Topics in Talmudic Logic, Lecture 11

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you ignore it, then… “you may not ignore it” means you have to get up and help. “You shall surely help him,” and “you may not ignore it,” right. Another example. Or returning a lost object—again, “you may not ignore it”; there too it says “you may not ignore it.” Or a guardrail, right? There’s a commandment to build a guardrail, and there’s a prohibition: “Do not place blood in your house.” “Do not place blood in your house” means that if you have a roof that poses a danger, put a guardrail there. In other words, it requires you to do something—not to leave hazards in your house, right? There are very many examples. Like on Yom Kippur: “and you shall afflict yourselves”—that means there is a prohibition against eating. That is a positive commandment that forbids you to eat. And there are examples in both directions. And this brings us back to the original question. If that’s so, then what really is the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment? What defines it? So we’ve backed away from that; this is no longer what Avishai said earlier. The criterion is not practical. The question is not whether I am required to act or required to refrain. That is not the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. So what is?

[Speaker D] Maybe it’s about how we relate to someone who violated it? Because if you didn’t do an act, then, well, you didn’t do an act, so I can’t really hold you legally liable for something. But if you violated something you were forbidden to do, then maybe there can be punishment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good, that raises an interesting methodological question. What you just did is correct in principle, but it’s a result of the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. I didn’t ask what the results are or what the practical ramifications are; I asked what the difference is. It’s like when Rabbi Yosei HaGelili says that lesser sancta are the owner’s property. So once I asked my study partner in yeshiva: what does it mean that it’s the owner’s property? What does that mean? You have to offer it, and there are rules about what to do with it, like any other offering. So in what sense? So he says, what do you mean? A woman can be betrothed with it. That explains nothing. A woman can be betrothed with it because it’s the owner’s property, but I’m asking: in what way is it the owner’s property? The implication of the fact that it’s the owner’s property is that a woman can be betrothed with it. Okay, I understand—but I’m asking: in what way is it the owner’s property? How is it different from the most sacred offerings? You still have to offer it, and there’s a procedure of what you must do, what you must not do, and it’s all the same. So what is this idea that it’s the owner’s property? It’s some kind of formal definition that doesn’t actually mean anything—it’s stated only for the sake of the implications. It’s like saying: what’s the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment? That for a positive commandment, in order not to violate it, you have to spend up to a fifth of your assets, while for a prohibition you have to spend all your assets. You understand that this is not an answer? That is an implication of the fact that there is some difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. But I’m asking what the difference is. Why really is it that for a positive commandment you need spend only a fifth of your assets, while for a prohibition you need spend all your assets not to violate it? Why is that? Or why is one punished for a prohibition but not for a positive commandment? Okay? Why are there opinions that, say, in a case of doubt regarding a positive commandment, we do not go stringently? Rabbi Akiva Eiger wants to make such a claim, although it’s not exact, whereas with a doubtful prohibition we go stringently. Look—he says this there about tekhelet. According to Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s approach—the Rebbe of Radzin discusses this in his book on tekhelet—when it comes to tekhelet, suppose there is doubt about the tekhelet: whether this tekhelet is the genuine tekhelet or not. What happens in a case of doubt? Seemingly, Torah-level doubt is ruled stringently, so one should wear tekhelet in any case; tekhelet is a Torah-level law. So Rabbi Akiva Eiger wants to argue no. He wasn’t speaking about tekhelet, but they used Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s argument against the Radziner Rebbe regarding tekhelet. So he said that’s not correct. Why? Because Rabbi Akiva Eiger wanted to claim—meaning, not what he said, but according to Rabbi Akiva Eiger it comes out that one need not be stringent. Why not? Because where do I need to be stringent? I need to be stringent in a place where, after being stringent, it is clear that I have not transgressed. Say I have doubt whether it’s pork or not pork, doubt whether it’s kosher meat. Don’t eat it, and then you’re definitely safe, because then you definitely did not commit a prohibition, right? Now, if this tekhelet is not tekhelet and you put it on, you still did not fulfill the commandment. Meaning, even if you are stringent,

[Speaker B] you didn’t fulfill the commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, in such a case stringency is not called “playing it safe.” Where you don’t have the option of playing it safe, you are not obligated to do it. You have to do it only if it’s an option that fully covers you. Meaning, no one can claim against you that you aren’t playing it safe. But when you’re not actually safe even if you’re stringent, then why be stringent? So you don’t need to be stringent—who says you do there…? That’s what he wants to argue. But by the way, this is not a difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. Because even with a positive commandment there are cases where I can play it safe. Say I’m in doubt whether I put on tefillin or did not put on tefillin. Fine? If I put on tefillin again, then I certainly put them on, right? So there’s no problem; clearly I put on tefillin. If I have doubt whether this item is tefillin or not, then Rabbi Akiva Eiger says I need not put them on, because even if I put them on, on the possibility that this is not tefillin, then I did not put on tefillin. So stringency here does not certainly put me in the clear. In such a case there is no obligation to be stringent. So again, this is not a difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. It’s a difference between whether one can play it safe or not. Even within a positive commandment itself there are sometimes cases where one can play it safe and cases where one cannot. Bottom line, in short: there are differences between a prohibition and a positive commandment, but those differences are implications of the fact that one is a prohibition and one is a positive commandment. I’m asking for the definition of the difference. What is defined as a prohibition as opposed to what is defined as a positive commandment, and then all the implications follow—with doubts, with the money one must spend, with human dignity, for example, which overrides only positive commandments but not prohibitions, except for “do not deviate.” There are many differences between a prohibition and a positive commandment. So the differences are not the explanation; they are the implications of the explanation. But I’m asking: what is the difference? What defines a positive commandment versus a prohibition?

[Speaker I] Positive action or passive omission? No, we already saw that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We were there. And now we explained that it isn’t.

[Speaker I] But it’s not… he’s going back to it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can go back to it, but it contradicts the facts. The facts say no. There are many prohibitions that impose on you an obligation to act.

[Speaker I] You gave that example. We went back.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I—

[Speaker I] If that’s what I wrote—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There once was someone in our yeshiva—today a well-known figure—who was, I think, two years above me. He had hepatitis. There was someone in our yeshiva, today a known figure, who was about two years above me, I think. He had hepatitis for about half a year. He didn’t come to yeshiva, was hospitalized a bit, a bit at home, and it just wouldn’t go away. At some stage they brought some kind of sorceress woman with pigeons, put them on his bellybutton, the pigeons died—I heard this from a friend of mine; there was a mutual friend of ours there—the pigeons all died, and after a few days he came back to yeshiva. Yes. By the way, there’s some article by Rabbi Tau who once examined this, and he claims it’s all nonsense. They literally choke the pigeons—when they press the pigeons onto the bellybutton, there’s some opening there such that if you press it they can’t breathe, and that’s why they die. That’s his claim. Anyway, I think nowadays people no longer believe in this. Once they claimed it worked regardless of how it worked; they claimed as a factual matter that it worked. I even heard that Meir Hospital used it, someone told me, but it seems to me that nowadays nobody believes in it anymore, except maybe a few, I don’t know. Anyway, in short, that’s what happened. They told me this story—a reliable witness, a mutual friend of ours who was there on the spot. I got home to my parents, and I said to them, look, there was some guy who had hepatitis, they brought him pigeons, they died, and then a few days later he came back to yeshiva. My parents clapped their hands: what is this stupid yeshiva doing to his brain, these dark benighted people in yeshiva—it was at Gush, yes—these benighted people are messing with his mind, God help us, what will become of him. So I told them they’re trying to be rational, but they are rationalists, not rational. There’s a difference between the two. A rationalist is someone who clings to what sounds logical to him, and a rational person is someone who clings to facts. Meaning, if you have a reliable witness describing to you that something happened which seems unlikely to you, then a rationalist suppresses it and says: it didn’t happen, impossible. A rational person says: apparently it happened; let’s think about why. Let’s try to check, let’s try to think. Meaning, if we were all rationalists, our science today would still be the science of Adam. Because every time you encountered a new phenomenon that didn’t fit your existing theory, you’d say that the phenomenon didn’t happen. And you’d remain with Adam’s theory and never improve.

[Speaker J] Huh? Statistics and majority—you don’t know, it’s doubtful—you do experiments; how can you know?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you don’t believe the result of the experiment because it doesn’t fit the existing theory.

[Speaker J] So the experiment wasn’t done right, and then you did—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, exactly, that’s what I’m saying. If you won’t accept any experiment that contradicts the existing theory, then you’ll stay with Adam’s theory and never improve. The willingness to accept facts that contradict the existing paradigm is the very breath of scientific progress. Scientific progress first of all means a willingness to accept something that seems unlikely to you—but unlike people who are not rational, after you accept it, you ask yourself: okay, let’s try to understand why it works. That’s where rationality is tested—not in the question of whether you accept a fact that doesn’t sound reasonable to you. A comment to you from earlier—you reminded me of this before. Meaning, you say: it doesn’t sound logical to me, but those are the facts. First of all, those are the facts; now let’s try to think what logic lies behind them. Okay, let’s be rational, not rationalists. So very often rationalism is very irrational; usually rationalism is very irrational. Ben-Gurion already said that anyone in Israel who doesn’t believe in miracles is not realistic. So the claim is basically that there is some other criterion distinguishing a positive commandment from a prohibition, not the practical criterion. We see this—that’s the fact; that’s how the enumerators of the commandments counted them. So what is the criterion after all? So Itai, right? What Itai said earlier: there is the criterion of the language of the Torah, the formulation the Torah uses. We know that the Sages say that “beware,” “lest,” and “do not” indicate a prohibition. And of course also “not,” but they don’t bother to say that because it’s obvious. Meaning, “beware,” “lest,” “do not,” and “not” are key words that help me identify when we are dealing with a prohibition. “Beware,” “lest,” or things like that, or “do not do such-and-such,” or “not”—that’s a linguistic criterion telling you when it’s a prohibition. When the Torah uses positive language—“to afflict yourselves,” or “to rest”—then there is no “beware,” no “lest,” no “do not,” and no “not.” So it’s not a prohibition; it’s a positive commandment. Meaning, the criterion that distinguishes a prohibition from a positive commandment is not the practical criterion but the linguistic criterion—the wording of the Torah.

[Speaker F] The wording of the Torah. But is there no abstract characteristic?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second—good question, I’ll get to it in a moment. The truth is, I once saw an article by Aharon Shemesh, of blessed memory, a scholar here from the Talmud department. He passed away young a few years ago—relatively young. He once wrote an article in Tarbiz where he discusses this, and he really shows a kind of Talmudic archaeology. He really shows that in the early generations, in the early layers of the Talmud, the definition truly was the practical definition. And in later passages they gradually moved to a linguistic definition and gave up the practical criterion. Then it turns out that even things that, practically speaking, are perceived as prohibitions can be… they gave up the practical criterion. Meaning, in our language, Saadia Gaon basically defines it like the earlier passages, and Maimonides defines it like the later passages. Okay? That’s basically the claim there—he didn’t speak about Maimonides and Saadia Gaon, but he did expose the Talmudic layers and said: the earlier layers were practical, the later layers were linguistic. So is it a completely formal thing and not substantive? So that’s the same question Avishai asked earlier, and now I’m getting to it. Because clearly, even if you do the work—I once brought this in an article as an example of the difference between academic work and yeshiva-style work. Because even if academic work is done properly, it still deals with a very, very specific part of the topic or problem. He characterized what distinguishes a prohibition from a positive commandment: he said it’s not the practical criterion, and we see that the criterion is a linguistic criterion. Up to here, facts. You can test that and see that it’s indeed correct. That is what determines it. But clearly this cannot be the whole picture. Because in the end you still have to ask: okay, but Torah itself—why did you phrase this one way and that another way? Just because you felt like it? So you can say: because it wanted the implications. It wanted that here I spend only a fifth of my assets and there I spend all of them, or that here I get punished and there I don’t. But that too is not an answer. Why did it want punishment here and not there? Or why should I spend all my assets here and not there? Because there is some difference between this and that. What is that difference? Here we are already asking about the reason behind the verse: why did the Torah formulate this in positive language and that in negative language? What was it trying to tell me here? This is a definition, not a reason—not important—but what was it trying to say here? What is the substantive criterion? The fact that I know this through the Torah’s form of expression is perfectly fine—that’s how I know it. But now I’m asking the Holy One, blessed be He: when He wrote the Torah, why did He decide that this would be a positive commandment and that would not? Why did He write this in positive language and that in negative language? What was the difference between the two? What criterion distinguishes these 248 from those 365? What is common to all of these, and what is common to all of those? What is common to these as opposed to those? And to that question he did not answer. Now, by the way, that’s not his fault, because answering that question is not the role of a Talmud scholar. Because the answer to that question is a matter of reasoning. It’s not so testable. I think maybe it is possible, but much harder. And academic research, in principle, is supposed to make testable claims. Like in scientific research: when someone makes a claim, some law of nature or other, you can check it against the facts, see whether it works or not, try at least to refute it or to confirm or refute it. Okay? Likewise, when a Talmud scholar wants to establish a so-called scientific claim—not that it’s science, but let’s call it an academic claim—he has to make a testable claim. What does that mean? Suppose a Talmud scholar wants to argue in favor of pluralism. He cannot write a journalistic article in favor of pluralism. That won’t be accepted on an academic platform—unless he’s important enough. Otherwise it won’t be accepted. Why? Because that is expressing a position. If you want to express a position, write in a newspaper. You have to write a claim that is testable. What does that mean? For example, to write that Maimonides was a pluralist. That is testable. Let’s check—are there quotations or laws or rulings that show whether Maimonides was or wasn’t? So that is a testable claim. Whether one should be a pluralist or not—that is a position. You can express such a position or another; that’s your position, each person and his own. That is not a claim one can make wearing a scientific or academic hat. It’s a journalistic or ideological claim or whatever you want to call it. That belongs on other platforms, not academic ones. So in this context I’m also saying: if you do proper dry academic work, as true academic work should be—and I say this not as a put-down; it really should be dry. It should be dry because you need to focus on those things that can be examined in terms of truth or falsity, things that can be subjected to falsification. Speculations are not your business. You can write in passing that you have such-and-such a speculation, but that’s not the subject of your article. And if you now want to examine what distinguishes a prohibition from a positive commandment, Aharon Shemesh did well to say there is a practical criterion, and there is what does not follow the practical criterion but rather follows the wording in the Torah. That can be tested. Check it and see that everything counted as a positive commandment is formulated in the Torah in positive language, and what is counted as a prohibition is formulated there in negative language. That is a testable claim. The proposal or hypothesis or speculation as to what distinguishes the two—that is a matter of the reason behind the verse. You can suggest ideas, but there is no way to test them, so it is not the business of an academic. I’m just noting this parenthetically; it doesn’t concern us directly, but it’s an important point. There was once, in Makor Rishon—if I may digress a bit—

[Speaker B] Have you heard about—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that controversy at the Hebrew University in Jewish thought, with Rosenak—Avinoam Rosenak—who was accused by some people in the department that in his classes he basically asks the students, “What does this mean to you?”—that they should formulate their own philosophical or intellectual position. He didn’t teach in a dry way the different positions of different thinkers in Jewish thought, make distinctions between them, the practical implications—meaning, teach the material. He wasn’t teaching the material; he was running existential workshops. They told him: “Do that in a yeshiva, not at the university.” He was very upset; in the end they transferred him to the education department, there was something like that. And there was a big argument around this whole issue. Many scholars supported him—Shalom Rosenberg and many other important people supported him—and many came out against him. There was a whole polemic that came out in the Shabbat supplement of Makor Rishon. I wrote an article against it—not against him personally, but against the view he expressed—because I really think that is not the role of academia. The role of academia is to speak about testable things. Tell me what Maimonides said, what the Kuzari says, what this means, make comparisons, check the implications for me. To formulate a position of my own—I can sit at home, meditate, and build myself my own philosophy. What does that have to do with academia? There I am working as a philosopher, not as a scholar of philosophy. By the way, this is a very common mistake. Today people in philosophy departments are called philosophers. Hardly any of them are philosophers. They are scholars of philosophy. They know what one philosopher said, what another philosopher said, they can compare them, check the implications. People who create a new philosophical doctrine are not scholars of philosophy; they are philosophers. Now, that’s fine—a scholar of philosophy may also be a philosopher. I’m saying that being a scholar of philosophy does not in itself make one a philosopher. If he is also a philosopher, fine—but they are two different things. And usually, by the way, most philosophers are not in philosophy departments. In philosophy departments, usually, technicians sit. Philosophers do not sit in philosophy departments. That’s a life-position, not a criticism, by the way, because that really isn’t the role of a philosophy department. It’s the same thing—or the same kind of thing—as in Talmudic research. What I said earlier, a large part of the… Once some Jew called me—today I’m in anecdote mode—a man from Ariel College, when it was still a college, many years ago, shortly after my “Two Wagons” came out, almost twenty years ago. They had established some journal in Jewish thought there, and he was the editor, a faculty member there. He asked me to write an article for the first issue; they were looking for people to contribute. And he said to me, “But listen, I’m asking that it not be like the book.” I said to him, “What do you mean? The book ‘Two Wagons’?” So he says, “We need testable articles.” I understood what he meant. I told him, “I don’t write testable articles; look for someone else.” No, really. I simply don’t deal in that. I’m a yeshiva guy, not a researcher. So if you’re looking for articles like that, I don’t write those. I write articles that present a position; I don’t write research articles. That’s not—I don’t write what Maimonides said; I’m not interested in what Maimonides said. I write what I think is true. I can argue about it, I can bring proofs from Maimonides, fine, but my goal is not to clarify what Maimonides said; that’s archaeology. I use Maimonides in order to formulate a position; I’m not interested in what Maimonides said as an end in itself. It’s like what happened once around conversion. I wrote an article once on conversion and preliminaries, against the conversions of the state conversion system and of Rabbi Druckman, against the common populism of Zionists against Haredim, all the conversions, Rabbi Sherman, and all the big arguments that were going on then. So I wrote an article against Rabbi Druckman’s conversions, and I said there at the beginning of the article that Sagie and Zohar had published a book on conversion. I said that what they say there amounts to conversion to another religion. That acceptance of commandments was never required, that it was an invention of the nineteenth century—they write all sorts of things of that sort there, nonsense. Then I said more than that: I said there was not a single halakhic decisor who did not require acceptance of commandments in conversion. Not one decisor. You won’t find one. That’s an even more far-reaching statement than saying it wasn’t invented in the nineteenth century. Then the reactions started: what do you mean? So-and-so writes this, and so-and-so writes that. No one says that. I knew most of the sources they brought. There’s one who maybe does, and I knew him too—that’s Melamed LeHo’il, Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann. In one of his responsa it does sound as though he is willing to give up acceptance of commandments entirely. I’m talking to you about substantive acceptance of commandments, not the act of verbally accepting commandments. Not that you have to declare “I accept the commandments”—on that there are people who forgo it—but rather the assessment that you truly intend to accept commandments. That’s what I’m talking about, not whether it is part of the conversion procedure to say “I accept commandments”; about that there are disputes. I’m talking about whether one must assess that the person has accepted commandments in order to receive him as a convert, regardless of what he said. So there was some law professor here—once he had been a soldier under me in reserve duty—who wrote angrily about my article. He said: what do you mean? There’s Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, who writes like this. So I wrote back to him—though in the end it wasn’t published because they were already tired of the argument there, it was endless—I wrote to him that he is right according to his approach as a researcher, and I am right according to my approach because I’m not a researcher, I’m a man of Jewish law. For a researcher, if Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann said it, then there is such a halakhic position. But I, as a man of Jewish law, say that if Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann said it, then he made a mistake. He simply made a mistake. It doesn’t seem likely that he said it—but if he did, he simply made a mistake. The fact that there is such a position written in Rashi script and bound in a black or brown book with gold letters does not make it a halakhic position. He erred against an explicit Mishnah; it’s simply a mistake. So what if he wrote it? A researcher cannot say such a thing—and rightly so, this is not criticism. The role of a researcher is to document what existed; he researches the halakhic world. So there he says there is such a position and such a position; he can maybe criticize and say that the Talmud doesn’t imply his reading, all well and good. But I, as a man of Jewish law—I am not a researcher. I’m not interested in which opinions exist; I’m interested in what is correct. And if it’s not correct, then if Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann said it, he made a mistake. There is no such position. As for the dispute—

[Speaker K] between the approaches of Rabbi Ovadia and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, maybe?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Tendencies, tendencies. Rabbi Ovadia was not at that pole, and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein was not at that pole. Rabbi Ovadia was very sophisticated. He knew how to rule what he wanted to rule and to hang it on a thousand earlier decisors—and sometimes not to hang it on them. You know, in Bnei Brak, when I was there, there were all kinds of jokes that he was a donkey carrying books and so on. You couldn’t be more mistaken. That man was absolutely not a donkey carrying books; he was simply a unique genius. Not in the Lithuanian analytical sense, but the man was a mutation. Not a mutation in memory—he certainly had memory. The order he had in his head, the way he held things together—that cannot exist without understanding. No one can hold that quantity of information if he is merely remembering it mechanically. There is no such thing. The man retrieved information in a completely chained, interconnected way in every field. That talent is inconceivable. Anyway, different discussion. In any case, where were we? I’m returning to Aharon Shemesh—closing round, square, and curly parentheses. Okay? Back to Aharon Shemesh. So my claim is that his distinction is correct but insufficient. That is the testable part of the distinction. But when I ask, okay, those are the facts, but it’s still not enough—I ask, fine, but what stands behind those facts? What really distinguishes the prohibition from the positive commandment? So I’ll tell you. Look, what in my view distinguishes a prohibition from a positive commandment is the following. This is something I once said to Alon Harel, a professor of law at the Hebrew University. I went to speak with him about one of the books on Talmudic logic we had written. I was interested in whether civil law has positive commandments. I argued that it does not. Israeli law has no positive commandments; it has only prohibitions. So I wanted to check. They told me he’s a kind of philosopher, you can talk to him. So I spoke with him, and at first he disagreed with me, and in the end he agreed. Now what does that mean? Seemingly there are positive commandments: the positive commandment to pay taxes, the positive commandment to serve in the army. There are also prohibitions: murder is forbidden, theft is forbidden, yes, whatever, things like that; it’s forbidden to run a red light.

[Speaker B] For example, that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] was also part of the argument, whether one may insert positive commandments into law. But once they put it into law, it became a prohibition. Because law by definition has only prohibitions, not positive commandments. Why? So my claim is this. He himself later gave me this example after I explained what I meant; he brought this example. There is a Jewish philosopher of law named Robert Nozick—not only of law, but also of law—and he once asked: what is the difference between extortion and enticement? Extortion is forbidden, but enticement is permitted. Suppose I tell someone: look, if you come work for me, you’ll get a thousand shekels; if you don’t come work for me, you’ll get nothing. What is that? That’s enticement, right? I’m trying to entice him, in the fundamental sense. I’m trying to get him to come work for me in exchange for a thousand shekels. Legitimate, right? He can accept, or not. Now what if I offer him another proposal, an offer he can’t refuse. I say: if you come work for me, you’ll go home in peace; if you don’t come work for me, then I’ll take a thousand shekels from you.

[Speaker B] That’s extortion, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is forbidden. What’s the difference? All in all you are offering him two options whose difference is a thousand shekels. So why is one permitted and the other forbidden? You are giving him a gradient of a thousand shekels to push him to act. The direction of the gradient is the same. But where is zero? From negative? Exactly. That’s the difference. It’s not the direction of the gradient. It’s the absolute condition. Exactly the point. It’s the potential, not the gradient. Here we are speaking about the absolute condition. What we see here is that there exists some absolute condition such that anything you offer from there upward is legitimate. If of the two options you offer, one is legitimate and the other is not, then that itself is already not legitimate. Even though he could have come work for me, and then nothing would have happened—I wouldn’t have given him anything and I wouldn’t have taken anything from him, and everything would have been fine. That is a legitimate alternative, right? But since the second alternative in this offer is that I’ll take a thousand shekels from him if he doesn’t come, it is enough that one of the two alternatives is outside the legitimate range for the whole offer, both of its branches, to be illegitimate. A legitimate offer is when he can choose between two options, each of which is legitimate. If he can choose a legitimate option but the alternative is illegitimate—even though he can choose the legitimate side—that is already illegitimate. Why? The assumption here is that the legitimacy of such an offer is not measured by the gradient. It is not measured by the gap between the two sides. Rather, there is significance to the question of where I stand on the absolute scale, not just what the difference is. Or in other words, there is a difference between offering him zero versus a thousand and offering him minus a thousand versus zero. Even though in both cases these are two offers, one of which gives him an option to remain in the legitimate range, the gap is a thousand shekels, everything is similar—one is legitimate and one is not. Why? Because there is a difference between minus a thousand versus zero and zero versus a thousand. Or in other words, legitimacy depends not only on the gap but also on your absolute place on the scale. There is an absolute zero state relative to which we measure this. I use this parable to draw a distinction between a positive commandment and a prohibition. What defines a positive commandment as opposed to a prohibition is that a positive commandment points to a positive state. The Torah points to a state in which it wants me to be, a state it views positively. A prohibition is when the Torah points to a state that it views negatively, one in which it does not want me to be. That is the definition of a prohibition versus a positive commandment, the difference between them. Wait a second, I’ll translate in a moment. But first of all, that’s the definition. Now, to be in a state can mean to be in an active state of doing something, or to be in a passive state. Both are states of being. I am not making a distinction here between active and passive. I am making a distinction here between positive and negative. That is why I needed the scale with an absolute zero. And now I say this: when the Torah says to me, “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood,” or let’s formulate it regarding the Sabbath—when the Torah says to me, “you shall rest on the Sabbath,” that is a positive commandment because the formulation is positive, as Shemesh says; I learn it from the wording of the Torah. But I asked what stands behind the wording, why the Torah chose to formulate it positively. The answer is that the Torah told me that resting on the Sabbath is a positive state in its eyes, a desirable state in its eyes. It wants me to be in it. All right? Now, if I do labor, is doing labor a negative state? I mean from the perspective of the positive commandment. It is not a negative state. It is merely the absence of the positive state, right? Because I am not in the state of resting. The state in which I am instead—namely doing labor—is not a negative state; it is simply not a positive state; it is a zero state, not positive. And therefore it is defined as a positive commandment. Suppose the Torah had written only “to rest,” and not “you shall do no labor.” What I would learn from that is that rest is a positive state in the eyes of the Torah, and doing labor is a neutral state. It is the absence of the positive state. That is the meaning of the positive commandment to rest.

[Speaker B] Wait, let me understand. “You shall do no labor” is your zero, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Not “you shall do no labor”—rather, not doing labor. No, not “you shall do no labor.” Doing labor is the zero state. It is not negative; it is simply not being in the positive state, because rest is the positive state. I need not to do labor not because labor is something bad, but because not doing labor is something good. Okay? By contrast, suppose the Torah contained only the prohibition, only “you shall do no labor,” and not “you shall rest.” Then the interpretation would be the opposite. Rest is not a positive state. The Torah doesn’t care whether I rest or not. The main thing is that the Torah does not want me to be in the state of doing labor. That it does not want. Therefore when I rest, I am not resting in order to be in a positive state, but in order to escape the negative state of doing labor. That is why it is a prohibition. When the Torah says both “you shall do no labor” and “you shall rest,” the Torah says both things are true: rest is positive and doing labor is negative. But by that it has said two different things. Therefore Maimonides counts this as a positive commandment and that as a prohibition. In a moment I’ll explain the implications, but first of all, that’s the definition. And the difference between a positive commandment and a prohibition—now this is the definition. The difference between a positive commandment and a prohibition is that when the Torah commands a positive commandment, it points to a state that it regards positively. When the Torah forbids, or issues a prohibition, it points to a state that it regards negatively; it warns me not to be in it. Therefore what the Rabbi says—the matter of command and the matter of warning—is something else. And this is clear. In the eighth root he elaborates on this as well. What does that mean? Command means: be there. Warning means: don’t be there. Not “don’t do,” notice. “Don’t be.” In the practical criterion, it is “do this” and “don’t do that.” Now I am changing it: in the deontic criterion, it is basically “be in such a state” or “don’t be in another state.” To be or not to be in a state can be either through action or through omission; there is no difference.

[Speaker B] An existential state, you mean.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is what state you are in. Is it a positive state or a negative state? It doesn’t matter at all whether this state is a state of doing something or a state of not doing something. That is not the criterion at all. Okay, that is the definition of a prohibition and a positive commandment.

[Speaker B] And what is a “state” for you? I mean, what’s the general definition?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Any state whatsoever. Doing something or not doing something—it doesn’t matter—some situation in which you find yourself. Photograph any situation with a camera; what you see is a state. Now the question is whether that state is positive or negative. You can photograph a person standing; you can photograph a person doing something. So you’re either photographing an omission or photographing an action.

[Speaker B] The positive is what is beloved in the eyes of the Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Meaning, there is some kind of improvement or rectification in it—not important, you can already slide into metaphysics here—but it is the state that the Torah wants you to be in. Okay? Now you can understand all the implications.

[Speaker B] And then for the negative ones he is punished. What? Then you get to the criterion of warning—that for the negative ones he is punished.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, wait. Now, now we’re talking about the implications. I said the implications cannot be the explanation for the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment; they are the result of the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. Let’s see that this result really does follow. Look, why is reward given for positive commandments but not for prohibitions—not for refraining from violating a prohibition?

[Speaker B] Because if you’re in the desired state, because for a state—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why should I give you reward for zero? You simply weren’t in a negative state. But if you do something positive—“do” not in the sense of doing, but in the sense of being in a positive state—then you deserve reward, right? Why is punishment given for a prohibition but not for neglecting a positive commandment? At least not in court. Because for something negative, punishment is deserved. So if you weren’t righteous, then if you’re wicked you deserve punishment. If you weren’t righteous, you won’t get reward—but you don’t deserve punishment. Why must I spend all my assets in order not to violate a prohibition? Because this is a basic demand: in order not to be in a negative state, I need to spend all my assets. To be righteous—fine, I can spend up to a fifth of my assets—but not being righteous is not such a basic matter that it requires me to spend all my assets. To receive reward. Okay, so basically all of human dignity, for example. Human dignity overrides “do not” in the Torah only in the sense of nullifying a positive commandment, or a rabbinic prohibition. It does not override Torah prohibitions. Why? Because a prohibition is a negative thing. It is not justified to do something negative for the sake of human dignity. Refraining from something positive—that I’m prepared to compromise on. And again, not doing or not doing, but being in a positive state or not being in it—that’s an important point. Now it’s clear that this has no connection at all to action versus inaction. Meaning, with “do not stand idly by”

[Speaker B] your neighbor’s blood,” you need to—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To spend all your money. Because exactly. To be in a situation where you see your friend drowning and you don’t lift a finger—that’s a negative state. The state of rescue is not a positive state; it’s the zero state. Or in other words, this sounds a little strange, but if you think about it you’ll see that it makes a lot of sense. Because—wait—when I save a person, that’s something elementary, obvious. You see a person about to die—what, you wouldn’t save him? Therefore, saving a person isn’t called being righteous. Not saving a person when he’s drowning—you’re a criminal, an offender. So what difference does it make that you didn’t do anything? Not doing anything in a situation where action is called for—that’s a prohibition. It’s not a positive commandment. The question is whether action is called for here. In such a situation, if you didn’t act, that’s a prohibition. If action is not called for, but it would be nice if you did it, fine—if you didn’t do it, that’s neglect of a positive commandment. Do you understand? That’s really the essential criterion. The consequences follow from that issue. But that, basically, is the difference. And when the Torah is formulated in positive language or in negative language, that’s just an expression of the question whether it points to a positive state or whether it points to a negative state. I was once in Bnei Brak at some barber shop—I think it was near the beginning of Rabbi Akiva Street, I don’t remember exactly where. Something like that. On the wall it said that anyone getting a haircut should have in mind five commandments, should intend to fulfill five commandments: “do not delay his wages overnight,” “do not round off the corners of your head,” and I don’t remember some others, “do not destroy the corners of your beard,” and so on. Various things. Most of them were prohibitions—not all, but most. So what does it mean to have intention regarding prohibitions? There’s nothing to intend with prohibitions. Intention applies where commandments require intention—what is there to intend about not doing something? Even when I act, by the way, in “do not delay”—“do not delay” is a prohibition that requires me to pay wages. It’s a prohibition that requires me to do something. When I pay the wages, do I need to have intention? Do commandments require intention? Obviously not. Because when I pay the wages, I’m not performing a commandment. I’m avoiding a negative state, I’m avoiding a prohibition. When I fulfill a commandment, I need to intend it as a commandment, to discharge my obligation. Here I’m not discharging an obligation, because there is no obligation. There is no obligation to pay; there is a prohibition against not paying. Therefore I don’t need intention. This is a misunderstanding of the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. He thinks that “on that day you shall give him his wages” and “do not let it remain overnight”—that really “on that day you shall give him his wages” is indeed a commandment, but “do not let it remain overnight” is a positive commandment that you need to intend. Why? Because in the end it tells you to do something. And if it tells you to do something, then basically he understands it as a positive commandment. Yes, these are homiletics on the barber. He basically understood this as a positive commandment even though it is phrased as a prohibition, because it really requires me to act. So if that’s the case, then you need intention. Right. Only “do not round off” still needs analysis, because there it really is a regular prohibition, a prohibition that requires me to refrain, not to act. So what is there to intend there? So I don’t know whether he was fully consistent with that thesis. In any case, he went with the early Talmudic passages, not with the later ones. All right, so for our purposes, that is basically the difference between a positive commandment and a prohibition. Now maybe I’ll show you for a moment regarding the law—why in law there cannot be positive commandments, only prohibitions. Actually, good that you reminded me. Why do I claim that in law there are no positive commandments, only prohibitions? For example, we don’t find in law a situation where if a person does something, he deserves a reward. The legislator, or the court, or the president, I don’t know who, will give him a reward because he fulfilled a positive commandment ordered by law? There is only punishment. The law gives punishments to those who violate it.

[Speaker B] He’s obligated to save someone from a negative state, and he performs a very active operation. So what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So does he deserve a reward—a commandment reward from the Knesset? Will the Knesset convene to give him a commandment reward? Medals are appreciation; they’re not part of the law. If they don’t give him a medal, can he petition the High Court? He’s not entitled to a medal. They give him a medal beyond the letter of the law; it’s not part of the law itself. The law itself does not deal with giving rewards but with punishment. Think about the commandment of paying taxes or the commandment of military service. Why—how—why do I claim that this is a prohibition and not a positive commandment? First of all, why do people say it’s a positive commandment? Because it’s a law that tells me to do something, right? That’s the practical criterion. But now according to the criterion I’m suggesting, let me show you that this is actually a prohibition, not a positive commandment. Why? Because someone who pays taxes is treated as a person who did his duty; he didn’t do anything beyond that. Someone who doesn’t pay taxes will be tried and punished. You don’t punish for neglecting a positive commandment. Essentially, it’s not because Jewish law doesn’t punish, but really because you don’t punish someone who isn’t righteous; you punish someone wicked. Meaning, the fact that they require me to do something does not mean it’s a positive commandment. It’s a prohibition—just a prohibition that requires me to get up and act, like the prohibition of “do not place blood in your house,” which requires me to build a guardrail.

[Speaker D] Let’s say National Insurance and things like that, or welfare-type things. For example, welfare or assistance to small businesses. Here too there’s some kind of prize if I come and file a form.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not a prize; it’s a right that you’re entitled to.

[Speaker D] You’re entitled to a right,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s unrelated; it’s not a prize.

[Speaker D] So then it’s not a positive commandment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, of course not. That’s an obligation of the state to give it to you.

[Speaker D] An obligation of the state to give it to you. Of course. So why reserve duty days—reserve duty days.

[Speaker B] A person comes to reserve duty and gets paid.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But at work too—you work and you get paid, so what? That’s unrelated. These are not prizes, not reward for fulfilling a commandment; it’s compensation for lost work. Meaning, because you were busy fulfilling a commandment, they compensate you for what you lost. That is not a reward, absolutely not. They’re saying to the person: listen, you want to make sure he can function. It’s not a reward in order to motivate him to fulfill a commandment, because he is obligated to do it. The function of that payment is not to motivate him; the motivation is that he’ll go to jail if he doesn’t do it. They give him money because they say the man is losing wages—he needs to live. And I give him money so he can live. Essentially—understand this—let’s go back to that same “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” This whole carnival surrounding “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood,” Hanan Porat’s law—what was the whole argument there? Or the Good Samaritan law, as it’s called in Christian systems, in Christian countries—it’s the same principle. It’s a law that basically says you are obligated to help someone in distress. It’s not voluntary. Up to that point it was voluntary; you could get a commendation from the president, but it wasn’t a legal obligation. The moment it becomes a legal obligation, then you are required. Anyone who didn’t do it is an offender. What was the debate there about? So first of all, of course, the debate was about inserting a verse into the law books. Hanan Porat and all his crowd danced with joy after the law passed—not because now people would start saving others, but because they had managed to force some verse into the statute book. If you look at the Knesset records, meaning the committee protocol, you’ll see that that was what the debate was about. Those who opposed it simply did not want a verse to appear in the law books. And that was the whole debate. Only part of it dealt with the substantive question—I don’t know if only part, but only some of it dealt with the substantive question. A large part of it was simply the question whether to put a verse into the law books or not. If they had called it the Good Samaritan Law, I think there would have been broader consensus on the matter. In any event, that’s one issue. But there was also some substantive debate behind it. Why don’t other countries do such a thing either—at least some of them? In most countries, by the way, I think there is no such law. Why? Because the conception is that this basically cannot be a legal obligation. It is obvious that we appreciate and expect everyone to save or extend help to his fellow who is in distress. That is completely clear. It’s a norm everyone agrees on; nobody disputes it. When you put it into law, you are basically saying that it becomes an obligation. You don’t deserve a presidential commendation for it afterward. Rather, if you didn’t do it, you deserve punishment. That is something people would not agree to accept. People did not agree to accept that what was perceived as a moral virtue or a positive commandment would turn into a prohibition. It would become something you are fundamentally required to do, and if you don’t do it, you are wicked and will be punished. He’s not wicked—he’s not righteous, he’s not—because I didn’t throw him into the river. True, I could have saved him, but I didn’t do anything bad here; I just didn’t do anything good. So that was basically the claim. And Hanan Porat said, what do you mean, of course we should put it in the law books—and by doing that he basically turned it into a prohibition. Now there’s a kind of ironic reversal here. I once wrote this in an article on Hebrew law, why in my opinion it is not good, not desirable, and not useful to put halakhot into the law books of the State of Israel. Among other things I brought this example. I said that putting the law of “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” into the statute book—when everyone was dancing because now we are identifying the law more and more with Jewish law—that is exactly the opposite. Before this thing entered the law books, what was the situation? Everyone expected a person to extend help to someone in distress, right? But they expected it morally. Meaning, if he didn’t extend help, there was no sanction. After the law entered, if you don’t extend help there is a sanction. Right? In Jewish law, if you don’t extend help, there is no sanction. It is a prohibition with no action involved. There is no punishment. So the situation before the law was enacted fit Jewish law perfectly. After the law was enacted, they made the law different from Jewish law. Why? Because the very enactment of the law means that in the substantive sense it is a prohibition. In Jewish law too it is a prohibition, but a prohibition with no action. It is a prohibition, and a prohibition means there is a sanction attached to it. The assumption of all legal thought is that every law has a sanction attached to it. There is no law without a sanction. There is one specific section in the law books called administrative law. And there there is a very great absurdity. I once wanted to write an article about it; they didn’t accept it, never mind. We were in Yeruham—there was some struggle against a corrupt council head. So we carried on this struggle for a whole year against this little guy, who simply did whatever he wanted. Meaning, he didn’t issue tenders, nothing; fired people, didn’t pay them salaries. Did whatever he wanted. In short, everything—threw the rulebook and the laws and everything into the trash. Now what happens, absurdly enough in this country, and maybe elsewhere too—this belongs to legal studies—is that he committed administrative offenses. In extreme cases it becomes criminal and there is personal liability or personal responsibility, but those are very extreme cases—you have to prove it. Generally speaking, he violated administrative law. Now what happens when a person violates administrative law? He didn’t issue a tender. So you petition the court or the High Court, whatever, the court, and you say, what do you mean, he didn’t issue a tender? After two years, lawyers you paid a lot of money, if you manage to prove it, then after two years the court will say, okay, he didn’t issue a tender, the contractor he chose is void, let him issue a tender and bring a new contractor.

[Speaker B] After he already built it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine? After he already built it, many times. That’s the most that will come of it. And that’s after you spent a lot of money and if you succeeded. When you’re usually just a citizen with other things to do, and this is his whole business, then usually he is stronger than you in court. The problem here is that it’s a gamble with only upside. Suddenly it clicked for me that this guy violated administrative law five times an hour. Now for each one of those occasions, are you going to take him to court, pay lawyers, run a year-long case, and maybe at the end manage to prove it? So that one act out of the hundred a day that he did—after two years of work, what will happen? He won’t pay anything for it, there will be no punishment, they’ll void the action, and he’ll return to the state he was in anyway. He was in a state where he should have done it by tender in any case. So what happens? The person basically says, what’s the problem? It’s a gamble with only upside. I do whatever I want; at most they’ll put me back in the state where I have to issue a tender, and then I’ll issue a tender. Or I won’t issue a tender again, and they’ll take me to court again. There’s nothing there—it’s law without teeth. There cannot be law without teeth. If you don’t tell a person, listen, you will pay a price if you violate the law, then there is no law. That law doesn’t work. Now I don’t know—the people there don’t grasp this point, it’s crazy. The legal system—and then they’re surprised that there is corruption in municipal administration. Of course there is corruption. Because there are no sanctions for corruption unless it reaches the criminal threshold. When it reaches the criminal threshold, people sometimes get carried away. They start in administrative law and move into criminal territory when they go too far. And then you can get them on a criminal matter. But it’s very difficult; you have to prove it, it’s very hard to say that he has already crossed into the criminal realm. Generally speaking it’s administrative law, and administrative law is only a recommendation in the State of Israel. All of administrative law is a recommendation. If you want, do it; if you don’t want, don’t do it. You’re gambling. At most they’ll force you to obey the law, and that’s it. You’ll never pay for it. So in general—but I’m saying, aside from administrative law, which is a pathology in itself—beyond that, law always has a sanction attached to it. And why? Because law as a whole is a collection of prohibitions. There are no positive commandments.

[Speaker D] If I’m not mistaken, the Good Samaritan law in the United States is formulated differently. The Good Samaritan law in the United States, for example, is phrased so that if you acted within the framework of that law you get some kind of legal presumption regarding it. But if you didn’t act, no—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The wording doesn’t matter. Phrase it however you want, but there is a sanction for someone who didn’t do it, and there is no reward for someone who did.

[Speaker D] As far as I know, no, there is no sanction there. It’s just that if you acted—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You are in a certain legal presumption.

[Speaker D] What does a certain legal presumption mean? Like, he can’t—he can’t sue you for harming him and causing him damage because you saved someone by—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t cause him damage—how can he sue me? And if I didn’t save him, so what? How did I cause him damage? He drowned in the river, I didn’t save him—can he sue me for damages? So that’s it—if I once understood it correctly, over there it’s phrased that within the framework of that law, because you came and tried to save him, if—I don’t know—his leg got broken, you’re not liable for that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously I’m not, but you don’t need the law for that; I’m not liable for it anyway. I could only have saved him, but I didn’t break his leg. Under Israeli law you can sue.

[Speaker D] Under Israeli law you can sue. No, it’s not a tort claim.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s a discussion—I don’t know, I’m not a legal expert, so not a tort claim, it’s a criminal proceeding. If you didn’t help him, they prosecute you criminally; it has nothing to do with torts.

[Speaker D] Torts are something else; I didn’t cause him harm.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, the law in the United States, as far as I know… fine, okay, I don’t know, I’m not sufficiently familiar to know. But at the principled level, it’s only an example. At the principled level, what I want to say is that law, in essence, is a prohibition.

[Speaker D] It’s a prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Therefore the entire legal world—even commands that require me to act, like taxes, military service, and so on, and also commands that require me not to act—they are all prohibitions. All of them are prohibitions from this perspective. Why? Since the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment is not the practical difference, but the evaluative difference. What—what do you want? Are you pointing to a positive state or are you pointing to a negative state? Maybe—I’ll give an example. There is Nachmanides in Kiddushin. The Talmud says there—the Talmud brings several examples of positive commandments not dependent on time for which women are obligated. One of the examples is a guardrail. No—a guardrail is “and you shall make a guardrail for your roof,” a positive commandment. Or returning a lost object, or sending away the mother bird, things like that. Tosafot asks there—and it’s really amazing—and other medieval authorities (Rishonim) ask this too: Nachmanides, Tosafot, Rashba, there are other medieval authorities (Rishonim) who ask this. All the commandments brought there—I think all of them, four or five commandments—all the examples are examples that also have a prohibition alongside them. “Do not place blood in your house” and “you shall make a guardrail for your roof.” “You may not hide yourself” and “you shall surely return them.” In short, all of them. So what does that mean? What does this have to do with not being time-bound? Even if they were time-bound, women would still be obligated, because there is also a prohibition here.

[Speaker B] Women are obligated in prohibitions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So these are not good examples; they are precisely the bad examples. Because these are exactly examples where even if they were dependent on time, women would still be obligated. So why are you bringing me these examples as examples of commandments not dependent on time, and therefore women are obligated? Here women would be obligated even if they were time-bound, since a prohibition accompanies them. Okay, we’ll return to this question later as well, in another context, when we talk about deontic logic. But Nachmanides gives a very interesting answer there. Nachmanides claims that if this is so—why? Because the prohibition exists entirely in order to support the positive commandment. Meaning, the prohibition of “do not place blood in your house” is basically meant to prod a person to fulfill “and you shall make a guardrail for your roof.” It has no independent standing. It’s a prohibition whose whole point is to strengthen the positive commandment. Therefore, someone who is exempt from the positive commandment—if it were time-bound, then women would be exempt from the positive commandment—would automatically also be exempt from the prohibition, because the whole point of the prohibition is to ensure that you fulfill the positive commandment. Therefore, in pairs of this type, where there is a prohibition and a positive commandment, if it were time-bound and women were exempt from the positive commandment, they would also be exempt from the prohibition. For example, on a Jewish holiday, labor on a Jewish holiday has both a positive commandment and a prohibition. If women were exempt from the positive commandment on a Jewish holiday because it is time-bound, and the prohibition’s purpose were only to ensure fulfillment of the positive commandment, then they would also be exempt from the prohibition. That doesn’t happen; that’s not true on a Jewish holiday. The question is why not, but in principle according to Nachmanides that is the conclusion. Now Tosafot there asks: what about burning defiled terumah oil on a Jewish holiday? It says that you do not burn it on a Jewish holiday. You don’t burn defiled terumah on a Jewish holiday. Defiled terumah must be burned, but you don’t burn it on a Jewish holiday. Why not? Because the positive commandment to burn the defiled terumah does not override the positive commandment and the prohibition of a Jewish holiday, which is both a positive commandment and a prohibition. Tosafot asks: but women are exempt from the positive commandment, so all that remains is only the prohibition—so let women burn defiled terumah on a Jewish holiday. According to Nachmanides the question is even stronger, because if women are exempt from the positive commandment then they are also exempt from the prohibition, because if indeed the whole point of the prohibition is to ensure fulfillment of the positive commandment, then in effect there isn’t even the prohibition alone—there is nothing here at all.

[Speaker B] If it comes to support.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it comes to support, yes. Obviously—on the side that it comes to support—I’m just illustrating. All right? So that is what Nachmanides claims. The interesting question is: in what sense does the existence of a prohibition strengthen the positive commandment? Why say that it strengthens the positive commandment? What does “strengthen” mean? To violate two prohibitions, for example? Usually when people talk about violating two prohibitions, the intention is to receive eighty lashes. Maybe forty lashes you’re prepared to absorb; eighty you’ll be less willing to absorb. So that motivates you more to fulfill it. I can perhaps understand why violating two prohibitions strengthens things. But imposing a prohibition parallel to a positive commandment—why does that strengthen it? So you’ll say, because the prohibition carries lashes. But with a guardrail there are no lashes. It’s a prohibition with no action. I didn’t make a guardrail on my house. I violated the prohibition of “do not place blood in your house.” That’s a prohibition with no action involved; you don’t get lashes. So in what sense does that strengthen the positive commandment?

[Speaker D] It defines the vector from the negative to the positive.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, I think there’s no choice but to say that. What does that mean? The claim is this. If there were only a positive commandment, then why don’t you fulfill that commandment? Because I’m not righteous; I’m average, that’s enough for me, that’s my level. I don’t aspire to be righteous, so I don’t fulfill positive commandments. I’m speaking this way only for the sake of the metaphorical description; later I’ll explain why it’s not exactly like that. But if they tell you, look, there is also a prohibition, then it means that if you don’t build a guardrail it’s not just that you’re not righteous—you’re wicked. Ah, wicked I’m not willing to be. Meaning, I’m average; I don’t aspire to be righteous, but wicked? No, I’m not one of the wicked. So if there were only a positive commandment here, there might be people who would say, fine, I don’t fulfill positive commandments, I’m not building a guardrail. The Torah says no, there is also a prohibition here. If you don’t build a guardrail, that’s a negative state. You will be wicked. Therefore the existence of the prohibition supports the positive commandment.

[Speaker K] What do you mean? Maybe the opposite, isn’t it? What do you mean? Maybe specifically the positive commandment is the opposite? Now he’ll be defined as not a good person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A positive commandment doesn’t need to support a prohibition. If the prohibition doesn’t persuade me, that means I don’t care about being wicked. So the positive commandment says not only are you wicked, you’re also not righteous.

[Speaker K] Thank you very much. But now the perspective will be that he’ll be a wicked person, so time doesn’t matter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, but that is exactly the point. Therefore the positive commandment is irrelevant. There is a prohibition. The prohibition says that I am wicked if I do this, so the positive commandment does not support the prohibition in any way. Because if you also impose a positive commandment in addition to the prohibition, all you are telling me is that besides being wicked, I’m also not righteous. I know that; everyone wicked is also not righteous. But imposing a prohibition in addition to a positive commandment—that does strengthen it. Because if there were only a positive commandment and I didn’t do it, then I would be average. Now that there is a prohibition, they say no, no—you’re not only average, you’re wicked. So that motivates me to act. It’s carrot and stick. A positive commandment is a carrot: it says if you do it, you’ll be righteous, you deserve a reward—that’s the carrot. The prohibition is the stick. It says if you don’t do it, you’re wicked; get away from here, don’t be here. A stick that beats you so you won’t be there. All right? Therefore a prohibition can support a positive commandment. And therefore Nachmanides too, in this duplication between prohibition and positive commandment, concludes that the prohibition supports the positive commandment. Why doesn’t he conclude that the positive commandment supports the prohibition?

[Speaker B] It doesn’t matter, because—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A positive commandment never supports a prohibition. A positive commandment cannot come to support a prohibition. A positive commandment adds nothing to the prohibition. A prohibition does add something to the positive commandment.

[Speaker B] If the positive commandment adds nothing, then why do I need it in this case? On the contrary.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said when the prohibition—you need it because it’s a positive state. The prohibition doesn’t really need it, except to strengthen the positive commandment.

[Speaker B] How can you explain this in the case of the Sabbath, where the main thing is non-action? Very good.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who said that’s the main thing?

[Speaker B] No,

[Speaker D] Because you said earlier that it’s a prohibition—on the face of it, it’s two prohibitions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, on the practical level, when you look at the states—who said so? I think the main thing is to rest. To rest is a positive thing. And the prohibition either comes to strengthen the positive commandment, or it stands separately, or these are two separate things—you can argue about that. By the way, specifically regarding the Sabbath, there is “Observe” and “Remember” were said in one utterance, and therefore there really is a linkage there between the prohibition and the positive commandment, that whoever is obligated in this is also obligated in that. And then women are also obligated in the positive commandment, not only in the prohibition, even though it is time-bound. But there are medieval authorities (Rishonim) who say that this is a paradigm for every such linkage, while there are medieval authorities (Rishonim) who say no, it’s only on the Sabbath. Fine, but we’ll talk about that when we discuss deontic logic later on. Let’s stop here.