This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The applicability of legal effect and the distinction between legal effect and status
- The source of object-status and person-status in the Talmudic text in Nedarim
- Object-status and person-status through the legal effect of prohibition: vow, oath, Nazirite status
- What we gain from defining legal effect as a reality
- Three different meanings of object-status and person-status and their implications for disputes
- Rabbi Chaim’s expansion: the object-status of prayer and the object-status of a commandment
- Sitting in a sukkah in the rain, commandments without reward, and a transgression for its own sake
Summary
General Overview
The lecturer concludes the syllabus by clarifying the concept of legal effect as a legal-metaphysical reality that is not identical with halakhic status, and on that basis establishes the distinction between object-status and person-status in the laws of prohibition. He argues that a woman can bear two apparently contradictory legal effects without any contradiction in status, because the contradiction exists on the level of properties, not on the level of entities. He then presents the source of the distinction in the Talmudic text in Nedarim, explains how medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) connect it to the question of whether the legal effect of prohibition falls on the object or on the person, and distinguishes among three different meanings of object-status and person-status. Finally, he describes a Brisker expansion of the concept of object-status even to abstract acts like prayer and commandment, and brings examples where there is an object-status of commandment even without an actual command or without reward, and even raises a parallel of an object-status of transgression with reward in the concept of a transgression for its own sake.
Legal effect as an entity and the distinction between legal effect and status
The lecturer defines legal effect as a legal-metaphysical entity created by an act or by speech, such as the legal effect of ownership in acquisition or the legal effect of terumah in separation, and not merely as another wording for status. He distinguishes between contradictory properties and objects, illustrating with salt and sugar in a dish: taste-properties cannot be contradictory at one and the same moment, but components with opposite properties can coexist. He explains in the name of Rabbi Shimon Shkop that in a conditional divorce a woman can be in a state where both the legal effect of being a married woman and the legal effect of being divorced rest upon her, whereas the question of what is permitted and forbidden to her is a calculation of status derived from those legal effects. He argues that the term “doubt” in Rabbi Shimon Shkop is misleading, because there is no doubt here but rather a reality of two components, and therefore even in a rabbinic-level doubt the laws of doubt do not operate; instead one rules with certainty according to the dominant prohibiting component, just as the prohibition of a divorced woman to a priest determines the operative status.
The source of object-status and person-status in the Talmudic text in Nedarim
The lecturer attributes the pair of concepts to the sharpening of Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, but points to its source in the Talmudic text at the beginning of tractate Nedarim, in the distinction between a vow and a ban, where the prohibition is that the object becomes forbidden to him, as opposed to an oath, where he forbids himself from the object. He explains that the Mishnah in Nedarim includes vows, bans, oaths, and Nazirite status together, and the Talmudic text explains the placement of bans before oaths because of the similarity between vows and bans, which are object-prohibitions, unlike an oath, which is a person-prohibition. He emphasizes that the distinction is not exhausted by the question of whether one forbids an object or an action, because even in an oath there may be a relation to the object itself, and nevertheless the Talmudic text distinguishes between “the object is forbidden to me” and “I am forbidden from the object.”
Object-status and person-status through the legal effect of prohibition: vow, oath, Nazirite status
The lecturer argues that many of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) explain the distinction through the question of the legal effect of prohibition: in a vow, the legal effect of prohibition rests on the object and from that the prohibition on the person is derived, whereas in an oath there is no legal effect in the object but only a direct normative prohibition on the person. He cites Tosafot at the beginning of Nedarim as a linguistic-halakhic practical difference: “Konam that I will not eat this loaf” does not take effect, whereas “An oath that this loaf is forbidden to me” also does not take effect, and notes that there are other medieval authorities who explain that the language of an oath can function as a vow and vice versa, from within a view that the difference lies in the type of prohibition. He shows through the law that “vows can take effect to negate a commandment” whereas “an oath does not take effect regarding a commandment,” following the explanations of Ritva and Ran: an oath addresses the person who is already obligated in the commandment and therefore cannot take effect upon one who is “already sworn and standing from Mount Sinai,” whereas a vow addresses the object, which is not obligated in commandments, and so a prohibition can be imposed upon it even if the result is a practical clash with the obligation of the commandment. He presents Maharit as offering a threefold distinction: a vow is a law in the object, an oath is a prohibition on the person without any legal effect at all, and Nazirite status is a legal effect upon the person, where “his body becomes sanctified, similar to a priest,” and from that the prohibitions concerning wine, haircutting, and impurity follow; and he cites the language of the Rosh that for a Nazirite “the Nazirite status depends on his body.”
What we gain from defining legal effect as reality
The lecturer describes legal effect as a fact that a person “carries around on her a backpack” with a certain name, and distinguishes between the facts of the legal effects and the halakhic status that results from a calculation based on those legal effects. He refers to his article in Tzohar 2 called “What Is Legal Effect,” which also appears on the website and contains additional examples, and explains that the focus here is on conceiving legal effect as a “thing,” not merely as a normative label.
Three different meanings of object-status and person-status and their implications for disputes
The lecturer cites Kehillot Yaakov, section 15 in Nedarim, regarding a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim): whether all Torah laws are object-laws and vows are like other prohibitions while the oath is the novelty, or the reverse, that all Torah laws are person-laws and only vows are the exceptional case of object-status. He notes that many later authorities (Acharonim) assert, without discussing this dispute, that Torah-level laws are object-laws and rabbinic laws are person-laws, or that temporary commandments are person-laws and permanent ones are object-laws, and explains that the argument becomes sharper only after distinguishing among several meanings of “object-status.” He lists three meanings: the first is the metaphysics of legal effect—whether there is a legal effect of prohibition on the object or a norm on the person; the second is whether there is something in the nature of the object itself that causes the prohibition, such as forbidden foods that “dull the soul,” and that belongs to the rationale of the verse rather than to the definition of the prohibition; the third is a meaning that is not metaphysical but teleological-essential, where an “object-prohibition” is a prohibition whose goal is to protect the object, such as consecrated property and terumah, whereas a “person-prohibition” is a prohibition whose goal is to protect the stature of the person, such as creeping creatures and vermin. He cites the Avnei Nezer, who formulates this by saying that person-prohibitions are acts that damage the stature of the person, whereas deriving benefit from consecrated property or a non-priest eating terumah is harm done to something above his level, and therefore these are object-prohibitions.
Rabbi Chaim’s expansion: the object-status of prayer and the object-status of a commandment
The lecturer describes Rabbi Chaim’s expansion of the concepts of object-status even in relation to abstract entities, such as the “object-status of prayer” or the “object-status of a commandment,” which are not physical objects but normative entities with objective standing. He illustrates this through the dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides over whether prayer is Torah-level or rabbinic, and argues that according to Rabbi Chaim, even according to Nachmanides, who holds that there is no Torah-level command to pray, there is still a reality of prayer on the Torah-level as an object-status, which allows one to explain “he has the reward of prayer, but not the reward of prayer at its proper time,” even when the whole obligation of set times is only rabbinic. He adds that such an object-status can have practical implications, such as one who is engaged in a commandment being exempt from another commandment, because the person is engaged in a commandment and not merely doing a good deed.
Sitting in a sukkah in the rain, commandments without reward, and a transgression for its own sake
The lecturer cites a lecture by Rabbi Asher Weiss about sitting in a sukkah in the rain in response to the question raised by Oneg Yom Tov from the prohibition against using the wood of the sukkah, and presents his novel point: there is here an object-status of commandment even though the person is exempt and is not expected to fulfill it, and therefore there is no prohibition of deriving benefit from the wood of the sukkah even though the blessing would be in vain and the one who sits there is called a fool and receives no reward. He cites Rabbi Asher Weiss’s view that commandments done without intention may still fulfill the obligation but do not necessarily confer reward, as in one who “blows the shofar for music,” who fulfills the obligation but “has not the slightest bit of reward,” and likewise fulfilling a commandment through an agent, which discharges the obligation but the reward belongs to the one who performed it. He joins to this an example from a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim) brought by the Shakh regarding snatching the commandment of circumcision from an agent, where there is no payment to the father because he did not lose the reward of the commandment when he was not going to do it himself. In this way he draws a distinction between discharging an obligation and serving God in a way that merits reward, and parallels this to the possibility of “a transgression with no punishment” and even reward in the framework of a transgression for its own sake, citing Lot’s daughters as an example whom the Sages praise and reward for the elder preceding the younger, even though the act is defined as a transgression.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, this is our last meeting, and in terms of the syllabus we basically still have two items left. What I want to do is talk about the next-to-last topic, object-status and person-status, and the last topic I’ll address in the aspects that relate to object-status and person-status, because it isn’t independent of the previous one, and with that we’ll finish the matter. Okay, so I’ll start first of all with the issue of object-status and person-status. Before that, before I get into those details, I wanted to give some kind of introduction, also based on an article I once wrote, where I define the concept of legal effect. In the world of conceptual Talmudic analysis, we’re used to talking about legal effects, legal effects of law. A woman has upon her the legal effect of being a married woman, or the legal effect of being divorced; certain produce has upon it the legal effect of terumah, and so on. What exactly does that concept mean? What’s its significance? Usually, at first glance, people don’t distinguish between saying that a woman is divorced and saying that the legal effect of being divorced rests upon the woman. Legal effects, right? The question is whether those are two different things or the same thing in different words. So my claim there in the article was that it’s not the same thing, but two different things. And I presented that distinction through the following question. Rabbi Shimon Shkop writes that when a person divorces a woman conditionally, then as long as it hasn’t been clarified whether the condition will be fulfilled or not, the woman is both a married woman and divorced. Some sort of mixed state, a quantum state, call it whatever you like. The moment I said that in class, the guys said to me, wait a second, what do you mean both a married woman and divorced? If she’s a married woman then she’s not divorced; if she’s divorced then she’s not a married woman. What does it mean that she is both a married woman and divorced? How can you say something so contradictory?
So the claim is that usually when we distinguish or contrast between two things, a relation of opposition between two things exists when we are dealing with properties. Say, salty is the opposite of sweet, but salt is not the opposite of sugar. Salt and sugar are two objects. Their tastes are opposite. The taste of salty is the opposite of the taste of sweet. Meaning, the relation of opposition is a relation that exists between properties, not between objects. Objects are not opposites of one another; properties can be opposites of one another. Tall is the opposite of short, but a tall person and a short person are not opposites of each other; they’re just two people. Their properties are opposite, not they themselves. The claim is that the opposition between a married woman and a divorced woman, the contradiction in saying that a woman is both a married woman and divorced, exists on the level of properties. Meaning, when I talk about her legal properties, what the legal status of this woman is, and I say she is both divorced and a married woman—that can’t be. If she is divorced, then she is not a married woman; if she is a married woman, then she is not divorced. But can I say that together—let’s go for a second to an analogy and then I’ll return to the point. When I speak about a certain dish and say it is both salty and sweet, that can’t be. If it’s salty then it’s not sweet, and vice versa. I mean fully salty and fully sweet, leave mixtures aside—if it’s fully salty and also fully sweet, that can’t be. If it’s salty, then it’s not sweet; if it’s sweet, then it’s not salty. But if I say that in the dish there is both salt and sugar, have I said anything contradictory? Not at all. You can put both salt and sugar into a dish. Meaning, the properties of the dish have to be either salty or sweet. But when I’m talking about objects that are present in the dish, there can be two objects with opposite properties in the same dish. There can be both salt and sugar in it. The taste in the end will come out as something. There’s no contradiction there. There can be both salt and sugar.
The same thing, I want to claim, applies to a woman. A woman can’t be both a married woman and divorced. If she is a married woman she is not divorced; if she is divorced she is not a married woman. In terms of her legal status, she is either a married woman or divorced. But if I’m talking about the question of which legal effects rest upon her, then my claim is that the legal effects resting upon her are entities. And therefore this woman can have upon her both the legal effect of being a married woman and the legal effect of being divorced. Two legal effects rest upon her. Of course, you can now ask what laws will apply to such a woman. Will she have the law of a divorced woman or the law of a married woman? That is already a consequence of the fact of which legal effects rest upon her, just as salty and sweet taste are consequences of the presence of salt and sugar in the dish. The presence of salt and sugar is the presence of entities. The properties are a result of the entities involved in the matter. The same applies to legal effects in Jewish law, as opposed to legal or halakhic status. Legal effects are a kind of entities. So there is no obstacle at all to saying that the legal effect of being a married woman and the legal effect of being divorced both rest on the woman together. No problem whatsoever. You can’t say that the woman is both a married woman and divorced—that you can’t say, because if she’s a married woman she’s not divorced; those are opposite properties. But you can say that the legal effect of being a married woman and the legal effect of being divorced both rest upon her.
And my claim is that what Rabbi Shimon Shkop meant to say is that when a person divorces a woman conditionally, he basically places upon her two legal effects: the legal effect of being a married woman and the legal effect of being divorced, and both of them—he doesn’t place upon her the legal effect of being a married woman, that was already on her beforehand; he only adds to her the legal effect of being divorced as well. And now the situation is hanging in the balance: what will happen? Will the condition be fulfilled or not fulfilled? But in the meantime both legal effects rest upon her. So you’ll ask, then what is her halakhic or legal status? Say, whether she is permitted to a priest. As a divorced woman she is forbidden, and as one who is not divorced she is permitted—of course if she’s a married woman that won’t help, because she’s forbidden to everyone including a priest—but say her husband died. Is she a widow or a divorcee? If she was divorced and her husband died, she remains divorced, and she is forbidden to a priest. But if she was a married woman, not divorced, and her husband died, then now she is a widow. A widow is permitted to an ordinary priest; only to the High Priest she is forbidden. So now I ask whether she is permitted to marry a priest. Here the claim is, of course, it is either permitted or forbidden; it can’t be both permitted and forbidden, because this is legal status, not entities. Here contradictions cannot be accepted. If she is permitted to a priest, then it can’t be that she is forbidden to him, and vice versa. But really, notice, this is exactly like the salt and sugar. Meaning, when I say that the legal effect of being a married woman and the legal effect of being divorced both rest upon her, then when I ask myself whether she is forbidden to a priest, the answer is yes. Why? Because from the divorcee component in her, she is forbidden to a priest. From the married-woman component in her, after her husband died she is now a widow, so she is not forbidden to a priest. Permission is not something positive. Permission is just the absence of prohibition, that’s all. So if from the divorcee component in her there is a prohibition on her, and from the married-woman component in her there is no prohibition on her, then once both legal effects rest upon her—the legal effect of being a married woman and the legal effect of being divorced—the bottom line, when I ask what her legal status is, is that she is forbidden to a priest. She is forbidden to a priest because of the divorcee component in her, because of the legal effect of divorce resting upon her. Okay?
Suppose there are two ingredients in a dish, one with a salty taste and one with a neutral taste. What will the taste of the dish be? Salty. The dish can’t be both salty and neutral, right? If it’s salty then it’s not neutral, and vice versa. But there can be ingredients in the dish, one of which is salty and the other neutral. And now when I ask myself what the taste of the dish is, the dish will be salty. Meaning, on the level of taste or the properties of the dish, there is always only one correct answer. But on the level of the ingredients that create those properties, there can indeed be two ingredients with contradictory properties, no problem. And therefore when I say that upon this woman rest the legal effect of being a married woman and the legal effect of being divorced simultaneously, I am not really saying anything contradictory. When I get to the question of legal or halakhic status—what is permitted and forbidden to her—there, of course, I have to decide which of the components is dominant and which recessive. Which one determines the law and which one is basically neutral. And usually, when you have two such components, one is dominant and the other neutral. So usually the status will be a well-defined status.
Now, incidentally, Rabbi Shimon Shkop calls this a doubt. The state of doubt whether she is a married woman or not—that’s not a good expression, because there’s no doubt here; she is both a married woman and divorced. That’s one practical difference. True, usually the result will come out like the laws of doubt, because we’ll go stringently. What does stringently mean? From the divorcee component in her she is forbidden to a priest, so practically speaking we’ll go stringently and say she’s forbidden to a priest. From the married-woman component in her, she is forbidden to all men, because from the divorced component she is permitted to ordinary men, and from the married-woman component she is forbidden, so she will also be forbidden to men because of the married-woman component in her. Okay? So on the face of it, it’s like a Torah-level doubt, where we go stringently. The practical difference will be in a rabbinic-level doubt. In a rabbinic-level doubt, in terms of the laws of doubt, I might have gone leniently. But if I’m not talking about a state of doubt, but rather about the fact that the two components or two legal effects both rest upon the woman, then even if we’re talking about rabbinic implications I will go stringently. Because say she is divorced on a rabbinic level and a married woman on a rabbinic level, and now the question is whether she is allowed to marry a priest. The answer is: she is forbidden. Why? But this is a rabbinic-level doubt. The answer is: there is no doubt here at all, because she is both divorced and a married woman. From the divorced component in her, she is forbidden to a priest, and certainly forbidden, not out of doubt. Therefore the laws of doubt will not apply here. At the Torah level this looks very much like the laws of doubt, and that’s why Rabbi Shimon Shkop uses the term doubt, but it’s confusing, because really it’s not actually doubt, it’s both together. Like the difference between a tumtum and an androgynous, right—the question whether this is a doubtful male and doubtful female, or both male and female. In our case it’s an androgynous, not a tumtum.
Okay, so it’s both-and. And therefore the legal status will be determined by the dominant component present in the dish. Okay? That’s what will determine the legal status. But this is always true, not because of the laws of doubt. This is a law of certainty, not a law of doubt. Say if there were now another doubt, for example, this wouldn’t be a double doubt; it would be one doubt. We would have to go stringently.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, what do we gain from defining legal effect as an entity and not as—meaning, aside from the specific case about divorce?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean aside from the specific case? That’s an implication, for example.
[Speaker B] Are there other places where you see this? I mean, are there explanations there in terms of retroactively, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not connected. Retroactively doesn’t help there at all. Rabbi Shimon Shkop says: what is she during those days? During the days until the condition is fulfilled, she is both.
[Speaker B] Okay, look at—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question—look at my article in Tzohar 2, it also appears on the website. You can take a look. The article is called “What Is Legal Effect”; if you search for it you’ll find it on the site too. There I also discuss a few more examples. I don’t have many, but there’s another example or two there. In any case, the claim is that the concept of legal effect, for our purposes, what matters is that the concept of legal effect is some sort of reality. It’s some sort of fact. It’s not just legal status. Yes, it’s something, it’s a thing. Think about the woman: when I say that the legal effect of being a married woman rests upon her, I mean that she’s carrying around some kind of backpack. Okay? And that backpack has the label “married woman” on it. So the legal effect of being a married woman rests upon her. The question whether she is a married woman or not is a matter of calculation. I check what legal effects rest upon her, and from that I can calculate her legal and halakhic status. Okay? So there’s a difference between the facts or entities that rest upon this woman and the legal status, which is the result of a calculation, a consequence of the entities moving around here in the field. So that’s the introduction, okay?
Now I want to talk about object-status and person-status. I need this for the later discussion, which is why I gave that introduction. The concepts of object-status and person-status are basically concepts usually associated with Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, right? They’re one of the pairs of concepts that Rabbi Chaim of Brisk introduced; I already mentioned that. And usually this distinction basically asks whether the law in question is a law that deals with reality itself, with the object itself, or a law that speaks about the person. In more modern language, subjective or objective. Okay? The question is whether it’s a subjective law, or a law that deals with the subject, or one that deals with the object. Okay? In a minute I’ll talk a little about examples and then it’ll be clearer. In any case, I assume this is familiar to most or all of you.
Now, this distinction—Rabbi Chaim of Brisk didn’t invent it. Its source is actually in the Talmud. The Talmud at the beginning of tractate Nedarim. I’m sharing with you a file; I’ll send you this file with the summary too, so you can read an article we once wrote on the topic. There’s a Mishnah at the beginning of tractate Nedarim that says as follows: “All substitute forms of vows are like vows, and bans are like bans, and oaths are like oaths, and Nazirite expressions are like Nazirite expressions.” Substitute forms are some alternate way of making a vow, okay, in different wording, not important at the moment—it’s not important for our purposes here. After that, at the beginning of Nazir it says: “All substitute forms of Nazirite expressions are like Nazirite expressions,” and that’s it. There are no bans, oaths, all kinds of vows and things like that—only Nazirite status. So the Talmud there in Nedarim, right at the beginning of the tractate, asks: “All substitute forms of vows are like vows”—why is it that regarding Nazir it doesn’t teach all of them, and why is it that regarding Nedarim it teaches all of them? Why at the beginning of tractate Nazir does only substitute Nazirite language appear, while at the beginning of tractate Nedarim it lists substitute vows, bans, oaths, and Nazirite expressions, all together? The Talmud says: because vow and oath are written next to each other in the Torah, so it taught the two. Vow and oath appear together in the Torah, and therefore when they deal with vows they also brought in the law of oaths. And since it taught two, and once they already brought both vows and oaths, they completed the whole list. So it taught all of them. Regarding Nazir, that is a specific law about the Nazirite; it is its own separate passage.
The Talmud asks: then let it teach substitute forms of oaths right after vows. Why in the Mishnah in Nedarim do we have: all substitute forms of vows are like vows, bans are like bans, and only then oaths are like oaths? You’re telling me that in the Torah oaths appear together with vows. So why did you stick bans in the middle? Write: all substitute forms of vows are like vows, oaths are like oaths, bans are like bans, and Nazirite expressions are like Nazirite expressions. Why put bans in between vows and oaths? The Talmud says: since it taught vows, where the object becomes forbidden to him, it also taught bans, where the object becomes forbidden to him, excluding an oath, where he forbids himself from the object. What does that mean? There is something shared by vows and bans. Both are laws in the object. Meaning, it is a prohibition of the object upon the person. Say I vow prohibition from some loaf of bread, then the loaf of bread is forbidden to me. The same with a ban: if there’s a ban regarding something, then that thing is forbidden to me. By contrast, an oath has the opposite character. Let’s say that’s the objective character; an oath is subjective. He forbids himself from the object. Not that the object is forbidden to me, but that I am forbidden to eat it, or forbidden to use it in one way or another, according to what I swore. Okay?
So the Talmud here is really the first source that makes the distinction between what Rabbi Chaim later called a law in the object and a law in the person. A law in the object means that one forbids the object upon oneself, or that there is something in the object itself, in objective reality. And a law in the person means that the law applies only to the person himself. It’s a subjective law with no root in objective reality. Now Rabbi Chaim, of course, expands this very, very, very broadly. Meaning, for Rabbi Chaim there is such a thing as the object-status of prayer, or the object-status of a commandment, or object-status—meaning it doesn’t have to be concrete physical objects. Rather, he creates entities or Platonic ideas that are also some kind of entities, and those entities have some kind of standing not only in relation to the person, but as part of the objective world. We’ll see examples later.
What’s the difference—what’s the basis—what is the significance of this distinction between a law in the object and a law in the person? Between “the object becomes forbidden to him” and “he forbids himself from the object.” One might have thought that, say, if I swear not to eat a loaf of bread, or if I vow not to eat a loaf of bread, “Konam, this loaf is upon me,” one might say there’s no difference, because in both cases I am forbidden to eat the loaf of bread. Rather, an oath is when what I forbid upon myself is not an object but an action. I say: I swear not to travel to Jerusalem, or not to go to the beach for a month, or something like that. Then I have forbidden an action upon myself, not a thing. Okay? So if I see it that way, then the difference between a law in the object and a law in the person is not a fundamental one, but only a question of what kind of prohibition it is. Everything is a law on me. The only question is what kind of law is on me: did I forbid an object to myself, or did I forbid an action to myself? But the prohibitions are prohibitions on me. Then according to that approach—and by the way, you can see a bit of this in the medieval authorities, although it’s not the straightforward reading of the Talmud—if I forbid an object to myself through an oath and not through a vow, then it would really be a vow, not an oath, because I forbade an object to myself even though I used the language of an oath. So there are medieval authorities who say that a vow made in the language of an oath is a vow, not an oath. They understand that there is no principled difference between vows and oaths; it’s just a difference in what I forbade—did I forbid an action to myself or an object to myself.
And as I said before, that is not the straightforward reading of the Talmud. The straightforward reading of the Talmud seems to be that in both cases we are speaking about an object. What does it say here? In vows, the object becomes forbidden to him; in an oath, he forbids himself from the object. Meaning that even in an oath, what stands opposite me is an object, not an action—or at least it can be an object and not an action. And still there is room for two different ways of relating, in my prohibition, to the object. I am forbidden to eat the loaf. Is the loaf forbidden to me, or am I forbidden to eat it? You’ll ask: what, that’s just word-swapping, what’s the difference? After all, both of those statements mean the same thing, so what difference does it make? Obviously in the end only human beings are commanded in commandments; loaves of bread are not commanded in commandments. So what does it mean that the loaf was forbidden to me? I am forbidden to eat it. So what’s the difference between saying the loaf is forbidden to me and saying I am forbidden to eat it? It’s the same thing.
Therefore there are several medieval authorities from whom it emerges—and among later authorities this becomes more explicit, but you can already see it in the medieval authorities in various formulations—that the accepted way of defining object-prohibition versus person-prohibition is the question whether there is a legal effect of prohibition in the thing. That is why I prefaced this with the introduction about legal effect. When I say that vows are object-prohibitions, what that means is that when I forbade a loaf of bread to myself in the form of a vow—“Konam, this loaf is upon me”—I imposed upon the loaf of bread a legal effect of prohibition. That has a consequence. The consequence is that I am forbidden to eat the loaf of bread, but the legal or halakhic instruction, the prohibition on eating the bread, is a result. It is the result of some kind of reality. The reality is that upon this loaf there rests a legal effect of prohibition. In a moment I’ll talk a little about implications, but that’s the claim. By contrast, with an oath—an oath is “he forbids himself from the object,” not “the object becomes forbidden to him.” So what does that mean? It basically means that on the object itself there is no legal effect of prohibition; I am forbidden to eat it. But that is not the product, not a derivative, of some reality in the object itself; rather, I am forbidden to eat. It is a pure prohibition, not a prohibition anchored in a reality rooted in the object itself. That is essentially the difference, according to the accepted approach among the medieval and later authorities, between object-prohibition and person-prohibition.
One implication, for example—let’s look here, say, at Tosafot in Nedarim at the beginning. “And if you say,” he brings, “what practical difference does it make whether the object is forbidden upon him or he upon the object?” What difference is there? He says one can answer: it matters for this, that if he said, “Konam that I will not eat this loaf,” he has said nothing; and similarly regarding an oath, the opposite. If someone says, “Konam that I will not eat this loaf,” not “Konam, this loaf is upon me,” but rather he forbids upon himself with the language of Konam the action of eating, he has said nothing, because Konam is the language of a vow, and a vow forbids objects, not actions. And conversely for an oath. If someone says, “I swear that this loaf is forbidden to me,” he has said nothing. If I swear not to eat the loaf, that’s perfectly fine, because an oath is a prohibition of action. I forbid myself from doing some action; I do not forbid an object. That’s one approach among the medieval authorities. Another approach among the medieval authorities says that if he says, “An oath that this loaf is forbidden to me,” that is really a vow. Or if he says, “Konam that I will not eat this loaf,” that is really an oath. That appears to disagree with Tosafot, but it shares with Tosafot the same basic conception: that the difference between a vow and an oath is in the type of prohibition. What I’m saying—what I said before—is that according to most medieval authorities the conception is a third one: both vows and oaths can be defined in relation to an object; the question is whether there is a difference between when the object is forbidden to me and when I am forbidden with respect to the object, and what I said before about the legal effect of prohibition resting upon the object.
Now, the Mishnah on page 16a says that vows can take effect to negate a commandment. For example, if I vow, “Konam, this sukkah is upon me,” and I have no other sukkah, and I have a commandment to sit in the sukkah, and now I have forbidden upon myself the benefit from the sukkah—okay? Does that take effect? The Talmud says that it does take effect. By contrast, if I swear not to sit in the sukkah, then it does not take effect. Because an oath cannot take effect upon an oath, and one is already sworn and standing from Mount Sinai. A person is already sworn to sit in the sukkah; there is a commandment to sit in the sukkah, so he cannot swear not to sit in the sukkah.
[Speaker C] In a sukkah, or in that sukkah? What? In a sukkah, or in that sukkah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. And if he wants to sit in the sukkah—an oath that he will not sit in this sukkah—if he has other sukkahs, then that probably would take effect. But if he has no other sukkahs, then even with respect to a particular sukkah it would take effect—it would not take effect. But with a vow, whether he has other sukkahs or not, it would take effect. And the Ran asks why.
[Speaker D] But isn’t that the same principle of already sworn and standing? Do you hear? Isn’t that the same principle of already sworn and standing, Rabbi?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Not with a vow?
[Speaker D] Isn’t it the same principle of already sworn and standing?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Only with an oath, not with a vow. And the Ran explains why. The Ran says that with an oath, the person is commanded to sit in the sukkah. So if he forbids himself from sitting in the sukkah, he cannot forbid himself from doing something that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded him to do, and that he is already sworn to do as well. Since he himself is obligated to do it, he cannot forbid himself from doing it. It is not in his control; it is not something that is in his hands. “Whether to do harm or to do good” — and from this they exclude something that is commanded, because it is not in his hands; you cannot swear regarding something that is a commandment. Only regarding optional matters can you swear. Something you can do or not do — you can swear that you will not do it, or swear that you will do it. But if the matter does not have two options, if the Torah has already defined that you must do it or that you are forbidden to do it, then you cannot swear. Right? There is no way to swear about that; it is no longer something open to an oath.
What happens with a vow, says the Ran? The Ritva and the Ran — really this is more the Ritva. The Ritva says that with a vow, since I forbid the sukkah to myself, not myself with respect to the sukkah, the sukkah is not itself obligated in commandments. So there is nothing preventing me from making the sukkah forbidden to me. So the sukkah will be forbidden to me, and I am obligated to sit in a sukkah. Now suppose this is the only sukkah there is. I have no sukkah; there is no other sukkah in the world. Fine? But the sukkah is still forbidden to me. Why? Because there is nothing preventing the prohibition from taking effect on the sukkah. Because the sukkah is not commanded that people sit in it. I am commanded to sit in the sukkah. So if the prohibition were directed at me — that is what happens with an oath — then I cannot forbid myself something I am obligated to do, and therefore an oath does not take effect on a commandment. But a vow deals with the object, not the person. The object itself is not commanded to do anything. Therefore there is no obstacle to forbidding the object.
What would happen as a result of that, by the way? The medieval authorities do indeed ask this; the Ritva there in the same place already asks it. Fine, so the sukkah is forbidden, but now there is a commandment involving it. Maybe a positive commandment overrides a prohibition? Maybe the positive commandment of sitting in the sukkah overrides the prohibition of “he shall not break his word” with respect to a vow. So what is the practical difference made by the fact that the vow takes effect on the sukkah? I’ll comment on that in a moment. In any case, that is the Ritva’s explanation.
Here, for example, you can see an implication of this distinction between a law applying to the object and a law applying to the person. A law applying to the object means that a prohibition takes effect on the object. So then you cannot impose… meaning, if there were already a prohibition taking effect on the object, you could not impose another prohibition on it; one prohibition does not take effect on top of another. But if there is no prohibition taking effect on the object, and instead, for example, there is an obligation on me to sit in the sukkah, then there is nothing preventing a prohibition from taking effect on the object. The object itself is a neutral object; nothing has yet been said about it. So it can be forbidden. By contrast, with respect to the person, if I am obligated to do something, I cannot swear not to do it; and in principle I also cannot swear that I will do it — strictly speaking — that is only in cases of vows of encouragement or something like that. So that is perhaps the clearest practical difference between a law applying to the object and a law applying to the person.
There are two possible ways to understand this concept that I called a law applying to the person. One possibility is as I said earlier: a subjective law. There are no legal effects here. This is a floating norm. I have to sit in the sukkah. There is no metaphysical factual definition of an obligation taking effect to sit in the sukkah; there is no such thing. A person must sit in the sukkah, the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded him, and he has to obey. In a vow, there is a prohibition taking effect that supposedly rests on the sukkah, like the legal effect I spoke about with regard to a woman or anything else. Okay? Meaning that in a vow there is some anchor in reality — I mean metaphysical reality, of course, not physical reality — there is some metaphysical anchor from which the prohibition derives. In an oath there is no metaphysical dimension; it is only normative. That is, it is only permitted or forbidden with respect to the person.
But one could also define a law applying to the person differently. One could say that even in an oath, or generally in a law applying to the person, there is a metaphysical legal effect in reality, except that this legal effect does not rest on the object but on the person. The person has a legal effect on him that obligates him to sit in the sukkah. One could say that. Not that there are no legal effects here at all. The difference would be where the legal effect sits: on the object or on the person. As opposed to the simpler and more common view, that in a vow there is a legal effect and in an oath there is no legal effect. In an oath it is an obligation-command; in a vow there is a legal effect. But one could say that even in an oath there is a legal effect, except that the legal effect is on the person and not on the object.
Well, that view is probably not correct. Meaning, it is hard to accept that conception, that an oath also has a legal effect, except that the legal effect is on the person. You can bring various proofs for that, but I won’t get into it here, because our subject right now is not specifically that passage. Just to complete the picture, I’ll give you an example from naziriteship.
With naziriteship, there are some medieval authorities, or some later authorities, who argue… what is different about naziriteship? After all, we saw in the first Mishnah that a nazirite is a category unto itself. A vow is a law applying to the object, an oath is a law applying to the person, and naziriteship is something else. So what exactly is this thing called a nazirite? I’ll bring you two or three sources just so you can see this. Okay, look here at the Rosh on Nedarim there, in that same passage on page 18. The Rosh says this: “And a nazirite, although he is forbidden with respect to wine, it is not that the wine is forbidden to him; rather, the naziriteship depends on his body, for he says, ‘Behold I am a nazirite,’ and automatically he becomes forbidden with respect to wine, haircutting, and impurity.”
Meaning, for a nazirite, the wine is not an object-prohibition upon him; rather, he himself is forbidden with respect to wine. But what does the phrase “rather, the naziriteship depends on his body” mean? One could say that the Rosh means there is a legal effect of prohibition, except that the legal effect is on the person and not on the wine. That is the difference between a vow, which forbids the wine to me, and naziriteship, which forbids me with respect to the wine. But in the Rosh itself that is not really necessary.
Where you see it more clearly is in a responsum of the Maharit, a very well-known and fundamental responsum in the laws of naziriteship. He says this: “For a vow is a law in the object and has no connection to the person making the vow. An oath is a prohibition on the person, but his body is not seized by it” — meaning, there is no legal effect even on the person; there is no legal effect at all — “whereas in naziriteship, he himself is seized by the vow and his body becomes sanctified, analogous to a priest, and as a result he becomes forbidden.” Meaning, this is the purest formulation of the three conceptions: a vow is a legal effect on the object; an oath is the absence of any legal effect at all — it is simply a prohibition on the person, a norm; and naziriteship is a legal effect of prohibition on the person. It is not that the wine is forbidden to me, but that I am forbidden from drinking wine — yet there is a legal effect of naziriteship on me, and as a result I am forbidden to drink wine.
This is unlike, for example, the prohibition on eating pork. The prohibition on eating pork, in that sense, is a law applying to the person. It is a law applying to the person because, simply speaking, there is no legal effect of prohibition on the pig itself, and certainly there is no legal effect of prohibition on the person himself, because there is no special status of that particular person being forbidden with respect to pork. Every Jew is forbidden to eat pork. In naziriteship, the fact that I am forbidden to drink wine is a result of my status as a nazirite, and naziriteship is a legal effect that rests on me — a legal effect by virtue of which I am called a nazirite — and therefore I am forbidden with respect to wine. The prohibition binds every Jew: he is forbidden to eat pork, that’s all. There is no prior step in which I need to define myself in some way in order for the pork to become forbidden to me. Therefore, in this simple conception, pork is a person-centered prohibition. A person-centered prohibition, but without a legal effect. Although there are medieval authorities who argue that pork is an object-centered prohibition. It is object-centered in the sense that the pig itself is an object of prohibition. In a moment I’ll comment on that. Indeed… yes.
[Speaker E] Regarding a legal effect — what is that? Is a legal effect basically only something new? Meaning, something that did not exist originally and then was newly created?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A legal effect is some kind of legal entity that is created by an act or by speech. Okay? It is not a natural state. It is an entity. But it is an artificial entity. An entity — I don’t know, artificial — a metaphysical entity created by a human being. Yes, in that sense it is what is called artificial. Artificial means that it is created by a human being. Okay? As opposed to something natural, which nature made. So the claim is that this is an entity, but an artificial entity. It is an entity that a person creates. When I create a legal effect, when I acquire an object, I impose on it a legal effect of ownership. The act of acquisition created the state in which there is a legal effect of ownership on the object. The verbal act of separating terumah creates that legal effect, the legal effect of terumah on the produce. And so on. Okay? A legal effect is something that a legal act creates. All right? Thank you very much.
So now I want to distinguish between several meanings of object and person. Maybe I’ll preface it with something. The Kehillot Yaakov, in section 15 on Nedarim, brings a dispute among the medieval authorities. Again, I won’t get into the sources because time is running, but he brings a dispute among the medieval authorities on the question whether all Torah laws are laws applying to the object, or whether all Torah laws are laws applying to the person. Or in other words, let’s formulate it this way: we saw that oaths are a law applying to the person, and vows are a law applying to the object. The question is: where is the novelty? Is the novelty in oaths, which are a law applying to the person, while all the other Torah laws are laws applying to the object, including vows? Or the opposite: is the novelty in vows — vows are a law applying to the object, unlike all the other Torah laws, which are laws applying to the person, and oaths are included among them? Okay? We know the situation regarding oaths, we know the situation regarding vows, but we do not know about the other Torah laws. Pork, the prohibition on eating pork — is that a prohibition in the object of the pig, an object-centered prohibition, or a person-centered prohibition? Okay? That is essentially the question.
So the Kehillot Yaakov brings a dispute among the medieval authorities on this matter. Is a Torah prohibition, say pork, a prohibition on the person or a prohibition on the object? Now, that is on the one hand. On the other hand, in several places — mainly among the later authorities, by the way, while completely ignoring that dispute among the medieval authorities — for example, several later authorities want to claim that rabbinic laws are laws applying to the person, whereas Torah-level laws are laws applying to the object. Meaning, the rabbis cannot create something in reality. The rabbis can obligate me to do things or not to do things. Innovations in reality itself — that only the Torah can create. Therefore Torah laws are laws applying to the object, while rabbinic laws are laws applying to the person.
There is the Netivot in section 234, there is the responsa Badei De’oraita that discusses this; he also says that all time-bound commandments are laws applying to the person, whereas continuous commandments are laws applying to the object. And none of them mentions that there is a dispute among the medieval authorities, with many authorities on both sides, some of whom say that all Torah laws are laws applying to the person. So how can you simply say that these are laws applying to the object, and only rabbinic laws, or laws dependent on time, or various special categories, are laws applying to the person, while generally Torah laws are laws applying to the object? That depends on a dispute among the medieval authorities, and no one mentions it.
Here we need — and I really am doing this telegraphically because we won’t have time — to distinguish between several meanings of a law applying to the object and a law applying to the person. I will distinguish among three meanings.
One meaning is the one I described until now: whether a prohibition takes effect on the object, or whether this is just a subjective, normative matter, what I simply called before. That is the first distinction.
The second distinction says it depends on whether there is something in the object that causes the prohibition. For example, some want to argue that if I eat pork it somehow harms me, it dulls my soul. There is already a rabbinic midrash about forbidden foods dulling the soul. And what does it mean that it dulls the soul? There is something in pork that affects the person who eats it. Meaning, there is something in the pig, there is something in the object. So that is a law applying to the object. By contrast, rabbinic laws do not dull the soul. Rabbinic laws are not… they are not in reality. Notice: this is a different meaning from the previous one. Because here I am not talking about the legal effect of the prohibition on pork. I am talking about the reality of the pig itself, its natural reality. The pig naturally creates a problem — and again, I am not talking about a physical problem for me; I am talking about a spiritual problem. In Derashot HaRan there are those who spoke of a physical problem, that someone who eats pork becomes sick, that it harms his body. Okay, that is not the accepted view. The accepted view is that there is some injury here to the soul: “and you shall be defiled by them” — but in the Torah it is written without the aleph, so it can be read as “and you shall be dulled by them,” meaning it dulls the soul. “Dulled” in the Torah’s language means blocked, closed off, shut. So it dulls the soul.
When people call that a law applying to the object, it is not the same meaning I discussed before. The meaning I discussed before was that a prohibition takes effect on the thing. That legal effect is something created either by the Torah or by human beings, but it is an artificial legal effect; it is not part of nature. These statements that pork harms the soul are statements about the pig in itself, independent of the command. It was not the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, that made it so — and certainly not a human being’s vow or some human act. This is the nature of a pig: when a pig comes into interaction with a person, it harms him — not necessarily physically, perhaps spiritually, but it harms him. That is a law applying to the object in a different sense from the concept of a law applying to the object that I defined earlier. What I defined earlier is only the definition of the prohibition; that belongs to halakhic theory — whether the prohibition is defined as an object of prohibition, a legal effect of prohibition resting on the object, or whether there is no such legal effect. The question I am asking here is a different one: whether there is something in the object because of which it is prohibited. That belongs to the reason for the verse; it does not belong to the definition of the prohibition. Because the pig harms me when I eat it, therefore the Torah prohibited it — not that because the Torah prohibited it, therefore it harms me; rather, because it harms me, the Torah prohibited it. Okay? So there is something in the pig, in the object of the pig, because of which this thing is prohibited to me. That is not the meaning of a law applying to the object that we discussed in connection with oaths and vows. And therefore there is no contradiction between the medieval authorities who say that Torah laws are laws applying to the person, like oaths, and that vows are the exception, and all kinds of statements saying that pork has a law applying to the object. A law applying to the object there means that the object of the pig contains something problematic. That has nothing to do with the question of whether a prohibition takes legal effect on it. There is no legal effect on it. These are two completely different planes.
A third meaning of this distinction between object and person — maybe this one we’ll at least look at briefly inside. Where are we? A third meaning. I won’t go into the proofs, but both Rabbi Shimon Shkop and the Avnei Nezer write this, independently of one another, and both say the following: there is really no difference… it is not metaphysics; the difference between a law applying to the person and a law applying to the object is not about metaphysics. So what is it? The question is: what is the character of the prohibition? A law applying to the object means that my prohibition against eating or using the object is because the eating or the use harms the object. For example, a sacred object: why am I forbidden to use it? I am forbidden to use it not because it does something to me, but because it harms the object. The purpose of the prohibition is protecting the object, not protecting the person. The object is sacred; one may not make mundane use of it. That is the concept of a law applying to the object. A law applying to the person is a prohibition whose purpose is to prevent damage that comes to the person — or not necessarily damage in the physical sense, but to prevent some problematic result from happening to the person.
Look, for example, at the Avnei Nezer. He begins with this and says: “And indeed, regarding the matter of a person-centered prohibition or an object-centered prohibition, one could say whatever one wants about any prohibition, because apparently it is not understood — every prohibition is a prohibition regarding an object and regarding a person. What difference does it make whether you say that the object is forbidden to me or that I am forbidden with respect to it? In the end, prohibitions are always on people, so what difference does it make? And behold, I have long heard that great scholars struggled with this matter. And in the Ritva on Shevuot I saw that all Torah prohibitions are person-centered prohibitions. And apparently it is astonishing to say regarding carcasses, creeping things, and swarming things, that they are not object-centered prohibitions.” Yes — exactly the question I asked earlier.
Then he says: “And what appears to me in this matter,” section 4, “is that person-centered prohibitions are said regarding an act that degrades human stature, such as creeping things and swarming things, as it is written, ‘Do not make your souls abominable,’ and ‘You shall be holy people to Me,’ and ‘flesh torn in the field…’” and so on. “For according to the stature of Israel, carcasses and creeping things are not fitting for them.” That is a person-centered prohibition. If you eat carcasses and creeping things, it will defile your soul, and in essence the purpose of the prohibition is to prevent damage from coming to you. That is called a person-centered prohibition. But one who benefits from consecrated property, or a non-priest who eats terumah — and the opposite, where one approaches something above his own level — this is not something beneath his level; it is something above his level. And therefore the problem in the prohibition is damage to the thing, not damage to the person. For how can a non-priest approach terumah, and how can an ordinary person approach holy things of Heaven? That is an object-centered prohibition, one that damages the object.” Okay? Therefore in such a case it is an object-centered prohibition and not a person-centered prohibition.
So this is already a third meaning, and by the way it is related to the second. Namely: the point is what the purpose of the prohibition is, or the character of the prohibition. Is the prohibition intended for the sake of the object, or is it intended for the sake of the person? But this has nothing to do with metaphysics. Okay? As for the Ritva, for example, whom I cited on page 16 in Nedarim — I think that doesn’t fit there; the accepted view among medieval and later authorities is not like that. But they raise various objections based on some medieval authorities, and they argue that at least according to some of the medieval authorities, that is the distinction between object and person. Fine. So that is a third meaning of this distinction between object and person.
What does that actually mean? It means that there is a difference between saying that the object is forbidden to me and saying that I am forbidden with respect to the object, on all the planes we discussed earlier. And really the root of the matter is the question, on some level, whether there is something in reality itself, and the normative consequences are only derived from reality itself — and again, that can be derived from a legal effect of prohibition, or from a problem in the object itself, even a physical one, or whatever, something in reality. That is a law applying to the object. A law applying to the person means there is nothing at all in reality, but you are forbidden to do thus-and-such, or you are obligated to do thus-and-such. It is a pure norm. It does not begin from reality.
Now Rabbi Chaim broadens this distinction between object and person, and with him it is really used in this broader sense. He basically says it depends on whether this is a law applying to the object or a law applying to the person; that is, it depends on whether it speaks about reality and the human norm is derived from reality, or not — but in much broader senses than what I discussed here. It appears in all kinds of contexts. That is why Rabbi Chaim, for example, speaks about the object-status of prayer. What does it mean, the object-status of prayer?
He says, for example, that there is a dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides over whether prayer is Torah-level or rabbinic. Maimonides says that “to serve Him” — “to serve Him” means prayer; “what is service of the heart? This is prayer.” So there is a positive commandment — I think number 5 or 6, something like that, in Sefer HaMitzvot — where Maimonides says that the commandment of prayer is a Torah-level commandment. The text of the prayer, the times, the exact formulation of the prayer — those are rabbinic. But the very obligation to pray is a Torah-level obligation; the Sages established various parameters for it. Before the Sages established those, one had to turn to the Holy One, blessed be He, once a day or something like that, and pray in some way. The Sages later put that into certain frameworks.
Nachmanides argues that prayer is entirely rabbinic; it has no Torah-level plane. When the Sages established it, that is what the concept of prayer is. Now the question is: how will Nachmanides explain prayers that appear in the Torah before the Sages established anything? What are those prayers? There is already the discussion that the Patriarchs instituted the prayers, or that they correspond to the daily offerings; the Talmud in Berakhot discusses that. But conceptually, prayer has a status even before the rabbinic enactment. About that Rabbi Chaim says that there is such a thing as the object-status of prayer. There is no commandment to pray, because according to Nachmanides it is not Torah-level. But you cannot say that someone who prayed before the giving of the Torah did not pray. He did pray. Therefore, let’s call it this way: there is a fact here, a prayer has taken place, even though it was not a commandment in the sense that I am not commanded in this thing. There is no Torah-level commandment to pray; it is all rabbinic. But you cannot say that I did not pray before the Sages commanded it. The concept of prayer exists.
And not only does the concept of prayer exist — the concept of singing exists too. But not in the same sense. Because Rabbi Chaim argues that when I prayed earlier, I performed some act that has significance — normative significance — unlike singing. Singing: I feel like singing, so I sing. But prayer is some sort of what he calls the object-status of prayer, and that is some kind of reality. There was here an act of performing prayer, okay, even though the commandment did not yet exist. That is what he claims according to Nachmanides; he uses it to resolve some question — not important now — about prayers before the giving of the Torah.
For example, in the Talmud at the beginning of the fourth chapter of Berakhot, it says that someone who prayed Shacharit after noon — after noon — “he has the reward of prayer, but he does not have the reward of prayer in its proper time.” According to Maimonides that is very clear, because according to Maimonides there is a Torah-level prayer that can be said all day, while the Sages fixed the text and the times and everything. If you did not do it at the proper time, then the Torah-level element exists, but the rabbinic element does not. So you have the reward of prayer, but not the reward of prayer in its proper time.
But how do you explain that Talmudic statement according to Nachmanides? According to Nachmanides, prayer was created together with the time; there are not two layers here. Prayer is entirely rabbinic. According to Nachmanides, I think what you have to say is: “he has the reward of prayer” in the following sense. There is a Torah-level prayer even according to Nachmanides — not a Torah-level command, but the concept of prayer is Torah-level. To pray is already a defined act on the Torah-level plane, just one is not obligated to do it. There is no Torah-level commandment to pray, but there is some status of a kind of reality — a reality of prayer occurred here, okay, a normative reality. And then “he has the reward of prayer, but not the reward of prayer in its proper time” can be explained even according to Nachmanides in that sense. Well, one could elaborate on this, and this would also require getting into the details of that Talmudic passage; I once wrote something about that too.
In any case, these extensions that Rabbi Chaim calls the object-status of prayer — what does he mean by that? He means to say not only that the person performed an act of prayer, but that the essence, this object of prayer, exists here. Because when a person sings, no one would say there is an object-status of song here. A person sings; I performed an act of singing; I felt like singing. Prayer became an object because of its normative halakhic standing. Rabbi Chaim says true, but that can exist even without the command. There is an object-status of prayer; there is a reality here, an object called prayer. Not only am I praying, but I created here some object of prayer. And that is what he calls the object-status of prayer. And afterward the Sages can also come and command me to do it, but it has some independent existence even without that.
To sharpen this further, I heard a very interesting lecture from Rabbi Asher Weiss, who gave a lecture quite recently — not too long ago — to yeshiva students who were, fortunately, staying in corona hotels during the festival of Sukkot. He gave a Sukkot lecture to yeshiva students celebrating the holiday in corona hotels. And there he asked the following question. It is basically a question from the Oneg Yom Tov. He discusses how one is allowed to sit in the sukkah when rain is falling. The Rema cites the Mordechai that when rain is falling, someone who sits in the sukkah is called a fool, because one who is exempt from a matter and does it anyway is called a fool. When rain is falling you are exempt from the sukkah, because one who is distressed is exempt from the sukkah.
The Oneg Yom Tov asks: after all, the Talmud in Beitzah 30 and in Sukkah 9 says there is a prohibition against making use of the wood of a sukkah. Someone who uses the wood of a sukkah violates a Torah prohibition. Because “The festival of Sukkot, the festival of Sukkot to the Lord” — so the Talmud says: just as the festival is “to the Lord,” so too the sukkah is “to the Lord.” There is an analogy between the festival, the festival offering, which is sacred, and the sukkah. Fine. There is a prohibition on making use of the wood of a sukkah just as there is a prohibition on making use of the festival offering. That is what the Talmud says.
So says the Oneg Yom Tov: if someone sits in the sukkah in the rain, he is not performing a commandment — since one who is distressed is exempt from the sukkah, there is no commandment — so he is using the wood of the sukkah, because now it is sheltering him, and that is a Torah prohibition. So someone who does this is not just a fool for doing something from which he is exempt; he is doing something forbidden. So how can the Rema write that he is merely a fool? It is actually prohibited. And indeed, the conclusion of the Oneg Yom Tov is that it is prohibited. I think he even — I’m not one hundred percent sure about this, but as I recall — wants to argue that a woman is forbidden to sit in the sukkah. The only reason she is allowed to sit in the sukkah is because she is part of her husband’s dwelling. Meaning, if she sits there with her husband, then her husband’s dwelling in the sukkah — after all, my dwelling in the house includes my wife — so when I dwell in the sukkah, that too I should do with my wife. As part of the husband’s fulfillment of the commandment of sukkah, the wife can sit there. But a woman cannot just sit in the sukkah on her own, unlike all other positive time-bound commandments, because in the sukkah there is a prohibition on making use of the wood of the sukkah; a woman cannot use the sukkah if she is not commanded, because there is no commandment. I think he also says that; I’d have to check, but that is how I remember it. In any case, his claim is that if someone is distressed and exempt from the sukkah, yet sits there, he is not just a fool — he has violated a Torah prohibition. That is the claim.
Now, that cannot be right for a thousand reasons. Just plainly: that is not what is written in the Mordechai or the Rema. In the Talmudic passages it is clear. All the medieval and later authorities did not learn this way. The question is how to understand it. Various answers have been given; Rabbi Asher brings several there and rejects them. In the end he proposes the following answer, because for my purposes this is what matters, what is interesting.
He wants to make an amazing claim. He wants to claim that someone who sits in the sukkah while he is distressed — rain is falling — has fulfilled a commandment. He is simply exempt from fulfilling it. But you cannot say that what he did is not a commandment. It is a commandment. He sat in the sukkah during the festival of Sukkot. It is just that in a situation where he is distressed, the Holy One, blessed be He, or Jewish law does not want him to sit there. It does not want him to sit there. But you cannot say that if he did sit there, there is no object-status of commandment here. By the way, that is exactly the expression Rabbi Asher Weiss used. There is an object-status of commandment here.
Now that is amazing, because for example the Birkei Yosef writes there in section 639, where the Rema brings this law, that someone who recites a blessing on this is making a blessing in vain, and one does not receive reward for it. So Rabbi Asher Weiss says: true, it is a blessing in vain, and one does not receive reward for it — but there is still an object-status of commandment here. One simply does not recite a blessing because the Sages instituted a blessing only in a place where you are expected to do the commandment. Here you are expected not to do the commandment. Therefore, he says, you are performing a commandment — meaning, there is for you an object-status of commandment — but you are not commanded, not even to do it; not that you are commanded not to do it, rather you are not commanded to do it. Even though what you are doing is a commandment. Here he splits between the command and the objective definition of the act as an object-status of commandment.
So to my mind this is an even sharper formulation of what I said earlier. Here we see this meaning in its purity: the concept of commandment is defined as some kind of object. It is not simply an act of responding to a command, of fulfilling a command. Because here there is no command. Yet what I am doing is defined as a commandment. There is some objective definition here; it is an object-status of commandment.
Okay. He brings several examples. For instance, he says: what happens if someone fulfilled a commandment without intention? There is a dispute whether commandments require intention or do not require intention. And in Jewish law too there is disagreement. Fine? But there is a position among the medieval authorities and halakhic decisors that commandments do not require intention. Therefore even if you did it without intention, you still fulfilled your obligation. One of the examples the Talmud gives is someone blowing the shofar for music. Someone who blows the shofar as a concert, and incidentally also blows the proper sounds — a tekiah, shevarim, whatever is required. But he is doing it just for fun; he has no interest in performing a commandment, no intention for the commandment, nothing. He has fulfilled his obligation.
Rabbi Asher Weiss says: I have no doubt at all that he has not the slightest bit of reward for that commandment. How could he receive reward? He did not intend to do a commandment; he wanted to put on a concert. What would he get reward for? He did nothing. So what does the one who says commandments do not require intention mean? He means that he fulfilled his obligation. Meaning, if afterward he wants to perform the commandment, too late — he has already fulfilled his obligation. But he will receive no reward for what he did. Reward is not given for the technical fulfillment of the commandment; reward is given for the service of God involved in it. The definition of this act as a commandment is, as it were, objective, already detached from the question of whether I am commanded or not commanded to do it. There is an object-status of commandment. The act is defined as an independent entity, an abstract entity, called the object-status of commandment. And if I do it, I have performed a commandment, and I have even fulfilled my obligation. But I will not receive reward for it.
Another example: what happens if someone fulfills a commandment through an agent? There is the principle that it is better to perform the commandment personally than through one’s agent. But clearly, even if I did it through an agent, I still performed the commandment, I fulfilled a commandment. I sent an agent to search my house for leaven. Clearly I have fulfilled the commandment of searching for leaven. Rabbi Asher Weiss says: I will not receive the slightest bit of reward for that. All the reward of the commandment will go to the agent. I am sitting at home asleep, and the agent went and searched ten houses for leaven for me, working very, very hard, and I am supposed to get the reward? Why in the world? The agent gets the reward. But I fulfilled the commandment. Reward is given for the service of God involved. I did not perform any service of God here. I accomplished the object-status of commandment; I fulfilled the obligation, I discharged it, that is all. You could call this differently: I did not neglect the commandment. Maybe one could even say less than that I fulfilled it; maybe I simply did not neglect it.
For example, he brings a dispute among the medieval authorities: what happens if someone sent an agent to circumcise his son, and then another mohel comes and steals the commandment from him — steals it. He grabbed the child and circumcised him. Someone who steals a commandment is subject to a rabbinic fine of ten gold coins. If someone built a parapet on my house in my place, he pays ten gold coins because he caused me to lose a commandment; I lost a commandment, so he pays ten gold coins — a fine. What if someone stole the child, but I myself was not going to circumcise the child; I had sent an agent to circumcise him? There is a dispute among the medieval authorities. Some say he has to pay ten gold coins to the agent, not to the father — to the mohel, the agent. Others say he does not have to pay at all. No one says that he has to pay the father. Why? Because the father did not lose a commandment; the father was not going to perform the commandment anyway. He fulfilled his obligation, but he did not perform the commandment; he gets no reward. If someone stole the commandment from me, he did not steal anything from me; I did not lose the reward of the commandment, because I was not going to have it in any case.
That is his claim. A commandment without intention, or a commandment without action — meaning a commandment through an agent — in both cases I fulfill my obligation. A commandment without intention is according to the one who says commandments do not require intention. But I have no reward for that commandment. Sometimes I am even required not to do it — for example when there is prohibited use of the wood of the sukkah — so the one who does it is called a fool, but there is still for me a fulfillment of commandment.
Now he says: so why is it not forbidden to sit in the sukkah? Returning to the Noda B’Yehuda’s question — he says because clearly, in a place where I am performing a commandment, the prohibition of benefit from the sukkah does not apply. After all, this sitting is a sitting of the commandment of sitting in the sukkah. True, I am not commanded to do it, and the Holy One, blessed be He, does not want me to do it; the Sages even bring the parable of a servant who brought a cup to his master and the master poured it out in his face. Yes — when the rains come, we do not sit in the sukkah; the Holy One, blessed be He, does not want our sitting in the sukkah. That is what He signals to us with the rain. But that does not mean that if we sit in the sukkah, it is not a commandment. So Rabbi Asher Weiss says the Noda B’Yehuda’s question does not even begin. My sitting in the sukkah is an act of commandment, so you cannot say that I violate the prohibition of benefit; it is defined as an act of commandment. Prohibited benefit means taking it for some other use. Here I am using it for a commandment. I am simply not commanded; I am doing a foolish act; I will not receive reward; the blessing is in vain — true. But you cannot say that I violated the prohibition of benefit from sukkah wood, because when I perform the commandment of sukkah, you cannot say that I am benefiting from the sukkah for non-commandment purposes. That is not true.
By the way, this reminds me — I’m surprised he didn’t mention it — there is a very famous Minchat Chinukh, and all the later authorities attack him. Tosafot asks: the Talmud brings a verse that invalidates a stolen sukkah. Tosafot asks: why do we need the verse? A stolen sukkah is a commandment that comes through a transgression. A commandment that comes through a transgression is not a commandment anyway, so why do we need a verse to invalidate the stolen sukkah? Tosafot answers what it answers; it has two answers. But the Minchat Chinukh claims that the question never even begins. Because if there were no verse, and it were only a stolen sukkah, then let’s say someone sat in a stolen sukkah and ate. Can one say that he ate outside the sukkah? He ate in a valid sukkah; it was just stolen. A perfectly valid sukkah — yes — but stolen. What does it mean, a commandment that comes through a transgression? The Holy One, blessed be He, rejects this commandment. He does not want such a commandment. “I the Lord hate robbery in a burnt offering.” He rejects this commandment. But that does not mean I ate outside the sukkah. I did — there is here an object-status of the commandment of sukkah; it is just that the Holy One, blessed be He, rejects this commandment. That, he says, is what the verse comes to tell us: no, a stolen sukkah is invalid. It says this is not a sukkah, so if you ate there, you ate outside the sukkah. Not only did you not fulfill the commandment of sukkah, not only is this a commandment that comes through a transgression, but this is not a sukkah at all; you ate outside the sukkah. That is why the verse is needed.
Now Rabbi Chaim and Rabbi Shimon and all the later authorities attack him. I have not seen even one who agrees with him. They are unwilling to accept such a thing — this distinction between fulfilling the commandment and not neglecting the positive commandment. Yes, he says you did not fulfill the positive commandment, but you also did not neglect it. You did not fulfill the positive commandment to sit in the sukkah because it is a stolen sukkah; that commandment is worth nothing. But you did not neglect the positive commandment; you did not eat outside the sukkah. There is no such thing, they say. If you did not fulfill the commandment, then you neglected the positive commandment, because a positive commandment is to fulfill the commandment. What are they assuming? They assume that the concept of commandment means to do what I am commanded to do. And what does the Minchat Chinukh claim — what Rabbi Asher Weiss says? That there is such a thing as an object-status of commandment. The concept of commandment is created by the definition of the Holy One, blessed be He. But once the Holy One, blessed be He, defined it, it now has an independent standing. Even in situations where the Holy One, blessed be He, does not expect me to do it — or perhaps even expects me not to do it — that does not mean that if I do it, there is no act of commandment there, no object-status of commandment. It may be undesirable, and I will not receive reward for it, and someone who does it is called a fool — all of that is true. But you cannot say that I sat outside the sukkah. I sat in the sukkah.
And this is again an example of extending the concept of object-status to abstract things — the object-status of a commandment. Okay? And that is the part I wanted to discuss in the final sixth section. I said I would talk about what a commandment is, fulfillment of a commandment and the act of a commandment, Rabbi Soloveitchik’s distinctions — I’m not going to get to that. But it also touches on the distinction between object and person. Because the claim is that a commandment is not only a response to a command. A commandment is not just an action. A commandment is first of all a kind of reality. And if I performed some action, I created here an object-status of commandment in the world. Did I fulfill a commandment? That is another question. Usually the two come together, but not always. Sometimes there can be no fulfillment of a commandment, and yet there is an object-status of commandment here.
He says the opposite can happen too, by the way. What happens with someone who intended to perform a commandment and was prevented by circumstances and did not perform it? “Scripture considers it as though he performed it.” A good intention — the Holy One, blessed be He, joins it to the deed. What does that mean? He receives full reward even though he did not perform the commandment. Why? Because he did everything he possibly could, and in the end it did not work out, so the reward comes to him even though he did not fulfill his obligation, did not perform the commandment. So he is detaching things. The concept of commandment becomes some sort of metaphysical, objective definition. Not only an action that I am commanded to do, but some sort of abstract object-status, an abstract object.
Okay, with that we will have fulfilled the requirement of the sixth section in the syllabus, and we will stop here. Does anyone want to comment or ask? Yes, please.
[Speaker F] Rabbi, according to Nachmanides, with the object-status of prayer — do you get reward for it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think that seems obvious to me. If a person prays, he has done a good act; he gets reward. Why does that require such a definition?
[Speaker F] No, no — I mean before the giving of the Torah. Yes. When Abraham performed the object-status of prayer, when that is not even called a commandment at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In order to receive reward for prayer, you do not need to define it as the object-status of prayer. It is enough that it is a good act. A good act that a person does, even if he is not formally commanded, he gets reward for it, doesn’t he? A person who behaves nicely, behaves well, behaves politely — the Holy One, blessed be He, wants that. “And you shall do what is right and good” — even if that is not part of the commandments, he will get reward for it.
[Speaker F] And prayer is not something that is a turning
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to the Holy One, blessed be He — one can say that it is a positive act. At least I would say that it is not necessary to define it as the object-status of prayer in order to say that he gets reward for it. Rabbi Chaim wants to say more than that: that an act of the commandment of prayer occurred here even though there was no command. Let’s say there would be a practical difference for the rule that one engaged in a commandment is exempt from another commandment. After all, he is considered engaged in a commandment, not merely doing a good deed.
[Speaker F] And is that a Torah-level commandment or a rabbinic one according to this approach? What, Torah-level? Yes. Would even Nachmanides say that Abraham prayed on a Torah level? Yes. And one more thing: if we say there is a commandment for which there is no reward, is there also such a thing as a transgression for which there is no punishment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course. There is a transgression for the sake of Heaven; one may even receive reward for it. A transgression for the sake of Heaven is greater than a commandment not for its own sake.
[Speaker F] So that is kind of the opposite of this?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A transgression, when you do it in a place where it is required, is still defined as a transgression on the level of Jewish law. So there will be an actual object-status of a transgression here, and you’ll receive reward for the act. An example is Lot’s daughters. In that same Talmudic passage about a transgression for its own sake, immediately afterward the Talmud brings Lot’s daughters, who had sexual relations with their father, and the Talmud praises them greatly for it. Why? Because it says in the Torah that they thought humanity had been wiped out, that no man was left in the land, and if they didn’t violate this prohibition, there would be no more human beings—they were the last generation. So the Talmud says that in such a situation, that consideration—even though we haven’t found any halakhic permission for such a thing, and forbidden sexual relations are not set aside for anything, there is no halakhic source that overrides forbidden sexual relations in any situation—nevertheless, the Sages see this as, once again, from the context. It doesn’t say so there explicitly, but it appears immediately after the topic of a transgression for its own sake, and they also praise them for it. It is explicit in the Talmud that they praise them for it. As reward for the elder preceding the younger—right, there is reward there; she receives reward for it. What, reward for the transgression? That she preceded the younger in the transgression. They are also praised in other Talmudic passages, not only there, in other aggadic passages.
[Speaker F] So it really seems parallel, at least regarding a commandment done not for its own sake. It’s really as if they complete one another.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. Anyone else? Okay. Will there be a part two? If there’s demand, then we can do it, yes. Right now a different course has already been announced because people requested it together with this course, but later on we’ll also check the possibility of a part two.
[Speaker D] God willing. Thank you very much for everything.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, goodbye, good night.
