Man’s Role in Torah

Do you have the sheet from last time? The letters. I think we were at page 275. Okay, you have the other sheet? In view of this, we must conceive revelation 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, but also under the aspect of transcendental intellectualism. God having revealed a method, a modus cogitandi, 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. 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. So, the flow in this is really remarkably a sort of condensed presentation of a major part of Ish HaHalacha, not its entirety, but a major part of it. So the flow is as follows: once one recognizes that Halacha, Torah, is not simply a legal system which is a system of laws needed to regulate behavior in society, but is an ideal system, a world of ideas, so then it follows that Matan Torah and Kabbalas Torah was not only, again, revealing a code of law that we have to abide by. If that's what it were, then Talmud Torah would involve mastery of a corpus of law, and that would be the extent of Talmud Torah. כמו שלמדנו דבר דומה. So, to be a to master the tax code, so you have to you have to abide by it, and therefore you need to master that corpus of law. But heyos that Torah, that Halacha is, again, an ideal system, it's a world of ideas with its own internal logic and way of thinking, so that means that Matan Torah and Kabbalas Torah is also accepting that way of thinking. So it's, again, not just a commitment to abide—of course it is that, of course it is that—but it's not only a commitment to abide by מצווה קלה כחמורה דקדוקי הלכה. Of course it is that, it is that, 100% it is that, but it's more than that as well. It's accepting a way of thought because Torah, again, isn't just a system of laws to regulate behavior, but it's a world of ideas with its own internal Torah logic and Torah way of thinking. So that means that there's, again, two aspects to Kabbalas HaTorah: a commitment to live by Halacha, to live by Torah, but a commitment to think, to enter that world of thought and ideas which is Torah, which is Halacha. That's what the Rav says: on the first level, Hakadosh Baruch Hu appears as a melech who is metzaveh, and then on the second, there's the Birkas HaTorah is המלמד תורה לעמו ישראל. Thus, the halachic a priori thinking was humanized, conditioned to man's mentality and embedded in finiteness and concreteness. Meaning, it was then given, because that's part of Kabbalas HaTorah, it was Given to Chachmei HaTorah, Chachmei HaMesora to adapt, to cultivate, to internalize that Torah way of thinking which is axiomatic to the world of ideas of Torah, of Halacha. Man's response to the great Halachic challenge asserts itself not only in blind acceptance of the divine imperative, right, not just in terms of Kiyum HaMitzvos, but also in assimilating a transcendental content disclosed to him through an apocalyptic revelation and in fashioning it to his particular needs. Therefore, it is absurd to say that Halachic research consists in the study of texts. Again, remember the Drash in English as opposed to Lashon HaKodesh. Therefore it is absurd to say that Halachic research consists in the study of texts. Instead it is a creative performance. Again, if Halacha would be a system of laws to regulate behavior, so then Talmud Torah would be, again, mastery of a corpus of law. But since Halacha is a world of ideas, so that Talmud Torah then is a creative performance. The text serves only as an auxiliary, as a frame of reference. The real Halacha Noesis, Noesis, Noesis thought realizes itself through pure thought and ideation. The scholar does not have to guess the opinions of others, nor even to divine the will of some heavenly court of justice. In the Halachic field man is vested with absolute authority. No one can overrule his judgment. The prophet who intervenes in a Halachic matter is severely punished. So this again we saw this in section Zayin, Ish Halacha as well, so the Rav has this extraordinary explanation of Lo Bashamayim Hi. Like this Lo Bashamayim Hi is a Din, a Gezeiras HaKasuv. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says for whatever reason, the Gilluy ends through the Ruach Moshe Rabbeinu and henceforth, so Halachic decisions are going to be made in בית דין של מטה. Okay, a Din, not something problematic about it. And the Rav explains what the depth and what that Din reflects. Na'aseh, Lu Yehi that again that Halacha was just a body of law, a corpus of law, so Lo Bashamayim Hi is a Din, a Gezeiras HaKasuv. But since again Torah, Halacha, using them in this context synonymously, is a world of ideas and that Mattan Torah, Kabbalas Torah was also that a way of the Torah was given not only to be observed but it was given to be studied. If Halacha, if Torah is again a legal system which comes to regulate behavior, that's what it is, that's the extent of what it is, okay, so then Kabbalas HaTorah in terms of Torah being given, so Torah was given to be observed. But if Torah is a world of ideas and then Torah was given not only to be observed but to be thought, to be understood, to be learnt, so then part of Kabbalas HaTorah is that it's no longer Lo Bashamayim Hi. The same way the observance of Torah on the practical level is in this world, so the Talmud Torah is in this world also. That's the depth which the Rav reveals here in Lo Bashamayim Hi. Right, that's the flow here, right, the flow from on page 274 explaining how it's a world of ideas to explaining that now that there are two dimensions to Mattan Torah and Kabbalas HaTorah to then the next stage is understanding how Lo Bashamayim Hi flows from that, it results from that. For the Halacha, Torah Shebal Peh was given to man and is both a monologue and the colloquy of the many. It is as unique and revealing as speech itself. Read a little bit more and we'll try to understand. While the scientific eidos of the Platonic strain is universal, the Halakhic eidos is wrapped in singularity and separateness. Masorah, the foundation of Halacha is not a didactic technical abstract business but a personal affair. A dialogue of souls, a miracle of transmigration of great experiences, an exchange of word and response in full intimacy. There is an extraordinary feature of, again, the Rambam depicts it in terms of the original Masorah from Moshe Rabbeinu until Chasimas HaTalmud. It remains true in a different sense after Chasimas HaTalmud. But the Rambam writes as follows in his Hakdama, he has it both in the Hakdama to Perush Hamishnayos as well as the Hakdama to Mishneh Torah. The Rambam, again, just so we don't get distracted by this point in reading these few lines. The Rambam holds that the din of דברים שבעל פה אי אתה רשאי לומר בכתב wasn't a din that you didn't write Torah Shebal Peh down, but that it wasn't taught mitoh Biksav. You didn't publish a sefer for people to learn Torah from the sefer. That the Masorah of Torah was bal peh. But it was permissible and was the case that people would take notes for themselves to protect against shich'cha, but you couldn't share those notes with anyone because the teaching, the transmitting was bal peh. That's what I think the Achronim say based on this Rambam. That's what it means when the Gemara speaks of Megillas Sesarim. They found a Megillas Sesarim. What's a Megillas Sesarim? No one's in your head, so you couldn't lend those notes to anyone, so they would be hidden away so that it was only for the person who had wrote those notes. So the Rambam is writing how things were until Rabbeinu Hakadosh came along. Mimos Moshe Rabbeinu, מימות משה ועד רבינו הקדוש. The Rambam, usually everything is so... the Rambam usually refers to Moshe as Moshe Rabbeinu. Here he says מימות משה ועד רבינו הקדוש. So what happened to Moshe's honorific? You can't use Rabbeinu in the same phrase about Moshe Rabbeinu and Rebbi. If you're going to say Rabbeinu Hakadosh, so then you can't use Rabbeinu about Moshe. So then you just go with godol merabon shmo and you just say Moshe, but you can't use the same to'ar in the same sentence about Moshe Rabbeinu and someone else. In a different sentence, in a different context, so you can speak about Moshe Rabbeinu and you can speak about Rabbeinu, Rabbeinu Hakadosh, or in any other... Okay, you're using the word differently. But in the same sentence back to back, it's like the Gemara says that we don't mention, you can't mention in the same breath, Malchus Shamayim... With the exception of Rosh Hashanah, so the Rav was makpid at the end of Yaaleh V'yavo you don't say כי קל מלך חנון ורחום אתה in benching because you can't mention HaKadosh Baruch Hu's Melech in the same bracha which is about Malchus Beis Dovid. You can't say Melech about HaKadosh Baruch Hu and Malchus Beis Dovid in the same context. So lehavdil, obviously here we're not talking about HaKadosh Baruch Hu, so lehavdil, the Rambam doesn't want to say Moshe Rabbeinu and then Rabbeinu HaKadosh in toch k'dei dibbur. Everything is meduyak ad me'od.

ממושה משה ורבנו הקדוש וחיבור חיבור שלמדן אותן ברבים בתורה שבעל פה. אלא בכל דור ודור ראש בית דין או נביא שיהיה באותו הדור

kosev l'atzmo. That's what we just mentioned before. kosev l'atzmo, zichron b'shmuos sheshama or zikaron sheshama meirabbosav

והוא מלמד על פה ברבים. וכן כל אחד ואחד כותב לעצמו כפי כוחו מביאור התורה ומהלכותיה.

He wrote his own chiddushim. People used to write their own chiddushim down that they shouldn't forget their own chiddushim.

וכן כל אחד ואחד כותב לעצמו כפי כוחו מביאור התורה ומהלכותיה כמו ששמע ומדברים שנתחדשו בכל דור ודור.

Rambam says in every generation there were chiddushim. In every generation there were chiddushim. In Perush Hamishnayos he makes the same point. It's quite extraordinary.

וכשמת יהושע בן נון עליו השלום לימד לזקנים מה שקיבל מן הפירוש.

So Yehoshua transmitted to the next generation everything that he was mekabel, perushim mekubalim from Moshe Rabbeinu. ומה שהוציא בזמנו מן הדינים, and also new dinim,

ולא נפל עליו מחלוקת ואשר נפל בו מחלוקת פסקו בו הדין על פי רוב הזקנים.

v'acharei chein למדו הזקנים ההם מה שקיבלו מפי יהושע הנביאים haneviim aleihem hashalom והנביאים למדו זה לזה. Here comes the line of Rabbosai.

ואין זמן שלא היה בו התבוננות וחידוש עניינים והיה חכמי כל דור משימים דברי הקודמים עיקר

v'hayu lomdin meihem umichadshin inyanim. So chiddush and mesora for the Rambam are two sides of a coin. The mesora of transmitting all the perushim mekubalim from Moshe Rabbeinu received from Har Sinai plus what previous generations understood and discovered by applying מידות שהתורה נדרשת בהן, transmitting. But in every generation, then there was also chiddush because that's it's integral, again, to talmud Torah. That's what the Rav is, that's A. And but once there's chiddush, so then chiddush means that mesora is not a didactic, technical, abstract business, meaning it's an encyclopedia. Okay, but it was an oral encyclopedia instead of a written encyclopedia. So that would be a didactic, technical, abstract business. But a personal affair, a dialogue of souls, a miracle of transmigration of great experiences, an exchange of word and response in full intimacy. Creativity. Is is bound up with with individuality. That that's what the Rav is talking about. That that Torah as a world of ideas means that again it's not just transmitting, not just being an infallible tape recorder that that transmits information, it is that as well, it is that as well. But that again it's also because of the nature of of Halacha, of Torah as this world of ideas, it's it's something which is creative and creativity is inseparable from the individuality of of the Chachmei HaMasorah. Like how do you have how do you have how do you have machlokes? How do machlokes? How do Rav and Shmuel come to different conclusions? How do Abaye and Rava come to different conclusions? So they're both dealing with the same revealed corpus of Torah which they've totally, totally mastered and then based on that, they're both operating with the same המידות שהתורה נדרשת בהן, let's leave aside ribbuy u-mi-ut and focus on klall u-prat u-klall, they're both operating with the same המידות שהתורה נדרשת בהן. So how do you have machlokes? Because there is an intangible again subjective not in a sense of of lack of rigor and but subjective in the sense of at the end of the day, so Abaye understands the yesod hadin in one way and makes one comparison, thinks he should extrapolate this way and Rava thinks differently. There's a all Rashis are beautiful, but in our context there's a beautiful Rashi in Parshas Mishpatim by dalet shomrim where so the Torah explicitly tells us what the dinim are of shomer chinam, shomer sachar, and shoel. Again, once you match up the first two parshas which is shomer chinam, which is shomer sachar, shomer sachar as Chazal do, so then the Torah has shomer chinam, shomer sachar, and shoel. And then the Torah says very cryptically אם שכיר הוא יבוא בשכרו. What if the person is a socher? He's neither shomer chinam nor shomer sachar nor shoel, but he's a socher? So Rashi says that the Torah doesn't say that the Torah wasn't התורה לא פירשה דינו ולפיכך נחלקו בו חכמי ישראל and therefore we have machlokes Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda whether the socher is dino keshomer chinam that he's only chayav b'pshia or whether dino kesocher that he's chayav b'gneiva v'aveida as well. So Talmud Torah is again inherently and intrinsically creative and creativity is is inextricably bound up with individuality and that's how Rabbi Meir will operate with the same revealed halachos and the same המידות שהתורה נדרשת בהן as Rabbi Yehuda and they'll come to different conclusions. Because creativity is bound up with with individuality. Even even creativity on its most basic level, on its most elementary level, just how two people express the same idea, right? If if two students hand in the same paper verbatim, so obviously, you know, there's some kind of cheating here either they both used the same they both used the same program or one of them did the program, the other one took it from the other one, but it's impossible for two people, even even again if it's an answer to a math problem, so two people will give the same answer to two plus two hopefully. But but outside of that, it's impossible in in language two people because even that is again it's not creativity on the level of רבנו חיים הלוי על הרמב"ם, it's not creativity on that level, it's not the creativity of Abaye and Rava, but there's an element of creativity just using words to to express a thought is is a creative act. And no two people whenever there's creativity, there's individuality. So that's what the Rav says, hiyos, that the creativity is intrinsic. the Talmud Torah because Halacha isn't just a code of law but but it's this dynamic world of of ideas. So then mimayla massora is not a didactic technical abstract business but a personal affair, a dialogue of souls, a miracle of transmigration of great experiences. So that's what it means that you're encountering the individual in in the Chiddushei Torah, you know, there's a famous Yerushalmi in Shekalim that the achronim quote. Says אין עושין נפשות לצדיקים. Nefash is sometimes used in the lashon Chazal to mean a matzeiva, that that ein, in the Mishna there, you have that you have that passage. אין עושין נפשות לצדיקים because דבריהם הם הם זכרונם. Okay, so like this you figure, you know, okay, so you don't have to memorialize the person with a stone in the, you know, in the cemetery, he's memorialized with, you know, his his seforim on the, on the, on the bookshelf, or if he didn't write a sefer, so the shmuos that people repeat mipia shmua. Well, but according to the Rav, it goes much deeper, no, because in divreihem you takeh encounter the person. Because again, the creativity is inseparable from individuality. So what better zikaron is there, what better zikaron is there than than than interacting with divreihem. Here, what the Rav is doing is summarizing, you know, this is the most famous passage in all the Rav's writings, because people people like it for its, for what they see, for its soap opera quality. But they sort of don't pay attention to what the, what the context is and and what the Rav is expressing. Zechurani, in in this edition of Ish HaHalacha and Uvikashtem Misham, so this is in Uvikashtem Misham on page 230. זכורני כד הוינא טליא, when I was a little boy, נער גלמוד ובודד הייתי. I was a lonely and solitary child. Pachadeti es ha'olam. I was afraid of the world. קר וזר היה לי העולם. The world was a cold and strange place. נדמה היה לי כאילו הכל לועג לי. It seemed to me like everything was scoffing at me. ברם חבר אחד היה לי. I had one friend. והוא אל תצחקו לי, don't laugh at me, haRambam. My only childhood friend was the Rambam. Eicha yadadnu? How did we become friends? Pashut nifgashnu. We met. אורח קבוע היה הרמב"ם בביתינו. The Rambam was a regular guest in our house. Hayamim, days that I'm reminiscing about,

ימי סמיכת אבא מרי על שולחנו של סבא הגאון החסיד רבי אליהו פיינשטיין איש פרוז'נא.

When my my father was being supported by his father-in-law, living in his house, Reb Elye Pruzhaner.

אבא ישב ולמד תורה ביום ובלילה. חבורה לא גדולה ביותר של אברכים ובחורים מצויינים התלקטה אליו,

they gathered around him, veshavta betzama devarav. שיעוריו של אבא היו ניתנים בטרקלין של בית סבא, in the living room or wherever, of of my grandfather's house. Sham amda mitasi, where my bed was. דרכי היתה לשבת במיטתי and I would sit on my bed velahazin ledivrei aba. I would listen to to my father. אבא מרי דיבר תמיד על אודות הרמב"ם. He always spoke about the Rambam. Vekach hayah oseh, היה פותח את הגמרא, korei es hasugya,

אחר כך היה אומר הדברים האלו הן הן פירושו של הריב"א בעלי התוספות. עכשיו נעיין נא ברמב"ם ונראה איך פירש הוא. תמיד היה אבא מוצא כי הרמב"ם לא פירש כמותם ונטה מן הדרך הפשוטה. אבא מרי היה אומר כמעט בטענה על הרמב"ם,

as though almost plaintively complaining,

אין אנו מבינים לא את סברת רבינו ולא את אופן ביאורו את הסוגיא.

And he goes on to describe. Then he says, and this is on top of page 232 if you have it rabosai, חוויה זו שייכת לימי ילדותי. This experience belongs to my childhood.

אבל בכל זאת היא לא פנטזיה של זהב של נער קטן.

It's not a Golden fantasy of a young child. אין הרגשה זו בגדר מיסטיקה, nor is this feeling a mystical feeling.

היא מציאות פסיכולוגית היסטורית גמורה שחיה גם עכשיו במעמקי נשמתי.

It's a psychological historical reality, a full-fledged psychological historical reality that lives now as well in the depths of my soul. When I sit down to learn, הנני נמצא תכף ומיד בחבורת חכמי המסורת. I find myself in a group of the chachmei ha-messorah. The relationship between us is a personal one. The Rambam is to my right, Rabbeinu Tam is to my left, Rabbeinu Tam to the left, Rashi sits at the head of the table and mefareish and in the transcriptions of the Rav's comments on Kinnos he says something hafleh va-feleh, hafleh va-feleh. He says, you know, the Rambam, it's almost impossible to exaggerate how much the Rambam enriched our world, the world of Torah, and to imagine the world of Torah without the Rambam just how impoverished it would be. But we could still learn. He says, if you try to imagine the world without Rashi, you couldn't learn. Try, try, I think the Rav says that he and his father once experimented. Try opening a Blatt Gemara and not looking in Rashi. You can't learn. We wouldn't be able to learn. Talmud Torah would be sealed, the doors to the Beis Medrash would be bolted and we wouldn't be able to get in. That's why Rashi is yosheiv rosh. If the Rambam's at the table, Rabbeinu Tam's at the table, but the one who sits at the head of the table is Rashi. Rashi יושב בראש ומפרש and techef where we don't have Rashi, it's a different story. I mean, we have in one or two Masechtos in Bavli also, but remember Rav Sacks zichrono livracha once he mentioned here in Torah Daas with Rav Shlomo Heiman, who was then Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Daas, and they were once struggling on a Yerushalmi. And at one point, he said Rav Shlomo Heiman gave a krechtz and said, the tzar is מיר האָבן נישט קיין רש"י. The tzar is we can't learn Yerushalmi because we don't have Rashi. Ein hachi nami, there's no when you learn Yerushalmi, there's no simple pshat in Yerushalmi a lot of the time, and what the mefarshei Yerushalmi say, sometimes ממש מן הקצה אל הקצה. The tzar is מיר האָבן נישט קיין רש"י. So Rashi יושב בראש ומפרש. That's why, you know, in the Rav's room, the Rav's study, the one who sat at the head of the table was Rashi. Rashi יושב בראש ומפרש, Rabbeinu Tam makishe, the Rambam poseik, the Ravad massig. כולם הם בחדרי הקטן, they're all in my small room, my small study, יושבים סביב לשולחני, sitting around my table. הם מביטים עלי בחיבה, they look upon me endearingly, משתעשעים עמי בסברא בגמרא, they're partaking in the delight of משא ומתן של תורה, מעודדים ומחזקים אותי כאב, they encourage me and give me chizzuk like a father. אין תלמוד תורה רק פעולה דידקטית, it's not just a didactic action,

אין עסק בדברי תורה רק עניין פורמלי טכני המתגשם בהמצאות וחילוף ידיעות. היא חוויה כבירה של התיידדות של דורות הרבה.

And that's again and all this, the way to understand it, the way to demystify this, as the Rav insists that it's not something mystical, is because again, Talmud Torah on its real level, on its highest level, is something which is creative. Creativity is inseparable from individuality. So when the Rav's learning, so Rabbeinu Tam is there and the Rambam is there, it's not just words on the page. כאמור הרמב"ם היה חבירי לא רק בשנת הילדות. As said earlier, the Rambam was my friend not only in the year of my childhood. in the years of my youth, גם עכשיו אנחנו חברים, now too we are friends, hahefdel, the difference, בין חווייתי הילדותית וחווייתי העכשווית, between my childhood experience and my current experience, מתבטא רק בפרט אחד, is this one difference. בילדותי רק הרמב"ם היה חברי, I only had one friend the Rambam. עכשיו החברותא גדלה וכוללת הרבה, I have many more friends.

כל חכמי המסורה מימות משה עד הנה התיידדו עמי והם אבותיי וחבריי.

All the sages of the Masorah from Moses until today have befriended me and they are my fathers and my friends. כשאני מיישב דברי הרמב"ם או רבנו תם, if I say a teretz for the Rambam, for the Rabbeinu Tam that we didn't understand, הנני רואה את פניהם המאירות, I see their shining faces, hamabi'ot nachat ruach, which express contentment.

הנני מרגיש תמיד כאילו הרמב"ם והרבנו תם מעניקים לי נשיקות על מצחי ולוחצים את ידי,

I feel always as if the Rambam and the Rabbeinu Tam are giving me kisses on my forehead and shaking my hand. כאמור אין זה דמיון, this is not a flight of imagination. זוהי חוויה עמוקה מאוד, it's a deep experience. זוהי חוויית מסורת תורה שבעל פה. That's what the Rav is describing here in these one or two English sentences also. That's what it means that it's a miracle of transmigration of great experiences, because you encounter the individual in his creativity, in the divrei Torah. There's a letter from Rav Chaim Berlin. Rav Chaim Berlin was the Netziv's oldest son from his first wife. The Netziv's first wife died and then he remarried later in life. So the difference in age between his children was I believe 50 years. I think Rav Chaim Berlin, who was the Rav of Moscow and then later went to and was Rav in Yerushalayim, he moved to Eretz Yisrael, and the youngest was Rav Meir Berlin, as in Bar-Ilan University. So there was a 50-year difference between them. So there's a letter from Rav Chaim Berlin where he said that after the Netziv's petirah, so he got many, many requests and people were urging and pushing and pressuring that he should write a biographical sketch of the Netziv. And he said I resisted, I resisted, because he said my father didn't like that. And he then illustrated this about his father. He said of all the Acharonim, so his father was most aduk in the Torah of Akiva Eiger. So that the Netziv was just totally bound up and with the Torah of Akiva Eiger. Someone once brought him, someone had written some kind of biography of Akiva Eiger, he said he wouldn't open it. He said, Akiva Eiger is in the Meshiv Davar. Akiva Eiger is in the Ha'amek She'elah, he's not in this book. So he wouldn't open it. A miracle of transmigration of great experiences. L'maaseh, if the biography is done by preserving certain maaseh rav, so then there's a lot that you do get and I guess that was what the Netziv did in his work, in his Ha'amek She'elah. But the story is a beautiful story and what to learn from it, but it doesn't necessarily translate into a psak halacha in terms of biography. Yesh v'yesh. Masorah, the foundation of halacha, is not a didactic, technical, abstract business, but a personal affair, a dialogue of souls, a miracle of transmigration of great experiences, an exchange of word and response in full intimacy. For there is style and character to it. Again, creativity is inseparable from individuality. Halacha does not Of course, there's objectivity and stability in the halakha. Yet these do not preclude diversity and heterogeneity as to methods and objectives. Everyone is dealing with the same Torah, the same perushim mekubbalim, everything that's been revealed in terms of black and white and the cumulative massora. Of course, there's objectivity and stability in the halakha. Yet in terms of then when a shayla comes up or how to say pshat in something, it doesn't preclude the difference. The Baal HaTanya quotes in the Tanya; I think he's quoting a Zohar HaKadosh that he says, he expresses this idea in mystical terms but it's the same idea on multiple levels, on multiple parallel levels. He says how does it work out that with a handful of exceptions Beis Shammai was always machmir and Beis Hillel was always meikel? How did that? Beis Shammai didn't set out to be machmir and Beis Hillel didn't set out to be meikel. If you spin a die, what are the odds that one person is going to spin it and always get the six and the other one's going to spin it and always get the one, and how does that work? So he says that, whatever this means, that in Shamayim where the neshamos come from, there's sort of different storehouses of neshamos in Shamayim. There's some that are on the right where the neshama is more rooted in chesed and then there's some on the left where the neshamos are more rooted in din. And the neshamos of Beis Hillel came from one place and the neshamos of Beis Shammai came from another place. Meaning ultimately when you have, again, when you're dealing with the same Rabbeinu Yehuda had all the same Torah, all the same perushim mekubbalim and everything, and Rabbi Meir sees it this way, Rabbi Yehuda sees it another way. There's just something, the way the Baal HaTanya says it based on the Zohar, is there's something in the shoresh haneshama at that point. That's what the Rav means in terms of the diversity and heterogeneity. It doesn't mean subjectivity in terms of being meshuchad, in terms of what historical epoch one lived in or those kinds of things. The same idea might be formulated differently by two scholars, the identical word accented differently by two speakers, the same letter written differently by two scribes. No two people have identical handwriting. Even that's, again, on a very basic level, a creative act. And halakha, regardless of its identic content, could also be expressed in a variety of ways. halakha mirrors personalities, it reflects individuated modi existendi and it conveys a message otherwise inexpressible. Okay, the next paragraph also needs some arichus, so we'll stop there.