The Voice of Prophecy, Lesson 37

[Speaker A] Correction.

[Speaker B] I think we need to straighten out something complicated here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I…

[Speaker B] I’d suggest maybe sitting with the guys a bit, because getting into the details of these things means getting into all the stories.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In broad terms I can tell you that qal va-homer, at its root, is not—let’s say this is the bottom line in one sentence—qal va-homer is not deduction. Write that down correctly, okay? Good. Not deduction, but induction—or then some argued that maybe it’s even analogy. We’ll discuss the details later, but broadly that’s the general claim. Now, in section 21, which speaks about conditional inference in the new logic, here again these are basically things we already said. I’m just not completely clear what exactly he’s talking about—meaning which of the hermeneutic principles by which the Torah is interpreted he has in mind. Is he talking here about qal va-homer? If he uses the term “judgment,” “judgment” is usually taken to mean qal va-homer. Or—I don’t know what “inference” means here. In other words, it’s not entirely clear to me what he means. But in any case, in light of what was said before about qal va-homer, then this also applies to qal va-homer, and in any case it’s true that this is hypothetical-conditional judgment. As we said before, in the attempt of the new logic—we already mentioned Bacon, right? Bacon’s New Organon, we mentioned it once, where he tries to bring analogy and induction into logical schemes. In other words, he understands that science cannot develop by means of deductive logical schemes.

[Speaker B] So—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’s not turning it into deductive logic, because of course that’s impossible—you can’t make deductive logic out of induction—but he is trying to guide the scientist, let’s call it, or the thinker, to do induction properly, or to do analogy properly, or to test his analogies and inductions. Now again, this isn’t something airtight, it isn’t mathematical. The question is, for example, what counts as a refutation of an induction when you run an experiment? And how do you design an experiment that will make the induction reasonable? Which assumptions that underlie the generalization can you drop if it turns out the experiment doesn’t confirm it? So these are just certain schemes meant to ensure that you’re working reasonably. But that certainly doesn’t turn it into mathematical logic; that can’t be done. The main point Bacon raised most forcefully—although I think people understood it even a bit before him—is that indeed the conscience of science, as he puts it—we mentioned this last time—in The Logic of Pure Knowledge by the modern Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen, hypothetical judgment is the conscience of scientific thought, the soul of modern science. In other words, here he’s apparently talking about analogy, and we mentioned and discussed last time what he calls hypothetical judgment in this context. And I said that when we speak of hypothetical judgment, it’s that same picture of conditional inference, which is an invalid inference—that is, it’s not a deductively valid inference—but it is the kind of inference by which science actually works. That’s exactly what he says here: it’s the conscience of scientific thought. You can expand our knowledge only through means that are not deductive. Okay? So this is really just summing up things we already said. And then he goes back and says again: and so the first principle of Torah logic—which is of course qal va-homer, the first of the thirteen principles—is, as stated, a kind of conditional inference, whose basis is a just judgment of understanding, which must be true and necessary in the relation of the more severe to the lighter. However, its essence is comparative inference. So here too we hesitated a bit, also last time, about what exactly he means—because if it’s from the more severe to the lighter, then in what sense is there comparison here? So it may be that he takes only the part within the more severe case that overlaps with the lighter one. And I said that usually, in most of the qal va-homer cases we know, it seems to me very hard to understand them that way. A qal va-homer of the kind we called “included within two hundred is one hundred” is like that. A qal va-homer such as: if one is liable for opening, then surely for digging further.

[Speaker B] That’s a qal va-homer—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right—but there, beyond the fact that it’s deductive, true, it is deductive—but why is it deductive? Because the more severe act physically contains the lighter act and something more. It’s not that there’s some abstract reasoning there that this is more severe than that. Rather, in the digging case, obviously, if one is liable for opening, then surely for digging further—you can understand it as a comparison. Why? Because if there is some punishment for opening, then clearly we will impose that same punishment on the digger, because the digger is included in what? He also opened it. Someone who digs a pit both opens the pit and then continues and deepens it further, right? So clearly, physically, he performed the act of opening. So you can view this as a kind of comparison. You take the part of the more severe case that is equal to the lighter one and compare them. And there I can still understand that indeed this isn’t the ordinary qal va-homer; it’s a qal va-homer that also has no refutations, and we said it may even be that one may administer punishment from such a qal va-homer.

[Speaker B] And there too maybe you’d say that there it detracts? Meaning—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, it’s not the same thing. But it is the same thing, only more.

[Speaker B] Maybe who says it’s more? Maybe it’s less.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why is it less? You did the opening here, so how can everything extra you do reduce it? You did the opening.

[Speaker B] Okay, so you’d do it, but you didn’t prove it. Why can’t what you added maybe detract?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What are you talking about? If you take four and add two, can you get less than four? There’s opening here. It’s not—

[Speaker B] If he’s talking about inference—what? The second line about conscience talks about inference.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think he means that. I think the “inference” that appears here—I don’t think, at least the way I tend to read it, I’m not a hundred percent sure, but at least the way it seems to me it should be read—this inference is not in the technical hermeneutic sense; it’s not one of the thirteen principles.

[Speaker B] What is “the clear, ordered, comprehensive conscience”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? No—later he says, “and likewise the first principle”; there he gets to the principles. In other words, the first two paragraphs deal with a kind of logical argument—let’s call it an inference. But this “inference” is just the Hebrew word for argument, a logical argument. Yes, Maimonides translated it as “hekesh,” we mentioned that already. I told you that in the area of the hermeneutic principles I tend not to use the word “hekesh,” because “hekesh” often sounds like one specific principle among the thirteen. But in Hebrew, hekesh simply means argument—a logical argument. The Aristotelian syllogism is an argument; that’s just the Hebrew translation of the Aristotelian argument. So it seems to me that the first two paragraphs speak about a certain kind of argument. In the final paragraph he says, “and so the first principle of Torah logic”—there he returns to qal va-homer. There he returns to the hermeneutic principles. He says: qal va-homer is this—it is a conditional inference, what I defined for you before as a certain kind of argument called conditional inference.

[Speaker B] What does he want from this “conscience,” huh?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What—

[Speaker B] What does he want from the conscience, in the sense of the conscience of scientific thought?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] [The conscience] of scientific thought?

[Speaker B] He wants to say that it’s not deduction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That science cannot advance through deduction. If you want to add knowledge, you have to use a tool that is not deductive, because deduction by its very nature only analyzes what you already know. It cannot add knowledge. We’ve talked about that here several times already.

[Speaker B] What does he mean by “conscience”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Conscience” means the justification—not of course on the moral plane, but on the intellectual, rational plane. But anyway, just as in the moral sphere conscience serves as a justification, a command of conscience, so in the scientific sphere conscience is the justification for the course of scientific thought. The justification for scientific inference is the correctness of this conditional argument, this conditional inference. It’s like the argument that stands at the base of conscientious scientific thought. What is conditional inference?

[Speaker B] I don’t remember exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Conditional inference is basically, say: if the law of gravity is true, then every object should fall toward the earth. Okay?

[Speaker B] No, no—if—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So maybe that’s a circular sentence, maybe analytic. I don’t know. If the law of gravity is true, then every object should fall toward the earth, because the earth and the object both have mass. Right.

[Speaker E] So science can’t advance—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, wait—that’s the first premise. The second premise is that this tape dispenser is an object with mass. The minor premise. Right? Therefore the conclusion is that this tape dispenser should fall toward the earth, right? That is a fully deductive inference. That is what’s called a conditional inference in ordinary logic. But that’s apparently not the inference he is talking about. What he means is the kind of inference science actually uses. Science works in reverse. It says: let’s try the hypothesis that the law of gravity is true. Since I want to test whether there is such a law, the law of gravity, okay? So I assume the hypothesis: the law of gravity is true. And now I derive a conclusion: if the law of gravity is true, every object should fall toward the earth. Right? Now I take this tape dispenser and say, okay, now let’s see whether it falls to the earth or not. I see that it falls. The conclusion of the previous argument now becomes a premise for me. Now I want to conclude that the law of gravity is true. Do you follow? I say: assuming the law of gravity is true, every object should fall toward the earth. Fine, now I took an object, dropped it toward the earth—conclusion: the law of gravity is true. Now here, of course, this is an invalid conclusion from the standpoint of ordinary logic, because who says? Maybe this one happened to fall, but not every object will fall. But that’s exactly the point. Science nevertheless advances this way, even though from a deductive standpoint it’s an invalid conclusion. Because experiment is always confirmation by way of induction. You take a particular case—if the law is confirmed with respect to the particular, then you say we have corroborated the general law. Not proved it, but corroborated it. Okay? So I think that’s what’s going on here, because there’s a typical fallacy here, and indeed the terminology here is a bit blurry. So there was some discussion last class—we talked about this a bit—that the terminology here is vague. I think that’s what he means. Now just one final comment about qal va-homer. There is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) regarding mah ha-tzad. There are two forms of mah ha-tzad. There is mah ha-tzad that begins from binyan av—no, not from binyan av—from bameh matzinu, sorry. Mah ha-tzad itself is binyan av, as he said earlier; that appears in some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim). But there is mah ha-tzad that begins from bameh matzinu and there is mah ha-tzad that begins from qal va-homer. For example, in Bava Kamma, the first Mishnah in Bava Kamma learns one type of damager from, say, fire. Then they say: what about fire, which naturally moves and damages? That’s a refutation from fire, right? So they say, say, pit will prove it, which does not naturally move and damage. What about pit, whose very formation is for damage—I don’t even remember what the weakness of pit is. What about pit, whose initial formation is for damage? Fire proves otherwise. Right? Then “the argument returns,” and they prove it from the combination of the two. That is called mah ha-tzad. Now there is mah ha-tzad that begins with qal va-homer and mah ha-tzad that begins with bameh matzinu. For example, you could begin learning about this damager from fire by qal va-homer. If fire is liable, then all the more so his stone, his knife, and his burden left on the roof are liable too, because they are—whatever—likely to fall, not important for the moment. Fine? Now I make a refutation against the qal va-homer. A refutation: what about fire, which naturally moves and damages? So I say, pit will prove it. Now from pit too I learn by qal va-homer. If pit, which is such-and-such, is stationary and does not naturally move and damage, is nevertheless liable, then his stone, his knife, and his burden that fell by an ordinary wind, which do naturally move and damage, certainly should be liable. Fine? Then I say: what about pit, whose initial formation is for damage? So that too is a refutation. Right? Then I say: “the argument returns.” After I made both refutations and learned from both, is it still qal va-homer? Or has it become bameh matzinu again? Do you understand the question? Because if I begin from bameh matzinu, then there’s no doubt that after I learn from both it remains bameh matzinu; it doesn’t improve. Right? It just remains standard bameh matzinu. Bameh matzinu is analogy: just as this is so, so too that. Qal va-homer is: if this, then certainly that—certainly all the more so. Fine? Now, mah ha-tzad can begin in two ways. It can begin with qal va-homer, then get a refutation, then I’ll learn from the second by qal va-homer, then there will be a refutation there too, then I return to the first and to the common side shared by both. Now the question is: what does that common side shared by both do? On the face of it, just in simple logical terms, that is bameh matzinu and not—

[Speaker B] Qal va-homer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because I learn—

[Speaker B] from the common side shared by both, I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t learn from this one and not from that one; rather I learn from the common side that this is exactly like that. This too has the common side, and therefore it is the same thing. Right? Essentially I’m learning neither from fire nor from pit. Fire and pit are both particular cases that create a binyan av for me, as I explained before. Learning through mah ha-tzad is binyan av. Binyan av is induction: taking two particular cases, generalizing them into a general principle, and from the general principle learning to the case I’m interested in.

[Speaker B] You can learn from the general principle by qal va-homer. What? You could have learned from the general principle by qal va-homer?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but usually, at least in the examples I can remember, that’s not the case. The qal va-homer always characterizes one side. But once you get to the property shared by both, then it is the same property found in the thing being learned—not a stronger property, but exactly the same property. It simply resembles both of them in the common aspect they share. True, theoretically I can also imagine a case where in the end it would still remain qal va-homer, but not necessarily that it is qal va-homer. That’s a point for investigation. I’m talking about a case that began with qal va-homer and ended with bameh matzinu. So there’s a dispute—this is called a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). A practical difference, for example: one who holds that “we do not administer punishment based on an inference” applies only to qal va-homer, but in bameh matzinu you may administer punishment based on inference—then here they would punish. Right? In a derivation by qal va-homer they would not punish, but in binyan av or bameh matzinu they would. So that too is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), but for whoever says that, that would be a straightforward practical difference. Another practical difference is, for example, what kind of refutation is used. A minimal refutation or not a minimal refutation. There is a difference between what kinds of refutations one uses against binyan av or bameh matzinu and what kinds one uses against qal va-homer. What is the reason to say that this is still qal va-homer? The reason to say that is that you began with qal va-homer, made a refutation, and showed that the refutation is not valid by means of the second source-teacher, so we return to the original state in which it was qal va-homer. But then in fact I’m learning, as it were, from two separate sources and not from their common side. That doesn’t fit the wording of the Talmud very well. It doesn’t fit the wording of the Talmud very well. But whoever says this is qal va-homer apparently understands the derivation that way. He understands it as though the second source-teacher comes only to remove the problem raised by the refutation against the first source-teacher. And once we removed the problem, I learn from the first source-teacher by the same original qal va-homer. I proved the refutation irrelevant, that’s all. Now here I only used the example—not only because it’s interesting to know this, but because these points come up, for example, in Tosafot on Bava Kamma 2, which we looked at earlier. Tosafot discusses it there and says that from the Mishnah there you see that in monetary law, punishment is administered based on an inference. That’s the question Tosafot asks. That same Mishnah we mentioned earlier, where they learn from fire and pit and so on—Tosafot says: from here we see that in monetary matters punishment is administered based on an inference. There are several answers one can give here. I don’t remember who says this, if anyone—I remember that I suggested it there as an answer, I don’t remember whether anyone else says it too—in the classes on Bava Kamma when we learned it, namely that this is not qal va-homer, but binyan av. And with binyan av there are views that do administer punishment; only with qal va-homer they do not. So Tosafot says no. You could say either that Tosafot holds one may administer punishment also in binyan av—in other words that even in binyan av one does not administer punishment based on inference, there is no difference—or that he understands mah ha-tzad there as qal va-homer and not binyan av. Both possibilities are open in Tosafot; he doesn’t spell it out. But in any case, these issues come up there. Why is this important for our purposes? Because indeed it seems that there is nevertheless something essentially different about qal va-homer as opposed to binyan av or bameh matzinu, right? These investigations have practical differences between them—the question is how to understand mah ha-tzad. According to what the Nazir says, I don’t completely understand the difference. That is, if in the end what you do in qal va-homer is only compare the common side of the more severe case to the lighter one, then what difference does it make that that case is more severe? That’s irrelevant to the derivation. All that’s relevant is that within it there is something like the lighter case, and then they can be compared. So I don’t understand why there should be any point at all—that’s what I said before, just now in a slightly more simplified form—in having two different principles: qal va-homer and bameh matzinu or binyan av.

[Speaker D] He doesn’t say it’s pure analogy.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is what he does mean. I simply don’t know. It’s a question mark, not even an objection. I don’t know what he means.

[Speaker B] But every qal va-homer is made because there’s some relevance between the properties. So why really the relevance between the properties?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the comparison—that’s what is meant by comparison.

[Speaker B] Understand, like, that definitely exists. It could be that in the end every qal va-homer will turn out somehow to be “included within two hundred is one hundred,” somewhere, somehow—otherwise why really is it that the fact that it’s lighter here and more severe there has relevant meaning?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be that there is a third scale shared by both, on which this one is eight and that one is five—but not that this one is literally inside that one.

[Speaker B] Maybe because there’s an earlier comparison, that means there’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is comparison here, but still it’s a comparison that says there is in fact a scale shared by both. And in any case, you need that, just like a gezerah shavah. Even if it’s a third scale, that already creates a state of comparison. There is already some element of comparison there, in that you are basically extracting from both of them that they are measured by a common standard.

[Speaker B] And clearly there’s something here that distinguishes it—clearly there’s something here in qal va-homer that’s different from an ordinary inference. Huh? Clearly there’s something here in qal va-homer that’s different from just any inference. It’s not just any inference, I just—so what—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What Roi is suggesting here is that the comparison is basically translating this into some common scale. That is the basis of the comparison present in every qal va-homer. But after you translate it, this one is still, say, five units of severity, and that one is eight units of severity. So therefore it’s qal va-homer. True, that qal va-homer is based on some element of comparison. Fine—maybe that’s what he means. I just don’t know; I can’t decide exactly what he means here. Okay, now general and particular. As for “we do not administer punishment based on an inference” generally—since we already mentioned it, it’s also connected to the question of why we do not administer punishment based on inference; we mentioned that too, right? Why don’t we administer punishment based on inference? Right. So there are—we mentioned it—there is a view that says because this is such a severe matter that perhaps that punishment won’t help; there is a view that says maybe there is a refutation against the qal va-homer. We brought another direction saying that punishments are not proportionate to the offense, and therefore you cannot derive punishment by qal va-homer. So obviously the question whether one administers punishment based on binyan av or bameh matzinu will depend on that. If you think the reason is that there may be a refutation, then presumably here too you might think there can also be a refutation, since mah ha-tzad operates by exactly the same mechanism as qal va-homer—it even rescues it like qal va-homer. If you argue that it’s more severe and therefore it’s not certain that that punishment is sufficient, then that’s no longer true, because here apparently there is comparison, not leniency and severity. Fine. As for the third possibility, I’m not sure. In any case, it depends on—

[Speaker B] Refutation—wouldn’t it be resolved in binyano? What? Maybe in the case of a pursuer and rescuer, a refutation wouldn’t exempt in binyano. Why? Because the Nazir starts with some kind of thing that’s hard to define, that can be refuted. But in qal va-homer, the closeness of the more severe and lighter case—that yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are refutations against binyano. What do you mean? There are refutations against binyano. We talked about it, we mentioned that it’s a little hard to grasp how there can really be refutations against such a thing, because if it’s clear to me that they are equal, then it’s clear to me that they are equal. In other words, what are you trying to prove with the refutations? That it isn’t clear to me that they are equal.

[Speaker B] But if—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What you can show me in a refutation is that this point of the refutation—the equality with respect to it—is not relevant. That’s what you can say. But that doesn’t refute the equality. It only says that with respect to the point of the refutation, the equality is not relevant. But still, I think we concluded there in the end that okay, you can say there are refutations that basically say: look, the relevant point in the refutation is that very point that also matters for the law you want to derive, and you see that there it doesn’t hold. Meaning that your analogy doesn’t work. Because in both directions you find such refutations. And conversely, they discuss there whether a minimal refutation works or not. Fine. General and particular, “similar to the particular.” Here this is an extremely tangled discussion, and I don’t want to get into the details because that would mean starting to dig through Talmudic passages and define things that by themselves would require sitting for several good classes just to define them, and that’s not essential to what’s written here. So I’ll give an overview from above—not that I’m hiding all these secrets inside myself; they’re not inside me, so don’t suspect me. But one day we’ll get into these passages and really enter more into the definitions—there are some very problematic definitions there. We intend, with God’s help, to get into those passages, but not in the Chazon Ovadia class. What? In which class? No, no, on my own. Next project. Maybe toward your next draft-up. You’re just getting started well now. Fine. The principles of general and particular are also based on comparison—similar to the particular. General and particular, which is one principle among the seven principles taught by Hillel the Elder. When Hillel came up from Babylonia, he taught seven principles. This then branched into eight principles of general and particular in the baraita of the thirteen principles of Rabbi Yishmael. And in Rabbi Yishmael’s thirteen principles, this one principle broke down into eight principles. And if you do the math, you’ll see that altogether there are fourteen. From Hillel’s seven principles, one of the seven branched into eight, so altogether there are fourteen. There is disagreement in the classifications—another principle gets removed in Hillel—and even the counting of the Nazir himself is not agreed upon. Exactly how one divides the thirteen principles internally is not agreed upon. In any case, that is how the Nazir teaches: that there are eight principles of general and particular, of which four are principles of the general and particular term, and four are principles of the general and particular law. And these are the four principles of the general and particular term: general and particular; particular and general; general and particular and general—you may only judge according to what is similar to the particular; and a general that requires a particular and a particular that requires a general—this is one principle. So there are four principles here, and these are the principles of the general term. The principles of the general law are the four principles that follow; in a moment we’ll see them. And their rules were not explained except in the case of general and particular and general—similar to the particular. Only afterward, in examples, were their various rules explained: in general and particular, the general includes only what is in the particular; in particular and general, the general becomes an addition to the particular; in general and particular [and general], you may only judge according to what is similar to the particular, and so on. Let’s stop for a moment here and expand just a bit. So in the thirteen principles, usually this is understood at the beginning of the Sifra. Sifra. What does it mean that Hillel the Elder “taught” them?

[Speaker B] What does it mean that Hillel the Elder taught them?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hillel the Elder established them, let’s say. It’s a law given to Moses at Sinai—according to, you could say, all the medieval authorities (Rishonim), the principles are a law given to Moses at Sinai. But Hillel was the first to enumerate them, to establish them. When he came up from Babylonia, he taught—

[Speaker B] Seven principles on Passover eve—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that fell on the Sabbath. And what was there until then? Until then it wasn’t exactly known; they didn’t know exactly—it had been forgotten. What do you mean, until then? In his generation it had been forgotten in the Land of Israel, and when he came up from Babylonia he taught them this. The Bnei Beteira there, who had forgotten whether the Passover offering overrides the Sabbath—that’s the whole discussion there—he taught it to them through qal va-homer, through gezerah shavah, and through this kind of judgment; he derived it for them from each principle separately, and from several different forms within each principle separately he derived this law for them. But these principles—all the medieval authorities (Rishonim) write that these principles are a law given to Moses at Sinai. Finkelstein—you know the Sifra edition, the Finkelstein edition, the excellent edition of the Sifra from the Jewish Theological Seminary in America—he wants to argue that in Maimonides it seems he retracted this. In the introduction to his Commentary on the Mishnah he writes that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai, but in the Laws of Rebels and in another place—how does he explain himself? I mean, what? He finds a contradiction. If it is not a law given to Moses at Sinai, then it isn’t—it doesn’t work out in a coherent way. Because if it’s not a law given to Moses at Sinai, then these have to be completely logical principles.

[Speaker E] They have their own logic. What’s their logic? Exactly. It’s a logic that’s not one hundred percent—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everything would have to be ordinary human logic. There wouldn’t be axiomatic rules here, arbitrary rules, let’s say—rules of that kind could only come from Sinai. Right?

[Speaker B] Are there such things in the principles?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] General and particular and general, for example—what’s logical about that? “You only judge according to what is similar to the particular”—that looks like some rule for how to read the Torah; it isn’t some logical form of thought. Right. I think that’s why all the medieval authorities (Rishonim) arrive at this conclusion—even though there’s no explicit source for it, at least not as far as I know—that this is a law given to Moses at Sinai. They infer it simply from the character of these principles.

[Speaker B] Arbitrary rules. But how do you understand it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Understand what?

[Speaker B] You looked at the general and then the particular—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, call that a logical rule, I don’t care at the moment. I don’t mean a deductive rule, but it’s a rule of human thought.

[Speaker B] That’s what I mean. And if you read a particular and then a general, you understand that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe. One really has to think how I would understand it. But fine. Okay—but for me that too is logic. There has to be some logic in the rules; they can’t be arbitrary. If it’s a law given to Moses at Sinai, then the whole matter is more open. But we saw in the introduction to the book that Gersonides—and Maimonides himself in Treatise on Logic, though that was written in his youth. If he later retracted, that wouldn’t be surprising.

[Speaker E] It could be that it’s not a law given to Moses at Sinai, but once the Sages fitted the existing Jewish laws to midrash and extracted the rules from the examples—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They inferred these rules from the examples, and then it wouldn’t be a law given to Moses at Sinai. Fine—but then the question is: afterward did they use those rules to derive other laws?

[Speaker B] Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or there are those who want to say that all thirteen principles never actually derive any law at all; they’re just some kind of ex post facto anchoring.

[Speaker F] Fine, that’s another approach. But the Sages want to use the Torah’s own rules—they say, how does the Torah work? They look at the midrashim, at the Jewish laws, and they look at the verses.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even though in many places the Torah does not use these rules, and therefore we have to say things like “a person may not derive a gezerah shavah on his own,” or something like that, because it’s not true that everywhere in the Torah—

[Speaker A] Why doesn’t Gersonides want to say—it seems to me—that they say it only attaches the Jewish laws to the verses, like gezerah shavah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the question is whether there is some hint in the text at all, or whether it really is an arbitrary thing. I don’t know. Maimonides and Gersonides learn—

[Speaker B] that it’s an arbitrary thing, as it says here in the introduction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Nazir, of course, wants to argue that it isn’t, and for him it’s very important to know—

[Speaker B] whether this is a law given to Moses at Sinai or not. Fine.