Lecture from 21 Sivan 5777
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
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Table of Contents
- Two paradigms regarding the development of Jewish law
- Midrashic intuition and conceptualization in the hermeneutic principles
- Othniel ben Kenaz, forgetting, and reconstructing laws from scriptural interpretations
- The Stradivarius example and the uncertainty involved in generalization
- The development of general-and-particular within the lists of hermeneutic principles
- Binyan av, two verses that come as one, and mutual necessity
- The need for a tool to determine the radius of generalization
- General and particular, particular and general, and general-particular-general as levels of generalization
- Refutation in binyan av and the absence of refutations in general and particular
- The distinction between logical principles and textual principles
- The passage in Shevuot 26b: the dispute between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva
- Later conceptualization, attribution of methods, and the continuation of the process after the Talmud
- Law given to Moses at Sinai and historical development as a non-contradictory claim
- Rashi’s commentary to Sanhedrin on general and particular versus inclusion and exclusion
- “General and particular” as a family name and as a source of scholarly errors
- Closing note and date as given in the original
Summary
General Overview
The lecture presents Rabbi Michael Abraham’s view of the chain of development of Jewish law as a process in which later generations formulate and conceptualize principles that had been implicit and functioning intuitively in earlier generations, rather than merely adding new “layers.” He illustrates this through the hermeneutic principles and the shift from a natural use of rules to a conscious use of them, much like natural language, and explains how forgetting and lack of understanding trigger the development of rules that make reconstruction and expansion possible. He then presents the principles of general and particular as a textual tool for determining the “radius of generalization” beyond binyan av, demonstrates this through the passage in Shevuot and the dispute between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva, and concludes with the claim that these principles are law given to Moses at Sinai, originally transmitted in an intuitive form, and that they continue to undergo processing, canonization, and branching out even after the close of the Talmud.
Two paradigms regarding the development of Jewish law
The accepted academic paradigm assumes that each generation adds layers on top of what previous generations did, and that claim is true to some extent. The Rabbi proposes an alternative paradigm according to which later generations uncover principles that were implicit in their predecessors, conceptualize them, and formulate them explicitly, but in fact are doing what their predecessors did. He presents this with the analogy of language use: some speakers operate naturally, while others need rules in order to know how to speak, and the rules are meant to reveal how the language works even when people are not conscious of them.
Midrashic intuition and conceptualization in the hermeneutic principles
Earlier generations used interpretations of general and particular intuitively from reading verses, without formulating types of occurrences and without setting explicit rules for each type. The historical process produces formulation and conceptualization of intuitions that become explicit principles, and this is evident in the development of the lists of hermeneutic principles. The Rabbi points to fingerprints of expansion and branching: Hillel’s seven principles, then Rabbi Ishmael’s thirteen principles or Rabbi Akiva’s alternative principles, and later the thirty-two of Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosei the Galilean, alongside additional principles that never entered the formal lists.
Othniel ben Kenaz, forgetting, and reconstructing laws from scriptural interpretations
The Rabbi cites the Talmud in Temurah about Othniel ben Kenaz, who reconstructed laws that had been lost during the mourning period for Moses, and describes this as “scientific” work of extracting principles from what remained in memory and using them to reconstruct other interpretations. He distinguishes between interpretations that can be reconstructed because they rest on principles and rules, and laws given to Moses at Sinai, which are “uprooted” and lack any scriptural anchor, so if they are forgotten there is no way to reconstruct them. He adds that the Talmud describes laws given to Moses at Sinai that were forgotten, and some commentators claim that if they were restored after having been forgotten, they no longer retain the status of law given to Moses at Sinai.
The Stradivarius example and the uncertainty involved in generalization
The Rabbi illustrates the reconstruction process through the violin of Stradivarius: when the knowledge was lost, people try to extract principles from the violins that remain and build according to those principles, but scientific generalization always involves uncertainty. The example serves his claim that processes of generalization and reconstruction operate both in Jewish law and in science, and that when rules are formulated after the loss of intuition or after forgetting, they make it possible to reconstruct knowledge but do not eliminate the possibility of error.
The development of general-and-particular within the lists of hermeneutic principles
What counted for Hillel as one principle of general and particular breaks down for Rabbi Ishmael into three principles, not because new principles were invented, but because it became clear that general and particular is a family of different forms with different instructions. The Rabbi describes a distinction between general-particular-general, general-particular, and particular-general as different forms of alternation between general and particular in the language of the Torah that point toward expansion around the particular in different ways. He draws a parallel to binyan av as well, where a split becomes visible into two sub-principles: binyan av from one verse and binyan av from two verses.
Binyan av, two verses that come as one, and mutual necessity
The principles of binyan av are responsible for analogy and induction by expanding a law from one case to similar cases, but the rule that “two verses that come as one do not teach” prevents expansion when two contexts are written in the Torah, because had the Torah wanted expansion it would have been satisfied with one verse. The Rabbi raises the question of how binyan av from two verses can still expand despite that rule, and answers that the distinction depends on whether there is mutual necessity: each of the two teaching cases has a unique feature that prevents deriving from either one alone, and only the common element allows expansion. He demonstrates this through the ox and the pit in Bava Kamma, and through scientific examples such as a book and a ball falling, and explains that the very difference between the teaching cases strengthens the conclusion because it shows that the differing features are irrelevant, similar to “variety in the evidence” in philosophy of science and the example of ravens in Israel and Australia.
The need for a tool to determine the radius of generalization
The Rabbi argues that the Torah needs midrashic elements that define how far to generalize: sometimes a “radius” of zero, meaning a scriptural decree with no generalization; sometimes a limited generalization; and sometimes a broader expansion or a stopping point somewhere in the middle. He explains how limiting words like “he alone” or words such as “akh” and “rak” are not flexible enough for intermediate radii, and presents general and particular as a systematic tool that lets the Torah qualify or expand at different levels. He connects this to the example of mixed fibers in tzitzit and the question whether this is a local law or a general principle that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition, arguing that what is needed is a device that can indicate partial generalization and not merely “only this” or “everything.”
General and particular, particular and general, and general-particular-general as levels of generalization
The Rabbi presents the principles of general and particular as a device that defines the radius of generalization and complements binyan av, and lays out four levels: general and particular, which narrows things and says “you have only what is in the particular”; particular and general, which expands to the maximum; and general-particular-general, which instructs “you may judge only what is like the particular,” as an intermediate expansion, alongside binyan av as a narrow generalization that can be refuted even by the slightest objection. He explains that the explanatory baraita gives different instructions for each of the three principles and corrects the situation in which Rabbi Ishmael’s baraita has three forms but seems to give only one instruction. He emphasizes that the term “like the particular” will be defined in the Talmud through “sides” or characteristics, and notes that this will be studied later.
Refutation in binyan av and the absence of refutations in general and particular
Binyan av and a fortiori argument are open to refutations because they are “logical” principles based on similarity and reasoning, and the refutation limits the radius of expansion according to the degree of similarity. The Rabbi argues that for the principles of general and particular “there are no refutations” because they are “textual” principles in which the verse itself instructs us to expand even when there is not enough similarity, so a refutation based on dissimilarity is irrelevant. He presents a refutation as mapping the boundaries of expansion rather than knocking down the derivation, and suggests that in this sense there is also, within general and particular, a parallel mechanism of narrowing the radius, which will become clear when he gets to “characteristics.”
The distinction between logical principles and textual principles
Binyan av operates from understanding content and reasoning: what is true in one context seems reasonable in similar contexts as well, and so one expands. General and particular operate from the formulation of the verse, which drives expansion even beyond similarity, so the motivation is not the similarity between source and target but the linguistic structure. The Rabbi argues that every biblical occurrence of general and particular should in principle translate into expansions, but adds that this is hard to test because the Sages sometimes interpret without naming the principle, and sometimes it is difficult to identify what counts as “general” and what counts as “particular” according to the Sages’ understanding.
The passage in Shevuot 26b: the dispute between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva
The Mishnah in Shevuot presents liabilities for oaths about the future and about the past, about things with substance and things without substance, and brings Rabbi Ishmael’s position that one “is liable only for the future, as it says, ‘to do harm or to do good.’” Rabbi Akiva challenges this by saying that if so, there should be liability only for matters involving harm or benefit, and asks from where matters that involve neither harm nor benefit are derived. Rabbi Ishmael answers, “from the inclusion of the verse,” and Rabbi Akiva responds that if the verse included that, then it also included the other as well. The Talmud cites Rabbi Yohanan, who says that Rabbi Ishmael studied under Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKanah, who interpreted by general and particular, while Rabbi Akiva studied under Nahum Ish Gamzu, who interpreted by inclusion and exclusion, and the baraita details the interpretation of the verse “or if a person swears… to do harm or to do good… whatever a person utters” as inclusion-exclusion-inclusion according to Rabbi Akiva and as general-particular-general according to Rabbi Ishmael. Rabbi Ishmael interprets it as “you may judge only what is like the particular” and includes matters that involve neither harm nor benefit regarding the future, but excludes matters of the past, and the Rabbi presents this as an intermediate expansion that explains Rabbi Akiva’s question: “Why are you stopping in the middle?”
Later conceptualization, attribution of methods, and the continuation of the process after the Talmud
The Rabbi argues that in the Mishnah itself there is no language of general and particular or inclusion and exclusion, and that it is the later baraita that conceptualizes the dispute and formulates it as explicit rules. It is therefore possible that Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael worked intuitively and that the generations after them formulated it. He explains why the methods are named after Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael rather than after their teachers, and suggests that they were the first to recognize that these were systematic methods and not merely local disputes. He notes Tosafot, who write that Rav Aḥai in the Talmud is Rav Aḥai Gaon, and concludes from this that the process of conceptualization in interpretations of general and particular continued even beyond the closing of the Talmud into the Geonic period.
Law given to Moses at Sinai and historical development as a non-contradictory claim
The Rabbi states that there is no contradiction between the claim that the hermeneutic principles are law given to Moses at Sinai and the claim that they develop over the generations, because the initial transmission can be intuitive while later generations develop, conceptualize, and organize it. He compares this to the statement “this is a law given to Moses at Sinai” about something that Moses himself did not understand in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall, and explains that the logic operating among the ancients can be formulated only through later tools. In this context he also brings the example of Rabbi Chaim in relation to Maimonides as uncovering an implicit intention rather than inventing something new.
Rashi’s commentary to Sanhedrin on general and particular versus inclusion and exclusion
The Rabbi cites Rashi, who distinguishes between one who interprets by general and particular and includes only what is like the particular, and one who interprets by inclusion and exclusion and includes everything while excluding one thing. Rashi explains that the particular in the language of general and particular is “a language of explanation,” clarifying the general term, and therefore in general and particular there is in the general only what is in the particular, while only the final general term in general-particular-general includes what is like the particular and no more. Rashi explains that according to inclusion and exclusion, the exclusion is not explanatory but a narrowing so that not everything is included in the meaning, and the final inclusion comes back to include everything and exclude only one thing that does not resemble the particular in any way. The Rabbi uses this to sharpen the difference between Rabbi Ishmael’s approach, which treats the particular as explanation, and Rabbi Akiva’s approach, which treats it as narrowing within operations between sets.
“General and particular” as a family name and as a source of scholarly errors
The Rabbi explains that the expression “general and particular” serves both as the name of one specific hermeneutic principle and as a general label for the family of general-particular-general principles, and therefore the Talmud may say “he used to interpret by general and particular” even when the actual interpretation is general-particular-general. He argues that scholars sometimes build contradictions out of this because they do not distinguish between the two meanings, and presents this as part of the process of changing conceptualization that he describes throughout the lecture.
Closing note and date as given in the original
8 Sivan 5770, Tuesday, June 2010, a lecture by Rabbi Michael Abraham on the chain of development of Jewish law.
Up to here, the lecture of Rabbi Michael Abraham, 29 Sivan 5777, Tuesday, June 2017. “May He magnify the Torah and make it glorious.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] 8th.
[Speaker B] Sivan 5770, Tuesday, June 2010, a lecture by Rabbi Michael Abraham on the chain of development of Jewish law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s the standard academic paradigm, which assumes that each generation basically adds layers on top of what the previous generations did, which to some extent is certainly true, but that’s the basic claim there. And the alternative paradigm that I proposed was that each generation uncovers things that in the previous generation were implicit, and conceptualizes them or turns them into explicitly formulated principles, but in essence it’s doing what they did. It’s just that you’re more aware of the principles you’re using; you’re not using them in a purely natural way. We talked about this like language use: there are people who speak it naturally, and there are people who need to use rules in order to think about how to speak and what to say at every stage, in every situation, and basically the rules are supposed to teach me how the language works, even for someone who doesn’t speak according to the rules or isn’t aware of the rules. So in Jewish law it’s the same thing. There were earlier generations who, say in the context of general and particular, made these kinds of general-and-particular interpretations intuitively. They saw some biblical instance of general and particular of one kind or another—we’ll see later exactly what that means—and they made some sort of generalization or some sort of interpretation. And in each case they did it a little differently, but they didn’t formulate for themselves the types of cases and what you do with each type of case. Rather, it was kind of like natural language: you read a verse and say, okay, this is probably this kind of generalization or that kind of interpretation, without getting into more precise definitions of what exactly you do and what the types of cases are.
[Speaker B] Little by little, these interpretations can also exist in parallel—they don’t contradict each other. What? Which? These two interpretations? These two approaches can both exist.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but not about the same thing. I said that obviously there are certain parts of Jewish law that are additions, no question. I’m only saying that there are many parts that are treated in Talmudic research as additions, and I’m not sure they really are. Meaning, I think that in many cases this is the uncovering of something that in fact already existed earlier in implicit form, now with conceptualization and formulation. We talked about the Talmud in Temurah there, with the dialectical work of Othniel ben Kenaz, who reconstructed the laws that were lost during the mourning period for Moses, because then they didn’t study Torah and everything was transmitted orally, and basically after forty days in which the whole Jewish people didn’t study Torah, the whole business was forgotten, or part of it was forgotten. And then Othniel ben Kenaz comes and does scientific work. He simply takes the parts that survived, what people still remember, tries to distill from the interpretations that we do remember the principles, and once you determine the principles, you can then use them on other verses and reconstruct interpretations that people no longer remember. Of course, that can only be done with interpretations. With laws given to Moses at Sinai, there’s no way at all to reconstruct them, because those are uprooted laws—laws that have no anchor in the biblical text itself. So if you remember them, you remember them, and if you don’t, you’re finished. And that’s why the Talmud there really does describe laws given to Moses at Sinai, like the sin offering whose owners died, that were forgotten, and there are commentators who want to claim that once they re-established that law, it no longer had the status of law given to Moses at Sinai, because it had been forgotten and then restored from somewhere—I don’t know exactly from where—so it no longer has the status of law given to Moses at Sinai. By contrast, with interpretations we do have the ability to reconstruct. Why? Because behind extracting laws from verses there are principles, rules. They weren’t formulated. Moses our teacher never heard of the concept of general and particular, not of a fortiori reasoning, nor of whatever else—something that went out from the general rule, or all the hermeneutic principles we know—but he used them. That’s simply how he read the verses, how he learned, and how he taught others to read the verses. And the moment Othniel ben Kenaz forgot—and that’s always the strongest trigger for developing rules, when people forget, when they stop understanding—when you stop understanding or you forget, then you try to understand the principles behind the matter, and that lets you reconstruct the information. We once talked about that example of the Stradivarius violin, where Stradivarius’s knowledge of how to build violins somehow got lost; his successors weren’t able to build violins of the same quality. So how do people still try to reconstruct it? They take the violins he built and try to extract from those violins some principles of how one builds high-quality violins. Now, it’s not certain that this generalization is correct. We try to examine the violins that remain to see exactly how the work was done properly, and then try to build other violins according to those same principles if we’ve succeeded in reconstructing them. And if not, then not. As we said—that was the previous part—scientific generalization always involves some uncertainty. So that’s the overall picture, and we saw that the hermeneutic principles are really a very good example of this process, because we find fingerprints of certain stages of this development, very clear fingerprints. There are Hillel’s seven principles, then Rabbi Ishmael’s thirteen principles, or Rabbi Akiva’s as alternative principles, then the thirty-two of Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosei the Galilean. In fact there are already more—there are principles that never made it into those lists—so this whole thing keeps expanding. But when we looked a little more closely at the details of how this process develops, we saw that what for Hillel counted as one principle, general and particular, for Rabbi Ishmael already becomes three principles. But not because Rabbi Ishmael invented two more principles; rather, what Hillel called general and particular is actually an entire family of principles. When we see a biblical appearance of general and particular, we need to make some kind of expansion around the particular. That was Hillel’s rule. Later, as the process of conceptualization continued, people suddenly understood that this wasn’t just some general principle, plus the fact that it was applied differently in every verse, and suddenly they recognized that for verses of the type general-particular-general the operation is like this, verses of the type general-particular the operation is like that, verses of the type particular-general the operation is like this, and so now they established three hermeneutic principles, when in fact all three had already been in use in earlier generations. They were just called by one name, because all of them are really alternations between particular and general in the language of the Torah, telling us to expand around the particular in one way or another. That’s why everything was called general and particular, a tanna of general and particular or something like that. But with Rabbi Ishmael they noticed that there are really three sub-principles within the principle of general and particular, and for binyan av there are also two sub-principles: binyan av from one verse and binyan av from two verses. Again, two sub-principles within the principle of binyan av, so in a sense this itself is a binyan av for the process as a whole—the process of branching, the conceptualization of principles that were intuitive up to a certain stage, and as history continues, the intuitions get formulated and conceptualized and become explicit principles. Okay. So now I’m moving in—up to this point we spoke generally about the hermeneutic principles. Now I’m moving into general and particular specifically. Until now that was the framework. Now I’m going into the principles of general and particular themselves a bit more, and here I need some introduction. In the first part we saw the principles of binyan av. The principles of binyan av are basically responsible for analogy and induction. We saw several examples of that. Analogy and induction basically mean taking a particular case that the Torah gives us and extending it to similar places in one way or another. Now we know that when two verses come as one, they do not teach. Right? If what?
[Speaker B] Meaning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Torah taught a certain law in two contexts. In that situation, the Sages tell us that we do not extend from those two contexts to similar contexts; rather, it applies only in those two contexts and no more. Why? Because if the Torah had wanted us to extend it, it would have sufficed with one, since one is enough for us to make a binyan av from one verse. Right? If the Torah writes two, then one of them is superfluous, so clearly the Torah wants to tell us that it applies only in those two and not beyond. So what happens with binyan av from two verses? There too, it’s the same sort of case. In binyan av from two verses, the Torah writes the law in two contexts, and there we do extend it. How does that fit with the rule that two verses that come as one do not teach? I think I mentioned this.
[Speaker B] Because it’s a derivation from a derivation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What?
[Speaker B] Meaning a derivation from a derivation?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Two verses that come—
[Speaker B] —as one, so because it’s two, it comes to close it off to just those two, to limit it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But once you already make—
[Speaker B] —a binyan av, and you make two verses into a binyan av, then the binyan av is already the derivation plus the two verses.
[Speaker C] No, the two verses are written in the Torah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not that the second one is derived from binyan av. Two verses in the Torah.
[Speaker C] Binyan av from two verses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Two verses. The ox and the pit, what they do in Bava Kamma, the common denominator. So both are written in the Torah. And now I extend from both of them to additional categories of damage, to his stone, his knife, and his burden that fell from the roof, or various other damaging agents. So why? After all, two verses that come as one do not teach—how are we extending? I think I mentioned that in the case of two verses that come as one, we saw the scheme of how this works. Basically, we take—say we have two teaching cases, A and B, and we have a learned case, C. Okay? Now A has a special property, X, that C doesn’t have, because if there weren’t such a thing, A alone would suffice to derive from, right? We’re trying to derive from A to C, whether by binyan av or a fortiori, it doesn’t matter, it’s the same thing. So we try to derive from A to C and say: what is true of A, which has X? It has some special property X. Fine—then B, let’s derive from B to C. Okay? Still from B alone. Then we say: no, B also has a special property that C doesn’t have, property Y, which C doesn’t have. So B alone can’t teach either. So what do we do? We return to the rule: the common denominator between A and B is that they are your property, or that you are responsible for them, or something like that, and therefore the same law applies to the learned case as well. Which means that in binyan av from two verses, the two teaching cases, the two verses, always have unique features. Teaching case A has property X, which teaching case B and the learned case do not have. And teaching case B has property Y, which teaching case A and the learned case do not have. And only because of that can we derive from both of them. These features don’t get in the way. Were it not for them, we couldn’t derive from both of them. Even though these are differences between the teaching cases and the learned case, and you’d think these properties ought to interfere with the derivation—but that’s not right. We know science works exactly the same way. There’s nothing special here about Jewish law. If I have two special properties—say, I know, the book falls to the earth, the example we were using then. A book falls to the earth. What is true of the book, which is rectangular? Maybe a pencil won’t fall to the earth. Fine. A ball also falls to the earth. A ball is round. That also doesn’t match the pencil. Fine, so we return to the rule: the common denominator between the book and the ball is that both fall to the earth, so the pencil will also fall to the earth. Why? Because if the book falls and the ball also falls, then clearly rectangularity is not what causes the falling, because otherwise the ball wouldn’t fall. And roundness isn’t what causes it either, because otherwise the book wouldn’t fall. So these features are evidently irrelevant, right? And therefore I can derive from these two teaching cases to the learned case, the pencil. Which means that the very existence of properties that seem to interfere, properties that interfere with the similarity between the teaching case and the learned case—those are exactly what build the derivation. Because the more—as we said, there’s also variety in the evidence. Meaning, suppose I want to prove, or confirm, the claim that all ravens are black. If I see two ravens here that are black, okay, that’s some basis, but not a very strong one. But if I see one black raven here and one black raven in Australia, that will be stronger. Why? Because those are two ravens in different environments. If they were just these two ravens here, I might say, okay, maybe only ravens in Israel are black. But maybe in Australia not. But if I see that in both Israel and Australia there are black ravens, that means it’s not something unique to Israel or unique to Australia. My assumption is that it’s a property of all ravens. Maybe I’m wrong. But it’s stronger than two ravens in Israel. So the very difference between the two teaching cases strengthens the conclusion. Right? That’s what’s called variety in the evidence in philosophy of science. Okay?
[Speaker B] And those two verses that are learned only about themselves—even if there were some unique mutual necessity there? Not relevant?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because if they were relevant, then they would teach. That’s exactly the point. The Talmud itself, when we bring two verses and say that they do not teach, the Talmud itself says: not true, they can teach. Why? Because this one has a special property and that one has a special property, and it creates mutual necessity between them. Mutual necessity means that one can’t be learned from the other; each one has a unique feature. And if there is such mutual necessity, then they do teach. Only if there is no mutual necessity, only if they are similar, like two Israeli ravens, then they do not teach. Because if they are similar, like two Israeli ravens, then maybe only Israeli ravens are black. So you can’t learn from that to all ravens. But if there are two different features, then that itself means those features are irrelevant. And therefore you can derive to a broader group. Okay? So the difference between two verses that come as one and binyan av from two verses is also the question whether there is mutual necessity between the two teaching cases. Do the two teaching cases each have some special feature, one that the other teaching case and the learned case do not have? If so, then you can derive from both of them. Okay? And that’s a generalization. And if not, then not. Now what if the Torah wanted to teach us a certain law that applies only in one verse—in one context, sorry—and not extend it? The Torah is saying this is a special scriptural decree only for a certain context. Say mixed fibers in tzitzit, right? So there is mixed fibers in tzitzit, and the Sages, at least according to one side there, derive from this a general principle that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. Since one may make mixed fibers in tzitzit, that means the positive commandment of tzitzit overrides the prohibition of mixed fibers. Why? Maybe this is a special law specifically for mixed fibers and tzitzit, and it’s not a general principle that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. But no, we always expand—that’s the principle of binyan av. If we find a principle in one place, then it ought to be true in all similar places too, right? Or binyan av, or “what do we find,” it doesn’t matter, it’s the same thing. But if the Torah wants to tell me a law that is true only in one context and to tell us: don’t derive—stop the extension, right? I need some tool for that, because otherwise there are things the Torah simply won’t be able to do. We’re looking for a language that will allow us to perform all the logical operations, or all the midrashic operations, that are possible. And now the Torah chooses a certain linguistic element according to its purposes. If it wants to tell me “extend,” then it gives me one case that isn’t unique—binyan av—and I extend it. If it wants to teach me some group that may be a little broader, it gives me two examples with unique features to show me that those features are irrelevant: extend it to all the relevant examples, at least. Okay. But if it wants to limit that extension, or maybe only to qualify it, to say: extend it to a group that is very similar, not weak similarity but very strong similarity—okay? How can it do such a thing? The principles we’ve learned up till now, a fortiori and the two forms of binyan av—if the language were made up only of those elements, we couldn’t do it. Meaning, we have to—I’m showing you here why additional elements have to appear in the midrashic language, elements that enable the Torah to instruct us in ways that it cannot instruct us by means of the two forms of binyan av or a fortiori. We need more elements that basically—let me formulate it more explicitly now—elements that define for us a radius of generalization. Okay? Meaning, there are elements that tell us how far to generalize, if at all. Sometimes the radius is zero. A radius of zero means don’t generalize at all; what’s written is what’s written—what’s called a scriptural decree. What’s written is true; everything else is not. Don’t generalize at all. Or maybe do a binyan av type of generalization, or perhaps a broader one, or a narrower one, different kinds of generalization. Maybe stop the generalization halfway in some way. So we need a midrashic device that will allow us to express instructions of that sort.
[Speaker C] Why not with words—“he alone”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Huh? “He alone.”
[Speaker C] The Torah uses that—“he alone.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Never mind, that’s what he said—words like “akh” and “rak.” Meaning, yes, there are words—it doesn’t matter—but there are words that limit. That’s also part of the toolbox that gets used. I’m only saying that in the midrashic language there are tools that the Torah uses systematically in order to qualify things.
[Speaker C] Why would we say “he alone,” if they told us we have another formulation?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not just another formulation, but rather a rule. “He alone,” something like that, doesn’t tell you what to do. And “akh” and “rak” also don’t tell you what to do.
[Speaker B] “Akh” and “rak” mean only this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And what if you want to do something in between? Meaning, generalize, but not too much. Or the other way around—generalize more than binyan av would have taken you.
[Speaker B] Even—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —when there is a refutation. After all, if there is a binyan av and there is a refutation against it, then we don’t generalize, right? Even the slightest refutation, yes. If the Torah wanted to tell us: generalize despite the refutation. In other words, generalize to a radius—what is a refutation in binyan av? Maybe I’ll sharpen that more. A refutation in binyan av basically narrows the radius of generalization, right? If I have one context, say mixed fibers in tzitzit, okay? And now I ask myself where to extend it. It says mixed fibers in tzitzit are allowed, so a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. I have a principle that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. To what should I apply it? To all positive commandments and all prohibitions? To all types? Or maybe only in mixed fibers in tzitzit? So if all I had was a language of “akh” and “rak” or “he alone” and things like that, that’s still too poor. It’s too poor because at most it can tell me: only this. But now I’m looking for a more flexible logical device, a device that will let me say: generalize not to all positive commandments, but to positive commandments of a certain type, that are sufficiently similar to tzitzit, for example.
[Speaker B] So now you’ve arrived at general and particular. Exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m speaking now—this is an introduction to general and particular, exactly.
[Speaker B] Okay,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or particular and general, it doesn’t matter—all the general-and-particular principles. All those principles, yes, that’s exactly their role, and that’s why I’m giving this introduction here. Meaning, the principles of general and particular are basically the device through which the Torah defines for us the radius of generalization. That’s all. In that sense, they complement the tool of binyan av. Binyan av is one kind of generalization; and we’ll see later that it’s a generalization with a very narrow radius. How do I know it’s a very narrow radius? Because binyan av can be refuted even by the slightest objection. What does that mean, that it can be refuted? I started with that, I was still in the middle. It can be refuted by the slightest objection. What does that mean? Even if something differs from the teaching case in some way that seems irrelevant, in a feature that seems irrelevant, that’s enough to say that you can’t derive to it. Which means that in binyan av, where can you extend the law? Only to something really, really similar. Meaning, there shouldn’t even be differences that seem to us irrelevant. Needless to say, truly relevant differences would certainly be a refutation here—that’s obvious. But if I say that even weak differences also prevent binyan av, then binyan av is a very, very narrow generalization. If I now want to make a broader generalization, then I need something whose refutation is not just the slightest objection. For example, with binyan av from two sides—there’s a passage in Hullin, and it’s a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—there are views that do not apply the slightest refutation to binyan av from two sides; it depends on whether there is a difference between binyan av from one verse and from two verses. Maybe that’s one device, for example. But if I now want more variety, more possible radii of generalization, then that’s what the principles of general and particular are. Meaning, the refutation basically always defines the radius of generalization. That’s what a refutation does. When we say that in the Torah there is a law written in context A, and I want to learn from it to context B as well, the same law—then if context B resembles context A, I derive it to that case. But if there is a refutation, something that exists in context A and not in context B, then I can’t derive it. Which means that the refutation is basically telling me: this is outside the radius of generalization, because it isn’t similar, right? A refutation always says it needs to be similar; if there is a refutation, that means it isn’t similar. The degree of similarity determines the radius of generalization. Okay? How far I extend. Okay? So now what I’m basically looking for is a device that will give me different radii of generalization.
[Speaker B] Is a fortiori broader than all the others? What? Is the radius of a fortiori broader?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A fortiori doesn’t exactly fall into this family because there there’s a kind of hierarchy of stringency. Here I’m talking about comparison. I’m not talking about something with directionality. A fortiori is something with directionality. Okay, so basically, for example, the commentators on the hermeneutic principles in the baraita of the principles already write this very clearly: when the Torah wants to tell us, don’t make a binyan av—meaning, you have a particular case written in the Torah, don’t make a binyan av, it’s only that particular case—then it uses general and particular. General and particular: you have only what is in the particular. Okay? Only what is in the particular. And basically, adding a general term before the particular is the textual device, the device by which the Torah tells us. If it uses that kind of language, then it is telling us: this particular case is not to be expanded; the law exists only in it and no more. Okay? Later we’ll see whether that really means only in it, or perhaps only in things that are completely, completely similar to it—but still not only in it. We’ll still need to see that. But the Torah could have gone the other way.
[Speaker C] What? The Torah could have gone the other way. Don’t make generalizations if I don’t give you a general term, and if I do give you a general term, understand that the particular is basically only an example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, binyan av tells you yes, do generalize. What? Binyan av tells you yes, do generalize. If you have an example, you make the effort.
[Speaker C] If I were starting from zero, I wouldn’t start with the hermeneutic principles; I’d start tabula rasa. And I’d say: how would I give rules like this if I want to provide interpretive tools for a context that is open to interpretation? So after fifty years or a hundred years, people will already interpret it, so I’ll give rules for how to interpret. So I’d say this: what I said is to be understood this way unless I introduced a general term first, in which case you understand that the concept is really general and the particular is just an example. So you’d have said the opposite: that general and particular would actually mean to broaden it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s a question.
[Speaker C] That’s—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —one possible conception. The Torah chose a different conception.
[Speaker C] Not this way and not the way I’m suggesting.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can go this way and you can go that way. I don’t know why, but these are two approaches and both are possible.
[Speaker B] Maybe there is an answer. I once read somewhere that there are actually two ways to write a code or a book of laws: either by abstract rules and from time to time reductions to cases and examples, or only by—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The positivists, the positivists understand that you need to—
[Speaker B] —go from the general to the particular. What I thought was that the study hall of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva was more or less that point—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There definitely is a connection to their dispute; we’ll talk about that in a moment.
[Speaker B] Yes, I think,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not exactly positivism, but it’s definitely connected to their dispute. So general and specific is actually already explained by the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who comment on the baraita of the hermeneutic principles. They write that this is precisely the role of general and specific: to qualify the principle of binyan av. In fact, there would be room to explain whether we really need principles like these at all. Why? Because one could say: what do you mean, that the Torah tells me this applies only in this case and not in all other similar cases? If they really are completely similar, then how could that be? After all, there must be some reason this law applies in this case, right? Why is it so? Because this case has some characteristic on account of which the law applies. Fine. So if that’s the case, then everywhere that characteristic exists, the law should apply. A law doesn’t exist without a reason—at least that wouldn’t be reasonable, right? So in every context where some law exists, it probably stems from some characteristic of that context. If so, then I can always expand it to any place that has that characteristic. Why assume we need a tool that tells us: only here, and don’t expand it at all? That really makes no sense if there’s something else exactly like it in all the relevant respects. So why wouldn’t the law apply there too? After all, the law stems from some feature of the context in which it was stated. Rather, what must be the case is that sometimes we won’t see those differences. And it could be that the Holy One, blessed be He, sees a difference between two contexts and does not rely on us to discover that difference. So He has to tell us—sometimes to limit the extension, sometimes to extend more. General and specific, specific and general—the instruction, we said that in the baraita of examples, where all three are already brought, the three practical directives of the principles of general and specific are also brought. Yes, I mentioned this in previous sessions: in Rabbi Ishmael’s baraita there already appear three principles of general and specific, unlike Hillel the Elder, where there’s only one. But there is only one practical directive: general and specific, specific and general, general and specific and general—you only infer what is similar to the specific case. So “you only infer what is similar to the specific case” is the directive of what to do. There are three types of biblical appearances, but only one directive. So how exactly do you deal with three different appearances when with all three you’re supposedly meant to do the same thing? So why do you need three different ones? Therefore it’s not reasonable that the intention really is the same directive. What does the baraita of examples do? This is the next stage in the process of conceptualization that I described earlier, and it actually gives a different directive to each of these three principles. There it already says: general and specific—you have only what is in the specific case; don’t expand at all. Specific and general becomes a general category added onto the specific case—that’s the maximal expansion. And general and specific and general—you only infer what is similar to the specific case; not only what is in the specific case, which is very strict and very narrow, but rather what is similar to the specific case. Okay? “Similar to the specific case” means what resembles it—that’s an intermediate expansion, a kind of medium level. There still isn’t a definition of exactly how we do that; that appears only in the Talmud, the tannaitic sources don’t spell it out. But what—definition? Yes, there is a definition. We’ll learn it.
[Speaker B] In the terminology of the Talmud, the Talmud says “aspects.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the concept of aspects. One aspect, two aspects, three aspects—that’s the definition. We’ll get to that; it appears in several places, in Nazir, in Eruvin. We’ll learn it, I hope next time, God willing. Right. So basically we have this: we have a directive that completely limits the extension. General and specific—you have only what is in the specific case. Specific and general is a very broad extension, broader than binyan av. Meaning, general and specific is less than binyan av—it comes to limit binyan av. Specific and general is an extension that is more than binyan av; if it were the same as binyan av, then it would be a redundant principle. Right? It’s an extension greater than binyan av. And general and specific and general is an intermediate case, but it too is greater than binyan av. It too is greater than binyan av—we’ll see that later.
[Speaker B] We’ll see these three together with binyan av—it’s like four levels.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Now, another difference between binyan av and these principles is the point of a refutation. On binyan av, as I already mentioned before, we can raise refutations. Yes, I want to derive B from A. I say there’s a difference: A is like this and B is not like this. That’s a refutation. We said even a very slight refutation might count. Fine? But on general and specific there are no refutations. There are no refutations on general and specific. None of the general-and-specific principles have refutations. Why? The explanation is very simple. You won’t find anywhere—there are no refutations on general and specific. The explanation is very simple. There is an essential difference between the principle of qal va-homer and binyan av on the one hand, and the principles of general and specific on the other. You could also call them the logical principles—what we learned in the first part, the two forms of binyan av and qal va-homer—whereas general and specific belongs to the textual principles. Textual principles mean that when we have a verse formulated as a general statement and then it moves to specifics and then returns to a general statement—or general and specific, specific and general, yes, any of those possibilities—the verse instructs us to extend. So there’s no point in bringing refutations, because what would I do with the refutations? The refutations would say it’s not similar. I know it’s not similar. But the verse gave me an instruction to extend despite the fact that it’s not similar. That’s why it was written. If it were similar, I wouldn’t need the verse; I’d do it with binyan av. The verse comes to tell you that even though, if you were using binyan av, you would have a refutation and therefore wouldn’t extend, the verse tells you: extend anyway, despite the differences. So what does that mean? It means that refutations cannot exist with general and specific. Okay? Understand, this follows simply from the logic of what this tool does. It’s obvious that there can’t be refutations here.
[Speaker C] As long as you haven’t gone to define what— as long as you haven’t gone to define the degree of extension, then there’s nothing to refute. If the Zohar comes and defines the boundaries of the extension, then we’ll start refuting those, but for now there’s nothing…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can call what it does… we’ll see that. You can see that there is a parallel concept to refutation. We’ll see that. When we get to aspects, we’ll talk about it. It’s simply a narrowing of the radius of extension, because every—understand—every refutation we make in qal va-homer and binyan av is really nothing more than narrowing the radius of extension, right? Because what does a refutation do? A refutation says: take what is similar; leave outside what is not similar. But what is similar, and on which there is no refutation, to that I do extend, right? So what does that mean? That the radius of extension is just a bit smaller than I thought, that’s all. So a refutation, when you look at it that way, doesn’t overturn the derivation. A refutation only narrows the radius of extension. Anything not similar won’t enter the circle to which I’m deriving the law, that’s all.
[Speaker B] Meaning the thing that creates the refutation is outside the radius of
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the extension you have in the ruling. Exactly. A refutation is simply drawing the circle—how far we go. Exactly. So in that sense, it’s another way of looking at refutation. In that sense, general and specific too will have refutations. And that we’ll still see later, we’ll see further on. Okay? So, that means that in general and specific and general, there really cannot be refutations, because there the Torah gives an instruction to extend despite the lack of similarity. In binyan av and qal va-homer there are refutations. Now, this really rests on the more fundamental difference in the function of these principles. Their logical function is apparently on the same axis. Meaning, binyan av is a generalization, and the principles of general and specific are also generalizations on various levels, so it seems at first glance like the same kind of logical device—but it isn’t. The results lie on the same axis, but the logical mechanism is completely different. Because binyan av is a mechanism based on reason, on content. Meaning: I have a positive commandment overriding a prohibition in tzitzit and kilayim, so from that I derive that every positive commandment overrides a prohibition, because it sounds reasonable to me—it’s very similar. I don’t have any textual indication telling me to extend. The verse does not tell me to extend. The verse says that kilayim in tzitzit is allowed. That’s what the verse says. I now think: okay, and if it’s allowed, why is it allowed? There’s a prohibition here; evidently a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. And then I make the extension that every positive commandment overrides a prohibition. Okay? In general and specific, the extension is driven by a linguistic appearance, by the text. Meaning there is some particular form in the verse that pushes me to make extensions. Not because something seems similar or dissimilar to me—on the contrary, it’s not similar, as we’ll see. And that is the whole point. General and specific says: extend even to things that aren’t entirely similar. An extension greater than binyan av. So why do I really extend if it’s not similar? Because the motivation to extend does not begin with similarity; it begins with the wording of the verse. Meaning, in binyan av, once I understand what is written in the verse, I say: fine, the same logic, the same reasoning exists elsewhere too, so probably the same Jewish law applies there as well. So everything begins with my understanding of the content. But here everything begins with the text. It’s not because the learned case is similar to the teaching case. It need not be similar—on the contrary, I extend even to things that aren’t similar. Why do I extend? Because the verse says to extend. It doesn’t say “extend,” but formulating it as general and specific is effectively telling me to extend.
[Speaker B] What do you mean by general and specific?
[Speaker C] It says “all” and not “no,” right? Yes, yes. For example, in a case like this, every such appearance has to have its extensions appear somewhere. Here, every general-and-specific that appears in Scripture, in the Torah, in all five books of the Torah—do all of those need to be expounded? In principle yes,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In principle yes.
[Speaker C] Or say, like Tosafot say, that I expound by the thirteen principles only when I have independent reasoning for it. No, it’s not simple. When I have independent reasoning for it, then I don’t expound? That the Torah said, “I don’t care”? No, no. I come with my own reasoning and then try to support it by…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait. Again, this isn’t verified, because you can’t really verify such a thing. I’m almost convinced…
[Speaker C] Every general and specific and specifics are expounded like this here?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can’t verify it, and I’ll tell you why: because there are many expositions—and Tosafot themselves say this in several places—there are many expositions that the Sages make and they don’t write at all that it’s an exposition of general and specific. They don’t? They make an exposition. They don’t tell you how they arrived at the conclusion. And Tosafot writes in the margin that it’s an exposition of general and specific.
[Speaker C] I know how to read Hebrew. Here there’s a general statement and immediately after it comes a specific—I know how to read.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Hebrew isn’t so simple. What? But at least according to how the Sages understood what counts as general and what counts as specific, it’s very far from simple.
[Speaker C] There are examples where it’s hard
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to understand why
[Speaker C] it seemed to them to be general and specific.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s in the Talmud, no?
[Speaker C] It’s in the Talmud, not only in all those cases there in the Talmud—they’re remote.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, if they’re too remote, then they don’t expound them.
[Speaker C] It’s an expansion—the use of the words of “general” are not a logical generality. After all, when they use some verb and say that it means the whole thing—whether in the halakhic midrashim or Talmudic passages.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I think there are such things in the halakhic midrashim too. In the Talmuds certainly there are tons of cases like this, where the Talmuds expand—and that’s fine. And the Talmuds are also something that needs to be understood.
[Speaker C] The Talmuds are also a compilation that has the tannaim in it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Different, different—that’s the big question we’re discussing, whether it’s different or not. But it’s clear that there’s something behind it; they aren’t just doing things arbitrarily. That’s why I’m saying it’s very hard to test the examples. Once you understand how general and specific works, many times when you look at some exposition and it’s not clear where it came from, how it came out, suddenly you can see that actually it could be the result of general and specific—even though the Sages don’t say they used general and specific here. The most famous example, of course, is the dispute between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi… Rabbi Akiva in Shevuot 26, maybe the best-known sugya on this issue. There’s a dispute there between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva, and when you look at “to do harm or to do good,” with oaths about the future and oaths about the past—and we’ll see this shortly—but there in the Talmud, when the Mishnah presents the dispute, nothing is mentioned. Rabbi Akiva includes this and Rabbi Ishmael includes that, and that’s all. Then in the Talmud there appears a baraita, and the baraita describes things in more detail, and in the Mishnah there appears an actual give-and-take between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael—not just the laws. There’s an actual discussion; the words “general and specific” don’t appear, it’s not mentioned there. And then a baraita appears in the Talmud, where suddenly the baraita says: this is a general statement, this is a specific statement, this is a general statement; general and specific and general—you only infer what is similar to the specific case—and that’s what Rabbi Ishmael expounded, while Rabbi Akiva expounded inclusion and exclusion. Okay? Meaning that at a later stage, the later generations suddenly understood that the principle underlying the dispute between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva was actually some principle of general and specific and general, some general principle. That’s the conceptualization. I think these are fingerprints of the same process I spoke about with Othniel ben Kenaz, and of course much earlier. But here you see fingerprints that the process continues. When we say Rabbi Ishmael expounded by general and specific and general, and Rabbi Akiva by inclusion and exclusion, it does not necessarily mean that Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael themselves used those concepts in the same way we describe them. It’s entirely possible that they really did work that way, and the later generations, trying to understand what each of them had done, formulated it as explicit rules and called this general and specific and general and that inclusion and exclusion. That really is what Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva were doing, but they didn’t call it that, and they weren’t explicitly aware of the rules that guided them in their work. They simply used them intuitively.
[Speaker C] Rabbi Akiva doesn’t use those terms, inclusion and exclusion.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I also don’t remember such a case. I haven’t checked, but I don’t remember one. In that Talmudic passage certainly not.
[Speaker C] In the Talmud
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] there certainly only the baraita does.
[Speaker C] But Rabbi Ishmael does use them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, Rabbi Ishmael also—in that Talmudic passage, no.
[Speaker C] Not in the Talmud, but in the baraita, in the school of Rabbi Ishmael, the teaching from Rabbi Ishmael’s school.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who is “the school”? Who knows?
[Speaker C] Fine, that’s why I’m
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] saying—so clearly here it’s very hard to know what of this is Rabbi Ishmael’s original formulation and what is a later formulation that comes to describe what Rabbi Ishmael did. Okay? And therefore this whole process continues throughout history. We’ll see later that there’s a sugya in which another stage of this process appears under the name of Rav Aḥai. You know that Tosafot writes that “Rav Aḥai” in the Talmud is Rav Aḥai Gaon, which is hundreds of years after the redaction of the Talmud.
[Speaker B] Yes,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Tosafot writes this in two places, I think, that “Rav Aḥai” in the Talmud is Rav Aḥai Gaon. And if that’s so, it really means that the process—and we’ll see—he introduced there a very fundamental principle in expositions of general and specific, so this process of conceptualization did not stop even at the end of the Talmud; it continued into the period of the Geonim. Meaning, this is some process that begins at Mount Sinai and in principle continues until today. And therefore the point is—we talked about whether the principles are a law given to Moses at Sinai or perhaps a development over the course of history. And I said, that’s not a contradiction. It’s a law given to Moses at Sinai that was given in an intuitive form, and over the course of history it undergoes development, conceptualization, canonization; it acquires clearer formulations of rules, lists of rules are created, and it keeps developing and branching—but all of it, like when Moses our teacher entered Rabbi Akiva’s study hall, all of it is a law given to Moses at Sinai. Right? After all, he didn’t understand anything there, and then they tell him: this is a law given to Moses at Sinai, and then he calms down. Why are you calming down? It’s a law given to Moses at Sinai? You didn’t understand anything there; you didn’t recognize any of it. How is that a law given to Moses at Sinai? Because there are things that really are a law given to Moses at Sinai. We talked about Rabbi Chaim, right? Is he revealing what Maimonides meant, or are these his own inventions? So it’s the same thing. Meaning, they’re not his inventions; they are, in some sense at least, a revealing of what the earlier authority meant, even though that earlier authority himself, if you had asked him, would not have known it. There are things that later generations, with their tools, can formulate, that earlier generations could not formulate—but it is still the logic that stood behind their intuitive action. Okay? So here too, it’s the same thing. Okay. Now let’s see—on your page, did you take out the sheets? The sheets from last time? One second, let me take them out.
[Speaker C] Hello friends, wait a second. Look—normal, with all the meat,
[Speaker B] normal, with all the meat, normal on
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] this section? Yes, okay. Just look for a second. Right, a photocopier heats the toner, so I…
[Speaker B] From the photocopier heating the toner, the paper from the heat became…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t see
[Speaker B] that there’s a wave here?
[Speaker C] I see here, like a wave.
[Speaker B] There’s a wave in the paper, don’t you see?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, a wave in the paper.
[Speaker B] Later here next to you, be careful, there’s some…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] page—at the end of the first page there’s a Mishnah in Shevuot and Talmud. From the third line, page two, section two. Okay, so the Mishnah says this: whether concerning one’s own matters or others’ matters, whether concerning things that have substance or things that have no substance—how so? If he said: an oath that I will give to so-and-so, and that I will not give; that I gave, and that I did not give—on page one, in the Mishnah in Shevuot, page one toward the bottom. Okay? Again. How so? If he said: an oath that I will give to so-and-so, and that I will not give; that I gave and that I did not give; that I will sleep and that I will not sleep; that I slept and that I did not sleep; that he will throw a pebble into the sea and that I will not throw; that I threw and that I did not throw. Rabbi Ishmael says: he is liable only for the future, as it says, “to do harm or to do good.” Rabbi Akiva said to him: if so, then I only have things that involve harm and good; from where do we learn things that involve neither harm nor good? He said to him: from the inclusive wording of the verse. He said to him: if the verse included for this, then the verse included for that as well. Meaning, Rabbi Akiva basically wants to include more than Rabbi Ishmael. Rabbi Ishmael includes in one direction and does not include in the other direction. Rabbi Akiva asks him: so why are you stopping in the middle? Meaning—sorry—why are you adding to what is written in the Torah at all? It says “to do harm or to do good”—why are you adding other things? Because the verse included more. If the verse included more, then why are you stopping in the middle? Go ahead and include everything. Exactly what we discussed earlier. Meaning: how do we define the radius of the generalization? So it’s no wonder that this is in fact one of the foundational sources here. Okay, according to Rabbi Ishmael, that means the verse is really saying this.
[Speaker B] Do you have it? Look
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] at it in the Talmud. At the end of the Talmud passage there’s the baraita. And in the baraita it says there: “Rabbi Ishmael expounds by general and specific.” Do you see it? Do you see it? In the Talmud, at the end of the passage, a baraita appears there. Let’s read. “Rabbi Akiva spoke well to Rabbi Ishmael.” Let’s read the Talmud. “Rabbi Akiva spoke well to Rabbi Ishmael.” Fine? Rabbi Akiva asks a good question: if you’re already extending, why stop in the middle? Go all the way. Fine? So then it says—Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Rabbi Ishmael, who served Rabbi Neḥunya ben HaKanah, who would expound the entire Torah by general and specific, he too expounds by general and specific. Rabbi Akiva, who served Naḥum of Gamzu, who would expound the entire Torah by inclusion and exclusion, he too expounds by inclusion and exclusion. And now the details begin. What is Rabbi Akiva’s position, that he expounds by inclusions and exclusions? Where do we see that Rabbi Akiva expounds by inclusions and exclusions? As it was taught: “Or if a person swears”—yes, the verse is: “Or if a person swears, pronouncing with the lips, to do harm or to do good, whatever a person may utter.” Right, that’s the verse. So what is “or if a person swears”? Notice: a tannaitic source. “Or if a person swears”—and this is called a general statement.
[Speaker C] The baraita in the Talmud.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “To do harm or to do good”—that excludes. Fine? “Whatever a person may utter”—it again includes. There’s some general expression here, then examples of oaths “to do harm or to do good,” specific oaths, and that is exclusion. “Whatever a person may utter”—it again includes. Inclusion and exclusion and inclusion—there is some triple biblical form here.
[Speaker B] The first is general, the middle is specifics, and the continuation is general.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It includes everything. What does it include? It includes all things. And what does it exclude? It excludes a matter of commandment. Now here, on this point, this needs to be understood—we’re not going to deal with Rabbi Akiva, we’ll deal with Rabbi Ishmael—but I’ll just say in general: Rabbi Akiva understands a triple appearance like this as an appearance intended to exclude one thing. Basically the inclusion applies to everything, but if they wanted to include everything, we already know how to do that, right? Either by binyan av—and we said binyan av is a relatively narrow inclusion—or, if we want a broad inclusion, then we use specific and general, right? Or in Rabbi Akiva’s language, exclusion and inclusion. Fine? If there is exclusion and inclusion—sorry, inclusion and exclusion and inclusion—then apparently it comes to include, or they could simply have written the general term directly and that’s it, and then you don’t need to include anything. Great. Just the general term. Why make this sort of triple structure? So Rabbi Akiva says: it comes to exclude one thing. Choose the thing that seems to you most reasonable to exclude, or perhaps there is a verse—they bring some verse there, perhaps—and exclude it. Fine? So he says it excludes a matter of commandment: if he swore regarding a matter of commandment, then he is not liable. And Rabbi Ishmael—that was Rabbi Akiva. And Rabbi Ishmael expounds by general and specific. So Rabbi Akiva takes that very same verse, and the same basic idea—notice this. “Or if a person swears, pronouncing with the lips”—general statement. “To do harm or to do good”—specific statement. “Whatever a person may utter”—it again became general. Fine? So what Rabbi Akiva calls inclusion and exclusion and inclusion, Rabbi Ishmael calls general and specific and general. General and specific and general—you only infer what is similar to the specific case. Just as the specific case is explicitly about the future, so too all must be about the future. What is written in the specific case? “Or if a person swears to do harm or to do good.” It’s talking about the future, right? To do something in the future, and something involving harm and good. There are two limitations that characterize the specifics. These specifics are not general oaths; they are special oaths. In what are they special? In that they are oaths about the future—there are also oaths about the past, and oaths about the future—and in that they are oaths “to do harm or to do good,” not neutral things. Fine? So that’s what characterizes the specifics. So Rabbi Ishmael says: yes, but why aren’t the specifics written by themselves? They’re written with a general statement before them and a general statement after them. Apparently we need to include something. So that’s what he says. Just as the specific case is explicitly about the future, so too all must be about the future. In other words, what does “so too all must be about the future” mean? It says in the specific case that it is about the future, so what did we include? What did we include? The specific case itself says future—what did we do beyond what is written in the specific case?
[Speaker B] Everything in the general statement? Things without harm and good?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everything in the general statement? Exactly. Things that do not involve harm and good. Everything written in the specific case itself is a narrower set. It says these are oaths about the future and things involving harm and good, right? We make an extension. We say: erase the requirement of harm and good—also things that do not involve harm and good, as long as they are about the future.
[Speaker B] So
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that is an extension relative to the specific case, right? We make an extension, and notice: this is an intermediate extension. And this is what Rabbi Akiva attacks. He says, why? Then just extend everything. Why are you making an extension only halfway? And Rabbi Ishmael stops the extension halfway. And regarding that, the general term helps to include even things that do not involve harm and good in the future. Right? Oaths about the future, even if they do not involve harm and good. The specific term helps to exclude even things that do involve harm and good in the past. Meaning, we extend along the axis of harm and good: things that involve harm and good, I extend also to things that don’t involve harm and good, as long as it’s in the future. Why don’t we also extend to oaths about the past? Why do we extend along this axis but not along that one? Because there is a specific term here. General and specific and general means this is an intermediate extension. There is some intermediate radius of extension, and now we have to decide how to stop it. Because in principle one could have done the opposite. One could have extended to both past and future for things involving harm and good, while things not involving harm and good would not incur liability. That too would be an intermediate extension. Why did they choose דווקא this one? The Talmud goes on to say it is learned from a verse. The verse teaches not that there must be an intermediate extension—that is taught by general and specific and general—but which intermediate option to choose from among the two possibilities. I have two possibilities; they choose this one. So we’ll get into that when we study this sugya perhaps in more detail later. Here I just want to show you that in the Mishnah itself—look at the wording of the Mishnah—the language of general and specific is not mentioned. It isn’t there. Nothing is mentioned. Right? He includes something, and Rabbi Akiva asks him: then why don’t you include everything? Right? What lies behind it? I don’t know. That’s just what it says. Then later generations apparently come and try to understand what lay behind the statements—that same process of Othniel ben Kenaz. And then suddenly they find general and specific and general; they have a principle. They apparently see it in other places with Rabbi Ishmael, and so they understand that he has some general idea of what to do with biblical appearances like general and specific and general. And for Rabbi Akiva too, it is inclusion and exclusion, and that is where the formulated principle emerges. Okay? We place this in the mouths of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva, but in fact these are probably not their formulations; these are later formulations. By the way, notice that Rabbi Akiva received what he does from Naḥum of Gamzu, and Rabbi Ishmael received it from Neḥunya ben HaKanah. So why is this called the exegetical methods of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael? Why not of Neḥunya ben HaKanah and Naḥum of Gamzu? Apparently because Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael are the first who understood that there are really two methods here. After all, there was an earlier stage. The stage where you approach a verse: to Neḥunya ben HaKanah it looked one way, and to Naḥum of Gamzu it looked another way. Fine, so there’s a dispute. There are lots of disputes, right? Then you go to another verse and again somehow Neḥunya ben HaKanah says one thing and Naḥum of Gamzu says another. They themselves too… use different methods. So that’s why it’s named after them, that’s why it is the school of Rabbi Akiva and the school of Rabbi Ishmael—the study houses of the different methods of exposition. But even they had still not formulated those methods. They merely noticed that it was a method and not local disputes. And after them came the more explicit formulation saying that Rabbi Ishmael is general and specific, and Rabbi Akiva is inclusion and exclusion. Meaning, we see again and again this process in which later generations conceptualize and formulate what earlier generations had done.
[Speaker C] Meaning this baraita we just saw—they put this in their mouths, the members of the study house.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They put such words in their mouths, and we formulate them
[Speaker C] in our language, explain them. What does “put in their mouths” mean? They explain them.
[Speaker B] This baraita was not said either by Rabbi Akiva or by Rabbi Ishmael; the baraita is later. First of all, I have a question about the verses where they use a verse—which type is it? This verse itself? No, no, other verses. Then, when you say the methods are different, Rabbi Akiva’s and Rabbi Ishmael’s, one says inclusion and exclusion and one says general and specific—but can they say exactly the opposite according to their methods here? What’s the difference between, say…?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Rabbi Akiva is more expansive; his radius of extension is always larger.
[Speaker B] That’s always the rule.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In all the examples—there are many places in the Talmud where Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael dispute over methods of exposition, where one is inclusion and exclusion and the other is general and specific—the inclusion-and-exclusion always has a larger radius, always. And so people suddenly began to understand that there is a method here; it’s not accidental. That is exactly the way—someone thinking this through on his own doesn’t even notice that he’s operating with a method. He thinks this is the inclusion, and he just thinks it’s the inclusion. He doesn’t—nobody looks at himself reflexively and asks: wait, on what basis am I doing this? He simply says what he thinks. Then his student comes and understands—he has already heard the second opinion too and the other one—he understands there is a method here. And then he tries to define the method and define the principles.
[Speaker B] So my question was that what you’re saying is basically that what we’re doing, or the whole continuation of this process, means that what we’re doing now is just detailing even more the…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I think that what we’re doing now too
[Speaker B] is a continuation of the process.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m simply trying to define more sharply what was already defined there in a somewhat less sharp way. It’s the same process. I think it goes on all the time. And therefore it is a mistake to think there is some argument here over whether this is a law given to Moses at Sinai or a later development. It’s not a contradiction. It’s a law given to Moses at Sinai that goes through processing over the generations, and more and more things are uncovered that were in it, in an embryonic way, all along.
[Speaker B] And this pattern repeats itself in all their disputes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the disputes of general and specific versus inclusion and exclusion—there are other disputes too. Yes, definitely, it’s always like that. Rabbi Akiva includes everything except one detail, one example, while Rabbi Ishmael always includes halfway—meaning he always stops the radius of generalization in the middle. Later we’ll see more precisely how to understand how they arrive at that result. There are fairly rigid logical rules for how one gets to that result. Fairly rigid.
[Speaker C] The teaching from the school of Rabbi Ishmael—that’s the scholion, the commentary. Okay. But the baraita of Rabbi Ishmael means “Rabbi Ishmael says,” the baraita of the thirteen principles.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Rabbi Ishmael understood that he expounded by general and specific? Rabbi Ishmael understood that he expounded by general and specific. Not only that—in the period of
[Speaker C] Rabbi Ishmael, and did he himself use those terms? It’s possible. Regarding Rabbi Akiva, from tannaitic sources we don’t know, because we don’t have a baraita of Rabbi Akiva’s principles. We don’t have a baraita of Rabbi Akiva’s principles, so I don’t know what to tell you. But with Rabbi Ishmael it could always be that we don’t have it, but it existed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But Rabbi Ishmael’s conceptualization—he had conceptualization.
[Speaker C] Regarding Rabbi Akiva we don’t know.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, we don’t know—but it’s not certain that he didn’t have it. I don’t know. But understand, even the resemblance here tells you something. Understand, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael too are obviously a split from the same branch. Not only the continuation—even they themselves. What do you mean? It’s obviously not accidental that two tannaim with two different methods of exposition take exactly the same forms in the verse, understand that this form comes to extend, they just understand it a little differently. So you understand that even this thing—you can construct the genetic tree of the midrashic language backwards. It’s obvious that this is some split from a branch that was originally common, until in the process of conceptualization—after all, we always said that even with Othniel ben Kenaz, the process of conceptualization reveals disputes. As I said, Neḥunya ben HaKanah and Naḥum of Gamzu didn’t even understand that they had a dispute; they thought they were simply reading this verse locally in different ways. One thought he read the verse this way and the other that way. They didn’t understand that they had a dispute in method. Why? Because as long as you don’t formulate the rule—
[Speaker B] The moment
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] you formulate the rule, then the other can see: wait a second, I don’t accept this rule; actually I formulate it differently. If you haven’t written a rule, if you only read the verse and say what you think about it, then you don’t see that there is a dispute in method at all. Meaning, disputes are created as the process of conceptualization advances. So clearly it branches out: Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael, and then in the Talmud itself there already appear expositions of inclusion and exclusion from the school of Rabbi Ishmael. There are mixtures that continue—it’s really a fractal, this thing. It continues and branches within itself, and it is something that keeps branching constantly. But that is exactly the point—it is a necessary result of the process of conceptualization. Since once you formulate the rule, the other can now see what stands before his eyes and say: fine, I don’t agree with that. As long as the rule is not formulated, each one approaches the verse and says what he thinks; you don’t see that you have a different mode of thought. Here you thought and said something different, that’s all. But you did have a different mode of thought; it’s not an invention of later generations. You had it, only you didn’t have the reflexive awareness to discover it within yourself. Someone from outside looking at you sees that you think differently from the other person.
[Speaker C] You’re saying that with Rabbi Neḥunya—and we mentioned that they had no conceptualization—and I think you have no basis for that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And indeed, indeed, there is no
[Speaker C] source for them; the evidence is very sparse.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m making a suggestion. I’m only making a suggestion as to why indeed
[Speaker C] the methods
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of exposition are called by the names of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael. A possible suggestion, for example, is that they were the first to conceptualize it—maybe.
[Speaker C] Maybe because they were their students, not because Rabbi Neḥunya…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but they too had students. Why did it stop with Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael? Why aren’t the methods named after the student of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael?
[Speaker C] They conceptualized it; they created the names; he’s the father of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it didn’t stop at all. But I’m saying there was apparently a very significant stage of splitting there. Neḥunya ben HaKanah and Naḥum of Gamzu did not realize that they were already working on two different branches, both of which had split from the same principle of general and specific and general. The biblical appearances are the same appearances and they do similar things with them, but suddenly, once you formulate, suddenly you see that these are actually two different branches. The first one who put his finger on that—it gets called by his name. That’s what I think. I think that for the whole history of… We once talked about the fact that the history of ideas is a dangerous field, because anyone who says a new idea, they immediately find it in a hundred predecessors. You can’t—there it is there and there and there. So whose name does the idea get? The first one who formulated it.
[Speaker B] Whoever has better public relations—the first one who formulated it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The one who formulated it. Many people use ideas implicitly. Aristotle invented logic in the Organon. Before him, didn’t people do logic? Didn’t they know that if this equals that and that equals that, then this also equals that? Or didn’t they know that if all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, then Socrates is mortal? They did this before Socrates too, no doubt. Why is it called by his name? Because he was the one who understood that there is a principle here; he formulated it.
[Speaker C] Because he formulated it in a way that was preserved—his formulation. The first one who formulated it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That doesn’t
[Speaker C] mean he was the first to formulate it, only the first whose formulation was preserved.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The first who formulated it in the formulation now in our hands—therefore it is called by his name. Maybe before Aristotle it was associated with someone else, but now the formulation we have belongs to him because he was the one who formulated it, who conceptualized it. He wasn’t the first to use it.
[Speaker B] It’s true that this is basic and in some
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] sense obvious, what you’re saying. Right, exactly. In logic that is certainly so. Here it’s not such a trivial thing to do general and specific and general. But in logic: all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal—if you came to teach that to someone, they’d have you hospitalized. Every idiot understands that; it’s obvious. But when you formulate the rule, suddenly you see that you can build a computer with it too, and you can do a lot of things with it because it is formulated, and there is a lot of power in a formulated rule.
[Speaker C] If we go to the baraitot in the Talmud, then Rabbi Eliezer also expounded by general and specific—not inclusion and exclusion? Rabbi Eliezer. That’s already a generation earlier.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I’m saying it was a process that was there in any case. That’s why I say there are no sharp lines here, no sharp tick marks on this axis. It’s an axis that constantly develops and branches, clearly. That’s what I’m trying to show here. Look, I brought you Rashi—Rashi in Sanhedrin and there’s Rashi in Shevuot. Rashi in Sanhedrin explains the basis of the dispute between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael: “And from this you can resolve for yourself everywhere that there is a general and specific and general, that the one who expounds it by generalities and specifics includes only what is similar to the specific case, while the one who expounds it by inclusion and exclusion says: it includes everything and excludes only one thing.” That is the general principle; it is always like that. It’s what we also saw in Shevuot. “For the reason I explained above.” Now he explains why that is—what the idea is behind Rabbi Akiva’s and Rabbi Ishmael’s different ways of looking at it. “Because ‘specific’ is a term of explanation.” When we say general and specific and general, what is “specific”? “Specific” comes from the root meaning explanation; the specific explains the general. It is called specific because it explicates, explains, and gives interpretation.
[Speaker B] No, no
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, we’ll soon see—it’s not exactly that. He explains, he explains, exactly! But this is an example that narrows things down, because now I take from the general category only what is found in the specific case. The specific case comes to explain the general category, okay? Therefore, with a general category, a specific case, and then a general category, you do not derive from the final general category anything except what is similar to the specific case. Because if the final general category had not appeared, I would say that the specific case is the explanation of the general category, and the general category includes only what is in the specific case. We know that, right? General category and specific case—if there were no final general category, only a general category and a specific case—then what is the practical instruction? You have only what is in the specific case. And now another general category comes at the end. So what does that final general category do? And you don’t derive even something merely similar to it from it, but simply—sorry—but rather, an anonymous general statement followed by an explanation comes to teach you that the anonymous statement contains only what is specified in the explanation. So you would not broaden the specific case through the general category. That’s what we saw: the role of general category and specific case is to prevent expansions of the specific case, not to create an analogy-based category. Therefore, when the final general category comes—now that the second, concluding general category has come—it helps to include things similar to the specific case, and no more. Right. General category and specific case tells you: narrow it down completely. The general category that comes at the end tells you: but still, broaden it a little. If they had wanted to broaden it completely, they would have written just the general category from the start, and that would be it; then you’d know it applies to the whole general category. But they write general category and specific case, so that’s total narrowing. Okay? Now, if they write a general category after the general category and specific case, then the second general category tells you to broaden a little more than the general category and specific case had narrowed you—just a bit more. That’s an intermediate expansion. And the whole idea behind this is that the specific case functions here as an explanation of the general category. That’s what he writes: an anonymous statement, and then an anonymous statement followed by an explanation, yes? Meaning, the specific case is the explanation of the general category. Don’t think the general category stands on its own; only what is interpreted through the specific case. You look at the general category only through the lens of the specific case—only that within the general category which is completely similar to the specific case, that’s what you take. And if after that you add another general category, then that comes to expand things a little more. That is Rabbi Yishmael’s way of looking at it. How does Rabbi Akiva see it? “And the one who expounds it as inclusion and exclusion says to you: the exclusion is not the explanation of the anonymous statement.” The anonymous statement is the first general category. “Rather, it excludes from the inclusions, so that not everything should be implied.” And “even if it had not come”—meaning, according to Rabbi Akiva, the specific case comes to exclude, not to explain. To exclude. What does it mean to exclude? To exclude means to move to a more limited set. To narrow. To explain means to focus only on the specific case—that is, you have nothing in the general category except what is in the specific case. That is called explanation. In other words, the specific case is the explanation of the general category; everything not in the specific case, don’t take from the general category. But if you say that the specific case comes to narrow, then it only tells you: don’t take the whole general category, take a bit less. Reduce the radius. But now the question is: what do we do with the final general category? Now the final general category comes. “And if the final general category had not come,” yes? If the final general category had not come, I would infer from the exclusion everything similar to the exclusion. So then, yes, with general category and specific case you do broaden. According to Rabbi Yishmael, with general category and specific case you broaden nothing—it’s only the specific case. According to Rabbi Akiva, he calls that inclusion and exclusion. What do you do with inclusion and exclusion without an inclusion at the end? Inclusion and exclusion broadens to everything similar to the exclusion, everything similar to the specific case. So why is it built this way? To tell you: don’t take the entire general category, only what is similar to the specific case within the general category. Okay? Not only the specific case, but only what is similar to the specific case—like the specific case. What Rabbi Yishmael does with general category, specific case, and general category, Rabbi Akiva does with inclusion and exclusion together. Okay? And then the question is that the exclusion came only to exclude what is not similar to it. Therefore, when it again includes—now there is an inclusion at the end—what does the inclusion at the end do? It includes everything. Well, if it includes everything, then this whole process is silly, so just write the general category directly and be done with it. Why this whole process? So Rashi says: “And from the exclusion there is excluded only one thing, something in which you see no hint whatsoever of similarity to the specific case.” Meaning, in fact we have returned to a broad expansion, but still there is some structure here. There’s no point in erasing this entire structure, so why was it written? Clearly, it comes to remove one detail for us. That’s how Rabbi Akiva learns it: remove the thing least similar to the specifics. In other words, take the example that is farthest away—that one, exclude it. So Rabbi Akiva sees the specific case as something that narrows. According to Rabbi Akiva—and here I come to a point someone made earlier—Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael, if you ask whether they look at the general rules or the particulars: Rabbi Akiva works with rules. Rabbi Akiva works with logic. Meaning, he works with categories. There is a general category, and the specific case slices off a subset from it, but it is still a set. And the second general category—it’s not called a general category but an inclusion in Rabbi Akiva’s terminology—adds another set. So why the whole structure? Fine, remove one item, it’s not so important. But these are always operations between sets. With Rabbi Yishmael, the specific case explains the general category. That is not an operation between sets. The specific case is what you mean—only the specific case. It’s not a set similar to the specific case; it’s only the specific case. You look at the general category through the lens of the specific case. Okay? And after that, what the additional general category adds is: fine, now you can already broaden to everything similar to the specific case.
[Speaker B] We said that this three-part structure of general category, specific case, and general category could have been done in a single move. If you had explained everything in the first general category, you would have explained the whole thing—what—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] what you want to exclude, what you want. But you can’t explain everything—how would you explain it? So it would take you two verses to explain it. So what are we doing instead? We do it by changing terminology, and that’s it. It’s much more efficient: I write only what I need to write, I just shift from plural language to singular language, or add one particular detail. And then you understand. I’ll explain later why this is also necessary. I’ll bring examples. Interestingly, while working on this I found that even in responsa literature, or among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), they interpret ordinary contracts, or all kinds of things like that, through general category and specific case. Meaning, the logic of general category and specific case is not because it’s Torah-level / of biblical origin—certainly not—but because there is logic behind it. It’s not just some arbitrary formula of general category and specific case; there is real logic in such wording, and this really is its outcome. And I’ll show that later with examples. There is logic to it; it’s not just some detached scriptural decree.
[Speaker C] Even in Shakespeare there was something like this. Okay, so that’s even better.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good. Now maybe one more comment. No, in the Talmud, when I go back to the Talmud in Shevuot, how does the Talmud formulate it there? “Rabbi Yohanan said: Rabbi Yishmael, who studied under Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKanah, who would expound the entire Torah through general category and specific case, he too expounds through general category and specific case.” But the exposition here is general category, specific case, and general category—not general category and specific case. So why does it say general category and specific case? General category, specific case, and general category is the exposition here, right? In an oath we said that it is general category, specific case, and general category. What does it mean that he expounded the entire Torah through general category and specific case? This is one of the proofs—there are dozens like it—that “general category and specific case” is a term with two meanings. General category and specific case is one of the thirteen hermeneutical principles: there is general category and specific case, specific case and general category, and general category, specific case, and general category. And “general category and specific case” is also the name of the family of these principles, or really the way of looking at things that we saw earlier in Rashi. That mode of interpretation that we saw earlier in Rashi is called general category and specific case. When, within that mode of interpretation, we are looking at a triple form, that is general category, specific case, and general category. When we are looking at a pair, it is either general category and specific case or specific case and general category. But it is a general name for this whole way of looking at things. Very often among scholars this is quite common—and we’ll see this later—they create contradictions. How can it be? Here it says general category and specific case, yet they derive “like the specific case”? General category and specific case means only what is in the specific case; it does not mean “like the specific case.” They simply do not understand that “general category and specific case” is a general name for this type of exposition; it is not the exposition of general category and specific case itself. We’ll see clear examples of this. And therefore many of the contradictions that seem to show that the passages disagree with one another and all sorts of things like that are simply not true. There is a shift in conceptualization here that I keep talking about, and I’ll bring examples of it later. After all, every general category, specific case, and general category begins with general category and specific case, and then there is a general category, so it filters into your—that’s always how it is. Every general category, specific case, and general category starts from general category and specific case. So that is why they chose the name general category and specific case for this whole family; it makes no difference, it’s the same answer. That concludes the lesson of Rabbi Michael Abraham, 29 Sivan 5777, June 3, 2017. “May the Torah be made great and glorious.”