An Introduction to the Rambams Introductions Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

Welcome to Khadijah House. Um Today's sheer is dedicated uh before Schliemann for Liam Yacob Nissan Benora. Uh may he have a refresh Schliemann be told Khadijah Schliemann. Um you know, the uh the official name of this course uh is Rambam letters and introductions. Uh we've been spending a long time on the letters and uh in truth, I think we more or less covered uh one of the most interesting and significant letters. We're now going to do part two of the course, uh which are the introductions of the Rambam. First of all, the concept of an introduction uh was not necessarily a done deal uh in our sacred literature. There is, for example, no introduction that Rebbe Judah Hanasi wrote to the Mishna. There is no introduction that Ravina and Ravashi wrote to the Gemara. Uh Rashi's commentary uh does not have an introduction with the single exception that Rashi did write a short introduction to Shir Hashirim. But generally speaking, Rashi's commentaries do not have an introduction. So, the notion that a safer is supposed to have a hakdamah is not necessarily something that was uh totally done. And yet, we do find already that the Ramban wrote a very important introduction to his commentary on the Chumash. Uh that's Nachmanides Ramban. And of course, one of the most uh famous uh instances are the many, many are the several introductions that the Rambam himself wrote to the various works uh that he composed in which he articulates the purpose of the work and the structure of the work. And uh in many, many situations, the hakdamah might be I'm not going to say the most important part of the work, but an extremely valuable part of trying to understand uh the Rambam's thinking. There is a saying that kind of was invented later. It's not from Hazal that says safer below is meaning to say the Hakdamah is the soul of the work because it really tells you where the work is headed and what it is trying what it is trying to do. And in fact, one could even give a course maybe at some point they will do it. Besides the Rambam famous introductions in Jewish rabbinic literature. I mean there are famous introductions from Achronim etc. that are classics in their own right that people learn the Hakdamah even if they don't actually learn the the safer itself. Maharal for example writes very extensive Hakdamot to virtually all of his starting. Now the the Hakdamahs of the Rambam we we know we went over this a very long time ago but just to go quickly with you. Let me just enumerate some of the well-known Hakdamahs of the Rambam. The earliest Hakdamah is his Hakdamah to the Parish of Mishnayot. Remember the Rambam wrote a commentary to the whole Mishnah and this he did at a very young young age. He he compiled it from age 25 to age 30. It took around 5 years. I cannot automatically date when he wrote the Hakdamah. Sometimes the Hakdamah is written after the book. So it might be the latest part. Sometimes it's the earliest part. Usually I have a feeling the Hakdamah is actually later than the book. It was after you've written the book you then think about its structure and its organization. And the Rambam wrote a very very important Hakdamah. So this gets mislabeled a lot. Since the first tractate of the Mishnah is Brakhot you know, sometimes say Hakdamah l'maseches Brachos. That's absolutely inaccurate. This is not a Hakdamah to maseches Brachos and it's not even really a Hakdamah to the Mishna. It's a Hakdamah to the idea of Torah Shebaal Peh, the oral law. Move the headset. It It blocks your face. Okay. It is a Hakdamah to the oral law. So, if you want to understand the nature of the oral law, which includes the Mishna and the Talmud and all of the different rabbinic traditions, this is really one of the most important documents ever written in terms of the structure of the Torah Shebaal Peh, which does indeed zoom in on the Mishna as a whole. The one thing I can tell you for sure is that its designation as a Hakdamah to maseches Brachos is totally inaccurate. You can either call it a Hakdamah to the Mishna or even more accurately, I think, a Hakdamah to the Torah Shebaal Peh. So, in a sense, we could call this the Hakdamah to the legal structure of Judaism, the halachic structure of Judaism. Now, there's a much shorter Hakdamah to the Mishna Torah itself, which is his compendium of law, and we'll try to point out that occasionally there are inconsistencies, but in terms of structure, both are devoted to the same goal, and that is the elucidation of the halachic structure of Judaism and the intersection between the written Torah that's called Torah Shebichtav and Torah Shebaal Peh. So, in effect, the Rambam wrote two Hakdamahs that are dealing with the halachic system. One is the Hakdamah to the Perush Hamishnayos, which was completed no later than the Rambam's 30th year, 1025 and 30, and the other is a much shorter Hakdamah to the Mishneh Torah, which was completed when the Rambam was in his 50s, when the Mishneh Torah was written. Uh now again, the Mishneh Torah Hakdamah is much briefer than the Hakdamah to the Mishnah, but the centrality of its conceptual structure is very much the same, the legal Halakhic structure of Judaism. Now, part of why the Rambam was so interested in these structural questions, which many people before him did not specifically address, part of this was the Rambam's great polemic against the Karaites. I mean, you know, remember the Karaim uh did not accept, and to this day there are Karaites, they do not accept what is called the Rabbinic tradition or the oral tradition. Uh they say it was made up. Uh they do not give it any type of divine imprimatur. And uh although Karaites today are a very marginal movement, are not a lot of Karaites uh in the world, we would not consider them to be a threat against traditional Judaism, in the Rambam's time, and in particularly in Mitzrayim, in Egypt, the Karaite community was very, very large, tens of thousands of Karaites, and they posed a real danger because uh they could proselytize, they could bring otherwise religious Jews over to Karaite beliefs. And there is a lot in the Rambam's writings that is actually a polemic against Karaites, not always identified as such. That's why there's a bit of a subtlety. But why the Rambam writes certain things and emphasizes certain things is sometimes part of his argument against the Karaite structure, which was very very dominant. Uh Professor Chaim Soloveitchik wrote Joseph B. Soloveitchik's son uh was a he's a he is a Talmud chacham and also a very very eminent historian of rabbinics and and the like uh wrote a whole article, a very complicated article, and I can't even tell you that I can follow it totally. But he goes over, for example, something about the Rambam in Hilchot Shabbat in the Mishneh Torah, which is more than 20 chapters, but the order of the Rambam is a little peculiar. Like he discusses what you might consider secondary things before he discusses primary things, and the order of the Rambam in Hilchot Shabbat is a bit of a mystery. So uh Dr. Professor Rabbi Soloveitchik tries to demonstrate that the Rambam's sequencing in the Mishneh Torah was designed to combat certain Karaite heresies. And even though the Rambam does not even mention the Karaite in the in in Hilchot Shabbat, but the whole ordering of the Rambam, which is otherwise a little bit peculiar, is based on that. And he develops kind of a very complicated, if not convoluted, way of showing that this had to be addressed because of the Karaites and the like. Of course, we also know, just to give you one one interesting example, that some say that the origin of cholent, in in all of its different incarnations, uh was designed to combat the Karaites because the Karaites uh took the pasuk very literally, "You shall not have fire in your house on Shabbat." So the Karaites interpreted that to mean not only can't you light or cook, but you're not even allowed to have fire. And as a result, even if you had food that was being cooked on a flame from before the Shabbat, you would not be allowed to do that on Shabbat. So, some say that the institution of cholent, in which you have like pre you know, you set up a fire before Shabbat and it cooks over the Shabbat, part of it was designed to combat the Karaite heresy. Thus, Rav Zerachya Halevi, the famous Baal Hamaor, writes, "He who does not have chamin on Shabbat, uh we have to be choshesh that maybe he is a min or a kofer or a Karaite or the like." Now, for those of you who don't like cholent, if there are any such if there are any such creatures uh in the world, uh it would appear that even if you just have a cup of hot tea, you would be yotzei that in you, and even hot water, the main point is to have something hot to show that you're negating the Karaite statement that you're not allowed to have fire. So, we do have an out for people who uh don't want to eat cholent uh for whatever whatever the reason. Um so, the point I was I was simply making is that the reason why the Rambam was almost obsessed with structural issues of Torah Shebe'al Peh, was precisely because he was addressing uh the Karaites at least indirectly, because they did pose a major danger. Okay? So, the two hakdamot to Perush Hamishnayot, to the Mishnah, and to the Mishneh Torah, uh are the Rambam's elucidation of the fundamental legal and halachic structure of Judaism. The second famous hakdama of the Rambam is his hakdama. It's also in the Mishnah. A lot of hakdamot are in the commentary of the Mishnah, and that is his hakdama to Pirkei Avot. Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, is a tractate of Mishnah. It's actually in the Mishnah. Uh it's in in fourth order of the Mishnah. The fourth order of the Mishnah is called Nezikin. It deals with damages, Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia. It deals with damages and liabilities and business law. And for most of those tractates, there is a Gemara on the Mishnah. Right? So, Bava Kamma is a tractate of the Mishnah and and there's a Gemara elucidating that both in the Bavli and the Yerushalmi. But, smack in the middle of Seder Nezikin, there is a little tractate for which there is no Gemara. There is no Talmud on it. And that is called Massekhet Avot. And that is largely a manual, beautiful manual, of ethical behaviors. And they put it in the middle of Nezikin really to kind of make the point, don't think that your only ethical obligations bein adam lechavero is not to break somebody's nose. Meaning, Bava Kamma talks about what happens if you commit assault on people, your animals. Pirkei Avot says there's more to being a good person than simply not hurting people. Right? So, the tractates generally talk about not harming. Pirkei Avot kind of raises it to a much higher level. Uh the ethical norms. Uh and that's why there became a custom already in the Middle Ages to study Pirkei Avot in the long Shabbatot between Pesach and Rosh Hashanah. That was a later minah that you'd find in the Gemara or the Mishnah itself, but that became the custom. And some people even extended um until Rosh Hashanah. Right? So, and that means of course Pirkei Avot. Now, Pirkei Avot has six chapters. But, it's a little tricky because only five of the chapters are Mishnah. The sixth chapter is a brisa is a is a teaching of the Tanaim that's outside of the Mishnah that God appended to tractate Avot and that's what the beginning of the sixth perek says. Shanu Hahamim balashon hamishnah. The sages taught the following teaching in the language of the Mishnah. And therefore it is technically what is called a brisa. What does the word brisa mean? Brisa simply means something outside, meaning any teaching of the Tanaim that Rabbi Judah Hanasi did not incorporate in the Mishnah is called a brisa. Uh anyone who has ever learned a page of Gemara knows that one of the main building blocks in a Talmudic discussion to elucidate the Mishnah or whatever will be bringing in brisos. Right, the famous word tanya is not a reference to the Lubavitcher safer. In fact in fact the only reason tanya is called tanya is because the first word of tanya is quoting a brisa in maseches nidah. Tanya bemaseches nidah. So tanya is a brisa. Now just as a little aside sometimes people ask well, where can I find I mean the Gemara is quoting a brisa. So it's quoting a brisa from somewhere else. Is there a book of brisos? Where can I go and see all the brisos? Uh the answer is there is no book of brisos because brisos is not the name of what it is. It's it's kind of the name of what it isn't, meaning the word brisa just means outside of the Mishnah. But there are in fact many different places which are sources for brisos. The Tosefta is a source of many many brisos. The Halakhic Midrashim like the Sifrei and the Sifra and the Mekhilta. They are a source of brisa. So when the Gemara says, "Tanya, we learned in a brisa." That doesn't tell you where you could find it yet. Sometimes they tell you on the side and sometimes they don't. It's still the case that not all brisos are given a full documentation. But as they say, the two most common sources are Tosefta and the Halakhic Midrashim, which really are three Halakhic Midrashim. The Mekhilta, the Sifra, Torat Kohanim, and the Sifrei. The Mekhilta is the Halakhic [clears throat] Midrash on Shemot. The Sifra is the Halakhic Midrash on Vayikra. And the Sifrei is the Halakhic Midrash on Bamidbar and Devarim. You will notice, of course, I did not mention a Halakhic Midrash on Chumash Bereishit because there is no Halakhic Midrash on Chumash Bereishit. There's a gigantic Aggadic Midrash on Chumash Bereishit, the Midrash Rabbah, but there is no Halakhic Midrash on Sefer Bereishit for the very simple reason that there is very little Halakha in Chumash Bereishit. Now, it is also the case though that there are brisos that the Gemara quotes that we don't know the source. Either there were midrashim that were lost or whatever it is. So, some braisos are sourceable. Some braisos are not sourceable and we only know them from the Gemara itself. Now, I did see many years ago a curious book that was actually called Sefer Habraisos which was a fat book of compiling every braisa quoted but that that was made up later. That was just somebody in the 19th century just went through the whole Talmud and every time there's a detanya they put it in. I mean there but there there is in terms of an original source no such thing as a Sefer Habraisos. So, I'm bringing this up simply to to tell you that the sixth chapter of Pirkei Avot is not part of the Mishna. It is a braisa. That is why for example, if you look at the Rambam's commentary on Pirkei Avot which is part of his commentary of the Mishna which he wrote in Arabic but but it's been translated in Hebrew, there is no commentary of the Rambam on perek vav because perek vav is in fact not part of the Mishna. Unlike for example, I mean other other meforshim didn't really make a difference there. For example, there is a commentary of Rashi on Pirkei Avot although some say it's not Rashi but it's attributed to Rashi. Rashi's commentary does cover the sixth perek because it was part of what was studied. The Rambam's commentary does does not. Yeah. >> Is there a special reason why Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi did not include braisos in the >> So, it's it's hard to know because the truth of the matter is I mean braisos are a major interpretive tool for mishnayos and in fact as I say Uh, the braisos are basically building blocks of interpretation that the amoraim used in order to elucidate Mishnah. Why didn't Rabbi Judah Nassi put it in? Uh, it's not always clear. Uh, sometimes it's simply because the brightsa may reflect opinions that the halakha does not follow. But that that does not explain everything. Um, other times it's not clear if you don't exactly how he wrote the Mishnah or edited the Mishnah, not really wrote the Mishnah. Is a bit of a puzzle because remember that the oral law was not supposed to be written down. But he wrote it down because there was fear of it being forgotten. But because of that there's a concept that even though he wrote it down he deliberately wrote it down in an obscure way so that it'll jog your memory if you had learned the oral tradition. But it does not contain the total oral tradition. Meaning there are deliberate obscurities. I mean, one example of this is besides the omission of much information in the brightsa uh, very often uh, the Mishnah will say a statement and imply that it's categorically. The din is X, Y, and Z. And the Gemara will go through a whole shakal v'torya and tell you, "Oh, the din of the Mishnah only applies in some very unusual case." And what sounded like a normal rule is really a very rare rule that will almost never apply. Well, that's a pretty lousy way of writing a legal code. Uh, you're writing a general rule which only applies in one in 10,000 cases. You would figure you either say that or you write the rule that applies in 900, you know, 9,999 of the cases. What is going on by picking the Yotze min a klal and writing it as if it's a klal, and then we need to have some explanation. Well, that's not really a klal, that's a Yotze min a klal. What what is going on? So, the explanation that's often given is that the you know, we're used to the idea, which makes a lot of sense, that the you know, the purpose of good writing is to facilitate clarity. But there is a concept in writing the Oral Law that the test of good writing is the amount of obscurity that you can introduce in order not to replace the Oral Law. So, that might also be part of why the Toseftas are sometimes eliminated. By the way, the Chazon Ish has a very brilliant point. You know, let's take a code like the Rambam, the Rambam's Mishneh Torah. Now, sometimes commentaries try to do to the Rambam what the Gemara did to the Mishnah. In other words, the Gemara will will argue through logic that even though the Mishnah states a general rule, it's only talking about a specific case. It's very common in the Gemara to say that. So, some commentaries, when they have a difficult passage in the Rambam, will try to say the same thing. Well, even though the Rambam said it as a general principle, but it really only applies in X, Y, and Z, and they say that they're following exactly what the Gemara does. The Chazon Ish makes what I think is a very compelling argument that that's a totally inappropriate methodology when you apply it to a later work like the Rambam. When Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi compiled the Mishnah, there still was a fundamental prohibition against writing the Torah Shebe'al Peh. So, you only wrote as little as you can get away with so that people who knew the tradition would be able to reconstruct it. And as a result, there was obscurities that were deliberately introduced. By the time we get to the Rambam, the ban against the writing of Torah Shebaal Peh was totally rescinded. So, the Rambam's goal, as he himself says, is clarity and precision. So, if the Rambam meant to limit a certain halakha to certain conditions, he would have said those conditions. And if he fails to say those conditions, then he's not making a condition. In other words, you you see this is a This is actually a very good point. It's a very, very strong point that the notion of deliberate obscurity may be may very well be a a way of approaching the Mishna. It is not the way of approaching the later codifications of law, whether it's the Rambam or the Shulchan Aruch. And therefore, to simply borrow the Gemara's approaches to Mishnayot interpretation and apply it to later codification uh would be a mistake. However, I will say that the Rambam himself does subscribe to what you might call deliberate obscurity in his philosophical work. In fact, in the Moreh Nevukhim, he actually does say in the introduction that because I'm writing this for a deep, philosophically sophisticated reader, I will drop different hints. There will be contradictions in this work at first glance. And I will be dropping different hints throughout the work uh that a wise person will be able to reconstruct. So, for whatever the reason, and maybe we'll get into it a little later, uh the Rambam did believe in a certain amount of obscuring philosophical and theological thought. Perhaps because he thought the risk of misunderstanding would be too great. Although I never fully understood that argument. I mean there is you're basically saying I don't want to communicate exactly what I'm thinking because you'll misunderstand it. Therefore, I will communicate it in a way that is less understandable. I'm not really sure exactly what you're gaining with that strategy. But that is the strategy that Rambam employs. Since this is not going to be understood, I'm going to raise the bar to such a level that the only people who have a chance at reconstructing are those who are very sophisticated. Sorry, there was a question. Yeah. Yes, that's another example. That's exactly correct. If you go through the Gamara, you that if you were to write a college composition based on the rules of the Mishnah, you would get an F for sure. Oh, I left it out. It's you know, all of these things. But part of it is that Rabbi Judah Hanasi felt a need to write the Torah Shebaal Peh but in as as limited a way as as possible. That's exactly correct. Yeah. Well, again, those are among the things that the Rambam does discuss in the Hakdamah. He basically makes the argument that the Torah Shebaal Peh was not the exclusive repository of one or two people. It was over thousands of people in different countries. And if they all come up with the more or less the same, that is a vouching for its accuracy. But at the same time, there's no question that things are forgotten. I mean even in the Talmud itself, you'll sometimes see that two talmidim will have opposite views of what their teacher said. Now, does that mean that one of them is wrong? You know, maybe not. Maybe the teacher himself changed his mind. And one heard the teacher, you know, 1957, you know, whatever the year was, and the other heard it the the other year. So, is it forgetfulness? Is it mistake? Is it someone changed his mind and they heard it multiple times? But by and large, the overwhelming uh validity of the Torah Shebal Peh seems to be attested by the numbers of people. Uh yeah. >> In the time of the Tanakh the before Ezra and Nehemiah, they lost, I don't know, >> 3,000 halakhot. That's That's correct. That's correct. So, there was a loss. There was no question there was a loss. The The question becomes um does that reflect on the accuracy of what was preserved? Meaning, things were lost. >> But he found them again. That's what we learned. >> He restored them again. You know, uh Divrei Hayamim, the Book of Chronicles, uh Book of Chronicles is a very, very difficult book of Tanakh. It's very difficult because it's either superfluous or contradictory, because much of what is in Divrei Hayamim is already reported in the Book of Melachim. Now, however, sometimes there are contradictions. So, that raises a problem. And if there are no contradictions, it's repeating. So, it's [clears throat] either repeating or it's contradicting. Either way, you have a problem. But I'm not going to talk about that now, but the first nine chapters of Divrei Hayamim are just lists of names starting with Adam Harishon and going Adam, Seth, you know, going on going all the way to Ezra, basically. Ezra is said to be the author of Divrei Hayamim. And it's just a list of names. Although some of the names are very crazy, all sorts of people you never heard of. But Hazal say, "Oh, this is really Moshe Rabbenu. This is Avraham." You know, different names that literally don't appear anywhere else. By the way, they say if you wanted to be a talmid of the Vilna Gaon, you can only be accepted if you had a love of Torah, a love of Torah, not just knowing a lot of Torah. So, they say there was a test. How do I test if a person loves Torah? I say, "Review the first nine chapters of Divrei Hayamim a hundred times. And if you still enjoy it after a hundred times, that means you truly love the Torah." Because it's just names. But if you love Torah, well, okay. I love the names. I even embrace this I know actually I have all these all of these names. Now, the thing is though, the Gemara actually says that bedakta that section there were donkey loads, meaning loads and loads and loads of Midrashim expounding the meaning of those names that we've lost. Already in Talmudic times we've lost them. So, uh there's a lot that was lost. No question. There are Midrashim. In fact, the loss could have been even relatively recent. There are Midrashim that Rishonim quote, Rashi quotes, Ramban quotes, that we cannot trace. Got lost. And in fact, let me mention to you a bit of a trivia that appears in the Rambam's introduction to the Mishna. In the Rambam's introduction to the Mishna, he discusses the role of the Gemara. In other words, he he moves from Mishna to Gemara. And when he discusses Gemara, he discusses both the Talmud Bavli and the Talmud Yerushalmi, both of which are on the same Mishnah. Right? There's only one Mishnah, Bavli Yerushalmi. And the Rambam makes the observation that the Babylonian Talmud is only on four orders of the Mishnah complete. Again, let me just remind you, the first order of the Mishnah is agriculture, Zera'im. Zera'im has a number of tractates, but there's only one Babylonian Gemara on Zera'im, and that's Maseches Berachos, which is about Keri'at Shema and Tefillah. The other Masechtos in Seder Zera'im do not have a Gemara. Terumos, Shevi'is, etc. So, Zera'im only has one Maseches. Seder Mo'ed, on the holidays, has many Masechtos. Shabbos, Pesach, Rosh Hashanah, okay? Nashim, uh about marriage and divorce, has Gittin, Kiddushin, Yevamos, Kesubos. That's covered. Nezikin, Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia, that's covered. Pirkei Avos is there, uh and the like. Kodashim, about Korbanos, actually is covered in the Babylonian Talmud. We have um Zevachim, Menachos, Chullin. But in the order of Taharos, purity and impurity, we only have a Gemara on Maseches Niddah. Other things are not covered. Which means the Talmud Bavli has more or less four complete Sedarim of Gemara, but only a very little, only one tractate in Zera'im, Berachos, and one tractate in Taharos, which is Niddah. Now, the Rambam says, however, the Talmud Yerushalmi has five complete Sedarim. Now, this is a bit of a problem. Talmud Yerushalmi does have a complete Seder Zeraim. Maseches Pe'ah, Maseches Terumos. It does have Moed, it does have Nashim. It does have Nezikin. Taharas, like the Bavli, it only has Niddah. So, what's the fifth? The Rambam says there is a Seder Yerushalmi on Kodashim, just as we have for the Bavli. Which makes sense, because Eretz Yisrael is even closer. Although it was written after the Temple was destroyed, but it's closer to Korbanos. Problem is, we don't have a Talmud Yerushalmi on Seder Kodashim. There is no Yerushalmi on Chullin or Zevachim or Menachos. We don't have it. And yet, as late as the Rambam, he says there is. Meaning, this is pretty big big deal. A whole part of the Talmud Yerushalmi was apparently lost. Now, this gives rise to a very interesting uh scandal that was a scandal for a few years. Um I don't have the exact dates. I think it was towards the end of the 19th century. There was a fellow, a Rav Friedlander, who claimed to be of Sefardic origin with the name Friedlander. Hard to figure that out. Uh but he claimed a momentous momentous discovery. He claimed to have discovered the lost manuscript Yerushalmi on Seder Kodashim. He actually found he discovered two tractates. Can you imagine what a discovery that is? Chullin and Bechoros. And he published those tractates. And he even authored on his own. So, he was a big Some of these forgers are remarkable geniuses. I mean, he composed a commentary like Rashi. Again, he didn't say it was Rashi. He said it was He wrote the commentary on basic pshat. And then he wrote a commentary like Tosfos, bringing in different questions and answers. And this was the Yerushalmi on Not all of Seder Kodashim, but the Yerushalmi on Chullin and Bechoros. You can imagine the excitement. I mean, not that many people learn Yerushalmi, but but among gedolim in particular, this was a momentously exciting discovery. And many gedolim gave very enthusiastic haskamos that Baruch Hashem Hashem allowed us to rediscover a precious part of the Torah that the Rambam testified existed. Uh it turned out that this person forged the whole thing. Now, can you imagine the talent that it takes to forge a Gemara, especially Yerushalmi, which even people who are talmidei chachamim are less familiar with the language of the Yerushalmi? But he was skilled enough and knowledgeable enough that he was able to replicate a whole Gemara on his own. So, how do we know Well, well, well, eventually, I think he admitted it. Uh but but the story goes They have different stories that the Rogatchover Gaon said this could not be authentic. And the Rogatchover gave the following reason. He said, "In every single tractate in the Bavli and the Yerushalmi Talmud, there is always at at one name that appears in no other tractate. Meaning most of the rabbis appear over and over again. Hillel, Shammai, Abaye, Rava. But every tractate has one guy who only appears in that tractate and doesn't appear anywhere else. And this is the Rogatchover said through his com- computer genius mind, this is before there were computers, he says, "Every maseches has one tanna or amora that is not mentioned anywhere else. But in this Yerushalmi, there's not a single name that's not mentioned somewhere else. So, therefore, it can't be authentic." You know, I actually wouldn't consider that the most compelling proof. I mean, so maybe this is an ex- Maybe this shows you your rule is not a rule as opposed to simply saying that it's proof that it's not MS. But the story goes that eventually other people had other suspicions. Uh this guy also had a reputation of doing something like this in the past on a lesser scale. Uh so, eventually it came out. Uh they also tell the story that he told somebody, and you know, that's going to be the kiss of death. You know, they tell uh The Ksav Sofer writes in his hakdama that even if a person has the greatest good fortune in the world, if he's not able to share it with somebody, you don't feel the full pleasure until you share it. Like that's the joke they tell about a rabbi who was a golf addict. He had to play golf before Shachris every day, uh and even on Yom Kippur. He would sneak He would sneak to the golf course before davening to get in nine holes or whatever it would be. So, on Yom Kippur, he's in the golf course. So, the malachei hashareis are saying to Hakadosh Baruchu, "Kill him. Strike him down, Russia. The man doesn't deserve to live." Hashem says, I have a better plan. And the guy hits the golf golf ball and he gets a hole-in-one. So the Malachei HaSharet say to Hakadosh Baruchu, is this justice? The man is a rasha and you give him a hole-in-one on Yom Kippur? He says, yeah, who is he going to tell? You know, so so they they say I I don't have all of the facts here. They they do say the story that this person had to tell somebody. And once you tell somebody, you know, things go downhill from that point. I actually saw I I mean, you can I mean the book is not commercially available. They don't sell this Yerushalmi because it's a fake book. But, you know, some old libraries may have original copies and I I I remember seeing it in Eretz Yisrael, the so-called Yerushalmi on Seder Kodashim. And I believe I think I think on HebrewBooks.org, the website that has uh sefarim. I think I think you can actually get it on HebrewBooks.org. Although occasionally they take it down when people protest or whatever it may be. But there is a whole history of forgery. For example, the famous Haggadah of the Maharal >> [clears throat] >> is technically a forgery, although it's based on the Maharal's books. But um the um there's BeSamim Rosh. BeSamim Rosh is a book of She'elos u'Teshuvos that was published in the 1700s by a rabbi called Rabbi Shaul Berlin. And he claimed it was a long-lost manuscript of the Teshuvos of Rabbeinu Asher, the Rosh of the 1200s, which would have made it enormously important. Lost Teshuvos of the Rosh. It turns out that Shaul Berlin just made up the She'elos u'Teshuvos. Now, the The is in contemporary post game, there is a Mahlke's. Can you use the Bas Amain Rosh as a Halakic source? See, it's a little tricky because even though it's a made up thing, but he does use Talmudic argument. In other words, the Tshuvas quote Gemara's and Tosfos and Rambam. So, here's the thing. So, the guy was a forger and the guy was a liar. But he is still making Halakic arguments. See, it's very different than the fake Gemara. The fake Gemara is making up Mamarei Chazal. So, obviously you can't rely on it for anything. The the Tshuvas Bas Amain Rosh uses >> [snorts] >> valid Halakic sources, but it's simply misattributed who was the author of the Responsa. So, there is a Mahlke's among Postkim. Some Postkim say, "You can't use this book because it was a liar, it was a forger. He has no status." Others say, "Hey, listen. Let's look at his arguments. We know it's not the Rosh. It's only Rabbi Berlin. Okay. But if he's making an argument, he's making an argument." Right? So, that's the Mahlke's. Rabbi Yosef, for example, did use the Tshuvas Bas Amain Rosh uh for Halakic argumentation and he always noted, "Even though, you know, the misattribution to the Rosh uh means that there was a forgery here, but he uses Halakic sources, so we can evaluate it." Others take the position that it's tainted. This is what you might call uh reverse plagiarism. Uh regular plagiarism is when I take your work and I publish it under my name. This is I take my work and I publish it under your name. Rabbi Zalman Auerbach said that that bothered him quite a lot. Somebody went to R' Zalman Auerbach and said, "This guy wrote a safer uh in which uh he says chiddushim and it was ripped off from you. It was taken from you." So, R' Zalman said, "I don't mind if they say my Torah in their name as long as they don't say their Torah in my name. I'm much I'm much more concerned uh for the reverse plagiarism. Yeah." No, no. That That's That's absolutely not true. No, Maseches Shekalim is the one maseches in Mo'ed that does not have a Bavli, but it does have a Yerushalmi, but the Yerushalmi is authentic. In fact, even in the Daf Yomi cycle, those of you who may learn Daf Yomi, the Daf Yomi is a 7 and 1/2 year cycle of the Babylonian Talmud, but for whatever reason, Maseches Shekalim is included in the Daf Yomi cycle, even though it's Yerushalmi because there's no Bavli. But, you know, it's inconsistent because if you're going with the idea that we'll do a Yerushalmi tractate when we don't have a Bavli, we ought to incorporate Seder Zera'im in the Daf Yomi cycle, and Seder Zera'im is not encompassed uh in the Daf Yomi cycle. So, it's a bit of a mystery why Shekalim made it. Now, the the conventional answer that they give you is, "Well, the Vilna Shas prints the Yerushalmi Shekalim. It does not print the Yerushalmi Zera'im." Okay, I got that. But, you can then ask the question on the Vilna Shas, uh "Why did the Vilna Shas print the Yerushalmi Shekalim and not print the Yerushalmi Zera'im?" All right, that's a good question, but uh but the Daf Yomi does include Maseches Shekalim. Yeah. Yeah. >> I was just wondering if the everybody publishes a safer today and nobody does a shkolim, you know, two or three pages. I was just wondering the level of where did the Rambam what did he do a shkolim if he lived today, whether he would have a shkolim or not. not. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. And those, you know, it is very interesting. Uh the Rishonim did not get haskama did not get haskamas. The notion that you have to have a haskama uh really comes from the Middle Ages, but after time of the Achronim after the 1500s. And really, I think it's kind of correlated with printing. Uh because printing made it much easier to disseminate books. And therefore, every Tom, Dick, and Harry could write a book. And therefore, it was thought that we need to have rabbis that supervise it. Now, I have to admit that today I think haskamas have gone a little bit overboard. Uh the publishers like ArtScroll, Mosaic, you know, all over the Jewish public all time. Uh you know, if you write a novel, a cookbook, uh you need to have a haskama uh from a rabbi that this is a kosher book or whatever whatever whatever it is. So, now haskamas are required on on absolutely everything. >> Well, they they don't need haskamas. >> Well, I'll tell you the truth, you know, I I I happen to write a lot of haskamas. In fact, I write too many haskamas. I mean, this is not a boast. This is a fact, but I I've written more haskamas than Rav Moshe Feinstein or Zalman Auerbach, Rav Yosef combined by by a multiple. Now, there's nothing to be proud of. It just is. Um they keep coming to me for haskamas. So, for the very first time, and I hate to say this, somebody said they'd like to give me $1,000 to write a haskama. Now, the offer is tempting, but I said absolutely not. I mean, maybe I'll write a haskama for you, maybe I won't, depending on the book, but I cannot accept money for haskamas. I mean, imagine if you'd pay a rabbi to write a haskama. I mean, come on, you know, uh I number one, that's going to cheapen every haskama that you ever give because people are going to say it was bought. So, just know that whether you like my haskamas or not, I don't get paid for for for any of them and I I have been offered money and I have refused to take it ever ever that. Cuz I think that would cheapen cheapen the haskamas. But I think it is excessive every single thing has to have a haskama and it's almost a little ridiculous at at some point. But that is the scandal of the U Shmuel me and Seder Katan. Now, this was a long digression, but going back to the Pirkei Avot, so the sixth perek of Pirkei Avot is a braisa and it's a braisa it's a very beautiful braisa. It's really about limud haTorah. Uh Shanu chachamim right in Torah kol haosek baTorah lishmah anyone who learns Torah leshem shamayim merits many things. The list of the 48 ways that you acquire Torah, that is from the sixth perek. Okay. Now, going back to the Rambam. The Rambam wrote of course a commentary on the first five chapters of Pirkei Avot. Fine, not on the sixth one. But he then wrote a very phenomenal introduction to Pirkei Avot that is called Shmona Prakim. The eighth chapters. Now, this is interesting given the fact that the introduction has more chapters than the book. Uh Pirkei Avot in the Rambam's counting is only five chapters. His hakdamah is eight chapters. It's called Shmona Prakim. And Shmona Prakim has become something that people learn even independently of the Rambam's commentary on the others. Meaning, even if you're not learning Pirkei Avot, even if you're not learning the Rambam's commentary on Pirkei Avot, people can establish a keviut, a seder in learning Shmona Prakim. It's considered to be one of the great jewels in Torah hashkafah. And unlike the hakdamah to the commentary of the Mishnah and the Mishneh Torah, which is about the halakhic structure of Judaism, and the Torah is about that, this is about the formation of ethical personality. So, since Pirkei Avot deals with ethics and morals, the Rambam wanted to write in a systematic way about development of character and middot. And Derech Agav, uh incidentally, the Rambam explores issues such as free will and determinism, because you see that's very important. Because if we're talking about the ability to change your character, to develop an ethical personality, that presupposes free will. Because if you're born a certain way, and again, this may sound, you know, common sensical. Everybody believes in free will, but truth of the matter is, part of why certain ideas are commonly accepted is because the Rambam articulated them. In the Rambam's time, the Mutazilites, which were some very prominent Arabic or Islamic philosophers, they denied free will totally. They they said that free will is a contradiction to the omnipotence of the Almighty. If God controls everything, then you cannot have autonomy to violate the will of God. And this was a very strong pre-Calvinist rejection of any notion of free will. And the Rambam considered that, right? The Rambam was combating a lot of heresies. The Karaite heresy to the oral law, and the theological heresy of the Islamic philosophers, who denied the reality of free will. So, in the Shmona Prakim, we have some very, very famous concepts that reappear in the Rambam's writings later. The golden mean, which is from Aristotle, but the Rambam developed it. Uh that appears in the Shmona Prakim. The idea of Bechirah Chofshit, free will, appears in the Shmona Prakim. The famous discussions of what does it mean that Hashem hardened Paro's heart and does that contradict free will? All of this is in the Shmona Prakim, which we will, God willing, look at. And later, he repeats them in a more abbreviated way in the Mishneh Torah itself. But those portions of the Mishneh Torah are building on his earlier writing in the Shmona Prakim. So, it turns out therefore that the Hakdamot of Perush Hamishnayot and Mishneh Torah is the legal structure. The Hakdama of Shmona Prakim is the ethical structure, including Bechirah, which is the prerequisite for ethical growth, because if you don't have free will, then you're not capable of elevating yourself. And the third major Hakdama in the Mishnah is the Hakdama to Perek Chelek. Now, Chelek is uh the 11th Perek, although in the Rambam's counting it's the 10th Perek, of Maseches Sanhedrin. Now, most of Maseches Sanhedrin deals, of course, as its name suggests, with judicial procedure, death penalties, punishments, and the like. But the 11th Perek deals with It's all Aggadot. It's the largest collection of Aggadot in all of the Talmud. And it begins with something that has been appended to Pirkei Avot, although it's not part of Pirkei Avot. Kol Yisrael Yesh Lahem Chelek L'Olam Haba. No, that's not from Pirkei Avos. That's from the 11th paragraph Sanhedrin. Of course, I have to say that we only we cut and paste only the positive statement, you know. The mission actually says, "Every Jew has a share in the world to come, but the following do not." And then then it gives you Then it gives you a pretty long list of people who don't make it. But when we learn Pirkei Avos, we want to be optimistic. We just say, "Every Jew has a share in the world to come." We don't bother finishing finishing the quote. But uh essentially, the mission enumerates what we would call heretics or apikoros and who don't believe in ikare emunah. So, the Rambam uses this as an excuse to elaborate what are the fundamental faith principles of Judaism. And this is the original source of the ikare emunah. Now, I want to point out the thing that you have in every sitter after shacharis, ani ma'amin be'emunah sheleimah, those are not the Rambam's words. That is a later anonymous paraphrase of the principles that are articulated in the hakdamah to perek chelek. And that's why some have pointed out if if you could study it very very closely, you will sometimes see discrepancies between the ani ma'amin description and the original text of the Perush Hamishnayot. And suffice it to say, in all cases of discrepancy, the original text of the Perush Hamishnayot has to control because that's the Rambam. Of course, truth is that's not the Rambam, either. That is uh Rabbi Rabbi Shmuel ibn Tibbon's translation of the Rambam's Arabic. So, if you really you to go back, you may have to go back to the Arabic itself, but still most of us rely on the Ibn Tibbon. Huh? Yeah, so it's interesting. The commentary to the Mishnah is Arabic as with Hebrew letter Hebrew letters, Judeo-Arabic. The Mishneh Torah is of course Hebrew. Moreh Nevukhim is Arabic. So, the simple meaning was that he wanted to write it was like a it was like a 12th century outcry. Uh many people were not so literate in Hebrew. He wanted them to have accessibility to it. However, in one of his letters and I think we covered this, he actually expresses regret. He says he should have written it bilashon hakodesh because that won't give it enduring permanent value. So, he did express a little regret, but I think his point was he wanted to make it as available as possible. You remember there was a very moving letter. Uh some man wrote to him that he was he was a great defender of the Rambam, but he was not a learned person. Uh he didn't really understand the Hebrew language very well, but he studied uh the Mishnah completely with the Arabic commentary of the Rambam. And the Rambam says to him, he says, you know, you are my son, you are my talmid. Uh your learning is precious in the eyes of Hashem. The person felt bad. He says, I'm such an ignoramus. I'm so I you know, I don't know anything. And the Rambam betafka gave him chizuk because of the learning the learning that that that that he did. So, essentially therefore, if we have to summarize in one sentence, the hakdamot of the Rambam fall under three categories: law, ethics, theology. The law means the halakhic structure of Torah Shebaal Peh. Uh ethics are the development of ethical character, including free will. And then the hakdamot of Perek Chelek are the theological postulates. of what it means to be part of the faith community of Judaism. And well, we'll talk about each of these things. Now, in addition the Rambam wrote some specialized hakdamot which are really very discreet. My favorite, I think I mentioned, is something that I never teach anywhere because it might be too obscure. But he wrote a hakdama to the order of purities to taharos, which is in a very, very complicated difficult area. And the Rambam himself was very proud of this. He actually, you know, boasts a little bit about no one has ever done this before and the amount of work that it took me, etc. Now, this is a very, very technical hakdama. But it really opens up an avenue of the Torah that would otherwise be totally, totally, totally mysterious to people. So, that's another famous hakdama, but we probably unless there's really a demand for it, cuz I I would not tell you the truth, I would enjoy teaching it, but as I say, it it may not be appropriate for a general purpose class. So, the three hakdamot that we're going to focus on is the hakdama to pirkei avot, the hakdama of the shmona prakim, and the hakdama to pirkei avot, right? Those will be the three hakdamot that we will be looking at. Okay, you all have a good week and a chodesh tov.