A Philosophical Perspective on Contemporary Debates
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The purpose of the philosophical perspective and the sense that these days are exceptional
- The dispute over the rules of the game as a logical tangle
- The example of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel and the impossibility of deciding by majority
- Basic Laws, the absence of a constitution, and the argument about a mandate to change the rules
- The disengagement as a comparison, and the distinction between ideological pain and a logical problem
- The tyranny of the majority as a logical claim about authority, not only a moral claim
- “Two peoples,” reciprocity, and demography as erosion of consent to a shared game
- A semi-legitimate exception: conscientious refusal, fouls in sports, and law as sanction
- The prisoner’s dilemma, Golden Balls, and lying as part of the rules of the game
- Constitutive versus regulative rules of the game, Dworkin, and binding foundational principles
- A conclusion about language, politics, and Korach as a test of what is “for the sake of Heaven”
Summary
General Overview
The speaker describes the unusual public storm these days as a feeling that lines are being crossed and that there is a risk of internal disintegration, and argues that the main root is not psychological, sociological, or ideological but logical: the dispute is about the rules of the game themselves, and therefore it cannot be conducted within those same rules. He distinguishes between painful arguments within an existing framework and an argument about the framework itself, sharpens the concept of the “tyranny of the majority” as a claim about authority and logic and not only morality, and explains how systems of rules sometimes contain exceptions and sanctions within themselves. In the end he qualifies this by saying that even during an argument about the rules themselves, foundational principles and morality still bind, and he connects this to the portion of Korach as a warning against using lofty values as tools in power struggles that are not for the sake of Heaven.
The purpose of the philosophical perspective and the sense that these days are exceptional
The speaker sets a twofold goal: to identify deeper points at the basis of these turbulent processes, and to learn the philosophical issues themselves through those processes. He describes these turbulent days as exceptional because lines are being crossed “from all directions,” creating the feeling that boundaries are being tested and that we may find ourselves outside them. He says that in the past it was easier to believe that “we’ll get through this too,” whereas now there is uncertainty as to whether society and the state will make it through the crisis, mentioning his father’s words—a Holocaust survivor—who said in Elkana about the possibility of another Holocaust: “Why not? Absolutely yes.”
The dispute over the rules of the game as a logical tangle
The speaker argues that sociological, psychological, and ideological explanations do not get to the root, and that the source of the escalation is “in logic,” because there is a tangle with no solution within the accepted rules. He defines the uniqueness of the current dispute as the fact that it concerns the rules of the game themselves, and therefore the way the argument is conducted also departs from the rules of the game, with examples such as refusal to serve, “constitutional revolutions,” and crossing legal and normative boundaries. He explains that when there is no agreement on the rules, there is no way to conduct a “textbook” resolution, and so extreme measures appear because there is no agreed framework for deciding.
The example of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel and the impossibility of deciding by majority
The speaker cites a Talmudic passage in tractate Eruvin about the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel lasting two and a half years, and the Jerusalem Talmud’s statement that they “killed one another,” as a description of extremity that comes from decisional deadlock. He explains that the problem is not solved by “follow the majority,” because the argument was over which majority counts: “the majority of wisdom or the majority of people,” phrased as “counting heads or counting legs.” He argues that when the very rules of decision are disputed, every vote simply reproduces the dispute, and therefore violence or force becomes the only tool for breaking the ambiguity.
Basic Laws, the absence of a constitution, and the argument about a mandate to change the rules
The speaker presents the claim against the coalition as a claim that it is changing the rules of the game without a mandate, and stresses that the discussion of what a “Basic Law” is, how it is established, and whether a court may strike down a Basic Law or the Knesset may override, is a discussion about the rules of the game and not about the content of some specific decision. He says that the rules of the game “quite literally don’t really exist,” because there was supposed to be a constituent assembly and a constitution, but that was never done, and “now it’s hitting us in the face.” He presents the difficulty whereby the very attempt to “set a framework” is seen as changing the rules of the game, and therefore the struggle gets dragged outside the accepted norms.
The disengagement as a comparison, and the distinction between ideological pain and a logical problem
The speaker brings up the claim, “Where were you during the disengagement?” and gives an answer according to which the disengagement was a painful decision within a framework of rules and not a dispute over the rules themselves. He says one can retroactively broaden the meaning of “rules of the game” so that every acute value will count as a rule of the game, but then the distinction is lost and every side will say that anything fundamental to it is part of the rules. He is willing to accept that even if similar storms existed then, they came from touching people’s “most sensitive nerve” and not from the logical tangle, and he concludes that an argument about the rules will by definition look stormy because there is no other way to conduct it.
The tyranny of the majority as a logical claim about authority, not only a moral claim
The speaker says that the common understanding of the “tyranny of the majority” as a moral appeal to the majority—”don’t abuse the minority”—is insufficient, because there is here a logical problem concerning the very authority of the majority. He illustrates this by saying that a large country cannot impose on a smaller country—”because we are the majority”—that it must drive on the right side, because “the majority decides” applies only when everyone is part of the same whole and the same shared game. He argues that when the minority contests the game itself or refuses to participate in it, the majority has no authority to set rules in the name of majority rule, and therefore the claim “you have no mandate” is a logical claim about the framework of authority itself, and not merely a moral claim about consideration.
“Two peoples,” reciprocity, and demography as erosion of consent to a shared game
The speaker explains that the talk about “two peoples,” “Judah and Israel,” does not stem only from ideological differences like “religious people” versus “secular people,” but from the loss of any way to conduct discourse because agreed rules of the game are absent. He adds that a minority’s ability to agree to a democratic game is also tied to reciprocity and to the hope of becoming a majority in the future, and argues that demography may be cracking that reciprocity. He suggests that the question becomes whether we separate or else reconstitute rules of the game by agreement “wall to wall,” or at least by a “very, very significant” agreement, without drawing a sharp line but settling for a qualitative and significant majority.
A semi-legitimate exception: conscientious refusal, fouls in sports, and law as sanction
The speaker distinguishes between a manifestly illegal order and “conscientious refusal,” in which the order is legal but conscience justifies refusal together with accepting punishment, and this is seen as semi-legitimate so long as one accepts the consequences and remains a player in the game. He presents fouls in soccer and basketball as part of a tactic that the system of rules itself permits through sanction, and brings the Ghana–Uruguay 2010 match, in which Suárez stopped the ball with his hand, was sent off, a penalty was awarded and missed, and Uruguay won on penalties, as an example of the tension between “unfair” and lawful within the rules. He adds a remark about Israeli law according to which “there is no prohibition on stealing”—rather, a punishment is prescribed—in order to illustrate a conception in which the law defines sanctions for acts and not necessarily prohibitions in some metaphysical sense.
The prisoner’s dilemma, Golden Balls, and lying as part of the rules of the game
The speaker describes a BBC program called Golden Balls based on the prisoner’s dilemma, with a choice between “steal” and “split” and the possibility of persuasion and promises before the final choice. He presents a clip in which a participant asks for trust in the name of the church and the verse “thou shalt not steal,” but the other side chooses “steal” and justifies it as part of the game, illustrating how loaded words like steal/split create moral connotations even though the structure could just as well have been marked “one” and “two.” He argues that within the framework of the game, lying is a tactic built into the rules, like a foul in sports, and therefore it is hard to raise moral complaints as though this were an external violation of the rules.
Constitutive versus regulative rules of the game, Dworkin, and binding foundational principles
The speaker brings a distinction from analytic philosophy between a constitutive system of rules, like the rules of chess, where one who deviates simply “isn’t playing chess,” and a regulative system of rules, like traffic laws, where one can still perform the activity but be considered an offender. He mentions Ronald Dworkin and his claim that there are binding principles that are not enacted, including universal moral principles that were used in prosecuting Nazis beyond German law, as well as foundational principles of a given system such as “a Jewish and democratic state.” He qualifies this by saying that when one is arguing over the rules of the game, claims “by virtue of enacted law” are not decisive, but there is still an obligation to morality and to foundational principles above or beneath the legal framework.
A conclusion about language, politics, and Korach as a test of what is “for the sake of Heaven”
At the end, a claim is raised that there is an optimistic message in the fact that a shared infrastructure of language and meaning still remains, making speech possible, alongside a pessimistic message according to which there is no single “objective truth” of the law and everything is bound up with the question of who sets the rules. The speaker connects this to the Torah portion of Korach and presents Korach as formulating an egalitarian and liberal argument: “For the entire congregation, all of them, are holy, and the Lord is in their midst; so why do you raise yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” Yet the Torah defines this as “a dispute not for the sake of Heaven,” because his goal was to take Moses’ place. He concludes that the danger in a turbulent public dispute is the use of lofty values in order to advance personal interests, and that one must examine whether the arguments are truly for the sake of Heaven or merely tools in struggles for power.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, yes, it’s connected, I just disconnected it for the moment. The title I chose is a current-events title, yes, connected with all the disputes and storms we’re living through these days, but I want to look at it from a somewhat more philosophical angle. And the purpose of this is twofold. First, to try to see some of the deeper points at the foundation of these processes, and second, to get a bit familiar with the philosophical issues themselves apart from the processes. I’m using the processes in order to become familiar with those philosophical issues. So I chose one point of view. You can say a lot about what’s happening now, and from many philosophical perspectives too, but I chose one perspective that I want to focus on. I’ll start maybe with the simple description that all of us know. It seems that these are stormy days. I assume that hasn’t escaped you. And these storms are somewhat unusual. They’re unusual in the sense that various lines are being crossed here that until now weren’t crossed, from every direction, by the way. And so I too have, and I think other people I’ve spoken to have, some feeling that we’re testing our boundaries a bit, and at some stage we may find ourselves outside them. Meaning, if in the past I lived with some feeling of, okay, we fight, we struggle, terrible dangers here and there, fine, we got through Pharaoh, we’ll get through this too—these days the feeling is that I’m not sure we’ll get through this. I mean, you know, a few things have already happened to us in our history; our states didn’t always survive, right? Or our society survived. And that can happen to us too. Once there was some evening in Elkana where we lived, and they asked my father to speak on the question of whether there could be another Holocaust. He himself was a Holocaust survivor as a child; he was the elder there and so on, so they asked him to speak about it. So he told them, “Why not? Absolutely yes.” They were expecting some statement like, “No, of course not, impossible, we’re already past that.” But from a historical perspective, everybody a year or ten years before something happens is sure it can’t happen—and in the end it comes. And in those senses there is some feeling that events here can lead to disintegration on various levels. Yes, of course not, God forbid, that the state will be destroyed, but there can also be more partial or more moderate kinds of disintegration. And still, it’s something that I think—I don’t know whether we never experienced it in the past, but it seems to me we didn’t, or at least not at these intensities. I’m not talking about security dangers; I’m talking about internal disintegration. Usually, when we look at these things and ask ourselves why it really is so stormy—why it gives the feeling that we’re nearing the edge, that maybe we won’t come out of it—then the simple answers are on the psychological, sociological, ideological level. Yes, there are people for whom certain issues are very important, and again, I won’t take a position throughout the evening on the current issues; I want to look at them philosophically, not form a position for or against something, okay? I have a position, of course, but that’s not my purpose here. So when we think about this matter, about these storms, what exactly triggered this very unusual thing that’s happening in these months? Usually we look for sociological, psychological, ideological explanations. Meaning, very, very serious things are happening here, there are people whom this deeply disturbs, people who may be hurt, and therefore they cross lines. Refusal on one side, constitutional revolutions on the other side, whatever, various things, roadblocks—we’ve seen that—but there are still intensities here that may be stronger. There are things that cross the boundary of law, cross the boundary of accepted norms. And the reason for that, at first glance, as I said earlier, is that there is something terribly disturbing, something terribly basic. I want to argue, as in many other matters, that the source of the problems is not in sociology, not in ideology, and not in—the source is in logic. There is some logical tangle here, and because there is really no way to solve it, people arrive at violence, or at very extreme steps. Once we have no solution within the accepted rules, then people feel—here psychology does enter—that somehow, all the same, we have to advance our ideas or deal with opposing ideas, so we need, I don’t know, to fight, to kill, to hit—I don’t know exactly what—each person at his own level of extremity. Because we don’t have a textbook solution, we don’t have a solution for how to advance this matter and reach a decision within the framework of the accepted rules. In fact, what makes this dispute unique—and people have already talked about this a lot—is that the dispute concerns the rules of the game themselves. This isn’t a dispute within the rules of the game about one question or another; we’ve had plenty of that and probably will have more, if we merit that. But here there’s a dispute over the rules of the game themselves. Meaning, there are those who want to change the rules of the game—at least that is the opponents’ claim. Again, I am careful not to express a position, but these claims are being made: that people are trying to change the rules of the game; they have no mandate for that, they do have a mandate for that—but this is a change in the rules of the game. It’s not some decision or other within the framework of the rules. Against that, the protests too are changing the rules of the game. Refusal to serve on this scale in the army really didn’t exist until now, for example. Again, you can argue about what counts as refusal—maybe it’s only volunteers and not actual conscripts. I think the very clear feeling is that the threats also speak about refusal. Whether that happened in practice or not, I don’t know exactly, I didn’t follow all the details, but the threats also talk about actual refusal. That’s clear, not only about stopping volunteer service, as it is often presented. That’s crossing a line. Usually—I don’t know—that hardly happened until now, certainly not on these scales. So it seems that because the argument is over the rules of the game, the way the argument is conducted also departs from the rules of the game. And that’s no wonder, because once there’s an argument over the rules of the game, then even if we want to play within the rules, the question is: according to which rules do we play? There is some tangle here at the logical level. Meaning, if we have an argument over the rules of the game, then it’s impossible to conduct that argument within the framework of the rules of the game, because the question is what the rules of the game are. How can we conduct such an argument? I’ll maybe bring an example from the Talmud. The Talmud in tractate Eruvin says that Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disputed with each other for two and a half years and did not succeed in reaching—actually it was much longer, but there it talks about some two and a half years from within that long process—and they failed to reach a decision. And then the Jerusalem Talmud, for example, says that they killed one another. Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel killed each other. They got to the point of simply murdering one another. It may be a literary description; I’m not sure it’s a plain factual one. But clearly, even if it’s literary, it describes something very, very extreme, very reminiscent of the things I spoke about earlier. Why did that happen there? So you can see in various places—there are commentators who say this explicitly. Why weren’t Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel able to reach a decision? What’s the problem? Let them vote: follow the majority, and the majority decides. But it turns out that there was an argument about the rules of the game. Which majority decides? Meaning, Beit Shammai were sharper, more brilliant, more incisive—the Talmud says so. Assuming that Beit Hillel agreed to that too; it wasn’t itself disputed. Everyone agreed that Beit Shammai were sharper. Okay? Beit Hillel were more numerous, as usually happens—there are generally fewer wise people. So Beit Hillel were more numerous; Beit Shammai were sharper. Now the argument was: okay, let’s vote—but which majority will decide? The majority of wisdom, or the majority of people? As Sefer HaChinukh says, if there are fools as numerous as those who left Egypt, there is no sense in letting them decide by majority against the opinion of five wise men. Those who left Egypt means, yes, six hundred thousand fools. What help is it to me that they’re six hundred thousand if they are all idiots? I don’t think Beit Hillel were idiots, but I bring this only to sharpen the point. There was a dispute there over whether to count heads or to count legs. Beit Shammai were—Beit Shammai say: you need to count heads. What do I care how many legs are walking in this direction and how many legs are walking in that direction? And Beit Hillel say: no, you count legs—how many people each side has. Naturally, of course, Beit Shammai wanted majority by wisdom, because that would lead in their direction. And if we’re being very generous, we’ll say that really was their position, and not that they said it only so they’d win. And Beit Hillel wanted to go by the majority of people, and by chance or not by chance they really were the majority too. Now in such a situation we have a rule—the medieval authorities (Rishonim) ask there: why didn’t they vote and follow the majority? In halakhic disputes, this even appears in the Shulchan Arukh of course, in the Talmud, everywhere, even in the Torah—there is a rule. What’s the problem? There’s a dispute; there are ways to deal with it; you vote and follow the majority. But of course it won’t help, because on that very question itself, when you vote, then Beit Shammai will say: we are the majority, because we count heads; and Beit Hillel will say: we are the majority, because we count legs. So you won’t be able to get out of that dispute while playing within the rules, because the argument is over what the rules are: majority of wisdom or majority of people. So I think that’s a good example of the logical tangle that is really present here as well. Because once the dispute is over the system of rules itself, naturally it can’t be conducted within that system of rules. We have a dispute over what the system of rules is—exactly the same thing. And therefore, just as Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, because they were stuck there and it was impossible to decide the dispute, got to the point of killing one another—again, literary or factual, but they reached very extreme situations. And why? Because where there is no possibility of conducting a discussion and reaching a decision by vote or by some accepted procedure according to the accepted rules and norms, we have no option other than
[Speaker A] to fight, to wage war, to try to kill them and get to the same number.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to solve the problem of ambiguity
[Speaker A] and the majority. So—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The claim, basically, is that if the dispute is over the rules of the game, then logically the way it is conducted cannot be according to the rules of the game. So the reason lines are being crossed here and we are reaching extreme situations is not only because the issue is terribly painful and terribly fundamental. Even with very painful and very fundamental issues there are ways to conduct an argument. There are representatives, there’s the Knesset, the court, I don’t know—you vote, decide, hold elections, all kinds of things like that. But where the discussion is about the rules of the game, regardless of whether it’s painful and fundamental, in principle even a marginal dispute—even a marginal dispute, if it’s over the rules of the game—there is no way to conduct it. Indeed, it isn’t necessarily connected to the depth of the disagreement; it isn’t necessarily connected to how fundamental the issue is. There are, of course, fundamental issues here, but I am saying: the point that leads to the storms is not only the fundamental nature of the disputed issues, but there is a logical problem here. There is no way to conduct a dispute when the rules of the game are not agreed upon. Now, for example, people raise claims that the coalition is crossing the boundaries of the rules of the game, crossing the boundaries of accepted norms, trying to make a revolution—you don’t make a revolution like this—whatever, leave that aside, these are the claims raised by the opposing side. What? He’s coming, in my view. What’s all this four? You can argue about details. It’s a question not fully defined—what exactly are the rules of the game—but clearly most of the reform would be agreed by everyone to concern the rules of the game. What is a Basic Law? How do you determine a Basic Law? Isn’t that part of the rules of the game? Yes, absolutely, entirely—what kind of question is that? It’s about how to adjudicate; it’s not the content of what the law will say, but how the procedure is determined: what is a Basic Law, how do you invalidate a Basic Law, can the Knesset do something after the court has struck something down, or can the court strike something down? Again, entirely apart from what you think about it, this is plainly a discussion about the rules of the game. And these rules of the game, by the way, quite literally don’t really exist—that’s part of the problem. By now, after these past months, everyone knows that there was supposed to be a constituent assembly, it was supposed to make a constitution—I won’t go back over all that—and in the end it didn’t happen, and now it’s hitting us in the face. It’s hitting us in the face now because they’re trying to do something when there is in fact no framework within which the matter can be conducted. So you try to establish a framework, but establishing a framework is changing the rules of the game. There is something here that really can’t be conducted—no, it shouldn’t surprise us that lines are being crossed here, or that this isn’t being handled according to the rules. So there are—I’ll just give an example to illustrate the point. The claims against the coalition, for instance, are claims that they’re really changing the rules of the game, and they don’t have the mandate for it even though they have a majority. They don’t have the mandate to change the rules of the game; that’s not how you change the rules of the game. That’s the claim. So how should it be done? I don’t know, but not like this. A response that’s often raised against that is: wait, and where were you during the disengagement? That’s a claim from the other side. During the disengagement too, people’s most sensitive nerve was hit, and there was a certain trampling of people there—you can argue about how much—but there was some rather cold treatment, let’s say, by the establishment toward those people who opposed it. And this claim often comes up. Now, the answer often given is that today this is an argument over the rules of the game; the disengagement was an argument over a very painful issue, but not over the rules of the game. It was a decision made within the framework of the rules of the game. A painful decision, and maybe it wasn’t made properly, maybe it was, but it doesn’t belong to the category we’re talking about here, because that was a dispute which, even if it produced great storms, produced them because the issue was painful, not because of the logical problem I’m talking about tonight. So it’s not the same thing—that’s the claim. Yes, in order to show—
[Speaker C] that the current rules of the game aren’t good, that the current rules of the game allow harm of type X during the disengagement and type Y here. Okay, and do you think maybe that’s the same level of harm?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but today’s claim deals with the rules of the game. The claim then did not deal with the rules of the game; it dealt with a particular decision within the framework. True, today one can also examine the rules of the game through the disengagement—I agree. But the argument conducted then was not over the rules of the game. Now, of course, you can take this far and say that then too they were arguing about the rules of the game, because the rules of the game are, I don’t know, that you don’t dispossess people from their homes, or that you preserve the wholeness of the land. But if one claims that those are the rules of the game, then it seems to me we’ve completely lost the distinction between what is and isn’t part of the rules of the game. Everyone will say that something very acute for him is part of the rules of the game. You can make such a claim.
[Speaker D] They’ll say that the disengagement maybe because of something else—maybe against the claim that the Supreme Court is the guardian of minority rights, that’s a claim that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s a different claim. I’m talking about a claim also made from the disengagement that says: back then we didn’t refuse, so why are you refusing? Okay? Which is also not exactly accurate, by the way, but never mind. We didn’t refuse—why are you refusing? I’m saying: back then they didn’t refuse because it wasn’t an argument over the rules of the game. It was a very painful argument, but not over the rules of the game. And today the refusal—which is a deviation from the rules—comes because the rules themselves are at the center of the discussion.
[Speaker A] I’ll expand on that; I’ll explain why. In the end there are two players here, and when one side goes wild, then the level of trust isn’t absolute. There’s nowhere written down what the rules of the game are—we said it’s some unofficial contract between social groups, political understandings of one kind or another. So it’s quite possible—maybe that’s the claim I want to make—that when one side had its cheese touched, it went wild and declared that that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] for it, that was the rules of the game, that they had touched its rules of the game.
[Speaker A] I said that. Whereas in the disengagement they touched the other side’s most sensitive nerve, and it didn’t see that as a violation of the rules of the game to that extent.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s the distinction I made, and I thought you were coming to qualify it, because with that qualification I already finished. I said that someone can come and say: look, carrying out the disengagement is, from my point of view, a violation of the rules of the game.
[Speaker A] I’m just asking to explain why it’s not symmetrical. Why really the disengagement—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You explained why it isn’t symmetrical: because the disengagement was an argument over a particular decision; nobody said to change any law,
[Speaker A] or—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] or any legislative procedure. It touched people at their most sensitive point, true, but not the rules of the game. Those are two different things. You can argue—as I said afterwards—that this too is part of the rules of the game, that we are owners of the Land of Israel and don’t give up the Land of Israel, and all kinds of things like that, because, as we said earlier, the rules of the game aren’t defined; there is no constitution. So one could have said that this too is part of the rules of the game, but I think that’s stretching the concept a bit. Because you can take it very far, and then about anything I disagree with I can say: no, for me that’s part of the rules of the game. I think it’s clear that today’s dispute is much more distinctly a dispute over the rules of the game than it was then. You can say it applied there too, but then you’d have to broaden the concept of rules of the game to claim that. Okay, never mind, I only brought the disengagement in order to sharpen the point. Anyone who thinks it’s the same thing—fine, it’s the same thing. But what I’m saying at the principled level—at the principled level—is that when there is a dispute over the rules of the game, it must look like this. There is no other way it can look.
[Speaker A] Okay? Yes. Let’s go back for a moment to the foundation; I don’t want to pull the rug out from under the whole discussion. The point here is that lines have been crossed and today we’re in a situation that wasn’t like this before. During the disengagement too there was quite a similar situation. Right. So today, yes, everyone feels that today is the peak and everything, but I think a large part of what causes that is that today there are people communicating events to us, and the media—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, I’m not entering that issue at all, and I’ll tell you why. Because I’m willing to accept that the storms were the same then too. My claim is that the storms, even if they were the same then, did not stem from the same reason that today’s storms stem from. That’s all. Now, whether it was the same or wasn’t the same—
[Speaker A] But if we continue, say, with Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, right? There too there was something similar to storms, and now we’re coming to discuss why it happens.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I say again—you say there is no question, right? The question doesn’t exist. But I say: even if it doesn’t exist—I think it does—the answer is correct. Meaning, what is happening today is a dispute over the rules of the game, and once there is a dispute over the rules of the game there will be storms by the very logical definition of such a dispute. If during the disengagement there were the same storms, maybe, but they came from something else. They came from touching people’s most sensitive nerve, not from the logical problem. There it did depend on ideology, and here it depends on logic. That’s my claim. Okay.
[Speaker A] The discussion—as if—even if there were no storms at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I’m saying: the storms are an indication of it, and one shouldn’t be surprised that this happens, like with Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. Meaning, it has to be this way; it can’t be otherwise. There is no other way to conduct a dispute over the rules of the game from within the rules of the game. Meaning, you need to use force in order to establish one set of rules of the game or another. Yes. When you establish rules for a game, there aren’t yet rules according to which one proceeds, right? It comes from agreement. We have to agree somehow about those rules, because the system of rules does not yet exist. After we establish the system of rules, now we can begin to proceed. Okay. Now the claim that says the coalition is deviating from the rules of the game and has no mandate to determine the rules of the game—what does that stem from? What is that based on? It is based on the concept of the tyranny of the majority, which we hear a great deal about these days. And I want to sharpen something about the concept of the tyranny of the majority—and again, I am not taking a position; I’m trying to sharpen concepts. What is the tyranny of the majority? Usually people understand, very schematically, that in a democratic regime the majority decides, but we also know—or at least that’s what we’ve learned—that there is a limit to the majority’s ability to decide, and that limitation is called the tyranny of the majority. Where the majority behaves tyrannically, that’s not legitimate. Even though democracy gives the majority the ability to decide, not to be tyrannical. What does that mean? The common conception of this is that it is a moral rule. Fine, you’re the majority, very nice, but don’t abuse the minority. Take the minority into consideration; behave decently toward the minority. I want to argue: no. There is a logical problem here too. What, not moral? No, fine, everybody agrees that abusing people is immoral. But I want to argue that here too there is some essential problem, and therefore this is another aspect of the same point I was speaking about earlier. Because the rule that the majority decides is basically parallel to the rule that we follow the majority, right? As I said before. But that rule is part of the very same system of rules that we’re talking about. Meaning, if you are challenging the framework or the system of rules, then it is not true that the majority decides. Because the fact that the majority decides is itself part of what that system of rules says. Let me give you an example. Suppose there is a large country and next to it a small country. And the large country says to the small country: look, we have fifty million inhabitants and you have five million inhabitants. Therefore from now on you drive on the right side of the road and not on the left side of the road. Okay? Because we are the majority; the majority decides. Does that sound reasonable to you? No. Why not? Because one country doesn’t determine things for another country. The majority decides when the majority and minority belong to the same whole. They are playing together in the same game. Then, within the framework of the rules of the game, the majority decides and the minority has to accept it. But where we are not playing the same game, where we are determining whether there will be a game and how that game will be run, then it is not true that the majority decides. The majority cannot decide for a group that does not constitute one whole together with it. Within one whole, if there are differences of opinion, the majority decides over the minority. But if the minority says: wait, wait, wait, I’m not participating in this game—if I’m not participating in this game because I don’t like the rules of the game, or because I think the rules are not these but others, then it is not true that the majority has authority. And my claim is that in the matter of the tyranny of the majority too there is the same distinction I made earlier. If the majority hurts the minority in its deepest sensitivities, in principle it has the right to do so, but it’s not moral. And in the circumstances, if as a majority you don’t really need to do it, then it’s immoral. Then the claim of tyranny of the majority is a claim from the standpoint of morality. But if the majority wants to impose rules of the game on the minority, then the minority’s claim is not that it’s immoral and therefore the tyranny of the majority is wrong. The minority’s claim is: in this game, I am not on the field. We’re not on the same field. Why do you think you can set the rules for me when you’re playing a different game? There the idea of majority has no meaning at all. It is not a request that the majority take the minority into account and be moral. That is true when you hurt a most sensitive nerve. When you make decisions that are hard for a certain minority, you need to be considerate—even if you’re the majority, there are limits. That’s a moral claim. But here again, the claim is a logical claim. The whole concept of the authority of the majority is based on there being a game, and one of the rules of the game is that the majority decides. But when the dispute is about the rules of the game, then even the majority does not decide. That is the first rule that breaks down here in this case, and therefore this is just—one second—this is just a specific instance of the phenomenon I described earlier. The argument over whether the majority decides, and over the tyranny of the majority, is no longer the moral argument we know from other disputes where you are hurting the most sensitive nerve of a minority, and then one says to you: listen, be a mensch. True, you’re the majority, but you need to take the minority into account. That’s usually the claim. But in our situation, that isn’t correct. In our situation, when the resentment is: you are going beyond the rules of the game, or you have no mandate to determine the rules of the game, then the majority’s inability to determine things for the minority does not derive from rules of morality. The majority has no authority at all—that’s a matter of logic. You’re making a—
[Speaker G] logical claim. So if, say, I’m a minority that refuses to recognize the rules of the game that the Haredi majority sets, and the Arabs maybe aren’t from the same group—exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, in order to decide that the majority rules, we first have to decide that we have a shared game and that it has rules, and one of the rules is that the majority decides. But if the challenge is to the game itself, then majority has no meaning whatsoever. All these claims—what do you mean, tyranny of the majority and so on—it sounds like some kind of moral protest. It’s not a moral protest. There are things a majority cannot do. A majority cannot change the rules of the game. It cannot—logically. Okay? Meaning, there are several aspects of the argument taking place today that on the face of it look very similar to other arguments. I’m using the disengagement because that is perhaps really the stormiest dispute, or the closest to the dispute taking place today, and you’ll see that everything happening there is happening here too—but for different reasons. Different reasons. Here there is a logical problem. Yes.
[Speaker H] What about in Iran? The rules of the game there were that the state would be an Islamic state.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, in non-democratic states it’s a little hard to talk about rules of the game, because I’m in the game not because I agreed to be in it. So what? So I protest. I can protest even if I agree to the rules of the game. When rules of the game are imposed on me, that doesn’t mean I am a player in that game. I’m talking about a democratic state at the moment. Yes, that’s clear.
[Speaker G] The point is that from the outset there is maybe one rule, perhaps the most basic one, that this can change—that the minority can become the majority and vice versa. Meaning, I’m willing to keep—okay, yes, right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s part of the rules of the game. Exactly. Therefore that’s one of the reasons minorities are willing to play such a game, where the majority can decide for them what to do, and sometimes even on painful points, because they know that if they persuade people or become the majority, they’ll be able to do the same. Reciprocity is of course part of the agreement. But those are reasons for agreement; right now I’m talking about the fact that agreement is necessary, regardless of the reasons for it. And if the agreement itself is in dispute, then there is nothing to say about majority opinion.
[Speaker I] And that claim turns the groups you’re talking about into—basically, there is legitimacy even for the minority to say: we are two peoples.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right,
[Speaker I] right, right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s no accident that this keeps coming up, that it comes up again. It comes up not only because the process is difficult. True, true, true, because of many of the phenomena you’re seeing these days, like all this talk about two peoples, Judah and Israel, right, and all those kinds of statements. It’s not only because of a different ideology, but simply because we’re no longer a… leave ideology aside. Different ideologies, fine. As long as the rules of the game that govern the ideological debate are agreed upon, two ideologies can exist within one people. The problem of two peoples is not because we have two different ideologies. That’s true, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that we’ve lost the ability to conduct the discourse between the ideologies. And so again, it’s important to understand that a philosophical view of these things changes very much how we perceive them. In other words, the two peoples here are not because you’re religious and those are secular. That’s not the point. The two peoples are because we’re not playing the same game. So if we have different ideologies, then already there is no… maybe when there is
[Speaker G] some shared ideology, yes, and if there are only different ideologies.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not sure about that, on the logical level. If there are rules of the game for managing the matter, that’s also okay. It may be that it won’t work in practice. It may be that it won’t work in practice, never mind. That’s a practical argument. On the level of, you know, reality is only something that gets in the way when we deal with theories, and we don’t let reality disturb us.
[Speaker A] Here, beyond the context that the argument is over the rules of the game, there’s something else that undermines the ground beneath it, and that’s the potential for reciprocity. Something there has also cracked. Part of the minority’s ability to play the game is tied to its understanding that one day it could become the majority.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It may
[Speaker A] be
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that something there has also cracked in that context. Demography. Yes, that thing is very present. It could be, yes. So that means the reasons we agreed to play the game no longer exist, the game itself is disputed, so in effect all this language of playing within the rules and the majority decides and all kinds of things like that is irrelevant language. It’s simply not the language. What we need to ask ourselves now is not whether we are two peoples or one people; the question is whether we decide to separate and there is no game anymore, and if not, then we need to decide מחדש what the rules of the game are. And how do you decide? Not by majority vote. It has to be a wall-to-wall agreement. Wall-to-wall—there is no wall-to-wall agreement, but a very, very significant agreement, because otherwise we are reconstituting the game. Yes.
[Speaker J] Depending on the way it’s conducted, and if, say, now an agreement is reached, what’s the problem? Now the struggle gets there. No, I said before, I’m not
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] talking about one hundred percent agreement. I’m saying agreement that is significant enough. I don’t have a sharp line that determines it. Yes, but there is a majority, you know—there is a substantial majority and an insubstantial majority, a substantial minority and an insubstantial minority. There is a situation where the majority is basically overwhelming. That’s it. I can’t define it more precisely than that.
[Speaker J] Define them—how do you see the majority?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not talking about heads and feet; that’s something else. I’m talking now about two different ideologies. The basic assumption is that on both sides there are smart people and less smart people. This is not a dispute between smart people and idiots. But what is the difference between a majority
[Speaker J] like this and a majority in…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The majority—the question is whether there is a game here. No, you don’t need one hundred percent agreement.
[Speaker A] Eighty percent is an enormous figure in the social sciences, also in the… I’m not—again, if you expect… it’s the sorites paradox.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you expect me to set a line, I don’t have a line, but there are heaps in the world. That’s all. One hundred percent—no, not one hundred percent, no, no. Nothing works with one hundred percent. There is no such thing. But yes, there has to be a sufficiently significant majority so that we can say there is a game here and both sides agree to it. You know what, if you want, maybe a majority on both sides would be enough to count as a majority. I don’t know, for example. A majority on both sides would agree to the rules of the game. That’s not a bad criterion. I don’t know, it needs more thought, but maybe that would suffice. What? I didn’t understand. Yes. Fifty-one percent? Never mind, but fifty-one percent divided between both sides. That’s it, fine. A qualitative majority, not just a numerical majority… yes, again, I’m not getting into those details. You won’t manage to arrive at a sharp line. On no interesting question do you manage to arrive at a sharp line. That’s not the point. I think the principle itself is very clear. I don’t have a criterion. It’s not one hundred percent, that’s obvious, because there’s no such thing as one hundred percent. By the way, the same question existed in Jewish law too, in communal enactments. Rabbenu Tam’s approach was that decisions had to be unanimous. No majority—only unanimity. And in the end the medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagree with him and say: in principle you’re right, but you can’t run the world like that. The majority will decide there too. “Follow the majority” doesn’t deal with this at all, but they cite that verse. There’s no choice—life, let’s come down from theory, life sometimes contributes something too. It has a positive role once in a while. Here the question is
[Speaker A] whether also in the personal aspect, if eighty percent say, okay, wait a second, in my view this is a different game—maybe that defines the player, not only numerically but in the fact that every time, being that he went with the minority while eighty percent agreed, then I’m still in the game even though it’s the opposite. That means a politician, right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The clear-minded people of Jerusalem would check who was sitting with them at a meal. We’re talking about judges. When you choose, and you see that two other judges are sitting with you, you have to think what will happen when those two judges hold the majority opinion against you. Will you be willing to sign the ruling? If you look down on them, think they’re two idiots—don’t sit in judgment. Don’t sit. Because if you sit in judgment, in the end you’ll have to sign their ruling when you’re in the minority. In other words, if you’re willing to play the game despite the disagreements, then there is a game. Yes. Good. Now, the claim is that in a situation where we’re discussing the rules of the game, then the rules of the game themselves don’t determine how to conduct the discussion. Right? That’s the claim. There are certain analogies one can make here—situations in which a system that has rules is prepared to accept deviation from the rules, to see it as something semi-legitimate. For example, in legal thought people talk about conscientious refusal, as distinct from a manifestly illegal order. A manifestly illegal order is an order that is clearly illegal, so you don’t have to obey it at all. You are obligated not to obey it; you are obligated to refuse. Okay? Conscientious refusal talks about a situation where the order is legal, but my conscience rebels against that order. It is extreme enough, from my perspective, to justify refusal, and I’ll go to prison for refusing, but it is still seen as a semi-legitimate act. You’ll get prison, on the contrary—that’s part of the conditions. You have to be willing to accept the judgment upon yourself in order for us still to see you as a legitimate player in the game. But you are a player who violated the rules. Okay? You are a player who violated a rule, but it’s semi-legitimate. Let’s look at a few amusing examples of this. In a moment we’ll do a little hocus-pocus, and I think it’ll work.
[Speaker K] Was that the introduction to the lecture?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, the clip isn’t the main thing. The clip is just an illustration. Now
[Speaker F] yes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thank you very much. Look at a soccer game. This game was played in 2010 between Ghana and Uruguay. A famous match. There was a player named Suarez, Uruguay. Maybe he bit someone too, that I don’t know. The score was one-one. And now this happened. Those who can’t see, maybe stand in front of the screen. Pay attention, can you see? That’s Suarez. It repeats itself—it’s the same situation from different angles. He stops it with his hand. Suarez is there and stops the ball with his hand. Okay? That’s stage one, kick—still stops with the leg, and now he’ll stop it with the hand. There, can you see? He stops it with his hand. Now here’s the penalty he got. Because he stopped it with his hand, he was sent off and a penalty was awarded. It was one-one. A penalty was awarded. Okay? They missed the penalty, did you see? Again. There, see, he misses the penalty. Of course. You can watch games for free.
[Speaker A] I think that’s still part of the bonus games, right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, now. So now—what happened afterward? I didn’t want to bring you the whole highlight reel of the match; there’s a clip with the whole summary. What happened afterward was that the one-one turned into four-three in favor of Uruguay. That is, Uruguay escaped a goal that would have made them lose two-one; it stayed one-one; there were penalties at the end—by the way, an Israeli invention, penalty shootouts, you know? Penalty shootouts after a draw are an Israeli invention. An Israeli representative on the Olympic Committee was the one who proposed that idea. And they did penalties and it ended four-three. Uruguay won because of that. And then there was a great uproar, a great noise in heaven. Okay? Meaning: what is this Suarez guy doing? What do you mean—this isn’t fair, he stopped the thing with his hand and got the victory. They played with ten men, he was sent off, right? But they managed to hold the one-one and in the end they won on penalties. Okay? How can that be? Do they deserve the win? By the way, in terms of game theory, in my opinion the rules here are not sensible. It makes no sense to award a penalty for a certain goal that you stopped. You stopped a certain goal, and the penalty—either he’ll score it and then it’s the same thing, or he won’t score it, so it’s always worth touching with the hand. In other words, the rule isn’t sensible here, but never mind.
[Speaker A] The statistical situation of a penalty allows more, allows more likelihood of scoring a goal.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But here it was a certain goal—what do you mean it allows more? So there’s an eighty percent chance of a goal on a penalty; here it was a certain goal. So it’s always worthwhile to stop it with your hand. Fine, let’s continue. Yes. Consulting for the Olympic Committee we’ll do after we finish, or for FIFA, I don’t know. So in the end the claim is that Suarez acted wrongly, because he committed a foul, he deviated from the rules of the game, he’s not allowed to touch with his hand. And not only that, but as a result they really got the victory. Right? “Have you murdered and also inherited?” Now there’s a very interesting philosophical debate. At the World Cup before the previous one, we heard an interesting lecture on the philosophy of soccer. There are all sorts of very interesting discussions there about how to view a foul in soccer or basketball, doesn’t matter, it’s the same thing. After all, we know—we’re already used to it—that the coach tells a player at a certain stage: now commit a foul. Right? Someone is running to the basket—foul him. Two free throws. Same problem with game theory: he’ll get two free throws, at most he’ll score two points; if you let him go it’s definitely two points. Okay? So commit a foul; it’s worth committing a foul. Now the foul is perceived as part of the tactic of the game. But a foul, if we look at it literally, is violating the rules of the game. You’re not allowed to commit fouls. Meaning, you can’t commit fouls; you’re playing the game and the game has rules. And here the foul has become some kind of tactic: I’ll commit a foul, the sanction the rules prescribe will follow, and everything is fine. And by the way no one even complains about it; the players don’t get angry that someone fouled them, if it’s not something very violent, right? Fine, it’s part of the rules. You commit a foul, I get two shots, everything is fine, or a penalty or whatever it may be. Okay? So you know, in Israeli law there is no prohibition against stealing. It says that one who steals gets such-and-such a punishment. If you want, steal. It’s just that the punishment you deserve is such-and-such. There is no prohibition against stealing. Basically in soccer, people generally don’t interpret the rule that way. There are liberals who interpret it that way because the law cannot determine for me what to do. It can only tell the judge what he should do to me, but I decide what I do. No one can decide for me what I’m allowed and not allowed to do. Fine, but the accepted interpretation is that of course stealing is forbidden. Okay? And the punishment only expresses that fact and says what is done to someone who steals. In soccer or basketball, the interpretation really does seem to be that—the accepted interpretation. The foul is not that you stopped playing the game, but rather the foul is some act that has a sanction attached to it, and if you want to do it and absorb the sanction, be my guest. You see the similarity to conscientious refusal. In conscientious refusal, you are basically violating the law, accepting the sanction the law imposes on you, and everything is fine. Only here it’s even worse than conscientious refusal. In conscientious refusal it’s clear that in one sense you acted wrongly, and therefore you also receive that sanction, but… but your motivations justify what you did. Sometimes when there is a very strong motivation, you can act wrongly. I’m prepared to accept it as legitimate that someone can be in the wrong. In soccer and basketball, it seems to me that the accepted view is that there is nothing at all wrong in committing a foul. There are no lofty motivations because of which I commit the foul and am forgiven.
[Speaker D] Nothing at all—it’s simply smart tactics.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, it’s smart tactics, but there’s no moral or value-based motivation here. It’s tactics. You commit a foul and receive what you’re supposed to take, and that’s all. And that’s even worse than conscientious refusal. But still, these two examples are examples in which there is a system of rules, a system of laws, and the system itself accepts as legitimate, or half-legitimate, a deviation from the rules and even sets a sanction for one who deviates from the rules. It suddenly becomes part of the law itself. In logic this even has a name—CTD. I don’t remember the initials, doesn’t matter. The rule of what happens to someone who violates the law is itself part of the law. Yes, like punishment, like prison.
[Speaker A] It’s like breach of contract being part of the contract.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, there too it really is a similar matter.
[Speaker G] So excuse me, there are types of fouls that are accepted more in the heavenly court. What does she mean? Within sports, for example, there are players who always fall and pretend they got injured and this and that. Those players usually aren’t accepted on the big teams. So there are types of fouls that are accepted, and there are types of fouls where even if you can’t impose a sanction, the player feels unwanted. There was someone—you once saw that there was someone from Hapoel Beit She’an who played against Beitar Jerusalem and they let them win. Yes, right, Hapoel Beit She’an let Beitar beat them because Beitar was competing for the championship against Hapoel Tel Aviv.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And by the way that doesn’t even contradict any rule.
[Speaker G] Yes, Hapoel Beit She’an against Beitar—after all, that’s obvious, certainly motivation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Tzipi, I’m marking everyone who doesn’t show expertise.
[Speaker I] That player is known,
[Speaker G] he already lost his whole career. He wasn’t accepted to any team because he didn’t play the game—as if there’s some norm of playing in a sporting way and trying to win. So there are kinds of fouls and fouls.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not everything—for example, if someone touches with the hand and cheats. Here it wasn’t cheating: everyone saw that he touched with the hand, he was sent off, and everything happened in full public view. No, no, Maradona—that’s cheating. When there’s cheating then it’s probably really wrong, meaning it’s something with no justification. But if you commit the foul and take the sanction, that’s considered part of game management. Okay? Now another example of this is a BBC series of clips called Golden Balls. I don’t know if some of you know it. It’s basically based on the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory. And Golden Balls basically—I’ll describe it first and then we’ll watch one clip just to get the flavor. There are two contestants. Each contestant gets two golden balls, that’s why it’s called Golden Balls. Inside one it says steal, inside the other it says split. Yes—do I split or do I steal. Now they have a certain sum of money at stake, say one hundred thousand pounds. Okay? Now the rules are like in the prisoner’s dilemma. The rules are these: if both choose split, then each gets half the amount. Okay? If both choose steal—both are thieves—neither gets anything. If one chooses steal and one chooses split, then the one who chose steal gets the entire pot—he managed to steal from the sucker on the other side who was prepared to share. Yes, it’s a prize for the wicked. But the wicked need to know—you, as the wicked one, choose steal, but you need to know whom to be wicked toward, because if the other one is also wicked, neither of you gets anything. So it’s already better if both choose split. Okay? So it’s more sophisticated than it sounds at first glance. There’s no equilibrium point here—never mind, in game theory—and therefore basically there’s no textbook solution to this situation. Now the BBC made clips in which one more element was added. The element is that the two sides talk to each other and try to convince one another and formulate a joint strategy. Okay? In other words, one tries to convince the other, come on, let’s both choose split. Look, if I do steal and you do steal, both of us walk away without a penny. Let’s both be generous to each other, both profit. One second—we’ll get half-half, and at least we’ll go home with half our desire in our hands. Of course, after we agree on a strategy, you can never know whether the other person will keep what he promised. The ball is closed; you don’t know which ball he took. So he says, yes yes, of course, makes faces at you with those calf-eyes as if he’s a saintly righteous person—you can trust me, obviously, what kind of question is that, I’ve never lied in my life and all that—and then he pulls out steal on you, yes. Meaning what? Obviously, if there’s more than one person, that’s self-evident. What? No, never mind, we won’t get into that now. So the point is that when they determine the rules of the game between themselves, they naturally try to persuade one another, and it always goes in the direction of both of us choosing split. Let’s be decent, we’ll get half, but at least we’ll get half the sum. Otherwise, again, you might get everything, but you’re also taking the risk that you’ll get nothing if I also choose steal. Now notice: steal and split could also have been marked simply as one and two. Those words have a connotation. It could have said one on this and two on that. If both choose number one, nobody gets anything. If one chooses one and the other chooses two, then this one gets everything and that one gets nothing. It’s just words, split and steal. But the words give a connotation. Okay? Then people start playing—wait, we’re not thieves, after all the Torah says “You shall not steal,” and so on—so let’s both choose split and everything will be fine, and every time something different comes out. It’s unbelievable how many variations there are—endless. People are amazingly creative. There are really incredible strategies there. One of them, for example—I won’t show the second clip now—but there’s one guy, for example, who says to his competitor: know this, I’m choosing steal. That’s it, fixed. Now do whatever you want. I’m choosing steal. Now if you choose steal, neither of us gets anything, neither you nor me. If you choose split, you still won’t get anything, but I’ll get the whole amount and I’ll split it with you half-half. For example. Okay? So if he offers him that proposal, ostensibly he forces him to choose split. Because he says, listen, there’s no… if he were even to reveal the note, then it really would be that you
[Speaker A] wouldn’t want initially—whether he’ll really split with him afterward.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, now, now. But he wants to do the calculation like this. He says: if I choose split—steal—the other one—I choose steal. Now Woody has to decide whether he chooses split or steal. Okay? Now if he chooses steal, he gets nothing. And neither do I.
[Speaker G] But that’s the point—you don’t…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, yes, that’s something they discuss a lot in game theory too—that this is also a function, part of the utility function. Yes. Yes. Now if you get—if you choose split, then I get everything, and either I’ll split it with you or I won’t, but at least there’s a chance you’ll get something. If you choose steal, you definitely get nothing. So logic says choose split. Pure logic, if not for wanting to stick it to the other guy too. Right? That’s obvious. Therefore on the level of game theory, ostensibly, if I reveal to you—look, I’m showing you the steal note, I already chose, now decide what you do—clearly you’ll choose split, right? That’s obvious. Of course here they don’t reveal it. I’m just saying that I announce to you that I’m deciding to take steal. In my opinion that’s a brilliant idea, never mind, maybe there are ways around it, but it’s simply…
[Speaker A] He tells him: no, I’m the one who will choose.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Daphna also said that to me yesterday, right. That’s the possible way out to deal with it. But that’s just an anecdote; let’s return to the regular story. Look, a regular story that I found from among many clips, but it’s very typical. Watch this. This is the amount available to them.
[Speaker L] Twenty-nine thousand pounds.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now he explains the rules of the game—that’s not interesting, I already explained them. Here, here, now they start talking. I wanted to be open and I’m being honest I’m praising
[Speaker M] my church leader and I’m both brave
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and I’m tomorrow I promised you I want to donate
[Speaker E] some of this money for my church because they will really help me and I
[Speaker F] know blessing not going to get anyone now but please please don’t don’t steal. Please trust me and you brought me through even though I have had difficult four rounds but I have to do it I have to do it. This is my split ball here and we’ll go home happy people. We’ll go home happy people today. That’s—I want to bless my church I want to bless happy
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] people. Now what you gonna do? All right. Ella, Jasper, choose either
[Speaker E] your split or your steal ball now. Now you told me that was the split ball. Ella, are you happy with your choice? Ella, are you happy with your choice? Yes yes yes, very happy. That’s not what I have with mine because you told me that that was the split ball. I’m happy with my choice, Jasper, because you brought me through, so why did you say that was the split if you picked up that one? Well, that’s the game, we are playing a game here. I’m happy with my ball. I’m not happy then, Jasper. You can change if you want to, Jasper. I can change too then if you want. Do you trust me or do you not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because if you change your ball
[Speaker E] I’ll change mine, so do you trust me or do you not?
[Speaker F] I told you, you brought me through, I trusted you. You know what you said, you brought me through
[Speaker E] and I’m happy with this
[Speaker F] ball. I’ve chosen it and I’m happy with it, more than happy with it.
[Speaker E] You know what, Jasper, I came in to play on this game. The Bible says “thou
[Speaker F] shalt not steal.” I’m
[Speaker E] not going back, I’m not going to change, I’m looking at you. All right, are you ready? Three, two, one, lift your split. For my church. Ella, you stole twenty-nine thousand two hundred and fifty pounds. Ella, you stole and you go home with everything. For my church, bless church, the
[Speaker F] Bible says thou shalt not steal. You know I came in to play on this game and I was going to bless
[Speaker E] my church, so it’s okay, God bless anyway. Ella, did you come to steal? Yes. Okay. Well they
[Speaker M] managed to successfully deal with four killer balls. Will they be so lucky next time? Join me and find out here on Golden Ball.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One more second, there’s going to be a brief interview with them here. I was delighted
[Speaker E] that I came to play a game. I came to win, and I did, and I’m absolutely delighted, but I would have rolled split regardless whether it’s ten pounds or a million pounds, whatever the amount. If Ella wants the money, then let her be blessed with the money because I’m still blessed. My message for Jasper would be: just remember it’s a game we played, and she came to play the game as well as me, and I came out victorious.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One could discuss here a bit the question whether the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is really relevant to the situation, because the truth is I tend to think like the one who won. Meaning, it’s a game, and this game revolves around the question whether you’ll lie or not. They had seen clips like this before too; they know that this is what it’s about. It’s not true that first of all this isn’t even a question of theft. Just in terms of Talmudic-style analysis, let’s say she probably didn’t go through a Lithuanian yeshiva, because the problem here is not theft, the problem here is lying. She didn’t steal anything from her. She just told her she was going to bring out split, and she brought out steal. Deception, maybe, could be. But still, whether this thing is immoral isn’t clear to me. I think there is no moral problem in it. The whole question is only because this is the context of the game. But one could debate it; that’s not our subject here.
[Speaker I] Also, putting the religious element there as a prior prohibition—you’re assuming that this lady won’t be capable at all of taking another option. Fine, if she is God-fearing, right, there are certain perceptions
[Speaker G] in the population. I’m going back to the game.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those are the rules of the game. You earn
[Speaker G] one hundred thousand pounds, one hundred thousand pounds.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not just a game. In game theory, every confrontation and set of decisions with outcomes is called a game. But here, because look at the clips—they saw clips too—this is the game here. The whole game is the question whether you persuade, don’t persuade, lie, don’t lie. By the way, the words steal and split, as I said, are loaded words. Basically, they could just have marked them one and two.
[Speaker M] It’s
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] just that—split and steal aren’t… they’re words. If they hadn’t written steal and split there, she would never have imagined that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) saw anything defective here. It’s only because they wrote that. If they had written one and zero or one and two, what—the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) forbids choosing two? What’s the problem? That’s the whole idea—it’s the incentive. Fine, okay. So the claim I want to make is that within the framework of this game, you lied. In principle there is a lie here, meaning you said something untrue or did something not in accordance with what you said. But that is part of the tactic of the game, exactly like a foul in soccer. A foul in soccer is part of the tactic of the game; here too the lie is part of the tactic of the game. Meaning, for our purposes—and I need to finish now—what I basically want to say is that in a place where the game determines that there are also violations and sanctions beside them, there is no problem in committing violations. In a place where there are no rules of the game at all, then it’s not entirely clear what can be considered a violation and what cannot. There are moral violations—morality always exists independently of the law. But a violation in the legal sense or quasi-legal sense—it’s not clear to what extent one can speak at all of someone violating the law in a situation like that, when he comes to challenge the foundations of the law itself. Therefore, in a certain sense it’s even easier than this case. In this case I think there was a lie; I don’t think it was a violation because it was part of the rules of the game. But here there were rules of the game, and as part of the rules of the game people also lie, just as they commit a foul in soccer. In our case, when we are speaking about a conflict over the rules of the game, there are rules of morality. That is—and the question is how they’re determined, I don’t know—but there are rules of morality that always exist; human beings are supposed to behave morally. But to make claims by force of the law or legal norms is very problematic in a place where there is no agreed framework from which we operate at all. In other words, if I claim that the other side broke the framework, you cannot come to me with claims by force of the framework. That is, one might say, all the more so from the case here. Even here she can’t come to the other one with claims about why she lied, because the framework allows lying, and not only that, it rewards the one who lies. But with us, the framework has been shattered. It’s not that the framework allows lying; rather, once someone shatters the framework, from my perspective I have justification not to operate according to the framework, and therefore this is actually an even more justified state, let’s call it, than the cases of a foul in soccer or the lie in that game. In our case there is also the proper motivation, as we said with conscientious refusal, where you violate the law but have a motivation that can justify what you do. Here too it is like that. I have motivations strong enough to justify violating the law. For example, during the disengagement, I would compare it to conscientious refusal. Someone who violated the law in the argument over the disengagement—that I would compare to conscientious refusal. Someone who violates the law in our case is like a foul in soccer—even worse than a foul in soccer—because in the end, within the framework, you cannot come to him with claims based on the rules. The rules themselves either allow committing a violation—that’s soccer—or, in our case, the argument is over the rules, so you can’t come with claims based on the rules. But it’s more parallel to soccer than to conscientious refusal. Okay? Because in the disengagement it’s conscientious refusal; with us it’s the soccer matter. Now as I said before, maybe I’ll finish with just a few sentences: what this basically means—analytic philosophy distinguishes between two kinds of systems of rules. There is a constitutive system of rules and a regulative system of rules. A constitutive system is a system that… constitutes the framework. For example, the rules of chess. There is a system of rules; someone who breaks the rule doesn’t get punished, he simply isn’t playing chess. The legal system determines—it constitutes—the game of chess. If you don’t play according to the rules, you’re simply not playing chess; you’re playing another game. There is no punishment for someone who doesn’t play according to the rules of chess; it just can’t take place. You can play backgammon if you want, but chess has these rules. That is a constitutive system of rules. A regulative system of rules—the usual example is traffic laws. Traffic laws: someone who drives not according to the law is still driving, he is still using the road, he is driving a car, he is engaged in traffic. The laws only say how to do it correctly. If you didn’t do it correctly, you broke the law, so you are an offender. You’re still driving, you’re still engaging in traffic, but you are an offender. Meaning that in a constitutive system of rules there is no such thing as an offender; one who breaks the rule is simply not playing the game. In a regulative system of rules there are offenders; one who breaks the rules is doing the activity that people do there, but he is doing it not according to the rules, so he is an offender. Maybe there will be a sanction on him, maybe there won’t. Now usually people understand that the legal world—law—is a constitutive system, at least in positivist approaches for sure. Law is a constitutive system, meaning what the law determines is what determines what is legal and what is not. If you don’t act according to the law, then what are you doing, in principle? You violated the law, but what is the thing you are doing improperly? Being a citizen of the state? Maybe there is some such thing. Meaning, maybe that is the correct way to be a citizen in the state. And if you violate the law, then you are still a citizen of the state, but you are a delinquent citizen because you violated the law. So in that sense maybe one could see it as a regulative rather than constitutive system. But there is an additional concept in the legal world. There is a philosopher of law named Ronald Dworkin, who basically said that besides enacted laws there are certain principles that are not enacted and do not appear anywhere, but they are binding just like enacted laws, perhaps even more so. By the way, there are several types of such laws. There are laws of universal morality—from that basis, for example, the Nazis were prosecuted. You couldn’t prosecute them according to German law; they obeyed German law. So how can you try someone for obeying the law? You try him for violating certain principles beyond the law, principles he was supposed to obey even though the law doesn’t state them—like not murdering human beings just like that, or something like that. These are principles we might call universal principles. Dworkin also talks about principles of another kind—principles that are basic assumptions of the system. It doesn’t have to be so in every country, but in our country this is a Jewish and democratic state, for the sake of discussion. Now in the law itself, I don’t think at least—I’m not a jurist—but that doesn’t appear in the law. Maybe it appears in the Declaration of Independence, I don’t know, but it doesn’t appear in statute. Yet it is perceived as a kind of constitutional principle. That is, it can be used in the interpretation of laws; in the legal world one can make use of it even though it doesn’t appear in statute. It’s a principle. Now, a Jewish and democratic state—in Belgium they don’t have that law. It’s not a universal principle; it’s a foundational principle in this particular state. But it too is binding like enacted laws. Okay, so there are laws that are not enacted, but they are still binding even though they are not enacted. In that sense they remain in force even when people argue over the legal system. Meaning, if people are arguing over the legal system, then a claim based on enacted law is irrelevant, but a claim based on principles, or universal morality, or the foundational principles of the system, is still valid. That is, you are still supposed to conduct yourself here according to the basic assumptions that were apparently accepted by all of us—this is a Jewish and democratic state, whatever that means. Okay? If you conduct yourself in a way that contradicts that, that is problematic, even though you are arguing over the rules of the game. Here you are arguing with the basic assumptions of the system, not with the rules of the game. Here you simply need to leave, not argue, and not hold protests or things of that kind. So I just want to say that even when people argue over the laws of the game, it is not true that there are no laws at all. I qualify what I said earlier. The basic principles that are outside the law, that underlie the law, must also be preserved when we argue over the laws of the game. And that includes universal morality and the foundational assumptions of the system. So it’s not that you can’t say a person is acting wrongly in an argument being conducted these days—you can say a person is acting wrongly. What you cannot say to him is: listen, but the majority said so, the majority decided so, and you are violating the law. That, apparently, you cannot say to him. Okay? Good.
[Speaker A] What you just said has two implications. First, it’s an optimistic message, because in the end there is
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] some even lower-order structure of understanding in which language operates. Meaning, in the end we agree that the word no means no, and the word yes means yes, and the meaning of the word justice or law or right is that meaning, and therefore there is something to talk about. Because if we don’t agree on the language, there’s nothing to talk about. But second, it’s a pessimistic message, because it sounds from what you’re saying that there isn’t some one objective truth that is the law, and everything else is just interpretation; rather, there is something political here in the deep sense of the word. That is, it’s all a question of who determines the rules of the game. So let’s really go back to this week’s Torah portion. There is a very big principled question here: what exactly is the dispute between Moses and Korach? On the face of it, Korach says very democratic things, very liberal things: “The whole congregation are all holy, and the Lord is among them; so why do you exalt yourselves over the assembly of the Lord?” Korach is essentially arguing in the name of equality, in the name of the rights of each and every individual. And it sounds very persuasive. But the Torah tells us that this is a dispute not for the sake of Heaven. Why is it not for the sake of Heaven? Because Korach’s goal is not equality, but that he himself should stand in Moses’ place. He uses lofty values in order to advance personal interests. And that is the great danger that always exists when there is a stormy public controversy. We need to ask ourselves whether our arguments are truly for the sake of Heaven, or whether they are merely tools in power struggles.