Hanukkah Conference 5780 – Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham – The Higher Institute for Torah

[Speaker A] The next lecture will be given by Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham, a senior lecturer at the Higher Institute for Torah Studies. Please.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hello everyone, happy Hanukkah. Our topic—my topic—is the meaning of embellishment on Hanukkah, and in general. And through looking at Hanukkah, I want to shed light on, or suggest, some points that relate more broadly to embellishing a commandment. But maybe let’s start with Hanukkah. In the Talmud, in tractate Shabbat, the first source you have there—you have source sheets—the first source you have there: “The Sages taught: The commandment of Hanukkah is one candle for a man and his household. And those who embellish: a candle for each and every one. And those who are the most scrupulous in embellishing: Beit Shammai say, on the first day he lights eight, and from there on decreases; and Beit Hillel say, on the first day he lights one, and from there on increases.”

And then a dispute of Amoraim is brought about how to explain that dispute among the Tannaim. Two opinions; we won’t get into that here. There are two interesting phenomena here. One phenomenon—at least two. One phenomenon is that the Sages step in and establish very precise definitions in something that looks like a voluntary matter. This is embellishment. In quite a lot of commandments—not all of them, but quite a lot of them—the embellishment is left to each person’s decision. How does he embellish? To what extent does he embellish? Nobody gets into his innards and tells him exactly how to do it, with level one, level two, level three. Rather: do as much as you think is appropriate, and whoever does more, the more praiseworthy he is. “Whoever does more”—up to a third in the commandment; maybe I’ll get to that later. That’s one point, and I’ll return to it toward the end.

The second point is maybe a historical point. This is an old question already. It’s a bit unclear how this dispute began historically. Meaning: the Hasmoneans, or the court of the Hasmoneans, established a holiday of praise and thanksgiving for all generations with candle-lighting. And not that much later—the question is exactly when; Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai span a fairly long historical period—but all in all, it wasn’t so very long after the miracle, and suddenly some dispute appeared from one extreme to the other. These say “increasing,” those say “decreasing.” What did your father do? Didn’t you see what they did at home? I mean, how exactly did this dispute begin? What happened there?

So at first I’ll maybe suggest a possibility. It’s not absolutely necessary, but I think in Maimonides’ language there is definitely room for it. Look at Maimonides, your second source. Maimonides opens the laws of Hanukkah—this is chapter 3, because first there are the laws of Purim, but this is really the beginning of the laws of Hanukkah. And Maimonides says as follows:

“During the Second Temple period, when the Greek kingdom decreed decrees against Israel and abolished their religion, and did not allow them to engage in Torah and commandments, and stretched out their hands against their money and their daughters, and entered the Sanctuary and made breaches in it and defiled what was pure, Israel was in great distress because of them, and they oppressed them greatly—until the God of our fathers had mercy on them and saved them from their hand and rescued them. And the sons of the Hasmoneans, the High Priests, overpowered them and killed them and saved Israel from their hand, and established a king from among the priests, and sovereignty returned to Israel for more than two hundred years until the destruction of the Second Temple.”

That’s the description of the miracle. People have already commented on that too: “they established a king from among the priests”—maybe that relates to what Nachmanides says in parashat Vayechi, that appointing a king from among the priests is actually a kind of transgression, because a king is supposed to come from the house of David. By the way, I’m not sure one can infer from Maimonides here that he disagrees with Nachmanides, as people perhaps often assume. It could be that he is only noting that it was from among the priests, and that’s actually to their detriment. But the very fact that we received the possibility of appointing a king of our own—that itself is certainly a miracle worth thanking God for.

In any case, in law 2 he continues: “And when Israel overpowered their enemies and destroyed them, it was on the twenty-fifth of Kislev. They entered the Sanctuary and found no pure oil in the Temple except for one flask, and there was enough in it to light for only one day, and they lit from it the arrangement of lamps for eight days until they crushed olives and produced pure oil.” So that’s the miracle of the flask of oil.

And in law 3 he gets to the actual law. Until here this is the background. Now he says in the law: “And because of this, the Sages of that generation established that these eight days, beginning from the night of the twenty-fifth of Kislev, should be days of joy and praise, and one lights candles on them in the evening at the entrances of the houses on each and every one of the eight nights, to show and reveal the miracle. And these days are called Hanukkah, and they are not forbidden in eulogy and fasting like the days of Purim, and lighting candles on them is a commandment of the Sages, like the reading of the Megillah.”

Here in this last law there are several points. Again: with each one separately, maybe you could ignore it, but together it seems to me they still call for explanation. He starts with this: “the Sages of that generation established that these eight days… should be days of joy and praise.” Then after that: “and one lights candles on them.” Is that a continuation of the enactment? The wording looks a bit different. Meaning: the Sages established days of joy and praise—and that one should light candles on them? Or: and we also light candles on them? Did they establish all that? It doesn’t look that way. Maimonides says: the Sages established eight days of joy and praise, and we also light candles on them. It doesn’t sound like a continuation of the content of the original enactment.

And then he interrupts the whole thing and says: “And these days are called Hanukkah, and they are not forbidden in eulogy and fasting like Purim.” And then suddenly he comes back and says: “and lighting candles on them is a commandment of the Sages, like the reading of the Megillah.” And what about praise and thanksgiving? And if you want to say it about everything, then why did you stop in the middle with “these days are called Hanukkah”? Finish the enactments, explain that it’s all rabbinic, and then say these are days of praise and thanksgiving. Why does he break it off in the middle, suddenly saying “these days are called Hanukkah,” and then return to say “lighting candles”—as if, “I forgot something, lighting candles is also rabbinic.” What’s going on here?

So at one point I thought: maybe, again, each person will decide, because really any one comment on its own may not be enough—but the combination, I think, does say something. It could be that Maimonides really understands that what the Sages of that generation enacted was only days of joy and praise. And the lighting of candles is what we do; they did not enact that. We, when we light candles on those days, we also do it on those days—the same days that they established as days of joy and praise. Then he says: “and these days are called Hanukkah.” And after that he comes back and says: and know that what we do—lighting candles—the joy and praise, that the Sages enacted, obviously that is rabbinic; you don’t have to say that it’s rabbinic. Whatever the Sages enact is rabbinic, just like Purim; what’s the difference? Why does he need to say it here?

Rather: the days of joy and praise—that is the enactment, and he said that earlier. “We light candles on them”—that was not the enactment. And then he comes back and says: yes, but know that the fact that we light candles is also from the Sages, exactly like reading the Megillah. It also joins in and receives the status of rabbinic law, a law of the Sages, just like the days of joy and praise.

If that’s true, then maybe what Maimonides is suggesting answers the difficulty I mentioned earlier—and maybe both difficulties; I’ll get to that later. I asked: how was the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel born, if in the end they lived not so terribly long after the miracle happened? Every person did this at home once a year, saw what his parents did, what the previous generation did—how did two different conceptions suddenly arise about how to light the candles?

Maybe there was room to say that they lit only one candle, and embellishment was not necessarily practiced, and therefore there was no unequivocal tradition regarding embellishment. At least today such a thing would be very unlikely, because today everybody lights in the embellished fashion. Meaning, nobody lights merely “one candle for a man and his household.” Maybe in the past it was different; I don’t know. But maybe Maimonides really offers an explanation for this. He says that in fact candle-lighting was not part of the enactment of the Sages of that generation. What the Sages of that generation enacted was days of joy and praise—and those are the days of Hanukkah. We light candles on them. When did that arise? It may have arisen with Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. They added candle-lighting to the enactment of the days of Hanukkah, and therefore we light candles on those days that were originally established as days of praise and thanksgiving.

And now, yes, know that what we light is not custom; it’s law. Therefore candle-lighting is a law from Beit Shammai, from Beit Hillel, or I don’t know, from some Sages in between—it’s not exactly clear who. Candle-lighting too is rabbinic, not only the days of joy and praise. It’s not a mere custom; it’s law. It’s exactly a law like the earlier one. But as for the days of praise and joy, there is no need to say that they are rabbinic—he already said the Sages enacted them. Whatever the Sages enact is obviously rabbinic law. The fact that he finds it necessary to say that candle-lighting is a rabbinic law is probably because until now its status was unclear. So first he said: we light candles. Afterward he says: but know that the fact that we light candles is not just some custom; it is rabbinic law.

If so, maybe we can better understand how this dispute arose. With regard to candle-lighting, it is actually a later addition to the enactment of the Sages of that generation concerning praise and joy. And again, there is room here to hesitate: maybe there was candle-lighting at some stage, and only the embellishment—or the “most scrupulous embellishment”—the disputes between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, came later. And that is what is later than what was enacted in that generation. But in that generation too there may have been some element of candle-lighting; I don’t know. In Maimonides’ wording, if you accept the inferences I made earlier, it seems that the whole matter of candle-lighting is later. But I don’t know; it’s really a little hard to build something solid on those inferences. But that’s a first comment.

What I want to discuss, though, is the question of the relationship between the basic law of “one candle for a man and his household” and the laws of embellishment—whether the first is early and the others later, or whether everything is late, or everything is early. It may be that this whole inference is incorrect. But still, I think there is an interesting relationship between these two parts of the enactment of candle-lighting, one that relates to broader conceptions of embellishing commandments, and I want to make a few comments about it.

Maybe I’ll begin with a well-known dispute between Maimonides and the Tur, which people have already pointed out—yes, the Brisker scholars, several of them: Rabbi Chaim and the Brisker Rav, the Griz, talk about it, or really the Beit HaLevi. Both of them discuss it, in slightly different formulations. And it begins with the Talmud in tractate Shabbat 133. The Talmud there is discussing the laws of circumcision. In circumcision there are shreds of flesh that invalidate and shreds that do not invalidate. Meaning, parts of the skin that need to be removed: some invalidate the commandment, some do not.

The Talmud discusses what happens when we perform a circumcision on the Sabbath. We perform circumcision on the Sabbath; in principle one needs to cut all the shreds, both the invalidating and the non-invalidating ones. All that is part of the commandment. What if I didn’t cut the non-invalidating shreds? May I go back? After all, this is desecration of the Sabbath. So can I go back, even though it doesn’t invalidate the circumcision? The circumcision is valid even without that.

So the Talmud says as follows: since it taught “all the needs of circumcision”—all the needs of circumcision override the Sabbath—what does that include? It includes what the Sages taught: “The circumciser, as long as he is engaged in the circumcision, goes back both for shreds that invalidate the circumcision and for shreds that do not invalidate the circumcision. If he stopped”—meaning, if he already ceased the commandment, finished, left—and then suddenly remembered that he had not cut some of the shreds, then for shreds that invalidate the circumcision, he goes back; for shreds that do not invalidate the circumcision, he does not go back.”

Then the Talmud asks: who is the Tanna who says that if he stopped, he does not go back? The Talmud says: Abba Hanan said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: Rabbi Yishmael son of Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka, regarding flaying the Passover offering, where he says that if you skinned enough and didn’t skin the whole thing, don’t go back—on Passover eve that falls on the Sabbath. The Talmud links them, and then rejects the comparison. Here this is “This is my God and I will glorify Him”—this is a law of embellishment; there it is some other law, and therefore the two should not be compared.

So when you read the Talmud straightforwardly, the debate in the Talmud is a debate in the laws of Sabbath. Circumcision, as is known, overrides the Sabbath. Even though Sabbath violation can carry stoning, circumcision overrides the Sabbath. Not by the usual rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition; it’s a little different. But still, it overrides the Sabbath, and they derive this from verses.

What about parts of the circumcision that do not invalidate? That is the discussion in our Talmud. And the Talmud says that for non-invalidating shreds, it depends. If it’s in the course of the act, then you cut those too; it’s one action. But if you finished the commandment—he stopped, left it—and then remembered that he hadn’t cut the non-invalidating shreds, he does not go back. Why not? On the simple level, because this is only embellishment. It does not invalidate the commandment, and therefore it does not override the Sabbath.

And that indeed is how the Tur rules, and how most halakhic authorities rule. Look at the Tur in the laws of Sabbath, section 331: “All the needs of circumcision are done on the Sabbath. One circumcises, uncovers, sucks the blood, applies cumin, bathes the child after the circumcision, even on the third day when it falls on the Sabbath. Even an Israelite may light the fire and heat the water. As long as he has not removed his hand from the circumcision, he goes back even for shreds that do not invalidate. Once he has removed his hands, he goes back only for shreds that invalidate.”

So the Tur says—and again, this is located in the laws of Sabbath and not in the laws of circumcision—it is located in the laws of Sabbath. Why? Because the law is that due to the severity of the prohibition of Sabbath, you do not go back for non-invalidating shreds. That does not justify desecration of the Sabbath.

He writes the same thing in Yoreh De’ah as well—your next source, also the Tur: “Sabbath and a Jewish holiday are overridden only at its proper time”—that is, circumcision at its proper time. “But if not at its proper time, for example if the child was not circumcised on the eighth day because of illness or something else that delayed it, one does not circumcise him on the Sabbath. And even at its proper time, only the circumcision itself overrides the Sabbath. Preparatory acts that could have been done earlier do not override the Sabbath. How so? One circumcises and does all its needs, such as uncovering and suction, and he returns to shreds that invalidate even if he had stopped; but for those that do not invalidate, if he stopped he does not return, and if not, he returns.”

So again he repeats what he wrote in the laws of Sabbath, and it is quite clear from his language that this is a law from the laws of Sabbath: you do not desecrate the Sabbath for something that does not invalidate the circumcision.

Then he adds: “And the Ba’al Ha’Ittur wrote that even though they do not invalidate, he does return even if he had stopped. And my master and father the Rosh did not write so.” So the Ba’al Ha’Ittur claims that even for shreds that do not invalidate, one returns on the Sabbath, because after all it is part of the accessories of circumcision, and therefore this too overrides the Sabbath. How that fits with the Talmud is not our issue here.

Maimonides, however—the straightforward understanding of the Talmud, and what would seem to be the required halakhic ruling, is like the Tur. But Maimonides, in the laws of circumcision—and notice, it appears in the laws of circumcision, not in the laws of Sabbath like in the Tur—writes as follows: “The circumciser, as long as he is engaged in the circumcision, goes back both for shreds that invalidate and for shreds that do not invalidate. If he stopped: for shreds that invalidate he goes back; for shreds that do not invalidate he does not go back.” He doesn’t talk about the Sabbath at all. Not at all. Laws of circumcision. When you circumcise, then for invalidating shreds, even if you stopped, you go back; for non-invalidating shreds, if you stopped, you do not go back.

And so later authorities infer from Maimonides that Maimonides interprets what is written in our Talmud—that for non-invalidating shreds a person does not go back—not specifically about the Sabbath, but also on a weekday. In the next law, law 6—and the one after that; I skipped 5 here—“All the needs of circumcision are done on the Sabbath: one circumcises, uncovers, sucks the blood, and returns to invalidating shreds even if he had stopped; and non-invalidating shreds, as long as he had not stopped.” In other words, Maimonides understands that this law exists on the Sabbath as well, but its basis is not in the laws of Sabbath but in the laws of circumcision. Meaning: from the standpoint of the laws of circumcision, you do not return to non-invalidating shreds after you have stopped the circumcision act; automatically, of course, that also does not justify desecrating the Sabbath. But the basic law is simply that even on a weekday, when you perform circumcision, you do not return to shreds that do not invalidate.

And on this all the Briskers I mentioned ask: how can that be? It seems to go against the Talmud. In the Talmud it sounds like this is a law in the laws of Sabbath. Obviously on a weekday you would return to non-invalidating shreds, because there is a law of embellishing a commandment—“This is my God and I will glorify Him,” as the Talmud says. So cutting the non-invalidating shreds is clearly an enhancement; you perform the commandment in a more embellished way. So why not return on a weekday? On the Sabbath I can understand—this does not override the Sabbath if it is only embellishment and does not invalidate the circumcision; there is the issue of desecrating the Sabbath. But on a weekday, why not go back?

Maimonides apparently learns—and this is how both the Beit HaLevi and his grandson explain it—that no, one does not return even on a weekday. And because one does not return even on a weekday, it is obviously desecration of the Sabbath to do so. Meaning, one certainly does not return on the Sabbath either. But the problem starts in the laws of circumcision, not in the laws of Sabbath; the laws of Sabbath are only the consequence.

Why not? Here there are two explanations, related to the same point. One is the Beit HaLevi, the second is his grandson, the Rabbi of Brisk. The fundamental point around which the discussion revolves is the question: can one embellish the performance of a commandment after the act of the commandment has ended? Meaning, we performed a commandment, finished it, and now suddenly I remember that I did it without embellishment. Can I go back? Can’t I? Must I go back and correct it, improve it, upgrade it? The circumcision has been done. The embellishment—sorry—the embellishment is done in the course of performing the act of the commandment. If you finished the act of the commandment, then that’s it. You did it as you did it. You already discharged your obligation. There is no such thing as embellishment standing on its own. You perform the act of circumcision—you can do it in a more embellished way. But if you already performed the commandment, then you performed it. That’s it. However you did it, you did it, and you fulfilled your obligation. What is there left to embellish afterward?

Parenthetically—I won’t get into this here—it’s a fascinating topic. In the responsa of the Rivash, in two places, he brings the view of the Ra’avad, who says: the Talmud in tractate Kiddushin at the beginning of chapter 2 says that it is preferable for a man to betroth a woman himself—“a person’s own commandment is better than through his agent.” Because one should betroth a woman only after seeing her, and if you send an agent, it could be that you betroth a woman you never met. So that’s preferable. The Ra’avad says: if someone betrothed through an agent, he should go back and betroth the woman again when he meets her. This is astonishing. She is already betrothed to him. Nobody says that betrothal through an agent is invalid. The woman is already betrothed—what is there to go back and betroth her again for?

In the Ra’avad you see an extreme conception relative to what we are seeing here. Meaning, here we see one extreme side, but it also connects. The straightforward view says: once you fulfilled your obligation, you fulfilled it. True, you did it in a less than ideal way, but that’s what you did. Now the woman is already betrothed—what is there to betroth her again for? And likewise, if you performed a commandment in a non-embellished way, you already performed it. You already fulfilled your obligation. What is there now to embellish? Finished. The embellishment is supposed to be the way you perform the act of the commandment. But if you already did it, then that’s it; you already did the commandment and that’s all.

The Ra’avad claims no: not only can you embellish, but you actually repeat the act of the commandment again—the betrothal, the act of betrothal itself. Whether that is a commandment or not is another question; I won’t get into it here. You perform the act again, but now in the more complete way. Meaning, you betroth directly and not through an agent.

Now although that seems to go beyond the two options of Maimonides and the Tur here—both of them obviously say you do not repeat the whole commandment again; the question is only whether you can embellish afterward—the Ra’avad says you even return to the commandment itself. But it connects to this dispute. Because the Ra’avad too may be assuming that you cannot perform an act of embellishment without doing the commandment-act itself. It’s just that according to him, for some reason—and that needs separate discussion, how it works—you can redo the act in order to do it in an embellished way. Meaning, he too starts from the premise that embellishment cannot be detached from performing the commandment. He just says: I have another solution. I can go back and do the commandment again, even though I already did it and fulfilled my obligation—just in order to do it in an embellished way. In circumcision that’s a little more problematic—what you cut, you cut—but in principle you could do it again. This is related to the topic in Menachot of a lean sin-offering and a fat sin-offering, with Rabbi Chaim’s beautiful and less beautiful etrog, for those who know. It relates to a great many interesting topics that the analytic scholars like to play around with.

In any case, if I return to our matter: the dispute between Maimonides and the Tur revolves around this point. Can I perform an act of embellishment detached from the act of the commandment, after the act of the commandment? That is apparently how the Tur understands it. Because the Tur says that on a weekday you go back even if you had stopped; it seems that in his view, you can embellish even after completing the act of the commandment.

Maimonides claims that even on a weekday you do not go back. Why? Not because it is forbidden, but because it is pointless. You already performed the commandment; you cannot embellish after you have finished performing the commandment. By the way, if it is no longer a commandment, then it is even forbidden, because it is wounding. You’re cutting flesh where there is actually no commandment involved at all—what permits wounding a person if it is not part of a commandment?

In another formulation, the claim is that there is no dispute on this point—that one cannot embellish after the commandment. The dispute is in the laws of circumcision over the question: what is the commandment? Is the commandment to circumcise, or is the commandment to be circumcised? If the commandment is to circumcise, then once he stopped, he finished the commandment; embellishment afterward is impossible, because he would be embellishing after the commandment is over. But if the commandment is to be circumcised, and the action is merely a way of reaching the state that is the commandment—the state of being circumcised—then you can go back and cut even the non-invalidating shreds afterward, because you are still in the midst of fulfilling the commandment. The commandment is to be circumcised. So if you embellish it now, it is not called embellishing after the fulfillment of the commandment.

These are two formulations, but for our purposes the claim is that maybe one cannot embellish after one performs the act of the commandment itself. Why indeed should that be so? The obvious conception is that embellishment is simply a different way of performing the commandment; it is not an additional commandment. Meaning, the claim that one can embellish afterward probably assumes that we have two things: the commandment and the embellishment, and these are two things that I need to do. So if I performed the commandment in a non-embellished way, usually I can do both together: I do the commandment in an embellished fashion, and then I have fulfilled two commandments—the commandment itself and the commandment of “This is my God and I will glorify Him,” the commandment to embellish. But if I didn’t do the second, and only did the first, okay, then afterward I can still fulfill “This is my God and I will glorify Him,” so I do the commandment of embellishment separately.

Whoever says that one cannot do the commandment of embellishment separately may understand that these are not two commandments. Embellishment is only the better way to do the commandment itself; it is one of the details of the commandment itself. Therefore one cannot embellish after one has already performed the commandment, because once you did it, you did it. I’ll want to come back to that point later.

Let’s try to look at this from a different angle—embellishment, and this time embellishment in Hanukkah specifically. The source for what I’m now going to say, this section, is in Netivot Yehoshua by Rabbi Yogel of Pardes Hanna. He raises two famous questions from Pnei Yehoshua and the Beit Yosef—yes, the national sport is answering these Hanukkah questions.

One question is: how can the embellishment in Hanukkah candles be an embellishment that does not fit the usual parameters of embellishing a commandment? I mentioned earlier that the Talmud in Bava Kamma 9 says that embellishment of a commandment is up to one-third—up to one-third in a commandment. Meaning, if I want to buy a beautiful etrog, I’m obligated to spend up to one-third more than the price of a kosher etrog—whether that means a third from within or from without is debated there, but one-third. In Hanukkah it is obviously much more than one-third. “One candle for a man and his household” is one candle—eight over the course of the whole holiday if you want. The embellishment that we do with a hanukkiah is thirty-six. If we use several hanukkiyot, then even more. Thirty-six is a little more than one-and-one-third times the basic commandment. So how does that fit with the general law of embellishing a commandment—that embellishment is up to one-third? That’s one question.

The second question is: why did we need the miracle? The famous question: why did we need the miracle? After all, impurity is permitted, or at least overridden, in communal circumstances. And therefore even if there had been an impure flask of oil, one could have lit with it, since impurity is permitted or overridden in the community. So why did the Holy One, blessed be He, need to perform a miracle for us to find a pure flask of oil?

So Rabbi Yogel suggests there that he basically starts from the second question: why indeed was the miracle needed? In truth, it was not needed. But without the miracle we could not have lit in an embellished way; we would have lit with impure oil. Clearly that is less ideal than lighting with pure oil. It always reminds me of the saying—I think it’s attributed to one of the Vizhnitz rebbes—who said that it’s better to fail in baseless love than in baseless hatred. Whenever I hear that, I think to myself: better not to fail in either one. Meaning, just because something is better than something else does not mean it is okay. It still isn’t okay. The fact that impurity is permitted or overridden in communal circumstances means it’s acceptable, but if it can be avoided, then of course it is better to avoid it, whether we call it permitted or overridden.

So a miracle was done for us so that we would not need to resort to that permission or override, but rather could light with pure oil. Thus the miracle enabled us to light in an embellished fashion, even though we could have fulfilled our obligation without it. That is why the miracle was needed.

And with that he also answers the first question. The first question was: why here does the embellishment not stand within the normal criteria of embellishing a commandment, which is basically up to one-third? He says: what do you mean? The whole point—everything that happened in the miracle—was what enabled us to light in an embellished way. Therefore the enactment for future generations is an enactment whose whole idea is embellishment. The embellishment here is not embellishment in the ordinary sense of “This is my God and I will glorify Him,” as with a sukkah, as with an etrog, as with anything we do, as with circumcision. Anything we do should be done in a nicer, more beautiful way—beautify yourself before Him in commandments. On Hanukkah, the embellishment is of the essence of the enactment. Since this whole enactment is a remembrance of a miracle that enabled us to embellish, the enactment tells us: you should embellish in memory of that miracle. The enactment itself tells us to embellish. The enactment does not say “one candle for a man and his household,” and then we embellish because of “This is my God and I will glorify Him.” Rather, the enactment tells us to embellish, because that is in memory of the possibility we were given to embellish.

And by the way, that’s the reason they really get into all these details here—how to embellish, how much to embellish, disputes, where to light from, how many to light, what exactly it commemorates. We don’t find anything like that anywhere else, where they explain to me how to embellish. Embellish however seems beautiful to you. Let each person do what seems right to him. Why get into all this? The answer is: because here it is the core of the enactment. The core enactment here was to embellish.

So why did they leave it as “for those who embellish”? Why not simply establish from the outset that each person lights in an increasing number, “increasing and going on,” rather than saying: no, “one candle for a man and his household”; “those who embellish” do this; “those who are the most scrupulous in embellishing” do that? If they want us to do it, let them make it obligatory. Why leave it as embellishment?

Here it seems to me there is a certain logical paradox. Look, there is what’s called the paradox of the scoundrel, the “scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah.” Nachmanides, at the beginning of parashat Kedoshim, discusses the command “You shall be holy.” He says that from here one learns a commandment not to be a scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah. There are things that formal Jewish law does not forbid, but they are ugly things and one should refrain from them. So the command “You shall be holy” requires us to refrain from such things.

I would have expected Nachmanides, in his additions to the positive commandments after Maimonides’ Book of Commandments—there are additions and omissions where Nachmanides disputes Maimonides’ count of the commandments—to include “You shall be holy” as a positive commandment. More than that: in the fourth root there is a discussion between Maimonides and Nachmanides about “You shall be holy.” Maimonides calls it an inclusive commandment and therefore does not count it, and Nachmanides somewhat argues with him, tries to explain his view—but he does not raise this explanation. He does not propose the special content of this commandment that would justify counting it, and he does not bring what he himself writes in his commentary on the Torah.

And I think the explanation is what I earlier called the paradox of the scoundrel. A “scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah,” right? If they had put this into the count of the commandments, then it would no longer be a scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah; it would be a scoundrel outside the bounds of the Torah. Because anyone who behaved in that way would be neglecting a positive commandment of “You shall be holy.” That would be a counted positive commandment, if they included it in the count. Then it would become Jewish law—binding law—not something beyond the letter of the law, not something beyond the Torah’s permission, or beyond non-prohibition.

So there’s no choice. Nachmanides says: on the one hand, the Torah expects us not to be scoundrels within the bounds of the Torah. But if it defines this itself as a halakhic obligation, then it cuts off the branch on which it itself wants to sit. Because it wants us to do it not because of halakhic obligation, but because of the understanding that we need to do things beyond halakhic obligation. So it cannot place that itself into the framework of halakhic obligation. Because once things like gluttony and drunkenness, as Nachmanides brings there as one example, or being consumed with sexual indulgence, and things of that kind—if that became a formal prohibition, then one who did it would be neglecting a positive commandment. So it would be forbidden because it is a halakhic prohibition, not because it is being a scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah.

But the Torah wants to have it both ways. There is tension here between two aims. On the one hand, the Torah does not want us to do these things; on the other hand, it does not want to define them as halakhic prohibitions, because it wants us to refrain from them in order not to be “scoundrels within the bounds of the Torah,” not merely in order not to violate a prohibition. It intentionally wants to leave a halakhic category that is not formally obligatory, and yet it still expects us to do it.

Therefore the Torah has no choice but not to establish this as an explicit commandment. That is why Nachmanides, neither in the fourth root nor in his additions to Maimonides’ count of the commandments, in the positive commandments, does not include “You shall be holy” in the count of the commandments. Because if it enters the count, it becomes a halakhic obligation. And Nachmanides says: the Torah is telling us “You shall be holy”—this is something beyond the obligatory. If it is beyond the obligatory, it cannot enter the count of the commandments.

It seems to me that the same principle is also found in Hanukkah candles. In Hanukkah candles, if—as I brought earlier in the name of Rabbi Yogel—the whole idea is the expectation that we embellish, then the embellishment here is not by virtue of “This is my God and I will glorify Him,” as some extra thing, as “go beyond what you’re obligated to do.” Rather, the expectation of us is to embellish. We are obligated to embellish. Because the entire point of the miracle was that it enabled us to embellish the lighting of the menorah. So we are obligated to embellish.

But on the other hand, if they define it as an obligation, then it won’t be embellishment. It will simply be what the commandment is. So how can the Sages have it both ways at once? They do what the Torah does with “You shall be holy.” On the one hand, they give us a very detailed specification of how to do the embellishment, and when, and with disputes and all sorts of details. Why? So that it should be clear to everyone that this is really what is required of us. Not “one candle for a man and his household.” What is required of us is “those who embellish,” and even “those most scrupulous in embellishing.”

But they cannot establish that as a binding standard—meaning that someone who does not do it has not fulfilled his obligation—because if they establish it that way, then it is no longer embellishment. It is simply the commandment. And they want us to do it as an act of embellishment. So on the one hand they cannot define it as an absolute obligation, and on the other hand they define it very precisely, so as to convey, perhaps indirectly, the message that in truth this is required of everyone.

And I think we know that around us there is nobody who doesn’t do this. Everybody does it. Why? Because the message really got across. The message got across that in truth this is a full obligation. One should be among “those who embellish” with Hanukkah candles. “One candle for a man and his household”—in principle, basically, that’s not really how people fulfill the mitzvah. You can’t say that one doesn’t fulfill the obligation, because then the next level would no longer be embellishment. But really, what is expected of us is to remember the embellishment that was possible then, and therefore we are obligated to embellish. Yet in order for it to remain embellishment, they cannot define it as an obligation. So it sends this kind of double message: on the one hand, you fulfill your obligation even without it; on the other hand, they very clearly convey that this is demanded of you. It is not some voluntary option.

Where do we know another example of this? Actually, before that: one of the indications that this really is the situation in Hanukkah candles is that there are three levels there. One embellishment level—embellish, I don’t know, tenfold, twentyfold, as much as you like—but why these levels? Why one embellishment? A second embellishment? “One candle for a man and his household”? In a place where the Sages establish three levels with precise definitions of what belongs in each level, it is completely clear that this is basically law. It is something required of all of us; this is the Jewish law.

You can’t define it as an obligation without which one does not fulfill one’s obligation, but once they define for me exactly how to embellish, that means it is not an embellishment left to me; they are telling me what it is. They cannot tell me directly, as I said before, but basically they are conveying a message of embellishment.

Where do we find another example of this? With priestly gifts, terumah, right? In terumah too there are three levels: one-fortieth, a generous eye; one-fiftieth, an average eye; and one-sixtieth, a stingy eye. And indeed with terumah too—I’ll do this briefly because I don’t have much time to get into it—look at the Talmud in Gittin 31b: “As it was taught: Abba Elazar ben Gomla says: ‘And your terumah shall be reckoned to you’—the verse speaks of two terumot, one the great terumah and one the terumat ma’aser. Just as the great terumah is taken by estimation and thought, so terumat ma’aser is taken by estimation and thought.”

So the Talmud says there is some analogy between terumat ma’aser and great terumah. Just as great terumah is taken by estimation and thought, so too terumat ma’aser. From where do I know that great terumah is taken by estimation and thought? That is what we then learn over to terumat ma’aser. But great terumah itself—how do I know it is taken by estimation and thought? “Estimation” means one may not measure it exactly, but should estimate it approximately. “Thought” means it need not be designated verbally; thought is enough. Where do we know that?

Rashi says there—on “so too terumat ma’aser”: even though its quantity is fixed by the Torah, a tenth of the tenth, it too is taken by estimation. And so the other medieval authorities explain as well. How do I know that great terumah is taken by estimation? Because it has no fixed quantity. There is nothing to measure; there is no quantity. If there is nothing to measure, one grain exempts the entire pile from terumah. So if there is nothing to measure, then of course it is taken by estimation—there is nothing there to measure. From here we learn that even terumat ma’aser, which does have a fixed quantity—“a tenth of the tenth”—that too is estimated.

Now these words are extremely strange. Because if great terumah has no fixed quantity, then it’s not that it is taken by estimation rather than measurement—there is simply nothing to measure. What would you measure? What are the two options, measuring or estimating? All you need is to take one grain and separate it. At the basic Torah level, the ratios of one-fortieth, one-fiftieth, and one-sixtieth are rabbinic. By Torah law, one grain exempts the whole pile. So what is there to estimate in great terumah? What connection is there at all between terumat ma’aser and great terumah?

Maimonides also rules similarly—he reaches the same conclusion but from the opposite direction. This is a tannaitic dispute; I’m not going into all the details now. Rashi there senses this difficulty and says as follows: “The one-fiftieth that the Sages mentioned—one separates by estimation, because if he errs, there is no prohibition here. For by Torah law one grain exempts the pile, since the Torah gave no fixed quantity, only ‘the first of your grain.’”

So Rashi says: because great terumah has no fixed quantity, therefore it is taken by estimation. But what is taken by estimation? One grain—there is nothing to measure; what is the alternative? What, not to take it out? You can’t measure one grain. It’s one grain. So he says no—this is referring to the quantity of one-fiftieth. The quantity that you separate—whether one-fortieth, one-fiftieth, or one-sixtieth, one of those ratios—that quantity should not be measured exactly but estimated. They say this is so that it should be given generously, so that you make sure you fulfilled your obligation, and therefore in practice you will separate a bit more than you intended. But in principle it should be estimated and not measured, which is itself odd.

It’s odd because this is a rabbinic law. One-fortieth, one-fiftieth, and one-sixtieth are rabbinic. By Torah law one grain exempts the whole pile. So what is the connection? How can one analogize a quantity that is rabbinic in great terumah to a quantity that is by Torah law—“a tenth of the tenth”—in terumat ma’aser? What connection is there at all? Is there by Torah law a rule in great terumah not to measure but to estimate? No such thing. By Torah law there is nothing to measure—not that one must estimate instead of measuring. Rabbinically, perhaps yes. It appears as a possibility in the Talmud in Hullin, but there it is usually assumed not to remain in the conclusion. But it seems to me that here in the Talmud it comes out very clearly: the rates of one-fortieth, one-fiftieth, and one-sixtieth are Torah-level rates. Are they rabbinic? No, they are Torah-level rates—and yet one grain still exempts the whole pile.

How can that be? One grain exempts the whole pile, even though one is supposed to separate one-fortieth, one-fiftieth, or one-sixtieth? The answer is: one grain—exactly as in Hanukkah. Here too, as I said, there are three levels just like Hanukkah. “Those who embellish,” “those most scrupulous in embellishing,” “one candle for a man and his household.” In terumah there is one-fortieth, one-fiftieth, one-sixtieth. In reverse: one-sixtieth is the minimum, one-fiftieth is average, and one-fortieth is the “most scrupulous embellishment.” Everywhere there are three levels, even though it looks voluntary, they are really telling you: this is not voluntary; this is obligatory.

When the Torah tells me that one grain exempts the pile, what it really wants to say is: this is called terumah. Terumah, Rashi says at the beginning of parashat Terumah, is called something given from the generosity of the heart. How can that mean, supposedly, bringing one large grain and giving it to the priest with a grand ceremony, drums and dancing, and presenting him with the biggest grain I found? Is that generosity of the heart? Obviously not. You need to give a larger amount out of generosity of the heart. But one grain exempts the pile. Why? Because they want you to give it from generosity of the heart. If they had set that amount as an obligatory legal amount, then it would not be given from generosity of the heart; it would no longer be terumah. Terumah is something given from generosity of the heart.

So what do they do? The Torah says: by Torah law, one grain exempts the pile. But there are three rates—forty, fifty, sixty—and that tells you that although ostensibly this is voluntary and does not affect the rectification of the produce, and the produce becomes non-sacred even if you separate one grain, nevertheless the Torah expects us to separate more, out of generosity of the heart. And that should be estimated, not measured. Therefore there is a Torah-level law in great terumah to estimate and not measure.

What should be estimated? The one-fiftieth, as Rashi says—the one I asked about, since that is supposedly rabbinic. No, it is not rabbinic. It is a Torah-level quantity. The Sages only assessed what amount can count as terumah given from generosity of the heart, so they said there are three possibilities: one-fortieth for a generous eye, one-fiftieth for an average eye, and one-sixtieth for a stingy eye. But these are all Torah-level quantities.

Why did the Sages establish three rates and not one? So as not to throw out the baby with the bathwater—exactly like Hanukkah candles. If they had established one rate, say one-fiftieth or one-fortieth, what would happen? There would be no generosity of the heart left. You would simply do exactly what you are obligated to do. So what do the Sages do? They say: look, we are not leaving open the option that one grain exempts the pile—that is out of the question; the Torah expects more from us. So the Sages already bring more than that into the binding law. But they still do not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. There still has to remain some voluntary element, something that I decide—whether I do this, this, or this. So they say: okay, our obligation is formulated on three levels. You choose. What remains voluntary is choosing which of the three you take. But all of them are Torah-level quantities.

By the way, this can be proven unequivocally in Maimonides. I’ll give it to you very briefly. Look at Maimonides in the laws of terumot, chapter 3, law 1, and compare it to the laws of bikkurim, the next source after it. All right? Look there: “Great terumah has no fixed quantity by Torah law, as it says, ‘the first of your grain’—any amount. Even one grain exempts the pile. But ideally one should not separate except according to the quantity given by the Sages, which is one-fortieth, one-fiftieth, or one-sixtieth. And what is the quantity given by the Sages? A generous eye, one-fortieth; average, one-fiftieth; a stingy eye, one-sixtieth; and one should not separate less than one-sixtieth.” That is the structure in the laws of terumot, speaking of great terumah.

Now let’s see the parallel law in challah. There the rates are one-twenty-fourth or one-forty-eighth, for a baker or a private homeowner. Maimonides writes there: “It is a positive commandment to separate terumah from dough for the priest, as it says, ‘Of the first of your dough you shall give a gift.’ And this ‘first’ has no fixed quantity by Torah law.” So far just like above, right? “Even if he separated as much as a barley grain, he exempted the dough.” So far exactly parallel. But now comes the first difference. In the laws of terumot, “but ideally one should not separate except according to the quantity given by the Sages” already appears in the first law. In the laws of challah, it all appears in the second law: “By rabbinic law one separates one twenty-fourth of the dough so that there should be a gift for the priest,” etc. That’s one difference.

Second difference: in the laws of terumot it never says “by rabbinic law,” not anywhere. What it says is: “any amount—even one grain exempts the pile—but ideally one should not separate except according to the quantity given by the Sages.” He does not say, “and by rabbinic law one should not separate except according to the quantity given by the Sages,” as he says in challah. In terumah this is not merely a quantity “given by the Sages” in the sense of being a rabbinic law. In terumah this is the ideal mode. What does that mean? It is a Torah-level ideal requirement. The Sages are simply the ones who assessed what quantity is appropriate to fulfill that Torah-level ideal.

You can see this, by the way, in other laws later in Maimonides too, in what one does with terumah nowadays when it cannot be given to a priest. Maimonides makes a distinction there between terumah and challah, and all the later authorities struggle with his words. According to what I’m saying here, it’s very clear—but I no longer have time to get into it, so I’ll leave it there.

What we basically see from here is that in terumah, where there are three quantities, it is exactly like Hanukkah candles, where there are three quantities. And when we encounter such a case, it is really telling us that the basic quantity is the halakhically binding minimum, and everything above it appears to be voluntary—if you do it, all the better; if you don’t, nothing happened. But no. When there are three quantities—not the ordinary embellishment of “This is my God and I will glorify Him,” but they get into the details of exactly how and how much, and not according to the ordinary measure of embellishment up to one-third—that means that what is really required of us is to go beyond the basic level. It is fully required; it is a halakhic obligation. The only thing is: it is a halakhic obligation to embellish, and they cannot define it as an obligation whose absence invalidates fulfillment, because then it would not be embellishment.

I’ll finish—yes, I’ll finish already—with one more possibility that comes up in this context, and that is the following claim. Look: until now I assumed that embellishment is a voluntary matter. A person basically has to fulfill the commandment, and if he wants to embellish, all the better. It’s voluntary. And the proof is that “This is my God and I will glorify Him” is not counted among the commandments. So it doesn’t seem to be an absolute obligation, in the sense of something whose absence invalidates, and so on.

But I’m not at all sure that’s true. This requires examination in the medieval and later authorities. In many places it sounds otherwise. But on the face of it, I can’t understand why not. In principle, it seems to me that the definition is simply different. I’ll give an example. The Mishnah in tractate Menachot says that the blue thread does not invalidate the white threads, and the white threads do not invalidate the blue thread; the arm phylactery does not invalidate the head phylactery, and vice versa. Does that mean the head phylactery is voluntary? That it’s optional because it does not invalidate the arm phylactery? Obviously not. When I say it does not invalidate the arm phylactery, what that means is that if you did not put on the head phylactery, you neglected the positive commandment of the head phylactery—but the arm phylactery that you did put on was fulfilled; that commandment itself was not damaged. Meaning, the head phylactery does not invalidate the arm phylactery, but that does not mean it is voluntary. It is itself a complete obligation.

Now many people think this is true—everyone understands it with phylacteries—but the Mishnah says exactly the same thing about the blue and white threads in tassels. And there are many people who think the commandment of blue thread is voluntary. You can do it if you want—but the Mishnah says it does not invalidate the white, and you fulfill the commandment of tassels even if you only use the white. That is not correct. In the straightforward conception it is not voluntary at all. If you did not put the blue thread in the tassels, you neglected a positive commandment. A positive obligation—not merely an optional fulfillment. You neglected a commandment. The only thing is that if you did put in the white, then you fulfilled the commandment of the white, because the blue does not invalidate the white. But that does not mean the blue is voluntary. Two different things.

Now I won’t elaborate; I only brought this as an example. Let’s return to our issue. People usually understand embellishing a commandment as voluntary. Do the commandment, and if you want to embellish—good for you. But on the straightforward reading, “This is my God and I will glorify Him” is a source telling me that I am obligated to embellish. I am obligated to embellish. The fact that embellishment does not invalidate the commandment—that’s obvious. That’s simple; no one can argue with that. Embellishment does not invalidate the commandment. But as we saw in tassels and phylacteries, the fact that one thing does not invalidate another does not mean that that thing is voluntary.

You are obligated to embellish, because there is a commandment of “This is my God and I will glorify Him.” Even if you did not embellish, the commandment itself was of course fulfilled; embellishment does not invalidate the commandment. But you neglected the commandment of embellishment. There is a commandment to embellish.

And if you ask why it is not counted among the commandments: I don’t think that is so difficult. A half-measure is not counted among the commandments either. Details that are internal to a commandment are not counted separately, and there are also places where one sees that broader principles—sometimes they are not part of the commandment itself, but some overarching meta-halakhic rule that applies across all of Jewish law—those too are not counted among the commandments. Therefore it could be that the commandment of embellishment, contrary to what I assumed all along until now, is not voluntary.

[Speaker A] The commandment of beautification is an obligation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And as I said, it is an obligation, but it is an obligation that does not hold back the essence of the commandment. And if that is so, then of course I return to everything I said earlier with even greater force. Meaning, it’s not only that this is an obligation which they did not want to establish formally as an obligation in order to leave it voluntary; rather, no, they did establish it. They established it as an obligation. It really is an obligation. And someone who does not do it has not fulfilled his obligation of beautification. The commandment of the lamp for a person and his household, of course, he has fulfilled; that is another commandment. And then, if I return to the point where I began, it may be that this is connected to the historical development that I described at the beginning. What Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel added was this additional matter of beautification. The lamp itself was already instituted by the sages of that generation. What Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai added was only this beautification, which is an additional obligation, and perhaps it is not even a detail within the commandment but another obligation. Still, it is true that it does not hold back the very act of lighting the basic lamp. There you can fulfill your obligation with a lamp for a person and his household. And about this Maimonides says that the lighting of the lamps, what we do today, is a commandment from the words of the sages. Meaning, this beautification—there is a commandment to do it. It is not some enhancement of the previous matter, where if you want you do it and if you do not want you do not; it is a rabbinic commandment. You have to do it. It does not hold back the lamp for a person and his household, but it does hold back itself. There is an obligation to do this. Happy Hanukkah.