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Shev Shema'tata (שב שמעתתא), sometimes pronounced Shev Shmaytsa, is a work on Talmudic logic and methodology by R. Aryeh Leib HaCohen Heller. The name of the book is Aramaic, and means "seven passages". Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Image File history File links Wikitext. ... The Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד) is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history. ... Aryeh Leib Hacohen Heller (1745-1813) (Hebrew: אריה לייב בן יוסף הכהן הלר) was a Rabbi, Talmudist, and Halachist in Galicia. ...

It consists of seven sections, each with approximately 25 chapters, which explains intricate halachic topics including the validity of a single witness and the practical ramifications of a doubt. The reasoning process that Heller employs to analyse and resolve these very basic conflicts and contradictions in the Talmud is considered the basis for the analytical method used in modern times in Talmudic study. Halakha (Hebrew: הלכה; also transliterated as Halakhah, Halacha, Halakhot and Halachah with pronunciation emphasis on the third syllable, kha), is the collective corpus of Jewish religious law, including biblical law (the 613 mitzvot) and later talmudic and rabbinic law as well as customs and traditions. ... The Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד) is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history. ...

Although an early form of this work was initially presented by R. Heller when he was still a young man during his seven days of celebration after his wedding, it was actually one of his later publications and underwent significant editing by the author.

Contents of the work

R. Heller's introduction to this celebrated work explains his outlook on Judaism, and includes complex and profound biblical exegesis. His basic stance is a blend of Kabbalah and Italian Neoplatonism, somewhat similar to that found in Isaiah Horowitz's Shene Luchot ha-Berit and the works of Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. The starting point is a doctrine of the Fall, according to which the effect of Adam's sin was a confusion between soul and body, causing the soul to become dependent on the gratification of the body's desires. The correct relationship is one in which the body is simply an instrument for the soul, and the purpose of religious endeavour is to restore this position. Through analysis of a series of Biblical incidents, he illustrates his contention that there would be no value in an understanding and observance of Torah that was ready-made and which one had no choice but to follow. Rather, just as practical halachah is a code which one strives to follow using one's free will, so the intellectual content of Torah is presented in a cryptic and open-ended form the value of which depends on one's struggle to understand it. Talmudic analysis is accordingly the highest form of religious endeavour, and the purpose of the book is to furnish the tools for this activity. This article is about traditional Jewish Kabbalah. ... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists. ... Isaiah Horowitz (c. ... Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (also Moses Chaim, Moses Hayyim, also Luzzato) (1707-1746), also known by the Hebrew acronym as the RAMCHAL (also RAMHAL), was a prominent Italian Jewish rabbi, mystic, and philosopher best remembered today for his ethical treatise Mesillat Yesharim (Path of the Just). ...

The overall subject of the book is the way in which Jewish law addresses doubts, either as to the facts or as to the applicable law. The Talmud provides a series of presumptions, in favour of strictness or leniency depending on the circumstances. One series of questions concern the way in which these presumptions interact. Another is the more fundamental question of how presumptions work. That is, does a presumption have the effect of assimilating the doubtful cases to the certain cases in all respects, or are doubtful cases a third category with its own special laws, alongside the certainly included and the certainly excluded?

The first section analyses whether the concept of "A doubt in a biblical issue is dealt with stringently" is actually a biblical concept itself or whether it is entirely of Rabbinic origin.

Parallels in other religions

Heller's analysis of doubts and presumptions bears a distinct resemblance to the analysis of probability in Shi'a Islamic law, as developed by Muhammad Baqir Behbahani and refined by Shaykh Murtada al-Ansari. In cases where the primary sources cannot yield an unequivocal principled answer, there are still presumptions, sufficient in ordinary life, for deciding on the better view. For example, where there is doubt whether a given situation (such as ritual purity) exists but it has certainly existed in the past, one can rely on a presumption that it is more likely to have continued the same than to have changed. Jafari school of thought, Jafari jurisprudence or Jafari Fiqh is the name of the jurisprudence of the Shia Twelvers Muslims, derived from the name of Jafar al-Sadiq, the 6th Shia Imam. ...

In Roman Catholic moral theology, a distinction is recognised between "direct principles" and "reflex principles". Reflex principles are presumptions to be applied in cases of doubt, such as the rule that where the moral right to something is unclear one favours the person in possession. (See Catholic Probabilism.) Such principles are widely found in Western legal systems. The Roman Catholic view of probabilism[1] is that in the absence of certainty – particularly in the case of moral judgments – probability is the best criterion. ...

References

Louis Jacobs, "Rabbi Aryeh Laib Heller's Theological Introduction to His Shev Shema'tata", Modern Judaism, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Sep., 1981), pp. 184-216 Louis Jacobs (born 1920) is a Masorti rabbi in England, the first leader of Masorti Judaism (also known as Conservative Judaism) in the UK, best known as the central focus of events in the early 1960s that came to be known as The Jacobs Affair. Jacobs was ordained as an...