Rambam's Contradiction Regarding Eating On Erev Yom Kippur

The Aruch Hashulchan OH 604:6-8 asks a gevaldig kashe on the Rambam:

סימן תרד סעיף ו

ודע דברמב"ם, בכל הלכות שביתת עשור – לא נמצא דין זה דכל האוכל ושותה בתשיעי וכו'. ולכאורה טעמו פשוט: דהנה ביומא שם נחלקו תנאי בהך קרא. דחד תנא יליף מזה לתוספת יום הכיפורים, והכי איתא התם: "ועניתם" וגו' "בתשעה לחדש" – יכול יתחיל ויתענה בתשיעי? תלמוד לומר: "בערב". אי בערב – יכול משתחשך? תלמוד לומר: "בתשעה". הא כיצד? מתחיל ומתענה מבעוד יום; מכאן שמוסיפין מחול על הקדש וכו'.

ופריך: הך תנא דדריש תוספת מקרא אחרינא, מאי עביד ליה להך קרא? ומתרץ: לכל האוכל ושותה בתשיעי כאלו התענה וכו'.

והרמב"ם בפרק ראשון משביתת עשור דין ו כתב, וזה לשונו: וצריך להוסיף מחול על הקדש וכו', שנאמר: "ועניתם את נפשתיכם בתשעה לחדש בערב", כלומר: התחל לצום ולהתענות מערב תשיעי הסמוך לו וכו'. עד כאן לשונו. וכיון דדריש הך קרא לתוספת, ממילא דלית ליה דרשא דכל האוכל ושותה וכו', ולכן השמיטה.

Know that in the Rambam, in his Laws of Yom Kippur, this law of eating and drinking on the ninth does not exist. And ostensibly, the reason is simple: In Yoma, it's a Tannaic dispute regarding the interpretation of that verse. One of the Tannaim derives from that verse the concept of adding extra time to the day of Yom Kippur [by starting earlier than sunset]. Thus we have there: 

"And you shall afflict your soul... on the ninth of the month..." Do you really think one should start fasting on the ninth? The Torah therefore says, "in the evening." But if it's the evening, one might think [this means] only once it gets dark? The Torah therefore says, "on the ninth." How does one accomplish this? He shall start fasting while it is still day. From here we have the concept of adding from the non-holy day to the holy day...

And [the gemara] questions this: But the Tanna who derives the concept of adding extra time to Yom Kippur from a different verse, what does he do with this verse? And [the gemara] answers: That anyone who eats and drinks of the ninth is as if he fasted for both days...

And so the Rambam in Laws of Yom Kippur 1:6 writes, "And one must add from the non-holy day onto the holy day... as it says, 'And you shall afflict your souls on the ninth of the month in the evening,' meaning, you shall start to fast from the end of the ninth close to it..." And since he uses this verse for the concept of adding time to Yom Kippur, he therefore doesn't use it for the derivation of "Anyone who eats and drinks..."

And that's why he leaves it out.

סימן תרד סעיף ז

אבל אם כן, למה הזכיר הרמב"ם זה בהלכות נדרים פרק שלישי דין ט, וזה לשונו: הנודר שיצום יום ראשון או יום שני וכו', והרי הוא יום טוב או ערב יום הכיפורים – חייב לצום וכו'. פגע בו חנוכה ופורים – ידחה נדרו וכו', הואיל האיסור בהם מדברי סופרים – צריכין חיזוק.

עד כאן לשונו, ומשמע להדיא דערב יום הכיפורים אסור להתענות מן התורה, כביום טוב, ואינו צריך חיזוק. וכן תפסו מפרשי דבריו.

But if so, why does the Rambam mention it in the Laws of Vows 3:9, "One who vows to fast on Monday or Tuesday, and it turns out it is Yom Tov or Erev Yom Kippur, he is obligated to fast... If it turns out it is Chanukah or Purim, he should push off the fast [til afterward]. since it is a rabbinical prohibition to fast on those days, it needs bolstering [and therefore fasting on it to fulfill a vow is forbidden]."

It is explicitly implied that Erev Yom Kippur is forbidden to fast on from the Torah, like Yom Tov, and doesn't need bolstering. And that's how the commentators have understood his words.

סימן תרד סעיף ח

ואני תמה מאד על זה. דאי סלקא דעתך דהרמב"ם סבירא ליה דאסור להתענות בערב יום הכיפורים מדאורייתא, או אפילו מדרבנן, ושהוא מחוייב לאכול בו ולשתות – איך לא היה מזכיר במקומו בהלכות שביתת עשור, ולסמוך על מה שיזכיר בדרך אגב בהלכות נדרים ולהיפך, שחייב להתענות?

ולכן נראה לעניות דעתי ברור כמו שכתבתי, שהרמב"ם דחה זה מהלכה, מטעמא דכתיבנא. וזה שכתב בהלכות נדרים שחייב להתענות – אין הטעם כמו ביום טוב, משום דהוי דאורייתא או סמך דאורייתא. ואינו צריך חיזוק, אלא אדרבא, משום דאין בה מצוה כלל לאכול, לא מדאורייתא ולא מדרבנן. ולכן ממילא דחל הנדר.

והא שהוצרך להזכיר זה כלל – משום דמנהג העולם להרבות בסעודה בערב יום הכיפורים. וכמבואר במדרש, במעשה דההוא חייטא שסילק מעות הרבה בעד דג בערב יום הכיפורים, והובא בטור. ובסוף פרק חמישי דחולין (פג א) מצינו גם כן, שבגליל היו מרבין בסעודות בערב יום הכיפורים. ולבלי לטעות שיש בזה על כל פנים מצוה דרבנן, ואין הנדר חל כבחנוכה ופורים – קא משמע לן דאין בה מצוה גמורה דרבנן, והנדר חל. ואין הרמב"ם יחיד בזה, כי גם ברי"ף וסמ"ג לא מצאתי דין זה, שמצוה לאכול בערב יום הכיפורים. וטעמם גם כן משום דהביאו הך קרא לתוספת, עיין שם.

I am very puzzled by this! If one thinks that the Rambam holds that it is forbidden to fast on Erev Yom Kippur on a Torah level, or even on a rabbinical level, and that one must eat on it and drink - how could he not mention it in the appropriate place, in the Laws of Yom Kippur, but instead rely on the fact he mentioned it by-the-by in the Laws of Vows, through the opposite fact where one would be obligated to fast [if one took a vow].

And so, it seems in my humble opinion that it is clear according to what I have said, that the Rambam discarded this law, as I wrote. And the fact that he wrote in the Laws of Vows that one is obligated to fast [if one took a vow for Erev Yom Kippur], the reason isn't because it is a Yom Tov, whether on a Torah level or close to it, and it doesn't even need bolstering. Just the opposite - [the reason one must fast on it if one took a vow to do so is] because there is totally no mitzvah to eat, either on a Torah level or rabbinical. That's why the vow takes effect.

And the reason why it was mentioned at all is because the custom of everyone is to eat a lot on Erev Yom Kippur. And there is a Midrash of a tailor who spent much money for a fish on Erev Yom Kippur, brought by the Tur. And we find it similarly in the end of the 5th chapter of Chulin 83a that they would have much for meals on Erev Yom Kippur. And so that one will not be mistaken that there is some rabbinical mitzvah, and therefore the vow shouldn't take effect on that7 day like Chanukah and Purim - [the Rambam] teaches us that there is no rabbinical command at all, and the vow takes effect. And the Rambam is not alone on this, for I didn't find this law in the Rif and the Smag the command to eat on Erev Yom Kippur. And their reasoning is because that verse is used for adding time to Yom Kippur, see there.

I told over this Aruch Hashulchan at the Seudat Hamfseket right before Yom Kippur, and my family generally found it a weak answer. The Rambam puts a day people eat among holidays, because one would think its a holiday, and a d'rabbanan at that? People would need a lot of pilpul to learn it not only as a d'rabbanan, but that it requires chizuk like Chanukah and Purim. Surely, the people capable of thinking of these implications would know better anyway? Also, what about the day before Tisha B'Av? People don't eat then?

My father had a different, more ingenious answer. It goes like this:

The Aruch Hashulchan demonstrated well that the Rambam uses the verse of the "ninth" for learning out Tosefet Yom Kippur, not for eating on the ninth. So definitely he believes that the eating on the ninth is not the derasha we pasken by. That said, you still would think you cannot do the opposite - which is fast on it. Why? Because the day is set aside for the ability to add Yom Kippur into it. It may be true that you can only add from a certain point (plag, or whatever it is), but you cannot take away the day from Yom Kippur and give it to something else. You would think you cannot allow Erev Yom Kippur to be its own fast day, because if you do, you cannot add the fast of the tenth from the ninth, since you are fulfilling a separate vow.

In a different way to say it: You cannot vow to keep a mitzvah, since it's already obligated for you to do. So too, you would think cannot vow to fast on Erev Yom Kippur since the derasha of adding from the ninth to the tenth means that Erev Yom Kippur has the obligation of fasting set on it, though it's on you when to start that.

Thus, the Rambam's innovation is that you would be obligated to fast anyway, regardless that its for the vow instead of for Yom Kippur.

I had a different answer, but it was more in the strain of the Aruch Hashulchan's. It goes like this:

Many mitzvot have a hechsher mitzvah, a necessary preparatory activity to accomplish the mitzvah. So, to be able to dwell in one's sukkah, one must build a sukkah before the holiday. In fact, in the case of a sukkah, there is a question if in the case of sukkah it is a hechsher mitzvah or a mitzvah on its own. Similarly, to be able to successfully fast on Yom Kippur, which is a mitzvah, one must eat the day before. Is it a mitzvah, to eat the day before, or a hechsher mitzvah to be able to fast the day after?

I believe the derasha of "Eat on the ninth" is to make it a mitzvah of its own. The Rambam does not pasken like this derasha, but rather, "Tosefet Yom Kippur." However, that means he considers eating on the ninth not as a mitzvah but a hechsher mitzvah. You need to be able to fast successfully. There is no reason to have this in the section of Yom Kippur, since it's not a command itself.

But what if someone makes a vow to undo the hechsher mitzvah and fast on the ninth? The huge innovation of the Rambam is that he can do so, since it is only a hechsher mitzvah and not the mitzvah itself. 

The tzaruch iyun is if there is evidence the Rambam supports removing a hechsher mitzvah, resulting in an unsuccessful performance of the mitzvah. It could be that Rambam the doctor knew that one could survive two days without eating or drinking, and therefore the removing of the hechsher mitzvah doesn't necessarily spell an unsuccessful fasting on Yom Kippur itself. In fact, Rava would regularly fast 2 days for Yom Kippur because of safek yom (Rosh Hashana 21a):

רבא הוה רגיל דהוה יתיב בתעניתא תרי יומי זימנא חדא אשתכח כוותיה ר"נ יתיב בתעניתא כוליה יומי דכיפורי לאורתא אתא ההוא גברא א"ל למחר יומא רבה במערבא א"ל מהיכא את א"ל מדמהריא א"ל דם תהא אחריתו קרי עליה קלים היו רודפינו

Rava was accustomed to fast two days [on the Day of Atonement]. Once he was found to be right. R' Nachman had once fasted the whole of the Day of Atonement, when in the evening a man came and told him, "Tomorrow is the Great Day [of atonement] in the West. He said to him, "Where are you from?" He replied, "From Damharia." 'Blood (dam) will be his end', applying to himself the verse, "Swift were our pursuers."

I'll add to this that the concept of being able to cancel a hechsher mitzvah through a vow has some traction in the Acharonim. For example, the Avnei Nezer (OH 535:10) discusses this in the context of making Aliyah:

י ובמה שכתבתי נראה לי לדחות מה שכתב הרשב"ש בתשובה נסי' א' דנשבע שלא יעלה לארץ ישראל לא חשוב נשבע לבטל את המצוה דאין המצוה העלי' רק הישיבה והעלי' מכשירין והביא מהא למפורש במשנה נדרים דף ט"ז נשבע לבטל את המצוה סוכה שאיני עושה לולב שאיני נוטל ובגמרא שם מפרש הא דסוכה שאיני עושה דאמר שבועה שלא אשב בסוכה משמע שאם נשבע שלא יעשה סוכה לא חשוב נשבע לבטל ומשום דמצוה הישיבה והעשי' מכשירין הכי נמי בעלי' לארץ ישראל עכ"ל ולפי מה שכתבתי אין הנידון דומה לראי' לסוכה אין המצוה לישב בסוכה זו דווקא ואילו הי' לו סוכה אחרת לא הי' מחוייב לעשוח סוכה זו אין העשי' מצוה מה שאין כן העלי' לארץ ישראל שאי אפשר לישב בארץ ישראל אלא אם כן יעלה אס כן העלי' גופה מצוה 

According to what I wrote, I can discard that which the Rashbash wrote that one who vows not to make aliyah to Israel is not considered someone who vows to cancel a mitzvah, since Aliyah is not a mitzvah, rather settling it is, and Aliyah is but a hechsher mitzvah. And he brought a proof from an explicit Mishnah in Nedarim that someone who vows not to make a Lulav, or not to take a Lulav. And the gemara explains that someone who says [to be continued]

One of the many nafka minas is if it is a hechsher mitzvah, then people exempt from fasting on Yom Kippur (a sick person or the like) would not be obligated in the hechsher mitzvah. If it is a mitzvah of its own, even the exempt person should keep it. Conversely, if it is a mitzvah of its own, women should ostensibly be exempt since it would be a mitzvat aseh shehazeman gerama. But if it is a hechsher mitzvah, and women are obligated to fast on Yom Kippur, they are obligated to eat on the ninth.

This precise issue isn't taken up by Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein's son, Rav Baruch Epstein in his commentary Torah Temimah to Leviticus 23:32:97, but he does approach the various issues and nafka minas of what I just raised. I want to note especially that he talks about the purpose of eating on the ninth. There, he suggests that it's to make the fast harder, and he quotes a passage in Taanit that people would not fast on Sunday, since going from feasting on Shabbat to nothing is hard. The Aruch Hashulchan also states this. So the Torah Temimah seems not to have known his father said the same thing... Or he quoted him without attribution, which the Torah Temimah does a lot.

וטעם הדבר שמצוה לאכול ולשתות בתשיעי - לא נתבאר, וי"ל ע"פ מ"ד בתענית כ"ז ב' דאנשי משמר שבמקדש לא היו מתענין באחד בשבת, ואמרו על זה בגמרא הרבה טעמים, ואחד מהם הוא כדי שלא יצאו ממנוחה ועונג לצער ותענית, וכתבו המפרשים בבאור טעם זה, מפני שתענית הבא לאחר יום רבוי אכילה ושתיה קשה התענית יותר מכפי תענית אחר יום בסדר רגיל, ולכן מכיון שבשבת מרבים לאכול ולשתות והוי התענית שביום הראשון קשה יותר לכן לא היו מתענין אז, ולפי"ז מבואר שכל האוכל ושותה בתשיעי מעלה עליו הכתוב כאלו מתענה תשיעי ועשירי, והוא מפני שתענית יום עשירי קשה לו ע"י רבוי אכילה בתשיעי, ונמצא שאכילה בתשיעי הוי הכנה לקושי התענית, ולכן עולה לו התענית של יום העשירי בערך תענית של שני ימים.

ויתבאר מאד לפי"ז מש"כ רש"י בר"ה ט' א' בענין זה כל האוכל ושותה בתשיעי - כל דמפיש טפי באכילה ושתיה עדיף, עכ"ל, וכ"מ בחולין פ"ג א' וק"י א', ולכאורה אינו מבואר איפה מרומז רבוי אכילה ושתיה, אבל לפי מש"כ מבואר היטב, דכיון דכל מה שמרבה להתענג בערב יום התענית בערך כזה קשה התענית שלמחר, א"כ ממילא כל מה שמרבה לאכול ולשתות עדיף, דבזה הוא מקבל עליו יותר קושי התענית.

ואף יתבאר עוד לפי"ז מש"כ בשאלתות דרא"ג סי' קס"ז דמצות אכילה בתשיעי היא רק אז כשמתענה בעשירי, וכן ביאר דעתו מרן דודי בבאורי הע"ש שם, ולכאורה אינו מבואר מאי שייכות שתי מצוות אלו להדדי, אבל לפי מש"כ דהטעם הוא דהרבוי אכילה ושתיה הוא רק הכנה לקבלת קושי התענית, ממילא מסתבר דמי שאינו מתענה בעשירי כגון חולה אינו מחויב באכילה בתשיעי.

והנה לפי"ז יוצא לנו, דמי שאינו מחויב בתענית יוהכ"פ כמו חולה אינו מחויב באכילה בערב יוהכ"פ, והוא דין מחודש מאוד, וצ"ע למעשה.

ורבנו עקיבא איגר בתשובה סי' ט"ז נסתפק אם נשים מצוות לאכול בערב יוהכ"פ, יען כי יש סברא לומר דזה הוי מ"ע שהז"ג ונשים פטורות, ונשאר בספק, ולפי מה שבארנו בטעם מצות אכילה בערב יוהכ"פ ובשייכות מצוה למצות התענית, הלא ממילא מתבאר דגם נשים מחויבות באכילה בערב יוהכ"פ כיון שמחויבות בגוף התענית, והרי חיובן בפרט זה כמו הגברים.

גם יש להביא ראיה למצות נשים באכילה בערב יוהכ"פ ולבאר ע"פ סברא זו שכתבנו דברי הגמרא בביצה ל' א' בענין תוספת יוהכ"פ, הני נשי דאכלי ושתי בערב יוהכ"פ עד חשיכה לא אמרינן להו מידי, משום דמוטב שיהיו שוגגין וכו', וכן קיי"ל. והנה הדבר בכלל הוא פליאה גדולה, דהרי הדבר ידוע שהנשים בכלל זהירות הן גם במצות קלות ואפילו מאלה שפטורות מהן, ומכש"כ שזהירות ומדקדקות במצות יוהכ"פ, ואיך זה יאכלו בערב יוהכ"פ עד חשיכה, ויותר מזה ברור לנו שלא תשמענה גם אם נמחה בהן, כמ"ש מוטב שיהיו שוגגין ואל יהיו מזידין, ודבר פלא הוא.

אך לפי מש"כ דגם הנשים מצוות ברבוי אכילה ושתיה בערב יוהכ"פ, ומפני דכל מ"ע שהז"ג הן פטורות ורק בזו חייבות, לכן חביבה עליהן מצוה זו ומוסיפות בה עד שתחשך, ולכן יש לחוש שגם לא תשמענה אם נמחה בהן, ודו"ק.

ולפי זה יש להעיר במש"כ הרא"ש והר"ן פ"ד דביצה והרמ"א באו"ח סי' תר"ח לילף מסוגיא זו דביצה, דבכל דבר איסור אמרינן מוטב שיהיו שוגגין וכו' ולא מחינן בנשים, דלפי מש"כ אין ראיה מכאן לדעלמא, דהכא עוברין על איסור זה בטעם ובכונה שתחשובנה למצוה, כמבואר, אבל בשאר איסורין למה לא נגיד ונמחה בהן, כי מהיכי תיתא לא תשמענה להמנע מאיסור.

ודע כי הב"י באו"ח סי' תר"ח ובכ"מ פ"ג ה"ט מנדרים כתב דכל דרשה זו דכל האוכל ושותה בתשיעי היא אסמכתא בעלמא, ועיקר הדרשה אתיא לענין תוספת יוהכ"פ כמבואר בדרשה הבאה, יעו"ש. אבל צל"ע בזה ממה שכתבו התוס' במו"ק ח' ב' בענין הדין שאין נושאין נשים במועד משום דאין מערבין שמחה בשמחה דכתיב ושמחת בחגך ולא באשתך, וכתבו התוס' עיקר דרשה היא זו ולא אסמכתא משום דאמרינן בחגיגה ח' ב' ורב אשי האי ושמחת בחגך מאי עביד ליה, ומשני אצטריך להא דבחגך ולא באשתך, עכ"ל. ור"ל אי הוי אסמכתא לא שייך לומר דאצטריך הפסוק לזה, והנה כלשון זה מצינו בענין שלפנינו בר"ה ט' א' וביומא פ"א ב' והאי תנא האי ועניתם בתשעה לחודש מאי עביד ליה ומשני אצטריך להא דכל האוכל ושותה בתשיעי וכו', ולדברי התוס' הלא לא אמרינן כזה בדרשה אסמכתית, אלא עקרית. והנה הרמב"ם השמיט כל ענין דרשה זו, וכבר נתעוררו על זה המפרשים ואין להאריך עוד:

Gersonides versus Maimonides on Psalms 33:15

I read Gersonides’ discussion regarding divine knowledge with much interest, as it is so against the tenor of common Orthodox Jewish belief regarding God’s omniscience. Looking around the Orthodox world today, I think we can safely declare Maimonides the victor in his position of God’s absolute knowledge, even with all his mystery regarding the nature of God’s knowledge.

As I continued through the chapters, I thought to myself, this is well and good, to say that God is ignorant of particulars, but this cannot possibly be aligned with the Torah. In fact, like we saw last time in class when it came to divine attributes, Gersonides accuses Maimonides of falling prey to theological needs, rather than philosophical truths. Indeed, he does so again somewhat backhandedly when he writes at the very beginning of our section (116), “Now that we have philosophically proven that Maimonides’ counterargument against the objections of the philosophers is not satisfactory - it is evident that the dispute with them should be philosophical and not from the Torah…” This implies, again, that Maimonides was making a purely Torah argument without philosophical basis at all, which is quite interesting.

So when I came upon the last chapter for this section, how Gersonides plans to accord the Torah with his philosophically proven (to him anyway) theory that God knows the generalities and not the particulars, I knew I was in for a treat. As I expected, his proofs from the Torah are hardly proofs, and most interesting of all is that he makes no recourse for the Talmud or any other rabbinic work, since I doubt he could. I cannot think of a single passage of the Talmud that could support this theory.

But even if there was, he explains why he stuck to biblical passages - he wanted to show that the Torah does not necessarily disagree with it. He says, there is no reason to deny a valid theory, and in fact (136) “it is proper to interpret these passages according to the philosophical understanding, so long as none of the fundamental principles of the Torah are destroyed.” (I’m fairly curious if Gersonides explicitly states what he believes the “fundamental principles of the Torah are.” At least, we can see what he was fighting for was important to him, so things like free will and prophecy seem fundamental to him.) And interestingly, he marshalls Maimonides as a support for the concept that divine knowledge could be only general, or at least it doesn’t contradict the Torah. I expected him to find support in Maimonides for the idea that you need not deny a philosophical principles if it doesn't contradict fundamental principles, which Maimonides explicitly says regarding creationism and the Torah, but I think Gersonides found that as obvious, and didn’t feel the need to look to Maimonides for that.

I say this all as a preamble for an interesting thing I found, where there seems to be a convergence between Gersonides and Maimonides on one particular verse - that of Psalms 33:15. It is: “He who fashions the hearts of them all, who discerns all their doings.” Gersonides argument seems to be (and this is why Feldman italicized it) that the verse says multiple times, “all”, in order to show that all of this happened at once, in that God knows the generalities and the the particular occurrences. He writes, (135) “In this way God considers all their deeds, i.e. simultaneously, not in the sense that His knowledge refers to the particulars as particular.”

This is a pretty weak interpretation, as I’m sure he was aware. I think there was a reason he needed to figure out an interpretation of this passage. I think he saw something in rabbinic literature and he wanted to answer for it. Perhaps, he knew of a passage of Maimonides about that piece of rabbinic literature, and wanted to show he could answer it. I think that’s why he put this here, and why he offered something, anything, so that he could respond.

I refer to Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2, and Maimonides’ Commentary to the Mishnah there. The Mishnah states, “On Rosh Hashanah, all the world passes before Him like Bnei Maron, as it says, (Psalms 33:15) ‘He that fashions the hearts of them all, that considers all their doings.’” Well, there you have it. A fairly explicit rabbinic passage that speaks of God as if God knows particulars. The Talmud seeks to interpret “Bnei Maron”, all interpretations that conceive of God peering into every person individually, on their own. And to prove it, the Mishnah uses the very verse that Gersonides seeks to use to its opposite. So this is one hurdle that perhaps Gersonides sought to overcome - the rabbinic interpretation. By leaving out any rabbinic sources, and showing why the Torah doesn’t contradict his theory, he implicitly says that the rabbis could be wrong about this. This isn’t a problem - Maimonides says this several times.

However, perhaps Gersonides was responding to something Maimonides says there. Maimonides writes, (I’m translating from Kafih’s version) “The simple meaning of this language is clear as you can see, but the secret of its topic is undoubtedly very difficult.” What did Maimonides find difficult to explain?

Many have attempted to explain this. Perhaps more well-known is Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller in his commentary to the Mishnah, Tosafot Yom Tov, where he writes that the thing that bothered the Rambam is the concept that God looks at each person individually to judge them, yet the Talmud also says that God does this all in one glance. These are impossible and paradoxical statements, and therefore difficult to understand. I saw that Abravenel, on Emor, suggests that Maimonides couldn’t understand why there is such a thing as Rosh Hashanah for judgement is judgement day is every day, not one day a year. Rav Kook writes in several places (I saw one quoted in Tov Ro’i on the Talmud Rosh Hashanah 16a) that Maimonides had a hard time understanding how the passage of time, viewing each person individually, could be related to God.

But I think this is just one more time that Maimonides was saying that we cannot understand the nature of God’s knowledge. He writes this in several places, for example, Laws of the Foundation 2:10, Repentance 5:5, and it’s almost his go-to to explain all of the problems he encounters with his theory of God’s absolute knowledge. By throwing this out there, he is just trying to get more traction to his declaration of the differences in God’s knowledge to our own. That is, that the Mishnah shows us God must have knowledge of particulars, but we can’t fathom the nature of it.

Gersonides explicitly frowns upon this “move”. He writes (132) “It is evidently not necessary for us to accept the difference between divine and human knowledge postulated by Maimonides.” So what does he do? He reinterprets the verse to its complete opposite, in order to render Maimonides’ comment, and the plain meaning of the Mishnah, obsolete. Perhaps that explains why he introduces this interpretation that seems quite weak.

Observation as an Argument in Gersonides’ Section on Prophecy

As I read through Gersonides’ section on prophecy and divination, I have noticed something quite interesting. Medieval Aristotelian natural science often seems like philosophical guesswork. Instead of being a study of the world through observation and empirical data, the greatest scientist in medieval times seems to be the philosopher, who attempted more so to apply logical principles to the world, such as deductive and inductive reasoning, to determine its nature. The problem was, the facts of the behavior of nature and those principles did not always align. One of these areas of contradiction was astrology. Astrology claimed that the stars and planets influenced the way people acted, and determined their nature. If a man was born under one star, he would act in a certain way and certain events would happen to him, differently than if he was born under another. However, the predictions were so often in error, and the mechanisms of influence were difficult to determine logically.

However, over and over again we find Gersonides appeal to an interesting type of proof for his arguments for astrology and prophecy. And that is, the reality of its occurrence to him and others. Early on, to fight against the claim that prophecy of chance events in dreams could not occur, Gersonides writes about Averroes’ denial (32-33), “This is contrary to what sense-experience testifies… Indeed we ourselves have had such communications many times in dreams, and this has occurred to others, according to what we have heard from them.” In case you missed it, Gersonides rejects objections against prophecy of chance-events since, among other reasons, he himself(!) has had them!

In his next discussion, regarding the nature of chance events, he goes on to note that chance events have some kind of order to them. That’s why, he says, people can predict chance events with some accuracy, and can profit from their knowledge, giving rise to the notions of (33) “men of good fortune” and those who don’t profit from them, “men of bad fortune.” Again, he uses observable occurrences to demonstrate the nature and reality of certain things. And the most astounding thing is that he admits, (33) “Would that I knew how this is possible!”

He does this again, i.e. pitting philosophical knowledge against his own observance of the world, in reference to astrology. Though he admits that there is (36) “little we know about astrology”, he writes that people who were born in a certain place can be seen to tend toward certain crafts and skills. He writes, “We therefore observe that men who work in trivial or despised crafts do not leave these jobs for other work, although they have the capacity to transfer jobs. Indeed, we see people beginning to learn such lowly and despised jobs in preference to better jobs.” There is always this emphasis on observation to prove his point, despite the fact it cannot be explained.

Indeed, he relies on this point to argue that astrology is correct, despite the fact that the astrologists so often err. He writes that “frequently”, astrologists accurately predict “the thoughts and actions of men.” However, he notes that they “often” are incorrect in their predictions. He ascribes this to the difficulty in obtaining knowledge in this area, emphasizing “the inadequate procedures of verification characteristic of this discipline.” For example, he says, is that “the zodiac position of a heavenly body at any given time is only repeated once in many thousand years.” Additionally, “the movements of the heavenly bodies are not sufficiently known.” Thus, Gersonides says, we see astrology is correct with our own eyes. But if only we could observe reality more, we would see more accurate results. Again, this is a very modern scientific mindset, albeit with a debunked assumption of natural phenomena that is astrology.

There are more examples to add to this. As he continues through his arguments regarding prophecy, he deals with the types of prophecy that could be communicated. Can one prophesy regarding theoretical matters, even without knowing the causes? For example, can one have prophecy regarding medical cures without possessing any knowledge of why it would work? Again we find Gersonides appeal to what has been reported to have occurred to others. He writes, (42) “We see that many principles of medicine are communicated in sleep without their reasons…” He emphasizes great and famous doctors such as Galen and ibn Zohar write about this fact. He goes on to further note that this has happened “in my own lifetime.”

This is all to buttress his argument that theoretical matters can be communicated without their cause - because it’s happened! But he notes that logically, it shouldn’t work. He thus poses the problem quite poignantly: (44) “We are now in a quandary. Our experience testifies that there is knowledge of theoretical matters in this kind of communication, whereas logical argument indicates the opposite.” He notes that Maimonides sides with logic over experience, and therefore denies that Galen truly received this knowledge in dreams. But Gersonides objects, “To deny this is to deny empirical evidence.” Nevertheless, though he attempts to explain how communication works with theoretical knowledge in dreams, he cannot use his explanations for medical knowledge. He declares, (46) “Would that I knew!”

He is forced to use creative and wide-reaching conclusions as to the way medicine works, declaring that it must be “determined by the heavenly bodies.” How does he prove this as being so? “When you examine all these stories of doctors concerning this phenomenon, you will see that the knowledge of these cures is transmitted in this way… It is in this way that a great deal of knowledge of medicine arises, as has been related by the physicians.” Again, appeal to experience and observation toward the efficacy of the cures is how he demonstrates truth!

These are just some examples that show how Gersonides relies on experience to prove the truth of certain principles of reality.

Chiastic Structure of Datan and Aviram's Argument

Numbers 16:12-6:14

Moses then sent word to summon Dathan and Aviram, the sons of Eliav. They said:

A. We won't go up!
      
        B. Isn't it enough that you brought us out [of Egypt], a land flowing with milk and honey - just to kill us in the desert! 
                
                  C. But you have made yourself an authority over us - yes, made yourself an authority.
     
         B. You didn't bring us to a land flowing with milk and honey, or give us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you think that you can pull something over our eyes? 

A. We won't go up!


How do we explain this structure? It seems to me there is an obvious element of chiasm here, from the very fact that it begins and ends with "we won't go up", and has a parallel "land of milk and honey" as well. But usually the middle C is to emphasize or inform in a way that we would not have known before. Isn't their claim of authority obvious? Didn't we know that before?

Maybe we have to dig deeper to find the true chiastic structure. Maybe there is a hidden, subconscious message that Datan and Aviram may not have even known about their complaint, but is deeply embedded in it.

On the outside, externally, it looks like Datan and Aviram are upset because Moshe has the gal to lead them, and yet has led them badly. Is this the same claim as Korach? Korach had said, "כִּי כָל הָעֵדָה כֻּלָּם קְדשִׁים וּבְתוֹכָם יְהֹוָה וּמַדּוּעַ תִּתְנַשְּׂאוּ עַל קְהַל ה," that everyone is holy, and therefore there should be no authority structure (alternatively: anyone should have the chance to lead the people). And Datan and Aviram seem very similar to that - why do you lift yourself up? Let's look closer, though.

A. We won't go up!
      
        B. You took us from Egypt with milk and honey to die in desert
                
                  C. But you have made yourself an authority 
                                 
                                      D. On us 
                
                  C. Yes, made yourself an authority.
     
         B. You didn't bring us to a land flowing with milk and honey, or give us nice land

A. We won't go up!

The main difference between Korach's claim and Datan and Aviram's claim is, "עָלֵינוּ." Korach had said that there is no reason Moshe should lord himself "עַל קְהַל ה." But that is not what Datan  and Aviram say. They say, "כִּי-תִשְׂתָּרֵר עָלֵינוּ, גַּם-הִשְׂתָּרֵר". The Torah wants to show that, deep down, their problem of Moshe's authority was not like Korach's. Not the noble intentions of Korach that you have too much power over the people, Datan and Aviram were upset that you have too much power over us, Datan and Aviram. We couldn't care less about the rest of Israel - but us, we don't want you to be able to command us in any way. We want to be able to do what we want without your authority.

In doing this exercise, I thought of an "out-there" interpretation that might work.

Perhaps the claim was that, by what right can you lead us - if your leading has gotten us into such trouble that we are cursed to die here? This is obviously your fault! We would never be in this mess if it weren't for you.

Blaming Moshe for their sins! But the Torah hides in their speech what they really knew - a Freudian slip in their mouths. They knew they were themselves at fault, and are lashing out at Moshe because it's easier than blaming themselves. So even though it sounds like, how could you cause us to die here in the desert and continue to be our leader, they were really, deep down, acknowledging that it was not on Moshe, but, "on us." It's our fault. It was a subconscious confession, realization, which the Torah hides in a chiastic structure.

Sermon Given In Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue, London

On June 11th

(After the many thanks yous to the community and Rabbi Mendel Lew, its rabbi, CJF and United Synagogue)

The more things change, the more they stay the same. As far as I have traveled, from New York to London, England, somehow I can be halfway across the world and find the religious experience of prayer so familiar in another Orthodox synagogue. The music, the melodious cantorial experience, the liturgy, the reading, the many features of an Orthodox synagogue, these are those that make me feel as if I am actually home. That isn’t to say that an Englishman is like a New Yorker, I expect you would be offended at such a comparison. But what I mean is that I have found this synagogue a uniting experience, I feel as if we are family, and I thank you for your friendliness and hospitality that has made Michal and my stay here all the more pleasant.

There is one issue that stands out as something you will never find in a synagogue in Ameica, one that could perhaps shock a New Yorker. In large print on the wall behind me, to my left, as you well know, is the prayer for the Queen of England, who deserves a grand happy birthday for her 90th today. However, we simply don't have such a prayer in New York - we haven't had monarchy in a few centuries.

But it is most fascinating for me, coming from Yeshiva University and the United States. The prayer for the queen, written in English as well as in Hebrew, must be contrasted with what we have on my right, the prayer for the state of Israel. And if you think about it, you may find it most strange. How, indeed, could we have said both today? Does this not represent a fierce dichotomous experience? How could we both pray for our brothers and sister in Israel, pray for the safety of our own nation, our own private concerns, and yet pray for the country in which we live? How can we abide in two worlds, a world which values the outside world, the welfare of where we stay, turning us outward, and also live in the world of what makes us special as a people, which should turn us insular and inward? Is it possible to care for the Euro games (England vs Russia tonight!), yet value as well the lesson of the Sabbath and the importance of Torah? It certainly seems conflicting!

We read today an interesting Haftorah that seems wholly irrelevant to our Parsha. Bamidbar mostly discusses the numbers of the Jews, but only the first verse in the Haftorah relates to that topic - the promise of God that we shall one day be numerous like the sand in the sea and stars in the sky. The rest of the Haftorah, however, is not about that at all - it goes on to describe our falling away from God, and how one day we will unite in the time of the Messiah.

However, I believe it is indeed relevant - our relationship to God as Jews is summed up by the last few verses, which tells us how we can indeed become full of potential and truly innumerable.

The most pivotal verse states:

And I will make a covenant for them on that day with the beasts of the field and with the fowl of the sky and the creeping things of the earth; and the bow, the sword, and war I will break off the earth, and I will let them lie down safely.

God says, I will make a covenant with you, that somehow involves all the living creatures of the world, and all major conflict will dissipate. The bow and the sword will cease to exist, not only for us but for everyone. If we pay attention to the words of the prophet, we are struck by the seeming impossibility of that which he suggests. A covenant! That means a special two-way promise between God and the Jewish people. The end of war! That means a fundamental change in all of humanity!

Again we see the dichotomy we noticed earlier. And actually, we do find that there seem to be two ways to be religious Jews. We find that some have turned to their own, made their own communities, their own studies, their own schools, and have little to no connection and interaction with those beyond them. In truth, we have the concept that we are chosen, special, that this necessitates a focus particularly on our people, our practices, our Torah. And yet we know of the concept of tikkun olam, on being a light unto the nations, on reaching out to the human species and the recognition that we are all in this world together! And so many Jews go to Africa and many third world countries to heal the sick and change the world for the better. But often this leaves behind those special aspects of Jewish religion. Which one are we meant to practice? Are we Jews first and only, or Jews of the world? Must we rectify the universe, or shall we concentrate on setting our own house in order?

Let me present this in the view of Shavuot. There are two themes present in Shavuot that contradict and collide with each other; two ideas that coexist while giving us inconsonant messages We find that all the pilgrimage holidays in the Torah, Passover, Sukkot, and yes, Shavuot, have agricultural significance. Sukkot is the Holiday of Gathering, Chag Haasif, where one pulls together and piles up the grain from his field. Passover is the Chag Haaviv, the springtime holiday, where we plant our grains, especially wheat. Finally, Shavuot is the reaping holiday, Chag Hakatzir, when the wheat has grown enough to be cut in the field. In other parts of the Torah, it is called “Yom Habikkurim” since farmers bring their first fruits of the field to the Temple during this time. This is a theme to which anyone, Jew or Gentile, can relate: the need for grain, the worry about sustenance, the concern about feeding one’s family.

Amazingly, the rabbis of the Talmud identified an altogether different meaning of the holiday, hidden in the Torah’s chronology itself. That is something we will be saying in our prayers tonight and for the next couple of days, “zeman matan torateinu”. The time that we were given OUR Torah. It was around this time, about 50 days after leaving Egypt, that we found ourselves at the foot of a mountain, one nation, one soul. We declared, Naaseh Venishma, and from then on we became God’s “Am Segula”, His treasured and special people. A pivotal aspect of Jewish history.

Do you see the vast change here? The universal concern of the farmer and his crop is transformed into a nationalistic Torah ideal! The rabbinic consideration of Shavuot is extremely particularistic. It is the time for what makes us different, special, separate. Yet we must contrast this with the agricultural emphasis of the Torah, which is completely universal. Everyone is a farmer - or rather, everyone can appreciate the food we eat, the renewal of the cycle of the seasons, of the change that happens year in and year out as we move from spring to summer, from fall to winter, and its effect on our food supply. There is nothing that makes Chag HaKatzir, the reaping holiday, uniquely Jewish. All can understand it. But this is not so within “zeman matan Torateinu,” the holiday of the giving of the Torah. We seem stuck between two worlds, between ourselves on one hand, our particular nationalistic mission, the Shavuot which is the time of our Torah, and the Shavuot of all the world, the other, the people beyond us, those not Jewish, whom we interact with every day, those who enjoy eating as much as we do and who rely on the welfare of the food economy as much as we do. What is the nature of this holiday? What’s its message, a universalistic one or a particularistic one?

Another ritual related to Shavuot also contains this mysterious dichotomy. Jews around the world have been counting the Omer, the days from Passover leading up to Shavuot. Last night was the last time we performed this mitzvah - 49 straight nights of counting. Why do we do this?

Maimonides provides an answer in his Guide for the Perplexed 3:43 - “Shavuot is the time of the Giving of the Torah. In order to honor and elevate this day we count the days from the previous festival until it [arrives], like someone who is waiting for a loved one to arrive, who counts the days by the hours. This is the reason for counting the Omer from the day that we left Egypt until the day of the Giving of the Torah, as this was the ultimate purpose of leaving Egypt: “And I will bring them to Me” (Exodus 19:4).”

Thus, the counting of the Omer is to create that excitement and anticipation of the Torah. Our Torah. Our national endeavor. Our our our.

However, we have other sources that relate the counting to our anticipation of the upcoming harvest. Rabbi David Abudraham, the 14th century Spanish commentator on the Siddur, makes it a powerfully dramatic and indeed, traumatic religious experience: “Because the world is distressed from Passover to Shavuot regarding the grain and the fruit trees… Therefore, God commanded us to count these days so that we will remember the distress of the world, to return to God wholeheartedly, to plead before Him to have mercy on us, and on all people, and the land itself, so that it should produce grain as it is supposed to, for it is our life.”

So again, which is it - Torah or agriculture? The giving of the Torah or the celebration of the harvest? The particular or the universal? Looking inward or glancing outward?

The former chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, visited Yeshiva University several years ago. He taught the semicha class a powerful lesson of leadership and resolution of conflict which provided me with a crucial insight into this conundrum – an insight that had a powerful effect on my own understanding of this conflict.

Orthodox Jews around the world have the practice to mourn for part of the time that we count sefirah - for the Talmud reports that thousands of students of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Akiva died during this time period. How did they die? A plague wiped them out. The Sages were certain that this was supernatural. Thousands of students of the same teacher all died in a plague in such a short time span? What could possibly have caused this tragedy? Were they murderers? Rapists? They worshipped other gods? What is the worst crimes that could have warranted such terrible destruction and disaster in Jewish life? Must be something pretty bad. The Talmud states, “Lo nahagu kavod zeh lazeh.” - “They didn’t respect each other.”

Commentators (and rabbis on the Talmud) have struggled for centuries to understand the meaning of this. For lack of respect, failing to honor a fellow colleague, God sent them a death penalty?

Some focus on an even greater incongruity, for if we look at the teachings of Rabbi Akiva, it is even harder to understand what could have caused his students to act this way. After all, it was Rabbi Akiva who declared “You shall love your fellow as yourself” the greatest rule of the Torah. It was Rabbi Akiva who, when asked what an extra definitive article in the Hebrew command of “You shall fear the Lord”, he said that includes scholars as well. How could the students of Rabbi Akiva turn their backs on their teacher and ignore his teachings? How could Rabbi Akiva’s followers completely disregard his most important lesson?  

Rabbi Sacks noted that some say that the plague was not while Rabbi Akiva was still alive, but rather after his death. If so, said Rabbi Sacks, this indicated that the problem with his students took place in a post-Akiva world. What happens when a great leader dies? How do the followers of that leader react? Perhaps, as we have seen in our lifetimes, the problem was not simply about not giving respect to each other, but that they broke into sects of Jews who fought over their rabbi's teachings and legacy.

On the one hand, as we have noted, Rabbi Akiva was a man of ethics. Respect for each other and the respect of the sages of Israel was paramount. Peace and tolerance were matters that Rabbi Akiva valued highly. In many ways, he saw the value of the entire mosaic of humanity. He saw value in all people, going so far as saying in the Mishnaic work Ethics of the Fathers that all humankind is blessed for having been made in the image of God.

However, paradoxically, Rabbi Akiva supported the Bar Kochba revolt. He supported war for Jewish independence. He even imputed a divine mission to Bar Kochba as granting him the possible title of Messiah. For Rabbi Akiva. this was a religiously driven war. Rabbi Akiva the universalist was also Rabbi Akiva the particularist.

Somehow, Rabbi Akiva taught war as often as he taught love. Somehow, he taught particularism as much as he preached universalism. Rabbi Akiva was obviously a complicated man. And when every wonderfully complex leader dies, the complexity dies with them. The followers are too often unable to synthesize the multifaceted nature of their leader, and lines of extremism, of schism, are drawn. Some fight for the warring legacy of Rabbi Akiva. Others fight for his universalism and pacifism. And they are completely unable to see eye-to-eye - for each believes that he is fighting for the holy legacy of their leader, their teacher! They cannot ever agree, and each is willing to fight to the death for what he knows is the truth. As one can imagine, it wasn't too long before their extremist political-religious "legacies" died out. And the world was in shambles for it. It would seem that insulating ourselves from the world is just as dangerous as giving ourselves completely over to it. We learn from Rabbi Akiva’s students that there is a failure to Judaism to be an extremist, a fundamentalist, in either direction. His students believed that Rabbi Akiva’s true legacy was either particularism or universalism – and the result was that not one survived. For Rabbi Akiva’s legacy is reflected in the complexity of having a Judaism that insists on both the universal and the particular. Only the combination of the two accurately conveys the Jewish People’s divine mission.

If Rabbi Akiva was both universal and particular, both loving the fellow and fighting for our independence, so must we be. My friends, Rabbi Akiva teaches us that Judaism requires us both to be people of the world and people of the book. To love Jewish particularity along with love for the world around us. To keep our values in a world indifferent to values, and to teach where people wish to learn. If it looks contradictory on the outside, we must show how it is actually part and parcel of what it means to be a Jew.

Judaism starts with the question, and never fully answers it. In each generation, we look to our traditions as we look forward to the future that awaits us. We learn from our ancestors as we teach the next generation. We are indeed part of this world, and we hope for a day that our covenant with God, as we saw in the Haftorah, will influence the whole world toward world peace and prosperity, with the days of the Messiah soon to come.

Tonight we will begin Tikkun Leil Shavuot with learning Torah, here in the synagogue. If you would celebrate this holiday with us, please, I urge you, come tonight and learn together with us. Emphasize the importance of our unique addition to the world, even while we keep the universalistic ideal alive. See how the Torah can teach us so much about our positive contribution to the world. Come to see how to successfully synthesize the universalist Shavuot message of Chag Hakatzir, the time for praying and celebrating with the world, and the particularist message of Zman Matan Torateinu, the time to celebrate our Torah, our values, and our love for one another.

Scans of Divrei HaRov 1970-1971

Scans of Divrei HaRov 1970-1971

Listening to Dan Klein, author of Shadal on the Torah

Last night, I had the pleasure of listening to Dan Klein, who talked about his experience translating Shadal's commentary to the Torah, what inspired him to do so, and some of the difficulties he had in that translation.

When he opened up for questions, Rabbi Pesach Sommer asked him to talk about Shadal's interesting theory that "eye for an eye", which was interpreted by the rabbis as only monetary compensation, to Shadal remained available in the pshat for the rabbis to use for rich wicked people who are sadistic, who could theoretically just pay for their crimes. Thus the rabbis could employ the pshat in exigent circumstances. Rabbi Sommer asked where Shadal got this idea from. I didn't quite understand the question, why does Shadal need a source? I suppose the question really was, are there earlier sources that have the same kind of idea, or was this a product of Shadal's creativity?

It actually triggered an answer in my mind. Because Rabbi Eliezer says in Bava Kama 84a that indeed, "eye for an eye", means a literal eye for an eye, and the Talmud works hard to figure out how he didn't mean his own statement literally. Perhaps, this means Shadal was an adept reader of the Talmud and saw that the rabbis had previous traditions that read pshat and derash for the sake of how to run Jewish society. Thus, according to this, the rabbis are not consciously lying to the people, but rather using two modes of interpretation: the pshat as it pertains to living society, and the halachic drash as it pertains to living society.

Interestingly, someone else responded to the question that Maimonides in the Guide 3:41 creates a distinction between the pshat of "eye for an eye" and the rabbinic interpretation. I have written about this elsewhere. This person thought that the bigger question on Shadal is that he casts the rabbis as completely apart from the text of the Torah. As in, their role in interpretation was takkanot and not real interpretation.

I thought the bigger question was the idea that the rabbis lied to the people about where their interpretations came from, seemingly pretending that these were the original understandings of the Torah. I asked if this was connected to Shadal's idea that lying is ok for a purpose. We see this when the Jews are asked to lie to the Egyptians to borrow their gold, yet don't plan to return them. Shadal says that this is appropriate to do because the Egyptians were wicked and it was right for the Israelites to get their money for their servitude, and it doesn't matter that they lied. So perhaps Shadal saw a right of the elite to lie for a good purpose.

Dan Klein agreed that this was an element of it. He noted that Shadal talks about how the rabbis would pretend their interpretation was the only one for the good of the people to keep the law. Someone behind me commented interestingly that we can see Shadal attributing this even to God, that God would lie in the Torah for the beliefs of the people. For example he does this in his first comment on the Torah, where he claims that the Torah will not attempt to explain higher truths of the world, but rather desires the goodness of people, and thus the Torah is not an attempt at historical or scientific truth. (A rabbi of mine pointed out that he thinks Shadal is the first one, we're talking 1800's, to say explicitly that the Torah is not written in order to relay historical or scientific or philosophical truths) Meaning, the Torah will engage in "necessary truths" that encourage a certain mindset. 

A good example that comes to mind is his comment to the purpose of the half-shekel count, where he says that the people believed in the concept of an ayin hara, and the Torah did not wish to remove this superstition completely since it encourages belief in divine providence. Therefore it made use of a contemporary belief for its own elite purposes.

I would add as well that Shadal thinks God engages in flat-out lies for the good of the people. (Of course the Talmud states that God lied to Sarah about Abraham for the sake of peace, but I'm referring to the law and the reasons for it in the Torah.) He writes at the end of Yitro that the reason provided for not using metal to build the altar in the Torah was a fake reason so that people would keep it without conditions. Because if the real reason was given, people would say, I wouldn't fall into that trap. In this, he is following in a kind of footstep of the Talmud Sanhedrin which asks why the reasons were not revealed for many commands. It states that for the few that had the reasons provided (king shouldn't have too many wives to not fall into idolatry, nor too many horses lest he go back to Egypt) Solomon fell because of them, where he felt as long as he didn't violate the reason he could have these things, and his end was that he did indeed violate the reason, and fell into idolatry.

This leads me to the point of my post.

In Genesis 37:2 Rashbam famously writes that Torah verses always have a simple meaning apart from the Talmudic reading.[1]

ישכילו ויבינו אוהבי שכל מה שלימדונו רבותינו, כי אין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו. אף כי עיקרה של תורה באה ללמדנו ולהודיענו ברמיזת הפשט וההגדות וההלכות והדינין ועל ידי אריכות הלשון ועל ידי שלושים ושתים מידות של ר' אליעזר בנו של ר' יוסי הגלילי וע"י שלש עשרה מידות של ר' ישמעאל והראשונים מתוך חסידותם נתעסקו לנטות אחרי הדרשות שהן עיקר ומתוך כך לא הורגלו בעומק פשוטו של מקרא. ולפי שאמרו חכמים: אל תרבו בניכם בהגיון. וגם אמרו: העוסק במקרא מדה ואינה מדה, העוסק בתלמוד אין לך מדה גדולה מזו ומתוך כך לא הורגלו כל כך בפשוטן של מקראות וכדאמרינן במסכת שבת: הוינא בר תמני סרי שנין וגרסינן כולה תלמודא ולא הוה ידענא דאין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו. וגם רבינו שלמה אבי אמי מאיר עיני גולה שפירש תורה נביאים וכתובים, נתן לב לפרש פשוטו של מקרא. ואף אני שמואל ב"ר מאיר חתנו זצ"ל נתווכחתי עמו ולפניו והודה לי שאילו היה לו פנאי, היה צריך לעשות פירושים אחרים לפי הפשטות המתחדשים בכל יום. 

Those who love intelligence should perceive and understand what our rabbis have taught, that a Biblical passage never departs from its plain meaning - even as the most important aspect of the Torah comes to teach us and tell us through hints found in the plain meaning of the text, the aggadot, and halachot and laws derived through lengthy words and the 32 methods of Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yossi HaGalili, and the 13 methods of Rabbi Yishmael. The Rishonim, because of their piety, busied themselves with the drashot as their focus, and because of this they did not regularly delve into the plain meaning of the text, and because the Chachamim said not to spend too much time with higayon and expressed the significance not of learning Torah but of learning Talmud as having no greater measure, they did not regularly engage in establishing the plain meaning of the text. It is as we say in Talmud Shabbat, "I was 18 years old and I learned all of the Talmud and I never knew that a Biblical passage never departs from its plain meaning. Even our Rabbi Shlomo, my maternal grandfather, enlightener of the eyes of the exile, who wrote commentary on Tanakh, set his heart to explain the plain meaning of the text, even my grandfather Shlomo was an adherent of this school; and I, Shmuel the son of Meir his son in law, had an argument with him and before him, and he admitted to me that if he had had the time, he would make new commentaries according to the plain meanings that arise each day.

And in the beginning of Mishpatim he states:

ידעו ויבינו יודעי שכל כי לא באתי לפרש הלכות אעפ”י שהם עיקר, כמו שפירשתי בבראשית כי מיתור המקראות נשמעין ההגדות וההלכות, ומקצתן ימצאו בפירושי רבינו שלמה אבי אמי זצ”ל, ואני לפרש פשוטן של מקראות באתי. ואפרש הדינין וההלכות לפי דרך ארץ. ואעפ”כ ההלכות עיקר כמו שאמרו רבותינו הלכה עוקרת [מקרא] 

Those who have intelligence should know and understand that I have not come to explain halachot, even though they are the most important, as I explained in Genesis, the halachot and aggadot are derived from extraneousness in the text, and some of these can be found in the commentaries of my maternal grandfather, Rashi. But I have come to explain the pshat of the verses. I will explain the laws and the halachot according to their plain meaning. Even so, the halachot are most important, as our Rabbis said: “Halacha can uproot Scripture.”

Fascinatingly, in his first comment quoted, he states he spoke to his grandfather about this, and Rashi in fact lamented his lack of time to engage in more pshat activities. This sounds like Rashi agreed to this distinction and wanted to do this even more than he had already. But did Rashi ever really contradict the halacha of the rabbis?

Shadal, indeed, seems to revel in such a distinction. In fact, he views the rabbis as very consciously diverting the pshat reading for the sake of halacha. He does this in a few ways. Sometimes it is just so that they don't view the Torah pshat as appropriate for their day anymore. Sometimes it is that the original Chazal interpretation was one way, which aligned with pshat, and the rabbis felt it was time to change. Sometimes the rabbis saw that the values of the Torah pushed for a different interpretation than the pshat. And lastly, sometimes the pshat remains in play so the rabbis can choose it when they want and sometimes not. I'll list some examples when I have time.

According to the Rashbam, Rashi agreed that there is a difference between pshat and halachic drash, and wished he could have done the pshat more in his work. Did Rashi engage at all in pshat separated from the rabbi's halacha?

He does, sometimes. And one just came up in Mishpatim, on Exodus 23:2, he concept of "acharei rabim lehatot". There, Rashi says something Shadal finds incorrect. Basically, Rashi declares that after having told us what the rabbis say about this verse, he will try his hardest to explain it on a pshat level. He says that part of the meaning of the verse is that if a litigant asks what your personal opinion was, don't tell him what the majority opinion was, but rather what your true opinion is.

This is incredible, says Shadal, since it goes against an explicit Mishna in Sanhedrin that a judge is forbidden to reveal his vote among the votes of Bet Din. How can Rashi go against this Mishna? And more incredibly, the Smag just quotes Rashi lehalacha, and more incredibly than that, no commentators that Shadal could find picked up on this problem in Rashi.

Shadal quotes two answers from his students. One was that the Mishna in Sanhedrin referred to proper judges who adjudicate correctly, while Rashi was referring to a context specifically of wicked and biased judges, in which case you can reveal your vote to the litigants if you are a proper judge on a wicked Bet Din. The second answer seems to be that Rashi isn't talking about a judge in this specific comment, but rather a scholar who is asked his opinion about the judgement that happened in Bet Din, which he was not a part of.

Both of these are somewhat difficult to fit into Rashi's words. I've seen some say that the Mishna in Sanhedrin means that once the votes have occurred, a judge cannot tell what his vote was. But before that point, if someone asks, he may.

My answer is perhaps also difficult to fit in Rashi. Nevertheless, I think it can fit, and is a combination of these three answers. That is, there is another Mishna in Sanhedrin that states that the court was set up that the judges sit in rows and opposite them the students listen and sometimes provide their understanding to the court. So if the Bet Din thinks a man is guilty of murder, and a student has a reason why he shouldn't be guilty, he can stand up and provide it. If in fact there is substance to his objection he gets put on the Bet Din as a vote towards innocence for the man.

Thus, it could be Rashi is describing that a litigant goes over to the students and asks if they have any way to argue to his merit. And the point is that even if a student sees that the court will not vote for him, he should stand up and tell his own opinion regardless of the majority.

The point I'm getting at is this. Shadal is upset at Rashi for two reasons. Firstly, reason demands that a judge just can't go announcing his own opinion, it would be a breakdown of the system. Second, Rashi is violating a Mishna.

This second thing is very curious. Since when does Shadal care if pshat violates a Mishna? And interestingly, Shadal never provides his own answer to this question. Instead, he gives two difficult answers of his students. Perhaps Shadal didn't really care that it violated the Mishna, only that it violated reason and pshat needs to be reasonable. Perhaps he saw that Rashi did indeed see this difference and was willing to provide the pshat of a verse that could go against the Mishnah. And in this, Rashi is a support for Rashbam's approach, and Shadal's as well.

I found a comment of Shadal that is just thickening the plot. This is on Leviticus 19:35, where he says that Rashi on Chumash explains the words, but in his commentary on the Talmud, tries to explain the passage as a whole:

ורנ " ה וייזל תפש על רש " י . ולא ידע כי רש"י גם הוא הזכיר מידת הלח והיבש , וכן הוא בכ " י ובדפוסי ויניציאה ואמשטרדם , ואם בבא מציעא ס " א ע " ב כתב רש"י ( ד " ה משורה ) משורה מידת הלח היא , שם פירש כך לפרש הברייתא , וכאן פירש אמיתת הוראת המילה בפסוק .

Does this affect our discussion? I'm not sure.

[1] Yet in Leviticus 13:2 regarding tzara'at, Rashbam declares that laws regarding these things do not have a simple meaning at all, and one must only the Talmudic reading.

כל פרשיות נגעי אדם ונגעי בגדים ונגעי בתים ומראותיהן וחשבון הסגרם ושערות לבנות ושער שחור וצהוב, אין לנו אחר פשוטו של מקרא כלום ולא על בקיאות דרך ארץ של בני אדם, אלא המדרש של חכמים וחקותיהן וקבלותיהן מפי החכמים הראשונים הוא העיקר.

It seems to me that he believes that though Chazal did not focus on pshat, there are places where they did. His definition of Chazal's midrashic/Talmudic interpretation, is when they seek to derive from the way the pshat is phrased, when there are extra or strange words or letters in the Torah. But here, they are just trying to explain what it means as pshat and not extra letters etc. And Rashbam accepts that they have it right, because, there is no way to know pshat on a metaphysical condition unless you know how it manifests and why, which Chazal claim to know.

I think its significant that that's how he defines Chazal's abilities and what they were doing in midrash. See Rashbam on Genesis 1:1

בינו המשכילים כי כל דברי רבותינו ודרשותיהם כנים ואמיתים. וזהו האמור במסכת שבת: הוינא בר תמני סרי שנין ולא ידענא דאין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו. ועיקר ההלכות והדרשות יוצאין מיתור המקראות או משינוי הלשון, שנכתב פשוטו של מקרא בלשון שיכולין ללמוד הימנו עיקר הדרשה, כמו 'אלה תולדות השמים והארץ בהבראם', ודרשו חכמים באברהם, מאריכות הלשון שלא היה צריך לכתוב בהבראם.