Rabbinic Law- A Brief Overview | Rabbi Anthony Manning | December 17th 2025

Good morning everybody. Thank you Josh for that introduction. Thank you all for coming on a rainy morning. Although as you say the sun is now shining. [clears throat] I'd like to thank our sponsors for the uh Shia today. There's quite a lot of sponsors. So I'd like to read all the names out. Uh the sharim for the whole week of Kaneka are dedicated in memory of Jacob Ben Ysef and Elazbram Hakoen whose y sites are the nerve. That's tonight's uh tomorrow shaneka by Rifky Rosenberg and J Shapiro. So uh thank you for that uh very much. This morning of learning is also dedicated in loving memory of Asha Zelica Zelic Eisenberg who passed away on the third day of Khaneka which is of course today by Rivki and Sammy Mark the Shirim for my whole year are sponsored anonymously Brandit and Zelik Ben Carman. And we have two more uh three more sponsorships. Um the year today sponsored by Fran and David Wolf in commemoration of the York side of David's father and mother Shimit Gersum and Perlasi Alle Shalom and for Sha for Lipen Shiman. So thank you for that very much as well. Uh the SH is also sponsored by Nina Bernstein in memory of our father of her father grandfather and great-grandfather Arthur Krueger Saran Lea. um with love from David and Nina Bernstein and their family. And finally, last but certainly not least, today's show is sponsored by Marvin Mimi Leu Nishmos Lishmas Mosha Ben ADA ZA Marvin's father whose 40th your site was yesterday on Vavis. Actually, maybe that was two days ago. No, that was yesterday. That was yesterday. So, thank you for all that. You see from here that you can have as many sponsors as as as an A4 page can take and even then we can do it double-sided. So thank you very much for that. Uh really every sponsorship is very much appreciated. Nice to see people. Nice to see people I haven't seen for a few weeks. Uh we are going to have a lot of fun today. This is a topic we have not uh addressed before in this forum. uh we had a shir on Khaneka last week but on Khaneka we we've often in the past talked in principle about the link between Kaneka and Tesha al so this year I wanted not to talk again about that link but to actually go into a an issue on turbal pair which I think a lot of people are not so familiar with uh which is the the the fundamental system of what does what does it mean to be a mitzvah dabon mitzvah daon rabbitic mitzvah are a very important part of our If you tot up on a daily basis the number of mitzvah that you do, you will find that most of the mitzvah in Adam between people and God are probably rabbitic mitzvah that you do. The way you do them in the davening and the cash and the shabas etc. Interestingly in mitzvah in interpersonal mitzvah there are very few mitzvah dabono which is an interesting you know conversation which I haven't really ever looked into. Why did the rabbis not really create that whole layer of rabbitic mitzvah in Benadamu? Almost all the bay Adamu we do is all Torah mitzvah. Maybe they felt they didn't need to. They did create some oned which we're not going to get into now. But I'd like to talk about rabbitic law. What what has this got to do with Khaneka? Because the opening salvo is a gammorus in Shabas, excuse me. Look in the uh the first source. Please, this will be familiar to many people. that if you like you need to make a so says [clears throat] what kind of can you make says now last week at the end we mentioned the Arizal who takes out the shell to make it 13 words for the 13th we talked about that last week okay that's the braha So the Gomorrah here immediately jumps in and says one secondu how can we sayu God has commanded us to light the kanekalites. This is not a a Tani festival. There's no hint of this. Maybe hint there is, but there's no reference to this in Tanak. So where can you say that God commanded us or so the famous line in the mitzvah which you're going to see in a minute in the Torah not to deviate from the words of the and since the we'll see who they were introduced when we keep we're also doing the Torah mitzvah. In fact, maybe in essence, we're doing the Torah mitzvah of not deviating from the words of the so it's a Torah mitzvah. So we can say also he says as follows that we're part of a chain of our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. And Rafuk actually has a very beautiful piece which I could have spent the whole she on which I thought of doing which I decided not to do. uh which is where he says that there are two different ways that we connect to mitzvah daon. One of them is in the halahic process as in works today to keep it strong to keep it you know focused on religious growth and one of it is linking us with msora all the way back when we do mitzvah especially we'll see mitzvah raon we're part of a long chain of rabbi to student to rabbi to student to rabbi to student and that's the mitzvah of but we don't have a problem sayingu because we know we're doing a tora mitzvah at the same time as every rabbitic mitzvah. We'll get more onto that later. In fact, and this is much less known, the yushami, themed shami when he brings this discussion actually has an interesting observation which we don't follow. Number two, everybody agrees says the shami here in the suka beyond the first day of sukus that you have to say. You pick up a it's a Torah mitzvah on the first day. You say my what do they disagree on? Meaning everybody agrees on the first day. The question is after that because as you know the mitzvah of after the first day this is it's mikdash in the mikdash they used to walk around with the ara. So we take the lulv every day after the first day as a rabbitic mitzvah to remember the way that they did it in the temple and the mitzvah of was also in the temple seven days and says the following what should you make for the rest of y when it's aonas the same alitvimu says every single rabbitic mitzvah you ever Do you make the mitzvah mitzvah? You make that when you light shabas candles. You make make that when you set when it's every night of the rest of every single that you do, you always remind yourself alvasim. Interesting. That would be a very different kind of would be the most common we ever make probably which we don't make at all. So, So what about what do you agree then? He said that on Lulv. But would he say that on Khan? So the Gmorra says, "What are you talking about?" All the more so Torah. Lul is a Torah mitzvah which the rabbis just extended meaning there's a Torah format was called. It comes from a Torah mitzvah and the rabbis just extended it. And he says that Kaneka Kanuk Kaneka is entirely rabbitic all the more so he's going to make that so you see Kaneka has this status has this flagship status of being the mitzvah dabono the ultimate mitzvah dabon without any hints in the Torah at all and therefore I think the khan is a good time for us to talk about this issue of what is a dabon and how does it work so what I'm going to give you over the next 4550 minutes or is a pretty fastpac run through some of the foundations of what does it mean to to be and to keep a mitzvah. So the first thing is that the the the Rambam is going to tell you in number three that he divides all the oral law that we keep meaning not the mitzvah in the notagim that come if you like from the bottom up we'll talk about that soon but all oral law details of he divides into five categories. So in theory every single mitzvah or that you keep which is not explicitly written in the you can put into one of these five categories. So what are they? Number three we've explained just now this is in his introduction to the Mishna his his his overview of oral law all the which are in our Torah again the oral law can be put into five categories. Moshe. The first category is explanations given all the way from Sinai. Meaning the Torah contains terms that we don't know what they mean. Eat a matzah. What's a matzah? There's no point Moshe coming, you know, out of the O moade and saying to the people, well, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is we have a mitzvah. Eat matzah. Truth is they knew that before the o moade in mit. Whatever. The bad news is we don't know what matzah is. You can't have that. You know, sit in a suka. No idea what that is. Afflict yourselves on your kipper. No idea what that means. No, it says the Gomorrah. There's a ram from the Gmorrah. Every single mitzvah had a perouch like a that's where the term comes from a laid out explanation of what it means. You're not going to be told to to to take take a pre-sar a fruit of a beautiful tree without having any clue what that fruit of that beautiful tree is. So that's the first category what the actual hum means. And don't forget we we don't even know how to read the words without the oral law. All the vows are oral law. You wouldn't know that whether is oral if it wasn't for the fact that it's the so every English translation of the also assumes a lot of the oral law even a Christian translation. Okay. This is a technical category. It's a small category. The Reb lists about 3540 different halakas where they're laws from Sinai, but we would never have seen them other than for the oral law. They're not hinted to anywhere in the text. A classic example is the water libation on sukus. It's not there in the text. Maybe there's a very vague hint to it in the extra letters in the in the in the days of Sukus, but it's not there in the text. We keep it because it's a Okay, I'm not really talking about this first and second category. The third category that the rabbis, the Sanhedrin, we're going to see them in a minute, had a mandate all through the generations to interpret, to look at the verses and to apply what he calls the midat, the yud gimmel midat. We have the famous 13, another famous 13, the rabbi, uh his all-time favorites. Remember, we read we read them in the in the davening in the morning. People may skip them. Uh I don't know if everybody reads them. Uh one of my rebane, Rabbi Isaac Bernstein used to uh quip says when people come late to shalt schul the first thing they sacrifices the corbonus. Uh so um uh so that's that's the reality. So Rabbi Ishmal or Mary is often skipped out. But if you can look at that in the sitter is just before Bar Rabi Ishmail's all-time favorite 13 and this was just his list. There were many other interpretive rules. The Malbin puts together a list of 613. Obviously, he got to that number on purpose. Different rules that the Gamari uses in order to or we see in the Gammorra, but these were used by the Sanhedrin to interpret the Again, I'm not really going to talk about those today either. But then the fourth and the fifth category are what we're focusing on today. The fourth category says the right from the very beginning and all the way through of the of the of the mission etc in every generation fixed laws to make a fence to make some kind of protection for the Torah. These are rabbitic laws and which people often forget the fifth category not all rabbitic laws are fences. The fifth category he says they looked into they researched what do we need in Jewish society? What what could we use by way of extra kind of hakic guidance structure in order to lead fulfilled religious lives? These are what we call takot. They're not gazerot orim or gudarim. They're not fences. is they're not there to protect the Torah, but they're there to enhance our religious life. Takanot and what he calls minhagot. Now, you might turn around and say, "What a minhagot? I've heard of minhagim, but I've never heard of minhagots." So, the rabbi, the Rambam uses the word minhagot to refer to rabbitic law, which comes from the top down, but which is framed in the rubric of Minhag, like second day yv. Second day yonse was introduced by kazal. It wasn't because they didn't know what the right day was by the way. A lot of people think that's we had many sharim on this over the years. They knew they had a fixed calendar already by the time of the garra. But they introduced keeping second day. It's you have to keep it because that's what they used to keep. It's a rabbitic law but it's framed as a minag. That's why it has the of minhagim. If you visit Israel, if you stay in Israel, if you go back. So there are three types of rabbitic law he mentions here. Gazerot, Takanot, and Minhagot. And this is what we call uh rabbitic law. And this all comes from the Sanhedrin and later from the we'll see what they are and who they are. Now there is an interesting discussion which I'm not going to get into now. Entire books have been written on this. This third category that we mentioned where the rabbis are interpreting the Torah verses and coming up with new halocas based on those new interpretations is that Torah law or is that rabbitic law? Now on the one hand it's coming from the Torah on the other hand it's coming through the rabbis and that's what the Rambam famously calls drafim the words of the scribes i.e the rabbis and there's an entire literature dedicated to work out what exactly is the is the status of that middle category. It's kind of a hybrid meaning laws from Sinai are clearly from the Torah. They're from God. Laws from the rabbis enactments are clearly from the rabbis. This middle category from the verses through the interpretation. So that's somewhere in the middle which again we could dedicate a whole she to. Um Mosada Arafuk brought out a book about 50 60 years ago just on that topic which I'm not getting into now. But let's have a look at the Sanhedrin because we don't often think of the Sanhedrin. Many or even most of our rabbitic mitzvah come straight from the top. Number four, the mitzvah in the Torah to create and constitute a high court, a Jewish rabbitical court. Number four, gather me together 70 men from the elders. These were people who knew the knew the people who were connected with the people very importantly who were theim they were the the the the Egyptianapp appointed uh police if you like that knew the the will of the people the needs of the people the the suffering of the people we'll see that's very important the Sanhedrin had to be intimately connected with the people otherwise they weren't authoritative the take them oh no take them to the tent of ing and they're going to stand there with you. And here's the key. I am going to speak with you like Hashem says to Moshe, I I speak to you in the oil moed. I'm going to this word which is a very cabalistically uh you know uh uh sort of availance in that word that there's going to be kind of an overflow. There's going to be a an overflow of the ru of the spirit which I put on you. I'm going to flow it over onto them. They're going to have just a little bit of your and they will bear the burden of the people with you. It's not just going to be you. You have this group, this team, this se of 70 key individuals who know the people. And this became what we know as the Sanhedrin. 71 A. Moshe plus 70 men. I'm not going to get into whether women are allowed to be on the Sanhedrin. That can be another discussion when we get a new Sanhedrin. We'll have to deal with that issue. Um, but it's not it's not so straightforward, but let's assume not for now. 71 men on the Sanhedrin who are the Jewish High Court. And we know historically that this was the court where there are many references to them uh in the second temple period. a little bit less maybe in the first although there are illusions to them with Jehoshaphat and other people but by the second temple period the Sanhedrin is very much a player uh with the with the the king Herod and before King Herod with the Kashmai Yana etc. Um, and of course they were exiled from Jerusalem. They sat in the lishkata gazid. They sat in the beta mikdash uh complex. They had a special room and then they moved down into the the street 40 or so years before the temple was destroyed. And from there they were exiled. I brought you a little map. uh famously Rabok and Ben Zakai uh gets the Vespasian to promise him that he will keep the Sanhedrin uh going and they went to Usha and they went from to to uh to Yavna sorry and they went this is the origin of the phrase Kerbavna Ker Yavna which of course is now famous yeshiva was the name for that Sanhedrin when they went to Yavna and then they went to Usha then back to Yavna to Usha and then to other places Shepharam Betarim Ciporei and then they eventually ended in Tiberius in Taria And in Taria, the last Sanhedrin was destroyed by the Christians. When the Romans became Christian, the Byzantines abolished the Sanhedrin, killed the last of the Nissim and said, "No more Sanhedrin." And as we've talked about in the past, I don't know if you recall, it's been a while actually, maybe we should do it again. There have been attempts over the last 2,000 years, 1500 years, to restart the Sanhedrin. The most the closest we ever got let's say was in the mid 1500s in 1538 Raviakov Bera from Spain through Egypt now in Sat uh made an effort to restart the Sanhedrin and of course that was part of the effort that included Ravi Caro uh and the al-shik was part of that as well and others. Uh this was an amazing time. It didn't succeed for reasons that I'm not going to go into now but there are even today attempts to start the Sanhedrin. There was another attempt maybe 30 years ago when the state was first founded, but we we haven't quite got there yet. We d every day. We're not ding for the theim as in like Shimsh and Gdon and we're dabing for the Sanhedrin because the Sanhedrin would solve a lot of our issues. If we could just agree on who is going to be on the Sanhedrin, then we could have a Sanhedrin tomorrow morning. There's no point if we have four Sanhedrin that defeats the object. >> Yes, >> we can't have aided Sanhedrin, a misned Sanhedrin. That's not going to work. We have to have a Sanhedrin. But we'll get there. We'll get there. I I think that anyone uh anyone who can not be confident of that uh is not living in the re real world because [clears throat] the diff the distance between where we are now and having a Sanhedrin is far far less than the distance between where we were 100 years ago uh and having what we have now. So we we dav every day and we are very confident please god that that will happen but in the meantime we don't have one which we'll talk about in a minute that makes a big difference to the halahik system. Uh so let's have a look at the source of rabbitic authority uh number five in on page number two. So this is where the Sanhedrin comes into its own says the kumsh and again the sanhedrin can't give themselves authority. The rabbis where we call the kazal kazal we talk all the time about kazal. We'll see what that that really means in a minute. They can't give themselves the authority. The Torah has to give them authority otherwise it's circular and the Torah does. In number five, If something is is not clear to you, something you don't know in law and the villagon famously points out that these are the basically the six coordinates of all questions. Benam Ladam that's kav or benin lein oh sorry benam ladam is um is uh and kosha bendin ladin is k and pot and benega is tame and tahor so all the different ways that can come out river and there is an argument in your sh your sh is your local betin you know they' sat in the sh they sat in the gate of the town your betin of three and they can't uh they can't agree ali You must get up you and the ram explains the bet's representative and go up to those words are very important go to the the leading judges who are in your days but and you'll seek your answers there the are the people who will tell you what the is and then here's the mitzvah You must do what they tell you from that place which God will choose. You must guard carefully what they say to you. Do that's mitzvah number one. If you like do the mitz the the things that they tell you from that place and do not deviate. Don't deviate from what they say to the right or to the left and there's a whole discussion of what that means to the right or to the left. So that is the mandate for the Sanhedrin all all according to the Rambam according to the according to many of the rishonim this is the origin of mitzvah meaning like we saw before with the garra when you are doing any mitzvah dabon be lighting shabas candles or not eating chicken chicken and milk together or whatever it is the mitzvah that you're doing are these two mitzvah of doing what the rabbi said and of not deviating from what they said now ironically and this is discussed by the ramb and the ramban This means that every rabbitic mitzvah we do is actually two Torah mitzvah, which is ironic because if you don't if you decide not to eat beef and milk together, so you've kept one Torah mitzvah of meat and milk. But if you decide you're not going to eat chicken and milk together, that's a dabon, you actually kept two Torah mitzvah. The positive mitzvah to do what the rabbi said and the negative mitzvah not to deviate from what they told you to do. Now on this the Rambam asks the Rambam, well I don't understand if if it's if if you get more Torah mitzvah for every dabon mitzvah. So what's the difference between a dabon and a Torah mitzvah? There is no difference. In fact, Rabon's actually on a higher level because for every Dabon there come two Torah mitzvah and the Rambam responds to that and says you're right. You're right. Really there is no difference. We'll see soon the Ramal is going to say there is no difference in terms of authority. The difference is we need to know what is a Torah mitzvah and what is a rabbitic mitzvah for the simple reason that the Torah itself says you're not allowed to add any more Torah mitzvah. You can't have a 614th and a 615th. But the re the rabbis were at pains to say to you this is not really an extra Torah mitzvah. This is part of our delegated authority. This is a rabbitic mitzvah. That's why, for example, we are more lenient with a sophicic mitzvah than we are with a suffic with a doubt on a Torah mitzvah. Well, you'll ask why. Why would we be more lenient? Because surely the rabbitic mitzvah is actually on a higher level on Sunday. It's two Torah mitzvah. The answer is the Rambam because we need to know. We need to have differences between these two sets of law. The Torah says it's important that we know and therefore we have to understand. And therefore every single rabbitic mitzvah that we do comes from that source. There is a debate which we talked about before which I feel we need to talk about again as to whether this mandate of rabbitic law stops at kazal or goes to even the rabbis today. Is there a Torah mitzvah to listen to what the godlador if there is such a thing as the godlador but let's say a godlad is there the the leader of your community if he stands up and says you got to do this does he have the authority of this mitzvah the ramam says absolutely not absolutely not and we'll see that source inside soon the says could well be and therefore if you were I remember many years ago before one of the elections in Israel the man had a picture on the paper. This picture was just Raash, you know, his face and in the biggest font you could possibly imagine. It just said, "Do not deviate." And basically, they're telling the readers of the Neman that if you don't vote the way we tell you to vote, then you are breaking two Torah mitzvah. That's intense. That's intense. And by the way, you can make a case for that. I mean, the Ram wouldn't agree with that and others wouldn't as well, but the Kin might. And there are others that would as well. So I'm saying that is a debate and you get into the whole discussion of dash Torah. What is dash Torah? Where does it come from? If I go to Arav and he tells me I have to do this or I have to do that, is that this mitzvah? Is that something else? We're not going to talk about that today. Okay. The other side of the coin is that the rabbis themselves have a mitzvah to make rabbitic legislation. Look at these sources you may not have seen before. Number seven, after the after all of the forbidden prohibited relationships, the Torah says, "And you must guard my guarding." You can't do all the stuff that they get into in the non-Jewish world says the Gomorrah in 8. Where do we see there's an indication to schnneos? Shnneos are the secondderee incestuous relatives. Meaning the Torah says you can't marry your mother if man can't marry his mother or his grandmother. But maybe it doesn't talk about his great grandmother. Okay. The Gomorrah says, "Yeah, the rabbis introduce plenty of extras that you can't marry this one as well. Where do we know they're from here? You must guard my guarding." This is a direction to the rabbis to do what they can to protect the Torah. The Rambam says this explicitly. Number nine, this is in his introduction to the Mishna Torah. The rabbis made certain also the generation to protect the Torah and they heard this even from Mosha himself. We'll see what that means soon. It's in they also made we said before every generation had to make these new and and [clears throat] this came from this mandate. So the rabbis themselves felt this sense of obligation. We've got to protect the Torah and the Maharal explains it in these terms. Number 10 interesting marshall also these rabbitic mitzvah he says they are very connected to the Torah because look at nature. Look at your fingernails. Next time maybe you say have you can think about this. Look at your fingernails. to protect your fingers to protect your fingers and your toes. That your fingers won't get damaged because they're very exposed and your toes won't get damaged. You have nails to protect them. This is the same idea that the made and they are protecting the Torah. That's why you have to make a on them because this is part of our mitzvah just like we make a on mitzvah. Everything important and precious in life you put under lock and key under some kind of guard. God in his arranged that there would be protections. So so that the Torah law will be protected from harm. If you protect your fingers, why would you not protect your mitzvah? So, in that sense, the Raon, he says, are like fingernails. They're there. They're part of you. You you see them as an integral part of your body, but they're they're just for a protective purpose. They're not actually doing anything in terms of the organism. They're there just to stop you getting damaged. Think of rabbitic mitzvah in this way. And actually, the mitzvah that we do at Shadraon on go all the way back. For example, if you look at the Gomorrah, if you look at the Mishna even, you will see that very few of the rabbitic principles of hala are even debated. They're all taken for granted. They're all done deals. Meaning the Mishna is not discussing what are the mitzvah. They're discussing what are the details of the mitzvah. Look at this source in number 11 from um very interesting uh very interesting uh analysis here. Number 11, just I brought you two lines from a very long piece called the Mava Talmud. He gives a long introduction to the oral law. You can actually get it in English in a decent translation. He says as follows, there are many rabbitic laws. They just appear in the Mishna. A done deal. Everybody agrees. No one ever even dreamed of debating them. We sometimes forget this. We're so locked into the locust into all the the rabbis discuss and they they they they get, you know, debate and disagree on everything. That's not true at all. We disagree on things that most other religions don't even care about. You know, you tell Christians to light a candle, they just light a candle, they're happy. They go the church, they light a candle, they do a mitzvah. You know, you tell a Jew to light a candle and he's like three, you know, proc him of debate. this kind of candle, that kind of candle, this length, that kind of wick, this kind of oil, this kind of, you know, there's no debate about the fundamental mitzvah. They're not these the most of the rabbitic law. We can't say, "Oh, we came from this rabbi or this period of time." We don't know where it came from. It was already done long before. We don't know where they came to us. There's no indication in the Mishna of when these principles were laid down. They were already a done deal centuries before anything was recorded. And he said it's absolutely clear. They came to us from the Sanhedrin. Meaning this actually is a is a revelation. Most of our rabbitic laws are not from Kazal. They're from before Kazal. They're from the Sanhedrin because but by the time Khazal came along in the sense of the rabbis of the Mishna and the Gomorrah, they're just taken as absolutely for granted. They made them in this full quorum minion. They had a minion of 71. And I just brought you a very short list just in Shabas on page number three. These are all areas of that there's no debate at all that they exist. Not to leave uncooked food on the fire before Shabas, okay, the m the mitzvah of Shah in case you turn up the flame. Not to wrap hot food before Shabas, the mitzvah of hat. Not to wear certain jewelry on Shabas in case you take it off. Now, we don't tend to do that today, but I'm not getting into that now. Not to ask a non-Jew to work for a Jew on Shabas. That's just an accepted part of the rabbitic law. Not to have a wedding on Shabas. Not to swim on Shabas. To make kiddos, to have dollar on wine on Shabas, not to have a court case, not to make a loan on Shabas, to light Shabas candles, the union of Mukah, meaning where did all this come from? The answer is it was all structured there before the Mishna was even dreamed of. Yes. >> The second one, not to wrap up. What does that mean? I [clears throat] don't want to get into hila shabas now but if you have hot food before shabas there are rabbitic restrictions on whether you can wrap it up and keep it on a hot plate in a way that keeps it hot it's called hata depends on what kind of food it is what kind of hot plate it is all I'm I shabas till the cows come home but um all I'm saying to you is that all of these things just part of the system we just don't see a text that goes behind the Mishna because it was the oral law we see a little window every now and then for example For example, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, they found letters that the Dead Sea Scrolls sect wrote to the rabbis in Jerusalem saying like, "The reason we don't like you guys and that we've broken off and do our own thing is because you say this, but we think this." And we read those letters and we find some of these halakas, this is already these letters are two 300 years before the Mishna was codified. We say, "Oh, we know about that." that pops up later in the Mishna, but it's all much older. So we we often think of kazal as the source but kazal not the source. The source is the sanedrin because most of these things were all uh there's very few new areas which are uh created or or innovated after the mission. Yes. >> You know I everyone says it says like you shouldn't cut your nails on Thursday because they grow right. >> You should put your right foot shoe on. Wait. >> Okay. every single hakah detail you need to ask that question of and everyone comes from slightly somewhere slightly slightly different the shoe thing is maybe you know a little bit later there are maybe other inyanim going on there I'm really talking about fundamental areas of there's a there's a there's a whole discrete area called that comes from the idea of from comes from much but you can make that analysis on every single law and you can and we should we don't say you know they say you know cuz a lot People say all sorts of things, you know, the m the depends on how you view the ism, you know, the joke. You either say the ism aim, yeah, or the is a gm. Yeah. So, you know, you have to always ask where things come from. But, uh, but anyway, let's go on now. So, why did the Torah not include these laws? If they're all part of the system, they have the same level of of of kaduca almost, why did it not have them there? And the answer is very simple. Number 12, the Torah says at the very end, the Torah is not in heaven. The bit that was from heaven was given. That's the written law. But the rest of the Torah is not in heaven. And if you look in the Ram, it says number 13, all of these rabbitic laws. the the the the will of God is that these mitzvah should be kept no less than Torah mitzvah because they're all mandated through that Torah mitzvah really God could have given us all these mitzvah Shabas's candles candles who knows what but God wants us to have a creative role in it's absolutely fundamental that is not just from God. Hal is a partnership between and the Jewish people. The there really is no difference. The only difference between these two kind of mitzvah is whatever differences said but there's no difference in in essence between them. But he gives some of the differences which imposed but really they're all the same level of intensity. Um and therefore the reason that we have rabbiting mitzvah is to is to engage us in the process. This by the way is one of the reasons why Kaneka and Purim are seen as being the kind of um mitzvah dabon celebrations because the the the symbol of the olive and the symbol of the grape, the olive being kanaka and the grape being purim, wine on purim and the oil on khaneka are the two fruits where human action on the fruit actually upgrades rather than downgrades the fruit. If you take an orange and you squeeze it, it goes down from a bra8 to a sha orange juice. But if you take a grape and you squeeze it, put human beings into the natural fruit, it upgrades from being to brahagen. And even the olive kazal discussed in in in Gammorian brahas, what braha do you make on olives? And the and he wanted to say hazat that should be the braha on olive oil. The braha on olives is but the braha on olive oil if you drink it as a drink which we hardly ever do but let's say you drink it should be haz. So he says you can't say because ziet is an ambivalence term you could z could be the olive z could be the tree meaning with gean gean is the is the tree the the the grapes are not called gein they called anavim. Yeah. But so we you can't say so what bro do you make on olive oil? If you drink olive oil as a drink meaning if it can't go up at least it doesn't go down. It's not shah because the symbol of and the symbol of purim is that our action actually upgrades Torah not downgrades Torah and he wants it to be a partnership. Yeah, many academics like to make a distinction what they call Judaism, >> right? >> That's not really >> No. Meaning they may be right that the Judaism the origin of these particular things came from a rabbitic movement. But does that have anything to say? The very mitzvah of loash shamim here means that rabbitic Judaism is Judaism because as long as you're talking about the right group of people and we're talking about the Sanhedrin again that doesn't mean that any rabbi can come along and say I have a mandate from heaven to you know to tell you what I think you should do and that's why the ram we'll see is very very careful to restrict this to the Sanhedrin and I just brought you on page four you can read this largely for yourself um oh before we get to port page four sorry number 14 just one little word from the meshma the other reason we wanted to have this separate system of rabbitic law. Number 14, the Torah really wants that aside from things which are permanent and never changing which are the mitzvah in the have to be new things. But these have to be temporary. There has to be a system of law that can change that is refle is is flexible is responsive that the rabbis can can make those changes in every generation as to what the generation needs. In fact, Rabbi Elaza Burkowitz talks this talks about this from Chicago talks about this in a very important analysis. He has a book called not in heaven where he goes through this and he says this is actually the dream combination and again Khan is very much about this if we just have unchanging laws from the kumsh then there is a real risk in inevitability that they become irrelevant they're fossilized they're fundamental you and they don't apply they don't apply in our generation in the way that they did then therefore they don't mean anything on the other hand if all you have is autonomy meaning no one's going to tell us what to do we're going to tell ourselves what to do then you have No red lines at all. No, zero. Because we make it up. We can do whatever we like. The dream team, says Rob Burkovitz, is theonomy, laws coming from God, which can never be changed. There are red lines and autonomy from the rabbis within that framework to create new responsive interpretations and new. That's a dream team because then you have red lines you can't cross and you also have flexibility and innovation. That's how it should be because that's why we need to have a Sanhedrin. Does it feel like that today? Sometimes not because we don't have a Sanhedrin. We have a Gomorrah, which we'll talk about in a minute. Okay, fine. Uh, now page four. You can read this on your own. I brought you some examples of gazerat of takanat. Um, people often think of rabbitical laws as just like fences. Uh a lot of people just you know have this sort of rather amoratish narrative that all the rabbis ever do is like sit around trying to make life more difficult and they invite more and fences on fences on that is actually not true at all. Most of the rabbitic legislation is nothing to do with fences meaning okay good you can't eat chicken and milk because uh you might come to eat beef and milk but rabbitic law like you should make a brocha when you eat a you know a piece of cake that's a rabbitic law because they said look these brochers is is brilliant let's extend them let's have broccas on food broas on smells broas on exciting news happy news sad news let's light chabas candles let's uh all sorts of things and I've brought you all sorts of different kinds of rabbitic mitzvah, tyonus and gazeras. Uh even even things that seem uh almost uh trivial that cosmetics should be available for women in all towns. I mean maybe you don't think that is trivial. I'm a man. I don't wear a lot of makeup and therefore maybe I feel that is less central but that will worry that you people have to be able to go and buy their makeup somewhere. Other things as well of course the fast days these are nothing to do with uh fences. Most of the rabbitic law is actually there to enhance our life etc. And it comes all the way from the top. Looking at number 15, Kumar Shabas, a line you might miss if you weren't looking for it. Mosheu say from the very beginning Moshe was working not just with a I'm a prophet bringing down the Torah hat, but I'm a rabbi making Gazerus head. He was on the first Sanhedrin. And we have them to this day. For example, a number of the rabbitic laws are attributed to very early times of our history. Moshe is given the attribution that the chevraas, the idea of the seven days of chevraas, which of course are hinted to in the Torah with Yakov and uh and Leia and Raal and other places too. Um the ideas of studying the laws of the festival on the festival and I brought you Yeshua has certain uh draons associated with him. Flip on to page five. You can look at this on your own. David Hamel Schlomch is connected with Auv Ezra Haken is collected connected with a lot of the dramas that we do uh today. The anesola who fixed the final versions of the brahas and the amida and brought in purim as well and later Kaneka you see here as well. Hillel probull yen zakai other things as well. So we have rabbitic mitzvah coming in at every stage of Jewish history not just at the time of the rabbis in the komorrah and they are codified and brought through. Okay fine. So in the last part of the sh in the last 15 16 minutes let's just look at some of the restrictions. What can the rabbis not which one did you find that you found exciting? >> Well leaving the square undecorated on the wall. Okay that people always say you don't have to do that. >> Okay. According to the men today is not so much to do to do that always but it's it is it is there in the so the the rabbis actually were restricted. There are some things they can't do. So let's have a look at that for the last for the next uh 16 or 17 minutes because this is actually very interesting. I won't read every source on the sheet because each one is a in and of itself. The [clears throat] first obvious thing that the rabbis cannot do is they cannot override the Torah. The Torah says that that I don't know horse is a trafe. The rabbis can't say horses are kosher. They can't do that because the Torah obviously are the red lines. That's what I just said. The Torah has to be the red lines. They can't cross those red lines. Do they ever cross that line? Yes. But in very limited situations, and I brought you the example of Probull where the Gomorrah says, "One second, if the Torah says that the loan is released, how on earth can the rabbi say the loan is not released? You're break you're you're crossing that red line. How does that work?" And we see this with other situations. The Torah says shake aul even if the first day of shab of sukas is shabas and the rabbis say no we're worried you might carry it one second the Torah told me to do this you're telling me not to do this you cross through that line and the answer is in number 17 which is the discussion there about probable amarbay gives the famous chevas who that the rabbis are allowed to cross that line only passively they can't tell you that you're allowed to eat something or do something the Torah says is prohibited, but they can tell you sit on your hands and don't do something that the Torah says you should do a mitzvah assay. And that's why we're sometimes prohibited from for example chauffeur on rash shana if it falls on shabas they also abolish the sa they abolish the agluah there are other examples as well so that's one example where they can cross that line the ram brings another example which is very interesting look at number 18 says the raam that the rabbis can override the Torah on a temporary basis, not a permanent basis. They can override other rabbis even though they're smaller than the greater ones because surely the rabbis are not even stronger than the Torah. and Torah even when it comes to the Torah the rabbis can make a temporary ruling meaning with the al that you can't blow chauffeur on Shabas that's permanent from now on till the new Sanhedrin is made we cannot blow blow chauffeur on Shabas but on a temporary basis they can override anything just for now and the rabbi said the Sanhedrin and the rabbi and the rabban says it's a little bit like uh amput utation. If somebody needs a limb amputated to save their life, so you amputate the limb to save the life. So if a mitzvah for whatever reason needs to be broken, the rabbis feel in order to save the system, then they're allowed to do that. A bit like he says that you can break one Shabas to keep many Shabases. We break Shabas to save a life so the person can keep many Shabases. And there's a fascinating example with the Greeks. Look at number 19. Yamas Gomorra says the Gomorrah said there was a a case there was a this is not a midrash this is a a case law there was one guy that was riding a horse on Shabasanim in the days of the Greek persecutions now Shabas as you know was one of the things that they wanted to you know come clamp down on the the Greeks they brought him to the bin inim Vaklu and they stoned him. They killed him. They executed him for riding a horse on Shabas. Now, why are you not allowed to ride a horse on Shabas? It's a dram. It's not a There's no Torah prohibition to ride a horse on Shabas. How can they execute him? Not because that's the real in the Torah. they needed to make a point that there was a there was a general um breach of the laws of Shabas and they stepped this like prohibition up on that level on a temporary basis. And another rather strange example and there was another fellow I assume at the same time of the Greeks they he had marital intimacy with his wife outside under a fig tree. Okay. I don't know if it's relevant that it was a fig tree but it was a fig tree. I suppose everything's relevant. Okay. They vulon and they brought him to >> bast and they and they gave him lashes. They didn't kill him. They gave him Melkus. What do you mean he gave him Malcus? What precisely which Torah mitzvah did he he he break here? Meaning it's a like a very modest thing to do. You want to say he broke Sne? Okay. Okay. That's not what it says. It says he didn't really deserve lashes, but they gave him lashes because he says that's not the kind of thing you can do around here. Not because that's the Torah prohibition, the Torah judgment. So, they were able to give a sh other things that they could or couldn't do. The Sanhedrin can't always overrule a previous Sanhedrin. I'm not getting bogged down too much in the weeds, but it depends on what the issues are. Number 20, 21, and 22 deal with this. The Ram sets out in detail, it depends on what the previous Sanhedrin was doing. For example, I'll summarize a little bit the these three paragraphs. The Rambam says in number 20 that if it's interpretation then any Sanhedrin can overrule any earlier Sanhedrin even if they're not greater even if they're not a greater Sanhedrin because when it comes to interpretation there has to be total freedom for the Sanhedrin to interpret the way they wish to interpret. Very interesting. They're not bound by previous Sanhedrin. When it comes to rabbitic laws, they are bound if the last Sanhedrin was greater than them. They can only override if they were greater than the previous Sanhedrin. And there are a criteria to establish how much greater what greater means. And he brings in 22 when it comes to protective gazeras that that become adapted adopted by the people. Even a later Sanhedrin which is greater cannot overturn it because we're worried if something is prohibited and then it suddenly becomes permitted people are going to say wow this hakic system it's all very flexible we used to be oser and now it's mutter and we're you know it's like a free these rabbis they just make up whatever they like meaning the ram explains this is a if you like to avoid the idea uh immortally said in the words of blue greenberg although she later said I didn't really mean that um I must say that which is where there's a rabbitic will there's a hakic way yeah which is not true there are things that the rabbis can't do. So the Ram says, "We were worried about this, so we're not going to make things permitted which were previously prohibited." But this raises interesting questions. The Rambam is very conservative on this. But can we ever override previous rabbitic laws if they if the reasons just don't apply anymore? We've had Shirim about this myronm, you know, the reason was X and the reason doesn't apply, can we now stop doing it and sh on Friday night is etc. It's a yes. Well, uh, who decides whether San Hadrlin is greater than >> good? Excellent. So, that's a great question. Um, the the two the two criteria are [snorts] KMA and minion. Are they greater in wisdom or are they greater in minion? What does minion mean? Minion doesn't mean the number of rabbis because it's always 71. It means the number of the amount of support that they have from the general populace, from the in the populace. So, I think the short answer is we do. We decide if they're greater than the last generation. Sometimes it's obvious, you know, you know there's the expression bad meaning everybody knows that yak was less holy than but if he's the one in charge he's the one in charge but we know we know if they're greater or not greater. On the other hand you can't have people saying oh you guys you guys are not as good as they were 100 years ago and we want to go to the basin 100 years ago. Yes. >> It seems that they always say that an earlier outranks another one. That's not true. Actually, that's not we don't always say that. In fact, the brings down that the min is that the is like the later authorities over the earlier authorities. So, this idea that we always give priority to earlier authorities is not true. We often don't do that. We often do do that, but it depends on who and when. It's not a it's not a hard and fast rule. I know people sometimes get that impression, but it's not necessarily true. The last thing I want to just deal with which I think is very important is page number seven just in five or six minutes. The Sanhedrin was very much uh connected to the will of the people. It's not some kind of autocratic uh court that is telling us what to do and what not to do without any connection to the people themselves. And this actually goes to the heart of the authority of the Gamorra. Look at number 23 says the Rambam let's say the Sanhedrin wanted to make a new decree his three categories they have to really do research they have to sit and think about it later and they have to know in advance is this something that the people will accept can do or if people won't do it. Meaning who who's boss here? Well, the Sanhedrin are the rabbis and the people do what the rabbis say. But the rabbis only do what the people can manage because never ever you can't make new rules for the Jewish people if the Jewish people don't want those rules. If they're not up to those rules now goes on, let's say the bastin did think they did their research. the and they assumed they thought the people can cope with this new rule and that when they made it the people said no we don't want that we can't do that they're like where does that come from we can't cope with that and the people didn't it didn't spread it didn't become accepted harba not only can does he doesn't say they can remove it has no authority The Sanhedrin made a rule and they didn't properly research that the people would be able to keep it. It's not a rule. So it's interesting. This is not a democracy. But on the other hand, it's not an autocracy. [clears throat] You do what the Rav says, but you choose the Raph. Yeah. You choose your Rav and then you do what he says. But he doesn't choose you. The Sanhedrin are subordinated on a certain level to the to the abilities of the people. They can't force the people to do something they can't do. Interesting. And then in the third Zion he says and if they made a gazer and it did catch on and the people did accept it but a later generation came along and said look you know they could do this we just are not up to this then the Sanhedrin could say okay you know something we should take it away and he there's an example of this which is she very again originally I brought you the mission in the garra in 24 and 25 where the originally the rabbi said we're going to make certain gazeras to stop people fratonizing with non-Jews and they're going to intermar etc. um uh pass a bishel akum she akum so the Jewish people acum the Jewish people accepted some of these yeah we'll we'll we'll take the wine we'll take the bishel and we'll even take the pass sort of meaning if your next door neighbor breaks bakes you a loaf then you're not allowed to eat it you can go by buy something that the factory made as long as it's kosher but she the people said you're joking she we can't buy olive oil from non-Jews will it won't survive. You know how many olive oil keeps the economy running. I mean in the Middle East we have to use Greek olive oil. We have to use Moroccan olive oil or whatever it is. And the rabbis who made that gazer took it away again. They said you're right. You're right. People can't cope with it. And to this day there is no provision of Shemakum. There used to be and they said they took it away. So you see this responsiveness um to them and it comes to the issue in Luke in 26. We give a lot of credibility to the to the people. Israel says to Gomorrah, "Don't start up with the Jewish people." Even if they're not prophets, >> Benimh, they're trainy prophets. Everyone thinks they're a prophet, that's for sure. But that meaning you take it seriously. If the Jewish people as a whole say this is not something we can do, okay, you know something that's like a nva as well. And and in fact if you look in in your own time in number 27 um the Rambam says and this is why the Gomorrah is authoritative because the Sanhedrin I know it comes from the POS we saw Lysassur but the Gammorra many of the rabbis in the Gomorrah were not on the Sanhedrin some of them were the early the Tanim many of them were on the Sanhedrin of the day and even the Amorayim the in the rabbis of the Talmudic period in Erit Israel some of them were in in a Sanhedrin in the late stages but none of the rabbis in Babylonia were on the Sanhedrin Rahuna and Rav Papa and Ramvid and Raves and Ravina and Rav Ashi they were not why do I have to listen to them says the Rambam that's the whole point the Sanhedrin's authority is vested in their acceptance by the people the people accepted the Talmud they accepted the Gomorrah the Bavi because and he brings a geopolitical reality the Jewish people were there in Bavl that was the Jewish community there was really no Jews in any kind of serious numbers in any other places and they accepted the authority of the Talmud. But after that point they scattered and they never accepted anyone again. Their own local rabbi. Yes, your own local community. But there is no rabbi from the days of the Talmud onwards who can say the Jewish people have accepted me. Nope. You're the rabb of your own community. You go as far as your own community and anyone else who wants to listen to you. But you don't have authority over the Jewish people. So he says that's the same the reason the Talmud is binding is because that's the reason the Sanhedrin is binding because we accepted it and we wanted and we and we and we uh we accepted their authority on ourselves. But today there is no such thing as a Sanhedrin. Please God, there will be sometime in the future. And I brought you a few other things at the very back. But this is actually very important because a lot of people breeze through their Jewish halakic life doing mitzvah not realizing what their authority is and where they come from etc. Like uh you were saying before Mrs. Israel like we do things we don't know where they came from. We should we need to we need to understand where everything comes from and what the authority of it is and uh and the the idea of of having a like says the the mitzvah of uh of connecting with Msora we will do it much better I think if we understand it much better. So we'll leave it there for now. Uh next week we're going to go on to other things. Uh I've not forgotten that I promised you a series on women's Torah readings. I'm getting to that point that I'm looking into that now. Please God, we'll be dealing with that very soon.