Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 1 – Lesson 28

This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

The workshop format, Atvan DeOraita, and annotated editions
Two forces in one person as a broad principle and parallel examples
The question of mixing one action with two aspects versus two different actions
Talmudic exceptions in formulating rules and the example from Bava Kamma 20a
“Come serve me,” accepting authority in learning, and Rabbi Shimon Shkop
“Make for yourself a rabbi,” “do not deviate,” and the limits of obedience to sages
Tension between principled formulation and the structure of the passage, and the dispute between Rashi and Maimonides
The three conditions for setting up the question, and the focus on throwing rather than handing over
Philosophical examples of two forces in one person
Atvan DeOraita, rounding and being rounded, and the question of what the novelty is
A disagreement with Atvan DeOraita and a discussion of double responsibility
Inciting, throwing a vessel from the roof, and the distinction between requirements and parts of an act
Methodology: conceptual analysis before sources and dividing the conditions

Summary

General Overview

The lecturer presents the session as a workshop whose aim is to sharpen halakhic / of Jewish law thinking around the Talmudic question of “two forces in one person” and the possibility of understanding it as a broad principle rather than a local question in the laws of throwing. He highlights the tension between a principled formulation in the Talmud and the structure of a passage that does not bring proofs from other contexts, and shows how this is reflected in the dispute between Rashi and Maimonides over whether this is a general principle or a technical question about how to define placement in throwing. He then demonstrates similar exceptions in the Talmud in Bava Kamma (“this one benefits and that one does not lose”), connects the question of “two forces” to philosophical examples as well, and stresses that the way forward is preliminary conceptual analysis that clarifies the conditions for setting up the question before jumping to examples.

The workshop format, Atvan DeOraita, and annotated editions

The lecturer opens by saying that this session is more of a workshop than a lecture, in order to summarize and deepen the question from the previous class, and he asks how they managed with Atvan DeOraita. He notes that annotated editions can help, and that such editions can be found in Otzar HaChokhmah for books like Shev Shema’teta and other classic works through university access.

Two forces in one person as a broad principle and parallel examples

The lecturer argues that the very wording of the question—“are two forces in one person like two people or like one?”—hints at a meta-halakhic principle that could be applied in many contexts, and perhaps even in philosophical ones. He gives the example of someone who incites his own dog against another person’s property, where later authorities (including the Pnei Yehoshua) write that he is exempt, similar to one who incites someone else’s dog, because of a “split” between owner and inciter, and he raises the question whether that split still applies when the same person fills both roles. He also brings the passage about one who throws a vessel from the roof and the passage on page 26b about someone who removes cushions and pillows, and he emphasizes the difference between a throw that was supposed to cause breakage and a throw onto cushions and pillows, which is not an act of damage until someone else comes and removes them, and the possibility of seeing this as parallel to the question of two forces in one person. He notes that in that passage there is a dispute over how to interpret “do we follow the beginning or the breaking of the vessel,” and over the possibility that if we “follow the beginning,” both may be exempt.

The question of mixing one action with two aspects versus two different actions

The lecturer addresses a comment about mixing together situations in which one action includes two aspects (such as one who both rounds and is rounded, or a priest who renders himself impure) with situations involving two separate actions (such as throwing and breaking, or throwing and catching). He explains that the question is whether both kinds can be included under one principle of “one person playing two roles,” in the image of a one-man show. If so, then apparently there is no room for distinctions that depend on the structure.

Talmudic exceptions in formulating rules and the example from Bava Kamma 20a

The lecturer argues that the Talmud usually deals with cases and not rules, and tends to be suspicious of general theorizing, but here there is an exception in which the Talmud itself formulates a principled question. He gives a parallel example from Bava Kamma 20a in the passage of “one who lives in another’s courtyard without his knowledge—must he pay rent or not?”, where the Talmud defines the extremes of “this one does not benefit and that one does not lose” versus “this one benefits and that one loses,” and focuses the question on an intermediate case, “a courtyard not normally rented out, and a person who would normally rent.” He presents the breakdown of the question into a principled formulation of what obligates payment: is it the benefit enjoyed by the beneficiary, or the loss suffered by the one providing the benefit, with practical implications for cases where only one of those reasons exists.

“Come serve me,” accepting authority in learning, and Rabbi Shimon Shkop

The lecturer explains the story “He said to him: it’s in a Mishnah… come serve me” as a test of whether the questioner is willing to give “credit” and seriously consider an argument that initially seems unrelated. He interprets Rava’s remark—“how unaware this man is… even though it is not similar to the Mishnah, he accepted it from him”—as connected to that same willingness to accept. He cites Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s explanation in the introduction to Sha’arei Yosher, where he asks that the reader approach with appreciation so as not to dismiss subtle distinctions that at first seem “foolish,” and stresses that the point is not blind acceptance but giving a second and third thought. He formulates a principle of learning according to which one learns from someone only where one discovers that one was mistaken, and presents the idea that “an argument in which you gain is an argument in which you lost” as a measure of real learning.

“Make for yourself a rabbi,” “do not deviate,” and the limits of obedience to sages

The lecturer interprets “make for yourself a rabbi” as choosing someone you value so that you will consider his words seriously without giving up intellectual autonomy, and cites the saying of the sages: “If the rabbi resembles in your eyes an angel of the Lord of Hosts, receive Torah from his mouth.” He addresses “do not deviate” and the exposition “even if they tell you that right is left and left is right,” and notes that there is a dispute among versions in the Sifrei, the Babylonian Talmud, and the Jerusalem Talmud, including a version that says “even if they tell you that right is right and left is left.” He explains that the two expositions can be reconciled by saying that respect for the rabbi obligates renewed examination, but if in the end it is clear that the instruction is “left,” there is no commandment to accept it. As proof he cites the Talmud in Horayot 2 that one who “errs in the commandment to listen to the words of the sages” is himself mistaken.

Tension between principled formulation and the structure of the passage, and the dispute between Rashi and Maimonides

The lecturer poses two framing questions: is this question a local halakhic / of Jewish law question in the laws of throwing, or a general question about the relation between actions done by one person and actions done by two people? He emphasizes that from the wording in the Talmud, a broad principle seems called for, but from the structure of the passage, the Talmud does not try to resolve it from other contexts, unlike broad passages such as “is there retroactive clarification or not” in Gittin 25, and so there is tension between the wording and the structure. He notes that Maimonides presents the issue as a specific question whether there was a placement attributable to the thrower, whereas Rashi formulates it as the question whether there is a “law of two people who did it” within one person.

The three conditions for setting up the question, and the focus on throwing rather than handing over

The lecturer defines that the discussion of “two forces” is relevant only where there is partnership in one transgression and not in two different transgressions, and only where, if two people did the action, they would be exempt. He adds a third condition unique to throwing: in the ordinary case the act is done through one force, whereas in the split between uprooting and placing there are “two forces” that are not a continuous extension of one force. He explains that in ordinary handing over, one person in any case acts with two forces—uprooting and placing—so there is no basis for asking there about exemption. By contrast, in ordinary throwing, the placement results from the force of the throw, and when the same person throws and then runs and catches, a placement is created by another force. Then the question arises whether an act done by two forces undermines the definition of the labor and brings it closer to the exemption of two people who did it. He sharpens the point that the discussion may focus not on what the person “did” but on the object-character of the act itself: whether the labor is defined as one that must be done by a single force, and whether doing it by two forces “ruins” the form of the prohibited act.

Philosophical examples of two forces in one person

The lecturer cites Adi Tzemach, who proposes a basis for altruism from the claim that the self of tomorrow is different from the self of today, and therefore concern for my future self is similar to concern for another person in space, and he presents the possible objection based on the moral distinction between self and other. He raises the possibility of seeing this as precisely “one person with two forces” and not literally two human beings, and the claim that the answer may depend on context and need not be the same in Jewish law and in morality. He also mentions Ron Aharoni’s book The Cat That Isn’t There and his claim that philosophy collapses because of a confusion between the perceiving subject and the perceived object, and he parallels this to situations where one person fills two aspects of the same act, such as “I think,” where there is an “I” that perceives and an “I” that is perceived.

Atvan DeOraita, rounding and being rounded, and the question of what the novelty is

The lecturer presents that in Atvan DeOraita, the author sees the case of one who rounds and one who is rounded as the basis for a rule that a person who fills two roles becomes liable from both sides, and he emphasizes that the author works as someone formulating a broad principle because he brings examples from different places. He asks what the initial assumption could be that one would not receive two lashes if seemingly these are two prohibitions, and suggests that the novelty might depend on seeing the prohibition as one resulting state with a question of responsibility, so that there could have been room to say that there is one transgression of “the rounding was done,” and the only question is who is responsible. He explains that according to this reading, the novelty of the Talmud in the case of one who rounds and one who is rounded is mainly in defining the prohibition itself: whether “one who rounds” and “one who is rounded” are separate prohibitions or two-sided responsibility for the same prohibition, and he notes that those who count the commandments do not count this as two separate prohibitions.

A disagreement with Atvan DeOraita and a discussion of double responsibility

The lecturer explains that if Atvan DeOraita still sees this as an example of his rule, then according to his approach there is a possibility of double liability even when the prohibition is one, because the person bears responsibility “from two forces” or from two angles with respect to the same act. He distinguishes between seeing “two forces” as borrowing two responsibilities and seeing it as two separate transgressions, and notes that the discussion here is the reverse of the passage in Sabbath law, where one side seeks exemption. He raises criticism of certain examples that do not fit this framework, especially the wayward city, where the act of leading astray is defined as something one person does to another, not self-incitement.

Inciting, throwing a vessel from the roof, and the distinction between requirements and parts of an act

The lecturer clarifies that in the case of inciting a dog, we are dealing more with two conditions of liability or two aspects of responsibility—ownership and negligence/blame—rather than with two parts of an act, and therefore it is structurally closer to Atvan DeOraita than to the case of throwing. He notes that in the case of one who throws a vessel from the roof (without cushions and pillows), there is greater closeness to the structure of “two components of an act,” similar to the Sabbath passage, whereas in the case of cushions and pillows the initial throw is not an act of damage at all.

Methodology: conceptual analysis before sources and dividing the conditions

The lecturer concludes by saying that the real halakhic / of Jewish law gain comes from precise conceptual analysis that clarifies in advance what the conditions are for posing a question and what prevents applying it in other cases, so that one can read the examples at a steady pace and know immediately which condition fails in each case. He presents two possible orders of work: to do conceptual analysis already at the beginning even without full command of the sources, or first to become familiar with the basic cases and then return to conceptual analysis that newly illuminates the sources. He promises to send a file of the points he wrote for himself, and is specifically asked to clarify the division into “the three cases/conditions” in order to allow orderly application to the examples.

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s begin. Like I wrote to you, today is more in the format of a workshop than a lecture. I just thought we had one class left, and usually we don’t finish a topic in one class. And also, to wrap up the semester, this is a good opportunity to try to put a bit more focus on what we saw in the previous class—just, as I said, as a workshop, to get some practice in halakhic / of Jewish law thinking. Last time we saw the Talmud’s question about two forces in one person. Now before I start—how did you manage with Atvan DeOraita? Was it okay? Did you get through it reasonably? Yes? It was understandable? With the annotated edition, I assume, it could also make things easier for anyone who got stuck at some point in the regular edition. But it’s worth knowing, by the way, that quite a few books have annotated editions like that, so you can use them. I took it from Otzar HaChokhmah. You have access to Otzar HaChokhmah, I think, right? Through the university? Yes. So sometimes you can find there, for various books like Shev Shema’teta and the classic works, that they also have annotated editions. So it’s just worth knowing that.

Okay, so let’s start. In the previous class we saw the Talmud’s question: what happens with two forces in one person? And the very formulation itself—before we get into the details at all, and Maimonides’ approach and Rashi’s approach and Meiri and all those things—the very formulation already hints to us that there is some kind of broad principle here, a meta-halakhic principle, basically, that can apparently be applied in many halakhic / of Jewish law contexts, in many different halakhic contexts. This isn’t a question specific to our passage, because the fact is that it’s formulated as some kind of general rule, and that rule doesn’t speak about throwing, or about labors on the Sabbath, or something specific. In general: are two forces in one person like two people or like one? That sounds like a formulation of a general principle that could be applied in other halakhic contexts, and maybe even in non-halakhic contexts—in philosophical contexts, for instance. You could discuss this question on the philosophical level too.

I mentioned two examples of something that at least seems to resemble this. Today we’ll try to think a bit more about it, but at least it seems similar. The first example is someone who incites his own dog against another person’s property. Pnei Yehoshua there, and other later authorities (Acharonim), write that he would be exempt, just like someone who incited someone else’s dog. And there too, basically, the underlying exemption is because of the split: I’m the owner and he’s the one who incited, so neither of us can be held liable, because each of us is missing something. Now you get a situation where the owner and the inciter are the same person—but he’s still acting here with two forces, right? There are apparently two aspects here; we’ll see more about that later. So the question arises whether that split, which began from the fact that we’re dealing with two people, can also be applied to a situation where it’s one person with two forces.

The same thing with someone who throws a vessel from the roof. I referred you to the Talmud on page 26b. There it’s not talking about someone who broke it at the end, but about someone who moved the cushions and pillows, which is a slightly different case. Later authorities also discuss someone who broke the vessel in the first place. Why is that a different case? Because when I throw a vessel from the roof and it is going to fall on the ground without cushions and pillows, and now someone comes and smashes it a moment before it hits the ground—when I threw the vessel initially, I basically sent it to be broken. Someone else came and broke it a moment earlier; both of us performed acts of breaking. In the case that appears in the Talmud on page 26b, I threw the vessel where there were cushions and pillows—I didn’t do anything problematic, the vessel was not supposed to break, the action I performed was not a damaging action at all. Now someone came and pulled away the cushions and pillows. Do you understand that here there is more room—that is, here it’s less a question of two people doing problematic actions, or each doing half of a problematic action. The first person here didn’t do a problematic action at all. He threw a vessel onto cushions and pillows—that is not a problematic action, the vessel isn’t supposed to break.

The later authorities’ application of this to a case where a person throws the vessel from the roof in order for it to break, and then runs downstairs and breaks it himself—that already comes much closer to our case. And there too, once again, there is the act of breaking and there is bringing the vessel into a state of being broken. And when this is done by two people, there is room to say that both would be exempt. What happens when it’s done by the same person? That very much resembles our passage of two forces in one person.

[Speaker C] But in the case where there are no cushions and pillows below, then the thrower is liable. That was in the Talmud a bit earlier, wasn’t it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, I didn’t understand.

[Speaker C] In the case where there are no cushions and pillows below, then the thrower is liable.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is a dispute there in the Talmud, and I’m not getting into it now. There’s an opinion that says both are exempt. That’s according to Ketzot in one of the opinions in the Talmud, so I didn’t want to get too deeply into the passage. So the Talmud says there: do we follow the beginning, or do we follow the breaking of the vessel? If we follow the breaking of the vessel, then the breaker is the one who is liable. If we follow the beginning, there is one interpretation that says that means the first one is liable, and another interpretation that says that if we follow the beginning, then both are exempt. Because if we follow the beginning, then the second one is not liable, and the first one is not liable because he didn’t actually break it. Fine—so there is a dispute among the commentators there on the passage.

In any event, for our purposes, from the very fact that I connect this to other contexts, I’m already assuming something here, and I’m asking: is it similar? Is it not similar? Okay—but the very discussion itself, even if in the end it turns out not to be similar, still assumes that there is some general question here. A principled question: two forces in one person—not specifically about the definition of the act of throwing, or about Sabbath labors, or something specific. There is some general question here, and of course now we need to discuss where yes and where no. Okay? But it is not a statement specific to the labor of throwing. Okay? That’s what I want to say. That was my assumption. But I want to discuss that assumption itself a bit today.

[Speaker D] Can I ask something for a second? Yes. I saw here a bit of mixing between two kinds of situations. One is where a person performs one action, and the action itself is two different things—for example, a priest who renders himself impure, or someone who rounds his own hair, and so on. As opposed to the cases you brought here, where for example there is throwing and breaking. Or even the person throwing in our Sabbath case: he throws and then catches. Meaning, there are two different actions the person performs.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so what?

[Speaker D] So the question is whether you can put these two types together in one bundle—where I have one action with two outcomes or two implications, as opposed to two acts that are each complete in themselves.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe yes and maybe no—that’s exactly the question I’m asking. Meaning, if I have some general principle that in a place where, had two people been involved, they would have been exempt, and now one person is playing both roles—think of a one-man show in theater. So one person is playing both roles, and the question is whether he counts like two or like one. So apparently, why should it matter what the exact situation is? Think about it: if one person can be regarded as some kind of split personality, then he’s basically like two people. And then whatever you would say about two people, regardless of whether you say it because they are doing two actions or because there are two aspects here—if it were two people, they would be exempt, then now too, when one person performs both functions, he should also be exempt.

In this philosophical formulation, apparently there is no room at all for distinctions. Because then all you have to tell me is what the law is in the case of two people, and automatically I’ll tell you that it’s the same in the case of one person playing both roles. And I don’t care why, in the case of two people, things work one way or another, because two people versus one person is not a distinction. Okay? Of course that’s an extreme formulation, but what you’re saying is actually part of the question I’m asking here.

But before we really get into the discussion itself, I want to make one more general remark. The Talmud has a certain character: it generally doesn’t deal in rules. It doesn’t—the discussion is about cases, not rules. There’s such-and-such a case; what’s the law? Right? Afterwards, sometimes it’s almost in the Talmud’s subtext, and sometimes the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) extract some kind of rule from it, but the Talmud generally doesn’t formulate itself in terms of rules. There are all kinds of examples of this. I spoke about this in previous years; I don’t remember exactly—I don’t think I talked about it this year, because it’s a topic I like. The Talmud doesn’t like rules. It has some basic suspicion toward rule-based thinking—what is called positivism in legal and philosophical discourse.

Now here this is an unusual case, because the Talmud here really is talking about a case where one person threw and another came and caught it, or he himself came and caught it—but the Talmud itself also introduces the principled wording of the question. The Talmud could have asked: when a person threw and ran and caught it, is he liable or exempt? That’s it. Then the later authorities would come and say: what is the question really here? It’s two forces in one person. And what the Talmud is asking is: are two forces in one person like two people or like one person? But here the Talmud itself does the work of the later authorities. That is, it itself explains the two sides of the question in some kind of formulation of a theoretical principle, a general principle. Which is interesting. It’s not unheard of—it sometimes appears in the Talmud—but it’s not typical.

One example of this—I’ll just bring it so that you can get a sense of it—is the Talmud in Bava Kamma 20a. Look here. Rav Chisda said to Rami bar Chama: “You weren’t with us in the evening, in the boundary,” meaning: it was Sabbath, and you weren’t with us within the Sabbath boundary in the study hall, you weren’t around—“for we asked a wonderful question.” In other words, you missed out by not being there. Rami bar Chama said to Rav Chisda: “What was the wonderful question?” What amazing question came up for you? He said to him: “One who lives in another person’s courtyard without his knowledge—must he pay him rent, or need he not pay him rent?” Meaning, someone enters another person’s courtyard without permission, and lives there—“courtyard” meaning residence, no matter—he uses the courtyard or lives in his apartment without asking permission; does he have to pay or not?

The Talmud asks: what are the circumstances? If we say it is a courtyard not intended for rent, and a person not in the habit of renting—meaning, if it’s a courtyard not meant to be rented out, and I who trespassed have another place to live, so I don’t need lodging, that’s “a person not in the habit of renting,” right? He isn’t looking for a place to live; I already have one. Then I gained nothing from this. He is not going to lose by renting out the courtyard, so the fact that I occupied it caused him no loss. And since I don’t need lodging because I already have some, I didn’t gain anything. So about that the Talmud says: if it’s such a situation, then “this one does not benefit and that one does not lose.” So why should he pay? I didn’t benefit and he didn’t lose. Why should I pay?

Rather, maybe we’re talking about a courtyard intended for rent and a person in the habit of renting—so what would that mean? It’s a courtyard that is meant to be rented out, so by taking the courtyard I caused him a loss, and I need a place to live—I don’t have one—so I benefited. Then the Talmud says: about that there is no question. That is “this one benefits and that one loses,” and certainly he is liable to pay. The Talmud says: no, it is necessary only for an intermediate case—not one of the two extremes, but a middle case: a courtyard not intended for rent, and a person in the habit of renting. The Talmud asks: what is the law? Can he say to him, “What loss did I cause you?” Basically, we are dealing with a person whose courtyard was not intended for rent, so he did not lose. But I needed lodging, so I benefited. So this is “this one benefits and that one does not lose.” Okay? And the question is essentially whether I can say to you: look, why should I pay you? I caused you no loss; you weren’t going to rent out the courtyard anyway. Or perhaps he can say to him: “But you benefited—pay me for your benefit.”

Then he says to him: “It’s in a Mishnah.” It’s an explicit Mishnah. Why are you asking me these questions? What kind of hair-splitting were you doing there in the study hall? Had I been there, I would have told you it’s explicit in a Mishnah—you don’t need all this pilpul. He asks him: “Which Mishnah?” From what Mishnah can you resolve this question? He says to him: “Come serve me.” He says, what do you mean? Serve me first, and then I’ll answer you. Meaning, attend to me, right? So he took his scarf and wrapped it for him—he served him like a servant serves his master, so to speak. Then he said: okay, now that you’ve served me, I’ll reveal to you which Mishnah I’m talking about. It’s the Mishnah in Bava Kamma: “If it benefited, it pays what it benefited.” A beast that fell into a garden-bed and ate fruits there—does the owner of the beast have to pay? So they say no, because it was in the public domain, but “if it benefited, it pays what it benefited.” Meaning, if it benefited from it, then it pays.

Rava said: how unaware and insensitive is a man who has heavenly assistance. Meaning, what kind of person doesn’t realize that there is no connection at all—“even though it is not similar to the Mishnah, he accepted it from him.” The person has divine help—he says nonsense and they accept it from him. And then—not important right now, we won’t go into the discussion. There are several very interesting points here.

What is “come serve me”? Why did he ask him first to serve him before telling him from which Mishnah he was proving it? Second, why does the Talmud see this as some kind of extraordinary problem, a huge loss that you weren’t in the study hall? How is this different from every other problem? Tractate Bava Kamma and every other tractate are full of such questions. What is special about this one? I have a certain suspicion that it is connected to the point we are discussing here.

It seems to me that what happens there is exactly what happens in our Talmudic passage. There, the Talmud is discussing a halakhic / of Jewish law question: someone who lives in another person’s courtyard without permission—must he pay rent or not? That’s a question about a case. There is no rule here. But now the Talmud conducts exactly the kind of discussion that we would expect to find in the later authorities, not in the Talmud. Let’s see. In my own language, the question is basically: what obligates payment? Is it the loss of the one who provided the benefit, or the benefit of the one who enjoyed it? In other words, what is it that obligates me in payment? The loss suffered by the one who lost, or the benefit that I gained?

Now, in a case where both he lost and I benefited, then of course one has to pay. It doesn’t depend on this conceptual inquiry, because both reasons are present. If he didn’t lose and I didn’t benefit, then of course one doesn’t have to pay, because once again both reasons are absent. Where can I try to see the practical implication of this question? In a place where only one reason exists. For example, he lost but I didn’t benefit. Or he didn’t lose but I did benefit. That would be the practical difference. If payment is for the benefit, then if I benefited, I have to pay even if he didn’t lose. But if payment is for the loss, then the fact that I benefited is irrelevant—he didn’t lose, so I don’t have to pay. Do you see that the structure of the Talmudic discussion here—

[Speaker B] But what happens if he lost and I didn’t benefit?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? So that is the question. If what obligates payment is the loss, then why should it matter that I didn’t benefit? If he lost, I have to pay. But if what obligates payment is the benefit, then why should I care that he lost? If I didn’t benefit, I don’t have to pay. And the reverse as well: if I benefited and he didn’t lose—which is the case the Talmud speaks about at the beginning, “this one benefits and that one does not lose”—then it’s the opposite. If the loss is the reason for payment, then one doesn’t have to pay. If the benefit is the reason for payment, then yes, one does have to pay.

This is exactly the structure of a conceptual analysis by the later authorities. We could read this in Rabbi Chaim. “And one must investigate whether the payment is for the loss or whether the payment is for the benefit, and the practical implication is in the case where this one benefits and that one does not lose: if the payment is for the benefit, he must pay, and if the payment is for the loss, he need not pay.” That’s the practical implication; then you’d bring proofs this way and that way—a full-blown Acharonim-style move. You don’t usually find something like that in the Talmud. And what is special here is that after the Talmud asks the question about the case, it itself does the theoretical analysis, the abstraction and conceptualization. It basically says: look, there is really a general rule here that asks what causes monetary liability in general—benefit or loss. We are not dealing with one specific case. We are talking about a general law, a general theoretical principle.

And I think that is what so excited Rav Chisda, when he said to Rami bar Chama: look what you missed. There was a brilliant discussion in the study hall. A once-in-a-lifetime loss. In all your time in the study hall, you’ll never merit to see a discussion like that. Now to us this seems very strange, because that’s how we learn every passage. That’s what we do. But in the Talmud—if you look at the Talmud—you almost never find this. This conceptualization and broad theoretical philosophical discussion just isn’t there. The later authorities try to decipher or conceptualize the issue that the Talmud presents through a case by means of principles, and then they turn the case into principles. That is the casuistic conception in law: through cases, through examples, I derive the general phenomena from them. So that’s why he was so excited about the discussion that took place there in the study hall. And I think that’s also why the other one asked him, “Come serve me.” Meaning: first serve me, and then I’ll tell you why this appears here.

[Speaker E] As if he’s asking for payment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he—

[Speaker E] He’s saying: you want an answer, so first give your price.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I don’t think that’s the point.

[Speaker D] I interpret it differently—as if first of all, subordinate yourself in order to receive what I’m going to say, this new rule.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Rabbi Shimon Shkop, in the introduction to Sha’arei Yosher, explains it the way Idit said it: basically, I ask you to serve me in order to see whether you are willing to accept what I am going to say—whether you value me enough that if I tell you something difficult, you will be willing to accept it. And so it seems to me that the comment later on—the comment later on says, after all, “How unaware this man is,” right? How does the person not realize what kind of heavenly assistance he had—he says nonsense and the other person didn’t notice and accepted it from him. But that didn’t happen for no reason. It happened because the other person was willing to accept from him, because he valued him, and he proved that by serving him.

By the way, that is really why, in my opinion, the one who missed the point here was Rava. Because the similarity actually is a valid similarity, and Rava, who didn’t serve Rami bar Chama and didn’t value him enough, wasn’t willing to accept what he said because it didn’t look right to him. Rav Chisda accepted it from him because Rav Chisda was willing to give him credit. He served him, he valued him, so he was willing to hear from him even things that on the face of it seem unrelated. And so, paradoxically, it seems to me that when you look at the Talmud this way, it is actually Rava, who mocks Rav Chisda, who was mistaken. And Rav Chisda, who was prepared to accept Rami bar Chama’s words because he valued him, was really the one who got the point. And this is a subtle point: if you are not willing to give credit to the person who said it, you would dismiss it out of hand. That is why before I tell you this, I ask you to serve me—because I want to see that you will be willing to consider seriously what I say, and not dismiss it immediately.

And that’s why Rabbi Shimon Shkop, in the introduction to Sha’arei Yosher, says that anyone who approaches his book—those who know it know that it is a complex book, not a simple one, full of subtle distinctions—anyone who comes to read his book, he asks that it be only a person who values him. Because, Rabbi Shimon says, there will be things here that at first glance will seem foolish to you, and you will dismiss them out of hand. Someone who approaches with that attitude should not open the book. The one who opens the book is only someone prepared to labor, because he gives me the credit that I am not speaking nonsense. If I could, I would ask all of you to serve me, Rabbi Shimon Shkop would say—whoever reads the book should first of all serve me, should give me some kind of credit.

That’s why he brings this passage in the introduction to the book. And by the way, he also added afterwards and said: I am not demanding that you accept everything I say just because I said it—not at all. I am only asking you to give it a second and third thought before you throw it in the trash. Even something that seems foolish to you—give me credit that I am not speaking nonsense.

[Speaker D] Open your mind before you open the book.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. And I think this is a very, very important principle in learning generally, and in Torah study in particular—it seems to me a very important principle. Because after all, when we learn from someone and he says something that seems obvious to us, then we’ll accept it—but we didn’t learn it from him. We’ll accept it because it seems reasonable to us. And when we don’t value the person we are learning from, then when he says something that doesn’t fit us, we just won’t accept it and we’ll move on. That way we’ll never manage to learn anything from him. We learn from someone only in the place where—“a person does not grasp words of Torah unless he has stumbled over them”—meaning, we learn from someone only where we came with one approach, we thought again and again, and it becomes clear to us that we were mistaken. Then we learned something new.

I once told my students in Yerucham that an argument from which you gain something is an argument in which you lost. Because an argument in which you won is an argument from which you come out with the same insights you came in with—you didn’t learn anything new. In an argument that you lost, you came with one insight, it turned out you were mistaken, and now you learned something new. The same thing here. Learning means learning from someone to whom you should give credit as a teacher—but not in order to accept blindly everything he says, rather in order not to dismiss what he says. If he tells you something, even if at first glance you think it’s wrong, invest another thought or two—maybe in the end you’ll discover that it isn’t. If in the end you are not convinced, don’t accept it. But give him enough credit that perhaps there is really something there. That is your chance to learn something from him. Because only in those situations do you learn; only there do you discover that something you previously thought was not correct.

Rachel asked here about “make for yourself a rabbi.” By the way, just jump in with the microphone, because with chats it’s hard for me to respond. “Make for yourself a rabbi,” in my opinion, is exactly this. “Make for yourself a rabbi” means: choose someone you value, so that when he says something, you will consider it seriously. There are people who think that “make for yourself a rabbi” means make for yourself the Oracle of Delphi—that is, make someone whose words you will accept automatically. I completely disagree with that. That’s not “make for yourself a rabbi.” “Make for yourself a rabbi” means: find someone you value, so that when he says something, you won’t immediately throw it away.

[Speaker F] No, but you were just talking about someone whom you don’t value—as if even if you don’t value someone, you can still learn from him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then someone else—don’t make him your rabbi. That’s what the Talmud says: “If the rabbi resembles in your eyes an angel of the Lord of Hosts, receive Torah from his mouth.”

[Speaker F] So actually “make for yourself a rabbi” is less a process of learning?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary—right, it’s not connected specifically to Torah. I think it’s true in every field. In every field, if you want to learn from someone, on the one hand don’t give up your autonomy, because you need to be convinced, you need to learn, you are not supposed to parrot things. On the other hand, give up a bit of your autonomy—at least in the sense of giving him credit. If he said something, it’s not nonsense. Think again before you throw it out. Okay? If you don’t give him credit, then don’t go learn from him.

[Speaker D] Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says this on Pirkei Avot, on “and be covered in the dust of their feet,” regarding Torah scholars. “Covered in dust” as in struggle, right? Don’t give in to your rabbi.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but you only don’t give in to someone in a place where you value him. Because if it’s someone you look down on, you won’t struggle with him—you’ll just go home. And yes, this walking on the seam between valuing him and still being autonomous and not automatically accepting what he says—that is the way to learn. If you value him to the point that you automatically accept what he says, then you won’t learn anything from him; you’ll simply do what he said. Learning is to internalize within yourself what he said—to understand it, agree with it, digest what he said—not to repeat like a parrot what he says and implement it automatically. And if you don’t value him, then of course you won’t learn anything from him either. The only way to learn something from someone is if you are dancing here between these two opposite poles, somewhere in the middle.

[Speaker F] What happens if I value someone and I still don’t accept what he said? On the practical level, what happens then?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you don’t accept it, then don’t accept it—that’s fine, that’s excellent. But don’t reject it until after you’ve thought about it twice, if you value him. Don’t dismiss it out of hand.

[Speaker G] And how does that fit with the continuation of the verse—“even if they tell you that left is right and right is left”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not the continuation of the verse.

[Speaker G] It’s not the continuation? Then what is it? So explain to me what this thing is that people are always quoting.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Do not deviate from anything they instruct you, right or left.” How? In the Talmud they expound it: even if they tell you that right is left and left is right. That does not appear in the verse. But regarding this exposition there is a dispute between the Sifrei, the Babylonian Talmud, and the Jerusalem Talmud. There is a version that says in the Sifrei, I think, that even if they tell you that right is right and left is left. Meaning, only if in the end you understand—and by the way, I think the two versions do not contradict each other. That is the question: you think he is telling you that right is left. If you respect him, you think again, and then you discover that he said right is right and not that left is right, and then you accept it.

[Speaker E] But with Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua on Yom Kippur,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He did not accept it, and he did what… no, there it is something else, because there he was the head of the Sanhedrin.

[Speaker H] One second, where does this part of the verse appear? It is not in the Torah, as I understand it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it is an exposition from the Jerusalem Talmud, in the Sifrei.

[Speaker D] In the Torah it only says, “Do not deviate.” After that comes the exposition from it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The verse is “Do not deviate,” right and left, “do not deviate,” right and left. But “that right is left and left is right” is Talmud; that is not the verse. And this—I said—is a case of differing expositions, seemingly opposite expositions, but I think that when you think about it deeply, as I just said, it shows exactly that there is no clash here between the expositions. Both expositions say the same thing. Even when he tells you that right is left, think again very carefully if you respect him, and many times you will discover that he told you that left is left—he was right—and then you can accept it. But if in the end it really comes out to you that right is left, do not accept it. Understood.

[Speaker E] But sometimes a person has to discover the humility that he does not know everything and that there is someone who knows more than he does, and even if he does not understand he has to accept it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, we are not talking about information. We are talking about reasoning, a mode of thought, judgment. Information is a different story. If you do not know, then what sense would there be in not accepting it? That is just foolish. He has information that you do not have. You have to remember that in the period of the Talmud all information was transmitted orally. Today information is accessible to us even without the rabbi. We can access information; usually anyone with minimal skill can get to any information he wants. And therefore today, mainly, I think the role of a rabbi vis-à-vis a student is specifically judgment, analysis, conceptualization, and less information. Information you can read on your own.

[Speaker D] Today it is

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] much stronger than it used to be.

[Speaker D] Is this not similar to a rebellious elder, who is obligated to do what he thinks and not listen to the Sanhedrin?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is what the Talmud in Horayot 2 says: one who errs regarding the commandment to obey the words of the sages.

[Speaker D] A person who thinks he has to obey

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] all the words of the sages even though they are mistaken—he is mistaken. He errs regarding the commandment to obey the words of the sages. That is not the case. If you are sure they are mistaken, then there is no commandment to obey them. Again, there are qualifications; we will not get into that—many opinions—we will not go into it now. Fine. In any case, I am closing the parenthesis because that is not our topic. What I wanted to show from the Talmud in Bava Kamma is that the Talmud in Bava Kamma, like our Talmudic passage, is exceptional. There is some formulation there that already does the conceptualization that is usually done by the later authorities (Acharonim); there it is already done in the Talmud itself. And it also looks that way in our passage. Our passage too does not just ask a question about throwing and stop there. It does the conceptualization. It says: look, I will explain to you what my dilemma is. Something like the kind of analysis the later authorities were supposed to do. There is basically a problem here of two forces in one person. And that is my dilemma. How to relate to it—like two people or like one person. Now, if that is so, we really need to ask ourselves two questions. I am just giving an introduction here that is stretching a bit longer than I thought. In the end we will get to Atvan DeOraita and also hear from you a little, but I do want to finish the framework into which I want to place these things. So there is one question: is this a discussion in the laws of throwing on the Sabbath, or is this a general philosophical question of which throwing is only an example? Or in other words: is the discussion a discussion in the laws of throwing, or is the discussion a discussion of whether two actions by one person are like two actions by two different people? In the second formulation you can already see that this is a general philosophical question. From the Talmud’s wording—from everything I have said until now—it is very compelling to think that the second possibility is the correct one. That there is a general question here. It is not a question in the laws of throwing. Although on the face of it this is a dispute between Rashi and Maimonides that we saw in the previous class. Because Maimonides asked himself whether such a thing is called that a placement was done here. And he does not connect the question at all to two people versus one person. The question is whether the act of placement can be attributed to the one who threw, right? That is really the question. This is truly a question in the laws of throwing on the Sabbath. It is not connected at all to a general principle that can be applied to inciting or to one who throws a vessel from the top of a roof—what is the connection? If I ask a philosophical question: if two people each do half an action, then I am exempt; if one person does both halves of the action, do I exempt him too? Is that a situation as though he were two people under the same hat?—that is a general question and it can be attributed to other halakhic contexts as well. But Maimonides’ formulation is a formulation of a very specific question in the laws of throwing on the Sabbath. There is no room to connect it at all to one who throws a vessel from the top of a roof or to inciting or to any other example.

[Speaker D] Could it be that this is some kind of line in Maimonides, because like one who defiles the priest is not liable if the priest acts intentionally? Meaning, in several laws too I saw that Maimonides sort of does not take this line of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good question. The question is whether that really is the line. That is a possible direction. It is a possible explanation. Maybe—we may shed light on this later, one moment. Fine. So what I actually want to claim is: in the Talmud itself, is this in fact formulated as a general rule? That is the whole introduction I have given here. The conceptualization the Talmud makes seems to present it as a general rule. On the other hand, it is very interesting to note that the Talmud does not try to resolve the question from other examples in Jewish law. In places where the Talmud deals with a general rule, usually the structure is that they bring examples from all sorts of sources in the Talmud and try to resolve the general question. So I would have expected the Talmud to bring the case of one who throws a vessel from the top of a roof, and inciting, and maybe also the examples from Atvan DeOraita or something like that, and try from them to examine whether indeed an action of one person can be considered two actions or one action. After all, this is a general question. But despite the fact that the Talmud’s formulation sounds like a general formulation, the Talmud brings no other example except the case of throwing that it is discussing. It does not try to resolve this from other halakhic contexts. That actually points toward this being one question, a specific question. But then indeed the formulation is a bit problematic. What is “two forces in one person”? Then ask a question in the laws of throwing: is this placement considered the placement of the thrower, or was there no placement here at all? Fine? That is the question. Was there a placement here or not? What does that have to do with two forces in one person? That presentation does look like this kind of philosophical question: is a person who performs two actions like two people? So there really is some tension here between the wording… of the Talmud and the structure of the passage. In the wording of the Talmud it seems to be a general question. In the structure of the passage it seems to be a question in the laws of throwing, because the Talmud brings no other examples. And there are many other examples it could have brought.

[Speaker C] But maybe the examples are not—they do not really fit this case?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, then I would have expected the Talmud to bring them and reject them. That happens often; that is what usually happens. Okay? So for example, the Talmudic passage about whether there is or is not retroactive clarification, tractate Gittin 25. There it is really formulated as a general principle, and it brings examples from all over the Talmud—from the laws of terumot and eruvin and whatever you like—and with each one: yes, it is similar, no, it is not similar; rejected, accepted. But that is exactly the structure of a Talmudic passage I would expect when the discussion is about a broad principle, a meta-halakhic principle. But here the formulation is broad and meta-halakhic, while the structure of the passage does not communicate that. It seems we are dealing here with the laws of throwing. And maybe that is what led Maimonides and Rashi to take these two directions. On the one hand, Maimonides takes it in the direction that this is a specific question despite the general formulation, and Rashi takes it in the more general direction. He says: the question is essentially whether there is a law of “two people who performed it” within one person, which is almost a contradiction in terms, right? Can one person function as a split personality, as two different people for the purpose of the exemption of “two who performed it”? Now of course if that is so, you can still ask whether this is a question in the laws of “two who performed it,” or a general philosophical question, even according to Rashi. Or is it a general philosophical question whether one person can be considered two people—whether two actions of one person can be considered two actions of two people? As for “two who performed it,” that is one implication, but there could be other implications as well. So you see that even when I view this as some kind of general rule, the question still is: in what scope, how general is it? Is it only in the laws of “two who performed it,” or everywhere, in many other contexts? So there really is quite a broad spectrum of possibilities for how general we take this discussion to be.

[Speaker B] Now, it would have been nice if this were a matter of “they did it” and not “they thought it.” Meaning, in… I think in incitement and enticement it is only a matter of thought and not a matter of doing.

[Speaker E] Maybe speech is also an act.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? So you are talking about Atvan DeOraita. What does that have to do with now?

[Speaker B] With the matter of two actions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so what is the question?

[Speaker B] That with action, you need to perform the action.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, I understand you, fine, but that does not touch the general schema. Whether it also applies in thought or only in actions—that is another discussion. In Atvan DeOraita it is quite clear that he took it as a general principle. Again, he does not bring our Talmudic passage at all, but he took his discussion as some kind of broad discussion, not a specific discussion about the laws of shaving and being shaved. He connects it to various passages, which is why I pointed you there, but we will get to it in a moment.

[Speaker C] “Two who performed it” is specifically in the laws of the Sabbath, right? Or is there also this in other… in torts too, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Also in the laws of the Sabbath, but I think there are other examples too. “Two who performed it” is—I need to recall—I am almost sure there are other examples. I need to look it up. In any event, even in the laws of the Sabbath, there are many labors here; this is not a definition within one specific labor. There is still some kind of general principle here. The question is how general. In any case, let us now enter for a moment into the Talmud’s discussion, and in the Talmud’s discussion—again, I am going to continue a bit more; I said some of this in the previous class. Basically, let us think for a moment about the case of the one who throws. If two people perform two actions—say one selects and the other traps on the Sabbath—those are two primary categories of labor. There is no doubt that both would be liable, right? The discussion begins only in a case where two people do the same action together, either together horizontally or together longitudinally, as we said, but together. Okay? More than that, the discussion can take place only in cases where, when two people do the action, they are exempt. Because if there were no exemption for two people, then what would be the point of discussing one person who did it in this way or that way? He would be liable. And the whole discussion begins when there are two conditions. The first condition is that two people perform one action; it is not just two different violations. If they are two different violations, why should I care whether it is two people or one person? If one person committed two violations, then obviously he committed two violations. What, one person can commit only one violation in his whole life? No one raises such a possibility, right? Therefore we are speaking only about a situation in which there is partnership of two people in one violation, longitudinally or horizontally; again, for now we will not get into that, okay? Now the question is what happens when one person performs both sides of the partnership. Now let us enter for a moment into the difference between longitudinal and horizontal. Let us say that two people carry out an object—they both uproot it and place it together. That is the horizontal one, right? In such a state there is no question what will happen when one person does it, right?

[Speaker D] Obviously he is liable.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously, because that is the whole distinction between “two who performed it” and one person: if one person does it—lifts it here and places it there—he is liable. And if two people do it together, that is the exemption of “two who performed it.” So there is no question what happens if one person does it. When one person does it, that is the ordinary labor of carrying out. In our case we are speaking of a longitudinal division, not a horizontal one. One uproots and the other places, right? But notice: that is not enough. I said this briefly last time; now I want to sharpen it more, to put my finger exactly on where the problem is. It is a longitudinal division, but it is not enough that it be a longitudinal division, because for example, if I uproot and the other places, without throwing—in passing by hand—and the alternative would be that one person uproots and places, there too it is obvious that he would be liable. The question of exempting him was never raised, right? That is the labor of carrying out. So where does the question arise? It arises only where first of all one uproots and one places and they are exempt—that means this is an action composed of two components, such that if two people perform the two components, you are exempt. Two requirements. A: an action with two components. B: a case where, if one person does one component—meaning, if two people perform the two components—you are exempt. You need to assume both of these before you begin to ask the question. Now I need to ask myself what happens when one person does this. But here the third condition comes in. Because the point is not that one person does it, meaning he uproots and then places; that is trivial, obviously he is liable. Rather, we are speaking about a situation in which even when the two do it, it is done by two different forces. It is not only two people, but also two forces. And here the question arises: if the person does the action through two different forces of his own, then maybe it is possible to view him as two people. And therefore the Talmud focuses only on throwing—that is what I discussed in the previous class—and not on passing by hand. Because in throwing, what happens is that the act of throwing is done—I uproot and then throw—so in the end, if the object simply comes to rest by itself on the ground, then in fact I acted with one force. The placement was done by the force of the uprooting or the throwing. Now when two people do it, it is not only that they divide between themselves what I did; rather, something now happens here in a different way. It happens by two forces, not by one force. Now the Talmud asks: if it happens through two forces, then theoretically there could be a case where one person does it by means of two forces and still he would be exempt. Because there are two ways to perform the labor of throwing. You can perform the labor of throwing by one person with one force: simply throw, and it comes to rest on the ground. That is called one person’s act of throwing with one force. But if I throw and then run and catch it, that is one person, but with two forces. Because the catching or the placement is not done by the force of the uprooting and the throwing. It is done by two forces. And now the question is whether this is not like two people, in which case he would be exempt. Do you understand? Meaning, that is the sharpening of where it is even possible to raise the question. Three conditions must be met, otherwise we reach absurdities. The first condition is that there be an action with two components. The second condition is that when two people do it, they are exempt. The third condition is that when two people do it, they do it with two forces, while the normal way of doing the action is with one force. Because in ordinary uprooting and placing, the normal way of doing the action is also with two forces of one person. I uproot and then I place; the placement is not by the force of the uprooting. I have one force by which I uprooted, and another force by which I placed. So I myself, when I work alone, work with two forces and I am liable. Therefore with passing by hand, it makes no sense to ask: why should I not be exempt—after all, it is two forces in one person? Because the normal way to do it is by two forces of one person. But in throwing, the normal way to do it is one force of one person, and there the question arises: what happens when one person does it by two forces, which is not the regular way of doing throwing? Then perhaps we will relate to him as to two people, and only there is it possible to ask and raise this dilemma.

[Speaker E] What was the second one? What was B? What? You said there are three conditions. What was the second condition?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That when two people do it, they are exempt. There are situations where two people do it and they would be liable; there is no exemption of “two who performed it.” Then it is not relevant whether one is considered like one or like two. Even if he is considered like two, he is liable, so what difference does it make?

[Speaker F] What is the definition of force? A break in between, between the things?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. The thing that performs this action. Meaning, the uprooting is done by the application of a certain force. It is not that same force that performs the placement. In the placement I do another act, I apply a different force, do a different act. I do one act and then another act. It is not one continuous act that then at the end concludes in placement. There I did one act, invested force one time, and that is it.

[Speaker I] Is there perhaps another example of one act that actually contains two forces, that can be split into two different forces?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is the million-dollar question. Now we will need to look at all the other examples and see whether they fall under this definition or not. But in order to see that, I first need to sharpen for myself what exactly the conditions are that are required in order for this dilemma to be raised at all. After I understand that these are the three conditions, now I can come to the examples and ask myself in which of the examples, if any, it is relevant to deliberate over this dilemma.

[Speaker J] Because it really seems like something very unique to the labor of transfer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe. We need to check.

[Speaker D] Maybe in the labor of kindling, where one brings the fire and the other brings the wood?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One brings the fire and the other brings the wood is a bit more problematic, because seemingly the one who kindled the wood performed the act of kindling. What difference does it make who put the wood here? We would need to discuss exactly what the case there is, but in certain situations there it could also be related. In any case, for our purposes, what I want to say is that what is important here is first of all to do the conceptual analysis, the principled analysis of the situation, and not to jump straight to examples and see whether this is similar or not similar. First you need to check what it is supposed to be similar to. That is the first important lesson I want to bring here in this workshop, in this discussion. Now look, I will maybe bring a few examples—actually examples in philosophical contexts before we enter the halakhic examples. Look, there is an article by someone from the Hebrew University named Eddy Zemach, the former husband of Mina Zemach, there were all sorts of things, never mind. So he discusses the question of why—he tries to propose a basis for altruism. Meaning, why should I care for another person? Act for another person. So he says this: tomorrow I will not be the same person that I am today. I will have different memories, different experiences, I will be a different person. So why do I today care about what I—for the self that will exist tomorrow? He says: if so, then why not care about someone else who exists today? What difference does it make whether it is on the axis of space or the axis of time? Now again, without getting into the philosophical hairsplitting here, I am trying to show you that there are lines here that resemble our passage.

[Speaker I] As if tomorrow’s me is actually someone else?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. He basically wants to argue that when a person acts through two forces, so to speak—today and tomorrow—which is like two people doing a different act, how is that different from two different people? Seemingly it is the same thing. What would the antithesis be? Someone who would not accept this would essentially say: the whole idea of morality is the difference between caring for someone else and caring for yourself. After all, egoism is certainly not morality. Meaning, the whole idea of morality is that otherness is essential. Everything required of you by the moral demand is to care also for others and not only for yourself. So when you place yourself in the position of the other and play both roles, you have omitted the biggest component in the definition of morality. It is absurd to make this mathematical manipulation—as if Reuven helping Shimon is moral, so what difference does it make if we substitute Reuven also in place of the variable Shimon? What do you mean? The whole point is that Shimon is someone other than Reuven. Helping myself is not moral, and helping someone else is moral. But notice, what I just said is not so simple, because he did not argue: why am I caring for myself right now? So in that case what I said against him really would have been correct, right?

[Speaker K] He argued: why do I save money now or not now? If I am always a different person, then a moment later I am already someone else.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second. I am talking about myself at this very moment, okay? So here he did not ask that question. Why not? Because here the difference is clear to him. Notice, the question is subtler. It is not so simple, what I said before. Because he argues that if philosophically tomorrow I am really considered another person, then caring for myself tomorrow is not placing myself in the role of another person—that is another person.

[Speaker E] Then there is no issue of selfishness here?

[Speaker F] No, because here we are in a continuum? Tomorrow’s person is also some kind of continuum of—not a completely different person. Okay, so there is some continuity.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Agreed. But for the sake of the discussion let us assume for now that it is a dichotomy. Then his argument is not: let us place myself in the role of someone else. Rather: tomorrow’s me is not me, it is someone else. I have substituted nothing. It is still…

[Speaker E] So there is no issue of selfishness here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I just want to say—notice what I can answer him. From Chani’s formulation earlier, when she said, well, maybe there is an intermediate level. Tomorrow I am a bit other but also a bit me. Was that Chani? I did not notice who said it. Or Rachel? I do not remember. In any case, what I want to say is: notice that maybe the more precise formulation is the formulation of our passage. It is one person with two forces. My actions today or my personality today and my personality tomorrow—that is not the claim that I am another person. But the actions I do tomorrow or my personality tomorrow are a different personality from my personality today, without entering metaphysics—whether one can really relate to me as another person. Rather, that is what parallels in our passage “two forces in one person.” And that is exactly the question: is it like two people or like one person? And then the discussion around Eddy Zemach’s proposal—you suddenly see that it really is the discussion of our Talmudic passage, even though of course it has nothing to do with the laws of the Sabbath and not even with Jewish law at all. Just morality. But that is the philosophical question: can a person be treated like a split personality? But that does not mean that he is really two people. I understand that it is the same person—after all, what is the question? The question is that it is one person with two forces. As if two sources of action or sources of pleasure—pleasure with an ayin, yes?—that differ between today and tomorrow.

[Speaker E] He can also

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] say that it is the same person on the metaphysical level. But basically, says Eddy Zemach, why is that different from two different people? It is two forces, it is like two people.

[Speaker E] He could say that just as I am obligated to care for another, so I am obligated to care for my tomorrow-self.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that is the question of what is more intuitive to you and what you need to explain. What is the starting point and what you want to prove.

[Speaker E] Then he does not undermine morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everyone will decide for himself what is self-evident and what is derived. It is not important. I do not want to get into Eddy Zemach’s discussion as such. I want to show you just how far, if we understand that the question is a philosophical one, we can take it very far. It is not connected to Jewish law at all. It is a question that can arise in a completely different context.

[Speaker C] Why stop there? Let us say that I cannot attribute responsibility to any person at all, because yesterday he was a different person. So why stop at two forces in one person? Even one force—I cannot stone him tomorrow because he is a different person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. To stone him tomorrow is to stone a different person; it is not to stone the same person.

[Speaker C] Exactly, so you cannot.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is the question. Correct.

[Speaker C] But it seems the most gratuitous. What seems the most gratuitous?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, I am not claiming that now, in Jewish law, on the side that two forces in one person is like two people—that is how Maimonides rules, for example—so now indeed I am not supposed to stone a person for violations he committed today.

[Speaker C] Maimonides does not rule that way; Maimonides leaves it unresolved. We said that in the previous class.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I did not understand.

[Speaker C] He rules that way because of the doubt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay, so at least on that doubtful side. I will not get into that now. So the point is that I am trying to show you the same line of thought. Now we need to see how far to go with it. Must there now be a uniform answer in all places where I ask the question? It could be that when I ask whether two forces in one person is like two people or not, this is not a metaphysical question, but a question that sends me back to the laws of throwing. And in the laws of throwing maybe I can think yes, but in the laws of morality I would think no. Even though the formulation is a general philosophical formulation, the answer does not have to be the same answer. Because the answer is context-dependent. For this purpose, two forces in one person are like two people; for that purpose, two forces in one person are like one person. But at least in order to understand the question, you can understand it universally. That does not mean that the answers given to this question in every context are bound to one another. A person could rule in our passage one way and answer Eddy Zemach the opposite. That does not bother me. But what I am trying to show is that the question can be asked in very many contexts. That does not mean the answers must be given in the same way. The answer can be a function of the circumstances. In these circumstances it is justified to treat it like two people, and that will already depend on how we understand the labor of throwing and what is required by the laws of the Sabbath in order to violate. And in the moral context I might answer the opposite, since in my conception of morality it is not correct there to see two forces in one person as two people. But notice that the question is still the same question, the same sides. The sides of the doubt are the same two sides. The answer may change from context to context. Let me perhaps bring one or two more examples; I am already starting to run short on time. Look, for example, there is a very interesting book by Ron Aharoni. He is a mathematician from the Technion, a professor. He wrote a book called The Cat That Isn’t There. The title is based on a statement of William James, who said that philosophy seemed to him like a blind man looking for a black cat in a dark room that is not there. And the cat is not there at all. Okay? Meaning, the complete futility of philosophy, as if it is just nonsense. The book, by the way, is absolutely fascinating; he has an extraordinary logical ability. I corresponded with him a bit because, as a longtime lover of philosophy, this book really stirred me up, because he basically said that all of philosophy, from beginning to end, is a collection of confusions, thinking errors; there is no such field. He denied the very essence of the field. He basically argued—and showed, not only argued—that all the fundamental problems of philosophy arise from a confusion exactly like the one in our passage. A confusion that says, for example, the cogito, right, Descartes’ principle of cogito: “I think, therefore I exist.” If I think, then there is someone who thinks, so apparently I exist. He says: that is a mistake. Why? Because when I think about myself, when I perceive myself thinking, then the I that perceives is not the I that is perceived. I appear here in two hats. I appear here as the perceiver and as the perceived, and one may not identify them with each other, even though this is the same person. And philosophy—in all its central issues, and I am really oversimplifying here—it is amazing how he showed this—in all the issues that seem not at all connected to the matter, he argues that in all of them everything begins from this confusion of grasping the self as subject or the self as object. The knowing subject, or the object that is known, the known object. Okay? And this confusion basically creates the philosophical tangle from which one cannot emerge, and the moment you understand that this confusion must not be made, philosophy evaporates. There is no such field anymore. All philosophical problems disappear. I disagree with him; I wrote columns about it on the site and corresponded with him about it. I think he is mistaken. But the remark is a fascinating one, and when you look at it through the lens of our passage, it is exactly this. Basically, you are looking now not at two actions performed by the person, but at two aspects of the person. The perceiving person and the person whom I perceive. Now, these are not two actions, because when I perform an act of perception, the act of perception has two sides. It has the perceiving side and the perceived side. It is not that each one does half the action; rather, there are two aspects here, but I appear in both aspects, yet they are two different roles. It is not two halves of an action; it is two different roles within the same action itself. And that already really resembles Atvan DeOraita. When I shave myself, okay? Then I am the shaver and the one being shaved. Is that two actions? There are not two actions here. I do not perform the act of shaving and also the act of being shaved. There is no action of “being shaved.” The shaver performs an action upon the one being shaved. But I play both aspects, the two roles—both are me. Yet it is not two actions like in our passage. It is very similar to the cogito and the philosophical problems of Ron Aharoni. Okay? Because basically I appear here in two aspects of the action, but they are two aspects of one action. They are not two parts of the action but two dimensions of it. Okay?

[Speaker L] Can I ask a question? Yes. Now, after I read all the examples, I am basically saying to myself: why should we say this at all? You can say that the passive one, the one who is surrounded, is liable no matter who did it to him—others or he himself—he will be liable by virtue of the fact that he is surrounded. And it does not matter; it does not depend on who. And by contrast the active one, the one who surrounds, is liable if he surrounds others. And according to that I solve the whole problem, because the moment someone passive surrounds himself, then basically he is flogged only for one thing. There is no such thing as his clothing himself. One who wears forbidden mixtures, then he is the passive one and that is all, and it does not matter who dressed him, whether his friend or he himself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I think you shifted formulations there between the beginning and the end of your words; I will get to that in a moment. Okay?

[Speaker L] Regarding dressing, maybe it is the reverse.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let me just finish the introduction, one second, and now we will go into Atvan DeOraita. The claim is basically that all of philosophy as a whole—think about it—what is philosophy? It is thinking about thought. Logic—forget philosophy—logic. What is logic? Logic is thinking about thought, about the modes of thought, right? Now I use the mind in order to decode how the mind works. Does that make sense? Is such a thing even possible? There is some kind of loop here that is seemingly hopeless from the outset. Because if I do not understand how the mind works, how can I use the mind to understand how the mind works? And if I do understand, then there is no point in doing the work—I already understand. So there is basically, in the very nature of philosophical thinking and engagement with logic, this paradox—or I do not know if paradox, but this problematic feature—is built into them inherently. It is something that… and again, it is two forces in one person, but not on the plane of action, where one person does two halves of actions. Rather in the sense of which aspects in the situation are realized by you. When you take both aspects, both aspects of the situation, then basically you are the shaver and the one being shaved, you are the one clothing and the one being clothed, you are the one defiling and the one being defiled, and so on. Okay? You think and you are thought, yes—you are the one about whom one thinks. You are the perceived and the perceiver. Okay, so this is more similar to Atvan DeOraita. But again I say: if indeed the question is a general philosophical question—meaning, if I formulate it this way: let us say that when two people perform two roles, then all is fine. So what should I care if one person performs both roles? It is still the same thing. If I formulate it in this schematic and general way, then seemingly what difference does it make? It is the same situation. So both in our case, where we are talking about two halves of an action, and in Atvan DeOraita and in the philosophical examples, where we are talking about two aspects of the same action, of one action—what difference does it make? I ask whether one person can play the role of two people. And then he will be considered as two for this matter or not. You can ask that here or there. Now Atvan DeOraita does not bring our passage as one of the examples, and as I said earlier, in our passage none of the passages that he brings in order to try to resolve the question here are brought. So this is that tension between Rashi and Maimonides. Here perhaps we understand more deeply the dispute we spoke about in the previous class—what lies behind the dispute between Rashi and Maimonides. Why one says it is a general principle and the other says it is a question in the laws of throwing.

[Speaker C] But now Maimonides is actually trying to solve this tangle. It sounds unreasonable that two forces in one person would be like two people, and therefore he says: if there is a person who threw but it did not reach its destination, there is a defect in the throwing, as it were there is a defect in the uprooting, and so he basically cuts the story off here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I completely agree.

[Speaker C] But how does Rashi get out of this tangle?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, how does he get out? It is a philosophical question whether one can relate to him as two people or not. What is the problem? Suppose Maimonides simply is unwilling to accept that side at all. You, as someone who is versed in mathematics—when I substitute x in place of y, there is an equation y equals x plus y. Okay? Now I solve for y, substitute x into it, and then substitute what I found in place of y. I can do that, right? I can substitute x in place of y in a case where y equals x. And now I ask what the solution will be in such a case. I am allowed to do that—what is the problem? Am I forbidden to substitute into a variable in an equation or in an expression that contains two names, Reuven and Shimon? Or x and y? Am I forbidden to substitute Reuven for x and Reuven for y? Why? What difference does it make? Perhaps the result will be the same. Why must they be different?

[Speaker C] I can, but then I will be forced to make him liable. The problem is on the side of exemption. No—I am saying that if I can substitute the same person, I will be forced to make him liable.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But on the side of exemption—

[Speaker C] Maimonides is sort of trying to cut the equation off.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I am claiming that the equation determines when you are exempt. You are exempt when x did action A and y did action B. That is the equation, that is the determination. It is not the equation; it is the claim. Okay? Now I substitute Reuven both for x and for y. If Reuven did A and Reuven also did B, then I am exempt.

[Speaker K] A person who commits suicide—I once heard that there were laws under which they judged him as a murderer for that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides indeed says that one who gives himself over on account of a sin that is not among the three severe sins is liable with his life. Of course he is dead—how is he liable with his life? But on the conceptual level, he is basically liable to death because he committed suicide; he murdered himself.

[Speaker K] On the one hand he is murdered, and on the other hand he is a murderer. This happens all the time; there are endless examples like this in life.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe there is a dispute there between Rashi and the Rif about what happens… wait, how does it go there—no, fine, that relates to Maimonides, not to us, let us leave it.

[Speaker C] But these two passages too—both that of Atvan DeOraita and our passage—are two different things. They are simply two sides of the same coin, but they are not similar. I did not see in it something similar. I did not understand. Meaning, it is true that the same person gets two roles, but in our case there is one person who performed two half-actions. And seemingly, if it is one person who did the two half-actions properly, there is no reason at all to exempt him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, sorry, that’s what I asked. So I’ll explain again. I’ll explain it, I’ll sharpen it, this is an important point, maybe I didn’t sharpen it enough. When I ask whether a person did two half-actions here or one action, that’s really my discussion. Did the person do two half-actions, so from my perspective it’s like two people each did half an action, or not—did the person do one complete action? Now you’ll say, what do you mean? Half plus half is one, what do you mean? Not true. If I assume the issue is what the person did, then you’re right: did he in fact do all the required components. But I can ask a different question: what is the action that was done—not what the person did, but what action was done. And my claim is that if you do the lifting in one force and the placing down in another force, then you did not do an act of transferring. No act of transferring was done—not because the person didn’t do it; the person did both the lifting and the placing down. The law is in the object, not in the person. The act of transferring has to be done with one force. So why is a change in force, as you’re saying, not in the object? We

[Speaker C] know that it’s…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Listen, the act of transferring has to be done with one force. If the act of transferring is done with two forces, then that is not an act of transferring. And therefore the claim is that it may not matter whether two people do it, each with his own force, or one person does it with two forces. Still, an action was done here with two forces; that is not an action for which one is liable. You’re putting the focus on the person—what did the person do. I’m asking about the action: was the forbidden action performed? And here I’m claiming that two half-actions do not equal one action.

[Speaker C] But regarding two people who did it, we said that was exactly the Talmud’s question there—after all, the labor was done; I don’t remember the exact wording. So we said that the Talmud already decided that it isn’t talking about the result at all—that is, what action—but rather about what I did.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not right. But that’s why I prefaced by saying there’s a difference between throwing and handing over. There we were dealing with handing over: I handed the object and he placed it down. But in throwing it’s not like that, because in throwing, when two people perform the act of throwing, the exemption is not like the ordinary case of two people who did it. That’s why you need the third condition I brought earlier. It’s not enough that there be a longitudinal division here—that’s the second condition. The third condition is that this longitudinal division is done on an action that is defined from the outset as an action done with one force. And if it is done with two forces, then it simply is not the forbidden action.

[Speaker C] But in every case of two people who did it, in the act of transferring, it’s a longitudinal action and not a lateral action.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s a longitudinal action, but it is not done with one force. When you hand over, I lift and you place down, okay? So that’s a longitudinal division. But since in ordinary handing over, in ordinary transferring, even the regular action that I do alone is done with two forces—I lift and afterward I place down—so there, if two people each do half, the exemption is an exemption because of the longitudinal division, period. Not because it’s two forces, but because it’s two people. There the exemption is about the person, because I can’t make two people liable for one labor. In our case we’re talking about throwing. The normal labor of throwing is done with one force. So if two people do it, their exemption is not only because they are two, but because the action was done, instead of with one force, with two forces.

[Speaker C] And consequently now I

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] ask: so if one person activates the two forces, it could be that he would still be exempt, because the exemption does not require that it be two people. Two people are simply the ordinary implementation of an action done with two forces, but there could be an implementation of an action done with two forces by one person. Okay?

[Speaker C] This claim here is something like: I did the action in an unusual manner.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, it’s not the normal way of doing the action.

[Speaker C] But two forces in one person is like two people—that’s something else.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s the same question. Because if I did it through one person, it could be that this is not called an unusual manner. One person lifted and placed down, and only two people is an unusual manner. Or maybe not: what makes two people an unusual manner is not that it’s two people, but that the lifting and the placing down are done with two different forces. And in throwing, that is not the normal way. In handing over, that is the normal way—it’s two different forces. In throwing, it isn’t. It could be that the root of the unusualness is not that we’re dealing with two people, but that it was done with two forces. And if so, then even one person who activates two forces would be exempt.

[Speaker C] And then that also fits with Maimonides, actually. That’s basically Maimonides’ explanation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. That takes us back, to some extent—not entirely, but to some extent—it takes us back to Maimonides. Because in Maimonides too, what Maimonides says is really only saying half of the matter, but maybe he also means this. He

[Speaker C] is basically saying: the labor is supposed to be with one force, wherever it reaches, and now you mixed two forces, so it’s no longer there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Basically, according to this perspective, Rashi says the second assumption and Maimonides the third assumption. But both of them mean all the assumptions. Okay, now really, this took me a long time—our discussion is really supposed to start here.

[Speaker C] It seems to me that every class regularly needs to take more than was planned.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nothing to do about it. My time estimates are not—I’m not good at that.

[Speaker D] Except that you’re not good at estimating us.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. I’m with you all the time, so I should have known already.

[Speaker D] And that’s two forces in one person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, let’s get to Atvan DeOraita. Atvan DeOraita begins with the one who rounds off and the one whose head is rounded off, and he wants to prove from the Talmud—the Talmud says he is liable twice—and from here he brings proof for his principle: that when a person plays both roles, he is liable from both sides, meaning he transgresses two violations. First of all, I’ll ask the general question: is he talking about a general principle or a specific question? I’m not yet getting into whether this is our general principle or some other general principle. I’m asking right now with regard to him.

[Speaker B] He’s speaking generally, otherwise he wouldn’t call it a principle.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right.

[Speaker C] He also wouldn’t bring more examples from other places.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A general formulation—the whole method is exactly to bring the same idea from different contexts. So it’s clear that we’re dealing here with a broad, general philosophical question, not with a question in the laws of rounding and being rounded. And you can see that the same move I made on our topic can now be asked about Atvan DeOraita and lead to conclusions there. And now I ask the next question: what is the connection between the two topics? Here too it’s a general rule, and there too it’s a general rule—but is it the same general rule, or a different one? So here, in order to discuss this, I’ll ask another question that I think I also asked you: what is the side that says it should not be so? What is the novelty here at all? What possible position in the world is there—and this is what someone, I don’t remember who, noted earlier—that in the case of the one who rounds and the one who is rounded, he would be liable only once. Meaning, if there is a prohibition to round off and a prohibition to be rounded off, then what difference does it make that I did both this and that? It’s like I both selected and trapped on the Sabbath. The first condition out of the three conditions we discussed does not hold. Right? What was the first condition? That it be one action composed of two components. But here, no—it’s two actions. There is a prohibition to round off and a prohibition to be rounded off. If I transgressed two prohibitions, then obviously I get lashes twice. What’s the question? What kind of discussion do you need to open in order to say that? Isn’t it trivial? In other words, the first of the three conditions does not hold. So what is the point of the discussion? How does he understand the novelty? What was the initial assumption that he would not get lashed twice? What possible initial assumption could there be? The Talmud says that he gets lashed twice. I’m only asking what the novelty is—that is, what would I have thought otherwise.

[Speaker C] I thought maybe he’s trying to say that it’s a result-based prohibition—what we called it in the first weeks—like, I don’t want this act to be done in the world. And now I go and look for whoever is responsible for it. So if I found one person responsible, then one person responsible gets lashed once for the one prohibition that was committed. And if I found—meaning, if there are others responsible, then they too would be responsible for that liability.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so really I think the natural formulation is—it comes up incidentally in Atvan DeOraita later on, though not regarding rounding and being rounded, but regarding oil of terumah, for example, and things like that. So the natural formulation says: I do not want a rounding action to be done on a person. That’s what I don’t want. Now what happens if I rounded off someone else? Then I transgressed the prohibition of the one who rounds off. But the prohibition of the one who rounds off is no different from the prohibition of the one who is rounded off. In the case where I rounded off, then I am responsible for the fact that a rounding action was done on a person. Therefore I get lashed. What happens if I’m not responsible? Someone rounded off another person and he was the one rounded off, but for some reason I’m not responsible. Say the one who was rounded off asked a minor, who is not responsible for his actions, to round him off—for the sake of the discussion, okay? In such a case there is a prohibition on the one rounded off, right? Because the one rounded off is responsible for what happened here. But are the prohibition of the one who rounds off and the prohibition of the one who is rounded off two different prohibitions? No—they’re one prohibition. The difference is only the question of who is responsible for the fact that this prohibition occurred. Therefore there was room in Atvan DeOraita to say that perhaps when I round off myself I would get lashed only once. Because there is one responsible party—that is me—for one transgression: that a person was rounded off. That’s all. Only one transgression occurred here. And in this case there is only one responsible party. The Talmud says no. The Talmud says that the prohibition of the one who rounds off—in other words, the novelty of the Talmud is not a novelty at all in the question of two forces in one person. It is a novelty in the laws of the one who rounds off and the one who is rounded off. It is a novelty in that the one who rounds off is a separate prohibition from the one who is rounded off. That’s all. Once it is a separate prohibition, there’s no need to hesitate about two forces in one person and all our philosophizing. These are two different prohibitions, so obviously if I did them I transgressed two prohibitions. And the novelty of the Talmud is not that one person counts as two; the novelty of the Talmud is that he doesn’t need to count as two, because in the end there are two prohibitions here. So what? If one person commits two prohibitions, obviously he transgressed two prohibitions. The novelty is in the parameters of “do not round off,” not in the parameters of one person or two people. Not in the philosophical question—the novelty is in the Jewish-law question: that the prohibition to round off and the prohibition to be rounded off are two facets of the same prohibition, so obviously he should not get lashed twice. Even the enumerators of the commandments, as far as I at least know, do not count the prohibition to round off and the prohibition to be rounded off as two prohibitions. They aren’t counted as two prohibitions. They are two kinds of situations that place responsibility on different people. What happens when I round you off and both of us are deliberate—both you and I? Ah, yes, then both I get lashed and you get lashed, because both of us are responsible. But not because there are two prohibitions here, one on the rounder and one on the rounded; rather because both of us are responsible for the one prohibition that took place here. Not because we did it together, by the way. The only one who actually did the action is the one who rounded off. Not because we did it together—there is no division between us here. Each of us is responsible for this prohibition. That’s all. And if I understand it that way, then basically rounding and being rounded is not really connected to our discussion. But if Atvan DeOraita does connect it, then apparently he did not agree with this.

[Speaker C] He also brings other examples where it’s clearly true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Atvan—

[Speaker M] DeOraita—the one who rounds and the one who is rounded, is that the Talmud’s conclusion there, that the one who rounds and the one who is rounded? Because it’s not—it’s one of the views there. Maimonides, I think, if I saw somewhere, rules differently altogether. That it’s not—you aren’t liable, that it’s not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is the Talmud’s conclusion, and in the notes below, in the annotated edition, he proves that Maimonides also thinks so, even though Maimonides seems not to. But that doesn’t matter; that is the straightforward conclusion of the Talmud. So in any case, for our purposes it doesn’t matter. For this matter I’ll take that opinion in the Talmud even if it isn’t the Jewish-law ruling—I don’t care. The question is what that opinion holds. If Atvan DeOraita sees this as an example for his general discussion, that means that apparently in his view the prohibition of the one who rounds off and the prohibition of the one who is rounded off are not one prohibition with only the question of who is responsible. There really are two forces in one person in some sense. And now we need to understand how; what is the meaning of this. How can his claim be that when I rounded and I was rounded, I get lashed twice—not because I transgressed two separate prohibitions, because then once again it wouldn’t be connected to the issue. On the other hand, I also don’t get lashed once but twice. That is, I really do get lashed twice. So how can that be? I did twice half a prohibition, but I get lashed twice? There is something here that is really, really strange. Atvan DeOraita claims that basically there are two responsible parties for one prohibition. The initial assumption we raised earlier remains true even in the conclusion. The prohibition is one prohibition: the prohibition that someone be rounded off, and the question is who is responsible. But if you are responsible both from the side of the one who rounds off and from the side of the one who is rounded off, you will get lashed twice. Not because these are two transgressions—if it were two transgressions, it wouldn’t be related to the discussion. It is one transgression, and you get lashed for it twice. What comes later—two transgressions from one name. Two transgressions from one name—I think the intention is that in fact there is one transgression and not two, because even the enumerators of the commandments do not count two transgressions. But you don’t say, let’s see which of you is responsible—that’s not the point. Rather, every responsibility for such a thing incurs lashes. And if you are responsible for this thing from two forces—from the side of the one who rounds off and from the side of the one who is rounded off—you get eighty lashes for one transgression. Which is almost a contradiction in terms. But that is the novelty of Atvan DeOraita: that one can get eighty lashes for one transgression. Not that it’s two transgressions. If the novelty were that it’s two transgressions, there would be no novelty here at all; obviously if I commit two transgressions I get eighty lashes. His novelty is that one can get eighty lashes for one transgression. It’s an amazing novelty. And that is what he means by two forces in one person. And that is what he means by two forces in one person, and if so, then it is definitely connected to our topic, because it says exactly that one person does not do two actions; he does one action with two forces. You see? All the conditions, all three conditions that I spoke about—and that’s why this introduction was so important—all three conditions I spoke about earlier are fulfilled, according to Tosafot from Nidorah. And therefore this is really it. Again, as I said, it’s really the same question. That does not mean there has to be consistency in the answers. It doesn’t mean that someone who says here that one gets lashed twice will say in our case that it is like two people and therefore he would be exempt—though in this case that also fits the Jewish law ruling.

[Speaker E] But why not say that these are two types of responsibility? I didn’t understand. Why

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] call it two forces?

[Speaker E] Why not say there are two types of responsibility here?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In our context, responsibility is the forces, because there are no forces here in the sense of the action. It’s one action, not two actions. Between lifting and placing down. Obviously. I call it two forces only in an abstracted sense. I mean two different angles of responsibility that attach to one person, and still impose upon him responsibility twice for the same act, for one act.

[Speaker L] I think that goes a bit too far. I’ll tell you why. It’s like the one who wears and the one who clothes someone—I’m moving for a moment to forbidden mixtures. For a person to wear forbidden mixtures, the natural situation is that he dresses himself; that’s the natural situation, and therefore he transgresses one prohibition of wearing forbidden mixtures. By contrast, there are also other situations where someone else does the action on him, and then that other person is also punished for it, because he too transgresses the prohibition of forbidden mixtures. And in the same way I feel that when— I feel exactly what you said about philosophy, what that guy from the Technion said, that it’s unnecessary over-philosophizing. A person—that’s his condition—when the Torah says not to round off, it means a person should not round off his own head. If someone else does it, he also did wrong. But the natural situation is that a person does an action on himself in one action, and it’s one prohibition. The separation here already stems from a secondary situation—that’s already the second stage, not the first stage. It’s being presented here backwards, as though the first stage is two separate things, two different people—for example in throwing, because there’s the side of throwing and the side of—meaning, as though the natural situation is two different people, and then what do we do with a case where a person does it to himself, but it should be the reverse. The normal situation is that a person rounds off himself and transgresses the prohibition, and then let us ask ourselves what happens when the two things are separate.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but I’ll split the response in two. First, what you’re basically saying is that you don’t agree with Tosafot from Nidorah. I have no problem with that; that’s allowed, entirely legitimate. But I’m asking what he thinks, before the question whether I agree with him. How should we understand what he says? That’s what I proposed up to now. Now we can start discussing whether he’s right—that’s another question. I didn’t say he’s right; I also don’t know if he’s right. But first of all, to understand what he’s saying.

[Speaker L] You asked us what the initial assumption was, to decide at all that there are two prohibitions here. So I’m saying—not to decide that there are two prohibitions. I’m saying the initial assumption is that this is— the Torah said, “You shall not round off the corners of your heads,” meaning: you make sure that the corners of your head are not rounded off, period, and that’s the prohibition. Usually that really is by yourself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but that doesn’t answer the question, because you’re speaking again the way I said earlier: that the novelty here is whether this is one prohibition and not two, or two prohibitions and not one. But I’m saying Tosafot from Nidorah perhaps does not learn that way; Tosafot from Nidorah did not learn that way. He claims it is one prohibition even at the end. Therefore I’m asking, according to his view, what was the initial assumption and what is the conclusion. And apparently he understands that the initial assumption was that it is one prohibition, and he claims that in the conclusion too it remains one prohibition, and nevertheless one gets lashed for it twice. Now, one can agree or disagree with this, but first of all that is what he says. Now I’ll say more than that: you need to understand that if I round off my fellow, then in the simple case, if both of us are deliberate, both of us get lashed. Right. But how do both of us get lashed? After all—

[Speaker L] you’re saying

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that if I round off myself or clothe myself—that is basically what the Torah prohibited; the Torah prohibited wearing forbidden mixtures. So why, if I clothe him in forbidden mixtures, do both I get lashed and he get lashed? If he gets lashed, then let him get lashed. What do you want from me? That does show that there is nevertheless a division of responsibility here and room to make the one clothing liable on account of what he himself did.

[Speaker L] Okay, and when a person puts on tzitzit, does he also receive double reward because he both clothed himself and he is also wearing tzitzit?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There it doesn’t say that the one clothing receives reward, but in the case of rounding off it says that the one who rounds off gets lashed.

[Speaker L] But the same thing—let’s also take it to a case of an action of a commandment, not an action of a prohibition. In a commandment action you don’t get double if I do the action to myself, so why in a prohibition is it double if I do the action to myself?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Excellent question. I’ll give you the same answer. Because in rounding off specifically, there was a new teaching that there is a separate prohibition on the one who rounds off and on the one who is rounded off. In tzitzit, that was not newly taught. Where it was newly taught, it was newly taught. By the way, the medieval authorities bring sources for this from the verse. So therefore it’s not— no, I’m speaking only about cases where this was newly taught. Obviously where it wasn’t newly taught, it wasn’t newly taught.

[Speaker F] I think the question also arises—it’s relevant to our Talmudic passage as well. Granted, transferring is kind of weak as two actions, but if we say our discussion is relevant as a general rule and not only as a specific point, then maybe it’s a question whether there really is an issue of two forces or not. Because maybe it’s natural that basically a person does an action to himself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so that’s the other side of the Talmud. The side of the Talmud that says that two forces in one person is like one person, and one is liable for it in the ordinary way—that’s what you’re describing here. And the Talmud hesitates whether that’s true, or whether perhaps one can see this as two different half-actions.

[Speaker F] That’s

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] exactly the Talmud’s hesitation: whether it’s this or that. Obviously your side is possible; it is one of the two possibilities the Talmud is hesitating between. Okay. Now look, our time is already up, but it seems to me that I managed, I think, to get in the essence of the matter. The rest—we can go through the additional examples that the Avnei Nezer brings. In the end, with all of them, the discussion will be what we did regarding the one who rounds off and the one who is rounded off. In all of them. Meaning, the question is whether the three conditions for this proof are fulfilled, and everywhere that it is not fulfilled, I need to discuss which of the three conditions is not fulfilled. And then sometimes it will be a case where it is simply two different prohibitions, like rounding and being rounded if someone says it is simply two different prohibitions, then forget it—it does not concern us at all. The first condition is not fulfilled. Sometimes it will be a case where there is no exemption of two people who did it, and then perhaps the first condition is fulfilled but the second is not fulfilled. And sometimes it will be a case where there is an exemption of two people who did it, but it is an ordinary longitudinal case, like handing over and not like throwing. Then the third condition is not fulfilled—that the normal way of doing it is with two forces and not one. And then there is no question there either. And basically in the end, when one does conceptual analysis—and this is the most important lesson I wanted to draw from here—when one does precise conceptual analysis, philosophically, conceptually, before the Jewish laws, before the sources, of the question and of the concepts involved in it, all the examples and statements of the medieval authorities and later authorities are already read at reading pace. Everything is already clear. Everything can be explained immediately: yes, that’s the first condition, that’s the second condition, the third condition. Move on. We immediately know what the possibilities are, what happens, what this one says and what that one says. Everything else is already unnecessary to read.

[Speaker K] But in order to do conceptual analysis, a person first has to know sources and only afterward abstract from them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. Sometimes conceptual analysis does not require full knowledge of the sources. You do conceptual analysis—what we did earlier.

[Speaker K] Sometimes, I agree, but there are cases where if you don’t know the problem, you can’t say—for example, in the laws of bailees. There there’s simple human logic: when am I responsible for the object I’m guarding, and you can start with that even before the discussion. But there are things I don’t understand so well.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In those too—first, I want to say that there are many cases where one can do conceptual analysis beforehand, which people usually do not assume is possible. It is possible. I also wrote articles about this, and now I’m giving a series of classes about it.

[Speaker K] Yes, yes, I agreed, but there are cases where not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I’m just saying that one has to notice that there are also cases where yes. That’s the first lesson I want to say. The second thing is that even if there are cases where one needs to see the sources before doing the conceptual analysis, still the order of work should be this: see the sources without over-philosophizing about them too much, get to know the situation, go back and do conceptual analysis on the basic case, and then read the sources again and the additional cases in light of the conceptual analysis you did. That only adds a preliminary stage, but it does not change the basic philosophy. It is always important to begin with conceptual analysis. If you don’t do conceptual analysis and instead immediately say: this one says this and that one says that, so apparently they disagree about this and that, and there’s a difficulty here and it requires further analysis, and so on—you did not do conceptual analysis. If you had done conceptual analysis, you would have seen that it does not require further analysis, there is no difficulty here, and everything is fine. It illuminates all the learning in a completely different light. Okay, so this is, for example, the kind of thing you should try to do, all right? Because it’s something that many times at least does not require prior knowledge—to try to think about the concepts. What are the possibilities in principle before we see the medieval and later authorities? How should the concepts be defined? What are the conditions required in order for there to be a novelty here, for it to be possible to say such a position? These are all sorts of questions I can ask myself before I’ve seen the material. And many times, if I ask that and map out the possibilities, even if I don’t decide which one is correct, but I map out the possibilities correctly, it illuminates the whole learning in a totally different light. It also streamlines it and sharpens it, and it’s very helpful. Okay, I did a relatively frontal workshop, but apparently I can’t completely get rid of my frontal style. Okay.

[Speaker C] But is there a summary of it, meaning of the topics?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have a summary that I summarized; I can send you the points I wrote for myself, but it’s not written in the form of some summary article that one can just read casually.

[Speaker B] But it would be nice to get the division of the three cases, so that we can really— we were thinking about it during the learning, but now it was clearer, sharper, between case and case.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. I’ll send you the file I have, and I hope it helps a bit.

[Speaker E] The example he brought

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of the condemned city, that

[Speaker E] wasn’t so clear, because if we’re talking in terms of punishment, what does it mean twice when we’re dealing with the death penalty?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The condemned city, for example—one of the problems with his analysis there is that one can say regarding every example—one of the problems with his analysis is that he assumes that if the people worshipped idolatry, then there was some sort of automatic self-incitement. But that’s not right. An act of incitement is like Edi Tzemach’s moral discourse. An act of incitement is always an action that someone does to someone else. I never incite myself, because if I have to incite myself, then who is the inciter? The inciter is already there. He already wants to worship idolatry. Now he incites someone else. So do I want to worship idolatry or not? If I already want to worship idolatry, then there is no need to incite me. And if I don’t want to, then how would I incite myself—who exactly would be the inciter here? Therefore I think he is mixing things up here. When I incite someone else to worship idolatry, freedom is essential. And therefore if I myself worship idolatry without someone inciting me, it’s not that I incited myself; there was no incitement here.

[Speaker B] Here there’s no incitement.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a bit similar to Hani’s remark earlier about the one who clothes. Basically, I get dressed; it’s not that someone clothed myself—that’s called getting dressed. Now, in the incitement of a condemned city, it’s clear that that’s the case. And therefore his whole discussion is not right in my opinion.

[Speaker C] But I—I don’t want to, like, if someone—but I didn’t understand at all what the connection is to our topic, especially in light of the three things we said. After all, we’re talking about one action that was done perhaps by two sides of the person or with two responsibilities, and here we’re talking about one action that was done by a combination of two forces—meaning, if I didn’t have one force, I wouldn’t have the action at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can translate the three assumptions I made about the action—I can translate them to those cases. It’s not the same thing in the sense that there you need an action that has two components, two half-actions. Here it is one action with no halves; it has aspects. Okay? But still, it’s the same thing. I can formulate all the assumptions I formulated there here as well, just adapt them to the concepts here. Same thing.

[Speaker C] But especially in light of the exemption we said, that it’s an exemption in the laws of the Sabbath because it’s not the original action. It’s two forces and that ruins the action.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But what does that have to do with the laws of the Sabbath? What does it have to do with the laws of the Sabbath?

[Speaker B] It doesn’t

[Speaker C] matter, this exemption—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it’s an exemption in the whole Torah. You didn’t do the forbidden action—that’s an exemption in the whole Torah, not only on the Sabbath. What was done was this action. If you did another action, you didn’t do the forbidden action.

[Speaker C] Right, so here because there are two forces I didn’t do the forbidden action. But here, when I can have the two forces separately and still the action—as if I—it would still be forbidden, I don’t understand that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re raising once again the question whether the conditions here are fulfilled or not. But the three conditions can be defined here too. Now one can argue whether those conditions are fulfilled, whether this really is a kind of action where if two people did it they would go out exempt. By the way, here the whole story is reversed, because here the discussion is to obligate, not to exempt. Here the discussion is to obligate, not to exempt. Everything has to be translated; everything here goes in the opposite direction, but the logic is the same logic.

[Speaker C] And what about the one who sets the dog on someone, for example? What? The one who sets on, the one who sets the dog on someone.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, in the case of the one who sets on, there it seems to me the point is this. It’s one action, only one action—

[Speaker C] the question is on whom I place the responsibility.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in the case of the one who sets on, it’s similar to Atvan DeOraita. In the case of throwing from the roof, it’s more similar to our topic. Why? Because in the case of the one who sets on, what happens is that there are two requirements in order for me to be liable: that I be the owner and that I be at fault. Right? Those are the two requirements. Okay. Now these are not two actions. The action is one action. It is two requirements, two aspects. In that sense it is similar to Atvan DeOraita.

[Speaker C] That I be the owner and that I didn’t guard properly, and the very fact that the claim is that I set it on means that I didn’t guard properly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right, that’s exactly the point. It’s an a fortiori argument: if when I didn’t guard properly I’m liable, then if I actively set it on someone I wouldn’t be liable?

[Speaker C] But I thought it wasn’t really two aspects; it just turns the ownership aspect into a bad one, as in, that I didn’t guard enough. The fact that I do this action of setting it on isn’t that now I’m doing two forces, but simply that I didn’t guard enough, and because I’m the owner I need to—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But you have to be the owner, so two conditions must be fulfilled: that you be the owner and that there be negligence in the guarding, that you be responsible for what happened, right? Right. Two conditions. Now sometimes those two conditions are each fulfilled by a different person. In such a case you are exempt. Why another person?

[Speaker C] It’s always the other person. I’m always the owner and I’m always negligent— no, no, you’re not always the one who set it on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When I set someone else’s dog on someone, then I’m exempt.

[Speaker C] I’m exempt because that’s at most indirect causation, always, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because you are not the owner. Because he is the owner and I am the one who set it on. Not because I’m indirect causation.

[Speaker C] But if I were—according to the side that exempts the owner, I’m exempt because the one who sets it on is himself exempt because it’s only indirect causation, right? No, no.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He is exempt because it is not his property. It’s not his property; the dog belongs to someone else.

[Speaker C] Yes, so that’s from the side of damaging property. But there is no option of—okay, so the side of liability is only the side that I’m the owner, right? That’s one side; it’s not two sides.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I move away person-damage because of indirect causation, but now I’m left with property-damage.

[Speaker C] Right, and for property-damage I’m liable only because I’m the owner. Exactly. So that means there aren’t two forces here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. An owner who was negligent in guarding is liable, not just any owner. There need to be—two conditions to obligate.

[Speaker B] But you’re talking about tort law, right? Right, exclusively. Because morally, someone who sets it on is also not exempt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Morally that doesn’t interest me; I’m speaking right now legally. Okay. I thought it’s simply not two forces, it just turns—

[Speaker C] The fact that I set it on turns me into the one responsible for this whole thing because I didn’t guard enough, but it’s not that I have two aspects here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there are two aspects. I’ll repeat once again: because if I were not the owner, even if I set it on—

[Speaker E] I would be exempt from guarding, because—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] when I set it on, that doesn’t turn me into the owner. Rather what? Here, in this case, both conditions are fulfilled: I am both the owner and the one who set it on. Those later authorities say: if so, that is two forces in one person. Now of course here it is doubly problematic, because if I was negligent—not if I set it on—then certainly I’m liable. If I set it on, I wouldn’t be liable? That is the well-known difficulty there; I’m not getting into that now. I’m only saying: look at the parallel in this sense. The parallel is to Atvan DeOraita, not to our topic. It is two aspects and not two parts of an act. It is two requirements: that I be the owner and that I be negligent in the guarding. That’s the discussion there. By contrast, in the case of one who throws a vessel from the top of the roof, there there are two parts of the act: I did an act of damage and I brought it about that the vessel would be broken.

[Speaker C] Which throwing, by the way? Throwing with the cushions or without?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, throwing not with the cushions. With the cushions, the throwing is nothing. Okay? So there it is similar to us. And here we’re already drifting a bit.

[Speaker E] So, Sabbath peace and have a pleasant vacation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sabbath peace, have a pleasant vacation.

[Speaker E] Thank you very much. Let’s hope to meet after the coronavirus. Amen. Hopefully to meet after the coronavirus.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Inshallah. Apparently it won’t be so fast, but in a better reality

[Speaker K] with God’s help.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thank you

[Speaker E] very much, Sabbath peace.

Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 1 – Lesson 28

Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The workshop format, Atvan DeOraita, and annotated editions

Two forces in one person as a broad principle and parallel examples

The question of mixing one action with two aspects versus two different actions

Talmudic exceptions in formulating rules and the example from Bava Kamma 20a

“Come serve me,” accepting authority in learning, and Rabbi Shimon Shkop

“Make for yourself a rabbi,” “do not deviate,” and the limits of obedience to sages

Tension between principled formulation and the structure of the passage, and the dispute between Rashi and Maimonides

The three conditions for setting up the question, and the focus on throwing rather than handing over

Philosophical examples of two forces in one person

Atvan DeOraita, rounding and being rounded, and the question of what the novelty is

A disagreement with Atvan DeOraita and a discussion of double responsibility

Inciting, throwing a vessel from the roof, and the distinction between requirements and parts of an act

Methodology: conceptual analysis before sources and dividing the conditions

Full Transcript

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Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The workshop format, Atvan DeOraita, and annotated editions

Two forces in one person as a broad principle and parallel examples

The question of mixing one action with two aspects versus two different actions

Talmudic exceptions in formulating rules and the example from Bava Kamma 20a

“Come serve me,” accepting authority in learning, and Rabbi Shimon Shkop

“Make for yourself a rabbi,” “do not deviate,” and the limits of obedience to sages

Tension between principled formulation and the structure of the passage, and the dispute between Rashi and Maimonides

The three conditions for setting up the question, and the focus on throwing rather than handing over

Philosophical examples of two forces in one person

Atvan DeOraita, rounding and being rounded, and the question of what the novelty is

A disagreement with Atvan DeOraita and a discussion of double responsibility

Inciting, throwing a vessel from the roof, and the distinction between requirements and parts of an act

Methodology: conceptual analysis before sources and dividing the conditions

Full Transcript

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