Platonism – Lesson 5

Table of Contents

• Platonism versus Aristotle and the implications for law
• Ownership as a metaphysical relation and not as a collection of norms
• A slave whose bill of emancipation is delayed, the Pnei Yehoshua, and compensation for bodily injury
• The resting of one’s animal on the Sabbath and property damages, with property as the “periphery” of the person
• “Yours” in the four species as a non-monetary implication of belonging
• Dividing testimony, the Rosh, the Raavad, and the relation to a wife and to property
• Sotah, Tosafot, and a meal-offering that is not brought in partnership
• “If a man and woman merit it, the Divine Presence is between them,” the Jerusalem Talmud on Sabbath, and a name that has no parts
• Halakhic effect: ownership, betrothal, and halakhic concepts as Platonic concepts
• Object, property, and the type of metaphysical relation
• Conditions: the standard understanding of retrospective clarification
• Rabbi Shimon Shkop: from now on retroactively, and backward causality in time
• Vows, something that has a permitted solution, and a sage’s annulment as uprooting retroactively
• Examples and proofs for the approach: Baal HaIttur, Maggid Mishneh, and a conditional bill of divorce
• Closing questions: an intermediate state, Schrödinger’s cat, and twilight

Summary

General Overview

The text presents Platonism as the view that general concepts have metaphysical existence in the world of ideas, and sets against it an Aristotelian view in which concepts are abstractions with no anchor in reality. It argues that Jewish law adopts a “Platonic” view of concepts like ownership and betrothal, such that they describe a real metaphysical relation, while the halakhic norms are its consequences and not its essence. It grounds this in examples from the laws of a slave whose bill of emancipation is delayed, the resting of one’s animal on the Sabbath and property damages, the law of “yours” regarding the four species, and Talmudic passages about dividing testimony, all of which lead to the understanding that a wife and property are the “periphery” of the person. Finally, it moves to a discussion of the mechanism of conditions in Jewish law and presents Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s position that a condition is not merely retrospective clarification, but creates “from now on, retroactively,” meaning a kind of causality that works from the future back to the past, bringing proofs from Baal HaIttur, from Maimonides as explained by the Maggid Mishneh, and from the discussion in Nedarim about annulment by a sage.

Platonism versus Aristotle and the implications for law

Platonism is understood as the view that general concepts have metaphysical existence in the world of ideas, and that a person does not invent them but rather “observes” them and identifies them in particulars. Aristotle is understood as holding that general concepts are a product of abstraction by consciousness, without an anchor in reality itself. The text connects this difference to the language of abstract definitions such as “a democratic state,” and raises the question of how general concepts operate in the practical world.

Ownership as a metaphysical relation and not as a collection of norms

The text argues that ownership in Jewish law is a claim about reality, meaning a metaphysical relation between a person and an object, and that monetary and legal rules are consequences of that relation rather than the very definition of ownership. It contrasts this with a common legal view that identifies “ownership” as shorthand for a collection of norms about use, preventing others from using it, and legal remedies. It emphasizes that one can understand situations in which the relation exists even when some of the usual consequences do not exist, because the norms are derived from the metaphysical state and do not define it.

A slave whose bill of emancipation is delayed, the Pnei Yehoshua, and compensation for bodily injury

The text brings the passage in Gittin about a Canaanite slave who was declared ownerless and is “awaiting a bill of emancipation,” and argues that even though the master no longer has monetary rights in the slave, the slave still “belongs” to him as long as a bill of emancipation has not been given. It explains that this is possible only if ownership is a metaphysical relation that can exist even without the monetary consequences. It adds the novel point of the Pnei Yehoshua that one who injures such a slave pays the master, even though the master suffered no monetary loss, because compensation for injury goes “to the master of the injured object” and not necessarily as compensation to the one who was harmed. The main point for our purposes, though, is the conception of ownership reflected here.

The resting of one’s animal on the Sabbath and property damages, with property as the “periphery” of the person

The text brings the law of the resting of one’s animal, under which a person’s animal doing labor on the Sabbath causes the person to violate a Torah prohibition even when he is sitting at home and not involved, distinguishing this from leading an animal while it carries a burden. It cites the Rogatchover in Bava Kamma 17, who explains this as an expression of the relation between a person and his animal that is not monetary but belongs to the realm of Sabbath observance, because property is the “periphery” of the person. It applies the same idea to liability for payment when one’s animal causes damage, and prefers the majority approach that the basis of the claim is the very fact that his animal caused damage, and not negligence in guarding it, while noting a practical difference regarding the burden of proof. It explains that this liability makes sense if one’s property is considered a peripheral part of oneself, so that just as a person is liable when his body causes damage, he is also liable when his property causes damage.

“Yours” in the four species as a non-monetary implication of belonging

The text brings the law of “yours” regarding the four species, which requires taking species that “belong to you,” and presents this as proof that there are halakhic implications of belonging that are not limited to monetary law. It presents this as part of a pattern in which the relation of ownership generates laws in areas that are not only about “who is allowed to use it.”

Dividing testimony, the Rosh, the Raavad, and the relation to a wife and to property

The text describes the Talmudic discussion of dividing testimony in cases such as “So-and-so lent me money with interest” and “So-and-so had intercourse with me willingly,” where a witness testifies about a transgression and in his words apparently incriminates himself as a wicked person disqualified from testimony. It presents the halakhic ruling in accordance with Rava, that the testimony is accepted because we split the statement and accept the part about the other person but not the part about the witness himself, because with regard to himself he is a litigant, and what is said about himself is not testimony. It brings the Rosh’s question in Makkot 7: why not likewise split the testimony of witnesses who are related to a guarantor on a loan document? It then presents the Raavad’s answer that the difference is between “invalid testimony” and “not testimony at all,” so that a litigant does not testify about himself at all, and therefore this is not a case of “if part of it is nullified, all of it is nullified.”

The text raises an objection to the Raavad from Sanhedrin 10a, in the discussion of “So-and-so had intercourse with my wife,” where we do in fact divide the statement, and presents the conclusion that according to the Raavad this shows that testimony about one’s wife is not “testimony about a relative,” but is similar to testimony about oneself, because the wife is his periphery. It adds “So-and-so had intercourse with my ox” as a parallel proof that one’s ox is considered part of oneself, and therefore this too resembles testimony by a litigant. It concludes that there is a metaphysical relation between a person and his wife, and between a person and his property, which is not merely a technical disqualification based on kinship, but the expression of a single entity or an essential bond.

Sotah, Tosafot, and a meal-offering that is not brought in partnership

The text brings Tosafot in Sotah, which states that a meal-offering is not offered in partnership, and asks how a sotah brings a meal-offering when her property “also belongs to her husband.” It presents the Rogatchover, who argues that the relationship between a woman and her husband is not that of partners but of “one entity” that is the owner, and that entity is the couple, so this is not a partnership offering. It uses this to strengthen the claim that halakhic laws are consequences of a relation in reality and not merely a normative arrangement.

“If a man and woman merit it, the Divine Presence is between them,” the Jerusalem Talmud on Sabbath, and a name that has no parts

The text brings the midrash, “If a man and woman merit it, the Divine Presence is between them; if they do not merit it, fire consumes them,” together with Rashi’s explanation that the yod in man and the heh in woman create the divine name between the two of them. It cites the Rogatchover, who brings a Jerusalem Talmud in the laws of Sabbath about writing two letters, according to which writing two letters out of the name “Shimon” is exempt, but writing two letters from the divine name is liable. It explains in the name of the Rogatchover that the reason is that the Holy One, blessed be He, is one and simple, and therefore His name too is a single unit that has no parts. From this it follows that two letters are not merely a “part,” but count as meaningful writing that incurs liability. It connects this to the bond between man and woman and argues that the divine name joins them into a single unit, and if they do not “merit it,” then there is no significance to parts of the name, and what remains is “fire.”

Halakhic effect: ownership, betrothal, and halakhic concepts as Platonic concepts

The text sharpens the distinction between saying “I am the owner” as a statement about rights of use, and saying that an object has a “halakhic effect of ownership” on it, as pointing to a metaphysical state in which the object is the person’s periphery. It argues that in the case of someone awaiting a bill of emancipation there is a “halakhic effect of ownership” without “ownership” in the sense of monetary consequences, and therefore one can speak about a relation even without the usual set of rights. It concludes that halakhic concepts of legal effect, such as ownership and betrothal, are “Platonic” concepts in the sense that they are entities or states that exist, from which the norms are derived, as opposed to the “Aristotelian” view in ordinary law where the concept is just a code name for a bundle of rights.

Object, property, and the type of metaphysical relation

The text presents a distinction between subjective things that exist only in consciousness and things that exist in the world itself, and among the things that exist in the world it distinguishes between objects and properties or states such as color and speed. It argues that a metaphysical relation can still be understood as a property of an object and not as an independent object in itself, and therefore there is a gap between saying that the relation “exists in things” and saying that there is here a Platonic idea that is an actual spiritual object. It declares that it wants to argue even for the existence of such a metaphysical object, and presents the discussion of conditions as the path to complete that step.

Conditions: the standard understanding of retrospective clarification

The text defines a condition as the ability to make a legal effect dependent on something, such as betrothal, divorce, and acquisitions, while noting exceptions such as halitzah, based on the rule that whatever cannot be done through agency cannot be made conditional. It presents the standard understanding that a condition is retrospective clarification, in which fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the condition clarifies after the fact what the meaning of the act was from the outset, in a way similar to later knowledge about an already existing fact. It compares this to someone who arrives after a week and finds out that the child born was a boy, emphasizing that the truth was correct from the beginning and only the knowledge was delayed.

Rabbi Shimon Shkop: from now on retroactively, and backward causality in time

The text presents Rabbi Shimon Shkop, in his treatise on conditions at the end of his novellae on Gittin, as arguing that the notion of retrospective clarification is incorrect, and that fulfillment of the condition in the future is what causes the act in the past to be valid. In other words, there is causality operating from the future back to the past. It defines this as “from now on retroactively,” where only from the moment the condition is fulfilled is a framework created through which one also looks back at the past differently, and not as a revelation of a truth that had always existed. It notes practical differences, such as a case where a man who betrothed dies before fulfillment of the condition, and the question whether the woman is regarded as a widow or as an unmarried woman with respect to a High Priest.

Vows, something that has a permitted solution, and a sage’s annulment as uprooting retroactively

The text brings the laws of “something that has a permitted solution” and their stringencies, such as not being nullified by a majority and being treated strictly in cases of doubt, and explains the reason: “Instead of eating it in prohibition, eat it in a permitted way.” It brings the Talmud in Nedarim that a vow is something that has a permitted solution, and the question from the Jerusalem Talmud brought by the Rosh: a sage’s annulment uproots the vow from its root, so the vow is either forbidden forever or was never forbidden at all, and therefore it is not comparable to a temporary prohibition. It explains in the name of Rabbi Shimon Shkop that a sage’s annulment is not a revelation that there never was a vow from the outset, but an uprooting that happens later and works backward, such that on Tuesday one can receive lashes for eating something prohibited by the vow if the annulment will only take place on Wednesday, yet on Thursday, after the annulment, it is already considered that retroactively there had not been a prohibition in relation to the present.

Examples and proofs for the approach: Baal HaIttur, Maggid Mishneh, and a conditional bill of divorce

The text brings, in the name of the Rashba in Gittin 77, the position of Baal HaIttur that in a condition formulated as “from now,” the man who betroths can retract the act as long as the condition has not yet been fulfilled, and explains that this makes sense only if there is no actual betrothal until the condition is fulfilled, but rather fulfillment later creates retroactively the validity of the act. It presents the practical difference in a case of betrothal on condition where the man dies before the condition is fulfilled, and frames the issue as one between retrospective clarification and “from now on retroactively.” It then adds Maimonides’ ruling in the law of “This is your bill of divorce if I do not come from now until twelve months,” and brings the Maggid Mishneh’s explanation that the woman cannot remarry until the twelve months have actually passed, even if the husband died and therefore will not come, because his failure to come is not merely a clarification but an event that creates the divorce. Therefore one needs the condition actually to occur, and not just knowledge about it.

Closing questions: an intermediate state, Schrödinger’s cat, and twilight

The text concludes with a question about the intermediate status between the act and the fulfillment of the condition, and reports that Rabbi Shimon Shkop discusses this and argues that she is both a married woman and a divorced woman at the same time, while others speak of a “weak divorce” or an intermediate state. It compares this to “Schrödinger’s cat,” and even to quantum “collapse,” in which fulfillment of the condition creates a collapse in one direction and non-fulfillment in the other. It also raises a question about twilight and cites the Rogatchover on three possibilities: maybe day and maybe night, neither day nor night, or both day and night. It notes practical differences for laws that depend on nighttime because of a prohibition of daytime, as opposed to a positive requirement of nighttime. It mentions additional examples of intermediate concepts such as a koy and an androgynos, and concludes that the continuation of the discussion will be used to show the Platonism.

Okay, let’s begin. We spoke—you started last time to talk a bit about halakhic applications of Platonism, right? Platonism is the view that general concepts have some kind of metaphysical existence in the world of ideas, as opposed to Aristotle, who understood them as abstractions of ours, things that have no anchor in reality itself. We abstract and distill what is common to all horses, and that’s how we create the concept of horseness. Plato argued: no, the concept of horseness exists—some ideal horse, some abstract horseness exists in the world of ideas, and we identify it in all the horses that pass before us. Meaning, we don’t invent horseness; we observe horseness, and that’s how we arrive at general concepts. We spoke about a democratic state, we spoke about all sorts of abstract definitions. Last time I began speaking about the halakhic implication of Platonism, and I argued that the concept of ownership really refers to some kind of reality, and not only to legal norms. When I say that I own a certain book, what I’ve said is that there is a metaphysical connection between me and the book. That connection has implications: what I’m allowed to use, who is forbidden to use it, how it may be used—but all those are implications. As opposed to the Aristotelian conception, so-called, right? The conception accepted in the legal world is a conception that says that when I say I own the book, that’s just shorthand for a collection of norms that apply to this situation. I’m allowed to use it, others are forbidden to use it—in short, all that is called “I own the book.” But the concept of ownership as such, although it is described, sounds like some kind of claim about reality, is not a claim about reality. It simply says what the law determines regarding such a situation; it is a collection of norms. In contrast, in the Platonic conception, which I argued characterizes Jewish law, when I say I own the book, I’ve said something about reality. There is something in reality itself that establishes a connection between me and the book, and that metaphysical connection has legal implications. The legal norms are implications of the fact that I am the owner, not the essence of the fact that I am the owner. I brought an example for this from the Talmud in Gittin regarding a slave awaiting a deed of manumission. I won’t go back over all the details right now. The basic claim is that a slave awaiting a deed of manumission—that is, a Canaanite slave whom I declared ownerless, meaning I have no monetary rights in the slave—he is still in my ownership; he belongs to me; I am his owner. How am I his owner if I have no right of use at all? I have no monetary right in the thing. The answer is that the metaphysical connection between me and him still exists, even though all the legal implications in that monetary context have dissipated; they no longer exist. Meaning, if I understood ownership as nothing but the bundle of rights, then once there are no rights, there is no ownership. But if I understand ownership as some kind of condition in objective reality that has legal implications—well then, there can be situations in which the condition itself exists without the implications; the implications do not exist. And therefore one can at least conceptually speak of ownership over a slave awaiting a deed of manumission. I declared him ownerless, and I am still his owner so long as I have not given him a deed of manumission. Therefore in fact the only one who can give this slave the deed of manumission is me, even though I’m no longer his owner in the practical monetary sense; but only I can give him a deed of manumission and turn him into a Jew. And we saw that what Pnei Yehoshua claims, on the basis of some difficulty he raises on Tosafot, is that one who injures this slave pays the slave’s master, even though the master lost nothing—he is not the holder of the rights over the slave—but he receives the money. Why? Because compensation for injury is compensation paid to the master of the injured object, and is not necessarily compensation to the one who was injured, and that is not always the same person. Usually it is the same person; the injured one is the master. But here is a pathological case in which the injured one is the slave, but the master of the injured object is the master—and the money, in this case, goes to the master. But for our purposes the novelty in the laws of damages is less important than the conception—his conception of the concept of ownership. We see that the concept of ownership really describes some type of reality. It is a claim about reality, and the norms, the legal-halakhic determinations, are the result of that determination about reality. And at the end of last time we saw three examples, or additional implications, of this claim, briefly. The first implication is the Sabbath rest of one’s animal. When my animal commits a transgression on the Sabbath, does work on the Sabbath—plucks some plant from the ground—I have violated a Torah prohibition. This is the Torah prohibition of the Sabbath rest of one’s animal. This is not leading an animal with a burden; that is someone working through his animal, he himself is involved in the matter. The Sabbath rest of one’s animal is not that at all: I’m sitting at home, the animal is outside, somewhere, I don’t know where, and it plucks something from the ground or carries from a private domain to a public domain. I have violated the Torah prohibition of the Sabbath rest of one’s animal. What is the meaning of this? So the Rogatchover explains, in Bava Kamma 17—there are collections of the Rogatchover on the tractates—so in Bava Kamma 17 he brings that the Sabbath rest of one’s animal is really an expression of the connection between me and the animal. What is unique here is that this is a non-monetary expression. You are the owner of the animal, but this has implications not in the monetary realm—who may use it, who may not, and so on—but rather in the realm of Sabbath observance. Just as I myself must observe the Sabbath, so too my periphery—I said that property is really a kind of periphery of the person—my periphery too may not desecrate the Sabbath; it too must observe the Sabbath. And the Rogatchover says the same thing—this is the context in which he brings it—regarding liability for damages caused by one’s animal. If one’s animal caused damage—my animal caused damage—I am obligated to pay. Some want to claim that my obligation to pay is because I was negligent in guarding it. That makes sense—this is the natural legal conception: you were negligent in supervision, the responsibility for what happened is on you. But there is another conception, which is the majority view, that the obligation to pay is from the very fact that my animal caused damage, regardless of whether I was negligent in guarding it. The claim against me is that my animal caused damage—not that I was negligent in guarding it. True, if I was not negligent in guarding it, they will exempt me because I was under compulsion. But the basis of the claim is not negligence. The basis of the claim is the very fact that my animal caused damage. And as I mentioned, the practical difference they usually bring for this is the question of burden of proof. If we don’t know whether I was negligent in guarding it or not, who needs to bring proof—the injured party or the damager? If I understand that negligence in guarding is the basis of the claim, then so long as it has not been proven that I was negligent in guarding it, there is no basis for a claim. Therefore clearly the injured party must prove that I was negligent in order for them to obligate me to pay; without that, I don’t acknowledge the claim at all. But if I understand that the obligation comes from the very fact that my animal caused damage, except that if I was not negligent they exempt me—well, my animal caused damage, that is a fact, and therefore I am obligated. If I want to exempt myself by claiming that I guarded it properly, I have to bring proof that that was indeed the case, that I really guarded it. The burden of proof is specifically on me, even though I am the one in possession and they are trying to extract money from me. So this is an example of that distinction. The Rogatchover asks: what is the rationale for obligating a person to pay from the very fact that his animal caused damage? If he was negligent in guarding it, fine—that is a sanction for his negligence. But if just from the very fact that his animal caused damage—why is that a basis to obligate him to pay? And once again his answer is like with the Sabbath rest of one’s animal: because you are the owner. What does that mean? The animal is a kind of periphery of yours. Just as when you cause damage you are obligated to pay—your body caused damage, you are obligated to pay—so too if your property caused damage, you are obligated to pay, because something that is part of you—admittedly a more peripheral part, but still part of you—caused damage, and you bear responsibility for what you, including your peripheries, did. Meaning, we see that the connection between a person and his property is a metaphysical connection. Property is really some type of periphery of mine; it is connected to me in some way, and that has various implications not specifically in the plane of whether I may use it, whether others may use it, and what happens if someone steals it from me—the ordinary legal implications of the concept of ownership. Here there are totally different things. There is also the case of the etrog or the four species, where there is a law of “it shall be yours,” meaning that you must take the four species that belong to you. So we see that there are halakhic implications to the fact that the four species belong to you, and those implications are not only in the monetary realm. A third example that I brought—and I think that’s where I ended—is regarding… regarding splitting testimony. I think I spoke about this; I don’t remember anymore. The topic of splitting testimony deals with a situation in which a person testifies about someone else who committed a transgression. Usually, if you want to convict someone of a transgression, you need two witnesses. What happens if I come and say, “So-and-so lent me money with interest,” and together with me there is one more witness? I and one other witness testify that so-and-so lent me money with interest. Now the borrower with interest is also wicked. The borrower with interest—not only the lender is wicked; the borrower is also wicked. So if that is so, then when I testify that so-and-so lent me money with interest, I have made myself wicked—I borrowed with interest. A wicked person is disqualified from testimony. And therefore—not only am I disqualified from testimony, I also disqualify the other witness, because “if one of them is found to be a relative or disqualified, their testimony is void.” So it comes out that there is no testimony here against the lender with interest. The same with “so-and-so had relations with me willingly,” right? If so-and-so had homosexual relations with me, right? So I am testifying against him, but I am also a partner in the wickedness of the matter. And a wicked person is disqualified from testimony—and yes, I’m speaking about halakhic wickedness, not necessarily moral wickedness—and in this case too, it ought to be that I am disqualified from testimony, and I disqualify the witness who came with me, and the testimony should not be accepted. But the Talmud says—there is a dispute there—that according to Rava the testimony is accepted. And that is how Jewish law rules. Why? Because we split the testimony. What does that mean? They believe me that so-and-so lent with interest—but not me. Because about myself I cannot testify. I am an interested party. And once I cannot testify about myself, then my testimony does not contain the statement that I borrowed with interest; consequently it also does not contain the statement that I am wicked. And if I am not wicked, then my testimony is not disqualified. Did I say that I testified about the borrower? I said it. It doesn’t get entered into the record, because when an interested party testifies about himself, that is not considered testimony. Those are just words floating around in the air of the religious court. They do not treat that as testimony. From the perspective of the court, it was not said. Yes, like in the movies, when the judge says: “Do not enter that into the record.” Okay? There was some remark to the jury—“Do not enter that into the record.” That is the law of splitting testimony. We divide his statement: his statement is accepted regarding so-and-so, who lent with interest, but it is not accepted regarding the fact that I was the borrower. He did not lend to me—he lent to someone else, I don’t know—but not to me. Now, this principle of splitting testimony—yes, this is a very basic conceptual Talmudic topic—but one of the central sources that deals with it is a Talmud in Makkot 7, where it speaks about witnesses regarding… regarding guarantors for a loan. Reuven borrowed from Shimon, and there are two guarantors for Reuven’s loan. They are guarantors to Shimon. Now we are looking for two witnesses to sign the loan document. The witnesses are related to the guarantors… to the guarantor. Guarantor—it doesn’t matter, not specifically guarantors, one guarantor. The two witnesses are related to the guarantor. Can they testify or can they not testify? The Talmud says no. They are related to the guarantor, and related witnesses are disqualified from testimony. The Rosh asks there in Makkot: why don’t we split the testimony? Let them testify about the loan; we will accept the testimony that there was a loan, and we will not accept the testimony that so-and-so is the guarantor because he is their relative. Let us split the testimony, exactly as we do regarding “so-and-so had relations with me willingly” or “so-and-so lent me with interest” and the like. There are two directions that come to mind; I’ll focus on the direction he brings in the name of the Raavad. The Raavad argues that the law of splitting testimony seemingly contradicts the law that if part of it is void, all of it is void. Meaning, when I testify that so-and-so lent me with interest, there are two details in my testimony: that so-and-so lent with interest, and that I borrowed with interest. Testimony of which part is void—if part of the testimony is void, all of it is void. So the whole testimony should be thrown in the trash. Now here, in the law of splitting testimony, we say no: one part is void, but we keep the second part. How can that be? Isn’t there a rule that if part is void, all is void? So the Raavad says that it depends on why the part that is void—why is it void? If it is void because I testified about myself, and I am an interested party, and an interested party cannot testify about himself, then we say: split the testimony. Why? Because testimony that a person gives about himself is not invalid testimony; it is not testimony at all. He is an interested party; he is not a witness. He was not speaking here as a witness, so this is not testimony that became void; this is not testimony that was disqualified; it is testimony that was never given at all. There is no testimony here—it was not said in the religious court, because the one speaking here was an interested party; he was not a witness. An interested party cannot testify. It is not that his testimony is invalid; it is not testimony. It is a claim. An interested party can make claims; an interested party cannot testify. Therefore this testimony is not void—it was never given at all. Yes, it was not—it’s not testimony. And consequently, what remains? So my testimony that I borrowed with interest was never said; only the second part remains, that so-and-so lent with interest, and it remains—there is nothing that nullifies it. What happens in the case of a relative of the guarantor? The relatives of the guarantor—there, when they testify that so-and-so is the guarantor, they are related to him; it is not they themselves, it is not he himself. They are not interested parties; they are relatives. Testimony of relatives is indeed testimony, just invalid testimony. It is not like the case of an interested party, where what he says about himself is not testimony at all; it is the words of an interested party. Here it is testimony of witnesses, but the witnesses are disqualified witnesses regarding the guarantor. Therefore the testimony about the guarantor is void, and once that part is void, it also voids the second part of the testimony about the lender and the borrower, because if part is void, all is void. The Raavad claims that the difference between these two situations lies in the question of why the part of the testimony that was nullified—why was it nullified? If it is nullified because I am wicked, or because I am a relative, or things of that sort, then if part is void, all is void. If one part is nullified, everything is nullified. But if the part that was nullified was not really nullified, but rather was not testimony at all—it was not delivered as testimony, it was not entered into the record at all, not that it was entered into the record with a note next to it saying this is testimony of a relative and therefore invalid. The testimony of an interested party is not entered into the record at all. Now if it is not entered into the record at all, then basically I have half a testimony, and that half exists—there is nothing to void it. There is no part of the testimony that is testimony rendered void; there is simply half a testimony, and that half is the entire testimony, and it exists and all is fine—that is the Raavad’s claim. On this they ask against the Raavad from the Talmud in Sanhedrin, which is the main sugya of splitting testimony on page 9—really by page 10, page 10a. The Talmud there speaks about “so-and-so had relations with my wife.” Yes, I come and testify that so-and-so had relations with my wife, together with another witness. Now I am related to my wife, and the Talmud says that one should really split the testimony there—accept the testimony about the adulterer but not accept the testimony about the woman, because regarding her I am a relative. The later authorities ask against the Raavad: why? When I testify about the woman—when I testify about the woman—I am really testifying about a relative, and testimony about a relative is invalid testimony. This is not “not testimony at all”; it is not like testimony about oneself. It is testimony involving a relative, and we saw in Makkot that testimony involving a relative is invalid testimony, not that it is not testimony at all. So one should also invalidate the testimony about the adulterer—if part is void, all is void. From here they prove that according to the Raavad, testimony about one’s wife is not testimony about a relative; testimony about one’s wife is testimony about oneself, just as if I testify about myself. The relation between a person and his wife is not one of kinship. A person is not “related” to his wife in that sense; rather the person—yes, the Talmud says that a person is close regarding his wife and close regarding his property—but what it really means is that his wife is his periphery. His wife has some connection to him; she is part of him. This is not like a relative, where there is merely some disqualification because of a relationship between me and him. Here there is a connection: the woman is really my periphery, as we saw earlier regarding property. By the way, the Talmud there later speaks about “so-and-so had relations with my ox”; there too the Talmud wants to split the testimony. Why? Because when I testify about my ox, my ox is part of me, and therefore that is testimony of an interested party, and therefore according to the Raavad one can split it there. So we see that the relationship between a person and his wife, or between a person and his property—it is not the same thing, but the relationship between a person and his wife and between a person and his property is some kind of metaphysical relationship. It is not just a question of implications. The wife and the property are some sort of peripheries of myself. So there is also another Rogatchover in another place who brings another proof regarding the relationship between a man and his wife. He says there is a Tosafot in Sotah. A suspected adulteress brings a meal offering. And the general rule is that a meal offering is not brought in partnership. Meaning, there cannot be a meal offering that is brought and belongs to partners. The meal offering must be owned by the one bringing it, not in partnership with someone else. Tosafot asks: then how does a suspected adulteress bring a meal offering? After all, the property from which she brings the meal offering also belongs to her husband. There is some sort of partnership here. Tosafot assumes that the relation to the property is one of partnership; one could debate that too a bit, but that is Tosafot’s claim. The Rogatchover says that the relation between a woman and her husband is not one of partnership. This is one entity that owns the meal offering. That one entity is the couple. In a partnership there are two owners who together own the thing. Here it is not two owners; it is one owner. That one owner is the couple. Therefore the meal offering is indeed offered; the meal offering of a suspected adulteress can indeed be brought, because it is not a meal offering of partners. The same idea we saw in the Talmud in Sanhedrin—that the bond between a person and his wife is not like ordinary kinship, not like partnership, but simply one entity. So once again we see that there is some metaphysical dimension here, and the halakhic norms regarding a married woman and all these things are implications of the fact that there is some connection between me and the woman in reality. A metaphysical connection, okay? And the legal implications are only implications of that connection; and the same is true regarding property and so on. There is yet another Rogatchover—this appears in the Rogatchover on the Torah, meaning I saw it there though it was taken from somewhere else. He says there, after all there is the well-known midrash: if husband and wife merit it, the Divine Presence is between them; if they do not merit it, fire consumes them. Rashi explains: what does it mean “if they merit it”? Husband and wife—both words consist of the letters for fire, and in the word for husband there is an additional yod, and in the word for wife there is an additional heh. So if they merit it, then the name of God is between them—the yod in the husband and the heh in the wife. So God’s name is between them; if they merit it, the Divine Presence is between them. If they do not merit it, then the yod and the heh are not God’s name; only fire remains, so fire consumes them. Now the Rogatchover explains that in the Jerusalem Talmud it says that in the laws of the Sabbath, one who writes two letters is liable, right? The minimum measure for the prohibition of writing is two letters. One who writes two letters is liable. What if someone writes “shem” from the word “Shimon”? “Shem” from “Shimon”—he is exempt, because although it is two letters, they are two letters out of a complete word, and therefore those letters cannot be treated as something significant. But what if it is two letters out of the name of God? There the Jerusalem Talmud says he is liable. The Rogatchover asks why, and he says: because the Holy One, blessed be He, is one; He is not composed of parts; He is simple, as they say. And so His name, which reflects Him, is also basically one; it has no parts. So if you write two letters out of the name of God, you cannot treat that as part of the name of God—there is no part to the name of God. The name of God is one unit; the four letters are combined into one unit. That’s it. You can’t say there are two letters out of the four. If you took two letters out of the four, that is not part of the name of God—it is just two letters. Therefore you are liable. So he says that this is the same thing in “if husband and wife merit it, the Divine Presence is between them.” He means: if they merit it, then the yod in the husband and the heh in the wife create a complete name of God—the yod and heh, yes, that too is a name of God—they create a complete divine name that joins them into a couple. But if they do not merit it and it is not the name of God, then there is a yod in the husband and a heh in the wife, but the name of God has no parts. So you cannot say that there is part of the name of God here and part of the name of God there; they are simply not parts of the name of God. So they are just two separate units—this is a man and this is a woman—and fire consumes them. So the yod and the heh have no significance, and only the fire remains. What he really wants to say by this is that the metaphysical bond between man and woman, which we saw earlier turns them into one unit, is really caused by the fact that the name of God is present there. It is what joins the man and the woman, because the yod in the man and the heh in the woman are joined into one unit if this really is the name of God. And if they do not merit it and it is not the name of God, then it is a yod and a heh, but they are not parts of the name of God. So why don’t we write it continuously—why do we put in a hyphen? So why do we put a hyphen between the yod and the heh when we write it? If there is no significance. If it is only two letters from the yod and from the heh—the yod and the heh are not two letters from the name of God; that is a name in itself. Yod and heh is itself a divine name; it is not because it is the beginning of yod-heh-vav-heh. It is itself a name. If you wrote vav-heh you wouldn’t need to put a hyphen in the middle. I understand. Anyway—so what this basically means, what this basically means, is that when we look at halakhic statuses—and I started with this question of what a halakhic status is, because last time I began with the question: what does it mean to say that a woman has the status of a married woman, or that an object has the status of my ownership? Isn’t that just saying that I own it? What did I add by saying that a status of ownership rests on it? Now perhaps we can answer that. When I say that I own an object, I have said that I have rights in this object. When I say that this object has the status of ownership resting on it, I am really saying that the object is in a different metaphysical condition, the implication of which is that I have rights in the object. But the status of ownership describes the metaphysical reality, the metaphysical bond, of which ownership is the implication because the fact is that there is a status of ownership here. When I say that I have ownership over the object, I am really saying that I have rights of use in the thing. When I say that a status of ownership rests on it, I am really saying that this object is my periphery, and as a result of that I have rights of use in the thing. For example, in the case of a slave awaiting a deed of manumission, there is a status of ownership of the master over the slave, but he does not have ownership in the practical sense. The legal implications do not exist, even though the metaphysical bond does exist. Therefore one can say that he has a status of ownership, but that status has no implications. We will soon see another example of this. And then the claim is really—you understand the significance of the matter—seemingly what I am really saying here is that halakhic concepts like ownership, betrothal, and so on, and all these halakhic statuses, are really Platonic concepts. This is a Platonic view of Jewish law; it is a Platonic view of law. Because in the ordinary legal world, if we see ownership as a bundle of rights, that is an Aristotelian view. It basically says that the concept of ownership is merely a code name or shorthand for a bundle of monetary legal rights that I have in the thing. That’s all. That is called “I am the owner.” In the halakhic view, which is Platonic, they say no, no: the concept of ownership exists. There is a metaphysical bond here between me and the object, and the characteristics—we spoke about the thing itself and its characteristics—the characteristics or implications of the fact that there is a metaphysical bond here are the legal and halakhic norms. But they are not the essence of the concept; the concept itself exists in a Platonic, metaphysical sense, and it has legal implications. In the Aristotelian view, the concept—as you remember Borges with Berkeley, with the non-existent concepts, a bundle of characteristics that I gather together and make into a concept—that is basically Aristotle’s view of the legal world. Now I want to sharpen what I just said a bit more, because really in the last few sentences I made a small leap, and I now want to cover that leap as well. What we have seen in the examples so far is that between a person and his property, his wife, all kinds of things in his surroundings, there is a metaphysical bond, and that metaphysical bond has legal and halakhic implications. What is the nature of this bond? Not every claim about reality is an object. For example, when I say that the table is brown, is the brown color of the table an object? No. The table is an object; the brown color is a property of the object. Again, I did not say that color is a subjective perception; it exists in the world, but its existence in the world is as a property of an object. It is not itself an object. The red color of something or the green color of something is a property of the thing that exists. But it itself is not an object. Okay, so there are basically three ways of relating to things: there are things that exist only in my consciousness; they are really subjective matters, completely subjective, with no anchor in the world itself. There are things that exist in the world itself, and they themselves divide into two types: there are objects, and there are properties, events, things that happen to objects, but they themselves are not objects. The speed of a car—the speed of the car does not exist only in my head; it is something that occurs in the world itself. But speed is not an object. Speed is a condition of the car; the car is an object. So does speed exist or not? That is a matter of definition. If I say that only objects exist, then one cannot say that the speed of the car exists. On the other hand, clearly the speed of the car is not a subjective matter. It is something that happens in the world itself; it is not that I am hallucinating it and it exists only inside me. So there is something here which is indeed in reality itself, but it is not clear to what extent one can say that it exists. Therefore, if I speak about the status of ownership, for example—there is some bond between me and the objects in my ownership—there is still a gap between that and saying that we are dealing here with some existing Platonic idea. A Platonic idea is an object, while here it is a property of the thing. I am only saying that this property exists in things, and is not merely a legal definition or merely our subjective perspective, but rather exists in the things themselves. Still, this is a property and not an object. In order to be a Platonist, I want to ask myself whether there is also a spiritual object here, a metaphysical object that really exists. And I now want to argue that yes, there is. But that is already another step; in order to say that Jewish law is Platonic, you also need that step. That is why I said that earlier I made a small leap, and now I want to complete that leap. In order to complete that leap, I want to go a bit into the topic of conditions. In Jewish law—not only in Jewish law, in every legal system—there is a concept called a condition. When I perform some legal act, generally the imposition of a legal status, I can make that status dependent on some condition. I betroth a woman on condition that it rains tomorrow. I betroth a woman on condition that so-and-so agrees, or I betroth a woman on condition that she gives me 200 zuz. All this is a condition, and I can do that. If the condition is fulfilled, the woman is betrothed; if the condition is not fulfilled, the woman is not betrothed. The same with divorce, the same with acquiring objects—I can make conditions on nearly every status that I impose. Let’s say for halitzah you cannot make a condition; Tosafot explains, because what cannot be done through agency cannot be made conditional. No, that’s the Talmud. What cannot be done through agency cannot be made conditional. What cannot be done by proxy, you also cannot make conditional. But basically, most actions, most statuses that exist in Jewish law, can be imposed conditionally. Now, how exactly does this thing work? This matter of the condition. Usually people understand a condition as some sort of legal fiction. Let’s say I betrothed a woman on condition that she gives me 200 zuz in the coming week. And if she does not give 200 zuz, then she is not betrothed; I doubled the condition, everything is fine. What exactly does the condition mean? I betrothed the woman. Now if she gave me the prutah, and I said to her: “Behold, you are betrothed to me with this prutah according to the law of Moses and Israel, on condition that you give me 200 zuz in the coming week.” Fine? The act is supposed to come after the condition—I should have said, “on condition that you give me 200,” or “if you give me 200 zuz in the coming week then you shall be betrothed, and if not, then not.” Fine, doesn’t matter right now. Maybe with “on condition that” you don’t need to double the conditions; it doesn’t matter. In any case, after I made this condition, what does it actually mean? Suppose that she gave me the 200 zuz after three days. Then after three days it became clear that the betrothal done three days earlier had been valid. True, I didn’t know that during the three days that passed until she gave me the money, but after the three days passed and she gave me the money, it was revealed to me, clarified to me, that I was right. What does “I was right” mean? It was clarified to me that I had betrothed her. What happens if she did not give the money and a week passed? Then it was clarified that the action I took was not an act of betrothal at all. Now the common conception of conditions is that the condition is a retroactive clarification, in the language of the Talmud. Retroactive clarification means that after the fact, it becomes clear to me what the reality had been from the outset. But this is just a process of clarification. It is simply information that was already true from the beginning; I just didn’t know it. That information became known to me after a few days. Think of a person who is abroad and his wife gave birth. He arrives in Israel a week later and discovers it’s a boy. So was the information that it’s a boy true only from that moment onward? Obviously not. That information was true from the outset; I just didn’t know it. A week passed, and then this information became known to me. And once it became known to me, it had been true from the beginning—I just didn’t know it. The common conception of conditions is that a condition works in exactly the same way. Basically, the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the condition clarifies retroactively what the meaning of the action was that had been done in the past. It is just clarification of information. If you asked the Holy One, blessed be He, He would tell you whether this betrothal is betrothal or not. It’s just that we as human beings don’t know the future, and so we need to wait a few days until reality becomes clear to us. But once it becomes clear to us, it is like the boy or girl who was born. Meaning: it was true from the beginning; I just didn’t know it. Is this exactly like retroactive determination? Exactly like retroactive determination. Similar to retroactive determination, although the Talmud itself draws a distinction between retroactive determination and condition—not the Talmud really, Rashi in Gittin 25, where there is a sugya of retroactive determination. And there are distinctions between them, and it may be that the distinctions are precisely here, but maybe I’ll comment on that more later. So the claim is that this is really retroactive clarification. Rabbi Shimon Shkop argues—he has an essay on conditions at the end of his novellae to Gittin—and there he argues that this is not the correct conception of the concept of condition. The concept of condition is a concept in which the future fulfillment of the condition is the cause of the action done in the past being valid—or the opposite, depending whether this is a condition that uproots or a condition that nullifies; it doesn’t matter. But there is causal action here backward in time. Meaning, if I performed—if let’s say she gave me the money during the week we set—the giving of the money turns the act of betrothal I performed in the past into an act of betrothal. It does not reveal to me information that had already been true before. It was not true before. It turns the action into an act of betrothal. The novelty is that there is causality here operating from the future back toward the past. An action performed in a few days determines the meaning and character of an action performed a few days earlier. That is Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s claim. He brings several—I may bring perhaps a different example that does not appear in that context. If a husband betroths a woman on condition that something happen, and then he dies, and then the condition is fulfilled—is she betrothed or not? That is one of the practical differences; I’ll get to it in a second. Is there a question? I don’t hear. A question. Yes. Seemingly this depends on whether the condition depends on something involving free choice, so then it’s a condition that creates, let’s call it that—but if it is something deterministic or… It could be, yes. I wrote about that possibility in my book Talmudic Logic. Nachmanides probably has something like that written. But let’s not get into those points right now; that’s not our issue. I want to focus on the aspect that interests us. So I’ll perhaps bring an example of this mechanism of Rabbi Shimon Shkop from somewhere else. Rabbi Shimon Shkop talks about a concept called “from now on, retroactively.” It’s not retroactive clarification; it’s from now on, retroactively. What does that mean? He says, let’s see—the Talmud in Nedarim speaks about something that has a future permit. Jewish law imposes certain stringencies on something that has a future permit. First of all, what is something that has a future permit? It’s something that is forbidden only temporarily. There will come a time when the prohibition will be permitted. For example, muktzeh. Muktzeh is forbidden on the Sabbath; on Saturday night it will no longer be muktzeh, it will be permitted. As opposed to pig, which is not something that has a future permit; it is always forbidden. There are prohibitions that depend on time; they have a future permit, right? So Jewish law imposes various stringencies on something that has a future permit. For example, something with a future permit that got mixed into a majority—something prohibited but with a future permit got mixed into a majority of permitted items—it is not nullified. The same with doubt regarding something that has a future permit: even if it is rabbinic, the doubt is not ruled leniently but stringently. Meaning, something with a future permit has special stringencies. And why? What does the… not the Talmud—the medieval authorities explain: instead of eating it in a prohibited state, eat it in a permitted state. Wait until Saturday night and then it will be permitted. Why rely on nullification in a majority? Therefore in such a situation the leniencies of nullification in a majority and the laws of doubt and things like that do not apply. Fine. Now, the Talmud in Nedarim says that a vow is something that has a future permit. What does that mean? If there is a thing… I made a vow forbidding to myself a loaf of bread. Now I don’t know whether it’s this loaf or not this loaf. That’s a doubt. Or really this is Torah-level, not… no, that loaf fell into loaves of permission. And now the question is whether it becomes nullified. So the Talmud says it is not nullified because it is something that has a future permit. The Rosh there brings a Jerusalem Talmud, and the Jerusalem Talmud asks: why is a vow something that has a future permit? If I go to a sage and the sage releases me from the vow, the release works retroactively. After all, what does the sage do? He uproots the vow from its root. It’s not that the sage says, from now on your vow is canceled. No. He says there never was a valid vow here. That is why you also need an opening and regret is not enough, but that doesn’t matter right now. What is an opening? An opening means: if I had known this, I would not have vowed, right? That is an opening. What does that actually mean? That my vow from the outset was based on an error. So once the sage released the vow, he clarifies that this was never a vow. He does not release the vow from the moment he was asked onward; rather, as a result of the question he clarifies that there was never a vow here. So the Jerusalem Talmud that the Rosh brings asks: if so, why is a vow something that has a future permit? If I go to a sage and he releases me from the vow, then it was never forbidden. And if he does not release me from the vow, then the vow is forever forbidden. A thing that has a future permit is something forbidden for a fixed period—one day, one month, Passover, various things—for a certain period, after which it becomes permitted. In a vow there is no such state. Either it is forbidden forever, or it was never forbidden at all. There is no case in which the vow is forbidden for a fixed period and after that fixed period becomes permitted. So why is this called something that has a future permit? So the Rosh brings the answer of the Jerusalem Talmud there and explains it… no, annulment is… that’s the husband’s power, that’s something else, I’m not getting into it. I’m talking about release by a sage, not annulment by a husband. So the claim—Rabbi Shimon Shkop explains the answer of the Jerusalem Talmud, as brought by the Rosh, as follows. He argues that the sage’s release does not reveal that the vow was never made, but rather uproots the vow from the outset, even though the act of uprooting is done a few days after I made the vow. So the cause comes a few days after the effect. Meaning, the cause works backward in time. Where is the implication? The implication is, for example, what if I ate this vowed object? Suppose I made the vow on Sunday. I ate the loaf of bread on Monday. On Wednesday I went to the sage and the sage released me from the vow. Can they flog me? I ate… yes, I ate something forbidden to me by vow. So Rabbi Shimon says: if the court hears my case on Tuesday, before the sage released it on Wednesday, then they can flog me, because I ate a forbidden object. But if the court hears my case on Thursday, which is already after the sage released the vow, then from my perspective already on Sunday there was no vow. But this is only from Thursday onward that on Sunday there was no vow. On Tuesday, when I look at Sunday, there was a vow. This is what he calls “from now on, retroactively.” Meaning he says this: if this were retroactive clarification, as people usually conceive it—where the sage reveals that there was never a vow—then they could not flog me even on Tuesday. If the sage releases me on Wednesday, then he is essentially revealing to me that from the very beginning there was no vow here. So if on Tuesday they flogged him, it turns out they flogged someone who did not commit any prohibition at all. I simply did not know that information. But it was still correct information; I did not know it. But Rabbi Shimon Shkop says no, no. The information then was not correct. It’s not that it existed and I didn’t know it; no—it was not correct. The information about Sunday became such on Thursday. This reminds me, when I want to explain this more, of an example that helps me here. There was an interesting Jew named Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen—he is indeed one of the forefathers of Yonatan Gefen, Moshe Dayan, Uzi Dayan, all those people—the grandfather of their grandfather or something like that. He was a very interesting Jew who, when he was young, wrote an interesting diary about being a child who read various forbidden books—forbidden because they were secular wisdoms, right? Not pornography, but philosophy, mathematics, science, which were forbidden in his conservative society. And he became some kind of rabbi-thinker; he wrote articles; he wrote an article on the mathematical nature of prophecy, and this article was published in a Russian mathematical journal. Three of his articles were translated and published by Mossad Harav Kook; one of them was this article. They were published under the title The Dimensions, Prophecy, and Geology. Geology, that is. In Hebrew that you simply cannot understand—it is an awful book, impossible to understand. At some point I got stuck and couldn’t understand what he wanted. It’s this kind of Hebrew with terms like “geology” and all sorts of things like that. In any case, he offers there a proposal to solve the problem of the age of the universe, a theological problem, right, of the age of the universe. If our tradition says that the world is 5,700 years old, and science claims that the world is 14 billion years old, or even more, how do you reconcile that? So he says: after all, Kant tells us that space and time are forms of our perception of the world; they do not exist in the world itself. They are the ways in which we organize the world within ourselves. So space and time are basically something that exists only in our cognition, not in the world itself, but rather categories we use in order to arrange the events, what happens, and the objects in the world. This is before that, this is after that, this is above that, this is below that. Space and time are relations between things, but the relations are relations that exist only for us, and not in the world itself. So Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen says: if that is so, then clearly before there was a human being there was no space and time. So if man was created 5,700 years ago—the modern human being, the person the Torah speaks about, regardless of how exactly one identifies him with the evolutionary stages—then before that there is no point in speaking of a world of 14 billion years; there was no time before there was a human being, since time is only the form of a human being’s perception. It is not something that exists in the world itself. So when there was no human, there was no time either. Therefore one cannot speak—in that case, the world is 5,700 years old by definition, because only then was time created and from that point onward one can count it. Anything before that cannot be discussed in terms of time. That is his claim. Where is he mistaken? He is mistaken, of course, in that even if he is right in all his assumptions—and I don’t think he is right in them either—but even if he is right in all his assumptions, the solution he offers is not correct. Why? Because even if time is only our form of perception of reality, now I already have the glasses of time, I already exist, I already have a temporal perspective—now I look back 14 billion years. Am I unable to ask what happened 14 billion years ago? The fact that I put on these glasses only now does not mean I cannot look back through them and ask what happened a thousand years ago, what happened a billion years ago, and so on. For example, can a person not ask when his grandfather was born? I did not yet exist then, so my timeline did not yet exist when my grandfather was born. Is that a legitimate question? Obviously yes. Why? Because now I look with the perspective of time that I have at the reality that happened before I was born. That is fine; one may also look at the past through those glasses, and now with those glasses I look at the past and describe it in terms of years. So what comes out is that one can certainly look at the past through the glasses one wears in the present. That is not a contradiction. Therefore, when I ask how old the world is, I ask the question from my perspective today. The fact that when the world was created there was not yet a timeline does not matter, because if today there is a timeline, then from that perspective I ask how old the world is, and I can say a billion years, 14 billion years, or 5,700 years. The question remains. This is basically an expression of the process of “from now on, retroactively.” What does that mean? I am really saying that true, in real time—real time itself is already an illegitimate expression here—in real time, when the world was created, there was no time, so there was also no real time. But at that—let’s call it even that moment, I don’t know—at that period when the world was created, there was no timeline. But today, when there is a timeline, I can use it and look also at what was then, and document what was then, and say what happened before what and what happened after what, and everything is fine even though the whole language—somehow my internet… So basically the claim is that sometimes there is a situation in which at some stage in history glasses are created that color the past as well in a different color. But it is not that that color was there from the beginning; it wasn’t. It was created later. But after it is created, I can also look at the past through it, and the past will look different. Yes, Stalin’s dream, right? How to rewrite history. That is exactly what we are doing: we are rewriting history, but not because we are discovering that this is what it was then. No, what has now become clear to us is that one must look differently at history, and therefore history itself is now different. And therefore basically what he says is that the release of vows works by exactly that mechanism. When the sage released me from the vow, then from now on only—even when I look at history, I see it differently. But this is not retroactive clarification. It is not that it became clear to me that from the very beginning it had been different and I simply did not know. No, no—the reality was exactly as I knew it then, but from this point onward I look at history differently, and now history too is different. Therefore, if I flogged the person on Tuesday because I judged him for eating the forbidden thing, then that is perfectly fine, because at that time this really was a valid vow—truly valid. There was no mistake. At that moment it really was a valid vow. On Thursday, when he comes to court—if they did not flog him and now they judge—they will say no, he is not liable for lashes, because now, from my perspective, when he ate this vowed object on Tuesday—Monday—when he ate this vowed object, it was not a forbidden thing. From my perspective today, already on Monday it was not forbidden. This is what is called “from now on, retroactively.” Meaning, there is a future event that colors the past too in a different color. But this different perspective on the past may be used only from now onward. That is Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s claim. And ultimately, he claims, that is also how a condition works. A condition is not retroactive clarification. It does not reveal to me something that was always true and I simply did not know it; no. It turns the thing that was then valid or invalid—depending whether the condition was fulfilled or not fulfilled—into what it is, but it does so from now on, retroactively. From the moment the condition is fulfilled, I also look at the past differently. This is a condition of “from now,” right, a condition from the moment of betrothal. The act of giving the money was an act of betrothal, but I know that only from the moment the condition is fulfilled. Not that I know it—rather, it is true only from the moment the condition is fulfilled. From the moment the condition is fulfilled, it is retroactively—from now on, retroactively. Now he brings—his whole essay is really devoted to this point, and at the beginning of the essay he brings several proofs from the words of the medieval authorities. He gathers various puzzling statements of the medieval authorities from which this conception essentially emerges. Let’s perhaps bring one or two examples, not all of them. One example is the view of the Baal Ha’itur; the Rashba brings this in Gittin 77, that the Baal Ha’itur argues that in a condition of “from now,” the betrothing party can retract from the act as long as the condition has not yet been fulfilled. Suppose I betrothed a woman on condition that she give me 200 zuz—on condition that she give me 200 zuz in the coming week. Fine. Two days pass, she has not yet given me the 200 zuz, and I say to her: you know what? I cancel the betrothal. I don’t feel like it; I regret it. The Baal Ha’itur says the retraction works; the betrothal is nullified. And on its face that is very strange, because if the condition is retroactive clarification, then after all this means that we are dealing here with a woman who is a married woman. Suppose that afterward she did give me the 200 zuz, fulfilled the condition, okay? After a few days. The Baal Ha’itur says: that doesn’t matter. The betrothal no longer exists; it has no significance. The condition was canceled and the act was canceled. But in the simple conception that cannot be right, because if the condition is retroactive clarification, then this basically means that the woman was betrothed from the beginning; it’s only that until the week passes and she gives me the 200 zuz I don’t know it. But the fact that I don’t know does not mean that’s not the case, right? Like the child that was born—I don’t know if it’s male or female, but the truth is the same truth whether I know it or not. So here the Holy One, blessed be He, knows that she is betrothed; I do not yet know. We wait a week, and then I will know too. Well—a woman who is betrothed to me, can I after two days say no, no, I regret it and cancel the betrothal? There is no such thing; only with a divorce document. You can’t just say I regret it and nullify it. So how can the Baal Ha’itur say that here one can nullify the betrothal? Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s answer: because this is “from now on, retroactively,” and not retroactive clarification. What does that mean? The giving of the 200 zuz is what will make the betrothal valid; it will not reveal to me that the betrothal had always been valid. It makes the betrothal valid. So long as that has not happened, there is no betrothal. Consequently I can also nullify the act that I performed. True, once it happens that she gives me the 200 zuz, then that will make the betrothal valid retroactively from the moment I gave the coin, the prutah. But so long as that has not happened, the betrothal truly is not valid, and there is no problem: it can be canceled. Otherwise one cannot understand the Baal Ha’itur. There is another example as well, what Daniel asked earlier. Suppose I betrothed a woman on condition that she give me 200 zuz within a week—and I died after two days. Now she gives me 200—let’s say she can give me 200 zuz, give it to my heirs, let’s say that counts as giving to me for the sake of discussion. Not that she should give me 200 zuz—on condition that she stand on one foot, okay, during the coming week. Because to give me 200 zuz when I am dead—one cannot give me anything. But on condition that she stand on one foot during the coming week. Now I died after two days. Another day passes and she stands on one foot. Is this woman a widow or an unmarried woman? The practical implication is for a High Priest. Can she marry a High Priest? If this is retroactive clarification, then once she stood on one foot it became clear that I had betrothed her, so she was my wife, and now I died, so she remains a widow and is forbidden to a High Priest. But if this is “from now on, retroactively”—not retroactive clarification but from now on, retroactively—then so long as she did not give me the 200 zuz, she was not my wife at all. Now I died. Now when she stands on one foot, there is no one left to betroth her; I no longer exist. Therefore she remains unmarried and is permitted to a High Priest. There is some room to debate this, by the way, but this is a practical difference that helps sharpen the distinction between the two things. There is perhaps—since my time is up—I’ll bring one more example. There is an interesting Maggid Mishneh on Maimonides. The Talmud says: compulsion in divorce documents—there is a sugya in Ketubot and Gittin—there is compulsion in divorce documents. What happens if a man says: “This is your divorce document if I do not come from now until twelve months from now”? Meaning, if I give a woman a divorce document and say, look: if I do not return within twelve months, this divorce document takes effect. If I return, then the divorce document is void. Okay. Now after two months the husband dies. Since he died, it is clear he will not return, right? Is the woman now allowed to remarry? The husband died, so perhaps clearly she may remarry, because in any event either she is a widow. But is she allowed to marry a priest? If she is a widow then she is allowed to marry a priest; if she is divorced she is forbidden to marry a priest. Maimonides says that so long as the full twelve months have not passed, she is forbidden to marry—and she is not divorced, she is a widow. Why? If the condition is retroactive clarification, then really the reality simply needs to become clear to me; the reality already exists, whether she is divorced or not divorced. I don’t know it because I have to wait and see whether I arrive or not. But if I die, then I already know that I will not arrive. Reality has become clear. So if all that is missing is to clarify what the reality is, that has been clarified—what is the problem? The woman already knows that the man will not arrive; she is divorced, and consequently she can marry. Maimonides says no. That is how the Maggid Mishneh formulates it: it is necessary that he actually not come in order for her to be able to marry. Why? Because his not arriving for twelve months does not reveal that she is divorced; it creates the divorce. And in order to create the divorce, it is not enough for me to know that he will not arrive. He must actually fail to arrive. His actual non-arrival is what creates the divorce. If this were merely to clarify what the correct information is, after all I know that the correct information is that he will not arrive, so I know she is divorced. But if I say no—the non-arrival, which is the fulfillment of the condition, is what creates the divorce—then there must be actual non-arrival. Twelve months must pass and he must not arrive, and that can only happen in reality. It must happen in actuality for her to be divorced. That is another example that he brings from various medieval authorities, strange positions of medieval authorities, and he brings proof for his principle that the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of a condition is not retroactive clarification; it is from now on, retroactively. Okay, I’ll stop here. I’ll use this later on to show the Platonism. Questions or comments? Is there some state between retroactive clarification and only from now on? Could you say maybe that something is in between, like it’s still from now on, but… I’ll talk about that. You keep anticipating me. I’ll talk about it at the beginning of the next class, because Rabbi Shimon Shkop really does ask what the status is in between—the stage between the act and the stage of fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the condition. He wants to argue that she is both a married woman and divorced at the same time. And others will say that she is weakly divorced, or an intermediate state. So we’ll discuss it, we’ll discuss it. It reminds me of Schrödinger’s cat. Yes, it’s really parallel to Schrödinger’s cat. Not only that—even to quantum collapse, right? Even to collapse. Meaning, if the condition is fulfilled, then there is collapse in the direction of divorce, and if the condition is not fulfilled, there is collapse in the direction of being a married woman. The entire quantum mechanism really appears there. By the way, it’s from the same period—very interesting. It’s the Zeitgeist. Rabbi Shimon Shkop talks about this at exactly the same period in which quantum theory was created. Presumably I assume he never heard of it. Rabbi Michael, a question for you. Does this topic also connect, for example, to the concept of twilight—between day and night? Because some say it is either day or night. There is, there is a certain connection. The Rogatchover argues—usually people understand twilight as a doubt whether it is day or night, because we don’t know where the line passes. Some want to claim that it is neither day nor night, and some want to claim that it is both day and night. The third conception is already similar to Schrödinger’s cat—it is both day and night. The practical difference is, for example, if there is something that must be done at night. So why must it be done at night? Because it is forbidden to do it during the day, or because it must be done at night? The practical difference would be twilight. If you need night because it must not be day, then in twilight too you cannot do it, because twilight is both day and night—but it is also day. But if you need night because you need night, not because day is forbidden, twilight is also night, so you could do it during twilight too. People say there is no such thing as twilight; it is either day or night. Okay, that is the dispute—a tannaitic dispute in a baraita, a three-way tannaitic dispute. Is it both day and night, neither day nor night, or a doubt whether it is day or night? There are several examples, like the koy—whether it is domesticated or wild—or the androgynous person. Half-slave and half-free person too, maybe some explain it that way, although there it is seemingly half and half, but not exactly half and half. Yes, right, there are several concepts. Okay, we’ll stop here. Sabbath peace, goodbye. Thank you very much, Sabbath peace.