What Is a Mitzvah? – Lesson 2

Table of Contents

• Defining a commandment and a transgression in the object and in the person
• Acceptance of God in Maimonides and the definition of God as formal authority
• Serving out of love in Maimonides as doing the truth because it is true
• Rashi’s approach and the idea that commandments require intention as reducing the commandment to a single act of obedience
• The red-light analogy and defining a commandment as dependent on command
• The contradiction in Maimonides regarding the commandment of repentance and the distinction between an enumerated commandment and obligations that are not commandments
• Maimonides in Laws of Kings: religious value depends on acting because one was commanded
• The commentary on the Mishnah in Hullin: the source of obligation is Sinai, not the historical actions of the Patriarchs
• Law versus Jewish law: a basic norm versus the citizen’s intention
• Defining the commandment from Sinai in the object and its fulfillment out of command in the person
• Eight Chapters, chapter 6: ma‘uleh versus moshel be-nafsho, and the division between rational and heard commandments
• Resolving the contradiction with Laws of Kings: character refinement versus the motive for the commandment
• Charity, Bava Batra, and the distinction between a prohibition and a positive commandment
• Interim summary: command as a condition for a commandment, and Ramchal on two dimensions in a commandment
• The ninth root in Maimonides: content and command as joint conditions for counting commandments
• The curses in Ki Tavo as a separate category and expanding the essential dimension beyond formality
• “Do not place a stumbling block”, Sukkah, and the Ritva: respecting autonomy as a non-formal kind of causing someone to stumble

Summary

General Overview

The text defines a commandment and a transgression on two planes, in the object and in the person, and argues that a commandment receives religious value only when it is done from acceptance of God—that is, from formal commitment to the command, and not from love, fear, benefit, or rational judgment. Maimonides is presented as grounding the service of God in doing the truth because it is true, and this is identified with acceptance of God. It is then argued that according to Rashi one can view all 613 commandments as different expressions of one commandment: to obey the command. The discussion of whether commandments require intention is taken to express this idea, in that without the intention to fulfill a command, the act may be mere inadvertence. From this the apparent contradiction in Maimonides regarding the commandment of repentance is explained, the difference between the source of the norm and the subjective motivation in fulfilling it is clarified, and an apparent contradiction between Maimonides in Laws of Kings and his words in Eight Chapters concerning rational and heard commandments is resolved. This is done while incorporating an additional principle: that every commandment has both a dimension of obedience and a substantive dimension of benefit. This also connects to a general prohibition, the curses in the section of Ki Tavo, and the example of “do not place a stumbling block” through the Ritva in Sukkah.

Defining a commandment and a transgression in the object and in the person

The text presents two separate questions: what a commandment and a transgression are in themselves, and what an act of commandment or transgression is from the standpoint of the person. It states that there is a connection between these two questions. The distinction is formulated as object versus person, and the continuation is built around clarifying what creates obligation in a commandment and what counts as fulfilling a commandment from the standpoint of the doer’s awareness.

Acceptance of God in Maimonides and the definition of God as formal authority

The text cites Maimonides in Laws of Idolatry, chapter 3, halakhah 6, according to which one who worships idolatry out of love or fear is exempt, and the obligating alternative is acceptance of God. The text explains God here as one who has formal institutional authority that obligates obedience simply by virtue of the command itself. It illustrates this through the duty to obey parliamentary law or a judge’s ruling by force of his appointment, not because of his righteousness or expertise. The text explains that judges are called God in the Torah because their authority is formal, and concludes that acceptance of God is a condition for the value of a commandment as the service of God—so that obedience does not stem from love, fear, or benefit, but from the very fact that He is God.

Serving out of love in Maimonides as doing the truth because it is true

The text cites Maimonides in Laws of Repentance, chapter 10, where he defines serving out of love as doing the truth because it is true, not as an emotional category, and identifies this definition with acceptance of God. The text states that doing the truth because it is true means there is no external reason for the action, and therefore the commandment is done only because it is commanded.

Rashi’s approach and the idea that commandments require intention as reducing the commandment to a single act of obedience

The text argues that, at least according to Rashi in Rosh Hashanah 7, one can formulate the matter by saying that the one commandment is to obey the voice of the Holy One, blessed be He, and all 613 are different expressions of that same command. The text illustrates this through rabbinic commandments, where the real prohibition is “do not deviate” and not “poultry with milk” in itself, and also through vows, where “he shall not profane his word” includes endless concrete cases without thereby becoming an infinite number of commandments. The text states that it follows from this that an act of commandment done without intention to fulfill one’s obligation is mere inadvertence, and presents this as the claim that there is no commandment to take a lulav in and of itself; rather, the commandment is to do what the Holy One, blessed be He, said, and therefore without the intention of obedience, “there simply is no commandment here.”

The red-light analogy and defining a commandment as dependent on command

The text uses the analogy of crossing at a red light in order to distinguish between a dangerous or immoral act and a formal transgression that depends on enacted law. The text states that the same is true of commandments: something can be positive from the standpoint of benefit, but without a command there is no commandment, and the commandment is fundamentally defined as command.

The contradiction in Maimonides regarding the commandment of repentance and the distinction between an enumerated commandment and obligations that are not commandments

The text presents a contradiction: in the Book of Commandments Maimonides does not count a commandment to repent, only a commandment to confess, while in Laws of Repentance he writes, “one positive commandment,” to repent and confess. The text adds Maimonides’ interpretation of “and you shall return unto the Lord your God” as a promise that Israel will in the future repent, not as a command, and concludes that there is no command and therefore no enumerated commandment. The text offers a resolution according to which the Book of Commandments counts only commandments in the formal sense of commands, while the Mishneh Torah gathers all practical obligations, including obligations for which there is no explicit command and even rabbinic commandments. The text illustrates this with character refinement and the verse “Now the man Moses was very humble,” and argues that there are obligations that “it is clear we need to do” even without their entering the count of commandments. Repentance belongs to this category by virtue of the Torah’s revealing that there is such a thing as repentance.

Maimonides in Laws of Kings: religious value depends on acting because one was commanded

The text cites Maimonides at the end of chapter 8 of Laws of Kings, according to whom someone who keeps the seven Noahide commandments because they are commandments in the Torah that were commanded at Mount Sinai is among the pious of the nations of the world, but if he does them because reason dictates them, he is among their wise, not among their pious. The text concludes that a moral act such as charity out of compassion is a good deed, but it is not a commandment if it is not done because of the command, and presents this as the distinction between a “good deed” out in the street and a formal commandment. The text states that the motivation required for a commandment is responsiveness to the command, which itself is acceptance of God.

The commentary on the Mishnah in Hullin: the source of obligation is Sinai, not the historical actions of the Patriarchs

The text cites the Mishnah in the dispute between the Rabbis and Rabbi Yehudah about the sciatic nerve in a non-kosher animal, and the Rabbis’ answer, “It was stated at Sinai, but written in its place.” The text quotes Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishnah, which states that everything from which we refrain today is because of God’s command through Moses, not because of commands to prophets who preceded him, and it illustrates this with the prohibition of a limb from a living animal, circumcision, and the sciatic nerve. The text adds a note about the wording “therefore the children of Israel shall not eat,” which is not the standard language of a prohibition, and about the Rashba’s words concerning the tradition of the prohibition, and states that the obligation derives from the appearance of the matter in the Torah as part of the Sinai framework, not from the historical practice in itself.

Law versus Jewish law: a basic norm versus the citizen’s intention

The text distinguishes between the law’s demand for an external result and the demand of Jewish law also for motivation, illustrating this with paying taxes out of fear, which does not detract from compliance with the law. The text mentions Hans Kelsen and the description of the normative pyramid that begins with a basic norm of the duty to obey the laws of the Knesset, and argues that this norm serves as a theoretical justification for enforcement, not as a description of the citizen’s consciousness. The text states that in the commentary on the Mishnah Maimonides is dealing with the source of the obligating norm, whereas in Laws of Kings he adds a demand regarding the person—that the fulfillment be from commitment to the command. It concludes that this is the difference between the “source of the norm” and the “subjective motivation.”

Defining the commandment from Sinai in the object and its fulfillment out of command in the person

The text links the two planes and states that what was given at Sinai is the definition of the commandment in the object, and the novel point is that the definition of an action as doing a commandment in the person also includes commitment to the command at Sinai. The text clarifies that the dependence on practical intention is connected to the discussion of whether commandments require intention and to the question of how Maimonides rules on that issue.

Eight Chapters, chapter 6: ma‘uleh versus moshel be-nafsho, and the division between rational and heard commandments

The text cites Maimonides in Eight Chapters, chapter 6, on the difference between someone who does good because he desires the good and someone who craves evil but restrains his impulse, and on the philosophers’ position that the more elevated person is better. The text presents the words of the Sages, who prefer the one who desires the transgression and overcomes it, including “whoever is greater than his fellow, his inclination is greater than his,” “according to the pain is the reward,” and Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel’s guidance to say, “I do indeed desire it, but what can I do—my Father in Heaven has decreed it upon me.” The text presents Maimonides’ resolution: the philosophers are speaking about well-known evils, which are rational commandments such as murder and theft, where a soul that does not desire evil is more perfect, while the Sages spoke about heard commandments such as meat and milk, shaatnez, and forbidden sexual relations, where were it not for the Torah they would not be evils at all, and therefore the virtue lies in conquering one’s impulse because of the decree of the Torah. The text emphasizes that Maimonides takes seriously the apparent contradiction between philosophy and the Sages and insists on a resolution that contains both.

Resolving the contradiction with Laws of Kings: character refinement versus the motive for the commandment

The text raises a difficulty: in Laws of Kings Maimonides requires observance of the Noahide commandments because of command and not because of rational judgment, whereas in Eight Chapters he praises natural identification with rational commandments. The text resolves this by saying that Eight Chapters deals with whether one ought to refine the soul and reach moral identification with the good, not with the question of what religious motive makes the act of the commandment into a commandment. It argues that a complete person should not want to murder or steal, but the value of the commandment as a status of obedience is preserved in the fact that the obligating reason is the command. The indication of this is one’s behavior when moral inclination does not support the act, such as giving charity to a poor person one hates. The text adds the words of the Eglei Tal about Torah study with enjoyment, according to which the enjoyment is proper but is not the reason for the fulfillment, and parallels this to the distinction between identification as soul-refinement and the command as the ground of the commandment.

Charity, Bava Batra, and the distinction between a prohibition and a positive commandment

The text cites Bava Batra: Turnus Rufus asks why God does not support the poor, and Rabbi Akiva answers, “so that we may be saved through them from the judgment of Gehinnom.” By contrast, Jeremiah’s request regarding the people of Anatot is brought: “Cause them to stumble with poor people who are not worthy,” so that they will not receive a commandment. The text suggests that the contradiction is connected to the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment, and attributes to Maimonides in the Book of Commandments a distinction according to which the prohibition in charity is meant to correct the trait of stinginess in the giver, whereas the positive commandment is meant to have compassion on the poor person and improve his condition. The text also adds the passage in Pesachim: “One who says, ‘This sela is for charity so that my son may live, or so that I may merit the World to Come,’ is a completely righteous person,” and interprets this as a distinction between the motivating reason to begin the commandment and the intention of fulfilling it for the sake of the commandment.

Interim summary: command as a condition for a commandment, and Ramchal on two dimensions in a commandment

The text summarizes that a commandment, both in the object and in the person, is something upon which there is a command, and that a full act of commandment requires doing it because of the command. The text cites in the name of Ramchal that every commandment and transgression has two aspects: responding to or rebelling against the command, and the essential benefit for which we were commanded. It illustrates this with honoring parents, where the act is both a response to the command and also something positive in itself. The text argues that even in heard commandments there is reason and benefit, and brings Maimonides’ position that those who say commandments have no reasons are “fools” or diminish God.

The ninth root in Maimonides: content and command as joint conditions for counting commandments

The text cites the ninth root in Maimonides, according to which one does not count a commandment many times because of repeated formulations of the same command. It then brings the laws of a general prohibition, such as “you shall not eat over the blood,” from which several prohibitions are derived and yet it is counted only once. The text quotes Rabbi Yerucham Fishel Perla’s difficulty that the first part seems to depend on content while the second part seems to depend on the command, and resolves that there is no contradiction because a counted commandment requires both a command and unique content. The text explains that when there are multiple commands with one content, unique substantive content is lacking, and when there are multiple contents under one command, separate legislation for each content is lacking. Therefore in both cases the count remains one.

The curses in Ki Tavo as a separate category and expanding the essential dimension beyond formality

The text raises a difficulty regarding the curses in the section of Ki Tavo, which seem to repeat existing prohibitions but are not formulated in the language of prohibition, and notes that the Chafetz Chaim counts “several curses” as a third category beyond prohibitions and positive commandments. The text proposes that the curse teaches that the substantive problem in the act can apply more broadly than the formal prohibition, so that a person can be “cursed” even where the conditions for the formal prohibition did not take effect—for example, in cases of indirect causation or forms of action that do not fall under the halakhic definition that triggers punishment, yet still remain substantively problematic. The text illustrates this with murder by indirect causation and the law that a priest who killed does not raise his hands in blessing even if there is no formal liability for death, and formulates the point as follows: the command creates the commandment, but the substantive problematic nature can spread beyond the boundaries of the command.

“Do not place a stumbling block”, Sukkah, and the Ritva: respecting autonomy as a non-formal kind of causing someone to stumble

The text cites the Talmud in Sukkah about sukkah ornaments hanging four handbreadths down, and the case where Rav Huna and Rav Chisda were guests of Rav Nachman and he seated them in a sukkah that was invalid according to their opinion. Their answer was, “We are emissaries engaged in a commandment and are exempt from the sukkah.” The text presents the Ritva’s discussion, from which a distinction emerges between causing someone to stumble in a definite prohibition and a situation of dispute where, according to the one causing the stumbling, there is no prohibition. It argues that the permission depends on the matter being evident or being stated explicitly so as to respect the other person’s own ruling as a Torah scholar. The text then challenges this from the example in tractate Avodah Zarah of a nazirite standing on the other side of the river, which shows that the sinner’s awareness does not remove the prohibition of “do not place a stumbling block” when we are dealing with a definite prohibition. It concludes that here there is no formal “do not place a stumbling block,” because according to the one causing the stumbling there is no prohibition at all; rather, there is another problem—injury to autonomy when one does not disclose the matter. The text identifies this with “cursed is one who misleads a blind person on the way” as a category that applies when one misleads someone who errs and diverts a person from his path even without causing him to violate a formal prohibition. It proposes a practical difference according to which “do not place a stumbling block before the blind” applies even where the person acts intentionally, whereas “misleads a blind person” applies specifically in a case of inadvertence and focuses on deception and failure to respect the person’s independent decision.

So we talked a bit about the question—really, about two questions. The definition of what a commandment is and what a transgression is. I said there’s a question here on the level of the object, and there’s a question on the level of the person. Meaning, the question is what the definition of a commandment and a transgression is in themselves, and the question is what the definition is of an act of commandment and an act of transgression from the human side. There’s a connection between these two questions, as we’ll see later on, but these are two separate questions. I started with the issue of the sources, from Maimonides’ words: how do I basically relate to the service of God? Or what is a god, really? That was the initial question. And I brought Maimonides in the Laws of Idolatry, chapter 3, halakhah 6, where Maimonides says there that someone who worships the Holy One, blessed be He, out of love or fear is exempt. What? Worships idolatry. Worships idolatry out of love or fear. Okay, that’s also true, but that comes afterward. So one who worships idolatry out of love or fear is exempt, and the alternative is accepting it as a god. Once someone accepts the Holy One, blessed be He, as a god, then you basically have full-fledged idolatry. And I explained that a god means someone who has formal authority. Whatever he says, I do—not because he’s right, not because it brings some benefit, even spiritual benefit, but because he commanded it. Institutional authority: the very fact that he commanded obligates me to obey. Right? I gave the example of the laws of parliament, of the Knesset for example, and things like that—or of a court or a religious court—where the obligation to obey is because this is a judge, not because he’s right. Okay? And therefore his authority also derives from the fact that he was appointed to be a judge, not from his legal knowledge. Other legal experts also have legal knowledge, and they weren’t appointed judges. The appointment to be a judge turns you into someone with institutional authority. The fact that you’re a legal expert means you have substantive authority, meaning you’re an expert, so if I want legal advice I ask you, and presumably what you say is probably correct. And I said that if that’s the case, then just as in idolatry, so too in the service of God, accepting Him as a god is a condition for the commandment to have value—for it to be service of God. And that means that I serve the Holy One, blessed be He, because He is a god, not because of love or fear or all kinds of other things. Even though, of course, love and fear are themselves two counted commandments—there’s no dispute about that—there are commandments of love of God and fear of God. But love of God and fear of God are not the reason why I am supposed to serve the Holy One, blessed be He. I am supposed to serve Him because He is a god. And therefore I said that judges are called “gods” in the Torah. Judges are called “gods” because the authority of the judge is formal authority, by virtue of his being a judge. And “god” is an expression for someone who has formal institutional authority, whom I obey because he is a god, not for any other external reason, not even love and fear, which are themselves valuable things. But as the basis for why I serve the Holy One, blessed be He, that’s not correct; that’s not serving for its own sake. And then we brought Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance, chapter 10, where he talks about serving God out of love and not out of fear, but defines the concept of serving out of love as doing the truth because it is truth. It’s not the emotional, experiential dimension or whatever; rather, love means doing the truth because it is truth. I explained why that metaphor makes sense, why this is called love—doing the truth because it is truth. I won’t go into it again here, but that was basically the claim in Maimonides. And doing the truth because it is truth is exactly the meaning of accepting Him as a god. Meaning, I have no external reason for why I do this. I don’t do it because it improves my situation, I don’t do it because it even improves the world, I don’t do it for any good and worthy reason whatsoever—I do it because He is a god. That’s all. Because that is the truth, I need to fulfill what He says, period. That is the meaning of a god, that is the meaning of the service of God, and that is the meaning of a commandment. A commandment needs to be done because I accept the Holy One, blessed be He, over me as a god, and He commanded. If He commanded, then that’s what I need to do. This morning I talked about this in the class on whether commandments require intention, and at least according to Rashi it came out to be an even more extreme formulation of the matter. Not everyone would agree, but that’s apparently what comes out of Rashi in Rosh Hashanah—that there really isn’t, in the end, a commandment to honor parents, or a commandment to give charity, or to keep the Sabbath. The commandment is to obey the voice of the Holy One, blessed be He; there is only one commandment in the Torah. All 613 commands are merely different expressions or different aspects in which the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, finds expression, and therefore I need to obey Him. Like with rabbinic commandments. There is no prohibition on eating poultry cooked with milk. When I eat poultry with milk, I have violated “do not deviate,” not a prohibition of poultry with milk. What’s the meaning of that? I violated the obligation to obey the Sages. Now what about another rabbinic prohibition—I don’t know, selecting food from waste? That too is a rabbinic prohibition, and that too is a prohibition of “do not deviate.” Why? Because basically there’s no issue with eating poultry with milk in itself—otherwise the Torah would have forbidden it. All I’m supposed to do is not eat it because it says “do not deviate.” So in practice there is only one rabbinic commandment: to obey the Sages. Whatever they say, you need to obey—but by force of that one commandment. Like with a vow. Who would ever think to count “he shall not profane his word” as an infinite number of commandments? If I vow concerning bread, I may not eat bread; if I vow not to walk, I may not walk—if that sounds stranger, never mind; if I vow not to benefit from tables, then I may not use a table. Okay, so are these different commandments? No. It’s the same commandment—“he shall do according to whatever comes out of his mouth,” or in the negative form, “he shall not profane his word.” These are simply different ways in which the commandment finds expression, different realizations of the commandment, of that same commandment. And so too with rabbinic commandments, which are all different realizations of “do not deviate.” And the claim is that Torah commandments too are all different realizations of the obligation to accept the Holy One, blessed be He, as a god. Meaning, to obey—to do what He says because He said it. There are many commandments; each one is another way of expressing what He said, and therefore I am obligated to fulfill it, just as with rabbinic commandments. And this approach is indeed a more extreme formulation, but that’s Rashi’s claim: if you do a commandment without intention, that’s an absent-minded act. It’s like reading in order to proofread. If you’re reading Torah but really you only intend to correct the text, that’s not truly reading. So even according to the opinion that commandments do not require intention, you haven’t fulfilled your obligation. It’s an absent-minded act. You didn’t perform the commandment at all. Now according to the opinion that commandments do require intention, to do a commandment without intention is like an absent-minded act. Meaning, the intention is not some side condition that you also need to intend when you do the commandment. The commandment is to fulfill your obligation—that is the commandment. It’s not that there’s a commandment to take the lulav and there’s just a condition that you intend to fulfill your obligation. The commandment is to fulfill what the Holy One, blessed be He, says—that is the commandment. And He said to take a lulav, so I take a lulav. Therefore if I don’t do it in order to fulfill what the Holy One, blessed be He, said, there simply is no commandment here. It’s an absent-minded act. Okay, that’s the claim. Fine. In any case, that was the first point we saw. I explained—yes, I explained it—I brought the analogy of crossing at a red light. Before they legislated this law, let’s say, that you can’t go through a red light, it still wasn’t right to go through a red light. Let’s say, assuming everyone stops at red and drives at green, it still wasn’t right to go through a red light; you are endangering your life or someone else’s life. But there’s no transgression here. As long as the law wasn’t enacted, there’s no transgression here. The same thing with a commandment that I understand has some benefit—it’s a positive thing—but there’s no command. If it has benefit but there’s no command, then it’s a positive thing, but there is no transgression here. In fact, I may have just spoken about this now in the women’s study program—there’s a contradiction in Maimonides regarding the commandment of repentance. In his list of the commandments, Maimonides does not bring a commandment to repent; he brings a commandment to confess. That one should confess together with repentance or something like that—that’s his wording. The commandment is to confess; there is no commandment to repent. If you repent, you need to confess, okay—but if you don’t repent? No, you don’t need to. But if you do repent, that’s how you do it. There are four stages, Saadia Gaon says: abandoning the sin, regret, resolve for the future, and verbal confession. But at the beginning of his Laws of Repentance, Maimonides writes: there is one positive commandment, namely that the sinner should return from his sin and confess. What? In prayer too there’s something like this. In the list of commandments he writes to serve God through prayer, and in the Laws of Prayer, in the headings there, he says there is a commandment to pray. What’s the difference? There, it seems to me, that’s the same thing; here, it’s a frontal contradiction. Fine, to serve God through prayer means to pray. But with the commandment of repentance, this is a frontal contradiction. In the list of commandments it says there is no commandment to repent. If you repent, confess; otherwise the repentance is worth nothing—it’s incomplete. But there is no commandment to repent. Yet in the Laws of Repentance he writes that there is a commandment to return and confess. So there is also a commandment to return. How can there be two details that are one commandment? But that’s not so terrible; there are many such things. The four species have four details that are one commandment—that’s no problem. But the fact remains that there is an obligation to repent, contrary to what he says in the Book of Commandments. You also see this in chapter 7 of the Laws of Repentance. Maimonides writes there—after all, Nachmanides brings the verse “And you shall return to the Lord your God,” and Nachmanides says this is a commandment to repent. And Maimonides brings that verse in chapter 7 of the Laws of Repentance and says: the Torah has already promised that Israel will eventually repent, as it says, “And you shall return to the Lord your God.” Maimonides understands that “And you shall return to the Lord your God” is not a command to repent, it is a promise. The Torah promised that Israel would eventually repent. So what about a commandment? There is no commandment. Why? And why in the Laws of Repentance does he write that there is? It seems to me that the only explanation—at least the only one that convinces me—is the following. In the list of commandments Maimonides collects all the things that are commandments in the formal sense. For something to be a commandment in the formal sense, there has to be a command. If there’s no command, it’s not a commandment—it’s like the red light. If it wasn’t legislated, then it’s not legally binding. It may be improper, immoral, I don’t know, meaningful in terms of value—but it’s not law, it’s not binding. In Jewish law, if there’s no command in the Torah—that’s the legislation—if there’s no command in the Torah, it’s not law. Maybe it’s proper to do it, but it isn’t a commandment. Therefore in the Book of Commandments there is no commandment to repent because there is no command. How do I know? Because the verse “And you shall return to the Lord your God,” according to Maimonides, is a promise; it is not a command. So there is no command, and this is not a commandment. So why in the Mishneh Torah—sorry, in the Yad HaChazakah—does there appear an obligation to repent? Clearly there is an obligation to repent. It isn’t a counted commandment, but there are obligations that need to be done even though they are not counted commandments. They just aren’t commanded, so they won’t enter into the list of commandments. Right, it’s like character refinement, like Rabbi Chaim Vital asks: why doesn’t the Torah command character refinement? So the accepted answer is that this is the basis for your being commanded. If you don’t understand that you need to refine your character, then there’s nothing to talk about. Meaning, you need that infrastructure. Basically the claim is that there are certain obligations that clearly we need to do, but they will not enter the list of commandments, for various reasons. There are many such obligations, by the way, for all kinds of reasons why they don’t enter there. Okay? So either there is no command, or whatever. The question is also why there is no command. In any case, there is such a category of obligations that we need to do even though there is no command. And repentance is in that category. In the Yad HaChazakah all the obligations that we need to do appear. The Yad HaChazakah also includes rabbinic commandments. The Yad HaChazakah is a summary of everything we need to do, not necessarily commandments in the formal sense. So in the Book of Commandments repentance won’t appear as a commandment, because there is no command. But when the Yad HaChazakah counts everything that must be done, clearly repentance must also be done. Why? By reason, yes—it’s obvious. If you have the possibility of repenting, you are obligated to repent; that’s obvious. It’s enough that the Torah reveals that there is such a thing called repentance, because “And you shall return to the Lord your God” is a promise, but the fact is that repentance exists; there is a revelation that there is repentance. Once I understand that such a thing exists, then I have an obligation to do it even though there is no command. All right? It’s like it says, “Now the man Moses was exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.” Is there a commandment to be humble? No. But clearly it is positive to be humble, right? Otherwise the Torah wouldn’t tell us this in praise of Moses our teacher. So the Torah revealed to us that this is a positive thing. So clearly there is value in being humble, or in refining character generally. An obligation or a commandment—there may be an obligation, but there is no commandment. There is no commandment, because there is no command. “Now the man Moses was exceedingly humble” is not a command; it’s a description. Okay. Therefore there are things that can perhaps even be obligatory, or expected of us, but they are not commandments. Because as long as there is no command, there is no commandment. And the foundation of commandment—the defining element of a commandment—is command. Why is a commandment a command? Why does a commandment need a command? What’s the difference between this and something without a command? The difference is that something that begins with a command—when I do it, I am supposed to do it because of the command. Otherwise I have no commandment. If I do it because reason compels me, as we saw in Maimonides—and we saw that Maimonides at the end of chapter 8 in the Laws of Kings—Maimonides says that a resident alien who performs a commandment because reason compels him is one of the wise among the nations of the world, but not one of their pious. What does that mean? It has value. He is a good person, but he is not pious, and this has no religious value. It is not service of God, because service of God is only when you do it because He commanded. Let’s say if you give charity to a poor person and you do it because you pity him, not because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded, then you have no commandment. It’s not a commandment; it’s a good deed, you’re a moral person, a person of values, everything is excellent—but you have no commandment. Now, it depends—commandments do not require intention, there is room to discuss this—but ideally, at least, certainly one must also intend. Even though commandments do not require intention, that does not invalidate it. Okay? So that’s the Maimonides we saw at the end of chapter 8 of the Laws of Kings, where he basically says that the motivation because of which I do the commandment has to be the command. Responding to the command is precisely that acceptance of Him as a god that we saw above—that I accept the Holy One, blessed be He, as a god, and whatever He says, I do. All right? That is the meaning of a commandment. Other things that are not commandments—there is no command of the Holy One, blessed be He. There, even if I do it for reasons of morality, because it is moral to behave that way, that is perfectly fine; it is something of value, as Maimonides says: if you don’t do it because of the command, you are still among the wise of the nations of the world, just not among their pious. Meaning, you are doing something good, but it has no religious value; you have not performed a commandment. Many times people in the street say, “Yes, you’ve got a commandment,” because you helped an old woman cross the street—you’ve got a commandment. Okay? Once, when I said “old woman,” that seemed far away; today it’s a little less so. So the claim is that what people in the street call a commandment is what in this jargon is called a good deed. A commandment is something formal, something that has a command on it. But this has practical expression. The motivation because of which I am supposed to do it in practice is the command. And this is not only the definition—why something that has a command is a commandment, and why something without a command is not a commandment—it also has implications for the question of how I am required to fulfill it. A commandment I am required to fulfill because of commitment to the command, accepting Him as a god. Other things I can fulfill because they seem right or moral to me or whatever, and that’s perfectly fine—I’m a good person. I have no commandment, because there is no such commandment at all, but I’m a good person, everything is fine. And if I do even interpersonal commandments not because of the moral value but because it’s a command? But I’m not sure I’d want that person as a neighbor. I’ll get to that in a moment, but he certainly fulfilled the commandment in an exemplary way. We’ll soon see if there is something more here. There is, so let me just go back for a second before I get there—I’m getting there in a moment. Is this thing still alive? Yes. So this is the Maimonides we saw, right? “Anyone who accepts the seven commandments and is careful to observe them is one of the pious of the nations of the world and has a share in the World to Come—provided that he accepts them and performs them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Torah and informed us through Moses our teacher that the descendants of Noah had already been commanded concerning them. But if he performed them because reason compelled him, he is not a resident alien and is not one of the pious of the nations of the world, but rather one of their wise.” That’s the Maimonides we saw in the previous class. Now there is a similar Maimonides in his Commentary on the Mishnah in Chullin, in the chapter on the displaced sinew—that’s chapter 7. So in the Mishnah there is a tannaitic dispute; it says this: “It applies to kosher animals and does not apply to non-kosher ones.” Right? The prohibition of the displaced sinew applies only to a kosher animal, not to a non-kosher one. Someone who eats the displaced sinew of a non-kosher animal has not violated the prohibition of the displaced sinew. He has violated the prohibition of eating a non-kosher animal, but not the prohibition of the displaced sinew. Rabbi Yehudah said, one moment, Rabbi Yehudah says: “It applies even to a non-kosher one.” No—the displaced sinew is forbidden even in a non-kosher animal. Meaning, someone who eats the displaced sinew in a non-kosher animal has violated two prohibitions: the prohibition of eating a non-kosher animal and the prohibition of the displaced sinew. Rabbi Yehudah said: “But the displaced sinew was forbidden already to the sons of Jacob, and at that point non-kosher animals were still permitted to them.” He has a proof against the Sages. Why? Because after all, the displaced sinew was stated—it was forbidden to the sons of Jacob—that was before the giving of the Torah. Before the giving of the Torah there was no prohibition on non-kosher animals, and if they were told not to eat the displaced sinew, that means the displaced sinew is forbidden even in non-kosher animals; there was not yet a distinction between non-kosher and kosher animals. So the Sages say to him: “It was said at Sinai, only it was written in its place.” What does that mean? On the simple level it sounds like a historical claim. Basically the command was not to the sons of Jacob; it was said at Sinai, they just somehow arranged it according to the order of the Torah and attached it there by the story of the sons of Jacob. When the Torah prohibited it before and then repeated it at the giving of the Torah, then it was said only to Israel; something said before the giving of the Torah and not repeated applies also to the descendants of Noah. On the simple reading that is not the intention here, and now look at Maimonides in the Commentary on the Mishnah. I’m bringing this only for Maimonides, so I won’t go too much into the possible interpretations here. “And note this great principle brought in this Mishnah,” this is his Commentary on the Mishnah there, “namely their statement, ‘It was forbidden at Sinai,’” what the Sages answer Rabbi Yehudah, that it was forbidden at Sinai. “You must know that everything from which we abstain or which we do today, we do only because of God’s command through Moses, and not because God commanded previous prophets to do it. For example, we do not eat flesh taken from a living animal not because God prohibited flesh taken from a living animal to the descendants of Noah, but because Moses prohibited it to us through what he was commanded at Sinai, that flesh taken from a living animal should remain forbidden. And likewise, we are not circumcised because Abraham circumcised himself and the members of his household, but because God commanded us through Moses to be circumcised, as Abraham, peace be upon him, was circumcised. And likewise the displaced sinew”—that’s our topic—“we do not follow the prohibition of our father Jacob, but the command of Moses our teacher. Do you not see that they said 613 commandments were said to Moses at Sinai, and all these are included among the commandments?” This is literally the language he writes in the first root principle; it’s basically copied from this wording. What is he saying, basically? He’s saying that the displaced sinew was forbidden to the descendants of Noah—it was not forbidden at Mount Sinai—but we do it because of the Torah we received at Mount Sinai. We do it because it is written in the Torah that we were commanded. If the Torah had not been given and had not told the story of the prohibition of the displaced sinew, then the fact that the sons of Jacob did the displaced sinew—so what? I wouldn’t do it because of that. I do it only because it was repeated in the Torah, and the Torah told us, basically, to continue what the sons of Jacob did there. What does that mean? Did Maimonides say here that it was forbidden to the descendants of Noah? No—the sons of Jacob, not the descendants of Noah. No, the sons of Jacob, but only… only the sons of Jacob but not… The question whether the sons of Jacob left the category of descendants of Noah also in the lenient sense or only in the stringent sense—that’s discussed at length in the first two homilies of Parashat Derakhim by the author of the Mishneh LaMelekh. That’s Rabbi Kook. Yes. In any case, for our purposes, what Maimonides says is that we observe the prohibition of the displaced sinew, or refrain from eating the displaced sinew, because of the command at Sinai, not because of what the sons of Jacob practiced there in the wake of what happened to Jacob our father. By the way, that’s a side note—this really may be the only commandment, it seems to me the only prohibition, that is not written in the language of prohibition in the Torah. It says, “Therefore the children of Israel do not eat”—it describes a custom that the sons of Jacob practiced; Rashba already comments on this in his novellae to Berakhot, in the aggadic novellae to Berakhot. There is no command. Now we know that for a prohibition to be a prohibition, it has to be in the language of “beware,” “lest,” or “do not.” There is a very clear language in which the Torah writes prohibitions. Without that, it’s not a prohibition. So what is “Therefore the children of Israel do not eat the displaced sinew”? It’s not written in the language of prohibition or command. How is it a prohibition? Fine, so Rashba says yes, there was some tradition that nevertheless this is a prohibition, even though from the Torah itself it is not brought in the language of prohibition. But all of this is only because it appears in the Torah, and by force of that we do it—not because what happened there was in itself anything more than a custom. When the Torah repeats it, for some reason the Sages understood, received by tradition, that apparently the Torah wants to tell us this is a prohibition and that we need to continue refraining from eating the displaced sinew. It’s not exactly to continue. And then it’s only in the Torah. And then it’s only in… right, it’s not exactly to continue because it’s only in the Torah. It could be that even with the sons of Jacob it was said only in the Torah—that’s an interesting question according to Maimonides. Does this reveal to us that already then it was said only in the Torah? I don’t know, there’s room to discuss that. That’s how he explains the Sages’ position. If it had also been said then, that would already fit Rabbi Yehudah’s position, that regarding a non-kosher animal too a person would violate two prohibitions. But Maimonides says the Torah, as it were, preserved the displaced sinew, but within the new halakhic framework, and therefore someone who eats a non-kosher animal is liable only once. According to the Sages it applies only in a kosher animal. So the Torah says that when it speaks of the displaced sinew, it means it only in a kosher animal. But the description of it is a description of the sons of Jacob, before the stage… after all, this was before there was a distinction between kosher and non-kosher animals in terms of the historical description. “It was said at Sinai”—the framework in which it was said to the sons of Jacob doesn’t interest me; there is Sinai. Okay, now the question is what was said to the sons of Jacob. Exactly—that’s the question. The question is whether the sons of Jacob themselves were careful about the displaced sinew even in a non-kosher animal, or not. Did they themselves practice it only in a kosher animal, and the Torah simply tells us that through the fact that the Torah repeated it at Sinai? I don’t know. An interesting question. In any case, is what Maimonides says here just a repetition of what he says there in the legal code, about that halakhah? The same thing? Here too he says, right, that we really need to fulfill the commandment not because reason compels us, nor because of anything else, but because of the command to Moses at Sinai. It’s the command at Sinai. No other reason—that’s the acceptance of Him as a god that we talked about, right? I think it’s not exactly the same thing. Let me tell you what the difference is; at least that’s how it feels to me in the tone of the matter. Think for a moment about the law. When I pay taxes, all right, and I don’t do it because I’m obligated by the law, but because I’m afraid they’ll put me in jail—have I fulfilled the commandment of paying taxes? From the legislator’s perspective, yes. From the legislator’s perspective, he doesn’t care what your intention is, right? Just do what needs to be done, refrain from what is forbidden, and that’s all; your intentions don’t interest me. Maimonides here, in this halakhah that I marked, says that in Jewish law it’s not like that. In Jewish law, the motivation for why you act is also important. If you don’t do it because of the command at Mount Sinai, it’s not a commandment—at least not a full commandment. Okay? That is basically his claim. So every fulfillment of a commandment out of fear is basically not fulfillment of a commandment? That’s what he says. That’s also what he says in the Laws of Kings, that someone who serves out of fear is not serving for its own sake, only out of love. And what is love? Doing the truth because it is truth. Wait, we haven’t gotten there yet. So in that sense there is a difference between Jewish law and secular law. Now you know, one of the well-known philosophers of law is called Hans Kelsen. A positivist; no one really believes in positivism anymore today, but he was one of those—except for that religious judge who was on the Supreme Court. Elon? No. Rabbi… Hebrew University, I forgot his name. No. Englard. Englard is the last dinosaur who still believes in positivism, and he even published a book on positivism. That reminds me—there was some genius at the Technion, my father told me, named Ollendorff, Professor Franz Ollendorff, who wrote a book on vacuum tubes, cathode tubes, right? On the physics of tubes, at a time when no one used tubes anymore; everyone used transistors. So it was a kind of Torah for its own sake, on the physics of tubes. In any case, Hans Kelsen basically argues—he presents the law as a kind of pyramid that begins with a basic norm, from which subordinate norms are derived. Okay? The basic norm, for example in this context, is the obligation to obey the laws of the Knesset. That is the basic norm. From it follows that if the Knesset legislated this or that, I need to obey. And if the Knesset delegates authority to a ministry director-general or a police officer or whoever it may be, then that’s another derivative, and so on. It’s a hierarchical structure, a kind of pyramidal structure that begins with a basic norm, and the whole thing rests on some basic norm. What does that basic norm rest on? Nothing. Whoever accepts it accepts it, and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t. Okay? So what does that help me? The claim is that the basic norm is, say, the obligation to obey Knesset laws. Now when someone does not obey Knesset laws, we come with claims against him. Why do we come with claims against him? Because there is a basic obligation to obey Knesset laws. That is the theoretical justification for why I come with claims against a criminal. That does not mean that when he fulfills what the law says he needs to intend some mystical unification “because the legislator said so and I am obligated to obey what he said.” We don’t demand intentions from him. Just do it. But that does not mean the basic norm has no significance. The basic norm does not describe the motivation because of which the person performs the commandment. The basic norm is a theoretical statement that says what the fundamental justification is by force of which I come with claims against criminals or demand that people fulfill laws, keep the law. Basically the basic norm serves the system of law enforcement, not the citizen. The system of law enforcement acts by force of the basic norm—that there is an obligation to obey the law. But there is no demand on me as a person that I keep the law by force of commitment to the basic norm. That doesn’t interest the legislator. As long as I did what I was supposed to do and didn’t deviate, everything is fine as far as he’s concerned. So there is significance even in the law to this commitment to what the Knesset says, but the significance is at the level of justification, theoretical justification—not at the psychological or conscious level of the law-abiding citizen or the criminal. This exists both in Jewish law and in secular law. Meaning, the significance at the level of consciousness exists only in Jewish law. In secular law, he doesn’t care what your consciousness is, as long as you do what has to be done and refrain from doing what must not be done. In Jewish law, that does matter. But in terms of theoretical justification, this is true both in secular law and in Jewish law. Why do we fulfill commandments? What is the justification? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded, and He is a god, and a god’s commandments must be fulfilled. That is accepting Him as a god. Okay? Therefore what Maimonides writes in the Laws of Kings is not the principle of accepting Him as a god. It’s a principle that says why I need to fulfill commandments—what my motivation needs to be. Accepting Him as a god in the subjective sense. Okay? What Maimonides says in the Commentary on the Mishnah is not about the question of what I need to intend when I fulfill a commandment. He asks: why do they demand that I fulfill commandments? What, because the sons of Jacob did this, so what? No—because there was a command at Mount Sinai. Meaning, from his point of view he is talking about what the basic norm is. The basic norm is commitment to the command at Mount Sinai. That is what he writes in the Commentary on the Mishnah. He is not talking about the question: when I fulfill commandments, what am I supposed to intend, what is my motivation supposed to be? That he says in the legal code, in the Laws of Kings. Right, because the whole discussion in the Commentary on the Mishnah there in Chullin is not a discussion of what a person has to intend. It is a discussion of by virtue of what I come to you with a claim not to eat the displaced sinew. Is it by virtue of the sons of Jacob or by virtue of Mount Sinai? That is not a question of what the person needs to intend, or by virtue of what the person—what should be in the person’s consciousness when he refrains from eating the displaced sinew. In transgressions generally you don’t need consciousness. With transgressions, don’t commit the transgression. Commandments require intention; transgressions do not require intention. What? Exactly. In the source of the norm, and not in the motivation by force of which I fulfill it. Now this exists both in Jewish law and in secular law. The discussion of the source of the norm, the basic norm, is a discussion that exists both in jurisprudence and in Jewish law. In the Commentary on the Mishnah Maimonides establishes that the basic norm is the command at Sinai. Therefore I don’t care what the sons of Jacob did; that doesn’t obligate me. What obligates me is the revelation at Sinai. But it can still be that this is what obligates me, yet that doesn’t mean that every time I fulfill it I have to do so because of the command at Sinai—that is, to be consciously aware that I’m doing this because of Mount Sinai. Consciousness is a different issue. In the Laws of Kings he says that, and that exists only in Jewish law and not in secular law. Okay? So that is regarding the difference between the two things. But of course in both of these contexts we still see the significance of the command. The significance of the command has a theoretical meaning, of theoretical justification—what obligates me? That still doesn’t mean that when I do it I also need to intend to do it because of the command. In the Laws of Kings Maimonides says more than that—that’s already one step further. Not only is that the justification, or the basis by force of which I am obligated, but that is also what is supposed to be in my consciousness when I fulfill the law. Okay? Which is on the level of the person, not the object. Okay? This is somewhat connected to the two questions with which I opened. What is a commandment? A commandment is what we were commanded at Sinai. Is that on the level of the person or the object? Both. Meaning, fulfillment of a commandment on the level of the person exists only when the person intends to do it as a response to the command. Fulfillment of a commandment on the level of the object—what is the definition of a commandment? What we were commanded at Sinai. Not what the sons of Jacob practiced, and not anything else—what we were commanded at Sinai. So these are basically two different answers to the two questions I placed at the beginning of the previous class. The question on the level of the person and the question on the level of the object. And the answer is the same answer; that’s why I said there is a connection between the two questions. What was given at Sinai is the definition of a commandment. The novelty is that the definition of an action as the performance of a commandment must also include commitment to the command at Sinai. Okay? Wait—within Maimonides there is a way to extract what he says about this. What happens if a person fulfills—his consciousness is a little vague—he is now taking a lulav because Sukkot has arrived. If you ask him afterward he’ll say, because… meaning, during the commandment he didn’t think about it. So that depends on the sugya of whether commandments require intention. That’s why there are morning classes. In the sugya of whether commandments require intention, he ruled as halakhah. What Maimonides’ position is in that sugya—that’s the topic of my next class. That’s a different issue. Fine. Now I want to get to the next source in Maimonides, and here this will answer what someone asked earlier and I said—I think it was you, right?—and I said I’d get to it. So this is chapter 6 of Maimonides’ Eight Chapters. Can you see this? I need to share it here on Zoom too. So Maimonides says as follows: “Chapter Six, on the distinction between the virtuous person and the one who rules over his soul.” There is a difference between the virtuous person and the one who rules over his soul. Right? About the translations. He says: “The philosophers said that the one who rules over his soul—although he performs virtuous deeds—still does good deeds while desiring bad deeds and longing for them. He struggles with his inclination and opposes in action what his faculty and desire and the disposition of his soul arouse in him, and he does good deeds while being pained by doing them.” All right, this is called one who rules over his soul. What is one who rules over his soul? Someone who has an evil inclination, but he manages to cope with it and overcome it. He does the good. But he has an evil inclination. “By contrast, the virtuous person follows in action what his desire and disposition arouse in him, and he does good deeds while desiring and longing for them.” This is the virtuous person. The virtuous person has no evil inclination. What the author of Tanya calls a complete righteous person, who slaughtered the evil inclination—that is the virtuous person. What he calls the intermediate person is what is called one who subdues his inclination. What he calls the complete righteous person is what Maimonides calls the virtuous person. All right? Now which is better? He says as follows: “And it is agreed among the philosophers that the virtuous person is better and more complete than the one who rules over his soul.” The virtuous person is better. The person who identifies with the commandment and does it, who has no evil inclination, who does it because that’s what he wants to do—that person is better than someone who has an evil inclination but overcomes it. “But they said that the one who rules over his soul may in many matters stand where the virtuous person stands. Yet his rank is necessarily lower, because he desires evil action. Even though he does not perform it, his longing for it is an evil trait in the soul.” And Solomon already said something like this: “The soul of the wicked desires evil.” Yes, the very desire for evil means that you’re wicked. That’s wickedness. Not complete wickedness, but if you desire evil then you are not whole. Okay? It’s a deficiency. “And as for the joy of the virtuous person in good deeds, and his distress when he is not virtuous in doing them, that is the statement: ‘It is joy for the righteous to do justice, and ruin for the workers of iniquity.’” So this seems to be what appears from the words of the Torah in line with what the philosophers said. So far there is excellent harmony between Torah and the philosophers. “But when we investigated the words of the Sages in this matter, we found that in their view one who desires transgressions and longs for them is better and more complete than one who does not desire them and is not pained by abstaining from them. To the point that they said that the more a person is good and complete, the stronger his desire for transgressions and his pain in abstaining from them.” And they brought stories about this and said, “Anyone greater than his fellow, his inclination is greater than him.” As a practical reality, as an empirical fact, “Anyone greater than his fellow, his inclination is greater than him.” I don’t know if that’s a proof, by the way. Someone greater than his fellow has a greater inclination, but that doesn’t mean that having a greater inclination makes you better. These are facts of life, not virtues. Okay? As we said before—complexity. “Anyone greater than his fellow, his inclination is greater than him.” And still, someone who has no inclination might be someone who slaughtered the inclination. The possibility that the greater one… that contradicts the laws of nature? You’ll say surely this isn’t deterministic, that whenever someone is greater here, greater means morally superior. The intent here is that someone more virtuous, greater, also has a greater inclination. Right—but not because of the inclination he is virtuous. Rather, because he is virtuous, he has an inclination. So this isn’t proof that if you have an inclination and overcome it, that makes you better. It’s a fact of life that if you are greater, you also have a greater inclination. And even that fact isn’t necessarily deterministic, that it’s always like that, but there is such a tendency in the world. Fine. In any case Maimonides does see this as a proof. “Not only this, but they also said that the reward of the one who rules over his soul is greater in proportion to the degree of pain in his ruling over his soul. And they said, ‘According to the pain is the reward.’” That already is a stronger proof, right? Meaning, he gets greater reward. He receives more reward—why? Exactly, because he exerts more effort; that means effort is a kind of virtue. That virtue he has. To ask who is greater… meaning, you’re back to complexity. You’re back to complexity. But he says clearly he is more virtuous in this sense, that effort is a kind of virtue. That virtue he has. To say that from another angle he may be less good—fine, so again we’re back to the question of complexity. But this at least is a proof regarding that aspect. “Moreover, they commanded that a person should rule over his soul and warned against saying: In my soul I do not desire this transgression, even if the Torah had not forbidden it. And that is what Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: A person should not say, ‘I do not want to eat meat cooked with milk; I do not want to wear wool and linen; I do not want to come to forbidden relations.’ Rather he should say, ‘I do want to, and what can I do? My Father in Heaven has decreed against me.’” On the contrary, there is some value in not saying, “I don’t…” I reject transgressions. On the contrary: I do not reject transgressions; I refrain only because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. Accepting Him as a god, right? I do it because of the command, not because I have some natural tendency to do so. Okay, that is the difficulty. Now, just as an interesting side note here: Maimonides brings the words of the philosophers and opposite them the words of the Sages. That in itself is an interesting claim. Because most—I think—rabbis, I don’t know what to call them, yes, most people who deal with this in the study hall would say: okay, the philosophers say this, the Sages say that, apparently the philosophers are wrong, and move on. What’s the problem? Maimonides says: if the philosophers say this and the Sages say that, this requires reconciliation. It’s true that he also added Solomon there from Proverbs. But the fact is that he took the trouble to bring the statement of the philosophers as well; he didn’t say this is a contradiction—Solomon says one thing and then the Sages say another. Meaning, he assigns weight also to the philosophical conclusion, and even if it contradicts the Sages, then it must be reconciled. It’s not that I simply throw it out and say, well, apparently they were wrong, and that’s it. He has confidence also in the mode of philosophical thinking. He doesn’t cling only to the sources; rather, he needs to construct some framework that somehow fits both common sense, philosophical reason, and the sources or tradition. The full picture is a combination of those two things. And in my eyes that is perhaps no less important a lesson than the lesson Maimonides will arrive at in a moment. Now he says: “According to the simple meaning of both statements, at first glance, the two sayings contradict one another. There is a contradiction. But this is not so; both are true and there is no disagreement between them at all. The evils that are called evil by the philosophers are those regarding which they said that one who does not desire them is better than one who desires them and rules over his soul against them. These are the things universally recognized by all people as evil—such as murder, theft, robbery, oppression, harming one who has done no harm, repaying evil to one who did good, dishonoring parents, and things like that. These are the commandments about which the Sages, peace be upon them, said: had they not been written, they would have deserved to be written. And some of our later sages, who were afflicted with the disease of the theologians, called them rational commandments.” That’s an interesting jab, which I’m not sure I understand why, because he agrees with it. Meaning, he makes that distinction, so it’s not that he thinks the distinction is incorrect. Maybe he doesn’t like the terminology, I don’t know exactly. “And there is no doubt that the soul which desires any of these things and longs for them is a deficient soul, and that the virtuous soul does not desire any of these evils at all, nor is it distressed by refraining from them.” Maimonides says that with rational commandments, which are the moral commandments or whatever they may be, the philosophers are clearly right. Obviously someone who does not desire them and identifies with what he does is more virtuous than someone who has an inclination and suppresses it and does it only because of the command. Okay? Because Maimonides began, when speaking about the philosophers, by speaking of someone who performs good and virtuous acts, but all the examples he has now brought are only things a person refrains from doing. Also in the saying of the Sages, “I do not want…” No, we’ll discuss the “I do not want” in a moment. No, but it doesn’t matter; I think he is talking about both. He didn’t bring any example of positive action, only of prohibitions—things a person refrains from doing because reason requires it. Also with commandments like wool and linen, eating meat… I don’t know why, but it doesn’t seem essential to me. You’re right; it doesn’t seem essential. In principle he says the same about positive acts too—as you said at the beginning, after all, he already brings positive examples there. So on one hand, with rational commandments there is obviously an advantage to the virtuous person—to the one who psychologically identifies with the action and not merely forces his inclination and still does it. “But the things regarding which the Sages said that the one who rules over his soul is better and receives greater reward are the revealed commandments.” And this makes sense, because without the Torah they would not be evil at all. “Therefore they said that a person should set his soul upon loving them, and that what restrains him from them should only be the Torah.” With revealed commandments, that is where the one who subdues his inclination is truly greater, not the virtuous person. Why? Because there, without the Torah, it wouldn’t be forbidden at all; there is nothing evil in it. “And consider: they did not say, a person should not say, ‘I do not want to murder; I do not want to steal; I do not want to lie.’ Rather they said this only about matters that are all revealed commandments.” Meat cooked with milk, wearing wool and linen, forbidden relations. By the way, it sounds from Maimonides here that forbidden relations are a revealed matter. Interesting, because there are some contradictions in Maimonides on this. But this is how Maimonides understood it. And all the examples the Sages bring—when they say, “I do not want to eat pork, I do not want wool and linen, I do not want forbidden relations, rather I do want to, and what can I do, my Father in Heaven decreed against me”—all the examples they bring are examples of revealed commandments. Therefore with revealed commandments the Sages said that greater is the one who subdues his inclination than the virtuous person. And this does not contradict what the philosophers said, because the philosophers are speaking about rational commandments. And there the virtuous person is greater, not the one who subdues his inclination. And what the later scholars called rational shall be called, as the Sages explained, statutes and ordinances and commandments, and so on. And from everything we have said it is now clear regarding which transgressions one who does not long for them is better than one who does long for them and rules over his soul against them, and regarding which the opposite is true. There are transgressions in which the virtuous person is greater, and transgressions in which the one who subdues his inclination is greater. In revealed commandments, the one who subdues his inclination is greater; in rational commandments, the virtuous person is greater. And this is a marvelous innovation and a wonderful reconciliation between the two statements. And the wording of both statements indicates the truth of what we have explained, and the purpose of this chapter has now been completed.” Okay, so that is Maimonides’ claim. Now the question is how this fits with everything we have seen in Maimonides up to now. For example, what you asked earlier, right? Because we saw earlier in Maimonides that basically a commandment in its full sense is when you do the commandment only by force of the command and not because reason compels you. Now which commandments are we talking about? Where does that halakhah appear? Laws of Kings, right? The Laws of Kings deal with a resident alien. A resident alien means the seven Noahide commandments. The seven Noahide commandments, as Maimonides says, are commandments toward which reason inclines; they are rational commandments, not revealed ones. Flesh from a living animal—you could argue, perhaps—but Maimonides himself says these are commandments to which reason inclines. What about forbidden relations? Forbidden relations—those are the contradictions in Maimonides, because Maimonides says reason inclines to them. The question is which forbidden relations apply to a descendant of Noah, because with a married woman perhaps yes, and with other forbidden relations no—it depends. There is a question according to Maimonides’ words: someone who refrains from murder only because of the command of the Torah is of lesser value. And that would contradict this, right? Exactly. So apparently there is a frontal contradiction to the conclusion we saw in several passages of Maimonides all along the way; we built this on quite a few passages of Maimonides. And here in Eight Chapters it seems the opposite. And I’m talking about moral commandments, because with the revealed commandments, what does it mean to do them out of identification? What are you identifying with? There is no value there beyond what the Torah commands. Okay, what do you say about this contradiction? Wonderful thing—Maimonides is terribly enthusiastic; he just forgot there are other passages in Maimonides. As people always say, what does Frankel understand in Maimonides, right? What do you say? Rational commandments—the contradiction. With rational commandments Maimonides says in the Laws of Kings that you need to do them not because reason compels you, but because of the command at Sinai. And here he says the opposite: with rational commandments, the virtuous person is the ideal; that same person who does it because of identification. So it’s a frontal contradiction. Well then maybe the virtuous person really is virtuous because he does it because reason compels him. If he adds to that also the understanding that there is a command here, then it also has religious value. But he is talking here about that. What do you mean? I didn’t understand. To say—he says about a person who acts because reason compels him that he is… If you do it because of the command, it has no value except religious value. You can’t compare apples and oranges. Clearly he is talking about the religious value of the matter. So the question is religious, moral, whatever—he identifies those two things. The question is that there is apparently a frontal contradiction here, but it’s not true; there is no contradiction at all. What is Maimonides talking about in Eight Chapters? Maimonides is not asking the question of why to do these commandments. Maimonides is asking whether it is fitting for me to refine my character and generate within myself a natural identification with the commands of the Torah. Of course yes. And if a person wants to be a complete human being, is it fitting for him—should he work very hard to want to murder, so that when he doesn’t murder it will have perfect religious value? No. Clearly he should also refine his character in the sense of not wanting to murder, steal, fail to honor parents, and so on. Only what? The religious value of the commandment exists only if you do it because of the command. But that is not connected to the question whether there is value in building within yourself identification with the matter. Let me just say one moment. Meaning, when I have no tendency to murder, I am a more complete person than someone who does have a tendency to murder. That is the claim. Now I say, okay, I have no tendency to murder. All right? On the contrary, I recoil from murder. Now I ask: why don’t I murder? Fine, that’s a prohibition, so it’s not such a brilliant example, but let’s talk about positive commandments. Why do I give charity? I pity the poor person, I have compassion for him, I am a moral person, I want to help the poor person. So that is the complete person, right? That is the virtuous person. Yes, Maimonides says in chapter 6 that this is the virtuous person. Now I ask: but when is the commandment a full commandment? Only if I do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. I pity the poor person, and there is value in pitying the poor person, and you ask me why I do it: because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. Where is the indication? Maybe I mentioned this last time—the Eglei Tal, I mentioned it, didn’t I? I think so. Where does it come out? There is some poor person whom I hate. I don’t pity him at all. Will I give him charity? If I give him charity, that means I do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. Right? So if that’s so, then if tomorrow I meet a poor person I love and I give him charity also because I love him, that doesn’t matter. Because clearly I would give it to him even without that. So no problem—that doesn’t diminish the value of the commandment. Because I do it because of the command. The fact that I do it also because of the moral issue, or compassion, or love for him—that’s perfectly fine, it doesn’t interfere; on the contrary, it is an even greater virtue, because you have also refined your character. But on the halakhic level, the fulfillment of the commandment is only if you do it out of the command. There is no contradiction at all. What Maimonides writes in Eight Chapters is that in order to be a complete person, you also need to refine your character, not only to do the correct actions. But that still doesn’t contradict the fact that if you want this action to be a full commandment-act, then yes, you truly need to do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. And that is the Eglei Tal that I brought last time, yes, this is it. What? Doesn’t fulfill the commandment ideally but is valid after the fact? Assuming this is a positive commandment and not a prohibition, yes. This is the Eglei Tal. What does this have to do with a prohibition? Yes, yes, let’s talk about meat and milk then. I didn’t understand. The distinction Maimonides makes is only a distinction regarding which aspects of the soul it is fitting to work on. It is fitting to refine the soul in its moral tendencies. In revealed tendencies there is no point in hypnotizing myself into identifying with eating pork or eating kosher or something like that. Okay? But in terms of the motivation that should be present when I fulfill commandments, this is true for all commandments: because of the command at Sinai. Now this does not mean that everyone who gives charity to a poor person because he pities him has a less complete commandment. That will be tested by what he does when the poor person does not find favor in his eyes. There it will be tested. If there he doesn’t give him charity, then he really is less good. Then he really is less good. Because then the refinement of the soul is also the motivation for why you give him charity, not just refinement of the soul or the building of a proper tendency in the soul. Yes, this reminds me—there is a Talmudic text in Bava Batra, chapter 1, at the end of chapter 1. The Talmudic text brings there two things. Turnus Rufus asks Rabbi Akiva: if the Holy One, blessed be He, loves the poor, then why doesn’t He support them? Why does He make them poor? Why doesn’t He make them rich? So Rabbi Akiva says to him: so that we may be saved through them from the judgment of Gehenna. So that we can fulfill a commandment. Meaning, if He had created them rich, how would I fulfill the commandment of charity? All right, that’s one side. On the other hand, it appears there that Jeremiah the prophet asks the Holy One, blessed be He, concerning the men of Anathoth: “Cause them to stumble upon poor people who are not worthy.” Meaning, if a poor person comes before them and they give him charity, they won’t get a commandment, because he’ll be a fraud; he won’t really be poor at all. And there is a contradiction between these two statements. Why? Because in the first statement—the second one there in the Talmudic text, I think—in the first statement, why doesn’t the Holy One, blessed be He, make them rich, what is really the focal point of the commandment? The focal point of the commandment is me, not the poor person, but me. The commandment is basically to refine me and save me from the judgment of Gehenna, because in order to care for the poor person, the Holy One, blessed be He, can simply make him rich; that solves the problem in the same way, even better, and doesn’t depend on my good will. So why was the commandment given? For me, not for the poor person. That fits very well with what we said here, right? I basically do it in order to fulfill the command at Sinai, not for the poor person. Okay? True, I also want the poor person to be in a good state, I also pity him—that’s perfectly fine—but that’s not the reason why I fulfill the commandment. But the first statement apparently contradicts this, because let’s say the people of Anathoth gave charity to an unworthy poor person, a fraudulent poor person. As far as they were concerned, they did the maximum they could; they performed the commandment because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded, everything is correct. Only what? In practice he was not poor, so in practice it didn’t happen. So what is the essence of the commandment? Is the essence of the commandment the result or obeying the command? Apparently that’s a contradiction. What? So the focus is not me; the focus is improving the condition of the poor person. Because if the focus is me, then even if this poor person—I mean the poor person, not me—is a fraud, I have still refined my soul. Right? The same thing, I’ll ask the same question: if the goal is only to obey the Holy One, blessed be He, then what’s the problem? Too bad—the shofar was not valid, I was under compulsion, I didn’t see, but I fulfilled everything I was supposed to. Think: if the commandment, as I defined it earlier according to Rashi’s view from the other morning, if the commandment is just to obey the Holy One, blessed be He, then apparently even blowing an invalid shofar should have been fine, if I had no way of knowing that the shofar was invalid. But if there’s no valid blowing, then the commandment wasn’t fulfilled. Why not? After all, the commandment is to obey the Holy One, blessed be He—that’s exactly the point. So apparently even a commandment should be that I fulfill—not only that no one comes with claims against me, not only in terms of punishment. Your link to obedience is right, but the act wasn’t done. It was done? If I tell you blow this shofar and you blew that shofar—no, I obeyed, because obeying is a mental act. I obeyed completely. It’s like the difference between attempted murder and murder. People make a distinction between attempted murder and murder; I never really understood that distinction. A person… someone once told me there is a distinction—they fixed the law, but there is still some distinction, I think, in that here there is a maximum sentence and there there isn’t; they left some distinction. Basically there shouldn’t be any distinction at all. Why? It’s like “those with blood on their hands” versus “without blood on their hands.” What’s the difference? What kind of nonsense is that? What’s the difference? Because he happened to have bad luck, that makes him less wicked? So his bomb didn’t explode or exploded in the wrong place—does that make him less wicked? What exactly is the difference? I don’t understand; he is equally wicked and equally dangerous. What difference does it make if someone is released with blood on his hands or without blood on his hands? Everyone clings to this stupid slogan; I just can’t understand it. What’s the difference? Maybe he’s less dangerous—we’re counting on him continuing to have bad luck so he’ll be less dangerous, I don’t know—but in terms of wickedness there is no difference at all. Someone points a gun at another person, fires, but it turns out the firing pin is broken. So he’s an idiot in addition to being wicked—does that make him less wicked? Yes, I think the point—I once argued that the difference between those two passages in Bava Batra is the difference between a prohibition and a positive command. If you look in Maimonides in the Book of Commandments, with the prohibition, with the prohibition he says that the prohibition “you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand” are two prohibitions regarding charity—Maimonides counts one, but there are those who count two—then with the prohibition he says this was done to correct in us the trait of stinginess, not to be stingy. Meaning there you see that the focus really is to refine me, not to improve the state of the poor person. By contrast, regarding the positive commandment he says that it is to have compassion on the poor person and improve his condition, and this is the difference between a prohibition and a positive command. And it seems to me that the source of Maimonides is this Talmudic text, because there, what does “so that we may be saved through them from the judgment of Gehenna” mean? It doesn’t say “so that we may inherit the World to Come.” What’s the difference? To inherit the World to Come is for commandments; to be saved from the judgment of Gehenna is not to violate a prohibition. Okay? Meaning, when you are speaking about the prohibitions, the focus is me—to refine my traits. The prohibition is intended to refine my traits. The positive command there really is that you need to improve the condition of the poor person. Okay? In any case—by the way, perhaps in this context there’s another point—let’s check it here, yes, here: “But was it not taught: one who says, ‘This sela is for charity so that my son may live or so that I may merit the World to Come’—such a person is a complete righteous person,” a Talmudic text in Pesachim. What is that? It’s fulfillment of a positive commandment where, although you didn’t refine yourself, the poor person’s condition improved. Yes, but according to our distinction, you’re doing it not for the commandment but so that you’ll have the World to Come. So is it a commandment or not? “A complete righteous person!” That’s not—even less than good. I think the intention is: he does it for the sake of the commandment. Only why does he want to do the commandment? In order to receive reward—so that his son will live, or so that he will merit the World to Come. But if he does it not for the sake of the commandment, then not only will his son not live because of it, he also won’t merit the World to Come, because he has no commandment. That isn’t the motivation present in his consciousness when he does it. That is the reason why he sets out to do the commandment. But when he does it, he does it for the sake of, or out of obligation to, the command. Meaning, he says: I’m doing this commandment as a commandment. Why do I want to do this commandment? In a not-for-its-own-sake way—not-for-its-own-sake in the full sense—in order to inherit the World to Come or so that my son may live. So the question of what “complete righteous person” means here, whether this really counts even as for-its-own-sake or not-for-its-own-sake—there are debates among the commentators. I started with the Eglei Tal. So I said the Eglei Tal; I also said it last time. The Eglei Tal says—yes, I won’t read it again, we saw it last time—that there are those who mistakenly think that if I learn and enjoy it, that somehow diminishes the commandment of Torah study. And there is some kind of value in suffering, in not enjoying it, in choosing boring topics. There is a dispute whether Torah study is a commandment in which… yes, so I think that’s not connected to that dispute. It’s not connected to that dispute because he is not talking about which traits need to be refined, but why to do it. And that is exactly the point: in terms of why to do it, there is no difference between revealed and rational commandments. One always does them because of the command at Sinai. What the Eglei Tal says here is that this is a great mistake. Why? Clearly you ought to enjoy it. He says that’s part of the commandment, and it’s also pious, as I said last time. But the enjoyment is part of the commandment—it is absorbed more deeply in you and speaks to you more, and so on and so forth. Therefore you can’t say that this is a deficiency. There is also a continuation in the words of the Avnei Nezer and Modina, yes? “Know that one who learns not for the sake of the commandment of study, but only because he takes pleasure in his learning, this is called learning not for its own sake.” Like someone who eats matzah not for the sake of the commandment, but only for pleasure. There are people who eat matzah for pleasure—that’s a novelty. The Talmudic text… the source is a Talmudic text in Rosh Hashanah; we saw it. Rashi, sorry. Rashi says that with matzah there is an initial assumption that even though there is no intention, one has fulfilled it, since one enjoyed it. Who enjoys eating matzah? Anyway, what the Eglei Tal says, basically, is that of course it is permissible and fitting to rejoice in learning and enjoy learning. But it is still true that the pleasure and joy are not the reason why I learn. I learn because it is a commandment. Exactly the same distinction I stated in Maimonides between the Eight Chapters, where clearly it is fitting to identify with moral and rational commandments, but it is still not correct to do them because of that identification. That would be doing them because reason compels you. That makes you one of the wise of the nations of the world but not one of their pious. It is not a commandment, or not a complete commandment. Okay? Fine, so up to here that is the explanation of Maimonides’ view. Basically what comes out, if I summarize to this point, is that the definition of a commandment on the level of the person and on the level of the object is something that has a command attached to it. Something that has a command attached to it. If there is no command attached to it, then it is not a commandment; it is not included in the list of commandments. And if I did not do it because of the command, then the action is not a full commandment-action. I don’t know if it’s not a commandment at all, but it’s not a full commandment-action. A full commandment-action is to do it because of the command. All right? Accepting Him as a god. That is the meaning of accepting Him as a god. What this basically means, as I mentioned last time as well, is what Ramchal writes: that in every commandment and every transgression there are two aspects. One aspect is obedience or rebellion against the command, and the second aspect is the substantive benefit for which we were commanded. Let’s say, I honor parents—why? There is value in honoring parents. But there is also a command to honor parents. When I honor parents, I have done two things. One thing: I responded to the command to honor parents. Second thing: honoring parents is in itself a positive act. Aside from responding to the command, which is the formal sense, the act itself is a positive act. By the way, that is true both in revealed commandments and in rational commandments. Even in revealed commandments there is some reason why we were commanded. It’s not just some act. Maimonides writes this too. Therefore I cannot identify with it in the same way, because it’s not something from my own world, it’s not a moral issue, but I do understand that this act is also a correct and beneficial act, not just some scriptural decree that I do only because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. There you have to assume that it is beneficial. What? Maimonides writes that it is beneficial; I also think it is beneficial. And you don’t have to—nothing is absolutely required—but straightforward reasoning says that it is also beneficial, that these are not just arbitrary decisions. Maimonides writes this: those who say there are no reasons for the commandments are fools, or they make the Holy One, blessed be He, less than His creatures. That’s true. And if it’s not beneficial, then why is it right? What does “right” mean, and why is it right? “Right” means that it is worthwhile to do, that it brings benefit. Not worthwhile in the self-interested sense, but that it brings some benefit—spiritual, I don’t know, it repairs something. Okay? I’m not speaking of beneficial in the sense that I personally get something out of it as an interest. So these are two aspects—I talked about this, right? These are two aspects. Basically this means that in every commandment and every transgression there are these two aspects. And both are required, because without the aspect of command it would not be a commandment; it would only be a good act or a bad act, but it would not be a command. For it to be a commandment you need both things. And from here one can understand what appears to be a contradiction in Maimonides’ words: Maimonides in his ninth root principle talks about the fact that we do not count in the list of commandments more than once, even if the commandment is repeated several times in the Torah. Let’s say the Torah repeats the commandment to keep the Sabbath twelve times—a positive commandment to rest on the Sabbath. We count it only once. Why? Because we count the commanded matter, not the commands, in my language. Okay? And if the commands are repeated, then they are repeated—perhaps, Maimonides says, to indicate that it is more severe or something like that—but still the content is one, so we count one commandment. Nachmanides disagrees with Maimonides; Nachmanides argues—not that we count more, but that the repetitions are not just to say that it is more severe. Every such repetition comes to teach something; there is no repetition that is just for nothing. That is Nachmanides’ claim, in his glosses on the ninth root principle. In any case, in the second part of that root principle Maimonides says the following. He brings the case of a general prohibition. What does that mean? There is one prohibition, like “You shall not eat over the blood,” from which several different prohibitions are learned. For example, “You shall not eat over the blood” is a warning to the stubborn and rebellious son, it is a warning to the court not to eat on the day they pronounce a death sentence, it is a warning not to eat before prayer—according to Maimonides, by the way, that would be Torah-level—before we ask for our blood, and so on. So there are several prohibitions here, all learned from “You shall not eat over the blood.” Maimonides says: that is what is called a general prohibition, and in the list of commandments we count it once. Maimonides counts it as the warning regarding the stubborn and rebellious son. The other commandments he doesn’t bring. Rabbi Yerucham Fishel Perla asks, in his essay on the ninth root principle—yes, in his work on Saadia Gaon’s Book of Commandments. So in the introduction there, there are the root principles, and he goes through them in order. In his comments on the ninth root principle, he says that Maimonides contradicts himself. Why? Because in the first part Maimonides basically says that what determines the commandment is the content, not the commands. Even if there are many commands, if there is one content, that is one commandment. In the second part he says the opposite. Even though there are many contents, it is one commandment—why? Because there is one command, a general prohibition. So what determines it, the commands or the contents? In the first part of the root principle he says what determines it is the contents; I don’t care how many commands there are—if there is one content, it is one commandment. In the second part, the opposite: he says what determines it is the commands; if there is one command, it is one commandment, and I don’t care that there are several contents. Now Maimonides didn’t forget—this is the second part of the same root principle—but of course this is not a contradiction. Why not? Obviously because when the content is one, despite many commands, there is no point counting all the commands; it is one content. Okay. So why doesn’t that contradict the second part? Because I can… no. Because otherwise it wouldn’t have been a general prohibition. Meaning, let’s say with “he shall not profane his word” in a vow: if I vow not to benefit from a table, I won’t use a table; if I vow not to benefit from bread, I won’t eat bread—these are different realizations of the same prohibition. No one would ever think to count several prohibitions there. After all, if there are several contents for one command, then the Torah should have detailed them into several commands—but it didn’t do that. So what does that mean, basically? So what determines it—contents or commands? If the commands determine it, then it contradicts the first part. Why? Because if the commands determine it, then I violated twelve commands. A terribly severe transgression—I violated twelve prohibitions. No, the prohibition isn’t one; you’re assuming your conclusion. The prohibition is not one. If the prohibition is the command, then it’s not one prohibition, it’s twelve commands. True, it’s the same content, but what determines it is the command. You understand that what I’m really asking is: what is a transgression? Is a transgression violating a command, or is a transgression the act concerning which I was commanded? Because if it is violating the command, then why should I care that there are twelve different commands all commanding the same thing? I violated twelve commands. So it should be twelve prohibitions. Right. There is no contradiction here in what Maimonides says. In order for a commandment to be counted, it needs both a command and a unique content. If one of them is missing, it’s not a commandment. Correct. So in the first part he says: if I have many commands with one content, then contents are lacking, therefore we count once. In the second part there are many contents with one command; here commands are lacking, therefore we count one. For something to be counted it needs both a command and content. Why? Like I said before. Maimonides foresaw with divine inspiration what I was about to say. He says because, obviously, in every commandment, for the commandment truly to be a counted commandment, a Torah commandment in the formal sense, what is needed is, first, that it be a worthy act—or in the case of a transgression, an unworthy act. Second, that’s not enough. Going through a red light without there being a law is not law. It may perhaps be a worthy or unworthy act; it makes you one of the wise of the nations of the world, but how will you also be one of their pious? For that you need a command, you need legislation. Right, therefore you need both things. You need both a command and content for something to be a commandment. Okay? That is basically the meaning of Maimonides’ words. Maybe just as a side note—I spoke about this on Shabbat in Ki Tavo, that was the previous Shabbat. A holiday. So the previous Shabbat I spoke about this. In the Torah there appear the “cursed” statements: “Cursed is one who misleads a blind person on the road,” “Cursed is one who lies with an animal,” “Cursed…” all sorts of things like that. What are these curses? It’s very strange. Apparently one could say, as Maimonides says in the ninth root principle: after all, all these things also appear as prohibitions in their own right. “Do not place a stumbling block before the blind,” all the things there also appear as prohibitions. So what does the “cursed” add? It adds nothing, just repeats it again. Wait, wait, in a moment. So it just repeats it again. Right? But that can’t be right, because the concept of “cursed” doesn’t look like a prohibition. A prohibition uses “beware,” “lest,” and “do not.” To repeat it again would have to use the language of prohibition again. It’s all the same content, so it wouldn’t be counted. Here it’s formulated in different language. And in practice, when the Chafetz Chaim, for example, counts the laws of evil speech, he counts how many prohibitions you violated, how many positive commandments you neglected, and how many “cursed” statements apply. Meaning, he treats the “cursed” statements as a third category—not prohibitions and not positive commandments. So what is this category? Ah? Yes, but if there is a prohibition, then it’s both. You both violated a prohibition and you are a cursed person. But that would also be true if there were only the prohibition, because after all we said that every prohibition has both content and command. So if there were only a prohibition, then the obvious implication would be that the “cursed” says: look, this is also an act that is not okay; it is not merely formally forbidden, not merely a command—there is also content here. But in light of what we saw earlier, that is not correct, because after all every command is like that. Every command comes not just randomly but because there is also something worthy or unworthy there—a positive commandment or a prohibition—so there is also a command here, but there is also the issue of what is worthy or unworthy. So why do we need the “cursed” separately? So I wanted to suggest that the “cursed” tells you that the unworthy element can exist over a different scope than the command. Meaning, there can be a situation where you mislead a blind person on the road, you cause a stumbling block before the blind, but you did not violate “do not place a stumbling block before the blind” in the sense of the prohibition. You did it indirectly. Something like that. Let’s say with murder, for example, this could happen. You murdered indirectly, or by constriction, or I don’t know exactly what. So no—you did not violate “Do not murder,” and you are not liable for death, but you are a murderer in every substantive sense. On the substantive level, on the moral level, on the human level—you are absolutely a murderer. A priest who killed a person may not raise his hands in blessing. Is that only because he violated “Do not murder”? What about someone who set in motion a chain that was certain to result in death, in a way that doesn’t incur liability under “Do not murder”? He is still a murderer; he may not raise his hands in blessing. Why? Because you are a murderer on the substantive level. If there were a “cursed” regarding murder, then you would be cursed. The formal prohibition you do not violate, for all sorts of halakhic reasons—it doesn’t matter. Now regarding “do not place a stumbling block before the blind,” I want to make a very brief claim. There is a Talmudic text in Sukkah. The Talmudic text says there—there is a dispute between Rav Huna and Rav Chisda on one side and Rav Nachman on the other—about whether it is permissible to sit in a sukkah under decorations that are four handbreadths away from the covering. If you hang decorations in the sukkah and the distance is four handbreadths, may I sit under the decorations? Those decorations are invalid covering. If they are close to the covering, they are nullified to it, and it is considered that I am sitting in the sukkah and everything is fine. If they are far away, they have some independent status; they are not nullified to the covering. If you sit under them, Rav Huna and Rav Chisda say that’s no good—you sat under invalid covering. Rav Nachman says it’s fine, even if it is four handbreadths. A case occurred, of course—how could it not—that Rav Huna and Rav Chisda were staying with Rav Nachman during Sukkot. He seated them in a sukkah that was valid according to his opinion and invalid according to theirs. Then he asks them—after they sat and ate apparently and everything—he said to them, “Have the masters retracted from their teaching?” As if to say, did you retract from your view? So they said to him—this was surely said jokingly—“We are messengers engaged in a commandment and are exempt from the sukkah.” We fooled you, in other words; you thought you pulled a fast one on us—we’re not obligated in the sukkah at all, we could sit outside in the sun, it makes no difference, we’re exempt from the sukkah. So Ritva asks there: but why did Rav Nachman allow himself to do that? He didn’t yet know they were messengers engaged in a commandment. How could he do this? From here there is proof, he says, and brings people who inferred from here that it is permissible to cause someone else to stumble in something that according to him is forbidden, if according to me it is permitted. Right? That is what Rav Nachman did. And if Rav Nachman did it, that shows it’s permitted. One second. Now Ritva says—we’ll see in a moment. Ritva says more than that. He says, but he has to tell them. In this case, since everyone could see, he didn’t need to tell them, because they were able to see. He only asked, because he didn’t understand why they were sitting there, since they had seen it. No, we’re not obligated in the sukkah. But let’s say in a parallel sugya in Chullin, for example—there it says, “Have pity for Abba bar Abba,” yes, Samuel talks about it there, and there too Ritva cites in the name of the Ra’ah, his teacher, that there it says it is forbidden to cause someone else to stumble. And why? Because there he didn’t reveal it to him. There the case involved a dish; you don’t know what is in the dish. There you need to tell him. In the sukkah case it’s visible, so therefore it is permitted. In other words, to sum up: it is permissible for me to cause you to stumble in something that according to you is forbidden and according to me is permitted, if I make sure that you know this. Now the question is exactly this—if I make sure you know, then I didn’t cause you to stumble. Not true. Look, with “do not place a stumbling block before the blind,” what example does the Talmudic text bring in Avodah Zarah? If we are on opposite sides of the river—on one side there is a Nazirite, I am on the other side, and he asks me for a cup of wine. If this is the classic case of two sides of the river, then I have violated “do not place a stumbling block before the blind.” The Nazirite knows he is a Nazirite and that he is forbidden to drink wine. He wants to drink wine. I gave him the cup of wine; he could have poured it out. He didn’t pour it out; he drank it. I violated “do not place a stumbling block before the blind” if this is a two-sides-of-the-river case, if without me he could not have gotten the cup of wine. Even though he is acting deliberately, he knows, and he decided to drink it and not pour it out. So the fact that he knows he is violating a prohibition does not exempt the problem of “do not place a stumbling block before the blind.” So why here yes? Because here there is no “do not place a stumbling block before the blind.” After all, according to my view this is permitted. I didn’t cause you to stumble in a prohibition. You think it’s forbidden? You’re mistaken—what do I care? That is not called causing someone to stumble. So why do I have to reveal it to you? After all, I didn’t cause you to stumble in a prohibition. Where does the requirement to reveal it to you come from? That requirement comes from the fact that I need to respect your autonomy. If you are making decisions, you need to make the decisions, not me. Even though I know you are wrong. If you are a Torah scholar qualified to decide law—that’s what Ritva writes; otherwise, for an ordinary person, no—but Rav Huna and Rav Chisda were Torah scholars. They had a different view; I think they are wrong, never mind, but they are Torah scholars. I need to respect their right; they need to make the decisions about themselves, not me. Therefore, if they know about it, it’s their problem. In ordinary “do not place a stumbling block before the blind,” where it is definitely forbidden, it doesn’t help that I reveal to them that it is forbidden. But here, after all, there is no prohibition, because I say it is permitted; only what? There is a problem here of violating autonomy. If I tell him and he makes the decision himself, there is no problem of autonomy. What does that mean? Ritva is basically claiming that there is a prohibition on causing someone to stumble in something that is not forbidden at all. After all, I didn’t cause him to stumble in a prohibition. Causing him to stumble in a prohibition means causing him to violate a prohibition. But he is not violating a prohibition, right? Ritva is a monist—he says if I hold that this is permitted, then it is permitted. I don’t care that you think it is forbidden; you are mistaken. So where is the prohibition? Respecting autonomy is not “do not place a stumbling block before the blind” in the formal sense. “Do not place a stumbling block before the blind” is not present here. But “Cursed is one who misleads a blind person on the road” is present here. He is misleading the blind person on the blind person’s own road. “For if I am blind, after you I go,” as it says. Meaning, if you divert him on his own path as a blind person, that too is “before the blind.” But it is not “do not place a stumbling block before the blind”; the formal prohibition is absent because this is not causing a violation. And failing to respect autonomy is “before the blind.” Therefore, for example, “Cursed is one who misleads a blind person on the road” applies only when you mislead him, right, by causing error. But “do not place a stumbling block before the blind” applies even when the blind person acts deliberately. That is exactly the difference in formulations. “Misleading a blind person on the road” is when he is inadvertent, and then I violate that thing. Because if he were deliberate, and there is no prohibition here, then it is his decision—what does it have to do with me? Then I am not cursed and there is no “before the blind” and there is nothing here. So there is also a practical difference between them: “do not place a stumbling block before the blind” applies even when he acts deliberately, while “Cursed is one who misleads a blind person on the road” applies only when he acts inadvertently, because that is a matter of not respecting autonomy, not causing someone to violate a prohibition. So there is an example of the difference between these two things. So the prohibition exists when there is a command. The substance, the problematic character, can exist even when you go beyond the formal prohibition, even beyond the command. But obviously, even where the command itself exists, there is also the substantive problem, not only the violation of the command. Up to this point.