The Megillah Between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah (5779)
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
- Method: clarifying philosophical questions through Jewish law, and the example from Maharshal
- The law of ruled lines: sources, disputes, and Rashi and Tosafot
- The Jerusalem Talmud, Rabbeinu Tam, and Maimonides: ruled lines as ornamentation or as law
- Rabbi Chaim and the Griz of Brisk: ruled lines as a law concerning words of Torah
- Levels of abstraction and embodiment: the midrash in Sabbath chapter 8 and Tanya chapter 4
- Thought, language, and representation: Berakhot and Rashba, and the holy tongue according to Maimonides and Nachmanides
- The Written Torah versus the Oral Torah: the importance of wording and writing form
- The Scroll of Esther: book and letter, historical and essential transition, and the return of the law of ruled lines
- A request for help
Summary
General overview
The text opens with a preference for clarifying philosophical and moral questions through halakhic sources, because they are more binding and more precise, and illustrates this through the gap between Maharshal’s polemical declarations and the actual character of Maharshal’s responsa. From there it moves to the issue of ruled lines in writing verses, especially in the Scroll of Esther. It presents Rashi, Tosafot, the Jerusalem Talmud, Rabbeinu Tam, and Maimonides, and sharpens the point that the law of ruled lines may be a law concerning “words of Torah” rather than a law concerning a “book.” It then proposes a conceptual framework of levels of abstraction and concretization between abstract ideas, their clothing in concrete commands, verbal formulation, and writing form, and compares the Written Torah and the Oral Torah through the importance of formulation and writing form. Finally, it presents the Scroll of Esther as a “transition” between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, explains its unusual laws through the tension between “book” and “letter,” and connects this to the phrase “like the Torah itself” and to the obligation of ruled lines, ending with a wish for a happy Purim and a request for charity for a father suffering from heart disease.
Method: clarifying philosophical questions through Jewish law, and the example from Maharshal
The text argues that when one wants to clarify a philosophical or moral issue, it is preferable to do so through halakhic sources, because they are binding, precise, and say what they actually mean, whereas other sources tend toward literary and non-binding style. It gives the example of Maharshal, who was one of the leading opponents of the Shulchan Arukh and the Rema, and who wrote declarations saying that he would even disagree with Tannaim and Amoraim, and that every sage should make decisions independently, against a precedent-based approach. It describes how, in practice, when you open Maharshal’s responsa, you find a completely standard responsa work that brings the views of medieval authorities (Rishonim) and discusses proofs this way and that, without disagreeing with Tannaim or Amoraim. It explains that this stems from the fact that in publicistic Torah writing one sharpens ideas into grand declarations even without describing the mechanism as it actually operates in practice.
The law of ruled lines: sources, disputes, and Rashi and Tosafot
The text presents the law of ruled lines as the need to mark lines for writing when one writes verses, and describes disputes over details such as whether the ruling is above or below, whether only three lines are needed, and what the law is regarding a mezuzah, a Torah scroll, a megillah, and even a friendly letter, with mention of Tractate Soferim and the Tosefta. It brings the Talmud in Gittin 7, where Mar Ukva sent a verse in a letter and the Talmud comments that it should have had ruled lines, and the Talmud in Megillah 16, “words of peace and truth… this teaches that it requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah,” and raises difficulties: why a special novelty is needed for the megillah if all biblical writings require ruled lines; and if they do not, then why does the megillah require them; and what exactly the phrase “like the truth of Torah” means. It brings Rashi’s explanation that “like the truth of Torah” means the Torah scroll itself, and that ruled lines are a law given to Moses at Sinai.
The text brings Tosafot in Menachot, which argues that a Torah scroll and tefillin do not require ruled lines because “whoever is exempt from a thing and does it is called a fool,” and attributes this to the Jerusalem Talmud and to Seder Rav Amram Gaon. It explains that Tosafot rejects Rashi’s explanation in Megillah and explains that “the truth of Torah” means mezuzah, because it contains the kingship of Heaven, and in that way explains the unusual phrase. It adds that Tosafot argues that if the reference were to a Torah scroll, there would have been reason to derive the law from the fact that the megillah is called a book, and offers a resolution according to which the Scroll of Esther is called both a book and a letter, and therefore it is not clear from which side one should derive laws such as ruled lines and stitching. It also notes that Tosafot says that in the Jerusalem Talmud it sounds like the explanation of the commentary, that the derivation is from the Torah scroll itself.
The Jerusalem Talmud, Rabbeinu Tam, and Maimonides: ruled lines as ornamentation or as law
The text brings from the Jerusalem Talmud a derivation based on “truth is said here… and truth is said there, ‘Buy truth and do not sell it,’” which seems to refer to the entire Torah. It cites Rabbeinu Tam saying that a Torah scroll requires ruled lines because of “This is my God and I will beautify Him,” while tefillin do not require them because they are covered with leather and beautification is not relevant there. It also quotes Maimonides, Laws of Tefillin 1:12, who defines as a law given to Moses at Sinai that one writes a Torah scroll and mezuzah only with ruled lines, while tefillin do not require them because they are folded. It also quotes Maimonides, Laws of Megillah 2:9, which details the laws of writing a megillah in ink on gevil or parchment like a Torah scroll, and adds, “and it requires ruled lines like the Torah itself,” alongside other laws such as the disqualification of paper, improperly processed hide, or writing by a gentile or a heretic.
The text emphasizes that Maimonides integrates the Talmud’s phrase “like the Torah itself” into a list of laws learned from the Torah scroll, and sharpens the question that it still requires explanation why a special derivation of “words of peace and truth” is needed if one could have learned it from the general laws of a book. It suggests that the possible reason is that the megillah is called a book and also called a letter, so it is not certain that it would have been learned as a “book” regarding ruled lines, but the phrase “the truth of Torah” still requires explanation.
Rabbi Chaim and the Griz of Brisk: ruled lines as a law concerning words of Torah
The text brings Rabbi Chaim in the stencil notes and the Griz in the laws of Megillah on Maimonides, who develop a direction according to which ruled lines are not a law in the Torah scroll as an object of a book, but rather a law concerning the “words of Torah” being written, and therefore it is relevant even to writing a verse inside a friendly letter, as emerges from Gittin. It describes the Brisker distinction between laws that are “in the book,” such as ink, parchment, and vitriol, and the law of ruled lines, which is “like the Torah itself” because it concerns the status of the text as a formulation of words of Torah. It raises the difficulty that if this is a law concerning words of Torah, then it should also apply to tefillin, and presents the possibility of connecting it to “This is my God and I will beautify Him” and to the distinction between what is visible and what is covered.
Levels of abstraction and embodiment: the midrash in Sabbath chapter 8 and Tanya chapter 4
The text moves to a broader picture and brings the midrashic passage in the Talmud in Sabbath 88 about Moses ascending on high and the angels’ claim that the “hidden treasure” should remain in Heaven. Moses answers them from the verses of the Ten Commandments, arguing that Egypt, Pharaoh, idolatry, labor, business dealings, father and mother, jealousy, and the evil inclination are not relevant to angels. It argues that the literary framework is meant to explain that the Torah is not the collection of commands as they appear to us, but rather a collection of abstract ideas that “clothe themselves” in human garb when they descend into the world. Therefore, commands such as “Honor your father and your mother” are expressions of ideas and not the primary content of the Torah that precedes the world. It emphasizes that abstract ideas are hard to grasp, and therefore they are given in concrete garments of oxen, cows, thieves, Sabbath, and parents.
The text quotes Tanya chapter 4 on the three garments of the divine soul, which are thought, speech, and action of the 613 commandments, and on the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, “contracted His will and wisdom into the 613 commandments of the Torah and their laws,” and that Torah is compared to water that descends from a high place to a low one until it became clothed in physical things so that “every thought may grasp them.” It presents the idea that the purpose of Torah study is not only knowledge of practical application but also cleaving to the abstract divine will through the garments, and illustrates this through a story about Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, showing that abstract ideas can be clothed in different garments such as flower arranging or archery.
Thought, language, and representation: Berakhot and Rashba, and the holy tongue according to Maimonides and Nachmanides
The text describes another level of concretization in which a concrete idea receives verbal representation, and brings the Mishnah in Berakhot about reciting the Shema without making it audible to one’s ear and without precise articulation of the letters, and the dispute between Rabbi Yosei and the Sages, along with the Talmud’s derivation of “Hear” both as making it audible to one’s ear and as reading in any language. It brings Rashba’s difficulty: how can one derive two things from the same verse? And it cites his answer that once “in any language that you hear” is derived, it follows that there is a requirement of speech and mere thought is not enough, because if there were no need to vocalize, then the question of language would have no significance. It presents a discussion among later authorities (Acharonim) who understand this as a claim about thought that is not in words, but suggests that the main point is that halakhically, in thought the words do not matter but the idea does, whereas in speech the linguistic representation has significance.
The text argues that, simply speaking, the relation between words and ideas is arbitrary, but brings a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim) about the holy tongue: Maimonides in Guide for the Perplexed explains that the holy tongue is called that because it has no primary names for sexual organs and matters of intercourse and seed, but instead uses borrowed language and hints, whereas Nachmanides and the Raavad argue that the language of Scripture is called the holy tongue because of an essential, not accidental, connection between the words and the contents. It adds that the Sages relate to letters and their forms in an essentialist way in their interpretations and in Sefer Yetzirah.
The Written Torah versus the Oral Torah: the importance of wording and writing form
The text defines four levels: an abstract idea, a concrete garment in commandments and laws, verbal representation, and physical writing form. It argues that in the Written Torah the wording and writing form are critically important, so one cannot change a letter, a word, or decorative crowns, or write it in another language, and there are laws of writing such as ink and parchment. It argues that in the Oral Torah the verbal wording and writing form are not primary, and therefore an English translation of the Talmud can represent the same content without the holiness of a sacred book, and there are no laws about how to write it on parchment or in a specific ink. It quotes Bialik in “Revelation and Concealment in Language,” that language does not grant entry into the essence of things but rather stands in front of them as a barrier, and adds an experiential description of a student who hears things from his teacher that the teacher himself does not agree with, even though the student inferred them from his teacher’s words.
The Scroll of Esther: book and letter, historical and essential transition, and the return of the law of ruled lines
The text brings from the Talmud in Megillah 7 that Esther sent to the Sages, “Establish me for future generations” and “Write me for future generations.” They answered about jealousy among the nations and about “Have I not written for you threefold,” until they found the verse “Write this as a memorial in the book,” from which “write this” is expounded as Deuteronomy, “memorial” as the Prophets, and “in the book” as the megillah. It emphasizes that the megillah is expounded separately from the Prophets. It presents Esther as seeking to remain within the framework of the Written Torah at the end of the biblical period, and the Sages as responding partially by allowing it to be written, while positioning it as a transitional stage between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.
The text emphasizes laws that place the megillah between the poles: on the one hand, one must hear every word and letter, and the wording is indispensable, and one cannot fulfill the obligation through a free retelling; on the other hand, a megillah can be missing up to forty-nine percent of its letters and still remain valid, and the law creates the theoretical possibility of reading from two deficient megillot in order to complete a full reading. It explains that the wording in the megillah is similar to the Written Torah, and therefore it belongs to the third level of concretization, but the writing form is not fully obligatory the way it is in a Torah scroll, and therefore it lacks the fourth level in its full form. It explains that this is the depth of the expression that “the megillah is called a book and is called a letter,” where a letter is a tool for conveying a message rather than a book with fixed permanence, and in that way the megillah bears the halakhic fingerprint of being a transition.
The text returns to the issue of ruled lines and connects “like the Torah itself” in Maimonides and “like the truth of Torah” in the Talmud to the idea that ruled lines stem from the wording as words of Torah and not from the laws of a book. Therefore, the megillah requires ruled lines because its wording is indispensable like the Torah itself, even if it is not obligated in all the laws of a book. It concludes by stating that the Scroll of Esther stands in an intermediate historical and essential position between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, and the laws of the megillah reflect this, and it closes with “Happy Purim.”
A request for help
With the permission of the dear public, sorry for interrupting. I came to help with something important. My father has heart disease, really in serious condition at home. Everyone, whatever they can.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay.
[Speaker A] I want
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to talk today a bit about matters connected to Purim. I’ll start maybe specifically with some halakhic issue, and from there I want to move to more general things. As I already mentioned once, when you want to clarify some philosophical issue or moral issue—or not exactly moral, really—then it seems to me that it’s better to do it through halakhic sources, because halakhic sources are more binding, more precise, more likely to write what they actually mean. And usually other sources write in literary and non-binding forms. I think we once talked about this and I gave an example. Maharshal writes in a few places—after all, he was one of the leading opponents of the Shulchan Arukh and the Rema—and he writes that he will disagree with Tannaim and with Amoraim and bring proofs against them, and of course against medieval authorities (Rishonim), needless to say. And what does that mean? Every sage has to make his own decisions. Which of course was a polemical statement against the Shulchan Arukh and the Rema, who adopted a precedent-based approach. Meaning, they basically took the leading halakhic decisors—the Shulchan Arukh in general took three decisors, the Rif, Maimonides, and the Rosh—and established Jewish law according to the majority among them. Not always, either, but that was his declared policy. And Maharshal’s words were aimed against that approach of the Mechaber and the Rema. But when you open Maharshal’s responsa, you see that all in all it’s completely standard responsa. He brings the methods of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and discusses them and brings proofs this way and proofs that way. He doesn’t disagree with anything and doesn’t bring proofs against Tannaim or against Amoraim or against anything. And I think that’s an expression of the phenomenon I described earlier: when you write a philosophical book or some publicistic article—I’d call it Torah publicism—you want to sharpen an idea, so you state the idea. But when you want to check how this thing really works, go to the halakhic writing. In halakhic writing, a person does what he actually thinks, not what… not the big declarations. Again, I’m not trying to claim that the person lied. Rather, when you write publicistic material, you want to sharpen a point that’s very important to you, but that doesn’t mean you’re really describing things as they actually happen in practice. Okay, that’s enough for the methodological introduction. I want to open with the topic of ruled lines. There is a rule in Jewish law that you have to score lines under the rows when writing verses. So you have to score under the rows. There are arguments about exactly where—mezuzah, Torah scroll, megillah, or maybe even in a friendly letter. The Talmud in Gittin 7 talks about this, that even Mar Ukva sent: “Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations.” He wrote some verse in some letter, and the Talmud says that in fact he should have scored lines for it. Now the Talmud in Megillah 16 says: “Words of peace and truth”—Rabbi Tanchum said, and some say Rabbi Asi said—this teaches that it requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah. The megillah needs ruled lines like the Torah. “The truth of Torah” in the simple sense means Torah, Written Torah. So the megillah too needs ruled lines. What does it mean it needs ruled lines? All the Writings need ruled lines. If all the Writings need ruled lines, then what’s the novelty? Why say it specifically by the Scroll of Esther? All the Writings, all the books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), need ruled lines, so the megillah also needs ruled lines. What’s the issue? What is there to add here? Second thing—or not second thing, but the other side—if we say that the other Writings don’t need ruled lines… what are ruled lines? I said, putting a line under the text when you write the verse. Putting a line so it will be straight.
[Speaker C] It’s not—like a lined notebook, one line. Right, to mark the lines.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not a line above? What? That’s a dispute, a dispute. Some say above, some say below. There are lots of disputes here. Some say you only need three lines on top and the rest you don’t need, just so it stays aligned upward. There’s a lot here—Tractate Soferim, there’s a Tosefta on this.
[Speaker C] Wait, so doesn’t that exempt you from this—if you’re going to recite the blessing over reading the megillah, every megillah you read from has to be a scored megillah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] By the way, from what the Talmud says, yes, you need a scored megillah.
[Speaker C] No, but every megillah—if you read Ecclesiastes, do you recite a blessing over it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s the question, that’s what I’m saying. If you say all the books need ruled lines, then I’m asking: why do you need a source, or a special statement, about the megillah? And if you say the books don’t need ruled lines… second point. Third point—I don’t even know how to count anymore—whether to put this in or not put it in—
[Speaker C] Like a Torah scroll.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, we’ll get there. The additional thing is the strange phrase that appears here: this teaches that it needs ruled lines like the truth of Torah. What does “like the truth of Torah” mean? It needs ruled lines like a Torah scroll. Why say “like the truth of Torah”?
[Speaker A] An acronym? What? Acronym for what? For the phrase “the name of the world the preacher says truth,” he says truth, words of truth, yes, that’s Esther, mezuzah, and Torah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Oh really? I don’t remember. Okay. In any event, fine, that’s a notariqon, a homiletic reading, but that’s not what the Talmud means. “Like the truth of Torah”—the Talmud here is not talking in acronyms. So what’s going on? Why not say it needs ruled lines like a Torah scroll? Rashi here writes: “Like the truth of Torah”—like the Torah scroll itself. Ruled lines are a law given to Moses at Sinai. Meaning, the law of ruled lines is a law given to Moses at Sinai, and what it says here, “like the truth of Torah,” means like a Torah scroll. Now Tosafot in tractate Menachot, in another context—to the point there in that sugya—says: “And one can say that they did not need to score a Torah scroll and tefillin, since they do not require ruled lines.” A Torah scroll and tefillin do not require ruled lines. “As we say in the Jerusalem Talmud in the first chapter of Sabbath: whoever is exempt from a thing and does it is called a fool.” And if it isn’t needed, then you also shouldn’t score, because if it isn’t needed and you do score, then you’re a fool. Right? Someone who is exempt from a thing and does it—that’s not some great virtue. And Seder Rav Amram brings this, meaning this is in the name of the Jerusalem Talmud as brought in Seder Rav Amram Gaon, one of the Geonim. “And that which we say at the end of the first chapter of Megillah, ‘Words of peace and truth’ teaches that it requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah”—the Talmud we just read basically says that a Torah scroll requires ruled lines, and the megillah is learned from the Torah scroll. Or compared to a Torah scroll: just as a Torah scroll requires ruled lines, so the megillah requires ruled lines. So Tosafot says: not as the commentary explained, that it’s speaking of an actual Torah scroll, but rather it means mezuzah, which is the truth of Torah because it contains the kingship of Heaven, and as is proven here that a mezuzah requires ruled lines. Meaning, Tosafot says that the phrase “the truth of Torah” itself shows that it’s not really talking about a Torah scroll there. It should have said it needs ruled lines like a Torah scroll. What does “like the truth of Torah” mean? Tosafot argues that “the truth of Torah” is a designation for mezuzah. Why? Because it has the kingship of Heaven in it, so that’s why it’s called “the truth of Torah.” Fine, you can discuss why that’s the designation, but at least Tosafot offers an explanation for why this term “the truth of Torah” is used here instead of just saying Torah scroll. So first, he answers the question of why the phrase “the truth of Torah.” Second, Tosafot really says that a Torah scroll doesn’t need ruled lines. And if a Torah scroll doesn’t need ruled lines, then apparently the other Writings also don’t need ruled lines. Then the question is why the megillah does need ruled lines. What is it about the megillah that resembles a mezuzah, for example? Why is it different from all the other writings? After that he says: and know that if it meant a Torah scroll, as the commentary explained—if the intention is really that the megillah needs ruled lines like a Torah scroll, and that basically assumes that a Torah scroll needs ruled lines—then it should have derived it from the fact that it is called a book. If so, there would have been no need at all for this derivation, “words of peace and truth” teaches that it needs ruled lines like the truth of Torah. “Words of peace and truth”—truth is like the truth of Torah. “Words of peace and truth,” you’re saying that “truth” is the acronym.
[Speaker A] It’s like an added idea.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but okay. Because the Scroll of Esther says “words of peace and truth,” and “truth” is itself the Scroll of Esther. That’s a bit problematic. It reminds me of a joke from our mathematics lecturer in first year. We had some lecturer there who always told us little Torah thoughts on the weekly portion at Tel Aviv University. So he told us, he said there—I don’t know Yiddish that well, so I didn’t really get to the bottom of it—but he said: why was Lot called Lot? So he said it’s an acronym: “Lot wants to drink”—Lot wants to drink. But really in Yiddish it would be more correct to say “drink wants Lot.” I don’t know, I didn’t really get why, I don’t remember why, I didn’t understand why—maybe because the drinking took hold of him, took over him, and not that he drank, I don’t know exactly. But he said it should have been—
[Speaker A] Drunk like Lot—“vi” is like.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Vi” is like. “Drink like Lot.” “Like Lot.”
[Speaker A] “Like Lot.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, I see, so maybe that’s—ah, okay, fine. Okay, so I learned something. In any case, he says it should have been “drink like Lot.” Okay. And then it should really have been “Tol” and not “Lot.” So why didn’t they call him Tol? He says simply because if they had called him… because then you wouldn’t know whether it’s “drink wants a dead man” or “a dead man wants to drink.” But these are mathematics-lecturer jokes. Anyway—
[Speaker D] I’ve had a chance to bring things like that…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A lecturer can do whatever he wants in class, you know. What’s so impressive?
[Speaker A] And that’s the level of the joke.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As long as there’s a convergence of interests—the lecturer doesn’t want to teach, and the students don’t want to learn—so who is it bothering? In any case, Tosafot is actually saying that according to Rashi it isn’t clear why you need the derivation from a Torah scroll, because after all the Scroll of Esther is called a book. “Sending letters,” “write all these words of the Torah in a book,” “this letter in a book”—so it’s called a book. And not only that, but in fact the Talmud learns all the laws of a book from a Torah scroll to the megillah. So basically, why shouldn’t it also learn the law of ruled lines from a Torah scroll to the megillah from the fact that the megillah is called a book? Necessarily, Tosafot says, books really don’t need ruled lines. Books don’t need ruled lines, so this is not from the laws of books. “However, one can say that if it were derived from the fact that it is called a book, one would need to find one matter where it does not require ruled lines, since it is also called a letter, as we also say regarding stitching, that it does not need to be stitched entirely with sinews.” After all, the Scroll of Esther is called both a letter and a book. The Sages say in the Talmud that the Scroll of Esther is called a book and is called a letter. So in effect it has laws like a book and laws like a letter. And now you wouldn’t know whether ruled lines belong to the laws of a book—in which case they would be learned from Torah scrolls—or whether ruled lines… sorry, if ruled lines belong to the laws of a book, then it could be that the Scroll of Esther would not need ruled lines, because the Scroll of Esther is also a letter and not only a book, so you don’t know in what respect it is a letter and in what respect it is a book. And because of that, you can also explain according to Rashi why a derivation was needed from a Torah scroll that it needs ruled lines like the truth of Torah. Tosafot, of course, assumes as obvious—almost as a contradiction in terms—that for him it was clear that ruled lines are one of the laws of books. Therefore he asks on Rashi: why do you need a derivation about ruled lines in the megillah? It is called a book, so learn it from the other books, just as they need ruled lines, so the megillah too should need ruled lines like all the other books—how they are written and what is done—so learn the law of ruled lines as well. And then afterward, when he gives the answer according to Rashi, since the Scroll of Esther is called a book and is called a letter, you can’t know whether with respect to ruled lines it is considered a book or considered a letter. And once again we see that ruled lines are a special law in books. Since it is not certain that the Scroll of Esther is a book for this purpose, therefore we wouldn’t have known the law of ruled lines. Tosafot assumes throughout that ruled lines are basically a law of books. Afterward he really brings the Jerusalem Talmud: “And in the Jerusalem Talmud it seems like the explanation of the commentary, that it is derived from the Torah scroll itself.” Meaning, in the Jerusalem Talmud it’s like Rashi. Even though in the Jerusalem Talmud in the first chapter of Sabbath it says that a Torah scroll does not need ruled lines, but there he says it sounds like a Torah scroll: “It says here ‘words of peace and truth,’ and it says there, ‘Buy truth and do not sell it.’ Just as there it requires ruled lines, so too here it requires ruled lines.” That implies that it is speaking about the whole Torah, since the entire Torah is written in that verse. And Rabbeinu Tam said that a Torah scroll requires ruled lines because of “This is my God and I will beautify Him,” but tefillin, which are covered with leather, do not require ruled lines, because beautification does not apply to them. Yes—because tefillin are covered, so they don’t need to be scored, because there’s no need to beautify tefillin; we don’t see it anyway. But a Torah scroll, which is seen, does need ruled lines. Then it comes out that ruled lines are only by virtue of “This is my God and I will beautify Him,” meaning this is a matter of beautifying the commandment, like decorating a sukkah or something like that.
[Speaker C] And what about mezuzah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A mezuzah needs ruled lines—that’s what the first Jerusalem Talmud passage he brought says.
[Speaker C] Because it’s not covered?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, according to the… clearly, that Jerusalem Talmud doesn’t accept this anyway, because that Jerusalem Talmud says a Torah scroll also doesn’t need it. But in the first Jerusalem Talmud it seems that the law of ruled lines really is one of the laws of a book, as Tosafot had assumed earlier. Then he brings Rabbeinu Tam as an alternative: it could be that the law of ruled lines is just “This is my God and I will beautify Him,” some kind of beautification of the commandment, or adornment of the commandment, and therefore it depends… it applies only to things that are visible and not to things that are covered. Now Maimonides in chapter 1 of the Laws of Tefillin, law 12, says this: “It is a law given to Moses at Sinai that one writes neither a Torah scroll nor a mezuzah except with ruled lines. But tefillin do not require ruled lines because they are folded.” That law of Rabbeinu Tam. And then in chapter 2, law 9, he writes: “One writes the megillah only in ink, on gevil or on parchment, like a Torah scroll. And if one wrote it with oak-gall water and vitriol, it is valid. If one wrote it with other kinds of colors, it is invalid. And it requires ruled lines like the Torah itself. And its hide need not be processed for its own sake,” and so on. “If it is written on paper or on hide that was not processed, or if a gentile or a heretic wrote it, it is invalid.” So what is he saying? He brings here all the laws of a book, and within the list of the laws of a book he writes that it requires ruled lines like the Torah itself, which implies that he learned like Tosafot, that this is part of the laws of a book, and therefore we are basically learning ruled lines from the Torah scroll as part of the laws of a book. But then of course Tosafot’s question on Rashi comes back, and now Tosafot’s answer no longer works. Because what did Tosafot ask on Rashi? If you really learn it from a Torah scroll, then why do you need the derivation of “words of peace and truth”? Learn it like all the other laws of a book; learn ruled lines too. So he says fine, but since the Scroll of Esther is called a book and is called a letter, we can’t be sure. But in Maimonides it says explicitly that we learn it from the laws of a book, and he brings it among the laws of a book, including ruled lines. Meaning, according to Maimonides it is clear that we learn ruled lines from the laws of books, and once again the question returns: then why do you need the derivation of “words of peace and truth”? But notice also Maimonides’ language: “It requires ruled lines like the Torah itself.” Again, a strange phrase. What is “like the Torah itself”? It requires ruled lines like a Torah scroll. What? Look, in all the other cases he doesn’t write that. “One writes the megillah only in ink, on gevil or on parchment, like a Torah scroll. And if one wrote it with oak-gall water and vitriol, it is valid. If one wrote it with other kinds of colors, it is invalid. And it requires ruled lines like the Torah itself.”
[Speaker C] In Maimonides, sometimes when he says that kaf, that “like,” you have to be very careful with it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I spoke about that once. I talked about that once, but it’s not connected here. At the moment I don’t care whether it’s just a comparative kaf and not actual identity. But in any case, you can see that he uses a different expression here. About writing in ink on gevil and parchment he says “like a Torah scroll,” not “like the Torah itself.” “Like a Torah scroll,” as it needed to be written, as you learn from a Torah scroll, so this has to be like a Torah scroll. Here he inserts the language of the Talmud. Meaning, clearly Maimonides didn’t have some other version of the Talmud. Maimonides had the Talmud as we have it before us, that it requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah—that’s what he says here, “like the Torah itself.” And nevertheless he puts this into all the laws learned from a Torah scroll, and that sharpens Tosafot’s question even more: why do you need these two derivations? Learn it from all the laws of the book. Why do you need here the derivation of “words of peace and truth”? One could explain it simply and say exactly what Tosafot says: if I learn it from the laws of a book, then after all the Scroll of Esther is called a book and is called a letter, and therefore it is not certain that I could learn the law of ruled lines in the megillah, because perhaps in this respect it is called a letter and not a book. “Words of peace and truth” comes to teach that it requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah, meaning that in this respect it is called a book. But still, the phrase “the truth of Torah” requires explanation. There is also Rabbi Chaim in the stencils—Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, yes—in the stencil notes, and also the Griz, the rabbi of Brisk, in his book on the Laws of Megillah on Maimonides. Both go in the same direction. And the claim of both of them is that the law of ruled lines is not a law in the Torah scroll. It is not one of the laws of a book, and therefore it cannot be learned from a Torah scroll. Because what they say is that the language “like the truth of Torah” or “like the Torah itself” means that the law of ruled lines is a law in words of Torah. When you write words of Torah, you need to write them with ruled lines. For example, what I brought from the Talmud in Gittin—even in a friendly letter, when you send a letter, a note to your friend, and you write a verse inside it, you need to score under it. What does that mean? After all, that letter does not have the status of a book. This is not a law from the laws of a book that it must be scored. Rather, words of Torah require ruled lines. It’s not the book that needs ruled lines; this is not a matter of how to construct a valid book, not the fitness of the book. Rather, when words of Torah are written, they must be written on ruled lines. It’s a law concerning the words of Torah, not concerning the Torah scroll. That’s their claim. And then that’s what he says: both Maimonides and Rashi cannot learn this from the laws of a book, like ink and vitriol and all kinds of things like that, because there those are only the laws of how you write and what you write on, really the laws of the object of the book itself. But ruled lines are learned because this is “like the Torah itself,” meaning this too has the status of words of Torah. I might have thought that it does not, but this too has the status of words of Torah.
[Speaker C] If that’s the law with tefillin, which are covered—what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If that’s—
[Speaker C] A law for all words of Torah when writing, then even if it’s covered, like tefillin, it should need it too?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, correct. So it could be that really on the one hand… maybe it is because of “This is my God and I will beautify Him,” and therefore in tefillin, which are not seen, then no. But to what is “This is my God and I will beautify Him” said? It is not said about the Torah scroll, but about words of Torah, yes.
[Speaker E] Maybe, maybe it’s a matter of holiness—there are two things. There’s also the writing, so you have to write it with ruled lines like… but he says “like Torah,” you have to relate to it, and with holiness like Torah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he says the ruled lines are like the Torah itself—not how to relate to it. Certainly. It needs ruled lines like the Torah itself. And that’s why it needs ruled lines. So what does he mean? He actually goes on at length there afterward, and he shows there are laws that are in the book and laws that are not in the book, as Briskers do. But what, what really stands behind this? What is the meaning of this—law in the book, law in words of Torah? What was the initial assumption here? What are we really talking about? So here I want to pause for a moment on the topic of ruled lines. I want to go back to a more general picture. When we speak about ideas in general, or about Torah in particular, there are a few levels of abstraction that we can make. I’ll maybe bring a well-known midrash in tractate Sabbath 88. The Talmud says: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, at the time when Moses ascended on high, the ministering angels said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the universe, what is one born of a woman doing among us? He said to them: He has come to receive the Torah. They said before Him: This hidden treasure, which has been hidden away with You for nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created, You seek to give to flesh and blood? “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You think of him?… Lord our Master, how mighty is Your name in all the earth, place Your glory upon the heavens.” Meaning, leave it up here. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Answer them. He said before Him: Master of the universe, I am afraid lest they burn me with the breath of their mouths. He said to him: Grasp My throne of glory and answer them, as it says: “He grasps the face of the throne; He spreads His cloud upon it.” And Rabbi Nachum said—anyway, that’s beside the point. Then what Moses answered was this: Master of the universe, the Torah that You are giving me—what is written in it? “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” He said to them: Did you go down to Egypt? Were you enslaved to Pharaoh? Why should the Torah be for you? Again, what is written in it? “You shall have no other gods.” Do you dwell among nations who worship idols? And he turns to the angels, yes? Again, what is written in it? “Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it.” Do you perform labor, that you need cessation? Again, what is written in it? “You shall not bear…” Do you have business dealings? Again, what is written in it? “Honor your father and your mother.” Do you have father and mother? Again, what is written in it? “You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal.” Is there jealousy among you? Is there an evil inclination among you? Immediately they admitted to the Holy One, blessed be He, as it says: “Lord our Master, how mighty is Your name in all the earth”—but it does not say “place Your glory upon the heavens.” Fine, in short, they accepted the claim. The interesting question is—well, this is obviously aggadic literature, right? It’s not a historical description. But what is this aggadah trying to say? What is the claim of the angels? After all, the angels’ claim is completely absurd. What, they don’t understand this on their own? When they studied the verse “Honor your father and your mother,” what exactly did they do with it? What did they learn there? With the prohibition of theft, the prohibition of murder, all the—I don’t know—Sabbath observance, doing labor, all these things—what does any of that have to do with them? What Torah was it that the angels studied, as the midrash describes? It’s quite clear that basically what this midrash is trying to say—I think that’s what this midrash is trying to say—has nothing at all to do with angels and arguments with Moses our teacher. It’s just a literary framework in order to explain to us what Torah is. And the claim is that Torah is not the collection of commands that we know.
[Speaker A] That’s not Torah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Torah is a collection of some abstract ideas, which put on a certain garment when they descend into our world. When the Holy One, blessed be He, brings the Torah down below, that’s what the Sages say, that He brings the Torah down below—it doesn’t mean taking the book from above and bringing it down here, right? Like some kind of plumb line. Meaning, He lowers it, okay? No, it’s not taking the Torah from above to below, but rather changing the Torah, or clothing it in a garment suited to human beings. And then suddenly commandments are born, like honor your father and your mother, observe the Sabbath day, yes, do not steal, honor, and so on. So all these commandments are basically certain human garments behind which there actually sit ideas. Those ideas are what is called Torah. The Torah that preceded the world by 974 generations—what is written there is not “honor your father and your mother.” There were no fathers and mothers then. “The Torah that preceded the world” means a collection of abstract ideas. Now, with abstract ideas we don’t really have much of a way to talk about them, discuss them, understand them, analyze them, so what do we do? We clothe them in concrete commandments. So we say: honor your father and your mother. Your father and your mother, the ox that gored the cow, or all sorts of things of that kind. But really these commandments are some expression of ideas—what God’s will is, yes—the abstract ideas that are what are called Torah. In the book of Tanya, he writes in chapter 4: “And every divine soul has three garments, which are thought, speech, and action, of the 613 commandments of the Torah. For when a person fulfills in action all the practical commandments, and in speech engages in explaining all 613 commandments and their laws, and in thought grasps all that he can grasp in the orchard of Torah, then all the 613 faculties of his soul are clothed in the 613 commandments of the Torah. And specifically the aspect of Chokhmah-Binah-Da’at in his soul are clothed in the understanding of Torah that he grasps in the orchard according to the capacity of his grasp and the root of his soul above.” In short, what he basically wants to say here—and maybe I’ll read another passage: “And the Holy One, blessed be He, condensed His will and wisdom into the 613 commandments of the Torah and their laws.” What does that mean? That the commandments of the Torah and their laws are not the Torah. They are some kind of condensation of the abstract will of the Holy One, blessed be He. What among the angels wore a different garment, among us wears the garment of the 613 commandments and the letter-combinations of the Hebrew Bible and their interpretations in the aggadic literature and the midrashim of our Sages and all these things. “Therefore the Torah is compared to water: just as water descends from a high place to a low place, so too the Torah descended from the place of its glory, which is His blessed will and wisdom, and the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one, and no thought can grasp Him at all.” There’s no way to grasp something abstract. And since that is so, from there it traveled and descended through the hidden gradations, from level to level, in the chainlike progression of the worlds, until it clothed itself in material things and matters of this world, which are most, indeed nearly all, of the commandments of the Torah and their laws, and material combinations of letters in ink on parchment, and all kinds of things of that sort, so that every thought can grasp them. In order to be able to grasp this, you have to clothe these ideas in some concrete garment. So you talk about oxen and cows and thieves and Sabbath and labors and parents, but these are all kinds of concepts drawn from our world. Through these concepts, the Holy One, blessed be He, actually conveys the ideas to us. Later on, the author of Tanya writes that therefore Torah study, in the end, its purpose is not to study—and we spoke about this—not to study in order to know what the law is in the case of an ox that gores a cow and to apply it. Rather, the point is that through these garments of the ox that gores a cow, we actually cleave to or attach ourselves to some abstract will of the Holy One, blessed be He. But the abstract will cannot be grasped, so you have to bring it in through oxen and cows. But it really makes no difference even if it never was and never will be, like the stubborn and rebellious son—that doesn’t matter at all.
[Speaker C] So then why did he answer them at all? What? So he didn’t answer them correctly. Why? He should have answered them on the philosophical level.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, on the philosophical level he has nothing to answer them. That’s what he’s saying. He says: you’re talking about your abstract Torah. Your abstract Torah stays with you. What comes down below is only some clothing of the Torah in garments and terminology suitable for human beings, and that belongs to us, not to you.
[Speaker D] So it’s basically a collection of symbols.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, garments, symbols, yes, exactly.
[Speaker D] Or a medium.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Through which these ideas are conveyed, and that medium is relevant to us; it has nothing to do with you. That’s basically what he’s saying. In other words, the purpose of this midrash, I think, is to explain to us that Torah is not this collection of laws. Torah is some abstract thing that clothes itself in a collection of laws in order to enter our world. I’ll maybe give an example—I don’t remember if I ever said this before.
[Speaker A] Hints to the verse with which he ends the midrash—he says, “How mighty is Your name in all the earth,” and he doesn’t say—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Who set Your glory above”—
[Speaker A] “the heavens.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because that stays in heaven; the glory stays in heaven. Yes.
[Speaker D] So it’s a matter of allusion, basically. Yes, it alludes to the ideas that we—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know if it’s allusion. Rather, the ideas come through them. Meaning, the concretization of the ideas—it’s not an allusion, it’s the thing itself. The author of Tanya later says that when we study this, it’s like studying the abstract thing itself. It’s not a matter of… he says that someone who embraces the king in his garment is in fact embracing the king. It doesn’t matter that it’s through the garment. It’s just that through the garment you can see him; without the garment you can’t see him.
[Speaker C] Does he relate to the condensation as not having only one possible solution?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, not only is it possible, it’s obvious. Among the angels too, after all, it’s a kind of condensation. So clearly there are several condensations here. Every world—say our world had looked different—then the Torah would have worn a different garment. Yes. This reminds me of some story. I once saw—there’s a book by… there’s a book by some German professor of philosophy named Eugen Herrigel, called Zen in the Art of Archery. And he tells there that he had a friend, a professor of law at the University of Tokyo in Japan—I’m talking about the beginning of the 20th century. And once he came to visit him and asked him to learn Zen. So his friend sends him to some Zen teacher, some Zen master, and he wants to learn Zen. So the fellow says to him: what do you want to learn? Flower arranging, shooting a bow and arrow, or I don’t know what. Shooting a bow and arrow, or I don’t remember what else, maybe wrestling or something, I don’t remember anymore, he gave him three or four options. He says to him: no, I want to learn Zen, not those things. He says to him: yes, yes, but what do you want—you want to learn flower arranging or target shooting or fencing or… meaning—and in the end what he wanted to say was that it makes no difference at all whether you do it through flower arranging or through shooting with bow and arrow or through fencing. You’re doing the exact same thing. But there are some abstract ideas, some abstract ideas that are called Zen Buddhism. And those ideas can be clothed in all kinds of garments. You can convey it through flower arranging, you can convey it through shooting a bow and arrow, and you can convey it through fencing or through all kinds of other things. It doesn’t matter at all. In other words, in the end you’re teaching something abstract; these are just different garments of the abstract thing. He tells there—it’s a very interesting book—he tries to translate this world of Zen into a Western ear. Yes, he describes there how his master would shoot a bow and arrow and hit a very small target without looking, from a distance—I don’t remember the numbers anymore—but really amazing, without looking at all, he wouldn’t look. Meaning there is some kind of Zen concentration through which you manage to reach the ability to hit things without seeing them at all. You live the world around you and you manage, even without seeing it, to communicate with it. Anyway, for our purposes, the analogy is basically the same here too. There is some collection of ideas that can wear various garments. These garments—notice—this is the first concretization, and this concretization still does not yet bring us to words. In the meantime we moved from the realm of abstract ideas to concrete ideas, right? Now these concrete ideas can also be conveyed through another illustration—not abstraction but illustration—by putting them into words. That’s yet another thing. When I say “honor your father and your mother,” that is really a verbal representation of some command; the command is not verbal, the command is some sort of thing, and you represent it by means of words. Okay? But that’s a second illustration. There is the abstract idea that undergoes illustration into a concrete idea, say “honor your father and your mother”; the concrete idea is represented by words. Now those words of course can also be spoken, they can be written, and then a book is created, and the book has various characteristics or various physical forms. In other words, there are different levels of illustration. I’ll demonstrate this a bit, this second illustration. The Mishnah in tractate Berakhot says: “If one recited Shema and did not make it audible to his own ear, he has fulfilled his obligation. Rabbi Yosei says: he has not fulfilled it. If he recited it but did not articulate its letters carefully, Rabbi Yosei says: he has fulfilled it; Rabbi Yehuda says: he has not fulfilled it. If he read it out of order, he has not fulfilled it,” and so on. In other words, what is written here? That according to Rabbi Yosei, one must articulate its letters carefully and must make it audible to his own ear. Okay? The Talmud asks: what is Rabbi Yosei’s reason? Because it is written, “Hear”—make your ear hear what comes out of your mouth. And the first Tanna holds: “Hear” means in any language that you hear. And Rabbi Yosei—where does Rabbi Yosei learn from that that it can be in any language? The recitation of Shema is among those things that may be said in any language, so where does Rabbi Yosei learn this from? Rabbi Yosei derives two things from it. Rabbi Yosei learns from “Shema Yisrael” both things: both that you should make your ear hear what comes out of your mouth, and also “in any language that you hear.” On this the Rashba asks: “And Rabbi Yosei could say to you: from it itself you can derive ‘in any language that you hear.’ Rashi explained: you derive two things from it, for when you also expound ‘hear’ as any language of hearing, you also derive from it that one must make it audible to his ear. But this does not seem convincing to me,” says the Rashba, “for from where does he know that two things are derived? And furthermore, this is not what is meant by deriving it automatically.” What does he mean to say? How do you learn two things from the same verse? Usually every verse teaches something else, and if the verse is already occupied, then you need another verse to teach. The whole regular game in the Talmud is that each verse teaches one thing. How do you learn two things from the same verse? And besides, he says, “this is not what is meant by automatically.” Meaning, if one thing emerged automatically from the other, then okay—that’s really learning one thing, and the other is just a result that follows automatically. But how can you learn two things from one verse? So the Rashba says here a very interesting principle. A lot has been written about it today in modern brain research—the book by Antonio Damasio, yes, Descartes’ Error, where he discusses this at length, and there is much more. The Rashba says this: “It seems that this is what he means: since you derive from it ‘in any language that you hear,’ from that itself you derive that he must make it audible to his own ear. For if not, why would the Merciful One need to write any language that he hears? It is obvious, for if he need not make it audible…” What does he mean? If we expound—and Rabbi Yosei expounds—only “in any language that you hear,” that’s one exposition of Rabbi Yosei: that you can say it in any language that you hear. But why do we need to say “in any language that you hear”? I ask myself: tell me, does one have to say Shema, or only think Shema? If I only had to think Shema, then obviously it would be “in any language that you hear,” and no exposition would be needed. Because in mental reflection, language does not really apply. So if we need an exposition to tell me that Shema may be said in any language, then obviously the basic assumption is that one has to speak it. That’s his claim. Now there are several later authorities—the Sha’agat Aryeh and others—who learn in the Rashba that the Rashba is making a claim in neuroscience, yes? That the Rashba is claiming that we do not think in words. And since we do not think in words, then there’s no point discussing in what language to think. If this is a law about thought and not speech, then there’s nothing to discuss—what difference does it make? It isn’t done in words, so there’s no point speaking here about language, in Hebrew, in English, or whatever.
[Speaker C] And in fact there is a discussion whether you fulfill blessings when you merely think them. What? Maimonides, Maimonides says—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, but there we’re talking about thinking the blessing itself. That is, in words. Not about the blessing—the blessing itself.
[Speaker C] Yes. So in thought there are words or not? Yes, obviously there are words.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Just a second. So, this is how several later authorities want to claim that in the Rashba, the Rashba is making some psychological claim or something like that, that thought is not done in words. And what he really wants to say—we’re talking here about the second concretization. I said the abstract idea becomes a concrete idea, “honor your father and your mother,” and “honor your father and your mother” is represented by words, the words “honor your father and your mother.” The idea of honoring parents is represented by the words. So he says, if I think about “honor your father and your mother,” then I think the idea, not in words. The representation in words exists only when it is done in speech. That is the claim.
[Speaker C] Today the theory says both, both theories.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, obviously one can do it both in words and not in words. Maybe there are some who want to claim that it’s even only in words all the time, I don’t know. In any case, I think that even in the Rashba nothing else is written.
[Speaker C] It’s kind of psychological, very much so.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any event, that’s the claim, okay. The claim—there is a Tosafot in tractate Shabbat on page 40 from which it seems that he probably disagrees with the Rashba, that’s what the Rashash claims, because the Rashash also understands the question as whether thought is in words or not in words. But I don’t think we need to get there, and most later authorities didn’t read the Rashba that way either. The claim is not that one does not think in words, but that when you’re talking about thought, the words don’t matter. That’s the point. Not that it isn’t done by means of words, but when you speak, then there is room to discuss in what language one should speak. Indeed in tractate Sotah at the beginning of chapter 7—these are said in any language and those are said only in the holy tongue—why? Because there we’re dealing with things that are said. Things that are said, you have to discuss whether they may be in any language or only in the holy tongue. But things that are thought—even though yes, when people think they do think in a language, or also in a language—still, there is no reason to assume that there is a law requiring one to think it specifically in a language. Because if this thing does not need to be said but only thought, then thinking about the thing is basically thinking the idea. The words only represent it. So what difference does it make whether you represent it in Hebrew or in English? It doesn’t matter, because when you speak about thought you are really speaking about the idea. When you speak about speech, then you are also speaking about the representation—how you represent it matters. So the question is whether you represent it in Hebrew or whether you represent it in English. But when you talk about thought, even if you think in words, in the end what is required of you is that the thought be in your mind, that the idea be in your mind. So even if you use words, it is not halakhically important whether you use words in English or in Hebrew, because in the end what matters is the idea that is in your mind. And the claim, basically, in the end, is that if so, then for now we have three levels. One level is the abstract idea—that is, yes, the Torah itself. Then there are the different representations, the different concretizations of it—that is Torah in the world of the angels and Torah in our world, which actually comes to expression in a collection of commandments or a collection of certain ideas drawn from our world. And the third level is the verbal expression. Meaning, presenting that idea in words. The fourth level now is of course speaking it, where the Rashba claims that only when one speaks it is there really halakhic significance to the question of what words are used. But that is really the fourth stage. The point that comes up here is the question of what the connection is between the verbal representation and the idea. Simply speaking, the accepted view is that it is an arbitrary connection. Right? Meaning, I choose the word “ball” for this; I could also have chosen “swan.” It doesn’t matter, we just need to decide what word represents it or how one builds a sentence—it doesn’t matter—some decision about language and terminology, and that’s how we represent the thing. There is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim); Rabbi HaNazir brings it in his book Kol HaNevuah. He says that in other languages this is true; the question is whether in the holy tongue, in biblical language, it is also so. Maimonides apparently holds that yes, because Maimonides writes—he discusses in Guide for the Perplexed why our language is called the holy tongue. So he says: “And I too have a claim and a reason for calling our language this, the holy tongue, and do not think it is mere exaggeration on our part, just some overstatement or error; rather it is true, because in this holy tongue no original term was assigned for the organ of sexual intercourse, neither of men nor of women, nor for the act itself that leads to procreation, nor for semen nor for excretion. For all these things no primary names at all were assigned in the Hebrew language; rather they are spoken of through borrowed terms and hints.” And therefore this language is a language of holiness, because lower matters, so to speak, have no detailed terminology. On this Nachmanides writes in the Torah portion of Shemot—in the book of Exodus, sorry, in Ki Tissa, half a shekel and more—and the Ra’avad also speaks about this, saying that it is not correct. Their claim, and they are of course closer to Kabbalah, is that biblical language is called the holy tongue because the connection between words and the concepts the words represent—or between sentences, claims, and the facts they represent or the ideas they represent—is an essential connection and not a contingent one. That is why it is called the holy tongue. In other words, there is some claim here that says there is an essential connection between the representation and the thing represented, and that is what they call the holy tongue. It is indeed an interesting claim, because in many places in the words of the Sages we see that they relate to words and letters in an essentialist way, not as something accidental. They expound the shapes of the letters, after all; even among the Sages there are all kinds of interpretations of the shapes of the letters—why the letter chet is open below and all kinds of things of that sort. Sefer Yetzirah also has all kinds of interpretations about letters. In other words, the claim is that the letters and the words are not arbitrary. They have some significance; they are a non-arbitrary representation, a real representation, not merely a convention, of the contents they represent. Why are these things significant for our purposes? Because if you look at the Written Torah versus the Oral Torah, what is the difference between them? In the Written Torah there is, gradually—eventually I’ll get to the Scroll of Esther—in the Written Torah there is some significance to the wording and to the form of writing. Right? The Five Books. First, you cannot change a letter or a word, you cannot write it in English, that’s irrelevant—it would no longer be a Torah scroll if you wrote it in another language. You cannot omit words; that invalidates the scroll, even the crowns on the letters. In other words, two things matter: the wording—which words you use—and the form of writing, the way it is written. The first meaning of the wording is that it must be specifically in this language and not another language. The form of writing means the laws of a scroll, right? The laws of a scroll are how you write this wording on a scroll. That has nothing to do with how I say it when I speak. But the laws of ink and vitriol and all kinds of things of that sort concern how I write these things. What happens in the Oral Torah? In the Oral Torah, if I write—or translate—the Talmud into English, like an ArtScroll edition, it has the same sanctity as the Talmud in Hebrew or Aramaic; there is no difference. In the Talmud there is no importance at all to the wording, so long as it correctly represents the content, of course. You can say that the translator missed something here because he didn’t understand properly or didn’t translate the content correctly, but that doesn’t matter—that’s technical. Assuming he is a Torah scholar and translated properly, then the Talmud in English is just as sacred as the Talmud in Hebrew, or just as not sacred as the Talmud in Hebrew. Meaning, a volume of Talmud is not sacred; in principle, by the strict law, it does not require genizah, and one of the indications of this is that it makes no difference at all whether it is written in Hebrew or in English. There are no laws about how to write the Talmud—write it however you want, on a typewriter, in this ink, on paper, on parchment—it doesn’t matter. All these things are absent. So two parameters distinguish the Written Torah from the Oral Torah. In the Written Torah there is importance to the representation of the words, and there is importance to the way they are written—the two lowest levels in the system of concretization, yes? I spoke about the abstract Torah, about its concretization through the 613 commandments and the laws, the laws themselves. The verbal representation is the third stage, the verbal representation of those commandments; and the fourth stage is the form of writing of the verbal representation. Okay, so in the Oral Torah, the last two planes do not matter. Meaning, the verbal wording does not matter, and the form of writing does not matter. In the Written Torah everything matters, all four. Meaning, you have to descend all the way down. Therefore in some senses the Oral Torah, as the Sages say in several places, is higher than the Written Torah. The Oral Torah is higher than the Written Torah because in the Oral Torah we deal with ideas, not with their wording. In the Written Torah we deal with ideas, but only through a very, very specific wording. We have to be careful about very specific modes of representation. Not just any representation—we have no access to the ideas themselves. We have to handle them in the proper way of representing them, or in one way of representing them and no other. You cannot choose another way to represent them. Therefore there the representation matters too, not only the ideas that are represented. In the Oral Torah what matters is only the ideas; it makes no difference at all how you represent them. Now, there is perhaps another interesting passage on the connection between the verbal representation and the thing itself. Bialik has an essay called Revelation and Concealment in Language. It’s a very famous essay. He says there: “What should astonish us is that feeling of confidence and that peace of mind that accompany a person in his speech, as though he really transmits his thought or feeling across calm waters and over a bridge of iron, and he does not at all realize how shaky that bridge of words is, how deep and dark the wild abyss beneath it, open beneath it, and how much miracle there is in every step that passes in peace.” “And after all, it is clear that language, in all its combinations, does not bring us at all into the inner domain, into the complete essence of things; on the contrary, it itself stands as a barrier before them.” In other words, the verbal representation of ideas will not succeed in conveying the ideas themselves to us. On the contrary, it blocks the ideas from us. There is a well-known saying of Rav Kook, that it is said of Rabbi Eliezer that he never said anything he had not heard from the mouth of his teacher, and on the other hand it says that he said things that no ear had ever heard. So Rav Kook says that Rabbi Eliezer heard from the mouth of his teacher things that no ear had ever heard. And I add: including his teacher. Meaning, even his teacher did not hear it. Meaning, there are times when through the words you manage to understand the ideas represented by the words, while others understood it differently or will not understand it. Meaning, even though we all heard the same words, we interpret them differently. Whoever—I think anyone who has had some relationship with someone from whom he learned Torah—there is someone who taught me like that most of what I learned from a human being, and I feel that I learned from him almost everything—as I said, like what I learned from a person. Everything else is from books. And still, I heard from him things he does not agree with. And it is obvious—I think this is everyone’s experience who goes through this—that it is not just a nice saying, it is completely real. Meaning, it is clear to me that what actually lay at the basis of his words is such-and-such, and he disagrees—even when I tell him this he disagrees. And still I think he is mistaken. Meaning—not because deep down, this is what underlies his words. I just think he is not aware of it or doesn’t manage to conceptualize it correctly, and therefore he disagrees. But I think it really is what lies at the foundation of his words. Meaning, in this transition between the idea and its verbal representation, this is not a simple transition. It is a transition that on the one hand conceals—not only represents and brings out the idea—but on the other hand also limits it somewhat. And once you are dealing in the Written Torah with a very specific representation, then you do not have full access to the idea, because although this is the representation, it is a very specific representation. In the Oral Torah, the optimistic assumption is that since we are not bound to a particular kind of representation, we can grasp the ideas themselves. And these are usually human ideas too; the Oral Torah deals with our world. So therefore in a certain sense the Oral Torah is higher than the Written Torah. And now we basically arrive at the Scroll of Esther. Because in the Scroll of Esther—I’m skipping a few things here, but never mind—the Talmud in tractate Megillah page 7 says: “Esther sent to the Sages: establish me for future generations.” They sent back to her: “You are arousing jealousy against us among the nations.” She sent to them: “I am already written in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia.” Meaning, basically, she was already written there in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia. And then the continuation: “Esther sent to the Sages: write me for future generations.” Before it was “establish me for future generations,” meaning establish the day. Now it is “write me for future generations,” meaning write the scroll. They sent to her: “Did I not write for you in three places?” In three places and not in four. Never mind, there is some derivation that one does not write the Scroll of Esther until they found a written verse in the Torah: “Write this as a memorial in the book”—“write this,” what is written here and in Deuteronomy; “a memorial,” what is written in the Prophets; “in the book,” what is written in the scroll. Again you see: Prophets and scroll. The scroll is not part of the Prophets. You need a separate derivation for the scroll. In truth, Esther is basically asking the Sages: write me for future generations, when it is clear that even if they agreed, they agree because a scroll is already the next level. There is the Torah, there are the Prophets, and there is the scroll. A scroll is something different. It is less fully Written Torah than the Prophets are. Now the Sages seemingly respond to Esther, but it is not exact. Why is it not exact? Because in the Scroll of Esther there are all sorts of laws, also on the halakhic plane, that show it still is not really Written Torah. On the one hand, with the Scroll of Esther one must be precise and hear every word. Right? Otherwise one does not fulfill the obligation. Every letter and every word. On the other hand, the scroll may be missing 49 percent of its letters and still be valid. And that is really—you actually need to read from a scroll, so you’d need to read from two scrolls each of which is missing 49 percent, so that the reading always comes from a scroll. But the scroll itself may still be incomplete. Now what is the whole idea? Why validate an incomplete scroll? What’s the idea there? I think the point is that the Sages are saying to Esther—the reason Esther said “write me for future generations,” after all, is that Esther was at the end of the biblical period, right? The end of the First Temple exile, the beginning of the Second Temple. The last prophets were still around then, the Men of the Great Assembly. Basically Esther wants to remain in the Written Torah. She wants the Scroll of Esther to be Written Torah. And that is what she asks of the Sages: bring me in there still, attach me still to the Written Torah, and only afterward let the Oral Torah begin. Okay? Historically too, that’s how it is. And then the Sages respond to her, but not entirely. The Sages learn from a verse: there is the Written Torah, there are the Prophets, and there is the scroll. Since a scroll too can be written, we permit it to be written. It is not entirely Oral Torah, one may write it, because at that point they still did not write the Oral Torah. But it is already half-Oral Torah.
[Speaker C] Exactly, it’s a transition, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They do not respond fully. Meaning, there is here some Oral Torah that one writes down. And what is the idea behind it? Let’s go back for a moment to what I distinguished earlier between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. I said there are two parameters that distinguish them. In the Written Torah the verbal representation is unique, meaning only the wording of the Torah. Second, one writes the verbal representation in a very specific way, in a scroll, with ink, with vitriol and all these matters. That is the representation, the writing. In the Scroll of Esther the wording is like the Written Torah, therefore you cannot miss a single word or letter, because the wording is wording like the Written Torah. You cannot tell over the story of Esther and fulfill the obligation. Right? You have to read the scroll itself. Meaning, there is sanctity to the wording. Therefore Esther was said with divine inspiration. So that means that in this sense Esther resembles the Written Torah, because the wording is precise. This is the third layer of concretization. But not in the fourth layer. In the fourth layer, in how it is written, no. A large portion of the letters may be missing and it is still valid. Meaning, there are all sorts of laws there too—sewing, and what we said earlier, that it is called a scroll and it is called a letter. Why is the Scroll of Esther called a scroll and called a letter? Because it is really something between a scroll and a letter. What is a letter? A letter is something I send you, you read it and throw it in the trash. Meaning, a letter is something that conveys a message to you in writing, but it is not writing in the sense of a book that remains on the shelf forever. It is writing in order to convey information to you, and afterward you throw it away. That is basically the Oral Torah, a letter. Okay? So the Scroll of Esther stands, called a scroll and called a letter, midway between a scroll and the Oral Torah. And therefore the Sages deliberately say that they validate the scroll even though one must read it—this law is absurd, after all—you have to read from a scroll and hear every word. So what sense is there in validating a scroll that is missing 49 percent of the letters? You understand? In any case one has to read the whole thing from a scroll and read every word. So I need to validate some kind of reading from two or three scrolls, each of which has only 51 percent of the scroll written in it, and switch each time to another verse in order to read it from the text and accurately. So what? Then just say the scroll has to be completely written—why not do that? That is much more logical. If you call it a scroll, impose the same requirement as for a Torah scroll and everything will be fine. The Sages insist—they insist because they want to establish that the Scroll of Esther stands somewhere in between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. So they intentionally say that you do not have to write the whole thing, even though the wording is precise wording. Meaning, the third layer exists in the Scroll of Esther, the fourth layer does not. Now what the Rabbi of Brisk says about the ruled lines, what I brought earlier, when he says “like the truth of Torah” or “like the Torah itself”—what does “like the Torah itself” mean in Maimonides? “Like the Torah itself” means like the wording of the Torah, not a Torah scroll. After all, that is what he said above: all the matters of ink and vitriol and so on—that is like a Torah scroll, while ruled lines are like the Torah itself. What is the difference between a Torah scroll and the Torah itself? The Torah itself means the wording, the wording of the Torah. Therefore the law of ruled lines is not one of the laws of the scroll, says the Rabbi of Brisk, but a law concerning words of Torah. Meaning, when you write a verse from the Torah, the wording of the Torah, you need ruled lines. Right? Now I ask myself: and in the Scroll of Esther do you need ruled lines? The answer is certainly yes. Why? Because the Scroll of Esther, true, some of the laws of the scroll are absent, since it is called a scroll and called a letter, but the Sages accepted Esther’s request to establish the Scroll of Esther as Written Torah insofar as the wording is indispensable. Meaning, only this verbal representation is called the Scroll of Esther, and no other verbal representation. So if it is Torah in the sense that the wording is indispensable, like the Torah itself, then it requires ruled lines. Therefore it is no wonder that the sugya dealing with the law of ruled lines deals specifically with the scroll. Why specifically with the scroll? Because the scroll is exactly the paradigmatic case showing us that it requires ruled lines like the truth of Torah. If it had said this about a Torah scroll, then according to Rashi’s view a Torah scroll too requires ruled lines—that is a law given to Moses at Sinai, right? And so too according to that second Jerusalem Talmud that Tosafot brings. So why not say it about a Torah scroll? Why the scroll of Esther? First Torah scroll, afterward scroll of Esther. He says no, I tell you in the scroll of Esther “like the truth of Torah,” because in that way I reveal to you why the Torah too requires ruled lines. In the Torah too, what requires ruled lines is not because of the laws of the scroll, but because of the truth of Torah, because of the wording, which is basically Torah wording, words of Torah. That requires ruled lines even if you write it in a friendly letter, according to at least some opinions, then you need ruled lines. So in the end the claim is that the Scroll of Esther, just as it stands historically in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) between the end of the biblical period and the beginning of the period of the Oral Torah, the Second Temple period, so too in the essential sense it stands in between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. And even the laws of the scroll reflect this point. It is called a scroll and it is called a letter; Esther asks the Sages, “write me for future generations,” bring me into the Written Torah; the Sages respond to her partially, but not entirely, and in the end they leave fingerprints of this in the form of the laws related to the scroll. So the Scroll of Esther is something in the middle between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, and in the formulation I used earlier, it has the third layer of concretization but not the fourth layer of concretization. That’s it. Happy Purim.
[Speaker C] With the permission of the dear public, sorry for interrupting, I came to help with something important. My father has heart disease, really in serious condition at home. Whatever each of you can do.