Q&A: The Rabbi’s Response to Rivka Lubitch’s Article
The Rabbi’s Response to Rivka Lubitch’s Article
Question
Hello.
I read the rabbi’s response article to Rivka Lubitch’s article, which argues that betrothal between a man and a woman in Judaism expresses an act of transferring ownership of the woman to the man.
I don’t have strong scholarly skills, so I found it difficult to form an opinion regarding the halakhic logic the rabbi expressed in the article. Even so, I have two questions, similar in character:
1. The rabbi keeps returning to the necessity of taking an interpretive approach that prevents a contradiction between the commandment of betrothal and morality, in light of the assumption that this is God’s will. The emphasis is on God’s will, not on a rabbinic enactment. My question is: how does the rabbi know that this is God’s will? Does the rabbi hold that all five books of the Torah were given to Moses at Mount Sinai, alongside an oral command regarding acquiring a woman through intercourse, document, and money? Or perhaps these commands were formulated by human beings inspired by God’s will? In other words, from the rabbi’s statements in various places, I got the impression that his view regarding the divine character of Jewish texts is somewhat unusual, and I wanted to know how that fits in here.
2. In the course of the article, the rabbi offered various interpretations of statements brought by Lubitch as proof of the patriarchal outlook of some of the medieval and later authorities, arguing that they can be interpreted דווקא as indicating a view of betrothal as a contract rather than ownership. My question is: is the interpretation aimed at the original intention of the writers, or at the statements themselves? Does the rabbi really think that the later and medieval authorities, who one may assume did not espouse especially liberal values regarding women, thought as he does? And in legal language: purposive interpretation or originalism?
Thank you very much,
T
Answer
As far as I’m concerned, what people perceive as God’s will is God’s will. It says in the Torah, “When a man takes a woman,” and the Sages learned from here that betrothal must precede marriage. Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, this is God’s will. One can of course argue and think that the Talmud was mistaken (in this case I see no reason to think so), but the Talmud has halakhic authority.
2. In this case, unequivocally, the intention is the authors’ own intention, and I brought evidence for that. But even if that was not their intention, it doesn’t really matter. If such an interpretation is possible, there is no obstacle to adopting it ourselves.
Discussion on Answer
Absolutely. Do you have direct access to His will other than through interpretation? Or does Rivka Lubitch? Of course, there is no necessity that any person whatsoever, including the Sages of the Talmud, correctly deciphered His will, but that’s what we have. And specifically regarding the Sages of the Talmud, even if they were wrong, they have authority. The meaning of authority is that even if this is not His will, it is still binding.
And there is no difference between saying that this is God’s will and saying that they have authority. His will is also that we uphold authority.
And as I said, for my part I see no reason to assume that this is not His will and that they were mistaken.
Rabbi,
I wonder whether these remarks differ from what emerges from the content of the following quotation:
Yad LaMelekh, Laws of Rebels, chapter 1, halakhah 2:
“And I can bring proof that this is also the view of our Talmud, that with regard to a ruling where a person knows within himself that it is against what is explicitly stated in the Torah, he is not permitted to heed them, from what is said at the beginning of Horayot [2b], where the Gemara says regarding the Mishnah: ‘If the court issued a ruling and one of them knew it was mistaken, or a student who was fit to issue rulings, and he went and acted on their instruction, he is liable because he did not rely on the court.’ And the Gemara says: such as whom? Rava said: such as Shimon ben Azzai and Shimon ben Zoma. Abaye said to him: in such a case he is intentional. And the Gemara concludes that he erred regarding the commandment to heed the words of the Sages. And Rashi explained that he erred and thought that even to commit a prohibition one is obligated to obey the ruling of the Sanhedrin. Likewise, our master brought this conclusion of the Gemara as practical law in chapter 13 of the Laws of Unwitting Errors, halakhah 16—that in this error, although he knew the essence of the prohibition itself, still, since he acted based on the court’s ruling, on his own understanding that he was obligated to obey the court in this, he is liable to bring an offering for an unwitting sin. So we have explicitly the view of our Talmud: where a student has reached the level of issuing rulings and can rely on himself that the ruling of the Sanhedrin is mistaken and contrary to the laws of the Torah, and nevertheless he listened to them and transgressed Torah law on the basis of their ruling, he is considered intentional, like all others who transgress Torah law brazenly. And even in the conclusion of the Gemara, from the fact that the Talmud counts this as an error—namely, that he erred and thought he was obligated to obey the words of the Sages against the law of the Torah—he is unwitting in that respect; but in any case it is explicit that by law he is not permitted to obey them. Rather, according to the conclusion, he is not called intentional but unwitting, and he erred in this against the law. And this Gemara is the exact opposite of that Sifrei which I cited—unless we distinguish with the distinction I made, that the Sifrei speaks of a case where, according to his own reasoning, the Sanhedrin’s ruling is against the law of the Torah, but the matter is still not completely clear whether his reasoning is indeed correct and certain in this; whereas the Gemara speaks where, according to the student’s knowledge, the Sanhedrin’s ruling is so mistaken and opposite to Torah law that there is no way to justify this ruling in any manner, even according to their own view—as I noted above from the wording of the Sifrei.
But Rashi, of blessed memory, in his commentary on the Torah brought these words of the Sifrei in their plain sense—that even if they tell you that right is left, which is truly the opposite of the law of the Torah known to him, he is obligated to obey them… And this is astonishing, for according to the way Rashi and the Re’em understood the intent of the Sifrei, it stands in the utmost contradiction and opposition to our Gemara… How did the light of their eyes overlook an explicit passage in our Talmud and adopt the view of the Sifrei against our Talmud…
However, in any case, this matter is clear: according to the way Rashi and the Re’em understood the intent of the Sifrei, it is against our Talmud and against the Jerusalem Talmud. And since our master also omitted this Sifrei, we have only what is explicitly clarified for us in the two Talmuds, Babylonian and Jerusalem: any ruling that plainly appears to be the opposite of and contradictory to Torah law—such as eating forbidden fat, or killing innocent blood, and the like—no matter who the authorities may be, do not consent and do not heed them. And as is explained explicitly in the Jerusalem Talmud and also in our Talmud, if one erred and thought that he was obligated to obey them, and ate forbidden fat on the basis of their ruling, he is liable for a fixed sin-offering like anyone else who eats a prohibited food unwittingly.
(Rabbi Eliezer Segal, Vogda, Lvov 1826)”
Tosafot HaRosh, tractate Kiddushin 5a:
Since he rules over her and she is subjugated to him, she is called his monetary acquisition, even if he acquired her through a document or through intercourse.
Copenhagen, I didn’t understand your comment. The discussion of “he erred regarding the commandment to heed the words of the Sages” does not begin with Yad LaMelekh. If it is clear to you that this is a mistake, don’t listen. But how could it be clear to someone that the Torah does not want betrothal? At most, it may be that morally it does not want acquisition. And still, the argument is problematic on two levels:
1. I very much doubt whether such a moral argument is sufficiently unequivocal to override a ruling of the Sanhedrin. Is the killing of Amalek, which is explicitly written in the Torah, not equally contrary to morality? So God doesn’t want that either? If so, why did He write it in the Torah?
2. As I explained in the article, betrothal is a contract, not acquisition. So what basis is there for seeing the law of betrothal as acquisition, and on that basis declaring it an obvious error on the part of the Sages of the Talmud and all the halakhic decisors throughout the generations? That’s ridiculous.
Itamar,
This was discussed and answered in the article.
As for the claim that there is not a strong enough moral argument here to override it—that is completely clear to me. My question arises independently of the topic at hand, following the sentence: “Even if they were wrong, they have authority,” from which it appears that even if it were plainly clear that the ruling of the Sages of the Talmud was against what is explicitly stated in the Torah, one would still have to obey the ruling because of the authority.
The wording of Yad LaMelekh seems more emphatic to me. Not only when it is plainly clear (to most reasonable people) that this is a mistake, but any ruling “that a person knows within himself is against what is explicitly stated in the Torah” he is not permitted to obey.
“Even if they were wrong, they have authority” means: even on the possibility that they were wrong. If he is convinced that they were wrong, provided that he has reached the level of issuing rulings, then that indeed applies to an individual. That is the straightforward meaning of the Gemara in Horayot.
Indeed, I hadn’t noticed that. Yad LaMelekh adds nothing to the straightforward meaning of the Gemara. But it seems to me that the very fact that there is a possibility that the Sanhedrin erred does not mean that it might not be God’s will. Rather, only that—according to that possibility—had the ruling not been issued, God’s will would have been otherwise. But in the actual world, this is His will.
But a more practical question is whether one can extend this to rulings emerging from the Talmud or to later rulings solely because of the authority granted to rulings by force of public acceptance—which is a logical argument, not an explicit commandment. Perhaps there one need not be convinced they were wrong; a lower degree of probability might suffice.
You could propose such a distinction, but as a matter of reasoning it doesn’t seem to me that there is one. Either way, this doesn’t rescue Lubitch’s arguments or undermine mine.
What people perceive as God’s will is God’s will?
So what if the Sages inferred it—maybe they were wrong? There’s a difference between saying that this is their halakhic authority (as in the response above) and saying that this is God’s will (as in the article). After all, the whole interpretive approach was based on the fact that this is God’s will, and therefore one should try to interpret it in a moral way. What obligates us to assume that the Sages thought in a moral way?