Torah Study, Lesson 4

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll get to Torah culture, and really I want to discuss two more topics. One topic is basically to define the field a bit. What is Torah, really? That’s a very, very non-simple question. Everybody talks about it pretty easily — studying Torah, the commandment of Torah study, and this and that — and all kinds of things are said about Torah. But what is Torah itself? That’s one question. And the second question is that I said we’d also get to current events at the end — current events, even politics — but I think that will probably only be next time. May the Ten Days of Repentance protect us, I hope. And there I want to talk a bit about the meaning of supporting Torah and Torah scholars, exemption from military service, all kinds of questions that are very current, for which people bring sources, and the question is: what does that mean? Is it correct, is it not correct, what are we supposed to do with it? That’s really a Torah question. The fact that it has current practical implications — well, sometimes you slide into current events. Fine. So I’ll begin with the first topic, which has actually been bothering me for quite a long time. I spoke about it a bit two years ago, I think, when we talked about Jewish thought, so I touched on this issue then. What is Torah, really? Let me start straight from the end. When I open the Guide for the Perplexed — you know what, the Mishneh Torah, the laws of the foundations of the Torah. Okay? We talked about this. The first four chapters, the laws of the foundations of the Torah, are about all the spheres and the aliens and I don’t know what, the separate intellects and all sorts of Aristotelian theories like that. Four chapters in the Mishneh Torah. In the daily Maimonides cycle, I assume they go over that too, not just the rest of Maimonides. Are they not neglecting Torah study? Now I can ask this on two levels. The first level: after all, it isn’t true. There are no separate intellects and no spheres, and it’s all nonsense. So they’re just studying incorrect things. But leave that aside — even if it were true, not because it isn’t true — why is it Torah? In what sense is it Torah? When Maimonides takes something from Aristotle and inserts it into the Mishneh Torah — and I’m not talking right now about whether it’s outdated or incorrect — take our correct physics, put the Schrödinger equation into the Mishneh Torah of today, into the Guide for the Perplexed of our generation, okay? And let’s say it’s true too, that it won’t later be disproved — that too is a question — but fine, let’s put the correct theory in there. Does it become Torah because it’s true? Electrical theory? Yes, electrical theory exactly. What defines it as Torah? The person who wrote it? Exactly. Now very often the feeling is that, in practice at least, that really is how it works: if some Jew wrote it — not necessarily someone like that, but he wears a kapota and a shtreimel — then it’s Torah.

[Speaker C] It’s a book like the rest of—

[Speaker D] You said—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A brown or black binding, and gold letters preferably.

[Speaker D] It’s a holy book, it’s a halakhic book that he wrote, he put it there in context.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And then in the next stage he also writes the Guide for the Perplexed. So now that too becomes Torah because he’s already established through the Mishneh Torah, he’s already written a book.

[Speaker D] But if he had written a book on electronics? I don’t know, math books that he—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] wrote. He wrote medical books, for example.

[Speaker D] People don’t say that’s Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Depends who. Depends who. Let’s say in the depths of Bnei Brak and Jerusalem you’ll hear different tunes, because whatever Maimonides writes is Torah — he extracted it by letter-skipping from the Talmud and from the Torah, after all, and it’s obvious, it’s all there; he simply brought out from the Torah things that we can’t manage to extract. But leave that aside. It’s not all that funny when we study the seventh chapter of tractate Gittin, okay? “One who was seized by kordeyakos,” right? “These drugs are in our hands, these drugs are not in our hands” — whether the remedy is known to us or not. There are practical implications there, yes? An agent and the principal — the principal went insane, the sender went insane — the question is whether agency still exists, and so on. And then the Talmud there gets into the question of different illnesses and different remedies, and in daf yomi they spend several days on it. Why? I’m not talking about the fact that it isn’t correct because it’s outdated medicine. Fine. But leave that aside — put in today’s medicine, empirically verified, everything’s fine, put that in there. Would that be Torah? The fact that it isn’t correct only sharpens the difficulty, but that’s not where the difficulty lies. The difficulty is: where is the boundary?

[Speaker D] The context, the context. If you’re calculating triangle angles or the radius of a circle in the context of discussing a sukkah, then the study of those angle calculations becomes—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so here we need to distinguish. If you’re talking about the question of how to measure distances between graves, yes — topics in tractate Bava Batra, for example — then obviously you use the Pythagorean theorem or geometric theorems of one kind or another.

[Speaker D] You explain the Pythagorean theorem there too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. So I’m saying no — that’s exactly the difference. When I use the Pythagorean theorem in order to calculate distances, or some geometric point in order to calculate distances, then fine, I’m engaging in Torah and using various tools in order to understand Torah. Language too, philology — those are also tools I can use to understand Torah texts. But what happens when I engage those materials themselves? Suppose now I want to study the Pythagorean theorem itself.

[Speaker B] It’s a question of motivation.

[Speaker E] Really — what about, I don’t know that medical topic there, but what, does it say there a question of whether the agent is allowed to bring the medicine? I didn’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no. There’s a discussion there about a principal who went insane. The question is whether the agent, when his principal is no longer legally competent, is still his agent.

[Speaker E] So then isn’t that Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Excellent — it’s a Torah question too, obviously. But within that context, independently, within the context, they also start discussing mental illness and such illnesses, and whether they have a remedy or don’t have a remedy, and so on.

[Speaker D] And they’re not relevant to agency?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is all that not relevant to the question of agency? It can be relevant to the question of agency. But now here — here the two levels come together. Sometimes it isn’t relevant to the question of agency. Just “if you want to become wise, turn south.” Fine? It has nothing to do with anything. Out of the blue. If you want to become wise, turn to the south. I’m not sure I’m convinced that I really become wiser if I turn south, but let’s say it’s true. So what? Does that make it Torah? And if it isn’t true, then all the more so — why is it Torah? And there it’s no longer necessary for some halakhic aspect. It’s not a computational tool I need, or a medical tool, or whatever, in order to deal with a halakhic question. It would also be easier for me to study Torah if I ate healthy. So now learning how to eat healthy — is that also Torah? I didn’t say it isn’t important. I’m not asking whether it’s important; I’m asking whether it’s Torah. I’m not denying at all the importance of those four chapters of Maimonides, those chapters in the laws of the foundations of the Torah — not at all. I think they aren’t correct, but I’m saying that engaging these topics, according to updated knowledge, not Aristotelian knowledge, is very important. The question is whether it is Torah.

[Speaker H] But why are you asking a question that has no answer? First of all, a question about the things that broaden a person’s mind has no answer. Everyone sets the boundaries in a different place. Someone will say Kabbalah is nonsense, and someone else will say this is nonsense, and everyone sets the line in a different domain, so there’s no answer to it.

[Speaker C] No, no — the movement of the stars, that stands the test of observation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, but I’m talking about what does stand. I’m talking about what does stand the test of observation, not what doesn’t. Okay? I’m talking about that.

[Speaker F] I think every time Torah appears it’s in a construct or something like that — the Torah of Moses, the law of the leper, the law of the Nazirite.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but fine, I’m speaking in our language today. Over what do we recite the Torah blessing?

[Speaker F] What is Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Over what do we recite the Torah blessing? I’m asking now in our language, the rabbinic language, the halakhic language, whatever you want to call it, the Torah language. Not specifically biblical language.

[Speaker F] A construct phrase — the Torah of Moses My servant — what came from what Moses said?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. Good question what is included in “the Torah of Moses My servant.”

[Speaker F] Does that also apply to the Five Books of Moses? Not only to laws?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, with the Five Books of Moses you can say the Torah of Moses—

[Speaker F] My servant — the first four books and Deuteronomy, which we do distinguish between.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So is that the Torah of Moses or not the Torah of Moses? But it seems to me that almost nobody would argue about the fact that all five books are Torah in our language. Not “the Torah of Moses,” okay, about “the Torah of Moses” you can argue.

[Speaker D] There are stories in the Torah now that aren’t connected to anything halakhic.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know anyone who even entertains some doubt about that.

[Speaker D] Fine, I’m entertaining it now. I’m asking now: if they tell stories, if they tell that something happened—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s some resemblance to those stories.

[Speaker D] And that also leads to the question of illnesses — but what is Torah? No, no.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The assumption, the accepted assumption, is that when there is a story in the Torah, that story too comes together with the whole corpus, and apparently it too is some kind of divine text and teaches us various things.

[Speaker D] So say that same explanation about the medicine too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no. You could say it, but it wouldn’t be correct. That’s exactly the difference. As for the Bible, it may also be correct — I don’t know, I have no idea. It may be correct, and that’s the accepted explanation. I don’t see a reason — what’s the difference in the rationale?

[Speaker D] A very big difference.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Our tradition says that the Five Books of Moses were given to Moses by the Holy One, blessed be He.

[Speaker D] No problem, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that doesn’t mean that it was given — that was the giving of the Torah, that’s the Torah that was given. What else could be Torah? If you doubt that then I don’t know what the concept Torah even means. I’m assuming that’s the question. No, not entirely, because I’m assuming that the concept of Torah as such — let’s say — we have some kind of sense of it, I may not know how to define it explicitly, but we more or less understand what it is. I’m now asking what is included in it. It’s not exactly the same thing. What?

[Speaker F] Is the Scroll of Esther Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s Torah, obviously. There is Written Torah, Oral Torah, fine, a discussion. I’m saying I’m not going into those resolutions because certainly the seam line is not black and white; there’s gray there. I’m talking about the question in general: what is holy? What is holy? Fine, let’s phrase it that way — not what is Torah, what is holy.

[Speaker F] Whatever the sages sanctified is holy.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Whatever the sages sanctified? Listen, that’s too weak an answer. It’s like — according to what did they decide what to sanctify? There were discussions. Fine, I’m asking what those discussions relied on, what the considerations were. In my opinion there was no consideration at all. There’s no — I don’t see it. So why? Also, who said the sages sanctified what is written in the Talmud, for example? Who said that at all? That’s some accepted example. A law written in the Talmud is binding law. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the fact that there are many parts in it that are not halakhic. The goose stories of Rabbah bar bar Hannah, I don’t know, all kinds of things like that — nice stories, pleasant. He said some homily to some householders. And we sit and pile mystical mountain ranges on top of it. No — who knows? After all, today I hear all sorts of preachers saying such nonsense that if in another three hundred years people do with them what we do with the Talmud, they’ll extract wondrous secrets from there. You understand? Now I know there are no secrets there; they’re simply idiots, those who say it.

[Speaker D] The one who says that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why did Ravina and Rav Ashi try to do that? I don’t know, because it was documentation of what the guys there were talking about. I really don’t know. And anyway, what does it mean Ravina and Rav Ashi inserted it? Who said Ravina and Rav Ashi inserted it at all? This whole business somehow accumulated; there was a long editorial process. It wasn’t exactly that Ravina and Rav Ashi went through everything and signed at the end. We already know it wasn’t like that. There was some editing; things entered. Some of them really were clarifications for halakhic purposes, some came up in some associative way or another, and apparently everything was, in one way or another, done in the beit midrash. Only I strongly suspect that in the beit midrash they also studied physics and mathematics and medicine and everything that today we study in school. They studied it in the beit midrash. There wasn’t secular studies in the morning, sacred studies in the morning and secular studies in the evening. For them it was all one. Anything that was intellectual study, study of wisdom, any kind of wisdom, that was Torah. I don’t think they distinguished at all. I don’t think there was such a distinction. As far as they were concerned, they moved totally freely between halakhic discussion and medical discussion, to philosophical discussion, to aggadic-thought literature of one kind or another, which one can relate to in one way or another. Right now I’ve lost a certain attitude I had before, but I’m saying it doesn’t depend on that. Even if you respect that kind of literature more, it doesn’t matter. In the end it’s wonderful literature, and it’s not a cheap homily.

[Speaker I] Not a penny homily.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So let me say this: regarding Jewish law, at least for me — and again I say, I don’t have — Mati asked earlier, there won’t be an answer. I say, to a certain extent that’s true. There are certain things regarding which I at least have a feeling. Even if I don’t know how to define them or prove them — I don’t know how one proves this. What am I going to bring, Maimonides? But even about Maimonides I’m not sure I agree, so how do you prove anything at all? How can one answer a question like this? What’s the method at all? Even before the question whether I have an answer or not — how do we even look for answers to this kind of question? There’s no explicit definition, after all, right? It doesn’t say in the Torah or in the Talmud, “this is Torah and this is its reward.”

[Speaker J] Rather, it’s something we define. It’s a definition, because it’s such a central component in Judaism.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a very important question, certainly. But what’s necessary may not exist. What can I do? It’s necessary, but I don’t have it. So it’s important, and that’s why I don’t agree with Mati that it isn’t right to ask a question if I don’t have an answer to it. I also don’t entirely agree that I have no answer. I agree that I don’t have a well-grounded answer. But there are things where I really have no answer at all, and there are places where I have a feeling. I have a feeling: this is Torah. I don’t know.

[Speaker H] I didn’t say that. I said there is an answer, but it won’t be the same answer. No, I’m not sure I have an answer either. I’m saying that even if you do have an answer, all I said is that everyone will have his own answer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because everyone sets the boundary in a different place.

[Speaker H] Everything—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everything I’ve been saying here now for, it seems to me, ten years, is just things I think. And anyone who thinks differently, thinks differently. And by the way, of course, it is definitely possible that I’m wrong. I don’t even need to say that — it’s embarrassing to say it at all. We’re all human beings; what do you mean? I’m expressing my opinion. You hear it — if I managed to convince you, good; if not, at least I hope I asked a good question. So you find a better answer, by all means. If you convince me, I’ll be happy. I have all sorts of questions and I’m looking for someone to answer them for me. I don’t know. If we only talk about things I’m certain of, we close up shop right now. Or even only about the things I’m right about. I’m not sure. There are places where I’m more convinced, places where less, but I think these are questions worth discussing because they’re important questions. Maimonides and the Raavad in the laws of repentance — Maimonides in the laws of repentance asks the question about knowledge and free choice, right? If the Holy One, blessed be He, knows everything in advance, how can it be that we have free choice? Then he says that His knowledge is not like our knowledge, and so on. The Raavad understood that Maimonides did not answer. I’m not sure he’s right about that, but that’s how the Raavad understood it. And then the Raavad says, “This author has not followed the way of the sages.” Why are you asking questions that have no answer? You see, Mati, they got there before you. The Raavad asks that about Maimonides. So you’re in good company, and so am I. Fine? So Maimonides asks questions that have no answer, and there are those who don’t like asking questions that have no answer. There’s such an approach and such an approach. But I think this is a question that each of us at least needs to give ourselves some accounting about. Again, it’s hard to bring hard grounding for it. Feelings — yes. Here and there maybe one can bring reasons, but it really is hard. Now in this generation I’m of course aiming at what we spoke about then, about thought and the Guide for the Perplexed and all those things that I discussed at length — that today it already seems completely obvious. They study that in the beit midrash, inside the yeshivah. Thirty years ago, forty years ago, someone who held such a thing in the beit midrash would have been thrown out of the yeshivah.

[Speaker F] Even today there are yeshivot like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, today there are yeshivot that behave like thirty or forty years ago. I mean, what do you mean — even the Maharal. I’m not talking about these modern ones, supposedly, because when it’s modern it isn’t religious, it isn’t Torah, as is well known. Torah has to be something with a wrinkled, crumbling beard. And yes, even a philosopher you want to convert has to be at least two thousand years old. Meaning, if you want to study philosophy in yeshivah, it can only be Greek philosophy. It’s forbidden to study the philosophy of Kant or Russell or something, Heaven forbid — what does a priest have to do in a cemetery? But Aristotle, no problem, because Maimonides already put him into the book with the gold lettering, everything’s fine, you can recite the Torah blessing over it. There are people who don’t study Talmud at all because they’re not available for it. We live in an open world; they’re not available for it. They’re more available for thought, for the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), for all sorts of things like that. And they study all kinds of works like these. I don’t know, I don’t know how to tell them some decisive opinion. I very much doubt to what extent that sort of thing is Torah. For me, with the Guide for the Perplexed, it isn’t clear to me exactly to what extent that is Torah, at least substantial parts of it. He deals with the Mu’tazila and the mutakallimun and all sorts of fellows like that, with their philosophical ideas: is time made of parts or not made of parts, all kinds of strange questions like that. Fine, philosophical questions that can even be interesting. I’m saying the strangeness here isn’t important, and neither is the inaccuracy or the lack of relevance, yes, the fact that it isn’t updated. That isn’t the point; it only sharpens the matter. The point is: why are these fields Torah at all?

[Speaker J] Books that come to strengthen faith — are they part of Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. You know, a psychologist can also strengthen my faith. So is that psychological treatment Torah study? I don’t know, I don’t think so. Maybe it’s preparatory means for a commandment, I don’t know exactly. I don’t know. It’s a good question. I recently had some argument with a former student of mine, who’s doing a doctorate in high-energy physics at CERN, and he wrote some enthusiastic faith-based article about the significance of the Higgs boson that they discovered a few years ago.

[Speaker F] Yes, that machine and all that, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, so he works there now at CERN. So he wrote an article about how it strengthens faith and all sorts of things like that. The boson, yes — they called it the God particle back then. Some copywriter decided that, that it was —

[Speaker D] Their religion needs it, yes, exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anyway, he started explaining there — I didn’t fully agree. Fine, beyond whether I agree or not. In the end he showed — but he explained that what happens as a result of this Higgs boson is that it strengthened, or gave final confirmation or further confirmation, to Higgs’s theory, which says that particles aren’t really little balls of mass the way we’re used to thinking about them. Rather, they’re excitations of fields — meaning, states of a field that underwent some variation, okay? And that variation on the field is what we call a particle. Fine? Now mass and all that — that too isn’t exactly the stuff you put on a scale and weigh. With large masses you can do that; with small masses it’s basically some coupling constant between the field and the — never mind, just words, something, okay? That’s the mass. Fine. So I asked him: okay, what did we learn from that? What do you mean? It strengthens faith. And why does it strengthen faith? He says to me: because look, a particle — when you see a particle in the usual classical conception, just an ordinary little ball of matter, okay? Small. A material point like that. So fine, it exists here, and once someone created it. Fine. But since then it’s in its present state and doesn’t need anything to keep it alive every moment. But the Holy One, blessed be He, gives life to the world every moment, right? There is none besides Him, and all kinds of contractions — he said various things there, I was getting feverish, never mind. Anyway, so I said to him: and does the field need someone to keep it alive all the time? The field whose excitation is the particle — does someone need to keep that alive? Of course, because a field is something dynamic and all that. I don’t know. There’s conservation of mass, and now there’s conservation of mass-energy. Okay, but that whole mass-energy thing too was created once, and from then on it’s here, undergoing all sorts of transformations according to laws, everything’s fine. And if some field gets excited and you call it a particle, then what? Does the Holy One, blessed be He, now appear before our very eyes? What does that have to do with anything? So what, the particle is a more abstract creature. So what? It’s no more abstract than what you thought before. It’s not more spiritual. Ah — on that he agreed with me, that it’s not spiritual. Because what appears in the equations of physics is not spiritual, it’s physical. So therefore the field too is part of the equations of physics. I don’t care whether it has mass or doesn’t have mass. Apparently it does, by the way — the excitation has mass. So it even has mass. Never mind. It’s just forms of description. You know, one day I’ll tell you an anecdote — I can’t resist. I heard it from one of our lecturers at Tel Aviv University in engineering, our friend Professor Frankenthal, some kind of genius — we barely understood him, but this story I did understand, roughly the only thing. So he told us there was a federal law in the United States that when two states transferred something through a third state, if it passed through wires they had to pay the intermediary state. But if it passed through the air, then not. Say wireless transmissions — you didn’t have to pay, but electricity yes. And at a certain stage they transferred electricity and didn’t pay. So the state in the middle sued in federal court the two other states, saying they should pay for transmitting electricity through it. So they brought physics experts who explained that the electromagnetic field is around the wire, not in the wire. The power flows around it — that’s Poynting’s theorem in field theory, in classical fields, electromagnetism. Fine? Poynting’s theorem says — never mind, there’s such a theorem, you learn it in the early stages of an undergraduate degree. It’s a theorem that shows the power flows around the wire. Now I don’t remember what happened in that trial, though it would have been very fitting if the judge had indeed exempted them from paying, if he were idiotic enough — but go explain it to a judge. And really, maybe if you’re not a physicist it’ll be hard to understand. These are simply two forms of description. You can describe electricity as if it passes through the wire, and Poynting’s theorem says there’s an equivalent description, a description that is the same thing — you can describe it differently, like translating into another language — in which the power flows through the field around the wire. If you integrate out to infinity you get exactly the power that passes through the wire. Fine? Fact: that’s what the theorem gives. What does that mean? That these are two alternative forms of description, those two are two forms of description. What is the truth? I don’t know. Maybe it’s something else entirely. These are two models. I don’t know what the truth is and what isn’t truth; it’s hard to talk that way. Cut the wire and check.

[Speaker J] Yes, then there won’t be a field either. That’s exactly the point, there’s equivalence, it won’t help. There’s no — you can’t settle this empirically, it’s another philosophical question, what the truth is. It’s like Goethe — I once wrote something about it. The same thing exists in problems of teleology and… laws… Usually people think scientific laws are causal laws. The scientist gives a cause for what happens, links cause and effect. Fine? Teleological laws usually make physicists uneasy. Meaning, laws where the particle falls downward because it wants to return to its point of origin, meaning it strives for something. The particle doesn’t strive for anything; the particle does what was kicked into it beforehand. That’s the accepted physical conception. It’s causality versus teleology, yes? I don’t do something for the sake of; I do it because of.

[Speaker J] Okay, but there is a description of light.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly, that’s where I’m heading.

[Speaker J] Aristotle, the shortest distance.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, Aristotle—that’s the description. What gets physicists all worked up? Aristotle, of course, because he described falling stones in terms of striving toward their natural place, or all kinds of things like that. Now the point is that first of all, for most areas of physics—maybe all of them, not thermodynamics, never mind—for most laws of physics there is a teleological description and a causal description, and the two are equivalent. These are theorems. Okay? All of analytical mechanics, for those who know—Lagrange—that’s all mechanics, all Newtonian mechanics formulated teleologically, in a formulation of… And in one particular case, what’s better known is optics: Fermat’s principle. Fermat’s principle says that light chooses the shortest path. And that describes all of geometric optics. This little theorem replaces all the equations of geometric optics. It can be shown that it’s completely equivalent. Now which one is correct? Which is the correct description? So ask physicists, and of course they’ll tell you the causal description. Teleology is a cute mathematical anecdote. Very useful. Yes, it’s useful, it’s amusing, it’s interesting. Meaning, it’s nice to see that you can give a purposive description that yields exactly the same results. You can’t tell the difference—no laboratory can know what’s right and what’s wrong, because the predictions are the same, meaning it gives exactly the same results. That’s theorem-level; there are equivalence theorems. But there are areas in physics where there is no… How did I even get into all this, I have no idea. I started a lecture in physics. There’s… the particle…

[Speaker E] Your claim is that the description of particles really is in terms of things they are aiming at.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So there are areas in physics where there is no causal description, only a teleological one. That’s what’s beautiful. Now it’s pretty amazing that important and intelligent physicists simply ignore this. Once I gave some seminar at Bar-Ilan—I came from the yeshiva in Yeruham—and it turned into a seminar on this at Bar-Ilan. The people there, the lecturers in the department, got terribly upset, because saying things like that is heresy against the fundamentals. In physics? Yes, yes. So I told them, guys, all of quantum theory—there’s no concept of force there. Feynman proposed some sort of definition of force in quantum theory; he did some kind of… these exercises to define the concept of force. Everything is with potential. And what is potential? Potential is a teleological description, and force is a causal description. Say a body is standing on a mountain, so you can describe why it falls downward because there’s a force acting on it pulling it down. Or you can say it strives toward minimum energy. Those are simply two equivalent statements. Okay? Now in classical mechanics, you can describe it this way, you can describe it that way, and there’s a way to move from one to the other—it’s completely equivalent, everything is closed. You can describe it this way, you can describe it that way, and everything works in both forms. It’s completely equivalent. Clear? But in quantum theory there are only potential descriptions. There are no force descriptions, no forces in quantum theory. And that’s considered the most up-to-date theory. Classical mechanics is an outdated approximation. So how can one go on thinking that everything is causal and teleology—Yudit, you’ll probably be happy to hear this.

[Speaker L] No, I know. They even talk there about will and…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That I’m not sure I’d agree with,

[Speaker L] but there are physicists who talk that way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, there are lots of crazy physicists, but the fact that they’re physicists… I don’t know whether Einstein talked about will. Josephson talks about it, but it’s not only…

[Speaker L] Okay, in any case,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, physicists come up with a lot of crazy ideas; you don’t need to panic over everything physicists say. Maybe, maybe—I’m not, you can’t rule it out, no. But I’m saying, I go back to that fellow, I tell him: you’re now describing physics with string theory and excitations of fields, everything is wonderful. You found a description that gives you the results. First of all, it’s a model, and you haven’t now discovered reality. Before it was only phenomenology and now it’s reality itself? You’re always within the framework of models. Physics is only models. You don’t know what reality as such is, if such a thing can even be defined. Physics by definition is models; there cannot be a physics of reality itself. Physics is always attaching a model to reality. And it’s very dangerous to draw conclusions about reality itself, not about how it behaves. The role of models is to describe the behavior of reality, but not reality itself. But I’m saying beyond that, let’s say it was a description of reality itself. Fine? So now the field is—the particle, sorry—is an excitation of a field. Okay, so what?

[Speaker K] Maybe it’s something very, very beautiful, maybe he just enjoys the beauty of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he didn’t mean beauty. He meant that a field is some sort of more elastic thing, not like matter—it’s here, a lump, it was created once and now it’s here, it doesn’t need anything to hold it up. But a field is some kind of dynamic and changing thing. So what? That dynamic, changing thing is a dynamics, an equation that I write down for you, I wrote it once and from then on it runs. So what’s the difference between that and a particle? He tells me yes, but it’s much easier to connect—and here I’m coming back, now I remember where I started from—it’s much easier, he tells me, to connect in this picture to the idea that the Holy One, blessed be He, is continuously bringing reality into being. Our generation—that one-ten-thousandth of one-thousandth of a percent of our generation that can connect to reality better, that even understands this language, that can connect to these ideas that the Holy One, blessed be He, continuously brings reality into being. So I asked him: is this article an article in psychology or an article in philosophy? That’s all. If you want to provide a solution for ordinary people so instead of taking a pill when it’s hard for them to feel things, fine—then it’s an article in psychology, send it to a psychology journal, and maybe it’ll have extraordinary therapeutic value. But if you want to make a claim, then it doesn’t help me that you say it really helps people. And here I return to what was asked before—I already don’t remember—if something helps me in faith, is that Torah study. No, not necessarily. Helping with faith is maybe just a preparatory instrument for the commandment of faith, assuming there is such a commandment; according to Maimonides there is a positive commandment.

[Speaker B] Maybe he feels he gets closer from that part, like we talked about then, that will turns into electrons or into physics…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not will,

[Speaker B] it’s a mechanism

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] deterministic, with a description in equations, everything completely.

[Speaker B] But then we talked about how will, in change, activates electrons in the brain in free choice. If I measured it, obviously, but maybe

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] maybe that brings him closer—you feel you’re passing through that phase.

[Speaker B] So I’m saying, maybe he feels—I don’t know, I think that

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it mainly brings ordinary people closer, and he actually works in the field, he’s not an ordinary person. But I’m saying for ordinary people it may perhaps provide an enlightened psychological service,

[Speaker B] because they understand there is a gap, there is a gap between the will and reality, that the will activates reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The field changes nothing. How does the field help?

[Speaker B] It skips over the matter part.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it doesn’t skip over it—the field is also matter. It doesn’t have mass, but it’s physical; never mind, it’s not matter in the sense that it has no mass, but it’s physical. So why should I care whether an equation in physics describes a field or describes a particle? What difference does it make? I don’t understand this. So I’m saying I brought this as an example of what was asked here earlier—whether doing something that helps faith, all kinds of things like that, whether that is Torah study. From the fact that it helps faith, I don’t think that turns it into Torah study. It may be Torah study because philosophy in general is Torah study. That thesis, by the way, I don’t reject at all. And then I… that too can be Torah study, as long as it’s philosophy and not psychology. Articles of this sort are psychology. But in the situation—not why are you studying it? The why, in my view—why does it matter why you’re studying it?

[Speaker B] Because if you’re sitting now and studying some

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] topic in Jewish thought, then one hundred percent. No problem—preparatory instruments for a commandment. There’s no issue, right? No, again: I’m not arguing about whether it’s important or not. I’m not arguing about whether it has value.

[Speaker B] It advances you, one hundred percent, right, it’s important.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You got up in the morning—but that doesn’t turn it into Torah study. It’s terribly important to be healthy, terribly important to eat well, terribly important to sleep well, terribly important to go to the bathroom on time—but that doesn’t turn it into Torah study.

[Speaker B] If the motivation is like that, and that’s why you do it, maybe yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For Hasidim. In Hasidism, you eat in order to repair the sparks inside the apple.

[Speaker B] It’s to repair sparks, because if you really do it because you truly want to get where you need to get, then certainly you’re moving in that direction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, so maybe you can say that it’s a direction, perhaps,

[Speaker D] maybe a commandment, maybe you’ll get a little reward, but it’s not that you’re studying Torah. It may be a commandment, you may get reward, let’s say—you’ll get reward because you’re righteous—but that doesn’t mean it’s Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s preparatory instruments for a commandment.

[Speaker G] If you study when you sleep well, what makes you sleep well—so that afterward you can learn—then maybe?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, I think one can

[Speaker G] everything—so that’s what I’m saying.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying again, this goes back to “when”; I don’t have

[Speaker D] answers.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t have answers. Let everyone decide for himself however he decides. I just—my feeling is that my intentions do not turn something that is not Torah into Torah.

[Speaker D] It could be serving God, but

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] still—it can be important, it can be meaningful, it can be something of religious value, all that is acceptable to me. But Torah is supposed to be something defined—I don’t know.

[Speaker J] The Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us to study Torah. I don’t think He cared how you get there. He wants you to study, so whatever you do…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, maybe He does care, but that only means that if you study with the right motivation, you’ll get more reward. But that has nothing to do with the question of whether what you’re studying is Torah or not. Right, not that He doesn’t care—but I’m saying, the definition of Torah, at least that’s what I would expect—I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong here. The definition of Torah is supposed to be something distinctly defined. If you also have the right intentions when you approach it, then it’s study with fuller meaning. You’re studying for its own sake and not not for its own sake. Fine, that’s obvious. There is importance to how you approach it and what your intentions are. But to define something as Torah just because of the intentions—I don’t know, it seems to me a bit…

[Speaker F] What practical difference does it make whether it’s Torah? Whether you can recite the blessing over Torah study on it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For example, yes. Whether you can do it in the bathroom, say.

[Speaker H] You once wrote an article that did seem to imply that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, I once wrote an article about… I said, I’ve been very conflicted about these things for many years; I sway a bit this way and that. There is—I once wrote an article in Tzohar after Dror Fixler wrote some article there about Maimonides. Maimonides writes, after all, that the Talmud says: “A great matter is the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot; a small matter is the discussions of Abaye and Rava.” Yes? What we basically learn—Talmud, Jewish law, and so on—that’s the small matter. The great matter is the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot. Now Maimonides’ view is that the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot are physics and metaphysics. What he called physics and metaphysics, never mind—but I’m saying, that’s the physics of their time, not something else. That’s the first four chapters of Foundations of the Torah. That is the great matter. What in my eyes is not Torah at all—in his eyes that’s the great matter; not only is it Torah. Now Maimonides said this—a significant Jew, no less significant than me, yes? No, no, apparently it’s inside Torah. So now I no longer know. If there is something greater than Torah, then really there’s no point discussing it. I assume Torah means the important things—I don’t know. Now if within it there is a great matter and a small matter, then the great matter is the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot. Now Maimonides explains what the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot are. They are physics and metaphysics. Metaphysics is Aristotle. The book Metaphysics, one of Aristotle’s books. But the fact that in Maimonides’ view that is the great matter—certainly no less than the blessing over Torah, despite its being the great matter—I don’t think that… it very much does not imply that. Maimonides doesn’t distinguish at all. On the contrary, Maimonides sees this as the purpose of everything. This is the purest Torah there is, it seems to me. Otherwise it’s very hard to understand that he includes it in the Mishneh Torah, when he sees all these little things merely as means until you reach the real thing—and that real thing is not Torah. That’s a bit strange. No, anything is possible, I don’t know. Again, I have no criteria. I cling to statements that can of course be interpreted in other ways as well. It doesn’t seem likely, it doesn’t sound right to me. Now physics and metaphysics—Dror Fixler then wrote an article that if so, today we have updated physics, not the physics of Maimonides, so clearly there’s no point studying Maimonides’ physics. With that I completely agree. But on the other hand, from Maimonides we do learn the Torah principle, that physics is the highest part of Torah—only what? You have to take our physics, not Aristotle’s physics. And then he argued that studying physics and philosophy is really the essence of everything; Jewish law is a small matter. By the way, someone who is very involved in Jewish law—he’s a man of Jewish law. That’s what he wrote, and on first reading I was really upset, even though you know that I love and value and think very highly of both areas, both philosophy and science. But it didn’t seem right to me. It can’t be that this is Torah. It can’t be that when I… so I’m learning more Torah than when I study “despair without awareness,” that topic in the Talmud. Okay, it doesn’t sound right to me, just intuitively. Now where Maimonides got this from, I have no idea, but Maimonides also got it from some intuition or another. So there’s another intuition, okay? It doesn’t sound right to me. Afterward, at some stage, I formulated it—as you described, and rightly so—I formulated something there, I don’t know how compatible it is with what I said earlier. What I said there was that there is a difference between Torah in the person and Torah in the object. That’s what you meant, right? Torah in the object is something that is Torah by objective definition. Fine? It’s in the object—my phone is bothering me, I’ll silence it, sorry I forgot to silence

[Speaker B] it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I said there is a difference between Torah in the person and Torah in the object, and basically my claim was this—and again, these are feelings, but feelings that seem to me not badly grounded in our tradition. That I can know—maybe that’s what forms these feelings in me, hard to analyze. When you study Ketzot—we talked about this two years ago. When you study Ketzot, there may be someone to whom Ketzot’s mode of learning doesn’t appeal. He’s basically the first yeshiva-style analyst, it seems to me, Ketzot. So Ketzot HaChoshen, early nineteenth century. So there may be someone to whom that style of learning doesn’t speak. That’s perfectly fine. There are different batei midrash, different forms of study and ruling and engagement, and one does not resemble another. Just as others aren’t drawn to, I don’t know, Rabbi Ovadia, or the rabbis of Morocco, Tunisia, or Poland, or pilpul, or Hasidism—each person and his own cup of tea. Okay? My claim is that someone who studies Ketzot studied Torah. It doesn’t matter at all whether it speaks to him or not. By contrast, someone who studies Guide for the Perplexed—that’s what I called Torah in the object. That is Torah as such, no matter how you approach it—whether you like it, whether you learn something from it, whether it connects for you or doesn’t connect for you. By contrast, if you study Guide for the Perplexed or Maharal or Rabbi Kook or whatever—I would even say the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), if I weren’t afraid—basically that is not Torah. So what is it? Sometimes it helps you build yourself on the Torah level, meaning to build a worldview, to build a way of looking. By the way, in the end it also radiates onto how you study Talmudic or halakhic topics; for me it certainly affects how I learn. And so I then defined it as Torah in the person. Torah in the person means something dependent on the person, or subjective.

[Speaker D] But then Kant too. What? So Kant also enters this group.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and I said—exactly—not only Rabbi Kook. No, no, certainly not, and that’s the next step. So I said that Maimonides and Rabbi Kook and Kant all sit on exactly the same shelf for me, there’s no difference between them. No difference at all. Guide for the Perplexed is simply a philosophy book; if it builds something in you, excellent, study it. It doesn’t speak to me. Kant, by contrast, built many things in me that are very significant to me. Someone else can come and say, listen, this philosophy doesn’t speak to me—then don’t study it, it’s a shame. If you study it and it doesn’t speak to you, that’s wasting time from Torah study. I say that about Guide for the Perplexed, and about Kant, and also about Maharal and Rabbi Kook. But Ketzot—whether it speaks to you or not doesn’t matter, because there is something in Jewish law that is much more, I don’t know, umbilically connected to the concept of Torah than all the thoughts about the loftiest and grandest matters and divinity and all the things that intuitively we might say are the most important and fundamental. And part of the issue is what I talked about then: how this field is built, basically. How do I work there and how is it built? How did the material that came to me reach me? In Jewish law, it seems to me that the basic human experience is the experience of an interpreter. Meaning, you receive Torah from Sinai, a bit of the Oral Torah—you know that I think that’s almost nothing—but something of the Oral Torah probably came from there too. And afterward interpretation of the verses begins to develop, Oral Torah, and deriving more verses, and exposition and plain meaning, and all these things, and it develops and expands, and by our time it has become a much larger corpus than it was. Every stage is a stage that comes with an interpretive consciousness toward what preceded it. Now interpretation is always person-dependent. Meaning, obviously it depends on the interpreter; interpreters argue with one another, that’s no secret, okay? Obviously, because each one has his own point of view, his own way of looking. But in the end, when you come, you come with the awareness of an interpreter. And by the way, that’s one of the reasons, I think, why certain demands for changes in Jewish law are sometimes so outrageous to people—and to me too to a large extent—when they do not come from an interpretive consciousness. Rather they come from a consciousness of what I want to achieve. I want to achieve this, because this seems dark, that seems inappropriate, this seems this way, and therefore now let me find some approach of Rashba or I don’t know exactly what, bend it a little, and everything will be fine. In the end it’ll work out. Now I can do the same thing too, but I don’t know—at least in my experience, and maybe from the outside they’ll look and say I’m exactly the same—but in my experience this is an interpretive experience. I do to Rashba exactly what Rashba did to his predecessors. Exactly the same thing. True, I bring with me my world and my values, obviously; I’m not supposed to disconnect from that, no problem. But this whole complex, when I look through it at Rashba—that is what is written there for me. And when Rashba looked with his own complex at the Talmud, that is what is written there. I mentioned what Rabbi Kook wrote in the eulogy for the Sochatchover. He wrote to the Sochatchover’s grandchildren when he died. He said—he brought a contradiction regarding Rabbi Eliezer, I think I even mentioned this this year, no? He said there is a contradiction regarding Rabbi Eliezer: in one place it says that he never said anything he had not heard from his teacher, and elsewhere it says that he said things no ear had ever heard before. So he says: he heard from his teacher things no ear had ever heard before. And that’s completely true. Completely true—it’s not a homiletic at all. Meaning, anyone who has had the chance somehow to learn from a significant rabbi in his life, it seems to me at least—I don’t know, at least the way I relate to the rabbi who taught me—that is exactly the experience. Meaning, I heard from him almost everything I know. Almost nothing that I say would he agree with. I know, I spoke with him—he agrees with almost nothing. And everything is from him. Everything that is not from books, meaning everything I received from a living person, almost all of it is from him. And it is not at all what he thought or what he meant, but it really is from him. Truly. I’m not forcing him; I have no interest in making myself fit him. I don’t need to—I don’t care, I have no ideology to say things the way he did. I can disagree with him and not from within him. But I really think I received it from him, and I agree—meaning I identify with that. And he doesn’t agree. Not with the method, not with the style, with almost nothing.

[Speaker H] So what does he say about you today?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t say anything; we were like that from the start. What? We’re on excellent terms, and we were like that from the beginning. Even when I went to him to ask questions, I was at an earlier stage, less independent and all that, but it was clear that these were questions for consultation, not questions for a halakhic ruling. I came to consult, so he should say what he thinks. And I present before him what I think, so that he can correct me. Truly—I value him very much to this day. He is a very wise man. But I never accepted what he said just because he said it and therefore it’s true. Even from the outset, when I came to ask, I told him: I’m coming to consult, not to ask; this answer is not binding. I want you to help me think. Meaning, that is the main role of a rabbi in my opinion: to help the student think, not to transmit what to think, but how to think. And that he did, and I’m grateful to him for it to this day. He surely curses himself over what came out, yes? But it doesn’t matter—it’s… no, I don’t think that’s… fine, he’s ambivalent about it, I think.

[Speaker J] Deep down? Yes, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s clear, I know.

[Speaker J] But where’s the difference, for you, between going to get advice and getting a halakhic ruling?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, where’s the difference?

[Speaker J] Meaning, it could be that you come and talk with a rabbi about topics, whatever topic, and when he tells you this, that basically is a halakhic ruling.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be. But I’m saying, there is such a halakhic principle: if you come to ask and someone rules for you, that is the law in that case. “A sage who prohibited something—his colleague may not permit it.” That’s Jewish law, you understand? When you come to a sage and ask him a halakhic question and request a ruling, you’re in trouble. Because you can’t go to someone else, and as for yourself too—whether that counts as permitting what another sage prohibited, I think simply yes. There is a ruling; a ruling takes effect on that question. Therefore when from the outset you come to ask, you have to define it not as requesting a ruling, but as requesting guidance—how to think. And that’s perfectly fine; our relationship was always built that way, and that’s excellent. Meaning, he completely accepted that. If he hadn’t accepted it, he wouldn’t have done it. And I’m grateful to him for that. But I’m saying, why did we get to all this? Ah, because everyone has—yes?

[Speaker J] Where are the boundaries of Torah study?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know—that’s what we’re discussing now. We won’t arrive at a closed boundary, but I don’t know, maybe everyone probably has different boundaries.

[Speaker J] Could there be a halakhic ruling on what is Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem likely to me. It’s a question—let’s put it this way: if there is—if, yes, maybe. Meaning, if an ordained Sanhedrin were to sit and determine it, in my opinion that would be binding. Meaning what would be binding? It wouldn’t bind me to think as they do. A Sanhedrin doesn’t bind me to think as they do. But halakhic ramifications—whether to recite the blessing over Torah study, if the Sanhedrin ruled, then that’s Jewish law.

[Speaker C] But here every faction has its own view,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] no, again, as long as there is no Sanhedrin and no agreed bottom line, I don’t think you can extract anything clear here. Even there, again, it still wouldn’t produce something clear in the sense that I’d be obligated to agree, but halakhically, say, if the dilemma is halakhic—what one recites the blessing over Torah study on and what not.

[Speaker F] Wasting time from Torah study—those are two things that basically enter this whole space.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think not. After all, even the contradiction between the Talmud in Menachot and the Talmud in Berakhot that I brought in a previous lesson, or the one before that, I no longer remember, about Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai—where in the end all the later authorities (Acharonim) basically say that Torah study is a kind of elastic commandment. It basically obligates you all the time, but on the other hand every reasonable cause is a cause to be exempt from it. And if you want to rest a little, that’s perfectly fine, it’s not wasting Torah study because you need to rest. You want to eat a little, and even for enjoyment, not just in order to survive like the Hasidim, but also for enjoyment, as the Hasidim also do. Then that too is fine. And if you go to work, or I don’t know what, or whatever, or study a little philosophy as the Rema explicitly writes in the Shulchan Arukh—yes, for he has an argument with Maharshal in the responsa, Responsa of the Rema, section 9 I think, something like that, where Maharshal yells at him: why are you bringing me Aristotle and all that? What kind of thing is this? Who pays any attention to those people at all? He had brought him some quotation from Aristotle, I don’t know exactly what. So the Rema says to him, fine, this is an age-old dispute. On Sabbath, when everyone goes walking, I study philosophy. Do you have something against that? Going for a walk is allowed, but studying philosophy is forbidden? Meaning—but even the Rema, at least from that argument of his, does not say this is Torah. He only says that you’re allowed to suspend Torah study, that this is not considered wasting Torah study.

[Speaker C] So then, for example, apparently he would not have managed

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to read Guide for the Perplexed in the bathroom. Yes, maybe. He himself wrote a book.

[Speaker C] But maybe a book on quantum mechanics he would have permitted in the bathroom?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe, maybe. There are verses mentioned there too, awkwardly. Meaning, there are still things that… But I’m saying on the principled level, leave aside the parts—cut out from Guide for the Perplexed the philosophical parts. I think most people would not agree that you could study that in the bathroom. I just wonder whether that’s just inertia, or some unfounded feeling, or whether there really is something to it. I don’t know. Because in my eyes it’s exactly like Critique of Pure Reason, there’s no difference. Maybe Critique of Pure Reason is also forbidden to study in the bathroom. By the way, I don’t rule that out at all. If you had asked the amoraim whether one may study philosophy in the bathroom, I’m not sure you would get an affirmative answer. Because their engagement with philosophy was perceived by them as Torah. It doesn’t matter whether Greek philosophy or not Greek philosophy, because there is no dispute with the Greeks. But when they dealt with philosophical topics—“Is it better for a person to have been created or not to have been created?”—why is that Torah? How is that different from an article by, I don’t know, Wittgenstein, on whether—I don’t know—what the purpose of ethics in the world is? I don’t know, what the highest ethical criterion is. What’s the difference? Or not even to mention the aggadic passages, where I don’t really know what they are saying at all, like “Is it better for a person to have been created or not to have been created?” You’d think—interesting philosophical question.

[Speaker C] There are aggadic passages that are thick with clarification, which is the introduction to Ma’aseh Rav.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s how people tend to say today, and it’s also accepted

[Speaker C] to think that every aggadah comes to convey some matter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe, I don’t know. I’m just saying, though, the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel over whether it is better for a person to have been created or not to have been created—here you don’t need interpretations. You know exactly what they’re talking about, what the topic is, what the message is. It’s not some hidden message you need to look for with literary techniques. Yes? You understand what I mean? Meaning, let’s help you if necessary. But I’m saying here you don’t need to search using literary techniques. Here it’s written. Now that is a philosophical question. And that same question could appear in a completely different philosophy book: Is it better for a person to have been created or would it have been better had he not been created? Is it better that I was created or not? Is there even meaning to that question at all? A very non-simple question. We once talked about wrongful birth. I think I mentioned it once. That is exactly the question of wrongful birth, or the philosophical basis for the question of wrongful birth. Why is that Torah? Why, when I read an article by a jurist on wrongful birth, is that not Torah, but when I read the dispute of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel about whether it is better for a person to have been created or not to have been created—and neither of them brings a law to Moses from Sinai on this topic, each one simply expresses a position like any other philosopher would express a position?

[Speaker C] There are many halakhic aspects there; they overlap. Many discussions in Jewish law at the edges overlap with discussions that exist in other legal systems, and their conclusions—often the conclusions are identical too. For example, the Rabbi’s lesson on the issue of finding lost property, the one where the Rabbi rejected Judge Zilberg’s position that tried to quote the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I didn’t reject it, I only said that it’s not… still, someone who studies “These Are Found Objects” studied Torah according to the Rabbi’s view, whereas someone who studies the Supreme Court decision

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] did not study Torah.

[Speaker C] Maybe yes, because one of the judges discusses there…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, Elon brought Bava Metzia. Fine, okay, so you studied Bava Metzia. But I’m talking about studying the ruling, not Bava Metzia. Not Elon’s interpretation of Bava Metzia, because that’s like any other interpreter; the fact that he was a judge doesn’t disqualify him. Meaning, he has an interpretation of Bava Metzia, fine. By the way, a perfectly reasonable interpretation, straightforward plain meaning.

[Speaker I] And because the dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai is found inside the Talmud itself…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So I’m saying, these are more questions than answers. I think the analogy Yossi made to Jewish law is incorrect. Because a discussion of the laws of returning lost property versus a ruling of Andels—that really is engagement with different legal systems. The halakhic discussion starts from halakhic premises, uses halakhic sources and methods, and reaches the conclusion that, to the best of my judgment, this is Jewish law. Someone else may disagree with me, so that is Jewish law in his opinion, never mind—but the discussion is a halakhic discussion. Of course German law also discusses the laws of returning lost property. But they don’t start from halakhic points of departure, they don’t use halakhic methods, so why should that be Torah?

[Speaker D] But if the premises and methods were identical? And if the premises and methods were identical, if they worked the same way, the premises were identical, that still wouldn’t be Torah. Right. Because that would be their legal system, and that’s what they did.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—that’s an excellent refinement. But in the philosophical question, when Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel dealt with whether it is better for a person not to have been created or better for him to have been created, they are doing exactly what every philosopher does. They’re saying the same thing. They’re not using other sources or other methods at all. That’s it—they’re simply philosophers wearing kippot. That’s all.

[Speaker L] Maybe it’s a different faith-system? What? A different system of beliefs.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, obviously they have a different system of beliefs, and maybe that turns it into Torah. But why? I don’t see it coming to expression there. That’s exactly the point. Why?

[Speaker D] If a physicist is a believer, then he has a system

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of beliefs, so does that mean his physics now becomes Torah? It’s like when the Nazis accused Einstein that his physics was Jewish physics. Yes, fortunately they accused him that his physics was Jewish physics and that’s why we’re here today. Also masculine? Yes. So the masculine too.

[Speaker B] Torah—so why does motivation nevertheless return to the table? Meaning, if you have in two legal systems how to relate to lost property… Here they even asked about motivation. Yes. And we said here that this is the word of God. No, it’s not motivation, it’s sources—I agree. I’m saying: in two legal systems you have laws of found property. Okay. And in the Jewish system, you study it because you want to do the word of God and this is His will in the world, and that’s the motivation with which you do it. Then automatically you are fulfilling the word of God and that turns

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it into Torah study for its own sake. If someone studies Talmud and doesn’t believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, at all?

[Speaker B] Then he didn’t do anything.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course he did—he studied Torah. He just didn’t perform the commandment of Torah study, because commandments of course require belief. He studied Torah, because what he studies is Torah. He starts from the Torah point of departure and clarifies the conclusion of that Torah point of departure regarding this case or that case. Therefore I’m saying, it’s not… again, you can argue, but I don’t think that changes anything with respect to the definition of what Torah is. It changes the value of the act, its religious value, the reward you’ll receive, I don’t know exactly what. But not the definition of Torah. But with Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel it’s not the same thing. Because Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel took a philosophical question par excellence, with no halakhic ramifications or whatever, spiritual ones or other ones, any more than with any other philosopher, using the same methods, from the same points of departure—only they wore kippot. So they studied philosophy with a kippah.

[Speaker M] And your intuition tells you that that’s not Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] My intuition tells me that it is Torah in the person in some such sense. Meaning, I think it’s not really Torah, but it is something of value for which it is worth suspending Torah study, even if you don’t need it in order to get some air or for whatever, but because it is something of value. I don’t know what would happen… to study it on Tisha B’Av? I don’t know. Studying that on Tisha B’Av would make me much happier, I think, than Jerusalem Talmud Moed Katan. But that already—don’t tell anyone. I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know what to say. Whether to recite the blessing over Torah study on it—I don’t know. By the way, not even on the dispute of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel in the Talmud over whether it is better for a person to have been created or not to have been created. If I don’t recite the blessing over Torah study on Kant, then I don’t recite it over that either. For me it’s the same thing. Either it’s Torah and then both are Torah, or it’s not Torah and then neither is Torah. No, I don’t accept the kippah. The kippah is not a criterion.

[Speaker L] Because it’s found inside the Talmud.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what if it’s found in the Talmud? So now… do you know what is found in our Talmud and our midrashim? I don’t want to tell you what is found in our Talmud.

[Speaker H] So you’re saying, for example, from page five to page thirty-six it’s Torah study, from thirty-seven to fifty-two it’s not, and that’s valid…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Take out only what’s inside quotation marks. What? Only what’s inside quotation marks. Only the verses. Only the verses. Everything else is philosophy—what philosophy…

[Speaker H] And if indeed those two legal systems, one supports, is similar to Hebrew law?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter. It can be completely similar; it makes no difference.

[Speaker H] No, similar to Hebrew law, and I’m studying it in order to…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, if again you study it because it’s similar to Hebrew law and in fact you are studying Hebrew law, fine—that’s Torah study. I don’t care if you study it from a book written in German. But German scholars dealing with German law—even if it happens to run completely parallel to the Torah law of returning lost property—I don’t think that is Torah.

[Speaker F] Because that is basically the commandments of the children of Noah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? To establish justice. No, fine—to establish justice, certainly they are doing a commandment. But why is that Torah? Of course not—they don’t have Torah, they have commandments.

[Speaker F] But it’s part of the Torah that they should have a legal system.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not Torah, that’s just ordinary law. By the way, for us too, ordinary law is part of the seven Noahide commandments. So what? Does that mean that when I go study law today, I’m supposedly studying Torah? What’s the difference? What they do is what I do—the same thing. Why? I also fulfill the seven Noahide commandments. Yes, I do. Even when I go study law, I’m fulfilling the seven Noahide commandments. The Noahide commandments apply to Jews too. What, is there no law of the kingdom for Jews? Is there no universal layer for Jews before our specific layer, Jewish law? Whatever every person in the world is obligated in, I’m obligated in too, exactly the same. What a non-Jew does, I do too, exactly the same, on the level of the seven Noahide commandments. Beyond that there’s a second floor, with the halakhic additions that apply only to me. That’s not Torah. It’s important—important that there be a legal system for society, of course. For them, and not only for them but for us too, it’s the fulfillment of a commandment, because there has to be a legal system, there has to be order, there mustn’t be anarchy. It’s all important, it’s all true—but why is that Torah?

[Speaker J] If right now I want to sharpen a legal concept in the Talmud, and for that purpose I go to other legal systems for comparison, I think that’s Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here we’re starting to get into the gray areas a bit. I’ll still get to talk about that. It really is a gray area. I want to think that it’s Torah. Why? Because in the end I’m clarifying a Torah concept. What difference does it make that I’m using—if for that purpose I go study German law, or study mathematics, or study whatever, some tools that I need in order to—then that’s very important, but those are preparatory tools for a commandment, that wouldn’t be Torah. But the stage where I’m already applying it to halakhic interpretation—that’s Torah in every sense. What difference does it make what tools I’m using, as long as I’m engaged in interpreting what’s called Torah? But on the other hand, let’s stay for a moment with the gray area. How far does it go? After all, yeshiva learning that thinks about the underlying reasoning behind the laws—those reasonings can take you all the way into philosophy. Everyone has his own mode of looking and analyzing, and in fact you’re dealing here with questions that are entirely philosophical, when at root what you’re trying to clarify is what Abaye thinks and what Rava thinks. Except that Abaye assumes that time has one kind of character and Rava assumes that time has another kind of character. Now I’m trying to clarify—wait, what does it mean that time has this kind of character? At that stage, I’m doing exactly what the parallel non-Jew does when he studies the issue of time in philosophy, or analyzes it, or thinks about the issue of time in philosophy. Right? True, in the end I think this will help me better understand Abaye or Rava; whether there will be any halakhic practical difference from it is doubtful—I’m not at all sure. I don’t know exactly where the line is, where it ends. Because understand: at a certain point, it seems to me that today, when I encounter a philosophical issue, there’s almost no philosophical issue that doesn’t eventually help me clarify something halakhic or Torah-related or something like that. Again, it’s a matter of point of view. There are others who don’t connect the things, and there are those who do. It’s a question of how you think, how your mode of analysis is built, and how you look at things. But for me, that’s how it is. So I don’t know where the line is. I haven’t the faintest idea. Truly, I don’t know. Which books belong in the study hall, which books are outside the study hall. Questions of Har Hamor and that sort. Those are not questions I would ask. As far as I’m concerned, everything enters the study hall. Everything.

[Speaker D] Just don’t bring in pornography. The essence of what’s being said is that even in issues that do explicitly speak about what happens there, that’s still not the essence; the essence is the normative principle. Meaning, Jewish law? I’m now talking about a philosophical principle that underlies the normative principle. I understand. Those are questions that are sort of factual questions, questions—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of fact.

[Speaker D] Factual questions are…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So now, are those factual questions metaphysics or are they Torah?

[Speaker D] Or is metaphysics Torah? No, I’m saying, these are different degrees of Torah, but even within…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides says that’s the summit—not a degree, that’s the most Torah there is. I don’t know. I’m saying, there are many questions here, and I don’t think even the Sages, by the way, had answers to this. That’s my assessment, my speculation. This mixture that exists in the Talmud, in my view, is completely parallel to what I would do today in the study hall if I dared. I would bring everything into the study hall—everything, everything. Mathematics, philosophy, physics, whatever you want. Whatever is interesting. There are things that don’t interest me, so I wouldn’t deal with them; someone else would deal with those too. Every kind of wisdom should be clarified here. But on the other hand, so what? Is Torah just a synonym for wisdom? Here too I’m not entirely at ease. Wisdom wasn’t given at Sinai; wisdom exists in the world. We use our minds. There are many people who have no connection—no spark of connection—to Torah, and they’re very wise; there’s a lot of wisdom in them to learn from. I don’t know, I’m really at a loss on this question. There are very few practical implications to it. Of course there are implications for those who will tell you that all this is neglect of Torah study. But as you asked earlier, there are areas that, even though they’re not Torah, engaging in them still would not count as neglect of Torah study. Okay? Because even as preparatory tools for a commandment, or broadening the mind, or things of that sort. Even the Rema—it's written in the Shulchan Arukh that one may engage in things for amusement. What exactly is called amusement? Those who narrow things down explain that this is actually Torah study. The restrictive readers explain that “for amusement” means you need to get some air from time to time. So getting some air is permitted, just as it’s permitted to go on vacation. “For amusement” means, on the contrary, to play with them not as a tool for Torah but as something in its own right, as something that stands on its own, because it broadens the mind. It’s just that then they didn’t really speak in terms of broadening the mind; that’s perhaps a more modern concept. I think that’s what he means by “for amusement,” it seems to me—but again, maybe yes, maybe no, I don’t know. So in other words, I’ll tell you this: one thing I do think I can say—at least my opinion. Take it or leave it. I don’t think what determines it is the genre, the cover, and the typeface. That’s clear to me. If philosophy is Torah, then Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel are Torah, and Kant is Torah, and Aristotle is Torah—if you think he’s right, whatever. And if not, then not. Torah depends on the person. Okay? And if it’s not Torah, then those parts of the Talmud aren’t Torah either. I’m not impressed by covers. I mean, they make no impression on me whatsoever. I mean, I don’t understand why anyone should be impressed by that. Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel also ate breakfast, but that doesn’t mean that when they ate breakfast it was called Torah study. They were important Jews, great Torah scholars, we all drink from their waters, fine—but not from their waste. They did other things besides produce water. Fine. So not everything Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel did is Torah. And now I’m going back to Maimonides, as you said earlier. Maimonides’ medical books—you said it as something obvious—nobody says that’s Torah, right? So why are the medical writings of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel Torah? What’s the difference? Because they’re inside the Talmud. That’s it. And inside Maimonides too there are sections that deal a bit with medicine. There are some, yes, some bits about medicine here and there. So then is that already Torah?

[Speaker J] And maybe really the solution—maybe the simplest one, without breaking your head—is to go with the cover and say that whatever is in the Talmud, all of that is simply—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, whatever is in the Talmud—

[Speaker J] —is Torah, and what you study around it in order to understand that line in the Talmud, all that is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, if you’re looking for a practical solution, then fine, that’s practical. But I can give you other practical solutions too. Every second page of the Talmud. No problem, that’s also clear-cut. Meaning page 2, 4, 6—no problem.

[Speaker D] Would you publish a Talmud without those sections in it? Would you publish an edition of the Talmud without those sections? Yes, absolutely.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Would I publish it? Of course.

[Speaker D] Your hands wouldn’t shake?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe they would shake; I’d take a pill. But psychology isn’t relevant.

[Speaker D] You’d take them out? Not so—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, you could also leave them in—you could print them in different colors.

[Speaker J] Okay, that’s what they did in Metivta.

[Speaker D] But they print everything. What don’t they study in yeshivot? But they print everything. They don’t open those pages. They won’t take that tractate? Even when they study for breadth. Right.

[Speaker J] I know, I know, but when they study for breadth, those sections they don’t print. They do print them, fine. That’s psychology. We talked about there being a difference in psychology. Either it’s psychology or it’s intuition.

[Speaker D] No, the discourse will be, you know—what will the narrative be?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The narrative will be that these are things so—

[Speaker D] —great and lofty and beyond us that we don’t understand them, and therefore we skip them. But they do skip them, they don’t deal with them. Nobody knows why this is lofty and exalted and all that; nobody ever found anything lofty or exalted in it, but there’s no choice, because it’s between these two covers, so that’s how it is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, so this is something I do feel more at peace with: that you have to decide based on the content whether it’s Torah or not. It doesn’t matter what cover it appears in.

[Speaker F] Suppose you say that Torah is anything that has even a potential practical implication for behavior—that’s Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Behavior that’s not even halakhic? Because a lot of information in the world has implications for how to invest in the stock market; that too is normative information. Implications for—

[Speaker F] Not laws. Studying economics.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A discussion, fine, a discussion of how to behave in the stock market. The laws of overreaching. No, he says normative. You’ve gone in a circle. I’m telling you: if you define Torah by means of the concept of Torah itself—because you’re saying that what helps me only for Torah behavior, that I’ll call Torah. I’m asking: Torah behavior—what is Torah?

[Speaker F] Why Torah behavior? Behavior in general, how to behave.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, but how to behave also includes how to invest in the stock market. What defines behavior? Is studying economics in order to know how to invest in the stock market Torah? So okay, I’m saying, this normative idea—normative in what sense? In terms of Israeli law? That too is Torah. That too is normative. You’re using the concept of Torah itself to define the concept of Torah. Morality and Jewish law. Morality and Jewish law. Jewish law is already better, although even there, you know, the law of the kingdom determines Jewish law in many places. So now, studying the law practiced in some place is in fact Torah, because it’s the law of the kingdom. I rebel against that—I even wrote in an article—this can’t be, I don’t know, intuitively it can’t be. These are preparatory tools for a commandment. Yes, they are preparatory tools for a commandment, by the way—you need to study them in order to know how to behave. They’re preparatory tools for a commandment, by the way. You need to study them in order to know how to behave. Meaning, these are tools for knowing what the halakha is, but that doesn’t mean it’s Torah study. Torah study has to be something in the thing itself, some holiness in the thing itself. Okay, all these question marks—Mati will resolve them for us next week. Next week we’re going to deteriorate into current events, I’m warning you already, Yehudit. So we’ll see each other next week.