Good evening, Rabbi Michael,

My comments in between the sections are marked with asterisks.

With blessings,

Thank you kindly for your remarks and for the file.
1. I too, when I read this, stroked my beard and smiled. Reconstructing the scene in the chamber of the Tosafists is a charming piece of fictional literature, but I assume you do not expect it to carry any evidentiary weight whatsoever. 🙂
***Not to the smiling reconstruction, but to the content of the matter there is quite a bit of agreement and discussion among the medieval authorities.***

2. In the discussion in Berakhot 11b it is explained in the conclusion that one recites the blessing over everything, and that includes Scripture, Mishnah, midrash, and Talmud.
***Obviously, but about Torah itself there is no dispute that one recites the blessing.***
However, see there in Rashi, who explained:
Midrash — it is close to Scripture, such as Mekhilta, Sifra, and Sifrei, which are midrashim on scriptural verses.
Simply put, he holds that “midrash” means halakhic midrashim. Therefore, in my humble opinion, one should not recite a blessing over aggadic midrashim and the Sages’ aggadot (that is really not close to Scripture. They use Scripture, but are not studying it).
***Many expositions in Jewish law as well merely “use” Scripture. Immediately remove from your study all those about which some sage — tannaim, amoraim, and most of those after them — said that they are only a mere asmachta. And if I were not hesitant, I would say that this is true of all the expositions.***

In my understanding, this is literature like any other literature, just as I would not recite a blessing over the plays of Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the love poems and riddles of Ibn Ezra, or the medical writings of Maimonides, and still less over the little Torah quips for wedding celebrations that people hear today, or Torah thoughts read in all kinds of “filthy alleyways” on the internet or in Sabbath pamphlets.

***I do not think that the interpreters of traditions, narratives, and aggadot equated these things with love poems. They did not skip the aggadic sections in their Talmud study, and they saw the Talmud as a blend of everything.***
As for Scripture itself, I agree that one recites a blessing over it and that it is Torah (and of course I did not come as some official certifier of the Holy One, blessed be He, and He certainly does not need me or my likes). In my remarks yesterday I did not claim that this is not Torah study, only that it is study without significant added value (in other words: it is Torah, yes, but not really study). I have a more developed view on this (what I defined in several articles in the past as Torah in the person and Torah in the object, and this will be explained more fully in a book now being edited).
***We will wait for the book, because as it stands I do not understand a thing. About this they say, “Who teaches Torah to His people Israel” — so there is a teacher, and a learner, and learning. Of course, you may study — and rightly so — in the place your heart desires, but what do you have against things that draw a person’s heart?***
3. I looked at the file, and naturally I jumped to the end regarding annulment of betrothal. I saw again that you assume that every case of “whoever betroths” is based on expropriating the money, and on that I say again, with all due respect, that I disagree. It is a stipulation — though not with the couple (as several commentators wrote, though in my humble opinion they were not precise) — but rather a stipulation of the Jewish law itself (it defines betrothal only when it is done subject to the דעת of the rabbis), similar to “the religious court makes a stipulation.” Therefore, the authority to annul betrothal can exist even without authority to expropriate money (just as betrothal through intercourse is annulled).
***We have not heard such a thing. When they say “the rabbis annulled his betrothal,” they mean the betrothal money, and the Talmud says this a number of times, for example, “he threw her the money of her betrothal,” and so on. That is how Ravina immediately understood it in his question, “This works well if he betrothed with money,” and he was answered by Rav Ashi, whose intention was that he meant the act of betrothal, and they did what they did regarding intercourse. There are many explanations for this, and one of them will make it understandable. That is how most of the medieval authorities understood it, and that is how all the enactors of communal ordinances and rabbinic enactments understood it, as emerges from their explicit words. For our purposes, that is enough to validate the annulment. More than that: suppose the sages have the power to annul in some wondrous way given to them by “the Jewish law” [what does that mean? who is “the Jewish law”??], but can we not admit at least partly that this result can be achieved by the natural route of expropriating the money? After all, if the status of the betrothal is annulled retroactively, then certainly that can be true of the status of the money as well.***

And at the root of the matter, I once explained that just as in any legal system that includes civil law (monetary law) and personal status, so too in Jewish law these two areas belong to its legal component (this is what is rightly called “Hebrew law” — not laws of animal suffering and other topics from Orach Chayim and Yoreh De’ah). And that means that these determinations depend on the agreement of the public that constitutes them. Without that, there is no ownership of property (as emerges from the words of Rabbi Shimon Shkop), and in my humble opinion no personal status either (there is no betrothal without the consent of the public. It is a social institution. I think that is the reason testimony is required for the very existence of the matter, and the Pnei Yehoshua hinted at this). From this comes the authority of the religious court to expropriate money and to annul betrothal, because if the court does not agree, there is no public stamp of approval on the matter and therefore it does not take effect. From this you can understand that this is not a stipulation of the couple but of Jewish law itself: the application of betrothal is conditioned on the agreement of the public, meaning the sages who are its representatives. And from this, in my humble opinion, there is room even for prospective annulment, which is a major novelty brought by several halakhic decisors (as Avishalom Westreich already noted in an article).
The question whether such halakhic authority exists today is of course a different question. In principle it is clear to me that it does not, but if a broad rabbinic consensus were to arise (like Maimonides’ majority of the sages of the Land of Israel regarding the renewal of ordination), I would not rule out that it might have authority to do so. Probably a law for messianic times.
And that is what appears correct to me in my humble opinion, and I have written it,

Between the sections, I respond out of respect.
As for the annulment, I did not dispute that expropriating the money annuls the betrothal. I only noted that this is not the only path, and from that it follows that if someone who lacks authority to expropriate money annuls betrothal, it is not necessarily true that he is permitting a married woman to the marketplace.
You asked, “Who is this ‘Jewish law’?” What the sages decide the Torah says. Is it really new to you that the sages determine the bounds of their own authority? Just like the Supreme Court and just like the Knesset. Whoever stands at the top of the pyramid always determines his own powers.
I have no problem with things that draw a person’s heart. I too, small as I am, watch basketball games, Heaven forbid. But I do not say that this is Torah study.
Indeed, it is commonly thought that everything blended into the Talmud warrants the blessing. I do not dispute that factual claim (that this is the accepted view). My claim is about what ought to be, not what is. In my eyes, studying aggadot is not Torah study in the full sense.
Indeed, asmachtot are like aggadic midrash in my eyes.