50 | JANUARY 27 • 2022

ARTS&LIFE
BOOK REVIEW

Y

udi Levine, a native
Detroiter who now
lives in Texas, has
written a lively, funny, read-
able, informative book about
what could be a forbidding
topic — legal thinking in the
Talmud. This book is not for
everyone, though. However,
if you fit into the target audi-
ence, you will certainly want
to read his book,
Are You Sure?
(Volume 1) How
Chazakahs Guide
Us Through the
Unknown (Shikey
Press).
The book
focuses on a difficult problem
in comparative law: What
should courts do when we do
not have clear evidence? What
should we do when we do
not have enough evidence, or
when the evidence is unclear
or contradictory?
Most of our lives, we do
not have enough evidence to
reach certainty, and yet we
still have to decide.
Law courts certainly have
to reach decisions. In law,
some official has to have the
power to decide. The legal
system can emphasize rules

for the official to follow “if the
ball crosses the plate above
the batter’s knees” or it can
emphasize empowering the
official “if, in the opinion of
the umpire, the ball crossed
the plate.”
The Talmud devotes much
thought to the nature of the
rules. In the Talmud, a rule to
use in cases of doubt is called
a chazakah, a legal presump-
tion establishing burden of
proof. A chazakah, in Levine’s
definition, “guides us through
the unknown.”
Levine provides us with
a systematic classification
of the different varieties of
these rules. For each rule,
he describes its function as
it appears in the Talmud.
Invariably, the Talmudic rab-
bis disagree about the scope
and meaning of the rules, and
later rabbis disagree about
what the early rabbis meant.
Levine guides us through the
disputes with clear conceptual
analyses.
This is real scholarship. The
enthusiastic forward for this
book was written by Noah
Feldman, Felix Frankfurter
Professor of Law at Harvard
University and director of its

Program of Jewish and Israeli
Law.
So, the book provides sig-
nificant material for serious
study. But I described the
book as funny, not a typi-
cal description of books of
Talmudic analysis. Part of
the humor comes from this:
Levine illustrates each doubt
with examples from the world
of sports or of popular enter-
tainment.
His examples typically con-
vince the reader of the con-
tinuing need for systematic
thinking about conflicts, and
often show the current value
of the resolutions suggested
by Talmudic rabbis. These
discussions startle by rubbing
together material from differ-
ent cultures.
Discussions of Talmudic
thinking do not often consid-

er the wisdom of the National
Basketball Association when
it decided to recognize
Grant Hill and Jason Kidd as
co-winners of the Rookie of
the Year award.
Would it have been a
greater honor to recognize
one as Rookie of the Year
of the Eastern Conference
and the other of the Western
Conference? Or does the
shared honor as co-holder of
the Rookie of the Year of the
whole NBA seem greater?
Somehow, in Levine’s anal-
ysis, this question illuminates
a dispute between Rambam
and Tosfos about how to ana-
lyze the first Mishnah in Bava
Metsiah, in which two dis-
putants come to court, each
holding the same garment and
claiming the whole thing.
Discussions of Talmudic

Author brings humor, sports and
celebrities to this serious topic.

Talmudic Legal
Thinking

Yudi Levine

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER