Q&A: On Ukimtot and Casuistic Thinking
On Ukimtot and Casuistic Thinking
Question
Hello,
I’m writing a paper on ukimtot (from a Talmudic, hermeneutic, and educational perspective).
Naturally, I came to your article on the topic (in Akdamot).
One note caught my eye (15):
Why do the Sages actually prefer casuistic formulation, and not the formulation of theoretical laws (like the positivist method)? I can’t deal here with this important question, and for my purposes here it is enough to establish the fact that this is indeed the way of the Sages.
In my humble opinion, this is not only an important question, but also touches on the essence of the matter—the phenomenon of the ukimta.
In your article you presented the Talmud as stripping away the casuistic formulation and understanding it as a general rule. The rule is realized concretely in a certain specific case (the ukimta). But here is the problem—the process of abstraction is itself an interpretive process (and in this, as I understand it, you agree). But—and here is the main point—an abstraction that denies the existence of the Jewish law in the case under discussion in the Mishnah (the example of the casuistic formulation) is a creative, constructive interpretation, and often a forced one. Put differently: your thesis is especially suited to sources of equal status (say, two mishnayot), but very often the ukimta is brought as a solution to a contradiction between an earlier source (a Mishnah) and a later source (an amoraic statement). And in such places, the “concrete realization” of the rule in the Mishnah in a certain case is bound up with the amora’s new, different conceptions, which not infrequently contradict the Mishnah, and generally use more developed or more precise terminology. But even here—it is still a contradiction, in the sense that there is a conceptual dispute with the tannaitic source.
The idea that one should abstract the casuistic formulations even at the “price” of losing the plain meaning is not without logic, but it is based on a distinctly ahistorical reading. What I mean is: the thesis in your article can explain very well what “the Gemara thought” when it made an ukimta (although I disagree even about that), or, in another formulation, how Jewish law develops, etc.—but we still have to admit that we are speaking here about development through change, or, in the formulation of the position with which you disagree, through dispute (of the later generations with the earlier ones).
I hope I succeeded in clarifying the main argument.
My questions are:
- What do you think of what I wrote above?
- Have you dealt with the question of why the Sages prefer casuistic formulation?
Thank you very much!
Roi
Answer
You didn’t manage to clarify the argument—for me. I don’t see the connection between one sentence and the next in this passage. How did you move to history, loss of the plain meaning, different conceptions? I explained all of this very well in my article.
As for the discussion of why the Sages preferred casuistry: as you correctly wrote, first of all that is simply the fact, and that is enough to explain the phenomenon of the ukimta. As for the issue itself, they were right too. The positivist alternative has extremely serious drawbacks. When you present the system as a set of rigid rules, you freeze it. Just look at what happens today when decisors and many people think the system really is a collection of rules. They lose sensitivity to the correct and specific interpretation for the situation. That is probably what the Sages were concerned about.
You can see their dismissive attitude toward rules in many places. One of the clearest is Kiddushin 34a: “One does not derive from general rules, even in a place where it says ‘except.’” Another is at the beginning of Bava Kamma (6a): “What does the common denominator come to include?” It’s unbelievable: when the Mishnah (at the beginning of Bava Kamma) finally does bring a rule and not just a set of examples—which, on your approach, would always be the most sensible thing to do—the Gemara objects and asks who needs it (not the examples, the rule!).
If you’d like, you can listen to a series of lectures I gave with Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport in the Bar-Ilan kollel on the topic of positivism. Not everything was recorded, but you can find there quite a few examples of the shortcomings of positivist thinking.
And beyond the general shortcomings of positivism, the decision to establish a text like the Talmud—which is open and not rigid—as a canonical text was brilliant, at least in retrospect. A rigid text could not have fit all circumstances and situations; it would have completely fallen apart and lost its meaning. A text that is too open has no meaning. This text created a discourse within which there is room for a huge range of possibilities, arguments, and different applications, all conducted within one unifying framework. To me that is truly amazing. No positivist could ever have done such a thing. Incidentally, that’s why we’re still here today.