Recently, I read Avi Sagi’s “The Open Canon” which was an excellent continuation of these themes. The book is framed as a survey of three approaches to the famous Talmudic saying in BT Eruvin 13b “אלו ואלו דברי אלהים חיים הן, והלכה כבית הלל—these and these are the words of the living God, but the Halakha follows the rulings of Bet Hillel.” The book grapples with the question of multiplicity in Halakhic discourse and the nature of Halakhic “truth.” How can two contradictory opinions both be the words of God? Did God command one thing and its opposite? Does the fact that we consider many Halakhic opinions the word of God mean that there is no single, conclusive Halakhic truth? If both opinions are the words of God, how is one accepted and the other rejected—how can the dictum continue to say “and the Halakha follows the rulings of Bet Hillel?”
Sagi offers two basic approaches which he titles the “Monistic Outlook” and the “Pluralistic Outlook.” Both of these are represented in various post-talmudic interpretations of the BT Eruvin source and offer different answers to the kinds of question elucidated above.
The Monistic Outlook assumes that there is “one correct decision in normative dilemmas (Sagi 13).” This means that Bet Hillel was really right and Bet Shammai was really wrong. What is the significance of Bet Shammai’s ruling then? In other words, for the Monistic Outlook, what is the significance of rejected opinions and why are they characterized as the word of God? This is a particularly thorny question because other sources characterize Bet Shammai as “closer to the truth (BT Yevamot 14a)” How can a more truthful ruling be rejected?
Sagi offers two answers, one emphasizing the rejected opinion’s theoretical value and the other its practical value. For the former, multiple opinions are part of a dialectic Halakhic process that tries to determine a single Halakhic truth by narrowing down options. By rejecting one possible ruling, we sharpen the right one. In Sagi’s metaphor, white looks whiter when contrasted with black (ibid. 18). Thus rejected opinions have the character of “Hava Aminot”, which contribute to the life of study and clearer determination of the right Halakha. And in this very dialectic, they are the words of God.
The practical view, explicated by Rashi, sees rejected opinions as potentially viable Halakhic options in future circumstances. This is close to the Mishna in Eduyot 1:5 “ולמה מזכירין דברי היחיד בין המרובין הואיל ואין הלכה אלא כדברי המרובין שאם יראה בית דין את דברי היחיד ויסמוך עליו–Why are the minority rulings recorded alongside the majority rulings when the Halakha follows the majority? So that a [future] Bet Din may rely on minority rulings.” Although there is only one right Halakhic opinion in any given circumstance, alternative rulings may be right for other circumstances and in that, they may be the words of God. This makes sense of the Yevamot source when we consider the Talmud’s notion of Bet Shammai’s applicability in Messianic times. The “more truthful” opinion will actually be followed when the circumstances call for it.
Both views try to understand how rejected opinions can be the living words of God—for the former, God speaks through “limud”; for the latter, through the generations.
The Pluralist approach fundamentally disagrees with the Monistic one and suggests that more than one option is possible in normative dilemmas. This means the Bet Hillel is not inherently more correct than Bet Shammai, even though supported by a “Bat-Kol” or a heavenly voice. Sagi argues that the basic problem of Halakhic pluralism is theological—what is the revelatory basis of Halakha in a pluralistic outlook (ibid. 71)? Does God reveal more than one truth? If so, can he reveal opposing truths? Is revelation indeterminate, offering contingent options that are not essentially right or wrong? Or is there another way to understand revelation which gives rise to multiple, mutually exclusive yet mutually legitimate options?
Sagi again offers a few models—The realistic, anthropological, and authoritative. Each tackles revelation a little differently.
The realistic model, attributed by Sagi to the Ritba, defines revelation as the bestowal of Halakhic options rather than a defined corpus of laws. As the famous Talmudic saying suggests, for every object there are forty-nine ways to declare it tahor (ritually pure) and forty-nine ways to declare it tameh (ritually impure). This means that no generation’s ruling has precedence over another’s because contemporary rulings are implicit options in revelation itself. This also implies a sharp distinction between revelation and practical Halakha in that no Halakhic decisions were ever given, and thus explicit rulings and “makhlokot” are a product of a strictly human realm.
The anthropological model argues that humanity is an essential part of revelation. Therefore, in contrast to the realistic model for which revelation was a one-time event, revelation is continuous and an inherent part of the human exercise of Halakhic discourse itself. And if the realistic model understood revelation to be unitary and practical Halakha fragmentary, the anthropological model stresses the multiplicity of revelation itself due to the multi-faceted nature of humanity as a vessel of revelation.
This leads to two trends of thought, one conservative and the other progressive. The conservative, represented by Meir Ibn Gabbai, forbids autonomous human discretion in the Halakhic process because everything it consists of is divine and beyond human reason. “Intellectual activity is the organon of revelation (ibid. 74)” and thus it is denied of any independent value in itself. The fact of Halakhic multiplicity is explained as the limited absorption of the revelation throughout different time periods. For Ibn Gabbai, the prophet and sage are one (74).
A more progressive way of understanding perennial revelation is evinced by Solomon Luria. For Luria, revelation does not deny human reason, but attests to its supreme value. If God is revealed in the human processes of Halakha, then those processes are of divine importance! In my opinion, Luria’s conception makes more sense of the BT text. We can decide to rule like Bet Hillel over Bet Shammai if he appeals to our reason, because human reason is valuable. And this is the very meaning of the Bat-kol or heavenly endorsement—the divine dictates of our reasoning!
The authoritative model, understands revelation as the bestowal of authority in the hands of the sages to do what they please with Halakha. This is represented by Ramban, who states, “It was subject to their judgment that He gave them the Torah even if it [the judgment] appears to you to exchange the right for left (Nahmanides, Commentary on the Torah, Deut. 17.11).” This is also paralleled in the famous story in BT Eruvin where R. Joshua exclaims in the face of a Bat-Kol, “It is not in Heaven!” Contradictory ruling, then, is the natural consequence of the entirely human fact of disagreement. On the face of it, the authoritative model seems similar to the realistic model. Again, revelation is unitary and Halakhic fragmentation is a product of the human realm. There are fundamental differences however. In the realistic model where halakhic considerations are revealed, all options are implicit in revelation and thus every ruling is in some sense the “word” of God. Further, Halakha can be determined only by the preexisting considerations revealed at Sinai. In the authoritative model, rulings are not implicit in revelation rather only our authority to rule autonomously: Halakhic opinion does not represent the word of so much as his will that we rule however we want. Further, there are no specific Halakhic considerations to follow and human discretion is supreme.
These three models present varying answers to the theological questions presented by the “Pluralistic Outlook”
In general, Sagi’s book was compelling because of its philosophical virtuosity and clarity, and the intellectual erudition it displayed, both in traditional and modern sources. It was exciting to see the dynamism of Halakhic thought, and how there are completely different ways to account for Halakhic multiplicity representing widely divergent worldviews. One thing that particularly struck me was how every option raises its own questions and in fact no single direction is totally self-sufficient—rather, the sum of the opinions and the conversation itself is the most meaningful thing about Halakhic discourse.
-- Gideon Weiler
No comments:
Post a Comment