Reason and Emotion, Lesson 5

Table of Contents

• Commandments of emotion and the limits of commanding emotion
• Devekut and the Sages’ interpretation of “and to cleave to Him”
• Nefesh HaChayim: polemic against Hasidism and the conception of prayer
• The decline of Torah study, spiritual alternatives, and criticism of musar as a substitute
• Torah for its own sake: “For its own sake does not mean devekut”
• The meaning of “for its own sake”: “for the sake of Torah” and the Rosh
• Lithuanian devekut: the study itself is metaphysical devekut
• Aggadah, “His speech” and “His will,” and “these and those are the words of the living God”
• Skipping aggadot and the implications for yeshivot
• Trust in God and human effort: criticism of the guidance of the mashgichim
• Gratitude and asking forgiveness: intellectual recognition versus emotional experience

Summary

General Overview

The speaker sums up a series on emotion versus intellect and argues that generally there is no direct commandment regarding emotion, because emotion is not under direct control. Rather, the commandment concerns actions meant to arouse or express emotion. He expands beyond the halakhic aspects into “meta-halakhah” through an analysis of Nefesh HaChayim on devekut and Torah study, and shows how Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin empties devekut of experiential-emotional content and turns it into a metaphysical reality created by the very act of engaging in Torah. He then brings additional examples in which religious concepts such as trust in God and gratitude can be understood either as demands for experience and feeling or as intellectual-conceptual stances, and he challenges the practical guidance built around an emotional conception.

Commandments of Emotion and the Limits of Commanding Emotion

The speaker states that in commandments of love, hatred, fear, and joy, the command is not about the emotion itself but about things that are within our power, or actions whose purpose is to bring about the emotion. He argues that there is no point in commanding emotion as such, because emotion is not under our control; in the final analysis, what is incumbent on a person are the actions that lead to emotion, not the emotion itself. He notes that one could propose a halakhic definition according to which “the commandment is the emotion,” but in practice the expectation remains the actions that bring it about.

Devekut and the Sages’ Interpretation of “And to Cleave to Him”

The speaker raises a difficulty with the concept of devekut: if “and to cleave to Him” is an inner spiritual value in itself, why do the Sages interpret it as actions within our power, such as cleaving to Torah scholars or marrying the daughter of a Torah scholar? He concludes that the structure of thought returns to the earlier pattern, in which devekut is understood as an emotional-spiritual concept, but the obligation is directed toward an action that expresses or brings about devekut, not toward devekut itself. He points out that in later musar and Jewish thought literature there is a simple assumption that devekut is a value, whereas in the Sages there is a noticeable tendency to see direct cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, as impossible.

Nefesh HaChayim: Polemic Against Hasidism and the Conception of Prayer

The speaker places Nefesh HaChayim in the context of a polemic against Hasidism, and emphasizes that Gate 4, which deals with Torah study, and Gate 2, which deals with prayer, are confronting an “experiential” conception that places emotion and devekut at the center as the goal. He describes how Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin presents prayer as a kind of almost mechanical “spiritual plumbing,” in which saying the words connects “pipes” and the flow comes down, rather than as a mechanism for generating an experience of devekut. He notes that the move in Gate 4 parallels the move in Gate 2, though his focus is mainly on Torah study.

The Decline of Torah Study, Spiritual Alternatives, and Criticism of Musar as a Substitute

The speaker quotes the opening of Gate 4 about “the greatness of the obligation of engaging in Torah,” and the claim that in these generations Torah has “fallen very, very low” because of “the burden of earning a livelihood.” He explains that the criticism is not only about lack of time for study, but also about creating alternatives to Torah study aimed at people who lack the time or ability—such as devekut through the tzaddik, experience, and emotion. He quotes the criticism in Nefesh HaChayim of those who make the main part of their study books of fear of Heaven and musar “without setting the main occupation” in Scripture and Jewish law, and describes this as missing the “luminaries” of Torah even if their intentions are for the sake of Heaven. He presents the conception of “a kav of preserving agent,” according to which books of fear of Heaven are an added preservative for study, not a substitute for the core bodies of Torah; they are means of preservation and preparation, not the essence of study itself.

Torah for Its Own Sake: “For Its Own Sake Does Not Mean Devekut”

The speaker quotes from chapter 2 of Gate 4 Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin’s assertion that “for its own sake does not mean devekut, as most of the world thinks.” He explains the proof from the midrash about King David’s request that one who engages in Psalms should be considered as though he were engaged in the tractates dealing with leprosy and tents, and emphasizes that the meaning is that “engaging in the halakhot of the Talmud with analysis and effort” is superior to reciting Psalms. He presents Rabbi Chaim’s argument that if “for its own sake” meant devekut, then reciting Psalms would suffice more than anything else, and there would be no need to engage in all parts of Torah. He brings the proof from Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, “who left aside neither Scripture, nor Mishnah, nor halakhot, nor aggadot,” and from the midrash “How severe is the Day of Judgment,” which requires broad coverage of Torah, in order to show that study is not a means to devekut but an intrinsic value. He adds Rabbi Chaim’s argument that in studying many halakhot such as the laws of bird-offerings and the opening of the womb in the laws of menstruation, and the laws of “a migo of deceit,” it is nearly impossible to maintain experiential devekut, and therefore devekut cannot be the experiential goal of study.

The Meaning of “For Its Own Sake”: “For the Sake of Torah” and the Rosh

The speaker quotes the conclusion that “the meaning of for its own sake is: for the sake of Torah,” and brings the Rosh’s interpretation of “do things for the sake of their Maker… and speak of them for their own sake.” He emphasizes that according to the Rosh, “all your speech and involvement in words of Torah should be for the sake of Torah, such as to know and understand and add learning and sharp analysis, and not in order to provoke or to glorify yourself.” He suggests that studying Torah for its own sake does not depend on achieving a religious experience, whereas “not for its own sake” is defined as study for purposes such as provocation and self-aggrandizement, while fear of Heaven and musar serve as preparation and protection, not as the essence of the commandment.

Lithuanian Devekut: The Study Itself Is Metaphysical Devekut

The speaker quotes from chapter 6 the instruction to sit for a short time in fear of Heaven and purity of heart before study, and to confess “from the depths of the heart,” so that the Torah should be “holy and pure.” He explains the heart of the move: “and he should intend to cleave in his study to Him through the Torah, to Him, to the Holy One, blessed be He… for He, blessed be He, and His will are one.” Therefore, in every law and every halakhah, a person is cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, “literally, as it were,” because the halakhah is His blessed will. He presents this as an alternative to the Hasidic conception in which study is a means to the experience of devekut, and argues that according to Rabbi Chaim, devekut is not an emotional experience but a reality produced by the very engagement with God’s will. He adds the parable of the “storehouse,” in which books of fear of Heaven build the vessel and study fills it, and concludes that the concept of devekut is emptied of experiential content and becomes a kind of metaphysical “plumbing.”

Aggadah, “His Speech” and “His Will,” and “These and Those Are the Words of the Living God”

The speaker dwells on Rabbi Chaim’s statement that “even if he is engaged in words of aggadah that have no practical implication for any law, he is still cleaving to the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He.” He suggests a distinction according to which in halakhah the devekut is to God’s will, whereas in aggadah the devekut is to His speech, because “everything came forth from His blessed mouth to Moses at Sinai.” He explains that devekut in aggadah receives justification through the claim that even when a person engages in Torah below, “every word he brings forth from his mouth” also comes forth, as it were, from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He. He brings the story in Gittin about the concubine in Gibeah, in which the Holy One, blessed be He, is “engaged in the matter of the concubine in Gibeah” and says, “My son Evyatar says this, My son Yonatan says that.” He combines this with the question, “God forbid, is there doubt before Heaven?” and with the conclusion, “these and those are the words of the living God,” and suggests a framework in which “the words of the living God” can apply even to views that are not the practical ruling. He adds examples of the way views not ruled in practice are used in order to derive principles and reasoning, illustrating this through the discussion among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about a sick person on the Sabbath and the preference for slaughtering as opposed to feeding prohibited food, and through the dispute between Maharam of Rothenburg and Rabbeinu Peretz about saying “grant dew and rain for a blessing,” while arguing that later authorities (Acharonim) sometimes err in understanding the real focus of the dispute.

Skipping Aggadot and the Implications for Yeshivot

The speaker describes a yeshiva phenomenon of skipping aggadot or choosing topics where “for sure there’s no aggadah at all,” and connects it to the conception according to which the center is halakhah and God’s will, not a narrative-experiential space. He argues that Lithuanian learning “feels it has less to say” about aggadah, and that this stems from an ideological root: preferring devekut as a halakhic-metaphysical reality over emotional experience.

Trust in God and Human Effort: Criticism of the Guidance of the Mashgichim

The speaker brings a saying “commonly heard on the lips of the mashgichim,” that disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about effort and trust in God depend on the question “who are you,” and if you are “someone with that level of trust in God,” then you should act like Nachmanides, and if not, then not. He objects that this “makes no sense,” because practical decisions such as whether to go to a doctor ought to be derived from what is intellectually correct, not from what is felt; if a person truly believes that everything is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He, then there is no room to make it depend on experience. He concludes that this approach understands trust in God as an experiential-emotional concept rather than as beliefs and convictions, and he returns to the framework in which, at most, a person is obligated to perform actions that may bring about emotion, not to be required to feel the emotion itself as a condition for practical decision-making.

Gratitude and Asking Forgiveness: Intellectual Recognition Versus Emotional Experience

The speaker proposes analyzing gratitude and asking forgiveness through the question whether the obligation is to feel the emotion or to understand the debt and behave accordingly. He presents a distinction between “moral gratitude” and “philosophical gratitude” based on the verse, “Do you thus repay the Lord, O vile and unwise people? Is He not your Father who acquired you? He made you and established you.” He interprets “He made you” as philosophical gratitude for the very root from which a person came, and “He established you” as moral gratitude for ongoing sustenance and maintenance. He asks how one can have gratitude for creation itself in light of the saying, “It would have been better for a person not to have been created than to have been created,” and answers that the obligation here is not “good in return for good,” but rather a relationship of root and branch that creates obligation. He illustrates this through honoring parents even when there was no practical investment, and explains that the philosophical dimension is harder to grasp precisely because it is not accompanied by emotion, whereas the moral dimension naturally tends to be accompanied by emotion.

Okay, I want to finish this series today on emotion—emotion and intellect, or emotion in general. Last time I talked about the commandments that are connected to emotion: commandments of love, hatred, fear, joy. And the overall picture I tried to show there was that the commandment usually is not a commandment about an emotion, but either about something that’s not emotional at all, or about actions whose purpose is to bring about or arouse an emotion and arrive at that emotion. But in the end, the claim was that there’s nothing to command regarding emotion in and of itself, because emotion is not something directly under our control. At most, we can do things in order to arouse one emotion or another, but to define the commandment itself as the emotion—that’s problematic. I said that maybe you could define it that way; there are halakhic / of Jewish law definitions like that, where you always have to know whether that’s analytically correct—yes—that the commandment is the emotion, while of course what is expected of us is the actions that will bring us to that emotion. The emotion is the desired result. But in the end, bottom line, what is imposed on us are the actions that bring us to the emotion, not the emotion itself. And that follows from everything I said beforehand—that emotion is some kind of mental state, and commandments are supposed to address the intellect or the will, things that are in our hands and depend on our effort.

So today I’ll try to talk a bit about broader aspects—not the halakhic / of Jewish law aspects of the status of emotion, not exactly in Jewish law, but meta-Jewish law, in Torah, though not necessarily in Jewish law itself. I’ll start maybe with Nefesh HaChayim, which discusses the question of devekut, attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He. What does attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He mean? “And to cleave to Him”—that’s actually even a commandment, though the Sages always translate it into things that are in our hands, because “and to cleave to Him” is always expounded as: is it possible to cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He? So it’s always either cleaving to Torah scholars, or marrying the daughter of a Torah scholar, as the Sages say, and all kinds of things of that sort. But there are still concepts of attachment. By the way—and this really is a good question—where does this come from? Meaning, in the literature of thought and ethics there’s some simple assumption that there is such a value as attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He. Whereas among the Sages, it seems to me there are quite a few proofs that there can’t be such a thing. Because “and to cleave to Him” is always interpreted as: well, that’s impossible. So what do you do? They translate it into some commandment or another, or some action or another that is in our hands.

If there really is such a concept as attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He in itself—not in the sense of actions that express attachment—then why do you need all those homiletic interpretations? Why do you need to say: you can’t cleave to the One who spoke and the world came into being, so marry the daughter of a Torah scholar or cleave to a Torah scholar? No—cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He. Why are the Sages always trying to get away from that because it’s impossible? Even in the ethical literature, in the later faith-based concept of attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He, it’s also… it could be that the intention there too, the assumption, is that this is also some kind of expression… okay. No, that’s what I’m saying. But the concept of attachment in its psychological sense—even if I want to set the Sages aside, though actually one can infer the opposite from the Sages—that it cannot be. Rather, you’re speaking about practical matters that are supposed either to express attachment or to bring about attachment, and then once again we’ve returned to the same scheme I spoke about before: that the concept of attachment itself is ostensibly a psychological-emotional concept, but what is imposed on us, what is expected of us, is some set of actions that may bring it about or express it—we’ll soon see—but not it itself.

This is something discussed in Nefesh HaChayim, Gate 4, where of course in the background there is basically a polemic against Hasidism, even though it’s not mentioned here so much. But it’s pretty clear that that’s the context. And Gate 4 is devoted to Torah study. It might even have been appropriate to speak also about the gate that discusses prayer—Gate 2. The same issue is there too. He starts from the accepted conception, both regarding prayer and regarding attachment or Torah study as attachment—the conception that says that what is required of us is basically the emotional dimension or the experience. So in prayer too, there are often statements that prayer is meant to bring us to attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He. The experiential dimension in prayer—very often people are scolded because their prayer is too dry, a kind of mechanical commandment by rote, and it doesn’t bring them, or doesn’t express, some kind of inner bond with the Holy One, blessed be He.

And he himself—being a Lithuanian, of course—says no. Prayer is some kind of spiritual plumbing. He actually describes it here in a completely mechanical way. You say this, and then you connect that pipe with this opening, and the abundance comes down—a kind of description that’s almost plumbing. That’s prayer. And regarding Torah, same thing. So I’ll focus on Torah; that’s a gate I know better. You can also read from Gate 2; the line of thought is the same. So he says this—Gate 4 begins as follows: “I have further said to come with a written scroll concerning the greatness of the obligation of Torah study upon every Jewish man day and night, and to expand a bit the discussion in expressive language about the greatness, precious splendor, and exaltedness of the Torah, and the upright person who engages and meditates in it, with Torah of kindness on his tongue, to bring pleasure to his Maker and Creator, blessed be His Name.” And now in these generations, because of our many sins, it has fallen very, very low, hidden at the lowest level, God save us. Torah—meaning Torah study—is hidden at the lowest level, “as our eyes see among many of our people because of the great burden of livelihood, may God have mercy.”

Well, there’s some idealization of the past here. I’m not sure the situation used to be different, but that’s his claim. But he’s not talking about idlers. He doesn’t mean idlers; he means people who don’t study. He doesn’t say people who don’t study. After all, he talks about the burden of livelihood. And the burden of livelihood leads not only to our not having time to study—not just that. He’s addressing Hasidism. The simple claim is: Hasidism is something that appeals to wagon drivers, as opposed to Lithuanian elitism, which speaks to people who dedicate their lives to study. Meaning, this is not Torah for householders; it’s Torah for wagon drivers. And therefore he’s speaking not only about those who don’t study because they have no time because they’re occupied with making a living, as it might sound from here, but about those who, because they don’t have the time or are occupied with other things, had alternative Torah options created for them instead of Torah study: experience, emotion, attachment, all kinds of things like that—clinging to the Holy One, blessed be He through the tzaddik, and in effect the tzaddik has to do the work and everyone else will use the pipeline he prepares in order to cleave themselves.

“And also many of those who desire the nearness of God choose for themselves to make the main focus of their study books of fear and ethics all their days, without establishing the main occupation in our holy Torah, in Scripture and abundant legal teachings, and they still have never seen light in their lives.” These people don’t understand at all what Torah is. Most people who supposedly engage in the most important things, who dedicate their lives to spiritual matters—and the light of Torah has not shone upon them. May God forgive them, because their intention is for the sake of Heaven, but this is not the path where the light of Torah dwells.

“And the truth is that books of fear are among all the straight paths of God, for the earlier generations were fixed all their days in occupation and meditation in our holy Torah, immersed in the tents of the study halls in the core matters of Torah, with the explanation of Rashi and Tosafot, Gemara, commentary, and Tosafot, and the flame of love of our holy Torah burned in their hearts like a blazing fire.” Again, an enormous idealization of the past, of course. I’m not sure in what generations Torah study was stronger than in this generation, where on the one hand there was Hasidism, occupied in its own way, and on the other hand there were the yeshivot, which admittedly only began in his time, but still—it seems to me that at least those involved in service of God were occupied in Torah study. That’s what I said before. And therefore either there’s a disproportionate idealization of the past here, or he’s not talking about idlers, how many don’t study and how many do, but about the question of what those who do study are doing. He says it explicitly. He says: first, Torah declined because of livelihood and lack of time, but besides that also… not two things—it’s the same thing. No, not “besides that”—it’s all one thing. Because they developed alternative Torah approaches that appeal to people who have no time, who don’t have the skills—to wagon drivers. So Torah study itself also took on a different character. People engage in other things, in a different way. Of course now even those teaching them are like that, because they also need to deal with this. So the rebbes, or—yes—the heads of Hasidic yeshivot—today that’s no longer true, but let’s say the analogy to what existed then—they too were engaging in Torah in some different sense.

So he says: “And as the days lengthened, so too the way of the evil inclination in the world is to envy the people of God,” and so on—evil inclination and all sorts of things like that. And then of course, against that, the Mussar movement arose—people who want to engage in ethics and constitute an alternative. You can see here a kind of criticism of that too, because that too is really an alternative trying to compete with Hasidism on its own turf. They’re trying to teach fear of God, but not in the Hasidic sense; rather through books of fear, moral instruction, and then later, a bit later, all kinds of things. So he says: “However, every person of understanding whose intellect walks straight will understand on his own that they did not intend by them, Heaven forbid, to neglect the occupation with the core matters of Torah.” Even when the early authors of ethical works—Rabbeinu Yonah and so on—composed these books, of course this was not meant to replace engagement in the core matters of Torah, but rather, as he says later, it’s a preserving agent. Just as you put preservative into grain in order to preserve the storehouse, so too in Torah study one needs to put in a little bit—a small part—of fear of Heaven in order to preserve the study. But the study is not that. That’s only a means of preservation. Fear of Heaven is not Torah study. Fear of Heaven is the way you preserve the Torah you study. Torah study is Torah study—that is Gemara, Rashi, Tosafot.

And then he says: therefore I want to speak here about what Torah study for its own sake is, and what is at issue here, in order to correct these conceptions. And then he says this. Chapters 2 and 6 are basically the main ones here in Gate 4. Up to now I quoted from chapter 1. He says as follows: “The matter of Torah study for its own sake”—this is chapter 2—“the clear truth is that for its own sake does not mean attachment, as most of the world thinks.” Torah study for its own sake means, as most people think—he is describing this—that it is study in order to produce attachment. He says that’s not correct. “Studying Torah for its own sake does not mean attachment, as most of the world thinks, for our Sages said in the midrash that King David, peace be upon him, requested before Him, blessed be He, that one who occupies himself with Psalms should be considered by Him, blessed be He, as if he were engaged in the tractates of nega’im and ohalot.” Meaning, engagement in the legal teachings of the Talmud with analysis and toil is a matter loftier and more beloved before Him, blessed be He, than reciting Psalms.

Yes, Hasidim, when they read this, will say: look what a great level there is in studying Psalms and in attachment, which King David requests from the Holy One, blessed be He. But he says: pay attention to the logic. King David asks the Holy One, blessed be He, that the study of Psalms be like engagement in nega’im and ohalot. What does that mean? That this seems to him like some kind of subtle reading? No, that’s the straightforward meaning, obviously. Is that such a subtle reading? No, no, it’s the straightforward meaning—but even straightforward meanings are not what you read when you read this. People say—like with the… yes, “the birds of the sky” regarding Yonatan ben Uzziel. Not exactly the same example, but I still think it reflects the same two approaches. There are people who are impressed by the importance of attachment, and he says: forget it. All he asked was that attachment too should count like engagement in the legal teachings of the Talmud with analysis and toil—which is really the core of Torah study.

“And if we say that for its own sake means specifically attachment, and that the whole essence of Torah study depends on this alone, then is there any attachment more wondrous than reciting Psalms properly all day?” In other words, if the goal of Torah study is attachment, then what is there to ask for? The opposite—you should ask that nega’im and ohalot also count like reciting Psalms. Reciting Psalms is what brings attachment in the best possible way. And also—again this continues the Lithuanian outlook—“who knows whether the Holy One, blessed be He, even agreed with him in this?” King David requested it, but who says the Holy One, blessed be He answered him? That’s already a little closer to the Yonatan ben Uzziel discussion.

And if the Holy One, blessed be He did answer, then now it really is the same thing. Yes, and therefore he continues and says: “Moreover, with certainty we indeed find”—meaning, toil in the Talmud is certainly Torah study in the best form, while attachment—King David requested it; who knows whether the Holy One, blessed be He answered or not, “for we do not find in the words of the Sages what answer He, blessed be He, gave him to his request.” Fine, the Hasidim will say: we don’t find it because obviously He left David’s statement in place. And also, “for the matter of attachment, one tractate or one chapter or one mishnah would have sufficed, that one should engage in it all his life with attachment.” Why do you need to study the whole Torah? Why do you need to study things you haven’t yet studied? If all study is just a means to attachment, then you could repeat the same chapter every day anew; as long as it brings you to attachment, that’s perfectly fine. What interest is there in knowing the Torah? There is no interest in knowing the Torah if it is only a means of producing attachment.

Yes. Fine, but King David was punished—“Your statutes were songs to me”—for that he was punished. “Your statutes were songs to me.” Meaning, it was revealed that the Holy One, blessed be He doesn’t like that, didn’t accept the claim. Maybe—well. Or he said that before he asked; meaning after he asked maybe he already got permission. Let’s continue being both Lithuanian and Hasidic. Okay, in any case: “And not so do we find regarding our Sages in Sukkah 28a, that they said of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai that he did not neglect Scripture, Mishnah, legal teachings, and aggadah.” That is, because he always held in his mind that he had still not fulfilled his obligation of Torah study for its own sake with what he had learned up to now. He kept adding more and more; he needed to cover the whole Torah. So you see it’s not enough to repeat the same chapter every day. And if study were merely a means to attachment, then what gain, what great praise is there in his having learned the whole Torah? The main thing is reaching attachment; he could also study one chapter his entire life. Shema in the morning and evening—we once talked about Torah study—one can fulfill one’s obligation with the same chapter every day.

And then he says: “In Mishlei Rabbah Rabbi Yitzchak said: Come and see how difficult the day of judgment is, for the Holy One, blessed be He, will judge the whole world. One comes who has Scripture in his hand but not Mishnah—the Holy One, blessed be He turns His face from him and the fires of Gehinnom prevail over him.” And so on. “One comes who has two or three orders”—of Mishnah—“the Holy One, blessed be He says to him: My son, why did you not study all the legal teachings? One comes who has legal teachings, and He says to him: My son, why did you not study Torat Kohanim?” In short, you need to cover everything, and you can’t just keep doing the same chapter all the time. So what does that mean? It means there is value in study itself. Study is not a means to attachment; study is a value in itself.

“And it also seems logically so,” he ends chapter 2 that way, “for there are many legal discussions in the Talmud where, when a person is engaged in them, he must analyze and deepen his thought and mind in the material matters involved, such as bird-offerings and the openings of menstrual impurity, which are the very core of legal teachings, or the give-and-take in the Talmud and all the laws of migo involving deception, what a deceiver could have claimed, and it is almost impossible then that he should also have attachment in proper perfection.” You’re dealing here with thieves, deceivers, liars, and migo claims. This is not exactly the way to arrive at attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He. This is a way to deal with human weaknesses. If you want to produce attachment, then go study Psalms, study Hasidism, or things of that sort. What kind of attachment do you want to produce? The attachment he describes here is apparently a different attachment. The attachment he describes here is the experience of attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He—a great religious experience. No, it could be—fine, okay, that’s not what we’re talking about.

“But the truth is that the matter of for its own sake means for the sake of Torah.” Torah study for its own sake means for the sake of Torah—not for the sake of the experience, not for the sake of attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He, but one must study Torah for its own sake, meaning for the sake of Torah itself. “And the matter is as the Rosh explained on the statement of Rabbi Elazar bar Rabbi Tzadok in Nedarim: ‘Do things for the sake of their Maker’—that means for the sake of the Holy One, blessed be He, who made everything for His own purpose—‘and speak of them for their own sake.’” “Do things”—that means commandments. “For the sake of their Maker”—for the sake of the Holy One, blessed be He. “And speak of them”—when you study Torah—that is for their own sake, not for the sake of their Maker. So what does “for their own sake” mean? The Rosh says: all your speech and engagement in words of Torah should be for the sake of Torah, for example, to know and understand and increase insight and sharp analysis, and not to provoke or become arrogant.

The goal is—he doesn’t deny that someone might reach an experience of attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He. Not that that is called not for its own sake. “Not for its own sake” means for other purposes. But studying for its own sake means for the sake of Torah itself—that’s what he says. For the sake of Torah, and not even in order to fulfill the commandment? That’s what seems odd. He doesn’t say not in order to fulfill the commandment, but rather not in order to provoke or become arrogant. No, but if you read the first half carefully it goes one way; if you read the end carefully it goes another. Ostensibly it sounds as though he means—why? I wouldn’t say “not in order to fulfill the commandment,” but rather that the requirement of “for its own sake” in Torah study does not require that it be with the purpose of fulfilling the commandment. Even if I study simply because I love studying, but in order to increase insight and sharpness—that would count. I think we talked about this—there was a series on Torah study, wasn’t there? I think we talked about the fact that this Nefesh HaChayim I brought then too, I think—that indeed Torah study is not the commandment of Torah study. The commandment of Torah study is Shema morning and evening; with that one fulfills one’s obligation. And one who has fulfilled it—fine, all the rest, ostensibly…

That it then falls under something like voluntariness, as the Gemara in Nedarim says that one can swear to study—“I will study this chapter”—that is “a great vow vowed to the God of Israel,” even though he is already sworn from Mount Sinai. So what kind of vow are you swearing? There is already a commandment, so it shouldn’t take effect. So the Gemara says that what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says—that if one studied one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening, he has fulfilled his obligation. And all the rest, as at least some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain, is either voluntary or a commandment from the Writings, and not the core commandment of Torah study. So the core commandment of Torah study is Shema in the morning and evening. So what is neglect of Torah? What is all the Torah study around that? The Torah study around that is studying Torah because one understands the value of Torah, the meaning of Torah—not because of the commandment of Torah study. On the contrary: to study because of the commandment of Torah study is to lower the study—just as you basically said earlier; you can even see it in the definitions of the commandment.

And then in chapter 6 he says as follows: “Therefore the truth is that this is the proper way that He, blessed be His Name, has chosen: that whenever a person prepares himself to study, it is fitting for him to sit for a little while before he begins, at least a short time, in pure fear of God and purity of heart, and to confess his sin from the depths of his heart, so that his Torah may be holy and pure, and he should intend to cleave through his study to Him—to Torah, to the Holy One, blessed be He—that is, to cleave with all his powers to the word of God, namely this legal teaching. And in this way he is truly attached to Him, blessed be He, as it were, for He, blessed be He, and His will are one, as is written in the Zohar. In every law and legal teaching of the holy Torah is His will, blessed be He, for thus His will decreed that the law be so, when it rules impure and pure, forbidden and permitted, liable and exempt.”

So what is he really saying as an alternative to the Hasidic conception that study is a means to arrive at an experience of attachment? He says that study itself is attachment. He also agrees that there is such a thing as attachment; the question is what attachment means. Attachment is not an emotional state, not a religious experience that comes as a result of Torah study—because for that, the book of Psalms is better, or the laws of menstrual openings and migo are not the place for it. Rather, study itself is attachment. It is not a means to attachment; this is Lithuanian attachment. Yes, attachment that has nothing to do with the feeling of attachment or the experience of attachment, but rather attachment in the sense that you are simply attached to the Holy One, blessed be He—you could call it physical, not metaphysical. The very act of engaging in His will—that itself is attachment. It is not a means to produce an experience of attachment; it is itself attachment.

Meaning, if I formulate this in the language I used at the beginning, then even the Hasidic conception could be described by saying that the experience of attachment is the desired end, yes, the place one is supposed to arrive at. But what is imposed on you is to study in order to produce that experience. Meaning, what is imposed on you is not the emotion but the actions that arouse the emotion. But still, what is desirable—that is, the goal of the whole thing—is the emotion. And Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says no—not even that. Study itself is attachment. You don’t need to arrive at any emotion in the end; that’s not the issue at all. You need to set things up so that it won’t be not for its own sake, so that there will be fear of Heaven, so that it won’t be for provocation and arrogance. So study a bit of ethics beforehand—but those are preparatory means for the commandment, not the commandment of Torah study itself, just preparation. He says this too, and details it in later chapters: it’s to prepare, like preparing—he spoke of the little measure of preservative that preserves the grain so it won’t be eaten by pests, and he says there’s also the matter of building the granary, the storage house into which the grain is brought.

When you study books of fear, ethics, humility, and work on character traits, that’s building the storehouse. That’s not studying Torah. It’s preparing the receptacle. And now you can begin studying Torah, which is essentially filling the receptacle, putting the grain into it. Meat and wine—that’s Torah itself, the grain in the granary. And that’s the core matters of Torah: bird-offerings and migo and thieves and all kinds of things like that. So basically he offers an alternative in which the concept of attachment is emptied entirely of its emotional or experiential content. The concept of attachment is a metaphysical reality. As he says regarding prayer too: in prayer as well, the goal is not to produce experiences of attachment, but prayer itself, in a certain sense, constitutes attachment or repair. Torah is more attachment than prayer in his Lithuanian doctrine, but even prayer he turned—as I said earlier—into some kind of spiritual plumbing. And if he does speak about attachment, then it’s actually less in prayer and more in Torah—but not attachment in the Hasidic sense of an experience of attachment. Rather, study itself is attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He. How? Simply metaphysically. That is, He and His will are one, as is written in the Zohar—a mathematical statement. He and His will are one, right? He equals His will. When I study, then His will enters into me, and since He and His will are one, it follows that He Himself is inside me; I am attached to Him when I study. Which is what had to be proved. That’s a fact. It is not a means to produce an experience, but itself a state of attachment. Attachment. Yes, that is basically the claim.

And then Nefesh HaChayim really says—I think when I once spoke about Torah study I brought against this the book Tanya, which says very similar things, even though it ostensibly stands on the other side of the divide. On this issue I think it says very, very similar things. Then he says—and this is a beautiful comment, I always like this sentence because it’s very easy not to notice it—“And even if he is engaged in words of aggadah that have no practical consequence for any law, even then he is attached to the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He.” What does that mean? Of course—a Lithuanian, right? Obviously. I’m a Lithuanian too. He says: obviously, when you study Torah we’re talking about migo and menstrual openings and all sorts of things like that—not fairy tales. We’re talking about laws. That is the will of God, and He and His will are one, because the law tells me what His will is, as he said before: kosher or impure, liable or exempt, forbidden or permitted. That is law. And what does that law say? What does the Holy One, blessed be He want, right? He says what I should do or should not do in this situation. That is His will. When you study some piece of the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, you’re attached to Him. Because His will is now in you—you are occupied with His will, He is within you, and then you are attached to Him. But if one is occupied with aggadah—people don’t notice the underlying assumption here.

And he says: “And even if he is engaged in words of aggadah that have no practical consequence for any law”—like King David who asked the Holy One, blessed be He that engagement in Psalms should be like nega’im and ohalot—“even that is fine.” Meaning, there is an underlying assumption here that says: what are you talking about, aggadah is just some valueless thing. After all, it isn’t the will of God, so what is there to deal with at all? He says no—he has an answer. He innovates. So he says yes, but even that has meaning. Why? “Because he is attached to the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He.” And it seems to me that there is a very interesting precision here. If we’re reading carefully, let me sharpen it a bit, because people don’t notice this either. I think he is very precise. He is attached to the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He—not to His will. Earlier, regarding law, he is attached to the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, and He and His will are one. What happens in aggadah? Aggadah is not the will of the Holy One, blessed be He—that was the question. So if one is engaged in aggadah—that is the hidden question—and he comes to answer it. Why is there a question? Because aggadah is not the will of the Holy One, blessed be He; there are no commandments there. So someone engaged in aggadah—what does this have to do with attachment? How is attachment created there?

He says yes, that too is attachment. Why? It is attachment, though not to His will but to His speech. What does that mean? He says: because the entire Torah, in its general rules and details and fine points, and even what a young student asks his teacher, everything came forth from His mouth, blessed be He, to Moses at Sinai. The Holy One, blessed be He said it at Sinai. So He said the aggadot of Rabbah bar bar Chana, or whatever all the aggadot in the Talmud are—He said them to Moses at Sinai. Of course, this is not a historical description but an ideological one—at least that’s how I think of it. And therefore, when you engage in it, you are engaging in the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He—though not in His will. Law has two virtues. It is also the will of God—what He wants from me—and apparently He also said it; that is, it is also the speech of God. Aggadah too has value. Why? Because the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He was also in aggadah, even though His will is not manifested there.

And from here comes the whole yeshivah attitude—these are all students of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, after all they all came out of Volozhin—that they do in fact skip aggadot. That is, they study passages that are legal, analytical, halakhic / of Jewish law passages, and don’t deal with aggadot. And this is where it comes from: the conception that aggadot are some kind of thing that, okay, post factum they’re there. They appear in the Talmud; Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin doesn’t permit himself to tear pages out of the Talmud, so if it appears in the Talmud one has to swallow hard and digest even that into the structure he is building. But yes—it is His speech and not His will. Still, even that is attachment. The Holy One, blessed be He did us a special favor—He said it at Sinai so that engagement in it too would have the significance of attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He through His speech, even if not through His will.

Now, seemingly, fine, that’s not an accurate account of what aggadot mean. I think that ostensibly at least some of the aggadot, and also the ethical books we talked about before as an internal area, I would have thought this would also count as attachment to His will. Meaning, assuming that it’s supposed to influence some kind of… my actions? Not just my actions, also… meaning I’m also supposed to absorb from it… what God’s will is in terms of character traits, in terms of… No. Here you have to distinguish between two things. When he speaks about the will of God, he means the will expressed in commandment—what in our language we call Jewish law. Now there are other things that the Holy One, blessed be He does not command but expects from us. And that’s not will? No. Why not? What is it then? It is not the will of the Holy One, blessed be He in the sense he is speaking about here. The will of the Holy One, blessed be He in commandment—that is where “He and His will are one” applies. That’s what “He and His will are one” is said about. When He expects various things from us—the fact is He didn’t require them; meaning it isn’t part of the law. There are various explanations for that, and we talked about that too when we discussed morality and Jewish law, but it doesn’t go into the law. So there is here, let’s call it in other language, an expectation of the Holy One, blessed be He from us, but not will—it is not commandment. And he perceives that as something outside the Holy One, blessed be He and outside His will. Meaning, His will is what He commands us. That is called His will. Okay? This is not meant to exclude “will” in the ordinary language that includes expectations too. In ordinary language, under the word “will” we also include expectations. I want you to do something, I expect you to do it—then I also have a will that you do it. But still, there are things I require of you, command you, and there are things I would like you to do, I expect from you.

Okay? Even a legislator has things he legislates because he wants them done, and things he would like but does not legislate. For example, “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood,” which we talked about. Before that entered the statute book—or even afterward, to some extent—why was there a debate? Because no one objected to people saving someone else who was in distress. The only question was whether that should enter the framework of law. The law does not require it from you and does not impose a sanction on one who doesn’t do it, because it is not a command of the law. But still, the legislator would expect everyone to do it. So there are things that don’t enter the law. That is not will in the fully binding, minimal sense that everyone must meet. Okay? So when he speaks about will, he means that.

According to the Ramchal, are positions that did not enter the law also His will? I think yes, but that needs further explanation, because then the question is what the status is of positions that did not enter the law. So here—you have Rabbeinu Tam saying that someone entering the Sanhedrin had to be tested on whether he knew 150 reasons to declare a creeping thing pure. So Rabbeinu Tam asks: what do we need these empty sophistries for? Why do I need arguments to declare a creeping thing pure? The Torah says the creeping thing is impure—what are you all arguing about there? So the Maharal answers correctly: because you need to know how to declare the creeping thing pure. Meaning, that is a very important halakhic skill. You also need to know that bottom line, the creeping thing is impure. But knowing that bottom line it is impure does not mean failing to take into account that there are also reasons to declare it pure. There are pure sides to the creeping thing. There are arguments to purify it and arguments to render it impure. Bottom line, the Torah says it is impure; the reasons to render it impure outweigh the reasons to purify it. But someone who sees a black-and-white picture, someone who doesn’t understand that there are also sides to declare the creeping thing pure, cannot sit in the Sanhedrin. To sit in the Sanhedrin you need to understand that the situation before you is complex. Not because the law says that if an entire court convicts someone of a capital offense he goes free. There are no clear cases. Every situation before you, you must always see that there are also sides in the other direction. And if you see the situation as completely clear, then you didn’t really see it. It means your judgment was deficient. That’s basically the point.

And then that means that opinions not ruled as law still produce correct reasoning. It’s just that other reasoning outweighed them and so the law was ruled one way. But in other contexts that arise, you will need those opinions, because the reasoning there will be relevant, and the reasoning that outweighed them here will not be relevant in another situation. Maybe I’ll give an example. There are many places among the later authorities (Acharonim) where they very often bring proofs from opinions not accepted as law in all kinds of topics. One example that comes to mind: you know the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about a sick person on the Sabbath. The Rosh brings it, that several medieval authorities (Rishonim) discussed it. The doctors said he needs meat, and he has no kosher meat. So you can either slaughter an animal on the Sabbath itself, or give him non-kosher meat, a torn animal or an impure animal. Which is preferable? The medieval authorities (Rishonim) dispute this. Now, the Ran’s reasoning—the Ran is very well known—the Ran says, what are the two sides? If you slaughter, then it’s a Sabbath desecration, an offense punishable by stoning. If you eat non-kosher food, then it’s a prohibition. So actually, one might think it’s better to eat impure animal—pork—contrary perhaps to our instincts, because it is preferable to eat… But in slaughtering, you commit the transgression once, and after you slaughter, all the meat you eat is permitted. So there is one very severe transgression. In contrast, when eating non-kosher meat, every olive-sized portion you eat is another transgression. And quantity outweighs quality, in what he says. It is better to do one severe transgression—quantity outweighs quality. “Outweighs” meaning it is more serious. A thing with a stronger quality of prohibition—the quality outweighs the quantity. Why? If quality outweighs quantity, that means the quality is more severe even though it is smaller in quantity. Meaning the halakhic severity is determined by quality and not quantity, though the quantity is smaller, the quality determines that there is still severity. Better the pork, not the… what? No, no. But we want to take the less severe thing, right? Sorry, right—according to the Ran, quantity outweighs quality. You’re right, sorry. Meaning a smaller number of prohibitions, even though each prohibition is more severe, is preferable. Yes, right.

So there are all kinds of pilpulim—where did I talk about this? Because yeshivot like to engage in these discussions, as we mentioned earlier, to argue. Abraham went down to Egypt—there are three stories, really the same story twice with Abraham in Lech Lecha and Vayera, and in Parashat Toldot with Isaac: “Please say you are my sister.” So in the yeshivot they ask: what is this “Please say you are my sister”? Were they afraid the Egyptians would transgress adultery, and therefore they would kill him? What’s preferable, murder or adultery? Ah—the Egyptians also maybe were… certainly. Meaning, the question is: this is the famous dispute between the Ran and the Ra’avad—what is preferable, murder or adultery? Let them take her and violate adultery. Why kill him? What do they gain from that? This is a prohibition and that is a carcass and torn animal—which do they prefer? So they say according to the Ran it’s simple: if they kill him, then once they have violated murder, but after that every time they have relations with Sarah or Rebecca it’s permitted; she is no longer a married woman. But if they don’t kill him, then every act they do with his wife is another prohibition. Here it’s even maybe the same level of severity; one could discuss the relative levels of severity.

Anyway, I’m bringing this as an example of a place where several later authorities (Acharonim) bring proof from that Ran that quantity outweighs quality in other contexts. That Ran was not ruled as law in the Shulchan Arukh; it is an opinion not accepted as law. Meaning, I’m talking about later authorities (Acharonim) who adhere to the Shulchan Arukh, not people coming to dispute the Shulchan Arukh. Ask them what is the law and they’ll tell you: eat pork and don’t slaughter. But they bring proof from the Ran. Why? In all kinds of questions—I don’t even remember now—in which there is also some conflict between quality and quantity. They bring proof from him. Meaning, even though the accepted view is the opposite? It’s not the opposite. It just holds something else, and the claim is that even if this principle appears in the Ran, that doesn’t mean that one who disagrees with the Ran disagrees with that principle. If you explain that what disagrees with the Ran is because of something else, then you can bring proofs from the Ran for that principle even though the Ran was not ruled as law.

Just now I was working this out with my doctoral students—I teach Gemara in the midrasha at Bar-Ilan. So all the later authorities (Acharonim) bring proofs, because arguing is very beloved there too. There is—and this already appears in the Tur—the Tur brings a dispute between Maharam of Rothenburg and Rabbeinu Peretz regarding “Grant dew and rain for blessing.” If after saying “Grant dew and rain for blessing” for a month, afterward if you are in doubt whether you said it, you can assume you said it correctly. Within the month, not yet. Okay? So Maharam of Rothenburg claims that if you say it ninety times in one day, that also works. Why? Because it says: “If distancing his gorings makes him liable, then all the more so if he gored in close succession.” Meaning, regarding a goring ox too, when it gores three times, then it has become accustomed to goring. We can define the units in different ways, but say it became accustomed to goring after three times. So here too, after thirty days—those are like the three units here—one gets accustomed to saying “Grant dew and rain for blessing.” So if habituation when done in close succession is a stronger habituation, as with the ox that gores three times in one day, then certainly “if distancing his gorings makes him liable, all the more so if close together,” meaning that three times in one day would certainly make him established and liable for full damages. So too with verbal habit. Why—what’s the connection? There with the goring it’s proof of his nature. These are the regular pilpulim. And that’s what all the later authorities (Acharonim) discuss: what proof is this? And on this they hang the dispute between Maharam of Rothenburg and Rabbeinu Peretz.

Because Rabbeinu Peretz really says there is no proof. There is no proof from an ox’s gorings to saying “Grant dew and rain,” where all of them make mistakes there doubly and triply—all the later authorities (Acharonim). One after another, one big mistake in all those passages as they understand them. One of the mistakes is that they think it has to be the same in order to bring proof. It does not have to be the same. We’re talking here about halakhic formalism. In halakhic formalism, the question is when you say “three times,” when that is considered that three times have already accumulated. How the law sees that—that is a formal question; it’s not a question of what really happens. Do we halakhically see this the same way if it was done densely or if it was done spaced out? There is a consideration behind this, right? When we say we need thirty days, it’s not formally thirty; it’s formally thirty days because after thirty days you have become accustomed. Those are three units. Yes, after thirty days you have become accustomed. But there it is three units. It’s just that one unit of one saying of “Grant dew and rain” is not significant, so they set the three units as three times: a month of morning prayer, a month of afternoon prayer, and a month of evening prayer. So that is three times.

Okay, so the unit is a month and not one time, but it’s still a three-time presumption. And since it is a three-time presumption, it is like the three times of warning for the ox and three times of infertility and many other three-time presumptions in the Talmud, or the three-year presumption in Bava Batra. And then he says: fine, now let’s see how the halakhic pattern works with three-time presumptions. Not because it is the same thing. This is a formal question; we need to set a line. Obviously there is some level of habit one way or another, but we need to set a line. So if the Maharam tells us that when it is done close together it is no worse than when it is done spread out, then that applies both in proof and in habituation. But I don’t want to get into that issue here. I think they make an even bigger mistake. Basically they say that Maharam of Rothenburg holds—but this would take some time, so I’ll just say it in one sentence—they say that Maharam of Rothenburg holds that the goring of an ox is habituation. The ox gores three times and becomes accustomed to being a gorer; not that this is proof that it is by nature a gorer, but rather it becomes habituated to goring. Okay, and therefore one can bring proof from that to saying “Grant dew and rain,” which habituates a person to say the correct phrase. In contrast, Rabbeinu Peretz, who says you cannot bring proof, understands that an ox’s goring does not habituate it to be a gorer; rather, it constitutes proof that it is by nature a gorer. And that has nothing to do with saying “Grant dew and rain,” so don’t bring proofs from here to there. That’s how the later authorities (Acharonim) explain the dispute between Rabbeinu Peretz and Maharam.

Only they don’t notice one thing: the saying “If distancing his gorings makes him liable, all the more so if close together” is a statement of Rabbi Meir, and that was not accepted as law. Rabbi Yehudah is what the law follows, and he says that close-together gorings do not count. Now if you work through it—and I won’t do it here because it requires holding the sugya in your head—you’ll see the truth is simply reversed. Maharam of Rothenburg holds that three gorings are proof, not habituation. And only because of that can he bring proof from there to saying “Grant dew and rain,” which is habituation. Why? Because you need to understand what the dispute between Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Meir is. After all, he brings proof from Rabbi Meir, but the law is ruled like Rabbi Yehudah, which means Rabbi Yehudah too agrees that in habituation, close succession works. So if so, why doesn’t Rabbi Yehudah say that with the warning of the ox, close succession works? Because that is not habituation. So it turns out that for Maharam of Rothenburg, specifically there it is not habituation—if you work through the Rabbi Meir/Rabbi Yehudah relationship. And the opposite comes out in Rabbeinu Peretz’s view. They’re simply mistaken by 180 degrees—the opposite.

And precisely because they brought proof from an opinion not accepted as law. Here, for example, it was not justified to take an opinion not accepted as law and bring proof from it, because the underlying assumption was that that was not the point of dispute. But once you work it through, you see that yes—that is exactly the point of dispute. The dispute is about that. According to everyone, the dispute is about that. Both for Maharam of Rothenburg and for Rabbeinu Peretz, the dispute is about that. Anyway, I’m getting back to your question—that was really the trigger for this whole thing—what value is there in studying a view rejected from practical law? Because a view rejected from practical law can contain a great many lines of reasoning that are important for the law as well. It’s just that there are other arguments that outweighed them in those circumstances. Fine—but it is still an integral part of Torah.

Fine, so it has value. The question is whether Torah is His will? It is His will. That reasoning—that quantity outweighs quality—is a line of reasoning that is God’s will. Therefore, in other places you will use it. And here there are other things that outweigh it, and therefore it doesn’t come to expression in practical law—you won’t rule that way. There is an aspect of wills here; there are two wills, one conflicting with the other, and here bottom line the second prevails, but elsewhere—in a place where no other will stands against this one to outweigh it—there you would rule that way. Therefore I now need to study the Ran too, even though he was not ruled as law, because only from him can I extract this principle that quantity outweighs quality. That is the meaning of “These and those are the words of the living God.” Yes, that may indeed be the meaning of “These and those are the words of the living God.”

Okay? I still don’t really understand. But if we return to the earlier point—what is the status of things that are not commandment but some kind of proper conduct, some expectation of the Holy One, blessed be He, something like that? It seems to me—I don’t quite understand—if the whole idea rests on some philosophical or kabbalistic principle that the Holy One, blessed be He and His will are one, what is the reasoning for distinguishing and saying that His will, with which He is one, is specifically the will expressed in commandment? What is the reasoning? The reasoning that He and His will are one, that part you do understand? I don’t know; that’s how Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin understood it. That’s not what matters to me right now. I’m reading him to understand him. No, it’s not an idea he invented; it’s a known concept. Obviously—he brings it from the Zohar, that He and His will are one. But I don’t know why His will and He are one. If I knew that, then I’d know what kind of will is one with Him and what kind isn’t. That doesn’t matter to me. Right now I’m learning Rabbi Chaim only to understand what he says. No, the question is whether Rabbi Chaim doesn’t explicitly make this distinction. Why? He does. “And even if he is engaged in words of aggadah that have no practical consequence for any law”—what’s the question? So maybe he understood aggadah in such a way… maybe he thought that in aggadah there is no practical consequence even regarding what God expects. But he says because there is no practical consequence for law. From those aggadot you learn all kinds of proper conduct and things—he writes that. But that’s obvious. There are expectations there, not commandments. He understands that “He and His will are one” applies to commandment.

And then he says—by the way, after that he brings: “And not only that, but even at the very time that a person is engaged in Torah below, every word that comes out of his mouth—those very words emerge, as it were, also from His mouth, blessed be He, at that very time.” The Holy One, blessed be He says those things together with us while we study them. Not only that He gave the Torah to Moses at Sinai, but while we are studying the aggadot, the Holy One, blessed be He says them together with us. How do we know? As we find in the first chapter of Gittin regarding the concubine in Gibeah: “‘And his concubine played the harlot against him’—Rabbi Evyatar said he found a fly on her; Rabbi Yonatan said he found a hair on her.” And Rabbi Evyatar found Elijah and said to him: “What is the Holy One, blessed be He doing now?” Elijah said to him: “He is engaged in the matter of the concubine in Gibeah.” “And what is He saying?” We happen to have a dispute about exactly this matter. Unbelievable—the Holy One, blessed be He is occupied with precisely what we’re arguing about. What is He saying? “Evyatar My son says this; Yonatan My son says that.” As though He were the oracle at Delphi. He says: Yonatan My son says this, Evyatar My son says that. The truth itself does not come out of Him. “And this is because Rabbi Evyatar and Rabbi Yonatan were occupied between themselves with the matter of the concubine in Gibeah, so at that very time He, blessed be He, repeated their very words.”

Okay? And then, notice what’s written there in the Gemara. This is a very interesting comment. There’s a lot folded into this chapter of Nefesh HaChayim; I really love learning it. Because later in the sugya there, as you remember, he says: “Heaven forbid—can there be uncertainty before Heaven?” Rabbi Evyatar asks Elijah: is there doubt before the Holy One, blessed be He, about what happened there with the concubine in Gibeah? Whether he found a fly or a hair? He knows the truth, after all. So Elijah tells him: he found a fly and did not mind; he found a hair and did mind. “These and those are the words of the living God”—he found a fly and did not mind; he found a hair and did mind. Everyone always asks: what does “These and those are the words of the living God” mean? This goes back to rejected opinions and “these and those.” What does “These and those are the words of the living God” mean? So Rabbi Chaim says—and I think all this is hinted at here in Nefesh HaChayim—“these and those are the words of the living God.” Not the will of the living God. One is right and one is wrong. When there is a dispute about what must be done, one is right and one is wrong. There are not “these and those” as the will of the living God. God’s will is one thing; He cannot will its opposite. “Words of the living God”—both of them. Because the Holy One, blessed be He wants—and that answers your earlier question—the Holy One, blessed be He wants that when I study the opinion rejected from practical law, that too should have the status of Torah, the holiness of Torah. So he says yes—but that is the word of God. Because the Holy One, blessed be He says it. But it is not the will of God.

So that basically makes it like aggadah. Right—and then the rejected opinion ends up like aggadah, not what I said before, that there are aspects in it that remain relevant to law. No, continue the line. You said that according to Rabbi Chaim’s approach, as far as he is concerned, he would tear out aggadah. Fine—so continue that. Then consistently, he would also tear out the opinions rejected from practical law. And therefore he says: still, we learn them because they are the word of God. I added that besides that, we also learn them because they have a legal aspect. And in yeshivot, let’s say, they do not skip opinions not accepted as law; they skip aggadot, but they don’t skip non-accepted legal opinions, because they are studying law. Because they are studying law? No—there are considerations there that in another situation will emerge. That’s obvious; that’s what happens every day. Anyone who learns sees that. That’s obvious. And not only that—also to understand the accepted view, you have to understand how it differs from the other view, and why. And that often sharpens the accepted view, understanding in what way it disagrees with the view not accepted as law, right?

Many times this is “these and those are the words of the living God”: one is the will of God, one is the word of God. What does “these and those are the words of the living God” mean? That’s what he says: even the opinion that is not the will of God is still the word of God. The other one is both word and will. So that is an added virtue. So the correct opinion… so it is both word and will. What? It is both word and will. It has a double advantage. He says the second too is the word of the living God. “These and those” means both are the words of the living God. Will is only one of them. Will is only one, but the other is not valueless, because both this and that are words of the living God. So it’s not “words of the living God” like aggadot? It’s “words of the living God” in the sense that He repeated them after them. There’s no… no, it’s like aggadot. Because just as when the Holy One, blessed be He says it—in aggadot too he does not explain that it’s expectation. Rather, he says that aggadot become words of the living God because the Holy One, blessed be He said them. In order to turn this into Torah, He said it. Why specifically? Like… and maybe aggadot too can have significance? I would add that there are expectations of the Holy One, blessed be He there too. Not their dispute. No—that is what he says. When I say that the Holy One, blessed be He says it, that is how He turns it into Torah, so that when we study it, it counts as engaging in Torah. That is the line he takes. What does it mean “He turns it into Torah”? If to begin with it wasn’t Torah, then you could also talk about soccer and if the Holy One… yes, yes—but here we’re talking about things that relate to Torah. So even if it wasn’t ruled as law, or even if it is aggadot, the Holy One, blessed be He says it together with them, and in that way it becomes Torah. Everything here is sort of spiritual plumbing, yes? It’s all these metaphysical conceptions. But I only want to show his attitude.

I don’t care right now whether I agree with him or not, or how this plumbing works. I’m trying to show his mode of relating. He basically turns all the emotional, experiential dimensions—all the aggadot, the whole goal of study as creating an experience of attachment—he empties all of that of content. It doesn’t exist. This is all spiritual plumbing. Meaning, we’re operating in… in other words, this is a reality of attachment, not an experience of attachment. I’m trying to show the conception. And afterward he says—look how he continues—“And He, blessed be His Name, and His speech are one.” You’ll say: His speech, His will—he just switched terms; he meant the same thing. I’m just over-precisely reading his language. But no—you can see he means it, these linguistic precisions I’m making here. Because afterwards he says “He and His will are one”—he already brought that from the Zohar earlier. And after he says this is the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He, anyone reading this doesn’t see that there’s speech and will here. They look like synonyms. But no—we’re dealing with two different things. And just as “He and His will are one” is one principle, “He and His speech are one” is another principle. If so, then they’re on the same level, so why should one skip? No—because He is both His speech and His will. But if here too they are one, then what difference does it make? No, because it is not identity. So the accepted legal opinion is both will and speech? Right. There are two things there. Right. There are two advantages here. Right. And therefore it is still preferable to study law rather than aggadot. And it’s not clear that that’s what he means. If one thing is one with Him—if it is one, then it’s the same thing. One could say… fine. So he says: look and see. One could have read it that way, but look and see what those who follow him actually do, and it seems to me that it reflects exactly this conception: here there is speech and will, and here there is only speech. Okay, maybe the Lithuanian students necessarily because they were careful in that way… no, I didn’t say they were careful. I am being careful; they weren’t making any textual precisions. Rather, this is what he bequeaths. This is what comes out of his yeshivah. It comes from him. This is not precision in reading Nefesh HaChayim. Nefesh HaChayim describes how he approaches Torah in general. His students learned with him; they understood his attitude. I infer it from here because I never saw him, so I’m trying to understand from the text how he relates.

Is the technique that when they reach aggadah they skip, or from the outset they study passages where they know there won’t be any aggadah? No—even when you’re learning in order, say, and you come to aggadah, you skip to the next part. At most, if he has some nice little thought on that aggadah he’ll say it, but it’s not… those who are a bit more… they don’t give a class on aggadah. Those who learn in this method—which is more the Lithuanian type—feel they have less to say about it, because it’s all kinds of stories, and they don’t identify with it. It’s sort of… okay, it’s esoterica. But in my opinion there’s an ideological root here; it’s not only this prosaic thing.

Okay, I still want to get to one more thing. I want to finish this topic today. So all this was just to show the total emptying-out of the most emotional, experiential, feeling-based expectations. It empties them completely. Meaning… now, I’ll say again: in the conception that says emotion is not part of our cognition but something that arises on its own, that’s not logically necessary. One could understand it differently. That’s an extreme approach. One could have understood that I am required to arrive at the desired emotion by doing what I have to do in order to get to the emotion—but you don’t have to say that there is no value in emotion. And here there is an emptying-out of emotion altogether. There is also an emptying-out here of the subject of study—meaning perhaps placing it as secondary—but he doesn’t say there aren’t other commandments, commandments of love and fear; he talks about that. What… He doesn’t talk about that. I don’t know what he says there. So I’m saying: the dispute here is about the commandment of Torah study, not about emotion. Right. Not about emotion. So I’m giving different examples. In the commandments of love and fear I spoke in the previous lesson. Now I’m talking about attachment. And what I’m saying is that in the area of attachment he does to attachment what I did to love and fear in the previous lesson—even more radically. Because there it’s not a commandment. Here the commandment is to study Torah, and there’s some idea that Torah study… right. It’s that idea I’m talking about. He empties it of experiential and emotional content and all that. He also says Torah study is attachment; it’s not that he disputes that. It’s just that the concept of attachment is not the emotional and experiential concept. So it’s the same move—just another example. I’m not saying he says this also about the commandments of love of God and fear of God—I don’t know. Maybe he does, maybe not. I don’t know. But I’m showing that the same move happens systematically in all these emotional domains.

Let me maybe bring another example. It’s a stock phrase among mashgichim—I’ll bring one from them; mashgichim like that kind of tone—which I’ve heard several times from various people: the disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) over how much effort one needs to make, and how much one should have trust in the Holy One, blessed be He. Nachmanides often writes that one should really have complete trust, and in principle one should not need to make any effort at all. There are other places where one should make the effort, but not trust that the Holy One, blessed be He will do the work in my place. So there’s a well-known line that circulates in the world—I don’t know where the source is from; surely it’s written in various places I don’t read, because I already told you I don’t read these things. They say that it depends on who you are. If you are the kind of person with that level of trust, then behave like Nachmanides says. And if you’re not that kind of person, then don’t behave like Nachmanides says.

And I’ve always been very puzzled by that instruction—as much as one can challenge the words of mashgichim. Is it a contradiction in itself? It seems to me maybe an internal contradiction, but in any case it seems very strange. What do you mean, if you don’t have trust? Then become someone with that trust—but in any event, you’re… No, precisely. What do they mean? They mean: do you experience that trust, not what do you think. That is, if the truth is that everything is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He—that is the intellectual truth. Fine? I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the intellectual truth. Now, what does that mean? That is the correct conclusion. Everybody knows that—that’s everyone’s assumption. I don’t agree with it, but never mind. Everybody knows that the intellectual truth is that everything is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He, and basically all these efforts are just… If you know that, then you don’t need to go to a doctor. Exactly, yes. So what difference does it make? Why make any effort at all? What are we playing games for? But yes—if you experience it and live it that way, and you are on the level Nachmanides speaks about, then you may act that way. But otherwise not. Why not? If I think Nachmanides is right, and I don’t experience it in the emotional-experiential sense, so what? But I know that this is the truth. So practically—why go to the doctor? What difference does what I experience make? The question is what I think. Right? The question is what I think, not what I feel. If that is what I think, then it follows that there is no reason to go to the doctor, or no reason to maintain an army, or any of these efforts. Because I know the truth is that everything depends on the Holy One, blessed be He. So if that’s the case, what difference does what I experience make? Why is that relevant?

They see the concept of trust as something that addresses experience and feeling, not conception. Meaning, I understand that trust in the Holy One, blessed be He—and again, I don’t accept this conception of trust in general—is not in the intellect but in the experience. But I’m saying: they see the concept of trust as a concept that fundamentally addresses sensation, experience, and feeling. Do you trust? Is the inner experience accompanying you one of trust in the Holy One, blessed be He? What do you feel inside—or not? They are not speaking about faith and opinions. Because on the level of faith and opinions you might have complete trust in the Holy One, blessed be He, fine, but in my heart I don’t live it, I don’t internalize it. Very often I really do believe something. If you ask me whether it is true or not, I’ll think yes. Will you tell me that I live it all the time? No, not always. So what does that mean—do I have trust or not? They’ll tell you: of course not. There’s no trust, because trust must be the feeling. No—why should trust have to be the feeling? Especially when the practical consequence is whether to make effort or not. The practical consequence should follow from the question of what is true. What difference does what I feel make?

You could maybe say—in other contexts—that if you feel it, that’s an indication that you also believe it. Meaning, if you believe something with certainty, then usually you’ll also feel it. There won’t be such a disconnect between your head and your heart. Such a disconnect suggests that even in your head you don’t fully accept it. Maybe one could claim that. But in the context of effort and trust, that claim doesn’t help. In other contexts maybe you could say that. Because here, whichever way you look at it: if I really don’t believe it, then fine, you don’t need to tell me—I won’t do what Nachmanides says anyway, even if he says it, because I don’t really believe it. Rather, you’re addressing someone who… is basically debating whether to go to the doctor or not. And you answer him like this: if you experience the trust within yourself, then don’t go, because then you’re in the category Nachmanides is talking about. If you don’t experience it, then go. Why? Tell him that if you know it’s true, then don’t go. After all, you are considering not going. Fine—so don’t go; there, you’ve reached the proper level. Don’t go. It depends on what is true according to your view; it doesn’t depend on what you feel. And if that’s not the truth—if the feeling is only a reflection of the fact that for me it isn’t really true, or at least not certain—then you’re basically telling me that I don’t really believe it, and then in any event I’ll go to the doctor. So that’s not the person who’s conflicted. The conflicted person is the one who says: I know it’s true. Lots of people—ask them in the street and they’ll say sure, everything is from Allah, everything is from the Holy One, blessed be He. Druze too—at the level of declarations, everybody says everything is from Allah. In life it doesn’t work that way, but on the level of declarations everyone is a Druze.

So I think this conception is a mistaken conception. And it’s mistaken because of that point: it sees the demand for trust in the Holy One, blessed be He—and again, I say, that demand itself can be debated, and I don’t accept it—but it sees the demand for trust in the Holy One, blessed be He as a demand that addresses experience and feeling, not a demand in the realm of faith and opinions. And why is that mistaken? On the contrary—this seems to me very natural. Because if there’s a problem with emotion in terms of how you get there, then with faith and opinions the problem is even greater. What does it mean to say that you convince yourself? After all, the Holy One, blessed be He said it. You are going to convince yourself that this is what is true, and to arrive at faith itself. Faith and trust, as the Chazon Ish calls it. Faith and trust are two things dependent on one another. Strengthen your faith, your trust will strengthen. Intellectually, not emotionally. Intellectually. Especially if you say that the feeling is only an expression of the level of intellectual certainty. But that could be—it could be an explanation—that if you get to a point where you also live it, that only means you really believe it fully. But regarding this distinction of the mashgichim, it doesn’t help. No, but why? I don’t see what is so puzzling. On the contrary, it seems to me much more natural. If you reached the conclusion that it’s true, then you are also commanded to internalize it and feel it. Very good—so then what? Then the commandment is about the feeling. If you haven’t reached the point of feeling… then really the commandment is not about the feeling; the commandment is to create a feeling. But how do you create the feeling? By means of rational intellectual inquiry that leads to the conclusion that everything is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He. Maybe not by means of inquiry; inquiry is maybe an earlier starting point. Something, in any case, that is in my power—it’s not the feeling. Okay, a feeling of trust. What am I supposed to do with it? I have to do something to produce that feeling. We’ve come full circle back to the whole previous discussion.

Let’s say it doesn’t have to be by persuasion. Doesn’t matter—but you have to do something. Fine. So that action is what is imposed on you, not the feeling. Fine. The action whose purpose is the feeling. But I’m saying here that it is irrelevant. In this practical instruction—whether to trust or not trust—it is irrelevant. Why is it irrelevant? Because what difference does what I experience make? If I don’t go to the doctor, it is because I don’t think one has to go to the doctor, not because I don’t feel that one has to go to the doctor. Maybe the assumption is that there are—and maybe in Nachmanides too—two kinds of divine conduct. Where does such a “conduct” come from? Why? A person ultimately believes in Him completely, right? So he didn’t internalize it. So what? He believes in Him completely. So what’s the problem? I don’t know. The question is what the reasoning is that there should be such a mode of divine conduct. Yes, because he hasn’t reached… because the demand is also to internalize. But what does “the demand to internalize” mean? Internalization in itself is nothing. I reached the conclusion; it hasn’t yet entered as internalization. If I reached the conclusion, that should be enough. But it’s not enough. The commandment is fully to internalize. The commandment is to reach a conclusion that in the end will come to expression in internalization. Why? And maybe the commandment is not only to reach the conclusion but also to internalize it? What I’m saying is that even after you’ve reached the conclusion, you need to do something in order to internalize it. There is no reason to reach that internalization. That’s why I’m saying there’s no logic in this definition. No logic in this definition. You need to reach the conclusion; what difference does the feeling make? That’s exactly what I’m saying. That’s why I said last week that I don’t think it’s a contradiction; it simply lacks rationale. I could understand such a definition, but it sounds to me baseless.

Okay, let’s stop there because I want to continue and finish this topic. One more point. There is… I think we once spoke about gratitude. In gratitude too one could raise this issue—I spoke about it in a class… also about asking forgiveness, yes, when you come to someone and ask forgiveness for having done something wrong to him: does it come from your heart or from your head? Gratitude too can be discussed this way. If the obligation of gratitude is an obligation to feel gratitude, or an obligation to understand that you owe him thanks because he did you a favor—and of course also to act accordingly. Meaning, gratitude also needs practical expression. Is there also some point in experiencing the matter? Same question.

Here too one could discuss it. And if I go with Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, with Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin’s way of thinking, maybe not. What you need is only to understand that this is the situation. It could be that the experience is only a reflection of the fact that you indeed understand it properly. So the experience itself has no value in itself. That feeling of gratitude is not a value in itself. In fact, when we talked about it once, I think we spoke about two kinds of gratitude: intellectual gratitude and moral gratitude, philosophical gratitude and moral gratitude. The source of gratitude in the Torah is the verse: “Is this how you repay the Lord, O vile and unwise people? Is He not your Father, your Possessor? He made you and established you.” There are two descriptions there: “Is He not your Father, your Possessor”—“He made you and established you.” What is “He made you and established you”? There are several commentators on the Torah who explain: first, He made you—that’s one kind of gratitude. And second, “established you”—He sustains you, meaning He supports you; He gives you what you need in order to continue living. Then the question arises: what gratitude do I owe Him for having made me? Especially if Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel concluded that it would have been better for a person not to have been created than to have been created. So if it would have been preferable for me not to exist, then what gratitude do I owe the Holy One, blessed be He for bringing me into existence? Now that He brought me into existence, I can understand the “He sustains you” part—He keeps giving me things all the time. But the fact that He made me—why do I owe Him gratitude for that?

So my claim there was—I once wrote an article about this and I think I mentioned it in a class—that the gratitude being spoken about there is philosophical gratitude, not moral gratitude. It is philosophical gratitude. If you come from someone, if someone is your source, he made you, then you belong to him. You are obligated to him not in the moral sense that he did you a favor so you owe him one in return, but rather there is some intuition that if you come from someone, that creates some kind of obligation on your part toward him. Philosophically—that’s not a moral obligation. In what sense? Like a legal one. It’s not morality. Morality too has many difficulties when applied to obligation toward the Holy One, blessed be He—He invested nothing in me, no effort, it cost Him nothing, He made me just like that. In terms of gratitude as we usually understand it, it’s hard to apply that to the Holy One, blessed be He. That’s why the Torah divides it: “He made you and established you.” These are two kinds of gratitude. For “established you,” that is moral gratitude; for “made you,” that is philosophical gratitude. Philosophical, meaning like legal. What does that mean? There is an obligation to obey, to repay Him for what He did for me. Legal—as in, not in the same variation as, say, “do not steal” and things like that? “Do not steal” is also a moral obligation. I’m trying to understand what “philosophical” means here. Like with possession—“the burden of proof is on the one who seeks to extract property from another.” Why is the burden of proof on the one who seeks to extract? Because that’s the truth. What does that mean, “that’s the truth”? Is the truth that it’s his? No—it’s a legal truth. It is not more plausible that it’s his than the plaintiff’s. It’s a legal truth. There are kinds of legal truths, not moral truths, and they too can create obligation.

For example, honoring parents—which is the example of obligation toward the Holy One, blessed be He—there too one can discuss this. What happens with parents who gave you up for adoption immediately after they had you? Fine? Let’s even say not out of malice—they simply couldn’t raise you, so they gave you up for adoption. They invested nothing in you. Do you owe them anything? Morally, no. What do I owe them? They invested nothing in me. But I think there is some kind of obligation on the legal plane. You come from them. If you come from them—“a son is like his father’s leg”—you come from them, and that creates some kind of obligation. If you want, I can send you the article. I wrote about these things there.

But here I want to distinguish these two kinds of gratitude, because moral gratitude often comes with emotion. That’s why all of you accepted it as obvious. Because our feelings tell us that I feel gratitude toward someone who did me a favor—and certainly if he invested in me, with energy and effort, and gave me money or means, whatever. But philosophical gratitude—the difficulty in grasping it, even though in my opinion the reasoning is present in many of us—the difficulty in grasping it and identifying with it and saying that it is true, is because it is not accompanied by emotion. Rather, somehow we grasp with our heads that it is true, or sense in some way that it is true, but “sense” here doesn’t mean philosophical feeling. What? But if it would have been better for a person not to have been created than to have been created, then not because He did you a favor, but because He is the root and you are the branch. The branch owes the root. If He is your root, you owe Him. A kind of… you know. What owes to… No, but that’s what I’m saying. That’s why they also call this gratitude. “He made you and established you” is called, in the language of the Sages, gratitude. But it hides behind it two different things. I’d claim more than that. I’d claim that moral gratitude too is really an expression of the philosophical principle—a private case of the philosophical principle. Why? Because if someone gave me something, then something of his is within me. And because of that, I owe him. Meaning, we often perceive this as because he invested and so on—so it sounds like it belongs to the moral plane. I’m saying it’s not only there; it is an expression of gratitude in its philosophical sense. Because if something of his is within me, that means I am in a sense his child in this respect. Meaning, something of his constitutes me, and therefore I owe him gratitude. If someone shot me with a bullet, then his bullet is inside my body, so I… No—but that doesn’t animate me; it isn’t something from him in that sense. On the contrary, it only interferes with my life; it doesn’t mean anything. I’m not talking about physically inside me. I’m talking about something that is part of life, that gives me life, that enables me to function. If someone tried to do me a favor and failed, didn’t manage, then I don’t owe him anything? Say that again? Someone who really made an effort to help, and in the end didn’t succeed, didn’t contribute anything to me philosophically. Then there would be only the moral dimension, not the philosophical one. In the moral dimension, it really exists independently. But I’m claiming that in the moral dimension too there is an expression of the philosophical dimension. That’s actually a good example. Okay. Fine, what need is there…