Q&A: Is Jewish Law Pluralistic?
Is Jewish Law Pluralistic?
Question
Hello and blessings!
I saw that in your article on pluralism in Jewish law you wrote:
“In this chapter we will show, by a simple logical consideration, that there cannot be a situation in which there are several legitimate interpretations of the rule ‘These and those are the words of the living God’ itself. We have seen that the commentators offer several directions of explanation, or approaches, to this very rule. We must note that there is a dispute among the sages as to how we should relate to disputes among sages. Now we should ask ourselves: what are we to do regarding the different opinions in this very dispute itself? Shall we say about them too, ‘These and those are the words of the living God’? In which of the contradictory and opposing senses will this expression serve us with respect to the interpretation of this very rule?
This problem is apparently insoluble. Someone who claims that the rule should be interpreted so that all opinions are true is thereby saying that everyone is right even with respect to the interpretation of this very expression itself, and therefore, from his perspective, even the interpretations according to which not everyone is right are true. And vice versa as well.
One can find a technical solution here: the expression ‘These and those are the words of the living God’ cannot be applied reflexively to interpretations of itself. This is a technical solution that is apparently satisfying on the logical level, but substantively it is unjustified; why should this dispute be excluded from the rule? If indeed all the sides put forward by Torah sages in all their disputes are correct, then why specifically here, in this topic, did some of them ‘manage’ to be mistaken?”
Is it not possible to distinguish and say that even someone who said that all opinions are correct meant this only regarding disputes on the normative plane, whereas here this is not such a dispute but a factual one—they disagreed about what God’s intention was from the outset, or what the Torah is, and not an evaluative dispute about what ought to be, right? If I’m mistaken, I’d be glad to know why.
Answer
You can make any distinction you like; the question is whether it is reasonable. If they are so perfect and do not make mistakes, then in factual disputes there is certainly no room for them to err.
But beyond that, the discussion is unnecessary, because the dispute over whether both sides are correct is not factual—certainly no more so than the dispute over whether a rival wife of a daughter is permitted or forbidden. You assume that the claim “Murder is forbidden” is normative and not factual, but that the claim “The statement ‘Murder is forbidden’ is true” is a factual claim. That is of course a mistake. The claim “Murder is forbidden” also relates to what the Holy One intends, and so does the second claim.
Discussion on Answer
Absolutely not. Read it again.
Who said that the reason for “these and those” is that they aren’t mistaken? One could say that the Torah was given with their interpretation in mind, or as the Ketzot wrote in the introduction, that God saw what they were going to say and therefore wrote it that way in the Torah from the outset.
That is exactly the pluralistic approach. There is no halakhic truth, and all the Holy One wants is only the halakhic game, whatever its results may be. And therefore, of course, they are also not mistaken (by definition).
Now all that remains is for you to identify the apparatchiks with whose view in mind the Torah was given: the Sanhedrin? All the tannaim? All the amoraim? All the medieval authorities (Rishonim)? The later authorities (Acharonim)? Me? You?
You are completely right. I only meant that the reason they are not mistaken is not because “they are perfect and incapable of error,” as you wrote in your first answer, and therefore there is no irony in the fact that in this dispute, someone who takes the pluralistic approach argues that there is no truth in the other positions. In my opinion too, this is a view that is hard to accept.
So why have you said in several places that in Jewish law there is room for authority, but in matters of thought there is not, because there is no authority over facts? Right now you’re arguing that “murder is forbidden” is also a fact?