Q&A: Rules of Interpretation
Rules of Interpretation
Question
There is a dispute over how many rules of interpretation there are in the Torah.
Hillel the Elder expounded seven rules before the elders of Beteira; Rabbi Ishmael listed thirteen rules. There is a list of thirty-two rules by which aggadic literature is interpreted, according to Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosei the Galilean. Rav Sherira Gaon lists many dozens of principles.
Even on this most basic issue, there is a dispute over how many rules there are.
Seemingly, it comes out that according to the view of Hillel the Elder, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Ishmael, when they expound, are not doing so according to the rules!!! True, they are doing what God wants from them, which is to try to learn and understand to the best of their ability,
but they are using different tools and would necessarily arrive at different results.
I am asking this because I saw in your book No Person Rules the Spirit that there is not necessarily a contradiction, since the methods of interpretation were given to Moses at Sinai in a raw, undeveloped form, and then underwent conceptualization and formalization, and afterward were cast into fixed canonical patterns.
So according to what you write, when Hillel the Elder learned with seven rules, did he arrive at the same results as Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Eliezer???
And another thing:
What about Rabbi Akiva, who would expound the crowns on the letters and derive Jewish laws from them, whereas Rabbi Ishmael would not expound them, because he held that the Torah speaks in human language.
Did each of them ultimately learn differently because of this???
Answer
I really do not understand these questions at all.
Indeed, there are several enumerations of rules of interpretation, but in most cases this is not a dispute. It is an ongoing process of conceptualization. Beyond that, within the thirty-two there are also rules for interpreting aggadic literature. A dispute exists only between the school of Rabbi Ishmael and the school of Rabbi Akiva.
And indeed, my claim is that those who gave the different enumerations did not necessarily arrive at different results, since there is no dispute between them. Aside from Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael, where there really is a dispute, and the matter is explicit in many Talmudic passages.
When there is a dispute, each side thinks the other is mistaken. So what? How is that different from any other dispute?
If you have some question, you need to make it clear.
Discussion on Answer
I already answered that.
Thank you very much.
That is all I wanted to know.
A simple and innocent person like me trying to understand what you wrote.
When Hillel expounded something and Rabbi Eliezer expounded something, could they, from the standpoint of their different rules, arrive at the same result, or not?
And if not, then necessarily one of them was holding by incorrect rules.