Answer

 
Even if, in the opinion of those rabbis, this is full-fledged Jewish law and not just a recommendation, my view is that no rabbi has the authority to determine anything. He can only express a halakhic opinion as an expert. Therefore, if there is no prohibition on owning such devices—and the truth is that there isn’t—no rabbinic invention can change that. Only the Sanhedrin can create new laws, and we are obligated toward it under the law of “do not turn aside.”
The exception to this is a community rabbi, since the community has accepted his authority and leadership upon itself. Therefore, vis-à-vis that community, he has authority not only to recommend but also to determine and direct. And even if you belong to a community whose rabbi forbids it, I still think this is not a wall. If you need it for livelihood or see importance in it, then cut corners. In a case of great need, one may permit oneself to defy the authority of a community rabbi, since this is no worse than any other rabbinic prohibition. Especially since you probably didn’t participate in appointing him as rabbi of your community; it was imposed on you. The rules of Jewish law are always guidelines, not rigid laws, and this attitude toward rules can already be seen in the Talmud itself. 
May you have a good and sweet year
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Non-extremist Haredi:
I was very surprised to read your decisive statement, “the truth is that there is no prohibition on owning these devices.”
After all, the issue is not to prohibit the device as an intrinsically forbidden object in itself. Rather, any sensible and experienced person (or one who learns from the experience of others who examine the matter deeply) understands that there is here a clear presumption of transgression of “and do not stray after,” both in the sense of heresy (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot) and in the original sense of being an intermediary for sin (Sifrei). Is there no prohibition on owning heretical books even if one doesn’t study them, or studies only the “clean” sections? I’m sure Your Honor is aware of the passage “if there is another way, he is called wicked!” At the very least, in my humble opinion, it would have been appropriate in your answer to note that an unprotected device certainly has the presumption of being an intermediary to sexual immorality and the like. Since it has felled so many casualties. I wonder what you are relying on in saying there is no prohibition? And if in matters of the body danger is treated more stringently than prohibition, then all the more so in matters of eternal life there is no need for rabbinic authority to forbid owning such a device. And one final point, if I may. Does one need rabbis with authority to forbid a person from approaching someone who is sick with a contagious and dangerous disease, such as Ebola? Is the obligation of “guard yourselves well” not enough? All that is required is an expert (a doctor, in this case) who testifies to the danger involved. Enough said.

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The Rabbi:
Hello.
First, just a parenthetical remark: for some reason, there are quite a few statements from which it emerges that this is an actual prohibition of the object itself. And not for nothing, since without prohibiting the object itself there is no prohibition here at all, as I will explain.
Second, if for you it is obvious that there is a personal prohibition, for me (who admittedly am not sensible, but I do have experience) it is difficult. I do not see any significant problem with a non-kosher phone, and certainly one cannot make sense of the nonsense about SMS, which was turned by people who have never seen what it actually is into an adjunct of idolatry and a forbidden object. What is the problem with text messages? This is just insane hysteria. So spare me Ebola and the rest of the nonsense and ridiculous examples. Before ostracizing people who own a non-kosher phone, they should ostracize all the people who ostracize others for owning a phone, along with the other Haredi offenders of violence and discrimination.
Third, see the passage in tractate Pesachim 25 (and also the well-known words of the Chafetz Chaim): almost all the medieval authorities agree that when there is a difference between the paths—even a small difference in length—it is considered as though there is no other way. We are not talking about coercion or great need; look there carefully. Rather, they dispute how much of a difference is required (any amount, or a bit more). But with a phone and SMS it seems obvious according to everyone that this is considered as though there is no other way, since SMS makes life much easier (also for others who are trying to reach you and can’t make contact because of all the “kosherness”), and in general the smartphone enables a great many important things that contain not a trace of prohibition, which an ordinary phone does not allow. And such a difference is obviously considered as though there is no other way. And indeed the same applies to heretical books and immodest books that you mentioned.
Fourth, one must take into account that the person does not intend it; where it is unavoidable and he does not intend it is more lenient than when he intends it and there is no other way, as explained in Pesachim there.
In short, in my humble opinion this is simply nonsense—some activists managed to convince a few rabbis, who have never seen what they’re talking about, to forbid it. There is indeed some degree of concern, as with many other things, but it does not remotely justify this insane hysteria. This is the world and this is how it operates, and the Torah was not given to ministering angels. Before forbidding a non-kosher phone, I would demand that people each live alone in caves so that they won’t speak slander, hurt one another, or transgress sexual prohibitions. But what can be done? This is the world, and the Torah is supposed to function within it, not instead of it. After that one should forbid traveling in cars, since hundreds are killed and thousands injured every year—is that light in your eyes? But the Torah was not given to ministering angels, only to those who inhabit this world. Obviously.

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Non-extremist Haredi:

In response to your answer to me, first of all, I find your sharp language and expressions of contempt toward rabbis who are at least as knowledgeable and responsible for the Jewish people as you are to say more about you than about them. As for the substance—you are creating a straw man called SMS and attacking opposition to that. Under the guise of important uses of a smartphone—which can also be done on a well-protected phone!!—you want to permit a device whose user will very likely arrive, willingly or unwillingly, at obscene pictures and worse, and at reading words of heresy and denial. Do you really not know how many families have been destroyed and how many tragedies have been caused by the use of such devices?? I find it hard to believe that you are that naive—or perhaps you do not feel enough responsibility toward someone who decides to play “Russian roulette” with his spiritual life and his family’s life? I don’t mean to quarrel; I asked only out of genuine astonishment. Your answer, saturated with scorn for rabbis and absurd examples like “go back to caves and the Stone Age,” seems to me unbecoming of an intelligent and knowledgeable Jew like you. This type of demagoguery, in my opinion, is not included in the ability of the sages of the Sanhedrin to declare the creeping thing pure with 150 arguments. But leaving that aside, I return to my question: is there really no need to separate people from such terrible spiritual danger (and this is backed by tragic facts in alarming numbers) even without rabbinic authority?

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The Rabbi:

As for what it says about me, let each person judge for himself. I assume it is indeed fair to infer things about a person from what he writes.

In my opinion, the destruction of families, insofar as it really happens, is caused more by the prohibition and the hysteria than by the mere possession of the device. Once you create hysteria and fear of the impure devices, it is no wonder that conflicts arise in families on that basis. That is usually what happens with pointless prohibitions of this kind. These prohibitions have destroyed and continue to destroy quite a few families and different communities, and I can only guess at the quantitative ratio between those ruined by the prohibition and those ruined by the phone.

To the best of my judgment, these limitations and fences create more problems than they solve. The restrictions on relations between the sexes create a thousand times more problems, and that is backed by numbers (regarding family abuse and sexual violence in Haredi society, and anyone who deals with this will tell you). But that is standard Haredi thinking, and in this you probably won’t be convinced by me.
Haredi policy builds up and intensifies the problems instead of dealing with them, and every prohibition creates more problems, and then more prohibitions are created. And all this, of course, proves how dangerous the world is, and therefore the walls must be raised still higher. In engineering this is called “positive feedback,” which ultimately leads to explosion. And afterward, of course, they will explain to us that the wicked and foolish secularists are building a hospital under a bridge.

I also have a few reservations about your reading comprehension. Here is one of them: I did not write to go back to caves and the Stone Age; I gave an example of something that is not demanded of people (to live in caves so as not to risk serious prohibitions).
And while we’re on the subject, I don’t think I saw in your words here any response to the arguments I raised—neither the examples of living in a cave and driving a car, nor regarding the passage about “another way.” You prefer to focus on what is supposedly “obvious to everyone” and on the imaginary numbers about Ebola “that everyone knows from experience.”

As I said, there is no terrible spiritual danger here but rather a reasonable risk, and one must deal with it as with many other things. It is not Russian roulette and not Ebola. These old wives’ tales about made-up numbers that nobody ever really checked do not impress me at all. I recall that Amnon Levy’s book about the Haredim begins with the point that among them nothing is ever minor. Everything is a catastrophe and a holocaust, or immediate salvation. Every stone from the wall cries out over every nonsense, and old wives’ tales become verified facts. If just once the Haredim were straightforward and willing to examine things in broad daylight, and then numbers were presented, maybe one could talk about facts. Meanwhile these are mikveh stories—or worse: Yated Ne’eman stories. 

Indeed, I do not have much trust in the rabbis who are considered great in the Haredi world. I have lost it, unfortunately (or fortunately). I assume they are good people with good intentions, and some are also great Torah scholars (though usually I do not greatly esteem their mode of thinking), but unfortunately they do not know the world in which they live and are led to their decisions by petty and self-interested activists looking for something to do instead of studying in kollel (which is rather boring for them). See, for example, separate buses and the rest of the ridiculous inventions (that was invented when I still lived in Bnei Brak. Mehadrin Line 1, which everyone laughed themselves to death over until it became an article of faith against the will of the rabbis who signed the prohibition).
In the Haredi world, sitting within your four cubits and setting policy for the public is considered an advantage. For me, it is a disadvantage. In order to determine something for the public, you need to know it; it is not enough to know the entire Ketzot HaChoshen by heart. Sometimes that even gets in the way. A rabbi who has never seen SMS in his life cannot issue a prohibition about it. He simply does not understand what he is talking about, and if he does not understand that he doesn’t understand—that is far worse.
By the way, that does not mean I have no trust in sages. I definitely do (of course, moderate and in reasonable measure). But it is trust in sages, and the important question is who the sages are who deserve that trust—and that is probably the main point of our disagreement here.

And I will conclude with the dismissal you used regarding the hysterical attitude toward SMS (as if there is no such thing). This is nothing but part of the usual Haredi propaganda among Haredi spokesmen who represent Haredi society outwardly. I have long since had my fill of that lie. What can I do—I know the situation well, and I know that this is indeed the attitude toward SMS as it really is. It is worth knowing that speaking the truth, even if unpleasant, is usually also more useful and more morally appropriate. There is no need constantly to represent and beautify, because in such a situation it is very hard to fix what needs fixing.

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Non-extremist Haredi:
It seems to me that what I wrote was deleted again because the page refreshed, so I am writing it again. If this creates duplication, I apologize. I decided to add one more response to your comments.
At the end of your words there is a claim that is logically unfounded, and in my view it is no more than a provocative claim unworthy of someone of your caliber. Let me explain—you write with sharpened sarcasm that before forbidding a smartphone, one would have to forbid cars because their use causes hundreds of deaths a year, etc. To that I would say: go teach that outside! Has the immense difference really escaped you? We are not talking about boycotting smartphones but about boycotting unprotected smartphones. As I already wrote, I have a smartphone protected by Netiv and it is not boycotted at all. On the contrary—it is recommended. For your example to fit, one would need to imagine a reality in which there are two kinds of cars: regular cars that cause many deaths, and protected cars in which there are no deaths (meaning accidental ones; we do not enact decrees for intentional sinners). In that hypothetical case, is it not obvious that one need not be a leading rabbi of the generation in order to forbid the use of unprotected cars?? Your claim is shown to be unfounded not only for the above logical reason, but also because—at least to my nose—it gives off a strong smell of mockery and condescending contempt. I think this casts doubt on the level of objectivity of your judgment on this issue, and that is a shame. A simple final example can illustrate this: a person needs professional information that he can find in a professional journal that contains no articles with heretical opinions at all (which he lacks the knowledge and critical sense to identify as mistaken) and contains no immodest pictures or worse. The second option is to find the article in a weekly magazine mostly devoted to arousing lusts and pleasures of a certain kind, though it also contains scientific articles. As a rabbi in Israel, would you calmly rule for him to ignore—and even dismiss—a ruling by rabbis that one may not read the first kind of publication but only the second?? That is plainly an example that fits the matter under discussion, unlike moving to live in caves.

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The Rabbi:
You are evading again, because for years they forbade every smartphone, and also SMS, and also internet (and radio too). It may be that now there is some new invention of a protected phone that they permitted. I do not keep up with all these innovations.
It is not true that one can always find professional information in a publication without heretical opinions or without pictures. Again, this is a distortion of reality. If it were possible—I would support it (at least regarding modesty. Regarding heresy, not really, because in my opinion it is important to know other views, even those considered heretical—certainly when, usually, the people deciding what is heretical and what is not do not understand what they are talking about).
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Non-extremist Haredi:
Apparently not only love bends the line. You doubt my reading comprehension, because your example about returning to caves was only a preliminary thought. But, as is well known, even a preliminary thought has to stand the test of logic. But in my opinion that is not the main problem. In complete contrast to the thoroughness and precision reflected in your analytical articles—in your last response I was astonished to see your approach. You attack the Haredim with “old wives’ tales and imaginary numbers that nobody ever checked,” while you yourself write: “the restrictions on relations between the sexes create a thousand times more problems…” Maybe it is only twelve times more? Is that your area of expertise? Or are you relying on rumors? At the end of my words I will bring a letter (in English) from Rabbi Professor Abraham Twerski—a great Torah scholar and professor of clinical psychiatry—who is not only a professional authority among the best in the Haredi world in the United States, but also a public figure who lives among his people and has treated hundreds of people over many years (that number is verified), and also within the framework of an organization established in 2007 specifically to treat people who were spiritually harmed as a result of exposure to the world of the internet. You will be able to see data from a first-rate professional in the field, and not what you write: “In my opinion, the destruction of families, insofar as it really happens, is caused more by the prohibition and the hysteria than by the very possession of the device…” What sensible person would set your personal opinion against the accumulated data. (I personally have encountered in recent years three families that were destroyed when the father, who was exposed to and swept up by internet pornography, abandoned his wife and children, cast off the yoke of the commandments, and left.) I have not met nor heard even from professionals about a family that was destroyed because of the hysteria against unfiltered internet.
Throughout your response, the line is “in my opinion and estimation… as against Haredi hysteria,” without your having a single piece of data or a single study to support your view that the prohibitions are the source of the problem and not exposure to the content.
You did not address at all a very important point that I raised: since there are protected phones accessible for technological needs while reasonably blocking the danger, how is it that you do not agree to uphold “if it is better, do not call it worse”?! After all, our holy sages suspended for all Israel the commandment of blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah because of the distant possibility that someone might carry a shofar in the public domain. Israel’s merit of shofar-blowing is not worth it if one Jew will fail in a transgression. That is how far the sages’ responsibility extends for one person’s transgression. And where in your approach is there any sign of concern for those who fall into terrible sins? I think this is a question of fear of Heaven, not of checking reality. I think the leading rabbis of the generation who fight against devices with the breach of pornography and heresy are the ones who show real responsibility for the souls of the Jewish people, not those who calmly suggest taking risks because “that’s life.” 
A Jew named Kobi Levy, who works in publishing books and articles on the subject, is in contact with very many people in the Haredi public who are trying to save as much as possible, and especially he is personally involved with the kind of problems I mentioned in hundreds of families. He has precise data: names, addresses, and all the details. If you are equipped with even a little love of truth—please contact him and ask him for solid, factual proof of the scope of the problem. You will be able to see firsthand whether this is hysteria or facts. My feeling is that if you had encountered one family (and I am willing to give you a name and phone number) that was destroyed because a child possessed such a device, and seen the terrible results for the family—you would not have written what you wrote. You would see clearly how incorrect the speculations you keep raising are. 
The fact that there is much to fix in the Haredi public does not make it the ridiculous public you portray.
But I suppose, as I wrote at the outset: not only love bends the line—pride does too.
I am bringing the words of Rabbi Professor Twerski and attaching his email address so that you can ask him for verified numbers and an accurate factual description of the dimensions of the epidemic and professional analyses—from people who are not philosophers but top professionals in the field:
 Abraham_J._Twerski@mail.vresp.com

I believe that in our generation, the single greatest danger to the Jewish people is that of immorality. The plague of illicit material on the internet has affected the type of people we would never have suspected vulnerable: yeshiva students, kollel students, and those who observe the commandments meticulously. The Satan has won a battle, hurting so many individuals and families.
But in every generation, God in His kindness sends someone to sustain Judaism, such as the Baal Shem Tov with Hasidism, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter with the Mussar movement, and the Chafetz Chaim with guarding one’s speech. We are extremely fortunate that several dedicated people have developed a network to help Jews who are caught in this trap: GuardYourEyes.com. It’s one of my absolute favorite organizations and I have been involved with them in many ways since their founding (in 2007).
In my 40 years of psychiatric experience I can testify that traditional psychiatry and psychology are not effective on their own. GuardYourEyes provides a variety of anonymous tools, counseling, and support for affected people, allowing thousands of Jews to get help. I get an average of five calls a week about this issue, and before GuardYourEyes was around I didn’t have anywhere to send people. Their success rate is phenomenal. I am personally aware of many, many people that have been saved.
The GuardYourEyes project is extremely important for the Jewish people today—it is truly a matter of saving life. Please open your hearts and give generously to help them continue their holy work. All of their services are free of charge, and it is a great commandment to support them. 
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The Rabbi:
Hello.
There are so many failures and omissions even in your latest words that my conclusion is that this discussion is leading nowhere.
May we all be sealed for good.
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The Rabbi:
I feel that my previous response looks evasive. So I will explain my intention further, although I truly do not intend to open a discussion. Therefore I will just mention a few of the flaws here (and there are several more).
Before I explain, I will only note generally: is disqualifying people who own such a phone from testimony, and disqualifying them from various other things, really halakhically grounded as you wrote? Not to mention persecuting them in many other varied ways. I will not return to the rest of your omissions, which I have already commented on, and to the problems this persecution itself causes.

And as for the “data” you brought here: the use of “experts” and “data” in these fields, especially such as report personal experience (like “I myself saw three cases; I can give you a phone number”) rather than systematic research, is notoriously unreliable. It seems to me that this is exactly what alternative medicine is built on (my grandmother experienced a miracle after the doctors had given up on her. Therefore, in cases of colon cancer, one should do Czech acupuncture. Tested and proven).
That is why, in my sky-high pride (after the line got bent), I cast great doubt on all this. Such statements are more a product of prior opinions and assumptions than of data.
And in general, on topics like this it is very hard to do research even in general society, and in Haredi society it is practically impossible. Such research, even if carried out, is biased from so many angles that it is ridiculous to relate to it quantitatively at all.
That is why I will not take advantage of your generous offers to examine the situation, because that would require lengthy research, and because of what I will now explain, I have very great doubt whether I could arrive at any results at all. I will add that my trust in psychologists and psychology is rather small even in more established fields, and all the more so here.

Here are a few remarks that make checking data and deciphering its meaning very difficult:
1. Has it been checked how many of these cases are prevented by prohibiting a non-kosher phone? Is it even possible to completely block people from contact with the world around us?
2. Has it been checked how many problematic cases, and of what kinds, result from this prohibition and the persecutions that followed it? By the way, I personally know several such cases. But I do not pretend to cite data that I do not have based on a few personal experiences.
3. Has the effect and contribution of Haredi society’s own attitude to these results been checked (the society that places a taboo on them and demonizes them)? What would the number of destructive cases be in a more open society? See, for example, wasting seed and what branches from it. And see also army enlistment, which supposedly causes terrible secularization (and disqualifies for testimony and for matchmaking), yet for some reason among students of Mercaz HaRav who enlist, this almost never happens.
Allowing some catharsis for such urges also has positive value. Total prohibition may lead to the eruption of those urges in other, more harmful directions. Cases that professionals encounter every day, and according to some of them with whom I spoke, are far more common in Haredi society.
The opening up to psychology and more organized engagement with these problems is also a positive change in Haredi society. In my estimation, concealment and denial also contribute to the emergence of the problem. Not to mention the absence of journalistic reporting and public discussion about all this. There is only preaching and use of vague “data” and demonization that do not stand up to public scrutiny.
4. Has it been checked how many of these people would have left their families or the commandments even without the non-kosher phone? In how many cases did this attach itself to problems that were already festering earlier and had been sublimated because of social pressure? After all, there are quite a few abandonments even without this. Every now and then it is worth admitting that our world is not perfect even if it were to appear ideally.

And still, of course there is room for impressions, and I do not mean to say that there is no point in discussion. But it seems to me that there is strong dependence here on the debaters’ underlying assumptions and starting points, and less on data. I freely admit that my starting point is that an open world is a better world than a closed one.
Here I will add that I do not know what they filter in the kosher phone, but according to your testimony it includes heresy and other opinions, not just modesty. Therefore it is clear to me—as it has always been clear to me—that this prohibition is connected far more to the Haredi leadership’s fear that people will start thinking and hearing other views than to exposure to pornography and prohibitions. That was always the case, even when I was more up to date with what was happening there. That is the main fear of the internet, and the abominations and pornography are only an external propaganda and battle tool (not that it doesn’t exist, but in my estimation this is not what the Haredi leadership really sees as the serious problem).
About this, by the way, one could do an orderly experiment. Offer the Haredi leadership two options: 1. An organized pornography channel with no internet connection whatsoever. 2. Internet access hermetically filtered from pornography but not from opinions (even those of Religious Zionists, not to mention secularists and various heretics). Which would they prefer? I have my suspicions, but as I said, I have not conducted a study.

As for bending the line and pride, I will try to think about that next Yom Kippur, may it come upon us for good. Thank you for the rebuke.
May we be sealed for good, and may this be a year of character refinement and of straightening crooked lines.
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Non-extremist Haredi:
So I understand that professionals and facts and data from the field are, in your eyes, failures and omissions, and only your speculations are truth? Showing responsibility toward people’s spiritual falls is, in your eyes, failures and omissions? Let the readers judge and see how far the outlook of “I have my own truth, don’t confuse me with facts” can go. And I ask myself: if even the cedars have caught fire…
May we be sealed for good.
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The Rabbi:
I wrote a response below before your remark reached me. See there. May you be sealed for good.

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Non-extremist Haredi:
I saw your response before I wrote these things.
But—I believe you will not call Professor Twerski to check facts. You will not call Kobi Levy to get addresses of families in order to investigate personally. You will not torment your conscience over a person who falls into the net of abomination as a result of irresponsible browsing because of a rabbi who instructs his listeners to own an unprotected phone, because the prohibition is more severe than the protection. I wish I am mistaken about this, and I will be prepared to apologize explicitly on this very platform if I was wrong about you.
May you be sealed for good.
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Non-extremist Haredi:
I meant to withdraw my hand from the dialogue (or monologue?), but what can I do—on the evening after Yom Kippur (the day after my last post) I received a sad phone call from a person in my neighborhood. His daughter (an adult) was tempted to buy an iPhone, and the rest is known. You dismissed exposure to heretical ideas and raised sharp questions—who decides what heresy is, etc. Can you imagine what a YouTube lecture by an educated, impressive, charismatic scientist on the theory of evolution and the conclusions he draws from it regarding religion can do?! Especially for people (not necessarily religious) who mistakenly identify technological success as evidence for the truth of science.
What should I tell her father? That one rabbi who has an opinion about almost everything (and I truly am impressed by the range of your writings in so many fields) determined that rabbis may not require the use of protected smartphones? That the danger is not from exposure to lectures of this kind but from Haredi hysteria? I would appreciate it if you would agree to ask me for the young woman’s details, meet with her, and help her return from the dramatic steps she has taken in her life?
Or perhaps I should tell her that she is one of the “victims of open and progressive Judaism”? 
As an aside, I want to express my appreciation for the fact that you act honestly and publish criticism of your words on the site as well, unlike “certain” sites.
A good note.
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The Rabbi:
Mistake. Tell him that she is one of the victims of closed Judaism, which did not give her tools to cope and thereby sent her to perdition at her first shallow encounter with other opinions and arguments.
Contrary to the Haredi assumption, openness solves these problems and does not create them. It has short-term costs, but in the long run there is no alternative. It is the closedness that creates these problems.
I already wrote here about the mistake made in the period of the Haskalah, when young people were presented with the choice of being righteous (and stupid) or wise (and wicked). No wonder many chose the second option. Haredi society is repeating that in our time as well, and immense are its casualties. I meet them every day.
Not every matter has good answers, and one must be honest. But people fall because of simple arguments, because they are unpracticed and unfamiliar. If you had allowed them to hear the arguments and dealt with them, the situation would be better (certainly in the long term. The gains from closedness are only short term).

I would be happy to meet with her and try to clarify the questions. Give her or her father my phone number: 052-3320543.

By the way, the fact that people whose problems awaken come to clarify them with me (and there are masses of them) means that openness creates the possibility of dealing with these problems. I do not say that I have answers to all the questions, but I at least try to be honest. That is usually what people are looking for, more than slogan-like and dishonest answers or denunciation as heretics (which is the Haredi form of coping, and it prevents the questions from being raised).
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Yogev:
Can the Rabbi explain the sentence “The rules of Jewish law are always guidelines, not rigid laws”?
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The Rabbi:
Exactly as it sounds. There is a rule that the Jewish law follows Abaye in six cases, but the medieval authorities rule like him in other passages too. There is a rule that women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments, but there are quite a few exceptions. There are rulings like Beit Shammai against the heavenly voice. And so on. The entire Talmud expresses an outlook that treats rules lightly and sees them, at most, as a guiding framework and not binding instructions. That is also why they do not deal all that much with rules. It is like the rules of language, each of which has many exceptions, because the rules are approximations and not hard, rigid laws. So too with the rules of Jewish law. They were not given at Sinai, but were formed as approximations to intuitive thinking. There is much more to say about this (I discuss it in the trilogy I am currently writing).