Deontic Logic and the Relation Between Prohibitions and Positive Commandments – Lecture 5

Table of Contents

• A conceptual distinction between positive commandments and prohibitions
• Reward for a commandment, fulfillment, and refraining from a prohibition
• Earlier sources: Nachmanides and Sdei Chemed, Maharal and Maimonides
• Tanya: Iggeret HaTeshuvah, the categories of atonement, and the absence of “light”
• Coercion, repentance, and the distinction between repairing punishment and repairing reality
• Conditional and existential positive commandments: tzitzit, tefillin, and Grace after Meals
• A methodological note on the “whole” versus breaking things down into calculations
• Kiddushin: positive commandments not caused by time, and “unsuccessful” examples
• Tosafot: two answers and the relationship between positive commandment and prohibition
• Nachmanides: the essence of the commandment is the positive one, and the prohibition is “to uphold the positive commandment”

Summary

General overview

The text defines the distinction between positive commandments and prohibitions as a value-based distinction rather than an action-based one: a positive commandment points to a desirable state, while a prohibition points to an undesirable state, even when we are dealing with an active or passive condition. It argues that the central question is whether there is a direct frontal clash with the Torah’s will—to do what is forbidden—or a non-frontal clash—not to do what is required. From that, it explains the patterns of reward and punishment, the relationship between fulfillment and nullification, and the rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. It then brings sources—Nachmanides together with Sdei Chemed, the Maharal and Maimonides, and then the Tanya—to sharpen the point that fulfilling a positive commandment is considered a positive act of “drawing down light,” whereas simply not violating a prohibition is not defined as “fulfillment” in the sense of reward for a commandment. Finally, it discusses passages in tractate Kiddushin about positive commandments not caused by time, through the examples of a parapet, returning a lost object, and sending away the mother bird, with Tosafot and Nachmanides clarifying the relationship between the prohibition and the positive commandment in those mitzvot and the implications for women’s obligation and for the rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition.

A conceptual distinction between positive commandments and prohibitions

The text states that a positive commandment describes a desirable state and a prohibition describes an undesirable state, independent of whether the matter involves actual action or inaction. It formulates the distinction in terms of how frontal the clash is with the Torah’s will: doing what the Torah does not want is a frontal clash, while failing to do what the Torah wants is a non-frontal clash. It argues that from this distinction one can understand the familiar consequences regarding reward and punishment no less well, and perhaps better, than from the technical division of positive action versus passive omission.

Reward for a commandment, fulfillment, and refraining from a prohibition

The text argues that refraining from violating a prohibition is not “fulfilling a commandment” and does not have positive value in and of itself, but is only refraining from a negative act. It distinguishes between “reward for a commandment” in the halakhic sense of fulfillment and the possibility that God gives reward also for moral matters that are not formally a “commandment.” It gives the example of someone who did not steal and did not speak malicious gossip, and argues that this is not called fulfilling a positive commandment even if it was done consciously and carefully.

Earlier sources: Nachmanides and Sdei Chemed, Maharal and Maimonides

The text presents Nachmanides in the portion of Shemot as a foundational source, together with Sdei Chemed, who explains that there is no contradiction between the two sides: from the standpoint of fulfillment, a positive commandment is greater than refraining from a prohibition, while from the standpoint of nullification, violating a prohibition is more severe than failing to fulfill a positive commandment. It adds Sdei Chemed’s formulation that the more important something is from the standpoint of fulfillment, the more minor its non-fulfillment can be, so that a person is not a “great righteous person” but also not necessarily “wicked.” It connects this to the rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition, and mentions that the Maharal and Maimonides were also discussed, though they appear at first glance to contradict this, but it is argued that it is not clear how real that contradiction is.

Tanya: Iggeret HaTeshuvah, the categories of atonement, and the absence of “light”

The text cites the Tanya, in Iggeret HaTeshuvah, regarding the three categories of atonement: for neglecting a positive commandment, repentance alone suffices, such that “he does not move from there until he is forgiven,” while for a prohibition, “repentance suspends and Yom Kippur atones.” It quotes Tanya’s explanation that with regard to fulfilling positive commandments, it “is greater, for it overrides a prohibition,” because by fulfilling a positive commandment “one draws down light and abundance into the upper worlds from the radiance of the Infinite Light, blessed be He,” based on the Zohar that “the 248 commandments correspond to the 248 limbs of the King,” and also on the wording “who sanctified us with His commandments.” It states that with regard to repentance, even when the punishment for rebellion and for not carrying out “the King’s command” is forgiven, still “the light is absent.” It brings the phrase “that which is crooked cannot be made straight” concerning one who neglected the evening recitation of Shema, so that even if from then on he always recites it, repentance does not repair what he neglected that one time. It adds that in the case of a prohibition, “through the evil attaching itself to his soul” there is made “a blemish above in its root and source from which it was hewn,” according to Tikkunei Zohar, and concludes that “one should not derive from this any leniency, God forbid, regarding positive commandments, especially Torah study,” with the words of the Sages that “the Holy One, blessed be He, overlooked idolatry and so on… but did not overlook the neglect of Torah study.”

Coercion, repentance, and the distinction between repairing punishment and repairing reality

The text draws a parallel between Tanya’s discussion of repentance and the concept of coercion: under coercion, in the case of a positive commandment there is no punishment, but the commandment still was not actually performed; under coercion, in the case of a prohibition, the assumption is “to the young woman you shall do nothing—Scripture exempts one under coercion,” and therefore “nothing happened.” It explains the assumption that repentance “can cleanse” but “cannot create something,” and therefore neglecting a positive commandment leaves a lack that is not filled in. It raises a conceptual difficulty from transgressions that have a real-world result, like murder, and suggests the possibility that repentance repairs the metaphysical blemish but does not restore the worldly result, while discussing whether that distinction is really necessary.

Conditional and existential positive commandments: tzitzit, tefillin, and Grace after Meals

The text distinguishes between a conditional positive commandment and an obligatory positive commandment, and applies that distinction to tzitzit as opposed to tefillin: someone who does not have a four-cornered garment does not need repentance because “nothing happened,” while someone who wore a four-cornered garment without tzitzit has neglected a positive commandment, just as with tefillin. It compares this to Grace after Meals as a commandment conditional upon eating to satiety, and argues that there is no claim against someone who never entered the obligation in the first place. It concludes that the main practical difference here concerns repentance: there are people who never reach a state that requires repentance because no commandment-obligation was ever created.

A methodological note on the “whole” versus breaking things down into calculations

The text brings an objection by a listener who argues that spelling out the halakhic distinctions loses “the whole” and is like “thermodynamics with one particle,” and connects this to Pirkei Avot and to the idea that “the reward of a commandment is a commandment, and the reward of a transgression is a transgression.” It replies that the comparison being made is not between individual commandments but between two categories—positive commandment versus prohibition—and therefore it is a macro comparison, not a micro one. It illustrates how general principles such as “the reading of the Megillah overrides” get unpacked in Jewish law, and argues that precision in the details is meant to preserve the general meaning, not to contradict it.

Kiddushin: positive commandments not caused by time, and “unsuccessful” examples

The text turns to the Talmud in Kiddushin, which brings examples of positive commandments not caused by time: a parapet, sending away the mother bird, and returning a lost object, and argues that the examples seem intentionally “unsuccessful” because each one also contains a prohibition. It quotes Tosafot in the name of Rabbeinu Yitzhak, who asks how these examples prove that women are obligated in the positive commandment, since “all of them contain a prohibition,” such as “do not place blood in your house,” “you may not ignore it,” and “you shall not take the mother with the young,” and if so, even if they were time-bound commandments there would still be reason to obligate women because of the prohibition. It brings Rabbeinu Yitzhak’s answer that within those commandments “you can find cases of a positive commandment without a prohibition,” in cases where only the positive commandment applies—for example, someone who picked up a lost object intending to return it and then changed his mind, or took the mother bird intending to send her away and afterward did not send her away, or certain cases involving a parapet.

Tosafot: two answers and the relationship between positive commandment and prohibition

The text presents another answer in Tosafot, according to which there is still a practical difference even when there is full overlap, because if a woman were exempt from the positive commandment but obligated in the prohibition, one might say that “a positive commandment comes and overrides a prohibition,” and therefore another positive commandment could override her prohibition when there is not also a positive commandment attached to it. It brings the difficulty raised by “Rabbeinu Yosef from the Land of Israel” from the sugya of “we do not light with burning oil on a Jewish holiday,” where a Jewish holiday is both a positive commandment and a prohibition, while burning sacrificial remains is a positive commandment, and asks why a woman may not light if she is exempt from the positive commandment of the holiday. It quotes Tosafot’s answer that “a positive commandment that is accompanied by a prohibition—even the prohibition is stronger, and a positive commandment does not override it,” so that even if the woman is exempt from the positive commandment, the existence of a positive commandment together with a prohibition strengthens the prohibition.

Nachmanides: the essence of the commandment is the positive one, and the prohibition is ‘to uphold the positive commandment’

The text brings Nachmanides, who raises the same difficulty about the examples, and then offers an explanation that the prohibition in the cases of a parapet, a lost object, and sending away the mother bird exists only in order to uphold the positive commandment, and therefore “the essence of the commandment is the positive commandment,” and “the prohibition in it is only to uphold the positive commandment.” It therefore states that if women were exempt from the positive commandment, they would be exempt from the prohibition as well, because here the prohibition does not stand as an independent category but is a secondary attachment that reinforces the obligation of the positive commandment. It adds that in other positive commandments that include both a prohibition and a positive commandment, women are obligated in both, and it cites from Sabbath and Beitzah the principle that “resting is a positive commandment,” and the reasoning that “a positive commandment does not come and override a prohibition and a positive commandment,” concluding that “man and woman are equal in this matter,” while presenting the conceptual exceptionalness of the three examples the Talmud chose.

We were discussing the distinction between a prohibition and a positive commandment, and the basic claim was that a positive commandment points to a desirable state, while a prohibition points to an undesirable state, instructing us to avoid an undesirable state. The states themselves, whether desirable or undesirable, can both be active or passive states—in other words, either doing something or not doing something, it doesn’t matter. And therefore the distinction between positive action and passive omission turns from a physical distinction—that is, doing an act versus refraining—into a more abstract distinction that asks whether the clash with God’s will or the Torah’s will is a frontal clash or a non-frontal clash. Am I failing to do what the Torah wants, or am I doing what the Torah does not want? That’s really the difference between a positive commandment and a prohibition. And again, the word “doing” here can also mean being in a state; “not doing” can also be a failure, not only an action. And then I said that from this you can understand why there is punishment only for prohibitions, and why there is reward only for positive commandments. All the implications we know really emerge from this explanation no less well—and maybe even better—than from the execution-based explanation, whether we are doing something or refraining.

After that, last time, we saw a few sources that speak about this distinction in different ways. We saw Nachmanides in the portion of Shemot, who is perhaps a foundational source, with the explanation of the Sdei Chemed, who says that on the side of fulfillment, a positive commandment is greater than refraining from a prohibition, while on the side of nullification, a prohibition is more severe than nullifying a positive commandment. And there is no contradiction here at all—on the contrary, these are two sides of the same coin. The more important something is in terms of fulfillment, the more minor its non-fulfillment is. You’re not a great righteous person, but that still doesn’t mean you’re wicked. So not only is this not a contradiction, as the Sdei Chemed says—it’s really required. From this Nachmanides also explains the rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. I don’t remember whether I managed to talk about that or not. Yes, we did talk about the fact that refraining from violating a prohibition is not an easy commandment—it’s not a commandment at all. Yes, we talked about “do not delay,” about the book from Bnei Brak. Okay, so that’s basically it.

Not a commandment in what sense? It’s not a commandment in the sense of fulfilling a commandment; there is no fulfillment of a commandment here. It’s not something of value. You simply didn’t do something negative; you refrained from doing something with negative value. But the fact that you are in that state… Why? Someone who never stole all his life, and someone who never spoke slander all his life—why? Reward in the halakhic sense of the matter, meaning that this is not called fulfillment of a positive commandment. What? What’s the difference between getting a haircut and not getting a haircut? What do you mean? What’s the difference in terms of positive commandment and prohibition? If so, then he’s always in the same state. Getting a haircut is irrelevant; the question is whether he pays for the haircut—“do not delay”… Yes, but the point is that he isn’t violating anything. If he sat there and got a haircut and was careful not to violate the prohibitions, he still did something. Don’t touch me here and don’t touch me there. No, he didn’t do anything; he just didn’t violate a prohibition. What do you mean he didn’t do anything? That’s why I’m saying it can be execution-based; it’s not important. No, no, not execution-based—I mean in the sense that he did it consciously. Very nice that he didn’t stumble. He did it consciously, but that’s not fulfillment of a commandment. Again, I’m saying, if he gets to the heavenly court and the Holy One, blessed be He, gives him reward for that, maybe yes—God gives reward also for things that are neither commandment nor transgression, meaning also for moral matters that aren’t included in formal Jewish law. When I talk about reward, I mean reward for a commandment—that is, it’s a borrowed expression to say that he fulfilled a commandment. Okay? Not in the sense of whether he got another meter in the Garden of Eden.

If I picked someone up by the side of the road and dropped him off nearby, do I need some special intention in order for that to become a commandment in the sense that… Here it’s a question of whether commandments require intention, but on the basic level, yes. On the basic level, yes—commandments require intention. And there’s also the category of result-oriented commandments, okay, so there’s room to discuss that; we’ll talk about it some other time. There’s room to discuss result-oriented commandments—what their status is if in the end I did it without intention.

There’s a rule that passive omission is preferable. What? There’s a rule that passive omission is preferable. For example, when you have a positive commandment and a prohibition, and both are doubtful, then precisely you act by doing nothing. What—do you mean a doubtful positive commandment versus a doubtful prohibition? So that’s a dispute; the Sdei Chemed brings it there in one of the adjacent sections—he brings a dispute on that matter. A doubtful positive commandment versus a definite prohibition: on the side that there is a positive commandment, then it definitely overrides the prohibition. On the other hand, it doesn’t really override in the case of a mere doubt. So is there a difference between that and a doubtful positive commandment versus a doubtful prohibition? Seemingly a doubtful prohibition should be lighter—but no, on the conceptual level it’s exactly the same thing. Because if indeed there is a positive commandment, why should I care that there’s a prohibition? Meaning, it makes no difference; it’s overridden in any case. Okay, so there are a few nuances there on this matter. But he talks about it there; I don’t remember exactly the distinctions and the conclusions.

Okay, so that was basically Nachmanides. We also saw the Maharal and Maimonides, who seemed at first glance to contradict this, and I said I’m not sure to what extent he really does contradict it. Let’s maybe see one more source, and that is the Tanya in the Epistle of Repentance. There he says things a bit less sharply, but it still seems that he touches this point.

It says at the end of tractate Yoma: “There are three divisions of atonement, and repentance accompanies each one.” Meaning, there are several kinds of transgressions, and each kind requires a different atonement, but repentance has to appear in each of them. “If one violated a positive commandment and repented, he does not move from there until he is forgiven.” Meaning, for a positive commandment, someone who neglected a positive commandment and repented—all he needs to do is, sorry, someone who violated a positive commandment, all he needs to do is simply return, meaning repent. He doesn’t need anything beyond that in order to be forgiven. “If one violated a prohibition and repented”—that is more severe, yes?—“repentance suspends, and Yom Kippur atones.” So repentance alone is not enough; he also needs the atonement of Yom Kippur.

Explanation: “Even though with regard to fulfillment, the positive commandment is greater, for it overrides the prohibition”—again, he’s talking about Nachmanides, that with regard to fulfillment the positive commandment is greater, and the proof is that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. And why again does he tie this specifically to fulfillment? After all, we said that in the equation there you have both fulfillment and nullification; that’s the complexity in the law that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. As opposed to the other differences—how much money one has to spend in order not to violate, or human dignity, or all that—once the clash is between a positive commandment and a prohibition, then both fulfillment and nullification enter the equation. Because say you want to eat matzah made from new grain, from newly harvested produce, yes? You have no other grain, and you want to eat matzah from new grain. So eating the matzah fulfills the positive commandment and violates the prohibition, right? So here you have fulfillment on one side—major fulfillment on one side—and severe nullification on the other. Not doing the commandment gives me light fulfillment, which is refraining from the prohibition, and a light transgression, which is neglecting the positive commandment. So the comparison is not between major fulfillment and light fulfillment. The simple picture is as if, from the side of fulfillment, a positive commandment overrides a prohibition because fulfilling the positive commandment is more important than fulfilling the prohibition. But those are not the two things we are comparing. We are comparing fulfillment of the positive commandment together with fulfillment of the prohibition, against neglect of the positive commandment together with neglect of the prohibition. So that is really the true comparison.

And therefore—it is true that this is decided by comparing… It’s true that it is really decided by one side of the equation. And as I said, refraining from a prohibition is not a fulfillment. Meaning, it’s not a small fulfillment—there is no fulfillment in it at all. Okay, it seems to me that that’s what he means when he says that it is decided by the comparison of fulfillment. “With regard to the fulfillment of a positive commandment, it is greater, for by fulfilling a positive commandment one draws down light and abundance into the upper worlds from the radiance of the infinite light of the Blessed One, as it is written in the Zohar that the 248 commandments correspond to the 248 limbs of the King.” Yes? The 248 commandments are the 248 limbs of the King. “And also upon his divine soul.” By the way, there are midrashim about this too; it’s not only the Zohar, I think. Yes. And also upon… Maimonides brings this in the roots. There’s a midrash that all the prohibitions correspond to the days, where each prohibition says to me… and the 248 correspond to the limbs, where each limb says to you: perform this commandment with me. There is such a midrash. “And also upon his divine soul, as is said: ‘Who sanctified us with His commandments.’”

But with regard to repentance, even though he is forgiven… Meaning, what is he saying now? With regard to fulfilling a positive commandment, it is greater, because through fulfilling a positive commandment one draws light and abundance into the upper worlds. Against what am I comparing this? Against fulfillment of a prohibition, where there is nothing there—you simply didn’t do damage. That’s all. So the drawing down of light. “Light and abundance” and so on are expressions that convey the fact that you did something positive. That is, the implication is that you draw down light and abundance, and that is already his language, but that’s really what lies at the foundation of the matter. But with regard to repentance, as it is said, “Who sanctified us with His commandments”—what sanctifies us is positive commandments, not prohibitions. Prohibitions are the prevention of impurity, not holiness.

“But with regard to repentance, although he is forgiven the punishment for rebelling against His kingdom and not carrying out the King’s command, nevertheless the light is absent.” Here the words are getting jumbled up for me somehow, I don’t know why. “Nevertheless the light is absent.” What does that mean? It means he’s claiming that atonement does not restore us to the original state. In the laws of damages there is an interesting Shakh. There is a dispute between Maimonides and the Raavad whether damage payments also reflect a debate in legal philosophy: is the purpose of damage payments to compensate someone, or to restore the prior state? So there’s apparently such a dispute between Maimonides and the Raavad regarding someone who damages land. In any case, here too he says that the divisions of atonement that appear there in the Talmud are about forgiveness of punishment. When do you become exempt from punishment? What do you need to do in order to be exempt from punishment? But restoring the prior state will not happen. Why not? What do you mean—that the absent light is the light of the abundance of the positive commandment? It was absent because you didn’t help that great light come into being. You were drawn into this; you didn’t bring darkness upon the light. No, no—he is talking about repentance, not about neglecting a positive commandment. If repentance brings it about that you don’t cast shadow and darkness on the light of abundance, but you still don’t bring it. There’s no shadow—this isn’t a prohibition, it’s a positive commandment. No, right, it’s only absence of light, the neglect of a positive commandment. Only absence of light.

Now, if I didn’t repent, then I deserve punishment in heavenly law. There is no earthly court punishment for neglecting a positive commandment. Wait a second. So if I repented, then there is no punishment for it. But still, in the end the light did not come. Meaning, in the end, you didn’t work, you didn’t do it. So if you didn’t do it, then the light you were supposed to bring, you didn’t bring. That won’t help. Therefore he says that he actually does not distinguish between the two sides. He is actually claiming that since the fulfillment is great, the neglect is also great. Not like what we saw in Nachmanides and in Zekher Chesed. Why? Because true, the punishment for neglecting a positive commandment will be lighter than the punishment for violating a prohibition. But besides the punishment there is another dimension—the very fact that something is missing here, that you didn’t do the positive commandment. Now, what is missing when you didn’t do the positive commandment is something major. What is missing is major, because you were supposed to do something major here. By contrast, with a prohibition, if you violated the prohibition, then he says that… no, wait, let’s read.

“Nevertheless the light is absent,” as the sages said on the verse “What is crooked cannot be made straight”—this refers to one who omitted the evening recitation of the Shema, and so on. “For even if from now on he is careful to recite the evening and morning Shema forever, his repentance does not help to repair what he omitted one time.” And this is also true of a prohibition. Now he turns to the prohibition. “And one who violates a prohibition, by the evil attaching itself to his soul, causes a blemish above in its root and source from which it was hewn, and in the garments of the ten sefirot,” never mind, “as is written in Tikkunei Zohar.” In short, this is what he does with prohibitions. “And therefore one should not learn from here any leniency, Heaven forbid, regarding positive commandments, especially Torah study. On the contrary, our sages said that the Holy One, blessed be He, overlooked idolatry, and so on, even though these involve excision and deaths by the religious court, but He did not overlook neglect of Torah study.”

What does he mean to say? That from these three—or really four—divisions of atonement there, you cannot learn that positive commandments are lenient. You might have thought that positive commandments are the easiest thing. He says no, there is something about positive commandments for which nothing helps. Why? Because if you neglected a positive commandment, then true, repentance alone is enough in order to exempt you from the punishment you deserve—not punishment by a court, again, but punishment from heaven—but repentance does not restore the situation to what it was before. Meaning, it does not turn you into someone who did perform the commandment. By contrast, with a prohibition—he doesn’t say this explicitly, but I think this is what he means—with a prohibition, yes. Meaning, if you repent for the prohibition, after all what does the prohibition do? The prohibition basically contaminates your soul. Once you repent, then you’ve cleaned that. The prohibition didn’t really do something in the world itself; rather, it did something to your soul, and then if you fix that, there does not remain that other aspect that exists with positive commandments. With positive commandments, if you solve the punishment problem, the positive commandment is still missing. Meaning, you didn’t do it. But with a prohibition—and I’m not entirely clear why this must be so—but that is what he claims.

Because one could have said that a positive commandment also brings darkness into the world. Going from minus one to zero—that can happen through repentance, but going from zero to one cannot. Yes, but that’s what I’m saying: he shifts it to another plane; it’s not zero and one. There is the world and there is me. Meaning, repentance can fix me. But there are things that are consequences in the world. For some reason he assumes that a positive commandment has a result in the world—a positive result in the world, not only in the soul—and the negative result is in the soul, essentially, or at least passes through the soul. And then if I repent and fix the soul, then there is no problem; I’ve really returned to the normal state. The only reason I was reminded of “a coerced prohibition is as though it was done” is because a similar distinction really emerges in cases of coercion. Here it’s a distinction regarding repentance. But regarding coercion, we talked about the fact that if someone was coerced and therefore did not perform a positive commandment, in the end he still did not perform the positive commandment. And it doesn’t matter that he has an excuse of coercion. So here too it’s exactly parallel, because okay, he was coerced, so he doesn’t deserve punishment. He won’t receive punishment. But he still didn’t do the positive commandment—what can you do? By contrast, with a prohibition, if you are coerced, then the assumption is that nothing happened—“to the young woman you shall do nothing,” the Merciful One exempts one under coercion. Meaning, specifically regarding positive commandments, even though you are coerced, the situation is worse than if you are coerced regarding a prohibition. Why? And I think this is the same assumption—maybe this is where he gets it from, maybe it is the same assumption he makes here about repentance—that with prohibitions, all there is is just my problem. And if I’m coerced, then there is no problem. What do you want from me? I was coerced. It’s not something objective in the world in terms of the world’s results.

But the question remains unclear—why? Because I would say that with prohibitions too, the darkness that descended into the world descended into the world even if I repented—what does that help? In the end, the world—for example, if you murdered someone, that’s the most banal example of course. So you repented—and what then? The person is dead. Meaning, of course with murder it’s easy to see, but on the conceptual level this ought to be true for any transgression. Meaning, there is some assumption here that there is an asymmetry between positive commandments and prohibitions. Why on the spiritual level can’t even murder be repaired? On the spiritual level repentance can repair; it can bring something that doesn’t exist. But it won’t repair the murder. The fact that the person is dead—he’s dead. The problem in my soul—that, yes. But also with a positive commandment, maybe repentance can fix that too. Because in the end, the problem that was created in me by not fulfilling the positive commandment—perhaps repentance repairs that. But in the world a commandment is missing. Yes, but also when you fulfill… It cannot bring the commandment that I failed to do—not in me, not in the world. It cannot create. Repentance can clean; it cannot create something.

Fine, I’m saying—that is his assumption. I agree, I just don’t know what compels us to say it. Meaning, why can’t we understand his words to mean that he’s also talking about the world? He writes here: “one who violates a prohibition, by the evil attaching itself to his soul, causes a blemish above.” No, clearly—but “by the evil attaching itself to his soul,” that’s where it begins. Fine, but through that you cause a blemish above, in the world. Fine, this has a major practical implication, because if I repent and fix the evil in my soul, then the world too is repaired. And that is unlike a positive commandment, where precisely that you cannot repair. No, on the contrary—that’s the distinction he makes between positive commandments and prohibitions. He says there is an asymmetry between them: with a prohibition, if you repent, nothing remains, so everything is fine, the situation returns to its prior state. What about the blemish in the world? The blemish in the world was created from the blemish in my soul, so if I repaired the blemish in my soul, automatically there is no problem in the world either. With a positive commandment, his assumption is that this does not pass through me; it is a problem in the world itself. Yes, there is some assumption here that says… Yes, the way you formulated it, I think that’s a good formulation. Namely, that repentance can clean a stain or dirt, some kind of blemish, some kind of impurity, but it cannot produce something other than what only the commandment itself can produce.

That means we would have to distinguish among positive commandments—say, for example, the difference between tzitzit and tefillin. And therefore, someone who did not put on tefillin requires repentance—he requires repentance because he violated it. Someone who did not wear tzitzit did not violate a positive commandment. Maybe he neglected a positive commandment, but he did not violate a positive commandment. Same thing. No, there’s no difference between tzitzit and tefillin. There is an obligation to put on tefillin. There is no obligation for someone who does not have a four-cornered garment. Someone who does not have a four-cornered garment also does not need to repent. Right. No, then he also doesn’t need to repent; nothing happened. Ah, exactly—so there is a difference between two kinds of positive commandments. Why not? This positive commandment is a conditional commandment—when you wear a four-cornered garment. Did we once talk about the difference between a conditional positive commandment and a purely fulfillment-based positive commandment? Seemingly, even when you wear tzitzit you added light to the world. Okay, but you are not obligated to add light to the world, so fine—then there is no problem if you don’t wear a four-cornered garment. True, that light won’t be there, but there is no problem in that, okay? I wore a different garment. And then it becomes a question whether one should make an effort to wear a four-cornered garment anyway, even though I don’t want to wear it, just in order to add that light. Fine, that’s a different discussion, but there is no complaint about the fact that I did not bring that light, in principle, because I’m not obligated. No—if I don’t want to wear a four-cornered garment, then it’s not a positive commandment at all. The assumption is that if I’m already wearing a four-cornered garment and I didn’t put tzitzit on it, then that is neglect of a positive commandment in every respect, exactly like tefillin.

In short, what I want to say is: there is a difference between… meaning, repentance—no, fine, I agree, maybe what you’re saying is that repentance is required when you violate a positive commandment, not merely when you neglect one. Yes, but in tzitzit too it’s the same thing: if you wore a four-cornered garment and did not put tzitzit on it, then it’s just like tefillin. If you didn’t wear a four-cornered garment at all, there’s nothing to repent for; nothing happened. Okay? It’s like if I didn’t eat, and therefore I didn’t recite Grace after Meals—do I need to repent for that? I didn’t recite Grace after Meals because one is obligated to recite it only if one eats. That too is a conditional commandment, Grace after Meals. Nobody would say that this is a purely fulfillment-based commandment; it is a conditional commandment—only someone who eats has to bless; to satiety, then he has to bless. Someone who didn’t, doesn’t. Fine, it’s not… What I see here in the Tanya is regarding what kind of positive commandment has this side implication with respect to repentance, and that tells us that someone who didn’t come to the point of needing repentance—

Right, so in the end his comparison is really not between the prohibition and the positive commandment as such. That’s why I’m saying that what he says also does not contradict what I said earlier. In his case it seems at first glance that he links the side of fulfillment with the side of nullification. Because if the fulfillment of the positive commandment is great, then its nullification is also great. Right—that is basically what he is saying. Now if we understand him correctly, that does not contradict what I said earlier. His claim is that if I repented, then there is an asymmetry between a positive commandment and a prohibition. The comparison I made earlier was talking about before repentance—simply, what damage happened through neglecting a positive commandment as opposed to violating a prohibition. So here too it is not really a contradiction. When you look at it, this logic is almost necessary—I assume no one would really contradict it. Meaning, even when you see someone express himself differently, I don’t think he really means to say something different.

Yes, but is there any other commandment where a coerced person was given a remedy besides the Passover offering? What—compensatory offerings? There are compensatory elements in offerings, for example. There are, yes. There are similar things—if you do not redeem it, then break its neck; redeeming a firstborn donkey. But the question is what the relationship is—whether redemption is preferable to neck-breaking, or neck-breaking to redemption. There are commandments that function like compensation. Levirate marriage and halitzah—there too it depends; the question is what is preferable and which is compensation for which. But yes, second Passover is very similar to the concept of compensation in offerings generally. There is also compensatory prayer for someone who was coerced.

What? I don’t know, I can’t shake the feeling that when we try to enter on the halakhic level into the distinctions between positive commandments and prohibitions and sharpen them, somewhere we lose the point of the whole. I don’t know—it’s like doing thermodynamics with one particle. We brought that mishnah from Avot where it says not to calculate the loss of a commandment against its reward; don’t make the calculation of reward for a commandment and reward for a transgression, because the reward of a commandment is a commandment and the reward of a transgression is a transgression. Why? Because you really don’t know the calculation. And when we try here to break it down into these tiny calculations, you always end up with all kinds of absurdities that don’t exist on the level of the whole. It’s like what the Rabbi… we talked about repentance, so there is great repentance and there is this bookkeeping repentance. No, no—but notice, I’m not making a comparison here between different positive commandments, or between different prohibitions. The comparison is still on the large scale, between the whole idea of positive commandments and the whole idea of prohibitions. That comparison certainly—if you have a room with windows and curtains, and there was a certain amount of light in it, and then someone came and started moving the curtains and darkening the room, then he violated a prohibition. And if someone else came into that same room in the same initial condition and opened things and added light to it, then he added light. Now when he repents and restores the room to its prior state, then he added light in that sense. Every such repair is adding light relative to the previous state you were in. True, that’s called adding light, but you still didn’t add the original light. That doesn’t matter. Why? If you fixed and cleaned the prohibition you had violated, you restored the prior state. The prohibition, yes. Now what is the difference? The difference is between that and someone who came and performed a positive commandment and added light to the room, whereas you did not open an additional window in the room even though you were coerced—there is no window. That I accept, but I’m saying every time—it’s just that I can’t get free of it—every time I enter into this calculation, I fall into the same trap. One molecule can’t really do anything by itself. When you compare one thing to another, how many particles can do thermodynamics? One particle? Once you descend to this molecular level of prohibition versus positive commandment, when you don’t know the size of each one separately.

I’m saying the opposite: precisely the fact that I don’t know neutralizes the difficulty. Because if I were comparing one positive commandment to another, or one prohibition to another, and you say, “commandments that a person tramples underfoot,” you cannot know which commandment is important and which is not—but comparing a prohibition to a positive commandment is not comparing details, it’s comparing two categories. Every commandment overrides every commandment; reading the Megillah overrides every commandment, and then when you start specifying it you see that it’s not exactly so—it’s only a neglected corpse, and only in that case, and only… because in truth one rabbinic commandment cannot possibly override all the positive commandments in the Torah. Why specifically a neglected corpse? Because really one doesn’t know the calculation. If you don’t know, then how do you do it? Yet in practice they determine that reading the Megillah overrides this and doesn’t override that. That’s only because on the macro level it’s true, only because on the macro level we want to preserve some larger thing, and therefore reading the Megillah creates some importance, preserves the main mass. That importance is the light we’re talking about. What do you mean? That’s exactly what we’re talking about; it’s exactly this calculation. It’s not a small calculation—it’s a large one. That’s why I say: he doesn’t go into details of which commandment is more important than which. He speaks only about these categories. What is the relation between the two categories, positive commandments versus prohibitions? When the sages said, “Don’t calculate,” and Maimonides says on calculating the loss of a commandment against its reward, they’re talking about the relation between one positive commandment and another, or between one prohibition and another, where there is also a hierarchy—after all, one is punished by death and one isn’t. What I mentioned, that according to the Arizal at least, slander is the most severe transgression there is, and there is no punishment for it—meaning no earthly court punishment. So if punishment is an indication of the severity of the transgression, then here there is a problem. There is no earthly court punishment for slander. Meaning, true, the severity of the punishment does not necessarily indicate the severity of the transgression, and the author of Sefer Chasidim writes this. I mentioned it once, I think, didn’t I? So that’s true in that sense. But when you compare a positive commandment and a prohibition, then the comparison is between categories and not particulars. Yes—thermodynamics of the whole.

Okay, in short, the last line is less important for our purposes. Now I want to enter for a moment into the Talmud in Kiddushin, because there are several points there that may also illuminate the relation between a prohibition and a positive commandment. The Talmud there in Kiddushin brings examples of positive time-bound commandments, and which positive commandments are time-bound and which are not time-bound. It brings there a series of examples: building a parapet, sending away the mother bird, and returning lost property—examples of positive commandments that are not time-bound. And it’s quite amazing, because all these examples are bad examples. That is, it seems the Talmud chooses with tweezers precisely the examples—it’s not that by chance one of them comes out problematic. All of them—well, maybe one not, I need to look there—I think I once noticed that, as far as I remember, there is one that’s okay, but there are three or four there that are all bad examples. This can’t be accidental; it’s apparently intentional. And the medieval authorities (Rishonim) indeed ask this. Tosafot on the spot and Nachmanides say as follows.

Tosafot says: this is difficult, because in all of these there is a prohibition. After all, in all these commandments—parapet, lost property, and sending away the mother bird, those are the three examples—there is also a prohibition. Right? Regarding a parapet it says, “Do not place blood in your house.” So there is also a prohibition concerning making a parapet, not only “You shall make a parapet for your roof.” Even though in Bava Kamma we interpret this as referring to raising a dangerous dog or keeping a shaky ladder, meaning active conduct, in any case it also comes to include a parapet—and perhaps the reverse too, though that depends on different formulations among the medieval authorities—whether the positive commandment of parapet also really tells me not to keep a dangerous dog in my house. Just as “Do not place blood in your house” tells you: put up a parapet. Because in essence it only tells you: make sure there are no hazards in your house. And then the prohibition and the positive commandment are equivalent, of the sort discussed in the sixth root with which we began. For in the Sifrei we interpret: “You shall make” — this is a positive commandment; “Do not place blood” — this is a prohibition. And with lost property too it says: “You may not ignore it.” So there is “you shall surely return it,” and also “you may not ignore it.” And with sending away the mother bird it says: “You shall not take the mother together with the young.” That too is a prohibition, not only “you shall surely send away the mother.”

If so, how can women be exempt? Even if it were time-bound—and Scripture equated women and men with respect to all punishments in the Torah. And all the examples the Talmud brings are examples that the Talmud tells us are positive commandments that are not time-bound, and therefore what? Therefore women are obligated. So what is Tosafot asking? Even if these were time-bound, women would still be obligated. Because in these commandments, alongside the positive commandment there is also a prohibition, like “remember” and “observe” regarding the Sabbath, which were said in one utterance—whoever is included in “observe” is included in “remember.” Therefore women are obligated regarding the Sabbath because it includes a prohibition, even though it is a positive time-bound commandment. And since there is also a prohibition, women are obligated in it. So Tosafot says: if so, the three examples the Talmud brought are examples where alongside the positive commandment there is also a prohibition. So why are you bringing me these examples as examples of positive commandments that are not time-bound and therefore women are exempt—sorry, therefore women are obligated? Even if they were time-bound, women would be obligated because of the prohibition. Okay.

And Rabbi Isaac says: in all of them you can find a case of the positive commandment without the prohibition. So what is Rabbi Isaac’s answer? On the conceptual level you’re right, but there are certain situations in which the prohibition is absent and only the positive commandment remains. And that is what the Talmud is referring to when it says that women are obligated because it is not time-bound, and if it had been time-bound women would be exempt. Now what are the examples? He says: with a parapet, “do not place blood in your house” applies only when one builds a house from the outset with the intention of not making a parapet. But if he intended to make a parapet and after building it changed his mind, or if he made one and it fell, then there is only the positive commandment of “you shall make a parapet,” and then women are exempt. Now that’s an interesting definition; we won’t go into it, but that’s his claim. The claim is that there is no prohibition there, only a positive commandment, and so there is a situation where there is only the positive commandment, and that is what the Talmud is talking about.

And with lost property too, you can find a positive commandment without a prohibition, for example if he picked it up with the intention of returning it. Then “you may not ignore it” doesn’t apply—he didn’t ignore it, he picked it up. As I said earlier, after all he picked up the lost item, he didn’t ignore it, but now he isn’t fulfilling the return. For example, if he picked it up after the owner had despaired, so now the prohibition of “you may not ignore it” is not there, and there is also no prohibition of theft, and then afterward he changed his mind and decided not to return it. In that case he violates only “you shall surely return it.” And with sending away the mother bird too—for example, if he took the mother with the intention of sending her away, and afterward changed his mind and did not send her away, then there is no prohibition left, only the positive commandment of “you shall surely send away.” The details don’t matter for now; in each one we’d have to discuss what exactly the definition is, but his conceptual determination—I take you back to the sixth root of Maimonides with which we began—is that these positive commandments and prohibitions are not really duplicates, in Maimonides’ language. There is a difference in definition between them, so the root isn’t talking about this at all. The root asks whether to count both commandments only when there is no practical difference between them, when they have the same halakhic content, the prohibition and the positive commandment. And here he says these apparent duplications are not complete duplications. There are situations in which the positive commandment appears without the prohibition. The interesting question is whether there can be a situation where the prohibition appears without the positive commandment, but there are situations where the positive commandment appears without the prohibition, and therefore the examples the Talmud brings are: what happens when you violate the one who nullifies… Meaning, when the Talmud says that these positive commandments—in situations where the prohibition is absent—women are obligated in them because they are not time-bound. But if they had been time-bound, women really would have been exempt.

What he is really claiming is: what would happen in cases of truly doubled positive commandments, like in the sixth root of Maimonides? Like on the Sabbath, for example? They would be the same commandment. It’s exactly the same thing. So there the Talmud really could not have brought that example. Right? It’s not a good example for time-bound commandments. Indeed the Talmud says: “remember” and “observe” in one utterance—whoever is included in “observe” is included in “remember.” Meaning, there… even though it is time-bound, women are obligated. But then, according to this answer, the Talmud reads a bit oddly. As I said before, the Talmud chooses exactly these bad examples and finds an answer for each one. Okay, but what—was it by chance that it brought exactly these examples, each of which has a problem? You found a local answer that there is a positive commandment, but how do you explain the fact that the Talmud brings exactly this entire series? It somehow seems that the Talmud wants to say something more essential here, not simply that in each such case there is some situation where you can fulfill the positive commandment without violating the prohibition. Really, look at this remark. That’s why I’m saying: it doesn’t explain this strange case where the Talmud chooses precisely a whole series of bad examples. So you have a local answer for each one, but why doesn’t the Talmud simply bring ordinary examples? What’s the problem? Grace after Meals—let it bring a positive commandment that is not time-bound. So that’s it…

What Tosafot says here is: this is the Talmud’s novelty. The Talmud wants to say that in all these commandments there are situations—don’t think that this is simply prohibition plus positive commandment. Even in these commandments, if they had been time-bound women would be exempt, because there are situations in which there is only the positive commandment and not the prohibition. And then this is a novelty that is not related at all to the Talmud’s topic, which is the law of positive time-bound commandments. Rather, it is a novelty in the structure of each and every one of these commandments, teaching you some side point incidentally: that in every such commandment there is a situation where there is the positive commandment even without the prohibition. Okay. That’s a bit forced. It’s not the subject of the Talmud, though the Talmud often uses incidental teaching. Yes, true; the sugya here is not… yes, this isn’t the topic of the sugya of time-bound commandments and women. One could say they wanted to gain something extra on the side with the Talmud—exactly, to gain something by the way. What our cousins the jurists call obiter, right? A thing that, in the course of a ruling, the judge makes some incidental remark not directly connected to his ruling. The question is what the status of such a remark is—is it binding? Not binding? That would define… what? Yes, it would define it as binding, but it has some sort of status; one can use it somehow. I don’t know exactly, no. The situation there is always good.

Okay, strictly speaking one should say obiter, yes. So that’s one possibility. After that Tosafot continues: “And some explain that in any case there is a practical implication.” Maybe wait, perhaps one more remark needs sharpening here. According to Tosafot, a commandment like the Sabbath could not have been brought here, right? A commandment where the positive commandment and the prohibition are fully overlapping—as an example of a positive commandment that is time-bound, of course—but that too would be a bad example, because it has a prohibition alongside it. Therefore women are obligated because it has a prohibition alongside it, and here there is no practical implication. Why couldn’t he have said “in one utterance”? What? That’s a very interesting remark, and seemingly evidence against what Tosafot says. In a second I’ll get to that. But Tosafot assumes something else too here: namely, that when there is a prohibition alongside the positive commandment, women are obligated also in the positive commandment. Because one might have said: there is a positive commandment and there is a prohibition, so clearly women are obligated not to do labor on the Sabbath because of the prohibition, but if they did labor on the Sabbath, they did not nullify the positive commandment, because the positive commandment is time-bound. True, they transgressed because there is a prohibition. Tosafot assumes not like that, right? Tosafot argues that regarding the Sabbath this is obvious, as if… the “one utterance”—in a moment we’ll see what Yitzhak noted before, because that takes me exactly to the one utterance.

Tosafot here assumes that when there is a positive commandment and a prohibition that overlap, then the obligation of women by virtue of the prohibition leads to their being obligated also in the positive commandment, even if they are nullifying… That is not a simple assumption of Tosafot. Because one might have said that women are obligated because of the prohibition in it. Now true, the source that always reminds us of this point is “remember” and “observe” in one utterance, where explicitly the Talmud says “in one utterance”—whoever is included in “observe” is included in “remember.” Meaning, there explicitly the Talmud says that because there is a prohibition, women are also obligated in the positive commandment. But this… what? Isn’t “observe” and “remember” both positive commandments? No. “You shall not do any labor”—that’s a positive commandment? No. “Observe” is “beware,” “lest,” “do not”—it’s a prohibition. Ah. Even though it sounds active, still it is “beware.” Like “beware regarding the plague of leprosy,” for example—that’s a prohibition.

But that is evidence to the contrary, as Yitzhak rightly noted before, because the Talmud doesn’t say this simply from the fact that it says “remember” and “observe.” Otherwise the Talmud should have said: it says “remember,” it says “observe,” so refraining from labor on the Sabbath involves both a positive commandment and a prohibition, and since so, women are obligated in both the positive commandment and the prohibition. The Talmud doesn’t say that. The Talmud says that because “remember” and “observe” were said in one utterance, there is a connection between them, and therefore the fact that there is a prohibition also obligates women in the positive commandment. But a parapet too was said in one utterance—or I don’t know what—“you may not ignore it” regarding lost property. Who says the same rule exists there, that because there is a prohibition they are also obligated in the positive commandment? They’re obligated in the prohibition, but who says they are also obligated in the positive commandment? It could be that this is something unique only to the Sabbath, and there are indeed medieval authorities who say that this is unique to the Sabbath and does not exist in all commandments.

I’ll just add parenthetically that perhaps parapet was also said “in one utterance,” because “remember” and “observe” were said in two separate portions, in Yitro and Vaetchanan, okay? Because in the first tablets and the second tablets. Now there it really is in two different places, so the Talmud says: “remember” and “observe” in one utterance—meaning, even though it was said in two places. So perhaps in all these duplications too—“you shall surely return it,” “you may not ignore it”—in all these duplications it was effectively said in one utterance, and then the Sabbath is not really exceptional. You understand? So I’m saying: this is a dispute among the medieval authorities. The practical difference will be: what happens when there is a positive commandment and a prohibition that overlap, but they are not in the same place and were not said in one utterance? Okay? So the question is: what is the case of a parapet without this? What? Is there a case of parapet without blood? Not a parapet—not making a parapet. If I make sure there won’t be blood in my house without making a parapet—I don’t know, perhaps that is the parapet, right? There’s no other possibility. Clearly, you don’t have to specifically… no, because when we discussed interest and usury, it was hard to find a case where there could be interest without usury. Plainly there is no such case. None, okay. Is it the same thing here? Also with parapet? No, here Tosafot says there is. What? After all, there can be the positive commandment without the prohibition—that’s what he said earlier. With parapet I’m asking: I’m trying to picture what the case is. What does he mean? With parapet he said—here: with parapet, “do not place blood” applies only to someone building a house from the outset with the intention of not making a parapet. But if he had intended to make a parapet, then that is not called “do not place blood in your house”; it is only neglect of the positive commandment of parapet. He intended to make it? The exact definition isn’t clear, but that’s what Tosafot says—his claim is that there is a difference. Now the reverse question is whether there is an opposite case, meaning a case where there is the prohibition but not the positive commandment. I don’t know.

I’m not sure the explanation you’re giving here is the plain meaning of “one utterance,” because I understood “one utterance” to mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, in that same utterance, at the same Sinai event, said both “observe” and “remember.” We human beings can’t say it like that, but the Holy One did say both “observe” and “remember.” No, what I’m saying is that for us, two people would have to say it. You are taking “one utterance” as though it means whether it is in the same chapter or not. No, I agree with what you’re saying. The question is only what it means halakhically. Obviously I don’t mean that parapet was literally said in one utterance like “remember” and “observe” historically at Sinai. What I mean is that the halakhic significance of “one utterance” might exist with parapet too, even without it having literally been said in one utterance, because it is in the same verse. It is one verse of the speaker speaking to the addressee. So that verse says both the prohibition and the positive commandment; it addresses women, so the positive commandment also addresses women. So it does the same work as “one utterance,” not because it was literally said in one utterance. So I’m saying: maybe the Sabbath really is exceptional, and maybe this really applies to all these duplications—at least these duplications that were said in the same verse. I don’t remember right now whether there is a duplication in different places in the Torah that is still a duplication between a prohibition and a positive commandment; one would have to think of an example. Is there some case of a positive commandment and a prohibition with such a relation—other than the Sabbath, where the Torah says it was said in one utterance, and so solves the problem—but if there is a positive commandment and a prohibition… Passover? What positive commandment and prohibition? There is no positive commandment and prohibition there. “You shall remove” and “it shall not be found.” Fine, that’s a question… actually, maybe that is a good example according to those views where it really does overlap, but those are isolated views. Usually the accepted approaches are that there is no overlap in content between “you shall remove” and… I spoke about that before Passover, in the first lecture.

Okay, “And some explain,” second answer of Tosafot, “that in any case there is a practical implication if a woman has to fulfill a positive commandment.” What does he mean here? There is a positive commandment and a prohibition on something—say, not doing labor on the Sabbath, just for simplicity; a capital prohibition is not overridden by a positive commandment, but just for simplicity’s sake. So on the Sabbath I have both a prohibition and a positive commandment regarding labor. Now the woman, since this is a positive time-bound commandment—let’s ignore the “one utterance”—yes, since it is a positive time-bound commandment, the woman is exempt from the positive commandment but obligated in the prohibition. Unlike what he said above, that whoever is obligated in the prohibition is also obligated in the positive commandment—that was the first answer. The second answer says no; really there is independence. Someone obligated in the prohibition is not thereby obligated in the positive commandment, which fits very well with what I said earlier. The earlier answer did not necessarily contradict me, but this one positively says it, because otherwise why obligate the woman in the prohibition and exempt her from the positive commandment if they have the same content? If you say they are independent, then it really means they are two different things. But that is the assumption one has to make in this answer.

Then he says there is a practical implication. Why? Because what happens if I have a positive commandment to do something that involves desecrating the Sabbath? Or killing an Amalekite, yes? So I have a positive commandment to kill the Amalekite, but that is taking a life on the Sabbath. So what am I supposed to do in such a situation? On the Sabbath there is a positive commandment and a prohibition. Now what happens with a woman? The woman doesn’t have the positive commandment of the Sabbath, because it is time-bound, so the positive commandment facing the woman will override her prohibition. To kill the Amalekite because it’s a positive commandment? Is that time-bound? No—to kill the Amalekite on the Sabbath. The Amalekite shows up on the Sabbath, and I have a positive commandment to kill him, but this time I only see him on the Sabbath—after the Sabbath he’s flying abroad, I have to manage to kill him before that. Fine, so now I have a positive commandment, but there is also a prohibition. Is the Sabbath a positive time-bound commandment? No, no—the Sabbath itself is a positive time-bound commandment. Only the woman is now in this dilemma; today we have women combat soldiers, right? So the woman is in this dilemma: is she allowed—and not only allowed but obligated—to kill the Amalekite? Why? Because the positive commandment of the Sabbath doesn’t apply to her, since it is time-bound. Again, the conception here is not like in the first answer. That is, the prohibition does not radiate onto the positive commandment; regarding the positive commandment she is exempt, and regarding the prohibition she is obligated. But a prohibition is overridden by a positive commandment, so a man would be forbidden to kill an Amalekite on the Sabbath. You understand why we need women combat soldiers? Women combat soldiers have to protect us on the Sabbath, because on the Sabbath we are in trouble—we are forbidden to kill. So therefore, in the woman’s case, the positive commandment overrides the prohibition. There, that’s the practical implication.

So he says that even if the overlap is complete—unlike what he said above—between the prohibition and the positive commandment, there is still a reason to bring these commandments as examples of a commandment that is not time-bound, in order to explain to you that if it were time-bound, women would be exempt. We asked: what practical difference does that make, if they would be obligated anyway because of the prohibition? Right—but if there were another positive commandment against it, then that positive commandment would override the prohibition, because here the positive commandment of the Sabbath isn’t there for them. Okay, that’s why there is a practical implication.

The difference between the two answers of Tosafot is really the question of the relation between a prohibition and a positive commandment. Seemingly they disagree exactly on the point I’ve been discussing all along here: whether a prohibition and a positive commandment say the same thing or not. Earlier I said that even in Tosafot’s first answer I’m not sure that it is really against what I’m saying, but this answer certainly fits what I’m saying, because there is complete independence between the prohibition and the positive commandment in the second answer. That is, you see that these are two different things even though their content overlaps. Because in the second answer Tosafot assumes the content overlaps; he gave up the forced cases he made above where there was a content difference between the positive commandment and the prohibition. Now he says even if we say there is no content difference, there is still a reason to bring these examples for situations where there is a positive commandment that comes to override these prohibitions.

Maybe Tosafot in the first answer also held that women are obligated in the positive commandment, because in the second answer he begins, “And some explain that in any case there is a practical implication”—that they are exempt. No, maybe in the first answer too he held that regarding the positive commandment they are exempt, that they do not have the positive commandment. Then what is the difference between the two answers? He starts the second answer, “And some explain that in any case there is a practical implication”—that they are exempt. Maybe in the first answer he simply did not find the practical implication, to say that if they don’t have the positive commandment but do have the prohibition, then the Talmud is not understood, because the Talmud says there that with one who strikes his father or mother they are obligated—they are obligated because of the prohibition. True, they don’t have the positive commandment, but they do have the prohibition, so there is no practical implication. Yes, but it’s obvious there is a practical implication regarding sanctifying a woman—meaning, I don’t mean some practical implication in the laws of betrothal, not as a joke—if she is exempt. A practical implication? So you want me to have to say I have a non-practical implication? What? You want me to have to say I have a non-practical implication, that they have the prohibition but not the positive commandment. That’s what he wants to say. No, in any case there is a practical implication. I think what he means is: even if you say there is no practical difference between the positive commandment and the prohibition, unlike what I said earlier, there is still a practical implication in the Talmud bringing this. Not that there is a practical implication between the prohibition and the positive commandment, but that there is a practical implication for why the Talmud brought this here in order to teach me that women are obligated. What practical difference does it make if they would be obligated in any case because of the prohibition? He says no, there is a practical implication for why the Talmud brought this here. It is not a practical implication between the prohibition and the positive commandment; it is a practical implication for why the Talmud brings these examples as examples of commandments in which women are obligated.

So Tosafot had to get to the story of another positive commandment overriding it. Why? He could have said the Talmud meant to say that even though in such a case yes… So he illustrates it with a case where another positive commandment overrides. I could have brought another example too: just tell me, for what does she need to repent on Yom Kippur? Did she violate the positive commandment too, or only the prohibition, when she desecrated the Sabbath or when she didn’t build a parapet? Fine, and therefore I’m saying there is always a practical implication. I don’t think the novelty of Tosafot’s second answer lies merely in the existence of a practical implication. Nobody would miss the fact that there is a practical implication here even without the whole pilpul Tosafot went through—there are practical implications in the fact that she did not nullify the positive commandment; that’s obvious. What does “also a practical implication” mean? Therefore I don’t think— it seems to me that the difference between the answers is not only whether there is or is not a practical implication. I don’t think anyone denied that there is one. Fine, okay, one can argue.

He says: “And Rabbi Yosef of the Land of Israel objected to this explanation.” A nice objection. “If so, with respect to the rule that one may not light with impure terumah oil on a Festival”—because on a Festival there is a positive commandment and a prohibition, while burning consecrated items is only a positive commandment. Yes, “burning oil” means terumah oil that became impure, so it has to be burned, okay? But on a Festival one does not burn it. Why? Because on a Festival, true, there is a positive commandment to burn it, but on a Festival there is both a positive commandment and a prohibition regarding labor, exactly parallel to the example I brought earlier. So he says: since on a Festival there is a positive commandment and a prohibition, and burning sacred things is only a positive commandment—what about a woman, who is not obligated in the positive commandment of the Festival because it is time-bound? Could she then light with impure terumah oil on a Festival? Yes, after all a woman also does not light with impure terumah oil on a Festival—women don’t either. Why not? Women too are obligated? Women have a positive commandment, and opposite it stands a prohibition. Now if that prohibition stands alone, it is overridden by the positive commandment. On the Sabbath even the prohibition alone is not overridden, but on a Festival the prohibition alone is overridden. Now if the woman is not obligated in the positive commandment, then why can’t a woman light with impure terumah oil on a Festival? There is a positive commandment versus a prohibition? Yes, there is a positive commandment versus a prohibition—exactly what we were talking about.

Therefore from here we see against Tosafot’s second answer. We see from here that when there is a prohibition, women are obligated also in the positive commandment and not only in the prohibition. Okay? “And if you say that so too here—then why did the Tanna never state this? Rather, what must you say? That when a positive commandment is accompanied by a prohibition, the prohibition becomes stronger and is not overridden by a positive commandment. So too here, the prohibition is stronger.” So he rejected the possibility that women are exempt from the positive commandment. No—they are exempt from the positive commandment, but the prohibition is a stronger prohibition, and therefore it is not overridden. That comes out very strangely. According to this, he really remains with his position that they are exempt from the positive commandment, but the presence of the positive commandment makes the prohibition stronger, and therefore the prohibition is not overridden even though the positive commandment itself is absent. That’s dancing at two weddings a bit. Meaning, the positive commandment itself isn’t there, but the residue of its influence on the severity of the prohibition remains. No, the Torah itself—the very fact that for people generally there is also a positive commandment—this hints to us that the prohibition is a stronger prohibition. How does it hint? I would say the opposite: if the prohibition were already strong, why would you need to reinforce it with a positive commandment? On the contrary, maybe because the prohibition is weak you need to reinforce it with a positive commandment. We’ll see that in Nachmanides shortly. But yes, that is apparently what he means: the very existence of a positive commandment—not that now the woman nullifies the positive commandment when she does it, but the very fact that the Torah paired them. This is the subtext in Tosafot here, really—it is exactly this discussion: what is the relation between a positive commandment and a prohibition.

I said: the first answer seemed against what I’m saying, though I pushed that away. But at first glance the second answer really says what I’m saying. Now we see that he adopts the second answer, right? He remains with the second answer, and only rescues it from Rabbi Yosef of the Land of Israel’s objection. So what remains here? The second answer assumes that a prohibition and a positive commandment are two different things. So if they are two different things, then why does the presence of the positive commandment make the prohibition more severe? That says something else; it’s not duplication. It would seem to hint that he has returned to the first conception, right? After all, if the existence of a positive commandment means the prohibition is more severe, that apparently means you’re really telling me that the prohibition and the positive commandment say the same thing. Because if they come to say two different things, then why would the existence of the positive commandment make the prohibition more severe? What is the connection? There is dependence between them, right? So this does slightly undermine what I said earlier, that according to the second answer of Tosafot there is clearly a total separation between a positive commandment and a prohibition. But maybe—and maybe one can still explain Nachmanides. According to the… well, let’s look at Nachmanides for a moment.

“As for the fact that the Tanna taught parapet, lost property, and sending away the mother bird, and he found this difficult because these are obligations of prohibitions”—there is also a prohibition here, according to Tosafot’s question—“then whether time-bound or not time-bound, women should be obligated. And if you say it comes to teach that they are also obligated in the positive commandment in them”—that is one possibility, that if there is a prohibition then they are also obligated in the positive commandment—“to say that if they violate them, they violate both a prohibition and a positive commandment, then how do we know regarding the rest of Festivals that women are obligated in their positive commandment?” What is he saying here? Yes. Say to me that this comes to teach that since they are obligated in the prohibition, they are also obligated in the positive commandment, and therefore what? How do we know that they are obligated also in parapet? No, but he’s not speaking here about parapet alone. He is speaking about parapet, lost property, and sending away the mother bird. He is speaking about commandments that are not time-bound, right? The only question is: why did the Talmud bring them, since women would be obligated in them even if they were time-bound? Why does the Talmud bring this at all? What practical implication is there? After all there is a prohibition beside it, right?

So he says: it comes to tell me that if they are obligated in the positive commandment, then they are obligated… wait, I lost the calculation. Meaning, if it comes to teach that if they are obligated in the positive commandment and in the prohibition, then they are also obligated in the positive commandment in them, and that if they violated it then they violated both a prohibition and a positive commandment—and this is when it is time-bound, right? In situations where it is time-bound. So if these commandments have a prohibition at their side, then without the Talmud what would I think? I would think that if they were time-dependent, then women would be exempt from the positive commandment and obligated in the prohibition, right? That is without the Talmud. The Talmud comes to say that in commandments of this kind, where there is a prohibition and a positive commandment, only if they are not time-bound are women obligated. But if they are time-bound, then they are exempt—because I would have thought they are obligated because of the prohibition in them. On the contrary, that is exactly what the Talmud came to teach. So why isn’t the Sabbath like that? On the Sabbath women are also obligated in the positive commandment—because there is a special teaching there, that “remember” and “observe” were said in one utterance. And that really makes it an exception. Unlike parapet and returning lost property and so on. And why with the rest of Festivals is there also a prohibition and a positive commandment? Yes, clearly. Yes. But there we do not have “in one utterance.” Okay?

So basically, once again, the calculation is a bit complex. What he is basically saying is this: the question was why the Talmud brought these examples, since in any case women would be obligated even if they were time-bound. Even if they were time-bound, say like the Sabbath, since there is a parallel prohibition, women would be obligated in the positive commandment, even though it is time-bound. The Talmud comes to say: no, even where there is a prohibition alongside the positive commandment, if it were time-bound women would be exempt from it. The existence of the prohibition does not cause obligation in the positive commandment. Here, women are obligated in these positive commandments not because there is a prohibition beside them, but because they are not time-bound. That is what the Talmud comes to teach—that in these commandments, women are obligated not because there is a prohibition beside them, but because they are not time-bound. Where is the practical implication? That if they had in fact been time-bound, then women really would have been exempt even though there was a prohibition beside them. The opposite of what people usually learn.

You’ll ask: then what about the Sabbath? Exactly what Yitzhak said before—in the Sabbath there is special disclosure, because “remember” and “observe” were said in one utterance. That’s Nachmanides. Nachmanides against Tosafot. Nachmanides argues that “remember” and “observe” in one utterance is an exceptional example. In ordinary combinations of prohibition and positive commandment, someone obligated in the prohibition is not thereby necessarily obligated in the positive commandment. And then women could in principle burn impure terumah oil on a Festival, basically. That’s what he wants to say—that women could burn impure terumah oil on a Festival, against what Tosafot said. Maybe from that there is evidence that there is no other commandment in the whole Torah where there is a positive commandment and prohibition together and the positive commandment is time-bound? Why—there is Festival. There. No, except that with the Sabbath there is special clarification. No—on the contrary. The fact that with burning impure terumah oil on a Festival, women would indeed burn it—according to Nachmanides, women can in principle burn it. I don’t know—unless there is some other answer—but in principle women can burn impure terumah oil on a Festival according to Nachmanides, because the existence of the prohibition does not mean you are obligated in the positive commandment. It stays separate. It stays separate, and the special clarification in the Sabbath is special to the Sabbath. Okay? So then why—why didn’t they use the Festival? The Talmud should have brought the example of a Festival to illustrate this, instead of bringing those examples. No, but here it is bringing examples of positive commandments that are not time-bound. Festival is an example of a positive commandment that is time-bound. Yes, but they wanted to bring an example that even if it were time-bound then… You mean they should have brought it in the list of time-bound commandments in order to teach this principle. Why teach it through the list of not time-bound? Fine, okay.

In any case, that’s what he says: “Then how do we know regarding the positive commandment of Festivals that women are obligated in them? And one can say that this is what it means: even where there is no prohibition, they are obligated in the positive commandment, because they are two separate things. If so, how do we know regarding the positive commandment of Festivals that women are obligated in them?” Yes—so how do we derive that women are in the end also obligated not to burn impure terumah oil on a Festival? He seems to assume women are obligated also in the positive commandment of the Festival, not only in the prohibition, but according to his own position he says they are not, because being obligated in the prohibition does not obligate one in the positive commandment. So he says, “And one can say that this is what it means: even where there is no prohibition, they are obligated in the positive commandment, because these are two separate things.” Yes, this is a bit difficult; maybe that is only parenthetical. “If so, regarding the positive commandment of Festivals, how do we know women are obligated in them?” It may be that really they are not, and then women would indeed burn impure terumah oil on a Festival. Leave it—that’s not what I had thought; maybe. Then he says, “And one can say”—he returns to our Talmud, not to the Festival—“that this is what it means: even where there is no prohibition, they are obligated in the positive commandment, because these are two separate things. Lost property can be found, for example, when he took it before despair,” and so on. This is Tosafot’s first explanation, that there are practical differences between the prohibition and the positive commandment. Okay, so lost property can be found under certain conditions, and sending away the mother bird similarly, and parapet too, and that is explicitly in Tosafot.

“But it seems to me,” he says—and I’m skipping a bit into the middle of the paragraph—“that the essential commandment in all these cases the Talmud brings here is the positive commandment, and the prohibition there serves only to uphold the positive commandment. For Scripture wrote first ‘you shall make a parapet’ and then ‘you shall not place blood in your house.’” By the way, doesn’t the Torah have it in the reverse order? It seems to me it appears the other way around, no? Since it says “you shall make a parapet for your roof” and “you shall not place blood in your house.” Verse 8. Ah, okay. “That is to say: do not delay in performing this commandment. And it is a prohibition without an act.” Meaning, essentially the prohibition does not come to impose some further content on you; it comes to make sure that you fulfill the positive commandment. The prohibition here serves the positive commandment—that is Nachmanides’ claim. And therefore, “if women were exempt from the positive commandment, they would also be exempt from the prohibition, because the prohibition is only the maintenance of the positive commandment.”

He says basically: but in other positive commandments that have both a prohibition and a positive commandment, women are obligated in both, as we say in tractates Shabbat and Beitzah: “rest” is a positive commandment and a prohibition, and a positive commandment does not override a prohibition plus a positive commandment, and men and women are equal in this matter. And here he departs from what he said above. He is essentially saying that “remember” and “observe” in one utterance is a general principle: wherever there is a prohibition and a positive commandment, whoever is obligated in the prohibition is also obligated in the positive commandment. Why is it not so here? In the three examples the Talmud brings here, it is not so. Why not? Because here these are special cases where the Torah defined a kind of prohibition whose whole purpose is to make sure you fulfill the positive commandment. It is not another issue. And this is actually a novelty in the map we’ve drawn until now. Usually we said that the prohibition and the positive commandment are independent. The prohibition comes to warn you away from an undesirable state; the positive commandment tells you to establish yourself in the desirable state. He says—and Nachmanides strengthens what I said earlier, he doesn’t contradict it—that that is the normal case. Here specifically there are pairs of prohibition and positive commandment whose definition is not like that, where the prohibition does not warn you against being in a bad state, but rather comes to reinforce and ensure that you carry out the desirable state. So it’s a bit the reverse of what Tosafot said, that the positive commandment comes to weaken the prohibition. Here the prohibition says that the positive commandment is strong. Meaning, the prohibition comes to make sure that you fulfill the positive commandment. Here too I could say that perhaps the positive commandment itself is weak, and therefore it needs the prohibition to strengthen it. Never mind. But the same idea Tosafot said there about the prohibition, Nachmanides says here about the positive commandment.

And that raises the question—and therefore, in essence, what is the practical implication here? Why did the Talmud bring it here? That was his difficulty. Why did the Talmud bring it here? What, if it had been time-bound women would have been exempt? Answer: yes, women would have been exempt if it had been time-bound. Why? True, there is a prohibition in it, but after all women are exempt from the positive commandment. Whoever is exempt from the positive commandment obviously will not be obligated in the prohibition either, because the whole purpose of the prohibition is to ensure that you fulfill the positive commandment. So if a woman were exempt from the positive commandment, she would also be exempt from the prohibition. But that is specific to these cases; it is not a general principle. It applies where the Torah itself presents it as a kind of prohibition that comes to ensure that you fulfill the positive commandment. Okay, so this strengthens what I said earlier, because these are the exceptions, and from the exception you infer the rule.

So according to Nachmanides she would be exempt from the prohibition too? Yes, exempt also from the prohibition. Right, from the prohibition too. Time-bound prohibitions—women are exempt? These prohibitions are attached to the positive commandment. Right. Such time-bound prohibitions, and women are exempt from such time-bound prohibitions—but only these three examples. Yes, only in these examples. Meaning, in all other cases women are obligated in time-bound prohibitions; that’s simple, it’s in the Talmud—a normal time-bound prohibition. But these prohibitions, if they were time-bound, women would be exempt, because these prohibitions come to ensure fulfillment of the positive commandment. But someone who is not obligated in the positive commandment… But doesn’t this also imply that there are no other places where the prohibition exists only for the sake of fulfilling the positive commandment? Only in these three cases? That I don’t know; maybe there are. Otherwise why does he bring only these? Otherwise why didn’t the Talmud bring them all? “The Tanna taught and omitted.” Yes, true—but one has to be careful with such inferences. The Talmud says “the Tanna taught and omitted,” you know—they bring a list and say: but there is also something else. Fine, “the Tanna taught and omitted.” He could have brought one more. Fine, but then they say: what did the Tanna omit that he omitted this? They always ask that, after all. Usually they ask: what did the Tanna omit that he omitted this? He has to omit at least two things, because if you’re saving space, omitting one thing doesn’t save space. No, that’s the idea in “what did the Tanna omit that he omitted this?” You always need at least one more thing. If I omitted one thing alone—one thing you don’t omit. If you’re already giving a list, then bring one more; what do you care? If you’re saving space, show that you saved something meaningful. If you omitted two examples, then I understand.

Okay, in any case, Nachmanides here is basically saying—as you pointed out—that there is one and there are many. Yes, right. Once there are two, that’s already many; that’s even less than what you brought. And Nachmanides here basically… We’ve already run over time. Let me continue a bit more with this next time, and then…