Speaker 1: Greetings friends, and welcome to the podcast of Jewish Ideas
a Torah in motion production i'm jj Kimrie. Over the
last thousand years or so, much of the intellectual creativity
of Jewish scholars has been spent writing on matters of
Halachah or Jewish law. Oceans of ink have been spilled
on the endeavors of explaining and expanding Jewish law, which
continue unabated to this day. Halaric writing comes in various forms,
and in the past centuries has been rather dominated in
certain respects by two specific forms. One is halaric codes,
in which the author lists the bottom line of the
law as he sees it, whereas the other is halarchic
responsor a lot truvat, in which the scholar seeks to
apply the law to specific cases. These two genres represent
two entirely different ways of analyzing, applying, and conceiving of
Jewish law. And there's these fruitful differences between these genres
that shall be capturing our attention today. With us to
talk about these genres of halahi writing is him Seman,
a professor of law and chair in Jewish Law at
Villanova University as well as a dian on the bed
Din of America. He has published widely on topics in
both American and Jewish law, including his acclaimed work Halacha,
the Rabbinic Idea of Law, published by Princeton University Press
in twenty eighteen. It is a pleasure to welcome Professor
Simon to the Podcast of Jewish Ideas today.
Speaker 2: Welcome sir, Thank you, thank you, jayj. It's great being
with you. Although usually we have some scotch and charllt
when we meet after Kiddish, during Kiddish after sure, but
we'll make do today with the virtual interface.
Speaker 1: I agree. It's usually usually conversations are greatly improved by
scotch and challenge, So today we'll have to have to
see what we could do without it. So I'm interested
in discussing these these two types of halakk writing. And
so let's start a little bit with with halaki responsor,
because I think they are slightly older, and just ask.
I mean, firstly, how would one define halaki responsor slats
of true VOTs? What exactly are they? When did they emerge?
What are their principal characteristics? Give us a little of
an overview of that.
Speaker 2: Sure, So as the as the name that we use
shlotin shoe vote indicates they kind of can include anything
in which somebody asks a rabbi a question and the
rabbi provides an answer in truth. Already in the Gamarah
there are examples shall right so so so in some
sense the genre of shlotin shoe vote is already found
in the Gamara, where questions are asked either and shallhoo
sounds like they're sending some sort of writing, perhaps an
oral message, hard to know, and they're getting a response back.
But usually we don't think of something in the Gamara
as prior to part of shaylatan chewe vote. So therefore
the next phase or the gonme have have their own
shayload to chew vote. Some of them are incredibly short.
What does this word mean? Is one of my favorites
right this. They're living in a world before Rashi, certainly
before arts girl, so people would ask what does this
word mean? Or what is this idea? And sometimes they
are they are more complex. Over time, Shane Loan Tchubote
has come to be identified more with sort of questions
on concrete particular cases that have come up. Those could
be cases that come up in real life those can
be kind of hypotheticals that are thought about, but something
with a specific set of parameters. There are shaylotan Chu
votes from the ear of the reshow name and there
she looked to vote from the era of the early
afroyme and as you said, up to including to this day.
So it's a very you know, it's it's a very
it's a little bit of a catch off phrase because
it could be, as I said, as it's come to
mean a kind of specific and relatively kind of crete
ALACKI question. But some of the older ones certainly aren't
like that at all. They're literally things that people ask
rabbis whatever they.
Speaker 1: Are, right, Okay, good, So now we've gone over that.
And the truth is, as you mentioned before, it's it's
one of the oldest poems I like writing we have,
but of course continues very much to this day. It
is arguably probably the most enduring vehicle of halak writing.
Every year another volume, many more volumes are produced in
this in this genre.
Speaker 2: Sure, and and this point of volumes I think I
think is important. In other words, and maybe we could
is that it's I think today when someone says I'm
going to write Shaylo two. They know that they're going
to publish them, and they're going to be in the collections.
But certainly as we go back, it's not clear. And
this is one of the big differences between the the genres.
When someone writes alach code or alak commentary, right, they
sort of know what they're doing, right, and you know,
certainly at some point they understood that this would be
disseminated and later published in print. Right. If you think
of your own correspondence, right, you correspond by orally by text,
by email, sometimes by email where you attach a PDF, right.
And these are various layers of formality which are sort
of like your assumptions about how much is this like
an answer of the moment, like your wife says, hey,
when are you coming home? And you say, you know,
six point thirty, and then you know even if you
may email it, but the fact that you may put
it into a document in a PDF, like you're signaling
that this is something kind of more permanent, more important.
And those are a range of things, and I think
Shout and Chubaut sort of work the same way, at
least when they're produced. Right. Some of them are very
quick and dirty things. Of that moment, and some it's
very clear that the author understands that he is writing
some thing for the ages. Sometimes whether it's for the
ages or not is not understood until some ages have
happened in past. I think as we move in time,
people have a better sense of what they're going to
do with them, at least the ones that are published.
But any important Rabbi is going to have lots and
lots of communications with you know, we'll call them his audience,
right to varying degrees of formality. And therefore what shows
up in a in a volume of de Vote and
how it's published sort of you know, is a little
bit sporadic, but changes our assumptions about what it is. Something
clearented in a volume called Child to Vote we read
as sort of being written for the ages, so it
may not have been intended that way.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, thank you for that that brief overview, and
I'm going to ask you to do the same for
al codes. Explain what you mean by that again, what
is the scope? What do they intend to do? And
I suppose again that's sort of a brief history of
when they arise and whether they're still being written.
Speaker 2: Sure, So let's start with the word codes. And as
you mentioned, I'm a law professor and the law professor
and me uses the term but doesn't love the term
because to the modern ear, a code is something produced
by some governing institution. Right, so we think of the
you know, we're sitting here in the state of Pennsylvania
or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It has a code. The
United States has codes, et cetera. And what makes those
authoritative is that the governing body is thought to be
the sovereign in one sense or another that can produce those.
In Halaha, it doesn't work that way. I don't know
if the soun hedron ever published a code, but we
don't have it. So the codes that we have, and
I think maybe a better way to think about them
as a word that lawyers use and non lawyers don't.
It's called a restatement. We'll use codes. But what a
restatement means is that somebody trying to restate what the
law is, and therefore it's authority comes from people accepting it,
as in the case of you vote. So they're not
codes in that sense of the modern usage. In as
long as the listeners understand that I'm happy to use
the word so codes start with. I would say a
certain type of problem is anyone who's learned Gamara knows
that if you now want to make this massive work
the basis of practice, gosh, that's very hard because there's
so much going on in there, some of it relevant,
some of it not relevant, some of it relevant to
other parts that it needs to be pared down. And
the earliest thing that's in the kind of code tradition
this is called the most famous one of those is
al Hote Alfassi, also known as the Riff Riff standing
for Rebusk that Alfasi e fez right in North Africa,
who basically what he does largely is he he has
all imagine, he has all the talmlet on a computer
and he largely uses his cut function. So he takes
out all the kind of back and forth all of
the ad a looted to the dress shownk and focuses
more or less on the bottom line, occasionally adding in
his own voice. Although the vast bulk of the text
is simply the Gamar's text, it preserved as to what
he understood was like normative binding Hallja Bismann Haase and
this era in other words, in the post temple, post
monarchy era of what we probably call goblut. In fact,
if one takes the new editions, you know, printed in
the last ten to fifteen years, they very usefully will
highlight in when one looks in the riff the parts
that are in his voice, which is a super useful feature.
And you see it's not the majority of it at all,
so that it's not the first. There were precursors to that,
but that's sort of the first thing in that tradition. However,
it is in the Gamar's language and in the Gamar's order,
and therefore lack of order. The first thing we might
call a code is of course the rambam, which is
to some degree in some sense has not been surpassed.
In some sense it has right. What the Rambam does,
he does a couple of very important things. First of all,
he creates his own structure in Taxonomy fourteen books, right,
something that maybe you could say there's some reference to
in the mission, but largely a thing of his own creation,
and takes every alatan the talmud. And here he is
following the riff, usually in the sense of which bits
in the Talmud he thinks are normative and which opinions are.
Except it's broader than the Riff because he covers everything
the Gamar talks about the riffs if it's not applicable,
Bisman hasaid, the Riff generally doesn't have it. The Rambam
has everything. He also changes the language. It's not in
the Talmudic language, but it's in something that's pretty close
to modern Hebrew or close ish based on the shne Hebrew,
and therefore it's an easy read to the modern reader.
And he creates a conceptual structure for it to some
degree to how he views a laha and to what
he views as the mitzvote rita in each topic. So
that's the Rombum. There's more to say. What he doesn't
do is he doesn't retain any of them a cloak it,
any of the various opinions that are found in the Gamara,
and he largely does not pay attention to post Talmudic developments.
I don't want to say never, but that's certainly not
a feature of the Rombum. So you could think of
it as what he says, he's trying to summarize the
rules in the Tumul now it is ingenious. And you know,
even today, if we have all the databases and all
the ais and all the computers, it's it's it's mind
boggling how we did this even with our technology, how
Vahlmer with basically very very primitive technology. So it's it's
truly a master work. And in some sense, nothing like
this has really been attempted to that scale since obviously
there's some asterisks to that point. That's Rombumb the next
probably most famous code. There are others, but the one
that really kind of takes up central space is known
as the Arbaturim, written by yakovman Usher or the son
of the Rush, and it is known today commonly as
the Tour. The Tour is different from the Rhmbam in
a few different ways. First of all, it doesn't have
fourteen books, but four. And importantly, it only deals in
this sense. It follows the Riff more closely in only
dealing with those laws that are applicable in what we
call bisman Haze right in this era or in the
era that they lived in. So it does not have
laws of the temple and laws of the sacrifices and
laws of purity largely and even only a little bit
of laws that applied to the land of Israel, because
they're asserving they're living without it. Drop in there, but
basically not. The Tour is also different in that he
is he retains some debates, and he is much more
interested in post Talmudic applications, so he will cite frequently
from the toast Slot and the other reshow Neme that
are talking not just what the law of the Talmud is,
but how it became instantiated in practice in the various
communities in which people lived. So the Rambomb is much
more classical in the sense is much more driven by
the Talmud, whereas the Tour begins to fill that gap,
and he's writing at the end of the period of
the reshiow Nme and largely collects not everything, but a
lot of that material in there. The four sections I
assume are fairly well known are highm right, which actually
is an ingenious arrangements. It's three cycles. It's the cycle
of the day starting with waking up, It's on the
cycle of the week i e. Shabas and Aravin, and
on the cycle of the year yaridaea, which is a
little bit more of a grab bag is largely kosher,
and then other ritual laws evan As is about marriage,
family and divorce law and closi mishbud is, you know,
procedure and substance of the civil law, and the sort
of halachic court system. That is the tour. That and
then after that comes the Shokanauch, which has an interesting
sort of story because the Lano basically adopts the tour's structure.
So his four main books and the chapter divisions in
between them are taken from from the tour. Now the
is written BYO raviosv. Cairo, who really begins by writing
a Betjo Seth right, his sort of encyclopedic compendium slash
commentary written as a commentary on the tour. And if
we had the bay, if we had Joseph Cairo here
on the podcast, he would say, that is my work.
That is how be remembered, That is my by it right,
that is my estate. I think people trys to his house,
but if you look at how he writes it, I
think like, sort of the estate of your states is
probably the way I would say it. Then later on
he said, you know what, that's a very long and
complicated work let me try to summarize the main points
from it. And he did that, and he called the
shikhanaruch like I'm sending the table for you. This is
the kind of head notes of it. And that's the
way it reads. But you know, whatever revosif Cairo intended
history had it, or Hashkeetha had it, maybe those are
the same thing that that became the work that we
call colloquially the code of Jewish law. And therefore that
then becomes, since that's published with the commentary of the Rama,
which we'll come back to in a second, that becomes
the main sort of framework of apply Jewish law really
to this day. We might talk about more contemporary innovations
in a second. Just a word on the Rama. So
Ravos if Cairo is from the Spardik tradition and was
largely very influenced by the Rambam and is somewhat less
influenced by the ballets vote and the Ashkenazic tradition. The
Rama who's re of motion is who lives in the
crackout at roughly the same time that Ragulosa Kiro was
writing in Spot sees this work and then adds his
own glosses to it, reflecting more of the Ashagnasok school
of thought, and many scholars say that the success of
this work is precisely because it combines both of these,
and basically since the very first printing of the bait
of the Schoharu, which was just him, from the second
printing on it has always been published with the Hagota rama,
the commentary or the editions of the rama, and together
those are sort of known as the shukan.
Speaker 1: Right, and so those are as you outlined it with
admirable sucinctness. I think the three major ones have there
been codes ever since because one could argue possibly, but
since the shukar there is only commentary. Is that is
that plausible?
Speaker 2: So I would say yes, and no, you know, there's
one could say that. And really the tour they sort
of have to be taken together because structure they basically
displaced the Rambam. So, you know, I think as a
artistic manner, the rambum is a superior work. It's conceptually organized,
language is clear and beautiful, it's an ingenious structure. But
basically the while the Rambam as his Halakic sock, becomes
super important. His wave of organizing and conceptualizing Halaha. Doesn't
that really belongs to to the tour? And then I
would like to say the tour because I think he
gets short terped He came up with the structure. Others
built on it in part because the rama deals with
everything and the tour really deals only with practice Tamaha. Now,
since then, as you said, there's there's then in the
generations after, there's waves of commentaries on it, some written
directly as commentaries in terms of new codifications. The one
that I think everyone would point to Isan and one
will notice the wordplay there, which doesn't cover every single thing,
but most of it. And it's a sort of assimilative
commentary code. In other words, it's written with the same
chapter headings and as the Shokhan Ruch, and it tries
to kind of retell the Sugia if it starts with
Pukim from Sukim, if it starts from the Gamar from
the Gamara, and kind of fold in all the various
kind of commentaries that have come on along the way.
It's very influential because it's very well written. The other
famous one is only on Orsiam is the Mission of Brewer,
which you know, takes a large space, particularly on issues
that it relates to. But it, as you noted, is
really written as a commentary on the Shokran Ruhe, although
you know, it's a little bit of its own thing,
but at least that's the way it's graphically written, and
that's the way it's meant to be read. It is
it is on the Chican roof. You know. In more
recent times, certainly certain areas of Alaha, particularly areas that
are not well covered in the Chokan, have seen various
kind of codes and treatments to them, but none have
reached the sort of level of the ubiquitous uh both
popularity and authority as the as the But for example,
I have on on matters of hoshin Mishbat, there's a
ten volume treatise called Pitre Fochen or Peture Fosian, written
by a rabbi who lived in New Shilaim in the
latter half of the twentieth century, which for anyone involved
in that world is very influential. One's doing Arevin or Micava,
door Trumant de Mastro. You know, there's there's there's various
sort of areas, specific things that have become very important.
But in terms of this sort of monumental thing that
everyone understands the code, I think it remains with the Chikan.
I would say one fairly interesting and new development is
Rabbail Lazar Malhammad in Israel has been writing a series
of books called nine Hawaja, which is a kind of
modern recasting and has become very very popular in sort
of the datilu me community in in Israel, and of
course hasn't replaces, but I think it might be replacing
the mission of Brewer. It's more modern Hebrew, it's it
has also theological framework to it, finishing work that's worth
study itself. So that's sort of the way I see
the lay of the land at the moment.
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough, Now let's uh, I do to ask
a little bit more about codes. But before I do,
I mean the sort of I think crux the central
question I really want to ask here is, you know,
what are the advantages or disadvantags of writing in these
two genres, because in some senses, of course, they are opposite.
And I'll let you elaborate on that, but sort of
what can one do in a code that one can't
do in response and vice?
Speaker 2: Vice?
Speaker 1: And what would push one to write or read or
adopt a code like a way of writing halaa? What
would push one towards a responsor manner of writing and
reading an application of halaca?
Speaker 2: Sure, so let me start not in the Halaki tradition,
but in the Western tradition. So the common law, which
is the system that is from England and this sort
of the basis of American, Canadian, Australian and all the
English speaking law, has a very different view on this
from from the systems emerging in continental Europe, which typically
called the Romanist systems. The common law believes that that
that really it's the reality of a case with its
specific facts and the pressures of coming to a determination
that sort of produces the ideal law right, and it's
only and that law must be forged within the context
of a decision that will be actuated, that has that
is sort of coming from a particular case. And sometimes
it's called law in action, or at least it tells
that way, and it is a little bit suspicious of
more academic projects what it calls law in the books
that are sort of dealing with sort of abstract principles
but not forged within the sort of reality or the
you know, the potentiality of being effectuated the Roman in
this systems. Think the opposite is that the only way
to do this right is to step back and have
a plan and have your concepts, and have that kind
of carry through each and every bit of the law
creating or law writing enterprise, and that every specific case
is too tied to the quirks of its facts or
any kind of particular things that come up there, or
any pressures of the moment or any exigencies to trust it.
And also so that is again that we have not
talked about Jewish law yet. But this is kind of
like there are two broadly speaking, and I'm a little
over dramatizing, but there are kind of two schools of
thought about this, and I think you see these reflected
in the Halachic literature as well. If we start with
the round bomb, right, if you want to kind of
give you a map of what is Halatha, the only
way to do that is to write a book where
you know what you're doing at the outset and you
understand the plan, and the round bomb is the master planner. Right.
You have your divisions, you have your conceptual categories, you
start each book and then each chapter and then each
halaca with an idea of where it's going and how
it goes right, and that gives you that overview. In addition,
as we said, when you're writing a book, you know
you're going to publish it, you know what you're doing
with it. Right by contrast, right, if we're going to
take that perspective, as we all know, sometimes you know,
rabbis have to answer questions really quickly. They kind of
give an answer, am I saying that this is an
answer that like for generations is quote the halacha or
am I like just answering a question here and now
if one reads the true of literature, you'll see last
of ways, I'm in a hurry, I don't have time,
I don't have access to all my books. You know,
these sort of catchphrases repeat throughout, So that would be
sort of you know, the sort of why the codes
are the actual halaka and an idea of that like look,
you know and I get it too. This in my
book a little bit like the true halacha is these
like more abstract principles and ideals that are stated generally.
And we shouldn't confuse that with like specific applays that
are always attentive to the moment. Revlustenstein has this effer
sing what he calls stock and Sika. Right. So, SOACA
is the sort of the enduring halak An efficiency is
a localized application. And you could take the opposite view
that no, exactly, it's that when all those pressures of
both what the sources say, and there's a critique would
be that it's too classical, it's too source driven, it's
too driven by the kind of abstractions and not about
real life. And that really when you want to see
when all the pressures come together and precisely within those contingencies,
within those places, because that's where life happens. That how
that emerges from there is the sort of the more
authentic products or the sort of better way to understand
how the system works. Again, this debate exists outside of
Alosa and exists within Alaha. Right.
Speaker 1: And and do you think that the mapping of this
difference between common law or case law and let's say
Roman or constitutional law havings that you want to put it?
Does this how accurately does this map on to the
code's response issue within Jewish law?
Speaker 2: I think it maps on to some degree. The codes
also tend to be what I would call they're quite
classical in the sense of their their they're responding to
the tamuk sugia and the way that that is organized. Right,
this is certainly true of the rambamb. It's true in
the tours, slightly less true, but they're too so in
other words, what cases they're talking about, right, what are
their examples, what are their paradigms? Are a function of
the mission and the talmud to some degree, and then
some of the commentary of the reshowing that becomes standard.
You'll see in the tour, for instance, it's very clear
he'll always start with like the mission and then the gamar,
and then occasionally he'll say certain things came up in
a certain to vote right. This is another point that
they also intermix. So the rush, his father is one
of the well known uh meshivin of his era and
especially in holocient Mish. But he'll Evanezer, he'll bring a
lot of stuff from the rush and the rush, but
in various things, right, But those will be at the
end and they'll be sort of like there, and then
that'll kind of feed into itself, which will often kind
of retain this structure. So therefore, you know, what they're
less responsive to is like what's happening in the world. Okay,
but you know, to take the example anyone who's studied
babakama with a kid, but we don't have oxen, but
all the examples there have oxen, right, and then like
that's or boor or ash. In other words, the codes
tend because they are they're assimilating talmudic information in the
way they're mapping the sudiya based on how they see
the tama. They tend to be very classical, where a
chuva is going to start with the facts that happen
in the world, in our world or the world of
the writer, and then say, okay, now let me go
and see which are the relevant sudio that to bring
in here. So you have that process of translating both
the language and the conceptual architecture of the classical sources
into the real world in which the the may sheave
is operating in.
Speaker 1: Right, And it seems, at least from an immediate look,
that one can one can apply quite a bit more
creativity or wiggle room within a response that than one
can in a code. I mean, is that the case?
And secondly, you know, is that simply a function of
the way that genre is exists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's let's let's talk about I think the
I think the CEO in different ways. The one let's
remember that what we call the essay, right, is not
a known genre of as you said, I think you
said this in the outside. There's basically three genres of
classical There is commentary rashi post quote right, usually following
the order of the Talmudic trac date. There are these codes,
and then commentaries on the codes, and then there's a
chew vote the response. The response is the most open
ended of those. So, in other words, if one wants
to publish a Halakic essay right, so today already you
can write an article and publish it in a Halakic journal.
But that's a fairly new sort of thing. It's really
the chuva is the vehicle for that. So in that sense,
it's the most flexible form. You don't have to pretend
that it's a commentary on something. You could just say,
here's what I want to say. Now, there's a history
to this too. If you think of the names, and
you know, if we think let's say that you vote
of the rishi name, right, they're called the Chuvashirashba, the
Chuvashi rush, et cetera. In other words, these people are
known as typically tumudic commentators or codifiers or quasi codifiers.
And then we also have their tew vote. They're on uh.
I think a little bit later, the very famous ones,
the Hahamsi, the no Huda, that's tm Sofer, the Massa
bin Yemen. Those are the names of the Chubas farm,
the Sagotari, right, and we know them by by dint
of their Tubas farm. And then oh, they also wrote
these these other things. And part of what's happening there,
I think is that I think this has to probably
do with printing and with other developments, is that the
tuba can now become the primary vehicle through which a
rabbinic author is no and they're right, they become to
some degree essays on halahik topics, whether the questions were
asked to them or whether they ask themselves the questions
and things like that. So I do think that in
that sense it's a more flexible form which allows for
greater creativity, greater literary flair, right, there's often they start
with kind of poems and things like that, things that
in a code and in so much more mode of discourse.
In other words, yes, there are shacks that run for
three pages, but basically they're very tight and focused on
what the specific thing. So think of this as as
your way to do an essay. If you're a binic writer,
you're going to use the tube of form. The other
thing is, and this is you know, something that in
legal philosophy we talk about about is that the very
active ap application two concrete facts is what generates kind
of creativity. Right, So I always say, if one looks
at the laws of bore and ash hit and fire
liability in the rob bumb and then a couple hundred
years later in the Chanch, they're basically the same. And
what that tells you is those were not applied, those
are not applied them. Therefore they it's just basically copy paste.
By contrast, if one looks at he'll hoach star rote
or he'll hotel vote debts, negotiated instruments, of which in
the ear of reshowing them, there's tremendous creativity. The world
of the tour look completely different than the realbum. So
the act of applying law two concrete situations changes it
and molds it and modifies it. And in that sense,
I think that is at least the first cut is
done in chew vote. Later chew vote may become part
of the kind of canonized law. Right. Like we said,
the tour contains a number of chew vote of the rush,
the shah schite site, chew vote, et cetera. And there's
this interesting interplay of how these different genres commentary code
and Cuba influence and impact each other. I see.
Speaker 1: I mean focusing back on the codes for a moment.
You claim something quite interesting in your work, which is
that that the code, the Halai code, at least can
never fully achieve its purpose. And that struck me as
a very interesting and thought provoking claim. Could you elaborate
on that for us? What is it about the laha
that frustra rates the composition or the ultimate aim of
a composition of a low code?
Speaker 2: Sure, so let's start with that. Lasting if you think,
and there's an if here, that the point here is
to tell you clear and unequivocal rules, right, So, I
think there's a few things going on, some relevant to
Halaha specifically, and some possibly found in various forms in
all legal systems. So one of the themes of my
book is the idea of Tamutah right, that the study
of Torah is its own goal, right, it's its own
self standing, self justifying practice, and that anyone who is
sort of known as a alahk authority sort of subscribes
to some version of this idea. Okay, there were different
in different times, in different eras Ashkin aspired, etc. But
something like that, and therefore very different than any other
legal system in which the production of law its goal
is ultimately to regulate the social and political sphere. In Halaha,
because of this idea of tomatoa that is so central
to the rabbis of the Tumutin exerts a tremendous influence
on everyone after. Is that no, there are what we'll
call spiritual purposes in the study of law. Now again,
these change over time and in different places, they're not consistent,
but that idea is there, and therefore I think that
you even I would say not it's not that these
what the codes are, but they even in the codes
which in sum sets are trying to just get to
the bottom line. But the authors also have another investment,
the investment in Thura study in explicating the Tamudik studia.
In other words, that instinct of Tubdi commentary is there too.
And therefore I think one of the reasons that it fails,
so to speak, is because there are While there are
some works that really do try to just tell you
the rules, inevitably the commentaries are going to say, oh,
but what about this talmudic ciay, what about this tostboon,
and what about this other thing? And they'll they'll they'll
just kind of re enter it into that toal munic dialogue.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is not in
the In the Rambam, the ram Bumb says that he's
trying to end the kind of need to consult the talmad,
and therefore presents its very clean. It's long, but it's
sort of given where it's coming from, it's ultimately short
compared to the tamud tight text. The he says, now
you could just look at this and know the rules,
and you don't need to do that. You don't need
to work your way through the tamad. And as you know,
almost immediately when that starts happening. People then write commentaries
and they basically start reintegrating the rambamb into the Tummunk discussion,
so much so that in the nineteenth century and the
Brisker school, the ram bumb was, you know, the kind
of source material from which they did the exact opposite
of what he intended. They they made it the basis
of their very analytical and very creative but very not
bottom line discussions, right, And I think like the fact
that they're at checking the ram bomb are there are
reasons for that, but it's one cannot but laugh that
it basically turned what the rama was trying to do
inside out. I think with it's less dramatic. But if
we think it's some of the main commentaries again learned
in Yeshivai, So so it's a hot the the Cebos,
to some degree, the Shah, they are all involved in
this process of sort of expanding the Talmudic dialogue outwards.
Now there's also commentaries that go the other way, but
but there's that push and pull between those and therefore
to some degree, the codes themselves. And if you look
at just the page of the standard Skan's it's it's
literally dizzy. So's so that you know, about twenty years ago,
thirty years ago they started reprinting it to make it
a little more and it just became another focus of
tourist study with a slightly different entry point at the
same time having this other goal of the bottom line rules. Now,
I think that that's true of the Mishtah, that's true
of the tumud that started through all the way down
this right right book. That's one of the central tensions
within the Holarism as a whole is that we use
the same body of materials to do different things with it.
And I think the literature reflects that that is something
you don't really have in other systems. Now, I think
in other since you do have this that you know,
as soon as something becomes codified, there's always wrinkles to it,
there's always new developments that that sort of complicated and
that you have everywhere. The Marshall in the sixteenth century
gave a kabbalistic sort of reason for this is drawing
on earlier sources, but he's criticizing the then Code of
Fying movement, and he says he says it's sort of
about the nature of ala has the encounter between the
infinite God and the finite man, and it is not
something reducible to a finite code, is one of his claims, right,
So he says, it cuts to the very nature of
what Halifa is as a meeting between an infinite mind
and a finite mind, and the finite mind is going
to try to kind of limit it to some code,
and it's never going to work because there's always more there.
Speaker 1: And the little bit ask a slight procketive question about that,
which is that is that necessarily the case? In other words,
could you imagine, even in theory, the construction of such
a detailed or such a such a flawless code that
no further commentary would be possible or necessary or meaning.
And thords the enormous amount of commentary that has been
precipitated by the rama by others, one could say that's
because either there were you know, in some area's lack
of clarity, or questions that arose, perhaps internal inconsistencies, or
you know, any of the things that would spur on
commentary if somehow a supercomputer were to create a perfect code.
I mean, it's such a thing possible at all? Or
are you saying no. The very nature of the system
demands extra writing for me. I know this is a
rather upset question, but one that's fun to think about it.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not so so I think there's a few
things going on here. So first of all, I think
I think the Marshall in his way is asking your
question saying no, it's about the essence amount. I do
think another point has to do with finality, in other words,
and how you view sort of what is the ultimate
Alachic authority, because we tend to say that the Talmud
retains precedence even after the rambamb and even after the
and even after the mission of Burua, right, ultimately, if
you can resort back to the talmudik sugia right, which
is written in anything but a linear, clear sense. So
therefore that's always out there. And while it's true that
we say we possibly like X, but why but not why?
But then a new case comes up and they say, yes,
we possibly like X, but limited to cases one, two
and three, not the four or five and six we do.
Now we've got to go back to the TOMUDXU. Yeah,
I just describe basically howevery you know, this isn't super common. Right,
so that even when we accept the authority of the shukanaru,
much of the interpretive process saying I, yes, but that
was here, not here, and my proof is this, Tommy Dixu. Yeah,
and then we're back off to the races. So I
think it would be more possible in let's say, a
modern system which once the court, the High court says
this is what it is. I don't want to say
that solves all questions, but that then cuts off at
least certain avenues. One of the things that is typical
of halakha is that we never, at least in certain traditions, right,
certainly in the sort of traditions that comes from the
you know, Lithuanian yeshibas, we never cut ourselves off from
the tamudxu. Yeah. This goes back to discussions and astized
and because that's always available, and because the tumatif any
is anything but univocal, I think you cannot escape it.
And again I said before also, I think that people
who write these things are living in a world where
Taurus study has this sort of mayan haabet or the
overflowing stream nature to it, and to under we are
attracted to that now, I think there are schools of thoughts,
typically to be more spartic, that tend to be more
bottom line rules. Here's what they are. We can reduce
them to this. But then stuff comes up, and then
but that's not exactly consistent here, it's not consistent here.
Wait a minute, there's this new idea or that maybe
only covers this case, and then we're back to this
sort of diological Talmudic process with maybe our starting point
not the Talmud but different code provisions or different sections
in the commentaries. But analytically it's that process. So I
think the answer is no. One can give a metaphysical account.
One could say it's no for all legal systems, but
it's certainly in Alaha because of the lack of definitive finale.
There's no governing body. It's just a kind of consensus
that emerges over time, so there's always going to be
gaps and being able to resort backward, and then you're
back into the the analytic discussions, right. I see.
Speaker 1: And I want to drill a little bit on one
element that we've been touching on, which is the role
of the commentaries on the codes, because this is interesting
because of course these individuals are not themselves involved in
writing codes, but they are, and but they do have
to certainly play a role in the development and dissemination
of the code itself. So you know, certainly one possible
functions you mentioned the kind of brisk approach approach to
reading the Ramba on others, is to almost reverse engineer
the thinking process that goes into the writing the code,
because of course the code almost by definition is quite sparse,
you know, sparing in its in as these and elaborasm
show it's working as it were, and therefore it's an
exercise for the code to kind of crack that open.
What else are the nose aklim the great commentaries on
the major codes, What else are they doing and in
what in what way do they I don't know, do
they bring the code closer to other genres such as
responso or commentary or other other forms for lack of writing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. So first let's just start with this word.
So this is really and I recently had to write
something in English and you realize that there's no equivalent
in in the in the Anglo American system to this
idea of no say kleen right, So literally, they if
we translate the word they are arms bearers right now.
It's interesting to think about this phrase because I think
it even changes over time. What is an arms bearer?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean the biblical sense, it's quite literal. It
is someone who you know, goes into battle with someone
as their second or as the person who holds their
their weaponry. And probably you know. I imagine the closest
modern analogy I can think of as a golf caddy,
And that's.
Speaker 2: Exactly what I say, I caddy, right, the caddy. Now,
so that way, the caddy is like on your team,
he's helping you, right, But over time that turns to
be no say kalim. They're doing battle with you, right.
In other words, And I think that this idea of
the no say kilem starts as they're going to help
you make your arguments, right, but immediately then they also
are battling you. So it's interesting that there's no such
when when I have to describe this to people don't
know Jewish law, I cannot rest on anything that is known,
even to a lawyer, because such a literature doesn't really exist.
You can write your own book, you can attack that, right,
but you but this idea that you're you're both a
commentary that's supportive but also undermining the sort of finality
of the text of the code is sort of unique,
at least within the legal world I'm aware of. So
this no say kilem, and it's most dramatic on the
Shukan uh because it's printed they have you in the
in the in the nineteenth century when they were the
various publishing houses sort of each try to outdo each
other by how many commentaries they have, which which makes
the page very very difficult to the uninitiated to summat
for voting. But we can sort of categorize them into
different functions. So some we can maybe start at the extreme.
Some really bring it back to the Talmudic dialogue and
are not super interested in what the bottom line rule is,
but are using the shukanas. Okay, he said, this is
a principle. Let's test it here. Let's see right, So
that would be the soat this under the shah uh,
are are are on that extreme. At the other extreme,
you have people who will then bring the Chuva literature
and maybe we should talk about organ maybe we'll make
sure we talk about organization, uh. And they say okay.
These are the cheu vote that speak on the topic
that is the subject matter of the code. Section of
the Piskechuva and the dark Chuva are famous for this,
and in other words, that is how you'll connect the
Charlotte tan Chubat literature to what's going on in the
Shahan roof. And then you could think of most other
ones being somewhere in between of explicating qualifying, right, the
sma the shot. They're constantly qualifying the hukan roos, oh,
yes he said this, but here, and typically point to
another place where, well, you see, there's some tension between them.
So there's a lot of lawmaking that goes on in
these codes as they refine and define what's going on,
whether it's between the ramada chi or contradictions or just
new stuff that comes up. So it's interesting because in
some ways they would never say. Very the early early
layer is willing to outright disagree with the shoch ama.
Later on they become much less so, but they disagree
by qualifying and saying oh only here, but not here,
or introducing a new series of distinctions, very much the
way that the talma does to the mischilon or you
showed them due to the talma, and that's why I
see this as very much a part of the same process.
So right, when we refer today, when someone says chokin,
they typically don't mean the language of Joseph Caro. They
mean yang the jose kiro plus rama plus at least
some of the canonical commentaries, and you can argue which
ones are. So we really say, you'll see sometimes abbreviated
venose kalem shan meaning the whole kind of web of
literature which you know to a story, and is somewhat
maddening because we're referred to this book, but we really
mean the book is printed and received, not the words
of any any specific person. I do want to say
a word about organization, because I think this matters a lot.
Perhaps the greatest success of the shokranuch is that it
became the way we conceptualize alaka certainly practice alaka. And
this way, though the Rambam system is more can comprehensive
and more elegant. I think that the chikan wins the day.
And then what starts having is that you will see
works of cheu vote are organized according to the section
of shokhan. Right because One of the main problems with
you vote is they have no natural order, right. I
mean you could have like the order that they were
written in, but that's not super helpful, right, So part
the big the big downside of chew vote. We talked
before about their analytic character, but just as practice, how
do you find them? How do you know if something
is relevant to what you're working on? So every once
in a while you'll have a gono vilna or vaduo
sense it just like knows everything, okay, But if you're
not that, how do you find them? So today we
have computers and things like that, but in the inter
interstitial period, what we see is that the code chapters
then become like the sort of headings of halaka, so
we know, oh, this is Simon Sanivov okay, and therefore
the true vote will be written or published I should
say not written published in in a way of like
the rough order of the Shokanara. Now, of course, chew
bote can draw from many different places, so sometimes they
have to be split in parsed, and therefore indexes in
the back of chew vote, and sometimes even the way
they're organized are in accordance with the orders. So if
you to me, one of the most enduring influences of
this is beyond what the Schardrok paskins, is that it's
the way we now frame and think of Halakha. So
and therefore you see this as I said both earlier,
people like the Shakh will already start quoting chew Vote,
but then like the dark tube of the Pistley Cuba
on the page citing chew Vote, and then Chewbote themselves
become published. I think the most interesting example is the
bach who's one of the commentaries on the tour. The
first edition is published in a fairly random way, and
then they republish it scramble the order, so now it
matches the order of Schuchhan. What's super interesting is that
in modern times rofessal Weis's Chubas have this, but he's
not the only one. They will publish them in the
order of the four volumes of Chukhrana Ruche and then
a fifth one Lakah who are medicine. So they're saying that,
I say, like, what you see is like this like
fifth value should earth sort of happening before our eyes
because people realize there's no great place to put this
kind of its own thing and not really reflected. So
I think it's very interesting. It'd be a great practice.
Who's the first to publish it this way? But so
to me, it's interesting even when you're deviating Falk, you're
still using that as as the structure.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's much to say that I want to drive
us a little bit in love direction because time is
running a little bit short, which is similar to what
you're seeing before. There is of course yet another genre
of I like writing, which we haven't really mentioned thus
far so much, which is we continued attempt at talbuted commentary,
and in fact, even some of the great writers of
codes or of response and many of them are also
at the same time providing commentaries on the talmud itself,
which seeks to explain, perhaps apply, perhap perhaps you know,
make update or make relevant, sudden secure certain discussions of
the talbut and that exists side by side with these
other genres like writing, And I guess my question is,
you know, to what extent do they interrelate? And are
these talmulive commentaries, so to speak, better friends of the
writing of responsor or better friends of writing of codes?
And how does it fit into this, this rather this
constructed kind of opposition between the response and the code.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would say, I'm not sure everyone would
agree with this, but you know a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Why else would we have you on? Please, If you're
going to say something I would agree on, then I would.
Speaker 2: Say that that kind of page by page chamudic commentary
is something very very dominant in the Reshow name and
maybe the earlier name, and has largely leveled off. In
other words, it's hard to think they exist, but it's
hard to think of an influentyal page by page commentary
on the Talmud of the last one hundred or two
hundred years. Now someone's going to say, what about this,
And I'm sure there's one there, right, But like if
we think of them, obviously Rashi Tosos, you know, the Rashon,
sard rambamb Rashba Ron, etc. Son others, they exist and
they're still I'm sure you could go to a sparm
shop and find a fairly new thing on Bubba atsierb
of a Comma or something like that. But largely the
in the modern era, I think it's been codes and
response that have been and then like sort of various
rabbinic essays that have been more more influential than kind
of daff bay daf commentary. Now, what has happened is,
as they said, I mentioned this word a few times.
I think what has emerged, let's say, is the idea
of the essay or article on a topic, right, something
that you don't really have in the earlier writings. In
other words, the ram Band's Cuntristadina de Garmi is exceptional
because it's one of the only examples of in the
year of the reshown in of someone saying I'm going
to write on this topic and try to cover it
in some sort of introduction, thesis, conclusion. Right. In general,
I would say rabbinic writing doesn't have that structure. It's
really hard to think. And I'll say something that is
a little provocative. What is the that there's not many
Hoboutic books and you're gonna say, what are you talking
about it? Walking Indy based mentors. There's a gagillion of them,
And by book I mean a thing on a single
topic that has a thesis that is pursued from beginning
to end. This is a monograph exactly. There aren't many
more recently sure in the last to say, hundred years,
you see more of these, but but there really aren't many.
So the monograph we've been talking about genres and also
worth thinking what genres don't exist, And I think therefore
the word commentary does a lot more work there in
the same way the gomar is quote commentary on the MISSIONA.
I mean yes and no right, and the same is
true right, so and therefore the and we're talking and
the chew vote wind up doing this. But I saying
more recent thing is the sort of article and or
the book where you can take a topic and kind
of pursue it consistently. I think one of the first
maybe the on m you could count them, but I
think the shim and schup Shario share. There's some predecessors
to ship Schmid, but in others it's pretty thin in
that sense. So I think today the type of person
who would have written a page by page to munic
commentary is more likely to write sort of essays or
maybe a book on a given topic. It's more fitting
with the way that we write today and that we
think today. And therefore I think that that genre is
while I agree it's been continuing, but it's not. It's
hard to think of very influential page by page commentaries
since the kind of midachronin. Maybe the ark Lanaire is.
But again you can't compare that to the earlier ones.
For example, him his chewbot Binanci and is the alcavette
linger I think are more influential than his tem me
to commentary routhlynaire now where if it's in certainly of
the reshown him, it's just considered primary loss. So in
other words, that fits you know, what the past leots say,
fits into codes all over the place, and fits into
response all over the place as we move on somewhat less.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, fair enough? It is interesting to note the
influx of of the the optic, let's say, of the
phenomen of the Halak monograph and Hala essay and really
honestly the Hallakic footnotes. There's also something that did not
exist much in previous centuries. But I suppose you know,
has you know, writing has taken on the track.
Speaker 2: I think I think the missioner Brewer, I don't want
to say the first, but the mission brewer writes footnotes
on the missioner burah right. In other words, he might
be his missioner. Burgh is itself some sort of footnote
slash commentary, right, But then the shared Sea, and he
has like footnotes on his text. But yes, this idea,
this modern way of writing of text and footnotes and things,
which is now you know, you could find certainly in
the Monera sex world. I think when we were in
the Hibi world. This is a fairly new phenomenon. But
by the way I think this is I wrote in
my book, I think this goes all the way back.
In other words, if we go to before the world
of Hazal, it take us to the first century. So
we know of Joe Ciphis, and we know of Filo,
who write what we would call monographs. Right they write
one person writing in their own voice about a topic
that is definable. And then once you get to Razal,
they don't do that. First of all, they don't write,
by which I mean like a written product. It's all tbalpe.
We should remember that though we engage to pe as books,
that's not the way haza did. It's all about Peh
and all the collections. Mishna Medrisha, Medrisha, Gada Damarabavla Murisli
are collections of inter multi generational works that don't have
a very clear structure and conceptual structure. And that goes
all the way from the earliest hazal until you get
to the own meme that begin to kind of write
a single people in their own voice. You know, there
writes some essays pias is mecha memcar and commercial ar
shar go, and you know, then you begin to have it.
But I think it's I think part of what's driving
this is, you know, not only Talmud Tara in the
idea that to study, but also the form that tore
study has taken for Hazau, I think bears a huge
influence on everything after.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, and and let me let me move a
little bit into sort of an analysis of these of
these different codes, sorry, the genres, codes and response as
it pertains to the education of rabbis or you know,
the syllabi in Yeshivat and other and lot of those places.
And you know, it is very interesting to think about that.
You know, there is quite a clear prioritization where you
have the talm wood and its commentaries as the major aspect,
and then a kind of distant second is the learning
of the codes and their commentaries and then are really
really distant. Third is the study of responsor, which comes
which is very infrequent, let's say, in your average tumbletic
training and general training, which most rabbi still to this
day undergo. And the question that becomes, firstly, why is
this the case? And secondly, I mean is this wise?
I mean do we ought there be a reconsideration, recalibration
of the educational focus of some of these places.
Speaker 2: Sure, so what you're saying is certainly true of the
tradition that emerges from Valajen, which has a huge influence
on yeshivas of all stripes today, and that, like you said,
the subject matter is still a famitic masecta and it's
main reshowname and you might look at the schuch to
see what he does with it, or particularly if there's
a well known shock or exos and you kind of
gotta find your way in there. But that's not what
you're focused on. And that is certainly true for the
way we you know, when you're young, we learn the
gamura itself. As you go on, you learned the gamara
shown him, and that's what it means to understand the
sud yeah, so I think that's very much driven by
how the talmat itself works and by this idea that
talmut toa again to me this kind of say, because
that is sort of its ideal form. Now. Of course,
when you go to study Smicha, which is typically after
several years of this, you will change your focus to
the shukan uh and the things around it. And depending
on where and how you studied it, how much are
you really going back to the talmud and working down
or how much are you starting from these kind of
codes and working forward. But you're certainly right that in
the classical is Shiva chuvote are almost non existent. I
can speculate that this is part of the ideology that,
in other words, that very much comes from a legions.
There's the pure Tora and the pure Toa is in
the Gemara and the chu vote are kind of already
sullied by the complexities of human interaction in the world,
and I think the g Sevagic says things in this direction.
I'm not sure you would say it quite in the
way I'm saying now, but I think he's reflecting this
sort of idea as one moves to Smicha in more
practical things. There is definitely more emphasis on these later
works on more modern questions, and of course don't come
up in the kamara. You know, certainly, if you're studying castus,
you got to know how factories work and all these
sorts of things. And you know that stuff is obviously
in the in the much more contemporary literature. And you know,
in my in my job or part of my job
of interviewing various day anin you know, rabbinical court judges,
and they will all say that at some point they
had to start learning again. In other words, they learned
in yeshiva in this classic way, and then when they
decided to try to, you know, go to the day
a new track to be a sort of practicing a
diane they basically sort of they'll have this story where
they like start over and now I got to learn
to learn again and learn differently, which is always interesting.
But of course you don't get selected into a dianute
program unless you're really good at doing the other thing.
And I would say, sitting on these cases in my
other job, you can see the influence of this that
some of them are very classical and and you know,
are very wedded to how this is kind of constructed
in Yeshiva and less so into sort of okay, what
are we actually going to do here? And now? So
I think that that is going And now I think
there are changes too. You know, there's what you described
is certainly true of the Balasian tradition. But you know,
even in my lifetime, you see a change towards different
ways of studying. Certainly once you enter kind of mifha
tracts where there's going to be more emphasis on you vote,
and certainly you know the true boative emotion find seeing
that everyone quote has to know right and things like that.
So I do think there is a change. But I
also think that the centrality of the gamara to the
process of talmatara and therefore everything that flows from it,
even if you're trying to do something quote practical, still
exerts a tremendous influence and under That's one of things
I tried to talk about my book, that this goes
back to well, what are we doing here? Is this
a legal system? Yeah, it's that this has this other dimension,
and it's understood that that is captured kind of most
essentially in the Gamura and the commentary around it, and
less so in its practical orientation. Now, I will say,
sitting here in a law school, some aspects of this
exist in the American legal academy, and I suspect in
graduate education throughout. We don't teach in law school much
about which forms to file in the trial court in Pennsylvania, right.
We tend to think about more theoretical discussions. There are
far more classes on constitutional law and constitutional theory than
there are on Pennsylvania civil practice, even though in reality
most of the lawyers are not going to be arguing
questions of first impression of constitutional interpretation. They're going to
be doing the daily work of lawyers. My wife went
to architecture school, and similarly, the sort of model project
was you know the museum commission, which is some sort
of conceptual statement made through a building, rather than you know,
how to do you know a supermarket in the strip mall.
So I do think that there's something about educational systems generally,
or power professional education systems generally, where the kind of
there's a sort of ideal type of study that is
prized by the kind of educational establishment, which is that
some gap between what the graduates actually do in practice
is certainly true inneshiva, certainly true in law school, you know,
and I know by analogy in architecture school. Although in
law school I know that there's a yin and yang,
and these things change do We're now in a more
clinical route, and so these things go back and forth,
you know, the fads kind of go back and forth.
And I suspect the same is true in rabbinic education
and also as instead we've been talking a lot about
the volution tradition. If one comes from a kind of
Spardic tradition, I think the world does look somewhat different, right.
Speaker 1: And the final point that I wanted to raise is
sort of the threads of thought that is woven throughout
your work on which this question of these two different
genres of Halaic writing bear, which I think is is interesting,
which is on what is halaha? Which seems to be
a strikingly a question that is deceptively or appears simple,
but is deceptive in that particular appearance, and in fact,
as you have articulated over now, regain is actually a mutal,
complex question. And of course you have these opposing or
I'm not sure opposing these strikingly different ways of writing
halaa and trying to develop it and expand it, and
and and further it, advance it. And the question becomes,
how does a consideration of these different forms of Alaric
writing bear on the major question, which is how does
one define alaa? The term?
Speaker 2: Okay, so we were ending with the with the question
maybe with correct but.
Speaker 1: I think now that we have a better appreciation of
what what is involved in this question, now we can
sort of set the table if yeah.
Speaker 2: So so as your as youre as you say. So.
That is something I've been thinking a lot about over
the years, and my book, which is called the Rabbinica,
the Rabbinic Idea Law, is trying to kind of articulate.
So let me just kind of pose where we went into.
I would say, both codes and response that would broadly
be considered under the rubric of halahalam se right applied halakha,
and therefore, you know, kind of not not already a subset.
Now I tend to say that there are actually three terms.
There's halakah, there's hala halamas, and there's halaka lamas lemis
meaning there is halaha in the sense of this kind
of broad system of ideas, we could say, largely captured
in the talmudiness related literature in which minority opinions. You know,
be Shami is part of alaha, even though we know
we don't poscu in that. Robbie Mayer is halaja, even
though we of course don't post in that, and halaha
about all sorts of things that no bearing you know,
the various discussions in the talma that sort of end
inconclusively or end or are all picking up on ashita
that the tama knows from the beginning it's not going
to right, So that's haw aha sort of in its
broadest sense. Right, then we have what we would call halakalama,
which I say is the stuff that if we go
back to our discussion of the riff, the sort of
stuff that is within the riffs bar another legal term
rule of recognition, in other words, within his rule of
what we kind of is the applied normative alaka. But
even there, if one studies shikhana uf, there's vast tracts
of it that is not what we actually do in
observant communities today. So for example, we mentioned this already
tambdic torte law right, so bor and ash and sure
and regel. All these things are in shohan uch and
are not at all reflective in the practice of observant
communities today. By contrast, something like the laws of Krishma
do so I would say, we typically say ala Kalama,
say is that which is kind of codified by the
riff you know, rush tour Chilgrenarre. But even there I
think there's a further distinction between what our actual practices
are and what's stated in these books. So therefore I
tend to think of it that it's probably best to
think of it in three ways. The sort of rawest
is roughly that which is in the tale. Then we
could say that which is understood to be normative in
some sense in some place. By the way, there's another category.
Or what do we do with the Rombam's codifications of
the of the laws of the Beta mkdash right, which
are like they are halaja in the sense of these
are the correct rules occurring around them, but they're in
no way sort of part of our functional lives, and
sort of a layer below that is the sort of
everything is chicano, which includes things that are extremely relevant
and things that are not and things that we do
somewhat differently, et cetera. And then there's like the actual
practices of Jewish communities which are found in she voked,
which are found today, and like you know, the letters
rabbis send their congregants before pass you know, this year
was so that which the rabbi wrote to the shows,
and sometimes that's the actual thing that we do. Here's
how we're selling the comments. Here is how we're doing this.
So I think that we have to think of it
as in a variety of levels. I would say my
own finish, if you will, or my own point of
emphasis into the discussions. Actually not at the bottom end,
but at the top is the range of things that
halaja can cover. And this is a lot of what
I talk about my book is that what what rabbinic
discourse does is it uses legal language to talk about
all sorts of questions and issues that may not be
thought of as legal in other contexts. So I always say,
you know, in our culture, we have poetry, we have film,
we have literature, we have art. We have high brow
versions of the things, we have low brow versions of
these things. We have Facebook, we have podcasts, right, and
lots of lots of ways to communicate and lots of
lots of ways to frame ideas, and we tend to
think about law as fairly narrow, bound to the state
right and bound to prescriptive behaviors. So halaka has that.
But what Rabinic literature doesn't have is all these other
modes of discourse, or if it hasn't, they're all smushed together.
You know, it has agada, it has drush out, but
they all kind of tend to sort of revolve often
around legal concepts. And therefore the idea is that the
legal takes up so much space and therefore does a
lot of work. And the challenge is, you know, now,
maybe going back to the bottom line, is that we
use the same body of texts in the same sort
of set of concepts both to do our kind of
big thinking about the world and to do our regulating
and that could be hard because those are designed different things.
I think the process of creating halahala myset from Hallaha
is complicated precisely because it has to traverse this distance
and the lines are not always clear and open for debate.
Speaker 1: Fair Enough, that was the kind of answer that has
was both detailed and complex enough but also irreducible enough.
I think we have to expect that you cannot reduced
to a thing or another thing. It is somewhat like
like law, and somewhat not, and inclusive of some aspects
of it, but also ranges vastly beyond it. And I'm
afraid that time has forced us to draw this conversation
to a close. And I thank you very much for
as a high samon, for joining us today on the
Podcast of Jewish Ideas. This has been a lot of
fun and we look forward to your future publications, whatever
and whenever they may they may be.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: This has been the Podcast of Jewish Ideas by Tora
in Motion, produced by Alisha Kellman and myself Jjkimbri, edited
and mixed by Alisha Kelman. You can stay up to
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