A Look at Torah and Torah Study – Lesson 24 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, this is our last meeting, and in this meeting I want to deal with the question of tradition. But I’ll first give the context of how we get there. The basic claim was that in the world of Jewish law, everyone who deals with it basically comes from an interpretive point of view. Meaning, you receive some corpus that came to you from Mount Sinai, and you try to understand it, interpret it, and then pass it on. The products are of course dependent on your worldview. People with different worldviews will interpret the Torah differently. That’s how disputes arise. And still, each of them, when he relates to what he has received, is basically coming מתוך an interpretive awareness, where the interpretation is of course mixed together with things understood from the interpreter’s own world. That is as opposed to other Torah fields — thought, maybe even Bible, ethics, Hasidism, things of that sort — where the basic point of view is not interpretation but creation. Meaning, the thinker, say, creates some philosophical doctrine. He uses statements of the Sages here and there, or earlier commentators, but those are illustrations. In other words, his starting point is not that he comes here to interpret some given corpus. Each person creates his own world of thought and can season it with various midrashim or sources, and so in the end the product of that process is the person’s own thought. Meaning, thought that comes from the person himself, not interpretation of verses or interpretation of the Talmud or interpretation of earlier sources. Now, this is an important and somewhat subtle point, because as I said before, clearly even in the Jewish legal world there is a significant influence from the worldview of the decisor or interpreter, and it’s not that everything there is monolithic. Each person and his worldview. Interpretation obviously depends on my worldview, my culture, the environment I live in; a person is shaped by the landscape of his birthplace. And still, what I’m doing, from my point of view, is interpretation of the sources. And when there’s a dispute between Ketzot and Netivot over some Talmudic passage — I don’t know exactly what — then why did they end up disputing? Because each of them is built differently, thinks differently, all fine. But in the final analysis, what is each of them trying to do? He’s trying to interpret the Talmud as he understands it. Only as he understands it, yes — this is Kant’s phenomenon, that when you grasp something, it’s always in terms of your conceptual system. So that’s obvious. But still, it is a representation of the thing that you are perceiving. In thought it’s not like that. There is not some shared thing we all received, and each of us colors it or understands it within his conceptual system. No. There is no such objective thing. I spoke about this at the beginning of last semester when I talked about the development of Torah, from above, through abstraction and concretization from top to bottom. I said there that there is some abstract thing that each of us sees in a certain way, and so it gets different garments. In the world of thought, in my view there is no such thing, no such shared abstract dimension that everyone is dealing with. There is no such thing.

[Speaker B] But Rabbi Kook, the Tanya, or Sefat Emet bring a lot of quotations.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said — they bring quotations. That’s illustration. And of course they do. Just look at them. It’s an impression; it’s hard to give airtight arguments here, but the impression is very clear. They speak in totally different languages. In Jewish law the language is generally quite similar. There are different forms of argument, different emphases, but everyone understands everyone else. They are speaking, all in all, a fairly uniform language. Everyone knows how to talk to everyone else. There are different opinions, that’s fine, but we are inside the same corpus, inside the same study hall, the same discipline. In the world of thought, what connection is there between someone who deals with the Guide of the Perplexed and someone who deals with, I don’t know, Rabbi Kook? Or Rabbi Tzadok? Or Hasidism? Completely different worlds. It’s not the same ideas colored in different shades, or certain interpretations of the same thing that result from our thinking differently and therefore our interpretations differ. No. It’s not the same thing at all. It’s something entirely different.

[Speaker B] So that isn’t Torah study?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I said: it is Torah in the person. I defined it earlier. It is Torah in the person and not Torah as object. Yes, but it is not the Torah we received from Sinai. There is not something here that passes down to us from Sinai with interpretations, refinements, developments, and so on attached to it. No — there isn’t even that central corpus being transmitted. Not from Sinai — just systems of thought created throughout history, and each one was created, settled in its place, and then another one was created. The later one is not a response to it, not an interpretation of it, not anything. It’s simply something else, a different language, everything is different. What is the Maharal relating to? Nothing. He simply produces his own conceptual world, his own mode of thought. He uses many sayings of the Sages as illustration. But anyone who thinks it is taken from there — I don’t know how he sees reality. Meaning, there is no connection between him and reality. It’s not taken from the words of the Sages. The words of the Sages are illustrations. Many times he even forces them so they’ll fit what he’s saying. It comes from him. It’s his own thought. Certain kabbalistic influence, whatever, but it’s his thought. It isn’t interpretation of something existing.

So in that respect, that was really the summary of the whole semester, because basically I tried to show — or define, not show — that Torah from Sinai, or the object of Torah, is what we received from Sinai and the interpretations of it. From this it follows that all areas that are not built as interpretation of something received from Sinai are not Torah as object, but Torah in the person. They have value — I’m not speaking at all about what is more important. This is a categorical distinction. It is not a question of what is more important and what is less important. I already spoke about that.

Now, of course, this raises the question: so what is the meaning of that central thing that nevertheless does pass down from Sinai? I’m now returning to Torah as object. Okay? I say Torah as object means there is something that passes down from Sinai, and of course attached to it are many viewpoints, interpretations, things of that kind; disputes arise, there are changes, and it is certainly a very dynamic field. And still I claim it is different from the other fields. At its root — the skeleton of it — there is some tradition being transmitted. It is seen in different forms, described differently, interpreted differently — all true — but there is some definite thing being transmitted here. And only in the Jewish legal field, in my view. In no other field. So what is this thing that is transmitted? That is basically tradition, and that is what brings me to the question of tradition — which of course could take a whole semester, but I’ll try to do it in one class.

[Speaker C] Since I was thinking in a focused way about the whole course, I want to ask whether there was any discussion of whether the distinction between the person and the object has practical implications throughout Torah. For example, does it mean that when I study the Maharal I don’t need to recite the blessings over Torah study?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. I said that in my opinion, no.

[Speaker C] Meaning that it could be—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Really only about Jewish law, in my opinion. Yes. That’s the main practical implication if we’re talking about a practical implication for Jewish law. Beyond that, it’s a categorical distinction; you can relate to it however you like. The essential practical implication, not the strictly Jewish legal one, is that in my opinion if you engage in areas that are Torah in the person, but it doesn’t speak to you — if you study the Guide of the Perplexed and that philosophy doesn’t speak to you, it doesn’t build you, it’s not meaningful for you — then you have neglected Torah. But if you’re studying Ketzot and it doesn’t speak to you because you disagree with him, because you argue with him, you still studied Torah. That is Torah as object. Torah is not dependent on the person. It doesn’t depend on the question of what it does for you. This is Torah. You are studying what we received from Sinai. You can agree, you can disagree. He thinks this, he thinks that — fine. But in any case, you are engaged in Torah. “Incline your ear to hear” the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure. Meaning, fine, there are disputes, but you need to hear all of them. All these things are Torah — both what you agree with and what you don’t agree with. I think this applies only to Torah as object.

[Speaker B] I think there’s another practical implication, something much bigger. People who study the thought of Rabbi Kook, for example, think that it’s Torah from Sinai, because some people experience it as the absolute truth.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Okay, so that’s connected a bit to today’s class. I once saw a memorial book published in memory of Rabbi Ra’anan, who was murdered in Hebron. And there, from the study hall of Merkaz HaRav and so on — I don’t think that split between the Kav line and not the Kav line existed yet, meaning Har HaMor, Merkaz HaRav, that kind of thing. So they published a book, and the book was arranged in the way Torah memorial books usually are. There were essays by people in his memory, Torah articles, and there was also “treasures of the ancients.” “Treasures of the ancients” is always some section where they bring manuscripts, letters, articles, responsa that haven’t yet been published. In memorial books they often use that to publish things that haven’t yet appeared.

Now you look there at the “treasures of the ancients,” and the treasures of the ancients are Rabbi Charlap, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda — their treasures, roughly speaking. Maybe something from Rabbi Kook too. Meaning, for them the ancients start in the twentieth century. And the feeling you got there was — and it was clear that this was the feeling there — that Moses received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Rabbi Kook, and Rabbi Kook… They deal with the medieval authorities and so on, but fundamentally I think that’s the picture there. And therefore this phrase “treasures of the ancients” sounded so ridiculous to me. “Treasures of the ancients”? That’s one generation before you. If you bring me something from Rabbi Akiva Eiger, some responsum of the Rashba that no one has ever seen, a manuscript of Maimonides, something from the Geonim — okay, I understand that that’s “treasures of the ancients.” But for them, “treasures of the ancients” means Rabbi Kook and onward.

Anyway, why am I saying this? Because there is a certain feeling — because very often in disputes that arise, say around “Bible at eye level” and all the controversies that arose there, every month something new erupts there from that study hall — they always say, “You have no tradition.” They speak in the name of tradition. Now these people who speak in the name of tradition — their tradition began fifty years ago. Meaning, these are the most uprooted-from-tradition people you can imagine. These are people who invented everything without any tradition at all.

[Speaker B] Yes,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but tradition by its very nature is supposed to be something old, right? Yet they are constantly speaking in the name of tradition when in fact they themselves have no traditional backing.

Now the same thing, by the way, is true for Brisk. Brisk is an approach that overall — at least in its extreme form — is very new. An approach invented by Rabbi Chaim, maybe a bit already in Beit HaLevi, but in the mode of analysis it’s Rabbi Chaim, not Beit HaLevi. The stringency and all that, like everyone else, okay, that’s already Beit HaLevi. But the analytical learning style, what is accepted in yeshivot today, that’s Rabbi Chaim. Okay? And they invented this thing, and all the Brisker customs — they have all sorts of practices, studying the sacrificial and purity laws, and being stringent like every opinion, and all sorts of their own craziness — and they are constantly speaking in the name of tradition. Anyone who knows Brisk knows this: it’s always “Wait, do you have a tradition for that? Don’t you have a tradition for that?” With tekhelet, for example, it’s already known from Beit HaLevi that we don’t have a tradition for that. You don’t have a tradition for that? There is nothing you yourself do that has a tradition behind it. What you yourself do — you accuse the whole universe of acting without tradition.

Now what is common to both these streams? What they have in common, I think, is a very common psychological phenomenon: once you understand that you have no tradition, the way you deal with it is by accusing everyone else of acting without tradition. That’s projection, as it’s called in psychology. Exactly. Meaning, the way you deal with a certain guilty conscience inside yourself is: “What do you mean? I am Moses receiving Torah from Sinai and transmitting it to Rabbi Kook or to Rabbi Chaim of Brisk or whatever — and we are just Moses our Teacher, we haven’t moved one millimeter from Moses our Teacher.”

Look, for example, at today’s Haredi world. In many ways today’s Haredi world is a very new world. It is not something that existed in the sixteenth century or the thirteenth century. A great many of these things simply were not there. But the ethos by which they live — genuinely, authentically they live it — is that this is what Moses our Teacher looked like. Meaning, we received this from Moses our Teacher and haven’t moved one millimeter since then. I always mention my cousin. My cousin says that Abbaye and Rava obviously studied in Yiddish. Iraqi, right? They studied in Yiddish, because if you know how to learn you learn in Yiddish, and anyone who doesn’t learn in Yiddish simply doesn’t know how to learn. Okay? Now he knows that’s not true, of course, he’s not an idiot. But there’s this ethos that says it can’t be otherwise — exactly — that what we do is basically Moses our Teacher, with slight translations but nothing has changed. We are holding the tradition.

Now, new phenomena that suffer from a kind of guilty conscience — “Wait, but what justifies us? After all, we speak in the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Torah given at Sinai, so what about ‘the new is forbidden by the Torah’?” Right — but “the new is forbidden by the Torah” is itself very new. Meaning, to forbid everything new is a new approach. There used not to be such an approach of forbidding everything new. There were more, there were less — it’s not a total invention — but at this intensity it is very new. It’s a response to Reform, a response to the Enlightenment, because it is obviously a response to a new phenomenon. So the way to deal with that is to convince yourself that you are really just Moses our Teacher — that you haven’t touched anything — and all the others are the ones making things up.

And very often the others are much more traditional than you. In my view, for example, Religious Zionism is much more traditional than Haredi society. Judaism — modern religious Judaism, leave Religious Zionism aside — Judaism throughout the ages was overall pretty modern. What do I mean by modern? Influenced by its surroundings, not barricaded behind a wall, generally speaking. There were of course different approaches, but the Judaism of ordinary householders — you worked in all kinds of places, you lived in the world, you didn’t shut yourself away in kollels or closed-off private worlds.

[Speaker B] The Western one too, you’re only talking about the last two hundred years.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I mean from way back. So in a certain sense Haredi society is a very new invention. Yaakov Katz already wrote about this and others.

[Speaker B] The idea that Sephardi Judaism wasn’t modern — that’s true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] True, but that’s not my point right now. I’m not getting into East and West right now. I’m saying, in general, this phenomenon is a new phenomenon. And this new phenomenon constantly speaks in the name of tradition, that one must not deviate from tradition — while that tradition itself was invented a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago. And there’s something very…

[Speaker B] But there’s something in their argument I can understand: what happened is that, say, Zionism basically erased Mizrahi Judaism and the Judaism they are thinking of.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re going back to psychological explanations. Fine, I’m not getting into that right now.

[Speaker B] So they say this Zionism is secular, it’s not something we—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —are connected to.

[Speaker B] So we preserve what was there before.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, all fine — but they don’t preserve it.

[Speaker C] I heard a lecture by Rabbi Yehoshua Soloveitchik of Brisk in Jerusalem, and he said, “I do not accept Rabbi Hirsch’s position” — Samson Raphael Hirsch. Why? “Because we have no tradition that he was a disciple of Rabbi Hirsch.” Okay, everything is based on tradition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Briskers say there’s no tradition from the Chazon Ish? Interesting, because that connection is the Brisker Rav, not the Chazon Ish. Those are the Briskers.

[Speaker C] Well, he remained a disciple in the anti-state camp.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I understand. But in the period of the Chazon Ish, the Briskers were not with the Chazon Ish, they were with the Brisker Rav. Not that there was a clash, but the study hall is a different one. It’s not… The learning style is of course completely opposite between Brisk and the Chazon Ish. The Chazon Ish is homeowner-style learning; the Briskers are this very structured analytical learning.

Anyway, yes, so that’s obvious. These are people who invented something from scratch, and now they constantly speak in the name of tradition — it just kills me with laughter. It really… It reminds me — maybe we’ll improve this in a minute. What?

[Speaker D] It’s an ancient phenomenon.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every—

[Speaker D] Every revolution claims to be tradition. It’s an ancient claim. Okay, maybe then it’s not so new.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. The revolution against the dictator becomes a dictatorship itself. That’s always how it is. The harshest dictators are the ones who were once part of a revolution against the previous dictatorship.

Anyway, there’s a Yiddish writer and poet named Chaim Grade. And among other things he wrote two books called Tzemach Atlas and The Battle of the Inclination. They were also translated into Hebrew, I think by Sifriyat Poalim. Very interesting. And people who know say this is almost autobiographical. And among other things he describes a yeshiva there. You know the Novardok yeshivot phenomenon?

[Speaker B] The Alter—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Alter of Novardok, who was himself no small wild man, founded a yeshiva and sent his boys — eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old — to be heads of yeshiva in various villages. Because there was a problem of the Enlightenment and children falling away and so on, and he wanted them to hold onto Jewish youth, so he sent out his yeshiva students and they became heads of yeshivot in different places, these young guys. They gathered the local children, the teenagers, and built them a yeshiva, and that’s how many Novardok yeshivot were created in that period.

Now, Novardok yeshiva students are wild men. Meaning, their basic education was that they don’t care what the world thinks. The classic stories — they go into a pharmacy and ask for nails, so people will laugh at them, and they’ll become immunized against this sensitivity to people making fun of them. Meaning, you become someone with your own independent backbone. That was the kind of education there. And they behaved in a very wild way as educational policy, in order not to be submissive to accepted social norms. That was the education.

Now, these people arrived in all sorts of places. And you understand: this is a twenty-year-old boy, not yet mature, not yet… and he got this wild education, so it’s like age twenty on steroids. Okay? And now he becomes a rosh yeshiva. Meaning, he is now making decisions about thirteen-, fourteen-, fifteen-year-old boys. He is their rosh yeshiva, the admired figure, he decides what happens to them, he educates them. This creates crazy phenomena.

So these books describe one of these yeshivot in a village called Voloknik. That’s the literary name of the village. And there the yeshiva has a rosh yeshiva named Tzemach Atlas. That’s his literary name. I think once Havelin — Shlomo Zalman, not the physicist but—

[Speaker C] I don’t know how you’re connected.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] My father’s cousins. Ah, okay. So Shlomo Zalman Havelin was a professor here of literature and Talmud, a walking encyclopedia. I think he once wrote an article trying to identify who Tzemach Atlas was. He was a bibliographic type, and he also wrote articles about Potok — who was the examination committee of Reuven Malter, for those who know the story there. Never mind. Characters from yeshiva and university.

Anyway, Tzemach Atlas was the rosh yeshiva. Again, a twenty-year-old guy, completely stormy. Now the writer, Chaim Grade, of course also describes what is in the heart of the rosh yeshiva. And in his heart he is consumed by urges of every kind, thoughts, everything. And he is a zealot of zealots. Meaning, he storms and shouts and fights against every sign of heresy or sexual thoughts. He fights, storms, shouts, quarrels — while he himself is inwardly consumed by all that. And among other things, little Chaimke — that’s really the writer Chaim Grade — was in that yeshiva, a thirteen-year-old boy or something like that, and he threw him out because he had all sorts of antics.

And he went to live for several months in the house of “the master of vision Abraham.” That’s what he’s called in the book. He used to come in the summer to the village of Voloknik to vacation. Okay? And the boy had just been thrown out of the yeshiva, so he took him into his house and he lived with him for several months. He talked with him, laid out his questions before him, and he answered him. Fine. He was a Torah scholar sitting there and learning.

Now people who know, everyone knows: that was the Chazon Ish. “The master of vision Abraham” is the literary name for the Chazon Ish. The Chazon Ish was there, and he really lived in his house for several months. At some point he became one who studied and then left — meaning, he left everything, was a Nobel Prize candidate, quarreled with Bashevis Singer whom he thought had stolen the prize from him, whatever. In any case, in my view these books are incredible books of ethics. Novels from Sifriyat Poalim. Why? Because he describes these two figures — the master of vision Abraham, the Chazon Ish, versus Tzemach Atlas — as two antitheses, and that is basically the motif of the book, at least for me: the contrast between those two figures.

And the description he gives of the Chazon Ish is amazing. This is a man who lived in his house for months. He was not feeding off posters about what a righteous man he was and that he knew the whole Talmud by age two and all that hagiographic literature. He lived with the Chazon Ish in his house for months. And when he describes him — and by then he had already studied and left, so he had no particular interest in glorifying great Torah scholars and so on — what he writes there about him… listen, it’s pure magic of a person. You really see what kind of figure the Chazon Ish was.

Anyway, these two figures standing opposite each other — basically the Chazon Ish hears all his questions, responds to him matter-of-factly, fine, agree or disagree, all fine, he’s not upset by anything. Tzemach Atlas, if he sees in you the slightest flicker of a forbidden thought, immediately shouts world war at you, humiliates you in public, throws you out of the yeshiva and so on. And what’s the difference? The difference is that Tzemach Atlas is consumed inside by all these doubts and thoughts, and the Chazon Ish is not. He is a whole person, whole with his path. The Chazon Ish, for those who knew, was of course a very zealous figure in worldview, but very moderate in human conduct. Okay? Those are two different things. In fact, not only are they different — in my view they are two sides of the same coin. Because once you are whole with your path, you can be calm. If you have doubts, you fight more. If you are whole with your path, then all in all you are calm about others thinking differently.

There is a letter of the Chazon Ish — yes, a letter of the Chazon Ish — “It is not my way to enter into arguments.”

[Speaker B] You don’t need to ask for nails in a pharmacy then.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly. “It is not my way to enter into arguments with people, because fine, if you want, accept it; if you don’t want, don’t accept it, all fine.” I once heard — I think Avigdor Shinan told me — that he learned in a study partnership with Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel, and every weekend they would go to the Chazon Ish to speak with him, ask him questions that had arisen and so on. At a certain point Rabbi Gedaliah started arguing with the Chazon Ish, and the Chazon Ish said to him: “Rabbi Gedaliah, what do you want from me? You don’t agree with me, fine, do what you think. What’s the problem? What is all this storm? Why are you fighting with me?” And that was the way of the Chazon Ish.

You know, I often say there are two kinds of followers of the Chazon Ish, and this is also connected to what comes next. There are followers of the Chazon Ish who do everything written in the books of the Chazon Ish, and there are followers of the Chazon Ish who do what they think, just as the Chazon Ish did what he thought. Those are the real followers of the Chazon Ish. I mean that seriously, not as a joke. Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel, for example, was a follower of the Chazon Ish of the second type, not the first type. And he was the real follower of the Chazon Ish, not the toy followers of the Chazon Ish who today call themselves followers of the Chazon Ish.

He writes this in section 3 in Yoreh De’ah, in section 150, that reason is a person’s angel, meant to guide him, and you have to make decisions yourself. That is the way of the Chazon Ish. The way of the Chazon Ish is: don’t accept what I say — do what you think.

Anyway, back to our topic. What I want to say here, beyond the fact that the Chazon Ish was different from Tzemach Atlas — apropos the Chazon Ish from before — what I want to say is that very often a person who is stormy on the outside is fighting things that are inside him. That’s why he is stormy. The most fanatical and zealous people, in my opinion usually — I won’t say always as a rule, but usually — are suspect in my eyes as people who inwardly are not whole with their path. That’s why they quarrel and shout and wage wars and “we will die and not enlist” and all sorts of things like that, because inwardly they understand there is something not right here. Maybe they aren’t even conscious of it, but in my view it’s there somewhere. You don’t get to such extreme combative forms over such nonsense — over something so absurd — and then go out to war over it as if it were pure truth and anyone who doesn’t understand it is just an antisemite. That lack of understanding means there is something here. These are not stupid people — not all of them at least. There is some psychological process here. Inside yourself, you feel there is something not right about this path. You have guilty feelings; to me that’s obvious. And therefore this enormous outward zealotry is really some kind of way of fighting the doubts or questions that exist inside you.

[Speaker B] On the other side, we’ve only said this about the Haredim, but I also see the Kaplan protesters in a certain sense — they preach democracy and equality and tolerance—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe, although somehow—

[Speaker B] There too the feeling is of inner lack, they aren’t exactly leftists. Could be.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe. I’m not sure. There too there’s crazy extremism no less. But there I’m less inclined to see it as a reaction to doubts inside them. It’s more some sort of hatred — not in the substantive sense but some feeling of threat perhaps from other groups — that comes out in very extreme forms. I don’t know if there too it’s doubts about your path. Maybe, I don’t know.

[Speaker C] There’s also the Kaplan pose — I’m revolutionary, I’m critical, I’m rebellious.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, there’s that too, from the roots of it of course. Could be that too.

Anyway, for our purposes, what I want to say is that very often this zealotry and extreme conservatism come precisely from the feeling that something is problematic. Meaning, it really isn’t logical that I should behave today the way they behaved in the sixteenth century. The world has changed, something here doesn’t make sense. Now, you don’t know how to deal with that, so what — are you going to come out against the Shulchan Arukh? Or Rabbi Akiva Eiger? Or the Rashba? Impossible — after all, all their words were given from Sinai. So what do you do? You entrench yourself in this nonsense, turn it into an ideal, into some sacred principle, and now you have no choice but to fight all those who don’t accept it — who are really a mirror of what you feel inside. Your war against them — yes, that’s the projection I mentioned before — your war against them is basically the way you deal with those very same criticisms inside yourself.

And I think that usually my presumption is that someone who is zealous usually has something like that inside. People who are whole with their path are not zealots. They say what they say, others will either accept it or not, but you don’t go out to war against heretics. Whoever goes out to war against heretics is someone inside whom thoughts like these are also troubling him. That’s my view at least.

[Speaker B] It’s like those American preachers on TV in churches, and in the end it turns out they’re pedophiles and things like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, maybe. That phenomenon I know less well, so I don’t know. Could be.

[Speaker F] And all of psychology literature.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anyway, let’s get back to our topic. Now we basically want to discuss a bit the question: what is the nature of tradition? How can there be a corpus given from Sinai and yet it branches into different opinions, different study halls, disputes? So is there still something here different from the field of thought, for example, or maybe not? Maybe I was wrong in what I said before. So I need to define the concept of tradition better.

Now, I’m not going to do this through sources, because I need to cover a lot today, so there’s no board, I’ll just say these things orally. There is a description in the Talmud, which Maimonides also brings in his introductions, about the formation of disputes. How did disputes arise? “When the disciples of Hillel and Shammai increased and did not fully attend upon their teachers, disputes began to arise.” On the face of it, when you see that, you understand it as a negative description, a problematic description. The formation of dispute is the result of some flaw in the tradition, right? We did not fully attend upon our teachers, Torah began to be forgotten, and once Torah is forgotten, then different opinions appear and disputes begin. But as long as we were okay and fully attended upon our teachers, Torah passed down as it was, there were no disputes, everything was excellent, everyone agreed, everything was wonderful. It’s apocalyptic just to think about a world in which everyone agrees — it gives me a fever. But okay, that’s the description.

The first recorded dispute — yes, that’s the dispute of the two Yoseis over laying hands on a sacrifice on a holiday. Rashi in tractate Chagigah, and in the Jerusalem Talmud it’s more detailed, says that this is the first dispute in the Oral Torah, laying hands on sacrifices on a holiday, the two Yoseis, one of the Zugot. That is roughly, Rashi says, around the time of the Greek polemic, under Greek occupation, when they darkened the eyes of Israel, and that is when dispute arose, basically. There are several sources in the Sages that dispute arose roughly in the Greek period, and came from there. Because Greek intellect, Greek logic, basically says: okay, with these premises such a conclusion follows, with those premises such a conclusion follows, and automatically you get a state of dispute. Okay?

So on the one hand, this seems like darkening the eyes of Israel, a decline into dispute. On the other hand, in several places the Sages glorify and magnify the value of dispute tremendously. The clearest source, I think, is the Talmud in Chagigah 3, where it says: “Incline your ear to hear the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure” … “Just as this planting grows and multiplies, so too the words of Torah grow and multiply.” It is really a hymn of praise to changes and disputes, the exact opposite of the traditionalist approach we usually expect. Let me read you a few gems.

They expounded there on the portion of the assembly, never mind, and what did he expound? “Assemble the people, the men, the women, and the children.” Men come to learn, women come to hear, why do children come? To give reward to those who bring them, and so on. And then he expounded: “You have affirmed the Lord today and the Lord has affirmed you today.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: You have made Me a singular unit in the world, and I will make you a singular unit in the world. You made Me a singular unit in the world, as it is written: שמע ישראל ה׳ אלוקינו ה׳ אחד (“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one”). And I will make you a singular unit in the world, as it is said: ומי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ (“And who is like Your people Israel, one nation on earth”).

And he too opened and expounded — and from here this is really the main point — דברי חכמים כדרבונות וכמסמרות נטועים בעלי אסופות ניתנו מרועה אחד (“The words of the wise are like goads, and like planted nails, masters of assemblies, given by one shepherd”). Why were the words of Torah compared to a goad? To tell you: just as the goad directs the cow to its furrows to bring life into the world, so too the words of Torah direct their learners from paths of death to paths of life. If you say: just as a goad is movable, so too words of Torah are movable? Scripture says: “nails.” If you say: just as a nail diminishes and does not increase, so too words of Torah diminish and do not increase? Scripture says: “planted.” So at first it sounds like everything is fixed, all received from Sinai…

[Speaker C] No, that’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think it’s the plow, directing the plow to its furrows. So it sounds planted, fixed — but then suddenly comes the reversal: Scripture says “planted”: just as a planting grows and multiplies, so too the words of Torah grow and multiply. It is planted, rigid — and then suddenly fruitful and multiplying, developing further.

“Masters of assemblies” — these are Torah scholars who sit in many groups and engage in Torah. These declare impure and those declare pure; these prohibit and those permit; these disqualify and those validate. Lest a person say: how can I study Torah from now on? Therefore scripture says: all of them were given by one shepherd; one God gave them, one leader said them, from the mouth of the Master of all deeds, blessed be He, as it is written: וידבר אלוקים את כל הדברים האלה (“God spoke all these words”). Therefore you too should make your ear like a funnel and acquire for yourself an understanding heart to hear the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure, the words of those who prohibit and the words of those who permit, the words of those who disqualify and the words of those who validate.

And in this language he said to them — he got so excited that he said, “A generation is not orphaned if Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah dwells in it. And you saw what a wonderful exposition it was and didn’t want to reveal it to me.” What kind of exposition is this? It is a hymn of praise to dispute. A hymn of praise. Listen, listen — the words of Torah grow and multiply, and now this one says one thing and that one says the opposite. So what kind of hymn of praise is that? Something went wrong here. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, say at Sinai? He said one thing, not two. “God spoke once; two things I heard” — of course, like a hammer shattering rock. All these midrashim basically go in the same direction: praise of dispute, praise of multiplicity.

Now the question is how this fits with the description I mentioned earlier of dispute as some kind of decline, a result of “they did not fully attend upon their teachers,” and so on. So there’s an explanation — Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner speaks about this in his book on Hanukkah, in Pachad Yitzhak. He says that maybe the dispute developed out of a failure, out of a flaw in the way students attended upon Torah scholars, but the product is a praiseworthy one. In other words, by a crooked path we arrived at a blessed product. And that happens a lot. People say this about redemption all the time: how did King David come from Ruth the Moabite lying there in the threshing floor with Boaz, all these strange stories, and from that comes King David and the process of redemption. Everything goes crooked, right? The whole known pattern — with Judah and all that — starts already with Judah, and all along the way that story. Many blessed things come by a crooked process or a flawed process. There are mystical sayings that this is so Satan won’t spoil it, never mind that now. But those are the facts: very often blessed things come from a flawed process or a crooked process. And Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner says the same about dispute: the process was crooked — they did not fully attend upon their teachers — but the result is blessed. Why? Because in a monolithic world you don’t understand the multiplicity of facets in every topic. Once there are multiple facets, obviously there will be disputes. There will be disputes. These see it this way, those see it that way, but it clarifies the topic much better.

[Speaker B] Like they did an analytical investigation of something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] More than that. After all, when the School of Hillel says one thing and the School of Shammai says another, neither of them is talking nonsense, right? Therefore it is pretty clear that each of them grasps something true in that topic. The Talmud says there are 150 reasons to declare the creeping thing impure and 150 reasons to declare it pure. So Rabbenu Tam asks: what do I need all these empty dialectics for? To declare the creeping thing pure with 150 reasons? The Torah says it is impure — why are you bothering me? So the Maharal says: no, not at all. There really are 150 genuine reasons to declare the creeping thing pure, and there are also 150 genuine reasons to declare it impure. The Torah said that the reasons for impurity outweigh the reasons for purity, but that doesn’t mean there are no reasons for purity. And that’s why they examined judges in the Sanhedrin on whether they could give 150 reasons to declare the creeping thing pure. Why? Because a good judge needs to be able to see the topic from every side and only then decide. A judge who looks at it monolithically, with everything leading in one direction, is a bad judge, a judge who doesn’t grasp the topic properly. That is why in capital cases, if everyone judged for conviction, they do not execute him, because something is wrong with that way of looking. It cannot be that twenty-three people — and Jews, no less — see the thing in exactly the same way. It can’t be. If they do, something is defective in the discussion that took place there.

And this is a paradigm for many, many things. Dispute is… There is the Talmud in Gittin about the concubine in Gibeah. The Talmud says there that Rabbi Evyatar and Rabbi Yonatan disagreed whether he found a fly or a hair. What upset him there, the husband of that concubine? So Rabbi Evyatar meets Elijah the prophet and asks what the Holy One, blessed be He, is doing. He is engaged in the topic of the story of the concubine in Gibeah. Interesting. So he says, now at last we’ll hear who is right. Tell me what He says. So Elijah says to him: “My son Yonatan says this, and My son Evyatar says that.” That is what the Holy One, blessed be He, says. Meaning, He presents both opinions. So he says to him: Heaven forbid — is there doubt before Heaven? The Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t know what happened there? Was it a fly or a hair? Are there doubts before Heaven? So he says to him: no. “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? Here, unlike the Talmud in Eruvin that speaks about “these and those” regarding the School of Hillel and the School of Shammai, here there is even an explanation of what “these and those” means. What does it mean? You say it was the fly, he says it was the hair — what was the truth? Both. There was both a fly and a hair. Each of you grasped one facet of the truth. Now what happened in the end? What caused the great outburst? Apparently — at least that’s how I read the Talmud — the accumulation of both. “He found a fly and was not upset; he found a hair…” Not that the hair by itself upset him, but the hair was added to the fly, and together they caused him to explode. Exactly. So what comes out? When I say “these and those are the words of the living God,” it means both were wrong. Neither was completely right. But they were wrong by grasping partial truth. Truth is made up of many facets. There is a fly facet, there is a hair facet, and this is a kind of parable for every topic. When there is a dispute, no side is talking nonsense. In a dispute between wise people, no side is talking nonsense, even the side not accepted in Jewish law. Rather, one presents the facet of the fly, the other presents the facet of the hair. In the end you have to decide in Jewish law which one prevails. But it’s not that this facet is false. There are 150 reasons to declare the creeping thing pure — they are genuine, and whoever presents them is presenting something completely true. And to declare it impure there are also genuine facets. In the final bottom line you have to decide what prevails, fine. But the different facets of the topic are very important. In other contexts the weighing may be different, and then suddenly you’ll rule that the creeping thing is pure, or that something else is pure, doesn’t matter. You have to understand, when you approach a topic, all its facets. And for that to happen, it is very important that there be open dispute and not a tradition that obligates everyone to say the same thing. In such a tradition you cannot truly clarify topics properly. To clarify topics… for tradition you need different people, who see things differently, and so naturally each one will emphasize a different facet of the topic, and another one a different facet. In the end, only the Holy One, blessed be He, can see the topic from all its facets, from all its sides. But we can do this if we do it as a group. Meaning, each one will see one facet, so that in the end we will get some whole picture, and we will make decisions by weighing all the facets, not by partial focus on just one facet.

[Speaker B] But then you can suddenly become Reform and say that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can. We’ll talk about that shortly. You can, much more than you think.

[Speaker B] I’ll get to that in a minute.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll get to that in a minute. The rules of the game are very loosely defined, but I’ll talk about that shortly.

So what I want to say is that changes in Jewish law and disputes in Jewish law, which on the face of it contradict the notion of the eternity of Torah — that it does not change, “this Torah shall not be replaced,” and things like that — and the tradition of students fully attending upon their teachers, so obviously no dispute would arise there. That’s on one side. On the other side, there are disputes and changes and everything, and this too is seen as a blessing. Meaning, it is seen as something blessed. So there is something here that on the one hand is criticized regarding the way it was formed, but the product itself is actually a blessed one. Okay? That is basically the point.

Now I want to explain that a bit more. So the parable I use — yes, I’ll use a parable I’ve used more than once, not mine, a friend’s — think of a group of people walking in the desert in swimsuits. Their ancestors also walked in the desert in swimsuits, that’s how it’s been for generations. Okay? And at some point they come to a colder region. The desert is gone, finished. Civilization. Right. Now they start reaching the edge of the desert, so to speak, colder regions. So one group within this tribe says: okay, we’re cold, we’ll put on a coat. Another group says to them: what do you mean? We have the tradition of our fathers in our hands — we have to walk in swimsuits. We’ll continue. It’s costly, it’s cold, fine, but we are the preservers of tradition, guardians of the flame; we continue to walk in swimsuits despite the cold. Okay?

Now if I ask you which of these two groups is the Reform group and which is the conservative group, I think we’d agree, right? Meaning, the first group is the Reformers — or seculars, whatever you want to call them — and the second group is the conservatives. Now I have a third group for you. The third group says: look, we’ve reached a cold region. Tradition is very important to us. Therefore we will put on a coat. Why? Because the principle our rabbis or our ancestors handed down to us is not that one must walk in a swimsuit, but that one must wear clothing appropriate to the weather. Up to now, when the weather was hot, the application was to walk in a swimsuit. From now on, since the region is cold, the tradition of our fathers obligates us to put on a coat. That is the right way to continue the tradition. It is not Reform. This is the proper conservatism, because we preserve the principle that clothing must suit the weather, not that one must wear a swimsuit.

That is a conservative group, right? You agree with me. It too preserves the tradition of the ancestors. What is the difference between it and the other conservatives? In behavior, it resembles the Reformers, right? But in its reasoning, the reasoning is conservative.

[Speaker B] Wait, but what if those traditionalists of the swimsuit said to them: no matter what weather you’re in—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, if they said it, they said it. But they didn’t say it. They said: wear a swimsuit. Now you can debate whether the value is wearing a swimsuit, or whether simply because it was hot they told them to wear a swimsuit, and really the point is to wear clothing suitable for the weather. That is the principle. They didn’t tell us — this is interpretation. If they said it explicitly, there’s no argument. I’m saying they didn’t. I make the rules here because I’m drawing the picture. Okay? It’s my story. So I’m talking about this story. They didn’t say it. There is now an interpretive dispute. Okay?

Now what is the difference between the two kinds of conservatives? I call them simplistic conservatives and interpretive conservatives. Simplistic conservatives preserve the tradition literally. We walked in swimsuits, we continue to walk in swimsuits. Okay? Interpretive conservatives are no less conservative than they are, but what they preserve passes through interpretation. Meaning, it is not the plain meaning of what we received, but we make an interpretive reading of what we received, and that is what we preserve.

Now notice that the interpretive conservatives are not saying, “Look, it’s also permitted to wear a parka.” No — one must wear a parka. That is the way to continue the tradition of our fathers. If you continue to walk in a swimsuit, you are transgressors, you are deviating from tradition. You have to understand this, because in the parable it’s very easy for us — putting on a coat is convenient, fine — so you grasp it as a leniency: it’s allowed to wear a coat. No, no. Pay attention: I’m not talking about a leniency. You must wear a coat, because the tradition says to wear clothing suitable for the weather. Anyone who continues to walk in a swimsuit despite the cold is violating tradition, deviating from tradition, behaving criminally.

That is what I call interpretive conservatives. There is actually a map here that isn’t complete. If I have to classify these figures, then let’s say the simplistic conservatives are the Haredim, right, in our sociological language. They continue as-is, without interpretive readings and constructions. “What our ancestors did, they spoke Yiddish, so we speak Yiddish; they wore such clothing, so we wear such clothing.” It is an attempt to preserve things as they are.

[Speaker B] But that’s from the nineteenth century.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. Subject to all the comments I made earlier, that’s how they perceive history. The group that puts on a parka just because it’s cold — those are secular people. They don’t care about the tradition. Tradition is nice, they’re not arguing with you about what it says, it just doesn’t interest them. I’m cold.

Look at the story about the rabbi of Brisk — I think it’s a wonderful story. During the War of Independence, when shooting started in Jerusalem, there were rumors that the rabbi of Brisk was going to flee the city because the situation was dangerous. Rabbi Herzog was afraid that would demoralize people, so he went to persuade him to stay. Rabbi Herzog said to the rabbi of Brisk: “We have received a tradition that the Third Temple will not be destroyed. Don’t worry — we’ll win this war.” The rabbi of Brisk said: “That we’ll win doesn’t mean I won’t die, by the way, so what exactly are we discussing? But never mind, we’ll win the war. And I have a tradition from my father that when people shoot, you run away.”

Now what is beautiful in this story — it’s a wonderful story to me — is that it captures so beautifully the way these two people think, or these two study halls think. The rabbi of Brisk is a super-pragmatist. Leave me alone with metaphysics and what is promised to us and redemption — I don’t know. There’s a situation here, I judge the situation itself. I really identify with him, by the way. Not with the fleeing at all — I think it was wrong to flee, I think one should have fought — but in the conception I very much identify with his conception. I very much do not identify with this idea that metaphysics is supposed to guide us in what we do. My relation to the State of Israel does not stem from the fact that it is the beginning of redemption. It stems, as Leibowitz said, “because we are fed up with the gentile.” Meaning, we got tired of the gentiles. We want to live here, not because of the messiah and redemption. I don’t know anything about the messiah. No one knows. What I know is that I want to live with Jews and not under gentiles. That’s all. That’s why I’m here.

There was a survey among intellectuals in the 1950s by foreign journalists. They asked everyone to explain why he was a Zionist, and Leibowitz told them: “Because we are fed up with the gentile.” That’s the essence of his Zionism, and I’m completely with him.

So in that sense, I’m saying this is some sort of way of looking. Okay, cold — I’m going back to the swimsuits. These people say: okay, the tradition of our fathers is wonderful, but it’s cold, so I’ll put on a coat. We have received from our rabbis that when it’s cold you put on a coat. Okay, so that’s the secular person.

There are secular people, there are Haredim, and perhaps modern religious people are the interpretive conservatives. Meaning, I adapt Torah to new circumstances, okay? And I’m committed to Torah exactly like the simplistic conservative. I just think that under these circumstances Torah says different things from what it said a hundred, two hundred, or five hundred years ago, because the circumstances are different, and therefore the application should be different. That is the interpretation. Okay? I call it conservative interpretation.

[Speaker B] Who stands there on the side?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The interpretive conservatives are people who are modern religious in the sociological sense. Traditional—

No, not “traditional.” “Traditional” is something else. “Traditional” is not even a view. “Traditional” just means people who do whatever they feel like. I’m talking about people who have an approach.

[Speaker C] But I assume both sides are invested in substantive considerations. What is the essence of what should be done — he says exactly in conservatism — but they have other considerations too. The conservatives have some not-economic consideration here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine. This toy model doesn’t describe reality — obviously. I’m taking a simplistic parable that tries to show very meaningful lines in reality. In reality itself there are always many more things involved. I completely agree.

[Speaker C] But maybe there’s some failure here in understanding what tradition is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not a failure in understanding. It’s an argument. There’s no failure here. It’s an argument between two sides. These think one way and those think another. I’m saying there are many other things, but I want to focus דווקא on these basic lines, because otherwise it’s impossible to discuss. Reality is terribly complicated. In any scientific discussion — always, always — a scientific or philosophical discussion abstracts from reality. Because without abstraction you can’t discuss it. Why does science deal with… We spoke about idealizations, right? And there I talked about scientific simplifications. Why does it do that? Because you can’t discuss reality. Reality is complicated, made up of many, many considerations. You want to isolate the considerations and look at them as such and discuss them. And that is basically what I’m doing here. Okay? Obviously in reality itself there are many more things involved.

[Speaker B] What is “modern religious”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? Religious people, not Haredim. What in Israel are mistakenly called Religious Zionists. Religious Zionists. Yes. But Religious Zionism means support for Zionism. That’s completely irrelevant. The substantive feature is modern religiosity, not Religious Zionism. It’s just an anachronistic term. The Haredim are as Zionist as the Religious Zionists. They’re leading the government today.

[Speaker B] Religious Zionism is not modern.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is nothing modern there. That’s why I say: the people who are called Religious Zionists are modern religious people. Not that Religious Zionism as such is modern. Religious Zionism is the idea of Zionism. The Hardalim, for example, are not modern religious, but they are Religious Zionists. Fine? But that’s not what matters. The question of Zionism is not the issue. What difference does it make today? It was an issue a hundred years ago. Today it’s not interesting. We’re still stuck with those principles of—

[Speaker B] Okay, so then you can say: why are you using a Sabbath timer, I’ll just turn on the light. Why are you now being clever in two—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, leave it. There is one who won’t use a Sabbath timer. There’s one who is more modern. And there’s one who also won’t use a Sabbath timer, because he wants to sit in the dark. Right. So that one is the simplistic conservative. Correct. The Sabbath timer is the interpretive conservative. And the one who turns on the light is the secular person.

[Speaker B] And he can tell himself it’s interpretation, and I say—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. So if he made an interpretation, he’s modern religious. Again, leave it. I’m talking about someone who doesn’t make an interpretation.

[Speaker B] He turns on the light because it’s dark. Because just—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because he’s hungry. Just as an animal. Yes. So that’s secular. Not as an animal — secular. He does not recognize the prohibition of turning on the light on the Sabbath. What’s the problem? He doesn’t need interpretation. Someone bound by that prohibition needs interpretation to find a way to permit it. Someone not bound by the prohibition isn’t bound by it. What’s the problem?

[Speaker B] No, but there are people who say, okay, I don’t turn on the light on the Sabbath, but I don’t light a fire.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are all kinds—

[Speaker B] No, but he does turn it off—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Don’t drag me into that whole corner. It doesn’t matter. I’m talking now about three types. There are fifteen more types; we’ll talk about them later. I’m talking about these three types. Okay? These three types are simplistic conservatives, interpretive conservatives, and secular people.

Now you can ask: so what is Reform? What is Conservative? If we want to identify what… doesn’t the interpretive conservative change the rules of the game? What’s the difference? Isn’t that Reform? To switch from swimsuit to coat — isn’t that Reform? Wouldn’t you call that Reform?

[Speaker B] Look at the Sabbath timer. Putting on a Sabbath timer — isn’t that Reform? No—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Leave the Sabbath timer. I’m going back to the swimsuits.

[Speaker B] Swimsuits are extreme.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. I want the extreme case. Extreme examples are the best examples.

[Speaker B] If I turn on a light on the Sabbath, will you tell me that’s not Reform?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: I want to discuss the extreme examples. In extreme examples you can make your argument much clearer. Leave me other examples. I’m talking about these extreme examples. Okay?

Now when someone changes clothes from a swimsuit and puts on a coat because he’s cold, usually if we saw him we’d say he’s Reform, right?

[Speaker B] He’s basically saying this is not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —relevant. The old norms are not relevant in the new reality, so I behave differently. But I argued no. He is an interpretive conservative, not Reform. He is conservative — he just preserves something different.

So what is Reform? It’s also not secular. Reform is something else. Where is there another slot at all on this map? What’s left? What other option remains? This is a nice methodological lesson. I don’t have time to get into it too much. I want to say that the Reform person is the one who respects tradition but does not regard it as absolute. Understand: the interpretive conservative is completely committed to tradition. Therefore he has to make the interpretive move, because otherwise he has to align himself with the principles he received in the tradition. Without that he won’t act. He is committed to tradition.

The Reform person differs from the interpretive conservative — even though in practice they may behave very similarly — in the reasoning. The interpretive conservative will show you Jewish legal reasoning for the change he is making, reasoning within the ways of Jewish law. The Reform person will say: look, this doesn’t fit today’s circumstances, therefore I’m doing something else. He will not bring internal Jewish legal reasoning for the step he is taking. I have a series of columns on this on my website, where I try to show it through examples.

Now obviously, many times “Reform” reasonings are actually reasonings of interpretive conservatism, and then they really are not Reform. So what if Reformers raise such an argument? That argument can arise within the Jewish legal field, and it needs to be discussed. A Reform argument means an argument not based on interpretation.

For example, if someone says: I am calling women up to the Torah because today you can’t discriminate against women — fine, that’s Reform. But if someone says: I am calling women up to the Torah today because the Sages said it is not the dignity of the congregation for a woman to be called to the Torah — that was true of women back then, but the women of today are the coat, yes? The women of today are something different, and there is no affront to the dignity of the congregation if they are called to the Torah, and therefore I call them to the Torah — that is interpretive conservatism. That is not Reform, because he is proposing a Jewish legal interpretation that anchors what he is doing in a way that fits Jewish legal principles. The Reformer says: forget the Jewish legal principles, it doesn’t fit today. He does not raise a Jewish legal interpretation to support what he says. That is Reform.

The secular person doesn’t call a woman up to the Torah at all, right? He doesn’t call anyone up to the Torah. So he isn’t in the game at all. The tradition doesn’t matter to him; he doesn’t need either to violate it or justify violating it or anything. He simply doesn’t relate to it. That is what is called secular.

So I think that is the concept of Reform. But for our purposes, what matters is the lesson I wanted to draw from here: when we say that the Torah is eternal and does not change, and the eternity of Torah is one of the basic principles, what does that mean? Does it mean that everything today should look the way it did for Adam or Moses our Teacher? No. It means there are certain principles that are the basis or the skeleton, but obviously under different circumstances, in different times, in a different reality, their application will be different. And that change not only does not contradict the principle of the eternity of Torah — it is the principle of the eternity of Torah. Whoever does not go with that change turns Torah into something non-eternal.

Because really, it’s like that person who keeps wearing a swimsuit though it’s cold. You are not truly doing what the Torah expected. If I think that the Torah expected that in the current reality — and this is an argument, okay? But in my view, I think the Torah expected us in the current reality to behave differently — then whoever does not do that is violating what the Torah expected.

For example, in my opinion, someone who today does not call women up to the Torah is a transgressor. He is a transgressor, even though by the law of the Talmud it is forbidden — or rather, the Shulchan Arukh rules that one does not call women up to the Torah. What do you mean forbidden? It’s a matter of the dignity of the congregation. Not forbidden, but inappropriate. Okay? And I claim he is a transgressor. Why? Because in today’s reality, what the Torah expects is that women should be called up. There is no prohibition at all. It’s only a question of the dignity of the congregation. Okay, now if the issue of the dignity of the congregation doesn’t exist, why shouldn’t women be called to the Torah like men, like everyone else?

I also think they can join a prayer quorum — that’s another discussion — but first of all, the matter of being called to the Torah is explicit in the Mishnah. You don’t need me for that. The Mishnah says women count among the seven called to the Torah. Fine? So that’s obvious. They only said not to do it because of the dignity of the congregation. Now the dignity of the congregation apparently was that women should not be called up, because if women are called up that means there are no men who know how to read, so the congregation is illiterate and that is not honorable. But today that is not the case. Women have education like men, and there is no problem of dignity of the congregation if they are called up. I do not understand this whole notion of not calling women to the Torah; it’s absurd. And there is an explicit Mishnah. Yes, women count among the seven, in tractate Megillah.

So to cling to what is written in the Talmud — that it is not the dignity of the congregation — is like the swimsuit. The simplistic conservatives cling to what is written in the Talmud. The interpretive conservatives say: wait a second, what stands behind the Talmud is that one does not do what affronts the dignity of the congregation. Fine. But today it does not affront the dignity of the congregation if I call a woman up, so what’s the problem? She can be called up. You see? It’s exactly like the swimsuit.

Now in practice, around this issue for example, almost the entire religious world is Haredi. Very few places call women up to the Torah, even in the more modern worlds. There are some already. Many? But still very few. And that means that even if you are defined as modern religious, this is not sharp. This transition is difficult, and especially for the unlearned it is much harder. With the unlearned it is much harder, because ordinary unlearned people think that everything they saw was given to Moses at Sinai. It is very hard to talk with the unlearned about arguments of this sort.

With Torah scholars you can talk. They may not agree with you, but they understand there is logic in what you say. They may disagree, sometimes for substantive reasons, sometimes because of a slippery slope, whatever — each person and his considerations — but I can talk with him. I tell you from experience: I have a lot of radical arguments of this sort, and when I speak to Torah scholars they understand that there is really something to it. They don’t agree with me, fine, but you can talk to them. With the unlearned you can’t talk.

Go tell a synagogue that women should be called up to the Torah — they’ll stone you. And these are not necessarily especially religious people, not that they’re such huge zealots. Things written explicitly they don’t always observe so carefully. But this matter — if you call women to the Torah… I remember in our synagogue in Petah Tikva one fine day they came to me: women want to dance with the Torah scroll. Can we bring it up to the women’s section on Simchat Torah? Why not? What’s the problem? It’s a holy scroll, it’ll enjoy it. So I told them yes, what’s the problem. Fine. So they brought up the Torah scroll and the women danced. The next day I hear there was an uproar in the synagogue. What is this Reform business? How can he tell us to bring a Torah scroll to the women? And things like that. With ordinary householders it’s hard. It didn’t even occur to me that there was any issue here. What could possibly be wrong with dancing with the Torah scroll? There is the Rema about the customs of Krakow, that menstruating women should not touch a Torah scroll. I do not live in Krakow. The customs of Krakow are in Krakow. I live in Petah Tikva.

And as a decisor, you don’t take into account the consequences that may follow? It doesn’t interest me in the least. In my opinion the consequences of the conservative approach are much worse, far more problematic. Never mind, that’s another discussion. I’m just saying it’s very hard.

I also spoke with Haredi women. I said to them: look, the root of your problem is that you don’t know how to learn. Women don’t study Torah, and therefore you are sure that everything accepted in your society came down to Moses from Sinai. Wearing 20-denier stockings or 40-denier stockings or whatever — that’s a law given to Moses at Sinai. How can you change that to 15 denier? Whoever does that is Reform. Now go tell them that stockings are some invention of I-don’t-know-who and have no root or branch.

Now to a Torah scholar you can say that, even if he lives in Haredi society. He understands, okay, this is a custom, this is that; he won’t agree with me in practice, but he understands what I’m talking about. But you can’t talk to someone who doesn’t know how to learn. From her point of view, the stockings came down to Moses at Sinai. There’s no one to talk to.

Yes, but Rabbi, I was in a Reform synagogue in the United States many years ago, and I was more ignorant then, even more than today. I was in high school. There’s no problem with a Reform synagogue, by the way. In my view there’s no problem with a Reform synagogue. But still you feel that it’s not, you know—

Exactly. Those ordinary-householder feelings are what I’m talking about. This is someone whose religious world is basically just a bundle of feelings. He is not really connected to sources and interpretation and thought, but to the atmosphere in which he grew up. A lot of people make a huge ideal out of that. In my view, I don’t know — a culture of the unlearned is not an ideal.

Yes, the wife of the Chafetz Chaim, who didn’t know how to read or write, and therefore he had to do the accounts in the store. You know all these stories? And what a righteous woman she was — she didn’t know how to read or write. What’s the ideal in not knowing how to read or write? What’s the ideal in being illiterate? I can’t understand that. And they turn it into some great ideal, these stories of righteous people, that she didn’t know how to read or write. What stories of righteous people? Those are stories of wickedness. Why leave people like that?

Why did he have to go down to the store? Because his wife didn’t know how to do the accounts. Fine, the Chafetz Chaim was righteous, he helped his wife. But why did it have to be that way? She should have studied. His wife should have known how to do the accounting.

You know this myth of the “pious Yaavetz”? In Bnei Brak I kept hearing it. The Yaavetz, among the exiles of Spain, wrote there that those who stood the test better than anyone were דווקא the ordinary householders. The Torah scholars fell — because they converted or outwardly became forced converts — because Torah scholars know tricks. They know you can do it with some change. But among the unlearned there are no tricks. If you need to give up your life, you give up your life. So that becomes this whole ethos people are educated on, the importance of the ordinary householder.

And that always really infuriated me. The fact that he is an idiot — why does that turn into a great value? Sometimes stupidity has value, I’ll say it again. It’s a useful kind of stupidity. Sometimes lack of sophistication has value. Why? Because a Torah scholar, since you know the tricks, you may find for yourself all sorts of leniencies when maybe it would not be proper to do so. All true. I understand the danger. But from there to turning ignorance into a value, into a lofty ideal — that is a very long way. You should be a Torah scholar and try not to use your cleverness where it shouldn’t be used, but not become ignorant in order not to stumble in those ways.

If the ideal is to preserve Torah. But no — the ideal is to preserve Torah. Not preserve your inventions. To preserve Torah as-is, you think. But “as-is” is not Torah. That is exactly the problem. Everyone believes they know how to preserve it as-is. I understand, that’s the argument. No one can preserve it as-is. I understand, but that is exactly the argument. You’re saying the argument is over the question: what is Torah? Is Torah to wear clothing appropriate to the weather, or is Torah to wear a swimsuit? That’s the question.

By the way, I see something similar in the Quran too, with the Muslims, or in Islam. There are Sunnis and Shiites. The Sunnis cling more to the sources, and the Shiites allow themselves more interpretive freedom. Everywhere. Catholics and Protestants too, even though there there is less Jewish law. The Protestants cling more to the text itself, to the sources themselves, and the Catholics — that’s what the pope is for, to give interpretations, and the interpretations can go against what was accepted, and that’s perfectly fine. “Jephthah in his generation is like Samuel in his generation.” All the phenomena we have also exist in Islam and Christianity. The whole world is cast from the same mold. It is very similar.

Anyway, returning to us — that is the lesson I want to bring out here. When we look at tradition, we often see it as something frozen. We transmit it as through a hollow pipe. We receive from our rabbis, like a relay race. I take the baton from the previous runner and pass it to the next generation. The goal is that the baton not fall on the ground. The goal is just to keep passing it through a hollow pipe. That is a distorted conception of tradition. That is not tradition. Tradition is something dynamic. “The words of Torah grow and multiply” — that was the Talmudic passage I read earlier. Tradition is something dynamic.

You have to transmit principles, ways of looking, things much more abstract than bottom lines. But those can be forgotten. For example, with the swimsuit example — suppose the weather changes every two weeks, every month. Fine. All the better. Then they see that I wear clothing appropriate to the weather. The children see the father; the children grow up with the sense that father walks all day in a swimsuit and never changes anything, so they say: we learned that one shouldn’t change. I understand, but that’s a mistake. But if he starts explaining all kinds of subtle distinctions — sometimes this way, sometimes that way — I say to them: wear clothing appropriate to the weather. Yes, but now it’s twenty-five degrees or twenty-four, so do I need a swimsuit or not? You’re complicating things. Then there’s a chance the Jewish law will be forgotten.

Again, again — second-order considerations. Slippery slope, maybe this, maybe that. I’m asking what is correct. I’m not asking what damages this approach will bring and what damages that approach will bring. I’m asking what is correct. Let it be forgotten if it will be forgotten. Right now I’m asking what is correct. You’re asking what dangers there are if we act correctly. Fine — those are second-order considerations. I first discuss what is correct. What is correct is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants. Does He want us to wear a swimsuit or a coat? I claim He wants us to wear a coat. Then you say yes, but if we switch to a coat, people may get confused. Fine.

Now suppose the temperature changes not every day. Again, I understand where you’re going, but I’m explaining. I ask: what does the Holy One, blessed be He, want? He wants us to wear clothing appropriate to the weather. Now you’re asking a different question, a second-order question. Right, I got it: He wants me to wear a coat. Fine. But there’s danger, because if I switch to a coat and it switches every two weeks, people will get confused and in the end won’t preserve anything. Fine. It’s possible I’ll accept that argument and back off and continue to wear only a swimsuit. But that is a second-order argument. I’m first asking the primary question: what is correct? And we need to distinguish between those two things.

It’s the same with the status of women in synagogues that I mentioned earlier. You raise this with people and they say, “Yes, but what will happen tomorrow morning? Soon they’ll bring in an organ like in churches.” I say: leave aside what will happen tomorrow morning. First let’s discuss what is correct. Fine? Then we’ll see. There may be situations where even though something is correct, we won’t do it because of second-order considerations. Fine. But don’t mix them up. Let’s do it in an orderly way. First understand what is correct, then see what to do in practice. And what we do in practice may involve many other considerations. That’s okay.

By the way, I tend not to accept additional considerations as a starting point, except in extreme places. But fine, one can argue about that. I’m just saying: don’t mix up the discussion. And what usually happens is that people immediately jump to the second-order discussions. They don’t discuss whether women can be called up to the Torah. They immediately jump to: “Wait, if they are called up to the Torah, tomorrow there’ll be an organ.” Fine, maybe there will be an organ. But first let’s see: is one permitted to call them up to the Torah? Yes. Now let’s see what to do in practice.

You can also say: what would the Holy One, blessed be He, want in this case where something has changed? You can say: I don’t know exactly what He’d do, but He would want us to follow some general ethical policy. And if I’m in doubt? What if I’m not sure? I don’t know what He wants. Maybe the interpretive reading is right, maybe the literal reading is right. So what do you do in such a case? Good question. Maybe if I get to it I’ll say something. But again, that too is second-order. I’m talking right now about when I do have an interpretation. Why second-order of extremity? No, not necessarily. He would want us to act — and in literal interpretation we generally haven’t clarified what they wanted, so we try to infer it from their behavior. Now if we don’t infer, we’ll say He wants overarching values of justice and decency. That might well be. But again, that too is second-order. It is second-order because if I have a position, then I have a position. You are asking: what happens when I’m in doubt, when I don’t have a clear position? Fine, then we may start bringing in general considerations, slippery slope considerations, all sorts of considerations. Slippery slope is not interpretation. Right, of course. But both are second-order. It’s meta-Jewish law. If you like, call one third-order, I don’t care. Distinguish between them. But they are all considerations within interpretation once you don’t have a position.

So you ask me: but when I do have a position, do you agree that’s what I should do? Exactly. So then you say: fine, but if you don’t have a position — okay, then I will need other considerations. Right now I’m speaking about when I do have a position: what do I do?

Let me maybe give you an example. The Talmud brings a dispute between Abbaye and Rava regarding לא תתגודדו (“do not form separate factions”). Abbaye says one does not make two study halls, two synagogues, in one city. And Maimonides rules like Abbaye, even though this is not one of the exceptional cases where the law follows Abbaye. This is one of the examples where Maimonides rules like Abbaye: one does not make two study halls, two religious courts, in one city.

Do you know a city that doesn’t have two synagogues? Even on one street. There is no such thing, right? In Afghanistan there were two Jews and they had two synagogues. So how does that fit with לא תתגודדו? It’s ruled in Jewish law by Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh. How does it fit with two synagogues in one city?

What is even more fascinating is that almost nobody talks about it. It doesn’t bother anyone. It’s as though some metamorphosis happened and nobody even bothers — at least I don’t remember ever seeing anyone discuss the question: wait, what about לא תתגודדו, there are two synagogues in one city? And offer this answer or that answer or different approaches. No — nobody even addresses it. Maybe somebody does, but I don’t know of it. Most people aren’t bothered by it at all. Why not? Because our world has changed.

What do I mean? Once the world was very local. A village was a local village, not a global village. Everyone lived in a certain village, and probably his children would live in that same village, and his grandchildren too, and the custom was the custom of the place. Right? Today the custom is not the custom of the place. Today local custom has largely lost significance. What matters is communal custom. Why? Why should I care what my father did? What matters is the custom of the place. No — in principle customs are determined by place, not by ancestry. So how did we move to customs of ancestry? Because today’s world is one in which place has ceased to be a meaningful parameter. You live here now, tomorrow morning you’re in Australia. In a twelve-hour flight, you’re there. Place has no real significance anymore.

I also claim, by the same logic, that you can have a prayer quorum on Zoom. You can have a prayer quorum on Zoom even though some people are in Australia and some are in Israel, because we are in the same place, in the same site. A site is a place — and really so. If you ask a decisor who has not experienced this, obviously he will say it is forbidden. But I think someone who has experienced this reality understands that he really is in the same place. Someone who lives the reality of Zoom knows that this is the experience: you’re in the same place. There is no real difference between this and meeting in the same geographical place. A little, but not significantly. It is really the same place.

Now what does this mean? If you go to the Shulchan Arukh, you can’t — he’s in Australia, you have to be under the same roof, you can’t join for a prayer quorum. Different time zones, Rabbi? Never mind. In principle. Make it a zimmun if you want, not a prayer quorum. Fine? No, that also doesn’t work because it’s not the same meal. But never mind — leave the time zones aside.

So the claim is… If you hear an anthem or Hatikvah or something secular, supposedly, on Zoom or on television, people… Only if people see. I don’t want to offend anyone. At home I don’t… So those who say that even at home I don’t need to stand? I don’t stand. What does “need to stand” mean? These ceremonies don’t speak to me. Outside I stand. But I personally have no interest. What difference does it make to me? These rituals don’t speak to me.

Anyway, if you convince people not to stand for Kaddish on Zoom, they’ll tell you: leave it, it’s not the same place. Fine, then don’t stand. What? There is some dilemma here. It’s not totally trivial to say: okay, I’m now saying Kaddish on Zoom, so I’ll stand. Why? I think standing isn’t the point. I’m asking whether ten can say Kaddish. Yes, I claim yes. I claim it’s a prayer quorum. That’s my claim.

But how? I don’t know how to justify it. It’s just this feeling that… this is one place. Whoever lives that reality knows that it feels like the same place. Now a decisor who doesn’t know this reality, who hasn’t lived it, will certainly say it won’t work. You can’t join a prayer quorum on Zoom. Okay? But that’s because he hasn’t lived this reality.

Meaning, there is some change in circumstances that dictates an application completely different from what is written in the Shulchan Arukh, not to mention the Talmud. The Shulchan Arukh is from five hundred years ago.

What? Decisors who know Zoom… So I’m saying, if there are decisors who know Zoom, maybe they too will agree. Ask them. They still don’t agree. Maybe not. Fine, then we have an argument. The decisor who doesn’t know Zoom certainly won’t agree, right? Good. That’s what I’m talking about.

So what I want to say is that in different circumstances I can take the same Jewish legal rulings and apply them differently. And not that I’m allowed to apply them differently. I am obligated to apply them differently. Whoever doesn’t apply them differently is mistaken. Someone who prays alone because there’s no one physically here, even though everyone is in Australia, is mistaken. He can pray with a quorum. Why not with a Zoom quorum? Understand — this is not a leniency. It’s a stringency. I’m claiming this is what must be done, not what may be done.

Very good. So we have the Ten Commandments and peace upon Israel. What do you want? Why do we have to do all the commandments? I don’t understand. Let’s just evolve already. You say once there was no police, no this… If you think the function of the commandments is to replace the police, then fine. That doesn’t seem right to me. Fine, then we disagree. If someone comes with such a theory… yes, if someone comes with such a theory, then apparently he’ll do that. I disagree with him. Fine.

So what do you want from me? Let him do it. I don’t agree with him. Fine. No, but that’s more or less… Of course, but again, what do you want now — another slippery slope argument? So therefore what I say isn’t correct because someone else will do something silly with it? Let him. What can I do? I think what I’m saying is correct.

The point is that this conception of tradition as something fixed, something that does not allow dispute, something that does not allow change — that is an anachronistic conception, a fossilized conception of tradition. Tradition is something dynamic. And therefore it is very elusive, because it is very hard to put your finger on in what sense you are preserving tradition when your world is a completely different world from what it was a hundred, two hundred, or five hundred years ago. But someone who lives it from inside understands that he really is preserving the tradition.

When Haredim look at the Religious Zionist world, in their eyes they are not really religious. They don’t really live religiously. You live like any other secular person, you watch the same movies, spend time in the same leisure activities. What’s the difference between you? Fine, you go to synagogue. Okay, that doesn’t mean you are really religious. Why? Because in his eyes he compares you to the Shulchan Arukh or to the Talmud or to the Rashba — whatever. But I do not compare myself to the Shulchan Arukh or the Rashba. I compare myself to the principles of the Shulchan Arukh and the Rashba. In this different reality they will be implemented in a completely different way. Therefore I see myself as completely faithful to that tradition even though in the bottom lines I do something different. I also agree that I do something different. I wear a coat, not a swimsuit. Fine. But I think that’s what tradition requires of me in this situation.

And when the reasoning is of that kind, that is not Reform. What they say is that such a thing is Reform. If you allow women to be called up to the Torah, that’s Reform. Everyone will tell you that. If you tell people women can be called up to the Torah, they’ll say it’s Reform. And if you tell them but there is a Mishnah like that, what — a Reform Mishnah? They’ll say no, it’s Reform. Why is it Reform? Because it’s not what we’re used to. That’s called Reform.

I say no. There is a substantive definition of Reform. Reform is someone who changes and does not give an interpretive reason according to the principles of Jewish law. If you have a Jewish legal interpretation, I may disagree with it, no problem. But if you have a Jewish legal interpretation, fine — you’re inside the game, and we have an argument. There are disputes inside the game too. There are disputes in Jewish law. Not everyone who behaves differently from me is Reform, so long as I understand that he has his own Jewish legal reasoning.

Reformers do not raise arguments of that type, so they’re not in the game. And our tendency today is to think that anyone who makes a change is by definition Reform. No. External change that preserves the principles and only changes the application is completely inside the game. It is completely Jewishly conservative.

Yes.

Rabbi, I wanted to remark — I spent about two weeks interning with the Conservatives in the United States, and I noticed that everything that bothered me, really I had no argument against, because everything can be justified.

Where? I’m originally from Haifa. In Ahuza up top? Or Moriah? Ahuza. Yes, a very veteran community. So I noticed that every single thing that disturbed me — actually I had no argument against it, because everything can be justified.

So about Conservatives it’s even more true. I deliberately spoke about Reform and not Conservative. There is no real difference between Conservatives and modern religious people. None. It’s just differences of degree, and the left wing of modern religious people is already to the left of the right wing of the Conservatives. There is no real difference.

Look, if you try to locate “Conservative” on the previous map — Reform I defined. If you try to locate “Conservative,” you won’t find it. There is no such category. It is basically a kind of modern religious, that’s all.

But they pray mixed, men and women together. Right. In my opinion there’s no problem praying mixed either, as long as the women are dressed modestly. Maybe that’s another discussion. If the women are not dressed modestly, that’s something else. But otherwise I do not find any prohibition in it.

In the United States it’s something else. Someone there told me — speaking generally about the Conservative and Reform movements — that there are two kinds of believers in these streams. One kind says that both Torah truth and Western culture and Western values are true, but one says Western values matter more than Torah, so I bend Torah in the Western direction. The other says: I believe in Torah and it is supreme, but Torah tells me to listen to Western culture and its values.

Fine. But on top of that I would add one more thing: even if Torah tells me to listen to Western culture, still, when that implies changing Jewish law, I will need internal Jewish legal reasoning in order to do that. And that’s a subtler question. Here I think many of them won’t join in. If Western culture says it, that is enough reason to make the change, and you don’t make that interpretive move. Maybe there… Whoever makes that argument — I said I’m not talking about people, I’m talking about arguments. Whoever makes that argument, that argument is a Reform argument, not a Conservative one.

A Conservative argument is a conservative argument in the literal sense. A conservative argument is exactly the argument that says: no, in our reality today the application of Torah… Look at the responsa of Conservative rabbis. They are fully Jewish legal responsa. Look at responsa about including women in a prayer quorum or calling them to the Torah. Almost no one there knows how to learn, but there’s that professor David… what’s his name? He writes all their responsa. I forgot his name. Never mind. Someone. He writes — look, he brings Talmud, medieval authorities, later authorities, he discusses it, and he says that in today’s reality… It is a full-fledged Jewish legal responsum, and on a good level, really excellent.

And I identify with almost everything he says. Yes. And he is Conservative. So what? These are just labels. Conservative and modern religious are the same thing. There are boundaries, of course. I’m saying there are some who define themselves as Conservative but really behave like Reform. People are complicated. There are also religious people who behave like Reform. One keeps the laws of physical contact, another doesn’t; one opens WhatsApp on the Sabbath, another doesn’t. Sociologically he is Orthodox when you ask him. Fine. Sociological definitions are very elastic. That’s why I’m talking about forms of conduct or forms of reasoning, not people. People are complex creatures.

Let me maybe give one last example. In tractate Bava Batra 5, the Talmud says there is a presumption that a person does not pay before the due date. Fine? If I borrowed money from you, say for thirty days, and you come after two weeks and demand the money, and I say, “I already paid you” — but the month isn’t even over, you came after two weeks — “I paid you.” We don’t believe you. Why? Because there is a presumption that a person does not pay before the due date. Meaning, if you can hold onto the money for a month, you won’t give it up after two weeks. Okay? Therefore you are not believed.

There is a novelty here. Even though I am the defendant and therefore the burden of proof is on the claimant who wants to extract money from me, because I am not believed, the burden of proof shifts to me. Meaning, if I don’t bring proof, I’ll have to pay.

Now suppose that in our time the situation is different. Say, for example, a mortgage at the bank. If some inheritance falls to me or something like that, I get money, I might want to pay off the mortgage immediately because there is interest. What interest — a business permit, never mind, they found Jewish legal devices to allow it. But in practice it’s interest. So to get rid of the interest, I will indeed pay before the due date if I have the money.

Now we come to a religious court. The bank and I arrive at court. What is the court supposed to rule if I say I paid? The court seemingly looks at the Talmud in Bava Batra 5: a person is not believed; a person does not pay before the due date. I don’t know. But in our reality today people do pay before the due date. So am I supposed to cling to the presumption appearing in the Talmud because that’s what appears in the Talmud? Or should I understand that what the Talmud is teaching me is not the psychological fact that a person doesn’t pay before the due date, but the Jewish legal idea that if there is a presumption against you, the burden of proof may shift to you. But whether there is or isn’t such a presumption — look at reality and see whether there is one. You do not have to copy the old reality into today’s reality if today’s reality is different.

And in this matter, I think every court would rule that way. But in the case of טב למיתב, no court rules that way. טב למיתב means, as the Talmud says, that a woman prefers any kind of couplehood, no matter the cost. Okay. Now we know that’s not true today. Women today do not want just any partner, even if he is abusive, sick, whatever. No — they don’t want him. Right? That’s reality. It’s hard to deny that reality. But still, today in all religious courts, the presumption of טב למיתב reigns supreme. You can’t challenge it.

Why not? What is the difference between that and the presumption that a person does not pay before the due date? Reality has changed, so your conduct should adapt accordingly. A presumption is not sacred. A presumption describes reality. If reality is different, then the presumption is different. What’s the problem? Is this some article of faith? Even Rabbi Soloveitchik turned it into an article of faith, the presumption of טב למיתב. I find it hard to believe that even he believed this nonsense.

The point is that this touches the status of women. When it touches the status of women, suddenly it becomes Reform, feminism, and so on, and then we suddenly become terribly conservative. But on the principled level it is not different in any way from the presumption that a person does not pay before the due date. That presumption changed, and therefore one should rule accordingly. That’s all. What’s the problem? Women today do not think and do not want what women wanted in Poland in the seventeenth century or in Babylonia in the fourth century. Fine. What’s the problem? People changed, culture changed. Adjust the presumptions accordingly. There is absolutely no problem with that. It is not a deviation from Torah; the opposite. And whoever today applies the presumption of טב למיתב is a transgressor, because it is simply a false presumption. You are ruling Jewish law incorrectly.

How does this cash out in their rulings? About what? How to determine? For example, if a man beats his wife, and it turns out he was the abusive type even before and she didn’t know that — they don’t send her to get a divorce bill; she doesn’t need a divorce bill. She did not consent on those terms. Had she known this was the husband, she would not have agreed to the betrothal. So she doesn’t need a divorce bill; she isn’t married. Now they ask for a divorce bill and try to force him and it doesn’t work, and so they leave the woman chained for life. Why? Because there is the presumption of טב למיתב. What does that mean? That even if she had known he was abusive, she still would have wanted him because a woman wants a relationship at any price.

People, ask the women themselves — they’ll tell you no. Certainly. There is no religious court that doesn’t use this. It’s a cute saying, fine. But a cute saying that everyone takes seriously. Not just as a saying you use out in the street, but for an actual ruling. So go to a religious court and see. Don’t go to a religious court with a girl — it’s not for the faint of heart.

Fine. When a woman really wants someone, I may use it as a saying, but I didn’t think anyone actually rules Jewish law from it.