Q&A: Divine Providence + Was the Oral Torah Given at Sinai? + Military Service for a Haredi Girl
Divine Providence + Was the Oral Torah Given at Sinai? + Military Service for a Haredi Girl
Question
Hello, I have a few questions that are bothering me, and I’d be happy to hear your answer:
1. I recently argued with someone about whether there is divine providence, and I claimed that the cases people call divine providence are simply statistical outliers. For example, someone survives an accident where the chance of dying is 99%, so a religious person will tell you there was divine providence here. The problem is that he didn’t see all the 99 people who did die when they drove like that. So he said that even if there’s a 99% chance a person will be harmed, in the end—what determines whether he actually gets harmed or not? Which person out of the 99 will be saved? A nonbeliever will tell you: it’s random, and a believer will say that this is where God intervenes and decides. That doesn’t sound very convincing to me, but I couldn’t explain why. Do you agree with that idea? If not—why not?
2. Some lecturer came to our seminary and spoke about how the entire Torah, including the Oral Torah, was given to us from Heaven, and he quoted some passage from the Talmud (“teaching that all of it was given at Sinai”). That also didn’t sound right to me, but I don’t have enough knowledge to argue with that claim. Do you think it’s possible? If not—why not? I told him it didn’t sound right to me and that I’d look into the issue, and he’s coming back to us next week, so I’m trying to gather decent counterarguments by then.
3. I’m a Haredi girl, and I recently started thinking a bit about the issue of the draft. I wanted to ask—do you think the exemption of religious girls from the army is justified? Is there some value in doing national service? I never really understood it. If the state needs an army, then obviously whoever is fit should go, but why does that mean that everyone else now has a moral obligation to volunteer for the benefit of the state?
Answer
In the future, please split questions into separate threads. If a discussion develops here, it’s inconvenient to conduct it on all three at once and all mixed together.
- I completely agree. I’ve written about this at length in several places. You can search here on the site for “providence” or “active involvement” (as distinct from passive involvement). His claim is possible, so you won’t find a direct argument against it. But it isn’t plausible, and it certainly doesn’t prove anything against your position. In general, if the Holy One, blessed be He, is involved by choosing that one out of a hundred who gets harmed, while still being subject to the general statistics (that only 1 in 100 will be harmed), then it’s unclear why He wouldn’t intervene and make sure that 2 or 5 get harmed, if they really deserve it? If He’s intervening, then let Him intervene in everything. There’s no logic in this.
- Nonsense from an ignoramus. One of the common examples is Rabbi Akiva’s exposition in Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 64b, where it is explicit that the early elders had accepted one thing, and Rabbi Akiva changed it and expounded something else. Meaning, he did not receive that Jewish law by tradition from Sinai, but innovated it himself. Beyond that, Maimonides writes in several places that most of the expositions in our possession are creative expositions (that created laws that were previously unknown), not supportive ones (those that merely ground existing laws). In his responsum to Rabbi Pinchas the judge, he writes that the supportive ones are only about three or four. He also writes this explicitly in his second root, that there are creative expositions and supportive ones. The Netziv, in Kedmat Ha-Emek, explains the Talmudic expression “they learned it as received tradition,” which according to Rashi means this is a tradition from Sinai, but according to Maimonides it means a law that was created at some stage by the sages and transmitted by them as tradition (and the source for the exposition was forgotten). So you see that there are laws that come into being over the generations. Was the prohibition of electricity on the Sabbath, or opening bottle caps, transmitted to Moses at Sinai? In practice, the overwhelming majority of laws are like that. And when you find sayings in the Talmud that everything was transmitted to Moses at Sinai, the meaning is not factual-historical—that this is literally what happened—but normative: we are to relate to laws that were innovated as if they had been given at Sinai.
- The state expects everyone to contribute for a few years. Most go to the army, and others, in the name of equality, are supposed to contribute on another plane. What isn’t clear here? The value of equality is basic. If some people contribute and risk their lives, then at the very least you should contribute in whatever way you can in order to share the burden. National service is an obligation, not just something generally nice or fitting. Its contribution is no different from that of a female soldier, and there is no impediment. It is very preferable to do two years and not just one.
Discussion on Answer
My view is that it’s better to stick to common sense and abandon stupid Haredi pilpul.
Thank you for the answer,
Regarding #2—could you give me sources to look at that I can bring him?
3—I didn’t understand your answer. If a fire broke out at a party where half the people were firefighters and half were dentists, would you expect that while the firefighters go put it out, the dentists should find themselves some place to volunteer over the next few hours in the name of the value of equality? Or in the current war, every time there was another reserve-duty round, should all those who aren’t reservists have had to volunteer the same amount of time for the benefit of the state?
There needs to be an army because the people living here need to be defended, and therefore every citizen who can help should go. Not because there is some general idea of contributing to the state and doing so equally. Don’t you think?
Hello Rabbi, to be honest, I saw this argument from Idan Eretz and from various people with a capitalist ideology who really do claim that entering the workforce contributes more than national service, not from Haredim. It feels to me like when you see an argument that reminds you of a Haredi argument, you immediately dismiss it.
Chaya, I gave sources. But there’s no point in arguing with him if you don’t understand the topic. He’s talking nonsense. That’s all.
3. There wasn’t a fire here. This is a standing obligation in an ongoing situation, and someone who cannot give it is required to give something else in its place.
I meant a source for this—“Maimonides writes in several places that most of the expositions in our possession are creative expositions (that created laws that were previously unknown) and not supportive ones (those that ground existing laws)”—where does Maimonides say this? Regardless of my argument with him, I’d be happy for the source because I want to read it myself.
3—I don’t really see the big difference, but I need to think about it. Thanks for the answer.
I wrote that it’s in the second root. Here is a partial quote:
“We already explained in the introduction to our work, in the Commentary on the Mishnah (at the beginning of the introduction), that most of the laws of the Torah were derived through the thirteen principles by which the Torah is expounded, and that a law derived by one of those principles may sometimes be subject to dispute. And there are also laws that are interpretations received from Moses, with no dispute about them, but they bring proof for them through one of the thirteen principles, because it is part of the wisdom of Scripture that a hint may be found in it indicating that received interpretation, or an inference pointing to it. We already explained this matter there. Since this is so, not everything that we find the sages deriving by inference through the thirteen principles should be said to have been said to Moses at Sinai; nor should we say that everything we find in the Talmud being supported by one of the thirteen principles is rabbinic, for sometimes it is a received interpretation. Therefore, the proper rule in this matter is that anything you do not find written in the Torah, but do find in the Talmud as having been derived through one of the thirteen principles—if they themselves clarified and said that this is an essential part of the Torah, or that it is of Torah origin, then it is fitting to count it, because the transmitters said that it is of Torah origin. But if they did not clarify this and did not speak of it in that way, then it is rabbinic, since there is no scriptural text indicating it.”
And his response to Rabbi Pinchas the judge is in responsa, no. 359:
“(To Rabbi Pinchas the judge.) Response regarding the matter of betrothal.
The question is: Why did I say that betrothal through intercourse and through a document are of Torah origin, while betrothal through money is rabbinic? You asked: But all of them are derived from the Torah—how do we know money? We learn it by the verbal analogy of ‘taking’ and ‘taking,’ etc. This is the substance of the question. And the brief answer is as follows. I have a work in Arabic concerning the enumeration of the commandments, and it is with Mr. Saadia, the cantor, our student. At its beginning there are fourteen chapters with major general principles concerning the fundamentals of the enumeration of the commandments, which a person must know, and afterward the mistake of everyone who counted the commandments apart from me—from the author of Halakhot Gedolot until now—will become clear to him. In those chapters I explained that not everything learned by inference, or by an a fortiori argument, or by a verbal analogy, or by one of the thirteen principles through which the Torah is expounded, is a Torah law—unless the sages explicitly say that it is from the Torah. And I brought proofs for this. There I also explained that even something that is a law to Moses from Sinai we call ‘rabbinic,’ and nothing is called ‘from the Torah’ except something explicitly written in the Torah, such as the prohibition of mixing wool and linen, forbidden mixtures, the Sabbath, and illicit relations; or something about which the sages said that it is from the Torah—and those are only about three or four things. In that book I explained everything, and when you read it it will become clear to you, even though it is in Arabic, because most of those chapters consist of the words of the sages in the Holy Tongue. One could also certainly ask and say: Intercourse is obviously from the Torah, for they did not learn it by one of the thirteen principles, but rather from ‘and he has relations with her,’ teaching that she is acquired through intercourse. But money and the document were learned by inference, so why did you say that the document is from the Torah and money is from the words of the sages? The answer is that I certainly would have said that both money and the document are from the words of the sages, since they came by way of legal reasoning, were it not for the fact that we say explicitly in the matter of a betrothed young woman—we say: A betrothed young woman, which the Merciful One said is punished by stoning, how can that case arise? That is, from the verse ‘a virgin young woman who is betrothed’ it is clear that there certainly is betrothal from the Torah without intercourse—but by what means? They discussed the matter back and forth, and at the end of the statement Rav Nachman son of Yitzchak said: You find it in a case where he betrothed her by document; since just as a document finalizes and removes, so too it finalizes and brings in. From this it follows that according to everyone, a document finalizes and brings in. On this I relied, and I ruled that a document is of Torah origin. And by your life, my dear master, do not trouble yourself to respond on all these matters, and do not depend on me to answer all your letters, but only briefly on something useful, for I am greatly occupied with many matters and my body is weak, and I do not even have the strength to read the letters, all the more so to answer them, unless they are questions on a matter of wisdom. I have no time at all because of the weakness of my body continually, and because of my own study in many matters. May your peace increase and grow. [Lag BaOmer. Moses son of Maimon, of blessed memory.]”
Hello Rabbi, some people claim that it’s preferable to enter the workforce and that this contributes more to the state than national service.
What do you think of that argument?