Pilpul (, loosely meaning 'sharp analysis'; ) is a method of studying the Talmud through intense textual analysis in attempts to either explain conceptual differences between various halakha rulings or to reconcile any apparent contradictions presented from various readings of different texts.[2000 years of Jewish history: p170 Chaim Schloss - 2002 "Jews in Eastern Europe (Part II) The word pilpul comes from the Hebrew word for "pepper"; "] The word pilpul has entered English as a colloquialism used by some to indicate extreme disputation or hairsplitting.
Sources
The requirement for close derivation of the conceptual structures underlying various
halakha, as a regular part of one's
Torah study, is described by
Maimonides as follows:
[ Mishne Torah, Sefer Madda, Laws of Torah Study, 1:11]
Other such sources include Pirkei Avot,[Pirkei Avot 6:6] the Babylonian Talmud,[ Shabbat 31a] Rashi,[ Rashi to Kiddushin 30a, s.v. "Talmud"] and Shneur Zalman of Liadi.[Shulchan Aruch HaRav Talmud Torah 2:2 and 3:4]
Narrow definition
In the narrower sense,
pilpul refers to a method of conceptual extrapolation from texts in efforts to reconcile various texts or to explain fundamental differences of approach between various earlier authorities, which became popular in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: its founders are generally considered to be
Jacob Pollak and
Shalom Shachna.
Pilpul was defined by
Heinrich Graetz as "the astonishing facility of ingenious disquisition on the basis of the Talmud."
[Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews: from the Rise of the Kabbala (1270 CE) to the Permanent Settlement of the Marranos in Holland (1618) (ed. Bella Löwy), vol. iv, New York 2009, p. 418. ]
Opposition
Many leading rabbinic authorities have harshly criticized this method as being unreliable and a waste of time, and it is regarded by some as having been discredited by the time of the
Vilna Gaon. A common criticism is that those who used this method were often motivated by the prospect of impressing others with the sophistication of their analysis, rather than by a disinterested pursuit of truth; such students, it was held, did not apply appropriate standards of proof in obtaining their conclusions (if any), and frequently presupposed conclusions that necessitated unlikely readings (interpretations) of "proof-texts". As such,
pilpul has been derogatorily called
bilbul, Hebrew for "confusion".
[Baruch Erlich, HaPilpul - Yesod Limud HaTorah SheBeAl-Peh VeHishtalshuto Bemeshech HaDorot, Morashteinu, 3:189 (1989)]
Judah Loew ben Bezalel (the Maharal), in a famous polemic against pilpul, wrote:
The Rebbe Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, quoting Maharal, allows for "genuine pilpul" while dismissing "false pilpul":
An approach contrasting to pilpul, often referred to as "" ("analyzing the sugya re. the Halacha"), emphasizes (legal) application over abstraction.
Current methods
In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
pilpul in this narrow sense was largely superseded by the analytic methods pioneered by the
Lithuanian Jews, in particular the
Brisker method. However, many people consider these methods too to be a form of
pilpul, although the practitioners of the analytic method generally reject the term. Before World War II, both the old and the new kinds of
pilpul were popular among
and
Poland Jews. Since then, they have become prominent in most
Ashkenazi and many
Hasidic Judaism .
See also
External links
-
"Pilpul", an article from the Jewish Encyclopedia
