Q&A: The Nature of Rabbinic Exegesis
The Nature of Rabbinic Exegesis
Question
Hello Rabbi.
When the Sages used the thirteen hermeneutical principles to derive halakhic interpretations (including derivations from apparently superfluous letters and words and other nuances of language and syntax), were they basically aiming at a final answer that had already been determined before the derivation?
I don’t mean the well-known discussion whether these derivations are merely supports or whether Jewish law was actually arrived at through them. Rather, assuming that Jewish law was indeed arrived at through them, I’m asking: is there some final answer toward which the Sages are trying to arrive? An answer written on a note in God’s hand, and the Sages are trying to hit the target? Or is there really no such preexisting result, and the derivation actually creates the law itself—something God did not specifically intend, and which has no intrinsic necessity at all.
If we say that there is a final answer that was already fixed from Sinai, then the following is unclear to me:
A. It would come out that until that derivation was made, the Jewish people never actually observed that law, even though it had already been God’s will at the time the Torah was given. Or: why didn’t God state that law explicitly—the “final answer”—right away at the giving of the Torah, instead of waiting many generations until a sage arose and derived it? Why did God, so to speak, allow us to violate His will for hundreds of years?
Obviously we were “coerced” in this matter (or entirely exempt), but it is still unclear to me why God gave the Torah this way: that there is a certain law that ought to be observed, yet it was never observed until the era of the Tannaim, for example. What was deficient in Moses’ original Torah that required God to give us the thirteen principles and have us extract new things through them?
B. How is it possible that hundreds of years passed from the giving of the Torah until a Tannaitic sage arose and derived this law? Again, assuming that the law had not been observed until his time—what led him to derive it? After all, he is aware that from the days of Moses this law was not observed, so how does he think he can now innovate something that was never practiced at all? (One could seemingly answer that at the root of every derivation there is an assumption that in Moses’ time this law was in fact observed, and it was only forgotten over the generations or became corrupted. But I understand that the Rabbi does not say this, and has solid sources that in Moses’ time there were only a few isolated laws.)
If we take as an example the derivation from the thirteen principles regarding the methods of betrothing a woman by document and by intercourse: if we say that in Moses’ time this law did not yet exist, and betrothal was done only by money, then if someone betrothed a woman by document they would have ruled that she was not betrothed (and permitted without a bill of divorce). It would then come out that there is a real change in the Torah as a result of the derivation from the thirteen principles. So what is God’s will? And what is the meaning of His will changing when a sage arises and makes a derivation? But if we say that in Moses’ time too they betrothed in all three ways, then we would be forced to say this about all the laws, and it would follow that Moses our Teacher received a very large portion of the Oral Torah known to us today—which is not the Rabbi’s position.
On the other hand, if we say that the derivation is not aimed at any particular answer, then it is difficult for me:
A) What room is there to disagree with someone who derived something by means of the thirteen principles? (A court overturns the words of an earlier court only if it is greater than it…) After all, there is not one specific thing that is true and another that is not; the only important thing is that the inference from the thirteen principles be free of refutation, and that should suffice. For example, what sense would it make to make a different verbal analogy, and the like? There is no “truth” here; the derivation is only trying to hit the target.
B) As above on the first side, the nature of derivation is again unclear to me—why was the Torah given this way, in a form that would develop over the generations?
Sorry for the length.
Answer
Hello. That is quite a respectable collection of questions, and it is hard to elaborate. I will try to answer briefly, as I understand it.
From the words of the Sages themselves, it is hard to know for certain, but it seems to me that there is a simple logical consideration that gives the answer. Take, for example, the exposition: “You shall fear the Lord your God” — this comes to include Torah scholars. After all, one could have included all kinds of things. Why specifically this, and who chose to include דווקא this? The logic of the expositor. And so it is with all derivations. The hermeneutical principles provide the scriptural trigger for the derivation, but the decision what to do with it is always left to the reasoning of the expositor. Of course, that reasoning is sometimes substantive and sometimes interpretive. It may be that the expositor thinks it is indeed proper to fear Torah scholars, and therefore decides that this is the conclusion. But it may also be that in his opinion there is no real logic to such a requirement, yet it is still the least bad of all the other options. When the Torah contains the word “with” as the direct-object marker, something must be included; and since he cannot find what, he chooses the least bad option.
And in fact, in the discussion between Rabbi Akiva and Shimon HaAmsuni regarding this derivation, one can see this picture, and especially the second mechanism, explicitly in the Talmud.
You presented two possibilities: aiming at God’s will versus the reasoning of the expositor. But this is a false dichotomy, because the expositor’s reasoning is the only tool for discovering God’s will. So in every case we are dealing with an inference based on a scriptural trigger and a conclusion reached by reason, as I described.
Why was the derivation not made earlier? Perhaps it was made and then lost. Perhaps it was made and passed onward, and transmitted by the Talmudic sage. Perhaps they simply did not think of it yet (or the hermeneutical principles had not yet been developed, and so they were less easy to apply). In many cases, practical need leads the sage to search for a derivation that will solve the halakhic problem he is dealing with. After all, there are quite a few pairs of identical words that were not used for verbal analogy. I assume that is because no need arose for it.
God’s will is that we do what emerges from the Torah’s derivations. So there is no change in His will here, nor any change in the Torah. There is a change in the law, but there have been quite a few such changes. That has nothing at all to do with the assumption of the Torah’s eternity.
When there is a dispute, it is because different people have different lines of reasoning (and as I wrote, the exegetical result depends on the reasoning of the expositor). Even if there is no a priori divine will given in advance, there is halakhic truth, and that is what they argue about. Not anything goes.
Why did God write the Torah this way? Perhaps precisely in order to allow the Sages to expound it according to their understanding and according to changing needs. Beyond that, it is impossible to write everything down (especially if there are still many laws that have not yet been derived to this day, as I assume). See Eruvin 21, where the Talmud asks why all rabbinic laws were not written down, and answers: “Of making many books there is no end.”
Discussion on Answer
We are supposed to seek the truth for its time. That is what He intended from the outset. For example, He may intend that we do the good, but what the good is changes according to the circumstances and the time. And still, despite all the changes, everything falls under doing good. See my article on change in Jewish law:
In the Meiri’s example, there is an eternal truth, and only reality changes. Here, by contrast, I need to understand what He wanted us to include by means of the word “with” as the direct-object marker. If there is something fixed, and only the understanding of the generations changes, then everything is fine, and I know what I am supposed to look for. But then He did not intend the changing understanding, and if there is change, then somewhere there is a mistake. If His own intention was that the thing included should change over the generations, then the question is what I am supposed to look for. You can answer me that I am supposed to look for some general idea of “good,” but that makes the whole Torah unnecessary, because if I am supposed to interpret it according to my understanding of the good, I can do that without it as well. As a reminder, that is the reason you yourself think the purpose of the commandments is not morality.
But I already explained above that inclusion from the word serving as the direct-object marker does not always rest on substantive reasoning; sometimes it is interpretive. Had that marker not been written, we would not have included anything at all.
The two possibilities in our case are these:
1. God’s will is that if the Sages see that it is appropriate to fear someone, they should have a source from which to include him.
2. God’s will is that there should always be someone else, besides the Holy One, whom we fear. The Sages have to decide who that will be (even if, in their own opinion, he is not independently worthy of fear).
Beyond that, there are also derivations that are merely supports. The Sages determine something that is correct in itself, and attach it to a verse or a derivation. Some such supports are for rabbinic laws, but some are for Torah-level laws that are based on reasoning, where the verse is not their real source but only a support. For example, I argued in my latest article in Makor Rishon regarding derivations such as “a king and not a queen” or “men and not women.”
Just to make sure.
According to possibility 1 that the Rabbi suggests, from the days of Moses until our own time nothing at all was derived from the direct-object marker, until a sage came and included Torah scholars.
In practice, was every such marker in the Torah written so that something could be included from it? Isn’t it more reasonable that this is simply the Hebrew language? (How many times today do we use this marker, and we have never heard anyone include something on that basis.)
Indeed. That is true even independently of what I suggested. By definition, in every creative derivation—until someone came and expounded it, there was no derivation.
The question why one should include something from the direct-object marker is indeed difficult, but again that is not connected to my point. There is apparently an underlying Ben-Gurion-style assumption (that is how he would speak) that the correct way to speak is without that marker. And perhaps everywhere they derived an inclusion from it, it was where there really is a simpler phrasing without that word (for example: “fear the Lord”), and then there is no principle here about every occurrence of that marker.
Regarding the last paragraph: if God intended to allow it to be interpreted in a changing way, doesn’t it follow that He had no eternal objective intention? And if so, then there is no point in looking for such an intention—so what are we supposed to look for?