Talmud, Yoma Chapter 8 – Lesson 6

Table of Contents

• Kvi/Koy and its implications as a creature between domesticated animal and wild animal
• Forbidden fat, covering the blood, and the exposition of “all fat” for two inclusions
• The relationship between “all fat” and the reasoning of “fit to combine,” and its expansion to the whole Torah
• The rule that “a verse teaches the opposite,” binyan av, and three states of reasoning
• The Pleti’s approach: koy as a qualitative half-measure
• Chullin 80a: tannaitic and amoraic definitions of koy
• “A creature unto itself”: doubt in the law versus doubt in reality, and the structure of the possibilities
• Maimonides and Tosafot: the origin of the koy, its identifying signs, and whether it is a doubt or “both and”
• The sugya of Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish: “koy and half-measure,” asmachta, and a distinct creature
• Tosafot on “essential doubt” versus “incidental doubt,” and the reason for the Talmud’s question
• Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman and the Ran: doubt treated leniently as a consciousness-based prohibition

Summary

General Overview

The text opens by clarifying the concept of kvi/koy and its halakhic implications as a creature tied to the question of classification between a domesticated animal and a wild animal, and places the discussion in the context of the exposition of the verse “all fat,” from which the Talmud includes both a half-measure and a koy. It then proposes a fundamental distinction between an inclusion that rests on reasoning and can therefore be extended to the whole Torah, and an inclusion lacking such reasoning, which remains a local novelty. Opposed to that, it presents the Pleti’s view, according to which koy itself is understood as a kind of qualitative half-measure. After that, the text studies the views of the tannaim and amoraim in Chullin 80a as to whether koy is the wild ram, a hybrid of a he-goat and a gazelle, “a creature unto itself,” or a domesticated animal, and discusses the implications of that definition depending on whether this is a doubt about reality, a doubt about the law, or a dual reality of “both wild animal and domesticated animal.” Finally, it examines the sugya of Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish about “koy and half-measure,” and the difficulty of how Reish Lakish can define the verse as a mere asmachta if koy is understood as a doubt. From there the discussion expands to the concepts of asmachta, Torah-level doubt, and Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s proposal regarding prohibitions in which the Torah innovated that their doubtful cases are treated leniently as consciousness-based prohibitions.

Kvi/Koy and its implications as a creature between domesticated animal and wild animal

The kvi/koy is presented simply as a possible domesticated animal and a possible wild animal, and therefore wherever the law distinguishes between those two categories, doubt arises regarding it as well. The text notes that even where the laws are the same, such as the prohibition against eating blood, which is stated both for domesticated animals and for wild animals, a question still arises whether the koy is included within the scope of the inclusion, because one could understand the prohibition as applying only to what was explicitly included in the verses regarding domesticated animals and regarding wild animals. The text sharpens the point that this difficulty applies mainly if the koy is not “a doubt in the simple sense” but rather a third type possessing signs of both domesticated and wild animals, in which case one could argue that it was not included regarding the prohibition of blood even though the law itself is the same.

Forbidden fat, covering the blood, and the exposition of “all fat” for two inclusions

The text explains that in the Talmud the central example is the prohibition of forbidden fat, because there the law differs between a domesticated animal and a wild animal, and so with regard to koy a doubt arises whether the prohibition of forbidden fat applies. It states that the Talmud derives from the verse “all fat” two inclusions: one inclusion for a half-measure and a second inclusion for koy. The text proposes an explanation according to which these are not really two separate inclusions, but one principle of “anything that is fat,” which expands the prohibition to anything that has some aspect of forbidden fat; and that expansion fits both the half-measure and the koy.

The relationship between “all fat” and the reasoning of “fit to combine,” and its expansion to the whole Torah

The text raises a difficulty: the prohibition of a half-measure applies throughout the whole Torah and not only to forbidden fat. If so, one might have expected that the idea of including koy would also spread throughout the Torah and require stringency in doubtful cases in all prohibitions. But the text notes that we do not find anyone who says that. It presents a model in which the exposition of “all fat” requires some inclusion, while the reasoning of “fit to combine” determines what is to be included, so that the verse and the reasoning join together rather than functioning as alternative sources. The text argues that the practical difference follows from this: in the case of a half-measure there is reasoning that allows a binyan av for the whole Torah, whereas in the inclusion of koy there is not enough reasoning, so it remains a local novelty in the laws of forbidden fat.

The rule that “a verse teaches the opposite,” binyan av, and three states of reasoning

The text presents a tension between the yeshiva-style understanding, according to which a verse that introduces a law implies that ordinarily the law would be the opposite and therefore a specific innovation is needed, and the principle of binyan av, according to which a verse teaches a general principle for the rest of the Torah. The text suggests that the distinction depends on the strength of the reasoning: when there is no reasoning, it is a local novelty from which nothing can be learned; when there is weak reasoning, the verse gives it force and therefore it expands to the whole Torah; and when there is strong reasoning, the verse can serve as a limitation and restrict the reasoning דווקא to the place where it was said. The text applies this to “all fat” and explains that this is how one can understand why half-measure extends to the whole Torah while koy remains dependent on the context of forbidden fat.

The Pleti’s approach: koy as a qualitative half-measure

The text brings the Pleti’s suggestion that koy is an example of a half-measure rather than a separate inclusion, because koy is a he-goat that mated with a gazelle or a deer that mated with a she-goat, and thus it is a kind of qualitative half-measure of the fat of a wild animal and the fat of a domesticated animal. The text explains that according to the Pleti, “koy and half-measure” are really one and the same principle, except that one is quantitative and the other qualitative, and from this there is a source for extending the idea of a qualitative half-measure to other areas of Jewish law. The text notes that it is hard to anchor the definition of koy as a half-measure in the language of the Talmud, but one can still say that koy remains defined as a doubt/mixture of wild animal and domesticated animal, and only the laws of half-measure expand the prohibition to include it.

Chullin 80a: tannaitic and amoraic definitions of koy

The text quotes the Talmud in Chullin 80a: “Rav Yehuda said: Koy is a creature unto itself, and the sages did not decide regarding it whether it is a kind of domesticated animal or a kind of wild animal,” and Rav Nachman who says, “Koy is the wild ram.” The text cites the baraita: “Koy is the wild ram,” “and some say this is what comes from a he-goat and a gazelle,” “Rabbi Yose says: Koy is a creature unto itself, and the sages did not decide whether it is a kind of wild animal or a kind of domesticated animal,” and “Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: It is a kind of domesticated animal, and the members of the house of Dousai would raise whole herds of them.” The text explains that “they would raise whole herds of them” serves as support for the idea that it is a domesticated animal, because it was raised like domestic livestock, and it raises the possibility that the categories of domesticated animal and wild animal are also connected to domestication.

“A creature unto itself”: doubt in the law versus doubt in reality, and the structure of the possibilities

The text explains that according to Rabbi Yose, “a creature unto itself” can be understood as a third type that is not a doubt in reality but a doubt in law regarding how to attach it to the laws of a wild animal or a domesticated animal. The text proposes three ways of understanding the doubt: a doubt due to its origin, since it was born from a wild animal and a domesticated animal; a doubt due to its identifying signs, because it has signs of both; or a state of “a creature unto itself,” where there is no factual doubt but an unresolved halakhic classification. The text adds another possibility: that koy is “both a wild animal and a domesticated animal,” like an androgynos or twilight according to certain views, and it emphasizes that the practical difference is especially significant in rabbinic law, where “rabbinic doubt is treated leniently,” as opposed to applying a definite law because it is “both and.”

Maimonides and Tosafot: the origin of the koy, its identifying signs, and whether it is a doubt or “both and”

The text quotes Maimonides in Laws of Forbidden Foods, chapter 1: “A hybrid born from a kosher domesticated animal with a kosher wild animal is what is called koy. Its fat is forbidden, but one is not lashed for it, and its blood must be covered,” and understands Maimonides as ruling that koy is a hybrid of a he-goat and a gazelle. The text argues that Maimonides’ wording may imply that he sees koy as a reality of “both wild animal and domesticated animal,” and not necessarily as a doubt, and it cites his Commentary on the Mishnah in Bikkurim: “And a species whose form is between goats and deer, and thus they said: koy is a creature unto itself, and the sages did not decide whether it is a species of wild animal or a species of domesticated animal.” The text emphasizes that Tosafot interprets koy as a factual doubt and asks, “Let us examine its horns,” and answers that one can err in deciding based on the signs, such as “and this is the doubt of the goat of Kharkuz,” from which it follows that Tosafot ties the doubt to the ambiguity of the signs and not to its lineage.

The sugya of Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish: “koy and half-measure,” asmachta, and a distinct creature

The text cites the baraita: “I only know that whatever is subject to punishment is also subject to prohibition. As for koy and a half-measure, since they are not subject to punishment, one might think they are not subject to prohibition. Therefore the verse says: ‘all fat.’” It then quotes Reish Lakish’s answer that this is rabbinic, and “the verse is merely an asmachta.” The text cites the Talmud’s reasoning: “If it enters your mind that this is Torah law, koy is a doubt. Does one need a verse to include a doubt?” and points to the difficulty that if koy is a doubt, then apparently “a Torah-level doubt is treated stringently” should make the verse unnecessary, so Reish Lakish sounds somewhat strange in his explanation. The text brings the Talmud’s rejection: “Koy is a creature unto itself… rather, a distinct creature is different; here too, a distinct creature is different,” and concludes that according to Rabbi Yochanan, koy is not a doubt but a creature unto itself, and therefore a Torah-level inclusion is needed to prohibit its fat. It then asks how Reish Lakish can work things out if koy is attributed to doubt.

Tosafot on “essential doubt” versus “incidental doubt,” and the reason for the Talmud’s question

The text quotes Tosafot, who asks why it is difficult at all to say “a verse was needed to include a doubt,” since there are verses that do refer to doubt, such as “the tenth is certainly the tenth and not a doubtful tenth,” and the doubtful case of a leprous white patch. Tosafot answers that here we are dealing with an essential doubt, “which is clear before Heaven,” and the Torah could have decided it once and for all for the entire species. The text explains that according to Tosafot, in an essential doubt the Torah should have revealed what koy is, rather than creating a local inclusion, and from here Reish Lakish interprets the verse as a mere asmachta. The text adds that this move still remains difficult, because the Talmud also recognizes local doubtful categories such as “a certain mamzer… and not a doubtful mamzer,” and it points out that Tosafot’s explanation is not entirely smooth regarding the nature of different doubts.

Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman and the Ran: doubt treated leniently as a consciousness-based prohibition

The text presents Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s remarks based on the Ran at the end of the first chapter of Kiddushin regarding doubtful orlah outside the Land of Israel, which is permitted even though orlah outside the Land of Israel is prohibited by a law given to Moses at Sinai. The text brings the Ran’s striking innovation: if a person is fed fruit that is certainly orlah without his knowledge, “nothing happened,” because from his perspective it is a doubt and he is permitted to eat it, and therefore he was not caused to transgress a prohibition. The text explains that Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman formulates a principle according to which, in places where the Torah innovated that doubtful cases are treated leniently, we are dealing with a consciousness-based prohibition and not an object-based prohibition, so that knowledge defines the prohibition itself and does not merely exempt an unintentional sinner. From this, it raises far-reaching implications regarding the seeming possibility of “causing someone to stumble” in doubtful cases where the law is lenient.

I want to touch today on the matter of the kvi or the koy. I saw that there are different terms for it among Sephardim and Ashkenazim. Ashkenazim call it kvi and Sephardim call it koy. There are all kinds of discussions about this among various linguistic scholars. Anyway, we talked about a half-measure; we spent two weeks talking about a half-measure, and now I want to touch on the part of the topic that deals with this doubt regarding the kvi. Actually, Tosafot—almost all of Tosafot in the passage here—deals with this point. There is this concept of kvi or koy, which in simple terms is a doubtful case: maybe domesticated animal, maybe wild animal. And therefore different laws apply to it everywhere there is a difference in law between a domesticated animal and a wild animal. Because if there is a legal difference between a domesticated animal and a wild animal, then with a kvi, which is a doubtful domesticated animal or wild animal, there is doubt regarding that law. But there are places where kvi can be exceptional even when the laws are the same for domesticated and wild animals. For example, the Talmud talks about the prohibition on eating blood. The prohibition on eating blood applies both to a domesticated animal and to a wild animal. But nevertheless, since the kvi is neither a domesticated animal nor a wild animal, the question is whether—or, if it is a doubtful domesticated animal or doubtful wild animal—the question is whether the prohibition on eating blood was said about it. Let’s put it this way: the question is whether we understand the prohibition on eating blood as having been said about all animals, with wild and domesticated animals just being examples, or whether the prohibition on eating blood was said only about whatever is specifically included by the verse. So there is an inclusion in the verse regarding a domesticated animal, there is an inclusion in the verse regarding a wild animal, but kvi is something that is not necessarily a domesticated animal and not necessarily a wild animal, and therefore it may be that it is not included. True, if the kvi is simply a doubtful domesticated animal or doubtful wild animal, then it’s a little hard to say such a thing, because if it’s a doubtful domesticated animal or doubtful wild animal, then on the side that it is domesticated it is included, and on the side that it is wild it is included. Only if I say that because it has signs of a domesticated animal and signs of a wild animal, maybe it is something else, a third type—and the term “doubt” here is perhaps not precise. In that case one could say that the prohibition on eating blood was not introduced regarding it. If it really were simply a doubtful domesticated animal or doubtful wild animal, then regarding eating blood it is not clear why the prohibition would not apply to it no matter what: on the side that it is wild and on the side that it is domesticated. For our purposes, then, the prohibition of fat is the example that is actually brought in our Talmudic passage, because the prohibition of fat is stated about wild animals and birds, but not about domesticated animals. And if the kvi is a doubtful domesticated animal or doubtful wild animal, then there is doubt whether the prohibition of fat applies to it. Or the obligation to cover the blood, which is said only about wild animals and birds and not about domesticated animals. So with regard to the prohibition of fat too there is doubt regarding the kvi. If it is a domesticated animal, then there is a prohibition; if it is a wild animal, then there is no prohibition. The Talmud says that its prohibition is included from “any fat,” like a half-measure. I’ll remind you of what we already saw: from the verse “any fat,” the Talmud derives two inclusions. One inclusion is a half-measure, and the second inclusion is kvi. Now I asked: how is it possible to derive two inclusions from the same source? And I brought—I suggested one answer to this, I think in the first class, but afterward we saw the Pleti, who suggested a somewhat different answer. The answer I suggested was that it says “any fat”—any amount of fat. What does that mean? Anything that has some aspect of fat is prohibited. Now if in fact we are dealing here with some general principle—anything that has some aspect of fat is prohibited—then that general principle fits both the half-measure and the kvi, because in each of them there is some aspect of fat. So this is not two different inclusions from the same verse, but rather some broadening of the prohibition of fat, a general inclusion of everything that touches in some way on the prohibition of fat, that it too should be prohibited. And there are many examples of this or many implications, but basically it is one inclusion, not many inclusions. What is difficult about this direction is that we know the prohibition of a half-measure applies throughout Jewish law, not only to fat. Does the second inclusion also apply throughout all the rest of Jewish law—that any partial aspect of pork will be prohibited as pork, any partial aspect of, I don’t know, a mamzer will be a mamzer, basically any prohibition whatsoever? If we expand what is learned from “any fat” to the rest of Jewish law, then I should have expanded not only the prohibition of a half-measure but also the idea of koy. And then it would come out that I need to be stringent in doubtful cases throughout all of Jewish law. Maybe this would even be a source for the rule that Torah-level doubt is treated stringently throughout the Torah, but I haven’t seen anyone who wants to say such a thing. Simply speaking, the inclusion of koy is a specific inclusion regarding fat, and we’ll still see in our passage why it is needed and so on, but it is a specific inclusion regarding fat. So why? If a half-measure is a general prohibition throughout Jewish law, then why is koy said only regarding fat? Either say that a half-measure too was introduced only regarding fat, or say that the inclusion of doubtful cases like koy was introduced throughout Jewish law as well. So it could be—and I already mentioned this—that this is the meaning of the reasoning of “it can combine.” After all, we spoke about the fact that there is an inclusion of “any fat” and there is also the reasoning that it can combine. What is the relationship between them? On the face of it, both from the Talmud and from the medieval authorities (Rishonim), it seems that these are not two alternative sources, or some dispute or two possibilities, but rather they join together. So I asked why they need to join together. If “any fat” includes a half-measure, then you don’t need the reasoning that it can combine, and vice versa. So one could say—and yes, I talked about this—that the inclusion of “any fat” says that something has to be included. Now you ask yourself: what is to be included? And then you have to start applying the reasoning. And I said that everything learned from an exposition actually involves reasoning. You need the reasoning; the exposition tells you to include, and now you need to use the reasoning in order to know what to include. Because after all, you could include “any fat” to include windows. You need something for which there is some reasoning that says this should be included. So why is the reasoning alone not enough? So I said: sometimes the reasoning alone is not strong enough to build the law on it, and therefore you need the verse. The reasoning comes and says, after there is a verse, what is the matter with respect to which I include from the verse. One second, friends, just a reminder: try to turn your cameras on, okay? Elad, Aharon, turn on your cameras. Unfortunately I can’t, my daughter is here with me and it’s a bit rough. Okay. Aharon, what about you? No response. Okay. So the claim is that basically the prohibition of a half-measure comes from the inclusion of “any fat,” while “it can combine” is the reasoning that tells me what to include; right, that’s what I said. If so, then maybe there is an explanation for why the law of a half-measure expands to all of Jewish law while the law of doubtful cases like koy remains only with fat. The reasoning of “it can combine” teaches that “any fat” comes to include a half-measure. Why? Because there is the reasoning that it can combine. But after I learned from the verse that the reasoning of “it can combine” really holds water—that is, that a half-measure really is fit to be prohibited—now I apply it to all of Jewish law. In the inclusion of koy I have no reasoning for why in every doubtful case I need to be stringent. After you include any amount of fat, you say: anything that has some dimension of fat has to be treated as though it is prohibited. As though it is… meaning, are you going retroactively? What? You’re basically—everything up till now… So I said: we didn’t know then; from now on we apply it to all the things as though until now too? Usually that’s how it works: you have a certain source, you learn from it to other sources; that’s called building a general principle from one case. But then the question is why we make a distinction between koy and a half-measure. That was my question. I have no problem with extending it to the rest of Jewish law, because often we have one source and from it we derive a principle that is true throughout Jewish law. I was only asking: no matter how you look at it, if you do it for a half-measure, why not do it for koy, and vice versa? What I want to claim is that the inclusion of “any fat” in the context of koy is not accompanied by additional reasoning. Anything connected to fat should be treated stringently—fine, then that is a special law in fat, because there is no underlying reasoning there, so apparently it was introduced regarding fat. But the inclusion of a half-measure does have reasoning to it, namely “it can combine.” So if that is so, then this inclusion teaches that the reasoning is correct. Once I know the reasoning is correct, I apply it also to the rest of Jewish law, because after all there is reasoning here; I just need reinforcement from the verse in order to say that this reasoning has substance, that one can build a law on it, that it is strong enough. So I have reinforcement from the verse, and therefore I state the reasoning. It reminds me that very often I find myself hesitating, because in yeshivot it is common to think that every verse teaches the opposite of what it says. Why? Because you say—this is the example—“Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice.” A husband and wife are arguing, so the wife says to the husband: listen, you have to listen to me; that’s what is written in the Torah, “Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice.” So if the husband is a yeshiva student, he says to her: what are you talking about? Obviously what comes out from here is that one does not need to listen to one’s wife, and therefore a special innovation was needed for Sarah, that specifically there you do have to listen to her voice. In other words, according to that idea, every law you learn from a verse actually teaches the opposite. It teaches that in principle it isn’t true, and therefore it had to be newly stated that here this law exists. And that’s how they are used to thinking in yeshivot, that everywhere there is some law, some verse teaching a law, what really comes out from here is the opposite principle, because it is a sign that ordinarily it is not true, and therefore the verse had to innovate here that it is. And in truth there are places in the Talmud where it really is built that way. From the fact that there had to be an inclusion, it implies that without the inclusion it would not have been so, and therefore the general principle is that it is not. On the other hand, there is the principle of building a general principle from one case. When we learn something from a verse, the assumption is that it exists throughout Jewish law; we learn from that source to the rest of Jewish law by means of a general principle. So when do we do this and when do we do that? When, if you have a source that teaches something, do you assume that that something is a general principle, and when do you assume that it is a special innovation for this case, while the general principle is the opposite? Sometimes it is this way and sometimes it is that way. There are examples in the words of the Sages and in the medieval authorities in both directions. It seems to me that the difference depends on whether you have reasoning. If the foundation you learned has reasoning to it, then you apply it to all of Jewish law. If the foundation you learned has no reasoning to it, then you understand that it was probably said specifically for this case—you have only the innovation itself. There is an innovation here; the innovation was said here; you have only the innovation itself. You cannot learn it for the rest of Jewish law. There may perhaps be room to distinguish between a case where the reasoning is strong and a case where the reasoning is okay but not enough on its own to innovate the law. Why? Because if the reasoning is strong, then I would actually say it even without the verse throughout the Torah: why do I need a verse? The reasoning itself says it. So if there is a verse here, maybe the verse comes to limit the reasoning and say that I need to apply the reasoning specifically here. But if the reasoning is not strong enough, on its own it could not impose the law, then here, if a verse is added, the verse comes only to say that I can rely on the reasoning—that is, that it is strong enough. So now I can apply it; there is no question of why a verse is needed here. A verse is needed here to tell me that the reasoning is strong enough. So there is no reason to say that the verse came to innovate a law specifically here that would not be true throughout the Torah. On the contrary, it came to say that this reasoning is correct, and therefore it can be applied throughout the Torah. And then in fact you get three situations. There is a situation in which there is an innovation in the verse and I have no reasoning. If so, I would say that this was said only in this verse. In all the rest of Jewish law it is not true—but not because I learned from this verse that it is not true; rather, it is not true because it remains not true. I have no reasoning, no reason to change. All this verse says is that in this specific case one must change. So, for example, if there were no reasoning at all in the law of a half-measure, then when the verse innovated a half-measure with fat, I would say that with fat it was newly stated that there is a prohibition of a half-measure, and in the rest of Jewish law there is no prohibition of a half-measure. But why not? Not because I learned the opposite from “any fat,” but because I have no reasoning, no reason to apply it throughout the rest of Jewish law, and the verse “any fat” was said only about fat. That’s all. You don’t need the verse in order to teach that the rest of Jewish law is not so. The rest of Jewish law remains as I would have understood it anyway. The verse innovates that with fat it is so. That is when there is no reasoning. What happens when there is weak reasoning? When there is weak reasoning, meaning that on its own it is not enough to impose the law and it needs reinforcement from the verse. So let’s say I have the reasoning that it can combine, and let’s say it is weak, not strong enough to apply without a verse. Now comes the verse of “any fat.” I ask myself: so what does the verse do? The verse comes to say that this reasoning really is strong enough—you can go by it. If so, then in fact this verse is a general source. It basically teaches me that throughout Jewish law, everywhere this reasoning is relevant, it should be applied. That is the case of building a general principle from one case. The third case is when the reasoning is strong. When the reasoning is strong, then I really don’t need the verse at all. I would say this principle throughout Jewish law even without the verse. So now suddenly I have a verse with fat. I ask myself why the verse is needed, since the reasoning is enough. It may be that here we say that the verse teaches the opposite of what it says. The verse comes to say that this reasoning, which you would have applied throughout Jewish law, don’t apply it except to fat. And then the verse teaches that in all the rest of Jewish law a half-measure would be permitted. In the first possibility I raised, it is not the verse that teaches that in all the rest of Jewish law it is permitted; rather, the absence of reasoning teaches it. The verse innovates only about fat, but the absence of reasoning teaches that in all of Jewish law it is irrelevant. Here the verse innovates that in all the rest of Jewish law there is no prohibition of a half-measure, according to that understanding. Okay? So if I come back to here, then the inclusion of koy and the inclusion of a half-measure are both included from “any fat.” But the nature of the inclusion is different. Why? I said that seemingly it should be the same thing. Why is the character of the inclusion different? Because with a half-measure there is reasoning. The moment there is reasoning, once a half-measure is included regarding fat, I apply it to all of Jewish law. And therefore the law of a half-measure applies to all of Jewish law. At least according to Rabbi Yohanan. Reish Lakish doesn’t accept this, but according to Rabbi Yohanan. With koy there is no reasoning. The moment there is no reasoning, then when it is included regarding fat, I leave it only with fat. Why assume otherwise? And therefore in the rest of Jewish law there will not be an obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases—or at least not from here. There will be a rule that Torah-level doubt is treated stringently, but it won’t be learned from here. It could be that here it is a law to be stringent as a certainty and not to be stringent under the laws of doubt; we’ll still talk about that. Rabbi, this whole discussion of doubts isn’t according to the conclusion of the Talmud; according to the conclusion of the Talmud, koy is a creature unto itself, not a doubt. נכון, but at the moment I’m assuming—I haven’t even gotten into the Talmud yet—the assumption throughout the Talmud generally is that koy is a doubt. And once it is a doubt, I ask myself: so what is this inclusion of “any fat” supposed to do with it? So these are the options I described here; in a moment we’ll see the Talmud and then we’ll see that it really is not so simple. This is one possibility for explaining why we need—how two inclusions come out of the same verse, both koy and the half-measure, even though they have different scope. With the laws of doubtful cases we leave it only with fat, while the half-measure we apply to all of Jewish law. That is what I explained here. The Pleti wanted to claim that koy is basically an example of a half-measure. These are not two different inclusions; they are both a half-measure. Why? Because koy is a he-goat that mated with a gazelle. Or the reverse, a deer that mated with a female goat. So here we really have a hybrid of a wild animal with a domesticated animal. And the offspring is called koy. There are views about this among the medieval authorities and in the Talmud, but that is what the Pleti assumes. Now if that is so, then in the fat of the koy there is actually an aspect of wild-animal fat and an aspect of domesticated-animal fat. So because of that, this is really a qualitative half-measure, right? There is here a diluted quality of wild-animal fat. We spoke about this when I discussed the context of a qualitative half-measure in the previous class. So because of that, by the law of a half-measure it should be prohibited. So he claims that the inclusion of koy and the inclusion of a half-measure are not two inclusions; koy is a half-measure. It is just that this is a qualitative half-measure and that is a quantitative half-measure. But it is really the same inclusion itself. And then once again the question returns: how is there a difference between koy and a half-measure? Because according to the Pleti now I’ll ask: okay, so it’s a half-measure, but that’s a principle I extend to all of Jewish law. Why don’t I extend the principle of koy? The answer: yes, I do extend it to all of Jewish law. Qualitative half-measures—we indeed saw many sources in the previous class showing that there is a qualitative half-measure in other areas of Jewish law too, even in very, very far-reaching places. And that is exactly the point I made earlier, because according to the Pleti you cannot say what I said before, that there is a difference between the two inclusions—that this one expands because it has reasoning and that one doesn’t expand because it lacks reasoning. Here both are the inclusion of a half-measure. Therefore both really do expand, and according to this, from here we have a source for a qualitative half-measure. All the later authorities (Acharonim) bring that in another context, but you definitely can learn it from here. This can be a source for that matter. One could perhaps, with some difficulty, say that true, both are a half-measure, but this is a quantitative half-measure and that is a qualitative half-measure. And it could be that with a quantitative half-measure there is the reasoning that it can combine, whereas with a qualitative half-measure there is no reasoning that it can combine. Well, I don’t know; it depends how one defines the reasoning that it can combine, because it can also be understood regarding a qualitative half-measure. But the idea that koy is a half-measure has no anchor in the Talmud. I don’t recall the Talmud in any passage treating koy as a half-measure. It treats it either as a doubt or as a creature unto itself, but not as a half-measure. No, but that’s not a different treatment. Koy is basically a doubt between wild animal and domesticated animal. Fine, it has an aspect of wild animal and an aspect of domesticated animal. Now the law of a half-measure is a law that includes anything that has some aspect of fat, quantitative or qualitative. So because of that, koy is included by the law of a half-measure. Not because koy is a half-measure. Koy really is what the Talmud says—it has an aspect of domesticated animal and an aspect of wild animal. It’s only that by the law of a half-measure we learn that something that has an aspect of wild animal and an aspect of domesticated animal should be prohibited under the law of a half-measure. So you don’t need the whole Talmud to bring koy as an example of a half-measure. What they bring it as is an example of doubt. In a place where we are dealing with the prohibition of a half-measure, koy too is an example for that issue. But it’s not that the definition of koy is that it is a half-measure. No. The definition of koy is that it is half wild animal, half domesticated animal. Okay? Fine. Now in the Talmud, let’s really go back. I want to speak a little about the meaning of this doubt regarding koy. The Talmud in Hullin 80a: Rav Yehudah said, “Koy is a creature unto itself, and the Sages did not decide whether it is a species of domesticated animal or a species of wild animal.” This is Rav Yehudah, not Rabbi Yehudah; it’s an amora. Rav Nahman said, “Koy is the wild ram.” Yes, that’s a discussion there lower down in the Talmud. And that is the concept of koy. Again, the question is whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal. The Talmud says: this is like a tannaitic dispute. Yes, this is basically a dispute among tannaim. Koy is the wild ram, and some say it is the offspring of the he-goat and the gazelle. Rabbi Yose says, “Koy is a creature unto itself, and the Sages did not decide whether it is a species of wild animal or a species of domesticated animal.” Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says, “It is a species of domesticated animal, and the household of Dushai would raise whole herds of them.” What does that prove, that they would raise whole herds? A domesticated animal is a domestic creature. These are animals raised in the home, like a cow and an ox and a sheep and a goat and the like. So if the household of Dushai would raise whole herds of them, that basically means that it is a domesticated animal and not a wild animal. Right? Because they raise it, take it out to pasture, keep it at home like domesticated animals. In any case, so we see here in the Talmud—It doesn’t have to be that way. I mean, the fact that they were raising it—if we say it is half domesticated animal and half wild animal, then on the face of it, raising it says… that they managed to raise it, but not necessarily that everyone manages to raise it. They brought an example—what we said is a one-off example of someone who succeeded. So why does the Talmud bring it here? According to one view—I was reading in parallel what koy is and so on—some claim that koy is like a cow, basically, which at that time was semi-domesticated in Germany. If so, then Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says that domesticated animal and wild animal are not necessarily about the form of the animal but about its domestication, as you said. Exactly, that’s what I’m talking about. Therefore it could be that he brings it as an isolated example as support and not as a dispute. On the contrary, it’s a supporting example, that’s exactly what I’m saying. The claim here is that he says koy is a domesticated animal, and his proof… He brings it as a distinction: it was not decided whether it’s a domesticated animal or a wild animal. So why? Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says, “It is a species of domesticated animal, and the household of Dushai would raise whole herds of them.” So the fact that they would raise whole herds is brought as a continuation of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel’s view. So he says it is a species of domesticated animal, and the proof is that they raised it like a domesticated animal. And I can’t see this as support, basically? It is support. No, I mean the whole opinion of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel as proof, kind of outside the whole passage in itself, not now to divide it into small parts. Can’t I see it as… if one interprets this now as an example in favor of half domesticated animal, half wild animal? Why is it brought here? I don’t know, but he brings an isolated example; he doesn’t bring an example that… No, “isolated example” meaning that if people raise it in herds, apparently that means it’s a domesticated animal. What do you mean, people? It’s one person. Doesn’t matter. The assumption is probably that you can’t raise it if it weren’t a domesticated animal. If they raise it, apparently it is a domesticated animal. Also from the structure of the Talmud it seems quite clear that this is support for Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel: “It is a species of domesticated animal, and the proof is that the household of Dushai would raise them.” Fine, that’s how it seems to me; not important, it matters less for our purposes. In any case, elsewhere in the Talmud, if I’m not mistaken, when they say “it is a creature unto itself,” that means it is neither a domesticated animal nor a wild animal, right? Right, Tosafot… Or is that not so? Here he says, “It is a creature unto itself, and the Sages did not decide.” Meaning it is something… No, “the Sages did not decide where to classify it.” That doesn’t contradict it. A creature unto itself. But if it is neither a domesticated animal nor a wild animal, then it is neither this nor that, so what does “the Sages did not decide” mean? But there are laws in the Talmud that are divided between wild animal and domesticated animal. Now what do you do with a third type? There is a third type; it’s different. It is not both domesticated animal and wild animal; it’s something third. But there are places in the Talmud… there are laws in the Talmud where there is a difference for a wild animal—for example, covering the blood. So covering the blood applies to a wild animal, but not to a domesticated animal. Okay? Now I ask: okay, I have a koy, it’s a third type. What do we do with it? So he says: the Sages did not decide whether to attach it to wild animal law or to domesticated animal law. Not that they did not decide what its character is, whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal, but which laws to apply to it. Okay, that’s exactly the difference. In other words, according to Rabbi Yose it seems that the doubt is not… there is no doubt about the essence of koy, whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal. It is not a doubt at all. It is simply a third type. It’s just that in Torah law we are generally used to distinguishing between wild animal and domesticated animal. So then my doubt is not factual doubt but legal doubt. What happens in the various Torah laws regarding koy? Should we apply to it the laws of a wild animal or the laws of a domesticated animal? Even though it itself is neither one nor the other. It is a third thing about which there is no factual doubt at all; the doubt is not in reality but in the law. And that can have implications. There are differences between factual doubt and legal doubt. Okay? For example, regarding a double doubt, there are those who want to claim that with legal doubt we do not go lenient, while with factual doubt we do go lenient. So this has implications—whether it is factual doubt or legal doubt—and apparently from the words of Rabbi Yose it emerges that the doubt here is legal doubt and not factual doubt. In contrast, in the previous sources I read, for example that it comes from the he-goat and the gazelle, the claim is that there is in fact some sort of doubt. It looks a bit like a wild animal, a bit like a domesticated animal, and therefore I don’t know; I have a factual doubt. I don’t know how to relate to it—whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal. But here I want to bring another possibility for defining the doubt, a third possibility, namely that it may have signs of a wild animal and signs of a domesticated animal. It comes from a goat and a gazelle, so the genetics actually give it certain signs from the goat and other signs from the gazelle. So now I have doubt about how to classify it: whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal, not because of its origin from the goat and the gazelle, but because of what it is. It has signs belonging to wild animals and signs belonging to domesticated animals; in its case the signs are mixed. So what do we do with such a creature? Is it also… do I relate to the wild-animal signs, or do I relate to the domesticated-animal signs, or how? I have a doubt that arises… let’s say I didn’t know it came from the goat and the gazelle, I would still be in doubt, because I see in it signs of a wild animal, I see in it signs of a domesticated animal, and I don’t know what to do with it. And one could have understood that no, it has no signs of wild animal or domesticated animal; the problem is not the signs, the problem is the origin. Because it was born to a wild animal and a domesticated animal, now the question is—like the Pleti said—it has dimensions of wild animal and dimensions of domesticated animal. Now I ask myself: okay, the offspring of a wild animal is certainly a wild animal, even if it had no signs; the offspring of a domesticated animal is certainly a domesticated animal, even if it had no signs. Now this one is both the offspring of a wild animal and the offspring of a domesticated animal, and for the sake of discussion it has no signs; I would still be in doubt whether to define it as a wild animal or as a domesticated animal. So we basically have, it seems to me, three possibilities for defining the status of koy. If it is a domesticated animal, then that’s not an option—that’s Rashba’s side?—then it is simply a domesticated animal. But if not, then we have basically three possibilities. One possibility is that it is a creature unto itself, and then apparently this is only doubt about which laws to apply to it. That is legal doubt, not factual doubt. There are two other possibilities of factual doubt: either doubt due to origin—it is the offspring of a wild animal and of a domesticated animal, and you do not know whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal—or doubt due to signs, where it has signs of a wild animal and signs of a domesticated animal that it got from its genetics, but that is not what matters; what matters to me now are its signs, and it has signs of a wild animal and signs of a domesticated animal, so I am in doubt. This is actually very similar to an androgynos, right? An androgynos basically has male signs and female signs, and the question is where to classify it. In some respects, once it has both signs of a wild animal and signs of a domesticated animal, then there is perhaps what I would call a fourth option, and that is that it is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal. After all, it has signs of a wild animal, it has signs of a domesticated animal, or it comes from a wild animal and from a domesticated animal—those last two options can be defined that way. The result is not that I am in doubt, but that it is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal. Can such a thing exist? A creature that is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal? Why not? Why not? Unless there is overlap between wild animal and domesticated animal—well, here you see that there is. There can be a creature that is both male and female; an androgynos is both male and female. Twilight can be both day and night, or a doubtful day and doubtful night; there is a three-way tannaitic dispute. In other words, many dichotomies that we are accustomed to are not really dichotomies. There can be intermediate categories that perhaps belong to both, but not out of doubt; rather certainly—it really is both. For example, the Arugat HaBosem claims—he claims that twilight is both day and night. There is a tannaitic dispute about twilight. One tanna says it is both day and night, one tanna says it is neither day nor night, and one tanna says it is a doubt. Okay, what is the difference? Let’s say there is some law that applies only during the day. Does it apply during twilight? So he says it depends. If that law applies during the day because the night was excluded, okay? Meaning that at night it is forbidden to do it, then you cannot do it during twilight because twilight is also night. But if that law requires day because it needs day—not because night is forbidden—then twilight is also day, so you can do it during twilight too. That is on the side that twilight is both day and night. On the side that twilight is a doubt, then you are in doubt; on the side that it is neither day nor night, again there are practical differences, just the other way around. Okay, in all places where this is—what the Talmud calls something very similar to “this and that both contributed”—there are two things that produced the creature before us, that left their stamp on it, that took part in its creation, like the wild animal and the domesticated animal in our case. Then it may be that I see in it the fingerprints—yes, the fingerprints—of both of the things that created it, and then one can discuss whether I am in doubt whether… and the practical differences are like I said before from the Rogatchover. Okay, those are the possibilities for defining the doubt of twilight. Look, for example, at Maimonides’ language in the Laws of Forbidden Foods, chapter 1: “A hybrid born from a pure domesticated animal with a pure wild animal is what is called koy. Its fat is forbidden, but one is not lashed for it, and one covers its blood.” In other words, he says that it is a hybrid that comes from a pure domesticated animal with a pure wild animal. First of all, then, he ruled like the view in the Talmud that koy is not a creature unto itself but is a he-goat that mated with a gazelle. Second, he brings the laws here. Apparently it seems that this is not from the laws of doubt, right? It comes from a pure domesticated animal with a pure wild animal and is what is called koy. “Its fat is forbidden.” Why is it forbidden? You could say out of doubt. But one could also say no: its fat is forbidden because it is a wild animal. It is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal. “One is not lashed for it, and one covers its blood.” And one covers its blood, again, because it is a wild animal. So Maimonides’ statement could definitely be read—first, it seems that the doubt really is not because of the signs we see in the koy itself, but because of its origin, that it comes from a domesticated animal and a wild animal. That’s one thing. Second, the result of Maimonides’ definition is that it could be, or at least could be, that Maimonides does not see this at all as a matter of doubtful cases, but rather as both a wild animal and a domesticated animal, and the laws of both wild animal and domesticated animal apply to it. In his commentary on the Mishnah in Bikkurim he says: “It is a species whose form is between goats and gazelles, and thus they said: koy is a creature unto itself, and the Sages did not decide whether it is a species of wild animal or a species of domesticated animal.” So here it does seem that there is some sort of doubt among the Sages, that they did not decide. But I’m not sure he means doubt. “The Sages did not decide” means the Sages did not give it a single unified status. Rather what? It is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal. They did not decide that we should relate to it as one of the two. So what yes? Not doubt. We relate to it as both. It is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal. What will the implication be? Wherever there is a law about wild animal, it will apply to it; wherever there is a law about domesticated animal, it will also apply to it. Certainly—not out of doubt. It is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal. Like half-slave, half-free woman. Half-slave, half-free woman is not a doubt. She is both a slave and free. She has the laws of a slave and she has the laws of a free woman. Sometimes those laws contradict one another, and then one has to decide what to do. And therefore in such situations one can sometimes see expressions as though these are situations of doubt. But they are not really situations of doubt. I’ll give you an example: let’s say there were some rabbinic law, okay? Let’s say there is some rabbinic law and it exists only for a wild animal and not for a domesticated animal. And now I ask myself whether this law applies to koy. If it is a doubt, then a rabbinic doubt is treated leniently, right? So it would not apply to koy. But if koy is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal, then why do I care that it is a rabbinic law? I apply it to the koy not because of the laws of doubtful cases, but because it is a wild animal. It is also a domesticated animal, but it is also a wild animal. So this is certain; it is not out of doubt. In that case even a rabbinic law would apply to it. On the Torah level there would be no difference, and therefore many times they call such a situation a doubt. There are other places in the Talmud that call such a situation a doubt, because on the Torah level there is no difference. On the Torah level, both under the laws of doubt we are stringent and under the laws of certainty it always comes out stringent. The relevant law will always apply from the side of wild animal or from the side of domesticated animal, which is like going stringently. But the practical difference will be in rabbinic laws, where with rabbinic laws we will still go stringently if this is not a doubt. After all, if it is a doubt we would go leniently. Actually, I think the more correct definition is not that we go stringently, but that what determines things is the positive law and not the negative one. What do I mean? Let’s say there is a law of covering the blood in a wild animal. With a domesticated animal, it is not that there is a law not to cover; rather, there is simply no law to cover. Right? With a wild animal there is a law to cover. With a domesticated animal there is no law to cover. So in such a case, with something that is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal, we will cover its blood. Why? Because on the side of wild animal in it, there is a law here to cover the blood. If on the side of domesticated animal there had been a prohibition on covering the blood, then we would not cover its blood, because there is a prohibition—and after all, on the side of domesticated animal in it… because a prohibition is a positive law. The absence of a law is a negative condition. Therefore in a case of dual reality, what applies is the positive law and not the negative one. On the Torah level this usually overlaps with going stringently, but not on the rabbinic level. Therefore people often tend to see statements like “the Sages did not decide” or something like that as statements expressing doubt, and I am not at all sure that Maimonides is talking about doubt. If you also remember the conclusion of the passage here, that it is a creature unto itself, then that is apparently not doubt. There is also a Maimonides in Yevamot who writes this. I think it is definitely reasonable that even in Maimonides one can learn the passage this way. Tosafot here in our passage writes as follows: “Koy is a doubt. And one may ask: why did the Sages not decide whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal? Let us check its horns, for through this it is recognizable whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal, as it says in ‘These are Treifot.’” Yes, there in Hullin 59 there are signs of what is a wild animal and what is a domesticated animal. So let us check the signs of the koy and see whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal. What is there to doubt? Let’s see—we have signs. So these signs can serve as an indication. So Tosafot says: “One can say that perhaps they erred concerning the sign that they need to be grooved, and that their grooves are embedded…” and that is the doubtful case of the goat of Karkuz, and so on—I’m not going into all the details there. There need to be grooves and notches in the horns of wild animals, and then it is a wild animal. But they need somehow to be interwoven with one another, not separate grooves but all mixed into each other, and it is sometimes hard to decide whether this is so or not, as the Talmud says there regarding the goat of Karkuz and so on. So he says that even if there are signs, there can certainly still be room for doubt. What do we see in Tosafot? Tosafot understands that the doubt regarding koy is not because of its origin, as Maimonides understands, that it comes from a domesticated animal and a wild animal. I don’t care where it comes from. The doubt is when I look at it in itself, even if I did not know its origin, because its signs are not unequivocal. So you don’t know whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal. And here it is very clear that the law of koy has to be a law of doubt and not a law of certainty. In Maimonides I said that on the face of it there seems to be certainty here, not doubt. It comes from a domesticated animal and it comes from a wild animal, and therefore here there is certainty—not the “creature unto itself” of Rabbi Yose. I’m talking in the first view of “some say,” that it comes from a he-goat that mated with a gazelle. But since its origin is mixed between wild animal and domesticated animal, then with regard to it, it is both a wild animal and a domesticated animal. So it is not a doubt; it is both this and that. But if you say that whether it comes from a wild animal and from a domesticated animal—maybe yes, maybe no—but that is not the reason it has an intermediate status. It has intermediate status simply because the signs, as Tosafot says, are not unequivocal. If its signs are not unequivocal, then clearly its status is a status of doubt, not a status of both this and that. That is the innovation in Tosafot. We see that the doubt is not because of the origin but because of the present signs, and the implication is that one really must relate to it as a doubt and not as both this and that, as seems to emerge from Maimonides. Okay? Fine, let’s take a five-minute break and then come back afterward. Okay, we’re back. Now, that is the—this is basically the background. This is basically the background. Let’s now look at our passage and see that there are three ways to read it in light of what I described until now. Yes, there is brought here the dispute between Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish. Then: Rabbi Yohanan raised an objection against Reish Lakish: “I only know that whatever is subject to punishment is subject to warning. Koy and a half-measure, since they are not subject to punishment, perhaps they are not subject to warning? Scripture says: any fat.” So we see that koy and a half-measure are not subject to punishment, but nevertheless there is a warning regarding them, because it says “any fat.” To this Reish Lakish answers that it is rabbinic and the verse is merely a support. Fine? There is a rabbinic prohibition. To this the Talmud says: indeed this also makes sense, as Reish Lakish says: if it enters your mind that it is from the Torah, koy is a doubt—does one need a verse to include a doubt? And the Talmud says: after all, you cannot say there is a Torah law here. Why? Because if it were a Torah law and not rabbinic, then koy on the Torah level is a doubt. Do you need a verse to include a doubt? Therefore it is clear that this is really just a mere support; it is not truly a source from a verse. Parenthetically, then according to Reish Lakish, what is the law of koy? Doubt. Doubt. And a half-measure is prohibited rabbinically. But koy? Is Maimonides speaking only according to Rabbi Yohanan? What? The Maimonides who said it is not doubt—is that only according to Rabbi Yohanan? One second, we’ll still get to that Maimonides. First I’m reading the passage here. The law follows Rabbi Yohanan, so that is not surprising. We rule like Rabbi Yohanan here. But beyond that, I’m saying: leave Maimonides aside for a moment. In the passage here Reish Lakish says that if koy is a doubt, then Torah-level doubt is treated stringently, right? So basically Reish Lakish should agree that the law of koy is that its fat is forbidden by Torah law. So what does it mean: rabbinic and the verse is merely a support? Merely a support? A half-measure is merely a support, but what about koy? It comes out that it is only rabbinic. Koy too is only rabbinic? He says: if you would think to say this is Torah law—what is “this”? The half-measure. Our discussion is about a half-measure. From “any fat” we include koy and a half-measure. So Reish Lakish says no, the law of a half-measure is a rabbinic prohibition. And let me prove it to you. Since if it were Torah law, then in fact there is inclusion here regarding koy, which is a doubt. So what? So what if there is inclusion regarding koy, which is a doubt? Apparently the intention is that because of doubt I would be stringent anyway; I don’t need the inclusion. Torah-level doubt is treated stringently. Therefore it is clear that this is a rabbinic law. Fine, and now you, Reish Lakish, say it is a rabbinic law—what do you say about koy? Not about the half-measure. The half-measure is a rabbinic prohibition. But what do you, Reish Lakish, say about koy? That it is a doubt? A Torah-level doubt. If it is a doubt, then a Torah-level doubt. So what is this inclusion of “any fat”? A support. What does it mean, a support? A support for a rabbinic law? But there is no rabbinic law here; this is a Torah law that Torah-level doubt is treated stringently. Half-measure. What? It is a support for the half-measure. And with koy? It doesn’t need a support. Not at all. So there is something very strange here. In other words he says like this: “any fat” really teaches only the half-measure, not koy. And even the half-measure is only a support. Right? Because it is a rabbinic law. So what about koy? It doesn’t even need a support. Well, but the baraita brings both koy and the half-measure from “any fat.” Something here is not logical. So what will you tell me? For example, according to Maimonides, Maimonides holds that Torah-level doubt is treated leniently on the Torah level. The obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases is only a rabbinic obligation, right? So basically on the Torah level, Torah-level doubt is treated leniently. According to Maimonides one can indeed read this as saying that according to Maimonides this thing is a support for the obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases, because the obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases is rabbinic, and “any fat” is a support. Okay, and then it comes out that it is a support in both directions. But according to most of the medieval authorities who do not learn like Maimonides—that Torah-level doubt is treated stringently by Torah law—it is not clear how to read this Talmudic passage. Let’s continue a moment. The Talmud rejects this: If so, because of that there is no proof. They hold that koy is a creature unto itself. And if you don’t say so, then concerning that which Rabbi Idi bar Avin said, “Even ‘all’ comes to include koy”—is koy a doubt? Does a verse need to include a doubt? Rather, a creature is different; here too, a creature is different. What are they saying? That this is not a proof, right? It could be that koy is not a doubt but a creature unto itself, and one needs the verse to include the prohibition of fat for koy, and therefore this is indeed a Torah law, not merely a support. This is Rabbi Yohanan speaking here, yes? Rabbi Yohanan says: you brought me a proof from this baraita that it is only a support? Not so. One can interpret this baraita as a full derivation. If we say that koy is not a doubt but a creature unto itself, then this full derivation says that there is a prohibition of fat even in koy, even though it is a creature unto itself, and regarding a half-measure this really is a full derivation, that a half-measure is prohibited by Torah law and is not merely a support. It seems to me that according to Reish Lakish as well one has to say that it is a creature unto itself, like I said before. Otherwise it is not clear how Reish Lakish reads the baraita. Say that he interprets it as a support. If he interprets it as a support, then with regard to a half-measure I understand: it is a support for the law of a half-measure, which is prohibited rabbinically. But regarding koy—support for what? If this is an ordinary doubt, then Torah-level doubt is treated stringently, and we would prohibit the fat by Torah law. Will you say that it is a support for the very obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases? Then the question depends on whether the obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases is rabbinic or Torah law. According to Maimonides it is rabbinic and things are fine, but according to most of the medieval authorities—the Ran and the Rashba and others—it is Torah law. So what does it mean that this is a support for the obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases? In truth, there are places where one sees that there is such a concept as a support for a Torah law. There is a Torah law that comes by tradition; it does not come from a verse, and they bring a verse as a support for that law. It is a support for a Torah law, not for a rabbinic law. Where does the obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases come from? I don’t know—from tradition, whatever, from some other source. Here from “any fat” they bring a support for the obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases, a support for a Torah law. But this whole business is strange. More simply, it seems that Reish Lakish himself also understands that koy is a creature unto itself. And if it is a creature unto itself, then it could be that there really is a rabbinic law here prohibiting the fat of koy even though it is a creature unto itself—it is neither a wild animal nor a domesticated animal—but this is only rabbinically prohibited and the verse is merely a support. But that too is not simple. What is the last point? I’m saying that maybe Reish Lakish also agrees that koy is a creature unto itself, and the prohibition on eating the fat of koy is a rabbinic prohibition, and the verse is merely a support. But he says koy is a doubt. Exactly. And that too could have explained Reish Lakish’s opinion. But in the wording of the Talmud, in the way the Talmud formulates Reish Lakish’s reasoning, it seems that he learns it as doubt. After all, that is what he asks Rabbi Yohanan: “koy is a doubt.” He doesn’t say “according to your view it is a doubt”; he himself assumes it is a doubt. So if he himself says it is a doubt, and he asks Rabbi Yohanan, then how can it make sense to innovate on that and say that this is a Torah prohibition of the fat of a doubt? There is already the rule that Torah-level doubt is treated stringently. In other words, Reish Lakish understands that koy is a doubt. So this may depend on the different possibilities I raised earlier about how to understand these two inclusions from the verse. For example, according to the Pleti, he basically wants to say that kvi too is a half-measure. Right? It is half the fat of a wild animal—a qualitative half. Okay? So according to his approach, basically whatever you say about a half-measure you say about kvi. And if a half-measure is prohibited rabbinically according to Reish Lakish, then kvi too will be prohibited rabbinically. Right? Then indeed one can say here: kvi, after all, is a doubt. And if it is a doubt, then seemingly it does not make sense to have an inclusion prohibiting the fat by Torah law. So what does Reish Lakish himself propose? No, kvi actually comes from a wild animal and from a domesticated animal. And because of that it is really a half-measure—it is both this and that, not a doubt. So there is in it a qualitative half-measure like a half-measure itself. And if a half-measure is a rabbinic law, then kvi too is a rabbinic law. And for that law “any fat” is a support. So according to the Pleti one can understand this. How do you explain the words “kvi is a doubt” according to the Pleti? They call that a doubt. After all, he himself says it; the Talmud itself says that this is a he-goat that mated with a gazelle, and about that it says that this is a doubt. So I explained this earlier and said that according to Maimonides, for example, the term “doubt” here does not really mean that we are uncertain, but rather that it is both this and that; it has an intermediate status, “the Sages did not decide regarding it” or something like that. Many times, in quite a number of places, we find that such a state is called a doubt. Okay? Now Rashi here and Tosafot too explain the Talmud’s difficulty differently. They say: “kvi is a doubt,” and yes, Reish Lakish says that with regard to a doubt it does not make sense that there should be an inclusion of “any fat.” So Tosafot says—we see here—“Does one need a verse to include a doubt?” Even though in chapter 9 of Bekhorot it says “a definite tenth and not a doubtful tenth,” and similarly at the end of tractate Nazir it says: if there is doubt whether the bright spot came first or the white hair came first, he is pure, and it derives this from the verse, “to declare him pure or to declare him impure”—the verse opened with purity first—and we do not ask there, “Does one need a verse to exclude a doubt?” In fact there are places where there are explicit verses talking about situations of doubt, yes? Like “a definite tenth and not a doubtful tenth,” and similarly in the beginning of Bava Metzia regarding “if a priest forcibly took possession,” and so on. So what? There the Talmud is not troubled by the fact that there is inclusion of a verse in the Torah regarding a situation of doubt. So why is it troubled here? That is Tosafot’s question. “One can say that here the question is proper: Does one need a verse to include a doubt? For Heaven knows with certainty every time, and it could have told us whether it is a wild animal or a domesticated animal. And if one of them is a wild animal, all of them are wild animals; and if one of them is a domesticated animal, all of them are domesticated animals.” Tosafot says that here this is a special kind of doubt. It is not like “a definite tenth and not a doubtful tenth.” Why? “A definite tenth and not a doubtful tenth” means, for example, that when I count my animals for the animal tithe, I count them, and one of the animals I counted jumped back into the herd and I don’t identify which one it was. So now each one that comes out is a doubtful tenth and not a definite tenth. Here the Torah could not tell me which animal it is, because it depends on the situation. Sometimes that animal is the tenth and sometimes it is not the tenth. But with kvi this is an essential doubt, a doubt in nature. The Holy One, blessed be He, is not in doubt. So if He wanted, He could simply tell me: kvi is a wild animal, or kvi is a domesticated animal. The Holy One, blessed be He, is not in doubt. So if the Torah wants to solve the problem of doubt for me, what it should have done is simply tell me what kvi is. It knows. It is not the same kind of doubt as “a definite tenth and not a doubtful tenth.” “A definite tenth and not a doubtful tenth” is a local doubt. Sometimes it will be the tenth, sometimes it will be the ninth. The Holy One, blessed be He, cannot tell me that whenever you have a doubtful tenth, know that it is the ninth—that’s not true; sometimes it really is the tenth. But with koy, if one of them is a wild animal then all of them are wild animals. This is the species. The question is simply what this species is. So if the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to say—let Him say. Rather, clearly the verse cannot be talking about this doubt. If the verse were talking about this doubt, it would simply tell me what koy is; it would not prohibit fat to me. It would simply resolve the doubt for me and solve the whole problem. Therefore Tosafot says that the Talmud’s question is not that one cannot include a law regarding a situation of doubt, as we read in the simple meaning of the Talmud. The Talmud’s difficulty is that if there is a situation of essential doubt, then the Torah should have told me what koy is, instead of innovating for me various laws like the law of fat of koy. That’s all. Therefore Reish Lakish says it is not plausible that the Torah here was really speaking about the law of koy. So what yes? So he proposes that it is merely a support. And then what? A half-measure is merely a support because it is a rabbinic law—but what is koy? Now Tosafot assumes—and Rashi too, it is the same explanation—that there really is doubt here. Right? And the Holy One, blessed be He, knows whether koy is a wild animal or whether koy is a domesticated animal. Only we do not know. But the verse cannot be teaching me about koy, because if so it would simply tell me what koy is; it would not innovate for me the law of the fat of koy. Right? It would simply reveal to me what koy is. Therefore what? Therefore it is clear that this verse is only a mere support for prohibiting the fat of koy. But then what is koy? No—the verse is not referring to koy. But if so, I return once again to what I noted earlier: I still remain in doubt whether koy is a wild animal or a domesticated animal. So if I am in doubt, then there is a rule that Torah-level doubt is treated stringently. Why do I need the verse to prohibit to me rabbinically the fat of koy, when it is already prohibited by the rule that Torah-level doubt is treated stringently? According to most views this is Torah law; according to Maimonides it is rabbinic. In any case, it is prohibited. What shall we say? According to Maimonides, this is a rabbinic prohibition from the laws of doubt, and the support is a support for that—that rabbinically one has to be stringent in a Torah-level doubt, and “any fat” is a support for this principle of the obligation to be stringent in Torah-level doubt, which is a rabbinic obligation. Okay? All this is very strange, this whole reading of the Talmud. In short, Reish Lakish comes out very strange. However we explain it, Reish Lakish comes out very strange. Then Rabbi Yohanan comes and says: what do you want, Reish Lakish? It’s not a doubt; it is a creature unto itself. So what? So the laws of doubt do not apply to it. So I don’t know what to do with it; the Sages did not decide regarding it, right? And then the verse comes and says, “any fat”—its fat is prohibited like the fat of a wild animal. But if so, I say again, even in Reish Lakish we seemingly should have said this. Only I’m saying that in the wording of the Talmud it does not seem so, because Reish Lakish says, “koy is a doubt.” But substantively, when I look at how Reish Lakish reads this baraita here, it seems that he too understands that it is a creature unto itself. I really don’t know; I have no good explanation for how Reish Lakish reads the Talmud here. But it seems that the passage here, at least in Rabbi Yohanan and perhaps also in Reish Lakish, assumes that koy is a creature unto itself and not a doubt. There are all sorts of places in the Talmud where there are verses that innovate a law regarding doubtful cases, but those are doubts not of Tosafot’s kind. They are local doubts, like doubtful mamzer, for example. “The Merciful One said: a definite mamzer, and not a doubtful mamzer”—that’s in Kiddushin. Now the doubt of mamzer is similar to the doubt of the tithe animal, “a definite tenth and not a doubtful tenth,” not to the doubt of kvi. Right? Because with doubtful mamzer I have a doubt about a certain person, whether he is a mamzer or not. Clearly this is not a general decision for all doubtful mamzer cases. Each person according to his own case—this person may indeed be a mamzer, and the other person in doubt may indeed not be a mamzer. The Torah cannot tell me here how to relate to doubtful mamzer in general; rather, it resolves the factual doubt. And yet the Talmud brings here: “a definite mamzer,” said the Merciful One, “and not a doubtful mamzer.” In other words, there is a derivation that deals with doubt also from the type of accidental doubt, not from the type of essential doubt like kvi. Therefore Tosafot’s move is really not entirely clear. Because Tosafot assumes that in such a thing there is no room to ask that the Torah… I mean, it could be that the Torah addresses a doubt that is accidental, like in mamzer, like in the tithe, but with an essential doubt like in kvi, there the Torah could not be addressing it, because then the Torah should simply have resolved the doubt for me and not addressed it. No, that’s fine. And there is an article by Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman where he writes: after all, there is a whole series of laws where Torah-level doubt is treated leniently. For example, doubtful mamzer. For example, doubtful impurity in the public domain. For example, doubtful orlah outside the Land of Israel. Mourning, maybe—if we understand it applies also on the Torah level on the first day, then doubtful mourning is also lenient. “A definite tenth and not a doubtful tenth.” All kinds of things of this sort. Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman wants to claim—this is really the Ran at the end of the first chapter of Kiddushin; he brings that Ran but expands it into a general principle. And he wants to claim that in all the places where the Torah says one must be lenient in situations of doubt, what it really means is… let me first state the Ran. The Ran says that doubtful orlah outside the Land of Israel is permitted. Even though there is a law given to Moses at Sinai that orlah outside the Land of Israel is prohibited, doubtful orlah outside the Land of Israel is permitted. We do not apply the laws of treating Torah-level doubt stringently. The Ran says there in Kiddushin: if there is fruit that is definitely orlah, and I take it and feed it to someone, and he doesn’t know that it is orlah fruit—I feed it to him—nothing happened. Why? Since the person who ate the fruit did not know that it was orlah, then from his perspective it is doubtful orlah, and therefore it was permitted for him to eat, so I did not cause him to stumble in a prohibition. Even though I know that it is not doubtful orlah—I know that it is definitely orlah. That is an enormous innovation! With every food I eat, you can turn it into a doubt? I can’t hear. With every food I eat, you can turn it into a doubt. Why? I ate permitted fat, I don’t know, you’ll say maybe it’s doubtful forbidden fat, doubtful permitted fat. If you are in doubt, then it is a doubt. If you’re not in doubt, then not. What do you mean? Here too, someone gave me something to eat; I don’t know. Does the Ran make me doubtful? He gives it to me and I eat it because I have no reason to doubt. What’s the problem? So it’s permitted for him to eat. I know it is definitely orlah. So the Ran says: apparently I caused him to stumble in orlah outside the Land of Israel, which is prohibited—definite orlah outside the Land of Israel. The Ran says no: I caused him to stumble in doubtful orlah outside the Land of Israel. Why? Because he did not know it was orlah. Since he did not know it was orlah, then he did not violate a prohibition when he ate it. Usually when we don’t know something is prohibited, we did violate a prohibition, except that we violated it unwittingly or under compulsion. But here he says: no, there is no prohibition at all. Why? Because here doubt is treated leniently. Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman explains what this means: all doubtful cases where doubt is treated leniently, the foundation is that the prohibition is a prohibition of consciousness and not an objective prohibition. The prohibition on eating orlah outside the Land of Israel is not a prohibition on the object that is orlah outside the Land of Israel. It is a prohibition on undergoing the conscious experience of eating something that is orlah outside the Land of Israel. It is a consciousness-based prohibition. It does not depend on reality; rather, the prohibition itself depends on my knowledge. Usually the prohibition depends on reality, and my knowledge is only a reason to exempt me: if I did not know, then I am under compulsion. Here he says no: my knowledge defines the prohibition; it is not just a reason for exemption. If I don’t know, there is no prohibition. His claim is that “doubt is treated leniently” is not a rule in the laws of doubt, but rather in those cases the innovation is that in all those places the definition of the prohibition is that it is a consciousness-based prohibition. Once your consciousness—if you don’t know that this prohibited item is orlah—then you did not violate a prohibition. Not that you violated it but are not guilty; you did not violate a prohibition because it did not pass the threshold of your consciousness. That is his claim. According to this, for example, I can take a definite mamzer and marry him off to a valid Jewish woman, not tell her he is a mamzer, and everything is fine, and dance at their wedding. Because regarding mamzer too there is an exclusion that doubtful mamzer is treated leniently. Only rabbinically they made a special stringency in matters of lineage, but on the Torah level doubtful mamzer is permitted; doubtful mamzer is not a mamzer. So all Torah laws—I can actually cause you to stumble from the outset in a definite prohibition, because as far as you are concerned, when you do not know, there is no prohibition. That is a shocking innovation. Is this true for every rabbinic prohibition according to Elhanan? No, it is true only for those prohibitions in which the Torah innovated that their doubtful cases are treated leniently even though they are Torah prohibitions. But why—why shouldn’t we say the same thing with regard to a rabbinic prohibition? What? That likewise, with an ordinary rabbinic prohibition whose doubtful case is treated leniently, I can feed someone… The same may indeed be true. No, but okay, that seems to me an even greater innovation—you’re saying I can intentionally cause the other person to stumble. No, precisely with rabbinic law it is easier, because with rabbinic law the accepted conception is that it is a prohibition on the person, not on the object. Right, no—that is certainly the accepted conception, but there is no accepted conception that one may intentionally cause the other person to stumble. Why? According to this, then all the whole issue of kashrut supervision, for example—what is the point of their telling me whether there is or isn’t? Really, according to this there is no point. There is the Netivot; after all, the Netivot says that one who unwittingly violated a rabbinic prohibition does not need to repent. It’s not exactly the same thing—I know that claim—it’s not quite the same as the claim that it is permitted for someone to cause another person to stumble, but it is a similar reasoning. Why not repent? Because consciously he did not violate a prohibition. Fine, so if I cause him to stumble too, consciously he did not violate a prohibition. True, but I think that the issue of “consciously he did not violate a prohibition” still does not exempt him from trying to clarify the doubt. Meaning, for example, when a person buys something with certification, he is basically saying: I tried to clarify the doubt and I rely on you. And afterward, if you made a mistake, then I didn’t violate a prohibition. One could say that where he can clarify and does not…