The Law of an Adult Who Became a Minor at the Purim Feast (Column 551)

Our Sages, of blessed memory (see Pesachim 93a), toiled mightily over that weighty halachic lady—“a minor who became an adult between two Passovers.” Yet we have never merited a ruling about “an adult who became a minor between two Purims.” In exile, to be sure, such a case would not arise, for there are no “two Purims.” Still and all, I trembled and wondered that we have not heard at the Purim feast that grand ruling concerning an adult who became a minor.

However, in due course I did find this wondrous matter in the composition of our master, the humble and awe-inspiring author of “To the Thousands,” who expounded it from the words of Ben Zoma. Since then this pearl has lain with me, sealed in my treasuries. It pertains to a “triple Purim” that falls in the sabbatical year—most marvelous! The city is great, a place where the satraps are sent by name (may its inhabitants live in goodness), and there humility and dreamlike wisdom are endowed from Above.

He pressed me again and again—for it is a merit to honor the honored—and he rightly did so, for one does not refuse a great man. Therefore I send these words, base as I am, to present them before you. He wrote an approbation as follows, for one does not withhold a favor from those who go barefoot—the giver strengthens the unshod—so that the listeners may run with it, and the readers may see and judge, and many chairs be added for the nobles; and those who give honor will themselves receive honor. These are pearls.

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Letter of Approbation (in a florid style)

To the honored great Rabbi, a pillar of strength and a tower of might,

Ben Zoma—man of illustrious lineage—

[here follows an elaborate, poetic panegyric in rabbinic hyperbole: “From the days of Samuel we have not seen such… his mastery bends Mishnah and Baraita as he wishes; his heart does not shrink from the mud between the troughs; he herds flocks by the thousands; butter he churns without end; his inner self matches his words; he is like the High Priest in his splendor; he gathers the words of the decisors like sheaves to the threshing floor; he hews at the strongest sugyot; none preceded him in this; fortunate is he and his portion…” etc.]

Food is plentiful in his honor, and in honor of his mother, in his honor—

Yet it rose in my heart, God forbid, not to leave this page blank,

Lest I withhold a drop of pilpul from his holy words,

All of which are sweet, more desirable than fine gold.

As for me, I am naked and bare; the sun is ashamed and the moon confounded.

Blessed is He who clothes the naked and helps the poor,

Who upholds the simple and rescues from vanities.

For me the measuring lines have fallen in pleasant places.

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A. Opening the Discussion

Our master brings letters in §119: regarding an adult whose status is concealed among the hidden Baraitot found in the genizot, and he analyzes whether an adult who became a minor can fulfill the Purim feast’s obligation of drinking until one does not know (ad d’lo yada) or at least the drinking that constitutes the essence of the mitzvah.

He argues that this is subject to rebuttal: a minor is like a deaf-mute or a fool—he has no halachic da’at (cognitive capacity). Hence even if he drinks excellently, he cannot be deemed to have “lost his knowledge” such that he cannot distinguish between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai”—for he has no knowledge at all; how can he “lose” that which he does not possess? Just as one who says, “I did not repay,” is as one who admits he owes—so too here.

The matter is sharpened if, as many of our Rabbis maintain, the essence is the discrimination itself: to be able to distinguish between cursed and blessed, and add wine accordingly. The decisors debated whether the lack of discrimination invalidates the mitzvah of Purim drinking—or whether it is a desirable condition but not indispensable. The view of the author of Suso shel Tidhar (who wrote a wondrous commentary on the holy Tiferet Mordechai) is that ad d’lo yada is a law in the intoxication itself; accordingly, one may ask whether a minor’s intoxication counts in this regard as well.

These words are like cool waters upon a weary soul; seeing the severity of this sugya, I dug with my strong arm and outstretched hand, in my great humility—and perhaps in one-sixtieth of prophecy, and one-sixtieth of that one-sixtieth.

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B. Laying Out the Case

In my humble opinion, it seems that this hinges on whether the intoxication follows the present state (basar hashta azlinan) or its sequence. If he became intoxicated before his reversion to minority, then certainly—if at that time he was an adult—he could be within the category of one who “does not know between cursed Haman and blessed Mordechai.” But if, already in his current state he is a minor, then at that time he had no da’at, and it is as if he had always been a minor; one cannot be a “minor after a minor,” only a “minor after an adult,” and simple it is.

There is also to discuss whether this is a case of dechuyah (rejected) in mitzvot: a minor is rejected from the outset (he is not obligated), whereas an adult who became a minor might be viewed as an adult whose obligation was later pushed aside. Yet if the Purim feast continues, perhaps the obligation of ad d’lo yada continues as well. Better to maintain that in such an hour he is like “a nursing child who has grown wise” (yanuk v’chakim—see Kiddushin 32b): not truly wise due to intoxication, but nonetheless no longer a simple infant. And indeed, a spirit of holiness descended in our study hall, and I saw that we must consider him a “nursing child who has grown wise”—that through the intoxication he becomes wiser, and thus qualifies as “an adult who became a minor” (i.e., his status toggles), and this is straightforward to the discerning.

Still, we must compare this to one seized by sleep or kordyakus (a stupor)—see the sugyot in Gittin—where he is not considered a full “fool.” One can say that a person who is very intoxicated also lacks functional da’at until he sobers. If, once sober, he can distinguish again between cursed and blessed, then ex post facto he fulfilled the ideal of intoxication. Yet then returns the difficulty: if he is yanuk v’chakim, is he wise or not? For once he sobers, he reverts—does that prove he was never truly in the category of “wise”? Therefore, we are forced to say that our case is after he became a minor; his wisdom remains yet he is “nursing and wise,” and now we can ask whether he fulfills ad d’lo yada.

To be lenient: there are two doubts—(1) whether discrimination is indispensable; and even if it is (2) whether we follow his adulthood or his wisdom. On this basis he can drink and be merry.

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C. How Could an Adult “Become a Minor”?

A great Torah scholar of our city of Chelm (may it be built and established), a beloved axe, asked astutely: how is there any scenario of an adult who became a minor—even for an hour?! Astonished am I that none have stood upon this until now.

First, from wisdom we know that if a minor can become an adult, why can an adult not become a minor? The sages of physics teach—and there is nothing not alluded to in the Torah—that physical processes are reversible. If so, a fortiori: if a minor can grow up, an adult can shrink back; and if not, then neither could the minor have grown. Yet we indeed find explicitly the case of a minor who grew up between two Passovers—thus, by analogy, an adult can become a minor.

Moreover, Scripture speaks of “the greater light and the lesser light” in Genesis; we learn there that the moon was first great and the Holy One, blessed be He, made it small—deriving it from “the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed.” Thus even from the plain sense we see that the great can become small. Happy is he who labors in Torah.

Still we must ask how this applies in practice to halachah. The wisdom of physics shows that an adult can become a minor; but it is curious that we have never observed this in Chelm, and the matter is bewildering.

One scenario: a person born on 1 Adar becomes bar mitzvah after 13 years. Later the court intercalates the year and turns Adar into Adar II, or retroactively adjusts the months—thus “making him small” by calendrical act. Or another: Reuven became bar mitzvah on 1 Nisan; then, on the 14th of the month, the court declared the year intercalated and turned Nisan into Adar II—he becomes a “minor” this month. True, intercalation is done at the new moon; but in pressing need perhaps they declared it on the eve of Passover, transforming things in a stroke—“These are the appointed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim”—even if in error or under duress. Purim is rabbinic, but Passover is biblical. Can a calendrical act that shifts Passover to Purim also transform the status? It depends if we follow the original or the current state.

Yet all this is wind and chatter of the unlearned—for if he became “small” into Adar II, after two weeks, it is Purim; and then we can ask whether intoxication applies.

I reflected again: even if the adult became minor thus, he has not lost his da’at; he remains in reality thirteen years of age. If there is da’at, there is discrimination. However, our master the Shach (Yoreh De’ah §189:13) teaches from the Yerushalmi concerning a three-year-old girl that if the year is intercalated, her virginity returns (a legal construct of “returning to return”). If so, a fortiori here: when the year is intercalated and the adult becomes a minor, his da’at returns and is lost—and thus the terrifying verse “wisdom has perished from the wise” is resolved. In our city of Chelm, where all are very wise indeed, we must beware lest the verse be fulfilled in us if the court overuses the 14th-day intercalation!

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D. Of “Adding” and “Subtracting” Months

By the way, it appears that just as the court can add a month (intercalate), they can also remove a month, for intercalation makes one “small,” so removing a month makes one “big.” Intercalation is like placing a fetus (an extra month) into the “womb” of the year, and removal is like extracting a fetus. (And as is known, a “month” is fewer than thirty days; up to forty days, removal is not considered “murder”—and the law of removal is juxtaposed to that of intercalation.)

Thus perhaps the court can “miscarry” the year: can they only turn Adar into Nisan, or even make Shevat leap? Likely this concerns Adar alone, for Adar is not counted from the outset; just as they can add it, they can omit it. Can they omit a regular Adar, or only Adar II after intercalation? This too calls for analysis.

From here we see not only that a minor can become an adult and an adult a minor, but also that a minor can be accelerated—hence, “his growth in a month was in an instant.” As Israel said at the Sea: “The steeds of his mighty ones he made to gallop,” and so on—words as sweet as at Sinai; they run and rejoice and dance.

Still, a difficulty: if the court intercalated or consecrated the month, the time is altered retroactively. It is revealed that yesterday was truly 14 Nisan, or 14 Adar, and so forth. If so, was he really an adult or a minor? Perhaps he celebrated bar mitzvah in error. Yet there is a supporting argument: every newborn is presumed a minor, a presumption subject to change, and we follow presumption—like the presumption of life in the laws of a leprous house (see Chullin 10).

Alternatively, as a smooth solution: consider davar she-yesh lo matirin (an item that will become permitted). Usually a permitted thing (like milk) becomes forbidden when mixed with meat; yet there are cases (like chametz after Passover, muktzeh after Shabbat) where it later becomes permitted again. Our case is like an adult who became a minor and later becomes adult again.

In Nedarim 59a there is a doubt whether a vow released by a sage is like a case of davar she-yesh lo matirin. The Rosh (6:3) cites the Yerushalmi: is annulment uprooting the vow from the outset (so that it was never forbidden), or only from now on? He concludes: although we say “uprooted from the outset,” functionally the prohibition stood until the moment of release—hence it counts as something that was forbidden and became permitted.

So too here: when an adult became a minor through intercalation or sanctification of the month, it is not that retroactively he was a minor; rather, from that moment and onward he is deemed a minor. Thus our sugya stands upright and firm.

One could still object from the hava amina (initial thought) of the Yerushalmi—if annulment is retroactive, perhaps here too the adult is retroactively a minor. This is a strong question requiring a carpenter’s saw and a master craftsman to resolve.

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E. An Interlude: On Changing Sex (a satirical aside)

To strengthen the difficulty, girding my loins like a man (with a gartel, as they say), I went out and found a solution—beloved is one whom the Lord reproves.

Consider those who are meshunim (changed): a male who becomes female (a transgender operation), and likewise the reverse (though our forefathers did not dream of such things). All is in the Torah; thus, what is the law of a woman over twelve and a half who goes to the surgeon and—heaven forfend—makes her into a male? She becomes, as it were, like a minor male—on the cusp of adulthood. Particularly with vows, she moves from the law of a woman to that of a man.

Hence, we have a case of an adult who became a minor: a woman (adult) who became a man (minor). Yet we must ask: is the operation merely revealing what she “always was” (retroactively), which would not help us (for retroactivity alone does not create our case), or does it establish a new status from now on? According to the Shach above, if a man becomes a woman he “loses his wisdom” (for “a woman shall surround a man”), while a transgender woman who was a small male that became a grown woman now receives much da’at. What manifold works are Yours, O Lord! Europe entire without wisdom; the world full of vanity.

From here perhaps the operation works “from now on,” and from the hava amina of the Yerushalmi it appears as such; thus it is indeed possible to have an adult who became a minor.

I have elaborated further in my wondrous treatise on the foundational trans-Atlantic initiative in transgenderism, concerning women who drink coffee in Machiavellian fashion as seen in Middle-earth (to be published by Resling, may it be built), which I composed when I was newly near to manhood, and a sage was asked about it and nullified it from the root like the dust of the earth; I rendered it a book written and vanished—worlds destroyed and rebuilt and destroyed—which is the very essence of an adult who became a minor. There is much more to say, but this suffices.

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[End]

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