Q&A: On Specific and General
On Specific and General
Question
I heard in one of the Rabbi’s lectures that a “specific and general” formulation includes anything similar in one respect (and then, according to the final general term in “general, specific, and general,” it expands to two respects). But the rule is stated as “all things are included,” meaning everything, even if it is not similar in any respect…
Answer
There is no such thing as inclusion with no similarity whatsoever. If there is no point of similarity at all, that would mean including absolutely everything. According to that, when redeeming second tithe (this is derived through a general-and-specific formulation in Eruvin 27), one would have to include even cats and clouds.
This is a topic that needs to be laid out in more detail, and it depends on whether the first general term is taken as the defining one or specifically the last one. What you wrote here fits no opinion, and this is not the place to go into it. I discussed this at length in the second book of the Talmudic Logic series, which deals with the interpretive principles of general and specific terms.
Discussion on Answer
As I explained, no one in the world can say that absolutely everything is included (does the Talmud really hold that second tithe may be redeemed onto cats or clouds?). So Middot Aharon must be understood the way I wrote: “everything” means everything that is similar in some way, that is, at least in one respect.
The Talmud in Eruvin that I mentioned discusses the different respects that are included in each biblical formulation, and defines how many respects are included in “general and specific,” how many in “specific and general,” and how many in “general, specific, and general,” according to the view that the last term is primary and according to the view that the first term is primary. There it is clear that in “specific and general” one includes things similar in one respect, since that is the maximal inclusion (there is nothing beyond that). See there carefully.
I looked at the commentators on the hermeneutical principles, and everyone I was able to get hold of seemed to understand this as absolute inclusion, even things that are not similar.
For example, in Middot Aharon: “we include anything that may be understood from the general term… whether it is similar to the specific term or whether it is not similar to it.”
(I ordered the book, but before it arrives the yeshiva will already have moved on to another passage, so I’d be happy if the Rabbi could help me understand this point while I’m actually learning it…)