Tractate Shabbat, Chapter One – Lesson 50
This transcription 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
- Planning the series on electricity on the Sabbath
- A field still taking shape, the role of reasoning, and the gap between layperson and expert
- Halakhic intuition, “supportive midrash,” and the need for a halakhic mechanism
- Legislative authority versus interpretation, and weekday-like activity as a “catch-all clause”
- Interdisciplinarity, Professor Lev, and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach
- The Chazon Ish versus Me’orei Ha’esh and the response in the scholarly world
- The possibility of a “new primary category of labor” and the Maharam’s approach in Tosafot
- Igrot Moshe: “it is fitting to prohibit,” a Sabbath timer, and the prohibition of instructing a non-Jew
- Mapping the approaches: kindling, building, the final hammer blow, and generating current
- Generating: Beit Yitzhak and Rabbi Chaim Ozer, and the move to the topic in Beitzah 23
- Beitzah 23: incense, extinguishing and kindling, and generating fragrance
- Rashi’s interpretation, a dispute with Professor Lev, and the conceptual implications for electricity
- Closing note: Mishnah Ta’anit 4:6
Summary
General Overview
The text lays out a plan to devote four sessions to the question of electricity on the Sabbath, on the view that this is a practical and still-developing halakhic field that requires applying Sabbath principles to a new reality, along with familiarity with additional categories of labor and with the ways halakhic decisors think. It describes how intuitions, conceptual reasoning, and perceptions of reality—including the gap between a layperson’s perspective and an expert’s perspective—shape halakhic rulings, sometimes without unequivocal proofs. It emphasizes that halakhic decisors tend to begin from the feeling that “obviously this ought to be prohibited” and only afterward look for an existing halakhic mechanism to anchor that conclusion, and it presents a line of thought according to which the Chazon Ish’s approach under “building” seems to him the most plausible despite the common resistance to it. Later, he begins a chronological survey of the various approaches to prohibition and enters the law of “generating” through the topic in Beitzah 23, including a reading of the Talmudic text and a discussion of the tension between “adding” and “creating,” and of the question of “generating fragrance” as a basis for comparison to “generating current.”
Planning the series on electricity on the Sabbath
The lecturer says that four sessions remain and designates them for the question of electricity on the Sabbath, while keeping one topic for the final assignment and for the last meeting. He presents electricity on the Sabbath as a practical question that depends on the foundations of the laws of Sabbath and, beyond that, on applying halakhic principles to a new and changing reality. He notes that the discussion will also let them move beyond the narrow focus on the labor of carrying and become acquainted with other categories of labor such as building, demolishing, kindling, extinguishing, the final hammer blow, and various rabbinic prohibitions, as well as with the ways rulings move from sources to practice.
A field still taking shape, the role of reasoning, and the gap between layperson and expert
The lecturer argues that electricity on the Sabbath is a field still “taking shape,” and therefore conceptual arguments can completely change the practical halakhic picture, unlike in established areas with clearer proofs. He raises the question of how to decide between the perspective of “the person on the street” and that of the expert, and illustrates this with a story about a federal law in the United States concerning the transfer of power through electrical cables and the gap between a physical description (Poynting’s theorem) and the legislator’s intent. He gives additional examples of a similar gap, such as worms in fruit that are not visible to the naked eye, and a discussion about whether glass is a liquid or a solid and the possible implications for the Sabbath. He distinguishes between cases in which the expert is mistaken or missing something, and cases in which Jewish law simply is not interested in the scientific description even if it is correct.
Halakhic intuition, “supportive midrash,” and the need for a halakhic mechanism
The lecturer attributes to Rabbi Soloveitchik the claim that there is not a single halakhic answer that simply “comes out of the sources”; rather, there is an earlier target and the sources are then recruited afterward. He presents this as a legitimate interpretive tool rather than intellectual dishonesty. He compares this to the topic of saving a life in Yoma, where it is “obvious” that saving a life overrides the Sabbath and they then go looking for a source, and to the example of “the fruit of a beautiful tree,” where everyone already knows that it means an etrog and the exposition functions as a “supportive midrash” rather than a “creative midrash.” He emphasizes that a starting point of “it just doesn’t fit” is not a sufficient halakhic mechanism, and therefore even when the initial feeling is to prohibit electricity on the Sabbath, halakhic decisors still search for an existing category such as kindling, building, generating current, or the final hammer blow.
Legislative authority versus interpretation, and weekday-like activity as a “catch-all clause”
The lecturer states that the Sanhedrin can institute new rabbinic prohibitions by force of “do not turn aside,” but post-Talmudic decisors are not a legislative institution and cannot simply “invent prohibitions”; they can only interpret existing Jewish law and anchor themselves in an authoritative source. He notes that on the Sabbath there is a partial exception in the considerations of “weekday-like activity” and “the character of the Sabbath” as a kind of catch-all clause, with a source in Isaiah and in the law of shevut. He illustrates this with the discussion of riding bicycles on the Sabbath and the possibility that what counts as weekday-like activity may change from one era to another. He presents questions from the digital world, such as a Passover Seder on Zoom, joining a prayer quorum on Zoom, and hearing the shofar through Zoom, as illustrations of how conceptual reasoning and perceptions of reality can decide the issue one way or the other, and may even turn out to be disputes of intuition over what counts as a “place” or a “site.”
Interdisciplinarity, Professor Lev, and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach
The lecturer describes electricity on the Sabbath as a field requiring dual expertise in engineering/physics and in Jewish law, and therefore very few people are actually able to read and critique technical books in the field. He says that he was asked to read and comment on “Ma’arkhei Lev on Electricity on the Sabbath,” and explains how gaps in translation between professional facts and halakhic interpretation can distort rulings, because the professional does not always understand what is relevant to the halakhic decisor, and the decisor does not always know what is missing. He argues that a large part of modern ruling in this area rests on a small number of figures, and he describes his own experience as an encounter with the almost out-of-nowhere “creation of Jewish law,” where a dispute over a foundational conceptual argument can flip conclusions from Torah-level prohibitions to rabbinic ones and vice versa.
The Chazon Ish versus Me’orei Ha’esh and the response in the scholarly world
The lecturer presents the Chazon Ish’s position prohibiting electricity because of “building” as the thesis that seems most plausible to him, even though many see it as strange, and he says he will later try to defend its halakhic logic. He brings an anecdote about Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach: in the first edition of Me’orei Ha’esh he devoted a chapter to explaining why electricity is not “building,” but removed it after people in the study hall mocked it. Later the Chazon Ish published his thesis, and a fascinating exchange of letters then took place between Rabbi Shlomo Zalman and the Chazon Ish, reproduced in Me’orei Ha’esh. He notes that Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport first pointed him to the logic in the Chazon Ish’s words.
The possibility of a “new primary category of labor” and the Maharam’s approach in Tosafot
The lecturer returns to the discussion of the principles by which the list of the thirty-nine primary categories of labor is constructed, and presents three conceptions: the Tabernacle determines it; the Tabernacle together with importance determines it; or importance alone, as emerges from the Maharam on Tosafot. He raises the possibility that electricity could be considered a new primary category of labor because of its importance in our generation, together with a suggestion to replace one labor from the list, such as winnowing/selecting/sifting, which the Talmud notes are similar. He notes, however, that halakhic decisors do not go in this direction. He mentions a statement of the Chazon Ish that the determining reality is that of “two thousand years of Torah,” describes this as an unsupported invention meant to serve as a brake on change, and emphasizes that even a proposal to revise the classification of the categories of labor could be understood by him as interpretation of “you shall not do any labor” rather than legislation.
Igrot Moshe: “it is fitting to prohibit,” a Sabbath timer, and the prohibition of instructing a non-Jew
The lecturer cites a passage from Igrot Moshe about using a time switch to activate labors on the Sabbath, where it is argued that one must not permit this because it would make it possible to perform labor in all the factories and would lead to great disrespect for the Sabbath, and that “it is obvious that if this had existed in the time of the Tannaim and Amoraim they would have prohibited it.” He emphasizes that Igrot Moshe still needs an existing halakhic mechanism, and suggests including it under the prohibition of instructing a non-Jew, while explaining the dispute over the rationale for that prohibition between “and speak no word” and rabbinic agency, and the implications for giving such instructions on the eve of the Sabbath. He uses this to illustrate the principle that intuition is not enough without a binding source, even when the feeling is that “it just doesn’t fit.”
Mapping the approaches: kindling, building, the final hammer blow, and generating current
The lecturer presents the four central approaches discussed by halakhic decisors: kindling, building, the final hammer blow, and generating current, and clarifies that kindling/building/the final hammer blow are Torah-level categories of labor, while generating current is rabbinic. He emphasizes the need to examine the legal definitions of each labor in relation to electrical reality, as well as the question of symmetry between turning something on and turning it off, and the possibility of asymmetry—for example, extinguishing that requires “in order to make charcoal,” and labor not needed for its own sake. He lays out a chronological order for the survey: generating (Beit Yitzhak), then kindling, then the final hammer blow and building (the Chazon Ish).
Generating: Beit Yitzhak and Rabbi Chaim Ozer, and the move to the topic in Beitzah 23
The lecturer quotes Beit Yitzhak, which links closing an electrical circuit to the prohibition of “generating,” similar to “generating fragrance,” and also adds the prohibition of “making a sound” with regard to a telephone. He notes that this is said in passing, but that the real issue is whether the conceptual reasoning is correct. He cites Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, who states simply that turning electricity on and off involves “kindling and extinguishing,” and adds that in his view on a Jewish holiday there is also “generating,” because “combining forces generates force.” He brings a critique that electrical power is “ready and waiting” already at the power station, so there is no generating here, and he connects the dispute to the discussion of “generating fragrance” in Beitzah.
Beitzah 23: incense, extinguishing and kindling, and generating fragrance
The lecturer reads the Mishnah and Talmudic text in Beitzah 23 and emphasizes that the dispute about incense on a Jewish holiday concerns the question of the permission for food-related activity, not the very existence of a prohibition on the Sabbath. He presents the stages of the topic, in which the prohibition is first explained as “extinguishing” and “kindling” by placing something on coals, and only afterward appears Rava’s addition prohibiting it even on earthenware “because he is generating fragrance.” He cites the prohibition against passing a cup of spices over silk garments because of generating fragrance, and the Talmud’s challenge from the permission to rub myrtle, and the answer distinguishing between “he is merely adding fragrance” and “he is creating fragrance.”
Rashi’s interpretation, a dispute with Professor Lev, and the conceptual implications for electricity
The lecturer quotes Rashi on “as if he creates fragrance that entered the earthenware when it had no fragrance before… for one who creates a new thing is close to one who does a new labor,” and presents Professor Lev’s claim that the prohibition focuses on perfuming an existing object rather than on creating fragrance as such. He disputes that reading and argues that the Talmud itself implies that the distinction between adding to an existing fragrance and creating a new fragrance could have created a prohibition even in the case of myrtle had it not already possessed a smell, and that one should understand the prohibition as applying both to creating fragrance and to turning an object into a “perfumed” object as a new reality. He parallels this to the idea he had earlier presented about the labors of the Sabbath as shaping reality through arrangement and attachment, and concludes that the discussion of generating is the opening point for the continuation of the series.
Closing note: Mishnah Ta’anit 4:6
The text quotes a Mishnah in tractate Ta’anit, chapter 4, mishnah 6, about “five things happened to our ancestors on the seventeenth of Tammuz,” listing the breaking of the tablets, the cessation of the daily offering, the breaching of the city, the burning of the Torah by Apostomus, and the placing of an idol in the Sanctuary. It attributes the breaking of the tablets to Moses’ descent from Mount Sinai and his seeing the calf, the cessation of the daily offering to the days of siege when lambs could not be found, and the breaching of the city to the destruction of the Second Temple. It describes the burning of the Torah and the placing of the idol as acts of desecration of God’s name, and says these events should be remembered and that one should pray for the rebuilding of Jerusalem speedily.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What I wrote for you at the beginning of the page—the topics that come later are basically more of the same, and so I thought maybe this would be an opportunity. What I had wanted to do in the in-person meeting that was scheduled for today was to begin a series, like we did regarding saving a life, to begin a series on electricity on the Sabbath. And there’s one topic that appears later on here that I’m still saving for the final assignment, so that will also occupy us in the last meeting, our final session. So in what remains to us, there are basically four sessions, and I wanted to devote them to the question of electricity on the Sabbath. There are several benefits or added values to discussing this topic. On the one hand it’s a practical question, but its solution obviously relates to the foundations of the laws of Sabbath, and even more than that, to the application of halakhic principles to a new reality, to a changing reality. And in the course of these lessons we’ll also be able to get acquainted—since in the first chapter of Tractate Shabbat we dealt almost exclusively with the labor of carrying—here we’ll have an opportunity to touch a bit on other labors too: building, demolishing, kindling, extinguishing, the final hammer blow, and various rabbinic prohibitions, and to get somewhat acquainted with the ways halakhic decisors think—how this whole business works, how decisions are made from the sources to practical action. Basically, the claim about this topic of electricity on the Sabbath is that it’s an unusual opportunity to get to know a halakhic field that hasn’t yet been fully built, because usually when we study a halakhic topic these are ancient matters—they’re already built up, there are already orderly approaches, there isn’t much for us to do in that context other than make local decisions. This field is one that is still taking shape—granted, it’s been doing so for quite a while—but it’s still taking shape, and a field in formation is a completely different adventure from other halakhic study. As we’ll see a bit even in our own learning, but anyone who goes into it will see this even more, all kinds of conceptual arguments that we might raise as one possibility or another in learning certain topics can completely change the practical halakhic picture here. A person can come and suggest some line of reasoning—seems to me this kind of electrical circuit is different from that kind of electrical circuit—and boom, the whole story changes, we move from here to there, things that people think are prohibited turn out to be permitted and vice versa. In other words, the whole reality is basically shaped out of various conceptual arguments, some of which are our own—we can say them or not say them—but there aren’t really any very clear proofs here. Fields that are already built up also, I assume, went through this process, but they went through it long ago, when Tannaim, Amoraim, or medieval authorities (Rishonim) raised the arguments and consolidated the field. Today we receive a consolidated field, a built field. This field is one in whose consolidation we can actually take part, watch how it gets consolidated, and in that sense it’s almost like going back into the laboratory of the Sages and the medieval authorities (Rishonim) when they were shaping the classic halakhic topics. How does such a topic take shape? How do you arrive at practical guidance? And suddenly we discover that all kinds of arguments that if someone raised them today on, I don’t know, selecting on the Sabbath, or eating pork, or something like that, nobody would pay any attention—“just because we compare, should we act?” In other words, you invent this idea or that idea—here that’s happening at every step. This whole field is built on a collection of such arguments by halakhic decisors; some of them you could see, say, in Professor Lev’s article and elsewhere—and we’ll talk about that too. So this is also an opportunity to see how Jewish law takes shape, as it were to go back one or two thousand years and see how a halakhic field develops and gets formed into the Shulchan Arukh—in other words, how it becomes a set of practical instructions of permitted and forbidden, hiding behind them a whole process of principles and thoughts and conceptual arguments and distinctions and perceptions of reality, of course—not only halakhic perceptions but perceptions of reality too. And here that’s very, very complicated in the context of electricity, because it’s more a matter for professionals, for experts, and laypeople don’t really grasp how the thing actually works. And that itself raises a question that maybe we’ll get to later: which perspective is the determining one? The perspective of the layperson, the person on the street, how he sees things, or the perspective of the professional, the scientist, the engineer, whatever. These are completely different perspectives. And we’ll see that this has implications. Maybe I’ll give an example that I’ll come back to later. When I was doing my bachelor’s degree, I studied engineering—electrical engineering at Tel Aviv University. And we had a lecturer there named Professor Frankenthal. He taught us electromagnetic fields, and it was considered maybe the heaviest course in the engineering bachelor’s program. And he told us a story there: in the United States there was a federal law saying that if State A transfers something to State C through State B in between, they have to pay State B for the mediation. Okay? But that’s only if it passes through wires or pipes. If it’s something that passes through the air, you don’t have to pay. That was the law. Now, State A transmitted electrical cables to State C through State B. State B sued them to pay according to the law. So one of the defendant states, A or C, brought in an expert in electromagnetic fields to explain that there’s something called Poynting’s theorem. That theorem says that power is actually transmitted not inside the wire, but around it, in the electromagnetic field surrounding the wire. So in fact it goes through the air. And if it goes through the air, you don’t have to pay. Now if an expert comes and tells you something like that, what is the judge supposed to do? Fine, it goes through the air, so apparently you really don’t need to pay. But anyone familiar with the—can you hear me?
[Speaker B] He can tell him: take your wires out of the ground if it goes through the air. In other words, the depth of the—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —matter understands that Poynting’s theorem does not mean that the power goes through the air. Poynting’s theorem means that there are two equivalent ways of describing the transfer of power. You can describe it via the current flowing in the wire, and you can describe it via the electromagnetic field moving through the air around the wire. These are two equivalent descriptions. There’s no right or wrong here. You can choose this description or that one. And so we move back from physics to the legal plane. The question is what the legislator intended, not what “really” happens in the physical world. And what the legislator intended, as Ruti said earlier, is obvious: if you need wires in order to transmit it, then you have to pay. I don’t care if you have fancy ways of describing it as going around the wire—then take the wires away. In the end, it’s clear that legally speaking, you need to pay here. But it’s a wonderful example of the difference between a scientific perspective and a legal perspective, or the perspective of laypeople—which could be the one that determines things in law and in Jewish law, and not the perspective of the professional, the scientist. What? The reasonable person?
[Speaker C] I think that’s what’s called a reasonable person and not a professional.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so there one could argue—it’s not so simple—but there are certainly arguments that say what determines things is the perspective of the person on the street. I don’t care what goes on inside the electrical circuits, what scientific description exists for it, and who says our description is even correct? It may be that later on our understanding will be updated and it will turn out that science didn’t really understand it properly at this stage. So who says the professional scientific perspective is the important one for making halakhic decisions at all? But I do intend to return to that question too, if we manage.
[Speaker C] Are there precedents for this—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —in other areas of Jewish law?
[Speaker C] Are there precedents for this in other laws too, where we say it doesn’t matter what’s really going on there, what matters is what the person on the street says?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, certainly, and in many other places too, though there will be the same debate there as well. You can argue in all sorts of discussions, like what happens with worms in fruit—worms that you can’t actually see with the naked eye. It’s not exactly the same question, but a similar one. Basically you can say, wait a second, who says science determines that there are worms there? I don’t see them with my own eyes, so as far as I’m concerned there are no worms. There are lots of such claims by halakhic decisors. Or, I don’t know, once someone approached me when I was sitting in the Chazon Ish kollel every weekend to learn a bit of Kodashim—we were covering some Kodashim. So someone who knew me approached me; he knew I was studying physics at Bar-Ilan, and he had been one year below me in the yeshiva high school. In other words, by then he was already a Haredi kollel student—he had become Haredi—but he knew me and knew I dealt with physics. He says to me: tell me, I heard physicists say that glass is a liquid and not a solid. Is that true? So I told him: depends for what purpose. If you’re talking about heating it on the Sabbath, it’s a solid. If you’re talking in terms of the physical conception of the solid state, then yes, there are perspectives according to which glass is a liquid, because it has a disordered crystalline structure, like a liquid. Solids have an ordered crystalline structure. Okay? But who says that scientific perspective is the one that matters? Here I don’t think anyone would imagine saying that you can heat it, or that you’re forbidden to heat it, on the Sabbath because it’s a liquid. So that’s not the point. Again, it’s an example of how the scientific perspective is not necessarily the one that determines things for Jewish law, or for law, or for whatever else. The way the ordinary householder sees the situation—that may be what is supposed to determine the Jewish law. Okay, I’m just—this is all in parentheses, I’ll still—
[Speaker C] Maybe there’s an example from what we learned about medicine? I mean, there’s the doctors’ opinion, but even if the person himself says—or the woman giving birth says—that she needs something, even against the doctors’ opinion, then we still desecrate the Sabbath.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but there the question is whether that’s really the same principle or whether we’re dealing with a different principle. Because “the heart knows the bitterness of its soul”—that’s the principle there. Some would explain that if a person feels internally that he needs something, then he knows something the doctors don’t know—not because the doctors are right but their professional perspective doesn’t interest me, but because they’re simply missing something, since there are subjective elements in medicine too, and the doctors can’t always know what can really help me or hurt me, and sometimes a person understands himself better than the expert. And that’s a completely different perspective.
[Speaker C] And it’s also a case of saving a life, so it’s not relevant either.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m saying, beyond that—even aside from the question of saving a life, the underlying principle isn’t necessarily that the professional perspective doesn’t interest me, but that the professional perspective is really not the correct perspective. I’m talking about a situation where the professional perspective is correct, but Jewish law is simply not interested in that perspective. So that’s something else. Okay? So that’s the motivation for why it’s interesting to deal with this topic of electricity on the Sabbath. Now, as you can probably tell—certainly if you saw, say, the overview on Wikipedia—you’ll see that the initial intuition of the halakhic decisors is that this should be prohibited. That’s obvious. Everyone starts from the point that obviously it should be prohibited. Now let’s think about why. That itself is an interesting point. Rabbi Soloveitchik says—or writes; I heard it quoted in his name—that there isn’t a single halakhic answer that came out of the sources. You always know in advance what you want, and afterward you recruit the sources to prove what, in your view, is the correct halakhic outcome. That’s a bit exaggerated, but there’s a lot of truth in it. And it’s not because halakhic decisors do whatever they want, but because they trust their intuition—that the intuition really does hit the truth—and then the sources come afterward only to back it up. And in that sense I’m saying the same thing in the context of electricity on the Sabbath. It’s pretty clear that the halakhic decisors, by and large, first of all say: obviously this should be prohibited. Now let’s see under which heading we can hang it. In other words, from where are we going to derive this prohibition. But they don’t really take the permissive possibility seriously. In the end, there on Wikipedia you could also find decisors who permitted, or said it’s only rabbinic, or whatever, such and such definitions. But it’s always a situation where, if a decisor is intellectually honest, his initial intuition tells him it ought to be prohibited. After that, though, he looks for sources. He doesn’t find them. There aren’t any. So what is he supposed to do now? If he’s an honest person, he says: fine, with all due respect to my intuition, I can’t invent prohibitions. If I haven’t found a prohibition by virtue of which this is prohibited, then it isn’t prohibited—it’s permitted. So despite his initial intuition, it may be that he’ll permit it. But the initial intuition does matter, because if there are sources that are even somewhat questionable or open to several interpretations, and my initial intuition is to prohibit, then I’ll choose the interpretation that leads to the intuitive conclusion. And that’s fine, that’s legitimate, not intellectual dishonesty. Intuition is an interpretive tool, and therefore I can absolutely use it to choose one interpretation from among several possibilities. So the existence of an initial intuition obviously doesn’t disqualify anything; it’s part of the game of halakhic ruling. Maybe I’ll remind you of the example we saw in the previous topic about saving a life. We saw there in the topic in Yoma that several opinions of Tannaim are brought, and then also that of Shmuel the Amora, asking from where we know that saving a life overrides the Sabbath. It’s obvious that they didn’t come to this tabula rasa. That saving a life overrides the Sabbath is obvious. We’re only looking for the source. Why is it obvious? Either from reasoning, or tradition, or whatever it may be—but very often we come with some prior conception, whatever its source, and afterward we look for a source that can anchor it. So they bring a whole series of expositions, some of which look really quite doubtful, and therefore it’s pretty clear that nobody seriously entertained the idea that “the fruit of a beautiful tree” means a clementine. Everyone knew it was an etrog. Now we come to look for some source, but it was clear that it was an etrog. There, I assume it’s not intuition but tradition, but it was clear that it was an etrog. And in academic jargon we call that a supportive midrash, as opposed to a creative midrash. A supportive midrash means that the Jewish law is basically already known and I’m looking for expositions to anchor it, as opposed to a creative midrash in which I’m actually generating Jewish law on the basis of an exposition that I now decide to derive. That’s a new law, not a known law that I’m supporting by expositions I’m looking for. So in our context too, it seems that the explanations are more supportive than creative. In other words, the halakhic decisors basically assume that this ought to be prohibited. Now they’re looking: okay, what halakhic mechanism can we hang it on? Now in this context that’s very important, because if, for example, I manage to find some convincing explanation for the prohibition of electricity on the Sabbath, it could be that those very decisors who permit would accept it more easily than if I merely managed to persuade someone. True, maybe I could persuade someone he was wrong. But here, since I think that even in their case the intuition was that it should be prohibited—except that they simply didn’t find such an interpretive possibility that could show it to be kindling, building, generating, whatever—therefore they were forced to say it is permitted. If I can show them that there is at least a possible interpretation, even if not a necessary one, according to which this is included under, say, kindling or building, then it is entirely reasonable that they will go back and say, they too, that the thing is prohibited. Now in my opinion there is such an interpretation. I intend to get to it later, not today, and I think it is the interpretation of the Chazon Ish. What seems the strangest and least accepted among the halakhic decisors, in my opinion is actually the most plausible interpretation for the prohibition of electricity on the Sabbath. But I’ll argue that later on. First I want to survey the existing interpretations and why people don’t like the Chazon Ish’s interpretation, why it seems implausible to them. So what I want to do is basically survey the general approaches—where the halakhic decisors derived the prohibition of electricity from—and survey them critically. In the end we’ll arrive at the Chazon Ish’s position of building, and try to explain why there is in fact halakhic logic there, despite the fact that on the face of it, it really does seem very strange. You know, in the book Me’orei Ha’esh by Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, which is considered perhaps the main source on electricity on the Sabbath—Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach—he grew up in early twentieth-century Jerusalem, and even studied under Rabbi Kook; Rabbi Kook even officiated at his wedding. And he wrote the book Me’orei Ha’esh, in which he discusses electricity on the Sabbath. His conclusion was that it is prohibited because of kindling. But in the first edition, as his son Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach reports, he devoted a chapter to explaining why it is not prohibited under building. But when he got to the kollel, the fellows burst out laughing. Why didn’t you also devote a chapter to explain why it’s not prohibited because of trapping? Or because of, I don’t know, spinning? Or I don’t know, all sorts of things like that, or eating pork? What does that even have to do with building? So since they looked down on it so much, he decided to omit that chapter. To say: listen, this opinion, that it’s prohibited under building, is so far-fetched that there’s no point devoting a chapter to refuting it. Then a few years later, the Chazon Ish came out with his thesis that the whole business is prohibited under building, and then there was a fascinating exchange of letters between Rabbi Shlomo Zalman and the Chazon Ish exactly on this issue, and it’s brought in the book Me’orei Ha’esh. And there’s a lot there—we’ll get into it a bit, because it really is a wonderful exchange of letters. And I’m on the side of the Chazon Ish, even though almost everyone is on the side of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman. Actually, the one who first awakened me to this was Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport. He was the first to draw my attention to the logic in the Chazon Ish’s words, but we’ll encounter that later. Okay, so maybe one more comment—the introductions here are part of the lesson, so I allow myself to be lengthy. As I said before, the starting point of the halakhic decisors seems to be that it is fitting to prohibit; permitting it was not even considered; it just doesn’t fit. But a starting point is not a halakhic consideration. Therefore… therefore they all do not suffice with this starting point, but immediately after they say it—even if they write it, like Igrot Moshe, which I pointed you to, does—they still need to arrive at existing categories in Jewish law. The fact that it doesn’t even occur to you to permit it is not yet a halakhic mechanism that allows you to prohibit things.
[Speaker C] And what about saying that it’s weekday-like activity, or that it’s—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll get to that in a moment. In principle, I’m first of all saying that when you say, this just doesn’t fit, it can’t be that we would permit such a thing—with all due respect, maybe it can’t be, but if you don’t find a source, then you can’t invent prohibitions, even if it can’t be. You can say it would make a lot of sense to prohibit it, but as long as you don’t have a prohibition to anchor it in, you can’t invent one. The Sanhedrin can invent prohibitions. The Sanhedrin has the power to legislate new rabbinic laws, and it has authority by virtue of “do not turn aside,” and everyone must obey it, even if it has no preexisting source to lean on. That is precisely its authority. It can innovate new laws, rabbinic laws. But halakhic decisors who do not have authority by virtue of “do not turn aside”—post-Talmudic decisors down to our own day—those are decisors who do not have authority to innovate laws. They cannot innovate laws. They are not a legislative institution. All they can do is interpret, not legislate. And to interpret means to interpret existing Jewish law, to say that this thing is prohibited because of such-and-such Torah commandment, such-and-such Torah prohibition, a rabbinic prohibition, a custom, I don’t know what, whatever it may be. But you have to hang it on something already existing that comes from an authoritative source—either from the Torah, or from the Sanhedrin, or from the Talmud, or something else that is an authoritative source. You yourself—the fact that it seems right to you to prohibit it—that by itself is not yet a reason to prohibit. So all the halakhic decisors, even after they say that it is fitting to prohibit, start getting into kindling, building, generating current, all those things, the final hammer blow, and so on. It’s true that in the context of the Sabbath, as Idit rightly noted earlier, this is a bit exceptional. Why? Because in the context of the Sabbath there is indeed a kind of catch-all clause speaking about weekday-like activity, about the character of the Sabbath. In other words, there are things one does not do because it just doesn’t fit, because the Sabbath is not supposed to look like that. Now nowhere is there a definition of how the Sabbath is or is not supposed to look. Somehow that’s left to the perceptions of different halakhic decisors, and of course there can be disputes in that context too. But one should pay close attention to the fact that there really is some kind of—
[Speaker B] Sorry, but there is a source showing how the Sabbath should look, and that’s cessation from the verse in Isaiah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so the verse in Isaiah says that. There the verse in Isaiah already says it; you don’t need the halakhic decisors for that. I’m talking about other things that are hung on the character of the Sabbath—in other words, on cessation. The law of cessation, which according to Nachmanides is a Torah-level law. The law of cessation includes things like not engaging in commerce on the Sabbath, for example, okay? Or things like that. So that too doesn’t come out of the verse in Isaiah, because we’re talking about a Torah-level law according to Nachmanides; it comes from “a Sabbath rest” in the Torah. And here there aren’t very clear definitions in that context. Some say not to ride bicycles on the Sabbath because it just doesn’t fit; it doesn’t look Sabbatical. Why doesn’t it look Sabbatical? What’s wrong with riding a bicycle? Maybe walking also doesn’t look Sabbatical? What’s the criterion? How do we justify such a thing? It’s some sort of sense of smell—something like that. If everybody rode bicycles, our sense of smell would change, I promise you. If everybody rode bicycles, it would look completely Sabbatical to everyone to ride bicycles. We’re just used to the fact that people don’t ride, that’s all.
[Speaker E] That’s exactly what I wanted to ask—whether it’s legitimate that weekday-like activity can change from one period to another.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think so, yes, I think so. But I don’t know, because it’s such an undefined thing, what I think is worth exactly as much as what anyone else thinks. I don’t know, I can only get an impression. But in this context it really is important to point this out, because unlike all other areas of Jewish law, where even if you say it can’t be that we would permit such a thing, on the Sabbath sometimes such a consideration can suffice by itself. Because you can put it into the category of weekday-like activity or the character of the Sabbath. And there you have a kind of catch-all clause that can absorb all the feelings, the halakhic decisors’ “sense of smell,” unlike in all other fields of Jewish law, where saying that it can’t be that we would permit such a thing means nothing. It may be an initial intuition that directs you to look for a source, but in the final analysis you still have to find a source in order to prohibit.
[Speaker C] Maybe just—now the digital, computerized world has come in even more strongly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course, obviously, obviously. In my view that’s part of the same story.
[Speaker F] You can’t have a Passover Seder on Zoom—there were huge discussions about that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, yes.
[Speaker C] But usually—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If there are ten pictures on the screen, do they join into a prayer quorum? Without seeing one another, and all the halakhic rules that there are—after all, how exactly do they need to see one another?
[Speaker E] I heard that they agreed you can join a prayer quorum on Zoom. What? Yes, to join a prayer quorum—to join, everybody would agree.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know if everybody, I don’t know if everybody, but there are those who would agree. I argued that you can create a prayer quorum on Zoom. On that I haven’t seen anyone permit it, but I think in my view it’s quite simple.
[Speaker F] But—
[Speaker C] One more—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, this is the conception of the virtual world as a site—a site in the full sense of an actual place. And in our world, it very much depends on how human beings experience the matter. And certainly digital creatures more than me—I’m not such a digital creature. Those who are fully digital, as far as they’re concerned, they wander around the internet the way I wander around the street. And if we meet on some site like that and really speak with audio and video, fully, with one another, then in my view in our world that is like being in one physical place.
[Speaker C] So I have two questions. Could it be that based on what you’re saying, maybe we could treat that as a leniency that leads to a stringency? Because then if we treat it as something real, maybe then it would be forbidden to use a computer for a Seder night on Zoom?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why, what does that have to do with it?
[Speaker C] If it has the meaning of a physical site—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, is it forbidden to be at a physical site on Seder night?
[Speaker D] The opposite, yes.
[Speaker C] So okay, that means that on Zoom it’s also possible—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, there are parallel conversations here, I can’t hear.
[Speaker C] There’s a second question here about blowing the shofar—
[Speaker B] —that it’s permitted—
[Speaker D] —on Zoom?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, I’m not going to get into all the laws of Zoom right now. I’m also not sure I have a position on every such case. In the case of shofar blowing, in my opinion Zoom is no different from a microphone and a loudspeaker, because there’s no issue of seeing; here it’s only the question of what you hear. But yes, there is room to discuss that too.
[Speaker B] In any case, that way we’ll be a virtual people and not really a people.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I can’t hear.
[Speaker B] In that way we’ll be a virtual people and not really a people.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A virtual people—who says that isn’t real? You’re old-fashioned. You think a virtual people isn’t real, but in our world today, the virtual is real.
[Speaker D] Certainly.
[Speaker B] When I meet a person directly, I can sense him and feel what—didn’t understand? When I meet a person directly, I can better sense him, feel what’s going on with him, what’s happening to him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what emojis are for.
[Speaker B] And you only do it in text messages; you don’t care about the person you’re writing to.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ruti, Ruti, that’s what emojis are for.
[Speaker B] Yes,
[Speaker F] Ruti, that’s your intuition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly.
[Speaker F] There are other people who would say the opposite, who would say that on Zoom you see, you feel, everything is great, and on the contrary it just causes me to meet more and more and more people. So everyone has their own intuition on this issue.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Again, I brought this as an example, not in order to give a bottom-line Jewish law ruling, but to show the type of considerations involved. And you see that these are really considerations that one can absolutely argue about from every direction; there’s reasoning this way and reasoning that way. I didn’t bring a source for what I’m saying, I don’t know how to bring a source for what I’m saying, but everything depends on that reasoning. Meaning, it can change all of life. This is exactly the situation of a field in formation. A field in formation means that all kinds of initial conceptions of reality, evaluations, attitudes toward reality, can completely change our entire halakhic attitude. Which is exactly what happened when the Sages formulated Jewish law in their time, and today we simply receive it ready-made. When we talk about a field in formation, we are filling the role of the Sages. Therefore, the reasonings that we find in the Talmud, that perhaps we ourselves would not have said on our own, but we study the reasonings that they themselves said—in this case we have the opportunity to say it ourselves. And that’s why this is the special experience of this matter. I’ll tell you perhaps an anecdote. When I lived in Bnei Brak, I was doing a doctorate in physics, and some distant relative of mine came to me, who was also related to Professor Lev through his wife, not important. He brought me Professor Lev’s book called Systems of the Heart on electricity on the Sabbath. He told me, listen, Professor Lev is frustrated, nobody reads the book. Are you willing to read the book and send him comments on it? Now you have to understand that electricity on the Sabbath requires at least two areas of expertise: professional expertise in electricity, physics, engineering and the like, and halakhic expertise. Now in his book, you’ll see there are diagrams of… you can see—you could also see in the article I sent you—there are diagrams of different electrical circuits and electrical devices, and so for ordinary halakhic scholars, some of these things are inaccessible. So what happens is that in order to read this book you have to wear both hats at a high level. There are very few people who can do that. Professor Lev was one of them. And therefore, surprisingly—or not surprisingly, actually—all the laws of electricity on the Sabbath that we’re so used to are, in the end, the creation mainly of two people: Professor Lev and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. We’re used to building on Tannaim, Amoraim, a long tradition of medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim), disputes and formulation of positions. Here, the whole world is fed by five people who have access to the issue. I’m exaggerating a little, but not by much. And those people, who are usually also professionals—scientists or engineers or something like that—they are essentially the ones feeding the halakhic decisors. Now many times the halakhic decisors have no way to determine whether the information presented to them is being presented correctly. Because the interface between the professional information and the halakhic interpretation is very delicate. I’m not claiming that the professional is lying, but rather that very often he doesn’t understand which aspect from the professional side is the relevant aspect that matters to the halakhic person. And the halakhic person doesn’t know that on the professional side there is such an aspect at all. And then what happens is that at the seam between them, he gives him the professional picture, and the latter takes that picture as though that’s the whole picture and derives a halakhic conclusion from it. But in fact, at the seam some distortion has crept in. And this is a disease of multidisciplinary fields in general, not only in Jewish law. For example, I dealt quite a bit with neuroscience and free choice, and at every step there are failures like this. And there the interface is between biology, mathematics, computer science, physics, psychology, psychiatry, chemistry, whatever you want, and philosophy of course, and of course value-based conceptions, which are also part of philosophy. How do you make the interface between experts from different fields? There are endless failures in those interfaces. So the philosopher doesn’t understand what the physicist is telling him, and the physicist doesn’t understand what the philosopher is telling him. And then they do joint work and arrive at a wrong conclusion, because the interface between them isn’t built correctly. You have to understand the other side a little as well in order to know how to supply the information. Which aspect of the information he needs to understand in order to make his decision, and vice versa. And someone who is not an expert on both sides is destined for this kind of failure. And here it is very prominent. Now when I received this book, I suddenly saw that this book is actually the basis for all the laws of electricity on the Sabbath today—Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah and all that; of course that was written by a student of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, Rabbi Neuwirth, Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah. Right? In the end, it all comes from there. And our whole halakhic world today is built on the reasoning of a few Jews who sat there and thought about the matter. And who says I agree with him? I disagreed with Professor Lev on a good number of very fundamental reasonings in his book that could change the Jewish law from one end to the other regarding electricity on the Sabbath. And it was a fascinating experience, because until then I somewhat looked down on practical Jewish law; it seemed like the sort of thing for people who memorize the Mishnah Berurah. Meaning, we deal in conceptual Talmudic analysis, in the really interesting and deep things, not in practical Jewish law, which is only technological applications—technological in quotation marks—applications of Jewish law, like engineering as opposed to science. But that’s not true. Application is an extraordinary art; it’s fascinating. And there is a great deal of conceptual analytical thought in application, not only in building the theory. How to connect the theory to the application—that’s fascinating; it contains a great deal of reasoning and many patterns of thought. Sometimes you can approach it from angles people never thought of at all, and suddenly all sorts of things come out, like creating. If the Beit Yitzchak hadn’t invented this idea of creating, I don’t know whether anyone would have come up with it on their own. He decided that there is some dimension here of creating. There is no hint of this in the Talmud; when you read the Talmud, most people would never think to connect it to electricity on the Sabbath. Once he said it, that is today the prevalent conception among halakhic decisors, because he came up with that idea. And if someone had argued with him there and neutralized it on the spot, it might not have caught on. And then the laws of electricity on the Sabbath would have changed completely. So this experience of going through the book really left a very deep mark on me. And it was simply fascinating to see a book that literally creates Sabbath law that the whole Jewish people follows—laws of electricity on the Sabbath—out of nothing, from the beginning. And you can actually say: wait a second, I don’t agree with this, this, this, and this, and therefore my conclusions are the exact opposite. Things that he says are Torah-level prohibitions I can say are permitted; rabbinic or Torah-level—it could reverse everything he said. And in fact there were things I didn’t agree with; we had long correspondences around this issue. And there were things I didn’t agree with, and the halakhic implications are definitely very significant implications. And everything depends on the reasoning—whether you see it this way or you see it differently. And therefore it’s also not so much a matter for a professional, except that the decisor who stands outside does not always understand where the professional has inserted reasoning here and where he is only giving bare facts, yes—just the pure scientific facts, without interpretations, without reasoning—because it is often very hard to put your finger on it, as I brought you in previous examples with electricity in wires and all those things. It’s not at all simple to know where we are talking about interpretation and where we are talking about a factual claim. And all the expert testimony in courts about free will and neuroscience can testify to that. All sorts of neuroscience experts come to court, or psychiatrists come to court and give expert testimony, and all they are saying is merely their flawed reasoning. And now let the judge figure out where this is just reasoning and not expert testimony. He doesn’t have the time or the education for that, so he says: as far as I’m concerned, this is expert testimony; these are the data, and based on this I rule. And that’s nonsense. There are very many things that are nothing more than interpretations; some of them are outright mistakes. Some are interpretations one may accept or not accept, but there are many things that are not the position of an expert. And the expert himself doesn’t understand that he is inserting interpretations here. He is not bringing facts about which he has expertise. I’m talking about good experts; I have no argument with their expertise. But they go beyond their area of expertise without noticing, and they bring interpretations. It’s the same in evolution, which I also dealt with, and in many other things. Everywhere there is value-based, legal, normative, or halakhic significance to science, in all those places there is always a great difficulty in putting your finger on the distinction between interpretations and facts. And it must not be left to the experts.
[Speaker B] Did Professor Lev accept some of your comments, or do you disagree with him?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A little. Most of them he didn’t agree with. But I also didn’t agree with his, okay? So we remained in disagreement. In any event, I’m describing this experience to you because it’s the experience I’m somehow trying to convey to you when we study the topic. Think of it as though we are now learning a topic that I’m talking about from only a hundred years ago, something like that, even less—that it began a hundred years ago or even less—and until today it is still taking shape, and there are reasonings here. And you know, from time to time halakhic rulings come out about a smart home, about sensors that turn on when I pass by, about opening hotel doors with a magnetic card, all kinds of questions of that sort where sometimes a halakhic decisor comes out and says: wait a second, this is permitted altogether, there is no prohibition here at all. Rabbi Rabinovitch has responsa like that, yes, or LED lamps, exactly. And then people say: wait, how can that be? It just doesn’t feel right, it can’t be. But the whole story depends on the reasoning. And therefore people are used to asking: what does the Rashba say about it? Is there a Maimonides? Bring sources, bring this. What do you mean, reasoning? “Just because we draw analogies, shall we act?” The answer is yes, because the prohibition too is built on exactly the same reasoning. We have nothing else. The prohibition and the permission are the dispute in reasoning; there is nothing else here.
[Speaker F] There’s also a very serious dispute with water systems.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker F] First of all, also over the story of water meters that are electrical, and also the story with—I understand that in new construction in many buildings there is this issue with the water, that it is activated by some electrical thing, so that if today you buy a home, you already have a problem if you buy a home in a new building.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In our home, in our home there was such a problem. In our building there was such a problem, and I had a long discussion here with Rabbi Samet, who is the rabbi of the gar’in here in Lod, about these matters as well. It really was a very interesting question. In the end we think it’s permitted—we eventually agreed—but it really is not a simple question. Anyway, that’s when opening the water activates all kinds of electrical mechanisms.
[Speaker B] But in these matters, when there is prohibition and permission, isn’t it preferable to go in the direction of prohibition, because then for sure you won’t transgress?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In these matters, that’s true everywhere. Everywhere, when you have doubts, then if you go stringently you are playing it safe, because you won’t fail. But the rule is that a Torah-level doubt is treated stringently and a rabbinic-level doubt leniently. And the rule is—not only the rule, but as we discussed with saving a life—usually in such dilemmas there are two sides. When you are lenient on one side, you are stringent on the other side. And therefore that’s the question. To be stringent and not use the water—perhaps that is to be lenient regarding the laws of Sabbath enjoyment, for example, when you want to use water on the Sabbath. So what is called stringent and what is called lenient? I don’t know; it’s a question that needs discussion. Okay, but that really is already beyond our scope. Okay, I’ll now start discussing the issue itself.
[Speaker C] I want to say something for a moment. Right, what Ruti pointed out—many times you also have to define the meaning precisely, because even if we prohibit it, no matter, but suppose right now I need to desecrate the Sabbath for the sake of a commandment. Will I do that using electricity, or will I light a fire? Meaning, there may also be a need to know the definition and accordingly decide Jewish law, even if at the moment I myself won’t use it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. Meaning, if one comes to permit, then the question is also by what route to permit. Exactly. Yes, obviously. So that does not make the… it does not make the discussion unnecessary, yes, that’s clear. Okay. In any event, I now want to get a little into the matter. As I said, when we now want to look for a peg to hang this on, yes, some source for prohibition, what lies open before us is a collection of labors, the thirty-nine primary categories of labor and their derivatives—which is much more—and various rabbinic prohibitions, right? So the initial basis is of course the primary categories of labor. And the primary categories of labor are the thirty-nine listed in the Mishnah in the chapter Klal Gadol. But how was that list built? That too is an important question here. I mentioned to you what we saw in lesson number one, when we opened the year. I spoke there about the beginning of the Talmud at the start of tractate Bava Kamma, and we saw there that the list of labors was built using two considerations. One consideration is whether it existed in the Tabernacle, and the second consideration is the importance of the labor, its significance. And I said there are three versions in the Talmud and Tosafot, with the Maharam and the Maharsha and others, of how in the end they built that list. There is an approach that says: the Tabernacle determines it. What was in the Tabernacle is a primary category; what was not, is not. There is an approach that says: what was in the Tabernacle and is also important—that is a primary category; you need both things. And there is an approach that says—and by the way I don’t think there is a big difference between the first two approaches, but that’s another matter—because it’s obvious that trivial things that were in the Tabernacle are not primary categories, as I’ve said more than once in our classes. In the Tabernacle they also wore pants; no one says that wearing pants is a primary category of labor. And in the third method, which is important for our purposes, this is the method that emerges in the Maharam on Tosafot. He claims that only significance determines it. Meaning, there are thirty-nine primary labors because that is learned from the number of times the word melakhah appears in the Torah, thirty-nine times—the Talmud elsewhere on page 49, I think—and based on that we now have to decide which are these thirty-nine labors, the primary categories of labor, and that we determine only by significance, unrelated to the Tabernacle.
[Speaker C] According to the Maharam, are these things that can change from generation to generation?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is exactly why I’m bringing this Maharam. Exactly for that reason. Good question; I’ll get to it in just a moment. In any event, those are the three approaches regarding how the list of the primary categories of labor was built. Now according to the third approach…
[Speaker F] In the lesson—you said when you spoke about the issue of significance—that if I bring a new labor into the thirty-nine primary categories of labor, I need to take one of them out.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And therefore what really happens—and I’ll already connect the two questions, both Hani’s and Idit’s—in principle, the third method at least opens a possibility that the halakhic decisors did not use. And that possibility is: perhaps the use of electricity is a new primary category of labor. Since what determines it is significance, the significance of the creative act, today there is no doubt that constructing an electrical circuit is a significant labor, an important labor, something unknown to the Sages. Therefore as far as I’m concerned it appears on the list of primary categories. You’ll say to me: fine, but there are only thirty-nine, so you have to remove another one in its place. No problem. The Talmud says: winnowing, selecting, and sifting—winnowing is selecting is sifting, it’s the same labor. In all three of those labors we separate waste from food. So why are there three listed here? Because all three were in the Tabernacle and we needed to get to thirty-nine. That’s what the Talmud says. So there, I have a solution: take out one of them and put electricity in instead.
[Speaker D] Remove only two, not all three.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll count later. Remove one, not two.
[Speaker D] Why? If it’s three, I remove two—oh, okay, fine, remove one, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Remove one, insert electricity in its place. So the fact is that the halakhic decisors don’t go in that direction. The closest expression to this line of thought I found is in Igrot Moshe, which I referred you to on the computer. What?
[Speaker D] I’m saying, mainly they use derivatives. I didn’t understand. Mainly they use derivatives in order to bring it into the thirty-nine…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Once I identify which primary category it resembles, then it will be considered a derivative of that one. I—in principle there is no reason to go through the derivatives. If I go through the primary categories, the derivatives are derivatives because they resemble the primary category. If electricity resembles one of the primary categories, it will be its derivative. It doesn’t matter to me right now whether I found a specific derivative for it.
[Speaker D] It doesn’t matter to me right now whether I found a specific derivative for it or not, that’s not important. Yes, okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So there he is talking about activating a Sabbath timer, activating things through a Sabbath timer. So notice: he is not dealing with the prohibition of electricity on the Sabbath itself. Right. He is dealing with activating things by means of a Sabbath timer, where his assumption is that using electricity is certainly prohibited, without getting into the question of why. But he is trying to circumvent it by indirect causation through a Sabbath timer. And then he says: “Now regarding something that by means of electricity can be done through a time-indicator, by a mechanism made for that purpose, which one sets on Friday eve in such a way that it will begin cooking tomorrow, on the Sabbath day, about an hour before the mealtime, concerning which my dear beloved grandson Aharon Baruch, may he live long, asks—according to my humble opinion it is obvious that it is forbidden to permit this, for by means of such a time-indicator one could perform all labors on the Sabbath and in all the factories, and there is no greater degradation of the Sabbath than this. And it is clear that if this had existed in the time of the Tannaim and Amoraim, they would have prohibited it, just as they prohibited instructing a non-Jew for this reason.” What is he saying? Here emerges the only place I know where the consideration appears: if the Tannaim and Amoraim were alive today, they would have inserted this into the list. But he rejects that. Not only does he reject it—it’s not really what he says. Because he claims they would have prohibited it, but apparently they would have prohibited it rabbinically. Not that they would have inserted it into the list of the primary categories of labor, but since it is something appropriate to prohibit, they would have enacted a rabbinic prohibition on it. He does not write here the suggestion I made earlier, that if the Sages were building the list of the thirty-nine primary categories today, electricity would be one of the items on the list. That he does not even raise. He means that they would have prohibited it by a rabbinic prohibition. And therefore he immediately moves on: just as they prohibited instructing a non-Jew. And instructing a non-Jew is a rabbinic prohibition: telling a non-Jew, do labor for me on the Sabbath—that is prohibited. We also mentioned this in medicine on the Sabbath. So that is a rabbinic prohibition. So clearly they would have prohibited this too; it is no different from instructing a non-Jew. I tell the electrical device to work for me instead of telling a non-Jew. So therefore they would have prohibited it rabbinically. Still, notice, even that is not enough for Igrot Moshe. That they would have prohibited it rabbinically is all very nice, but in practice they did not prohibit it. So what if it was fitting to prohibit it? We are not the Sanhedrin. As long as the Sanhedrin did not prohibit it, there is no prohibition, even if it would have been fitting to prohibit it. And therefore he continues one step further and says: “And perhaps it is in any event included in this very prohibition of instructing a non-Jew.” Now he wants to argue: now I have an interpretive trick. I want to include this within the prohibition of instructing a non-Jew. And that is the idea—the entire move he makes here illustrates exactly the whole introduction I gave. That your initial motivation to prohibit is because it just doesn’t feel right. It cannot be that this would be permitted on the Sabbath. But that by itself is not enough. It is not enough to place it under a Torah-level prohibition—even though in my opinion there yes, there would have been room to do that, but no halakhic decisor does so—and not even enough to establish a rabbinic prohibition. Why? Because even if it would have been fitting to prohibit it, if there were a Sanhedrin today maybe they would prohibit it, but there is no Sanhedrin today. So it is fitting to prohibit it—so what? But as long as there was no Sanhedrin that determined a prohibition on it, there is no prohibition. Anything that was not actually prohibited is not prohibited, even if it would have been fitting to prohibit it. You can tell me that one ought ideally to refrain, the Holy One, blessed be He, will praise one who refrains; but you cannot say that someone who did not refrain has transgressed a prohibition. As long as they did not determine a prohibition on it, there is no prohibition.
[Speaker F] Wait, I want to ask about instructing a non-Jew. Instructing a non-Jew happens on the Sabbath.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m just getting to instructing a non-Jew now, one second. Therefore, says Igrot Moshe, we have no choice but to find an existing clause while we act as interpreters and not legislators. We will not create a new law, a new prohibition; rather, we will interpret the original prohibition in a way that it will include or apply also to activating an electrical circuit on the Sabbath. And his claim is that instructing a non-Jew can also include this prohibition.
[Speaker B] From before the Sabbath too?
[Speaker F] Instructing a non-Jew—from before the Sabbath too it is prohibited to tell a non-Jew: come to me and do…
[Speaker B] Laundry?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Seemingly that depends on a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). There is a contradiction in Rashi; it depends why instructing a non-Jew is prohibited. There are those who prohibited it because of “speaking of it.” When you tell a non-Jew to light a fire for you, the very speech about lighting a fire is speech that one should not utter on the Sabbath. That is the verse in Isaiah mentioned earlier. But if so, then saying it on Friday poses no problem.
[Speaker F] Exactly, because then I set the Sabbath timer on Friday, not on the Sabbath.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second, one second. In contrast, there are approaches that say—and in Rashi in two places there is a contradiction on this—Rashi elsewhere claims that instructing a non-Jew is by the law of agency. The non-Jew is considered my agent, and when he does something it is as though I did it through an agent. It is done on my behalf. Now if so, although there is no agency for a non-Jew, stringently on the rabbinic level there is agency even for a non-Jew, incidentally in other contexts as well, not only here. And if so, then of course telling him on Friday to do it would also be prohibited. For when he does it on the Sabbath, he is doing it on my behalf; it is as though I myself did it. In practice, the accepted ruling is that it is prohibited even to tell him on Friday.
[Speaker C] Maimonides also prohibits it so that it should not…
[Speaker B] become easy in our eyes.
[Speaker C] Yes,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says there are two possibilities; there are more.
[Speaker B] So wait, then can an object also be an agent?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.
[Speaker B] Can an object also be an agent?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fundamentally, agency exists only from one Jew to another Jew. Not from a Jew to a non-Jew and not from a non-Jew to a Jew. But rabbinically they enacted that there is agency for a non-Jew stringently. So that if you appoint a non-Jew as your agent, and by this you try to get around a prohibition, you will not succeed. There is a rabbinic prohibition here.
[Speaker B] No, so I was asking whether an object too, like a Sabbath timer.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is what Igrot Moshe is saying here. So I return now: instructing a non-Jew means a human being. Now Igrot Moshe says: “And perhaps this is in any event included in the prohibition they prohibited of instructing a non-Jew, for they prohibited any labor done for a Jew as a result of the Jew’s instruction, and certainly as a result of the Jew’s action.” After all, what’s the problem? The problem is not that the non-Jew acts, but that I told him, and by virtue of my instruction this action was done. So Igrot Moshe says: if speech is enough to attribute the act to me, then an action is certainly enough to attribute the act to me. Activating an electrical circuit is an action; it is stronger than speech. Therefore he says there is in fact room to include this in the prohibition of instructing a non-Jew. And then he discusses there: it’s not similar to this, it’s not similar to that—that doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is only the principle. Meaning, the principle is: we see here the whole process, and that’s why I brought it, even though again he is not dealing with electricity on the Sabbath but with a Sabbath timer. But we see here this whole hesitation: on the one hand he is looking for a Torah-level source, if… His starting point is that it needs to be prohibited, but that starting point is not itself sufficient in order to prohibit. Then he moves to the rabbinic level, but even on the rabbinic level, even if it would be fitting to prohibit, that still does not mean it is prohibited. Then he gives it an interpretation under an existing rabbinic prohibition, namely instructing a non-Jew. That is basically the move halakhic decisors make when they come to apply or innovate a prohibition to a reality that has only just now been born, in our own time, that did not exist in ancient times. Any other comments?
[Speaker E] Yes. We understood that he is basically prohibiting it in a certain matter, for food preparation. Just turning on a light, apparently as I understood, he does not prohibit?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What are you talking about?
[Speaker E] He wrote there that a person places the…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the person placing the pot is just an example through which he tries to discuss
[Speaker E] whether
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] there would be a prohibition, whether there would be a prohibition in activating an electrical circuit. But it’s not specifically connected to food; anything.
[Speaker E] Fine. So—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is regarding Igrot Moshe and his example there. As I said earlier, the possibility that I raised—to build a new list of Torah-level prohibitions according to that Maharam we saw there in Bava Kamma—does not appear in any halakhic decisor I know of, at least. And that is a very interesting point: why not? Here all kinds of apologetics have developed, among other things they quote the Chazon Ish with a strange principle he invented, where he says that changes in reality that occur in our own time are not relevant; the important reality is the reality that existed in the time of the Sages. He brings the midrash that the world exists for six thousand years: two thousand years of chaos, two thousand years of Torah, and two thousand years of messianic era. And he says that the determining reality is during the two thousand years of Torah, which is basically, say, from year 2000 to year 4000 from creation; that ends approximately in the period of the Sages. Where does he invent such a thing from? There is no source for it whatsoever; it is simply an invention. I assume he did it in order to silence all kinds of voices trying to make changes, trying to make changes in Jewish law. He was bothered by that, so he floated some reasoning like this. But I find it hard to believe that he himself believed it. In any event, it turns out he succeeded; that is, it turns out that everyone quotes this statement, and it serves as a serious brake on attempts to change things. Incidentally, in this case I mean changes in the stringent direction, not in the lenient direction. To innovate a prohibition on electricity—that is a change in the stringent direction, not the lenient one. And once the Chazon Ish says that today’s reality does not matter—for example regarding tereifot, there are conditions that today we know how to treat, so they do not necessarily die within twelve months. So perhaps we should change the list of tereifot? He says no, the reality in the time of the Sages is the determining reality, and so on. So there are all kinds of such excuses that try, as it were, to stop changes that are substantive changes in Jewish law. And therefore all that the halakhic decisors do is interpretations of existing laws, never to generate entirely new laws. But one has to note carefully that even what I am proposing—again, no halakhic decisor does this—is not really to generate a new law in the sense of legislating. After all, the Torah says, “You shall do no labor.” The list of the thirty-nine primary categories of labor is an interpretation of that command. The Torah says: “You shall do no labor.” That is interpretation, not legislation. So I’m saying: since the Talmud says that the interpretation is that there are thirty-nine primary categories, and I need to choose the important primary categories, what I am doing is choosing the important primary categories. That is an act of interpretation; it is not an act of legislation. And therefore at the principled level there is no obstacle to making such a halakhic move or such a halakhic interpretation. This is not a situation in which I, not being the Sanhedrin, am legislating. I cannot legislate. But this is not a legislative move; it is an interpretive move. Therefore one must note carefully that even this unusual proposal that I suggested is still within the legitimate domain. It is not that I am now legislating a new law. Okay. Let’s move on. So in Wikipedia you saw blah blah blah. What?
[Speaker C] Over the years and with the passing of generations, that interpretation acquired the status of legislation. No? Why not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Why? Interpretation—and when reality changes, then a different interpretation. What is written: “A person does not repay his debt before its due date”—that’s always the example I bring, but there are a million examples. “A person does not repay his debt before its due date.” Suppose today people do repay loans before the due date. Because the Talmud says there is a presumption that a person does not repay his debt before its due date, should I rule the law according to the presumption in the Talmud?
[Speaker C] That is a presumption about human behavior; we discussed that in the past.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so what? What difference does that make? Reality of what? Why is that reality? Fine, what difference does it make? Important labor is also reality. What counts as important labor and what does not—that too is. The behavior of nature, not of human beings. If the behavior of nature changed, so what? What difference does it make? I don’t see a distinction. Well, in any case it is clear that there is some recoil as a result of Reform and so on. But I’m saying: that recoil does not really reflect something genuine. It is policy. It is not a pure halakhic consideration, and I also don’t accept it; I don’t think it is legitimate.
[Speaker B] So that could be a fence for…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but no one can establish such a fence—that’s exactly the point. That fence too is legislation. I don’t accept that legislation either. No one today can legislate legislation, including fence legislation. If the truth is that electricity is prohibited because of the labor of building, say, or as an independent labor, no matter what, then that is the truth. Why are you making fences for me because of the Reform movement? So I should turn on electricity on the Sabbath even though it is prohibited? Are you the Sanhedrin? How do you determine such a thing? That determination too is legislation. If one cannot legislate, then one cannot do that either. Okay, I want to move into the actual substance because a lot of time has already passed. In Wikipedia the different methods regarding the prohibition of electricity on the Sabbath are mentioned. I want to deal mainly with the principal ones. One is kindling, the second is building, striking the final hammer blow, and generating current. Generating current is rabbinic. Kindling, building, and striking the final hammer blow are primary categories of labor at the Torah level. These are the main methods; the rest are anecdotes. Now for each such method, of course we need to examine the parameters of the labor, to check whether electricity—according to an analysis of the reality of electricity—really fits the parameters of that labor, and of course we need to examine the relation between turning on a circuit and turning off a circuit. Because just as there is a prohibition of building, there is a prohibition of demolishing. Just as there is a prohibition of lighting or kindling, there is a prohibition of extinguishing. So ostensibly there is symmetry. But the truth is that there is not necessarily symmetry. Even if I say that turning on a circuit is kindling, not everyone will agree that turning off a circuit is extinguishing, even though extinguishing is also a primary category of labor. For example, extinguishing has to be done for the purpose of producing charcoal, in terms of the Sabbath laws of extinguishing. And here I am not extinguishing in order to produce charcoal, and so on. So the fact that there is an asymmetrical labor or a dual labor does not necessarily mean there is symmetry in the definitions. And you can say that one who turns on transgresses because of building, but one who turns off does not transgress because of demolishing, even though demolishing and building are two primary categories of labor. The same with extinguishing and kindling. By contrast, with striking the final hammer blow there is no anti-labor at all. There is no labor opposite to striking the final hammer blow. And with generating current too there is no opposite. There is generating current—turning off the circuit, what is that? Killing the newborn? What are you doing there? What prohibition is that? There is no such prohibition.
[Speaker B] But wait, regarding demolishing, for example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I can’t hear.
[Speaker B] Regarding the labor of demolishing. Is one liable only when he demolishes, or only when he demolishes in order to build?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So the same as with extinguishing in order to make charcoal, with demolishing too the rule is that it has to be demolishing in order to build. When you do not demolish in order to build, or do not extinguish for the sake of charcoal, that is a labor not needed for its own sake. Why does Maimonides rule that one is liable for a labor not needed for its own sake? But according to most opinions—and so the practical halakhic ruling is—it is a rabbinic prohibition and not a Torah-level prohibition. So therefore this asymmetry between turning on and turning off also requires clarification. But our main concern is that we will try to examine the turning on of a circuit—what does it mean to turn on, to activate an electrical circuit on the Sabbath. So I will do the survey chronologically. In chronological terms it goes through molid, then kindling, and then striking the final hammer blow and building. Okay? Once again?
[Speaker B] What was it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Molid—that’s the Beit Yitzchak, that’s the first one. The others respond to him.
[Speaker B] Kindling, they say—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Say Rabbi Shlomo Zalman says it is kindling, but others too claim that it is because of kindling. Rabbi Chaim Ozer says there is both kindling and molid in it; Rabbi Chaim Ozer brings both things. Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, yes—he died before the Holocaust. And Rabbi Kook also speaks about kindling; he too died in the same year, I think, as Rabbi Chaim Ozer.
[Speaker B] And the Chazon Ish says building, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And striking the final hammer blow is Rabbi Uziel, who in the end was already the Chief Rabbi of Israel, meaning these are later figures. Okay? So the survey will be in chronological order. So I begin with molid. The first is the Beit Yitzchak, and there it is really what jurists call obiter. Obiter is a statement that appears in a judicial ruling that does not really pertain to the main ruling itself, but rather is an incidental comment of the judge writing the ruling. And the status of that in the legal world is—if, say, this is an obiter of the Supreme Court, is that a binding precedent or not? The general principle says no, it is not a completely binding precedent. It has weight, one can make use of it, but it is not something one may not disagree with. In the halakhic context, here in the Beit Yitzchak it is really an obiter. Therefore someone who wants to rely on it as an authority—I don’t know how strong that is. But of course I don’t care about his authority; I want to discuss whether he is right. And in the discussion of whether he is right, then what do I care if it is obiter? And if he is not right, then even if he had written it not as obiter, I would not accept it. Therefore what matters is whether it sounds plausible, not whether it is obiter or not. “And inside I discussed the matter of an electric lamp, and I will mention regarding whether it is permitted to speak on the Sabbath by means of a machine called a telephone. And behold, according to my humble opinion there is a prohibition in the matter, and one who guards his soul should distance himself from it. For besides the fact that one speaking by such a machine must first strike the bell when he wishes to speak, and this is a prohibition because of causing sound, making music on the Sabbath…” He rings, dials his friend—behold, now someone is calling me exactly.
[Speaker B] Tell him it’s obiter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “There is a further prohibition,” I continue reading, “because by closing the electrical current an electrical force is generated, and this is prohibited on the Sabbath. And just as regarding silk glass, it is said in Beitzah 23 that it is prohibited because one generates fragrance. It is prohibited to make an electrical connection on the Sabbath. And for this reason, in my opinion, one should also prohibit making soda water”—wow—“for there too one generates a chemical combination.” What does that mean?
[Speaker B] There is a difference between a compound and a mixture.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, those are distinctions. But what is he basically claiming? He is basically claiming that just as it is prohibited to put fragrance into clothing, so too it is prohibited to put bubbles into water, which is soda, and so too it is prohibited to put current into wires.
[Speaker B] It seems to me that current in wires is stronger than generating fragrance.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, that is for later. We’ve only just started touching this, so there’s no point yet in beginning arguments. First of all, let’s see what he says. The same thing Rabbi Chaim Ozer brings in this context—interestingly, he brings both things.
[Speaker E] Wait, is it an agreed halakhic ruling for everyone that making soda on the Sabbath is prohibited?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, absolutely not. What about coffee on the Sabbath, or tea?
[Speaker E] Fine, that’s what I’m asking.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is certainly not agreed.
[Speaker D] No, he gives a justification for that afterward.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case: “And regarding the question of turning electrical power on and off on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, the matter is simple: one is liable because of kindling and extinguishing.” It is simple to him. “One is liable” means at the Torah level because of kindling and extinguishing. That means both the turning-on is kindling and the turning-off is extinguishing. It is astonishing regarding turning-off to say that this is Torah-level—it is the furthest thing from simple that I can imagine. Regarding kindling and turning on, maybe. “And also to turn on on a Jewish holiday constitutes generating, because by combining forces one generates a force.” Okay? That is Rabbi Chaim Ozer. But there are critiques of this, yes—I’m bringing this from the survey I sent you to read. “There is no issue of generating in electricity, because the main burning power of the electricity is already prepared and standing there in the big machine house”—that is, at the power station. At the power station, basically the electricity already exists. What I do in the wires is only channel it to myself. So in fact I create nothing. If this reminds you of the topic there about crushing myrtle—someone who crushes myrtle is actually drawing out fragrance that already exists, bringing it out. I think this critique hints at that statement in the Talmudic discussion there in Beitzah.
[Speaker B] But with electricity you burn the electrical wire in your lamp, so even if it was prepared at the power station…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But notice, he is talking about the prohibition of generating in electricity, not the prohibition of kindling. That is exactly the point. He says regarding kindling, definitely that may be so. But the prohibition of generating does not apply to electricity. Because the burning power of the electricity, on account of which you want to prohibit it as kindling, is already prepared and standing in the big machine house. Therefore there is no generating here.
[Speaker B] Yes, he was already born earlier. What? Yes, exactly, he was born earlier.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right? And so on; there are other halakhic decisors who say this as well. The source for this law is the passage in tractate Beitzah that I referred you to. By the way, how far did you get on the page?
[Speaker B] Up to Maimonides and the Maggid Mishneh. Okay,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Others?
[Speaker D] Wait, I’m checking, I don’t remember.
[Speaker B] And the Shulchan Arukh and the Tur
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And all the halakhic decisors that follow the passage, more or less.
[Speaker D] We got to—wait—to seven, but section 5, the last section.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re still in the area of creating something new, in short. You’re all still in the area of creating something new. We haven’t gotten to section 6. If so, then we’re synchronized, fine.
[Speaker D] We already got to eight.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I just want to glance at the passage there; that way we’ll do it quickly, since you’ve already seen it. So the Mishnah says this—basically, after the previous mishnayot bring various stringencies of Rabban Gamliel, the Mishnah here brings three leniencies of his: “He too stated three things leniently: one may sweep the room of the beds, and place incense on coals on a Jewish holiday, and prepare a whole roasted kid on Passover nights. And the Sages prohibit it.” Notice, first of all, there is a dispute between Rabban Gamliel and the Sages. And plainly, the Jewish law follows the Sages, who prohibit it. But what is the dispute? The dispute is whether one may place the incense—yes, make smoke from frankincense, from spices—on a Jewish holiday. So this is already a certain hint. Why? Because it seems from here that even the one who permits understands that there is, in principle, a prohibition here. It’s just that on a Jewish holiday—because of food preparation or something like that—they permitted it, whereas the Sages prohibit it even on a Jewish holiday. But on the Sabbath, for example, it would apparently be prohibited according to everyone. Or on a Jewish holiday when you’re not doing it for a need defined as food preparation, then Rabban Gamliel would also prohibit it. Meaning, there is no dispute here about the very prohibition of making incense smoke; that is certainly prohibited. The only question is whether this prohibition was permitted for the sake of food preparation on a Jewish holiday. All right? That’s an important point, because when you read the Mishnah there’s often a tendency to say, okay, there’s a tannaitic dispute here whether it’s prohibited or permitted. Wrong. There is no dispute; for everyone it is prohibited. The dispute is whether they permit it on a Jewish holiday because of the labor of food preparation. And on the Sabbath everyone would prohibit it, or on a Jewish holiday when it’s not for food preparation everyone would also prohibit it. And in practice, even on a Jewish holiday for food preparation it is prohibited, because we rule like the Sages against Rabban Gamliel. What is the prohibition here? It doesn’t say. What is the basis of the prohibition? Why do they really prohibit it? They didn’t write that here. The Talmudic text there says as follows: Rav Assi said, “The dispute is with regard to smoking garments, but for smelling, all agree it is permitted.” Meaning, you can put the frankincense on the coals if we want to smoke, say, a garment or something like that. But if you do it in order to smell the fragrance coming from the smoke, then it is permitted according to everyone. Even Rabban Gamliel agrees it’s permitted. Why? Because that’s food preparation. Smelling is food preparation. Smoking garments perhaps is not considered food preparation; it’s not something equal for all people. The permission for food-preparation labor was stated only for needs that are equal for everyone. But smoking garments is a luxury of the rich; it’s not a general need, and therefore such a thing was not permitted.
[Speaker B] But doesn’t that mean that just because I can’t afford it, it’s not a need of his soul either; it’s just that he can’t afford it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so that’s the dispute. Therefore the Sages say—therefore, someone who can’t afford it. The one who says it’s permitted says it’s permitted. The Sages prohibit it, but Rabban Gamliel says it’s permitted, even regarding smoking garments. That’s exactly their dispute. Whether when the poor person doesn’t do it because he has no money, that means it’s not considered equal for all—not a need equal for all—or not. That’s exactly the argument, but for our purposes it’s not important. The Talmudic text says: an objection was raised, “One may not sweep the room of the beds,” etc. In short, in the end there’s a difficulty, and they reach the conclusion: rather, if it was stated, this is how it was stated. Rav Assi said: “The dispute is about smelling, but smoking garments is prohibited.” The reverse—not exactly the reverse, but shifted. Meaning, smoking garments is in everyone’s view prohibited, because that is definitely not food preparation. Smelling is the dispute—whether that counts as food preparation or not. All right? And still, of course, we have no hint as to what exactly that prohibition is that they are debating whether it is permitted for the sake of food preparation or not. There is no hint here that there is some prohibition of creating fragrance, or what prohibition it is—what prohibition are we talking about. Now the Talmudic text raises a question about smoking fruit. They asked: what is the law regarding smoking? Rashi explains, of course: smoking fruit. Rabbi Yirmiyah bar Abba said in the name of Rav: prohibited, and Shmuel said: permitted. Rav Huna said: prohibited because it extinguishes. Here is the revelation. Now we already understand what prohibition is being discussed here. They said to Rav Nachman: then let the master say it is because it kindles. He said to them: its beginning extinguishes and its end kindles. Meaning, we’re dealing here with the prohibitions of extinguishing and kindling. When you place the frankincense on the coals, it melts a bit, and so it slightly extinguishes the coals; that’s the prohibition of extinguishing. Afterward, you kindle the frankincense and produce smoke from it, so you also kindle. Rav Nachman says: right, this is basically—sorry, Rabbi Yirmiyah says—true, correct, there is both extinguishing and kindling here. It begins with extinguishing and continues with kindling. But for our purposes, notice: so far there is no hint of creating fragrance. The entire discussion in the Talmudic text is only about the prohibitions of extinguishing and kindling. Nobody here has spoken about a prohibition of creating fragrance. Up to this point. Now the Talmudic text continues. Rav Yehudah said: on a coal it is prohibited; on pottery it is permitted. Why is it permitted on pottery? Because with pottery you neither extinguish nor kindle. You don’t extinguish because the pottery isn’t burning; it’s hot pottery, but not coals whose fire you extinguish. And it also doesn’t kindle the frankincense—the medieval authorities explain that this is because it is an unusual manner, but that’s not important. There is no prohibition of extinguishing and no prohibition of kindling here, so the entire discussion above applies only to a coal. But on pottery, according to everyone, it is permitted. And now comes the big novelty. Rava said: even on pottery it is prohibited, because it creates fragrance. So here, for the first time in the passage, this new prohibition enters—the prohibition of creating fragrance. Meaning what? That even on pottery it is forbidden to place it there. Why? Because true, there is no extinguishing and no kindling here, but don’t forget: there is another rabbinic prohibition here. Extinguishing and kindling are Torah-level prohibitions. Here there is another rabbinic prohibition, a prohibition of creating fragrance. This is new. Now we have to reexamine the whole flow and understand that everywhere they prohibited and permitted, they were talking not only about extinguishing and kindling but also about a prohibition of creating fragrance. And whoever permitted it permitted that too; whoever prohibited it prohibited that too.
[Speaker B] But let’s say the fragrance is like the machine, the electric company thing, that it’s already contained potentially in the frankincense or in whatever—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, we’ll get to that in a moment in the Talmudic text itself; there’s even a certain hint to it there, we’ll discuss it. The Talmudic text says: Rava and Rav Yosef both said, dragging a cup of spices over silk garments on a Jewish holiday is prohibited. Yes, it is prohibited to pass a cup—a cup with spices, with fragrant smoke inside it—over silk garments on a Jewish holiday. Why? What is the reason? Because one thereby creates fragrance. Because he creates fragrance; he creates fragrance in the garment. He creates a fragrant garment. Right. And how is this different from rubbing myrtle and smelling it, or breaking off a piece and smelling it? With myrtle, he rubs it and it gives off fragrance, or breaks off a piece and smells it, which the Talmudic text assumes is permitted. If creating fragrance is prohibited, then extinguishing and kindling don’t apply there. Also, in dragging the cup over silk garments, extinguishing and kindling don’t apply, right? There it’s only creating fragrance. With placing it on pottery or on coals, you can perhaps talk to me about extinguishing and kindling as well as creating fragrance. On pottery apparently not—only creating fragrance. And of course passing a cup over silk garments, or myrtle, is only creating fragrance; it has nothing to do with extinguishing and kindling. So the Talmudic text says: why did they permit rubbing myrtle or breaking off myrtle? The Talmudic text says: there, the fragrance is already present; he is merely adding to the fragrance. Here, he is creating the fragrance. Now this itself is strange.
[Speaker B] But until now you didn’t have a fragrant garment; now you created the fragrant garment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, I didn’t create the fragrance, but I created the perfumed garment. That’s just semantic noise, okay? Creating the fragrance as such didn’t really happen here, because the fragrance was already in the cup; I only brought it out. That’s similar to myrtle. What was created here is a perfumed garment. Before, there was no perfumed garment, and now the garment is perfumed; it’s a different kind of garment. What was created in it is a garment with fragrance.
[Speaker B] But did I create a new vessel? Did I create a new vessel?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Something like that. And with myrtle, when I rub it, what I created is fragrance floating in the air. So that means it isn’t perfuming something that the fragrance attaches to, right? Now on this the Talmudic text says: since the fragrance already existed and you merely intensified it, brought it outward, then it’s not similar to electricity. From here he took the idea of the electric company meter that I mentioned earlier, and he’s hinting to this Talmudic text. Now Rava said: even on a coal it is permitted, just as meat placed on coals is permitted. After all, it is permitted to put meat on coals even though it produces fragrance—on a Jewish holiday. On a Jewish holiday, yes. Why? Because that is permitted for the sake of food preparation. So if that’s the case, it should also be permitted to place frankincense on the coals. Then again there are disputes here: Rav Pappi taught from the house of Ketila at the entrance of the Exilarch’s house that ketura is permitted. The question is what exactly counts as ketura. In the end the conclusion is that ketura means fragrance, and one may place it on coals like meat on coals because of food preparation. Seemingly, for our purposes, what comes out of all this if I want to summarize the laws that emerge from here? Basically, that there is a prohibition of creating fragrance, except that where it concerns food preparation they permitted it. But it’s not that there is no prohibition of creating fragrance; there is a prohibition of creating fragrance. And therefore the conclusion of the Talmudic text, apparently as we read it simply, is that in the end there is a prohibition of creating fragrance. Or at least—after all, above there is a dispute among Amoraim on this matter. The question is whether on pottery it is permitted or prohibited. The one who says that on pottery it is permitted says that the whole problem is only extinguishing and kindling, and there is no problem of creating fragrance, right? The one who says that even on pottery it is prohibited says it’s because it creates fragrance.
[Speaker B] But we need to say that if I put just a shovel-pan with incense and coals, there’s no problem of creating fragrance—only if it gets absorbed into something so that the fragrance remains for a long time. For some amount of time. Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If I put it on the coals, then it creates the fragrance and not merely transfers it from where the fragrance already existed, so maybe there would be a prohibition in the very creation of the fragrance.
[Speaker B] But if the frankincense already smells anyway, even before they—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s something in which the fragrance already exists and the coals only bring it outward, then seemingly that’s similar to myrtle.
[Speaker F] Okay, but seemingly from the Talmudic text I can prove that creating fragrance is not creating the fragrance itself, but specifically when it affects the garment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what Rabbi Professor Lev claims—Professor Lev, sorry; his successor is Professor Yehudah Levi, yes. In any case, that’s what he claims. I don’t agree with him, and I’ll tell you why I don’t agree with him. Because regarding myrtle—let’s go back for a moment to the Talmudic text about myrtle—and now you’ll see that this disagreement, once again, has very current and significant implications for Jewish law, so this is a point that could be—
[Speaker F] Because regarding myrtle, if we were to say that a fragrance is created, then it would be prohibited. They permitted it because it was just adding, but if I weren’t adding then it would be prohibited.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Seemingly that is the plain meaning of the Talmudic text. After all, the Talmudic text compares it to myrtle, and what does it answer? It doesn’t say, well, what do you want from myrtle? You’re not creating a perfumed garment there; you’re creating the fragrance itself. The Talmudic text doesn’t say that. The Talmudic text says that with myrtle you’re only adding fragrance to an existing fragrance, and therefore there is no prohibition. That implies that if there were myrtle with no fragrance, and touching it would bring out the fragrance—would create fragrance out of nothing—then in such a case there would also be a prohibition under the rubric of creating fragrance. Therefore, seemingly, the Talmudic text does not read like Professor Lev. I think there are two prohibitions. One prohibition is the creation of fragrance, and creating fragrance is prohibited in and of itself. True, there if you only add to the intensity of the fragrance, but the fragrance already existed, then there is no prohibition—that’s one prohibition. The second prohibition is attaching fragrance to a garment, or to fruit, or to whatever it may be—perfuming something else. Perfuming something else is prohibited because you—not because of the fragrance you created, because you didn’t create it, you only intensified the fragrance, but because of the perfumed garment or the perfumed fruit that you created. That is the new creation.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, fruit is permitted because of food preparation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be that—what I’m saying is that on the conceptual level there is a prohibition. Now there is a discussion whether this is food preparation, in which case maybe they permitted it, fine. I’m not interested in the food-preparation permission; I’m interested in whether, in principle, such a prohibition is defined. After that you have to discuss it; it could be that there is a prohibition, but on a Jewish holiday it would be permitted because it was allowed for food preparation. But what about on the Sabbath? For me, what matters is the discussion about the very existence of the prohibition. The permission due to food preparation is not important for the discussion. So therefore, in my opinion, the conclusion is different from the one Professor Lev writes. Too bad that the Talmudic text seems not to go that way.
[Speaker B] Sorry, but in the Talmudic text they didn’t learn two prohibitions. Can’t hear? From the Talmudic text—they didn’t learn two prohibitions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? Yes they did. It all appears under the same prohibition. You create—but you can create in two ways: one, when you create the fragrance itself, and two, when you attach fragrance to something that you are perfuming. In both cases you created something new; in both cases it’s the prohibition of creating. It’s not two prohibitions, but two different creations that are prohibited. And it somewhat reminds me—now I’m just suddenly remembering an association—Maimonides writes in the laws of Sabbath that when someone prepares dye, he transgresses the prohibition of dyeing. You mix the pigments in water and create dye, and in the Tabernacle they took dye and dyed fabrics with it. Okay, that was dyeing. Maimonides writes that this is certainly dyeing, and in addition the preparation of the dye itself also violates the prohibition of dyeing. So the Raavad asks: what connection is there at all? Is he dyeing the water? There is certainly no Torah-level prohibition of dyeing water. I claim that what Maimonides means is that preparing the dye is itself the labor of dyeing—not dyeing the water, but creating the dye. In that sense it is very similar to what we’re seeing here: creating the fragrance is a labor—or not a labor, but a prohibition of creating fragrance—and also using it to dye, in quotation marks, meaning to perfume the garment, is basically that same prohibition. We see that the relation between these two is exactly like the relation between preparing dye and using it to dye something else.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, regarding the two—after all, from the same material they prepared both purple and tekhelet, just through a different chemical process. No, no, no. From the same material of the chilazon—different chilazonim, though. From the same material of the chilazon they prepared—don’t argue, okay, sorry. They prepared both purple and tekhelet, but it was simply different chemical processes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But first, those are two different chilazonim. And second, and second, and second—what difference does it make? What difference does it make that they are two different chemical processes? So what? And therefore what?
[Speaker B] Because here the dye itself really wasn’t mixed in water.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it doesn’t matter. But why is it two different chemical processes?
[Speaker B] Just that one wasn’t exposed to the sun, that’s all. It’s one chilazon, only that—it’s the same chilazon, not two. It’s exactly the same process, only either the sun changes the—
[Speaker C] Exposure to sunlight turns the tekhelet into purple.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As far as I’ve read, these are two processes, but what difference does it make? This discussion has nothing to do with us in any way.
[Speaker B] Not soaking in water, but simply that from this chilazon, from this raw material, you can prepare—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Soaking pigments in water is called the labor of dyeing. That was in the Tabernacle. Soaking pigments in water—it says so explicitly in the Talmudic text; there’s no need here to get tangled up about chilazonim. All right, so that’s the Talmudic text. So therefore I’m saying, in the end, he brings Rashi. Rashi says—let’s finish here for a moment—Rashi says: “Because he creates fragrance that enters the pottery, which previously had no fragrance, and this is rabbinically prohibited, for one who creates something new is akin to one who performs a new labor.” From here Professor Lev learned that there is really no prohibition in creating the fragrance, only in perfuming something existing. And that is, of course, not correct. Meaning, what Rashi says is only meant to explain why, when you perfume a garment, it is not similar to rubbing myrtle. So he says: because when you perfume a garment, something new is created here out of nothing; it’s not just an addition to the fragrance. What is that new thing? Not the fragrance, but the perfumed garment. So that doesn’t mean that creating fragrance out of nothing is not prohibited. On the contrary, it says here that it is. Rashi here is only coming to explain why, when you perfume a garment, even though here you did not create fragrance out of nothing, it is nevertheless prohibited. So he says: since the garment was created out of nothing—the perfumed garment. Okay? And therefore his inference is incorrect. What’s the idea behind it?
[Speaker B] What? In my opinion the fragrance is not out of nothing—it was—the fragrance is not out of nothing, it was in potentiality, this—
[Speaker F] Not out of nothing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There was no fragrance.
[Speaker B] There was no fragrance. But it was hidden in the parts of the plant, that fragrance.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but there was no fragrance there. There was no fragrance. The fact that it was hidden isn’t what matters. Hidden, yes—but I bring it out, so I created fragrance.
[Speaker B] If there wasn’t fragrance here before and I created—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fragrance, that is the prohibition of creating fragrance. But I’m saying that you don’t create it; you expose it. No, I don’t expose it—I create it. Before, I didn’t smell it, and now I do smell it. It didn’t exist; it’s a process in which I create the fragrance. Obviously, in potential, that fragrance exists in those things, otherwise I couldn’t produce it. When I rub a table, no fragrance comes out of it. When I rub myrtle, fragrance comes out of it. But the point is not that the fragrance was hidden in the myrtle; rather, when you smell myrtle it has a fragrance even without rubbing. It’s just that when I rub it, it becomes stronger. But the very bringing out—if the myrtle had no fragrance at all, and I rubbed it and created fragrance, that would be creating fragrance. Even though of course potentially it is inside the myrtle; otherwise you couldn’t do it. I refer you here to the second lecture I gave this year. I talked there about the essence of the labor of carrying out, and in fact the Sabbath labors generally. And I said that, seemingly, carrying out is an inferior labor because it doesn’t really produce a different object but only leads to a different arrangement of things in space—moving from a private domain to a public domain. And then I said that in fact almost every significant creation in an object is nothing but arrangements of things. Here is a very nice example of that. When I take the fragrance that already existed, and therefore there is no creation of the fragrance itself—after all, that’s what bothered Rashi. Why does Rashi explain here that the creation is in the garment and not in the fragrance? Because in the fragrance itself there is no creation; it’s like myrtle, the fragrance was already there before. Therefore Rashi says: the creation is the creation of a perfumed garment.
[Speaker D] Wait, so can we say this is carrying out? I can’t hear. Can we say this is carrying out?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, this isn’t carrying out. But all the labors, all the labors are like carrying out—that’s what I explained there. They are all just different ways of arranging and using things and connecting them or separating them from one another, such that the result appears to us as something new. There are labors, for example, like selecting. Is selecting the creation of something new? I have a mixture of things—say, items of type A and items of type B mixed together. Now I remove the items of type B and leave the items of type A. All I did was move them from place to place. But what was left for me had been a mixture of A and B, and now I have clean A. So in fact that is considered as though I created a new object. But you understand that in essence what I did was simply move things from place to place. And I argued there that all the labors are like that. Even the labors that seem the most like changes in the object itself are really only the movement of things. And therefore I think that this is exactly the foundation behind Rashi’s creating fragrance here. The creation of the fragrance itself—the prohibition in the myrtle case—is one issue. But Rashi is bothered by the question: why is perfuming a garment prohibited? After all, creating fragrance by adding to an existing fragrance is not prohibited, and here too I’m only adding. Rashi says: yes, you are adding to the fragrance, but the garment had no fragrance at all. And you put fragrance on it, so you created a perfumed garment. Before it was an ordinary garment; now it is a perfumed garment. When you look at it essentially, all I did was take the perfume and attach it to the garment. I changed the garment. That’s what it means to change. These movements—those are the changes we’re talking about. Everything human beings do is just movements. That’s what I described there.
[Speaker F] Yes, it’s like what you said about dye—if I dye a garment, I take dye and place it on the garment. Right. Is dyeing a garment also creating something new?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean “also”?
[Speaker B] Is dyeing a garment creating something new?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Seemingly, dyeing a garment would also be a case of creating something new. It’s just that here you don’t need to get to the rabbinic prohibition of creating; this would be the prohibition of dyeing—a Torah-level prohibition. But yes indeed, there would seemingly also be a prohibition of creating according to this principle. Okay, we’ll stop here. We’ll continue on Thursday.
[Speaker D] Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
[Speaker B] Goodbye. Rabbi. Rabbi? Yes. Are you related to Professor Lev’s second wife?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In some distant way.
[Speaker B] Because she’s the grandmother of our son-in-law. What? She’s the grandmother of our son-in-law. Okay. I just saw her—she’s his step-grandmother.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What was the name of that librarian from Bar-Ilan—he was a librarian many years ago. Hershel?
[Speaker B] What? Hershel Sosnik? No, surely you didn’t know him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] His name slipped my mind now; that’s the connection. I think it was—what was the name, what was her maiden name or previous name? Do you know? Loskovitz. What? Loskovitz. I can’t hear. Loskovitz. No, then it’s not him. Katzburg, exactly, Katzburg.
[Speaker B] She comes from the grandmother’s side.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right, Shabbat shalom.
[Speaker B] Goodbye, all the best. Today we’re learning the Mishnah in tractate Ta’anit, chapter 4, Mishnah 6. Five things happened to our ancestors on the seventeenth of Tammuz.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “The tablets were broken, the daily offering ceased, the city was breached, Apostomus burned the Torah, and an idol was set up in the Sanctuary.” The breaking of the tablets was when Moses our teacher came down from Mount Sinai, saw the calf, and broke the tablets at the foot of the mountain. The cessation of the daily offering happened in the Temple during the siege, when no lambs were found for sacrifice. The city of Jerusalem was breached in the destruction of the Second Temple. Wicked Apostomus burned the Torah, and an idol was placed in the Sanctuary; these are acts of desecration of God’s name that occurred on that day. We must remember these events and pray for the rebuilding of Jerusalem speedily.