Music. Thank you for joining the
Judaism Demystified podcast. Once again, it's an honor to
have ABBA Shmuel Phillips on for the second time.
The first time we had you on, we were promoting your book Judaism
Reclaimed. And now thank God, we have
another book to discuss, which is Tom Would Reclaimed.
We're very excited to have this conversation.
Before we get into the questions, can you tell us a
little bit about the book? What inspired you to write it?
A little bit about the book. Yeah, well, first of all, thank
you very much for having me back on your podcast.
Very much enjoyed the previous time and I'm sure we're going to
enjoy this as well. So if Talmud reclaims or what is
it? What is being reclaimed?
How is it being reclaimed? Well, the the truth is that
there are many people I find even those who've spent years in
the yeshiva wild in the Ecolo system.
And there are certain questions they have where really, I think
which anyone has when they start studying Talmud, basic
structural question, which you'd have with with with any law
students, how does something become law?
How does the law change? What is the legal authority?
These are these are basic questions which they don't
really deal with very much in the Ishibas.
And I mean, that was just the first Shabbat lunch yesterday
and someone sort of mentioned I'd written a book and there
were two Yeshiba guys there. And they, they're basically
turned to each other and said we were up half of last night
discussing this, these questions.
And OK, how, how there aren't any books that really address
them properly in English. So, yeah.
So I, I tried to go through some of the, the basic questions that
the first section of the book discusses.
First of all, I mean, if you take the the Talmud and the
second of Gemara, how much of that is understood to come from
Sinai? How much of that came directly
from God Vinosha and it's been passed through the generations
and how much of that has been legislated by the Sanhedrin or
the Sages via the Sanhedrin through the generations?
How much of that can be changed and how much of those fixed can
you send hedrins that's up tomorrow?
Which laws can they revisit and which things are considered to
be off limits? Surely there are red line things
they can't change and, and many things that they can and
connected to that comes the question of the Dirac shot.
The the the all of the, the legal hermeneutical processes
that the that take up so much of the Talmud and extracting
apparently laws from the vases just to say to add this law and
that law. How much are we trying to mine
the hidden intent of the Torah to, to legislate new details of
laws and how much are we, or how much are the sages creating or
applying old laws and just finding places for that within
the Torah's text? So there's discussion about that
and there's A and there's a matter of how to tell one part
from the other. What, what, which parts of the
Gemara are part of the, the, the core transmitted elements of the
oral tradition and how much are the, the, the, the legislative
details? That's the first section.
And the second section moves into the, the post of the era,
an era. We don't have a sun headroom.
We don't have a judicial authority which is authorized to
create new law. So how does law change, if at
all, in the post Talmudic era? And there are different
traditions on how flexible law can be in the in this era.
We discussed the different styles of Talmud study, how that
has evolved over the years, and also the big question of
academic Talmud study, how they study Talmud in the universities
as opposed to how they studied in the Shivots, and how each
could perhaps learn from the other or not.
So these are some of the some of the big questions, as well as
the historical matters of how the Talmud came to be written,
how it came to be considered authoritative.
So yeah, many, many big questions are dealt with.
It really is like probably the only book out there that you
said is that really addresses all these issues.
So to anyone you know who's tuning in right now, I highly,
we both highly recommend reading this book.
We're not going to be able to cover all the topics in this one
podcast, so we we really recommend it.
So you touched on this topic. So I guess we'll start with
this. In the opening chapter, we
discuss the state of halacha today and how we have
subconsciously come to Revere the halachic status quo so much
that we're almost uncomfortable thinking about or suggesting how
to reclaim and employ in the future the original legislative
power of the Sanhedrin. Can you discuss some of the key
points that make the Sanhedrin so unique and central to the
halachic system, and why without the Sanhedrin, the modern world
is stuck in what you call a quote UN quote halachic exile?
Right. These these a big topic.
I mean, the first point as an introductory point is just to
understand what halacha is. Halacha is a is a national legal
system for the Jewish people and any legal system has to have
certain has to have some kind of judicial body to interpret and
to determine the details, address new scenarios.
We have it in the Torah tells us our Piatarache Arouka that we
keep the laws of the Torah in accordance with how the judges
present them to us. So we're told we have a judicial
body. And before we go into the unique
aspects of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish judicial body, just to
appreciate how any legal system requires a judicial body to
interpret the laws for us, for even very seemingly simple laws
that do not kill. Sounds like a very simple, easy
to to apply or you can't go and kill other people.
Well, no. We know how much debate there is
in America now about what's what's considered a living
being, What is the what, what is considered life?
At what stage, if at all, is a fetus considered fully alive and
being forbidden to kill a fetus, the end of life?
We have a similar debate with the organ donation.
At what stage is someone considered no longer to be
alive? You can take the organs out of
the body without worrying about killing them.
So these are new questions somewhat that didn't really
exist at the time with the mission and the Gemara, which we
would need the Sun Hedrin to come and define for us.
What about self defence? There's a big question in Israel
now. Under what circumstances, at
what level of risk can you go? And when you believe someone's
attacking you go and shoot them. So these are big, big questions
which are seemingly simple law do not kill will bring up.
And we have complex laws about not doing mullahat on Shabbat.
And many of the scenarios, many of the debates we have now about
electricity communications, These are things which is very
hard for us to know with any definitive certainty what the
law is today. We have to go back to to ancient
agricultural examples and a Mishnah and the Gemara to try
and work out how things like electricity fit into these, to
these, to this system. Every new technology is a
question. So when we talk about why are we
missing us on hedren, why, why Jewish law seems to be frozen?
We haven't had a, an authoritative body since, well,
at least the last 1500 years, which can tell us with any
certainty how details of Jewish law, how new technologies can be
addressed. Why is that?
That is because we had, we had this principle, the end of the,
the Gemara of Ravina, Ravashi Sofharah.
There was a Sanhedrin that was sitting through the, the, the
1st, the 2nd Macdush period. I go through the, the historical
aspect of it in the book. Then we have the, the, the
Mishnah of Raviol Donasi, which which sits down and fixes many
of the, the laws and in the details of the laws, you know,
in an authoritative way. And then we have Ravina and
Ravashi who were Sharira gone in his famous letter describes how
their Academy in Barvel was considered authoritative.
The other rival academies recognising Ravashi's greatness
subordinated themselves too Ravashi and said, look, we, we
are going to accept his, his, all his rulings.
And at that stage in history, these other academies between
them, they represented all or the vast majority of, of Jewish
scholarship. And we have this, this, this
state, this state of Jewish scholarship where one Academy
that was really accepted by the, the entire Jewish people, which
gave it, according to to many of the commentators, some kind of
Sanhedrin like data. So we haven't had anything since
then. So Rabina Ravashi, the end of
the Gomorrah, they, they finalized the, the, the, the
halachic rulings of the Gomorrah and the rulings that we have in
the Gomorrah are considered Saif hara, the end of innovative
legal rulings. And the problem is that was 1500
years ago. So in terms of defining, sorry,
in terms of defining details of Jewish law, any new law that
comes up now a question of how to how, whether a certain new
appliance is prohibited on Shabbat, at what stage a person
is considered to no longer to be alive, in terms of organ
donation. All these questions we have to
go back to these ancient sources and try and debate to be and,
and compare and, and, and contrast different matters to
see, to see if they're, they're similar.
So that's a matter of the halakha being in exile instead
of having a Sanhedrin today, we're able to address and define
with clarity. Some of these issues will end up
going back to making parallels and arguments over from really
ancient agricultural cases. That's that's one dimension of
it. The other thing I would say is
that Jewish law, the Jewish Sanhedrin, goes further than
this. That's everything I've said so
far would be relevant to a regular legal system.
Any judicial body needs to address and apply laws to new
scenarios. But Jewish law goes further.
And that is because we're told that the Meshachmat talks about
this, the Malaki, there is other sources.
The part of the function of Sanhedrin is that they are
supposed to be sensitive to the needs of each generation, and
they are supposed to legislate the details of Torah law in
order to maximize this relevance to the generation in question.
And to ask this seems like such a foreign concept because we we
haven't had a stunt hedge for so many years.
And especially with the, the, all the various pushbacks we've
had over Conservative and Reform Judaism, who are, who are, who
are very much advanced. The idea that even now we can,
we can change aspects of Torah law, Orthodox duties in Germany
seems to say that we need a, a already formulated sun hedren in
order to do that. They're not getting into too
many details, but because there's been a sort of pushback,
we, when we say Revere the status quo, we've come to very
much think of the laws which were passed in the mission.
And then the Gemara is being sort of sacrosanct and the ideal
state of Judaism and the idea that we are supposed in an ideal
state of the Jewish system to have a, an active body of sun
Hedren to change and apply laws, details of laws, again, not the
core aspects of you admit. So that details of laws in order
to maximize their relevance is something which seems very
foreign to us. So these, these are some of the,
these are some of the reasons I, I can, I can give an example to,
if you want to the sort of the, the sort of changes that Hedren
can make. There's a mission at the end of
the first chapter of Kuritut which talks about it.
It's a, it seems like a fairly technical debate because there's
a law though, a woman who has given birth, who has had, who's
had a miscarriage has to bring certain sacrifices to birds to,
to complete her purification process so that she can now
enter the Beta Mcdash or eat carb or not.
And very typically at that time, the second Beta Mcdash, not
everyone lived very close to Beta Mcdash.
So people would come once every few years, once every five
years, once every 10 years. And so the question comes up,
what happens if a woman comes to the base of Mcdash and she's had
several childbirths or miscarriages between her last
visit? She's got to bring 3-4 lots of
carpal knots. So does she offer one set of?
Birds, or several, one for each miscarriage, one for each birth.
And the rabbis argue about it one way or the other.
They they they compare precedents and the Hedren rules
more stringently that she has to bring a set of birds for each
obligation. Rob Schumerman Gamliel who's in
the sea goes out and sees that the the market prices has has
raised up the the traders taking advantage of this ruling and he
says this isn't going to do they're they're they're they're
they're ripping off people. They're the the the market's
taking advantage of people aren't going to be able to
afford their car by not he says no, it's not going to do.
He goes back into the Sanhedrin and they re sit upon the case
and they say no, we can't do this anymore.
And they they rule according to the other set of Sanayim, it was
Rebi Akiva that said that one carbon can fulfil all of the the
obligations. That's just one example as to
this idea that Sanhedrin is supposed to as again, this is
not, it's not their exclusive role, but they're supposed to be
taking into account the facts on the ground that these things
sensitive to the needs of the generation when they're
legislating. And the Mesha Khokma talks about
this in his in his commentary to Bukokai when he's talking about
the rebuke. The part of the part of what
we're missing, which we don't even realize, he says is we're
not having a sun headrin to because we exile from the land.
We don't have a sun Headrin, therefore we're not able to have
a Torah which appeals to a youngster.
He's talking about 1920s Germany.
He had Malachi writes this and it's it's also you find the
Mystics writing about this Dego Machiner Fryin, who's a it was a
rabbi wrote about how from from his perspective as Sanhedrin is
supposed to. I think the way he puts it, each
generation has a different shy Shyama and the Sanhedrin has to
be sensitive to it and legislate in accordance with the spiritual
needs of the generation. So it's something which is which
is recognized from all different routes, but partly because of
political and you know, you form conservative Orthodox part of
the past. Some of the the battles between
them, we, we view an idea of halachic change in a very
negative way. And that's part of this idea
that you mentioned, halacha being in exile, the Sanhedrin
being in exile, and that's not being used to how halacha is
supposed to work. Where does the modern day OSEC
come into this? So the modern day Possec, well,
that gets into a different question of when there is no
judicial body, when there is no authoritative judicial body.
We said to Ravina Ravashi Sofhara that the end of the
Gemara is considered some sort of sealing of of innovative
ruling. So how much flexibility is there
for a modern Possec to change things?
And that is, I mean, that is the whole section B of the book,
that's there are different groups of Rishanian that
approaches differently, but the the rumbam, the rift, the
Ghanaian, who are generally much stricter in terms of how to
apply comedic law to the modern era.
So when questions come up, they're much more likely to say,
well, that is the law as expressed in the Talmud, even
though it doesn't seem so relevant to us nowadays what
that they were authorized to legislate, We are not.
So even though, for example, my mahranim doesn't doesn't seem to
be so necessary for us, we can still do it.
We can't change it. Even though we're not going to
make instruments on or fix instruments on Shabbat by
clapping and dancing. If that state is the law, then
we will keep it regardless. Whereas by the ballet toss of
art and other issue them are more likely to to try and say,
well it was legislated in the mission on the Gomorrah, but
that was under a certain set of circumstances which isn't
relevant now. Therefore, inbuilt within that
ruling, is there some kind of ability to be flexible and more
powers delegated to the modern day Parsec.
So that opens up a whole new question, which essentially is
is a battle between, I guess you call it the the old safari, the
classic safari, the Rishonim who applied this more strictly and
the ballet toss on the other end of the other end of the extreme,
who are who are much freer in in understanding their rights, the
authority to interpret and to contextualize some of the
rulings. And we're probably probably the
modern day posse is somewhere in between those two.
It's. Briefly, before we get into the
second point regarding Harambam's two tiered system, I
wanted to ask you if you can just briefly go into what gave
the Talmud it's binding authority.
I think this is a very important point that a lot of people have
never considered. It's something which it's
there's a measure of debate about this.
The interview tell the truth because Alpia Torah, Shayarukha,
the Torah, it gives authority to a Sanhedrin.
I mean, if you take it very literally, it's a Sanhedrin.
It's a judicial body made-up of Konim, maybe exclusively or
primarily of Konim. We're sitting in their chambers
next to Bethan Mcdash. That is the recognized
authorized body in the Torah, in the written text of the Torah.
And but, but, but we know historically that authority has
been wielded by courts, by a Sanhedrin even who are, who are
not made-up exclusively of Khanim and who are not sitting
in these chambers. So there's a number of
commentaries and rebel Khan and Wasserman is 1.
Hamfauer is another. It seems to others they they
understand that the Sanhedrin represents the national rabbinic
authority, so to speak. When you have a recognised
rabbinic authority which is accepted by all the majority
that exactly how you define it, but it is seen as the recognised
authority among the Jewish people, then that can have the
same level of authority as a Sanhedrin to interpret things.
We saw there was a bed in in Yevnet in various other places
after the destruction which which was which was seen as
authoritative. It wasn't made-up fully of of
Kanim. So we see there's some level of
but yes, the Torah sets out certain conditions of what an
authoritative court is, but it's not exclusively that Riguer
dynasty was in the north of Israel.
He created a mission now that seemed to have that was accepted
as having a binding authority. But then after rigid dynasty,
there was the there was the general movement over towards
Baval. For a while, though, the the
Jewish people split between Baval and the land of Israel,
and there was no there was certainly no unified the
acceptance of Jewish authority until we get to this time of
Rabina Ravashi and their Catherine Sura.
And this is an important point for those who have read the the
letter of Shiva Ragon, the Garrett Shiragon, which is a
which is a really, really important work that people
should read as an introduction to the Talmud alongside the
Rambam's introduction to the Talmud.
And he, he goes through to explaining how each of the, of
the rival academies in Babel, you had to have Pumbadisa, you
had Surah, you had to these various academies, how they
recognised the, the greatness of Ravashi.
And then he, he brings tombotic sources to show how these
academies therefore subordinated themselves, their, their legal,
their, their legal rulings to Ravashi.
By that stage, by the way, there'd been a high level of
persecution in the land of Israel.
The Yorushalmi had finished being being written in Jerusalem
Talmud and the primary scholarship of the Land of
Israel had either migrated or been communicated to Bavel,
which is so So the scholarship of the Land of Israel you find
within the Baveli, it incorporates a lot of the
scholarship of Israel. So it's not just Bavel's
academies which are subordinating sort of Ashi, the
Babylonian scholarship of the stage includes it encompasses
the Palestinian, we call it to the land of Israel.
But then I can I use that phrase the, the, the Israeli, the, the,
the Jerusalem Talmud. There's so many Sikyats the the
the missionaries brought and the first voices we hear are Amar so
and so Amar of your Khanan, who's the who's the one of the
main figures in the Oshami or Kiata Rabin or so on.
He he brought with the message of Jochenan and Rove Jochenan is
so revered within the bubbly that that that his rulings are
adhered to overrun who was the primary Babylonian MRR.
So, so that you've got the, all the scholarship from the land of
Israel plus all of the academies within Bovael and Ravshira shows
that they were all subordinating themselves to Ravina Ravashi to
the extent that you now have a Torah Gudula Bamaka Mehrad, you
have this unified authority in the yeshiva Surah for I think
it's at 70 or 80 years. And, and Ravashi, according to
this Ravindra Ravashi, they held the same sort of status as
Jubila Dhanasi. They were seen as the unified
halakhic authority and that gave them some kind of quasi
Sanhedrin status, national rabbinic authority status, which
is why the Gomorrah says what they made in Surah was not going
to be easily undone. And and that's we said about
them, Rabina Rashi, Sokharah, because at the I think it was
the year 499 in Surah, there was there was a big pogrom with a
big exile. Jews were scattered all over the
even further out again. And from now time onwards, we
haven't had the unified, any sort of unified system.
So that was really the last time we had some kind of recognized
central rabbinic authority that could be seen as in the place of
the Sanhedrin. That is, that is what gives the
yeshiva in Surah this this unique status.
I'm wondering. I'm wondering theoretically
speaking, since today with communication is so much easier
than then, I wonder if if we were to have a unified system
today, you don't even necessarily need to have
everybody in one place like back then, because communication is
is not necessarily it's it's it's doable to to have a
central, a central unified system.
Even, you know, people from America and from wherever
because it's just we're not we're not at the same our our
level of communication makes it plausible.
Now I'm just wondering theoretic, just a point to raise
you're. Saying you could have a say a
Sanhedrin type body who are all on some kind of Zoom forum and
they can debate and come to some kind of decision that way.
Communication is communication. Is is is the easiest thing to
achieve today, so you could have not.
Again, not a full sun hedron, which with all its, all its
powers, but some kind of rabbinic authority.
It could. I mean, the problem we have
today is that people have there've been so much
fragmentation and stitching into different groups and rabbis in
each group are so used to being able to a full political
authority over their followers, over their subgroups, that, that
no one's in a hurry to give that up and to and to what do you
call it? The, the flexibility or the
humility or whatever you want to call it to stay.
Look, we're all part of Kali's trail.
We're not. So just our group and therefore
we're going to look together and find the 70 greatest ages or how
many it is and come to legal rulings together.
So I I don't see it happening in a in a hurry in our generation,
but yeah, please, God, yeah, we definitely, we definitely do
need it, as I, as I discuss in the book for sure.
OK. And we wanted to know if you can
get into Hambam's two tiered system.
You bring up a very, very, to me at least, it was a fidouche.
I never, I never realized what you, what you uncovered when you
looked into the mourn of Wuhrman with, with regarding the general
laws versus the details. And you have a very interesting
fidouche, if I may call it that, and wanted to know if you can
get into that. You also brought up Christina
Hayes, a very poignant point critique of her.
We wanted to know if you could talk about this stuff.
Right. So this is, yeah, it's another,
it's another big topic, a big question.
So at the start of Rambam's introduction to the missioner,
and this is again, this is something which is so
fundamental that Rambam puts it at the start of his introduction
to the missioner, meaning this something you have to have clear
and internalize before you really learn the missioner, the
Gemara, anything. He's talking about the system of
transmission and revelation of the Torah.
And he talks about how each mitzvah that Masha received in
the desert, he didn't just receive the, the few words of
the written text of the Torah that in which this mitzvah is
expressed. Every mitzvah is received with
Perusha with its explanation. This explanation encompasses
the, the, the, the core aspects which without which is mitzvah
doesn't make sense if you are told to dwell in a sucker for
seven days and you don't have no idea what a sucker means.
So that's a bit of a meaningless commandment.
So you have to have a basic understanding of the of the, the
basic structure of the mitzvah. And then there are the finer
details of the of the of the mitzvah, which can which can be
determined, which can be discussed.
And I'm going to I'm going to quote a passage here because in
his own words call Mashikiba MI Moscher who are commensicanium
in a double or love anything which was received directly from
Moscher that can be or the prophets.
It's really from Moscher. There can be no discussion about
not enough Obama clocket. There can be no debates.
There could be no disputes, it could be no change, anything
that was received, any of this Karishma Kabal, which represents
the core aspect of the commandments, that is beyond
debate, Mashallah. Shama.
By Paris Rupee and Nabi Allah Bashallah, but it was not heard
explicitly from Marshall Abenu Mihanim Hamistariki mayhem from
the. Matters which branch.
Off from them. So if we can think of a mitzvah
as some kind of tree, you have a central trunk and, and the and
primary branches of the tree, which represents the main
structure of the mitzvah, which hold it together, which which
define its basic function. That was that was transmitted
from Usher Abeinu. And then it's beyond astute,
beyond discussion. The finer branches, the small
bit the the the the finer twigs and branches the the leaves
that. Was left open.
And undefined. Now Henhopty didn't this far us.
Some of these were legislated subsequently by the stages by
the courts through logic, commodic logic, but may not have
to deny to address his bond through the hermeneutical laws.
And as he goes on to say, among these finer details, there are
things which fell into disputes and were debated and discussed.
And that's how Mark Lockett and that's how we have so much
dispute in the Talmud in the second mitzvot, his introduction
to Shara Shin, to the second mitzvot, the Rambam seems to say
that the majority of the majority of Talmudic law or
Torah law falls into the second category of not of things which
were not communicated directly by Moschet to the people.
The things which were left open and undefined to be discussed,
debated, legislated by future stages in Sanhedrin through
application of a divinely ordained system, the the, the
sort of Talmudic logic and the droshak, the hermeneutical
system and these things, these finer details that often
referred to as the race suffering.
The race suffering means rabbinic law.
Which is which? Is because even though they're
fully. They're fully they're, they are
Torah law, but they are defined and legislated by the, by
rabbis, really by the courts. And among the second.
Category the the the courts can revisit these details and
redefine them and come up with different drasha different on
the Utica ways of defining these details each generation.
But the thing that you're referring to in terms of the
moron of Wuhim is that this this two tier system of having a, a
the core aspect of every mitzvah, which are almost
untouchable, and then the finer details which are open to being
revisited. We legislated at the flexibility
there. I noticed this.
This parallels a different discussion within the moral of
Wukim, the third section of the Guide to perplex, where Rahman
gives his reasons for the mitzvah, the tamer mitzvah.
And he again there distinguishes between the core aspects of
every mitzvah which he says have reasons for them which we can
propose and understand and appreciate.
And then the finer details of every mitzvah about which we
don't necessarily look to understand why these reasons
were legislated. And it occurred to me that maybe
there's, there's some kind of crossover between these, between
these two different systems of core call functions of the
mitzvah and find the details. And this is during my during the
corona lockdown when I sort of shut up in my in my room with my
books for a few weeks. So I said, well, let's go
through these 1520 chapters of guide perplex.
And I wrote down every single detail of a law which the Rumbam
draws upon when he is suggesting reasons for the mitzvah and
said, well, let, let's have a look at them.
It it people think that he doesn't draw on any details.
That's all. He brings in quite a lot of
details. But when you look up these
details in the mission of Torah and other places, you notice
that he does not really. He doesn't bring any detail
which arises from a drashar, which arises from a
hermeneutical, what we call the very soft rim, a finer detail of
a mitzar which was legislated by the courts, which which was
flexible, which could be changed.
All of the details he brings are things about what he says.
This was, this was a tradition which was transmitted from
Ashraab or, or some equivalent phrase, which is fascinating
because what you see really is there's some kind of, there's
some sort of crossover here and it makes a lot of sense.
Why is that? Because if there's as.
As we said before, the core aspect of every mitzvah
represents its primary function. So if we're going to look for a
detail of a mitzvah, it makes a lot of sense to say we're going
to look at the primary aspect of that mitzvah, not the finer
details. But these finer details were not
defined. They were not transmitted by
Moshe. They were not just transmitted
through prophecy. And they're open to be changed.
They could be disputed. One time I could say, I saw one
could say Mutzar and the San Hedrick could vote one way and
one generation and revisit that and and vote a different way in
another, in another generation. So how can you look at these
flexible, non transmitted laws and say, oh, that now in view of
that law, I can understand the function of this mitzvah.
It can't. It's flexible and it wasn't
received from from Rochelle. So that is why we we see this,
this, this overall, this overall system.
Makes a lot of sense. That's really we have this two
tiered system which the core aspects are are directly
revealed, perfectly transmitted, no change, no dispute, and they
embody the the core part, the function that that that God's
will, as we could call it, behind the law and then define
the details which are defined and legislated by the sages,
violence and hedren. They can and must be revisited
based on the needs of the generation, based on the logic.
And we do not, we say they do not necessarily reflect the
divine will. They're part of it, some sort of
broader system. So you, when you mentioned
Christina Hayes, she has a project that the, the book What
is what is Divine about divine law, I think it's called.
And she is contrasting the Jewish philosophy of law with
that of the Christians and the Hellenists.
And she has an overall theory she's trying to, she's trying to
reach, which is that the the Jewish approach to law is very
different. It doesn't see law as
untouchable and divine as opposed to, to the Hellenist
view of, of, of divine laws being universal and untouchable.
But all of the the examples she brings to show that Jewish law
is flexible and can be changed and isn't seen as divine.
They all relate to these finer details of law.
As I show in my book. There are many examples where
one Tana will propose or say, well, let's, let's, let's change
this law. I've got a Karva Khama and says,
you could do that. I'll put you in a harem.
I, I excommunicate you because that is the true.
That's a received tradition. That's part of it.
We we have discussions between between the Tanae and there's a
missionary Vermont where they're discussing about a certain sort
of person can convert and Shinbayokhai proposes a Carl
Mohammed just to to go to the law to be one way and if they
just turn around. And say to.
Him and say, if what you're saying is a received tradition,
we, we'll accept it because we can't challenge received
tradition. And if you're just expressing a
received tradition as a Karl Bahama, fine, we stand back
because you because that came through the tradition.
But if you are proposing a new law by your through your logic,
we have a, a account for Spara. We we think that we can rebut
your suggestion. So we see that this is when
you're sensitive and you're aware.
This is why I say it. It's it's an introduction for
Talmud when you're sensitive and aware to this two tier system,
and we'll give some examples later on that it opens up, it
opens your eyes up to so much of the dynamic, the inner dynamic
of the Talmud of what's going on there.
And it answers other questions as well.
There's a there's a long, long essay by Habot Yahir, by Yahir
Bakarach, who is really troubled by this idea of how can there be
so much dispute and it within the Talmud.
How can our tradition have come down to us with so many
arguments? It open up the Talmud and every
every law seems to be disputed. He says well does this does this
undermine the transmission of the Torah?
How can it be? How do we know fulfilling God's
will or not? And he says well some well there
are some rabbis suggest that the Torah was was initially
transmitted in some pristine way and over the generations it's
been forgotten. But he says, well that can't be
because if you say so much of our law has been forgotten, How
can we have any trust in the tradition that's come down to us
at all. And furthermore, he says some of
the disputes are of a basic everyday laws, how you recite
the Shema and how you put on tfilin.
These are things which would have been carried out every day.
Brahat. How can people, and I understand
if it's a once in a year, once every few years or a rare, rare
alachar. Maybe people forgot it, but
something which was done every day, it doesn't make sense to
say that was forgotten. So he he's not happy with that.
He brings in one of the mystical approaches in the which was
quoted in the name of the the rabbis from France.
That's that. I think the Rig Vah quotes it
the that for many of the laws, Moshe didn't just receive one
fixed Alakah, but he received multiple options, 49 ways of
Somal, 49 ways of Tarah. He received different
possibilities to prohibit and to permit different.
And he says it's just this also makes a nonsense because does,
does God want me to eat this food or not?
And especially Europe and the Khalat is a is a it's a
capitalist. He's he's understanding that if
something is not coached, there's some hidden spiritual
clip out or the damaging force within it.
So he says, well, this just makes a nonsense of the Torah if
you take such an approach, because either there's something
damaging and and bad in that food or there isn't.
How can you say that both are options and the rabbis and Sahel
who can just choose between them.
What? What is the what is the function
of the Torah then? I mean the Rambam's two tiered
system explains this beautifully.
Because if we say that the primary divine will within each
mitzvah is the core aspect that says the Rambam was transmitted
perfectly, there was no in the Taberra of no dispute.
There can be no discussion, and only within the finer details
that any dispute can pretend. And those finer details were
left open and undefined and they could be disputed.
And that's not that the fact that the dispute does not
reflect any problem in the transmission of the of the
Torah. And it also means that you're
not worried about how it reflects God's will, because
God's will refers primarily to that core aspect which defines
the main framework of the law. So that is, that is where the
tutored system comes in. Few points.
That I jotted down 1st regarding the mourn of Wukim Hridosh, that
you brought out to me the consistency that you see with
Arambam between all his writings, right?
Because you're learning his introduction to the Mishnah,
you're learning Mishnah Torah, and then all of a sudden you go
to Mourn of Wukim. And Mourn of Wukim is, is a
whole ball game on its own. And it's going into this talking
about prophecy and how to understand Tsukim and you know,
philosophy all. And yet you're able to see how
consistent he is that everything that he is.
And he wrote the introduction to the Michenel where he brings out
the points that you're mentioning when he was a young
boy. Mourn of Wuhim, he writes when
he was towards the latter part of his life, yet he is using
seamlessly with that meaning. If you wouldn't have brought
this out, no one would have noticed, at least not to our
knowledge at least. Right.
But he's he's actually consistently taking all the
points he made in the introduction to the Mishnah and
fitting it in with with the Tamim mitzvot and more Novokhim
beautifully. It's like the consistency that
he has. You don't see that anywhere.
Yeah, that's one thing which. Really appealed to me and Ali
Rumbaum is that before I started studying his work properly, I, I
said Judaism was like a, a big mishmash of, of different,
different, I think weird and wonderful teachings.
And you know, this teaching and that teaching.
No, it, it's all sort of a big mishmash floating around.
No idea how to structure it into any kind of system.
And the one thing that epically the Rumbaum's hacked, I marked
his introductions and some of his, some of his, his systems of
thought really structured Judaism for me.
And that's, that's, I think it's something I'm very grateful for.
It's amazing. And.
Also, I wanted to mention regarding the Christina Hayes,
we love Christina Hayes when it comes to stuff like polemics and
different things. She's she's absolutely
brilliant. But I think this kind of because
what struck me when I read with Christina Hayes is that her, her
mistake was so fundamental here. It's so fundamental and you,
you, it kind of opens your eyes, the problem of trying to
sometimes read scholars into things like.
The fundamentals of Torah or the fundamentals of mesura, There's
there's things that are bound to be missed because they're
they're coming from the outside in it just there's, there's, I'd
say there are major. Scholars that aren't.
But yeah, it's definitely something.
I think she she the nuance she missed.
Yeah, huge. I mean, it's fundamental that
that's that's the problem there. I wanted to ask you, you touched
upon it with the Hibatiya ear. I think he brought because when
he brings the opinion that that well, I don't know if it's
necessarily this one, but the the the if I'm not mistaken in
even though it brings the reasoning from a Chlok ET
because Loshim Shu ET Raban something they didn't they, they
didn't do a good job of receiving it right.
I believe it's quoting Gamara somewhere.
If I'm not mistaken, the Rambam kind of.
Understands that Gamara. Differently.
I think he touches upon it in his introduction to the Mishnah.
I don't remember offhand how he understands that Gamara, but he
says that Gamara doesn't mean that right in the introduction
to the Mishnah. Right.
The question is. Why they didn't, Why they
weren't Misha Mish, Why they didn't learn sufficiently from
the say, I mean Russia, the Rambam, many people discuss it
and the hills of Mamarim. Also there's, there's if you
look at the historical context, what was going on at the time,
the time of Hillel and Shami, It was there was, I think it was,
it was Yami and Herod. There was there was a huge
persecution of Torres scholars. They were sent into exile.
They had a bunch of them were killed.
There was, there was, it was very hard to convene any kind of
Sanhedrin, any kind of proper yeshiva.
And therefore dispute arose and and because it wasn't resolved
in one generation, it kept perpetuating until you ended up
with many, many unresolved, unresolved cases.
So it's not, there's an aspect of it that yes, they, perhaps
they weren't intellectually attunes what their teachers were
saying, but part of it very much is the historical context that
there wasn't the rum. It's the big point of the rum
bum that in order to have, to succeed intellectually, you have
to have the correct setting. And when you have huge civil
wars and you have kings who are chasing down and pursuing Torah
scholars to, to kill them and sending them into exile, that's
not, it's not going to be very easy for students to sit calmly
and understand everything that their teachers are telling them.
So that's the sort of time where you have the dispute
proliferating. Uh huh.
OK. So yeah, I was just wondering if
if Aarambam can can be, can it fit with with even though it's
reasoning does that do they work together or it was
forgetfulness? Yeah, it, it could be.
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't want to get too into
that because I didn't I didn't go through even though it
properly to. No worries, no worries.
One last thing I wanted to ask you before we move on to the the
next question is can you, can you get a little into Dini
Muflaim? And how that how that?
Goes with the two tier system. Is it a third or is it part of
the two tier So Dini? Muflaim this is This is taken
from. It's a phrase that the Rambam
writes in his introductions, Commissioner Torah.
So this very much the the second section of the two tiered
system. These are the laws which are
left undefined by marsh and the deserts.
And we'll we'll give some examples of this a bit perhaps
later on. I've got the example, yeah.
And I'm trying to get. So this, so the second tier
you're defining in inflam is everything in that second tier.
Yes, anything which was not heard explicitly from Muscher.
It was not part of the written torrent and it was not part of
the people of the parish Muqabal the the received and transmitted
explanation from Muscher. Those things are fixed and can't
change and anything else was left open and it was
deliberately left and left open for courts and sages to discuss
and dispute. Does the legislate this in the
future and to be revisited. So these are in his in his
instructions permission. He calls he calls on the Inani
Nami Staragim in different works.
He's got different the introduction to Misha Tari, who
personally been in humble flying these these mostly exactly how
to translate that. But the laws they're basically
these laws which are left open and undefined specifically so
that different generations and different courts could to
address them how they still fit. OK, so let's.
Get into the third question. Having established that the
finer details of Torah law are left to the sages to derive and
develop as you were just discussing, the listener is
bound to be troubled by this. Can aspects of Torah law, which
are derived from a close reading of the Torah's text using a
system that is understood to originate from Sinai, really be
viewed as independent from God's will?
If the details that they produce do not advance the purpose of
the commandment as you described, why then is there
precise formulation the subject of such fierce and intricate
debate and extense extensive Talmudic focus?
This is a good question, because if, like you just mentioned,
these are not necessarily part of the Divine will from the
standpoint of how the details come out, why are they fiercely
arguing over these so vehemently in all over the Talmud?
Right, it's. A difficult question.
It's something which which I think draws some criticism from
from other Marao and others who don't like the Rahash somebody
don't like Rahman's second tier system.
And if it gets too far, they they critique this point.
But on the other hand, it's it does explain many, many things.
But the first point we'll say is what do we mean when something
is God's will and not God's will?
So I'm going to start off with a teaching for the Mesha Hokhmat
and with Mayor Simcha Devinsk in his, in his Mesha Hokhmat at the
start of Shafatim, I think it is, he talks about how there are
many, a number of things we find in the Torah which can be
considered God's will, but not directly God's will.
For example, we have a law that we have to obey a a king, a king
of Israel fully. David Amelath is there.
There's a law that you have to follow what the king says.
Does that mean that every tax, every every piece of landlord or
every piece of legislation the king brings reflects God's will?
Not necessarily. God may think that that tax
bracket is too real, too aggressive, but the God wants
you to obey the king, and therefore that becomes biblical
law. You can't rebel against the
king. He says a similar thing when it
comes to up here, Tarasha Yaruka.
It may be a. Rabbinic law.
The rabbis may make a certain piece of legislation, and the
Torah wants the youth to obey the rabbis.
Does that mean that God thinks necessarily that this detail of
rabbinic law is correct? Which would God necessarily have
wanted? That you can't necessarily state
that God set up a system by which he wanted the King's
authority to be obeyed and a system by which we wanted
rabbinic authority to be obeyed. And we find that the famous
Agatha with the the oven of achani, This this, this is
reflected very strongly. And I think that is actually
biblical law, that the case involved whether a certain oven
which has been put together, whether this oven can become
richly impure or not. And it's quite a complicated,
it's definitely a detail of law. It's it's a very detailed
discussion of a certain type of oven which can be put together
in a certain way and Rebel Aza. And then hulkeness.
And the rabbis are arguing back and forth and the ways they're
pitching their garrita. Is that God's side?
God thinks that Rebel Aza Ben Hulkeness is correct.
And these miraculous signs seem to endorse the view of Rebel
Aza, but doesn't matter. Everybody has that.
It doesn't matter that the God endorses him because the
majority of rabbis go the other way.
And God says it's Kulibana, you've defeated me.
Why? That's making the point that
God's general will is that the rabbis be obeyed.
Majority of rabbis the Sanhedrin the king be obeyed the system
that he set up be followed regardless of whether each
individual law necessarily is seen to be according with his
will. That's the starting point.
And by the way, that makes a lot of sense of this concept of aid
of aid of a like him. We say about disputes and Torah
law. The reason they are the words of
the living God. Well, if God says that if God
wants this piece of food considers it to be non kosher
and the rabbis have voted that it's kosher, how can both sides
be the words that are being God? Whereas if you say God has set
up a system and God has endorsed the system and given over the
keys to the system, that the the forms of logic, the.
Hermeneutical laws he's given. Over the keys to us and said you
go ahead and as long as you are seriously pursuing in accordance
with the system. I've given you everything you
say in terms again in terms of these details of Torah law in
terms of the primary core aspects in terms of the details.
All of that can be received to reflect God's will and therefore
we have a dispute between that's a Rabbi Shimano Rabbihuda that
many aspects of Shabbat. Rabbi Shiman says it's permitted
and because it's not permitted. So we'll say what according to
one. The other one was Shabbat every
week. No, they were both following a
system which go which God has divinely endorsed.
But that doesn't fully answer your question because the
question why, why was it set up this way?
Why do we have these these many details of the law which are so
discussed? And if they don't really
directly reflect God's will and the purpose of the commandments,
and they can be changed and re legislated by, by a court, as
Ramon says at the, I think the beginning of the second chapter
of Philco's Marmarin, any law which a son Hedrin who rules
upon on the basis of a drusha can be revisited and ruled the
opposite the following generation.
So if these things are so flexible and they don't
necessarily reflect God's absolute will, why are they so
intensely debated and discussed? What?
Why do we get so, so worked up about it?
And we see that Gemara definitely does get very worked
up about it. So we we can't do full.
Justice to this, this is the whole chapter four of my book,
which it gives us a lot of sources and discussion.
But really it gets into the the question of what is the the
function of Salmon's study altogether, which is a which is
a big topic for the Rambam. So in the end of it, the 4th
chapter of he talks about having the, the primary religious
director for the Rambam is to, is to gain some kind of
intellectual connection, knowledge of God.
And that's and the and the highest form of that is called
master ratios, master America var knowledge of the of the
forms of creation and the of how of how God runs the world, so to
speak, through the malachim, through the celestial bodies,
whatever that whatever exactly that that's understood to mean.
But the Rommel has. A has a strong warning there, he
said. Before you even start pursuing
all of this, before you get into the the Pirodes, before you try
to enter the Pirodes, the the esoteric knowledge, you have to
1st align your stomach with the have a yacht of Abayan Rava with
the the Talmudic explorations and the intricate discussions of
Abayan Rava. And if you look at the the
Talmudic passages, Abayan Rava typically are discussing the
very fine minutiae of Talmudic law.
And as. Rather of Kapak understands it,
this the run moment is in here in the moral book and talks
about how before you go into esoteric knowledge, you have to
train your mind in various disciplines.
Your mind has to be set up correctly and the Talmudic logic
and going through and debating and discussing and getting
involved in Talmudic debates. Part of the function of that is
that it fulfils the, the, the, the rational and the logical
debates you go through. And I, I give many examples of
how and why this is in in the book.
I can't get to all the sources now, but those strength and
train your mind to be able to then approach and try to
understand the more esoteric aspects of Judaism from a from a
simpler perspective. The the party sang from the
Rambam here, but Soloveitchik in halachic man has a has a pretty
similar idea. He talks about how halachic man
looks at the world and sees everything in halachic
categories and through Talmudic logic, sees a beautiful sunset
and is calculating the time of Shakir sees a beautiful
waterfall and it's calculating whether that's considered a
which type of big there it's considered basically.
And our engagement with halacha, with the details of halacha,
it's constant. And in the ideal system, we
don't have to look on our to pull off a shelf to look up at
bottom line halacha as it's supposed to be.
We go through life and there's so many meds, odds, and there's
so many things we are instructed to do and not to do.
Pretty much everything we're doing, whether it's business,
whether it's walking in the street, whether it's eating food
on Shabbat, especially phila, we're constantly confronted with
halachic questions. And when we're confronted with
halachic question, we're not just looking for a dry answer.
We have to start thinking, well, what is the Talmudic law?
How does it apply to my situation?
Is it similar? Is it dissimilar?
Is that you're constantly supposed to be engaging with
Talmudic logic and it's basically on your mind the whole
time. So this training, as Raph Kapak
puts it, that it's Talmudic logic and and discussion which
prepares your minds for for approaching gods and the
esoteric knowledge. It's something which is supposed
to be on your mind constantly as you go through the day.
I just just to give a few examples of how some of the the
Talmudic reality, the way it approaches laws.
Very often we find things like they're not Freya, that's
Talmudic law looks beyond the normal idea of time, that laws
can apply retroactively. Space and time are much less
fixed. And these are things when you
look in the moment of looking to try and, and, and, and esoteric
knowledge, esoteric forms of knowledge.
Also we, we talk about God's being beyond time.
So there are very many aspects of Talmudic wisdom, quantity and
quality about whether something is in the same category and
different. It it, it's hard to really go
into go into details here, but there are many aspects of
Talmudic wisdom which relate which parallel some of the forms
of mental training you're supposed to undergo in order to
enter the paradise. Esoteric knowledge and Talmudic
wisdom and constant engagement them through these details of
the commandments mean that you're constantly engaging with
them and training your mind in these in this sort of way.
So that is why I think these details of of of of the midst
thought, even if we say they don't necessarily reflect the
direct divine will, it's certainly the divine will that
we are engaging with them. And training.
Our mind to be able to, so to speak, know God and approach the
satirics better. So you're.
Saying that when the Tanayim and Amorayim were debating these
things so intensely, they were aware of the fact that they were
in a sense, they had a, they were cognizant that these,
these, these debates and these, these, this process was going to
also lead them into a sort of a, also a, if we can call it a, a
mystical element it as well that they are setting.
There's a bright side. That those Rambam so paraphrases
that Deval Khatzan is the havayata Baba and Ravan Deval
Godal, right? Great, so there's.
No. Reason to assume there's a
tariff to assume that right. So then they would have also
understood that these these debates and debate means Russia
is really setting up for something greater, right?
I mean this is a. Parallel to all the mystical
literature we talk, when you learn Torah, the Shakina comes
down and you connect to it and you're spiritually because
you're finding your mind spiritually.
Halachic man talks about this. I think the rum, he phrases it
much more in terms of be the training your mind to the end of
the paradise, but the basic structure of the comedic logic,
refining your mind, improving your mind and enabling you to
connect upwards and get a more divine perspective, so to speak.
That is that we find throughout the Jewish literature, the
comedic literature, the philosophers, so.
How does that square with the general attitude of all Sepharad
and of the of the Haram bam that Talmudic law should be learned
to arrive at Talaka? Because what you're saying right
now is that it's not just about arriving at Talaka.
Right. Definitely.
It's, I think it that that's again, that's a big topic.
It's a whole other thing. I'd love to get in that it
requires. Both because the problem with it
really needs. It needs to be a balance.
I think if you look at most learning before the at end of
the, there was no distinction between Tamutarah and studying
halacha. It went together typically both
to Sabah and Ashkenaz. They, they generally studied in
order to reach halacha. The Gemara did it.
You know, you've got all these abaya, papaya and all these
intricate discussions, but it was always sort of alacha.
And when and when there's no apparent halacha, they'll ask my
enough can be enough. You're you're giving me this,
this question, but what was the difference?
And there's no halachic difference that what are we
discussing it for? But sometimes the lucky
difference is so it's so fine and so it's so unlikely.
But as long as it is a halachic difference will take into
account, for example, the the halacha, the Gemara will debate
whether it's Kilian, whether it's a forbidden mixture for
leading a for applying or for leaving a carriage with a with a
goat and a fish which have both been harnessed.
These are the questions that are impractical.
But as long as it is a halachic Mushkamina, we will look, we
will discuss it. So it's really, it's two
functions here because on the one hand, you want to make sure
that that starting Halaha is supposed to be not just finding
out what to do, but it's a constant process of training
your mind because again, things weren't codified in ideal
states. You, you have to go back to the
Gomorrah, so to speak, and try and work out how to apply it to
your situation. So it's automatic.
You're involved even in trying to find out the Halaha.
It wasn't just a matter of quickly look at the short Kanara
and I've got the answer if I move on.
The whole process, and there's a lot of opposition for
Shulkanarama, Maharaul, Maharshal.
Many rabbis are opposed to Shulkanarak particularly for
this reason, because you are supposed to be involved in some
of the wisdom. You're supposed to go back to
the Gemara and try and work out what alaka is, because the
Gemara is the ultimate authority and you should be codifying
things subsequently. But there's also an aspect that
without salaha, and this is what something which which which I
discussed in in Chapter 7, which which was the result of
Sukhonara because you have a lot of easily codified was tamatara
now. So you have this whole advent of
pill pull which, which which in which Tamatara the Torah study
became completely detached from any practical rulings that would
not be. Considered that would not be
considered Avayot the avayota the rava?
No, because it's been attached. And it becomes almost a goal in
its own rights to the extent this is again the quarter of
Solovacic and and halachic man. He says that the the rabbi is in
Brisk look down upon those who are issuing practical halachic
rulings. And the ideal was just to study
Torah, to clarify legal print, abstract legal principles
specifically not wanting to relate it to the practical.
Whereas if you look at the the mission of the Gemara, the
Rishanim, they were all they, they saw it as it was a
symbiotic process. The way I put it, the halacha
kept the Talmudic logic grounded.
You are discussing these, these strange printables don't seem to
have any practical enough Kamena, any practical
application. Whereas on the other hand, the
fact that halacha hadn't been codified meant that even when
you're discussing basic halacha. You're also necessarily.
Involving principles and that's the basic of Tamil Torah.
When you look at the the the end of the first chapter of Hill
called Tamil Torah, the Rambam, he says that at least a third of
your time of of the Torah study has to be involved in Gomorrah.
And part of what a Gomorrah is eventually the whole day, he
says, should be concentrated on all of all of your Torah time.
But part. He says, well, what?
Is what is Kamara involved Madame da Vada Dava?
It's the logical process, comparing the method to the
other, looking at comparisons, looking at fine distinctions,
tracing methods back to their sources, applying the
hermeneutical laws. These are all things which train
the mind, and these are. This is a necessary part of the
tombolic process. But once these are split into
halacha, just getting the basic halacha putting off the shelf
and then this ungrounded form of Tamil Torah where it just sort
of goes off and it's completely unconnected to practical
halacha, the two systems move off and neither one is working
in its ideal way. And when you when you find the
the winner of one of the rest of Kara, first there are, there
were great rabbinic authorities at the time who, who were not
happy with him for this reason. Again, there were, it was
necessary because of what was going on at the time, but that's
a different historical discussion.
A beautiful. Yeah.
So. So the this mental processing
that would lead to massimer Kava or or or.
Higher level. It still has to be within the
process that leads to Allah. It's the, it's the, it's the
principles and the processes and everything that goes into
arriving at Allaha. It's not that you just gained
Allaha that way, but you also gained a settling of the mind or
a a heightening of the mind towards something hopefully
greater, right? It's all about.
Torah and mas and well, that it's ideally, it's supposed to
all go together. There's no distinction.
You look at the stories that are up by, they're walking in the
marketplace and this question comes up.
It's all, it's all, it's all lived.
It's it's a part of their life they're going through.
One of them is working in a field at the time to create
Shama. But these are practical
questions that are coming up, but they're resolving it through
some of the wisdom that that is the ideal.
It's not supposed to be this bifurcation, the system of
someone sitting there making a list of hell of heart and
someone else sitting there writing out abstract legal
theories. It's it's all supposed to be 11
organic system which we live within our life, lives in our
life. Yeah, got You, Beautiful.
Beautiful, amazing, amazing. Segment that was great and.
The. Last question, if you can go
into detail about which laws could be potentially altered.
So how do we? Tell which details can be
changed, which details in a sugiya kumara can be changed,
can be open to Sanhedrin revisiting in the future, and
which have come down from a Shah as part of the tradition which
we understand have been transmitted faithfully, can
never be revisited, can never be disputed.
This is the $1,000,000 question really, when when we're learning
a sugiya, it's, it's really important to distinguish.
Yet we don't have an absolute rule to tell us which laws,
which details belong to which. And the critical question, of
course, is if a sun hedron sets up tomorrow, we have a new sun
hedron sitting, how to buy it or wherever it would be sitting, or
which laws can it change? Rabbinic laws, certainly Doraita
laws. Well, we know St.
Hedrin can change certain details.
They can make new drashot according to Parekh Bettah.
But there are some things which we know are out of bounds.
There's a Mishnah in Yuvamot where Rabbi Shimon presents a
kalba hammer. And the rabbi said back to him,
well, if you have this via tradition, then we can't dispute
it. We accept it.
If it's a new detail that you are proposing via Kalba Hammer
and it's your, it's your suggestion, you've created this,
this, this suggestion, so we can counter it.
We have a logical response. So again, there are no absolute
guidelines that we have to know with certainty how to categorize
each and every law within the Talmud.
But in chapter 5 of Talmud Reclaimed, I go through a number
of very helpful guidelines, the 1st as you.
Mentioned at the beginning. Is how central is this detail to
the mitzvah? Does it relate to the basic
function of the mitzvah? For example, if we don't know
what a sukkah is, then we cannot have meaningfully at all fulfill
the mitzvah dwelling in a sukkah for seven days.
Whereas if it's a law which relates to the details of under
what circumstances we are mitzvah air, we are we are
exempt from a sukkah because the the the weather conditions are
too are too difficult. Certain details about that or
exactly what the Sahaq can be made out of.
So certain details which don't relate to the main functions
Sukkar and those are more likely to be created by the Sanhedrin
and revisitable and can be amended by the Sanhedrin.
Whereas laws which relate to the core functioning and definition
of the mitzvah are unlikely to be revisitable, they are likely
to be part of the the core transmitted and undisputable
part. And we're going to go through
some details very soon. So, so we're going to go through
some examples very soon. The second guideline.
Is whether it's explicit in the Torres text.
Something which is explicit in the text is unlikely to be open.
To. Amendment.
The third. Is whether we find this is an
important one, whether we we define whether we find clear
disputes over this detail within the Camara with interceptor.
Because as the Run mum told us at the beginning, something
about which there is a dispute we know cannot be part of the
transmitted transmission. So if we find a missioner which
brings different opinions on it, then we can be pretty sure that
it is a detail which can be revisited by the Sun Hedring.
This is to be distinguished from a discussion over what the
source is for a law. Sometimes the Gemara can know a
law already. And the discussion?
Starts and the debate starts with what is the source for this
law and something different asmathdat.
Different potential hints in the text can be suggested, but the
Rambam says that doesn't mean it is a detail which is disputed,
that the the law may be undisputed part of the
transmission and the stage is just discussing where best to
find a hint to it in the text. So if it's a genuine dispute
over what a law is, that is indicative of the fact that it
is not part of the transmitted tradition.
It is something which was developed and legislated by a
Sanhedrin. Another.
Important guideline is whether it appears in the Tanakh and how
it appears in the Tanakh. For example, the mitzvah boom as
it came to us through the Mishnah.
It is specifically. A brother-in-law of the deceased
who could perform the mitzvah of Yubum with the wife of the
deceased or yubum or Khaliza. But if we look back in Tanakh,
we find episodes of Yuhuda and Tamar, we find episodes of bars
and roots. And there yubum is is relevant.
It's being performed or suggested to be performed by
father-in-law by more distant relatives.
So the Ramban and his commentary to to the relevant passage,
Nabaishlakh says, well, we can look at the, the Tarak, we can
look at the, the, the stories that have come to us these
episodes. And it's clear that that the
Kadamanim, the earliest sages, interpreted the Torah more
loosely. And they said, well,
brother-in-law is just one prime example, maybe the ideal example
of who should perform with Savi yabum.
But in the absence of a brother-in-law, it would seem
that other relatives can also perform yabum, that seems.
To be how the. Earliest stages interpreted this
nitzvah according to Ramban Nahmadis, whereas by the time we
get to the Mishnah that had been narrowed down and the law as it
came to us in a mission that is that specifically a
brother-in-law performs Yibim and no other relative.
And finally, there's this. Very interesting suggestion by
someone called Rabbi Gottlieb Fischer, who's quoted in the
collective writings of Ruparsh. I don't know a lot about this
Rabbi Fischer, but he suggests that when you have a law which
is counter intuitive, it, it doesn't seem logical to us in
any way. We don't understand why any
court, like any Sanhedrin would have instituted a law like this.
That could be indicative of the fact that it is a tradition
which came down from Moshe. It's something which maybe it's
a bit of a hog. We don't understand the exact
reason for it, but it's a it is a tradition that came to us from
Moshe because we just cannot imagine why a court would have
legislated this. And the example he gives is of
Molech. Molech is some.
Kind of idolatrous ceremony in which the a person passes a
child through fire. There's a dispute whether the
the child dies in the process or just passed through fire.
And the Torah takes this very seriously and legislates a death
sentence for a father who passes his children through this Molech
ceremony. Except there's a there's a
strange exception. The password says that someone
who passes a mizzara from his children to Molech and the
Gomorrah reads this very literally.
And mizzara the local Zara. Only someone who passes some of
his children through Molech gets the death penalty, but not
someone who passes all of his children through Moloch.
And it's counter intuitive. If someone has passed some
children and they get the death penalty, so they thought even
more so if they pass all their children through Moloch, they
should certainly get the death penalty.
It's counter intuitive, yet it's the law.
So Rob Fischer says, well something like that, we can't
imagine why any Sun Hedren would have made such a legislation.
Therefore it is indicative of the fact that it is.
It's some kind of Sinaitic tradition which we've lost the
reason for. So take it or leave it.
That's that was an interesting suggestion.
So those are those are the the guidelines which I present and I
go through in more detail in the book.
Let's now conclude with a fascinating example of how to
apply these principles, these guidelines when looking at a
sugya. And we're going to take a
mitzvah of Kriyat Shama, which is something, the popular
mitzvah, I guess we do, we do it a couple of times a day.
And as we know, the halacha is the Kriyat.
Shamar is a Torah law. It is Doraita.
And that seems pretty. Straightforward, except when you
look at the Gamaran Sehat Brahat and Daf Allaf page 21, we find a
very confusing little discussion there.
Omar of you Hoda of you hoda teachers that if one is in doubt
as to whether one has performed the mitzvah, 1 does not go back
and do it again. Why?
Because it is a rabbinic law. What do you mean?
It's a rabbinic law? It's you have to recite these
words when you go to bed and when you wake up straight off.
What do you mean create Shama drop on on the Shakukhav
Kamerkha Kitiv? The Torah states that you must
recite these words in the evening when you go to bed and
in the morning when you get up. No abaya.
Responds. I hope it's very tortive.
That's requirement that kabalment is only discussing
general recitation of Torah passages.
It is not specific to create Shama.
So stop and and think about this for a minute.
According. To the the guidelines that
Rambam gave us, if there's a matter of dispute among the
sages, that is indicative of something which was not
transmitted through the generations from Sinai, but
something which was developed at some point by a Sanhedrin.
Which would imply. The mitzvah create Shema if
there can be a dispute as to whether it is rabbinic or Torah
law. The the the.
Mitzvah or some part of the mitzvah would not is is not
going to be transmitted through the through through the through
the airs. However, what we do?
Find is that everyone accepts that it's some kind of mitzvah
here of devetorocative. So there are different layers to
this mitzvah if you just go and read basic prashant in the pasuk
with the barter barman and you've got to discussing words
of Torah when you're sitting at home, when you're walking in the
streets in the morning, in the evening.
Basic. Is just telling you to be.
Involved with words of Torah the whole time.
Whenever you have free time, use it to be discussing or reciting
words of Torah. However.
It seems to be accepted by everyone within that discussion
in the Gomorrah that there is some kind of positive
commandment which relates specifically to the words of the
Shahbaka of Kamerha in the evening when you go, when you
lie down of Kamerha, and in the morning when you rise up.
So that would seem to be a Pirushma Kabal a a transmitted
law and interpretation from Moshe which is unanimously
accepted. There is some specific means
that I say Torah obligation to recite.
Some words of. Torah in the evening, in the
morning. But beyond that, the identity of
these words of Torah that you have to recite seems to be a
matter of dispute. I thought this was a little.
Bit radical when I first developed these ideas and I
looked up the the pinea Shoah and the Sugyan and Brahat and
the shagat Aria, the start of his his first Simon.
They all say similar things that initially there was a general a
requirement, biblical commandments just to recite some
words of Torah in the morning and in the evening.
It seems to be the basic function of this commandment as
it came from Ushah was just a bookend your day within Torah.
If the morning when you when you wake up, you're exciting words
of Torah, the evening before you go to bed you're exciting words
of Torah. Somehow encasing your day within
Torah influences everything else that goes on within, even if
you're having to spend time doing other things in the
interim. Everything is being influenced
and is bookended within words of Torah, and that seems to be the
basic function of the mitzvah as it came from Usher.
And that is undisputed. Everyone agrees there is such
some such a mitzvah to recite some words of Torah morning and
evening. However, that is not the mitzvah
as it came to us today, and it would seem that at some point,
perhaps it is seen during the second MC Dash era, as we'll
discuss in a moment. The Sanhedrin looked around and
they saw one minute. There's a bit of a weakening in
the Kabalat al Mahut Shamayim in the accepting the yoke of
heaven, in the recognizing the unity of God.
And we have to emphasize that. And therefore they use their
legislative power on a biblical level.
Recording for Al Ahad the. Creature managed to write out on
a biblical level. The sun had driven therefore
narrowed down the previously open mitzvah of the Shahbukhar
Kamerkhad, reciting words of Torah to require us to recite,
specifically the sukim of Shamayi Shamalakaya and the
subsequent paragraphs. So after.
That legislation was made. We can now no longer fulfill the
mitzvah of the Shah of Kamerkha by reciting any passage of
Torah, only those specific ones that Sanhedrin have required.
Not that this is a a transmitted tradition to recite Shamai
Sorrell. The transmitted tradition was to
recite words of Torah and the function was the Book, End of
day with Torah. The Sanhedrin, as we discussed
at the beginning of this session, recognizing the
spiritual needs of the generation, then narrowed down
the mitzvah and required specifically the sukim of OL
Mahut Shamaim. So and then.
We find in another generation in the famous passage in the
Haggadah, Rabbilazabenazaria says well, he wanted to add the
third paragraph of Shama to the Itziat Mitzraim.
He wanted that to be recited at night and he only managed to
succeed in having that instituted when Ben Zommar came
with his drashar Kolymer Kayeka. So again the created the mitzvah
of Shah Haq Mehra grew another time.
So what we see here is the where we see where the Mahloquet is
within the sugya Mahloquet is not whether there's a mitzvah
altogether, but whether but the identity, identity of the of the
mitzah of which passages have to be recited.
That is a matter of Mahloquet. And once you're aware of these
two different categories within DNA Doraita, within Toro law,
those those central core parts which have been transmitted
through the generations, which can never be disputed, never be
discussed and the finer details which can be subject to change
now. When we look.
Around Once we're aware of this, it opens up our eyes to many
things. For example, the bracha we say
over Kriadshama, it's not al mitzvat Kriyat Shamar, it's not
al al Kabarat, al Mohit Shamar or anything like that.
No, it's all to do with Tamil Torah, to the extent that in
some situations, if you haven't said the blessings of a Torah
study, but you have. Said that.
You don't go back and say the of of Barakatara again.
And if you look at the details, what do we say in the bracha
over Kriyaksima Arcana shaman arcane of Kameno?
It's all about Tamil Torah. And we understand.
These, these brachots, these blessings over Kriyaksima were
instituted by the Unshakenessen Agadola, the men of the Great
Assembly at the start of the 2nd Mikdash.
It would seem that that the the mitzvah was still undefined.
It was open to recite any passage of Torah.
The mitzvah was just to recite words of Torah morning and
evening, to bookend our day with Torah.
And that was fine. And the Brahar instituted by the
AL Sheikh Nisargadala reflected that.
And when at some stage, presumably in Bayat Cheney in
the Second Temple era, the Sun Hedron came and narrowed down
the law to refer to specifically to create Shamar, they didn't
want to go and change the the blessings which had been
instituted by the Anshek. And so the data.
So this is their prime example. Of.
How awareness and sensitivity to these principles is is really
opens up one's eyes. 11 learns the Sukhyat.
And again, it's going to be of prime importance one day.
Please God, when we have a Sanhedrin again and we want to
know well which details of Torah law can the Saint Hedrin
revisit? So we will know that, for
example, St. Hedrin can go and change the
details of which passages of Torah are cited to create
Shamar. They could say, well, we're
pretty good on all Mahatma now, but we're not very good on after
air hakamariko, so let's go recite some passages of Torah
relate to that. And if they redefine that, then
now on the Torah law, we would have to say those passages
instead all as well. But Sanhedrin could never come
on and say, well, the mitzvah of the Shah will have Kamerkhar.
We don't think that's that's relevant anymore.
We're we're going to instead have a mitzvah of because the
Shah will have Kamerkhar seems to be an undisputed soniatic
tradition which came down to us and therefore it could never be
changed and it can never. Be.
Debated, amended or disputed. Thank you so, so much for this
opportunity for having me on your podcast.
I've really enjoyed it and I've hope, I really hope that all the
listeners have as well. Thank you.
Absolutely incredible. You know, when we started this
podcast, we said that we want this podcast to be about
fundamentals. Your book personifies our
podcast because this is all about fundamentals.
Really and truly incredible. Thank you so much, wishing you
success in all your future endeavors and we hope to speak
to you about this book, hopefully maybe do a Part 2
covering some other parts which are extremely important, but
really and truly the fundamentals that you discussed
tonight are are are fundamental. Thank you very, very much.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
To to share. This with our listeners and I
look forward to further opportunities in the future.