Q&A: The Source of the Gemara’s Unique Mode of Thinking
The Source of the Gemara’s Unique Mode of Thinking
Question
Hello Rabbi,
With your permission, a question that’s been bothering me (and I believe you have a well-worked-out view on it).
I understood from various things you’ve said in different places that there is something unique about the Gemara and about Talmudic learning. (For present purposes, I’m referring to the Gemara as generally representing the Sages, and yeshiva-style learning as representing the Gemara, and I’m asking about the relationship between those two together and the Torah.) I don’t really know how to define that unique thing, but one gets the impression that it touches on philosophical, moral, and logical foundations. I even definitely feel that there is something unique there. [I remember that when I first read concrete discussions in moral philosophy, I said: what is this, this isn’t serious—where is there a Talmudic passage on this, followed by the commentators through the generations, so that there would be a comprehensive, deep discussion worthy of the name? Today I no longer feel that way.]
And here the child asks: where did this unique content grow from? What part of Talmudic learning is in some way connected to unique content that God gave—meaning the exposure of principles of thought that God embedded in the Torah, not technical details? The distance between the tree (the huge corpus we have) and the seed that was given at Sinai is so great that seemingly there is no problem at all imagining a completely different development of Judaism, even given Torah from Sinai (and perhaps also some uses of the hermeneutic principles and perhaps also some laws given to Moses at Sinai). That is, I assume that the Gemara and Talmudic learning are contingent in Torah/Judaism and not essential to it. If that is indeed so, then all this unique wisdom developed cumulatively through the sages of Judaism, and God has nothing left to say except “My children have defeated Me.” So what exactly are we learning when we invest so much in understanding the Torah? Nothing conceptual that God gave, but only the opinions and understandings of wise Jews throughout history, who received divine authorization to engage in Torah as it exists in that generation?
Three parts to the question:
A. Are the stages in the development of Torah as we see them (Torah, Mishnah, Gemara, Talmudic learning) accidental, or in your opinion is this a reasonable and expected process? That is, if you repeated such an experiment in a number of duplicated worlds, in how many of them would Talmudic learning appear as a method? (I’m not talking about small details, where of course there would be differences.) And in how many, for example, would there appear only a simplistic, thin historical understanding of Torah in the style of Maimonides’ reasons for the commandments (together with drawing conclusions from the reason for the verse), and nothing more? Or entirely different understandings that I can’t even imagine—as I wouldn’t have imagined Talmudic learning if there were no Mishnah and Gemara, etc.
B. If Talmudic learning is accidental to Judaism, then where did all the insights in the Gemara and afterward come from—insights which, as I understand it, intrinsically contain the deep intuitions in various fields, and to that I say amen—cut off from the rest of the nations of that period?
C. If Talmudic learning is accidental to Judaism, then what exactly are we spending so much time on? There is no concrete conceptual Talmudic content that was given by God or that follows from / is inferred from the Five Books of Moses that He gave, and we are occupied with the wisdom of people of blessed memory and those still living. Of course, if one “exports” (to use your term) clear ideas from the Gemara outward, then that is very nice—but after all, that is not why people learn (rather, mainly in order to understand the Torah). And of course there is a commandment such as bringing first-fruits. But this turns into a real sandbox game. Personally, I love the new yeshiva-style learning, and despite my limited value and stature and so on, I feel psychologically connected to it (and I also struggle internally with it and with its assumptions—for example, with the deontology that fills all of Jewish law, and more). But what connection is there between this and studying “the Torah of God”?
(I wasn’t able to present the question sharply and briefly enough. Unfortunately, that reflects the conceptual fog I have on this subject.)
Answer
These are wonderful and very incisive questions, and they are phrased completely clearly and lucidly. I too have wrestled, and still wrestle, with them quite a bit, and as you’ll see I don’t really have good answers apart from trying to conceptualize intuitions.
- I don’t think this is a deterministic process that would appear in the same way everywhere. But it may appear elsewhere too. On the other hand, this methodology does have a connection to the contents. These contents are properly studied in this way. In that sense, there is something quasi-deterministic here.
- I also don’t think it is accidental. There is something Jewish about it—not only in the sense that Jews created it, but in the sense that it has a connection to Judaism. The Torah that was given to us, together with our biography and our character, apparently created a unique system. In my estimation, at least in that sense there is something from above here. I also think you are right that in the environment surrounding the Sages of the Talmud, things like this did not arise, not even anything similar. Not in other environments either (perhaps in modern philosophy, if you separate the wheat from the chaff, there is something similar).
- The Torah element here is not the methodology but the use of the methodology to understand the contents. In essence, the contents are the Torah, and the methodology could even be universal. But it seems to me that this is the right methodology for uncovering what is in the Torah. The essence of what I’m saying is that this methodology is not Torah; it is simply the right thing. The right way to study texts and passages like these. Its importance is not that it is Jewish or unique, but that it is correct. (And again, I am speaking generally. Here too there is wheat and chaff, and an imperfect methodology that we need to keep developing further.)
Bottom line: I do not have a full answer to your questions. But the strong intuition is that there is something very deep and important here, something that fits the truth of the Torah.
Discussion on Answer
Maybe there’s another possibility: just as in the story about the Zen sage who teaches Zen through various arts like origami, archery, or flower arrangement, so God teaches us the methodology and the yeshiva-style way of thinking through a contingent range of Torah and commandments. The range itself is what could have been entirely different (for example, a prohibition of cow instead of a prohibition of pig), but the mode of thought it would generate would be the same yeshiva-style mode of thought that we have today, with that being the goal of the Torah. What do you think?
Ben Nun, that will probably be the first one to open.
Oren, that is of course possible. I have no way to say anything about it.
The question is what the indication is that this is the right way, and not just another right way. After all, you can’t simply plug in whatever came out as though it were an equation. Maybe the conclusions reached through Sephardic-style analysis, for example, are closer to the author’s intent?
Maybe one could show that there are more mistakes among those who learned differently—do you think that’s the case? I’m talking about actual errors, ones that the disputant would be forced to admit.
Who said this is the right way? If you think it is correct, then from your perspective it is the best approximation. If someone else comes and proposes a different way, we’ll examine it on its merits. Errors that a disputant is forced to admit hardly ever happen in any method (see Nachmanides in the introduction to Milchamot Hashem).
Thank you very much. May it be God’s will that the course “Another Look at Talmudic Learning” opens up (its existence and description brought the issue back to mind for me), and afterward I’ll understand more and accept more. I did try to describe generalizations, but it’s hard to talk without a package of examples (or even one solid example on which one does a “full-depth analysis” downward), and since the issue touches every single Talmudic passage, it is all the more reasonable to assume that if the course deals with “several passages,” then the basis for the discussion will be ready and waiting (all the more so if the discussion itself is implicit or explicit in the course).