A Look at Torah and Torah Study – Lesson 19 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

Okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re in the topic of Torah study. I spoke about Jewish law and morality, about the dependence between Jewish law and morality, and somehow this also came out in parallel in the Wednesday series. I moved on to categories like piety, going beyond the letter of the law — there were all kinds of things of that sort. We talked about sin for the sake of Heaven, and all these categories are basically extra-halakhic categories, meaning norms that are expected of us, but we are not commanded in them. So the concept of command is really the basic concept that defines this domain. Everything beyond the concept of command is morality, reason, values — sometimes it’s called going beyond the letter of the law, piety, “that you may walk in the way of good men,” all kinds of things like that. All of these are norms in the sense that they’re like Jewish law, but there is no command attached to them. They are norms in the sense that they are not facts. Say, there are verses in the Torah that are facts: Abraham was here, he went there, he had such-and-such a son. Those are facts, descriptions, stories, declarative statements, what I called statements of fact. What I’m talking about here are normative statements, not statements of fact. But they are not things about which we have a command, and therefore they are outside Jewish law.

So where do they come from? That depends. “And you shall do what is right and good” — we saw that there is a verse in the Torah that commands, though “commands” is not the most precise term, but tells us that this is what is expected of us. It isn’t a command, because as a fact they didn’t include it in the count of the commandments, and that’s one of the indications of the gap I talked about between Jewish law and morality. But it is still something that appears in the Torah. There are things that are purely matters of reason, completely unrelated to Torah, not appearing in the Torah, and still the assumption is, as the Talmud says, “why do I need a verse? It is reason” — the assumption is that things that emerge from reason also bind us, or are expected of us. I said that this doesn’t really bind in the halakhic sense. There’s the dispute between Pnei Yehoshua and Tzelach regarding blessings before enjoyment, the blessing before eating. Pnei Yehoshua seemingly says: the Talmud says, “why do I need a verse? It is reason,” so he says that something derived from reason is exactly like something written in a verse — it has the same status. And Tzelach comments, correctly, that this can’t be right. Obviously, for something to be Torah-level law, it has to be written. In all the places where the Talmud says “why do I need a verse? It is reason,” these are forms of reasoning that interpret a commandment that already appears. That indeed is Torah-level. Say a commandment appears and I interpret it — I say it means this and not that. Once I’ve interpreted it, then as far as I’m concerned that’s what the verse says, so if that’s what the verse says, then it’s Torah-level. But if there is a new norm that reason introduced, that is not a detail of an existing commandment — there simply is no commandment that says this, like blessings before eating — then in such a situation this cannot really be Torah-level. It is reasoning; it’s proper to do it, but there is no command to do it. Later, the Sages inserted it as a halakhic obligation on the rabbinic level. And I already talked about the fact that sometimes moral obligations or extra-halakhic obligations can receive halakhic status if the Sages decide to legislate them, because of לא תסור (“do not deviate”): they have the authority to determine or add to Jewish law more elements, more laws. But those laws will be rabbinic laws; they do not belong to the core Torah law, and I’ll still talk about rabbinic laws.

And in the end I also said that this picture opens up some doorway for us to understand the relationship between Jewish law and morality, or universal values, extra-halakhic values. On the one hand, it’s not right to force them into Jewish law, and maybe not even into Torah if there is no source in the Torah. But that does not mean they have no standing in the service of God, because the Holy One, blessed be He, expects us both to be human beings and to keep Jewish law. So in a kind of reversal, even though apparently I left only Jewish law and shoved everything else aside — and later I’ll sharpen this point even more — still, what was shoved aside doesn’t mean it has no value. It means it’s not Jewish law. But it is still included in what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects from us. I’m careful not to say “commands,” but rather what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects from us. And therefore, for example, in a place where there is a clash between a moral value and a halakhic value, it is not true that the halakhic value automatically wins. This is a clash between two wills of the Holy One, blessed be He, like any dilemma between two values. You have to decide it somehow — it is a conflict, and you have to know which one prevails, each case on its own. There is no automatic superiority of Jewish law over morality. The automatic superiority of Jewish law over morality often draws from some notion that morality has no standing in the religious world. It’s a secular matter. Like Leibowitz said here, morality is an atheistic category; it has nothing to do with God’s will, nothing to do with the Holy One, blessed be He. Then the simple assumption is that even if you are obligated to it because you’re also a human being besides being a Jew, still, if there is a divine will — a halakhic command — then of course it overrides the general moral value. But if I understand both of these as part of God’s will, then the fact that I took morality out of Jewish law does not mean its status is lower. On the contrary — in some respects its status may even be higher, because in essence it has the same status as Jewish law. Now they are both wills of the Holy One, blessed be He, and if there is a conflict, then we have to decide what to do.

[Speaker B] In some respects, or on all levels? I mean — maybe the question is whether there can be a law that is not only non-moral, neither here nor there, but anti-moral.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, we talked about that. I said there are three categories: moral laws, non-moral laws, and anti-moral laws. And even an anti-moral law conflicts with morality, but that doesn’t mean the Torah is indifferent to morality. It means the Torah wants both law and morality, and sometimes they clash, just like there can be clashes between two moral values. There are such clashes too. So why shouldn’t there be clashes between a moral value and a religious value?

[Speaker B] Is there an example of a law, or some scale, that is non-moral?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Lots of examples. I gave the example that a mamzer is forbidden to marry. What is he guilty of? His parents fooled around — what did he do? What do you want from him? Why don’t we desecrate the Sabbath to save a non-Jew? According to the Talmudic law. I think that’s not the practical Jewish law, but according to the Talmud that’s what is written. What about —

[Speaker C] What about what? Huh?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “You raise them up but do not bring them down,” the beautiful captive woman, Amalekite babies — we have… Again, in most cases there is no clash, but there are quite a few cases that are anti-moral laws, there is a clash.

[Speaker B] But those laws were uprooted over the years. Some of them were uprooted.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You could say that… No, each law has to be considered on its own, but nobody will tell you it was uprooted. A Torah-level law, a counted commandment — what do you mean? Or a Torah-level law — it wasn’t uprooted. They’ll tell you: our hand isn’t strong enough here, concern, the ways of peace, all kinds of things like that. In my Wednesday series I talked a bit about this. I said that what I think is that most decisors — I want to believe, and I really do believe — most decisors don’t really base it on that. They understand that this just isn’t done. Meaning, you can’t do this today. But no one will say it in that form, because then where is the eternity of the Torah? We are commanded, and the thing is not supposed to change. Fine, but that’s really a topic I’m less likely to touch here.

[Speaker B] If it doesn’t change, then in this case morality rose above Jewish law?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In some respects, yes. I said there are cases where — I said it’s a conflict, and in every conflict you have to decide. Sometimes it will be in favor of morality, sometimes in favor of Jewish law. There are certain cases where morality really does prevail, like the “it just isn’t done” cases I mentioned. There are cases where it doesn’t. We haven’t had an Amalekite baby in front of us, so I don’t know what would happen if suddenly Amalekites were here — what are we supposed to do with the babies? I have no idea. You have to live the situation in order to make a decision. It could be that there you’d say — say not. Meaning, the law says something unequivocal. I said that if the clash is inherent — for example, saving a life on the Sabbath is an accidental clash, because saving a life does not override, and does not contradict, Sabbath observance. Sabbath observance does not override the value of life. There is no connection between those two values. There can be cases where I run into distress on the Sabbath itself and it requires me to desecrate the Sabbath in order to survive. That creates a conflict. It is an accidental conflict. There are conflicts that are inherent. Meaning, the command to wipe out Amalekite babies is an inherent conflict. Every time you carry out that value, you are trampling the value of life, or harming the innocent, things like that. In places where the clash is inherent, it is more plausible to say that Jewish law prevails. Why? Because when the law said to kill an Amalekite baby, it probably also took into account that this tramples a moral value, and still it said it. In contrast, with saving life and the Sabbath, when the law told me to keep the Sabbath, it didn’t tell me to do so at the price of a life, because in principle you can observe the Sabbath without running into a life-threatening issue. Now suddenly I have a problem. We have to deliberate. The mere fact that the Torah tells me to keep the Sabbath tells me nothing about what to do in the clash. When the clash is inherent, it does. When the clash is inherent, then when the Torah said to kill Amalekite babies, it itself understood that this always clashes with the value of life, and if it still says it, then it is probably telling us that here Jewish law overrides morality.

[Speaker B] Maybe I didn’t understand, but at the beginning you gave examples of non-moral commandments, and then you explained… why morality prevailed over them, so…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I didn’t say that. There are non-moral commandments, period. There are places — some of them, a small number — where I really think that in this conflict morality will prevail, and not the law. Not all of them. For example, I think we discussed — maybe that was on Wednesday, I already don’t remember because I touched exactly the same topic there too — for example there is a commandment to destroy idolatry and its accessories. Fine? So are we now supposed to go and destroy all the churches in Israel? Or in the world? Burn all the New Testaments, I don’t know what — kill all the Christians because they are idolaters? “Our hand isn’t strong enough.” That’s it. So in principle, yes. That’s what the law says. So the decisors will tell you, yes, but our hand isn’t strong enough, and ways of peace, and afterward Jews will be killed abroad, and all sorts of things like that. I don’t believe them. Meaning, I don’t think they themselves really think that. Again, they are not lying. Inwardly they simply are not willing to admit that there are laws that we do not keep because it just isn’t done.

[Speaker B] Because they understand that morally the right thing is not to burn churches.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, correct. I argue that that is the real reason. But they won’t tell you that. It won’t dictate the law. Right, it won’t dictate it. It overrides it. It won’t dictate it — the law remains as it is. But in the conflict between morality and Jewish law, morality will prevail in the sense of what I will actually do. This has nothing to do with the law remaining as it is. Morality does not determine Jewish law. These are foreign categories. But when there is a clash, I have to decide whether I go with this or with that.

[Speaker D] And presumably a solution will be found here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but it can be found, and it still wouldn’t be correct. What would happen on a deserted island? No one would hear about it. You’re there with three monks in some church or monastery or whatever, and you. And you have a rifle, okay? And a box of matches. Fine? No one will hear, there’s no phone there, nothing. Fine? Now there’s no problem — you’re supposed to burn them and the church, and maybe make sure they’re dead afterward with the rifle, and that’s it — that’s what the law says. So the question is, how many of those decisors who say it’s only because our hand isn’t strong enough and so on — what would they rule in such a case? I want to hope, to believe, that even in such a case they would say not to do it. According to the discourse they actually use, they’re saying no, our hand isn’t strong enough and this and that — which means in principle in such a case they would surely say to wipe them all out while they’re small. So that would be the ruling. I tend to think that even they themselves would not rule that way. You say it from here because from here it’s easiest to get out of it, like you said — easiest to arrange everything and not put on the table that there are laws I am not going to fulfill. But yes.

The approach to the courts. Secular courts, yes — of non-Jews. The dilemma whether one may turn to the courts of the State of Israel, or at all. Okay? So there is a big argument — we’ve gotten into the details a bit — there is a big argument, you could say, between the decisors and religious jurists. Religious jurists, some of whom are Torah scholars, wrote articles saying that certainly one must and may, and that there are the courts in Syria and things like that, and it depends on the field — criminal law, civil law — articles of this sort and others. The decisors, across the board — Religious Zionist or Haredi or whatever — almost all say: of course it’s forbidden. Unless you have permission from a religious court, as the law itself says: if you can’t manage in a religious court, you ask their permission and go to court, to the courts of non-Jews. But in principle it has the status of the courts of non-Jews. And that is the accepted halakhic approach.

[Speaker C] And in practice? Everybody goes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, and they didn’t even get permission. I agree — when things don’t work out, they don’t work out — but that’s exactly the point. And the argument — and I say that clearly the decisors are right that there is a full-fledged prohibition here, and equally clearly in practice one has to act like the jurists. Meaning, to violate this prohibition. Obviously. Not that there is no prohibition — there is a prohibition. We need to violate the prohibition — what can you do? The alternative is anarchy. It is impossible for a state or a society to function without an effective legal system. Okay, so I don’t have — I don’t know of such a rule in Jewish law — but it is obvious that this just isn’t done. You cannot carry this out. Go see how Bnei Brak is run and you’ll understand that you can’t run things that way.

[Speaker B] So here too there is this distinction between Jewish law and actual practice. The law can contain anti-moral commandments, but in practice the act will always be moral?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’m repeating once again — no. There will be certain conflicts in which morality will prevail. I am not saying it always will. No.

[Speaker B] So an example of practice, not law, where Jewish law prevails and not morality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Mamzer. Yes, for example, mamzer. A mamzer is not allowed to marry. Now that is an insane moral injustice. All his life he cannot marry. You make him miserable. No — okay, I don’t know what I can do, that’s what the Torah says. This is an inherent clash. In an inherent clash, I assume the Torah itself took the moral value into account and still gave that halakhic instruction. Therefore there I think the conclusion — regrettably, but that is what is called for — is that this is God’s will. “There is no counsel and no wisdom against the Lord.”

[Speaker B] If it were possible to change it, we would change it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you find solutions and so on, then he’s not a mamzer. If you didn’t find a solution, he’s a mamzer. It doesn’t matter. So is ignoring it not a solution? But I’m speaking on the principled level — all that is just tricks. On the principled level: no, it is forbidden, there is nothing to do. If you find possibilities — after all, a doubtful mamzer is not a mamzer, so if you find even a doubt, then that really is the law. What do you mean, no problem? But if there isn’t one — you reached the conclusion that he’s a mamzer, there is no trick, nothing. What do you do now? There’s a clash between morality and Jewish law. And in that clash, in my opinion, Jewish law does prevail. There is no rule that morality always prevails. I’m only claiming that there is also no rule that Jewish law always prevails. It’s a conflict, and every conflict is judged on its own. What? Which example? I said — all the “it just isn’t done” examples I mentioned before. I gave the example of sin for the sake of Heaven, say, which the Talmud itself talks about; the example of the courts in Syria that appears in the Talmud. After all, that is what religious jurists often say. They say: what do you want? The courts in Syria are the precedent that appears in the Talmud. It’s the precedent that you may appoint judges who are unfit to be judges according to Jewish law, but we have no other judges, so we appoint them because otherwise there will be anarchy. That’s what the religious judges say, so here too it is fine. Then the Chazon Ish says: no, there are two big and important differences. One difference is that in Syria there were no Torah scholars. Here there were, here there are Torah scholars. So what does that have to do with anything? The permission in Syria was because there was no alternative. There was no one to serve, there were no Torah scholars there. Fine — there has to be order, so you appoint whoever you can. That’s what there is, what can you do?

[Speaker F] And that they should know the religion — that the Torah scholars should come and study law and…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. If they studied law, that wouldn’t help at all. The whole idea is that you need to judge according to Jewish law, not according to secular law. What does it help that they studied law? There are religious judges today too. Those are still secular courts to the same degree; it doesn’t matter that they are religious, because the legal system according to which they work is secular law and not Jewish law. That’s not enough. They can do whatever they want within the framework of the law, but if the law says otherwise, they cannot. You are operating by the authority of a foreign law, not halakhic law. This is a substantive conflict. All the tricks are just tricks.

[Speaker C] In the Ottoman Empire they gave the Jews autonomy.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In many places. In Europe too there were long periods when in many places in Europe there really was legal autonomy. Napoleon even established a Sanhedrin, after all.

[Speaker B] Also in the Land of Israel. No, but the Sanhedrin were subject to the crown.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Subject to the crown, yes, but they judged according to Jewish law.

[Speaker B] They judged the Jews according to Jewish law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. They received their power from the regime, but that is always the case. A legal system always receives its power from the regime.

[Speaker B] Not exactly, because in the end Napoleon’s Sanhedrin in Paris — Napoleon pretty much threatened them. He said that if you don’t rule the way I want, it will be abolished.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be. I don’t know the details well enough.

[Speaker B] It doesn’t matter. But a rabbinical court is not perceived — a rabbinical court also…

[Speaker C] Is not perceived by the Haredim as authority. They don’t…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, a rabbinical court, yes. Do they go?

[Speaker C] Of course. What do you mean, do they go?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes — there you’re allowed to go? That’s nonsense. In my opinion, it’s forbidden to go there. Not only is it not permitted — it’s forbidden. I mean, in my opinion only to court. It is forbidden to go to a religious court. Forbidden not in the halakhic sense — forbidden because it’s an ineffective system. It cannot summon witnesses, it does not function properly. That is not how you establish a legal system in a state. And when you go there, you are creating anarchy with your own hands. Pressure gets applied; you go to this court and he goes to that court, and now who is going to enforce the ruling? It’s not…

[Speaker D] You mean a private religious court, not a court of… Both and both. Rabbinical — the government rabbinical courts too. Both and both. Not a government court. Both and both. There there aren’t judges? There aren’t witnesses?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in personal-status matters, where the law authorizes them, yes. And now they passed a law expanding their authority to monetary law, to all sorts of other things, which basically means going to them the way you go to a private court. Yes, what the law authorizes, it authorizes — unfortunately, I would cancel that too — but there at least you can go, because they have legal authority.

[Speaker C] But the distortions there that result from that — that’s not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s the problem with how it’s built, but I’m saying it’s not an inherent problem. Meaning, it could in principle be run in a more normal way.

[Speaker C] There isn’t a moral problem in going there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is, but it’s not inherent. Meaning, it’s only because of who is there.

[Speaker C] That’s the expectation, but not the structure itself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In other areas, whoever may be there, it is still wrong to go there. Even if there were proper judges there who behaved correctly and were wise, in other areas it still would not be right to go to a religious court. It’s a mistake to go to a religious court. Monetary law and the like?

[Speaker C] Yes, because you…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Are doing something that doesn’t operate by rules. You don’t know how to enforce it. In the end no one is satisfied with what they did. The judges pray with him in synagogue, so they don’t disqualify themselves. It’s complicated there. It’s not that the legal system is free of pathologies — that too has them. Theoretically, yes. Theoretically. But I’m saying, it is at least an orderly system that also has mechanisms of review and correction. In the rabbinical court system there is nothing. It’s simply a lawless world.

[Speaker D] A lawless world. Even in the areas where they have authority, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even in the areas where they have authority, it’s a lawless world — but that’s a different discussion.

[Speaker D] The rabbinical courts have no enforcement? What? They have no teeth.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not in personal-status matters — when you go to private religious courts. There is enforcement only in the sense that this is arbitration. I have a friend, Nadav from physics — Nadav Shnerb from physics. He once wrote an article, and he brings this there — it’s unbelievable. He says there is an inherent absurdity here. They tell you that you have to go to a rabbinical court, right? Because otherwise if you go to state court, you’re going to the courts of non-Jews. And when you get to a rabbinical court they do not judge you according to Torah law. What? This is —

[Speaker C] Israeli law? No.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They judge you — this is arbitration. Because the law says that the only force they have is arbitration, so they make you sign an arbitration agreement, whether according to law or compromise, fine? Meaning, whatever we decide is binding. You cannot judge us according to Jewish law or according to state law or whatever, and they make you sign that. So basically you go there to receive Torah law, and what you get is just arbitrary arbitration — whatever they feel like. So why should you go there and not to court? I mean, I understand if they judge according to Torah law, then you tell me: you need to go to Torah law and not to a foreign law, some other law. But when you go to the rabbinical courts, you also don’t get Torah law. Why? And he brings an example there — this has already been the case for hundreds of years, by the way, not just here.

[Speaker C] Even judges who know Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Some do, but that doesn’t matter. They are not judging you according to Torah.

[Speaker C] Then according to what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to what seems right to them. At best, in the best case, they make you sign on to a compromise close to the law.

[Speaker C] Doesn’t he write a halakhic ruling, as it were?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He can write a halakhic ruling, but that doesn’t matter. The law doesn’t obligate him. It’s a recommendation. Meaning, he can do whatever he wants. Again, this has been going on for hundreds of years, not only in Israel. In the end you sign on to it.

[Speaker C] You sign on to it!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He makes you sign on to it. No, but the rabbi who… You sign on to it! He makes you sign on to the fact that it is not according to Jewish law, that Jewish law does not obligate him. So why? That’s the question. Now he says there — he brings an example, and I experienced it too. I hadn’t been there much. I was once in some procedure in a private rabbinical court. Someone had gotten into a mess and I came to help him a little, advise him. So that was the first and only time I really encountered how these things work. So I came there, and I thought that according to Torah law… He was a kollel fellow who had gotten into trouble, and the kollel mistreated him, even though he really hadn’t behaved properly. But why would you let him manage the kollel’s fund? He’s not suited for it, right? You’re the negligent one, not him. So I said: if I go according to Torah law, I think I can get him acquitted. But if they go according to what seems right and morality and all that, then he won’t come out acquitted. Meaning, then he’ll lose. So I told them, listen, I want Torah law. I want Torah law. I’m not signing some compromise document here. Fine — cut off. So they told me: no, if you want Torah law, not with us. Go somewhere else. We don’t provide that. They were unwilling. Now my friend Nadav brings an even more extreme case in his article. Someone wanted Torah law and they wouldn’t give it to him. So he didn’t agree to come for adjudication. In my case they told me, go somewhere else, fine. But what happened there was that they issued a writ of refusal against him. Now a writ of refusal is issued against someone who refuses to come to Torah law and instead goes to secular courts. You issue a writ of refusal and say: he is refusing Torah law; he is going to secular courts. But here they issued a writ of refusal against him because he wanted Torah law. In other words, they issued a writ of refusal against him because they demanded that he not adjudicate according to Torah law, and he insisted that he wanted Torah law, so they issued a writ of refusal against him. And this is the alternative you are supposed to go to in order not to litigate in secular courts? I don’t understand. You are not judging according to Torah law. I’m just bringing this as a rather hippopotamic example, if you like. All of these are examples of the fact that you cannot run a legal system this way. You simply can’t. This is not — now I have no halakhic permission. There is no halakhic permission. Fine — so what do we do now? Let there be anarchy? Let the whole country become Bnei Brak? Is that the alternative? What am I supposed to do with that? There’s nothing to do with it. So therefore the more general values, let’s call it that in this case, in my eyes override the halakhic law. Even though the halakhic law is what the decisors say: these are the courts of non-Jews, it is forbidden to go there. Correct, it is forbidden to go there — but you have to. Halakhically it is forbidden, but practically you have to. And I’ll say more than that: when the Talmud talked about the courts in Syria, it doesn’t bring a source for it. Where did the Talmud learn that you can appoint there judges who are not fit, in the courts in Syria? From the same consideration I used here. Because otherwise there would be anarchy. There are no Torah scholars there, no one to sit in judgment, so there will be anarchy. Now this too is basically not law. If I bring that, it’s not reliance on a halakhic source, because they themselves made a non-halakhic judgment. Everything I’m saying is that I too will make the same non-halakhic judgment they made. Not because I am relying on them, but because I too will do what they did. But it is evidence from the Talmud that such considerations are indeed made. There are “it just isn’t done” considerations. Nothing to be done. That is, this is of course the difference between the courts in Syria and here, because the Chazon Ish says: what do you mean? There they had no Torah scholars, here there are Torah scholars. So remove the judges, put in Torah scholars. Yes, but that is not an option. The public won’t accept it. Most of the public here is not committed to Jewish law and will not accept it. By the way, neither would I. So there is no real option like that. So what difference does it make to me that there they had no Torah scholars and here there are? Here too there are no Torah scholars — not in the sense that there is no one who knows how to learn, but in the sense that there is no practical option of running a legal system with Torah scholars. There is no such practical option today. So you remain with the dilemma: anarchy versus violating Jewish law. There too it was the same. In principle they ought to go to a religious court, not to the courts. But what — I don’t know the situation well enough, but I’m sure that yes.

[Speaker B] Even a judge there,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] found — okay. Someone who is very strict, then maybe he always asks permission from a religious court, because then you can. If you ask permission from a religious court because, say, your opposing litigant is not Haredi, then you can’t bring him to a rabbinical court — he won’t agree. In such a case they give you permission and you sue him in state court. That is anchored in Jewish law; it is also written in Jewish law. You are not supposed to lose your money just because you are righteous and he is not. That is not reasonable. By the way, that too is “it just isn’t done.” Where did that come from? That I give you permission and therefore you can violate Jewish law — and whoever goes to secular court, to the courts of non-Jews, is like one who plants an idolatrous tree beside the altar. So what — lose a hundred shekels, what happened? No. They give you permission, you go there and recover your hundred shekels. Why? Because it just isn’t done. It cannot be that righteous Jews are left ownerless, that anyone who does not obey the law can rob them of whatever he wants and nothing can be done to him. Obviously you cannot run a world that way. But notice: this too is not a halakhic consideration. It is an “it just isn’t done” consideration. It’s simply that sort of consideration that says: listen, there are situations where it is clear that external values override halakhic instructions. Some people will force this into Jewish law somehow, but that’s just — it’s just semantic acrobatics. In the end, it is something external that overrides the halakhic value. Okay.

So up to this point we’ve basically been talking about the boundary between Jewish law and the norms that lie outside Jewish law. But as I said before, there are other things in Torah. There are things in Torah that are not norms at all. For example, stories. The stories in the Torah, or if you like the aggadic passages in the Talmud, or I don’t know, all sorts of things that are unrelated to norms. Right? They are not even expectations. Not morality, not values, not Jewish law — they are other things. And studying them too is, at least conventionally, Torah study. Okay? So here too there is some domain outside the halakhic world, but it is still hard to say that it is not Torah. Okay? Maimonides, for example, writes — he brings “a great matter: the Account of Creation; a small matter: the discussions of Abaye and Rava.” “A great matter” is the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot. That’s what the Talmud says. So Maimonides writes in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah that the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot are physics and metaphysics. In other words, physics and metaphysics are “the great matter.” The discussions of Abaye and Rava are “the small matter.” As if the Talmud — that’s for beginners, as it were. Okay? So there too you suddenly see some relation to domains that are not halakhic domains, but not only are they Torah, they are ultra-Torah, according to Maimonides. So what exactly is the relationship between the extra-halakhic domains and Jewish law? Because all along, in the argument so far, I’ve tried to show that the core of what is called Torah is basically Jewish law. Okay? Everything around it — like Rashi’s first comment on the Torah — everything around it needs some justification for how it is connected to Torah, why it is Torah, why it is brought there, but it’s some side thing, something else — I don’t know exactly what to call it. So how do we relate to domains such that: we have Jewish law, that is certainly Torah; we have extra-halakhic norms — going beyond the letter of the law, morality, piety, all kinds of things of this sort — that is Torah, but not Jewish law. Okay? We have things that are stories written in the Torah. That too is Torah even though it is not Jewish law. Right? There are things that are simply moral values with no connection to Torah — meaning, I didn’t derive them from Torah, but it seems to me that this is the proper way to behave. Okay? For example, not destroying houses of idol worship. I did not derive that value from Torah. On the contrary — the Torah says yes, do it. But still, in my view that is immoral behavior. What is the status of such a thing? Is it Torah? Is it not Torah? If it is not Torah, is it binding? Is it not binding? Where does it come from? Am I inventing it out of my own reasoning, out of my own gut — I don’t know from where? What is the status of such a thing?

So I want to say — yes, one can talk generally about Jewish philosophy, Guide for the Perplexed, things like that. What is that? It is not Jewish law either, so it is not facts either. It’s maybe yes facts, but something like metaphysics, philosophy, divine providence, all sorts of things — who is the Holy One, blessed be He, inquiries into divinity or things of that type. These too are discussions that we usually treat as Torah discussions. But this is not learned from the Torah; I don’t think it was given at Sinai either. It’s this kind of reasoning. Maimonides says this, Kuzari says this, Maharal, Rabbi Kook, I don’t know — each person and his sources. This whole domain too raises the question of its status.

So here I want to propose a distinction that I think is very, very important, because it resolves two intuitions that seem contradictory. On the one hand, people learn all these areas as though they were Torah. Sure, obviously — these are valuable things, it’s Torah, the Holy One, blessed be He, expects us to engage in this, to behave this way, and so forth. On the other hand, it is also often written in Rashi script — meaning, it is definitely Torah, because that is apparently the highest criterion. On the other hand, there is still a strong intuition that there is a difference between Jewish law and all the domains outside Jewish law. As Rashi’s first comment says, but beyond that — there it is clear to me that I am dealing with something I received from the Holy One, blessed be He, and I need to implement it. I think that is, if one can say so, the core domain. The core of Torah, it seems to me, is Jewish law. Now the question is: what is the status of the whole wrapping, all the peripheral domains I described earlier? I want to suggest the following distinction: I want to say that there are two kinds of Torah. There is Torah in the person and Torah in the object. Now I’m using here Brisker terminology, yes — object and person appears in the Talmud at the beginning of tractate Nedarim, but in the sense that Rabbi Chaim of Brisk expanded the meaning of this pair of concepts. Basically, an object-level law means it is objective, it is a reality. A person-level law is subjective: what does this mean for me, and it is not in the thing itself. Okay, that’s the terms “object” and “person” in a very rough and general way. I want to apply them to Torah. I’m saying there is Torah in the person and Torah in the object. What does that mean? I want to argue as follows: what was given at Sinai and the interpretations attached to it — that is Torah in the object. That is the definition. Mishnah and Talmud? In a moment, we’ll get to texts. I’m now giving a definition that doesn’t yet enter the texts. What was given at Sinai and the interpretations, yes — all engagement with it, its definitions, its interpretations, analysis of it — all of that is called Torah. Torah in the object. It is Torah in an objective sense. Fine?

All the other areas I mentioned earlier, except perhaps the stories in the Torah — I’ll leave that aside for a moment — I define as Torah in the person. What does Torah in the person mean? Engagement with them has value; the person who engages in them gains from it, the person comes out enriched by it. There is value in it, even Torah value if you like, but it is not Torah in the objective sense. And for example, one consequence that I think should follow from this is that if I engage in Jewish law or halakhic analysis, then I am studying Torah. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with the source I’m studying, don’t agree with it, whether it is ruled as practical law, or not ruled as practical law — it really doesn’t matter. I’m engaged here in Torah given at Sinai, in its interpretations, in its definitions, in analysis of its meaning, and so on. If I engage in Jewish philosophy — I mean Guide for the Perplexed, Kuzari, whatever — then if it gives me value because it builds my religious worldview and so forth, then it has value, even Torah value. Therefore I call it Torah in the person. The consequence is that if it gives me no value, then it is just neglect of Torah study. There is no point in engaging in it. I would not say that about analysis of halakhic topics. Even if it gives me no value and doesn’t speak to me, or I don’t rule that way, that’s irrelevant. I am engaged in the Torah we received at Sinai. The definition of that thing as Torah doesn’t depend on me; it is an objective matter. This is the Torah; we received it at Sinai. The Holy One, blessed be He, said that this is Torah. Things that come from human beings, human creations — not as interpretation of the Torah that was given, but independent creations. Yes, like blessings before enjoying food — a law that is not an interpretation of an existing law or a detail within an existing law, but a law created from a person’s own reasoning. Okay, that is not Torah in the object. The Holy One, blessed be He, did not give it. But it may still have Torah value — to look at the Holy One, blessed be He, to formulate a stance of faith, things of that sort. It is hard to say that this has no Torah value, okay? It has Torah value, but it is not Torah. These are ideas I can draw from all kinds of sources of inspiration, whether they are written in Rashi script or not. In the end, what determines it is the question of where I find value. Meaning, what builds me. And it really doesn’t matter from what text it was taken. If the author is a rabbi, if the author wrote it in Rashi script, if the binding is a Pentateuch in gold letters — these are not the important criteria. The important criteria — and these are all objective criteria, yes — are: what does this do to me? If it builds me, then excellent. If not, then it’s a waste of time; you are simply wasting your time, it is neglect of Torah study. I claim that if you study Guide for the Perplexed or Kuzari or whatever, if it builds you, fine. If not, you simply neglected Torah study. But if you studied Ketzot and it doesn’t speak to you or doesn’t build you, that is not neglect of Torah study, because you studied Torah — Torah in the object. What? Because you engaged in… Yes, exactly.

[Speaker C] And if you studied physics, that also builds you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly. And that raises the question of the boundaries. Because in my opinion — and here I claim there are no boundaries. There are no boundaries. I mean, even Chipopo. If you think that Chipopo builds in you some kind of outlook that contributes to your Torah worldview, then you studied Torah in the person. Or you read a poem that gave you some kind of inspiration, I don’t know exactly what. Certainly if you studied philosophy — philosophers who are non-Jews, not Maimonides, not Rashi script, none of that. You read non-Jewish philosophers written in Chinese. It really doesn’t matter. If it builds your worldview, then everything is fine. What difference is there between them and Maimonides? No difference at all. After all, Maimonides too created his ideas; a large part of them are taken from non-Jewish philosophers, from Aristotle and his Aristotelian followers. So in the end, the fact that he sprinkles verses here and there — so what? In the end he takes certain ideas, they seem correct to him, he shapes from them a Torah worldview, and thereby he turned them into Torah, right? So why can’t I do that? I’ll take Aristotle, I’ll shape him, I’ll build a Torah worldview from him, and that too will be Torah, right? Why is Maimonides allowed and I am not? After all, neither of us is dealing with Torah given at Sinai — that’s the point. Aristotle was not given at Sinai. Aristotle is a human being’s ideas. Fine ideas, perhaps — all good — it depends on you. If it speaks to you, great. And if it doesn’t speak to you, then no.

[Speaker C] There’s no Torah from…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Mishneh Torah is Jewish law.

[Speaker C] No, he called the laws Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, that’s a question we’ll talk about in a moment. But hold on — at the moment I’m dealing with domains, not what I do in each domain. Okay? So the domains: first of all, if you study Jewish law, if you learn Jewish law, then certainly you studied Torah, no matter what it does to you. All the other things, in my view, are sources of inspiration. In the end, they become Torah only because of what happens within you, not because of the text itself that you studied. So the text can be… What? Even a novel? Obviously. Also Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment. Also. I really don’t understand what the difference is between that and Guide for the Perplexed. No difference whatsoever. After all, neither this nor that is Torah. These are all ideas that human beings created. There are many such things that can build in me a Torah worldview, an important one. Excellent — then I ought to engage in them and try to form a worldview from them. But in that sense, from all sources — why does it matter which one? Read a book of poetry by, I don’t know, Yeats. What do I care? Whatever helps you. That’s why, in this respect, I call it Torah in the person. It becomes Torah when it is… when it is within me. It is for the person. When I build from it some sort of worldview, picture of the world, then it becomes Torah. But if no worldview is built in me and I engaged in Kant or Dostoevsky or Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed or Rabbi Kook or whoever — that is not Torah; I simply neglected Torah study. There is nothing there. Rabbi Kook did not come down from Sinai — I mean not the man, the books. These are his ideas. That’s fine; I’m not belittling that. On the contrary, he was a wise and pious man, all of that is true. But these are his ideas. If they speak to me and help me build a worldview — excellent. But if not, then I’m simply wasting my time. And that is not true when I engage in Ketzot. If Ketzot doesn’t speak to me — so what? I am still learning Torah. Because it is Torah by definition. It is not Torah in the person; it is Torah in the object. This itself is the Torah — the Torah we received at Sinai. And in the end the criterion is the question whether the thing was created by a process of interpretation or whether it is a new creation. Meaning, anything created through interpretation — and interpretation here of course begins at Sinai. Not interpretation of Maimonides; that too is interpretation, but it’s interpretation of something that is itself not interpretation, okay? I mean interpretation in the sense that it closes a circle back to Mount Sinai. I interpret what I received, and what I received is an interpretation of what the previous generation received, and so on back to Sinai. Now what appears in my hands is completely different from what Moses our teacher heard at Sinai, and much more complex, and there may be errors there too — all true. But if in the end it is interpretation upon interpretation upon interpretation of what was given at Sinai, that is Torah. That is Torah in the object. And it does not matter whether it is an error or not, whether I like it or don’t like it, whether it builds me or doesn’t build me, whether it is ruled as practical law or not ruled as practical law — it does not matter. That is an objective definition. It is simply Torah. To engage in it is to engage in Torah. I am only claiming that almost all the other fields I described earlier simply are not — people fool themselves into thinking that this is interpretation of Torah. That Guide for the Perplexed and Maharal and Rabbi Kook and all of them are interpretation of Torah — that is nonsense. It is not interpretation of Torah. It is thought that those people created, and that does not entail belittling them. It is thought that they created. Now check: does it build you? Does it speak to you? Great. If not, then not. But it is not Torah by objective definition, not Torah in the object — it is Torah in the person. And I think that if you look at things this way, first of all it is very intuitive. I think this definition is called for. Because on the one hand people constantly see that these things have value, and every valuable thing is Torah study, so basically it is all Torah. Then Guide for the Perplexed sits next to Ketzot and it’s all the same — there’s a Ketzot book and a Guide for the Perplexed book and a Mesillat Yesharim book and whatever, all things like that. And I say no. If it speaks to you, excellent. But if not, then no — it cannot sit on the same shelf as Ketzot. Again, physically I don’t care where you put it, but it does not sit on the same shelf in the essential sense as Ketzot. Ketzot is Torah in the object — and not because Ketzot was more important than Maimonides. Mishneh Torah sits there with Ketzot too. That’s not the point. The question is what kind of work this is, what kind of material I am dealing with.

Now that is one side of the matter. And the other side is that although I have taken many things out of the category of Torah — many things studied in yeshivot, though not Haredi yeshivot. In Haredi yeshivot they study only Torah in the object. But in non-Haredi yeshivot they also study Torah in the person, yes, a lot. So I have basically removed many areas that are considered Torah there, and from my point of view they are not fully Torah — Torah in the person and not in the object. But on the other hand I brought in far more things that they too didn’t bring in. You will not find Crime and Punishment on tables in the study hall, not even in a non-Haredi one. Or Aristotle or whoever else. You’ll find Aristotle’s translation into Hebrew called Guide for the Perplexed — that you’ll find there. Okay? Once it has Maimonides’ stamp on it, then fine, it becomes Torah, because Maimonides’ mother was Jewish. Okay? Those are the criteria. But that is totally foolish. You are learning the same thing. Why does it matter whether you learned it from here or from there? Why is that significant? That is why I say: on the one hand I remove a huge number of things and leave only a very small core that I am willing to call Torah in the object. But on the other hand, what I removed outward is all valuable. It has Torah value, and there are no boundaries there. Meaning, anything under the sun — you can study sociology if it builds something in you, or psychology, physics, mathematics, I don’t know, each person and Hadassah, each person and his field — or read poetry, whatever you want. If you really feel that it builds you spiritually, in a Torah sense, then very good: that is Torah in the person, and it really doesn’t matter what you are dealing with. And by the way, this is also not a statement of a hierarchy of importance. I am not claiming that Torah in the object is more important than Torah in the person. This is not a question of importance; it is a question of definition. This is Torah by objective definition, and this is Torah by subjective definition. But if — one moment — if this Torah in the person builds me, I am not saying it is less important than learning Ketzot. That’s another question; I don’t know, one can discuss it.

[Speaker B] But Torah in the object doesn’t build me?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Torah in the object doesn’t build me — that is exactly the point. I don’t even need the question of whether it builds me. Its definition as Torah doesn’t depend on that. It is Torah because that is what we received from Mount Sinai, that’s all — therefore it is Torah. “Received” in a very broad sense. It doesn’t matter — that and its interpretations. Okay? But in the end it is the tradition that came to me from Sinai. The tradition also includes interpretations and expansions and analogies and all kinds of things. No problem. All of that is what is called Torah, and it doesn’t depend on the question of what it does to me or whether it builds me or not. It’s not the criterion. It might build, it might not build. I’m not entering at all into the question of whether that happens in practice. I’m claiming it doesn’t matter for defining it as Torah. By contrast, in all the other areas it matters a great deal. Whether they are written in Rashi script or not really makes no difference. And whether the author’s mother was Jewish or not — that also makes no difference. Okay? The question is what it does to me. If it does something significant, then it is Torah in the person. And then it may be no less important than Torah in the object — who is more important is another discussion. But yes — for example, I think that over Torah in the person one cannot recite the blessing over Torah. The blessing over Torah is recited over Torah, not over completion of your personality. You have to study Torah — that is what is called the blessing over Torah. Therefore I think one cannot recite the blessing over Torah, say, on studying Guide for the Perplexed or the aggadic passages of the Sages in the Talmud. I think you cannot recite the blessing over Torah when teaching aggadah. Because the aggadic passages of the Sages — how is that different from the stories of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, or I don’t know, the Brothers Grimm? I don’t see a difference there between them. By the way, I also don’t really believe in the great depth that people think there is there, but maybe I’m missing something — I don’t know, it could be I just don’t understand. But it doesn’t matter. Even if there is depth there, that’s not the point. In the end it is a story meant to convey messages, lessons, I don’t know exactly what. That is true also of the Brothers Grimm; it is true everywhere. If it builds me, excellent — engage in it. If it builds you, all good. It doesn’t build me, so I don’t deal with it. But fine, each person according to his taste, each person according to his personality. If it builds you, very good — but the Brothers Grimm are the same. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, it is also not right to treat everything written in the Talmud as Torah. I totally disagree with that. A large part of the Talmud — mainly what I mean are aggadic passages — is Torah in the person, not Torah in the object. If it builds you, great. If not, skip it — there is no point. I skip it, for example. It doesn’t mean much to me, these things. Here and there I find something that I do feel builds something in me, so fine. But I usually skip aggadic passages. Later we will also see that this has significance for the mode of study too. For now I haven’t entered at all into what one does when studying these things. It’s not exactly the concept of “study” we are talking about when we talk about studying Jewish law. It’s different. The concept of study undergoes a change — but that’s for later.

So in practice, if this is so, then for example there is the question whether there is such a thing as Jewish philosophy. Is Jewish philosophy Torah? I claim not only that it is not Torah, but that there is no such thing as Jewish philosophy. There is no such thing. It is an empty expression. There is correct philosophy and incorrect philosophy. Why should I care whether it is Jewish? If a Jew wrote it but it is not correct, then is it Jewish philosophy? No — then it is not philosophy at all, it is incorrect. And if a non-Jew wrote it and it is correct, then it is correct philosophy. Why should I now care whether it is Jewish? And now I too accept it, so now it’s Jewish if that helps someone. But it doesn’t matter. I think philosophy should be examined as to whether it is true or not, not whether it is Jewish or not.

[Speaker C] Jewish mathematics.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. And the Nazis talked about Einstein’s Jewish physics — that relativity was Jewish physics. The Communists too, a bit more in connection with quantum theory. So that’s not interesting. The question is whether it is true, not whether it is Jewish or not Jewish. By contrast, with Ketzot it is not like that. In Jewish law, in Torah in the object, it is Jewish in essence; there is no such thing as it originating with someone who is not Jewish. Again, if there were ideas in the area of נ”ט בר נ”ט דחד יומא or in the area of מיגו להוציא conceived by a non-Jew, fine, I would study them and all would be fine. No problem. It’s just that non-Jews don’t engage in that, so in practice it doesn’t happen. Okay. What? South Koreans don’t do it. That myth about South Koreans — they have some sort of summary book that takes a few sugyot translated into Korean. Yes, clearly there is a very strong myth there about Torah, and especially Talmud. They think — no, no — in South Korea it is a compulsory subject in the school system, the Talmud.

[Speaker C] Every time you get to Korea and talk to the guys there, they say the Jews are smart.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. They have some kind of ethos that we are the startup nation, of initiative and creativity and so on, and that apparently it all comes from the Talmud — that’s the conclusion.

[Speaker C] They set up…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Some committee to investigate the matter. That committee traveled around the world and was here in Israel, did quite a serious survey. There was also a well-known visit of this committee to Ponevezh and elsewhere, and they concluded that the Talmud is probably what built those qualities, and they want to adopt it. So now it’s a compulsory subject in the school system. They work seriously, not like us. But I understood that this means they are taking some Talmudic passages — you won’t produce anything from that. You need a culture that you live in with your whole being. You can’t study a few Talmudic ideas and that will change your DNA.

[Speaker C] Wow,

[Speaker B] There are also stories studied today — it’s not… Yes, right. In the Second World War, at the beginning of the alliance of Italy, Japan, and the Nazis, the Nazis tried to explain to the Japanese why the Jew was a problem and should be exterminated, so they sent them some materials to Japan. And they got so excited that they understood it in exactly the opposite way. They wanted to know how to get Jews to immigrate into their country in order to strengthen the economy. So they tried to establish Jewish enclaves, cities like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because there really were Jews who reached China and Japan. The Mir Yeshiva, of course, got to Shanghai — that’s well known. But there were also Jews who reached Japan during the Second World War. Maybe it’s connected to that; I haven’t heard about it.

[Speaker I] The yeshiva went to Shanghai, to China.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To China, yes. That was Mir.

[Speaker I] Zerach…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Zerach Warhaftig was actually among the initiators of that. Of course no one says that, because in the Haredi ethos Zerach Warhaftig doesn’t exist. The Mir Yeshiva is Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz. Fine. In any case, what I want to claim is that the expression of what I want to argue is that there is no Jewish philosophy in the sense that it doesn’t matter whether it is Jewish. There is philosophy. Study it. If it builds you, great — you studied Torah in the person. And it doesn’t matter whether it is Kant, Aristotle, or Maharal. Fine? There is no significance to the question of whether it is Jewish or not Jewish. And if it doesn’t build you, then even if it is Jewish, you simply neglected Torah study. It’s just not interesting. And the feeling that Maharal is interpretation of Torah because… there appear there all sorts of verses and aggadic passages of the Sages — I think that anyone, I’m no expert in Maharal, but from a simple reading of passages in Maharal you immediately see that these are illustrations. He says his ideas and inserts illustrations from verses, from aggadic passages of the Sages, forcing them at times when necessary, in order to make the whole business line up along the track he decided it should line up on. The awareness with which he comes to the topics is not a hermeneutic awareness. That’s what I’m saying: you are not coming with an interpretive consciousness. By contrast, when you study Jewish law, you can’t deny that. You can say that everything we learn today is invention and the Holy One, blessed be He, never intended any of this at all. Very likely that is also true, for most of the material at least. Okay? But you cannot deny that every generation comes to this material with the consciousness that it is interpreting. It is not producing something new. I am trying to understand the law of נ”ט בר נ”ט, the law of מיגו להוציא, the law of this and that. Now, there are understandings that are mine. Someone else will disagree with me and think my understandings are incorrect. No problem. But both of us are trying to understand the same Torah that came to us from Mount Sinai, the Torah that we received in tradition. And therefore it is engagement with Torah in the object. And that is my claim. Okay?

Now I left aside a painful topic — and to me it is painful — and that is the topic of the non-essential parts of the Torah, in the Written Torah, from Genesis until “This month shall be for you the beginning of months,” but also afterward. There are parts that are stories — stories, episodes, and so on. Why am I perplexed about that? Because on the one hand, how can you say that this is not Torah in the object? This is the Torah we received at Mount Sinai. I’m not talking about a verse like “until this day” that may have been a later addition; leave me with peanuts. I’m talking now about the hardcore of the issue. Okay? So it is very hard to say that this is not Torah in the object when the definition is that Torah is what was given to us at Sinai. Well, this was given to us at Sinai. On the other hand, it is not Jewish law. And what we learn from there are lessons of one sort or another — moral, value-based, I don’t know exactly what, maybe some historical facts as well. But the historical facts we learn from the Torah — in principle we could have learned them in another way. Right? If I discovered in archaeology some story about Abraham our father taking Eliezer, pursuing with 318 servants, I don’t know, fighting against the kings — if I found that in some Hittite scroll, I don’t know what, written in cuneiform, and everything is there, and I became convinced it is true — in other words, I understood that these are historical facts — did I learn Torah? Seemingly yes. What difference does it make? I learned the exact same thing. What difference does the source make, and in what language it is written? If the Torah is translated into English, when it is taught that is Torah study, right? We agree. So if it is translated into Hittite, then not? Why? What difference does that make? Of course that would not be a translation, but an independent source that says the same thing. In other words, when you learn facts from the Torah, you are basically learning history. And when you learn history, you can learn it from archaeology, from such sources, from other sources, from books by various historians. In principle, you could also have learned it from other places. It may be that there are certain facts there that you will not find —

[Speaker H] other sources, which raises

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] at times the feeling that maybe it didn’t happen. But that is another discussion.

[Speaker H] Fine, but that’s only a technical issue, that you won’t find another source.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the principled level, there could have been another source telling you the same thing. So what does that leave as the Torah aspect here? What is the Torah in it?

[Speaker C] The Torah — is this collection of facts Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then why, if I learn it from a Hittite scroll, am I not learning Torah? What do you mean by “this”? The Hittite scroll? The scroll is the object, not the content. Because the content is the stories that also appear in the Torah. Yes, but the fact that the story resembles the story of… Not resembles — it is the same story, described there with all the details, all the details. Not in the same wording, but all the details appear there. The moment it comes from the object, then you learn what… In other words, what you are really saying — and I think that is probably what has to be said in this context — is that in the Written Torah, in its non-halakhic parts, I don’t think it is holiness of content, but holiness of wording. In other words, the particular wording in which the Holy One, blessed be He, chose to describe the events within the Torah — that is what is called Torah. When you engage with that material, in that specific wording, you studied Torah. If you study the exact same thing in content but not in that wording — not from a divine source, but from something entirely else — then it will not be Torah. In other words, unlike Jewish law: in Jewish law the content of the law is Torah. And when you study that content, even if you learn it from Ketzot and not from a Torah scroll, yes, then you are engaging in Torah. Here, in my view, the holiness is holiness of wording, not holiness of content. Therefore the Written Torah is something very unusual. On the one hand it should have been Torah in the person and not Torah in the object, because if it builds you then great — these are values, facts, not laws. So if it builds you, great, and if it doesn’t build you, then you neglected Torah study. But you can’t say that you’re engaging in the Written Torah that we received at Mount Sinai and neglected Torah study. I don’t know — that just can’t be said, yes? It just doesn’t work. Okay? So I think the obvious way out in this context is to say that it has holiness of wording. The book has holiness. If, for example, you translated it into English, then indeed it would not be Torah. If you translate the Torah scroll into English, it does not have the holiness of Torah. It may be that you use the English translation to understand what we call Torah, namely what is written in Hebrew in the original, and then you studied Torah when that was your auxiliary tool. But if you engage in the English translation, that is no different from a Hittite scroll.

[Speaker J] Why can’t you say that there is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What about it? Why doesn’t its translation…

[Speaker J] Well, that’s…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What I said. No, I’m claiming it’s the same thing. It is interpretation of the Written Torah. Insofar as it helps you learn the Written Torah, that’s perfectly fine. But if you study Onkelos, then if it builds you, it builds you, and if not, then not. That is Torah in the person.

[Speaker C] Twice the text and once the translation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. “Twice the text and once the translation” is a commandment; it has nothing to do with Torah.

[Speaker C] Because the Torah itself is not a pure object; it’s both object and person, and you’re obligated in both even if it didn’t do you any good.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I understand. It is Torah in the object — but what in it is Torah in the object? I’m claiming not the content, but the wording. When you engage in the wording, in this particular text, you are engaging in Torah. Because the question is how the Holy One, blessed be He, chose to describe the events, what color He gives them, what is the context, what framework — but not the events themselves. The factual content that appears there is not Torah in my view, or at most Torah in the person. If it builds you, fine. If it builds you, fine, but…

[Speaker H] No,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the Written Torah is Torah in the object. That’s what we received at Sinai. The definition of Torah in the object is the Torah we received at Sinai and the interpretations that accompanied it through the generations, right? We received the Written Torah at Sinai. It is Torah in the object, not Torah in the person. Okay? But on the other hand, the non-halakhic parts of the Written Torah have all the characteristics of Torah in the person. You could learn it from other places too. There is nothing here — if it doesn’t build you, then what did it do? It doesn’t tell you what to do; it’s not law. So I would really classify it, just as I say about the aggadic passages in the Talmud, I would say the same thing about the Torah’s stories. The same thing. I would say: aggadic passages of the Talmud, in my view, are like the stories of the Brothers Grimm. But if they teach you something, fine; if not, don’t bother with it — that is neglect of Torah study. Okay? The fact that it is bound together with the Talmud for historical reasons — there is no holiness to that book. But in the Torah scroll, the one who bound them together was the Holy One, blessed be He. So it is very hard to say that the non-halakhic parts are not Torah. We received them at Sinai; they meet the standard of what was given at Sinai and passed down to us in tradition, and therefore they are Torah. I’m only claiming that the Torah aspect there is not the content but the wording, the text. Therefore the Talmud says, for example, that a Torah scroll that was erased and 85 letters remained in it — I think, I don’t remember how many, 85 or 83 letters, like the section ויהי בנסוע הארון (“And when the ark traveled”). I don’t remember whether it is 85 or 83 letters — it still retains its holiness. Now there is a dispute among the Amoraim whether the letters can also be scattered or whether they need to be in words. Because if the letters are scattered, you have completely lost the content. So what remains? Fragments of the text remain. The content is gone entirely, and fragments of the text remain — because the holiness of Torah is holiness of the text, not of the content. In the Talmud, for example, there is no holiness in the text itself, none. In principle you can throw it in the trash. Okay? The holiness there is holiness of content. In other words, the Talmud is engaged in halakhic clarifications, and those halakhic clarifications are Torah study in the object — holiness of content. And both are Torah in the object — that is what I want to claim. But this is Torah in the object of content, while that is Torah in the object of text, of wording. And the other domains are Torah in the person altogether: the aggadic passages of the Sages, morality, philosophy, literature, all sorts of things like that.

[Speaker B] If in the Talmud there is holiness of content, and in the narrative parts of the Written Torah there is holiness of wording, then the halakhic part inside the Written Torah has both holiness of wording and holiness of content?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, both. Yes. Now look, for example, I once brought this chapter in Nefesh HaChaim. Maybe it was last semester, I don’t remember, but in this context it’s actually interesting to glance at it — precisely because what I’m saying sounds a bit provocative, or I don’t know what to call it, not conventional, so it’s convenient for me to show you that I can also lean on lofty trees.

[Speaker C] To the level of a prophet — that when a person learns and is transformed, if he learns object-level Torah he can also be…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no — person-level too. On the contrary, as Maimonides says, the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot are Torah in the person. But if that builds you, it can qualify you to be a prophet because it refines you. It refines you — and if it doesn’t refine you, then learning it won’t help. You didn’t accomplish anything; you just wasted time. I said, the question of importance is another question. I also tend to think that Torah in the object is more important, but that is another question. Maimonides, for example, says not so. The Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot are a great matter, and the discussions of Abaye and Rava are a small matter. The Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot are physics and metaphysics. Maimonides sees that as the greater matter. In my view, no — in my view the discussions of Abaye and Rava are greater. But fine — that is a question of what is greater. I’m speaking now in categorical terms: this is Torah in the person and this is Torah in the object. Say, for example, the first four chapters of the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, or all the Laws of Character Traits in Maimonides — they have nothing to do with Torah at all. Waste of time. No point dealing with them. I would cut them out of the book. What does it help me to study about the spheres and the angels and separate intellects, all kinds of Aristotelian inventions that have no basis? Maimonides thought this was the correct philosophy, the correct physics, or whatever, the correct picture of reality — so from his perspective that was Torah in the person. Today we understand that it’s all nonsense, so therefore it is not Torah in the person — it is nothing, just neglect of Torah study. You may perhaps learn from it indirectly how one ought to relate to the ideas of one’s own time, as Maimonides did to the ideas he thought were correct. We can learn from that, get inspiration from that, regarding how we should approach ideas that we regard as true. But the ideas themselves are…

[Speaker B] To get methodology from it, not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. So in that sense maybe there can be value to studying those chapters in Maimonides, but apart from that it’s not… Character Traits, of course — in Maimonides that means traits, not opinions in the sense of worldview. There are beautiful things there; there are beautiful things in Dostoevsky too. Beautiful things exist in many places. But beautiful things and Torah are not synonymous.

So in Nefesh HaChaim, Gate Four, Chapter Six, he says this. He discusses there the question of how much one should engage in fear of Heaven at the expense of שפיר ושיליא, yes, “an ox that gored a cow,” “it butted and expelled,” and things like that. He says that the truth is that this is the true path, the one that He, blessed be His name, chose — that whenever a person prepares himself to learn, it is fitting that before he begins he should first sit for at least a brief time in pure fear of God and purity of heart, confessing his sin from the depths of his heart, so that his Torah should be holy and pure, and he should intend, through his learning of Torah, to cleave to Him, to the Holy One, blessed be He — that is, to attach all his powers to the word of God, which is Jewish law. And in this he is truly attached to Him, blessed be He, as it were, because He, blessed be He, and His will are one, as it says in the Zohar. Fine? So if you cleave to Jewish law, which is the will of God, then He and His will are one, and thus you cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He. And every law and ruling from the holy Torah is His blessed will, for thus His will decreed that such should be the law: when the disqualified, impure and pure, forbidden and permitted, liable and exempt. Fine? So up to here it is law.

Now look at the continuation: “And even if he is occupied with aggadic words that have no practical implication for any law…” What is he saying here? What is the subtext? According to what I said, Nefesh HaChaim ought to say there is no point in dealing with aggadic passages, right? Because God’s will is that one should do what is permitted, what one is obliged to do, what one is forbidden to do — and He and His will are one. So when you engage in His will, when you cleave to His will, you are in fact cleaving to Him. So I understand why one should study Jewish law, because that is the path to cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. Torah study is basically the path to cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. But why study aggadic material? It’s completely unnecessary. God’s will is not there — after all, this isn’t norms, right? We talked about this — these are not norms. When you study the geese of Rabbah bar bar Hannah, okay, maybe you’ll derive some message from it, I’m highly doubtful, maybe yes, fine, but it’s not law, it’s not God’s will. So if it’s not God’s will, why should I be dealing with it? Why is that Torah study? So look what he says. He says: “And even if he is occupied with aggadic words that have no practical implication for any law, he is also attached to the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He. For the entire Torah in its generalities and particulars and details, and even what a young student asks his teacher, all came forth from His mouth, blessed be He, to Moses at Sinai,” as it says in tractate Megillah, in Kohelet Rabbah, in Berakhot, and in many other places, Jerusalem Talmud Peah and elsewhere. So he says: Moses was told in order: Scripture, Mishnah, laws, and aggadot, as it says, “And God spoke all these words.” So you see that this too is God’s speech — even what a student asks his teacher.

So what is he saying? He is saying: why really study aggadah? After all, aggadah is not God’s will, so I am not… He and His will are one, but this is not God’s will, so I am not cleaving to Him if I study aggadah. He says: no, you are cleaving to Him. Why? Because aggadah is speech — the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He. Notice, he does not say His will; he says His speech. A different term. What does that mean? The words with which you are engaging are words that came from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He, spoke them, and thereby made them Torah. Jewish law does not really need Him to speak it in order for it to become Torah, because after all it is what He wants us to do, He commands it, and He and His will are one. So the moment it is God’s will, it is Torah. But the other things, the aggadah — He had to turn them into Torah by speaking them. Once He spoke them, then in those words too there is God, and that turns them into Torah. Now notice, as you rightly pointed out, to speak it means the text, the wording. Right? Not the content, but the wording itself becomes Torah because the Holy One, blessed be He, said it. If you discover the same content in some outside scroll, then the Holy One, blessed be He, did not say it. The content is the same content, but the holiness is the holiness of the wording, of what the Holy One, blessed be He, said, not of the content.

And here a very clear distinction is added between aggadah and Jewish law — with one difference, namely that he is also talking about the aggadot of the Sages, not only aggadah in the Bible. He is more conservative than I am. He is talking about the aggadot of the Sages. I said the aggadot of the Sages are not God’s speech; they are Torah in the person. He claims that they are Torah in the object.

[Speaker C] The aggadot of the Sages?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks them, yes. And therefore He turns even the aggadot of the Sages into Torah. Certainly, the stories in the Torah itself — those He gave us, obviously He spoke them to Moses. But he claims this even about the aggadot of the Sages. So that’s a difference. I didn’t say that earlier. What I said applied to the Torah’s stories. But you still see here this idea that there is holiness of wording. What the Holy One, blessed be He, said — the text, the wording that the Holy One, blessed be He, spoke — becomes holy, not the content expressed in that wording.

Okay. Now look, he explains it further. He says: “And moreover, even at that very moment when a person is occupied with Torah below, every word that comes out of his mouth — those very words go out, כביכול, as it were, also from His mouth, blessed be He, at that very moment.” In other words, he brings us proof that the aggadic passages are really God’s speech, that the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks them. How does he know that? Because it is written in the Talmud. Where does the Talmud know it from? That’s another question. So he says as follows. He brings the Talmud in Gittin 6, and he says: “As we find in the first chapter of Gittin concerning the concubine in Gibeah: ‘And his concubine played the harlot against him.’ Rabbi Evyatar said: he found a fly in her food. Rabbi Yonatan said: he found a hair.” You know this — it’s a dispute regarding the section of the concubine in Gibeah, why he became so angry at the concubine. Fine? A dispute of Tannaim: Rabbi Evyatar said he found a fly in the soup and therefore got angry with her; Rabbi Yoshiya, I think, says he found a hair in that place, the private place, and therefore he got angry.

And Rabbi Evyatar later met Elijah. So Rabbi Evyatar, after he finished arguing with Rabbi Yoshiya, met Elijah the Prophet. He said to him: What is the Holy One, blessed be He, doing now? You’re coming from heaven; give us some juicy gossip. He said to him: He is engaged in the story of the concubine in Gibeah. Unbelievable — He is engaged precisely in the topic you just finished discussing. And what is He saying? Ah, interesting. I just had exactly this argument with Rabbi Yoshiya — what happened there? What does the Holy One, blessed be He, say? Now we’ll know the truth. So Elijah says: Evyatar My son says thus, Yonatan My son says thus. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Evyatar My son says this, and Rabbi Yonatan My son says that. He did not express a position.

[Speaker D] What does that mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says: you see that when we study this — this is aggadah, this is Scripture, yes, this is a story, not law — when we study it, the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks these aggadic matters and thereby turns them into Torah. Okay? That is basically the claim.

Now look at something beautiful: later there in the Talmud — he doesn’t bring the continuation. Later there Rabbi Evyatar is startled by what Elijah tells him and says: Heaven forbid — can there be doubt before Heaven? Does the Holy One, blessed be He, not know whether it was a hair or a fly? Is there doubt for the Holy One, blessed be He? He knows everything. So Elijah says to him: no — “both these and those are the words of the living God.” This is one of the two places in the Talmud where this expression appears. “Both these and those are the words of the living God.” He found a fly and was not upset; he found a hair and was upset. What does that mean? Each of you grasped some aspect of what happened. There was both a fly and a hair there. You said “fly” — you were partly right. You said “hair” — you were also partly right. The full truth is both things together. And together they caused the husband’s anger to erupt. The fly alone wasn’t enough, but when the hair also came, then he said: enough, and blew a fuse and started raging.

So the Talmud is basically saying that this is the idea of “both these and those are the words of the living God” — each one grasps some truth. Both these and those are the words of the living God. Why “words”? Because this is the speech of aggadah that the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks — both this and that, right? That is the whole idea of the passage, according to what Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says here. Now he does not bring the continuation, but if we look at it from this perspective, the continuation is written in a very, very clear way. “Both these and those are the words of the living God” — after all, obviously one of them was wrong, right? So what? He said to him: no — I spoke both this and that, and therefore both are Torah. Even though it cannot be that both are fully correct. Each may be partly correct, but both cannot be fully correct. But it does not matter. What each one said is Torah, because I spoke both this and that, says the Holy One, blessed be He.

With Hillel and Shammai… Right, but there with Hillel and Shammai these are two explanations of a matter. The other place where “both these and those are the words of the living God” appears is in Eruvin 13 regarding the disputes of Hillel and Shammai, and there these are halakhic disputes. And there too it says “both these and those are the words of the living God,” not “both these and those are the will of the living God.” That is another discussion, but I…

[Speaker G] What does that

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] mean? That’s already the answer, not the question. What I want to say is: why is the phrase “words of the living God” used there? First of all, perhaps it is just a fixed formulation. Since they said it here, they use the same expression there, and the meaning is “both are His will.” But it is clear that it is not only that, because it cannot be that both are God’s will. If God’s will is that the rival wife should be permitted, then she is not forbidden. If His will is that she should be forbidden, then she is not permitted. This is the dispute between the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel, right? So what do you mean? How can you say that both are God’s will? That is a logical contradiction. You have to say: both are the words of the living God. And what they mean to say is that even the opinion that was not ruled as practical law is still Torah. Why? Not because the Holy One, blessed be He, wills it — He wills the opinion that was ruled as law. But He spoke it. Therefore, precisely because there is a contradiction between the two opinions, if you want to tell me that both are Torah, you have to use the term “words” and not “will,” because God’s will cannot be both; that is a logical contradiction. But both are words of the living God. Therefore, don’t tell me that the House of Shammai neglected Torah study because they learned a passage that in the end was not ruled that way in practice — that’s not the truth. Maybe it is not God’s will, but the Holy One, blessed be He, said that too. In other words, even in the halakhic context one can use this distinction between speech and will for things that cannot both be one will of the Holy One, blessed be He. But fine — at least they are still Torah words, even if not God’s will. Okay.

So that’s regarding the distinction between Torah in the person and Torah in the object, which is more or less the main move of this semester. But now I want to begin… Up to this point I made a distinction between Jewish law and what is outside Jewish law. What is outside Jewish law is facts, values, philosophy, things of that type, morality. I said that is Torah in the person, or God’s speech if you like. And Jewish law is Torah in the object — that is God’s will. Okay? Now I want to go back into Jewish law itself. Up to now I’ve pushed various areas outward and remained with Jewish law. I now want to enter into Jewish law itself and show that even within Jewish law, not everything is fully Torah. Okay? Even within Jewish law. And here I want to do this in three chapters, or on three topics. To understand the context, my goal in these three topics is to show that even when you move inside Jewish law, “Jewish law” is not a synonym for “Torah.” Jewish law is what one needs to do. Engagement with Jewish law is what we previously defined as Torah. But Jewish law is a broader concept than Torah. Torah is narrower than Jewish law. Okay? Meaning, it is not only that what lies outside Jewish law is not Torah — that is one boundary — but in fact there are also things inside Jewish law that are not Torah. Okay? That is what I want to say.

And I will say it on three planes. One plane will be the domain of sacrificial law. In sacrificial law there is an interesting uniqueness, and I will try to show that it comes from a component inside sacrificial law that is not exactly Torah. It is law, but not Torah. The second domain I will deal with is Hebrew law, what is called halakhic jurisprudence — Choshen Mishpat and Even HaEzer. There too I will try to show that there are things that are law but not Torah. And the third topic is rabbinic laws. Rabbinic laws too, I will argue, are law but not Torah. We did not receive them at Sinai; they are not interpretation of what we received at Sinai. That is not Torah. It is an addition. And therefore, in my opinion, one cannot recite the blessing over Torah when studying rabbinic law. Here you already have practical consequences of what I’m saying, even though clearly I am studying law and I need to fulfill what the Sages said.

[Speaker D] When was the last time you thought not to recite it? What? On rabbinic law?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes — so then one needn’t recite the blessing either. Not only that one cannot recite it; one need not recite it either, right? In short, what I want to say is that these three chapters will show us that there are certain aspects included within Jewish law which still are not Torah. Or in other words, if until now I identified Torah with Jewish law, and what lies outside Jewish law is perhaps Torah in the person but not really Torah in the objective sense, I now want to narrow the concept of Torah in the object even more, and say that the concept of Torah is included within the concept of Jewish law, but does not cover all of it. There are parts within Jewish law that do not deserve to be called Torah — at least not Torah in the object. Okay? And I will show this in these three areas. But we no longer have enough time to begin getting into it, so we’ll stop here. Law and not Torah.

[Speaker K] Hebrew law and rabbinic law?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Law that is not Torah” — that is the heading. Under it there are three chapters. One is sacrificial law, the second is jurisprudence, and the third is rabbinic law.

Hananel again —

[Speaker D] Once again… David, the computer guy?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They come in here and make law, but he drove me crazy.

[Speaker D] Is he trying to put the whole Torah into intelligence — into AI?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The whole Torah, I don’t know. But yes, they’re trying to build AI tools that will structure Torah knowledge.

[Speaker D] What, so that it will stop making mistakes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m trying, I know. Whether we’ll succeed or not, time will tell. But we’re trying not only to get it to stop making mistakes, but for it really to know how to answer all kinds of questions, for the knowledge to be built inside it and for it to know how to use it. Because what happens now? It collects things, doesn’t understand them. There are many questions where you won’t be able to rely on an LLM to answer. Even if it gives you an answer, it won’t be correct. It hallucinates… Hallucination is when it outputs something incorrect. But there are answers that are not hallucinations — it simply doesn’t know how to answer that question.

[Speaker D] It doesn’t know because what? Because it has no background? Because it doesn’t have…?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, because it needs auxiliary tools, and that’s what we’re trying to give it.

[Speaker D] What kind of auxiliary tools? What exists today?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A knowledge graph. You need to structure the knowledge in such a way that when it approaches the knowledge, it approaches the knowledge as structured, and not just the books — just search in books. There’s a huge amount of Torah literature — search. Search where? In an ocean?

[Speaker D] So that’s why it makes mistakes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. They’re trying to structure Torah knowledge, exactly. To guide it: where can you find the answer? To give it tools. What kind of analytical tools? Brisker tools, for example, of lomdus — teaching it how to do a Brisker analysis, for example. Analytical learning of a sugya. Understand?

[Speaker D] And what are you putting into it? You’re putting into it the way Brisk thought?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes — again, we’re not yet closed on exactly how to do it, but we have ideas. We’re only at the beginning of the road, yes.

[Speaker D] Are there other professions like that trying to guide it? After all, every profession — there are jurists and all kinds of people — they’re trying to guide it for every… everything. It’s all because it isn’t directed,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] because you need that. Though who knows — in another year, two, three, it may not need any auxiliary tools at all, and it will already be so smart that it can do everything even without them.

[Speaker D] Why would it be smart?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because it keeps improving, yes.

[Speaker D] Meaning they add knowledge to it or…?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They train it on more knowledge.

[Speaker D] It has no knowledge. You don’t put knowledge into an LLM model.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They train it on knowledge. It’s not exactly the same thing; you need to understand a bit of the… Actually I talk about this in my Thursday evening lecture series that I’ve now started, about artificial intelligence. There I explain a bit what it’s about.

[Speaker D] And there you also use your knowledge, both Torah and…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I try to explain the meaning of intelligence… what artificial intelligence is at all, and then in the end I’ll also try to describe a little…

[Speaker D] Torah as well as computers? No, but your Torah knowledge — not everyone could replace you there in what you do. Maybe they’d need a rabbi, I don’t know. But do you have computer knowledge or…?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not computer knowledge, but I do have an approach to mathematical thinking or analytical thinking…

[Speaker D] Yes, which is part of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know — technology, I really don’t manage at all.

[Speaker D] But I understand the mindset. You know exactly, you know this structure. Anyway, he started explaining to me — I didn’t understand what he wanted from me. By the way, he’s our son-in-law, Rivka’s husband. Oh. He’s our son-in-law, the husband of our daughter. He started explaining to me. I told him, listen, I don’t know. But what do you want there to be? He told me, I want her to be happy. I said to him, are you doing everything so that she’ll be happy? He said, I’m trying. I said, what do you mean, trying? Explain to me what you do. He said, I buy her things, I take her on trips. I said, that’s not enough. A woman needs attention. A woman needs you to listen to her. He said, I listen. I said, you don’t listen — you hear. There’s a difference between hearing and listening. Listening means entering her world, understanding what she’s going through. He looked at me as if I’d fallen from the moon. He said, what do you mean? I said, look — when you come home and she tells you something, don’t immediately try to find solutions. She doesn’t want solutions; she wants a listening ear. She wants you to feel her. He was silent for a few minutes, and then he said, you know what? You’re right. I never thought about it that way. I always thought I had to be the hero who solves all the problems. I said, that’s the mistake of many men. We think in terms of problem-solving, but women think in terms of emotion and connection. If you can connect to her on the emotional level, everything will look different. He thanked me and left the room feeling completely different.