Halacha/Torah Tells Us How to Think

Let's begin today with the sheets that you just got in the email or whatever this is. Do you have it with us today? Okay, so we'll begin the second paragraph. The Halakha, I have developed the fundamentals of this theory in my thesis Ish ha-Halakha, is an a priori idea system. There's a difference in between reading the Rav when he wrote in Lashon ha-Kodesh and when he wrote in English. There's a his mother tongue in terms of speech was Yiddish, but in terms of writing was Lashon ha-Kodesh. English was his, I'm not sure exactly, seventh language, eighth language. I can't even name seven languages, but anyway, so it's hafla va-feleh that he wrote in English. But you don't have the same there's something again there's a naturalness and on one level there's a timelessness of the Rav's style in Lashon ha-Kodesh. There's a incredible on the one hand richness and on the other hand it's never heavy. The English style is very different. It doesn't have that it doesn't have all those qualities. It certainly obviously has to be read very carefully and was written be-dikduk and needs to be read be-dikduk. You know, those concluding lines of this letter, should you wish to quote any part of this letter in your article, I would appreciate your citing that particular portion verbatim which reflects the care with which it's written. But all that notwithstanding, there's a difference in how to be medayek in English from how one is medayek in Lashon ha-Kodesh. The Halakha, I have developed the fundamentals of this theory in my thesis Ish ha-Halakha, is an a priori idea system. In other words, it postulates a world of its own, an ideal one which suits its particular nature. I think so far that's what we've been discussing the past couple of weeks and hopefully a little bit we understand what those two sentences mean. The subject matter of the Halakha is not the primitive datum apprehended by our senses, but an actus, a creative performance which results in the emergence of pure Halakhic constructs. Again, a legal system that reacts to concrete reality, so then its subject matter is the datum, is sort of the what's what's in front of you. A legal system, the only one that exists, Ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu's Halakha, which is a begins as a world of ideas, so it begins again with that actus, not in the sense of physical action, but in the sense of intellectual action. When the Halakha, for instance, investigates the category of space in laws pertaining to Shabbos, Sukkah, Tumas Meis, Kilayim, it evolves a continuum of unique complex relationships and reference systems which fit into the Halakhic scheme. In this regard, the Halakhic approach is analogous to that of the mathematician. Neither is the continuum with which the Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries operate identical with our real space perception, nor is extension as a Halakhic category to be equated with our naive space data. So here, let's try to understand and a little bit be-ezras Hashem bli neder and elaborate a little bit. So we know that right, in many contexts, Tzuras HaPesach constitutes a mechitzah. So, sort of at best that seems strange, and I don't know, I think often people hear this little cynical voice inside and they're like give me a break that's a wall? Two side posts with a string is a wall? And all of a sudden without it you cannot carry on Shabbos and with it you can carry? All of a sudden it affects how closely things can be planted? One of the main and most fundamental applications, corollaries of the understanding that halacha is an ideal system is that mechitzah doesn't mean a wall. It doesn't mean a partition. Those are both English words with English associations and English definitions and both of which were coined to reflect olam hazeh realities as opposed to the halachic ideal reality. Mechitzah in what mechitzah means in halacha is something that delineates and demarcates. Now walls do that, partitions do that, but other things do that also. Right? It's not only it doesn't have to be Fort Knox to demarcate and delineate. So what happens when we without even recognizing this we impose, we superimpose our mundane categories on halachic concepts and they obviously don't align and because of that we don't understand. And again one of the main and most fundamental applications, corollaries is to recognize that whatever overlap there may be, whatever similarity there may be or may not be, but we need to first understand we should try to understand what mechitzah means by not translating the word but learning sugyos which deal with mechitzah again as in the examples the Rav gives in terms of Shabbos, Sukkah, Tumas Meis, and Kilayim. This is one of the places where we're handicapped by the fact that our mother tongue is something other than so even when the mother tongue was Yiddish, Yiddish incorporated these elements of Loshon Hakodesh. So in Yiddish if you were talking about doing melacha you use the word melacha. So because imagine if see another example again of where we superimpose the concept of melacha so again we're taught melacha means labor, it means work, and it obviously doesn't really when you learn Hilchos Shabbos it doesn't really conform to either of those definitions, neither of those categories, neither of those rubrics, we don't think that there's any work or labor involved in flipping a light switch. shaking water off of clothing or something. It's not work, it's not labor, but it is melacha. And that's basically what we had, you know, the smichus haparshiyos is very welcome, that's what we had this week in terms of rov. That not to superimpose from our world what the concept means in the world of halacha. And as we said, rov in the world of halacha is not simply a, or bikhlal maybe not even a question of probability. And there are many even when halacha, you know, refers to reality, it's not to be assumed that the halacha is interested in the scientific reality necessarily. And just to explain what that means. Tosafot in Pesachim, the Gemara says מי פירות אין מחמיצין. If you have chamesh haminim and you mix them with flour and you give it enough time, so then it becomes chametz. But מי פירות אין מחמיצין. According to most Rishonim, what that means is that it doesn't machmetz at all, that you can leave the dough all day long if you knead purely with apple juice or any other mei peiros, so you can leave the dough all day long and it doesn't, it doesn't become chametz at all. That's what it means according to most Rishonim. According to Rashi, מי פירות אין מחמיצין means that it doesn't become chametz gamur, but it becomes chametz nuksha. But that's a minority opinion. The Mechaber paskens like most Rishonim, the Rama says l'chatchila we're machmir for shitat Rashi. That's why it says, you know, on the egg matzahs, it says, you know, for Ashkenazim, it's only mutar for חולים וזקנים כמבואר ברמ"א because we're machmir l'chatchila for shitat Rashi. Okay. Then Tosafot quotes that Rashi had a safek, again this Rashi is independent of the other Rashi, that Rashi had a safek about mei beitzim. Talk about if you make egg matzah, if you knead the flour, the dough with egg as opposed to water, Rashi had a safek is that considered mei peiros or no? Maybe, maybe it has the same status as mayim. Tosafot goes on to say that Rabbeinu Tam didn't hold from that and Rabbeinu Tam said no, it's like all other mei peiros and that's what Rabbeinu Tam used to eat ערב פסח שחל להיות בשבת, that's what Rabbeinu Tam used to eat egg matzah. So when the Gaon in Shulchan Aruch talks about this question, so the Gaon refers to a Gemara in Sanhedrin, but again this question whether mei beitzim in terms of chimutz, whether its din is like mayim or whether its din is like mei peiros, so the Gaon refers to the Gemara in the first perek of Sanhedrin that says that mei beitzim are not machshir l'kabalas tumah. In order for ochlin to be mekabel tumah, so they have to first, they need hechsher, right? There's the zayin mashkim, the seven mashkim which are, which are machshir l'kabalas tumah. One of which is mayim, dam, and it's clear from the Gemara in Sanhedrin that mei beitzim is not machshir l'kabalas tumah. So if you wash an apple, so then the apple is now muchshar l'kabalas tumah. If egg drips on an apple, even if it's l'ratzon, so then the apple is not muchshar l'kabalas tumah. Well, what's the tzad? That's the Gaon's raya to Rabbeinu Tam's view that mei beitzim is like all mei peiros. So I remember when I saw this Gaon, so it was a pelle. So I asked Rav Zevulun Charlop and he said, no, the Gaon is bringing a raya that mei beitzim... was not intended to correlate to a scientific Metzius. I don't know whether it does or doesn't. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I don't know. I'd have to ask a chemist. But the Gaon was saying that distinction that the Halacha draws, that Mei Peiros are Ein Machmitzin and Mayim is Machmitz, it wasn't that no, that Chometz means fermentation. It means when the dough rises and מי פירות אין מחמיצין is distinguishing scientifically. No, all this begins in the world of ideas. It begins in the world of ideas. In the world of ideas, it wasn't intended, it wasn't designed to, again, does it correlate to a scientific Metzius? I don't know. I don't know. But the Gaon is saying it doesn't need to. And that's what the Gaon says, no, I'll show you that Mei Beitzim doesn't have a Din of Mayim because Hechsher LeKabel Tumah is a function of amongst the Shiva Mashkim of Mayim and you see clear that Mei Beitzim doesn't have a Din Mayim. So we have to be very careful not to superimpose, again, it would be natural to assume, again, if Halacha were not this a priori system of ideas, not its own world of ideas, it would be, it would be cogent, even compelling to assume that, you know, Melacha corresponds to some, I don't know, that it corresponds to something like work or something and that Chometz has to correspond, the Dinei Chometz have to correspond. But if it's an ideal world of ideas, Meheicha Teisa? There's no reason that assumption is not, is, is, is totally unwarranted. That's what the Rav is saying here. It involves a continuum of unique complex relationships and reference systems which fit into the halachic scheme. So does a Tzuras HaPesach correspond to anything that we know of in terms of our mundane world of walls and partitions? No. The Halacha Lemoshe Misinai of Gud Achis and Gud Asik that if you have a Mechitzah, Gud Asik says you extend the Mechitzah upward and Gud Asik and Gud Achis says that you extend the Mechitzah downward. Does that correspond to... No, it doesn't correspond to walls, it doesn't correspond to partitions. But it's part of the Halacha's concept of Mechitzah, which is neither wall nor nor partition. This Yesod, again, there are many, many more examples and there's a whole new area of it in light of what the Rav explained. But this Yesod, you know, that you have to understand Halacha and for that matter, all of Yahadus in its own terms, that's a Yesod even without what the Rav said. What the Rav's, you know, fundamental understanding of Halacha that he shared with us gives us a whole new realm where it applies. But the Yesod is, would be true even if we didn't have the benefit of Ish HaHalacha that you have to understand Halacha internally. You know, a good example of that is the following. A lot of people struggle with the fact that any authentic presentation of Torah, any authentic presentation of Yahadus shows that the Torah distinguishes between roles for the two genders. And everything in terms of Avodas Hashem that the Avodas Hashem of men and women have in common, and what they have in common far surpasses where they diverge, but there certainly are gender roles within within Yahadus. Western world for the past fifty, sixty years, you know, has evolved this very unnatural concept that equality has to mean sameness. And if you recognize difference, so then that means that you're, that means that you're discriminating. And that clearly is not how the Torah conceives of things. The Torah says, "No, you can say that זכר ונקבה ברא אותם, that they're both Be'tzelem Elokim." And as such, as the Rebbe used to say, that means that the Kedushas Yisrael is the same, it's the same Be'tzelem Elokim, it's the same, not the same in the sense that they both have Be'tzelem Elokim, that the same Kedushas Yisrael. But אף על פי כן, you can differentiate between without that meaning that you're, without that meaning that you're discriminating against. People come and they want to, they want to, they want to package Yahadus, they want to package Torah in in Western categories, in Western boxes. So it doesn't go. So, you know, they resort to all kinds of to try to downplay and deny the differences. But they're there. And you know, you should know, and it's not that, it's not that the fact that there are differences between the genders is a chok that we have to accept. Obviously if it were a chok, we would accept it. Not a chok, it's very much a mishpat. Men and women are different physically, they're different emotionally, they're different temperamentally, often they're different intellectually. It's not, it's not a chok that that the Torah has different different roles for the for men and women. It's very much a mishpat. Again, so that yesod again, that that Torah halacha needs to be understood on its own terms. And you know, if a person stands on the outside looking in and is insisting on viewing things, you know, with a lens, you know, which aren't the Torah's values, so a person is not going to understand Torah, is not going to appreciate Torah. Remember my mother, aleha hashalom, was once talking to a, she was asked to speak with a group of high school, high school girls. And the questions which were being posed sincerely, the sort of the typical questions, and you know, that the Torah favors men, vechulu vechulu, you know the... So she, she said to them, I think it was more or less bezu halashon, that "What can I tell you? I don't feel that the Torah discriminates against me." And what she was telling them is, "You're standing on the outside looking in, and you're looking in again through a lens of, you know, whoever the feminist spokesmen are these days, but it would be through a lens of... so yeah, that's the way it's going to look to you. But if you're within and you experience Yahadus on its own terms, that just tells you it just isn't that way. It isn't that way and you're never..." never gonna fully understand it as long as you insist on holding on to categories which are alien to Torah. So that yesod is true, again, what the Rav is saying is that there's a whole whole new area where that yesod applies of needing to understand Torah on its own terms. It's not only in terms of its moral values and the religious axioms, it's also in terms of all its halakhic categories and all its halakhic constructs. You know, a mechitzah isn't a wall and melakhah isn't work and chimutz, you know, whatever overlap it has with fermentation, is not that. Hence the Halakhah is not confined to mere commands but is a creative gesture out of which an order of free constructs emerges with which the norm is associated. The Halakhah creates its world and fixes a unique normative relationship to it. The norm is originally unrelated to concrete events and situations. Its background is a pure cognitive one. So yes, Halakhah begins, again, not as mitzvos, chiyuvim, issurim, it begins, again, as a world of ideas. Then within that world of ideas, the mitzvos and, again, talking about conceptual sequence, not chronological sequence in HaKadosh Baruch Hu giving the Torah. Within that world of ideas, there are mitzvos, there are chiyuvim. The norm is originally unrelated to concrete events and situations because it's part of Halakhah's world of ideas. Its background is a pure cognitive one. If there is, for example, a halakhic commandment as regards a sukkah, it refers to a pure halakhic a priori structure which expresses itself in a mathematical formula as does electricity or gravitation. It has absolutely no relation in its first phase to concrete situations or events, as in our case of sukkah to boards, branches, or trees. Hence it is fallacious to speak of Halakhah as a mere juridical discipline. Like whoever this correspondent was, so apparently he had erroneously been, no critique of his, of him, and he had erroneously been operating with that understanding. It is fallacious to speak of Halakhah as a mere juridical system. Again, it's not again, laws don't begin as a world of ideas. They react to situations in life that need to be regulated. So that's a juridical discipline. But to speak of Halakhah as a mere juridical discipline is a fallacy. Whether or not the juridical norm is a priori or an a posteriori or an imperative is immaterial insofar as the order of things with which the norm is concerned is certainly real. For the world of the jurist is definitely a sensible subjective world order. Again, the jurist deals with how do you balance, how do you balance, you know, even if even if it's a priori, how do you balance individual liberty with the state? But it begins with it's reacting to this world, it's reacting to problems, situations that need to be navigated in this world. His task consists only in applying a norm to a given situation, while the Halakhah invents both the norm and the abstract formal interdependencies with which it deals. Only in the second phase, again, the first phase is in the world of ideas, only in the second phase does the Halakhah begin to realize its ideal order within a concrete framework and try to equate its pure constructs and formal abstractions with a multicolored transient mass of sensations. Okay, so now halakhah l'maise is So now, so can you build your sukkah at the edge of the roof and say that the d'fanos of the sukkah are provided by the gud asik of the walls below or not? Okay, so now again, this is sort of how we operate now with that world of ideas in here in this world where we have to sit in the sukkah. Again, the analogy with the approach of the mathematician is cogent. Both express themselves in two levels, on that of pure creativity and on that of application and realization. Again, we saw this in Ish ha-Halakha as well, right, that the Rav says on the one hand, you know, because it's a world of ideas, so then it has its own value without being applied. Derosh v'kabel sechar, it doesn't have to be applied. And the other hand, that which lends itself to application, so that's part of realizing halacha is to then operate in this world based on that ideal of the halakhic world. A perfect equation between both phases is impossible to attain in either of them. Again, neither do actual measurements correspond fully to the mathematical abstract correlates. L'maaseh, when two lines intersect in this world, they're not perfectly perpendicular and it's not a 90-degree angle, nor is the real halakhic experience equal in all regards to its pure norm. In view of this, and here again comes a very, very crucial fundamental aspect of the Rav's whole approach. In view of this, we must conceive revelation, Kabbalas HaTorah, right, not only under the aspect of transcendental voluntarism, the fact of God's revealed will imposed upon a charismatic community which accepted it under stress of overwhelming and omnipotent divine authority, כפה עליהם הר כגיגית, but also under the aspect of transcendental intellectualism, God having revealed a method, a modus cogitandi, a way of thinking, a logic, a singular approach to reality, which the community instead of accepting had to learn to understand, to convert into an instrument of comprehension of which man, notwithstanding his frailty and limitations, could avail himself. So the Rav says this understanding of halacha, of Torah, it transforms our understanding of what Kabbalas HaTorah is. Kabbalas HaTorah, we think of it as, okay, we're going to abide by what it says in the Torah. And it obviously that obviously is an indispensable integral part of Kabbalas HaTorah, that's what the Rav refers to as transcendental voluntarism, right, we're voluntarily in terms of how we act, we're going to conform with what Hashem is giving us from above. But Kabbalas HaTorah also means that we accept the way of thinking. It's not just that we commit ourselves to a way of behavior, we accept the way of thinking. And the Rav has a very famous drasha in which he quoted the Rambam at the beginning of Hilkhos Krias Shema. The mishna in the beginning of the second perek in Masechet Brachos says lama makdimin, אמר רבי יהושע בן קרחה something,

למה מקדימין לקרות שמע לפני והיה אם שמוע כדי שיקבל עליו עול מלכות שמים תחלה ואחר כך עול מצות.

Now the way the Rambam presents it, which means this is the Rambam's understanding of the mishna, so the Rambam says

ומהו קורא פרק א הלכה ב ומהו קורא שלוש פרשיות אלו והן שמע והיה אם שמוע ויאמר ומקדימין לקרות פרשת שמע מפני שיש בה צווי על יחוד השם ואהבתו ותלמודו.

So the Mishnah says that we makdim parshas Shema because it has קבלת עול מלכות שמים. The Rambam says we makdim Shema because in the parsha of Shema you have the tzivui of yichud Hashem, ה' אלוקינו ה' אחד, ahavaso, ואהבת את ה' אלוקיך, and talmudo, veshinantam levanecha. So says the Rav in this drasha, so talmud Torah is an act of קבלת עול מלכות שמים. How is talmud Torah an act of קבלת עול מלכות שמים? So we understand a little bit that yichud Hashem is an act of קבלת עול מלכות שמים, acknowledging Hashem echad and therefore since he is everything so his will reigns supreme. Okay, we get that a little bit, we like to tell ourselves we got it. Okay whatever, we keep going back. And we get a little bit that ahavas Hashem which means that a person, ה' אלוקינו ה' אחד, Hashem is everything, so then that's to him we have to devote our lives, our energies, our abilities, our time, everything. Okay, we get that also. How is talmud Torah a kiyum of קבלת עול מלכות שמים? So says the Rav again it's that same point that he's talking about here in this letter. Says the Rav because when you learn Torah so I think he has a lashon there, this is online, you can find this drasha online. He has a lashon there that we subordinate our minds to the Torah, we reject or we leave behind I think the lashon he uses is mercantile logic, but that's English for baalabatisha logic. We leave behind the mercantile logic and we think again with the Torah's way of thinking. So a person's the essence of a person is his seichel, so it's an act of קבלת עול מלכות שמים again to think to adopt the Torah's way of thinking. That's exactly this idea here, right? That Torah is not only do this, don't do this. It is that, it absolutely is that as well and we absolutely, you know, have to abide by that 100 percent, but it's also this is the way to think. God having revealed a method, a modus cogitandi, a logic, a singular approach to reality which the community instead of accepting, again you can't just accept it, had to learn to understand, to convert into an instrument of comprehension of which man notwithstanding his frailty and limitations could avail himself. You have to think of melacha not in categories and Shabbos not as a day of rest but as a day of cessation, and to think of Shabbos not in terms of labor and work but in terms of creative undertakings vechulu. It's a different way of thinking, a different think of that that you divide space not based necessarily on physical barriers but whatever demarcates and delineates. It's a different way of thinking. On the first level God appears to the members of his community as king and commands them, on the second as teacher and instructs them. Right? That's the Rav used to call attention to, that's the matbe'a habracha that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is מלמד תורה לעמו ישראל, not just nosein Torah but Hakadosh Baruch Hu is מלמד תורה לעמו ישראל. That's what he means. מלמד תורה לעמו ישראל. That's man's response to the great halachic challenge asserts itself not only in a blind acceptance of the divine imperative. again, not just in doing what the Torah says to do and abstaining from what the Torah says not to do, it's not only that, but also in assimilating a transcendental content disclosed to him through an apocalyptic revelation and in fashioning it to his particular needs. What that sentence means, so we'll see next time when we continue.