Conditions – Lesson 3
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
- Monday conference and the activist group
- The passage of the tribes of Gad and Reuven and the rules of conditional stipulations
- Fundamental problems in the mechanism of stipulations: backward causation and “his act of acquisition has expired”
- Types of stipulations in Rabbi Shlomo Fischer and their connection to the difficulties
- “The condition is void but the act stands” and stipulating against what is written in the Torah
- Tosafot in Ketubot 56: double condition and the difficulty of settled intent
- The importance of a double condition in Tosafot versus Maimonides and the Ritva
- The answer of “he is merely speaking loosely” in Rabbenu Tam and the Ritva, and criticism of it
- Rabbi Yitzhak’s answer in Tosafot: the novelty of the Torah passage of conditions and retroactive uprooting
- “It becomes clear retroactively” versus “from now on, retroactively”
- A philosophical illustration: Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen, Kant, and the time of “from now on, retroactively”
- Annulment of vows in Rav Shmuel, Rabbi Shimon Shkop, and the Jerusalem Talmud
- The character of the stipulation of the tribes of Gad and Reuven, and “if” versus “on condition that” in Maimonides
- Additional proofs from Rabbi Shimon Shkop: the Savoraic rabbis, Maimonides, Baal HaIttur, Rashba, and the Rosh
- Conclusion and continuation
Summary
General Overview
The speaker opens by coordinating a first conference on Monday, a closed gathering by invitation only, with rabbis and people partnering in the initiative, in order to see who is willing to identify publicly and take an active role before going public. He notes that the direction is religious politics, or a struggle against conservative outlooks, and that there is progress and growing connections. He then moves to a lecture on the Jewish laws of stipulations from the passage of the tribes of Gad and Reuven, and presents a basic dispute over whether that passage introduces the very possibility of making a stipulation or only the rules for formulating one. He lays out fundamental difficulties in stipulations, such as causation operating backward in time and “his act of acquisition has expired.” Later he explains the rule “the condition is void but the act stands” when the condition is not formulated according to the laws of stipulations or when one stipulates against what is written in the Torah. He brings the question of Tosafot and the medieval authorities (Rishonim) as to how the act can take effect against his intention, and presents various answers, foremost the view of Rabbi Yitzhak, who understands the mechanism of stipulation as “from now on, retroactively” rather than “it becomes clear retroactively,” with comparisons to annulment of vows and further examples from the Savoraic rabbis, Maimonides, Baal HaIttur, Rashba, and the Rosh.
Monday conference and the activist group
The speaker says that on Monday there will be a first conference, a closed gathering by invitation only, and that they have not yet taken it public because he wants to see what comes out of it. He describes a meeting with rabbis and with people ready to cooperate, and checking which of them will also be willing to identify publicly and take a more active part, and only afterward go public. He defines the topic as politics or religious politics, and mainly as action against conservative outlooks, and says that the process is slow but moving forward, with connections and interest from people and organizations. He adds that maybe the broader group should be kept a little less quiet so people will not think it has fallen completely asleep.
The passage of the tribes of Gad and Reuven and the rules of conditional stipulations
The speaker presents the passage of the tribes of Gad and Reuven as the source that teaches the Torah section of stipulations, and formulates the question whether it teaches the very possibility of making a stipulation or only the legal rules of stipulation. He argues that from simple reasoning every legal system allows stipulations, and therefore apparently there is no need for verses to tell us that one can make them, and sets that against the possibility that the Torah introduced the mechanism itself. He lists rules from the laws of stipulation such as a double condition, the positive before the negative, the condition before the act, that one may not stipulate against what is written in the Torah, something within one’s power to fulfill, something applicable through agency, and one further seventh rule that he does not remember explicitly.
Fundamental problems in the mechanism of stipulations: backward causation and “his act of acquisition has expired”
The speaker presents two problems that require a Torah novelty in order for a stipulation to work. He explains that backward causation is created in a stipulation of “from now,” such as a bill of divorce saying, “if she does not drink wine for two weeks,” where the future non-drinking brings about the divorce in the present. He explains the problem of “his act of acquisition has expired,” following the Ran in Nedarim 28, when an act of acquisition is done now but one wants the legal effect to take hold only later; then the act has already “expired” and can no longer generate a later legal effect. He distinguishes between “his act of acquisition has expired” and the topic of “her bill of divorce and her courtyard come simultaneously,” and emphasizes that in a case of mutual dependence between acquisition of the courtyard and the divorce, the problem is a loop, not “his act of acquisition has expired.”
Types of stipulations in Rabbi Shlomo Fischer and their connection to the difficulties
The speaker says that anyone who has read Rabbi Shlomo Fischer can connect this to the difference between a stipulation of “from now” and a stipulation of “if.” He states that in a stipulation of “from now” the main problem is backward causation, while in a stipulation of “if” there is no backward causation but there is the problem of “his act of acquisition has expired,” because the bill of divorce is given now and the legal effect is sought for the future. He sums up that, in principle, mechanisms of stipulation run into difficulty either because “his act of acquisition has expired” or because of reversed causation.
“The condition is void but the act stands” and stipulating against what is written in the Torah
The speaker presents the Talmudic rule that when someone stipulates not in accordance with the laws of stipulation, the rule is “the condition is void but the act stands.” He brings the example from Ketubot 56: “Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you have no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights,” and explains that this is “stipulating against what is written in the Torah,” because the Torah obligates food, clothing, and conjugal rights. He emphasizes that the Talmud rules that the betrothal takes effect and the obligations remain, even though the condition was meant to avoid them, and asks why we do not say that the act itself is void.
Tosafot in Ketubot 56: double condition and the difficulty of settled intent
The speaker cites Tosafot in Ketubot 56, who proves that the case involves a double condition, because Rabbi Meir himself requires a double condition, and if it were not doubled, the condition would be void for that reason and not because it is “stipulating against what is written in the Torah.” He formulates Tosafot’s question: if the condition was doubled, then the man explicitly denied the betrothal in the scenario in which there is food, clothing, and conjugal rights, and therefore there is no settled intent for betrothal on terms that include those obligations. He brings Tosafot’s rejection of the explanation that this means “on condition that she waives them for him,” and shows that in the case of a Nazirite as well — “I am hereby a Nazirite on condition that I may drink wine and become impure from the dead” — the condition is void and the act stands, even though there is no other side there who could waive anything.
The importance of a double condition in Tosafot versus Maimonides and the Ritva
The speaker explains that Tosafot needs the assumption of a double condition in order to sharpen the point that the man’s intention was explicitly excluded, whereas according to Maimonides the intention is clear even without doubling, and the double condition is not meant to clarify intention but is learned from the stipulation of the tribes of Gad and Reuven. He points to the Ritva, who asks the question even without relying on doubling, and then adds, “indeed, all the more so according to Rabbi Meir, who said this in a double condition,” so that the doubling only strengthens the difficulty.
The answer of “he is merely speaking loosely” in Rabbenu Tam and the Ritva, and criticism of it
The speaker brings the view of the Ritva, Rabbenu Tam, and Tosafot HaRosh that “since he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah, he is merely speaking loosely,” and therefore he did not seriously intend to stipulate and the act takes effect. He argues that this is especially strained when the condition is doubled, because unspoken thoughts are not legally significant, and the person explicitly said that the act should not take effect in a certain case. He brings Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s question in Kovetz Shiurim, Ketubot sec. 167, from the passage in Gittin 84 about “on condition that you eat pork,” where the Talmud asks, “Let it derive from the fact that he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah,” from which it follows that speaking loosely and stipulating against what is written in the Torah are not identical.
Rabbi Yitzhak’s answer in Tosafot: the novelty of the Torah passage of conditions and retroactive uprooting
The speaker quotes Rabbi Yitzhak in Tosafot: “For had we not learned it from the stipulation of the tribes of Gad and Reuven, I would have said that no condition at all can nullify an act,” and concludes from this that Rabbi Yitzhak understands the passage as introducing the very possibility that a condition can nullify an act. He explains that the novelty is that words of stipulation can uproot an act only if they are done according to the laws of stipulations, and when the condition is invalid the ordinary rule remains in force: “speech does not come and nullify an act,” and therefore “the condition is void but the act stands.” He interprets Rabbi Yitzhak to mean that the act takes effect in any case, and the condition creates a mechanism of retroactive uprooting if it is fulfilled; when there is no valid condition, there is no mechanism of uprooting, and the legal effect of the act remains.
“It becomes clear retroactively” versus “from now on, retroactively”
The speaker distinguishes between the ordinary conception of a condition as “it becomes clear retroactively,” in which the future merely reveals that there had never been intention and therefore there was never any act at all, and Rabbi Yitzhak’s conception that this is a causal uprooting retroactively, in which the future uproots the past. He notes that Rabbi Shimon Shkop calls this “from now on, retroactively,” and describes it as rewriting the past, not revealing what had been there. He argues that according to Rabbi Yitzhak a Torah novelty is required for the very possibility of stipulation, because backward causation is not self-evident.
A philosophical illustration: Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen, Kant, and the time of “from now on, retroactively”
The speaker brings Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen and his book The Dimensions of Prophecy and Groundedness, and describes the idea of dimensions for reconciling the transcendent and the immanent by means of a parable of four dimensions versus three. He cites from the essay on “groundedness” Kant’s claim that space and time are categories of perception and not things in reality itself, and presents Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen’s use of that idea regarding the age of the world. He asks: even if time depends on the human being, one can still “fit” the axis of time onto the past after the human being exists, and he uses that as an illustration for “from now on, retroactively,” where a later event changes the way one looks at the past.
Annulment of vows in Rav Shmuel, Rabbi Shimon Shkop, and the Jerusalem Talmud
The speaker cites Rav Shmuel in Makkot using the phrase “from now on, retroactively” with respect to annulment of vows, and states that a sage’s release is not merely clarification that the vow never existed, but an act that uproots the vow. He brings proof from the fact that specifically a sage or a religious court is required, and not just any person, similar to “as the eyes of the priest see.” He cites the Jerusalem Talmud in Nedarim on “something that has those who can permit it,” which asks how that could be, since “a sage uproots the vow from its root,” and he brings the Jerusalem Talmud’s answer: “He uproots it only from now on,” together with the Rosh’s explanation that the vow was forbidden until the very moment of release, and nevertheless is afterward uprooted from its root; therefore it is considered something that has those who can permit it.
The character of the stipulation of the tribes of Gad and Reuven, and “if” versus “on condition that” in Maimonides
The speaker returns to the passage of the tribes of Gad and Reuven and notes that from the wording of the verses it seems to be an “if” condition, but from the verse “and Moses gave them” it sounds like a present grant. He says that he already remarked in the first lecture that according to Maimonides, in a condition phrased as “on condition that,” the laws of stipulations are not required, and therefore one must explain the passage of the tribes of Gad and Reuven as an “if” condition in which the act is done now but the legal effect is made contingent on the future. He notes that even in an “if” condition the problem of “his act of acquisition has expired” still exists, and the novelty of stipulation solves it.
Additional proofs from Rabbi Shimon Shkop: the Savoraic rabbis, Maimonides, Baal HaIttur, Rashba, and the Rosh
The speaker brings from Rabbi Shimon Shkop in the treatise on stipulations at the end of his novellae on Gittin the view of the Savoraic rabbis concerning a conditional bill of divorce “that she not drink wine all her life,” that if she drank after the husband’s death the bill of divorce is not void, and concludes that this makes sense only if the condition is a generating mechanism of “from now on, retroactively,” because “there is no bill of divorce after death.” He brings Maimonides in the Jewish laws of divorce concerning a condition “if he does not return within twelve months,” where if the husband dies after three months the woman is not permitted to remarry until the end of the twelve months, and explains that this shows that fulfillment of the condition generates the divorce and does not merely reveal it. He brings Baal HaIttur, who permits the husband to retract a conditional bill of divorce before the condition is fulfilled, and the Rashba in responsum 707, who forbids divorcing before a conditional betrothal has been fulfilled, even though if it is fulfilled it will take effect retroactively, and the Rosh, who allows cancellation of a condition in a bill of divorce, and presents all of them as fitting with the understanding that the future generates retroactive uprooting rather than merely revealing prior intention.
Conclusion and continuation
The speaker stops at this point and says that the philosophical continuations will come in the next lecture, because “we’ve only just begun the philosophy.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? What is it? What? About what? Monday’s conference? Yes, yes. On Monday there’s a first conference, but it’s a closed conference, just for invited people. We still haven’t taken it public because I want to see what comes out of it. We’ll sit there with the rabbis and with the people who are willing to cooperate, and we’ll see how many of them will also be willing to identify themselves and take a more active part, and then, then we’ll go public. What? What’s the topic? Politics, or religious politics — more, not necessarily politics exactly, but against conservative outlooks. Yes, that too. Fine, good, its time will come. It’s moving slowly, but we’re making progress, making progress. There are a lot of connections too, and people are interested, and organizations are interested, and things are moving forward. Maybe really we need to keep the group not quite so quiet, because people think it’s fallen completely asleep, the broader group. Okay, we’re dealing with the Torah section of stipulations, and I began with the description of the passage of the tribes of Gad and the tribes of Reuven. We saw that the passage essentially teaches the Torah section of stipulations, and the question is whether it teaches the very possibility of making a stipulation — meaning that without the passage of the tribes of Gad and Reuven I would have thought that you simply can’t make stipulations at all — or whether it’s obvious that you can make stipulations. Every legal system in the world allows stipulations; you don’t need a scriptural derivation for that. What the verses say is only to teach the laws of stipulation. Meaning, if you want to make a stipulation, there are rules according to which you have to formulate it, otherwise the stipulation won’t be valid. We saw seven such rules, the four basic rules: a double condition, the positive before the negative, the condition before the act, that one may not stipulate against what is written in the Torah, something within his power to fulfill — that makes five — something applicable through agency, and something else that I forgot, I don’t remember anymore, there was a seventh thing; we saw seven things. In any event, these two conceptions really differ on the question whether the possibility of making a stipulation is self-evident — meaning, whether that itself needs a novelty from the verses or not, whether I would know that on my own. Right? That’s the difference between the two possibilities. Why shouldn’t I be able to make a stipulation? As I said earlier, every legal system in the world allows stipulation. What’s the problem? You make a contract with someone, you can always say it’s only on condition that such-and-such happens. If both sides agree, everything is fine. What’s the problem? So I said there are two problems with stipulation, and because of them we need the novelty, the Torah’s novelty. One problem is that here, plainly speaking, you have causation working backward in time. Say I divorce a woman if she does not drink wine for two weeks; then not drinking wine in the next two weeks causes the divorce now — I’m talking about a condition of “from now” — causes the divorce now. So that means that the cause, which is later in time, produces the effect that happens now, which on the face of it can’t be. How can such a thing be? The cause has to precede the effect. That’s one problem. And the second problem is what I called — or what the Ran calls it in Nedarim 28 — “his act of acquisition has expired.” What does that mean? When, say, I want to transfer ownership of a field to someone, and I tell him that this field will be his in a month, if he performs an act of possession now, but the acquisition will take effect only in a month — that doesn’t help. Why not? Because either the acquisition takes effect now, since now I performed the act, and if the act has legal force then it is supposed to generate an acquisition; that’s the consequence of the act. I don’t want the acquisition to happen now but only in a month, so now the acquisition won’t happen. What’s going to happen in a month that suddenly I become the owner? The act was already done a month earlier and did nothing, so there has to be something else now that applies the acquisition, because his act of acquisition has expired. Meaning, the act that you performed is already gone, it’s no longer in the world, so it can’t be that now suddenly, out of nowhere, a legal effect of acquisition appears. That’s what the Ran calls it, okay—
[Speaker D] That’s a bit like “they come simultaneously,” the bill of divorce and the courtyard come together. So if she receives it through acquisition by courtyard, the bill of divorce, then that’s the legal effect. The bill of divorce creates the legal effect of divorce, and it comes together with her courtyard. So that’s “her bill of divorce and her courtyard come simultaneously”; otherwise it would be “his act of acquisition has expired.” If she has a courtyard, and only afterward—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s not “his act of acquisition has expired.” That’s something else entirely. There it’s a different issue. “His act of acquisition has expired” is when I want that in another—
[Speaker D] Month the acquisition should take effect, though the act was done now. But there it comes simultaneously. And the final result — what I mean is this: I’m saying that if it won’t be so—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The problem there is not “his act of acquisition has expired.” The problem there is not “his act of acquisition has expired.” The problem there is that acquiring the courtyard depends on the divorce, and the divorce depends on acquiring the courtyard, so there’s no place for it to start — it’s a loop. In “his act of acquisition has expired,” it has nothing to do with a loop; there is no loop at all in “his act of acquisition has expired.”
[Speaker D] But if it weren’t simultaneous, then it wouldn’t work.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But not because of “his act of acquisition has expired,” not because of “his act of acquisition has expired,” it’s unrelated. No connection at all to “his act of acquisition has expired.” Meaning, what happens there is that you don’t have a courtyard, so you can’t acquire, not because of “his act of acquisition has expired.” In “his act of acquisition has expired,” I do have a courtyard and I acquired, only I want the divorce to take effect in a month. No — the act no longer exists in the world.
[Speaker D] But even if you have a courtyard—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But—
[Speaker D] if it doesn’t come simultaneously, then also…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s true, but it has nothing to do with the topic of “his act of acquisition has expired.” It’s a correct law.
[Speaker D] Because there’s a gap in time.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not because there’s a gap in time. Not because your bill of divorce doesn’t—
[Speaker D] So it’s not connected to the time gap.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here there’s a loop, where each thing depends on the other, and therefore you — there’s no way for it to start. It’s like saying this courtyard isn’t mine at all, and now you put something into that courtyard and want to transfer that thing to me. I didn’t acquire it. Why didn’t I acquire it? That’s not “his act of acquisition has expired”; it’s simply because you didn’t perform an act of acquisition.
[Speaker D] You didn’t perform—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] an act of acquisition. That’s it. In “his act of acquisition has expired,” I did perform an act of acquisition, no problem, everything is fine, only I want the legal effect not to take place now but later. Just from the fact that it’s there—
[Speaker D] over there, that’s the acquisition. No, that’s an act of acquisition. It’s an act of acquisition. It’s an automatic act.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter, that’s the act of acquisition — the courtyard acquires. So if I put it into a courtyard that isn’t hers… and her courtyard is like her hand… I understand, but if I put it into a courtyard that isn’t hers—
[Speaker D] then she doesn’t acquire it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Because of “his act of acquisition has expired”?
[Speaker D] No, because there’s no acquisition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly — because you simply didn’t perform an act of acquisition. That’s what happens with “her bill of divorce and her hand come simultaneously,” “her bill of divorce and her courtyard come simultaneously.” You — she doesn’t have a courtyard, so how do you want to transfer it to her? That’s not “his act of acquisition has expired.” “His act of acquisition has expired” means she has a courtyard and I put it into her courtyard, there was an act of acquisition, only the act of acquisition was in the past and I want the legal effect suddenly to apply now. That’s an entirely different matter. So the claim basically is that the Torah has to introduce the mechanism of stipulation, because without the Torah we would not think it works, either because of “his act of acquisition has expired” or because of backward causation in time. Whoever has read Rabbi Shlomo Fischer, maybe this will be the difference between a condition of “from now” and a condition of “if.” In a condition of “from now,” it’s backward causation in time. In a condition of “if,” there’s no backward causation in time. I say: if you don’t drink, you will be divorced from then — not from now — but there is “his act of acquisition has expired,” because I gave her the bill of divorce now and I want her to be divorced then. So there the problem is “his act of acquisition has expired.” In a condition of “from now,” the problem is backward causation in time. Fine, so maybe these problems apply to different kinds of stipulations, but in principle all mechanisms of stipulations are problematic either because of “his act of acquisition has expired” or because of reverse causation. Now, at the end of the previous lecture I started checking why the rule in the Talmud is that if I stipulate not according to the rules of the law of stipulations, not according to the laws of stipulation, then the rule is that the condition is void but the act stands. Meaning, the condition is void but the act stands. Meaning, say I transfer a certain courtyard to someone — no, I divorce a woman on condition that I owe her no food, clothing, and conjugal rights. That’s the Talmud’s example in Ketubot 56. So I betroth a woman on condition that she has no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights. The Talmud says this is stipulating against what is written in the Torah. Why? Because the Torah says that if she is your wife, you owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights; you can’t go against the structure dictated by the Torah. Now then, what would I have said? Fine, so that condition — you can’t impose it, because it’s not according to the laws of stipulation; it is stipulating against what is written in the Torah.
[Speaker D] And it says in Bava Metzia… what? In Ketubot, “One who says to a woman, ‘Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you have no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights’…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, in several places—
[Speaker D] “behold, his condition is void…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, in several places the Talmud says this — in Bava Metzia and in Bava Batra… what? Okay, yes, it’s in Ketubot, in Bava Metzia, in several places it appears. In any case, I’m using Ketubot because that’s where the main commentators explaining this Talmudic passage are found. So the condition is void but the act stands. Now what does that mean? It basically means that if I say to a woman, “Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you have no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights,” then the condition is basically canceled. What does that mean? That she is betrothed — not that she is not betrothed; she is betrothed. Not only is she betrothed, she is betrothed and I owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights. Even though I did not want to betroth her if I had to obligate myself to food, clothing, and conjugal rights. Yes, but no — there was always the possibility of saying, fine, then she’s not betrothed at all. Because you can’t have half a betrothal. But the Talmud doesn’t say that. It says she is betrothed, and you owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights. Meaning, it is the condition that is void, not the act. One might have said that if you stipulate against what is written in the Torah, then the act is void. This act is worthless. But the Talmud says no: the act stands, the condition is void. Meaning, the act stands without qualification. The act stands in any case, and you failed to qualify it by means of the condition. And the question is why. All the medieval authorities (Rishonim) there in Ketubot — and elsewhere, but mainly in Ketubot — ask why, why is that so? Why not? So the Talmud says — Tosafot says as follows.
[Speaker D] We saw that Tosafot, just to get back into the topic.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It will come up in a moment. So this is Tosafot there in Ketubot 56. Tosafot says: “Behold, she is betrothed and his condition is void.” Right? If someone betroths a woman on condition that she has no claim upon him for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, then she is betrothed to him, the act stands and the condition is void. Right? The condition is void. And that’s what the Talmud says in Gittin and in other places, that wherever the condition was not made according to the laws of stipulations, then it is the condition that is void and the act stands. Okay? Because one might have said that the act should be void. So Tosafot says as follows: “Behold, she is betrothed and his condition is void — this must, perforce, be speaking where he doubled his condition.” That is, he said to her: “If you have no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, behold, you are betrothed, and if not, do not be betrothed.” Meaning, it’s talking about a case where when he made this condition, he doubled it. Right, he has to say a double condition, correct? Every condition must be arranged, formulated, according to the laws of stipulations. So if he stipulated here, obviously he also stipulated a double condition and the positive before the negative and the condition before the act — all the laws of stipulations were fulfilled here. Why? How do I know it’s talking here about a double condition? “Because it says later that Rabbi Meir’s reason that his condition is void is because he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah.” Rabbi Meir says: why is his condition void when he betroths a woman on condition that she has no claim upon him for food, clothing, and conjugal rights? Because he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah. Now Rabbi Meir is the father of the view that a double condition is required. So obviously Rabbi Meir himself certainly understood that this was a case of a double condition. Otherwise, the condition would be void irrespective of the fact that he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah, because the condition is not doubled. Therefore it is clear — “and if he had not doubled the condition, let it derive from the fact that according to Rabbi Meir the condition is void because he requires a double condition, as is said in the chapter HaOmer in Kiddushin 61,” and so on. And then he asks a question. Up to here, Tosafot is proving that this was a case of a double condition. Now he asks: fine, it’s a double condition. Meaning, the person said: if you have no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, you are betrothed; if you do have a claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, you are not betrothed. Okay? Notice why you have to begin with “if you have no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, you are betrothed,” and afterward “if you do have a claim upon me…” — because the positive must precede the negative, right? The positive here — the positive is the positive outcome. Right? “You have no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights” is the positive, not the negative. Why? Because if she has no such claim, then she is betrothed. The positive and negative here are determined by the act, not by the condition. Meaning: you are betrothed if you have no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, and you are not betrothed if you do have such a claim. The positive and negative are determined here by the act, not by the condition, of course. Okay? Anyway, Tosafot asks: “And this is difficult: if so, why is she betrothed? After all, he explicitly stipulated that if she has a claim upon him for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, she is not betrothed.” Why are you imposing a betrothal on him that he doesn’t want? On the side where he is obligated to her for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, he did not want to betroth her. So you can say, fine, he did not formulate the condition correctly, everything’s fine. He didn’t formulate it correctly. So the Torah does not recognize this condition. But if you ask: was there settled intent here for betrothal? No. After all, if she wants food, clothing, and conjugal rights, he does not want to betroth her. So how can you say that she is betrothed if he did not intend to betroth her on that basis? What, is the Torah forcing him to betroth her even though he did not intend to? Therefore Tosafot basically says this: if the condition is not properly formulated, then what should have happened is that the act should be void, not that the act stands and the condition is void. So say she is not betrothed in any case; it’s an act that simply cannot take effect. That I understand. But the Talmud doesn’t say that. The Talmud says that the act stands; she is betrothed. The condition is void. And how can it be that the act stands? How can it be that she is betrothed to him despite the fact that he owes her food, clothing, and conjugal rights? After all, on those terms he did not want to betroth her at all. Okay? So he says: “And one cannot say that therefore she is betrothed because he betroths her on condition that she waive it for him, and behold, she has waived it; rather, her waiver is no waiver. For it was taught in chapter 2 of Nazir: ‘I am hereby a Nazirite on condition that I may drink wine and become impure from the dead’ — he is a Nazirite and is forbidden in all of them, because he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah. And there this answer is inapplicable.” What is the suggestion? He says maybe he is making the condition with her — yes, I will indeed be obligated to her for food, clothing, and conjugal rights. I am not stipulating that I will not be obligated for those things. I want you to waive them for me. Not that I won’t be obligated to you. And this is connected to the sugya in our chapter, on page 51, which we’ll get to shortly. There is a difference between stipulating against the Torah and stipulating against the person. Here he stipulated against the Torah. He says: I want the act of betrothal not to generate the obligation of food, clothing, and conjugal rights. There is no such thing. The Torah said that betrothal includes food, clothing, and conjugal rights. Tosafot says: fine, maybe one could have explained that what he meant here was to betroth her, provided that she waives the food, clothing, and conjugal rights. And then what comes out? It comes out like this: he intended to betroth her in any event; he only demanded that she waive those rights. But she cannot waive them, because the Torah does not allow waiver there. It’s mandatory — what jurists call cogent law. Fine? There are things regarding which you cannot stipulate. The law obligates you. So perhaps that’s why the condition is void but the act stands. Tosafot says you can’t say such a thing. Why? Because there is a passage in Nazir that says exactly the same thing: “I am hereby a Nazirite on condition that I may drink wine and become impure from the dead.” Meaning, only the hair-cutting restriction applies to me; the other things don’t. That is exactly like betrothing on condition that there is no obligation of food, clothing, and conjugal rights. So that is stipulating against what is written in the Torah, and therefore his condition is void. Now there, with whom did he make a condition that they should waive impurity from the dead for him? There is no other side to this condition. Unlike betrothal, which is a contract between the husband and the wife, so he can say: with the woman — I didn’t want that I should not be obligated to her for food, clothing, and conjugal rights; I wanted her to waive it for me. But here, in Nazir, you don’t have someone standing opposite you who can waive ritual impurity from the dead for you. Because here you are standing opposite the Torah, not opposite another person. And there too they say that the condition is void but the act stands. So that means that the explanation of “the condition is void but the act stands” cannot be that I am really stipulating with the person and not with the Torah. Because even when one stipulates with the Torah, the condition is void and the act stands. Okay? So that is, apparently, a million-dollar question. I’ll just note: why does Tosafot preface his question with the doubling of the condition? Why did he need that groundwork in order to raise the question? No, I understand how he proves that there’s a doubling of the condition. I’m just asking why he needs that for the question.
[Speaker D] After all, stipulating against what is written in the Torah — his condition is void. Everybody agrees. Everybody agrees.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, right now we are assuming without talking about monetary matters. In principle, stipulating against what is written in the Torah — his condition is always void. Everybody agrees on that. נכון, with monetary matters there’s another dispute; that’s the next chapter in the series. But right now it’s without reference to monetary matters.
[Speaker D] And what’s the basis? The stipulation of the tribes of Gad and Reuven: “If you cross over, and if you do not cross over…” That’s part of what Moses our teacher—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’m not asking where we know that a condition has to be doubled from. I’m asking why Tosafot had to prove that we’re dealing here with a double condition in order to ask his question.
[Speaker D] If it wasn’t according to the laws of stipulations, then—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] then it’s void from the outset, it isn’t a condition. No, no, that’s Tosafot’s proof why we must say there was a double condition here. I’m asking why it was important for him to prove that. Not why there is a proof. I understand, but I’m asking why it matters for Tosafot’s question. It’s also a first principle that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That’s also true. But I don’t need that in order to ask this question. I’m asking why you need it to have been a doubling of the condition in order to ask the question. Right. Since Tosafot assumes that doubling the condition is what clarifies his intention. Meaning, if he doesn’t double the condition, then maybe he intended to betroth her even if there are food, clothing, and conjugal rights. In order to make sure that he really means to betroth her only if there won’t be food, clothing, and conjugal rights — but if there will be, he doesn’t want it — you need to double the condition. You need to say it:
[Speaker D] If there are food—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] clothing, and conjugal rights, you are not betrothed; and if there won’t be food, clothing, and conjugal rights, you are betrothed.
[Speaker D] And the moment you hear him— exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, Tosafot assumes you need—
[Speaker D] the doubling of the condition — that’s what the Torah says — that overall you hear him. But I’m saying again, it’s unrelated.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re answering the question we are not discussing. We are not discussing that question. We are discussing not why the Torah said it. We are discussing why Tosafot needed it for the purpose of his question. No, it’s not the same thing. It’s really not the same thing. According to Maimonides, for example, one could have asked this question without such a preface. Here’s the proof that it’s not the same thing. Because Maimonides understands — and we saw this, I mentioned it in the previous lecture — Maimonides understands that the doubling of the condition is not because his intention is unclear if he doesn’t double it. Maimonides says that if he says to her, “Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you have no claim upon me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights,” that would have been enough. I know that he does not want to betroth her if she has a claim upon him for food, clothing, and conjugal rights; he doesn’t need to say the other side in order to clarify his intention. Now if that’s so, then why do you need a double condition? Because we learn from the tribes of Gad and Reuven that one needs to double the condition — but that is not clarification of his intention; his intention is clear even without it. Now if that is so, then Tosafot did not need to preface the question with the doubling of the condition. According to Maimonides you could ask it immediately. Leave it — he did not double the condition, so it’s not valid according to Rabbi Meir. Still, after all, he did not intend to betroth her if she has a claim upon him for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, so how can it be that she is betrothed to him and has such a claim upon him? Tosafot, who prefaces it this way, apparently does not learn like Maimonides. Yes, he understands that the doubling is meant to clarify his intention — that without it, his intention is not clear. Yes, yes, I spoke about this in the previous lecture. Not at least as sufficient reasoning. Yes, we discussed this in the previous lecture, exactly this. There is a Kovetz Shiurim that proves from Maimonides that — but that’s just a side comment. Let’s go back to Tosafot. So basically Tosafot’s question is an excellent question. He did not intend to betroth her if she has a claim for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, so how can it be that she is betrothed despite the fact that he does owe her those things? Look at the wording of the Ritva — and this is the Ritva’s language: “Behold, she is betrothed and his condition is void. And if you say: since the condition is void, how is she betrothed? After all, he made the betrothal depend on this condition.” The same question as Tosafot. But look at the difference: “And further, indeed, according to Rabbi Meir, he said this in a double condition.”
[Speaker D] He excluded the betrothal if it wouldn’t be fulfilled.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.
[Speaker D] He excluded it — no, “you are not betrothed.” Yes, obviously.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so it’s the same question as Tosafot. But what’s the difference? The Ritva asks this question without needing the assumption that there was a double condition here. He says that even without doubling the condition, it’s difficult for me. And beyond that — not only that — he even doubled the condition. Meaning, then the difficulty is even stronger. But this difficulty exists even without his having doubled the condition. Because the Ritva is satisfied — or at least also going in the direction of Maimonides — and then he says: even without the doubling of the condition, I know he did not want to betroth her together with food, clothing, and conjugal rights, so it is difficult even without that. All the more so since he also doubled the condition; then certainly it’s difficult. But you see that according to the Ritva, the question does not require the assumption that he doubled the condition. The question exists even without it. Okay? Now the Ritva says as follows — and this is also Rabbenu Tam in Tosafot Yeshanim and Tosafot HaRosh there in Ketubot 56: “One can say that since one who stipulates against what is written in the Torah is merely speaking loosely.” What does that mean? What? Abba ben—
[Speaker D] Tabai?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. “Speaking loosely” is a principle in the Talmud, but connecting it to stipulating against what is written in the Torah is a separate discussion. The Ritva and Rabbenu Tam and Tosafot HaRosh argue: why is the condition void but the act stands when he stipulates against what is written in the Torah? Because someone who stipulates against what is written in the Torah is basically just speaking loosely. He didn’t really mean to make a condition. He didn’t mean to make a condition seriously. Okay?
[Speaker D] But didn’t Abba ben Tabai say: “Whoever stipulates at the outset something that cannot be fulfilled in the end is merely speaking extravagantly and mockingly”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s not connected to us, again.
[Speaker D] Of Abba ben Tabai?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s “speaking loosely.” No, no. The Talmud is speaking about someone who speaks loosely when he says things to her that are not—
[Speaker D] in his power to fulfill.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Will you go up to heaven? Right, but that’s a condition, that’s a different rule from the laws of conditions. I’m talking now about this rule that you’re not allowed to stipulate against what is written in the Torah. Now, only the medieval authorities (Rishonim) connect that to his just talking nonsense. The principle that if he’s talking nonsense then the condition is invalid is written in the Talmud, but it’s written regarding things that are not in his control. Will you go up to heaven—exactly. So that’s it. Right, but that condition is a different rule from the laws of conditions. I’m talking now about this rule that you’re not allowed to stipulate against what is written in the Torah. Now, only the medieval authorities (Rishonim) connect that to his just talking nonsense. The principle that if he’s talking nonsense there is no valid condition is written in the Talmud. But that is written regarding things that are not in his control, things that depend on heaven. Exactly. So we already talked about that in the previous class. But that’s only what the medieval authorities (Rishonim) say; it’s not in the Talmud. That if he stipulates against what is written in the Torah, why is the condition void while the act remains valid? Because it’s like he’s just talking nonsense. Meaning, if he tells her, listen, I want something that goes against the Torah, he didn’t seriously intend to make that condition. So what’s really the answer? Not true—he didn’t really mean that he doesn’t want to betroth her if he owes her food, clothing, and conjugal rights. Even if he owes her food, clothing, and conjugal rights, he’s willing to betroth her. So why did he say it? Just empty chatter. Talking nonsense, I don’t know exactly what. Notice—even when he doubled the condition, that’s going even further. The man doubled the condition. He says: you are betrothed to me if I don’t owe you food, clothing, and conjugal rights, and if I do owe you food, clothing, and conjugal rights, then you are not betrothed. And despite that I say: no, he didn’t mean it seriously. He intended to betroth her in any case. Yes, that’s
[Speaker E] like talking nonsense.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s strange, because he made a double condition. He said: if I owe you food, clothing, and conjugal rights, I don’t want the betrothal. And we claim to know his true intent, and we say: no, no, he said it but he didn’t mean it. That’s forced, you understand? It’s forced. I don’t know, but it’s forced. How can you say he didn’t mean it? He doubled the condition. What? No, but the Ritva said, and moreover, even if he doubled the condition. The Ritva asked both questions. No, yes, the fact is that he says all the more so, he even doubled the condition, and that strengthens the difficulty. According to Maimonides that doesn’t strengthen the difficulty. Meaning, the Ritva asks both questions, and at least in the second formulation, what he answers is very forced. The man doubled the condition and you still don’t take it seriously? What, unexpressed thoughts don’t count—that’s what he said. Why are you telling me stories about what he intended? This whole thing is strange. Fine, when he says to her, go up to heaven—when he says go up to heaven, then obviously he’s just talking nonsense. But when he says to her, on condition that I do not owe you food, clothing, and conjugal rights, he said: I want you to waive this for me, or if the Torah isn’t here then I don’t want to give you food, clothing, and conjugal rights. Maybe it’s impossible, maybe it’s possible, but that is what he means. Don’t tell me he didn’t mean it. No, there it’s not some mystical reasoning; there it’s simple reasoning. Yes, yes, simple reasoning, not mysticism, there isn’t a trace of mysticism here. Simple reasoning. Because a person wants to fulfill the commandments. You see a God-fearing person who wants to fulfill all the commandments, and suddenly now he won’t give his wife a bill of divorce even though the religious court told him, according to the Torah you are obligated to give her a bill of divorce. What does that mean? That apparently his inclination overcame him, and therefore even though he fundamentally wants to comply—as proven by the fact that all his life he observes Jewish law.
[Speaker D] We compel him until he says, “I want to.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, so about that he says: no, no, here I don’t want to. Obviously he’s entered some kind of fixation because he’s angry at her. Right, that’s the implication. The implication is that if there is a person who, at the level of principle, does not observe Jewish law, then the rule of compulsion won’t apply—you can’t compel him to give a bill of divorce. In my opinion, you can’t. I wrote articles about this and many things. This is the story of the turkey prince; I connected it to Rabbi Nachman’s story of the turkey prince. That’s my claim, not everyone agrees. On the contrary, most don’t agree—they want to compel a bill of divorce even today. Usually that’s the accepted understanding. I think that’s incorrect. In any event, that’s what the Ritva said; that’s what Rabbenu Tam says, Tosafot Rosh and others. I said, this is very difficult. At the end of the day the man said the opposite, so why are you telling him, no, no, you didn’t mean it—I’m telling you what I meant. Beyond that, Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman in Kovetz Shiurim on Ketubot, section 167, says: And Rabbenu Tam answered that it is like talking nonsense. Yes, as we saw in the Ritva. And that is difficult, because regarding “on condition that you eat pork,” in Gittin 84 Abaye and Rava dispute whether that counts as talking nonsense. Yes, is that like going up to heaven? Eating pork she can do, it’s just forbidden. Is that like making a condition that she go up to heaven? So there is a dispute between Abaye and Rava. Fine? And the Talmud asks there: let it suffice that he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah. Why do you need to get to the point that it is like talking nonsense? Let it suffice that he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah. Same thing, no? After all, according to the Ritva and Rabbenu Tam, stipulating against what is written in the Torah and talking nonsense are synonymous—they’re the same thing. So why does the Talmud say, why are you talking to me in terms of talking nonsense? No, it’s because he stipulated against what is written in the Torah. But stipulating against what is written in the Torah is talking nonsense. Meaning, says Rabbi Elchanan, you see from the Talmud that talking nonsense and stipulating against what is written in the Torah are not the same thing. Okay? Fine, you can push that off with difficulty—you can say that talking nonsense in the case of going up to heaven is not the same thing as stipulating against what is written in the Torah, because stipulating against what is written in the Torah is not necessarily talking nonsense; you need a further novelty to say that even someone who stipulates against what is written in the Torah is also considered to be talking nonsense. Yes, whereas going up to heaven is obviously so. Fine, maybe. But it’s forced. At the end of the day, the Ritva and Rabbenu Tam and that whole approach are forced. And if so, if we do not accept that view, the question of all the medieval authorities (Rishonim) comes back: then why is the condition void and the act valid? How can you tell a person… this woman is betrothed to you even though he really does not want that at all. He does not want to betroth her if she has a claim on him for food, clothing, and conjugal rights. So on this, later in Tosafot there in Ketubot, he brings Ri, and Ri says as follows. And Ri says: Were it not that we derive from the condition of the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuven, I would have thought that no condition ever nullifies the act, and even if it is not fulfilled, in the end the act remains valid. And now that we derive from there that a condition is effective to nullify the act, we say that this is only when he is not stipulating against what is written in the Torah, similar to the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuven, who did not stipulate against what is written in the Torah. What does that mean?
[Speaker J] The novelty is that the condition actually nullifies the act? No—the act remains and the condition disappears, and here the novelty is that even though the act remains
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the condition also remains, and once there is no novelty, then the act stays valid and only the condition is nullified. But let’s take this step by step. First of all, let’s go back for a moment to the question I raised at the beginning of the class. What is the novelty we learned from the passage of the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuven? Is the novelty the very possibility of making a condition? Or is that just obvious by reason, and the novelty is that you need the formal laws of conditions? How do you understand Ri’s words? How did he understand it? What? That without the condition, the condition won’t help. Right, clearly Ri learned like the first possibility. That the condition of the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuven comes to teach us the very possibility of making conditions. Meaning, if the Torah had not included the passage of the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuven, we would think that a condition cannot work. Right? That’s what he writes. He says: Were it not that we derive from the condition of the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuven, I would have thought that no condition nullifies the act, and even if it is not fulfilled, in the end the act remains valid. Meaning, the mechanism of a condition is itself the novelty of the passage of the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuven. Without that passage, we would not think a condition could work. As I said earlier, whether because of the weakness of the acquisition or because of backward causality in time, whatever it may be. Okay? That’s what Ri assumes. What does that mean now? Now the Torah comes and teaches me that there is such a thing as a condition. That yes, you can make conditions regarding legal effect. A novelty of the Torah. But the Torah says—and there are also the formal laws of conditions—that this novelty only exists if you formulate the condition according to those laws. Why? Because without the Torah’s novelty—yes, sorry, without the Torah—you can’t have speech come and nullify an act. After all, I performed an act of betrothal or divorce. Now the verbal condition wants to uproot the act that I performed. It can’t. Speech cannot come and nullify an act. The Torah’s novelty is that speech, if it is done according to the formal laws of conditions, can uproot an act. Right? That’s the Torah’s novelty. What happens if I spoke not according to the formal laws of conditions, after the Torah’s novelty? Then the speech will not succeed in uprooting the act. And then what happens? The act basically remains valid, and the speech—since my intent was to uproot the act—but I didn’t formulate the speech properly, and speech not made according to the formal laws of conditions is not included in the Torah’s novelty that it can uproot acts, then we are left with the usual rule that speech cannot come and nullify an act. And then basically it goes like this—look, it’s a bit subtle. He is basically saying: in practice the Torah says to me, look, it would be impossible—meaning without the Torah, sorry—it would be impossible to make conditions. Why would it be impossible to make conditions? Because you cannot uproot an act that has already occurred. Meaning, you cannot create a qualified legal effect such that if this happens yes, and if this doesn’t happen then no. But, says the Torah, I have a novelty for you. In a very specific way, you actually can do this. How? If you intend and do it in such-and-such a way, then I will apply the legal effect in any case, whether the condition is fulfilled or not. But if the condition is not fulfilled, I want to uproot what I did. Not that the legal effect will not take hold if the condition is not fulfilled; rather, if the condition is not fulfilled, I want to uproot what I did. What I did exists in any case. But if the condition is not fulfilled, I want to uproot it. The Torah says: you can do this if you formulate the condition according to the formal laws of conditions. Only then. But notice, if you do it that way, then this is not the ordinary conception of a condition. This is Ri’s novelty. Usually, how do we understand the mechanism of a condition? We basically say this is what’s called “it becomes revealed retroactively.” Yes, meaning, on the side that she did not fulfill the condition—that she drank wine or whatever—then I never really intended to betroth her at all. So she was never betrothed in the first place; it was just a facade. Not really.
[Speaker D] Like in a vow before a sage or a husband, it’s
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll still get to vows. Good analogy. We’ll get to vows in a moment because it’s similar. So the claim is that basically, what happens usually when I understand a condition—for example, if I divorce a woman on condition that she not drink wine for a month. Fine? So the usual assumption says: if she drank wine during the month, then it turns out that I never intended to divorce her. So she was never divorced in the first place. And if she did not drink the wine, then it turns out that she is divorced. Meaning, the future condition does not uproot what happened. It only reveals whether it happened or not. Right? That is what is called “it became revealed retroactively.” Meaning, it was revealed retroactively whether she was divorced or not divorced. Ri says: no, that is not the correct understanding of a condition. The understanding of a condition is that the act took effect in any case, whether she drinks wine or not. Only if next to it I said a proper formula of condition, a standard formula of condition, did I create—and if you saw Rabbi Shlomo Fischer, he formulates there all the destructive forces and goblins and spirits running around there—he says I created a mechanism such that if she drinks wine during the month, the act will be uprooted retroactively. A cause later in time affecting something prior to it. A tremendous novelty of the Torah, that a later cause can bring about an earlier effect. Not reveal that it was never there—to uproot it. It existed in any case; I just uproot the matter. Okay? That is Ri’s assumption. What happens now? Fine, so now I want to betroth a woman on condition that I do not owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights. Since I want a certain legal effect to apply only if there are no food, clothing, and conjugal rights, but if there are, I don’t want it, I must go through the route the Torah laid out. Only that way can it be done. Right? I don’t want to betroth her if I owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights. But I know that I cannot accomplish that unless I go through the route the Torah laid out. What is that route? The route tells me: look, whether you want it or don’t want it, that doesn’t interest me. You have to betroth her in any case, whether there are food, clothing, and conjugal rights or not, and make a condition in such a formulation that if you did it in the proper way, then if you do owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights it will uproot the betrothal that you performed. Not that it will clarify that you never did it; it will uproot it. But what can we do—I did not make the condition according to the formal laws of conditions. I stipulated against what is written in the Torah; that is not according to the formal laws of conditions. If so, it turns out that the mechanism that is supposed to uproot the legal effect already created does not exist—it does not exist. So what remains? The betrothal takes effect in any case, whether there are or are not food, clothing, and conjugal rights, and as for the fact that if there are food, clothing, and conjugal rights it should be uprooted—the mechanism that does that was never created. And therefore the condition is void and the act remains valid. That is what Ri says. The novelty underlying these innocent words of Ri is enormous. You do not correctly understand the mechanism of a condition. If the mechanism of a condition were “it became revealed retroactively,” then we would not need the Torah’s novelty in order to be able to make conditions. After all, it’s obvious: on that side I never intended to betroth the woman. So why should she be betrothed? Do I need a novelty of the Torah for that? If I didn’t intend it, she isn’t my wife. Therefore Ri says: no, you need the Torah’s novelty to teach me the very possibility of making a condition. Why? Because a condition does not operate by way of “it became revealed retroactively.” It operates through a mechanism that Rabbi Shimon Shkop calls “from now on, retroactively.” It is a causal mechanism. The future uproots the past; it does not reveal that the past was never there, it uproots it. What? Right, that’s retrospective and not retroactive. Correct. And then, as opposed to prospective, let’s say, which is a condition “if,” where from the moment the condition is fulfilled the legal effect takes hold. When I speak about a condition “from now,” a condition “on condition that,” it is either retroactive or retrospective. Retroactive is basically “it became revealed retroactively,” in legal terminology. And retrospective is “from now on, retroactively.” In a moment I’ll define that more. But this is basically what Ri is claiming. If so, the question doesn’t arise, why is the condition void and the act valid. Obviously the act is valid, because I intended it to take effect in any case. I only wanted to create alongside it a mechanism such that if the condition is not fulfilled, it will uproot it. I failed to create that mechanism because I did not formulate the condition correctly. And if so, the Torah’s novelty was not activated here—that there is a mechanism that can reach backward and uproot what happened.
[Speaker E] The future acts on the past.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but all that is only if I created the mechanism. How do you create the mechanism? By stipulating according to the rules the Torah established, the formal laws of conditions. When I did not stipulate according to the formal laws of conditions, that mechanism was not created. So what happened? I applied the legal effect in any case, whether I owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights or whether I do not owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights, and alongside that I created a mechanism that would uproot it—but the mechanism I did not create. So we are left with the fact that she is betrothed to me and there are food, clothing, and conjugal rights. That is the claim. And now we need to understand: this is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), because the Ritva and Rabbenu Tam and Tosafot Rosh, who do not follow Ri, instead say: no, obviously he’s just talking nonsense. He didn’t mean it. What are they really saying? If… if he really did mean that he does not want betrothal together with food, clothing, and conjugal rights, then she would not be betrothed. They disagree with Ri on the basic conceptual point. So why is the condition void and the act valid? Because he didn’t really mean it. That’s all. If he had meant it, it could not work. And suppose he really said before two witnesses: I mean it, I do not want to betroth her if there are food, clothing, and conjugal rights—not just the formula of the condition; he said before two witnesses: don’t tell me I’m just talking nonsense, I’m not, I mean it seriously. What should the law be according to Rabbenu Tam and the Ritva? That she is not betrothed at all—that the act is void. Yes, after all the condition cannot take effect because it is not according to the formal laws of conditions, but the act itself would be void. And according to Ri, in such a case the act remains valid and the condition is void. Okay? And this is a legal dispute. It is not just a question of how to explain the fact that the condition is void and the act valid when he stipulates against what is written in the Torah; there is a legal dispute here. If the reason
[Speaker D] is intention, then from that it cannot be
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that she be betrothed. It cannot be that she becomes his wife if he doesn’t want her; he never intended to betroth her at all. Therefore, according to Tosafot Rid, the Ritva, and Rabbenu Tam, the Torah did not innovate the formal laws of conditions, or the very possibility of a condition. I understand on my own that if he did not intend to betroth her, she will not be betrothed. Do I need the Torah for that? Exactly. As you said, their claim is that the condition is only an expression of intent, and therefore if I properly express the intent, the condition would work even without the Torah’s language. The Torah imposed requirements for how exactly I express my intention in the clearest and most precise way—only that way do you express your intention. But fundamentally, once I’ve expressed my intention, that’s what should happen; that is not the Torah’s novelty. According to Ri, it is not like that. Because they understand a condition as disclosure retroactively,
[Speaker D] right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But Ri says no, it is not like that. Had the Torah not existed, I would not have thought at all that one could make conditions. I would have thought: what do you mean, you can’t make conditions; either you want to betroth or you don’t want to betroth—you can’t make conditions. And the Torah innovated that you can, but you have to apply the act in any case and create a mechanism that uproots it if the condition is not fulfilled. And then if you do not—and the Torah’s novelty is the very possibility of making a condition, not the formal laws of conditions as the Ritva and Rabbenu Tam say. It’s just that this novelty, that one can make a condition, is itself dependent on having stipulated according to the formal laws of conditions. And if you didn’t stipulate according to the formal laws of conditions, you failed to create the mechanism that will uproot the act you performed. Again? I can’t hear.
[Speaker B] Yes. Also the Ritva on Sunday—there over there, right? On Sunday it was revealed that it’s an absolute relation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Are you talking about a condition “if”? That the divorce would take effect only after she doesn’t drink wine? What? Then if she drinks wine, the divorce that was effected is uprooted retroactively. It took effect on Thursday, I don’t know what day you’re on, and if she drank wine that will uproot the betrothal that you effected—the divorce, I mean. Yes. The “from now on” is a cause that acts upon the retroactive side; it is not mere disclosure retroactively. In disclosure retroactively there is no causal relation between non-fulfillment of the condition and the uprooting of the act. Once the condition was not fulfilled, the act was never there in the first place. You just didn’t know it, but in truth it wasn’t there. Okay? That is basically Ri’s claim. Exactly. Until Sunday she really is a married woman, and on Sunday, once it becomes clear that the condition was not fulfilled, it is uprooted retroactively and she becomes retroactively not a married woman. But not that it becomes revealed that she was never a married woman. She was, and it changes backward. Right, exactly. There is here—the source of this mechanism—in selection, apparently, it’s disclosure, not “from now on, retroactively,” and that is probably the difference between a condition and selection. But that’s in Gittin 25, there is Rashi and Nachmanides and others—I may get to that later. Where does this strange mechanism come from? Maybe I’ll give an example first. There was a very interesting Jew named Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen. There was—he died in the early 20th century, I think, something like that. Yes, ancestor of Yonatan Gefen, Aviv Gefen and all that crowd, Uzi Dayan, the whole Dayan clan. And he was a Jew who grew up in what we’d call a Haredi home, in Russia, and from a young age he was interested in philosophy and science and all kinds of things like that. And he wrote an interesting diary—anyway, a very unusual Jew. And he has a book published by Mossad HaRav Kook called “The Dimensions of Prophecy and Earth-Science.” Earth-science means geology. Yes, that’s early-20th-century Hebrew. It’s a collection of three essays. “Prophecy,” for example, is about the mystical nature of mathematics, I think—or the mathematical nature of prophecy. It was published in a Russian mathematical journal, an article on prophecy. But his Hebrew is very hard to understand. I tried to read it, and his Hebrew is like—what is this letter heh—there are concepts there I just couldn’t figure out what they mean. Anyway, in the geology essay, in the chapter on geology—what matters for us is that he says in “Dimensions,” people already talk about him there, and when he talks about dimensions, that’s the first essay, “Dimensions”; “Prophecy” is what I mentioned, and “Earth-science”—those are the three essays. What are “Dimensions”? So he claims there is the philosophical problem—the Kabbalistic-philosophical one—of the transcendent versus the immanent, right? How do you conceive of the Holy One, blessed be He? Is He surrounding all worlds, or filling all worlds? Is He basically at an infinite distance from us, or is He actually within reality everywhere? Okay, that’s transcendent versus immanent. What? Indwelling? Yes, indwelling—the question is whether that’s me. So that’s the debate; there is an interpretive argument here. Philosophically this is called transcendent versus immanent. Okay, so he basically claims there is no contradiction between those two conceptions, Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen. He says: imagine this as a difference between dimensions. Okay? Suppose the Holy One, blessed be He, exists in four dimensions and we live in a world of three dimensions. Okay, so what does that mean? That the Holy One, blessed be He, is around us, so to speak, but also within us. It’s not that we occupy some portion—some part of the four dimensions that is us and not Him. No, right? Just as a line within an area does not take up any part of the area—it’s not that the line has some existence outside the area, but on the other hand it takes up no space from the area. Meaning, contraction is not to be taken literally, right? Even though I am not the Holy One, blessed be He, this resolves the contradiction. Or, if I am the Holy One, blessed be He, then contraction is not literal—there is no contraction, everything is the Holy One, blessed be He. If contraction is literal, then I exist and the Holy One, blessed be He, is something else; I am not Him. Then contraction is literal: He contracted and I am here. He claims no, contraction is not literal and nevertheless I am not the Holy One, blessed be He. Why? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, lives in four dimensions, metaphorically, and I live in three dimensions, so He does not need to contract in order to allow me to exist. The three dimensions take up no part whatsoever of the four. Think of an area—it takes up no place from the volume, right? Or a line doesn’t take up from an area, or a point from a line, and so on. Therefore he says the problem is really an illusory one. That is in the essay on dimensions. “Prophecy” is the mathematics of prophecy, and “Earth-science” is the essay where he discusses—this is what concerns us—he says that Kant basically claims that space and time are categories that do not really exist in reality itself, but are forms through which we view reality. We arrange the phenomena we observe in terms of space and time. This is above, this is to the right, this is to the left, this came before, this came after, there’s a difference of two hours, three hours, a month. But all that is only our way of organizing the phenomena of reality. Space and time are not things that exist in reality itself—so Kant argued. Transcendental concepts or something like that. What?
[Speaker D] As we perceive them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, only in our perception of the world, not in the world itself. Subjective? Yes. Meaning, say some other kind of creature that does not think in terms of space and time—it would not see the world in terms of this before that, that after this, this to the right, that to the left; it would organize phenomena differently. Meaning, space and time are just our mode of thought and perception, that’s all; they are not in reality itself. That is Kant’s claim. There are proofs that in Jewish law things are not viewed that way, but that is what Kant claimed. Now Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen says: according to this, then there is no problem about the age of the world, the world’s antiquity, all the questions that always trouble Torah and science. Why? Because if tradition says that the world has existed, say, almost six thousand years, and science says it has existed fourteen billion years—okay, but the claim is that before there was a human being, there was no time, because time is only a human form of perception. So basically, you can count the age of the world only from the moment there was a human being, or such a human-like being who already thinks in terms of space and time—the question in the evolutionary process is what counts as human—but such a being who thinks in terms of space and time, that is when the count begins. Before that there could have been whatever you want, but there is no age, because time does not yet exist. Time is born only with the human being. Therefore he says there is no contradiction between the scientific assertion that it has existed for fourteen billion years and the tradition that humanity has existed for six thousand years.
[Speaker D] The laws of nature, law and time, He gave them so they would not change their role.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, the question is what that means. He gave them—does that mean He actually created real time that exists, or that He gave them a mode of conduct that we perceive as time? Yes. But what’s the problem there? The problem there is this. According to his view, I cannot ask, for example, how many years before me my grandfather was born. Because before I existed, my time axis did not yet exist, since the time axis is only my way of perceiving reality. That’s not plausible. Why not? Because when I exist today with my concepts of time, I can use them to look at the past as well. It’s true that before I existed there was no time—at least my time did not yet exist. But once I exist, when I look backward I can definitely count, or mark intervals on the time axis—when my grandfather was born, when his father was born, when my father was born, and when I was born. Meaning, I am equipped with these glasses of time only from now on, but I can use them to observe things that happened in the past. And now there is no problem at all speaking of the question how old the world is. And if the world is fourteen billion years old, that’s perfectly fine even though the human being was created only six thousand years ago. So this is actually a good illustration of the concept “from now on, retroactively.” Time truly did not exist earlier. But once time exists, I also look at the earlier period in terms of time. So similarly I say: a woman, let’s say, “from now on, retroactively”—a woman is divorced on condition that she not drink wine. Fine? Now suppose she did drink wine. If she drank wine, then until the point at which she drank wine she truly was divorced. But the moment she drank wine I now have new glasses. I look now also at the past, and now from my perspective she was never divorced at all. But not that it was revealed to me that she had never been divorced. The truth is that she was divorced until that stage. And after she drank wine, the past reality changed. Yes—Stalin’s dream, to rewrite history. That is exactly what we are doing here. We are rewriting history, not discovering what it really was. No, it was not like that. It now becomes like that even with respect to events in the past. Yes, people say there—I don’t remember if it’s about rewriting history; there it’s only about
[Speaker I] Big Brother, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that is basically the meaning of “from now on, retroactively.” Now I want to sharpen this a bit more so we can see the implications of the matter. In Shaarei Yosher, and also in Rav Shmuel’s lectures in Makkot—Rozovsky, he was a student of Rabbi Shimon Shkop. Yes. And basically there is a principle that he calls—the language is his—“from now on, retroactively,” in the lectures on Makkot, section 420, in Rav Shmuel. He says as follows: In the law of annulment of vows through inquiry before a sage, the sage’s annulment is not a matter of clarifying the issue and telling the questioner that the vow had already been void retroactively; rather, his annulment causes the permission itself. And when I go to a sage who annuls the vow for me—now usually when the sage annuls the vow he finds an opening or regret, right? There are disputes there, whether you need both an opening and regret. Yes. So what is that supposedly? That’s “it became revealed retroactively.” Meaning, once the sage said: with that in mind you never intended to vow—basically that means there never was a vow; I just lived in error. But the sage reveals to me that there never was a vow. That is the mechanism of disclosure retroactively. Rav Shmuel says: no. The annulment is not clarifying that there was never a vow, rather the annulment causes the permission itself. There is a causal mechanism here. Once the sage annuls it, that causes the vow to be uprooted retroactively. Not that he reveals that the vow had never existed. What is the simplest proof of that? That if I go to someone who is not a sage and it becomes clear to me that in fact with that in mind I did not mean to vow—if the reality is that truly this is not a vow, what difference does it make whether he is a sage or not? After all, the reality is that I never vowed in the first place; I just didn’t know it and now I know it. Obviously, if I specifically need a sage and not anyone else, I need to go to a court to do it or a sage to do it, that means some action with legal significance is taking place here. He uproots the vow; he does not reveal to you that the vow never existed. He uproots it. Okay? So that means there is some kind of causal act here by virtue of which the vow is uprooted. It is not that he reveals to you the reality that there was never a vow.
[Speaker D] In the sight of the eyes of the leper.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly! In the sight of the eyes of the priest. Exactly! Only the priest can do it. Even though in reality, what’s the problem? Anyone knowledgeable can show me that yes, this is truly a leprous spot. It won’t help. Until the priest says so, it is not leprosy. Meaning, the priest does not have only a clarifying role. He has a constitutive role; he has a creative role. Yes, I had an example for this. I once sat on a panel that annulled the betrothal of a certain couple. Yes. The rabbinate messed them around, and we sat on a panel then and annulled several such cases. So we annulled the betrothal. What did I say? I said this was a case of two foolish 18-year-olds who decided to get married; they didn’t really think it through properly. They did the whole ceremony, everything. That night, when she was waiting for him at the hotel, he never showed up. And after a few days—what? Okay, so the claim is basically that in such a situation she never truly consented to the betrothal at all, because she did not receive the package deal, did not receive the relationship for the sake of which she consents to betrothal. He didn’t show up at all; the relationship never began. And then indeed I spoke here with Rabbi Stern, Rabbi Avi Stern, and indeed in our discussion it came up—and I think it’s correct—that this action is not an action of a religious court at all. The truth is, she did not consent. If she did not consent, there is no betrothal. I merely told her that. There is no need here for some authorized court or anything like that. If the truth is that she did not consent, then there is no betrothal here. I simply told her that the truth is she did not consent. That’s all. Because she did not get the package deal, so obviously she did not consent. I merely clarified the facts. I do not need to be a priest, or a sage, or an authorized religious court, or anything. I simply need to be like a decisor—not a court, but a halakhic teacher. I am simply telling her that she was never betrothed. She didn’t know it; now I’m telling her. I did not perform a legal act that uprooted the betrothal. I merely revealed to her that they never existed. Okay? So in that sense, this is exactly what Rabbi Shimon Shkop says: in annulment of vows by a sage, it is not like that. In annulment of vows by a sage, even though it looks the same, the sage basically tells the person, with that in mind you clearly never intended to vow, therefore in essence the vow does not exist. But it is not that he reveals to him that the vow had never existed; rather, the sage’s annulment uproots the vow that was vowed then. Until I reached the sage, the vow was valid even though I did not intend it, because lack of intention is not enough for the vow not to exist. Lack of intention is only sufficient grounds for the sage to uproot the vow, but without that the vow still exists. Then he says, as the Rosh explained in the chapter “One who vows against cooked food,” the words of the Jerusalem Talmud. And this is his language. In Nedarim, the Talmud in the chapter “One who vows against cooked food,” Nedarim 50, I think, something like that—the Talmud brings there, you know there is a thing called “an item that has a means of becoming permitted.” What is that? A prohibition whose time is fixed, so there are certain stringencies about it. For example, if it is a rabbinic prohibition, then its doubt is not treated leniently but stringently. If it is nullified in a majority, then if it is something that has a means of becoming permitted, it is not nullified in a majority. And what is the reasoning? Say it’s the prohibition of muktzeh. Muktzeh is prohibited until after the Sabbath. After the Sabbath it is already permitted. Suppose the muktzeh fell into a majority of permitted food. Am I allowed to eat it? Usually there is nullification in majority, right? But here the Talmud says no. Why not? Wait until after the Sabbath and eat it permissibly. Why do I need some special dispensation—let’s be lenient because it’s nullified in majority? No need. What’s the pressure? Wait until after the Sabbath: instead of eating it in a prohibited state, eat it permissibly. Therefore they do not allow various leniencies—if there’s doubt, you may not be lenient; in nullification, it is not nullified, and so on. The Talmud in Nedarim says that a vow, too, is an item that has a means of becoming permitted. And if something that you prohibited to yourself by vow falls into a majority of permitted food, you may not eat the mixture. It’s an item that has a means of becoming permitted. The Jerusalem Talmud asks about this—this is the quote the Rosh brings here; yes, Rav Shmuel brings the Rosh in Nedarim: And as for vows, do you treat them as an item that has a means of becoming permitted, or not? It seems that we treat them as an item that has a means of becoming permitted. Why should we treat them that way? It was taught there: a sage uproots the vow from its root. When you go to him for annulment of the vow, the sage uproots the vow from its root. So it cannot be something that has a means of becoming permitted. An item that has a means of becoming permitted is something prohibited until a certain time, and from that time onward it becomes permitted. But if you went to a sage, then it turns out that it was never prohibited in the first place. It is not that it is prohibited until a certain time and from then on becomes permitted. He uproots the vow from its root. So how can you call that an item that has a means of becoming permitted? So says the Jerusalem Talmud. The Rosh explains, explaining the idea of the Jerusalem Talmud: That is to say, since he uproots it from its root, it emerges that it was never prohibited at all, and it is not like an item that has a means of becoming permitted. Fine? That is what the Jerusalem Talmud says. They said—the continuation of the Jerusalem Talmud—so that is the difficulty. Why do you say it is an item that has a means of becoming permitted? They said: He uproots it only from now on. Wait, from now on? It doesn’t say retroactively. But on the other hand, the Jerusalem Talmud itself says at the beginning, as a simple assumption, that a vow is always uprooted retroactively. That’s in the Talmudim, it’s obvious. So what does “from now on” mean? Make up your mind—is it retroactive or from now on? So he says: that is to say—Rav Shmuel or Rabbi Shimon explains—that the main uprooting, the uprooting itself, is from now on, for it was prohibited until now. And even though he uproots it from the outset, nevertheless it was prohibited until today. Therefore it is considered an item that has a means of becoming permitted. End quote.
[Speaker L] Because what he said is that a sage’s annulment is what permits it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly. So what does that really mean? In practice, it means the vow was prohibited until I reached the sage, even though I did not intend to vow, because after all he found an opening afterward. Until I reached the sage it was prohibited. The moment I reached the sage, it was uprooted from now on, retroactively. From now on the uprooting happens, but once it happens it happens retroactively. Remember Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen? Once I have the glasses of time, I can look also at the past through the glasses of time. Until I had those glasses, there was no time. But once I put on those glasses, I can look backward, and now when I also see the back, I see it in terms of time. So that is from now on, retroactively. The way I view a certain point in past time changes. When I was at that point, the vow was valid. And when I look at that same point itself, but through later glasses, the vow is void. Okay? He nullifies the vow backward. And the great novelty here sharpens very much what I said earlier: were it not for the Torah’s novelty that one can make a condition, I would think it impossible to make conditions at all. Why? Because this is causality operating backward in time. So it would be impossible. What does the Torah come to teach? That even though this is causality operating backward in time—yes, it can be done. Meaning there is backward causality in time; that is the Torah’s novelty. And this is also the Torah’s novelty in annulment of vows exactly as with conditions. The Torah teaches that even though this is not “it became revealed retroactively,” it is uprooting retroactively. So I would think that is impossible; the Torah teaches in annulment of vows and in conditions that if you do it according to the rules, then yes, it is possible. What is possible? Uprooting retroactively. Not disclosure retroactively. If it were disclosure retroactively, I would not need the Torah—that is obvious by reason. If it is disclosure retroactively, then I didn’t intend it, and therefore there is no vow, no act, nothing. Was the condition
[Speaker C] in the world also after the time?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you go to war, then you will receive the inheritance.
[Speaker C] If you go to war I’ll give it to you, and if not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I talked about that
[Speaker C] in the first class.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It can be understood in two ways. It can be understood that when they go out to war, that’s a condition “if.” After they go out to war, after they have gone out to war, they will receive that inheritance, and then it’s a condition “if.” But according to the plain meaning of the verses themselves, you can see that it is a condition “on condition that.” A condition from now. Because he gave them the inheritance now. It says there, “And Moses gave them” the inheritance there on the other side of the Jordan. Meaning, the condition was made when the inheritance was already given from now. “If every armed man crosses over to war and the land is conquered, then you shall give them the land…”
[Speaker D] which is seemingly
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a condition “if.”
[Speaker D] But look at what comes next.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Go on, go on, keep reading further, further, further.
[Speaker D] And we will go ahead as the vanguard. Further, quickly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And Moses gave them”
[Speaker D] “to the children of”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Gad.
[Speaker D] Aha.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does “and he gave” mean? He’s giving it now. So it’s not when they cross over; it’s now.
[Speaker D] Right, so it’s a condition of “on condition that.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even though the wording sounds like: if you cross, you’ll receive it now. Even though the wording sounds like “if you cross, you’ll receive it,” still, right afterward it says that Moses our teacher gives it to them. Yes. Meaning that apparently this is a condition of “on condition that.” It’s a condition that takes effect from now; it’s not an “if” condition. Right? In the wording it looks like an “if” condition. But that’s difficult. I already noted this in the first lecture. Because according to Maimonides, with a condition of “on condition that” you don’t need the formal rules of conditions. And if we learned all the formal rules of conditions from the condition of the children of Gad and the children of Reuben, and that was a condition of “on condition that,” then why were the formal rules of conditions needed there? It could be that what’s written there works like this. After all, even with an “if” condition—as you saw, Rav Shlomo Fischer speaks precisely about this—even with an “if” condition, I’m giving it now. The act that I perform happens now, right? I give the bill of divorce now and say to her: if you do not drink wine, the divorce bill will be effective retroactively from now. But I’m giving the divorce bill now. So his legal power has already ended. The act was already done now. So the mechanism of condition solves the problem of his legal power having ended, with all its demons and spirits. Fine? So what does that really mean? That Moses our teacher performed the act now; he gave them the land now. But it’s still an “if” condition. Because the act is done now, but the legal effect will apply only after they cross the Jordan. In the meantime you’ll live there; meanwhile it’s only lent to you, it isn’t yours. After you cross the Jordan, it will be finalized. But already now it’s considered yours. And then it’s an “if” condition. According to Maimonides, you have to say that. Because according to Maimonides, if it were a condition of “on condition that,” there would be no need for the formal rules of conditions at all. A dispute between Maimonides and Tosafot. So I already noted this in the first lecture.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, here we see the mechanism of “from now on, retroactively.” And then it comes out like this: according to the Ritva and Rabbeinu Tam, the mechanism of condition is a mechanism that reveals the matter retroactively. And then you don’t need the Torah’s novelty in order to understand that conditions work. So what do you need the Torah’s novelty for? The Torah defines for us how you express your intentions in the clearest and most unambiguous way: the condition before the act, yes before no, a doubled condition, something that is in one’s power to fulfill, stipulating against what is written in the Torah, something that can be done through an agent—all those things. Okay? But those are the Torah’s innovations, not the very fact that one can make a condition. That is obvious, because it reveals the matter retroactively: if I didn’t intend it, then it can’t take effect. Rabbi Isaac introduces a novel idea that the mechanism is what Rav Shmuel and Rav Shimon define here. The mechanism of condition is like a vow, like the Rosh says about a vow. It’s “from now on, retroactively”; it is not merely revealing the matter retroactively. And if so, then what we really have here is a mechanism of backward causality in time, or of legal power having ended in an “if” condition, and the Torah itself is what innovates the very possibility of such a condition. Without the Torah, I would never have imagined that one can make a condition, because this is legal power having ended, backward causality, everything we said. That’s what Rabbi Isaac says. On this point he disagrees with Rabbeinu Tam and with the Ritva. And if it’s revealing the matter retroactively—sorry, “from now on, retroactively”—then obviously the future event causally generates the result in the past. It doesn’t reveal what was in the past; it creates what was in the past, backward in time. And therefore, if you didn’t do it properly, what was in the past remains as it was until now, and nothing changes, because you didn’t create the mechanism of condition that would do this. That’s Rabbi Isaac’s view. In his subtext, Rabbi Isaac is really innovating that the mechanism of condition is not “revealing the matter retroactively” but rather “from now on, retroactively.” That is Rabbi Isaac’s novelty. From this point onward, everything else just rolls out naturally. Okay?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And indeed, as I said before, the Ritva and Rabbeinu Tam are forced. Rabbi Isaac’s view looks like a terribly strange novelty. But in truth, from the standpoint of the Talmud, that is the straightforward side. The Ritva and Rabbeinu Tam are difficult, because this stretches things too far—even in the Talmud itself; the Kovetz Shiurim raises objections against them. The Talmud doesn’t sound like that. And in reality too, it just doesn’t sound that way. So that’s the point.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now here I bring another passage from Rav Shimon Shkop, but I’ll already do it from his booklet on conditions. Okay? I’m also uploading this summary to the site, so you’ll be able to see it there. In the booklet on conditions, at the end of his novellae on Gittin—there is a final section called “Booklet on Conditions” by Rav Shimon Shkop, yes, in the novellae of Rabbi Shimon Yehuda HaKohen on Gittin. Now there he opens the booklet with a collection of strange examples. For example, there is the view of the Savoraic rabbis. Right? What happens if a man gives his wife a bill of divorce and makes the divorce conditional on her not drinking wine all her life? Right? If she drinks wine at any point in her life, the divorce is void retroactively. Fine? Now, she drank. Seemingly the divorce is void, right? But she drank it after the husband died. So the Savoraic rabbis say: the divorce is not void. Not void. The divorce is not void. It remains valid. A condition always has to be stated together with the act. A condition can never be stated afterward; after that the act is already finalized.
[Speaker D] The act comes before the condition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m saying: “the condition before the act” is about the formulation. I already discussed that in the first lecture. Obviously you can’t state the condition after you’ve already done the act. Once you’ve done the act, it’s finalized. I can’t sell you a field and then a week later say, you know, I’m selling you the field only if you don’t drink wine. No—once you sold the field, it’s gone, it’s already your field. Obviously you have to say it at the time of sale. Fine? So the Savoraic rabbis say that the condition does not void the divorce, even though she drank wine. Rav Shimon Shkop asks: why? After all, if indeed the moment she drank wine it became clear retroactively that he had never intended to divorce her at all, then it became clear that she was never divorced. So what difference does it make that she drank it after the husband died? It became clear retroactively that she was never divorced, and if the husband died, then now she is a widow. Yes, the practical difference between whether she is a widow or a divorcée is whether she is permitted to a High Priest or to an ordinary priest.
[Speaker D] No, to a High Priest.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, a High Priest is forbidden both a widow and a divorcée. And also a divorcée to an ordinary priest. Right. Therefore the question is whether she is permitted to an ordinary priest. To a High Priest she is forbidden whether she is a widow or a divorcée. Okay; to an ordinary priest she is forbidden only if she is a divorcée, not if she is a widow. Exactly—that’s where I’m heading. Ah, I understand. Yes, but Rav Shimon Shkop asks: what do you mean? If she drank wine, then it became clear retroactively that on that basis he had not intended to divorce her, so she is not divorced. What difference does it make that she did this after the husband’s death? The condition set the time as all her life. The husband’s death is irrelevant. Yes, if the condition—if she did it after the period set by the condition, then obviously it doesn’t matter. But no, she violated the condition. So what difference does it make?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rav Shimon Shkop says it’s obvious that according to the Savoraic rabbis, a condition cannot operate as merely revealing the matter retroactively. And there are two long responsa by Rabbi Akiva Eiger, in the responsa of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, on this matter, on these Savoraic rabbis; that was one of the first study groups I gave in the yeshiva. Right. So Rav Shimon Shkop’s claim is that from here it is proven that according to the Savoraic rabbis, a condition does not operate in the form of revealing the matter retroactively. If it were revealing the matter retroactively, what difference would it make that the husband died? It would have become clear that she was never divorced. No. But if you say that it is “from now on, retroactively,” then after the husband dies she is no longer a married woman. You can’t divorce widows. Right. There is no divorce after death, thank you very much. “There is no divorce after death” means that you assume that the drinking of wine is what performs the act of divorce, and that happens after death. But with “revealing the matter retroactively,” that isn’t the case; that is only the case with “from now on, retroactively.” Because with “from now on, retroactively” I understand that the future action causally produces the divorce, but now it can no longer produce a divorce—she is no longer his wife; he is dead. So only if you understand it as “from now on, retroactively” can you understand the Savoraic rabbis. If it were “revealing the matter retroactively,” what difference would it make that he has already died? It would have become clear that she was never divorced.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, another example: say a person violated a vow. Fine? Suppose someone vowed not to eat bread, and he violated the vow. On Monday he made the vow; on Tuesday he violated the vow. On Wednesday he went to a sage to have the vow dissolved. Now the sage dissolved the vow retroactively, right? So it comes out that on Tuesday you can’t flog him, because if he goes to a sage on Wednesday then in fact he never violated the vow at all, so why are you flogging him? But according to “from now on, retroactively,” on Tuesday you can flog him. Yes, and if on Wednesday he goes to a sage, nothing happened. Meaning: if you didn’t flog him on Tuesday and the court sits on Thursday, then you already won’t be able to flog him, because after the sage dissolved it, it became clear that already on Tuesday when he ate, it was no longer a vow. But that is only from the perspective of Thursday. Fine? The discourse already—
[Speaker G] Works post facto.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly, that’s rewriting history. Actually rewriting history. Fine? Here’s another example. Maimonides—here Maimonides is strange. Maimonides says in chapter 9 of the Laws of Divorce: what happens if a man made the divorce conditional—he gave a woman a bill of divorce—on his not coming to her place within twelve months, so as not to leave her an abandoned wife. If I don’t come, then you are divorced and free within twelve months. Now he dies after three months—he dies. Is she permitted to marry now? Maimonides says no; she has to wait until the twelve months pass.
[Speaker D] But he can’t come anyway.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He can’t come. After all, he divorced her from now if he doesn’t come, and now you already know he won’t come—look, he died. So why shouldn’t she be able to marry? What’s the problem? She’s divorced. How can Maimonides say that she has to wait until the twelve months pass? Rav Shimon Shkop says: if this is “from now on, retroactively” then—
[Speaker D] If it’s “from now on, retroactively,”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] then he has to not come for twelve months, and when he doesn’t come for twelve months, that will uproot the marriage or effect the divorce. As long as the thing that effects the divorce has not happened, she is not divorced. True, after it happens she will already be divorced from the beginning, but it has to happen, since fulfillment of the condition is what causally generates the divorce. It does not merely clarify that there was a divorce. If it merely clarifies that there was a divorce, then I know he is not going to come, and I know there was a divorce. So “revealing the matter retroactively” does not explain Maimonides. You have to say that it is “from now on, retroactively.” It’s a wonderful idea.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now he says: look, the Maggid Mishneh there has some nice words about our master, about our master’s great intellect, or something like that. He explains this issue there, because this Maimonides really looks very strange. There is the view of Ba’al Ha’Ittur. What happens if a person made a condition “from now,” as an “on condition that” condition, and he wants to retract the divorce before the condition is fulfilled? Say he divorces the woman on condition that she not drink wine for a month. After a week he wants to regret it. Fine? No, I’ve decided not to divorce you. Can he do that? So Ba’al Ha’Ittur says that he can. Now why? After all, if she does not drink wine, then it becomes clear that she was already divorced from a month earlier. How can you, after a divorce, suddenly a week later retract? Suppose you give a woman a bill of divorce, and after a week I say, “Oh, sorry, I retract, I don’t want the divorce bill.” You gave her the divorce bill—that’s it, you completed the legal act; meaning, she is no longer your wife. Again, what do we see? That fulfillment of the condition is what generates the divorce, and as long as the condition has not been fulfilled, even though if it is fulfilled it will take effect retroactively, still, as long as the condition has not been fulfilled, she is not really divorced and you can retract. No—if it were merely “revealing the matter retroactively,” he could not retract. Because if it were merely “revealing the matter retroactively,” then the moment she drank wine, it would be revealed that she had already been divorced. And how can you retract after she is already divorced? Right? Therefore it is clear that this is not “revealing the matter retroactively” but rather “from now on, retroactively.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a responsum of the Rashba, 607. What happens if someone betroths a woman on a condition of “from now”? Betroths her. Can he divorce the woman before the condition has been fulfilled? After all, if the condition is fulfilled, then she is betrothed retroactively. So what’s the problem? He divorces her now. If the condition is fulfilled and it turns out that she is betrothed, then now he has already divorced her.
[Speaker D] Is she betrothed now or not now?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but if the condition is fulfilled, then she is betrothed retroactively, so even now she is already betrothed.
[Speaker D] And we don’t know whether it will be fulfilled…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, wait and see. If the condition is fulfilled, then it is fulfilled, and then she is betrothed and now I divorced her. The Rashba says no, impossible. Why not? Because if the condition is fulfilled, only then does she become betrothed retroactively. You can’t divorce her before she is betrothed, even though if the condition is fulfilled the betrothal will apply retroactively. But it will apply retroactively from then, and before she has become betrothed at all, you can’t divorce her. Something not yet in existence. Fine? Yes, even though it applies retroactively. Again, proof that this is not “revealing the matter retroactively.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Rosh, in a responsum, says: what happens if I divorced a woman conditionally, and I want to cancel—not the divorce, we discussed that above—I want to cancel the condition. To leave the divorce in place without the condition. Now if the condition were only “revealing the matter retroactively,” it would make no sense to cancel the condition, because once she violated the condition or did not violate the condition, then retroactively it became clear that that was the situation. What does it mean to cancel the condition? There’s nothing here to cancel. Because the condition only reveals whether you wanted it or didn’t want it. That’s all. You wanted it or didn’t want it then. So how can you now cancel the condition? The question is what you wanted then, not what you want now. Only if you say that this is “from now on, retroactively” can you cancel the condition. Why? Because the condition does not merely reveal; the condition acts. As long as the condition has not yet acted, I can cancel it—it depends on me. I can cancel it and not need it, and then the act will take effect without the qualification of the condition. Okay? Okay, let’s stop here, because the philosophical continuations will come in the next lecture. We’ve only just begun the philosophy.