Q&A: The Obligation to the Talmud
The Obligation to the Talmud
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Why, fundamentally, are we absolutely bound to the Talmud, with the whole discussion revolving around what it meant? Why is it impossible to disagree with Amoraim and Tannaim, and only from the end of the Talmudic period onward?
And another question: how did we end up in a situation where we study what the Gemara meant? After all, if they ruled something in the generation of the Amoraim, that should have continued as a tradition. Why, instead of simply practicing what our father does, are we engaging in pilpul over an ancient book from 2,000 years ago?
Answer
Hello Haggai.
- Our commitment to the Talmud is because the public accepted it upon itself as the binding text (see Kesef Mishneh at the beginning of chapter 2 of the Laws of Rebels). It is our law book. The other books are interpretation. Just as in a state, the law book is binding not because it is correct but because that is what was accepted as binding. And indeed, interpretations of the law book can be disputed and are not binding.
I will only add that the decision to accept the Talmud as the canonical and binding text turned out, in retrospect, to be a brilliant decision. Notice that they did not establish a canonical text like the Shulchan Arukh or Maimonides, with cut-and-dried laws. Had that been what was established, then all the communities that spread throughout the world and lived under completely different circumstances and cultures would have had to conform to that exact same ruling. That would not have endured, and today there would be no Jewish law. On the other hand, if they had established nothing at all, then every community would have done whatever it wanted, and again there would be no Jewish law. What they decided was to establish an open text, one that does not bind by its bottom-line conclusions (in almost no topic in the Talmud are there bottom lines that issue a halakhic ruling). What became fixed was the mode of give-and-take and several basic assumptions. This allows flexible discourse and different applications according to circumstances, while at the same time enabling conversation and debate among the communities and halakhic decisors within one conceptual and authoritative framework. I do not know whether this was the rationale from the outset, but in retrospect it turned out to be a brilliant decision. I think there is nothing else like it in the world, where the canonical and binding text is a collection of discussions rather than definitive rulings.
I think that this remark answers your second question. That is with regard to questions that appear in the Talmud and the medieval authorities. But sometimes we engage in pilpul over questions that arise in circumstances that did not exist in Talmudic times, or even if they did exist, the Talmud did not address them directly, and so its principles must be applied to the new circumstances. There can be disagreements about that.
Discussion on Answer
If the public’s acceptance is not binding, then the Torah itself is not binding either (because its binding force is due to the public’s acceptance at Mount Sinai). By the same token one could ask why state law is binding (only because of the public’s acceptance). I, as part of the public, am bound by what the public agreed to, and I am part of that public.
The talk about the Gemara is too vague. Bring an example and we’ll discuss it.
But seemingly Abraham did not need to accept the command to slaughter his son in order to be obligated to do so.
Was there a possibility that the people of Israel would not accept the Torah?
The obligation is due to the public’s acceptance. But the fact that the command is correct is because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it (and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, accepted it upon Himself). That is with regard to a direct divine command. As for interpretations and legislation of the Sages, the obligation is due to acceptance alone (because there is no necessity to assume that it is always correct).
There was a possibility that the people would not accept the Torah, in which case they would not have been obligated, but they would have been mistaken in doing so (and perhaps also punished for not doing the right thing. Just as the nations were punished for not accepting the Torah by the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, distanced Himself from them).
I don’t understand. It’s not clear to me why the public’s acceptance binds me. You’re speaking as if there is some metaphysical obligation that takes effect the moment the people decide something. A law, for example, binds me legally. What kind of obligation arises from the people’s agreement?
As for the Gemara: take, for example, the topic of meat and milk. It says there that he did not eat from one meal to another, and they disagree whether this refers to time (which then yields six hours, one hour, and so on) or like Tosafot (if I remember correctly), that one simply has to separate meals, even if they are close together in terms of time.
I really did not understand your argument. Why is it so obvious to you that the law binds you legally? What is the difference between obligation to the law and obligation to Jewish law? In both cases, when you are a member of some public and the public decides, that binds you.
As for waiting between meat and milk, this is a rabbinic law and there is a dispute about its interpretation. See, for example, the description here:
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%AA%D7%A0%D7%94_%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9F_%D7%91%D7%A9%D7%A8_%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%91
It may be that the dispute is ancient, and it may be that it emerged later. Thus, for example, the dispute between Rashi and Rabbenu Tam regarding phylacteries: it turns out that in excavations they found Rabbenu Tam phylacteries from the Talmudic period (I think at Masada).
In any case, waiting between meat and milk is indeed a good example for your question, since it is daily behavior, and if there had been a clear and uniform custom, it is reasonable to assume it would have been passed on. Therefore it is reasonable that there were already different customs from ancient times (and this may perhaps explain the dispute between the two passages described in Wikipedia), as in the case of phylacteries. Another possibility is that at some period, in some place, they did not have meat or milk, and so the question did not arise, and thus the matter was forgotten and a different custom developed, along with a dispute.
Be that as it may, the matter is unclear regardless of how you understand the development of Jewish law. After all, it is obvious that the Tosafists did not invent the law of waiting, because it appears in the Gemara. So the question of what was transmitted onward from the Gemara arises simply as a historical question. I suggested above one possible answer to that. Therefore this discussion has no principled significance whatsoever (in the sense of halakhic obligation). At most it is an interesting historical question, and nothing more.
The law binds me legally, no more than that. There is nothing metaphysical or religious here. I won’t be judged in the World to Come for violating the law. So why is the people’s agreement regarding the Talmud or customs valid? I understand with regard to Jewish law itself — the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us. But that does not obligate us to listen to the agreements of the people concerning things beyond that.
In my view, disputes about understanding the Gemara are broader than just historical questions. They have significance for our Torah study. For example: is there significance to studying the Gemara and deriving the law from it?
You actually raised two possible answers:
1. From the outset there were several customs.
2. A break in the tradition due to historical circumstances.
Regarding 1: when the Gemara says something, it means something specific. There is one understanding that is correct in the passage. Fine — had a range of opinions already appeared in the Gemara itself…
Regarding 2, that also isn’t clear to me, because it doesn’t make sense that in almost all subjects there was some break at some point in the course of history…
Thanks for the answers and for your patience.
With God’s help, toward the holy Sabbath, “may he increase and burst forth,” 5777
From Maimonides’ words in his introduction to Mishneh Torah, it appears that the Talmud’s unique authority is not only because “all Israel agreed to them,” but also because of the stature of the Sages of the Talmud in two respects:
(a) “And those Sages who enacted, or decreed, or instituted practices, or judged a law and taught that the legal ruling is such — they were all the Sages of Israel, or most of them.”
(b) “And they are the ones who heard the tradition regarding the fundamentals of the entire Torah, each man from the mouth of another, up to Moses our teacher.”
And as Maimonides describes in detail before that:
Thus Ravina and Rav Ashi and their colleagues were the end of the great Sages of Israel who transmitted the Oral Torah… And after the court of Rav Ashi, who compiled the Talmud in the days of his son and completed it, Israel was scattered throughout all the lands in greater dispersion, and reached the distant ends and islands, and strife increased in the world, and the roads were disrupted by military bands, and Torah study diminished. And Israel no longer gathered to learn in their academies by the thousands and tens of thousands as they had previously; rather, individuals gathered — the remnant whom the Lord calls — in every city and in every province, and they occupied themselves with Torah and understood all the compositions of the Sages and learned from them what the legal path is, how it is.
In short:
As the Sages said, “Once Israel was exiled, there is no greater nullification of Torah than this.” The dispersion of the Jewish people caused a qualitative decline in knowledge of the Torah and in its understanding — both in the forgetting of traditions and accepted methods of study, and in the loss of the mutual enrichment of thousands and tens of thousands gathering together to engage in Torah. And with God’s help, the renewed ingathering of all the tribes of Israel, accompanied by the gathering of the spiritual treasures created by the Sages of Israel, “the remnant whom the Lord calls,” throughout the generations, gives us the tools to clarify, deepen, and innovate true novelties founded on the solid principles our ancestors bequeathed to us.
With blessings,
S. Z. Lewinger
S.Z.L.,
One must distinguish between the reason for the law and its validity. It may be that what Israel agreed to regarding the authority of the Talmud, and accepted upon itself, was because of the stature of the Sages of the Talmud and because they were concentrated in one place. But why is the Talmud binding? Because of the agreement and acceptance. The same is true of the law, regarding which one cannot say that its validity is because of the stature of the members of Knesset, and yet it is binding because we accepted the democratic institutions upon ourselves. And conversely regarding running a red light. Our obligation not to run a red light has nothing to do with the fact that it is dangerous to do so. The obligation is because of the legislation. Were there no binding legislation, there would be no obligation to stop at a red light, even though it would be just as dangerous.
You thus learn that what binds is acceptance, not wisdom (even if someone is wise and great in Torah, that in itself does not obligate me to obey him). Wisdom is at most the reason why we accepted them, but even if there is no wisdom and there is acceptance, that is binding, and likewise here.
With God’s help, 26 Tevet 5777
Regarding the Sages of the Talmud, Maimonides mentioned that they received the tradition each from the mouth of another up to Moses our teacher, and that they were the majority of the Sages of Israel. Since we have no authority to disagree with what was transmitted to Moses at Sinai, and also in matters the Sages decided by reasoning or by the hermeneutical principles through which the Torah is expounded, their words were discussed and examined in gatherings of thousands and tens of thousands — their rulings therefore have authority for us by force of “follow the majority.”
The agreement of the later generations, too, is not merely a technical matter. After all, those who “agreed” were towering geniuses, whose “intellect was formidable in the wisdom of the Talmud,” and if they bowed their heads before the Sages of the Talmud, what can we say after them?
With blessings,
S. Z. Lewinger
Hello S.Z.L.
As I recall, “his intellect was formidable in the wisdom of the Talmud” is an expression Maimonides used about Rabbi Yosef ibn Migash. You are expanding it quite a bit.
Indeed, we have no authority to disagree with what was transmitted to Moses at Sinai, but we can disagree about the question of what was transmitted there.
And as for the agreement of the later generations, see my previous comment (regarding the difference between definition and rationale). Wisdom does not confer authority.
That the intellect of the medieval authorities and the great later authorities is formidable in the wisdom of the Talmud is something anyone who studies and reflects on their words can see.
With blessings,
S. Z. Lewinger
Thanks for the quick response!
“Our commitment to the Talmud is because the public accepted it upon itself as the binding text” — and why is the public’s acceptance binding?
I agree with what you wrote. In any case, it’s still not really clear to me how this answers the question. Seemingly, the Amoraim did rule on things. Even if it doesn’t explicitly say, “the law is such-and-such,” the Gemara still says something, and the discussion revolves around what it meant. The Amoraim knew what they meant, and it’s not clear to me how that wasn’t transmitted onward. It’s not clear to me how there can be several different understandings of a passage, etc.
There is no doubt that with regard to laws they didn’t address, or newly arising ones, the solution is understandable. My question is about the ancient and well-known laws.