Q&A: Do Not Deviate
Do Not Deviate
Question
In Netiv HaMitzvot, on the Torah portion of Toldot, and also in lesson 11 of “Self-Reference,” you explain that “Do not deviate” is not an independent prohibition, but rather a clarification that what the Sages derive creates halakhically binding laws for us. Therefore, when I violate a rabbinic commandment, I am not also violating a Torah commandment.
But this is difficult, because the prohibition of “Do not deviate” is in fact counted, and even counted twice, in Sefer HaMitzvot (positive commandment 174, prohibition again). So we see that it is a formal decree (positive or negative commandment, in Maimonides’ terminology in the eighth root) in the regular sense, such that violating it is like violating the commandments of the Sabbath or whatever other commandment you like?
Answer
I didn’t say that “Do not deviate” is not a prohibition. Clearly it is a prohibition, and one who violates it violates a Torah prohibition. According to Maimonides, this happens in one of two cases: 1. A rebellious elder. 2. A person who violates a rabbinic prohibition out of a fundamental refusal to recognize the authority of the Sages (and not merely someone who happens to violate a rabbinic prohibition).
I discussed this at great length in my book Ruach HaMishpat.
Discussion on Answer
1. There is a progression in that article. At first I write that apparently this is specification. Then difficulties arise with that approach. Then I show (from “love your fellow”) that there is another mechanism — branching-off — and in the end I conclude that according to Maimonides, in prayer too this is branching-off and not specification.
2. My claim is that when a rabbinic commandment branches off from a Torah commandment, there are halakhic implications. There is room to see it like a logical inference that has Torah-level force even though there is no explicit warning and therefore no punishment either, and something like Maimonides’ treatment of derashot in the second root. This is not just a claim on the level of the rationale of the verse. By contrast, according to Rabbi Peretz, Torah-level prayer is at most an inspiration for the regular prayers; that is, at most an explanation on the level of the rationale of the verse.
1. Could you tell me briefly what the difficulties are? I didn’t find them in the article, and I read it several times. There is a difficulty regarding “so that he may rest” or “love your fellow as yourself,” but what are the difficulties regarding prayer?
2. What, for example, are the halakhic implications of the branching-off type?
Sorry if I’m pestering, but this is a topic I’m very fond of and I want to understand it thoroughly.
The main problem is the standard approach to prayer, namely that it is rabbinic, as the Mishnah Berurah and the Magen Avraham write in their understanding of Maimonides himself. A practical implication is the exemption of women.
In Ruach HaMishpat I discussed the implications. For example, with derashot, in cases of doubt one rules stringently. Some medieval authorities wrote regarding whether an oath can take effect on them (if it is Torah-level, an oath does not take effect on it).
Ah, okay, I get it, I get it.
After reading the article in Netiv HaMitzvot, I was still left with two things that are unclear, if I may:
1. According to Maimonides, at the end of the day, what is the status of the commandment of prayer? Is it specification — meaning that the time and text were established by the Sages, and that is the form in which the Torah commandment is to be fulfilled, with no other way — or is it branching-off? It’s not clear to me, because throughout the article it sounds like the first option is correct (and that’s what you write, for example: “We are forced to conclude that the Patriarchs established the proper form for fulfilling this commandment, just as the Torah itself would have wanted us to do it”; or “According to Maimonides, prayer is the formal, concrete halakhic expression of the obligation to serve God, and the Sages shaped this obligation in a more detailed way. If so, it is no wonder that according to Maimonides the obligation to pray three times a day is quasi-Torah in nature, for the Sages informed us that this is how we are to fulfill the Torah commandment itself.”), but at the end of the article you write: “The enactment of the Patriarchs, or of the Sages in light of the laws of sacrifices, is only an attempt to understand what the Torah itself would have wanted us to do in our prayer (that is, this is specification). However, their status is that of rabbinic laws, and therefore they are not a specification of the Torah commandment, though one may say that they branch out from the Torah obligation, like branches emerging from roots.” There is an internal contradiction in that sentence itself, and a contradiction between that single sentence at the end of the article and what you write throughout the article (as above).
2. It is still not sufficiently clear to me what the distinction is between the type of “absolute separation” — where the rabbinic commandment is completely separate from the Torah obligation, for example prayer according to Rabbi Peretz, where prayer in a time of trouble is a Torah obligation in its own right and regular prayer is a separate rabbinic obligation — and the type of branching-off, where what I am fulfilling is also only rabbinic, just that it has a Torah spirit to it (for example, comforting mourners is rabbinic, but it has the spirit / mention of “love your fellow as yourself”); seemingly even in “absolute separation” there is a rabbinic commandment that certainly echoes and continues the way of the Torah. The Sages didn’t create the obligation of prayer out of nothing; surely they took it from the idea of the Torah-level obligation (in a time of trouble).