Q&A: Torah-Level and Rabbinic
Torah-Level and Rabbinic
Question
There are places where the Sages changed the criteria required by Torah law, for example concern about “water with no end” instead of relying on the majority presumption (I’m not sure I’m being precise when I say that this was the basis of the leniency), and more. I wanted to ask: what is the logic of the Sages being stringent in such cases? After all, for the Torah that was a sufficient clarification. And likewise the opposite, in places where the Sages are lenient against Torah law—why is that logical?
I thought in a few directions (I’d be happy to hear the Rabbi’s opinion on them, and to hear additional suggestions), but it still hasn’t become clear enough to me: A. Jewish law speaks about standard realities, but there is an extreme case that can’t be included in it. That seems to me like a weak answer: first, because Jewish law goes very deeply into details and deals with remote cases, and second, because the Sages changed things not only in marginal and distant cases. B. Reality is always progressing, and things that made sense in the past stop making sense (morally and so on). That explains many things, but for example not the case of “water with no end,” and surely not many other things.
In short, I’d be happy for a good answer. Thank you very much!
Answer
Hello. It’s hard to discuss this without a specific example, because the question is not well defined. Regarding an agunah and “water with no end,” that’s actually a poor example, because the whole thing rests on a rabbinic enactment for leniency, permitting an agunah to remarry based on one witness (together with the presumption that she checks carefully before remarrying).
In general, there are situations in which there is a division of roles between the Torah and the Sages, and therefore the Jewish law is rabbinic. For example, the ordinance for the marketplace (not taking from a person who bought in good faith a stolen object). After all, if the Sages enacted this, then apparently that is the right way. But if so, why didn’t the Torah itself establish it? My answer is that the Torah states the basic law, and according to the basic law a stolen object must be returned. The role of the Sages is to determine what is actually done in practice in terms of justice and social order. It is a division of roles, not a question of right or wrong.
Discussion on Answer
Of course. And I explained one way of understanding it. I don’t understand what your difficulty is.
Of course not. After all, it is possible that he came out and we didn’t see. In the ordinary case, we are talking about witnesses who saw him drowning.
The explanation the Rabbi gives nicely explains the case of a stolen object, but I thought that in the case of agunot the explanation fits less well, because these are matters between a person and God; there I see less of the social-organizational aspect.
And the question I asked in passing about the two witnesses was meant to test whether the stringency of “water with no end” applies specifically where we rely on the leniencies, or whether the rabbinic definition became detached from the reason for which it was originally created.
“The Torah states the basic law, and according to the basic law a stolen object must be returned. The role of the Sages is to determine what is actually done in practice in terms of justice and social order.”
The Torah says what the right thing is in terms of justice and social order.
And the Sages enacted ordinances because justice and social order do not interest human beings.
I know that “water with no end” rests on a rabbinic enactment to be lenient, but rabbinic leniencies against the Torah also need an explanation, no?
By the way, if there were two witnesses about a husband who drowned in water with no end, would we permit it?