Rabbi Michi, maybe even with the Sages one could introduce the idea that there is no halot, but rather there is a rule of conduct according to which we behave as if there is halot. Like the possibility you recently raised in the responsa regarding the preference of the original presumption over the current presumption—that a presumption is a rule of conduct to view things as though there is really continuity. Meaning, even in rules of conduct there is no absolute artistic freedom; rather, there is a constraint to a quasi-realist conception. So too, even if there is some rationale for the existence of a metaphysical system, you do not really need it, and it is enough to run the entire Torah as though such a system exists in reality. In the context of from now on / retroactively (on the issue of creation rather than clarification), you preferred concluding that there exists a halakhic causal mechanism backward in time rather than rules of conduct that merely operate as if such a mechanism exists.

I didn’t understand how this is different from any change in fact that changes the Jewish law. After all, all Jewish law that exists because of some fact—if that fact is absent, the law is nullified. Seemingly here too, with halot, which is a fact?

Tirgitz, I agree. That is certainly a possibility. But it seems that the Sages understood that it really exists, since they feel bound to the halakhic result as though it were a fact. If it were only “as if,” they could have determined the result according to logic and morality and then defined the halot accordingly. See my article on ownership in Jewish law and in civil law.

A.Y.A., as I wrote, if you disagree with them on the factual level, then indeed it is impossible to force the fact on you, but it is possible to compel behavior. That is not like compelling a fact. It is not like a Jewish law based on a clear mistake, like lice on the Sabbath. There it is clear that even the Sages today would rule differently.

By the way, I really don’t understand where the Sages got this whole matter of halot from. Doesn’t that obligate the Rabbi to agree that the Sages saw things / facts that we do not see? And that would in turn affect concepts like providence.

No. I also see it, and Plato saw it too.

Rabbi Michi,
I didn’t fully understand. It is clear that rules of conduct are not subject to any mechanism, but only to a legal rationale (including a rationale of values and social order), and they must be a product of some rationale; whereas matters of reality are completely subject to mechanisms, and they are not necessarily products of rationale.
In the article on halot, as far as I understood, you refuted the first possibility by finding a law (Torah-level, according to the Sages) of a slave whose bill of emancipation is delayed, which seems to have no legal rationale or any other rationale at all, but is only a product of ownership halot (which needs no justification), and the basic principle/value that damages are paid to the “owner”; and from here the second possibility is proven.
But in the responsa on presumption in its time, I understood that you raised a third possibility: that even rules of conduct “need” to be quasi-mechanistic. Meaning, there is some principle that says that rules of conduct (for example, in the laws of presumptions) are not established each detail on its own, but rather the rules of conduct are established by means of conducting ourselves with some factual assumption, and from there we proceed as usual by calculation. (You brought there: whether the mother’s presumption helps the daughter, and the preference of the original presumption over the current one.) In such a way that even in rules of conduct there is a limitation on the degrees of freedom, and they become subject to mechanism, so that we get results (side-effects) that are not products of any rationale.
Maybe I do not understand the concepts correctly, but it seems that if the first two possibilities are nominalism and realism, then the third is idealism. What experiment (identifying a halakhic fact or conduct of the Sages, as distinct for now from a priori plausibility considerations) could refute the third possibility?

You see only with the eyes of the intellect, but not as an actual fact. After all, with the eyes of the intellect you can see many things; that does not mean they exist. See, for example, [in your book] the ontological proof, in the stage of rejection.

Tirgitz,
I am not claiming that they must operate like a mechanism, but that they can. My argument from the delayed bill of emancipation was not because there is no legal logic there, because I do not know whether there is or not. The argument was that it seems from the Talmudic passage that those rationales are not needed, and that even without any legal ramifications whatsoever (not necessarily in waves of legal logic) there is an ownership bond.

A.Y.A.,
I did not understand the comment.

The Rabbi told me that he sees the halot, and I do not think the Rabbi means that he and Plato have divine inspiration, so I used the term the Rabbi uses, called “the eyes of the intellect,” meaning a kind of thought in the mind. Therefore I ask: what does it mean to know a fact through the intellect / thought? After all, one can think many things, as in the ontological proof: one can think that God [the most perfect being] exists, and one can think that He does not exist; that says nothing about reality. And if the Rabbi means that he has an intuition that halot exists, and that is also where the Sages got it from, then here I ask: in my case I have a clear intuition that there is no halot. Seemingly this is like lice on the Sabbath, where if the Sages were alive today they would say otherwise. So too regarding halot: if they were alive today, they would think like me, that there is no reason at all to believe that there is halot [and in fact there is no reason at all].

You can also imagine and make mistakes with your eyes. So what? One has to try to see correctly.

A. I trust my eyes because that is my best option regarding facts, and the Rabbi himself wrote regarding the ontological proof that he does not accept it for the above reason.
B. Does the Rabbi agree with me that in practical Jewish law I can disagree with the Sages regarding facts of halot, like lice, as explained above?

A. I do not remember writing any such thing.
B. I wrote that yes.

I’m sorry that I’m driving the Rabbi crazy, but I didn’t understand.
A. I did not understand the answer to what I wrote above: “And if the Rabbi means that he has an intuition that halot exists, and that is also where the Sages got it from, then here I ask: in my case I have a clear intuition that there is no halot. Seemingly this is like lice on the Sabbath, where if the Sages were alive today they would say otherwise. So too regarding halot: if they were alive today, they would think like me, that there is no reason at all to believe that there is halot [and in fact there is no reason at all].” Therefore, not only would I disagree with the Sages about halot, but I would also act in practice according to my own view and not according to the Sages?
B. If I’m not mistaken, the Rabbi cited Kant as saying that one cannot learn facts from our definitions.

We are repeating ourselves. If you have a different intuition, then good for you. Then you do not agree with them. I still argued that their normative determination obligates you. For two reasons: 1. The halot is the reason for the matter, but not the matter itself. It is not like lice, where the permission to kill it is a direct derivative of their scientific view of it. 2. Beyond that, in the case of lice this is a simple and agreed-upon factual truth, whereas regarding halot you have a different intuition. That is not enough to cancel your obligation to the Jewish law that was established.
[In brackets, where did you get the strange claim that if the Sages were alive today they would think like you? Why do I, who live today, not think like you?]
Similarly, you could also claim that every norm is the product of a fact (what the Holy One, blessed be He, said at Sinai).

Thanks. But it still requires further analysis. [I’m asking according to the Rabbi’s numbering.] 1. Normal people rely on their eyes regarding facts, or if something is very logical I may also learn from that regarding facts—but a real-world fact of halot, where would that come from? It is really an invention. 2. If halot comes from intuition, and to me intuition says it does not exist, then that is the reality. Meaning, since intuition is the parameter, that is what determines it. Therefore it is similar to lice, because just as there, in the parameter of physical reality, we check physical reality to see whether it exists or not, so too regarding the reality of intuition each person should check whether it exists for him or not. Even though in intuition it is more flexible, that is the reality and that is what there is. It is similar to the proof that God exists: one person has an intuition for that and another does not, and each is speaking about a real fact.

And here too, what the Holy One, blessed be He, said at Sinai is also a fact—but I do not disagree about it, because I accept the tradition, since I have no reason to think they lied to me [not a sufficient reason].

[That is what we learned from the Rabbi.]

I have nothing to add. If it is clear to you that there is not, then there is not.

Rabbi, do you use proof of the type of the Jewish law of piggul (where thought is like action) as proof for halot?
(I haven’t read your writings on the topic, so I’m asking in order to know whether I understood the direction correctly.)

I did not understand.