Q&A: We Do Not Multiply Disputes
We Do Not Multiply Disputes
Question
Peace be upon you,
When I taught the judges, I told them that the way of the Talmud is always to minimize disputes (for example, when it asks, "Shall we say this is like a tannaitic dispute?" and then answers that there is no need to say so.
One of the judges sent me something he received from the new assistant for Hebrew law at the Supreme Court. I am attaching it below. Does the Rabbi have anything to say about this? Have you written about the subject? Have you explained this "great rule" and its conditions/limitations?
With trembling and trepidation, M.
The rule I am referring to is called "We do not multiply disputes," or "we do not expand disagreement." It deals mainly with halakhic disputes, and not necessarily factual ones. This is an interpretive rule that tries, in various ways (if this matters to you, I can list them), to narrow the field of disagreement.
Possible citations:
Responsa Beit Yosef [Rabbi Joseph Karo, 15th-16th centuries, author of the Shulchan Arukh], Laws of Bills of Divorce and Divorce, siman 10
"For we do not multiply disagreement"
Responsa of the Radbaz [Rabbi David ben Zimra, 15th-16th centuries], part 2, siman 830:
"For we have a great rule in our hands: we do not multiply disagreement"
Responsa Divrei Rivot [Rabbi Isaac Adarbi, 16th century], siman 196:
"For it is known to all that we do not multiply disputes, and that it is good and proper to distance dispute and bring the positions closer together as much as possible"
Answer
I haven't written about it. I seem to recall that I once gave a lecture on it and found some notes I had made, but they are not clear to a reader. I'll write a few points that occur to me now.
The rule appears mainly in the later authorities (Acharonim). For example:
Responsa Torat Emet, siman 155, s.v. "All this."
Responsa Mikhtam LeDavid, Yoreh De'ah siman 16, s.v. "However, again."
Responsa Maharshaldam, Choshen Mishpat siman 304, s.v. "And regarding the question that…"
There are two different applications of it: sometimes it reduces the distance between the disputants. Sometimes it reduces the number of points of dispute (if it turns out that there are two disputes between tannaim or medieval authorities (Rishonim), the tendency is to adopt an interpretive approach according to which there is only one dispute). A consequence: one can prove a halakhic claim from an opinion that was not accepted in practice, because the assumption is that if holder of opinion A thinks so, there is no reason to say that holder of opinion B disagrees (unless it is connected to their dispute). There is a source in the Talmud itself for application type 1, in chapter Tolin in tractate Shabbat (138a): there is no dispute from one extreme to the other (we do not find a dispute where according to one view something is permitted, and according to the other one is liable for a sin-offering). Interestingly, there the Talmud found such a dispute, and because there was a third opinion holding that it is exempt but forbidden, this did become possible. Daniel Weil (a physicist) wrote an article about this in issue 1 of "Higayon," analyzing it according to quantum logic. I did not agree with him (why in the world would the Sages have operated according to quantum logic?!), and I once suggested a different analysis.
It is well known that in many passages they specifically create a double dispute between two sages, when there is a source from a verse (such as an extra word): one derives law X from it, and the other disagrees. Then they ask what the second does with the verse, and explain that he derives law Y from it. Then they ask from where the first derives Y, and answer that he does not hold of Y. So because both need to explain a source in the Torah, they are actually forced to create two independent disputes between them (regarding X and regarding Y). The dialecticians will still like to find a connection between the disputes based on the rule that we do not multiply disputes.
There is room to discuss the connection to Ockham's razor, and the question whether this is a methodological rule (whoever claims that the dispute is broad bears the burden of proof) or a substantive one (it is unlikely that the dispute is broad because great minds think alike).
That is what occurs to me for now (whether it be or not be)…
By the way, "Shall we say this is like a tannaitic dispute?" in my view is not connected to this rule. The Talmud assumes that amoraim do not disagree within a tannaitic dispute. But there the reason seems to me linguistic. If their dispute were a tannaitic dispute, they should have said, "the Jewish law follows X" or "the Jewish law follows Y," rather than restating the disagreement themselves. And if there happens to be a decision rule between the tannaim, then there is certainly no room to adopt the opinion of the one over whom the ruling goes.