Fiddler on the Roof Halacha

Another perspective on Chazal and Science

One of my favorite sites is the Hebrew language Rational Belief, which aims to explain the truth of the Torah in a rational and rigorously documented manner (the opposite aim of the other “rationalist” website we discuss here). The main figure behind the website is the accomplished scholar Rabbi Yehoshua Inbal, who has authored several seforim and a tremendous number of articles on a very broad array of Torah issues. These topics include Biblical Criticism, Mishna and Talmud Criticism, the conflict between Bereishis and Science, belief in the supernatural, Torah and morality, and contemporary halacha. Unsurprisingly, he deals with the questions of Chazal and Science in several articles, as well as at length in his sefer Torah sheBaal Peh (which I highly recommend). Beware though- his opinions are not necessarily strictly “yeshivish”- if that matters to you. But I recently came across a post of Rabbi Inbal’s where I believe he sums up the issue in an unusually succinct manner.

The post is a response to an online kuntres about Chazal and Science, entitledהידיעות המדעיות של חז"ל (Chazal’s Knowledge of Science), authored by the pseudonymous “Avigdor Amitai”. The stance that Amitai’s work takes is very similar to Slifkin’s, that Chazal had a deeply erroneous understanding of nature and science, and that therefore, we don’t need to take their opinion on such matters seriously. The entire kuntres is filled with examples where the author believes Chazal must be mistaken, which he imagines demonstrates his point. Some of them are very silly, such as where he takes issue with the fact that Chazal discuss the sweat of the Angels of Glory. Like Slifkin, the author refuses to entertain any deeper meaning in Chazal’s words. If something superficially sounds untrue, he will give Chazal the detriment of the doubt and assume error. In Amitai’s opinion, there is no need to explain or defend any of Chazal’s statements which touch on such issues, because Chazal were simply ignorant of science and nature, and just declared things without knowledge, without investigation, and ultimately, their statements are meaningless.

Rabbi Inbal criticizes the author’s overly-simplistic, juvenile assumptions at length, and his main point is that the very nature of halacha demands that we assume that Chazal had superior knowledge to us.

גם קבלת דברי חז"ל בתחום ההלכה, למשל, היא אמונה, משום שאיננו מניחים שלא יתכן שחז"ל טעו, שהרי האדם עלול לטעות, והרבה פעמים בגמרא אמרו "דברים שאמרתי טעות הם בידי", "הדרי בי". קבלת דברי חז"ל היא משום שאנחנו קטנים מהם בהלכה ולא נוכל לזהות את טעותם, ולכן אפשרות הטעות אינה רלבנטית לגבי קבלתינו סמכות חז"ל, כי בפער שבינינו לבינם אין  לנו אלא לקבל. נכון שגם עצם הקבלה שקבלו אבותינו דבריהם, מחייבת, אבל האמונה הנ"ל היא טעם הקבלה.

Accepting the words of a Sage in the field of Halacha, for example, is also a matter of faith, for we do not assume that it is not possible that the Sages were wrong, since man can make a mistake, and many times in the Gemara they said "things I said wrongly are in my hands", "I have erred". Accepting the words of the sages is because we are inferior to them in halacha and cannot recognize their error, therefore the possibility of error is not relevant regarding our acceptance of the authority of the sages, because in the gap between us and them we have no choice but to accept. It is true that the very acceptance of the words of our ancestors is binding, but the aforementioned belief is the reason for acceptance.

I was happy to see that this is very similar to what I wrote about this matter months ago, and I thank Hashem that my opinion was synchronous with that of a great Torah scholar.

Rabbi Inbal tackles the claim that Chazal were just relying on “the science of their time” (he goes into more length in his sefer, Torah sehBaal Peh)

ושמא תאמר, והלא דבריהם הם העתקת דברי פיטגורס וחבריו, והנדון יהיה האם ראוי להעתיק דברי פיטגורס, ולא "דעת חכמים" כלל. יש להשיב על כך, אבל לא אשיב, כי איני מסכים לטענה זו המובעת בקונטרסך, שכל דברי חכמים הם העתקת חכמי זמנם. ואדרבה, לפי עיוני הדבר להיפך, שדברי חכמים אינם מייצגים כלל וכלל את דעות זמנם, ובודאי לא אצל חכמי יוון. ומכאן שבדבריהם משולבים הרבה מסורות קדומות שהיו בעמנו, והצורה שהבינו את דברי התורה והנביאים בענינים אלו. ויש כאן מתורת חכמי קדם הישראלים וחכמי קדם המזרחיים בכלל.

Lest you say, but their words are a copy of the words of Pythagoras and his friends, and the discussion will be whether it is appropriate to copy the words of Pythagoras, and not "the opinion of the sages" at all. I have a reply to this, but I will not reply, because I do not agree with this claim expressed in kuntres, that all the sayings of sages are a copy of the (non-Jewish) sages of their time. On the contrary, from what I can tell, the words of the sages do not at all represent the opinions of their time, and certainly not among the sages of Greece. And hence their words incorporate many ancient traditions that were among our people, and the way they understood the words of the Torah and the prophets in these matters. And there is here the teachings of the ancient Israeli sages and the ancient East in general.

At the end, Rabbi Inbal presents a practical application in the difference between these two opposing perspectives, the perspective that Chazal had no idea what they were talking in regards to realia vs. the perspective that they probably did:

נפק"מ פשוטה בדיון זה למשל, הם הלכות תערובות בכלים, לדבריו י"ל שכל הלכות תערובות הם דברים שחשבו חז"ל לפי המדע שלהם, ולכל זה אין ערך בזמננו. ואין שום סיבה בעולם שלא לומר כן. ולהניח שאעפ"כ ההלכה תישאר כמו שקבעו על סמך טעות גרידא, הוא חוכא ואטלולא.

ידוע הניסויים שעשו בזמננו בבליעת כלים במעבדה, והסיקו שבתוך הכלי אין בליעה הראויה לדיון, אלא רק בשכבה החיצונית. ויש לדון אם חז"ל קראו בליעה לשכבה החיצונית הדבוקה לו, כיון שתמיד היא דבוקה היא בכלל הכלי. או שמתכות שלהם היו גרועות יותר. ואם להלכה אפשר לחלק בין סוגי מתכות או לאו.

לדעתי (ודעת כל מי שראיתי מדבר בזה) כל הנ"ל חובתינו לדון, וא"א להכריז שדבריהם בזה בטלים מבחינה מציאותית. לדעת המחבר הנ"ל הכל בטל ומבוטל, דוכי משום שקראו חז"ל בספרי זמנם משהו על בליעות וכו' זה יחייבינו להתאמץ ליישב וכו'.

ואיך יתכן לחבר קונדרוס גדול בכמות כ"כ, ולהניח הנושא העיקרי והמהותי הזה (לא של בליעת כלים, אלא של היחס להלכות התלויות במציאות, מעבר ל"אמת" או "שקר") מלדון בו??

A simple practical application in this discussion, for example, are the laws of mixing in dishes. According to him (Amitai), all the laws of mixing are things that the Sages thought according to their own science, and all of this has no value in our time. There is no reason in the world not to affirm this. And to assume that the halacha will still remain, as they determined on the basis of a mere mistake, is a complete joke.

It is well known the experiments done in our time on the absorption of dishes in the laboratory, and they concluded that there is no absorption worthy of discussion inside the dish, but only in the outer layer. And it must be discussed whether the Sages called the outer layer stuck to it an absorption , since it is always stuck to the vessel in general, or that their metals were worse, and if according to Halacha it is possible to distinguish between types of metals or not.

In my opinion (and the opinion of everyone I've seen discussing it) all of the above is our duty to discuss, and not to declare that their (Chazal’s) words on this are invalid from a realistic point of view. In the opinion of the above-mentioned author (Amitai), the entire discussion is null and void, because the sages read in their books of their time something about absorption of dishes, and this (simple mistake) should oblige us to make an effort to reconcile (the sages with reality)?!

And how is it possible to compose such a large kuntres, and leave this main and essential issue (not necessarily of absorption dishes, but of the attitude to laws that depend on reality, beyond "truth" or "false") from being discussed??

At this point, I know that some people will object that what Rabbi Inbal declares a joke (following Chazal’s halacha even when we know they were totally mistaken) is not a joke, but a serious position in halacha. But as I explained in my previous post, I don’t see any way to explain it non-humorously. And apparently the Fiddler on the Roof concurs.

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