Rabbi Michael Abraham and Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport: Halakhic Positivism, 22.11.16 – Nitzotzot Forum

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

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That really is one of the problems with this whole issue: the moment you use unstated assumptions, or assumptions that aren’t subject to critical scrutiny, then anyone can pull all kinds of assumptions out of nowhere, and obviously there’s a great deal of freedom here. On the other hand, this is not just a shot in the dark. The fact that science really does advance—we discover theories, and the theories stand up to empirical testing, in many cases, not always, sometimes we’re wrong and a paradigm has to be replaced. But the number of times we’re right is not of order zero. Meaning, it’s not zero times, as it would have to be if this were just a random shot in the dark. So that basically means we do have some ideas, from accumulated experience, whatever, or from common sense, that tell us what does and doesn’t make sense. That’s how we search for a theory. And the third possibility is a shot in the dark. Just pure lottery. Meaning, I have no… I’m unable to understand anything at all; it’s just a completely blind shot in the dark. That’s a third state. I want to point out that the middle state is neither the first nor the third. That middle state, when I’m looking for a theory, is not a shot in the dark, because if it were a shot in the dark I would never find the theory. What are the odds that, with a blind shot, I hit the target exactly? Zero—assuming there are infinitely many directions to shoot in. So therefore, in fact, even the search for the theory is done within some kind of meta-paradigm, or some kind of idea. When you think about Torah study: we’re looking for a theoretical explanation for a set of halakhic facts. Say, Maimonides’ view of agency. So I look at several laws in Maimonides on the topic of agency, and I want to know: what was his theory? Authorization? Extended hand? All those definitions—I’m looking for the theory, the general law. Now it’s obvious to me that agency is not, like when Reb Mendel of Rimanov says that Napoleon will fall. That is certainly not the explanation of agency, right? It has to be either authorization, extended hand, one of those formulations. I don’t yet know which one is correct, but I do know what kinds of formulations could be relevant and which could not. And from that, the conceptual Talmudic move is to try to understand from the halakhic facts which theory is the right one. Okay? But even that is not done as a shot in the dark. Meaning, there’s some kind of meta-paradigm here. I still don’t know the theory of agency, but I do know what kinds of theories can be considered and what kinds cannot. And then I start searching: maybe Maimonides holds like this theory, and Rashba or the Tur like that theory, and there will be disputes, but they’ll revolve within the range of possible theories. So in that sense it’s exactly like scientific inquiry. The only difference between conceptual halakhic inquiry and scientific inquiry—the main difference—is that conceptual halakhic inquiry, at least many times, can’t be subjected to empirical testing. When we make a scientific generalization, we take that scientific law and try to subject it to falsification tests. In other words, we formulate a prediction from that theory, perform an experiment, and see. If it holds, that supports the theory; and if not, the theory has been refuted—at least in principle. If it happens enough times, then the theory is refuted. In the halakhic world, assuming I know all the relevant facts—say I know the whole Talmud, or all the binding material, disputes and so on, that could still mean different opinions, but it won’t tell me anything. But if I’m searching for Maimonides’ view, then say I know all the relevant passages in Maimonides. Okay? Now I try to build a theory on the basis of all the passages in Maimonides that I know. So I build some general law—yes, this is the scientific theory: what did Maimonides think about agency? How did Maimonides conceive the concept of agency? Then I explain it, and now I try to subject it to an empirical test—but I can’t. Because when I ask a question that Maimonides himself never asked, he’s already dead. Meaning, I have no way of getting out of him what he would say about the new prediction, what should happen in that case. I can say what follows from his view in this case and what would follow according to Rashba’s different view, but I cannot get confirmation for a theory that I myself formulated. That’s a difference between conceptual analysis and scientific generalization. And that opens a wide door—to things we were talking about there with Shmeker, if I remember, after the previous class—it opens a wide door to speculation or semantic juggling that doesn’t really say much. Because basically, you can take a collection of facts and just give them some name and think you’ve explained them, but really you haven’t explained anything, because you could also give them other names, and all sorts of other things could be proposed, and it helps not at all.

[Speaker B] Let’s take a practical, up-to-date example: commandments dependent on the Land. About what? What kinds of things fall under the umbrella of commandments dependent on the Land? Does anyone know? The Sabbatical year? Challah. Fish? Under the umbrella of commandments dependent on the Land?

[Speaker C] No, no, no.

[Speaker B] So what does? Working the soil. So the Talmud says that… again, so what do I say belongs to commandments dependent on the Land? Things that are produce of the soil. Now there’s a very interesting question: what counts as produce of the soil? Meaning, we’re talking about carrots—is a carrot under commandments dependent on the Land? A carrot that grows in the Land is subject to commandments dependent on the Land.

[Speaker F] Sometimes, depending on the context, but yes.

[Speaker B] Tithes, priestly gifts—depends whether it’s rabbinic or Torah-level, but in principle it falls under that umbrella; even if it’s exempt from tithes, that itself is part of the category of commandments dependent on the Land. So it’s under that umbrella. Fine. Now there is a prophecy that in our time is slowly being fulfilled: they will stop growing vegetables and fruit; agricultural crops will disappear. And why will they disappear? Because land is too expensive, space is too crowded, and agricultural land will be turned into housing, and it won’t be possible to grow things, because agricultural production requires large areas of land. And also, if you grow densely, there’s a tremendous pest problem, so you have to spray very intensively, and then people are basically poisoning themselves, which is no good. Agriculture with less spraying takes up a lot of space. This whole business has reached saturation. It’s impossible to feed the residents of the State of Israel with things that the State of Israel itself will grow, and soon maybe not even with things brought in from China. So what’s the solution? The solution, which has already started to work, is genetic engineering. There are yeasts that are engineered to grow things that are basically the raw materials of carrots, or the raw materials of broccoli, the raw materials of radishes and horseradish and any vegetable you want. Now instead of having something like a beer factory, built like a beer factory, you can engineer it, you can grow the entire national supply of carrots and onions and radishes. One factory, one building, can provide the entire agricultural consumption of the State of Israel. This is built on several innovations. You need a certain type of chlorophyll that is very efficient and uses the sun’s energy efficiently, but in any case it’s entirely possible that within ten years we won’t see agriculture anymore, or if there is agriculture it will be a minority. All the produce of the ground and all the fruit of the trees—where will they come from? From a beer factory. And they’ve already succeeded in making carrots, they’ve succeeded in making food that you cannot distinguish from a real carrot. There is absolutely no difference between it and a real carrot—not in taste, not in crunch, not in anything. Now the question is: has the age of commandments dependent on the Land come to an end? If you take the particulars and make a generalization, and you say: I have grain, wine, and oil, which are the basic commandments dependent on the Land, and I generalize, including vegetables and so on, and from all these particulars I make a rule, and I say: obviously this has to be something that grows from the ground. And if it doesn’t grow from the ground but is manufactured in a factory, then what is it? It’s not under that umbrella. On the other hand, I could say that we’re talking about something else entirely. The whole idea of commandments dependent on the Land isn’t because the thing grows from the ground, but because it is human food. Remember Grace after Meals—‘the land that brings forth nourishment.’ Meaning, there is food that a person needs to eat. Where does a person’s food come from? From the land. And ‘from the land,’ in a simple, simplistic sense, means physically: it grew and took root in the land. But maybe I should understand human nourishment ‘from the land’ more broadly. It comes from the air of the land, from the sun of the land, it’s produced in the land, and it’s those same things, those same fruits, those same carrots, those same peppers.

[Speaker F] But then that would include cows too.

[Speaker B] What are you saying?

[Speaker F] But then that would include cows too.

[Speaker B] Ah!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the question is whether cows and the like are produce of the soil?

[Speaker B] Cows are considered produce of the soil. Fine. The rule is not… the point is, so I’ll have to tailor that explanation better.

[Speaker G] When the Talmud gives an explanation for commandments dependent on the Land, where does it derive it from? Where is the derivation from? Where is the source? Maybe we need to go according to grain, wine, and oil. Yes, where is that written?

[Speaker B] What is the scriptural wording? The Torah says, “The first of your grain, your wine, and your oil you shall give him.”

[Speaker G] “The first of your grain” in any case. What?

[Speaker B] No, those are examples. Your grain—who said your grain means grain that grew from your soil? Right. Maybe your grain means what you produced from yeast?

[Speaker G] “The first of your grain” in any case.

[Speaker B] Right, I agree. Yes. Meaning, that’s exactly the question of generalizing from particulars. So when I live in a world where only plastic is made in a factory, but grain grows in the ground, then I say: what do grain, wine, and oil have in common? That they grow from the ground—because I don’t know any other kind of grain. But in a world where I have grain and wine and oil that do not necessarily grow in the ground, and I say the Torah is eternal and not tied to a specific historical period, then as you say, ‘your grain’ from wherever it comes, anything—I absolutely agree. And therefore the generalization may work differently. But understand this: my tendency to generalize doesn’t come from scientific theory, but from a certain historical situation, from the fact of the era. In a given historical period, the generalization from grain, wine, and oil is: things that grow from the ground. For example, when it is written—where do I learn the matter that a laborer may eat attached produce? It says, “When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat grapes as you desire, to your satisfaction, but you shall not put any in your vessel. When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck ears with your hand.” And, “But you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain.” From this they learn that a laborer may eat produce while it is still attached to the ground. Why? Because a vineyard and standing grain are things that grow in the ground. And if they don’t grow in the ground, then what are they—not a vineyard and not grain? So now there’s such a question. It is written that produce grown in an unperforated flowerpot is not—even though in an unperforated flowerpot you have standing grain and produce, and they are not subject to commandments dependent on the Land. But Rashi writes everywhere that this is because it is not the normal way to do it, because people don’t normally plant in an unperforated pot. But if that becomes the normal way—if agriculture disappears and what replaces it is manufacturing—then go prove now that the rule you stated before is correct. Maybe the rule you stated before is only because you knew nothing else, because you had no other possibility. Just an example of this point.

[Speaker E] But usually, there was recently a controversy about meat that was produced—I think between Rabbi Dov Lior and Rabbi Ariel.

[Speaker B] That meat hasn’t been produced, it doesn’t exist.

[Speaker E] Right, but milk does.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is whether meat and milk will still apply if they synthesize meat and synthesize milk.

[Speaker E] But that’s also a meta-halakhic question, like you hinted at the end—whether we want these laws to remain foundational.

[Speaker B] I don’t want anything; I want the truth. So as you say—the real meaning is: is there a real reason to say that grain is something that grows in the ground?

[Speaker E] With tzitzit they compromised. Tzitzit is supposed to be on the actual garment we wear, not just on some garment that gets worn. Who said? Who said? That’s just how it was.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “On the corners of their garments.”

[Speaker B] Where is that written?

[Speaker E] The requirement of—I don’t know—the requirement that it be day clothing.

[Speaker B] Fine, so it’s the same thing. There is no requirement; a person is not obligated to wear tzitzit. The question is whether if a person makes a special garment for tzitzit, is it obligated in tzitzit. Certainly it is obligated in tzitzit. The point here with grain is: who said grain means something that grows in the ground? Who said commandments dependent on the Land are specifically things that grow in the ground? Maybe that only represents a particular historical situation. By contrast, with meat and milk, the Torah doesn’t say not to eat meat with milk. What does the Torah say?

[Speaker F] That you shouldn’t eat meat? It doesn’t say that.

[Speaker B] “You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” So it’s talking about a kid. A kid is a kid. A kid is not synthetic meat. So it is entirely possible that what I need to do now, when things have become more complicated, is to go back to what the Torah actually says and see what is written. Because we talk about meat and milk as though it said, “Do not eat meat with milk.” It doesn’t say that. So the question is why it says, “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” That’s the meta-level. Because in fact it is forbidden to eat any meat with milk. And indeed the translation of “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” is “Do not eat meat with milk.” Now maybe the answer is that it really does need to be meat from something alive and milk that comes from a mother—milk that is produced in order to nurse a child. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now basically the meaning of what I’ve been saying until now is that we have two kinds of explanation. That’s true both in science and in conceptual analysis. One kind of explanation is to take a collection of facts and explain them by means of a general theory. And another kind of explanation says: I have a general theory, and I’ll use it to explain facts. The difference is whether I already know the theory, in which case I can use it to explain things, or whether I’m searching for a theory, in which case I take facts and explain them by means of a theory. Maybe I’ll give an example that sharpens the difference between them. There’s some physicist at Tel Aviv University named Eli Leibowitz, who apparently doesn’t like religious people and religious faith very much. He has important roots. Yes. And he… he writes that the very well-known proof of God’s existence—the argument from the complexity of the world or something like that. Since the world is complex, apparently it has a composer. Or yes, Fred Hoyle once said—he was a well-known physicist—he once said that the likelihood that the world was created without a guiding hand is smaller than the likelihood that a storm passing over a junkyard would assemble, from the parts in that junkyard, a Boeing airplane. Okay, he got hammered for that; all the atheists are still laughing at him to this day because, according to them, what he said is nonsense. In my view what they say is nonsense, but never mind. So that’s the claim. Now Eli Leibowitz basically wants to say that this proof of God’s existence is a very problematic proof. What is it like? He calls it the parable of Ezekiel, I think. The source, in my opinion, is Kishon, “None Like Me,” though he doesn’t cite it, but that’s where the original story comes from. The tax authorities suddenly see that he is building a villa in Caesarea with a spillbank—building a villa in Caesarea with horse stables and a swimming pool and I don’t know what else, everything you need. So investigators come to ask him where all this came from; he must have evaded taxes, embezzled, all kinds of things like that. So he says, what are you talking about? Let me tell you exactly where the money came from. On such-and-such a date, I was asleep at night, and Elijah came to me in a dream and said: go north to such-and-such a place, count two hundred steps northward, say three times ‘Na Nach Nachma Nachman from Uman,’ then go another hundred steps eastward, dig there to a depth of two meters, and you’ll find treasure. And lo and behold, unbelievable as it sounds, I did exactly that on that very date he told me, at exactly midnight—not around midnight, but exactly midnight—I did exactly as he said, got there, dug, and found the treasure.

[Speaker B] And the proof is—here’s the villa.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So they ask him, okay, but that’s a fantastic story; do you have any proof of it? And he says, how did I build the villa? If it weren’t true, how did I build the villa? So he says, it’s the same thing as conspiracy theories.

[Speaker B] What? All conspiracy theories.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, so he says, it’s the same thing. Basically you say: there’s a wondrous world, I don’t understand what’s going on here, so there must be a God. What’s the proof? Because otherwise how would there be a world? So basically he says that this proof—what Kant called the physico-theological proof, the argument from the complexity of the world in physics—is a completely baseless proof. Where is he mistaken? He’s mistaken because in Ezekiel’s case I have two competing theories. One theory is that he embezzled money—that’s also a possibility. The second theory is that Elijah appeared to him in a dream and so on, and he found treasure. Now since the story is a fantastic story, and from my experience stories like that don’t really happen, I assume the first story is the correct explanation. Okay? In the case of the creation of the world, people don’t offer another alternative. Instead of a guiding hand, what is the alternative? Let’s say they don’t offer one—we won’t get into all the theological controversies right now—but they don’t offer another theory; they only say that this thing is fantastic. Okay, but if you have no other alternative, as Sherlock Holmes said in The Sign of Four, if the only possibility is the improbable and the only alternative is the impossible, then you have to choose the improbable. Meaning, the fact that it is improbable does not mean… the question is what your alternative is. Okay? So therefore, in other words, what he basically wants to say is this: when we search for an explanation of something, that explanation always—he writes this there—you always have to give the explanation in terms of things already known, otherwise it’s not an explanation. If you invent for me a God who is totally unknown and nobody has heard of, you’re inventing a concept out of nothing—that doesn’t explain the formation of the world. You take something that is familiar to me, this world that exists, and explain it by appealing to something unfamiliar. That’s not an explanation. An explanation is when you take something unfamiliar and ground it in what is familiar. He says: take the paintings in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. You see magnificent paintings there, and you say, okay, there was some painter who painted them. Why? Because I know that things like this are created by painters. So even if I don’t know that Michelangelo painted this thing, I assume, in light of the theory I know, that the explanation for this fact—the theory is… If I didn’t know about the existence of painters, so he argues, then even if I saw the most fantastic painting, it would never occur to me that there was a painter who painted it. God as a great painter—

[Speaker C] As is said in the midrash.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not true. Meaning, I think he’s wrong here because he thinks every explanation must be grounding in the familiar. But that is only an explanation within a paradigm. An explanation within the paradigm is one that says: the theory is known; there is before me a situation I do not understand, and I’m trying to explain it in terms of the theory. I want to understand how this happened—like an airplane crash we talked about last time. There is an investigative committee examining why a plane crashed. It says, fine, I know why planes crash; I investigate and I discover there was a crack in the wing. So I understand, because I already know in theory that when there’s a crack in the wing the plane can’t withstand the stress, okay? So I explained it—but I explained it on the basis of a law I already knew. But what did Newton do when he was searching for a new law? The law of gravitation, which nobody knew. Or when we are searching here for the thread that runs through these four examples, these four attempts. We’re looking for an unknown law. Meaning, the explanation outside the paradigm, or the search for a paradigm, is an explanation in quotation marks. It’s a different kind of explanation. It is an explanation that takes phenomena I have observed, which are very familiar to me, and explains them in terms of a theory I have just invented, which was previously unknown.

[Speaker B] So what’s the difference between the existence of the Creator and saying that Napoleon fell because Mendele of Rimanov…?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s the difference? There, all my experience tells me that… after all, Mendele of Rimanov is like Ezekiel, because there I have two options: either he fell because Wellington was stronger, or he fell because Mendele of Rimanov recited some verse. Since my experience leans toward the first explanation, I doubt the second explanation. But if I had no other explanation, and all I had was Mendele of Rimanov, then yes, I would adopt that explanation. That’s exactly the difference. So I say: when the alternative is the impossible, I adopt the improbable. If I have a plausible alternative, why should I adopt the improbable? That would be begging the question. That’s Ezekiel—but with tax evasion. Now the point isn’t, at the moment, the proofs of God’s existence. I’m trying to illustrate here that these two moves are moves in opposite directions. There is one move that is explanation by grounding in what is familiar. There is another move that is explanation of the familiar thing by grounding it in something unfamiliar. I take a general theory, invent it now—it is not yet known—like the presumption of three occurrences, a woman’s ‘spring’ being causative, everything we talked about earlier. I’m looking for a theory that at this point I still don’t know. There is no scientific knowledge that tells me this theory is correct—that a woman’s spring kills her husbands. But I say it’s possible, maybe; I’m looking for what the theory is. I say it happened three times, so by a process of elimination I say apparently there is something in her spring that kills husbands. Because I do elimination: I say they were all her husbands, and other people don’t just die like that, so apparently her spring causes it. Now I didn’t know that; I infer it from the facts. But from the facts I infer a theoretical law that was not familiar to me. I explain the facts in terms of a general law, where the facts are familiar to me and the general law I’m now producing. Some will say it’s ad hoc, but it is still an explanation. And this explanation is what Carl Hempel calls—and all this will bring us straight to halakhic thinking, I’m not just wandering off into philosophy of science for no reason—Carl Hempel calls it the deductive-nomological schema. In other words, a scientific explanation of the second type, the search for the paradigm, not within the paradigm, is an explanation that seeks a new theory from which the observed cases can be deductively derived. So if I saw bodies falling toward the earth, I found a general theory: bodies with mass attract one another. I didn’t know that until Newton formulated it; it was an unknown law, invented to explain the facts, while the facts—that bodies with mass fall to the earth—were something everyone already knew well even before Newton. But Newton found a general explanation or a general law from which the facts could be deductively derived; they would be particular instances of it. ‘Nomological’ comes from nomos, law. So it is an explanation that finds a law from which, by means of deduction, I derive the particular cases. That is another type of explanation. Now conceptual Talmudic study usually deals with explanations of that sort. Conceptual study usually deals with explanations of that sort, because conceptual study basically says: I have what Maimonides said. Maimonides didn’t tell me what his theory was; Maimonides told me what the Jewish law is in this case, what the Jewish law is in that case. I try to search for the theory—how does Maimonides understand the law of agency? That is the theory that will string together all the things Maimonides said. So I am basically engaged in a search for a paradigm; I’m not operating within an existing paradigm. A halakhic decisor, by the way—and this is a question we’ll still need a lot—but some people view the halakhic decisor as doing the opposite process. Because the conceptual analyst is parallel to the researcher, to the scientist who searches for the theory, and the halakhic decisor is parallel to the engineer. The engineer takes a known law and applies it to specific cases, trying to derive things from it and build specific things that rely on the knowledge the scientist has gathered. An engineer is not supposed to produce new laws; he is supposed to use the laws the physicist created for him or that the scientist created for him. And also in the halakhic-Torah world there is a feeling—wrong in my opinion, and certainly not necessary—but there is such a feeling, that says the conceptual analyst is really searching for the theory, meaning he formulates the rule, and afterward the halakhic decisor will come. And again, it could be that the halakhic decisor is also a conceptual analyst, so with his hat as a conceptual analyst he does the first job, and with his hat as a halakhic decisor he does the second job. Meaning, he searches for the theory from study of the sources, and once he has the theory he applies it to a new case—that is the deduction. Deduction. After you’ve found the nomos, the law, you do the deduction and explain or derive from that law what should happen in the particular case you have to decide. Now that is completely parallel to what I said last time about the relationship between analogy, deduction, and induction. Because when we do induction—when we do analogy, actually—when we do analogy, that is basically what a halakhic decisor does. He has before him data, which are the examples that appear in the Talmud or in the halakhic authorities, in Maimonides, okay, for purposes of discussion. Then a different specific case comes before him. He looks for an analogy. He looks from one case under discussion to another case. But the way to do analogy, as I explained there, is basically to go in the background through generalization and then deduction. If this frog is green, then that frog is also a frog, so it too is green. How do I do that? If this frog is green—or say I saw several frogs, it doesn’t matter—the general law is, I make a generalization: all frogs are green. Here I did the work of scientific research. Then I say, ah, I already know that all frogs are green, so in particular this frog is green too. So that is how I actually make the analogy from one frog to another, but the analogy is made up of two steps. It’s a two-step structure. The first step is generalization, finding the theory, and the second step is deriving the particular case from the theory. And if you like, in terms of conceptual study and the halakhic decisor, then the conceptual analyst does the first part—creates the theory from the facts—and the halakhic decisor applies it to the case before him. But in fact the whole process is a process of analogies. I take examples from the Talmud, which in most cases deals not with rules but with examples, and I try as an interpreter to produce from that a rule, and from that rule to infer a conclusion for a case that does not appear in the Talmud. So the first step is a conceptual step, and the second step is a ruling step. The first step is generalization, searching for a paradigm; the second step is using a known paradigm to explain a particular thing. Okay. Now basically this sharpens the issue, and I’ll probably continue with this next time, but it really puts the question of positivism—which we already discussed in the previous two classes—in very sharp focus. Because if I look at the whole process, then it’s completely clear that you cannot see this process as a process of derivation from rules, because in the end our data—what appears in the Talmud or in Maimonides—are particular facts, particular laws. To infer a conclusion about some other case that comes before me, I have to make an analogy; I’m not doing deduction. Why do people think that what I’m actually doing—or there are some who think, there is an ideology like this—that what you should do is only deduction, because the Holy One, blessed be He, determines the laws, as we discussed in the first class, and you can only make deductions from the laws; you can’t make extensions, analogies, and things like that. Why? Because they look only at the second half of the process. Oh yes, obviously—in the Talmud, in the Torah—there is some general law saying that if your property caused damage, you must pay. “The common denominator among them is that it is their way to cause damage, they are your property, their supervision is upon you, and when they cause damage, the damager is liable to pay compensation from the best of the land”—the first Mishnah in tractate Bava Kamma. So you say, fine, his dog bit his friend’s cat, so he has to pay, because this is a particular instance of the rule that whenever your property causes damage, you have to pay. So the dog is a particular case, and you are doing deduction. But the Torah does not say that whenever your property causes damage, you have to pay. What the Torah says is: “If one man’s ox gores another man’s ox,” and “he shall surely pay,” or “if fire breaks out,” “he shall surely pay,” or a pit, or whatever. That is what is written in the Torah. The Torah does not write the generalization; the Mishnah makes the generalization. The Mishnah created a rule, and I produce particulars from that rule. But if you look at the entire process, from the Torah to me, you will see that the entire process is nothing but analogy. And therefore positivism is basically an illusion that arises from looking at only part of the process, or focusing only on part of the process. They ignore the search for the paradigm and look only at the part from the paradigm downward—that is, how I proceed from the paradigm and explain the particular case within it. They forget to ask how I created the paradigm. And many times even the same person himself—Rabbi Chaim is the classic example—who is constantly engaged in generalizations, and he keeps explaining: I ask only what, not why. It’s simply ridiculous. He never stops asking why. Meaning, you can’t establish the principal rule, the definition—is it in the object, is it in the person, is it a sign, is it a cause—all his distinctions are general laws. They do not emerge from the particular cases; they are a generalization of the particular cases. But somehow he ignores that. He thinks the general law is what is written; he doesn’t notice that he has made some kind of generalization here. And then he says, I only derive particular conclusions from the general laws that already exist. Yes, that already exist. And he doesn’t notice that he created those laws from the examples written in the Torah. The positivists who thought that a scientist—or any intellectual person, yes, even a philosopher, not only a scientist—deals only in deductions: it’s ridiculous. After all, that deduction is based on assumptions. Where do the assumptions come from? When you observe with your eyes, you never observe a general law; you observe cases.

[Speaker B] So there is an escape route. Meaning, there are honest positivists who admit that the source of the generalization is a respectable source. Since the Mishnah, the authoritative source in my hands, is a correct generalization. You’re right, but it’s a respectable source I can rely on; relying on the Mishnah is permitted. So there is a positivist who says this: I cannot prove that the rule follows from the verses in the Torah or from the particulars. True, there is a generalization—Rabbi Kook made the generalization. If Rabbi Kook made the generalization, if the Talmud made the generalization, if the Mishnah made the generalization, someone made the generalization, then I can accept that generalization as correct and say that the conclusion I infer from it is solid. Right, that’s what people usually do. And that is exactly what people do.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Therefore, in the Brisker world they really do try somehow—the part of the generalization basically becomes, for them, self-evident. It becomes self-evident for them because in their view that is what is written in the Talmud. The Talmud has already made the generalization. We are too small for that—or the medieval authorities (Rishonim), whatever—and we only derive the conclusion from the generalization. But that isn’t true, because the Talmud doesn’t make the generalizations either. We, as interpreters of the Talmud, perhaps understand—try to understand—what generalizations stand behind the Talmud’s line of thought. And therefore the distinction between these two kinds of movement—from the particular to the general, or from the general to the particular, or the generalizing part and then the specifying part, the division of analogy into two parts, generalization and then specification—is really at the center of the discussion of positivism. Next time I’ll try to illustrate this through an analysis of an a fortiori argument. What does an a fortiori argument do? And there too you’ll see—some people think this is pure deduction, that it’s positivistic, that it’s necessary, and that’s a mistake. Because there too they ignore the first part, the part of generalization, and there I’ll try to show it.

[Speaker B] I’ll give you an example of a halakhic ruling and let’s hear what you say—how would you explain it in light of what you’ve heard. There is a responsum of Moshe Feinstein discussing the question whether someone who cooks with a microwave on the Sabbath violates a Torah prohibition. The assumption was that a rabbinic prohibition he presumably does violate, but the question is whether it is a Torah prohibition. What is the doubt? This is not cooking by fire, and it’s not cooking by something defined as fire. A little history: when Rabbi Yitzhak Shmelkes, in his book Beit Yitzhak, at the beginning of the 19th century—the middle of the 19th century—discussed the question of electricity, he went on at length to prove that electricity is basically fire. Electricity falls into the niche of fire, and therefore—I’m talking now about incandescent electricity, a filament, metal heated by electricity—it is defined as fire. And therefore anything forbidden through fire is also forbidden through electricity. Because this phenomenon of a glowing filament that emits light—even according to the Chazon Ish, even if it doesn’t emit light—is a phenomenon of burning. That argument was accepted. I don’t know whether anyone disagreed with it. It remained accepted until our own time. There were a few contemporary rabbis who said it wasn’t so, but their view didn’t survive. Now a microwave is a completely different idea. In a microwave, those of you who know how it works, there is no heat source here. There isn’t even something hot that heats. The whole idea of cooking by fire is that the fire is hot and the heat is conducted into the thing being cooked, into the meat, for example. In a microwave, the heat is created inside the meat itself; it doesn’t come from anywhere else. Touch the walls of the microwave—they’re cold. What happens is that the microwaves, the high-frequency waves, cause motion in the water molecules inside the meat, and that motion is basically heat—it is heat. So the meat heats from within itself. It didn’t receive the heat from somewhere else as heat; it received energy and became hot. And now the meat is hot, and you will see inside a microwave hot meat inside a cold oven. There’s no wonder like it. Now the question is whether this is cooking. So Moshe Feinstein said yes, this cooking is Torah-level cooking. Why? The Talmud says in the third chapter of tractate Shabbat that cooking in the sun is not cooking. It is even permitted ab initio; it’s not even rabbinically forbidden. The Ran says: what is the reason that cooking in the sun is not cooking? Why on earth do I say that cooking in the sun is not cooking? After all, in the end you’re cooking in a pan that was heated by the sun or heated by fire. The Ran says: because this is not the normal manner of cooking. Cooking in the sun is not the normal manner of cooking. What does that imply? That everything depends on whether this is the normal manner of cooking or not. In other words, I don’t have some kind of conservatism about methods of cooking, where I say there is one known mode of cooking, the ancient mode, and that mode must continue in the same way, maybe in a later form such as electricity instead of fire and so on. No. I say everything depends on another question: is this a normal way to cook or not? The moment microwaves became a thing and became widespread and became a normal way to cook, then this cooking is Torah-level cooking. Now, in that argument there are several different parts. The question is whether anyone here is willing to analyze those parts and show what is the Jewish law, what is the conclusion, what is the discussion. Is there a rule here? A particular? Is there no rule and no particular? What is going on here? Yes.

[Speaker F] Here, Rabbi, I don’t know about the parts, but I do have one somewhat problematic assumption here—that what the microwave does, what we usually use a microwave to do, is an act of cooking. The question is whether mere heating is considered cooking.

[Speaker B] That’s an assumption—what do you mean? I’m not familiar with it. The definition of cooking is that something was cold and there were problems using it. After all, cooking is not only for eating; the cooking in the Tabernacle was for dyeing. There was a product that was cold and couldn’t be used. Now after it was heated it can be used. That is the simple definition of cooking.

[Speaker D] Just manipulation of energy? Does that require manipulation of energy?

[Speaker B] I don’t know. Right now I’m asking—that’s what I asked here. I’m asking whether the claim that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein made—does it involve generalizations? New generalizations? Does it involve a particular? A rule? Because you will find very few examples that work exactly like the model Rabbi Michi presented openly. Saying: here are the particulars, here are the rules, let’s derive. There is no such diagram inside a responsum. And I gave you a simple idea, a very simple, very direct idea. The question is: is this an assumption? Is this a simple process of inference? Is it a deductive process? Or is it a process in which he assumed, made a generalization? What exactly did Rabbi Moshe Feinstein do here?

[Speaker H] It seems to me more—if I understood correctly—but it seems to me that he took the assumption that what the Ran says there about cooking in the sun has only one variable: whether it is the normal manner of cooking or not. So he says, if it’s not the normal manner of cooking, then it’s not forbidden.

[Speaker B] So what kind of claim is that from a logical standpoint?

[Speaker H] He says it depends on only one condition: whether there is a normal manner of cooking or not. As though it doesn’t depend on a condition like whether there is a heat source or something else. That seems to be his assumption. That the only variable for determining whether something is forbidden or not is whether it has a normal manner of cooking or not. And he also took that out—

[Speaker B] From the rule into the particular.

[Speaker F] What? Okay, repeat? And he also took that from the particular, Rabbi. He derived that from the particular. The Ran took from it a rule about normal practice or abnormal practice. And from that he derived the particular of the microwave. Here’s the particular. Cooking in the sun is permitted. Why? Because it’s not the normal way. ‘Not the normal way’ is a rule. From the rule to the particular. What is the particular? Microwave.

[Speaker B] So it’s obvious that there was a generalization here. There had to be a generalization. The only thing I know is that cooking in the sun is permitted. But what is Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s argument? The Ran could have explained that cooking in the sun is permitted in one of two ways. In one of two ways. One, that it is not cooking by fire, and the only cooking is by fire, and there is that kind of conservatism that the only cooking is by fire, and therefore cooking not by fire is permitted. You could have said that. But the Ran chose another explanation. What explanation did he choose? That this is not the normal way to cook. Meaning that the Ran basically made a generalization. He said: cooking in the sun is permitted not because it is not by fire and the cooking the Torah forbade is only by fire, but because cooking in the sun is permitted because it is not the normal way to cook. From there he made the rule. What did Rabbi Moshe Feinstein say? If so, what do I infer from that?

[Speaker E] Did he do statistical research or something, Feinstein?

[Speaker B] No, no, wait, wait. The statistical point here may be correct, but its time still hasn’t come. The idea is, the idea is that he says: if so, then the Ran rejected the idea of what? Of fire. Cooking does not depend on fire. So then what does cooking depend on? Only on one question: whether this is the normal way or not.

[Speaker H] Because in both of them there’s a heat source, and in a microwave there isn’t. Or does that not matter either?

[Speaker B] It doesn’t matter, yes, everything can change. So now the question is, yes, right, but the sun is a heat source. So then maybe among things that have a heat source there would be a question, but the truth is that the sun is not a heat source. The truth is that the sun is not a heat source, but the question is whether they knew that in the time of the Talmud. How do I know that the sun is not a heat source? I don’t need to go out into outer space. At the top of Everest, is the temperature higher than at Bar-Ilan?

[Speaker H] Or lower?

[Speaker B] Okay, but let’s say the frying pan becomes hot. What?

[Speaker H] The frying pan becomes hot.

[Speaker B] In the microwave too, the meat becomes hot.

[Speaker H] No, but in the microwave it doesn’t.

[Speaker B] The meat—no, but now the frying pan—

[Speaker H] Let’s say the food becomes hot because the microwave moves the particles, the molecules, but here the frying pan is the heat source. That’s different.

[Speaker B] I can, I can paint the meat black, and then the meat will heat up in the sun. The sun’s radiation is not—the sun is not a heat source. There’s no medium that conducts heat from the sun to the meat. The sun—the sun’s radiation causes something to heat up. So fine, that’s already a question of how we formulate things nowadays. But there was a generalization here. And who made that generalization? The Ran. So now what am I saying? A generalization that the Ran made can be a source in Jewish law. If you ask whether I would make that generalization, that’s a problem. But I’ll keep going. I’m now asking myself a question—let’s continue after Rabbi Moshe Feinstein—I’m asking: what is the reason that there really is no normal way to cook in the sun? Let’s assume there is a normal way to cook in the sun. Near my house there’s a UN man, an engineer who works for the UN, and he makes solar cookers for Africa. Meaning, cooking devices that will cook with the sun, and it may be that this will be a future solution. Let’s suppose we face terrible, horrific air pollution, they stop using fossil energy sources—that is, they stop using gas, oil, all that—and there will be a good way to use solar devices.

[Speaker F] They don’t do that, Rabbi, because it has no benefit, because right now it’s too expensive to produce.

[Speaker B] Right, but when it becomes worthwhile, when the cost of fossil fuel becomes such—because of air pollution and climate troubles—that fossil fuel becomes too expensive, then they’ll move to cooking with the sun. What will the Ran say then? Will the Jewish law then fundamentally change, or not? Will the whole Jewish law turn upside down according to the Ran’s approach?

[Speaker F] It seems to me that yes. Oh, there is.

[Speaker B] Meaning that what is written—that cooking in the sun is not cooking—depends on time and place. It’s not a sweeping statement. Rather, when I say that cooking in the sun is not cooking, it depends. Cooking in the sun is not cooking in our time, but there will be a time when cooking in the sun will be cooking. What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Unless it’s the Chazon Ish’s theory of the two thousand years of Torah.

[Speaker B] Yes, but what is that Torah? Okay, maybe we’ll talk about that a bit next time after the Ram speaks about a fortiori reasoning. We’ll talk about this a fortiori argument—it’s very important to explain how the underlying assumptions disappear, as if they hide inside, go underground, as if they don’t exist. We’ll talk about that; we’ll take this question and deal with it. Anyone who wants to look into this: there’s a dispute regarding the hot springs of Tiberias in tractate Shabbat, in the chapter Kirah. The question is whether someone who cooks in the hot springs of Tiberias is liable or exempt. The Sages say that someone who cooks in the hot springs of Tiberias is exempt. Seemingly, what’s the explanation? Exactly like the sun.

[Speaker C] Rabbi Yosei says that someone who cooks in the hot springs of Tiberias is liable.

[Speaker B] The Talmud says: why does he hold that he is liable? Do you know? Because the hot springs of Tiberias pass by the entrance to Hell.

[Speaker C] So what would Rabbi Yosei understand?

[Speaker B] That Hell has wood in it? That it has a wood fire? What’s the idea? He says: since the hot springs of Tiberias pass by the entrance to Hell, therefore someone who cooks in the hot springs of Tiberias is liable. And this is an example of the problem of details that are looking for some theory to explain them. Cooking in the sun is not cooking. Cooking in the hot springs of Tiberias is not cooking. According to Rabbi Yosei, cooking in the hot springs of Tiberias is cooking because they pass by the entrance to Hell. So, after the Ram talks about a fortiori reasoning, we’ll talk a bit about this idea—that’s where it starts—and then we’ll also talk about

[Speaker C] solar cookers, about

[Speaker B] solar devices as a normal way to cook with them.