Meeting in the Bavli – Second Session: The Talmudic DNA – National Library of Israel
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
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Table of Contents
- Opening of the session and its connection to the series
- The Mishnah in Bava Kamma: primary categories of damages and payment for “what it benefited from”
- The Talmudic text: one who lives in another’s courtyard without permission, and the clash between Rami bar Hama and Rav Hisda
- Rava’s critique and Tomer’s reading: God, the “trait of Sodom,” forgoing, and abundance
- The parable of the “goyishe kop” and the Jewish mind
- Responses of the panelists: God in formal Jewish law versus God as a moral dimension
- “Not missing the forest”: the beauty of the question and the difference from Euclidean axiomatics
- Case, rule, and the parallel to science: moving “from the bottom up”
- Dispute, the boundaries of discourse, and the claim that there is no “solution” through rules
- “Serve me”: credit, seriousness, and the subtext of the passage
- Tradition, openness, and agreement as the basis of Jewish law
- Theatrical interludes and a concluding song
- Closing and thanks
Summary
General Overview
The second session in the National Library’s “Opening Doors” series moves from the general introduction into “Talmudic sharpness” through a classic passage in Bava Kamma: “This one benefits while that one does not lose.” Tomer Persico reads the Mishnah about damage caused by an animal’s tooth and payment for “what it benefited from,” moves to the story in the Talmud about one who lives in another’s courtyard without permission, and proposes a reading that connects Rav Hisda’s response to forgoing and abundance “in a world in which there is God,” in contrast to the “trait of Sodom.” After him, Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham and Dr. Meir Buzaglo offer different frameworks for understanding the relationship between halakhic formalism and morality, between case and rule, between authority and openness, and between Talmudic discourse and scientific, logical, and literary modes of thought, while emphasizing the beauty of the question, the centrality of dispute, and the need for agreement as constitutive of Jewish law and tradition.
Opening of the session and its connection to the series
The moderator presents the session as part of the National Library’s “Opening Doors” effort, and recommends visiting the display of manuscripts and Talmud editions from the 12th and 16th centuries related to the passage to be studied. He mentions that the previous session dealt with the relevance of the Talmud to secular, Haredi, and religious culture; with the dominance of the Talmud and its cost; and with examples from Professor Ciechanover about the ability of halakhic thinking to address ethical issues at the frontier of medicine and science. He defines the evening’s goal as a deeper look into “Talmudic sharpness,” into the winding discourse and the rhetorical-logical maneuvers, in comparison with other methods of discussion, in relation to questions of authority and autonomy, and in an attempt to extract from the texts a “picture of the human being,” such as “the Talmudic human being.”
The Mishnah in Bava Kamma: primary categories of damages and payment for “what it benefited from”
Tomer Persico opens with the first Mishnah in Bava Kamma, which divides the “four primary categories of damages”: the ox, the pit, the grazer, and the fire. He narrows the focus to the category of the ox and to its three modes of causing damage: the foot, the horn, and the tooth. He reads the Mishnah, “How is the tooth deemed forewarned? To eat what is fit for it,” and emphasizes that eating fruits and vegetables is expected, while eating “clothing or vessels” incurs only “half damages” because that is surprising even to the owner. He sets out the distinction between domains: “In the domain of the injured party” one pays, “in the public domain one is exempt,” but “if it benefited, it pays for what it benefited from,” and he details the gradation of locations: “If it ate from the middle of the marketplace, it pays for what it benefited from; from the sides of the marketplace, it pays for the damage it caused… from the entrance of the shop, it pays for what it benefited from; from inside the shop, it pays for the damage it caused.”
The Talmudic text: one who lives in another’s courtyard without permission, and the clash between Rami bar Hama and Rav Hisda
The Talmudic text opens with a story in which Rav Hisda tells Rami bar Hama that he was not with them on the evening when they were asked “excellent matters.” Tomer identifies Rav Hisda as the head of the academy of Sura in Babylonia, and Rami bar Hama as his student and son-in-law, and presents the question: one who lives in another’s courtyard without his knowledge—does he “have to pay him rent” or not? The distinctions classify cases: if the courtyard is “not normally for rent” and the resident is someone who “would not normally rent,” that is “this one does not benefit and that one does not lose,” and he says it is obviously exempt; if the courtyard is “normally for rent” and the resident is someone who “would normally rent,” that is “this one benefits and that one loses,” and he says it is obviously liable; and the decisive question is a courtyard not meant for rent with a resident who did need to rent, where one can argue “What loss did I cause you?” versus “But you benefited.” Rami bar Hama claims that this is found in “our Mishnah,” and when Rav Hisda asks “Which Mishnah?” Rami bar Hama answers, “When you serve me, I’ll tell you,” and only after Rav Hisda “took his scarf and wrapped it for him” does he point to the Mishnah: “If it benefited, it pays for what it benefited from.”
Rava’s critique and Tomer’s reading: God, the “trait of Sodom,” forgoing, and abundance
Tomer argues that Rami bar Hama’s analogy is not a good one, because in the Mishnah it is speaking about fruit that was eaten, so that is “this one benefits and that one loses,” whereas living in a courtyard not meant for rent is “this one benefits and that one does not lose.” He quotes Rava: “How unwell and unaware is a man whose Master helps him,” emphasizing that Rami bar Hama said something that was not similar to the Mishnah, and yet Rav Hisda “accepted it from him,” and he asks why Rava brings the Holy One, blessed be He, into this. Tomer draws on Tosafot and on the concept of the “trait of Sodom,” and brings a Mishnah from tractate Avot about “four dispositions in a person,” ending with the statement: “One who says, ‘What is mine is mine and what is yours is yours’… and some say this is the trait of Sodom.” He suggests that Sodom symbolizes a world “without God,” where logic divides property with cold equality, whereas “in a world with God” justice is “abundance,” “giving,” “forgoing,” and “kindness,” and every quarrel is “a lovers’ quarrel” within a broader framework of affirmation and vitality. He interprets Rav Hisda’s silence and forbearance, even in the face of insolence and a mistaken answer, in that light, and says that the very act of forgoing teaches that “this one benefits and that one does not lose is exempt,” and that “this is indeed the ruling.”
The parable of the “goyishe kop” and the Jewish mind
Immediately after Tomer’s remarks, a theatrical dialogue appears about conversion, in which the rabbi refuses to sign on the grounds that “you don’t have a Jewish head,” and presents a series of riddles about two people falling through a chimney, one coming out dirty and one clean. Each time the candidate answers according to a different logic, and the rabbi dismisses him as a “goyishe kop,” until the candidate attacks the very premise: “How can two people fall through a chimney and one come out clean and the other dirty?” The rabbi concludes with “Heretic!” when he mentions that Moses our teacher, in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall, “didn’t understand a thing.” The moderator notes that “these are Shabbat sounds and they’ll come back to us later,” and presents the segment as echoing the question of the form of thought itself.
Responses of the panelists: God in formal Jewish law versus God as a moral dimension
Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham says that he identifies God “on the first, formal layer” of Jewish law, which determines “what is mine and what is not mine,” whereas in a world without God the discussion would “deteriorate” into moral considerations about poverty, wealth, and justice. He presents a hierarchy in which Jewish law is an abstract “truth” that is not identical with morality, and morality comes “on the second floor” as an obligation of one who serves God, but not as the foundation. He adds that the Tosafists, who connect the passage to the “trait of Sodom,” suggest a move in which “strictly according to the law he is obligated to pay,” but “you compel him not to enforce the law,” because it is not fitting to collect payment where there is no loss, thereby emphasizing the layered distinction between law and morality.
“Not missing the forest”: the beauty of the question and the difference from Euclidean axiomatics
Dr. Meir Buzaglo emphasizes that the first thing is to enjoy the stature of the question itself: someone’s intrusion into your home leads here not to a question of violence or police, but to the question whether the intruder “owes you anything at all” when you lost nothing. He compares the Talmud to Euclidean geometry, where one begins with axioms and proves conclusions, and presents the Torah as a system in which “there is nothing superfluous,” and every “word,” every particle, every “hint” teaches something that cannot be learned otherwise. He describes a reversal in which, from the case in the Mishnah—“if it benefited”—a foundational question emerges: “What exactly am I paying for?” Is it for benefit or for loss? And all this without headings and “without fanfare,” as part of a single fabric of thousands of pages.
Case, rule, and the parallel to science: moving “from the bottom up”
Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham points out that the Talmud is “arranged in the opposite way” from deduction: it begins with a case (“one who lives in another’s courtyard”) and formulates it into a rule (“this one benefits and that one does not lose”), and sometimes even remains at the level of cases without formulating the sharp analytical question, “What creates the obligation to pay?” He sees in this a “scientific” move of extracting a law from the data, rather than pure top-down logic, and explains that the passage is “excellent” because it actually takes a step toward general conceptualization, something that is not common. He also warns that the dichotomous formulation “benefit or loss” may miss other possibilities, and brings the dispute between the Rif and Tosafot about “no benefit, but there is a loss” to show that not every obligation is explained by one of those poles alone.
Dispute, the boundaries of discourse, and the claim that there is no “solution” through rules
Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham argues that the idea that rules will eliminate dispute is an illusion, and that even if you pack everything into rules, “the disputes will remain,” whereas the Talmud recognizes this and does not close the discussion through artificial means. He tells of a discussion at the Israel Democracy Institute in which Justice Englard said, “There is one correct answer to every question,” and presents this as illuminating: from the outside the Talmud looks “anarchic,” but from within there are correct and incorrect arguments and boundaries to judgment. The moderator sums up that Talmudic discourse poses riddles and challenges and teaches “how to continue it,” because it is “never closed.”
“Serve me”: credit, seriousness, and the subtext of the passage
The moderator returns to the moment when Rami bar Hama conditions his answer on “serve me,” and suggests various readings: an attempt to prove that “one who benefits must pay,” a concern about bribery through payment, or a way to make the listener more critical and serious. Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham brings the introduction of Rabbi Shimon Shkop to Shaarei Yosher, in which he demands “credit” from the reader, and explains that Rami bar Hama wanted Rav Hisda to see him as a source of authority so that he would take seriously an answer that is not intuitive. Dr. Buzaglo adds that the mixing of halakhic discussion and story creates a unique genre in which even the law is enriched by the story, and remarks on a possible literary play in the names “Hisda” versus “bar Hama,” and on the resemblance to teacher-student practices in which service is part of learning.
Tradition, openness, and agreement as the basis of Jewish law
Dr. Buzaglo connects the openness of the Talmud to the project of “repair” and to seeing tradition as a resource for foundational questions of Israeli society, while criticizing the reduction of Judaism to “Jewish law, full stop,” or to narrow nationalism. He speaks about “estrangement” that makes it possible to look at fines, interest, and law as part of open civic questions, and expresses a desire for dialogue between Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah and Hebrew jurisprudence. Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham brings the words of the Magen Avraham, who says that one may attribute a statement to “a great person” so that people will accept it from you even if he did not say it, and interprets this as a play between authority and openness, in which authority is meant to cause the listener to weigh something seriously rather than obey blindly. Dr. Buzaglo emphasizes that without agreement “there is no Jewish law,” that Jewish law exists “by virtue of there being agreement,” and that authority is a component in creating agreement, to the point of justifying a “fictitious” appeal to a source of authority in order to establish public acceptance, while openness and suspension of judgment make possible an internalization at the end of which the Jewish law is accepted.
Theatrical interludes and a concluding song
The evening includes theatrical interludes about Moses and the idea of an “instruction booklet” versus the complexity of life, about “You shall not add to this Torah,” and about the way in which increasingly strict rulings are derived from verses to the point of absurdity, alongside a concluding song that repeats “So, in summary… and all the rest, go and learn,” and mentions Maimonides, Hillel and Shammai, and questions about a microphone that does not work. The moderator also brings a story from Druyanov about two Jews during the riots in Vilna who arrive at the cynical conclusion, “Yes, but who actually wins? One in a thousand,” and returns to it as a pattern of worldview learned through humor and sharpness.
Closing and thanks
The moderator concludes by thanking Tomer Persico, Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham, Dr. Meir Buzaglo, Yakir Ahavat Shabbat, and the audience, and suggests uploading the next session’s passage to the website in advance to allow preparation. He closes the evening with the idea that discussion and openness are part of the way the Talmud teaches us to continue the tradition as a living discourse and not merely as a bottom line.
Full Transcript
[Speaker A] Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Welcome to the second meeting in this series, which is part of an effort by the National Library, an effort of opening doors, an effort that is beginning now and will continue with even greater intensity over the course of the year. I noticed—I took a look at you—that some of you went over to the display here, and I recommend to anyone who hasn’t yet, afterward, to spend a few minutes there. There are manuscripts and editions of the Talmud on the passage we’ll be discussing this evening, from different generations. I saw something there from the 12th century, from the 16th century—it’s recommended. Sorry? I didn’t understand. Fine. Last week’s session had a general introductory character. We spoke, for those who remember, those who were there, about the relevance of the Talmud to our own day, to contemporary culture—secular, Haredi, religious. We tried to touch on the reasons for the dominance of the Talmud, we tried to talk about the price of that dominance, and we also heard several illuminating examples from Professor Ciechanover about the capacity of Talmudic-halakhic thinking to deal with ethical issues that stand at the front line of medical and scientific progress. Today we’re going to dive inward. We’ll try to turn our attention to Talmudic thought, which has earned itself a reputation throughout the world. What is that Talmudic sharpness people so often praise—and sometimes also condemn? What is the essence of the Talmud that finds expression in this winding discourse, in the give-and-take with its rhetorical and logical devices? We’ll try to touch on a comparison between this give-and-take and other methods of thinking and discussion. How is it connected to questions of authority and autonomy? And we’ll also try to understand whether it’s possible to extract from these texts a picture of the human being, the way, say, economics has the economic man, and literary theory has the ideal reader, and in other fields the kind of person they presuppose—in legal theory, the reasonable person. Is there a Talmudic person? Can we understand the implicit or explicit conception the sages had of human goodness, the aspiration to the good, the degree of materialism, the degree of individualism versus communality? As you surely understand, in this case too, no one leaves the discussion with even half his desire in hand—but if we don’t aim high, we won’t get low. And in a way fitting for Talmudic thought, we’re going to begin with a passage. And that passage will accompany us throughout the evening. We’ll go to it and return to it, go out from it and come back to it—a fundamental, classic passage: “This one benefits and that one does not lose,” tractate Bava Kamma. And the person who will study the passage with us is Tomer Persico. Tomer is a scholar in the fields of the New Age, religion, world religions, and Judaism. He is a social activist for freedom of religion. He has a really excellent blog called The God Loop. Tomer Persico, please.
[Speaker B] Good evening. With your permission, I’m going to move the lectern a little—good—because I need to be able to see what’s happening over there. Yes, we’re going to begin with the Mishnah, the Mishnah that comes before the Talmudic discussion of our passage, and maybe even before that we’ll start with the very first Mishnah of tractate Bava Kamma. The first Mishnah divides the four primary categories of damages, four central categories of things that can cause damage: the ox, the pit, the grazer, and the fire. The ox is of course the animal, the pit is literal, the fire is fire, and the grazer—there’s some dispute about that in the Talmud, so I won’t get into it—but those are the central categories. Out of these categories we take one category, the ox, and within it we find three ways it can do damage: the foot, the horn, and the tooth. These are ways in which an ox can cause damage. And here we come to our Mishnah, the Mishnah whose Talmudic discussion we’re going to deal with. And the Mishnah says this: “How is the tooth deemed forewarned? To eat what is fit for it.” That is, the tooth causes damage by eating what it normally eats, what it likes. An animal is expected to eat fruits and vegetables. “If it ate clothing or vessels, he pays half damages.” Clothing means a garment; vessels means some sort of wicker basket. If my animal ate things like that, I’m not entirely responsible for that in the full sense—I didn’t know it would eat those things, that’s a surprise even to me—and therefore I pay only half damages. Moving on. “When does this apply?” When do you pay? When is the animal presumed likely to eat fruits and vegetables? “When does this apply? In the domain of the injured party. But in the public domain he is exempt.” Meaning, if my animal ate fruits and vegetables in the public domain, he’s exempt. If it ate something in Moshe’s vegetable shop, of course I pay for it. But—“if it benefited, it pays for what it benefited from.” Meaning, if my animal ate some fruits and vegetables on private property, and of course caused damage, I don’t pay for all the damage—it could be it also caused surrounding damage to the shop or something like that—I pay only for the fruits and vegetables it benefited from. It could also eat fruits and vegetables and not benefit from them, if it was already full or if they harmed it, and then I pay nothing at all. “If it benefited, it pays for what it benefited from.” How does it pay for what it benefited from? “If it ate from the middle of the marketplace, it pays for what it benefited from; from the sides of the marketplace, it pays for the damage it caused.” Remember: “what it benefited from” is less than “the damage it caused.” If it ate in the middle of the marketplace, that’s a kind of public domain, so it pays only what it benefited from. If it ate from the sides of the marketplace—there are shops along the sides of the market square—that’s already private property. There it pays for the damage it caused, not just what it benefited from. “From the sides of the marketplace, it pays for the damage it caused,” yes. “From the entrance of the shop, it pays for what it benefited from; from inside the shop, it pays for the damage it caused.” Again: public domain, private domain. Outside the shop is a kind of public domain and so it pays less. Okay, that’s the Mishnah. And now we come to our Talmudic passage. Our passage begins with a very nice story, a kind of challenge. In connection with this law in the Mishnah—that if it benefited, it pays for what it benefited from, as explained—they tell: Rav Hisda once said to Rami bar Hama, “You weren’t with us in the evening in the district.” You weren’t with us that evening in that area—maybe the Sabbath boundary, maybe he didn’t manage to get to the study hall where they’re debating all Sabbath long—“when excellent matters were asked of us.” What questions you missed, what dialectics, what polemics. Rami bar Hama said to him: “What were those excellent matters you were discussing?” Let me add a few things. Who is Rav Hisda and who is Rami bar Hama? Rav Hisda is the head of the academy of Sura in Babylonia. He’s a third-generation amora, so we’re talking about the turn of the third and fourth centuries, a very, very important man of course, head of an academy. Rami bar Hama is his student and his son-in-law. He married Rav Hisda’s daughter, and of course he’s a kind of member of the household as well as a student. So let’s continue. He said to him: the question was one who lives in another person’s courtyard without his knowledge—the excellent question, yes—one who lives in another person’s courtyard without his knowledge, does he have to pay him rent for having lived in his courtyard, or does he not have to? Someone slept one night in a courtyard. The courtyard belongs to someone. He didn’t ask permission. And now we have to determine whether he needs to pay rent for that night, lodging costs, or whether he is exempt. They clarify: what exactly are the circumstances? If you say we’re dealing with a courtyard that is not normally for rent, so that if this person had not lived there, the owner would have left it empty; and the man living in the courtyard is also a person who would not normally rent—he has a house, he didn’t have to sleep there, or he has another rented apartment in town, he didn’t have to collapse drunk, say, into some courtyard—it’s not something he had to do or needed, because he has another free option for lodging. If so, this is a case of “this one does not benefit and that one does not lose.” After all, the owner did not intend to rent out the courtyard. In such a case, obviously he does not have to pay. Rather, shall we say we are dealing with a courtyard that is normally for rent, and a man who normally rents? He wants to rent a courtyard, he needs one, he wants to pay for something, or actually has to because he has nowhere to sleep. Then this is “this one benefits and that one loses.” In such a case he is obviously obligated to pay. Obviously if he slept in a courtyard such that by occupying it he prevented it from being rented out, he has to pay. Simple. But there was no need to ask the whole question except for the following case. The question is this: a courtyard that is not normally for rent, and a man who normally rents. He needs to rent something, he needs a hotel, a hostel, something. And this courtyard was empty, and he stayed there. What is the law in that case? And the question is whether the resident can say to the courtyard owner: “What loss did I cause you?” What happened? You weren’t going to rent out this courtyard anyway. Why do you care that I slept here? I spent one night here, so what? What did you lose by it? After all, you lost nothing, and so on. Or perhaps the courtyard owner can say to the resident: “But you benefited.” You benefited from my property. You slept here. Had you not slept in my courtyard, you would have had to rent a hotel room for the night. You profited through me, and so on and so on and so on. Notice: that whole thing is the excellent question that Rami bar Hama missed because he wasn’t there when they were discussing it, and this is what his father-in-law and teacher, Rav Hisda, tells him. Rami bar Hama said to him: this question is not a new question; it’s in our Mishnah. It’s in the Mishnah. He says to him: tell me, are you kidding? This is a question? This is an excellent question? It’s in the Mishnah. It’s an explicit Mishnah. Now you need to understand the—let’s call it—the audacity of Rami bar Hama here. He says to his teacher and father-in-law: listen, this question isn’t so excellent. If I had been there, I’d have solved it in no time, because you just go to the Mishnah and see what it says. So Rav Hisda says to him: “Which Mishnah?” Where? What Mishnah? What are you talking about? And what does Rami bar Hama say? Rami bar Hama said to him: “When you serve me, I’ll tell you where this appears in the Mishnah.” Now notice, this ought to set off several alarm bells and warning lights. Is it normal in the Talmud that sages debating with one another, and a sage who wants to give an answer, asks for compensation or payment for it? Is that something normal? And this isn’t just any two sages—it’s student and teacher. And he asks him to serve him before he’ll tell him. So what’s going on here? The point is very, very subtle and beautiful. Rami bar Hama is actually trying to explain to Rav Hisda by an action what he is about to tell him in principle. He says to him: you are not going to benefit from my answer for free, because one who benefits while the other does not lose is still liable. Even though, by giving you the answer, I’m not lacking the answer—the answer will still remain with me, I’ll still know it. But you have to pay for it. There’s no such thing as benefiting and not paying, even if the other person does not lose. And indeed, that’s what he will tell him. What happened? Rav Hisda took Rami bar Hama’s scarf, wrapped it for him, made some adjustment to it, as a form of service. Rami bar Hama said to him: this is the Mishnah—“If it benefited, it pays for what it benefited from.” Which implies that the owner of the animal pays for its benefit in any case, and so too one who lives in the courtyard has to pay for his benefit. Yes? So let’s move to the second Mishnah. That’s the answer, that’s the Mishnah that Rami bar Hama told his teacher and rabbi and father-in-law Rav Hisda, that this was what they spent all day debating. But is it really a good answer? Is the answer really found in the Mishnah? Because when the animal eats fruits and vegetables in the public domain or in private property, is that a case of “this one benefits and that one does not lose”? Of course not. The vegetables were eaten, the fruit was lost. This one benefits and that one loses. Therefore the answer Rami bar Hama gives Rav Hisda—and even asks him for service in return for—is not a good answer. And indeed Rava, who is Rami bar Hama’s study partner and also a student of Rav Hisda, says: “How sick and unaware is a man whose Master helps him”—a person whose Master, the Holy One blessed be He, helps him so that his words are accepted. He’s not afraid. How much someone who believes in God—how much someone protected by God isn’t afraid to say foolish things. Why? “Even though it is not similar to the Mishnah, Rav Hisda accepted it from him,” from Rami bar Hama. Rami bar Hama is so confident in the Holy One blessed be He that he’s willing to say all kinds of things, and even demand payment for them, even from his teacher and rabbi. Yes, and Rava explains: because in that Mishnah it is “this one benefits and that one loses,” for when the animal eats the fruit, it diminishes the fruit, whereas this case of one living in a courtyard that is not meant for rent is “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” and so on, as we said. And now I want to ask the following question. What does the Holy One blessed be He have to do with it? Why doesn’t Rava simply say Rami bar Hama spoke insolently? Or Rami bar Hama made a mistake? Or Rami bar Hama was probably confused and maybe I can find him one explanation or another? Why doesn’t he say that? Why does he bring the Holy One blessed be He into it? Tosafot on this Talmudic passage point this out and explain the matter using a concept called the trait of Sodom. I don’t want to get into their interpretation, but I do want to use the trait of Sodom and go to a Mishnah that talks about the trait of Sodom. Yes, that’s the Holy One blessed be He, as we said. To a Mishnah from tractate Avot, and it speaks about four dispositions in a person. We began with four primary categories of damages; now we’ve arrived at four dispositions in a person. And I want first to read the bottom three dispositions. “One who says, what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine—an ignoramus.” Someone who says the property is mine and yours, and the property is yours and mine, is just a fool. “One who says, what is mine is yours and what is yours is yours—a pious person.” How generous, how altruistic, what a philanthropist. He gives of himself, he yields, he is always giving—he’s pious. And “one who says, what is yours is mine and what is mine is mine—a wicked person,” of course. Right—someone who takes everything for himself is wicked. But now let’s look at the first category. “Four dispositions in a person: one who says, what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours—this is an average disposition, and some say this is the trait of Sodom.” And here’s the big question: why is that the trait of Sodom? An average disposition we can understand—fine, he’s no great saint—but why the trait of Sodom? And I want to suggest the following. Sodom is a symbol of a place where there is no God. In a place where there is no God, logic rules. In a place where there is no God, we divide the world, the property, according to logic: what is mine is mine, what is yours is yours. Why? Because that’s all we have. All we have is material reality, simple, dry, flat, rational reality. We have nothing else, and so we use reason and divide things equally. But in a world where there is God, the situation is entirely different. A world with God is a positive world. It is not a static world but a world of movement, a world in constant motion. It is a world of abundance. And therefore in a world where there is God, justice is not equality but abundance. Justice is not equality but giving, but yielding, but kindness. In fact, in a world where there is God, everything in the end is kindness, and every quarrel is a quarrel between lovers, because in the end everything is wrapped in affirmation and abundance and vitality and juiciness. Everything moves forward, everything rises. Ontologically, it is simply a completely different world, and therefore ethically as well. And I think that is what Rava meant to say. Because when he says here that a person whose God helps him—he means that Rami bar Hama, perhaps without knowing it, was aiming at the fact that Rav Hisda, because he knows there is a God, will always understand something and let it go. Because what happened here, really? What happened is that Rami bar Hama was not only insolent toward his teacher, and not only asked for service in exchange for an answer—he gave a wrong answer. And Rav Hisda says nothing. Rav Hisda lets it go. Rav Hisda lets it pass. And what Rav Hisda does here is exactly the opposite of what Rami bar Hama tried to do. Rami bar Hama tried to make Rav Hisda pay for a service in order to prove to him that “this one benefits and that one does not lose” still pays. And what Rav Hisda does in his yielding, in his abundance, in his justice which is not equality but giving, but yielding, is to say to him: there is a God, and therefore even though you gave me a poor answer, and I even served you for it, and even though it was insolence, I let it go. Because this is a different world. This is a world in which there is God, as Rava says. And so, precisely in that—because Rami bar Hama does not pay, and does not apologize, and does not correct his answer—he in fact proves what Rav Hisda wanted to prove to him: that in such a world there is no need for equality, no need for some kind of symmetry, no need for some kind of judgment that forces everything into a matrix of logic. In such a world there is yielding. And so Rabbi Rami bar Hama, perhaps a day or two after this incident, will understand that his answer was not a good one, and he will understand that Rav Hisda did not ask him for compensation or an apology or anything of the kind, and he will understand that in a world where there is God, “this one benefits and that one does not lose” is exempt. And that indeed is the ruling. Thank you very much. No, I can’t, I told you—
[Speaker D] I can’t sign off on your conversion. But why?
[Speaker C] But why? Excuse me, Rabbi, excuse me, I can’t sign off on your conversion—come on, I told you. But why? I’ll do whatever is needed. Everything. I studied, I memorized, I immersed, I cut living flesh, I did everything that was required, and now you can tell me you can’t approve my conversion? What’s wrong with me?
[Speaker D] Nothing, everything is fine, everything is fine, it just didn’t work out, it just didn’t work out.
[Speaker C] What didn’t work out? What didn’t work out? I did everything, everything. I studied, I changed my name, I know how to sway, I know how to pray, I know how to keep the Sabbath, everything. What’s the problem? What’s wrong with me?
[Speaker D] It’s not you, it’s us. What do you mean?
[Speaker C] It’s—
[Speaker D] You don’t have a Jewish head. You don’t have the head. You’re a gentile.
[Speaker C] But what do you mean? I studied, I studied things. I learned the laws of the Sabbath, the laws of kashrut, the laws of family purity, the laws of the red heifer where a black hair was found lying next to it—ask me whatever you want, I’ll answer you right now.
[Speaker D] Really then?
[Speaker C] Ask. Whatever you want, Rabbi, ask me.
[Speaker D] Ask, ask.
[Speaker C] Fine, God in heaven, all right, fine. Okay.
[Speaker D] Two people fall through a chimney. One comes out dirty and one comes out clean. Who goes to wash?
[Speaker C] Well, that’s a very, very simple question. The one who is dirty goes to wash. The one who is clean doesn’t wash.
[Speaker D] Thank God! Wrong answer. What? I told you, you have a goyishe kop. But let me explain, you don’t get it. The person who came out dirty looks at the clean one, thinks he’s clean. The clean person looks at the dirty one, is sure that he is dirty, and he goes to wash. You understand? I told you, it’s goyishe, you don’t have it, you don’t have it. It’s not you, it’s us. I didn’t think of that—
[Speaker C] That’s nice, the way he looks, because that’s clever too. Right. Give me another one, another one, another question, Rabbi. I promise you I’ll answer properly.
[Speaker D] God in heaven. All right. Two people fall through a chimney. One comes out dirty and one comes out clean. Who goes to wash?
[Speaker C] Well, that’s an excellent question, an easy one. The clean one looks at the dirty one and thinks he’s dirty, so he goes to wash; the dirty one looks at the clean one and thinks he’s clean and doesn’t go to wash—and goes to wash.
[Speaker D] Wrong! I told you—goyishe kop is goyishe kop, you can’t change it. Look, the clean one looks in the mirror in front of him, sees that he’s clean, no reason to wash. The dirty one looks in the mirror, sees that he’s dirty, and goes to wash.
[Speaker C] But Rabbi, you didn’t say there was a mirror there.
[Speaker D] I didn’t say it, gentlemen, I didn’t say it. But you need to understand—do you see, that’s your head? You’re supposed to check, understand? I didn’t tell you there is one, but maybe there is a mirror?
[Speaker C] You have to get into the details, check. Last chance.
[Speaker D] Please, Rabbi, I’m begging you, begging you, one last chance. I want to be a Jew, I want to be a Jew! Why, Jürgen? Why? You’re Swedish—why do you need this? Go, go back to Sweden. There are shiksas there, eat shrimp and whatever, and be happy.
[Speaker C] Give me one last chance, I’m begging you. I love this people, I love Judaism, I want to be a Jew.
[Speaker D] Fine, Jürgen. Two people fall through a chimney. One comes out dirty and one comes out clean. Who goes to wash?
[Speaker C] Well, now I know. If there’s a mirror there, then the clean one looks in the mirror, sees he’s clean and doesn’t go to wash, and the dirty one looks in the mirror, sees he’s dirty, and goes to wash. If there’s no mirror, then the clean one looks at the dirty one, thinks he’s dirty, and goes to wash, while the dirty one looks at the clean one, thinks he’s clean, and doesn’t go to wash.
[Speaker D] You see? A gentile remains a gentile. You can’t! That also wasn’t right. No—just explain to me: how can two people fall through a chimney and one come out clean and the other dirty? How? How? It can’t be! So be a gentile, forget it. I told you honestly, you’re a fine person, it’s not you, it’s us. Go back to Sweden, do whatever you need to do there, and besides, there are Swedish girls there and here there aren’t, so you don’t need this. Really—not everyone can be Moses our teacher. Not everyone.
[Speaker C] Wait, Rabbi—you yourself taught us that Moses our teacher himself was in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall and didn’t understand a thing. Heretic!
[Speaker D] He hasn’t even converted yet and he’s already talking heresy!
[Speaker C] Well, Rabbi, sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.
[Speaker A] Those are the sounds of Shabbat, and they’ll return to us later. I listened very carefully to what Tomer said, and it seems to me there’s something holographic about it. Even if we took it and pulled it apart, we could spend a whole series here on what was said—and we won’t. I want to invite our two panelists for the second part of this evening. The first is Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham, who is a Torah scholar and thinker, holds a doctorate in nuclear physics, and works in general philosophy, logic, and Jewish philosophy. He studied in both Haredi and Zionist yeshivot, and today teaches at the Institute for Advanced Torah Studies at Bar-Ilan University. Dr. Michael Abraham—Rabbi—please, come up. And now Dr. Meir Buzaglo will join us. He teaches philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He works on the philosophy of mathematics, of language, and of Judaism. For this purpose he asked that we emphasize his work in logic and Jewish thought; he’s also active in advancing equal education, mathematics teaching, the tradition of liturgical poetry—a man of many deeds. Yes, I’ll mention one more thing that we’ll get to later, and that’s your central project in trying to redefine, in a practical way, the concept of traditionalism, of the traditionally observant Jew. I’d like to begin with an open question. You sat here in the front row, you heard the study. I’d like each of you to pull out some thread from these fascinating remarks. With the microphone—that’ll help too. And then we’ll sharpen things. Please. No, you start. Please.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right. Maybe I’ll indeed respond to the point Tomer raised. Maybe I’m a Litvak, I don’t know. Actually I’m sure of it—not maybe. But somehow, for me, God is the opposite of Tomer’s God. Meaning, this doubling of layers that exists in the passage—the formal halakhic layer that says what is mine is mine, what is yours is yours, these are the rules. And on top of that there is the moral layer, justice, the kind of thing wrapped in this divine, ethical pathos, where I’m supposed to give up what is mine for the sake of the other. Tomer identified God on the second layer. I identify Him on the first layer. That is, I think God is found primarily—so it seems to me, for me, I don’t know, my God—is found primarily on the first, formal layer, which determines what is right and what is not right. What is mine and what is not mine. And actually in a world without God, I think the solution to this passage would have been different. In a world without God, this discussion would immediately—I’ll provocatively call it deteriorating—would immediately deteriorate into a moral discussion. And it would say: is this just or unjust? Maybe he’s poor, maybe he’s rich, do I need the money, do I not need the money, what did I lose, yes, what did you benefit, what loss did you cause me, as the Talmudic text says. But the Jewish conception of God, in my view, begins first of all with formal truth, with Jewish law. What is right and what is not right, what is mine and what is not mine. And Jewish law is not morality and not justice in the ordinary senses. Jewish law is some kind of abstract truth, perhaps objective in some sense—again, I’m not naïve, it’s not objective detached from people—but it is detached from the natural and ordinary feelings every person has, whether he has God or not. And it’s precisely there that I find God, in this determination of what is right and what is not right. After that comes morality, and I’m not belittling it. That is, every person who serves God, every person who keeps the Torah, also has to observe moral rules, but they intentionally—and not by accident—come on the second floor. And perhaps just one final sentence and I’ll finish: precisely the Tosafists who take this passage in the direction of the trait of Sodom—it’s very interesting—because the Jewish law in this passage is that “this one benefits and that one does not lose” is exempt, he does not need to pay. But the commentators who take it in the direction of the trait of Sodom actually say that, strictly speaking, according to the law he is obligated to pay.
[Speaker A] Maybe explain—just in a word—what the trait of Sodom is?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The quality of Sodom—what… what Tomer basically explained, maybe I’ll just repeat in one sentence. The quality of Sodom means staying on the formal level of Jewish law. That is, say in this context—there are also, I think, things that go much further—but in this context, the quality of Sodom means insisting on the halakhic layer of the law: what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours. No concessions, no unjustified taking, everything according to the rules. And specifically Tosafot, who explain that same ruling of “this one benefits and that one does not lose” as the quality of Sodom, are actually saying that strictly according to the law you do have to pay. That person who lived in the courtyard benefited; the owner of the courtyard did not lose, because the courtyard was not up for rent, so he didn’t lose money—you are obligated to pay by law. It’s just that it’s a Sodom-like quality to collect what you’re owed, because it’s not right—after all, you didn’t lose anything. So they compel you not to enforce the law. But unlike other commentators, who do not bring the quality of Sodom into this, they take this ruling as a halakhic ruling itself. They say that Jewish law says you do not have to pay. And specifically Tosafot insist on this stratification: first law, and only afterward morality.
[Speaker A] I don’t know, when you talk, I feel like I’m having a bit of ego shock. Okay, I’m having a little trouble understanding the complexity of the thinking, I admit it. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m sure you’re right—we’ll just have to believe you, which is also something we’ll talk about in a minute.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Like Abba Eban—how wonderful, I didn’t understand a single word.
[Speaker A] Exactly. No, no, but—Meir Buzaglo.
[Speaker F] Just a short response. Good evening, everyone. What I think is simply that we should try to touch on—I’m not a Talmudist myself, unfortunately—but the main thing we perhaps ought to manage to cover tonight is not to miss the forest. Not to miss the forest, not to miss the most obvious things in the Talmud. And here too, in this passage, in this question—just look at the question itself. There’s a process here that you ought simply to enjoy. You come to your house, someone has trespassed into it. Now the question is not whether you’re allowed to shoot him in the leg, or call the police quickly, or sic the dog on him—which is our life here, all kinds of stories we know. Right.
[Speaker A] Because—
[Speaker F] You don’t know who he is; maybe he’s okay—are you willing to take that chance?
[Speaker A] And he’ll establish possession. Yes, exactly, he established possession.
[Speaker F] Rather, is he even obligated to give you anything? Notice the level here, apropos what you were saying about the human figure we’re going to get here. The level is: is he even obligated to give you anything? He’s in your house, sleeping, resting, everything’s fine. Maybe he owes you nothing? You lost nothing; in any case you had no intention of renting out this apartment. So there’s a stage where you enjoy the puzzle. Some people already love to start solving it right away, looking and this and that—but first of all, let’s enjoy the forest, the beauty of this question. Yes. Afterward, slowly, of course, we’ll be able to start noticing the more…
[Speaker A] I’d also like, over the course of the evening, for you—because of your expertise in logic, for example—to try to illuminate the path of the discussion. Because here, for instance, we have—I’m just sort of tossing out a few things—we have here two categories, right? Benefit and damage. For example, we don’t begin from some natural law and then derive from it. Okay, but we’ll come back to that, we’ll come back to that. Yes, I do want you to try to characterize in this text the logical move as you see it.
[Speaker F] So first of all, let’s not forget that what’s very tempting is to compare—again, at the level of the forest—the Talmudic discussion to, say, deductive reasoning as we know it from Euclidean geometry. We have geometry, we studied it, three units, fine? So we start with axioms and try to prove, in a valid way, all kinds of conclusions. Usually geometric knowledge is the result of what we call axiomatization. Knowledge develops—in Egypt, in various places—knowledge develops, and then the mathematician has to organize it so that he has a minimal set of principles from which he can derive independent conclusions, from which he can derive the greatest number of conclusions. Here we have something called Torah. Torah, like nature, has nothing superfluous in it. Its holiness is understood in the fact that there is nothing superfluous in it. That is: every element in it must teach you something that you could not have learned otherwise, and it is not knowledge you can compress into a shorter form, because if you compressed this knowledge into a shorter form—what Euclid did, say—you would undermine its holiness. On the contrary: you take it as it is, it is the system of axioms, it is a whole world in which every word, every allusion, every reason, every added word, every “et,” every hint in it is something from which you have to learn something. So we reverse things. Here, then, we begin with the four primary categories of damages, the ox—let’s take an example—I need to learn something from the ox that I cannot learn from the pit; it can’t just be okay, random. From each thing I need to learn something I cannot learn from something else. Then from the ox I need to learn, break it down—the tooth and all those things you started with here. And then I have a case: benefited, doesn’t pay. I take that case, and here of course we enjoy—what does it mean to learn from a case? If the animal benefited, then it doesn’t pay. Suddenly I take a fateful question: what is the very idea of payment based on? What does it come from? What am I paying for? Am I paying for the fact that I benefited, or am I paying for the fact that you lost? That’s an amazing question in how fundamental it is, a very basic question. What am I actually paying for? And that question is presented in some little passage without headings, without fanfare—apropos a completely homogeneous discussion stretched over page after page, thousands of pages of Talmud—you’re presented with a question that suddenly demands your alertness, if you have any economic, philosophical, ethical outlook: what are you actually paying for? And then we derive that huge question from one tiny sentence said there in the Mishnah: she benefited, okay—and then of course the discussion begins, and then all the mishnayot and all those things get brought in.
[Speaker A] But sorry for interrupting—go on, go on.
[Speaker F] So I’m only saying, that was regarding this: we learn from a case, when that case itself is the result of study of Torah, and that tells you about a very interesting, very fascinating rational logical relation—it’s a gold mine for a logician. What there is here in the Talmud is a gold mine for logicians, because from the comparison you also learn about the Talmud itself and also about what you’ve been doing up to now with Euclid or whatever it may be. So that’s at the level of the forest, really at the level of the forest.
[Speaker A] A brief question: can you hear clearly? Okay? Because from here we don’t know how well you hear—who got dirty in the chimney and who didn’t—and today things really are denser and more crowded, so I’m asking. One remark on your fascinating words: alongside this logical aspect, I—through my sins, and I say this with great modesty—come more from a literary place, let’s say, and so what draws my heart and my eyes is the remark he says to him at the beginning: it was an excellent passage, there were excellent things.
[Speaker G] You can’t hear me? Disqualifying—
[Speaker A] One disqualifies others by his own flaw. When he says to him, don’t ask what happened Friday when you weren’t there—it was an excellent passage. There’s a lovely literary hint planted here. As though he’s saying to him: there was a passage you would have enjoyed, or some logical puzzle to solve. But that word “excellent” hints at what you’re saying. It reminds me of Bialik’s wonderful phrase in his famous essay, where he says that in the Talmud, great problems take shelter inside small discussions, and he says this is because of Jewish modesty. It’s a wonderful phrase.
[Speaker F] Like Rashi, yes, like all those things.
[Speaker A] So we’ve heard the—you have a very interesting look in your eyes right now. You have a very interesting look in your eyes right now. Should I throw him out? Okay. So that was a kind of litmus paper against logic. Now you come from scientific thinking; you have a doctorate in nuclear physics.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not nuclear—physics theory. Not nuclear? No, theoretical physics.
[Speaker A] No, because at this point it doesn’t matter anyway. In short, do you see any basis for comparison between this kind of move and the basic scientific activity? Comparison, contradiction, similarity, difference—I mean, looking at facts, say?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Actually this connects precisely to that previous look in the eyes, so I’ll connect the—
[Speaker A] Two aspects.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meir spoke before about deductive movement—that is, moving from the general to infer about particulars. There was such a conception current in the scientific world: define rules, proceed as in geometry, start from some rules and derive from them the answers for specific cases, as private cases of the general rule. The entire Talmud is arranged in the opposite way. It goes from the bottom up, not from the top down. That is, we begin with a halakhic question, a case. Someone enters another person’s courtyard without his knowledge, and the question is whether he has to pay him or not. Fine? A question from everyday life. Then that same everyday question can be formulated a bit more generally. Because now we are no longer asking—and the Talmud does this already—we are no longer asking what happens with someone who entered another person’s courtyard without his knowledge. We ask: “this one benefits and that one does not lose”—is he liable or exempt? That is already a somewhat broader conceptualization. We begin to distill the rules. Obviously, if we had begun from the rule and said, “this one benefits and that one does not lose”—the law is, whether liable or exempt—from that it would be clearly derived whether someone who entered another’s courtyard without his knowledge has to pay or not. But the move is the reverse. And I’ll keep going with the move: there is a third level of conceptualization, which in fact doesn’t appear in the Talmud at all. You could ask the question in an even more analytical way, and ask: tell me, what creates the obligation to pay—benefit or loss? After all, that’s what really stands behind the issue, but it doesn’t even arise in the Talmud. That is, the Talmud asks a halakhic question and makes a first step of conceptualization. It says, in effect: translate this into general concepts—this one benefits and that one does not lose—which is already a whole family of cases. But it does not put the question on the table in the sharpest possible way. That’s how I would have done it. Tell me: does benefit create liability, or does loss create liability?
[Speaker A] Why isn’t it put on the table?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So here—and I think this is the reason it was “all the more excellent,” why it was so excellent, this pleasure—because it seems to me that although the Talmud goes from the bottom up, and in that sense this is actually scientific work and not logical work, if we’re standing in the tension between the two—
[Speaker A] Meaning, looking at a case and trying to derive the rule through the case.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. That is, we look at the particular cases and try to extract what rules stand behind them, which is exactly the scientific approach, as distinct from logic, which is supposed to work from the top down—at least the visible layer of logic. How one gets there is another question. But what’s beautiful about this is that many times the Talmud doesn’t make that move. It stays with the case and starts discussing it this way, that way, brings proofs this way, proofs that way. Here the theoretical discussion already began, which is not so common in the Talmud. This translation into general concepts of benefit and loss is not so common; it’s fairly rare. And in this respect there is an excellent passage here, because everyone feels that behind the particular cases sit general principles. But the Talmud insists on not moving to the general discussion, not going like the logicians, but rather insisting on entering the specific case, living it, understanding its nuances, and through it understanding the law that applies there. But here it was such an excellent case because we actually managed already to take a first step of conceptualization. Now suddenly we’ve already arrived at the heading, the general law, which is very interesting—it’s exceptional in the world of Talmudic discussion. And that’s why he said it was terribly excellent. He was saying, you missed out—there was something here that today perhaps they would teach at the Sorbonne.
[Speaker A] But if it’s so excellent, then I also ask you, Meir: if it’s so excellent, why go this way and not that way? What are the principled advantages—and perhaps also the disadvantages—of going from cases to rules and not the other way around? If we are—
[Speaker F] The story of case and rules appears in many possibilities. It doesn’t appear—that is, there are many ways in which the general and the case are connected to each other. I’ll give an example. We have this feeling that in logic we begin with deduction and go one by one. But here, we’ve been talking about geometry. So when we talk about geometry, we draw a picture. We draw the triangle, and then we contemplate the picture from some general angle. The picture embodies a certain generality even though it is a specific picture. It won’t be like, okay, so here’s one example. So here’s a case where the specific and the general—the specific and the general can be: I have a case, and I specifically do not strip away the particularity. For example, if I look at a triangle, I don’t really care. That the specific and the general can be: I have a case, and I specifically do not strip away the particularity. For example, if I look at a triangle, I don’t really care whether here the angle is twenty, thirty, and whatever remains there for the third one, right? One hundred thirty—I trust you. Yes, so I’m not really looking at that; I’m looking at the triangle in its purity as something that, even if I embody it in something particular, I’m looking at something general. It’s a big question in the philosophy of mathematics whether I could—the status of the example if a logical derivation comes from it. That’s not a simple question; we won’t dry you out with these things, but it’s not a simple question. Now I’ll give you another example in which I look at the specific. I do an experiment. I do an experiment, where the experiment is supposed to confirm the general. That’s another type of looking at the particular. There’s also another case: I encounter a case and I have no theory at all. Here, say, these are the things we are talking about. Now if I—sometimes there are two conceptions. You want to know how to behave? Abstract. There’s another conception: look at the thing in its full concreteness. There are two very important thinkers on this. One, the greatest—the most important philosopher of ethics—Kant, who told us: you want to know in a specific case how to behave? Think that everyone would behave this way, like we say, “and what if everyone did that?” Okay? And then you’ll see it’s absurd. You abstract—and you abstract away all the specificity of the case. There is another conception, not so well known—unfortunately not taught enough—the conception of Shlomo Maimon, where you look at the case in its particularity and do not abstract, because you cannot say what is a relevant factor and what is an irrelevant factor, and nevertheless you activate intuitions and your judgment in those specific cases. So I only want to say: it’s not right—the commerce between general and particular is complex. It’s complex; it’s not so simple. I don’t know if you meant for us to get into this excavation, but broadly speaking it can be very complex.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Another comment, if I may? If I go back for a moment to the third level, I’m trying to explain why we go from the bottom up.
[Speaker A] From the case to its concept and to a general principle.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Bottom-up, not top-down.
[Speaker A] Why—why is that more correct, I think? Which, by the way, is also a question that always exists in science—for instance in psychology, the question of whether you proceed and so on. In every science there are places that… okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But here—suppose I were trying to formulate the question if I came from an analytical formal approach. Then I would begin in the completely opposite way. I would begin from the upper formulation, and I would ask: what creates liability, benefit or loss? Then I would move to the case of “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” and then I would infer the conclusion about what happens with someone who lives in another person’s courtyard without his knowledge. But look what I miss if I start from above. The correct answer, according to some of the medieval authorities, is neither this nor that. Neither the benefit nor the loss. I’ll prove it. As a matter of Jewish law, “this one benefits and that one does not lose” is exempt. Meaning, so what creates liability?
[Speaker A] The relation between them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The loss… no. Okay. In the dichotomous conception, the loss creates liability, right? Therefore if there is no loss, there is no liability. But according to Tosafot there, there is a dispute between them and the Rif. Tosafot ask: what is the law in the opposite case, which by the way is not mentioned at all in the Talmud—“this one does not benefit and that one does lose”? That is, the person did not benefit—he has another house—but the courtyard is meant for rent, meaning that if I entered there, I caused the owner of the courtyard a loss. So the Rif claims that one is liable in such a case. But Tosafot say one is exempt. Now that is a very strange thing, because when there is only loss and no benefit, one is exempt. When there is only benefit and no loss, one is also exempt. So I don’t understand—so it’s neither the benefit nor the loss. Then what is it? Now, if I had begun from that very convenient logical dichotomy, I would have missed this option.
[Speaker A] But on the other hand, I think I understand what you’re saying, but on the other hand I’ll tell you what the danger is—a danger that you will even hear a historical echo of in certain claims. When you come from the bottom up, everything is open. Everything is open, so you can also validate whatever you want to validate. Everything is open, so the culture that develops will be a culture of dispute—not in the good sense of the term. Of “they swallowed one another alive,” of quarrels, admittedly intellectual and not with machetes like what we see in the neighborhood, but constant principled quarrels, because everything is open, because we come from the bottom up. Excessive flexibility—that’s one question. And the second question—I don’t know whether I even expect an answer within this framework—but really I’m zooming out for a moment from the discussion. These things you’re saying are truly riveting. We—we—and from excitement. We’re building religious imperatives, imperatives of religious behavior, on logic. So I’m enjoying this a great deal and emotionally as well. I’m not sure where the question mark is here, but if you want to respond to that. Maybe just one sentence, if I may?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, the perhaps widespread illusion that if you establish rules, disagreement is prevented—we’re already past that. That was one of the fractures positivism suffered from, and in fact because of that it was somewhat shattered; today perhaps there is a bit more balance. But you cannot force things into rules. Even if you force them into rules, the disputes will remain, and therefore the issue of dispute, in my opinion, is simply insoluble. And one of the beautiful things about the Talmud is that it recognizes this, and therefore it does not try to close it down with artificial means that in any case will not succeed. Another thing—perhaps a story. Once I was at the Israel Democracy Institute in some discussion, and there were several rabbis sitting there with judges and law professors, and there was a collection of serious accusations against the Supreme Court—that it does whatever it wants. Then a judge stood up there—in truth his name escapes me at the moment—a religious judge, he taught in Jerusalem at the Hebrew University. Elon? No, not Elon. Englard. Exactly. Englard. And he said: I don’t understand what you want. He had been on the Supreme Court in the past. He’s a positivist. There is one correct answer to every question; the science of law. Now everybody there burst out laughing. But the truth is that I actually didn’t. It opened my eyes, because inside the Talmud too, when you look at this anarchy from outside—which by the way I love—it really does look like anarchy. That is, everyone is doing whatever he wants. But someone who knows the discourse from the inside knows that there are right things and wrong things. I’m not saying there is only one truth, but there are boundaries to thought, and people know how to judge arguments of this or that kind as to whether they are correct or not. It’s very interesting—you have to know the discourse from the inside for that, and that is exactly the heart of Talmudic thinking. You have to enter into the cases, into the discourse, and these rules that would come from above and determine everything and close everything off—that is an illusion from which, apparently, we’ve already been exempt for two thousand years.
[Speaker A] It seems to me we’ve dived nicely into the first half of this evening. We’ll take a break in a moment, and afterward I’ll want to come up a little more toward the surface. Among other things, I’m now making a promise before we go to commercials: later I’ll try to ask you how this essence we’re talking about here—open, anarchic, bottom-up and so on—how it helps or hinders you in your project of redefining what tradition is, what it means to be traditional. And I’d also like, with your permission, to take you to the most delightful part of this story from my point of view, okay? And that is the place where he says to him: you want the answer? Serve. But that’s for later. Now we’re going to take another pause in the discussion in order to come back and realize that these essences and these discussions did not begin either in the Jerusalem Talmud or in the Babylonian Talmud, but long, long, long before that. Look. Moses. Moses.
[Speaker D] Moses! Ah, what?
[Speaker C] What do you mean, what?
[Speaker D] What, no dignified “Here I am”?
[Speaker C] What “Here I am”? I don’t even know where I am; I’ve been wandering around this mountain for hours.
[Speaker D] You don’t remember where you are? What’s this? You’ve already been here once.
[Speaker C] I was here then—there was a burning bush, there was a smell of burning. Now I’m eighty years old, I have to climb mountains here. Couldn’t you have done this somewhere flat? Really now, you bring me up a mountain. So where—where do I go, tell me? You’ve arrived. Well, thank God.
[Speaker D] Don’t mention it. Okay listen, we’ve got a tight schedule, so it’s good you got here; we should get started. First of all, a round of meetings with the general staff. Ah wait—
[Speaker C] The reception isn’t great.
[Speaker D] Ah, and now?
[Speaker C] Can you hear me? Yes, yes, apparently the pillar of cloud was blocking you.
[Speaker D] The gates of thunder. Yes. In short, tight schedule. The angels have been waiting a long time to meet you. Tomorrow morning you and I are getting up very early, and I’m going to show you all the future history to come. As for the past, I already brushed you up on that.
[Speaker C] Yes, yes, at the bush I was here, we talked.
[Speaker D] So I’m going to take you around the Western Wall, Yad Vashem, Masada, Holyland.
[Speaker C] Ah, nice, nice. Sounds like a great trip. But you said I’m coming for forty days—this doesn’t sound like forty days.
[Speaker D] Look, you’re not here for an annual school trip; this is just the opening. Look, I thought to myself, really: I brought you out of Egypt—dayenu.
[Speaker C] I inflicted judgments on them—I can’t hear you very well—
[Speaker D] I inflicted judgments on them—
[Speaker C] I inflicted judgments on them, dayenu, you inflicted judgments on them, dayenu.
[Speaker D] Right, I gave you their wealth.
[Speaker C] Look, it could have been a little more, but okay, fine.
[Speaker D] But what about content? Essence? I need to give you Torah.
[Speaker C] But you gave it a few hours ago—there was a big ceremony with lightning and thunder, the Ten Utterances. Commandments. Commandments, yes, yes, lovely things, important and beautiful things, really lovely.
[Speaker D] Look, look, I don’t know—ten commandments aren’t enough. It’s too general. Too general?
[Speaker C] So what, you’ll give us another Torah?
[Speaker D] Not even as a joke, Moses, what are you talking about? That almost borders on heresy. There is only one Torah, and it is not open to two interpretations. One Torah. It’s just that life is complicated; the people need guidance.
[Speaker C] So what now—a guidebook? Operating instructions? Oh come on, really, Master of the Universe. If we have a problem, we’ll open those Ten Commandments and we’ll figure out what to do, don’t worry. Really? You’ll figure everything out on your own? Everything on your own?
[Speaker D] So come on, let me test you, Moses. What do you say? Go ahead. Okay, you’re walking down the street, suddenly a witch comes toward you. What do you do?
[Speaker C] What do I do? A witch comes? Wait a second, just a second, I wrote this down—wait, here: did she take your name in vain? No. Did she covet her neighbor’s wife? No.
[Speaker D] A witch—cauldrons, lizard tails, ugly goggle-eyed thing—a witch.
[Speaker C] Wait, wait, wait, wait—is this witch my mother? No. Then there’s nothing to do.
[Speaker D] Except there is. You open the Torah and see that it says, “You shall not let a witch live.”
[Speaker C] “You shall not let a witch live”? That’s written there in the guidebook, in these operating instructions—that it says, “You shall not let a witch live”? Well, that’s nice, sounds lovely, but tell me—can just anyone understand what’s written there?
[Speaker D] No problem at all. User-friendly.
[Speaker C] User-friendly, user-friendly, lovely. But the question is whether in a hundred years it’ll still be relevant.
[Speaker D] What, of course. Torah is eternal. You know what? I’ll give you an example of eternity. Many, many years from now, Jews will get to apartment buildings—there will be apartments, buildings—and it will be Sabbath, and there will be this annoying trick where a light goes on when someone approaches the entrance, and the Jew wonders what to do.
[Speaker C] So he opens the instruction booklet?
[Speaker D] Exactly, the Torah—
[Speaker C] And there it says what happens if you approach and the light goes on automatically on the Sabbath.
[Speaker D] Certainly. It explicitly says, “You shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.” From that everyone understands that it is forbidden to turn on a light on the Sabbath. The next logical step—that because of you a light must not go on even if it’s automatic—that’s plain Hebrew. Then he already understands that he has to walk around and around and around the building, climb a bathroom wall, come in through the garbage-room entrance, get the cats to tear his pants, and arrive home stinking in honor of the holy Sabbath.
[Speaker C] In honor of the holy Sabbath. I think I’m beginning to understand your logic. Give me—tell you what—give me another good one, give me one more, I got it, I got it.
[Speaker D] Okay, what does the verse “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” say to you?
[Speaker C] That’s simple. First of all, it means you must not boil a kid in its own mother’s milk. But you see, according to your logic, I might think that all the more so it is forbidden to boil any meat with any milk. Now if it’s forbidden to boil meat in milk, then all the more so it is forbidden to eat any meat with any milk. Do you see where I’m going with this? Because if I think that, then I’ll think that actually you have to wait—if I ate meat, then I have to wait three, six hours before I even drink milk. Do you see the absurdity? Because I can keep going with this and say that you have to separate the utensils entirely—that there should be special utensils for meat and entirely different utensils for milk. Do you understand? Cutlery for meat, cutlery for milk, sink for meat, sink for milk, dishwasher for meat, dishwasher for milk, refrigerator for meat, refrigerator for milk, house for meat, house for milk—do you understand? I can get to the point where if a meat spoon accidentally touched a drop of milk, I’d stick it for three days inside a flowerpot, do you understand?
[Speaker D] You see? You got the idea.
[Speaker C] Wait, are you serious? That’s what you meant? Then write it! Why don’t you—why don’t you say it?
[Speaker D] I did write it. Three times. “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” Obviously.
[Speaker C] Listen, with all due respect, really—you create worlds and destroy them, and I have all due respect for that. But people won’t understand this. If they think the Torah is only a base and on top of that you just keep making it stricter and stricter and stricter, no one will want to take it on.
[Speaker D] Moses, you underestimate your people. I promise you there will be people who devote their whole lives to Torah—Torah study is their vocation.
[Speaker C] That’s even worse! People will just sit and keep making things stricter and stricter and stricter—it’ll be impossible to live.
[Speaker D] No, no, no, I promise no one will overdo it. After all, I wrote explicitly in the Torah: “You shall not add to this Torah.” At most there will be a few hundred who take on some extra stringency or two. It won’t affect anyone else.
[Speaker C] Fine, start writing. Yes, writing. Wait, I prepared my—yes, go on, speak.
[Speaker D] “This month shall be for you the beginning of months.”
[Speaker C] No, no, no—is that how you want to start? Start right away with laws, with this? Start with some story, make it interesting, something that will draw in the audience.
[Speaker D] What—what do you mean, a story?
[Speaker C] Tell how you created the world. That sounds like an interesting story.
[Speaker D] One morning I got up and looked—
[Speaker C] Come on, what is this “one morning I got up”? Tell me, are you Ram Oren? Give it some divine wording! “In the beginning I created.” Oh! That already sounds better. We’ll still work on it. I’m not fully settled on the first person, but we’ve got forty days, we’ll work on it. There’s plenty of time. Moses our teacher summarized for us the laws of—
[Speaker D] Our Torah in the Five Books and two tablets and left us sighing. And Joshua received it from him and passed it to our prophets—thus the Torah of Moses passed down till today, blessed be God. That’s the summary of what was summarized, from Genesis to eternity, with explanations and commentaries and additions by innovators. That’s the summary of the whole story, and all the rest—go and learn.
[Speaker C] Our sages of blessed memory said to themselves, this is easy for us—ten commandments are not enough for the people to come out righteous. So Hillel and Shammai concluded for the sake of Heaven, got confused, engaged in intricate argumentation—who was right, don’t ask. That’s the summary of what was summarized, from Genesis to—
[Speaker D] eternity, with explanations and commentaries and additions by innovators. That’s the summary of the whole story, and all the rest—go and learn.
[Speaker C] Maimonides wrote in depth what is forbidden, permitted, and all the rest; he knew that a treasured people needs an instruction booklet. For the sages he wrote, without flaw, the philosophical principle, but for the people he simply summarized what is written—don’t get clever. That’s the summary of what was summarized, from Genesis to eternity, with—
[Speaker D] explanations and commentaries and additions by innovators. That’s the summary of the whole story, and all the rest—go and learn. And even today they summarize in holiness: “Song of the Sixties,” “Giv Pop,” Person of the Year, quite a cycle, battle of the century, cobbler of the decade. And every year that gets summarized, how similar it is to the previous one—and what will the song of the century be? Jerusalem of… well? That’s the summary of what was summarized, from Genesis to eternity, with explanations and commentaries and additions by innovators. That’s the summary of the whole story, and all the rest—go and learn. These are Liran Kraus,
[Speaker A] Gadi Weisbart and Nadav Vikinski, and they are Kalevet Shabbat. And we also learned that even if you’re all-powerful, your microphone still has to work. A second before we go back there, I want to tell you a personal story about where I absorbed a bit of Talmudic thinking. When I was a child, we had at home a book called The Book of Jewish Wit and Humor. Know it? Droyanov. And I felt that not only was I reading funny things, but I was also learning worldviews there. For example: I carry this from there, since sixth or seventh grade. Two Jews are walking during the pogroms in Vilna. Always in Vilna, always pogroms. One sighs and says: Pshhh… you can really hear it in Yiddish, right? Pshhh… hard times. The other says to him: Pshhh… indeed, hard times. Schwer tsaytn. The first says: In times like these, it would be better for a Jew not to be born than to be born. The first thinks and says: Yes, but who gets that privilege? One in a thousand. That shaped my worldview—you need to… I’ll return to that point. But now I want to return to a point in the story. In the story. I don’t know how many remember, so I’ll remind you. I didn’t know before Tomer taught us—I didn’t know what the relationship between them was, which makes it even stranger. But two Torah scholars are learning. One says to the other—one says to the other: I have a solution to the problem. I’ll give it to you if you serve me in some way. How do you read that place?
[Speaker F] A large part of the Talmudic text is not utilitarian, not heading straight to the case, the desecration, the exit. It tells many, many things around it. And it’s important—and we learn from that surrounding material—how the sages spoke, what they talked about. They said: wow, too bad you weren’t there, there was an amazing discussion here. They don’t talk in terms of: look, this one was appointed rabbi, this one wasn’t appointed, this one was chosen, this one wasn’t chosen. Rather, what do they talk about? Listen, there was a great passage here, you missed it. And then we see how they speak, what sort of conduct this is—so complex—and it says to you all the time: interpret me. All the time it says: expound me, learn. This is how sages behave. This is how they sometimes… this is how they should behave; sometimes this is how they should not behave, because even sages are not above criticism. Okay, you also have to look at them. And then indeed there, the story leaves you with a riddle. The Talmud is always open—and maybe we’ll talk about this. It’s open; it constantly throws you riddles, throws you challenges, teaches you how to continue it. It teaches you that it is never closed. And that too it presents to you as something you cannot just pass by. What happened here? So there was a proposal: I wanted to teach you that if you benefited, you already have to pay me. That’s one proposal. A second proposal: why did Rav Chisda accept? Why did Rav Chisda agree? Because he paid, and by the very fact that he paid he was already bribed into agreeing? Because he says: I paid, I want to agree. Or maybe—and why did he demand payment from him? He demanded payment because he said, as Yustenstein interprets here: that way you’ll be more serious when you hear me, that way you’ll be more critical when you hear me. In short, these stories are always saying: interpret me. And they tell us how sages conducted themselves, what you need to think about, and it’s endlessly open. And another interesting thing: this passage, this question—there is something fascinating in the Talmud. When you ask someone, immediately he has something to say. Immediately he joins in, immediately he tells you: listen to this—and it’s always different. It’s always surprising from some angle. I learned this with the children, I learned it with my wife, I talked about it here. Every person—boom—something else connects. Here, how do we know whether the cow is already full or not full? Even here someone in the audience asked that. Immediately you jump in. So the Talmud is open because it also teaches you how to continue that openness. So there—you asked? You fell into a trap. That’s what they wanted.
[Speaker A] Yes, okay, please.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, actually on this matter I draw from the introduction of Rabbi Shimon Shkop to his book Sha’arei Yosher, and there he brings this passage and offers what seems to me a wonderful interpretation of this matter of using, of this service. And when you look at the whole passage from the first word to the last, that’s the subtext. And what he says there is that he addresses the reader—Rabbi Shimon Shkop, in the opening of his book—and he says: look, if you don’t give me credit, don’t open the book; there’s no point. I worked on this a lot. I’m already telling you now: some of the things will seem strange to you. If you give me credit, then you’ll work on it and you’ll be able to profit. You won’t necessarily agree—you don’t have to agree—but give me credit. If you don’t give me credit, there’s no point opening the book; it won’t give you anything. And the proof he brings for this principle is from this passage, and he says that Rami bar Chama is essentially saying to Rav Chisda—we’ve just heard that he is his father-in-law and his teacher—he says to him: look, I’m going to tell you something strange. You’re not going to accept it. First I want to see that you appreciate me. Let’s see whether you’re willing to serve me, whether you also see me as your teacher and not only as your student—that is, whether you see in me something from which something can be learned. If so, I’ll tell you. Now this is a very interesting point, because when he says—after he serves him, he gives him the answer, and Rava standing on the side dies laughing. What kind of answer is that? It’s a foolish answer. And Rav Chisda is silent. Yes, Tomer asked about this: why was Rav Chisda silent? Rav Chisda was silent because Rav Chisda understood that this was not a foolish answer. Because Rav Chisda gave Rami bar Chama credit, and he thought twice before laughing. And after he thought twice, he suddenly discovered what the Talmud then says—that the answer is not foolish at all. What is written in the Mishnah is a case of “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” even though they ate that person’s fruits and he did lose, but actually not, because he had declared them ownerless—and what the Talmud says there later. Rava, who had not served Rami bar Chama, laughed because he did not give him credit. But Rav Chisda did.
[Speaker A] Meaning, proof or expression of esteem is required in order to leap over the barrier of an answer whose truth is not intuitive. Right? That’s what you’re saying. Exactly. It’s a kind of ticket through which—
[Speaker F] A seriousness fee, as it were. Proof of seriousness, as it were.
[Speaker A] Yes. I want to add to that, okay? Here I am reducing, so to speak. First: what this gives you—you spoke about this—is that not everything is just some step along the way to an argument. First of all, there is, in my view, a mixing here between Jewish law, or a halakhic discussion, and story. When you mix those two planes, neither one remains the same. The story becomes richer, the narrative element is enriched by the halakhic discussion, certainly—but the halakhic discussion too is enriched by the story in ways beyond my understanding, and what emerges is a genre that is unique and amazingly beautiful. That’s one thing. The second thing I want to say: when Tomer was speaking, I was thinking about their names, because I come from literature. The man who keeps silent with that kind of greatness of spirit is named Hasda, and the man who gets angry and says, “Serve me,” is called bar Hama—I don’t know. And there is something here that—I don’t know—it’s not Jewish, pardon the expression, it’s goyish. Why? There’s something Eastern here. In Eastern teaching, in the practice of the relationship between teacher and student, you see that the student has to serve, that the student has to serve for six years and gets hit with a bamboo stick in order to wake up, and only after seven years is he allowed to cut the sushi properly, let’s say. In other words, there’s something almost Eastern about this—I don’t know. There’s no question mark here; you’re welcome to contradict me on the spot.
[Speaker F] First of all, Jewish is Eastern—let’s start from the end, okay? Jewish, Babylonian Talmud—what are we talking about, people? We’re talking about the Babylonian Talmud, Israel, my name. So Jewish is Eastern. Now, there are different kinds of East—no, there are different kinds of East. The concept of “the East” has many meanings: there’s the Near East, the Far East. What you want to say is that this isn’t that kind of Eastern, it’s another kind of Eastern—that’s fine.
[Speaker A] You keep talking, returning again and again, to the openness of the Talmud. Now, you’re also the head of an organization called Tikkun, whose central project, it seems to me—and I hope I’m phrasing this correctly—is really a redefinition of our relationship to tradition. So please explain to me the connection between this openness in the Talmud that you see and the…
[Speaker F] Tikkun is a movement that set for itself the goal of addressing the foundational questions of Israeli society in light of tradition. Traditionalism is one component. This fact—that we went and identified Judaism with Jewish law, period, apropos of the things said here—that’s something I see as a narrowing. Likewise, identifying Judaism with narrow nationalism is also something I see as a narrowing. Now, what I gain here, beyond openness and dialogue and the ability to ask and the legitimacy of asking and the give-and-take, are very, very foundational questions that you’re exposed to as part of a standard education—for example, the question of how a fine is determined. How is a fine determined? Is a fine determined? Yes, the municipality sets fines, sets interest on those fines, sets this much for parking—for the rich, for the poor, for the destitute, and for whoever you like. So I have here a kind of defamiliarization; for a moment I can look at my reality from a foreign point of view if I bring this text into Israeli life, which is what we usually don’t do. Usually we don’t do that. Usually students—we know—don’t deal well with Talmud. Rabbi Haim Louk told me that he can teach Talmud in one hour; instead of making children hate Talmud in four hours, he can make them hate the Talmud in one hour. So here, if we know how to take the foundational questions and bring them into our society and ask very, very deep questions, then I see here a very interesting covenant between Israeli-ness and the Talmud, between the Talmud and Hebrew law. My dream in life is to study Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah together with Hebrew law and create very interesting dialogues, because we think law belongs over there, to lawyers—there’s no storytelling there, no openness, it’s not for you, there are some lawyers who get paid for it, leave it alone, it’s theirs. And suddenly, no—these are civic questions in a democratic society that ought to be open, and then we have some interesting engine. But of course it’s much, much more. I see infinity in the Talmud. With God’s help, I hope to merit learning more Talmud, but every time I even touch it, it revives me—as a logician, as a Jew, as an Easterner, as a traditional person, as all kinds of things—but really, it does.
[Speaker A] Since we’re already—by the way, you’re welcome to respond, but I’m going to ask a question; you don’t have to address it. You know, since we’re already on the personal side, I notice that all evening I’ve been asking myself how to address you. Rabbi Abraham or Dr. Abraham? And if both, then which comes first? So first of all I’m directing the question to you. Miki. No, no, don’t dodge it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m not dodging it.
[Speaker A] All right, but let’s say I want to write it in a formal setting.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The truth is that when people address me in these contexts, I say that as far as I’m concerned it’s Miki. Everything else—do whatever you think. If you think it’s necessary—
[Speaker A] then write it, if—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] if you think it’s necessary. It’s not even Michael? It’s Miki. Yes, not even Michael.
[Speaker A] Were you first a doctor or first a rabbi? I know—we’re starting there, we’ll get to very distant places, but don’t worry.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I was first a doctor. I’m not sure afterward I’ll be a rabbi. I mean, it has no formal definition. I teach—I taught in a yeshiva, and now I teach at the university in the Institute for Advanced Torah Studies there. So people call someone who teaches Talmud a rabbi, but I’m not ordained for the rabbinate, I don’t serve as a rabbi, I have no formal title.
[Speaker A] But was there a process—I’ll let go of you in a moment—but was there a process in which you went into science and then said, wait, actually this—and then left science and went to this?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In terms of the main focus of what I did during the day—yes. Meaning, let’s say until the doctorate I studied half a day every day in yeshiva and half a day I was at the university, until the end of the doctorate. After that, a postdoc, and I started entering the scientific field a bit, and at some point I decided I’d had enough and went to teach in a yeshiva. So in terms of what I spend most of the day doing—yes. But my feeling is that all along I’ve lived in both worlds; I didn’t make a substantive transition between them, not in this direction and not in that one.
[Speaker A] I imagine there are quite a few people here who know what a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate in physics mean—how much investment that is, how much immersion that is—and then moving aside. Well, that’s for another conversation, but certainly. Would you like to address the point about openness that Meir, Dr. Buzaglo, spoke about?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe yes. I’ll continue a bit from what I said in the previous remark. There is a very interesting halakhic ruling by a decisor called the Magen Avraham, and he brings there—it actually originates in the Talmudic text—and he brings there that it is permitted to say something in the name of a great person so that people will accept it from you, even though that great person didn’t say it—meaning, to lie.
[Speaker A] Say that again.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again: you are allowed to say some statement, some halakhic statement, that you’re worried people won’t accept from you—say, “A great sage said this,” I don’t know, “the Rabbi”—choose whoever your great sage of the generation is.
[Speaker A] Even though it’s completely untrue.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even though it’s untrue—he didn’t say it. You’re allowed to lie so that they’ll accept it from you. Now, on its face that’s a very problematic statement.
[Speaker A] After all, if you did that in academia, you’d be thrown out—you’d be inventing a reference.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In academia it’s not all that important who said it, so therefore it’s not—
[Speaker A] You’re inventing a reference, okay—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A reference maybe yes, but hanging something on someone who said it doesn’t matter, because in any case it’s not important that he said it. In the halakhic context it is important who said it. But דווקא, in a kind of reverse logic, this ruling in my view reflects the opposite conception—a conception that is not a conception of authority. Because if truly anyone who was told something in the name of a great person were supposed to accept it because the great person said it, then of course it would be forbidden to do this. The reason it is permitted is because the person who hears it in the name of a great person is not obligated to accept it; he won’t necessarily accept it. So why say it? Then why do it? Well? Because I have the feeling that people don’t take me seriously, they don’t give me credit, as I said earlier. I say something—it seems very correct to me, very sensible—someone else dismisses me, says, “He’s an idiot, it’s nonsense, he’s talking nonsense,” so he doesn’t think about it. Then I say, “You know what? Maimonides said this. Maimonides said this.” “Oh, Maimonides said it? Let’s think again. It can’t be completely stupid if Maimonides said it.” Then he’ll think about it—or he’ll accept it or not, again, same principle. But in the end he’ll think about it again. That’s why I say it in the name of the great person. And on the other hand, obviously it would not have been allowed if the assumption were that whatever a great person says must be accepted. Which means that there is some kind of game here, and you see it in the passage too, and it is also part of the openness—this game between openness and authority. That is, on the one hand you relate to authorities; the whole passage is full of them—it’s simply a rare passage in that sense—a list of people who said exempt, and a list of people who said liable, simply a list: this one said, and this one said, and this one said, with no addition. Very rare; I don’t remember another example on this scale of simply piling up more and more people who said things. And on the other hand the discussion continues to be conducted. They all said it—so they said it—but the discussion continues. And all the subtext I spoke about earlier—“serve me,” “value me because there are fine distinctions here,” this is something excellent, this is a superb passage. This is not a passage you grasp at first glance. There is some kind of conceptualization here; you move from the particular to the general. So authority matters, the credit you give to the one speaking matters—but then afterward think for yourself whether you agree or not. Just take it seriously. Credit does not mean acceptance; credit means taking seriously what is being said, weighing what the other says, and then forming an opinion.
[Speaker A] In the theory of art and literature there is a concept called suspension of disbelief—that is, suspending disbelief—which is what allows us to enjoy a movie, because the stale example is, or a play let’s say, that if someone threatens someone else with a gun, you’re not going to leap up and save him because you know it’s a play; but on the other hand if someone dies, you’ll cry even though it’s a play. That middle range of suspending disbelief, where the great act of creation takes place—as these meetings here go on, and as these meetings and my preparations for them go on, I know less and less what to say in the face of this power, I really must say, less and less.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is really the meaning of tradition that was spoken about earlier, I think. There is a certain conception as if in tradition everything was given to Moses at Sinai—its details and fine points, everything was given to Moses at Sinai. There are aggadic passages that say this, but there are people who take it too literally. And it seems to me that the meaning of those aggadic passages is to say: relate to everything as though everything was given to Moses at Sinai. But tradition is something dynamic. Tradition is a kind of discourse that gets passed on, and this is one of the reasons—what you asked earlier—why the Talmud is left open, why almost no passage is brought to a final conclusion. Because what has to be passed on is not the conclusion; what has to be passed on is the discourse, the mode of relating, the reasoning this way and the reasoning that way. That is the tradition. Tradition is not the bottom line; tradition is the type of discourse, within which there is room for several possibilities. By the way, I’m a monist—I think that in the end only one is correct, yes—but there are several possibilities that are legitimate.
[Speaker A] I—
[Speaker F] It seems to me we’re switching roles. He took the tradition part; I’ll take the Jewish law part. Look, what is very important—without which there is no Jewish law—is that if there is no agreement, if there is no agreement and each person does what is right in his own eyes, or every subgroup decides what its Jewish law is, then there is no Jewish law. It’s not that there is some “real” Jewish law. Jewish law exists by virtue of there being agreement. That is essential, that is urgent. Authority is one component in creating agreement. It’s not only because of authority—of course also because of authority—but it operates to create agreement. So I read the interesting things you quoted in the name of the Magen Avraham this way: if you can create agreement—which is what matters—through a fictitious appeal to whoever you want, then do it, because that is what matters. Do you understand? Even if you analyzed and reached some conclusion that it ought to have been this way, and the public does not accept it—it is not valid. What is valid is what the public accepted. Therefore agreement is terribly important. We will have no Jewish law, no tradition, nothing, without the dimension of agreement. Therefore it is a supreme condition before everything else—before dispute, before everything else—that there be agreement. So that is a very, very important thing. Now, those possibilities, that openness, allows for the suspension of what maybe we wouldn’t call belief but rather the suspension of judgment. I see all the possibilities, and in an interesting way that is precisely what produces obedience, not disobedience. Because I… there is no sovereignty, no heavy punishments, the people are not sovereign. Okay, there is a community, but people can—it can convert to Islam, it can convert to Christianity, it can go somewhere else. There is no sovereign authority. It is very important that part of the matter be internalized, absorbed. The discussion says to me: look, different possibilities were weighed; I’m inviting you to join this discourse—come, dwell in it, think, think, and see more possibilities. And then I tell you: listen, now you are ready—this is the Jewish law. And that is the force of Jewish law. You understand? I’m not dropping it on you with a bang, some general statement. I let you simmer with it. And then it goes in, it’s therapeutic, it creates internalization, creates internalization. And that’s also what we…
[Speaker A] This is very—
[Speaker F] important, this part.
[Speaker A] in our modest way, are trying to do here as well. For example, from last week to this week we added the camera that lets everyone see, at the audience’s request. Today I heard a request that we announce in advance the passage for next week, so I suggest—without coordinating it with the library staff—that maybe we’ll upload it to the website tomorrow. And whoever among you wants to delve into it a bit, and so on, will be able to do so, and from week to week we’ll grow in strength. I want, in your name, to thank our two fascinating guests this evening. Thank you very much. And I want to thank Tomer Persico, who opened the evening. Thank you very much. And Nicola Babt, who added grace to the evening. And to you, who sat and listened and came—thank you very much, good night.
[Speaker F] Thanks to Kobi—Kobi Meidan.