too, as I later saw. But originally it’s in some Torah article that he wrote, and that’s why I’m bringing it from Kehillot Yaakov. And I’m also a little interested in the comments Kehillot Yaakov makes on him, and we’ll get to that later. So let’s start. Tosafot on Sabbath 74b, under the heading Chavitah, wrote that although there is no building or demolition with utensils, that is only in the case of reassembling a bed and segmented lamps. But when one makes the entire utensil completely, one is liable because of building. For we say at the beginning of the chapter “One who inserts the wooden handle into the metal head of an axe is liable because of building.” Right, the Talmud there says—and when you run into a source like that, it’s worth peeking into the Talmud to see what it’s talking about. If there’s no explicit reference, by the way, then there’s the Responsa Project: you search by these words and you get immediately to the relevant passage. In the computer age it’s easy. In any case, it’s talking there about taking the handle of a hoe and putting it into this eye, this iron eye that receives the handle—right? attaching the handle to the tool itself. So about that, the Talmud says that one who does this, one who inserts the handle into the metal head of the axe—right, the axe head—
[Speaker C] In Tosafot it says kufina de-marta.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The quotation—
[Speaker C] This, I think, is from Tosafot, not from the Talmud.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.
[Speaker C] He’s quoting Tosafot.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course, but Tosafot is citing the Talmud. Tosafot cites the Talmud about inserting the wooden handle into the metal head of the axe. In other words, in Tosafot itself you won’t find an explanation of those terms or of what’s being discussed there.
[Speaker B] But we understood that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Go back to the Talmud.
[Speaker C] I looked in the Talmud and didn’t find it, and I found this whole quotation in Tosafot.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’ll find the quotation in Tosafot, but “the handle into the axe head” appears in the Talmud too.
[Speaker C] Oh, so I should search for the—
[Speaker B] phrase.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The phrase.
[Speaker C] Okay, I looked it up in an Aramaic dictionary.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. No, I’m saying it’s also worth peeking into the Talmud to see not only the literal meaning, but also what the Talmud says about it. Fine, that’s just a side note.
[Speaker B] We understood that after he inserts this piece of wood, the handle, into the hole, he strengthens it with wood chips, and it’s like fastening tightly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so that’s already where the discussions of the medieval authorities begin—what exactly is going on there. But what Tosafot says is that the Talmud says one who inserts the handle into the axe head is liable because of building. Why? Because there he is basically making the utensil from the outset. Before that it wasn’t a utensil at all—it was separate parts. And the moment you create a utensil from the outset, there is, in effect, building even with utensils. And this requires investigation: why doesn’t Tosafot raise a difficulty from one who blows a glass vessel—or with glass vessels at the end of the chapter? End quote. Right, that’s what Tosafot says. So what do we do with one who blows a glass vessel, where, actually, Kehillot Yaakov explains this. And their intention—and among later authorities you often get this abbreviation; “their intention” means “their intention is to say”—right? “Their intention,” without saying “is to say,” often works that way. Their intention is that on 75a the Talmud says that one who blows a glass vessel is liable because of the final hammer blow.
[Speaker B] And not because of building.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And it implies that at least there is no labor of building there. And that is because there is no building with utensils. So now he explains: what is the difficulty that troubles Tosafot at the end? He says: what’s different from inserting the handle into the axe head? There we see that there is building with utensils if you make the utensil from the outset. And to answer this difficulty, Merkavat HaMishneh wrote simply, on chapter 10—Merkavat HaMishneh is a commentary on Maimonides, chapter 10—simply, one must say that when he blows it, when he blows the glass vessel, he is not making the essence of the utensil, but only adjusting it as he wants—say, widening it, making some form or other—but the utensil already existed beforehand. In that case it is not building a utensil from the outset, and therefore there is no building here, only the final hammer blow. The final hammer blow is the completion of the utensil—we talked about that. And behold—
[Speaker C] I want to ask about that for a second, because up to here I didn’t understand his line of thought, because he’s basically saying there’s no building with utensils, so what’s relevant about the earlier examples he brought too? If there’s no building with utensils, then there’s no building in those earlier utensils either.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, you didn’t understand. He’s not saying anything. He’s bringing Tosafot.
[Speaker B] So he’s saying—
[Speaker C] Here at the end that there’s no building—
[Speaker B] with utensils.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not that there’s no building with utensils.
[Speaker B] He wants to say that if blowing glass is because of the final hammer blow, then it sounds like there’s no building with utensils. That’s what he wants to say.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, and then it’s difficult for him, because above he said that when one builds a utensil from the outset, there is building with utensils. Right?
[Speaker C] Right, so that’s exactly what—so in the end is he saying there is no building with utensils?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So again: Tosafot says we see that there is building with utensils from what Sabbath 102b says. But then Tosafot raises a difficulty from one who blows a glass vessel, where apparently we see that there is no building with utensils. And then Merkavat HaMishneh claims that really there is building with utensils when one makes the utensil from the outset, and in the case of blowing glass we’re apparently dealing with a case where he did not make it from the outset. That’s why there they needed the category of the final hammer blow and not building. And behold, Maimonides too rules—wait, here—yes, and behold Maimonides too rules regarding inserting the handle into the axe head that one is liable because of building, and regarding one who blows a glass vessel he rules that it is the final hammer blow. So again, one could interpret this like Merkavat HaMishneh. Merkavat HaMishneh is commenting on Maimonides, so presumably when he explains it that way, he also resolves the difficulty in Maimonides that way. But Maimonides should have indicated that “one who blows a glass vessel” means only if the utensil already existed and he is merely completing it, widening it, giving it some form. But Maimonides says it as a general rule: one who blows a glass vessel—that’s the final hammer blow. So therefore it’s apparently hard to explain him like Merkavat HaMishneh. Here I’ll already say, as I’ve said in the past—and this is true of many supposed difficulties in Maimonides—I’m not sure this is really a difficulty. When Maimonides wants to say this, all he wants to say is that there’s a final hammer blow here; that doesn’t mean there isn’t also building here. They’re two different things. When he discusses the laws of the final hammer blow, he brings this as an example of that. It’s entirely possible that building is present here too. Two different things. So when later authorities raise these sorts of contradictions in Maimonides, I’m not entirely sure they really are contradictions. In any case, that is what Kehillot Yaakov asks. And I saw that the master, the author of Even HaEzel, the gaon Rabbi Isser Zalman, wrote in the journal Knesset Yisrael—“journal” meaning a periodical, a collection of articles—Knesset Yisrael, Sivan 5713, on the introductory words of Maimonides in chapter 10, law 13. Now a quotation—and this is what he says. From here on he is basically bringing Rabbi Isser Zalman’s words, right? “One who makes a permanent tent, this is a derivative of building and he is liable. And likewise one who makes earthenware utensils such as an oven or a barrel before they are fired, this is a derivative of building and he is liable.” He mixes the dirt with water and forms from it some sort of structure, which in the end he fires and it becomes earthenware—it becomes an oven or a barrel or some other utensil, doesn’t matter, some sort of pottery. So he says: before it is fired, the very joining of the dirt with the water and shaping it—that itself is because of building. “One who inserts a handle into an axe into its wooden shaft”—that’s the case of inserting the handle into the axe head. “Likewise one who curdles cheese. Likewise one who drives wood into wood,” and so on, “until it becomes united—this is a derivative of building and he is liable.” End quote. That is a quotation from Maimonides. And on this Rabbi Isser Zalman writes—right, “end quote” here refers to Maimonides, not to Rabbi Isser Zalman. Now the continuation is still Rabbi Isser Zalman’s words. This is still not Kehillot Yaakov; all this is brought within Kehillot Yaakov—you have to keep your head straight. “And this requires explanation: if Maimonides’ view is like Tosafot”—what we saw in Tosafot—“that when one makes the entire utensil it is building”—if Maimonides holds that there is no building with utensils, but if one makes the utensil from the outset he does violate because of building, like Tosafot said—if that is also Maimonides’ approach, then why did he write ‘one who makes earthenware utensils such as an oven or a barrel,’ and not simply ‘one who makes a utensil’? Any utensil—if you build it from the outset, that is building with utensils, so why specifically earthenware utensils? And even though in the Talmud it says ‘one who makes a barrel’”—the Talmud speaks about earthenware utensils—“what’s the difficulty? The difficulty is not on Maimonides; it’s on the Talmud. So why did the Talmud bring that? He says that’s not difficult. Why? Because there we need to find a case of seven sin-offerings.” The Talmud there is looking for a case where when you do that act, you violate seven different prohibitions, each requiring its own sin-offering. So they manage to produce some special case through making a utensil from dirt. But the aspect of building exists, according to Tosafot at least, also in making another kind of utensil. The reason they needed specifically an earthenware utensil, one made from dirt, was only in order somehow to dress onto it six additional sin-offerings. But when Maimonides brings this law for practical law—when he speaks about the labor of building, not about some scenario of seven sin-offerings—it’s not true that this applies only to earthenware utensils; it’s every utensil. “But Maimonides, who is speaking only about the labor of building,” I’m reading here, “ought to have said: one who makes a utensil.” And all utensils would be included—that means all utensils, not only earthenware ones. “And further explanation is needed regarding what he wrote, that one who makes a permanent tent—this is a derivative of building.” What Maimonides wrote, right? “This is a derivative of building.” And why is it not building itself? For one who builds is liable for any amount. Right? Whether it’s small or large doesn’t matter. “Any amount” means that size is not what matters here. So if that’s the case, what is building itself, such that we should say making a permanent tent is its derivative? What, is building with stones and a tent with fabrics or hides? What difference does it make what material you build with?
[Speaker B] Wait, but I have a question: why does he stress that one who builds is liable for any amount? In a derivative, isn’t one also liable for any amount?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. He’s saying one might have said that a tent is only a derivative of building because for building you need a large structure or something like that. He says no—building applies for any amount. Right. So since building applies for any amount, you can’t say that anything below some threshold is only a derivative, because building itself applies even for any amount. So with a tent, even if you tell me it’s a small tent or something, that won’t help. The question still arises why it is not building itself, but only a derivative of building. So those are the two comments of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman. And to resolve all this—I’m reading here, right?—the continuation of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman’s line, as Kehillot Yaakov brings Rabbi Shlomo Zalman’s line. “And to resolve all this, the Avnei Nezer wrote”—right?—“based on what Maimonides wrote in chapter 7, law 6: ‘If one curdled it and made it into cheese, he is liable because of building, for whoever gathers part to part and attaches everything until they become one body, this resembles building.’” End quote. Therefore one who curdles cheese is liable because of building. When we say “liable because of building,” it’s always a question whether this is the primary category of building or a derivative of building—that isn’t totally clear. He understood this to mean a derivative. In any case, that’s what Maimonides wrote. “And it is explained”—“end quote” again refers to Maimonides. We’re back to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman; you have to remember, Kehillot Yaakov is quoting Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman is quoting passages from Maimonides. “And it is explained that the essence of the labor of building is that one gathers and joins several separate things, such as wood and stones, and makes them into one structure. If so, the primary category of building is the making of a permanent tent”—I’m reading here, right?—“specifically when it is by gathering many parts in order to make them one body. Therefore Maimonides wrote correctly that one who makes a permanent tent, for example by spreading a sheet or hide, is a derivative. For although he made a permanent tent, nevertheless he did not make it by gathering many parts and making them one body.” Fine, so a tent is a derivative because although you create a structure, you are not creating that structure by gathering parts and turning them into one body. In contrast to a building we talked about last time—when you build with bricks, you take many parts and create from them some one structure, and that is the primary category of building. A tent certainly creates a structure, but you don’t create that structure by gathering many parts the way you do in a building, so it is only a derivative.
[Speaker B] For the primary category you need two conditions, yes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One: gathering parts together, and creating the space. And one—
[Speaker B] making a permanent tent.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says curdling cheese and the like is also a derivative. Why? Because although there is gathering of many parts here to make one thing, nevertheless there is no tent here—right? no space is created; there’s no interior area inside the cheese. Therefore curdling cheese is also only a derivative. Now he sums up: “And there are two types of derivatives of building. One is a tent without gathering parts. The second is gathering parts without a tent”—right, that’s curdling cheese; the first is making a tent, the second is curdling cheese. “And the primary category”—right, these are the two derivatives—“and the primary category is a permanent tent by means of gathering parts.” So let’s summarize what Rabbi Shlomo Zalman wants to say. And really it’s a beautiful analytical line. What he basically wants to say is this: when you build a building, that is the primary category of building. In this building you create space by gathering parts. That is the labor of building. What happens if you create space without gathering parts? Then it’s not entirely the primary category, not entirely similar to the primary category, so it’s a derivative—that’s making a permanent tent. What happens when you gather parts but it doesn’t create space? That too is not fully similar to the primary category. It’s also not fully similar to the primary category; that’s a derivative as well, and that is the derivative of curdling cheese. When you curdle cheese, you attach the parts of the cheese to one another, but no space is created there, so you did not create a tent. Therefore it too is only a derivative. Notice the interesting structure that is created here. There is basically one primary category with two derivatives, each of the derivatives resembles the primary category, and therefore it is its derivative. But if you look at the two derivatives in relation to each other, there is no resemblance at all. Usually we’re used to thinking that resemblance is a transitive relation. That is, if A resembles B and B resembles C, then A resembles C. Right? But now look: curdling cheese resembles building. Just a second—and building resembles making a tent.
[Speaker D] And a child resembles the father too.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, wait—just a second, give me one moment. So curdling cheese resembles building, and building resembles making a tent, but curdling cheese does not resemble making a tent. At all. In any way. And there are two derivatives here that don’t resemble one another. And why? Of course it’s simple. Why? Because the first derivative resembles the primary category in parameter A, and the second derivative resembles the primary category in parameter B. Both resemble the primary category, but there is no resemblance between them. Okay, that is the logical structure he is constructing here. Now he says that with this he resolves the difficulties he asked above. Why? So he says this: “And now it is understood why there is no building with utensils.” And this is with respect to the derivative of making a tent, because a utensil is not a tent. Right? When you build a hoe, you did not create a tent. So therefore there is no building of the sort of creating a tent in utensils. Okay, that is clear. “And specifically when there is no gathering of parts, such as one who hollows out a cavity in a piece of wood.” That means someone who digs into a piece of wood and creates a kind of bowl or cavity. Okay? So you created a utensil here, but you did not do it by attaching parts to one another. Rather, you hollowed out the wood and created a bowl. But when one gathers separate parts and makes them one body, then it is indeed a derivative of building, even though it does not have the law of a tent, for it is no worse than curdling cheese.” In other words, how can you say there is no building with utensils when in cheese you tell me there is building with utensils? Cheese is movable too—whoever asked that in the previous lecture. Cheese is movable; it is not a structure attached to the ground.
[Speaker C] What’s the story with the cheese? What happens with cheese that makes it a gathering of parts?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, there were little parts of the cheese, and gradually they stick to each other and form a block of cheese.
[Speaker C] But they do that by themselves. The person curdling cheese is only putting the milk into the stuff.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter. It’s always like that. I also just put on the glue, and the glue sticks the bricks to each other. In everything we do, we only set it up; in the end nature does it.
[Speaker B] No, and with cottage cheese maybe it wouldn’t count, because then they don’t join together.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In cottage cheese they don’t join together. I’m talking about a block of cheese.
[Speaker B] Right. But as for hollowing out a cavity in wood, that’s similar to blowing glass.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, we’ll see in a moment. So what is Rabbi Zalman saying here? He’s saying that you can’t say there is no building with utensils when curdling cheese is building. Cheese is a movable thing; it’s not a structure attached to the ground. How can there be building there? So we see that building is relevant even in something movable. So what does Even HaEzel say? Apparently what they meant when they said there is no building with utensils is in utensils of the sort where you don’t create space. Because with utensils you don’t create space, and therefore you don’t really have the primary category of building. But the derivative of building, the one like curdling cheese—that can also apply to utensils. In other words, if in utensils you attach parts in a way that turns it into a utensil, making a utensil from the outset, as Tosafot says—right?—then that can indeed be a derivative of building, like curdling cheese. All that was said, that there is no building with utensils, is simply because of the aspect of space: you don’t create space. Therefore he says that when one hollows out a cavity in wood, there one is not gathering parts, and therefore there will be no building with utensils. But if you build in utensils by gathering parts, that will indeed be a derivative of building. “Therefore,” I continue reading, “Maimonides wrote: one who makes earthenware utensils such as an oven and a barrel is a derivative of building, because specifically these—such as these—which are made by gathering parts into one body are considered a derivative of building by virtue of joining parts,” and so on. Earlier we asked: why did Maimonides say that someone who makes a utensil like a barrel or an oven is building? If he agrees with Tosafot, then every utensil one makes should really be building. He says: no, only utensils that are a gathering of parts producing a whole—only there will there be building with utensils. “And consequently it is well understood why, with one who blows a glass vessel, there is only the final hammer blow and not building, because there the glass had already been joined into one lump, and by blowing it he is only making the shape of the utensil as he wishes, and there is no joining of parts now. And from the standpoint of tent there is none, for utensils do not have the status of a tent, as was explained above.” These are the gist of the pleasant words of the gaon Rabbi Isser Zalman. Up to here that’s a quotation from Rabbi Isser Zalman. Okay? So Rabbi Isser Zalman is basically saying this: when I join utensils in a way that gathers parts into a utensil, that is indeed a derivative of building, even though it is in utensils. It’s no worse than curdling cheese. But when you make a tent in utensils—a tent in utensils is not a tent. Because a tent has to be something fixed, a permanent tent. But a hollow space, when you made a hollow space in utensils, that’s not really a tent-space. Therefore there really won’t be building with utensils there, and one can prohibit it only on the grounds of the final hammer blow, not on the grounds of building. Say “final hammer blow” too—yes, final hammer blow—but I don’t always remember. So creating space in utensils is not building. Because space has to be fixed space, like the space of a structure. But gathering parts, even in something movable, is a derivative of building, like curdling cheese. That’s his claim. By the way, let me ask you a question: in Maimonides, doesn’t his explanation fit Merkavat HaMishneh? Or Tosafot? Does his explanation of Maimonides’ approach come out the same as Merkavat HaMishneh, or like Tosafot, or is there a difference between them?
[Speaker B] No, definitely not. If you build a utensil completely from scratch, that’s building. And according to Maimonides? For Maimonides it’s only if there is gathering of parts.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For example, what case? Blowing a glass vessel from the outset, when there was no glass vessel at all—I now blow it and create a utensil from it. According to Tosafot, that would be building, because making a utensil from the outset is building with utensils. According to Maimonides, the way Rabbi Isser Zalman explains him, that is not building, because you created space, and space in a utensil is not considered space. So according to Rabbi Isser Zalman it comes out—according to Rabbi Isser Zalman it comes out that with one who blows a glass vessel, you do not need the forced interpretation of Merkavat HaMishneh that there was already a vessel here and he only blew it further or gave it shape. No. Even if he creates the utensil from the outset, even there there is no building with utensils.
[Speaker B] Because there’s no gathering of parts.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, because there’s no gathering of parts. Creating space in a utensil is not building. Gathering parts in utensils is building. And then that’s what we said in Maimonides: when Maimonides brings blowing glass, he doesn’t qualify it by saying this is an already-existing glass vessel and you only blew it further. According to what Merkavat HaMishneh says, that’s forced in Maimonides; and what Rabbi Isser Zalman says explains Maimonides very well. There really is no need to distinguish between making the utensil from the outset or not. Okay? That is basically Rabbi Isser Zalman’s thesis. Now I want for a moment to leave Kehillot Yaakov. That is Rabbi Isser Zalman’s thesis. I’ll come back to Kehillot Yaakov, but I want to show you what follows from this theory, from this thesis. In fact, there is perhaps something I want to ask against Rabbi Isser Zalman’s thesis—a logical difficulty. Let’s say the primary category of building is creating space, a tent, by means of gathering parts. Now we need to decide whether these two components are essential components of the labor of building. If both are essential, then apparently neither making a tent nor curdling cheese ought to be liable, because each lacks an essential component of building. Will you tell me that one of them is essential and one incidental? Suppose the tent aspect is the essential one and gathering parts is incidental. If so, then I understand why making a tent would be a derivative of building: the essential component is present, and only the incidental component of gathering parts is missing. But why would curdling cheese be a derivative of building? In curdling cheese you have only the incidental component. So there is something problematic here at the logical level. Because if these two parameters in the labor of building are both essential to defining the labor, then the moment one of them is missing, you can’t say that the derivative resembles the primary category, because an essential component is missing. A derivative has to preserve the essential components of the primary category and differ from it in incidental matters, while keeping the essential component. So if both components are essential, then apparently the two derivatives should not be liable as derivatives of building, because in each of them one of the essential components of the labor of building is missing. If we say that one of them is essential and the other incidental, then one of the derivatives could be a derivative, but the other could not. How can it be that the primary category has both these components, and both derivatives are still derivatives for which one is liable? There is something problematic here.
[Speaker B] With utensils, maybe in utensils the essential thing is gathering parts, and in building—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m talking now about the primary category. We can’t hear. I’m talking now about the primary category, not about utensils; utensils are a derivative. I’m talking about the primary category. Which of the components in the definition of the primary category—when you build a house—which of the components is the essential component in defining the labor of building? The gathering of parts, or the creation of a tent? Or both?
[Speaker B] If there isn’t gathering of parts, how can there be creation of—how can there be space?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know how it will come out; I’m asking what the definition is. The definition is: what is the essential component of the labor of building? What is the thing without which it is not building? It’s also made of bricks, so nobody says that that’s essential, right? If you build from wood, that’s fine too. It doesn’t matter. But you do need an assembling of parts, and you need the creation of a tent-like structure / enclosed space, right? Those are essential things. But if you need both of them, then the moment one of them is missing in a subcategory, it shouldn’t be a subcategory at all, because it’s missing the essential component of the primary category. So what are we going to say? That it’s not an essential component? Which one isn’t essential? Neither of them is essential? So I’m asking again: what is the essential component?
[Speaker D] Why? Maybe you only need one of them. Why can’t the primary category contain two things, both of which are essential?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. If both are essential, that’s okay, but then you need both together.
[Speaker D] Not both together.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rather each one separately? Each one separately? Yes? Then those are two primary categories. Then you already have two primary categories: creating an enclosed structure is one primary category, and assembling parts is another primary category. Yes, maybe within building. So then it’s already two primary categories. But it’s defined as one primary category that has two characteristics.
[Speaker B] It seems to me that connecting parts is more essential.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying again: this isn’t a question of what seems right to us; it’s a logical question. I’m not asking what seems to us a sensible way to define the labor of building; that’s not what interests me right now.
[Speaker D] Why does it have to be this particular logic?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, one at a time, one at a time. Nehama?
[Speaker D] Logically, we built some kind of logic according to which this can’t be, but I can say why maybe it can be. What? That two things found in the primary category are essential to the same degree, and even one of them is enough to define…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But if one of them is enough, then the second one actually isn’t required at all. After all, even without the second one it’s…
[Speaker D] No, but it exists, it exists.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what if it exists? It also exists that people make a house out of stones; nobody says that stones are part of the makeup of the labor of building.
[Speaker D] That’s not a factor, right, there are things that aren’t important.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m asking: is it important or not important? That’s exactly my question.
[Speaker D] You’re saying here it’s important and there it’s not important. No, so from what I understand Rabbi is saying, he’s saying that logically it doesn’t work. Who said that logically it does work? Logic is something we define. Like we said earlier, transitivity—similarity is transitive—why do we have to think that way? Maybe not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying: first I showed that if the similarity is in two different parameters, then no; and now I’m coming back and saying, also regarding transitivity—I’m coming back to that too. I claim that similarity must always be transitive.
[Speaker D] Right, that’s the claim. It’s not an obligation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean it’s not an obligation? Then what’s the alternative? What does “not an obligation” mean? So what’s the alternative?
[Speaker C] Transitivity in equality is one of the most basic things. But maybe—I agree with Ruti that I think assembling parts is the main thing, because later on he brings that really a tent…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But again, it doesn’t matter—we’re not on the right plane. We’re not asking—I’m not asking—the question of what seems to us a reasonable way to define the labor of building. That’s not what matters right now. I’m asking: how does Maimonides define the labor of building?
[Speaker C] Right, and that’s what I want to say: that he defines it such that assembling parts is the main thing, and the tent is the less essential element. And why is the tent a subcategory? Because later on he says that there is no such thing as building a tent without parts. He answers it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? He… wait, before he answers, what…
[Speaker C] That you always build it with parts.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not true. Rav Saadia Gaon says that building a tent is precisely putting something in place without assembling parts. He’s talking—
[Speaker C] Now about—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The continuation in Kehillot Yaakov is a different issue. Right now I’m talking about Even HaAzel. Even HaAzel defines a tent as something made without assembling parts. So I’m asking: in what sense is that a subcategory of the primary category? Either way you look at it: either assembling parts is one… necessary in the definition of the primary category, in which case this is not a subcategory; or it’s not necessary, in which case making cheese is not a subcategory.
[Speaker B] I wanted to ask: if he builds a solid mass, is that considered that he is liable for building? Because you’re talking about a cavity from assembling parts.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s what he says—that in making cheese we see that it is. Say, for example, with concrete. In making cheese we see that it is.
[Speaker B] No, but I’m asking about actual construction, say he makes some kind of concrete block.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Making concrete, I’m saying, would be a subcategory of building, like making cheese.
[Speaker D] It’s really similar to making cheese, almost the same thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. So the point is, in short, I’m saying that there’s something problematic here in the logical structure of Rabbi Isser Zalman. Why am I saying this? Because I want to argue something very similar to what he said, but I will preserve transitivity, and I’ll show you that it really is similar.
[Speaker B] What is transitivity?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Transitivity means continuity of relation. “Transit” means passing over, it carries through, yes? If A is similar to B and B is similar to C, then A is similar to C. Right.
[Speaker B] Every relation—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are transitive relations and non-transitive relations. For example, the relation “is the father of” is not transitive. If Abraham is the father of Isaac, and Isaac is the father of Jacob, Abraham is not the father of Jacob. So “is the father of” is not a transitive relation. But “is similar to”—people generally think that is a transitive relation. If A is similar to B and B is similar to C, then A is similar to C. Maybe a bit less, but there is still similarity. Okay? Never mind, that’s just the point.
[Speaker C] The cheese is similar to a building and to a tent. Exactly. The common denominator—we need to find something common to the making of cheese and the making of a tent. And if we find something in common, then that is really the argument, the central labor in building—that’s the essence. Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And now, in order to explain this, and then we’ll also get to electricity, I want to take a philosophical time-out. And I want to talk a bit about the meaning of the labor of building in its philosophical sense. And basically I want to claim that the labor of building is the creation of an organism. That is the definition of the labor of building. When you take an organism—obviously not in the biological sense, but in a conceptual sense—when you take a collection of bricks and build a building out of them, at that point, when you look at the building, you no longer see bricks. You see one structure, a complete whole that is greater than the sum of its parts; the parts are no longer relevant. Right now there is a building here. So the collection of stones has basically been absorbed and fused together—they were fused together in Torah scholarship, yes, fused together—and some kind of organism has been formed here, some collective structure that encompasses all the parts. Right? For example, you can see that this is exactly what happens in making cheese. Right? And it’s not just attaching the blade to the handle. That may be a subcategory—we’ll talk about that later. I’m talking about something where you take a great many things and create from them some kind of overall structure that has significance beyond the collection of the little things. To sharpen a bit more what I mean by an organism, I’ll try to bring a few examples.
[Speaker B] Meaning that one body is formed from them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I can’t hear.
[Speaker B] That from the whole gathering of materials, one body is formed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Let’s look, for example, at an example once brought by an American philosopher named John Searle, when he was talking about the mind-body problem. He wanted to argue—he brought the… he wanted to argue that he is basically a materialist. So he claims that in the human body there is only biology or physiology. That’s it. No soul, no vitalism, no additional dimensions, there’s nothing in the body other than the biological whole. Okay? So how can we explain mental phenomena? We think, we want, we feel. There are all kinds of things that we usually associate with the psyche or the soul. How can this be explained within a materialist worldview? So this is what people nowadays call—he himself didn’t call it this—but in today’s language they call it emergence. To emerge means to come forth, yes, to arise. What does that mean? When there is some physiological whole, if it is sufficiently complex and sophisticated, certain collective properties of the whole can emerge from it. Connect the neurons of the brain to each other—if there are enough neurons and the structure is sufficiently complex—suddenly out comes consciousness, thought, feelings, desires, all kinds of things of that sort. That is his claim. He wanted to give an example of this. The example he gave was, for instance, the property of liquidity. Take a glass of water, for example. A glass of water, yes, any quantity of water. Water is liquid. Now water is made of H2O molecules, right? Yes. So the individual H2O molecule is of course not liquid. The concept of liquidity is not defined with respect to it. Right? Liquidity is a state of matter. Liquid, gas, or solid is a state of matter. What is a state of matter? It is a state of relations between molecules. When the relations are rigid, it’s a solid. When they are connected to one another but can change orientation, it’s a liquid. When they are already flying around and there is no strong connection between them, at least, it’s a gas. When there is no connection between them and they basically separate from each other—you need a container to hold them together—then it’s a gas. Okay? So every state of matter is a property of a collection of particles.
[Speaker C] So one plus one isn’t two. One plus one is more—some third thing. It’s not just two bricks together; rather, I have a house.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a second I’ll get back to the house, I just want to sharpen this. So of any individual molecule you can’t say that it is liquid—not that it’s solid, and not that it’s gas. Not because that’s false; it’s irrelevant. An individual molecule is not described at all by these characteristics. These characteristics are, by definition, collective characteristics, only of a collective of molecules, and not of an individual molecule. So basically his claim is this: now when we see a glass of water, we suddenly see all sorts of properties. We ask ourselves: where did these properties come from? After all, all there is in the water is the molecules. There isn’t anything else in the water besides the molecules. And an individual molecule isn’t liquid. So how can it be that the property of liquidity characterizes the cluster of molecules? He claims that this is the phenomenon of emergence. Meaning: there are properties that emerge from a whole that do not exist on the microscopic level, in the individual part. When you take the collection of particulars and form a whole from them, all sorts of collective properties emerge. Okay? That is basically his claim. I want to take this one step further, because I think that will sharpen it more. I don’t agree with his claim. I don’t agree with it because when we take a collection of water molecules, there is no problem reducing it to the individual molecule. True, the property of liquidity does not exist in relation to an individual molecule, but give me the properties of the individual molecule and I’ll tell you whether it will be liquid, gas, or solid. In other words, I can derive liquidity from calculations based on the properties of the individual molecules. There is no need to posit something beyond the individual molecule and its properties. And different properties will create different states of matter, at different temperatures and pressures, of course. Okay? So therefore there is really no true emergence here. There isn’t actually anything real that emerges. Because I can… essential emergence means that I cannot explain collective phenomena by means of the particulars. Okay? But here, in the case of liquidity, of course I can. Give me the properties of an individual molecule, the force field around it, and I’ll tell you exactly whether it will be liquid, solid, or gas. It’s a simple calculation—relatively simple—you can do it.
[Speaker B] So what about a magnet?
[Speaker D] May I make a comment?
[Speaker B] So what about a magnet?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait—don’t take me to the analogy yet, I’m still in the parable.
[Speaker D] A comment on what you said. Yes. It seems to me this is some kind of mystical outlook. Suddenly some unexpected property appears from somewhere…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He wants to claim exactly that—that it is not mystical. We know this from the natural processes around us, and there is nothing mystical here.
[Speaker D] But where it can be explained, that’s not it. He says that something external appears, and it’s unclear where it came from.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not external, no. He claims it isn’t external. It emerges from the physiological whole, exactly the way liquidity emerges from the whole collection of molecules. That’s his claim.
[Speaker D] So from where? From where does it emerge?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] From where does liquidity emerge?
[Speaker D] The internet suddenly becomes a personality because it’s so vast…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’m asking you: where does liquidity emerge from? There too I would ask you “from where.” What do you mean, from where? It is a property of the molecules. Not from nowhere. When many molecules are gathered together, suddenly some collective property of theirs is formed. He claims that mental phenomena are collective properties of the brain. Put lots of neurons next to one another, and the collective properties will be created. That’s his claim. By the way, I think most philosophers who deal with this field, and of course physicists and brain researchers as well, almost all agree with this claim today. I think not only is it incorrect—in my eyes it’s nonsense. But beyond that, I want to explain why his analogy is not successful. The analogy is not successful because none of those people knows how to explain to me, on the basis of the property of the individual neuron, exactly how mental properties are formed.
[Speaker D] Exactly what I’m saying, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the case of liquidity, I can explain on the basis of the force field around an individual molecule—I can explain how a liquid is formed out of many molecules. I have no problem; I can do the calculation and show you that it happens. So I can understand and claim that there is nothing new here; it is a collective phenomenon. But when it comes to mental properties, there is no one in the world—not just someone who knows how to explain it, but someone who even has the language to formulate such an explanation. There is no such thing. A collection of things that are biological—how does it suddenly create experiences, sensations, awareness, thought, desires, emotions? It is simply something completely different. There is no way to do a calculation that extracts all those properties from the neurons. Now, what do they answer to this? It’s a well-known difficulty. What do they answer? They answer: yes, there is weak emergence and strong emergence. Weak emergence is like liquidity: it really can be explained, reduced, and explained in micro terms—the macro in terms of the micro. The emergence being discussed in the brain is strong emergence, where you cannot reduce it to biology, but it is still only biology. That’s the claim. Now I ask the following question: all you wanted to gain from this explanation was to show me an example from nature that such emergences happen in nature too, right? And therefore there is nothing mystical here and there is no need to assume that there is a soul and all that. But here, you’ve shown me yourself that you cannot actually bring an example. Because all the examples you bring from nature are weak emergence. And you want to claim on that basis that here there is strong emergence—who says such a thing even exists? That’s mysticism.
[Speaker D] That’s exactly what I was saying, come on.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So we agree. Now, you want to escape mysticism by showing me that this is actually a phenomenon we know from nature. But you’re bringing me phenomena that are essentially different from this one, and you haven’t gained what you wanted to gain—so what was the whole move for? I’ll tell you more than that. Therefore—I’ll say more—even suppose we haven’t yet found an example of strong emergence, but we’ll find one in the future. That’s what these people often claim. Absolute nonsense. Such an example will never be found—I can tell you that already today. Do you know why? Very simple. Because the moment it is strong emergence, you will not be able to know that it is emergence. Because what do you need to find? You need to find an example in nature where you take a collection of particles or a collection of particulars, form a whole from them, and in that whole some property is formed that cannot be reduced to the properties of the particulars. So I say: if it can’t be reduced to the properties of the particulars, who told you that something else didn’t enter and do that? How do you want to claim that despite there being no reduction, there is still nothing here besides the particulars? Maybe when you added all the particulars, something else entered there and did it. Maybe yes, maybe no—but you can never know. Because once you claim there is no… how can you claim that there is nothing there except these particulars? By showing me that I can explain the collective phenomenon by means of the particulars. But in strong emergence you cannot do that—that is the whole point, that there is no such explanation. So if there is no such explanation, there will always remain the possibility that maybe there is something there besides the particulars. Therefore, in the future they will never succeed in finding an example from the natural sciences, a scientific example, of strong emergence. Such a thing is logically impossible. You cannot find such an example. Even if you saw it, you could not know that you are seeing such an example. I’m not saying there isn’t such a thing; I’m saying that we cannot find it or know that that’s what it is. There may be such a thing, I don’t know. But we can never know that such an example stands before us. And therefore his example is not a good one. Now what is the point here? When we speak—so therefore, in nature, we are always really speaking about weak emergence. Now if we return from the parable to our case, yes, to the example of a building: we gather a set of bricks and make from them a structure, a house. Okay? Here, all of us would agree that this is weak emergence, right? In other words, there is nothing in the house beyond the bricks. Give me the bricks, tell me their properties—the properties of the plaster and the mortar and everything—and I’ll tell you what building will come out. There is no problem explaining the building that results on the basis of the bricks that built it, that constitute it. Okay? Therefore this is weak emergence. But even so, it is clear that even weak emergence is still emergence. That is, there is some phenomenon here whereby the whole has properties that do not exist in the particulars that make it up. The whole acquires some significance that does not exist in the particulars. True, a significance that can be reduced—a significance that can be explained on the basis of the particulars that compose the whole—not like in our brain and mental phenomena. But still, there is something there. That is what I call an organism. Say, for example, the properties of a living body. The properties of a living body—I’m not talking now about the soul. I’m talking about biological vitalism, yes, the living body as opposed to the inanimate. That distinction has nothing to do with the soul. But even if you are a complete materialist, you know that there is a difference between chemistry and physics on the one hand and biology on the other. On the other hand, most materialists will say that biology contains no additional substantive component beyond molecules. That is, there is nothing there except physics and chemistry. It’s just very complex phenomena that ultimately produce the phenomenon of life, biology. But still, most people believe that a reduction can be made. In other words, if we could carry out the calculations all the way—it’s terribly, terribly complicated—but if we could carry out the calculations all the way, physics and chemistry alone would give us biology. We would not need to posit anything else, including what used to be called vitalism. Vitalism was the view that the phenomena of life cannot be explained by means of physics and chemistry. And today “vitalism” is a dirty word. If someone says “vitalism,” biologists will crucify him. They are not willing to accept such a thing. In my opinion, unjustifiably—but they won’t accept it. Their claim is that biology contains nothing beyond physics and chemistry, except that when phenomena become very complex, biology suddenly appears. But there is no additional thing there that creates it, no vital substance, which people once thought existed there, the stuff of life. But notice: even if, for the sake of argument, they are right, that means that the existence of an organism—not the organism’s soul, but the living body, life itself, biology, physiology, okay?—that has nothing to do with the soul. And there, this thing is basically what in Kabbalah might perhaps be called nefesh, as distinct from ruach and neshamah. But never mind; I mean the biological wholeness, the organism in its biological sense, not in the sense of soul and mental components and all that. This thing basically emerges from a material whole, but everyone understands that this is a new natural phenomenon. You created biology out of inanimate things—physics and chemistry. That is amazing. I’m not talking now about a soul, no spirit, no thoughts, no desires, no emotions, nothing. There is a living body. An ant, a mouse—and let’s say they have no awareness, no thought, no will, no emotions, for the sake of the discussion. What?
[Speaker B] Plant life. I can’t hear. Plant life.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or plant life, yes, never mind.
[Speaker B] Which certainly has no emotions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Certainly,” I don’t know—even about that there are all sorts of hypotheses, “The Secret Life of Plants,” everybody read that in their youth, who knows. In any case, for our purposes, the claim is that something is formed in the whole that does not exist in the particulars, and I’m talking about weak emergence, not strong emergence. And now I return to the labor of building. In my view, the labor of building is taking a collection of parts such that from them there emerges a whole that has an independent significance not definable on the basis of the parts. They are all fused together and create one organic whole that has some overall significance. That is called the labor of building. That is the thesis, that is my claim. There may be another example of this. Think, for instance, about what? Wait, wait, I’ll explain. Take, for example, a human being. You know there is a debate about human society. Not only human society, but say human society, or an ant colony, or a beehive—it’s actually an interesting question. There are biologists who claim that this is one body. It isn’t a collection of bodies. They function as one organism. But let’s talk about human beings. We have a society of human beings. Fascists relate to society as some kind of collective body that has its own existence. And not only that it has its own existence, but the particulars are basically less important; they are supposed to serve the collective, the collective stands above the individual. That is the fascist view. The individualist view says no, what are you talking about—the collective is a fiction, there is no such thing. Such a collective. For various reasons it is convenient for us to define family, nation, tribe, city, whatever it may be; it is convenient for us to define collectives, corporations, all sorts of legal fictions. I’m not talking right now about the value debate. I’m talking about the ontological debate, the substantive debate, yes? What exists? Does the collective exist as something real or not? Now I ask the individualists. They say society doesn’t exist; it’s a fiction. I ask: according to your view, does a human being exist? After all, the human being is also a collective entity, made up of many, many cells. In what sense is the human being as a whole one defined, existing entity, and not basically a collection of cells—or if you want, not even a collection of cells but a collection of molecules—or further still, a collection of atoms, further still, a collection of elementary particles? And basically, any collection you want—if you go in that direction—is a fiction. All that exists is elementary particles.
[Speaker C] Fine, but there is a sensory system. I didn’t understand? We perceive the world through a sensory system.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s just a technical, arbitrary matter.
[Speaker C] No, you can define it that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can define whatever you want. But I’m asking whether there is a substantive claim here. And when someone comes and says, “Look, I see society, the social collective, as something that exists,” the individualist argues against him, “What are you talking about? It’s a fiction. After all, we see human beings. What is there in society beyond the collection of human beings?” So I ask: what is there in a human being beyond the collection of cells? You answer me, you individualist. Rather what—you define it that way? Then I define the collective. What does “define” mean? I also think, by the way, that this is not merely a definition. A definition reflects a perception of something that really exists. It is not an arbitrary definition. We apparently understand that there is something there. There is something in the whole beyond the particulars that compose it—and again, even if we are talking about weak emergence and not strong emergence. But still, we see the whole as some kind of object that has properties. Whose property is liquidity? It is not a property of the individual molecules. So who possesses that property? What is the entity of which that is a property? The collection of molecules? The collective. There is something here to which properties can be attributed, so it is something. Therefore the claim is basically this: although this outlook sounds a bit mystical, you have to understand that the individualists, who think they are completely non-mystical, are great mystics themselves—maybe even greater ones. Because they stop the mysticism at a certain point that is completely arbitrary, between the individual and society. Why? Either say that everything is collective, or say that everything is individual. But why stop in the middle?
[Speaker C] I think it has to do with the way the sensory system perceives things. The individual is grasped by the sensory system, while society can be grasped by the sensory system as a fiction, no problem. But the human body you can’t grasp as a fiction. You don’t perceive it as a collection of cells.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course I can grasp it as a fiction. No problem at all. It’s a collection of cells functioning together, that’s all. What’s the problem? It’s just a matter of perspective. Obviously I see it as a whole, but I also see society as a whole. The fact that things are next to each other—look through a sufficiently strong microscope and you’ll see that cells also don’t touch each other. They interact; they don’t touch. It’s only a question of resolution. So the claim is basically that there is some kind of existence to the whole even when we are talking about weak emergence. There is some kind of existence to the whole beyond the particulars that define it. You know, there is—and now I move to a different kind of whole—do you know the example called “the Ship of Theseus”? I think it’s probably on Wikipedia too. The Ship of Theseus is always an example used to reduce things to absurdity. Theseus sailed in a ship—the king of Athens, I think—and there was a storm. He goes to dry dock to repair the ship. So they remove this plank and replace it with another plank, remove that plank and replace it with another plank, and he goes back out to sea. Another storm; he comes back to dry dock; they replace more planks. In the end, not a single plank remains from the original ship. Is it still the Ship of Theseus? Yes? Or at what point did it stop being the Ship of Theseus? How many planks?
[Speaker B] If there were no connection between the parts. Ah, can you hear? If there were no connection between the planks.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is connection—by nails—but that’s a technical connection.
[Speaker B] But then it would stop being it.
[Speaker D] That’s not the point, that’s not the point, because an essence has already been created; even if all the cells were replaced, it’s still the connection.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and this is an example of the significance of a whole—where even none of the parts that formed it are still there, and it still exists. By the way, that’s true in our bodies too. Our cells are replaced, our cells are replaced, and by the end of life we no longer have a single cell that we had at birth, and we still relate to ourselves as the same person. Meaning that we see the whole as something that is not just the sum of the particulars that compose it. There is something substantive in this whole.
[Speaker C] So that leap—isn’t it somewhat connected to the concept of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A certain kind, a certain kind of form, yes. In this case a collective form. Yes. The claim, basically, in the end—you know, there is—but in the Ship of Theseus, unlike the previous examples, it isn’t a collection of identical parts. In cheese, in plaster, in concrete, or in the bricks of a house, or all these things, it’s a collection of identical parts. Or molecules of water. It’s a collection of identical parts to which the whole gives some kind of significance. The Ship of Theseus is not identical parts. The sockets are all identical, but also…
[Speaker B] The Tabernacle isn’t identical parts either.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, but together, in the end, the assembly of all those parts creates an organic whole. That too is basically a kind of organic whole, even though it isn’t composed of identical parts. Why am I saying this? Because in that sense, when I connect the handle and the hammer—or the hoe—I can also see that as creating a whole. It admittedly doesn’t resemble building, or making cheese, in the sense that these are not identical parts. These are different limbs joining together into a functioning body. But they are different limbs, like in the Ship of Theseus. Fine. But still, I assembled individual components and created from them a body, a functioning whole, a functional body.
[Speaker B] But in the labor of building—where really, the labor of building, after all, is learned from the Tabernacle—it’s not talking about identical parts.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. That’s why I’m saying that in the labor of building, in principle, one can speak either about collecting identical parts and creating a whole, or about connecting non-identical parts, so long as what is created in the end is some organic thing that we can call by one name and that serves some purpose as a whole. Basically it is a kind of organism from our point of view. Again, a hammer is obviously not an organism in the biological sense, and neither is a house, nor water, but it is an organism in the conceptual sense. In the sense that the whole contains something beyond the parts that compose it. Now basically…
[Speaker C] How does this fit with a tent that has no parts? I can’t hear? How does this fit with a tent that has no parts?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I understood the cheese. That was the parable. I’m now moving to the analogy. My claim is the following. First of all, I’ll get to the Chazon Ish—no, you know what? I’ll stay with the labor of building. Afterward, the Chazon Ish. I’ll answer your question now. How do you understand building a tent? Or building a house? I created—I gathered a collection of bricks, I built a house. What, in fact, is the whole? Is the whole the shell of the house—that is, the walls and the roof? No.
[Speaker B] And the floor? No. They only enable.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rather? Its essence—
[Speaker B] Everything together with the space.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Together with the space. Yes. Clearly it is together with the space. Right? It’s like asking what a bagel is—is the bagel the hole or the dough around it? There it’s obvious that it’s the dough around it. But in the case of a pit there is a dispute between Rashbam and Tosafot in tractate Bava Batra. If someone is forbidden to benefit from a pit, is he permitted to use its walls? What is a pit? Is it the cavity inside or the walls that surround it? On the face of it, it is the whole. It is the walls enclosing a cavity within them. I’ll tell you more than that: the parts that the house gathers are not only the bricks, but also the parts of the space. Essentially, it takes a space that was previously open and not defined as one unit or one organic collective, puts around it a frame of bricks, plaster, concrete, fabric—whatever it may be—and now the space inside becomes one functional unit. And I do gather parts when I make a tent. The parts are not the sheets and ropes and pegs or poles. The parts are the parts of the space. Space is made up of many, many cells that have no connection to each other as long as you don’t enclose them within some frame. Then it is just a collection of things. That is, once you place a frame around them—just a second—once you place a frame around them, all the space takes on a different significance. The space becomes not an absence, not a vacuum, but a functional space within which one can live. And what did that was placing the frame around it—the walls and roof and floor.
[Speaker C] And therefore gathering the space for dwelling…
[Speaker B] What Rabbi is saying… what Rabbi is saying is that basically there is a mistake…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The claim—
[Speaker C] In what I said, that for a tent it has to be parts, for dwelling? It has to be parts. Meaning that if—here, cheese. Cheese is parts, not for dwelling. Meaning that if one blows glass before it was a vessel, before it was already blown, rather from its very beginning—I’m creating a space here even though it’s one single piece.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but there is no “space” in vessels. If Rabbi Isser Zalman is right, then there is no “space” in vessels. Because what happens is—a vessel, a vessel…
[Speaker C] That’s what I wanted to ask: does it have to be a tent?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so wait—that’s what I’m saying. It depends on whether you accept Rabbi Isser Zalman or not, but it doesn’t depend on what I’m saying. You can accept him and you can reject him. What he says, in order to account for blowing glass from the outset, because Maimonides does not distinguish, is that space has significance if it is static space. Fixed space within a structure or within a permanent tent. But space inside a portable box is not space. It has no significance as space, because every time it changes to another location. So you can’t say that you enclosed a space here and created something out of it. There is a gap inside the box, but that is not “I took parts of space and joined them together.” Each time they are different parts of space; the box moves.
[Speaker B] Even in a vessel, his idea is specifically to close off the space with the thing I want to fill it with.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that doesn’t matter. In a house too, we want to live there.
[Speaker B] But the space will always remain.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—no, I don’t think that’s the point. The functionality of the space is to store things in it or function within it. That still means that the space is functional. The problem is that when you want to look at gathering the parts of space into one functional unit, then there is a lot of logic in saying that in vessels such a thing does not apply. Because vessels are portable. When you have a certain defined space in a defined place and you enclose it with walls and sheets and things like that, then I gathered those parts of space and created from them a functional structure. So I see it as a gathering of parts, where the parts are not just the bricks but also the parts of the space. But if it is a vessel, then even if I enclosed some space by means of the vessel, this cannot be seen as creating functional space. It’s a vessel. It is something portable; it has no fixed location in space. And therefore there is a lot of logic—though it is not necessary, but there is a lot of logic—in adopting Rabbi Isser Zalman and continuing with him and saying that indeed creating space in vessels would not count as building. But why is connecting the parts of the vessel to one another yes considered building? Because gathering parts that creates a whole really is building, even in vessels, as in making cheese. Not only gathering parts as in making cheese, where the parts are uniform, but also as in placing the blade into the handle of the hoe—that is also like attaching a handle to a hammer. If it is like the Ship of Theseus, if it is a gathering of parts that creates a functional whole, then that is the labor of building even if it is portable; I don’t care. Because that functional whole certainly has been created. Space changes all the time when you carry it around. So creating space in vessels is not considered creating a tent. But gathering parts in vessels poses no problem at all. And if so, then all the questions are resolved. Because now transitivity remains intact, and making cheese and building a tent really are similar to one another, and they are also similar to a structure. Because a structure is taking parts and making from them one whole, where the parts are the bricks and the parts of the space together. A tent means creating the parts of the space, but with a single sheet, not with stones. Making cheese means gathering parts without space. Both of these are subcategories, but subcategories that resemble one another. The tent gathers the parts of the space and the cheese gathers the parts of the cheese, and therefore they resemble each other even though they are not identical. Creating a house is just gathering parts. The space is not important here; the space is secondary. And therefore I asked earlier: are both parameters important, is one of them important? Logically that couldn’t work. If both are important, then neither of the subcategories is a subcategory. If one is important, then one subcategory will be a subcategory but the other will not. Now everything works out very well. Why? Because in a house it is only gathering parts. Only. The gathering of parts is the parts of the space and the bricks. Cheese is gathering parts, gathering the parts of the cheese. That is a subcategory of building. A tent is gathering the parts of the space. Therefore it is building. Not because of the creation of the space, but because that act gathers the parts of the space. Therefore a tent and cheese resemble one another, even though they are not identical.
[Speaker B] Meaning, if an electrical product, an electrical device—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait—don’t jump. We’re running ahead too fast. First let’s understand the labor of building. Then I’ll return to the Chazon Ish. So the labor of building is clear—this is basically my claim. The labor of building is basically producing a collective structure out of parts, a structure that has some overall collective significance in itself that does not exist in the parts that compose it. That is the definition of the labor of building, and all the subcategories are its subcategories, and everything is similar and everything is excellent—there is no problem here, transitivity is preserved, vessels, and all the contradictions in Maimonides disappear on their own, as Rabbi Zusman says. By the way, according to this, all the difficulties of Kehillot Yaakov also disappear on their own.
[Speaker C] Wait, so why is a tent not a primary category? What? Then a tent should be a primary category, not a subcategory.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because a tent is a gathering of parts in a way that happens automatically. I’m not actually gathering the parts; I just put the sheet in place, and the delimiting of the parts turns them into something gathered. It’s not like a house, where I myself attach the parts to one another. There, some of the parts I gathered with my own hands, and some of it happens automatically. So in a pile, where I gather the parts myself but there is no hollow space inside, and in a tent, where I gather the parts of the hollow space by creating the boundary—I’m not gathering the parts themselves with my own hands—therefore both of these are derivative categories. Now look, before I go back to the Chazon Ish, I still want you to look at the Kehillot Yaakov. I’m continuing now with the Kehillot Yaakov. Until this point he only brought Rabbi Zusman, and now he starts raising objections to him. He says: “Rather, since the basis of the matter is that the primary category of the labor of building applies specifically where there are two things: making a tent and gathering parts into one body,” he, of blessed memory, found it difficult based on what Maimonides wrote: “One who builds even the slightest amount is liable; one who levels the ground in a house, for example by lowering a mound,” and so on—“this is considered building and he is liable.” And this is explicit in the Talmud on page 73: Rabbi Shimon said, “If one had a bump and removed it in the house, he is liable because of building.” Maimonides, of blessed memory, counts this as actual building and not as a derivative of building, and later in halakhah 13, when he lists derivatives, see there. And now, how can this be actual building? When one removes a bump, there is no gathering of many parts. How does that become building? I claim—so he says—that someone who adds to an existing building is performing the labor of building even though he is not gathering parts.
[Speaker B] Right, he said that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I claim that he is gathering parts. When you remove the bump, you’ve actually added another portion of hollow space to the house. Right? The house existed, and you added to it, attached to it another part—a part of hollow space; you lowered the bump. Obviously that’s building. You don’t need to arrive at—he said that what Rabbi Zusman says is forced; that if you already have a house, then even if you add something to it not by way of gathering parts and so on, that too is called building. Why? I don’t know, just because. The way I explain it, it’s clear and essential, because you actually attached another part to the house; now the house has another portion of hollow space.
[Speaker C] So any object that I take out of the house, I’m creating empty space inside the house.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, but only if it’s something fixed. If you remove it from the house, then you created empty space. An object that’s sitting in the house, since it’s movable, is not considered to occupy the space. That’s called using existing space. But removing a bump means clearing out new space for use. Okay? Also later on, by the way, in the Kehillot Yaakov, he says for example: what about a cave? He brings up what happens—where is it now? He was inclined to say this because previously—and that’s why I’m reading here from above—since the house had already been made through gathering parts, anything added to it is actual building. And the fact that making a permanent tent is counted by Maimonides, of blessed memory, only as a derivative category refers to a case where there was no gathering of parts at all, such as if one makes a cave. What if you make a cave? I claim that if you make a cave, that is the labor of building in every respect. I gathered the parts of the hollow space, even though I didn’t gather any physical parts, because the walls around the cave are not walls I built from bricks. But I did gather the parts of the hollow space. Obviously that’s building. There’s no need here to squeeze things or invent excuses, and everything works out fine.
[Speaker B] So why is digging a pit not called building, but rather digging?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he really digs the pit in order to create usable space, then it is building. By the way, someone who makes a bump—it depends. If it’s in a house, it’s building. If it’s in a field, then it’s plowing. Someone who creates, say, a trench—that’s exactly building. But I’m claiming not only that when you add to a house—it’s also that if you create a pit for living or for use, that too is building. That’s the claim. And now I want to go back to… I can’t hear.
[Speaker C] Why is the use relevant?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker C] We said that building is gathering parts.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. If you plow the ground, then the fact that you created a depression there, let’s say in the soil—you didn’t gather the parts of the air there, because you didn’t create a hollow space for use. Nobody intends to use it; you’re just plowing the ground in order to aerate it.
[Speaker C] No, I can plant afterward.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but it’s not for it to contain the seed. To contain the seed, you can just push the seed into the soil. Plowing isn’t for there to be room for the seed. Plowing is to turn over the soil. It’s not the creation of space. So even if I created space, that still isn’t called an act of creating space. Creating space is when I create the space for use—a functional space. Now I want to claim that this is what the Chazon Ish means. Now look at the three formulations of the Chazon Ish and see that they are not three formulations; it’s the exact same formulation. First of all, of course, turning the wire from death to life. You understand that this is exactly what I said. Right? Turning the wire from death to life—the wire is just a collection of parts of metal, molecules or maybe metal atoms connected to each other. Electrons move around inside them. Okay? The moment I connect an electrical circuit there, current flows through the wire—what happens? The wire turns from death to life; that’s how the Chazon Ish describes it. What does that mean? It starts functioning collectively; it becomes an organism. It’s not a collection of metals stuck to one another anymore; it’s already a functional vessel. It’s a living vessel. It’s like putting a soul into a dead body. And therefore you’ve created a functioning whole here. That whole is a wire through which current flows and which performs some electrical action. And therefore, “from death to life,” “setting it in its proper form,” and “inserting the current into the wires”—the three formulations of the Chazon Ish are the same thing. They are three different ways of looking at the same issue. You insert the current into the wires, and now the current plus the wires create some kind of living, functioning whole. Like a soul inside the wire. You inserted the soul into the wire, and now the wire is alive; it isn’t dead.
[Speaker B] So is he only talking about the wire itself, or about the wire plus the device it’s in?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The wire and the device it’s in. The whole device is now functioning. The whole device suddenly starts dancing there. So that means that you’ve basically awakened the dead and made it alive. Now I want to go back to Chani’s comment from the previous class. Now I want to make your claim, but more strongly. What I answered you then was: look, you’re right that it’s very creative, but the question is what this has to do with building. Now I want to claim: this is the very essence of the labor of building. To create a human being on the Sabbath—that is the labor of building. That’s my claim. And when you create a whole from a collection of details which, when they are dead, merely reside next to one another—they have no shared functional role—and once the thing is alive, then you have turned it from death to life, and the whole receives a different collective meaning. That is the labor of building. Completely. Reviving the dead on the Sabbath is the labor of building. Interesting whether it would be permitted because of saving a life. You would violate the Sabbath and the labor of building because of saving a life.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, about Eve it says, “And He built from the rib.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right. Now it could be that He built the body; it’s not certain that this means inserting the soul. I’m claiming that the stage of building is the insertion of the soul, not the construction of the body’s material.
[Speaker D] But inside a rock it’s not clear how she functioned. Who?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Eve. She didn’t function—what do you mean?
[Speaker D] I mean, if she didn’t function, then it’s like—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Dead. He inserted a soul into her, and then she functioned.
[Speaker D] And that’s called building—what Ruti is claiming right now, I’m just…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, “and He built the rib” is the beginning. When I build a building, when I place the first brick, I’m already called a builder. But the result is still not yet the building. I’m engaged in the labor of building until there is a building.
[Speaker D] According to one of the opinions, He braided her hair there. Maybe that was the insertion of the soul, I don’t know.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. In any case, what I want to claim—this is what Rabbi Shlomo Zalman asked against the Chazon Ish: how is this different from opening a faucet that allows water to flow? I opened the switch and the electric current flows into the wire. So the Chazon Ish answers him: you turn the wire from dead to alive. When water flows, it doesn’t change the pipe in any way. A pipe with water flowing through it does not become a new entity. It’s water flowing through a pipe. The water plus the pipe are not a collective entity. Together they do not create a whole such that we no longer recognize any of its parts. But current in a wire turns the wire into something else, into a living wire. It’s not like a pipe with electrical current flowing inside it. The wire itself is something else, like putting a soul into a dead body. Therefore Rabbi Shlomo Zalman is not right in his comparison to a stream of water. Everyone asks this against the Chazon Ish. They don’t understand the Chazon Ish. It’s not about allowing water to flow or allowing current to function. The fact that the current functions and succeeds in doing things is an indication that the wire is now something different from what it was without current. They tell me: after all, a stream of water can also operate a flour mill or a power station. So opening a water valve also basically creates the same thing that turning on a device creates, because that too could be operated by water and not by electricity. That’s a mistake. The issue is not that the device is operating. The fact that a device operates is an indication. The prohibition is that I turned the device into a living device. The device itself changed; it became a living device. The indication of this is that this device can now do things it couldn’t do before. With water, it’s true that water can operate a flour mill or a power station, but that is not an indication that the pipe plus the water is now something different from a pipe and water inside it. It’s a pipe with water inside it, and that’s all.
[Speaker B] And it also doesn’t change the water. Huh? It also doesn’t change the water.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It changes neither the water nor the pipe nor their combination. Nothing. It remains water and pipe. That’s all. Therefore it’s not building.
[Speaker B] No, water that operates a flour mill isn’t the water in the pipe; it’s the water that’s already outside.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you direct the water, and the flow of the water operates the flour mill. You could also say that the current flowing in the wire is not the current that creates the glow in the lamp; what creates the glow in the lamp is something passing through the filament, not what passes through the circuit. That’s not a difference. I think this is the explanation in the Chazon Ish, and it’s a wonderful explanation, because the explanation is so elegant.
[Speaker D] Wait, Rabbi, I didn’t understand why that isn’t a difference. Maybe that’s precisely the difference—that what happens inside the electric wire is not a current that actually enters from one side and exits from the other. It’s the movement of electrons or holes there that already exist in place.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They exist, but the movement doesn’t.
[Speaker D] Yes, they started moving, but—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not like new water entered there from the outlet. So what?
[Speaker D] So what? That’s what I want—I wanted to strengthen the point that it’s because of that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nice. It strengthens it even more.
[Speaker D] That’s why I’m saying I want to strengthen it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The claim is that the wire becomes something else, not that something entered it from outside. Exactly—that’s what I’m saying. The wire was a dead wire, and now it’s a living wire. And that’s exactly the point. And that is the whole idea of the Chazon Ish. So notice that the Chazon Ish’s idea not only gives us a wonderful explanation of the Chazon Ish’s view about the prohibition of electricity, but it also gives us a wonderful explanation of the essence of the labor of building. The Chazon Ish understood so well the essence of the labor of building. The problem with all those who criticize him is not disagreement about electricity; they don’t understand what the labor of building is. If they understood what the labor of building is, they would all agree with him. The labor of building is creating an organic collective entity. That is the labor of building. And in that sense, electricity is simply exactly that. You don’t even need some special interpretive creativity. It is literally that very thing. To me, this Chazon Ish is simply brilliant. This explanation of the labor of building, as I said earlier, also resolves everything in the Kehillot Yaakov. And the claim, in the end, is that we look—yes, that we look—
[Speaker C] Can you remind us of the other two possibilities in the Chazon Ish?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I formulated them—it’s the same thing. I explained them. One formulation is that it turns the wire from dead to alive; that’s clear, right? The second formulation is that it sets the thing in its proper form. What does that mean? That the fact that the device is operating is an indication. It’s something else when the device is operating. It’s not that the device existed before and then started operating. When the device operates, it has become something else. It is a living device.
[Speaker C] And what is the idea of “inserting” that he inserts it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Inserting” electricity into the wires—that’s what I said before: it’s like putting a soul into a dead body. The moment you insert the current into the wires, that gives life to the wire. It’s not “inserting” in the sense of driving something in, like in building vessels, but “inserting” in the sense that you put a soul into the body and animate the body. Now something else has been created, not what you had before. This collective way of looking at things, where I look at an entity collectively—just one concluding remark, which I don’t really have time to say at all—if some of you managed to see Rabbi Brand’s article, where he comes out against all the grama devices of the Tzomet Institute and the Institute for the Study of Jewish Law and Technology and all kinds of institutes of that type that create grama devices. You know, like Sabbath elevators or mobility scooters and things like that, some of which are built on the principle that inside the device the current is activated through grama mechanisms and not directly by the person. So Rabbi Brand says: I’m not looking at the microscopic mechanisms, what happens inside the motors, what happens inside the electrical circuits. What’s happening is that I see that you are activating a device that was dead and has become—now I’m formulating this in my language, not his—you are activating a device that was dead and has now become alive. Why do I care that inside, the current started flowing by way of grama? In the end, you put a soul into this dead body, so it is a Torah-level prohibition. We look at the level of collective integration; we do not look at the micro level, we look at the macro level. What happened to the whole? And if in the micro level you did little grama maneuvers like that, nobody cares. I’m not looking there. Someone who looks at it as the creation of current is asking: wait, how did I create the current, where did the electrons enter, and how did my action do that? But he says that’s not what this is at all. Rather, I created a living device, and this device is alive. Why do I care whether the current was created this way or that way? You put a soul into this dead body. Therefore he argues—and there is a lot of justice to his argument, certainly in light of what I said here—that all these grama leniencies are irrelevant. Because in the end, putting a soul into a dead body is the labor of building; it is a Torah-level prohibition. And it’s not a technical issue of mechanism, where if I did the action with my left hand, or indirectly, or through grama, or whatever, then I didn’t do an action that is prohibited by Torah law. Look at the meaning of what you are doing. What is the meaning of what you are doing? You are putting a soul into a dead body.
[Speaker B] So it’s not a derivative category but a primary category? Do you hear? It’s not a derivative category but a primary category?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be that it would even be a primary category, yes, although of course there is no difference in severity between a primary category and a derivative category; we discussed that. But that’s really just a brief remark, because it’s not exactly Brand’s argument. I now, in light of what we’ve said here, want to claim that Brand is even more right in light of what we’ve said here. Because I basically want to argue that we need to look at the collective body, at what happened here, not at the way I carried out the addition of the current. Rather, the question is: what did I do to the thing? If what I did to the thing is that I brought it to life, that is the labor of building. Good. And really, I said this in three sentences, which does an injustice to the topic, but only so that you can see the connection.
[Speaker B] And I just want to say—I just want to make a comment about Tuesday. Maybe it would be good if we bring refreshments?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think the midrasha is taking care of it. I’ll still verify that, but some kind of breakfast. I’ll verify it, and if—
[Speaker B] Does someone want to organize it?
[Speaker C] It could be that the midrasha is arranging it for us.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I’ll check. If anything else is needed, I’ll send you an email.
[Speaker C] Thanks.
[Speaker E] And I won’t be there, so I want to say goodbye to everyone and say thank you for this amazing whole year.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, Miriam, you told me you’re at some conference at the university?
[Speaker E] Yes, there’s a conference for research students and I have to be there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But you said that partially you might be able to come, didn’t you?
[Speaker E] So maybe. If I can, I’ll come, but I don’t know how it’ll work out. I’ll try. But how exactly is Tuesday going to work?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, we’ll have some kind of breakfast, say until ten or something like that, and then we’ll do a bit of learning. The learning will be around the final assignment. In any case, the final assignment needs to be submitted; I’ll tell you by when it has to be submitted, and we’ll start it on that day. So if you’re not there, say, then you’ll do it afterward, but that’s fine.
[Speaker E] Okay, thank you. Okay, Miriam, good luck.
[Speaker B] Thank you very much. It was nice to meet you.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Bye, see you.
[Speaker E] Thanks.
[Speaker B] Okay, Miriam, good luck, Miriam, good luck. Thank you very much, it was nice to meet her.
[Speaker E] Goodbye, thank you, same to you.