חדש באתר: NotebookLM עם כל תכני הרב מיכאל אברהם

Rabbi Michael Avraham: Trends Among Religious Communities — Where Is Halakha Headed? – Torah and Labor Faithful

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

Table of Contents

  • [0:00] The opening: the question of where Jewish law is headed
  • [1:00] Tension between theory and practice
  • [3:27] Maimonides’ foundations: Torah that cannot be changed
  • [11:54] Rabbi Meir’s parables and their impact
  • [13:37] Swimsuits in the desert: the dilemma of conservatism
  • [15:10] The slippery slope in halakhic arguments
  • [20:50] Types of conservatism: simple, midrashic, comfort-based
  • [23:50] Qualifying women for testimony: a halakhic debate
  • [29:25] Summary and concluding thoughts
  • [33:15] Arguing for change without evidence – the problem of midrash
  • [34:58] Playing it safe – choosing the safer halakhic ruling
  • [36:45] Choosing the more plausible interpretation – analysis of two possibilities
  • [40:08] Meiri’s comments about gentiles – does Jewish law change?
  • [43:39] The role of reasoning in the Talmud – what reasoning does
  • [44:42] The passage in Bava Batra – presumption and collecting money
  • [56:00] The movement of objects and the definition of Jewish law
  • [57:17] Logical constants versus opposite conclusions
  • [58:28] Clothing and adapting to the weather

Summary

General Overview

The speaker argues that the question “where is Jewish law going” depends on definition rather than being an empirical question, and that there is tension between the sense of Torah’s eternity and fixity and the fact that in practice movement, interpretation, and adaptation to changing reality are required. He presents Maimonides’ position as a thesis of “no change, no addition, and no subtraction,” but argues that alongside this there is a “midrashic conservatism” that tries to preserve Torah authentically precisely by interpreting it in a way that distinguishes between principle and its factual application. He rejects framing change as merely a response to “distress,” and suggests that the main question is what is correct to do when there is no decisive evidence, using reasoning, assessment of plausibility, and an understanding of Jewish law as a normative mechanism that applies rules to changing facts. He concludes by claiming that Jewish law itself does not “move”; rather, reality moves, and therefore the bottom-line ruling must change so that the halakhic relation between norms and facts remains constant. Blind adherence to an old historical result in a new reality is, in his view, actually a kind of reform.

The Framework of the Question and the Tension Between Theory and Practice

The speaker says he does not know how to answer “where Jewish law is going” because it is a question of definition rather than an empirical question, and he prefers to rely on facts rather than definitions. He opens with a sense of dissonance between “what ought to be” and “what happens in practice,” or between top-down and bottom-up, and defines this as a tension between theory and practice, but also as an internal tension within theory itself. He presents two theoretical perspectives that cannot be ignored: the eternity of Torah, which seems to imply no change, and on the other hand the claim that eternity itself may require movement in order to remain relevant.

Maimonides as a Thesis of Torah’s Fixity and Unchangeability

The speaker cites from Maimonides’ introduction to the tenth chapter of tractate Sanhedrin the eighth principle, “Torah from Heaven,” according to which “this entire Torah that is in our hands today is the Torah given to Moses,” and that it is “entirely from the mouth of the Almighty.” He then cites the ninth principle, according to which this means that “this Torah of Moses will not be nullified” and that “nothing will be added to it and nothing subtracted from it, neither in the written text nor in its interpretation,” presenting this as a thesis that forbids tampering and change. He adds Maimonides in Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, chapter 9, where he speaks of “a commandment that stands forever and for all eternity” and says that it has “neither change nor subtraction nor addition,” including the claim that a prophet is not permitted to create a new religion or alter the Torah, but only to warn and command observance of its words; only in discretionary matters is one obligated to heed him.

From “Need” to “Authenticity”: Change Not as Solving Distress

The speaker describes the felt need to adapt and interpret, and gives as an anecdote his Belz Hasidic uncle who said, “It’s obvious to him that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob spoke Yiddish,” as an expression of an ethos in which “the shtreimel and gartel came down from Sinai” in principle. He argues that presenting change as a response to need or distress is a tactical and principled mistake, because distress is not a “winning card.” He illustrates this with the law of mamzerim, which creates great hardship but is not abolished. Instead, he proposes a principled claim: what appears to be change is meant “to transmit Torah in the most authentic way possible” within changing circumstances, not merely to solve local problems through enactments and decrees.

The Swimsuit Parable: Plain Conservatism, Midrashic Conservatism, and the Comfort Group

The speaker gives a parable about a group traveling in the desert wearing swimsuits, who then arrive in a colder region. Some want to put on warm clothes and others cling to tradition and remain in swimsuits. He shows that both positions can be called conservative, because the dispute among conservatives is over what exactly is being preserved: the literal result, “swimsuit,” or the principle, “clothing appropriate to the weather,” which is derived as an interpretive reading from the behavior of the ancestors. He defines continuing with swimsuits as “plain conservatism,” and wearing warm clothes on principled grounds as “midrashic conservatism,” while taking a third group out of the discussion entirely—the “comfort” group, which is not committed to the system. He notes that the tendency to see the one who suffers as the “real conservative” is fueled by suspicion that whatever is convenient is “probably forbidden,” but he argues that there is no necessity to suffer, and comfort is not proof of error.

Slippery Slopes, Motivations, and Preference for Substantive Discussion

The speaker says he tries not to get dragged into a “slippery slope,” and cites in the name of David Enoch the argument that slippery-slope arguments are problematic because they “mortgage the certain present for the sake of a doubtful future.” He refuses to discuss people’s motivations and prefers to examine arguments according to their validity and whether they “hold water,” maintaining that even if an argument comes from an ulterior motive, that has no bearing on whether it is correct.

Women as Witnesses as an Example: Midrashic Interpretation versus Accusations of Reform

The speaker gives the example of a proposal “to qualify women as witnesses” and explains how it is argued in a midrashic way: the rabbinic exposition “men and not women” from tractate Shevuot, followed by the claim that the Sages operated in a reality where women were homebound and not involved in the affairs of the world, whereas today reality is different and therefore women should not be disqualified. He says that such an argument is “midrashic conservatism” because it presents the disqualification of women as an application of a reality-dependent principle, not as an eternal statement about women as such. He testifies that in his experience such arguments are immediately dismissed as “a Reform argument,” and he presents this as an interpretive question about “what Jewish law is disqualifying,” not as a question of general loyalty.

Evidence, Unsupported Midrash, and the Claim of Asymmetry

The speaker says that such an interpretive move generally requires grounding and evidence from the Talmud, medieval authorities (Rishonim), and halakhic decisors; otherwise “the sky’s the limit” and any system can be dismantled through interpretation. He gives a counterexample from the laws of testimony: the disqualification of a wicked person, and the yeshiva-style inquiry whether that is because of “concern for lying” or because of an “intrinsic disqualification,” and argues that here one can bring evidence and therefore establish a halakhic interpretation that in practice qualifies certain wicked people as witnesses in our time. He adds that with regard to women it is hard to bring such evidence, and therefore one hardly finds Torah discussions of this sort, but he rejects the idea that only the innovator must provide reasons while the defender of the status quo is exempt. He argues that sticking to the default is not simply “playing it safe,” because that too has costs, and illustrates this by saying that disqualifying women’s testimony can leave money in the hands of a robber and even allows scenarios of “a murder in the ritual bath” where there are no kosher witnesses.

Deciding in Cases of Doubt and Relying on Reasoning and Plausibility

The speaker proposes that when there is no decisive evidence, one must choose the interpretation “that seems more plausible to us,” because a person has no tool other than his own reason, and “the Torah was not given to the ministering angels.” He rejects the claim “maybe that’s not correct” as a sufficient response, because it could shut down every Talmudic discussion. He compares this to a discussion on his website about “the ontological proof,” where intuitive rejection is not an answer to a valid argument. He notes that there are also rules governing doubt, such as “the one who seeks to extract from another bears the burden of proof,” but argues that in some cases sound reasoning alone is enough to choose an interpretation even without explicit evidence.

Meiri and “Bound by the Norms of the Nations” as a Precedent for Conservative Midrash

The speaker cites Meiri, who consistently claims that laws discriminating between Jews and gentiles are “void in his time” because gentiles are “bound by the norms of the nations.” He emphasizes that this argument is not based on distress, hostility, morality, or fear, but on fitting Jewish law to the human reality of the gentiles in his day. He describes the controversy surrounding Meiri’s comments, including claims of forgery or that they were written “out of fear of the censor,” but points out that Meiri writes this consistently “on every single page,” including with respect to violating the Sabbath in order to save a gentile. He presents this as a clear example of “conservative midrash” based on reasoning and understanding of reality, as opposed to a theoretical possibility of hidden explanations that are not actually presented as a plausible alternative.

What Is Jewish Law: Facts versus Norms and the Example of “A Person Does Not Repay Before the Due Date”

The speaker brings a passage from Bava Batra 5 about the presumption that “a person does not repay before the due date,” which weakens the credibility of a borrower who claims he repaid early, and suggests that if reality changes and that factual presumption is no longer true, there is no need to “archive” the whole passage. He argues that the Torah in that passage is not the psychological fact about human behavior, but rather the normative principle that a factual presumption can, in certain monetary contexts, substitute for witnesses. He concludes that Jewish law is not the facts themselves, but the normative rules that apply to facts, and that halakhic ruling requires a diagnosis of reality and then the application of norms to it.

Analogy to Logic: Jewish Law as an Inferential Mechanism Rather than a Bottom Line

The speaker compares Jewish law to logic, which deals with the validity of arguments rather than the factual truth of premises and conclusion, and presents logic as an “empty structure” of inference rules. He argues that Jewish law is similar in that it is neither the premises (the facts) nor the conclusion (the bottom line), but rather “the mechanisms that derive norms from facts” or “the glasses” through which reality is interpreted. He defines change in Jewish law not as a change in the result, but as a change in the relation between the same facts and the norms derived from them, and argues that an opposite result can be a faithful application of the same Jewish law if the facts have changed.

Conclusion of the Definition: Jewish Law Does Not Move, Reality Moves, and Plain Conservatism as “Reform”

The speaker returns to the question whether Jewish law “goes” anywhere, and explains through the image of the principle of relativity that the question depends on the frame of reference, so one must ask, “relative to what?” He argues that Jewish law does not move; reality moves. Therefore, the same “glasses” require different outcomes when facts change, while the relation between norms and reality remains static. He concludes that if one leaves “the same Jewish law applied to a reality that has changed,” that is actually reform, because it changes the normative relation to reality. He presents the “midrashic conservative” as someone who preserves the fixed principle while allowing outcomes to move in accordance with reality. He ends by saying that “in order for this not to change, we have to change the bottom lines,” because Jewish law is not the bottom line but the structure that applies norms to facts.

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The lecture is short and I’ll have to be brief about all this. So, does Jewish law move—does Jewish law move, and where is it going? My answer will be: I don’t know. This is not an empirical question, it’s a question of definition. And I think I don’t know about the definition, but I do know the facts, so what difference do the definitions make? I’ll try to speak a bit from a more general perspective. I deliberately didn’t prepare sources or projections and things like that, so it won’t distract attention. I actually usually prefer without those things. Because as far as I’m concerned, even if I bring one source or two, they’ll only be illustrations. So I want you to try to stay with me and less with the sources. The initial feeling from which I want to open this discussion is that there’s some kind of tension here, a dissonance between what ought to be and what actually happens. Or between top-down and bottom-up. In other words, the feeling somehow is that it ought to move—it ought to shift, it ought to change—and on the other hand there’s some feeling that it doesn’t happen. And that creates this tension I’m talking about. So that’s basically a question of theory versus practice. But it’s not only theory versus practice, because even within theory itself there is some sort of tension, and actually I want to start there. Because even within theory itself, you can’t focus on only one side of the issue. Within theory itself we have two perspectives that I think you can’t ignore either of. One of them is the perspective of the eternity of Torah. And the eternity of Torah, apparently, dictates the conclusion that Torah is not supposed to move. On the contrary, it’s supposed to be fixed, supposed to be preserved as it was, and not change. And on the other hand—and this is what I’ll try to discuss here—even on the theoretical pole, that’s only a partial view. I think even the assumption of the eternity of Torah does not mean that Torah is supposed not to move, to stand still, to petrify. Some would say the opposite: eternity itself dictates that Torah specifically should not stand still but should move, because otherwise it doesn’t remain eternal, it becomes a bit irrelevant. But all that is still very general. I want to try to grab the bull by the horns. So I’ll start precisely with the eternity of Torah, with the pole that apparently takes us to the place where Torah doesn’t move and isn’t supposed to move. I’ll start with two sources in Maimonides. And again, the precision and nuances of his wording matter less to me than giving us the point of departure. So I’ll just read, and you listen—read in fragments. In Maimonides’ introduction to the tenth chapter of tractate Sanhedrin, where he brought the thirteen principles or foundations, depending on how you translate that, the eighth and ninth principles are the ones that mainly concern us. The eighth principle is Torah from Heaven. And it is that we should believe that this entire Torah that is in our hands today is the Torah that was given to Moses. On the face of it, that sounds like a very strong statement. Everything in our hands today is the Torah given to Moses. No more and no less. A totally fixed and fossilized Torah. It may move, but not in any essential sense. It simply moves along a timeline, but what is moving is the same thing that began the journey. In other words, the journey began with Moses, and we are supposed to make sure that it continues moving without changing, because look: everything in our hands is what was with Moses our teacher. No more and no less. So that’s a kind of movement, but not in the interesting sense. It’s the movement of something that remains what it is, only progressing along the axis of time. And that it is entirely from the mouth of the Almighty, right? Nothing is of human origin; it all comes from the Almighty. Though you just have to remember that the one saying this is Maimonides. It’s a little hard to take that seriously. Meaning, that it all came to him from God; a transmission that is metaphorically called speech. Right—how it came to Moses our teacher. And no one knows the nature of that transmission except him, peace be upon him, to whom it came—Moses our teacher, and so on. In short, that’s the first point. And then the principle—the ninth principle—is that this Torah of Moses will not be nullified. And no other Torah will come from God besides it, and nothing will be added to it and nothing subtracted from it, neither in the written text nor in its interpretation. In short, you’re not allowed to touch it. Everything is as is. What the Holy One, blessed be He, gave Moses at Sinai is supposed to be transmitted to us without touching the matter. He said, “You shall not add to it and you shall not subtract from it.” And we have already explained what needed to be explained about this principle in the introduction to this composition. So these two principles of Maimonides basically set out the thesis. If we’re talking in a kind of dialectical move of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, then this is the thesis. The thesis basically says: nothing is supposed to change; we are not supposed to lay a finger on this. A person has no hand or foot in this matter. It all comes from above, from the Holy One, blessed be He, and from there it travels to us in a direct line, untouched. The same thing appears in Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, chapter 9, at the beginning of the chapter. Maimonides repeats more or less the same things. It is clear and explicit in the Torah that this commandment stands forever and for all eternity. It has neither change, nor subtraction, nor addition, as it says: “Everything that I command you, that shall you observe to do; you shall not add to it and you shall not subtract from it,” and so on and so on. Right, it is forbidden. No one can perform signs and claim there are changes in the Torah. A prophet cannot touch the Torah, certainly not—and all the more so—no one else. If so, why does the Torah say—in halakhah 2—“I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you”? Not to create a religion, but to command the words of Torah and warn the people not to transgress them. In other words, the prophet is only supposed to preserve the Torah that passes along that route we described earlier. Not to touch it, not to add and not to subtract. As the last of them said: “Remember the Torah of Moses My servant.” And likewise, if he commands us in discretionary matters—in things that do not concern Torah itself but other matters—such as go to such-and-such a place or do not go, wage war today or do not, build this wall or do not build it, it is a commandment to obey him. And one who transgresses his words is liable to death at the hands of Heaven, and so on. But that is only in matters outside the Torah, discretionary matters. The Torah itself he does not touch. That is one side.

The other side is not only need. I mean, the need—the feeling of need—I think everyone senses that. That you have to touch things, and have to interpret, and have to adapt, and this business cannot simply pass through as it was. Yes, unlike my uncle, who is more or less a Belz Hasid. He told me that it’s obvious to him that Abaye and Rava studied in Yiddish. Why did they study in Yiddish? Because they studied, so it’s obvious. Abaye and Rava knew how to learn, right? Someone who knows how to learn learns in Yiddish. What’s the question? He himself, I believe—I’m sure—doesn’t take that literally. But it does express a certain ethos on which he was raised, and the ethos itself is serious. Meaning, I don’t think he takes those things literally, but it does express a serious attitude, an attitude that really is serious. And that means that, in principle, the shtreimel and the gartel came down from Sinai. Meaning, we change everything, but really everything came down from Sinai. He’s a clear-headed person—he knows Moses our teacher didn’t walk around with a shtreimel and a gartel. But in principle, as far as he’s concerned, it came down from Sinai. The question is what that actually means. There is something much deeper here than just a feeling of need. And that’s a very important point—maybe the main point I want to focus on. Many times, the discussion of changes in Jewish law sets theory against practice, or the principle of the eternity of Torah against need. Meaning, after all, it can’t be that we won’t touch these things. We all feel that this business is supposed to undergo changes. The claim I want to make goes far beyond need. Because if the issue is an issue of need, then this is not a principled discussion. It’s not a principled discussion because matters of need are entrusted to the Sages. They are supposed to establish enactments and decrees and somehow adapt things, plug holes, do all kinds of things that the times require—in other words, respond to needs. But that is still a conception that says: you don’t touch Torah. We are not supposed to touch anything; it came down from Sinai and reached us as it came down. Except that we live with problems. We’re human beings. Human beings have hardships and difficulties, and problems arise, needs arise. So the Sages come and solve the matter through enactments, decrees, and the like. I’m not speaking on that plane at all. I’m speaking on the primary plane, even before enactments and needs and how one handles the issue. I want to argue that things that may look like change—and we’ll still see whether it’s even correct to define them as change—so things that look like change are not things meant to answer a need, but rather things meant to transmit Torah in the most authentic way possible under changing circumstances. And therefore this is a very important point, because many times when the need for change is presented, it’s presented as some response to distress. And when you present it as a response to distress, then one has to ask: first, is such a change even possible? Because distress does not permit just anything. Right? The law of mamzerim too creates enormous hardship. A mamzer is forbidden to marry almost anyone, and through no fault of his own. And that’s not a changing reality, but the distress is there. And the fact that the law says that despite the distress means that distress is not a trump card. In other words, distress may allow this or that local solution, but distress does not allow us truly to change essential things. And therefore I think the emphasis on distress is mistaken, both tactically and in principle. I want to talk about the question of what is right—not how to answer pain, how to solve hardship, but what is actually right. In other words, I want to argue that someone who wants to do the right thing must lay a hand on things, or change, or interpret Torah in one way or another, and not just in order to respond to distress.

And in order to clarify that point a bit more, I want to offer some theoretical introduction, to go to a kind of—you know, Rabbi Meir used to give fox parables. Why fox parables? So Rashi there says that if you tell a parable about a fox, you can discuss it abstractly, coolly, detachedly; it doesn’t touch us, we have no initial biases. The fox said this to that fox, the other one answered that—you can talk about it calmly. When we talk about our world, we’re usually biased, one way or the other. Those who want change are biased because they want the change, and the conservatives are biased because they don’t want the change. So let’s talk about foxes. Fine? Let’s talk about parables that seem far from us, and that’s the power of a parable, because a parable can take us to another world where we can discuss things coolly, and then return to our own world with the conclusions. This parable comes from a good friend of mine with whom I liked to exchange examples. In all kinds of topics we collected examples in general—examples for all sorts of things—and this is one of the examples we collected. I’m talking now about decades ago. And these examples—it’s a very interesting human capacity. You encounter an example, you see that it’s a beautiful example, and it doesn’t matter at all what it’s for. Meaning, the question of what this example illustrates may arise decades later. If you collect examples, in the end you see they’re very useful. And I think this example was one of the most useful among those we collected. So he said to me like this—a completely secular guy, actually, and he presented this example in an argument in his favor against me. And he said this: let’s think of a group of people walking in the desert in swimsuits, and their ancestors also walked in swimsuits, and yes, they’ve been accustomed to it forever, that’s how people in their group always went. At some stage they arrive in a colder area, and then a demand arises among some of the group—we were talking about hardships, right?—a demand arises among some of the group to wear warm clothes. It’s cold! So some say, fine, until now it was hot, we went in swimsuits; from now on I’m wearing warm clothes. Another group says, no, what are you talking about? We have the tradition of our ancestors in our hands, and you don’t build a state on hardship—meaning, hardship is nice, so we’ll overcome it, but we have to continue our ancestral tradition. So they remain in swimsuits even though it’s cold. Now the question is: which of them is conservative and which is reformist? I’m already using those terms, you see—it’s already starting to create the biases. That’s the problem: you can’t completely detach from the moral of the parable. But let’s still try to concentrate—not yet on the slippery slope, not yet. That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid, because once we’re biased, all kinds of slippery slopes immediately pop into our heads. Leave the slopes aside. First I want the scale itself, then we’ll see. I once heard from David Enoch—or in the name of David Enoch—that there is a slippery slope in the use of slippery-slope arguments. There’s something problematic about describing a slippery slope, because it mortgages the certain present for the sake of a doubtful future. Meaning, when you make a slippery-slope argument, you’re basically saying: look, what should be done now is X; that’s the right thing, and it’s clear we should do it—but in the future some problem may arise, therefore let’s do Y. In other words, you’re basically telling me: do something now that is certainly wrong now. Why? Because maybe in the future it will turn out that doing the right thing is problematic. Okay, so maybe let’s wait and see? First of all, let’s do the right thing. So leave me alone with the slippery slope. In short, one group puts on warm clothes and another remains in swimsuits with self-sacrifice. So I assume you’ll tell me that the first group are the reformists and the second group are the conservatives suffering for the sanctification of God’s name. But the picture is not so simple. Why? Because the question is: what is the reasoning of those who want to wear warm clothes? Our ancestors wore swimsuits in hot weather. What is one supposed to do in such a situation? So the first group will claim: our ancestors went in swimsuits, so we too must continue to go in swimsuits like our ancestors. The second says: what are you talking about? You’re the reformists! The ones continuing to go in swimsuits are the reformists. Why? Because the tradition of our ancestors says you should go in clothing appropriate to the weather. And just as our ancestors wore clothing appropriate to the weather, so we too will continue to wear clothing appropriate to the weather, exactly like our ancestors. We will not depart right or left from what our ancestors did, and therefore we’ll wear warm clothes. Now the question is: who is the real conservative? Which is already less simple, right? In other words, someone wearing warm clothes suddenly appears no less conservative than someone remaining in a swimsuit. Why is there a tendency among many people to see the swimsuit wearers as the real conservatives? Because wearing warm clothes is comfortable, right? Easy. When you arrive in a cold area, you put on warm clothes—it’s comfortable. Someone who continues in a swimsuit clearly isn’t doing it for comfort, right? That’s obvious. So in that sense he has an advantage in our eyes. We see him as someone willing to pay a price; he’s doing what’s uncomfortable, so presumably he’s doing what he really thinks is right. By contrast, the one wearing warm clothes—who knows? Maybe he’s really doing it because of what he says, because that’s what seems right to him. But the truth is it could just be an excuse. He really wants to wear warm clothes and afterwards finds excuses. Which of course may be true, but may also not be true. In the end, if we get into the question of people’s motivations, we can always give interpretations. I am against discussing people’s motivations in general. In discussions there is no reason to enter into motivations. Even if a person raises an argument from a completely ulterior motive, wicked, whatever—what do I care? I want to examine what the argument says. Whether it is correct or incorrect. If it’s correct, I’ll adopt it even if he’s utterly wicked; and if it’s not correct, then even if he’s perfectly righteous I won’t adopt it. So for me, the relevant plane of discussion is the substantive plane, not the plane of motivations. Now, the substantive plane raises an argument here that really does hold water. Whether people are seeking comfort or seeking truth matters for how to judge them, but why should I care how to judge them? I’m asking what is right for me to do. And what is right for me to do is really not a simple question. If our ancestors walked around in swimsuits, was that the principle? Or was the principle that our ancestors wore clothing appropriate to the weather, and that is the principle I need to preserve? The implication, of course, is when we are in a cold place. But these are two conservative conceptions at the level of principle. The question is what exactly is being preserved. But with both these groups, the principle is conservative. Their dispute is over what conservatism should preserve, what is the principle to which we must adhere. But both adhere to principles with the utmost devotion. This conception—sorry?

In their own eyes? Yes, yes, each in his own eyes; what can you do. Now, I just want to clarify one more point: why do I—and I assume many others as well—relate with some skepticism to this type of argument? It looks like a kind of trick: really you want to do what’s comfortable. Because the feeling among many people is that what’s comfortable is probably forbidden. It’s too good to be kosher, as they say. In other words, it can’t be that this is the right thing if it’s so convenient. But on that too I want to disagree. You don’t have to suffer. If something is right—well, if something is comfortable, that doesn’t prove it’s not right. It does mean that you need to pay close attention and make sure you’re not coming from the place of comfort, and examine whether you really believe the argument. But on the other hand it’s not a winning card: proving that I’m arguing for a comfortable position still doesn’t mean I’m wrong. That’s what one has to notice. That’s all. From that point on, let each person examine himself. As I said, the question of motivation is not without significance for discussion.

So now I want to return to the three groups we now have among the swimsuit-wearers—or yes, this group of swimsuit people. One group is the conservative group that continues to wear a swimsuit. Let’s call that plain conservatism. In other words, they preserve the thing literally, as it was. Fine? If it was a swimsuit, they continue with a swimsuit. The second group, those who wear warm clothes, but also for conservative reasons. In other words, they continue their ancestors’ conception that one wears clothing appropriate to the weather. I’ll call that conception midrashic conservatism. What does that mean? They too preserve, but the principle they preserve is not the simplistic principle—what we see in our ancestors, that they wore swimsuits. That’s the plain meaning. Rather, they make an interpretation. Why did they wear swimsuits? Because that was the clothing appropriate to the weather. So now we too will wear clothing appropriate to the weather. That is midrash. Fine? Fine, we interpret. So they are conservatives just like the first group, but the principle they preserve is a product of interpretation. It is not the product of a literal reading of the text or of reality. Okay? The third group is the comfort group. The group that says: I’m going with warm clothes because I’m cold. No need for excuses and explanations and interpretations and things like that. So they are outside the scope of our discussion, because they are not really committed to the overall system—or, in the moral of the parable, to Jewish law. Okay? So let’s say they’re outside the scope of the discussion. By the way, if I had to relate to that group, I’d say that’s, say, the atheists’ group, I don’t know, the non-committed group. Because the question where I first used this example was in an article trying to examine what Reform is. What is Reform? And the truth is, none of these three groups is Reform. The first group is plain conservatism, the second is midrashic conservatism, and the third is someone not committed at all. But Reform is something else. Now if you try to think about it for a second, it’s actually not simple at all to place Reform on this map. Because apparently it seems there aren’t more than these three groups. Apparently they cover the whole range of possibilities. But in reality we see there are more than three groups. And how to define the Reform group—I’ll leave that for you to think about afterward. It’s an interesting question and it requires some logical maneuvers, but I won’t get into that here.

In any case, for our purposes, what matters is the relation between the first two groups. The first two groups are committed to the principles of their ancestors, or in the moral of the parable to Jewish law, but they dispute what those principles mean—whether you take them literally or whether you interpret them. What exactly lies behind this dispute? What lies behind it also lies behind many, many disputes about changes in Jewish law. Why? I’ll give one example. Suppose someone now comes and wants to propose qualifying women as witnesses—heaven forbid—in the religious community. So suppose someone proposes qualifying women as witnesses. Fine? How does he base that? Usually what he’ll say is that in the time of the Sages, when they disqualified women from testimony—they disqualified them at the Torah level, but it’s a rabbinic exposition, it’s not written explicitly in the Torah. The Talmud in tractate Shevuot says, “And the two men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord”—“men” and not “women.” Now, “men” there refers generally to the litigants, so it’s a very shaky exposition, but that’s how the Sages expound it, to disqualify women from testimony. So what the proposer will say—the person proposing to qualify women today as witnesses—he says: the Sages had before their eyes women who stayed in the home, not so familiar with the wider world, the world of business, the street, the public domain, how things are conducted; and therefore maybe they do not fully understand a situation in which they participated or which they saw, and because of that it is difficult to qualify them as witnesses. If you pay attention, this argument is of the type of the midrashic conservative, right? Because he’s basically saying: I am sticking to what the Sages said. I’m not deviating; this is not a change in Jewish law. I’m sticking to what the Sages said. So this is not Reform and it’s not someone uncommitted; it is an internal halakhic argument saying: I’m sticking to what the Sages said. What did the Sages say? According to my proposal, the Sages did not say that women are disqualified from testimony. The Sages said that someone unfamiliar with the wider world is disqualified from testimony. In their time, women really fit that criterion; in our time, they do not. So now maybe we should disqualify someone else from testimony—someone who is shut away at home all his life—but not women. Someone who sits in yeshiva? Right, there’s a good proposal—to disqualify yeshiva students from testimony today and qualify the women. So now—no, I’m not joking, by the way, there’s an interesting claim here. In any case, that is exactly the kind of argument called midrashic conservatism. You need to understand why—I’ll explain. Not why it’s midrashic conservatism; that’s obvious. Rather, why this even needs to be explained. Because when an argument of this sort comes up—from my personal experience, when an argument of this sort comes up, it is immediately dismissed as a Reform argument. Why? That’s always what happens. I’m telling you from experience—from experience. Maybe because it’s comfortable, doesn’t matter. Again, I’m not entering into motivation; motivation doesn’t interest me. I always ask what the arguments are, whether the arguments hold water. So I’m telling you: every time I raised this argument and spoke with many people, in various groups and so on, it was always rejected out of hand because it is not faithful to Jewish law. It’s a Reform argument. And I say: what is Jewish law? Does Jewish law disqualify women, or does Jewish law disqualify someone who is not immersed in economic life, society, the street, the public sphere? It’s an interpretive question—not so simple. It depends whether you are a literalist or an interpreter. But if you are an interpreter, what is the problem? This is just a normal, simple halakhic argument.

And I’ll say more than that. Usually the picture is even less favorable. Usually when such an argument comes up, it’s not just that people say it’s a Reform argument. Why? Because something is missing here. When you want to justify such an interpretation—after all, you can produce these interpretations by the kilo, right? In other words, that’s not hard. Usually I would expect you to anchor it in something. Meaning, for example, if I open the Talmudic passages and the commentators and I look to see why women were disqualified from testimony—if I find indications that women were disqualified because of lack of familiarity with the affairs of the world, that will support my interpretive claim. It will say that, indeed, one should not disqualify women, but only those who fit that criterion of unfamiliarity. But if I bring no justification for the interpretation, then the sky’s the limit. I can do whatever I want. I could also say that from now on, instead of the Sabbath we keep Tuesday. Why? Because the Sages had something with the number seven—I don’t know exactly why—but we have something with regular reminders every three days, we want to read the Torah, so every three days we’ll keep Sabbath. What is holiness in the number seven? We’ll keep Sabbath, according to an interpretation of the Sages—every three days, not every seven days. What’s the problem? Not the Sages—the Torah. Yes, what’s the problem? You can get anywhere with this argument.

[Speaker B] But look, the interpretation “men and not women”—but by the same token you have other interpretations where “men” includes all kinds of people.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you want to argue with that interpretation, I have another hundred claims that are much better.

[Speaker B] I’m not

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Came in—this isn’t the lesson, I’m not getting into the claim itself; for me it’s an example. I would like to learn the topic together with the midrash and see why yes and why no. I have many other questions, much stronger ones, about this midrash. I hinted earlier that in my view it’s a bit upside down in a paradoxical way. In any case, never mind—let’s assume there is such a rabbinic midrash, and I treat the Sages with respect. It’s clear to me they didn’t do something arbitrary. They did it because that really is what they understood. Fine, that’s my assumption. And still I ask: okay, they understood it that way, everything is fine—now I ask what I’m supposed to do with that. Not argue with them. Okay? Now, what I basically said is that if I allow this kind of midrashic acrobatics, then in effect I can dismantle all 613 commandments, all of Jewish law, until it bleeds, and leave nothing. So what do we do? Usually we look for proofs, right? Now, proofs are not some absurd thing—you can find proofs for such things. I’ll just give you an example from this very topic. There is a disqualification of a wicked person—a wicked person is disqualified from testimony. A wicked person is disqualified from testimony according to Jewish law. “Do not join hands with a wicked person to be a malicious witness.” Now one can discuss: is a wicked person disqualified from testimony because we suspect he lies? A wicked person—if he’s wicked, then maybe he also lies in court, who knows. Or not. Or what? What? No—what is a wicked person, what’s the definition? I’m not getting into that now. In a moment. The second possibility is no: a wicked person is disqualified from testimony for some other hidden reason, it doesn’t matter exactly what. Okay? This has many implications. For example, today in our times, people who fall under the definition of a wicked person in the halakhic sense—you asked before what a wicked person is—for example, someone who desecrates the Sabbath, or someone who commits a transgression punishable by lashes or death, is considered wicked according to Jewish law. Okay? Nowadays there are very many people who intentionally commit transgressions punishable by death or lashes, if you like, and still I think there is no concern that they will lie in court. They tell the truth. Why? Because their value system doesn’t include Sabbath and pork, but it does include telling the truth. Okay? So there’s one implication. If the disqualification of the wicked person is because of concern for lying, then there’s no problem: today I can validate all these people. By the way, many halakhic decisors actually write this as practical Jewish law—that wicked people who are written in the Shulchan Arukh as disqualified from testimony, today we validate them because of this argument. Here is an example of a midrashic argument that is used in practice in Jewish law. Because the Torah says that a wicked person is disqualified. That’s it. If we are plain-text conservatives, then that’s all, it ends there. Meaning, here they do in fact use midrash. If we think a wicked person is disqualified for some other reason, then no. What’s called an intrinsic disqualification, a biblical decree, I don’t know, various accepted yeshiva terms—then no, then we have to disqualify a wicked person even today. Now how do people discuss this topic? Unlike the topic of women, in this topic you can extract proofs from the Talmud and from the medieval authorities (Rishonim), which is what they do in every yeshiva when they study the relevant passages in Sanhedrin in the third chapter about disqualified witnesses. They discuss whether a wicked person is disqualified because of lying, concern for lying, or whether it is an intrinsic disqualification. One of the most basic conceptual inquiries in the laws of testimony in yeshiva learning. Therefore there you can even try to look for proofs for the conservative midrash—that midrash which says the question is why a wicked person is disqualified from testimony. Whether I can follow the reason, or whether I must disqualify the wicked person as wicked. Therefore in principle I would expect the same thing with regard to women. So the argument is not invalid on its face—you can raise such an argument in the study hall or in the halakhic world—but I expect you to back it up with proofs from the Talmud, from the medieval authorities (Rishonim), from the halakhic decisors, as is the way of Torah. It is hard to bring proofs on this matter. There are statements here and there, but statements that in my opinion are not well grounded. Right? We have a kind of reverential attitude toward things that are written. You bring a proof from a book where it is written in Rashi’s handwriting that women are disqualified from testimony for such-and-such a reason. You found some midrash. That doesn’t mean—how well grounded is what is written in some particular book? Okay? In any case, bringing proofs for this is not simple. You can try, but it is not so simple. And not for nothing—they almost never did it. With regard to the disqualification of women, if you try to look for discussions you won’t find them, or you’ll hardly find them. Okay, so if that’s so, then you’re raising an argument for change without bringing proofs for your conservative midrash. You’re offering your own suggestion, that women are disqualified from testimony because of lack of familiarity with the realities of the world, and therefore today, when women are in a different situation, one can validate them for testimony. An in-principle argument, as I said, one can discuss in the study hall; it is not a Reform argument. But you’re not bringing proofs. Who says that this is why women are disqualified? Maybe not. I think that is more than anything what arouses the concern that there is some kind of Reform argument here and not midrashic conservatism. Because you’re not giving reasons for your midrash. Without reasons, I can write whatever midrash I want. But I also want to dig into that point. To argue that this point too is problematic. And this argument too is problematic even when there are no reasons. Because the other side also brought no reasons. Why is it that the one who says women should be validated for testimony has to bring reasons for his argument, while the one who says they should continue to be disqualified doesn’t have to bring reasons for his? Why does the one who says you need to wear warm clothes have to bring reasons—that his forefathers did not advocate wearing swimsuits but rather clothing suited to the weather—while the one who wants to keep wearing a swimsuit is exempt from that? Why? So you’ll tell me: because let’s play it safe. That’s the safest thing. Whoever seeks to change things is at a disadvantage. That too is not so simple. Why? Think about it: we play it safe, we continue to disqualify women from testimony. And let’s say the truth, from the perspective of the Holy One, blessed be He, is that women are valid for testimony. But I have no proof, right? But I don’t know. So I am dealing here with the laws of uncertainty. Maybe this one is right, maybe that one is right. Now I want to play it safe. What does it mean to play it safe? It means to choose the side that has no costs, right? That’s called playing it safe. Is that a side with no costs? Two women saw Reuven rob Shimon. Now we won’t take the money from Reuven because the witnesses are women and therefore disqualified. So we leave the money in the hands of the robber? Is that playing it safe? And if in truth women are valid—let’s assume the truth is that women are valid for testimony—I have no proofs, I don’t know what to do. So is that called playing it safe? You know the famous Agatha Christie book, Murder in the Mikveh. Murder in the mikveh: a man wants to murder a woman, the safest place to do it is in the mikveh, in full view of all the daughters of Israel who are there in the mikveh. He can murder her—there isn’t a single valid witness there. And then no one will be able to convict him in court. Is that called playing it safe? It is absolutely not playing it safe. You are disqualifying women who are valid for testimony, and you are producing a crooked judgment, whereas in truth—truth is that maybe they are valid, maybe yes, maybe no. It could be that you are right; I have no proofs. But now what to do—that is a question in the laws of uncertainty. It is still not clear that even if I have no proofs I must remain in the previous state. There are costs to both sides. No ruling is safe or cost-free. There is no such thing. So in the end we are really discussing the laws of uncertainty. What do we do? Fine, so what is your suggestion, tell me. Right, so you proved that it’s impossible to stay with the swimsuit, even though we also have no proof that we should switch to winter clothing. So what do we do? I’ll tell you what I think should be done. What I think should be done is to choose the interpretation that seems more reasonable to us. Choose the interpretation that seems more reasonable to us, right? After all, what is the argument here? We rule that the Sages disqualified women from testimony. From the Torah this is Torah-level; the Sages expounded an interpretation that disqualifies women from testimony. I have two principled interpretive possibilities—let’s simplify a bit. One interpretation is that they disqualified them from testimony because of their old social status, that they were not reliable witnesses. The second interpretation—which of course is not really an interpretation—the second possibility is simply that maybe you’re wrong. There isn’t another interpretation here. I don’t know of any other convincing explanation for why women are disqualified from testimony. But maybe there is something—some damage to eternity in the world, I have no idea. Something hidden. Now I ask: I have a reasonable explanation. You tell me, true, but maybe your explanation is not correct. Fine, so what can I do? What do you want me to do? If these are my two options, then my reason tells me to choose what seems reasonable in my eyes, right? I know that maybe I’m wrong, but the Torah was not given to ministering angels. And in the end, what I can do is the best I can do, no more. And since the conservative interpretation too, which says we will keep going with the swimsuit, continue to disqualify women from testimony, carries heavy costs—and maybe even heavier costs than this interpretation, if accepted, which can validate women for testimony, at least in monetary matters, meaning there are mechanisms that can validate women for testimony on the practical level—if so, then I choose the interpretation that seems more reasonable to me. And this “the burden of proof is on the one who wants to take from another”—you want to argue that maybe this isn’t right? You’re right, maybe it isn’t right. But about every reasoning I give, you can make that argument: maybe it isn’t right. And someone wrote on my website some time ago—he had some objection to the ontological proof, you know, the proof for the existence of God. It’s some sophisticated conceptual analysis that proves the existence of God. He tells me, this seems paradoxical to me, therefore obviously I don’t take it seriously. I told him, look, if it’s a valid argument, what do you mean you don’t take it seriously? If you point out a flaw in the argument, I understand. But “I don’t take it seriously”? According to that logic, anyone who brings you a logical argument against you, you’ll say yes, but it doesn’t sound logical to me and therefore I don’t accept it. You can’t talk to someone like that. What can I tell you other than that it sounds logical to me? If you propose an alternative that is no less logical, I agree with you—there is uncertainty here and we need to discuss what to do. By the way, in monetary law there are rules for what to do in cases of doubt: the burden of proof is on the one who seeks to extract property. There are rules for the laws of uncertainty too, and one can also remain in doubt—that is perfectly fine. There are also rulings dealing with witnesses who are in doubt, maybe disqualified and maybe valid. That too is a discussion; it’s not terrible. I am only arguing that here we don’t even need to get to that, because in the end there is a logical reason for one side, and the argument against it only says: yes, but maybe that’s not right. Fine—by that logic, we can close the whole Talmud. Every discussion, every logical argument raised by the Talmud and the medieval authorities (Rishonim), every logical argument raised by anyone—I say yes, you’re right, it sounds logical, but maybe it’s not right. So we won’t rely on our reason anymore because maybe it’s not right? What else do we have to do besides rely on our reason? We have no other option. Therefore I claim that even when no proofs are brought in favor of the conservative midrash, if that conservative midrash sounds logical—another interesting example of this: there is a series of statements by Meiri; perhaps it is familiar to many of you. Meiri writes very, very consistently in dozens and maybe even more places in his commentary on the Talmud—Rabbi Menachem Meiri, one of the important medieval authorities (Rishonim) in Provence. He says that the laws established by the Sages, that the Talmud establishes, which discriminate between Jews and non-Jews, are void in his own day. Why? Not because of distress, and not because maybe they’ll kill us, and not because of all the usual reasons—but because it is not true. Because the non-Jews of today are bound by the ways of civilized nations. “Bound by the ways of civilized nations” means they behave like civilized human beings. As with Jews, among non-Jews too there are wicked people, less wicked people, as everywhere—but they are ordinary human beings like me and you. And therefore, apparently everything the Sages said about non-Jews does not apply to the non-Jews of his time. That is what Meiri claims about the non-Jews of fourteenth-century Provence. Okay? Now decide what to do with today’s non-Jews. So that is what he claims. Around this, a very large controversy arose. Many attack this Meiri and say—not that they attack him, rather they claim he is forged. You’re not allowed to attack him because he is a medieval authority (Rishon). So they attack by saying maybe he is forged, or that he wrote this out of fear of the censor. You know, there are sometimes corrections inserted out of fear of the censor. But there are quite a few indications that this is not true. Yaakov Katz once wrote an article about this, and there are many indications. First of all, when someone writes something out of fear of the censor, he writes it on the first page of the book in a big frame: all statements here regarding non-Jews were said only about non-Jews up to the tenth century BCE and not about the righteous non-Jews of our day, such as His Majesty the Emperor, may his glory be exalted, who of course is pious and of great achievement, and so on. That’s what you write on the first page. But Meiri didn’t write it on the first page—at least I haven’t seen his first printing—but he wrote it on every single page of his commentary, mainly on tractate Avodah Zarah but not only there. Everywhere a law appears that discriminates between Jews and non-Jews, he adds: and this is not true today, because the non-Jews today are bound by the ways of civilized nations—including Torah-level laws, including desecrating the Sabbath in order to save the life of a non-Jew. Desecrating the Sabbath, which is a transgression punishable by stoning. Meiri says something simple: it is obvious that today one must desecrate the Sabbath—not because the non-Jews will kill us, not because of peaceful relations, not because of distress, not because of morality, not because of anything—but simply because this law does not exist today; it does not speak about our non-Jews today. This is conservative midrash par excellence. Exactly what I suggested with regard to women, with regard to swimsuits, and with regard to all the other things. Meaning, there are many places where we can see this kind of conservative midrash without proofs, just because it seems logical—without proofs. Why? Because you can say to Meiri: fine, but maybe the discrimination between Jews and non-Jews was not because of the behavior of the non-Jews but for some other reason, I don’t know—because high in heaven their angelic prince, the angel appointed over them, I don’t know, limps in one leg. Fine, I don’t know, maybe. But maybe not. I have nothing to do with arguments like that. I have a logical explanation. Do you have another explanation that is no less logical, that won’t be more logical, that isn’t less logical? An alternative—let’s compare between the two alternatives. There isn’t one. So if that’s the case, maybe I’m wrong, but this is what I think; this is the best I think—what can I do? That’s it. No one can come to me with complaints if I’m doing the best I can; I can’t do more than that. Okay? Meaning, in Jewish law it is simple: when you have a reasoned argument, you go with it. The Talmud says, in several places, “Why do I need a verse? Reason itself is enough.” When there is logical reasoning, you don’t need a verse. Reasoning is Torah-level law; if something emerges from reasoning, it is Torah-level law. You don’t need a verse for that. Why? Because our reason is part of the tools with which we approach Torah. So why are these reasonings illegal here? Why does it stop here? Therefore it seems to me there are precedents for this; there is no reason in the world to treat proposals of this sort as Reform proposals rather than proposals of midrashic conservatism. Not Reform proposals—proposals of midrashic conservatism. Jewish law is saturated with them; there are lots of arguments of this kind. What this really says on a deeper level is that this is basically a dispute about what Jewish law is. I’ll give perhaps an example precisely from something not charged at all—not connected to the status of non-Jews or women or all the other inferior creatures—but an argument about a banal topic, monetary law. The Talmud in Bava Batra 5a says that if there is a dispute between lender and borrower: the lender lent Reuven money, he lent Shimon money, and an unspecified loan is for thirty days. After a week he sues Shimon: please return the loan. Shimon of course can say to him—because there is a presumption that a person does not repay before the due date. If you can hold onto the money for a month, you won’t repay it after five days. If you claim you repaid after five days, that is dubious; bring proof. It can happen, but what is more reasonable is that you did not repay—bring proof. If it is after the due date, then he is believed, because the burden of proof is on the one who seeks to extract property from another. He wants to take money from me; I claim I repaid; I am believed. Now let us assume for the sake of discussion that today people do repay before the due date. And look, it isn’t far-fetched. Because if today a person suddenly gets a sum of money, since there is a permissible business arrangement and all the tricks, then there is interest. They don’t call it interest because that is forbidden—permissible business arrangement, fine—but practically, you have to pay for the money. So if money comes to me in time, then I’ll pay off the loan, right? A mortgage—someone suddenly inherits a large estate, so he pays off the mortgage. He doesn’t want to pay the interest over all the remaining years, right? The bank’s labor fee, not interest, sorry. So he says: I repay before the due date. So what emerges from this Talmudic passage is a presumption that a person does not repay before the due date. Fine—today, as far as I’m concerned, that isn’t true. So should we skip over this passage because reality changed? A sugya in Torah—can we come to page 5, page 5, and trim it down? So my claim is no. Why no? Because this sugya did not come to teach me the presumption that a person does not repay before the due date. That presumption—go out into the street, take a survey, ask psychologists, economists, whatever, ask them, check the facts: does a person repay before the due date or not? That is not the point. The Talmud is not dealing with facts. The Talmud handles facts, but that is not the lesson that emerges from the sugya, that is not the Torah in the sugya. That is the route through which the Torah is conveyed. What is the Torah? The Torah is that if there is some presumption—and what a presumption is, should you ask the economists? No, ask the Amoraim or the halakhic decisors. After all, if there is some presumption, that presumption is effective enough to extract money. Usually, “by the testimony of two witnesses shall a matter be established”—you need two witnesses to extract money from someone in possession. But here, if there is a presumption—because he says “I repaid” and he is not believed because a person does not repay before the due date—they take money from him. There are no witnesses against him. That is a major novelty in Jewish law: despite the absence of two witnesses against him, since there is evidence that what he claims is not reasonable, they extract money from him. That is the novelty of the sugya. The novelty of the sugya is not the factual presumption that a person does not repay before the due date, but rather the normative claim that when there is a factual presumption, one may use it instead of witnesses to extract money. That is the Torah part, and it is always true. Or always binding—“true” is another question. It is always binding. As for the factual presumption, in their time that was the reality; today the reality is different. Now if someone wants today to apply the conclusion of the sugya in Bava Batra 5a, we don’t bury it away; we continue to study it. And what is the conclusion? That if someone today claims “I repaid before the due date,” he is believed—the opposite of what the Talmud says. But that is the result of the Talmud, not against the Talmud. Because the Talmud said that if there is a presumption, then money is extracted—or in this case, left in place. So once there is a presumption in favor of the one who says “I repaid,” or at least no presumption against him, then we do not extract the money from him. And this emerges from that very sugya, even though the bottom line is the opposite of what is written at the end of the sugya. At the end of the sugya it says that he must pay and is not believed. But I say that from this sugya itself we learn not only that this does not contradict the sugya—the sugya itself taught us that now we should leave the money with him, not take the money from him. So this sugya is eternal; it does not change; it is always binding. What changed is reality.

[Speaker B] What the presumption is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, what the presumption is—that is a factual question. What is the presumption, how do people behave. Psychology too is facts—maybe not science, but facts. So therefore, in the end, what I want to show from here is that Jewish law is never facts. Facts can change, and that has nothing to do with Reform or non-Reform. If you think the facts have changed relative to the facts of the time of the Sages, you are merely saying something trivial—obviously that is true. Today’s reality is not the reality of the Sages; no one disputes that, right? Reality has certainly changed. So what now—shall we make a factual determination today that contradicts a factual determination that appears in the Talmud? Is that connected at all to the question of Reform or not Reform? What does that have to do with it? It is a question of evaluating reality—reality, what the reality is. The Talmud did not claim that this is reality; it assumed that this was the reality in its time. That’s all. In our time the reality is different. What does emerge from the Talmud? The norm that applies to that reality. Jewish law is always norms that apply to a factual situation. In order to issue a halakhic ruling, you have to diagnose the factual situation and then decide which norm applies. Normativity—how we look at reality. And that always remains correct. But the glasses—if reality changes, then the glasses will show me a different picture. That does not mean I changed glasses. Reality changed, not the glasses. Jewish law is the glasses. It is not the reality, and not what I see in reality, but rather the means through which I decode reality—that is Jewish law. And that remains true always, or binding always. Okay. When reality changes, then those same tools can bring me to a different conclusion, but that is not against Jewish law; it is the correct application of Jewish law. Whoever does not do this departs from Jewish law. Therefore the dispute is fundamentally about the question: what is Jewish law? Is Jewish law the bottom line that a person is not believed to claim “I repaid before the due date,” or does Jewish law say that if there is a presumption, we rule accordingly in the given case? And I claim that Jewish law is the second thing. Let’s bring an example—maybe I have another one—let’s bring perhaps an example that will explain this a bit. Now, logic. Logic deals with—or a large part of logic deals with—the validity of arguments. What is the validity of arguments? When I talk about claims, claims can be true or false, right? There is a tree outside—a true claim. There is an airplane here beyond the window—that is a false claim. I judge claims in terms of true and false. I compare the claim to some state of affairs in the world, and if there is correspondence, it is true; if there is no correspondence, it is false. What is an argument? An argument is a mechanism that infers a conclusion from premises. If all frogs have wings, this table is a frog, therefore this table has wings. That is a valid argument, even though its premises are not true and its conclusion is not true either. Why is it valid? Because validity is not connected to truth. Validity determines the relation between the truth of the premises and the truth of the conclusion. Okay? But it can be that both the premises are false and the conclusion is false, and still the argument is valid. Okay? Meaning that logic does not even see the question—whether the statements are true or false is transparent from the point of view of logic. Logic deals only with the implication of if-then. If the premises are true, then—like mathematics—if the premises are true, then the conclusion is true. I am not interested in whether the premises are actually true, nor am I interested in whether the conclusion is actually true. Logic deals only with the relation of implication: does the conclusion follow from the premises or not? Okay? Logic is basically an empty structure—what in philosophy is called the emptiness of the analytic. Meaning, the analytic is empty. Analytic means language and a system of rules, rules of inference. Okay? What you put into that machine is what will determine the result it gives you. In Jewish law it is the same. Jewish law in this sense is completely parallel to logic, because Jewish law does not tell us at all what to do and what not to do. Jewish law is only the glasses that determine what to do and what not to do. What determines the bottom line are the facts at which we look through these glasses. When we look at certain facts through halakhic glasses, the result will be a halakhic conclusion. Meaning, if for example the Talmud in Bava Batra establishes a rule, “rule” means this: if there is a presumption X, then the legal ruling will be Y. That is what Jewish law says. It does not say whether there is presumption X or not, and it also does not say that the practical ruling is Y or not-Y. What it says is that if the facts are X, the conclusion is Y. That’s all. Now I go to reality and check whether the facts really are X or not. Whatever facts I discover by examining reality, I insert into the halakhic or logical mechanism, and that is what gives me the final result. Jewish law is not the premises and not the conclusion, but only the rule of inference, or only the glasses that carry me from the premises to the conclusion. And therefore, exactly as in logic, changes in the bottom line are not changes in Jewish law at all. It is a mistake to look at it that way. Changes in Jewish law mean taking the same reality and deriving from it a different result. But why is that a change in Jewish law? Not because the result is different, but because the relation between the result and your premises is different. The proof is that the same premises led to a different conclusion. Since Jewish law is not the bottom line of what should or should not be done, Jewish law is the logical relation, or the relation of implication, or the relation between the actual and the desired—the ought from the is—just as philosophers distinguish between facts and norms and say that one must not derive norms from facts. If in the end I return to the title—the title was: does Jewish law move, and where to? I told you that it depends on the definition. You know that not the theory of relativity, contrary to the common mistake, but the principle of relativity—the principle of relativity says, physically speaking, that if the train is moving relative to a stationary object, then we can define it as stationary. Right? Velocity is determined according to a given frame of reference. If the frame of reference—yes, with the same velocity of course—the frame of reference is what determines the velocity. It is not an objective determination. Now the question whether the train is moving or not moving—well, you can’t answer that question. You have to say: moving relative to what? Moving relative to the platform—that is one question. Moving relative to a car driving on the road next to it—that is another question. Okay? Sometimes yes and sometimes no, and of course also at what speed it is moving. Therefore, when you ask me whether Jewish law moves or does not move, the answer is: relative to what? I claim that Jewish law does not move; reality moves. Reality moves, and therefore the same glasses, which do not change—just as Maimonides says at the opening from which I began, what Moses our Teacher received is what we do today with all the interpretations and everything—but that is exactly what we do; there is no need to touch that. What needs to be done is simply to apply the same glasses to a changing reality. When the road is moving and the car stands on it—like Elon Musk doing these things for us—so when the road is moving and the car is standing on it, is it moving or standing? Relative to me it is moving, if I am not on the moving road. But relative to the road it is standing. Right? So that is why I said it is a question of definition whether Jewish law moves or does not move. What needs to move are the norms that are applied to reality. Why? Because reality moves. If reality moves, the norms too must move. But the relation between the norms and reality is completely static. It always stands; it is the same relation. Just as logic does not change, but if you put opposite premises into the same logical rule, the conclusion will come out opposite. The logic did not change. The logic remained exactly logic. Therefore the question whether Jewish law moves or does not move is a question of definition, and as I told you, definitions do not interest me. Meaning, the question is what really has to be done. So we need to move the norms in accordance with reality. Whether this will be called moving Jewish law or standing Jewish law—that is an ideological question of what is called Jewish law. I think that Jewish law is the relation between the norms and reality, and therefore Jewish law does not move. But precisely because it does not move, if reality is different then the norm that applies to it must be different. Because otherwise Jewish law itself would move. If we stay with the same ruling for a reality that has changed, that is Reform. That is Reform because we changed Jewish law, this relation between norms and reality. Therefore, in fact, precisely the conservative changes Jewish law—if I understand Jewish law as the rule that derives norms from facts. Precisely the conservative turns Jewish law into something moving, or changes Jewish law. And I think that the simplistic conservative, the midrashic conservative as I said earlier, is simply saying: Jewish law does not move; the midrash that I made on it we always preserve. My forefathers wore clothing suited to the weather; I too wear clothing suited to the weather. Now the only question is: what is the weather? The weather changed, and therefore the norm changes too, because clothing has to fit the weather, so the norm changes too. But that does not mean Jewish law moves. One who says that Jewish law moves in such a case assumes that Jewish law is the bottom lines. But it is not true that Jewish law is the bottom lines. The bottom lines change all the time. And I will give examples of conservative midrashim that halakhic decisors make, and of course there are many such examples. Therefore I think that even the greatest conservatives will have to admit that Jewish law is not the bottom lines; Jewish law is the relation between norms and facts. And in order for that not to change, one must change the bottom lines. Thank you very much.

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