Platonism – Lesson 17

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I want to… we’re really in the topic of ukimtas, and last time I explained the big picture. I said that an ukimta in the Talmud basically reads the Mishnah or an amoraic statement as some kind of illustration or specific case of a general law. And once you approach the Mishnah that way, you understand that behind the Mishnah there stands a general law. Except what? The Mishnah doesn’t state the general law as such, but presents it through an example. For instance, we demonstrated this with the slave. The Mishnah wants to tell us that a slave is the courtyard of his master, but it doesn’t use that wording, which would be a formulation of a rule. Instead, it presents it through an example: someone who places a bill of divorce in the hand of her slave while he is asleep and remains there, then he has divorced her. But really this is coming to teach the general law that a slave is like his master’s courtyard. It’s not a law from the laws of divorce, and it’s not connected specifically to a sleeping slave or a non-sleeping slave and so on. That’s the point.

Now, when the Talmud sees this, it understands that it’s coming to teach a general law, but it says: fine, but as far as the example you brought, the example doesn’t work, because this is an unguarded courtyard. The sleeping slave—a walking courtyard, an unguarded courtyard—therefore they say: we’re dealing with a bound and sleeping slave. They make an ukimta. What does the ukimta do? The ukimta basically says: as far as the example that I brought you through the bill of divorce, the slave has to be bound and sleeping. But the idea I wanted to convey to you is true of every slave, not just a bound and sleeping slave. My claim is that every slave is his master’s courtyard. In order for that courtyard also to acquire, he has to be bound and sleeping. So to explain the example I gave, you need to make an ukimta. But after I make the ukimta, I understand that what was said here is something that speaks about all slaves, not just a bound and sleeping slave.

And I compared this to a laboratory situation in science. In science there is some general law of nature, but in the situations that come before us it never appears in its pure form. In order to see that law, I need to create a laboratory setting, a situation in which I clean out the lab from all sorts of side influences—what are called noises—and leave only the effect of the law of nature that interests me. And that is the mechanism of the ukimta; that’s my claim.

Now this solves the problem of why Rav, when he speaks about a slave, doesn’t speak about a bound and sleeping slave. He can’t speak about a bound and sleeping slave, because he wants to tell me something that is true of every slave. The example, or the illustration, of that principle regarding the acquisition of a bill of divorce has to speak about a bound and sleeping slave. Why? Because when I bind him and he’s asleep, I strip the slave of all sorts of traits and turn him into a laboratory case of a slave. This slave now is no longer a person who can also walk and so on; he is only a slave in some abstract sense, namely that he is his master’s courtyard. In order to turn the concrete slave into the theoretical slave I’m talking about, I bind him and put him to sleep—yes, he’s asleep and tied up. And I do that in order to strip away from him the traits that aren’t relevant to the discussion.

Just as when I say that a body with mass continues moving at a constant speed in a straight line, if no force acts on it, I’m obviously talking about a body with mass where there is no friction, and it has no electric charge, and it’s a point mass, it has no more complex shape. And all those things are ukimtas. But those ukimtas are there to tell me that I’m taking the concept of a body with mass, which usually has many more properties besides just having mass, and I want to strip away those other properties in order to remain with a kind of Platonic body, which has mass. That’s the only thing it has. It has no shape, no electric charge, there’s no friction around it, there are no other masses scattered in the universe, in the space around it—nothing. It’s some kind of Platonic body that of course never existed and never will, but with regard to it I can see the general law in its pure form. That is exactly the bound and sleeping slave. It’s one-to-one, exactly.

Everything that causes confusion in the Talmudic context, as opposed to the scientific context, is that in the scientific context they really do state the general law directly. There, when they formulate Newton’s first law, they don’t say, look, if you take a ball and let it roll in the street, it will keep rolling forever. That’s how it would appear in the Talmud. In Resnick and Halliday it says no, it’s written as a general law: every body with mass, if no force acts on it, will continue moving at a constant speed in a straight line. That is genuinely a general formulation, not through a specific case. If I were speaking in terms of a specific case, I’d say wait, wait—provided this ball is a point mass, and there’s no friction, and it has no electric charge—and all those would be objections that I’d answer with ukimtas.

So in the scientific context the difficulty doesn’t arise, because there they formulate the general law. So it’s obvious to me that we’re talking about a general law. In the Talmudic context, I’m also talking about a general law, but the wording is through an example, and therefore it raises all sorts of difficulties and seems illogical, and the ukimta seems not to fit what the poet meant to say. But that’s all simply because we don’t understand the context. The context is that every example that is brought is understood as an illustration of a general law. From that point on, it’s the same as Resnick and Halliday, and that’s exactly how it has to be read.

Now, what I want is to show that same principle itself. Maybe one more sentence: according to this, the ukimta is never really needed in order to understand the general law. The general law doesn’t depend on the ukimta. Quite the opposite: the ukimta helps me take the specific example brought before me, strip away all its specific aspects, and leave the general law. Therefore the ukimta is never needed in order to understand the general law. The ukimta is needed in order to understand why this example reflects the general law, but not for understanding the general law itself. And this is a very important foundation in understanding ukimtas.

And now I want to show you that this foundation not only explains the phenomenon of ukimta, but when you understand it, it also solves other problems in understanding the Talmudic passage. Meaning, someone who doesn’t understand this—not only is the ukimta difficult for him, he simply hasn’t understood the Talmud. And I’ll show you: this is really evidence for what I’m saying. For the mechanism I proposed to explain the ukimta, I have proof. I’ll show you that by means of it I can also understand the Talmud better, independently of the ukimta. So here’s the first example.

I’m going back to the Talmud at the beginning of tractate Beitzah. There we saw that the Mishnah says that an egg laid on a Jewish holiday—Beit Shammai say it may be eaten, and Beit Hillel say it may not be eaten. We’re speaking according to Beit Hillel. Why may the egg laid on a Jewish holiday not be eaten? So the Talmud discusses there: is the hen designated for eating, for laying eggs? In the end the Talmud says: we’re dealing with a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath, because of Rabbah’s preparation. What does that mean? The Jewish holiday under discussion in this Mishnah is a Jewish holiday that falls on Sunday, meaning the day before it was the Sabbath. And what is the problem? The problem is that an egg laid on Sunday was actually completed on the Sabbath—it ripened in the belly of the hen the day before; that’s the physiological rule the Talmud assumes. And if so, it turns out that when the egg is laid on the holiday, it has not undergone preparation. And food that is eaten on a Jewish holiday has to undergo preparation in order to be permitted. It’s like muktzeh, a kind of muktzeh, although in the simple sense this is Torah-level, but it’s like Torah-level muktzeh, something unprepared. And therefore Beit Hillel say that an egg laid on a Jewish holiday may not be eaten.

I asked about this again: what is this ukimta? The Mishnah says: an egg laid on a Jewish holiday. The Talmud comes and says no, this means a Jewish holiday that fell after the Sabbath, and because the egg was prepared on the Sabbath, that doesn’t count as being prepared, and therefore when it is laid on the holiday it is forbidden to eat it. So then say that you’re talking about a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath. Why speak in general language—an egg laid on a Jewish holiday? That was really the difficulty with the Talmud’s ukimta.

So what I’m going to suggest here is exactly the same idea. Notice: this is exactly the same pattern as what I said about the bound and sleeping slave. I want to claim that the Mishnah in tractate Beitzah wants to tell me a law that is true of every Jewish holiday, not only of a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath. It is a law true of every Jewish holiday—what law? That food eaten on a Jewish holiday has to undergo preparation beforehand. And that’s true of every Jewish holiday, not only of a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath. Except that, once again, they don’t state the rule in the form: food that one wants to eat on a Jewish holiday has to undergo preparation. That’s the Resnick and Halliday formulation. That’s how I should formulate it if I wanted to formulate the general law. But here the Talmud says it through an example. For example, an egg laid on a Jewish holiday may not be eaten because it didn’t undergo preparation. But that example is meant to express, or illustrate, demonstrate, a general law—that every food on a Jewish holiday has to undergo preparation before it may be eaten.

Now the Talmud comes and asks: wait a second, but this example isn’t good, because if the egg is laid on a Jewish holiday, then it did undergo preparation on the eve of the holiday, so what’s the problem? You can eat it. What is that objection? That objection is not an objection to the general law. It’s an objection to the example—how does this example illustrate the general law? How is it an example of the general law? I accept the general law that everything eaten on a Jewish holiday has to undergo preparation, but the egg isn’t a good example, because the egg did undergo preparation. So what’s the problem? This is not an objection to the rule—how do you know it needs preparation? It’s an objection to the example—why do you think the example expresses the rule? Why is it an example of the rule? The egg is a bad example. Why? Because it underwent preparation beforehand. So it underwent preparation—what do you want?

[Speaker B] The law is that it has to undergo preparation. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The law is that food on a Jewish holiday has to undergo preparation.

[Speaker B] In halakhic terms? What does that mean, Rabbi? I didn’t understand. This is Rabbah’s preparation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In halakhic terms, every food that you eat on a Jewish holiday has to undergo preparation beforehand.

[Speaker B] Even unrelated to the Sabbath?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, unrelated to the Sabbath. Except that when the holiday is on Tuesday, then in the case of an egg, the egg underwent preparation because it ripened on Monday. So it underwent preparation on Monday, and therefore you can eat it on Tuesday. Therefore the example of an egg laid has to be specifically on a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath. Why? Because on a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath, what comes out is that if the egg is laid on the holiday, which is Sunday, it ripened on the Sabbath. And on the Sabbath that is not considered that the Sabbath prepared for the holiday, because preparation done on the Sabbath is not considered preparation. Then it comes out that the egg laid on the holiday did not undergo preparation, and you can’t eat it.

What’s happening here? We established the case as a holiday after the Sabbath through an ukimta. But what did the ukimta do? The ukimta simply removed an interfering factor. It said, basically, I can’t see the general law that everything has to undergo preparation in the case of an egg that was laid. Why? Because the egg that was laid actually did undergo preparation, so what’s the issue? Okay, so let’s establish it as an egg with no friction and no electric charge and nothing. What does that mean? It’s a holiday falling after the Sabbath; the preparation the egg underwent yesterday was preparation it underwent on the Sabbath. Preparation on the Sabbath is not preparation. So the egg laid on the holiday is an unprepared egg, and therefore it’s forbidden to eat it. It is forbidden not because it was laid on Sunday, but because it did not undergo preparation. And the principle that all food has to undergo preparation is a general principle for every Jewish holiday and every Sabbath, not only on Sunday, and it is not connected to the ukimta. The ukimta comes only to explain why in the case of an egg laid I can see the idea that there is unprepared food here. It says: because it’s a holiday after the Sabbath, just like the bound and sleeping slave we spoke about in the previous example.

[Speaker B] But then isn’t it already from the law of Sabbath there? I can’t hear. After the Talmud answered that it’s because we’re dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath, then is it no longer forbidden under the law of preparation from the Sabbath? Is it still under the law of the holiday, from that same principle?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that’s exactly the practical difference I’m getting to.

[Speaker B] That’s exactly the practical difference I’m getting to in just a second.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’ll see in a moment. Basically it comes out that the ukimta just removes side interference and creates a laboratory. What is this laboratory? It’s a kind of holiday such that when an egg is laid on it, it is laid unprepared. How can there be such a holiday? A holiday that falls on Sunday. Once it is laid unprepared, now leave me alone about the Sabbath that was yesterday. There’s an unprepared egg here; it’s forbidden to eat it on a Jewish holiday. Unprepared food is forbidden to eat on a Jewish holiday. And that is true for every Jewish holiday and every food, not just for an egg laid. It’s only that with an egg laid, in order for it to be that kind of food, this has to be a Jewish holiday that falls on Sunday. That’s all. That’s why I established it on Sunday. That’s the meaning of the ukimta.

[Speaker C] Just one small thing: you say it didn’t undergo preparation. It was ready; it’s just forbidden to prepare from the Sabbath to the holiday. But it’s not that it wasn’t prepared. It did undergo preparation, just the wrong kind of preparation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re taking me back to the same question that came up earlier. I’ll get to it in a second. Right now I’m formulating it differently. I’m saying that when the Sabbath prepared for the holiday, it is simply not considered prepared. It did not undergo preparation, because preparation has to be preparation on a weekday. Meaning, something that was not prepared on a weekday is not called prepared; as far as the laws of a Jewish holiday are concerned, it is not called prepared. In other words, the problem is on the holiday, not on the Sabbath. In a moment—that’s the same point that came up earlier, I’ll return to it in just a minute.

So this explanation of the question of the ukimta basically tells us exactly the same thing we saw regarding Rabbah. The general principle that food on a Jewish holiday has to be prepared is a principle that is true of every Jewish holiday. Therefore there is no question why the Mishnah spoke about an egg laid on a Jewish holiday. It is speaking about a Jewish holiday in general. It is not a novelty in the laws of eggs that were laid. It is a novelty in the laws of a Jewish holiday: on a Jewish holiday food has to be prepared. But that novelty is stated through an example. The example is an egg laid; then it did not undergo preparation, and therefore it may not be eaten. But then the Talmud says, wait a second, the example isn’t successful, because an egg that is laid did undergo preparation. So it says, fine, it’s a holiday after the Sabbath—never mind that right now. Give me an egg that was laid and that is unprepared. It may not be eaten on a Jewish holiday. How is it unprepared? Because this holiday was on Sunday. It doesn’t matter to me. Go talk to me about another kind of food that isn’t an egg, and then it wouldn’t have to be a holiday after the Sabbath—it could be a holiday even on Tuesday. Specifically regarding an egg, in order to reach a situation where it is unprepared, this has to be a holiday that falls on Sunday. That’s all. But it doesn’t matter; it solves a side problem. To understand the Mishnah, I do not need to know that it is speaking about a holiday after the Sabbath, because I understand that the Mishnah is stating a law that is true of every Jewish holiday.

Now look at the implications of this, and these really are the points several of the speakers raised earlier. Look at Rashi there: “And a Jewish holiday does not prepare for the Sabbath, and a Jewish holiday too is called Sabbath. And its meal requires designation, and its designation is on a weekday. But a weekday meal is not important, and designation is not relevant to it. Therefore…” Designation here means preparation. “Therefore, on an ordinary Sunday we have no basis to forbid an egg laid on it because it was prepared by Heaven. And for a weekday meal the Merciful One did not require prior designation, for muktzeh is not relevant there.”

Rashi says: why is it permitted to eat an egg laid on an ordinary Sunday, not one that is a holiday? After all, it was prepared on the previous Sabbath, yesterday, and therefore I’m eating something that was prepared on the Sabbath. Rashi says: because a weekday meal is not important and designation is not relevant to it—that is, preparation is not relevant to it—therefore, although it is true that this was prepared on the Sabbath, on Sunday there is no prohibition against eating something that was not prepared, and this egg is simply something that was not prepared. So what? On Sunday, on an ordinary weekday, it is permitted to eat something unprepared, and therefore this is permitted.

Meaning, Rashi’s conception is that the focus of the prohibition of an egg laid on a Jewish holiday—the reason it may not be eaten—is because the egg did not undergo preparation; it is unprepared food. And on a Jewish holiday one must eat only prepared food. Which is exactly what I explained earlier.

By contrast, Rashba there explains it differently. He says: “And I am astonished by this language, for the Sabbath meal requires designation beforehand, on a weekday. If so, then even the Sabbath does not prepare for itself. But surely on a plain Sabbath and Jewish holiday, by law the egg is permitted. And on a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath, if not that it was completed yesterday, it would even be permitted. And in Eruvin we say: the beginning of the day acquires the eruv; the Sabbath prepares for itself.” He objects to Rashi. He says: the Talmud says that why is there a problem with the egg? The problem is because the egg was completed yesterday, and therefore we need to say that yesterday was the Sabbath.

What would happen if the physiology were different? Suppose for the sake of argument the egg were ready an hour before it was laid. Rashba says: in such a situation it would seem that it should be forbidden. Everything has to undergo preparation beforehand, but preparation that happens on that same Sabbath or on that same holiday for that same Sabbath or holiday itself does help. The problem is not that yesterday was the Sabbath and today is the holiday and yesterday prepared for today. Rather—even if it had been prepared from that very day for that same day there would not have been a problem. Now if that is really so—Rashba says the opposite, sorry. Meaning, if it had been prepared from that very day for that same day, there would not have been a problem; it would be permitted. Therefore we had to establish it as a holiday after the Sabbath, and that the egg was completed from yesterday, and so on.

So Rashba says that according to Rashi this is not right, because if the egg was prepared from that same day and laid an hour later, it still did not undergo preparation beforehand; it did not undergo preparation from yesterday. And if you require that food undergo preparation beforehand, then even if you imagined that the egg were prepared today and laid an hour later, we would still have to forbid it. Therefore, says Rashba, Rashi is not right.

“Rather, this is the correct explanation,” and I’m reading here: “Rather, this is its explanation: the meals of a Jewish holiday and the Sabbath are important enough that they require designation. Therefore, whenever they require designation, it is not proper that the Sabbath designate for the holiday, nor the holiday for the Sabbath. But they prepare for themselves. And a weekday too is not important, and designation is not relevant to it. Therefore, an egg laid on the day after the Sabbath or after a Jewish holiday is permitted, because designation is not relevant to a weekday meal.”

Rashba says the opposite of Rashi. According to Rashi, what was the problem when a holiday falls after the Sabbath? The problem was that you’re eating on the holiday an egg that did not undergo preparation, because preparation on the Sabbath is not preparation. Rashba says: not true. The problem with an egg laid on a holiday after the Sabbath is that you violated the… on the Sabbath of yesterday. The problem is not the injury to the holiday of today. Rather, you turned yesterday’s Sabbath into something that prepares for today’s holiday. And that is injury to the Sabbath. You may not use the Sabbath in order to prepare things for the holiday. That injures the Sabbath.

According to Rashi, the problem is not injury to the Sabbath. Rather, once you did the preparation on the Sabbath, it doesn’t count as preparation. So then what’s the problem? The problem is that you come to eat on the holiday something that did not undergo preparation. The injury is to the holiday: you are eating something that did not undergo preparation. According to Rashba, the problem is not injury to the holiday; the problem is injury to the preparing Sabbath. You turned the Sabbath into the handmaid of the holiday—it prepares for the holiday. You injured the Sabbath.

So what does Rashba gain? Rashba gains that if the preparation is from that same day to that same day—if I prepare from that very Sabbath and it is laid an hour later—then it will not be forbidden. Why is it not forbidden? Because you didn’t injure the Sabbath; it prepared for itself. It is not the servant of someone else. So there is no problem and therefore it is permitted. By contrast, according to Rashi such a thing should also be forbidden, because in the end this food did not undergo preparation beforehand; it underwent preparation today, not beforehand, not on a weekday. So it should be forbidden. That’s what Rashba claims, and he infers it from the Talmud against Rashi.

Now why is it permitted to eat the egg on an ordinary Sunday? After all, yesterday’s Sabbath prepared it—that’s what he asks at the end. Yesterday’s Sabbath prepared for Sunday. If preparation for a holiday injures the Sabbath, turning it into the handmaid of the holiday, then preparation for a weekday is an even greater injury. So really an egg laid on Sunday should be forbidden to eat, because it underwent preparation on the Sabbath and you injured the Sabbath, turning it into something that prepares for a weekday. He says no—why? Because a weekday meal is not important. Once it is not important, then the things that get prepared for it are not considered preparation at all. Preparation is something we do in preparation for a festive meal. So all the preparations we do beforehand are preparations for that meal. But food on Sunday, a meal on Sunday, is not a festive meal. So the things that prepare the food for Sunday’s meal are not considered acts of preparation at all. Therefore, even if this happens on the Sabbath, it is not injury to the Sabbath. That is his claim.

But for our purposes, what comes out is this: there are two conceptions here, a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim), about how to understand the problem with an egg laid on a holiday after the Sabbath. According to Rashi, since the completion of the egg was on the Sabbath, the egg laid on the holiday did not undergo preparation, and you are forbidden to eat on a holiday food that did not undergo preparation. Therefore the injury is to the holiday if you eat it—you are eating something that did not undergo preparation. Honoring the holiday means I need to prepare for it, to prepare the food for it.

According to Rashba, it works the other way around. An egg laid on a holiday after the Sabbath—if you eat it, then it turns out that the preparations were done on the Sabbath; the Sabbath served the holiday. And that is injury to the Sabbath.

Okay? Now I ask you: who do you think is right? A question we usually don’t ask when learning Talmud—what do you mean, who is right? Rashi’s view is this, Rashba’s view is that, we have practical differences; we never ask who is right. But I do. I allow myself to be a heretic and ask who is right.

[Speaker B] Based on what the Rabbi is saying, Rashba seems to have a bit of a problem, because the ukimta really changes the whole halakhic principle here. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Clearly Rashi is right. Clearly Rashi is right. Why? Because according to Rashba, the whole novelty of the Mishnah is really a novelty in the laws of Sabbath in general, not in the laws of the Jewish holiday. It is a novelty in the laws of Sabbath: that if there is a holiday that falls on Sunday, then preparations made on the Sabbath injure the Sabbath. And the entire novelty of the Mishnah is said about a situation of a holiday after the Sabbath. Then the question really arises: so why didn’t the Mishnah say that? That a holiday after the Sabbath injures the Sabbath; the egg that is laid injures the Sabbath that preceded it. After all, that is the whole novelty of the Mishnah.

According to Rashi, there is no question why the Mishnah did not establish it as a holiday after the Sabbath, because the novelty of the Mishnah is a novelty in the laws of a Jewish holiday: that on a holiday one must eat food that was prepared. That’s all. Regarding an egg, in order to see that, the holiday has to be after the Sabbath, as I explained earlier. But that is a very logical ukimta according to Rashi. According to Rashba, this is an outright illegitimate ukimta. Because it is an ukimta that you actually need in order to understand the principle of the Mishnah—not in order to understand why the example in the Mishnah is a good example, but in order to understand the general principle the Mishnah is saying: that when the Sabbath prepares for another day, that injures the Sabbath. That is the general principle according to Rashba, and the egg is just an example. But if so, then the Mishnah should have spoken about a holiday after the Sabbath, not leave it to the Talmud to produce that through an ukimta. Because the whole idea of the Mishnah is speaking about… after the Sabbath.

According to Rashi, no—the idea of the Mishnah is speaking about the holiday in general, that food on a holiday requires preparation. Regarding an egg, in order to see that it is unprepared, you have to place the holiday after the Sabbath. So I make an ukimta. But that is a logical way of using an ukimta. According to Rashba, such an ukimta is not logical.

[Speaker D] To say…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To say that Rashba disagrees with our teacher—he is simply saying that the whole nice logical structure the Rabbi presented here is a logical structure. That’s just another way of saying the same thing. Rashba is allowed to disagree with me, that’s perfectly fine, only then of course he will need to offer an alternative explanation for the idea of ukimta. After all, that was the starting point. According to Rashi, the ukimta is understandable, very logical. But according to Rashba, he can disagree with me, that’s completely fine—but then how does he explain the phenomenon of ukimta? It’s a difficult phenomenon. I didn’t invent my explanation out of thin air, but because it can be an explanation for why we make ukimtas. According to Rashba, that difficulty returns, so offer me another explanation—or else. But in a moment you’ll see that it’s not true; it’s all fine, I’ll manage with Rashba too, as usual.

[Speaker E] But then where does Rashba learn from, if he doesn’t learn from this passage that you need preparation beforehand—where does he learn it from?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who says there is such a law?

[Speaker E] So that means he doesn’t have it. So it could be that he disagrees with that too, that he doesn’t accept it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Presumably he disagrees with that. Yes, he doesn’t accept…

[Speaker E] So the dispute is deeper.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The concept… of course. The concept of Rabbah’s preparation according to Rashba is not really that every food on a holiday has to undergo preparation, but rather that food for a holiday must not undergo preparation on the Sabbath before it. That is the concept of Rabbah’s preparation. Of course. There is a very fundamental dispute here in understanding the concept of preparation. But for our purposes, in terms of interpreting the Mishnah, there is a dispute here over how to understand what the ukimta is doing. And in that sense, in the principled dispute it could be that Rashba is right, but in terms of explaining the Mishnah, Rashba’s words are very difficult. Because this is not a logical ukimta.

And I say this generally: when you encounter ukimtas in the Talmud, always ask yourselves whether the ukimta is needed in order to convey to me the basic idea of the Mishnah. If so, that is not logical. You need to show that the ukimta comes to remove a side obstacle, to explain to me why the example is not a problematic example, but the general law is true even outside the ukimta situations. It always has to be that way.

Now come and look—let’s continue the passage for a moment, and you’ll see that this discussion actually keeps going. The Talmud continues there. After establishing the case as a holiday after the Sabbath, it says like this. Abaye said to him: “If so, then on an ordinary holiday should it be permitted?” Meaning, you establish it as a holiday after the Sabbath, but on an ordinary holiday that falls on Tuesday, then it is permitted to eat the egg? How can that be? The Talmud says: “A decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath.” No, it is forbidden also on an ordinary holiday, because we decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath. The Talmud asks: “On an ordinary Sabbath should it then be permitted?” “A decree because of a Sabbath after a holiday.” That’s the flow of the Talmud.

Now I ask: what is the Talmud’s question? What does it mean, “On an ordinary holiday should it be permitted?” Right, on an ordinary holiday it is permitted—what’s the question? I made an ukimta for you, didn’t I? The Mishnah is talking about a holiday after the Sabbath. The Talmud asks: so on an ordinary holiday it should have been permitted? Answer: yes, correct, it is permitted—what’s the question? I don’t understand. The Mishnah that forbids, forbids on a holiday after the Sabbath. That implies that on an ordinary holiday it is permitted. But the Talmud assumes not. Even on an ordinary holiday it should be forbidden, and it just doesn’t understand why. A holiday after the Sabbath is forbidden because of Rabbah’s preparation. But on an ordinary holiday it should be permitted. So what is bothering the Talmud? Fine, it shouldn’t be permitted—it is permitted on an ordinary holiday. Everything that was forbidden was only a holiday after the Sabbath. What is bothering the Talmud? It bothers it that it says explicitly that it is forbidden. Where? It doesn’t say that. Where does it say it?

[Speaker D] It says: an egg laid on a Jewish holiday…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but on a Jewish holiday, as it says in the Mishnah, that means a Jewish holiday that falls after the Sabbath. It doesn’t say that? What do you mean, it doesn’t say that? No ukimta is written explicitly. We make an ukimta; that’s the whole point of the move. You’re saying you have a problem with an ordinary Jewish holiday, so I establish an ukimta: a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath. And then you say, fine, but that means on an ordinary Jewish holiday it would be permitted. Well, of course. It’s like asking: I established Rabbah’s case as a slave who is tied up and asleep. Then you say: so then in the case of a slave who isn’t tied up and asleep, the bill of divorce won’t divorce his wife—his mistress? Of course it won’t. Right? Isn’t that exactly what the ukimta is saying? So what’s the question?

The Talmud assumed that apparently the egg is supposed to be forbidden even on the Jewish holiday itself, an ordinary Jewish holiday, not only on a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath. Why? Because the Talmud apparently understood… that establishing it as a holiday after the Sabbath is not an ukimta. It’s not an ukimta. When the Mishnah says, “An egg laid on a Jewish holiday may not be eaten according to Beit Hillel,” it means every Jewish holiday. It’s not an ukimta that we’re talking about a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath—maybe because if you learn like Rashba, then it really doesn’t make sense to see it as an ukimta. So it’s not an ukimta.

So the Talmud says: wait, then I don’t understand. You came to explain to me why an egg laid on a Jewish holiday should be forbidden, and you only explained a holiday after the Sabbath. And the Talmud answers that: correct—even on an ordinary Jewish holiday it is forbidden, as a rabbinic decree because of a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath.

What’s happening now? Basically, we’re not making an ukimta in the Mishnah. The Mishnah is talking about an ordinary Jewish holiday, not a holiday after the Sabbath. Right? An egg laid on a Jewish holiday that falls on Tuesday is forbidden to eat. Why? By rabbinic law, as a decree because of a holiday that falls on Sunday, where there would be a Torah-level prohibition of Rabbah’s preparation principle.

But in the end, if you ask me when it is forbidden to eat the egg—when it was laid—the answer is: on any Jewish holiday. But then the whole picture turns upside down, because it comes out that Rashba is actually right. Because from the Talmud you can see that the Talmud was not willing to accept “a holiday after the Sabbath” as an ukimta for the Mishnah. If it had established that as an ukimta for the Mishnah, then the Talmud’s question doesn’t even begin. “Then on an ordinary Jewish holiday should it be permitted?” Right? On an ordinary Jewish holiday it really would be permitted—that’s exactly why I made the ukimta that it’s a holiday after the Sabbath. If the Talmud asks, “Then on an ordinary Jewish holiday should it be permitted?” that means the Talmud assumes that on an ordinary holiday too it is forbidden. Where does it get that from? Apparently from the Mishnah.

But didn’t we make an ukimta? No—the Talmud says no, no, that’s not an ukimta. The Mishnah is talking about every Jewish holiday, not only a holiday after the Sabbath. And why? Maybe because we learned it like Rashba. And if you learn it like Rashba, then it really doesn’t make sense to understand that ukimta in that way, because you don’t make an ukimta when the ukimta teaches me the Mishnah’s main idea. According to Rashi, I understand why that’s an ukimta, but according to Rashba it’s impossible to understand Rabbah’s words as an ukimta for the Mishnah.

So the Talmud says: if this is not an ukimta, then you still haven’t finished the job. After all, the Mishnah is talking about an ordinary Jewish holiday and says that it’s forbidden. You explained to me why it’s forbidden on a holiday after the Sabbath. Therefore the Talmud answers: there is also a rabbinic decree on an ordinary Jewish holiday.

Now if I ask myself what the Mishnah is talking about—the Mishnah is talking about an ordinary Jewish holiday, not a holiday after the Sabbath. And the prohibition is a rabbinic prohibition, a decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath. That is the Mishnah’s novelty. A holiday after the Sabbath is obviously forbidden—that’s Rabbah’s preparation principle. The Mishnah isn’t talking about that. The Mishnah extends Rabbah’s preparation principle to every ordinary Jewish holiday, even one that does not fall on Sunday. That is the subject of the Mishnah. And over that Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagree.

According to this as well, it comes out that maybe there is no disagreement: both Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel say that on a holiday after the Sabbath it is forbidden to eat the egg; even Beit Shammai agree that it is forbidden. Their whole argument is only about an ordinary Jewish holiday—whether there is a rabbinic decree on an ordinary holiday because of a holiday after the Sabbath. That’s the whole subject in the Mishnah. And if so, then Rashba is right.

[Speaker B] And then according to Rashba too, it basically comes out that even according to Rashba the ukimta is on the Jewish law principle of the Sabbath.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And therefore Rashba basically says that no ukimta was made here in the Talmud at all. No ukimta was made. The Talmud explained it like this: there is Rabbah’s preparation principle, and on a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath it is forbidden to eat the egg because it was completed yesterday. From that we decree even on an ordinary Jewish holiday, and that is the law of the Mishnah: that an egg laid on an ordinary Jewish holiday is not eaten because of this rabbinic decree. And Beit Shammai, who say “it may be eaten,” are not speaking about Rabbah’s preparation principle; they are speaking about the rabbinic decree on an ordinary Jewish holiday—they do not agree that there is such a decree. But on a holiday after the Sabbath, even Beit Shammai could agree that it is forbidden by Torah law. They simply do not accept the rabbinic extension to an ordinary holiday.

[Speaker F] That’s the whole story.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now look at this for a second—let’s see how I finish the discussion. Look now at how Rashba writes this. Rashba there says as follows: “Rather, Rabbah said: we are dealing with a hen designated for eating, on a Jewish holiday that falls after the Sabbath.” Rashba asks: “This is difficult for me—how can he say, ‘we are dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath,’ when even on an ordinary holiday it is forbidden because of a holiday after the Sabbath?”

And it’s explicit what he’s saying. Why does the word “we are dealing with” bother him? “We are dealing with” sounds like an ukimta—that is, the Mishnah is dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath. Rashba says: what do you mean? It’s dealing with an ordinary Jewish holiday, because the Mishnah is talking about a rabbinic prohibition on an ordinary holiday. So why the expression “we are dealing with”? The Talmud should have said: here we are talking about Rabbah’s preparation principle in the case of a holiday after the Sabbath—not “we are dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath.” Not that we are establishing the Mishnah as referring to a holiday after the Sabbath. That is not an ukimta for the Mishnah.

Here it already looks more like Rashi. When it says, “we are dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath,” you see that this is an ukimta. But if it is an ukimta, then Rashi is right. You see that each of them fits better with a different part of the Talmud. But the tension between these two readings of the Talmud and of the Mishnah is exactly this tension between Rashi and Rashba. Rashba sees this whole move as not being an ukimta, because he cannot see it as an ukimta. In his view, such an ukimta cannot be correct in a Mishnah like this because of the idea I mentioned.

And here I come back and say that Rashba accepts my idea. Rashba does not disagree with my idea; on the contrary, Rashba accepts my idea, and therefore he says: this cannot be an ukimta. And in fact it is not an ukimta, as you see later in the Talmud. It only bothered him: then what does “we are dealing with” mean? “We are dealing with” is the language of setting up an ukimta, that the Mishnah is dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath. But that’s not correct—the Mishnah is dealing with an ordinary Jewish holiday.

According to Rashi, “we are dealing with” is very understandable: it is an ukimta, since this is a law among the laws of the Jewish holiday. And therefore Rashi has no problem with the phrase “we are dealing with.” What he does have a problem with is: why did the Talmud ask, “Then on an ordinary holiday should it be permitted?” According to Rashi, it’s not clear what they want. We made an ukimta for the Mishnah, that it is speaking about a holiday after the Sabbath, and then the Talmud asks: so what about an ordinary Jewish holiday? What kind of question is that? On an ordinary holiday it is permitted; only on a holiday after the Sabbath is it forbidden. The Talmud assumes that on an ordinary holiday too it is forbidden—where does it get that from? If we understand that “we are dealing with” means that this is an ukimta, then what is the problem? On an ordinary holiday it is permitted, everything is fine—what does the Talmud want?

According to Rashi, I guess you have to say that in practical terms, after all, on an ordinary holiday too it is forbidden, as you see later in the Talmud, right? A decree because of a holiday after the Sabbath. So the amoraim simply knew that practically speaking, halakhically, we also do not eat an egg laid on an ordinary Jewish holiday. So they are asking you not about the law in the abstract, but about the tradition as we know it. You showed me that on a holiday after the Sabbath the egg is forbidden because of Rabbah’s preparation principle—but how will you explain the fact that we eat an egg laid on an ordinary holiday? That we don’t eat it, sorry—an egg laid on an ordinary Jewish holiday. We also don’t eat that. What’s the problem? There shouldn’t be a problem there. And to that the Talmud answers: that is a decree.

According to Rashba, the difficulty was not from the tradition; the difficulty is from the language of the Mishnah. The Mishnah says, “An egg laid on a Jewish holiday may not be eaten,” and it says “a Jewish holiday,” not “a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath.” And Rabbah’s preparation principle cannot be an ukimta for the Mishnah according to Rashba. Therefore the Talmud rightly asks, based on the Mishnah itself, not based on tradition: the Mishnah itself says that on an ordinary Jewish holiday the egg may not be eaten—explain that to me. They answer: it is a rabbinic decree. That is the move according to Rashba.

According to Rashi, a holiday after the Sabbath is an ukimta. The Mishnah is dealing with a holiday after the Sabbath. True, on an ordinary Jewish holiday too we don’t eat the egg—that’s a rabbinic law, okay—but the question of why on an ordinary holiday we don’t eat an egg is not a question from the language of the Mishnah. The language of the Mishnah is not difficult; we made an ukimta there. The question is simply from what we know in practice—that we do not eat even an egg laid on an ordinary Jewish holiday. To that the Talmud answers: correct, that is something else; it is not connected to the Mishnah; it is a decree. An additional rabbinic decree. The Mishnah is talking about a holiday after the Sabbath—that’s the meaning of “we are dealing with,” because according to Rashi it is an ukimta. Besides that, there is a decree concerning an ordinary holiday.

And according to Rashi, it comes out that the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel is a dispute about Rabbah’s preparation principle itself. Beit Shammai do not accept the rule of Rabbah’s preparation principle, and Beit Hillel do. According to Rashba, Rabbah’s preparation principle is agreed upon by everyone. The dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel is only about the rabbinic decree regarding an egg laid on an ordinary Jewish holiday.

So we see very nicely that when we understand how the ukimta functions in the passage—whether it is a sensible ukimta or an unsensible ukimta—it sheds a completely different light on how to learn the passage. Not only on the explanation of the ukimta itself, but all the twists and turns of the sugya suddenly become clear down to the last word. Everything is clear. Why on earth does the Talmud assume that on an ordinary Jewish holiday too it should be forbidden? We just made an ukimta. No—we didn’t just make an ukimta, because the logic of an ukimta is not there. What does “we are dealing with” mean? “We are dealing with” says that it is an ukimta. And why is there a dispute between Rashi and Rashba, and how exactly did each of them read the Talmud? What is the difference between them when they read it? All that we can understand only if we really understood the mechanism of ukimta, the logic of the mechanism of ukimta. And if we understand that, then we understand that the ukimta according to Rashi is a sensible ukimta, and the ukimta according to Rashba cannot be such an ukimta. If you find an ukimta like that, it is not an ukimta—go look again in the sugya. Okay, we’ll stop here.

[Speaker D] So is there some question or comment? In principle this is really like a lab demonstration, except it’s not reality. I mean, what do we say in a lab? We have the purified, isolated law that speaks about something very specific. It’s just that all sorts of additional things stick to it, and we don’t want those things to stick so that we can analyze and deal with the specific point. But in our example it’s exactly the opposite. We take a slave who is the purified point, and we start chopping off his arms and legs, saying no, we’re not dealing with the slave, we’re dealing with some trait found in him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s exactly the same as in a lab. I explained this in the previous class. The concept of “slave”—after all, every slave is also a particular person. He has characteristics, he can walk, he has a name, he has a height, he has skin color, I don’t know, all kinds of things—he has lots of properties. But I want to focus on the quality in him of being a slave. Nothing else. I don’t care that he walks, I don’t care that he is awake, I don’t care about any of that—I want to strip that away. So what do I do? I tie him up and put him to sleep. Now what do I have left? What I have left is like a point mass in physics. I have left a person about whom the only thing I know how to say is that he is a slave. He doesn’t walk, he doesn’t think, he isn’t awake, he has no responsibility for his actions, he’s nothing. The only thing I can say about him is that he is a slave. Now I can apply the general law.

It’s exactly like science, when I say that every body has mass, shape, the material it’s made of—all that is irrelevant. I want to purify all that away and remain only with that thing that has mass. Nothing but that. It’s exactly the same thing. And if I’m looking for that point in the slave that I wanted to illustrate—maybe there is some specific point? No, it’s not a point in the slave; it’s the concept of slave. All the other points are not related to his being a slave. So he walks—so what? He also wears pants. So what does that prove—does that make it part of his being a slave? No. This man is a slave, but he has other properties. I want to get rid of the other properties and remain with an object that has only one property: that he is a slave. Exactly like a body in physics, where I want to remain with a body that has only one property, that it has mass. It has no shape, no material it is made of, no size, no anything. It’s a point mass.

[Speaker D] That’s all.

[Speaker B] Okay. And the Rabbi is trying in the end to set up here a method to say that this basically shows that Jewish law is Platonic, so to speak.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Say that again? I didn’t understand the question.

[Speaker B] I’m saying, in the end the Rabbi is trying to establish the theory of ukimta to show that Jewish law operates in a Platonic way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ukimta basically does not deal with our world, but with some kind of Platonic worlds of slaves who are tied up and asleep, where a general principle is said about the idea of a slave. The idea of a slave exists in the world of ideas. A concrete slave in our world—his being a slave is only one of his properties. Just as I say that the object here is red, and round, and large. I want to speak about its being red, about the idea of redness. That exists in the Platonic world. In our world there is no thing that is only red. It is an object that has red color, but it has many other properties too. But the statement I want to make is about its being red—which is really about some Platonic object that has no other property except that it is red, which is really about the idea of redness.

[Speaker B] And then you can’t see it—if you go with the Rabbi’s move of ukimta—then you can’t see Jewish law only as definitions constructed by human beings, and not as something that really has some kind of idea behind it, but just—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question of whether these are human definitions or not—I don’t know. But we are still talking about some sort of Platonic situations. Someone could come and say that the definitions regarding these Platonic situations are abstractions, like Aristotle. They do not really exist; there is no actual world of ideas like that. But I still want to define Jewish law in this so-called Platonic way. That is, I am not committing myself to Platonic ontology, to the claim that the ideas really exist. But yes, this is what is called a Platonic approach in today’s language, because I am indeed dealing with realities that are abstract realities in other, imagined worlds, not in our world. Whether those worlds really exist—that is already the dispute between Plato and Aristotle.

[Speaker B] So the Rabbi is saying, as if, that this sugya does not prove that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It does not prove ontic Platonism. Ontic, yes—ontology. But it is a Platonic approach in the sense that my goal is not to understand the laws of transferring a bill of divorce; I want to understand the concept of slave, this idea of slave.

[Speaker B] So in the sense of physics too, that is simply considered a Platonic sense, right? Okay, thank you very much, Rabbi. Sabbath peace.

[Speaker G] The question is whether this also connects to what we discussed two weeks ago, Rabbi—whether a slave according to the laws of Hammurabi, or later on, where you may not return a slave to his master if things are too bad for him and he runs away from him—on this issue. Because I see some kind of contradiction here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.

[Speaker G] If the slave is tied up and all that, and that is his condition as a slave, then the fact is that we can hand his slave over.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who said that is his condition as a slave? I said that if you take a person who is a slave, and you want to leave from him only his being a slave—to clear the screen of all the other qualities—then you have to put him to sleep and bind him and tie him up, and then what you are left with is a creature about whom all you know how to say is that he is a slave, nothing else. If he is not tied up and not asleep, then he is not just a slave, but a walking slave—he is a walking courtyard—so he is also a person, not only a slave. He also has awareness, he can walk, he is not guarded, and all kinds of things of that sort. I am not claiming that this is the ideal state of a slave, that all slaves have to be tied up. I am claiming that if you want to conduct an intellectual discussion about the concept of slave in its pure form, you need to take a person who is tied up and asleep.

[Speaker G] Nowadays, for example, when we go to a workplace and we have an employee-employer agreement, or some other agreement—buying a house from a contractor, for example—that within X time you give the money and he brings you the house. Is there also some such principle here, something like stripping it down to the concept of slave?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand how that is connected to our discussion.

[Speaker G] That we have obligations; the employee has obligations, the employer has obligations, or the buyer has obligations and the seller has obligations.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There we are talking about a hired worker, not a slave. That is something entirely different. Although there is the Vilna Gaon—it appears in the glosses of the Vilna Gaon on Bava Metzia, I think page 10 or something like that, in the first chapter of Bava Metzia—where he says that a hired worker, why is it forbidden for a hired worker to be hired for more than three years? There is a halakhic prohibition because “they are My servants, and not servants to servants.” And you want to claim that a hired worker is a kind of slave. But in the simple understanding, a hired worker is a laborer, it is a contract, it is unrelated. A slave is not a contract; a slave is a status. It is a status in which you are owned by me, body and soul, meaning you are mine like his animal, like his ox and his donkey.

[Speaker G] Have a peaceful Sabbath, thank you very much, Rabbi.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sabbath peace, goodbye.

[Speaker D] One more word. So I understand that what the Rabbi is saying is that all the commandments we learn here come not as something theoretical but as a case. They bring a certain event, and from it we have to infer what the lawgiver intended.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, the case embodies the general law.

[Speaker D] And is that how all 613 commandments come, or only some like that and some not? Meaning, is there nothing direct?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not speaking right now about commandments. I’m speaking right now about amoraic statements or Mishnahs.

[Speaker D] Okay, so in the Mishnah and the Talmud it always comes through an example, it’s never—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Almost always. General rules in the Mishnah and Talmud are rare. There are some here and there, but it’s rare. For example, in the second chapter of Bava Kamma, the Talmud says: one who lives in another person’s courtyard without his knowledge—must he pay rent or not? That is a case. Someone entered another person’s courtyard and lived there; must he pay or not? Immediately after that the Talmud translates it: “This one benefits and that one does not lose”—is he liable or exempt? That is already a rule. We take the case and understand that it really comes to illustrate some general law. That’s what happens everywhere.

[Speaker F] Rabbi, if the Sages expressed themselves casuistically, then why wouldn’t it also make sense to interpret the Bible that way—as casuistic speech—and the commandments too? They gave an example, but we are supposed to extract the essence from the example and expand it according to the matter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We do that—maybe not always, but we do it too. It says, “If one man’s ox gores his fellow’s ox.” From that we derive monetary damages in general, not specifically only goring by an ox.

[Speaker B] Yes, but for example the Sabbatical year, right?

[Speaker F] Today, who is left as a farmer? Nobody. So does the whole business disappear? We could have expanded it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good question. I wrote about this in one of my columns. Good question. All the new proposals for a modern Sabbatical year for a non-agricultural world—there may be something there. The question is how far to take this kind of extension. But yes, in principle, that’s right. In my opinion, those proposals are flawed on their own merits—not because they expand the Torah idea, but because the Torah idea they are expanding is, in my opinion, incorrect. Meaning, the idea of the Sabbatical year is not a social idea. Rather? Some other idea—the land’s rest, or something like that. There are various indications that this is not a social idea. Therefore the extension they propose is, in my opinion, incorrect. Not because I have a problem with the fact that they are expanding; I just think they are not making the right expansion. They did not correctly interpret the passage of the Sabbatical year in its original context.

There is an article by Rabbi Rozen about this, I think. I heard it from him orally, but he wrote about it somewhere, where he shows through various indications why this is not about a social issue—not even the cancellation of debts. Even the cancellation of debts is not a social issue. But that is a discussion in itself. In principle, yes—if I saw that. Interest, you can ask the same question about interest. In a world where everything is banks and heter iska and everything, basically the prohibition of interest no longer really has meaning for us—maybe it needs some kind of extension, I don’t know.

[Speaker G] Maybe it’s just a causal connection and that’s it? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t hear.

[Speaker G] Maybe the issue of the Sabbatical year and all these things is because it is “the land of His holding,” it is God’s land, the holy land, period.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe, I don’t know. Once I understand what it is, what the basis is, I can try to extend it. If I don’t understand, then no. And all of that is already a question of the reason for the verse, because we’re talking about commandments written in the Torah. The matter of ukimtot speaks about Mishnahs and Talmudic discussions, not about the Torah. Okay, good, Sabbath peace, Sabbath peace.