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 9 The Logic of Reading the Bible - Kal Vahomer
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The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction
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From the lesson
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.
Meet the Instructors
Barry Scott WimpfheimerAssociate Professor
Religious Studies
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The Talmud opened its treatment of the Mishna of false testimony,
as we saw in the previous video, by explaining some strange features to be
the result of a continuation from the preceding tractate.
Having satisfactorily resolved that issue, the Talmud moves on to something else.
Beyond the strangeness of opening the chapter with these abnormal cases
of false testimony,
the Talmud now wants to know how the Rabbis who produced the Mishnah knew that
the law in these abnormal cases required lashes in case of the intended punishment.
The Talmud inquires into justification for
the Mishnah's law, by asking its most common question.
From where do we derive this?
The Talmud is asking for some justification for
the law stated in the Mishnah, that the edim zomemim in these unique circumstances
get 40 lashes instead of receiving the punishment
that the falsely accused person would have received for his or her alleged crime.
The frequency with which the question from where do we derive this
appears in the Talmud, highlights two important facts about Rabbinic literature.
First, the Mishnah often doesn't cite its sources even if a law in
the Mishnah is based on a Midrash, an interpretation of a biblical verse.
The Mishnah will frequently simply state the law without explaining its derivation.
Second, almost all law is supposed to be derived Biblically.
With a few exceptions, the Rabbis assumed that the laws of the Mishnah
ultimately are based in the Torah even if the mission does not say so explicitly.
For the Rabbis being based in the Torah means either A that the law
is drastically derived directly from a biblical verse or
B that it emerges as a logical consequence of Biblical law.
In the case we are about to examine the Talmud tries both of those routes.
First, the Talmud provides a direct Midrashic explanation for
the Mishnah, focusing on the first case,
that of the Edim Zomemim who tried to invalidate someone from the priesthood.
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, an amora who was active in Palestine in the third century,
said that Rabbi Simon ben Lakish, one of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi's teachers, said
that the Bible says, you shall do to him as he schemed to do to his fellow.
To him, but not to his children.
This Midrash picks up on the pronoun him in the biblical verse,
which it interprets as specifying the ed zomem himself, but not anyone else.
Thus any punishment that befalls the ed zomem cannot also befall his children.
Invalidating a person from priesthood automatically invalidates a person's
children since priesthood is based on lineage.
According to Rabbi Simon Binlaksha's Midrash priestly invalidation is
not an acceptable form of punishment even assuming that the witness is a priest.
For whom invalidation is irrelevant punishment,
because it necessarily reaches beyond the witness himself, to his offspring.
If the witness is disqualified from the priesthood, his children would be as well.
Responding to this Midrash though, the Talmud proposes a way around this problem.
Why not just make an exception, and
spare the false witness's children from being invalidated from the priesthood?
Since after all, they did nothing wrong.
And are technically still perfectly qualified to continue enjoying
the benefits of the priesthood.
Since the entire disqualification is artificial,
why not just limit it to the offending party but not his offspring?
The Talmud rejects its proposed workaround by saying no,
we need to fulfill the verse as he schemed to do, and that solution doesn't.
The Talmud rejects this proposed solution
because of its reading of another part of the biblical law.
You shall do to him as he schemed to do to his fellow.
The words as he schemed to do, the anonymous voice of the Talmud answers,
mandate that the punishment for the false witness has exactly the same impact on
the witness as it would have had on the witness's intended victim.
Since the intended victim would have had his children invalidated,
the punishment for the ed zomem must do the same.
But according to the first Midrash,
the punishment must only affect the ed zomem and no one else.
The paradox of these Biblical requirements leads the Mishnah to propose
an entirely different alternative for the ed zomem in this case.
That he should receive lashes.
Although the Talmud seems to consider this Midrashic explanation convincing,
the Talmud now offers a second explanation for the Mishnah.
One that does not depend on biblical sources directly, but
on logical deduction.
One of the most common logical methods in rabbinic literature
is called a Kal Va-Homer.
In Hebrew this literally means a weak and strong.
In English, or rather in Latin, this is called an a Fortiori Argument.
In Kal Va-Homer an analogy is made between a weaker case and a stronger case.
Kal Va-Homer attempts to show that the relationship between two scenarios
logically implies that they will have the same consequences.
Let's look at an example taken from the Biblical story of the Exodus.
In this story God tells Moses to go speak to Pharaoh and
request that he free the Israelites.
Moses replies,
if the Israelites did not listen to me how will Pharaoh listen to me?
The logic of Moses's statement is as follows.
If the Israelites, who should be excited to hear that they will be redeemed from
slavery in Egypt did not want to listen to me then Kal Va-Homer Pharaoh who will not
be excited about his slaves being released will certainly not want to listen to me.
This is the basic structure of the Kal Va-Homer if we know the case
A leads to result C then case B which is like a magnified version of case
A will certainly lead to result C.
Kal Va-Homer is thus often translated colloquially as all the more so.
Now let's look at the Kal Va-Homer argument that the Talmud sites to attempt
to justify the Mishna's law about false witnesses and the priesthood.
Bar Peda says,
Kal Va-Homer, if one who invalidates his own children not himself invalidated.
Isn't it logical that one who tried to invalidate another but
didn't invalidate should not be himself invalidated either?
Bar Peda suggests that this type of argument can be
used to draw an analogy between a known legal ruling and
the opening case of false testimony in the Mishna.
Bar Peda points out that a priest who invalidates his own children,
namely a priest who fathers children with a divorcee
is not himself invalidated from the priesthood.
He suggests that a logical analogy be drawn from this.
If a person who actually manages to invalidate someone else,
in this case his offspring doesn't get punished by being invalidated himself.
Then someone who didn't manage to invalidate anyone, in this case
the falsely accused person certainly shouldn't receive that punishment.
Bar Peda analogy highlights the unique nature of invalidation
from the priesthood.
Invalidation his analogy implicitly points out is normally not a punishment at all.
But solely a personal status issue based on facts of genealogy.
Even a priest who commits a serious transgression by having children
with a forbidden partner doesn't become invalidated because nothing has changed
the fact that his own lineage is perfectly legitimate.
If that's the case, Bar Peda's analogy implies, then how could the law possibly
treat invalidation as an artificially imposed punishment in the case
of edim zomemim who unsuccessfully accused someone else of being invalid.
Though Bar Peda's logic seems to have some merit, a later fourth century rabbi named
Ravina objects to Bar Peda's analogy, not because he disagrees with the conclusion,
both rabbis agree with the Mishnah,
that edim zomimem are not themselves invalidated from the priesthood.
Because he sees Bar Peda's logic as fundamentally incompatible.
With the entire rabbinical understanding of false witnesses.
Ravina objected, if so
you have essentially abolished the law of edim zomemim.
If one who gets someone else stoned to death is not himself stoned to death,
isn't it logical that one who tries to get someone else stoned to death but
didn't get that person stoned to death should not be stoned to death either?
Ravina sees the thrust of Bar Peda's analogy
as extrapolating from someone who did affect certain consequences,
in this case the priest who invalidated his children,
to someone who merely attempted to affect those consequences, the false witnesses.
Ravina's objection brings up a troubling aspect of the way the rabbis
understood the punishment for bringing false testimony.
According to a Mishnah later on in our chapter,
there was a dispute between the Pharisees, a second temple sect whom the rabbis
identify as their ancestors, and a competing sect, the Sadducees,
about the point at which false witnesses become liable for execution.
The Sadducees that the biblical verse states a life for
a life and that therefore the edim zomemim should only be liable for
execution if their victim had been executed.
Against this position the rabbis argued that the falsely accused person must have
received his death sentence but still be alive in order for
the edim zomemim to be subject to the death penalty.
If the sentence had already been carried out though, even if the witnesses
were conclusively proven to be zomemim, they would be exempt from punishment.
Ravena as in amora is aware that according to the Mishnah's view of Hazuma
the legal category is only applicable when the intended victim has not yet
been falsely punished.
Thus if Bar Peda's Kal Va-Homer were to be accepted.
It could be applied to all instances of testimony to prove that no ed zomem could
ever be punished.
The problematic expanded version of Bar Peda's Kal Va-Homer.
The reductio ad absurdum version would go as follows.
If a successful false witness who actually did manage to get another person stoned to
death is not liable for execution then an unsuccessful false witness who didn't
manage to get another person stoned to death certainly shouldn't be put to death.
You may, in fact, find that argument compelling.
But because it would destroy the fundamental rabbinic understanding about
how the laws of Edim's Zomemim work,
the Talmud prefers to stick with the Midrash taught By Rabbi Joshua bin Lavey.
But rather it is evident that it is as we taught initially.
With this line the Talmud rejects Bar Peda's Kal Va-Homer and
upholds the Midrashic explanation offered by Rabbi Joshua bin Lavey.
The singular pronoun in the verse is interpreted to mean
that the punishment must effect only the edim zomemim, not their offspring.
You have now seen an example of how Rabbinic Interpretive Logic works.
In the next video,
we'll look at the continuation of the passage which employs another Kal Va-Homer
that in many ways follows the model of the ones we just treated in this video.
If you have been put off by the flip and see with which the Rabbi
seem to talk about capital punishment, execution and stoning.
Try to honor that feeling while also realizing that the Rabbi's
are deeply immerse in hypothetical law.
As we will see towards the end of the course the Rabbis were not implementing
these laws in real life and they were able to really embrace the opportunities for
hypothetical discussion.
Many were been a text or off putting by today's standards because they treat
sensitive topics with little sensitivity.
In order to study the Talmud, you do have to accept some tolerance for
this kind of thing even as you can recognize that in today's context,
there's little room for these insensitivities.
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