Q&A: The Rabbi’s Approach to the Reason Behind the Verse
The Rabbi’s Approach to the Reason Behind the Verse
Question
I saw that the Rabbi writes that one cannot say that Rabbi Yehuda’s reason for disagreeing with Rabbi Shimon about deriving law from the reason behind the verse is uncertainty about whether the reason is correct. But even if we do not derive law from the reason behind the verse, we could still make a mistake to the same extent.
This argument would be correct if we were dealing with a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong in the derivation, but why not say that Rabbi Yehuda’s view is that on average the chance of error is higher than the chance of arriving at the correct reason? That also seems quite logical: after all, there are quite a few commandments that at first glance seem to have an obvious reason, but in truth they do not—and that only comes out from very marginal laws that do not fit that supposed reason.
It’s like if I were to assume there was a verse at the end of the Torah saying, “All the commandments stated here apply only if keeping them does not require a huge amount of effort from you, and if it does require a huge amount—one may not suffer too much.” Well, if there were such a verse, I would be violating a prohibition! Obviously I would not say that in a situation where the likelihood that this is really the case is low.
Answer
Let’s think about a concrete example. There is an argument whose purpose is to validate women as witnesses. It says that in the past women were uneducated and unfamiliar with the ways of the world, and therefore they were disqualified from testimony. Nowadays women are like men in this regard, and therefore they should be accepted as witnesses.
The premise of this argument is that the disqualification of women from testimony stems from lack of education and worldly familiarity.
But of course it is possible that this disqualification has a different reason, one that nobody knows what it is ("the king’s daughter is all glorious within" certainly does not apply nowadays).
Now you have to decide: the given commandment has a reasonable rationale, but perhaps there is another rationale that we do not know. Which option would you choose? It is like saying that the reason bodies fall toward the earth is gravity, but perhaps that is mistaken and there is some other hidden reason. Which would you choose? If there is a reasonable rationale and the alternative is that this is not the rationale but rather something else that we do not know, it is clear that the first alternative is preferable. “A judge has only what his eyes can see.” The second alternative is just plain skepticism.
In a case where an alternative rationale is proposed that is no less good than the rationale yielded by deriving law from the reason behind the verse, then of course that is true. But that is not what is at issue here. “We do not derive law from the reason behind the verse” means we do not follow the rationale because perhaps there is some other hidden rationale, not because of some rationale that is explicitly proposed here.
Discussion on Answer
A. Throughout the Torah we use reasoning in order to understand, know, interpret, and infer. How do we know that it is forbidden to put oil into a lamp on the Sabbath? And that someone who did so after being warned, under the prohibition of kindling, is liable to death? That is a reasoning of the Sages based on their understanding of the Torah’s principle. On the level of principle, it does not seem different from reasoning about the reason behind the verse—yet specifically there we suddenly worry about using reasoning. So why do you see it as though the odds are 50-50?
B. And according to your approach, since a doubt remains, should we then apply the laws of doubts, and would that combine into a double doubt? And perhaps we should also take the rationale into account stringently? (See also C.)
C. After all, here we are trying to find the reason why we do not follow the reason behind the verse, so it is not enough just to give a formalist representation of the claim and say that the “presumption” is the plain literal meaning. I would דווקא think that the “presumption” is the plausible plain meaning. “Do not take a widow’s garment as security” naturally implies specifically a poor widow, because otherwise what is special about a widow?
A good answer.
I do not understand. After all, skepticism is an excellent logical tactic that we choose not to rely on, but from where do we get the right to apply this kind of reasoning to the Torah? (confirmation, induction, and the like).
Even if you accept induction regarding the Torah—we see inductively that every time we tried to predict the outcome of an experiment based on the theory of gravity, it worked, and so we have induction behind us. Here we have no criterion at all for knowing whether we disqualified women from testimony for the correct reason.
By the way, with the disqualification of women there are two sides to remember. If I validate them on the basis of the wrong reason, I could end up executing all sorts of people. In such a case, isn’t it better to remain with the original presumption? Truthfully, perhaps one could understand the whole matter of the reason behind the verse as a kind of original presumption—it may be equally likely that the reason is correct or not, and either way lead to results that are equally balanced as a conclusion, but you have an original presumption in favor of the plain literal meaning, and to move away from it you would need better proof than 50%.