Torah and Torah Study, Lesson 8

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, it’s not Torah study, right, exactly the same thing. Again, departments of Talmud are not automatically excluded across the board. A person can sit in a Talmud department, but that’s how he studies Torah; from his perspective, this is Torah, this is how he analyzes it, and this is how he derives what he is supposed to do—then he is studying Torah in every respect. You can argue about the method—yes, no, correct, incorrect, criticisms—but he is studying Torah. But academic study as such—not a Jew using academic methods while studying Torah for the same purposes that I study it, just analyzing it with those tools rather than the usual yeshiva-style tools—that is Torah study in every respect. But if someone studies it only in order to understand it as a historical piece, yes? To know how the Talmud came into being, where it came from, who influenced what—that is the history of culture. Meaning, that’s not law or anything like that; it’s not Torah. So I’ll go one step further. When you look—someone once asked me this on the website, I think that’s where it started—when you look, say, at Pirkei Avot, or Proverbs. These are various kinds of insights, interesting ones. “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting.” Okay? You can read that in other books too, right? There are writers—we all understand—that there are insights you can derive from a house of mourning that you won’t derive from a house of feasting. In a house of feasting it’s doubtful how much people are busy drawing insights at all. But, all right, maybe yes. But that statement is a statement of some general human lesson. And in my opinion it also isn’t—again, let’s talk about Pirkei Avot more than Proverbs, because Proverbs is in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh); maybe there’s room to say it was written with divine inspiration, it is also the word of God. So we’ll talk about that later. But let’s talk for now about Pirkei Avot. All right? Pirkei Avot: “A fence for wisdom is silence.” Fine? What is that? Surely in a million other books you’ll see the same lesson. Maybe even in a stronger form, through some story, through some literary work that shows you where someone who doesn’t keep quiet can end up. You learn that a fence for wisdom is silence. So did you study Torah? You read a book by Tolstoy and learned that a fence for wisdom is silence. So did you study Torah? What’s the difference? It’s the same lesson you learn from Pirkei Avot.

[Speaker D] But Pirkei Avot was transmitted from generation to generation, and they even edited it as part of the Mishnah. So the one who edited it inserted it as an actual addition to Torah study?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m asking—I don’t know. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi? This is the kind of difficulty we talked about earlier. Everything you say is true. I’m asking: what’s the difference? Explain to me what the difference is.

[Speaker D] Maybe—

[Speaker C] The difference is that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, let’s leave open the question why Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi included it in the Mishnah. But first let’s talk about the facts. Is there something essentially different here? I’ll tell you an anecdote. Just a second. An anecdote. Once there was an article published in HaMa’ayan—I mentioned it once—that showed that parts of Michtav MeEliyahu by Rabbi Dessler were taken word for word from Dale Carnegie. Who? From Dale Carnegie.

[Speaker A] The book How to Win Friends and Influence People.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly, all those “life advice” books.

[Speaker A] I can’t even open them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be they have useful things in them, I don’t know. I don’t like advice books, they drive me crazy. Except for Peterson—I read it recently, and I highly recommend it, by the way. 12 Rules for Life. It looks like an advice book, but it isn’t. I mean, this is really an impressive book. In any case, not for nothing was it not published from his lectures, or in several matters they published them. In any case, this translation that Rabbi Dessler makes of Dale Carnegie—and afterward, in the end, the two editors of Michtav MeEliyahu admitted, somewhat weakly, that this was… And then they said: yes, but really what’s wrong with that? He converted Dale Carnegie. In a certain sense he converted him. He took the same pieces of advice that Dale Carnegie gives, wrote them in Hebrew, and bound them in gold letters. That’s the conversion. He didn’t do anything to those ideas—not necessarily at least, again, I don’t know, I don’t remember exactly what it was about—but he didn’t necessarily process them in some different way. Maybe he brought a verse as an illustration of the point. That added nothing. It’s the same human insight you’ll find in Dale Carnegie, which may be true. Right now it has nothing to do with whether it’s true or not true. On the contrary, if it’s true that actually makes it stronger. Okay? Now, why is reading this in Michtav MeEliyahu Torah study, while reading it in Dale Carnegie is not? Why is “A fence for wisdom is silence” Torah, but when you see, I don’t know, the very same lessons in Aesop’s fables, that’s not Torah? Why not? It’s exactly the same type of material. Why is that not Torah? So again, we go back to these descriptions. What, the rebbe put it into the Mishnah? It can’t be—but it’s bound in gold letters. I mean, how can that be? So I say: good questions. Everything needs to be thought through; it requires analysis. But that’s not… Give me an answer to what I’m asking. Understand… meta-claims. I’m talking about claims about the thing itself, not claims about it—how can it be—but tell me: what isn’t correct in what I’m saying? There’s something a bit problematic here. Every… there isn’t a dvar Torah for sheva berakhot, for a wedding, for whatever, that you couldn’t also find among the Mormons. Two… two guys in ties will come—never mind. Two people get married, and they need to build a home, and be considerate of your wife, and this, look in your study partner, don’t look in your study partner—all these pieces of advice have been around forever. And you stitch it onto our patriarch Jacob, even if you do it very elegantly, and the weekly Torah portion, and Korach, and whatever you want. In the end, that’s what you’re learning there. Now, why is that Torah and what the Mormon says is not Torah? They’re saying exactly the same thing. Maybe the Mormon will also bring Jacob our patriarch—who says not? They also feed a bit on the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Why not? What… why… There’s something problematic here; on the level of content it’s very hard to understand what criterion Pirkei Avot satisfies. So what do we do now with this? Either Dale Carnegie is also Torah, or Michtav MeEliyahu is not Torah. One of the two. Or there is a difference between them that I don’t understand. Okay, there’s a question here that I think people haven’t given enough thought to—a simple question, and to my mind it’s obviously correct—and I’ve never seen anyone really discuss this issue, not even in our little corner. What does it mean? Explain to me why, and so on. So there are people who do talk about Hasidic rebbes buying melodies from shepherds—you know the stories, all the stories of conversion of various kinds—you convert melodies, you convert stories, all those stories that are really folk tales circulating in the surrounding culture, and you convert them because the righteous man, or the sage, or the holy commentator, or whoever, took these things and wrote them in Rashi script and bound them in gold letters, and so he converted them and now they became Torah. I don’t know what kind of rabbinical court handles that conversion, where this thing comes from. When you translate what people mean to say, it’s: listen, I have a connection to this because it comes from me, it comes from my tradition, it comes from previous generations, the people from whom I learn Jewish law also wrote the aggadah for me. None of those things turns it into Torah, I’m sorry. Maimonides also wrote a medical book. So what? I study Maimonides; a lot of my study time is devoted to studying Maimonides. But his medical book is not Torah, even though there may be some good medicine in there here and there, let’s say, I don’t know. So what? At most it’s a medical book, maybe a good one, matching Galen, which is where he learned it from anyway, not from letter-skipping in the Torah. And that’s all. What’s the difference between them? The fact that I don’t see from what belly these pearls emerged is not, in my opinion, a criterion for the question of what Torah is. The speaker, or the identity of the speaker, cannot be the criterion. In what sense is that a relevant criterion? So what is? What, after all, is the difference? It seems to me that this leads to a conclusion with two opposite sides. That’s my conclusion. And again, the discussion here is somewhat in the air, because I don’t have sources for what I’m saying now, and if I did have sources I’d dismiss them too, because those sources are worth exactly what I’m worth. They’ll say some reasoning, just as I’m saying some reasoning; you can accept it and you can reject it. So I don’t see what sources there could even be here. Maybe somewhere in the Talmud it is defined what the commandment of Torah study is and what it isn’t; that could be, because that would define it and that would at least be authoritative, even if I don’t agree or identify with it. But I don’t think there are such definitions in the Talmud. Usually there’s an argument, and this is a kind of dialectical schema I arrived at in the end, after thinking through all these things—and I worked pretty hard on it. In the second book of the trilogy there is a section devoted exactly to this series I’m doing here. What do you mean, a trilogy? Is this already a book…? No, no, that’s the old one. The trilogy is three books I’m writing now—or actually they’re in editing stages; three books that haven’t come out yet. So in the second one I try—there’s a section devoted to the question of what Torah study is and what Torah is, where among other things I discuss the things we talked about here. The picture that finally emerged for me is this: usually there are two opposing worldviews playing on the field, and in my opinion this is tied deeply and directly to the issue of divine contraction. One approach says that Torah study is sacred studies—what today they call Jewish law, thought, ethics, Hebrew Bible, all the branches. This is the common view: that is Torah study. Anything beyond that may be wisdom, but it is not Torah. Okay? It does not have the status of Torah. In essence this is a view—I’d call it one that defines Torah, in a certain sense, ethnically. Meaning: the product of Jews. Because as I said earlier, in terms of content that defines nothing. When you study ethics or thought, you can learn the exact same things from entirely different texts, and according to the people who hold this view that will not be defined as Torah. And anything beyond that may be wisdom, but it is not Torah. That’s one view. The second view says that Torah study is only what I said earlier—apparently what I’ve been saying until now—it is only Jewish law, and everything else is wisdom. It’s not that it isn’t Torah; rather, for the content-based reasons I said before, you simply can’t define it by content.

[Speaker C] But isn’t that a view that maybe lacks a sense of sanctity?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s what follows from what I’ve said until now. Now I want to qualify it a bit, which is why I’m introducing this. A possibility that I think is more—I don’t know what to call it—closer to our instincts, to the tradition we received, or something like that, but that takes into account everything we’ve discussed up to this point, says the following. We need to distinguish between two things—and I once wrote this in two articles in Tzohar, really two responses in Tzohar. There was an article by Dror Fixler about the fact that Maimonides says that the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot are physics and metaphysics. And then he argues that in fact studying science and studying philosophy is genuine Torah study. Jewish law is a small thing; the great thing is the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot. “A small thing”—the discussions of Abaye and Rava. And in my response there I tried to suggest a different definition, and that’s where it first occurred to me, and now I’m expanding it further. I argued that this is Torah in the subject, not Torah in the object. What does that mean? Even in the yeshiva terminology, you can make a distinction between “in the subject” and “in the object,” meaning subjective and objective. Something “in the object” means: that’s what it is, period. Regardless of how I see it, regardless of what I do with it, in itself it is such. That’s called “in the object.” By contrast, “in the subject” means the question is how I relate to the thing—epistemology versus metaphysics, versus ontology—the thing itself versus how I perceive it. For example, an oath and a vow: a vow is a prohibition by virtue of the object itself, not just because I am prohibited from it. Because it is a prohibition in the object itself, therefore I too am forbidden to profane the thing. Okay? By contrast, an oath is a law in the subject. What does that mean? The thing itself has no prohibition at all; it is not a prohibited object. But I am forbidden to do it because I took it upon myself. Meaning, it determines only my relation to the thing; it is not a property of the thing itself. That is the distinction between object and subject in the Talmud itself, at the beginning of tractate Nedarim, and Rabbi Chaim of Brisk expands this of course to many other places, but the distinction is this distinction: subjective and objective. I want to argue that in Torah study too we have these two things—or in Torah, and in Torah study, we have these two things. There is Torah in the subject and Torah in the object. What does that mean? When you study Jewish law, or analytical study of Jewish law, halakhic conceptual analysis, then you are studying Torah in the object. What does Torah in the object mean? That everything you studied is Torah. It has nothing to do with whether you agree with what you studied, whether you don’t agree with what you studied, whether it built something in you, whether it didn’t build something in you. I hold the view that if you studied the Ketzot and you don’t agree with him, then don’t agree with him. That says nothing from your standpoint. In other words, it didn’t actually give you anything on the level of practical conduct. I oppose precedent-based halakhic rulings. Meaning, I do not rule this way because the Ketzot’s view is such-and-such, or I rule this way because the Shakh’s view is such-and-such. No. I rule neither because the Ketzot says this nor because the Shakh says that, but because that’s what I think. Like the Ketzot, or like the Shakh, or like neither of them. Okay? So in terms of what it contributes to me, apparently if in the end I don’t agree with the Ketzot’s argument, then I didn’t learn something that gave me some ethical teaching.

[Speaker D] But it sharpened the different sides for you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The different sides, and it—

[Speaker D] Helped you formulate your position.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but that’s just preparatory to the commandment, again. I’m saying I want to claim more than that. I want to claim that it doesn’t matter whether I agree or not. Since the Ketzot is a certain facet through which one can grasp what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants in Jewish law. That is one of the conceptions. I may grasp it or not, but clearly it is one of the conceptions. Okay? And therefore, when I taught—when I studied the Ketzot, I studied Torah. It doesn’t matter at all whether it built something in me, whether I liked it, didn’t like it, agree with him, disagree with him. And what would you say to this? What? And if the Ketzot hadn’t said it? It doesn’t matter; I’m bringing the Ketzot as an example. Even my own initial suggestion is the same thing. That’s what they always bring: “Whatever a veteran student will one day innovate.” And Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin writes there, and there are various parallel midrashim—even “what questions a young student would ask, the Holy One, blessed be He, told Moses at Sinai,” meaning even incorrect things. In contrast, when I study ethics, Hebrew Bible, thought, various things of that sort, I want to argue that this should be defined as Torah in the subject. What does that mean? If it built something in me in terms of a Torah worldview, in ethics, in character traits, or something like that, I say—apparently I say, and this is a bit of yielding to tradition; I’m not sure I know how to define it well—

[Speaker A] So why isn’t Tolstoy that too?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, who said it isn’t?

[Speaker A] Torah in the subject—we’ll get to Tolstoy too in a moment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying that’s Torah in the subject. What does that mean? From my perspective, in terms of my relationship to these things, it contributed to me. Meaning, it added something to my Torah perspective, to my way of looking at the world—spiritual, moral, whatever you want—so I say: apparently something like that has some kind of Torah value. What the Sages call wisdom—I think they mean Torah in the subject. And then indeed, the Guide for the Perplexed and the Kuzari and Hasidism—if it contributes something, then fine, that’s Torah in the subject. But if not, if it contributes nothing to you, then it is neglect of Torah study. That’s the difference between that and the Ketzot. Meaning, it depends on the question of what you gained from it. As opposed to studying halakhic analysis or studying laws, where that is study of the word of God, period. It draws its status as Torah study from the fact that it is the word of God. Meaning, it doesn’t matter whether you agree with it or not; it is objective. Because the Ketzot revealed another facet in the word of God, which perhaps I don’t agree with, I don’t see it that way—fine, we said that—but still, there is such a facet. By contrast, thought, as I said earlier, does not reveal a facet in the word of God, because philosophy or religious thought is not created as interpretation of earlier texts—we talked about that. It is not done that way. Thought is the product of the thinker’s own creativity. He uses midrashim or various sources as illustrations, but it doesn’t come from there; he doesn’t present it as interpretation. Therefore there it will depend on what it does to me. Meaning, if it does something for me—and here I partly accept all the comments raised here, and I also said I accepted them earlier during the breaks, that I feel this gives me such-and-such, this gives me such-and-such, a connection here, a connection there—fine, perhaps all these things can be called Torah in the subject. I don’t know, maybe yes. I’m doubtful how far one can recite the blessing over Torah on that, by the way, because it really has more to do with the question that it gives me a certain value. The question is whether it is the value of Torah study in the hardcore sense—I don’t know. It gives me value, gives me—I don’t know—a connection to previous generations, raises my awe of Heaven, everything is wonderful. Who says that this is Torah study? Physics? What? We haven’t gotten to Tolstoy yet, or physics; we’ll get to everything. So my claim is basically this: if we take the two views I mentioned earlier and present them visually, yes? Let’s take a certain circle. In its center, in my view, is Jewish law, and around it are all the satellites: thought, ethics, Hebrew Bible, aggadah, all the surrounding things. Okay? The thesis is that all of this is Torah—all of it yellow, all of it black, all of it Torah—and what is outside is ordinary, non-sacred material. Outside meaning Tolstoy, physics—that’s ordinary material. The antithesis is that Jewish law is Torah, in black, and what surrounds it is white—it’s like Tolstoy, it’s the same thing. And the synthesis is to say that what’s in the middle is black, and what’s around it is gray. And far, far away there is also white. All right? If there is any, we’ll see in a moment. Now, the gray area means Torah in the subject. Not just mundane matters, but Torah in the subject. Meaning, this is something of value, perhaps even of Torah value. It is hard for me to define it as actual Torah study. I am doubtful how far one can recite the blessing over Torah on it, but I cannot ignore this whole tradition that says yes, when one studies it, one is engaged in Torah. I don’t know. I’m very torn about these things—how much I am yielding here to something that in truth I wouldn’t really agree with. I don’t know. It’s some kind of compromise that I somehow feel maybe more comfortable with. But the meaning is that on the one hand I reduced Torah in the object. I am not willing to see the entire circle as black. The hardcore side, yes. But on the other hand you expanded the—right, and Torah in the subject I expand completely. Meaning: Tolstoy, Kant, physics, it’s all the same. As far as I’m concerned there is no difference between that and the Guide for the Perplexed. No difference in the world between studying Einstein, studying Kant, and studying the Guide for the Perplexed. None. In my way of thinking there is no difference.

[Speaker E] So there is a difference between Kant and physics, in that Kant is something moral, maybe not halakhic, but physics doesn’t even have a moral implication. I mean, it just tells you the electron is such-and-such…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you’re learning the work of the Holy One, blessed be He. You’re learning the Account of Creation, the Account of the Chariot.

[Speaker F] Why? What practical difference does it make?

[Speaker E] The Account of Creation—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No practical difference. But one ought to study the Account of Creation. That’s my interpretation of the Account of Creation. I haven’t gotten to Torah yet, to Scripture I haven’t gotten yet.

[Speaker E] But in physics there’s no connection at all to human choice. I mean, even if I don’t know what an electron is—who said?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who said that with Kant you have—or that you can—

[Speaker E] Use that for the horizon of your choices?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a different domain, but still a domain. The book of Genesis begins with the creation of the world.

[Speaker E] Rashi asks why the Torah began with the creation of the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of the world, and he answers what he answers. And in the end that is part of Torah. A part of Torah that is perhaps Torah in the subject, I said. I’ll still get to Scripture, where the definitions shift a bit. So in principle, for now, that falls under Torah—

[Speaker E] In the subject.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, for that part. But I think this distinction won’t take it out of the category of Torah in the subject. Obviously these are different domains. Maimonides himself speaks about the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot. The Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot are things that have no practical implication—neither the Account of Creation nor the Account of the Chariot.

[Speaker C] They have no halakhic implications, but according to him they are supposed to bring a person to awe of God and love of Him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Awe of God as a consequence, yes—but physics can also bring a person to awe of God, and Tolstoy can also bring him to awe of God, and therefore in that way he fulfills a commandment. But that’s also true of the things Maimonides talks about, yes? Only if it brings you to awe of God, then it is Torah in the subject—that’s what I’m saying. And if not, then it’s neglect of Torah study. Kant and Or HaChaim and the Maharal and everyone else—it’s all the same. As far as I’m concerned there is no difference.

[Speaker E] But Kant isn’t only a matter of awe of God. Here too it’s a matter of actually doing what… what is the content of the things. So what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not only thought, no. Awe of God and love of God are just examples. Meaning, if it contributes to you some Torah value, then it is Torah in the subject. And if not, then it is neglect of Torah study. What is a Torah value? Ethics, deeper understanding of the world, whatever it may be, understanding of the human being, I don’t know, all kinds of things. Okay? Everything that commentators do, say commentators on the Torah. Yes? We talked about Proverbs or Pirkei Avot. So you draw various lessons. What do you learn from the stories of Jacob and Esau, or of Pinchas and zealotry, and so on? What do you learn from it? Basically human lessons that you can learn from many, many other texts. Exactly the same thing, no difference whatsoever. So what does that mean? It probably means that this is Torah in the subject. Meaning, if it contributed something to you, then it is Torah.

[Speaker A] There are contents that appear among the nations of the world, but because of their different character a different system was created. Every culture has Cinderella stories. Our Cinderella stories are Ruth the Moabite and Queen Esther; they have a different character. Here we see the light of Rebecca. Maybe here it’s some story that has moral significance—not that they measure the length of her shoe, but they measure her character traits: “I have seen all that you did for your mother-in-law”—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “All that—”

[Speaker A] Boaz said.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sometimes there is a different value, and sometimes there isn’t. Even among the wicked gentiles there are stories with correct, good moral lessons. It’s not categorical that every single thing that came out—every Cinderella story you’ll find among a gentile is one kind of thing, and if you find it among a Jew it is another. I don’t agree. Factually I don’t agree—not on values, just factually it is not true. There are stories created among gentiles that contain important, good, true values, and not everything there is crooked. And if something is not true, then it’s not true even if it came from a Jew. Are there not enough crooked things that came from Jews? Even if they’re written in Assyrian script. The claim is basically that on the one hand I greatly narrow Torah in the object, but on the other hand I greatly expand Torah in the subject. Meaning, these are two seemingly opposite processes, but really they are two sides of the same coin. And I think that if you really look at it, it also answers both the definitions I quoted at the beginning of what study is and what Torah is, and also overall what we’re used to, the common wisdom, what the tradition tells us. You just have to be willing to make this distinction and adopt these definitions. If not—if you don’t accept conversion as a substitute for content-based criteria—then you can say: whatever came out of a Jew’s belly is Jewish. Meaning, the text is judged by its father. When the father in this case is usually… all right…

[Speaker C] What? A Jew, a Torah scholar, someone with awe of Heaven.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, that’s what is meant.

[Speaker F] How does Torah in the subject answer the definition of Torah? Maybe it’s an upgrade, but not really Torah? What do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does Torah in the subject answer the definition of Torah study? Because I learn from here all kinds of things that the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to teach me, expects me to do, tells me: do this—

[Speaker F] And if you find something incorrect, then you won’t do it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, exactly. That’s why it’s in the subject. Now I’m refining what I quoted earlier. When I now engage in ethical analysis, okay? Analysis of a moral issue through a Torah text. I discuss questions and clarify some moral issue or another. From my standpoint I am clarifying the word of God. Even though what I ultimately end up with will be what I become convinced is correct; there won’t be a text that obligates me. Yes? So in that sense it is like studying thought, like any other kind of study, where I say—I soften the sharp definitions I gave at the beginning. So if there is a text here that obligates me, that is Torah in the object. Not a definition of Torah, but a definition of Torah in the object.

[Speaker F] Because I have an obligation to be moral?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, because the Holy One, blessed be He, expects me to be moral. “Obligation” is already a more halakhic matter, but He expects me to be moral, or expects me to know His works—the Account of Creation, the Account of the Chariot. No problem. So I fulfill knowing them. But there is nothing authoritative here in the sense of something that dictates to me. Rather, after I become convinced that it is true, from my standpoint that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects. Meaning that after I clarify a moral issue, then the result obligates me because the Holy One, blessed be He, expects me to act according to that result—even though that result is what I think. Fine, it is what I think is moral. But why do it? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, expects me to act morally. So there is an element of authority here—not in the sense that He will tell me what to do, but in the sense of: you decide what is right to do, but whatever you decide, I expect you to do it, and if you don’t do it you will be punished.

[Speaker A] Fine, that’s true. After all, we said that reasoning is preferable—why is reasoning called—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I distinguish between interpretive reasoning and innovative reasoning. Interpretive reasoning is Torah in every respect, because you are interpreting things whose foundation is in Jewish law. But here this is not interpretive reasoning; this is reasoning that creates something new. Reasoning that creates something new really is a different story.

[Speaker C] Wait, why isn’t that interpretive reasoning? If there is, say, a commandment in the Torah of “and you shall walk in His ways,” and that is understood to mean refinement of all character traits, and then I say that I have reasoning that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it falls under “and you shall walk in His ways,” then it is Torah study. But I don’t think it falls under that. I don’t think it falls under that. But if it does fall under the commandment of “and you shall walk in His ways,” then it is Torah study.

[Speaker C] No, but even if the intentions come through reasoning, and I know—how the Holy One, blessed be He—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, if you say—I say it’s a means, it’s a means for fulfilling the… When I study physics, all right? Am I fulfilling the commandment of love of God? I don’t think so. It may be that physics will help me love the Holy One, blessed be He, so then perhaps it will be a preparatory means to a commandment, if it helps me. I don’t think that by doing so I am interpreting the commandment of love of God. It is a means—

[Speaker C] Through which I fulfill the commandment of love of God. We need to distinguish between things. Physics, apparently, is something that is a means for fulfillment—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m talking about a means for… If it is an interpretation of the commandments to walk in His ways or to cleave to Him, then indeed it can be Torah study, if you really think that is interpretation. I think it is “and you shall do what is right and good,” and not “walk in His ways.” And “you shall do what is right and good” is not a commandment.

[Speaker C] Not a commandment, but it is still a verse in the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I am interpreting the Torah. A verse in the Torah—fine, a verse in the Torah, like in Genesis. Verses in the Torah in Genesis are of that sort; for now that is Torah in the subject. In another moment I’ll go even lower, or retreat even further from what I said. I said I hadn’t yet gotten to Scripture; meanwhile I’m talking about other things. So basically what I’m trying to propose here is a narrowing of Torah in the object and an expansion of Torah in the subject. And still I am not willing to see any difference between texts written in Rashi script and texts written in square script, or in a colorful binding, or a brown or black binding with gold letters. That changes nothing. The criterion has to be a content-based criterion. I don’t think the criterion is whether some rebbe bought it from someone and converted it—or circumcised it, in this case; he’s getting dividends out of it. Yes? So it’s like the work Mekor Chaim, I think, by Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol, I think, which for centuries was known as a work of a Muslim philosopher. That’s what people always thought. At some point it was discovered that it was a work by Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol. Did it now become Torah? Because it’s a philosophical work by Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol? This shows the accepted views in their absurdity, because you see that it never would have occurred to you that a Jew wrote this work until they told you. So why is it Torah? And in what sense is it different from al-Farabi or all the other Muslim philosophers, or Anglo-Saxon philosophers, I don’t care, what difference does it make, any philosopher at all? Why is there a difference? I don’t understand. Why should I care who wrote it? There’s some sort of notion that it goes through immersion like a convert, as if it converted, went to the ritual bath, the ideas got circumcised, and they became Jewish, they became Torah. It’s some kind of mysticism that I can’t understand where it comes from or what it means. In my view the criterion has to be a criterion of content. But let’s go one step further. There is nothing in the world that is necessarily not Torah in the subject. That’s why I said I’m doubtful whether there is any white area beyond the gray. Anything in the world can bring people to spiritual, moral, emotional insights.

[Speaker D] You know what—a cookbook is Torah in the subject?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, maybe. For someone who says, listen, I don’t know, I learn from it how things are put together, the smell of a spice, or a different taste—I don’t know exactly what. I don’t know what things do for people, so I can’t judge. But I’m saying in principle, if someone tells me, listen, this gives me some insights—I don’t know—Yeshayahu Leibowitz once said that enjoying ice cream is lowly, but enjoying wine is a spiritual pleasure. Yes, I never had the privilege of understanding that point. To me both are nonsense. But I don’t know. If he testifies that… from my point of view that is neglect of Torah study—from my point of view. That’s why I say I don’t know whether there is any area that is objectively neglect of Torah study. From anything you can derive all sorts of things and learn all sorts of things. I once wrote a post about basketball—how do you measure the quality of a basketball player? So from that too—I very much enjoy playing basketball, watching basketball; playing basketball less so, I took a risk. But I never thought it was Torah when I looked at those things. But suddenly I saw that I managed to derive from it all sorts of interesting ideas and insights—so does that become Torah in the subject? I think so. I see no difference between that and the Guide for the Perplexed. What difference do you see? There is no difference at all.

[Speaker F] Or the Maharal, or yes, or all of Hasidism, or whatever. If one doesn’t recite the blessings over Torah on it, what is Torah in the subject?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? If one doesn’t recite the blessings over Torah on it, what is Torah in the subject in practical terms? Yes, there is something to that.

[Speaker F] That’s why I say, the area here is very blurry.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] By the way, I’m not sure—

[Speaker F] That one does not recite on it—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I tend to think one does not recite on it; I don’t know. On Kant one presumably does not recite the blessings over Torah. Why? Who told you not? Just as with the Guide for the Perplexed. But with the Guide for the Perplexed many people will simply tell you yes. And whoever says yes—then on Kant too, yes. You’re just not in the right places. There are yeshivot that if you walk into them, they have absolutely no doubt that one recites the blessing over Torah on the Guide for the Perplexed. Average hesder yeshivot, I think all of them. They have no doubt that one recites the blessing over Torah on the Guide. And on the other hand, it’s obvious to them that on Kant one does not. And I don’t understand the difference. In that sense I’m completely a Litvak; I really do come from there. And I identify with it too—not only historically do I come from there, I think they are right that there is something problematic here. But on the other hand I cannot deny the value that there is in these things. You can even say it has Torah value—I am willing to accept that too. What exactly that means isn’t clear to me. So I say: as for the blessings over Torah, I tend to think not; there is nothing to recite over here. But to say this is just some sort of wisdom in the sense that it has no Torah significance at all—I don’t think that’s true. And what is Torah significance? I don’t know. That’s why I say I’m standing a bit in the air here, and I’m even a little embarrassed by this way of expressing it, but there’s no choice. I think that in the end this is supposed to be something like what the Sages said: “If one tells you there is wisdom among the nations, believe it; Torah among the nations, do not believe it.” They mean Torah in the subject. When they call it wisdom, I think they mean Torah in the subject. And that erases the difference between wisdom and Torah—or not erases it, but narrows the difference between Torah and wisdom.

[Speaker C] Usually people understand that statement literally—that anything spiritual you shouldn’t learn from the nations, only practical things.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Facts. Yes, only facts. So I think today it’s pretty clear that isn’t true. You can learn moral philosophy, and that can be very helpful even in contexts that are spiritual, contexts that are not merely factual. So I’m saying: this is the closest I can get both to the intuitions and the definitions I gave earlier, and at the same time somehow not completely shatter the accepted traditional views. I don’t know—something like that. But I want to move to the last stage in this process, and that is Scripture. Scripture poses a unique problem here. Because to say that Genesis is Torah in the subject—I’ll continue to attribute to you the psychological difficulties—it’s very hard. A divine document given to Moses our teacher directly by the Holy One, blessed be He, passed down from generation to generation, and on it all the interpretations and all the Talmudic discussions and everything we learn are built—and that is Torah in the subject. While the Ketzot is Torah in the object. I don’t know—maybe—but it’s hard. Let’s say that regarding the blessing over Torah, clearly one recites it over this; there is a dispute about this in the Talmud, but in the end it is clear that one does recite the blessing over Torah on Scripture. So as a fact of Jewish law regarding the blessing over Torah, there has been a halakhic ruling that this thing is Torah. Now if only Torah in the object warrants the blessing over Torah, then that means this is Torah in the object. But I said I’m not sure that only Torah in the object warrants the blessing over Torah. Let’s say, maybe it depends on whether in all Torah it is a blessing of praise or a blessing over a commandment. To the extent that it depends on… I don’t know. It can go in both directions. In any case, I think that what happens in the context of Scripture—and this is what confuses people very much—is that in Scripture it is quite clear that everything is Torah in the object. Including the narrative sections of the Torah, not only the legal verses. And from there people immediately jump to aggadah as well: what’s the difference between the narrative passages in the Talmud and the legal passages, and in Scripture? There is a difference. I’ll say what the difference is, and that is really the end of the picture I’m trying to describe.

[Speaker E] What about Prophets and Writings? Is that also considered Scripture?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, for me all of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is Scripture. But I’m talking about the Torah because there it is clearer, more unequivocal. Look, there is a difference—first of all, there is a clear difference between Scripture, or the Written Torah, and the Oral Torah, even after the Oral Torah was written down. It says regarding rescue from a fire, in the chapter “All the Sacred Writings,” as the Tosafot brings there, that today, since they permitted writing down the Oral Torah, one may rescue the Oral Torah from a fire as well. And many times in the Sages, the sanctity of books is always discussed through practical consequences. Do you rescue it from a fire, and does it impart impurity? Yes, the sacred writings render the hands impure. Does it render the hands impure, and does one rescue it from a fire?—which is a code term for saying that this is sacred writing. Fine? That’s just by way of practical consequences. So I’m saying, he says that even nowadays, even writings of the Oral Torah—Pentateuchs or Talmuds—one rescues them from a fire. On the Sabbath, after all, you’re not allowed to rescue things from a fire, but for sacred writings they permitted it, and for food for three meals they permitted it. So that includes Pentateuchs and Talmuds. But in the Oral Torah… what?

[Speaker C] Pentateuchs are Written Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, because it’s the holiness of a book. Just a moment, I’m getting to that now. There’s a difference between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah in this sense: in the Written Torah there is holiness of the wording itself. In the Oral Torah, the holiness is in the content. And that’s completely clear; it’s a categorical distinction. What does that mean? If you translate the Written Torah into English, it loses its holiness. What does it mean that it loses its holiness? If it isn’t written in a scroll on parchment and in ink, it loses its holiness. The book stops being a holy book in the strict legal sense. It’s a sacred text like a volume of Talmud, but it’s not a holy book. In principle it may not even require genizah. Why? Because in the Torah there really is a holiness that does not derive only from the content. It’s not because the content gets lost in translation. Maybe that too, maybe that’s an indication, but the point is that the holiness of the Torah does not derive only from its content. It’s an object-status, a cheftza. It is essentially a cheftza. Therefore all parts of the Torah, in the Written Torah, are holy as a cheftza. Why? If you write that very same idea but in another language—”Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” can be said in any language, right? That’s what Maimonides says, provided one is precise. And the Raavad asks him: in all languages these are translations, so who is there to be precise about its meaning? When you translate “Hear O Israel” into another language, it has lost its holiness. The content remains. Maimonides even emphasized that one can be precise in it, so the content remains, and still it is no longer a holy verse. Why is it no longer a holy verse? Because it is not written in its original wording. And the wording, and the form of writing, and the form of the book, and all the physical elements that define the book—those are what make it a holy book. That does not happen with the Talmud. If you translate the Talmud into English, there is no difference in holiness between the English volume and the Hebrew volume of the Talmud. Unless, of course, you translated it incorrectly, in which case it’s not Talmud. But if you translated it correctly, then it’s Talmud. There is no difference at all. There is no holiness in the wording of the Talmud. Unlike all sorts of people who do letter-skipping codes on the Talmud and Hasidic interpretations. Rabbi Yaakov says—you know that Ramah of Fano? In Bava Kamma it says, “Rabbi Yaakov exempt,” something like that. Everyone understands that Rabbi Yaakov said “exempt,” meaning that in his opinion one is exempt. No—it says “Rabbi Yaakov exempt”; it doesn’t say “Rabbi Yaakov said exempt.” And there’s a whole homily that the Ramah of Fano brings in the name of the Ari or a student of the Ari in Europe. That “Rabbi Yaakov exempt” hints to some secrets of I-don’t-know-what, that Rabbi Yaakov—I don’t know, I don’t remember exactly what. But that is interpreting the wording of the Talmud. That may be good for Hasidim. There’s no reason to interpret the wording of the Talmud; there is no holiness in the wording of the Talmud.

[Speaker E] But I understand that people do interpret the wording of the Mishnah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think they interpret the Mishnah that way; one has to be careful, it’s not exactly like that. Really, there may be precision there, but it’s not the same thing as holiness of the wording. If he had written that same nuance in some other language, it would have been just as holy. It’s different, you understand? And even there I’m not sure I agree, but that’s a different discussion. The point is that there is an essential difference between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah: in the Written Torah there is, of course, holiness of content, but not only that—there is also holiness of wording. In the Oral Torah there is holiness of content. And therefore I say: what is holiness of content? Holiness of content means that when the content comes from the Holy One, blessed be He, then it is Torah content. And if not, then not. Therefore, things about which I’m in doubt to what extent one can say they came from the Holy One, blessed be He—then that is not Torah, or it is Torah in the gavra, as we’ve been discussing until now. But all that is in the Oral Torah. I asked: what happens in the Written Torah? The whole book of Genesis until “This month shall be for you”—we brought Rashi’s question, right? Until “This month shall be for you,” why is this, why is this, why is this mentioned in the Torah? So in the end it entered the Torah. It entered the Torah, and it is an inseparable part of the Torah, including “and Timna was Lotan’s sister.” Why? What great ideas do we learn from “and Timna was Lotan’s sister”? So there are all kinds of homiletic interpretations, this one and that one; maybe they’re right, maybe they’re not. I don’t know. And the holiness does not derive from the interpretations. The interpretations derive from the fact that people think that “and Timna was Lotan’s sister” also has to belong to holiness of content, and therefore they have to search for content to explain why that too is holy. And I claim no: it is holy because it is the word of God. Leave it alone—even if you found no content in it at all, and maybe the Holy One, blessed be He, did not even intend to put any content there, I don’t know, I have no idea. It doesn’t matter, because the holiness—this wording is holy wording, as if it came out of the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He. Therefore there is something about the Written Torah where all these distinctions between the aggadic part and the halakhic part, between the fact that I don’t actually learn anything from it except what I understand from it—it doesn’t matter. If I am engaged with this text, then I am studying Torah as a cheftza. That’s the point. Because I am dealing with something that is Torah as a cheftza by definition itself—not in its content, but in its definition, in its wording. And therefore, in fact, this whole map that I sketched with regard to the Talmud, with regard to the Oral Torah, among the different areas—Jewish law, ethics, thought, all kinds of things of that sort—cannot be applied simply to the Bible. In the Bible, even the non-halakhic sections, it seems there is no avoiding seeing them as Torah as a cheftza.

Now the question is where the boundary lies. Biblical interpretation—when in the end one interprets the verses, I mean the non-halakhic commentators, yes? Because the halakhic Talmud is interpretation of the halakhic part of the Bible, in principle. Say Rashi, Ibn Ezra, no matter, Rashbam, the commentators on Scripture—where exactly, to what extent exactly, is this engagement with the text itself, and to what extent is it really some kind of intellectual literature of the sort I talked about before, where all the lessons drawn there are human, philosophical, psychological lessons, whatever they may be. I don’t know where the line runs. Can one say that as long as I’m dealing with a verse and trying to understand what is written in the verse, that is Torah as a cheftza? Never mind that in the end the lessons I derive are lessons I could also have gotten from Dale Carnegie. Not only that, but I derive those lessons only if I agree with them. If I don’t agree with them, then those won’t be the lessons, so I’ll arrange the verse in such a way that those won’t be the lessons. Everything I said earlier about aggadah is true about the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). There is no difference in terms of how it behaves, factually, how it works. And still, on the level of what it means in the normative sense, how one should relate to such a thing, there is some difference. Exactly where the line runs, I don’t know. But there is some difference that has to be taken into account here, because here there really is some significance to the text itself, to the wording itself, to this particular collection of words, unlike the Talmud, where it is only a bundle of content. Translate it—and we talked about the differential equation that describes that mishnah in Mikvaot, right? So that is simply a translation of the mishnah into mathematics. So in the end you are engaged in the same thing in another language. So maybe that is not called “from within it,” what I spoke about there, but on the principled level, if it were clear from that what was written in English, then nobody would doubt that this is called Torah study. You studied the mishnah in Mikvaot in English. Fine? But obviously, even if you study the Torah and do it in English, you are studying Torah—but the text you write itself will no longer be Torah, will not be Torah as a cheftza in that sense. Okay? Exactly where the line runs, I can’t say.

[Speaker E] The commandment of writing a Torah scroll—does that apply to the content or to the wording? The wording, obviously.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Writing them. The Rosh, that same Rosh who writes that one also fulfills the obligation by writing volumes of Talmud and so on, is the same Rif we talked about regarding the printing press shadow—who says that today, after they permitted writing down the Oral Torah, there are many laws of Torah as a cheftza that apply also to the Oral Torah. To what in the Oral Torah? Does that apply to Jewish law, or to Talmud, or to aggadah, or something like that? It may depend on everything we discussed earlier. And again, I can suggest possible lines, but I have no real substance; I don’t know how to justify them. I can tell you my intuitions, nothing beyond that.