The Talmud is one of the richest and most complicated works of literature the world has ever known. Since being composed around 1500 years ago it has inspired not only religious reverence but significant intellectual engagement. In this course learners will be introduced to the unique characteristics of this text and the challenges that inhere in studying it while studying a chapter of the Talmud. Students of the course can expect to develop an appreciation for how the Talmud works and why it continues to inspire religious and intellectual devotion. They will be challenged to employ critical reading skills and to analyze legal and historical concepts.
Video 10 Using Logic in Reading Critically
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The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction
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Reading the Bible & Rabbinic Logic
Interpretation is a major component of Rabbinic literature and the Talmud. This module introduces the specific features of Rabbinic interpretation of the Hebrew Bible—its assumptions and its reading tools.
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Barry Scott WimpfheimerAssociate Professor
Religious Studies
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In the previous video,
we learned about one logical tool that the rabbis used to read the Bible.
A too known in Hebrew as kal va-chomer.
In a kal va-chomer argument, an analogy is made between two cases.
One of which is deemed to be a stronger version of the other.
Because the first case leads to a certain consequence, the argument infers that
the second case must by all accounts lead to that same consequence.
Kal va-homer is often translated as all the more so.
In the passage we examined in the previous video, one early third century rabbi
provided a Midrashic rationale for the Mishna's law while another third
century rabbi attempted to justify the same law through a kal va-homer argument.
A later rabbi rejected this argument from a kal va-homer by employing
a reductio ad absurdum argument by playing the argument out to its ridiculous
logical consequences.
The Talmud's anonymous voice.
The part of the tax that is not attributed to a specific rabbi rejects the kal
va-homer in favor of the midrash.
In the passage that immediately follows,
we'll see the exact same structure playing out again.
Now that the Talmud has tried to explain the first law in the Mishnah,
the case of the witnesses who try to invalidate a priest,
the Talmud moves onto the second case.
That of witnesses who accused someone of being an unintentional murderer.
We testify about so-and-so that he is liable to be exiled as an unintentional
murderer, etc.
From where do we derive this?
Yet again, the Talmud wants to know the mission or source for this law.
Once again, the Talmud responds with a midrash.
Resh Lakish said that the Bible says, he will flee to one of the cities.
He and not his Edim Zomemim.
Resh Lakish is an early third century Palestinian rabbi
who is also sometimes called Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, as in the previous passage.
He provides a midrash explanation for
why the false witness would not receive the normal punishment for
unintentional murder, which is exile to a city of refuge.
Much like the midrash, attributed Resh Lakish in the previous passage.
This midrash picks up on a subject pronoun in the verse, as a limiting factor.
The nudrash cites one of the biblical verses about unintentional murder.
Deuteronomy chapter 19:11 and reads, he, as specifying the person
who commits manslaughter, but not anyone else such as Wdim Zomimem.
As in the previous passage, another explanation is then suggested
based not on a midrash, but on a kal va-homer argument.
Rabbi Yohanan says, kal va-homer.
If he who did a deed intentionally is not exiled, is it not logical
that those who did not do a deed intentionally should not be exiled either?
Rabbi Yohanan, a prominent Palestinian rabbi who is a contemporary of Resh Lakish
suggest analogy between someone who murdered intentionally and
is not exiled, because exiles only prescribed for unintentional murderers.
And someone who did not do a deed, that is the Edim Zomemim
who only try to get their victim put to death, but were unsuccessful.
If the person who committed murder doesn't get sent into exile, then clearly
someone who didn't managed to commit murder should not get sent into exile.
The Talmud again rejects the kal va-homer.
This time though, the rejection challenges a different point of the kal va-homer.
The kal va-homer is premise on two syllogisms.
First, that actual murder is worse than attempted murder through testimony.
Second, that exile is a punishment.
If the punishment is not meted out for actual murder, the worse offense.
How can it be meted out for attempted murder through testimony,
the lesser offense.
The Talmud anonymous voice rejects the kal va-homer by critiquing
the second that exile is best understood as punishment.
The Talmud expresses this by producing a new kal va-homer in which exile is not
understood as punishment, but as an opportunity for an accidental murderer to
achieve atonement, but that logic implies the following.
If he who did a deed intentionally should not be exiled, because that way,
he will not get atonement, perhaps those who did not do a deed intentionally
should be exiled, because that way they will get atonement?
In other words, if one thinks of exile as atonement rather than punishment,
then maybe it is logical for the lessor criminal to have the opportunity for
a Talmud or the greater criminal did not.
It is logical that an intentional murderer is not sent to exile and
given an opportunity to atone, but maybe the attempted murder through testimony
is enough of a lessor offense that atonement shouldn't be possible.
You may be surprised that the Talmud chooses to bring a new rejection for
this kal va-homer.
Since the rejection brought by Ravina for the first kal va-homer,
the idea that it would contradict the entire rabbinic understanding
of the law of Edim Zomemim might apply equally to Rabbi Yohanan's kal va-homer.
Rabbi Yohanan's kal va-homer, like the one of Bar Pedra seems to imply that
the Edim Zomemim should get off Scott free,
because they didn't successfully commit their crime.
If this is Rabbi Yohanan's point, then one could channel Revina and point out
that this logical argument would destroy the notion of Edim Zomemim entirely, but
the Talmud does not choose to reject Rabbi Yohanan's logic on these grounds.
Instead, the Talmud critiques the assumption that exile is a punishment and
suggests that it can be considered an atonement.
The conclusion of the anonymous rejection is not 100% convincing.
If an intentional murderer doesn't get atonement,
then perhaps an attempted intentional murderer really shouldn't either.
But it still highlights the real problem with treating exile solely,
as a punishment.
Thus, Rabbi Yohanan's kal va-homer is rejected.
Using exactly the same language as the first passage,
the Talmud upholds Resh Lakish's midrashic explanation.
According to it, getting sent to the city of refuge is a consequence that only
applies to an actual unintentional murder, but not to Edim Zomemim.
Thus far,
we have seen that the Talmud analysis of the Mishnah often demands accountability,
but there needs to be some explanation for the Mishnah's specific laws.
These rationales take the form either of direct biblical inference or
logical analogy from established legal concepts,
which are themselves ultimately based on biblical sources.
In our next video, we will look at other forms of logical argument from the Bible
and reflect upon what it means to read the Bible as the rabbis do.
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