Changes in Jewish Law, Lecture 2

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, we’ll get to that in just a moment. But in any case, regarding concern for violation of the Sabbath and concern for forbidden foods and drinks, such as libation wine or ordinary gentile wine, and the other prohibitions similar to these—whether prohibitions of eating or those enacted because of concern for intermarriage—all nations are equal in this, including the Christians around him. Aside from the prohibition of deriving benefit from their ordinary wine, according to most commentators; that’s a different discussion. And from now on the matter should be clear in your mind, and we won’t need to repeat it in every single case; rather, you should examine for yourself in which passages he is speaking about the ancient nations and in which he is speaking about everyone. Understood? Okay? Meaning, there are things that have not changed. The issues of their wine or libation wine—ordinary wine is disputed, but libation wine, or prohibitions because of intermarriage, yes, meaning that closeness with gentiles is forbidden so that you won’t come to marry them and the like—that remains in force even with regard to the gentiles of his own time. Now here, usually—first of all, the Meiri was unknown. Meaning, there were secondary hints of this. In Shitah Mekubetzet he cites the Meiri, so there are one or two places where he mentions this line of reasoning of the Meiri, but nobody noticed that there was some kind of distinct position here that differed from Tosafot. It looked like just another source, something like Tosafot, where there had been some difficulty and someone found some solution for it and so on. And there are such sources; nobody got excited about it. When the Meiri was discovered—and I think this happened in the twentieth century—the manuscripts of the Meiri, then suddenly people saw that he returns to this very systematically everywhere. It’s not once or twice. And then a discussion began over what this means. So the accepted view, I think, among many commentators and halakhic decisors is that the Meiri wrote this because of fear of censorship. Basically, there was some fear that the Jews would be caught discriminating against the gentile, so everywhere he inserted some note for the censor. Right? And we do find books like that, where at the beginning they write something like: all the gentiles mentioned in this book are only the ancient gentiles, not the gentiles of today, of the emperor—the emperor, may his glory be exalted—who of course is enlightened and holy and helps the Jews, and certainly all these things were not said about him. Those are things that, obviously, were written out of fear of censorship, I think. By the way, even in those cases I’m not sure that’s true, but in those cases one can accept that it’s true. You know how Jews related to the emperor, so I think you can see that this was a genuine attitude. Today we don’t live that reality, so we don’t understand it. So I think that at least in some of the cases, it really was genuine, and even there it wasn’t apologetics because of censorship. But it’s commonly assumed that it was. However, anyone who applies that to the Meiri, in my opinion, is mistaken. And not only in my opinion—others said this before me. There is an article by Yaakov Katz on this issue, and he discusses it. If the Meiri only needed to discharge an obligation toward the censor, then the stupidest thing he could do would be to insert it in tiny Rashi script in the middle of the passage. What censor is reading all those little letters there? Put a big framed statement on the first page: all the gentiles mentioned here are only the ancient gentiles; you, of course, are our friends and brothers, and none of this applies to you. And in the opening—again, I don’t know exactly how the Meiri’s book was first published—but there’s no indication that he wrote this prominently somewhere. He illuminates it as note after note, everywhere that a discussion of gentiles and Jews comes up, in a very systematic way. So it is very hard to accept that this was written merely out of fear of censorship. It seems there is some kind of method here. And that method basically says that now you take an entire sector of prohibitions or exemptions that exist in Jewish law—all the commandments between one person and another, after all, were said in the Torah only regarding “your fellow,” one who is “your fellow in Torah and commandments,” one who is “with you in practice,” and not regarding gentiles, and not even regarding Jews who do not observe commandments, by the way—that’s the same thing. And the Meiri says: all that is nullified. In his period, regarding the gentiles around him in his time, it is nullified. Why is it nullified? Because they are no longer idol worshippers as they once were, and they are “bounded by the norms of the nations”—that’s an expression he repeats many, many times in many places. And in additional places too. By the way, the Meiri in tractate Yoma goes so far as Sabbath desecration in order to save the life of a gentile. All the polemics nowadays, from the Chatam Sofer, the Mishnah Berurah, down to our own day—and now it’s even stronger—that according to the core law there is no prohibition on not desecrating the Sabbath in order to save a gentile’s life; you should leave him to die. It seems to me that even with a rabbinic prohibition, according to the basic law, there is no permission. There is no permission, and therefore it is forbidden.

[Speaker B] To desecrate the Sabbath, you need permission.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, there’s no permission, yes, of course. And that obviously raises difficult questions and difficult feelings, certainly in our time. So they say: yes, because of peaceful relations and appearance, and all sorts of concerns about hostility from others—that if you don’t save the gentiles here, then gentile doctors around the world won’t save Jews, or gentiles in general will riot against Jews—arguments that we love so much. And because of that, it is basically permitted to desecrate the Sabbath in order to save a gentile, at least through a rabbinic prohibition. That’s what the Mishnah Berurah says. He has a very interesting argument there, the Mishnah Berurah. He writes that if you do not desecrate the Sabbath in order to save a gentile by means of a Torah-level prohibition, the gentiles will understand that too; nothing will happen. Because they understand that it’s a religious prohibition—they’re a bit different, yes. We see today that if gentiles were to see someone not desecrating the Sabbath to save a gentile—actually Jews would see it, not gentiles—that someone wasn’t desecrating the Sabbath to save a gentile, I don’t know, riots would break out. But the Mishnah Berurah writes this as a factual assessment of the gentiles around him—that they understand it’s a religious matter, we can’t do it. In a religious environment they apparently saw things differently, because the gentiles then were also religious.

[Speaker H] You have this today among the Mormons, for example, who refrain from doing life-saving things, and it’s considered immunity—like vaccines and all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Various things—not on the Sabbath, but in general.

[Speaker H] Yes, a kind of afflictions from the Holy One, blessed be He—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Death, and it’s not terrible, they didn’t vaccinate. No—when they do that to others. But when they do it to others and not to themselves, the question is what the surrounding society will say, because that’s the issue with the Jews. With Jews, you desecrate the Sabbath to save a Jewish life, but not the life of a gentile. Fine. So they permitted a rabbinic prohibition—that’s the Mishnah Berurah. The Chatam Sofer says even a Torah-level prohibition is permitted. But all of that was explained because of concern for Jewish lives, so saving life overrides the Sabbath. Saving life in a broader sense, but still—it’s a mechanism of saving life. But the Meiri explicitly does not write that. And many people who discussed this issue overlooked that. The Meiri in tractate Yoma writes, in a very short sentence, that this whole matter of not saving a gentile on the Sabbath—he goes back exactly to the expressions he wrote here—that this whole matter of not saving a gentile through desecrating the Sabbath applies only to the ancient gentiles, who were not bounded by the norms of the nations, and today certainly one must desecrate the Sabbath in order to save them. And from his wording it is quite clear that this includes Torah-level prohibitions as well. You desecrate the Sabbath even on a Torah level. By the way, according to the Meiri’s approach—maybe we’ll say this sometime.

[Speaker L] Is it permitted or required? He says this was said about the ancient gentiles.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now the question is, what does the Meiri say for our own day?

[Speaker L] So that’s what I’m saying—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t say—

[Speaker L] He says it was said about the ancient gentiles—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it’s quite clear that if, say, you’re not obligated, then there would be no permission for Sabbath desecration. Therefore it seems to me obvious that there is no middle position here of “it is permitted to desecrate the Sabbath.” Either you are obligated to desecrate the Sabbath, or it is forbidden. Because if it’s merely permitted, then why on earth desecrate it? There is basically an obligation. I think that’s the necessary interpretation, even though he doesn’t write it. Again, I’m saying: there is an obligation to treat a gentile exactly the way you treat a Jew. The same thing. There is no difference. The Meiri’s position appears in Be’ur Halakhah on section 328 in Orach Chayim, where he speaks about saving life. “Desecrate one Sabbath for him…” The Talmud in Yoma brings two reasons—why, in the conclusion, two reasons remain for why one desecrates the Sabbath to save life. One reason is: “Desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths.” Yes? You pay the price of one Sabbath and gain the observance of many Sabbaths. The second reason is: “And live by them”—and not die by them. These two reasons, ostensibly, both remain. One permits only certainty, the other permits even doubt, but both remain in Jewish law. And the Meiri writes more than that: not only does “Desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths” remain in the law, but in fact it does not speak only about the Sabbath. Say, for example, I now need to desecrate the Sabbath in order to save a life for two days only—temporary life. The person, in my estimate, will live two or three days; he won’t reach the next Sabbath, certainly not many Sabbaths. Okay? Is it permitted to desecrate the Sabbath? He says: certainly yes. “Desecrate one Sabbath” is just a figure of speech; the intention is: desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many commandments. Now, commandments can be kept on Sunday too. There are many commandments a person can do in his life, and that’s also good—you don’t need specifically to save many Sabbaths. If that is really so—if the issue is desecrating the Sabbath in order to save… in order to preserve commandments—then perhaps one can explain more easily what the Meiri says regarding a gentile. That this is also the Meiri’s approach regarding Sabbath desecration. Why? Because clearly, if the gentiles do not keep their own commandments—when he says they were not bounded by the norms of the nations, he means they did not keep the seven Noahide commandments. What it says in the Talmud, “He stood and relinquished their property to Israel,” yes—“He stood and saw the nations and relinquished their property to Israel.” A verse from Habakkuk, I think, something like that, and Vezot Haberakhah—I don’t remember anymore—that He saw they did not keep the seven Noahide commandments, and so He permitted their property to Israel, meaning He cancelled the obligations between people as they apply toward gentiles, by the Holy One, blessed be He. Okay? And gentiles, in the Sages’ conception, are people who do not keep the seven Noahide commandments. They do nothing. So for such people there is no permission to desecrate the Sabbath in order to save them, because the whole permission to desecrate the Sabbath even for a Jew is apparently—I’m saying, maybe we discussed this once—even for a Jew, the permission to desecrate the Sabbath is not because of the value of his life, but because he will keep many Sabbaths. You are basically saving commandments, not saving life. So he says that for a gentile who does not keep commandments, there is no point in desecrating the Sabbath to save him. But if there is a gentile like in the Meiri’s time, who does keep the commandments, then the obligation to desecrate the Sabbath to save him returns, just like for anyone else. What difference does it make which commandments? He said it’s not specifically the Sabbath, because gentiles are forbidden to observe the Sabbath, but if it means all commandments, then what difference does it make?

[Speaker H] That’s a very problematic claim. So I won’t save a person who is paralyzed in his entire body on the Sabbath?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Paralyzed in his entire body—he can keep commandments. What’s the problem? He can keep commandments of fear of God, love of God; he can keep many commandments without moving. You could say someone unconscious—what can he do? Okay, fair enough, there really were those who said you can’t.

[Speaker H] To disconnect him from the oxygen machine, I wouldn’t turn it on?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. If this is someone who is already dead in the mental sense, in the cognitive sense, then there are opinions among the halakhic decisors who say no—

[Speaker M] To turn it on? He’s not settling the Land of Israel… what? He makes the family happy…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’s not settling the Land of Israel. Why not? He is sitting in the Land of Israel, but the commandment of settling the Land of Israel—you can’t fulfill a commandment without intending it as a commandment. He does the action; even if phylacteries are placed on him, he is not fulfilling the commandment of phylacteries, so that doesn’t count as fulfilling the commandment of settling the Land of Israel. In any case, the Meiri is basically saying that one may desecrate the Sabbath—that one even must desecrate the Sabbath—to save the life of a gentile. That’s how far it goes. This is permission for Sabbath desecration… permission to desecrate the Sabbath. He takes it very seriously. It’s not just returning a lost object to him. Okay, returning a lost object—fine, return his lost object, what’s the big deal? Here we’re talking about permission to desecrate the Sabbath. It’s a little hard to say that he wrote this too out of fear of the censor. Okay? Let him write it for the censor in all the other places, and then here say, “I forgot to add it.” Right? No—he adds it everywhere, even in the most severe matters there are.

[Speaker K] In the days of the Meiri, were there Haredim—in quotation marks—who would say to the Meiri: no, no, that’s not true, a gentile is a gentile, what the Torah said…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. That was indeed the opinion of most halakhic decisors, and still is.

[Speaker K] Oh, most decisors were against him?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is no discussion of the Meiri. Again, I don’t know of significant discussion of the Meiri. By the way, that itself is an interesting puzzle. Because even if we didn’t know the Meiri, how can it be that such a consistent position of his, so systematic throughout, won no response whatsoever from the sages of his generation or the sages of later generations? Neither support nor opposition. Right—it just isn’t known. By the way, someone tried to argue that these are forgeries, because otherwise how can it be that there is no response at all from the sages of his generation?

[Speaker K] No—what do people think?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nobody thought that. A student of mine who wrote an article on it told me, maybe it’s a forgery. He spoke with a friend of his who had done some research on the Meiri, even did some graduate degree on him—I don’t remember, a master’s or a doctorate or something—and he raised the possibility that maybe it was forged. He has no indication whatsoever, but he says it’s strange that there’s no response at all.

[Speaker H] And this was discovered in his period—his writings, the manuscripts—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Meiri was discovered in the twentieth century.

[Speaker H] So maybe they remained hidden until then. It’s possible.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but in his own time they knew it. At some point it disappeared.

[Speaker B] And that’s testimony that he knew.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it didn’t disappear—it’s simply—

[Speaker B] Not manuscripts captured from the genizah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They don’t say everything—the question of the genizah. He says: old manuscripts discovered today are not given halakhic standing. That’s what the Chazon Ish wants to argue. There are other things too that have undergone checks, and how do you know what corruptions may have entered there, and so on and so on. He doesn’t write this specifically about the Meiri.

[Speaker H] And that also doesn’t relate to…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t mention any names there at all, as far as I remember, in that letter. That letter speaks in general terms. It could be that he perhaps means the Meiri too, but he doesn’t mention him, and not this issue regarding gentiles either. In general he says—all of this is basically against academic learning in a certain sense, where you look for context and manuscripts and so on. Leave me alone with manuscripts. What reached us has providence from Heaven behind it, it’s correct, and everything is fine. And what did not pass before the eyes of all the halakhic decisors throughout the generations may be corrupted—who knows? You can’t rely on it for Jewish law. By the way, in the Chazon Ish himself you can see places where he does make use of such things, and that raises an interesting question of what he really thought about it.

[Speaker I] What kind of use?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of the Meiri in general, or of using writings uncovered from genizot. Not specifically this Meiri on gentiles—this he doesn’t know. In any case, let’s get back to our topic. So therefore Yaakov Katz basically argues that there is some consistent approach here in the Meiri. It’s not something written out of fear of censorship. There is a consistent approach here. And now the question is how to explain that approach. So he says—he assumes the Meiri, and that’s also what most commentators on the Meiri assume—after we say this is not a forgery and that it is a genuine position and all that, what is the position? So most commentators on the Meiri want to argue that he saw Christianity as not being idol worship. So there is no change here, right? Meaning, Christianity… all of this was said about idol worshippers. Christians are not idol worshippers. He says they are not like the pagan worshippers of old, and so on. So Christianity is not idol worship. And because of that—and with the added assumption, of course, that all these prohibitions of… not prohibitions, but permissions, like not returning a lost object to a gentile, and their theft, and mistakes involving them, and all those things—this all was said only regarding gentiles who are idol worshippers, not regarding ordinary gentiles. Which itself is a matter of major disputes throughout—

[Speaker I] Look and see—wherever you go, they derive it from “your brother.” What? They always derive it from “your brother.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, “your brother” in Torah and commandments. Now the question is whether Noahide commandments count—so one who keeps the seven commandments. Fine, look under “Noahide” in the Talmudic Encyclopedia; there’s a survey there of the positions on every issue, whether it applies to every Noahide or only to idol worshippers. The Meiri here assumes two assumptions. First, according to the accepted interpretation, that Christians are not idol worshippers. And second, that all these commandments and prohibitions were said only regarding gentiles who are idol worshippers, not other gentiles. But Yaakov Katz has difficulty at the end of his article with the fact that the Meiri ultimately does not permit Christian ritual objects. In all the passages in tractate Avodah Zarah that deal with Christian ritual objects, the Meiri does not make these kinds of statements. We even read one example, though it’s not exactly ritual objects, but concern for Sabbath violation and concern for forbidden foods and drinks, libation wine and the like, and things prohibited because of intermarriage. For things prohibited because of intermarriage—it’s obvious, you’re forbidden to marry even gentiles who are not idol worshippers, that’s clear.

[Speaker H] Libation wine is idol worship, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. So I’m saying: all these things the Meiri forbids. Yes, the Meiri permits this with gentiles of his own time—yes—but not ritual objects.

[Speaker H] No, but right now you said their libation wine is permitted? Or forbidden? It’s forbidden.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Except for… wait. First of all, it’s interesting: concern for Sabbath violation and concern for forbidden foods—foods and drinks, such as libation wine, yes, right, such as libation wine or ordinary gentile wine, and other similar prohibitions, whether they are prohibited for eating and so on—all nations are equal in this. Only regarding ordinary gentile wine is there a dispute, but libation wine—

[Speaker H] Meaning that libation wine counts as idol worship. Right. If there is no concern for idol worship in it, why forbid libation wine?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Then why is there a prohibition of libation wine? Okay, so we’ll see. It may be that it becomes ordinary gentile wine when the gentiles are not idol worshippers. Ordinary gentile wine is a rabbinic prohibition, like libation wine. But the Meiri still does not permit the things connected to the idol worship involved. And then the question is: why doesn’t he permit it? So Yaakov Katz—and to his credit, he is actually one of those scholars who maintain intellectual honesty and understand that there are others too, apparently, at least in my opinion—but he really does not immediately go to psychologizing. Meaning, he tries to look for the explanation of these halakhic changes in halakhic mechanisms, because scholars usually tend to attribute it to context and influences and the psychology of the decisor and things like that, whereas traditional learners of course try to explain it with halakhic tools, meaning to understand how it works. Now he—originally a Hebron yeshiva guy, even though later he no longer exactly remained within that framework—still had a yeshiva student’s perspective, and he really tried to find the halakhic analysis. And he kept insisting all along: I’m not looking for psychologizing or anything like that. But here, with ritual objects, he gets stuck. So when it comes to ritual objects, what does this mean? So he says: apparently the Meiri found it psychologically difficult to go so far as to permit ritual objects, and so he just didn’t go that far. There he already surrendered to methodology.

[Speaker B] What about ritual objects?

[Speaker H] Objects used in Christian idol worship—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The holy bread—how can you justify that? Yes. So there he slips into psychologizing because he can’t find a solution. I’ll raise one more question, and in a moment I’ll propose an answer. Another question I’ll ask: the Meiri, as is known, is a Maimonidean, what’s called a follower of Maimonides, meaning he follows Maimonides. And sometimes he disagrees with Maimonides, but then he cites Maimonides and says he disagrees; he does not ignore him. Now Maimonides’ position, in a basic and consistent way, is that Christians are idol worshippers. The Christians of his time—that means Catholics, of course; there were no others then. They are idol worshippers. Now if the Meiri wants to claim that the Christians around him are not idol worshippers—and of course they too were Catholics; there it’s Catholics to this day—then he should have said so: that Maimonides’ position is such-and-such, and I disagree with him. Or else that Christians have changed since then—what, since Maimonides, in the hundred years that passed? That’s not likely. And he doesn’t say that either. He says nothing. He makes no note at all that here he is frontally departing from Maimonides. A student of mine who actually argues that this was indeed written because of the censor has just written a long and interesting article about it. There are several arguments there. I wasn’t convinced, but there are some interesting points there. He wants to say that this too indicates that the Meiri did not really mean what he says. A possibility—there is another explanation that addresses both difficulties. I don’t mean to say that the Christians around him are not idol worshippers. He is exactly in line with Maimonides: of course they are idol worshippers. They are just enlightened idol worshippers. And that may be no less radical a novelty. That all the condemnatory language of the Sages toward the gentiles of their time, who were idol worshippers and ugly in their deeds and disgraceful in their character traits, as he writes here—that is not a necessary consequence of your being an idol worshipper. You can be a gentile who worships idols and still be a cultured person, a moral person, a person at a decent human level, even though your religious worldview, and even your ritual practice, is idolatry. And I want to claim that what the Meiri writes is that the Christians around him are enlightened idol worshippers. A second novelty: everything the Sages said—the permissions, yes, not to return a lost object, and their theft, and mistakes involving them, and the other things, interest as well, and so on—all those were said only about gentiles who are not decent in their conduct, not about gentiles who are idol worshippers. The ancient gentiles who were not bounded by the norms of the nations—he keeps repeating this—the emphasis is not on their ritual worship. The emphasis is on whether they live by the norms of nations, whether they behave like human beings or behave like animals.

[Speaker H] There are two questions. First of all, if they are idol worshippers in ritual but decent in their character, still, at least regarding the prohibition of idol worship itself, they are not keeping the seven Noahide commandments? In the sense you said earlier—that this is the test for the whole distinction. And a second question: if there is this distinction between enlightened idol worship or idolatry accompanied by decent character, then there too he disagrees with Maimonides. After all, Maimonides does not make that distinction halakhically.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not a halakhic distinction; it’s a factual distinction.

[Speaker H] Fine, granted.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides doesn’t need to make that distinction.

[Speaker H] Why? If the law is different for an idol worshipper, but there’s no source for that—that is law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What the Meiri is innovating—

[Speaker H] So in that sense he contradicts Maimonides?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he does not contradict Maimonides. He says: Maimonides too, if he had seen the gentiles around me, would have written this; he simply did not see gentiles like these.

[Speaker H] The gentiles didn’t change?

[Speaker B] Isn’t that also just different gentiles?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Which hundred years? Not a hundred years—no, these are different places, not a hundred years. Maimonides is in Spain and he is in France. Different places. He estimates that the gentiles around him were simply not… what, not Christians?

[Speaker B] They were Christians. In France they were Christians? Never mind—but presumably he knew the Christians of Spain.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When Maimonides said things about Christians—

[Speaker B] Which Christians did he have before his eyes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Presumably the Christians of Spain. Yes, I assume—I’m not…

[Speaker H] Does this also mean that a person who is not an idol worshipper—take Muslims, for example, where ostensibly everyone agrees—but who is not decent in his conduct, suppose—I’m not deciding that here—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For the Meiri, that would be a stringency.

[Speaker H] So according to the Meiri, that would be more stringent? Right, yes, yes.

[Speaker I] So basically what he is saying about Christianity is that he is not against Christians, but against Christianity.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Christianity is idol worship, but the people are people of decent character.

[Speaker I] Some more and some less, but they’re reasonable people like us, like you. But it still sounds un-Maimonidean. It still sounds like he should at least have addressed Maimonides. Why? Where did he get this point from? No, where did he get it from? The only source says Christianity is idol worship. So what’s the problem?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He too says Christianity is idol worship.

[Speaker I] He says—what does he need to address? That Maimonides, my master and teacher, says that this is… But I distinguish between Christianity and its worship on the one hand, and—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because it may be that the Christians Maimonides saw around him really were different. It’s not that Maimonides does not distinguish; Maimonides also distinguishes. This does not depart from Maimonides’ way, from his worldview. I do not see any necessity for that.

[Speaker B] But according to this explanation, in practice the Meiri’s test is not whether it is idol worship or not; the test is whether they are decent in their norms or not decent?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I said: the example he gave before is an example of stringency.

[Speaker B] And that is the test? And that is the test for all these things. The question is whether in all those places—dozens of places where it appears—in all those places does he emphasize only that and not speak about idol worship?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is whether he mentions idol worship—

[Speaker B] Because if that’s the test, then idol worship, when there were—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Those nations were idol worshippers and were defiled in their deeds and ugly in their character traits,” like what is said in part of the verse, “Like the deeds of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, you shall not do,” which of course refers to deeds that are morally ugly, not idol worship.

[Speaker N] But is the fact that they are idol worshippers not relevant?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying: I think idol worship is part of it, it’s not… why?

[Speaker N] Idol worshippers are not moral? And yesterday? Right. Molech, those things. Because of their deeds.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, but that was then. That’s exactly what he argues. Two possibilities, he says. One possibility: the idol worship of old was bound up with such deeds, so it simply became conventional that this is what is called an idol worshipper. Second, it may be that what he means is that these things were said about those times when those nations were idol worshippers—that’s the whole subject of the sentence. “Idol worshippers” is not the criterion, but rather those nations of idol worshippers about whom they spoke were defiled in their deeds and so on, and that is the criterion. “Idol worshippers” is not brought as the criterion but as the subject of the sentence. And then it all becomes… and then it is clear that everywhere his emphasis is on their moral conduct, even if he mentions that they are idol worshippers.

[Speaker G] It’s a little hard to say, regarding Sabbath desecration, that it depends on their conduct. Why? Why did we say it is permitted to desecrate the Sabbath for someone because he’s a good person or something? Why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, to save his life? What, does his life have value? If he behaves like an animal, then he’s an animal. But if he behaves like a human being, then he’s a human being. What do you mean—desecrate the Sabbath to save a human life. Why not?

[Speaker G] On the contrary—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] His argument is that everything they forbade—desecrating the Sabbath in order to save the life of a gentile—that is the novelty.

[Speaker G] Basically—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One should have desecrated the Sabbath for any life as such.

[Speaker G] Because until now we said it was so that he would keep his commandments.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But he—

[Speaker G] Does keep them. He does keep them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He keeps his seven commandments—six of them he keeps, except idol worship. Those are the commandments. Fine, those six commandments he keeps.

[Speaker G] What? He doesn’t keep the prohibition of eating a limb from a living animal.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Who said he doesn’t? I don’t know; it depends on his conduct.

[Speaker G] Who said he doesn’t?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Conduct here means not in the sense of politeness, not in the sense of morality. Who said so?

[Speaker G] I don’t know what—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They did in the Meiri’s surroundings, but it is certainly possible they observed that too. But it’s not important. So it’s five commandments. That’s also good. The point is that there is no basic wickedness here. There are things they do not keep as commandments, but this is not a religious statement; it is a human moral statement. That is the claim. Now once that is so, there is no question, first, why he deviated from Maimonides’ path, because he didn’t. Second, the question why he did not permit ritual objects—because how could he permit ritual objects? That is idol worship. They are forbidden for benefit because they are objects of idol worship. He cannot permit ritual objects. What he permits are the human prohibitions or the human commandments. You treat them like human beings because they really are human beings. So they have a different religious worldview—mistaken, problematic, maybe harmful—all true. But they are human beings.

[Speaker O] And we know they weren’t exactly very human in that period…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not sure. Who said?

[Speaker O] I don’t know. After the Crusades, all the abuse, the whole story in that period, “dirty Jew”…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That was after the Crusades. And besides, you know, everything is relative. Meaning, as long as he isn’t killing you, he is already an enlightened gentile. Today, by our standards, maybe that wouldn’t qualify. I’m also not sure how the Jews behaved in that period; that’s another question. But when you compare them to the gentiles of old, as opposed to the Jews of his own day, it seemed to the Meiri that these were already within the category of human beings. It doesn’t matter right now whether more or less, but they were already within the category of human beings, and all the obligations apply to them. Yes.

[Speaker H] This discussion and the Meiri’s simple assumption supports your claim—for example—about our double commitment, on the one hand to the moral system and on the other hand to Jewish law. But something bothers me a little. In the end, the claim is, as you say: take Mother Teresa. All her life she saved lepers in India. She’s righteous in the moral sense, between people. Righteous. She has a place in the pantheon of the righteous. But on the other hand, every morning she kneels before idol worship. What follows from what you’re saying—and this is also the liberal moral view, even the secular one—is that basically a person is judged by the moral test, not by his beliefs.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Depends on what point. Not “basically.” The phrase “basically” is already a leap.

[Speaker H] Many people say: what is morality? It has nothing to do with the Creator of the world. Morality is how you behave toward your fellow human beings. I claim—and on this I’ve disagreed with you for a long time, though I am hardly worthy—that morality, in this, somewhat degrades the honor due to the Creator of the world. A person can come and argue: what are you talking about? Mother Teresa may do all the commandments in the world for 300 years, but when she kneels before that abominable statue, she is spitting in the face of your Creator. How do you forgive her? How are you so careful about the honor of your fellow creatures and not careful about the honor of your Creator? After all, every act she does is an insult and a challenge to the Creator of the world.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll tell you the answer I give. One could answer differently; I have no proof. But I don’t see in this the absurdity the way you present it. First, because she is basically calling to that same Creator of the world as I do, only she does it differently. She specifically comes from a religious position. Her actions come from… it’s not just altruism there, right? Fine, never mind. Because she understands the Creator of the world—the same One I speak of—in a different way. Crookedly, incorrectly, fine—but still she is doing it precisely because of Him. And second, I say that presenting an evaluation of a person as a single global evaluation is simplistic. I can evaluate a person from several different aspects. From the moral aspect, I evaluate him one way; from the religious aspect, I evaluate him differently. I can oppose him on the religious level and still appreciate the moral dimension in him. Why does it all have to be a package deal?

[Speaker H] I didn’t say it was a package deal. I said that you give such strong specific weight to her attitude toward humanity that you forgive her for bowing to some statue. I don’t forgive—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I forgive nothing. But commandments between one person and another still apply to her. That’s what I’m saying. And afterward I’ll go on a preaching campaign against the Christian religion. Fine. But still, if her life is in danger on the Sabbath, I will save her. These are two different things. It’s not—

[Speaker F] Every creature that existed before Abraham our forefather—was he not a human being?

[Speaker B] What do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That they are not—

[Speaker F] There was no Holy One, blessed be He?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there was. Enoch, Shem and Ever were there. It’s not… in Abraham’s time it somehow disappeared, as Maimonides describes at the beginning of the laws of idol worship. But on the contrary—that’s exactly what I’m saying: you don’t need correct religious belief in order to be a human being. A person is defined, is called a human being, according to his conduct. If you have incorrect religious belief, fine, that’s a mistake, and the ritual objects are forbidden, and it is idol worship, and perhaps you would even incur the death penalty if there is warning and all the required conditions are met, formal warning and everything else. That has nothing to do with whether you are considered a human being and whether the attitude toward you is an attitude due to human beings.

[Speaker B] He’s asking: after all, even they defined idol worshippers like Israel—at that time too there were good people.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Factually, you mean? No, apparently not. What do you mean there were? There were, but a minority. Overall, look at the descriptions of the Sages and of the Hebrew Bible—you can see there. The typical gentile was a gentile like the Meiri describes here. That is the picture they convey to me. I haven’t done historical research into what exactly was there. But when they saw the… I’m saying, for me what matters is how they saw the gentiles around them. Because I’m trying to interpret the halakhic statements of the Sages. So if, through the Sages’ lenses, “gentile” means someone ugly in his deeds, then I don’t really care right now whether there were also righteous gentiles they didn’t notice, or whether it was a small minority, or whether they just did not assess reality correctly—it doesn’t matter. That’s how they saw reality.

[Speaker P] Today I see reality differently.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What about a Jew whose behavior is ugly? So I say: that is nullified. It is nullified because overall Jews behave like human beings—that’s how it was for the Sages, I’m saying—and overall gentiles did not behave like human beings. There were also gentiles who behaved well. After all, they cite Dama ben Netina regarding honoring parents, for example; they bring an example of a gentile who behaved well. But as a presumption, as a type, the gentile was generally ugly in his deeds. And therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, permitted their property to Israel, because He saw they were not human beings. Maimonides himself writes—just a second—in Bava Kamma 37. There the Talmud discusses—I don’t remember whether it’s 113, which is what I read here, and 37, in two passages. One of them speaks about returning a lost object to a gentile, and the other speaks about by what law one judges him. Yes? Suppose there is a dispute between a Jew and a gentile—what’s called private international law. Meaning, not between nations, but between individuals who belong to different legal systems. So the passage in Bava Kamma says that if, say, a Jew’s ox gored a gentile’s ox, then it depends. If their law is more favorable to the Jew, then we judge him by their law. And if our law is more favorable to the Jew, then we judge him by our law. Yes, this sort of enlightened statement. No—and there it is even told that a certain Roman came to study Torah, and they taught him precisely this law. And he said, how wonderful, the Torah is so beautiful—until he got to this law, and that broke him. So the Sages were aware of the issue, and nevertheless that is how it is described there. Maimonides writes in his Commentary on the Mishnah there, on that mishnah—I think it’s on page 37—he says: and do not wonder that this is how we behave, because he too felt there was something very problematic here morally. Why? Because the gentiles are not human beings, so one does not behave toward them as one behaves toward human beings. Something like that—I don’t remember the exact quotation, but that’s the spirit of it. So someone who behaves like an animal, one treats like an animal. I don’t return lost objects to animals either. And if animals have a dispute with a person, I will favor the person, not the animal.

[Speaker K] Yes, that’s what the Kuzari says—that it’s like a second species?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. No, the Kuzari certainly says that this is type B, but Maimonides doesn’t say that. Maimonides explicitly does not accept the Kuzari’s conception; there’s an interesting article about this in Tzohar 2, I think, by Aryeh Stern. Try to read there about Maimonides’ view on this issue of the special quality of the Jewish people. So Maimonides writes there quite clearly along the lines of the Meiri’s reasoning. Now, not only does he not depart from Maimonides, he actually continues that same line of reasoning. What does he say? That all the attitudes of the Sages toward gentiles stemmed from this—from the human and moral conduct of the gentiles. Fine, so what follows? That if now this changes, if now the conduct is different, then this whole business no longer exists. It is nullified. And so it seems to me that the Meiri did not depart from Maimonides’ path, and there is no problem with not permitting objects of worship, because the Meiri does not say at all that they are not idol worshipers. The Meiri says that they are enlightened idol worshipers. And that itself, of course, is no small novelty in how one views reality. I don’t know if it is exactly a halakhic novelty, but we are used to identifying idol worship with human depravity. And the Meiri says, what do you mean? True, that used to be the case—it came together. But correlation is not identity. There was such a correlation, but that is a correlation that can also change. Once, the two came together; today we see that they are separate.

[Speaker H] But he introduced the idea that the test is there and not here?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that is a halakhic innovation. That’s why I’m saying, it is a halakhic innovation. The innovation in how reality is viewed is a different innovation. Okay? And a great many people even today are not prepared to make the change in their view of reality—I’m not talking right now about changing Jewish law. Someone I mentioned here once—I wrote about this in Makor Rishon, in the Noah portion, I think—about the fascinating evening I had in Yeruham. I was teaching there in the yeshiva, and we had some kind of gathering; the whole yeshiva got together in the dining hall, and somehow we were talking there about the issue of attitudes toward a gentile. And what a gentile is, and what the difference is between a gentile and a Jew, and so on. And all the guys there explained to me with complete certainty: of course, they stretch out their hoofs like a pig that stretches out its hoofs and says, ‘Look, I am pure.’ And ‘the kindness of the nations is sin,’ and when they do kindness it is only in order to get bonuses or to look good or things of that sort. I said to them: tell me, how many gentiles—I don’t know many gentiles, but I assume you don’t know more gentiles than I do. Young guys who grew up in Israel—I assume they don’t know many gentiles. What are you basing this on? I don’t know, I look around—even in movies or on television or in books, or just from my own impression, or gentiles I meet—not that many; I haven’t been abroad much, but a little—or gentiles in Israel whom I meet—they seem to me like human beings, just like me and like you. Some are better and some are less good, just as among Jews there are better ones and less good ones. Now, I don’t know whether I’m right or not, but that’s what I see. Do you see something different from me? So of course not—they see the same thing. Because they say, clearly, but behind the moral acts it is like that pig stretching out its hoofs, and so on and so on. Where do you get that from? From the Sages’ way of looking at things. These are quotations from the Sages. They didn’t invent it. Now, they were not prepared to make the move—and I mean factually, not halakhically—that the Meiri made. The factual move that says: friends, this is the Sages’ description. True, gentiles are idol worshipers, ugly in their character traits, and even when they do some kindness, ‘the kindness of the nations is sin’—all true. But it is not generic; it is not essential to the very essence of a gentile. That’s how it was then, but today look around you, form an impression, see—they are human beings, good human beings, everything is fine. What’s the problem? Why do I have to be committed to the Sages’ view of reality? What to do with the Sages’ laws—we’ll soon see about that. But first of all, I’m talking for the moment about how you see reality. And they were not willing to make even that distinction of the Meiri’s, not only its halakhic implication. The Meiri made here, as I said before—and with this I’ll finish—two moves, or two innovations. One innovation in the way reality is seen: in his view of reality he was willing to accept that there are gentiles who are good people, and that there are not all kinds of hidden and wicked motives behind it.

[Speaker H] Not only that there are gentiles like that—that’s the characteristic,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, like Jews—more or less reasonable human beings. I don’t know, a little more, a little less, it doesn’t matter, but they fall into the category of reasonable human beings. That is the factual move. Besides that, he had a halakhic move that says that all the fences and the discriminatory attitude of the Sages toward gentiles stemmed from their inhuman conduct, and therefore when the conduct becomes humane, that is nullified. That is a halakhic innovation. The factual innovation and the halakhic innovation are connected, but you can adopt one without the other. Even if you say, this is reform, I don’t accept it, or I don’t know whether the Meiri wrote this—maybe it was because of fear of censorship—but just make the factual move yourself. Look around you and see. You do not live through the Sages’ glasses; you look at your surroundings, at the world around you.

[Speaker H] But that’s not enough, because if you assume—if you do not accept the Meiri’s halakhic innovation—then even if they are super-duper, there is still an obligation, because they are idol worshipers.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m saying—they will not accept the Meiri’s halakhic innovations. First of all, I’m just asking: what is your opinion of gentiles? Leave it aside—don’t save them on the Sabbath, don’t return their lost objects, fine. But first of all I’m asking you: what, gentiles are not human beings? What are they, animals? As Maimonides describes—they’re not? They are human beings like me and like you. Just look.

[Speaker Q] Take it the other way too: today we would not be righteous among the nations of the world; they, from what I understand, are not idol worshipers.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I thought you wanted to say something else, but that’s true, a good example. And whenever I talk to people about this, they tell me, well, look at ISIS, look at the Nazis, whatever. Fine, so look also at Goldstein, Baruch Goldstein, I don’t know. If you take extreme cases, there are always extreme cases. But look at the ordinary person. You meet an ordinary gentile on the street—how is he different in any way from a Jew? You know, many times it is for the better, unfortunately. No, really—good, ordinary, normal human beings. What’s the problem? So I’m saying: if I am forced into the Sages’ view of reality, then I will not make even the Meiri’s first move, not only the halakhic move. But there I see no reason at all to be bound by that. They saw certain gentiles around them, they concluded that it was generic, because all gentiles were like that or almost all gentiles were like that; the correlation was very high, so they apparently understood: this is probably in the nature of the gentile. What can you do? Our own eyes see that this is not true. It is not true. But fine—then their conclusion was incorrect. What is the problem with that? Now the question is what to do with their laws. That is a dilemma. We will talk about that—about changes in Jewish law. Okay? Okay.