Types of Mitzvot: 1. A Look at the Commandment of Fasting on Yom Kippur (Column 414)
A few weeks ago a request was posted on the site to write about types of mitzvot in Halakha. Ahead of Yom Kippur, I thought the commandment to fast gives us a good opportunity to begin touching on this topic. This column will deal with the prohibition of eating on Yom Kippur, and in the following columns I will continue the discussion on the difference between positive commandments (aseh) and prohibitions (lo ta’aseh), and finally distinguish among several kinds of positive commandments (which was the original question).
Is there a prohibition of eating on Yom Kippur?
In the verses of the Torah there appears a positive commandment to afflict oneself (“you shall afflict your souls”), but you will not find there a prohibition (lo ta’aseh) on eating. On the other hand, karet (spiritual excision) is indeed stated with regard to the fast (“and any soul that is not afflicted shall be cut off”). As is well known, all cases of karet in the Torah are imposed for a prohibition (with the exception of Passover and circumcision), and therefore it is quite clear that there must also be a prohibition here and not only a positive commandment. This raises the question of the source of that prohibition. As we shall see, the Gemara in Yoma 81a indeed wonders about this.
The source of the prohibition
The Mishnah there states:
If one ate and drank in a single lapse of awareness, he is liable for only one sin-offering. If he ate and performed work, he is liable for two sin-offerings. If he ate foods unfit for eating or drank liquids unfit for drinking, and [if] he drank fish brine or brine, he is exempt.
We see here that there is also a sin-offering for one who does not fast on Yom Kippur. This is an additional indication of the existence of a prohibition (since a sin-offering is certainly brought only for violations of prohibitions). Yet, as noted, such a prohibition has no explicit source in the verses. Indeed, the Gemara there remarks on this point:
Reish Lakish said: Why was no warning (azharah) stated regarding affliction? Because it is not possible. How would the Torah write it? If the Merciful One were to write “he shall not eat,” [that would imply] eating in the measure of an olive. If the Merciful One were to write “do not be un-afflicted,” it would imply “get up and eat.” Rav Hoshaya objected: Let the Merciful One write, “Beware lest you not be afflicted”—if so, there would be too many prohibitions. Rav Beivai bar Abaye objected: Let the Merciful One write, “Beware in the commandment of affliction”—if so, “beware” that relates to a prohibition will be a prohibition, and “beware” that relates to a positive commandment will be a positive commandment. Rav Ashi objected: Let it write, “Do not turn aside from affliction.” The difficulty remains. And the Tanna derives it from here…
Reish Lakish explains that no prohibition was stated regarding affliction because the Torah has no way to formulate such a prohibition. The Gemara then brings a baraita in which a derashah provides a source for a prohibition on failing to fast on Yom Kippur. The derashah is based on redundancy and superfluity in the verses, but we will not enter into it here.
Initial difficulties
The difficulty that arises here is twofold:
- Even if we are convinced that there is indeed a formulation difficulty, how can a prohibition be invented without a source? According to Reish Lakish, who says there is no Torah source for this prohibition, one cannot invent it. So how did Hazal establish that there is a prohibition here?
The existence of karet in the verses is not sufficient to say there is a prohibition, since the rule is that one does not punish unless a warning has been given (ein onshin ela im ken mazhirin). That is, even if the Torah explicitly states a punishment for a certain matter, if there is no warning, one cannot impose punishment for it.[1]
- Even according to the Tanna of the baraita quoted immediately afterward, who derives a prohibition for the fast from a doubled expression in the verses, at least according to Maimonides this is not acceptable. Maimonides rules in his Second Principle (Shoresh Sheni) that one cannot derive a prohibition’s warning from a derashah. He includes this under the Talmudic rule “one does not warn from an inference” (ein mazhirin min hadin). Nahmanides, in his glosses to that Principle, already objected and clarified that this rule applies only to a fortiori inferences (kal va-homer) and not to all types of derashot; this is the view of most Rishonim and emerges from many places in the Talmud. But Maimonides’ view is that the rule applies to all derashot and not only to kal va-homer.[2]
Maimonides and Saadia Gaon on the prohibition of eating on Yom Kippur
Maimonides, in the introduction to his Sefer Ha-Mitzvot (at the end of the Fourteenth Principle), addresses this point, and at the start sets out his general view and then qualifies it:
It is also proper to append the following introduction: Whatever carries liability of a court-imposed death penalty or karet is by necessity a prohibition (lo ta’aseh), except for Passover and circumcision, which incur karet even though they are positive commandments, as mentioned at the beginning of tractate Keritot. There is in no way any positive commandment other than those two whose violation incurs karet, all the more so a court-imposed death penalty. And whenever Scripture states that one who did such-and-such shall be put to death or incurs karet, we know that the act is in truth forbidden and that it is a lo ta’aseh.
Up to this point he writes what we have already seen above: there is no karet in the Torah for a positive commandment, except for Passover and circumcision (his source is tractate Keritot).
He now adds:
Sometimes the warning is stated in Scripture and the punishment is not, and sometimes the punishment is stated and the warning is stated, as with desecration of Shabbat and idolatry—He said (in the Ten Commandments), “you shall not do any work,” and “you shall not serve them,” and afterwards He required stoning for one who performed work (end of Parashat Shlach) or served (beginning of Parashat Shoftim). And sometimes the warning does not appear in Scripture as an explicit lo ta’aseh, but only the punishment is mentioned and the warning left unstated.
He does not bring Yom Kippur here, since in his opinion there is a warning there. But as we saw, at least according to Reish Lakish there is no explicit warning in the verses about eating on Yom Kippur. This raises the obvious difficulty:
But the principle among us (Yoma 81a; Sanhedrin 56b; Zevachim 106b–107a; Keritot 3b; cited in Prohibitions 90 and the end) is: Scripture does not punish unless it has warned, and it is impossible that there should be a punishment without a warning. Therefore they say everywhere: “We heard the punishment; from where [do we derive] the warning?”—Scripture therefore says such-and-such.
This is precisely the difficulty we raised regarding Reish Lakish’s words.
He now adds:
And when the warning is not explicit in the verse, they learn it by comparison (hekesh) from the Torah’s comparisons. As they said (Sanhedrin 85a) about the warning for one who curses his father or mother and one who strikes his father or mother (Prohibitions 318–319)—that the warning is not explicit in the verse, for it does not say “do not curse your father” and it does not say “do not strike your father,” but Scripture imposed the death penalty on one who struck or cursed. We therefore knew that these are lo ta’aseh, and we derived for them and their likes (Prohibition 26 and onwards; end of Prohibitions) the warning from elsewhere by way of comparison.
At times the warning is learned from a derashah and is not explicitly written in a verse. This, of course, takes us back to the baraita we mentioned above.
But here too the second difficulty we presented earlier arises, and Maimonides senses this and answers:
This does not contradict their statement (Pesachim 24a; Yevamot 22b; Makkot 5b, 17b; Zevachim 106b), “one does not warn from an inference,” nor their statement elsewhere (ibid.), “and do we warn from an inference?” For we only say “one does not warn from an inference” in order that we should not forbid something that has no specific prohibition by way of comparison. But when the punishment is explicitly stated in the Torah for one who performs that act, we know necessarily that the act is forbidden and warned against. We then derive by comparison the warning in order to uphold the principle that Scripture does not punish unless it has warned. Once the warning for that matter has been obtained, one who transgressed and did it incurs karet or death. Know this introduction and remember it along with the preceding principles for all that will be mentioned:
As noted, in his view a warning cannot be learned from a derashah; thus, seemingly, even where the punishment is explicit in the Torah there is no way to apply it and punish. He therefore explains that indeed a warning learned from a derashah cannot by itself serve as the basis for punishment—but this is only for the punishment of lashes, which is not explicitly written in the Torah.[3] For all other punishments, when the punishment is explicitly written in the Torah and there is no warning, the warning can be learned from a derashah.[4]
This, of course, does not explain Reish Lakish’s view, for he maintains that there is no warning at all (unlike the baraita, which derives a warning from a derashah). On further thought, however, it seems possible to reconcile Reish Lakish’s position in a similar manner. In a case where there is a linguistic/formulation difficulty as he describes, one may infer from the fact that the Torah writes a punishment that there is also a prohibition. The outcome is similar to what we saw in Maimonides when one “warns by derashah,” except that here it would apply even when the Torah does not write any warning at all (not even by derashah).
Moreover, according to our approach it is possible that even the Tanna of the baraita, who derives the warning by a derashah, would not need the principle established by Maimonides above. If we assume that he too agrees with Reish Lakish—that is, that in his view there is no way to formulate a prohibition here in the straightforward language of the Torah—then in such a situation a warning by derashah might suffice even if the punishment had not been explicitly written in the Torah (though in that case there would only be lashes).
It should be noted that R.Y.F. Perla, in his commentary to Sefer Ha-Mitzvot of Saadia Gaon, indeed argues that according to Rasag there is no prohibition (lo ta’aseh) on eating on Yom Kippur, only a positive commandment (aseh). In his view this appears to be a third case of karet for a positive commandment, despite the Talmud explicitly stating that there are only two cases. In addition, we saw that the Mishnah in Yoma mentions sin-offerings for eating on Yom Kippur, and it is difficult to accept the notion of a sin-offering without a prohibition. His words are difficult, but the motivation is clear: the absence of an explicit warning in Scripture.
It may be that his intent is to argue that there is a prohibition (an issur) but that one is not flogged for it because there is no explicit warning. Note that the punishment here is not death or lashes but karet, and karet is meted out by the Holy One, blessed be He, not by the earthly court. One might say that just as God does not require formal forewarning (hatra’ah) to know that a person deserves punishment, so too He is not contingent on an explicit warning in Scripture. God knows what is in a person’s heart, and He can know when a person transgressed intentionally even without forewarning and without an explicit warning (that is, He knows when the offender knew the matter was forbidden even though there is no explicit warning in Scripture), and therefore He can punish even in the absence of a written warning.[5]
An additional proposal for explaining Rasag’s view
The question of the source is mainly technical. But on a deeper look, a more fundamental question arises. The Torah commands us to afflict ourselves, yet the content of that command is of a prohibitory nature rather than a positive one. It forbids me from eating and drinking and does not command me to do something. This raises the possibility that even though the Torah formulates it as a positive commandment to afflict oneself, in essence it is a prohibition against eating and drinking—only worded as a positive commandment.
This creates another way to understand the difficult position attributed to Rasag: perhaps, according to him, this commandment is indeed counted as a positive commandment because of its formulation in the Torah, but in essence it is a prohibition; hence the karet and the sin-offering.
Why is the fast on Yom Kippur a positive commandment rather than a prohibition?
This proposal raises a sharper and more fundamental question: what is the definition of an aseh and a lo ta’aseh?[6] Seemingly, a positive commandment is a command to do something, and a prohibition is a command not to do something (to refrain). According to that definition, it would indeed appear that the commandment of affliction is a prohibition and not a positive commandment, for the content of the Yom Kippur command is not an action but a non-action (to refrain from something). On the other hand, the Torah’s formulation indicates that it is a positive commandment and not a prohibition. If it is in fact a prohibition, why would the Torah choose a formulation that does not reflect the nature of the commandment? Moreover, the difficulty discussed in the Gemara, according to Reish Lakish, in formulating a prohibition in this case is not clear. Why shouldn’t it simply say, “Do not eat and do not drink,” like other prohibitions of eating? What, according to Reish Lakish, prevents formulating a prohibition here? One could simply write, “You shall not eat and you shall not drink,” as is written with other eating prohibitions.
One might infer from this that the prohibition on Yom Kippur imposes on us a positive duty to afflict ourselves and not merely a ban on eating, and therefore it is not an eating prohibition but a duty to be afflicted. But there is a logical difficulty here, since a fast is nothing other than a prohibition on eating. One might suggest that there is a duty to undertake active measures to arrive at a state of affliction, such as sitting in the sun or cold and the like. But the Gemara itself raises this possibility and rejects it. The Gemara in Yoma 74b writes as follows:
The Sages taught: “You shall afflict your souls”—one might have thought he should sit in the sun or in the cold so as to suffer; therefore Scripture says, “and you shall do no manner of work”: just as work is a matter of sitting and refraining, so too affliction of the soul is sitting and refraining. And say perhaps [only] that where he is sitting in the sun and it is hot for him, we should not tell him, “Get up and sit in the shade,” or where he sits in the shade and it is cold for him, we should not tell him, “Get up and sit in the sun”? [No—] comparable to work: just as with work you did not distinguish [between cases], so too with affliction you shall not distinguish. Another baraita: “You shall afflict your souls”—one might have thought he should sit in the sun or in the cold and suffer; therefore Scripture says, “and you shall do no work”: just as work is something for which one is liable elsewhere, so too affliction of the soul is something for which one is liable elsewhere. And what is that? Piggul and notar. Shall I bring piggul and notar, which are subject to karet, and not bring tevel, which is not subject to karet? Scripture says, “you shall afflict” and “you shall afflict your souls”—it includes. Shall I bring tevel, which is [liable to] death, and not bring neveilah, which is not [liable to] death? Scripture says, “you shall afflict” and “you shall afflict your souls”—it includes. Shall I bring neveilah, which is [forbidden by] a lo ta’aseh, and not bring hulin [ordinary food], which is not [forbidden by] a lo ta’aseh? Scripture says, “you shall afflict” and “you shall afflict your souls”—it includes. Shall I bring hulin, which is not [covered by a command of] “arise and eat,” and not bring terumah, which is [covered by] “arise and eat”? Scripture says, “you shall afflict” and “you shall afflict your souls”—it includes. Shall I bring terumah, which is not [subject to] “you shall not leave over,” and not bring holy [sacrificial] foods, which are subject to “you shall not leave over”? Scripture says, “you shall afflict” and “you shall afflict your souls”—it includes. And if you wish, say: it states, “and I will destroy that soul”—an affliction that is a loss of the soul; what is that? Eating and drinking. And if you would say [the verse] speaks of sexual relations, it states, “and I will destroy the soul”—an affliction involving loss of soul; and what is that? Eating and drinking. The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: It says “affliction” here and “affliction” elsewhere; just as there [in the other place] “affliction” means hunger, so too here “affliction” means hunger. And shall we derive it from “If you afflict my daughters”? We derive the affliction of the public from the affliction of the public, and we do not derive the affliction of the public from the affliction of an individual. And shall we derive it from the affliction in Egypt, as it is written, “and He saw our affliction,” and we say: this refers to abstention from intercourse? Rather, we derive affliction by the hand of Heaven from affliction by the hand of Heaven, and we do not derive affliction by the hand of Heaven from affliction by the hand of man.
The Gemara insists on defining the duty of affliction as a passive “sit and refrain,” unlike all other eating prohibitions. This returns us to the two fundamental difficulties: why is this commandment defined as a positive commandment and not as a prohibition? And what was the formulation difficulty Reish Lakish described in stating a prohibition against eating on Yom Kippur?
Between fasting and refraining from eating
We are forced to conclude that fasting is not identical with not eating. If the Yom Kippur law were simply a prohibition on eating, there would be no problem formulating such a prohibition. All of the Gemara’s contortions arise because it seeks to formulate a prohibition on violating a fast. Of course, the positive command itself speaks of afflicting the soul and not of refraining from eating; one might have thought those are equivalent instructions. In the realm of a prohibition, it is quite clear that they are not.
At the end of column 192 I discussed the case of a minor who grew two pubic hairs in the middle of Yom Kippur. Later authorities formulate this as a “yeshiva-style” inquiry: is the commandment to fast on Yom Kippur defined over the entire day as one unit, or is it a separate obligation for each and every moment? The practical difference concerns a person who ate in the middle of the day, whether sinfully or due to illness: is there any point to completing the fast (for if the mitzvah is defined as an all-day obligation, he has already forfeited it when he ate)? I argued there that a minor who comes of age mid-day must complete the fast according to both conceptions. I explained that defining the fast as applying to an entire day is not a halakhic definition but a conceptual-practical one. That is, the intent is not that the mitzvah is defined as a single obligation for the entire day as a halakhic construct, but that the linguistic concept “fast” is, by its nature, a comprehensive definition over the totality of the day’s moments.
This can be explained as follows. The Torah’s mitzvah is to fast. But not eating is not, by itself, a fast. When a person does not eat for a single moment, we do not say that he is “fasting” in that moment; he is merely not eating. No one would say that a person is fasting between meals; he simply is not eating between them. A fast, by its very definition, is set over a period of time and not over a single moment of refraining from eating. The Torah (Leviticus 16:29) fixed that period as the tenth of the month, on which we are to afflict ourselves. From here we may infer that the period that defines a fast is from evening to evening, a full twenty-four hours. The implication is that if the minor was fasting rabbinically (chinuch) in the first half of the day and then came of age (grew two hairs), if he completes the fast he will have been in a state of fasting for the entire day (the first half rabbinically and the second half by Torah law). Since this requirement pertains not to the “wholeness” of the mitzvah but to the practical concept of “fast,” we may say that in fact he fasted; and therefore, in the moments after he came of age he fulfilled a Torah mitzvah (for the mitzvah can be defined moment by moment—but in each moment one must be fasting, not merely not eating).
From here we can understand why the Torah formulates its command as a duty to fast and not as a prohibition on eating. This is what troubled Reish Lakish, and therefore he concluded that there is no linguistic way to express a prohibition of violating a fast. If the Torah had formulated here a prohibition on eating, we would have thought it is a standard eating prohibition and interpreted it moment by moment, with the consequences described above. When the Torah commands us to fast, it must use the verb “to afflict,” and that is what creates the difficulty of formulating a prohibition.
This also clarifies why the formulation as a positive commandment is indeed a positive commandment and not a prohibition. There is a positive commandment to fast and a prohibition to violate the fast. The act of violating the fast is an active deed, and this is exactly what the Torah seeks to forbid (but it has no linguistic way to do so). On the contrary, the remaining question is why the command that does appear in the Torah is a positive commandment and not a prohibition, for it does not impose on us an act but rather an abstention (not to violate the fast).
This leads us to a different distinction between positive commandments and prohibitions, which will be the topic of the next column.
In the meantime, may we all have a good year and be sealed for good.
[1] For an explanation, see column 377.
[2] See at length in the book Ru’ach Ha-Mishpat, in the second gate, and in the book Yishlach Sharashav, vol. I, in the essay on the Second Principle. See also vol. II, in the essay on the Fourteenth Principle.
[3] Lashes are exceptional, learned from a general teaching that for every prohibition one who transgresses it is liable to lashes (“and the judge shall make him lie down and strike him”—see Makkot 13b). All other types of punishments must be explicitly stated in the Torah for each prohibition.
[4] For an explanation, see my articles cited there.
[5] The assumption here is that the need for a written warning in Scripture is analogous to the need for formal forewarning of the offender: to ensure that he is acting intentionally and knows that the matter is forbidden. The common approach does not understand it this way. It is generally thought that the need for a warning is substantive: without it, there is truly no prohibition. But when the punishment is explicitly written in the Torah, one may say that all would agree the need for a warning is only to establish culpability.
[6] See at length in the book Yishlach Sharashav, vol. I, in the essay on the Sixth Principle, and more briefly also in my essay on Torah and science.
Discussion
It is written about our forefather Abraham that suddenly guests came to him—uninvited and unexpected—and Abraham gave them the very best with open-handed generosity, such as cream, beef, and so on. At first glance this seems far removed from us. Granted, guests whom we invited, to whom we are obligated and with whom we have ties—we will give them as much as we can. But some random passerby whom nobody called—why should I devote myself to serving him the choicest of the choice, such as cream and beef?
Rather, our holy forefather Abraham comes to teach us that in order to flatter someone, you don’t need to call him first.
To lounge around in the synagogue all day is a greater affliction than not eating.
A. [This is not related to the content of the post but to the Gemara there. Resh Lakish said that because of constraints of formulation, no prohibition was written. That is strange. Was the Holy One, blessed be He, at the time of the giving of the Torah bound only to whatever words the Israelites happened to be using at that time? Let Him invent a new word, and perhaps even new syntax, and express His intent precisely. For example, let Him write: “You shall not be un-afflicted on Yom Kippur,” and explain to Moses our teacher that a complacent person is one who is not in a state of affliction. Even if the Holy Tongue is the language of Canaan which Abraham spoke when he came to the land (as Ramban says on Genesis 45:12), that should not limit the Holy One, blessed be He—how much more so if the Torah in the Holy Tongue preceded the world.]
B. At the beginning of the post you assumed that Resh Lakish disagrees with the tanna of the baraita, and you asked: in the end, from where does Resh Lakish derive a prohibition regarding affliction? And ultimately you answered that here we derive the prohibition from the punishment, because there is a formulation difficulty in writing the prohibition.
B1. But it is obvious that Resh Lakish does not disagree with the tanna of the baraita that there is a prohibition regarding affliction derived exegetically; he is only explaining why it was not written explicitly, unlike other prohibitions that are written explicitly. Therefore, after explaining the view of the tanna of the baraita, there is no need for a special explanation of Resh Lakish.
B2. In particular, that explanation also does not fit with your view in post 377, which you cited, where you strongly supported Sefer HaChinuch and said that we look for a prohibition in order to know that this is not merely a conditional punishment but an actual prohibition [and in my opinion, there it is only an interpretive rule that punishment comes with a prohibition, and otherwise we have interpreted and expounded the verses incorrectly]. If so, even if there is a formulation difficulty, in the end how do we know that this is a prohibition and not merely a conditional punishment?
C. You asked, “Why shouldn’t it simply say not to eat and drink like all the other eating prohibitions?” and from there you went on to distinguish between fasting and non-eating. But the Gemara says, “How should it be written? If the Merciful One were to write ‘he shall not eat,’ eating is by an olive-bulk” (whereas on Yom Kippur the measure is like a large date). On the contrary, one seemingly sees that if the measure on Yom Kippur were like all other eating measures, then it would indeed be possible to write ‘he shall not eat,’ even if the prohibition is in essence a prohibition of fasting [for the Torah states practical laws (nafka minas), and is not required to explain the roots of the prohibitions]. And if the other afflictions too, such as washing and anointing, are biblically prohibited, then let it also write: do not wash and do not anoint.
[Therefore, in my opinion, fasting and non-eating are synonymous terms, and one should not invent the category “fasting” with some midrashic interpretation of the Torah’s words; therefore one should not distinguish between someone who ate in the middle of the day and a minor who came of age in the middle of the day.]
D. You said that the Gemara insists on defining the obligation of affliction as a passive obligation, one of refraining. But the Gemara says, “But perhaps where he is sitting in the sun and is uncomfortable, we should not tell him: get up and sit in the shade”—that is, there would still be an obligation of affliction in a passive sense, namely, that if he is in a state of affliction, his duty is to remain there and not improve his condition. And the Gemara rejects even that: “Just as with labor you made no distinctions, so too with affliction you should make no distinctions.” That is, one should not distinguish and say that he is obligated passively to remain in affliction, but is not obligated actively to enter affliction—just as with labor, if one does labor passively he also transgresses. Therefore, if he is forbidden to leave a hot place, then he is also obligated to enter a hot place. So the affliction must specifically be eating, where it is forbidden to eat even passively.
“But he is not obligated to take active steps in order indeed to be in affliction” should be the correct reading.
Only with a fast does the notion of adding time apply—because it extends over a duration. To a prohibition of eating, adding from Yom Kippur does not apply, because there is no connection between the momentary non-eating before sunset and the non-eating in the evening.
A. It is possible that there are other constraints that dictated the structure of the Holy Tongue, and for some reason He did not want to depart from them. One could ask the same about scribal embellishments and unnecessary stylistic ornamentation: why was the Holy Tongue not constructed in such a way that none of that would be needed?
B1. Possible. But if the prohibition can be derived exegetically, what is the difficulty—why was the prohibition not written explicitly? Do we ask of every derashah why the law was not written explicitly? Therefore, in my view, according to Resh Lakish there is no prohibition. And this is indeed how R. Yerucham Fischel Perla understood Rav Saadia Gaon, for he in fact did not count a prohibition for fasting at all. The wording “and the tanna derives it from here” also sounds more like he is coming to disagree. But that is not necessary.
B2. Perhaps they knew this by tradition. But in the post I already noted that one can derive it from karet, which is always given for a prohibition.
As for the Chinuch, I already noted there that there is an inherent problem in his interpretation: if there really is an option of a merely technical punishment, then why does the Gemara assume there is a prohibition and go looking for it? Seemingly, the existence of a punishment indicates that there is also a negative commandment, so there is no real option of a merely technical punishment. And indeed, in practice we have found no such punishment in the Torah (I brought there two initial suggestions that were rejected: regarding suppressing prophecy and regarding a true oath).
C. Good point, but the Gemara itself is puzzling. After all, the measures are a halakhah given to Moses at Sinai, so let there be a halakhah that the measure for Yom Kippur is like a large date. The very fact that the measure changes indicates that this is not a prohibition of eating but an obligation of affliction. So your point is not difficult either: if it had written “do not eat,” we would think this is a prohibition of eating and therefore its measure is an olive-bulk, and we would not know that this is an obligation of affliction. And my whole structure stands firmly upright.
D. As I understand it, suffering is itself an active matter, a matter of doing, even if physically it is carried out by refraining. The obligation to suffer is a regular positive commandment. That is what the Gemara there rejects.
That is not necessary. It may be that there is an obligation of adding time to the duration of the prohibition of eating. By the way, I now recall that some commentators explained the extra time so that a person should not eat and thus arrive at the fast already afflicted from the very first moment. That strengthens the conception of an obligation of affliction rather than a prohibition of eating.
A–B. So I would suggest a different interpretation, and the Rambam also works out accordingly. A linguistic difficulty does not participate in creating the laws; it only supports certain understandings without practical consequence. Therefore the amora Resh Lakish does not disagree with the baraita. And the tanna of the baraita does not disagree with Resh Lakish, and nevertheless he cannot think that only where there is a linguistic difficulty do we derive a prohibition in place of a punishment through exegesis. This is because the linguistic difficulty of the Holy One, blessed be He, is not a partner in deriving laws (both because God can innovate in language, and because one does not analyze a film based on the screenwriter’s constraints—like an actor dying on him or animation becoming more expensive). True, the Torah prefers to write prohibitions explicitly, but since in any case a convoluted formulation would have been required, they already did it by way of derashah. And therefore the Gemara calmly concludes with “difficult” when they found a possible formulation, because really the law does not stand or fall on the linguistic difficulty. The phrase “the tanna derives it from here” is indeed awkward, in my understanding.
C. I understand that you are really giving a completely different explanation from that of the Gemara. [In my understanding as above, the linguistic difficulty need not be decisive and robust, because the law does not depend on it. If one has to provide a special halakhah of measure that distinguishes eating everywhere in the Torah from eating here, then they already taught it through derashah.]
D. It does not seem clear to me. But I am not certain even of the interpretation I had in mind, and I need to look into the commentators.
With God’s help, ערב יוה"כ תשפ"ב
According to Isaiah’s words in chapter 58, the purpose of the fast is to bring a person to identify with the afflicted and the suffering. Let a person open his heart and soul to them—and then his God too will answer him. A fast for the sake of responding to the downtrodden.
With blessings, Nehorai Shraga Agami-Pesisovitch
C. I do not understand your point. As I explained, this is the plain meaning of the Gemara. The Gemara says that if it had said not to eat, we would think the measure is an olive-bulk. Why would we think that? Because eating prohibitions are measured by an olive-bulk. And why on Yom Kippur is it like a large date? Because there it is not a prohibition of eating but an obligation to fast.
If so, this is the plain meaning of the Gemara: if they had written not to eat, we would think it is an olive-bulk because we would think it is a prohibition of eating. But the truth is that it is an obligation to fast, and therefore its measure is like a large date. And there is no way to formulate that as a negative commandment.
This is not a forced answer. It is the plain meaning of the Gemara.
In general, when something is interpreted as a sign rather than the thing itself, that raises suspicion. When you see in the Gemara’s answer “eating is by an olive-bulk” as a *sign* that the entire essence of the prohibition is different, and that this has practical consequences beyond the measure and is connected to duration, and that there is some sort of concept in Hebrew called ta’anit, and laws are derived from this—it seems odd to me. The Gemara should have answered: how should it be written? “You shall not eat”—but we require affliction. And what difference is there between affliction and eating, etc.? And what is the problem with explaining that the prohibition is eating, only its measure is different? Just as a creeping thing imparts impurity with a lentil-sized amount and a human corpse with an olive-bulk, and I have never heard that people derive from the difference in measure some fundamental conceptual distinction.
I do not see any problem with that at all. On the contrary, the very fact that the measure is different says that there is a difference. Therefore the measure is a natural indication of the essential distinction.
According to your view, what would have led to the error if we had written a prohibition of eating? Why would we have thought it was by an olive-bulk? And why, when it is written as an obligation of fasting, is it clear to us that it is like a large date?
We would think an olive-bulk because there is a general halakhah from Sinai that the measure for eating is an olive-bulk. In the case of Yom Kippur, because it is not the food that is prohibited but the time that is prohibited, the measure is different (why should it be identical?), but that does not mean that the prohibition itself (“it is forbidden to eat”) is different. Are you hinting that the large-date measure is known by reasoning and not from an explicit law concerning measures?
On second thought, I exaggerated, and I retract the point from the language of the Gemara (but I do not think the Gemara provides proof for a novel idea with practical consequences that the decisors have not already stated, etc.).
With God’s help, מוצאי כיפור תשפ"ב
Also from the plain wording of the Torah: “On the tenth of the month you shall afflict your souls, and you shall do no manner of labor… for on this day He shall atone for you, to purify you; from all your sins before the Lord you shall be purified. It is a sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall afflict your souls…” It implies that the affliction of the soul is part of the process of atonement, whose practical expression is abstention from eating and drinking.
In Isaiah 58 it is explained that in the people’s consciousness the expression “a day for a man to afflict his soul” also found practical expression in additional means expressing sorrow and lowliness, such as bowing the head and spreading sackcloth and ashes. The king of Nineveh too humbles himself: “He arose from his throne, removed his robe from upon him, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat on ashes.”
That is to say: affliction of the soul also involves humbling a person’s pride, refraining from eating and drinking, and from marks of honor.
With blessings, Nasa”f
Affliction in biblical language is a sign of subjugation. Sarai expresses Hagar’s enslavement by “and she afflicted her.” Likewise in the Egyptian bondage: “and they shall enslave them and afflict them,” and “in order to afflict him with their burdens.” Even relations with a woman against her will are called in Scripture “affliction,” as in: “you shall not mistreat her, because you afflicted her.”
This fits very well with the fact that the prohibition is not on “eating” (which counts as “eating” even in an olive-bulk), but on “settling the mind,” whose measure is different (like a large date and a cheekful). Eating without the possibility of “settling the mind” is one of the marks of slavery. The master needs the slave to eat so that he not die, but he has no interest at all in the slave becoming settled in mind and enjoying the food. On the contrary, let him feel the inferiority of his status.
According to this, an interesting question may arise: does the rule that “less than the prescribed measure is biblically prohibited” also apply to eating on Yom Kippur? For one might say that eating restricted to quantities that prevent settling the mind through eating is affliction of the soul in every respect, involving suffering and a feeling of subjugation. This requires examination in the sources.
In the lesson on “less than the prescribed measure” (on the Yeshivat Birkat Moshe website), it is explained that there is a dispute between the Bavli and the Yerushalmi. According to the Bavli (Yoma 73–74), the dispute between Rabbi Yoḥanan and Resh Lakish is the same both on Yom Kippur and with all other eating prohibitions.
By contrast, according to the Yerushalmi (in tractate Terumot), on Yom Kippur even Resh Lakish would agree that less than the prescribed measure is biblically prohibited, since even a small amount of eating slightly weakens the affliction (and this is contrary to what I suggested above, that on Yom Kippur perhaps even Rabbi Yoḥanan would agree that there is no biblical prohibition for less than the measure, since “measured eating” is still a sign of subjugation. My words are nullified before the words of the amoraim).
With blessings, Nasa”f
Abstaining from bodily pleasures also has another aspect. Beyond expressing sorrow and pain for sin—there is also sanctification here, overcoming material desires in order to resemble, for one day, the ministering angels, a principle emphasized greatly in the midrashim of the Land of Israel.
According to this principle, the view of the Yerushalmi is very well understood: even any amount of eating and drinking is biblically forbidden, since it is contrary to the angelic quality to which we cleave on the holy day, when the representative of the nation, the High Priest, enters a place where even an angel is not permitted to be, as they expounded: “And no man shall be in the Tent,” even those of whom it is said, “and their faces were the faces of a man.”
With blessings, Nasa”f
Thank you for responding to my request :).
You wrote, and I quote: “Moreover, the difficulty discussed in the Gemara according to Resh Lakish in formulating the negative commandment in this case is unclear. Why shouldn’t it simply say not to eat and drink, like all other eating prohibitions? What, in Resh Lakish’s view, prevents the possibility of formulating a prohibition here?” End quote.
I did not understand what is unclear about Resh Lakish’s formulation difficulty. He himself explains the difficulty: “How should it be written? If the Merciful One were to write, ‘he shall not eat’—eating is by an olive-bulk. If the Merciful One were to write, ‘you shall not afflict yourself’—that would imply: get up and eat!” !?
See my discussion with Tirgitz.
Couldn’t the Torah write specifically, for example, “On Yom Kippur you shall not eat a large-date measure”?
In the paragraph “The views of the Rambam and Rav Saadia Gaon regarding the prohibition of eating on Yom Kippur,” after you cited the Rambam’s words at the end of Shoresh 14, I think it should be corrected to: “Up to this point he writes what we saw above, that there is no karet in the Torah for a *positive commandment*, except for Passover and circumcision (and his source is tractate Keritot).” Right?
The Torah does not deal in measures. But they could have given a separate halakhah given to Moses at Sinai for Yom Kippur among the halakhot given to Moses at Sinai of the measures. I answered this in the discussion with Tirgitz
And I did not quite understand the answer to that. Presumably even now there is a halakhah for the Yom Kippur measure, and not that this measure was derived by pure reasoning.
The difference is whether the halakhah would be complex—namely, every eating prohibition is by an olive-bulk except Yom Kippur, which is by a large date—or whether there would be two halakhot: eating is by an olive-bulk, and affliction is by a large date.
According to my view, since there would be a complex halakhah, the Torah already went beyond its usual bounds and taught the prohibition through derashah, as in the baraita, and thus there are two simple halakhot. But according to your view, that Resh Lakish has no prohibition (even though you also suggested that he derives a prohibition directly from the punishment because there is a formulation difficulty, and not like the baraita through derashah), it comes out that concern over a complex halakhah or the lack of words in the Holy Tongue caused a halakhic result.
Correct. I fixed it.
In my opinion it is reasonable that there is no such halakhah; rather, it is learned from the definition of affliction. The Sages’ assessment was that impairment of affliction is at the measure of a large date. Therefore the Torah wrote in the language of affliction and not eating, and the Sages accordingly learned the measure.
If there were such a halakhah, then the whole Gemara would never get off the ground, because even if it had written not to eat, we would still know that the measure is a large date, since there is such an explicit halakhah. That itself is proof for my view.
On Wikipedia under “kekotevet” they cited Eruvin 4b, where the measure of a large date is included among the halakhah. “A land of olive oil and honey”—most of its measures are olives, and the honey is the large date of Yom Kippur. But can you really think that measures are written in the text? Rather, they are halakhot. [And where elsewhere it says that the Sages estimated them, it should be that the halakhah stated a measure of affliction up to settling the mind, and the Sages estimated that this is a large date.]
That is not explicit proof, because I explained it according to my approach. Instead of making the structure of the halakhot cumbersome (everything is an olive-bulk except Yom Kippur, which is a large date), they preferred to preserve a simple structure (eating is an olive-bulk, affliction is a large date), even at the price of teaching the prohibition through derashah.
As stated, our sugya proves my point. In general too, regarding those measures that are halakhot given to Moses at Sinai, my assessment is that some of them are rabbinic estimates. Perhaps the halakhah given to Moses at Sinai was that on Yom Kippur it is not an olive-bulk, and the Sages estimated that it is a large date. But it is also possible that this is simply a dispute between sugyot. In any event, the verse for the measures is merely an asmachta, if at all (for the halakhah that they are halakhot given to Moses at Sinai), and therefore, to fill the “date” slot, they inserted the measure of Yom Kippur into the asmachta.
About the end of the post: I did not understand what the problem is with formulating a prohibition on violating a fast?! Here are some suggestions: “Do not violate your fast”; “Do not nullify the fast of the tenth day of the seventh month.”
See the Gemara there. It rejects such possibilities with the claim that here there are two prohibitions: hishamer, pen, and the like. And so it would say also about “do not nullify.”
You argue that fasting = not eating over a period of time, meaning that the obligation to fast applies to an entire day, and therefore the Torah could not formulate the prohibition in the form “you shall not eat.” But it could have formulated it like this: “You shall not eat throughout all of Yom Kippur from evening to evening” (and it did in fact formulate it approximately like that), and if so then again “you shall not eat throughout all of Yom Kippur” = “you shall afflict yourselves”!
But then it would be a prohibition of eating, not a prohibition on failure to fast. One practical difference is whether it is one unit over the whole duration, but that is not the essence of the discussion. If it were formulated as you suggest, then a minor who came of age in the middle of the day would have to continue, even without my novel point.
Regarding the definition of a fast, one could seemingly define that the prohibition itself turns it into a fast regardless of duration. That is, true, if I do not eat between meals simply because I do not want to, that is not called affliction; but if I am forbidden to eat, even for a single minute, that gives it the label “affliction,” because I have only one option and am subjugated to it.
You can argue anything. But that is not what is called a fast in our language. You are not “fasting” from pork, even though that too is forbidden. You simply do not eat it.
One can say that “eating” is an objective concept, and therefore one who ate an olive-bulk within the time of eating a pras is considered to have “eaten.” By contrast, “affliction of the soul” is a subjective concept, determined by a person’s own sensation, and therefore the measure that constitutes “affliction of the soul” differs from person to person.
For this reason, it is also understandable that the commandment of affliction contains no prohibition of eating, for one who ate an olive-bulk is not afflicted even though he is considered to have “eaten.” The commandment is to reach the sensation of “affliction of the soul,” and that sensation still exists as long as he has not eaten the measure of a “large date.”
With blessings, Nasa”f
Likewise, the commandment of “delighting in Shabbat” is not a commandment to eat, but to attain a feeling of delight. Usually the feeling of delight is achieved through eating, but there are situations—such as one who has seen a dream that causes him distress—in which specifically fasting brings him a good feeling, and in that case his fasting is a delight for him.
With blessings, Nasa”f
Wonderful. More power to you.