Q&A: What Is Defined as a Practical Difference
What Is Defined as a Practical Difference
Question
The Talmud in Hagigah 6 raises a doubt whether the burnt-offerings in the wilderness were bulls or sheep, and the Talmud asks: what practical difference does it make? One practical difference the Talmud suggests concerns how to punctuate the verse; a second practical difference concerns if someone vowed a sacrifice like the one in the wilderness—what would he need to bring.
The second practical difference sounds a bit silly to me. If you found some case where it would make a difference, is that called a practical difference? If so, then you could seriously apply the practical difference to vows and betrothals to absolutely anything and that’s it—so why didn’t the Talmud just say that and there, we’ve found a practical difference? (Okay, I understand they didn’t grow up in yeshivot with Talmudic jokers, so they weren’t familiar with that, but still—what exactly is the difference?)
Or more generally, my real question is: could you define what counts as a practical difference?
Answer
An important question, and maybe I’ll write a column about it. In general, there is volume 11 in the series Talmudic Logic, The Platonism of Talmudic Thinking: http://www.collegepublications.co.uk/stl/?00012
It depends on the question of why a practical difference is needed in Talmudic discussion. Is it to move away from positivism, or to sharpen the sides of the issue, or to show that there is some practical consequence—otherwise this is not Torah study?
See also the Ran on Sanhedrin 15a, on “How many judges for an ox of Sinai,” where he wrote a practical difference regarding someone who vowed naziriteship on the understanding that it was judged by 23.
However, there the practical difference is not entirely marginal. For some reason, a person really wants to bring a sacrifice like the one in the wilderness, and therefore we have to discuss what there was in the wilderness. That is not like a nazirite who vows on the understanding that an ox of Sinai is judged by 23. Moreover, there it really is a practical difference, except that the time when it could be implemented has already passed. It is not a practical difference for us, but that is like an ordinary Israelite discussing the laws of priests, which has no practical difference for him.
About the Ran, I once wrote that in my opinion he was joking, and really he was arguing that you do not need a practical difference. And perhaps the same is true in the Talmud in Hagigah. They are discussing a passage in the Torah and want to understand it. Why is a practical difference needed?
Discussion on Answer
Note that in Hagigah too it begins with a discussion of whether later generations are derived from a one-time event.
The (dominant) approach that the Talmud’s statements were written in full seriousness is detached from reality.
The issue of deriving later generations from a one-time event in Hagigah is only about whether it was a pilgrimage burnt-offering or a regular burnt-offering, and about that the Talmud really does not ask what the practical difference is, because that is for the sake of learning from it.
Rabbi Hisda’s doubt comes afterward and is completely separate, and about that the Talmud asks what the practical difference is. Unlike Sanhedrin, where in the very substance of the doubt they are unsure whether there is a derivation or not.
Thank you for the answer.
After looking into the Talmudic passage you cited in Sanhedrin, what bothered me was why the Talmud there really does not need a practical difference and treats the doubt as something obvious. And I saw that Tosafot asked this in parallel to the passage in Yoma, where the Talmud asks, “What happened, happened”—meaning, why discuss it now? And in Yoma the answer really is “to understand the verses,” and Rashi explains there that this is so there will not be a contradiction between the verses. And Tosafot there brings the same parallel to the Talmud in Sanhedrin, where in Yoma the Talmud asks “What happened, happened,” whereas in Sanhedrin it does not, and Tosafot leaves it unresolved.
I actually think this makes sense. As the Talmud says, once it is in order to understand the verses, then of course you need to discuss it even without any practical consequence, so there is no reason for the Talmud in Sanhedrin to ask this, because in the very substance of the doubt the Talmud is already asking, “Do we derive later generations from that one-time event or not?” In other words, we have a doubt whether we learned a verbal analogy here by tradition or not, and therefore this is clearly a worthwhile doubt. About that it is said, “Expound and receive reward,” so you do not need the Ran, and Tosafot also does not seem difficult to me.
The Talmud’s only problem is when this does not resolve anything in the verses, but is merely a discussion of what happened back then in that period—like the doubt about how Moses dressed them. On something like that, without a practical difference, they do not discuss it.
So I accept your first explanation, that here the practical difference is not so marginal, and that is why the Talmud entertained it.
If so, it comes out that there are really two kinds of practical difference: there is a practical difference that is needed when there is a halakhic discussion, where it really serves to sharpen the sides and the focal point of the discussion in order to reach greater depth; and there is a need for a practical difference whose whole purpose is just to justify the fact that we are raising the doubt, so that it is not just a waste of time.