Torah and Torah Study, Lesson 10

Table of Contents

• Levels of concretization of the Torah and the midrash about Moses and the angels
• Thought, words, and Rashba versus Tosafot
• The holy tongue: Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed
• Nachmanides and the Raavad against Maimonides
• The Kuzari, the cantillation marks, and Bialik on the failures of language
• The holy tongue and levels of contraction: two concretizations or three
• The reason of the verse, three Tannaitic views, and Maimonides’ approach
• Kant, “the thing in itself,” and contraction that is not an error
• Halakhic implications: the recitation of Shema according to Maimonides and the Raavad
• Arukh HaShulchan and the reservation about translation in our time
• The Megillah in a foreign language: Maimonides versus the Jerusalem Talmud and Nachmanides
• The Written Torah and the Oral Torah: the sanctity of the wording and the sanctity of the book
• The Scroll of Esther as a seamline: sanctity of wording without full sanctity of a book
• Laws of rescue from a fire and missing text in the Megillah: book and letter

Summary

General Overview

The text presents three levels of concretization/contraction with regard to the Torah: an abstract Torah that can wear different garments, even to the point of fitting the world of the angels; the descent of the ideas into commandments and laws relevant to our world; and then verbal formulation and practical interpretation all the way down to everyday Jewish law. It ties the question whether one can think without words to the question of the relationship between idea and formulation, and brings a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim) about the meaning of “the holy tongue” between Maimonides on one side and Nachmanides, the Raavad, and the Kuzari on the other, with halakhic implications for the recitation of Shema and the Megillah. In the end it returns to the distinction between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah through the sanctity of the wording and the sanctity of the book, and argues that the Scroll of Esther sits on the seam: it has a clear sanctity of wording alongside only partial sanctity of a book.

Levels of concretization of the Torah and the midrash about Moses and the angels

The text describes Torah in an abstract sense in which even angels can engage in it, even though commandments such as honoring father and mother, the Exodus from Egypt, or working six days have no relevance to them; and yet in the midrash the angels ask that the Torah remain with them. It argues that the midrash teaches that the commandments in our hands are a garment the Torah wears and not the Torah itself, and that in the world of the angels the Torah wears a different garment relevant to them, but it is “the same thing.” It uses the example of Zen in the art of archery to show how different actions can convey the same “conceptual foundation” or “set of principles.” It sets out three levels: the move from the abstract Torah to the collection of commandments/laws relevant to our world; then the move of the ideas into verbal formulation; and finally the interpretations and details that bring us to practical Jewish law in everyday life.

Thought, words, and Rashba versus Tosafot

The text brings Rashba in Berakhot against Tosafot in Shabbat on the question whether it is possible to think without words or whether one necessarily thinks in words, and explains that Rashba does not mean that one does not think in words, but that the essence of thought is not the verbal formulation. It argues that words represent a prior idea, and therefore the essence of thought cannot be the words themselves, because forming a sentence depends on the idea the sentence describes. It explains that on this basis Rashba can derive from “Hear, O Israel” both that it must be uttered aloud and that it may be said “in any language,” because thought is not dependent on any specific language.

The holy tongue: Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed

The text quotes Maimonides in Guide for the Perplexed, part 3 chapter 8, who explains that our language is called “the holy tongue” because no explicit name was assigned in it for the sexual organ, the act that brings about reproduction, semen, and emission; instead these matters are spoken of through borrowed terms and hints. It emphasizes that according to Maimonides the holiness is expressed in the fact that “these things are not fit to be mentioned in such a way that names should be assigned to them,” and when there is a need to mention them one uses the device of euphemisms and hints, just as the acts themselves are done in private. It connects this to the idea that holiness is linked to concealment and modesty, similar to Rashi’s comment on “You shall be holy” as “you shall be separate” from forbidden sexual relations.

Nachmanides and the Raavad against Maimonides

The text brings Nachmanides on Exodus 30 (Ki Tisa), who argues that the language of the Torah is called the holy tongue because the words of Torah, prophecy, and holy speech were spoken in it; it is the language in which the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks with His prophets and with His congregation; in it He is called by His holy names; and with it He created His world and gave names to all that is in it, including the names of the angels and the patriarchs. It presents Nachmanides’ criticism of Maimonides’ reason and says that he claims it “is not true,” because such terms do in fact appear in Scripture, and he concludes that according to Maimonides’ reason it should have been called a “clean language” rather than “the holy tongue.” It also brings the Raavad in his commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, who explains that the holy tongue is called that because it “extends and emanates from the source of holiness,” and presents this as a direction that smells of a higher source and not merely an arbitrary choice.

The Kuzari, the cantillation marks, and Bialik on the failures of language

The text quotes the Kuzari, article 2 section 72, which defines the purpose of language as bringing what is in the speaker’s soul into the soul of the listener, and argues that in general this intention is not completed perfectly except face to face, because spoken language is helped by intonation, pauses, motions, hints, and body language. It argues that according to the Kuzari, in the holy tongue subtle and deep matters were embedded in a way that allows understanding even without all those supplements, and that the cantillation marks in Scripture depict pause and connection, question and statement, haste and calmness, command and request. It compares this to Bialik’s passage from “Revelation and Concealment in Language,” which presents the bridge of words as shaky and the abyss beneath it as deep, and adds that the listener too may hear in the speech more than the speaker himself knows, as is brought in the name of Rabbi Kook about “the one who squeezes the pomegranate in honey.”

The holy tongue and levels of contraction: two concretizations or three

The text formulates the three concretizations as follows: the first concretization is clothing the abstract Torah in the world of our concepts, like Sabbath and honoring parents; the second concretization is translating the ideas into verbal formulation; and the third concretization is interpretation and application. It attributes to the Kuzari and to the direction of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who disagree with Maimonides the claim that in the holy tongue the second concretization is not a contraction that generates errors, because the verbal formulation matches the idea one to one, and therefore there are “only two concretizations and not three.” It then contrasts this with Maimonides’ position, according to which there is no essential difference between Hebrew and other languages, and raises the possibility that the precision of the formulation stems from the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, formulated it, and not from any unique property of the holy tongue itself.

The reason of the verse, three Tannaitic views, and Maimonides’ approach

The text brings Maimonides’ commentary to the Mishnah in Sanhedrin, which presents three Tannaitic views regarding “He shall not have too many wives,” and not just the dispute between Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda, and emphasizes that Maimonides rules like the first Tanna, that one does not derive law from the reason of the verse even where the reason is written in the Torah. It explains that Maimonides sees a contradiction between a purposive conclusion and the literal interpretation not as a flaw in the Torah’s wording but as an error in purposive analysis, and demonstrates this with “He shall not have too many wives, lest his heart turn away,” where on Maimonides’ understanding an excess of wives turns the king’s heart away even if they are righteous women, because the king will occupy himself with them instead of with his duties. It connects this to the idea that purposive interpretation is already the “third concretization,” where human intellect is involved and therefore there is room for error.

Kant, “the thing in itself,” and contraction that is not an error

The text compares the lack of access to the “first concretization” to Kant’s claim about phenomena versus noumena, and illustrates this with the question of the color of the lectern “in itself” and with the claim that color exists only in human consciousness, even though there is something in reality that causes the sensation of color. It concludes that perception always means casting something into the patterns of consciousness, and therefore the contraction is not necessarily an error, but rather the only way to grasp the abstract. It distinguishes between the first concretization, which does not generate errors, and the second concretization, which usually does generate errors because of the move from idea to words, and presents the novelty of the Kuzari as saying that the holy tongue spares even that price.

Halakhic implications: the recitation of Shema according to Maimonides and the Raavad

The text brings Maimonides in the Laws of the Recitation of Shema, chapter 2, that a person may recite Shema in any language he understands, and that he must be careful not to distort it and must be precise in that language just as in the holy tongue. It brings the Raavad’s gloss, who argues, “This is not acceptable to reason,” because all languages are interpretations, and who can be exact about an interpretation? It then presents the Nazir’s explanation in Kol HaNevuah that the dispute depends on the question of the uniqueness of the holy tongue. It raises the possibility that Maimonides means precision either as respect for the wording or as precision of content, and suggests that Maimonides sees, in principle, the possibility of precision in any language if the understanding is complete, whereas the Raavad sees translation as interpretation and therefore inherently exposed to deviation.

Arukh HaShulchan and the reservation about translation in our time

The text brings Arukh HaShulchan in the laws of the recitation of Shema, section 62, who limits the permission of “in any language” to the time of the Mishnah and the Talmud, when they knew our language well and could transfer it accurately, whereas nowadays there are many doubts about the meaning of words and disputes among commentators. It notes examples such as totafot, the interpretations of “Hear, O Israel,” “tzitzit,” “thread,” and especially the difficulty that “the main point is that we do not know how to render the divine name properly,” and concludes that in practice nowadays it is not proper to recite Shema and prayer in another language, only in Hebrew.

The Megillah in a foreign language: Maimonides versus the Jerusalem Talmud and Nachmanides

The text brings Maimonides in the Laws of Megillah, chapter 2, who permits one to fulfill the obligation with a Megillah written in translation or in another language only for someone who knows that language, and only if it is written in the script of that language; and he explains that if it is written in Hebrew script and read in Aramaic, then this person is reading by heart. It quotes the Maggid Mishneh, who brings Rashi’s view that even someone who knows Ashurit and a foreign language can fulfill the obligation in the foreign language, but on the other hand brings in the name of the Jerusalem Talmud, Rashba, and Nachmanides that someone who knows Ashurit and a foreign language “himself does not fulfill the obligation in a foreign language,” but is required to do so in Ashurit. It explains this as a continuation of that same fundamental dispute: according to Maimonides, understanding is the main thing and there is no essential uniqueness to Ashurit, whereas according to Nachmanides and Rashba, Ashurit is the precise formulation and is therefore preferable even for someone capable of understanding it.

The Written Torah and the Oral Torah: the sanctity of the wording and the sanctity of the book

The text returns to two distinctions presented between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah: in the Written Torah there is sanctity of the wording, whereas in the Oral Torah there is only sanctity of the content; and in the Written Torah there is also sanctity of the book itself, whereas books of the Oral Torah, “in principle, can be thrown in the trash according to the strict law.” In light of the Kuzari, it suggests that the sanctity of the Torah’s wording can be understood as deriving from the sanctity of the content, because the wording is the most distilled and precise expression of the content, and any other expression already introduces interpretation and exposure to error. It quotes the homily in Gittin 60 on “Write this for yourself” versus “for according to these words,” from which they learn that matters that are written you are not permitted to say by heart, and matters that are oral you are not permitted to write down, and it brings the Tur, who explains the recitation of verses by heart on the grounds that there is no concern for error when the material is familiar. It explains that the prohibition on writing the Oral Torah stems from the concern that writing will fix errors and grant them the authority of something “written,” and it presents the writing of the Oral Torah as a necessary tragedy that leads to enslavement to written formulations and harmful over-precision—except for Maimonides, where “it is possible to infer precisely from his wording,” because he testified that he thought through every word.

The Scroll of Esther as a seamline: sanctity of wording without full sanctity of a book

The text presents the Scroll of Esther as an intermediate historical and conceptual state between the end of the Written Torah and the beginning of the Oral Torah, and brings the Talmud in Shevuot 39, which finds in “They confirmed and accepted” a source for commandments that would later be newly instituted, such as the reading of the Megillah, and interprets this as an opening into the era of the Oral Torah. It brings the Talmud in Megillah 7 that Esther sent to the sages, “Establish me for future generations” and “Write me for future generations,” and that the sages feared the jealousy of the nations, until Esther replied, “I am already written in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia,” and in the end they derived from “Write this as a memorial in the book” a third place for the Megillah alongside Torah and Prophets. It brings Samuel’s statement that Esther “does not render the hands impure,” and resolves it with “it was said to be read and not said to be written,” and explains this as the claim that Esther has sanctity of wording for reading through divine inspiration, but not necessarily the full sanctity of a book like the sacred writings. It adds that the status of Esther, and of other books such as Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, is the subject of a Tannaitic dispute around the criterion of “it was said with divine inspiration.”

Laws of rescue from a fire and missing text in the Megillah: book and letter

The text brings from the Shulchan Arukh the view that a Scroll of Esther that does not contain divine names is not considered holy enough to be rescued from a fire if it is not written properly in Ashurit on parchment and with ink, implying that if it is written according to the law one does rescue it. It brings the Shulchan Arukh in section 691, that one must read the entire Megillah from a written text and that reading by heart does not fulfill the obligation; but after the fact, if the scribe omitted words in the middle—even up to half of it—and the reader read the missing part by heart, he has fulfilled the obligation. It presents this as a unique law in which the wording requires full precision, but the book itself may be incomplete to a considerable extent. It explains this through the rule that the Scroll of Esther “is called a book and is called a letter,” and therefore it has laws of a book and laws of a letter, and it is not “entirely a book” in the sense of absolute sanctity of a book, even though its wording is precise.

So last time we talked about levels of abstraction regarding a subject that can be discussed in relation to the Torah. There is the Torah in some abstract sense, in which even angels can engage, like the midrash we saw with Moses our teacher: they don’t have a father and mother, they didn’t leave Egypt, they don’t work six days; ostensibly all the commandments of the Torah are irrelevant to them, and yet the angels struggle with Moses because they want the Torah to remain with them. He asks them: what exactly did you learn in the Torah? Apparently, once again, obviously this is a midrash, but what the midrash is coming to say is that even the commandments in our hands are some kind of particular garment that the Torah wears, but that is not the Torah itself. And in the world of the angels the Torah wears a different garment, one that is relevant to angels, and it won’t be honoring father and mother, or keeping the Sabbath, or anything else—but it will be the same thing. We brought the example of Zen in the art of archery, where you can do things that are completely different, but really these are different kinds of frequencies that convey the same conceptual foundation or the same set of principles. That is a first abstraction.

A second abstraction—and here we get to the collection, let’s call them the commandments or the Jewish laws—which is already the first garment that the Torah wears that is relevant to our world. After that there is the transition of these ideas into words; that is a second abstraction—actually, a second concretization and not a second abstraction—where you formulate “Honor your father and your mother” or “Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it”; you formulate it in words. The moment you formulate it in words, it already undergoes another restriction; in effect you have narrowed the content even further, because the idea as such can also be interpreted in various ways, formulated in various ways, it is much more amorphous, and once it is formulated it is already something sharper. And of course even after it has been formulated, and the Torah, say if we’re speaking about the Written Torah, has been formulated in something, now the interpretations come, and the details we derive, and those different interpretations through which we understand things—and that is already a third abstraction. And only there, really, do we arrive at Jewish law as we observe it in everyday life. Because when I observe it in everyday life, it has gone through all these routes of abstraction and concretization, and then you know what has to be done, and it ends with some instruction about a specific situation: what should or should not be done in this particular case. But on the way there, it went through at least three levels of abstraction.

We spoke a bit about thought; we also saw the Rashba in Berakhot as opposed to Tosafot in Shabbat regarding the question whether one can think without words, or whether we necessarily think in words. I said that I don’t think the Rashba means to say that we do not think in words; rather, it is clear that one can also think in words, but the essence of thought is not the verbal formulation. The verbal formulation only represents the thought. It cannot be that the essence of thought is the verbal formulation, because the words come to express some idea. If I don’t have some idea that the words express, then how do I create the collection of words that I am thinking? When I think, say, “Honor your father and your mother,” clearly I am not—those may be words I am reading from the Torah, not words I created; the Torah created them. But suppose I am thinking a sentence that I myself created—how did I create that sentence? Clearly I create it as a description of some idea that the sentence describes. So that means there was some idea in the background that found expression through the words.

And therefore, even though I understand that there is importance to words—and it is quite clear that one can think in words; on the contrary, it’s not clear to what extent one can think without words—what the Rashba is claiming is not that one cannot think in words or that one can think without words, but that the essence of thought is not the verbal part; that is what the Rashba intends to say. And therefore, if there is a law that has to be done in thought and not in speech, it is unreasonable to require that it be done דווקא in a specific language, in the holy tongue and not in another language, since in essence the language or formulation is not the idea of the thought; the thought is the formulated principle, not the formulation itself. And therefore the Rashba says that one can derive from the words “Hear, O Israel” both things: both that it has to be spoken aloud, and that it can be in any language. Because if it did not have to be spoken aloud, we would not have needed the novelty that it can be in any language. So that is a demonstration of the second abstraction I described earlier: taking the idea and translating it into verbal formulation.

Fine. And after that, I said, there are the interpretations and the details. Now I want to talk a bit about a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim) that touches on the holy tongue. In other words, this will connect us back to what I spoke about regarding the Written Torah and the Oral Torah: the sanctity of the formulation, the sanctity of the content, and the sanctity of the book. I spoke about this distinction in previous lectures. I’ll come back to it in a moment. But on the way there I want to talk a bit about the concept of the holy tongue. What is the holy tongue? Why is the language in which the Bible is written called the holy tongue?

So Maimonides, in Guide of the Perplexed, part 3, chapter 8, says: “I too have a claim and a reason for calling our language ‘the holy tongue.’ Do not think that this is exaggeration on our part or a mistake.” Don’t think this is an exaggeration or an error. Yes, the language is called the holy tongue. Why? “Rather, it is the truth,” says Maimonides, “because in this holy tongue no original term was assigned for the organ of sexual intercourse—neither of males nor of females—nor for the act itself that brings about procreation, nor for semen, nor for emission. For all these things no primary name was assigned in the Hebrew language; they are spoken of only by borrowed names and allusions.” He says: there are no words for all these concepts in the holy tongue. That is why it is called the holy tongue. It preserves purity in the sense that no direct terminology was assigned in it for the reproductive organs, the sexual act, and all these things. Therefore it’s all “coming,” “relations,” and things like that—obviously borrowed expressions. It does not speak about the thing itself. When we use a word that describes the thing itself, that is a vulgar word. We don’t have another word. There is no word that is not vulgar in order to describe these things. I never thought about that until I saw Maimonides. Almost. Nowadays there is—you might say “sexual relations,” which is relatively—it may be a term, but it’s a new term. Meaning it didn’t exist. Every expression…

“Min” in Hebrew means both sex and kind. Yes, but that is of course like we discussed earlier. A rabbi usually won’t use that word, right? Right. But I’m saying, even if he does, it’s late. In other words, it’s interesting—I never thought about it. It’s not that there is some clean expression and people use some low or vulgar slang. Every expression that describes this thing is a vulgar word. There is no non-vulgar word to describe it. So that’s interesting.

In any case, Maimonides says that this is the meaning: the language is called the holy tongue because it lacks these terms. “And the intention in this was that these things are not fit to be mentioned, so that special names should be assigned to them. Rather, they are matters about which one should be silent, and when the need arises to mention them,” that is, if one nevertheless has to refer to these matters, “one should contrive by means of substitutes from other words, just as we conceal the acts themselves when necessary.” Just as the acts are done in private, speech about them should also be done by way of allusion. That is basically what Maimonides says. In other words, the holiness of the language is essentially the concealment of things that ought to be concealed.

That somewhat recalls Rashi at the beginning of the portion of Kedoshim, where it says, “You shall be holy,” and Rashi says, “You shall be separate”—separate from forbidden sexual relations. In other words, to keep these things discreet—that is what it means to be holy. Modesty is what is called holiness. Modesty, to conceal, to hide—yes, that is called modesty. So that is Maimonides’ claim.

Now several of the medieval authorities go against him. Nachmanides, the Kuzari, and the Ritva all oppose Maimonides and claim that this is not correct. That is not why the language is called the holy tongue. Nachmanides is in Exodus chapter 30, in Ki Tisa, and he says there—he is discussing what “the holy shekel” means, why it is called the holy shekel—and in the course of that he says: “And similarly, in my view, the reason our Sages call the language of the Torah ‘the holy tongue’ is because the words of the Torah and the prophecies and all holy matters were all spoken in that language. It is the language in which the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks to His prophets and to His congregation: ‘I am the Lord your God,’ ‘You shall have no other gods,’ and the rest of the utterances of Torah and prophecy. And in it He is called by His holy names: El, Elohim, Tzevaot, Shaddai, and Y-H-V-H, the great and unique Name. And with it He created His world and called the names of heaven and earth and all that is in them. And His angels and all their hosts were all called by name in that language: Michael and Gabriel in that language. And in it He called the names of the holy ones who are on earth: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Solomon, and others.”

So he says the language is called the holy tongue because the Holy One, blessed be He, is the one who uses it. Since the Holy One, who is holy, uses this language, it is called the holy tongue. “And the Rabbi said in the Guide of the Perplexed”—now he brings the Maimonides we saw—“Do not think that it is called the holy tongue because of our pride, or our error, or fantasies,” etc. “But there is no need for this reason, for the matter is clear that the language is most holy, as I explained. And the reason he mentioned is, in my opinion, not true, because what we call…” and then he brings examples from Scripture showing that there are in fact terms of that sort. There is a ketiv and qeri there—what is written is one thing and what is read is another. And Maimonides says: there, you see? They don’t use that term. Nachmanides says yes, but it is written; it is a Hebrew word, it appears in Scripture. So it is not true that there are no such words in the holy tongue. And he brings other examples.

“So according to the Rabbi’s reasoning, they should have called it ‘clean language,’ as in the matter we learned: ‘until the lower beard grows and not the upper’”—that is clean language; they don’t say “the hair down there,” they say “the lower beard.” Rather, the Sages spoke in clean language and said, “except the bread that he eats,” clean language, and similarly in many places. So he says that the holy tongue is called the holy tongue because the Holy One, blessed be He, uses it, not because it lacks terminology.

But God doesn’t speak Yiddish? No—meaning, He doesn’t use Yiddish. “Loshon koydesh,” yes. And that, as distinct from the holy tongue—“loshon koydesh” is precisely not the holy tongue, like “a complete gentile,” as we discussed.

The Raavad too, in his commentary to Sefer Yetzirah: “And therefore it is called the holy tongue, whereas no other language among the languages is called thus, because it is drawn and emanated from the source of holiness.” Here there is already something a bit beyond Nachmanides. Nachmanides says that the Holy One, blessed be He, uses this language, therefore it is the holy tongue. He could also have used, I don’t know, Arabic or whatever, and then that would have been the holy tongue. In Nachmanides one could understand that this is something arbitrary; only because the Holy One chose this, it is called the holy tongue. This is the language that the Holy One chose—and the angels know only this? And the angels know only this. Only Aramaic they don’t know—I don’t know about English, that isn’t clear to me.

So here in the Raavad it says that it emanates from the source of holiness. One could understand that like Nachmanides, but it smells like something a bit more—that it has some kind of higher source, that it comes from some higher source. In the Kuzari this is taken even further. The Ḥaver says in article 2, section 72: “The aim of language is to bring what is in the speaker’s soul into the soul of the listener. And this aim is not achieved in full except face to face, because spoken things have an advantage over written things, as they said: ‘from the mouths of scribes and not from books’”—meaning, from people and not from the books they wrote—“because one is aided in spoken things by standing at the place of pause perhaps, and prolonging at the place of connection, and by forcefulness or softness of speech, and by gestures and winks of wonder, question, statement, entreaty, fear, supplication, and motions for which simple language is too abbreviated. And the speaker may be aided by movements of his eyes, eyebrows, body language, and all of his head and hands in order to convey anger, willingness, supplication, pride, and the measure he intends. And in this remnant of our preserved, created language, subtle and deep matters were embedded in it in order to understand the concepts and to take the place of these face-to-face acts. And these are the cantillation marks by which Scripture is read: they depict where the pause is and where the connection is, they separate the place of a question from the form, and the beginning from the statement, and haste from slowness, and command from request, to which they are joined.” And then he says: “Whoever intends this undoubtedly rejects the joined form, because what is joined can only be said in one way.”

What he is basically saying is this: when we use ordinary language, then of course if we write, it’s not the same thing as hearing something orally. In other words, obviously it is easier to understand things when you hear a lecturer than when you read a book. Even if the lecturer isn’t among the best, and even if the book is perhaps the best book, there is some advantage to things said orally, because there is body language and intonation and some kind of eye contact. You have additional tools beyond the words that can help convey the message you want to convey. Now his claim is that all this applies to ordinary languages. In the holy tongue you don’t need it. His claim is that the holy tongue, the language itself, hits exactly on the intention without needing all these supplements of body language and so on. And then he says: since that is so, that is why in the Torah we need supplementation by the cantillation marks. The cantillation tells you when to hurry, when to connect, when to separate, and so on—and that is exactly what body language or oral delivery is supposed to do. So the cantillation marks essentially complete what the language itself says.

Now incidentally, something emerges a bit from him, because cantillation is a matter of tradition, and it is not entirely clear what its source is or to what extent it really came together with the original language itself. It is possible that the cantillation marks are the result of a lack, or a decline, in our understanding of the holy tongue. The less we understand, the more crutches we need; we need the cantillation marks to help us in place of understanding. But in principle, originally, the holy tongue does the work by itself. And this is unique only to that language. And this language succeeds in conveying, as he says, from the speaker’s soul into the listener’s soul.

You may remember that I ended the previous lecture with a passage from Bialik’s “Revelation and Concealment in Language,” where he says—I’ll read the relevant lines. He says: “What is there to wonder at? At that sense of confidence and that contentment that accompany a person in his speech, as though he truly transfers his thought or feeling peacefully across a bridge of iron. And he does not at all imagine how rickety that bridge of words is, how deep and dark the abyss yawning beneath it is, and how much of a miracle there is in every step made safely.” The claim is essentially that language, in all its combinations, does not bring us at all into the inner domain, the full essence, of things. So he is speaking exactly about all those deficiencies that the Kuzari speaks about in ordinary language. When you speak and try to describe an idea to someone, know that you will never really succeed in conveying to him what you think.

And in previous sessions I also said the opposite: that sometimes the listener can hear—yes, I mentioned what Rabbi Kook wrote about “the one who squeezes the pomegranate in honey,” that “a person says things he did not hear from his rabbi and says things no ear ever heard.” The claim is that sometimes the listener hears from you things that you yourself do not know are contained within what you are saying. Really, not as a joke at the expense of communication breakdowns, but really. So I’m saying it goes in both directions. Once you—and this is connected to that second concretization we talked about, the transition from ideas to formulation. The transition from ideas to formulation is basically a kind of restriction. His claim is that formulation in the holy tongue is not restrictive. There are only two restrictions, not three. That is basically his claim in the terminology I’ve been describing until now. The restriction from the idea to the formulation does not exist. In other words, the formulation is so precise that there is no restriction at all in the transition from the idea to the formulation. That is the Kuzari’s claim.

There are always layers of interpretation in literature; there are always interpretations. Interpretation is the third concretization. There are three concretizations. The first concretization is the transition from what is called abstract Torah to the collection of ideas we know—say, honoring father and mother, the Sabbath, the idea described by honoring father and mother and not the wording. What among angels takes completely different forms, not at all honoring parents or keeping the Sabbath, but it is the same Torah in a different garment—that is the first concretization. The second concretization is taking that collection of ideas and giving them verbal form, meaning formulating them, putting them into words. That is the second concretization. The third concretization is the interpretations and the details and the implementation and all those things.

So I’m saying: the second concretization—that is the claim of these medieval authorities, of the Kuzari; I don’t know whether Nachmanides and the Raavad also follow him all the way, but in his direction, against Maimonides’ position. Maimonides claims that there is no difference between Hebrew and other languages, no essential difference, except that terms were not assigned in it for the organs of reproduction and what Maimonides said earlier. But these medieval authorities claim that in the holy tongue there are only two concretizations and not three. When you read “Honor your father and your mother,” that is the same thing as grasping the idea expressed in those words. It is not a restriction of the idea into words; it is one-to-one.

Now I remember what I wanted to say. When long ago we spoke—this was in Ra’anana I think—about ta’ama de-kra, I saw that Maimonides in his commentary on the Mishnah in Sanhedrin claims that there are three tannaitic opinions on the question whether one expounds the reason of the verse or not. Usually it is accepted that there is a dispute between Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda. According to Rabbi Shimon, one expounds the reason of the verse; according to Rabbi Yehuda, one does not expound the reason of the verse. What does that mean? You take a verse, interpret it teleologically, according to what it is trying to achieve, and derive halakhic conclusions. The question is whether one may do that or not. Rabbi Shimon says yes, Rabbi Yehuda says no, and the Jewish law follows Rabbi Yehuda.

But in the Mishnah in Sanhedrin Maimonides reads it differently. You also see this in his legal rulings and in his commentary on the Mishnah. Maimonides there says: the Jewish law follows neither Rabbi Shimon nor Rabbi Yehuda. And Nachmanides does not understand what he wants. He says: what do you mean, then who is left? There are only two. But no, there are three. The Mishnah says there: “He shall not multiply wives for himself beyond eighteen.” Rabbi Shimon says: “He may multiply them, so long as they do not turn his heart aside.” Rabbi Yehuda says: “Even like Abigail, and if not…” — he splits it into two. So Nachmanides read it as: “He shall not multiply wives for himself beyond eighteen” is just the heading, and now comes a dispute of Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda about how to interpret that heading. Maimonides reads it as follows: that is the opinion of the anonymous first tanna, and after that comes Rabbi Shimon, and after that Rabbi Yehuda. There are three views.

And the anonymous first tanna says: he should not multiply wives beyond eighteen, regardless of whether they are righteous or wicked, even though righteous women would not turn his heart aside. Why? Because Maimonides claims that the anonymous first tanna—and this is the third opinion, and that is also how Maimonides rules in Jewish law, so it matters that there is a third position—Maimonides claims that one does not expound the reason of the verse even where the Torah explicitly states the reason. For example: “He shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn aside.” There the reason is explicitly written in the Torah: why should he not multiply wives? So that his heart not turn aside. So why not expound the reason of the verse? If the idea is that we do not expound the reason of the verse because maybe we are mistaken, here the Torah itself states the reason—so why not expound the reason of the verse? And the anonymous first tanna says no, even in such a case one does not expound the reason of the verse.

And what I wanted to claim there is this: why would you want to expound the reason of the verse? Because the teleological analysis would lead you to a different conclusion from the literal interpretation; otherwise, what difference would it make whether you expound the reason of the verse or not? When you have a dilemma whether to expound the reason of the verse, the intention is that the teleological interpretation leads you to different halakhic conclusions than the literal interpretation, right? Then you ask: should one expound the reason of the verse or not? Maimonides says: if the teleological interpretation leads you to a different conclusion than the literal interpretation, then you simply made a mistake. You made a mistake in the teleological interpretation, because that cannot be. The Torah’s formulation is perfect, and if you think you arrive at conclusions different from those that emerge from the formulation, then apparently you simply did not analyze the teleology correctly. That is what they say about Solomon, that he said, “I will multiply wives and my heart will not turn aside.” Yes, that is exactly the Talmud.

Therefore Maimonides says that even where the Torah itself writes the reason, one still does not expound the reason of the verse. Why? Let’s take “He shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn aside.” Those who do expound the reason there say: then righteous women may be multiplied, because they will not turn his heart aside. That is expounding the reason of the verse. Maimonides says no—even righteous women, a king may not multiply. Why not? Not because that reason is incorrect. That reason is correct; it is written in the Torah, so obviously it is correct. We didn’t make a mistake there. But the teleological analysis you are making is not correct. You think that if that is the reason, then righteous women may be multiplied? Not at all. If the Torah says “He shall not multiply wives for himself,” the meaning is “He shall not multiply wives for himself,” period. And “lest his heart turn aside” means that any multiplication of wives turns the heart aside. If you have fifty wives, even righteous as Abigail, you will be occupied all the time with your wives instead of dealing with the things you need to deal with. Therefore the wives turn your heart aside—not because they are wicked. They turn your heart aside because you will be occupied with them instead of with what you need to deal with; a king has duties.

And therefore, says Maimonides, that is why I do not expound the reason of the verse even where the Torah itself states the reason—not because maybe I am mistaken about the reason, but because the result I got… and that is exactly what the Kuzari says here. This is what the Kuzari claims: there is no problem in the formulation. The formulation expresses the idea with precision. The second concretization is not a restriction. That is what is claimed for the holy tongue. Therefore the moment you make a teleological interpretation, you are in fact making a third concretization. That is really the point. You are now making a third concretization, because now you are interpreting. But that interpretation is not an interpretation of the reason itself. The reason itself is explicitly written in the Torah: “lest his heart turn aside.” It is clear that this is true; it is written in the Torah. But when you infer from that and say “righteous women may be multiplied,” that is already the third concretization. You already want to apply, to take what the Torah says and apply it or interpret it. Here one must be careful, because the Torah’s formulation is in principle supposed to be perfect. In other words, if you deviate from it, then apparently you made a mistake here. And I think that is a nice demonstration of this principle that says that the second concretization in the holy tongue does not exist.

Even though here Maimonides says it—it’s interesting. Maimonides’ position here, in the context of why it is called the holy tongue, is not in the direction of the Kuzari.

Okay, that’s it. Really, even the Torah as we received it is the second concretization. So basically we have no way at all to access the first concretization. Right. The Torah of the angels. In the midrash it says Moses with the angels. I don’t know what was written in the angels’ Torah. The Torah of the angels is also after concretization. But that too—I don’t know, because that is a concretization for their conceptual world. And the abstract thing itself, which I am concretizing—I keep saying, I also spoke about this in the lecture before the previous one, I think, or the one before that, I don’t remember—I said that it’s like the claims regarding the thing in itself, phenomena versus noumena in Kant. I don’t think that is a limitation. Meaning, you don’t know what color the lectern is in itself. What appears to my eyes is brown. Color is only what appears to my eyes; there is no color of the lectern in itself. Color exists only in human consciousness. Color does not exist in the world.

Now, but clearly there is something in the lectern that creates the sensation of the color brown in my consciousness. Incidentally, there is an article by Nadav Shenarav claiming that there is no such thing as the color brown. Brown does not exist. But—not that he claims it; he only grounds it in Jewish law. It’s well known. Yes. In any case, I didn’t grasp that point. Now you’ve confused me; I don’t understand exactly that point. We all see brown, so what do I understand… I don’t know. In any case, there is no brown wavelength. That is apparently a correct fact. There is no brown wavelength. That is strange. How do we all see the same thing? There has to be something in reality itself that causes us to see brown. But that isn’t the philosophical subject here.

In any case, the claim is that this is not an inability to grasp the phenomenon in itself, the thing in itself. Rather, to grasp the thing in itself means to cast it into our patterns of cognition—color, form, all those things. That is what it means to grasp. There is no other way to grasp. In fact, the moment you describe that thing, you have already inserted it into your own conceptual world. In other words, there is no way to describe or grasp something except by transferring it, by passing it into some kind of restriction. But that transfer, that kind of restriction, is the way to grasp the abstract thing—the unrestricted thing. Okay? Therefore I am not claiming that as a result of the first concretization, let’s call it that, mistakes are created. Meaning, I am not claiming that because now suddenly we know that the Torah is “Honor your father and your mother,” that the Torah really is not that. It is a garment that the Torah wears; it is not the thing itself. So as a result there are mistakes here. No. That restriction is not a mistake. It parallels the Kantian claim. That is how the Torah itself is formulated in our conceptual world. It is not a mistake.

The second concretization, however, already does lead to mistakes. When you restrict an idea into words, then here, as Bialik writes, it is a miracle if you succeed in conveying even part of what you intend. In the holy tongue, the Kuzari claims, even the second concretization does not lead to mistakes. A very big novelty. The third concretization does.

Still, it seems to me that this is actually a bit drastic, because otherwise we have no ability at all to reach the first concretization. What are you saying? Since the Torah we received is in the second concretization. No, the first. Ah, no—the second. Yes, the second. So if there are mistakes in it… there is no way to bring us the whole thing without mistakes. One might have thought that. So that is the Kuzari’s claim: no. Meaning, receiving it from your father and your fathers pours the abstract thing precisely into our verbal vessels. There is no gap; no mistakes are created. True, it is still another concretization, but it is a concretization without a price. It is not…

The question is whether it is exact, whether it is complete, whether it conveys the whole idea. It might convey only part. And if it is only part, then it does not lead to mistakes? Then something is missing, so how do you not arrive at error? I don’t know. If it were possible to speak partially without that leading to mistakes, maybe it can be done; I don’t know exactly. There is the fiftieth gate that was not revealed to Moses our teacher, so maybe… I come back here to the issue of restriction. It may be that it restricts without mistakes, because it conveys. But usually partial understanding also leads to mistakes, because you are not taking account of aspects that fell away on the way. If there is some part that is a closed subspace in itself, meaning it is not affected by other subspaces, and within it you can function with full precision even though you do not know the whole picture, then maybe you are right. I don’t know. Perhaps yes and perhaps no. There are many parameters to check. Yes. I’m only saying: it could be this way and it could be that way; I don’t know exactly. But the Kuzari’s claim is: there are no mistakes. Either it means this or it means that—that is the claim. The third concretization, of course, can involve mistakes, and ta’ama de-kra is the example. Because the analysis we do, even of a reason written in the Torah, can lead us astray. That is why, according to the anonymous first tanna, one does not expound the reason of the verse. Because here our own intellect is involved; here our own interpretation is involved. Human interpretation can make mistakes. And that is exactly the claim.

And indeed, the Nazir in Kol HaNevuah argues—he shows that this dispute between Maimonides and the other medieval authorities, the Raavad for example, has implications for certain laws, and that is interesting for our discussion. Maimonides in the laws of reciting Shema, chapter 2, writes as follows: “A person may recite the Shema in any language that he understands. And one who reads it in any language must be careful about corruptions of language in that tongue, and should be precise in that language just as he is precise in the holy tongue.” The Raavad’s gloss: “A person may recite the Shema in any language and should be precise in that language,” etc. The Raavad wrote: “This is not acceptable to reason, because all languages are interpretations, and who can be precise with regard to an interpretation?”

What does “be precise” mean? Precise means correct pronunciation, not in English some sort of corruption… Yes, but “be precise” means to be precise in the content. He says: the English translation is an interpretation. What is there to be precise about in an interpretation? Unless… I’m saying: the one who translated into English, maybe he has to be precise, because he also understands the Hebrew. But the one who reads in English the English translation—what is there for him to be precise about? Precise about what exactly…

So Rabbi HaNazir claims that the Raavad and Maimonides here are each consistent with their own views. Because the Raavad claims that in the holy tongue one can be precise because the holy tongue fits the content of the matter exactly. So if you are precise in the language, you are also precise in the idea. But other languages are descriptions. The second restriction already leads to mistakes. What will precision help you? You will have mistakes there anyway, even if you are precise, because every translation is an interpretation. Maimonides, by contrast, who claims that there is no difference between the holy tongue and other languages, says that one must be precise in both.

Now one can discuss Maimonides’ position—what exactly does he mean? What does it mean to be precise both in the holy tongue and in other languages? One could say: to give honor to the written text, not necessarily so that there won’t be conceptual mistakes, but rather say proper Hebrew or proper English, and don’t say it like a person in the marketplace; rather, give honor to the text you are saying, as you stand before the Holy One, blessed be He. Okay? Then that doesn’t say all that much. It just says there is an obligation to show respect.

And it may be that Maimonides really intends to say, as we also saw in the topic of ta’ama de-kra, that the formulation in the holy tongue is precise, even though according to his approach the holy tongue has no uniqueness over other languages. Because Maimonides claims that if the Holy One, blessed be He, writes something, then even if He had written it in Arabic or in English, He would have written it with complete precision. On the contrary, Maimonides is optimistic, not pessimistic. Maimonides claims that in all languages one can hit the precise meaning. No—in the holy tongue. As long as it is the Holy One, blessed be He. And if the Holy One does it, then there will be no gap between the verbal formulation and the ideas—and this is not a property of the holy tongue; it is a property of the Holy One, blessed be He. He could have done it in Arabic, or English, or I don’t know what language. Okay, and therefore Maimonides says that indeed there is no difference between languages, but there is a law of precision not only in the sense of giving honor, but precision in the sense of content, as the Kuzari says. Except that Maimonides broadens it further: Maimonides says that the precision which according to the Kuzari exists in the holy tongue exists also in Arabic—if the Holy One, blessed be He, had written it in Arabic, it would have been completely precise in Arabic. So that is the claim.

But when Maimonides says “in any language,” he means in the translations we have in hand. We do not have—we have the Torah text in Hebrew. Yes, but if you see the Torah formulated in Hebrew and you understand what it says and you translate it into English, you are basically nourished by the Torah. If the Torah is precise and you transferred it into English, then okay—here I can’t be precise. In Hebrew you can be precise. In Hebrew, yes. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to say these words in such and such a way. You’re talking about the wording, but Maimonides is apparently talking about the idea. The words formulate the idea with precision—that is what precision means. Now if you fully understand the idea because you understand Hebrew, then when you write that idea in English there is no problem, because the idea is precise, you took it from the Hebrew description, and now all you did was write it in English. So once the translator does the job correctly, then whoever reads the translated English text only has to be precise with what the translator did. So that is the claim.

But the translator is not the Master of the Universe; the translator is some Jew or gentile. Obviously. But when the Master of the Universe described it to me—say I am reading in Hebrew now—then I grasped the content with precision as much as I can. Yes, because the Holy One, blessed be He, formulated it, so I grasped it. Now I write that content in English. And that content for me is precise. And according to Maimonides there is no limitation of language. If I understand the content with precision, as Rabbi Chaim says, a limitation in explanation is some limitation in understanding. If you have full understanding, you will also succeed in explaining it precisely. Now when you explain that content, which you understood with precision, in English—very good, now that too is precise. According to Maimonides there is no problem; it is only a problem of intelligence. In other words, there is no inherent problem in any language describing ideas precisely. He does not accept Bialik. In his view, if you are an intelligent person, you can use any language to express the content precisely. If you understand it well, you can explain it well in any language.

And then perhaps that is what underlies Maimonides’ position that one is precise in English just as in Hebrew. Okay.

The Arukh HaShulchan, for example, writes about this, laws of reciting Shema, section 62: “And know that the fact that reciting Shema and prayer may be said in any language certainly applies only when one translates all three paragraphs and the entire Amidah exactly into the other language.” In tractate Sotah, “these may be said in any language,” at the beginning of chapter 7, “including reciting Shema and prayer.” Then he says: you transfer the whole thing into the other language. “If not, then this is not reciting Shema and not prayer. According to this, this law applied only in the time of the Mishnah and the Talmud, when they knew our language well and were able to translate it. But now it is known how many doubts we have concerning the explanation of words, and the commentators disagree about them—for example, how shall we translate ‘totafot’? And likewise the verse ‘Hear, O Israel,’ where even in its simple sense there are several interpretations; and likewise the meaning of ‘tzitzit,’ which some explained as gazing and some explained as protruding; and likewise the word ‘petil,’ and many other such cases. And the main thing, the Tetragrammaton—we do not know how to translate it properly.” How does one translate the Tetragrammaton? Some translate it as Eternal, some as Almighty, and no translation captures “He was, He is, and He will be,” which is the essence of the Name. In short, he says that today we do not know; we have all kinds of doubts, and therefore today clearly all translations are not really reciting Shema and the Amidah, and therefore he says as a matter of Jewish law that today it is not correct to recite Shema and the Amidah in any language, only in Hebrew.

Fine, that is his claim. He is optimistic about the Sages. In my view, even in the time of the Sages there were major disputes over the meaning of words. I don’t know where he got this from. And certainly their command of other languages—I don’t know how perfect it was. But that is what he claims. It only shows a possible implication of the issue here.

Another example that the Nazir brings is from the laws of the Megillah. Maimonides, in the laws of Megillah chapter 2, writes as follows: “If it was written in translation or in another language of the nations, one has not fulfilled one’s obligation by reading it, except for one who knows that language alone. And this is provided that it was written in the script of that language. But if it was written in Hebrew script and he read it in Aramaic to an Aramaic speaker, he has not fulfilled the obligation, for this turns out to be reciting by heart.” And since the reader did not fulfill his obligation, then neither did the hearer. I’m reading it—it is written in Hebrew, and I am reading it in Aramaic, translating it into Aramaic, and the listener hears only Aramaic. He does not know Hebrew, so in effect he heard something recited by heart. I too recited by heart, and therefore he too heard by heart. Only if it is written in Aramaic and I read it in Aramaic can I discharge his obligation. Okay?

The Maggid Mishneh there says this: In the Mishnah on page 17: “If written in translation or in any language, one has not fulfilled the obligation, but one may read it to foreign-language speakers in their language.” And Rashi explained: “foreign-language speakers” means those who know another language that is not the holy tongue. It appears from his words that even if one knows Assyrian script and also knows the foreign language—here he knows both languages, both Hebrew script and the foreign language—if he wished to read it in the foreign language, he would fulfill his obligation thereby. And this seems to be Maimonides’ opinion as well, that if he knows the foreign language, then even if he knows Assyrian script he may read it in the foreign language and fulfill his obligation.

“But that does not seem correct from the Jerusalem Talmud,” says the Maggid Mishneh. There it says: “If one knows the foreign language and knows Assyrian script, may he discharge others in the foreign language?” No. “For just as one who is not obligated in a matter cannot discharge the many in their obligation.” From this it is clear to them that one who knows Assyrian script and the foreign language does not himself fulfill the obligation in the foreign language. Thus far in the novellae of the Rashba, and so too wrote Nachmanides. They bring this in the name of the Jerusalem Talmud and disagree with Rashi and Maimonides, and according to them, one who knows both Assyrian script and a foreign language—if he read it in the foreign language, he has not fulfilled his obligation. In other words, this is only a solution of no choice: to read in the foreign language. If there is the option of reading in Assyrian script, and you know Assyrian script, you must read in Assyrian script. According to Maimonides, no.

The Maggid says: it is the same principle, the same dispute. Because Nachmanides—again, we remember—disagrees with Maimonides. Earlier it was the Raavad, now it is Nachmanides. And we saw that both of them, in his Torah commentary and in Sefer Yetzirah, both disagree with Maimonides regarding the conception of the holy tongue. And here too Nachmanides and the Rashba disagree with Maimonides, because from Maimonides’ perspective there is no difference between Assyrian script and a foreign language. All that matters is that you understand the language well. If you understand the language well, there is no problem. According to Rashba and Nachmanides, it is obvious that really you ought to read it in Assyrian script. That is the precise formulation. Whoever does not know it—fine, let him at least have the content and read it in the foreign language. But whoever knows Assyrian script, even if he also knows the foreign language, has not fulfilled his obligation. He must read it in Assyrian script. Again, this is the same dispute.

Now this is an interesting point, because it really brings me to the Megillah, this issue of the Megillah in a foreign language. The Megillah has a very interesting status on this spectrum. And here I return to the sanctity of the formulation and the sanctity of the content. If I just remind you: we saw that the difference between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah involved two differences. One difference is that in the Written Torah there is sanctity of the formulation, and in the Oral Torah there is no sanctity of the formulation. In other words, a Talmudic text in English, a Talmudic text in Aramaic, a Talmudic text in Hebrew—it makes no difference; it has the same sanctity. The sanctity is the sanctity of the content. In other words, the content is Torah, the Oral Torah, that is the Jewish law. But the wording itself has nothing special about it. The wording only expresses the content as best we can.

In the Written Torah there is sanctity of the wording. In other words, if you translate the verse or interpret it or engage with it, that is not the sacred formulation itself. The sacred formulation itself is the wording written in the Torah. And that is why one has to be precise in every letter and one may not make mistakes, whether in reading and so on, because the formulation has a sanctity of formulation. The formulation has some significance not merely as expressing content, but significance in itself. That is what I said there.

The second difference I spoke about is the sanctity of the book. In the Oral Torah, books have no sanctity. In principle, according to the basic law, one could throw Talmud volumes in the trash. In the Written Torah, because of parchment, because it is an actual Torah scroll, there is sanctity. You cannot throw it in the trash—more than that. So that is sanctity of the book. And of course the book if it is written properly, with the exact wording and so forth. So these are two things that distinguish the Written Torah from the Oral Torah.

In light of what I said until now, I want to comment first on the first thing and then on the second. The sanctity of the wording versus the sanctity of the content—as I formulated it in previous lectures, I said that in the Torah’s wording there is something beyond the content it conveys, unlike the Talmudic text, where the whole point is only the content we study from this book called Talmud. That is what is holy there: the content, the laws, the interpretations, whatever. But the wording as such has no significance. In the Written Torah there is significance to the wording itself. The question is why.

One could say—again, by all the formulations we discussed earlier—that this is what came from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore it became sanctified in some way. But in light of what the Kuzari says, perhaps one can connect this to the sanctity of the content. The claim would be that this wording is the most refined and precise expression of the content. Any other expression would pass through the third concretization, and therefore it is already exposed to mistakes. This wording is not holy because there is sanctity of wording; rather, this wording contains the content with precision. Therefore this is still sanctity of content, not sanctity of wording. It is just that this wording is the only way to say the content with complete precision. Therefore it is a different level of sanctity of content—that is the point. And then that somewhat softens the difference between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah in the first parameter, the issue of wording versus content. Basically here too the wording’s sanctity is not some scriptural decree that this wording is sacred irrespective of what content it conveys to me; it is sacred because it conveys the content with precision. That is why it is sacred. That is the first remark.

The second remark: I want to speak about the Scroll of Esther and claim that in the Scroll of Esther there is an intermediate state. In the Scroll of Esther there is sanctity of wording, but not sanctity of the book. In other words, it is Written Torah—it is half-Written Torah. Half-Written Torah, half-Oral Torah. It is Written Torah in the sense that the wording is precise. It is not Written Torah in the sense that the book as such has importance, that the book has sanctity. But let’s look at this a bit.

Maybe before I get there, just one more remark. The Talmud in Gittin 60 says this: Rabbi Yehuda bar Naḥmani, the interpreter of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, expounded: It is written, “Write for yourself these words,” and it is written, “For according to these words.” Written, or oral? How can that be? “Matters that are written you are not permitted to say orally; matters that are oral you are not permitted to write.” From here emerges a law that is also ruled by the halakhic authorities: matters that are written, you may not say orally; matters that are oral, you may not write. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi did write the Oral Torah, because “it is a time to act for the Lord,” so he wrote the Mishnah, and afterward they also wrote the Talmud, but in principle it should have been preserved orally.

Why is that? The Tur in section 49 asks: how do we say, every morning, the sacrificial passages, for example—or even reciting Shema? We often say verses from the Torah orally. “Matters that are written you are not permitted to say orally”—how do we say them orally? The Tur says: because there is no concern there that we will make a mistake. So the law that matters that are written may not be said orally stems from concern that maybe you will err. In a place where it is so familiar on your tongue—you say it every morning and know it by heart—there is no problem; you may say it orally too.

So first of all: what is the problem if you make a mistake in the wording? So you make a mistake in the wording—what is the problem? That is what I said earlier. I think the problem is that once you make a mistake in the wording, you probably also do not express the content precisely, because the wording expresses the content precisely. What is the basis of the opposite law: matters that are oral you may not write? On the contrary: if you write the Oral Torah, you prevent forgetfulness and enable it to be transmitted better. On the contrary, I would encourage people to write the Oral Torah. Why not write it? And that is why Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi eventually wrote it—he feared it would be forgotten.

Here they explain—and the Pachad Yitzchak writes this and others too—that the prohibition on writing the Oral Torah is that once you write it, it turns into Written Torah. It passes through the second concretization, but the wording is your wording, not God’s wording. When you take the ideas of the Oral Torah and pass them through that second abstraction, putting them into words, then certainly you can make mistakes; you are human, you can err, the wording will not be exact. But once you wrote it, we already know this—everyone treats whatever is written with sanctity. Then what happens is that you fix the mistakes you made in place and you prevent people, or do not allow people, to disagree with them. When things are transmitted orally, clearly distortions can occur, but to the same degree we can also correct them. Therefore it is more resistant to mistakes when it is transmitted orally than when it is written down. That goes against intuition. But there is a lot of sense in it.

The Pachad Yitzchak writes somewhere, I think, that Torah is not at all a collection of laws; it is a way of looking. And if you become habituated to that way of looking, then you have acquired Torah—not because you know the collection of laws or details. And then if you acquire that way of looking properly, when an incorrect law reaches you—since in a known sense there is no such thing as Tosafot, we spoke about that—if you acquire that way of looking properly, then distorted things that reach you, you will correct. And therefore there is actually some value in leaving it oral and not allowing it to pass through the second concretization. But everyone understands that the words are wording I am inventing right now; there is nothing sacred about them. They are there to convey the idea to you, and of course I use all the auxiliary means the Kuzari described—body language and hints and intonation and melodies and things like that. So everyone understands that ultimately my goal is to convey to him the content, the idea, the mode of thought—not the words. So he doesn’t care about the words themselves; what matters is the content being conveyed. The words are just the medium through which I convey the content.

Now, one can never be sure that one really conveyed the content accurately. So I do the best I can, and the assumption is that if he uses his head and hears other passages and hears other people and cross-checks, in the end we hope that somehow what I am trying to convey will get through to him. That is better than fixing it in well-defined words and then transmitting those words as they are. Because then it means fixing mistakes in place. And therefore, in a certain sense, the writing of the Oral Torah is a tragedy. A necessary tragedy, apparently, because without it we would have forgotten even more; that is how Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi assessed it, and therefore he allowed it to be written.

And understand: we write and write and write—Maimonides, and Rashba, and Rif, and Shulchan Arukh, and the vessels—and we are subjugated to everything everyone wrote and we are precise about their wording. And to be precise about their wording is a big mistake, by the way. Many times it is a big mistake. To be precise about the wording of medieval and later authorities is a mistake, because they did not sit seven clean days over the wording. That’s not… on the contrary, you are doing the opposite of the idea of the Oral Torah when you are precise about wording. You should try to get to the bottom of what he means, to understand from the context what he intends—not to be precise about wording. To be precise about wording is a recipe for mistakes.

Incidentally, with Maimonides there is such a principle, that one can be precise in his wording. Why? Because Maimonides writes in his introductions that he thought about every word he wrote. And the assumption is that he was an intelligent person and knew Torah. So that doesn’t mean he has no mistakes, but let’s say I am prepared to build on this—that I would rather have Maimonides’ mistakes than my own, probably. Okay? Therefore the rule with Maimonides is that one can be precise in his wording—but only because he really thought about the wording, and did not use wording casually just to convey the general idea. Only then can you try to be precise, and even there one must be careful not to overdo it. But with medieval and later authorities, precision is a recipe for mistakes and for pilpul. Someone who is overly precise in medieval and later authorities—everything turns into pilpul. That’s pilpul. You need to understand what he wrote, understand from the context, understand the principle—not to be precise in his wording. To be precise in his wording is not right.

Okay, so that is only a completion of what I said earlier. Now I want to get to the Scroll of Esther and try to claim that in the Scroll of Esther one aspect of Written Torah appears, alongside one aspect of Oral Torah—and that is an intermediate degree.

So the Talmud in Shevuot 39 considers—maybe I’ll preface with another introduction—the Scroll of Esther basically stands at the seam between Written Torah and Oral Torah. First of all historically. Historically, the Scroll of Esther is located at the end of the exile after the First Temple and the beginning of the Second Temple period, which is exactly the line between the First Temple and prophecy on the one hand, and the Second Temple and the Oral Torah on the other. The Scroll of Esther sits on the seam. Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Men of the Great Assembly—that is the same period. It is the same period of the end of Written Torah and the beginning of Oral Torah. So first of all, historically it stands on the seam. And indeed “the Jews upheld and accepted”—the Maharal explains this, and it is almost explicit in the Talmud. The Talmud in Shevuot says that there are those who explain this to mean that they accepted the Oral Torah upon themselves. The Talmud says: “And are there only commandments they accepted upon themselves at Mount Sinai? From where do we know commandments destined to be renewed, such as the reading of the Megillah? Scripture says: ‘They upheld and accepted’—they upheld what they had already accepted.” And that is basically the Oral Torah. So again, the Scroll of Esther is basically the opening of the era of the Oral Torah—that is the point.

Now in Megillah 7 the Talmud says this: Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda said: Esther sent to the Sages, “Establish me for generations.” They sent to her: “You are stirring up jealousy against us among the nations.” The fact that the Jews were victorious and so on—that is provoking the gentiles; we do not want that. She sent them: “I am already written in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia.” This episode is already written in the book of chronicles of Media and Persia. No problem. We can write it for ourselves and repeat it; the gentiles are already familiar with the story.

Then it continues: Esther sent to the Sages, “Write me for generations.” What is the difference? “Establish me for generations” means: tell the story. Right? Tell the story. What does “write me” mean? Write the Scroll of Esther. Put it into a book. That is exactly the second concretization. First of all, tell the ideas—that is the first concretization. The second concretization: now put it into words. Make a book out of it. They sent to her: “Have I not written for you ‘three times’?” Three times and not four. Until they found a verse written in the Torah: “Write this as a memorial in the book, and place it in the ears of Joshua.” “Write this”—what is written here and in Deuteronomy. “As a memorial”—what is written in the Prophets. “In the book”—what is written in the Megillah. In other words, there is the Torah and Deuteronomy, all five books. “As a memorial” is what is written in the Prophets, and “in the book”—that is what is written in the Megillah.

Why is the Megillah not part of the Prophets? Esther was stated with divine inspiration; this is a new section. Writing the Scroll of Esther is not just part of writing the Prophets. It is something else. It is not exactly Written Torah, but they decided to write it anyway. Esther asked that it become a book. In effect, what Esther asked was that it enter the Bible. She basically still wants to be considered part of the era of Written Torah, because as I said, she stands on the seam. She says: turn this thing into a book and bring it into the Bible. This is what Yeshayahu Leibowitz always used to say: those who determine what Written Torah is are the Sages of the Oral Torah. They determined that the Scroll of Esther renders the hands impure, that Ecclesiastes renders the hands impure. Yes? The question of who enters the Bible—that was determined by the Sages. The Sages determined what the Bible is. It is not the Bible that gives the Sages power; the Sages determine what the Bible is. That is an interesting claim one can discuss. In any case, that is what is written here.

So she asks the Sages: bring me too into the Bible. I want to be part of Written Torah. She is clinging to the horns of the altar; this is really the tail end of the period of Written Torah. So ostensibly the Sages answer her positively, and they find a verse saying that Esther too is written, not only the Prophets.

Now look: it’s not quite so simple. The Talmud continues there, in the same passage. Rav Yehuda said in the name of Shmuel: Esther does not render the hands impure. You know that in the language of the Sages, if something renders the hands impure, that means it is part of the sacred writings. They decreed rabbinic impurity upon sacred writings so that people would not place them together with produce that was priestly tithe, and then mice would come to eat the sacred writings. So what they did was decree that sacred writings render the hands impure, and then people wouldn’t put them together with the tithe, and that solved the problem of the mice. Fine? It sounds very prosaic, but in the code of the Sages, “Esther does not render the hands impure” means Esther is not among the sacred writings. That is the code of the Sages.

The Talmud asks: does this imply that Shmuel holds that Esther was not said with divine inspiration? But didn’t Shmuel say: Esther was said with divine inspiration! So what is the criterion here for whether it renders the hands impure or not? What was said with divine inspiration. Or in other words: Written Torah. Bible means the whole Bible, yes, not only the Torah, not only the five books. The answer: it was said to be read, but not said to be written. What does that mean? My claim—and in a moment I’ll prove it—is that what is written here is that Esther has sanctity of wording but not sanctity of the book. It is Written Torah in terms of sanctity of wording, but not Written Torah in the sense that the book is a book. So it was said to be read, but not to be written. Meaning: when one reads the wording of Esther, that wording is a written wording stated with divine inspiration. The formulation is exact. It was dictated to Esther with divine inspiration. But the book—when one writes that wording on parchment in ink—it does not have the sanctity of a book. Not for writing. And therefore we also saw this in the earlier Talmudic passage, where the Talmud said that this is learned from the fact that the Prophets were given to be written, and Esther is a special third category. But here we see not only that Esther is learned as a third category, but that her request was not granted completely. They write the Scroll of Esther, but it does not become fully part of the sacred writings.

The Talmud objects: Rabbi Meir says Ecclesiastes does not render the hands impure, and there is a dispute regarding Song of Songs. Rabbi Yose says Song of Songs renders the hands impure, and there is a dispute regarding Ecclesiastes. In short, Ruth and Song of Songs and Esther render the hands impure. Then it brings a tannaitic dispute. In short, the whole matter is disputed among the tannaim. And the Talmud says it depends on the question whether Esther was said with divine inspiration or not—whether Esther was said with divine inspiration or not from above. In other words, the criterion is the question whether it is Written Torah, and that depends on whether it was said with divine inspiration. The formulation is astonishing.

But Maimonides, incidentally, rules in Jewish law: “The fringes and the phylacteries,” etc., “render the hands impure—not only words of Torah but all sacred writings. Even Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, which are words of wisdom, render the hands impure.” And he does not mention Esther. That is very interesting. I do not know exactly whether he means to say that Esther does not render the hands impure, or whether he means: even words of wisdom do—and Esther certainly does. “Words of wisdom,” by the way, connects to the earliest lectures when I asked what the difference is between Proverbs or Pirkei Avot and Dale Carnegie. A book of advice—meaning, okay, “I found nothing better for the body than silence,” “better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting”—you can find that kind of advice in all kinds of advice books. What is the difference there? So perhaps that is why they say here “even words of wisdom,” meaning even things that are just ordinary worldly wisdom—well, even that renders the hands impure. Of course if that is so, then Esther is all the more so, because Esther was said with divine inspiration; it is not just a collection of wise advice. In any case, that is how Maimonides rules.

But there are various laws in which we see that Esther is not fully a book. For example, regarding the Scroll of Esther, the Shulchan Arukh has a discussion about rescue from a fire. Another topic related to the sanctity of sacred writings. Sacred writings are rescued from fire on the Sabbath. One may not rescue things from a fire on the Sabbath lest one come to extinguish it, and sacred writings and food for three meals may be rescued. That is what the Mishnah says in chapter 16 of tractate Shabbat. What about the Scroll of Esther? The Shulchan Arukh writes: there is one who says that the Scroll of Esther, if it has no divine names, if it is not written properly in Assyrian script on parchment and in ink, does not have sufficient sanctity to be rescued from a fire. But clearly in principle one does rescue it from a fire if it is written in Assyrian script on parchment and in ink. So in the end it renders the hands impure, one rescues it from fire, ostensibly it is a full book.

But then we find in the Shulchan Arukh, section 691: one must read it entirely and from the written text—this is the Scroll of Esther. And if he read it by heart, he has not fulfilled his obligation. “Matters that are written you are not permitted to say orally,” and there may also be an issue of precision and so on. And ideally it should all be written before him. But after the fact, if the scribe omitted words in the middle of it, even up to half of it, and the reader read them by heart, he has fulfilled his obligation. There is a very interesting law regarding the Scroll of Esther: if 49 percent of the words are missing, the megillah is still valid. They are not written at all. You have to read everything exactly in the precise wording; you may not skip a letter. Not only must everything be read from the text, but the book itself may be missing 49 percent of the content. Only beginning and end—there are limitations—but that is the law in the Talmud. Why? The wording is exact. Again, there are no compromises on the wording. You cannot miss anything in the wording. Regarding translations, we already had the dispute of Maimonides and the Raavad, or Maimonides and Nachmanides, sorry. But as for the wording itself, it is exact. If you missed a letter, you have not fulfilled your obligation. Yet the book may be missing 49 percent.

Incidentally, there are views saying that you must read everything from the written text; you cannot read by heart at all. But that is not really what comes out in the Shulchan Arukh. In the Shulchan Arukh it sounds like you take a book in which 51 percent is written and you read the whole thing, with part by heart, and you have fulfilled your obligation because you read from the book. There are views among the halakhic authorities that say no: you can take two megillahs, in one 51 percent of these parts are written and in the other 51 percent of the other parts are written, read the whole thing from the written text, and fulfill your obligation. Meaning, the book is a book, but the reading has to be done from the book so that you do not skip. Why? Because the Talmud says: the Scroll of Esther is called a book and it is called a letter. What is a letter? A letter is something we write, and once the information has been conveyed, afterward we throw it in the trash—it was written. A book is something that remains on the shelf. It is not something meant only to convey content and then be used and discarded. So the Scroll of Esther is called a book and it is called a letter. It has some laws of a book and some laws of a letter. What does that mean? It is not fully a book, as we saw earlier. The wording is exact; Esther was said with divine inspiration. So it has the first characteristic of sacred writings—exact wording, the sanctity of wording down to the letter. But the sanctity of the book is partial in the Scroll of Esther.

We’ll complete this on Thursday—or on Tuesday, we have another lecture.