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