A Look at Torah and Torah Study – Lesson 22 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] After we finished solving all the geopolitical problems, let’s get to work. The traffic jams are still with us. Our basic advantage over Iran is the traffic jams, and here they’ll never beat us. Okay, so we’re in the area of rabbinic laws, and I said that rabbinic law, at root, doesn’t reflect truth. It doesn’t reflect an essential conception, because if it did, it would be a Torah law. Rather, for example, a decree: I say it’s forbidden to eat poultry with milk lest you come to eat meat with milk. Eating meat with milk is an essential issue, something — it does something, I don’t know exactly what, but it’s an essential matter. Eating poultry with milk has no problem in itself at all; it’s just that you might come to the problematic act of eating meat with milk, and the Sages forbid this too as a protective fence. A protective fence is literally a fence. So this basically means — we saw this for example in the Netivot — that if you see your teacher about to commit a transgression, then with a Torah-level transgression, the Talmud says that for a Torah transgression first we raise an objection and only then act, whereas with rabbinic laws first we act and only afterward raise the objection. Now the question is — the Netivot asks, why? A rabbinic transgression is also a transgression. He says yes, but an unintentional rabbinic transgression — if the rabbi isn’t aware of it, then it’s unintentional — and an unintentional rabbinic transgression is not a transgression. Why not? Because in a Torah transgression there are two aspects. One aspect is the essential matter: when you do it, something happens, good or bad, but something happens. The other matter is the matter of obedience: since the Holy One, blessed be He, said it, you have to obey Him, whether in prohibitions or positive commandments, but obey Him. In rabbinic transgressions there is only the second dimension. There is only the dimension of obedience, because there is no essential issue; if it were an essential issue, it would be Torah law. Therefore, when you do it unintentionally, then the dimension of non-obedience isn’t here, because you don’t know there is such a command, and there is no essential dimension anyway. So in a rabbinic transgression there is no problem at all — commit the transgression unintentionally, nothing happened. With a Torah transgression, we stop him even if it is unintentional, because there is a transgression in the act itself, even if there is no dimension of disobedience here. So this teaches us — again, this Netivot is not universally accepted — but it teaches us that there is an essential difference between rabbinic transgressions, rabbinic laws, and Torah laws. Torah basically determines what the essential truth is, what one must do in order to reach the proper religious goals and avoid improper goals, and the rabbis’ role is only to make sure there are no disturbances — that is, to forbid us and fence us in within what is permitted to us, so that we won’t reach areas that are problematic in the essential sense. Therefore, if I violated a rabbinic prohibition, in practice I didn’t do anything problematic in itself; I simply disobeyed. So that’s the point. And therefore there is really לא תסור (“do not deviate”): the basis of a rabbinic transgression is that when you ate poultry with milk, the transgression you committed is not eating poultry with milk; it is “do not deviate,” because you deviated from the command of the Sages. In other words, the transgression is the disobedience, not the thing itself. So from here, basically, my conclusion was that rabbinic laws are not really part of Torah, because Torah is what was given at Sinai plus the interpretations — or really a reflection of the spiritual-religious truths, however you want to call them — that’s Torah, and the practical implications of those things, which have consequences for what may be done, what may not be done, what must be done, and so on. Rabbinic laws reflect nothing essential. They are simply floating prohibitions; they have no anchor in spiritual reality itself. Therefore when you study them, you’re not really studying Torah. You’re studying Jewish law. You remember that our context is that even within the halakhic realm, which is supposedly the core of Torah, there are still parts that may be part of the halakhic world, but they are not Torah. Okay, so I brought one example from sacrificial matters, I brought one example from monetary law, and the third example was rabbinic laws, where here we really see that yes, in terms of Jewish law you have to do it — rabbinic laws are part of Jewish law — but they are not part of Torah. Exactly like what we saw with enactments and the law of the kingdom and monetary law and sacrificial matters and so on. Another indication of this point: Rabbi Yosef Engel, in his book Lekach Tov, general principle 8, discusses the question whether we find a protective fence at the Torah level. What does that mean? It means: is there a Torah law whose whole point is to serve as a protective fence to prevent another problem? The accepted view is that no. All protective fences are rabbinic laws. There are no Torah-level protective fences. That’s the accepted view. He brings there a few exceptions — he brings the Ran about “it shall not be seen,” I think, and another source about seclusion. That seclusion is indeed a protective fence so that you won’t come to a forbidden act. A Torah-level protective fence — seclusion is a Torah prohibition. And “it shall not be seen” is so that you won’t come to eat and derive benefit from leaven, according to the Ran, and then “it shall not be seen” is also a Torah-level protective fence. But those two things are exceptions that prove the rule. In other words, on the contrary, they teach the opposite. These are two exceptional examples that maybe are indeed protective fences, and even about them there are disputes. But the simple view everywhere else — and probably here too — is that Torah laws are not protective fences. Protective fences are the territory of the Sages. They are responsible for the protective fences. And what stands behind this? That a protective fence, by its essence, does not reflect an essential truth. There is no problem in the fact that you violated the protective fence. So what if you violated the protective fence? Nothing happened. All that happened is the concern lest something else happen that would be problematic in an essential way. But suppose I ate poultry with milk and did not come to eat meat with milk — everything is fine, I didn’t stumble into the prohibition of meat with milk. So in the simple sense, nothing happened on the essential plane, because eating poultry with milk in itself is not problematic. I violated the words of the Sages — that’s not okay on the halakhic level — but there is nothing problematic here on the spiritual level or whatever you want to call it. Okay? In other words, in that sense there is no essential layer underlying the halakhic layer. As a result of this context there are enactments like the market ordinance, or the beam ordinance, or the oath of inducement, all kinds of old enactments like that. The oath of inducement is in the case of someone who denies everything. Someone who denies everything is basically exempt; he is presumed to be in possession, and the burden of proof is on the plaintiff. If I deny everything, I go home, everything is fine. But the Sages enacted an oath of inducement anyway, in order to make sure you’re not lying and so on, because after all you’re getting off without producing proof — so swear. That is the oath of inducement. There is the beam ordinance: a robber who stole a beam, for example, and built it into his house, and now he repents. If we force him to return the beam, he’ll have to tear down the house, dismantle the house, and so on. That would lock the door before penitents, and therefore the Sages enacted that if he built the beam into the house, he doesn’t have to return the beam. Okay? What?

[Speaker C] Or because a change effects acquisition — he already acquired it through the change.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then if it’s considered a change, he already acquired it and has to pay its value. But we’re talking about a case where there is no change. There is the market ordinance, for example: if I buy from a thief and I didn’t know he was a thief — I bought it. Now the owner of that object comes and says, return it, it’s mine. He sold you the Brooklyn Bridge, right? In other words, what he sold you wasn’t his. So the enactment, the market ordinance, says that I don’t have to return it to him. And the purpose, of course, is to allow the market to function. Because otherwise we won’t be able to buy anything — who knows, maybe he stole it. You’d have to investigate the entire genealogy of the object to see how it came into the seller’s possession. That’s not practical. In other words, the market can’t function that way. By the way, the market ordinance also exists in modern legal systems. And all these enactments are enactments that later authorities struggle over a lot. Because on the one hand it’s an enactment, but on the other hand it’s not clear when it was created, where it came from, when it was born. Even the oath of inducement, which in the language of later authorities is called the Talmudic oath. Because there are oaths — there are Torah oaths, which are three oaths: one witness, partial admission, and guardians; those are the three Torah oaths. There are Mishnaic oaths, in chapter 7 of tractate Shevuot, where the Mishnah has all the oaths — the hired worker’s oath and things like that. And then there is the Talmudic oath. The Talmudic oath is inducement. That’s an oath that was created in the period of the Amoraim and did not exist in the period of the Tannaim in the Mishnah. But the Beit HaLevi discusses this at length and says there is some evidence that it already existed in the time of the Mishnah too, even though it’s called the Talmudic oath. And all these enactments — the market ordinance and so on — it is very unclear where they came from, how they were born, and there are various practical ramifications. In the Beit HaLevi, in the discussion there, it is very important to clarify where this enactment originated, because there are various implications — never mind — concerning migo and other things like that. So where does this confusion or problem come from? Usually we are accustomed to the idea that a rabbinic enactment is a response to some change in reality that has arisen. Fine? Let’s say, I don’t know — the Sages saw that people might start coming to eat meat with milk, so they decided to forbid poultry with milk too. The Sages saw, I don’t know, that you could come to separate waste from food, so they forbade separating food from waste too, or things of that kind. So this is a response to some real-life circumstances that exist, and usually this response is created in some generation — meaning, when a certain situation arises that sharpens awareness of some problem, then the Sages deal with it by means of a decree or a protective fence or something like that.

[Speaker D] Eating rice on Passover is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not a rabbinic enactment or a protective fence or anything; it’s just nonsense. But with all the enactments I mentioned before, you don’t find the source. It’s not clear where it came from, and it seems to be something very ancient, really from the time of Mount Sinai and Moses our Teacher. So why is it an enactment? Why is it rabbinic? Usually we know that an enactment is something created over the generations after the Torah was given — so what are these enactments that are really early enactments, that even Moses our Teacher judged by, let’s say for the sake of argument? Why is that an enactment? The answer is because in all these things — say I say the market ordinance, when I bought something from a robber, fine? Essentially it’s yours, it belongs to the owner. If you ask me what the Torah truth is — it’s yours. The Sages saw that this wouldn’t work, the market couldn’t function, so they made an enactment. This is not Torah. It is a response to some problem that forces us to depart from the pure halakhic truth, or the spiritual truth, I don’t know what to call it. Repair or corruption? Yes — in such a place, that is the role of the Sages, even if those Sages are Moses our Teacher. In other words, it’s not because it happened later. It could have happened at Sinai. But the character of this law is not the character of a law that reflects an essential truth, because such a law comes out of interpretation of Torah, out of exposition of Torah, and the like. This law comes out of understanding reality and trying to manage reality. Trying to manage reality is not Torah. We saw that in monetary law too, right? The king’s law, monetary law, the law of the kingdom — in other words, when you want to manage reality, that’s perfectly fine, that’s the king’s law; it’s not Torah law, it’s not Torah. Okay? This is important. It’s Jewish law — if the Sages established it, then it has to be observed — but it isn’t Torah. There is nothing there; there is no spiritual truth here.

[Speaker F] But reading on the Sabbath — isn’t that from the Torah? I didn’t understand. Public reading from the Torah on the Sabbath?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, I’ll get to that in a moment. I haven’t discussed that yet.

[Speaker B] But sometimes they stop the damage from happening — I mean, damage did happen, in a sense. Suppose you follow the Torah — I don’t know — restoring stolen property, and then suddenly they made some enactment that allows this market law, so then it’s as if according to the Torah some damage happened in the world in some…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but there’s no choice, because without it an even greater damage would occur.

[Speaker B] So it’s all just damages all the time?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Without it, an even greater damage would happen. We have to make decisions under constraints. The damage is that people may come to eat meat with milk, so they forbid poultry with milk. The damage is that the market won’t be able to function.

[Speaker B] But that’s a protective fence. But the market not functioning — that’s not your problem, that’s God’s problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, God’s problem? No, it’s my problem. What do you mean? We’re human beings. That Jewish law won’t work out… no, that’s not a correct conception of Torah. Life has to function. Torah is not supposed to interfere with life.

[Speaker B] As if you’re causing damage…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud says, וחי בהם ולא שימות בהם (“and live by them, and not die by them”), and from here it learns that saving a life overrides the Sabbath. I violate the Sabbath in order to save lives. You say: don’t violate the Sabbath, you keep the Sabbath and leave it to the Holy One, blessed be He, to save the lives. No — because they say, “and live by them, and not die by them.” Torah is not supposed to interfere with the proper functioning of life.

[Speaker B] The world is supposed to adapt itself?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it won’t adapt itself. It’s impossible. The market can’t — if it could adapt itself, they wouldn’t have made the enactment. That’s the Sages’ assessment at least. No, it can’t adapt itself. If it were possible to adapt itself, there’d be no need for the enactment.

[Speaker B] But today you can’t buy a stolen car because there’s registration, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s unrelated. Also with land, even back then, if you bought stolen land, that’s not — the beam ordinance has nothing to do with it.

[Speaker B] Today there’s technology to track theft…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so if you have technology to track it, then cancel it — no problem. But if you don’t have tracking technology, and you have no solution, what do you do? There’s no choice. You pay a halakhic price in order to manage normal life. That’s the whole idea.

[Speaker B] So you cause damage in the world?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right — spiritual damage in the world, in order for the human-social world to function properly. Yes, exactly. That is precisely the meaning of these enactments.

[Speaker B] And where does the authority come from to do that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s “do not deviate.” Never mind — you can argue about “do not deviate.”

[Speaker B] “Do not deviate”? Why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Do not deviate from the Sages, not from the Torah. The Sages deviated from the Torah, and you’re not allowed to deviate from them.

[Speaker B] The Sages are allowed to deviate from the Torah? Yes. Certainly. Leniently? Yes, certainly. Meaning, if today the Sages decide that for the sake of the matter it is permitted to eat — the court…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A court, the Sanhedrin probably. But in principle, yes, certainly.

[Speaker B] No, but I think according to Maimonides, if a rabbi comes to you and tells you to do something…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not a rabbi. I’m saying the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin determines the Jewish law. Once it determines it — how did they decide that one does not blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah when it falls on the Sabbath? There is a Torah positive commandment to blow on Rosh Hashanah that falls on the Sabbath. They canceled a Torah positive commandment. How? Because there is a concern lest someone carry it four cubits in the public domain. So what? Fine. Trust the Holy One, blessed be He. No — we have to manage the world, not the Holy One, blessed be He. And if we need to do something so that the world will function properly, then we need to do it. Yes, I think a substantial part of the Haredi conception suffers at exactly this point. You don’t understand the relation between Torah and the world. You think first Torah, period, and then let the world work itself out. No, no.

[Speaker B] Intuitively they’re right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, intuitively they’re right, but in practice they’re not right. Torah is supposed to function within the world. Torah was not given to monks.

[Speaker E] And a nazirite who eats grapes — is he violating a Torah prohibition? Yes. And “go around, go around” is rabbinic?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. It’s not even rabbinic. It’s an expression: סחור סחור אמרינן לנזירא (“go around, go around, we say to the nazirite”). It’s not that there is a rabbinic enactment that a nazirite may not go near a vineyard. It’s a recommendation: listen, you’d better not go near it, because otherwise you’ll stumble. From there it didn’t even become a prohibition, just a warning or recommendation of that sort. So the point is that an enactment or rabbinic laws are laws that have no essence behind them. There is only the duty of obedience, and that is part of Jewish law, but they have no essence behind them. But that is not true of all rabbinic laws. There are rabbinic laws that apparently do have essence behind them. For example, someone mentioned earlier the enactment to read from the Torah. Okay? The Sages’ enactment to read from the Torah is not a protective fence, it is not a decree. It is not a concern lest something else happen. The Sages established a certain pattern of Torah study, Torah reading, that is obligatory. What does that mean? It means that they saw value in this thing in itself. It is not a protective fence to prevent some other Torah-level problem. It has value in itself.

[Speaker B] Or maybe it’s a protective fence so people won’t forget the Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not a protective fence so people won’t forget the Torah. All Torah study is a protective fence so people won’t forget Torah. When there is a law, you have to learn and prepare.

[Speaker B] Yes, but then it would be Torah law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it would be Torah law if they had defined the boundaries of the commandment of Torah study that way.

[Speaker B] If it wasn’t defined that way, it’s rabbinic. So what is it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean it wasn’t defined? The Sages established it. Why didn’t they establish it? Why is it rabbinic law?

[Speaker B] It’s part of the definition that study…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s rabbinic law. Yes — why? Let them define it as Torah law. This is the definition of the commandment of Torah study, it’s not something additional. This is how we interpret the commandment of Torah study. So what? No — it’s rabbinic law. Or take all the enactments, for example: Hanukkah, Purim, ritual hand-washing, the eruv. All kinds of things like that. These are enactments that are not decrees and not protective fences. Rabbinic enactments are often some kind of rabbinic positive commandments. Yes — we basically do various things because they have value, and the obligation is a rabbinic obligation. In the context of Sabbath laws, a number of later authorities discuss this — it already starts with Maimonides when he speaks about carrying and other places in the laws of the Sabbath — that there are really two kinds of restrictions of rest. A restriction of rest means rabbinic prohibitions. There are two kinds of rabbinic Sabbath restrictions. There is the restriction that you may not ride a horse, lest you pluck a twig. If you ride a horse, you pass by a tree, you’ll pluck a twig. Therefore they forbade riding a horse. Nobody would say that riding a horse is harvesting on the rabbinic level. I didn’t pluck a twig. I just rode a horse. Fine? I violated a prohibition. It’s forbidden to ride a horse. What prohibition did I violate? Is that rabbinic harvesting? I didn’t harvest anything. I’m riding a horse — what do you want from me? There is a concern lest I come to harvest. Okay? So no — it’s a rabbinic prohibition in its own right, right? Now there are… there are restrictions, for example, where separating food from waste was forbidden on the rabbinic level, when at the Torah level what is forbidden is separating waste from food. Now there there is room to discuss: was separating food from waste forbidden lest you come to separate waste from food, and so it’s a protective fence? Or not — rather, the whole concept of selecting is problematic on the Sabbath, and in separating waste from food it appears in its full force — that is the full problematic form. In separating food from waste, there is problematicity — there is the problematicity of selecting, but at a lower level. Therefore the Torah does not forbid it on the Sabbath, but the Sages lower the threshold and say: no, from our point of view, this too is forbidden. And according to the second view, that means that separating food from waste was not forbidden out of concern that you might come to separate waste from food, but because it is itself problematic — only the problematicity is at a lower level, therefore the Torah does not forbid it, only the Sages do. What is the difference between these two? The difference is that prohibitions of this type, like separating food from waste, are intrinsic prohibitions. It’s not out of concern that you’ll come to something else. It itself is problematic. There is essence behind it. It’s a rabbinic prohibition, but it’s a rabbinic prohibition that has essence behind it. It isn’t a floating prohibition. Say, riding a horse on the Sabbath — there is no essence behind that. The whole issue is the concern lest you pluck a twig. But riding a horse in itself is not problematic. Right? Nothing problematic happened if I rode a horse and didn’t come to pluck a twig. I rode a horse — nothing problematic happened. So the restrictions of that type, like riding a horse on the Sabbath, are ordinary rabbinic laws, protective fences, decrees, yes — lest you come to a Torah-level problem. But restrictions like separating food from waste are restrictions that reflect essential problematicity, not concern about some other problematicity.

[Speaker B] How can the rabbis decide that if we take the Torah to be absolute truth that came from an external source that sees things I don’t see, and that I’m causing real damage in the world — physical damage, mystical damage, whatever — when I commit some transgression, eat pork or I don’t know, worship idols, then how can the rabbis suddenly decide they have the power to say that I caused damage in the world?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You understand that here too there’s an issue of selecting. The concept of selecting damages something — I don’t know exactly what. Now the Sages say: wait a second, if the concept of selecting causes damage, then separating waste from food is selecting in its purest form, but even in separating food from waste there is an element of selecting. Why? Because the Torah said the full problematicity is found there, but the Torah did not say that there is no problematicity at a lower level in separating food from waste. So it isn’t serious enough to be forbidden. The Sages say: very good, we are not violating “do not add.” If they forbade it as Torah law, then they would be violating “do not add.” Rather they say: right, we are lowering the threshold — even a small degree of problematicity, we forbid.

[Speaker B] That’s even more of a protective fence.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not a protective fence, because it wasn’t forbidden lest you come to separate waste from food. It was forbidden because it itself is problematic, only the level of problematicity is lower. And you see that there’s an element of selecting here. By the way, how do they know that separating waste from food is problematic? The Sages established that too. Not the Torah. The Torah didn’t even establish that selecting is forbidden. You won’t find that in the Torah either.

[Speaker B] So how does that work?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Sages established it. Right — so the Sages who established that this is the full problematicity can also establish that here there is half the problematicity or a third of the problematicity. What’s the problem? That’s all their determination.

[Speaker B] No, right, but everything you take not from the text, not from the canon — then it’s all invention.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not invention, it’s interpretation.

[Speaker B] How do the Sages know that it causes damage in the world?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Interpretation. You say: it’s written that labor is forbidden on the Sabbath, and labor apparently causes damage. Now you ask yourself: yes, but the Torah didn’t say what labor is. How do I know? So you begin to think what the Torah meant by the word labor, right? You can think about what is called labor. Okay — or I see that it’s attached to the Tabernacle, and therefore I learn it from the Tabernacle. Never mind — through various methods, or reasoning, or interpretation, or exposition, or whatever it may be, the Sages define the concept of labor. But the fact that labor on the Sabbath causes a flaw in the world — that is written in the Torah. All the Sages do is define the concept of labor. Now if the Sages say that the labor of selecting causes a flaw in the world — that is labor, sorry, they say that this is labor, the Torah says labor is forbidden, that’s a flaw in the world, so selecting causes a flaw in the world. Now the Sages ask themselves: fine, but what is selecting? Waste from food? Food from waste? They say: look, waste from food is selecting in the ultimate form, that’s Torah prohibition. But even in selecting food from waste there is an element of labor. It’s not absolute, it’s not something the Torah completely forbids at the Torah level, but there is also a problematic element here,

[Speaker B] An element of labor.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it’s not a protective fence against another problem. Rather it itself is problematic, only at a lower level of problematicity, and therefore it wasn’t forbidden as Torah law.

[Speaker B] Do we learn that from the word labor?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Once you know that selecting is part of the word labor, and this too is a kind of selecting — not perfect, but still there is an element of selecting here — then there is problematicity here. We want the Sabbath to look even better, beyond what the Torah demanded of us, and therefore they add additional layers that the Torah did not forbid. But it did not forbid them — say, riding a horse on the Sabbath, the Torah sees no problem there at all. In selecting food from waste, the Torah also sees a problem, only it’s not a strong enough problem to be forbidden as Torah law and incur stoning on the Sabbath. So the Sages say, fine, then we’ll forbid it as rabbinic law. Okay? In other words, there is an entire family of prohibitions and commandments — mainly rabbinic commandments; almost all rabbinic commandments are like this. But among rabbinic prohibitions too there are some that have intrinsic value behind them, that are not just decrees or protective fences against some other problem. There is intrinsic value behind them. Now there, one can certainly say that this is Torah. Because when you study it, you learn that separating food from waste is also a problematic thing. So you learned some spiritual truth — okay, it’s not the full problematicity, it’s partial problematicity, so you learned the spiritual truth at a higher resolution. But still, such a thing can certainly be called Torah. Everything I said that was not called Torah within rabbinic laws refers to protective fences, decrees, and things like that which are not problematic in themselves. Rav Kook, in Musar Avikha, I think, writes that if there is a protective fence — say, it’s forbidden to eat poultry with milk lest one come to eat meat with milk — then if eating poultry with milk can bring you to eating meat with milk, that is an indication that poultry with milk itself also has some sort of problem in it. That’s what he wants to claim. Now if you accept that, then of course it completely erases the distinction I made here. Because it basically means that everything that is only a protective fence because of something else is in fact problematic in itself too. Then there are no longer two types of rabbinic laws — those problematic in themselves and those that are only a protective fence for something else. Everything that is a protective fence for something else is also problematic in itself.

[Speaker B] But I don’t think that’s the plain simple reading. The distinction we made here…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here it’s stronger. It’s stronger. He probably doesn’t accept it, but I think he’s wrong.

[Speaker F] If you were in a world where there is no meat at all, then meat with milk has no meaning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. In a world where there is no meat at all, correct, there would be no point in not eating poultry with milk. You’re not going to come to eating meat with milk. But if eating poultry with milk is itself problematic because it’s like eating meat with milk only at a lower level, then even if there is no meat in the world, there would still be reason not to eat poultry with milk, because it is a problematic thing. Okay? That has implications. Okay. Now, what does this distinction do? What does it actually say?

[Speaker B] It really seems to me that in today’s world, if there probably won’t be meat anymore in the world, they still won’t permit poultry with milk. I don’t think the rabbis would permit poultry with milk. Because of appearance. Just kidding, optimism. If we do that here, they’ll say it’s even more forbidden to spill the wine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all there is a problem of authority. The authority problem says that when the reason ceases, the enactment does not cease. Because if the enactment was accepted in the Sanhedrin, then you need a Sanhedrin to revoke it even if the reason ceased. And not only do you need a Sanhedrin — you need a Sanhedrin greater in wisdom and in number than the previous Sanhedrin that enacted it. So there are formal authority problems here. But on the essential level, if we again had a Sanhedrin and so on, then it ought to revoke it. That’s obvious. Now what does this actually mean? It means a few things. First, when I study Torah — we discussed this when we spoke about the forced interpretations in earlier stages — when I study Torah, I am not studying a collection of bottom-line rulings, of what the law says. Rather I am trying to understand the conceptual dimensions that stand behind the bottom lines. Why? Because my assumption is that Jewish law reflects some sort of spiritual truths. Fine? And their practical expressions are that it’s forbidden to do this, one has to do that, this is permitted, and so on. Since in rabbinic laws this dimension does not exist, then in practice there is no point in studying a rabbinic legal issue in depth. All you need is to know what you are required to do. You need to know what to do. And the study becomes basically instrumental, not an end in itself. It is a means to know what to do. And we talked about the fact that Torah study is a value in itself. Those who see it as merely a means to know what to do turn Torah study into preparation for a commandment. But Torah study is a commandment; it’s not preparation for a commandment. Therefore, the study has no goal outside itself; it is itself the goal. These are laws — we talked about the fact that Torah laws do not come to serve something outside themselves; they themselves are the prohibition. Rabbinic laws are a protective fence for something else. Torah study too is a Torah law, and Torah study does not come to serve something else. You study Torah in order to cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He, to cleave to Torah, to understand what it says. But for that it is not enough to memorize the bottom lines — what does the law say here and what does it say there. You study in depth — the issue itself: what are the assumptions, what are the understandings, what are the infrastructures, what are the practical ramifications, what abstract definitions, what abstract concepts are assumed, and so on. All that applies to Torah laws. Why? Because with Torah laws my assumption is that behind the laws there really sits that same conceptual, analytic, spiritual infrastructure — however you want to call it — and the study tries to uncover it. But with rabbinic laws, there is no idea and essence and things of that sort behind it. The Sages say: don’t eat poultry with milk lest you come to eat meat with milk. Now the question is: can I derive from this poultry-with-milk prohibition some construction — person-based law or object-based law, and what does that say about how the Sages see man? It’s uninteresting. They see nothing. They’re simply telling you: don’t eat poultry with milk so you won’t come to eat meat with milk. There is no conceptual dimension behind this that you are supposed to uncover through analytic learning. So that is a very important implication, because it basically means that studying rabbinic laws is not called studying Torah. It is not called studying Torah. It is called studying Jewish law. You study in order to know what to do. And studying Torah and studying Jewish law are not the same thing. We talked about this — Rashi at the beginning of the portion of Bechukotai, and we saw it from several contexts. So that’s one implication. And as a result of this, I want to talk about the blessing over Torah. In my view, one does not recite the blessing over Torah study on the study of rabbinic laws, because if it is not Torah study, then one does not recite the blessing. The blessing over Torah is a blessing recited over Torah study. If it is not Torah study, then you do not recite over it the blessing over Torah either. Here maybe — let’s take a quick look at the… what? On rabbinic laws? Yes. Good question. The question was whether this law itself can be learned without the blessing over Torah — the law that one can study rabbinic laws without the blessing over Torah. So regarding the blessing over Torah, the Talmud in Berakhot 11 says as follows. Rav Huna said: for Scripture one must recite a blessing, but for midrash one need not recite a blessing. Rabbi Elazar said: for Scripture and for midrash one must recite a blessing; for Mishnah one need not recite a blessing. Rabbi Yohanan said: even for Mishnah too one must recite a blessing, but for Talmud one need not recite a blessing. But Rava said: even for Talmud one must return and recite a blessing, as Rav Hiyya bar Ashi said: many times I stood before Rav to review our chapter in the schoolbook of Rav — the schoolbook of Rav is basically the Talmud — and he would first wash his hands and bless, and then teach us the chapter. He recited the blessing, and only then taught us. Now the order that appears in the passage is the opposite of what I said. In other words, the more you get closer to conceptual study, the less room there is to recite a blessing over it, right? For Scripture, certainly one must recite a blessing; for midrash, not. Then he says: for Scripture and midrash too one must recite a blessing, but not for Mishnah. Then he says: for Mishnah yes, but not for Talmud — not for Talmud. I would have said this whole order in the opposite way. Maybe only for Talmud. If you tell me Mishnah, that’s already a novelty. If you tell me midrash, that’s also a novelty. If you tell me Scripture, that’s an ultra-novelty, the biggest novelty of all. The entire hierarchy in the Talmud is the reverse hierarchy.

[Speaker B] But if you had asked me before this, I’d have told you that intuitively, at first glance, you’d say it like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why we’re here. If you leave with your ordinary intuition, then what did we do? So I want to claim that in the end, when Rava said, “even for Talmud one must recite a blessing,” and he brought proof for it, I think what he is doing is reversing the order. He is undermining the whole hierarchy — not just that one also recites a blessing over Talmud, but primarily over Talmud one recites a blessing. And therefore in practice everyone rules like Rava. More than that: when it says that for Scripture one must recite a blessing and not for midrash — the midrash appearing there above is halakhic midrash. Look at Rashi. Rashi says midrash is close to Scripture, such as Mekhilta, Sifra, and Sifrei, which are scriptural midrashim. Mekhilta, Sifra, and Sifrei are halakhic midrashim; that’s not Midrash Rabbah. Fine? Halakhic midrash is basically Talmud. Therefore it could be that this whole story of Scripture, midrash, and so on is all talking about Jewish law. Only, Jewish law in Scripture is the core, the thing we received from the Holy One, blessed be He. Midrash is something that emerges from the halakhic verses in the Torah. And then there is Mishnah and Talmud, which is already the oral Torah or broader interpretations, already less attached to the verses. But if you look at it that way, it could be that the whole move here really fits very well with what I’m saying. And it all speaks basically about Jewish law. The whole question is just how close it is to the core of the Jewish law that we received from the Holy One, blessed be He, at Sinai.

[Speaker F] Can you describe it as a tree and branches and where — what? As a tree and branches, where do we place each branch, of what we’ve learned here — Torah — and where would Talmud be, where would this be, where would that be?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They are all branches emerging from the roots, which are the verses. Yes, that’s Maimonides’ expression.

[Speaker B] In the midrash of Scripture you…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t actually understand the Torah. Right. So how is that a branch? Because when you study the prohibition against eating pork that is written in the Torah, then you learned a law that we received from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, at Sinai. So you learned Torah — that’s obvious. Over that one certainly recites the blessing over Torah. Afterward you enter halakhic midrash, which explains to you what pork is and how one may eat and how one may not eat, and so on. Then Mishnah, then Talmud — all of which are interpretations. Now the thing that is closest to the Torah that we received from the Holy One, blessed be He, is indeed the verse in the Torah. That is what the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us.

[Speaker B] You can also get completely confused.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, you can get confused. But still, in the sense of what Torah is, that is the most Torah thing there is. That is what we received from the Holy One, blessed be He. Fine, after that there are interpretations and everything, so this hierarchy that appears here does not necessarily contradict what I said earlier, because it all speaks about Jewish law. It’s just that even within Jewish law there is the law written in the verse, and the law that we learn from midrash, and the law that we learn from reasoning and from various interpretations. So these are just circles around the halakhic core. Look at Rashi there. Rashi on the Talmud says as follows: “Even for Gemara one must recite a blessing.” What would you have said? He should explain that Gemara too — okay, the lowest one, but even there. He says: “for it is the essence of Torah, from which practical instruction emerges.” Gemara means the reasoning behind the Mishnah and the resolutions of Mishnayot that contradict one another, and missing clauses and so on — in short, the whole Talmudic discussion. The whole Talmudic discussion. Now Talmud appears at the end, so Rashi explains to us why one recites a blessing over Talmud too: because Talmud is the essence of Torah. So that means we’ve reversed the hierarchy completely. In other words, once you tell me that one also recites a blessing over Talmud, then basically the whole hierarchy has been reversed. There are some who read the hierarchy as I said earlier. What?

[Speaker F] As if it’s some extra appendage, or just a side point? No, no, no, no — that’s what I’m saying.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But in Rashi you see that not so.

[Speaker F] But suddenly it became the essence of what — the essence of the word.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: “even for Gemara one recites a blessing” means the whole hierarchy you built until now is wrong — even for Gemara one recites a blessing. Not “one recites a blessing also over Gemara,” but “even over Gemara one recites a blessing.” In other words, the emphasis is not on the “even” but on the “Gemara” — that even over Gemara one recites a blessing, because your whole story is wrong, the entire axis you built here is wrong. And he explains it too: he tells you that from there emerge the reasoning of the laws and everything.

[Speaker B] Fine, so Gemara is the most important thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s the explanation. But how do you read that into the Talmudic wording that says “even for Gemara one recites a blessing”? So you have to say that once we got to Gemara, suddenly the whole direction of the axis flips. So that is really the meaning of Torah study regarding rabbinic laws. And if I sum up now, then we’ve reached — we’ve finished the third example of something that lies within the realm of Jewish law but still is not Torah. The first example we saw was in sacrificial matters — the things we did before the giving of the Torah, service of God, which has some status beyond halakhic command. The second example we saw was monetary law, or the law of the kingdom, or public enactments — all sorts of things that are halakhically binding, or learning legal systems. That is halakhically binding, but obviously one does not recite the blessing over Torah on that; it is not Torah study. Okay? But it is halakhically binding, because the law of the kingdom is law. So if the civil law says this or that in monetary law, that is what determines things. Okay? So that is Jewish law that is not Torah. The third example we saw now is rabbinic laws — at least laws of the type of protective fences and decrees. The substantial laws may indeed be part of Torah. Yes, there is some discussion at the end of the two columns I used here, two columns I wrote about this on my website. At the end I discuss: when I study rabbinic laws, maybe this would count as rabbinic Torah study? It would not be the Torah-level commandment of Torah study; it would be a rabbinic commandment of Torah study because I studied rabbinic Torah, rabbinic law. I argue that that is not correct. It would not be Torah study at all, not even rabbinically, because it is not Torah. Where can one say it? With rabbinic laws of the second type. With rabbinic laws of the second type, you learn that separating food from waste is forbidden. And the claim is that separating food from waste is truly a problematic thing, not merely a concern that you might come to separate waste from food. So in essence you are learning something substantial here. There, yes, there is reason to sharpen ideas and think about the idea behind it and study it in depth, all the analytic learning and so on. All this, of course, at a lower or weaker level. Therefore there is reason to do it; it is Torah study, but rabbinic Torah study. So there perhaps one can say that this is rabbinic Torah study, and perhaps one can recite over it the blessing over Torah, also rabbinically, because the blessing over Torah is Torah-level according to Nachmanides. Okay, yes.

[Speaker G] They just remember more, no?

[Speaker I] If you…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you want a real spotlight, then you really need to turn it off, because it’s just…

[Speaker J] Rav Haiman, is that a kind of rabbinic law like — not like Hanukkah…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said: all those commandments belong to the wing that has essence behind it. They are not enactments and protective fences for something else. I said that all rabbinic positive commandments belong there. There are altogether seven that Maimonides counts in the first root, and besides that there are also prohibitions of that sort — invalidating intention, for example, as opposed to riding a horse. So among rabbinic prohibitions too there are some that are like this. Therefore I qualify what I said earlier, that rabbinic laws are not Torah and that one does not recite over them the blessing over Torah. It may be that this applies only to laws that are protective fences and decrees, but not to the substantial laws, where even studying them might count as rabbinic Torah study and perhaps reciting the blessing over them and so on.

[Speaker B] Okay, just a thought — theoretically, someone who studies the whole Talmud and what is written as law, where sometimes the Talmud doesn’t rule practically, so he says okay, where the law is stated according to the Talmud, he acts as the Talmud says, but where not, he can say he’ll derive it himself from studying the Talmud. He doesn’t need to listen to later legal rulings; he can rule for himself. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How is that connected to what I said? That’s completely true — but how is it connected to what I said?

[Speaker B] No, because we said the law of the kingdom is law. So suppose I look at all the laws I learn from the Talmud as the law of the kingdom is law — so the Talmud binds me that way — and everything else I can interpret for myself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I fully agree. Again, I still don’t see why that…

[Speaker B] No, it’s just the most — like, today if someone starts putting things in order…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I said I fully agree, and I also say that it’s true. It’s not the accepted approach, but I still fully agree. I just don’t see that it’s connected to our discussion. No, it just popped into my head.

[Speaker B] Yes okay. It came to mind because we said that, like, just as you study laws — there are laws you study that are Torah-level, you study Jewish law, and everything else is kind of not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, when in the Talmud you reach a halakhic conclusion, the halakhic conclusion is the culmination of studying the sugya; that is part of Torah.

[Speaker B] Right, but they don’t always reach a conclusion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if they don’t, then no — just some scholar who comes…

[Speaker B] Obviously, not just can, but must.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not just can — must.

[Speaker B] Yes, but today you’re obligated to the law of the rabbis.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know — speak for yourself, don’t say “you.” For me, no.

[Speaker B] No, that’s the school of thought, that’s what’s accepted.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s what’s accepted. I’m not obligated to what’s accepted. As part of the fact that I’m not obligated to what’s accepted, that includes the obligation to what’s accepted — that too is accepted, and I’m not obligated to it. On that same subject… there is an article on my website, if you want, on authority and autonomy in halakhic ruling, and there I explain this. Okay, so the fourth and last example of Jewish law that is not Torah is things derived from reasoning. Things derived from reasoning — I also talked about this in some parallel series here, I don’t remember where. For example, the Talmud says in several places, asking: why do I need a verse? It is reasoning. Right? Why does the verse write this? I would know it even without the verse. I would know it from reasoning. So the medieval authorities — really already the early authorities, and then the later ones too — infer from here that something derived from reasoning has the same status as something written in the Torah. Because if it had a lower status — say, if it were only rabbinic — then it would make no sense to ask, “why do I need a verse? It is reasoning.” The verse is written so it will be Torah law. If the verse had not been written and you derived it from reasoning, then it would be rabbinic. But if the Talmud says that the verse and the reasoning are equivalent, equal alternatives, then it means that what comes from a verse and what comes from reasoning have the same status. Okay? That’s on one side. Now the Talmud in Berakhot 35 discusses there where we learn that one must recite a blessing before food — blessings over enjoyment: “who brings forth bread from the earth,” “creator of the fruit of the tree,” “that all came to be by His word,” and the like. So the Talmud there discusses this, brings various sources, and in the end says: it is reasoning. What is the reasoning? That it is forbidden to derive benefit from this world without a blessing, and anyone who derives benefit from this world without a blessing is as if he committed sacrilege. Right? So in fact there is a reasoning here: the world was created by the Holy One, blessed be He, you want to use it, ask permission from the owner of the house. Okay? In other words, bless the owner of the house for giving it to you, or whatever, something like that. Now, so this is reasoning. The Penei Yehoshua asks: if it is reasoning, then why is the rule that in cases of doubt about blessings we are lenient? After all, reasoning and verse are the same thing, so reasoning is Torah law, right? So it turns out that the obligation to bless is Torah-level. So if the obligation to bless is Torah-level, then why be lenient in cases of doubt regarding blessings? We should be stringent. Fine? So he says, maybe the reasoning…

[Speaker B] Would exempt you too. What? Even from reasoning I can say it’s easier. Because it’s like taking on credit — you’ll bless afterward again. It’s like…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the reasoning says to bless, then you’re telling me the reasoning says not to bless in such a case? No problem. But all that is true only if there were such a reasoning.

[Speaker B] There are rules that you have to pay for everything the moment you take it off the shelf. Okay. But in a case where you forgot and you get to the register at the end, then what you forgot you pay for at the end.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Answer: you didn’t steal it from the shelf. So I’m saying, then this has nothing to do with doubt about blessings being lenient. Then it isn’t because of doubt about blessings being lenient, but because in the laws of blessings you can also bless afterward. Everything is fine. “Doubt about blessings is lenient” doesn’t say that. According to what you’re saying, part of the reasoning of the laws of blessings tells us that it’s okay not to bless beforehand; bless afterward, nothing happened. That’s not from the law of doubts — that’s a definition within the laws of blessings. But here it’s presented as part of the laws of doubts. I don’t know what the laws of blessings say. But if you’re in doubt, you can be lenient because this is a rabbinic doubt and with rabbinic doubt we are lenient. Understand? What you’re bringing is essential reasoning. You’re basically saying that from the perspective of the laws of blessings there’s no problem — bless afterward, nothing happened. That is not the rule of doubt about blessings being lenient. That rule would say, fine, you don’t have to bless before, bless afterward too as a matter of law, not because of doubt about blessings being lenient. And if I say “doubt about blessings is lenient,” that means I have no ruling as a matter of law, I don’t know what the laws of blessings require of me, so I am in doubt. Therefore I apply here the rule that in doubt about blessings we are lenient. About that the Penei Yehoshua asks: yes, but if the obligation of blessings is Torah-level, the doubt should require stringency, not leniency. So let me just say parenthetically that in my opinion that is really correct. One should bless in a case of doubt. Just not with God’s name and kingship. Why? Because if you bless with God’s name and kingship, then maybe you uttered God’s name in vain. Right? So you don’t bless with God’s name and kingship. And since there is a reasoning to bless the Holy One, blessed be He, that reasoning can be fulfilled in any language, in any wording, in any style — it makes no difference. The Sages are the ones who established the formula with God’s name and kingship and so on. That is a rabbinic enactment. But there is a Torah-level obligation, which is the reasoning that says I must bless. I can fulfill that obligation even if I don’t use the formula established by the Sages. So since I am in doubt whether I blessed or not, I’ll say: thank you very much, Holy One, blessed be He, for this nice apple, thank You for allowing me to eat it. And that’s it, everything is fine. Or to say “Blessed are You… creator of the fruit of the tree” without God’s name and kingship. To say the sentence, but without God’s name and kingship. Then I fulfilled the Torah-level obligation, because I thanked the Holy One, blessed be He. I did not do it in the formula established by the Sages, so I did not fulfill the rabbinic requirement, but in cases of rabbinic doubt we are lenient, so I didn’t need to. Only Torah-level doubt requires stringency. And I also did not violate “do not take [the name of the Lord your God in vain].” Fine? So that solves the problem. Therefore in my opinion, in a case of doubt about blessings one should indeed be stringent. Stringent. And one should bless in any event. Now the Tzelach — that’s the Noda B’Yehuda on the Talmud — comments on this Penei Yehoshua. He says that what the Penei Yehoshua assumes is incorrect. When we say that reasoning is like a verse, that reasoning is Torah-level, that is only where the reasoning interprets an existing law, a law that already has a verse. But where reasoning creates a new law, out of nothing, that is not Torah-level. For that you need a verse. Without a verse, it is not Torah-level. Okay? So if I have reasoning that tells me, I don’t know, reasoning tells me not to cook a kid in its mother’s milk, and from here I learn that it appears three times, and I learn from here that it means a prohibition of eating, benefit, and cooking — this is my interpretive reasoning, this is how I understand those three verses. Okay? That reasoning did not create a new law. It only helped me understand what the verse says. And after I used the reasoning, as far as I’m concerned that’s what is written in the verse. Therefore it is Torah law. Not because reasoning is Torah law. The verse is Torah law; the reasoning helped me understand what the verse says. That’s all. But if the reasoning creates the law itself for me, not interpreting a law written in a verse but creating the law itself, then it will not be Torah-level. For something to be Torah-level, there has to be a command in the Torah. If there is no verse, it is not Torah-level. That is the Tzelach’s claim against the Penei Yehoshua. On the other hand, it is clear that if reasoning says to do something, a new law like blessings over enjoyment, then there is an obligation to do it. There is an obligation to act according to the reasoning. Right — its status is not Torah-level, but there is an obligation to do it. What is this thing? What is this status of an obligation whose status is not Torah-level? So I claim that this is again an example of what I was talking about earlier. There is an obligation in the sense that it is Jewish law. You have to bless before eating. We would have had to bless before eating even before the Sages enacted their formula, because there is reasoning that says it is forbidden to derive benefit from this world without a blessing. Now what is the meaning of this obligation? There is no verse that obligates it, so it is not Torah law, but the reasoning says it must be done. This is Jewish law that is not Torah. Halakhically, it must be done, but it does not emerge from verses in the Torah or from interpreting them, and therefore it does not enter the definition of Torah in the object-sense, if you remember. Torah in the object-sense is what we received at Sinai and the interpretation around that corpus, because interpretation only tells us what is written in the Torah that we received. That is what interpretation does. Therefore interpretation is an inseparable part of the Torah we received. But only things that really interpret the Torah we received. Reasonings are not interpretations of the Torah we received. It’s not that they’re wrong — they’re right, and they are also halakhically binding. If something comes out from reasoning, you are halakhically obligated to do it; people will bring a claim against you if you don’t do it. Therefore it is halakhically binding, but it is not Torah. It is not Torah because it does not come out of the Torah. It does not reflect some spiritual truth or whatever exactly. Fine — it has to be done. So there is halakhic obligation here, but it is not necessarily Torah. There is room to say that it is even Torah. I’m just finishing off this fourth example a little, because after all there is substantive reasoning here. It is forbidden to derive benefit from this world without a blessing — that is true reasoning. It is not a concern lest you come to something else, but rather this itself is problematic. So this does connect to rabbinic laws that have substantive reasoning behind them, regarding which I said there is room to say that this is Torah. Torah perhaps in a broader or weaker sense, but still, this is Torah. It is not something devoid of its own content, devoid of intrinsic content. What?

[Speaker B] Like selecting — I think that’s right. So in that way with blessing they connect it to blessing. Suppose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is no blessing in the Torah. They’re not connecting it to anything — that’s exactly the point.

[Speaker B] No, it says “and you shall eat and be satisfied,” they said that at the end, so…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then let’s also put it at the beginning. You’re saying it’s like selecting, just weaker, so here too there is a weaker blessing. It could be, although that’s not how the Talmud presents it. In the Talmud it’s presented as “it is forbidden to derive benefit from this world without a blessing.” In other words, they don’t say this is the after-meal blessing on the rabbinic level, but some independent reasoning, it seems — I don’t know. In any case, so that is the fourth example. Let me summarize the examples for a moment. So what this basically means is that the main thing in Torah is Jewish law. Things that are outside Jewish law are Torah in the person-sense. And Torah in the person-sense certainly narrows the concept of Torah in the object-sense very sharply, but it greatly broadens the concept of Torah in the person-sense. Torah in the person-sense is any valuable study that helps me develop a worldview, understand the world, understand the Holy One, blessed be He, divine service, my standing before Him, and so on. That can also be literature, it can be philosophy, it can be psychology — whatever speaks to each person — science, mathematics. All that can be Torah in the person-sense. And Torah in the object-sense is only Jewish law. Now I went into the concept of Jewish law itself, and there too I said that there are actually parts that are not Torah — not even in the person-sense. They are not Torah at all. They are not Torah at all, because Torah in the person-sense is something that has wisdom behind it; I learned something true. It is not a protective fence lest something else happen. It is something that has real value; it is real wisdom. Therefore it is Torah in the person-sense. By contrast, here there is nothing true at all. I only have to learn it in order to know what to do, but it does not reflect any principle I have learned. Therefore here it is not Torah at all — rabbinic law, or enactments, or the market ordinance, the law of the kingdom, right exactly, or all those things. Okay, so that is the overall picture. What I want to do now — I think we have two meetings left besides this one — is to enter a little into the question of what Torah study is. If you remember, I said at the beginning of the semester that I wanted to discuss what Torah is — that is what we’ve done until now. From here onward I want to discuss what Torah study is. Now these are different questions, but there is a connection between them. We’ll soon see that connection, and in the end I’ll try, as much as I manage, to get to tradition, which still connects to both questions — what Torah is and what Torah study is — and to look at tradition a little differently. So that is as far as we’ll get in the end.

[Speaker K] You joined in, and in general there are people who would also say that Kabbalah has something in it that would count as Torah in the person-sense, in the way you’re talking about it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t remember saying that, but I can say a few sentences. Look, it is accepted in the religious world to see Kabbalah as something that was also given to Moses at Sinai, just passed along secretly on the side, in some side channel. Certainly not in the full sense that everything that came to us is basically only what was given to Moses plus interpretations. It could be that there are a few basic principles there that maybe yes — differences between justice and mercy, between the sefirot, I don’t know, a few very very basic structures. So personally, when I look at Kabbalah, I think it is a field that is interesting — meaning, it does teach you something that you wouldn’t have thought of without knowing this field — but it’s a little overrated in the sense that people attribute terribly great significance to every little flourish and every detail, and in my view those are mostly inventions. The fundamental principles are meaningful principles. The rest is flourishes.

[Speaker F] How do you place that among the books, among halakhic midrashim — less than halakhic midrashim?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no — what you just heard was not about books at all. I’m talking now…

[Speaker F] About content.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not about books.

[Speaker F] In terms of the concept of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where would you integrate the contents of Kabbalah?

[Speaker F] So I’m saying, I’m talking…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] About content, not books.

[Speaker F] No, in terms of content.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but it’s not books. In one book you can have contents from several different categories, so I can’t assign a status to a book. I can assign a status to content. Fine? I’m saying that the basic principles of Kabbalah, in my view…

[Speaker F] And midrashim too are not all Jewish law in the end.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I said that the aggadic parts of the Talmud, in my view, are not Torah. At least not in the object-sense. So a book determines nothing. Within one book there can be different elements. Why? Because I was speaking about content.

[Speaker F] In a book of halakhic midrash too you agreed with me that there are several kinds of things. Right, and in a book there are several kinds of things — so where is this in terms of the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If I dodged it, then here — you just repeated exactly what I said, so where did I dodge? What I said is that even in a book of halakhic midrash there are all kinds of things, including stories. The book is not Torah. The halakhic midrashim that appear in it are Torah. I was very clear.

[Speaker B] One Talmud is Torah and everything else is just nothing?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes — never mind. I’m talking about content, not books. That is true of halakhic midrash, true of books of Kabbalah, true of everything.

[Speaker B] Now in the end…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When you look at this Kabbalah through broader lenses, you see that very similar ideas appear in many mystical teachings elsewhere too. Right? This duality, these pairs of kindness and judgment, or yin and yang, or male and female, all kinds of things of that sort — this duality appears in almost every mystical teaching. Even the order of the sefirot can be found — if not exactly the same thing, at least something similar — in many mystical traditions. Anyone who read Gurdjieff, for example, knows his Ray of Creation — there are seven sefirot there, really sefirot, not exactly like in Kabbalah, but really sefirot. And somehow, precisely from that perspective, it seems that different mystical traditions really do grasp certain angles or aspects of reality correctly. The fact that this appears in different places that are not dependent on each other in the same way means there are people there with what might be called spiritual charisma — in other words, some kind of intuition for grasping things that people without those intuitions find harder to grasp, or don’t grasp as much. That is what’s called Kabbalists or mystics. Gershom Scholem writes in Devarim BeGo, at the end of the first part I think, and he cites something from Agnon’s Book of Deeds, where a man says he met a certain mystic, and everything the mystic said, he found inside himself — meaning, the mystic managed to formulate things that the man himself had not known how to formulate for himself, and after hearing it from him he understood that this too was already inside him. And Scholem’s claim was that a valuable mystic is a mystic such that after he says what he says, many other people find it in themselves too. So some mystic who just babbles all kinds of things — maybe he’s right, maybe he sees things, but if none of us connect to it, if none of us sees that there is something meaningful there, then he is not a significant mystic. Maybe he understands many things, but he has no impact and of course teaches us nothing. Okay? A significant mystic — a mystic who has influence — is someone who, although he carves these things out of some subjective experience of his own, nevertheless he hit on a correct point that I didn’t know how to formulate properly, I didn’t know how to conceptualize properly, and he did manage to do it. Maybe — now we’re already entering skeptical questions — but if I take it seriously, then it means he discovered something here that I didn’t manage to put my finger on, but he discovered something, not invented something. In other words, he discovered a certain point. And the fact that this happens in many places in the same form is also an indication of that. Because it means there are people here who probably do grasp certain layers of reality in a way that ordinary people do not. It’s not accessible to them. But if they did it from different angles, in different ways, from different schools, and reached similar things, then it means there is probably something true here. In other words, something they really grasped. There is a commentary by Rabbi Shabtai Donnolo the physician on Sefer Yetzirah. Sefer Yetzirah is the work attributed to Abraham our father, an ancient Kabbalistic book. There is a commentary, and in the introduction to that commentary he writes that from childhood he read these books and did not understand a single word. He had no idea what to do with these books. Then he became a great traveler, traveled around the world and so on. He says he once met some Flemish-Persian sage — if I remember correctly, I don’t remember anymore. A non-Jewish Persian sage, some Muslim Sufi type, because there is Muslim mysticism, Christian mysticism, mysticism in many places. He met this fellow, and the man explained the whole thing to him, and from then on he understood Sefer Yetzirah and wrote a commentary on it. And we have that commentary — it appears in all the standard printed editions of Sefer Yetzirah, Rabbi Shabtai Donnolo the physician. So what does that mean? Exactly what I told you before. There are probably people who manage to grasp certain ideas or certain structures in reality that ordinary people do not manage to grasp. And the fact that it matches, the fact that it looks similar, means there is probably something true there. It is not an invention, not just fantasy. Therefore I say that in certain respects, these basic patterns are definitely patterns of value, and I would call them Torah in the person-sense. That is no different from a book of philosophy, no different from a book of mathematics, Guide of the Perplexed, or the Maharal, or whatever. Okay? All these things are valuable patterns, and as I said, they are no less important than Torah in the object-sense — just different. I explained that when I talked about Torah in the person-sense and the object-sense. And the claim is that this is no different from any book of thought or any other thought that we study. So in that sense I definitely see value in it — the value of Torah in the person-sense. Torah in the person-sense because people do not arrive at it by interpreting the Torah, but from their own perceptions, exactly like any philosopher or scientist or whoever it may be. It is not interpretation of Torah, and therefore it is not Torah in the object-sense but Torah in the person-sense. On the details, I am doubtful whether it is even Torah in the person-sense. I don’t know. To me it’s not — it doesn’t convince me. It doesn’t seem reliable enough to me. But everyone can decide for himself. If to him it does seem reliable and it builds him and is meaningful to him, then it is Torah in the person-sense for him too. As for me, I think the basic patterns are very interesting. I think they illuminate many points for me. I have also used them in many contexts — the basic patterns, not the details. Here, “the thirteenth strand in the beard” — I’m not sure I can derive some conclusion from that. But these structures — that there are ten sefirot, divided into three, into three lines, that there are worlds where one is born from the other, that there is a right side and a left side, kindness and judgment, male and female, the link between kindness and male and between judgment and female — all these things I think are very interesting. There are conceptions behind them that have a great many implications for how we perceive the world and wisdom.

[Speaker F] Wait — do all these things prepare Torah, all these things?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? So I’m saying, this is Torah in the person-sense. Torah in the person-sense. To me it’s like a book of philosophy, like any other form of wisdom. I don’t think the Kabbalists are offering an interpretation of the Torah. I don’t see it as interpretation of the Torah. In other words, they take a conceptual system that they did not derive from the Torah — a conceptual system they drew from other places, I don’t know, their spiritual intuition or whatever, maybe also a little from transmitted tradition, whatever — and use it to interpret verses. But it doesn’t come out of the verses. On the contrary: it is a language they bring to the verses, and then they say, okay, so Abraham and Sarah are matter and form. Okay? Form and matter.

[Speaker F] Yes, and the ecstasy, the ecstasy that comes from that — is that also Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, ecstasy is just psychology. It’s not Torah and not not-Torah. Someone repeats verses, or repeats mantras, or repeats… that isn’t worth much, but it’s Torah in the sense that in the end you’re repeating verses, you’re saying Torah. That’s true regardless of the question of ecstasy.

[Speaker F] If you do it…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Whether you do it in ecstasy or not in ecstasy is not interesting — that’s a psychological question. So that really also has to connect to the question that I’m already afraid I don’t know how far I’ll manage to get to, or at least need to begin with: the question of study. And the question of study is very important also for defining the difference between Torah in the person-sense and Torah in the object-sense, because it projects onto the question — or is determined by the question — of how the study is carried out. In other words, the content domain and the way one studies it are connected. Therefore the definition of what Torah is and the definition of what study is — and therefore what Torah study is — are connected definitions. We’ll see that. So to understand this, we need to understand what study is, what Torah is, and what study is. What Torah is — that is what we have dealt with until now. Now I’m dealing with the question: what is study? To understand that, maybe I’ll begin — only begin, because I won’t get far today — okay, I want to begin with the sugya of “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” because I think the framework of the discussion in that sugya will teach us a lot about our issues. The Talmud discusses in Bava Kamma 20a, near the bottom, not important. Rav Hisda said to Rami bar Hama: “You weren’t with us in the evening at the boundary, where we discussed excellent matters.” You weren’t in the study hall in the evening, where there were fascinating things. They dealt in the study hall with fascinating issues. So that’s Rav Hisda speaking to Rami bar Hama. Rami bar Hama says: “What were the excellent matters?” What did you discuss there? So Rav Hisda tells him: “We discussed this: one who dwells in another’s courtyard without his knowledge — must he pay rent, or need he not pay rent? What are the circumstances? If you say it is a courtyard not meant for rent and a person who would not rent, then this one does not benefit and that one does not lose, so certainly he need not pay. But if it is a courtyard meant for rent and a person who would rent, then this one benefits and that one loses, so certainly he must pay. It is only needed in the case of a courtyard not meant for rent and a person who would rent. What then? Can he say to him, ‘What loss did I cause you?’ Or perhaps he can say to him, ‘But you benefited’?” What does this mean? It says: someone who lives in his fellow’s courtyard, in his fellow’s house, without his knowledge — he didn’t ask permission, didn’t rent it by contract — does he have to pay for that or not? That is the question, and that is the “excellent matter” that he was so excited they had discussed in the study hall. Fine? So the Talmud begins to clarify. He describes to him what happened in the study hall. In the study hall they began to clarify, saying: look, we need to distinguish. The person who entered the courtyard can be in one of two states: either he has no house to live in — “a person who would rent,” meaning he needs the house — or “a person who would not rent,” meaning he lives there but in fact he has somewhere else to live; he gained nothing from it. That concerns whether he benefited. If he would rent, then he benefited. If he would not rent, then he did not benefit. There is another question: is the courtyard meant for rent? Is the courtyard intended for rental, or was I basically intending to leave it as it is? If it is meant for rent and I entered your courtyard while it was meant for rent, then you have suffered a loss. If it is not meant for rent, then you have not suffered a loss. So now we are constructing the case of a person who entered his fellow’s courtyard without his knowledge, and we construct it as follows: there are four situations — this one benefits and that one loses; this one does not benefit and that one does not lose; this one benefits and that one does not lose; this one does not benefit and that one does lose. Four situations. The Talmud says like this: if it is “this one benefits and that one loses,” then certainly he must pay. I benefited, so he must pay; and the other suffered loss, so he must pay, right? From all aspects, he must pay. If I did not benefit and he did not lose, then certainly he need not pay. If I benefited and he did not lose — that is the Talmud’s question: does he have to pay for the benefit even though the other didn’t lose? “This one benefits and that one does not lose.” That means a person who would rent — he benefited — but the courtyard is not meant for rent, so the owner did not lose, but I benefited. And that is the Talmud’s discussion: must he pay or not? Now the first question that comes to me in this context — and here the framework is more important than the discussion itself — I want to talk about the framework of the sugya. What was he so excited about?

[Speaker D] Maybe it was something they hadn’t thought of before…

[Speaker B] Fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How is that different from every other sugya? There are lots of sugyot like that in the Talmud, no? I’ll tell you what’s different. There was once a series at the National Library, a series of meetings, called “Meeting in the Babylonian Talmud.”

[Speaker B] It still exists.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so at one of the first meetings I was there with Tomer Persico and Meir Buzaglo. We were discussing, and I suggested to them that we discuss this sugya, “this one benefits and that one does not lose.” I told them that the Talmud usually does not do the kind of conceptual investigations of the later authorities, this analytic style. The Talmud doesn’t deal in analytic conceptualism. The Talmud is question, answer, this, that. The conceptualism is created by the commentators. Among the early authorities in a small way, among the later authorities in a big way. Among the very late later authorities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it’s even more so. The concept of analytic conceptual learning as we know it today is a new concept. Now, of course, we study it inside Maimonides. When I study Maimonides I explain what conceptual infrastructure lies behind what he said, or behind the Rashba, or whoever it is. But in fact the conceptualism here was created by me, not by Maimonides. And I’m not claiming it isn’t authentic — meaning that it isn’t a correct interpretation of Maimonides. But I’m saying: this formulation, this analysis, is my analysis, not Maimonides’. Okay? Now there is such a process, a process that goes from the simple give-and-take — Mishnah, Talmud, answer, rejection. The Talmud is simple. Then to the early authorities, where they begin to deal with it in a more conceptual way. Then later authorities and the later of the later authorities — it becomes more and more conceptual. There are rare sugyot where you can find an analytic conceptual inquiry in the sugya in the Talmud itself. Here is one of them. How would Rabbi Chaim present this question: does “this one benefits and that one does not lose” obligate payment or exempt from payment? On what does it depend? Let’s see. Is the obligating factor for payment the benefit, or is the obligating factor the loss? So when “this one benefits and that one loses,” certainly he must pay, and it does not depend on the inquiry, because you pay both because of benefit and because of loss. If this one does not benefit and that one does not lose, then he need not pay — again, it doesn’t depend on the inquiry. What practical case will clarify the inquiry for us? “This one benefits and that one does not lose,” or “this one does not benefit and that one does lose.” That is a Tosafot case in Bava Kamma that appears in Tosafot and in the Rif. So that creates a practical difference. Do you understand that what I just did is an analytic conceptual inquiry of Rabbi Chaim, right? Exactly that style. But it appears in the Talmud itself. It isn’t Rabbi Chaim. That’s what he got excited about. They weren’t used to conceptual thinking. What today every kid in a junior yeshiva understands as conceptual thinking was, for them, an exhilarating novelty. In other words, they saw an inquiry like that, with conceptual analysis, an analytic breakdown of the sugya like that — wow, how beautiful, it was really eye-opening. You missed out by not being in the study hall. It seems there is another example of this in Maimonides’ commentary to the Mishnah on tractate Keritot. Maimonides writes: “I have a wondrous point that no one touched before me.” In the yeshiva world they call it “Maimonides’ wondrous point,” where he discusses “one prohibition does not take effect on another prohibition” and meat with milk. Now you read it and say, okay, I think even a boy in a junior yeshiva could say that without much difficulty. Okay? For Maimonides, this was a wondrous point, and to this day that’s the name of that point — “Maimonides’ wondrous point.” Now what is so wondrous about it? It’s nice — a nice analytic breakdown, completely basic. Okay? Yes, but for Maimonides it was a wondrous point because it didn’t yet exist. The conceptualizations and the form of analytic analysis we know today are a new phenomenon. We are already practiced in this. We analyze everything this way. But once it wasn’t like that. When it appeared, it was an exhilarating novelty in the study hall — a wondrous point.

[Speaker B] But at the end of the day, didn’t he do an analytic analysis in his head?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Not consciously.

[Speaker B] Not consciously, but didn’t he do it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know what goes on in the subconscious. He doesn’t know, so certainly I don’t know.

[Speaker B] But when you see the final result and work backward, you understand…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That he did it intuitively and reached the point.

[Speaker B] Right. You work backward, and many times we do that too, you know. But he did it intuitively and always reached that point.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s all. In my opinion, usually it’s an intuition that we then analyze and reconstruct in a logical-analytic way. But they worked intuitively. Meaning, it simply looked this way to him and looked that way to him, and that was it. He didn’t build it according to some clear structure. Yes, this is the point of… you know, if Rabbi Akiva were to read a conceptual essay by Rabbi Akiva Eiger, he wouldn’t understand a word.

[Speaker B] Moses our Teacher didn’t understand Rabbi Akiva.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that’s what the midrash says about Moses our Teacher in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall. He didn’t understand a word. But what Rabbi Akiva Eiger did was basically decode what Moses our Teacher had said. Yet Moses our Teacher himself would not have understood it — truly would not have understood it. Why? Because that whole form of analysis is a new form of analysis; he didn’t know it. It’s not that he was stupid, heaven forbid. It is a kind of discourse and analysis that was unfamiliar to him. Fine? So he wouldn’t have understood it. And that’s what that midrash about Moses our Teacher in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall is meant to describe: he sat at the end of the eighth row, his mind was weakened, he understood nothing. Until they said, “This is a law given to Moses at Sinai,” and then he relaxed. Why did he relax? Because then he understood that it was a formulation of what he had said, in their language, that’s all. Sometimes that formulation, for someone not used to it, is a tremendous novelty — you taught us something new. Once, Rami bar Hama, who wasn’t in the study hall, Rav Hisda said to him: you missed out; there was something interesting there, a revelation of Rabbi Akiva Eiger in our study hall. We hadn’t heard it until now. Okay? Now this is the beginning. You’ll see as the sugya goes on — this whole business is built really toward the definition of the concept of study.

[Speaker F] In our Torah portion…

[Speaker L] In our portion there are two commandments that were said directly to Aaron at the end of the previous portion, relatively speaking, right? Everyone who comments on the fact that suddenly there are two commandments after the death of Aaron’s two sons — the commentators here address that.